Love and pee
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Archie, 4/8/26
You know, I had a riff all ready to go about how I hate it when a strip starts with character #1 parroting back something to character #2 that we’re supposed to understand character #2 just said immediately before the action started, and how Jughead in particular would never, ever use the word “proactive,” like he wouldn’t even know what it meant and if he did learn he would find it offensive to the point of blasphemy, but then I caught sight of the fact that Archie has “A.A. L. [for loves, I guess?] V.L.” on his notebook and Betty has “A.A. L. B.C.” and gurrrrrrrrrl, please, rethink some things and have some self-respect, I am begging you.
Pardon My Planet, 4/8/26
Jeez, lady, why don’t you settle down and maybe be more like your husband, who is just walking around with a featureless, blank paper coffee cup in his own home to match his featureless, numb facial expression. Unlike you, he doesn’t feel regret or wistfulness or anything at all. I guess based on the tight grip he has on a paper cup full of steaming liquid, he is feeling a great deal of pain, which at least lets him know he’s still alive, after a fashion.
Shoe, 4/8/26
I don’t know why, but it bothers me so much that Biz is wearing a winter cap. Is he supposed to have just put it on because, as a bird, he has to go outside to go to the bathroom? They’re already outside!
80 replies to “Love and pee”
There is no call waiting because cloacas do not allow to hold it. Finally they remembered they are birds!
Sorry “Pardon My Planet” but art about people under comfortable material conditions lamenting the emptiness of consumerism is a sign of the boom economy not [gestures at everything in the world] THIS!
Wary Morth:
I assume Sharon’s side business is hiring out her two sons to play as extras in remakes of Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph Of The Will”?
Aren’t travel mugs the ones with lids and insulation that you take, you know, traveling? Those are mugs that have destinations on them, simple souvenirs. Thus his featureless cup is all too appropriate, as clearly he has journeyed to the Void. The Nothing is freedom in the end, guy.
Jughead is right: if we break or invert chronological succession, causality goes to hell and any sense of personal responsibility loses meaning. Nietzsche and postmodernism will allow you to skip studying!
MW: So Sharon is Nurse Chapel from Star Trek.
FG: Jeez, you think Aegia could’ve had a cleaning lady come down here every now and then.
FC: You go to my room, and you’d better be naked when I get there.
Shoe: He’s going right there just out of sight. Right on the ground! (In the “thank God for small favors” dept., he leaves the rather large coffee mug behind).
Archie I really wish we could see the follow-up to this strip, where a grinning Jughead is yelling “Seven! Mitosis! The Louisianna Purchase!” in class while a dismayed Ms Grundy calls the schools psychological services.
PmP Maybe its just because I’m an introvert who doesn’t hist a lot of parties, but you have 25 mugs? In your kitchen? Are you eating all your meals out of them?
Shoe I like the Perfessor’s blank stare which makes it clear that they were not conversing at all prior to this announcement, and that Biz just really wanted to talk about pissing.
Archie panel 2 looks like it’s kicking off a 60s American Bandstand. “And now, here’s Betty with her Number 1 single: “Bland, Bland, Bland!”
MW: Unbeknownst to Sharon, her two sons make a lot of dough with their side hustle, working as subcontractors for the scammer network. Sharon’s new “connection” to Mary Worth has opened up a new opportunity and should prove…lucrative.
Archie:
A.A.L.B.C.? — American Association of Laboriously Boring Comics?
This is what happens when you sit on the other end of the counter, Perfesser. Shoe and people giving him crappy set-up lines don’t look so bad now, huh?
PMP: I like a good memorial mug as much as the next person, but it seems ridiculous to buy them on Amazon (which I also like as much as the next person) instead of buying them in the actual place that you visited. Can there be people who actually fake mug-brag?
MW: I cry foul. Mr Ascot looks to be about 100, and had just the one wife, right? My parents would be about 100, and I have college-age GRANDKIDS.
GT: Oh, goody, days of blow-by-blows about golf- THE MOST BORING SPORT.
Pardon My Planet:
“Is it a precondition to appearing in any given day’s one-panel offering here that one have hipster coiffure or hipster lack of coiffure?”
The blank expression is that of a man who’s fighting back the urge to mansplain wordplay to his wife. “No, dear. I see what you were going for, but those are not travel mugs. Travel mugs have lids and are insulated to keep your drink hot and not spilling on your lap while commuting. What you’re holding would more accurately be described as souvenir mugs.”
They missed a golden opportunity to put “J.J. + H.B.” on Jughead’s notebook.
Wrecks Moregone:
“Half a dozen customers for lunch. If I can get another half dozen for supper I won’t go to bed hungry tonight.”
PnP: Baldy knows he’s in a world out of place–the dying world of the newspaper comic. His coffee cup sleeve is gone. His apartment is vanishing. Soon all that will be left is his surprisingly detailed hairy arm clutching the print newspaper, the instrument of his martyrdom.
Shoe – You could just stick a cork up your ass.
PMP: Whoa, Los Angeles AND Las Vegas? No wonder she’s got wanderlust. Why, one day they may even dare to travel the rest of the I-15 to buy the travel mugs of that exotic Shangri-la, Salt Lake City.
I see Vegas, I see LA, I see a man in serious coffee-related pain!
The only Polycule article I would like to read is one about whether Archie-Veronica-Betty anticipated poly themes and can provide a legitimate model for healthy relationships. But no, we only get memoirs about situations where the readers get to cringe about how the wife is being manipulated by the husband. Where is the New York Time profile “Archie Andrews: simp or harem master”?!
MW: Actually, Mary, the main thing is that Sharon’s father got conned out of over $200,000, a fact you remain inexplicably committed to omitting.
But… those aren’t travel mugs. Those are just mugs. With place names on them. Which, judging by the baby blue (?) LAS VEGAS of it all, you probably got off Amazon for some reason. Do you think that “travel mugs” are… mugs that have traveled? Do you also have a neck pillow that says HONOLULU? A tiny Scrabble set emblazoned with WICHITA?
PMP: That isn’t a headline on the man’s newspaper. They’re tally marks, one for each morning he’s dissociated through his wife’s existential crises.
PMP people problems, amirite?
@Lauralot: We’ll probably hit that tomorrow.
‘Yeeeaahhh, about your sons’ going to college… have they applied for any full-ride scholarships? Have some heretofore unknown influential relative who can get them in on a nepotism degree?’
Archie and The Case of the Missing Ampersand
Pardon My Planet: I don’t know what Klaudette Nomi is complaining about. From the looks of it, she gets outside her Amazon cart plenty, to all the local garage sales.
PMP: “But other character, those aren’t travel mugs, they’re souvenir mugs.” “So what? Am I only allowed to talk about what I’m holding? The travel mugs are in the cabinet. Now may I continue, or do you have something else you would like to mansplain?”
Archie: If Jughead is now supposed to be a teenager living in 2026 then “proactive” is a completely normal word he hears from influencers on Tik Tok all the time.
Shoe: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a hat is just a hat, a coffee mug is just a…an…say, what the hell is those things, anyway?
@MKay: Can there be people who actually fake mug-brag?
You may be surprised at the different ways people express their loserdom and how many of these people exist.
Drat, I was gearing up to make a joke about the hearts on the notebooks before finishing Josh’s writeup on today’s Archie and realized I’d been beaten to it. My well of snark is running dry this week.
Archie: Like a ruin disassociated from its context, Jughead’s act makes more sense if you remember this first ran when Carson was still doing his Carnak bit.
“It just seems to sad to me that we have over 25 travel mugs but…”
The guy blinks in confusion. (Those are travel mugs?)
“Can’t seem to travel beyond my Amazon shopping cart”
The world is bending and blurring around him.
His wife then disappears as does the room, he comes to reality as a barista at a cafe in New Orleans back in the 40’s.
“We’ve got mugs for Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Las Cruces and Las Palmas, El Paso and El Salvador, and I think it’s finally time for you to forget about the Spanish exchange student you tried to date in high school.”
Blondie (writer) “Hmmm… I want to make a joke about an ‘impressive’ amount of debt as a tax situation, I can relate it to sending in all your debit/credit cards. But that’s actually not something the IRS would do, it’s something they actively warn against… I know! I’ll call the IRS employee Mr. Scammer, that ought to prevent any of my dementia-adjacent deadtree readers from taking this seriously as something they’d do. Welp, off to my golf game, gonna try out those Gil Thorp strained-perspective poses and see if that helps!”
PMP artist has a poor idea of what a ‘travel cup’ is (basically an adult sippy cup, for traveling with, get it?) These are souvenir mugs.
BB: The Walkers have a poor idea of what a nail salon looks like.
“Can we at least travel to cities that do not have an article in the name?”
“Why? Didn’t we have great fun in La Paz and The Hague? Come on, we still have to visit Istanbul!”
“I just want to see the Sistine Chapel!”
“I told you, if we find a way to get into The Vatican City without passing through Rome, we will go!”
Shoe is asking us to contemplate how and if bathrooms work in a treetop-based society, and frankly, I won’t stand for it!
The only way to purge this question from my mind is to give us a viable answer! Most birds can’t really control when and where they poop, so I assume the avian beings in this strip fly around for a while when they think “nature’s call” is upon them. Maybe they have an elaborate timekeeping system based on their most recent meal, or maybe it’s just a feeling deep inside them? Either is fine.
So yeah, I don’t like it, but that’s the storyline I need from you, ghost of Jeff MacNelly. Thanks!
PmP: Sad guy has had to use a disposable cup since he broke her “I heart Walla Walla” cup years ago.
Archie: I’d bet money Veronica is the one who wrote that on Archie’s notebook.
Archie: Come on, guys, get it right. It’s either A.A. + V.L. or A.A. ♥ V.L, but not A.A. L V.L.
Archie:
AA + Venereal Lesions
RMMD-“Then we muscle in on that Jordan and that diner of his.”
MW-Just tell the woman that her father is being scammed. No beating around the bush.
FC-Yeah, Thel. Send Billy to your room. He doesn’t want to play with your toys.
JP: That explains the disappearing bosoms. Manley is a leg man.
MW: “Gotta go, Mary. I’m getting the boys ready for college.”
Wary Morth:
In the meatime Trixie could be in mortal danger, alone and hunted by his ex-captors in a South East Asian country, where a white man would stick out like a sore thumb, with no money, no passport, no luggage or possessions, and no command of the language. What luck Moy and Brigman are sparing us the drama!
Those aren’t travel mugs. Those are mugs you get from traveling, which in the context of the panel makes a lot more sense, making me wonder if the artist has never seen travel mugs or if instead the entire thing is a desperate cry for help. I began to wonder that latter when I realized that there are LOTS of newspaper comics whose writers and artists seem entirely unfamiliar with, you know, the WORLD, and then I realized that Mary Worth’s current storyline is a dramatic attempt to let the world know that COMIC ARTISTS ARE BEING HELD IN A COMPOUND AGAINST THEIR WILL and forced to draw newspapers comics that are increasingly out of touch.
Sadly, because the primary recipients of this news are the over-70 crowd, they will continue to just deposit huge sums into the captors’ Paypal accounts.
@MKay: Not just golf, but isn’t this a radio broadcast of golf?
At some point Archie Andrews is going to be the first family-friendly comic character to bring up the concept of “thrupples” and I hope to have shifted off this mortal coil by then.
***
So Jughead’s plan is to disrupt class. At least he’ll fail high school, so he doesn’t have to law school and try to apply that flawless logic.
***
There is no shift in perspective in Shoe, at the most the focus has barely zoomed in the smidgiest of smidges. Where did that branch behind the Perfesser come from? Why are those leaves consuming that stool?? Is this tree actively consuming everything upon it?!?!? No, no, calm down, Tabby. That would be interesting and this is 2026 Shoe.
***
It honesty bothers me that the artist clearly wanted us to see both A.A. loves, so much so that they had Betty lift her notebook up in front of her for no discernible reason. I respect artists which is why it annoys me when comic artists do things like this or the change in foliage in Shoe. That one is even worse because I really like the art style in that comic so a branch just appearing out of the blue is more egregious than Betty lifting up her notebook to… clobber Archie?
DT: Mastermind “so youse three are well known to Dick Tracy, number one crime fighter, you three can tangle with him and his major crimes unit while me, my drones and lackeys do the heist, sounds perfect right?”
GT: Does anyone do radio play by play for high school golf?
JP: Ann – “go get Charlotte and … a spade or shovel, and if you have some quick lime that would be a big help…”
MW: Watching Mary is like watching a master angler set the hook! Notice how she dances around and after Sharon has taken the bait and engaged, she’ll hit her with the scammed $200,000. Enough to pay for tuition for both kids and most colleges. The meddling just writes itself after that. Aside: another strange MW cell phone hold.
@Bob Tice: The Pardon My Planet players are trapped in the 7th layer of Hell: one where it won’t stop being 1997. NOOOOOOOOO!
Crankshaft – If Loathsome Lillian really wants to tease us, she could look out the window and see a giant meteor heading for her book store. Or a falling air conditioner two seconds away from her head.
FC – No, Thel! He’ll find at least one of those bottles you have stashed in your room, and before you know it, he’ll be sloshed. How will you explain that to holier than thou Grandma if she drops in? Send Billy to his own room to play with those toys from the 1960s. He’ll be bored out of his mind.
Frazz – Frazz is imagining the fun he and Caulfield would have mocking that kid behind her back if she actually did either of those things.
Gasoline Alley – Give him a piece of cake to shut him up. How about Devil’s Food?
Mary Worth – If a perfect stranger called me out of the blue to tell me that I’ve been ignoring a relative and that I need to “reconnect” with him, I’d tell her to mind her own fucking business.
PMP: If she doesn’t travel anywhere, where and more importantly why did she buy those mugs? They aren’t souvenirs of places where she’s been, and she doesn’t look like the type to collect coffee mugs just for the sake of it. Does she have them to remind her of the places she would like to go, and can’t think of anywhere more exotic than Las Vegas?
GT: Sometimes the world seems dark, but remember, it could always be worse, you could be in Milford listening to coed high school golf on the radio.
@Ettorre: You guys don’t understand anything about Archie! Obviously it would be “Archie Andrews: simp and harem master”, duh! It’s the whole point of the comic!
PmP: Ham radio operators used to (still do?) ask other ham radio operators they contacted from different cities to send each other postcards so they could add the postmarks to their collections. They then show the cards to friends (who didn’t ask) that come over to hang out.
Just saying, my advice to this guy is don’t ask any follow up questions.
Crankshaft: Lillian should be indignant, as she is not a tease. She’s just a girl who cain’t say no.
Lockhorns: As they live in the NY Jets’ catchment area, Leroy and Loretta are allowed to root for a faraway team to get their winning from somewhere.
Blondie: Paying an accountant to fall for a obviiously fake IRS agent, when Dagwood could just respond to one if the dozens of spam calls and phishing emails, is how the Bumsteads never get anywhere.
Dustin is the right man for the job. “The job” being “tutoring first grade arithmetic”.
BG&SS: I’m not expecting George Carlin here. But at least listen to a bit of Will Rogers.
Also warn a guy next time, Josh! With that entry title, I feared that Marvin had produced it’s own line of romance spin-offs.
PmP: The husband is depressed because they’re still not discussing the real problem, which is that she has 25 souvenir mugs but won’t let him use any of them. She polishes them all day, over and over, calling them by name while he drinks his coffee from styrofoam. Also she can’t leave the house anymore. The mugs get lonely.
C’shaft: Pretty self-righteous for a woman who was in love with her sister’s boyfriend and decided to tank her prospects with him out of spite.
DT: Dude, this is Neo-Chicago. Every two-bit thug has beef with Dick Tracy; you didn’t need to buy up a bunch of Russian army drones to bust these three specific guys out of prison to find someone wanting to exact revenge on him.
Dustin: Dustin supposedly has an English degree, something which never comes up in his personality, interests, or behavior unless the writers want to make fun of people with English degrees–in this case, by laughing at their terrible math skills.
And honestly, Bitter Temp Agency Lady, how much math does he need to fill whatever entry-level position you’ve got open? Odds are if he can work the ten-key pad he’s golden.
FG: Look, Aegia, you may be some powerful impartial avatar of justice, but if you wanted to preserve the historic record Ming was so desperate to expunge you can’t just leave the books lying around at random in a moldering repository. Don’t you have any archivists on Mongo?
GT: My swing has better form than that, and I’m lucky if I can reach the blue target at Top Golf.
Luann: It’s really hard to be even more loathsome than Bernice, but Alan is certainly putting in an effort.
MW: Sharon needs to act fast; she’ll need everything she can get out of her dad’s estate to remodel that non-Euclidean nightmare of a kitchen.
@2+2=7: BROKE: Manosphere’s toxic tricks to get bitches
WOKE: Archie’s mild-mannered guide to be love women and be loved back by them
Archie – Don’t worry about the tiny initials scrawled on their respective notebooks, today with his sweatshirt Jughead is declaring his love for Sophistry!
GT: is that supposed to be Marty Moon and is he supposed to be doing a live broadcast for his radio station or podcast?
He’s using a 2000-era digital recorder and headphones that aren’t connected to anything.
One of my favorite photos I have at home shows a KSTP radio announcer doing a live broadcast from a golf course sometime around 1930.
The remote equipment and antenna are in a baby buggy.
@Hal:
And here I thought it stood for “Solipsism.”
Archie – Better punchline: “Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain!”
Shoe – Call waiting only comes into play if you’re already taking a call. So, ewww.
Archie: All the notebooks at Riverdale High have either “A.A. L V.L.” or “A.A. L B.C.” printed on the side. They were ordered that way from the manufacturer! The school board knows that people ‘shipping one teen couple or the other is what keeps their district in business, and there’s no way they’re losing out on those branding rights.
Pardon My Planet: What’s really sad is that those mugs are all gifts from people who actually have traveled to those places — but never thought to buy her something until they were back at the airport.
Shoe: He’s wearing a cap because he’s old and probably sick, and can’t stay warm. And the way real birds deal with the cold is by shivering, fluffing their feathers, and cuddling together — and I think we can all agree that no one wants to see these dudes do any of that.
Pluggers: I think the joke here should have been that his eyebrows are getting thicker as the hair on his head gets thinner. (And please don’t talk to us about a dog-man’s mustache.)
MW- “It’s okay, Sharon, the main thing is, if your old man drops another 200 thou or so on his imaginary lover, the kids might have to blow off college to work full- time in your side business. That’s a lot or grass mowing.”
Many years ago, when I was in grad school, I asked the guys in my office “Betty or Veronica?” The consensus was Betty. She was just as pretty as Veronica, she was blonde, and because she was so desperate she would probably put out. That analysis is clearly borne out here. Archie, you’re an idiot.
I also asked “Ginger or Mary Ann?” (Some of you may be too young for this question.) The consensus there was Mary Ann. Ginger was a bitch, while Mary Ann was played by a beauty contest winner.
@Momster:
(Some of you may be too young for this question.)
This statement prefaces 80% of what I say. Although, I did use an Adventures in Babysitting .gif at work this morning, and one of the young pups got the reference!
Don Abundio, translated:
“The boss is using these to keep his new pet warm. Do you think it’s working?”
“I’ll go ask him”
“How’s she doing, sir?”
“The last thing you want is a giraffe with a sore throat!”
@Momster: If Ginger was a b*, it’s because she was played by an up-and-coming Broadway and movie actress who had studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, but found herself stuck doing a Marilyn Monroe impersonation in a dumb sitcom. Still hot, though.
@Momster: #71 Morticia or Lily?
Archie – I don’t suppose I can fault the Archie Laff Generator for the artist’s decision not to feature Betty’s boobs….
PMP – Just keep moving along – no humor here….
Shoe – Besides, there’s no better target than when a politician’s toupee appears….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Momster:
More interestingly, Mary Anne aged spectacularly well. She was still a knockout in some Gilligan’s retrospective I was bored half-watching in like 2000 or so. Ginger aged…poorly.
PARDON MY PLANET: I suspect the “punchline” here is a woman passive-aggressively nagging her man to taker her somewhere because
women, am I right?newspaper comics are, as always, the frontiers of oh-so progressive gender relations.@2+2=7: Having to exist in any comic strip that tries to be The Far Side but clearly isn’t, is a powerful enough interpretation of hell for my theology.
@Anonymous:
Carolyn Jones Morticia or Anjelica Huston Morticia? This is KEY.