Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: Stand by for an important message from the I.R.S.--

Considering that Snuffy and Loweezy appear to earn virtually no income, it is extremely unlikely that they would have to pay much in the way of federal taxes. But why let a little fact like that get in the way of a hilarious and original joke about how taxes are annoying?

Family Circus: Don't climb higher than me, Dolly. Some of the guys are watching.

This cartoon is hilarious because poor Billy believes that if he can just climb a little bit higher than his sister, some of the other kids might actually like him.

Adam @ Home and Betty: How did you marry someone as nice as Mom?

The actual answer is that this is a comic strip, and in the world of most comic strips all men are schlubby and all women are MILFs.*

*This is also true of many television worlds.

I actually kind of admire the way Betty defies this trend. Gerry Rasmussen seems pretty resolute about making all of his characters, male and female alike, as ugly as possible.

Marmaduke: My dad says Marmaduke is hybrid dog 'cause he runs on dog food and water.

This cartoon is hilarious because, unlike most dogs, Marmaduke drinks water and eats dog food. This makes him just like a hybrid car, because hybrid cars also drink water and eat dog food.

Pluggers: Hmmm...now which was morning and which was night?

I hated this cartoon just as much a whole month and a half ago.

BC: I'm pretty sure they're working in shifts.

I liked this joke better when it was a Chuck Jones short.

Monty: Something tells me that was a fruit-globule person...

This installment of Monty kind of shocks me. I thought everyone was a fruit-globule person.

Baldo: Sonia Sotomayor's father was a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education who did not speak English.

I'm not a huge Baldo fan, but I do really like the way it emphasizes Latino culture and issues. There's a lot of homogeneity in the comics section, and while Baldo isn't exactly breaking any new ground in the storytellling department, it is at least telling those stories from a different perspective.

Pluggers don't follow the path least taken...they create a new path.

And then, of course, pluggers have massive coronaries and die in the woods, on account of their morbid obesity.*

*Male pluggers, anyway.

Family Circus: Okay, it's gardening time!...Everybody works!

This comic is hilarious because Jeffy has a huge rake, Thel has a huge rack, and Bill is a huge asshole.