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Blondie, 12/9/25

I’m pretty impressed that Alexander and Cookie have figured out how to mirror both their phones to the TV simultaneously, and even more impressed that they’ve managed to seize control of the wheeled TV stand, turn it 90 degrees from its usual position facing Dagwood, and roll it towards the viewer, yet somehow still have it visible to Blondie. I’m not impressed that Cookie thinks a circa 1985 camcorder is going to help her with her vlogging career.

Mary Worth, 12/9/25

Ah, yes, Ian has awoken to discover that the eternal struggle between man and bird has escalated yet further during his slumber! Is Toby to blame for this latest attack, since she bought Sunny an ample cage in which one might expect him to be confined at night, but then didn’t close the door? Well, maybe, but surely any animal clever enough to identify the particular bit of hoarded detritus to which Ian is most fiercely emotionally attached couldn’t be held back by some feeble latch.

Dennis the Menace, 12/9/25

Gotta say I’m intrigued by how philosophical Mr. Wilson looks here. Another birthday to celebrate, and the only people who showed up are his wife, who lives there anyway, and his most hated enemy, who is also a five-year-old child … truly, life is a funny old thing, and you never know exactly where you’re going to end up.

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Hi and Lois, 12/8/25

Let’s forget for a moment the incomprehensible/not funny punchline of this one and try to understand the lead-up to it. Why is Chip telling his father, who is watching exactly the same movie that he is, that there’s a parental warning on it? Shouldn’t Hi be just as capable of reading it as Chip is? Is it written in some format that only teens can read, like, uh, Minecraft font? Is there a Minecraft font? Is Minecraft still a thing that teens like, in the year 2025?

Zits, 12/8/25

Honestly, while I’m fine with the Zits parents (who were my boomer parents’ age when the strip debuted in the ’90s) staying the same age but becoming Gen Xers, I’m a little unsettled by Jeremy (who was just a few years younger than me when the strip debuted in the ’90s) staying the same age but being into things that contemporary teens are into, like Minecraft. I mean, Minecraft is still a thing that teens like, in the year 2025, right? “Watching” Minecraft? Surely the syndicated newspaper comic strip Zits wouldn’t steer me wrong about teens!

Gil Thorp, 12/8/25

In 1966, Gay Talese transformed the art of magazine writing with “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold,” a profile that turned Sinatra’s refusal to give an interview into a central part of its structure. Will Gil Thorp do the same for the newspaper comics with “Gil Thorp Has A Serious Respiratory Illness Of Some Kind”? I mean, maybe? Or maybe Gil will just sweat a lot, who knows.

B.C., 12/8/25

The characters in B.C. live with a strange mix of stone age technology and modern conveniences and attitudes. This is not a criticism! I get that this is, in fact, the central joke of the strip! However, today’s installment does make me wonder if one of the modern things they have access to is the rabies vaccine. I worry!

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Dennis the Menace, 12/7/25

I feel like Henry’s “He’s gone too far this time!” line actually explains a lot about this strip. Like there’s some kind of beef going on between him and Mr. Wilson that dates back years, before Dennis was even born. “That’s right,” Henry thinks, every time Dennis heads over to the neighbors. “You menace that asshole, kid. You menace him good.”

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/7/25

I think one of the reasons that jokes about fire hydrants in comic strips with sapient dogs bug me so much is that much of the schtick of a talking-dog strip is playing around with the question of “what are the human equivalents to these objects or experiences in a dog’s everyday life?” but for whatever reason the ones that deal with fire hydrants always seem to rapidly lose their grip on whatever metaphor they’re trying to establish. But kudos to Mother Goose and Grimm for going beyond the hydrant into other realms of doggie existence, where the metaphors also don’t work. Take alcohol, for instance. Is toilet water like alcohol, for a dog? Well, no, not really. How about the kind of vaccines a dog would typically get at the vet? Are those like alcohol? No, that’s not right either, but keep at it, you’ll get there one of these days.