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Dennis the Menace, 4/19/24

There’s been a disturbing trend lately of Dennis the Menace panels where Dennis doesn’t figure into the gag at all, even as an unseen presence, and instead it’s just Mr. and Mrs. Wilson going about their daily lives, and while I guess it might be a smart move to pander to the newspaper comics’ aging audience, frankly I’m not a fan. This could have been yet another George-and-Martha only installment, but instead it includes Dennis as a silent observer of Mr. Wilson’s petty gripe and his wife’s resulting discomfiture, which I think is a truly if subtly menacing move, so kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/19/24

Ha ha, what if Wilbur, to get a little measure of revenge against his ex’s young, hot new boyfriend, imagined his rival as a brutish ape? That would definitely be amusing and … oh no. Oh no. Look at his face, look at those drooping eyelids and little smile, he is definitely becoming aroused, abort abort abort

Pluggers, 4/19/24

No! No!!! I don’t care how cheap they are — a plugger would never purchase tofu, do you hear me? Never! Never!!!!

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Gasoline Alley, 4/2/24

I realize that a lot of fiction essentially consists of making up a guy to get mad at so you can be happy when he loses, but I feel like Walt and Skeezix seething with rage and despair because a town name change has been proposed by a guy named Elbert Imeswine is a little much. He’s not going to do it, guys, and he’s not going to get elected! This is the sort of thing that wouldn’t happen in real life and extremely wouldn’t happen in a strip that has the same name as the town in question, especially when all the strip has keeping it alive as a media property is the fact that its name is deeply engrained enough in our collective consciousness as to elicit vague feelings of recognition from people who have never read it, or read a newspaper.

Pardon My Planet, 4/2/24

Halos are derived in origin from an artistic practice in many cultures of depicting holy or divine figures with a glowing circle behind their heads, implying an internal radiance. Things got weird as artists learned how to create more naturalistic perspective in their work, and these circles became a sort of floating disk (as in this 15th century painting) before evolving into the glowing hula hoop we know and love today. Anyway, it’s nice to see the disk form making a comeback in today’s Pardon My Planet, but that’s about the only thing that’s nice about it. Hey, Pardon My Planet, you familiar with Matthew 22:30? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”? Heresy much?

Pluggers, 4/2/24

Oh my gosh, this plugger seems to have discovered the Holy Grail! I’m sure that newspaper includes information that will transform our knowledge of history and religious studies; commodities prices are probably among the less splashy bits of data it contains, but they’re still important for helping us understand the time period.

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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