Metapost: COTW real quick
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It’s COTW time! Here’s that top comment!
I cannot begin to express how high my anxiety level would be if I received a call or voicemail or even a text that began with the words ‘Hello, [INSERT NAME HERE], this is Mary Worth…’ Sweating bullets about why my name is not in bold but ‘hello’ and her name are.” –Drew, on Bluesky
And here are those hilarious runners up!
“Me seeing a maladjusted character spying on Gil Thorp from a distance and judging him and building elaborate scenarios about him to distract himself from the problems of his life: ‘So relatable!’” –Ettore Costa, on Bluesky
“I’ve always loved that social interaction where someone is trying to stir up curiosity — in this case the cryptic mention of ‘my side business’ — hoping to draw the other party in. In this case, Sharon realizes immediately just how little Mary Worth meant by ‘How are you?’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women
“‘It’s about your father’ is usually a lead-in to him being dead, which will be such a letdown to Sharon when it instead turns out he’s squandering her inheritance. Maybe Sharon can persuade Mary to kill him.” –Scratchy Scrotum LXIX
“Weirdly enough, I really understand Bernice’s anxiety here: an out-of-the-blue text with just ‘you available?’ is either a request to witness a passport application or an invitation to an orgy, nothing in between.” –pugfuggly
“Mary’s polyester pull-on comfort slacks will not long withstand Muffin flexing those pointy claws. Let the pilling ensue!” –Charterstoned
“Is … is getting beaten down by comic strip amazons a remarkably niche fetish? Because if so, Bogdan, God bless his concussed little soul, is in hog heaven right now.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV
“He had a girlfriend, now he doesn’t, and he’s upset about it. He had 200 large, now he doesn’t, and YOU should be upset about it.” –Anonymous
“I am going to be disturbed all day by the second panel’s revelation that Thirsty’s nose is a spherical lump that’s barely attached to his face. I don’t know if he has a ‘good side,’ but this view sure ain’t it.” –nescio
“Gil Thorp is engaged in reckless foreshadowing next to a bus that’s been subjected to reckless foreshortening.” –Shoe Substitutes
“After a long talk with a lawyer who was up for a challenge, Thirsty Thurston became TSquare Industries. It enjoyed corporate existence for about a year before hostile takeover by Conagra Brands, who quickly broke the corporation apart in various sales. The brains were kept by Conagra for use in scarecrows, the heart went to Rio Tinto Mining, and the ineffable courage to Amazon Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. The liver was bought at a steep discount by Brown-Forman to be used as a filter at the Jack Daniel’s distillery.” –Voshkod
“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.” –A Grave Mind
“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.” –Schroduck
“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.” –Lauralot
“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!” –Victor Von
“Come to think of it, I do make use of A.I. with some frequency, but in my case, it stands for ‘Avian Idiosyncrasy!’” –Bob Tice
“[sigh] Of course the laptops in the Crankiverse are Pineapples. God damn it, they’re all got PinePods and PinePhones, don’t they? Either that or this is a brand of, I dunno, ‘Individual Computer’ where the best-known commercial is a guy with frosted tips exclaiming, ‘Dude, you’re getting a Dole!’ (I hate that joke too, everybody.)” –els
“The young woman looks up from her tablet, then back down, then smiles. Target confirmed. Jughead feels bad about luring Archie here, and worse about using such inane patter to stall for time, but he really needs the money, and Archie only needs one kidney anyway.” –Abram Beazer
“I find today’s strip pretty funny, although not for the intended reason (and to be quite honest I’m not completely sure there is an intended reason it’s funny). Hi’s just so sad about the death of elevator music. ‘It used to be they would pump in least-common-denominator trash whether you wanted it or not, and you had to listen to it for the duration of the ride! Now we all carry amazing futuristic devices that let us hear exactly the kind of music we want to hear instead! It fucking sucks!’” –Vulpes
“Even the cat is anxious to see the expression on her face when she learns her sole inheritance will be an antique ascot collection.” –Dennis Jimenez
“At last, Mary’s plan is revealed. Here we thought it was about the immorality of online dating, or penetrating Harv’s delusions about his fake girlfriend, or getting back the money since it’s just unfair some people could give away $200,000 and get nothing for it. But no, it was the daughter all along. An adult woman having a busy life in another city doesn’t have all the time in the world for her widowed father? That won’t do. Doesn’t she realize he’s lonely? Time for them to reconnect.” –Amelie Wikström
“Hi and Lois, the comic strip about bipolar disorder, is definitely in a ‘depression’ phase lately, huh.” –a.
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20 replies to “Metapost: COTW real quick”
Congrats to all. Here are some Scrotes:
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
Hibbleton
April 4th, 2026 at 4:41 am Reply
DtM: Henry himself called Alice from work to tell her not to get pizza since he’d be wearing his ‘Stayin’ Alive’ suit jacket home whilst forgetting what kind of ungodly concoction she’d come up with. It’s the innocent child who’s the real victim here.
Navigator
April 4th, 2026 at 7:59 am Reply
And Henry went to all the trouble of picking up a menu from Blank White Square Pizza Kitchen. He was getting really excited for one of their famous Indeterminate Black Splotch Combos, too.
Little Blue Bicycle
April 4th, 2026 at 8:18 am Reply
DtM: Your dad is dressed as a doctor and is holding a book written in what appears to be Klingon. Dinner is the least of your worries, Dennis.
Tonio
April 4th, 2026 at 8:09 am Reply
That look on Alice’s face when she sees Henry’s white jacket? They’re planning an adult version of playing doctor.
GarrisonSkunk
April 4th, 2026 at 8:22 am Reply
Its Saturday Night Family Fantasy Island Cosplay Night at the Mitchell’s. “Da menace,Boss,Da menace!”
ectojazzmage
April 4th, 2026 at 8:33 am Reply
Dennis The Menace: Poor Alice, spending day and night laboring over a hot stove to make her signature “literal human shit in a pan” dish just to get nothing but flack about it from her ungrateful family.
Rita Lake
April 4th, 2026 at 5:26 am Reply
MW: I see Mary is going the obvious route of calling in Mr. Hart’s daughter to help, but I suspect somehow Mr. Hart’s escape from the evils of online dating is going to dovetail with John Long’s escape from captivity, thanks to the fortuitous intervention of a psychic child and/or a heroic dog (or cat or parrot), who will lead the authorities to uncover the pig-butchering scam site in SantaRoyMart.
CanuckDownSouth
April 4th, 2026 at 5:36 am Reply
MW (after an email is spam-filtered and the internet-searched phone number is found…) “Hello? Who… my dad – is he in hospital?? Oh, neighbour, but… wait… Uh huh. Yeah. Well. Oh no, I’m not seeing him again until he promises not to badger me about what ‘girls my age’ want ‘in the apps’ and asks for dating profile tips and if his profile photo would attract my friends. And you can tell him losing big bucks to a scam serves him right for acting like a dirty old man! *click*”
Charterstoned
April 4th, 2026 at 7:43 am Reply
MW: Mary contacting Harv’s estranged daughter in Goleta is a pretty arrogant move, even for her. Not sure who will be most grateful: Lonely Harv, for having someone care enough about his situation to go behind his back; Sharon, for learning even more unpleasant things about her dad to add to all the reasons why she became estranged from him in the first place (as if the ascots weren’t enough); or Jeff, when Mary is able to embellish her usually boring recaps over dinner at the Bum Boat with more titillating personal details about people Jeff has never met, than he is used to getting after Mary has “resolved” issues with the usual suspects among her friends and tenants.
GarrisonSkunk
April 4th, 2026 at 8:42 am Reply
The Familliar Mucus: “Ok everyone into the Panic Room and pretend we’re not here,maybe she’ll go away!”
Baja Gaijin
April 4th, 2026 at 5:42 am Reply
Family Circus: Oh. Thank. God. Holier than Though Gramma’s paper grocery bag doesn’t have stalks of celery protruding. I don’t want to see those granny-pannies. Also, how did she get a Holden Commodore in the US?
I speak Jive
April 4th, 2026 at 8:52 am Reply
FC – Holier than thou Grandma isn’t kissing them. She’s tasting them.
Thel hopes that she took that new bottle out of the closet where Grandma will hang her coat. It’s bad enough that she’ll get comments about her “harlot clothes.” She doesn’t need a sanctimonious lecture about drinking.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
Schroduck
April 4th, 2026 at 5:09 am Reply
JP: RIP Santa Claus, 270 – 2026.
Bob Tice
April 4th, 2026 at 6:20 am Reply
JP:
“Run! Get out of this strip as fast as you can!”
James
April 4th, 2026 at 5:57 am Reply
JP- before I realized which strip this was, I thought it was Mary Worth, and someone was punching Ian in the throat.
Ukulele Ike
April 4th, 2026 at 9:47 am Reply
JP: Neddy demonstrates the powerful punching muscles developed during her years in Paris, on a regular diet of white bread, Camembert, and red wine.
TheDiva
April 4th, 2026 at 7:47 am Reply
GT: Somehow everyone in Gil Thorp, regardless of their actual ethnicity, manages to look like an offensive racial caricature.
however
April 4th, 2026 at 8:48 am Reply
Gil Thorp, where everybody looks like a Dick Tracy villain but nobody gets the corresponding cool name.
pugfuggly
April 5th, 2026 at 4:36 am Reply
MW: I’d like to think that there was a health pause between panels three and four as Mary waits to see if her reputation precedes her. I’d better give a bit more context, she thinks to herself, poor thing is probably intimidated by my presence, even over the phone…
The Rambling Otter
April 5th, 2026 at 4:39 am Reply
Mary: What’s your side-business?
Sharon: I keep people held captive, forcing them to scam witless losers and I pocket all of the money for myself. So, how’s Dad?
BigTed
April 5th, 2026 at 4:43 am Reply
Mary Worth: “What’s this about?” “Well, it’s about the fact that the seemingly normal cat on my sofa has suddenly turned into what looks like a huge, vicious tiger. Because this plot line involving your father is going nowhere, so we thought we’d try doing Calvin and Hobbes for a while. Everybody loved those guys!”
TomD
April 5th, 2026 at 5:18 am Reply
Mary Worth veering into a “feed scammers to tigers” subplot is something I’m here for!
But What Do I Know?
April 5th, 2026 at 5:21 am Reply
MW — This conversation is so boring that by the penultimate panel even Mary’s giant cat/miniature tiger is openly yawning. . .
Arabella
April 5th, 2026 at 5:50 am Reply
MW; Everyone’s focusing on the suddenly- huge Cat, but I’m more concerned that Lampy has moved from Mary’s left side and is now behind her. He may have also transformed into a person standing there. This does not bode well.
Charterstoned
April 5th, 2026 at 7:10 am Reply
MW: Mary has forgotten that she initiated a FaceTime video call, and is now giving Sharon a close-up view of her hairy right temple.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV
April 5th, 2026 at 6:30 am Reply
Pluggers: [Marlin Perkins voice] The once-majestic Plugger, having been expelled from his natural forest habitat after a confrontation with the Charmin Bear, wanders into the Racine veldt. Yet even here, his search for easily available sources of protein comes up empty. It’s sad, really, to watch him slide into starvation. Jim reaches for the 8-guage Euthanasia gun…
Hibbleton
April 5th, 2026 at 4:47 am Reply
Plugger Easter has evolved from searching for eggs to searching for ticks. Seriously, they should stay out of the tall grasses.
matt w
April 5th, 2026 at 5:40 am Reply
Hiding Easter eggs in the middle of a long-grassed meadow, where they can be found only by a tedious grid search is not so much a good job as an asshole job. And that’s the true spirit of Pluggerdom!
MKay
April 5th, 2026 at 5:19 am Reply
PLUGGERS: A true Plugger hauls it out on Easter Monday, buys a ton of candy on sale and plays Russian Roulette with their blood sugar.
Pozzo
April 5th, 2026 at 5:26 am Reply
Pluggers: Hey, Andy — you realize those eggs are probably your neighbor’s kids, right?
I speak Jive
April 5th, 2026 at 8:12 am Reply
Pluggers – I got up too late. What everyone else said about hiding the eggs in tall grass. I can’t decide if it was stupidity, dementia, or a dick move on the plugger’s part.
MKay
April 6th, 2026 at 4:59 am Reply
MW: There wasn’t a better way to get to the point? “He’s being conned?” He’s sending money to a scammer?” “Have you ever seen the TV show ‘Catfish?’”
pugfuggly
April 6th, 2026 at 4:47 am Reply
MW: Kinda beside the point, but doesn’t Mary have a third floor condo? Did she have to downgrade to a terrace-level or is this the extra apartment she keeps just to make sensitive phone calls?
JP: God, I hope we get a whole week of Bogdan just getting smacked with random objects by off-panel assailants: a sack of oranges, a rubber chicken, a Reader’s Digest book of the complete works of Charles Dickens. Hell, make it a month!
I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV
April 6th, 2026 at 5:25 am Reply
Judge Parker: Is…is getting beaten down by comic strip amazons a remarkably niche fetish? Because if so, Bogdan, God bless his concussed little soul, is in hog heaven right now.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
I speak Jive
April 7th, 2026 at 8:05 am Reply
Crankshaft – The twins are going to turn Loathsome Lillian into an influencer. She’ll influence her followers to ruin someone’s life.
Mary Worth – Mary will spend more time on “I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen” than on the $200,000 when she finally gets around to that part.
MKay
April 7th, 2026 at 6:18 am Reply
MW: What’s with the ambiguity? Is Mary afraid that there actually MIGHT be a Trixie, who could sue her for slander?
UncleJeff
April 7th, 2026 at 9:19 am Reply
MW: from an Associated Press article about the Thai army seizing a scam operation on the Cambodia border:
“There’s 157 buildings, 29 of which were buildings that housed the scam companies and their offices. The rest included massive dorm complexes, and more luxurious accommodations that included apartments and three-story villas. The military officials said that they estimated at least 10,000 people were living there.”
The article says an estimated 300,000 people involved in scam operations in East Asia.
MARY WORTH: STORIES RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES!
H&L: Learning the sovereign citizen handbook seems beyond Thirsty’s attention span. He could just declare himself a church.
Tabby Lavalamp
April 7th, 2026 at 5:52 am Reply
Hi isn’t an accountant, but that look on his face is one of someone who doesn’t want to tell Thirsty he doesn’t make nearly enough money to not pay taxes, even if he was a corporation.
Philip
April 7th, 2026 at 10:35 am Reply
Hi and Lois – Thirsty succeeds in becoming a corporation, only to find out private equity has bought his now-corporate debt and own him as an asset that is more profitable to liquidate than keep going.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
I speak Jive
April 7th, 2026 at 8:05 am Reply
FC – Learn to draw seatbelts and flat screen TVs if you hope to take over the comic strip.
Hibbleton
April 7th, 2026 at 5:59 am Reply
FC: Dolly wants to get it right when she gives Jeffy the finger at dinner time.
JP: Police standing over a body they just pulled out of a dumpster.
“Looks like the fraternity paddle killer has struck again.”
Ettorre
April 7th, 2026 at 7:40 am Reply
You might think that the big advantage of fraternities was to allow the old elite to dominate the distribution of economic, political, social and cultural power by coopting on their terms young promising people, disarming the power of meritocracy — which would be more revolutionary than most revolutions if carried out to the logical consequence — except as a ideological façade to hide the continuous domination of existing powerholders. But I guess “getting a cool paddle” is also a nice plus
Voshkod
April 7th, 2026 at 6:49 am Reply
“What do you know? Randy’s old fraternity paddle was good for something apart from playing ‘naughty judge’ on Friday nights.”
Ukulele Ike
April 7th, 2026 at 9:05 am Reply
JP: “And just who are YOU, wandering around with my orphaned niece? Part of the Russian kidnapping ring? Since I have the fraternity paddle handy, let’s see you drop trou and bend over the fence, missy.”
Liam
April 7th, 2026 at 9:06 am Reply
JP-Let’s hope you do a better job of cleaning the blood off it than Randy did of cleaning it of other fluids.
TheDiva
April 7th, 2026 at 6:29 am Reply
JP: I’d like to know how Randy’s fraternity paddle was the best impromptu weapon Ann could lay her hands on. I’m guessing that most of the other blunt objects have been carefully hidden away due to Alan’s “issues.”
Luann: We’ve all heard about Self-Proclaimed Nice Guys; it looks like Bernice may be the world’s first Self-Proclaimed Nice Girl.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
Ukranazi Stepan
April 8th, 2026 at 6:04 am Reply
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!
I speak Jive
April 8th, 2026 at 6:25 am Reply
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.
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.
Scratchy’s Scrotums of the Week
Baja Gaijin
April 10th, 2026 at 5:04 am Reply
Family Circus: Peanuts had the kite eating tree. Family Circus has the Whomping Willow. For some reason, that warms my heart.
TheDiva
April 10th, 2026 at 5:41 am Reply
MW: Mary will spill Widower Hart’s dirty laundry to Toby or Dr. Jeff, but when it comes to informing his (only?) child who has a much larger stake in her father’s well-being, she can’t bring herself to broach the subject. “Just…come visit him for a few days, would you? No particular reason…”
Vice President John Adams
April 10th, 2026 at 5:14 am Reply
I feel like Sharon was about to bolt into action, but then Mary uttered the fateful words, “And both of you could reconnect,” and Sharon had to recalculate on the fly. “Um… plane tickets usually get cheaper on Tuesdays…”
Dennis Jimenez
April 10th, 2026 at 4:55 am Reply
MW – Even the cat is anxious to see the expression on her face when she learns her sole inheritance will be an antique ascot collection….
Marvin – I’ll bet he took a dump in th box. There’s always something there to remind you….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Special Scrotal Awards to the Best No. 69 and Beyond of the Week
69. Gil Bates
April 4th, 2026 at 7:23 am Reply
JP: There’s a missing middle panel where Neddy leaps high in the air yelling “FALCON PUNCH!”
69. Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads
April 5th, 2026 at 7:51 am Reply
Pluggers: Tall grass is a swell place to hide things from kids. Good job indeed. Andy Bear must be a lot of fun at parties too.
69. A Worthy Foe
April 7th, 2026 at 6:50 am Reply
MW: Oh, how the world has changed. In the not too distant past, back to back strips showing Mary stroking her pussy would have caused a national outcry. Mary Worth would have found herself banned from most newspapers.
Special Scrotal Awards to the Best No. 69 and Beyond of the Week
69. BigTed
April 8th, 2026 at 7:22 am Reply
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.)
Special Scrotal Awards to the Best No. 69 and Beyond of the Week
69. Ettorre
April 9th, 2026 at 7:37 am Reply
Fun Fact: the picture of ghosts as bedsheets originally came from burial shrouds. They are supposed to be corpses rising for from the grave. Fun fact: that’s also what the iconography of the KuKuxKlan is supposed to represent (dead confederate soldiers rising to get revenge). However, this ghost does not seem disturbed by death or racial equality, he’s just horny, proving that in the end everything is about gender
The usual hearty congrats to all, and thank you, Josh and Scratchy!
Congrats all!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Thanks for the mentions,Scatchy!
Thanks, Scratchy!
Hey, Drew, congrats on a COTW to savor! I had to think about how that WOULD sound, and my palms got damp.
Also, congrats to the Floaters and Scroters, and WOOT WOOT I got to ride AND scratch this week! Thanks for the mentions, Josh and Scratchy!
Thanks, Scratchy.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Thanks you thank you thank you!
Thanks, Josh! A mighty fist bump to Drew, our new heavyweight champ (brilliant!) Kudos to the Floaters, and all the named. The Gravemind sees els (dear Lord, I laughed at this), Schroduck (quit being funnier than me, maaaan), and Scratchy Scrotum, the man himself. Killer stuff guys.
I pass the trophy to Drew. …uh, can someone ship this over to Bluesky?
Thanks! Scratchy!