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Andy Capp, 10/21/25

I, a guy who has run a blog about comic strips for the better part of two decades now, am, as you might imagine, a huge nerd. Nevertheless, I have significant reservations about the way that nerd culture has more or less taken over the world, dominating the entertainment industry while fans still endlessly complain that their superhero pals don’t get the respect they deserve. That’s why I’m glad to see that there’s still one outpost in the comics willing to make fun of the nerds, and it makes sense that it’s the home of America’s favorite working-class British alcoholic. (Intelligent Life also makes nerds look ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure that’s not on purpose.)

Dustin, 10/21/25

You know, I focus a lot on this blog about how Dustin is constantly persecuted by the other members of his family, but let’s not forget that, in his absence, they’ll also turn on each other, with virtually every intrafamilial interaction landing on a spectrum somewhere between “passive aggressive” and “cruel.” They’re not nice people!

Hi and Lois, 10/21/25

Oh, I guess the Flagston family is OK with the library now, because they need a third place to go when Lois and her book club friends start getting drunk and belligerent and their home is no longer safe.

Heathcliff, 10/21/25

Oh yeah? Well, I like it better when you’re standing either inside the house or outside the house, rather than the MC Escherian simultaneously-inside-and-outside thing you’ve landed on here, but you don’t see me complaining about it.

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Alice, 10/6/25

We all know of course about the various beloved characters in Alice, the normal comic strip we all read every day and fully understand: Alice, Alice’s friend, Alice’s boyfriend, Alice’s niece, and the late Kurt Vonnegut, who is both Alice’s doctor and her vet. Today’s strip features a couple of our more outlandish favorites, Alice’s robot antagonist and the space alien who’s in love with her, but also … someone new! A glowing orb of some sort who judges the living and the dead, or maybe just asks you where you’re from. Frankly there’s getting to be more of these guys than I would ideally like to keep track of! Yet I persist, for my faithful blog readers, for whom I read Alice and other comics so they don’t have to.

Hi and Lois, 10/6/25

Look, Hi, I think we all know that Ditto was saying “I wish you were a different sort of person than you actually are.” You don’t have to drop this philosophical bombshell on him about how he’s trying to wish himself into the void or whatever. He’s a child and not a particularly smart one. You’ve tricked him into being on hugging terms with you again at the end here, but you aren’t really playing fair.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/6/25

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m now nostalgic for the time when syndicated newspaper comics scat content was confined to Marvin, where you could at least argue that he was a baby and so it was normal for him to poop into his diaper. I get that Grimm is a talking dog, but I still think it crosses some kind of line to have a newspaper comics strip character yelling “I don’t get it, why don’t these big, manly football players start shitting in the middle of the field on live TV so we can all watch it the way I know we all want to????”

Mary Worth, 10/6/25

I’m honestly not comfortable with how pleased Stanley looks in panel two here. Sure, this could’ve ended in total disaster, but look at all these people who are now paying attention to Stanley, and concerned about his well being! Ha ha, Mary, ladies first, Stanley’s all right! Stanley’s as right as rain! There’s no such thing as a bad way to get attention, is what Stanley’s learning!

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Crock, 9/29/25

The point of this joke is of course that it’s annoying when a telemarketer (perhaps one offering you a “banking credit card”) interrupts you while you eat dinner, and what if someone a little less bound by social convention than you were to say something that might truly shock and discomfit said telemarketer? Wouldn’t that give you a delightful little thrill? Unfortunately, I feel the whole scenario is undermined by the fact that Crock is in fact depicted as a cruel tyrant who does deserve to face justice for his many crimes. Sadly, that day has never come, for every wrong he commits he commits in the name of the French imperial project, and even when the Fourth Republic collapses in the wake of that project’s failure, no French prosecutor will ever bring charges against him.

Hi and Lois, 9/29/25

I love how stricken everyone’s facial expressions are here! Oh no Dot has somehow learned about feminism somebody call the fuckin police