Beetle Bailey, 3/1/20
I don’t think anyone was surprised that Sgt. Snorkel got fragged; but certainly nobody expected it to be pulled off so subtly.
Daddy Daze, 3/1/20
Ha ha, it’s funny because infancy is an awful prison, but parenthood is an awful prison that lasts forever!
Hi and Lois, 3/1/20
Are … are Hi and Lois and the kids gonna die?
Dustin, 2/29/20
I’ve beat this drum before, but it continues to boggle my mind that Dustin, a strip deliberately dreamed up to poke fun at the foibles of millennials, constantly goes to the well of jokes about its millennial characters’ dating life without ever even mentioning Tinder or other dating apps and instead having them go cruise for love at the local fern bar as if they were characters in Shoe. But I also feel it’s important to note that, once you get past this oddity, you get to the actual theme of these strips, which is that Dustin and Fitch, two of the recurring characters whose life the strip offers up to us to experience, are completely unfuckable, just an utterly dogshit pair of dudes who women reject literally on first sight.
Arctic Circle, 2/29/20
The whole deal with Arctic Circle is that its characters all live in the Arctic, and while I’m not sure what the tone of the strip has been over the full 12 years of its run, I can tell you that today it’s about a group of characters living in an Arctic biome completely collapsing due to climate change. This is of course always pretty grim, but today’s strip, in which it appears that a mountain of beaver corpses has been piled up in a futile attempt to hold back the tide of rising sea levels, is really something else.
Mark Trail, 2/29/20
“Normally we don’t let Rusty interact with other children because his face would frighten them, but these kids have seen all kinds of savage beasts in the forest! They’re tough! Maybe if we keep his mask strapped on tight, he can join them!”
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/29/20
HELL YEAH SNUFFY
NO GODS NO MASTERS
Hello everyone! Those of you #blessed enough to live in the greater SoCal area, or who are going to be blowing through our smog-choked paradise in the next couple weekends, have not one but TWO Josh-seeing opportunities before you! The first is tomorrow, February 29, at 5 pm, when I’ll be performing on the always fab Big Big Breakfast show in North Hollywood! And then the following Friday, March 6, one week from today, my own show, the Internet Read Aloud, returns to The Clubhouse in Los Feliz! Don’t miss either one!
And now, without further hullabaloo, here’s your comment of the week!
“Today’s little vignette in Snuffy Smith is colder than any Lockhorns panel. The man has his second, younger, and more beautiful wife carry around the urn containing his first wife’s ashes. ‘Yep, honey, this is where you’re gonna end up when you get older, and I’ll get a new wife to carry your ashes around. Heh, it’s the way of the hills.’” –Voshkod
And your runners up! Very funny!
“I want him to read the part about finding the first Warby Parker store in 1814.” –Dennis Jimenez
“Beetle Bailey has been around so long that sometimes it still engages in vicious Christian polemics against Sol Invictus.” –Ettorre
“Ha ha, it’s funny because once Beetle gets out of bed, he’s in for excruciating training sessions to prepare him for a battle to the death that he may not survive.” –The Dimensional Otter
“This being the Batiuk-verse, both Funky and Holly have failing memories because their brains are rotting from the inside out due to some terrible medical condition that will eventually kill them. In retrospect, this will be the first indication that something was seriously wrong. ‘Tell me,’ a doctor will grimly say, ‘do you sometimes have difficulty remembering which episodes of Mozart in the Jungle you’ve seen?’” –Joe Blevins
“Even that owl in the ridiculously high tree above Mark’s ridiculously large log-cabin house realizes that Mark probably left Dr. Camel out to freeze. ‘Yo-o-o-o-u, that’s who-o–o-o-o,’ it will hoot out into the night, either indicating Mark’s extreme guilt or the fact that it can’t make any other sounds.” –BigTed
“To me, the real humour in this strip comes in panels one and two, where the Funky and wife state the blatantly obvious to each other, in a way that makes me doubt that they know what’s really going on? Like, this is definitely the conversation of two people who have been caught in a mutual lie about loving basketball and are trying to cover it up by reciting phrases they’ve heard commentators make in previous games.” –pugfuggly
“Catman knows this guy’s completely lost it. No one in their decrepit peer group has been allowed to drive for years. They’ve pretty much run over every pedestrian in town.” –made of wince
“Has Mark’s house always been this weird-looking? It doesn’t so much look like a big log cabin as a bunch of little log cabins huddling together for warmth.” –jroggs
“This lady will get sued for libel in front of an all-hater jury. Prayer answered.” –Uncle Lumpy
“Looking at the featureless black liquid pouring straight out from the teapot, it’s becoming clear how everyone gets cancer in the Funkyverse. (It’s the jokes.)” –pastordan
“Jared: ‘And the whole controversy about whether Rise of the Skywalker was any good is such a moot point when you consider–‘ Dawn [head down, knitting laboriously]: ‘Uh huh.’ Jared: ‘–Plus there’s that whole thing with Snoke–‘ Dawn [leaning into her knitting more, focusing entirely on the stitches]: ‘Yeah, that’s great.’” –Lionheart
“The implication here is that despite her edgy appearance — the tousled natural locs, razor stubbled legs peeking out from under an indie rock band tee, a face contorted by a grimace — today’s character is actually quite milquetoast. She believes in a higher power, observes traditional holidays, and in her wildest teary-eyed rage, the best revenge she can imagine is a punchline that could easily be spoken by Ziggy. This chick’s a poser!” –Tonya
“You spelled ‘midnight’ wrong. Also, there should be a period after ‘LLC.’” –T Campbell
“Who knew the line was so thin between emotionlessly killing inanimate objects (boatsplosions, islandsplosion) and killing people? Mark Trail‘s readers now know.” –Baja Gaijin
“A vacant stare and the phrase ‘no doubt!’ are definitely the most useful skills for living with Mark Trail.” –Dan
“The sign contains ‘no’ misused ‘quotation marks.’ Disappointment я Us.” –Cloudbuster
“Pretty good taxidermy job on that geezer Cherry’s sitting on. Do you think Mark did it, or did Rusty watch a bunch of YouTube videos?” –Twinkles the Elf
“You’re right, Sam. If only I had a way to be the voice for those in need without running for mayor. Perhaps if I had legal skills and a license to practice law I could volunteer at clinic for the underprivileged. Or if I were a best-selling author I could write an expose of the prison system and donate the profits to charity. But that’s just wild fantasy. Nope. Gotta be practical. Running a vanity campaign for small town mayor is the only way to go.” –Where’s Rocky
“I’m very disturbed by the fact that Leroy’s and Loretta’s houseguest is in exactly the same pose I’m in when standing at a urinal and I hear someone come into the restroom.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid
“I considered trying to write some kind of humorous comment referencing the deep misogyny involved in casting women simultaneously as spendthrifts and penny-pinchers, but then I decided to spend the day in the fetal position with the covers pulled over my head instead, as I typically do whenever I’m reminded that it’s 2020 and The Lockhorns is still ‘enjoyed’ by readers across the country.” –a.
“Snuffy’s not actually leaning on that stump, is he? It looks like his elbow’s propped against it, but he’s otherwise just maintaining an unsupported sitting position. Brother’s got some core strength!” –Pozzo
“Pluggers support testing makeup on animals.” –Quiggle
“I’m pretty sure a ‘plugger selfie‘ entailed holding an off-brand disposable camera at arms length while standing in front of a road sign declaring that Disney World is only 50 miles away. Squeeze in kids, there’s only 23 shots left and I guarantee that half will have my thumb in them!” –Mighty Sean Young
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