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Dennis the Menace, 1/5/16

“Look, mom, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you reading bedtime stories to me. It’s just that books are boring and TV is better, and I have no intention of learning how to read or engaging in any sort of entertainment that requires conscious effort on my part. Why, if my own brain could just auto-generate amusing imagery for me, that’d be the best! Dreams are great and all, but they only work when I’m asleep. Are there any pills I could take or anything along those lines that could create dream-like images for me? I’m definitely going to spend most of my energy as an adult looking for them!” As ever, A+ menacing work, as Alice’s look of concern makes very clear.

Gasoline Alley, 1/5/16

Gasoline Alley just spent like five God-damned weeks going on and on about scrapbooking, so the least they can do is linger a bit here and let us enjoy a few days of Boog’s parents sweatily trying and failing to work up the nerve to explain sex to him.

Pluggers, 1/5/16

Pluggers are horrified by the idea of “ingredients” that you “cook” to produce “meals,” and prefer to only buy things you can consume right out of the box or bag without even heating up.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/4/16

It’s honestly going to be pretty hilarious when Sarah brings her terrible personality to school and discovers that normals won’t like it, or her. I’m sure she’ll eventually use her mob ties and/or powers of psychokinesis to cow the many enemies she’ll make, but until then let’s just enjoy this pointless game of topper she’s playing with the headmaster’s assistant with the admittedly dumb nickname. “Being a nurse is much harder and more important than being a teacher. I’m skipping a grade so I can spend time with as few teachers as possible! Plus my mom had a baby. Did your mom have a baby? Probably not!”

Dennis the Menace, 1/4/16

The children are right to laugh, Hot Dog. Breakdancing is a trend that was played out decades ago.

Marvin, 1/4/16

At last, Marvin’s parents have figured out what he’s good for: as an instrument of revenge against a world that has repeatedly wronged them.

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Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id, 12/15/15

Most comic strips begin their existence as the singular creation of an artist or artist-writer pair; but once it runs for long enough, it becomes an institution, and often hired hands are brought in to do the actual day-to-day work on the strip. The personnel decisions that happen behind the scenes — at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, say, or the lesser known Parker Hart & Associated Anachronistic Whimsy Professionals responsible for the unholy B.C.-Wizard of Id-Crock trinity — are opaque to us, and all we’re left with, if we’re regular comics readers, is the occasional disquieting realization that “the strip looks different.” Which is a long way of saying that Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id look different to me this week. Is this true for anyone else? Anyone? At least we can take solace in the evidence that the writing of the strips is staying true to their original vision: to put references to contemporary issues in imagined versions of our brutish past, in order to show that our present remains just as violent beneath its thin veneer of civilization.

Dennis the Menace, 12/15/15

Dennis is self-aware enough to know that he’s constitutionally incapable of pleasing a monotheistic God who judges humans against some absolute morality, or even of currying favor with a watered-down version like Santa. He’ll be happy to make a deal with a much older form of folk spirit, one with an agenda at once more opaque and easier to accommodate. The tooth fairy doesn’t care if you’ve been bad or good; the tooth fairy operates on a plane entirely removed from whatever ethical system you use to define those terms. The tooth fairy just wants your teeth.