Blondie: I'd like a book of stamps, please.

I would just like to point out that mailing a letter is, in fact, absurdly cheap, and it's about the last thing in the world people should complain about. But that's Blondie for you, always out in front, tackling the important issues.

Family Circus: Isn't it 'bout time for PJ to take a nap!

This cartoon is hilarious because PJ is annoying Jeffy, so Jeffy wants his mother to put PJ to bed, at which point Jeffy will be able to go back to annoying everybody else.

Dennis the Menace: You're not out of shape, Mr. Wilson. You've got lots of shapes.

What the hell are Dennis and Mr. Wilson doing in the bathroom together? And why is Mr. Wilson not fully dressed? And where is Mrs. Wilson? How can she just turn a blind eye like this?

I think I'm beginning to understand Dennis the Menace for the first time. It's not really meant to be funny at all. That's just a thin veneer, designed to make the comic palatable to a mainstream audience.

Dennis the Menace is actually a horrifying and heartbreaking portrait of the seedy underbelly of 1950s suburban life. Mr. Wilson's hatred of Dennis the misdirected self-loathing of a man unable to control his own urges. Mrs. Wilson's endless cookie-making a futile attempt to cope with the awful truth about the man she loves. Dennis's misbehavior a desperate cry for help. The Mitchells' obliviousness a shocking indictment of parents too wrapped up in their own lives to see their child's pain.

And the worst part is that they're all trapped there, in that nostalgic single-panel Hell, never getting the help they need or the chance to grow and age and change. I'm just surprised the comics section has been willing to provide a home for a comic with a subtext this daring and bleak and controversial. It's almost as if nobody else notices.

Blondie: I think it's a crying shame that so many peope base their political views on what radio talk show peope say.

Personally, I get all my political views from bloggers.

Family Circus: I bet he'd be good at blowin' out birthday candles.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on with the television? I can forgive the coloring, as the author isn't responsible for that. But the television is also apparently both flat-screen and square, which is not the sort of television that, you know, exists.

It would be one thing if the Keanes thought they were doing good work and were accidentally lame and unfunny. But, really, they're just lazy.

Candorville, Non Sequitur and Pearls Before Swine: My stupid newspaper.

It makes a lot of sense that comics authors would want to write about the looming death of the newspaper, considering they depend on it for their livelihood and whatnot. But one of the dangers of tackling complicated issues in a form as compressed as a comic strip is that it's easy to be a little glib. Take that Candorville strip, for example. (Which, by the way, would have gotten extra points in years previous for the Watchmen homage, but doesn't anymore.) The point of the strip is that young people don't buy newspapers because they've shrunk their comics sections.

But that's a pretty silly point, not least of all because of the situation today's Non Sequitur acknowledges. While comics shrinkage might play a small part in the loss of young readership (I know I like reading the comics in newspaper form), the ability to get all the same information, including the comics, on the internet is a much bigger part of it. Non Sequitur, meanwhile, having recognized the reality of the media shift, inexplicably lashes out at young people, builds a strawman argument about how without newspapers there can be no journalism, and then ends lamely with an arrogant "You stupid kids will be sorry, you will."

Pearls Before Swine is more effective, mostly because it doesn't try to diagnose or solve or even really bitch about the problem. Instead, it just uses the problem as a platform to tell funny jokes about post-it-sized newspapers and Pig beatboxing.

*Candorville from April 30. Non Sequitur and Pearls Before Swine from today.

Family Circus: I can't play today 'cause I've got something-itis."

This cartoon is hilarious because Billy's dying of swine flu and his parents don't have the heart to tell him.

Garfield: We always read the funnies together.

This isn't really meta, since, judging by their laughter, they couldn't possibly have been reading Garfield.

Famiy Circus: Super Market

This cartoon is hilarious because children like candy.

Wizard of Id: I'm caddying for the king next week. Any advice?

While the new caddy might think he isn't supposed to let the king near schools because of all the swearing, I'm pretty sure it's actually because the king is a pedophile.