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Dennis the Menace, 10/27/24

The Sunday Dennis the Menace strips always come with a title in the first panel, and usually it offers little pun or light wordplay, but today it’s just … “Dracula”? Dracula, the name of the vampire Dennis wants to be for Halloween. Or at least it is for the first few panels, after which he kind of loses interest. I guess he does pivot to wanting to be a boss … the vampire who sucks the blood out of the working class! Ha ha, just kidding, Dennis’s mother doesn’t even participate in the wage economy. He just wants to tell her what to do, because he’s kind of an asshole, but it’s not a class struggle thing, honestly more primal and Freudian. Hmm, maybe the vampire metaphor could work after all. I’m going to workshop this and get back to you.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/27/24

I like the idea that Hootin’ Holler is so impoverished that creating unique outfits that would only serve as a costume would be a profligate waste of resources, so on Halloween “Hallerween” the inhabitants simply wear each other’s clothes to celebrate the spooky season. Anyway, I’m not sure if Snuffy is using “borrowed” euphemistically here; if he isn’t, it probably means Granny Creeps is walking around right now in Snuffy’s comically tiny overalls, and if it is, her stripped body is lying face down in a creek somewhere nearby, which is slightly but measurably worse.

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Dick Tracy, 10/17/24

One of the subtler conundrums created by the “comic-book time” phenomenon is the question of how the characters themselves experience it. Like, is Dick Tracy a guy in his late 40s or early 50s who’s been battling weird deformed gangsters for a couple decades? Or did he, like the comic that bears his name, come into existence in 1938, meaning that he’s been at this longer than most of us have been alive, and he’s tired, so tired, of these weirdos’ whole deal? His attitude in today’s strip really suggests the latter. “Oh, what’s that, is there a new hitman in town? A real freak with a mirror for a face who calls himself Mr. Mirror? Should I get excited? Scared? Should I even bother pulling my gun out of my pocket? No, go ahead and answer that call, I can wait.”

Dennis the Menace, 10/17/24

There’s a lot that bugs me about the characterization of Margaret in Dennis the Menace, but a big one is that they need to decide which misogynist stereotype she is exactly. Is she a prissy, humorless, controlling know-it-all and shrew? Or is she empty-headed, vapid, and vain? I feel she veers wildly from lane to lane and they need to pick one.

Hi and Lois, 10/17/24

Ha ha, yes, the teens! The teens are the ones with the phone problem! Definitely not me, a 50-year-old man, or adults younger than me, or adults older than me! None of us have unhealthy relationships with our devices, and definitely social gatherings of mature adults feature exactly as much staring at small screens with varying degrees of surreptitiousness as they did 15 years ago! It’s the teens, I tell ya, the teens!

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Gasoline Alley, 10/15/24

Wow, I guess I see why Sophie has a different teacher than the other two girls! I’ve been trying pretty hard to avoid learning any specific details about these nightmare children, but now we know specifically which two are the “smart ones” (hint: not Sophie).

Dennis the Menace, 10/15/24

Just showing us Dennis and Mrs. Wilson reacting to a picture we can’t see? What a tease! WE DEMAND THE HOT MR. WILSON PIC, SHOW IT TO US AT ONCE

Shoe, 10/15/24

“I wonder if a tiger ate him?”