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Dennis the Menace, 1/25/07

I’ve remarked earlier that Joey’s main purpose in life seems to be to make Dennis look like a bad-ass by comparison; as Dennis has grown increasingly cuddlier, so Joey is forced to become ever more innocuous. It seems that his level of friendly harmlessness has reached a point that is dangerous to his physical and emotional health. I’m not sure if Joey is supposed to be weeping openly because of some perceived slight from one of his thicker-skinned friends, or if he’s just covering his eyes in a sad and desperate attempt to cut off all external stimuli (because if he can’t perceive the actions of others, he can’t have his feelings hurt!), but I’m worried about the guy.

Speaking of breaking easy, those freakishly thin bird-like legs look like they’d snap like twigs if you looked at them wrong. Or maybe his legs are long gone and those are second-rate prostheses made from broom handles.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/07

There’s nothing particularly exciting or ground-breaking about today’s Gil Thorp, but it seem to really exude the vibe that makes me love it so. There’s ex-hobo Ted Pearse in his groovy thrift-store vintage shirt; there’s the weirdo taunt that no teenager would ever utter, ever; there’s the slow-burn reaction to same on the part of the one of the dimmer characters; there’s the typical use of “the Bucket” as part of a barely veiled sexual euphemism; and there’s lots of very oddly drawn hair and foreheads. Pure bliss.

Garfield, 1/25/07

Oh, hell no. Bucky’s innocent and wholly accidental marijuana legalization campaign gets censored across the country, and this filth gets a pass? There ain’t no justice.

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Slylock Fox, 1/22/07

This little scene immediately brought to mind a quote I’ve always liked, from A.W. Brian Simpson’s Cannibalism and the Common Law:

Leading cases are the very stuff of which the common law is made, and no leading case in the common law is better known than that of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens. It was decided in 1884 by a court in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. In it, two profoundly respectable seamen, Captain Tom Dudley and Mate Edwin Stephens, lately of the yacht Mignonette, were sentenced to death for the murder of their shipmate, Ordinary Seaman Richard Parker, after a bench of five judges had ruled that one must not kill one’s shipmates in order to eat them, however hungry one might be.

Fortunately for Slylock, who’s grinning a grin here that’s a little too sly, as a non-human animal his conduct is governed not by the common law, but by the Law of Nature. Max will make a tasty little snack to take the edge off until the raft washes up on the west coast of New Zealand, where our vulpine detective will use his powers of elementary deduction to solve long-running land disputes between the government and the Maori before dining on the native fauna, which is completely unadapted to mid-sized predators.

Also beyond the Queen’s justice in this vignette is that crafty bottle-stealing octopus. I will say again that Slylock Fox has some of the best incidental details of any strip out there.

Dick Tracy, 1/22/07

So the Tracys seem to think that kicking a little cash at some Alzheimer’s researchers will somehow atone for the monstrous crime of erasing a man’s mind. Note, however, the “Inc.” in the address. That’s no high-minded government research lab, it’s a for-profit pharmaceutical firm — probably a shell company in which GlaxoSmithKline owns a controlling interest. Dick and Tess will no doubt be seeing a generous return from that generous thing she did.

Elsewhere, some dude plans to break into a jewelry store with a crowbar, in a totally interesting criminal act that will surely demand the attention of the world’s greatest, most techno-enabled detective.

Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 1/22/07

Jeffy’s blatant assault on his mother yesterday was apparently just the beginning; today, she must bribe him with food to stave off another barrage, a strategy that will last only until his little tummy is filled up. Meanwhile, the snowball offensive has spread to Dennis the Menace as well. Mrs. Wilson looks fairly shocked by Dennis’ naked aggression; no doubt years of sub-par menacing have lulled her into complacency.

If all the children in the comics pages rose up senselessly and violently against the adults, like the birds in The Birds, I for one would be a happy guy. I’m sure Elmo has a lot of aggression he needs to work out against Dagwood.

Apartment 3-G, 1/22/07

Lu Ann needs to make nice with her ghost, so she’s brought in … her incredible psychic microwave! Good lord, she’s even dumber than I thought.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/9/07

Apartment 3-G ought by right to serve at least a little bit as an anthropological survey of life and mores of various types in New York City. 99 percent of the time it’s laughably off-target, but every once in a while it hits the mark. Margo is exactly the sort of yuppie wannabe who would make this sort of snarky, dismissive comment about New York’s superabundance of artist wannabes, and has exactly the sort of defective empathy gene to make it in front of her roommate and supposed friend, an aspiring artist.

Lu Ann, meanwhile, has one of the thinnest books of art history I’ve ever seen. Presumably that’s all the information her little brain can hold. I guess that helpful, horny librarian ended up taking her to the children’s section, which may explain why that relationship went nowhere.

Gil Thorp, 1/9/07

Note to Gil Thorp and Comics Curmudgeon readers: Please, please stop making fun of the art in this strip, because you’ll only goad the artists into perpetrating more unsettling attempts at photorealism like panel three here. I guess the point is supposed to be that Helen is making this daring investigative phone call in the dark because that’s, you know, more dramatic.

Rick Bozich is right, by the way: nobody cares about no-bid contracts, especially when the contracts involved are for IT services to a no-account exurban school district, as they are here. Presumably the Man and/or lack of public interest will force the Star to kill Helen’s exposé, and she’ll have to resort to the ultimate indignity: turning to the world of blogs. Her spiritual brother, that crusading journalist known only as HALIBURTON $UCKS, was forced down the same path.

Dennis the Menace, 1/8/09

I think that about fifteen years from now, we’ll find out [INNUENDO-LADEN JOKE ABOUT A “MARGARET SANDWICH” REDACTED DUE TO EXTREMELY POOR TASTE] hey, is Dennis drinking Metamucil?