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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.

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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.