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Family Circus, 8/21/11

OBVIOUSLY there’s no child’s suffering that delights me so much as a Keane Kid’s suffering, and so I’m overjoyed to see Billy’s comically overwrought expression of crushing despair as his mother drapes that suit jacket over his shoulders. It’s as if he’s won the Masters, only instead of a green jacket he’s getting a blue jacket, and instead of winning the Masters he’s going to be executed wearing a blue jacket.

Dennis the Menace, 8/21/11

Kudos to Dennis and/or the current hired hands churning out “Hank Ketchum’s Dennis the Menace” for avoiding the obvious wordplay response to “Margaret’s goin’ places” (“Goin’ too many places, if you ask me!”) and instead heading into much creepier territory. Dennis suddenly steps into the shoes of his greatest enemy; now that he realizes that Mr. Wilson is a human being with feelings like himself, his life will never be the same. This sudden act of empathy comes with a physical manifestation: Dennis is emitting a Mr. Wilson-style single bead of sweat in the final panel, indicating a simmering, child-hating rage, though the fact that it appears to be flowing down the outside of his hair is a little confusing.

Mary Worth, 8/21/11

“I knew I had to see Bobby before I left! In my mind, I could already imagine him after our family vanished into the witness protection program, his arms raised as he begged the mob thugs hot on our trail for his life.”

Gasoline Alley, 8/21/11

Slim’s suffering still counts for this post because he’s an idiot man-child, which is a type of child, right? Anyway, I’m not sure this comic has a punchline beyond “Slim is a simpleton,” but then, it probably doesn’t really need one.

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Panels from Dennis the Menace, 7/24/11

Alice Mitchell has suffered so much horror at Dennis’s hands that she’s responding the only way that makes sense — by numbing herself to all sensory input. Look, her vision is already fading! She can’t even make out her husband’s eyes anymore.

Panels from Apartment 3-G, 7/24/11

“I’m freeing my son from the clutches of these quacks, with their so-called ‘x-ray machines!’ Come on, we’ll take you home and get some leeches on that arm right away.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/23/11

So, when I demanded a return to the non-old-people-liver-transplant storyline in Rex Morgan, I was really more hoping for more mother-daughter squabbling and less earnest talk about modern best practices for medical record-keeping. You can tell that Rex is eating this stuff up, though, closing his eyes and letting the jargon just wash right over him. “Oooh, you used an abbreviation! Yeah, that’s the stuff.”

Dennis the Menace, 7/23/11

I’m gonna be honest with you — if I saw a black polo shirt with a red collar in real life in an adult size, I would buy and wear the crap out of it. I don’t think I’d pair it up with red pants, but I think it’s an interesting and striking color combo. I was so taken with it that it took me a moment to realize that Dennis is going for a whole new kind of unsettling menacing: attempting to put the moves on his cousin.

Hi and Lois, 7/23/11

My goodness, look at how happy Lois looks! Dot and Ditto, don’t you dare touch her — she’s obviously in some magical dreamland, one where she doesn’t have any annoying children. Even the most terrible sunburn will be a fair price for just a few more minutes there.

Apartment 3-G, 7/23/11

“Me? How could I be a mother? I don’t even know where babies come from!”