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Marvin, 6/25/18

Like most world famous comics bloggers, I usually turn to the virtual funny pages every morning, scan the strips, and think to myself, “Is this one about me?” I mean, sometimes it’s obvious, but other times it’s a little unclear, like today! Because, on the one hand, sure, I’m on the record as hating on Marvin constantly, without even a tiny leavening modicum or grudging respect, and I’m one of the last bloggers alive, since everyone else quit years ago and moved on to [checks notes] creating content for “Instagram stories” or whatever. But on the other, the Marvin creative team may not be that current with developments in online publishing (the tell is the use of the clunky phrase “blog writer”) and it is long-established strip canon that Bitsy is a blogger (sorry, “blog writer”), so maybe I’m not personally being insulted. It’s also long-established strip canon that Marvin and Bitsy hate each other! Just like every character hates ever other character. It’s really just mutual loathing all the way down! It’s funny how we don’t talk about that so much, which I guess is because all the shitting is even worse.

Mary Worth, 6/25/18

Ha ha, Tommy’s in love after one date, everyone! This is definitely an emotionally healthy development that isn’t related to his addictive personality, at all. I’m pretty proud of him for lulling his mom into a sense of complacency by starting slow but then gradually ramping up over the course of the sentence so that everything seems really chill and relaxed about this falling in love thing. Surely he wanted to blurt it out immediately, and was going cross-eyed at the effort of holding it in.

Spider-Man, 6/25/18

Ahh, Dr. Christine Palmer, the [Googles because it’s being boldface-yelled at us like we’re supposed to recognize it] beloved Marvel character who is Doctor Strange’s colleague and occasional girlfriend, and who is played in the movies by [squints at the marvel cinematic universe dot wikia dot com article and then at panel two here] … Rachel McAdams? That seems … not right.

Hi and Lois, 6/25/18

Ha ha, it’s funny because the twins don’t want to go to summer camp but Lois doesn’t want them around so they’re going to summer camp, and the twins know that’s why they’re going to summer camp, and they resent it! That’s … literally the joke of this strip, I think?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/24/18

Those of you who are longtime OG Joshreads dot com trufans remember how in the early days of this blog we had a great deal of fun with the Canadian soap opera-ish comic strip For Better or for Worse, and one of the days we had the most fun with it was January 26, 2005, when the strip came up with an inexplicable and hilarious series of words a Canadian tween might use to denigrate a classmate for her promiscuity, the most absurd of which was “roadside.” What I’m trying to say is, the two Hanks have been doing their tour of roadside attractions for weeks, and now Hank Sr. has finally encountered a “roadside” “attraction” in the form of Millie Gray! Sorry, Lefty Gillis, your gal’s about to be swept off her feet by her first love, a big shot horror comics artist who has an RV and everything! Sorry, Hank Jr., you’re gonna have to find a non-RV place to sleep tonight! If this RV is rockin’, it’s a sign that it’s a little unbalanced, so don’t come a knockin’, as it could tip right over!

Mary Worth, 6/24/18

Brandy: A woman haunted by a vague, intrusive fantasy that she’s desperately fleeing from the faceless adversaries trying to track her down and kill her, a woman comforted by the white noise of crashing waves on the beach. Is she the perfect match for a ex-con pill fiend who was wildly incompetent at every aspect of being a drug dealer? Looks like we’re going to find out!

Mark Trail, 6/24/18

Mark Trail wouldn’t be my first guess as to which soap opera strip character would show up with a cherry-picked anecdote to explain that, sure, spicy foods from weird foreign countries are becoming increasingly popular, but they’re probably detrimental to the health of God-fearing Americans and we should stick the flavorless boiled meat dishes our Anglo-Saxon ancestors enjoyed, but, you know what? It’s definitely not a surprise or anything.

Dennis the Menace, 6/24/18

Summoning a pack of neighborhood dogs of all shapes and sizes to do his bidding? Pretty menacing, I would say!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/24/18

“Prototypical persons with NPD present with many interpersonal problems and comorbid disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, with consequent increases in risk of suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, and eating disorders” is a sentence from the Psychiatric Times that I’m just going to leave here for no reason!

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Blondie, 6/19/18

Apparently Blondie HQ finally got wind of the insanely dumb Rick and Morty fan riots at McDonald’s over Szechuan Sauce, and decided to tackle it as only they can, which is to say by taking care not to infringe on anybody else’s intellectual property. Still, I like the idea that in Dagwood’s imagination the dispute stops being about a specific kind of sauce and just becomes about sauce as a general category, and also that it only took nine signs before they got to extremely stilted phrases like “Unfair to sauce cravers” and “Stop the sauce withholding madness!”

Judge Parker, 6/19/18

“I ask that you hold all questions until the very end. Particularly about the spelling of my name, which, as I’ve already established, is M-A-H-L-E-R. Harold is spelled the usual way. I’m not sure how you spell Godiva. Ahem. At approximately 9:30 am, Ms. Danube’s body w–” “Commander Mahler! How do you spell ‘Danube?’” “God damn it, what did I say?”

Mary Worth, 6/19/18

“I’m close to my mom too. She’s still young and hot though, and has an extremely active sex life. [as Brandy’s weeping intensifies] How horny was your mom, Brandy?”

Mark Trail, 6/19/18

“Settle down, Rusty! Rambunctious little boys are the first to be sacrificed.”