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Beetle Bailey, 2/7/20

I admit that I’m fascinated with the way that comics use fire hydrants as just a visual signifier for “dogs peeing”. Like, most people know that dogs just pee … pretty much anywhere, right? They like vertical surfaces and like peeing where other dogs have peed, but in a pinch, they’ll just go wherever. Inside the house, or barracks, for instance, if nobody lets them out, despite their clear signals that they want to go outside. Weird the Sarge assumes “horny” or “hungry” but not “has to pee, the thing we all know dogs have to do several times a day.” I do kind of enjoy how big the hydrant is in Otto’s vision, almost filling the frame, as if when a human had to use the bathroom all they could visualize was an enormous toilet floating in an otherwise featureless void.

Pluggers, 2/7/20

Welp, it finally happened: all the “pluggers are old/indulgent grandparents/the salt of the Earth/owners of crappy cars/better than city folks/hate and fear technology” suggestions have finally, finally run out, and all that’s left in the barrel is gibbering nonsense like this. I’m really looking forward to this new direction!

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Judge Parker, 2/6/20

“You ever see the movie Bulworth?”

Mary Worth, 2/6/20

Is … is that a threat, Hugo

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/6/20

WE GET IT, REX MORGAN, M.D., HUMAN BODIES ARE FRAIL, MORTAL MACHINES AND NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO THEM, THEY WILL EVENTUALLY BREAK DOWN AND DIE

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Mark Trail, 2/5/20

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date with recent developments in Mark Trail, but they go something like this: Dr. Camel thought he heard the tell-tale whistle of a yeti and so he just bolted out of his tent into the Himalayan night, and also into what appears to be an avalanche in progress, and now Genie, his lover (?), is running after him. If Mark Trail ends up standing dispassionately over their frozen corpses tomorrow morning, snaps a picture of them for the cover of Woods and Wildlife, says to nobody in particular “I guess the yeti will just have to remain a mystery,” and then starts heading back down the mountain, I admit I will be kind of impressed.

Blondie, 2/5/20

I have now reached an age when I see incomprehensible tech jokes in legacy comics and have the nagging feeling of “are they out of touch or am I?” Like, on the surface this all makes no sense to me, but … maybe deleting pics off each others phones is how the prepubescent set flirts these days? Like it’s the equivalent of a mischievous boy dipping a little girl’s pigtails into an inkwell, except it’s up-to-date, and gender-neutral, and also causes you to lose your cherished memories? At any rate, Elmo has learned a tough lesson about regularly syncing your devices with the cloud, and Dagwood has learned that maybe he should take pictures of things sometimes, with one of these new-fangled “cameras” everyone’s talking about.

Mary Worth, 2/5/20

Wilbur is, of course, referring to that time he decided to travel the world for his dumb column and Iris dumped him, which led to her very successful and happy relationship with hot young millionaire Zak, and also led to Wilbur getting sex-grifted in Colombia. It’s still not entirely clear to me whether Dawn ever learned about the latter episode, and now I dearly hope she didn’t so that when Wilbur describes the whole thing to Hugo in graphic and erotic detail, she’ll be hearing about it for the first time.

Family Circus, 2/5/20

Is … is Big Daddy Keane actually smiling at his son’s ignorance? “That’s right,” he’s thinking, “this is America. No son of mine will be pressing anything but 1 for English.”