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Six Chix, 12/3/20

Today’s Six Chix is a pretty compelling piece of evidence for the proposition that at least one of the Chix is a space alien attempting to use the medium of comic strips to reason out from a few pieces of data what life on earth is like. Clearly this being got word that something called “toilet paper” was relevant a few months ago. Is it still “in the conversation” today? Do humans still need to remove poop from their buttholes, or have they moved past that? This roll of toilet paper, asking for a friend (a space alien attempting to use the medium of comic strips to reason out from a few pieces of data what life on earth is like), would really like to know!

Gil Thorp, 12/3/20

So it turns out that Corina’s conflict-resolution plan for solving Milford’s quarterback controversy was to bring the two feuding players together and have them hash out their problems in an open, honest discussion. Too bad she didn’t do it a week ago, because Gil has his own solution to the problem: benching both of them and throwing in the third-string quarterback to haplessly flail around in some dumb, wacky old-timey formation that almost certainly will lose Milford most of its remaining games but might at least spawn a viral TikTok or something.

Marvin, 12/3/20

Every once in a while I feel kind of bad that one of my recurring themes on this 16-year-old blog that is essentially my life’s defining project is, “Gross, this comic strip about a baby makes jokes about poop constantly,” and I wonder if I lean too far into it, but you know what? Today’s strip is about the title character’s dad’s desire to use a leaf blower to spray dog shit everywhere, including, presumably, all over the side of his house. So I don’t feel bad anymore, or at least not about that!

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Marvin, 11/21/20

I have to say, I really assumed that Marvin would quickly lose interest in Finn and Gill, the goldfish who hate Marvin, hate each other, and hate themselves, and would fall back into its easy rhythm of jokes about how babies — get this — aren’t toilet trained and almost seem to take a certain joy in pooping themselves. But obviously the narrative appeal of two goldfish who are condemned to spend the rest of their miserable lives with one another is impossible to resist. I was going to say “short, miserable lives” but a little Googling reveals that goldfish when well cared for can live longer than a decade, and anyway Marvin’s been a baby since 1982, so who knows how much longer these guys have to suffer with one another! They’re definitely going to be suffering a lot more once the Marvin crew realizes that fish just poop in their own bowl and then swim around in their own poop until someone cleans it out, which doesn’t strike me as something that’d be a particularly high priority for Marvin’s feckless family.

Mary Worth, 11/21/20

“I know your issues with family addiction and my own drug-using past make you nervous, baby, but let me assure you: you’re my drug now, and you’re the one I’ll do anything to possess, no matter who tries to stop me” –an email from a very smart and self-aware person who definitely is not going to be disappointed

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/5/20

We all know that comics characters almost inevitably wear the same clothes day after day, and the practical real-world reason is to make them iconic and immediately recognizable by readers. Despite the occasional in-jokey nod to such fashion consistency being a reality for the characters themselves, there’s generally no in-universe explanation for it. But sometimes there are surprises: today, for instance, we learn that Jughaid doesn’t just wear a coonskin hat to denote that he’s a happy-go-lucky rustic, but also to hide his disturbingly small and misshapen head. His uncle’s skull is similarly malformed, and so we must assume this abnormality is endemic within the Smif bloodline, but to me it’s even more unsettling to see on a child, and it’s right and proper that he hide that noggin with a raccoon pelt. I’m usually strongly against body shaming, but Jughaid should be ashamed of his weird, gross body.

Marvin, 11/5/20

Hmm, do you think that if Jeff had gone to college, he would’ve been educated enough to not become a parent to Marvin, the worst baby in the world? I’m not sure that’s really how any of that works, but it’s fun that Marvin holds his father in as much contempt as I do, or, for that matter, in as much contempt as his father holds him.