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Heathcliff, 4/22/26

One thing I love about newspaper comic strips is that they’re full of visual signifiers that are multiple generations out of date at this point but just kind of stick around out of inertia, which would confuse any young people reading them if young people still read the comics. Until the medium is truly dead, everyone will have bone-in hams in their refrigerators and everyone will simply dump their garbage into a metal can, without even putting it in a plastic bag first, until it merges together in a grotesque brown slurry. Did you know that garbage slurry is viscous enough to serve as a powerful adhesive? Heathcliff does, and he’s made it his artistic medium.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/22/26

I’m not sure what’s sadder: that Mud only likes two restaurants in this town where he hangs out a lot, one of which just reopened for the first time in years, or that Mae Mae lived in Los Angeles, where some of the best and most interesting restaurants in the country do delivery via DoorDash, and yet has ordered nothing but pizza for the last decade.

Mary Worth, 4/22/26

[ONE WEEK LATER]

“Dad, I’m not sure how to say this, but I talked to Aaron and the boys, and, well…”

“Oh, don’t even worry, dear. I’m actually going to be moving in with my new girlfriend, Busty. There’s just the small issue of working out the complications with her visa!”

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Pluggers and Hi and Lois, 4/15/26

Look, I actually feel strongly about this: excitement is very much not “getting [your] income tax return submitted on time.” I guess racing to complete your return could be exciting, but that’s not what’s being portrayed in today’s Pluggers. The emotion we’re seeing is instead “the satisfaction of a job well done.” Now, in Hi and Lois we’re seeing other forms of excitement around today’s big deadline: the excitement of realizing that you are definitely not going to get your taxes filed on time and you’ve moved one step closer to just failing out of polite society completely, for instance, or the excitement of seeing your neighbor and coworker screw up once again, keeping you on top as the “sensible one” in the friendship/office. But that plugger isn’t excited. He’s smug. There’s a difference!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/26

Oh, hey, were you worried that Rex Morgan, M.D., was getting kind of interesting, as Mud Mountain Murphy struggled to keep a secret? Well, don’t worry, we’re instead going to be focusing for a bit on how suspicious diner guy can’t hit his sales numbers in today’s uncertain economy. This probably won’t ever get interesting at all, and if it does, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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Dustin, 4/12/26

To misquote Mystery Science Theater 3000, you should never reference a good comic in your shitty comic, and say what you will about Garfield but it’s a relentlessly efficient machine for amusing 8-year-olds, whereas Dustin has never amused anyone ever. Today’s strip makes it clear that Dustin requires three separate characters to achieve what Garfield does with one. This is not something you want to draw attention to!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/12/26

I don’t like this one because Ma Goose’s uninhabited shirt in the mirror looks exactly the same in both panels, and that makes it clear that she’s turned her head 180 degrees without any other part of her body moving. It’s uncanny. Is that something birds can do in real life? I don’t really care, honestly, they don’t as a rule wear shirts in real life so I don’t think that’s actually relevant.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/12/26

Oh, wow, this is actually a good bait and switch: we thought Mae Mae’s cover was going to be blown by the suspicious mustachio’d non-Mud customer at the diner, when in fact her cover’s going to be blown by Mud, because he absolutely cannot keep a secret or even have a thought without immediately verbalizing it. Not sure if he’s relapsing or if the Mirakle Method simply didn’t cover this situation, but either way, it’s more than Mae Mae’s feet that are in danger!

Hi and Lois, 4/12/26

I guess in theory I’m all for Hi and Lois updating itself for modern suburban life, but I gotta say “the Flagstons and Thurstons take their cuck stuff to the golf course” is a little bit more than I can handle.