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Hi and Lois, 3/3/16

A lot of the emotional impact of this strip is, I guess, supposed to come from the expression on Lois’s face, which is really too bad because any time spent lingering on Lois’s face is time spent realizing that she is a lumpy-skulled noseless horror. I guess … she’s poignantly thinking “Someday his hormones will start getting revved up and any hint of sex on screen will induce instant and humiliating erections, but for now he’s my little boy?” Dear God, I’m sorry, but does she have a … snout? I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I can’t.

Beetle Bailey, 3/3/16

It’s cool that Beetle Bailey has suddenly recognized the existence of craft beers and all, I guess? God forbid they discover home brewing. I don’t think I could handle jokes about hopped wort and such told next to extremely crudely drawn brewing equipment.

Dennis the Menace, 3/3/16

See, Marvin can talk about pooping and peeing on things all day and every day, but then Dennis comes along and shows him what a real menace is and does. “Is there someplace I can shit in here? Because that’s what I think of the financial system.”

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Dennis the Menace, 3/2/16

I dunno, guys, I think we’ve got ask ourselves who the real menace here is? Is it Dennis, who after all is literally a five year old and mostly just repeats what adults say? Or is it Mrs. Wilson, who consistently welcomes a little boy into her home who she know annoys her husband, and then trash-talks her husband in front of him? “Tee hee!” she says, as she hides behind a closet door extremely unconvincingly. “George is fat! This child is saying what we’re all thinking!”

Family Circus, 3/2/16

It took me a minute to figure out that the “joke” here is that Ma Keane is asking her husband to dry the dishes in the most passive-aggressive way possible. Much funnier to me is Big Daddy Keane’s look of pure disgruntlement as Jeffy waves a towel in his face. “What? Participate in the unpaid labor that keeps the household I live in running smoothly? Me? But … but … the patriarchy!”

Pluggers, 3/2/16

You’re a plugger if the struggle between you and your spouse over your possessions ends with your rooting through you neighbor’s garbage.

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Dennis the Menace, 2/24/16

It’s the quote marks around “out to pasture” that make this truly menacing. They indicate that Dennis knows he’s not being literal. Literal horses literally get put out to pasture, it’s true, but in other contexts, the phrase’s connotations are a bit grimmer. And Henry Mitchell is not a literal horse. Dennis is finding his father too physically weak for the level of roughhousing he requires. Henry should be put down — humanely, of course — and a new, more vigorous father acquired.

Crankshaft, 2/24/16

Ha ha, it’s funny because the kids today are so dumb that they think an “old movie” is one that came out a year and a half ago! You know what always works out really well, is when you introduce young characters into your story despite the fact that you clearly hold young people in visceral contempt.

Hi and Lois, 2/24/16

If Trixie finds the emotional labor of keeping the rest of the Flagstons entertained crushing, wait till she finds out about all the people around the world who cut Hi and Lois strips out of their newspapers and hang them on their refrigerators. You’ve got to bring joy to the whole world, Trixie, not just your family!

Spider-Man, 2/24/16

You know how you can tell when the cycle of neighborhood gentrification is complete? When all the damn wizards start moving in.