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It’s Sunday, folks, the day when newspaper comics include a couple of panels that can be excised based on the vagaries of print layouts. Taken in isolation, these “throwaway” panels can be kind of fun!

Panels from Blondie, 12/3/23

Here’s the panels from today’s Blondie, for instance! It sounds like they’re discussing the possibility of doing some wife swapping, but actually this just leads into a dumb bit about Christmas decorations.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/3/23

And here’s the panels from Snuffy Smith! Snuffy looks like he’s going to make sweet love to that radio. In fact, he’s going to listen to horse racing with some horses, which, considering how many horses die as part of the horse racing industry, is pretty grim.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 12/3/23

On Sundays Dennis the Menace uses its throwaway panel space to do a title block, which is fine, except in this case it seems to be drawn by someone who thinks boy band members wear suits and ties, which isn’t fine at all. Anyway, the main strip is about how Mr. Wilson hates Dennis but his wife forces him to endure the child’s company.

Mary Worth, 12/3/23

For Mary Worth we need the full strip, though, so we can see that Keith and Kitty’s big smooch is interrupted by some cruel soul razzing them! I suppose the razzer is Sonia, whose anti-authoritarian streak is so strong that she calls her own mother by her first name, but it would be very funny if it were just some random acquaintance of Kitty making fun of Keith’s cartoonish physique for no good reason.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/23

Oh come on! Are you going to tell me that the whole Mirakle Method was actually stolen wholesale from this old guy, somehow? C’mon! The Method was Rene’s one accidental success! It really worked on at least one guy! You’ve got to give him this! He needs this!

Rhymes With Orange, 12/2/23

Sorry I got so worked up there, I just really care about my boy Rene. Anyway, here’s a comic strip about teen starfish having sex!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/1/23

I like how Rex and June are talking fairly seriously about Rene, a longtime criminal whose various cons have bedeviled them for years, and Rex suddenly thinks to himself, “Hmm, how long has it been since I’ve done a big overwrought theatrical pantomime bit where I show how much smarter I am than all the rubes I have such contempt for? It’s been a while, right? Not exactly matching the tone of this conversation so far but might as well get to it.”

Pluggers, 12/1/23

Pluggers don’t believe in “metaphors.” Why would you say a word when you actually mean a different word entirely? Sounds like something a big city elitist would do and then make fun of you for not understanding. To a plugger, “eye candy” is just candy that you look at, with your eyes. (It’s not candy made of eyes; that would be gross, like something a big city elitist would order in a restaurant and then make fun of you for not liking.)

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/25/23

Well, the Harwoods are going to feel pretty foolish when they learn that it wasn’t Rene’s high-powered lawyers that got him sprung out of jail. The cynical answer isn’t always the correct one, guys! Now, it is true in fact he’s free because he’s using the Mirakle Method to build an army of hypnotized disciples, some of whom are in highly placed positions of power, who will follow his every whim, but I say we should wait a bit to see how that plays out before we get too worried about it.

The Lockhorns, 11/25/23

This is the sort of statment that you would expect someone to deliver with a wistful sigh, and what makes Leroy Leroy and makes the Lockhorns great is that instead he’s just seething. Stupid highway full of assholes. Stupid Robert Frost and his stupid poetry, planted in the lyric and narrative traditions while pointing the way towards modernism! Screw him! Two roads diverged in a yellow wood my ass.

Beetle Bailey, 11/25/23

Some people will tell you that America’s military budget is hopeless bloated. But I for one would be willing to pay higher taxes if it means that our brave soldiers could have decent internet access so they could access high-quality streaming pornography and didn’t have to jerk off to annotated romance novels. I just respect the troops that much.