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Mark Trail, 11/12/12

It seemed so natural, right from the start. The kindly old man who taught him the island’s secrets. The boy, normally proportioned, pre-orphaned and adoption-ready — who made no demands and cared nothing for fishing, content to play in the sand. The young widow, Ava, fit and eager like Cherry when they were new in love, a spark of interest in her soft eyes smoldering slowly into something more. And Andy, his rock. No place could be home without Andy. But this place — this could be home. Had always been his home.

Cherry filled her days making coffee and pancakes. Bill’s calls, full of wild excuses about a ransom no one ever expected to be paid, slowed and then stopped, to their mutual relief. But she watched in growing horror as Rusty huddled dead-eyed in the shack he built near the rotting pier, tying ever more garish and disturbing trout flies that he never used, wouldn’t sell, and finally grew too ashamed even to show her.

They met again, once — even touched. Mark on a supply run from the small island, Cherry on a desperate vacation from Doc’s endless gibbering and Rusty’s nightlong howls, their hands brushed reaching for the store’s last box of Bisquick. Cherry gasped as the caress of ruined, sinew-knotted knuckles resurrected longings she thought had been buried years before. Their eyes met, but Mark’s saw only an old woman, face frozen into a mask of bitterness and resignation. He let her keep the box out of pity, and never thought of her again.

The boy tried to run Otto’s kidnapping operation but had no head for the business side. The small island filled with unclaimed hostages, taxing the feeble aquifer — and the ocean only rose. At last one day, when the typhoid had claimed Ava and the boy sat in jail from a ransom sting, Mark brought Andy to the remaining boat and set sail for the mainland. He would keep them alive by fishing — surely a Man of Nature could remember how.

Dick Tracy, 11/12/12

Walt Wallet is at least one hundred and twelve years old, but despite a failed attempt to send him to the Old Comics Home in 2006, Gasoline Alley just can’t seem to pull the trigger on the old coot. So they’re outsourcing the job to Dick Tracy, the most efficient killing machine on Planet Earth. ‘Bye, Walt.

Slylock Fox, 11/12/12

With Mark on extended leave, the King brings in a couple temps to manage poacher-catching. Since Slylock knows only one human, expect Slick Smitty to be hauled off to jail any minute on some far-fetched pretext: “There are no taxis to Liberty Island!” “You ate the vegetables while standing in the garden!” “Only the real mouse has a tail!” “Anteaters don’t have teeth!” “Your earrings are cold!”

Is anybody else troubled by what “poaching” might mean in a kingdom populated exclusively by animals? I believe the rhino has given the matter some thought.

Say, I don’t see a ring on King Dandy Lion’s fingertoe — could he and Princess Pussycat be planning a merger of the realms once Slylock has exterminated the remaining humans? I hear wedding bells! Oh, wait — those are death knells. Catchy tune, though.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Slylock Fox, 11/8/12

How much do I love this creepy Six Differences scene? A lot! A lot is how much I love it! I particularly love the contrast in facial expressions — the cake-hog is sporting a manic grin, as if he’s incredibly happy that this wedding’s serve-yourself policy has allowed him to get a big enough piece of cake to meet his needs, at long last. Meanwhile, everyone else there (except the children, too young to understand) are staring at his retreating back with numb horror, and, I assume, in icy silence. Social norms have been violated so egregiously that it’s hard to know what might come next, but I think it’s safe to say that the prominent placement of that terrifyingly large knife is no accident.

Archie, 11/8/12

So I guess we can now peg the date of these Archie reruns to the fall of 1991, since that was when the first crew entered Biosphere 2 and probably was the last time anyone bothered to make any kind of joke about it, unless you count jokes about the 1996 Pauly Shore vehicle Bio-Dome, which, frankly, I don’t. (NEVER FORGET that the Biosphere thingie in Arizona was “Biosphere 2,” a reference to Biosphere 1, which was of course our Earth.) But more important is Mr. Lodge’s expression of implacable evil in the final panel. One would think that a man willing to scurry into an artificially sealed environment just to get away from his daughter’s ne’er-do-well boyfriend would be feeling more sheepish than sinister. Thus, we must assume that Mr. Lodge wants to enter Biosphere 2 not to escape Archie, but to escape the deadly poison gas his scientists have developed that will soon kill Archie and, as a regrettable but unavoidable side effect, all other human life.

Dick Tracy, 11/8/12

Oh, Dick Tracy! Are you trying to win my heart by having a desperate, injured criminal start eating pain patches so he can make one last desperate run at the cops who are closing in on him? Because it’s working pretty well!

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Mark Trail, 11/6/12

So, everyone, quick poll: did Bill figure out a good way to tell Mark’s wife Cherry? I mean, what would sort of explanation would you prefer if your spouse had been kidnapped by an oddly jovial group of Caribbean pirates and was being held for ransom? Would you like some softening up first, like “Hey, Cherry, remember your neglectful husband who’s always running off and refusing to satisfy you sexually? It’d be pretty great if he got kidnapped, right?” Or would prefer it if Bill just straight-up told you what happened, even though he knows he’ll have to withstand a terrifying eye close-up? I like the latter approach, personally, though it’ll quickly flip from “good way to tell my wife Cherry” to “bad way to tell my wife Cherry” if Bill follows up with “So, uh, do you have $2 million you can lay your hands on pretty fast to pay the ransom? I mean the corporate yacht is worth more than that, but you wouldn’t believe the paperwork hoops I’d have to jump through if I went down that route.”

Dick Tracy, 11/6/12

Dick Tracy insane violence update! Sadly, Measles appears to have escaped his horrible ordeal without having been blinded or even suffering any visible scarring. Still, he’s now considering doping himself with some kind of crazy anesthetic patches that will allow him to not feel any of Dick’s bullets tearing into his body, and will therefore be able to fight until his body simply stops functioning. This is certainly promising!

Apartment 3-G, 11/6/12

“Margo Magee, you never cease to amaze me! It’s almost as if you’re not just indifferent to running a publicity agency, but are actively trying to alienate all your clients so as to bankrupt yourself as quickly as possible!”

IMPORTANT NOTE: Would you like to talk about today’s U.S. presidential election? Probably, as it is an important and exciting event, that is happening today! If that’s your thing, go on over to the post that I have created for this purpose. Please keep the comments on this post focused on the comics and the rest of the usual fun nonsense. Thanks!