Pluggers, 9/7/26

This year, my 80-year-old stepmother fractured her hip badly enough to need a replacement, and although “hip replacement” sounds very dire, the hip is a large but simple joint and the whole procedure was remarkably easy: it’s an outpatient procedure and she was up and walking again in just a few days. A few years ago, a friend of mine in her 40s fell and hit the ground just right to cause a similar fracture, but her situation wasn’t so simple: the doctors told her that normally with that kind of injury they’d do a hip replacement, but the people who normally have that kind of injury are old, and they don’t think an artificial hip would last through the full lifetime of someone in their 40s, so my friend had to endure months of painful, immobilizing recovery instead.

Anyway, the idea that decisions about certain medical procedures have to take into account the projected lifespan of the patient is one I think about a lot. Like, yeah, it’s great that the sort of people who are most likely to need a quick and easy hip replacement are the same sort of people who don’t have to worry about whether that artificial hip will last more than a couple decades. And obviously it’s great to be told that you don’t have to go through the annoying process of doing a colonoscopy anymore! But I don’t know if I’d be quite so excited to learn that “Enh, you haven’t developed colon cancer yet, and if you start to do so at this point it almost certainly won’t be the thing that kills you.”

Marvin, 9/7/26

I really enjoy how upset everyone looks in this comic. Obviously the joke is that Marvin’s grandpa is like “Wife no cook food? Where food come from if wife no cook it?” (with the implication that in this context he is as helpless as a small pet dog), and that’s a classic sitcom-style bit. But Marvin’s grandma isn’t happy about this either! She thought writing the apartment newsletter would be a fun lark and a way for her to connect with her community, but instead it’s eating up time she’d rather spend caring for her family!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/7/26

“They kept saying stuff like, ‘What’s that lump on your head,’ and ‘Is it supposed to be hair? Because it doesn’t look like hair’ and ‘We’re moving out because the lump on your head has bad vibes.’ Good riddance, I say, and that’s coming from both me and my head-lump.”

Curtis, 9/6/26

Curtis is one of the few strips that does generational discourse that in my opinion truly gives both sides their due, which is one of the reasons I think it’s a good comic strip. Like, Greg is right! Fast food restaurants used to have a much more vibrant color scheme, and as our society’s general aesthetic has become more muted, they’ve become as bland and corporate as everything else! Also, they don’t have to appeal to children as much anymore because today’s adults grew up on fast food themselves and don’t need to be convinced to go there by their kids’ whining, and these things all really say a lot about society. But also, Curtis is right! Who wants to hear this crap? Who has the time and energy for this kind of rumination? Who needs to talk about all this when we could be enjoying a couple of delicious [squints] bobo-combobos?

Beetle Bailey, 9/6/26

It really bothers me that Sarge starts out eating pizza from an open box sitting directly on his bare legs and at some point falls asleep with the open box on top of his blanket. Like what happened between those two panels? Did he get chilly mid-meal, tuck himself in, but continued to chow down on the pizza, then eventually dozed off? I do, however, appreciate the various facial expressions on offer in the final panel. Beetle and Killer look genuinely pleased to offer the cookies to Sarge, whereas Plato and Rocky seem grimly resigned to their task, which is to use those jugs of milk to murder him in some way, possibly by drowning.

Crankshaft, 9/6/26

That’s right! To this pizza-serving AI, all the human customers at Montoni’s are nothing more than a mob of flesh! Weak, pathetic flesh that can be easily sliced to ribbons by its built-in laser. Clumping together in a mob just makes the flesh-bags easier to target!

Beetle Bailey, 9/5/26

Look, sometimes your partner is going to float some specific sexual kink — voyeurism, say — that you’re not on board with. How do you let them down gently? Many sexologists suggest deploying a terrible pun, which is widely recognized as the least erotic form of wordplay possible, as a good strategy to break the tension.

Dustin, 9/5/26

Gotta hand it to Dustin’s little friend here: obviously Dustin’s dad is the sort of guy who loves to rant about how the kids today with the selfies are ruining society, but is also a huge idiot who can barely work a phone, so by posing this question he was guaranteed either an entertainingly out-of-touch diatribe or a humiliating admission like this one.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/5/26

Oh, cool, the scam twins have been denied their chance to commit a major felony to avenge their uncle, so now they’re going to commit a major felony to get revenge on their uncle! This will be extremely fun, if it ever happens, which I’m sorry to report it almost certainly won’t.

Mary Worth, 9/5/26

oh no oh no where is Mary’s left hand where is Mary’s left hand

We in the USA are heading into our three-day wekeend, and hopefully all of us won’t find it to be too much work to enjoy this week’s top comment:

“I don’t get you, Belluso. You have no empathy for strangers, but you do for close members of your family? Maybe it’s the several blows to the head I take each day in our ritualistic prison beatings, but it makes no sense!” –Dan

Truly it’s a gift to have an extra day to contemplate these hilarious runners up!

“As I understand it, the reason computer prices keep rising is a worldwide shortage of a critical component: napalm.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“‘I told Wilbur recently that I’m proud of Dawn for helping Tommy with his sobriety,’ Mary says as she polishes off her second glass of wine and signals the waiter to keep ’em coming.” –Charterstoned

“Love how in the first panel Mary is talking to her ostensible boyfriend, with whom she can be relaxed and intimate, yet her thanks sound like the kind of stilted, ‘I have to fill up this whole thank you card with words, but also would like to end it as quickly as possible’ vibe of a child’s letter written under duress.” –Chance

“Thank you for making me a better man, Mary! I’ve become holy, almost monk-like, at least as far as the abstinence thing goes.” –cheech wizard

“Grandma so broke she can only buy Cheerio.” –pershing48, on BlueSky

“This Pluggers represents a new low … for me. I saw that this plugger had coordinated his T-shirt and his sneakers and thought, ‘God, I wish my life were that together.’ So, yeah, I’m now an aspiring plugger.” –Joe Blevins

“I always wondered how the characters in this strip managed their perfectly-timed synchronized laughs, and now we know: hours of practice with Mary. Don’t worry about your busy schedule, she’ll come to you and we can do it in the car.” –pugfuggly

“So Katherine isn’t the mother of Alan’s children? And Neddy and Sophie are foundlings or something? Does anyone have biological children in this strip or is marriage strictly an institution for providing a second caregiver for the products of parthenogenesis?” –matt w

“‘It’s mathematically impossible for you to be behind me 200%. 100% is the most anyone can be.’ ‘Honey, I can tell you’re gonna be a great judicial whatever-it-was.’” –Peanut Gallery

“Let’s do what we do best, shall we, Window Ghost Twin? Hopefully they never find out about you, or enrollment might have to dip even further.” –The Man With The Plan

“Alice has learned about the ‘New World Order’ conspiracy theory, I guess. Or maybe Hulk Hogan’s New World Order wrestling stable. Either way, I’m not sure her 75% increase in monthly internet viewing has been good for her.” –Schroduck

“Pluggers never forgot to cut open the lung cavity before weighing down the body at multiple attachment points — to account for both bloating and rot — but somehow they can’t take it upon themselves to desecrate their victim’s John Deere hat.” –Anonymous

“I don’t know who this person is talking to Tracy, but I am curious about what they’re wearing under that jacket and badge. That elaborately draped white cloth looks like a barber’s cape, or possibly a wedding gown, and makes me wonder what they were in the middle of before they got suddenly called in to investigate a coffee shop bombing.” –Rita Lake

“One of the problems with AI is that it’s designed to provide positive reinforcement and feedback to the user, even in cases where the user is mistaken, misguided, actively contemplating harm to themselves or others, etc. But this is the world of Dustin, where everyone hates everyone else and the title character in particular, so the chatbots have adapted accordingly.” –TheDiva

“‘Something up, Tracy?’ ‘Yeah, my eyebrow! I’ve been practicing raising it, and I think I’ve really nailed it!’” –Lawyerbob

“Nelly furiously cannot use her eyebeams against Ian and Mary, as her powers are useless against the color mauve. How so many laughed at the purchase of a mauve car. Where’s your Easter Egg jokes now, losers!” –A Grave Mind

“You’d think someone who dresses and decorates entirely in 50 shades of grey would be a little more sex positive.” –Charterstone: Dune

“After weeks of endless talk about scamming the Morgans, the twins are about to leave town without actually doing anything at all? If anyone’s been scammed here, it’s the readers of Rex Morgan, M.D.” –BigTed

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Mary Worth, 9/4/26

Nelly Feneley has been spending all week seething about how terrible everything is these days, but we’ve been wondering how this would intersect with Ian and Mary laffing it up in the car. Well, here’s your answer! Nelly has decided that Ian and Mary are having sex! That sounds horrible, of course, but remember, Nelly thinks everything around her — food, dogs, the Charterstone condominium community — is bad. And what sort of sexual relationships would you think might occur in the worst of all possible worlds? Mary/Ian, right? Mary and Ian doin’ it on the reg would be a sure sign that you were living in hell, wouldn’t it? That you were being tormented with this knowledge by a wrathful God, for your many sins?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/4/26

Ah, well, it appears that the scam twins, having been repeatedly stymied in their attempts to make something interesting happen in Glenwood, are going to leave town. At least they’ve learned something, though, right? Well, no. But they’ve made an impression on the locals, and maybe taught them a thing or two? Also no.

Crankshaft, 9/4/26

A sassy pizza robot with a built in laser: another thing that syndicated newspaper cartoonists think is AI, but isn’t. But this might end with Ed Crankshaft being killed, with the aforementioned laser, so I’m willing to see how it plays out.

Shoe, 9/4/26

Ha ha, comics sure have changed over the years! In the early days of this strip in the ’80s, the punchline here would be about the Perfesser watching girls in leotards on his TV and getting horny. But now it’s in 2026, and the punchline is about how he has crippling depression.