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Dennis the Menace and The Family Circus, 4/15/22

Oh, man, this is it. This is the nadir. The Keane Kids have ruined their parents’ outing to an art museum, Dolly and Jeffy are consumed with self-loathing, Billy is actively furious at the family’s attempt to to expand their cultural horizons. Meanwhile, what’s going on with Dennis? He’s weeping because he stubbed his toe and now his mom is offering to pray for him? Honestly, what the fuck. That is so much less menacing than the Family Circus that the menace levels could not be detected by the most carefully calibrated instruments menace science has to offer. For shame, for shame!

Mary Worth, 4/15/22

Sadly, this whole week has been taken up not by more hilarious dream sequence action but by Toby telling Mary about her little Cal problem in judiciously elliptical detail, which has been significantly less fun. I do like today’s strip, though, as it implies that Ian cares less about Toby’s romantic fidelity than he does about her ability to “handle” sticky situations, which I assume means that either Helen or Cal — or possibly both — will be dead by the end of the week.

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Dennis the Menace, 4/9/22

If, like me, you have persisted in the stubborn belief against all evidence that the point of Dennis the Menace is that Dennis is a little shit who’s either too mean or too dumb to play by society’s rules, then today’s panel is perfection. I genuinely love everyone’s facial expressions here, which are less comical “Ha ha, that’s our Dennis” and more “Oh fuck oh fuck this little kid ruined a wedding, who even invited him?”

Mary Worth, 4/9/22

Ahh, at last, we’re getting to the true heart of Toby’s discomfort. She managed to snag a drunk old husband who can barely tolerate her and certainly wouldn’t want to have to interact with a child in his own home on a regular basis, which means she’s been given permission to opt out of motherhood. But if she gave in to her forbidden desires for young buck Cal, would he someday seek to sire offspring with her? And, more importantly, would he try to do it in a tree, like a common bird?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/9/22

“No one can know the truth about my mission to raise my arm over shoulder height. This goes against everything the good doctor told me to do, but the stakes are just too high!”

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Shoe, 3/30/22

The thing about Shoe is that the bird-people have varying character designs that involve varying amounts of clothing. Some are fully clothed; some, like Shoe himself, are naked; and others, like the Perfesser, are only naked from the waist down. This is, honestly, fine, because they’re bird-people and it really doesn’t matter how naked they are, but it becomes much worse when you learn the Perfesser used to wear pants but then he got too big for them and instead of buying a different size he just stopped. Can you imagine if people did this? These birds are lucky they’re birds!

Dennis the Menace, 3/30/22

Dennis is the Chosen One of our omnipotent God, and He will support and defend Dennis no matter what, even if his behavior is so beyond the pale that his friends all reject him. Menace level: infinite.

Gasoline Alley, 3/30/22

Trying to think of a response to “Where have you two been” that’s creepier than “In our skin.” “You know, we’ve just been in here with all the blood and organs sloshing around. That’s all we are, really! Just a bunch of meat in a thin wrapper. What’ve you been up to?”

Pluggers, 3/30/22

Not sure if the normally happy go lucky readers of Pluggers are ready for today’s strip, which delivers the tough news that the plugger-wives are now BARREN