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Hi and Lois, 3/13/23

You know, I’ve often wondered how lovable disheveled loser Thirsty manages to hold down his job at Foofram Industries, but today we learn that by sheer force of not giving a shit he’s not only gainfully employed but has an office with a door and little desk sign that cheerfully proclaims his drinking problem to anyone who wanders in. Mr. Foofram is completely powerless against Thirsty’s utter lack of shame, and frankly a lot of us could take some pointers from him.

Dennis the Menace, 3/13/23

You know, “menacing” is communal process: it requires one party to behave in a potentially menacing fashion and another party to perceive those actions as menacing. So Dennis can trot this stuff out all he wants but if everyone is just going to titter indulgently, it’s not menacing. He’s clearly hoping for a theological escalation that he simply isn’t going to get at this drippy liberal Episcopalian parish his parents drag him to every week.

Gil Thorp, 3/13/23

Every team needs two kinds of assistant coaches: one who yells specific things you need to do, and another one that just yells general compliments. And thanks to their big fundraiser, the Mudlarks can now afford both, who hold down coaching duties on the sideline while Gil goes and takes a 25-minute “smoke break”.

Slylock Fox, 3/13/23

I love that, instead of drawing anything relevant to the logic puzzle he’s giving his class, Sly has just drawn an elaborately lifelike portrait of Count Weirdly on the whiteboard. “Blah blah fingerprints blah blah LOOK AT THIS FACE,” he says. “THIS FACE IS ALWAYS GUITLY. ONCE YOU SEE THE FACE JUST WORK YOUR WAY BACKWARDS TO SOMETHING VAGUELY PLAUSIBLE THEN LOCK HIM UP.”

Mary Worth, 3/13/23

“Your furry friends … [Mary pauses, then has a panicked thought that Wilbur and Dawn might have fursonas she doesn’t know about] … Pierre and Libby?”

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Gil Thorp, 3/9/23

We all of course remember that time that Mudlark basketball star Ted Pearse was living in a homeless shelter and the fans of one of their rivals taunted him about it by dressing up as hobos, but I feel like we’ve mostly forgotten that Ted’s own teammates showed their support (?) for him by wearing masks so that they didn’t “catch homelessness.” Anyway, it looks like one of our current Mudlarks is, like Ted, in an economically precarious position, but sadly (for us, and, maybe for him?) the days of ostentatious Valley Conference theatricality are long behind us, so all we have is the new assistant coach blurting out “Damn, son, your shoes are all fucked up, like a poor person’s.”

Mary Worth, 3/9/23

Oh, sorry, do YOUNG ZOOMER veterinarians feel like they need to go to their “safe spaces” and engage in “self-care” after a hard day of putting dogs to sleep, like the girls with the nose rings on TikTok tell them to do? Well, their ELDER GEN X/BOOMER CUSP/NOT REALLY SURE HOW OLD ED AND/OR ESTELLE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE uncles certainly don’t bother with that nonsense. “Burnout?” Ed says, the corners of his mouth tugging up into a smile but his eyes staying 100% dead. “Never heard of it.”

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Dennis the Menace, 3/7/23

You don’t spend [mumblety mubelty] years as The Comics Curmudgeon without endless little bits of comics trivia ending up jumbled up in your brain, to the extent that you don’t even know which are real and which your brain spawned on its own accord. Like, for instance, my first thought on reading this was, “Wait, isn’t Henry supposed to be an engineer of some kind? Or an architect? I’m pretty sure we’ve seen a drafting board in his office.” Maybe it’s true! Maybe one of my smart commenters will find the link to the relevant panel that I cannot. But even if it is, clearly such established continuity is less important than taking the opportunity to have Dennis menace his father’s masculinity vis-à-vis his class status.

Gasoline Alley, 3/7/23

Ida Noe is a creepy talking doll who is not a longtime aspect of Gasoline Alley continuity, but rather has just been around for a few months, which is just a blink on the geological timescale on which we measure developments in Gasoline Alley. Still, despite her shockingly recent introduction, hardcore Gasoliney Alley residents apparently need to be reminded of what her whole deal is, which is why she’s delivering the instant classic line “Ida Noe’s my name! Time travel is my game!” Last time Ida Noe used her powers of time travel, she brought our gang to Santa’s beach vacation, which I … guess is time travel? Of a sort? Anyway, maybe this time around she’ll take the kids to the future, when Walt has woken up from his nap.

Gil Thorp, 3/7/23

“But most importantly, no one got hurt. Which is definitely a thing that could’ve happened, when you have a bunch of teenagers competing to see who can lift more weight, showing off in front of a hooting audience of their peers! Ha ha, we really dodged a bullet there.”

Hi and Lois, 3/7/23

Good lord, these two women look exhausted. Sorry maintaining the basics of socially acceptable politeness while having a vaguely unpleasant interaction is so trying, ladies, but that’s the price of civilization!!!