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Marvin, 1/21/25

I really have to respect Marvin for playing the long game and getting me to publicly praise it for turning away from shit and piss jokes and then unleash what may be one of the vilest strips in the all years I’ve read it, one in which Marvin suggests that, if he had his druthers, he would continue crawling around on the floor and soiling himself well into his tween years, simply because he feels making the effort not to and alleviating his parents of the burdens of catering to his basest needs would be an affront to his dignity.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/21/25

Lotta people see the revolving door of the Hootin’ Holler jail and think Snuffy never truly pays the price for his various crimes. But today we learn that in fact his constant brushes with the law have turned his own mind into a prison that’s ultimately of his own making, and I think that’s neat.

Pluggers, 1/21/25

“Pluggers are stuck in the bathtub and probably they’re going to die there” is frankly a little too grim for me this morning! Please go back to being smug about your exurban folkways, Pluggers, I much prefer that to seeing the chicken-lady’s last bubbly moments!

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Shoe, 1/18/25

It’s true: closed captions aren’t just for the hearing impaired. They also help viewers in a variety of contexts where speech may be difficult to understand, allowing them to enjoy programs that they would otherwise have a hard time following. Thanks for the tip, Perfesser!

Pluggers, 1/18/25

It’s true: tofu doesn’t have much of a flavor itself, but it absorbs sauces and other flavors from whatever dish it’s in, so it’s an adaptable form of protein that works in a lot of different meals. Congrats on overcoming your culinary xenophobia and figuring this out, Bear-Man!

Marvin, 1/18/25

It’s honestly quite rude of Marvin to wait for me to publicly admit that it hasn’t really done many piss or shit jokes lately and then hit me with a piss joke at the end of the week. Anyway, I really like the implication here that, having been housebroken, Bitsy can never go back, not even in the most dire of circumstances. You don’t actually have to piss outside, Bitsy, if you have any courage!

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Marvin, 1/15/25

The thing about writing a blog post a day, every day, forever, is that you can definitely find yourself caught in some ruts, which makes me sympathetic to the ruts that comics creators, who have to write a comic a day, every day, forever, find themselves in, even when one of my ruts is making fun of their ruts. I’ve been making fun of poop and piss jokes in Marvin for 18 years now — a lifetime, really — and the last time I brought it up, a faithful commentator gently pointed out that actually Marvin has moved away from that material of late. And they’re right! I should be giving this strip credit for the rich veins of comic possibilities it’s been mining beyond the excretory. Pretty sure no other strip is working in the “what if a dog and a baby who lived together really disliked each other, just honestly hated each other’s guts and were always going out of their way to antagonize one another” space, and honestly I respect it.

Alice, 1/15/25

Speaking of my long blogging career, I’ve been talking about the comic strip Alice on this blog for 10 months now, which is long enough for me to indignantly assume the role of “keeper of the Alice lore.” And as all real Alice-heads know, the Aliceverse already has an alien species that visits our planet in pill-shaped spacecraft. And now you’re trying to tell me that there’s some whole different kind of aliens with more conventional-looking flying saucers? Sorry, I’m not buying it.