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Mary Worth, 6/22/14

Oops, here’s the real sad story behind Olive’s neglectful parents: they don’t have time to figure out how important li’l Olive’s visions are because they’re too busy having sex! Mary’s passive-aggressive criticism of this will be amazing.

Judge Parker, 6/22/14

Speaking of having sex, everyone in Judge Parker is about to have sex! I’d say this is survival sex, that the adrenaline that was pumping through everyone’s veins during the near-violet confrontation with the Gardia brother has left them all in a heightened and aroused state, but let’s be real: these are Spencer-Drivers-Parkers. They were never in any danger and they knew it.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 6/22/14

I think … Dennis just taunted his dad for neglecting his mother, sexually? Not sexy at all, actually, but extremely menacing.

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Beetle Bailey, 6/7/14

Oh, look, it’s more fun on The Halftracks Hate Each Other Saturday! The joke here, I think, is that while the General might view his zany “KISS THE CHEF” apron as a marker of his laff-a-minute attitude towards life (and it did genuinely take me a minute to parse the idea that “KISS THE CHEF” is supposed to be “funny,” rather than just some kind of weird long-standing cliche), it only serves to remind his wife of his notorious roving eye and lack of affection for her. If that’s the joke, it would have worked better if the Halftracks had been hosting a cookout party of some sort and there were lots of party guests present, pretty ladies among them; we’ve never seen any such thing happen, presumably because the General’s entire social life consists of playing golf with his sycophantic mid-level officers, and his wife seems to have no friends to speak of. In the context of what we actually see here — which is to say, the General is grilling two hamburgers, because he and his wife are the only ones eating and are the only ones there — a more reasonable guess at the punchline would be that Mrs. Halftrack is repulsed by the idea of physical contact with her husband and rebelling against suggestions that she initiate it, though honestly that seems a little dark for this strip.

Dick Tracy, 6/7/14

So this slo-mo intermittent Dick Tracy-Little Orphan Annie crossover is still happening, I guess! Today, Daddy Warbucks is brazenly offering to straight-up bribe whatever city Dick patrols (Neo-Chicago?) so that the police department will assign its best officer to his particular case. He’s … supposed to be a good guy, I think?

Apartment 3-G, 6/7/14

At last, the setup promised by this strip has been realized! Anyway, if a deer and a horse can be friends, if by “be friends” you mean “be in proximity to each other for a few minutes while the deer is literally being held in place,” then sure, there is hope for us all, if by “there’s hope for us all” you mean “this alleged deer-horse relationship tells us nothing about the human condition or our potential for happiness or intimacy with our fellow beings.”

Dennis the Menace, 6/7/14

I mean, he’s making you dig your own grave, Dennis, so, probably! It’s not like you’ve got a lot more years to look forward to, if you catch my drift.

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Dennis the Menace, 6/5/14

Dennis stood, transfixed, watching the spider move purposefully across its web. Here, he thought, was the antidote to the modern world of human civilization that he was already recognizing as a sham. The spider doesn’t worry itself about book-learning, like Margaret, or about proper decorum, like his parents, or about peace and quiet, like Mr. Wilson. It just sits on its web, a web it created out of nothing, out of its own body, biding its time, until a prey animal falls into its trap — and then it strikes, and feeds. Everything humanity has done — its cities, its cars, its governments, its data networks that sell us the lie that we connect with one another, when really we sit at home alone, bathed in sickly artificial light — all that paled in comparison to the spider’s simple, beautiful, and alien creation. “Now that’s a web site,” Dennis whispered, in awe. It was extremely menacing.

Momma, 6/5/14

It’s easy for outsiders to see the North Korean practice of referring to Kim Il-sung, dead since 1994, as the “Eternal President of the Republic” as a symptom of that state’s baroque and deranged ideological underpinnings. But in fact, in practice it makes a certain amount of sense, from the point of view of the regime: you allow a revered figurehead, who cannot speak for himself, to become the mouthpiece for their unpopular decisions — decisions that as a result cannot be appealed. Momma knows the score.