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Panel from The Lockhorns, 6/29/25

One of the great mysteries of The Lockhorns that haunts all of us Lockheads is the identity and nature of the non-Lockhorn people who make occasional appearances in the strip. They never have any dialogue, instead just staring dumbly at our title duo as they engage in their passive-aggressive antics, and generally are not, with the exception of a few medical professionals and Leroy’s bartender, recurring characters. And yet we must assume a certain degree of intimacy has somehow developed before we see the vignettes in which the strangers appear, because often they’re in the Lockhorn home! I suppose we can guess at what drives their interest in seeing the inner workings of this hell-couple’s dynamics. For instance, this lady no doubt wonders if the rumors are true: does this seemingly anti-intellectual downwardly mobile lower-middle-class suburbanite pair really enjoy playing chess at home? And does Leroy really lurch about in a grotesque parody of a victory dance when he wins? Still and all, now that her curiosity has been sated, the visitor won’t be back. For most people, a little of this goes a long way.

Mary Worth, 6/29/25

On the one hand, Wilbur’s glad Belle is once again being heavily medicated by her brother, who looks exactly like him but taller. On the other hand, he still wants to grab a last-minute ticket on Spirit Airlines and jet over to Florida and have sex with her. Is this normal, Mary??? Oh, wait, you’re saying it is normal? I, uh, did not expect that, and frankly don’t really like it.

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Mark Trail, 6/28/25

There’s a new Mark Trail adventure starting this week that appears to be about fairly straightforward environmental issues — poop in the swimming hole, I guess? — but I want to point out today’s strip because I love how tuff and mad about it Rusty’s little friend in the last panel looks. “Poop? In my swimming hole?” he thinks, striking a fierce pose that shows off his water wings. “Someone’s gonna get punched for this, I sure hope!”

Crankshaft, 6/28/25

Normally, if your dad returned from a trip to New York City singing a mangled version of one of the songs from the Broadway show he took in during his visit, that would be a good sign that he had a pretty good time. Not Crankshaft, though! We all know he’s incapable of joy. This just means that some sensory input got trapped in the malaprop center of his brain, irritating it — and, by extension, irritating him and everyone around him — further.

Dustin, 6/28/25

Ha ha, yes, Bon Jovi, the person who immediately comes to mind when a typical Zoomer like Dustin tries to summon up the name of a long-haired sex symbol! Now, it’s possible that Dustin picked Bon Jovi for this little rhetorical move specifically because he thought the man might appeal to his agèd mother, but keep in mind that (a) Slippery When Wet came out 39 years ago, so it’s fully possible for people with early-20s children to have been too young to get on the Bon Jovi train, and (b) Dustin obviously has never bothered to get to know his parents well enough to figure out what cultural figures from the past they might find attractive.

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Comment of the week? That’s right, it’s the comment of the week:

“After all the other ‘Ed doing things nobody visiting NYC would’ entries, I have to acknowledge today’s strip for verisimilitude: Only a tourist would go to Washington Square Park to buy pot.” –ValdVin

Hilarious runners up? Yeah, you’d better believe it’s the hilarious runners up:

“I expect Crankshaft’s neck hurts too, since he’s adopted the ‘face away from the monument and look over your shoulder at it’ style of tourism.” –Ken

“I’m assuming the discrepancy between long sleeve/long pants and short sleeves/short pants is because the Chicken Lady is undergoing henopause.” –nescio

“Chicken Lady leaning in, eyes narrowed, hand hidden behind her back, is downright ominous! The axe is visible in the background, but it’s cold comfort. She could be concealing any number of murder weapons. Any number, I say!” –Victor Von

“‘Hi Lee, about this script … HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SKULL ON THE CABINET!!!’ ‘Of course! Like all great artists, I need a memento mori: remember you are mortal!’ ‘Well, it’s not working: you supposedly died in 1999!’” –Ettorre

“Delighted to see Garfield is a Wikipedia editor, and even more delighted to see that he immediately got into every Wikipedian’s favourite hobby — adding vexatious disambiguation notices to pages.” –Schroduck

“‘You’ll find out in the Phantom’s own good time.’ AKA, ‘Wow, this comic is extremely slow-paced.’” –Westing1992

“Gil at first was going to play dumb — ‘Prom? What prom? I booked a cruise for that weekend’ — but he was caught out by the word ‘prom’ appearing on every surface of the school.” –Lawyerbob

“Mary has obviously judged this to be a five-muffin situation.” –Pozzo

“I’m mildly … well, ‘alarmed’ isn’t quite the right word, because it’s Beetle Bailey, so let’s go with ‘bemused,’ that Killer — a Private in the Army who has presumably seen these things before and whose name, literal or not, is Killer — has to ask what it is that Zero is ‘arranging over there.’ What do you think they are, my guy? Metal bottles? Strangely unsettling musical instruments? Condoms for variously-sized Transformers? It’s that last one, isn’t it?” –els

“Herb, I don’t know if this is true … I can’t tell for sure … Maybe it’s me, but … If you’re going to blatantly stretch a one-panel gag to multiple panels, I kind of admire your decision to go for four when three would have been plenty.” –Peanut Gallery

“I woke up wondering if I could make it through the day without reading the sentence ‘your table wiping days are over.’ Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.” –Weaselboy

“Mr. Weenie World manager, did you know that Luann’s parents own an actual full service restaurant with liquor license? Kind of makes you wonder why even they won’t hire her.” –Guillermo el Chiclero

“Gen Z, which comic book time has moved Luann into, is having less sex and less interest in it, so the strip is shifting from ‘zany comic’ to more realism comic. When Batuik moved off Funky Winkerbean, creator Greg Evans took the mantle. Sucks for Brad, who will be picked to be the example for the shockingly high rates of colon cancer affecting young people.” –Philip

“I like how the grey background suggest the interior of a bunker. 2023 wasn’t too long ago, especially when you consider that that timelock isn’t going to let you out until 2028.” –pugfuggly

“What really makes this work is that Dustin’s dad is a lawyer, so he knows exactly what ‘keeping two sets of books’ means. ‘I am committing accounting fraud against my wife. I will be sentenced to no more than sixty months in prison, fined no more than one million dollars, and be forced to repay this donut.’” –matt w

“Haha … but seriously, Chip was caddying for me. He tripped, rolled off the green, and fell 200 feet off a cliff to his death.” –Old Man Shadow

“I knew that aliens built the pyramids, but the revelation that they also wrote Shakespeare is a real game changer.” –Mr. Tulkinghorn

“If you really loved Alice, you’d be using those eyestalks to inspect for termites.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“The most menacing part is that they’re staying at Caesar’s Palace so that Martha can feast on the eye candy that is their replica statue of David.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Heathcliff has the serene calm of someone who has made peace with being a martyr to their cause (the cause here being wearing meat-product-promoting helmets).” –TheDiva

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