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Gil Thorp, 2/8/23

Oh, hey, remember Emmett Tays, the former Milford football player who presented Gil with his major award and told a fun story about how he and Gil bonded over their abusive parents? Well, he’s received his compensation for leading the Gil-adulation, in the form of a assistant coaching job that pays, on the orders of Dr. Pearl, half of what our dearly departed Coach Kaz was getting, which definitely won’t eventually give rise to a discrimination lawsuit of any kind.

Judge Parker, 2/8/23

Look, I don’t participate in the pill-popping lifestyle so I’m unfamiliar with its folkways, but I have to think it doesn’t actually involve just shaking a prescription bottle in the general direction of your mouth and hoping the tiny, delicious pills end up in there, or at least within tongue range. Even Tommy from Mary Worth is smart enough to know that you put the pills in your hand first, and Tommy is not smart at all.

Dennis the Menace, 2/8/23

Dennis, unaware of the many baroque ways in which the human body can beging to malfunction as it ages, is about to learn that there will come a time when he won’t be able to poop, even if he wants to. Truly, the menace has become the menaced today.

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Dennis the Menace, 1/29/23

True story: when I saw today’s Dennis the Menace title panel, my immediate thought was “Ha ha, surely this isn’t lovable scamp Dennis the Menace actually digging a grave, this is just illustrating a play on words like they sometimes do.” But, nope, turns out he is, in fact, digging a grave, and I gotta say, as far as comics about children digging graves go, this one, which is about a kid preparing a decent burial for the littlest member of his household, even when nobody else in his family will, contains as little menace as possible.

Gasoline Alley, 1/29/23

Have you ever wondered where, exactly, the syndicated newspaper comic strip Gasoline Alley takes place? Well, today’s strip doesn’t answer the question, exactly, but it does eliminate a lot of possibilities, mostly the area where people use dialect terms that can be spun into “fun facts.” Also it’s someplace where animals can talk, I guess.

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Family Circus, 1/27/23

One thing that’s always pleasant in reading a longstanding feature like the Family Circus is a sense of real surprise! Normally, for instance, you’d expect Grandma Keane to be scandalized by how poorly the local public school is teaching her grandchildren to love the American flag, and, by extension, the republic for which it stands, but here she seems positively delighted that Dolly can’t tell the difference between a patriotic oath and a jingle created by a megacorporation to promote processed beef purchases. “That’s right dear,” she says, “American ideology is a hollow shell! Finally, you’re starting to recognize it!”

Dennis the Menace, 1/27/23

Oh, sorry, I guess I called this post “One-panel Friday” even though Dennis the Menace is trying to wedge multiple panels into its traditional one-panel structure, which I frankly don’t care for. They’re even jamming a word balloon in there, jeez! What do you think you are, Blondie? Anyway, it’s kind of funny — and frankly telling — that Mrs. Wilson was planning on casually going out and dropping three to four figures on a major piece of living room furniture without even asking her husband what he thinks. But I guess the second (sigh) panel proves that he cares about one thing and one thing only: his eternal war against Dennis Mitchell. Her facial expression shows that she’s not looking forward to the awkward and embarrassing conversation with a furniture salesman about a seven-year-old that she’s going to have to listen to.