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Marvin, 7/7/16

So it turns out Marvin’s dad didn’t go to jail, and is now planning on taking his wife and child on vacation to the extremely cheap destination of “Swindletopia.” Today, his father-in-law gloms onto the trip using transparent emotional manipulation! The brief forays this strip takes into the lives of its adult characters makes you long for its usual witty and subtle baby poop jokes.

Gasoline Alley, 7/7/16

I’m trying, I’m really trying to not get worked up over the various historical horrors going on with this coin. I won’t goggle at the fact that the strip managed to accurately learn that Nero’s full name began with “Nero Claudius” but get everything else wrong: that he was never referred to as such on coins, only as “Nero Caesar”; that the picture looks almost nothing like Nero’s real coin portraits; that the “A.D.” dating system wasn’t developed until the 6th century A.D. and the pagan Romans wouldn’t have used it as a dating formula in 64 even it was around. I am, however, going to get mad about the fact that this terrible coin changes size radically between panels, appearing to be about the size of a quarter in panels one and three and about the size of a smallish plate in panel two.

Gil Thorp, 7/7/16

Oh, man, looks like Boo’s death is setting up a wacky summer Gil Thorp plot in which the kids discover nihilism! Watch them veer wildly between sullen inaction and wild self-destructive behavior, all while muttering “What’s the point of the playdowns? What’s the point of the annual bonfire? What’s the point of anything?”

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Mary Worth, 7/1/16

This Mary Worth story isn’t just going to be about Wilbur forcing the Japanese to express emotions or Mary ghostwriting Wilbur’s column or Mary managing the help; it’s also about Wilbur’s girlfriend Iris and her ex-con son Tommy moving from one apartment to another! You might remember Tommy as an an aspiring meth entrepreneur (that panel’s from four years before Breaking Bad came out, people: Mary Worth is once again an innovator) who had cool hair; later, after he got paroled, he sold out and got a haircut so he could get a job as a janitor and a sandwich emporium. It’s nice to see that gainful employment hasn’t prevented him from growing it out again, although from the look of things maybe he’s just trying to match his mom’s hairstyle, presumably because they’ve joined some kind of cult together.

Gasoline Alley, 7/1/16

Since this coin is supposedly nearly 2,000 years old, you think Skeezik would want it examined by … I dunno, maybe an academic of some kind, rather than a pawn shop? I bet he regrets voting “Yes” in the referendum on the Expel All Intellectual Eggheads From Gasoline Alley Act now!

Judge Parker, 7/1/16

“Or maybe she just doesn’t like you! Have you considered that she might not like you? Often the most obvious explanations are also the correct ones.”

Pluggers, 7/1/16

[at the Tribune Company, 1993]

“…and we’ll illustrate the reader ideas with whimsical half-person, half-animal creatures.”

“That sounds great. One thing that occurs to me, though: won’t a lot of these reader ideas involve pets? The ordinary folks we’re targeting with this strip love their pets! Won’t that be extremely unsettling, as we’ll be implying a world where the division between humans and beasts isn’t a bright line, a world where there’s a muddled continuum of sapience?”

“No, I don’t think that’ll be a problem at all.”

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Gasoline Alley, 6/30/16

Hey, remember when Gasoline Alley went on and on and on about scrapbooking, for no discernable reason? Well, you’ll beg for scrapbooking hijinx once we get five weeks deep into … NUMISMATICS FOLLIES!!!!!!

Spider-Man, 6/30/16

Spider-Man’s spider-sense (the relative sense of a spider) is generally interpreted as offering a vague premonition of danger, so you think it’d be useless for helping him figure out magic spells. But this plotline was in real danger of becoming the most boring thing in Spider-Man history, so his powers were spot-on in bringing it to a close as quickly as possible.

Mary Worth, 6/30/16

Good news! Mary Worth is here to help, by asking the groundskeeper to carry some heavy objects! Please do not ask Mary for further help or make eye contact again with her in the future. Thank you for your time.