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Panel from Slylock Fox, 3/30/25

This is at least the second time that Slylock Fox has proposed the old “one person divides, the other chooses” solution to this kind of dispute, and when the first one was published five years ago I already went on at great length about how I first encountered that idea in T*A*C*K, a sub-Encyclopedia Brown series of distinctly Slylockian “mysteries” for kids. So I guess today I’ll focus on our hapless canine judge. Criminal investigation and prosecution are the flashiest part of the legal system, and the post-human regime has managed to put together semi-functional versions of that, but much of the work of the judiciary involves managing noncriminal disputes between litigants, and we can see that Slylock’s animal civilization has a long way to go in that department. Our boy Sly is using the only tool in his arsenal — ratiocination — and frankly I don’t think it’s really up to the task.

Mary Worth, 3/30/25

“Oh, Belle seems wacky, but kinda fun, ha ha!” is what many of you and frankly I thought when she first appeared. “She definitely won’t start blacking out the eyes of her lover’s daughter in family photos literally minutes after she arrives unannounced at his home, with a sharpie she apparently carries with her specifically for that purpose.” We were fools. Fools! How could we have been so naive?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/30/25

“When is this boring stalker storyline going to get to the medical content that we expect from medically-themed comic strip Rex Morgan, M.D.?” is the question that’s been on the lips of a lot of people who do not regularly read Rex Morgan, M.D., the comic strip that has a lot less medical content than you’d expect. Anyway, does dying count as medical content? Because our stalker — I assume that’s him, based on his Lincolnian profile — seems to have died in mid-stalk, oops. Well, looks like Summer’s problem is solved, anyway! I guess maybe we should bring Rex in to say a few words about how the stalking lifestyle is unhealthy and then move on.

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Six Chix, 3/29/25

Look, man, everyone claims to love mermaids in theory, but a chimeric monster that’s half mammal, half fish was not meant to swim in the waters of our planet, and the only reason any seaside coffee hut should be catering to them on “National Mermaid Day” is as part of a sting operation allowing our military to capture one of these nightmarish cryptids and put our best scientists to work studying them so we can learn more about their weaknesses.

Pardon My Planet, 3/29/25

You know how sometimes you come up with a great gag for a cartoon, and then you draw the whole cartoon, but then you realize you’ve left a key visual signifier out of the cartoon so it doesn’t make sense, and it would be a big pain to redraw everything? Well, good news: you can just write the name of the thing you forgot to draw at the bottom of the panel and call it a “caption.” Nobody will stop you, or even care that much.

Family Circus, 3/29/25

“How do we know He won’t just spend it all on drugs? Why doesn’t He get a REAL JOB?”

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Your comment of the week in a moment, but first! A couple of you have inquired about the whereabouts and health of longtime faithful reader and poster of Shadow COTWs Baja Gaijin, who hasn’t posted the Shadow COTWs in a while. Just wanted to pass on that I emailed with him and he’s OK! He just hasn’t been keeping up with the strips and didn’t feel up to doing the SCOTWs lately, is all. So have no fear!

But do have amusement, as you roll into this week’s top comment!

“In a normal family, that’s the sort of puzzle that parents would watch their young kid try to solve, helping from time to time as needed. In the weird hellscape of Marvinville, shit-machine babies are highly verbal and grammatical, and the (presumably) potty-trained parents are losing their grip on what shreds of rationality remain to them, to the point where even a child’s puzzle is a challenge for them. Marvin appears to be sucking their intelligence away from them and taking it for himself (though not the toilet-training parts of it). This is The Portrait of Dorian Gray, as reimagined by H.P. Lovecraft.” –Dmsilev

And your very funny runners up!

“Ten years ago, Wilbur was getting scammed by a fake girlfriend from Colombia. But now that job went to a white American from the free enterprise state of Florida! Tariffs work!” –Ettore Costa, on BlueSky

“Sunbeam really needs to give some love to the adults in Hi and Lois. He visits Trixie nearly every day, but this is the first time Lois and her friend have seen him in months.” –Anonymous

“It’s pretty harsh for Wilbur to thought-balloon that Dawn is like him, but I guess they did both get brutally rejected by her mom off-panel.” –matt w

“When I was young, my mother would take leftovers and feed them into a portable grinder that clamped to the edge of a table, and sometimes we kids would get to turn the handle to produce that delicious, delicious ham salad. Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes, let’s talk about how modern comic strips are created.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“I haven’t been able to sleep a wink. Every time I close my eyes I have a vision of being cast into am infinite black void with this guy who looks like … Um, maybe I will take that pill…” –But What Do I Know?

“Fifty years from now at the bar, Young Tommy will still be called Young Tommy when he finally keels over from the strain of the many years of drinking and dies at 75. Younger Tommy will feel a moment of hope until he realizes his fate.” –Voshkod

“So I threw a massive tantrum and smashed the machine. Relatedly, I’m banned from that restaurant now. And also going viral on YouTube as ‘Male Karen gets owned in McDonalds’. This is a pretty shit day to be honest.” –ectojazzmage

“I guess the good thing about being Andy Capp’s bartender is that you can insult him constantly, without ever losing his business. What’s he going to do, not come into the pub every evening and drink pint after pint of dark ale until he can barely walk home? Nope, just pour him another one and throw up more zingers, and you’ll be fine.” –BigTed

“For me the real highlight is panel 1, where Belle is seductively twirling a strand of Wilbur’s lank combover between her fingers. Just imagine how greasy her fingertips must be once she’s finished.” –Schroduck

“I guess now that Gil has found someone to spout the trite, cliched pablum for him, he has even more time to ditch work.” –2+2=7

“The following day, Gertie was bit by a raccoon and contracted a rare combination of rabies and flesh-eating bacteria. She was mourned by no-one.” –pugfuggly

“The thing is, Thirsty isn’t GOING to the first ballgame. He traditionally spends opening day sitting in the living room recliner and drinking heavily.” –Ukulele Ike

“I will give Gertie this: unlike Gen Z, she has no fear of picking up the phone and voicing her complaints to the subject of her ire, rather than @ing them on social media in an attempt to get them canceled. Gen Z couldn’t order a pizza over the phone, while Gertie will threaten a goddess with arrest.” –Philip

“I’m gonna get a chair with my name on the side. I’ve had it with anthropomorphized concepts getting all the cool swag, why shouldn’t I have a sweet ‘Dan’ barcalounger? I work hard.” –Dan

“[Sigh] Another fan service strip for its target audience: tapeworms.” –Hibbleton

“‘Why are there so many reality shows about housewives, a sexist term that was considered insulting and outdated as far back as the 1970s?’ ‘Quit yappin’ and rustle up my dinner, Blondie!’” –Peanut Gallery

“‘YOU CANNOT … *GAZE* … UPON ME AND REMAIN … *SANE*’ the Dagwood had told her once. So she had turned her chair away from him. Sometimes, a ‘tendril’ would reach out and take her hand … It wasn’t love … the Dagwood was not capable of emotions like we are. Perhaps a promise that when the rest of the universe had been devoured, he would finally put her out of her misery and eat her last.” –Old Man Shadow

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