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Rhymes With Orange, 11/10/24

Hey, everybody. Have you ever wondered if demons, the dark angels who have turned their back on God and now live in Hell, where they have the job of inflicting awful tortures on the damned for all eternity, have to go to school, like orindary children? Well, apparently they do. I’m just as surprised as you, to be honest. Doesn’t seem like it’d be up their alley in my opinion. They really strike me as being more into the cursing their Creator and inflicting inhuman suffering on his creations kind of thing rather than learning new information and skills in a supportive environment.

Dennis the Menace, 11/10/24

“Based on the fact that he’s walking towards Mr. Wilson’s house, I bet he’s walking towards Mr. Wilson’s house.” Do you even hear yourself, Henry? Do you and your wife truly have nothing better to talk about than this? That’s sad, man.

Crock, 11/10/24

Every once in a while I like to play the game of “What Year’s Topical Issue Is Today’s Crock Rerun About?” This one clearly is about “health care reform,” obviously. But, that doesn’t really narrow it down: was it from 2010? 1993? 1974? 1945? Could be any of them! This strip’s been around forever!

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Intelligent Life, 11/8/24

I can’t believe I’m saying this about Intelligent Life, a comic strip that’s usually about unpleasant bug-eyed people saying fandom words at each other, but today’s strip is actually based on fairly complex semiotic play. Rather than simply having a conversation, Skippy, and, uh, the other guy are talking about the sort of conversation they expect to have, while simultaneously undermining those expectations. Skippy’s reply being put in quote marks, indicating we’re at least one layer of metanarrative deep here, is a particularly effective device.

Hagar the Horrible, 11/8/24

Speaking of narrative, if they had put an eggheaded intellectual like me in charge of today’s Hagar the Horrible, it would’ve been about how the canonically illiterate Hagar believes that his people’s lore should be preserved via their ancient oral tradition of poetry, and is horrified to see Hamlet reading it out of some book. But you could also do a joke about how he’s afraid of spiders, I guess. I mean, why not, if you want to. I don’t like spiders either, for the record.

Mary Worth, 11/8/24

Incredible visual storytelling here: in panel two, we discover that this whole time Wilbur was standing just in front of these ladies, ready to start manically ranting about how great Mary and her food are, certainly better than the sad Lean Cuisine meals he microwaves every night and baptizes with his tears — but only the sudden pullback of our viewpoint reveals his face, in a real jump scare.

Dennis the Menace, 11/8/24

Wait, doesn’t the “world’s best dad” formulation imply that there aren’t any more like him? Does … does Dennis not know that other people have dads, or what?

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Hagar the Horrible, 11/6/24

Not really sure what to make of the wordbuilding behind this one. Are we meant to believe that a wily group of forest Finns are seeking to ambush Hagar and his warband, whose latest raiding expedition is traveling into unfamiliar territory? Or is this literally a region where bears have evolved intelligence and rudimentary forms of performance, and their wiles are about to lure the gang to either an untimely death or a truly disturbing sexual awakening? At any rate, if these guys miss Paris so much, I guess they shouldn’t have burned it down.

Dennis the Menace, 11/6/24

Based on the looks the Wilsons are exchanging, this is the beginning of some kind of sexual roleplay. “You paid for the hat, is there anything I can do for you in return?” “Well, maybe…” Presumably the reason George is always so pissed at Dennis’s constant presence is because it cramps their erotic style, whereas Martha actually likes the fact that they need to speak in code, it makes the whole thing more thrilling to her.

Family Circus, 11/6/24

It’s because he’s very stupid, OK? It’s probably not going to help but if you have any better ideas I’d sure like to hear them!!!!