Archive: Intelligent Life

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Intelligent Life, 7/18/25

Look, buddy, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, also liked to engage in marathon gaming sessions, but he forced his servants to put nutritious slices of meat between pieces of high-fiber bread so he could keep at it for hours, and he didn’t leave that legacy to the world so you could stuff your maw with unhealthy chips and candy and use your entertainment proclivities as an excuse. Anyway, I was going to say that this lady never asked for any of this information, but I guess she kind of did by remarking on this set of purchases in the first panel. I’ve always assumed that if you work in customer service you want to minimize your interactions with the public to the barest necessity to avoid being subject to these kinds of conversations, though really that’s a good rule for being out of the house and seeing strangers in general.

Mary Worth, 7/18/25

“How wonderful for them! They have their overbearing, mobility impaired father helping them schlep boxes around instead of professional movers, just like everybody dreams about. Welp, smell ya later!”

Wizard of Id, 7/18/25

The final thought balloon here really elevates this one for me. You think this medieval (?) pharmacist (??) is enjoying any of this? Wrong! He’s trapped in a broken system, just like everybody else!

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Wizard of Id, 6/4/25

As far as I know, the Wizard of Id has never added any vaguely medieval monk/priest type characters to its vaguely medieval setting, so that leaves as an open question what “sweet lord” the Wizard is addressing in panel two. Is it the dark lord of magic, from whom he receives his eldritch power but whom he finds terrifying and repellent, like this hideous fish? Or is he merely addressing his sovereign the King of Id, from whom all sovereignty flows and who has the right of first refusal to every fish caught in his realm’s rivers and lakes, even the ugly ones?

Flash Gordon, 6/4/25

The new Flash Gordon strip is still doing its thing — which is to say, having great art and fun stories that I don’t talk about very much on my blog but rest assured, they’re there. Today I mostly wanted to draw your attention to the “NEXT:” narration box in panel four, which is possibly the greatest narration box of all time.

Intelligent Life, 6/4/25

Ha ha, remember two days ago, when I complained about how vague and nonspecific Mike’s dialogue was? “He should actually name the geek media franchises he’s talking about,” I said. “He definitely wouldn’t use that as an opportunity to talk about which fictional blue creatures he would or would not have sex with,” I added, like a fool.

Alice, 6/4/25

Alice’s friend, that’s not what that means at all! This is very bad advice!

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Mary Worth, 6/2/25

Did you know that the psychological “fight or flight” response is more accurately called “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn”? I think it comes as no surprise to those of us who (sadly) know them all too well that the Westons, having belatedly realized that they are in the presence of an apex predator, have gone the “freeze” route, hoping that if they sit very still and offer the most weaksauce and unrealistic excuses for not eating mushrooms imaginable, she’ll lose interest and wander off. The really sad thing is that the extremely on the nose Fatal Attraction reference is lost on Wilbur and Dawn, since they’re both philistines whose media diets consist of watching old Evander Holyfield fights on YouTube and “clean eating” influencer content on TikTok that comes right up to the edge of promoting anorexia without violating the terms of service, respectively.

Intelligent Life, 6/2/25

Speaking of philistines with terrible media diets, this strip would’ve been a good opportunity to name some of the movies, comics, conventions, or cartoons that are coming out in 2025, but instead Intelligent Life decided to simply … not? I guess what’s giving Mike life is not the movies or comics themselves, but just the reassurance that this particular form of cultural and economic production will continue at least through the end of the year.

Andy Capp, 6/2/25

Was it Cappverse canon before this point that Andy has a big juicy booty? If not, it is now, and I for one am not complaining.