Look What the Comics Dragged In

D. D. Degg Published: December 13, 2025 Updated: December 13, 2025 1 minute 1 comment

Notes on newspaper comics from the past week.

*Olive & Popeye by Randy Milholland – December 11, 2025*

Since Randy Milholland got the Popeye assignment a few years ago he has been trawling through the hero’s history for characters. Now he has landed Popeye Junior. Is this meeting of Swee’pea and Junior a first?

This Popeye adventure started 16 months ago on August 22, 2024. At four panels a week it takes a while to get through a story.

Exclamation

There are plenty of famous exclamations in the comics world. “I yam what I yam!” “Leapin’ Lizards!” et. al.

*Mutts by Patrick McDonnell – December 11, 2025* (originally December 8, 2005)

This week I was reminded of one of my favorite exclamations, and it is the right time of the year for it:

*Mutts by Patrick McDonnell – September 30, 2019*

Okay, it was only a one-off but I love the sentiment.

Guests

*Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan – December 11, 2025*

Thel, Billy and Barfy, Earl and Mooch, Zeeba and Crocs, Dick Tracy, BC and Peter, Marmaduke and Phil, aaand Poncho. A great series of Poncho making appearances in other strips (or is it vice versa?) started here. My laugh out loud favorites were the Dick Tracy and B.C. gags.

Is the character “BC” or “B.C.”?

Pencil or Wacom?

*Insanity Streak by Tony Lopes – December 13, 2025*

I get and appreciate the Insanity Streak gag but my immediate thought was, Does Tony Lopes use a Wacom or is he old school when drawing the comic?

The feature image is a detail of Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan M.D. strip from yesterday.

A lot of close-ups this week but I particularly liked this panel of Summer.

Comments ¹

Atanwat

My favorite Pooch Cafe mashup was the “Mutts” parody on Tuesday. The third panel reminded me of an old Pogo gag: “Are you trying to be funny?” — “In a comic strip? Wouldn’t think of it.”

P.S. The name (“B.C.“) has always included the periods. The embarrassing thing is that Paul Gilligan’s renditions of the B.C. characters are (much) better than the versions produced by Hart’s grandson.

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