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It’s Sunday, folks, the day when newspaper comics include a couple of panels that can be excised based on the vagaries of print layouts. Taken in isolation, these “throwaway” panels can be kind of fun!

Panels from Blondie, 12/3/23

Here’s the panels from today’s Blondie, for instance! It sounds like they’re discussing the possibility of doing some wife swapping, but actually this just leads into a dumb bit about Christmas decorations.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/3/23

And here’s the panels from Snuffy Smith! Snuffy looks like he’s going to make sweet love to that radio. In fact, he’s going to listen to horse racing with some horses, which, considering how many horses die as part of the horse racing industry, is pretty grim.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 12/3/23

On Sundays Dennis the Menace uses its throwaway panel space to do a title block, which is fine, except in this case it seems to be drawn by someone who thinks boy band members wear suits and ties, which isn’t fine at all. Anyway, the main strip is about how Mr. Wilson hates Dennis but his wife forces him to endure the child’s company.

Mary Worth, 12/3/23

For Mary Worth we need the full strip, though, so we can see that Keith and Kitty’s big smooch is interrupted by some cruel soul razzing them! I suppose the razzer is Sonia, whose anti-authoritarian streak is so strong that she calls her own mother by her first name, but it would be very funny if it were just some random acquaintance of Kitty making fun of Keith’s cartoonish physique for no good reason.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/23

Oh come on! Are you going to tell me that the whole Mirakle Method was actually stolen wholesale from this old guy, somehow? C’mon! The Method was Rene’s one accidental success! It really worked on at least one guy! You’ve got to give him this! He needs this!

Rhymes With Orange, 12/2/23

Sorry I got so worked up there, I just really care about my boy Rene. Anyway, here’s a comic strip about teen starfish having sex!

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Dennis the Menace, 11/28/23

I guess the joke here is that Dennis is too stupid to know what “Uncle Sam” means, and has mistaken this metonym for America and the federal government for one of Mr. Wilson’s actual uncles, and thinks maybe the whole financial system is based on avuncular largess? This would work better if we already knew that “Uncle Charlie” is a real uncle in his family, and who knows, maybe there was a panel published sometime in the last 62 years that establishes this, but I’m reasonably sure that when it comes to Dennis the Menace Lore Knowers I’m in the top 5%, so if this is news to me, it probably is to most other people as well.

Blondie, 11/28/23

I think this strip does a pretty good job of capturing the energy of being trapped in a small, enclosed space with a crank (and for once, Dagwood is not the crank). I particularly like the way this guy’s waving his wallet around, as if that proves something about his wife’s spending. Clearing out your bank account has nothing to do with how much cash is in your wallet, my friend! Money’s all just numbers in a computer now, for the most part. You clearly have even less of a grasp on your financial situation than you think!

Mary Worth, 11/28/23

Speaking of being trapped in a small, enclosed space with someone, Kitty and Keith are trapped in a small, enclosed space (Keith’s Jeep) romantically, as Kitty’s ride back from the stables conveniently ditched her so Keith has to give her a ride home. They’re belting out Stevie Wonders’s 1984 hit, “Love Light in Flight,” and are definitely going to fool around when they get back to Kitty’s place, which is big news for those who are rooting for these two to reconnect. I’m not one of those people — in fact, the whole prospect repulses and disgusts me — but I take seriously my mission of reporting on the comics and wanted to pass the information along to all the K/K shippers out there.

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Mary Worth, 11/23/23

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! How will you be spending the day? Will you be enjoying a meal in the company of a bunch of other people from your apartment building that you don’t like very much, but you have agreed to spend the evening with because you were promised a particularly juicy bit of gossip to make up for the bone-dry turkey?

Gil Thorp, 11/23/23

Or will you be at home with your beloved family, along with the golf coach who’s fucking your wife?

Six Chix, 11/23/23

Trying to figure out where the action is happening in any given Six Chix is of course a fool’s errand but — are these turkeys hanging out amongst the clouds, indicating that they’re dead (presumably killed for some human’s Thanksgiving dinner) and in heaven? Truly sad that, even in Paradise, they cannot escape the justified fear that haunted them their whole brief, sad lives. Enjoy your holiday meal, everybody!