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Hi and Lois, 9/10/26

Now, look, I more or less enjoyed Forrest Gump as a college-aged moviegoer in 1994, but I wouldn’t say that it had much of a lasting cultural footprint, you know? Certainly not to the extent little kids would be going around quoting it. Just for comparison, an eight-year-old in 2026 quoting Forrest Gump would be like me as an eight-year-old in 1982 quoting … actually, I looked this up, and the Forrest Gump equivalent from 1960 (hit winner of multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director) is Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, one of the greatest movies ever made. I also saw The Apartment for the first time in 1994, but if I had seen it as a child, I’m pretty sure I would’ve loved it then too. A lot of it would’ve gone over my head but the dialogue is pretty accessible, I think. “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise!” I would’ve said, if I had found myself in a situation like Ditto has in today’s strip. It would’ve still been appropriate, and my mother would’ve been charmed by my precocious taste in film instead of vaguely annoyed like Lois is here.

The Lockhorns, 9/10/26

Very longtime and very faithful readers of this blog know that today is my wedding anniversary, and, on the I think justified assumption that Leroy is a last-minute gift shopper, it appears to be the Lockhorns’ anniversary as well. This is even more disturbing than the fact that they’re millennials. This one’s personal.

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The Lockhorns, 9/3/26

I like how Leroy is delivering this line as he’s buttoning up his shirt. Like, sure, maybe he made some desperate promises when he was naked and Dr. Blog was poking and prodding at him, but now he’s regained his dignity enough to say “I’m not going to be following any of your advice because I hate myself and crave death, by the way.”

Dustin, 9/3/26

The most important thing about the advent of the Age of AI, from my perspective, is that I now have to deal with syndicated newspaper cartoonists who think they understand what AI is but don’t. Is AI a little man who sits in your computer and shares all your prejudices, and will gleefully add “LOL” to the resume of a feckless young person who, if he were real, you would hold in contempt? No! That’s not what AI is at all!

Dick Tracy, 9/3/26

“Yes, I’ll tell you what’s up … we’re tracking hackers and this guy’s name was Hackenschmidt. It must be related!” Sure, that’s incredibly stupid, but also he’s right, so we can only say that Dick has adapted to his narrative environment.

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Pardon My Planet, 8/20/26

OK, here’s a sentence that I’m reasonably sure I’ve never written before, and probably nobody else has either: I’m actually enjoying the art in Pardon My Planet today. Specifically, I love how incredibly exhausted the girlfriend character (the Pardon My Planet gang may have names, but I steadfastly refuse to learn them) looks. How long has her boyfriend been nattering on with this nonsense? Hours? She doesn’t have to get ready for school either, but she does have to get up in the morning. She just wants to sleep, damn it! She just wants to sleep!

The Lockhorns, 8/20/26

Speaking of comic panel faces I’m enjoying, I’m enjoying Leroy’s boss’s face here. Specifically, I enjoy how mad he looks. He’s not one of those LinkedIn influencer execs bragging about replacing his workers with AI! No, he’s discovered that AI is slowly and silently replacing his workers one by one, right under his nose … and there’s nothing he can do about it. You can’t even test to see if someone’s a robot anymore, according to the killjoys in HR!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/20/26

No, Attila, it’s a joke! You’re a character in a comic strip, where ostensibly there’s a joke every day! I say “ostensibly” because the specific comic strip you’re in is Mother Goose and Grimm, but still, you should know this.