“Having been corrected on his grammar one time too many, Arty makes sure to double down on his frequently-confused words to confound whoever and whomever might try to talk down to him.” –jroggs

“Mr. Wilson frowns looking at the title of the strip, as he realizes that he can’t sell the punchline, that he’s really the author of this strip, as long as ‘Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace’ is right there in large lettering.” –likeagrapefruit

“We know that Mr. Wilson has been trapped in an unchanging hell for almost 75 years now where he is damned to be tormented by a young boy who inexplicably likes him until the end of time (or until the IP is no longer profitable for the syndicate). Canonically, though, Dennis is a 5-year-old child. Unless Henry and Alice are monstrously neglectful parents, it’s safe to assume that Dennis has been allowed to roam about outside unsupervised for less than a year (and that they live in a world where it’s safe to let 5-year-old roam about outside unsupervised). This means a grown man is sitting down to write a book complaining about a kid he’s probably only known for a few months.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘Well enough of this,’ says Dustin’s dad as he slowly pulls a pistol from his waistband.” –knockinghats

“But why, Alice? Why do– What is– [[pinches bridge of nose]] Look, okay, there are eight (8) words in your one-panel comic strip and 25% of them are ‘inner child,” so why do you need the caption? Did King Features Syndicate hide ‘ALL COMIC STRIPS MUST CONTAIN NO FEWER THAN TEN WORDS’ somewhere in the fine print, or do you really and truly think that we won’t get it? (I mean, I don’t really ever get what’s going on in this strip, but I realize that this is a me problem.)” –els

“The Gasoline Alley ‘children’ are rendered in the most disturbing ways possible — each ‘child’ is rendered differently, yet in a way to make each one uniquely repellent. At least there’s a reason for Dick Tracy Moon People to have different irises than Earth People — they’re different species! The Dustin artist(s) use different styles of eyes on all the characters to indicate surprise or some other emotion. There’s no reason for these Gasoline Alley ‘children’ to have different eyes, different hair, yet the same weird hand gestures borrowed from Rex Morgan. I demand an explanation, or a retraction as papers used to do when Doonesbury was too liberal.” –Doc Wonmug

“If you’re having trouble with sleep, there’s a comic strip I can prescribe. You don’t have any allergies to roots country music do you?” –Maltmash3r

“You know in any realistic suburban living scenario Hi would be out there laying traps, poison, ultrasound alarms or just straight up taking an axe to any and every part of this infestation of rabbits, squirrels, birds, purple weeds and whatnot ruining the perfectly flat sterile lawn aesthetic the HOA is going for. Mom needs reality TV to feel like there’s something genuine and alive in her home, don’t judge her too hard, smug baby.” –Amelie Wikström

“Rex gives the whitest, least-sassy possible interpretation of ‘talk to the hand.’” –But What Do I Know?

“Look, I have a Marvin-aged son, and he’s about as tall as my hips. I know comics exaggerate for artistic effect, but he’s just too small. He’s the size of his mother’s foot! This doesn’t look like #relatable parenting content about a troublesome toddler, it looks like a horrible little leprechaun is breaking into schools and homes and peeing all over them.” –Schroduck

“Better questions for Sarge to ask: How will I protect my eyes from the wind and flying particles? Is that even a windshield, or just a metal bar over the hood? Where exactly is the engine in this Jeep? Where are the seatbelts? Am I going to die alone and friendless except for my disturbingly human-like dog on this trip to town? I’m going to die, aren’t I?” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“You see, if you really are psychic, you don’t need a title on the front of the book, because you already know what’s in it. Having the title on the back just reaffirms your powers.” –voshkod

“Marvin knows that he was dragged from the depths of Hell by a screeching Shogoth and regurgitated upon this plane to make mankind suffer for their sins, but he does not remember the other children being in the abyss with him, so he is confused.” –Old Man Shadow

“I guess Gearhead Gertie’s husband — you know what, I’m just gonna call him Hubcap Hubby — is realizing he’s gonna have to make a pit stop and change his own tires tonight, because Gertie’s too busy fueling up with premium unleaded smugness to bother showing human affection.” –Craig!

“Mary’s avoidance of extra work really puts the ‘quit’ in ‘taquitos’” –nescio

“I think our understanding of Mary and Jeff’s relationship is all wrong. She is one of those button up on the outside/vixen on the inside types. Why, look, today Jeff is trying to leave for the night as he has a busy day tomorrow, but she in true dom fashion demands that he meet her needs. ‘My pleasure! … dear.’ He promptly responds. It’s a short leash.” –Joe Momma

“I’d give Andy Bear a pass on being unable to open a mere milk carton because he lacks opposable thumbs, but the pliers won’t help with that. Tear that flimsy thing to pieces with your powerful teeth and claws!” –matt w

“Get it? Charge card? But seriously, robot: is there any amount if money that will get us out of this? I can get it I swear! Please!!!!” –pugfuggly

“Okay, I’ve accepted that they’re not going to be in an alley, but they’re not even using gasoline?!” –Dan

“Ahhh no, Harry Hypno is going to put everyone in a trance and make them do his bidding! Oh, wait, you say that’s just a regular guy, and that’s how his eyes normally look, and that creepy thing he does with his hands is just how he expresses himself when he talks? And he gets people to do his bidding through bribes and threats, just like any normal schmo? Never mind.” –BigTed

“Of all the people in the world, I would most expect Mary to caution us all about swimming within an hour after eating.” –lynn

“I like how in Hell Elementary they only have little fires scattered about, and no brimstone to be seen. Just goes to show that even in Satan’s realm, public school funding is still sorely inadequate.” –pugfuggly

“I’m not very well versed in Crock lore, but isn’t it established that Crock dumped his mother in a nursing home, from which she still manages to create all sorts of mischief for himself and others? I’m just saying, ‘health care reform’ sounds a lot like a euphemism for ‘the nurses are stealing her medication and selling it on the black market to make ends meet.’” –TheDiva

“My main takeaway from today’s Crock is that we’re hearing about ‘his’ health care reform, which suggests that this strip takes place in a universe where either the 1958 or 1961 Algiers coups succeeded, and the French military now controls Metropolitan France and has redoubled its efforts to suppress the FLN. This presumably explains why the strip is still running today.” –Nathan Goldwag

“I grew up in a relatively free range time and I can’t recall ever leaving the house when I was a kid and not being expected to at least give a cursory explanation of where I was going. Of course the Mitchells are probably hoping that Dennis will join a thieves’ ring and disappear for years.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Gil putting cream in his coffee immediately after suffering a heart attack is his way of saying ‘I’d rather die than go back.’” –Schroduck

“Sometimes Mary waits for praise, sometimes Mary passive-aggressively trolls for praise, and sometimes Mary just damns the torpedos and flat-out praises herself.” –astroboy

“‘That was quite a wedding…’? What are you talking about, Jeff? It was about the dullest three hours of anybody’s life.” –Cleveland Mocks

“Say what you will about the shortcomings of the Biden administration, managing to get Marvin and his family deported to the United Kingdom will be one of the most celebrated acts and a centerpiece for the eventual Biden library.” –Philip

“I just wanna know what the hell kind of shoes Daddy Daze Daddy is wearing. They look like roombas strapped to his feet. Maybe moon shoes? They look like they have baleens, so maybe each one is the skull of some form of sea life? Is he on the run for poaching whales to make his shoes?” –Craig!

“Mary and Jeff be stylin’ in the SS Medicare Fraud.” –Dennis Jimenez

“Every time Mary rejects him, Jeff gets a bigger boat. I look forward to his adventures of trying to fit USS Gerald Ford into Santa Royale marina in 2035.” –Voshkod

“Martha, I’m not sure you should be quite so amused. Your husband is genuinely unhappy and also maybe dying?” –matt w

“One bit of trivia that haunts me is Saturn’s rings will be gone in about 100 million years. Unimaginably much time compared to the existence of human civilization so far, yet it’s not that much time in astronomical or geological terms, I mean, I’m sure Snuffy Smith will still be around with barely any adjustment needed to reflect the slightly more gentle hills of the Appalachians. And Gasoline Alley, the strip about ancient and dying people has something to say about this? Surely it’ll be something poignant, directed at the small children I imagine represent the future of the readership beyond the strip, powered by the license granted to those about to die to speak freely and fearlessly, about how strange that we happen to live in the same period as this ephemeral wonder in our sky…? Oh, no, it’s just about a random space thing due next year. This comic is such a wild card.” –Amelie Wikström

“Y’all seeing those abstract mudflap girls and dolla signs in the last panel? Depraved.” –ancient mariner and ishmael walk into a bar

“I love that Glen comes from a background that includes his uncle murdering his father, and a jealous resentful brother and yet he has a look on his face that (accurately!) screams, God, DAMN, this family is dysfunctional.’ –2+2=7

“You see, Mud, if the events leading to event A hadn’t happened, event A would not have happened! It’s so fun to learn about causality and linear time!” –Ettorre

“I used to have my own band, you know. I used to travel across the country playing the big venues. I was an icon. I was a star. But my fragile human body kept failing on me! I kept getting sick and hurt! I lost everything and everyone! Now I’ve been stuck in this crappy town for years, coughing my lungs out and screaming in pain in a dumpy motel room, playing the same dive bar every weekend, I’m engaged to some pig-faced truck stop owner, my only friend is some wannabe comedian middle-schooler, and now to pay my mounting medical expenses I have to make a duet album with you. This is hell. This is a nightmare from which I cannot wake up. I would kill myself with an overdose, but I can’t afford the pills!” –jroggs

“When she says ‘let’s go swimming,’ Mary means Dr. Jeff is going to get some action tonight. And by ‘action,’ she means she’s going to go swimming while Dr. Jeff sits on a deck chair pleasuring himself while watching her flail about in the water at night in her modest bathing suit.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“The ‘House of Being’ must be one of those avant-garde restaurants where the menu consists largely of selections of post-structuralist melanges and tedious overcooked prie-fixes. One imagines that Hagar — will be hungry!” –But What Do I know

“I appreciate that Dustin’s sister looks checked out in the last panel. Right after thanking him, she opted to immediately tune out whatever shitty thing he had to say next so she could live in a reality where he just does nice things for people.” –jenna

“The relative superiority the Smifs are claiming is actually unrelated to their choice of candidate; the Smifs are just more adept at operating the Voting Churn.” –Violet

“‘What inspired this walk through the park, Truck?’ ‘You’re prettier than the fall colors. And also, I’m incredibly cheap. Now, sit down on this bench and we can share a couple of Tic Tacs I found in my pocket.’” –BigTed

“Gather ’round the fatscreen TV, everybody.” –nescio

“It’s OK, Beetle! Those guys have numbers in the 80s! They’re just oversized tight ends playing out of position!” –matt w

“Sure, cats climb everywhere, but we are meant to believe that that lumpy boxer somehow made it onto the table by himself? They put him there. No, Dr. Ed, the vet, put him there! While Estelle and Ed get all romantic about how they compromised at their no frills wedding, the lumpy boxer is going to fall off that table and get hurt. ‘Sorry, honey, I have to leave. It’s an emergency! I’ll be taking him to the office. Don’t wait up!’” –Joe Momma

“I think that caption is the closest thing to an artist finishing a strip with ‘Wait … why’d I draw this?’ I’ve ever seen.” –Victor Von

“The first time the cats and dog went ‘meow woof meow,’ everyone laughed. The fifth time elicited a chuckle. The tenth repetition was met with silence, the twenty-fifth with fear, and at the fiftieth ‘meow woof meow’ the party-goers fled in open terror, leaving Estelle and Ed alone with their pets. Their masters. Their gods.” –Voshkod

“It’s funny, because you would think that a young Zoomer [googles quickly] ‘generation alpha’ teen would be more worried about global warming than a new ice age? Maybe she’s actually quite optimistic about our society’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or maybe ice ages are the subject of the hot new Y.A. novels [googles again] ‘Tiktok dances’? No wait … that can’t be right …” –pugfuggly

“I refuse to believe anyone in Hootin’ Holler votes any differently from anyone else. They all open the ballot paper, and then remember that they’re illiterate.” –Schroduck

“Almost [gulp] forty years ago, a philosophy instructor told the class about riding the elevator with one of his professors on a wet, windy, stormy day. ‘A good day to read Schopenhauer, don’t you think?’ the professor asked, about the other famed German crank/philosopher, known for his commitment to humanity’s racial suicide. Any day in Dustin is a good day to read Schopenhauer, is what I’m saying, Meg can drag out On The Freedom of the Will, or they can all die in a fire, it’s all good.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Perhaps Dolly is unfamiliar with this process, having had her hair in a ponytail that has never been unbound for as long as she can remember. Every strand glued so tightly into place her her eyebrows keep trying to make a run for it. Not even able to sleep on her back. Thel has never regretted choosing that good old fashioned Johnson’s Baby Shamglue.” –made of wince

“The Vikings still live in a world steeped in non-monotheistic paganism, so it’s not outside the norm for them to stumble upon the uncanny, the fantastic, and the unexpected. Rushing a well fortified castle is routine, and the curses of the priests and their chivalric knights about the future of their souls is nothing but hot air. But oddities like this are to be approached with caution, respect, and foreboding.” –Philip

“Apart from this being a dated throwback to the time when the wife was expected to have no income of her own and therefore was entirely dependent on her husband for everything, even personal luxuries, aren’t the Wilsons retired? Technically Social Security paid for that hat.” –TheDiva

“Hagar is oddly curious about an avant-garde production of Plato’s allegory of the cave put on by medieval furries. Not exactly his cup of tea, Lucky Eddie much prefers the French enlightenment and their belief in the power of reason.” –Hibbleton

“There’s character growth and then there’s being expected to believe that someone else is lazing about in bed while Beetle is up and about, and that’s a step too far.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’m enjoying how, in the midst of nekkid Lion People reveling in the firelight like Maenads, Flash is leading Dale in a sedate foxtrot like they’re at the Yale Prom.” –Ukulele Ike

“Zero will have plenty to gloat about when Rocky finds himself in an unexpected gang food fight and needs such food sources as raw milk fresh from the cow to gain the tactical advantage.” –InvasionOfTheZIM

“Henry’s smile fades as he realizes Dennis just lumped him in with a bunch of equally milquetoast middle aged fathers who ache for the confirmation of an impersonal coffee mug bought at a flea market for a quarter. Existentially menacing.” –Edison Carter

“I do appreciate that even though it’s right in their field of vision, Estelle still takes the time to inform everyone that this is ‘the lunch spread.’ After all, people who are unfamiliar with Mary’s cooking need to be reassured that no, this is not Libby’s litter box on the table.” –2+2=7

“Actually, a Norseman would not refer to himself as a Viking, which is an insult, like calling someone a pirate. Unless Hamlet is like a rapper reappropriating the N-word, which is more interesting than whatever Hagar the Horrible is doing.” –Ettorre

“You may say I’m the best dad/ But I’m not the only one/ I hope some day you’ll join us/ And you’ll learn it’s not that fun” –Rosco