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Mark Trail, 8/3/10

Well, this is a disappointment: Mark successfully rescued Sassy from her mustachioed kidnapper without even bothering to clench his fists. Now Sassy is safe and Rusty is happy and Sally and her stray dogs have a new home, but we didn’t get any pleasing cathartic violence to mark the transition to the next story. In fact, when it comes right down to it, our bad guy got off remarkably easy: sure, he didn’t get that big reward he was angling for, but he also didn’t get a fist to the face, and his original goal — to get rid of the old lady next door and her smelly collection of dogs — has actually been achieved!

The real question is: will Sally really be happy out on the farm? Sure, there’s lots of room for her pups to run and play, but it’ll be harder for her to haunt alleyways and compulsively find stray animals to hoard. Plus, once she’s out in the sticks, she can forget about getting Indian food delivered.

Beetle Bailey, 8/3/10

Considering how anachronistic most of the uniforms and equipment are in this strip, it’s fairly realistic to depict Beetle as gazing upon a fairly modern weapon (the M-249 was introduced in 1984!) with a mixture of awe and reverence. Sarge had better hope that Private Bailey doesn’t decide, once he has his hands on an actual killing machine, to turn it on his nearest tormentor — namely, Sarge himself.

Luann, 8/3/10

After last week’s Toni-smelling horror, I’ve never been more glad to see this foursome of losers and their harmless antics. Say, Knute, perhaps it would be best not to draw attention to Gunther, as he attempts to surreptitiously masturbate over by the ladies’ dressing room!

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Mary Worth, 7/29/10

I’m not going to lie to you: the deeper Dr. Mike sinks into misery, the happier I get. Thus I’m nearly ecstatic at the first-panel flashback, in which he mopes sullenly in the rain, having been stood up by his deadbeat dad once again, with only an albino pigeon for company. In panel two we see the present-day man tormented by these visions, and attempting to punch them out of his mind, or at least knock himself out and fall into blessed unconsciousness. Mary, watching over tented fingers, seemed stunned at just how quickly her latest meddle has gotten so awesome.

Momma, 7/29/10

But I don’t want you to think that I wish ill to all inhabitants of the comics pages! For instance, poor Tina is one of the minor characters whose plight I feel most keenly. She’s been exposed to this sort of Oedipal horror for the entire duration of her marriage, but from her crumpled mouth and thousand-mile stare in panel three, I’m thinking that today may be the day when she finally snaps.

Beetle Bailey, 7/29/10

Camp Swampy’s base doctor was a good choice to conduct the terrible medical experiments that the government is secretly carrying out on unwitting human subjects, since he appears to be literally incapable of empathy.

EXCITING CONTEST OPPORTUNITY: You have all probably been wondering “Why is Gil Thorp wasting its time this summer on golf, the most boring sport in existence, without even the fun of Marty Moon being humiliated?” Well, it might have something to do with a little contest being run by the Detroit News, which employs Gil Thorp writer Neal Rubin to write about sports as his day job. Readers vote for a News writer; whoever gets the most votes will get $500 bucks for his or her favorite charity, and one person who voted for the winner will be selected at random to spend some Quality Time with that writer. So obviously you should all vote for Neal, get some cash to Gleaners Community Food Bank, and get in the running to win “a lavish lunch for two with Neal Rubin at one of the area’s best restaurants, or lunch and a round of golf for two with Neal at Plum Hollow Country Club in Southfield.” If you play golf with him, you must dress up as Ben Franklin and keep trying to get him to bet on the game. DO IT! VOTE NOW! (Thanks to faithful reader jvwalt for the tip!)

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/25/10

It seems my earlier suspicions — that this strip’s implacable torment has shifted from Les to Funky — has now been confirmed. Thus Les’s sheepish smirk in the final panel: he knows that every car accident or cancer diagnosis Funky is involved in means one less pregnant daughter or dead spouse for him. Holly is grinning like a maniac mostly because she knows Funky will be dead soon, and then she’ll be free, free.

Family Circus, 7/25/10

I think my favorite of the “Ma Keane is irritated by her children” panels here is the one at the lower right. In most of the other ones, she’s just intervening in momentary crises so as to prevent her arrest for child neglect and/or public nudity ordinances. But it’s when she’s forced to play some stupid ball-toss game with her feeble little daughter that the rage lines really begin to radiate from her head. “Damn it,” she thinks, “Does she never get bored with this inanity? I’ve been trying to work my way through this damn novel for the last eight years!”

Slylock Fox, 7/25/10

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever seen Slylock mediate in a human vs. human dispute. It goes to show how low the status of H. sapiens has fallen in this nightmare world of bipedal talking animals that the Josh family would be willing to turn to a canid law enforcement. If I were Slick Smitty, my defense would be that I was trying to protect the boy’s delicate mental health, as waking up every morning to find that piggy bank grinning at you like that is a guarantee of nightmares and insanity.

Meanwhile, in the six differences, a little boy has extorted some free cake out of the local diner by bashing one of the counter’s stools with a baseball bat. “Hand over the cake or this clown in the hat is next,” he growls.

Beetle Bailey, 7/25/10

As part of its atonement for years of making light of sexual harassment, Beetle Bailey has begun putting out a series of PSA pamphlets on social and relationship issues. This one is called “How to tell when you’re in an abusive relationship.”