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Mark Trail, 8/16/06

So, last week I was guest blogger at Wonkette, and despite my best efforts, I have been unable to convince them over there to remove my e-mail address from their tips alias. Thus, I get a seemingly endless stream of insane conspiracy theories, mass mailings from doomed political campaigns, and pissy, defensive e-mails from Alan Colmes. Most of them I just delete unread, but one particular item, about a moron who has been indicted for illegally shooting a bear in an enclosure with a crossbow, really stuck with me. I think it’s because, much like her demented owner, I have come to love Molly the trained tame miniature totally-would-not-exist-in-real-life bear from Mark Trail very much, and I grow deeply trepidatious that we’re going to see some similar peril in her immediate future. So watch out, poachers! Mess with Molly, and you’ve got me to answer to!

Gil Thorp, 8/16/06

It looks like our gymnastics coach is dispensing with all the “pretty on the inside” horsefeathers and preparing Riya for her true role in life: as the unattractive one, she gets to be the comic relief for the pretty one. And yes, only in the world of Gil Thorp is Keri “the pretty one.” I’m not sure if Scarface’s “you’re a fat hippo!” joke is a passive-aggressive snipe or just the sort of nonsensical and horribly misguided gag you make when you’re eight, but either way, I think Coach’s psychological warfare techniques need some improvement.

Dilbert, 8/16/06

Jesus, people, he’s spooning him, see? Thus the joke. Seriously, y’all are perverts.

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The Lockhorns, 8/15/06

Today’s Lockhorns is evidence of the feature’s unrelenting commitment to total authenticity. It’s not that one of them is right and the other cartoonishly wrong, you see; it’s that they are fundamentally incompatible, and yet married to one another. I’m not sure that this comic contains a joke per se; rather, Leroy and Loretta in a larger sense illustrate the basic reality that our lives and our interactions with others are fundamentally absurd. They seem preternaturally inured to the hollowness of it all, but it’s often a wonder to me how their marriage counselor keeps from slitting his wrists.

Herb and Jamaal, 8/15/06

Today’s Herb and Jamaal is like a magpie fascinated by a shiny object and unable to divert its attention from it. In this case, clearly the polysemous nature of the word “cell” — you see, it could refer to a cellular phone, or a prison cell! — provided an irony too delicious to pass up, no matter the fundamental problems of narrative that this gag presents. For instance, last I checked, you can’t actually call someone in his cell, because prisoners aren’t allowed to have personal phones. Of course, sometimes corrupt guards smuggle phones in to the inmates, but these are generally — you guessed it — cell phones. There’s a potential joke here about calling someone both in and on his cell, but clearly Herb and Jamaal doesn’t have the stomach for an exploration of the deficiencies of the American incarceration industry.

Anyway, despite the fact that the strip is totally unable to string 50 words in a row without creating a major plot hole, the whole thing is made worthwhile by Herb’s hilarious reaction shot in the final panel, right? Oh, wait a minute, no it isn’t.

Kudzu, 8/15/06

Don’t feel too bad, though, Herb and Jamaal: for all your failings today, at least you didn’t do a can’t-program-the-VCR joke.

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Dick Tracy, 8/14/06

So Lottie, in addition to not being dead, has changed from weird suit and tie drag to a weird 1970s suit jacket/turtleneck drag look that matches Al Kinda/Zombie Reagan’s. But this strip tells us something else: I’ve already established that I don’t know much about guns, but I know enough to know that if you can shoot a man in the heart with a handgun from, like, a quarter-mile away, you are a bad ass. Who cares about her nefarious past and gender eccentricities? Clearly we need her on our side. Don’t ask, don’t tell, detective Tracy.

Mark Trail, 8/14/06

Just when I thought the current Mark Trail storyline couldn’t get any better, that devil Elrod adds this crazy dude and his tame bear into the mix. Of course, we’re going to end up with some nail-biting adventures in which Mark and his friends need to rescue Molly from the poachers, but for the next eight hours or so, please let me hold onto the dream that tomorrow’s strip will involve Molly mauling Rusty while Doc and the porn-star named “Buck Jones” make small talk.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/14/06

Now, let’s be clear here: this strip exists to give April her stinky comeuppance, and I sincerely appreciate it on that level. However, I question whether her iPod (or non-branded “tunes”) is the culprit here. After all, the problem is with her vision and coordination, not her hearing. At least she didn’t have to hear whoever is hiding in the floorboards shouting “trip” as she falls.