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Dennis the Menace, 5/22/07

Dennis the Menace rightly gets flack on this site for his repeated failure to menace anybody, and today’s installment, in which he and his pal Joey take a whimsical trip down memory lane on the family footstool, would seem to be even less menacing than most. But think about it: Dennis is well aware of the fact that Alice, who used to have a name, and, moreover, an identity of her own, has now, by the very fact of his whelping, become merely an adjunct to his own larger-than-life personality. She’s no longer Alice Mitchell, and she’s definitely not Alice Whatever-Her-Maiden-Name-Was; she’s just “mom,” and, more to the point, she’s mom to the most hated child in the county. And Dennis looks pretty damn smug about this state of affairs. That sound you hear is millions of women across the country opening the cases that hold their birth control pills, double-checking to make sure they haven’t missed a day.

Hi and Lois, 5/22/07

I like the fact that Hi is not charmed by his twins’ antics, but rather stares at their handiwork in goggle-eyed panic. The lawn is shaggy enough that he can’t really care that much about the damage to the landscaping; rather, he sees that his golf dates, which were his only chance to get away from his hated family, will now be replaced by sullen putting around his backyard to delight of his squealing kids, followed by his suicide.

Crock, 5/22/07

Today we learn that the characters in Crock are in fact parasites who live their days wandering around the bright yellow flesh of some unimaginably huge being. If you had told me that somehow they’d find a way to make this strip even more unsettling than it already is, I wouldn’t have believed you, but there it is.

Momma, 5/22/07

Today we also learn that Momma’s Francis is into watersports, or maybe scat play. This revelation really ought to make the strip even more unsettling than it already is, but after I found out that Francis surfs for Internet porn while sitting right next to his mother, frankly nothing he does could possibly shock me.

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Crankshaft, 5/21/07

Since a Crankshaft is a Funky Winkerbean sister strip, talk of death ought to make any character within earshot worry that they’re next in line for a demise that is both informative (to the reader) and agonizing (to the character … and, OK, also to the reader). The hilarious switcharoo in the final panel shows that the ’Shaft has not in fact worn his omnipresent baseball cap to yet another funeral, but is merely continuing his reign of terror over the cowed ladies of the Garden Club. To be honest I’ve never really understood his svengali-like hold over these innocent horticulture enthusiasts; there has to be some sort of cult-like angle to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if his next Garden Club speech starts very similarly to the one we see here, but ends instead at a table set with lots of little Dixie cups full of Kool-Aid.

Blondie, 5/21/07

Dagwood Bumstead — overeater, oversleeper, underachiever, tool moocher, intellectual soul mate to middle-schooler Elmo — has never been particularly troubled by shame. Thus his sudden look of mingled guilt and confusion in the final panel of this strip must indicate that his dream — with its “cherries the size of bowling balls” — got very, very weird indeed. Good taste, and our own peace of mind, must preclude us from contemplating the matter further.

Hi and Lois, 5/21/07

I’d blame this on another wacky coloring sweatshop mix-up, but the rug looks like this in black and white, too. There are only two reasons to have an inky black wall-to-wall carpet: to remind you of the dark abyss of Death that will one day open up and swallow your soul (and the Flagstons don’t seem like the type) or to absorb any and all liquids you might care to spill onto it without show visible stains. There’s a reason that they leave Trixie sitting in front of that window for 20 hours a day.

Mark Trail, 5/21/07

Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark. You’re so eager to impress your chesty little friend that you’ve blown the cover off of your journalistic M.O. “Take a boring story from three years ago that nobody remembers, replace a few paragraphs with updated information, and … ka-CHING! Another fat paycheck, plus a free trip away from my Stepford Wife and freaky gap-toothed big-headed not-son!”

I’m pretty sure that panel two offers the first look at a dangling mouse corpse with its head half-masticated to ever appear in the comics pages.

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“Dog Haiku: The cat is not all/ Bad; she fills the litter box/ With Tootsie Rolls.” –AAckTTpth

(Update: Faithful reader AAckTTpth writes me to note that this haiku is not in fact his original creation, but was discovered here. Duly noted, but it still made me laugh a lot, so I shall not attempt to understand the past in order to change it, Mary Worth-style. For more information on why 5-7-5 isn’t exactly the be-all and end-all of haiku, see here.)

The other comments chosen weren’t haiku, but were almost as good.

“The dynamics of a Daddy Keane/Mama Hagar mating, meanwhile, would probably be about as disturbing as Sammy Hagar as the lead singer of Keane.” –Plinko Commie

“Near as I can tell by squinting, Blondie’s ‘favorite meal’ consists of an egg and a baked potato. I’m guessing she was forcibly defaulted to that as her favorite because it’s her only meal, being the only two food items in the house that don’t get used for sandwiches.” –Rhekarid

“Anyone who thinks Jack Elrod is just mailing it in these days should take a second and ponder how difficult it would be to come up with a sentence that shows less understanding of current American politics than ‘If we can get the people all fired up about the birds, they will vote to build a new airport!'” –gump worsley

“GT: Look how disappointed the girl on the right is that her coach didn’t tell her that she got a mammogram. I don’t know what she’s upset about. If one of my basketball coaches told me they had gotten a mammogram with empty, soulless Gil Thorp eyes, I would have sued for sexual harassment.” –kat

“Judge Parker (the comic strip) has a villainous son in it, who is currently sitting down talkin’ smack about his allegedly crazy mom and sharing mullet-maintenance tips with Abbey. (‘I like to use bear grease to style mine, it gives it that stringy quality that just screams “roadie for Lynyrd Skynyrd.” Plus, the NASCAR babes frickin’ love it.’ ‘That’s cool. I usually just dump a bunch of hair dye on mine and blow dry it for like an hour.’)” –Trilobite

“It seems to me that faking a rockslide would be easy compared to faking a bird problem at the airport. What are the hairy-faced villains going to do, sprinkle shelled peanuts and mealworms all over the landing strip? Reflood the drained wetland? Unclean the landfill? And the worst part is that we’re going to find out.” –Poteet

“Sally Forth: I can’t believe Ted stole a computer from his office. How in the world did he lift it with those tiny little hands?” –AppleGirl

“TDIET: My prayers and thoughts go out to J. Posener’s son, Winthrop, who was brutally beaten in school today after saying, ‘Oh, WHAT he said, tsk-tsk!'” –Darkefang

“I’m liking the quiet cruelty over the last week, like Neddy’s last panel silent reaction shot. ‘No, Rachel can’t just go and live out the rest of her days peacefully with her wrinkly lover on some rich person’s island paradise! She’s meant to die horribly so I can inherit all her stuff! Everybody’s always so mean to me!'” –lesles

“So, is the bearded guy an evil villain or just trying to help Luann learn a lesson? His actions say ‘evil’ but his words say ‘tedious didactic plot device.'” –Prehumous

“Getting people fired up over non-existent problems is 75% of politics. If you don’t know that by now, generic county commissioner, then maybe you don’t deserve to be sharing a crappy office in the basement of County Hall.” –King Folderol

“Spider-man can’t plug up Kordork’s gun with his web shooter because he has a woman next to him? This has to be the lamest thing we’ve ever seen out of Spidey…except maybe when a brick knocked him out. Come to think of it, when he went to the doctor’s office with his costume on underneath his clothes that was really lame too. And when he let a fat chauffeur sneak up on him and knock him out, God that was lame. Screw it, this is perfectly in character.” –reader-who-posts

“Try not to worry overmuch about Vera. Judging from her flashback, clearly homeless = drinking coffee in the same diner as a black person. Hey, just this morning I was homeless too!” –SecretMargo

A couple of other funny thingies:

• Anyone who, like me, enjoys the overwrought NEXT! boxes in the Phantom and Spider-Man, should check out these hilarious reworkings by faithful reader Chaz Larson. (Just click on the file names to see the ‘toons.)
• Should the dim-bulb county commissioners in Mark Trail take their bird-and-airport show over to Fulton County?

And finally, we must of course give thanks to our advertisers, from whom all blessings flow.

• Support indie artists at Shana Logic: Stylish gifts for you and the ones you love!
• Nathaniel Bright is back: The final episode of Cairo is now on-line. Explosions, heart-break, mummies, and a tommy-gun. What else could you ask for?

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