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Dennis the Menace, 4/26/25

Obviously my “is this menacing or not” bit is done mostly in jest, but I genuinely think this is menacing behavior. Making unbroken, angry eye contact with his mother as he lets milk overflow the glass all over the table, while nonsensically blaming her and her glass-acquisition choices for the whole situation? Really unsettling stuff, I would be quietly calling a child psychologist in this scenario.

Shoe, 4/26/25

Normally I don’t have a lot of patience for “kids and their damn phones” jokes like these, especially given that the behavior in question is so omnipresent among people of all ages that there’s an industry term for it. But I do have to say that if Skyler isn’t going to be fully engaged during his TV-watching experience, he shouldn’t be making use of the living room’s only chair.

Crankshaft, 4/26/25

You might recall that Funky Winkerbean’s beloved (?) Mopey Pete ended up in a relationship with Crankshaft’s granddaughter, which meant he successfully escaped the collapse of the Funky Winkerbean dimension and has survived in its formerly ancillary Crankshaft zone, which has survived as its own space-time continuum in the aftermath. Anyway, we’ve finally learned what can briefly make him slightly less mopey: the prospect of interrupting his in-laws while they fool around in their car.

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Shoe, 4/25/25

I am almost certainly overthinking this, but as a highly skilled and well-compensated comics blogger it’s my job to overthink it, so: why, and how, is the Perfesser’s fitbit keeping track of Shoe’s thrown fits? Wouldn’t Shoe’s fitbit logically be the device that records his increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure and so forth, and not the fitbit on the wrist of his employee, who’s way on the other side of the room? I can see the appeal of learning the novel word “fitbit” and wanting to immediately work it into a joke in the syndicated newspaper strip you write, but I would suggest doing some cursory research as to how the device with that name works first.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/25/25

I’ve decided to stop being annoyed by the fact that I can’t really peg what the tone here is supposed to be and just be amused by it. Are Summer and Auggie enjoying a friendly chat with a sympathetic old man and getting free stuff while they wait for the cops to show up, or are they terrified while this admitted murderer rambles on about how his whole bloodline has been wiped out before its time, tries to bestow gifts upon them, makes menacing references to various weapons he hasn’t used yet, and reminds them that they’ll soon find themselves in a room with some trigger-happy cops and a guy the cops don’t trust? Who can say!

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Herb and Jamaal, 4/19/25

I wonder if Jamaal knows that Rev. Croom, who to all appearances is just over there quietly enjoying his coffee, is actually musing on the fact that those who fail to call on God will eventually be present with Him, presumably at the final judgement when their beliefs and faith will be found wanting. He’s looking right at Jamaal while he’s contemplating this, so maybe he’s thinking about Jamaal in particular! “There’s a guy who’s going to be cast down into the lake of fire,” he thinks, smiling, before taking another sip.

Shoe, 4/19/25

I feel like there was a first draft of this strip that ran afoul of the editors, or maybe a version that would’ve run in the ’80s or ’90s, in which the dialogue would’ve been exactly the same but the setting was shifted to the local fern bar and the Perfesser was being silently handled a cocktail. Would that be more or less depressing than this one? Discuss.