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Marvin, 7/22/12

This is not the first “people from TV appear in a Marvin strip, and that’s the punchline” Marvin — there was a Cesar Millan strip recently, and I’m sure there have been others. Maybe … maybe someone needs to tell Marvin that the fun thing about a celebrity cameo is that it involves the actual celebrity? And that this doesn’t apply when it’s just a drawing of a celebrity? I could make they guys from American Pickers show up at my house too, if all I had to do is draw them.

Crankshaft, 7/22/12

You young folk may not remember, but many years ago there was a Very Special Crankshaft storyline where it turned out that Crankshaft was illiterate. All his friends and family banded together to help him learn how to read and write. Bet they regret that now!

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Gil Thorp, 7/18/12

At last, this summer’s wacky Gil Thorp storyline comes into focus! And it involves … one of Gil’s former students, who joined the military and then was physically maimed and mentally scarred in combat, and has become a recluse? Damn it, that’s not wacky at all. Though surely whatever non-board-certified tough love therapy Gil will unleash on him will be good for a laugh or two. One also wonders if the particular nature of the poor young man’s injury is meant play to the strip’s artist’s strengths, since there’s guaranteed to be one fewer hideous flipper-hand per panel whenever he makes an appearance.

Pluggers and Marvin, 7/18/12

Ha ha, old people, they sure hate the computers and the social networking, right? Oh, wait, that just seems a little at odds with all the old people I know who love Facebook and the many pictures of grandchildren it provides to them. Anyway, mostly I would like to point out that (a) these pluggers have found reporting of plugger-esque exploits on the society pages, which in most newspapers are usually dedicated to fancy parties thrown by the wealthy and beautiful, which means that in Pluggerville there are people even lower on the social ladder than these guys; and (b) I would like a comic about Marvin’s grandpa and his cranky old friend cruising for sexy grandmas in the park a million times better than Marvin’s current Marvin-pooping-focused iteration.

Shoe, 7/18/12

Whoops, looks like Roz served the Perfesser a meal intended for one of the many insectivorous birds who patronize her diner! Also, she is extremely sarcastic.

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Marvin, 5/30/12

At this point in my life I’m pretty deep in the throes of Marvin Derangement Syndrome, so I don’t really ever expect to find satisfaction in this feature’s panels. But I have to admit that I feel a certain amount of validation in knowing that even the other characters in the strip are disgusted at the thought of looking at more images of Marvin.

Ballard Street, 5/30/12

Ballard Street is a generally amusing one-paneler that depicts a mostly interchangeable cast of characters engaging in insane and inscrutable activities, so I usually leave it alone, but I thought that today’s installment, in which the punchline basically boils down to “Chip got drunk and passed out on the couch,” was worthy of your attention.

Six Chix, 5/30/12

I was going to huff that a plant needs the energy it derives from sunlight via photosynthesis in order to engage in the metabolic processes that this woman is demanding, but then I just decided to respect this panel for what it is: the melancholy tale of a person who feels so powerless in her everyday life that she comes home and bullies her plants.

Pluggers, 5/30/12

A plugger’s life is an awful charnel house in which everyone around them is dead or dying.