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So ends the 2026 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser. You guys are the best; thank you!

9 Chickweed Lane, 7/25/26

Say, did you know that people have sex? 9 Chickweed Lane does, and wants to show us as much of it as possible! It started in 2008, when Edda and Amos abandoned their adolescence and virginity on the lid of a Böesendorfer Concert Grand in Brussels. With the “will they or won’t they” tension broken, the strip sustained interest by introducing stand-ins Xiulan and Hugh Godalming, Fernanda Jons and Seth Appleby, Fleurrie and Sven Spocket, Diane and Francis Durly, Nan-Lin and Arthur Peel, and others, all with the same story: Will they or won’t they? Oh yes they will, and often!

Soon, horny couples crowded the strip and their stories grew monotonous. To escape that trap, the strip rushed Edda’s twins Polly and Lolly through adolescence into adulthood and marriage, and loosened up the timeline. Now lucky readers can look back at Edda’s and Amos’s awkward teen courtship while enjoying the sexual antics of three generations: grownup Amos and Edda and all the others in the present, daughters Polly and Lolly and their husbands in the future, and Edda’s stepdad Elliott’s lusty courtship of Juliette in recaps of the past.

Nice save, but not a long-term solution. After all, assuming monogamy, the maximum rate of couplings is (P/2)*f, where P is the number of people and f is frequency. I fear Team Chickweed may have its eye on combinatorics: C(P,2)*f, dropping the monogamy (and incest) restrictions, or even (C(P,2)+P)*f if we throw in self-pleasuring. After that, I fear for Edda’s cat.

One Big Happy, 7/25/26

Hey Joe, Pluto is the Roman god of Death and ruler of the Underworld, and you do not want to piss that guy off. And Disney’s copyright lawyers won’t go any easier on you, so tread lightly.

Lockhorns, 7/25/26

They have one, Leroy, and you’re not gonna like it.

—Uncle Lumpy

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Wizard of Id, 6/1/26

The Met Gala was exactly four weeks ago today, in case you were curious as to what the Wizard of Id publication lead time is! You might think that, having come up with the hilarious joke, the creative team would’ve kept it in the chamber to be published on the actual date of next year’s Met Gala, but hey, these are uncertain times. Will the Met Gala even happen in 2027? Will newspaper comics still be published? Will any of us be alive? Why wait?

Judge Parker, 6/1/26

Look, I know it’s been a long time since Alan “Judge Parker Senior Emeritus” Parker has been the main guy in the strip that bears his name, but … look at that last panel. Eyes closed, mouth hanging dully open as he begins taking another big bite of the sandwich he got to-go from the diner where he made everyone emotionally uncomfortable. The artist didn’t have to do him like this. He could’ve been left with a shred of dignity!

Daddy Daze, 6/1/26

The Daddy Daze daddy has some generic email job that isn’t at an educational institution and the Daddy Daze baby is a baby. It doesn’t matter if your headcanon for this strip is that the Daddy Daze baby’s series of “ba”s carry real semantic meaning or if the Daddy Daze daddy merely projects his own insane ruminations onto them, there is zero reason for them to have a conversation about the school calendar, a concept of no importance to either of them.

Mary Worth, 6/1/26

“I mean, at least you won’t have too many student loans! I’ve been in college since at least 2007 and I’m no closer to a degree than I’ve ever been!”

The Lockhorns, 6/1/26

“Blood … there was so much blood. And the sex stuff … look, I don’t want to talk about it.”

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Heathcliff, 5/5/26

The oldest references to cherubim in the bible seem to imagine them as winged half-animal, half-human creatures that guard or carry the throne of the deity, and similar iconography is visible across the ancient Near East. Ezekiel, during the Exile, had a famous vision of cherubim as terrifying multi-faced beings, possibly borrowed from Babylonian imagery; after the Exile, as Jewish theology began to conceive of God as more and more remote and less human-like, an array of semi-divine angelic beings started becoming important as intercessors, at which point cherubim became part of the “inner circle” of angels, close to God’s throne and intellect. This angelology was eventually adapted by Christians, and, thanks to Renaissance painters adopting the imagery of Greek and Roman putti (winged child-like figures), cherubs eventually became the cute little guys we associate with them today, though still strongly associated with their proximity to God. What I’m asking is: Is Heathcliff a divine being? Will He soon transcend away from our experience, leaving behind the cherubim he created in His image to relay to us commandments about what kind of helmets we are to wear, and when?

The Lockhorns, 5/5/26

As a frequent public transit user, I think people’s worry about crime on public transit is largely overblown, but there are definitely dangers to look out for. Like, for instance, what if Leroy Lockhorn just started blathering on at you about how he can’t keep up with the slang the kids use these days, and your stop is miles away? Not the sort of thing that’ll happen to you in your car, I’ll say that.

Judge Parker, 5/5/26

“I mean, we’re not here, so it’s not like we have any idea how good a job you’re doing. But we know you have low self-esteem and will do pretty much any annoying job if people compliment you for it, so we’re giving that a shot.”