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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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Dennis the Menace, 6/17/26

I can see why Dennis thinks that Henry, who wears a bow tie everywhere and thinks that you should change into a polo shirt when it’s time to do manual labor outdoors, would be good at owning a horse, if by “good at owning a horse” you mean “wealthy enough to own an animal that’s very expensive to purchase, house, and care for, and that does not provide any economic benefits in modern society.” He’s wrong, though: the Mitchells live in a modest suburban home and all their meals are prepared by Alice, who is by all accounts terrible at it but the family apparently doesn’t have other options. Your dad doesn’t have horse money, Dennis! He barely has dog money!

Luann, 6/17/26

“Lily and Brenna remind me of two other girls I know! Girls with similar names! Those girls are you and me, by the way. I made sure they’d draw us in the last panel so that people know that’s who I’m talking about, because I don’t respect our readers’ intelligence.”

Mary Worth, 6/17/26

Remember when Tommy was the type of guy who earnestly thought-ballooned about having his own meth lab? Well, now he’s the type of guy who earnestly refers to a bathing suit as “skivvies.” It’s true what they say: jail changes a man, for the worse.

Crankshaft, 6/17/26

I’m sorry, is this strip trying to sell us the idea that Harry Dinkle’s dad, who would’ve been alive well into the 20th century, invented the concept of uniforms? No. Absolutely not. I refute this. I refute this!

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Hi and Lois, 5/25/26

I feel like I’m one of the last pedants holding onto this fact, but Memorial Day is not for remembering all who served; that’s Veterans Day, in November. Memorial Day is for remembering all who died while serving. Died like the food you’re shoving down your gullet, Thirsty. Like all life forms, and like the modern nation-state, we feed on death!

Luann, 5/25/26

“Hop on it! By ‘it’ I mean your wife, who also works here, whom I urge you to mount and inseminate. Remember, climate change will make our jobs harder and harder, until we lose the battle against fire and society collapses!”

Gil Thorp, 5/25/26

Hey, remember all those teen golfers we met? Well, they died. They fuckin’ died. But the important thing is that Gil’s team beat the team coached by his ex-wife, so their sacrifice was not in vain.