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Dennis the Menace, 8/29/25

We take the eternal struggle between Dennis and Mr. Wilson so much for granted that it rarely occurs to us to ask what Dennis gets out of their interactions. But clearly he must enjoy it at some level; perhaps he even likes and respects Mr. Wilson, and views his neighbor as a role model. In fact, today’s strip reveals that Dennis gets one of his worst traits, his tendency to shit-talk the cooking skills of the person who does all the cooking for him, from the cantankerous old man. Who’s the real menace here, hmm?

Marvin, 8/29/25

The most obvious and tragic feature of the Miller household is, of course, the complete lack of affection among the family members. That’s why it’s so surprising to discover that Marvin and Jeff have actually been bonding. Jeff is happy about it, but check out Marvin’s face: he doesn’t like his father at all, it’s just a plot to annoy his mother, and he’ll be happy to switch his feigned affection from one parent to the other if it will keep the family misery simmering.

B.C., 8/29/25

Since I’m apparently talking about character names in B.C. this week, I will report for those unaware that the three main male characters in the strip are named “B.C.,” “Peter,” and “Thor,” and they are utterly indistinguishable from one another other than via their hair color (red, blond, and brown, respectively). I can never remember which is which, so I always have to consult the character list in the Wikipedia B.C. article when I need to distinguish among them; said list includes some other information about their personality traits (B.C. is a “naïve slob and eternal patsy,” Peter a “self-styled genius and the world’s first philosophical failure,” etc.) that, if they were ever apparent in the strip, have not been for decades, in my opinion. Anyway, I had to go consult the list again this week in order to bring you the news that Thor died. He fucking died. He fell in a water hazard while playing golf and he drowned, and now he’s dead.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/28/25

Imagine: You’ve just finished putting together the script for a perfectly serviceable Barney Google and Snuffy Smith strip, which hinges on wordplay around the phrase “Mr. Right.” But then you remember: in Hootin’ Holler patois, they never say “mister”; they say “mistopher.” Does this make the joke clunkier and weirder, and leave the reader wondering if “mistopher” itself is part of the punchline? Well, yes. But it doesn’t matter. You are the keeper of the sacred trust that is Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. You must scrupulously adhere to the lore, or else what’s the point? Would you jettison decades of tradition for a single day’s laugh? You wouldn’t dare.

Pluggers, 8/28/25

The joke here is whatever, but I’m very unsettled by the look on this plugger’s face as he approaches the bathroom. He looks like he knows he has a journey of awful discovery in store for him in there, and it is not reading-media-related. It’s something much darker and more visceral; he knows something awful is about to begin, but he can’t guess when or how it will end.

Heathcliff, 8/28/25

The robot’s smooth, featureless crotch is a reminder that cybernetic organisms are ghastly parodies of humanity, lacking the natural urges and drives that, troublesome as they may be, make us people. Grandma Nutmeg’s right to demand it be hidden from sight!

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B.C., 8/27/25

A fun thing that happened in B.C. about halfway through the decade or so when I was ignoring it is that the Cute Chick and the Fat Broad got renamed “Grace” and “Jane,” respectively. So, congrats to both of them! I bring this up because the setup to this strip seems to be that Jane went out onto this boat with Curls and her cat, and she told him something about “catfishing” that he didn’t really understand, but he didn’t ask her any follow-up questions for whatever reason. Would he have been so deferential if she was still known only as “the Fat Broad?” Doubtful!

Gil Thorp, 8/27/25

Football season is underway in the Valley Conference! Glad to see in panel one that the refs don’t let a little light-to-medium face-masking interfere with everyone having a good time. Sure, a few necks will be broken, but the surviving players will be even tougher, and within a few generations we’ll have a whole community full of supernecked athletes! Let’s take the long view here.

Alice, 8/27/25

Panels like this are classics of the “A cartoonist experiences something incredibly mundane in their daily life and decides it would make a good comic for some reason” genre, but when Alice does that, it really makes me worry about the origins of the strips with the aliens.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/27/25

Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want to explore your newly discovered familial connection to Cody? Well get ready to be struck dead by an angry God, buddy!!!