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Mark Trail, 5/7/12

It looks like Mark is running out of excuses to avoid his oft-postponed fishing date with Rusty. Ha ha, “check my e-mail,” does Mark even know what e-mail is? He probably overheard some teens talking about it down at the general store once and is now using it as a desperate ploy to avoid spending quality time with his hideously ugly ward. “Uh, sorry Rusty, I talked to my e-mail and it told me that there’s some Indian artifacts being smuggled in the southern part of the state! I need to go find the smugglers, so I guess that fishing trip will have to wait until next month, or something.”

It’s pretty well known that current Mark Trail storylines are pieced together from old art, with dialogue spottily updated to reflect technological advances. This has given us such hilarious moments as Rusty claiming his old-timey camera used a “memory card,” so I look forward to Mark “checking his e-mail” with what is clearly a CB radio.

Hi and Lois, 5/7/12

“I thought it was just a whimsical name, but I can’t seem to hold down any food and I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last three days, so I guess it was made of some kind of deadly poison.”

Gil Thorp, 5/7/12

OK, this is the day when I finally manage to work myself up to get excited about the Gil Thorp spring storyline. Yay, we’ve got … a loss and a rainout? Aw, nuts.

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Mary Worth, 4/25/12

Oh, man, the fancy New York City party Mary’s going to is being thrown by none other than Bobby and Gina! Gina, you might recall, was a waitress who was pining away for her lost childhood love and then Mary gave her the painfully obvious advice of “Maybe look him up on the Internet?” and then she found out that he was a soccer superstar who still loved her, of course. Last we saw her she was getting the hell out of Santa Royale at maximum speed and acquiescing eagerly to Bobby’s casual marriage proposal. Have they really waited this long to have an engagement announcement party? I’m thinking it’s something bigger. “We’ve asked all our loved ones together here because we have a special announcement: Gina has transcended this plane of existence to become an omnipresent, omniscient deity! Wherever you go, whatever you do, her disembodied consciousness is gazing at you from the clouds!”

Gil Thorp, 4/25/12

How bored have I been by the current “Milford’s new star pitcher has a secret and that secret is the child she had when she was 14” storyline in Gil Thorp? So bored that I haven’t discussed it, like, at all, for eight weeks! How much do I miss the “All the Milford players are getting tattoos at a completely legal tattoo parlor” storyline from the winter? So much that I really wanted that to be an enormous cross tattoo on the neck of the girl in panel three, but I think it’s just a shadow or something.

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Gil Thorp, 3/31/12

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the spring storyline in Gil Thorp! (Or, for you Thorpophobes: Sorry I’m about to bring you up to date on the spring storyline in Gil Thorp!) The softball team has been roiled by a standoffish new girl who’s only standoffish to protect a mysterious secret (HER SECRET: she is a teen mom), which I’m sure will be wacky at some point in the future but right now it’s kind of enh. What drew my eye to today’s strip was the second panel. Most of us probably wouldn’t deem five vultures hovering menacingly over the baseball field a “good sign” for the season. My guess is that, having failed at coaching via conventional means, Gil and Coach Kaz have decided to study the ancient art of augury, which the Romans used to divine the future by studying the flight patterns of birds, in order to defeat their enemies and gain the favor of the gods. This will go great, up until the inevitable lawsuit from Americans United for the Separation of Pagan Temple and State.

Mary Worth, 3/31/12

Now here’s an interesting plot twist! This scene of Nola weeping disconsolately in public, pleasing though it is, surely isn’t the last we’re going to see of her; so why the sudden shift to Mary and Jeff (the latter in his sweet letterman jacket), sitting at home watching This Week In Disgraced Televangelists on the Schadenfreude Channel? Perhaps there’s a link between weeping Nola and her biblical-esque parable, failed monogamist Johnny Thomas, and these helpful words from Jesus from earlier this month? My guess: Nola and Johnny will find their way back to righteousness together, after they have illicit sex.

Dennis the Menace, 3/31/12

Mr. Wilson has finally decided to kill Dennis, with insecticide.