“I’ve heard of shaggy dog stories, but this guy actually grew a beard in the course of listening to this one.” –Dennis Jimenez

“A veterinary exam room having a big open window is so stupid I can’t even come up with a joke about how the human vet is wearing leg irons or something.” –Rex Thrillho, on BlueSky

“That the animals sometimes revert, Island of Dr. Moreau style, to their old instincts is tragically illustrated by Lady Lynx kicking the severed head off Max Mouse into the room. Before she got so upset, she was going to leave it in the doctor’s shoe. A little feline gift.” –Logar the Librarian

“I’m loving Glen’s reaction to Sophie’s story. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe it’s the 15 tiny beers I’ve had, but did you just use the words hack and drone with no regard to their meaning?’” –Joe Blevins

“Is it really an outrage to steal a body from a morgue? I’d think it would be worse if it were, say, the library or a supermarket.” –taig

“I’m not in the mood to deal with Mr. Parker right now. Or his brother. I’m Sorry, but they don’t have a Monopoly on my time. I’m not going to Scrabble around and take Risks for them just for the sake of some Trivial Pursuit. They should get a Clue!” –Peanut Gallery

“‘No offense, but I don’t think any advice can make me feel better right no–‘ the next moments are a blur. Dawn feels a disorienting rush and a sharp pain and suddenly she’s face-down on the ground, with a blunt weight on the back of her neck. Something has cracked, and blood is pooling underneath her. She doesn’t know what happened to the sun, everything is dark, like night. A voice appears to come from everywhere, asking what about now, Dawn? Do you think you could use some advice now? Suddenly everything rights itself. The light returns, the pain recedes, she’s standing upright, and only a faint taste of blood and a sense of vertigo suggest she didn’t imagine it. ‘Well then,’ says Mary happily, her blank eyes fixed on nothing in the middle-distance. ‘A home-cooked meal may do the trick!’” –Dan

“As the Saxons stormed the fort at Badon Hill, Arthur looked desperately for a weapon to turn the tide of battle. His eyes fell upon the table. The next table will lie flat, and our best knights will sit around it, he thought, but for now, improvise, adapt, overcome. The jarls and thanes would later speak in hushed tones about the moment the flaming wheel broke through the abatis, followed by crazed Britons, charging to victory. Of the anonymous workman who had built the table, nothing is remembered.” –Voshkod

“So is a meat bath when you sit in a bathtub of meat juices and drippings, or is it sitting in a bathtub of meat itself? Is the meat raw or cooked? Red meat? Pork? Poultry? A combination? Do Catholics substitute meat baths for fish baths on Friday? I need answers, yet I fear to have them.” –Lauralot

“Why is everyone wearing black in Dick Tracy? Did somebody die? I mean, I’m sure several suspects have, recently and gruesomely, but those usually don’t get mourned.” –nescio

“Silver, dead-eyed, stands pondering. How many teen girls has this been for whom he has served as a transitional object of affection, as they move from dolls to fathers to adult love and then their own foals and fillies? Silver cares not, he was gelded long ago. Now he is docile at best, saturnine at worst, on the cold and wet days when he has no blanket to keep him warm. As long as the oats come and the stable is mucked, he is content. Joy is the occasional apple or carrot, ecstasy the opportunity to run through grass. Tonight, the blonde girl will dream of Silver. He will forget she ever existed, until the morning. He is content, as content as any horse can be, or so he thinks.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“The outfit says ‘genderfluid Realtor,’ the posture says ‘three-year-old throwing a tantrum,’ and the language says ‘parody of a nineteenth century robber baron.’ Someone needs to work on their branding.” –TheDiva

“I know that it’s all just for the alliteration, but ‘anachronistic’ seems like a particularly bizarre insult, especially for Dick Tracy. You’re calling cell phones with radio watches and driving 1940s electric cars!” –pugfuggly

“Toddlers bang on pots because they’re exploring their senses along with cause and effect. Dennis at five is well past that stage and is banging away noisily solely to cause Wilson a blinding migraine. And I find it hilarious. I’m a bad person.” –Hibbleton

“I can understand Americans doing a soccer comic during the Men’s World Cup (or the Women’s, if it were a female player on a screen). At a push, maybe the Copa America. But I’m meant to believe Leroy, the picture of suburban downwardly-mobile WASPism, is watching soccer in an odd numbered year, on a Thursday in February? What is he, some sort of European? What’s he going to get into next? Buttered crumpets? Shitty dance music? Recreational nudity?” –Schroduck

“I feel like this Aunt Claire person could learn a thing or two about nephew berating. There’s a lot of rich material in the Hall and Oates area, perhaps upon the lines of them both being Oates or something. It would be a cinch to work in the alliteration. Oafish, odious, onerous — shit, if you’re going to say anachronistic anyway, obsolescent is right there. Are you even trying, lady? Now I’m just getting mad.” –Violet

“‘When God closes a door, Jesus opens Windows. That’s how the phrase goes right?’ –Dan Piraro (probably)” –The Rambling Otter

“In 1944, when D-Day code words began turning up in the Daily Telegraph crossword, British intelligence was alarmed, figuring a spy was transmitting the invasion plans to Germany. The puzzles’ creator was arrested and interrogated. It turned out that he was headmaster of a school, located near a military base in northern England, who had his students supply words for the grid. The kids had heard soldiers using the code words but didn’t know their significance. I hope Jughead hasn’t written a bombshell investigative story, and that its fragments in the puzzle section won’t land him and Reggie in Guantanamo. No, wait, I hope that’s exactly what happens.” –A. Mulyak

“Dolly makes a crack about her brothers whilst the pitch black void looms ever closer. She mentions her brothers because there is no one else but the family, there is nothing outside the Kompound. They may pray to the Lord, but He abandoned them to oblivion long ago.” –Rosstifer

“Well, at least Dagwood is supplying helmets without face guards that would slow down his and his guests’ eating.” –nescio

“Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. Dirk(‘s hope of getting laid) was killed when Dawn dropped a bowling ball on his foot. This is accidentally the most high-brow reference Mary Worth has ever made.” –Schroduck

“Jess dutifully records a zero for Dawn’s bowl.” –Hibbleton

“The throwaway panels reveal that Dagwood Bumstead descends the stairs at an angle that can only be called alarming. He might genuinely need that helmet.” –Joe Blevins

“Tell Himself thanks, but we’re Chicago cops. We weren’t paying anyway.” –Rube

“And God spoke to Dolly, saying, ‘What hast thou done with Billy, and with Jeffy, and with P.J.?’ And Dolly answered unto Him, ‘Am I my brothers’ keeper? Isn’t that why they’re supposed to make those dashed lines to mark their path?’” –But What Do I Know?

“I love how that punchline is delivered as flat and emotionless as possible. He’s attained a higher level of assholeness, not restrained by emotion or desire.” –pugfuggly

“Crankshaft’s dead-eyed expression is a reminder that his puns (using the term in the loosest possible sense) are not deliberate attempts at wit but the result of his precipitous cognitive decline. This man is regularly responsible for children’s safety!” –TheDiva

“Unless Dirk breaks his stride, he’s going to step right into the GMC Generica that’s parked exactly one foot from the bowling alley entrance. Then his foot is going to hurt even more.” –Bob Tice

“Pluggers use pet names because they are literally pets — the descendants of animals who replaced the humans before them. While they took ‘names,’ what they really react to is tones of voices, and an encyclopedic memory of what sounds mean food, baths, or walkies.” –Philip

“I think Dennis should be more upset that Alice prepared precisely one meatball for three people, and isn’t sharing. And no sauce. Frankly, she deserves the Menacing this time.” –Dmsilev

“Leroy ordered the burgers unwrapped in the mistaken belief that they’d be cheaper.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“When Jughead experiences pain, his friends go through a range of emotions. Betty is obviously delighted, while Archie is also delighted but with a little dash of anger that his warning was ignored. Jughead’s friends hate him, I guess is where I’m going with this.” –Dan

“Gertie is watching a boxy car with a spoiler and window netting going down a hill, without a single advertisement to be seen anywhere. I don’t know she’s watching, but it is decidedly not NASCAR.” –Banana Jr. 6000

“Aw, it’s a celebration of love among the grey-ashy-pallor-due-to-congestive-heart-failure set. Turn up your supplemental oxygen to three liters a minute and check for mottling, kids, it’s going to be a hot one tonight!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“I like this old-timey kind of basketball, with a bunch of skyscraper-tall players discussing strategy while barely moving around a court. Of course you’re open, dude — it’s not as if anybody here is trying to guard anyone.” –BigTed

“Another deep lore dump from Mary Worth. The moon, a pure white pearl in the heavens, lacking the scars and basins that we know so well. Where is Tycho crater? What of the great Mares, the Sea of Serenity, the Sea of Crises, or the Sea of Tranquility, which in our world bears Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step?’ There is only one answer; the Worthverse did not endure the Late Heavy Bombardment of the Neohadean and Eoarchean eras. Neither Earth nor Moon was pummeled by the orbital residue of failed planets. Which means the cratons of the early Earth were not disrupted back into a molten state, plate tectonics never occurred, there was no split of the early supercontinent Rodina, the lack of solar system remnants prevented the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the dinosaurs survived and evolved into humanoids that replicated our own mammalian culture to a surprising — but not exacting — extent. So, now you can all think of Dawn’s cloaca, or Wilbur’s need for massive caloric intake, or Mary’s cold blood.” –Voshkod

“I’d be pondering this cosmos too, given its nearby gas giant with a full set of rings and enormous stars capable of overwhelming the light of a full moon. Or is that a distant sun? You may be murdered by the Space Viking yet, King, but don’t sleep on the methane rain and background radiation. Hope your planet has its own magnetic field!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Who knows how many blunderbuss pistols could be carried in those fancy pants? The Phantom knows…” –Dennis Jimenez

“Small act of mercy for the singles bar to have a band playing so no one can hear anyone else. If you haven’t scored by 10PM it’s probably best to accept that it’s not your night and you might as well just move on with your life.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Call it a deli because they’re serving cold cuts.” –nescio

“Why would Dagwood say ‘not exactly’ rather than ‘no’? Is he eating the candles? Was he eating them? In the latter case, did he stop because gumbo-scented wax doesn’t have the taste and texture of true gumbo, or because of mouth and throat burns?” –Lauralot

“Daisy, loyal as ever, is keeping a watch on Dagwood in the all-too-likely chance that he ODs on soup fumes and starts drowning in the bathtub.” –pugfuggly

“I thought that snowmen might not feel pain, so it is no great harm to remove a piece of their body, but if they don’t feel pain they should also not feel pleasure, and then what’s the point of ice cream?” –Ettorre

“Looks like Camp Swampy got a new … [squints at badly drawn rank insignia] captain! Farewell, previous captain … [checks Wikipedia] Sam Scabbard! Sorry you got court martialed or fragged or whatever!” –Schroduck

“That’s not a pickup line. Dustin leads with ‘I got my haircut today’ because he gets 10% off his next haircut for every new client he sends the shop’s way.” –Hibbleton

“Perhaps the butcher in the background finds Dennis’ bon mot amusing. Or maybe he’s just thinking of cutting the child into pieces and selling him by the pound. Either could explain the smile.” –Joe Blevins

“The contrast between Hagar’s resigned recognition of how terrible the joke in his strip is to Dennis and co.’s desperate denial of how much theirs sucks is palpable.” –ectojazzmage

“I’m not signed up with a dating service! I find my casual hookups on Tinder like a normal person! What are you, eighty?” –matt w

“While he wouldn’t kill anyone himself, I’m getting the feeling Dagwood wouldn’t be averse to trying cannibalism just once. He would definitely be the first to bring it up after surviving a shipwreck, plane crash, or fender bender.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“With a quick twist of her neck, she flashed her ponytail across the room with the crack of a whip. A deep bloody welt appeared on the rude man’s cheek. As he ran out, she turned with a smile toward her companion. ‘You wanna see what else it can do?’ she purred.” –Voshkod

“I reset Sarge’s alarm and painted his window black. Oh, and yeah, I murdered the bugler. Kinda buried the lede there, didn’t I?” –seismic-2

“Ah … look, mate, I appreciate the theatrics and all, but I’m just an unlucky sod who got pressed into service on a British warship and mutinied to be free … maybe you could bury me and send word back to my family of my demise? No…? Oh … I’m going to be a decoration in your cave? Well, that’s lovely. No, Nigel couldn’t possibly have the freedom in death that he never had in life. Got to be physically tied to a dreary cave with a drama queen forever. That’s rich. Stupid bloody afterlife…” –Old Man Shadow