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Mary Worth, 4/26/23

OK, look, I was willing to accept it when we only got a day of Wilbur singing karaoke while sobbing openly, but now we find out that a cat tried to blind Dr. Ed and now he’s wearing an eye patch and we didn’t get to see that at all? Unacceptable! Still, I see two potentially funny ways forward: either Ed’s briefly rekindled love affair with the veterinary profession has now been snuffed out for good, and he’s brooding one-eyedly and thinking about burning the building down for the insurance and starting over again in a new town as a simple bricklayer, or the whole incident was relayed to Estelle over the phone as he explained that he needed to “take some time off” from their relationship to sit in a dark room and heal (i.e., spend more time with his wife and children so they don’t get suspicious).

Judge Parker, 4/26/23

This is part of a larger storyline about April finally getting released from her illegal CIA prison for implausible reasons, but right now let’s just acknowledge that it’s very funny to cruelly mutter “Yeah, let’s end this” as you get yet another spam call.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/26/23

I’m not afraid to admit that I was genuinely surprised by the punchline in today’s Snuffy Smith: I assumed that Snowball was the seeker, and that he thought he’d have an easy time finding Li’l Sparky because horses are quite large in general, larger than most available hiding spaces, and that Li’l Sparky in particular is wearing a bright yellow blanket to boot. But, no, it turns out that Li’l Sparky is the seeker, and playing Hide and Seek with him is easy because he’s not very smart.

Pluggers, 4/26/23

Sorry, I was going to try to figure out what this joke is supposed to mean, exactly, but then I got stuck on the idea that there’s a carton of milk just off panel to our left and it’s hurling at this plugger at high speed and about to hit him right in the nose, and while I’m reasonably sure that’s not what this joke is supposed to mean, I’m enjoying that image too much to part with it.

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Judge Parker, 3/28/23

Look, we’ve had a lot of dragged-out and sometimes baffling emotional processing between these two over the past few years, and I for one am not ready for them to sheepishly admit that they probably should never have broken up in the first place. I am grudgingly prepared to allow for an eventual reconciliation so long as Abbey’s “find[ing] out what [she] want[s]” involves a voyage of sexual exploration across the great state of whatever state Cavelton is in that lasts at least through the summer.

Daddy Daze, 3/28/23

I was about to say that the Daddy Daze baby has finally figured out the central joke of the Daddy Daze comic strip, which is that the Daddy Daze daddy “repeats” everything the Daddy Daze baby “says” so that we at home can understand it, but of course the baby hasn’t figured anything out at all; he’s an infant and all his various “ba”s really are just pre-verbal babbling. No, what actually happened is that the Daddy Daze daddy has decided to get increasingly meta with his bit, which really is a product of his desperately lonely and increasingly unhinged mind. The baby can’t understand you, man! And you can’t understand him either! You’re talking to nobody!

Beetle Bailey, 3/28/23

Beetle Bailey has been slowly adding more rounded characterization to Zero of all people over the past few years: we’ve learned that in addition to being very stupid, he’s a farm boy and also a terrifyingly accurate killer. He’s also a teetotaler, I guess? Adding this information to the file [I open an enormous file cabinet next to my desk and pull out a folder labeled BEETLE BAILEY CHARACTERS M-Z]

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Gasoline Alley, 3/25/23

Not that there’s much by way of competition, but Ida Knoe, the evil talking doll who can travel through time, is now officially my favorite character in the century-long history of Gasoline Alley. Today’s strip, in which she taunts these children into dangerous meddling in the timestream, really seals the deal. “What’s a matter, are you guys babies? Are you worried that you’re accidentally going to make Hitler president or make your parents mad? Don’t be chicken!”

Judge Parker, 3/25/23

Meanwhile, back in NYC, Sophie and Reena are getting into the latest big city fad, which is ordering pizza with nothing on it. No cheese, no sauce, no nothing, just a flat triangle of baked dough. “These kids today, they’re … they’re pure nihilists,” said the Village Voice’s food critic, sweating openly. “They don’t believe in anything anymore.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/25/23

Look, you might make fun of the inhabitants in Hootin’ Holler as “financially illiterate bumpkins,” but Snuffy just invented a new kind of lottery-based financial derivative, so maybe you need to start giving them some credit.