Post Content

Gil Thorp, 6/4/09

I’ll say this about the current Gil Thorp storyline: it’s managed, with a certain degree of skill, to keep you guessing as to what it’s about. With each new incident, it becomes clear that its dramatic ambit is wider than you think. It’s not just about dumb YouTube antics or underage drinking or Facebook or wacky locker-room pranks. At this point, the theme appears to be that teenagers are goofballs who make stupid decisions, and maybe you don’t want to create an electronic record of those decisions? (Though who knows, perhaps by next week the only unifying thread will be “all mortal existence is folly.”) Obviously that cell-phone photo of Molly will soon be circulated from giggling loser to giggling loser around the school, and she’ll be humiliated because there’s absolutely nothing more embarrassing than a picture of you hanging out with a bunch of your female friends in a not-particularly-revealing cardboard bikini. Molly will have no choice but to become a nun after the soft-carton-drink-bikini-sexting that’s about to ensue here. If only she’d learned from her incredibly dull boyfriend to avoid rowdiness at all costs!

My favorite person in this strip is actually the gal in the background in panel two, soaking up the imaginary approbation. “Yes, I helped fashion a pointless, non-functional bathing suit out of soda can boxes! Look at me, I’m just like Jesus!”

Mark Trail, 6/4/09

Wait, Mark couldn’t read the name of the company on the barrels when he was, you know, standing right in front of them, taking pictures of them, but he can read it now that he’s back at home and looking at the developed photos? Is he so committed to being a rugged outdoorsmen that, while out of doors, he refuses to display any non-rugged qualities, like literacy?