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Hagar the Horrible, 2/5/25

Hagar is of course no friend of kings, so obviously this strip, where he appears to be halpertfacing to the reader while hanging out with his friend the king while the king waxes philosophical, is a bit confusing. A more likely interpretation of what we’re seeing: for once Hagar has decided to abandon his usual strategy of frontal assault on a targeted stronghold for stealth, the king thinks he’s alone and is just soliloquizing to nobody in particular, and Hagar is halpertfacing to the reader just before slitting the king’s throat and stealing his gold.

Dennis the Menace, 2/5/25

I can’t believe everyone is smiling at this terrible quip from Dennis. You should not be smiling about this! You should be very upset!

Pluggers, 2/5/25

Plugger torch passed from Boomers to Gen X: CONFIRMED

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Blondie, 2/4/25

Today is in fact “Thank A Mail Carrier Day,” or at least it is according to National Day Calendar Dot Com, and I’m sure that’s good enough for the fake-holiday-obsessed Blondie creative team so it’s good enough for me. Now, while I always think it’s polite to thank someone who provides you with a service, even if they are just doing their job, this does seem like a kind of silly holiday, but you will note that the National Day Calendar Dot Com link provided above describes the event as National Thank A Mail Carrier Day, not Your Mail Carrier Day, which probably reflects the fact that most of us do not interact with our mail carrier on a regular basis, and many routes don’t have the same carrier every day, or may have different carriers delivering letters and packages at different times. Certainly most of us don’t have a consistent mail carrier who somehow manages to get there during a time when a 9 to 5 office worker would be home, and who hands us our mail personally and hangs around to shoot the shit a little bit instead of just putting the letters in the easily accessible mailbox and being on their way. Dagwood should be thanking him!

Dustin, 2/4/25

Dustin (the comic strip) is about the eternal struggle between dipshit son and asshole dad, and I reserve the bulk of my ire for the asshole dad, not because I deny Dustin’s dipshittery, but because the dad is usually depicted as the “correct” agonist in their conflict, when the true enlightened assessment is that they’re both wrong. Still, I’ve often found it unrealistic how quickly Dustin gets shot down in these anachronistic scenarios — like, he’s not hideous or anything and surely it takes a little while for his subpar personality to become obvious? But if he’s really leading with stuff like “I got my hair cut today,” then, yeah, I get it.

Dennis the Menace, 2/4/25

Oh no! Dennis has worked out for himself the idea of inelastic demand … truly one of the more menacing of economic laws!

Beetle Bailey, 2/4/25

I love how dead eyed everyone other than the visiting officer is in panel two. It’s like, yeah, there’s some wacky stuff going on here, but they’ve been dealing with it for like 70 years of strip time now and they’re pretty much over it. They’re not just “used to it”; frankly, they’re exhausted.

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Pluggers, 1/26/25

It’s interesting that the caption tells us that “pluggers know when they are ready for an upgrade” when the older dog-man very clearly does not know that it’s time for him to update his hearing aids. The implication casts him outside the bounds of the plugger community, which is chilling: is the age of the Boomer pluggers ending, and the era of Gen X pluggerdom, its hour come round at last, slouching towards the Pluggers HQ P.O. Box to be born? This new generation is represented by the younger dog man here, and yeah, I know these characters all have names, but I’ve been blogging about this damn strip for 18 years and I haven’t learned them yet and I’m simply not going to. I mean, let’s be real, that plugger dog-man is in his 50s, he’s got hearing aids, he’s annoyed by his elders, he’s me. That’s me there, the younger plugger dog-man. I don’t need to know his name. Anyway, I guess they’re out here in the snow because he’s going to put the older dog-man on an ice floe and then walk away.

Dennis the Menace, 1/26/25

I actually find today’s Dennis the Menace kind of charming — not, I feel I need to be clear after writing that last paragraph, because I find it relatable, I have no “plugger”-style problem in that department, thanks. I just like two specific panels: the one where Mr. Wilson emits one of his trademark beads of sweat as he announces the lack of bran cereal, as he is all too aware of the stakes here; and the one where Mrs. Wilson leans down to whisper “it keeps him moving” to Dennis, as if he has any idea what that’s supposed to mean. He’s five years old and not very bright, Martha! You gotta actually say the word “poop” if you expect him to follow what’s going on here!

Mary Worth, 1/26/25

Look, obviously Dirk is an asshole and a creep. But what about Jared, who took up his girlfriend’s idea about doing a photoshoot and immediately turned it into an opportunity for Star Wars cosplay? Isn’t that just as bad? No, obviously not. But it’s not good.