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Dennis the Menace, 2/8/14

Implying that Almighty God might not be all-knowing and all-powerful, that there might be limits to His ability to hear prayers from His mortal creations, that He is somehow constrained by the passage of time as perceived by us puny beings, that He must occasionally rest? Menacingly heretical! It is perhaps ironic that Dennis is courting divine wrath only if he’s wrong.

Pluggers, 2/8/14

This is … a joke about the metric system, I guess? Pluggers are glad that we don’t use metric time? Pluggers are relieved that the most radical phase of the French Revolution burned itself out before the icy tide of Jacobin rationality could wash away all of our long-standing traditional institutions, like the division of time into sixtieths that dates back to ancient Babylon? Sure, why the hell not! Let’s hear it for sexagesimal chronometry!

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Marvin, 1/3/14

So when I returned from my Christmastime Journey and caught up on the comics I hadn’t been reading, I didn’t review all the comics. Marvin, for instance. I didn’t catch up on Marvin. Who cared exactly about which poo-stained antics I had missed? I was thus dropped into this midweek running gag without context, and assumed, since there were no other clues, that “Kiddie Coiffe,” a stand of some sort, was meant to be a Starbucks-style operation, with “coiffe” a whimsical misspelling for coffee. And even if I had known that this was coiffe as in coiffure, I would have supposed it was a li’l play hair salon or barber shop? But nope, they’re selling hair. Human hair, dog hair, you name it. Not enough to make a wig out of, mind you, just weird little patches, if the chunk taken out of Bitsy’s pelt is any indication. Haha, baby hair sales! Ha! So, congrats, Marvin: you’ve brought me to a place of profound discomfort that has me actively wishing for a return to poop jokes.

Dennis the Menace, 1/3/14

“Look dad, I know you don’t love me, and I don’t particularly want you to try, but I am going to make you tacitly admit it so that I can get what I want.” Oh man, Dennis’s menacing game is on point for 2014.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/3/14

“Haw haw, just kiddin’, Mama Smif! When I say ‘risky,’ I meant that givin’ birf in Hootin’ Holler is takin’ yer life in yer own hands, what with our hamlet’s poor sanitation and substandard med’cal care!”

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Mary Worth, 11/27/13

I know you’re all wondering what happened to Mary after she got viciously shoved right in the middle of Central Park. Turns out that she was rescued by the timely intervention of hunky silver-haired Broadway legend Ken Kensington, one of Mary’s top celebrity crushes! Usually I’m in a favor of anything that would put a definitive end to the sad, sexless non-relationship between Mary and Dr. Jeff, but this whole meet-cute scenario is a little too neat for my liking. My guess is that Ken used his theater world contacts to find out-of-work non-equity actors willing to play any role at any price … even if that role is Dastardly Central Park Mugger Who Fightens Attractive Women Of A Certain Age And Allows Ken Kensington To Swoop In And Play The Hero, and the price is far below scale. It certainly would go a long way towards explaining this facial expression:

Obviously this is much less “So, it’s come to this, I’m trying to grab purses from old ladies so I can afford my next meal/fix” and much more “OK, Devin, remember your Method classes: Place yourself in the mindset of a criminal. Not just any criminal, but the most nefarious criminal madman alive! Yes, I can feel the power and insanity flowing through me! Ken says that there’s an understudy part opening in Jersey Boys soon and that he knows the director — success is so close I can almost taste it!”

Dennis the Menace, 11/27/13

The span of time between when you realize that other beings can die and when you realize that you will someday, inevitably, die is definitely the most menacing age. Sometimes it lasts years!

Heathcliff, 11/27/13

“Ha ha, don’t worry! We’re enjoying a nice dinner now, but later I’m going to kill most of them and kick the rest of them out of the house.”

Luann, 11/27/13

Brad and Toni will have no time to paint their future bedroom or even decorate it in any way, because every single moment they spend in it they’ll just be straight-up fucking. They probably won’t even bother to get furniture or anything; they’ll just go at it constantly on top of a pile of blankets or something in a corner. Anyway, I’m going back to ignoring Luann forever, right after I get finished with the vomiting.