“You know land lines are becoming archaic when even comic strip artists forget how you’re supposed to hold a handset when talking. Are Blondie and Dagwood trying to FaceTime each other?” –Tabby Lavalamp

“What these stupid kids don’t know about autumn leaves could fill a book. Which really doesn’t matter, because apparently none of them has ever read one.” –BigTed

“We begin with our observers paying lip service to the notions that their subject is behind the times and requires reform. This is quickly met with reluctance and denial and insistence that its content is still good, even though many related enterprises have failed. Sentimentality and sluggish inertia then causes them to push that the art is still charming and the once-positive responses still hold. Leaving no allowance for anything new, be it fresh ideas, improvement, or openness to current feedback, they smugly decide to leave things just as they are and do nothing to solve their obviously apparent problems, determined to instead wallow in fruitless nostalgia. Hmm … are we really talking about a corkboard here?” –jroggs

“I sincerely hope that today’s Mary Worth is the beginning of a new storyline where every character has nightmares about Wilbur. Even the animals. Even Wilbur himself.” –Craig!

“No, Hi and Lois aren’t looking directly at us, the readers. They’re looking directly at you, Josh. This is their response to all the times you’ve called comic strips out for still having dogs living outside and whatnot. ‘It’s a time capsule. You should leave it as it is.’ They’ve become aware of you and don’t want you to interfere. Not that this should scare you — what should scare you is the fact that Wilbur’s also become aware of you, and the way you keep putting him down is turning him on.” –likeagrapefruit

“Cheers to Zits for having the courage to tell parents it’s okay for them to have a frank talk with their kids via text about what said kids should do when they’re horny! Jeers to Zits for forgetting that the only people still reading newspaper comics are retirees whose children are in their 40s, and who have never been given their grandchildren’s cell phone numbers, possibly to avoid this exact scenario.” –Briane Pagel

“Look, the joke in Crock wouldn’t work if the shovel was colored golden from panel one. On the other hand, it doesn’t work anyway. Hm.” –matt w

“I had to rack my brains to work out who ‘The Cueball’ and ‘The Stoner’ were, but you know what? The idea that Elon Musk would teach his shitty AIs to call Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson mean names is the most plausible thing in this story so far. If anything, these names aren’t cruel enough — the real Elon Musk literally tweeted that Bill Gates looks pregnant and made him lose an erection. Ian Mollusk’s robot should be saying things so libelous that the strip gets banned by English courts.” –Schroduck

“Dagwood’s insatiable appetite makes a lot more sense when you realize he’s trying to fill the void left by his professional and personal life.” –TheDiva

“Man, I don’t know if my heart can take any more of this wild, roller-coaster ‘handshake might hurt my finger a bit’ action right on top of the already pulse-pounding ‘friends reunite and everything turns out great’ drama in Rex Morgan. Let’s dial it down a little, people! It can’t be constant thrills, all the time!” –Chance

“Coach Martinez might lack Coach Thorp’s leadership skills or natural understanding of his players, but he compensates for this by inflating his neck like a tree frog.” –Ettorre

“Mary Worth is almost there in accidentally recreating the myth of Freyja.

✓ Husband absent.
✓ Frequent weeping.
✓ Can shape-shift into a falcon (see the 5/7/1972 strip, true believers!)
✓ Slept with four dwarves for a fancy necklace (see upcoming honeymoon storyline)
X Has a sled pulled by two cats (so close! Keep trying, Mary Worth.)” –Voshkod

“Pierre is staring straight ahead in wide-eyed terror. ‘Damn, she’s still talking about this crap! I can’t handle the pressure of trying to figure out the correct moment to weigh in with woof!’” –Weaselboy

“It looks like Mud’s album is called ‘Mud in Your Eye?’ Honestly, that’s great. No irony, that rules. I hope he has a whole discography of mud pun titles, like ‘Clear as Mud’ or ‘Happy as a Pig in Mud’ or his post-cancellation album, ‘Drag My Name Through the Mud.’” –Dan

“Yes, this will render them helpless … three at a time! Surely they will all wait patiently in line for food that their compatriots will, to a man, audibly opine is terrible, and none of them will simply walk around this undefended little hut to, like, the front door! Also, are we implying that Grossie lives in the hut? That the hut is her home? Where she’s cooking the meals? For an entire army? I just hope those guys on the tower understand that the enemy isn’t taking their diarrhea home with them, is all I’m saying.” –els

“Gasoline Alley is really adamant about stating and restating Ida Noe’s central gimmick (She’s a magic doll!) despite the fact that it is easily the most memorable and straightforward bit in the entire strip. ‘Got it, talking doll, magical I assume? Great. Now remind me again which of these one hundred lumpy townies are actually from the 1930s and which ones just seem like they are based on general vibe.’” –BananaSam

“I was sure that the answer was going to be something like ‘Reeky Rat, as the name suggests, is a filthy rodent who would never voluntarily bathe or shower, except maybe to cover up a crime.’ But yeah, window condensation too, I guess.” –pugfuggly

“What’s that in Rex’s carefully-held-offscreen glass? Prune juice, of course, the better to keep you regular and on a schedule unlike certain mountainous roots-country stars we could mention.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Love Slylock’s expression here. He genuinely CANNOT believe that someone thought they could invoke basic civil rights in his presence. Reeky will learn otherwise when Slylock drowns him in his own bathtub and writes it off as a heart attack on his report.” –ectojazzmage

“Jimmy and I never lived out our dreams to travel the world because his heart gave out due to job stress. That’s not how it was meant to be! He was supposed to have a heart attack next to me while we climbed a monument in South-East Asia!” –Ettorre

“Having thought it over, Stell realized that literally anyone who isn’t Wilbur is worth marrying.” –Craig!

“Yes, Mary, I miss the rush of my Obsessive-Compulsion Disorder in making wedding plans. Now I see the light! The light at the end of the tunnel/hallway I’ll go down to Ed’s animal operating room and say our vows as he euthanizes someone’s (hopefully a guest) dear pet!” –SabeHombre

“Copy/pasting the same image of Snuffy into both panels had some unintended consequences. Not only is Snuffy fishing in Silas’ store but I genuinely couldn’t parse what Snuffy’s can of worms was in this new context. A smashed trophy? A repulsive flesh-colored hat? An idol of some monstrous three-headed hillbilly god?” –Victor Von

“Mary and Stell froze. The dog had just said ‘woof.’ Not barked, but clearly enunciated the word ‘woof.’ Both women started to slowly back away as, half a mile away, Wilbur cursed himself. Half a million dollars on that dog bot, and I blew it by saying ‘woof,’ he thought in despair.” –Voshkod

“Culture has been frozen in time for the last 15-20 years or so, which is pretty helpful for the blissfully out-of-touch old men who make up most of the comic strip industry. Momma was referencing Taylor Swift a decade ago, Apartment 3-G did Beyoncé in 2010, and yet somehow these are two reasonable celebrities for tweens in 2024 to reference. For reference, this is like if Gasoline Alley in 2004 had some little kids think the biggest stars were Cyndi Lauper and Whitney Houston.” –Schroduck

“Oh man, I can’t wait for the new TikTok viral fad, inevitably called The Wilson Sit: Right arm tucked behind your back, left hand resting on your hips, ankles crossed. I urge you to try it yourself, Curmudgeonites! I’m doing it right now (while dictating this comment, obviously), and it’s … weird!” –els

“I like to think they’re just reading an ordinary book and Dennis is making this observation out of the blue.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘Our teacher wants us to write about the planets an’ stars.’ ‘Stars like Gloria Swanson and Josephine Baker?’ ‘Oh, right, you were born in 1918, just like this comic strip.’ ‘Yes, which is why I also believe that the Milky Way galaxy encompasses the entire universe, because we didn’t have any scientific method of observing space any farther away!’ ‘Oh, I get it — you’re not dumb, you’re just really old!’ ‘Good job … you’ve finally figured out the true meaning of Gasoline Alley!’” –TD

“‘I’m a magic doll! I can do anything!’ ‘Can you fix our eyes so the villagers stop calling us hideous monsters and forming hunting parties to kill us?’ ‘…I can do almost anything!’” –jroggs

“I think these kids’ next magic school assignment needs to be ‘learn where the library is.’” –Banana Jr. 6000

“There’s a reason his name isn’t ‘Supportive Guy Tracy.’” –picoxorsepulveda, on Bluesky

“A confused Joey thinks, ‘Wait. Is taking a selfish another phrase for going number 2? There’s so much to learn.’” –Hibbleton

“How fiendishly clever is that? Strap a mirror to your face and anyone who wants to shoot you or arrest is, at most extreme, ‘All right, come peacefully, me — I mean you — wait a minute…’ and at the very least they’ll hesitate for an uncomfortable ‘I can’t shoot this guy, there’s something I like about him’ moment.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“I feel like Margaret should be correct in an insufferable way, like ‘reminding the teacher they forgot to assign homework,’ not correct in a wholly relatable way, like ‘knowing that nobody wants to see a photo of Joey.’” –Dan

“Wa! Since I live on the floor and no one is watching me, that huge, heavy cookie jar at the edge of the counter could easily fall on my head! Which probably means the cabinet under the sink here with all the cleaning supplies doesn’t have a childproof lock, so at least I’ll get to taste something today!” –BigTed

“The bar floozy is sporting the rarely documented Viking Mullet. Pillaging in the front, party in the back!” –astroboy

“OK but BARNEY in that first panel. The eldritch horror of Barney. Contorted Barney. Barney. is. contorted. The eyes in his head pop and flash! Be he owl or be he man? Be he bedeviled, or bedeviler be he?” –it is an ancient mariner

“A lot of birds eat spiders — so wouldn’t a giant spider be, like, a gourmet feast to these folks? The only thing to be scared of is too many leftovers!” –BigTed

“So it looks like Phantom costumes alter, according to the era of their tenure. Can’t wait to see the one with bell bottoms and platform shoes.” –Pozzo

“‘But that all sounds so stupid now.’ Hey, that’s all right. It sounded stupid the first time, too.” –Peanut Gallery

“Slylock will investigate this, but he holds the shoe store manager as much in contempt as Smitty. Shoes are a relic of the human regime, true sons of the animal revolution go barefoot, like him!” –Ettorre

“It’s true, a hilarious premise like ‘eating a can of dog food by accident’ is simply too radical for newspaper comics. Luckily, Curtis has a found a loophole: you can still describe a funnier comic in their boring comic without actually showing it, thus circumventing the rules of powerful newsprint publishers. Kind of like how you can publish any copyrighted video on YouTube as long as there’s a little square on the bottom right of you ‘reacting’ to it. Comedy is safe again (but for how long?)!” –pugfuggly

“It was nice of the undercover officer to go to all the trouble and cost of creating an enlarged photo so the readers could see the evidence against Smitty. If Smitty put that much trouble into remembering which arm he had his fake cast on, he’d get away with more crimes.” –TheDiva

“In my headcanon, those terrifying children are wizened elves from the Feywild masquerading as kids. Their ‘doll’ and ‘AI’ are still more spirits who’ve come to plague Gertie. Seriously, look at, um, the kid on the left’s eyes. They’re like a doll’s eyes and she’s literally carrying a doll to help illustrate that fact! Wait, do these kids have names? Have they stolen those memories, too? Will they leave me with nothing?!” –Victor Von

“Those AI devices look way more human than those alleged children. At least they look like something a human would build or draw.” –Banana Jr. 6000

“Guys! Where are you going? The stadium is over there! Why are they running towards the practice field? Are they going to the parking lot?” –UncleJeff

“Gotta feel a little bad for those horse thieves. It must be rough trying to find burlap sacks big enough to carry your stolen horses.” –jroggs

“Slouched posture placing the thorax’s center of gravity behind its support, dramatically lengthened forelimbs, shortened knee-to-ankle span, the ever-present antennae? Dagwood should be less concerned with what Honey’s reading than with his advancing case of insectoidism.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Joey’s doing the bug-eyed, tongue-out, steam-from-the-ears thing that cartoon characters used to when they saw a beautiful woman, so I’m assuming this is a classic Dennis malapropism, and he thinks ‘tamale’ is pronounced like ‘female.’” –Schroduck

“Watching these kids hold a food designed to be eaten on a plate with their bare hands and watching Joey burn his tongue implying that the food just came from the steamer basket makes me think that Margaret isn’t really smart as that; she’s just a girl of normal intelligence surrounded by idiots.” –OId Man Shadow

“Imagine being comforted by Dick Tracy, with his hand gently clutching your shoulder. And all the while he’s got his eyes squinched shut, like he can’t bear to look at you. The awkwardness of this situation would probably make me forget what I was initially upset about. ‘So, like, anyway … do you have a Kleenex, because my face is really sweaty. Sorry if it’s grossing you out.’” –made of wince

“Part of Jimmy’s ‘going above and beyond’ included [squints] guarding a fireworks display? ‘Why, I will certainly ensure that only licensed, certified pyrotechnicians are employed by this company! And that all observers maintain the minimum required distance! And I will do so in a cop car straight out of 1974, for some reason.’” –astroboy

“I can personally relate to, and feel sympathy for, someone like Lou who tries to cover his bald scalp with a comb-over. I do have trouble, however, in sympathizing with Lou’s attitude of ‘Oh, what the heck. Three-quarters of the way across is good enough.’ Buy a toupee, Lou.” –seismic-2