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Dennis the Menace, 8/25/10

It seems at last that Dennis has found something truly menacing to do: serve as a self-appointed eugenicist enforcer. “Miss, did you have authorization from the Central Hereditary Bureau to bear that child? I can tell by looking at you that your genome is suspect.”

Gil Thorp, 8/25/10

Gil Thorp has managed to find something duller than golf in real life or golf on TV: golf in the comics. Yes, I know we’ve been talking about golf in the strip all summer, but the last few … days, I guess (it seems like years) have been taken up by an actual single golf game. It’s been so boring that Torrey is well aware that most of the readership has dozed off, and is attempting to poke them to wake them up in the first panel. The person I really feel for is the behatted multi-chinned dude in the first panel. You can tell he’s all excited about his big Gil Thorp cameo! Wore his best Hawaiian shirt and everything! Too bad it’s in such a snooze-inducing strip.

Mary Worth, 8/25/10

Why is Mike surrounded by a halo of distress in panel two? Does he fear that his father is going to die of massive liver failure right there in front of him, and he’ll be responsible for disposing of the gin-soaked body? Or is he disgusted that the old man is satisfied to go to his grave without having tracked down Richie’s killer, thus becoming a failure at officially everything?

Pluggers, 8/25/10

Pluggers know that the chances of their working up the energy to have sex with one another will be improved if they can’t see each other.

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Dennis the Menace, 7/31/10

I suppose that it’s mildly menacing that Dennis refuses to join any sort of square, organized group like the Boy Scouts. More menacing still is Mr. Wilson’s even grumpier than usual expression. Now revealed to be the leader of a uniformed paramilitary organization, he plots to use his army of children to purge the neighborhood of “undesirable elements” (i.e., the Mitchells), once and for all.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/31/10

This strip is like a “Goofus and Gallant” cartoon explaining how to be on the down low. INCORRECT WAY TO DEAL WITH THE AFTERMATH OF A DRUNKEN 3 A.M. BOOTY CALL: “That phone call I made last night, that never happened, right? Eh?” CORRECT WAY: Pushing it deep, down into your unconscious mind, so that even you can’t remember it, except in your dreams.

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Dick Tracy, 7/21/10

Never let it be said that Dick Tracy phones it in. You could have been excused for thinking that Saturday’s strip was a the finale of the latest rambling, baffling plot that couldn’t be forced into some sort of coherent shape no matter how hard you tried; however, we’re clearly going to spend all of this week with the characters doing a half-assed attempt to explain it further, to no avail. Plus, that callous disregard for human life or dignity is the strip’s trademarked value-add. Yeah, Anja Nu, what a loser! Winners don’t get die in terror as they get cut in half by an airplane, am I right, people?

Dennis the Menace, 7/21/10

Well, if we can have Eli Roth-style torture porn in Crock, I suppose David Cronenberg-style biological anxiety in Dennis the Menace is fine. Watch in queasy fascination as Dennis crawls down an unwilling Mr. Wilson’s esophagus, discovering all manner of slimy, pulsating horrors within.

Gil Thorp, 7/21/10

Whoops, it turns out that Torrey Pines and Kemper Lakes are real-life golf courses, not made-up gated communities. It looks like my family was right and my aggressive refusal to learn anything about golf has come back to haunt me after all!

Meanwhile, this mustachioed golf impresario’s angry reaction to a “hronk” intrigues me. I’m not sure what a hronk is, but since to my knowledge “hr” sounds are generally restricted to Slavic languages, I think we’re all going to learn a valuable lesson about how wrong-headed it is to discriminate against Eastern Europeans. Will newspapers print racially charged but dramatically necessary dialog like “Get off of my golf course, you filthy bohunks”?

Beetle Bailey, 7/21/10

Ha ha, General Halftrack can’t smoke his cigars if he’s dead!