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Dennis the Menace, 10/4/14

Sure, I make fun of Dennis the Menace, particularly when it comes to Dennis’s lack of menacing, but if there’s one thing I really respect about it, it’s that Mr. Wilson has never stopped being angry, has never softened into a likable character. His trademark single bead of anger-sweat is here, but his hands are also clenching into fists — not because he plans to hit anybody, because Mr. Wilson is not at heart a violent man, but because his whole body is just clenching up involuntarily at the thought of so many naps ruined. So is he going to die of a massive coronary event, and soon? Yes, probably! But he will have never compromised his truest self.

B.C., 10/4/14

Remember the innocent bygone days of this strip, when the main thing you could say about clams was that clams got legs? Well, now clams got a terrible addiction to prescription medication.

Beetle Bailey, 10/4/14

I’m guessing that panel two here is a result of someone saying “Hey, let’s maybe mix up our simplistic art a little and actually show the back of someone’s head for once” but in actually it looks like someone’s saying “Guys guys guys how many tabs was I supposed to take how many tabs OH MY GOD EVERYONE’S FACE IS A CLOUD HOW DO I UNCLOUD YOUR FACES”

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What’s that? It’s Friday? Must be COMMENT OF THE WEEK TIME!

‘Li’l’? Snooty know-it-all Margaret would never stoop to such a plebeian contraction. Unless she’s being condescending and is pronouncing it with audible air quotes, just to let the boys know that she’s aware of their respective social positions. Who’s the real menace here?” –Pozzo

And also time for the hilarious runner-up comments!

“My daughter is 14 months old. To my mind ‘little stranger’ isn’t quite extreme enough. We love the little alien but — speaking as a man who was just handed a saliva-covered PS3 remote — she’s weirder than anything I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo.” –Victor Von

‘Didja hear th’ news, Loweezy?’ asks Suzy as she leaves the doctor’s office literally minutes after learning of her own pregnancy. ‘Shore did, Suzy!’ replies Loweezy. ‘Can’t no gubmint-made laws ’bout medical privacy keep down the gossipin’ round here!’ They both laugh.” –logicbutton

Slylock Fox is the go-to comic if you want to teach your kids how to deconstruct an alibi provided by a wild animal accused of a crime. I really can’t think of any other resource that fills that niche.” –hogenmogen

“The young miss Dingdon has to send her son to the Aging Chair for a while, where he metamorphoses from a rambunctious young lad who loves to play with his blank yellow mannequin and do The Robot at inopportune times to a strapping twenty-year-old who has no interest in the horror movie his gramma has left on, and only enjoys using his iPad electronic device.” –Jack loves comics

“Maybe things are more formal in California, but around here, women who are in Hanna Dingdon’s demographic, with Hanna Dingdon’s hairstyle and lack of assertiveness, very seldom wear suits unless they are headed somewhere really special, and by ‘really special,’ I don’t mean ‘grocery store’ or ‘ophthalmologist.’ Donning a suit for a day of hanging around one’s condo does not happen, is what I’m saying.” –Poteet

“Didn’t Funky have a heart attack last time he tried to run? Like … a few months ago? Well, at least they’re already all wearing black.” –Dan

“An excellent strip for code-talking Congressmen — what they say, and what they mean: ‘Excellent work Mark’ (i.e., ‘GREAT photo op for me!’) ‘Thank you, Congressman Gowdy!’ (‘Thank you, Congressman Greedy!’) ‘If you are planning on going back to Africa soon, perhaps we here in Washington could help organize a conservation effort?’ (‘There’s graft a’plenty for everyone in this deal’) ‘It’s something I would consider if it’s properly funded…’ (‘There better be plenty of butter on my slice of the bread’) ‘…but for now I’m headed home…’ (‘where’s the nearest gay bar?’) ‘…it’s been a while since I’ve seen my family! (‘I need to take a shit after that long flight!’)” –Dennis Jimenez

“Notice that Les proudly sports the number 1, indicating his level of importance in the Lisa’s Legacy run. Funky, meanwhile, has chosen to go with a number that matches the number of years that he’s hated his life and silently longed for death.” –Digger

“Spider-Man feels a certain connection with Ox because they both have the same problem with inanimate objects. ‘Ah, the old Steel Pillar Head Trauma — not as stylish as the Brick to the Back of the Head, but still a classic.'” –Marcus Theory

“Sure, Dennis Mitchell may have lost a little (or a lot) of his menace over the years, but look at what’s happened to Snuffy Smith. This used to be a moonshining, chicken-stealing wild man with an arrest record as long as your arm. And now? Well, now he builds artisanal birdhouses. To which I say: just move to Williamsburg and get it over with, poseur. Next, he’ll start playing the ukulele.” –Joe Blevins

“One way to make sense of the two park-goers is if they have actually been standing there for hours, the giant Sarge-Tunnel fixed in the corner of their eyes, too terrified to look at it head-on and too petrified to flee. Every hour, park vendors (blind and hence safe) offer them food, which they silently purchase as their minds are gradually maddened into pure horrifying Snorkel. Hence the park profits by (as Beetle understates) ‘making the rides scarier.'” –Lenoxus

“And of course, when dressing him this morning — or rather, when she was buying his clothes at Goodwill — his mom decided that putting a big fat zero on Joey’s chest seems just about right. You’re bubkis, Joey. Nada. Everyone who knows you knows that, but you might meet some new people today.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Dennis and Margaret laughed. Joey stared at the ground, remembering his grandfather’s stories of the 1908 Ticklian Massacre in Chucklestan and his promise to never be ashamed of his heritage.” –pugfuggly

“Well, here’s a how-de-do! Mary is obligated to pair all women of marriageable age (i.e., between 14 and whatever Mary is) with suitable mates. But she is also obligated to shame Amy for daring to think her life has a purpose and meaning outside of her little proto-Rusty. Can she reconcile these conflicting objectives? Or will her programming malfunction and short-circuit?” –TheDiva

This poor kid was fucked from the word ‘Go’. He’s a ginger named Gordon Dingdon, for God’s sake, and apart from his mother and grandmother screaming at each other, the only social stimuli he receives come from a faceless doll and a Cold War era mouse cartoon animated by Joe Giella. ‘Have a good day at school, Gordon! Try not to get the ever living shit beat out of yourself again today!'” –Mikey

“A decent publisher would’ve saved the impotent struggling for a strip that ran on a Monday, but not these heartless ghouls.” –Chareth Cutestory

NNHHH!!! Marvel Comics Inc. is no fool. This panel was designed for future commercial use, when someone in marketing realized that the generation that started out on Flintstone vitamins is now ready for Spider-Man Metamucil.” –seismic-2

“You know General Halftrack is thinking, ‘Shit, how many times have I told Cookie to label the white phosphorus so he wouldn’t mistake it for table salt again? Just what I need, another trip to the Hague to answer for ‘torture’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. I miss World War II when you could expose ’em to radiation, chemicals, whatever and no one batted an eye. Wait … was I alive for World War II? How old am I supposed to be? Did I age? Is it still World War II? Eh, where’s the fucking scotch.'” –Comrade Dread

“If only there was a way I could crawl straight up, like some sort of insect or something, then I could slip out of these chains around my chest. But that would only work if my body were narrower around the legs then around my torso. I guess I’m doomed.” –grsblvnyk

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Sally Forth, 10/3/14

True Story: Sally Forth is the comic strip that first got me thinking seriously about comics time, the phenomenon by which characters in a long-running comic stay basically the same age, but the cultural signifiers surrounding them also stay current which implies that not only their present but their past is slowly moving forward through the space-time continuum. Because it’s hard to notice that strip-time present is changing to match real-life present, you tend to notice this most during flashback sequences, as I did when an early ’00s Sally Forth storyline about Ted and Sally meeting in college featured Ted wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt. I’d been reading the strip since I was a child, and so obviously Ted and Sally were my parents’ age, and this blew up everything I thought I knew.

Anyway, something about this particular storyline, about Sally and Alice meeting for the first time twenty years ago, has been nagging at me all week, and I finally put my finger on it: Alice is in fact sporting 1994’s hottest haircut, the Rachel, which works great for the milieu but makes the fact that her current-day character model still has the same Mid-’80s Business Lady Hair that she’s always had seem even stranger.

Spider-Man, 10/3/14

SUPERHERO: “I’m trapped! I’ve got to use my superpowers to escape!”

[SUPERHERO tries for, like, thirty seconds]

SUPERHERO: “Well, that didn’t work. Time to resign myself to death!”

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!!!!!!!!!!!

Beetle Bailey, 10/3/14

It’s funny because you can tell the chili is too hot because it’s on fire and also Beetle is literally cringing in pain and his face-flesh is covered with horrible burns