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Gil Thorp, 10/10/14

Usually Gil is far too disengaged from his job and his student-athletes to live up to any of the usual stereotypes of gym teachers as bullies, but as his cruel smile in panel three indicates, he’s not above indulging in a little sadism if the opportunity falls ready-made into his lap. “That’s right, quarterbacks, duke it out for my love, like bugs in a jar! Oh, does the jar need shaking? COMPETITION IS GOOD! NOW FIGHT! FIGHT!”

Dennis the Menace, 10/10/14

Dennis, unable to truly grasp the concepts of “past” and “future” or the endless cycle of the seasons, lives in an eternal present, refusing to learn anything from anything that happened before or consider that his actions might have effects on what’s coming next. It doesn’t get more menacing than this.

Family Circus, 10/10/14

When the starting premise for your Family Circus cartoon is “Let’s pretend that seven-year-old Billy drew a naked picture of his little brother in the service of an awful sub-pun,” I suppose it’s actually a good thing that the end result looks like a fleshy pink chicken with a human head.

Six Chix, 10/10/14

There’s a lot to dislike here — the crude drawing, the sub-par joke — but I’m going to focus my enmity on the fact that this cartoon ran on a Friday.

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Momma, 10/9/14

You guys, today’s Momma illustrates a very important point: when you tell old people about how the Kids Today do things, make sure you explain all the details and don’t assume they can fill in the blanks. Like, if you say “oh, Kids Today like to send each other pictures of themselves when they’re dating,” make sure they know those pictures are on their cell phones, because otherwise you end up with comic setups like “Momma, a cute boy I met today gave me some pictures of himself! Like, actual, physical pictures! Where did he even get them?” Anyway, today’s strip takes a quick turn from “wacky out of touch follies” to “what is even going on here” as Momma … encourages MaryLou to send some other girl’s picture back? Even though the boy has already seen MaryLou? Despite all this, the thing that most unsettles me about this strip is the fact that MaryLou is wearing a baseball hat. Does she usually wear baseball hats? I don’t think she does.

Crankshaft, 10/9/14

Look at that face! Is Crankshaft experiencing shame? Is that even physically possible?

Funky Winkerbean, 10/9/14

“By the way … happy anniversary. I got you some passive aggression!”

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Mary Worth, 10/8/14

Congrats to Mary Worth for deploying an actually interesting narrative technique this week! After yesterday’s head-on collision, we smash cut to Ian, sweaty and wild-eyed, barging into his own home and gibbering wrathfully at his terrified trophy wife. We’re left to imagine the trail of verbal carnage he left in his wake. The sneers! The condescension! He’s clearly been driven into a frenzy of fender-bender-based superciliousness, and everyone is going to hear about it! Poor Toby: you get the feeling this isn’t the first time she got a finger wagged in her face because of something unforgiveable that somebody else did.

Shoe, 10/8/14

Ha ha, it sure does look like you live alone, Perfesser! Because generally most people don’t like living in unsafe hoarding-zones filled with literal trash. Say, remember how you used to live with someone else? Your nephew, Skyler? Ring a bell? It’s not clear if he’s finally decided that life as a homeless runaway would be better than the unsanitary lifestyle you keep, or if he was just crushed to death under a pile of newspapers.

Heathcliff, 10/8/14

It’s true: far too much garbage ends up in the ocean, disrupting ecosystems vital to life’s long-term survival on earth. Heathcliff is right to look so sad.