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Hi and Lois, 11/15/18

The thing I honestly love about this strip is that it’s taking Ditto’s emotions extremely seriously. Look at the genuine panic and despair he’s experiencing in panel one! Check out how tightly he’s gripping his hands together as he begs for sanctuary in panel two! In contrast, Dot and Thirsty are both just slouching casually, their hands thrust into their pockets, like a couple of people without diagnosable anxiety who know that cookie jars go for like $20 to $30 on Amazon.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/15/18

OK, guys, I’m officially giving up when it comes to actually fitting together the various aspects of Wally’s story that I half remember or understand. Like, I do have vague memories of him adopting a daughter from Afghanistan, and I guess this was before he joined the army and went to Iraq and then was held prisoner in Iraq by … somebody? … for ten years and everyone thought he was dead? I’m not sure how Rana fits into that story precisely, but based on the fact that they’ve seen each other recently enough to recognize one another but don’t seem to realize that they’re both attending college at the same school, their relationship is clearly going great!

Marvin, 11/15/18

“Oh, people don’t like comics where Marvin voids himself into his diaper and are begging for him to be potty trained? Fine: here’s a comic where Marvin is pissing into his potty while making a joke about ‘streaming.’ We’ll draw him to make it very clear that he’s not wearing diapers, just to give you a vivid sense of exactly what’s happening that you can’t ignore.”

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Blondie, 11/13/18

One of the more unpleasant transformations of Dagwood Bumstead over the years has been the process by which we’ve moved from “Ha ha, Dagwood sure likes to eat comically large sandwiches!” to “Dagwood is an Appetite who lives to Consume.” Today’s strip is particularly disturbing: Dagwood has, for as long as he can remember, been uniquely able to communicate with turkeys in their own language. Does this give him more empathy for the majestic birds? No. Seeing into their minds, understanding their desires, hearing their pleas for mercy — to Dagwood, that only makes them more delicious.

Gil Thorp, 11/13/18

Welp, it looks like the vaguely exciting notion of Tiki being an imposter has given way to the much duller reality of Tiki’s family engaging in low-level fraud. The final panel makes the completely implausible suggestion that the Milford athletic department somehow has higher standards than the rest of the school administration.

Marvin, 11/13/18

Sometimes Marvin does half-assed plots or at least “theme” weeks, so let me just assure you that nothing like that is happening here! There was no setup or anything yesterday for this: a comic where a toddler has been thrown into a cage full of angry feral dogs who are probably seconds away from eating him.

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Marvin, 11/3/18

Maybe it’s just me, but when you see the phrase “mentoring Marvin” in isolation, parsing “mentoring” as a verbal noun with “Marvin” as its object — i.e., “the process of being a mentor to Marvin” — seems like a much more natural reading than parsing it as a verbal adjective modifying “Marvin” — i.e., “Marvin, the baby that goes around being a mentor.” But apparently I’m wrong! Apparently that’s not what’s happening here. Apparently people think that a heavy lidded cynic cruelly disabusing you of treasured beliefs that tie you to your loved ones counts as “mentoring” now. Apparently you can “have all the answers” even if you consistently and stubbornly refuse to learn how to poop in a toilet.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/3/18

A thing that I forgot to mention about the current Jordan and Michelle storyline in Rex Morgan, amongst all the stolen valor, is that a drunk guy tried to mug them but just ended up lunging at them and missing, and then it turned out that said drunk guy was an PTSD-afflicted vet who also went to high school with Jordan, and because Jordan had this pre-existing personal relationship with him he asked the judge to be lenient, which, isn’t it interesting how our supposedly objective system of justice is really informed in practice by the innumerable social ties that hold individuals together, but that’s neither here nor there because the important thing is that this dude is hallucinating! And Jordan has promised, without consulting Rex, that he can get this hallucinating dude in to see Rex, today! I am vibrating with glee imagining the scowl that Rex is going to grace us with on this one.