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Archive: Marvin

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Dennis and Henry’s grim facial expressions are truly chilling

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Marvin, 1/3/14

So when I returned from my Christmastime Journey and caught up on the comics I hadn’t been reading, I didn’t review all the comics. Marvin, for instance. I didn’t catch up on Marvin. Who cared exactly about which poo-stained antics I had missed? I was thus dropped into this midweek running gag without context, and assumed, since there were no other clues, that “Kiddie Coiffe,” a stand of some sort, was meant to be a Starbucks-style operation, with “coiffe” a whimsical misspelling for coffee. And even if I had known that this was coiffe as in coiffure, I would have supposed it was a li’l play hair salon or barber shop? But nope, they’re selling hair. Human hair, dog hair, you name it. Not enough to make a wig out of, mind you, just weird little patches, if the chunk taken out of Bitsy’s pelt is any indication. Haha, baby hair sales! Ha! So, congrats, Marvin: you’ve brought me to a place of profound discomfort that has me actively wishing for a return to poop jokes.

Dennis the Menace, 1/3/14

“Look dad, I know you don’t love me, and I don’t particularly want you to try, but I am going to make you tacitly admit it so that I can get what I want.” Oh man, Dennis’s menacing game is on point for 2014.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/3/14

“Haw haw, just kiddin’, Mama Smif! When I say ‘risky,’ I meant that givin’ birf in Hootin’ Holler is takin’ yer life in yer own hands, what with our hamlet’s poor sanitation and substandard med’cal care!”

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“If only I could sing her into staying! Damn those nodules!”

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Mary Worth, 12/21/13

Oh my goodness you guys, in a totally unforeseeable development Ken Kensington has fallen for Mary Worth! Just another moth of a certain age drawn helplessly to her flame, soon to discover that it gives off light but no emotional warmth. In panel two, though, we can see that he’s still holding out hope, and is closing his eyes tightly and concentrating intently in an attempt to make her fall in love with him with his mind. Probably won’t work, but kudos for trying?

Gil Thorp, 12/21/13

I can’t tell you how much the narration box in panel three bothers me. Clearly it should be either “Meanwhile” or “In the meantime”, right? But I guess that would add between one and six characters, and we simply don’t have time for that, since we need to get to this gripping thrill-ride plot where some guy we may or may not have met before looks up things on the Internet that he acknowledges most people know already.

Marvin, 12/21/13

Marvin’s cousin has always served as a tightly controlled and regimented foil to Marvin’s slovenly, loosey-goosey ways, if you get what I’m talking about. (If you don’t, I’m talking about their personality, and also, in a Freudian sense, about pooping.) Anyway, today’s installment furthers the strip’s blatant pro-pants-crapping agenda by showing the terrible price of not being a complete gross slob: constant anxiety about your subconscious being monitored for virtue by mysterious figures with the power to reward and punish.

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“I ate at this great Italian place in Times Square called ‘the Olive Garden'”

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Mary Worth, 12/16/13

Oh goodie, Mary is hitting the “NEW YORK IS THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD” fugue state many visitors achieve when they’ve been there for a few days, assuming they haven’t been permanently turned off by the density or the people or the smell. Look at how blissfully happy she is shoving that delicious cheese ’n’ grease triangle into her grinning teeth in panel one! We all know she won’t have the nerve to actually up and move to New York, but look for her to sigh theatrically and talk about how everything in Santa Royale is so lame compared to New York for weeks after she gets back. (She’ll be right.)

Marvin, 12/16/13

I guess “Elf Marvy” is supposed to be Marvin’s dream elf name, à la Hermey the Elf from the Rankin-Bass Rudolph special? Or maybe “Marvy” is just the cool nickname that he’s always wanted but nobody will give him, because it has the same number of syllables as “Marvin” and also nobody likes him enough to give him a nickname. Anyway, Marvin this week will be relentlessly hammering home some dumb joke where Santa Claus becomes one of the Duck Dynasty people, so brace yourself for that.

Heathcliff, 12/16/13

I’m not sure what possible interpretation of this cartoon is more unsettling: that Heathcliff is going to fuck this cupcake, or that he’s going to eat it, with the visual tropes of romance being a metaphorical lead-in to eating it.