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Mary Worth, 5/19/21

“I certainly would not have formed a romantic liaison with this family had I known about the lapses in judgement lurking in your bloodline!” [throws on life jacket, pinches nose, pitches backwards out of the boat and into the sea]

Gil Thorp, 5/19/21

You ever think that the staff of the Milford Star, a non-student newspaper produced and read by adults, are a little too up-to-date on what the local teenagers are up to?

Pluggers, 5/19/21

Sure, it would make a plugger’s life easier in some ways if he allowed himself to form professional or personal relationships with people with non-Anglo-Saxon surnames. But a man has to have a code, you know?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/19/21

DAMN IT THIS JOKE DOESN’T WORK IF WE CAN’T SEE INSIDE THE CAVE

IT COULD BE REAL NICE IN THERE

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Dennis the Menace, 5/17/21

Look, the only time I want Dennis to say “Now he’s studyin’ for the bar” as a punchline is if he’s repeating some crack from his parents about their guest’s terrible drinking problem that he pretends he didn’t understand. But this? I honestly have no idea what this is. A true menace would maybe be running a scam where he dresses a fellow kid up in a suit and claims he’s a lawyer and dares adults to contradict him, going on a small-time reign of legal terror, but we all know Dennis doesn’t have the grit to pull off a plan like that. Anyway, this kid’s a real square-ass nerd and Dennis, the comic pages’ biggest “menace,” is his friend and real proud of him, I guess!

Gil Thorp, 5/17/21

Aw snap, today’s my favorite day of the season: when the team over at Gil Thorp HQ pulls the giant lever all the way over to “wacky!” It looks like in addition to going to high school and being on the baseball team and working odd jobs to help support his impoverished family, Zane is going to be running for the library board against his girlfriend’s dad so his girlfriend’s dad can’t put his “let’s shut down all the libraries” agenda into action. Can this be any good for his relationship, his grades, or his fastball? Probably not, but it’s good for drama, which is what I crave.

Dick Tracy, 5/17/21

Speaking of drama, just days ago someone tried to assassinate Dick and Sam’s protectee in broad daylight. But today? Today they’re going to enjoy the legitimate theater!

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Gil Thorp, 5/13/21

It’s always fun to learn something new about a medium you’ve written about for years, which is why last weekend I followed with interest this Twitter thread from various comics types about whether a comics character needs to be drawn with their mouth open when speaking. I’ve been checking this out in various strips ever since, and while I generally agree with their consensus that closed-mouth-plus-word-balloon is fine and actually makes faces more expressive in many cases, I cannot recommend a scenario where a character is speaking while their mouth is closed around a slice of pizza and they’re smiling and you can see a couple teeth, somehow. My main point here is that Eating Pizza In A Fucked-Up Way Week is rolling right along here on the funny pages.

Pluggers, 5/13/21

Since this dog-man is the one who’s been made contact with, and since his character design is what we might describe as “pencil-necked,” I think we have to conclude that he himself is not a plugger, or at least not the plugger who’s intended to be the subject of the descriptive caption. Somewhere out there, presumably back at the tee, is the plugger in question, whose thoughtlessness is a menace to us all. A bold assertion from a comic that’s meant to be “celebrating” pluggers, honestly!

Dennis the Menace, 5/13/21

By pointing out his mother’s anachronistic language, Dennis threatens to unravel the entire fabric of his retro reality. He’s so committed to menacing he’s willing to undo his very existence in order to do it properly, and you have to respect it.