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Dennis the Menace and Blondie, 4/1/24

Is there any “holiday” more vile and unpleasant than April Fool’s Day, which is mostly marked by “pranks” perpetrated by the least funny people alive? These tricks generally take one of two very simple forms, as illustrated neatly in these two strips: making someone believe that something bad is happening when it really isn’t, or making someone believe something good is happening when it really isn’t. Does anyone enjoy either? I’m going to say no.

Dustin, 4/1/24

The “making someone believe something good is happening” one is a particularly dangerous game, as Dustin is discovering, especially if you put a lot of work into it! Look at how mad his father is in panel two. He’s about to put his son out on the street and have him carry those presumably empty boxes to his nonexistent new apartment.

Pluggers, 4/1/24

Today’s Pluggers is just a baffling and confusing series of decisions (is Smokey a plugger? “April Phurst”? The Philippines?) meant to keep you completely off-kilter with no real resolution, and in that sense is the only good April Fool’s Day strip. Kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/1/24

The worst prank of all, however, has been perpetrated by Mary Worth on all of us. We were all looking forward to Dawn’s hilariously disastrous reunion with her cold, withholding mother, but instead we’re going to get … Wilbur realizing his life is empty and meaningless? WE ARE ALREADY WELL AWARE OF THIS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE NEED IT REHASHED OVER THE NEXT SIX TO FIFTEEN WEEKS

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Blondie, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie: if you start a comic where Dag gets an alert on his phone that it’s time for a “ritual,” and Herb walks over looking depressed saying “I might as well get it over with,” the rest of the strip had better involve a grisly human sacrifice, part of some dark suburban magic to propitiate the tutelary deity of lush, even lawns, and not some bullshit about borrowing tools or whatever.

Dick Tracy, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Dick Tracy: I know doing overly reverent takes on classic adventure comic strips is, like, your whole thing, but you’re going to have to decide whether the action you depict takes place during an era where undercover FBI agents would have no choice but to leave their newborn daughter at a local orphanage as they begin their most dangerous mission yet, or whether it takes place during an era when cordless phones exist. You can’t have it both ways!

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Six Chix, 3/17/24

I caused a bit controversy last year when I said that I found the idea of eternal punishment morally objectionable. Still, no matter what your take on that opinion, I think we can all agree nobody deserves to suffer an infinite afterlife of physical torture just because they didn’t live up to some heavenly dress code that isn’t documented anywhere. Do you enjoy sleeping in the nude? Did you have a fatal heart attack in your sleep? Sorry, hope you enjoy having your guts pulled out by demons every day forever, because that’s what you’re getting!

Blondie, 3/17/24

Speaking of eternal torment, you have to assume Dagwood is trying to get fired at this point, right? There’s no way you change “$5,000,000” to “$4,999,500” on accident. Sorry Dagwood, you are still going have to keep working for DithersCo forever, for your various crimes!

Family Circus, 3/17/24

Each of the scenarios everyone is visualizing is something realistic that almost certainly happened to them, so I’m going to assume that at some point, PJ was abandoned in the woods by his parents. I guess they didn’t drive far enough and he made it back? Anyway, the implication is that Jeffy, who’s imagining nothing, isn’t allowed outside the house at all, which is probably for the best.