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Archive: Mother Goose and Grimm

139

Monday egg chat

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Luann, 12/1/25

Back in the ’80s, when this strip first debuted and its characters were in high school but acted like they were 12, much of its energy was put into the competition between handsome hunk Aaron Hill and awful nerd Gunther Berger for Luann’s love. This eventually ended with Aaron moving off to Hawaii and Gunther actually becoming too good for Luann, but that doesn’t mean the strip doesn’t like to return to the classics, so today, when the characters are in college but act like they’re 15, there’s a new awful nerd obsessed with our heroine, and I do appreciate that they’ve taken steps to make Alan awful in a specifically 2025 way. Like the only way “Oh, do you think there’s a problematic age gap between my belovèd and myself? Well, I’ve done my research about historical sex affairs and come up with a little factoid that proves that’s no impediment” could get more of the moment would be if Alan triumphantly showed Bernice a bunch of AI-generated erotic anime-style images of him and Luann wearing Renaissance clothing to prove his point.

Dustin, 12/1/25

I think this may be the first Dustin I’ve ever seen where Dustin’s dad tries to have a genuine moment of connection and companionship with his son. That moment will end immediately after the third panel here, because Dustin’s terrible little quip will remind his father that he’s insufferable and that’s why nobody wants to spend time with him.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/1/25

OK, sure, if Humpty opened up that carton and cracked open an egg in cold blood? That’s a crime, and he deserves his punishment. But if he and the victim were in that carton together? Well, you can’t blame an egg for doing what he has to do in there, in a darkness that could end at any moment or last forever, a world where it’s crack or be cracked.

103

Adopt, don’t shop (for horrifying nightmare beasts)

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Six Chix, 11/29/25

Big news, everybody: By the year 2045, frenchies and dachshunds will have been somehow bred to be more than six feet long, and capable of bipedalism and matchmaking to boot. What has driven mankind to take these steps, and what will the societal effects of these giant and apparently intelligent dogs walking among us be? Please, Six Chix, tell us now, I need to prepare myself for this terrifying future while I can!

Dick Tracy, 11/29/25

“Yeah, so, for the criminal guy, can you use some pics of Jason Lee from the mid ’90s as reference? Just pick whatever name you think makes sense for him.”

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/29/25

Ah, man, looks like Grimm’s dead? Rest In Power Grimm, 1984-2015, you were one of the title characters of this strip so they’re probably going to have to change the name, assuming they keep running it.

173

Josh asks: How DARE you

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Blondie, 11/23/25

Two very important details here. One, Dagwood has his handkerchief out and at the ready when he knocks on Herb’s door. He’s already on the verge of tears and knows he won’t be able to hold back once this conversation starts — the conversation that he thinks will be among the last with his best friend while they’re still neighbors, before they inevitably begin to drift apart. The second is that Herb clearly put Tootsie up to relay the strategically redacted information about his career prospects to Blondie precisely in order to set up this scenario, and to exploit his friend’s soft heart. Never have I felt more tenderly towards Dagwood, or more harshly towards Herb!

Mary Worth, 11/23/25

Oh no! Toby’s beloved friend Sunny had a backstory, and that backstory is that he was illegally trafficked into California! I guess Toby and Sunny are about to go on an Incredible Journey-style journey to find Sunny’s real home, in the compound of the Mexican parrot smuggling gang where he was born. Will they still accept him, now that he laughs like Ross from Friends all the time?

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/23/25

On one level of conceptual reality, R2-D2 is a droid living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and on another level R2-D2 is Kenny Baker and a series of other actors inside a mechanical prop in various movies and TV shows put out by Lucasfilm. Or, in Mother Goose and Grimm, R2-D2 is an actor who had a movie career, presumably playing R2-D2 the character in the Star Wars movies? I don’t find this mix of narrative planes very coherent, to be quite honest, and I don’t think it’s funny to make R2-D2 into a coffee machine either. He helped blow up the Death Star! Show some respect.