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Marvin, 6/3/24

The very first “real job” I ever had, after I quit grad school, way back in the long past and yet futuristic sounding year of 1999, was as a copy editor for a series of tech-focused websites, none of which exist any longer. This happened more or less accidentally — the recruiter at the agency I was temping for at the time mentioned that one of the sites this company put out was called “Lie-nux World,” and one my grad school buddies had been a Linux nerd so I knew enough to correct her pronunciation, and her eyes lit up — and that was the launching point for the non-comedy-writing aspects of my subsequent career, which, to be straight with you all, represent a significant majority of my lifetime earnings to date. Anyway, though I haven’t formally held the “copy editor” title in years, I still identify very strongly with the role, as working in it got me up to speed with tech publishing and editorial processes in general. That’s why I can say without hesitation or exaggeration that, thanks to the publication of this Marvin strip where we learn what Marvin’s terrible father does for a living, this is worst day of my entire life.

Hi and Lois, 6/3/24

I like how you can tell by everybody’s facial expression that nobody finds this cute. “Oh, she wants to interrupt our precious TV time just to experience a moment of human affection? Well, too bad! She can cry herself to sleep like the rest of us!”

Alice, 6/3/24

Alice has been kidnapped by aliens and has chased after her parrot but I gotta say this is the most not OK she’s ever been. The ducks aren’t talking about you, babe! Their intellects are cool and unsympathetic, but they do not assess your appearance against human standards!

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Mary Worth, 5/20/24

Yeah, sorry I didn’t talk about Wilbur making a beautiful flowered coffin for his dead fish Stellan Sunday, but I just sort of stared at it for a little bit and couldn’t process it properly, so I’m glad I have a chance to reassess today. Anyway, pretty fucked up, huh? Ha ha! My dad had a fish tank when I was a kid and over several years we got more and more fish and upgraded to bigger and bigger tanks. Obviously fish died over time but I don’t really remember us doing anything special for them; I assume we probably just flushed them or threw them out, and we had so many fish that even though you would get attached to individuals there were enough that losing one wasn’t a huge tragedy. Then one day we went to our usual fish store and there was a real crazy looking fish in there and we were like “What is this?” and the guy was like “Just got it in, honestly couldn’t tell you” and we bought it and over the next few weeks it ate all the other fish and then died. Not sure how my dad dealt with that, since the horror ended when I was at my mom’s, but I bet he didn’t give it a big funeral either, even though by that time it was definitely too big to flush. Anyway, tune in over the course of this week to see if I have any other vaguely topical anecdotes to help us all forget about the nightmare of what Wilbur is doing!

Curtis, 5/20/24

On Twitter, once, I saw a guy do an entirely earnest tweet thread about how Silicon Valley disrupted old-fashioned, conformist business uniforms like suits and ties for a more comfortable and unique aesthetic, illustrated by pictures of multiple fiftysomething dudes wearing identical chinos-and-fleece-vests. Anyway, I just want to note that the stuffy shirt and tie were a casual alternative to more formal codes of dress once, and in the Curtis-ruled future, a baseball hat tipped jauntily just so will be a requirement for entry into polite society, to be worn at all times.

Beetle Bailey, 5/20/24

Yeah, man, usually when someone gets arrested, they are in big trouble. That’s a good observation, Killer, thanks for keeping us informed.

Alice, 5/20/24

Alice, you were kidnapped by aliens last week! That seems like a pretty big deal or at least a conversation starter.

Tina’s Groove, 5/20/24

I’m a 49-year-old man and my entire life I’ve assumed that a “halfway house” is called that because it represents a way station halfway up the path between your troubled past and the better future that you’re working towards. Does it … does it not mean that. Is getting closer to one bad in this metaphor. Do you want to go all the way down to zero, so you have no house at all. I gotta go lie on the couch quietly for a while.

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Daddy Daze, 5/13/24

One of the most fascinating and bonkers “big ideas” books of the ’70s was The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which posited that before about 800 BC, human beings weren’t “conscious” in the way that we now understand it and were not capable of introspection, but instead perceived decisions formed in one part of their mind as hearing “commands” from a “god” telling them what to do. While I do not actually believe this theory as an explanation for human consciousness and the beginning of civilization as we know it, I do think it explains what’s going on in Daddy Daze, as the Daddy Daze daddy engages in an endless series of unhinged philosophical discussions with his “infant son” (actually the other hemisphere of his bicameral mind, which rather than guiding him instead torments him with a series of playfully deranged falsehoods).

Alice, 5/13/24

Ruh-oh! Looks like those aliens have successfully kidnapped Alice and trapped her in a featureless, silent void. Realizing that their captive needs some sensory stimulation, they’ve decided to let loose with a little “swing”! (“Swing Music”: A musical style that was popular from the late 1920s – 1940s, big thanks to the King Features editorial intervention that explains the least confusing thing about this entire comic.)

Arctic Circle, 5/13/24

That sky is bright blue and it’s clear the sun is out. That poor vampire you woke up is going to vaporize in mere seconds! You monsters!

Mary Worth, 5/13/24

Guess we need to rephrase this: time to eat Stellan and Willa!