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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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Gil Thorp, 7/28/25

There are two types of Gil Thorp summers: the wacky ones, with plotlines like “Kaz punches his way to a bodyguard job for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Carole King” or “Gil gets involved with a pro wrestler who might have dementia or that might just be his latest angle” or “a sadistic warden forces juvenile delinquents to battle each other on the gridiron for their freedom,” and the boring ones, like “let’s just get a head start on football season or whatever.” Obviously you know which kind I prefer, and while it’s early yet, I do think “Coach Ex Mrs. Coach Thorp takes their son to Berlin, where he’s vlogging mean stuff about his sibling while dressed like one of the guys from The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou for some reason” has potential. Who is he vlogging at, by the way? Where’s the camera? Are we holding the camera? In some high-end French literary theory sense, are we the camera?

Dick Tracy, 7/28/25

Look, when you come to the conference room to present the evidence you’ve been gathering on the latest case to Dick Tracy, you’d best come correct, and by “correct” I mean “with the logo of the company or government agency you’ve been assigned to investigate printed, in color, on the manila envelope you use to hold the documents you’ve compiled about said company or government agency.”

B.C., 7/28/25

You’d think that when the POV “camera” pulls back to give you a wider view of the gym in the final panel, you’d see a pull-up bar, to reinforce the punchline. You’d be wrong, though! It’s hard to draw a pull-up bar outside, honestly, so these weights are going to have to do.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/28/25

“So you’re saying you’re not very observant and are pretty easy to trick, huh? Interesting. Just filing that away. Might be useful information at some point.”

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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?”