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Mary Worth, 9/5/18

But if he were Dale Carnegie — if Carnegie faked his 1955 death, if he managed to still walk among us today at the age of 130 thanks to the dark spells written in blood in his forbidden necromantic tome How To Stop Worrying And Start Living Eternally, if he travels the land in disguise as a wounded and angry man to try to discover the chosen one who can win any friend, influence any person, and if that chosen one turned out to be Mary — well, I’m not saying that’s at all likely. But it’d be a pretty cool scenario, you know?

Dennis the Menace, 9/5/18

Ah yes, it appears that Dennis is finally figuring it out: the reason he’s always been allowed to run wild, been indulged as he harasses Mr. Wilson and blurts out rude nonsense in front of other adults and antagonizes his teachers, is because his mother thinks it’s funny. It doesn’t matter how many people he alienates, that he’s sabotaging his education and his future, as long as she gets some droll anecdotes about what a little shit he is that she can share with her similarly jaded friends. The facial expressions here — Dennis’s of mounting, horrified realization, Alice’s of cruel amusement — make it clear that the menacing dynamic has shifted, or perhaps more correctly that we’ve been wrong about their power relations all along.

Gil Thorp, 9/5/18

“Woo-hoo, bro! Total lack of intellectual curiosity fist bump!”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/30/18

Several different uninteresting storylines featuring uninteresting sets of characters intersected at Buck and Mindy’s Vegas wedding, and so the big question after that was: what boring nonsense was going to come up on the bland Rex Morgan, M.D., slot machine after everybody parted ways? The “winners” turn out to be the Hanks, making their way across America one dumb roadside attraction at a time — except Hank Sr. has decided he’s going to go back to Millie’s diner and win back her heart. But now nobody is answering the phone at the diner!!!! Will our heroes stumble into a robbery or a fire or some similarly dramatic situation??? Or will it just be that things were really slammed and nobody picked up the phone, yes, that’s the more likely alternative, the much, much less exciting thing, that’s the one that’s happening.

Mark Trail, 8/30/18

Oh, it appears Mark’s reputation has preceded him here south of the border, down Mexico way, and what does that reputation consist of? Well, we know he hates evil-doers. We know he particularly hates those evil-doers who illicitly traffic in the cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. And we know that when he gets angry, vehicles explode. Jo(s)e’s precious classic car … ice cream truck … thing is not long for this world, is what I’m saying!

Dennis the Menace, 8/30/18

You’ve taken your five-year-old to a live performance fancy enough to require a jacket and tie … and he announces his intention to peacefully and quietly sleep through it, allowing all the other theater-goers, who appear to universally be adults, to enjoy the show? That is literally the least menacing possible scenario here

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Dennis the Menace, 8/25/18

If I know my Dennis Mitchell, he’d never say “he will” rather than “he’ll.” And if I know my genre conventions, inappropriate failure to use contractions is a sign that what we’re dealing with here is an android, presumably one that Mr. Wilson built in his garage workshop to make him feel like he has some kind of control over his life. “Ha ha,” says the Dennis-bot, “Mr. Wilson will need a calculator to count so many calories, because biological life forms are not good at mathematicak operations, even simple ones like addition!” George looks incredibly smug because he knows he could turn Dennis off whenever he wants.

Family Circus, 8/25/18

“Your eyes, Daddy!” Dolly exclaimed, grabbing at them with her short, stumpy fingers. “So wise and learnèd.” She began to really dig in there with her surprisingly sharp nails. “I want them.” Her voice deepened, and echoed like something very far away, yet at the same time rose to a deafening pitch. “I want your eyes. Give them to me. Give me your eyes. I want them.”