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Dennis the Menace, 10/1/25

I was thinking the other day about how Dagwood Bumstead and Hi Flagston have extremely generic jobs. Technically Dagwood is an “office manager” and Hi is the “head of the eastern sales team,” but we literally never see them doing anything at work that might match up with those descriptions; instead, we just get “office” hijinks that could involve anyone in any white collar professional setting. Lois and Blondie, meanwhile, who got jobs in the ’80s and ’90s, respectively, got the much more specific (and female-coded) jobs of realtor and caterer, respectively, and while I wouldn’t say the strips about them are exactly gold mines of laffs, I do in general think specific settings are funnier than bland and generic ones.

Some comics dads do get pretty specific jobs, mind you: Calvin’s dad was, like Bill Watterson’s, a patent attorney, Walt in Zits is an orthodontist, and Henry Mitchell, at least in some character iterations, has been an aerospace engineer. I’m not sure if this version of Henry is still in that line of work, but if so he should be absolutely embarrassed about trying to program his smart TV, a task that any idiot could tell you is achieved by use of the remote control and on-screen menus, with a wrench. He should also be embarrassed by even joking about putting Dennis to work on this, as his son is notoriously pretty stupid.

Mary Worth, 10/1/25

I wasn’t sure how exactly Olive’s psychic summoning was going to work, but I don’t think I ever would have guessed that the answer would be “the dogs will run along the side of the road while Saul and Eve fail to overtake them in their puce Buick.” I think it’s very funny that Mary and the gang are in a remote enough area that their phones don’t work but close enough to civilization that two dogs could run to them without dropping dead from exhaustion.

The Phantom, 10/1/25

The Phantom is in the midst of a storyline where our hero is breaking up a forced labor camp in Ivory Lana that’s been perfectly serviceable if not interesting enough to comment on here. But today’s panel put the phrase “SHADOW CROTCH — STRIPEY ASS” into my brain on repeat and if I have to think about it, now you do too!

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Blondie, 9/21/25

Comics Time is a damn complicated thing. Dagwood and Blondie are both relatively young parents of teenagers, which caused some of you to push back on my contention last week that “Blondie in the year 2025 is your go-to for the pettiest boomer gripes about everyday suburban life imaginable,” given that, going by age alone, the Bumsteads are, like the Lockhorns, Millennials. The thing is, though, that their every word and deed proves that they are not Millennials, but rather exude powerful boomer energy and just happen to be drawn as if they’re 40. If you need more evidence of that, take today’s strip, in which, based on the way Dagwood is holding his phone, I assume he has its speaker set at maximum volume and he’s forcing all these other people at the airport to listen to the conversation he’s having with his boss about yet another nephew who’s stealing his whole bit.

Crock, 9/21/25

Imagine a crazed terrorist bomber running straight for you and yelling “It’s kibosh time!” This may be the first time I’ve ever laughed at something in Crock that I’m reasonably sure is supposed to be funny. It’s not the punchline, of course, but baby steps I guess.

Dennis the Menace, 9/21/25

“Working from home? That sure would be a hassle if your kid was notorious menace Dennis Mitchell. You’d probably prefer not to do it.” –The Dennis the Menace creative team a full five and a half years after the COVID lockdowns led to an unprecedented explosion in remote work, apparently

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Dennis the Menace, 8/29/25

We take the eternal struggle between Dennis and Mr. Wilson so much for granted that it rarely occurs to us to ask what Dennis gets out of their interactions. But clearly he must enjoy it at some level; perhaps he even likes and respects Mr. Wilson, and views his neighbor as a role model. In fact, today’s strip reveals that Dennis gets one of his worst traits, his tendency to shit-talk the cooking skills of the person who does all the cooking for him, from the cantankerous old man. Who’s the real menace here, hmm?

Marvin, 8/29/25

The most obvious and tragic feature of the Miller household is, of course, the complete lack of affection among the family members. That’s why it’s so surprising to discover that Marvin and Jeff have actually been bonding. Jeff is happy about it, but check out Marvin’s face: he doesn’t like his father at all, it’s just a plot to annoy his mother, and he’ll be happy to switch his feigned affection from one parent to the other if it will keep the family misery simmering.

B.C., 8/29/25

Since I’m apparently talking about character names in B.C. this week, I will report for those unaware that the three main male characters in the strip are named “B.C.,” “Peter,” and “Thor,” and they are utterly indistinguishable from one another other than via their hair color (red, blond, and brown, respectively). I can never remember which is which, so I always have to consult the character list in the Wikipedia B.C. article when I need to distinguish among them; said list includes some other information about their personality traits (B.C. is a “naïve slob and eternal patsy,” Peter a “self-styled genius and the world’s first philosophical failure,” etc.) that, if they were ever apparent in the strip, have not been for decades, in my opinion. Anyway, I had to go consult the list again this week in order to bring you the news that Thor died. He fucking died. He fell in a water hazard while playing golf and he drowned, and now he’s dead.