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Would you like a comment of the week for your long holidy weekend, or perhaps your one-day return to work, or perhaps you don’t even live in America or have a job? Well here it is, whatever your circumstances:

“They may have gotten the font wrong, but at least they still used a banner headline, which is what newspapers do for stories of mildly passing interest.” –Missal

Your runners up are also here for you to enjoy!

“Marvin’s recent shift to speaking instead of just thought-bubbling was weird, but developmentally made sense. But narratively this means everyone has to talk now, including the animals, and I don’t really like the implications of this. It takes things from ‘Magical realist whimsy about the inner lives of children and animals’ to ‘Cats are intelligent and have declared economic war on mankind with their only weapon: shitting.’” –Schroduck

“Mary, meanwhile, pays her respects by mournfully grabbing Jeff’s ass. Considering that she hooked up with one of her many suitors at his mother’s passing, it’s clear that funerals really get the ol’ gal going. No wonder she was so eager to arrange all this dead fish silliness: If she can spice up her stagnant love life with the deathly pallor of eroticism, she’ll happily put up with Wilbur’s blathering about ‘closure’ or whatever.” –2+2=7

“You’d think given how much newspaper cartoonists love golf at least one of them would put in the effort to work out what hands look like when holding a golf club.” –Veronica

“There are a lot of extremely nasty and unhealthy relationships in the comics, some of which are even noticed by the cartoonists who make them. The Halftracks’ marriage has always been in the mix, but this vaults them from the low-boiling comfortable contempt of the Lockhorns up to just south of the outright substance abuse and domestic violence of the Thurstons and Capps. Sure, Mrs. Halftrack hasn’t taken to ‘humorously’ beating her husband yet, but she has reached the point of abject hatred where every single thing her husband does infuriates her and prompts her to aggressively impose her will over him. Grim stuff. Almost as grim as a cartoon that thinks a drawing of a putting green makes for a serviceable comedic punchline.” –jroggs

“Hi and Lois having another strip about golf: Stop this, no one but cartoonist cares about golf! Hi and Lois having a strip where they are having a mental breakdown and need to be held: Stop this, I don’t want this to be relatable!” –Ettore Costa, on Bluesky

“[Stellan floating head approaches] Mary: [shakes head] [Stellan floating head recedes]” –Kevin on Earth

“3/15/2024: The National Association of Realtors announces a settlement ending their standard 6% commission. 7/1/2024: Lois experiences a very bad day. Coincidence? Probably. Grim? Oh my, yes. [Chortles darkly]” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Nice of this strip to show the perils of making a phone call while on the can.” –taig

“The print media pool has shrunk so much in Milford that the newspaper doesn’t even bother putting their name on the banner. Which newspaper? The news paper. You know the one.” –pugfuggly

“It’s nice to see Gil worrying if he held his ex-wife back as he sits there comfortably reading the newspaper while his new girlfriend cooks his breakfast for him.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Clover Wins First Championship, Sedge Takes Second, Moss a Distant Third, Grass a Surprising Last in National Groundcover Competition” –Voshkod

“My sympathies lie with the Dad in the background who clearly doesn’t want to be there and who’s about to get an earful from his wife as he hands his kid a stick of cotton-candy by the spun sugar end.” –Hibbleton

“I would not call slipping into a deep depression after the loss of a goldfish a quirk.” –Liam

“Dolly stares with cool curiosity. ‘These humans experience violent distress,’ she thinks. ‘I can turn this to my advantage.’ She’s packed more menace into this look than Dennis has accomplished in seventy-plus years.” –matt w

“Walt is canonically 124 years old and still both mentally sharp and able to stand on his own. He should be making millions from all the scientists studying him for the secrets to immortality. $7,000 is a pittance compared to that.” –The Ghost of Jarrod

“Mr. Huff? Glenwood Police Department here. We want to let you know that we’ve recovered the missing sleeves from your undershirt, as well as the missing ‘g’ from the word ‘calling’ whose elision by you, together with the undershirt you’re wearing, identify you unmistakably as a cartoon member of the Exposition Lower Classes.” –Bob Tice

“So Randy’s problems are environmental AND hereditary: a brutish father and a genetic predisposition to crew cuts.” –MKay

“The first guy here appears to be drinking a shark smoothie, which he blended up in his Bass-o-Matic. Meanwhile, the other guy is sipping pure shark’s blood through a straw, which is how you know he’s a rage-aholic weirdo. We can only hope a shark attacks both of them out of pure revenge, but it’s more likely we’ll just get three more months of two-person dialogue scenes, which are far easier to draw.” –BigTed

“The right way to celebrate our independence was to ditch Wilbur.” –Little Blue Bicycle

“I want to hear the rest of this kid’s tight five. How many more questions does he have in that chamber? ‘Which one was funnier — Lewis or Clark? What was Jamestown really like? Were you a bigger fan of the Angles, Saxons, or Jutes? What are your thoughts on people who sell bad copper?’” –els

“In the world of Hagar the Horrible, they have window glass and chef’s costuming (kerchief, spatula, chef’s hat), but nobody can hem a goddamn shirt sleeve.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

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Hagar the Horrible, 7/5/24

I know the joke here is that you think the buffet owner has “won” this coin toss because it means someone will be patronizing his restaurant, but in fact he has “lost” it because that patron is Hagar, whose rapacious appetite will result in an unprofitable transaction. But everyone’s expression in the second panel almost got me to Google “did Vikings ever engage in cannibalism” before I remembered that most webpages about Viking culture are either written by neo-pagans talking about how Vikings were very nice and kind of woke, actually, or by neo-fascists talking about how Vikings were very nice and extremely representative of the superiority of the Nordic bloodline, actually, so I decided to skip it.

Dustin, 7/5/24

Wow. They said it couldn’t be done. They said it was impossible. They said, “There will never be a Dustin strip that Josh laughs at unironically.” But today, they did it. And all it took was having the character I feel the most neutrally about insult the character I hate the most. This should be an inspiration to everyone. Your dreams can come true, if you work hard enough.

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Happy 4th of July, everybody! It’s the day when everyone, Americans and non-Americans alike, comes together to celebrate America. How are you spending the holiday?

Mary Worth, 7/4/24

Are you doing it the “right way” — by contemplating the legal and administrative aspects of the termination of the American-British colonial relationship, while silently watching fireworks?

Gearhead Gertie, 7/4/24

Or are you doing it the “wrong” way — by contemplating the forcible displacement of your ideological and cultural enemies to a faraway place? Remember: one of the potential drawbacks of a mass ethnic cleansing campaign is that you may one day decide you also want to possess the area where you exiled your opponents to. Think of how spectacular bank turns and car crashes would be in Mars’s lower gravity! Can we afford to leave this beautiful, exciting planet in the hands of anti-NASCAR scum?

Judge Parker, 7/4/24

You might remember a throwaway line from a few weeks ago when Sophie claimed that she had “no romantic drama in [her] life.” In fact, there’s a Lucas, a guy who has feelings for her that she doesn’t reciprocate (or maybe does, but she feels like she can’t be in a romantic relationship because her last one ended in that whole car accident/kidnapping situation), but she told him she still wants to be friends and they’re still hanging out, and I realize that Sophie is just in college and not wise in the ways of love yet, but I regret to inform her that the situation I just described does in fact constitute a certain kind of romantic drama, and a not a fun kind. Anyway, this boy is also super rich, and has invited Sophie and her friend to his family’s compound on Long Island and let them go to their private beach unattended, neglecting to mention to them that the adjacent waters are shark-infested. This will be just like the movie Jaws, which took place over 4th of July weekend!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/24

Sorry, I don’t have a 4th of July tie-in for this one, but I do want to point out that the Rex Morgan bully has a dumb dad who looks almost exactly like him, but older. How do I know he’s dumb? Because he clearly doesn’t know who’s calling him in panel one and doesn’t want to talk to them but answers the phone anyway. It’s 2024, buddy! You can just send it straight to voicemail, except you never set up your voicemail, so the person calling you can’t even leave a voicemail!