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Hi and Lois, 3/3/16

A lot of the emotional impact of this strip is, I guess, supposed to come from the expression on Lois’s face, which is really too bad because any time spent lingering on Lois’s face is time spent realizing that she is a lumpy-skulled noseless horror. I guess … she’s poignantly thinking “Someday his hormones will start getting revved up and any hint of sex on screen will induce instant and humiliating erections, but for now he’s my little boy?” Dear God, I’m sorry, but does she have a … snout? I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I can’t.

Beetle Bailey, 3/3/16

It’s cool that Beetle Bailey has suddenly recognized the existence of craft beers and all, I guess? God forbid they discover home brewing. I don’t think I could handle jokes about hopped wort and such told next to extremely crudely drawn brewing equipment.

Dennis the Menace, 3/3/16

See, Marvin can talk about pooping and peeing on things all day and every day, but then Dennis comes along and shows him what a real menace is and does. “Is there someplace I can shit in here? Because that’s what I think of the financial system.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/29/16

FYI, guys, Rex Morgan, M.D., isn’t just about people giving Rex and his family money. It’s also sometimes about wacky old people! Like remember when a pair of demented seniors wandered away from a nursing home and made a small-time drug dealer’s life miserable? Or when an elderly brother-sister pair won the lottery, with hilarious results? Anyway, it looks like Rex has finally been bullied into buying that house in town, and sure, it’s in the leafy, huge-mansion part of town, but it’s also in the cranky, argumentative old people part of town! The next few days should give us plenty of the great Grimacing Rex Reaction Shots I crave.

Mary Worth, 2/29/16

[Mary Worth at the airport newsstand]: “People? Oh, my, dear, between you and me, it’s very difficult to keep up with multiple celebrities these days. Who has the time, really? No, one copy of Person, please.”

Hi and Lois, 2/29/16

I mean, you don’t want to do it so often that it becomes Funky Winkerbean-esque self parody, but if you want to end your gag-a-day strip once in a while with a son snidely reminding his father about the grim banality of his adult life, and the father just stares sullenly into space with his arms crossed across his chest, I’m not going to complain.

Marvin, 2/29/16

“I pee on it! I pee all over my phone! My phone is covered in urine. I’m a baby, but I’m depicted as having adult-level cognitive abilities, and, for some reason, I own a mobile phone, but I still pee and poop in my pants!”

Shoe, 2/29/16

“Ha ha, get it? Because of the ice cream flavor? Anyway, the actual story is that I was very drunk.”

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Dennis the Menace, 2/24/16

It’s the quote marks around “out to pasture” that make this truly menacing. They indicate that Dennis knows he’s not being literal. Literal horses literally get put out to pasture, it’s true, but in other contexts, the phrase’s connotations are a bit grimmer. And Henry Mitchell is not a literal horse. Dennis is finding his father too physically weak for the level of roughhousing he requires. Henry should be put down — humanely, of course — and a new, more vigorous father acquired.

Crankshaft, 2/24/16

Ha ha, it’s funny because the kids today are so dumb that they think an “old movie” is one that came out a year and a half ago! You know what always works out really well, is when you introduce young characters into your story despite the fact that you clearly hold young people in visceral contempt.

Hi and Lois, 2/24/16

If Trixie finds the emotional labor of keeping the rest of the Flagstons entertained crushing, wait till she finds out about all the people around the world who cut Hi and Lois strips out of their newspapers and hang them on their refrigerators. You’ve got to bring joy to the whole world, Trixie, not just your family!

Spider-Man, 2/24/16

You know how you can tell when the cycle of neighborhood gentrification is complete? When all the damn wizards start moving in.