Post Content

Momma, 8/17/14

Congratulations to Momma for coming up with a strip gag that’s entirely opaque to me! Is the joke that Francis is foolish for thinking that he can ski on a day Momma has planned a beach outing? But there are several parts of the country, including my own future home in California, where this is a real possibility! Is the joke that Francis is making bold claims about a ski date with his “buddies” when in fact even in his own imagination he’s skiing in total isolation, alone and unloved? That’s … that’s not so much of a “joke” per se, but at least it sort of makes sense.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/17/14

Ooh, this academic skullduggery plot is reaching a climax with June’s bold pronouncements: keep your head down! don’t get involved! don’t try to change anything! just do what you’re told quietly and you’ll get out unscathed! ride this thing out until you can retire! Truly the stance of a hero!

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 8/13/14

It’s mid-August and the summer Gil Thorp storyline finally comes into focus! It’s about how True Standish doesn’t want to go to some football factory in gross south Florida; he wants to go to one of the public Ivies, which looks like a college from an old movie! One of my cousins and her husband both went to Miami of Ohio, and they loved it; from my visits, I can confirm that it does have a classic look, largely as a result of rigorously enforced building codes that require that all buildings aesthetically match the original early 19th century structures. This uniformity has does have some weird results, particularly in huge new buildings that couldn’t actually be built from brick and mortar construction despite the appearance of their facades. At Cornell, where I went to college, buildings are supposed to look very contemporary to when they’re built, which results in an interesting aesthetic mishmosh that gives you something of an architectural historical tour as you walk around campus, even though some of the individual buildings from questionable periods end up kind of hideous (lookin’ at you, Uris Hall). Nevertheless, Miami of Ohio’s regime of strict architectural nostalgia-kitsch has managed to impress a star prospect for their 75th-ranked football program, so who am I to judge?

Judge Parker, 8/13/14

NOOOO … THE LEGAL PRACTICE THAT SAM SPENT HIS LIFE BUILDING … with the legal secretary … and the lawyer he hired, like, I’m not even going to bother looking up when but it was definitely in the last five years of real life so like three months ago strip-time … disintegrating … all he has to console him is his extremely active job of running legal interference for Judge Parker Senior and also his millions and millions of dollars … MY GOD MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN SAM

Momma, 8/13/14

Haha, highlighting the tinges of pseudo(?)-sexual jealousy in Momma and Francis’s relationship really adds to the laff factor in this strip, doesn’t it! This is a joke that’s appeared in the strip before, and I’m glad to see that, if Momma really is transitioning into some kind of greatest hits mode, the definition of “greatest hits” is “most perverse and unpleasant.”

Post Content

Marvin, 8/1/14

Guys, I know I spend a lot of time dwelling on the fact that Marvin does a lot of poop jokes, but … I dunno, it always strikes me anew that here’s a major syndicated comic that makes poop jokes one of the foundations on which it builds its comedic empire. It’s baby poop, to be sure, which gets some kind of pass, because in real life most people quite rightly think of cleaning the crap-filled underpants of an infant in entirely different terms than they would of dealing with the feces of, say, a 40-year-old. Maybe Marvin’s target audience is supposed to be people with new babies! One of the fascinating revelations in this article about how Target tries to predict when you’re pregnant based on your purchases is that people are uniquely open to changing their buying routines right after having a baby. Maybe Marvin is hoping that some poor exhausted poo-stained new parent out there is falling into a state of despair and is looking for someone, anyone to affirm that their current literally shitty existence is normal and even, from a certain perspective, kind of funny. Marvin is there for you. Eventually, your child will learn to go in the toilet, and presumably your own comics tastes will similarly grow up a little, into strips that focus on toddlers or older kids. (Hi and Lois made the savvy decision to cover the whole gamut of childhood from babies through teens, so it might earn your brand loyalty for years to come.) Meanwhile, Marvin will keep on trucking along, waiting for new parents to find it and feel the warm embrace of empathy for their struggles; for those of us who keep reading it daily for years, though, not just the 30 or so months a typical baby takes to be potty trained, Marvin’s endless free-pooping existence, combined with his overwhelmingly smug attitude about the whole matter, will just come to seem more and more grotesque.

Anyway, here’s today’s Marvin! It’s about how Marvin’s dad went running on a really hot day with Marvin on his back, and then Marvin pooped himself.

Beetle Bailey, 8/1/14

I realize this might sound hypocritical based on the above rant, but some things, like the paper-thin characterizations built for each member of the Beetle Bailey supporting cast, ought to keep going decade after decade. Plato is the “philosophical one” at Camp Swampy. He wears glasses and is literally named “Plato.” He’s not going to come up with some clever and entirely practical method to improve his situation. That’s Chip Gizmo’s territory (though if Chip did it there’d be a 50-50 chance that it wouldn’t work).

Momma, 8/1/14

Ha ha, OK, Momma, we get it! You thought it was funny in 2008 to do a strip where Momma complains about an “emptiness” that was left when her husband died, and then a suitor offered to “fill” the emptiness, and then Momma responded in such a way to imply that the offer was to “fill” (with her suitor’s penis) the “emptiness” (inside her vagina). You thought it was funny enough that you ran it again six and a half years later. But even you can’t think it’s so very hilarious that it bears repeating a third time after a mere 27 days! Please, stop the madness! Give us time to recover!