“For Pluggers I just assume the cast of characters are a troupe of actors from an improv group who got hired to star in a series of short vignettes sent in from readers. They are actually big city dwelling thespians with fancy art degrees and a relatively middle-class status thanks to regular work in the comics. It’s no Peanuts (in comic strip actor world, the phrase ‘working for Peanuts’ had the opposite meaning than for us), but anything that keeps you employed, and not in the political cartoons, is a win for many of them. Anyway, Claude has a wife, but she works outside the industry.” –Philip

“Oh, this one’s super-easy, and the kids will get it in a snap. Slylock opts for the lesser-priced wand because he’s heeded the words of veteran investor David Roche, who predicts a bear market in 2025 on account of smaller-than-expected interest rate cuts, a slowing economy and an AI bubble. So Slylock wants to save his investment dollars.” –Bob Tice

“Batiuk advances the radical eugenic proposition that if you are not tall enough to reach the high shelves you should not be allowed to own a shop.” –Ettorre

“I love Standard Sal’s name and facial expression. Yup, that’s me, I’m just a regular ol’ pig, down here at the market, selling my three common bubble wands so I can take my four fifty back home to my wife, Conventional Connie, and my kids, Common, Normal, Meh and Standard, Jr. in good ol’ suburban Typical Town.” –astroboy

“I appreciate that the bird refers to his fiancée as ‘the Widow Palmer’ instead of ‘Betty-Lou’ or whatever her first name is and I hope this continues throughout their marriage because I can’t think of anything funnier to cry out in orgasmic joy.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘How’s your vegan ice cream?’ is so menacing that Dennis has lost his raison d’être.” –Drew, on Bluesky

“It’s not your memory, Lois, it’s the fact that you live in some kind of constantly changing hellscape that makes reality itself impossible to grasp onto. Look: the walls changed colors and your teacup shrunk between those two panels! What even is ‘memory’ in that kind of a space?” –pugfuggly

“You need a brain cloud. It involves trepanation, a blender, and a diffuser. When it’s done, your brain will be floating around the room as a fine mist. You’ll feel much better. I have a drill if you want to get started.” –Voshkod

“Studies have shown that frequent web use actually does reduce our working memories, because we just assume we can find information right away by Googling — so in that sense, the internet really does become our ‘brain cloud.’ That’s something Dot would know if she spent more time on her phone like a normal kid, and less time conversing with her stupid parents!” –BigTed

“Hm I haven’t checked in on Gil Thorp in a while, I wonder what kind of sports-based fun they’re up to (in a featureless void, an unfamiliar figure beckons closer and whispers, ‘Don’t be afraid. Horses are prey.’)” –Dan

“‘Pluggers don’t smoke cigarettes’? Not feeling it. How about ‘Plugger edibles’ (a table full of food)?” –matt w

“‘Silver? Now THAT is a horse of a different color.’ — Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of Brown Blaze” –Only Here For The Ads

“Okay, new pitch for a Dick Tracy spinoff comic: Those two sucky nephews trying and failing endlessly to open a jar of pickles, wrestling with it, themselves, and each other, often in bizarre and contorted positions. They could travel from place to place, entering and exiting stories and situations we never fully see, because our attention is focused rightly on their attempts to open this fucking jar like a goddamn pickle-based Sisyphus. Sometimes they affect those situations or are affected by them, and sometimes they just drift through them without anything changing, like leaves on the wind.” –Craig!

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. The owls are not making life easier for Atazhoon tonight.” –Doctor Moreau

“Jughead chokes on his drink. ‘Not paying attention!? That’s so unfair! Don’t these girls know you have shit for brains!?’” –Hibbleton

“List five people you’ve haunted in the past week or you’re fired. Amazing how few ghosts can pass this simple pulse test. Worthless work from home slackers, scamming the ancient of days. I wouldn’t want to be in your sheet…” –Dennis Jimenez

“Looks more like a vast expanse of desert than a beach. Where’s the ocean? Are they spies, posing as confused tourists, sent by the US to monitor aboveground nuclear tests somewhere in Central Asia? With the prospect of capture and imprisonment, you’d think they’d set aside money for long-term dogsitting.” –A. Mulyak

“It must gall Mary to know that she can fill in for the perennial loser Wilbur, distribute her pearls of wisdom to the masses (via print?) and that as far we know no can tell the difference. By the way, is she doing this for free? If so, I have some advice for her.” –Kirkout

“Mary can’t be bothered with all the tedious Ask Wendy letters (‘I caught my boyfriend cheating.’ Zzzzzzz.) So she throws them away and is now just using the column as an opinion piece to spread her platitudes to the public at large. She’s never felt more alive!” –Cleveland Mocks

“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