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Pluggers, 8/29/26

The key to unlocking this scene, to my mind, is the cobwebs. Pluggers now spend all their pooping time doomscrolling just like the rest of us, but unlike the rest of us are letting their long-abandoned late ’00s Reader’s Digests moulder, unread, untouched, and unloved, which really raises questions about when the last time anything in that bathroom was cleaned in general.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/29/26

Against all odds and the pressures of the very fabric of their reality, the scam twins were on the verge of talking themselves into doing something interesting like kidnapping Sarah. That’s why the strip had to call in the big guns, in the form of their grandpa Lyle Ollman, inventor of the Ollman Technique, the self-help/brainwashing process now being marketed as the Mirakle Method. I don’t know that we’ve ever actually seen the Technique/Method in action, but based on today’s strip it seems to mostly involve an old man berating you to get your life together and maybe go back to community college, which is frankly a little underwhelming.

Beetle Bailey, 8/29/26

I genuinely enjoy Beetle’s silent body language here. “I’m just gonna … I’m gonna go eat these chips in my bunk, I think.”

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Probably still hot where you’re reading this, but cool off mentally with this refershing comment of the week

“Damn, this gun is too small to hurt a drone of that size! Luckily I can make it bigger through my superpower of forced perspective!” –Ettorre

These runners up are also very funny! And cool as ice:

“Lucky Eddie is able to pull off the dog simulation thanks to his arms and legs having a canine proportional length. The years of poor nutrition and physical abuse have finally paid off!” –Gil Bates

“Exactly what kind of spy mission does Hagar have in mind, where the success of the test-run is measured in how many excitable maidens can be attracted? Does the planned raid possibly involve his dick in some fashion?” –Maude R. Fawker

“I like the placement of that sign, which suggests that the public library is just a single bookcase in a corner of a building that seems to have a severe mold problem.” –pugfuggly

“Observe how drippy and gormless every Charterstone resident appears. The better to meddle with, of course.” –Lauralot

“This is a cry for help! Every other implement in the kitchen has been sold to pay for bacon! And large, ornate frames, apparently!” –A Grave Mind

“If that muscle car signified anything in the real world, Dr. Jeff’s ‘Do you have plans for tonight? I’d like to take my favorite girl out for dinner’ would be a request for Mary to babysit his two-year old while he escorts his twenty-five year old trophy wife to one of LA’s swankier bistros.” –But What Do I Know?

“This is the sort of joke that’s come into vogue semi-recently under the name of ‘dad jokes,’ which are designed to solicit groans rather than laughter. Still, people more or less enjoy them, and yet Mother Goose looks absolutely fucking miserable as she delivers hers. I assume that she just lost her life savings at this dog track, and is using humor in a futile attempt to hide her feelings as she waits for the loan shark’s enforcers to come cut off her thumbs.” –Vulpes

“I’ve never fully understood how zebra camouflage works. Their stripes break up their outline? If so, is that why The Phantom’s trunks are striped? Is that why drones have never shot The Phantom in the crotch? Inquiring minds want to know!” –Victor Von

“The baby is actually whispering, ‘You can’t break a one-syllable word onto the next line, dummy!’” –BigTed

“‘Whisper whisper?’ What, are they afraid we’ll be able to translate ‘ba ba ba’ and thus spoil the punchline?” –Pozzo

“In addition to the obvious animal rights concerns, carnival geeking is an affront to human dignity, but the Daddy Daze daddy doesn’t have any of that, so why not give it a whirl? I’m with the baby on this one.” –Blond Pardo

“I see the Bum Boat has redecorated and now appears to be a functional bomb shelter. In the event of nuclear war, Santa Royalites will be able to last out the fallout winter, living on baked seafood platters. Truly, the survivors will envy the dead.” –Schroduck

“Something about this is very ominous. Actually, a lot of things about this are ominous. I will focus on one detail: Jeff’s use of the entirely-too-casual slang term ‘nah.’ What are you, some kind of beatnik? Enjoy your seafood sampler platter, Jack Kerouac.” –Joe Blevins

“Mary furiously scribbling a note to herself: ‘Jeff showing signs of escaping containment, must increase dosage’” –Sean

“‘No, I don’t need a videotape on how to use a telephone.’ ‘Those salespeople are pests.’ ‘Non, you idiot, it was General Salan with the activation phrase. Opération Corse is a go. Tell the men to pack up, we’re headed for Corsica. Vive de Gaulle, and to hell with the Fourth Republic!’” –Voshkod

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Andy Capp, 8/28/26

Guitar Bob is an Andy Capp ancillary character who may have been around since the strip launched in the ’50s or may have been spawned in the long zombie era of the last several decades, who can say, but I have to admit today’s strip offers a look into his life that kind of intrigues me. Clearly Andy’s constant jibes loom large in his mind, to the point that he couldn’t even enjoy his positive reception at the folk club on its own terms but instead filed it away as something he could throw in his antagonist’s face. And Andy manages to devastate him again with a throwaway quip that barely makes sense! Obviously he didn’t give the audience their money back, but you can tell that whatever feeling of accomplishment he experienced has been undone in a moment. Sad!

Crock, 8/28/26

I used to play a fun (“fun”) game where I would try to guess the date of a Crock rerun based on its ham-handed cultural references, but King Features has taken that away from me by ceasing to bother with replacing the original copyright date. So now I just get to contemplate the window into a lost world that these strips offer. For instance, remember 1998? Remember how, in the days before YouTube, we were all calling one another offering to mail VHS tapes of helpful how-to vids? I mean, I don’t remember this at all, it’s not ringing any bells, but I spent most of 1998 mired in a series of romantic and academic crises so I wasn’t really paying very close attention, I admit.

Judge Parker, 8/28/26

Hey, remember how Judge Parker Emeritus Senior has been kind of losing it, maybe because he has dementia or maybe because he’s a drunk, but it seemed like he was kind of rallying in his attempt to help Ann get a job? Well, Ann is a big-shot TV consultant now, so now he can go back to his first love, being a Judge, or a “judicial hearing officer,” which I assume is kind of like being an assistant judge and is a job you can hold if you’re kind of old and slow, and also spent time in jail. You might think that he’d be happier just hanging around his giant mansion with his granddaughter and newly returned family members, but Judge Parker Emeritus Junior over there has done a number of crimes himself that have ruined his career for good, so apparently someone around here has to start pulling in a paycheck.

Mary Worth, 8/28/26

“Yes, Mary, I should live outside of routine every once in a while! Variety is the spice of life! I’ll have” [thinks for 15 seconds, brain starts to freeze up, panic sets in] “the exact same thing you’re having.”