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Spider-Man, 5/7/15

Oh hey remember how MJ mysteriously wasn’t in the hotel where Spider-Man had dropped her off, which meant she could’ve been in mortal danger? Ha ha, turns out nope, which Spidey could’ve very easily determined by using the tracer he put on her clothes, rather than going through all the rigamarole with the hotel clerk. All he has to do now is not startle his wife into thinking he’s some kind of scary pervert! [Panel three: Spider-Man 100% fails at not startling his wife into thinking he’s some kind of scary pervert.]

Marvin, 5/7/15

You know the only thing lazier than setting up a speech or joke or any creative work with a dictionary definition? Setting up a week’s worth of jokes with the exact same dictionary definition. Still, kudos to Marvin for not breaking out the poop joke variation on this thing until Thursday!

Herb and Jamaal, 5/7/15

Jamaal, he’s literally clenching his fists and smiling cruelly and bellowing “power.” I’m pretty sure which direction he’s planning on going with it.

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Marvin,5/6/15

We live in a world where everyone is eager to #engage with #brands, but it can be difficult to tell if the resulting #conversation is #authentic. For instance: this week, the syndicated comic strip Marvin has been featuring its own versions of the lovable Minion characters from the successful Despicable Me franchise. In order to find out if this represents true #engagement or just paid-for corporate #synergy, we need to do a little sleuthing!

• Marvin is syndicated by King Features, which is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which is privately held by a trust created by William Randolph Hearst himself.
• Despicable Me and its sequels and spinoffs (including Minions, headed to theaters on July 10!), is distributed by Universal Pictures, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, which is in turn a subsidiary of the publicly traded Comcast Corporation.

Now, although the Hearst Television subsidiary does own several local NBC affiliates and has some joint television production ventures with NBCUniversal Television Distribution, the two parent companies are not significantly entangled, and so it seems unlikely that this week’s Marvin strips represent corporate-directed buzz-building. Thus, we can enjoy them for what they are: just some wacky jokes using someone else’s characters to make the point that Marvin is a huge dick.

Spider-Man, 5/6/15

“Why is nothing ever easy?” The cry … of a hero!

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Dennis the Menace, 4/30/15

I was going to make some kind of joke along the lines of “the divide between rewarded and unrewarded work under capitalism is still gendered and that’s the TRUE menace” here but then I noticed that Henry doesn’t even have a keyboard for his computer, just a mouse. What does he do for a living, like … click on things? Jesus, I hope he isn’t getting paid much for this.

Hi and Lois, 4/30/15

“How can a box ring a doorbell?” asks Dot, watching the Amazon drone buzz off. “How can we call a company a job creator when it works harder and harder to replace all its employees with robots? What good will my inefficient fleshy body be in the post-human future?”

Pluggers, 4/30/15

Pluggers know that chickens can perceive a much broader range of colors than dogs can, and divide fashion responsibilities accordingly. Do you think those pants look blue, with your human eyes? The dog knows better. The dog knows chickens see what we can’t.

Marvin, 4/30/15

Look, it’s not like King Features wants to publish a comic where every punchline is about a baby shitting himself, OK? It’s just … it’s Marvin. He can’t be stopped. He can’t help himself. Look, he’s seized control of the comic and is now penning his own “diaper diary.” “Today I had a conflict with my mother,” he writes. “And I got revenge by shitting myself.” Presumably this same joke-form will be repeated daily for years, for decades, while the civilized world begs for some kind of sanity to no avail, until the Earth is a burnt-out cinder.