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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/28/26

Lonnie may be a failed salesman, but he still has an advanced grasp on economics. He knows that what has value isn’t his knowledge of Mae Mae/Lorna’s identity, but his ability to take actions revealing that identity, and he’ll be assessing the various bids he’s soliciting to determine the most lucrative way to exercise that ability.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/28/26

What I love most about this strip is the composition. A more literal and pedestrian artist would’ve worked to not cover the Prince’s face with Snow White’s word balloon in the second panel. But in doing so, they create dramatic ambiguity as to the Prince’s reaction to Snow White’s confession. Is he shocked by her callous attitude towards the friends who took her in when she was in danger? Does he respect her ability to make hard but necessary choices in the face of fiscal crisis? Leaving this to our own imagination heightens the reading experience. Truly we’re getting a comics master class here.

Dennis the Menace, 4/28/26

Now, you’re probably thinking that Dennis pointing out the inherent unfairness of gendered divisions of labor isn’t menacing at all. But once you take in Mr. Wilson’s corpse-like vibes and realize that “retired” was a last-minute editorial substitution for “died,” everything falls into place.

Mary Worth, 4/28/26

“The vague affection that all of us ghouls at this cursèd condo complex vaguely expressed towards you? That’s not real love. We’re not capable of real love. We’re not capable of feeling anything at all.”

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Mary Worth, 4/25/26

Remember when Dr. Jeff, who’s allergic to cats, discovered that he wasn’t allergic to hypoallergenic cats, so Mary immediately got a cat? And many of us suspected that this was not because she actually wanted a cat, but was instead some kind of power move? Well, I think that instinct has been proven right with today’s strip, in which Mary is returning from a visit to Dr. Jeff’s house, on which she has brought her cat along, something that (as a longtime cat guy, I can say this with some authority) most cats would not enjoy at all, and you would only ever do it to prove some kind of point, and even then only if you were a bad person. Anyway, I don’t particularly remember Jeff having a “big house in the woods,” but I suppose the forest will make for a dramatic setting when “Trixie,” still on the run from the scam compound, bursts out of the trees and then Mary hits him with her car.

Pluggers, 4/25/26

Based on the image, I assumed that the caption on this one was going to be along the lines of “pluggers still have a basket of reading material in their bathroom” (laudatory, we as a society lost something when smartphones stopped us from reading months-old Reader’s Digests or The Big Book of Fun Facts while we’re on the can) or “pluggers still carpet their toilets for some reason” (gross, extremely gross). Instead it’s “pluggers feel the need to impose their preferences on everyone else,” which does track, I guess.

Wizard of Id, 4/25/26

Here’s today’s Wizard of Id. It’s about a witch with a terrible drinking problem! There’s not a “joke” in it per se.

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Heathcliff, 4/22/26

One thing I love about newspaper comic strips is that they’re full of visual signifiers that are multiple generations out of date at this point but just kind of stick around out of inertia, which would confuse any young people reading them if young people still read the comics. Until the medium is truly dead, everyone will have bone-in hams in their refrigerators and everyone will simply dump their garbage into a metal can, without even putting it in a plastic bag first, until it merges together in a grotesque brown slurry. Did you know that garbage slurry is viscous enough to serve as a powerful adhesive? Heathcliff does, and he’s made it his artistic medium.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/22/26

I’m not sure what’s sadder: that Mud only likes two restaurants in this town where he hangs out a lot, one of which just reopened for the first time in years, or that Mae Mae lived in Los Angeles, where some of the best and most interesting restaurants in the country do delivery via DoorDash, and yet has ordered nothing but pizza for the last decade.

Mary Worth, 4/22/26

[ONE WEEK LATER]

“Dad, I’m not sure how to say this, but I talked to Aaron and the boys, and, well…”

“Oh, don’t even worry, dear. I’m actually going to be moving in with my new girlfriend, Busty. There’s just the small issue of working out the complications with her visa!”