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Gearhead Gertie, 7/3/25

I am if nothing mercurial, and do you know what I’ve decided? I like the Gearhead Gerties where the focus is on Gertie’s perpetually put-upon husband. I’m done feeling bad for him. He had to have known what he signed up for. His wife is Gearhead Gertie, for Pete’s sake! I like his grumpy little face in the second panel as he endures this latest NASCAR-related indignity. Ha ha, he has to watch TV sticking way up in the air, for NASCAR reasons that I don’t fully understand!

Pluggers, 7/3/25

Over the past several years, I reached an age at which some of my parents and in-laws have reached ages at which stairs, and the need to accommodate their lives minimizing the number of times they go up and down them, became an important thing we all had to think about. Stairs, man! You think you’ll be able to use them forever with ease, but I’m here to tell you: that’s probably not true. Anyway, today’s featured plugger is not yet at the stage where he can’t use the stairs, but it’s a lot harder to use them than it used to be, and he knows in his bones it won’t ever get any easier, and every time he goes up, the little pep talk he gives himself needs to go a little harder in order to do its job. In its quiet way, this is the most genuinely harrowing Pluggers panel since Rhino-man hocked his TV.

Hi and Lois, 7/3/25

You know I’m on the record as being in favor of Hi and Lois depicting “Thirsty” Thurston as a lovable drunk, but I think it’s a little too on the nose for him to just be blurting out his various disorders like this. “I’m getting addicted to online gambling!” “I let my lawn and my hair get so unkempt because I’m very depressed!” “My wife doesn’t love me and I don’t think she has for a long time!” C’mon, let us use our imagination a little here.

Mary Worth, 7/3/25

“Remember the last time they took a father-daughter vacation together, and they almost died in a cruise ship disaster? I think this one will finish them off for good.”

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Slylock Fox, 6/12/25

Years ago, I read a book about the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and one of my strongest memories of it is that after the Communist dictatorship had been overthrown, even in their euphoria the leaders of the broad alliance that had pulled off this transformation — which included conservatives and liberals, free marketeers and social democrats, unionists and Czech and Slovak nationalists — began to realize that they would soon be political opponents, but allowed themselves to enjoy the moment of victory together before that turn came. The story of Slylock Fox is in many ways the story of how the animals came into conflict with one another after overthrowing humanity, and how they learned to manage that conflict. But sometimes you get a glimpse into the origins of their society, like the little story captured here. These guys are free, they magically know how to operate a motor vehicle, and they’ve just violently killed and eaten all the zookeepers who’ve been holding them captive their entire lives. They have a world to build, and that’s important, but in some ways it will never get better than it is on this night.

Dick Tracy, 6/12/25

Sam, not to tell you how to do your job, which I assume is disparaging suspects without much evidence, but if the way you want to disparage this suspect is by calling him a drunk, you should be making a little “drinky” gesture in front of your mouth, with your thumb and pinky extended to make it look like your hand is a bottle of liquor. What you’re doing is a “crazy” gesture, which is not the same thing at all!

Gearhead Gertie, 6/12/25

Sorry, Harold, you know I am usually sympathetic to your plight, but how could you possibly be asking this right now. Your wife is named “Gearhead Gertie!” You’ve been married to her for a decade! You know this is the only sport you’re allowed to watch. You know that very well.

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Hi and Lois, 5/15/25

Sorry, Hi: today’s teens would never try to read something and listen to something else simultaneously. Instead, they focus all their attention on one thing at a time so they can truly be present in the moment with a text or song. They call it “monotasking” and it’s an explicit rejection of the brain-scattered, information-overload world that your generation (Xennials) created. Get with the times, old man!

Gearhead Gertie, 5/15/25

The ironic thing here is that Gertie obviously owns the NASCAR Official Collector’s Edition of Monopoly that Parker Brothers put out in 1997, but she refuses to open the shrink wrap because she thinks it will lose its value. Gertie, you can buy that game on eBay for $12! You gain nothing by annoying your grandson like this.

Shoe, 5/15/25

I really enjoy the dynamic here where the Perfesser announces that he wants to do something fun that might be a little outside his comfort zone, and his boss, who he hates but is nevertheless spending his precious free time with, shits all over the idea. I assume that in panel two the Perfesser is getting a big whiff of Shoe’s cigar, which also must be pretty unpleasant for him.

The Lockhorns, 5/15/25

I like how downcast Leroy looks here. He knows this terrible pun is a subpar effort, but it’s all he can come up with, and what’s he going to do, not say something vaguely critical of his wife while she’s doing something she enjoys?