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Blondie and Hi and Lois, 4/1/25

I know I’m “old” and “out of touch,” but I always thought April Fool’s Day was about cruel pranks. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this what it’s about now? Pretending to do nice things for people? And sometimes you just follow through on your “prank” and actually do nice things for them? That … that doesn’t seem like a thing that would happen on April Fool’s Day, at all! Sorry to be a traditionalist, but it’s weird to me!

Barney Google and Smith, 4/1/25

I guess I have to side with the lumpy hillbillies of Hootin’ Holler. Pulling off some prank that’s so humiliating that the victim will never talk about the incident or its aftermath, not even with their closest friends? That’s April Fool’s Day, to me!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/1/25

In non-April Fool’s news: remember Hiram, Mother Goose’s boyfriend, who she’s kinda dissatisfied with? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on his own in the strip before, but here he is, asking his boss for bereavement leave, which I take to mean that Mother Goose … has died? RIP Mother Goose, 1984-2025, you taught me … well, you didn’t teach me much of anything, if I really think about it.

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Luann, 3/31/25

So last week’s “Brad and Toni are trying to have a baby and it’s making their sex life miserable” riff ended with the two of them (on TJ’s suggestion) running off to go to an amusement park rather than depress themselves with yet another grim session of intercourse. I assumed this was putting a little bow on the plot and we were going to move onto something else this week, except, no, we’re apparently going to be treated (?) to the two of them at the amusement park. Anyway, it’s kind of comforting to be regularly reading this strip again after more than a decade and learn that it’s still doing its thing (its thing is coming up with extremely off-putting euphemisms for sex like “doing ‘maybe baby’”).

Dick Tracy, 3/31/25

Gotta admit I don’t fully get what the deal is in the non-nephew part of this Dick Tracy storyline, but our heroes have connected the mysterious corpse with someone named “Mr. Piltdown” and have roped his poor dentist into trying to positively ID him. That name is probably most famous from “Piltdown Man,” a hoax fossil that was supposed to be a “missing link” between humans and apes but was actually just a fake someone made by combining a human skull with an orangutan jaw and teeth, so I certainly hope this signals that something profoundly weird is about to be revealed by this post-mortem dental exam.

Gil Thorp, 3/31/25

Big news, everyone! Marty’s drinking binge has run its course and now he’s back at his AA meeting, along with a fellow alcoholic named “Clam.” Short for Clambake? A guy can dream!!!! (About a long sob story about how Clambake got caught lying about being in the Negro Leagues and it sent him into a downward spiral of alcohol abuse but then Marty Moon interrupts him by saying “Hey everybody, I’m Marty Moon, from the radio!” and they all applaud.)

Alice, 3/31/25

I know that a classic comics thing is having someone ask a weirdly specific question so that another person can answer it with a punchline, but Disconnection Syndrome is actually a fairly serious neurological disorder. Maybe you should find out why exactly your niece is asking about this rather than just cracking wise, Alice!

The Lockhorns, 3/31/25

So why are you going to someplace called “Coverage Provider Outlet,” guys? That sounds boring as shit!

Blondie, 3/31/25

“Ha ha, but enough about my depressing personal life and my dead marriage! I want to buy all your cupcakes and then throw them in the garbage so my husband can’t have them.”

Hagar the Horrible, 3/31/25

Hey man, did you know you can just put straight-up naked asses in the comics now? God is dead, do what you will, etc.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 3/30/25

This is at least the second time that Slylock Fox has proposed the old “one person divides, the other chooses” solution to this kind of dispute, and when the first one was published five years ago I already went on at great length about how I first encountered that idea in T*A*C*K, a sub-Encyclopedia Brown series of distinctly Slylockian “mysteries” for kids. So I guess today I’ll focus on our hapless canine judge. Criminal investigation and prosecution are the flashiest part of the legal system, and the post-human regime has managed to put together semi-functional versions of that, but much of the work of the judiciary involves managing noncriminal disputes between litigants, and we can see that Slylock’s animal civilization has a long way to go in that department. Our boy Sly is using the only tool in his arsenal — ratiocination — and frankly I don’t think it’s really up to the task.

Mary Worth, 3/30/25

“Oh, Belle seems wacky, but kinda fun, ha ha!” is what many of you and frankly I thought when she first appeared. “She definitely won’t start blacking out the eyes of her lover’s daughter in family photos literally minutes after she arrives unannounced at his home, with a sharpie she apparently carries with her specifically for that purpose.” We were fools. Fools! How could we have been so naive?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/30/25

“When is this boring stalker storyline going to get to the medical content that we expect from medically-themed comic strip Rex Morgan, M.D.?” is the question that’s been on the lips of a lot of people who do not regularly read Rex Morgan, M.D., the comic strip that has a lot less medical content than you’d expect. Anyway, does dying count as medical content? Because our stalker — I assume that’s him, based on his Lincolnian profile — seems to have died in mid-stalk, oops. Well, looks like Summer’s problem is solved, anyway! I guess maybe we should bring Rex in to say a few words about how the stalking lifestyle is unhealthy and then move on.