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.
140 replies to “The comic strip Marvin has also outlived many of its rivals, sadly”
MW: Is it just me or have Dawn’s hands been shrinking throughout this arc?
JP:
“Now, I’m not just any detective, Sam. I’m a Stylized Exposition Detective. That’s why my tie is hanging loosely from my shirt collar as if to suggest that I’ve been working all day running down tips, even though it’s early in the morning and my tie get-up should therefore be in pristine form!”
MW: This is the lamest negging I’ve ever seen. If I was Dawn, I wouldn’t be hurt as much as just annoyed at this point.
FC: “Possible baby names. I still think Jeffy is more of a ‘Frmmp’.”
MW: realistically this should be wrapping up soon as Dawn realizes she likes likes looking at Dirk but doesn’t actually like him. But KM will drag this on for months as she heads for destination anywhere.
JP: Did Yelich just openly confess to violating discovery? Damn, we knew getting Ann’s charges dismissed would be contrived, but the incompetence of the Cavelton justice system is nothing if not expedient.
Marvin meta: Josh thinks this isn’t about poop, but it sure sounds like they’re talking about turtling to me.
DT: Junior used to be Lieutenant Junior? Even though he explicitly served in the military before going to college? Sure, why not. For all the research Costello is capable of, Junior might as well have enlisted as Field Marshal of the Space Fleet.
H&L: “Shirtless Hi Flagston” was not on my list of things I wanted to see in 2025.
SlyF: “Slylock groping some foxgirl breasts” was also not on my list, but at least that’s probably making a few people happy. Shirtless Hi Flagston can never say the same.
Luann: The Evanses are out of ideas. Every strip is just Luann lying on her bed talking about her vague ambitions and Bernice replying with bitchy sarcasm. If not that, it’s creepy flirting between Brad and Toni, roommate squabbles with Tiffany and Stef, or Boring Domestic Sunday, and it always all plays out exactly the same. It takes a special kind of terrible imagination to have an open-ended cast of people in their late teens and early twenties and still run out of material this quickly.
GT: “Let the games begin?” I beg your pardon? Hey, why can’t Marty Moon work drunk if this lady is allowed to?
JP: “If you think that I’m gonna tell you that the evidence has been lost and we’re going to try and bluff her into a confession, you got another thing coming.”
FC: The “klums” box of course contains Bil’s collection of revealing pin-up pictures of Heidi Klum. The “frmmps” box is reserved for pictures of real frumps, so that’s where they keep the photo album of Holier-Than-Thou Grandma.
FC: interesting spin to have your strip be AI generated and try to make the punchline work with the nonsense words that often show up in such “art.”
FC: Find the box marked, “Ridiculously Outdated Male Clothing,” strip down and toss ’em in.
Judge Parker – They don’t have to worry about being overheard at this diner. The patrons aren’t bothered by paying attention to details, much like the colorist isn’t exactly sure what hue each part of the exterior should be cement staircase grey colored, and which should be dead-grass tan.
Marvin – This strip is for online engagement from pedants who will note that tortoises and turtles aren’t the same species. Creator Tom Armstrong knows he’s not Gary Larson, and he’s never going to be beloved by scientists or featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. But in this world where outrage clicks and engagement trump quality of content, it doesn’t matter.
We’ve all lost out in the end.
Family Circus – The fact that Daddy Keane had a Jack Daniels box suggests his drinking problem early in the strip’s history was much worse than we thought. Will the memories of reading the Saturday Evening Post over his evening whisky(ies) bring back fond memories? Will he look through those old newspapers and remember what his strip about his family was in the early, exciting days when children truly misbehaved? Will that mystery box for frrmps and klums turn out to contain rare gralixes that his late friend Mort Walker gifted to him to offer a little edge to his comic that was sliding into saccharine sweetness?
Newspaper comics are in their twilight years. The temptation to turn dark and edgy on the way out is very tempting.
The narration box says “it’s morning”, because the writer does not trust the ability of the artist or the colourist to convey this through their art and, frankly, he’s right
RMMD: Wait, these characters weren’t among the Good Folks in Glenwood on Saturday. Are we supposed to care if the new year will be cruel or kind to them?
Marvin beat his hair in the end. Got it.
JP: “That’s why we’re getting separate checks. Why I stuck a prosthetic hand with a pot of coffee to my back is another story, that I don’t really have time to get into right now.”
Marvin: Dug it out ‘again’? Is this a continuing series? It feels like this is community service for Marvin after being found guilty of damaging society (with poop jokes).
MW: And with the word “Nerdgirl,” Dirk will never know how close he was to having phone sex.
JP: Sure, we could all ask ourselves when did Yelich, a known drunk and total incompetent, get rehired by the police force (I thought he was still on a ‘leave of absence’ after the whole Lil’ Dunk fiasco) but the more important question is, who killed the waitress whose disembodied hand is still holding a pitcher of coffee next to Sam’s shoulder?
MW: Wow, this Dirk is certainly a one-trick pony, isn’t he?
Luann: Evansii, it’s Monday and I have to go back to work and start online courses today. Do NOT get me started on dating apps again…
My kids, in the Spring: Oh, look at all the baby rabbits running around! You don’t see as many in the winter. Why is that?
Me: …
Utterly Disposable Marvin character: I, uh, wait…
Marvin: IMMORTALITY IS GREAT I CAN POOP ANY TIME I WANT
The Family Circus: The ball-gagged gimps you stored away a few years ago?
Also Marvin: Incontinence of bowel and bladder is of course a hallmark of senescent decline. Marvin’s skipped the toddler, young child, adolescent, late adolescent, later adolescent and adult stages of human development and wrapped all the way back around to geriatric. Horseshoe theory: it’s not just for politics anymore!
FC: In most civilized countries, tucking your sleeveless sweater into your pants is grounds for divorce, if not execution by the Fashion Brigade.
FC: Assuming (and it’s a huge assumption, I know) that this strip takes place in the present, it appears that Dad Keane has been hauling his drunken, hoarding grandfather’s box of old magazines from house to house for decades. What is his power over Thel? No collection of Norman Rockwell magazine covers is worth it.
GT: I’m worried about the guy in P1 whose floating head detached from his body. Shouldn’t someone call the helicopter ambulance?
MW: Why are Dawn and Dirk on the phone? Surely she went home with him. He must be in the shower.
FC: Way over on the right, the actual monkey the Monkey’s Paw came from. Quite the collectible if they only knew it.
The Jack Daniels box? Evidence that despite Bil’s pose as a straitlaced conservative suburbanite, he was once a leather-clad, hard-partying heavy metal bassist.
So does “Marvin” (the strip) jump back and forth in time from pre-verbal to almost-literate (but always shitting) Marvin, or is Marvin (the character) a time traveller? At any rate, I’d be curious to know if the adult version of Marvin has to excuse himself from sales meetings because he’s just shit his pants.
Those issues of the Saturday Evening Post aren’t Norman Rockwell classics. Instead they’re from the 1970s when the magazine was a house organ of the Republican Party, with worshipful profiles of not-yet-president Reagan and articles like “Democrats – The War Party?” The Keanes are about to bring the box downstairs in order to further their children’s indoctrination, and by the time they’re in middle school the kids will be Fox News Grumps decades before their time.
FC: Bil Keane finds his purpose.
I’m just happy the Keane offspring aren’t there to witness their genetics in action and see how little hope there is for their future. On the other hand, it would be nice to have a little ammunition in case their father ever grumbles about kids these days not learning cursive.
Also, even in the golden days of yore, who the hell ever labelled a box using cursive?
B. Bailey: Good thing for Beetle, the General is so technologically illiterate he can’t figure who sent him the dick pic.
FC: This panel sent me on a fruitless google quest to see if Bil Keane got his start in the Saturday Evening Post, which would explain this clip art/AI “art” reference. Unfortunately, no. I HATE inadvertently learning things because of bad comic strips!
MW: Her left breast is so perky, I’m thinking Dawn must have put her right boob in the bedside table drawer.
MW: Dawn’s glasses should be the least of her worries. That hairy arm can’t be a good look in cocktail attire….
FC: You know, Bil, you could try opening it. Just a thought.
Some detective. He didn’t even notice Sam’s back has grown a hand holding a coffeepot.
Thel’s old hairstyle is very similar to Janey Slater’s in Watchmen, which means Bil often walks around the house in bright blue nude.
FC – Having just finally finished cleaning out my late mother’s house, I can tell you that it was chock full of not only frmmps and klums, but also Jack Daniels.
My parents entertained frequently, and had a lot of booze in the house, prompting the woman running the estate sale* to ask me, “So, which parent was the alcoholic?”
The answer is, neither – that’s why the bottles were all together and completely full. If she had found half bottles throughout the house in weird places, I could see her point. My grandmother (who was an alcoholic), for example, liked to hide hers in the tank of the toilet.
Thanks for bringing up that happy memory, Jef.
*She was actually delightful, and I was not at all offended. Given my family history, it was a fair question.
Judge Parker: Yelich is a cop who knows the score, and that’s why he doesn’t want to pay for breakfast. He realizes Sam would never eat in a real greasy spoon, and this is one of those places in a leafy suburb that calls itself a “diner,” but where a cheese omelet costs $18.95 and comes with a fresh fruit cup.
Marvin: If this school library is producing kids in diapers who can read and pronounce phrases like “Madagascar tortoise,” it must be doing something right. Of course, we’re not counting Marvin — he still hasn’t figured out what the hell a “velveteen rabbit” is. (P.S.: When I was trying to write “tortoise” I accidentally typed “toilet,” which I guess is just muscle memory when you’re making Marvin jokes.)
Family Circus: No wonder Daddy is always yelling at the kids to turn the lights out when they leave a room — with zero insulation in the attic, their electric heating bill must be enormous.
Mary Worth: Do we really think Dawn’s new jerkboy would call her, or even answer the phone, on the same night as their date / makeout sesh? I’m pretty sure this guy would go incommunicado for at least four days, then send her an 11 p.m. ” ‘sup?” text that came with a picture of his junk.
FC: It contains the remains of stillborn children, we all know it.
FC — I don’t know what “frmmps” and “klums” are, but judging from the picture next to the roses, Dorian Gray isn’t long for this world. . .
FC: The box says “Fromage and Klemzers.” Why the Keanes have a box of cheesy Yiddish records in their attic, I leave to those above my pay grade.
Flylock Socks…
…is a total frame up and an anti amphibian race hustle: the bear(?)/ape(?) just held the camera close to the ground to implicate the toad, knowing that the red jackal is naturally inclined to arrest people in a whim.
DT: “I made it my personal mission to keep an eye on Lt. Totten’s research, because I’ve always really been into that Nazi stuff myself. Did you know Himmler kept tropical fish?”
Phantom: It’s difficult to pay attention to Neville Stokes while that starlet’s top keeps slipping down her chest.
RMMD: Finally, some plot movement and exposition! “Where are you going, Kelly?” “Nowhere.” “What are you doing, Kelly?” “Nuthin.’”
SFx: The toad stole the camera as a favor to Tiffany. She won’t want any photographic evidence of how she looked in that ugly purple polka-dot dress.
Dishrag Dawn, with those glasses you have on,
Could you be a bullied nerd from days gone by?
And did I hear you say, you were a-meetin’ Dirk here today,
To serve him up a piece of nerd hair pie?
MW: We really are gonna lean into the negging thing I guess…that’s still less disturbing than the fact that these two nincompoops are talking on the phone
JP: I dunno, Yellich and Sam probably have so much dirt on each other at this point that any takedown would be a case of mutually assured destruction. That’s why Sam’s insisting on separate checks: the scale of obligation between them is perfectly balanced and he doesn’t want to upset the equilibrium for fear of the whole thing toppling.
Marvin: The punchline is framed like the tortoise got the last laugh on the hare, but the tortoise won in the original fable so it just sounds like the hard-shelled bastard is rubbing salt in the wound.
Frmmps and klums? How much of that Jack Daniels did Bill consume before labeling the boxes?
Blondie: Interesting because most Americans and Aussies pronounce 6th “siksth” while most Brits say “sickth” The fact that Alexander is drinking STP high mileage Gasoline additive for breakfast might also interest some people, i. e. Canadians.
Bliss: Hey, are you cartoonists! This is how you draw squirrels!
JP – I don’t get the hand holding the coffee pot coming out of Sam’s left shoulder. It’s a normal sized hand, but I don’t see how Sam could totally obscure the poured. Is it a little person or wheelchair bound waiting staffer? You don’t see that every day….
Marvin – A Madagascar tortoise defects once a week in a total amount of 1.5 ounces. How much excrement did this Madagascaran Methuselah produce in his lifetime….
FC – Thel looks like she could use some of that Jack Daniels….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Marvin-After the race the turtle beat the hare with a tire iron.
FC-Saturday Evening Post? Who reads the Saturday Evening Post? Who keeps copies of the Saturday Evening Post in their attic. Sell those things.
Slylock Fox-Film?
MW-Calling Dawn a nerdgirl is one of Dirk’s endearing quirks.
FC-That’s just Mommy’s old bunny uniform.
@The Quiet Man: re JP: The story of how Sam got a coffee-toting arm grafted to his back is too sad to recount, but we actually do know when Yelich got reinstated to active police duty, and it’s as silly as you’d expect. It’s even relevant to the current plot.
About a year back on the day Ann did and/ or didn’t kill Don, Yelich was working as a glorified gofer for Sam and Gloria. (Where’s she, anyway? She’s practically Sam’s boss; shouldn’t she be the lead on this defense case? Or has she fallen into the memory hole now, too?) Yelich went searching for Ann himself across an entire metropolitan area with pretty much nothing to go on, but after Harrison the loan shark caught up with Ann at a transportation terminal and started taking her back to Alan’s house, Yelich showed up at the terminal by pure luck and found people who gave him info by pure luck, and so he decided to start driving to Alan’s house himself based on absolutely nothing.
During Yelich’s drive, which was evening already, Yelich got a call from his department telling him that he had been reinstated effective immediately and was ordered to get to work right then and there on any detective work he might stumble onto. He wasn’t called in for any briefing to be brought up to speed, there was no check on the status of his alcoholism recovery, no readiness evaluation, no gear reissue, nothing. Just, “I don’t care if it’s 7pm on a Friday and you have no gear and no idea what’s going on, get back to work right this second, you hopefully-former drunk.”
A lucky break for all involved, since it gave Yelich restored law enforcement authority to arrest Harrison when he showed up in the nick of time (despite leaving well after Harrison and Ann left and headed straight to Alan’s), and more importantly let him be a bit of a dick to Randy when Randy tried to let-me-talk-to-your-manager at him. Don’t even get me started on what Randy was up to that night, none of it made any sense even at the time and it’s all in opposition to his present characterization.
And that was the last we saw of Yelich until today, though it seems he blundered his first crime scene back on the job so badly that the police weren’t able to figure out how Don died at all. In light of that, I’m frankly kind of curious what the prosecution’s case against Ann even is if they couldn’t establish even the broadest cause of death. But if we’re seemingly never going to hear Ann’s side of the story, I’m not holding out much hope for that either.
MW Maybe he should be called “Dork?” If Dawn can’t see all the red flags of abuse she should get her head examed. After all, who doesn’t have ANY plans for Christmas and New Year’s Eve if they’re such a hot catch?
BCN: You’re using vintage Tupperware for the cat food? Get that thing on eBay!
DT: So apparently military members are only vulnerable to far-right radicalization if their parents were ex-Nazis to begin with.
Dustin: Don’t knock it, Dustin! Do you know what those VIP seats are going for? Play your cards right and you could get more tips in one night than you dad makes as a vaguely defined lawyer with no clients.
Luann: Also you’ll still be a twelve-year-old mentally, so….
MT: How can “men in bear suits try to kidnap a manatee” be so boring?
MW: My understanding of negging is that it’s more subtle, usually in the form of backhanded compliments and such (ie. “Wow, you’re eating that? I’m glad you’re not one of those girls who obsesses about her weight.”). But this is Mary Worth, where subtlety goes to die, so we’re left with a guy repeating the same childish nickname over and over.
I can’t believe Bil said “fr***s” and “kl***s”! It might have been fine in the 1970s, but times have changed! Time to cancel him!
FC, far right: Who amongst us does not keep a dead monkey in an open coffin in their attic? Get that thing over to Norma Desmond’s house for a proper burial, pronto! She’s a Sagittarius, you can trust her.
Marvin – The other child’s name? Believe it or not, it was Robert Ripley. And now you know… the rest of the story.
Don Abundio, translated:
“We famous actors must practice our diction! One hen, two ducks”
“Three squawking geese…”
“Four limerick oysters… five corpulent porpoises…”
“That’s the most moving soliloquy he’s ever delivered!”
“Six pairs of Don Abundio’s tweezers…”
Marvin: In truth, Marvin‘s had maybe two or three poop jokes since sometime before Thanksgiving of 2023, when Tom Armstrong apparently bet he could carry the strip on without them. Doesn’t matter, though: Marvin is about poop, Marvin has always been about poop, and Marvin will always be about poop, even if it hasn’t featured a poop joke in months. There’s no escaping destiny, Tom…
Mary Worth: Look, she’s lived her life as Dawn Weston, daughter of Wilbur Weston. It’s not surprising that she has a humiliation fetish — only that it’s taken this long for someone to figure it out.
JP-“If you want to get inside me, Sam, buy me dinner first.”
FC- Who in the hell keeps a METAL trash can in their attic? For what reason? Most attic steps are narrow if you fill it up with trash how do you get it down and then lug it up again?? Or is it an heirloom?
Luann-Do I smell a crossover with ‘Mary Worth’?
RMMD — it may have been a while since we last saw Kelly, but she seems to have put on the “Freshman 15”. Or she’s retaining fluid in the face. Or she’s pregnant.
@Sequitur: re Bliss: Hey, thanks, pal, for the promo for our fine Squirrel talent today! Yes, this is probably the best venue to show off our most photogenic, literate Rodents! And Squeaky and Sean are all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to get back to work!
Luckily the holidays have been slow – just try to get any Wildlife to show up for a couple of weeks after the Solstice Celebration! Those who practice a hibernation lifestyle have gone back to bed, and the others are still hung over. But whatever you think Squirrels, they do have a good work ethic.
@jroggs:
LUANN: Sundays all follow the same pattern (though I maybe should update it to include those dumb crosswords, which seem to be a thing now): https://imgur.com/PhlWbTz
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
#65. They’re performers so I don’t think Squeaky and Sean would mind my complimenting them on their gorgeous tails! Even if they’re toupees, these tails are full, warm, and color appropriate. Good salon work.
@pugfuggly: JP: “That’s why we’re getting separate checks. Why I stuck a prosthetic hand with a pot of coffee to my back is another story, that I don’t really have time to get into right now.”
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It’s the new style in Cavelton this year.
@jroggs: “Luann: The Evanses are out of ideas. Every strip is just Luann lying on her bed talking about her vague ambitions and Bernice replying with bitchy sarcasm.”
Reminds me of The Simpsons when Bart threatened that nobody was a match for a young child’s imagination, and then we saw his inner thought balloon, which was just a guy shrugging because he had no ideas.
The Judge Parker team has been told to tap into the youth market or risk cancellation. No fear, however, our intrepid writer and artist have noticed that “the young people” were all into the “Wednesday ” series on Netflix a year or two ago and so they stand at the ready to capitalize on that recently-popular “Addams Family” spinoff with an unauthorized guest appearance by “Thing” as a “Rosie Palm, the sassy diner waitress.” Well done, proud fifty-somethings!
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: re RMMD: It’s been a while since we saw Kelly, but shouldn’t she have just been home for holiday break? This conversation sounds more like she was not. Yeah, let’s go with pregnant.
@Myrtle: And while we’re at it – Dawn can get pregnant by jerkhead Dirk. “What a gorgeous baby! Where did his father run off to?”
@BigTed: Re: Judge Parker: We all know a real greasy spoon would be run by dumpy waitresses in outdated hairdos while “successful roots country celebs mooch free meals off of them
@Hibbleton: FC: “Possible baby names. I still think Jeffy is more of a ‘Frmmp’.”
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Mortica Addams’ maiden name was Frmmp….another piece of the puzzle to Jeffy’s creepy and kookiness?
FC: Thel: “Oh – that. That box goes with the one labelled “MOOGPH and GLEMPH.”
JP: A lot of us are hypothesizing that Coffee Waitress is in a wheelchair or is a dwarf, but my theory is that she’s headless.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Marvin beat his hair in the end. Got it.
“What’s the difference between your meat and a good blow job?”
@Charterstoned: MW: Her left breast is so perky, I’m thinking Dawn must have put her right boob in the bedside table drawer.
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That’s Dawn’s uni-boob.
JP – Oh my God! I hope Josh is right – just a reminder that I have Yelich in the dead pool!
S4th – This is timely.
Mary Worth – When Dawn goes crying to Mary, I hope that Mary tells her to learn to appreciate Dirk’s endearing quirks.
Bliss – As Sequitur pointed out, those are wonderful squirrels.
@jroggs: Re: Luann: Says, you buddy! As we just seen in the last arc, sometimes the strip shows it’s constant innovation and intricate character growth by having Luann lying on her bed talking about her vague ambitions and Bernice replying with bitchy sarcasm, but in the crudely-drawn past! There! That ought to teach you a lesson about Luann’s creativity level and it’s ability to deliver fresh storylines!
@Ukulele Ike: Phantom: It’s difficult to pay attention to Neville Stokes while that starlet’s top keeps slipping down her chest.
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But we all welcome it.
@Old School Allie Cat: Two decades ago my sister and I and our husbands had to clean out our uncle’s apartment when he passed away. He was not an alcoholic, but he had a lot of booze in opened bottles. We set it in the hallway to dispose of it, and several people from the building wandered by and asked if they could take some. One woman said, “I don’t drink, but I have friends who do.” We still use this as a catchphrase.
Mr. Jive and I also cleaned out his parents’ house. They didn’t drink, so there was no leftover alcohol. They did, however, save every bill and piece of paper that came into the house since 1960.
@jroggs: That’s a good summary. I still can’t understand how his severe alcoholism prevented him from working for the police, but he was somehow able to handle investigation for Sam. I can’t believe that the police didn’t put a stop to that because he was supposed to be in treatment.
In any case, the alcoholism hasn’t been mentioned again, so he must have completely recovered from it.
LUANN: Incidentally, Luann shouldn’t worry such much about meeting a man. I know one with a particular fetish for dimwit girls with poor self-esteem once a certain “Nerdgirl” gets tired of his schtick (Luann: “He sounds practically perfect! I can’t wait!”)
Was there ever a time when people hauled metal trash bins up to their attics to clean things out?
The attic is where the Keanes keep the cursed family picture that shows the family changing through time to resemble real American families, while they remain forever stuck as the representation of 1950s heteronormativity
“But if you think buying me breakfast will get you inside info on the Ann Parker case, you got the wrong guy!”
“Really? Shit. I guess we can end this meeting here. Could you tell me who is the right guy?”
Marvin thinks that living a very long and slow life is better than winning glory, be quick and die young. We know Marvin shits a lot, but I can’t believe he’s shitting on Achilles!
@Ettorre: “Talk to Inspector “Toast n’ Eggs” Jones. Hey, guess how he got that nickname.”
@Noel:
#3. MW:. A former counselor, I confess I’d never heard the term “negging” until this arc. Manipulation, sure. Gaslighting, it’s common. Hate to admit I’ve gone to Mary Worth now for professional development.
MARVIN: “I dug out this trivia book from our class library again. You know that on that one that we would be incapable of reading because we’re toddlers who still shit out diapers?”
MW: So they go out on a New Year’s Eve date, they ring in the new year, he takes her home, they fool around a little, and she tells him it’s time to go. By then, it’s got to be 2 a.m. at the very earliest. So he goes home and she calls him and talks about the date they just finished. This story just gets dumb and dumber.
CS: Overcrowding? What, are kids sitting on each others’ laps? Batty wouldn’t recognize real life if it kicked him in the seat.
RMMD: Wait! We’ve got to know! Did the two boys manage to put away all the Christmas decorations without breaking any? Come on, Beatty, don’t leave us hanging like this! How can we be expected to devote our attention to this fabulous new story line with all that unresolved drama?
H&L: “With four kids, I deserve to be a little out of shape. I mean, just look at *you.*” [She drives a knee into his junk.]
SFx: A-HA! That’s exactly what the bear wants you to think, Slylock! He snapped those pix while laying down on the ground. You screwed up this time, Fox. Be prepared to appear before the tribunal.
THE FAMILY CIRCUS: Big Daddy Keane is disappointed because he thought the “Jack Daniels” box was where he hid his back issues of Club magazine.
AC: Today in “when the heck is this set anyway?” Andy and Chalkie discuss their time in the Army. Since it’s absurd to think Andy signed up voluntarily (it’s a job!), they’re presumably talking about National Service … which was abolished in 1963.
Crank: Hey, remember when the bus drivers were in crisis because the kids were all being driven to school by their parents? And then Batty just sort of stopped talking about it when he ran out of jokes? Well, now the problem is that there are too many kids riding the bus!
JP, meta: “Got drunk and kidnapped a material witness to a murder case” and then forced the murderer into the path of the gun-toting criminals who’d surrounded the Spencer Ranch to seek revenge on him, while specifically stating that his intent was to put said murderer into a position where he’d be shot dead. I think I harped on about this enough at the time, but if we’re discussing Sam’s potential blackmail material on Yelich, I feel like that’s top of the list.
MW: No, but seriously, what personality traits does Dirkhead have besides trying to control Dawn’s diet and calling her a nickname she doesn’t like? There must be some reason she’s dating him besides his looks, right?
SH: But … but she also spends her time as a cat with her human friends!
RMMD: Well, psyche, I guess. After me speculating on Kelly and Summer’s absence from two cast pictures last week, the new storyline starts off with them! And I’m bored of them already!
@Maude R. Fawker: I give up.
FC: To be fair lots of people who don’t drink use liquor boxes for storage and moving. Most liquor stores will give them to you for free since they’ll end up in the shredder anyways. Since they’re designed to protect glass bottles of valuable liquor they’re some of the sturdiest boxes known to man. They even have compartmentalized inserts which are perfect for grandma’s figurine knick-knacks.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I give up.
You can’t beat a good blow job.
Longer versions of the joke involve an egg and one’s wife, but brvty s th sl f wt.
@I speak Jive:
They did, however, save every bill and piece of paper that came into the house since 1960.
Girl, I found my maternal grandmother’s old report cards from the 1920s, my paternal great-grandfather’s college transcripts from the 1890s…
A variety of love letters from both sides, multiple generations ranging in tone from mild to wild.
My favorite cryptic message was an innuendo-filled, congratulatory telegram from my father’s birth signed by “The Filthy Six”.
FC: What’s in those boxes? Napalm, hydrogen benzene, phosgene gas–lots of chemical items left over from the first and second World Wars. The Keane Kompound will be the site of a Superfund cleanup effort more toxic than the Love Canal or Times Beach. (Not likely, but we can only hope!)
Marvin: Is he referring to Jonathan, a very-much-alive turtle that Marvin has spoken of in past tense? Did he kill the tortoise?
Marvin: And one of those rivals it outlived was a Rugrats comic strip.
This is the world we are leaving our children.
Did I miss something? Where is Baja?
I’d posit that you can’t beat a bad blow job, either.
As the codger was asked to describe the worst b.j. he ever had, he said, “It was fabulous.”
BTW, I’m all for brevity but the joke works well with the rule of three, t’wit:
What’s the difference between an egg, your meat, and a blow job?
You can beat your egg, you can beat your meat, but you can’t beat a blow job.
(Yes, it can also work with wife in there, but I’m too politically correct to joke about domestic abuse. What do you think I am, a Plugger?)
I’m starting to assume, that maybe Marvin takes place in an alternate reality where everyone ages like Benjamin Button, thus the kids are the adults and the adults are the kids.
This explains not only why Marvin and friends talk and read like grown-ups, but also why Jeff and Jenny are incredibly whiny and immature.
@Horace Broon: It’s amazing how one can run out of jokes, before they can even write one to begin with.
Is this a Zen riddle or something?
Sally Forth-They better not get snowed in. Ted might go sane.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #102: Reminds of an old Rodney Dangerfield joke. What does a blowjob and eggs Benedict have in common? Something a married man hardly ever gets.
FC: Thel’s not wearing a kerchief. Her hair is in a sling because she sprained her hair lifting that heavy metal trash can full of junk.
Marvin – We cannot ignore the poop adjacency of citing a source like Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader when imagining a Poop free Marvin.
MW: “Oh Dirk, you really do like that “nerdgirl” descriptor, don’t you? It feels so safe to know exactly what to expect when you talk, instead of getting the sparkling, clever and creative comments I’ve gotten from every other guy I’ve ever dated.”
love is… spanking your baby before it’s born.
Tarzan Spanish to English.
Dawn dated Hugo the Haughty Frenchman, who also treated her like dirt. She’s just a pathetically shallow person who never, ever learns.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Reminds of an old Rodney Dangerfield joke.
Are there any new ones?
@Guillermo el chiclero: I love Rodney! Saw him at the Carlton Celebrity Room (just south of Metropolitan Stadium).
Ah, my sex life. It’s like trying to play pool with a rope.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’d posit that you can’t beat a bad blow job, either.
“Bad” involves many possible dimensions, one of which is teeth.
FC: “When you compared my buttocks to pancakes, was that a compliment? Your eyes were shooting flames at the time, so I’m just gonna assume thanks are in order.”
FC: Subtle use of subdued tones to suggest depth and focus, or did the colorist just want to try that red-white thing on the left before deciding there was no way they were going to put the same effort into the lamp and paintings?
Judge Parker: Sam is actually really hurt that Yelich thinks the only reason they interact is if Sam wants info for whatever dumbass situation the Parkers have gotten into lately. Can’t a motherfucker just want to have a nice brunch with his friend/blackmail victim?
Marvin: “Marvin, why are you staring into the space while you say that? Who are you talking to? Are you okay, man? Can babies have strokes because I think you’re having one right now.”
FC: Finding a box of Jack Daniels in the attic, long forgotten is a simple joy.
Like finding a few extra fries on the bottom of the fast-food bag, or finding the very last twinkie during a zombie apocalypse.
They wouldn’t of had to develop the film if Tiffany Fox had a digital camera instead of being hip these days by using a film camera. Why’d the thief take just a few pics? He got frustrated because he couldn’t see the photos right away. He just ain’t hip, man.
judge Parker Brothers: Buying breakfast for Leslie Neilson isn’t going to do any good, Sam. He’s not really a detective, and he’s dead,nice try but no soap, radio, pal.
RIP Lt Drebin.
Joe Pepitone, who designed Central Park, wrote in his autobiography of getting sucked off by a toothless woman. He described it as a gum job.
Mark Trail Mix: Those bear men are mad that they didn’t name the manatee, Hugh.
Marvin: What I find noteworthy here is that Marvin delivers the punchline directly to the audience, not even pretending this is a real conversation. Does he do this a lot? Is everyone in his world just used to it? To me, this is an unsettling Truman Show “Who are you talking to?” moment.
Slylick Fox and Komix For Kinx: How did Sly rule out the rabbit and whatever is looking out the tree’s roots?
@Lauralot: To me, this is an unsettling Truman Show “Who are you talking to?” moment.
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This month of “THE MARVIN SHOW” brought to you by Huggies™ diapers, Huggies™….holding your poop tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
Is “Six Chex” and “Blondie” having a one upmanship contest going on? Dag makes a giant sandwich, Pumpkin chick sleeps with it, Dag gets blasted by Herb’s blower, Monday chick shows the event in progress.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: : You can’t beat a good blow job.
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“BEAT THE BLOWJOB” — Scratchy’s favorite Dumont network game show,.he has copies of all the surviving kinnies.
@Ukulele Ike:
“Shot from close to ground level” was a euphemism. Every picture on the roll is an upskirt.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #122: There’s a whole sub-genre of p0rn featuring blowjobs by toothless grannies.
Marvin’s friend (?) talks about a Madagascar tortoise. The fable is universally called the tortoise and the hare. Why does Marvin switch to calling it a turtle? Maybe that’s his own idea of an impressive fact, that he knows what tortoises are? I guess I might be impressed if I had any idea how old they are.
Anyway Marvin has this backward. This means the hare got to the ultimate finish line first.
I’m not sure which is more concerning: that the Keane parents have a metal garbage can and (apparently) a lawnmower (against the wall, to the right) in their attic, or that they don’t have either a rocking chair or an old phonograph, which I believe are mandated by Legacy Comics Code of 1948.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Fredrick Olmstead won the 1961 AL rookie batting title, according to Cosmo….
@Dennis Jimenez: Nah, 1961 belonged to Van Lingle Mungo.
@Sequitur: There could theoretically be some really interesting LOVE IS panels when she goes into labor, but I don’t suppose readers will get to see any. “Love is watching her hoohah expand without fainting.”
@135 Poteet:
love is… wanting to get back inside.
Marvin is still dumb, because hares live maybe 5 years at the most, whereas tortoises commonly live over 100 years. So yes, unless the tortoise dies as a juvenile, preyed upon by humans, or struck by a meteor, then of COURSE it is going to live longer than a hare.
@Sequitur: Bwahaha!
At least Marvin didn’t say, “…you know, sexually…”
FC: the rest of the attic is where they store the nice but fragile things that they can live among again once the children have moved out. The children are going to move out, right? Soon?