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Shoe, 4/2/25

You know, I was going to joke here about how the snuggie’s brief moment as a cultural sensation came and went in 2009, which I regret to inform everyone was literally 16 years ago, and I started squinting at the “2025” in the Perfesser’s word balloon to see if it had been altered from some earlier and more appropriate date, but then, I thought, you know what? Blankets with sleeves are pretty cool, honestly a lot cooler than anything we’ve developed since, technology-wise. Did you know you can get them with a little pocket for your remote control now? Why is that kind of innovation not being applied in the flying car field? It’s truly shameful.

The Phantom, 4/2/25

I do feel bad for Kadia, whose world as a cloistered rich girl was shattered when she learned that her family riches came from supervillainy. Still, you have to admit that “I was afraid to warn Kit … Kadia can lose her grip on reality and become unpredictable” is an extremely funny thing to think about a girl you’re trying to set your brother up with. Anyway, could her psychic trauma from being the daughter of a supervillain be healed by becoming the wife of a superhero? I’m not a “licensed therapist,” but this is a superhero comic, so almost certainly yes.

Mary Worth, 4/2/25

I’ve never really imagined that the Santa Royale culinary scene is vibrant, exactly, but I still find it pretty wild that Wilbur feels so short of options that he would voluntarily return to My Thai, the restaurant that was the site of one of his biggest humiliations, which is really saying something. I guess it’s possible that that he’s only at this moment realizing that accidentally-but-not-really spilling something on someone at dinner when you’re drunk and/or on whatever it is that has Belle’s eyes looking like that seems cool when you’re doing it, but when you’re sober and watching it happen, you realize it’s actually not very cool at all.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/2/25

“Wait, so you had … a job? …in England?”

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Blondie and Hi and Lois, 4/1/25

I know I’m “old” and “out of touch,” but I always thought April Fool’s Day was about cruel pranks. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this what it’s about now? Pretending to do nice things for people? And sometimes you just follow through on your “prank” and actually do nice things for them? That … that doesn’t seem like a thing that would happen on April Fool’s Day, at all! Sorry to be a traditionalist, but it’s weird to me!

Barney Google and Smith, 4/1/25

I guess I have to side with the lumpy hillbillies of Hootin’ Holler. Pulling off some prank that’s so humiliating that the victim will never talk about the incident or its aftermath, not even with their closest friends? That’s April Fool’s Day, to me!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/1/25

In non-April Fool’s news: remember Hiram, Mother Goose’s boyfriend, who she’s kinda dissatisfied with? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on his own in the strip before, but here he is, asking his boss for bereavement leave, which I take to mean that Mother Goose … has died? RIP Mother Goose, 1984-2025, you taught me … well, you didn’t teach me much of anything, if I really think about it.

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Mother Goose and Grimm, 3/24/25

One of my favorite terms of art from the world of standup comedy is “street joke.” A street joke is a joke a comic tells on stage that they didn’t write — but isn’t one that they lifted from another comic or writer, which is a significant sin among standups. Instead, a street joke is just one you heard from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone, or (in these days where most jokes spread online) from someone who saw it in a blurry, repeatedly reposted meme of some sort. Upon reading today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, I immediately pegged its dialogue as a street joke, and some quick searches confirmed my instinct: you can find it posted in uncanny Facebook groups called things like “Strange World” and “Deep Relationships,” tagged as being of “disputed origin” on a post in the r/quotes subreddit, or for sale on human made merch on Etsy or truly upsetting AI-generated t-shirts on Amazon. There are, of course, worse sins than putting a street joke in your comic strip, though I must once again remind comics creators that if your main characters are anthropomorphic birds, and you put in street jokes that involve birds, it really leaves the reader puzzling over whether the birds in the joke are also supposed to be anthropomorphic birds that the main characters interact with, like do the rooster-men in the Mother Goose and Grimm world scream like a person every morning or what, and frankly I don’t think that’s really the effect you’re going for with this.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/24/25

Oh, just to keep you up to date on the Rex Morgan, M.D., stalker plot: the stalker got kicked out of the museum, and then Augie and Summer went to the cops and they were like “What do you expect us to do, protect you somehow? Get back to us when he’s actually murdered you or something,” and so they went back to Summer’s place and Augie agreed to stand guard. Then there was a loud noise, which implied that something exciting happened, but nope! Nothing exciting happened. Just Augie accidentally closing a door too vigorously! More on this story as it continues, against all odds, to fail to develop.

Sam and Silo, 3/24/25

The thing I like about this strip is that Sam doesn’t respond to Silo without prompting. Frankly, it’s as if he wasn’t really talking to Silo in the first panel to begin with. This was all an internal monologue! “Why is this guy even talking to me,” he thinks to himself. Anyway, these two are supposedly best friends and spend all their time together.

Alice, 3/24/25

Big news, everyone: it seems that Alice, the title character in the syndicated newspaper strip Alice, has discovered the recreational drug known as “marijuana”. Brace yourself, things could get wacky!