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Marvin, 6/26/22

Look, I get it. Marvin, the strip, wants to “have it all” as a comic strip. That means that it wants to be a strip about an infant, and wants to be a strip where that infant delivers sarcastic one-liners and sasses back to his parents. But that can make it difficult for readers — and, frankly, the strip itself — to get a real firm handle on how old Marvin, the character, is supposed to be, from a developmental standpoint. I mean, here, why would you do whole strip where a mom admonishes her kid about wetting the bed, and yet also makes it clear that said kid is wearing diapers, and thus isn’t potty trained yet? It doesn’t add u– wait, what’s that you say? It’s some sick fetish? A fetish where increasingly elaborate piss scenarios are lovingly described to non-consenting newspaper readers everywhere? And it’s been happening in plain view of everyone, for years. Interesting. Interesting. I’ll keep that one in mind next time I read this strip!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/26/22

Hey, folks, remember June’s beloved Aunt (?) Hildy, who showed up on the family doorstep one day and became a live-in babysitter, and we briefly thought she might be a drunk but then it turned out she just took your occasional unplanned nap, and finally Rex reconnected her with her cheating ex-husband Andrzej, who was also an ex-pro wrestler, and they made up and got back together, sexually, and then she moved out? Anyway, the Street Sweeper plot has finally wrapped up, so I guess the new storyline is going to be to find what Hildy and Andrzej are up to. What they appear to be up to is dying of heart disease, so this should be a quick one.

Rhymes With Orange, 6/26/22

Well, this is it, everyone: consensual nonmonogamy has finally hit the newspaper comics. Sure, it’s a radical comic like Rhymes With Orange today, but can the normal ones like Garfield be far behind?

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Beetle Bailey, 6/25/22

What really makes this strip for me is how mad General Halftrack looks. Sure, he’s off golfing while his soldiers are enduring physical training to prepare them for combat, but at least he’s not enjoying himself!

Blondie, 6/25/22

I’m reaching an age when you start getting self-reflective, start asking yourself questions about what have you done with your one wild and precious life, and what do you plan on doing with it in the future. It turns out I’ve spent a surprising amount of time contemplating the Bumsteads’ bathroom situation. I’m not using that phrase as a euphemism — this isn’t Marvin, after all — but rather wondering about the actual, physical bathrooms in their palatial suburban home. You know, how many bathrooms they have, what floors they’re on, that sort of thing. Then, of course, there’s the question of why Dagwood only takes baths, never showers, which I guess may be getting more intimate than architectural. In that sense, today may be a big day for him. Is he finally going to try out this “shower” business everyone raves about? Or is he just going to have Herb hose him down every day for the next decade until he’s sure he wants to make the big shift? Anyway, I wish I could tell you that I will no longer be putting my energy into these sort of ruminations, but we all know that would be a lie.

Mary Worth, 6/25/22

A decade ago, Dawn got dumped by a previously unseen boyfriend named “Dave” and went into a hilarious weeks-long emotional tailspin, spending hours on the couch numbly watching Game of Thrones and mubling to herself in an attempt to ease the pain. It’s nice to see that in the indeterminate amount of in-universe time since, she’s really changed her whole attitude about relationships in a healthy way: now she only dates real drips, so that when they inevitably dump her, instead of getting depressed she just gets furious.

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It’s your comment of the week!

“Really loving that last panel, in which it looks as if Gil is doing an ad for Cubs Brand Coffee. ‘We might not know what matters in the hoity-toity world of Manhattan journalism, but one thing we do appreciate is the smooth bold taste of a coffee roasted over a tire fire on the banks of Lake Michgan…’” –pugfuggly

And your very funny runners up!

“Why is there a question mark when Dick says ‘B.O. Plenty?’ After seventy years (or whatever), you’d think he’d be used to people he knows having stupid names.” –Pozzo

“Ah, yes, The Bucket List — the family-friendly movie that makes every child with a streaming service unnaturally aware of their own mortality. (Of course, E.T. and The Avengers: Endgame serve the same purpose — but at least in those movies, there’s the comforting sense that you might come back.)” –BigTed

“A plugger’s phone sex is frustrating for both parties involved.” –Hibbleton

“Okay, okay, I will admit to one other possible scenario in the Lockhorns: Given Loretta’s position — facing away from Leroy, one foot forward, chin tossed coquettishly over her shoulder — this is less a comics panel than stage design for the Lockhorns opera buffa the Met never staged. In this heartwarming and climactic duet, Loretta (played by Leontyne Price) launches into her triumphant ‘I told you so! I told you so!’ fan dance while Leroy (newcomer James Harrison Morales) hacks up gallon after gallon of bug cream in a tenor counterpoint, and eventually dies of liver failure. (Conducted by James Levine, who was later accused of groping Loretta.)” –pastordan

“Today’s Mary Worth is very interesting. The art is full of signifiers of sad sack single male: microwaved pizza as lonely dinner, Star Wars shirt, talking to a pet. But the text conveys the opposite meaning: this male is desired and fought over by two young females. Is this semiological contradiction a clever, postmodern subversion of expectations or just incompetence and lack of communication between writer and artist? You decide! No seriously, it’s postmodernism, you decide!” –Ettorre

“Camp Swampy Enlistment Questionnaire: 1) Are you male? 2) Do you have comically-styled, coal-black hair?” –Carsick Yankee

“Sadly, the men at Camp Swampy were so inured to bad haircuts that no one noticed that Beetle’s perm throbbed slowly to the beating of an alien heart. The Permian symbiotes slowly conquered the Camp, and then the Pentagon, and then the world, leaving humanity in Permanent subjugation.” –Voshkod

“Well, at least the comic books will be happy together.” –Banana Jr. 6000

“I wish I were as satisfied with ANYTHING in my life as the Gil Thorp background guy is with his coffee.” –Pat Ferruzza, on Facebook

“Imagine a world where even in the private sanctuary of your bathroom, your own bodily wastes advertised targeted products to you as they streamed out. I hate to say it, but Marvin might just have accidentally created the best cyberpunk body horror dystopia of the century.” –Schroduck

“The best comics strips are the ones where you have to use your own imagination to make them amusing and in Marvin we’re not being shown the lower half of these two old men that makes it clear they are Cossack dancing while watching TV and grousing about kids today.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Even as stupid as Funky Winkerbean characters can be, they would have figured out they had no gift quickly if they traveled there together. So they must have traveled separately, which is what I would do if I were either of them.” –nescio

“It’s actually TJ Hooker, the bugged William Shatner action figure Jared put in Dawn’s purse to spy on her.” –Jay Brutus

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