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Mark Trail, 11/21/06

If there’s one thing we can count on in this crazy mixed-up world, it’s the deep satisfaction that comes from seeing Mark Trail punch an armed man in the face. Man, that’s good stuff. Note that Mark’s raw power is enough to not only blast Snake into the next panel, but to change his shirt from blue to orange and blow the hair right off the sides of his head. Physics and logic are no match for a Trailian knuckle sandwich. I can’t wait to see how Jake’s sideburns and mullet will react to what he’s got coming to him. Forecasts call for heavy bold lettering for the next few days.

B.C., 11/21/06

I stared at this strip for an awful long time before I finally gave up on it. I sort of assume that any joke about “the real purpose of school busing” is somehow about the evils of the commingling of the races, but I really can’t suss that — or much of anything else — out of the “punchline.” My best guess is that it’s about having sex in the back of a school bus. The line underneath the word “learn” goes right into my soul and shatters my need for everything in this world to make some kind of sense.

Beetle Bailey, 11/21/06

See, it’s like they know computers exist, and have seen them in pictures and know how to draw them, but they’ve never actually used one, so they don’t know about their more obscure features, like the delete key.

Dennis the Menace, 11/21/06

“Or is it a good thing? Imagine if we could pay someone to take care of Dennis … someone other than us … who lived far away … far, far away …”

I’m frankly a little concerned that the Mitchells consider Dennis playing in the next yard over to be “roaming.” That strikes me as a mite overprotective. Watch out, kid, or you’ll end up in up in some kind of subterranean gulag.

Apartment 3-G, 11/21/06

OH MY GOD MOST AWESOMELY AWKWARD THANKSGIVING EVER!!! It actually seems pretty likely to me that, just to add to the discomfort, Gina will somehow invite herself over, thus ensuring that someone — or better, several someones — will be attacked with a turkey-carving implement. I wonder what disaster killed off all of these people’s families, leaving them to spend Thanksgiving with each other. I also wonder what kind of hat Margo will wear to dinner. Maybe she’ll dress up like a Pilgrim!

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Beetle Bailey, 11/19/06

Beetle Bailey is totally divorced from anything actually happening in the U.S. military, as has been repeatedly noted by everybody ever. Today’s strip gives me an intriguing idea, though. What if the reason that Camp Swampy was so unlike the real army is that nobody there was actually in the army? It’s just a bunch of weirdos/re-enactors/lunatics wearing a mishmosh of army uniforms from different eras who have got a hold of some surplus army jeeps and are playing out a bizarre drama for their own inscrutable purposes. The missile in panel five indicates that the real army has finally wind of their little game, and has declared war upon them for impersonating the military and sullying its good name with their rampant incompetence and stupidity.

The General Halftrack piñata is panel seven is just about the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Since all Beetle Bailey characters are incredibly cartoonish anyway, it’s difficult to portray something that’s supposed to be a stylized version of one of those characters in the strip, so it pretty much just looks like the general’s been lynched by his angry men.

Curtis, 11/19/06

When I first saw this strip without the top two supposedly disposable panels, I was pretty baffled by Gunk asking Curtis to “take me to a mailbox.” I mean, I know he’s from tiny Flyspeck Island and all, but surely he’s lived in the neighborhood long enough to know where the major landmarks are. Panel two reveals the real source of the so-called humor: Gunk is such a wacky crazy foreigner who doesn’t understand our ways to such an extent that he doesn’t even know what a mailbox looks like! Whoo! This, of course, is dumber than a sack of hammers, as is the Curtis convention of one character simply vanishing in the last panel as a reaction to another character’s outrageousness. Poor Gunk never will find that mailbox, but that’s OK, since his hand-drawn stamp won’t take his mail back to Flyspeck Island. God, I hate Gunk.

Mary Worth, 11/19/06

Oh, so they like each other now. How depressing.

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Judge Parker, 11/12/06

Oh man, Sunday’s pre-“Meanwhile” Judge Parker packs in as much queasy adolescent sexuality as a John Irving novel. The image of Ned sticking out her ass for her mother, and asking “You don’t think it’s too revealing … too sexy?” is somewhat alluring, but mostly horrifying. Abbey’s blatant look of mingled horror and arousal in panel five adds to the squirm. She probably would like to complain about her daughter’s trampy outfit, but realizes that she doesn’t really have the moral authority to do so since you can totally see her buttcrack in panel three.

By the way, Neddy, French women dress in sexy and stylish clothes, not like … that. Prepare to be mocked.

(Incidentally, Abbey isn’t Ned’s bio-mom … and I’m pretty certain Ned was adopted as a teenager. I’m not sure if that makes the underlying tension here better or not.)

Post-“Meanwhile,” the phrase “Nice work, Celeste … you smell like a still!” may be the best marital put-down this side of the Lockhorns. Still, it’s nice that Reggie gave her a full two hours get her drunken mess of a life together enough to get to the press conference.

Beetle Bailey, 11/12/06

There’s a lot to hate about today’s Beetle Bailey. It follows the weird stumbly, improvised, cumulative-joke rhythm that’s been somewhat typical of the Sunday strips of late. I also wonder what happened to Beetle’s perfectly presentable t-shirt-and-shorts combo while he was in the truck, or why Miss Buxley is the only person Beetle can think of to call in his predicament, or how Miss Buxley could possibly be so femme that she doesn’t own any clothing item that isn’t a dress, or any shoes that aren’t high heels. However, I’d like to reserve the brunt of my ire for the phrase “But it sure left its output,” which has never been and will never be uttered by any speaker of idiomatic English ever.

Mary Worth, 11/12/06

As Mary walks towards her date with destiny, it’s amazing just how rattled she is. First off, in the first panel she appears to actually be practicing her first greeting to her new archrival. In panel three, she looks like she’s sneaking down the hall way, ready to leap around the corner and bash in roller-suitcase-woman’s skull with her pan. But mostly I’m charmed by the look of grim determination on her face, which gives way to an utterly insincere smile in the final panel. Next week is going to be great.

Family Circus, 11/12/06

The lesson: You can’t have nice things when your kids are morons.