Garfield: BOOT!

Whenever Garfield begins to feel the weight of his monotonous existence, on the other hand, he just partakes of a little sadism, and all is right with the world.

Hi and Lois: Everything has a cost.

On its face, today's Hi and Lois might seem absurd. But, in fact, it's quite astute. All of the problems facing the country today really can be traced back to the public library, which was the first in a long line of progressive movements designed to lead the United States of America into socialist bondage. Yes, I know it's hard to remember now, but there really was once a time when people were free in this country, back before Obama and civil rights and medicare and social security and feminism and the abolition of slavery and libraries.

Like all of those other programs, and as this comic so beautifully depicts, the purpose of the public library* is to destroy the free market, thus putting every company out of business, thus rendering everybody unemployed, thus forcing people to become dependent on the state, thus providing justification to grow the state even more and impose even more crippling taxes, thus forcing even more dependency, thus making people lazy, thus destroying people's souls, thus destroying religion, thus killing God, thus leading us all into the terrible, gaping maw of destruction, which is, of course, precisely the situation we face today.

*One of the first of which was instituted by that notorious communist, Benjamin Franklin.

Family Circus: Is PJ's nose old enough to like perfume yet?

Yes, Dolly is attempting to control PJ's nose now. She is pathological.

Dennis the Menace: I was breakin' in my new Sunday shoes.

When I first saw this cartoon, I was all set to mock Hank Ketcham Inc. for making a pop culture reference 25 years too late. But then I realized that someone out there has, for reasons nobody seems to understand, been in the process of remaking Footloose, and someday it might even get released. And so then I was worried that Hank Ketcham Inc. might actually be more on top of things than I am. But then I realized that Hank Ketcham Inc. has probably still never heard of the original Footloose and was instead almost certainly referring to actual, honest to God church shoes without any intention of conjuring up images of Kevin Bacon dancing at all. Which is probably the funniest thing of all.

Crock: O wise sage, what is the true meaning of life?

Speaking of cruel, eternal hells, oh look, it's Crock.

This comic is hilarious because Figowitz's life is pointless and miserable, and the sweet release of death that he no doubt longs for will never, ever come.

Beetle Bailey: I wish he'd hurry and find me, it stinks in here!

This comic is hilarious because Beetle is trapped by the rituals of his life, destined to forever spend day after day hiding in trashcans and other unseemly nooks, praying he could stop but ultimately remaining unable to do so, as though he were in some sort of cruel, eternal hell.

Momma: Bread, milk, eggs and poison.

And so Momma is a serial killer.

No, this is not surprising.

Shoe: How do I get out of Treetops?

And so the mechanic in Shoe shares his misery with any passerby that will hear him out. "There's no way out of Treetops," he says. "It's a dying, dead-end town. A purgatory from which there is no escape. Having long lost our ability to fly from over-reliance on the dread technology, we just drive from rotting tree to rotting tree, hoping maybe, just maybe today will be the day a branch will break, and we'll go plummeting down to the sweet, sweet hell that at long last awaits us."

Get Fuzzy: Each color is represented by an iconic fruit, thus providing both coloric and iconic representation.

This Get Fuzzy has excellent comic timing, and "Did you just eat the threat banana?" is just a funny line.

Pluggers: A plugger's serving size is all-he-can-eat.

What are the odds this plugger can even wait long enough to microwave this ravioli? Sure, his intentions are good, but judging by his facial expression, just getting it out of the can and into a bowl is clearly challenge enough.