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Comment of the Week

I know somebody probably just woke her up but I'd be more interested in her as a character if Neddy waited until she was nice and cozy in bed because it soothes her to get Randy all agitated and that makes for a pleasant, restful sleep.

—Tabby Lavalamp
170

Thursday updates

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Mary Worth, 8/21/25

Mary Worth Update: Olive rushed into the surf and saved her drowning classmate, is one way to describe what happened, although another and possibly more accurate way is to say that Olive forced the beach lifeguard to rescue not one but two children from the undertow. Anyway, this has gotten most of her erstwhile bullies to change their thinking on the whole Olive situation. But not Naomi! Naomi will never stop living her truth, which is that Olive is a big weirdo. And good for her. Probably Olive will finally lose her patience and use her psychic powers to violently explode Naomi’s skull, but I appreciate someone who stands by their convictions instead of changing their mind just because of a little bit of selfless life-saving.

Rex Morgan, 8/21/25

Rex Morgan Update: Cody tracked down his bio-half-sis, who informed him that her brother does not want to meet their father’s bastard spawn. But that hasn’t stopped Cody! There hasn’t been a lot of medical business in this strip lately, but I do wonder if Rex’s clinic is equipped to handle whatever kind of injury a guy could deal out with a leaf blower, if he’s surprised enough.

Six Chix, 8/21/25

Six Chix Update: Wouldn’t it be funny if eating way too much meat made you spasm uncontrollably? Ha ha! I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, though. The main thing it does is give you heart disease, eventually, though it might fuck your colon up real bad first.

152

Casual cruelty

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Blondie, 8/20/25

Blondie generally has its finger on the pulse of what old people are doing on the computer, which is why I’m a little disappointed to see that they’re fobbing off AI psychosis onto the kids today. Are the kids today forming unhealthy relationships with ChatGPT and its ilk? Sure, but it turns out that old people are also getting into the “convincing myself the robot is a pretty lady and she wants to have sex with me” game, with tragic results. Anyway, Cookie’s statement that not only do she and her friends talk to chatbots but that “it also talks back to them” is aggressively uncanny, it makes me feel like someone is trying too hard to convince us about their ignorance of this subject. “Ha ha, the chatbot talks back to you? What will they think of next? Will it be a sexy anime girl AI? Uh, I mean, that’s what I heard, from other kids.”

Dennis the Menace, 8/20/25

Gotta love how depressed both Henry and his guest look here. “Huh,” Mr. Holt is thinking in panel one, “I thought Henry liked me. I thought inviting me over here was the start of us becoming real friends, but he’s shit-talking me to his kid so I guess not.” Meanwhile, Henry in panel two is wracked by self-loathing. “Why did I say that? I never meant to hurt his feelings. Now he thinks I’m a petty gossip. I’m a fool!” Menace fucking accomplished, is what I’m saying.

Intelligent Life, 8/20/25

The syndicated newspaper comic strip Intelligent Life is usually about incredibly surface-level takes on geek media and culture. But what if instead it did the most generic jokes possible about office politics and “sales” or whatever? Would that be even less interesting? “Yes,” says everyone who’s read today’s strip.

158

Marital discord (implied in Andy’s case)

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Gil Thorp, 8/19/25

When Gil says he’s “trying not to take it personally” that his ex wife is now “play[ing] for the other side,” you probably think he’s referring to the fact that his wife left him for her female golf coach, but that’s old news: in fact, she’s going to be coaching for the other side, by which I mean she’s taken the job of athletic director at hated Milford rival Valley Tech. Anyway, more important question: what’s happening on top of Kaz’s head? Is that a man bun, or some kind of fascinator attached to his hairband? The strip colorist seems to be refusing to grapple with this and is trying very hard to make whatever it is blend into the background.

Andy Capp, 8/19/25

This is definitely a curious sequence of events, as in the first panel Andy is walking along a very broad canalside path, so spacious that the canal isn’t even visible in the frame, and yet in the very next panel, one word’s worth of lyrics later, he has tumbled into the drink. My theory: despite the fact that we see Andy in that first panel, we are actually meant to understand that we’re seeing things from Andy’s drunken perspective, in which he has infinite space to meander back and forth as he likes. Sadly, in panel two, hard physical reality intervenes.

Hi and Lois, 8/19/25

Wow, I guess Trixie died? Or is no longer a baby? Or Hi and Lois have realized that Sunbeam really is her best friend, and is perfectly capable of looking after her, so they no longer need to take such a hands-on parenting approach? Any of those developments honestly would merit further exploration, though I guess it’s also interesting that Irma thinks she’s finally going to catch Thirsty jerking off on camera but actually she’s just going to see him crying quietly to himself.