I once read the entire Marmaduke comic described succinctly as “The big dog is on something you want.” I think there’s an even simpler explanation: the cartoonist is not funny at all.

This is a good example for starters. The humor of this particular strip relies on the basic and horrifically dumb assumption that kids are so stupid they can’t tell a dog from a person in a costume. Brilliant, Anderson. Brilliant. Also, kids these days NEVER say “Gosh, Mister.” They’re much more likely to say “Holy fuck!”

This one also relies on the assumption that Marmaduke’s owner did not notice at all as the dog led him into a rail yard, up a ladder, and onto the top of a train. But not ONLY was the owner so clueless that he didn’t pick up on that part of the journey, he didn’t even notice when the train started MOVING. Also, how does a dog get on top of a train? And most importantly, who the fuck asks a dog for a shortcut? I guess the same guy who doesn’t know he’s on top of a MOVING TRAIN until it’s too late.

“Just so long as we get far enough away to dispose of this body… I only need a few minutes.”

AND YOU HAVE LIKE SIXTY HEADS! WHAT THE FUCK, DOG?

If I remember correctly, most of the typing was done by some lady in the computer lab because we weren’t trusted to type our own text in third grade or something. Either she had no concept of punctuation and grammar or I did type some things using my limited 3rd-grade concept of punctuation and grammar. In any case, I think I did all the illustrations.

I don’t know why I made myself have a mansion. Maybe it was to make plausible the elephant-sized TV.


I remember that I put myself in the War Machine suit because Iron Man had a much less impressive-looking suit.


How he managed to kick the bad guy before shooting him has always puzzled me. Maybe it had something to do with Iron Man switching tenses mid-sentence.


I think someone made us add the last sentence on this page because they thought it wasn’t clear why we had to go back to the 3rd level. I thought it was redundant because any kid knew you had to start over when dying in a video game. Plus it was really stupidly worded.




This page got a lot of intervention. We told the lab lady to type “BITCHEW” as the sound for the teleporter. I hadn’t discovered that that was a naughty word yet; I just thought it was fitting onomatopoeia for a teleporter. She thought “PITCHCHEW” was a better choice.




Every labyrinth has a quicksand pit.


And every one of those quicksand pits is impossibly suspended above the boss room.


It would have been much funnier if we had gotten the lady to type his name as “MR. T!!!!” on every page.


I dunno where the name came from. I think we just needed a generic bad guy name and went with the first thing that we thought of.


Why Iron Man didn’t guess by shooting at him and instead threw a bomb is beyond me.


Action scene here.


Better not trip if you’re a bad guy. All kinds of vines might grow over you.