Post Content

Blondie, 5/8/18

“What’d you expect? A Tale of Two Cities? Did you think an important incident in my life was full of such pathos that it would rival one of the monumental works of English literature? That I experienced an episode of such intensity — marked by romance, revolutionary social change, shocking turns of fortune, and a final, noble sacrifice — that I would want to memorialize it forever in my own flesh? The truth is, as it happens, much more mundane, but I will always treasure how elevated my life seems in your imagination, Dagwood.”

Marvin, 5/8/18

I know I hate on Marvin a lot on this blog, but I have to give today’s strip credit for delivering a multilayered joke. Sure, on the surface, it just seems like a limp “Ha ha, remember disco, and Saturday Night Fever, a famous movie about disco?” gag. But it actually goes to the heart of these characters’ relationship — specifically, it shows us that Jeff will go to really elaborate and theatrical lengths to let his wife know that he thinks her hobbies are stupid.

Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 5/2/18

Ha, yes, Dennis, we do exist in a world of corruption and decay, where we ingest not only the cooked and dismembered corpses of our fellow beings but also the dead microorganisms that once hitched a ride on, and in, their bodies, a slurry of organic matter from a thousand different ecological niches, most of it invisible to us. This is what being an animal is, of course: you eat other things that used to be alive. Like most of Dennis’s menacing, today’s incident is just ripping the polite mask off of our brutal, grotesque, and complex reality.

Pluggers, 5/2/18

One thing that I will always say when I try to explain why Pluggers annoys me (and I seem to annoy other people when I say it, but so it goes) is that it’s smug. Not always, but often! The not-so-subtle implication is that these salt-of-the-earth folks are better than you, you big-city elitist, somehow simultaneously simpler but also smarter. Today’s a great example: A plugger just sleeps on an ordinary pillow filled with feathers and not … some presumably much more suspect alternative to this? Yes, if you’re like me, you had to Google “My Pillow” to discover that it’s a poly-foam pillow heavily advertised on late-night infomercials, marketed by a company that was forced by numerous lawsuits to stop making various specious claims about its health benefits. Anyway, who’s morally superior? Pluggers, who are extremely smug about not having been taken in by the “My Pillow” scam that they’ve seen advertised endlessly? Or me, who’s never heard of it in the first place because I don’t watch infomercials but instead spend my aimless late nights reading articles about subway systems and 18th century wars on Wikipedia???? CHECKMATE PLUGGERS!!!!!!

Marvin, 5/2/18

So Marvin is sucking the life force out of his grandfather so he can remain forever an infant, un-potty-trained for all eternity? Sounds about right!

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 4/15/18

Darrin and Pete, of course, got Hollywood jobs without even really trying, which is why they’re obviously quitting and leaving town to help some nerd launch his doomed vanity comic book publishing project. Because while nature in the real world abhors a vacuum, the fundamental underlying structure of the Funkyverse hates happiness and success the most of all.

Marvin, 4/15/18

BROKE: Marvin comics about shitting

JOKE: Marvin comics about the stages of first-language acquisition

WOKE: Marvin comics about cryptocurreny