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Slylock Fox, 6/4/24

I assume that the gentleman who’s been tied up is the victim here, some solid citizen who was simply walking around with burlap sacks full of cash, as one does, before being kidnapped by this nefarious pair of thieves. Now he’s watching the fisticuffs perpetrated by his rescuers, and we may note that in both versions of the panel, he looks on not with glee or even relief but with what appears to be wary trepidation. Sure, getting forcibly tied up, presumably under the threat of bodily harm, was harrowing, but he takes no pleasure in this orgy of retributive violence either, and seems unsure whether these costumed vigilantes, operating as they do outside the law, truly have his best interests in mind. And what about the fact that each opposing dyad includes one human and one animal who walks on hind legs and seems to have achieved human-scale intelligence? What’s that about, and what’s it going to lead to? Probably nowhere good!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/4/24

Shocking development: our pair of budding tween comedians are not regarded as the coolest kids in school despite their encyclopedic knowledge of vaudeville, and were in fact cruelly bullied last week! But don’t worry, they defeated their bully in the marketplace of ideas, and now in the aftermath of that encounter are reflecting on the fact that their misguided would-be tormentor is merely caught in a cycle of psychic violence that hopefully they can all break out of together. More on this story as developments warrant, or as they don’t warrant, if it’s on a slow day.

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Marvin, 6/3/24

The very first “real job” I ever had, after I quit grad school, way back in the long past and yet futuristic sounding year of 1999, was as a copy editor for a series of tech-focused websites, none of which exist any longer. This happened more or less accidentally — the recruiter at the agency I was temping for at the time mentioned that one of the sites this company put out was called “Lie-nux World,” and one my grad school buddies had been a Linux nerd so I knew enough to correct her pronunciation, and her eyes lit up — and that was the launching point for the non-comedy-writing aspects of my subsequent career, which, to be straight with you all, represent a significant majority of my lifetime earnings to date. Anyway, though I haven’t formally held the “copy editor” title in years, I still identify very strongly with the role, as working in it got me up to speed with tech publishing and editorial processes in general. That’s why I can say without hesitation or exaggeration that, thanks to the publication of this Marvin strip where we learn what Marvin’s terrible father does for a living, this is worst day of my entire life.

Hi and Lois, 6/3/24

I like how you can tell by everybody’s facial expression that nobody finds this cute. “Oh, she wants to interrupt our precious TV time just to experience a moment of human affection? Well, too bad! She can cry herself to sleep like the rest of us!”

Alice, 6/3/24

Alice has been kidnapped by aliens and has chased after her parrot but I gotta say this is the most not OK she’s ever been. The ducks aren’t talking about you, babe! Their intellects are cool and unsympathetic, but they do not assess your appearance against human standards!

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Mary Worth, 6/2/24

I know I’ve been harping for a while on “why is Wilbur so obsessed with his dead fish and not talking about his alive fish?” Earlier this week he claimed that, since Stellan was named after Estelle, his fishy demise truly brought home the fact that Wilbur and Estelle would never get back together, but I think today makes the real story clear: while Stellan was happy to listen to Wilbur natter on for hours about his pathetic love life, Willa would respond by simply facing the back of the tank in obvious and appropriate contempt. And you know what? Good for her.

Blondie, 6/2/24

I was going to go on a rant here about how legacy strips need to stop putting Boomer nostalgia into the mouths of comics characters who cannot be older than 50 or so, but then I saw the “Bratman and Robin” panel and my disgust at its laziness immediately purged all other irritations from my mind. “Robin” is just an actual robin, sitting on a giant bottle of mustard? No attempt at a pun or wordplay or anything? Get outta here with that shit, man.