Repent, Sinners: The Big Dog Cometh

I am pleased to bring you the fascinating news that Marmaduke's status as an absolutely enormous dog has not changed. He is still getting up to hilarious hijinks predicated entirely on his size and dogness. Amusement at his adventures is making my sides ache. Watch me roll on the floor laughing, not simply metaphorically in reference to some quick bit of leet, but in reality. Oh, Marmaduke. You rock my world.

I shall now leave Oppositeland. There we go. It's good to be back.

Marmaduke is truly neither funny nor meaningful unless it is examined in a medieval context. Outside such a context, today's comic is simply stupid. Why is that man getting his bum washed by Marmaduke? How would it be possible even for such a huge dog to make the water do that? Does Phil, Marmaduke's owner, carry an umbrella all the time on the off-chance that his dog will attempt to drown him? Is that a bone falling out of Marmaduke's rear end? What the hell?

Yet medieval theology makes everything clear. Yet again, we have Marmaduke as the Antichrist here. The bucket is the Pail of Sin; Antichrist is drenching humankind with the horror therein. Phil is a True Believer who is wise to the ways of Marmaduke and must explain to the more gullible Everyman represented by his friend that the sin-drenching was really inevitable. In his hands, Phil carries the Umbrella of Truth; he can shield himself from the sin, but Everyman does not have the wit to duck behind the umbrella as well. He is learning, however, that sin is uncomfortable,* and it is probable that he will soon acquire a Truth Umbrella of his own, especially in light of the revelation that Marmaduke has devoured a small child (representing Virtue) and is now voiding the remains.



*And possibly concentrated on his butt?...Er...no...I've got nothing.