Post Content

Mark Trail, 8/16/09

Ah, there’s nothing more relaxing in your Sunday Mark Trail than seeing terrified horses running from an all-consuming inferno! This week’s edutaining Sunday strip reminds me of why I find Smokey the Bear so unsettling, which is because he’s wearing pants and no shirt. I can sort of see the chain of logic that got clothes on him in the first place — they had to put the hat on him to show that he was a forest ranger, and then once that happened he was a little too anthropomorphized to get away with no pants; I just don’t understand why the thought process stopped there. Surely there’s some sort of snappy uniform shirt they could have put on him? Because as it is he sort makes me think that forest rangers used to lounge around their fire towers shirtless, like slobs, which makes me glad that they all got fired due to budget cuts and replaced by people calling on their cell phones and saying “Hey, is this the government? I, uh, I think your forest is on fire.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/17/09

I’ve been avoiding talking about Rex Morgan because I or someone I love losing their memory and forgetting who all their loved ones are is one of my very worst nightmares; and so, grasping at straws, I’m willing to accept this half-hearted conversation as a sign that we’re getting back to what I thought this storyline was all about, which is to say adultery, and suspicions of adultery. Normally I don’t root for uninteresting, semi-attractive people to flirt in the comics, but if it takes panel time away from “I don’t know who I am or where I am and I think I’m married to this person who isn’t my husband, ha ha,” then I’m all for it.