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Marvin, 12/16/16

This isn’t the sort of thing I usually advocate, but … if we sent this comic to the NRA, do you think it could get several thousand angry letters to the editor written that would end Marvin’s weaponized poop jokes, forever? Just spitballin’ here.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/16/16

You know, we make jokes about how Funky Winkerbean is just unrelentingly grim nonstop, but there are always new frontiers to explore! I mean, years ago one of Les’s student’s tried to kill herself because Les didn’t love her, but she managed to survive and experience the majesty of what adult life has to offer, including being sexually rejected by Les, again, and so we’ve never to my knowledge had an actually successful suicide in the strip. History in the making here, folks! History … in … the … making.

Six Chix, 12/16/16

It seems that snowman season is for some reason extremely traumatic for Friday Six Chik Benita Epstein. Please keep her in your thoughts during this difficult time.

Family Circus, 12/16/16

DOLLY NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING

YOU MAKE A MOCKERY OF GOD’S CREATION

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Marvin, 12/15/16

Finally, Marvin has come up with a running joke that I like even less than the running jokes about Marvin or other characters pissing or shitting: The running joke where Marvin’s dad is all like “haha, wives, amiright fellas?” I think the key to understanding today’s strip, in which Marvin’s dad quips dead-eyed about the power relationships in his marital and professional lives and his resentments appertaining thereto, is the phone his equally stone-faced co-worker is handing him. Notice that it’s a classic phone handset, not a cell phone, and yet there’s no cord attaching it to anything. My guess is that it’s a prop phone, and that these two aren’t in an office at all, but rather on stage at the premiere show for their terrible two-man sketch group, Extremely Hack Misogyny.

Gasoline Alley, 12/15/16

I wasn’t sure exactly where we’d be going with the tale of Chipper the aging physician’s assistant. This is a strip that spent literally eight weeks talking about fucking scrapbooking, so I have to admit that I’m pleasantly surprised that the direction chosen is apparently “Chipper begins his descent into madness.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/15/16

“What I’m trying to say is, if Sarah dies, do you want Linda to be your daughter? I mean, they look a lot alike, and this way you’d get to skip puberty.”

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Curtis, 12/14/16

Curtis is a strip that I have many, many soft spots for, even when it comes to its eternal running gags, and since I admitted that I basically found this hemorrhoid joke in Crankshaft funny, I will admit this: I always laugh when Barry does something childishly disgusting to annoy Curtis. Panel three, with its extremely vivid nose-picking sound effects and motion lines, is all the more a marvel in that it managed to get past whatever remains of the comics pages’ editorial oversight.

Mark Trail, 12/14/16

Oh, in case you’re wondering, Mark and Abbey successfully leapt off that exploding island, into the ocean! Probably they’re about to be rescued by Cal, in Abbey’s stolen borrowed boat, but Abbey is taking no chances, and is clearly attempting to evolve into a magnificent cetacean, adapted to permanent life at sea, in the final panel.

Gil Thorp, 12/14/16

Ah, at last we get to the meat of the Gil Thorp basketball season storyline: the trial and tribulations of Aaron Aagard, who’s always first in alphabetical order for everything! Riveting stuff, I’m very excited.