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Beetle Bailey, 9/5/24

Sarge is correct: his men are extremely vulnerable to the range weapons that are fated to kill them when they finally enter combat.

Dennis the Menace, 9/5/24

Menace level: violating the intellectual property of Rich Hall.

Hi and Lois, 9/5/24

Oh, man, sorry these two peaceful animals are just doing their thing and not interacting, Trixie! Sorry they’re not insulting each other through comical speech impediments. Sorry they’re not trying to murder each other, for your amusement!

Mary Worth, 9/5/24

“Or are you fucking? Are you fucking my fiance? Hahaha I’m cool with it if you are, but I just want to know. Are you fucking my fiance? YES OR NO, YOU HAVE TO TELL ME”

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Beetle Bailey, Blondie, and Shoe, 9/4/24

Look, we’d all like to believe that works of art spring from the pure, isolated genius of their creator’s mind, but when you’re talking about a commercial and ongoing project like a daily comic strip, obviously the whole thing ends up being affected by the desires and needs of your audience. You gotta give ’em what they want! The creators of legacy strips are acutely aware that the “’em” in this case is “old people” and what they want is news they can use, like “Ha ha, there sure are a bunch of crazy ‘social media’ sites these days,” “Hey, did you know that you can make money on playing video games? Maybe that grandson of yours isn’t such a screwup after all,” and “Tired of pissing yourself? Well, here’s some unexpected good news!”

Six Chix, 9/4/24

This blog is itself a work of art in dialogue with its audience (literally, given the comment section), and apparently what you want is my funny, erudite, and occasionally lengthy riffs on the strips, which I’m happy to deliver! But it is my blog, after all, and sometimes what I want out of it is to just post a strip I read today and say “I don’t like this”, so here you go. Today’s Six Chix: I don’t like this!

Dennis the Menace, 9/4/24

Many years ago, an ex of mine had to go to traffic school to get points from a moving violation taken off her license. At the time, there were various kinds of theme schools you could go to, and she signed up for something that billed itself as “comedy driving school.” After her class, I asked her how it went, and she said, absolutely steaming mad, that “Someone needs to tell that guy that there’s a difference between being funny and being in a really good mood,” a formulation I think about all the time. Anyway, someone needs to tell the Dennis the Menace team that there’s a difference between being a menace and wasting everyone’s time because you’re one of the dumbest people alive and have no filter or sense of embarrassment about it!

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Gil Thorp, 9/3/24

I always joke about how the good people of Milford and the greater Valley Conference catchment area at large are completely crazed over high school sports. What I hadn’t reckoned with is that, in the age of social media, what had until recently been a local phenomenon has gone national. Just as TikTok users everywhere now watch endless videos about sorority rush at the University of Alabama with mingled fascination and horror, so too have sports fans been drawn into the drama and excitement of the football season for the Mudlarks and their rivals; and as today’s strip makes clear, the memetic vector for this viral trend is Mary Moon’s podcast, which has had the side effect of making Marty a celebrity as well. But at what cost? Look at his grim facial expression in panel three there. He knows how the game is played in the year 2024, and he knows the only way to become a successful content creator is to get personal, to share your own struggles, no matter how damaging and humiliating. So yeah, this reporter knows about Marty. She knows about the drinking, about the on-air meltdowns, about perpetrating fraud on CPS, about the time he was financially ruined by “friendly” golf bets. She knows about all of it, and he knows she knows, and it’s honestly killing him. He just wanted to report on sports, like Howard Cosell and Chris Berman, and maybe get a little recognition for it. That’s all he ever wanted. Did those guys ever have to publicly gut themselves three times a week for the amusement of the vultures streaming on Spotify, then pull themselves together enough to read the copy for a mattress ad?

Gasoline Alley, 9/3/24

If you find the emotional intensity of Gil Thorp too much, may I recommend Gasoline Alley? In the latest plot developments, Walt’s new cat didn’t want to eat her food, so Gertie got a new flavor and now she’s eating again. This took two weeks!

Judge Parker, 9/3/24

Ah, yes: piles of putrid uncanned trash rapidly baking in the early September sun … a college undergraduate smiling cruelly at a text about someone getting dumped, possibly her … just another day in the greatest city in the world! Da Big Apple, baby!!!!