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Blondie, 1/28/26

Oh, man, I was all ready to go on a riff about how this is clearly a joke about the idea of a celebrity “hall pass,” e.g., the idea that a monogamous couple would give permission to each other to sleep with specific celebrity crushes, safe in the knowledge that it’s never going to actually happen, but then got sanitized down to the idea of “dining” with a celebrity, even though “dining” is transparently not what this is about, but then I got to the last panel and discovered that the Blondie brain trust is aware of the existence of Sydney Sweeney, and I’m sorry, that’s way too contemporary a reference. Nobody in Blondie should know about anything that’s happened after, oh, let’s say, 2013. “Is Emily Ratajkowski on their list?” is a punchline I’ll allow for this one. Anyone newer than that? No thanks.

Mark Trail, 1/28/26

Speaking of things that are and are not new, what about nature? Pretty old, right? Old and boring? It’s existed for billions of years? Well what about phones though? What if there were a nature crisis … about kids and phones, and kids stealing each other’s nature photography, via phones? That’d be pretty cutting edge, right? The perfect mix of the old and the new? A falcon, right there on your phone? Mark Trail is going to have to punch file metadata by the end of this somehow?

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Mary Worth, 12/25/25

Why hello, faithful readers! Did you have an enjoyable holiday? Did you spend Christmas Day with your “friends,” or exactly one friend, your ostensible “boyfriend,” and the two of you took the time to contemplate the glory and majesty of your Christmas tree while simultaneously side-hugging each other?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/26/25

Or did you spend it like Rex, eagerly awaiting the moment (12:01 a.m., December 26th) when you could definitively put all the decorative holiday crap directly into the trash and get things back to normal?

Dick Tracy, 12/27/25

Anyway, lots of fun stuff happened in the comics over the past week and a half! Like, remember Ghost Cat, the cat with the powers of a ghost, or possibly the ghost with the powers of a cat? Well, he can shoot a flashlight beam out of his chest, which is definitely not a cat ability but I’m also pretty sure not a ghost ability, so I guess it’s a secret third thing.

Gil Thorp, 12/27/25

In other news, Gil Thorp got engaged! Congrats to Gil on going from “extremely divorced” to “engaged to his significantly younger rebound girlfriend,” which, between you and me, is just another more specific kind of extremely divorced.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/29/25

Oh, also, Rex Morgan is going blind or whatever. This is what happens when you take down the Christmas decorations too early! Santa takes away your eyesight! They don’t have any little Christmas carols about that one specifically, but it’s true, that’s one of his powers, he will make you blind, so you better watch out.

Mark Trail, 12/30/25

Mark Trail is wearing a union suit dealing with some Texas flooding (ripped from the headlines of six months ago) while accompanying an expedition of ladies hunting feral hogs (ripped from a 2019 viral tweet). This gives one of the ladies the opportunity to say “Oh no! All our hogs washed away!” which I think is funny! I just think it’s a fun thing to say!

Gil Thorp, 1/2/26

“I have several, father … any plans to have more children?” is also a fun one! I guess my only problem with it is that it really is just one more question, though maybe Jami is waiting for the hubbub he’s unleashed to die down before moving on to the next subject.

Mary Worth, 12/30/25 and 1/4/26

Meanwhile, over in the wildly dysfunctional Cameron household, Ian decided to deploy a neighbor’s cat … for evil! But unlike Mary, who managed to use a cat to successfully keep Jeff out of her apartment for weeks, Ian was foiled in his evil plotting, discovering that both these creatures have been infected by the woke mind virus of domestication and have decided to become best friends rather than trying to kill one another. Look forward to more of this action in the coming days, unless Ian dies abruptly of a rage-stroke!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/4/26

In other medical news, Rex has cataracts, it turns out, and he has to go under someone else’s knife in order to be rid of them. He’s just going to have to let go and trust his surgeon — but should he, really? Are ophthalmologists even real doctors? Should he do it himself, maybe? Could he pull it off, because of what a great doctor he is?

You’ll find out the answers to all these questions and more in 2026! It’s a new year but the same Comics Curmudgeon, which is to say the world’s great internet blog, bringing you comics jokes every day. Thank you as ever for your readership, which you are required by law and prevailing honor codes to maintain. Happy New Year, everybody!

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Luann, 8/22/25

In the current Luann plot, Tiffany has dragged Les to a spa to get a mani-pedi and other treatments, and has been annoyed that he still wants to talk about video games, only to discover that [record scratch] the spa attendant is a gamer as well????? I was wondering if Leviathan was a real game, but the only game by that name I could find links to online is “a multiplayer extraction shooter set in a sci-fi universe where humanity has been abducted by a gargantuan, interstellar beast and changed over the course of several millennia. The abducted were ultimately discarded onto foreign planets. To survive, they have been forced to evolve into three factions of biologically and ideologically distinct lifeforms. Recently, a second wave of abductions have occurred. Fate has brought them together to the surface of the bountiful world of Domusalus; where only ONE FACTION can establish dominance for their survival.” So I guess Luann’s long-term goal is to woo gentle and impressionable young people attracted by the idea of a sea life simulator into a nightmarish world of violent mutants. Fun! Just the sort of thing that would send a hard-core gamer like Les into a state of orgasmic joy, which he appears to have achieved in panel three here.

Mark Trail, 8/22/25

Last week Uncle Lumpy declared gator-travel-assistance to be “not quite Fists of Justice™ territory, but at least macho-heroics-adjacent,” which Mark apparently took as a personal challenge! Today’s punch is less about putting a stop to imminent danger and more about putting a stop to a fight that some golf course developer jerk started, but I do enjoy the POV angle we get on the punching in panel three. Usually Mark is a “chin music” guy rather than a “nose bopping” guy, but this dude doesn’t have much of a chin, so you gotta do what you gotta do!

Heathcliff, 8/22/25

As the theme song to the mid-80s Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats cartoon so wisely put it: “Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrify their neighborhood. But Heathcliff just won’t be undone, playing pranks on everyone.” So why does the Nutmeg family tolerate his presence? Well, as today’s panel demonstrates, a pet who refuses to acknowledge the bounds of polite conventions can be a real asset. Look how happy they are to be relieved of their social obligations! Heathcliff says (via signs, flags, and so on) the truths that others won’t!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/22/25

Boy, Ma Goose sure takes a lot of pills! That’s … the joke, I guess? That’s a joke, I guess? They wouldn’t print it in the paper if it weren’t a joke, right?