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Mark Trail, 2/11/25

Oh, sorry I didn’t update you on the “Mark helps return a displaced manatee to the sea” storyline, or even [checks archives] tell you about it in the first place, but today’s strip pretty much recaps the high points so I don’t have to, in a real reversal of this blog’s original mission statement. The whole thing about the guys in bear costumes is actually a story that was ripped from the real-life headlines, except the real-life guys were actually just doing some light insurance fraud rather than trying to prevent the return of a manatee to the sea for murky climate-change-denial reasons. Anyway, I’m showcasing today’s strip because I’m furious that Mark is doing “flight” wordplay about guys in bear costumes, and you can tell that foreground bird in the last panel is upset that it’s been dragged into this thing as a fig leaf. “They’ll be hibernating for the winter … in jail” was right there!

Luann, 2/11/25

On the note of returning to some of my old favorites, I’ve decided to start reading Luann again, I guess because it’s worth it to inflict deliberate pain on myself just to feel something? Anyway today’s strip is about Brad trying to bake Toni a cake but the whole thing is actually an elaborate metaphor about his dick that’s both fully transparent and also doesn’t hold up to any degree of scrutiny, so I’m glad to see the vibes have not shifted too much.

Crankshaft, 2/11/25

Also, Crankshaft is back, in your life and mine! God, look at how completely dead Crankshaft is behind his eyes in panel three here, I love it, put it in a spoon and feed it to me like I’m a little baby that loves Crankshaft’s pain. Do you think the implication is that, now that marijuana is legal in Ohio, it’s not clear what “under the influence” specifically means? Or is it simply that the mayor may have gotten blotto after drinking too many Budweiser beers? Sorry, it’s neither: Crankshaft isn’t “implying” anything, he’s merely saying vaguely wordplay-shaped sounds while his soul screams endlessly inside, begging for a death that will never come.

Dustin, 2/11/25

Wow, Dustin’s mom has decided to divorce his dad! Obviously a big move but I think we can all say that it’s not a particularly surprising one.

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Curtis, 9/19/24

Derrick and Onion are canonically the bullies in Curtis, but their game has been slipping for a long time. Way back in ’06 they were hard-core car thieves, but their malfeasance dwindled into vaguely threatening confrontations in school hallways accompanied by labored “Yo Mama” insults. Onion lost his trademark (“Onion”) quotation marks around 2016 and honestly hasn’t been entirely himself since. Tuesday we learned his given name is Norman, which doesn’t carry quite the same panache.

Now Derrick and Onion are in Mrs. Nelson’s class along with Curtis, assaulting the poor woman with flowers, candy, and honeyed words. Is this a redemption story, in which the two Learn the Error of Their Ways? A Josh-infuriating trauma plot, with a Big Reveal about the characters’ Painful Past that Explains Everything? A long con, as Curtis suspects? Or, intriguingly, one of those postmodern reframings of evidence that was right before our eyes the whole time, revealing Curtis as the real bully? I bet Curtis’s brother Barry would like to weigh in on that last one.

Dennis the Menace, 9/19/24

Oh, speak of the devil low-ranking demon, here he is with his familiar, Hot Dog. Wikipedia correctly pegs Hot Dog as “rarely seen.” He doesn’t have the personality of the Mitchell’s dog Ruff, and mostly just sits there in a lump with a smug expression on his face. So how would Mr. Wilson know he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do? Maybe he just assumes that about cats, based on his observations of Heathcliff and Garfield.

Gasoline Alley, 9/19/24

What I love about Gasoline Alley is Jim Scancarelli’s art: the guy’s an old-school natural, and so long as he doesn’t try to get all photorealistic on us, there’s an easy elegance to his work that takes me back to when newspaper comics were a Big Deal and worthy of craft (cf. L’il Abner, Out Our Way, Pogo, Steve Canyon, many more). And it’s charming when Scancarelli gets locked in on something he clearly wants to draw, like a locomotive or today’s World’s Most Adorable Water Heater. Just look at that thing: lovingly rendered hot and cold water lines (copper, no PEX for 18″ ’cause it’s gas), corrugated vent duct shared with the chimney flue no backdrafting here no siree, igniter access panel, overflow pipe, inspection tag, for Pete’s sake! There’s even an International Residential Code-compliant stand to protect against ignition of flammable vapors. But what does that sucker hold, maybe two quarts?

It almost makes up for the cutesy animals and Joel’s lame pun.

Baby Blues, 9/19/24

Zoe turns the tables on the old “just wait ’til you have kids” trope: sour grapes for Wanda!

Crankshaft, 9/19/24

Crankshaft joins Arctic Circle in the Ain’t-It-Awful Hall of Fame.

—Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 9/17/24

An image search for “batman cat images” yielded mostly AI, fanart, and creepy photos of pets in Halloween costumes. So I’m guessing the doll here is really Catboy from the Disney Jr. series PJ Masks. That would put Tuesday Chick’s childhood no earlier than 2015, which seems a little too recent for nostalgia. Maybe closer to “recollection” but who knows? Kids these days!

Beetle Bailey, 9/17/24

There’s no joke here unless the captain gets sanctioned for colorful language.

Crankshaft, 9/17/24

Oh my goodness who could possibly have seen this coming? But what I really want to know is how many levels of irony it is when Les’s students read Fahrenheit 451 by the light of a burning bookstore. Or if that pumper is actually headed to Ed’s house to put out a grill fire.

Andy Capp, 9/17/24

The full text of Proverbs 19:4 (RSV2) is, “Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.” So Andy selflessly keeps his money to maintain a treasured friendship, and look at the thanks he gets!

—Uncle Lumpy