We all want to do this when our computers make us mad, honestly
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The Phantom, 10/5/24
One of the more, uh, problematic aspects of the Phantom lore is that the Phantoms have been resident in Africa for 23 generations but have maintained their power over the superstitious natives by keeping contact with their ancestral Europe and bamboozling the poor locals with advanced Western science and technology. That’s why today’s strip, in which he refuses to believe that this robot could possibly be a robot and starts banging on the outside with a rock demanding that the guy inside come out, is pretty funny. On the other hand, the real Elon Musk had a big reveal of a humanoid robot that turned out to be a guy in a robot suit, and then later did a big reveal of another humanoid robot that turned out to have a guy just off screen operating it by remote control, so maybe I shouldn’t be quick to make fun.
Gasoline Alley, 10/5/24
By saying “the black one’s best” but also “the grey tabby’s mine”, little Ava Luna, or possibly Aubee or Sophie, who can tell, is submitting to the patriarchy’s dictates that male siblings should have first choice of everything. This isn’t the sort of girl-power pluck and gumption she showed back when she time travelled with the help of an evil talking doll!
Dennis the Menace, 10/5/24
Uh oh, it appears we’ve made an error over here at Dennis the Menace HQ! This was supposed to be the punchline for a panel showing Margaret and Dennis dancing. But then we realized that that would never happen, so we replaced it with a panel of some kids standing around and holding books while looking at Dennis. But then we never wrote a new punchline for it. Our bad!
73 replies to “We all want to do this when our computers make us mad, honestly”
The Phantom-The Phantom employs his mighty Hit With Rock power.
Dennis the Menace-Sorry, Dennis, but you won’t be able to annex the Sudetenland.
Phantom:
“BLANG BLANG! Avarice! You in there! You need to follow the exhortation of Jim Croce and establish a regular rhythm to this dust-up we’re having!”
” ‘Jim Croce’?!? No. Don’t say it, Phantom.”
“Yep. Operator — oh, won’t you help me pace this brawl?”
I know that the artwork in Gasoline Alley can be terrifying, but today it crosses the line between terrifying and cartoonishly super-horrifying.
GA:
“With these exaggerated facial features, we three guttersnipes look like Cole Slaw Patch Kids, or whatever it is they’re called!”
The Ghost Who Rocks — Any sufficiently advanced technology appears as magic to the Phantom. –Old Man Mozz, probably . .
DtM:
Thesis: all children in Dennis the Menace Land, and possibly even all adults, have rosacea. Discuss.
DtM: Margaret may wear glasses and clutch a book at all times (universal symbols of smartitude) but where Dennis is concerned, she loses all reason. Fortunately, they show no signs of growing up.
MW: I was going to suggest that Estelle try foaming at the mouth, but in a sense, isn’t that what she’s BEEN doing since the moment Ed proposed?
RMMD: It’s taking an awfully long time to dawn on Wanda that Truck is antedeluvian. Is that gizmo on her head a retro brain implant?
H&L: I seem to recall that Hi used to have a Job Jar to ignore. But why have kids if you can’t use them for your passive-aggressive schemes? Trixie is waiting in her sun patch with the toilet plunger.
9CL: While I’m sure that high-flown passion is the aim here, all I can picture is one of those nasty little dogs that you have to shake off your leg.
Bizarro : “You’re our most fearsome warrior, yet the humans weren’t at all intimidated? …This ‘Sailor Moon’ must be an unstoppable, invincible fighting machine!”
************
Crankshaft : …What I wouldn’t give for this storyline to go with Lillian’s reading completely pacifying the crowd, only for her painstaking de-escalation to be ruined by Mopey Pete, Darrin, Crazy Harry and Skunkhead John to show up in crappy homemade Batman costumes, looking for a fight, and causing the whole to escalate into
their vicious, one-sided beatdown at the hands of the protestersa riot.************
Dennis the Menace : Nah, Dennis is being named the new leader of the secret clandestine group he, Margaret, Gina and Jay
*are part of. The secret, illicit activities they get up to is : obtaining copies of Fahrenheit 451 and READING them!*That’s what 3.5 seconds of googling tells me Dennis’ ‘black friend’ ‘s name is*************
Gasoline Alley : Gertie is super-disappointed because she was assuming the whole “Oh, there are FOUR kittens, but only THREE of you!” meant the girls were going to let her keep one. Nope, you only get to keep Mee-Meow!
*************
Luann : Yeah, immediately leaving and getting as far away as you possibly can is the normal reaction to Gunther entering a room and starting to talk
atto you.*************
Phantom : is just desperate for this unmanned mission to actually be manned because he’s pretty sure he can’t punch a robot made of solid steel hard enough to give it a skullmark, and he kinda NEEDS to punch a skullmark onto someone to truly feel victorious. He can’t just accept an abrupt “bad guy is suddenly defeated, story over”, he’s not Dick Tracy.
DtM: The way I scroll the comics, I read the caption for DtM before seeing the panel. I expected to see the artwork match the ‘punchline’ by having Dennis leading a Conga line or maybe Simon Sez. Instead, I see a few disassociated kids milling about basically doing nothing leading me to think I’m too dense to get the joke.
Well played North American Syndicate. Well played.
MW: Not to support her, because this entire plot is moronic, but if Estelle were an actual human being instead of a plot device who exists to be lectured by Mary, she would have phrased her complaints in some way like “He took a call on a day his clinic wasn’t even open instead of directing to an emergency vet and then decided he had to be the one to perform surgery even though he’s a general vet and not a veterinary surgeon and we’d already discussed how I feel he’s checked out of our relationship and he promised to make more of an effort.”
But instead she says “one of the dogs in his care needed help that couldn’t wait” instead of mentioning that this is part of a larger pattern of never putting her first, so that Mary can condescend and take the man’s side as she always does.
Phantom:
Avarice and an accomplice emerge, armed with a looseleaf sheet and a pair of clippers, respectively, and a friendly session of the classic children’s intransitive hand game Rock-Paper-Scissors ensues. The End.
Mary Worth Mashup
@Baja Gaijin: The “who avoids dick” line really makes this a winner.
MW:
One of Mary’s 80-year-old muffins recently exploded on the runway at Japan’s Miyazaki Airport. Fortunately, no one was injured.
Judi Onlain
If there is a guy inside Avarice, I have to ask: what was Ian Mollusk’s big plan? I mean, sending a person to the moon is a lot more impressive than sending a robot, both from a technical perspective and a PR one (and I also think a human could probably tell the difference between flying five days to land on the lunar landscape and flying five minutes to land in the African jungle). This like if NASA had faked the Moon Landing in 1969, but they did it in a soundstage on Mars.
Shouldn’t that be “There are four cats and only three girls”? Misplaced modifier!
Hagar tells Zook; “Those hypochondriacs sure are wacky. Now make with the plunger, Doc. My ass is more backed up than a Los Angeles freeway.”
DtM: Wow, the contemporary English versions of the Bible keep getting worse and worse. “Lead us not into… you know, bad stuff.”
FC: Billy’s friend laughs; “Yeah, my folks are from the mountains, too.”
@Hibbleton:
FC: Billy’s friend laughs; “Yeah, my folks are from the mountains, too.”
Then, Jughaid becomes more serious : “You stole your dad’s ID so we can sneak into that PG-13 movie, right?”, bitterly thinking about how his usually permissive Aunt Loweezy wouldn’t accompany him to let him watch it legally.
GA – “I have a brother! Can’t I trade him to you in exchange for giving me TWO cats?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Things have been going down hill continuously since the move away from the Vulgate.
Phantom: “GolBLANG metal menace!”
GA: These girls are drawn spookily enough, but did we really need to see the one with her left eye visibly lower on her head than her right eye?
DtM: Fortunately, Margaret didn’t say anything about temptation, so it’s time to score some meth.
CS: She could have called the cops but, you know, that would make sense. So instead she calls Mopey Pete, who’s rounding up his band of nerds to . . . uh, what? Show up in superhero costumes and then piss themselves when the protestors turn on them?
MW: Not so much as a single “Meow” or “Woof” in two days. Mary must have threatened them.
Frazz: Ha, take THAT all you scumbags who drive.
DtM: Punchlines that bear no relation to the artwork are the work of The Devil. Menacing Level: Off the charts.
Zits: Oh, great. The only being who could figure out the meaning to life, the universe, and everything, and it obliterated itself.
MW: Mary is going to take a win however she can get it. She couldn’t pull it off with Wilbur, but she’s not going to let Stelle go this long without pair-bonding.
FC: “Wow! You have four penises like an echidna?!?”
RMMD: Too bad Shorty and Beanpole aren’t around to overhear this witty banter. It’s comic gold, I tell you.
6Chx: What’s the issue here, perpetual malcontentment or medium-term memory loss?
GT: “POW”?! Apparently Keri’s brain exploded when Gil called them “guys.”
Dustin: “Well, you’re an idiot, Carl.”
“Okay, thanks. I pretty much thought so, but it’s nice to get confirmation.”
Frazz: I hope one of those stoopid drivers plows into Frazz while he’s smugly riding his bike or running on the side of the road. Sorry, that was mean. Think of the trauma the driver would have.
Luann: Kip is right to get out of there, regardless of how pissed Stef will be. Who wants to hear about Gunther’s sex life?
CS: Time for the Suicide Dork Squad to waddle into action!
9CL: Love is…getting your umbrella blown away.
@Baja Gaijin: If only…
Dennis the Menace: Haven’t the stripes on Dennis’ shirt been blue for the past 70 or 80 years or so? Is he in mourning? Did someone die? It was Mr. Wilson, wasn’t it?
The Phantom: Thanks for explaining that “Avarice” is a person . Banging on a big metal death machine with a rock and demanding it yield up a sinful personality flaw would just be foolish, wouldn’t it? And if there’s one thing the guy in a purple gimp suit with zebra striped shorts in the middle of the jungle isn’t. . . oh, I give up.
@12 Baja Gaijin:
Hey! You took out her microphone.
Too bad this it the exact opposite that will happen in a few days.
Phantom – Today’s strip was run through an English to Indonesian to English translator….
GA – The strip would be funnier if they were talking about dicks….
DtM – Artificial, yes…but intelligence…that would be a no….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I can’t get the waiters’ attention”
“Yeah? Well, they won’t come running just to look at a high-priced escort”
“You gotta offer them enough money to hire one for themselves!”
Tiger Spanish to English.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@Bob Tice: Whoa, is that as in Hayao Miyazaki? If so, he’s even more revered than I thought…
@taig: At first I was going to ask why was Kip still there because just yesterday he was presented like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough to get away from Stef’s whiny clinginess. Then I realized this must be the next day and it’s par for the Evansii course that they have near Thorpian levels of ‘where are these people and what time is it??’
JP: Remember two days ago when Ayyyyyyyy!-den was furious at this two females attempting to grift his beloved mother with lies about his hated brother? Ces sure doesn’t! Now it’s all ‘there there, breathe, take comfort in my Brawny man ruggedness…’
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Mr. Wilson did look like he was in a C1alis commercial yesterday, so maybe he didn’t heed the “more than four hours” warning.
DtM – To all of you who criticized the Wilson-centric panel yesterday, claiming that panels featuring Dennis are much funnier, here you go.
Frazz: Jef Mallett: “I’ll just help myself to Miller’s famous line from the 1982 cult film Repo Man — ‘The more ya drive….the less intelligent ya are.’ Okay,
tee timebicycle riding time!”Luann: Kip is sick of bruising himself on Stef’s rock-hard glutes. He’s following Tiffany because he wants more cushion for the pushin’.
@The Quiet Man: Karen Evans’s storytelling style is not much different from preschoolers playing with dolls.
CS: Is there actually a Bat-Signal app that one can use to summon people in this way?
@Schroduck:
Oh, it’s worse than that – this is equipment supposedly prepped for the Moon, which is operating normally in 6 times the expected gravity and (weeps in STEM) sending and receiving sound waves despite being made for an airless environment. It’s like they faked the Moon landings in 1969 on a Martian soundstage using actors who did pre-flight rehearsals to simulate hopping in Lunar-level low gravity, and then don’t even notice they can’t do that with Martian gravity…
JP: Wait, is someone actually stopping to hear another person out? Will this de-escalate with everyone explaining their perspective so they can figure out what is actually going on?? Is that even allowed???
The Phantom: Waiting for this whole robot arc to turn out to actually just be yet another hallucinatory vision of how fighting a robot MIGHT go.
Gasoline Alley: Have I mentioned how the faces in this comic freak me the fuck out. Because they REALLY freak me the fuck out. Those are not humans, those are some sort of freakish alien slime molds trying to look like humans.
DT: I’m reminded of the Simpsons gag where they try to work out what the point of the story was and conclude “It was just a bunch of stuff that happened. But it certainly has been an eventful few days.” Except, in this case, it wasn’t even that eventful.
Heath: It’s funny because Heathcliff has four legs! Never mind that, in the whole time I’ve been reading this strip, I’ve seen Heathcliff go quadrupedal less often than Garfield or Snoopy, that’s what the joke requires, so today he is!
JP: I don’t know what’s funnier, that it never occurs to Aydyn that a professional con artist might fake hysterics if her scheme isn’t working, or that Ronnie immediately assumes that’s exactly what Neddy’s doing, and says so.
MW: Estelle, when you contrast someone’s words and actions, they’re supposed to be in conflict with each other.
@Bob Tice: #11
SNAP! Good one! I would love to see that!
Phantom: I’m really hoping to see a Loony Tunes-like character pop out of that rover, like Bugs Bunny. “Ehhh..WHATS UP, DOC??”
GA: Cat litters can have multiple fathers, and the variety of coloring in this one indicate the mom was very, VERY busy indeed.
Phantom: After this he’s going to break open his television to look for the little people inside.
Driving the readers to the edge of sanity by making them obsess over trying to figure out what the hell is going on? This is truly the most menacing Dennis the Menace comic ever produced. But the kicker of having Margaret doing the menacing while Dennis just stands there looking smug? Kudos! KUDOS!
@48 Daisy:
I want to see the Tasmanian Devil come out.
GA: “There are only FOUR cats and three girls! That still leaves me stuck with one cat! You think I want another mouth to feed? Take the leftover cat and chop it into three pieces, it’s only fair!”
@mpo11:
So apparent spam is just being allowed to sit at this site?
Our Dennis who art in comics,
Menacing be thy game.
Give us this day our so-called “joke”
And forgive us our snarking
as we forgive those who snark against us.
Lead us not into trouble
but deliver us from Margaret
for thine is the legacy and the strip and the merch
until the profit is gone. Amen.
Phantom: I want to see another, smaller robot come out. “It’s Robots, All The Way Down.”
@CanuckDownSouth: Also came fully equipped to hack its way through dense jungle foliage which, as far as I know, doesn’t grow on the Moon. I hope it has taste machinery, so it can sample all the green cheese.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Can we make this narrative less interesting than an irritable old man? Less interesting than a man sitting on a park bench? Than trigger finger? WE CAN SURE AS HELL TRY!!
Dennis the Menace- I have a working theory that the real underlying menace is that Dennis is completely incontinent which is the reason for the baggy overalls that look suspiciously like he’s always just had a BM. There’s a reason why most people don’t send their young children to school with overalls and it’s because it’s too difficult for them to manage when needing to use the bathroom.
JUDGE PARKER: I’ll give the current arc this: all the main characters are really nailing their stereotype! Yesterday, Ronnie was leaning so hard into her “sassy Black friend” schtick in response to the brother’s rather reasonable question that you can practically see the finger snaps and neck rolls accompanying her retorts, even in a non-animated medium. And today’s strip shows that Neddy has apparently discovered the trope of “White Women Tears” and decided to run with it. Even with the poorly-conceived characterization, our girls are troupers and still giving the roles everything they’ve got. Brilliant!
@Anonymous: Uncle Lumpy is the one who usually does the clean up, but I’m guessing he’s busy.
Low & Hi-less : Chip attempts to blow Hi away.
Beat up Bailey: Later that day, Sarge ate The Blues Brothers.
C’shaft: Na-na-na-na na-na-na-na LO-SERS!
I have been working the past couple days, and have been unable to rant about how utterly, incandescently infuriating this week of strips has been. Batiuk is operating on the premise that book challenges/bans are the result of simple ignorance, and those calling for them simply don’t understand the books they object to. While this is probably partially true on a grassroots level, the true impetus is far more complicated and insidious. Some people object to books out of a sincere desire to protect children from a big, scary, complicated world they’re not ready to deal with (though this often underestimates what kids can handle, and when). Others do so in the mistaken belief that writing/reading about something is equivalent to endorsing it, regardless about the actual context in which it was written (see: banning Huckleberry Finn for N-word usage). But the main driving force behind book banning–especially in its current permutation–is the same one which guides all censorship: maintaining power through control of information. You can’t deter parents protesting Gender Queer simply by reading the book to them because that does not address their true goal, which is to maintain a neat little bubble where anything that is not heteronormative, Christian, and white-centric is not permitted to enter and “corrupt” impressionable minds. Batiuk cannot address this truth because it will not allow him (through his characters) to be the hero of the story, using his superior knowledge and use of rhetoric to shame the benighted strawmen into submission. We saw him use the same tactic with the Gay Prom Fiasco, and it was just as insufferable then.
Dustin: ProTip: If you’re re-running strips from thirteen years ago, check to see if the context is still relevant. For example, a discussion on the legalization of medical marijuana which would have been cutting-edge in 2011 might not seem as timely when it’s the norm in the majority of the country and nearly half the states have given the go-ahead to recreational use as well.
GT: Speaking of getting with the times, Keri should know by now that “you guys” is widely considered to be as gender-neutral as they are.
Lio: Hardly a secret there.
Luann: “It has nothing to do with her; I just can’t stand you.”
Previous century? Hell, he refuses to even have an address book! That Gutenberg press is the tool of the Devil!
@The Quiet Man: Or maybe it just took Kip a whole day to get dressed because he’s wearing the same clothes as he was when he and “Shoog” started their contemptuous post-coital discussion yesterday. Of course in either case, I don’t get why he’s “waiting” for her, since her robe indicated that she wasn’t going anywhere. Look Kip, just hurry up and do the walk of shame so you can wash away the sticky residue of replacement-flat-character debasement off your body.
THE PHANTOM: The Phantom: “Nice try, ‘Avarice’, but I’ve seen the Mr. Roboto video so I know how this works. Come on out, or I’ll get Tommy Shaw to sue you!”
Phantom: What a set-up for some really good Bangallan knock-knock jokes.
Knock-knock!
Who’s there?
Ghost.
Ghost who?
Ghost Who Wants To Kick Your Ass.
Phantom: Stripey needs to skull punch a live person so-o-o bad.
Sex Organ V.D. presents “Quantum Creep” starring Truck Tyler as Dr Sam Bleech-it, compelled by some mysterious force to give the finger to things that didn’t get the finger before. “Oh boy.”
Exciting new relationships! Oh, how pleasant, no contradicting goals or habits. How long will each last?
– BF, Maeve and Benoit
– CURTIS, Gunther and Complainant
– JP, Ned and Declan
Luann: There’s three possible reasons for Kip leaving so abruptly.
He got tired of Stef making him wait.
He going to hit up on Tiffany.
He couldn’t stand the thought of having to share a couch and make five minutes of small talk with Gunther.
@taig: @Anonymous: Uncle Lumpy is the one who usually does the clean up,
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That’s why they call him The Dust Buster™….well, that, plus the facts that he’s portable, and plugs into any household outlet.
Zits:. So sorry to lose that actor playing a super intelligent life form. He was a compelling character, making moves in each panel and automatically understanding humans. Hope he comes back and settles the world’s problems.
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@Guillermo el chiclero: Phantom: Stripey needs to skull punch a live person so-o-o bad.
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When did Mark Trail become the 69th Phantom?