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Beetle Bailey, 6/16/19

Gotta say, I don’t agree with Sarge here. Beetle is entirely passive in this tale, swept along by events without taking action or seizing control of his own destiny. And then there’s the bear that enters the story in the third act: what’s his deal? Is there an emotional connection between him? What motivates him? Without seeing inside his head he’s just a deus ex machina. Beetle needs to read Robert McKee’s Story or at least Save The Cat and then do some extensive rewrites if he has any hopes of getting this script optioned.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 6/16/19

This is the sort of Crankshaft-esque exaggeration that has no place in the Lockhorns, which is usually brutally realistic both in its setting and in its bleak emotional landscape. That’s why I’m choosing to believe that things really are as they seem: the bombs are dropping, nuclear fire is destroying everything, civilization as we know it is about to be annihilated. Loretta knows that she has only seconds before the shockwave hits and burns the skin off her bones, just seconds left to get in one more passive-aggressive dig in at Leroy. He’ll never know what she said — he’s probably dead already — but she feels like if she doesn’t, in some strange way she will have failed him.

Six Chix, 6/16/19

Fun fact: 96 percent of tadpoles die before they reach adulthood! Happy Father’s Day, frog-dad, sorry about the awful emotional carnage in store for you

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Family Circus, 6/15/19

God help me, but I laughed at today’s Family Circus. Not because of the lame golf joke — it will never cease to amaze me the extent to which syndicated cartoonists think golf is a infinite supply of relatable laffs — but because of the wary way that Jeffy is eyeing the head of that club that Billy has somehow managed to get his grubby little hands on. What will he damage, or destroy, with it? Will it be one of other Keane Kids’ skulls? Jeffy is resigned to finding out, possibly the hard way.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/15/19

The newspaper industry’s few remaining shreds of decency sadly precluded actually showing us Darrin and Jessica going at it once they were reunited earlier this week. But I appreciate today’s strip for letting us know, in as vivid terms as possible, how extremely gross it all was. What would a monkey do to a cupcake, exactly? I’m not sure, but we can all agree that we’re better off for not having seen it happen!

Gil Thorp, 6/15/19

Gil Thorp spring storylines often verge dangerously into the summer months, but I certainly hope that this one, which has been pretty boring, is just going to end here. Ha ha, we spent so much time on the “too cool for school” drama that we barely noticed that the softball team won the Valley Conference, and did the baseball team even play this year? What would be extremely funny would be if the last word on all this is Mudlark #2 saying “I bet no one noticed” and then next week we just start the summer storyline and the championship is never mentioned again in any way, thus proving her point.

Mark Trail, 6/15/19

“Plus he’s a human being with inherent worth so, if he’s dead … someone, somewhere will be sad? I guess?”

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My favorite comment of the week? It’s this one:

“Estelle will want to put one of those big burger pictures on the headboard of her bed.” –Lorne

But there were a bunch of funny one’s I enjoyed! Here’s the list!

“Now we know how the apocalyptic event that replaced most humans with talking animals came about: Count Weirdly caused it, just so he could afford a castle in New York City. That’s something that would cost 80 bajillion dollars today, yet he was able to buy one with the meager proceeds from his non-watertight bathysphere company.” –BigTed

“George’s finger inched toward the detonator. He made the first move, and by god, he was going to make the last one.” –Voshkod

“Ha ha, Mark is 100% cutting Leola loose there. ‘Don’t worry! Your corpse will provide valuable nourishment for endangered vultures!’” –pugfuggly

“The Delicious Grill is doing much better that its predecessor in that space, the International House of Undercooked Chicken.” –GeoGreg

“From what I’ve seen, stained glass is usually more associated with traditional denominations. Independent evangelical churches lean more toward the styles of Early American Industrial Park or Megachurch Brick Colossus.” –Tonio

“Italics and an interrobang? That’s a surprising depth of contempt from Mary, even for Wilbur.” –cisko

“‘Don’t bother to explain!‘ is Rule #1 in the Six Chix Employee Handbook.” –nescio

“In the Funkyverse, the phrase is: ‘Abscess makes the heart-growth stronger.’ Let’s try to stick to the program, here.” –grsblvnyk

“That has to be the most phallic representation of a bed I’ve ever seen. If screwing on what looks like a big blue Johnson is what it takes to get your jollies, more power to you, but I think it’d kind of get me out of the mood.” –Pozzo

“Literally one sentence into Wilbur’s new relationship and he’s making the woman feel uncomfortable. [nods] Sure, that tracks.” –Dan

“Hoo boy is Wilbur excited about catfish! He’s going to ignore Estelle’s warning that it may cause vomiting and/or diarrhea (which should go without saying considering it’s a fish product served at a burger joint in a mall) and order up some sweet sweet catfish anyway. Estelle is incidental here — Wilbur’s first thought this morning was ‘I’ve got a date with a catfish!’” –Jenna

“I’m really enjoying that Wilbur is at least 15 years younger than Estelle (and a real person), yet is STILL a massive downgrade from catfish boyfriend by virtue of being, well, Wilbur.” –@bananawarmer, on Twitter

“Dennis’s ultimate menace: his parents love each other, but have a constant tow-headed reminder that expressing that love too physically could result in another Dennis in the world. They sacrifice the intimacy they long for, for all our sakes.” –Truckosaurus

“Morning? Again?! When will my prayers bring the Ever Night? How many sacrifices will it take to attract the eye of the Great Moon?” –Enlong

“I sure hope nothing happened to Doc! The authorities are going to be very suspicious if I put the blame for this catastrophe on a dead man!” –WLP

“Dammit! Why do I keep not dying in my sleep? ‘99% effective,’ my ass, D-Con!” –Damian

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