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Turtle Carl is traveling. Slowly.

Family Circus, 7/26/26

The Biliad

Draw him, O Jeffy, and show us his exploits—first-born of the Keane clan,
Follow the long dashed line from his birth to his triumphs in Scottsdale.
Sing of the talented Billy Age Seven as substitute artist;
Tell of his prowess at baseball and schoolwork and elegant wordplay;
Speak of the pride with which Thel and his father must always esteem him!

What’s that you say, he’s a smug little jerk who oppresses his siblings,
Blaming his failures and sins on Not Me to avoid retribution,
Dumb as a rock and possessed of no gifts but a venomous mean streak?
Why then do you, O Jeff, spend your days documenting this jackass?
What is your own great sin that the gods have assigned you such torment?

“Listen, O Muse, it appears your assessment is missing some context!
“There was no choice in this job that I started in twenty-eleven.
“The circle, the kids, and the jokes were a fifty-year legacy burden:
“My readers would rise up in arms if I altered the tiniest detail!
“And Billy’s the price that I pay to maintain a respectable income.”

Mark Trail, 7/26/26

Species like cockroaches and sharks, well-adapted to stable ecological niches, often show decreased rates of biological diversification. Yet species like songbirds and tropical fish, equally well-protected from harsh selection pressures, differentiate lavishly in secondary sexual characteristics like song and coloration.

Mark Trail has survived 80 years in the brutal environment of the newspaper comics page: is he a shark or a songbird? On the one hand, he dominates the “outdoor adventure comic” niche with unassailable Nature Facts and Fists of Justice at the ready. On the other, he’s kinda cute. We should get Cherry to weigh in on this.

Thanks for a fun week and all the generous contributions to keep this fine blog strong and independent. Josh will be back tomorrow morning, rested and ready to deliver the Internet’s finest newspaper comics mockery!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Family Circus, 7/19/26

Dolly, thou shalt not mock this sign of God’s displeasure, neither by crude sophistry nor by mooning His works.

Slylock Fox (panel), 7/19/26

“Is Reeky lying” isn’t much of a mystery: he obviously never cleans house, just look at the place. Also, he’s Reeky Rat, for Pete’s sake—”lying” tops his to-do list next to “squalor” and “pointless low-stakes crimes.”

But consider the original offense. What makes this note a “horrible” hate crime? Speciesism would be my first guess. With so many species around—seven or eight in this panel alone—some friction seems inevitable. But rat‑on‑rabbit speciesism seems backwards here: after all, it’s Rachel who’s canonically the snooty, upwardly mobile one. Class hatred seems more plausible, since Reeky clearly has none and maybe covets it? But on closer examination, it’s not Rachel but her kit who is the injured party here. So maybe the note is just a crude “Yo Mama” joke calling out Rachel’s embarrassingly prolific sexual behavior?

Mary Worth, 7/19/26

I know you share my disappointment that we won’t be seeing Tommy spiral hilariously back into the pit of drug-addicted despair. But we can take solace in recapping one of Wilbur’s many humiliations, can’t we? Looks like Mary’s on board!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/17/26

Wow, this is actually really depressing to me. I thought that Uncle (?) Rene was a mentor in scammery to his nieces — but part of being a mentor is telling hard truths to the upcoming generation so they can improve their craft! If fake busking is as dumb an idea as it seems, Jean and Jane need to hear it from someone they trust before they dedicate too much time and energy into it! You know, boomers complain about “everyone gets a trophy” culture but they were the ones handing out the trophies. Step up, Rene, for the future of scamdom!

Family Circus, 7/17/26

Even the best parents sometimes run out of patience and snap at their kids and say things they regret, and when their kids act out on the pain they feel by passing it along to their own toys in heartbreaking moments of “make-believe” that are all too real, that’s … funny? Parents find this cute, and would cut it out and hang it on the fridge, for others to look at?

Gil Thorp, 7/17/26

Ha ha, that all got kind of grim! Well, here’s some happy news: Gil Thorp’s finally getting married! Well, I guess it’s not happy if you were hoping to snag him yourself. All I can say is that you’ve had three and a half years to work on that, and it hasn’t worked out, plus he’s a character in a comic strip. Move on, already!