Pickles, 8/18/26

Not to sound old, but I do find someone replying “k” to me to be irritating sometimes (and to prove I’m not doing generational discourse, I’ll say these people are as likely to be older than me as they are to be younger). But expecting someone to type out “okay” instead of “ok”? That’s madness. That’s insanity.

B.C., 8/18/26

Speaking of generational discourse, I’m not sure what syndicated newspaper comic strip I would’ve guessed would be the first to go in for “Weren’t things different and better back in the wonderful long-ago year two thousand and twelve?” nostalgia slop for millennials, but I definitely would not have picked B.C.

Hi and Lois, 8/18/26

There are something like 1.5 million real estate agents in the US, according to some cursory Googling, and I don’t think there’s ever been a comic strip dedicated to their specific interests and concerns, so maybe Hi and Lois should lean into that and become primarily realtor-focused. The Roaring ’20s ended and Blondie shifted from being about a cool flapper and her dissolute failson husband to being about a suburban dipshit who’s bad at his white collar job but manages to hold onto it anyway; so too, as America’s economy becomes increasingly asset-based, we must turn away from Hi’s generic office antics and instead focus on his wife’s attempts to facilitate people cashing out their home equity and hoping the money lasts until they die. The creative team will need to do a bit more research on the various dilemmas realtors encounter in their day-to-day life to give the thing a little more variety, though. They can’t all be about hoarders!

Dustin, 8/17/26

Hey kids! Do you remember the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that dumped 150 million gallons of oil into the ocean? Well, that happened in April of 2010, which I regret to inform you all was more than 16 years ago. I’m not saying that it’s impossible for someone in their early 20s, as Dustin is supposed to be, to have a memory of this event that includes the total amount of oil spilled over the course of the disaster; I am saying that it’s a testament to the unparalleled period of peace and prosperity we’ve experienced since, given that this is Dustin’s go-to reference for “something world-historically bad happening” within his lifetime.

Crankshaft, 8/17/26

Hey, kids! Do you remember Funky Winkerbean, the comic strip that was originally about wacky high school students in Northeast Ohio who hung out at Montoni’s Pizza, but eventually came to be about depressed adults in Northeast Ohio whose lives all revolved around Montoni’s Pizza in some way, before finally becoming about survivors living in a futuristic sci-fi Northeast Ohio hellscape where books were eradicated in “the burnings” and the last few precious copies are guarded by robots, with the status of Montoni’s Pizza being unclear? Anyway, long story short, Crankshaft hopes you do, because clearly the intention here is that Crankshaft sitting down and saying “a nice big slice of … Montoni’s Pizza” with an extremely knowing expression on his face will have all of us hootin’ and hollerin’ and yellin’ “got the reference” like we’re the live studio audience for Family Matters and Urkel just walked on set.

Six Chix, 8/16/26

The Wednesday Chik has not given up on her mission to educate comics readers on the true nature of the afterlife, which is that everyone there is horny as all get-out. Your soul, after you ascend from this plane of base matter, will still want to fuck, and specifically will want to fuck Simon, known as Cephas or Peter, who holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven. He’ll be wearing sunglasses for whatever reason.

Mary Worth, 8/16/26

Oh, uh, I guess despite Dawn’s cheery demeanor earlier this week, she has in fact fallen for Tommy’s roguish charms, and not just in a platonic way, I’m talking about the fact that she wants to bone him, and now she’s sad that Brandy, his long-term girlfriend who he never broke up with, is back in the picture, as symbolized by the dramatic single tear she’s dropping in the final panel. I guess we shouldn’t find this surprising, and in fact should be encouraged that she actually was able to hold it together emotionally for the length of this conversation.

Dennis the Menace, 8/16/26

I love that Dennis is just kind of silently lurking on the edges of this conversation, enjoying a juice box. “Seems like Mrs. Wilson is doing plenty of menacing at Mr. Wilson,” he’s thinking. “I’ll stick around just in case I need to jump in, but it looks like she’s got it handled for today.”

Pluggers, 8/15/26

I’m a guy who does not like fancy coffee drinks but I also have limitless disdain for self-righteous “Hur hur I went to the fancy coffee drink place and ordered a plain black coffee to blow their little minds” boomerisms, so mostly what I want to focus on in this panel is that the son plugger looks terrible. Like there’s an ongoing Pluggers tension over whether “plugger” is a category with a complex and ever-changing socioeconomic definition or just a synonym for “old and busted,” and today’s panel is definitely landing on the latter. I guess we’re supposed to think of “That’s my boy” as meaning “That’s my boy, he’s the same kind of reactionary as me,” but it really looks more like he’s saying “That’s my boy, he really looks like shit.”

Herb and Jamaal, 8/15/26

So, uh, Jamaal joined a cult, I think? Must be difficult for Herb, with his best friend and business partner joining a cult. We can forgive him for being a little catty about it!

This week’s comment of the week: It is here, for you to enjoy.

“Pinocchio holds his own control bars aloft and finally earns his therapist’s approval despite the obvious fact that the physics of the whole situation — just like the original ‘lifting oneself by one’s bootstraps’ — are quite impossible. He is no Aristotelian unmoved mover. Pinocchio knows this; he has grimly resigned himself to a performative dance of supposed self-determination to avoid the smug nagging of those around him.” –hurricanenate

The runners up? They are also here, and I think you will laugh at them as well!

“Snuffy is indeed dreaming if he thinks he can outrun any those animals.” –But What Do I Know?

“‘I want to name our ice cream parlor Buster’s after Buster Douglas!’ ‘Oh yeah? Well, I want to name our ice cream parlor Brewster’s after Brewster’s Millions.’ ‘If only there were a compromise that would dissatisfy both of us!’” –Joe Blevins

“Sure, Snuffy can afford specialized packaged snack foods like animal crackers, when his family can barely get up the scratch to buy oil and dredging flour for Loweezy to fry up the chickens he steals. Why not say he’s eating caviar with crème fraîche on toast points, while you’re at it? Sheesh!” –BigTed

“I can’t believe you, Tommy. You’re supposed to be a Froyo Guy! If you got peer pressured into returning to ice cream this easily, your sobriety can’t last long.” –Nevin, on Patreon

“Dawn and Wilbur and Tommy are so happy! It hurts my very soul.” –matt w

“None of these people know how to eat an ice cream cone, do they? Wilbur is rubbing the ice cream over his chin, Tommy is going in for the slightly-open-mouth kiss, and Dawn has blanked out and doesn’t even remember what she’s holding.” –Basil Wishbone

“A summer porch isn’t a porch until you’re holding a lemonade! Before that it’s a deck, at best. I don’t know what you have to drink to make it a veranda.” –Mr. A

“This would normally be a lead-up to the infamous Shoe Google Eyes of Horror, but Roz doesn’t flinch at all. The Perfesser dying alone would be the least shocking thing to happen in this strip.” –pugfuggly

“Number one reason workers strike gas lines: distraction. Blowing up the neighborhood would be Dennis’s crowning menace.” –MKay

“Secondly, ‘kidnapping’ would count as something happening, and that’s not allowed in this strip. You might want to try over at Judge Parker; those people get abducted at the drop of a hat.” –TheDiva

“Why is Wilbur talking in that stilted, early-reader prose? ‘It is too small to fit much food.’ Is he trying to explain to an unseen audience of preschoolers what small is? ‘The pan is small. It is not big. Not much food can fit in it. This pan is smaller than my stomach.’” –Chance

“I can’t help feeling that this is the puppet equivalent of masturbation, which makes it rather disturbing that this is all happening on the psychiatrist’s couch as he watches approvingly.” –Schroduck

“Perhaps it’s that triglyceride-laden sandwich you just consumed — made of Gruyere cheese, ham, bechamel sauce and white bread — that’s causing you such discomfort, sir. Why, you might croque, Monsieur!” –Bob Tice

“I’m honestly shocked that Gertie is pondering which consumer grade gasoline to douse herself in for date night. You can buy 98 octane Sunoco Green E15, the official fuel of NASCAR, at over 150 specialty fuel distributors nationwide. There’s no excuse for this, Gertie!” –Beaston

“Calm down there, Uncle Jimmy. You’re constantly being thwarted by the cast of Rex Morgan, M.D., for crying out loud. When you get out, you should be begging for a job at the vintage blow mold figure emporium instead of planning the next crime you will fumble hilariously.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“At last this story can move on to the main plot: What Brandy’s going to do for money now that Freda’s replaced her with a self-checkout after her three-month absence.” –Charterstone: Dune

“Gertie looks genuinely excited in the first panel about going out to dinner with her husband! I’d like to say this is a sign that she really does love him despite constantly denying him any respite from her NASCAR monomania, but it’s more likely that after extensive negotiations she consented to going to a NASCAR-themed restaurant such as Lancaster’s BBQ in Mooresville, North Carolina, where she can sit in the #3 Dale Earnhardt Bus while he stares into the middle distance and slowly dies inside.” –Vulpes

“‘I have pockets??’ ‘You do now.’ ‘You are a mighty wizard!’” –Voshkod

“Merlin, I know it’s not polite to ask, but how is your nose the only part of your face not covered in hair? It goes all the way up to your eyelashes! Are you shaving your nose every morning?” –Lauralot

“What’s that you say? I just have to sign and the company can legally push Lockhorn down an elevator shaft? Of course I’ll sign, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, not sure why you had to stand on a stool to tell me that. Where do I initial to get my office walls back?” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“I know it’s not polite to ask …. but I’m not polite! I casually violate social conventions all the time, and everyone knows it! Sometimes I murder people just to grab their valuables! I’m a goddamn viking! Anyway, do you have much cash on hand?” –Rita Lake

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