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135

Danses macabres

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Mary Worth, 10/8/26

So, Toby has been having an “Is my husband cheating on me, with Mary Worth of all people?” anxiety dream all week, and I keep waiting for it to get really deranged and fun à la the dancing Wilburbabies, but what we’ve gotten instead is just a slightly dream-tinged version of the same breathless real-life gossip sessions we’ve been seeing for some time now. Today I had the epiphany that this is actually very revealing of Toby’s character: she isn’t imagining some sordid Mary/Ian erotic tableau because she doesn’t actually care about her husband cheating on her; what she cares about is other people knowing that she’s being cheated on and eagerly talking about it, which is devastating to her self-image.

Dustin, 10/8/26

Yes, I know the joke here is “A boy? Taking ballet??? A dance for girls???????” but, real talk, my understanding is that learning ballet is actually a pretty difficult and physically demanding process, whereas for me Little League was an experience I didn’t enjoy much but mostly consisted of standing in the outfield where nothing ever happened and occasionally getting onto base after getting hit by a wild pitch, so the latter is definitely more appealing to me as an essentially lazy person. Like, take a look at ballet dancers sometime, both the men and the women are pretty shredded, and you’re probably saying, “Josh, you can’t compare the Bolshoi to whatever kind of entry-level suburban dance studio this kid’s mom is threatening him with,” and in response I would urge you to watch a Major League Baseball game sometime. It’s a sport I enjoy but it’s also a sport where the players are allowed to be in shape but don’t necessarily have to be, if you follow me. If you’re bad at running, they’ll send someone else to run the bases for you! You think they let you do that in ballet? They do not!

137

Tough questions

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/7/26

Back in the day, when he was first introduced into this comic strip, Mud Mountain Murphy used to be depicted as a giant of a man who loomed over everybody and spoke in boldface at all times. He seems to have chilled out/shrunk a bit since then, but as a tall guy I’m pretty sure that he may be talking a good game about the structural changes to the film industry, where multiplexes with access to bulk concession purchases are simply more labor-efficient and profitable than traditional single-screen theaters, but he’s probably thinking about the comfy recliners all the new movie theaters have as a matter of course.

Dennis the Menace, 10/7/26

Here’s a fun little game to play. It’s called “What’s Keeping Dennis Aloft?” Clearly his feet aren’t on the ground, but [audience shouts each word] WHAT’S! KEEPING! DENNIS! ALOFT! Is he standing on that chair, despite the fact that its shading matches the house and it seems like it’s supposed to be several feet behind him? Does he have superhuman wrist strength, so that the hand that seems so casually rested on Mr. Wilson’s stomach is actually bearing the child’s entire weight? Is he just kind of floating? Does Dennis have floating powers? It would be pretty menacing if he could just float in mid-air, right?

138

Tuesday is for dog-men

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Pluggers, 10/6/26

One of the interesting things about one-panel comics is that they often have to condense a series of actions into a single image-caption pair. So, for instance, in today’s Pluggers, we simultaneously see the moment at which this plugger gets the bright idea that he could perform dental surgery on himself and the horrible aftermath, where his mouth has somehow been moved unnaturally and definitely painfully almost all the way to his ear.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/6/26

As ever, I have questions on the legal, ethical, and moral position of Grimm on the spectrum between “sapient being with rights recognized by the state” and “pet,” but I think the strip treats him as a pet more often than not. With that in mind, I think the doctor would be well within his rights to refuse to admit him into the exam room, if only to stop him from making terrible puns.