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Andy Capp, 8/7/25

You would think that Andy sustaining an injury at “punk rock night” would send me down my usual rabbit-hole of “in what year does Andy Capp take place?”, but in fact I’m honestly more interested in “at what time of day does this specific Andy Capp strip take place?”, given that Andy is returning home from “punk rock night” when it’s broad daylight outside. This sent me down a new, exciting rabbit-hole, and I learned that Andy is canonically from the northern English city of Hartlepool (they even have a statue of him!), and, England being further north than most Americans realize and Hartlepool as mentioned being at the north end of the country, sunsets in June there can be as late as 9:45 pm. So, yes, if Andy were to get injured at punk rock night and then come home afterwards when it’s still sunny, the punk rock part might be anachronistic, but the sunlight part would not necessarily be.

Dustin, 8/7/25

I genuinely love the big smiles on everyone’s face in the conference room in the final panel. “That’s Ed Kudlick, the firm dipshit, coming in and saying utter nonsense again!” they’re thinking. “He’s a terrible lawyer, but we keep him around because he’s usually pretty funny — not on purpose funny, obviously.” The fact that the coworkers we see are all women is a nice touch.

Gearhead Gertie, 8/7/25

I’m sorry, man, if you know Gertie well enough to engage her in conversation about NASCAR, you should know that you’ve just crossed a line that can never be uncrossed, so don’t look so shocked. Do look horrified, though, because today is your last day alive on Earth.

Pluggers, 8/7/25

Pluggers has run for 32 years, and the question on all our minds for all that time has been: “Do pluggers know that they’re hideous man-animals, nightmarish freaks of forbidden science who shouldn’t exist?” Well, they didn’t before. But it looks like they finally figured it out.

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Herb and Jamaal, 7/30/25

It seems like just yesterday that Herb stormed into Rev. Croom’s office, declaring that he was ambivalent about believing in a creator God whom he couldn’t perceive with his senses. In fact, it was 11 years ago, but I guess that’s practically yesterday in newspaper comics terms, ha ha! Anyway, in the subsequent decade, it seems Herb has resolved his doubts by means of Pascal’s wager, though I have to say that “liv[ing] in the netherworld” is a pretty tame euphemism for “experiencing eternal physical torment as a damned soul in hell,” and maybe not really as motivating as he thinks.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/30/25

“Speaking of which, uh, that’s not your legal name, right? Like, I figure at some point before we get married I’m going to finally get to see some ID, and I’ve really had my fingers crossed that we’ve been working with a Mud Mountain/Fergus situation here.”

Intelligent Life, 7/30/25

Actually, fellas, most of the shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery and the Walt Disney Company are institutional investors like pension and mutual funds, along with individual retail investors who are making decisions based on the companies’ financial positions rather than fandom affinity, so I’m not sure “the geek community” is the right word choice in this situation!

Pluggers, 7/30/25

Hey, buddy. You think a lot about peeing? Or pooping? When you look at a bathroom, do you think to yourself, “Do I have to pee or poop right now? Might as well give it a shot. Better safe than sorry!” Well, I’m sorry to inform you that you are, canonically, a plugger.

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Slylock Fox, 7/24/25

I gotta say, it’s probably pretty annoying to have to write Slylock Fox at this point, because doing cute little animal mysteries attracts lots of “um, ACTUALLY”s of both the “um, ACTUALLY, the pedantic fact you used as the solution for this mystery is more nuanced than you’re implying” and “um, ACTUALLY, the animal you’re using as a character in this mystery doesn’t work like that” variety. Thus you get puzzles like today, where you’re preemptively anticipating this kind of feedback in the solution. “[heavy sigh] Besides telling us that the gloves were not worn by a snake [closing eyes, briefly resting thumb and forefinger on either side of bridge of nose] or other handless animal…” Honestly someone is probably penning a furious email about “um, ACTUALLY, some invertebrates aren’t bilaterally symmetrical and could have two right hands and maybe they also became sapient along with all the other animals? can you prove they didn’t???” as we speak.

Pluggers, 7/24/25

Feels like this one is based on seeing a “Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee!” mug and trying to work backwards from there to someone cheerfully claiming to be a criminal right up until the moment that first sip passes their lips, when in fact the appropriate cartoon would be a bleary-eyed plugger saying just the most casually cruel thing you’ve ever heard to his wife for no reason.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/24/25

Well it looks like I got my wish on this situation allowing us to delve into Truck’s psyche, because he’s really doubling down on “Please, living genetic evidence of the fact that I got cheated on, please let me pretend to be your dad!” Meanwhile, his not-son is just increasingly upset and unresponsive. “How can I feel anything for someone with whom I don’t share any genetic material?” he’s thinking. “This man has nothing to tell me about my phenotype! What’s the point?”