Is Dennis wearing Santa pants? Not comfortable with that either
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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/10/25
Ha ha, can you imagine? The Smif and Barlow families would be lined up opposite each other, and Steve Harvey would shout out, “Things you carry home in a burlap sack!” And Barlow would buzz in first and smugly shout “Chickens!” but while he’s distracted, Snuffy jumps over the podium and charges at him with a rusty blade he had hidden in his overalls, eager to slit Barlow’s throat and finally declare victory in their long-running clan war, right there on national television. The little bastard doesn’t understand that TV shows aren’t broadcast live, but the footage will leak out anyway. It’s too sensational not to.
Bizarro, 1/10/25
Hey, did you know that the millions of toner cartridges and batteries we’ve produced over the past few decades all have souls? Or maybe they are the souls of the electronic equipment we stick them inside, I’m not 100% that I follow the cosmology here, but the point is we’re going to be encountering this stuff when we die and move on to the next world, and I think it’s going to have some questions for us that I for one am not sure I’ll be able to answer.
Dennis the Menace, 1/10/25
You know what’s real menacing behavior, Gina? Carrying around a 5 x 7 wedding picture of your parents outside in the middle of winter while you tell people about this. What if you drop it in the snow?
101 replies to “Is Dennis wearing Santa pants? Not comfortable with that either”
BG&SS: Shouldn’t that be “Fam’ly Fyood?” Consistency in style, dammit!
DtM: Dennis is too young to be doing a Santa ‘you sit on my lap and tell me what you want’ cosplay with Gina. More like Alice, being the horrible housekeeper she is, his Halloween costume bottoms are the only clean pants he has left to wear.
MW – Triptides are an actual LA-area band, known for their “sun-warped psychedelic rock.” Dawn and Dirk are stoned AF, is what I’m sayin’.
DtM: The funny thing is that there probably is an unpleasant reason for Gina’s parents to reset their marital vows and it’s probably been very traumatic for Gina watching them deal with it. Dennis naturally sniffed out that weakness immediately, and Gina will deeply regret this moment forever.
Biz: When did Josh start covering Never Been Deader?
Blondie: Decent relatable social commentary in Blondie! Shame it was an accident.
DT: These techs seem to be a bit underdressed considering they’re searching for a presumed explosive or CBRN threat. What exactly did Dick Tracy even tell them? Still, kudos to Dick for finally realizing that he and his team are frauds and the most responsible thing he could do was call the real police to investigate this case.
JP: It would be strange enough for Yelich to assume completely baselessly that Ann had been hiding locally at all, but what really makes today Judge Parker gold is Yelich’s demand to know who helped Ann “sneak into town.” The mind reels at attempting to comprehend this question. Is Cavelton set in a dystopian future where people are implanted with electronic chips that send signals based on their proximity to their hometown? Is Cavelton a CIA secessionist city-state that is surrounded by checkpoints and border patrols? Is Cavelton the last bastion of humanity, a walled fortress holding out against the sieging forces of the Plugger Armored Rusty Pickup battalions and Slylock Fox’s Dirty Dozen convict commandos in the waning days of the Animalpocalypse? Or does Francesco Marciuliano just like writing words without thinking about them at all?
Luann: All right, who’s ready for another batch of “Everyone competes to be Piro’s emotional wheelchair” stories? Show of hands! …Anybody? Huh. I guess all your shoulders must be sore or something. That’s okay. This is going to be great!
MW: Seeing that the “Triptides” are an actual West Coast psychedelic rock band is a little disconcerting. Dropping acid makes Dirk way cooler than he should be.
RMMD – Kelly is like a Bizarro World Dawn Weston: Nice, pretty, congenial, and not batshit insane.
DtM:
“My parents are going to renew their vows.”
“Dammit, Gina! Your parents still fuck!? Yuck!”
DtM: Santa pants, Santa hat but black, sky-blue shirt, corduroy vest, Lime-green and black scarf, (squints) ice skate boots?…is his mom drunk or is the artist drunk?
Luann : Did elves come in and clean Luann’s filthy room?
DtM:
“Dennis, why did your parents apparently think that it was so cold that they had you wear a hat, a scarf and boots, but you have no gloves?”
“Listen, Gina, I don’t have any control over the creative process here. I just show up the way I’m inked, and then they give me a line!”
Bizarro:
“I can see that we’re all going to have to make do with the skeleton crew we have on premises today!”
BG&SS:
“I was gwin have ya turn on a Hee Haw syndication instead, Parson, but they just ain’t colloquial enough on that there show for us’n!”
Bizarro: So in the afterlife (or whatever this is), nerds have glasses even when they no longer have eyes, huh? Good to know.
MW: Forget Waldo. Where’s Michael Nesmith?
MW: “When I say hit it, I want you to hit it!”
“When I say quit it, I want you to quit it!”
“Now hit it!”
“Now quit it!”
No seriously Dirk, quit it.
Bizarro: Dammit. As a minister, one of the questions I get asked the most frequently by children is “Do pets go to heaven?” Now I’m going to have to answer about toner cartridges? I’ll have to provide batteries hospice services?! Dammit.
@Anonymous: Oh, for God of the living and the dead and the modern-day office supplies: that was me. Josh, no offense, but your cookies suck.
MW: I don’t go to a lot of concerts. Is it normal to watch one band (The Triptides) while wearing a T-shirt for another (ACDC)?
Dennis: Those are not Santa pants. They’re the legs of his normal red overalls along with the fuzzy tops of his winter boots.
@Pozzo: Maybe they just like it for the fashion?
Dennis the Menace: Speaking of razor blades, Margaret is going to be seriously pissed when she hears Gina is muscling in on her “suggest marriage to Dennis” racket. At least she will be until she sees Dennis wearing that Nilsson-esque cape and singing “Coconut.” There’s no competing for that.
DtM: Dennis’ parents won’t bother renewing their vows because there’s no Start Over Child-Free option.
MW: I’m not sure which I want; for Dawn to throw Dirk under a passing bus now, or for Dirk to stick around long enough to meet Wilbur, so he can give him a clever nickname, too.
Gina’s parents don’t f*ck. Dey make-a da amooore.
Wrecks Moregone:
At least can we have what’s her name be home invaded by an escaped homicidal lunatic and taken hostage or something? Since we’ve been told overandoverandover that she’s all alone, can something be done to make this at least momentarily a mite interesting?
BG&SS – Family Feud did a week of shows on the Hatfields and McCoys in 1979. The difference is that feud was legendary, whereas too few people read Barney Google and Snuffy Smith for this to be a ratings mover.
Bizarro – So, if electronics have souls, that means when we buy them we are “adopting” them? Does that make everything we buy that features a digital computer a “Babbage Patch Kid”?
Dennis the Menace – Dennis’ outfit is a menace to fashion.
I refused to believe that Dennis is smart enough to have thought up that joke, so he must have heard dad say it at some time and his mother politely snickered so now he has the chance to repeat it even though he doesn’t really understand what it means.
Pigborn:
Can anytime recall how many years ago it was that Brooke began this….story?
Wary Morth:
Tomorrow, while walking around barefoot at home, Dusk stubs her toe.
Dirk: “Limpgirl!”
Day after tomorrow, Dusk scalds her hand while filling a hot water bottle.
Dirk: “Blistergirl!”
The day after tomorrow, Dusk mentions that she soaked in the bath too long and got wrinkled.
Dirk: “Sharpeigirl!”
Snuffy Smith-They are actually watching a documentary on the Hatfield-Mccoy feud.
FC-Lifting Dolly just once took so much out of Daddy.
MW: I’m not really sure that Dirk is actually making fun of Dawn anymore…I think he might just be an unbelievable moron…
@Ukranazi Stepan: Four days shy of exactly six years ago.
DtM: What’s with the performative jazz hands? It’s like we’re viewing Dennis on Broadway; is a song forthcoming?
RMMD: From the looks of p. 2, Mom takes her teeth out before she eats ice cream. Does this mean she’s a Plugger or something?
CS: Gomer here appears not to have any grasp whatsoever of the essence of the problem. But this still makes him only the second-dumbest person in the room.
JP: “Ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies. Ask me questions, I will make a politician seem honest.”
GT: “What, you’re too old to give me a kiss before bed now [at 6:45 p.m.]?”
“Your adherence to heteronormality as a lifestyle disgusts me. And I don’t know what this amorphous stuff on our plates is, but none of it looks like sweets, pizza, or tacos. This, too, disgusts me. I’m going out for a burger.”
Actually the Richard Dawson “Family Feud” once did do a special show with the descendants of the Hatfields and the McCoys.
Bizarro: “Deadbert”
B. Bailey: Martha decides to be proactive about Amos’ health: “If you think you’re getting half my liver, you got another thing coming.”
@GarrisonSkunk: Still more alive than Dilbert has been for years.
Bizz — Toner cartridges have souls? Must be why they’re so da*m expensive!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Josh, no offense, but your cookies suck.
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Josh proudly uses Mary Worth’s own Talk House® authentic chocolate chip salmon cookies.
RMMD: Well folks, I think we all know the cure for an “empty house” – an adorable Animal Companion! Yessiree, we’ve been shoppin’ the idea of more Animal talent here since they hit a home run in the ratings with Buster! Now I realize if we place a Dog or Cat as Summer’s pet, there’s a chance he’ll jump ship and join them as a permanent cast member. But that’s OK if it gives one of our clients a chance to fulfill their dreams of a secure future in Show Biz.
As I say, we’ve been in delicate negotiation with Mr. B about this new character direction, though he’s still considering the gentleman friend option. But I think he’ll come around when he runs the numbers. Two-legger guys are expensive and unpredictable, with questionable audience appeal, while our professionally trained Animal talent can totally SAVE a weak storyline.
Hey, Intern – did Mr. B’s weekly gift basket get delivered today? Good. I’m glad we chose the deluxe option. Nothing but the best…
@Pozzo: Bizarro: So in the afterlife (or whatever this is), nerds have glasses even when they no longer have eyes, huh? Good to know
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“Nerdcorpse!”- Dirk Tandy, adapted.
Slylick Fox and Comix For Kinx: Disney trys to take over the Harry Potter franchise.
Just a shout-out for “The Legend of Bill” (one of the better strips out there) and its recent tribute to some classic female comic characters.
Friday, Jan. 2: A whimsical witch.
Monday, Jan. 6: A skinny Minnie, a nosy biddy, a hillbilly housewife.
Tuesday, Jan. 7: A mythological mare, a toddler threat, a famous flapper.
It’s a 3-per-week strip, but it’s been presenting a long continuing story. Hope it’s collected some day.
Snuffy might do better on Survivor. Living in Hootin’ Holler preps you for it.
Why is Josh uncomfortable knowing that Dennis harvested Santa’s legs? Does he want menace or doesn’t he?
BGSS: I’ve never been on Family Feud, but isn’t choosing your opponents one of those things they don’t let you do because we’re not having another Twenty-One situation?
Bizarro: So our landfills are really mass graveyards for electronic waste? That sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen.
“Ahahahaha… heh… but seriously, Reverend, you should get home and stay down tonight. Me and the boys are gonna ambush Barlow and you don’t wanna git hit by a stray shot.”
BG&SS – So…they live at the Hootin’ Hollar ol’ folks home….
Bizzaro – His name is Scythe. ;Si!
DtM – Best if divorced by 1/2025….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
C’shaft: Short of very remote, low-populated areas and special needs students, is there anywhere in suburban America where school buses pick kids up right at their doorstep? Because I’ve never been there.
Dustin: Come on, Dustin, you walked right into this one.
GT: So, we’re still on the “quietly ignoring” phase of Keri’s eating disorder?
JP: One does not simply walk into Cavelton, I guess.
MT: Great, you have a positive ID of the back side of a store-bought costume.
MW: And it all comes back to Stevie Wonder.
Phantom: I’m not sure what kind of hierarchy the cosplay community has, but I imagine “thug punched by the Phantom’s skull ring” is the absolute lowest echelon of it.
RMMD: Man, imagine how boring your life would have to be for Kelly to liven it up.
@astroboy: BG&SS: Shouldn’t that be “Fam’ly Fyood?” Consistency in style, dammit!
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I think that would be “fambly” in the hillbilly dialect.
Bizarro: There was a Stephen King movie back in the ‘80s called “Maximum Overdrive” where all the cars and trucks and machines suddenly come to life. It didn’t make any sense but neither does this cartoon.
Why are all these Grimm Reapers so short? Do “little persons” become Reapers in the afterlife? Is Gary Coleman a Reaper because that might be kind of cool. Actually I want Kenny Baker who played R2D2 in Star Wars or maybe the guy from Fantasy Island.
@Guillermo el chiclero: #9 Did elves come in and clean Luann’s filthy room?
Yes! And they left Puddles exactly where he was! It’s elf magic!
Dave Reddick does a good job with the strip. Followed it the first time and glad it’s been back for a while. Good twist on d & d characters.
@TheDiva: “Thug punched by the Phantom’s skull ring wearing fishnet stockings” was HUGE at last year’s ComicCon.
“Family feuds” referred to the pre-modern situation in which weak state authorities were unable to enforce the monopoly of violence and fair justice, leading to constant violence and an unbroken chain of revenge. In the USA, this existed where state authorities were distant and weak, such as Appalachia or the Wild West. Later, in the pacified modernity, “family feud” became just a cutesy title for a televised competition, without any real stake or threat of violence. This is typical of the domestication of violence by modernity. But then, Snuffy Smiths sees this in television and wants in, even if the TV’s “Family Feud” is not the same “Family Feuds” he lives in. It’s the triumph of postmodernism, when media depiction overwrites the meaning and existence of actually existing reality!
Mmmm Gina. Renewing vows is something established couples do after twenty years of marriage, at least, and your parents cannot have been married for more than ten years, since you’re six year old and don’t seem to have any older siblings. So Dennis is right, your parents’ marriage is on the rocks
MW: Dirk never heard of Ray Charles.
“Barlow keeps chickening out. By which I mean that I enter their house in the middle of the night, I throw him in the burlap sack and then I cut his head with an axe, roasting his body to celebrate my victory”
BGSS: A better reason for Snuffy not to go on “Family Feud” is that he doesn’t have a full complement of family members to constitute his team. Teams on “Family Feud” consist of five members, but Tater is too young to talk and I assume Jughaid is too young to compete on the current version of the show.
If Snuffy or Loweezy have three other adults in their extended family, I don’t remember seeing them. I think Snuffy’s father once visited, but that’s it. (Snuffy did recently claim to be close to most of his family but not so much that we the readers would know who most of them are.)
MW-Moy’s inserting of Stevie Wonder is like the person who gets a word a day calendar and tries out a new word every chance they get.
Hi and Lois: He’s having extremely disturbing thoughts of violence and also sexual deviance, he really should see a mental health expert before he hurts someone.
Beetle Bailey: Gen Halftrack needs that drink before he can do anything with his wife. She wishes he could make love to her sober but after many years of marriage she knows that will never happen.
Family Circus: He’s starting to wonder why all his kids are so unnaturally obese when neither he nor his wife are.
Curtis: What old sitcom is this story plagiarized from? I want to say “All in the Family” but there might be an episode of “Good Times” or some other show I’ve not seen.
Mother Goose: Why would you choose the name “Kitty” for your bird lady?
@jroggs: #4
“Biz: When did Josh start covering Never Been Deader?”
I know – right?? I actually enjoy that comic, mostly for the bizarre art, sardonic humor and somewhat true-to-life capture of the ennui of a typical work day…but it is kind of a downer!
BG&SS: The descendants of the Hatfields and McCoys have actually made a cottage industry out of their historic feud, catering to tourists.
@White Rabbit: Tomorrow, the Louis Braille jokes start.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: #17
“…but your cookies suck.”
They’ll never be as good as grandma’s cookies…
@Anonymous: #16
A hospice for batteries would be a charging station, wouldn’t it? or maybe the kitchen jink drawer where old batteries go to die…
P.S. I’m curious – how do you answer the question of pets and heaven? My cat wants to know. :-)
“My parents are going to renew their vows.” TFW your parents are going to renew their vows!
@White Rabbit: #57: Or Ronnie Millsap.
@Joshua K.: #59: Since the people of Hooten Holler are so inbred they’re probably all cousins to some degree, so rounding up a family team of five shouldn’t be a problem for Snuffy.
DtM – Gina’s mom must be in tech. Because she assumes that when something’s not working, you just reboot it and hope that fixes things. Until Dad comes home with another virus.
@Phantom Phan: #43
It is one of the more clever strips out there!
@Liam: #60
That’s untenable!
*Merriam-Webster’s word of the day for 1/10/25 :-)
Dennis the Menace: Gina is a bad girl, which we know because she’s perfectly fine with coming in out of the cold and standing with Dennis on her parents’ nice clean floor as the snow on their boots melts into ever-expanding puddles. Maybe even too bad a girl for Dennis, which he’ll learn when they grow up and get married, and she convinces him that the best way to renew their wedding vows would be a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style cross-country robbery spree.
Clans, Josh. The Smif and Barlow clans. They don’t have families as the modern world conceives of them.
Zippy the Pinhead: Once again, I feel it’s my civic duty to remind Griffy’s color monkeys that the Museum of Pop Culture is a Seattle city treasure and is most definitely not beige!
Bizarro: “Since he’s our tech guy, we make him dress like a nerd. As a joke. He hates it, but who gives a shit, he’s a nerd skeleton.”
Dennis The Menace: Those are LITERALLY Gina’s parents. It’s hard being the daughter of living photos.
Bizarro – Really?!?!? Send him here please, I’ve got a whole box of stuff I’d like to hand over! Oh, it’s just their souls? I still have to truck their earthly remains to the eWaste recycling center and pay the fee? OK Mr. Death of Tech, may the vinyl welds on your pocket protector break and may your Bic explode!
Bizarro. What about rechargeable batteries? Every time I plug in my iPhone am I creating undead-life, ala Victor Frankenstein? Or are they like zombies? Mindless shuffling power banks without free will, willing to feast on the brains of the living? Which, come to think about it, might explain the way most of us interact damn things.
@UncleJeffers: “Frasier” had an episode where the father’s battered old chair was replaced.
Dennis the Menace-“My parents are still alive you monster,” Gina screams.
@jroggs: Pibgorn: “The Adventures of Luda and Her Cunt.”
@Lord Flatulence:
I typed and deleted it that way. I was afraid someone, somehow would find that racist.
Okay, now they have won my grudging respect. The way Dirk’s muscles are drawn, and the way he’s been wrapping his beefy arms around Dawn the past couple of days, really does visually convey the “Control Freak Douchebag” idea they’re trying to convey, while Dawn’s mewling “Dirk, stop,” really does give the idea of “Girl Controlled by a Control Freak Douchebag.” It’s come to this: I think Mary Worth is realistic. Sigh.
Bizarro – Gary’s got a sweet gig. Toner cartridges and phone batteries never try to weasel out by challenging you to a game of chess.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I hate eating dinner in the dark!”
“I wish Pierre didn’t insist on such dramatic presentations!”
“This will be his masterpiece, Don Abundio…”
“When he stabs you through the heart with a flaming skewer!”
Slightly off-topic, but I can’t help wondering if Tom Batiuk is watching the fires in LA and thinking “called it!”
DTM: Minister: “Gina? Please put the picture of your parents back on the easel.”
Gina’s Aunt’s “She’s not taking this well”
Uncle: “Let’s wrap this up and get back inside…”
It’s funny how the women in Dustin reject guys immediately for not having jobs, while my whole life I have seen guys with no jobs get laid, and on a fair number of occasions, find women to support them.
@jroggs: “Is Cavelton the last bastion of humanity, a walled fortress holding out against the sieging forces of the Plugger Armored Rusty Pickup battalions and Slylock Fox’s Dirty Dozen convict commandos in the waning days of the Animalpocalypse?”
Thanks for the new JP Headcanon!
Rex Morgan – Ye gods, could this get any more boring?* Bland characters doing nothing. Terry Beatty could market this as a sleep aid.
*It definitely could.
FC – Jeffy has been running quite a few of these Billy Is a Dick strips.
Mary Worth – Dawn should divide a sheet of paper into two columns and write Dirk’s positive qualities in one column and his negative qualities in the other. The first column will be “He’s a looker,” and the negative column will require several reams of paper.
MW: Wouldn’t it be cool if some band saw this Mary Worth panel and decided to name themselves the Triptides as an homage?
@jroggs:
Dirk from the current Mary Worth arc is raising his hand. (“Damn I joined the wrong comic. If I went over there, I could have gotten two birds with one stone.”)
Mary Worth: Dirk hanging unflattering nicknames on Dawn is just an endearing quirk, much like a certain ex-president who assigned names like Turdblossom to his underlings.
Dustin: This one raises two big questions on this strip. How does Fitch even have a job? We keep seeing Dustin doing things things like fall asleep at work because [s]he has an undiagnosed sleeping disorder and no one will help him[/s] ha ha lazy millennials, but we’ve seen several times that Fitch is probably too stupid to be near anything sharper than a crayon. So what job does he have? Testing lab rat?
Also, “clowns have to put on makeup to look goofy.” Really? Do either of them really look that much different or out of place than everyone else in this strip?
@Lauralot: It’s probably safe to wear a heavy metal band t-shirt to a psychedelic jam band concert, if you’re not concerned about people thinking you are an asshole. Wearing a Phish or a Dead shirt to a Megadeath concert, however, would earn you a harsh beating. A “Ziggy Stardust”-era shirt could get you murdered.
@Lauralot: According to the classic movie P.C.U.: “You’re wearing the shirt of the band you’re going to see? Don’t be that guy.”
@Rube: #87: What I’d like to know is how these women automatically know that Dustin is unemployed. Is there some kind of website to warn women of the loser men in their area?
@jroggs: “Four days shy of exactly six years ago.”
Plus, there was a reboot. She suddenly became telekinetic one day and started randomly flinging people to their death, and the author had to reboot to a more peaceful strip where she was pyrokinetic and could set people on fire WITH HER MIND.
Neither potential storyline went anywhere, so we went right back to “Pib spends all day every day swimming in a pond and making out with local teenagers.”, which led to “Local Teenager Knocks Pibgorn Up”, which led to “Two random evil grifters from the early 19th century appear and attempt to kill Pibgorn – cough! – excuse me, the goal was to have Pibgorn be “the instrument of her own demise”, which meant leaving her tied to a rock so she would drown, except she didnt – for the reasons – so she started up a game of “got your nose” with her new husband she married just before she had her baby (the baby immediately disappeared and has likely drowned, given that the game of “got your nose” has been going on since last August.)
JP: “Yelich, if this conversation is going to turn into an interrogation, I refuse to say anything without my lawyer present.”
“Um… aren’t you your lawyer?”
“Good grief, no! Even I’m not that stupid! My lawyer is Steve Shannon!”
“Pretty sure Steve was murdered several storylines ago, Sam. I could probably even tell you who by if you’ll spring for the paracetemol I’ll need after trying to make sense of anything that happened in the Duncan case.”
“Yeah, and he’s still a better lawyer than me!”
SFT: Look, I’m a strong believer in the vegetarian lifestyle, but I’m not an obligate carnivore. Unless this world has dietary supplements available specifically for talking wolves who balk at eating talking pigs, Wolfette and her brother’s gang are going to die.
@Phantom Phan: The links send me to the USA Today comics front page, but I tracked them down, and they’re fun. Although from your descriptions, I was expecting the third set to include “Mr’gld H’vn’ly N’strls” and “Bl’ndi”. I may keep checking this out.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: On the other hand, sometimes there are descriptions of comics I don’t read that almost make me appreciate my hate reads unironically…
Moose and Molly – smarmy gold digging bitch rubbing it in Bunky’s face that shes marrying into money . What wrong with him? He wants to commit suicide over this bitch and her stuck up fiance. I would throw the both of them off the cliff
Mary Worth – Dirk the dick strikes again . id kick him in the nuts if i was dawn
Curtis- fuck you diane – you should have asked before replacing his chair and curtis guess what
your ass is going to be sleeping on the fire escape. little scut
The Phantom – current storyline has gone on far too long – talk about boring ass shit.
MW: Don’t feel too bad, Dawn. Your nickname among the Charterstone residents is Dumberthanafuckin’stumpgirl.