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Dennis the Menace, 8/29/25

We take the eternal struggle between Dennis and Mr. Wilson so much for granted that it rarely occurs to us to ask what Dennis gets out of their interactions. But clearly he must enjoy it at some level; perhaps he even likes and respects Mr. Wilson, and views his neighbor as a role model. In fact, today’s strip reveals that Dennis gets one of his worst traits, his tendency to shit-talk the cooking skills of the person who does all the cooking for him, from the cantankerous old man. Who’s the real menace here, hmm?

Marvin, 8/29/25

The most obvious and tragic feature of the Miller household is, of course, the complete lack of affection among the family members. That’s why it’s so surprising to discover that Marvin and Jeff have actually been bonding. Jeff is happy about it, but check out Marvin’s face: he doesn’t like his father at all, it’s just a plot to annoy his mother, and he’ll be happy to switch his feigned affection from one parent to the other if it will keep the family misery simmering.

B.C., 8/29/25

Since I’m apparently talking about character names in B.C. this week, I will report for those unaware that the three main male characters in the strip are named “B.C.,” “Peter,” and “Thor,” and they are utterly indistinguishable from one another other than via their hair color (red, blond, and brown, respectively). I can never remember which is which, so I always have to consult the character list in the Wikipedia B.C. article when I need to distinguish among them; said list includes some other information about their personality traits (B.C. is a “naïve slob and eternal patsy,” Peter a “self-styled genius and the world’s first philosophical failure,” etc.) that, if they were ever apparent in the strip, have not been for decades, in my opinion. Anyway, I had to go consult the list again this week in order to bring you the news that Thor died. He fucking died. He fell in a water hazard while playing golf and he drowned, and now he’s dead.

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Beetle Bailey, 8/25/25

Comedy is, in large part, the art of subverting your audience’s expectations in ways they find pleasing. So you could see how it might make sense in theory to do a comic strip where a soldier yells “INCOMING!!” while pointing to the sky, setting up an expectation that he’s on the front lines and his position is about to get hit by an artillery barrage, only to reveal in panel two that he’s about to get pooped on by a bird, a much less life-threatening scenario. However, longtime readers know that the idea of any of Camp Swampy’s troops being deployed into combat is laughable, so the joke doesn’t really land. I will note that the second panel reinforces the punchline by showing us that Sarge and Beetle are hanging out somewhere littered with power lines, which provide ample places for birds to hang out while also being significantly easier to draw than the birds themselves.

Marvin, 8/25/25

“Marvin hates going to preschool” isn’t a strip theme I dwell on much, as it’s a less obvious target for mockery than “Marvin loves pissing himself,” but it’s just as grim in its own way. Today we learn that he hates going to school so much that he’d rather sit immobilized in his car seat indefinitely, his only company a parent who’s presumably fuming about traffic and who doesn’t feel much affection for him at the best of times, than go there. At least in this situation he can piss himself if he wants, I guess.

Dustin, 8/25/25

Wow, huge news! Dustin has finally stopped going to fern bars to find love and is joining the rest of his generation, along with the two generations before him, on the apps. He’s apparently still getting his bank statement sent to him in the mail, but, you know, baby steps.

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Marvin, 8/9/25

Sincere thanks to the editors who demanded that Marvin‘s creative team add the garden hose, change the punchline, and recolor the runoff.

Blondie, 8/9/25

Like me, Dagwood is of a generation for whom drinking out of the backyard hose brings back cherished summer memories of refreshment, petty transgression, and freedom. If Elmo’s lemonade was tapped from such a wellspring of fond nostalgia, Dagwood will savor it all the more. Nevertheless, he’ll make damn sure it came from Elmo’s own backyard, not that pissy toddler’s up the block.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/9/25

And anyway, it could be a lot worse.

9 Chickweed Lane, 8/9/25

Way back in 2016, I outlined the problem faced by 9 Chickweed Lane after the 2008 consummation of Amos’s and Edda’s courtship, which resolved the sexual tension that had long been the foundation of the strip. The solution, then as now, was to create Amos and Edda surrogates and run the whole will-they-or-won’t-they routine (spoiler alert: they will) over and over again.

But after nine years of barely disguised reruns, the narrative present has become overrun with Amos and Edda surrogates whispering coy innuendos, sublimating their lust into musical performance, and humping all over the damn place. What to do?

Apparently this: slip the bounds of time and plant those recaps in the past and future. Hence today’s legacy Edda demanding attention from prepubescent Amos, the pair’s future children, teenage twins Lolly and Polly, tormenting their own thralls, and an assortment of past, present, and future walk-on foils being sexually one-upped by the regulars. One constant is that they all seem to migrate to this lake here, which by now has got to be more grotty than Marvin’s pool.

Hi there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in for Josh through Sunday the 17^th, with a sampling of comics even Josh won’t touch, as well as the old soapers I know you crave. If you run into any issues with the site, subscriber emails, or Patreon posts, please contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net and I’ll do what I can to help. Enjoy!

—Uncle Lumpy