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Marvin, 6/20/16

Have you guys ever seen the Disney channel TV show Dog With A Blog? It’s about a dog who can speak, read, and write English, which is a pretty amazing set of skills for a dog to have! Really, the fact that he choses to use his language abilities to create and maintain a website consisting of posts in reverse chronological order is one of the less interesting things about him, ygou’d think, and yet that’s still what made it into the title of the show. I’ve seen exactly one episode of Dog With A Blog; in it, Stan, the titular dog, learns that dogs only live to be around 15 or so, and becomes obsessed with creating a video of himself so everyone will remember him and his amazing abilities after he dies. The kids in the family who own him, who are the only people who know about his talents, then have to find and destroy this tape, so his secrets aren’t revealed. This is a television show marketed to children, and it’s amazingly grim.

Dog With A Blog premiered in 2012, and I’m … reasonably sure that the “Bitsy’s Blog” bit in Marvin predates this? Somehow I’ve managed to have never covered Bitsy blogging on my site before, as near as I can tell, though it’s definitely been a thing. Anyway, if Marvin needs cash, maybe it should consider suing Disney, a company with deep pockets. Just imagine! The strip wouldn’t have to maintain even the tiniest shred of decorum necessary to still be getting syndication revenue from newspapers. It can just go ahead and become a full-on scat porn webcomic.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/20/16

Way back when Mason Jarr was first introduced as a character, he was the guy playing Les in the abortive TV movie based on Lisa’s Story, and was portrayed as a comical moron, in keeping with the storyline’s overall theme, which was that Hollywood is bad and everyone except for Les is a soulless hack. Now that he’s become a regular cast member, he’s been given some sympathetic gravitas, by which I mean he thinks and talks about death constantly, but it’s nice to see the character getting back to his roots and contemplating whether “Mason Jarre” would be a more dignified spelling of his extremely silly name.

Beetle Bailey, 6/20/16

Not that I’m an expert or anything, but wouldn’t soldiers on a hike in training be carrying … equipment of some kind? Like a backpack, or a rifle, or something? I guess what we’re seeing here is that our heroes have finally been assigned into combat, but have been defeated due to incompetence. Having abandoned their weapons, they’re retreating in disarray, and Sarge, desperately trying to keep their unit from disintegrating entirely, is about to resort to extreme measures.

Mary Worth, 6/20/16

Oh look, it’s a new (maybe?) Mary Worth plot, and here on day one we have the battle of the waistlines! Mary and Wilbur appear to be the same height, but Mary’s got her trusty grey sansabelts hiked all the way up over her navel, while Wilbur lets his shirt cascade down past his waist like a mighty waterfall. I look forward to the dramatic visual interplay between these very different approaches over the course of the week!

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Mary Worth, 6/14/16

Hey, quick question: are these girls who were mean to Dawn supposed to be the same girls who later took in a non-specific Jennifer Lawrence film with her? Anyway, either way, you’d think Dawn would’ve noticed that they’d stopped harassing her by now. “Maybe their bullying and criticism was just to get a reaction out of me! Fortunately God hardened my heart, just like He did Pharaoh’s. No act of human cruelty or kindness can touch me now!”

Beetle Bailey, 6/14/16

“I want you to tell the men how important their training is. Their army training. It may save their lives! Because there are wars! So many wars! And the army fights in wars! Why … why didn’t anyone tell me this before now?”

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Mary Worth, 6/8/16

Pretty cool to know that Harlan has given a lot of thought to the dynamic of the little two-dog pack he has going on over at his sad little apartment! One question, though: if Harlan’s the alpha dog, why’d he name the other dog Alfie? Seems unnecessarily confusing. And if he’d named it “Beta-y”, he could just claim he was inspired by beloved St. Louis Hawks star Zelmo Beaty.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/8/16

Wait, why is Snuffy debating the sheriff? Is he running for sheriff? While I wouldn’t put it past Snuffy to try to take control of local law enforcement and declare all crime legal, that would be a lot more democracy than we’d ever seen in Hootin’ Holler. More likely this “town hall debate” is an pretext for the gathered residents to violently eject from the Holler the only representative of the distant, hated government. Presumably the arguing will be over whether the sheriff should be allowed to flee after being roughed up a bit, or if his body should simply be dumped just over the county line.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/8/16

St. Bernards traditionally carry liquor in their little casks, and hipster small-batch liquor is definitely a thing, so it saddens me that this joke is about bubbly water. C’mon, Mother Goose and Grimm, booze jokes are OK in the comics again! Thirsty Thurston’s back to being an obvious drunk! Go nuts!

Beetle Bailey, 6/8/16

So Beetle’s shorts came off but his hat didn’t? A likely story. That isn’t even his usual hat. And look at his exaggerated sweating as he pleads his case! I recognize consensual public nudity-based humiliation play when I see it.