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Mark Trail, 5/9/12

There is a famous rule of the Internet, and that’s Rule 34, and it goes like this: If it exists, there is porn of it — no exceptions. That means that somewhere out there someone has created a porn version of Mark Trail, by the use of advanced pornographing equipment that can break through the brittle shield of asexuality that surrounds the strip at all times. I’ve never had the intestinal fortitude to seek any such material out, but for two and a half panels I thought I was getting the setup to some canon in-strip Mark Trail erotica today. The mysterious call from the past on Mark’s bakelite handset that isn’t connected to anything in particular, the gratuitous use of “honey,” the sexy-for-Mark-Trail name “Trish,” the easy banter … and then bam, your arousal is crushed because this is about a young girl’s sick father, you pervert. And this is how that brittle shield of asexuality is kept in place.

Gil Thorp, 5/9/12

OK, let me preface the following by saying that I am fully aware that I am now someone who complains about the “good old days” of Gil Thorp, and that therefore I have become everything that I most despise. That having been said, remember the good old days of Gil Thorp, when they had a homeless kid playing on the team, and crowds at rival schools taunted him by dressing up like hobos, and it was amazing? That’s a pretty high bar when it comes to Important Social Issues-based taunting, and it looks like the Goshen girls aren’t going to reach it. “Hey, Darby, how many kids you got now? Because we heard you know how to have sex, and that’s how kids are made. Sex-having kid-maker! Go back to the obstetrics ward!”

Archie, 5/9/12

I don’t want to exaggerate too much, but I’m reasonably sure this is the greatest Archie ever made? See, Miss Grundy knocked the kids out of their thoughtless world of casual socializing, and just forcing them to change locations has caused them to re-evaluate everything they know about the world and each other, and now they’re just standing there, staring silently into the middle distance, terrified.

Crankshaft, 5/9/12

“Plus you know there’s nothing I loathe so much as buying gifts or otherwise bringing joy to others. My mind is so resistant to the idea that I always forget about it.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/9/12

“Haw, Lurleen, that is an amusin’ bit o’ wordplay! But still, you know the penalty for talkin’ to menfolk from other clans is death by stonin’.”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/26/12

Poor Jughaid is grappling with the problem of living a righteous life in a world (and with a soul) indelibly marked with sin! “Parson sez my conscience keeps me from doin’ wrong, but it ain’t so” frankly sounds like it could have come straight out of a Flannery O’Connor story. However, Loweezy’s simple-minded guffawing indicates that this dilemma won’t end with a harrowing but ultimately enlightening revelation; Jughaid’s just going to grow up to be a chicken thief, like everyone else in his family.

Mark Trail, 4/26/12

“If I can just do this without making any noise! If only there were a way for me to clarify my thoughts without speaking them aloud! I’ll just have to shout them as quietly as I possibly can!”

Marmaduke, 4/26/12

In order to cement his rule as demon-king of Earth, Marmaduke has savagely devoured all human politicians, regardless of their ideology or partisan affiliation, and has collected their campaign signs as grisly trophies.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/12

Snuffy Smith has unleashed its most frankly political strip yet! The throwaway panels call for increased taxation on job-creating flatlanders, whereas the main panels imply that hiding income from Big Government is the moral equivalent of hiding income from your own family. You can tell that this blatant leftist propaganda is in violation of the true spirit of this feature, as Lukey refers to the Internal Revenue Service by its fancy initials, rather than simply using the culturally appropriate term “revenooers.”

Crankshaft, 4/15/12

Instead of trying to divide us with radical politics, Crankshaft brings us together. See, Crankshaft has made a little girl cry, and thus can serve as an object of hatred and contempt for all Americans.

Panels from Judge Parker, 4/15/12

Feel free to speculate wildly about what perverse sex act “giv[ing] Derek the guitar” is meant to denote.