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Archive: Dennis the Menace

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Summer should either be a lot more horrified or a lot more excited in my opinion

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Mary Worth, 12/2/22

Now, I’m just a simple country blogger, not a fancy math wizard, but if I’m counting right, Nan is around 12ish years older than Zak, whereas Iris, who has noted that Zak is Tommy’s age, is closer to 20 years her beau’s senior. We may be on the verge of a spectacle in which a woman feels threatened by the youth and vitality of her fiance’s former babysitter, which is a truly amazing sentece to write about an ostensibly dull comic strip like Mary Worth. And where is Tommy’s actual mother in all this Oedipal jockeying? I assume she was absent, both physically and emotionally, during his childhood, so if she bothers to show up for the wedding, things could get even more weird and fraught, which is how I like my newspaper soap opera comic strips.

Dennis the Menace, 12/2/22

I kind of enjoy the fact that we’re getting this limp gag as Alice gets Dennis dressed up in an adorable little suit and tie, even though their conversation is about a different topic entirely. Like, we know they’re heading for a fancy dinner with Henry’s coworkers where Dennis is going to blurt out something to the effect of “My dad says you’re a drunk,” but until then we’re going to kill time with a little Family Circus style darndest things saying, just as a warmup.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/2/22

Wow, it turns out that the book Summer is going to write will lead to a future where our allegiances to individual nation-states are replaced by a worldwide algorithm-driven form of governance. Sounds dystopian, sure, but probably all memory of Lisa’s Story has been purged from humanity’s collective consciousness, because Summer’s book is the Only Book that the drones of the 22nd century will need, so maybe we shouldn’t be too hasty in judging this new age.

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Look, people NEED TO KNOW about this local mattress store, OK

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Gil Thorp, 11/25/22

Gil has dug some old game tape out of a box to give us the supervillain origin story of his hated coaching rival, and the truly shocking information we learn is that (a) back in 1987 ,Marty Moon had a Fu Manchu mustache, and (b) back in 1987, football broadcasts used to just cut to commercial in the middle of some of the most exciting plays in the game.

Dennis the Menace, 11/25/22

Dennis’s grandfather always looks smug, but he’s really turned it up a notch here. “That’s right, George,” he’s thinking, “You have to put up with this little brat’s bullshit 24/7, and I get to come visit occasionally, get all the credit and affection, then fly back to my ‘active seniors’ community in Palm Springs just in time for the weekly key party. Suck it, loser!”

Dustin, 11/25/22

Dustin’s pal Fitch hasn’t really had much of a personality developed other than “is dumb,” so it’s quite striking to learn today that he’s a problem drinker with a great deal of self-loathing about it. Fitch, I hope you draw comfort in knowing that all of us have our struggles! For instance, I experience quite a bit of self-loathing because I’m able to remember the names of secondary Dustin characters without looking them up.

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They can’t all be highbrow, folks

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Gasoline Alley, 11/18/22

Big Good Some news, everybody: Rufus has managed to use his sexual wiles to help Walt make his big dream of hanging off the back of a garbage truck come true. The Sanitation Department will definitely get some good publicity out of this, unless Walt falls off and terribly injures himself, which is actually a pretty likely scenario. I mean, that’s why they banned sanitation workers from doing this in the first place, and none of those guys are supercentenarian World War I vets. In that case, the publicity will end up being pretty bad: lawsuits from the family, Denzel Washington giving a press conference disavowing knowledge of or participation in this stunt, etc.

Marvin and Dennis the Menace, 11/18/22

I find comics where the punchline is “Ha ha, lady can’t cook even though cooking is lady’s job” fairly distasteful, and have come to conclusion that I like the ones where it’s the lady’s son slagging on her cooking even worse than the ones where it’s her husband doing it. That seems a bit unfair, since a grown man could easily cook for himself and a little kid couldn’t, but you have remember that these jokes are written by and for grown men, which make the mommy issues tied up in them all the more distressingly apparent.

Gil Thorp, 11/18/22

There’s something funny to me about how “wet” is emphasized unnaturally here. “I heard you still wet the bed. Whereas me? I dry the bed. That’s what I call it when I make a real cakey poop when I’m sleeping.”