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Mark Trail, 8/12/04

I’m going to start a new avant-garde performance project called Mark Trail Theater. The actors will perform the works of major playwrights, but they won’t change their facial expressions or use anything but the broadest body language. The only way they’ll be permitted to indicate changes in emotional state will be by shouting. Also, they’ll use contractions much less than a normal person would.

This is potentially the most emotionally charged Mark Trail I’ve ever seen, though that admittedly isn’t saying much. Kelly must be some sort of old flame of Mark’s, and I assume that Cherry is seething with jealousy, but I’m assuming that because of my knowledge of how human beings work, not because of any visual cues in the strip. She just sits there in profile at the left side of the panels, her eyes darkened with — well, what are they darkened with, exactly? Rage? Mascara? An ink smudge? Confusion, because Kelly looks like every other woman in the strip, only with a different hairstyle? We’ll find out. I’m certainly looking forward to some personal animosity expressed Mark Trail-style, which is to say entirely through clumsy dialog.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/11/04

Sometimes, when people go through a traumatic experience — like being trapped in a cliffside cave by rising floodwaters, say — they reevaluate their priorities and decide to make major changes in their lives. Often they think about going into an entirely different line of work, one that involves helping others.

You know, like medicine. Hey, earth to June: You already run a medical practice. Maybe she’ll insist on treating people for free. That’ll be fun to watch.

I’d like to point out that Mark and June have smudge marks on their faces, which are the universal comics symbol for having gone through some kind of ordeal. Of course, they didn’t have said smudge marks on their face until after they were rescued, which is a bit puzzling. Maybe they got dragged up the side of that cliff face-first.

Finally, take a look at the odd way that June is drawn in first panel, with her turned down mouth and beady eyes. June Morgan and Grace Jones: separated at birth?

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Apartment 3-G, 8/10/04

Time and harsh experience have more or less cured me of my love for mean girls, but I must admit that Apartment 3-G’s Margo sometimes reminds me why I used to like ’em. No face masks! Lead hazards! Ownership responsibities! You set them straight, sister! I love the look of sexy outrage on her face as she describes these horrors. In the next day’s strip, she goes on a further tirade about historic building tax credits. It’s these kinds of riveting storylines that keep the kids coming back day after day. From the dialog here, it sounds like the ladies’ apartment building has only recently gone co-op; I’m sorry I missed that plotline, as it no doubt involved six thrilling weeks at a real estate lawyer’s office.

Bad-coloring-in-daily-strip alert: Margo seems to have taken time in the middle of her lecture to hastily apply some lipstick between the first and second panel. Also, the professor’s hair seems to have gone completely grey since the last Sunday strip he was in. Perhaps it’s caked with lead dust.