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Mary Worth, 12/16/25

There’s a lot of hand-wringing about “grade inflation” at elite universities, which I have for the most part thought is overblown, but, I dunno: if they’re giving Ian Cameron a “University Excellence Award,” maybe things really are bad.

Family Circus, 12/16/25

Honestly love Thel’s wary expression here. She specifically told Dolly not to talk to Santa like a dumbass, but she’s clearly talking to Santa like a dumbass, and Thel’s too far away to stop her. The way the composition draws your eye to her is great, and I’m imagining a Vertigo-style dolly zoom shot on her face as she listens to this nonsense unfold.

Luann, 12/16/25

Sorry I started doing Luann on this blog again after like a decade only to become fixated on shoving the “Ugh, Brand and Toni have an active erotic life and it’s disgusting” strips in your face. This one I enjoy because I’m imagining the DeGroot parents sitting forlornly around their living room thinking “When is Brad going to come over and aim the snowflake projector at our house? He said he would do it, but where is he? He better not be fucking.”

Slylock Fox, 12/16/25

What really jumps out at me in both versions of this panel is how old these pirates look. No wonder they seem so upset at this joke of a treasure! They’ve wasted the best years of their lives!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/16/25

Damn, Maybelle Pratt! Turns out Snuffy Smith straight-up does not like you. It’s a good thing you’re leaving town!

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Gil Thorp, 12/15/25

It’s often unclear to me how old anyone in a comic strip is supposed to be, and Gil Thorp in particular has historically had a quirky implementation of comic book time where the kids get older but Gil and the adults seem to stay more or less the same age, but I’ve always assumed that Gil is in his mid-to-late 40s while Beth is somewhat younger? Anyway, I get the feeling that most of my readers, like me, are or are rapidly approaching A Certain Age, so you probably won’t like being informed that the Golden Girls actresses were all in their 50s in the early seasons of the show. What I’m trying to get at is that Beth thinks what’s going on here is “cute” but in fact Gil is slurping ramen and, through a feverish haze, getting hornt up in an age-appropriate way over Rue McClanahan rather than her.

Slylock Fox, 12/15/25

Slylock faces the dilemma familiar to any more-or-less honest cop working within an authoritarian regime: you get into the game to protect small businesses from thieves or stop sideshows from defrauding innocent customers, but you do have to spend a certain amount of time humoring an absolute dictator sitting on a gold throne about their extremely specific problems, which have no real-world impact on anyone’s lives. I’m sure that Slylock figured out the answer to this riddle as soon as the situation was described to him, but I appreciate that he’s humoring Max by taking the magnifying glass from him momentarily before calling for the royal scales. What do you think happened to the thief who came up with this botched scheme, by the way? Probably being tortured to death in the palace prison, right?

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Dick Tracy, 12/14/25

For a month now, we’ve all been like, “Who or what is the Ghost Cat? We’ve been told he’ll appear when needed — obviously that will be some time during this storyline but when?” Well, today we’ve got answers. What is the Ghost Cat? He’s Batman, or at least as close to Batman as you can get without infringing on the intellectual property rights of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Netflix/Paramount Skydance [TBD by 2027]. He’s close enough to the real deal to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, anyway, so much fear that they self-censor when saying even mild swear words. Who is the Ghost Cat? Well, it seems pretty clear that he’s just Buford, the lawman who showed up in Neo-Chicago with this case yammering about the Ghost Cat in the first place, in an elaborate costume.

Honestly the part I’m most unsure about is the “when” component. Sure, sometimes the conventional law enforcement apparatus can’t deal with a specific injustice and only a costumed vigilante can restore righteous order, that’s something we understand and believe, but Dick and Buford were in hot pursuit of some suspects after an informant planted a tracker on their vehicle, and then said suspects ran out to confront them while they were just parked legally at the curb, a scenario where I’m pretty sure the police-friendly Neo-Chicago courts would give retroactive license for them to go nuts, so I’m not sure why he felt like he had to go “Ghost Cat” mode. Who am I to judge, though? If he needs a fursuit to fight crime properly, that’s his business.

Mary Worth, 12/14/25

A lot of Sunday strips just pad out what could’ve been a two- or three-panel gag and don’t take full advantage of their length. Not today’s Mary Worth, though! Today’s strip takes us on an emotional roller coaster, from the highs of “Ha ha, Sunny shat in Ian’s shoe!” to the lows of “Oh, man, the reason Toby and Ian never had kids is because Toby knows, in her heart of hearts, that Ian would beat them.”

Marvin, 12/14/25

Speaking of shitting, Marvin is, of course, primarily about shitting and pissing. But it’s also about a set of characters who actively dislike each other, and that’s why I refuse to believe that Bitsy thinks of Jeff as “dad.” He almost certainly just refers to him by name, or, if he refuses to learn his name on principle, as “that asshole.”