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Archive: Judge Parker

140

The comic strip Marvin has also outlived many of its rivals, sadly

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Judge Parker, 1/6/25

Detective Yelich has been Sam’s inside man on the police force since the Great Judge Meth Caper of ’23, which, you may recall, included an episode in which Yelich got drunk and kidnapped a material witness to a murder case. So, yeah, detective, Sam isn’t gonna buy you shit! He can already threaten to ruin your life if you don’t help Alan with his little maybe-my-daughter’s-a-murderer problem! The only reason he had you meet him at the diner is so there would be witnesses if you decided that killing him might be easier and more fun than living under his thumb forever!

Marvin, 1/6/25

If you ever decide that “FINE, my comic strip WON’T be about poop for once, so what’s a good joke that doesn’t involve poop,” you could do worse than pulling out whatever trivia book you have as reading material in your bathroom and building a punchline out of something you find when you open it at random. In the interests of intellectual honesty, though, one of your strip’s characters must read said trivia item out of said book. Anyway, my favorite part of this strip is that Marvin’s trivia-loving friend has a big smile on his face as Marvin delivers the punchline. “That’s right, Marvin!” he’s thinking. “That rabbit is long dead. And it serves him right!”

Family Circus, 1/7/25

28 years ago, Ma Keane got a new haircut, and while strip reruns still include anachronisms like old-fashioned metal trash cans, the family matriarch’s old ‘do is always replaced with the new one as if it were one of Stalin’s purged generals. That’s true even if she’s wearing a kerchief that no longer serves much of a purpose wrapped around her newer, shorter hairstyle. Anyway, Big Daddy Keane sure is grumpy, presumably because he found a box that he briefly thought was full of delicious Jack Daniels but then he opened it and found a stack of dumb old issues of the Saturday Evening Post instead.

152

Holidays loom ominously

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Judge Parker, 12/23/24

Aw, isn’t that nice? Sam is going to let Alan enjoy the holidays and wait until the new year until he yells at him for sheltering his criminal daughter. Personally speaking, I’d like to get it out of the way now, you know? No worse way to spend the holiday then dwelling on “Ah, what kind of pissy scold am I going to get from Sam Driver about my latest criminal antics” when I could be exchanging gifts with my family or getting drunk or whatever.

Blondie, 12/23/24

Look, I’m not afraid to say it: A giant stocking stuffed full with cookies and two kinds of meat sounds disgusting. It’s all going to get mixed together and lint from the stocking will stick to everything! I’m not a food snob by any stretch of the imagination but Dagwood’s whole deal is very gross.

Gasoline Alley, 12/23/24

Santa, famously, sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. To this list of surveillance crimes, add another: every time somebody gives birth, anywhere in the world, he’s watching. He’s watching … and he remembers. He remembers everything.

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Emotional roller coasters

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Judge Parker, 12/20/24

Last night I had the pleasure of waiting for the bus next to a guy who was doing whip-its on the street corner, and when I say “had the pleasure,” I really mean it: he was amiable, charming, in good spirits, and endlessly amused by the funny things said whip-its were doing to his voice. Now obviously the act and the addiction are probably doing terrible things to his brain, and to society in general, but in the short term he seemed a lot happier than a lot of strung out or even sober people I’ve seen in public over the years. Anyway, I guess that can is in the middle of the table so that the Spencer clan, too genteel to do any drugs that don’t come in a martini glass, can add an adorable dollop of whipped cream to their hot cocoa, but they all look so happy that at first I wondered if a little whiff of nitrous had wiped away the typical Judge Parker pissyface, if only for a few moments.

Gasoline Alley, 12/20/24

Well, kids, I suppose we’ve learned a valuable lesson: artificial intelligence is a remarkable invention, but it’s still an experimental technology in its early stages and can make mistakes! For important work, you need to rely on something more traditional, something tried and true, tested by history: an awful demon, who was called forth from the aether by God as one of His angels but who was on the losing side of the Great War in Heaven that was fought and lost before time began, cast down with her Master into the fiery pit where she remained, seething, raging, seeking the souls of the innocent to warp and destroy and turn away from their Creator, finally learning how to inhabit the body of a children’s toy and walk the Earth, an abomination, a terror beyond comprehension. That’s who you want writing your report. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to write it.

Tina’s Groove, 12/20/24

Ha ha, Tina’s co-worker isn’t getting enough aphrodisiacs in her diet, ha! Also she’s very depressed, which frequently correlates to decreased libido. Every character in this strip is very depressed, so this tracks. Trust me on this, or just check out their facial expressions here. They always look like this!