Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 10/25/17

There are no recurring adult characters in this strip other than George and Martha Wilson. Instead, we see an endless parade of one-off adult visitors to the Mitchell home, with the implication that Henry and Alice are desperately trying to normalize their lives by making friends more or less their own age, only for Dennis to alienate them by saying the darndest things — or, more often, repeating a darndest thing that one of his parents said behind their acquaintance’s back. If that’s starting to give you a picture of the real reason for the Mitchells’ stunted social life, consider today’s installment, where Alice, hungry to sup on human misery, has brought Dennis to some random new mother’s house, so he can make fun of her parenting skills just because her little kid does what little kids do. And sure, Dennis is kind of a dick about it, but whatever! He’s, what, five? Look at Alice in the background in the second panel, a subtle but cruel smile on her face. The menace doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Marvin, 10/25/17

Like many sassy cartoon characters, Marvin goes through life with a heavy lidded expression meant to convey detachment and ennui. In panel two, we learn what it takes to snap him into a state of alertness: the possibility of being prosecuted for war crimes.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 10/24/17

Hey, remember this guy? The guy from the bank-robbing gang who was so worried about the fancy new facial recognition software the FBI has on hand? Of course you do, because the last time you saw him, way back in April, it was literally the same drawing:

Now, I know what you’re saying: “Ha, this guy was worried about facial recognition software but he thinks he can beat it by just getting a haircut?” Well, sadly, he didn’t even do that! He just died his ponytail to match the upholstery in his plane:

Anyway, I’m not sure why, if the bank-robbing gang had access to a plane, they didn’t just all get in the plane to escape, rather than one guy getting in it and the other two taking the money and a hostage to a remote airstrip and meeting up with the plane guy there. I guess that’s why I’m not in the bank-robbery game! Too many moving parts for my feeble intellect!

Hi and Lois, 10/24/17

There’s so much that I don’t understand about what’s going on here. Is there an occasion for this strip, in which Hi and Thirsty are suddenly taking the subway home with Leroy Lockhorn, Walt Duncan, Greg Wilkins, Homer Simpson, Mario, and … an Orthodox Jewish (?) character in the foreground I don’t recognize? Is there some common theme holding these guys all together, other than “they’re from cartoons, or, in the case of Mario, a video game?” Aren’t crossover events usually cheerful affairs? Why is this one built around a totally unrelated “joke” about how Hi and Thirsty feel unmoored and adrift in life, with everyone looking extremely depressed? Why does Walt look so disheveled? Why is Homer given a standard white-person flesh tone rather than his native bright yellow? Why are Thirsty and Hi on a train when they’ve always been depicted as driving back and forth to their pedestrian-hostile suburb?

Funky Winkerbean, 10/24/17

Funky Winkerbean: You Always Swore You Were Going To Get Out Of This Town, But Somehow You Never Did™!

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 10/23/17

THE GIL THORP FOOTBALL SEASON STORY SO FAR: The football team is not great, and quarterback “can do some things well,” so Gil’s gonna resort to some classic Milford trickeration, like “the veer,” which I assume is some dumb weirdo formation from the leather helmet era like the wing-T, and which they’ll practice for weeks only to see it work for exactly three plays until their opponents figure out how to stop it, and also it’ll result in the whole offensive line getting concussed, somehow. Anyhoo, I’m a little in love with panel two here, in which Gil attempts to wow his mediocre quarterback with an expansive gesture in the direction of a 2009-vintage netbook where he’s managed to figure out how to make the file folders on his desktop different colors.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/23/17

Oh, right, that’s what happened to Buck’s abusive ex: she went to jail! Briefly, and none of the safeguards that were supposedly put in place actually worked. This continues to be a depressingly accurate depiction of how domestic abusers operate.

Mary Worth, 10/23/17

I think it’s a fantastic touch that Iris imagines Wilbur’s girlfriend as being the same height as him, and with greying hair. Like she’s hung up on on him and even she can’t get her head around this.

Crankshaft, 10/23/17

OH YEAH IT’S FALL AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: CRANKSHAFT IS MAKING JOKES ABOUT PUMPKIN SPICE COFFEE! Anyway, anything that makes Ed Crankshaft so furious can’t possibly be bad, so it’s official: pumpkin spice is extremely good now.