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Dennis the Menace, 9/14/21

I am absolutely in love with the idea of Mr. Wilson’s identity as a jazz hepcat suddenly becoming another weak point that Dennis can use to send him into paroxysms of rage. I’m not sure which interpretation of today’s strip would be funnier: that Dennis was letting loose with some wild, atonal acid jazz when Mr. Wilson just wants to jam out to Dave Brubeck, or that Dennis was playing square, Lite FM Kenny G bullshit that Mr. Wilson thinks sullies the good name of jazz.

Gasoline Alley, 9/14/21

I do not care about the current Gasoline Alley storyline and refuse to explain even the basics to you, but I do love the final panel here, which in a more interesting world would be the capper of a storyline in which in adorable, aw-shucks talking bear finally answers for his crimes against humanity at the Hague.

Shoe, 9/14/21

“Ha ha, get it? But seriously, they keep running a bunch of tests but can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. They’re pretty sure I’m dying, though.”

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Shoe, 9/11/21

Spending too much energy thinking about world-building in newspaper comics is probably a waste of time, but [gestures at thousands of posts on this blog] that has certainly never stopped me before, and I feel like today’s Shoe offers us an interesting view into the weird sequence of physical/biological aberrations that led to the strip’s lived environment. Like, they live in the trees, like birds? Only they wear shoes and walk like people? I particularly appreciate the casual way the Perfesser holds onto that branch in panel two, exactly the way a person walking along a rounded log would, and exactly the way a bird hopping along a tree branch (who one would expect to have wings instead of hands, for one thing) wouldn’t. Anyway, I’m not one for biology defining destiny, but surely these mutations are the root cause of these poor birds developing unhealthy societal concepts like “phones” and “the 1970s.”

Mary Worth, 9/11/21

Hey remember when Saul used to be surly jerk who hated everyone and everything until Mary forced him, without his consent, to get in touch with his emotions? Well, it looks like he’s made it his mission to cajole people into doing the emotional work on their own, so they don’t find themselves tricked by Mary into doing it the hard way!

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Mary Worth, 8/6/21

One of my favorite things in Mary Worth is when we cut away from the main action of the current plot to other characters, commenting cattily on the main action of the current plot. It’s more fun if the characters in the main plot are dipshits who deserve to be made fun of and, guess what, it’s Mary Worth so they almost always are. Dr. Drew is no Wilbur, but he’s dopey enough that I really enjoy Mary’s “They seemed to be very different people,” which if you’ve read enough Mary Worth like I have you immediately recognize as simultaneously one of the most savage and cutting things anybody has ever said but also not something explicit enough that she’s going to have to walk it back like Jeff will when Drew inevitably tracks Ashlee down and theatrically refuses to even consider a prenup.

Shoe, 8/6/21

This isn’t the first time I’ve said this, but I have boundless respect for the fact that the Shoe artistic team finds new ways every day to depict bird-men who are just crushingly depressed. Look at the Perfesser in that second panel! That’s not just a man (a bird-man, I guess) who’s being berated by his boss; that’s a man who’s been berated by his boss over and over again and it’s brought him into a profoundly dark mindset. I sincerely hope the artist is working from a place of boundless empathy for this character, but doesn’t find him too relatable, if you follow me!