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Blondie, 8/8/22

The non-Dagwood, non-Herb members of Dagwood’s carpool are named “Dwitzell” and “Claudia,” and any and all attempts to give them inner or indeed outer lives have failed to stick with me, but I do like that Claudia is on the record as not liking the phrase “hot enough for you.” Yes, it’s hot, but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to such vile cliches! To me, she has now become by far the most sympathetic character in the comic strip Blondie, which was actually pretty easy because I honestly couldn’t tell you which if any of the other characters I found particularly sympathetic.

Dennis the Menace, 8/8/22

Dennis is trying a real baller menace move here: to destroy Mr. Wilson emotionally by offering up himself — his neighbor’s most hated nemesis — as a substitute for the grandchildren the Wilsons never had. It’s a swing and a miss, though. George Wilson has never felt affection for another human being and never will! You’re the one who’s shown weakness here today, Dennis, and you will live to regret it!

Beetle Bailey, 8/8/22

OH MY GOD EVEN DOGS ARE STEALING VALOR NOW, WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY COME TO

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Dennis the Menace, 7/29/22

The punchline here is just supposed to be “ha ha Dennis is dumb/a child” but the arrangement of pieces on the board seems to indicate he and Mr. Wilson are pretty deep into this game considering Dennis is, what, five? Six? Maybe the comment is meant to indicate that Mr. Wilson can’t keep up with Dennis’s keen chess mastery, and Dennis is actually going to soon graduate from thrashing his elderly neighbors and move on to the high-stakes world of competitive chess, which, if the drama depicted in the The Queen’s Gambit, now streaming on Netflix, is any guide, would actually be a fairly menacing move on his part.

Dick Tracy, 7/29/22

Definitely one thing that doesn’t trigger my suspicions at all is when I am a stranger in an unusual community and a comely local lass I’ve just met offers to be my guide in showing me a mysteriously named local monument. I would fully expect to arrive at this “Fountain” and not be asked to participate in a ritual that nobody will tell me any details about, and if by chance I were asked, I feel confident that I could simply decline and receive no pushback about it. This evening is going to go great for Dick!

Hi and Lois, 7/29/22

Oh, stop whining, you two, if you want to court death to feel alive just do drugs like normal people

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Mary Worth, 7/24/22

I am currently reading The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), which I highly recommend if you want a more-or-less accessible intro to not just the end of the universe but the current state of scientific consensus on big-picture cosmology stuff. One of the parts that I find hardest to get my head around is what it means to say “the universe is expanding,” which it is, and if I’m understanding things right this doesn’t just mean that individual stellar objects are continuing to move outward from the Big Bang origin point into the void, but that the fabric of spacetime itself is in some sense spreading out.

Weirdly, I might’ve just gotten a little insight into this from today’s Mary Worth. Throughout this Jared-Dawn horrorshow, there’s been some discourse on this blog as to whether Jared or Dawn has the greater claim to be the wronged party and/or history’s greatest monster. But only today — in which we learn that Jared can never truly commit to Jess by smooching her until his ex, whom he dumped, agrees to be friends with him, and this will become the central engine of the remainder of the drama here — did I realize that it’s actually the narrative fabric of the universe they inhabit itself that’s at fault here. This takes a real load off my mind, honestly! Jared and Dawn can no more stop sucking than distant galaxies can stop hurtling away from us into infinite space (which they probably can’t, since according to the book most people now no longer believe in the Big Crunch hypothesis).

Slylock Fox, 7/24/22

Ahh, isn’t this a pleasant rooftop scene! Everyone enjoying snacks and beverages, Slylock flirting the only way he knows how (by posing elementary logic puzzles, a little too eagerly), and … what’s this? Notorious sad drunk McGruff the Crime Dog, just sitting there silently watching the proceedings? Has he been invited to the gathering out of pity, or did he just stumble up to the rooftop for a weekend suicide attempt and decided to act casual about it?

Dennis the Menace, 7/24/22

I’m just gonna say it, Dennis: that isn’t a very good question at all. Do better next time.