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Mark Trail, 4/19/07

“Josh,” people ask me, “Why do you waste your time on Mark Trail? Why do you wade through week after week of stilted dialogue, nonsensical plots, and freakishly enormous animals?” Well, folks, this is why. When Mark Trail starts punching people, there’s a little warm glow you get in your gut that tells you that everything is right in the world. Sure, it’s only happened twice in the last fifteen months (Mark punches Snake, or maybe Jake, I forget; Mark punches a lecherous, petnapping hillbilly; the installment in which Mark knocks over a trio of bumpkins with a booby-trap is awesome but not a punch per se); but the long waits make the payoffs all the sweeter.

Actual, not-made-up quote in the Wikipedia article on Mark Trail: “His assignments inevitably lead him to discover environmental misdeeds, most often solved with a crushing right cross.” This sort of whimsy almost always gets purged from Wikipedia by killjoy editors, but this sentence cannot be removed because it is demonstrably true.

In this strip, Mark even gives his erstwhile buddy the chance to throw the first punch, which he hilariously botches despite the fact that Mark is standing about six inches away from him. SORRY DAN, MARK DOESN’T GET PUNCHED, HE PUNCHES! Mark’s own steely blow proves to be stronger than even professional-grade spirit gum. It is of course laughable that Dan would skulk around a hotel wearing a cheap wig and fake beard when he could have simply purchased hair dye and grown real facial hair (Dan, did you know that if you stop shaving hair will grow right out of your cheeks?). Another wonderful possibility is that Dan did in fact dye his hair and grow a beard but Mark’s fists are so powerful that they are capable of punching the lies and deceit right off of Dan’s face.

B.C., 4/19/07

This may be a sensitive subject, but: it appears that when the syndicate said that B.C. would be taken over by “the Hart family” they meant that it would be taken over by “an elaborate computer program that almost, but not quite, understands humor and jokes.” Yes, it looks like Archie’s in for a little competition … from the B.C. Laugh Generating Unit 4000! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Apartment 3-G, 4/19/07

You know, I make fun of Margo a lot on this blog, but it’s only because of my deep affection for her. She’s being so very, very obviously set up for a fall here — note to Margo: usually if a dude is thinking of marrying you, he’d at least let his immediate family know that you aren’t the hired help — that you can’t help but feel bad for her. Still, the coming rage and subsequent bloody revenge will be exquisite to watch.

Possible things running through the horrified mind of Sam the Assistant in panel three:

• “Margo, no! Didn’t you see Blood Diamond? How many African children must die to keep you in trinkets?”
• “Jesus, all a ring is going to do is draw attention to your hideous claw-hand.”

Also, is Sam actually packing up already-inflated helium balloons to take to their next party? Margo is an awful thrifty party planner.

Family Circus, 4/19/07

Since grown-up Jeffy is now drawing this thing, I don’t think it’s possible to pack more self-loathing into a single panel than he does here. Perhaps he knows that “Moronic Children = Comedy Gold” but is afraid of lawsuits from his siblings, and so is forced to humiliate his four-year-old self repeatedly in newspapers across the world to earn a living.

Judge Parker, 4/19/07

God damn, is Cedric going to off these punks execution-style in a dark alley? BADDEST. BUTLER. EVER.

By the way, I can’t conceive of an even remotely plausible chain of events that would end with me holding two actual punk rockers at gunpoint, but if I found myself in that situation, the temptation to say “Do you feel lucky, punk?” would probably be unbearable.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 4/19/07

OK, “The Halves Of Restaurant Sandwiches Are Sometimes Not Adequately Separated” is officially the pettiest TDIET gripe in the history of humanity. Still, the narration posits that “Howcum” and “Why, oh, why” might actually be different questions, which is a philosophical conundrum that will haunt me for days.

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Apartment 3-G, 4/18/07

I am desperate to know more about Margo’s assistant Sam, and not just because I can live out through him my longstanding fantasy of scrambling to carry out Margo’s imperious orders. Look at that wide-eyed wonder in panel two: “Ladies in New York get married? GAWRSH!” I think Margo just stood outside the Port Authority bus station one day, waiting for someone attractive and not-too-bright to step off a Greyhound with small town hopes and big city dreams, and hired him on the spot before he learned the details of typical New York pay scales. However, his cynical look of disbelief at the word “love” in panel three indicates that New York is already wearing down his soul.

For Better Or For Worse, 4/18/07

There’s always an ongoing struggle for the coveted title of “Unintentionally Creepiest FBOFW Character,” but Deanna is making a good bid for it today, with her near-orgasmic musings on replicating her in-laws’ family in photo-perfect detail. This of course is someone whose greatest act of initiative was to get pregnant “accidentally” by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills, which Elly probably bribed her to do somehow. Maybe the house itself is the promised reward.

On the other hand, as several commentors have pointed out, the ravine that she’s waxing about so rhapsodically is the same one where April notoriously almost drowned, with only noble Farley saving her from a watery death. Since the junior Pattersons don’t own any skilled rescue beasts, perhaps Deanna is hoping that a couple quick drownings, Mike’s subsequent suicide, and a sale at market rates of a house they bought at a steep family discount add up to her ticket to sweet, sweet freedom.

Gil Thorp, 4/18/07

Ah ha! See, “Mr. Rickey” is Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager who famously helped break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson (whose major league career started sixty years ago this week). I’m telling you, this amiable old black man is going to explain to these young white people how Jackie Robinson blazed a trail of opportunity for them.

Judge Parker, 4/18/07

We’ve all been assuming that this mysterious figure is Canadian Cedric the Super Butler, though he appears to not be wearing Cedric’s trademark glasses, so who knows. As a commentor or two pointed out, the shadowy stranger’s use of the word “scum” echoes Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate in this coming weekend’s French presidential election, who famously and controversially used the term to describe rioting youths in Paris’ poor suburbs when he was Interior Minister in 2005. Perhaps Sarko is wearying of the hand shaking and baby kissing and has decided to embark on a little side campaign of his own … a campaign of vigilante justice. Since his intervention will deny Judge Parker readers the opportunity to see Neddy and Abbey sexily fight off their attackers with lead pipes and flamethrowers, this will just give Americans another reason to hate France once he’s elected.

Incidentally, the fact that Cedric/Sarkozy/whoever hears the punks speaking English indicates that the English we’ve been seeing in the word balloons isn’t just a translation of the execrable French for our benefits: they’re actually switching back and forth between English and execrable French. Hee.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/07

OK, Rex Morgan, we all know that it’s fun to look at June’s breasts, but there’s a little something called “subtlety.” I mean, Jesus.

By the way, if I were Heather, I wouldn’t be all that heartened by the magical thinking of a preschooler with a hideously misshapen head. Now, if Abbey the Wonderdog had barked her vote of confidence at me, I’d feel reassured.

The Lockhorns, 4/18/07

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. Was Leroy attempting to hold out on Loretta by squirreling away a portion of his meager paycheck for his own use? Is Loretta upset that he would cut their already cramped budget down further? It’s hard to tell whose moment of triumph this is supposed to be because they look so damn depressed. Because in the Lockhorns, nobody ever wins.

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Dennis the Menace, 4/17/07

It’s easy to feel like you don’t make a difference in this cruel world, but every once in a while you realize that concentrated effort can effect change. For instance, lately I think I’ve detected a modest but measurable uptick in menacing on the part of Dennis Mitchell, and I’m more than willing to credit that to the hectoring from this site. Today’s installment is particularly delicious, as Dennis manages to emasculate his father on two levels: by revealing to a third party that his wife openly flirts with other men, and by suggesting that he make a pass at this strappling officer of the law. The look of barely internalized rage on Henry’s face might suggest savage beatings down the road, but the Mitchells are a civilized clan: presumably some act of psychological warfare will be perpetrated against his son instead.

Mark Trail, 4/17/07

Speaking of savage beatings, I can’t wait to see the epic fisticuffs that will soon break out in this dingy hotel room, reducing the cheap furniture to so much kindling. In the second panel, the reason for Mark’s tie becomes obvious: for a brief moment, Dan has mistaken Mark for a Mormon missionary, and that instant of confusion gives our hero the opening he needs to force his way in and get all shouty shouty.

Apartment 3-G, 4/17/07

I have a great memory for useless trivia, and it’s both a blessing and a curse. For instance, most of you have probably long forgotten that more than six months ago Margo casually mentioned that she had an assistant, but I’ve been on tenterhooks to find out who this person was, or if the very existence of such an individual was just a figment of Margo’s bravado and need to look important and/or imagination. Today, we learn that she’s hired an attractive, younger fellow, naturally, though his unnaturally wide hair part and taste in powder blue polo shirts are unfortunate. While it’s impossible to say for sure, we can reasonably assume that he harbors lustful feelings in his heart for his boss, which her frequent outbursts of unreasonable rage only intensify.

By the way, Margo, I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but you were, strictly speaking, hired to, um, help. Don’t be mad at me.

Gil Thorp, 4/17/07

Oh, so he’s a preternaturally helpful old black man with a colorful nickname! Nice. I bet he has some real life lessons to impart to these young white people. Yup.

To be fair, if my name were “Otha,” I’d go by a nickname too. The fact that he likes to be called “Clambake” may indicate that his real agenda is to protect the Milford baseball team from Scientology.