Beetle Bailey: He's been reading that book on positive thinking.

On the one hand, this is the kind of low-key, character-based humor I generally praise. On the other hand, it's not funny.

The problem is that the joke feels incomplete. "He's been reading that book on positive thinking" is the punchline, but it's dangerously low on punch. The obvious, but superior punchline would involve some sort of pratfall in a third panel. It still would have been surprisingly solid character work, and I might have even laughed.

Family Circus: Are the WEEDS greener on the other side of the fence, too?

If you compare Jeffy's body in today's Family Circus to Jeffy's body in yesterday's Family Circus, you will see that he appears to have grown a foot overnight. Since this is, of course, impossible, we can only assume that Bil and Jeff Keane are not telling the story of the Keane clan in chronological order, but that The Family Circus is, in fact, an especially subtle example of a nonlinear narrative.

This raises a great many questions and will no doubt force readers to analyze the daily cartoon on a deeper level. For example, what are we now to make of what seemed at the time to be lazy continuity errors? Or lazy drawing? Is Jeffy's murderous behavior a future event or has it already consumed his soul? And if it is a future event, is it set in stone? Or is the future malleable? Is Sunday's cartoon an example of two possible futures? Or perhaps parallel universes? Is Jeffy's comment in today's cartoon a clue that parallel universes are, in fact, the key to unlocking the mysteries of The Family Circus?

Only time, as it were, will tell.

Baldo: Tia Carmen! I'm changing in here!

This comic is hilarious because Baldo has a tiny penis.

Drabble: Hello, trash company? I need you to come pick up an old barbecue!

How lazy is the guy* who writes Drabble?

So lazy he can't even be bothered to think up a name for the trash company that plays a prominent role in today's comic strip.

*I'd look up his name, and perhaps even verify that he's a man, but he/she really doesn't deserve that much effort.

Rose is Rose: Will you be much longer, Momma?

So Rose apparently huffs highlighters.

It explains so much.

Family Circus: Just think--only 179 more days of school!

This comic is hilarious because Billy and Dolly appear to be glowing, while Jeffy, free from the suffocating strictures of America's prison-like education and employment systems, is letting it all hang out.

Ziggy: Geneology

And so Ziggy is the product of squirrel and human intercourse.

This is not surprising, though also ultimately unsatisfactory. However much squirrel Ziggy may have in him, he exhibits distinct physical traits that no amount of squirrel blood could create. There is more to this origin story, and I for one will not rest until Tom Wilson has explained in gruesome detail the horrifying acts of reproduction that led to the genetic abortion that is Ziggy's existence.

Family Circus: I'm beginning my farewell tour around the house before I go to bed.

This cartoon is hilarious because Billy occasionally forgets that he is not an adored religious leader quite yet.

In a few years, though, these peons will be scrambling to wash his feet.

Momma: How very nice!!

Most people read Momma and just see a terrible comic strip. But I read Momma and see a terrible comic strip about a woman who desperately wishes she could have sex with her grown male offspring.

Family Circus: In which we pity Thel.

This cartoon is hilarious because Bill is completely useless as a parent.