Archive: Intelligent Life

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Family Circus, 4/1/26

Happy April Fool’s day, everybody! As I’ve noted over the last few years, the “trick” the passage of time has played on me is my growing appreciation of the Family Circus’s whole deal, which is that the kids are annoying on purpose, like that’s the whole joke. Look at Ma Keane’s face here! She wants to die, and maybe also to kill!

Crankshaft, 4/1/26

If I’m remembering right, for a long time Lena was a never-seen off-panel character that the other characters at the bus depot would constantly complain about, and then we started seeing her in person and she was always depicted as a perfectly nice woman that everyone is unfathomably cruel to for no reason. Look, in this one she briefly believes they’re being nice to her! That’s the “prank”!

Pluggers, 4/1/26

At least that’s intelligible as a prank, though. Is the prank here … on us? Like we’re supposed to believe that Mr. Whipple sent a letter to Pluggers HQ from beyond the grave encouraging them to do a panel where his successor as Charmin spokesbeing comes into a plugger’s home and takes a huge dump? “Look, pal, you’re in the wrong house,” says the bear-man, in what is becoming less and less what anyone would consider a “prank.” “I don’t get all that excited about toilet paper. I appreciate its utility in keeping my butthole and buttcrack clean of feces, but I’m not really invested in it emotionally.”

Intelligent Life, 4/1/26

Not even going to engage with the prank content on this one. These guys know what movie tickets cost! They see movies in the theater all the time, and talk about box office numbers while they’re there! Instead, I just want to point out that in panel one Skip has responded to “Wow … it’s April Fool’s Day,” with “Woot!”, which is absurd. Nobody’s excited about April Fool’s Day. This is just another example of these losers responding to any cultural reference they recognize with a sort of Pavlovian noise of general approval. It says a lot about society, and it sickens me.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/13/26

Wow, this one’s a real emotional roller coaster. At first, we think Mud’s going to have to eat breakfast in his room again, but then, we’re reminded — Lorna Mae Mae is on the job as a waitress! Mud will be eating like a king in the cafe this morning! Sweet!

Intelligent Life, 3/13/26

Wow, this one’s a real emotional roller coaster. At first, we think that whichever one of the insufferable Intelligent Life guys this is has some kind of incurable disease or condition. But then it turns out that he’s just going to be poor, and won’t be able to afford comic books or Funko Pops or tickets to nerd movies anymore, which is honestly even more satisfying.

Pluggers, 3/13/26

Ha ha, pluggers are aging and in constant pain, and even their favorite songs from their youth are a cruel reminder of that fact! That’s not really much of a roller coaster at all, honestly, just sort of a constant forward movement in a single direction, which is towards death.

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Hi and Lois, 1/23/26

Now, if you only have a surface understanding of my whole deal, you’re going to read this and say, “Ooooh, Josh is going to make a joke about Hi and Lois having sex.” Absolutely wrong! Look at their near-panicked facial expressions in the first panel. I’m not sure what exactly is going on in the room to which they’ve retreated in panel two, but it’s not sex. Probably crying, if I had to guess.

Alice, 1/23/26

Speaking of facial expressions conveying negative emotions, from Alice’s stricken facial expression here I do not think we’re supposed to be taking the “Hoarder’s Hell” caption as being “fun” or “ironic”! Do you think living in a vast and mostly featureless void like the Aliceverse makes it more pleasant to be a hoarder, because you have infinite room to put all your stuff, or less pleasant, because there are no external brakes on your compulsion? Based on Alice’s whole vibe here, I’m thinking it’s the latter.

Intelligent Life, 1/23/26

If you want a picture of the future, imagine two absolutely insufferable dork-ass nerds saying “Got the reference!” back and forth to one another — forever.