Debuting in 1982, it revolves around the life and times of a young baby boy named Marvin, along with his parents, Jeff and Jenny Miller, and their dog Bitsy.
The strip revolves around the life and times of a young baby boy named Marvin, along with his parents, Jeff and Jenny Miller, and their dog Bitsy.
In 2012, in honor of the strip's 30th anniversary, it spoofed Back to the Future where baby Marvin meets himself as a full-grown man.
[citation needed] Minor characters have included Bea and Roy's toy schnauzer named Junior;[4][5] Roy's friend Bernie; and Marvin's friends Jordan,[citation needed] Warren (who is a genius,[6][7] with a 174 IQ[8]), Kyle,[9] Gerald[10] and Will, a child prodigy who spelled "prodigy" at five months.
In earlier strips, the baby characters did not speak, save for occasional crying, but were capable of understanding each other telepathically, an ability seemingly lost by adulthood.
Events in Marvin are portrayed as real, no matter how fantastic; there is never a story in which a baby's dramatic experiences are shown in the end to be ordinary happenings when seen by an adult's wiser eyes.
These storyline elements include the frequent appearance of Santa Claus around Christmastime along with in-universe parallels of contemporary happenings; for example, one baby made hundreds of millions of dollars operating a website called cryspace around the time that MySpace was most popular among readers of the strip, and his fortune generates plot elements in later strips.
A few story arcs involve fourth wall breaking, such as appearances by other King Features Syndicate characters, and even those from other strips such as Garfield.
Bea and Roy Arnold[20][21] lost their retirement savings in the 2008 recession and had to move in with Jeff and Jenny; Janet did not have enough room.