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Archive: Alice

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I guess Marvin never inheriting money is something to cheer for

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Luann, 7/7/25

Hey kids, we all love Wilbur, the sad loser who has an off-putting relationship with his fish. But did you know there’s another such person in the comics — and she’s a lady? That’s right, it’s Bernice, Luann’s friend from Luann! Unlike Wilbur, who named his fish after himself and his ex, Bernice has given hers the whimsical name “Mr. Monstro.” Also unlike Wilbur, Bernice is capable of introspection, as the final panel makes clear, not that it’s really doing her any good.

Marvin, 7/7/25

Marvin is usually a light-hearted strip about a baby who won’t stop shitting himself and the parents and classmates who hate him, but real heads remember that there was a plotline in 2008 when Jenny’s parents lost their retirement savings in the Great Financial Crisis and had to move in with the Millers to escape destitution. I guess they ultimately got back on their feet again, though the fact that Marvin’s grandfather is excited to be hired for what I assume is a fairly low-paying and thankless job where you’re pretty much always on call in your own home tells me their finances never fully recovered. Obviously going back to their daughter’s house is not an option, though, not least because their son-in-law still won’t let them forget the last time they had to do it.

Wizard of Id, 7/7/25

I’m sorry, man, it’d be one thing if the Wiz were using his mystical powers to create chimeric combinations of natural beasts. But throw the word “breeding” in there and there’s really no other way to interpret this as “the Wizard of Id is somehow getting a whole bunch of different kinds of animals to have sex with horses.” There may not even be any magic involved.

Alice, 7/7/25

Big news, everybody: Alice is finally gonna get laid! And good for her.

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One-panel Friday

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Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/27/25

Look, we all associate Cinderella with trying on glass slippers, but canonically, the Prince’s retinue repeated the process over and over again with different girls, and once Cinderella put it on and proved her identity, that was the end of the glass-slipper-trying-on process. She only had to do it once! And she didn’t really wear glass slippers after that! Why would she want to wear them again as an old woman, as if she were in the habit of it? I know that fact-checking a cartoon is boring and lame, but I feel like we should hold a strip that’s literally called Mother Goose and Grimm to a higher standard.

Alice, 6/27/25

I know you all rely on me for keeping you up to date on the lore developments in the insane fever dream comic Alice, so here’s the latest: the weird Alice aliens live underneath Alice’s floorboards now, and one of them is in love (?) with her? More on this as it develops in new and insane ways!

Dennis the Menace, 6/27/25

Look at Mr. Wilson’s face. That’s the expression of a guy who’s either going to get rich at the blackjack table or die via suicide by casino security. Either way, he’s not gonna have to deal with this brat again.

Heathcliff, 6/27/25

They banned spiral hams and are putting our Heathcliff in prison, when are people gonna wake up to what’s going on in our country

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Wish I had a sweet nickname like “The Margrave” honestly

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Wizard of Id, 6/4/25

As far as I know, the Wizard of Id has never added any vaguely medieval monk/priest type characters to its vaguely medieval setting, so that leaves as an open question what “sweet lord” the Wizard is addressing in panel two. Is it the dark lord of magic, from whom he receives his eldritch power but whom he finds terrifying and repellent, like this hideous fish? Or is he merely addressing his sovereign the King of Id, from whom all sovereignty flows and who has the right of first refusal to every fish caught in his realm’s rivers and lakes, even the ugly ones?

Flash Gordon, 6/4/25

The new Flash Gordon strip is still doing its thing — which is to say, having great art and fun stories that I don’t talk about very much on my blog but rest assured, they’re there. Today I mostly wanted to draw your attention to the “NEXT:” narration box in panel four, which is possibly the greatest narration box of all time.

Intelligent Life, 6/4/25

Ha ha, remember two days ago, when I complained about how vague and nonspecific Mike’s dialogue was? “He should actually name the geek media franchises he’s talking about,” I said. “He definitely wouldn’t use that as an opportunity to talk about which fictional blue creatures he would or would not have sex with,” I added, like a fool.

Alice, 6/4/25

Alice’s friend, that’s not what that means at all! This is very bad advice!