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The Phantom, 11/7/25

The Jungle Patrol, like most military and paramilitary outfits, is mostly composed of young people, but the nature of those young people of course changes as we drift through comic book time. Back in the ’00s, their recruits were mostly spunky, idealistic millennial lady cops and waitresses. But today, the zoomer junior officers of the Patrol have no experience talking on the phone and cannot overcome their social anxiety enough to build professional rapport with their Unknown Commander. Sad!

Blondie, 11/7/25

Kudos to the local news for not actually showing the grotesque imagery of magnified fast food and instead merely playing audio of the scientists’ horrified reaction. With Dagwood in town, they clearly know that they need to tread carefully when it comes to food-related news. On the other hand, the news team apparently lacks advanced studio equipment like “teleprompters,” forcing their anchors to simply read the news off a visible piece of paper, so it may be that they simply did not have the capacity to transmit other video content to their viewers.

Mary Worth, 11/7/25

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on what’s been happening in Mary Worth, so I’ll recap: Toby met a parrot and then spent 72 hours trying to think of a name for it. This is the best she could come up with.

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Dennis the Menace, 10/1/25

I was thinking the other day about how Dagwood Bumstead and Hi Flagston have extremely generic jobs. Technically Dagwood is an “office manager” and Hi is the “head of the eastern sales team,” but we literally never see them doing anything at work that might match up with those descriptions; instead, we just get “office” hijinks that could involve anyone in any white collar professional setting. Lois and Blondie, meanwhile, who got jobs in the ’80s and ’90s, respectively, got the much more specific (and female-coded) jobs of realtor and caterer, respectively, and while I wouldn’t say the strips about them are exactly gold mines of laffs, I do in general think specific settings are funnier than bland and generic ones.

Some comics dads do get pretty specific jobs, mind you: Calvin’s dad was, like Bill Watterson’s, a patent attorney, Walt in Zits is an orthodontist, and Henry Mitchell, at least in some character iterations, has been an aerospace engineer. I’m not sure if this version of Henry is still in that line of work, but if so he should be absolutely embarrassed about trying to program his smart TV, a task that any idiot could tell you is achieved by use of the remote control and on-screen menus, with a wrench. He should also be embarrassed by even joking about putting Dennis to work on this, as his son is notoriously pretty stupid.

Mary Worth, 10/1/25

I wasn’t sure how exactly Olive’s psychic summoning was going to work, but I don’t think I ever would have guessed that the answer would be “the dogs will run along the side of the road while Saul and Eve fail to overtake them in their puce Buick.” I think it’s very funny that Mary and the gang are in a remote enough area that their phones don’t work but close enough to civilization that two dogs could run to them without dropping dead from exhaustion.

The Phantom, 10/1/25

The Phantom is in the midst of a storyline where our hero is breaking up a forced labor camp in Ivory Lana that’s been perfectly serviceable if not interesting enough to comment on here. But today’s panel put the phrase “SHADOW CROTCH — STRIPEY ASS” into my brain on repeat and if I have to think about it, now you do too!

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Dick Tracy, 8/13/25

“Oh heh heh heh you’re absolutely right, boss. Say, I have a correction of my own: ‘I counted 211 names, dick!'”

Curtis, 8/13/25

OK, you can say “turd” in Curtis but not “toilet.” Noted.

Slylock Fox, 8/13/25

1) Pluto, dammit!

Phantom, 8/13/25

Patrolwoman Dai has her eyes on the prize
With the wool firmly pulled over her colonel’s eyes
She is skilled in all manner of social control
To advance her career in the Jungle Patrol!

So that General Chuma had better watch out
‘Cause there isn’t an ethical code she won’t flout!
He could find himself chained in his mine’s deepest hole
To help Dai make lieutenant at Jungle Patrol!

It’s a cinch that Ms. Dai will now rise through the ranks,
Passing Hawa and Kay and the rest of those skanks
‘Til she stands within reach of her ultimate goal:
The Unknown Commander of Jungle Patrol!

—Uncle Lumpy