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Dennis the Menace, 10/25/17

There are no recurring adult characters in this strip other than George and Martha Wilson. Instead, we see an endless parade of one-off adult visitors to the Mitchell home, with the implication that Henry and Alice are desperately trying to normalize their lives by making friends more or less their own age, only for Dennis to alienate them by saying the darndest things — or, more often, repeating a darndest thing that one of his parents said behind their acquaintance’s back. If that’s starting to give you a picture of the real reason for the Mitchells’ stunted social life, consider today’s installment, where Alice, hungry to sup on human misery, has brought Dennis to some random new mother’s house, so he can make fun of her parenting skills just because her little kid does what little kids do. And sure, Dennis is kind of a dick about it, but whatever! He’s, what, five? Look at Alice in the background in the second panel, a subtle but cruel smile on her face. The menace doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Marvin, 10/25/17

Like many sassy cartoon characters, Marvin goes through life with a heavy lidded expression meant to convey detachment and ennui. In panel two, we learn what it takes to snap him into a state of alertness: the possibility of being prosecuted for war crimes.

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Dick Tracy, 10/18/17

Awww, yeah, the Space Coupe is back! And maybe with it some of the batshit energy of the 1970s Dick Tracy — no more of this “fake Abe Lincoln audio recording” crap that was the focus of the recent storyline. I’m not sure if there are multiple Space Coupes or if this is the same one where villains from three years ago suffocated to death. Maybe this blue dude is some space alien who found their corpses and decided to joy ride their spaceship back to its planet of origin for a little light interplanetary conquest. Looks like he’s already discovered one of Earth’s finest products already: delicious tobacco! Like all spacecraft built in the ’70s, the Space Coupe came equipped with a designated Camel Containment Unit, to ensure that the mildness levels in the astronauts’ T-Zones didn’t drop to unhealthy levels.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/18/17

Man, that’s … not was doxxing is? Doxxing is when someone who was previously anonymous or pseudonymous online has their real identity revealed, or when you post personal contact information for someone who doesn’t want it posted. Posting fake news articles about someone is … well, it probably has some other dumb fake Internet word for it, but “doxxing” isn’t it. The future is stupider than anyone could’ve possibly predicted.

Marvin, 10/18/17

Look, we spend a lot of time dwelling on the poop jokes in Marvin, but there’s something else important about the strip to keep in mind, which is that over the past decade or so it’s expanded beyond the core Miller family to add new characters (grandparents, talking pets, grandparents’ talking pets), all of whom, without exception, are embedded in a mutual web of loathing for everyone who’s ever appeared in the strip.

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/16/17

Ah, it’s Monday, and what new gloom is settling on the Funkyverse? Well, somebody in a generic office building has been working to track down Darrin Fairgood, somebody with a flat-top haircut and dour demeanor that implies law enforcement of some sort. Or maybe this is tied into the plotline about Darrin’s stalker-y bio-dad that never seemed to come to anything? Anyway, I love that these guys are acting like they just cracked a major cold case by looking up a guy’s IMDB page, as I’m sure it presages hilarity ahead!

Mary Worth, 10/16/17

The problem: Wilbur so hates and fears his own body that he’s unable to even dance properly. The solution: radical exposure therapy, implemented by taking him to the beach, putting him in a speedo, and showing him that nothing bad will happen as he and his beloved frolic together in the ocean for all the world to see. And it’s working! Look at the grin! Feel that joy! His glasses are about to get knocked off his face by the next big wave, but even that won’t be able to kill his mood!

Meanwhile, back in Santa Royale, Mary is sitting in the dark, to make sure she doesn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of her foul, sinful flesh.

Marvin, 10/16/17

Hey, just a reminder that Marvin’s house is wholly permeated by the smell of feces, to the extent that the family dog feels morally superior because he goes out in the yard to take a dump!

Dennis the Menace, 10/16/17

A good way to make us all feel really menaced is to remind us that we’re three or so generations into a long-running experiment to see what happens in a society where most people start getting antsy any time they’re not looking at a screen of some sort, and that experiment is not going well.