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Beetle Bailey, 1/14/26

I feel like if you have an elderly authority figure looking startled and somewhat confused and shouting “Take some notes!” and then immediately afterwards passing out, and his subordinates are gleeful about it because it means they don’t have to do work, that’s a little less “Ha, this is a zany situation” and a little more elder abuse. It’s sadly not that unheard of for a powerful but ailing person’s staff to basically puppet them for an extended period of time, and it’s all fun and games until, in this case, the area of the United States protected by Camp Swampy is invaded by enemy forces and no competent general officer is present to coordinate defensive operations.

Mary Worth, 1/14/26

I’m not sure how old Ian is supposed to be so I guess I won’t call this “elder abuse” per se but it’s clear that his mind has been broken by Toby and Sunny. Look at his sleepy, dopey smile as Sunny cackles evilly literally inches in front of his face! This is some real “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” shit right here, only with a parrot.

Shoe, 1/14/26

To me, one of the most depressing things about the Perfesser and Skyler’s home is that there’s exactly one place to sit in their living room, which tells us volumes about the relationship between the uncle and his barely tolerated nephew/ward. Today we see that even when they eat out together, the Perfesser insists on sitting as far away from his nephew as possible.

Luann, 1/14/26

When I started commenting on Luann again, did I know things were going to end up less than a year later with Luann getting propositioned to go fuck over by the dumpsters? No, of course not. Obviously not. Different choices would’ve been made had I known, I’ll tell you that much.

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Shoe, 1/11/26

Did, uh, did you know that “naked running” means running without music? I myself did not, and I can’t find much evidence that this is a phrase particularly widely known by others; it’s the name of a company that makes belts for running, and sometimes it’s used more broadly to mean running without any kind of gadgets. But a little poking around to research this turned up this post in a UK running group on Facebook, and, uh, do you think the syndicated newspaper comic strip Shoe stole a joke from a UK running group on Facebook? Who’s to say. We should mostly focus our energy on praying that the brain trust over there never gets wind of “rawdogging.”

Mary Worth, 1/11/26

God damn it, Sunny! Ian was so close to the sweet relief of death! So close! You’ve thwarted him once again!

Pluggers, 1/11/26

Look, man, people often yell at me for being a coastal elitist because I make fun of the pluggers in Pluggers, but today’s strip is about how pluggers would rather eat fast food than exercise and they won’t even get out of their car to do it, and I didn’t write this joke. A faithful reader of the strip did, and he sent it into the syndicate, and then they drew it and put it in the newspaper! I’m not the mean one here!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/11/26

Good lord, they murdered that turkey. He was so happy to survive the carnage but then they murdered him and ate him! With big stupid grins on their faces!

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Mary Worth, 1/6/26

OK, sorry, I do not buy that dour Scot Ian Cameron is someone whose heart is cheered by the presence of Christmas decorations, and anyway look at that deranged expression in the second panel: he’s doing more evil anti-Sunny plotting! The cat thing didn’t work but he’s got more up his sleeve. Is tinsel poisonous to parrots? Only one way to find out! Meanwhile, Toby continues to read BLAM! (?) Magazine, oblivious.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/6/26

If you’ve been given the awesome responsibility of stewarding one of America’s beloved soap opera comic strip, you could do worse things with it than reassure your rapidly aging audience that cataract surgery is immensely beneficial and really not a big deal. This series of strips is probably going to reduce highway deaths by a small but measurable amount! Still, in-universe, I’m reading the subtext here as “So I’m just letting you know that you’re not actually going to be spending that much more time with us at the clinic, which is good, because most of the staff here does not like you very much.”

Garfield, 1/6/26

Now, normally, I would say that Paws, Inc., is such a massive corporate juggernaut in the comics world that it can do what it wants — appropriate Hi and Lois’s “Sunbeam” intellectual property, whatever. But the company was bought by Viacom in 2019, and, thanks to a series of other corporate acquisitions and maneuverings over the past few years, is today part of Paramount Skydance, which is in the midst of a complex and politically contentious attempt to acquire Warner Bros., so their legal department is probably pretty busy right now. This could be the ideal time for Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC to strike back!