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Hagar the Horrible, 11/28/12

Is “boiling in oil” one of those phrases that only survives in occasional use because it rhymes? I mean, if you’ve heated up some form of oil to the boiling point, and put any variety of organic matter into it, you’d call what you’re really doing “frying,” right? Even if that organic matter is, you know, a dismembered human corpse. Ha ha, these knights are threatening Hagar and his men with a gruesome fate out of the most violent and depraved slasher flick, right here on the funny pages, in front of the children! Yet neither I nor anyone else can take the threat particularly seriously. Look, the colorists have even given everyone wooden swords. Nobody’s getting hurt in this battle!

Beetle Bailey, 11/28/12

And yet I find this Beetle Bailey grim beyond description, despite Beetle’s shaky reassurance that his mangled body will be restored to health tomorrow by narrative artifice. Still, imagine Miss Buxley gasping out “Oh, Beetle! You’re all broken!” in an exaggeratedly childlike Marilyn Monroe-type voice and try to tell me you don’t get the creeps. David Lynch directs!

Dennis the Menace, 11/28/12

Dennis is using an awesome book about bad-ass pirates to illustrate safety lessons for his younger friend. Menace levels: Undetectable by even the most powerful instruments.