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Dennis the Menace, 6/5/14

Dennis stood, transfixed, watching the spider move purposefully across its web. Here, he thought, was the antidote to the modern world of human civilization that he was already recognizing as a sham. The spider doesn’t worry itself about book-learning, like Margaret, or about proper decorum, like his parents, or about peace and quiet, like Mr. Wilson. It just sits on its web, a web it created out of nothing, out of its own body, biding its time, until a prey animal falls into its trap — and then it strikes, and feeds. Everything humanity has done — its cities, its cars, its governments, its data networks that sell us the lie that we connect with one another, when really we sit at home alone, bathed in sickly artificial light — all that paled in comparison to the spider’s simple, beautiful, and alien creation. “Now that’s a web site,” Dennis whispered, in awe. It was extremely menacing.

Momma, 6/5/14

It’s easy for outsiders to see the North Korean practice of referring to Kim Il-sung, dead since 1994, as the “Eternal President of the Republic” as a symptom of that state’s baroque and deranged ideological underpinnings. But in fact, in practice it makes a certain amount of sense, from the point of view of the regime: you allow a revered figurehead, who cannot speak for himself, to become the mouthpiece for their unpopular decisions — decisions that as a result cannot be appealed. Momma knows the score.

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Crankshaft, 6/4/14

Do you think comics artists ever get into Stockholm Syndrome situations with their characters? Do you think that they start off knowing that their characters are literally the worst, and yet because they have to drawn them, day after day, they eventually fall under their sway, and dedicate the energy and loving care to drawing their faces twisted into a hatefully, sullen grimace as, say, Leonardo put into the Mona Lisa? Anyway, I’m not sure if the joke here is supposed to be “ha ha, Crankshaft never saved up for retirement so he’ll have to work until the day he drops dead” or “ha ha, Crankshaft is so full of angry restless energy that he has to find a job or else he’ll be left alone with his own awful thoughts and feelings,” but it is true that a job that involves greeting people pleasantly and putting them at ease is one for which he is profoundly unqualified.

Family Circus, 6/4/14

It’s obviously unthinkable that Jeffy’s moronic bit of non-wordplay could prompt even the sort of faint smile we see on Big Daddy Keane’s lips. Therefore we must assume something else is going on here. My guess: he’s pleased that his plan to create a Superman-style “disguise” out of his lack of glasses is finally working. (His only superpower will be the ability to trick his children into thinking that he’s someone else just long enough for him to get out of the house and/or the state.)

Beetle Bailey, 6/4/14

When Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, died, he was on a tour of the provinces, a two-month journey away from the capital; his inner circle of advisors, concerned that the death of the sovereign would prompt civil war in the vast empire he had built, kept his death a secret, keeping his body in a carriage, ordering carts of dead fish to be placed in front of and behind it in the wagon train to mask the smell, bringing in documents and then forging his signature during the long journey. Also, I’ve never really pegged Miss Buxley as someone who cares enough about her boss’s feelings to spare him the irritation of contact with underlings he dislikes. Put these facts and observations together as you will.

Gasoline Alley, 6/4/14

Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks that Boog’s new paramour is up to no good! Check out all these other children who, like Boog, are so dim they need to have their names printed on their shirts, lest they forget. They’re terrified of her. She’s clearly going to eat Boog alive (not a euphemism).

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Blondie, 6/3/14

Haha yes Dagwood is on an emotional roller-coaster because the idea for wearable food-based scents that he came up with during an idle sandwich-binge but never pursued has been monetized by someone else with a dumb brand name, and now with that out of the way let’s get to the real story here, which is the weird rolls of flesh (?) around Dagwood’s neck. Longtime readers know I’ve been worried about these things for some time; once, long ago, I worried that Dagwood had maybe sewed a turtleneck out of human skin. But now I think something slightly more subtle is going on here. Dagwood’s face is as smooth and youthful as it’s ever been over the course of his 80+ years in the comics pages. Could it be that only his wrinkled neck-flesh reflects his true age? I would be wholly satisfied if this were the result of either a Portrait of Dorian Gray-type curse scenario or an increasingly elaborate series of facelifts that had to shift the excess wrinkles somewhere.

Apartment 3-G, 6/3/14

Well this has definitely been the boringest ever Apartment 3-G storyline that’s been played out over the course of a conversation between two non-main characters whose motivations we can’t understand and don’t care about! So, in addition to being Jack’s love interest and an example of what Lu Ann would look like if she were put into a highly experimental fast-aging chamber, Carol is also the best friend of Jack’s dead wife! Also, Jack has a dead wife! I guess we’ve finally figured out what this plot is about: Tommie and Jack are mourning their dead partners in the same way: by not talking about it and burying their feelings under mounds of horse poop.

Hi and Lois, 6/3/14

Congratulations, Hi and Lois: after literally years of unsuccessful attempts, you have finally made me genuinely laugh. Hi’s tiny brandy snifter is a nice touch, as is the fact that Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is hanging on the wall, which Hi, in a signal of his total commitment to this passive-aggresive gag, presumably put up to replace whatever sub-middlebrow print was there before (some cursive phrase about the importance of family that you can buy framed from Target, I’m guessing).

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/3/14

True story: when I read panel one, I legitimately thought the joke was going to be based on the premise that Hootin’ Holler was one of those few regional markets where you can still buy Tab, the diet soda that’s now been almost entirely displaced by Diet Coke. But then I got to panel two and realized it was just yet another Barney Google and Snuffy Smith about how all its characters were desperately poor and I got real sad.

Pluggers, 6/3/14

“No! Your mother’s great! I love your mother! I think about having sex with your mother all the time! Come back! What am I saying wrong?“