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Dennis the Menace, 11/4/22

I actually think it’s more or less fine to do a syndicated newspaper strip that takes place in some kind of permanent 1950s boomer childhood fantasy world, especially for legacy strips that were born in that era anyway. I do feel like if you’re going to have a 1950s housewife tending to a rascally little tyke in overalls who’s allowed to roam the suburban neighborhood freely with a slingshot, the price you pay is that you can’t have said tyke mouth off about “the supply chain” or whatever. It’s too stale to be actually topical but topical enough that Dennis definitely shouldn’t be talking about it, which puts it in an uncanny valley spot that’s ironically pretty menacing, just not the kind of menacing I like.

The Lockhorns, 11/4/22

Meanwhile, because I contain multitudes, I love it when The Lockhorns get vaguely contemporary. Leroy losing all his money in a crypto scam? Yes, yes I say, give me more of this. The Lockhorns are Millennials after all, so it adds up.

Dustin, 11/4/22

Speaking of topical matters, I did a piece in 2020 about the initial wave of the COVID pandemic and the comics, but didn’t broach the subject that maybe I should’ve: what if a comic character actually died of COVID? I think possibly the funniest possible way for Dustin to dramatically stop publishing would’ve been to have its unloved title character die of wild-type COVID in April 2020, unmourned by his family or his temp agency. Sadly, in late 2022, this is probably just a cold, or at worst an Omicron infection that he’s vaccinated against and will get over, but fingers crossed that he’s maybe got that mutant flu/RSV hybrid that’s going around and we’ll be freed from this strip’s nonsense.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/4/22

Very sad that Summer has chosen a book topic that will require her to interview all her dad’s insufferable old friends, but I suppose the big reveal that the town’s mailman was violating federal law and everyone’s privacy for decades will at least result in a flurry of local sales interest.

Shoe, 11/4/22

I love it when the TV announces that regular programming has been pre-empted for some undisclosed reason and also refuses to tell me what it’s been replaced by, a normal occurrence that happens in real life all the time. Anyway, do you think today’s strip falls into the distressingly frequent Shoe category of “It’s fucked up that they have birds doing this joke”? Discuss.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/26/22

I’ll admit it: I do a lot of bitching and moaning about all the “roots country” bullshit in Rex Morgan, M.D., and I appreciate the fact that the RMMD brain trust has clearly been working feverishly to come up with an angle that will turn my attitude about it around. Like, how about if the new roots country guy, Mud Mountain Murphy, is a cheerful giant of a man who looms over Buck in a vaguely menacing fashion and yells all the time? All I can say is: great job, guys, you nailed it, I am 100% on board with Mr. Murphy. You know I love a good upnose shot in this strip and now there’s a good excuse for one!

Dustin, 10/26/22

Most comics characters have fairly generic white collar jobs, and I always think specific things are funnier than generic things, so I appreciate it when a character gets a specific job instead, even if it isn’t central to the strip most of the time. Like, Curtis’s dad in Curtis works at the DMV, and even though you never see him at the office, his occasional gripes about work are always DMV-specific, which adds a fun texture to the strip. Dustin’s mom is a radio DJ, which is also promisingly specific, except it’s not at all clear what kind of station she works for or what her show is about, since all that ever seems to happen on it is people calling in with extremely half-baked setups to jokes that sometimes, as is the case today, don’t even merit punchlines. I said Sunday that Dustin is now 25% griping about petty annoyances by volume; it’s also at least 10% this, which is somehow even worse.

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Dustin, 10/23/22

The thing about Dustin is that it was originally sold in 2010 as a look at Boomer-Millennial tensions, but also the Boomer dad is clearly the viewpoint character so it was mostly about how Millennials annoyed him. Annoying as Millennials are, however, twelve years is a long time to go to that well, and so now the strip is at least 25% “random non-Millennial things the viewpoint character is annoyed by” by volume. And the punchline? The punchline, my friend, is the viewpoint character being as insufferable as possible about it. That’s the funny pages!

Mary Worth, 10/23/22

At least Mary Worth knows what it takes to make America laugh again: beloved millionaire himbo Zak falling to his death in front of his horrified not-fiancée. Publius Syrus is right, kids: learn caution from Iris’s misfortune, and do not get emotionally attached to a self-confident moron like Zak and then hike to a dramatic cliffside vista.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/23/22

Look, Summer, take it from me, someone who has both gone to grad school and written a book: those are not your only two choices in life, and just about all the other ones are going to frankly be a lot better for your financial and emotional well-being.