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Beetle Bailey, 9/5/19

I was about to say “Guys, you’re in the army” but … honestly, I can’t decide if that’s actually the joke or not? Like, literally one of the defining features of Beetle Bailey is that with many of their strips it’s hard to tell whether they’re making a sardonic commentary on the armed forces or militarism in general, or if they’ve literally forgotten the comic’s setting.

Blondie, 9/5/19

Ha ha, you guys heard about texting? Been pretty omnipresent for a solid decade or so? The teens love it, because they’ve never known a world without it? Texting! Pretty funny, huh????

Mary Worth, 9/5/19

“Maybe not for you, the person I want to be in a long-distance relationship, but … wait, I forgot where I was going with this.”

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Marvin, 9/5/19

I’m not really a fan of the way Jeff and Guy Who I’m Reasonably Sure We’ve Never Seen Before But We’re Expected To Believe That He And Jeff Have This Long Backstory And Established Emotional Intimacy, And Also He’s Named “Bill,” I Guess, are looking at the viewer in the third panel, implicating us in their own retrograde view of masculinity. “It’s like, guys, am I right, people?” they’re thinking. “We’re incapable of feeding ourselves, and that’s why we’re dying of cardiovascular disease!”

Pluggers, 9/5/19

Pluggers know that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but more often it signifies the phallus, that potent symbol that proclaims and establishes male domination over society.

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Gil Thorp, 9/3/19

Folks, I want you to cast your mind back to the year 2007, a much simpler and more innocent time, when we first saw Coach Thorp announcing the football team’s starters in front of what seemed to be a conflagration of some kind. This was the Milford bonfire, and it became an annual event. In 2008 the kids were throwing up devil horns in honor of the hellish inferno. 2009? Pumping fists. In 2010 the players started giving speeches, in 2011 the column of fire rose into the sky, and in 2012 Gil declared the bonfire was the only fire in the world, a symbol of the fire that burns inside each of us. In 2013 innocent cheerleaders were sacrificed to the flames, and in 2014 a dude named Jarrod, who would go on to lose the starting quarterback job, gave a wild-eyed speech as the fire burned. The guy who took Jarrod’s place led the Mudlarks to their first championship in years, and the next fall began with a fiery victory celebration.

And then … for four long years … nothing. The bonfire vanished from Mudlark lore without a trace, and it seemed like only I was keeping the flame alive, so to speak. I had given up hope on ever lay eyes on a Milford bonfire again, so you can imagine how happy I felt to see the smoke starting to rise from that woodpile in panel three. We’re seeing it just as it’s about to burst into flame! And sure, “Toast Oakwood” and “Fire It Up” are extremely cheesy signs, but you know what? None of these kids were even around in 2015. They’re having to reconstruct this tradition from whispered tales of times past. It’s gonna take them a year or two to get back in the groove.

Mary Worth, 9/3/19

Oh, Dawn. Oh, dumb, dumb, lovestruck, horny Dawn. There’s only one thing Hugo’s been telegraphing more obviously than the fact that he sees your romance as nothing more than a summer fling, and it’s that he thinks America is lame. It’s like you don’t want us to feel even a little sorry for you.

Crankshaft, 9/3/19

Ha ha! But seriously, folks, Crankshaft has never been in love. He’s simply not capable of it!