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Dennis the Menace, 2/3/15

You know what, you try coming up with a cute-but-not-too-cute joke-utterance to put into the mouth of a menacing-but-not-too-menacing little kid, day in and day out, for decades, OK??? It’s not easy! Sometimes you want to do something else. Sometimes you might want to put in a joke written by grownups, for grownups. Like that diet food, amiright? There’s fewer calories, but it costs more money! What’s up with that? Dennis’s exaggerated grimace at his dad’s comedic stylings is actually one of the more subtly menacing things he’s done lately.

Crock, 2/3/15

I’m used to thinking of Captain Preppie as having been rendered largely harmless by his own relentless self-absorption, but panel one completely upends that impression, rendering him as a wild-eyed predator, attempting (and, thankfully, failing) to recruit others into a band of sex maniacs.

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Gil Thorp, 2/2/15

Oh my gosh, I was wrong and Gil Thorp really is doing a Very Important Drug story! The drug in question is Adderall, which is about as intense and Important as Gil Thorp can handle, I guess. This all assumes that that I’m interpreting “I want some!” correctly. Maybe Max Bacon™ is asking to be infected with ADHD to improve his basketball play, which would indicate that he profoundly misunderstands the disorder in a number of distinct ways.

Mark Trail, 2/2/15

Despite having read Mark Trail daily for more than a decade, I honestly couldn’t tell you whether Mark is one of those action heroes for whom refusing to pull a gun on someone is part of his shtick. But assuming he’s not, I’m reading panel one as him cautiously feeling out his new ally. “Yeah, so they’ve definitely got guns, so … I’m just spitballing here, but … maybe … you’ve got some firearms … back at your isolated hunting hut? No? Okay then! Well, we shouldn’t have a problem sneaking up on them in this flat-bottom! Ha ha! Yeah, this is going to go great.”

Mary Worth, 2/2/15

I haven’t really featured any of the strips where Hanna’s annoying daughter Amy has disapproved of her relationship with Sean, probably because they’ve been pretty boring, but trust me when I tell you that Hanna’s annoying daughter Amy disapproves of her relationship with Sean. And now Hanna’s going to ask some random lady she barely knows to be her witness! That’ll show her ungrateful offspring, who primarily uses Hanna as a free babysitting service! As the cruel look on her face in panel one makes clear, Hanna is getting married for the best possible reason: revenge.

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Mary Worth, 2/1/15

The Fates were an eerie presence in the Greek religious world: older than the Olympian gods, in some tellings, and outside of their control, they implacably marked out the time we had on Earth, and were worshipped in shrines in underground caves. It stands to reason that Mary Worth would be among their number. Go, Hanna! Propitiate her! Give thanks to her, lest she surreptitiously cut your string too soon to allow you to enjoy your newfound love with Sean!

Marvin, 2/1/15

I was actually pleasantly surprised and intrigued that Marvin did a Mark Trail-style nature education strip today! I was unpleasantly unsurprised when it devolved into a joke about Marvin stewing in a diaper full of his own feces, much to everyone’s disgust.