Pluggers: When a mom is away, a plugger dad can whip up dinner as quick as you can say, "I'd like to place a take-out order."

This cartoon is hilarious because male pluggers know that cooking is a debasing activity designed specifically for women.

Marmaduke: Why can't he just be satisfied with a squeak toy?

I'm almost 100% certain that this is a direct reference to Internet pornography. Featuring Marmaduke.

I'm so, so sorry.

Hagar the Horrible: What's for dinner, Helga?!

Men. Dates. Hilarity. Etc.

Family Circus: Do I hafta wear shoes with this skirt?

In an attempt to regain the upper hand in the constant power struggle of their relationship, Thel has apparently taken to dressing Dolly in pillow cases. This is admittedly a pretty devious plan, but it's unlikely anything's going to hold Dolly back at this point.

Family Circus: Who threw sunflower seeds all over this floor?

In the event that you are confused by the "Not me!" gremlin, Wikipedia is here to provide you with all the information you need. The information will not, however, make it any less horrifying.

And given that we now know Jeffy to be tormented by his parents, other comic strip characters and gremlins, a demon hand and lycanthropy seem all the more plausible, and his murderous yearning all the more understandable.

Momma: I'm sorry your husband took his own life, Sadie.

You know, comics about characters joking around about how they wish they were dead because their marriages are so miserable were getting kind of stale for me. Fortunately, today's Momma really takes things to the next level of hilarity by having a character literally kill himself and then having his hateful wife point out that he did it because their marriage was miserable.

The only thing that could have made it more humorous is if we had actually seen his lifeless body hanging from the rafters or something. But I'm holding out hope that we'll eventually get that scene when Mort Walker Inc. finally decides to write General Halftrack out of Beetle Bailey.

The Phantom: Dad, we need you HERE! We MISS you!

And by "doing important work" The Phantom of course means "terrorizing people who might be terrorists, though they haven't actually been found guilty of anything, but those are just laws and who needs those ha ha."

Also, as The Phantom surely knows, it will never "end." There will always be bad people in the world, and thus he will always have an excuse to completely ignore his family. He can't help it! He's a hero!

*Second Phantom comic from 5-18-10.

Pearls Before Swine: I'm afraid one of my characters, "Jeffy," keeps getting hit in the nose with sunflower seeds.

Here we see yet another possible source for Jeffy's violent outbursts.

Mark Trail: Morning, Sally, are you out looking for more homeless animals?

The introduction of Sally, the fat, lonely animal collector, has given this Sassy-centric story enormous potential. Will she and Sassy bond to one another and become inseparable, only to have Mark and Rusty show up and ruin their lives? Or will she turn out to run a dog meat factory with some long-haired ruffian? Only time will tell!

Family Circus: Can you do anything with scenery besides look at it?

And so Dolly has evidently regained her ambition to control not just the people of the world but the natural world itself.

Thanks a lot, Prophet Billy.

Beetle Bailey: That's not a good sign.

Beetle has discovered that the Camp Swampy cook's secret ingredient is bird poop, and this has rightly disgusted him.

Sarge will most likely not care, however, given his debilitating and hilarious food addiction.

Cul de Sac: Hey! The kid on the Blisshaven sign is that kid who's on TV!

For all the comics around that feature children, Cul de Sac is the only one that really gets what kids are like. This is just exactly how kids act. Every panel and every character, even the silent girl in the fourth panel whose emotions are conveyed entirely through the art, rings true to life. I'm especially fond of the wild overreaction at the end, which isn't anything like a traditional punchline, but is nonetheless far funnier than every other final panel I've seen today.

Tiger: I can't tell.

The guy who draws Sally Forth has solved the problem of feet by almost always drawing his characters wearing socks. This fellow is apparently a genius, as no other cartoonist has, as of yet, considered such an option, even in cases (see above) in which they really, really should.

Family Circus: I'm ready if anybody wants to break something.

"Like bones or fun stuff like that."

Mark Trail: The little dog, anxious to return home, jumps off the table and runs toward the door.

Should we really be surprised that animals are smarter than humans in the Elrodverse?

In all seriousness, though, Sassy's shifty eyes in the second panel are fantastic.

Family Circus: Grandma, I'll keep it a secret if you want to tell me I'm your favorite.

Grandma's pretty clearly keeping this one in her pocket until Dolly's made some headway on that whole "ruling the world" thing. Until then, Dolly will just have to deal with the possibility, however remote, that Grandma somehow loves Jeffy more.

Dennis the Menace: I'm not botherin' you, am I?

This cartoon is hilarious because Dennis is, in fact, bothering Mr. Wilson.

Crock: The plumber finally fixed my dripping faucet.

Given how much time it must have taken to come up with a joke this original,* we should probably just cut the cartoonist a bit of slack on the boring drawing. It's not like comics is a visual medium or anything.

*I'd say at least five minutes.

Beetle Bailey: They say pets have a short life, die early.

I'd mock Sarge for not knowing that dogs live shorter lives than humans until he read it in the newspaper, but given that this is the sort of information the newspapers in Camp Swampy are printing, everyone there must live in the same fog of ignorance.

None of this is surprising.

Get Fuzzy: I don't think you should be calling Satchel a name that means "dense."

Bucky's unwavering self-confidence is pretty much the epitome of comic gold.

That said, Peachy-Not-So Keen really is a pretty awesome derogatory nickname.

Born Loser: You look like you could have used more sleep last night!

As his friend's facial expression indicates, Brutus' comment about spraining his wrist, which was meant to deflect suspicions that he was up all night masturbating, instead merely confirmed them.

This is just another reason why he's the (ba da dum) Born Loser.

Family Circus: In a couple weeks that caterpillar's gonna get promoted to a butterfly.

Dolly has been having some doubts lately about whether she's really cut out for this whole world domination thing. Fortunately for her (and unfortunately for us), future prophet Billy's always around to lend a helping hand with an encouraging proverb or two.

Dennis the Menace: You better open your present now, Mom. I think it may be getting HUNGRY.

In perhaps his most desperate cry for help yet, Dennis has kidnapped a baby to give to his mother in the hopes that it will rekindle in his parents the loving unity they felt when Dennis was an infant, thus creating once again the happy family he remembers all that time ago.

It is unlikely to work.

Curtis: He knows were dancers on "Soul Train."

I'm going to go ahead and say I pretty much called this one, though I am somewhat embarrassed that I didn't guess the correct style of dancing. I must have confused the characters in Curtis for the characters in Baldo. Going forward, I will endeavor to keep my stereotypes straight.

Pearls Before Swine: Ping!

And so it turns out that I am pretty much Rat. I'm not sure how I feel about that.