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Archive: Dennis the Menace

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Note the looming tsunami on the horizon

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Mary Worth, 6/26/17

So Katie did not let Esme fall into the sea, but instead heaved her back up onto the deck, causing the two of them to instantly form the sort of bond that only a genuine brush with death can bring about. They cling together in the rain, weeping, knowing that things have forever changed and their previous fight seems petty in the face of the awful event they just barely avoided. Meanwhile, in the ship’s photo gallery… “Hello, Mary! Do you like looking at pictures? I love it! Ha ha, look, it’s like the real people on the boat, but smaller!”

Beetle Bailey, 6/26/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Sarge beats up Beetle to make him do what he wants!

Dennis the Menace, 6/26/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Mrs. Wilson doesn’t love Mr. Wilson and hasn’t for years!

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The hidden cost of Sunday dinner

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Beetle Bailey, 6/25/17

This is an example of a strip that only really works with the top row of throwaway panels — so called because they’re often excised by papers looking to cram more into their comics section — in place. Without them, this is just a basic Beetle Bailey strip about General Halftrack giving a long, boring speech about himself. But those first panels drive home a pair of exquisite yet offsetting tragedies: that Halftrack, desperate for affirmation and yet wholly unloved, has arranged this ceremony for himself; and that Halftrack’s creeping dementia has caused him to forget that he’s done so, which might allow him to feel briefly good about his life during the ceremony. I assume that the award is small scale model of the pyramid in which he will soon be buried, along with his staff.

Dennis the Menace, 6/25/17

Wow, if I had to guess which Sunday strip was going to peel away our assumptions and get us talking about the hidden nature of uncompensated domestic labor, Dennis the Menace would not have been high on the list.

Judge Parker, 6/25/17

“You always ask that five minutes before it’s done. And you always ask me, as if I’m making dinner! Our paid servant is doing all the work! She’s right there, you could at least make eye contact with her.”

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Suburban sadness

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Pluggers, 6/17/17

Maybe it’s my own plugger-esque simplicity, but I genuinely get a kick out of the “Pluggers seems to forget that its main characters are animal-people and that introducing actual animals into the narrative is confusing” installments of Pluggers, and today might be my favorite yet. Ha ha, it’s funny because pluggers save money on grooming by just stripping naked and letting their friends hose them down in a bucket in their backyard!

Hi and Lois, 6/17/17

Big shoutout to Hi and Lois for providing the grimmest “punchline” the comics will see this month, probably! Ha ha, it’s funny because Hi is sadly staring into the fire, reflecting on the unbridgeable emotional chasm between himself and his family!

Dennis the Menace, 6/17/17

“Was that menacing? Is nitpicking on etymology menacing? Jesus Christ, I’m exhausted, it’s the weekend, lemme just … lemme just leave it at that, OK? Stepladders, I dunno man.”