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Dennis the Menace, 12/8/19

I have so many questions about what’s happening in today’s Dennis the Menace! Like, what goes on at “Club 21” that has inspired George and Martha to go out and make a night of it with the young folks? Live music? Dancing? Is there a DJ? And why is this bouncer writing something down in his little book as he ostentatiously fails to check the Wilsons’ IDs? Is that where he keeps track of the number of old fogeys who’ve been admitted to the club, making sure it doesn’t hit a critical mass that would keep young, hot people away? Finally, why are we being treated to a George and Martha Wilson excursion in which Dennis is not even present? Did someone want this? Did someone ask for this? Is the comics section’s rapidly aging readership increasingly unable to relate to children, and so Dennis is going to be gradually eased out of his own strip, replaced by the Wilsons and their septuagenarian antics?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/8/19

In my heart of hearts I sincerely hope that this strip was written with Snuffy, finding himself facing yet another stint in Hootin’ Holler’s pokey, deciding to hurtle himself to his death, taking his sad-eyed stolen chicken down with him, rather than give Sheriff Tait the satisfaction of capturing him. Sadly, this Thelma and Louise-style ending of the strip was nixed by the syndicate, and so another cliff’s edge on the opposite side of the gorge was added to the last panel just before publication.

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Beetle Bailey, 11/28/19

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, everyone! What are you thankful for? I had a whole bunch of bullshit about my family and friends lined up until I read today’s Beetle Bailey, but now I’m most thankful for the fact that I don’t live and work someplace where hungry packs of semi-feral dogs roam freely.

Dennis the Menace, 11/28/19

You have to admit that it’s pretty menacing to cheerfully point out that looking at the faces of the animals we’re about eat would make us uncomfortable and that’s 100% the reason why we don’t actually do it.

Rhymes With Orange, 11/28/19

Still not as menacing as imagining that not only do the turkeys we eat today have souls, but that those souls are being escorted to hell, right now as we’re digesting in front of the football game.

Dick Tracy, 11/28/19

Wow, I had sort of imagined Proof as a hard-hitting publication that took on corruption at the highest levels of our society, but apparently they paid for an undercover story on … carny crime? “Purse-snatching crows, huh? That sounds familiar,” says Dick, smiling slightly as he remembers the time he killed every single crow in Neo-Chicago.

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Dennis the Menace and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/11/19

An online pal of mine pointed out to me the other day that many of the characters from the comics are not who we think of them as, generationally speaking. Mark Trail and Rex Morgan, who began their existence as adults in the 1940s, remain in the prime of their manhood today, and are thus almost certainly Gen Xers or maybe even older Millennials. That’s right! Whenever you hear about how Millennials are ruining everything today with their safe spaces and their avocado toast, remember that people are talking about Rex Morgan when the say that!

Normally this doesn’t really matter, but nothing creates an uncomfortable intersection between real time and comic book time like a fixed historical event, so we probably need to think about what wars various honored comic strip veterans are veterans of as of 2019. Mr. Wilson was an old man when Dennis the Menace debuted in 1951 and was probably supposed to have been a veteran of the trenches of the Western Front; today I suppose he’s a Vietnam Vet, incongruous as that seems. Snuffy Smith offers an even more difficult case, because I don’t think anyone has a real clear sense of how many years old Snuffy Smith is supposed to be, forgetting for the moment of what year he was supposed to be born in. Like, he and Loweezy are weird wizened potato-people who kind of look like they’re super old? But they also have an infant son? Presumably Snuffy is like 35 years old and a veteran of the Iraq War; Lukey, despite his Rip Van Winkle-esque long white beard, is maybe 50 and served in the Gulf War in ’91. Sadly, life in grindingly poor Hootin’ Holler has aged them much faster than their combat stints did.

Gasoline Alley, 11/11/19

Meanwhile, Gasoline Alley keeps aging its characters in real time, which means that Walt is now the the last living veteran of World War I. He reminds us that they used to call it “Armistice Day,” because at the end of four years of unfathomable carnage everyone thought the horrors they had endured meant that we wouldn’t fight any more wars. Sorry, guys! Sorry we fucked it up!

Mary Worth, 11/11/19

Speaking of people who fucked things up, look at Wilbur’s face in panel one here. He doesn’t think he fucked anything up at all! He thinks that date went great. He got to make fun of Zak and eat some yummy noodles, and now a lady who’s pretty like his mommy is tucking him into sleep. What’s not to like? This good feeling will probably last forever, and will certainly still be suffusing his body when he wakes up in the morning, that’s for sure!

Dustin, 11/11/19

Dustin the comic strip launched in 2010, which means it’s basically an infant in the world of newspaper syndication, but it’s already accrued a character typical to legacy strips: a little kid who’s not related to the any of the other main characters but hangs around with them all the time and you never seem to see their parents or other family members! Where do these children come from? Do they just kind of show up up one day in comic strip character homes if you leave food uncovered, like mice? Anyway, shoutout to Dustin’s mom for figuring out how to get rid of this particular pest, by convincing him that the toilet paper they use has other people’s poop on it still.