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Dennis the Menace, 2/15/23

I know the intended reading here is that Dennis is asking Mr. Wilson, who doesn’t like kids now, whether he (Mr. Wilson) liked kids when he was himself a kid. But they bolded one instead of were at the end of the question, which totally changes the meaning! If Dennis actually said this aloud with that emphasis, he’d be asking whether Mr. Wilson liked kids when he was one year old, specifically. And look, I’m no child development expert, but I’m pretty sure most one year olds barely know what other kids are and don’t really have strong opinions on them. Mr. Wilson at age one probably liked having a nipple in his mouth and an absence of sudden loud noises, and that’s a comprehensive list.

The Lockhorns, 2/15/23

I know Loretta being dissatisfied with Leroy’s earning power is one of the core jokes of this strip, but they’ve always been depicted as living in a decently sized suburban home, so I have to assume that Leroy’s decision to do his workout routine immediately behind the living room couch where Loretta is trying to entertain company is a deliberate and aggressive choice. I’m not sure if he’s trying and failing to impress this woman with his physical prowess, or if he’s aiming this behavior and Loretta and it boils down to the buch more basic “God, I hate my wife! Oh, is she not paying attention to me? We’ll fuckin’ see about that.”

Gasoline Alley, 2/15/23

A couple days ago, National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize nominee Joyce Carol Oates tweeted inquisitively about the comic strip Gasoline Alley, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile cultural commentators who are stealing my bit. Anyway, I hope her interest carried through till today, because I think she’d be quite intrigued to learn that the current storyline is about a little boy who’s about to freeze to death in the woods.

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The Lockhorns, 2/6/23

A thing I like about The Lockhorns is that it’s a comic about a marriage that has spiraled into truly dark territory, but most of the individual strips aren’t necessarily about incandescent moments of hate. Instead, you just get a series of small disappointments that add up to a wasted life. Like, today, you have to imagine that Loretta got it into her head that they should be a tea family, or at least that they should try it out, and she went through the trouble of putting together a matching tea set, and now, on morning one, Leroy just stares dully into his cup and is like “enh, let’s not.” Devastating. Devastating! And the most devastating thing is that they can still devastate one another like this, without even thinking about it.

Slylock Fox, 2/6/23

I feel like Weirdly has honestly put more work into his alibi here than he usually does. “Who, me?” he says. “I just got back from bowling. Haven’t even bothered to put my ball away yet, and my phone still hasn’t fully recharged. I was just sitting down to get on the computer and hadn’t even had time to enter my password!” The boiling flask isn’t that suspicious to me, it’s not like Weirdly has ever given the vibe of being really concerned about safety so he could’ve just left it boiling while he was out, or left one of his menagerie in charge of it, like the purple thing or the [record scratch] WAIT HOLD ON A SECOND COURT WEIRDLY HAS A MAX-ANALOGUE SIDEKICK? With the same color/dress scheme except he’s like … a tiny canid predator of some sort? Is that a small fox, specifically chosen to taunt Slylock? More on this story as it develops.

Pluggers, 2/6/23

It’s hard to get more Pluggers that today’s Pluggers, in which a plugger looks more smug than you can possibly imagine after completing a basic task that used to be something everyone did and now is something that nobody actually needs to do.

Shoe, 2/6/23

It looks like, after literally years of me demanding that Shoe start doing jokes that play off the strip’s basic premise, which is that all the characters are birds, that they finally did one. Honestly, I feel nothing about this. Nothing at all. This should be a big day for me, and yet: nothing. Going to go somewhere quiet where I can contemplate what I’m doing with my life for a bit.

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Folks, it’s that time of year again: time for me to get the hell out of dodge and gently put this blog to sleep for a couple of weeks for its Chrishanukkwanzaa rest. But I don’t want to depart without sharing lessons from the comics about the reason for the season:

The Lockhorns and Blondie, 12/23/22

The reason for the season is wives spending too much money! Ha ha! Amiright, fellas? Wait, I don’t think I’m actually right. Let’s check in with a woman named Mary who has a lot to do with the real reason for the season:

Mary Worth, 12/23/22

The real spirit of Christmas involves wives and wives-to-be suppressing their petty jealousy and instead giving thanks to the hot baby sitters who came before them and blazed a trail for the hot MILFs to come. Pretty sure this is in the bible somewhere. Wives: they’re just like us, and in many cases are us!

More on this story as it develops … in 2023, when I’ll be back blogging about the comics again, don’t you worry. I wanna say … by January 3rd or so? The 4th, maybe? We’ll see what the vibe’s like. But I before I head out, I want to acknowledge one final comment of the week from 2022:

“Honestly, I don’t care what weird roundabout way they get there but I’m all in for refreshing legacy strips and if Blondie is going to transition to a comic about Dagwood adrift at sea alone because he ate the anchor and then Herb then this will be the most interesting thing to happen to the comics page in decades.” –Tabby Lavalamp

And the runners up? A fine collection to round out the year!

“‘Mommy! I don’t want my hair to turn green!’ –a menace, allegedly” –jroggs

“Well, that’s one reason not to use a wad of cash as a prop when you’re trying to make the point that the family needs to save money. One of several.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Gotta love how the chicken is singing along. Doesn’t have the whole picture, that chicken.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Does Mary actually own a kitchen table? Or does only serve tea and oddly shaped hors d’oeuvres on the sofa, just so she won’t have to look directly at any of these idiots when they’re pouring their hearts out to her? Basically, if you want advice from Mary without your hands touching uncomfortably, you’ll have to buy her a fish dinner at the Bum Boat.” –BigTed

“Jesus, what is going on with Dag’s hands in that last panel. It’s like someone mentions cake and he starts reflexively stroking his nipples.” –pugfuggly

“Not understanding today’s Hagar the Horrible, I took a closer look at the paper the lawyer was holding to see if I could find some clue to the punchline, and was conned into reading the date. Well-played.” –Austria

“Why is the jury so enraged with the lawyer? They are the one deciding the case, why should they blame him instead of themselves?! ‘Damn, I was going to punish this obviously guilty person, but his silver-tongued lawyer enchanted me with the power of his rhetoric and the soundness of his legal arguments! The real crime is being too good at his job!’” –Ettorre

“Don’t make the same mistakes Wilbur did — which I will now illustrate with a PowerPoint slideshow. Get comfortable; this may take a while.” –Pozzo

“Living rent-free in Luke Martinez’s cowboy hat is going to come in real handy when Mimi kicks Gil out.” –But What Do I Know?

“So many questions … after the animals rose up and overthrew the humans, they kept Christmas? Do they still worship Jesus Christ? Did they replace him with some sort of animal stand-in? Santa (seeing how happy he is to see Slylock and Max) approves of all of this? Did his reindeer help with the animal-pocalypse or stay neutral? Are his reindeer anthropomorphic now?” –The Rambling Otter

“The difference between you and me is that YOU fear failure, and I have experienced it over and over again so often and so regularly I have developed a form of Stockholm Syndrome towards it and instead fear success!” –Applemask

“The methanol laced moonshine Snuffy’s been drinking has him seeing double but he can only count to five.” –Hibbleton

“I can tell by their expressions that the dogs are suffering from seasonal depression. Or maybe they’re sad because if the kids have aged, so have they. What’s five years in dog years? Uh oh.” –made of wince

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