Hell is for (and created by) children
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Dennis the Menace, 8/29/25
We take the eternal struggle between Dennis and Mr. Wilson so much for granted that it rarely occurs to us to ask what Dennis gets out of their interactions. But clearly he must enjoy it at some level; perhaps he even likes and respects Mr. Wilson, and views his neighbor as a role model. In fact, today’s strip reveals that Dennis gets one of his worst traits, his tendency to shit-talk the cooking skills of the person who does all the cooking for him, from the cantankerous old man. Who’s the real menace here, hmm?
Marvin, 8/29/25
The most obvious and tragic feature of the Miller household is, of course, the complete lack of affection among the family members. That’s why it’s so surprising to discover that Marvin and Jeff have actually been bonding. Jeff is happy about it, but check out Marvin’s face: he doesn’t like his father at all, it’s just a plot to annoy his mother, and he’ll be happy to switch his feigned affection from one parent to the other if it will keep the family misery simmering.
B.C., 8/29/25
Since I’m apparently talking about character names in B.C. this week, I will report for those unaware that the three main male characters in the strip are named “B.C.,” “Peter,” and “Thor,” and they are utterly indistinguishable from one another other than via their hair color (red, blond, and brown, respectively). I can never remember which is which, so I always have to consult the character list in the Wikipedia B.C. article when I need to distinguish among them; said list includes some other information about their personality traits (B.C. is a “naïve slob and eternal patsy,” Peter a “self-styled genius and the world’s first philosophical failure,” etc.) that, if they were ever apparent in the strip, have not been for decades, in my opinion. Anyway, I had to go consult the list again this week in order to bring you the news that Thor died. He fucking died. He fell in a water hazard while playing golf and he drowned, and now he’s dead.
49 replies to “Hell is for (and created by) children”
“And they say nothing fun happens around here! And they are right, because ‘around here’ is the nationally syndicated legacy comic strip ‘B.C.'”
That’s stubble on Marvin’s face, isn’t it? He’s a fully-grown little person who decided to pretend to be a baby so he cold shit himself with impunity, isn’t he? I now see this strip from a whole new perspective, which is frankly horrifying.
MW: Come to my parlor said the spider to the fly.
Marvin: Sure, Dad, go ahead and serve extra-crunchy kettle chips to a toddler who barely has teeth. We all know that a torn-up mouth (and type 2 diabetes) will be the least of his health problems.
MW-“Away from home and away from your parents? Spending time with me among people who know how to keep their mouths shut,” Mary says.
RMMD-“I’m going to bond with my rude half-brother over a heart attack!”
BC-This is why you should always pay your bookie.
@Pozzo: It’s not stubble, though I had the same initial thought; it’s food debris.
DtM I like how Mr Wilson seems to be genuinely reflecting on thst question. “Yeah, fall of 1987 there was a batch that you really overcooked, and let’s not forgot the salt spill incident in ’92. Still this is a top ten hash. Of badness, I mean.”
Marvin Is that supposed to be a finance joke? Maybe this is Jeff’s way of subtly bring up the fact that he lost their savings olin the market…
BC Who is ‘they’ here? We, the readers? Because this is not the strip to dissuade me
Rex Morgan Mashup: I went a different way with added missing panels.
DtM: Unlike Alice, Mrs Wilson is the type to respond with a sharp kick to her shit-talking husband’s shin. Seeing him hopping around in pain has gotta be the reason Dennis forces his way through a plate of Martha’s corned beef hash.
Mr. Wilson’s retort to his wife is a cranky, mean-spirited remark so devoid of any wordplay or even the barest attempt at humor that it actually receives a rare negative score on what comic scientists refer to as the Crankshaft Quotient.
LUANN: Hey, whatever your name is, she’s enjoying it the same way you enjoyed the pedi; in a totally egocentric way.
RMMD: Jonah: Go away and don’t come to my @#!* funeral!”
Cody: “Are. You. An. Organ. Donor?”
MW: First, Olive’s going to go all Final Destination and save them from a plane crash. Once in California, she takes one look at Wilbur’s aura and runs screaming, all the way back to NYC.
DtM: It’s a sure bet that as a lad, Wilson was a menace himself. People conveniently forget that, even when they still have all their marbles.
BC: He’s not dead — he’s just sleeping with the fishes.
Marvin: Indeterminate brown blobs in a bin bag? When Jeff says “junk food”, he means it literally
MW: Enough with the small talk, Mary. What’s up with the Himbo in the bathrobe in the painting you’re walking by?
@Schroduck:
Marvin: Indeterminate brown blobs in a bin bag? When Jeff says “junk food”, he means it literally
Thanks for making my mind go “they are eating Marvin’s turds”, great mental image!
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Crankshaft : you know, it just hit me : maybe this storyline is a reaction to the criticism that Crankshaft is hardly featured in his own strip anymore. Well, now you have a full week of Crankshaft, except you can’t see him because he’s hidden behind furniture the entire time!
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Luann : I bet “SheratonStLouis” or any such variation is NOT taken, she could have used that!
My theory? The Wilsons are merely aged versions of Dennis and Margaret. When the two kids grew up, she agreed to marry him only to launch her decades-long plan of revenge. Reaching their retirement years, she brainwashed him and took him back into time to be tormented by his younger self. How else to explain her unearthly calm in the face of the young Dennis’s menacing and “George’s” grumpiness? Unfortunately, the mind wipe didn’t quite take and Margaret didn’t grasp the paradoxes of time travel. Not only is Dennis the same menace at any age, he’s only that way because of the influence of his older self.
Tired: Marvin is happy because he’s bonding with his father over a shared bowl of junk food.
Wired: Marvin is drunk.
MW: Taking a minor across state lines! Time for the Feds to get involved.
Pardon My Planet, one of my least-favorite comics, appears to show a cop holding a gun on his partner as she frisks a suspect; so, whose underwear is the female cop talking about? And why? What does all this mean, where is life taking me…
@lynn: Ah. Now, looking at it online instead of in postage-stamp size in my local paper, I see she has the cop equivalent of ‘plumber’s crack’ going on.
MW: In what world is it OK for an adult to invite a child to whom they are not related to fly across the country and stay in their condo with them WITHOUT ASKING THE CHILD’S PARENTS?
Of course, in this case, Ed-n-Evy will welcome the chance to have more private sexy time, but still.
Dennis the Menace: Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? And they are, silently learning, menacingly learning, carefully observing the adult interactions around them and filing them away to keep themselves on top for 74 glorious years and counting…
DtM: Considering that the “corned beef hash” looks more like “railroad track pennies,” George kind of has a point.
As a hash connoisseur, I am offended.
What the fuck is Jeff eating? Are those leaves? It would explain why Marvin and the cushion appear to be covered in flies, but that’s pretty much as expected.
MW: Setting aside the fact that Mary is inviting Olive to fly back to Santa Royale without first asking her parents if it’s okay; and setting aside the fact that Olive goes to school, so a mini-vacation would make her miss a shitload of classes; and setting aside the fact that Charterstone is populated with older, creepy, dysfunctional misfits who wouldn’t know what to do with a 14-year-old girl that wasn’t illegal in every state but Florida: Mary’s plan for Olive sounds AWESOME!
Marvin: Anyone who’s ever been a parent knows exactly what the drill is here: Dad’s giving the little shit treats to keep him happy and quiet while the television is on. Sure, the kid will be sugared to high heaven and possibly have a radioactive diaper a couple of hours from now, but hopefully that will turn out to be Mom’s problem. A+ contempt and disregard, but not peculiar to Marvin’s family!
At least Thor died doing what he loved, golfing. Or what his creator loved. Next time try doing what we love, making a joke?
One could be forgiven for thinking today’s “Dennis the Menace” is a misnomer. There’s seemingly no menace coming from the titular character, no darndest things – heck, he’s dutifully eating his elderly neighbor’s corned beef hash with nary a complaint. (Is his elbow on the table? It’s hard to tell.) But make no mistake, there is menace here. He’s bearing witness to decades of marital strife, and he’s taking notes. Invisible menace may be the most menacing of all.
@Tonio: I love this.
B.C.: This joke is much funnier when you realize it’s actually about the author’s frustration with the back nine at his local country club and/or public course. Which of course doesn’t mean it’s funny, but it’s closer. (It is not closer.)
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Apologies for the oversnark. We were on the same wavelength, it looks like.
MW: Honestly, it’s really my fault for thinking this stupid storyline was wrapping up soon. OF COURSE she’s coming back to Charterstone in the middle of the school year. Why wouldn’t she be???
Maybe she’ll go all Carrie on Wilbur…
@Austria: No worries. You will still be allowed to go insane before you are consumed.
Olive don’t need no stinkin’ school. Olive has her tummy-brain, stuffed with pimentos of perception. Dear Olive is far too gifted and amazing and special for mere mortal’s schools. Just ask her and she’ll tell you. And tell you, and tell you, and…
CS: That face in the last panel says she’s *this* close to pulling a ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ finale.
JP: ‘If you’d just shut up for two seconds and stop interrupting me, I could explain.’ ‘But then we couldn’t drag this confrontation out ’til the Sunday spread! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!’
MW: ‘Wait til you meet my friend, the wonderfully wacky Wilbur Weston! He’s so endearingly quirky!’
Dennis the Menace: So, that’s what happened to George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They even made up a new imaginary boy, to add more bathos to their frustrated anger.
Dennis the Menace – The difference between a menace or a merely bad kid is that a menace reveals something about the menaced. Dennis parrots his parents honest opinions in front of company, and he in turn gives his honest assessments (usually of his parents food). Dennis cuts through facades and niceties, tapping the wells of anxieties and resentments to generate a form of chaos that could be either destructive, or creative.
In a way, this is just a less mature, 1950s Gentile suburban version of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Marvin – In contrast, Marvin is simply a bad kid. He only consumes, demands to be waited on, and refuses any attempt to mature or be considerate of other people. If he somehow manages to bully a nerd with a good business idea, he could become the next Silicon Valley billionaire.
B.C. – Thor may have died young, but he left a beautiful corpse (archaeologically speaking).
MW: So, Mary was video-chatting with a teen girl; flew across the country to see the girl; took the girl out on the town, telling her repeatedly that she’s special, the two of them are kindred spirits, but other people don’t understand her; and now she’s inviting the girl back to her home, thousands of miles away.
Can we bring this strip back to a more wholesome plotline, like Belle Batsfrey bonking her surrogate brother?
I just need someone to confirm that in Gil Thorp, is Marty interviewing Mickey Rourke or Mickey Rourke’s character from The Wrestler?
Mary Worth: Ruffled Shirt Giant: “Can I come too?”
Mary Worth II: I can’t decide who’s more likely to make some suggestive comment about seeing Olive’s tan lines or rubbing lotion on her or whether she’s ever seen a man’s penis: Wilbur is usually drunk and he’s mostly the star of the show, but that’s why my money’s on Ian Cameron: give him his moment, lock him in prison, and Mary can console Ian’s wife Toby forever.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: The other day, I was thinking, I wonder what Cthulhu tastes like.
Probably very chewy because squid.
Never ask “How’s my corned beef hash?” Corned beef hash isn’t something you serve to people because you want them to have a wonderful dining experience. It’s something you make because you forgot to get groceries and it’s either this or it’s a bowl of that cereal you thought you’d give a try but didn’t care for.
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Golf is awash with Thor losers.
MW: I read this strip to see how much of a train wreck it can become, so this is a promising development. Please bring underage Olive to Charterstone where she can be friend-stalked by Dawn, predated by Wilbur, and murdered by Belle Batsfrey. In that order.
@Epistemology Unbound: Mary is grooming her, but not in the sexual assault sense. She recognizes in Olive the soul of a true Charterstone tyrant. Long after Mary and the other characters we know have dissipated into scattered bits of newspaper ink, a middle-aged Olive will rule the condo complex, outdoing her mentor in playing sadistic manipulative games with her advice.
FC: The “fog” is hiding Daddy and “Uncle Roy” while they’re making love in the Castro district. By the way, why is Mommy holding a newspaper? Didn’t she bring along a tablet for her news?
DtM: Dennis and Mrs Wilson are of the same mind as they simultaneously say “Fuck you, George!”
Menace factor: To be determined.
@Baja Gaijin: Much more realistic.
DtM:
“Your telangiectasis is especially prominent today, Mr. Wilson! — you must’ve been hittin’ the sauce particularly hard last night!”
DtM: I am fairly certain this is a re-run of a very recent panel. In fact, as an aficonado of corned beef hash myself (the old school salty kind, not the hipster “artisanal” kind), I saved a very special quote from the comments under that panel:
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Look, I love corned beef hash. Love. But the spectrum between the best corned beef hash and the worst corned beef hash is tiny. It all has that Alpo-esque quality to it that makes you question your sanity.
— Old School Allie Cat on “Comics Curmudgeon” blog
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I find Old School’s observation to ring true, personally.
I just went back over a year of DtM archives on this blog and I cannot find that previous appearance. Am I the Plugger here?
RMMD:
Broke sappy ending: Cody saves Jonah’s life and they become fast friends. Fast-forward to them taking a family vacation together along with the half-sister’s crew.
Woke sappy ending: After receiving mouth-to-mouth from Cody, Jonah is finally able to express his latent homosexuality and release his anger. Fast-forward to Cody serving as the best man at Jonah’s gay wedding.