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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/2/25

Oh, hey, sorry I haven’t kept you up to date on the tale of Summer and Augie and the bad date that Summer ditched to hook up with Augie. The short version is that after making a real ass of himself at the bar where Summer met Augie and getting kicked out by the bouncer, bad-date-man showed up at Summer’s workplace at the Morgan clinic and made a real ass of himself and got kicked out by the building’s security guard. As is all too typical for me, that ostensibly “interesting” stuff did not move me to comment, but today’s strip? Where Augie’s going on and on about how much he likes regional artists and educational vacations to Kansas City? Well, you know that’s gonna hook me in. I’m extremely invested in finding out if “regional artists” become the new “roots country.” Meanwhile, bad-date-man has stalked Summer to the art museum, and I guess we’ll find out this week if he’s going to make a real ass of himself and be kicked out by a museum security guard or if he decides that these people are pretty boring, actually, and he has better stuff to do.

Beetle Bailey, 3/2/25

Without the top row of throwaway panels, this strip is absolutely nothing, a boring non-joke about how the General is obsessed with golf and his soldiers don’t respect him, for that reason and also a variety of other reasons. With the throwaway panels … there’s a whisper of something funny in there. Probably they could condense all the other panels down to one or two and then it might actually elicit a sensible chuckle. Keep plugging away at it, guys, you’re gonna write a good one of these eventually!

Dennis the Menace, 3/2/25

I gotta admit, I spent most of this strip thinking, “Wow, the whole neighborhood thinks Henry’s a dipshit, huh. Can’t blame them, really. Look at how he dresses!” But then I got to the last panel and it turns out that everyone was actually mad at [record scratch] Dennis, whose menacing behavior provides this strip with its very title??? Ashamed to confess that they got me with this one, folks. They got me!

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Marvin, 3/1/25

When I was in graduate school, I was the TA for a class taught by an elderly British professor who was eccentric in ways that were variously entertaining (he took snuff in the middle of lecture, much to the students’ confusion and horror) and off-putting (the class was “Intro to Western Civ” but he built it around four or five specific and obscure topics from ancient Greece and Rome for which the students had no real context but which he found interesting). He wanted no contact with undergraduates beyond lectures, and we were expected to run interference for him. I didn’t think much of him as an educator, as you might be able to tell, but I didn’t wish any specific ill upon him. I later learned that he had, after being married his entire adult life, been recently widowed; because he no longer had anyone to cook for him, he was losing weight, but he also didn’t have anyone to pick out new clothes for him, and so one day, in the middle of lecture, his pants started to slowly fall down. There was a brief moment when my fellow TA and I looked at each other in horror — was it our job to intervene? — but he did eventually realize what was happening and pull them up, continuing to write on the chalkboard the entire time, and nobody ever said anything about it, not even the students, who generally liked to ask about his odd behavior during section in an attempt to avoid talking about the ancient world. This incident made a big impression on me, and I’ve thought a lot about what it says about what happens when you age or when your life circumstances abruptly change, and I bet a not insignificant number of older men go through something similar. So if I were the syndicated newspaper comic strip Marvin, I don’t think I’d be so cavalier about old people losing a bunch of weight and their pants falling down in public, because let me tell you, even though this strip is ostensibly about a baby and his parents, old people are reading it. Old people are all the comics have left! Don’t freak them out!

Archie, 3/1/25

When I was in high school, I was on the speech and debate team, and my senior year we organized a tournament at our school, with us students put in charge of doing a lot of the scut work for it. One of my tasks was to get the trophies, and let me tell you, discovering that you could just go to a store and buy a trophy that says you’re the best debater or whatever completely rewired how I thought about trophies and awards. They’re just things you can buy! They’re not even that expensive! Anyway, as a high school principal, I assume Mr. Weatherbee has a preferred trophy vendor and buys in bulk, and under those circumstances I have to imagine that temptation to do little bits like this would be overwhelming.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 3/1/25

Not sure why, but I really enjoy the choice to set this cartoon on a plane. They could’ve done the same joke in a restaurant, but this just seems more specific, which I like. I’m sure that smells great in an enclosed space!

Luann, 3/1/25

How’s Luann’s date with some guy named “Phil” or whatever going? Well, good news: she’s been told up front that she will not be getting any action at the end of it, which should really make it an enjoyable experience overall.

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Sorry, folks: tomorrow just the first of three boring March 1sts that follow February 28ths; we have to wait until 2028 for more leap day glory. I know you’re sad about this, but try to console yourself with this comment of the week.

“For Pluggers I just assume the cast of characters are a troupe of actors from an improv group who got hired to star in a series of short vignettes sent in from readers. They are actually big city dwelling thespians with fancy art degrees and a relatively middle-class status thanks to regular work in the comics. It’s no Peanuts (in comic strip actor world, the phrase ‘working for Peanuts’ had the opposite meaning than for us), but anything that keeps you employed, and not in the political cartoons, is a win for many of them. Anyway, Claude has a wife, but she works outside the industry.” –Philip

And your runners up are very funny!

“Oh, this one’s super-easy, and the kids will get it in a snap. Slylock opts for the lesser-priced wand because he’s heeded the words of veteran investor David Roche, who predicts a bear market in 2025 on account of smaller-than-expected interest rate cuts, a slowing economy and an AI bubble. So Slylock wants to save his investment dollars.” –Bob Tice

“Batiuk advances the radical eugenic proposition that if you are not tall enough to reach the high shelves you should not be allowed to own a shop.” –Ettorre

“I love Standard Sal’s name and facial expression. Yup, that’s me, I’m just a regular ol’ pig, down here at the market, selling my three common bubble wands so I can take my four fifty back home to my wife, Conventional Connie, and my kids, Common, Normal, Meh and Standard, Jr. in good ol’ suburban Typical Town.” –astroboy

“I appreciate that the bird refers to his fiancée as ‘the Widow Palmer’ instead of ‘Betty-Lou’ or whatever her first name is and I hope this continues throughout their marriage because I can’t think of anything funnier to cry out in orgasmic joy.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘How’s your vegan ice cream?’ is so menacing that Dennis has lost his raison d’être.” –Drew, on Bluesky

“It’s not your memory, Lois, it’s the fact that you live in some kind of constantly changing hellscape that makes reality itself impossible to grasp onto. Look: the walls changed colors and your teacup shrunk between those two panels! What even is ‘memory’ in that kind of a space?” –pugfuggly

“You need a brain cloud. It involves trepanation, a blender, and a diffuser. When it’s done, your brain will be floating around the room as a fine mist. You’ll feel much better. I have a drill if you want to get started.” –Voshkod

“Studies have shown that frequent web use actually does reduce our working memories, because we just assume we can find information right away by Googling — so in that sense, the internet really does become our ‘brain cloud.’ That’s something Dot would know if she spent more time on her phone like a normal kid, and less time conversing with her stupid parents!” –BigTed

“Hm I haven’t checked in on Gil Thorp in a while, I wonder what kind of sports-based fun they’re up to (in a featureless void, an unfamiliar figure beckons closer and whispers, ‘Don’t be afraid. Horses are prey.’)” –Dan

“‘Pluggers don’t smoke cigarettes’? Not feeling it. How about ‘Plugger edibles’ (a table full of food)?” –matt w

“‘Silver? Now THAT is a horse of a different color.’ — Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of Brown Blaze” –Only Here For The Ads

“Okay, new pitch for a Dick Tracy spinoff comic: Those two sucky nephews trying and failing endlessly to open a jar of pickles, wrestling with it, themselves, and each other, often in bizarre and contorted positions. They could travel from place to place, entering and exiting stories and situations we never fully see, because our attention is focused rightly on their attempts to open this fucking jar like a goddamn pickle-based Sisyphus. Sometimes they affect those situations or are affected by them, and sometimes they just drift through them without anything changing, like leaves on the wind.” –Craig!

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. The owls are not making life easier for Atazhoon tonight.” –Doctor Moreau

“Jughead chokes on his drink. ‘Not paying attention!? That’s so unfair! Don’t these girls know you have shit for brains!?’” –Hibbleton

“List five people you’ve haunted in the past week or you’re fired. Amazing how few ghosts can pass this simple pulse test. Worthless work from home slackers, scamming the ancient of days. I wouldn’t want to be in your sheet…” –Dennis Jimenez

“Looks more like a vast expanse of desert than a beach. Where’s the ocean? Are they spies, posing as confused tourists, sent by the US to monitor aboveground nuclear tests somewhere in Central Asia? With the prospect of capture and imprisonment, you’d think they’d set aside money for long-term dogsitting.” –A. Mulyak

“It must gall Mary to know that she can fill in for the perennial loser Wilbur, distribute her pearls of wisdom to the masses (via print?) and that as far we know no can tell the difference. By the way, is she doing this for free? If so, I have some advice for her.” –Kirkout

“Mary can’t be bothered with all the tedious Ask Wendy letters (‘I caught my boyfriend cheating.’ Zzzzzzz.) So she throws them away and is now just using the column as an opinion piece to spread her platitudes to the public at large. She’s never felt more alive!” –Cleveland Mocks

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