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Family Circus, 4/15/21

Many years ago, I was going through customs at Boston Airport, and one of the customs inspectors had an extremely cute beagle on a leash wearing a vest that said “I’M PROTECTING AMERICA’S AGRICULTURE!” This dog was sniffing around everyone’s bags, and he came up to a family with a little boy who had a soft-sided lunch box that was open, and the dog stuck his head into it to sniff around a bit. The boy squealed indignantly “That dog licked my lunch box!” and the dog’s handler replied, in a clipped and measured tone that I will never forget, “That dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours.”

Anyway, I immediately thought about this when I saw Barfy’s aggrieved face here. “Can you believe this shit?” he’s definitely thinking. “Have you seen the things this child has done with those hands? I came over here to eat food that had fallen on the floor, not to be slandered like this.”

The Lockhorns, 4/15/21

Speaking of Jeffy’s bullshit, you could definitely see a panel where one of the Keane kids, grinning in bed like a dope, declares, “I can’t wait to see how last night’s dream turned out!”, right? Amazing how that kind of sappy line can be instantly changed to a cutting Lockhorns put-down just by changing the speaker.

Pluggers, 4/15/21

This year’s tax filing deadline was extended to May 17, so I guess you’re a plugger if you have your tax day comic all ready to go for April 15 and you’re not gonna let big government tell you to change it! Also, it seems that you’re a plugger if you do your taxes by dutifully researching potential deductions you can legally take (this is how everyone else does their taxes, too).

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/6/21

Sarah may have forgotten all her magical art skills due to her amnesia, but at least she still has the vague notion that artists use paint and brushes in their day-to-day work. Despite being a doctor’s daughter, the quotidian details of medicine are apparently unfamiliar to her. Doctors punch people, right? That’s how they get them to stop complaining about their various ailments? By knocking them unconscious with a fist to the jaw?

Mark Trail, 4/6/21

Over in Mark Trail, Mark’s offhand remark to Rusty that “crickets are land shrimp” went viral on Rusty’s TikTok BikBok, and so he’s flown to LA to do a hip-hop video with Reptiliannaire, a reptile-themed rapper. However, because I know a lot of people read Mark Trail for accurate information about flora and fauna, I find today’s strip irresponsible: I can assure you that you are not likely to step out of LAX and encounter an iguana in the backseat of the first car you enter in the “California reality.” (You will instead get into a Lyft that smells like weed.)

Mary Worth, 4/6/21

Hey, remember when Saul first showed up in Charterstone, and he was a rude jerk to everyone, and then then his dog died, and he was emotionally devastated, and also it turned out that many years ago his family forced him to give up his true love in order to marry someone else, and he literally fled in terror when Mary tried to get him to talk about his feelings, so eventually she just forced him to adopt a dog against his will? Well, he’s never been to therapy! What could he possibly gain from it? It’s for girls, mostly.

Blondie, 4/6/21

You ever look at some particularly weird character design choice in a legacy comic and think to yourself, “Enh, that’s just the ossified memory of some decades-old artistic style that sort of made sense in a former aesthetic and is too closely tied to the character to ditch now, it’s probably not worth thinking about.” Well, I regret to inform you that those design choices are very real and literal in the universe of the strip, and they make other characters in the strip horny. They are absolutely a sex thing. Huge apologies for breaking this to you like this, but I don’t believe in letting my readers live in a world of comforting lies.

Pluggers, 4/6/21

“Oh well,” you’re probably thinking after that one, “at least I don’t know much about pluggers’ peeing and pooping situation.” Well, I’ve got bad news on that front too.

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Pluggers, 3/25/21

I absolutely love the disgruntled look the plugger is flashing us in this panel. “Feminism, amiright, folks? Well, jokes on her: the way I see it, if I’m putting the seat back down, I don’t have to wipe the pee off the rim of the bowl.”

Dennis the Menace, 3/25/21

“Ha ha, get it? Because they’re in the sky! And also because they’re always plotting to destroy us. At night I can hear them whispering!”

Beetle Bailey, 3/25/21

“Ha ha, get it? Like the sounds of the machine guns that will be raining bullets down on you! Or maybe the ones you’ll be firing at strangers in the dark, never knowing how many deaths will be on your conscience. Anyway, enjoy your trauma!”