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It’s weekend party time, so get “crunk” with this week’s top comment:

“An erudite bear (not so vicious)/ Mistakenly used ‘meretricious’/ For you see, those who snore/ That he knew, were all whores/ But it’s ok because he’s fictitious.” –Marcus Theory

The runners up are also VERY funny, please savor them like a fine wine:

“I want to thank the creative team behind this comic strip for offering insights into the collapse of the French war effort in 1940. A military that concerns itself with cacti helps explain why the Maginot Line proved so ineffective and why Gens. Gamelin and Weygand stumbled so badly. ‘I see the Nazis are starting to build up their forces but, hey, that pine tree just got laid.’” –KMD

“Head for the nearest planet! Fortunately, the planets in this particular region of space are all conveniently clustered together like billiard balls. Unfortunately, that means we only have a short time to enjoy our stay on one before they all start colliding with each other like billiard balls.” –Peanut Gallery

“The visual setup in Crock is exactly the same as when depicting one character transforming into another. Perhaps the cook is the eternally boiling chicken, the instigator of his own torment, himself the damned punisher and the punished. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it? The answer, of course, is no.” –Chance

“My favorite kind of Hi and Lois: Lois realizes that she’s trapped, trapped, TRAPPED.” –matt w

“I’ve never believed the whole ‘Millennials can’t afford houses because they waste all their money on takeout coffee and food delivery’ thing, but given that these vampires can’t afford furniture or even a second chair, maybe they have a point.” –Schroduck

“It’s kinda funny that the Perfesser’s date just whipped out one of her models right there at the table, but then again maybe this was her plan all along. ‘Say, have you ever wanted to own your very own set of quality Cretaceous-era dinosaur figures? They called them terrible lizards, but what’s truly terrible is paying too much for fine theropod collectibles. Why, with just five payments of $29.99, you’ll get…’” –pugfuggly

“Sometimes it’s not about the jokes, it’s about letting the reader know they are seen. Rather than the faux-populism of Pluggers celebrating the downwardly mobile direction of America’s working class, Hi and Lois lets the reader know they understand and will not offer false hope or try to fake some silver lining. Irma is every one of us who woke up, realized it’s only Tuesday, and we have four days to slog through until the weekend. Whatever the health benefits of Lois’s newest fad tea are, it’s going to take our reliable old vice of coffee to get us through the Sisyphean task of work and social obligations this week. [sips from oversized mug] See all you tomorrow for some more Comics Curmudgeoning.” –Philip

“Jughaid is right to object to Mz. Prunelly. This is the dangerous woke new math that improves test scores by forbidding children to even look at the problems. Traditional educator grandparents of America to the ramparts!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“‘That’s one thing I don’t know how to cure. The FDA will not authorize experiments for my planned ‘Lobotomy 3.0.’” –Ettorre

“I would get tired of constantly looking up everyone’s nostrils if I were a character in this comic strip, though I guess in fairness they all would be looking up mine too.” –Just John

“From the look on Joey’s face, he’s ‘counting piggies’ to make sure there are enough after he eats one.” –BigTed

“And then he told me I’d already used up my feral days for the year, and if I took one more he’d put me to sleep. It’d make me so mad if my balls weren’t in a dumpster behind the vet’s office.” –Voshkod

“The most menacing part of Dennis is how he and Joey are testing the boundaries of the box that keeps them from entering our dimension. A part of a foot … fingers pressing through the wall of separation … a hurricane on the other side of the world … We are not ready. We are not ready…” –Old Man Shadow

“This is actually the writers telegraphing that this isn’t a real bear, just an insane prostitute in a fur suit.” –ectojazzmage

“Mention your line of work? You think I was proud of banging a square? These days I only have sex with revolutionaries. Occasionally a saxophone player. She was hoping her Dad was Gerry Mulligan.” –Ukulele Ike

“Somebody kidnaps you at gunpoint and shoves you in a car trunk, ehh, let it go. Somebody tries to drown you, yeah, I guess you can see how some people might be bothered by that. Absolutely the only thing that actually bothers people in this strip is not hearing their roots country when and how they want.” –Rube

“‘The new man assigned to the computer section isn’t working out, sir.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘He’s been running such CPU-intensive programs and diagnostics that he’s used up most of the fort’s whole monthly supply of kerosene.’” –seismic-2

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Crock, 10/27/23

If, like me, you have constructed a professional life that requires you to read the syndicated newspaper comic strip Crock every day, you need to learn how to “make your own fun.” For instance, despite my usual attempts on this blog to humorously link Crock with the actual history of French colonialism in North Africa, I generally “hear” the dialogue in my mind in standard English. But what if these guys have been speaking in comical French accents this whole time? What if Crock pronounces the improbable name of the new man in the “computer section” as “vee roos”? That would definitely be funny, right? Or at least funnier than whatever else is going on here? Please, I need this.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/27/23

“Say,” the average Rex Morgan, M.D., reader is thinking to themselves, “now that this whole Rene storyline appears to be wrapping up, I’m left with a question: should I care about it, or about Rene as a person and motivator for events?” Here’s one Rex Morgan, M.D., character to give you the answer: no.

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Gasoline Alley, 10/26/23

I don’t usually get a chance to deploy my classics degree, but when I do, it’s usually to make a joke about the etymology of some word in the daily comics on this blog, which if you think about it is probably a better use of it than trying to trick undergraduates into enjoying Vergil or whatever. Anyway, meretrix is Latin for “prostitute,” and “meretricious” means, basically, “whorish,” or, metaphorically, something that looks attractive but has no value, which is not something people really say anymore, what with changing attitudes around sex work and sex work’s usefulness as a metaphor. It definitely does not mean and has never meant “loud,” so I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a joke about how this bear, despite his surprising ability to mimic human speech, does not have as full a command of English vocabulary as he believes, or if the Gasoline Alley brain trust simply decided to do a joke that was specifically about the meaning of the word “meretricious” but just assumed they knew the meaning of the word “meretricious” and didn’t bother to double-check.

Dick Tracy, 10/26/23

Speaking of vocabulary, I like the fact that Dick is meticulously writing down everything in this conversation that he doesn’t entirely follow (“Whitman little big books,” “guttersnipe level”) and will be looking them up later to find out if he was being insulted.

Mary Worth, 10/26/23

You know, if your long ago ex finally found out about the child of his that you had 20 years ago and never told him about because said child tracked him down and showed up on his doorstep, and then he tracked you down and made you go dinner with him, I’d think you’d be less … bored? I mean, this is an experience I’ll thankfully never have, so I guess I can’t tell Kitty how to live her life or conduct herself, but the vibe I’ve been getting from this dinner is that she doesn’t find this whole scenario particularly interesting. Anyway, probably she spent less time telling her daughter that Keith was a cop/Marine and dwelt more on the fun parts (that he was a rippling hunk of a man who she largely finds dull but who’s pretty good at sex).