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Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 10/29/10

These two parents-on-the-floor panels were immediately adjacent to each other on my Chron page today, which allowed me to quickly come up with a game I like to call “Who’s the sociopath?” In the Family Circus it’s clearly Daddy, who’s sporting a sick little smile as he allows Jeffy’s utter terror and desperation to go on much longer than anyone should be comfortable with. (It should come as no surprise that budding sadist Billy can barely contain his glee at his brother’s panic.) Dennis, meanwhile, isn’t even deriving any joy from having literally knocked his mother out of her shoes and fused her brains into a molten lump. “Mommy isn’t moving anymore,” he tells his father, stone-faced. “Will we need to get a new mommy?”

Pluggers, 10/29/10

It’s true: blanket-stealing is only perpetrated by honest heartland folks of the sort depicted in Pluggers. We coastal elitists don’t worry about it, because we sleep under mile-long blankets woven out of feathers stolen from the wings of angels.

IMPORTANT SOCIAL NETWORKING UPDATE! You might recall from Wednesday that Mayor Dalton’s prostate has its own Pacebook page. It now also has its own page on Facebook, a somewhat more popular social networking service. Feel free to “like” it, or whatever you kids do!

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Dennis the Menace, 10/22/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mr. Wilson’s life has been an endless series of disappointments, which is why he’s so angry all the time!

Mark Trail, 10/22/10

Oh, come on, Mark, you get a chance to punch an animal-hating baddie in the face two or three times a year. Don’t expect us to play along like this isn’t a thing that you do, constantly. (“Dear Punching Magazine: I never thought this would happen to me…”)

Pluggers, 10/22/10

I don’t see any DTV converter box anywhere in this panel, so I’m guessing that our poor plugger has been fiddling with the various knobs on that ol’ TV for about 14 months now. Not constantly, obviously; but every once in a while, when he’s feeling particularly bored and lonely, he turns on the old set, sees there’s still nothing but snow on the screen, and jiggers the buttons, thinking this time, maybe this time he’ll get his stories back. And the game. I just want to watch the game in peace, lord, is that so much to ask? Maybe it’s the horizontal. Did I try playing with the horizontal last time? Maybe I didn’t, and this time it’ll work.

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Mark Trail, 10/19/10

In the normal universe that we know, it would be quite reasonable for Future Governor Frank to assume that an important personage like the senator here would be wholly unacquainted with cabin-dwelling rustic Mark Trail, though I would describe him less as a “troublemaker” and more a “khaki-clad contraction-eschewing weirdo out of touch with ‘Real America.'” But unbeknownst to Frank, Mark has already saved the life of one senator and launched an ethics investigation against another; since the Senate is such a small and exclusive club, one must assume that the man whose patronage Frank has been seeking is already well acquainted with this Trail character. Sorry, Frank, it looks like your only hope is to turn against the senator, claiming you’re running to break his inside-the-beltway cabal, which is dominated by special interests like Mark Trail.

Dick Tracy, 10/19/10

It’s always dangerous to claim to understand anything happening in a given Dick Tracy strip, but it appears that Dick and the comely she-hobo are actually in cahoots, and the Fraud Unit officer in panel three looks to be similarly disguised as a bum. Were there ever any real hobos at all in this storyline? Their absence saddens me, though maybe the strip is trying to advocate against increased government funding for homeless services, since all so-called “homeless people” are just undercover law enforcement officers of one type or another.

Gil Thorp, 10/19/10

This is the part of the Gil Thorp season when Gil and Kaz realize that their players have gotten as far as they can on their native talent and enthusiasm, and would do better if only someone competent were coaching the team. Too bad they didn’t go to another high school!

Pluggers, 10/19/10

Suggested new caption: “Plugger Internet pornography.”