Soapy Wednesday
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Mark Trail, 2/18/26
Mark has been invited to Las Vegas to compete in the Woodsman Olympics, a Trailiverse competition that somehow has avoided a nuclear lawsuit from the actual Olympics, and Rusty is up to his old foolish antics, sneaking into forbidden areas of his hotel’s garden. And you’re probably wondering, how much trouble could he possibly get up to, since he’s still on hotel grounds? Well, you never know, maybe the hotel uses a secluded wooded area on its property as an exclusive gaming zone for high rollers and Rusty is going to end up in the entourage of one of the Emir of Dubai’s less reputable nephews. Or maybe they just let the tigers from the main stage show roam around out there and he’s going to get mauled.
Judge Parker, 2/18/25
Oh, man, do you want to know how brutal and hardcore the ice prison where Randy is being held captive is? Well, his captors have gotten wind of his plots to escape, so he’s been forced to go to this nice, warm office and listen to the warden give a pissy lecture about how you’re not actually allowed to escape from this prison. He also isn’t handcuffed or anything and there don’t appear to be any guards present. So it’s not particularly brutal, is what I’m saying.
Mary Worth, 2/18/25
“Yeah, how would that work? I guess I’d have to spend less time over there, ha ha! I mean … oh no.”
64 replies to “Soapy Wednesday”
I’ll tell you what IS brutal! The warden’s time at the tanning salon, am I right? Unless this prison is actually building staff out of hot dogs, which would be…huh. Adjectives defy me, here.
MW:
“Have you reconsidered getting a pet…like a cat?”
“I was thinking that maybe a winged Orc might be more simpatico with my interests and personality!”
Mark Trail:
“I’m going to end up getting lost, of course, because my orienteering skills are a little Rusty!”
MT: If Rusty’s wandering into the nuclear test site grounds, we may finally be seeing that Mark Trail / Incredible Hulk crossover that no-one has been waiting for.
“I was going to turn this into a raunchy joke, like ‘you’d have to let me pet your pussy sometime,’ but I remembered I’m Dr. Jeff, and completely emasculated. The End.”
Yes, he said “The End” out loud. Wouldn’t you?
JP:
“Do you know why you’re here, Randy?”
“Absolutely — to engage in smart-alecky and counterproductive banter with someone who controls my very life and fortune, thrust as I am into a milieu and situation which could not possibly exist in real life. You know, classic revisionist Judge Parker, brought to you since, inexplicably, August, 2016!”
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! It looks like you’re finally in negotiations with The Ladies to place your hairless Sphynx client! Hope that deal works out—a wrinkled cat should fit right in with the Charterstone gestalt!
JP: When Friends finished, they knocked down the sets and shipped them to foreign countries to use as low-cost prisons. I’m pretty sure this room used to be Ross’s apartment. Could it be any more 90s brownstone?
JP:
“Do you know why you’re here, Randy?”
“Hey — why are you asking me a question from The Baltimore Catechism???”
FG: What, they’re not really dogs? What a ripoff.
I enjoy the hotel’s belief in the honor system, instead of putting in a gate, or perhaps continuing the damn fence. No, no, this will do. There just ISN’T enough whimsy in the world!
JP: “…And another thing, why are you dressed like that? It’s not casual Friday!”
MT: The sign is clearly visible. This greatly reduces Rusty’s parents’ chances of winning that lawsuit when he falls off a cliff/is eaten by a bear/gets near-fatal poison oak.
MW: Question: When Mary and Jeff have a date, does time flow like cold maple syrup for EVERYONE in the Worthverse?
JP:
“Do you know why you’re here, Randy?”
“Um, to engage in witless dialogue that’s part of a plot arc that, like every other plot arc in this comic strip, goes almost nowhere, and is full of all sorts of gaps in logic and thematic consistency even when it does go somewhere?”
DT: Wow, Keegan Micheal Key has really hit the skids. From ‘Key and Peele’ to ‘Playing With Fire’ to now about to be taken out by a Russian Drone that somehow flew all the way to this American prison where all of Dick Tracy’s rogues are housed a la Arkham Asylum to break them all out at once a la ‘Knightfall’. Will BO Plenty break out the 1966 Batmobile to assist??
JP: ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ ‘To watch as that snowmobile with my wife on it inexplicably launches itself high into the air, over the prison walls, and through the window behind you. I’m going to duck out of the way now…’
S4th: Don’t make threats, Ralph, only promises…
Wary Morth:
“I suppose you’d have to come over to my place. And then I could show you my etchings.”
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Pudgy Jerker:
“No, no! I meant ex-cape! I had a cape back home and I was just missing it!”
MW: If Mary ever gets a pet, she would invest so much time into it that she would barely be able to meddle with the people around her. It would be so disconcerting to her neighbors that she would either be forced to rehome the pet or would be given several more pets as presents.
Mary: “A pet? Oh, I already have Wilbur.”
Dr Jeff (begins wheezing and sneezing uncontrollably and breaks out in hives).
JP:
Umm, you might want to cut down on your beta carotene consumption just a skosh, Warden — maybe have a few less carrots. You look like an anthropomorphized Tang container!”
Suburban Fairy Tales:
Wolfette, you could always put something between your teeth to prevent your jaws aching when you clench them.
A leg of pigmum would do nicely.
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Questionable Discontent:
Oh, so *that’s* why Emmett is a violent destructive psycho.
@A Grave Mind: I’m not sure if you’re talking about Mark Trail, or if you’re sarcastically calling the prison in Judge Parker a hotel. If it’s the latter, “honor system” isn’t too far from the truth when it comes to Scandanavian prisons.
MW:
Wait, Dr. Jeff is a veternarian with pet allergies??
I’m sensing a comical ‘70’s spinoff series here. Get ready for Pet Vet, Sneezin’ One!
A pet, Jeff? Really? Mary already has pets, dozens of them– and they live in a Habitrail named Charterstone. Here they scurry, there they scamper, nibbling at their Mary-provided muffins and providing her with hours of daily entertainment as she watches them run on their busy little wheels, or flop in their cute little dust baths, or, in Wilber’s case, probably get their leg stuck in the water bottle somehow and try to gnaw his way through it.
JP – I love how careful we are to protect Bogdan’s reputation. He’s not the snitch. Someone who overheard them was the snitch. Will April let Randy keep Bogdan if he asks really nicely and promises to walk him every day?
JP:
“Do you know why you’re here, Randy?”
“You want me to run out and pick up your lutefisk ‘to go’ order?”
@richardf8: Oh, Bogdan’s the snitch, all right. Ces is saving that little twist for later when CIApril shows up on her super duper, prison gate-smashing snowmobile.
Altruistic people don’t exist in this particular universe and if they do, they are quippy nonentities who shrink from any kind of conflict and can thus be safely ignored. See Parker-Spencer-Driver, Neddy.
MW: Mary doesn’t need a pet, everyone at Charterstone is her guinea pig.
“Oh Jeff, I don’t need a cat as a pet! The humans of Chatterstone are my pets”
“Ahahah. In an affectionate way, right? [silence] In an affectionate way… right?”
@nescio: synchronicity!
It really is Stupid Action Movie Trope Day in the comics, isn’t it? I’m trying to decide which is dumber the “ha ha, you naughty boy! you want to escape – why, do that again and we will bring out the … comfy chair” warden Cipher or the “I will put my gun down and show him I’m tough” Patrolwoman Han, who in any real world encounter with a guy strong enough to punch her like yesterday would get kicked in the stomach / stunned with a head-butt / legs swept out in two seconds, then General has the gun, shoots her because she’s no valuable hostage, and escapes.
Blondie – Complaining about commercials. This is cutting-edge stuff.
Pickles – Earl peed himself, right?
Phantom:
That Patrolwoman Dai sure knows how to deliver an insult, doesn’t she? — she denounces Chuma as not just a tyrant, but a miserable tyrant.
JP — For a place presented as having only ice and time, the warden still considers it necessary to wear a tie and jacket like he’s selling insurance in the 1990’s. No WFH in the gulag, kids!
MT: Ah yes, Las Vega: the perfect place to hold a woodsman competition. Anyhow, I just hope Rusty isn’t wandering right into the axe-throwing range.
JP: “Do you find trying to escape ‘funny’, Alan? Is it ‘funny’ to make me take time out of my busy day to talk about this with you? Will it be ‘funny’ when I revoke your meal privileges for a week? Do you find it fu– oh god, it’s lost all meaning. Is it…is it even a real word? Funnnn…eeee…Fun..? Ugh, just go back to you cell, this is going to take a while…”
MW: I mean, Jeff already has an occasional companion who demands affection but gives little to none in return. Sounds like he’s got the full cat experience.
Popeye:
Try “I am wrong here, sir! I no I am here, sir!”
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Curtis:
“Beaten up by Chutney” Derrick!
“Beaten up by Chutney” Derrick!
@A Grave Mind:
As said, I recall Varg Vikernes escaping his Norwegian prison, doubtlessly using his elite skills honed as a Black Metal musician. And he was in the clank for murder. Not…not a great look, Norwegian prison.
MW: Cool! Now we can get a recap of the Mary Worth cat saga for the next three weeks! This is gonna be even better than what Lynn Johnston did with FWBOFW. I mean, why bother with new art for old stories when you can just have your old clipart retell the old stories ad nauseum infinitum!
Pluggers wish to return to being wrinkly whiney little turd factories completely dependent on others for their minute-to-minute care and well-being? How is that any different from what they are now?
Parker, R: “Funny? Funny how? I make you laugh, like a clown? How the fuck am I funny? Funny how?”
Warden: “Keep it up and you’ll be pathetic. Pathetic how? Pathetic like a broken cripple in the infirmary, that’s how.”
MW: “Have you considered getting a cat so I’d have an excuse to turn down your famous ‘bowls o’ brown glop’ dinners?”
@A Grave Mind: Your comment about the warden’s tan stole the joke I was going to make, which is why I have to get up earlier. But your comment about the guards made of hot dogs reminded me of the Banana Guards from Adventure Time, who among other things serve as prison guards in the Candy Dungeons. Now that’s a Judge Parker I would watch!
Hey Pluggers, did you know you really *can* reset your body to its original settings? It’s called “dying.” Look into it!
Judge Parker: “Parker, do you have any idea how difficult it is to furnish a prison office above the Arctic Circle, from the Sears catalog? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a warden such as myself, straight from central casting for Charlie’s Angels? Do you? Because if you did, you’d know how disrespectful it is to try to escape. Now, back to your plan to ride out in a laundry basket and meet up with a late-70s Lincoln Town Car.”
JP: Give it up, Randy, there are a great many things you aren’t suited for and “dry-quipping action hero” is right near the top of the list.
MT: As the son of a renowned outdoorsman/journalist and…whatever the Hell it is Cherry is doing these days, Rusty should be well versed on the stupidity of wandering into fenced-off wilderness areas with warning signs posted. But hey, something has to happen to make this Vegas vacation interesting, and if nobody else will make it happen he has to do the job himself.
MW: ….Does Dr. Jeff remember how Libby the cat came into the strip? Does Karen Moy remember?
Mark Trail:
– Heat exhaustion and/or dehydration
– Coyote
– Eagle
– Drug dealers
– Hunter S. Thompson and his 300-pound Samoan attorney
Now accepting
betsfutures markets predictionsMary Worth: Either someone paid Dr. Jeff with hypoallergenic kittens that he’s trying to unload, or he’s embarked on a six-part plan to break up with Mary.
“I’m afraid you were right, Mary! My allergies can’t handle this! I’m a weak man whom no one could want! Whatever shall we do?”
MT: Rusty, of course you’re right that you can’t get a good nature photo in a garden. You can get much better nature photos in a minefield!
MW: OK Mary, so maybe a cat would be an inappropriate pet for you. But has anyone every suggested to you that dogs are good?
MW: While it’s entirely possible Jeff is suggesting Mary get a cat so he can avoid her, I can’t help but wonder if this is his attempt to display total selflessness. ” Look, I’ll suffer debilitating allergic reactions for you! Marry me, Mary!” It’s a good thing he doesn’t have anaphylaxis. He’d surely forgo an Epi-Pen to demonstrate the power of his love.
JP: I’ve never planned a prison escape, granted, but it seems to me that step one is to not loudly discuss your plans around the general population.
MT – Rusty pauses to read a sign. “What does ‘UXO’ mean?” he asks himself before continuing into the desert. It’s the last thought he will ever have.
MW: “You mean like that one-eyed cat I had several story arcs ago? Are you even paying attention, Jeff? It’s the meds, isn’t it?”
@Ukranazi Stepan: He already earned that nickname and is too stupid to remember not to bully Curtis if she’s around.
I wish Billingsley would drop the No Exit love triangle bullshit with Michelle and let Curtis and Chutney settle into a companionable relationship like Peirce has done with Nate and Daphne.
MT: Rusty wanders into an old weapons testing range behind the cheapest hotel on the strip. Brings back a bunch of arrowheads (It was a really old testing range) …and a curse for befouling sacred grounds.
@MKay: I doubt bears, because Sunday’s Mark Trail spent a lot of time talking about scorpions.
@But What Do I Know?: Hey, you’ve got to look nice when you sit down to the banquet table filled with a sumptuous feast that you will gorge on while watching the prisoners line up with their tiny bowls for the one serving of Krusty Brand Imitation Gruel they receive each day. It’s so entertaining when they break into song…
‘Food, glorious food!… hot sausgage and mustard!!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: “We can’t stop here, Rusty! This is bat country!” “Cool! Maybe I can get a photo!”
It’s a long walk from Las Vegas to the Nevada Test Site, but Rusty was an experienced woodsman, and he heard the fireworks up there were to die for.
C’shaft: Mr. Fantastic and Elastigirl together would have to exert their powers to the limit to stretch as far as Batiuk is pulling this premise.
GT: Wait, so Isis is trans too? I mean, on one hand Tobias already did the trans athletes storyline, so she should have relatively smooth sailing on that front. On the other, she’s going to have a hard time with the legal system if she can’t keep her own lawyer from misgendering her (that’s mija to you, pendejo).
Dustin: Is the “joke” here that Tattooed Prison Guy must have been a bad seed from the first, otherwise he wouldn’t be tattooed and in prison, or that any neighborhood that produced someone like TPG must be full of untrustworthy, unsavory types like himself? Either way my hatred for Dustdad continues to grow, like the expansion of the universe.
Pluggers…want to be babies again, I guess?
The Bogdan Redemption, starring Randy Parker, Bogdan Danbog, and the Warden, will get you to the edge of your seat, because you’ll be getting up to leave the theater as soon as the trailers are done.
JP: I’ve never been in prison and hence have never tried to escape from prison but I wouldn’t think venting in the yard about busting out would constitute an escape plan.
Yay
@Voshkod:
I really just came for the Phantom Menace trailer.
MW: “But you’re allergic to cats, dumbass!”
Later that night, Mary hears the sound of footsteps running away as a large catfish crashes through her bay window.
@richardf8:
Derrick got beaten up by Heartthrob too. I really don’t understand how he qualifies as a bully if anyone except Curtis can apparently whip his arse.
Randy’s about to be entering into the most dangerous game… Nah. Excitement and adventure? In Mark Trail?!? It’s probably for the best though, nobody wants to see a non-Jeffy kid being hunted for sport.
***
Somebody ratted Randy out? Snitches get stitches, even in Norwegian prisons! In this case it would be a hand-embroidered throw pillow that says “DON’T TATTLE AGAIN!” as a terrifying reminder to don’t tattle again.
FC-“I have this sudden urge to take one of Dolly’s Barbies and to climb this building,” PJ thinks to himself.
MW-“Well how about a dog then? Something you can walk around on a leash.”