Post Content

Crankshaft, 3/18/21

Oh, it turns out that this strip was setting up a Christopher Nolan-style chronologically disjointed narrative in this week’s Crankshaft, where each strip pushes back further into the past to peel open another layer of the story. How do I feel about this bold storytelling experiment, you may ask? Well, it’s ending (beginning?) with Crankshaft in significant physical pain, so I’m feeling pretty good about it, actually.

Mark Trail, 3/18/21

The finally-wrapped-up initial New Model Mark Trail storyline established that there are multiple generations of Mark Trials (Marks Trail?), which I guess raises the question of which of the strip’s adventures had which generation Trail as the protagonist? Well, it turns out the rerun we got right before the reboot, where Mark refused to attend an industry awards ceremony to tend to his sick dog but ended up winning anyway, was totally this guy. Maybe if he had shown up in person he would’ve gotten the real award, crafted from the finest pewter crystal, rather than the cheap lightweight glass version they sent him to save on shipping costs.

Dennis the Menace, 3/18/21

The true menace here is that, no doubt by some combination of threats and endless whining, Dennis has convinced his parents to serve bloody, raw hamburger for dinner tonight. What’s the matter, Henry and Alice? Not hungry? You’ve barely touched your plates!

Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 3/7/21

Look, I’m not going to say I’m a fan of Dennis the Menace, the character, exactly, but I also don’t think he should be muscled out of his own strip by Mr. Wilson, of all people, and relegated to a ghostly Barney Google-style existence. At least the Mr. Wilson-focused strip from a couple weeks ago featured our man George seething with rage about Dennis even though the lad himself was absent. In today’s strip, he’s just making a sandwich to irritate his wife, and I fear some line has been crossed.

Family Circus, 3/7/21

Not sure what I find more unnerving about this comic: the beginning of the sequence, where PJ floats as a pre-born soul on a heavenly cloud, or the end, where we learn that adults are shadowy figures forever imprisoned in some kind of internment camp called “Grownup-Land.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/7/21

God, I have waited for years for sinister, scheming Sarah to come back, and I am very much looking forward to our next plot, Sarah Faxes The Medical Board Some Financial Records They Might Be Very Interested In Seeing.

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 3/3/21

I am at this point very obviously committed to my specific bit, which is that I comment on every day’s comics right after I read them, having no idea what the future holds for that strip, in order to replicate this website’s origin story, which is that I would make jokes about the comics to my wife every morning over breakfast until she told me to make a blog about it. But sometimes doing things that way means I miss slow-burn developments in the comics. Like, take for instance, Gasoline Alley. Today’s strip involves a man returning a pair of glasses to a woman after they accidentally fell into his shopping basket at the supermarket. Ah, you’re probably thinking, this is the beginning of a romantic meet-cute! In fact, this is latest “twist” in grueling storyline about this lady losing her glasses while shopping that’s been going on for three weeks, and in a sense I’m sorry I haven’t been bringing it to you blow by wildly undramatic blow. Go back and read the last month or so, if you think your heart can handle it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/3/21

Wow, looks like Rex is going to have to add another entry to his list of “Seemingly anodyne phrases meant that are meant just to fill time but actually end up unpleasantly extending a conversation.” This one is going to result in him having to talk to a second person, so it gets a little red star next to it.

Dennis the Menace, 3/3/21

I’m a big fan of Mr. Wilson’s completely gobsmacked facial expression here. “Did he just try to eat that coin? Is he that stupid? Is my nemesis that stupid? And what does that say about me?”

Funky Winkerbean, 3/3/21

Les isn’t just history’s greatest caregiver; he also watches sports in the correct way, for virtuous reasons, unlike you, you filthy, depraved animal.