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Archive: Dennis the Menace

131

Thursday one-panels

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Wizard of Id, 1/8/26

The syndicated newspaper comics are, among other things, your #1 source for gender stereotypes so out of date that everyone has pretty much forgotten them, like “women love to drag their husbands to the opera even though men find opera boring.” Usually your source for these gags is The Lockhorns, where it’s at least vaguely realistic because they live a mere hour from Lincoln Center via the Long Island Railroad; I suppose you might think the Wizard of Id’s pseudo-medieval setting also makes it a good candidate for opera gags, if you were a philistine who didn’t know that opera originated in the 1600s and didn’t truly flower into the oft-parodied art form we see here until the baroque era. Anyway, this lady has a rare talent that she’s chosen to share with the world, and maybe it makes me a gender traitor, but I feel that she does not deserve to experience the painful and horrifying ideal of transformation into a bird, right here and now, at the height of her career.

Gearhead Gertie, 1/8/26

There was in fact a big NASCAR lawsuit settlement recently, and I’m gonna be real with you, I read some of that article I just linked to but couldn’t really follow what it was about and tapped out around halfway through. I don’t feel too bad about that, though, because I read enough to know that the dispute in hand was between the league and team owners and had nothing to do with anything that might get free tickets to fans, so apparently I understood it better than NASCAR superfan Gearhead Gertie.

Dennis the Menace, 1/8/26

I guess Mr. Wilson is supposed to be hinting darkly that Dennis may someday move on from childish menacing and become some sort of evil dictator or criminal mastermind and menace the whole world, but I think he’s letting his endless antagonism with the boy cloud his judgement. Dennis is actually pretty dumb, and I’ve seen no indication that he has the intention or the ability to better himself. It might still be annoying living next door to him when he’s an adult, but I think most of us will be safe.

144

The disturbing reason for the season

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Crock, 12/21/25

I kind of like the worldbuilding in today’s Crock, which implies that Magi simply spontaneously generate in desert climes, and can be instinctively attracted to your location by any large star-shaped object. I feel less affection for the final panel, though. Look at those faces: our heroes from the legion are definitely going to kill the Magi, right? Kill them, and possibly eat them?

Dennis the Menace, 12/21/25

This young woman’s “What are you doing here?” is a wholly appropriate expression of surprise. If Dennis’s parents allow him to just roam the neighborhood unsupervised, why do they bother to hire babysitters at all?

Mary Worth, 12/21/25

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And I will definitely set a woman’s parrot against her husband. I cannot emphasize enough that I did not come to bring peace to the households of woman-man-parrot triads. Please do not use the occasion of my birth to give others false hope that parrots and husbands can live in harmony with one another, because they very much cannot.”

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Looming holiday cheer

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Dennis the Menace, 12/17/25

[when you get caught in the middle of what’s very explicitly a mock torture session, like you’re literally condemning this snowman to die in agony, you went through the trouble of putting a frowny face on him and everything, and you want to distract your parents from your sadism with a little darndest thing saying] “Just, uh, burnin’ some calories! Ha ha!”

The Lockhorns, 12/17/25

One of the things The Lockhorns does well is make it very subtly clear from their facial expressions how much the various one-off ancillary characters are regretting their decision to interact with Leroy or Loretta. This guy, for instance? Does not want to be there at all, and they’re not hitting you over the head with it, but you can tell.

Blondie, 12/17/25

I love how surprised the saleswoman seems in panel two. “Wait, people are buying our novelty mugs ironically? This changes … everything!”