“Justin is doing his own thing, as always? No. I don’t believe it. Oh, wait … a lava lamp? I stand corrected.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Oh, I know why. It’s because Slylock is an adherent of Thomas Nagel’s epistemological skepticism, whose central premise is to doubt the existence of everything, including, but not limited to, Reeky’s proffered alibi. So that one was easy today. I’ll bet all the kids will get it!” –Bob Tice

“What is it about the weird bird world that Shoe takes place in that nobody can have a straight conversation? It must be hellish to live in a society where even the most basic of questions is met with either a stupid pun or a sarcastic jab.” –ectojazzmage

“So intrigued by whether the fish is the friend or the fish is the bed.” –LLM Cool J, on Twitter

“Wilbur has two paths to go from here. On the first, he processes this lesson about the impermanence of relationships and learns to let his attachment to Iris go, having achieved true inner peace. On the second he gets even weirder and, I dunno, marries his other fish.” –Dan

“What’s funny about that punchline is that it’s so overwrought Dustin’s dad must have been working on that for a solid week. I’d tell him not to quit his day job but it looks as though he hates that too.” –pugfuggly

“I’ve lost a couple of pets in my time, and one thing I never did was collapse against the fridge sobbing out urban legends about Walt Disney’s corpse.” –Schroduck

“Leave it there … I can’t come to the door right now! I’m using the bathroom! Oh, wait … I’m not in the bathroom, am I…?” –Charterstoned

“Say, did you know the ‘cola wars’ are considered to be an ongoing thing? That puts an Orwellian spin on today’s strip. (‘We have always been at war with Keurig Dr. Pepper…’)” –TheDiva

“Trixie is waging a war against the Mainstream Media, which is libelling her friend, the sun, saying it causes skin cancer.” –Ettorre

“Those snails are in the desert because that’s where you find the mutating radiation that has clearly turned them into oversized monsters, as 1950s science fiction movies always told us it would. I mean, look at those flowers: half the height of a flatscreen TV, and the snails dwarf them. The snails are huge. Fear the snails of Yucca Mountain.” –Vice President John Adams

“It’s just a silly comic, but I’m going to be spending the rest of my day wondering if snails are either so technologically advanced that they have televisions that work with no apparent power or signal/streaming sources, or so gullible that you can fool them into thinking they have a television by slapping a simple drawing onto a stand.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“So Justin’s evolved his pineal gland into a working third eye. Good for him; ain’t Theosophy great? Or at least peaceful and, these days, mostly extinct. I suppose he could have joined Aum Shinrikyo or Heaven’s Gate or the Unification Church or any other organization filled with crazed loons who have ambitious goals to rule or kill, but no, this is Rex Morgan, the ‘no soap, no opera’ of soap opera strips.” –Voshkod

“Goddammit, kid, it’s 5 of 6:00. I just got home from a long sweaty day perfecting the delivery system for Napalm, and I just want a drink. It is far too late in the day for ontology!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“He’s not being that good. He’s wearing his shoes while on the furniture, for one.” –taig

“When he was in prison for burglary, Malcom X became a voracious reader and would use the knowledge gained and his newfound faith to become one of the most influential civil rights leaders of the 20th Century. Dennis, however, has just become more and more spiteful. Literacy will be the first thing to go when he attains power.” –Philip

“You’re a plugger if you plan both your day and night around abusing a diner’s ‘Free refills!’ coffee offer.” –Truckosaurus

“The trick to Parent’s Day is to be the first parent to bail, leaving the other parent to parent.” –MKay

“It was developed by the US Army. They call it ‘Agent Citronella.’” –taig

“And Dot and Ditto are calling it ‘Parent’s Day’ even though it’s explicitly for two parents. Your parents may not be able to hear where that apostrophe is, but Sunbeam knows!” –matt w

“The fact that Lois wears an Aaron Rodgers jersey to bed says alarming things about their sex life.” –The Witch

“Looks like ‘rewilding’ the churchyard deconsecrated the soil, resulting in something that is clearly good for certain undead but maybe not ‘everyone.’ This proves what climate science opponents have been warning us for years: environmentalists are profane pagan simps who want to feed us to bloodsucking landed aristocrats. Who knew all you had to do to defeat Dracula was mow regularly?” –jroggs

“That is not an appropriate reaction to finding that your goldfish have died, so I hope this means they’ve somehow died gruesomely.” –Roto13

“Now, if you don’t mind my asking, Phantom, does your fabric breathe? Because, you know, it can get pretty hot in a jungle like this with a get-up like that! That’s why my friend and I here have sleeveless T-shirts, which serve the additional artistic function of identifying us permanently with the lower-class criminal element!” –Bob Tice

“Sure the school bus is sometimes unreliable, but do you know how hard it is to find one that can talk?” –But What Do I Know?

“Gil and Luke are saved by the bus, as not having any idea who their starting pitcher will be on the way to the game might be a new coaching low. [remembers just about any other Gil Thorp storyline] Not having any idea who their starting pitcher will be on the way to the game is standard operating procedure.” –Drew Funk

“The reference to A Streetcar Named Desire accidentally implies that Wilbur was an abusive husband to his goldfish, which is depressingly plausible.” –ectojazzmage

“‘And as the Great Net ascended and dragged her lover’s cadaver into the Dry Above, Willa was struck by the true horror of her situation. Stellan had at least found escape from their eldritch purgatory. She would forever remain the captive of The W’hlbah — and now, she would need to endure it alone.’ -From Spooky Fish Tales by H.P. Lovecarp.” –MasterMahan

“It’s not too late, Wilbur! You can still take Stellan to Dr. Ed for treatment, where I assume he will transplant Stellan’s name onto a younger, similar-looking goldfish.” –Anonymous

“The campaign has barely started and I’m not at all surprised that Gertie is already playing the race card.” –Peanut Gallery

“Stellan is literally the smallest thing flushed down Wilbur’s toilet in forty years.” –Where’s Rocky?

“I shudder to think how a reader unfamiliar with this strip might react to seeing this, what with the giant pig, the biblical allusions, and the name ‘Gazali.’ How do you explain that for Gasoline Alley, a topical news reference is the Teapot Dome scandal.” –pugfuggly

“This is what the Mitchell household is like when the father comes home: the mother is missing, likely passed out, leaving a pitcher of ‘margaritas’ made from tequila and lemonade on the kitchen table, and the kid has been there shouting for God knows how many hours but not brave enough to leave his chair. Just let the poor man have his James Bond attaché case cosplay, will you?” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Bad news, Henry! Dennis is getting the Erasmian idea that individual humans have free will and thus can choose salvation instead of believing in Luther’s ‘servo arbitrio’ and Calvin’s predestination. Who let Jesuits in your house?!” –Ettorre

“Imeswine needs to be a terrible Goliath-like monster, so they made him an enormous pig demon. But he needs to be recognizable as the evil ‘Electric Acres’ city official, so they dressed him up in a button down shirt and polka-dot bow tie. But he also needs to fit in to the ‘vaguely Biblical times’ setting, so they gave him earrings and a scabbard. It’s a strawman designed by committee.” –TheDiva

“Ha, look at that sad look on Lois’ face, she knows that Ditto will indeed be following in Beetle’s footsteps: a few years of sloth and cookies, followed by an unimpressive stint in high school, before being shipped off to the US Army’s Idiot Division to be a guinea pig for new MRE additives.” –pugfuggly

“The U.S. Army has made Sarge such an efficient killing machine that he cannot return to civilian life anymore and he is completely alienated from the citizens he’s sworn to protect. That’s a grim truth, but on the other hand I am not going to Beetle Bailey for laughter.” –Ettore Costa, on BlueSky

“Most people wouldn’t post a picture of themselves dressed as a clown on their dating profile, but most people aren’t on Jestr™, the only dating app catering exclusively to clown fetishists.” –Schroduck

“It’s a wonderful vintage piece, and by vintage I mean it’s got lead and cadmium in it, which actually answers a lot of questions.” –ValdVin

“Mr. Barnes here is talented enough for the big leagues, and yet somehow I’ve convinced him he should visit Milford University — as if there weren’t five better colleges in this state alone. I’ll take my kickback now!” –BigTed

“You know what else Hi likes about working from home? Not shaving. And also, making come-hither eyes at his wife and leading her on with a question phrased as though it’s going to lead somewhere romantic, and then walking away instead. Hi loves doing that shit.” –Chance

“Whether working in the office or from home, Hi precisely calculates the distance of separation from his family.” –nescio

“Just like an owl, Wilbur is incapable of looking off to the side and is often mistaken as being smarter than he actually is because he wears glasses and the owl was originally thought to be wise due to being a favored bird of Athena. But unlike an owl, he cannot turn his head to see just what is going on behind him. Now I’m not implying that Wilbur is dumber than an owl but anyone can see what’s going on even without being able to turn their head 270 degrees.” –Needless Exposition

“The 1950’s era Jack Benny Show comes on at 5am where I live and two weeks ago the guest star was Lawrence Welk and they did a ‘anna one anna two’ joke. If you want to keep updated on cultural references in this strip you might want to start getting up a little early, just saying.” –Hibbleton

“Declan appears to be rapidly aging, his life force sucked away into the maelstrom that is Neddy’s life. He prays for a quick end and escape, which in Judge Parker time might be eight years or one splash panel saying ‘Seasons change’ and a follow-on panel of Neddy complaining how hard the frozen dirt is, and asking just how shallow can a shallow grave be?” –Voshkod

“Outraged that Gasoline Alley would explain what Twitter is, and what its name was changed to, without a forced joke involving folksy wordplay.” –Jim Into Mystery, on Bluesky

“I didn’t understand why (who I assume is) Tina always looked so miserable for no particular reason, but now it is all clear. Not only does she have waitressin’ shifts in the evening, during the day she’s tasked with manning the city’s walls, fending off besiegers and dodging trebuchet projectiles, and all they gave her for equipment was a purse full of rocks and an unfashionable jacket.” –jroggs

“This is ‘Sarah reaches puberty.’ June attempts to explain the phenomenon to Rex, but he waves her off. ‘No, no, that’s woman’s stuff! Also medical.’” –Myrtle

“It’s a text from Dawn. Who would care?” –Where’s Rocky?

“I am extremely concerned about Wilbur’s clothing changes between Wednesday and Thursday. We went from fully clothed and depressed to in a bathrobe and underwear and SO MUCH LEG HAIR in just one day … I fear what we will see of Wilbur by Saturday, for us, our society…” –LTJpezcore1

“GAAK!! Wilbur is holding his sammich in one hand, so that must mean he’s using the other hand to embrace his solitude! (Is THAT what they’re calling it these days?)” –Charterstoned

“Wilbur as the weird shut-in of the condominium would be a nice turn for him. He’d go from main character to stuff of urban legend, with only glimpses of him picking up his sandwich orders from his door and occasionally (but not often enough) dumping his trash at odd hours to avoid the rest of the world.” –Philip