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Garfield, 7/19/25

True comics internet oldheads remember Garfield Minus Garfield, a webcomic that, as the title implied, took daily Garfield comics in which Jon and Garfield interacted and simply removed Garfield from them. This became a minor internet sensation back in 2008, and apparently tickled Jim Davis so much that it became an officially licensed book. That was many years ago, and I hope I don’t sound churlish when I say that the concept never really worked for me because it seemed slightly off. Surely the joke should not be that Jon is alone and talking to nobody; Garfield should remain in the frame but his thought balloons should be removed, to show us the “real” world where Jon is just a depressed and/or deranged man talking to his cat, who, like all cats, cannot understand him or talk back. Today’s strip is a great example of why that would work. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” says Jon, with absolutely no joy in his eyes, before staring at his cat for two panels in absolute silence.

Mary Worth, 7/19/25

21st century commercial air travel is, in terms of deaths or injuries per mile, the safest form of transportation humankind has ever produced. I guess it’s slightly more dangerous than simply staying at home and sitting absolutely still, so technically Mary isn’t wrong when she says it’s “a privilege and also a risk,” but she is being extremely overdramatic. She’s also referring to flying coach via Denver to New York City, a place she’s visited at least twice before, as “explor[ing] the unknown,” so she’s really on one today, I guess.

Dustin, 7/19/25

Helen is clearly used to Ed not specifying that he wants his bacon crispy and then complaining when he gets it and it’s not crispy, so she intervenes in panel one here, hoping that their waitress will not in fact hate them by the end of the meal. By panel three we can already see her effort was in vain.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/23/25

Now, look, you know that Spark Plug is a horse and I know that Spark Plug is a horse, but if you didn’t know that Spark Plug is a horse, nothing about this strip would tell you that, right? Like, call me out of touch, but I’m reasonably sure that “brown-eyed baby” isn’t universally known code for a horse. Lots of human babies have brown eyes! Imagine if you were someone who didn’t know the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith lore, and for some reason today was the first time you decided to read this strip. You’d be baffled! “It sounds like this Barney Google fella does have a baby,” you’d say, “and it has brown eyes and a funny name! Why would he give his baby to these people to babysit, one of whom didn’t even remember the baby existed at all?”

Gil Thorp, 6/23/25

Sorry to trouble you, Gil, but we can’t have someone obsessed with late 19th/early 20th century spiritualism chaperone the prom. Can you imagine? Why, by the end of the evening he’ll be leading them in seances and such, when they should by rights be out in their cars, fingerbanging each other and/or being fingerbanged!

The Phantom, 6/23/25

Speaking of narration from the dead, I’m always a fan of when The Phantom reminds us that everything we see in the strip is a story dreamed up by writer Lee Falk (1911-1999). Sorry, General Chuma! You have been summoned into existence merely to be tormented for our amusement by a pencil-mustached, pipe-smoking sadist.

Garfield, 6/23/25

Remember Garfield, the cartoon cat who famously hates Mondays? You’ve heard him telling jokes about hating Mondays before, of course. But what if he typed those jokes, into a computer? That’d be pretty wild, huh?

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Hagar the Horrible, 6/11/25

I find this strip genuinely funny, and particularly love the expressions on Hagar and Eddie’s faces in the second panel. Obviously they consider themselves to have landed in a suboptimal situation, babysitting-wise. But could they have prevented this? Maybe, but they’re damned if they can figure out how.

Mary Worth, 6/11/25

To be fair, Dawn, Wilbur didn’t “believe” Willa so much as “walked in on Belle trying to eat her.” I’m sure that if he had actually seen her trying to poison you he … probably would’ve done something about it? Right? Probably? Anyway, I like how they’re both vaguely smiling here. They can joke about all this, now that it’s over, Belle has been safely taken home by her brother, and the two of them are driving away from Charterstone and never coming back because explaining what happened to anyone they know is far too embarrassing a prospect to even consider. Better to make a clean break and start over in a new state with all new identities.

Garfield, 6/11/25

Today, in a very special Garfield, Odie fully grasps the concept of death for the first time. He’s not a fan!