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Intelligent Life, 6/22/26

Everything I’ve learned about all the characters in Intelligent Life has been against my will. I wasn’t thrilled when I realized I instantly recognized this blond guy as “Barry,” the stereotypical jock used as a punching bag by the nerd characters in the strip. He likes beer and wings and is constantly unsuccessfully hitting on women, and — and now we’re at the point where I’m learning new stuff about him, which I didn’t ask for and don’t care for — he also has a terrible relationship with his father, I guess.

Pluggers, 6/22/26

Look, for as long as I’ve been reading this strip, the answer to the question “Are pluggers OK?” has been a resounding “no.” But I feel like they’re building less and less of a superstructure around this sentiment in individual panels and are now just hitting us with “Life is suffering, for pluggers. Every moment is agony. They’d be happier dead.”

Pickles, 6/22/26

Pickles, meanwhile, is a comic strip about the foibles of old people that isn’t afraid to get a little edgy sometimes, but I declare today’s strip, where the vagaries of fading memory mean that poor Opal has spent hours in an act of loving artistry, making a scarf for a member of her family only to be struck anew by grief, is a little too edgy for my tastes.

Pardon My Planet, 6/22/26

Yesterday’s Pardon My Planet was about domestic discord among wolf-people, and I thought about doing a post basically saying “Ha ha, this strip, which is mostly unpleasant marital drama among its cast of mostly interchangeable regular characters, has finally branched out into doing unpleasant marital drama with furries” but decided against it. But today, with the clown stuff? Well, I feel like you all needed to know about it. Do you think “Bobo” is a male clown name? No judgement, but it does add an extra little twist to this scenario.

Luann, 6/22/26

I saved the grimmest one for last. Brad and Toni are going to have sex in the shower, you guys. They’re going to have sex in the shower after she announced herself as “zit” and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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Blondie, 5/22/26

The sad thing here is that Alexander and Cookie can’t actually hear what Dagwood is jamming out to. Sure, we readers are privy to the truly gross stuff he’s streaming, but they’re just assuming, and even though they’re right they shouldn’t jump to such a harsh conclusion. “Wow, Daddy’s really working his earbuds” seems particularly disrespectful for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.

Intelligent Life, 5/22/26

Gwen’s expression in the final panel here … is that a sex thing? Is “Pokemon Go” a euphemism for sex, among the dork-ass nerds of Intelligent Life? I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all!

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Intelligent Life, 4/24/26

You could use Intelligent Life to do a whole in-depth analysis of how the position of the nerd has changed in American culture over the past couple decades: the strip’s nerdy main characters still have the chip on their shoulders of social outcasts who push against the grain with their insular hobbies and interests, but they now spend their days discussing the massive box office takes of hegemonic superhero franchises. The strip cast also includes “Barry,” on the left here, a beefy jock who mainly serves to illustrate the humiliation of the normie in today’s nerd-ruled world as he can’t get a date and is constantly failing at work. At least he “gets it” when it comes to Fridays. Fridays, am I right? The last refuge of the regular guy who likes wings and beer? Even the ascendant hardcore geek has to acknowledge that that’s pretty cool? I genuinely don’t know what this strip is supposed to be about, honestly.

Alice, 4/24/26

One of the fun (“fun”) little subplots in Alice is that Alice has a bunch of weird aliens living under her floorboards, and one of them is romantically obsessed with her. Anyway, did you know that these guys are here because they’re supposed to be stopping all the wars? And they’re not doing a good job, because Alice is so darn alluring? Damn you, Alice, you temptress! So much blood is on your sexy, sexy hands!

Dennis the Menace, 4/24/26

I’m sorry, man, but there’s no way you can turn being a responsible pet owner into an act of menacing. I don’t care how egregious a poop pun you make about it.