“Boy, those joke-free throwaway panels cast a pall over this whole thing, huh? There’s poor Lucky Eddie, obviously concerned over his sick mother. And these are viking times, so when they say ‘sick’ it’s gotta be something serious, possibly even fatal. Meanwhile, we’re reminded that Eddie’s coworkers neither like nor respect him. ‘I can’t believe I miss Lucky Eddie!’ ‘Yeah, that guy sucks! Say, where is he?’” –Joe Blevins

“Good ol’ Lucky Eddie. He’s got a suitcase, he’s got a mailbox, he’s got a lawn. So close to being a regular guy, but he still runs around (or in this case, hitchhikes around) with a goddam funnel on his head.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“The male loneliness epidemic has his hit even this comic.” –ectojazzmage

“So there’s no actual food, just a couple of middle-aged men drinking beer, one of whom didn’t even bother to bring his wife along. Happy Memorial Day!” –Pozzo

“Gil is at the Graveyard of Dropped Subplots. ‘Thank you for your service, Sophomore-suffering-from-steroid-abuse and Girl-who-was-a-cutter and .. er .. you, Mr. Whatever-trendy-teen-issue-you-were-dealing-with. Your sacrifice of resolved, coherent storylines was not in vain. It helped me look better, more ‘enlightened.’” –2+2=7

“So she just sorta … stuck her torso out the bottom half of the window, huh? Arms at her sides? Standing straight up? No, no, I get that there are eight little mini-Heathcliffs (Heathscliff?) fluttering after our main guy, that don’t cross my eyes none — right now I’m focusing on the window thing. When a Biblically-accurate Heathcliff shows up, that’s when I stop nitpicking. Possibly forever.” –els

“One thing I learned in a recent Wikipedia hole is that when tanks break down, they require giant tow trucks to collect them and haul them into the shop, a process that is pretty entertaining to watch in old news reels. Of course, tanks are also sitting ducks without close air support and are typically used to advance ground troops, so lady in the car might want to worry both about why Beetle’s out on his own and when the A-10 Thunderbolt IIs are showing up.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Does anyone else find it odd that Grimm calls Mother Goose ‘mom’ and wonder if he’s doing it because her name is literally ‘Mother Goose’ even though she doesn’t actually have any children. It seems like Grimm is her pet but he’s actually a completely sentient adult who can go to restaurants and movie theaters and has full understanding of the world around him so he’s not really a pet. Grimm just lives with this bird person and allows her to treat him like he’s her pet even though he’s perfectly capable of living independently. I think we can at least be grateful that there’s no sexual element to this relationship.” –Anonymous

“In the Mother Goose and Grimm universe, Bed Bath & Beyond sells straw, flea dip, and environmental enrichment toys.” –Peanut Gallery

“God, just imagine that the last thing you heard before you died was one of Ed Crankshaft’s little quips. Then imagine the the massive gravitational force of the black hole that killed you stretched that moment into near infinity, as if you passed ten thousand years with those words ringing in your ears. Truly a fate worse than death (followed by death).” –pugfuggly

“Jughead set up his drums right next to the chimney. The fireplace is presumably in the living room. He’s risking his own health and safety just to annoy his father while technically following his orders. I aspire to this level of petty.” –Lauralot

“Dennis is the perfect age to have seen Guardians of the Galaxy and Stranger Things, so he has no problem identifying a cassette tape. A lot of issues interacting appropriately with other people and their stuff, though.” –Schroduck

“As long as Gil likes you, you’re cool with me — and the moment he tires of you, you will no longer exist as far as I’m concerned, because I don’t want to end up in the cornfield. All hail Gil!” –CanuckDownSouth

“Pity the poor, aging newspaper comic artist who is cursed to live in the past but can’t quite remember what a cassette looks like.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“You’re not as bad as I thought, Tommy Beedie! That’s an extremely low bar, though! You still fuckin’ suck!” –Vulpes

“What I love about The Phantom is it will happily take a break from a storyline about an alien on a private jet from Guantanamo blowing up a warlord’s brain with magic TikTok to give us a very specific kink scene where a shirtless man in a cage is taunted by a scantily-clad bongo player. I call this fetish ‘bondage at Lilith Fair.’” –Schroduck

“The Tommy Beedie I know wouldn’t apologize for his actions — he must be on drugs or something!” –Bob Tice

“I’m intrigued by the sharp yellow isosceles triangles emanating from the cars in the final panel. What exactly do they signify? ‘Surprise and confusion at the sudden lack of power to the traffic lights,’ you might say, and perhaps you’re right. But I prefer my own theory, based on the similar shapes surrounding the conflagrations in the second panel of the middle row: without electricity supplying the powerful Morphogenic Field Generator that keeps the city population physically stable, the citizens of Neo-Chicago has started spontaneously exploding, caking the inside of their vehicles with gore and viscera. (You may not have known that such a machine was necessary, but Dick’s rogues’ gallery of grotesques is proof that the human shape is tenuous at best in this universe.)” –Vulpes

“The city’s experiment with intersections that have neither traffic lights nor stop signs isn’t looking so stupid now. See, even during a power outage it works exactly as well as normal!” –Peanut Gallery

“Tommy’s takeaway: chicks don’t dig the short hair. Starts wearing a wig. Busted as a suspected drug dealer as he steps out of the Eva Gabor shop on Santa Royale’s main strip.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“You know the Bald-Hairy theory of Russian leadership succession? The Mary Worth Hair theory seems to be that a man’s quantity and quality of hair correlates with his success in life, with the yacht-owning Dr. Jeff being the ideal. Too little hair, like Wilbur, and you’re a narcissistic needy schlub. Too much, like Tommy’s old hair, and you’re a drugged-out felon. With the latter‘s current hair length, he may have a tiny taste of success but might still sample weed once in a while. ‘Can you trim it just above the ears? I’m hoping to buy a Lexus.’” –Tonio

“There are five distinct stages of grief in coping with Heathcliff. Here, we see Anger and Acceptance. Trust me, you don’t want to see Bargaining.” –Joe Blevins

“Heathcliff is a criminal, so is his father, so is his sister. I wanted to play the edgelord and say we should reconsider eugenics, but then I remembered that sterilizing cats is not controversial at all.” –Ettorre

“Things finally break Lonnie’s way when he gets thrown out before he can pay his bill.” –Hibbleton

“The dialogue says ‘protective love interest spoiling for a fight’ and ‘cowardly antagonist trying to back out of a confrontation’ but the facial expressions say ‘informing someone their car is parked in a delivery zone and needs to be moved’ and ‘annoyed by latest in a string of minor inconveniences.’” –TheDiva

“A key skill for an extortionist is knowing when to quit. Glumly hanging around the scene of a failed extortion racket is a real rookie error.” –AndyL

“Well, no, Brandy didn’t technically break up with me. She just went on a trip. But she will break up with me once she learns I’ve told you all this!” –Nevin, on Patreon

“I like how Chicken Lady doesn’t seem sad or defeated, she’s concentrating on strategy. ‘If I make base camp on the landing I should be able to reach the bedroom by tomorrow afternoon.’” –pugfuggly

“Anthony screwed up so bad that his hairstyle changed. Also, he’s trying to drown himself.” –Lauralot

“What’s impressive about Chatu’s physique isn’t that he’s had the self-discipline to maintain it — I mean, what else are are you going to do when you’ve been extrajudicially imprisoned in an open-air, 8-foot by 8-foot cage, wearing the same pair of jeans for 17 years, except body-weight and isometric exercises — rather, what’s impressive is that the Wambesi have apparently been feeding him, what 3500, 3600 calories a day with at least 250 grams of protein?” –Charterstone: Dune

“Foodify doesn’t play entire songs… Ha ha ha, no! That costs money! They just play the lyrics that are even vaguely food related, like ‘Yummy yummy yummy’ from the eponymous hit from The Archies. For songs with no lyrics? Don’t worry, the guy who is running the whole thing from his basement will pop in and announce the title because whoever is writing Blondie thinks Spotify works just like radio.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“The funny thing is that, for once, this comic accidentally came close to real relevancy, since Meta and their privacy-violating glasses have come back into the news again. ‘Uh-oh,’ the Intelligent Life editors said to one another, ‘Today’s strip is dangerously under threat of being actually topical, and the hedge fund that owns our syndicate isn’t going to allow that type of thought-provoking examination for their products. Better end it on a pop culture references so hoary that even the fucking Keane kids beat us to the punch on it to ease the tension.’” –2+2=7

“I love how Tommy greets everything in life like a fresh-born baby. He got off drugs when a pharmacist told him that there were treatments for addiction, and he reacted like it was the first he ever heard of such a thing. Now he’s looking at the photos in a barber shop and thinking, ‘Wait, so hair … can be cut, and even styled? Wow, that actually explains so much.’” –Dan

“I am so angry at Judge Parker (both the strip and the character) for making me sympathize with Judge Parker for making a sandwich. It’s literally the most relatable thing he’s ever done.” –Drew, on BlueSky

“For a comic that’s mostly just people yapping at each other, the characters of Judge Parker don’t seem to communicate that well.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Judging by the way those animals are leering at each other, they’re not about to allow the Keane’s puritanically revisionist ‘one of every animal’ policy stop their forty days and forty nights of fornication.” –Guts Dozier

“I can’t believe that Luann is into retro 80s pop culture, because that would be a personality trait and she has proven herself to be completely unburdened of those.” –TheDiva

“Bernice, you’ve been living with Luann’s family for six years now. Your goal all along has obviously been to replace your ‘friend’ and be the responsible, sensible daughter that Nancy and Frank have never had. So let Luann move in with her gentleman friend. THIS IS GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!” –Joe Blevins

“A lot of great facial expressions on display in today’s panel. We have a content kitten, the world’s smuggest giraffe, a horse who is clearly up to no good, an elephant worried by the things he can never forget, and a confused but enthusiastic frog. (Obviously the implication is that these are all toys, but I prefer to imagine that these are real creatures the Keane children recruited from some psychedelic, half-imagined hell-world.) Even Mama Keane is getting in on the facial expression action, with a sly grin that is an entirely inappropriate reactions to these two’s sub-antics. I suspect she’s just pleased that they are surprisingly open to the idea of being set adrift on the open ocean, which will make things easier when she sets into motion her plan to rid the house of its redheaded population once and for all.” –Vulpes

“I don’t know. I just feel like, if I was presented a deep fried, seasoned, battered slice of human flesh on a bun, I couldn’t tell you with any certainty if I had known the guy. Clearly Mr. Merking is running a scam to get his sandwich on the house.” –Vanya

“I love the teacher’s horrified expression in the last panel. ‘My God, this child has realized the pointlessness of what we’re doing here! This changes everyth– oh, wait, the teacher’s union runs this state. Sit down and shut up, kid.’” –A Grave Mind

“Momma said I should be more worried about sun poisoning.” –Lauralot

“God, these interviews are tedious. Stupid ugly high school athletes. How many more of these are there? Does that line ever end? How long have I been here? Feels like eternity. Are these kids getting weirder looking? How come the clouds aren’t moving? Oh. Oh, god. We didn’t survive that car crash, and I’m in my ironic hell.” –Voshkod

“Iconic body language from Marvin’s grandpa, here! He may be sitting on a park bench in the sunshine with his grandson, but by jing, he’s pissed about it!” –Victor Von

“I’ve always put my grandpa on a pedestal. But he keeps climbing back down. All his complaints about having arthritis are baloney!” –Peanut Gallery

“Little does Rusty know that saying an exclamation mark out loud is considered an act of aggression by raccoons. They usually respond by ripping their adversary’s face off while saying a grawlix.” –Weaselboy

“That’s actually a chicken-proof cap — the FDA wanted to be sure there were no more opioids in the egg supply. (Why do you think people were willing to pay $8 per dozen?)” –BigTed

“Tommy is walking aimlessly down a street, staring blankly, and becomes fascinated by the front of a barbershop. Pretty sure the ‘whether to do drugs’ decision was made at least fifteen minutes ago.” –Where’s Rocky?

“That’s a cool looking front … I’m positive the gangsters who run this ‘barber shop’ are looking for drug runners.” –2+2=7

“I am a bit surprised that Mary Worth will be the first legacy comic to address looksmaxxing.” –Everything Is Better With Monkeys