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Marvin, 10/19/20

Oh, I guess yesterday’s strip, which made a zany joke about two fish who hate each other but will be imprisoned together in a bowl for the rest of their lives, was actually introducing two fun new characters in the Marvinverse! They’re going to take out the aggression and rage they feel towards each other and direct at Marvin, which, you know, fair. Just another day of mutual antipathy in the ol’ Miller household, where nobody likes anybody and Marvin poops his pants all the time!

Mary Worth, 10/19/20

It’s of course impossible to actually determine how much in-universe time has passed in Mary Worth in the [gulp] 16 years I’ve been commenting on this strip. Tommy hasn’t aged that much since his drug deal went wrong, so I assume that isn’t supposed to have actually happened more than a decade a go, though he did do at least some time in prison, and Santa Royale has in fact gone through the full arc of gentrification since then. Basically, what I’m trying to figure out if there’s anyone left in the Santa Royale criminal underground who might actually remember Tommy from his bad old days, or if this shadowy figure is actually Tommy’s dark self, trying to lure him back to a life of crime now that true love hasn’t worked out for him.

Mark Trail, 10/19/20

Wait, are we using Woods and Wildlife as a vehicle to make fun of the publishing industry? HEY NEWLY SELF-AWARE MARK TRAIL, STOP STEALING MY BIT

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Funky Winkerbean, 9/18/20

Wow, if the Funkyverse gang thinks that Bill Clinton has the influence to convince the current U.S. government to think twice about deporting someone, I have some extremely bad news for them. Not only is this not going to work, but Montoni’s is probably going to displace Comet Ping Pong at the center of fevered #pizzagate conspiracy theorizing on various unsettling Facebook groups.

Marvin, 9/18/20

Normally I complain about Marvin doing poop jokes, but today’s Marvin is about how these two fish are stuck in this bowl together and one of them wants to be friends and the other one very much does not. It’s depressing and I hate it! At least the poop jokes don’t make me actively sad!

Family Circus, 9/18/20

What’s your favorite image in today’s Family Circus? I’m a fan of Daddy’s football fantasy, a key part of which is the pile of crockery on the table next to him. He’s enjoying a beer now, but we can tell he’s already had some coffee and at least two meals and he’s still not getting out of that chair. My second favorite is the scene of Daddy keeping his kids entertained by reading what appears to be a menu.

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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/20

I really like the emotional journey we get to go on with Killer here. Like, in the first panel, he overhears Beetle saying nice things to the chaplain, and he’s like “Oh shit! Is my buddy Beetle actually one of those goody-goody church types? Gross!” But then when he realizes Beetle is just toying with the chaplain’s emotions, he settles into a mood of smug, heavy-lidded sinfulness. “Ahh, yes, less time in church means less time to feel guilty and more time to attack and dethrone God.”

Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/17/20

I assume the intended joke here is that Grimm wants directions to a local public transit system, because ha ha the subway is full of rats, even though anyone who’s ever actually ridden on a subway before would ask for directions to the nearest subway station. But I’m not ruling out the possibility that this is a reference to Subway, the chain of fast-food sandwich restaurants, and that someone over at Grimmy, Inc., had a bad experience there — maybe they saw a rat, maybe they and the sandwich artist had a difference of opinion on what constitutes “extra” cheese — and now they’ve decided to make it their mission to make sure Subway and vermin are firmly associated in the public mind.