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The Phantom, 9/11/26

Happy Friday, everybody! I was going to explain the backstory to today’s Phantom to those who haven’t been reading along, but, you know what? Snakes, aliens, devil-Phantoms, screaming, flames … this right here is art and it doesn’t need any explanation. Just let it wash over you! Let loose with an enthusiastic “YAAAAHHHH!!!” while you’re at it. The weekend is almost here!

Marvin, 9/11/26

Marvin’s grandmother lives with her husband in an apartment building for which she has to write the newsletter because the Great Financial Crisis wiped out all their retirement savings, which forced them to briefly move in with Marvin’s parents (an episode for which their son-in-law has never forgiven them) before eventually settling into their current digs. Sometimes I feel like I must be one of the only people on earth walking around with this amount of Marvin lore in their heads, but I’m pleased to learn that the strip’s current creative team at least remembers that they’re too poor to live in one of the nicer apartment buildings that gets first dibs on the bingo guy.

Mary Worth, 9/11/26

Damn, Nelly must be a true master of the gossiping arts. How else can you explain the fact that Alma has gone in mere minutes from “So what?” to “Wow, that Worth lady always seems so proper, but if you say she and Prof. Cameron were engaged in full penetration intercourse right there in her car in the Charterstone parking lot, I have no choice but to believe you! I guess you can never really tell about a person!”

Daddy Daze, 9/11/26

Men will literally project a truly awful death-related pun onto the nonsense “ba” syllables their children produce rather than going to therapy so they can deal with their grief at losing a parent. It’s sad!

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Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/9/26

“Why do they mention the King’s Horses in ‘Humpty Dumpty?’” is an extremely hoary bit at this point, but I have to say I like the art here. Humpty’s shell has shattered, creating a jagged mouth for what we must assume is the first time. The very event that has caused him such agony also provided him with the means to scream! It’s a neat little trick.

Mary Worth, 9/9/26

Alma … no! You need to follow your first instincts and remain aloof from gossip and speculation here. Look at Nelly’s crazed expression in panel two! She says your guess is as good as hers … but she’s clearly been guessing in vivid, erotic detail for hours now. Let her be a cautionary example for you!

Shoe, 9/9/26

The saving grace of Shoe is that no matter how much you hate reading these jokes, the characters’ facial expressions make it clear that they hate saying them much, much more.

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Mary Worth, 9/8/26

Wow, I’m glad to see that there are still sensible people living in Charterstone! “So what?” is exactly the appropriate response to someone telling you that two people who you vaguely know were sitting in a parked car. I don’t know how to tell you this, Nelly, but this is America, and as a person who gets around on foot and by bike more than the average American, I can tell you that this country is just littered with people sitting in parked cars. What are they doing in there? Listening to podcasts? Crying? Dicking around on their phones? Cheating on their spouses? Getting ready to pull out into traffic or open their door with no warning just as I’m trying to get past them? I don’t know and (except in that last scenario) it’s none of my business. Nelly was a safe distance away when she spotted the specific instance of car-sitting under discussion, so this is definitely a “So what?” situation if I’ve ever seen one.

Gil Thorp, 9/8/26

The Milford tryout numbers are strong this year, but Gil wants to establish that the Mudlarks will lead the Valley Conference in quality as well as quantity. You will not be able to overtake them in terms of players with names that make them sound like characters in vaudeville bits. Does Goshen have a Borys Orlov? Well, Milford has an Adrian Blatz. Of the Métis Winnipeg Blatzes. You might have heard of them.

Blondie, 9/8/26

Oh, no, Blondie! You were so close to correctly incorporating young people’s love of short-form video content into your model of how the world works! But you made the crucial mistake of using the term “vlogging,” which I’m not sure the kids say anymore, and anyway it led you down the path to today, doing a strip where Cookie is blogging, something I’m definitely sure the kids today are not saying or doing anymore. Blogging is an old man’s game now, trust me on this.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/8/26

“Oh, Josh, I think you were overstating things about that guy’s head-lump yesterday, I’m sure if we saw it from a different angle we’d–” You fool. You idiot. You ABSOLUTE SIMPLETON