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Dennis the Menace, 6/8/24

“Dennis shit-talks his mother’s cooking” isn’t my favorite trope in this strip, but I feel you at least have to respect the form: he should either be poking sullenly at his food, glowering at everyone, absolutely ruining the energy of the family meal, or he should be making some witty quip that emotionally devastates Alice while Henry barely conceals a smirk. But while the dialogue here works, the art is all off: Dennis looks extremely pleased by the high-nutrition meal that’s been prepared for him, and his parents are all smiles. This frankly is so un-menacing that it loops all the way around to menacing again because it’s so deeply uncanny.

Judge Parker, 6/8/24

OK, since I’m embracing being a cranky old man who hates change, I’m just going to say it: “eloping” is supposed to mean that you sneak off and get married without telling any of your friends and family, often without even being formally engaged first. But more and more people are just using it to mean “We’re going have a small wedding, actually, even though we told some people we were planning to have a big one at some point in the future,” and I hate it! The secrecy is the point! You don’t just wander in and announce it while your fiancee is in the middle of a Zoom call with her mother!

Blondie, 6/8/24

YES IT CERTAINLY IS ANNOYING WHEN A CHILD SHOWS UP AT YOUR HOUSE AND EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE DOING OTHER STUFF YOU’RE EXPECTED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THEM

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Shoe, 5/7/24

A classic Shoe bit is to use the structure of a test question at Skyler’s school to deliver a bad joke, even though the result is a test question no teacher, no matter how outlandish their pedagogy, would ever write. Anyway, I appreciate that today’s strip is mixing it up by changing the bad joke delivery mechanism to a pub trivia event, which is a fun and exciting new concept, if you’re a Shoe reader. I love that Roz hasn’t bothered to actually hire a trivia host and is just kind of reading questions off her phone. She’s not really trying very hard, so why should this guy actually try to come up with the right answer, when he could just deliver a gag calculated to delight 80-year-olds everywhere?

Judge Parker, 5/7/24

Remember “Declan”? I barely do, having mentioned him on this blog exactly once, and while a wine-drunk Abbey hinted during that appearance that maybe someday he and Neddie would get married, apparently Sophie is less enthused. I’m excited that this might be how we get back cold, calculating Sophie, who’s crunched the numbers and determined that Neddie and Declan have not put in enough love-hours to adequately establish a pair-bond worthy of being validated by the state government.

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Judge Parker, 5/3/24

Hey, guys, remember Pavel, a Russian crime boss and the first interesting new character Judge Parker introduced in years? In the old days of the strip, after threatening some ultra violence against our heroes for a few weeks, he would’ve quickly become their friends, but in the year 2024, he instead died when April’s mom suicide-bombed him. But the good news is now we can have plenty of strips where Randy and April can “just be together,” day after day of them sitting together on the couch and being their boring-ass selves, can’t wait.

Mary Worth, 5/3/24

Fellas, if you’re ever in a scenario where you’re supposed to pay for something but don’t have the money, just ostentatiously turn your pockets inside out like this! It’s a delightful bit and everyone loves it, so it’ll really cut the tension. If you can arrange for some moths to fly out, all the better, but that’s not strictly necessary.

Gasoline Alley, 5/3/24

“Really, Rufus, nobody in this strip ‘passes’! Why, you and I have been in this strip for at least fifty years and are no closer to death’s sweet release! We’re here forever. Forever!” [echoing, sinister laughter]