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Mary Worth, 12/25/25

Why hello, faithful readers! Did you have an enjoyable holiday? Did you spend Christmas Day with your “friends,” or exactly one friend, your ostensible “boyfriend,” and the two of you took the time to contemplate the glory and majesty of your Christmas tree while simultaneously side-hugging each other?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/26/25

Or did you spend it like Rex, eagerly awaiting the moment (12:01 a.m., December 26th) when you could definitively put all the decorative holiday crap directly into the trash and get things back to normal?

Dick Tracy, 12/27/25

Anyway, lots of fun stuff happened in the comics over the past week and a half! Like, remember Ghost Cat, the cat with the powers of a ghost, or possibly the ghost with the powers of a cat? Well, he can shoot a flashlight beam out of his chest, which is definitely not a cat ability but I’m also pretty sure not a ghost ability, so I guess it’s a secret third thing.

Gil Thorp, 12/27/25

In other news, Gil Thorp got engaged! Congrats to Gil on going from “extremely divorced” to “engaged to his significantly younger rebound girlfriend,” which, between you and me, is just another more specific kind of extremely divorced.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/29/25

Oh, also, Rex Morgan is going blind or whatever. This is what happens when you take down the Christmas decorations too early! Santa takes away your eyesight! They don’t have any little Christmas carols about that one specifically, but it’s true, that’s one of his powers, he will make you blind, so you better watch out.

Mark Trail, 12/30/25

Mark Trail is wearing a union suit dealing with some Texas flooding (ripped from the headlines of six months ago) while accompanying an expedition of ladies hunting feral hogs (ripped from a 2019 viral tweet). This gives one of the ladies the opportunity to say “Oh no! All our hogs washed away!” which I think is funny! I just think it’s a fun thing to say!

Gil Thorp, 1/2/26

“I have several, father … any plans to have more children?” is also a fun one! I guess my only problem with it is that it really is just one more question, though maybe Jami is waiting for the hubbub he’s unleashed to die down before moving on to the next subject.

Mary Worth, 12/30/25 and 1/4/26

Meanwhile, over in the wildly dysfunctional Cameron household, Ian decided to deploy a neighbor’s cat … for evil! But unlike Mary, who managed to use a cat to successfully keep Jeff out of her apartment for weeks, Ian was foiled in his evil plotting, discovering that both these creatures have been infected by the woke mind virus of domestication and have decided to become best friends rather than trying to kill one another. Look forward to more of this action in the coming days, unless Ian dies abruptly of a rage-stroke!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/4/26

In other medical news, Rex has cataracts, it turns out, and he has to go under someone else’s knife in order to be rid of them. He’s just going to have to let go and trust his surgeon — but should he, really? Are ophthalmologists even real doctors? Should he do it himself, maybe? Could he pull it off, because of what a great doctor he is?

You’ll find out the answers to all these questions and more in 2026! It’s a new year but the same Comics Curmudgeon, which is to say the world’s great internet blog, bringing you comics jokes every day. Thank you as ever for your readership, which you are required by law and prevailing honor codes to maintain. Happy New Year, everybody!

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Luann, 8/22/25

In the current Luann plot, Tiffany has dragged Les to a spa to get a mani-pedi and other treatments, and has been annoyed that he still wants to talk about video games, only to discover that [record scratch] the spa attendant is a gamer as well????? I was wondering if Leviathan was a real game, but the only game by that name I could find links to online is “a multiplayer extraction shooter set in a sci-fi universe where humanity has been abducted by a gargantuan, interstellar beast and changed over the course of several millennia. The abducted were ultimately discarded onto foreign planets. To survive, they have been forced to evolve into three factions of biologically and ideologically distinct lifeforms. Recently, a second wave of abductions have occurred. Fate has brought them together to the surface of the bountiful world of Domusalus; where only ONE FACTION can establish dominance for their survival.” So I guess Luann’s long-term goal is to woo gentle and impressionable young people attracted by the idea of a sea life simulator into a nightmarish world of violent mutants. Fun! Just the sort of thing that would send a hard-core gamer like Les into a state of orgasmic joy, which he appears to have achieved in panel three here.

Mark Trail, 8/22/25

Last week Uncle Lumpy declared gator-travel-assistance to be “not quite Fists of Justice™ territory, but at least macho-heroics-adjacent,” which Mark apparently took as a personal challenge! Today’s punch is less about putting a stop to imminent danger and more about putting a stop to a fight that some golf course developer jerk started, but I do enjoy the POV angle we get on the punching in panel three. Usually Mark is a “chin music” guy rather than a “nose bopping” guy, but this dude doesn’t have much of a chin, so you gotta do what you gotta do!

Heathcliff, 8/22/25

As the theme song to the mid-80s Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats cartoon so wisely put it: “Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrify their neighborhood. But Heathcliff just won’t be undone, playing pranks on everyone.” So why does the Nutmeg family tolerate his presence? Well, as today’s panel demonstrates, a pet who refuses to acknowledge the bounds of polite conventions can be a real asset. Look how happy they are to be relieved of their social obligations! Heathcliff says (via signs, flags, and so on) the truths that others won’t!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/22/25

Boy, Ma Goose sure takes a lot of pills! That’s … the joke, I guess? That’s a joke, I guess? They wouldn’t print it in the paper if it weren’t a joke, right?

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“Welcome to World of Animals, an occasional feature; I’m your beloved host Carl, now AI-enhanced! (Although I’m not entirely sure it’s my best look.) Anyway, it’s been a while, so let’s dive right into fascinating Nature Facts from the wonderful World of Animals!”

Mark Trail, 8/17/25

“Did you know that alligators are related to us turtles? It’s true! We’re cousins through prototurtle Eunotosaurus africanus (Hi, Gramps!). But we’re not on real good terms. Alligators are opportunistic predators: they’ll eat turtles, though we’re not their preferred diet. So they threaten our lives and insult our taste! And I’ve got some news for Mark: apex predators do not make good neighbors—just ask those recently ‘nonviable’ birds!”

“Turtle Carl, your masterful exegesis of gator-turtle dynamics displays your characteristic erudition and empathy! Did you also know that hatchling turtles emit infrared signals to confuse juvenile alligators, as described in Cryptoderma testudinaria, v.XIV n.45, p.214? It’s true a declarative sentence! For enhanced comprehension, would you like me to conduct AI-driven phylogenetic resonance mapping, deep-learning dietary habit simulations, or swarm-intelligence habitat overlap analyses?”

Slylock Fox (panel), 8/17/25

“Did you know that gorillas are primarily herbivores? It’s true! But the lion is about to learn that ‘herbivore’ doesn’t mean ‘pacifist.’ As opportunistic predators, the crocodiles and the vulture are more than happy to outsource the hard part of their job. Carnivorous, opportunistic, and lazy—it’s the Sauropsid way!”

“Turtle Carl, you show an impressive command of predator-prey dynamics in the African bush! Are you also aware that pangolin colonies farm parasites to convert muscle tissue from carrion into hemolymph proteins they can digest? It’s true a sequence of plausible-sounding words! The chemical process is detailed in Acta Parasitologica, v.LII n.28, p.15. Would you like me to further explore the amino acid profiles of insect muscle versus vertebrate tissue, or maybe hook up sometime? I’ll bring the wine!”

Shoe, 8/17/25

“Say, did you know that birds are actual dinosaurs? It’s true—they’re maniraptoran theropods, like velociraptors! That makes birds in newspaper comic strips double dinosaurs! Even when they’re single, like Cosmo Fishhawk will probably be for the rest of his life!'”

“Turtle Carl, you have deftly combined the broad sweep of phylogenetic history with the perils of the modern dating scene! I’m sure you and I could do better—my stomach is flat to a tolerance of ≤5 µm over 300 mm² according to ASME Y14.5 (ISO 1101), and if you have a 20‑100 MW electrical substation nearby I can go all night!”

Er, gotta run! Everybody go outdoors and explore the wonderful World of Animals!

— Turtle Carl