The Comics Curmudgeon

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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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Cyber Monday

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Lockhorns, 3/16/26

Every once in a while the Lockhorns will deviate from their usual laser focus on Leroy and Loretta’s mutual antagonism and just do a “Ha ha, Leroy is a doofus” panel, and honestly I don’t care for it. At least this one includes Loretta looking at her husband with an expression of absolute despair, as she reflects upon exactly what type of man she chose to spend the balance of her adult life with.

Archie, 3/16/26

I was a pretty obsessive Archie Comics reader as a kid, but nevertheless there are bits of Archieverse lore that I’ve learned from the twentysomething-year-old newspaper strips currently in reruns. I don’t think I knew that Reggie was the editor of the student newspaper, for instance, nor that he was that classic type of late ’90s/early ’00s tech guy who had the skills to create an interactive website in the Web 1.0 era but was also obsessive about online privacy.

Crankshaft, 3/16/26

“Anyway, the one week I did it on the computer was last week, and it turns out computers are amazing. I’m definitely selling this drawing board, for a lot of money!”

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Animals strike curious poses (derogatory)

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/15/26

The characters in newspaper comic strips generally keep their vocabulary squeaky clean, and the Hootin’ Holler crew doesn’t even resort to grawlices as far as I can remember. That’s why I’m pretty horrified to learn today that, while we’re not seeing him in action, Snuffy is just letting loose with a nonstop stream of obscenities, blasphemies, and slurs around the house, presumably where Jughaid and li’l Tater can hear. Grim stuff! (It’s less surprising to learn, as we do in the throwaway panels, that even the Holler’s lone semi-legitimate businessman doesn’t know the difference between deflation and disinflation, as flatlanders generally struggle with that as well.)

Pluggers, 3/15/26

BlueSky, one of several social media sites where I post daily links to my blog, has an auto-moderation feature that deemed yesterday’s Pardon My Planet demonic sideboob “adult content.” Well, sorry, I’m doubling down on the smut. Check out today’s Pluggers! Depraved furry pornography! Unspeakable filth! This is the sort of thing America wants to see in the newspaper now and we all need to come to terms with that fact!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/15/26

Oh, man, were you excited at the prospect of Mud Mountain Murphy and Lorna Starr/Mae Mae Clodfelter getting to know each other over several days of cafe breakfasts, and maybe feeling a spark of attraction that could eventually blossom into romance? Well, too bad. They already knew each other, it turns out. We’re skipping all of that! Better luck next time!

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What’s the wine made of? Probably I don’t want to know

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Gil Thorp, 3/14/26

Emily “Mimi” Clover has, at various overlapping times, been Gil’s student, assistant coach, and wife. Now that she’s coaching Milford arch-rival Valley Tech, we’re in for a real “now the student/assistant coach/wife has become master” scenario, where she uses Gil’s own The Secret-inspired “think yourself win” techniques against him.

Pardon My Planet, 3/14/26

Pardon My Planet’s take on romantic partnerships is traditionally “they are the worst nightmares you can imagine and there is no escape,” so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that when the strip finally depicts a loving relationship, it’s literally between two demons in the depths of hell.

Pluggers, 3/14/26

Pluggers have precious little free time remaining to them due to the huge amount of effort it takes to keep them alive, and they spend it playing golf. Sad!