Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 5/29/24

One of the great dilemmas of transport is that the more mass you need to move, the more energy you need to move it, which means you need more fuel, but fuel itself adds mass. At sea, or in space, when you have to take all your fuel with you when you depart on your journey, the mass of that fuel can be a real limiting factor in terms of how you far you can go — but on the other hand, you have to figure into your calculations that in most scenarios, you burn off fuel as you use it, so the mass of your vessel actually goes down over time. Anyway, one of the human beings who serve as fuel for Hagar’s boat, which is burdened by the extra mass of the extra rowers being towed behind it, can’t row anymore, due to his injury. It would make things easier for the uninjured rowers if the overall mass they were propelling were lower. You see where I’m going with this.

Mary Worth, 5/29/24

Sorry if this is rude to say, but Wilbur doesn’t look that bad here, certainly not bad enough to inspire Mary’s look of wild-eyed panic. Oh, he’s got some stubble and he’s in his robe? Maybe looks a little sad? I 100% guarantee that the Chartertsone condo board has received angry emails about worse, much worse, when Wilbur takes one of his spontaneous constitutionals around the grounds or simply forgets to close his curtains.

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/24

This strip is just brutally real. Mr. Wilson has a loving wife, a generous U.S. Postal Service pension, and a bucolic home in the suburbs. This really is his best life! And he fucking hates it! Because of Dennis! Grim stuff.

Post Content

Between Friends, 5/24/24

For my sins, I must occasionally fulfill my oath and keep you up to date on the Between Friends gals, so: the dark-haired Between Friends gal is working temporarily in Paris, and has a flirty relationship with her boss Benoit and a weirdly antagonistic relationship with her coworker Louise, and today we’re finding out why. I bring all this up because, maybe I’m crazy, but I find the phrasing in panel two here very weird? Like: do I think your wife’s sister’s daughter is your niece? Absolutely. Would I still call her your niece if you and your wife got divorced? More of a grey area, but I still think of my dad’s brother’s ex-wife, who I’m friends with on Facebook, as my aunt, and they’ve been divorced for 20 years, so it’s not unreasonable. But the formulation “his niece on his ex-wife’s side!” just seems deranged and unnatural to me. Do we have nieces and nephews on … sides? I am imagining her co-worker here saying it in a really heavy French accent and then explaining what he thinks it means. “‘Niece’ is what you say in English for a woman you’re sleeping with who isn’t your wife, non? And ‘on your wife’s side’ means your wife knows about it? My English is, how you say, not so good.”

Dennis the Menace, 5/24/24

I honestly love the vibe Dennis is giving off here. He genuinely is being good, just calmly sitting on the chair and reading a book, like he’s been doing for the last three days, and it sucks! It sucks ass and he hates it! He’s doing it because he has to but he will never like it.

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 5/17/24

OK, see, I get that Assistant Mayor Elbert Imeswine was the villain of the “Electric Acres” arc, but he doesn’t seem to be based on any particular real-life person and was dispatched without ever having been very threatening. But still, the way he haunts Walt’s dreams as this truly vile vampire pig caricature implies a level of vitriol held by the very artist who created him that I honestly find puzzling. This looks like the way you’d draw a local politician you were in the midst of a decade-long feud with if you were the political cartoonist on the staff of the local paper, or the way you’d draw a representation of some ethnic group that you were extremely racist against.

Dennis the Menace, 5/17/24

Normally, I’m fine with Dennis the Menace’s weird quirk where they think a tuxedo is normal workware at Henry’s engineering (?) job. But today it actively detracts from the joke, which is about how Dennis thinks his spirit will remain free forever despite arbitrary punishments, but eventually he’ll be chained to a eight-hour day and a paycheck, just like his father. This would work better if he were wearing normal business casual or even a suit, but in this getup, he looks like he’s coming home from his job as a butler or as James Bond, either of which would have a different vibe to it in my opinion.