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Archive: Dennis the Menace

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Secretly sexual Wednesday

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Crankshaft, 8/22/18

I’m all for seasonally recurring gags in the comics — since I’ve moved to Southern California, one of the few signals I get that we’re transitioning from summer to fall is when the moms on Crankshaft’s bus route go into their training routine to prepare to get their children to school safely despite the district’s steadfast refusal to fire their most incompetent employee. Still, I feel like today’s strip has lost the plot a little bit? I mean, if you feel like you need to work out your anger towards some overly aggressive personal trainer (or possibly towards some middle aged lady who won’t try hard enough) in your comic, more power to you, I guess, but let’s not forget to include a little Crankshaft content in there!

Dennis the Menace, 8/22/18

Casually mentioning within Dennis’s earshot that Henry and Alice never wanted kids in the first place is one of the more menacing things Mr. Wilson has done in a while, you have to admit!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/22/18

It never took Mr. Dinkle this long to “drive all the way up the east coast,” if you know what I mean! (I mean sex. Mr. Dinkle had sex with Holly’s mom and as a lover was both generous and efficient.)

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Disagreeable Sunday

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Dennis the Menace, 8/19/18

Man, I’ve been asked to believe some improbable things about Dennis Mitchell in my time — that he’s six and allowed to roam unsupervised around the neighborhood, that his parents talk smack about other adults in front of him somehow not anticipating that he will immediately spill the beans when he meets said other adults, that he wears literally the exact same clothes every day and hasn’t been diagnosed with a serious personality disorder or reported to child protective services, etc. But I absolutely refuse to go along with the idea that Dennis can distinguish between different types of jazz, and moreover prefers some types to others! I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/19/18

Wait, how is this Weirdly-bot getting power? Has the kooky Count developed some form of perpetual motion machine, or perhaps an engine that can derive electricity from the air or ambient light? Once again, the lede is extremely buried.

Mark Trail, 8/19/18

Mark, I have to disagree with you: I think the relative harmlessness of snakes sounds like a delightful topic for breakfast conversation! Nothing like shoving cereal down your food hole, maintaining unbroken eye contact with your partner, and saying, “Look, I know hognose snakes are venomous, but they aren’t likely to pose any serious threat to human beings. So go ahead and pick it up! What are you, a baby?”

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Also pretty menacing to just literally kick your seven-year-old out of the house when he annoys you

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Hagar the Horrible, 8/7/18

Eddie, I’m sorry to report that, while ants don’t have organs that are homologous to human ears, they do have what’s called a subgenual organ, located below the ant’s femur and tibia leg joint, that can detect vibrations and thus help the ant detect and interpret most of what we think of as sound. If it makes you feel any better, though, ants can’t understand language, not even cruel insults, and neither do they have the sort of grasp of cause and effect that would allow them to construct a weird narrative loop where you come up with an answer to the question meant to shield you from the cutting response to that very answer.

Mark Trail, 8/7/18

Wow, Rusty’s finally figured out that maybe people don’t like it when you “translate” their weird foreign name into your language when you talk to them? But in case you’re worried this strip is getting too “politically correct,” it only occurred to Rusty that Jo(s)e was Mexican when he became comically sleepy.

Dennis the Menace, 8/7/18

There’s nothing more menacing than acting out not because you’re angry, not even because you’re cruel, but because you’re a bottomless pit of need and can feel no emotion other than a thrumming voice that yells WHY AREN’T THEY LOOKING AT ME.