“If the joke at the end of today’s Dustin seems a bit limp, it’s because it’s a last-minute replacement after the syndicate rejected the original final two panels where Dustin’s dad quietly swerves the car into a crowd of young pedestrians and smashes directly into the side of a building.” –stepped pyramids

“At least one of those attractive women in Blondie should have been carrying a six-foot party sub.” –Rex Thrillho, on Twitter

“Someone should demonstrate to all those dexterously challenged folks in Santa Royale that the speaker feature would allow them to use their cell phones without actually having to hold them.” –Charterstoned

“It’s funny because according to wistful halcyon memories of the Boomer stereotype generation, the last panel actually is how “it used to be.” See, you got what you wanted, Helen, so strap on your apron and heels and get cracking!” –2+2=7

“Many vulture populations worldwide are collapsing because they eat the corpses of farm animals who received medicine in their final days that’s toxic to birds. What I’m saying is, that buzzard better be careful what it wishes for. Sure, most people who visit Granny Creeps are dead within the week, but unless the vulture waits until all the herbal elixirs in Snuffy’s bloodstream are metabolized, it’ll meet the exact same fate.” –Schroduck

“Either Gasoline Alley is set here, or the comic just got picked up again by the Charlotte Observer after it got dropped decades ago for Dilbert or Cathy or something. I don’t care enough to fact-check, so I will assume this is shout out to one of the few newspapers and markets willing to pick up this century old strip.” –Philip

“Is that an EKG readout pinned to the nurse’s desk? You’ve got to hand to Doc Pritchart. Hiding your HIPAA violations in plain sight is a bold move.” –Weaselboy

“Charlotte, home of Giant Helicopters, Inc., your one-stop shop for all your giant helicopter needs. From the lowly Chinook to the Mil V-12, if it looks too big to fly, you can get it at Giant Helicopters! Just off I-85, look for the dangerously massive rotors!” –Voshkod

“Looks like even Dagwood is a slave to quantification and arbitrary numerical benchmarks. Where’s the poetry of mindlessly gorging yourself on food until you faint or puke?!” –Ettore Costa, on Bluesky

“The alien is the only thing that isn’t half-assed about this strip.” –Rusty

“Just once, I’d like to see one of these food service people not be as enthusiastically committed to specialized hedonism as Dagwood. Just once, let there be a butcher who stares with dead eyes as Dagwood describes at length his ideal (i.e., enormous) turkey, only to finally interject in a monotonous voice, ‘Why don’t you just buy two instead, you weird gluttonous fuck?’” –jroggs

“It is true that the ‘joke’ in today’s Marvin is so unfunny as to be unrecognizable as an attempt at humor without the use of extremely sophisticated instruments, but on the other hand, look at Jeff’s face in panel two! Ha ha, he’s so mad! Ignore the text — just imagine it’s a lot of nonsense babbling like in some European cartoons for kids — and enjoy Jeff’s futile outrage.” –Chance

“May we, like Trixie, treasure our relationship with Apollo, the Sun God, who is our personal friend and — dare I say it? — savior. Hi & Lois: The NeoPagan Comic.” –jerp+jump

“Is it just me, or do Dot and Suzy look like they’ve been topping up their juice with a bit of gin? Girls, everyone feels like your ‘BFF’ when you’ve had a few. Just stay cool and try not to get any matching tattoos.” –pugfuggly

“Ah, yes, crawling-age babies, known for spending their days in quiet contemplation of nature’s beauty.” –a.

“Look, I don’t want to tell the writers of Daddy Daze how to do their jobs, but if a baby can, with a single syllable, communicate even semi-complex ideas to his father, said baby should also have the wherewithal to know that literally no wind instrument is played by flinging one’s arms indiscriminately about, nor should a grown adult man see the flailing arms of an infant and think, ‘This child is pretending to play the oboe.’ Drums, perhaps? One of those four-keyboard setups that prog bands have? Very complicated theremin?” –els

“Come on, Sarge, brave and fearless? Surely they must be one or the other, but not both! And nobody can call Beetle a coward. This is a man who puts his life on the line to sleep on the job. Every bone in his body has been broken as a result of this, but still he keeps napping. Thank you for your slumber, Beetle Bailey.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I am a huge fan of cinnamon buns, and have gotten terribly, terribly lost in Charlotte. I am a Plugger and Gashole. I’m just a Lockhorn away from the Trifecta of Doom.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Oh, Christ. I bet each copy is different. I have to look at all of them, don’t I? Remind me again why we taught them to read?” –Lawyerbob

“Otto will not be distracted: the grave has been dug, only one of them can have Sarge’s affection.” –Old Man Shadow

“‘I wasn’t actually a spy, but I knew from experience that sometimes it’s better to tell an incriminating lie than the honest truth.’ –Thorvald the Treefucker, 873 CE” –jroggs

“Don’t worry, that flying sound was just Peter Pan. He’s coming through your window to steal your shadow, and there’s not a darn thing your parents can do about it. Well, sleep tight!” –BigTed

“Funny you mention our infamous cook, because guess who’s going into his pot tonight? Hint: it rhymes with woo.” –ectojazzmage

“I’m pretty sure the logical opposite of ‘it wasn’t Moe or Larry’ is ‘it was Moe AND Larry.’ Yes I, a professional computer scientist, have proved that this puzzle for children is internally inconsistent. No, I’m not proud of that.” –Stuart F

“I AM ONCE AGAIN WARNING REX MORGAN NOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THINGS BEING BORING” –matt w

“If you decide to depict a dog that walks on its hind legs, you should make all mammals in your comic strip bipedal. That way may lead to the Slylockverse, but at least it will add some visual interest to your work when you don’t have a joke for the day.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I know it’s dark out, Helga, but remember this is November and you’re in Scandinavia. It’s probably what, 2 p.m. right now?” –TheDiva

“Li’l Sparky’s attempt to score weed completely fails.” –nescio

“…it’s up to them. But not if feeling good starts to alleviate their physical ailments. My AMA buddies will have him shut down faster than you can sing ‘Muddy Boots’…” –But What Do I Know?

“First it was NCAA athletes being able, after a century of exploitation, to sign Name, Image and Likeness deals. Now every Gen-Zer with a social media account wants their own brand deal. The Army, always chronically struggling to fill its ranks, will soon have to adjust to the times.” –Philip

“‘Hoo boy, what a bunch of nonsense’ he says after sitting in front of the TV for thirty minutes. Loath as I am to admit it, Rex Morgan, M.D. understands the very current concept of ‘hate-watching.’” –Ettorre

“Hmm, sounds like Sarge is referring to the Peter Principle, though while that was framed as a flaw in a hierarchical system, here is seems to be an intentional strategy to maximize incompetency, presumably to ensure they never get deployed to an active warzone.” –pugfuggly

“Hi and Lois has discovered mid 2000s Office-style mugging to the audience, adjust expectations for the funny page’s rolling delay on pop culture awareness accordingly.” –Dan

“So, today’s Hi & Lois expects me to believe that, in 2023, A) A suburban middle-class family with four kids and two working, salaried parents would only have one car B) teenage boys are still all-in on the sideways baseball cap wave C) you need a license to borrow 20 dollars. I’d comment on Hi reading a physical newspaper but I’ve written enough as is.” –Irrischana

“Is this Gil fantasizing about Bartender Gal (I forget her name and I don’t care to look it up) or vice versa? I’m guessing the latter: Gil seems too boring to engage in quasi-sexual gothic roleplay, but BG is probably naive enough to mistake his dull stoicism for brooding mystery.” –TheDiva

“I would have thought that the saints would have been a pretty austere group, but just look at them whooping it up in that first panel. Fuck yeah, it’s Saints Day Eve! We’re gonna sing ’til we puke!” –pugfuggly

“Today’s Family Circus made me reflect on that eternal theological quandary: do ghosts go commando?” –nescio

“Jeffy is unequivocally dressed as the Yellow Power Ranger Trini Kwan, who was played by Asian actress Thuy Trang. Trang tragically died in a car accident. Jeffy doesn’t know or care about any of that however; he is the Yellow Ranger because it helps conceal the urine he’s drenched in.” –Ambrose

“‘Graveyard gumbo’ is probably corpses, right? I’m more than a bit concerned that these two might not be cosplaying after all. Call the cops, Blondie!” –astroboy

“Keith is just looking at the bill. ‘$10 for a root beer?!’” –Flipper

“Sure, Crock, it’s all pun and games until the Algerian National Liberation Front hears of your weakness, your surviving soldiers betray you, and the two groups parade your bullet ridden corpse through the streets to the cheers of your readers.” –Old Man Shadow

“Killer is right to be upset. Beetle’s been busted down to E-1 many times already, and this violation of Article 106 of the UCMJ will end his career and freedom once and for all. Oh well, at least Beetle will have four-star General Lieutenant Fuzz for company in Leavenworth. All that said, Zero wins the award for worst costume, having shown up in his normal civilian attire.” –jroggs

“It will be more plausible when I poison him to death and pretend I didn’t notice he died. I realize I shouldn’t have said that out loud.” –taig

“Does … Beetle write home about Sarge? What’s the over-under on the family knowing more about Sarge than Buxley?? More evidence for my gigantic Sarge/Beetle folder, thank you.” –Pistol Pete

“To be fair, money coming out of an ATM will seem like a rare and delightful occurrence to your kid if you make a habit of sneaking up on them from the side and trying to flip the card into the slot without typing anything into the keypad.” –matt w

“Just a month ago, Hi stormed out of a shop that would not accept cash, but today we find out that the act of withdrawing cash is anxiety-inducing for him! Hi should settle on how to express his angst against the world. Maybe start an affair.” –Ettorre

“‘Rene Belluso? He’s at our window? He’s right outside?’ ‘That’s the television, Rex. We talked about this after you went outside to try to hug Big Bird.’” –Voshkod

“It’s funny because he wants to suffocate his wife so that he can sleep! I guess the upside is that he’ll only have to do it once.” –Pippy the Ziphead

“I gotta give credit to Gil Thorp: referencing a pop-culture-cum-sports phenomenon that’s less than two months old is a lot faster than I’d normally expect from a soap opera strip, which would normally take at least two years. In fact, it’s so quick — the Gil Thorp football storyline had already started by the time ‘Traylor’ started becoming a thing, and my impression has been that soap opera strip storylines are more-or-less planned out before they begin (though The Phantom sure has been casting doubt on that recently) — that it actually makes me wonder if something else is going on here. Am I suggesting that the whole Kelce-Swift relationship has been one huge publicity stunt for their cameo appearance in a newspaper comic strip, a medium people are barely aware still exists, that as a city slicker, I had never heard of before coming to the Comics Curmudgeon? Don’t be ridiculous. All I’m saying is, it would be almost diabolically clever if it was.” –Morgan Wick

“The weird phrasing here is actually because Crock’s mom didn’t buy a Harley motorcycle but a Harley Quinn statue. Crock asks the size, knowing with dread that it’s life size and exactly what his mother intends with it.” –ectojazzmage

“Me, if I won some money, I’d buy a working phone to go with this vintage handset. Then I could talk to people for real instead of ripping off Bob Newhart’s old routine.” –Peanut Gallery

“Hey, Crock got something right! Crock’s mother would be in one of the only generations still buying Harleys. Way to rub it in their faces that Harley-Davidson is a struggling company desperately trying to hang in there, crack Crock writing team.” –Tabby Lavalamp