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Marvin, 5/16/21

I was going to go on a real sarcastic riff here about how great it was that comics were a rich, visual medium so that we could get literally seven near-identical frames of Marvin reacting to something happening that we can’t see. But then I realized: do you actually want to see two boring middle aged people arguing about the purchase of a smart speaker (brand unspecified)? That honestly doesn’t sound interesting at all, and while seven near-identical drawings of Marvin aren’t more interesting, at least I feel confident that no energy was needlessly wasted in their creation.

Blondie, 5/16/21

Guys, do you ever think Dagwood might have a serious problem? Like, he didn’t so much fall asleep as violently pitch forward out of his chair. Did he have a stroke or what?

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Dennis the Menace, 4/30/21

I spent way too long trying to parse Henry and Alice’s facial expressions and how they line up with Dennis’s tattletale claim to the bored and irritated cater-waiter. They both seem to be having a good time looking at art! Are they thinking, “Gosh, we didn’t come for the art but we are enjoying ourselves. The Municipal Art Museum audience development team really knows what it’s doing when it runs these free-to-the-public art-and-wine nights!” Or is it more, “Ha ha, this art is shit but we’re on wine glass number four and have gotten blotto on the dime of the Municipal Art Museum’s corporate sponsors. Can’t wait to drive home!”

Blondie, 4/30/21

One odd result of comic book time is that Dagwood is canonically a guy in his late 30s or early 40s who’s probably been in his job in his own internal timeline for five years or so, and maybe even took the job as a stepping stone to other things, whereas those of us in the real world know that he’s been DithersCo’s office manager since before we were born and will continue to be long after we’re dead and in the ground. Thinking of things in those terms brings an interesting perspective to Blondie’s frankly horrified face in the final panel, as she realizes that Stockholm Syndrome is setting in and maybe her husband really is going to be working for that awful man indefinitely.

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Mark Trail, 4/17/21

You know, one thing I didn’t really like about the first plot of new-look Mark Trail was that it lacked truly cartoonishly hateable villain — yes, confronting the sins of one’s father has a long literary history, but you sort of knew that this was a complex relationship that would eventually, after a fashion, be healed. But a guy who used to go to high school with Mark, who’s real condescending to him and is now some kind of cricket-based protein powder impresario and social medial influencer? That’s a guy who we’re all hoping goes viral on Bikbok when Mark punches him in the face.

Blondie and Dennis the Menace, 4/7/21

I’ve always assumed that Blondie is going for a whole Dennis vs. Mr. Wilson vibe in its Dagwood and Elmo strips, and I have to say that it simply does not come anywhere close to it. There’s a real sense of animus there that Blondie’s anodyne amiability is simply incapable of capturing.

Pluggers, 4/7/21

I don’t usually praise the art in Pluggers, but I genuinely love the expression on kangaroo-lady’s face here. That is 100% the look of a woman who plans to file for divorce two weeks to the day after she gets her second vaccine dose, and has in fact taken any number of concrete steps to make that process go as quickly as possible.