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Dennis the Menace, 6/6/10

Let’s pass over for the moment the fact that if, as I’d guess, Mr. Wilson is around 75, he himself would have grown up with the first generation of comic book superheroes, and thus would not find Dennis’s own media consumption choices to be so sneer-worthy; let’s ignore too his seeming assumption that Dennis would view a world where basic services were performed by humans to be baffling and alien, as if he lived in a culture where people were tended at all times by advanced robots. Instead, let’s focus on the middle panel of the bottom row, in which Dennis imagines Mr. Wilson’s mail-delivery alter ego as a wild-eyed psychopath, who presumably used his job dealing with the public and the protection of his public employees’ union to go on a years-long killing spree that no doubt held the entire city in terror.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/6/10

When comics strips lavish loving energy on the depictions of the ass-cracks of adults, it can be kind of sexy! When they lavish the same amount of attention on the ass-cracks of prepubescent children, it’s just disturbing.

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Mary Worth, 6/5/10

Mary Worth is always just throwing quotation marks around sentences and pretending they’re chunks of profound wisdom, but in this case, that’s a real quote from five-time NBA MVP Bill Russell, at least according to a citationless collection of Bill Russell quotes on the Internet. The question is, why did Mary fail to credit the Celtics great for his deep thoughts on love and loving? Is she afraid that the good doctor isn’t a basketball fan and will think less of her because she follows such frivolous things as professional sports? Does she fear that her familiarity with a professional athlete active in the ’50s and ’60s will mark her out as elderly in the eyes of this young whippersnapper that she’s trying to bed? Or does she just obsessively read books of quotations, committing the quotes to memory but not the quotees?

Dr. Roberts’ own thought balloon is a little ominous. “Hmm, this woman, with her preternatural grasp of human nature, seems to have determined rather quickly that I’m a sociopath incapable of feeling anything for my fellow human beings! She wasn’t on my list of people to hunt and kill for sport, but I guess I’ll have to add her.”

Spider-Man, 6/5/10

“I’m turning off the light so you can’t see the copious weeping that will inevitably arise from my many, many pointless insecurities about our relationship!”

Oh, hey, and it looks like it’s a full-on Rusty-horror weekend!

Panel from Mark Trail, 6/5/10

AHHH AHHH HIS EYES ARE INFINITE BLACK POOLS OF GRIEF AND PAIN

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Mary Worth, 6/4/10

Whoah, this plot is only in its infancy and already it’s going completely off the rails. Mary, refusing believe that anyone might not want to be heteronormally coupled up for all time forever, thrusts an accusing finger directly into Dr. Roberts’s non-loving face. The good doctor, a highly trained psychologist, knows a complete lunatic when he sees one, and has decided that his only hope is to feign insanity himself; he launches into a series of obsessive-compulsive tics, rubbing the back of his head and patting his chest while dancing aimlessly around the room, hoping that Mary will be terrified enough to flee. Ha ha, doctor, it’ll take more than that to shake her off!

Luann, 6/4/10

I’m not ashamed to admit that I find this newfound friendship just a little bit heartwarming, which makes sense because I’ve come to loathe all the main characters in Luann so much that I feel quite affectionate towards the ancillary characters whose main job is to irritate the DeGroots et al. Still, I’m a little unsettled to learn that TJ, who’s supposed to be, what, 23? 24?, considers 15 to be the entry level of his dating range.

And finally, I send you off on your weekend with a full-sized dose of Rusty-horror!

Panel from Mark Trail, 6/4/10

Ha ha, try looking at those freakishly wide eyes and those stubby fingers and not getting the heebie-jeebies!