Comment of the Week

Maybe it's just that the standards of menace have been so raised by the likes of Calvin and Hobbes or Bart Simpson but I can't remember ever seeing Dennis engage in behavior that would make him a poor children's party guest. He wears a tiny suit to church for goodness sake! He's really just a menace because the strip is called Dennis the Menace but who told the inhabitants of the strip that? Who is going around badmouthing this precocious kid who at worst doesn't always live up to 1950s standards of etiquette? I ask but we all already know it's Mr. Wilson, Mr. Wilson is making the neighbor kid a social pariah out of a sort of misplaced dissatisfaction and inadequacy that his pension wasn't enough to settle him in a gated community with no children.

BananaSam

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Hi and Lois, 9/10/12

I am confused and terrified by the inky blackness out of which the Flagstons’ angry, violent word balloons emerge in panel one. I imagine that, as each meal commences, a designated family member turns off the light, so that the savage battle for conversational supremacy takes place in darkness, which increases the degree of difficulty and bitterness. Or is it meant to represent spiritual darkness? As the family turns on each other for the most petty and pointless of reasons, are to understand that their hatred is so toxic that it has literally blotted out the sun?

Mark Trail, 9/10/12

“Whoa whoa whoa, kid, I didn’t hear anyone say anything like ‘We can take him with us, or shoot him and the adorable puppy now.’ Did you hear anyone saying anything about shooting the dog? What I’m trying to say is that it’s time to hitch the Sassy wagon to a new star. Good luck with that whole getting shot thing!”

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 9/9/12

You know, I guess it’s OK for Slylock Fox to go around imposing arbitrary, unchecked justice when he’s putting a stop to actual crimes or whatever. But now it appears that he’s just wandering the land looking for opportunities to be a dick by preventing a little intra-posse tomfoolery. And why is he even assuming that Reeky’s friends are being scammed? Isn’t it possible that they know full well that Reeky means to do 1,000 pushups over a series of days or weeks, but, well, maybe they just want Reeky to do some exercise once in a while, ever think of that? Maybe they want him to improve his health, and that’s worth $10 to them, because Reeky’s their friend. God, Slylock, keep your snout out of other people’s business!

I also dispute that Reeky’s pals are in any way “punks.” Neither of them seem to be cultivating any kind of aesthetic that seeks to shock or undermine bourgeois values in the slightest! Reeky’s pink hair might qualify, maybe, but today that’s pretty tame.

Six Chix, 9/9/12

The look of shock and horror on this poor dog’s face is amazing. “Wait, they’re … they’re alive, and they’re inside of me? And they’re coming out where? And I’m expected to feed them how? Oh god oh god oh god”

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Family Circus, 9/8/12

Oh, God, something horrible happened outside, didn’t it? Those aren’t the faces of little kids who were having some fun out in the yard; those expressions are of illness and queasy terror. And then there’s Dolly, standing in the doorway, staring at them, marking their words. “Are they telling Mommy? They were specifically ordered not to tell Mommy. They know the punishment for telling Mommy: More mud pies. More mud pies. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘filling,’ Jeffy.”

Apartment 3-G, 9/8/12

Hey, everyone, the Professor’s back! Back from … I dunno, did he go somewhere? I guess he did, they made a big deal out of his return earlier this week. Anyway, now he and Greg are bonding over their shared heritage, which seems to be causing a stone-faced Margo to vibrate with hostility in the final panel. Is she about to unleash a series of vicious anti-Greek ethnic slurs that will result in her being forever blackballed by the cabal of Hellenes who pull the strings of New York’s PR industry?

Wizard of Id, 9/8/12

The moral of today’s Wizard of Id: Don’t be lured into complacency by the false promise of nonviolent agitation for radical change! Violent expropriation of the rich’s wealth is the only path to successful class war.