Marmaduke put his owner-man in his place.

Marmaduke (who did not actually die yesterday) is crying because he can no longer use Christmas tree decorations to choke himself for sexual gratification. He also appears to be melting.

Marmaduke has finally died, thus completing the 2006 American Icon Yuletide Expiration Hat-Trick that James Brown and Gerald Ford kicked off several days ago. It remains uncertain whether he committed suicide, was murdered by his owner-girl (who did a fantastic job at making it look like an accident), or simply lost his balance in one of his frequent auto erotic asphyxiation binges.

Marmaduke is about to do to Christmas what he does to most everything in his world: destroy it with the aid of some improbably-acquired props and/or costume pieces.

Becoming a dentist is not something that happens overnight

Sorry about missing a couple of days... Ever since I decided to become a dentist, my life has become very complicated. Last week I enrolled in Imaginary Dental School, widely considered to be among the finest institutes of higher learning that were made up by me, and have since found myself up to my elbows in teeth, and books about teeth.

Imaginary Dental School has been an enormously rewarding experience so far, but it is also very draining, both on my time and my finances. I will do my best to keep this blog on a daily schedule, but until I earn my IDS diploma things may be a bit rocky from time to time. In the interim, I've set up a charitable organization devoted to myself, and more specifically to helping out with my tuition bills. If you are feeling generous this holiday season, and would like to help out a plucky, hard-working, devastatingly handsome young man fulfill his dream of someday becoming a fake dentist, I would be the last person to stop you (provided that person you're helping out is me, and not someone else who fits that description). And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this way, either.

All donors will receive a Certificate of Charitability with their name and their donor level ($1-$3: Wood Level, $3-5: Gold Level, $5-$10: Platinum Level, $10-$100: Chocolate Level, $100-$1,000,000,000,000,000: Razzleberry Jubilee Level). These certificates will be emailed to donors in the form of jpegs, suitable for color printing. They will also be really awesome.

Beats of comfort and joy,

Joe Mathlete

Marmaduke has been snooping around the Christmas presents.

Marmaduke has temporarily displaced a mall Santa, the abilities of whom he has confused with those of a genie.

Marmaduke is trying to help his owner-lady prepare chili by holding a ladle in his mouth and stirring the pot. Owner-Lady is horrified to discover that her dinner is now three degrees of separation away from a Great Dane's asshole.

Joe Mathlete answers some fan mail

Via "Aewryq" (possibly not his real name), someone who found my band's MySpace* page and sent me a note:

"Do you ever think of Brad Anderson reading your blog? I hope he does. I hope it scares the bejesus out of him being called out and all. It saddens me when I think of the checks that talentless hack is cashing for that shitfest of a comic.

Anyway, thumbs up for a job well done."

My response:

"I'd have to guess that if Brad Anderson ever saw my blog, he'd probably be a little irritated (particularly at all the references to his age, senility, and general out-of-touchedness with modern times), but he probably wouldn't care all that much, for reasons you yourself have mentioned-- he still keeps cashing all those checks, for doing something really easy (that he's not even particularly good at) for fifty-plus years, no matter how many detractors he has.

Anyway, as the last piece of new technology Brad Anderson bought was a color television and he thus has no internet access, it's a bit of a moot point. Otherwise he probably would have had me shut down months ago out of spite.

Thanks for the thumbs."

* For the record, I hate MySpace, but if it weren't for MySpace very few people would have heard of my band, and I don't know how to make a real website, so I'm forced to play the game. I should also take this opportunity to state that I hate blogs, too, so noodle that one for awhile.

Marmaduke is warned by his owner-lady not to mock her seasonal binge-purge cycle by making sarcastic dog noises.

Marmaduke responds to a jug-eared, clap-happy dipshit's entreaty to fetch a stick with either a massive yawn (which is how he signifies his boredom) or a blood-curdling scream (which is how he pumps himself up for a round of stick-fetching). Marmaduke's owner-man responds to said jug-eared, clap-happy dipshit's entreaty with a hint regarding the futility of the ridiculous little man's enthusiasm.

Marmaduke is trying to decorate his owner-family's Christmas tree with a bunch of his dog bullshit. Owner-Lady declines his "help" with as much diplomacy as she can muster.

Marmaduke is a frotteur.

Marmaduke is an asshole.

Marmaduke receives oversized Christmas cards from the marketing arms of Woofs, Barfoo, and several other popular dog food conglomerates every year (in addition to numerous other seasonal greetings from unknown, possibly non-corporate acquaintances). He then displays said cards on the outside of his doghouse, primarily to fuck with his owner-couple, who are virtually friendless after years of Marmaduke's arbitrary rampages.

Marmaduke is plotting a bit of quaint, 1940s-level yuletide date rape.

Marmaduke, like Michael Jackson and Michelle Tanner before him, has vastly eclipsed the other members of his family in terms of popularity.

Marmaduke has responded to his owner-lady's poultry-based holiday dinner menu with threats of Hitchcockian animal-rights activism. Owner-Lady regrets her candor.

For the record

First off, I didn't actually quit yet. Sorry for any confusion.

If anyone clicked the link in this blog entry and got the little dancing monster "fuck you and die" page, that wasn't my doing. Because he was apparently getting harassed, the blogger guy did some tricky internet things I don't understand, and the original URL from his email that I posted here redirected you to that thing.

I've since made the link point somewhere else. Not to the blogger guy's blog, because it seems 100% reasonable he'd make it so you go to the little dancing monster "fuck you and die" page again (or someplace even worse, like the stretchy butthole website or the picture of the Japanese lady pooping in her bathtub). This would be well within both his rights and abilities, so I made the link not go to his blog anymore, and therefore not to the LDM/FYAD page. I don't know why you'd want to click it after reading this, but it's your life.

Updates over the next week or two may be somewhat sporadic, as I have recently decided to become a dentist.

Beats,

Joe Mathlete

Marmaduke (the dog) inspires enthusiastic love and devotion from cute little puppies. As opposed to Marmaduke (the comic strip), which inspires conceptual internet mockery from nerdy college dropouts.

Marmaduke's will is nine-tenths of the law.

Regarding Sundays

A number of you have asked me why I choose not to explain the Sunday edition of Marmaduke. My reasons are fairly simple, though I have been reluctant to discuss them until now. This decision was not, as some of you have speculated, borne out of a desire to have a regularly-scheduled day off; a cursory glance at the frequency of my updates makes it clear that a regular schedule was never all that high on my list of priorities.*

No, my decision not to address the Sunday Marmadukes basically boils down to this: They're fucking ridiculous.

Though my hometown's newspaper features Marmaduke Monday through Saturday, it has never carried the strip's Sunday installments. The first time I saw a Sunday Marmaduke in all its full-color glory, I came very close to passing out in front of the United Features Syndicate website. Take this example, from a week ago:

(click for make big)

I find pretty much everything about this profoundly disturbing. From the utterly majestic failure at taking advantage of the multi-panel comic strip format to the bizarre, quasi-legible handwriting in the dialogue bubbles to the very existence of dialogue bubbles themselves to the heartbreakingly mundane "Dog Gone Funny," this is simply not why I got into this line of work. The hallmarks of the comic are still present (phantom humor, stunted internal logic, and a pointlessness that verges on Dada), but there's so much more going on here than in a normal Marmaduke, and it's all going so, so wrong. To even begin to address what's actually happening in the above strip would require training my brain to operate on levels I'm not entirely comfortable with or even certain I'm capable of on a consistent basis. Even seeing what color Marmaduke is freaks me out.

It goes without saying that I think about Marmaduke more than a person ought to (which is to say, I think about Marmaduke at all). I read it six days a week, maintain this blog as a public service, and am even thinking about saving money to have t-shirts made up. I've wasted a big enough chunk of my time and energy on this godforsaken dog without having to risk madness trying to decipher Brad Anderson's full-color fever dreams once a week. I hope you can understand, and if not, remember that this entire blog is both 100% free and really, really dumb to begin with.

Beats,

Joe Mathlete




* I'm working on being more consistent with daily updates and such, but lately I'm trying to teach myself to play the banjo, and I just got season 3 of NewsRadio on DVD the other day, so we'll see how that pans out.

Marmaduke is wearing a pair of specially-modified dog skis on his daily walk through his neighborhood, where it has recently snowed. His owner-lady pleads with him not to get carried away and attempt any dangerous maneuvers, but truth be told, Owner-Lady forfeited any and all rights to her own physical well-being the moment she allowed herself to be dragged behind a monstrous Great Dane on skis who lives to torment and humiliate her. The shit-eating grin on Marmaduke's face indicates that fancy slalom stuff was a foregone conclusion.

Marmaduke is harassing a street person.

Marmaduke's ferocious hula-hooping threatens the structural integrity of his family's home.

I Quit

From:	Brian Liston
To:	Joe Mathlete
Subject:	I love you Joe

Dearest Joe Mathlete,

I am in love you your blog, "Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke". I love it so much, that I made a post on my own blog explaining an equally lame comic strop, Family Circus, in your style.

Anyhoo, I was wondering if you would exchange links with me (I link to your blog, you link to mine, we both benefit). You don't have to, but it would make me very happy :).

Regards,
Brian

Marmaduke likes to stand by houseplants and breathe on them until they die. His owner-lady has given this uncharacteristically subtle destruction of her property a name.

Marmaduke was invited by his owner-girl to play "doctor" with a neighborhood boy. Owner-Girl only invited Marmaduke along so that she could make a terrible, terrible dog-related pun, and Marmaduke only agreed in order to have the chance to combine two of the most deviant sexual taboos in Western Culture.

Marmaduke is committing so many different breaches in drive-thru protocol at the local Pic-Up Burger that I don't even know where to begin. Also, judging by the prices of the various food items, Marmaduke creator Brad Anderson has not patronized a fast-food establishment since the 1980s.

Marmaduke is lashing out at a rug, blaming it for his own reckless clumsiness. Owner-Lady's desperate plea for logic is wholly ignored.

Marmaduke donned a half-assed ghost costume in an attempt to scare his owner-man into increasing the temperature of their house. Owner-Man somehow understands Marmaduke's obtusely-communicated desire, but adamantly refuses the beast's entreaty.

I was on vacation or something last week

Because it was Thanksgiving. But now I'm not, 'cuz it's no longer Thanksgiving. I probably should have mentioned this earlier. Expect something similar around late December / early January, but for now here's some more of the stupid dog comics with my words underneath.

Marmaduke has his nighmares wherever Marmaduke wants to have his nightmares, and sometimes Marmaduke wants to have his nightmares under his owner-couple's bed, regardless of how much they whine about it.

Marmaduke, whose perceptions regarding Meat Mart's importance to the community are skewed at best, is defending the store against potential thieves despite protests from an employee.

Marmaduke is being petulant because he misses barbecue.

Marmaduke is running so fast that his owner-man caught an updraft and is flailing in the air behind him like a kite. Kayla witnesses Owner-Man's plight and is quickly brought down a peg or two by Marmaduke's owner-girl, who finds it easier and more fulfilling to label people than to turn halfway around.

Marmaduke gave an elderly homosexual couple a very dog-centric Christmas gift, despite the fact that Christmas is not for another month and a half.

Marmaduke's owner-lady is being a total bitch.

Marmaduke is attempting to capitalize upon his neighborhood's gentrification.

Marmaduke, with his tendency to casually destroy both sporting goods and the carefree joy of children at play, is forcing a remarkably well-organized and well-equipped group of pre-adolescent football enthusiasts to draft special rules for their unsupervised pickup game.

Marmaduke is reading the latest issue of Dogs over Owner-Man's shoulder, forcing him to adjust his periodical-browsing pace to that of a Great Dane. Also, you can't quite see because of the way he is obscured by the armchair, but Marmaduke is horny as shit.

Marmaduke's civil rights activism was thwarted by what appears to be either a police officer or a yacht captain.

Marmaduke made a sign to trick sales-people into ringing the doorbell (which, according to an obscure state law, would give Marmaduke the full legal right to feast on their bones), but his plan appears to have backfired.

Marmaduke is about to commit a hate crime.

Marmaduke occasionally has trouble slowing down or stopping, much like an automobile that occasionally has trouble slowing down or stopping.

Marmaduke does not understand how restaurants work.

Marmaduke writer/artist Brad Anderson is recycling a joke from exactly four days ago. Either he has the short term memory of a mildly senile octogenarian who regularly uses mind-altering substances, or he is incredibly lazy and gives his readership no credit whatsoever.

Also, Owner-Lady has been listening to the Cure a lot lately.

Marmaduke and Owner-Boy prepare to spin their afternoon shenanigans to Owner-Lady. Owner-Boy indicates that the truly upsetting mischief didn't occur until after the authorities had intervened. Owner-Lady is still dressed in her "Ms. Frumpy 1974" Halloween costume from last night.

Marmaduke is chasing some dog catchers, and not the other way around. That little "pop" you just heard was your mind being TOTALLY FUCKING BLOWN.

Marmaduke's owner man mocks the great beast's home heating solution, failing to consider that installing fiberglass insulation in a doghouse is infinitely less practical or sensible than just moving the doghouse someplace warmer. Chances are Owner Man is just upset that he doesn't get to park his car in the garage anymore.

Marmaduke will be damned if he's going to let his owner-family enjoy a worry-free vacation.

Marmaduke is pursuing a vacuum cleaner possessed of tremendous speed, independent mobility, and a power cord of apparently infinite length. Of these properties, a behatted onlooker finds only the former worth remarking upon.

SPECIAL THREE-PART INSTALLMENT:

I) Marmaduke stole Owner-Girl's jump rope (causation: Marmaduke is greedy and spiteful)

II) Marmaduke does not know how to properly operate a jump rope (causation: Marmaduke is a dog)

III) Marmaduke creator Brad Anderson refers to jump ropes as "skip ropes" (causation: Brad Anderson has not paid attention to current parlance since 1948)

Marmaduke is incapable of being passive-aggressive.