Hi and Lois, 9/27/26

My first impression reading this was that Hi seems so youthful in the first panel in the second row that he must be imagining himself as a Little Leaguer; but the mustache on the outfielder means that’s not right, and I realized that, of course, he’s imagining himself as a Major League Baseball player, and MLB players are on average men in their mid to late 20s, younger than Hi and certainly much younger than me, but not children by any means. It’s a lot to think about! And I honestly would prefer to think about this, to muse melancholy on middle age, and not think at all about the throwaway panel that includes what I guess is supposed to be Hi dozing off thinking happy thoughts but it looks like a portrait of JFK zooted out of his mind on all the off-label drugs they were giving him for his back pain plus whatever sex pills he was taking. I have to admit, not thinking about that is getting more and more difficult.

Family Circus, 9/27/26

We criticize Marvin a lot for all the piss and shit jokes it does, but honestly its worst sin is just to be so in your face about it. Like, here’s a Family Circus about a carpet remembering all the good times it’s had with the Keane Kids over the years as it’s being driven to the landfill, and only one of the seven little vignettes it’s visualizing involves being peed on. That’s how you elicit a healthy chuckle from the piss joke appreciating community while still getting grandparents to faithfully cut your comic and hang it on the fridge.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 9/27/26

You ever notice that we never see Leroy’s mother? I feel like Loretta gets mad at moments like this not just for the obvious reasons, but because Leroy’s mother’s presumably early death — or perhaps her decision to go no-contact with her son for reasons we could easily guess at — have denied Loretta ammunition in the constant marital battle that is the focus of her every waking thought.

Crankshaft, 9/27/26

Hey, I don’t want to overstep here, but … do you ever get the feeling that, just maybe, everyone involved in the creation of the Funkyverse strips has a terrible inability to feel pleasure, like in a pathological way? Just putting that out there.

Blondie, 9/26/26

I very much accidentally read Blondie’s dialogue in panel one as “that restaurant we swore we’d never go back to” and, you know what: Mama Chowabunga Manicotti Mansion would absolutely be on a list of restaurants to never go back to. Honestly it feels like it should be at the top of a list of restaurants never to go to in the first place. They took “cowabunga,” first coined as a fake Native American word for the Howdy Doody show, and turned it into a fake Italian word, in a move that could get groups that usually fight with each other about recognizing Columbus Day to unite against a common enemy, which I honestly think is kind of beautiful, but I wouldn’t eat there.

Mary Worth, 9/26/26

I know it would never happen, but the absolute funniest denouement of this storyline would be if after weeks of gossip Toby was like “Ian and Mary? I don’t think so” and it’s just never addressed again and there’s a new plot on Monday. Are they or aren’t they? None of our business, frankly! Toby doesn’t think so and that’s good enough for me!

[insert vaguely topical joke leading into COTW here]

“The Perfesser seems to have an endless supply of uncles that he periodically kills for the sake of doing ‘bits’ with other people, his only real way of socially interacting with people. One day, unfortunately for him, Skyler will do the same with him.” –ectojazzmage

[continue on same riff while acknowledging that runners up are very funny here]

“But, confusingly, also a birdie.” –Roscoe

“The fact that Weirdly thought that simply demonstrating that he didn’t release his monstrosity on the innocent populace would absolve him of any guilt implies that the possession (and perhaps even creation) of such a creature is totally legal. When you consider that Weirdly has been making weird critters for years, it’s a sad indictment of the Forest Kingdom’s ability to pass important bioethics legislation. Only now that it has resulted in actual harm will anything get done, because as always, regulations are written in blood, or at least the tears of frightened rabbits.” –Vulpes

“To be fair, Marvin needs to change outfits three to four times a day on average thanks to his apocalyptic diaper blowouts; you can’t blame Jeff for not bothering to keep track.” –TheDiva

“Commissions, eh? Good thing Hank Harwood Jr. is too far away to see the art of someone’s furry OC getting eaten by an inflated Sonic the Hedgehog that ‘Horrible’ Hank Sr. is drawing for sweet sweet Patreon bucks!” –Schroduck

“See, this is what a good marriage is all about — teamwork. ‘I see you’re having trouble coming up with a punchline to that setup, honey. Let me help you out. Okay, that’s our work for today. I’m heading to the breakroom if you need me.’” –Joe Blevins

“What I wouldn’t give to have an all-powerful narration box in my life to come around, offer a reset, and provide me cover for when I’ve made a horrible narrative decision in my life. ‘Mighty Captain E sure made the wrong choice in that situation, but nobody witnessed that gaffe, so let’s just move on.’ Instead, my narration box constantly inserts itself in my brain to keep reminding me what a fool I am. ‘Oh boy, E sure screwed the pooch there. Let’s go over how many ways that will probably mess up his life.’” –The Mighty Captain E

“Are these two chuckleheads going to bomb a data center? Congratulations, Intelligent Life, for capturing my attention for the first and only time.” –Mr. A

“Now for the title change; I’m thinking Crank and the Shaft, where Crank and Shaft can be used interchangeably to refer to either man or robot.” –InvasionOfTheZIM

“Hank Sr. is a retired cartoonist so he must be LOADED. Can’t he just buy a small island to get away from Buck and watch A Minecraft Movie in peace? (I kid, this is Rex Morgan, M.D., where Boomers are most likely watching old Mexican luchador films.)” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’m more concerned about the mere presence of bare feet. Is this part of standard of care for mental health now? Is Dr. Bonkus a psychia-podiatrist? I have so many questions!” –Scott Christian Simmons

“Unfortunately, the fastest lines at Costco are self-checkout, which don’t allow alcohol. So Leroy had to start over in a much longer one, because he knew he couldn’t get through the month without several giant bottles of Kirkland Signature American Vodka. I mean, look at him — he’s obviously so happy because he just got very drunk at an affordable price.” –BigTed

“Look how happy Nelly is now. This storyline started with Nelly hating everything about life, and now she has a reason to get up every morning and chat with her neighbors. What a heartwarming resolution!” –Nevin, on Patreon

“I like how that last panel implies that [blond child whose name I can’t remember] got Dustin a frozen dessert before breaking the news that he’s a moron. Just to let him down a bit easier.” –pugfuggly

“I’m glad Mary Worth is really putting in the shoe leather to show us this rumor spreading. A lesser comic strip would have four days’ worth of strips like this before deciding that we get the gist, but Mary Worth is dedicated to showing us each link in the rumor chain until every single Charterstonian knowns. Wake me up in three months when Wilbur lays flowers on Aldo’s grave and says, ‘Oh, by the way, Aldo, you’ll never guess who Mary’s been cavorting with…’” –Abram Beazer

“One thing’s for sure, the kid’s eyebrows are going to be on its hair.” –Peanut Gallery

“‘What have you heard, Alma?’ ‘The Charterstone condo board is making Professor Cameron wear a scarlet A!’” –Bob Tice

“Careful, Alma — when you tell a lie, your neck grows longer.” — Pozzo

“This is giving me mad, possibly Dutch, supervillain interrogated by French detective: ‘Ze gendarme will escort you to ze Palais de Justice Juvenile, where we have ze young m’sieur Orlov on suspicion of ze … how you say? Steroid abuse, oui. I will speak to Mr. Zhil Thor’ momentaire. Are you steel defiant, Coach?’” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“I don’t have time for this, Charles Bronson, I have to sing ‘Time Love and Tenderness’ at the Nobunga Casino in an hour!” –2+2=7

[cut and paste boilerplate on subscriptions here]

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! You can get each day’s post ad-free via Patreon if that’s your style! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

Mary Worth, 9/25/26

Dang, Alma, you were the most sensible person in this whole situation for about 30 seconds, but now you’re out there buttonholing people in the Charterstone parking lot to tell them the good bad news about Mary Worth and Ian maybe enjoying the pleasures of the flesh together. We’re about to finally get some forward movement in this story, though, because this constant gossiping is at last happening with Toby within earshot. I do hope she really only caught that last part. “Wait, spend that time with me? That’s time I could be spending with my parrots! No thanks.”

Gil Thorp, 9/25/26

Gotta say, the second two panels here, where a glowering, mustachio’d Marty Moon says “The success is largely on Borys Orlov’s shoulders–” and then Coach Gerards cuts him off and and declares “Nonsense! I plan and they execute” really could be an exchange between Stalin and one of his aides, as the aide tries to explain to him that one of his non-purged generals had really started to turn things around against the Wehrmacht and Stalin immediately takes credit. Except for the perm. Probably. Can you prove that, in the darkest days of the Battle of Moscow, Stalin didn’t have a long, flowing perm? He’s usually wearing hats in most of the pictures I’ve seen. Could be anything under there.

Luann, 9/24/26

Hey, remember how Toni got pregnant, as a result of shower sex with Brad? Probably you’ve been trying to purge that information from your mind, but tough shit, I’m telling you about the current Luann storyline so you have to get into the right headspace by recalling all the backstory. Anyway, Brad and Toni told the whole family and friend group about this blessed event, and they’re being as normal about it as you can expect. If you want to be normal about it, you can visit Luann Fan dot com, where you can vote on whether you want Brad and Toni to find out if it’s a boy, find out if it’s a girl, or, somewhat confusingly, wait to find out — in other words, you’re not actually taking a guess about the gender of their future child, but rather taking a guess about their experience of learning the gender, or, alternately, of forgoing the opportunity to do so.

The voting is via a janky looking Google Form, and you have to kind of respect that the Luann creative team went this route rather than, say, partnering with Kalshi to provide the opportunity to bet on buy a futures contract about what and if Brad and Toni would learn about their baby’s genital configuration, with the help of a trusted CFTC-regulated futures market partner. I guess they’re happy with the other revenue opportunities the Luann Fan dot com website generates, like the upcoming sale of Books One and Two of The Saga of Brad and Toni. Order now if you hate yourself and hate life!

Dustin, 9/24/26

Do you think this little girl knows that Dustin is an adult? Sorry, I know I should be focused on the bigger picture here, which is that this strip is unpleasantly transposing the “attractive, supercilious woman treats a hapless man with contempt” bit it loves to do with Dustin at fern bars onto children; but I’m just really hung up on the question of whether the girl knows that the neighbor kid here is friends with a grown-ass man in his twenties, or if she thinks this advice he’s relaying secondhand came from another child.

Mary Worth, 9/24/26

Sorry to not keep you up to date on what’s been happening in Mary Worth, but all that’s been happening in Mary Worth has been Nelly telling everyone about all the time Mary and Ian have been spending together, or other people telling each other what they’ve heard from Nelly. This has been going on for, like, a while, but she’s really going at it with dogged determination. Are you hearing impaired? Don’t think she’s going to withhold this information from you; she’s happy to yell it as loudly as necessary.