“Sexy plotlines and I’m learning Spanish? Top that, Duolingo!” –Old School Allie Cat

“Stick with sham evangelism, Rene. ‘Crash for Cash’ is a young man’s game.” –MKay

“I see the kids built their snowman facing the house. They’re not doing all that work just to amuse the damn neighbors!” –Peanut Gallery

“Glad to see from the sign over Rene’s head that the characters in Rex Morgan have abandoned the hokey ‘Mirakle Method’ of psychological transformation through total reinvention and finally embraced the stolid, dependable European ‘Le Méthode‘ of psychological transformation through getting hit by a car.” –Chance

“Rene must have been well educated, to say ‘lie low’ instead of the common ‘lay low.’ I need some back story on him. Was he a Yale man, for instance?” –White Rabbit

“The good news is that the ice comes from melted snow cows. The bad news is [40 slide powerpoint about the cramped conditions of factory farmed snow cow pens]” –matt w

“I see a guy trying to ‘masculinize’ do-it-yourself sex toys. Hi’s lying there all smug (and just a little bit aroused) in the knowledge that he doesn’t have to spend a fortune on dildo cozies and Ben-wa balls.” –2+2=7

“No way would I waste my cute pink bow or a hat on a snowperson I made. Accessories are very important to me. And they’re not getting my glasses, either. Like I won’t be able to drive or read until these scumbags melt? Yeah, no.” –made of wince

“Love the idea that The Founders, when it came time to rename Stink Hollow or Jaundiceville or whatever, sat down, thought it over, and after extensive debate decided, ‘How about we commemorate it as a place where you ford, not a river, but Moms We’d All Like to F*ck?’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“I like how Mr Out-of-Towner has absolutely no reaction to that ‘joke’ at all, just catalogues it for future use. ‘Ok, compliment their sandals. Thanks, bud.’” –pugfuggly

“And you know why they call this place ‘Strike Bowling,’ right? Because the object is to get a higher score than your opponent, and the best way to do that is to make more strikes. Think about it: if you bowl twelve strikes in a row, that’s a perfect game with a score of 300! No one can beat that score; they can only tie it, which is very rare … I’m sorry, what were we talking about?” –Weaselboy

“Lois could take this opportunity to tell Trixie that, since we’re now more than two weeks past the winter solstice, the days are actually getting longer. Instead the message is, ‘The days are shorter in winter, Trixie. Like the waning crescent moon they’re edging toward eternal darkness. Anyway enjoy your time sitting by the window completely unattended.’” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“The writers of Shoe don’t worry about some offensive joke they told long ago coming back to bite them. Young people don’t read newspapers and certainly aren’t checking out the printed collections or archives. But there is a chance a Boomer will clip a poorly worded future comic and put in on their cubical wall, and some Gen-Z worker made to work in-office will see it, post about it on TikTok, and they will have to learn to actually use TikTok to see if they are canceled or not, and do whatever dance is trending to apologize.” –Philip

“Why is Dagwood standing at the school bus stop waiting for, presumably, his carpool? Can’t they pick him up at his driveway? For that matter, why isn’t he rushing out of the house with the carpool driver honking, knocking aside mailmen and traveling salesmen? Instead he’s just standing there shooting the breeze with Elmo. What’s this strip think it is, Dustin? Listen Dean Young, stick to your own shtick — there’s only one Dustin, and its shtick is thin enough already without you horning in on it!” –Thelonious_Nick

“’Tis a pity this is only a visual medium. I would love to hear how Marty mispronounces ‘Atazhoon.’” –Ettorre

“Gil is the Mario of his story, the boring protagonist. Kaz is the Luigi, the often-forgotten sidekick. Hernandez is the Wario, the rude antagonist who also goes bowling with the protagonist and has weird W-shaped facial hair. So the laws of narrative symmetry demand a Waluigi, an anti-Kaz, and I guess that’s who this guy is. Big permed mullet, New Romantic fashion sense, terrible coaching … but this time, evil.” –Schroduck

“Oh, you ‘barely played,’ ‘Martin’? Well, tell it to the wave, ’cause the face don’t want to hear it!!” –Dagmar Nasty

“Help me with the cop lingo — when did ‘taking him out’ become synonymous with ‘bringing him in?’ Or does the oven have an advanced feature that reveals the soul when it’s opened?” –But What Do I Know?

“‘What kind of tone are we going for with the Dick Tracy art today?’ ‘Dark. Ominous. Moody. Really film noir shit.’ ‘Okay, so bright yellow polo shirt it is.’” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Today’s Rex Morgan is far more interesting if you read ‘CLAP!’ as not spontaneous applause, but each victim of the Mirakle Method clapping in unison. ‘CLAP!’ and the room reverberates, and then long seconds of silence, and then ‘CLAP!’ like nearing thunder, and long seconds of silence, then ‘CLAP!’ like the doors of Heaven slamming, and June and Rex sit in rising panic as ‘CLAP!’ and the crowd stands as one and begins to turn toward them, the unbelievers, the heretics, the ones who need to see a Mirakle.” –Voshkod

“One stern look and it’s floppy fries and farewell forever? Guess Brad should’ve been eating at ALL CHICKEN.” –Skedastic

“Passion for good earthy food, secret bastard daughter, making Greenpeace activists disappear … for being a Marine, Keith is really French!” –Ettorre

“When Kwamay explains his third wish, the fish starts to tear up. ‘Dude, can’t you see what’s right in front of your eyes? After all I’ve done for you… It’s because I’m a fish, isn’t it? We can make it work!’” –Peanut Gallery

“A new year, a new sound for sleeping. We should all strive to include hyphens in our snoring.” –KMD

“What’s especially funny about this scene is that, judging by the black dress and haunted look, Grandma just got back from a funeral. She was probably telling them a story about a beloved friend or relative, and these two melonheads just rolled their eyes and asked if any of this happened since 2018.” –pugfuggly

“Also in attendance tonight, we’ve got the Glenwood Terra Cotta Army of Middle-Aged Americans! Give ’em a hand, folks, but please, no touching or flash photography!” –jroggs

“Henry is embarrassed. He is the one that is supposed to be belittled in this scenario, not the blue-collar Brawny man representing the masculine virtues he as an office-dweller can never hope to achieve.” –Philip

“And don’t forget, friends, this Man-Sawed-In-Half/Exploding-Eyeball trick is brought to you by FM radio. FM: don’t miss our ‘commercial free hour’ at 9 every night!” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Dick Tracy is establishing that this woman is a crook like all stage ‘magicians,’ who aren’t magicians at all but con artists who trick people into thinking they’re seeing magic but instead it’s all an elaborate ruse. One day these charlatans will get what’s coming to them from the fists of justice! Look at the audience in panel two who have been fooled into getting PTSD from thinking they just witnessed a gruesome murder! Curse you, Criss Angel, Mind Freak! Learn to spell ‘Chris’, damn it! Curse you, David Copperfield! We know you’re not really a Dickensian character still looking so young and handsome despite being close to two centuries old! Curse you all and your lies!” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Chip is just making clear that when he takes his date back to his place for strip poker or whatever horny teens play today (strip Fortnite?), he will definitely win.” –Schroduck

“It’s not quite as subtle a warning as, say, playing football with the head of Oliver Cromwell and then displaying it on a pike, but the local bass get the message just fine.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“All this, and we still don’t know who Brad is. Sonia’s boyfriend? Kitty’s boyfriend? Sonia’s father? Kitty’s father? I’m betting he’s the sales rep from meatless ‘BLUFF’© burgers, making his commission one dysfunctional household at a time.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Marvin branches out into a new form of dumping.” –nescio

“In Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room! Make Room!, ‘soylent steaks’ referred to meat substitutes made from soy and lentils — a perfectly respectable veggie burger. But the film adaptation punched it up into the titular Soylent Green, which famously is people. Then the techbro decided to name his food substitute after the best known popular representation of cannibalism, and now we’re full circle, with something that probably is soy and lentils filtered through layers of signification. Semiotics in Mary Worth isn’t just calling a guy ‘Hillend’ because his butt is the size of a natural formation!” –matt w

“Who dresses their toddler like this? Is Marvin going to see Santa or going to a wedding?” –ectojazzmage

“Whether or not an adult camel is smarter than a human boy, he’s smart enough fashion-wise to be wearing the service hat of what appears to be … a train conductor? For sanity’s sake, I’ll assume he took it off the desiccated corpse of the real conductor whose body still lies alongside a forgotten railway car half buried in the desert sand.” –Hibbleton

“Well, Dennis, I actually have a CDL and a private pilot license issued by the FAA — that covers the US, of course. Now, for the EU, I have separate licensing for both activities but, since Brexit, they’re not valid in the UK, so that required additional bureaucracy. Now Russia, well, Santa had to pay out a pretty penny to get the right people to sign the right paperwork, and then I had to get the sleigh’s IFF transponder cleared by both Russian and Ukrainian forces … [thirty minutes later] … and finally, I got a Civil Aviation Safety Authority certificate in Australia! Does that answer your question?” –Voshkod

“Have you every considered that what you thought of as a normal and functional part of your anatomy was actually a swollen, puss-filled cyst? Merry Christmas, and body horror to all!” –Stuart F

“Billy’s previous two letters read ‘Santa, pay attention to my third letter but not to this one’ and ‘Santa, pay attention to any letter that does not ask you to pay attention to it’. He’s hoping he can cause Santa to experience a logical paradox and go down in history as the boy who ruined Christmas for everyone.” –Schroduck

“Shoe is simply telling Roz that as long as she serves bird meat to her costumers, the charges of cannibalism will not stick, because the evidence is digested. Freezing the meals will only produce long-lasting incriminating evidence.” –Ettorre

“Poor Shoe. He was just trying to not tell Roz that she’s stupid if she thinks she could start a small business that could even begin to compete for shelf space already dominated by multi-national conglomerates but isn’t bright enough himself to do it in any way other than insulting her cooking. Roz, you’re already in a losing battle against chain restaurants. Looks at all those empty stools.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Rene is the sort to have news alerts with his name (and various aliases) delivered to his smartphone. Relying on broadcast news isn’t how he got this far ahead.” –Philip

“Dick Tracy took this job for two reasons: to shoot people with impunity, and to be smug in his moral superiority over others. And if he can’t have the former, by GOD will he indulge in the latter.” –TheDiva

“The next time I’m interrogated by the police, I’ll make sure to wear a sweet Criterion Channel branded polo shirt. Cops can’t lock you up if they see your devotion to Cinema.” –lorne

“He didn’t skip out on you, Mud. He calmly walked to an Uber with dignity, a suitcase of money, and whatever wasn’t nailed down, then rode to the airport.” –Old Man Shadow

“If a plugger slips and falls on the ice and no one is around to hear, will he make a sound? Yes, he’ll make a sound about the fall with his friends at the diner for the next decade or until full dementia kicks in.” –Baja Gaijin

“‘Cloudy, not bright’ is a phrase that seemed familiar to me but I couldn’t place it, so I googled it. Turns out that the top hits were all clues from holiday crosswords. Anyhow, just loving the idea of Gregg Walker sipping tea by a fire, looking over a newspaper, when it suddenly dawns on him that he was supposed draw a comic. He quickly scans the clues until he falls on that one, and writes ‘+ SARGE VIOLENCE’ on it in blue ink, takes another sip of tea, and turns over to the sports section.” –pugfuggly

“Looks like the Hi and Lois visual content assembly team didn’t have a baby stroller in their clip-art file. Instead, they had assets for a handtruck and a high chair, and only five minutes before they had to leave for their league bowling match.” –jroggs

“Remember, the plugger himself is there to hear the gunshot-like sound of his femur breaking.” –lynn

“About damn time that we saw a woman who wanted Santa to satisfy her burning womanly needs. Normally we just see flirting with the ulterior motive of getting sables and convertibles.” –Tonio

“When Brad finally does lose the hat, the extent of his male pattern baldness will shock us all. Say what you will about Keith’s politics, but his red-blooded all-American crew cut will stand proud and strong forever!” –BigTed

“At her age, her likes and dislikes change at the drop of a hat. Yes, all Sonia really needs is to replace Brad with a nice, sensible young man whose interests and attitudes she’ll adopt as her own in a totally appropriate, mentally healthy way! Let’s see who the available male options are in Mary Worth-land. Well, there’s Tommy. Um, let’s move on. And isn’t Dr. Drew taken nowadays? Sorry Sonia, looks like it’s Wilbur for you!” –Thelonious_Nick