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Dennis the Menace, 1/28/24

Folks, let me tell you something about my brain (and yeah, sorry, you’re reading a blog with the URL josh reads dot com, you signed up for information about Josh’s brain): I need to create elaborate systems for myself in my home so that I don’t forget where important everyday objects (keys, wallet, glasses, etc.) are, and the real necessity of these rituals is brought home to me every time I travel anywhere and immediately lose everything in a relatively small guest bedroom or hotel room. Names? Of people? Whom I have met socially on multiple occasions, and about whom I could tell you any number of things about their lives and hopes and dreams? You think I’m going to remember their names? You sweet summer child. You think I don’t maintain a Word document called everybodys_names.docx for each job or professional relationship I’ve ever had? Because I do, I absolutely do maintain those documents, thank you very much.

But, today? When I read today’s Dennis the Menace? I felt the phrase “Oh, the Mitchell family, the star of the syndicated Dennis the Menace comic strip, have a storage unit” sink into my brain, and I knew, I knew with absolute certainty that this bit of Dennis the Menace lore was now burned in there permanently. The next time I go anywhere, and I look desperately around the room trying to find my keys, and then I close my eyes to try to visualize where I left them, I know that what I’ll actually see is Henry Mitchell, Dennis the Menace’s father, looking around at all the boxes in his storage unit, and shaking his head at how Alice doesn’t think he needs a place to put this stuff.

Beetle Bailey, 1/28/24

Ha ha, look at Killer! He’s severely traumatized. I don’t think he was even beat up — this is all just from psychological abuse. I guess the other soldiers should really start to appreciate how Beetle serves as a ritual scapegoat for the whole camp!

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Blondie, 1/17/24

I gotta say, “In honor of Kid Inventors Day, I created an alarm clock app that doesn’t work” is probably the funniest sentence I’ve ever read in Blondie, and I’ve read Blondie more or less every day for the bulk of my life. Anyway, it’s all downhill from there, and I honestly wouldn’t bother reading the rest of the strip if I were you.

Dennis the Menace, 1/17/24

Dennis has learned to draw a distinction between basic reactive pleasures and the higher-level emotion of pride, which derives from pleasing other people he respects or society at large. Not sure if that’s menacing or not. Guess it probably is, given today’s evidence of how he’s making sense of his own complex emotional landscape.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/17/24

Anyone else accidentally read that final word balloon as “th’ noose awaits !!” at first? No? Just me? Just me fantasizing that King Features is about to end its longest running strip in the most shocking way imaginable?

Beetle Bailey, 1/17/24

Wow, Beetle Bailey has portrayed an actually relatively recent trend — movie theaters with big reclining seats! Don’t worry, nobody on the Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC staff has actually been to one of these places, but a friend of theirs had it described to them by one of their grandkids, so they’re pretty sure they have a good idea of what one probably looks like.

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Beetle Bailey, 1/14/24

I know I spend more time thinking about the logistics of what happens in-universe in newspaper comic strips than just about anyone else, up to and including the people who write and draw them, but I gotta say I find today’s strip kind of baffling. Under what circumstances would Cookie, who has to serve hundreds of people multiple meals a day, be inconvenienced by a freezer full of easy to prepare and tasty meatballs and find himself wanting to get rid of them somehow? My guess is that the original joke was something about forcing Sarge to eat his literal garbage, but some voice of editorial sanity decided that was too gross even for this strip.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/14/24

Today’s throwaway panels actually strike me as a genuine narrative innovation in comics, showing you what happens before and after the main action of the strip. And they definitely change the vibe of things: sure, we can all get a good laugh out of Hagar finally going to jail for one of his many crimes, but it is kind of sad knowing that his wife, to whom he promised a nice meal that he planned to pay for with the proceeds of his plunder, is gradually realizing that some misfortune has befallen him and is increasingly bereft about it.

Family Circus, 1/14/24

Remember, folks: the distinctive stench of the Keane family lingers on everything they touch. It’s extremely vivid.