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Beetle Bailey, 4/6/24

I’m sorry, Sarge doesn’t know any “raunchy” songs. He may be a brute who spends his days preparing men for the horrors of war by delivering arbitrary violence upon them, but in many ways he seems quite naive. He definitely doesn’t know what sex is, for instance.

Mary Worth, 4/6/24

Look, man, we all enjoyed Wilbur’s total karaoke emotional meltdown from last April and his public karaoke-off with his ex the previous November, but I feel like this is going to the well one too many times. I’m over it! I’m going to try to get over how positively delighted Mary looks at the thought of Wilbur “pulling in” hapless “ladies” for unsatisfying sex and even less satisfying relationship behavior, but that’s going to take some time.

Gil Thorp, 4/6/24

As someone who relies on the syndicated newspaper strip Gil Thorp to discover what the teens are into, I’m excited to learn that what they’re into is beloved Gen X indie rocker Aimee Mann, and what they want to hear from her is “Red Vines,” the single from her 2000 album Bachelor No. 2. Naturally, being a 49-year-old man who thought of himself as vaguely hip 24 years ago, I find this news satisfying and will be doing no further research on the subject of teen musical tastes in the year 2024.

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Comment of the WEEK, y’all! It’s here and it’s real and it’s spectacular:

“Reading today’s Snuffy Smith, it strikes me that I know a lot about the character’s tongues in this strip. Shape, color, where the various humans/horses hold/place them for different expressions. Just a very tongue-heavy strip. Something I’d previously noticed but never really thought about, you know? Also strikes me that my life was just a little bit better before this bubbled up into my consciousness, something I’d previously associated more with Marvin and Funky Winkerbean. Thanks, comics page!” –Thelonious_Nick

And the runners up are also truly stellar:

“What’s worse than bringing a crying baby to an Easter service? Bringing a sun-worshiping crying baby to an Easter service. (Although Trixie seems to be rethinking her views as she regards her siblings in the last panel: ‘What good is being a blasphemer if you don’t get any chocolate?’)” –BigTed

“Jesus, look at the eyes on those kids. That looks less like an overdose of chocolate and more like two kids who swallowed multiple easter eggs without removing the foil.” –pugfuggly

“There’s something uniquely depressing about that first Mary Worth panel. Like, yes Wilbur, you are now master of all you survey, which in this case is your extremely divorced guy condo. He’ll get up and go to his kitchen, whispering, ‘Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose to the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; and in the calmest and most stillest night, with all appliances and means to boot, deny it to a king?’ (The appliances refers to the microwave he’s going to use to heat up a frozen burrito.)” –Dan

“Your apartment feels empty because it’s filled with objects that are nearly the same color as the walls so it appears you have no furniture at all. Oh … you mean emotionally … it’s because you’re a horrible person who’s driven everyone who might have loved you away with your behavior. But seriously, get some furniture that isn’t tan.” –Old Man Shadow

“This smug fucker is gloating that eggs are currently more expensive than they used to be. He’s married to a hen, after all.” –nescio

“How inspirational! Seeing Skeezix’s righteous anger makes me feel like I can take on City Hall and win, even at my advanced age! Seeing Skeezix gulp makes me feel like I can swallow, too! No dementia-related dysphagia is going to overcome me, not as long as the newspapers print Gasoline Alley!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“What is in those suitcases, anyway? Spare halos? A few changes of diaphanous robes? An array of wing care products?” –TheDiva

“The military frowns on smartwatches in general, as they leak locational data about operations and bases. For example, a few years back an otherwise classified location was very easy to pick out because of all the smartwatches tracking users’ jogging habits. They’re also absolutely verboten in a classified setting. Which is my typically long-winded way to saying no one at the Pentagon cares enough about Camp Swampy to enforce the damn rules, but maybe the E-Ring will finally figure out that it exists and BRAC it into oblivion.” –Voshkod

“Comic strips are driving me crazy with all these ‘quotation marks’! I can’t read one comic without silly gratuitous ‘quotation marks’ showing up! Is there any way to escape all these comic strip ‘quotation marks’?” –Peanut Gallery

“NASCAR is not a sport, but you know what is? Drunk-driving your tiny 1970s-styled Mario Kart at high-speed through the suburbs screaming abuse at your neighbors.” –Schroduck

“You don’t celebrate having your apartment to yourself by going out, Wilbur. You celebrate by jamming to Bob Seger in your underwear. Trust me on this one.” –Bud

“Toby: ‘Sorry, Wilbur, but we’re having dinner with Ian’s daughter and her husband tonight.’
Iris: ‘Sorry, Wilbur, but we’re having dinner with Zak’s daughter and her husband tonight.’
Estelle: ‘Sorry, Wilbur, but we’re having dinner with the daughter of veterinarian Ed Harding and her husband tonight.’
Mr. Allora: ‘No.’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

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Arctic Circle, 4/5/24

Arctic Circle is a comic strip about a bunch of penguins that live in the Arctic (YES I KNOW THAT’S WRONG, IT’S PART OF THE JOKE/LORE), and is mostly about environmental issues and environmental-issues-adjacent storylines. Like, they’ve been doing a week or so about feral pigs, which are … I guess we can say they’re environmental-issues-adjacent, right? Seems like more of a Mark Trail thing, to be honest, though even nu-look Mark Trail wouldn’t have the guts to do a storyline where a bunch of feral pigs became trapped in a restaurant kitchen and devoured the food supplies, the back-of-house staff, and, eventually, each other.

Mary Worth, 4/5/24

It is, I want to emphasize, not OK that Dawn leaving town to reunite with her estranged mother and also avoid her ex was not the starting point to her own wacky story line but rather just a plot device to do yet more “oh, boo hoo, Wilbur is isolated and alone” nonsense. That said, if Wilbur was rejected, one by one, as he asks the neighbors, acquaintances, and former sex partners that he considers his “friends” if they want to hang out, I think that would ease the sting a bit for me, actually.