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Dennis the Menace and Blondie, 4/1/24

Is there any “holiday” more vile and unpleasant than April Fool’s Day, which is mostly marked by “pranks” perpetrated by the least funny people alive? These tricks generally take one of two very simple forms, as illustrated neatly in these two strips: making someone believe that something bad is happening when it really isn’t, or making someone believe something good is happening when it really isn’t. Does anyone enjoy either? I’m going to say no.

Dustin, 4/1/24

The “making someone believe something good is happening” one is a particularly dangerous game, as Dustin is discovering, especially if you put a lot of work into it! Look at how mad his father is in panel two. He’s about to put his son out on the street and have him carry those presumably empty boxes to his nonexistent new apartment.

Pluggers, 4/1/24

Today’s Pluggers is just a baffling and confusing series of decisions (is Smokey a plugger? “April Phurst”? The Philippines?) meant to keep you completely off-kilter with no real resolution, and in that sense is the only good April Fool’s Day strip. Kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/1/24

The worst prank of all, however, has been perpetrated by Mary Worth on all of us. We were all looking forward to Dawn’s hilariously disastrous reunion with her cold, withholding mother, but instead we’re going to get … Wilbur realizing his life is empty and meaningless? WE ARE ALREADY WELL AWARE OF THIS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE NEED IT REHASHED OVER THE NEXT SIX TO FIFTEEN WEEKS

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Mary Worth, 3/29/24

Whoops, it turns out Dawn doesn’t so much crave maternal affection as she craves not seeing her terrible drippy ex and new girlfriend he picked up when she was injured and emotionally vulnerable in the hospital where he works. I know I’m reading a lot into a single image, but I’m really counting on Dawn’s mom to be as icily cruel to her about her pathetic love life as possible once she gets wind of the details

Hi and Lois, 3/29/24

Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if a baby used contemporary slang? And if the sun vanished, leaving us to freeze to death in a world of eternal darkness?

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Gil Thorp, 3/28/24

The Milford Mudlarks: the team whose players trust one another so much that they just keep passing the ball back and forth, indefinitely. Is this their key to victory? Well, they never shoot, so they never score, so no, it isn’t. But the trust! Think about the trust!

Judge Parker, 3/28/24

I’ve been commenting on Judge Parker’s April for nearly two decades, and I guess thanks to the magic of comic book time she’s probably a Millennial at this point, right? As evidenced by her steadfast refusal to answer her phone? We can tell she’s not a Zoomer because she’s at least contemplating listening to any potential voicemail the caller might leave. Anyway, her daughter, a representative of Generation … Alpha? I guess this is what we’re calling them? As a placeholder, maybe? … demonstrates that each generation reacts against the excesses of their parents. When she’s old enough to have her own phone, she’s going to answer it, by God.

Mary Worth, 3/28/24

Dawn is — and I mean this in the kindest possible way — a lot. So I can’t even imagine what her mother, who apparently cut her out of her life for years, is going to think when she shows up and says “Good news, mom! I dropped out of college so I can spend the next year focusing on nothing but the mother-daughter time I crave!” I mean, I can imagine what she’s going to think, actually, which is why I remain pretty excited about this storyline.