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Zits, 8/25/26

As I recently noted, Zits is only running new strips on Sundays now, with the dailies being reruns from its deep library, and I assume that this one came from those heady days in the early ’10s when you could get away with simply saying “bacon” and expecting people to accept it as a punchline, or indeed as a self-contained joke. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see some truly disturbing aspects of this trend that we might have missed during the pro-bacon frenzy of the times; in this case, we can see that Jeremy, no doubt driven by the bacon-mania running rampant in his peer group, has simply grabbed bacon right out of a still-smoldering pan sitting on a red-hot stovetop burner, which means that surely the bacon fat is burning him severely, and the smell of the cooked bacon and the lad’s own sizzling flesh must be mingling horribly in the kitchen air.

Mary Worth, 8/25/26

If you think panel two of Jeff lounging casually against the side of a sports car with his sleeves rolled up looks familiar, that’s because it’s identical to one that ran during a different phone call with Mary back in February. I think we can assume, then, that this is a reliable fantasy sequence that Mary keeps stashed away in her mind palace for her to enjoy instead of trying to accurately visualize whatever presumably less sexy stuff Jeff is doing in real life right now. In that context, the fantasy car’s hood, popped open and clearly too large to fit properly into a closed position, takes on an obvious significance.

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Mary Worth, 8/24/26

So, just to bring you up to speed on Mary Worth, last week there was no follow-up to Dawn’s single tear of romantic longing, and instead we got the sort of Mary congratulatory victory lap (Wilbur admitting to her at length that he was wrong to think ill of Dawn and Tommy hanging out and thanking her for setting him straight) that we’ve come to associate with the end of a storyline. So, it’s not clear to me if this BUZZ BUZZ! is Dawn-heartbreak-related, or if we’re starting a new plot, one where the United States has devolved into chaos and Charterstone residents now rely on the supplemental food supply that Mary was wise enough to establish. Sure, everyone seems pretty calm given that background, but you have to understand that Mary decides how many weekly calories your conduct has entitled you to, so nobody wants to get too out of pocket no matter how much panic they’re feeling inside.

The Phantom, 8/24/26

The Phantom was introduced to the world two years before Superman and three years before Batman, and I appreciate the way that he has stubbornly stayed a sort of proto-superhero rather than evolving with the rest of the cape genre (he’s never worn a cape, for one thing). So, for instance, he’s kind of like Batman in that he’s an ordinary human whose “powers” are the result of relentless training, but unlike Batman or just about any other superhero, one of his powers is that he’s really good at shooting guns. And he’ll do it, too! New problem on the horizon, like AI-controlled drones? Why not solve that problem by shooting at it, with guns? Let’s give it a go! Probably can’t hurt!

Herb and Jamaal, 8/24/26

You gotta admit, Sarah is taking a high-risk, high-reward strategy in this conversation. Sure, Jamaal was probably going to reply to her statement in panel two with a question that would allow her to bust out this sick burn, but wasn’t guaranteed by any means. What if Jamaal had been like, “Oh, he keeps saying he’s going to start working out, good for him!” and then, what, she’s going to say, “Uh, yeah, well, uh, guess what kind of exercises he’s doing. Just guess.” “Huh, I dunno, I told him he might want to start with some resistance tr–” “DIDDLY SQUATS”

Pluggers, 8/24/26

A public library is a plugger data center, in the sense that it’s something a plugger will go to a city council meeting to oppose because he thinks it’ll make his taxes go up.

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Hagar the Horrible, 8/23/26

I honestly don’t know if we’re supposed to understand “Lucky Eddie is an animal lover” and “Lucky Eddie’s girlfriend is a half-human, half-fish” and “Lucky Eddie is getting off on doing undercover furry stuff with hot human ladies” in combination as showing that he’s slowly and methodically trying to figure some extremely specific kink out or if he’s got a set of polymorphous perversities across this whole general conceptual space. As long as everyone involved is having a good time, that’s all I care about!

Dustin, 8/23/26

God, Dustin’s eager facial expression in the third panel here is heartbreaking. “Were you embarrassed? In front of all your friends? Was this a situation where you were humiliated, instead of me? Tell me more. Tell me everything.” This is why Dustin’s dad never takes his son to work.