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Mark Trail, 1/4/14

It’s been a weird short week, what with New Year’s Day being right in the middle of it and much of the northeast U.S. getting snowed in Friday, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to relax and enjoy our weekend! And what better way to relax than to settle in with some crazy Mark Trail violence, with Mark and Jeff battling it out in waist- and/or thigh-deep water, surrounded by angry hornets. “I’m going to end this now, Jeff!” Mark declares, because he’s had his fun and is now going to unleash his “special” punch, the one that leaves punchees sullen and supine but otherwise unharmed.

Spider-Man, 1/4/14

Speaking of violence, here’s Spider-Man being handily defeated by Iron Man’s roboticized leftover armor, which everyone is calling “Manbot” for some hilarious reason. It is of course not at all surprising to see our hero being humiliated in a super-powered battle, but it is kind of impressive that he can’t even defeat a jerry-rigged robot operated by remote control by someone who can’t even see what’s happening and is getting all his information about the battle second hand.

Archie, 1/4/14

Wow, Pop, I know self-promotion is a must for any small businessman, but I think going around with an apron boasting that you’re literally the best is a bit showy. The food processor joke in panel one was a little forced, and normally I wouldn’t quibble about it but you are claiming to be the best, so we’re going to hold you to a higher standard.

Apartment 3-G, 1/4/14

Hey, you know what would be cool and visually interesting? To see a close-up of Tommie’s picture of her perfect, handsome fiance! Or, you know, we could just see the same three ladies in the second panel who we saw in the first panel, only standing in a slightly different sequence, with Tommie magically holding a tiny blank square on the tip of her finger, that’ll work too.

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B.C., 12/18/13

It is of course impossible to tell exactly how many thousands of centuries before our own era the denizens of the B.C. universe lived. We do know, because their world is generally dominated by primitive but still clever hominids, that it was long after the age of the great and terrible Elder Gods, as the flesh and souls of any puny creature such as Man would have long ago vanished into their awful maws if they still held their rightful place. Yet as we see in today’s strip, the Reign of the Old Ones was recent enough that a degenerate few of their awful number still lurk, waiting to be set loose so they can rise on leathery wings and feed. Why is B.C.-character-whose-name-I-probably-never-knew looking so dazed? Why is he drilling hole after hole in the ice, apparently not even noticing the nightmarish tentacles and mouth-polyps arising from the frozen mire? Presumably he’s no longer in control of his own faculties, and that all of his normal thoughts and feelings have been replaced by the thrumming mindwaves resonating up from below the ice. FREE ME. FREE ME. FREE. ME. We can only pray that, in repayment for his service, his end will be swift and relatively painless.

Archie, 12/18/13

On the subject of unspeakable horrors, did you know that Jughead has a tiny little cousin, who looks exactly like him except smaller, who’s named “Souphead Jones,” for some reason? I thought this might be the most boring opium dream ever, but he’s a real thing that exists, apparently, to the extent that anything in the Archie mythos is “real” (and don’t try to tell me that things I’ve spent hours of my life thinking about, like, say, Archie’s Betty-Veronica dilemma, aren’t real, thanks very much). Anyway, Soupy has been good literally all year, in order to get presents, but apparently is done with that jive as of Christmas day. 2014 isn’t going to be about being good. 2014 is going to be terrifying.

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Judge Parker, 12/1/13

Congratulations, Judge Parker! You’ve offered us many tantalizing hints that the story of Neddy’s Kidnapped Do-Gooder Friend And His Sad Wife might end in some interesting way: that they might be scam artists, that the husband might be a scam artist without his wife’s knowledge, that Neddy might have to part with enough of her trust fund to make a dent in her lifestyle to pay the ransom, that there might be some moral dilemma involved in sending heavily armed U.S. special forces into a densely populated city, etc. But instead, you stuck to your core competency: none of that happened, and the plot was wrapped up as boringly as possible, even considering said wrapping up involved the phrase “extraction team”! Obviously we don’t actually get to see all this derring-do; if this strip isn’t going to even bother showing us a main character’s triumphant cheerleading routine, it certainly isn’t going to let us see a bunch of people we barely even know shooting guns and/or getting shot. I guess there could be more to this, but the final panel sure seems to promise more boring times to come, unless you find the idea of obscenely privileged twentysomething heiresses dropping out of art school and moving back in with their easily irritated parents exciting. (Having typed that out, I think I might actually find that exciting, so hooray for Neddy’s return, I guess?)

Archie, 12/1/13

This is a good example of a cartoon where the throwaway panels at the top entirely change the complexion of the strip. Notice that Archie says that he was stung by a bee as he was walking in to the bowling alley. Either those throwaway panels take place in the moment just before he made the fateful decision to stick his rapidly swelling thumb into the bowling ball, or, more likely, he’s just in a foul mood because once again he’s gone on a date with Veronica that’s amply demonstrated that they’re totally different people and he actually finds her quite irritating and he’s really only attracted to the idea of her, but he can’t admit that to anybody, not even himself, so instead he’s come up with some completely cockamamie story so he doesn’t have to talk about what’s in his heart.

Panel from Mark Trail, 12/1/13

“Deer are native to every continent worldwide! Except for, you know, two of them. Out of seven! But still, that’s solid 71% continent coverage. Good job, deer!”