This week’s Beetle Bailey is confusing in a couple of ways:
I have to assume the first panel is a throwaway…but still don’t get the point?! Why is a lieutenant asking a sergeant if he needs to “spice up” his report? And in the rest, ok, there’s a mouse…and?
Comics I Don't Understand 
Oops, published this today instead of scheduling it for later (though I did say to publish at 5AM–it might could have said “That doesn’t make sense”!)
I mean, hey, bonus post, yeah, that’s it…
It is/was a running gag that no one wanted to read Fuzz’s reports – so Sarg is the only one he can order to read them. They will always need to be “spiced up” or at least made readable and Fuzz will be completely incapable of doing that.
Then the final joke is – well just the end scene.
Lt. Fuzz’s reaction to high-pitched noises reminds me of a strip set in the mess hall, in which Lt. Flap is clinking a spoon in his cup. Someone asked him, “Isn’t your tea stirred up enough by now?“, to which Lt. Flap replied, “Yes, but Lt. Fuzz isn’t.”
P.S. See @12, below.
Hah! Good one, Kilby. Meanwhile, does the art in this Beetle Bailey seem a little off to you? I wonder if they had a substitute artist.
Boise Ed: Mort Walker is no longer with us, so yes, I believe there are two or three substitute artists.
Yes, but I follow it regularly and this art is different. I’m just wondering if there is a new artist, or just someone filling in for an illness or vacation. Even fill-ins should get credit, IMHO.
The art looks fine, it’s the uniform colors that seem off.
The Comics Curmudgeon refers to it as the “Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC.”
The uniforms vary within the strip, with Sarge and Fuzz having darker ones than Beetle and the Captain. But consistent throughout.
Looks like uniform colors are a common problem in the Sundays. Check this one, Sarge is practically in orange:
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/beetle-bailey-1/2023-07-23/?widgetId=5706
Similarly:
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/beetle-bailey-1/2023-07-02/?widgetId=5706
@ Boise Ed (5) – After thinking about it, I realized that I may have reversed the characters in my description @4: Lt. Flap was probably the one who asked the question, and the character with the fiendish grin (continuing to clink his spoon in his teacup) was almost certainly Sarge.
P.S. I have not followed Beetle Bailey for several decades; one detail that I really dislike about the legacy artwork is that they have reduced Sarge’s head and body size, which make him seem more babyish cute, rather than Army intimidating.
Kilby: Beetle and Sarge, instead of being the mortal enemies they were sixty years ago, have for the last twenty years or so appeared to be the best of friends, with nothing more serious than a very occasional sort of lovers’ quarrel between them.
Kilby (12): I’ve never considered Sarge “cute,” possibly because I remember a sergeant who looked much like that. This guy had a sign saying “In this office, we believe in psychology,” and a baseball bat mounted behind his desk, labelled “PSYCHOLOGY.”
The one thing that continually puzzles me is what Miss Buxley sees in Beetle.
My usual remark on the Miss Buxley situation is that she suffers from extreme low-self-esteem. When Killer and the other compliment her, she doesn’t believe it. Beetle, on the other hand, treats her with near indifference. It just feels right.
@ MiB (13) – Having Beetle & Sarge be “pals” sounds as about as inviting as those sappy “non-violent” Tom & Jerry cartoons that Hanna-Barbera made in the mid-1970s.
P.S. @ Phil – Searching for the source of the rough anti-aliasing in the seven-panel strip shown above, I made a belated discovery: The reason that the second panel does not make much sense as a “throwaway” gag is simply because the subsequent punchline has been omitted. It was contained in the third panel of the original (eight-panel) strip:
I’m a bit confused. Was that link supposed to be to a different strip? It looks basically the same as the original.
Ignore my comment. It’s not the same.
@ Brian – The only difference between the two strips is the arrangement of the panels. Various publishing channels may choose to reformat the Sunday strips to fit the available space required by their clients, but this is the first time that I have seen a publisher delete a punchline to leave a nonsensical panel hanging in the strip.
For those concerned about Beetle and Sarge being buddies, see today’s strip, at arcamax. com/thefunnies/beetlebailey/s-2868503 or elsewhere.
Here as an embed the strip Boise Ed mentioned:
Note, this was taken up briefly today by the curmudgeon — https://joshreads.com/2023/08/deadly-friday/