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Dennis the Menace, 8/14/24

Despite the fact that she’s a long-running fixture in a 73-year-old comic strip, I don’t think Margaret has a particularly consistent set of characterizations — she’s usually whatever she needs to be in the “vaguely prissy” range to annoy Dennis — but today’s panel honestly feels tonally off to me. I don’t buy that she would be expressing overt jealousy of Taylor Swift, and I don’t buy that she would just call her “Swift.” (I also don’t buy that as a drawing of Taylor Swift, but that’s neither here nor there.) Dennis in his interactions with Margaret similarly seems to take on whatever qualities are necessary to antagonize her, but I am intrigued by the implication that he’s set off Margaret’s rant because he’s such a dedicated Swiftie.

Gil Thorp, 8/14/24

Traditionally we have been treated to Gil Thorp’s thrice-annual ritual recitation of the names, so we can all pretend to know who the players are as their season develops. But in this new fast-paced era, the kids just get little floating labels instead. I’m particularly intrigued by “Torch,” who I assume is an X-Men-style mutant who has the power to control fire, or possibly just a notorious arsonist. Either way, seems like an exciting football season is ahead of us!

Alice, 8/14/24

A lot of middling comics could do a strip where two people talk about how modern appliances today have too many features and none of them work right, hur hur hur. But to have two people talking about how modern appliances today have too many features and none of them work right, while said appliance sits between the two people and makes direct and coquettish eye contact with the audience, with its weird creepy face? That’s the deranged Alice difference that keeps me coming back.

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Curtis, 8/6/24

Oh, you don’t think Curtis is cyber-savvy? Well, have you ever seen anyone post on a social media … in trinary numbers before?

Gasoline Alley, 8/6/24

“Anonymous,” huh? Wait a minute…

OH MY GOD

Gil Thorp, 8/6/24

Hey guys, you wanna see a guy hitting a golf ball? Today’s Gil Thorp is for you, my friends!

Bizarro, 8/6/24

What if an ape … wanted to have a job? Really makes you think, huh?

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Mary Worth, 7/26/24

Oh, man, sorry I thought this was going to be something “normal” like Wilbur deciding to murder his fish for attention, when in fact he’s going to dream/fantasize about merging with his dead fish as some kind of nearsighted human/fish hybrid. A dead one, too! Remember how he was speculating yesterday about fish heaven? Well, in his imagining, this is fish heaven, when a fish transcends its fishy form and becomes merged with Wilbur. Imagine the sick sort of God who would consider such a nightmare to be a reward for a life well lived: this is the deity that Wilbur worships.

Gil Thorp, 7/26/24

Speaking of cruel Gods, imagine if you were invited, just briefly, to bask in the holy radiance of your Creators, except that it has to take the form of walking by a couple of dudes sitting behind a folding table at Comic-Con, where you’ll be surrounded by absolute dorks. Would probably take a lot of the mystery out of the whole thing, right?

Pluggers, 7/26/24

A lot of people use my Pluggers commentary as evidence that I’m a coastal elitist who hates real, down-home Americans from the heartland, but nothing I’ve ever said about pluggers is anywhere close to as contemptuous as “pluggers get trapped in port-a-pottys all the time, probably they fall down in there accidentally and get all covered with really nasty piss and shit, that’s a classic plugger situation and that’s the tea, sis.”