Tough questions
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/7/26
Back in the day, when he was first introduced into this comic strip, Mud Mountain Murphy used to be depicted as a giant of a man who loomed over everybody and spoke in boldface at all times. He seems to have chilled out/shrunk a bit since then, but as a tall guy I’m pretty sure that he may be talking a good game about the structural changes to the film industry, where multiplexes with access to bulk concession purchases are simply more labor-efficient and profitable than traditional single-screen theaters, but he’s probably thinking about the comfy recliners all the new movie theaters have as a matter of course.
Dennis the Menace, 10/7/26
Here’s a fun little game to play. It’s called “What’s Keeping Dennis Aloft?” Clearly his feet aren’t on the ground, but [audience shouts each word] WHAT’S! KEEPING! DENNIS! ALOFT! Is he standing on that chair, despite the fact that its shading matches the house and it seems like it’s supposed to be several feet behind him? Does he have superhuman wrist strength, so that the hand that seems so casually rested on Mr. Wilson’s stomach is actually bearing the child’s entire weight? Is he just kind of floating? Does Dennis have floating powers? It would be pretty menacing if he could just float in mid-air, right?
47 replies to “Tough questions”
RMMD: I’m going to give the public what the big multiplex theaters can’t, hardcore p0rn!
DtM Forget how he’s staying up, how is Dennis alive with his head floating disconnected from his body?? The answer to both is that he’s a ghost, tormenting Mr Wilson for his past sins, possibly including burying that annoying neighbouring kid in a shallow grave…
@Guillermo el chiclero: That was _exactly_ my first thought!
RMMD: Mae Mae’s plan is to buy the whole town, one business at a time.
I’m going to guess that Dennis is actually a hallucination, and that the real Dennis died years ago. Mr. Wilson accidentally ran him over in his driveway twenty years prior, and since then has been imagining that the kid would grow up to be a real asshole if he had survived.
RMMD: A brand new multiplex!? In 2026!? I guess there are a few advantages to living in the remote corners of the country that have still yet to receive rural broadband. (The main disadvantage is of course all the roots country you have to hear.)
@CanuckDownSouth: Gah! Beat me to it!
RMMD:
“How will this old place compete with that?”
“Well, if you’d let me get out more than one sentence at a time before questioning me, I could tell you my business plan.”
“No can do, Mae. Then this plot would be over in a single strip, and Beatty would have to think of something interesting to write.”
RMMD:
“I’m going to turn it into a shvitz, so as to attract roustabouts and ne’er-do-wells like Buck Wise and Rene Belluso!”
RMMD:
It’s a shame that stinging hornets aren’t attracted by the floral embroidery on Mud’s shirt.
DtM:
Thesis: Mr. Wilson’s girth is approaching infinity as a limit. Discuss.
DtM: As Wilson’s hammock sinks closer to the ground as the trees holding it up bend closer together from his weight, Dennis rises to conserve mass, or energy, or something. It’s physics, or metaphysics, hard to tell.
How many movies did Mae Mae make before “retiring”? Maybe she’ll just play them on a loop at the “CinaMae Mae”
DtM: I’ll tell you what’s menacing. Dennis trying to make it look like he and Mr. Wilson have a “Let me ‘casually’ rest my hand on your protruding belly” relationship, presumably for the benefit of a nearby Ring camera and planned lawsuit. To his credit, Mr. W is having none of it.
DTM these days seems to be a disturbing mix of recycled strips and new ones that are so badly drawn they put me in mind of the last days of “Apartment 3-G.”
I find it difficult to believe that the Wilsons use tiny umbrellas for everyday drinks. Too much whimsy. Martha probably put it in George’s drink to symbolically emasculate him, and gave him a straw to remind him that he sucks.
GT: Mimi shrivels before our eyes. There’s some sort of Faust/Dorian Grey mishmash going on here.
RMMD: She has way more money than you, Mud, and she’s not stupid. So you can just lower The Mighty Finger of Authority, before it gets snapped off.
DtM: You just know that Dennis has sticky hands and that he smells like hot kid.
@Guillermo el chiclero: RMMD: Mae Mae’s plan is to buy the whole town, one business at a time.
That shouldn’t take long, considering the businesses consist of a bar, two cafes, one nicer restaurant, a clinic, and a hospital. Oh, and one big-box electronics store that’s probably gone under already, because the management staff can’t recognize a pair of scammers even when they come back to pull the same scam.
RMMD: Vintage movie theaters? Why do I get the sense that this strip is trying to move into the void left by latter-day Funky Winkerbean ?
DtM: Hey, looks like Mr Wilson got himself one of those vintage HyperColor t-shirts! Oh boy, is your belly supposed to be that hot? You might want to get that checked out…
DTM: Dennis, please leave Mr. Wilson alone in his hammock with his mixed drink. He’s truly happy for once.
RxMD: It does? Wait, of course it does.
So the Multiplex shows the latest releases, and the Mae Mae Movie Theatre shows arts films and niche films. Happens all the times.
GA: Remember that short little storyline with Joel and Rufus finding the Lincoln Letter and they lost it and the storyline ended? Well, in the spirit of the season, IT’S NOT OVER YET!!!
JP: I’m waiting for that meet-and-greet with the arms dealer to have been set up by the CIA so that the CIA can get April back. Look, just nuke the CIA, April. They’re blackmailers who want more.
RMMD: “Two words: Liquor. License.”
@Schroduck: I used to live somewhere like that. I would’ve preferred roots country to the unending barrage of Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, and their many derivatives that I experienced every time I went in a store.
RMMD: Mae Mae’s investment portfolio would look great in, like, 1950 but in 2026 where chains have thoroughly killed mom and pop establishments it seems like a recipe for bankruptcy. Granted, Glenwood seems to have a higher concentration of hipster than the national average so maybe there’s hope.
Mae Mae realizes Glenwood is full of Pluggers who won’t step foot in some newfangled multiplex.
RMMD: will MaeMae get together with Mason Jarre to talk about the movie theater business?
DT: I dunno, the vibe of the ominous Neo-Gothic mansion is kind of undercut by the Perkin’s adjacent to it.
Dustin: “And pour slowly, please….anything to avoid going home to my terrible family.”
Luann: So I’ve never taken a public speaking course, but if they’re like any other class where you have to give an oral presentation there’s a time factor involved. Les doing his speech in under a minute may be too short, but Luann, who we’re told has written fourteen pages on her subject, is certainly going to run over–to say nothing of the inherent disrespect to her teachers and classmates in running out of the room the minute she’s finished. If Clan Evans wanted to do “Les finds out Tara’s moving in with Phil and gets jealous” there’s gotta be a less clumsy way of doing it.
MW: Toby looks less “troubling nightmare” and more “dead for about two days.”
Stupid markup tags.
DTM – The caption is an ice breaker question used at meetings in corporate America. Most people hate ice breakers, ergo this is extremely menacing. But in answer to the question, last night.
Dennis the Menace:
My theory is that Mr. Wilson’s hammock is sagging so close to the ground that Dennis’ feet are not visible.
Dennis the Menace:
“You know, he’s got a point,” mused Mr. Wilson. “Just because I’ve never murdered a child before doesn’t mean I can’t give it a shot.”
JP: So *put* her in prison for life! You’d probably get a Presidential citation for it *and* you’d finally get the whole damn Parker-Spencer-Driver family out of your (and our!) hair! Are you some kind of masochist or something, lady??
@Bob Tice: Hey now, Buck isn’t a ne’er do well! He’s a putz! A schlemiel! A schnook!
@MKay: Well, she kinda is. After all, she dismissed the option of traveling, or donating her apparently vast fortune to charity where it might do some good to be a short-order cook in some nowhere town and hitch her wagon to a guy named *Fergus*…
Mae Mae, you can just admit it is just a tax write-off. We are long past rich people being able to feel shame
Today’s Dennis comics seems to have more personality than usual. Do they have a guest artist? Having people who give a damn is dangerous for legacy strips!
RMMD: Just how long has this theater been shut, since the marquis poster is for The Last Picture Show (a 1971 release)? Or was that an old poster that was just meant to be an ironic means of announcing the theater’s (more recent) closing?
Rex Morgan, M.D.:
I’ve made a couple jokes about the completely blank backgrounds in recent Rex Morgan, M.D. strips, but it’s reached a crisis point today, where Murphy’s matching white hat means it kinda looks like his brainpan has been sliced clean off. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have affected his ability to ask cogent questions about small business strategy.
Luann: As with the “Luann interviews her own family about their careers” assignment, any actual school would have minimum standards that would prevent Les from doing this. And they still can’t lower the bar enough for Luann to get over.
…We asked a local of Glenwood to comment on the town’s bizarre alterations.
“Mae Mae took this town over so gradually, it was impossible to tell how much she controlled until the dust settled. Her reign began gradually, then happened all at once. First, she came for the movie theaters…”
Back to you, Tom
RMMD-Mae Mae will show old movies that haven’t been seen in a long time and can’t be seen anywhere else. Not on dvd, not on Blu-Ray, not on cable, not on streaming.
RMMD: Motel, check. Porn theater, check. All I need now is a dive bar and I’ve got the sex trade all wrapped up in this town. Thinks Mae Mae. “Mud, dear, you don’t mind if I put this in your name, do you? for, uh, tax reasons.”
Today in Comic Strip Theology: We now know the Baby Blues family are Protestants.
Dennis the Menace: Sure, Mister Wilson seems like a grump; it’s basically his whole deal. However, consider this: have you ever seen a grump who mixes himself a Tiki drink and dresses up in a Hawaiian shirt every time he goes outside to lounge in his hammock?
I think George Wilson treats his interactions with Dennis as enrichment activities! Maybe it used to stress him out, but now it gives him life. I think he thinks he’s shaping Dennis, and I think he secretly enjoys it! Put that headcanon in your pipe and smoke it!
@Ettorre: And that font!
Goddammit, Mud, this is Glenwood! If you don’t think it can support an off-brand Alamo Drafthouse, you haven’t been paying attention to all the men with muttonchops ’round these parts!
***
What nightmare of impossible physics is causing those concentric force circles in the grass under Mr. Wilson?
“Like, just today, I graffito tagged your house with 10-07 for the first time! And tomorrow, I’ll do it again for the first time with 10-8!”
FC: Today’s strip answers the question: What’s the opposite of Marylin Monroe standing on a subway grate.
I wonder if today’s Pluggers was supposed to read hemorrhoid cream and an editor said; “no way”. Prep H has long been used to remove wrinkles, no joke .
@Guillermo el chiclero: Which in Glenwood means a roots country hootenanny.