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Dennis the Menace, 5/31/26

I know that “Dennis isn’t being menacing at all in this one” is one of my (hopefully) beloved running bits, but I’m really not sure how they’re gonna top today’s installment, in which Henry is clearly starting to panic and Dennis with childlike innocence calms him down and offers a practical solution that quickly solves their problem. Dennis The Very Helpful Child would not be a very popular comic strip if marketed in that way but here we are!

Mary Worth, 5/31/26

Aw, isn’t that sweet! Mary is like a second mother to both Tommy and Dawn, which means they can’t hook up, that would be incest, please do not allow them to hook up. Anyway, “self-abuse” is usually a euphemism for masturbation, right? He’s running to make up for years of jerking off? I don’t think this is something I would tell to my newly discovered spiritual sister or a girl I was trying to hook up with. I think that would be bad either way.

Blondie, 5/31/26

Contemporary masculinity is constricting in really odd and unfortunate ways. Like, I think for most of the last 50 years or so we would’ve accepted a guy who likes to loudly sing old Dean Martin songs in the bathtub as being well within the boundaries of manhood, but apparently now we need to establish that Dagwood is using an extremely masc shampoo during this whole process. It doesn’t smell good, like shampoo a woman would use! Its odor is truly unpleasant. That’s how you know it’s for men!

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B.C., 5/30/26

Look, I’m not a scientist, and I’m also not brave enough to have “how do turtles have sex” left in my Google image search history, but I know enough to know they don’t get inside each other’s shells. Their shells are part of them! That’d be gross! It wouldn’t be sexy at all! Also, I enjoy that you can tell in panel one that lady turtle did in fact wax her shell. It’s not just a pick-up line, it was inspired by actual events.

Andy Capp, 5/30/26

“But thanks to Brexit, we no longer have to worry about awkward cross-cultural encounters with dastardly Europeans like these! Now to take a big sip of room temperature beer and check out how the economy of our port city, dependent as it is on imports and exports, has been doing since we left the common market that all our close neighbors belong to.”

Archie, 5/30/26

Not a big fan of that detailed, close-up look at Mr. Weatherbee’s face in panel three! Don’t like it one bit, actually! It’s gonna haunt my nightmares for weeks!

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As you head into June, enjoy this week’s top comment:

“Boy, those joke-free throwaway panels cast a pall over this whole thing, huh? There’s poor Lucky Eddie, obviously concerned over his sick mother. And these are viking times, so when they say ‘sick’ it’s gotta be something serious, possibly even fatal. Meanwhile, we’re reminded that Eddie’s coworkers neither like nor respect him. ‘I can’t believe I miss Lucky Eddie!’ ‘Yeah, that guy sucks! Say, where is he?’” –Joe Blevins

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Good ol’ Lucky Eddie. He’s got a suitcase, he’s got a mailbox, he’s got a lawn. So close to being a regular guy, but he still runs around (or in this case, hitchhikes around) with a goddam funnel on his head.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“The male loneliness epidemic has his hit even this comic.” –ectojazzmage

“So there’s no actual food, just a couple of middle-aged men drinking beer, one of whom didn’t even bother to bring his wife along. Happy Memorial Day!” –Pozzo

“Gil is at the Graveyard of Dropped Subplots. ‘Thank you for your service, Sophomore-suffering-from-steroid-abuse and Girl-who-was-a-cutter and .. er .. you, Mr. Whatever-trendy-teen-issue-you-were-dealing-with. Your sacrifice of resolved, coherent storylines was not in vain. It helped me look better, more ‘enlightened.’” –2+2=7

“So she just sorta … stuck her torso out the bottom half of the window, huh? Arms at her sides? Standing straight up? No, no, I get that there are eight little mini-Heathcliffs (Heathscliff?) fluttering after our main guy, that don’t cross my eyes none — right now I’m focusing on the window thing. When a Biblically-accurate Heathcliff shows up, that’s when I stop nitpicking. Possibly forever.” –els

“One thing I learned in a recent Wikipedia hole is that when tanks break down, they require giant tow trucks to collect them and haul them into the shop, a process that is pretty entertaining to watch in old news reels. Of course, tanks are also sitting ducks without close air support and are typically used to advance ground troops, so lady in the car might want to worry both about why Beetle’s out on his own and when the A-10 Thunderbolt IIs are showing up.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Does anyone else find it odd that Grimm calls Mother Goose ‘mom’ and wonder if he’s doing it because her name is literally ‘Mother Goose’ even though she doesn’t actually have any children. It seems like Grimm is her pet but he’s actually a completely sentient adult who can go to restaurants and movie theaters and has full understanding of the world around him so he’s not really a pet. Grimm just lives with this bird person and allows her to treat him like he’s her pet even though he’s perfectly capable of living independently. I think we can at least be grateful that there’s no sexual element to this relationship.” –Anonymous

“In the Mother Goose and Grimm universe, Bed Bath & Beyond sells straw, flea dip, and environmental enrichment toys.” –Peanut Gallery

“God, just imagine that the last thing you heard before you died was one of Ed Crankshaft’s little quips. Then imagine the the massive gravitational force of the black hole that killed you stretched that moment into near infinity, as if you passed ten thousand years with those words ringing in your ears. Truly a fate worse than death (followed by death).” –pugfuggly

“Jughead set up his drums right next to the chimney. The fireplace is presumably in the living room. He’s risking his own health and safety just to annoy his father while technically following his orders. I aspire to this level of petty.” –Lauralot

“Dennis is the perfect age to have seen Guardians of the Galaxy and Stranger Things, so he has no problem identifying a cassette tape. A lot of issues interacting appropriately with other people and their stuff, though.” –Schroduck

“As long as Gil likes you, you’re cool with me — and the moment he tires of you, you will no longer exist as far as I’m concerned, because I don’t want to end up in the cornfield. All hail Gil!” –CanuckDownSouth

“Pity the poor, aging newspaper comic artist who is cursed to live in the past but can’t quite remember what a cassette looks like.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“You’re not as bad as I thought, Tommy Beedie! That’s an extremely low bar, though! You still fuckin’ suck!” –Vulpes

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