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Marvin, 9/20/22

You know I am loath to say anything positive about the syndicated comic strip Marvin, but I have to say that I’m reasonably impressed that the strip is acknowledging that someone who is the parent of an infant and still in the early-to-mid stages of male pattern baldness is not, in fact, of an age to have attended Woodstock, or even Woodstock ’99, but rather would be one of those darn millennials we hear so much about on the news these days. By giving her husband’s exact age, Jenny really opens up a lot of information about his personality. Like, we’ve confirmed that, assuming we’re not dealing with some kind of Doogie Howser situation (and based on his demonstrate intellectual capabilities, I have zero reason to believe that we are), Jeff was in college at the earliest from 2005 to 2009, a full five years after “Who Let The Dogs Out” was released and a full four years and nine months after it had entirely worn out its welcome with literally everyone, meaning that he put it on that college mix CD as an ironic bit. He’s always been terrible, in other words, as further demonstrated by the fact that he’s now buying a turntable just so he can recreate that bit, which would’ve probably been only mildly annoying to the people in his dorm, for his family, who will absolutely hate him for it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/20/22

Think about the stuff that we actually see in Rex Morgan, M.D. Can you imagine how boring this dude’s “story” must’ve been to just be completely elided between today’s strip and yesterday’s? Dude’s been grievously insulted by the narrative structure he’s embedded within, and he’ll never even know it.

The Lockhorns, 9/20/22

God damn it, Leroy is an obsessive Jets fan, not a Giant’s fan. Do I have to be the unpaid keeper of the lore for all of these strips now???

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So ends the 2022 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser. As much as the blog depends on its regular subscribers, it’s one-off, “drive-by” contributions from nonsubscribers that have kept The Comics Curmudgeon a sustainable project for more than eighteen years. If you enjoy this site every day but haven’t hit the Tip Jar in a while, consider doing so now. And thank you, generous readers one and all!

Dennis the Menace, 9/3/22

“Kid, did you somehow forget I’m married to Alice Mitchell? Go bother Dagwood or something.”

Menace level: pwned!

Crankshaft, 9/3/22

Hannah is smiling because she’s going to follow her boss’s instructions exactly and compress eleven years of 26 30-minute episodes each into a single 4GB MP4. Channel One viewers will be treated to 143 hours of nine flickering gray squares, accompanied by tiny squeaks every half hour or so. Sure beats the original John Darling Show!

Gil Thorp, 9/3/22

Welcome to Oreintation for the Milford School of Mines. The crew team’s Oarintation is across the hall.

With Funky and now Gil, the comics seem to be introducing their trans characters in alphabetic order; this puts Hägar‘s Hamlet (→ Ophelia, obv.) up next, followed by Dot and Ditto from Hi and Lois (they could just switch). Meanwhile, Tobias, welcome to Milford Football: what’ll it be, fullback or defensive tackle?

Lockhorns, 9/3/22

Leroy’s gut blocks the strike zone, so whether walked or hit by a pitched ball, he always reaches first. He celebrates because walks don’t hurt as much.

–Uncle Lumpy

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The Lockhorns, 8/13/22

The thing about the Lockhorns is that, while in one sense they’re millennials, in another sense they’re trapped in an eternal present in which they never age but their hateful marriage extends indefinitely into infinity, and so they’re always having to upgrade their mutual loathing into ever more baroque forms. It’s no longer enough for Leroy to just look at Loretta’s cooking and say something cutting with dead eyes; now he has to come up with some pretext to drag her to the tent section at REI and say “Look! No kitchen! Wouldn’t it be great to live here? To forage for mushrooms and berries, maybe trap small game, like our primitive ancestors did? Agriculture was a mistake, Loretta, a mistake, because it gave rise to cooking, which led to your cooking in particular. I’d rather get parasites from eating raw rabbit, Loretta! I really would!”

Dick Tracy, 8/13/22

Wow, this Lunarian supremicist faction within the Antarctic Lunarian colony really knows how to put on a show! Remember, having having a guy on stage ranting about seizing power and starting genocidal wars may have worked for Hitler, but in this day and age, people want to feel more connected to their despots. That’s why you want to have plants in the audience asking the questions whose answers reveal the true evil of your plans, making your bloodthirsty diatribe feel more like a bloodthirsty conversation among friends.

Pluggers, 8/13/22

Well, if you’re in Iowa, it’s probably a dizzy spell? Maybe go see a doctor, sir! A doctor can diagnose this better than a syndicated newspaper comic strip that illustrates reader jokes with folksy furries can, trust me on this!