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Mark Trail, 6/10/19

This current Mark Trail plot is moving along at what I wouldn’t call … the fastest pace of all time. About a month ago Mark ran away from bees then a couple weeks after that the gang found Skull Mountain and that’s been about it! Up until this crazy flood, that is. You’d think a flash flood would definitely be a sign that the drama has officially been amped up, but the whole thing with the bees only lasted a couple of days, so I’m reserving my judgement. I do like how Leola’s word balloon ends in an interrobang, indicating that something truly surprising, more surprising than a flash flood, is happening just off panel! Maybe it’s Mark continuing to run away from her, leaving her to drown in the flood? Sorry, Leola, the fewer survivors there are in this expedition the fewer people there’ll be to split the gold!

Family Circus, 6/10/19

There are like a dozen little hints in virtually every Family Circus panel that they represent repurposed art, or at least repurposed jokes, from an earlier era, an era when parents felt that children needed to be able to explore and test their limits unsupervised by grown-ups even at a very young age, and if that meant that some of them didn’t survive to adulthood, well, that’s why you start off having four of them, you know? I particularly appreciate how shiny the countertop is, teasing us that Dolly’s slippered feet are going to lose their purchase at any moment.

Beetle Bailey, 6/10/19

I feel like having Beetle surrounded by sand, in a loose pile and in a bag and in a wheelbarrow, wasn’t strictly necessary to make this joke work? In fact, since the joke is a metaphor, it’s actually actively distracting. If you’re gonna do it, why not go all the way with it? Why not have Lt. Fuzz be dousing himself with oil while grinning maniacally and extolling the efficiency of our armed services? It would make Sarge’s world-weary expression all the more appropriate.

Mary Worth, 6/10/19

Folks, if Wilbur and Estelle are currently at Delicious Grill chowing down on some sandwiches and making romantic eyes at each other, I am going to 100% lose my shit

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Gil Thorp, 5/30/19

Words can’t even describe how boring Spring 2019 Gil Thorp has been; the only thing less compelling than the A plot (“The softball team is trapped in an endlessly escalating cycle of kids wanting their banal hobbies being acknowledged as ‘too cool for school’”) is the B plot (“one of the girls is good enough at volleyball to get a full college scholarship to play it but not so good that she feels personally fulfilled”). Still, maybe things are looking up today, as Couch Mrs. Coach Thorp suggests that everyone’s problem can be solved by imposing an totalitarian mass surveillance state, or maybe by putting the pigs in charge of the farm, because how much worse a job can they do, really.

Family Circus, 5/30/19

“Mommy! When will the airtight dome over the Kompound be complete, finally protecting us from this fallen world and its filthy impurities?”

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The Lockhorns, 5/22/19

I gotta give The Lockhorns credit here: this panel contains a classic “male character is aroused by a sexy nurse character” scenario, but acknowledges that no actual medical professional has worn the stereotypical white “sexy nurse” uniform in decades. However, the direction they did end up going with it, where the nurse is wearing typically pastel scrubs but, like, form-fitting, short-skirted, sexy scrubs, is perhaps even more insane and unlikely, so I suppose I gotta give them credit for that too!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/22/19

Oh, huh, I guessed I called it correctly: it’s an armed robbery! I’m very intrigued to see exactly how Rex Morgan, M.D., will make an armed robbery boring.

Family Circus, 5/22/19

Dolly joined a cult because she thought it would finally make people pay attention to her! It isn’t working very well.