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Comment of the Week

At least the panel reveals enough so that we can be reassured that at least Thirsty is wearing pants.

—Pozzo
46

HOT TIP: You don’t have to sign a prenup if the guy you ask to conduct your wedding isn’t a real minister

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Pluggers, 1/7/26

Pluggers has been doing a string of “Classic Pluggers winter fun!” panels this week, and while most of them have in fact been mildly fun, at least for the characters involved (what if we fired up the barbecue grill … when there was still snow on the ground?) I have some questions about this one. When you stare at the TV, expressionless, thinking “Hmm, things today sure are different than they were in the past, and I’m not sure how I feel about it,” is that fun? Do pluggers enjoy doing that? The fact that this is a submission from a Florida-based plugger adds an extra layer of ennui here. “Well, I guess that’s how they do things up north now. Not the choices I would make, but it’s none of my business, I suppose.”

Gil Thorp, 1/7/26

If you had asked me, I would’ve pegged Gil as the kind of guy who has a church he belongs to and occasionally attends, but he doesn’t really spend a lot of time dwelling on religious matters. But we live in a post-sectarian age, so it makes sense that when it comes to finding someone to preside over his nuptials, he turns to his most spiritual friend (“spiritual” here means “has attempted to contact the spirit of Gil’s dead mentor in a supply closet with a Ouija board“).

Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/7/26

Not to sound sadistic or anything, but shouldn’t all these people be dead? Shouldn’t they have suffered horribly as their living flesh was transformed to stone? Because of Medusa? And her powers?

178

A little Rex goes a long way, that’s all I’m saying

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Mary Worth, 1/6/26

OK, sorry, I do not buy that dour Scot Ian Cameron is someone whose heart is cheered by the presence of Christmas decorations, and anyway look at that deranged expression in the second panel: he’s doing more evil anti-Sunny plotting! The cat thing didn’t work but he’s got more up his sleeve. Is tinsel poisonous to parrots? Only one way to find out! Meanwhile, Toby continues to read BLAM! (?) Magazine, oblivious.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/6/26

If you’ve been given the awesome responsibility of stewarding one of America’s beloved soap opera comic strip, you could do worse things with it than reassure your rapidly aging audience that cataract surgery is immensely beneficial and really not a big deal. This series of strips is probably going to reduce highway deaths by a small but measurable amount! Still, in-universe, I’m reading the subtext here as “So I’m just letting you know that you’re not actually going to be spending that much more time with us at the clinic, which is good, because most of the staff here does not like you very much.”

Garfield, 1/6/26

Now, normally, I would say that Paws, Inc., is such a massive corporate juggernaut in the comics world that it can do what it wants — appropriate Hi and Lois’s “Sunbeam” intellectual property, whatever. But the company was bought by Viacom in 2019, and, thanks to a series of other corporate acquisitions and maneuverings over the past few years, is today part of Paramount Skydance, which is in the midst of a complex and politically contentious attempt to acquire Warner Bros., so their legal department is probably pretty busy right now. This could be the ideal time for Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC to strike back!

124

Domestic intranquillity

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Marvin, 1/5/26

Man, women, amiright? The nerve of them preparing frozen food instead of a fresh, home-cooked meal! It’s almost enough to get you to put down the remote and get out of your chair! I swear that every once in a while Marvin hears me ranting about all the poop and pee jokes and says “Oh, you’re sick of poop and pee jokes? Well, we’ll do a different kind then, but I don’t think you’ll like it. I don’t think you’ll like it at all. It’ll be about how women be microwaving.”

Hi and Lois, 1/5/26

See, now in terms of “Not eating in a socially approved fashion,” I like this one a lot better, and it’s entirely down to Hi, who alone on the couch doesn’t appear to be having a good time. That’s an expression that tells me that he’s had an epiphany and is thinking, “Wait, was I not supposed to do this? Am I a bad father? Should I have at least put a tarp of some sort over the couch before everyone started going to town?”

Six Chix, 1/5/26

Now, we’ve all heard a lot about “AI” these days, and how AI machines can do your chores and maybe even take your job. But what if, deep down, they want to dance? And, hopefully [notes the lady in the comic’s erotically charged side-eye], something more?