The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Archive: Dennis the Menace

144

The disturbing reason for the season

Post Content

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.”

140

Looming holiday cheer

Post Content

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!”

110

Unsettling Friday

Post Content

Blondie, 12/12/25

Mr. Dithers is no doubt all too well acquainted with Dagwood’s relationship with food, so he’s no doubt well aware of how transgressive a statement he’s just made to his employee. Dagwood’s thing with food isn’t about sex — it’s much, much deeper — so fortunately for Dithers this doesn’t fall under sexual harassment regulations. Honestly, employment law doesn’t even have a name for what just happened here, but that doesn’t make it any less shocking.

Dennis the Menace, 12/12/25

“There can be no punishment greater than to no longer feel the gaze of God upon you. But if God knows that you will never transgress against His commandments, will He not inevitably look away?” is some pretty menacing theology, I have to admit.

Alice, 12/12/25

Hello, friends. Have you been looking for opinions about the new crowdfunding platforms? Well, I’ll tell you one place you shouldn’t look: the syndicated newspaper comic strip Alice. Alice doesn’t think about the new crowdfunding platforms. She doesn’t think about them at all!