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Mark Trail, 1/27/11

A couple of days ago a faithful reader left this comment on the blog:

Excuse me, but where the fuck is Mark Trail? Or has this site gone completely to hell?

I always feel strongly that foul-mouthed belligerence should get its way, so here you go! Honestly, I haven’t found the endless discussion of Ben Smith’s oversized lures (all the better to please a woman smuggle diamonds inside) particularly compelling, but I am enjoying today’s strip, in which Kelly natters on without waiting for Mark to respond. And that’s just as well, as I’m assuming that he long ago tuned her out. If we could see inside his mind, there would just be an adorable squirrel running back and forth on a tree branch, chittering amiably.

Apartment 3-G, 1/27/11

Speaking of tuning people out, this date has apparently gotten so dull that even Lu Ann has stopped paying attention to it. “Wait, you did what now? Spent money … on a thing … look, are we going to make out or what?”

Mary Worth, 1/27/11

Meanwhile, Mary Worth has hit a new crescendo of edge-of-your-seat tension, as Dr. Jeff seems insistent on forcing Mary to start using a Kindle-thing by any means necessary. Why is Mary resisting the 21st century so strongly? Does she fear that she might accidentally subscribe to this very blog, read about her adventures, and implode into paradoxical nothingness when she realizes she is fictional, and ridiculous?

Pluggers, 1/27/11

Surprisingly few Comics Curmudgeon readers have broken the Pluggers code — perhaps we all have too much dignity? — but based on the name I have a sneaking suspicion that “Kanomi Kelrast” is one of us. And if enjoying the occasional microwavable processed food treat makes us all pluggers, well, then so be it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/27/11

Never doubt the ability of even the corniest strip to occasionally break your heart. The fact that Bearded Husband Whose Name I Forget calls his wife “Sugar Bun” in panel one just makes the strip’s comical misunderstanding all the more poignant.

Crock, 1/27/11

Wow, I never realized until today how few installments of Crock involve the title character’s romantic life.

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Crock, 1/25/11

Today we have an excellent demonstration of the inner workings of the underimagined hell-world that is Crock. Our action involves Figowitz, who is always slouched despondently against the exterior wall of the Foreign Legion’s fort, and Captain Preppie, who for dramatic reasons should be shown sitting jauntily with his legs crossed. Except: there is no furniture upon which the good captain can place his shapely buttocks in Figowitz’s blasted desert sitting-spot! What to do? Summon a vaguely cuboid sitting-box out of nowhere, of course. Once Preppie gets up to stroll away, this mysterious plinth can simply vanish into the ether of narrative convenience out of which it emerged.

On a surely totally unrelated note, the chunk missing from Preppie’s right elbow in panel one is no doubt of aesthetic significance too sublime to be understood by a ruffian such as myself; we certainly shouldn’t assume that this particular drawing of the handsome captain has been carelessly cut and pasted from an earlier strip.

Apartment 3-G, 1/25/11

Normally when your new boyfriend drives you to a creepy abandoned house somewhere in New Jersey, that’s a sign of very bad news to come. But Paul drives a huge, pearly white Hummer! He must be a classy guy!

Marvin, 1/25/11

The WikiLeaks saga, combining as it does political intrigue, cloak-and-dagger spy drama, philosophical debates about the merits of openness vs. secrecy in different realms, and accusations of sexual assault, has enough inherent drama to serve as a the foundation for a whole series of fascinating novels. Or, if you’re Marvin, you could use it as the basis for a pun about pissing yourself!

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Spider-Man, 1/9/11

I have to admit that the current “love underground” Spider-Man storyline is the strip’s most (accidentally?) entertaining in years, probably its best since we met the Shocker in 2007. I’m trying to decide what I like best about today’s installment. Is it the way Spidey nobly leaps into action for once, only to be immediately and crushingly defeated? Is it the fact that the artist managed to shoehorn a completely gratuitous cleavage shot into the final panel? Here’s a more subtle source of potential amusement: the throwaway panels feature the whole Uncle Ben Spider-Man origin story, featuring Ben’s huge, impassive face glowering down at his grieving wife and nephew. Could this hideous green underground monster actually be Ben’s soul, emerging from the Stygian depths to stop his wife from finally moving on and finding love again? If so, the afterlife is apparently nothing at all like the scenarios the major religions have tried to sell us.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/9/11

“I mean, he’s still being a supercilious dick to people who are just doing their jobs, but he doesn’t really seem to be deriving his usual level of smug enjoyment from it, you know?”

Crock, 1/9/11

“And now, to complete this hilarious prank, I’ll throw myself to my death out of an airplane! I sure will be laughing as I look down on my grieving mother, from heaven! Heh heh!”