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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.

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Hi and Lois, 9/22/18

Ha ha, there’s nothing that says “I love my son” like telling your wife as she walks by, completely within his earshot, “Look, I’m sitting right next to him here on the couch! You were wrong when you said I didn’t love him!” But really, the big shoutout in this strip has to go to Chip, who’s alternating between looking at his phone and reading that magazine he has draped over the arm of the couch. He doesn’t want to be there any more than Hi does!

Spider-Man, 9/22/18

J. Jonah Jameson of course discarded the traditional obituary section years ago, merging it with the wedding announcements to create a weekly “Life Moments” supplement that you have to pay to be featured in. But I assume that if Spider-Man died from some combination of being shot multiple times and suffocating from poison gas, it’d be a gleeful banner headline, for what’s that’s worth.

Marvin, 9/22/18

“Since American suburbia is bereft of truly public spaces, I thought we were going to wander around this commercial center merely for the purpose of experiencing the slow passage of time towards our inevitable and meaningless deaths in a location other than our home, for once. But you entered a series of stores with the intention of exchanging money for goods! What a twist!”