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OK that post title doesn’t make tons of sense, but … COTW time! Now!

“Maybe it’s just that the standards of menace have been so raised by the likes of Calvin and Hobbes or Bart Simpson but I can’t remember ever seeing Dennis engage in behavior that would make him a poor children’s party guest. He wears a tiny suit to church for goodness sake! He’s really just a menace because the strip is called Dennis the Menace but who told the inhabitants of the strip that? Who is going around badmouthing this precocious kid who at worst doesn’t always live up to 1950s standards of etiquette? I ask but we all already know it’s Mr. Wilson, Mr. Wilson is making the neighbor kid a social pariah out of a sort of misplaced dissatisfaction and inadequacy that his pension wasn’t enough to settle him in a gated community with no children.” –BananaSam

And the hilarious runners up!

“The fact that the guy giving relationship advice to Dawn is the same guy whose last girlfriend tried to murder Dawn makes Mary Worth easily the funniest comic strip being published today.” –Tresspassers W, on Patreon

“I can’t believe the Morgans didn’t start using their own reusable shopping bags since Glenwood banned plastic and Rex found out that the store was going to charge fifteen cents for a paper bag. ‘And let me tell you another thing that’s dishonest, Sarah…’” –But What Do I Know?

“It’s amazing that these two decided to make a living scamming people when they clearly have some kind of disorder that makes them say their entire inner monologue out loud.” –pugfuggly

“With all my heart, I love this angry old lady neighbor character and her stepstool that she climbs on when she wants to yell at her neighbors. I especially love that the stepstool isn’t nearly tall enough to accomplish this modest task.” –Joe Blevins

“Sigh. Fritz Ann is right: life was much simpler when the internet was just a vast series of tubes and all you had to do to stop the bad guys was clamp off the right one. Or shoot them in the head, that would work too.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“The dogs are obviously upset by Heathcliff’s antics, although it’s not exactly clear why. I assume they’re barking at him on general principle because he’s a cat, the traditional enemy of the dog, and he chose this impractically slow means of transportation specifically to taunt them, but it’s also possible they’re angry at his enslavement of four noble gastropods. Either way, if they cared enough to do something about it you’d think they’d leave their conveniently-labelled ‘dog run,’ since it’s obviously just a short fence that doesn’t enclose them at all.” –Vulpes

“I guess Dithers didn’t need to send Dagwood to Room 101 to get him to admit that 2+2=5. I’m … relieved?”–Victor Von

“Another way of looking at this? Dennis is the cool kid — he gets invited to all the birthday parties! But he only turns up at a third of them, because he needs to keep his weekends free for bothering the Wilsons, insulting Margaret, and hitting baseballs through people’s windows. If he actually comes to your party, it’s a sign that you’re pretty cool, too. He’ll ruin it, of course — but when the $200-per-hour clown ends up face-down in the cake, that’s really only a problem for the parents.” –BigTed

“Damn it, Bumstead! J.C. Dithers & Co isn’t one of the top dozen polluters for no reason. I didn’t pump out all that CO2 for a measly 99 degrees. We’re going for a record!” –Navigator

“Is Ronnie supposed to be eating tortellini? Shrimp? A very small, misshapen croissant? One of Ursula the sea witch’s lipsticks?” –Lauralot

“Judging by panel two, Bernice’s influencer shtick should be ‘the amazing phone levitator.’” –matt w

“Come on Nancy, how could not recognize Bernice’s scorn voice? She uses it around your idiot daughter all the time.” –Scott

“Of course the crack alley is next to the pawn shop, with the sliding door, that still has a doorknob… Are we sure that Tommy isn’t high right now?” –Rosstifer

This is the face of a plugger who just got contacted on Facebook about a money-making opportunity to bring some ‘perfectly legal’ Adderall pills on her vacation to south-east Asia, and who is about to spend the rest of her life in a Thai prison.” –Schroduck

“Rene Belluso is the Moriarty to Rex’s Sherlock! The Sideshow Bob to Rex’s Bart! The Reeky Rat to Rex’s Slylock Fox! He should be trussed up like Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and his visitors have to pass multiple layers of security!” –The Quiet Man

“Little does Reno realize that this is the beginning of the backdoor pilot for Beedie, the hardboiled detective drama starring Tommy, where he cleans up the streets one dealer at a time while searching for his missing girlfriend (she’s on vacation again).” –Anonymous

“Martha’s silent prayer: ‘Just a small stroke, Lord. One that affects his speech center.’” –Hibbleton

“I’ll show them in not a junkie. Would a junkie kill his former dealer and steal all his drugs? He would? Well, anyway, thanks for letting me lie low at your apartment for a bit, Mary.” –TheRealAaron

“‘They’ve got World Cup Fever, and are showing terminal symptoms of brain damage! Look at them, batting around hotdogs and hamburgers when there’s a perfectly good soccer ball right there. They’re goners. We have to keep them out of the house to survive!’ ‘Yeah, gotta red card ’em.’ ‘What did you say?’ [cocks gun]” –Voshkod

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Alice, 7/10/26

This is honestly a perfect Alice strip. The actual joke, while not groundbreaking or anything, definitely made me laugh, mostly because of the phrasing and specific number given. But then you have a jaunty “No soup for you!” caption, because … you ate too many pretzels and aren’t hungry, I guess? And then below that you have an even smaller label letting you know that this is a reference to a 31-year-old Seinfeld episode. 31 years old! Did you know that “The Soup Nazi” is as far from us in time today as the Dick Van Dyke Show was from Seinfeld? I didn’t until just now, when I did that math. Thanks a lot, Alice, I hope you liked your pretzels.

Dennis the Menace, 7/10/26

Martha’s facial expression here is honestly kind of upsetting. Can’t she just have one moment of peace to give thanks to the Lord without her husband going off on some furious diatribe about the neighbor kid? Just one little moment, just for one day?

Heathcliff, 7/10/26

I honestly can’t believe that Blondie, which never seems to have met a widely shared cultural moment it doesn’t like, hasn’t been doing a series of dumb on-the-nose bits about the World Cup. Like, sure, soccer is for Godless communists, but so are the Olympics, and Blondie absolutely loves doing dumb on-the-nose bits about that. I guess Heathcliff has to pick up the slack, but Heathcliff being Heathcliff, it’s doing a bit that’s whatever the opposite of on the nose is. A bit that’s missing the face entirely? Anyway, I like it.

Mary Worth, 7/10/26

I like how absolutely furious Tommy looks as he’s compelled to buy drugs to prove a point of some kind to Wilbur. Wilbur! Nobody ever has to prove anything to Wilbur! I’m beginning to think that Tommy may not be very bright.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/9/26

As predicted, the scam twins (who are named Jean and Jane, I don’t think anyone predicted that) are indeed the nieces of notorious non-twin scam artist/Rex Morgan, M.D., antagonist Rene Belluso, who I guess really is just going by “Jimmy” now. Remember how he got extremely hit by a car and super-duper injured, back in January of 2024? Well, he’s still walking with canes today, in July of 2026, probably at least in part because of the substandard medical care he’s been receiving in prison. Anyway, this got kind of dark pretty fast so let’s move on to the next strip, shall we?

Mary Worth, 7/9/26

Speaking of beloved characters from the past, you might think that this is Tommy’s beloved old crackhead pal Vin, but apparently it’s some similarly stubble-headed guy named “Reno.” You can tell the difference because Vin was outgoing, effusive, and eager to share his drugs with his good friend, whereas Reno is aloof, standoffish, and makes you do the work of coming to him and asking respectfully if he has any drugs to sell. Anyway, you can always make jokes about Tommy’s drug problems! It’s never too dark!

Pluggers, 7/9/26

Speaking of drugs, I used to make jokes about pluggers getting high when talking about the Pluggers panels that revolve around prescription meds, but then someone admonished me about this and pointed out that most prescription meds aren’t mood-altering or addictive and many people need to take them and you shouldn’t conflate them with recreational drugs. Which is fair! But check out the pinpoint pupils on this she-plugger today. Most pluggers are only taking the prescription drugs they need to keep their failing bodies alive, but this plugger in particular is definitely packing a bunch of fun pills on her vacation. She’s extremely zooted right now, before she’s even left!