Post Content

Mary Worth, 7/31/25

I guess the “Olive uses her psychic powers to save Mary from certain death” moment was just a prelude to the main plot, “Olive gets bullied,” which, as far as I’m concerned, BORING [comically exaggerated snoring noises]. There’s been lots of dark talk about how Olive’s psychic “gifts” come with “challenges,” which I guess means these girls are bullying her because she’s psychic, and I’m sorry, but the kids today have access to both the original Carrie with Sissy Spacek and the 2013 remake with Chloë Grace Moretz, so they should know that you do not want to antagonize the weird psychic girl! You want to be kind to her, so that once she snaps and starts using her powers to explode the heads of her enemies, she’ll accept you as an acolyte! Youths are not prepared for the reality of the modern-day educational landscape!

Crankshaft, 7/31/25

At first I assumed “old people” here was a euphemism for “unadventurous white midwesterners,” but unadventurous white midwesterners will fuckin’ go to town on jalapeño poppers and hot wings, so I genuinely don’t know what Ed’s after here. Can his increasingly rickety digestive system simply no longer handle spice? Does he need some nice lady to cut corn off the cob right there at his table, or possibly chew it up and spit it into his mouth?

Post Content

Blondie, 7/27/25

The Blondie creative team has never met a young person that it didn’t want to call a lazy sack of shit, but … I kept waiting for this strip’s punchline to be “Napping and playing video games at work? This nepo baby is just like me for real!” but somehow it never happens. I guess the whole thing could be a subtle joke, but nothing about Blondie in general or today’s installment in particular, which includes the normal English phrase “urban expression,” has ever made it seem like the strip is capable of subtlety.

Mary Worth, 7/27/25

Some claim that New York is the so-called “Greatest City In The World,” but Mary, despite her professed love of the place, has on previous visits already encountered two of its greatest dangers: the criminals who lurk in the city parks and shove innocent bystandards with no warning, and the reckless drivers who speed into pedestrians as they innocently step into the street. Now we must add a third member to this unholy trinity: air conditioning units that simply rain down from the windows of New York’s famously tall buildings, killing dozens a year. Anyway, Olive is thinking about the challenges that come with her gifts, which is a weird setup to her using her gifts to save Mary from a certain bludgeoning death, seemingly without any challenges at all. Unless maybe this wasn’t a use of her psychic powers, but instead she just heard the classic Big Apple “Eyyyy! I’m droppin’ an air conditioning unit outta my window ovah here!” Only in New York, baybee! Amiright folks?

Post Content

Family Circus, 7/22/25

I frankly am not a fan of the smug looks on Jeffy and Big Daddy Keane’s faces here. Oh, you think it’s funny to contemplate how terrifying it might be to be trapped on a boat with your primary prey animals, and if you fail to keep clear of them you risk not just your death but the complete extermination of your species? I bet Noah’s family had some pretty comical encounters with wolves and grizzly bears and such, but I don’t see you laffing it up about those.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 7/22/25

There’s a debate to be had over whether it’s acceptable to use a joke you saw in an email forward or Facebook meme in the nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip you’re being paid to create, and whether the fact that the joke is bird-related is significant in a strip where many of the characters are themselves birds. However, we already had that debate four months ago, when Mother Goose and Grimm ran this exact same punchline. They redrew the art, which is … something, I guess?

Beetle Bailey, 7/22/25

Don’t worry, folks. If America is invaded, we’ll be quickly defended by our crack division of … bed troops? Oh dear.

Mary Worth, 7/22/25

Is Mary copping a feel in that first panel? Is Ed going in for a “soul handshake”? What on Earth is happening