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Mary Worth, 5/29/26

Oh, I guess I haven’t really mentioned that Tommy and Dawn are falling in love or whatever. You know how last week I was like “Why does Dawn, who as far as I can remember has never really interacted with Tommy before, have such beef with him?” Well, I think the Mary Worth creative team learned about the concept of an “enemies-to-lovers arc” and decided to do one with Dawn and Tommy and then realized they had to make them enemies first. Or at least make Tommy an enemy to Dawn. Tommy would never view anyone as an enemy! He’s too pure! He’s like a golden retriever, if a golden retriever completed a 12-step program!

Gil Thorp, 5/29/26

In other soap opera romance news, it turns out that Gil’s hot younger fiance is secretly a nerd who doesn’t have any friends, and is currently speed-running a gender-swapped version of the beloved 2009 bromantic comedy I Love You Man. She’s trying to rope Coach Cami into being one of her bridesmaids and honestly? It’s not going well! Cami doesn’t look like she’s having fun at all!

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/26

I think the joke here is that Dennis is proposing that he could “play” the cassette tape like it’s a harmonica? But it kind of just looks like he’s going to eat it, which is frankly much funnier. And menacing, too!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/29/26

“I had really forgotten how difficult working a regular job is, ha ha. Anyway, turns out my fan base still loves me, so I can probably go back to being a celebrity now. Smell ya later!”

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Family Circus, 5/2/26

A thing about one-panel comic strips is that it can be hard to tell what order things are happening in, and a thing about the Family Circus is that I actually don’t have a strong sense of how Big Daddy Keane feels about basic gender stuff. What I’m saying is that I don’t know if his little smile is a reaction to what Dolly is saying, and he’s thinking “Heh, it’s true, we both love our pretty little baubles, I hadn’t thought of that,” or if it’s a glimpse of the last moment of his good mood right before his daughter’s observation ruins the whole rest of his day.

Dennis the Menace, 5/2/26

Most of the time you can pretend that Dennis the Menace more or less takes place in the 1950s, but I do kind of enjoy the dissonance this causes when they jam some reference to modernity in there. Yes, Henry Mitchell lives in a world where making electronic payments via smartphone apps is an everyday occurrence that a child would be well aware of, and yet he’s still wearing a tuxedo to church.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/2/26

Hey, Jamaal, fun fact: if you’re not going to send it, you don’t even have to be online! You could just purge all your negative energy into a Word doc or something. Just saying it would be an extra layer of security, I know from experience that “send” button can be tempting!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/28/26

Lonnie may be a failed salesman, but he still has an advanced grasp on economics. He knows that what has value isn’t his knowledge of Mae Mae/Lorna’s identity, but his ability to take actions revealing that identity, and he’ll be assessing the various bids he’s soliciting to determine the most lucrative way to exercise that ability.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/28/26

What I love most about this strip is the composition. A more literal and pedestrian artist would’ve worked to not cover the Prince’s face with Snow White’s word balloon in the second panel. But in doing so, they create dramatic ambiguity as to the Prince’s reaction to Snow White’s confession. Is he shocked by her callous attitude towards the friends who took her in when she was in danger? Does he respect her ability to make hard but necessary choices in the face of fiscal crisis? Leaving this to our own imagination heightens the reading experience. Truly we’re getting a comics master class here.

Dennis the Menace, 4/28/26

Now, you’re probably thinking that Dennis pointing out the inherent unfairness of gendered divisions of labor isn’t menacing at all. But once you take in Mr. Wilson’s corpse-like vibes and realize that “retired” was a last-minute editorial substitution for “died,” everything falls into place.

Mary Worth, 4/28/26

“The vague affection that all of us ghouls at this cursèd condo complex vaguely expressed towards you? That’s not real love. We’re not capable of real love. We’re not capable of feeling anything at all.”