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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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/23/23

So it seems that Niki is going to turn down the college scholarship he earned by helping Rex recapture some escaped prisoners, because he’s found a new passion — auto mechanics! And indeed, this is a line of work that can be quite lucrative, though I’m a little worried that he’s cut his teeth on classic cars and is going to show up on his first day at his new job and start panicking when he sees how many computer chips are involved. Anyway, I love panel three because Kelly has just reached that point in a Big Relationship Talk where the other person starts waving their index finger in your face, which you know means things are going great.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/23/23

I’m sorry, there is no way on earth that Snuffy Smith is going to utter the phrase au contraire. Absolutely fucking not. It’s days like today when I really come to terms with what a crushing burden it is to be the last person alive who cares about consistent characterization in newspaper comics that are literally more than a hundred years old.

Dennis the Menace, 6/23/23

Dennis casually looking at his phone as he delivers this line is in fact quite menacing and extremely funny, and I have no choice but to respect it.

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Blondie, 6/22/23

Let’s put aside, for the moment, the fact we’re dealing with three famous (?) comics couples here. What are the circumstances under which you’d have any three couples together like this to talk to Blondie and Tootsie about vow-renewal catering? Like, do they just have office hours specifically for potential vow renewers to drop by and chat? Or are they all doing this together, a mass vow-renewal process? Are they friends? Or — and now, finally, we must return to the fact that we’ve got three beloved (???) comics couples on our hands — is this for copyright reasons, somehow, and what they’re actually “renewing” is the rights of their intellectual property holders to the concept of their coupledom?

Mary Worth, 6/22/23

Lyle Lovett! It’s bad enough that you’re running an illegal underground dog-fighting ring. But now you’re drunk on the job? Try to show a little pride in your terrible, cruel work!

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Shoe, 6/21/23

Here’s a little free hint for comic strip writers everywhere: if you come up with a line of dialogue and you think, “Well, I can’t top that one,” that means you’ve found your punchline! You should probably think of a setup panel that leads into it, instead of just having one of your other characters say “Well, I can’t top that one” and calling it day.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/21/23

For some reason I think I assumed that Snuffy was a lone wolf chicken thief? But here’s Lukey, cheerfully engaging in poultry larceny with him. And in broad daylight! Please, Lukey, reconsider this life of crime, you have a family! At least I think you do? Clearly I don’t know you as well as I thought.