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Marvin, 6/16/16

Marvin is obviously the most loathsome character in the comic strip Marvin by a long ways. But let’s not forget that his smug terrible father is no prize either! Jeff appears to be the primary breadwinner for his household of four adults and an infant; Marvin’s mother apparently used to be a romance novelist but now is incapable of feeling anything but a sort of dull numbness, and now has to resort to churning out short-form humor content for cash, which, believe me, isn’t all that lucrative. Plus I think Marvin’s grandfather is a Wal-Mart greeter or something? At any rate, Jeff’s generic white-collar office job presumably provides the bulk of the family’s income plus its health insurance coverage, which is why he maybe should’ve thought twice before embezzling from the company! I was about to express glee about the Miller family’s downward spiral into poverty and shame, but then I realized that this will give the strip opportunities for jokes about desperately trying to save money by somehow washing Marvin’s foul diapers, so never mind.

Judge Parker, 6/16/16

Remember, whether it’s Sophie spying on Neddy making out with some boy who I don’t remember and cheerfully asking about “that tongue thing,” or Sam and Abbey watching from the shadows with mounting excitement as Neddy says a lingering goodnight to some boy who I don’t remember, or Sam and Abbey trying to analyze Neddy’s degree of sexual satisfaction as she comes home after sunup from a night with a boy who I someday won’t remember, one thing is clear: living vicariously through Neddy’s erotic life is one of the Spencer-Driver family’s top pastimes, just behind being given money for no reason.

Dennis the Menace, 6/16/16

Say what you will about Dennis, but this is a pretty darn menacing way to let a woman know that her husband of many years just died in front of the TV.

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Pluggers, 6/7/16

Here’s a fact that I never get tired of: NCIS, a show whose pitch can be summarized as “what if there were crime … in the navy”, is one of the most popular shows in the country, averaging 20.5 million weekly viewers this past season. That puts it just barely behind Big Bang Theory in total viewership; its two spinoffs are both in the top 20. Yet literally nobody in the TV criticism world cares about it! Think of all the rhapsodic analysis of Mad Men we had to endure over the years. Mad Men had 2.6 million viewers a week in its highest-rated season. If an NCIS episode got ratings four times higher than that, think of all the people who would be fired, immediately!

Anyway, these numbers reveal that NCIS doesn’t actually do that well in the coveted 18-49-year-old demographic, which means that, as today’s panel confirms, its audience probably consists of mostly pluggers. Today’s Pluggers actually successfully surprised me with its punchline, but I still like the one I thought up before I read the real one: “Watching NCIS is plugger foreplay.” It would explain a lot!

Crankshaft, 6/7/16

Time jump shenanigans continue! Look: it’s pre-jump Les Moore, hawking his book about the murdered John Darling, who was the father of his (future, at this point) stepdaughter-in-law! We know, from having secret future post-time-jump knowledge, that this book was a complete flop, which may explain why he’s doing a book signing at a used book store a lady started in her attic, probably without the proper permits.

The Phantom, 6/7/16

Oh, man, I forgot to properly highlight the fact that Judge Parker artist Mike Manley has now taken over The Phantom! He’s showing his adaptability here: the Judge Parker gig has given him a chance to demonstrate that he can draw wealthy, beautiful, chesty women, but The Phantom is and always will be all about the beefcake.

Judge Parker, 6/7/16

Speaking of Judge Parker, it’s good to see the strip fully committing to its shtick of incredibly wealthy people sitting around their palatial compound complaining about how difficult it is to be judged for their incredible wealth.

Six Chix, 6/7/16

GUYS YOU BROUGHT YOUR FRIEND TO A RESTAURANT WHERE CHICKENS ARE KILLED AND EATEN, I DON’T THINK SHE’S THE ONE WHO MADE THE MISTAKE HERE

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Marvin, 6/6/16

You know, if you’d asked me a few years ago if I’d eventually get bored pointing out the scatological horrors of Marvin, I would’ve said yes, so shoutout to the creative team for “keeping it fresh,” as it were, and producing strips so disgusting that I feel compelled to discuss them! Today’s a real treasure trove of shittiness. The ostensible joke is that Marvin “breaks in” his new baby sitter by taking massive dumps, which in ordinary circumstances would be horrifying enough, but the strip’s visuals really take it to the next level! Specifically, take a look at how her hands wrap around Marvin’s butt. They look way too big, don’t they? And the fingers aren’t clearly delineated? It almost looks as if the colorists mistook Marvin’s diaper for her hands and gave it a caucasian flesh tone fill, but it seems pretty clear that those are thumbs wrapping around his waist, so I guess we have no choice but to see this strip for what it is: a depiction of a baby sitter with weird, diaper-esque hands wrapped around the butt of a grinning baby who’s cheerfully thought-ballooning about the volume and/or quality of feces he’s expelling while she grimaces in what appears to be physical pain.

Shoe, 6/6/16

This is one in a long line of vaguely dirty jokes made about Missouri’s genuinely funny state motto, but I’m having a good time thinking about it literally. There are about six million people who live in Missouri. Imagine them all lined up along the Mississippi River, hundreds and hundreds of miles of them, all dropping their pants and waggling their butts at their disgusted neighbors in Illinois. It would be soothing. Hypnotic, even.

Judge Parker, 6/6/16

Hey, remember that article I wrote about the Silicon Valley billionaire who secretly orchestrated Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker as part of a long-running revenge plot? Well that’s going to look like a gentle hug compared to what the Spencer-Drivers have in store for this no-good reporter. They’ll probably have the special ops team they have on call disappear her to some black site, forever. Coverage of Spencer-Driver business interests are gonna get a lot more fawning, in a hurry.