Post Content

Luann, 4/6/26

So at some point in the long stretch when I was demonstrating self-care and not reading Luann, there was some kind of romantic/emotional entanglement between Bernice and a guy named “Piro,” which I have learned about peripherally but have never sought out further details on. I guess the fool’s paradise I’ve been living in ends today, though, and I’ll soon be learning more than I ever wanted to know. For today I mostly just wanted to point out that the Luann brain trust apparently decided to start a plot with a booty call text, learned that “u up?” is a popular format for such a message, and couldn’t bring themselves to introduce such a barbarism in their comic, so they did the best they could with it.

Mary Worth, 4/6/26

OK, I have to hand it to Mary, “He had a girlfriend … and now he doesn’t. He’s upset about it” is an extremely funny way to describe the Harvey story to this point. Still, I feel like if you wanted to pull an emotionally distant adult child back into her father’s life, “He sent $200,000, which presumably you would have been in line to inherit, to someone he’s never met in person” would be a somewhat more effective hook? I don’t mean to tell Mary how to do her business, though, and Sharon’s reaction seems to indicate that “salacious gossip” may be the best on-ramp to get her involved in the situation.

Judge Parker, 4/6/26

Bogdan update! Just moments after Bogdan was punched in the throat by Neddy, an unnamed third party has begun bludgeoning him with a baseball bat, or a cricket bat, or maybe a fraternity paddle? Whatever it is, it’s definitely something you don’t want to be hit in the head with, even if you hadn’t just been punched in the throat, and, as we’ve discussed, Bogdan has been punched in the throat relatively recently.

Post Content

Pluggers, 4/5/26

I feel like the way you’d do a panel like this if you thought the overall vibe of the Pluggers comic should be “Pluggers and their foibles! They’re just like us!” would be to have several plugger children and other family members looking disappointed or bored in the background while dad plugger searches for the eggs he hid just a little too well. That’s relatable, and cute! But if your goal for Pluggers is “Pluggers don’t know where they left things, and really can’t remember if they even had the things they’re looking for in the first place, they’re alone and confused and increasingly scared,” then I think you’d do something that looks more like today’s panel.

Mary Worth, 4/5/26

“Busy with my family, my job, my side business…” is a pretty good way to get rid of some near-stranger who has somehow managed to acquire your phone number. It gives no specific information that she can use against you, but implies that you have a number of legitimate reasons why this conversation needs to end as soon as possible, and it’s even sorted so that you make clear that you know your kids are more important than your money-losing hobby of hawking LuLaRoe leggings on Facebook or whatever. Mary’s made of sterner stuff, she’s not going to be shaken off so easy, but I do appreciate the effort being made.

Post Content

Judge Parker, 4/4/26

So I guess I haven’t fully spelled out what’s been going in on Judge Parker over the past few weeks: Bogdan, Randy’s lovable prison pal, showed up at the Parker manse with Randy’s proof of life video, in which Randy said he would return home at some future undetermined time, which was nice of him, but then Bogdan got weirdly aggressive about wanting to see Charlotte, so the Parkers kicked him out, and afterwards I guess he just started lurking around the vast Spencer horse ranch until he caught sight of her, but unfortunately he didn’t do it particularly subtly, which led to Neddy punching him directly in the throat. Now, Bogdan has always seemed nice, so maybe this will turn out to have all been a big misunderstanding, but for now, I’m presenting this strip to you, because when an old man gets punched in the throat in a syndicated newspaper comic, I will talk about it on my blog. That’s the joshreads dot com promise.

Dennis the Menace, 4/4/26

I get that Alice is supposed to be holding a baking pan of some sort, but personally I think the “Ha ha, it’s menacing that Dennis doesn’t know the phrase ‘square meal’ is a metaphor” joke is undermined a bit when we see that his mother is preparing a meal that is in fact literally square, or at least rectangular. Anyway, I’m not sure what prompted Henry to wear a white suit today, but since dinner appears to be some kind of brown glop, I think he’s going to live to regret it.

Blondie, 4/4/26

You keep forgetting that, Herb? You keep forgetting what’s literally the defining characteristic of your supposed best friend? Wow. Wow.

Gil Thorp, 4/4/26

“Is it golf? Wait, no, we just determined that it’s not golf. Well, I guess I’m going to have to keep watching you through these binoculars until I figure it out.”