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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!!!

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Hi and Lois, 3/2/23

I don’t know, man, I don’t think anyone elaborately folds up a handkerchief into a pocket square, its daring bright red color chosen specifically to match their tie and the buttons on their suit jacket, because they mostly plan to blow their nose into it. It’s OK to admit that you want to feel snazzy once in a while at your office job, Hi! You look good and your kids should admit it!

Rex Morgan M.D., 3/2/23

Oh, are you tired of all the gross romance stuff in the current plot where Truck woos a diner owner? Well, good news: the strip’s other diner owner just walked into the diner, and hopefully we’re going to get some diner shop talk. What’s the best chicken friend steak recipe? What do people typically pay a line cook around here? You got a good menu laminator guy? Boy, I’m getting excited already!

Judge Parker, 3/2/23

Just to be absolutely clear: Judge Parker is not a strip where you see anything interesting happen. Judge Parker is a strip where you don’t see the interesting things happen, but you do see people emotionally processing those things, very loudly, forever.

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Hi and Lois, 2/24/23

Welp, I guess we all knew this day — the day when Dot and Ditto from Hi and Lois stand in the middle of the street staring at a relatively realistically drawn mangled squirrel corpse, making terrible puns with vaguely philosophical expressions on their faces — was coming, eventually. We knew we’d be looking at some poor little rodent with cartoonish Xs for eyes and a tire tread across its smashed gut, and wondering how we got here. But I at least thought we had more time to prepare.

Dennis the Menace, 2/24/23

Ha ha, it’s funny because the Wilsons are some of the last bio-humans left alive after some kind of cybernetic uprising! For some reason, these AI intelligences have chosen not to eliminate George and Martha, but instead pester them to death with irritating fees, possibly because Dennis himself designed their algorithms to create Mr. Wilson’s personal living hell, achieving maximum menace even at the expense of his own life.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/24/23

“And you can’t even begin to imagine the depths of her contempt for me!”