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Family Circus, 5/28/23

The Good Place was a great philosophical afterlife sitcom, and in its later seasons you learn that the titular Good Place (its cosmology’s equivalent of heaven) hasn’t had any new arrivals in centuries, because an increasingly complex and intertwined society has made it impossible for a living person to make any choice that doesn’t directly or indirectly cause harm to someone else. Today’s Family Circus, however, posits the flipside of this scenario: due to an overall lowering of human misery (in the long view violence worldwide really is probably lower now than any other time in history) plus a radical increase in population, heaven is simply being overwhelmed by a number of souls that its infrastructure simply isn’t equipped to handle, leaving the virtuous dead to sit packed together on clouds with little to do to occupy the rest of eternity, like inmates in an open-air prison camp. It’s not surprising that these spirits need to occasionally sneak back to the plane of the living to experience just enough sensory input to keep them from going mad!

Mary Worth, 5/28/23

Excuse me, Mary Worth, I thought it should’ve been obvious that when I called for a preemptive bans on “dogs in peril” plots, I meant not just that Eve’s dog should get a clean bill of health from the vet, but also that Greta should not be dognapped by a traveling dognapper who drives around in a muddy van with tricked out rims. Sorry, I guess I’ll try to be more specific next time, but until then let’s work on getting Greta liberated post-haste, OK?

Pluggers, 5/28/23

A plugger loves his wife … but he also loves the beast within her.

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Judge Parker, 5/27/23

Oh, can’t remember if I mentioned that the CIA let April out of prison, but: the CIA let April out of prison, presumably because they knew that no physical cell they could build could trap and torment her more than the walls of her own mind, where she can’t escape the memory of her life as an assassin. Remember when these two were young and fun and in love, and Randy made weird, vaguely sexual jokes about chopsticks? They need to recapture their youth and passion again, possibly by going back to what they’re best at (for April, this is assassinating people).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/27/23

I can’t find it now, but wasn’t there some mention that Buck would be around to take care of Hank Sr. if he needed help while Hank Jr. and Yvonne were on their honeymoon? Well, apparently that wasn’t necessary, thank God. Hank Sr.’s doing just fine. So are his son and daughter-in-law. Everything’s fine! Everything’s going great.

Gasoline Alley, 5/27/23

Meanwhile, in Gasoline Alley everything is not going great. Rufus is having a medical emergency, probably because of that head injury! He needs an ambulance, but — get this — Joel doesn’t know how to operate a telephone. This might cause us concern, if we cared about these people, which we definitely do not.

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Whether you have Monday off or you’ll be working hard on Saturday and Sunday, let today’s comment of the week lift you up:

“Harwoods! Just checking to see if you recognize me, Rene Belluso, through this disguise! No? Good! Carry on … for now.” –bbofun

And the runners up are for everyone, all the time!

“‘Postage and gas prices are so high it’s cheaper to mail something across town than to drive it’ is the long thought lost fourth paradox of Zeno.” –Hibbleton

“Snap! Don’t you hate it when you’re so busy taking a picture, you don’t even realize that you should follow up with some selfies because you’re smiling the best selfie smile ever? Flip that phone, Marty! You look super-smug and particularly well-groomed.” –made of wince

“I own two dachshunds and dachshund owners are a crazy bunch, so let me offer you some advice, Mary: unless you want to answer a bunch of angry strongly worded letters, keep your hands off the wiener.” –Old Man Shadow

“Pluggers always take their walks in graveyards, as it’s a pretty convenient place to drop dead from light exercise.” –pugfuggly

“I was going to say something about Saul thinking to himself in exposition when I realized that the second panel could well be a dire warning that the new storyline may be about him trying to meet a comely young woman to charm and eventually bear his child.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I know ‘Dawg’ is just the dog’s actual name but Trixie thoughtballooning ‘Sorry dawg, I gotta move‘ is an order of magnitude funnier than anything appearing in that strip this month.” –MRNA Loy, on Twitter

“Soon the players and coaches are all blindfolded. They wait for instructions, but hear none. Eventually, they remove their blindfolds and find the blind man and their wallets gone.” –ectojazzmage

“‘I started to lose my vision while pitching a game.’ ‘While playing?’ ‘No, I was in the corporate offices of Milton Bradley pitching them the idea of Blindfolded Twister. Ironic, huh?’” –Weaselboy

“Wikipedia provides the backstory: ‘In 2002, Sunbeam emerged from bankruptcy as American Household, Inc (AHI). Sunbeam was owned by Jarden Consumer Solutions after Jarden’s acquisition in 2004, which was itself later purchased by Newell Rubbermaid (now Newell Brands).’ Then it was spun off again and purchased by Foofram Industries, where none of the top execs wanted to be bothered with it, and that’s how the company fell into Hi Flagston’s lap! His best strategy is to get Thirsty put in charge, which should result in another bankruptcy within 6 months.” –Peanut Gallery

“Appropriately, a popular legacy comic strip inherited by the sons of its creator and now its third artist is making a case for easy success with no personal direct effort.” –Hobbes Fan

“Also, if you wear a loud shirt it makes it easier for Life to spot and avoid you.” –nescio

“I do like the subtly ominous way the shadows grow in Skyler’s drink as the old man talks of mortality. Symbolic of his loss of innocence, the more the fledgling listens to the old … uh … stork? Crane? Cormorant? Heron? Uh, never mind … where was I … ah, yes, symbolic of his loss of innocence, the more the fledgling listens to the old bird, the darker his soda, and his future, become. If only the species of the birds was as easy to see as the foreboding omen.” –Voshkod

“There are indeed people who use the phrase ‘you are allowed one starch with your meal,’ and they’re all employees of food service government contractors. Roz’s diner is just a side gig where she serves up the leftovers from her primary job at the local prison cafeteria.” –jroggs

“You can tell us, Silver! We’re just the friendly people reading your expository internal monologue!” –matt w

“I’ll give Shoe this much: selling crappy diner food is in fact a new frontier in findom. (You do not want to know what the Perfesser has to do to get to dessert.)” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

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