Baffled Saturday
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Mark Trail, 2/22/25
Cherry’s family drama turned out to be even more dramatic than anticipated, and, as Mark makes clear in the final panel, it was no joking matter. Which is good because … nobody actually made any jokes? Mark, Cherry was doing very light quippery at best. Not sure you’re ready for jokes if you think that’s a joke! Do not watch any television comedies, you will be in trouble!
Six Chix, 2/22/25
Ha ha, it’s funny because … they think there are little people who live in their fitness trackers? And those little people go on lunch dates together? That’s a thing people might believe, humorously enough?
Hagar the Horrible, 2/22/25
Sadly, Hagar scratched at his nose so violently that it became infected, and as you can see it’s now badly gangrenous. Unfortunately Dr. Zook’s drastic behavioral intervention came too late!
107 replies to “Baffled Saturday”
H&L: Hiding the cookies in Grandpa’s ashes didn’t work out.
Hagar the Horrible : comparing having to wear a “cone of shame” to being LITERALLY PILORI’ED is something… especially the implication that Hagar is dumber and has less impulse control than an animal.
Luann: Welp, that was easy! Next week, new high-larr-ee-yous hijinx with Gunther n’ Les!
RMMD: What, this guy secretly has the mad hacker skillz of a Sophie at his command?
JP: Speaking of whom, welp, that was easy! Sure was a cool thing they found, too bad you couldn’t see it! Next week, new adventure with Neddy, that dizzy, daffy dame who’s on a spree in beautiful (and only slightly burned down) California!
Mark Trail: “I hope he gets some help, wherever he ends up.” Um, you just said where he’s ending up: jail in Florida. And I don’t know what kind of “help” you think he’ll get there, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be nature therapy.
Six Chix: Two different brands of fitness trackers keep having lunch together? They must really be hot for each other, because I’m pretty sure they don’t even speak the same programming language!
Hagar: Wow, Hagar’s medieval doctor actually came up with a “treatment” that’s worse than leeches and bloodletting!
HtH: Hagar’s slow and painful death from untreatable-at-the-time gangrene of the face displayed in the town square is what passes for entertainment in medieval Denmark.
You can learn a lot from these historical strips.
MT — “He’s going to jail — in Florida.” Given the current political regime, the sentence for a gun crime *might* not be what Mark seems to assume. . .
“Oh, no! What did you do wrong?”
“The pillaging, mostly.”
MT: Even Jules knew this was a turkey.
6C: I’m wondering what university has a ‘W’ in its name and those school colors.
MW: “Yes, for the first five minutes Dirk was fine. Then he seemed to change.”
CS: “You’re right, Ed. Sorry for trying to help. Oh, by the way, your wallet fell on the floor. Good luck trying to pick it up.”
JP: “There’s no doubt about it. It’s a blue-crested whippoorwill! They’re rarely seen here this time of year. Wait until I tell Mr. Parker!”
@But What Do I Know?:
He’s been appointed Chancellor of The New College of Florida.
MW: That’s right, Mary. Excuse and enable Dawn’s bad judgment. It would be a sad day for you if everyone could think for themselves.
RMMD: Forget reporting this one to the dating site. This calls for a giant, defamatory billboard on the highway.
HtH: Dr Zook has also discovered that the chastity belt has multiple uses.
Luann: This “will they/won’t they?” thing was getting to me. I’m glad it got resolved in as perfunctory a manner as possible.
CS: Too bad we didn’t cut to Pam putting oatmeal on Cranky’s bare back. Wait, what the hell am I saying?!?
9CL: Thankfully, Brooke totally restored my belief in romance.
MT: Mark Trail vs Ranger Rick: the Final Showdown
I know that large foreground animals is a signature Mark Trail element, but with that dialogue in the last panel I’m half expecting that turkey to remove its head to reveal that it’s actually Rick in disguise.
6Cx: I guess these two didn’t realize that they bought the SarcasticBit model, and what it’s actually telling them is that they’re out of their minds if they think that was a good workout.
HtH: Wow, looks like Hagar made it all the way to North America to get that poison ivy rash, and then all the way back before it cleared up, I guess? We’ve rreally been underestimating the navigation skills of Vikings…
MT:
“My goodness! — I’m ideating Monopoly tokens!”
MT:
And — in a symbolically appropriate way — thus ends this turkey of a story arc.
MW: Dawn is verrrrry slow on the uptake. Sloths look at her and eventually shake their heads.
FC: “Also, it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!”
Dustin: Oh, no! Dustin will be devastated to learn the snowman has died. He may have to call in sick to work.
MW:
“He was controlling, moody and easily irritated!”
“Wow. He must have started off at Judge Parker.”
Six Chix:
ah i see they have e e cummings fitness trackers
HtH:
Calomine lotion actually dates to 1500 B.C., so this Zook doctor fellow who didn’t prescribe it is obviously a hack.
MW: Takes time!? He literally belittled your tastes and intelligence on your first date.
FC: Ha! That’s pretty funn…. Oh, there’s a K.
6C: If it weren’t for the first panel establishing which wrist has the fitness tracker, I’d have difficulty discerning whether that’s a left or right hand.
Ha ha, your blog is funny because your bafflement will finally lead to your deserved dementia!
MW: I suppose Dirk was nice that minute when he asked for Dawn’s phone number. They met in a bowling alley. It’s odd he never noticed how bad she was at bowling.
@Professor Well Actually:
They met in a bowling alley. It’s odd [Dirk] never noticed how bad she was at bowling.
You’d think he’d have gotten a clue from the gutter guards.
6C: Look, if you show me two sweaty women together telling each other “That was a good workout!” while holding pink chains, I’m going to have some very specific expectations about what’s happening in the scene. The kinds of expectations that make this strip’s bizarre non-punchline even more disappointing, if you get my drift.
MT: Did Mark really need to thought bubble “gun car”? Are the syndicates, worried about their relevance in the face of an increasingly illiterate Gen Z, now forcing artists to provide in-strip emoji translations? “He [man emoji] is going [running emoji] to jail [prison bars emoji] in Florida [alligator emoji, tank top emoji, drunken stripper smuggling meth in an ambulance emoji]”
MW: Oh, SHUT UP, both of you. Dirk told Dawn who he was five seconds into their first bowling date. She ignored it for days, because she thought he was TEH HOTNESS. She’s lucky Dirk just wanted to call her a nerd, and not traffic her somewhere. Thank God that didn’t happen, because Moy would probably send Wilbur to rescue her.
As for you, Mary, quit enabling this family. The childish dates they go on, and the overblown 9th-grader crushes they get on everyone they meet, do not warrant the highfalutin relationship talks you give them. They both need basic skills training at best, and professional help at worst. Considering the quality of your insight lately, I’m starting to think you do too.
MW: He asked her for a date on Christmas Day. Then he showed up in a brown tee shirt and took her to a frickin’ diner. Once they were in their booth, he ordered her to eat roast beef. And yet somehow things still managed to go downhill from there.
Chix (sic): The smart watches on the talking hands are part of their updated Señor Wences act.
How are you, today?
Gravely voice: “Out to lunch”
Needs work.
MT: Panel four — “This looks like a job for Therapy Turkey!”
Infections? HtH is doing his own research.
Zits: Jeremy doesn’t recognize what a “movie” is unless he sees it on a phone, tablet, laptop, or (thanks to his hipster friends), a Bell & Howell 8mm projector.
MW is just trolling us now. “It takes time to get to know someone, dear…”, from a four-line story arc running since Christmas.
CS surprises us all by not making the warm plaster treatment advice into a joke about organic oatmeal.
FC: Dolly’s playing a long con. When it’s Jeffy’s turn to hide, her constant, low-key suggestion “They say the woodchipper is a place no one would ever look” will pay off handsomely.
6C: So their fitness trackers…are dating? Despite both being confined to the wrists of their owners? I guess?
HtH: There are many problems with for-profit health care, but at least it hasn’t fallen back on corporal punishment as a means of treatment. Yet.
MT: Yes, it was a B-plot, and a half-assed B-plot at that. But it was still a better portrayal of abusive relationships than Mary Worth’s current arc, which is a shockingly low bar but it’s nice it was cleared all the same.
HtH – Hagar, you’re in the stocks because you were born 700 years too early for the Elizabethan Collar.
Luann: Is it me or does it look like Luann and this guy are dressed for a Star Trek convention?
MT – It’s nice of Mark to provide illustrations for some of the bigger words he’s using. It’s never too early for preschoolers to learn what “vehicles” and “firearms” look like!
QUESTIONS
LUANN:. Phil is the closest I’ve seen to a suitable match for Luann– compassionate, not too handsome, not much smarter than she, good humored. Mature. How fast will he run when he meets her friends, sees her room, and learn she still lives with parents without paying rent? Or has staying with folks after 18 lost its stigma?
JP:. How does Soph see the probable murder as good news, being she does not know Ann was falsely accused? Can they quickly make a copy before original gets stolen?
MW:. Ok, so Michelle can escort guy out. Also, which patient would you most like see come in the door as Stalker puts his hands on Summer? I’m hoping for Muddy Boots behemoth.
MT – I’ve heard better jokes, Mr Brewster….
6-C – What kind’a workout device is redshirt using….
HtH – Substitute penis for face, and this one would ring the bell for me….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hey! I’ve never seen you wear dark glasses before!”
“Is it so you can ogle hot babes without them knowing?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Isn’t staring at them the best way to let them know I’m interested?”
@Cleveland Mocks: Plus, Dirk’s tallow-based lube should have been a dead giveaway.
@Bob Tice: Hagar and crew are going to have to raid England to get Zook a copy of Bald’s Leechbook.
MW: at no point point did Dirk show a redeeming quality other than being pretty.
DT: Why is Unnamed Detective Lady wearing a gold plate on her chest? Is she a Levite priest?
MW: He forced you to go off your vegan diet on your first date, and you didn’t notice his controlling behavior? Dude couldn’t have been waving more red flags if he was in Beijing on National Day; what more proof did you need? Copies of the restraining orders from his exes?
RMMD: Why are all the soapy strips doing stories about abusive men lately? Did word of the #MeToo movement finally filter down to the writers?
Poison ivy isn’t native to that part of the world and probably didn’t get transported to Scandinavia at all until well after the Viking era ended. Not to kinkshame Hagar or anything, but maybe come up with a more plausible excuse in advance the next time you plan to engage in a little light pilloryplay amidst the unsuspecting public.
MT: Some of you know we still have a contract with Mark Trail to provide the time-honored Foreground Fauna. And we’ve got ’em on autopay, so it’s easy revenue. Mostly we don’t promote those who appear there – the clients prefer it that way. But Todd here said it’s okay to introduce him, since he’s doin’ a blog headliner role.
Todd is one of our year-round Turkey clients who was passed over for a Thanksgiving gig this year. As were nearly all of our Turkey crew, but that’s another story. Anyway, Todd is fine with the “Turkey” symbolism at play here, having followed this story from his well-appointed coop.* He also wants you to know he’s much better looking in Real Life and can do a mean “Gobble and Trot” on request.
* Oh, he’s free-range, of course, but his internet access is in his coop.
Luann: “Would you like to go out sometime?” “Aye.” “Uh, maybe let’s just forget I asked.”
You know who’s out to lunch? Today’s Six Chick! Haw haw!
Dr. Zook “nose” how to deal with Hagar! Haw haw!
Someone is hoping Rick gets some help in a Florida prison? Haw haw!
Mark Trail humorless? Well, it’s nice to see they’ve kept at least some of the strip’s traditions going. The turkey should really deliver the line, though.
Entries like today’s are a stern reminder that Piro is the laziest Chik of all, surpassing even Tuesday- and Thursday Chix. Look closely at that first panel and try to figure how many seconds it took to draw.
DT: How many stories in a row do you have to write before you graduate from “guest writer” to “the writer?” Looking at you, Eric Costello, Master of the Contemporary Whodunit.
FC – Dolly’s frowny face is epic. She could transfer to Judge Parker. Maybe she could help Sophie hack into the drone.
Rex Morgan – I have to give Summer credit – it took her barely any time to know that this guy is a jerk. Maybe she should be giving Dawn advice instead of Mary Worth.
I misread this at first and thought for a couple of seconds that he was there to apologize to Summer. The fact that he’s there for Summer to apologize to him is a good development story wise, and there’s the additional information that he looked her up so he could harass her at work. I just hope that this doesn’t go the usual RMMD route of turning into a boring nothing.
We gave Beatty a lot of flack for the Summer’s bad dates episodes, but this character is a good example of a really bad relationship. He’s awful without the heavy handed klunkiness of Dirk. Does he have a name? Is it Gerald?
@Professor Well Actually: I guess he was too busy at the time looking at her…bowling balls to notice her score.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
Six Chix: I want to believe that Chick #1 is carrying either a fitness weight or a chew toy but the pink bondage equipment in Chick #2’s hands says otherwise.
Mark Trail: According to Mark’s thought balloons, Rick stole a cybertruck. Between their unreliability and notability, he basically gave the cops an invitation to arrest him. As Cherry says, choices were made.
RMMD: Ex-Marine Jordan will stop by to drop off the brown-bag baloney sandwich and banana Michelle forgot at home, and the two of them can judo Summer’s tormentor back and forth across the waiting room like a beach ball.
Just looked up Stephanie Piro, who I am surprised to report is SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD. Hey Steph, were you at Woodstock? What’s Jorma Kaukonen like in
bedsleeping bag? Why do you write exclusively about women fifty years younger than you?Luann: Overnight transformation into sailor, or Scotsman? You make the call!
@Pozzo: MT: Panel four — “This looks like a job for Therapy Turkey!”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Service Turkey?
6ix Chix: Those fingernails drawn by Saturday Chik are as horrifying as anything Mary Lawton comes up with! Please, please, please, Saturday Chik, do not draw any detailed feet! Ever!
Hägar, the Horrible Comic Strip: As the resident epidemiologist, Dr Zook felt duty-bound to lock up Hägar before he could transfer any more of the toxic oils to local crotches.
Mark Trail: Mark and Cherry won’t have much time to reflect on this situation, given that a giant turkey is about to ram their car off the road and feast on their corpses.
Six Chix: Letter from Six Chix editor to artist; “Please don’t draw the workout equipment in a way that makes it look like a dildo and kinky handcuffs, thus potentially implying the women’s workout was actually vigorous sex, thank you.”
Hagar The Horrible: “Also, I burned the king’s daughter alive on a pyre as a sacrifice to the gods.”
Luann: Oh, I get it! Aye (sounds like) Eye, as suggested by Nil’s monotonous paintings. If he painted horses, she would have said “Nay.”
@Abh: Sick burn, dude!
@White Rabbit: Nice catch! Far too subtle for the rest of us beefwits. The Evansii are truly the new King and Princess of Comedy.
@Activist: #36: re-RMMD: Actually, I’m hoping it’s former pro wrestler Andrzej AKA Count Crushinski. Nothing humiliates a punk bully more than getting his ass kicked by an old man.
MW: It’s disturbing that Dawn is so completely missing the point but alarming that this seems to be coming from Moy. Abusers can never be pleased. The charm they display at first is manipulation to draw someone close enough to abuse. No amount of working on the relationship can improve it.
The Familliar Mucus:”I’m not ‘peeking’, Dolly, I’m looking at all the dots used to depict shadow! Its a cartoonist thing! You wouldn’t understand, you’re a female, and females can’t produce good professionally looking comics. I present “Six Chix” as my proof of that statement. Otherwise, Dad would have left the comic to YOU instead of ME! He was afraid you’d turn it into “Cathy”!”
Is tomorrow’s Sunday Mary Worth quote gonna be “Life is brutal!”- Dawn Fitzpatrick ” Nerdgirl” Weston?
Mark Trail being completely incapable of interpreting extremely light sarcasm and irony in casual conversation might be the most on-brand depiction of the character I’ve seen in decades.
LUANN: I guess the orderly figured that Luann wouldn’t ruin it by talking, so….
LUANN (2): Oh I get it! This amateur gallery is going to be a big hit because of the hypno-toad properties of Nils’ eyes.
GIL THORP: Wow, ever since Kendrick Lamar stepped into the scene, everybody is jumping on the trend of taking down Drake.
Pluggers (revised): Sheila Roo wonders why her keys always end up hidden in a fold at the bottom of her pouch.
God, Six Chix has _so_ much contempt for its audience. It’s a bad strip, folks.
Slylick Fox and Komix For Kinx presents a rare portrait of Sheila Roo-Bearclaw before she accepted Pluggerdom in her life.
@Jeffmcm: It’s bad in six different ways!. What other comic strip in history has achieved that distinction?
Truly, we live in an age of wonders.
@Hibbleton: @Jeffmcm: God, Six Chix has _so_ much contempt for its audience. It’s a bad strip, folks.
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Is the “joke” that this “workout” apparently involved a dildo and a plastic beer can holder as gym equiptment?
@Ukulele Ike: It’s bad in six different ways!.
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New Six Chix brand White Bread™ :Breaks Brains Six Ways! Its a real Wonder™!
MW-“Controlling, moody, and easily irritated.” Sounds like someone else Dawn knows.
MT: Coincidentally, “Well that sure was a choice” is what I say on pretty much a daily basis after reading Mark Trail.
6C: “Outrageous! I didn’t come to the gym to be insulted. Well, I did, of course, but not by my fitness tracker!”
6Chix: My fitness trackers have gone out to lunch, but it’s been figuratively. One of them told me my heart rate was just fine when it it wasn’t (for months). Another can’t tell when I’m not exercising and records 12hr bike rides when I’m sitting at home reading Comics Curmudgeon.
@Jym Dyer: Wow, very cool! Did you have to pay extra for that service?
BB: The “Super-Sarge” has two speared olives for retro-cocktail hipsters and guacamole for Millennial post-hipsters. The least surprising ingredient is of course the four fried eggs in the middle.
C-Shaft: May as well go whole hog and tell Crankshaft that for best results you should add brown sugar and dried fruit.
DT: “Here’s the facts”? The Grammar Police are even less popular with regular law enforcement than Internal Affairs.
Dustin: The biggest surprise here is that Hayden seems to have a pipe smoker in his life. Second is that the carrot still appears to be fresh.
JP: Ann has always maintained that someone else killed her ex-husband so I guess Sophie just unearthed footage of someone else killing Ann’s ex-husband? Of course the only problem with that is that it requires several days of playing coy.
Luann: A comic with two people standing silently under a placard that reads “Nil by Nil” should have Samuel Beckett vibes but this just doesn’t feel as classy.
MW: “Here’s two bucks, dear. Buy yourself a clue.”
Nancy: Nancy is working at the Argument Clinic now?
Six Chex and A Cat Named Lucy Carmichael in Search Of A Punchline:”Oh,dear,Viv, we wore our I.Q. Trackers!” (Studio audience explodes with laughter).
Luann Spanish to English.
Fitness Tracking….across the comics universe/ On the Starship SixChix, things are getting worse…
They’re jokes, Captain, but not as we understand them
. Scotty, do something! I canna change the laws of humor!
There’s bad puns on the starboard bow,Captain! Delete them now,Jim!
@Jym Dyer: records 12hr bike rides when I’m sitting at home reading Comics Curmudgeon.
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You must have been reading “Frazz”… what did your smugness tracker say?
@Garrison Skunk: #80: Got the reference! heh heh heh
Hey, Garry – the management at Mark Trail was so pleased today with the “Turkey” symbolism that they wanna use a Skunk in the Foreground next time Mark has to deal with a “stinker”!! Will you be available? No need to bathe first.
HA HA ITS FUNNY BECAUSE makes you sound stupid. Every time.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Nancy is working at the Argument Clinic now?
No, she’s not.
@Just John: Yes she is.
@Ukulele Ike: @Jeffmcm: It’s bad in six different ways!.
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Answer:(Printed Upside down) Woman’s Upper frontals are knockoff Wonder Woman t-shirts,Woman using a dildo as a fitness weight, Woman drank all the beers Conehead style without being sued by NBC for intellectual property theft,No humor in the laughing square,”Woman” on the right is actually Slylock Fox undercover in drag, Picture was scribbled on a cocktail napkin without revisions for printing.
Bob Walker Jr’s lawyer on Line 5.
@Anonymous: Sick burn, dude!
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I’d be happy to! Do I get reprint residuals? You know how many times they reprinted that picture of me in the tire with Mel Mare keeping an eye on me a year ago?
@Activist:
…someone who hasn’t really talked with her or know her too well….that really is the perfect person for our gal. ??
Today’s Hagar must be a repeat from that week John replaced Ringo with him to play on The White Album, who could forget his yell, “I got poison ivys on me noses!”
Murky Trails: The giant turkey looks ready to gobble up the tiny truck.
MW: I don’t think that there was any point in the relationship where Dirk was charming enough to manipulate Dawn into staying with him except for that flimsy line about his parents being negligent. But of course, Dawn is someone who has drunk the Kool-Aid and thinks that her obnoxious boor of a father is an amazing person. I’m willing to bet that when she went to Connecticut, she threw constant hissy fits about not being able to rub her pelvis against her stepfather/stepbrother so she blamed her mother for cockblocking her. “Never my fault,” is the Weston family’s motto.
@2+2=7: everybody is jumping on the trend of taking down Drake.
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“Gotta love the Drake! He makes a heck of a crumb cinnamon cake!”- Jerry Seinfeld, ” Seinfeld”
@2+2=7: Phil is the closest I’ve seen to a suitable match for Luann
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Donahue?
@Garrison Skunk:
Latio.
@A Nun A Mouse: Hahaha, I can only picture this being followed up with the most obnoxious high-five ever.
You know, those bullies in 90’s films who have a little toady who follows them around and compliments everything that they do then… -obnoxious high-five-
Except in those movies such exchanges didn’t feel like cardboard.
@2+2=7:
Well, actually, the current member of the cast that would be the best match for Luann is OX, because
they have the same mental ageLuann’s skills in pedagogy would connect with Ox’s childlike mind, BUT they can’t be together becauseOx is meant to unrequitedly pine for Tiffany and nothing morethey have nothing in common.@Ukulele Ike: I’ve been wondering about the whole Costello “guest writer” designation myself. Maybe Curtis has to keep his name on it for a while longer to collect a pension?
@Garrison Skunk:
Today’s Hagar must be a repeat from that week John replaced Ringo with him to play on The White Album, who could forget his yell, “I got poison ivys on me noses!”
Cordially and respectfully, Garrison, I can’t decide if that’s a reach or a stretch.
MT: Until I read Josh’s comment, I assumed that Cherry was the passenger in the truck and that she was doing the talking in the fourth panel. Not that it matters. There is no coming back from a “joke” like that, Cherry. (Waah waah waaaaaah.)
@Activist: I’m willing to watch and see where this, um, budding romance ends up going, since I keep reading LUANN year after year in spite of the suffering involved. But I am hoping for evidence that Phil is sufficiently smarter than Luann to make his getaway fairly soon, especially if he finds out that she has officially been nineteen years old for at least nine years. Also, her entry in Wiki says “Luann has started to show more wit in her conversations with others.” *jawdrop* Run, Phil, run.
@Undisclosed Name:
How about both. It’s a retch.
Between Friends – There should be a thought balloon in the last panel: “I thought he’d never leave.”
@Hibbleton: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I’m ready for my foreground closeup, Mr DeMille!
@Peanut Gallery: Isnt the translation: “Some girl named Madonna poked my eyes out with her bra.”?