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Marvin, 1/25/17

This comic about how Mavin’s dad Jeff is getting lavishly praised for using his well-outfitted kitchen to create palatable food is a little undermined by the fact that the food depicted is one of the most disgusting entrees I’ve ever seen in the comics, and I read Mary Worth daily. “I can’t believe you made this!” exclaims Jeff’s mother-in-law, and it’s true, it’s hard to believe that anyone would present a writhing mass of sheet-white tentacles topped with a viscous blob of ink-black goo to his family and expect them to eat it. “And you didn’t even burn anything!” his father-in-law adds, perhaps unaware that this awful feast absorbs all heat energy without getting any warmer, because it was forged in the infinitely hot bowels of hell.

Anyway, the “punchline” here is that Jeff, a man, has managed to produce an unburnt meal, in contrast with the typical efforts of his wife, Jenny, a woman. As a result, Jeff will take on family cooking duties from now on, since he’s clearly better suited for them will hold this over Jenny in their long-running marital oneupmanship, forever.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/17

Oops, it only took a day to solve the mystery: Aaron Aargard is terribly inconsistent because his mother (?) won’t come see him play, because she has the vapors or something. It’s enough to drive anyone into the welcoming arms of electronic dance music, and maybe drugs!

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Gil Thorp, 1/24/17

Oh dear! So the only “molly” Aaron Aargard is addicted to is his girlfriend Molly O’Herlihy, and we mean “addicted to” here to mean “in an emotionally healthy relationship with, which includes shared interests like electronic dance music.” So you’d think this would wrap up this idiotic plot, but nope, we’re not even done with January so we can’t start playing baseball yet. That means that Brown & Granger: The Overhearers have a mystery on their hands! A mystery they’re going to solve whether Coach Thorp wants them to or not! I’m actually not sure where this is going to go, because both possible directions fit in with Gil Thorp’s storytelling aesthetics: there could be some dumb “secret” non-sports-related reason for Aaron’s inconsistency, because this strip loves big, implausible reveals, but they could also just end up diagnosing his problems entirely on the court, because the strip loves plots where non-Gil people engage in unpaid assistant coaching.

Six Chix, 1/24/17

“And now let’s run like hell. That thing is as big as we are! Jesus Christ, the birds are out for revenge!”

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Slylock Fox, 1/21/17

These three scenes may look similar, but there’s one crucial difference. In numbers one and three, this snowman is merely a crude simulacrum of a man, the destruction of which is traumatizing not even to the children who fashioned it — even the birds and bunnies can tell this isn’t a real living thing. In number two, however, that’s a magic hat, which bestows the gift of sapience upon the wearer — but, crucially, does not fundamentally alter the snowman’s physical nature. The fully-formed mind called out of nonexistence by that enchanted haberdashery is now trapped, and silently screaming, in this unstable, dissolving shell.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/21/17

Haha, whoops, I had forgotten that Buck was the broker selling those smutty comic books Rex found under the floorboards in his attic. The characters in Judge Parker have experienced nothing but disaster and madness since longtime writer Woody Wilson handed over his strips to his successors, but in Rex Morgan, M.D., the Wilsonian tradition of the main characters occasionally being handed enormous checks due to no particular hard work or virtue on their part remains in full effect.

Gil Thorp, 1/21/17

Guys, have we considered that maybe he just kind of sucks? I think we should!