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Judge Parker, 3/18/15

Guys, guys, guys, you might have thought that this Judge Parker storyline was about the sexual objectification of women, what with Neddy being urged to show off her hot bod and Godiva wearing, well, this. But! Did you know that men can be sexual objects too? Sure, all you young fellas dream of hitting it big in Nashville, but just having a catchy song isn’t enough! To be a country music superstar, you need to constantly make women believe you might be sexually available to them. And not just on TV or through your songwriting: you need to pay attention to individual superfans, an act of emotional labor that you will find far more draining that you can imagine. Flirting, smiling, suggesting: this is the dark side of country music. Enter that world at your moral peril.

Dennis the Menace, 3/18/15

Enforced heterosexuality is extremely menacing, Henry. Here’s looking forward to a mildly awkward dinner with Dennis and a husky, hairy guy named Ted someday!

Family Circus, 3/18/15

The Keane parents’ facial expression here is a thing of beauty to me. “When? When is he going to stop saying the darndest things? When?”

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Archie, 3/14/15

Hey, kids, here’s a perfect formula for a pop culture themed comic strip!

1. Map a commonly recognized concept from pop culture onto a vaguely analogous situation
2. Have a comical bald fat man say “These [pop culture element] have really gotten out of hand!” while flop-sweating
3. Rerun in newspapers across the country roughly 15 years after the joke has stopped being relevant

Apartment 3-G, 3/14/15

There was an Apartment 3-G earlier this week where Margo threatened to crush her beloved assistant Sam beneath her boot-heel like the lowly worm that he is, and I didn’t even discuss it here because I figured there was more where that came from! How wrong I was. Somehow between yesterday and today Margo decided Skyler did something wrong and then chewed her out about it and humiliated her but retained enough emotional control over the situation to then forgive her and make it seem magnanimous! What exactly was she mad about? Was it because Skyler was shooting off her mouth about her big news before Margo was able to come up with a Publicity Action Plan? I love that her punishment is that Margo will refuse to even start thinking about publicizing this exciting career development for several more days. I’m sure the studio will feel warmly about all of this!

Dennis the Menace, 3/14/15

What’s a sadder way to think about this: that Dennis childishly dreams that one day he’ll be an adult and can be a contemporary to his parents when they’re still young and vital, or that Dennis is a comics character, trapped forever in a single moment, doomed to never age to adulthood no matter how much he wants to? Oh, is the saddest thing immediately coming up with two separate and distinct really depressing readings of a Dennis the Menace comic, without trying? Yeah, that’s probably it.

Mark Trail, 3/14/15

“We’ve been invited to a friend’s house!”

“Oh, have our friend and his girlfriend decided to form a legally recognized pair bond yet?”

[THEY MASH THEIR FACES TOGETHER]

“No, they have not! Our pair bond is still the best! Ha ha! We’re in love, like normal humans!”

[HE TOUCHES HER NOSE EROTICALLY]

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Dennis the Menace, 3/12/15

“With him, you never know! I mean, he’d smash a potato, probably! That’s pretty menacing! And why is he eating an actual meal here, instead of just mooching off our cookies or whatever? What’s happening? What time of day is it? Who am I? What’s going on?”

Family Circus, 3/12/15

“You don’t understand,” Mommy Keane told the stern representatives of Child Protective Services. “They said they were grown up! They said they were ready to leave the house. It would’ve been bad parenting to not change the locks!”