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Mark Trail, 10/19/10

In the normal universe that we know, it would be quite reasonable for Future Governor Frank to assume that an important personage like the senator here would be wholly unacquainted with cabin-dwelling rustic Mark Trail, though I would describe him less as a “troublemaker” and more a “khaki-clad contraction-eschewing weirdo out of touch with ‘Real America.'” But unbeknownst to Frank, Mark has already saved the life of one senator and launched an ethics investigation against another; since the Senate is such a small and exclusive club, one must assume that the man whose patronage Frank has been seeking is already well acquainted with this Trail character. Sorry, Frank, it looks like your only hope is to turn against the senator, claiming you’re running to break his inside-the-beltway cabal, which is dominated by special interests like Mark Trail.

Dick Tracy, 10/19/10

It’s always dangerous to claim to understand anything happening in a given Dick Tracy strip, but it appears that Dick and the comely she-hobo are actually in cahoots, and the Fraud Unit officer in panel three looks to be similarly disguised as a bum. Were there ever any real hobos at all in this storyline? Their absence saddens me, though maybe the strip is trying to advocate against increased government funding for homeless services, since all so-called “homeless people” are just undercover law enforcement officers of one type or another.

Gil Thorp, 10/19/10

This is the part of the Gil Thorp season when Gil and Kaz realize that their players have gotten as far as they can on their native talent and enthusiasm, and would do better if only someone competent were coaching the team. Too bad they didn’t go to another high school!

Pluggers, 10/19/10

Suggested new caption: “Plugger Internet pornography.”

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Hi and Lois, 10/18/10

The Flagstons may be the comics’ blandest suburban family, which is why they work so well as a vessel for commentaries on bland suburban life. That’s also why it’s so exciting to see the strip go knee-deep into madness, as a bug-eyed, crazy-grinning Lois stares rapturously at the silent television. The sheer size of this flat-screen monstrosity adds to the weirdness. Is Lois desperately attempting to reach out to a different form of spirituality, but still held back by her materialistic worldview? “I’d never be able to meditate so effectively if we hadn’t sprung for the 52-inch hi-def model, honey!”

Dick Tracy, 10/18/10

You probably thought that Dick Tracy could never top last week’s crazed hobo fight with money flying everywhere. But today’s strip, in which deceased radio personality Wolfman Jack informs a local beat cop that a Code 469, or “ruckus,” is in progress nearby, is pretty awesome too. The police officer is far enough away to not have heard the ruckus first-hand and there are still visible thousand dollar bills floating through the air, which really takes the concept of “making it rain” to a new level.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/18/10

Snuffy has always been depicted in the strip as a particularly diminutive feller, no doubt a result of the incredibly poor nutrition he received growing up dirt poor in Hootin’ Holler, so I’m not sure if his cellmate is supposed to be some freakish giant or merely of normal human proportions. Nevertheless, it’s good to see the two are getting on so jovially together and haven’t attempted to shiv one another with their time-hash-markin’ crayons.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/18/10

Oh, hey, did you think that nothing could make Funky Winkerbean’s inexplicable Les-centered love triangle any grosser? How about turning it into a love square? Damn it, we’re just going to keep adding women who want to comfort poor sad wounded emotionally stunted creepy creepster Les until you start believing it.

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Panel from Mark Trail, 10/13/10

The first panel of today’s Mark Trail is so glorious that I felt you deserved to see it as large as I could give it to you. It’s almost like you are some corpulent political insider, hoping to enjoy a little canned hunting and some desperate promises from the next governor, when suddenly a deranged little monster and her dead-eyed deer lunge at you, demanding that you refrain from doing exactly what you’ve paid to do.

Note that her upper body seems disproportionately larger than her legs. That’s probably a carefully crafted technique that provides the illusion of the little girl moving rapidly towards you. It certainly isn’t because she’s been crudely assembled out of whatever clip art has been left lying around on the floor of the Mark Trail studios, no sir!

Panel from Mary Worth, 10/13/10

Also worthy of close inspection is our first encounter with Adrian’s opinionated friend Jill, here expressing her opinions with an eye-roll so epic she appears to have sprained her face. We’ve all been preparing ourselves for some kind of epic battle of the meddlers over how Adrian’s wedding should be run, but Jill’s deep thought-ballooned sarcasm seems to indicate that she’s already bored with the whole exercise. Perhaps she will realize that Mary is eager to do dull stuff like watch Adrian model a series of indistinguishably hideous bridal gowns, and she’ll excuse herself to go do something that doesn’t make her want to slit her wrists.

Dick Tracy, 10/13/10

Wow, it seems that the famous hobo solidarity completely falls apart once it turns out that one of them has money, and that the true proletarians are about to turn on the kulak who’s been lurking in their midst. Dick Tracy will be truly conflicted if he ends up triumphing due to the thing he hates the most: class struggle.