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Mark Trail, 4/25/24

Mark, I don’t know if I’d trust a horse with my life in this scenario. Have you ever seen a horse race? They’re just running in circles, for our amusement! Do you think they know how to get out of the racetrack? Because they sure don’t act like it! They just keep running in circles!

Gearhead Gertie, 4/25/24

Speaking of racing around in circles for the amusement of others, these NASCAR drivers are especially brave, in my opinion. There’s a crazed blimpjacker on the loose! Probably she’s going to use that blimp for terrorism purposes! Has nobody here read or seen Black Sunday?

Mary Worth, 4/25/24

OK, sorry I ever thought we were in for some kind of Redemption of Wilbur Weston because of the way he accidentally saved a child. No, something much more morally complex is happening, as today in a similarly absent-minded state Wilbur accidentally manhandles an old man into the street. In a way, isn’t each and every one of us an anarchic, half-conscious presence in the world, doing good and ill by turns in ways that often barely register on us?

Shoe, 4/25/24

“Ariana Grande is 30 years old and her first album came out in 2013. What kind of idiot doesn’t know this?” you’re probably asking. The answer is: newspaper comics readers. They don’t know who she is and think her name sounds dumb! This strip is a public service.

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Six Chix, 4/18/24

I’ll freely admit that I find floating Poseidon here very charming, with his cheery attitude and his whole … diaper? situation and a single eye perched right on his dick, perhaps in loving memory of his son Polyphemus, cut down in his prime by Odysseus. Anyway, much as it pains me to be pedantic (haha, just kidding, I love pedantry more than I love my own family), Poseidon is specifically the god of the sea, along with earthquakes and, uh, horses, so the water in that glass is very salty and won’t help this poor woman hydrate at all. The guy you’re looking for is Achelous, the river god who is the father of all the freshwater springs.

Hagar the Horrible, 4/18/24

Insurance exists as a risk-pooling technique, and from the perspective of the insurer, the point is to exclude riskier customers from the pool as much as possible, or at least to price that risk appropriately. Normally you’d do this via actuarial science, but if you had the power to scry into the future, you would obviously just exclude future disaster victims from your insurance plan altogether rather than marketing to them. Clearly Hagar is being scammed here, possibly because he already used this lady’s one true crystal ball in battle, and she needs to make up the revenue somehow.

Gearhead Gertie, 4/18/24

Lotta questions about what today’s Gearhead Gertie tells us about this strip’s universe. Are we meant to understand that Gertie is fielding questions at, like, a press conference or something, because her monomania has made her something of a local celebrity? Or is she just breaking the fourth wall and addressing us readers personally? Also, would an internal combustion engine really improve blender performance in any noticeable way? Or is she willing to destroy appliance after appliance just to make a point?

Mary Worth, 4/18/24

All right, fine, I’ve been complaining about yet another Wilbur storyline, but … I gotta give it up for panel two here, where Wilbur’s ex and her new boytoy natter on about how, thanks to their fitness regimen, they’re only getting sexier, while Wilbur stares at them in numb silence. I’m hooked! They got me! They always get me!

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Gearhead Gertie, 4/4/24

I really enjoy the fact that about half of Gearhead Gertie strips are like “here’s a recent NASCAR story or controversy, spelled out in detail for idiots like me who don’t follow NASCAR,” and the other half of them are like “Gertie encounters someone who doesn’t sufficiently enjoy or respect NASCAR and that person just immediately goes to the top of her shit list, and she spends the rest of the week seething about it.”

Beetle Bailey, 4/4/24

My Great-Uncle Stan developed alopecia when he was in the Army, and family lore was that he got a big settlement from the military due to some hush-hush reasons involving some kind of experimental weapons program. I don’t know if that’s really true, but I remember him fondly as an extremely jovial guy who lived in a fun retirement community near Palm Springs that in retrospect was definitely the site of multiple swingers parties every night, so it’s nice to see him getting some representation in Beetle Bailey.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/4/24

Ha ha, yes, this honestly is good advice to give to a child growing up in a town full of notorious violent criminals!