One-panel Friday
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Heathcliff, 12/5/25
I really enjoy today’s Heathcliff for the way it manages to remain legible despite its one-panel nature collapsing a whole sequence of events into a single moment. Heathcliff tosses a coin into the well, makes a silent wish, garbage begins to fall from the sky in great, repulsive chunks, and a bird remarks on it: it’s all drawn as happening simultaneously, but our minds can put everything in the correct sequence.
Dennis the Menace, 12/5/25
George has clearly been on edge all day, just waiting for Dennis to show up, and now cannot even relax over the course of what should be a pleasant evening. In a way, simply by doing nothing, Dennis has pulled off one of his greatest menacing episodes yet.
Family Circus, 12/5/25
I love how sad this lady looks! Like, when this child started climbing around on the couch behind her and nobody tried to stop him, she was probably worried he was going to sneeze on her or something, but then he said this and it was actually much worse.
52 replies to “One-panel Friday”
Family Circus:
Why exactly is Thel letting the kid stand on top of the couch and stare down at them like a vulture, anyway? — does she let Jeffy hang upside down from the rafters and sing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” like Peter Murphy from Bauhaus?
I like to think Jeffy was already up there when she arrived. He’s ALWAYS been up there.
Heathcliff:
Today’s drawing is really offal.
Hopefully that’s Heathcliff’s second coin, wishing to have more colors in the world than an IBM from 1987. Or a bunch of ham and sunflowers, it’s his coin, after all.
Heathcliff-“It’s raining garbage! Hallelujah!”
MW-Ah. Toby and Sunny’s relationship has reached the stage where Sunny tells Toby to kill it’s enemies.
FC-“So the cuffs and collar don’t match,” Mommy says coldly.
Wrecks Moregone:
Ten years later:
Winter: “I want to go out tonight and have dinner at Wanda’s place, Auuuuughie.”
Auuuuughie: “But I wanted to stay in and write.”
Winter: “I think we should take a break.”
Auuuuughie: “OK” (mopes)
Winter (after also moping, at midnight): “Let’s stay in then, Auuuuughie.”
Auuuuughie (putting on jacket): “Let’s go out for dinner if you want.”
Winter (furious finger in Auuuuughie’s face): “DON’T YOU DARE!”
Heathcliff:
“Look! It’s Shirley Manson, Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson descending from the heavens! — it’s raining ‘Garbage‘ !”
Family Circus: And that, friends, is why you never take your coat off when invited to a Bosom Party at the Keenes’. Always be ready to walk out!
FC: Jeffy’s arrival interrupts what had been a lively and stimulating meeting of the Society Of Women Who Wear Tight Sweaters Over Their Enormous Breasts
FC: I’d be more upset about Jeffy pulling her coat down off her neck to ogle her nape. Probably why Thel wears a turtleneck in the house.
HC: Nice job putting the Garbage Ape out of work so close to the holidays.
DtM:
“That little guttersnipe kicks me around like Tom Hanks’ Chuck Noland kicked around ‘Wilson’ in Cast Away!”
RMMD: ‘Now kiss me, you big lug!’ ‘Sorry, I really need to grade these papers!’
JP: I can’t see how this invitation could *possibly* blow up in Neddy’s face…
Heathcliff and Dennis the Menace: Somehow, the combination of “It’s raining garbage” and “Just because it’s dark out doesn’t mean the day is over” gives me comfort in these troubled times.
“Just because it’s dark out doesn’t mean the day is over.”
Mr. Wilson goes all Zen on us.
FC: I think Jeffy’s observation is much better than the one the Keene’s were originally going to go with: “You have a suspicious mole on the back of your neck that looks like squamous epithelial cells. You better get that checked out.”
Heathcliff Anyone else can’t help read that line in the voice of the Weather Girls?
DtM If I read this strip without any context I would assume that it was a scene fron a psychological horror story about an angry old man who kills a young boy. Actually, even with the context I’m leaning towards that interpretation…
FC “Down near your head”? What? Where is…you know what, forget it.
DtM: George realizes that burying Dennis in the Pet Sematary wasn’t a good idea.
Pluggers: Pluggers’ mattresses have huge plugger-created craters. Why? Is it: Pluggers are so fat they crush the mattresses’ springs from their ponderous weights? Pluggers are so poverty-stricken they can’t afford to buy new mattresses when they collapse from too many years of use? Pluggers are so sickly they can’t notice the discomfort of sleeping on uncomfortable mattresses. Or, pluggers refuse to pick themselves out of their ruts, both mental and physical?
Six Chix: Your existential dread won’t show were you to buy a full-length blouse versus the crop top you’re wearing.
Sally Forth: I’m loving this storyline.
Chix (sic): [Woman in see-through dress] Is my existential dread showing?
[Girlfriend] If by ‘”existential dread” you mean your bush, yes.
Look at that disaster! Wishing well? More like wishing badly!
Family Circus: Is this little tableau the prelude to the afternoon’s Jut Off between Thel and Blondie? That’d be a great missing final panel.
Jeffy seems to have taken menacing lessons from Dennis. Considering his past history, I’m not sure if that makes him more or less menacing.
Heathcliff — Let’s just hope the eponymous cat never gets hold of a monkey’s paw. . .
DtM — Let’s just hope the eponymous menace never gets hold of a monkey’s paw.
FC — Let’s just hope that Jeffy never gets hold of a monkey’s paw.
Heathcliff: [Second coin drops in well] [Men begin falling out of the sky]
FC: Come on Jeffy. The woman came here to support your mother after she had her right breast amputated so she can use a bow like an Amazon. The least you can do is show a shred of manners.
The Family Circus 1: “Why is that kid on the back of the sofa? Why am I here? Why am I trapped in 1975? Why won’t God let me die? Why???”
The Family Circus 2: “Oh, also, Mommy — did you know the side of your face was falling off, down by the cheek?”
The Family Circus 3: Worst attempt to distract from the Folger’s crystals in her cup ever.
FC: If I were the lady in the wearing the Tin Cup necklace, I’d be less sad and more terrified of the heavy-lidded homunculus commenting on my impending mortality, presumably with a voice hollow with the ennui of the timeless aeons it has observed.
Frank & Ernest: C’mon, if you’re gonna to a Diogenes gag, do the bit about him jacking off in the forum.
MW: So this bird is just shitting all over the place, often directly on Toby, while she’s preparing food, right? If I were Ian I’d be taking an hour-long, 200-degree shower too.
Pluggers: Pluggers are so overcome with dense with habit and routine that they practically cosmic singularities, warping the very fabric of space-time to its breaking point. Also they sleep in twin beds for some reason.
Dennis the Menace:
O Lord, support us all day long,
until the shadows lengthen,
and the evening comes,
and Dennis is hushed,
and the fever of life is over,
and the Menace is past.
Then in your mercy,
grant us just one safe panel and a holy rest,
and peace at last. Amen.
—Evening prayer of George Henry Wilson
FC: “Don’t bother taking your coat off; I have a feeling you won’t be staying long.”
Also Dennis the Menace: Look at that look on Martha’s face in panel two! George’s day is about to be over, or at least all his lights are about to go out, once she gets her hands on that frying pan in the other room. Self-inflicted menace level: Very High.
Hmmm….
There was an episode of Supernatural, with Sam and Dean investigating a fountain where wishes literally came true if you threw a coin in.
Little girl (tosses a coin in): I wish my teddy was alive!
Her mother (tosses a coin in herself): Yeah, and I wish your father and I were in Bali.
The parents vanish, and we have a human-sized talking Teddy bear taking care of this little girl (everyone just assumes he’s wearing a fursuit)
Of course the bear is kind of a jerk, he robs convenience stores for beer for himself and food for the girl and he swears a lot. The girl is so pure and innocent that she doesn’t mind.
The reason for the teddy bear being such a jerk is that he’s having an existential crisis. He knows he’s an abomination of nature and the entire situation horrifies him.
That was only one sideplot of that episode.
Dennis the Meanass: am I really the first beady-eyed nitpicker to point out that the strip jammed TWO panels into its normal one-panel square, thus violating “one panel Friday”? Josh, Dennis is even menacing YOU!
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Bring on the bosom party!
@Lord Flatulence: @Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Pronounced ba-zoom, no?
Every day Mrs. Wilson looks forward to a visit from Dennis, and… that’s sad. That’s really sad! Get a life, lady!
Dennis to Jeffy: “You have done well, my young apprentice!”
DT: How did this snitch last this long? ” Let me just lurk conspicuously near the door way so I can overhear without being obvious despite the light and wind blowing him through the door I’m holding ajar. ”
Dustin: Way to go Dustin! You actually ambushed dad and destroyed both legions! Only played that scenario a few times and it was hard to lure the opponent into the ambush hex. Often triggered and attacked some of the auxilla but hard to destroy two legions! Nice quote as well – reportedly real, because it strained Roman imperial military resources with threats elsewhere and contributed to the long term decision not to expand further into Germania.
GT: Beth and Gil, jowl to jowl!
JP: Neddy is in full form and is Alan just drinking his meals now or is the full failure of his life just has him lying in bed all day? As the year comes to the end, let’s recap – Alan is in bed, Randy and Sam are out of action or not in the strip anymore. The two ditzy girls are using NordVPN to hide in the CIA semi-safe house, and Neddy is playing Fritizi Ritzi for Charlotte. They should change the name of the strip to the Parker Family Variety Hour.
MW: Waiting to see what Ian is garbed in when he comes out of the shower. I hope he is wrapped in towels like a Roman toga so Sunny can talon his flabby pink flesh.
Dustin Everybody who bet that what started as pleasant father/son bonding on Monday would end with Ed in a redfaced rage on Friday, collect your winnings. Oops, sorry, bookies wouldn’t take bets on that, anymore than they would on Wrestlemania.
Heathcliff: Steel trash cans, filled to the brim with festering food, are falling from the sky? Even after the initial wave of injuries and deaths (from concussions, internal bleeding, car crashes, plane crashes, etc.), the public health crisis is going to be profound! It’s too late to protect the water supply from Heathcliff’s whimsy; indeed, it looks like whimsy will kill us all.
RMMD: just think how much melodrama could have been avoided if Summer had just read the damn book in the first place. Now will Augie get laid or does he have papers to grade?
Don’t leave out Neddy since Mike Manley is back in full form.
Meanwhile, Pluggers reminds me of funny book titles with funny author names, such as Hole in the Mattress by Mister Completely.
Jeffy may not be smart, but he is needlessly cruel so don’t worry about him, he will still go far in life.
***
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but kudos on the art in Dennis the Menace. The angles and the expressions give it the look of a psychological drama in this comic about a young boy with no filter who likes visiting his neighbour.
FC Guest Lady is mortified to realize that not only are her roots showing, but because it actually was pretty subtle against the bottle blonde she’s been deluding herself that (1) her eyesight isn’t going and (2) she’s now naturally grey, not brunette.
RMMD Summer, he could have *said* he loves you. Heck, he could have *acted* like he wants to spend time with you in private ifyouknowwhatimean instead of constantly begging off to “grade papers”. (Note To Self – add to the list of red flags: If he can only express his love by writing a thinly-veiled version of you into a novel that triggers your trauma)
Medusa smiled. “Look closer, child.” The child stared and saw scales, movement, and then no more.
Blondie: “Daddy” has nothing to worry about, because this strip is stuck in 1950 and Cookie’s the reason Dagwood has no front porch (or front porch glider) on their house.
MW: “Protecting me”? I know nothing about birds, especially larger pet-adjacent types. Is that a thing, or is she thinking of a dog?
HEATHCLIFF: Wouldn’t it be more efficient to wish for the door of the fish market to be left ajar?
Good news, Jeffy is not colour-blind! Bad news, he’s a asshole!
We always criticise Martha for how she enables Dennis tormenting her husband, but look at her face! She clearly took an emotional hit by not having Dennis around her even for a day! The fact that Martha cannot live without a child around and George cannot live with a child around shows that they ultimately wanted different things from their marriage and it ended up making both of them unhappy!
“It’s raining garbage”, TFW you don’t care for water
Slylock: Eight year-old Jake is a little young to be looking at photos of Guernica.
FC: Billy [voice muffled]: “don’t get me started on what’s going on down here!”