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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.

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Slylock Fox, 10/22/18

Welp, I guess we know now that when Slylock gets bored, he wanders on down to the marina to investigate some extremely low-stakes nautical crime. And in today’s strip he doesn’t even solve the mystery — he’s just about to do that irritating superdetective thing where he figures out something that he’s about to be told anyway, just to show how smart he is. Maybe I’m just bitter because, before I looked at the solution, I assumed crucial clue was going to be something about the knots. I’m not a nautical pro by any means, but those look like pretty janky knots, don’t they? Anyway, clearly the best part of today’s strip is Max Mouse hand-feeding worms, for which he presumably paid good money at the bait shop, to that happy fish. “Nothing matters, buddy” his glum expression seems to say. “Might as well chow down while you can.”

Marvin, 10/22/18

Finally, the dark truth about Marvin’s perpetual diaper-shitting is revealed: with competition for the Millers’ single bathroom among four adults already cutthroat, Jenny and Jeff simply can’t potty train their son, lest full-scale violence break out. He won’t be using a real toilet until one of his grandparents is cold and dead in the ground.