Post Content

Hi and Lois, 4/19/26

I get that “cartoon dad must escape from his nagging family” is a time-honored trope, but I think the specific gripes of the Flagston clan are just way too dark for the way he nopes out of there to be comical. Lois is at the end of her rope, spending all day showing beautiful homes to her clients and then coming home to a collapsing hovel; Chip has suffered some otherwise undocumented heartbreak and is still devastated; the twins, who should be each other’s best friends within the family, have become implacable nemeses; and Trixie, like all addicts, can no longer get satisfaction from the sun as it is and demands a hotter and brighter star no matter what destructive effects that might have on our planet’s ecosystem. Based on Hi’s huge grin and rosy cheeks in the final panel, I assume that he’s “getting what he needs” thanks in part to a bottle of bourbon he keeps stashed in the glove compartment.

Blondie, 4/19/26

Look, I’m not a pickleball guy, but … the whole point of pickleball is that it’s basically ping pong scaled up to be played on a tennis court, right? Like … why aren’t the DithersCo layabouts just playing ping pong. They already have a ping pong table in the breakroom, I guarantee they have the paddles and balls somewhere. And if Dithers allows the ping pong table in the breakroom, why is he so mad about people using it? I enjoy the little illustration he made, which may be part of a whole wider collection of plausibly deniable Dagwood furry art, but I still think he’s in the wrong here.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 4/19/26

You know the whole thing in vampire lore where if you throw rice in front of a vampire, they have to stop chasing you to count the grains? Well, apparently this deli-owning dog thinks if you give Slylock a math word problem to solve, he’ll turn his ratiocination to figuring it out and won’t notice that you’ve enslaved and dismembered your fellow sapient animals to stock your shop. It didn’t work, though, and he’s going to jail, along with all of his customers.

Beetle Bailey, 4/19/26

Oh, Beetle, you’ve really done it this time! You remembered the Sabbath day, but you forgot to keep it holy! Can’t even imagine how much KP you’ll be doing for this, in hell.

Post Content

Pluggers and Hi and Lois, 4/15/26

Look, I actually feel strongly about this: excitement is very much not “getting [your] income tax return submitted on time.” I guess racing to complete your return could be exciting, but that’s not what’s being portrayed in today’s Pluggers. The emotion we’re seeing is instead “the satisfaction of a job well done.” Now, in Hi and Lois we’re seeing other forms of excitement around today’s big deadline: the excitement of realizing that you are definitely not going to get your taxes filed on time and you’ve moved one step closer to just failing out of polite society completely, for instance, or the excitement of seeing your neighbor and coworker screw up once again, keeping you on top as the “sensible one” in the friendship/office. But that plugger isn’t excited. He’s smug. There’s a difference!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/26

Oh, hey, were you worried that Rex Morgan, M.D., was getting kind of interesting, as Mud Mountain Murphy struggled to keep a secret? Well, don’t worry, we’re instead going to be focusing for a bit on how suspicious diner guy can’t hit his sales numbers in today’s uncertain economy. This probably won’t ever get interesting at all, and if it does, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Post Content

Dustin, 4/12/26

To misquote Mystery Science Theater 3000, you should never reference a good comic in your shitty comic, and say what you will about Garfield but it’s a relentlessly efficient machine for amusing 8-year-olds, whereas Dustin has never amused anyone ever. Today’s strip makes it clear that Dustin requires three separate characters to achieve what Garfield does with one. This is not something you want to draw attention to!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/12/26

I don’t like this one because Ma Goose’s uninhabited shirt in the mirror looks exactly the same in both panels, and that makes it clear that she’s turned her head 180 degrees without any other part of her body moving. It’s uncanny. Is that something birds can do in real life? I don’t really care, honestly, they don’t as a rule wear shirts in real life so I don’t think that’s actually relevant.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/12/26

Oh, wow, this is actually a good bait and switch: we thought Mae Mae’s cover was going to be blown by the suspicious mustachio’d non-Mud customer at the diner, when in fact her cover’s going to be blown by Mud, because he absolutely cannot keep a secret or even have a thought without immediately verbalizing it. Not sure if he’s relapsing or if the Mirakle Method simply didn’t cover this situation, but either way, it’s more than Mae Mae’s feet that are in danger!

Hi and Lois, 4/12/26

I guess in theory I’m all for Hi and Lois updating itself for modern suburban life, but I gotta say “the Flagstons and Thurstons take their cuck stuff to the golf course” is a little bit more than I can handle.