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Mark Trail, 4/19/07

“Josh,” people ask me, “Why do you waste your time on Mark Trail? Why do you wade through week after week of stilted dialogue, nonsensical plots, and freakishly enormous animals?” Well, folks, this is why. When Mark Trail starts punching people, there’s a little warm glow you get in your gut that tells you that everything is right in the world. Sure, it’s only happened twice in the last fifteen months (Mark punches Snake, or maybe Jake, I forget; Mark punches a lecherous, petnapping hillbilly; the installment in which Mark knocks over a trio of bumpkins with a booby-trap is awesome but not a punch per se); but the long waits make the payoffs all the sweeter.

Actual, not-made-up quote in the Wikipedia article on Mark Trail: “His assignments inevitably lead him to discover environmental misdeeds, most often solved with a crushing right cross.” This sort of whimsy almost always gets purged from Wikipedia by killjoy editors, but this sentence cannot be removed because it is demonstrably true.

In this strip, Mark even gives his erstwhile buddy the chance to throw the first punch, which he hilariously botches despite the fact that Mark is standing about six inches away from him. SORRY DAN, MARK DOESN’T GET PUNCHED, HE PUNCHES! Mark’s own steely blow proves to be stronger than even professional-grade spirit gum. It is of course laughable that Dan would skulk around a hotel wearing a cheap wig and fake beard when he could have simply purchased hair dye and grown real facial hair (Dan, did you know that if you stop shaving hair will grow right out of your cheeks?). Another wonderful possibility is that Dan did in fact dye his hair and grow a beard but Mark’s fists are so powerful that they are capable of punching the lies and deceit right off of Dan’s face.

B.C., 4/19/07

This may be a sensitive subject, but: it appears that when the syndicate said that B.C. would be taken over by “the Hart family” they meant that it would be taken over by “an elaborate computer program that almost, but not quite, understands humor and jokes.” Yes, it looks like Archie’s in for a little competition … from the B.C. Laugh Generating Unit 4000! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Apartment 3-G, 4/19/07

You know, I make fun of Margo a lot on this blog, but it’s only because of my deep affection for her. She’s being so very, very obviously set up for a fall here — note to Margo: usually if a dude is thinking of marrying you, he’d at least let his immediate family know that you aren’t the hired help — that you can’t help but feel bad for her. Still, the coming rage and subsequent bloody revenge will be exquisite to watch.

Possible things running through the horrified mind of Sam the Assistant in panel three:

• “Margo, no! Didn’t you see Blood Diamond? How many African children must die to keep you in trinkets?”
• “Jesus, all a ring is going to do is draw attention to your hideous claw-hand.”

Also, is Sam actually packing up already-inflated helium balloons to take to their next party? Margo is an awful thrifty party planner.

Family Circus, 4/19/07

Since grown-up Jeffy is now drawing this thing, I don’t think it’s possible to pack more self-loathing into a single panel than he does here. Perhaps he knows that “Moronic Children = Comedy Gold” but is afraid of lawsuits from his siblings, and so is forced to humiliate his four-year-old self repeatedly in newspapers across the world to earn a living.

Judge Parker, 4/19/07

God damn, is Cedric going to off these punks execution-style in a dark alley? BADDEST. BUTLER. EVER.

By the way, I can’t conceive of an even remotely plausible chain of events that would end with me holding two actual punk rockers at gunpoint, but if I found myself in that situation, the temptation to say “Do you feel lucky, punk?” would probably be unbearable.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 4/19/07

OK, “The Halves Of Restaurant Sandwiches Are Sometimes Not Adequately Separated” is officially the pettiest TDIET gripe in the history of humanity. Still, the narration posits that “Howcum” and “Why, oh, why” might actually be different questions, which is a philosophical conundrum that will haunt me for days.

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Family Circus, 4/13/07

As I noted yesterday, I’m an only child and don’t understand siblings and their ways. Those of you who grew up in big families: did you ever have little get-togethers like this to discuss your feelings about family dynamics when you were under the age of ten? I like how happy Jeffy seems to be to share is feelings of total inadequacies with the rest of the brood, and the palpable shock and disgust on the faces of Billy, Dolly, and even PJ. I’m guessing that immediately after that bit of dialogue, the punching began.

Mary Worth, 4/13/07

When I tell people I like Mary Worth, they often say things like “Why?” or “Good God, why?” or “Why would anyone read that boring, boring old comic strip?” Days like today prove that “boring” is a word that should never be used in regards to this feature. This is a finely detailed depiction of psychological brinksmanship! Thrill as Mary completely bypasses the normal polite rules of human interaction, and forces Vera to either agree to give up her precious privacy or explicitly spurn an old lady! The fact that the strip ends in mid-sentence only adds to the excitement. Will Vera’s conclusion be “…of course I’ll have dinner with you! What should I bring?” or “…why don’t you eat with THE REST OF THE DEMONS IN HELL, YOU OLD HAG?” How will I be able to hold out until tomorrow?

Apartment 3-G, 4/13/07

I’m really, really upset that we didn’t actually get to see Katy’s birthday party — not because I’m a sicko who likes to watch the birthday parties of sixteen-year-old cancer patients, but because I have long suspected that Margo is a total incompetent whatever attention-grabbing scheme she’s attempting to use as a vehicle for meeting a rich man at any given moment. Some years ago we saw her completely screw up doing publicity for one of Blaze’s plays because she got wind of some piece of ass; I fully expected her party planning career to have gone down in flames by now as well. While the streamers, balloons, and hand-painted sign that reads HAPD BIRT don’t exactly scream “$100 an hour party planner”, who knows what sort of “awesome” activities we missed. Maybe Usher was there, or strippers, or Usher stripping.

True story: last year on my birthday my wife and I spent a relaxing day together and by mid-afternoon I was pretty pleased with how the day went. But then were driving back from the pool we belong to through a kind of ritzy neighborhood, and some kids were having a birthday party in the yard of this huge house, and they were unloading a goddamned llama out of the back of a llama truck, and my day felt a little less special. What I’m trying to say, Margo, is where’s the llama? I know it’s hard to get one into a Manhattan apartment, but what Katy wants, Katy gets.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/13/07

Like a magpie fixated on a shiny piece of tinfoil, I can’t get a single phrase from Hubby’s rambling diatribe out of my mind: “Earth warming.” At first I thought it was an attempt to use up slightly less word balloon real estate than the more conventional “global warming,” but if that were the case I think the thing to do would have been to lose one or more of the “etc”s. So I’m thinking it’s one of two things:

• Those who believe that global warming is a real danger are trying to rebrand it to convince the unconvinced. “Huh, I know global warming is junk science, but maybe there’s something to this ‘Earth warming’ thing.”
• People who have been denying global warming all along have finally been convinced, but feel that they can’t admit they were wrong without looking dumb, so this is their way of getting around it. “Global warming? Liberal propaganda! It’s just to distract you from the dangerous problem of ‘Earth warming’ — a danger you can only hear about here on Fox!”

Also, I first read Hubby’s initial news item as pertaining to a “bug strike” and charmingly imagined a group of ants and beetles walking in a circle carrying tiny signs that read “PLEASE DO NOT STEP ON US”.

Slylock Fox, 4/13/07

I can’t decide if the message of today’s Slylock Fox is “Cab rides with nearsighted drivers are a horrifying nightmare” or “Sticking your head out of a moving car is ill-advised, no matter how much fun your dog seems to have doing it.” But the multiple images give the whole thing a pleasing pop art quality.

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Apartment 3-G, 4/11/07

Panel one: The touch on the shoulder, plus the nature of the conversation, establishes that these two gentlemen are well acquainted with each other, and, despite minor conflicts, keep each other’s best interests at heart.

Panel two: An exaggerated look at the watch, plus a call to make plans later, indicates that one of the two characters needs to run.

Panel three: Oh no! Readers might not realize that these two are old friends, and about to part! We need a narration box, stat! As a bonus, it will screw up the rhythm of the strip, implying that there’s been some kind of gap in time between panels two and three!

Spider-Man, 4/11/07

I’m uninterested in the latest example of J. Jonah Creep’s epic self-absorption, and my curiosity is only vaguely piqued by the flight of that … brick? videotape? bundle of hundred-dollar bills? Whatever. I am, however, intrigued by the concept of a thought balloon coming from off-panel. A similarly positioned word balloon offers a comics-panel approximation of a situation in which you can hear someone but not see them; this seems to show that SOMEWHERE nearby, SOMEONE is thinking … but WHO?

Gil Thorp, 4/11/07

When I read today’s Gil Thorp, my eyes slid right over the bizarre wildlife analogies and traumatizing Paris Hilton joke to settle on that … thing … that the first basewoman is holding in the third panel. Is it a trash can lid? An enormous pair of black panties with a frilly trim? A rip in the fabric of space and time, revealing the soul-destroying black abyss that lies beyond our universe? After about a minute, I realized that we’re just supposed to be looking directly into the maw of a fielder’s mitt. That’s a minute I’ll never have back, and I resent it.

By the way, it appears that Hadley Baxendale and Steve Luhm fought for equal rights in vain: While I’m sure the baseball diamond has been mowed with laser-beam precision, the softball field appears to be covered in ankle-deep grass. The right fielder is standing in a particularly wooly patch, though, if we continue with the African herbivore metaphors, she may believe that it provides camouflage from predators.

Dick Tracy, 4/11/07

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve managed to avoid commenting on Dick Tracy ever since we met the completely demented Queen of Diamonds character. Today, things just get weirder as she discards her costume for reasons that are no more obvious than those that drove her to wear in the first place. It’s not like a lumpy person in a skin-tight black bodysuit with a face like a playing card is exactly inconspicuous, even if she isn’t carrying a supernaturally glowing gem.

Judge Parker, 4/11/07

For those of you not following along at home, Neddy and Abbey, fleeing from their ‘80s punker attackers, have ducked through a door off of an alley and into some mysterious workshop full of industrial supplies that they can turn into weapons. Presumably they will blow-torch their nemeses into submission, then dump their charred figures onto the steps of L’Académie française, where they will be dealt with for their crimes against French grammar. It looks like somebody’s gunning to have their strip turned into the next ultraviolent Robert Rodriguez-directed big screen comics adaptation.

Mark Trail, 4/11/07

Many of you have already noted that Mark is flying to confront Dan’s grieving widow on the back of a majestic goose, and driving from the gooseport in some kind of vehicle that lacks seats. I’m more disturbed by how excited Cherry is about the whole thing. “Oh, Mark, I’m so glad you didn’t call the police with your suspicions. I love it when you go off half-cocked on impromptu voyages of vengeance! Go get ’em, tiger! Don’t beat anyone to death unless you feel like it!”

Family Circus, 4/11/07

This, combined with this, leads me to believe that the Family Circus has a bee up its butt over recent findings that most Americans, including most of those who consider themselves Christians, are completely ignorant of the basics of the Bible and Christian theology. Obviously it will climax with an angry, melon-headed mob demanding that public schools bring back religious instructions for their poor, hell-bound students. Obviously their parents can’t be trusted to do it! They’re just as dumb!