Yo, it’s Mother’s Day. While you were spending the day feeling guilty that you weren’t doing enough for your own mother to make her happy on this fake holiday, I spent the day reading Sunday comics with my phone off! Ha ha ha! Am I being facetious? You’ll never know, will you?

Mother’s Day is a big day for two different types of newspaper comics punchlines: the ultra-sappy ilk, or the mom-does-too-much-and-we’re-gonna-make-her-do-more ilk.

Here are three that I thought broke the mold this week.

Herb and Jamaal

Herb and Jamaal breaks the mold today because of its complete disregard for the holiday! I’ve personally never seen Herb’s wife and I’m not entirely convinced that Herb and Jamaal aren’t romantic partners. I’ve seen plenty of Father’s Day strips where Herb’s shitty kids make him shitty breakfast in bed, but I’ve never seen anything about Mother’s Day. This strip continues my suspicions in the forward direction.

Moving on from the observation that Jamaal is clearly looking for support from his unempathetic romantic partner today, I’m fascinated by the device Herb is using in the last panel. Is it supposed to be some kind of machine that balances the accounts for their diner? Is it a giant, bulky tablet computer that just plays Scrabble? I want an answer to this immediately.

darcyandsimon: “Too true. I often let my brain wander off when my friends launch into interminable stories…then of course I realize I can launch just like they do! What a service we provide for each other!”
EMGULS79: “If I hadn’t perfected the skill of being able to do that, there would be times when I simply wouldn’t survive! Some people talk WAAAAY too much.”

That’s right, Herb and Jamaal is such a who-cares comic strip that it only gets two comments total! Don’t worry, there’s enough banality there to last a lifetime.

Blondie

Fuckin’ Blondie. It tried so hard to make the ultra-sappiness endearing but, instead, it’s cloying and idiotic with no self-awareness whatsoever. “Here’s a personalized throwback card,” says Blondie’s robot daughter, who was likely born in 1822 before photography was even invented. Check out Blondie’s 10,000-yard stare on that card. That’s the face of someone who regrets her entire existence.

Someone needs to throw Dagwood off a bridge. He made her a charm bracelet with a bunch of food on it? Does Blondie even eat? Sounds to me like it’s just a bunch of shit he wants her to cook for him tonight.

Also, someone glued Blondie’s middle two fingers together as a hilarious prank.

Do Tell: “Happy Mother’s Day to all the snarkers who are moms and to all the snarkers who are just bad m u th as.”
G Bruce Hollett: “Later on, Dagwood says: ‘I made you a d i l d o from a foot long hot dog’. Blondie says: ‘Ooh, that will go where no man has gone before!’”
Robert Elliott: “I’m sure that there must be some out there, but I’ve never been to a restaurant that had an older bald-headed man as a waiter before! As the Seinfeld group would say, ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that’!”

Thanks for the contributions, you loathsome rubes. The Herb and Jamaal section is looking a little empty, maybe you could try your comedy routines over there?

Family Circus

Not THIS is funny! The family cat reminisces, just like she does on every Mother’s Day, about the exact moment she was torn from her own mother for the rest of her life by this abhorrent family! Funniest Family Circus in centuries!

Chucky Quartarolo: “What kind of sick, effed up message is this?”
Do Tell: “That night, KittyCat and her friends from all around the neighborhood drag each melonhead out of the house by their blankets, and find them a new home at the local dump.”
Rick Tengle: “If Thel were pro choice, there would be no Melonheads, but now Justice Alito will now allow Lazy Jeffy to recycle more panels from pre Roe V Wade”
agent222: “Nice acting job, Thel. But we all know you wish you could ‘rehome’ the melonheads, if not dispose of them in a more permanent way. (And, maybe Bil as well.)”

Can’t argue too hard with some of this sentiment, except for the weirdo pulling the pro-choice angle into it. Get off the internet for a few days, Rick.