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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.

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Mark Trail, 11/4/20

Oh snap it’s Kelly Welly, everybody! Real Trail heads remember Kelly, who was sadly absent during the James Allen era, as one of Mark’s greatest foils, always trying to simultaneously steal Mark’s stories and get into his pants (or Bill Ellis’s pants, or the pants of whoever might help her write her next story). My friend Kaycee brought her to life years ago in the unforgettable Mark Trail Theater.

Anyway, while I think new-look Mark Trail has sometimes been a little too aggressive on the “look, we’re different now!” front, in the long run if the strip isn’t going to remain an anachronism, it has to come up with answers to the questions of “What would the Mark Trail characters be like if they lived in the year 2020,” and I think “Kelly Welly is a brash, nature-focused Instagram influencer” is absolutely a correct answer to that question.

Marvin, 11/4/20

You know what’s never going to change, though? Marvin, a comic strip that features babies chatting amicably about what kind shit-innable undergarments they’re wearing, They’re chatting about it now, and they’re going to keep on chatting about it, forever.