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Hagar the Horrible, 6/13/23

Look, it’s fun when I do jokes about how Hagar the Horrible, as a Viking warrior chieftain, would realistically be responsible for an endless list of violent horrors perpetrated as he and his band pillage their way across the North Atlantic. But when the strip itself explicitly does a joke that makes it clear that Hagar’s own clothes are canonically drenched in the blood of the Anglo-Saxon soldiers, villagers, and monks who stood in the way of his rapacious greed, I have to say I find it a little off-putting.

Dennis the Menace, 6/13/23

OK, today’s Dennis the Menace gets ten points for acknowledging that even someone of Mr. Wilson’s advanced age is fairly likely to have been using computers for decades now. However, I must subtract several thousand points for the ongoing attempt to turn Dennis the Menace into Mr. Wilson’s Technological Gripes, which, no matter how ambivalent my opinion about Dennis and his menacing quality might be, I feel honor-bound to resist at all costs.

Dustin, 6/13/23

Do you think that the members of Dustin’s family are emotionally stunted nightmare people because they never receive any affection from one another? Or do they all (correctly) perceive each other as unlovable, emotionally stunted nightmare people and that’s why they never express any affection? Discuss.

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Dennis the Menace, 6/4/23

Part of my whole shtick on this blog is making fun of comics that just do the same jokes over and over, which itself has become repetitive, so I guess I should cautiously give Dennis the Menace credit for trying something new today, though I’m not sure if having an ill-tempered little spat with a kid on an opposing baseball team really counts as “menacing.” Honestly it’s a lot more menacing that CJ’s dog and father-coach just kind of manifest themselves out of thin air on second base in the middle of play. Also, are we supposed to take from the final panel that Dennis’s team is being coached by Henry? If so, I think it’s a funny choice to not even show him, so we can imagine him looking genuinely hurt and saying “Hey, CJ, hey … that’s not cool, man. Come on.”

Marvin, 6/4/23

Similarly, I’ll give Marvin credit from taking a day from its primary obsession (pooping) and instead dwelling on a secondary obsession (the “family” in Marvin & Family is a complex web of relationships, many of which border on outright hatred).

Dick Tracy, 6/4/23

Sprocket Nitrate was introduced in this strip way back in 2014, and her shoelessness was part of her whole deal as a dirty hippie. That was a long time ago, and now it’s the year 2023, when you can absolutely just put things in the comics pages for people who like foot stuff, so now she’s cleaned up her act a bit and being barefoot is itself her whole deal, as we’ll be shown in multiple panels per strip. Anyway, I’m glad that today’s strip also caters to my particular sicko fetish (clean, efficient intercity passenger rail travel).

Six Chix, 6/4/23

I gotta say, in the category of truly deranged Six Chix strips, this is one that I liked. That lady’s friend succumbed to Birkenstocks! She succumbed to Birkenstocks and she fuckin’ died, it’s very funny to me.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/29/23

You might think that the inhabitants of Hootin’ Holler would object to the fact their only clergyman is a grifter and fraud. But in truth, for these rural folk, the niceties of organized religion are of little interest, as their spiritual world is dominated by essentially pagan beliefs in signs given by nature and the practice of folk magic.

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/23

That’s not to give followers of monotheistic creeds too much credit, of course; many, like Dennis, will menace generations of sophisticated theologians by simply treating God as a source of apotropaic power, a shortcut to get out of a bind rather than a mystery to contemplate.

Blondie, 5/29/23

Speaking of mysteries, do you think Dagwood has lied to these kids and told him that he’s a combat veteran, so they’re leaving him alone to give him time to contemplate his fallen comrades? Or is their attitude just something like “Well, I guess he respects the troops, so we won’t fuck with him and make his life miserable … today, anyway.”

Shoe, 5/29/23

CONFIRMED: traitors to birdkind in the Shoe universe are punished by ritual execution and cannibalism.