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Hey kids! It’s the comment of the week!

“Of course, now ‘above the fold‘ just means for an hour or so it will be placed high enough on the website’s main page that it’s visible without scrolling, before getting unceremoniously wedged between two external Outbrain links to ‘native content’ about organic diet pills. Enjoy your career in journalism, kids!” –Schroduck

And it’s also the runners up! They’re funny!

“Jokes about runaway inflation are not the gold standard of comedy, but there is no need to devalue them! There must be a reason why they are in circulation!” –Ettore

“Thank you, Dawn, for both translating and questioning the quote box.” –Pozzo

“Well, at least it’s a very nice drawing of an optometrist’s office.” –Noel

“Celebratory Fist Pump or Jerk Off Motion? It’s left to the reader to decide.” –Rex Thrillhouse, on Twitter

“‘I’m throwing out stuff today!’ says a manic Lois is a nearly empty house. ‘Soon we will achieve the cleanliness singularity! COMPLETE AND TOTAL TIDYNESS IS WITHIN OUR GRASP!’” –pugfuggly

“Hadley V. Baxendale really knows her way around jort law.” –Ned Ryerson

“It’s a ‘few days’ trek‘ back to JJ’s car. So I was right when I said these idiots supposedly were carrying enough water for at least a week of hiking in the desert terrain and heat despite the fact that NO THEY ABSOLUTELY WERE NOT THEY SHOULD BE DEAD.” –jroggs

“We all react to traumatic upbringings in different ways. Jeffy, whose every request has been rejected as a matter of course since he was born, predictably snaps, inflicting his withholding father with third-degree burns. But it’s PJ’s glassy-eyed stare — the one that reflects a lifetime of neglect and a grim fascination with his older brother’s complete lack of composure — that is truly chilling. He’s content to just observe for now, biding his time, learning from his siblings’ mistakes. When the time comes to finally act, he will have purged himself of all emotion, and his wrath will be terrible, indeed.” –Doctor Moreau

“Dawn: ‘Yay, something good is finally happening to me!’ Mary: ‘Yes, but you know it’s going to end soon, right?’ Dawn: ‘This is why everybody hates you.’” –BigTed

“A month ago, in a dusty and forgotten thrift shop, an ancient old man with malarial skin sold Loretta a book of forbidden knitting patterns, the legendary and shunned Unaussprechlichen Knitting, banned by Popes and Etsy alike. Loretta’s fingers caressed the strangely warm cover of the book, so soft, before she opened it and her eyes were filled with wonder, her brain filled with knots. Now she sits, day after day after day, knitting a long yellow … something. She can’t stop. Her fingertips are bleeding, her hands and arms ache, but she can’t stop. Some day she will finish her great project, a scarf fit for a king, a shroud fit for a pharaoh, but for now, tell me — have you seen the yellow stitch?” –Voshkod

“Vitamin Flintheart always calls Dick Tracy ‘Richard.’ Could he be that unseen villain who is calling Sam Driver ‘Samuel?’ Because being at the center of a drug distribution network in just one strip simply isn’t enough for a man of his obvious virility.” –seismic-2

“‘Well, actuallying’ your armed kidnappers? Sam is admirably true to himself.” –matt w

“How does Mary keep opening these fortune cookies without anyone noticing?” –JJ48

“‘Wealth still treating you right, I see‘ is the elevator pitch for Judge Parker.” –Brutus Jay

“‘Seriously, Mary? Like if I’m getting a tooth drilled, I should sit there saying to myself, I am ENJOYING this! I am ENJOYING this!?’ ‘You didn’t let me finish, dear. My point is, I hear a lot of crazy shit.’” –Peanut Gallery

“‘I’m not sure people understand how problematic Norton is. I know — I’ll put him in blackface!’ –the Judge Parker colorist exercising some creative control, apparently.” –VinegarMike

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Pajama Diaries, 8/9/19

Despite its occasional unpleasant excursions into kink, the obsessive-neurotic Pajama Diaries has slowly wormed its way into the hole in my heart left behind by the obsessive-neurotics at Edge City (not that they didn’t have their own problems with off-putting sex stuff). Today’s strip does a better job at being even-handed than fellow battle-of-the-generations feature Dustin. Ha ha, it’s funny because young people are obsessed with carefully curating the impressions they make on others via social media, while their parents are obsessed with the violence always lurking at the edges of civilized society. What if they come and kidnap you tonight? What if they murder your whole family so that the only clue the police have to go on is the last photo you uploaded to Facebook? What if they need to be able to see every wrinkle, every imperfection, in order to identify your body when they eventually find it bloated and rotting in a ditch somewhere out in the countryside?

Mary Worth, 8/9/19

Mary has long been into taking cognitive-behavioral reality-shaping to extreme lengths, like the time she told a lady devastated because her fiance had stood her up at the altar that “the past only exists by how you remember it,” so all she had to do was remember things differently and she wouldn’t be sad anymore. Now Mary’s applying this theory to the present as well. All Dawn has to do is concentrate on being happy every moment of every day, and then she’ll always be happy! Hugo here? Happy. Hugo not here? Happy. Pretend Hugo never existed the moment he leaves? If letting go of object permanence is the key to happiness, then it’s a small price to pay!

Judge Parker, 8/9/19

Oh, turns out it’s Norton. Norton, everybody! Norton’s back, and he’s, uh, very sunburned, it seems.

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Judge Parker, 8/8/19

Ooh, it looks like Judge Parker is dipping deep into its lore for this latest plot twist! Who is it just off-panel addressing Sam as “Samuel” so unctuously? Is it Rocky Ledge, Godiva’s on-again, off-again husband and Europa Aerospace’s CEO, who used to be an aw-shucks country music star (in addition to being the CEO of an aerospace company/green power colossos) but maybe is evil now? Is it Avery the Hollywood agent, who Sam accidentally helped become a drug lord? Is it … just April’s dad Norton, again? It’s probably Norton, isn’t it.

Dick Tracy, 8/8/19

God, look how angrily Dick is pursing his lips in panel three. “Yes, while the temptation is almost overwhelming to simply arrest the person adjacent to this crime whose family has criminals in it and throw them in jail forever without trial on account of their tainted blood, I suppose we must find … or perhaps manufacture … proof, because of the liberal Supreme Court’s meddling.”

The Phantom, 8/8/19

I know I haven’t really been keeping you up to date on the weekday Phantom, so, real quick: in his quest to rescue Imara Sahara, wife of the Nomad (the Phantom’s archnemesis!) and mother of Kadia (the Phantom’s daughter’s best friend!) from the Nomad’s seaside villa/heavily guarded terrorist compound, our hero has had to stay one step ahead of both American drone strikes and various Nomad henchmen trying to ensure his wife never escapes to spill her guts about his operations. Anyway, I particularly approve of the Ghost Who Walks’ technique to keep her calm during this ordeal: distract her with Wikipedia facts about the country where her daughter is staying. “Mawitaan is the third largest city in sub-Saharan Africa! It’s the center of a major sheep-herding region and sits atop valuable copper deposits!”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/8/19

In addition to being a very bad English teacher, Les is also the advisor to the school newspaper. Today we’re learning that many of the kids who work for the school newspaper are unfamiliar with the vocabulary of journalism, and this is … proof that young people are dumb and bad, and not an indictment of the man who’s supposed to be teaching them about journalism, somehow?