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Enjoy the siren song of this week’s comment … of the week!

“I’ve heard of shaggy dog stories, but this guy actually grew a beard in the course of listening to this one.” –Dennis Jimenez

The runners up are also quite amusing!

“A veterinary exam room having a big open window is so stupid I can’t even come up with a joke about how the human vet is wearing leg irons or something.” –Rex Thrillho, on BlueSky

“That the animals sometimes revert, Island of Dr. Moreau style, to their old instincts is tragically illustrated by Lady Lynx kicking the severed head off Max Mouse into the room. Before she got so upset, she was going to leave it in the doctor’s shoe. A little feline gift.” –Logar the Librarian

“I’m loving Glen’s reaction to Sophie’s story. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe it’s the 15 tiny beers I’ve had, but did you just use the words hack and drone with no regard to their meaning?’” –Joe Blevins

“Is it really an outrage to steal a body from a morgue? I’d think it would be worse if it were, say, the library or a supermarket.” –taig

“I’m not in the mood to deal with Mr. Parker right now. Or his brother. I’m Sorry, but they don’t have a Monopoly on my time. I’m not going to Scrabble around and take Risks for them just for the sake of some Trivial Pursuit. They should get a Clue!” –Peanut Gallery

“‘No offense, but I don’t think any advice can make me feel better right no–‘ the next moments are a blur. Dawn feels a disorienting rush and a sharp pain and suddenly she’s face-down on the ground, with a blunt weight on the back of her neck. Something has cracked, and blood is pooling underneath her. She doesn’t know what happened to the sun, everything is dark, like night. A voice appears to come from everywhere, asking what about now, Dawn? Do you think you could use some advice now? Suddenly everything rights itself. The light returns, the pain recedes, she’s standing upright, and only a faint taste of blood and a sense of vertigo suggest she didn’t imagine it. ‘Well then,’ says Mary happily, her blank eyes fixed on nothing in the middle-distance. ‘A home-cooked meal may do the trick!’” –Dan

“As the Saxons stormed the fort at Badon Hill, Arthur looked desperately for a weapon to turn the tide of battle. His eyes fell upon the table. The next table will lie flat, and our best knights will sit around it, he thought, but for now, improvise, adapt, overcome. The jarls and thanes would later speak in hushed tones about the moment the flaming wheel broke through the abatis, followed by crazed Britons, charging to victory. Of the anonymous workman who had built the table, nothing is remembered.” –Voshkod

“So is a meat bath when you sit in a bathtub of meat juices and drippings, or is it sitting in a bathtub of meat itself? Is the meat raw or cooked? Red meat? Pork? Poultry? A combination? Do Catholics substitute meat baths for fish baths on Friday? I need answers, yet I fear to have them.” –Lauralot

“Why is everyone wearing black in Dick Tracy? Did somebody die? I mean, I’m sure several suspects have, recently and gruesomely, but those usually don’t get mourned.” –nescio

“Silver, dead-eyed, stands pondering. How many teen girls has this been for whom he has served as a transitional object of affection, as they move from dolls to fathers to adult love and then their own foals and fillies? Silver cares not, he was gelded long ago. Now he is docile at best, saturnine at worst, on the cold and wet days when he has no blanket to keep him warm. As long as the oats come and the stable is mucked, he is content. Joy is the occasional apple or carrot, ecstasy the opportunity to run through grass. Tonight, the blonde girl will dream of Silver. He will forget she ever existed, until the morning. He is content, as content as any horse can be, or so he thinks.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“The outfit says ‘genderfluid Realtor,’ the posture says ‘three-year-old throwing a tantrum,’ and the language says ‘parody of a nineteenth century robber baron.’ Someone needs to work on their branding.” –TheDiva

“I know that it’s all just for the alliteration, but ‘anachronistic’ seems like a particularly bizarre insult, especially for Dick Tracy. You’re calling cell phones with radio watches and driving 1940s electric cars!” –pugfuggly

“Toddlers bang on pots because they’re exploring their senses along with cause and effect. Dennis at five is well past that stage and is banging away noisily solely to cause Wilson a blinding migraine. And I find it hilarious. I’m a bad person.” –Hibbleton

“I can understand Americans doing a soccer comic during the Men’s World Cup (or the Women’s, if it were a female player on a screen). At a push, maybe the Copa America. But I’m meant to believe Leroy, the picture of suburban downwardly-mobile WASPism, is watching soccer in an odd numbered year, on a Thursday in February? What is he, some sort of European? What’s he going to get into next? Buttered crumpets? Shitty dance music? Recreational nudity?” –Schroduck

“I feel like this Aunt Claire person could learn a thing or two about nephew berating. There’s a lot of rich material in the Hall and Oates area, perhaps upon the lines of them both being Oates or something. It would be a cinch to work in the alliteration. Oafish, odious, onerous — shit, if you’re going to say anachronistic anyway, obsolescent is right there. Are you even trying, lady? Now I’m just getting mad.” –Violet

“‘When God closes a door, Jesus opens Windows. That’s how the phrase goes right?’ –Dan Piraro (probably)” –The Rambling Otter

“In 1944, when D-Day code words began turning up in the Daily Telegraph crossword, British intelligence was alarmed, figuring a spy was transmitting the invasion plans to Germany. The puzzles’ creator was arrested and interrogated. It turned out that he was headmaster of a school, located near a military base in northern England, who had his students supply words for the grid. The kids had heard soldiers using the code words but didn’t know their significance. I hope Jughead hasn’t written a bombshell investigative story, and that its fragments in the puzzle section won’t land him and Reggie in Guantanamo. No, wait, I hope that’s exactly what happens.” –A. Mulyak

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Andy Capp, 2/21/25

Among the strips I’m starting to revisit is Andy Capp (never forget: ANDY CAPP!), and of course, there’s an important question one asks when starting to read this beloved British comics institution after the better part of a decade: is Andy Capp still a drunk? He’s a drunk, right? That’s his whole thing? Today’s strip, in which we learn that Andy would rather die horribly than spend his precious beer money on professional services of any kind, affirms this timeless truth.

Dennis the Menace and Bizarro, 2/21/25

One of my comics pet peeves is characters saying stuff they would never actually say (or having it implied that they said it moments before the in-strip action) just to set up a punchline. Take today’s Dennis the Menace, for instance: Surely a mail carrier would be much more likely to ask “Is he friendly?” or “Does he bite?” in a scenario where he’s encountering an unfamiliar and unleashed dog, as that would be relevant to his professional interests. Why on earth would he care about the dog’s peeing/pooping situation? I was planning on going on a whole diatribe about how cartoonists are simply obsessed with peeing and pooping, but then I read today’s Bizarro and immediately thought “Wait, is the implication here that Jesus drinks water and pisses out wine? Because that’s what the ‘In’/’Out’ labels pretty heavily imply to me,” so you know what, maybe I’m part of the problem.

Archie, 2/21/25

Reggie Mantle generally gets a bad rap, as he primarily exists in the Archieverse as an antagonist for our pals, but you know what? He’s absolutely in the right here. Is the student newspaper a joke to you, Jughead? Some of us are trying to learn about the practice of good journalism here!

Judge Parker, 2/21/25

Being best college buds with Sophie seems like fun — like, you get invited to bumpin’ party weekends out in the Hamptons. There are downsides, of course — like, said party weekends involve discovering corpses — but you have to take the good with the bad. Still, I don’t think it’s right that Sophie made Reena watch dronecam snuff footage without any warning or even anything fun as a lead-in (having to hang out with Randy Parker does not count as fun).

Daddy Daze, 2/21/25

Oh, Daddy Daze daddy, you and I both know that none of that ever happened! Why would you lie to your son about this?

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Dick Tracy, 2/20/25

Dick Tracy is a comic strip that operates in an exaggerated storytelling mode, entertaining us with outlandish plots about corpse theft and so forth. But it can also touch on very real, down-to-earth issues, like the problem of inadequate nephews. Are your nephews good-for-nothings who don’t even have the skills and/or gumption to properly steal a dead body? Dick Tracy sees you, and hears you, and knows you are valid.

Pickles, 2/20/25

Another comic I’ve added recently to my rotation is Pickles, a low-key strip about old people. I appreciate today’s installment because it avoids the cliche of making an adorable little moppet the resident computer genius and instead identifies the “generation [that’s] pretty handy with modern technology” as the children of old people, who are, let’s be extremely real, getting pretty old themselves. Sure, assigning tech support to a 52-year-old with bad knees may not get your strip cut out and hung on refrigerators, but you have to respect the commitment to verisimilitude.

The Lockhorns, 2/20/25

“Why doesn’t this person use the opportunity given to him to inflict violence on the one who has wronged him?” is Loretta’s takeaway from what she’s learning about soccer, and that should be concerning to Leroy, probably.

Dennis the Menace, 2/20/25

Mr. Wilson, they’re going to try to cancel you for this, but you’re right. Dennis Mitchell is a five-year-old child and just in general should not be spending extended periods of time at other people’s homes outside a formal arrangement; today he’s banging on a pot like a drum in a very irritating manner and you shouldn’t have to put up with it. I support you in your quest for a common sense resolution of the Dennis issue!