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Mark Trail, 8/12/13

No use denying it any longer. Mark Trail has taken Rusty fishing — it says so right there in the strip. A treasured Comics Curmudgeon article of faith — that Mark never, ever takes Rusty fishing; that such an event is not physically possible — lies in dust and ashes. Can you imagine how the Seekers felt when their prophesied flying saucer failed to show up back in December 1954? You can? Well, this is nothing like that — this is how the rest of us would have felt had the saucer arrived right on time, picked up the Seekers, and left us all to die in the flood.

It’s hard to feel too bad about it, though. I mean, look at the little scamp so darn happy there in panel two. You just want to give him a big hug, never mind that he’s hideous, fictional, and holding a fish.

Slylock Fox, 8/12/13

As is widely known, Count Weirdly genetically engineered animals into sapient bipedal monsters in a deranged effort to replace humans lost to an unnamed apocalypse. Here we see the horrific cost of his obsession: the graves of a century of victims from his early, failed experiments. None tears at the heart more than poor Rita Rabbit, doomed by ruined DNA to live her short life backwards, dreaming only of the chance to savage her insane creator/tormentor one time before her teeth recede into their gums and she is deconceived forever.

Beetle Bailey, 8/12/13

Sarge deadpans a perfectly symmetric, perfectly ambiguous punchline: at once, the pillow is insufficiently firm to meet Army regulations and Army regulations insufficiently rigorous to ban the pillow. From the depths of his forbidden/permitted pillow, Beetle grins directly at his audience: See? We can do irony as well as the next guy — but as hardened warriors, we just don’t go in for all that postmodern self-referential bullshit ;-)

–Uncle Lumpy

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Slylock Fox (panel), 8/11/13

In a neglected roadside nature museum sits a dusty diorama labeled “The Eagle.” But there is no eagle — just the shattered skeleton of a fox lying on a patch of bloodstained dirt near a few tufts of reddish fur and what might be part of an ear. The yellowing card reads, “The diet of the American Bald Eagle is almost entirely fish. An eagle will not attack a fox unless it competes for the eagle’s food or otherwise provokes it.”

What I’m saying is don’t piss off the eagle, Sly. I mean just look at him, Jeez.

Beetle Bailey (panels), 8/11/13

Oh look, it’s Beetle’s Dad! Did you know he’s also the father of Lois Flagston from Hi and Lois? His wife starves him until he completes the work she’s assigned! Just like in the Army!

Hi and Lois, 8/11/13

No starvation for Hi — Lois keeps meat on those bones with a steady diet of nutritious soups. But his family’s relentless petty demands give him no peace, and drive him by degrees to the farthest margins of his home. Lois is blind to his suffering — this is just the way families are, isn’t it?

Judge Parker (panel), 8/11/13

I’ll spare you the cheesecake, money porn, and blocky “romantic” banter (well, most of it) in today’s Judge Parker, but floating there in the final panel is proof that Randy’s fianceé is an original badass. That’s right — the minute she and Randy split up to evade the mystery woman in the floppy hat, CIApril confronted her and stone-cold threw her hat in the water. Final warning, too: if she stalks them even one more time, April will tell all the girls in homeroom Mystery Gal’s a total skank.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mark Trail, 8/7/13

The cruelty of Nature is well documented, but the cruelty of Mark Trail, Man of Nature, retains its power to shock. Blissed-out Rusty nurses his otter and dreams of fishing, but mere days from now he will have neither otter, nor fishing, nor any last shred of hope. Mark just twists the knife, while Andy’s mind is all on dinner. Say — maybe they’ll have fish!

Beetle Bailey, 8/7/13

In the grip of his alcoholic hallucinations, General Halftrack misinterprets Lieutenant Fuzz’s invitation to Where the Wild Things Are costume sexplay. Lt. Fuzz takes it as a rebuff and retires to his quarters for another long night of Patton, tears, and self-abuse.

9 Chickweed Lane (panel), 8/7/13

OK, I take back all the terrible things I said about the Not-Ardins’ mouths yesterday.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/7/13

Heather’s hissy fit reminds Rex what June has in store for him when he gets home. Four months wasted figuring out Milton’s vomiting might be something he ate, and no boat or free meal in it for them anywhere? And now he’s supposed to look into the Alzheimer’s thing, too? These wealthy, entitled jerks! Why, if Milton weren’t his only patient ….

Shoe, 8/7/13

Well OK on the face of it this is one of those “reverse-engineered from the punchline” jokiform utterances we see so often in Shoe, Archie, and Herb and Jamaal. A real-life bird-woman would say, “I surprised my husband in fishnet stockings”, but where are you gonna go with that when you’re on deadline and that tee-time is coming up fast, huh?

But on a deeper level, blondie here is being really unfair — I mean, sometimes a fella just wants to feel pretty, and pantyhose is gross in August and it’s not like I didn’t double-check to see what time you were coming back. Wait — HE! He didn’t check!

— Uncle Lumpy