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Mark Trail, 11/18/09

Here’s a question for you: am I spoiled by Mark Trail? I mean, yes, this is the sort of wordless action strip that makes the feature worth reading, and yes, Mark has waded into the swamp to deliver a crushing blow to an alligator’s mouth, without regard for his personal safety, in order to save his mutant ward’s whiny little dog. I should just be able to sit back and enjoy it! And yet … well, he’s not using his fists, is he? He’s using a tool to do his fighting for him. Sure, for an ordinary human punching an alligator would be a recipe for certain death, but Mark is not ordinary, and may not even be human. When his violent righteousness turns on the poachers, as it inevitably will, will Mark think, “Hey, I am already holding this stick! It helped me beat the alligator — maybe it will help me defeat these men as well!” And once there’s an intermediary object between Mark and his targets, well, it’s all downhill from there. The next think you know, he’ll be suing them, or writing angry letters to the editor about their misdeeds.

Gil Thorp, 11/18/09

Today is the day that reveals the true shape of Gil Thorp’s football season B-plot: it’s Cyrano de Bergerac, if Cyrano were a band geek, and instead of feeding love poetry to Christian he just gave him recaps of high-school volleyball games, and while watching the whole drama you kept waiting for the action to switch back to Christian’s teammate’s brother in prison. Still, I have a feeling that Valerie will learn that the person who really enjoyed watching her play volleyball was a slightly cross-eyed clarinet player, and true love will blossom at last!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/18/09

You know, I really and truly would have been delighted if the whole Becka-Tim side story ended up being entirely tangental to the plot, with Cue successfully negotiating the return of the wayward oldsters with the crooked nursing home operator while Becka fended off Tim’s ham-handed advances. But now it appears that the two narrative threads will finally meet, so I’m hoping that the fisticuffs between the exceptionally dim small-time marijuana dealer and the socially awkward fishing magazine writer will at least be kind of hilarious.

Apartment 3-G, 11/18/09

“Kitchen staff” no doubt sets alarm bells off in Ari’s head. “Wait, she used to be rich, and now the only person she can afford to exploit to get her meds is me? Danger, danger!”

(By the way, if you’re trying woo a pill-popper with rice pudding in actual New York, might I suggest Rice to Riches at 37 Spring Street in Manhattan? YUMMY!)

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Gil Thorp, 11/6/09

Yes, it’s “that time” over in prison, that time for something that we can’t really see that well because the ring of prisoners, eager for some kind of diversion from their banal minimum-security lives, is blocking our view. Is it a good old-fashioned prison fight with improvised weapons, or good old-fashioned situational homosexuality? Either way, Gil seems to have found out about it in mid-practice, somehow. “Say, Duncan, do you know there’s this awesome Web site that’s just all streaming video footage from prisons, all the time? And that the school’s Wi-Fi network reaches all the way out here to the practice fields? Anyway, long story short, your brother got stabbed to death with a fork.”

Luann, 11/6/09

“You know what, TJ? I’m 23 years old, I’m a firefighter, I saved Toni’s life by letting her fall on me. If I want to stand outside the bathroom door and masturbate while she poops, I’m allowed to! Whose parents own this house, anyway?”

TJ seems to have been recruited by Brad’s parents to prevent illicit Brad-Toni coupling, and he’ll need all of his abstinence-promotion skills to complete that mission.

Shoe, 11/6/09

“OK, Skyler, it’s about time we had a little talk. You’re getting older now, and you should know … that … you’re a bird. As am I. We’re all birds. I know we wear clothes and have jobs and go to school, so you probably thought that we’re people, but, no: birds. Are there bees out there that are similarly anthropomorphized? Seems unlikely to me, but in a world of freaky suit-wearing coffee-drinking bird-people, anything’s possible, right? Anyway, you might want to keep a lookout for bee-people. I was going to text this to you, but then I remembered that I don’t really have hands, so that would be difficult.”

Zits, 11/6/09

The weird naked degenitaled characters in Love Is: creepy.

Jeremy and Sara’s heads superimposed on said weird naked degenitaled bodies: creepier.

Jeremy grinning widely has he holds his camera just inches from Love Is-ified Sara’s naked upraised ass: That, my friends, is unspeakable perversion Friday.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/5/09

Oh, man, apparently Tommie really isn’t familiar with I Dressed In The Dark, or with the reality TV genre in general, or with the sort of thing that normal humans enjoy as entertainment. If she were, she’d know that she should be jerking about spasmodically for the camera here, clowning it up for the people at home; if she must express negative feelings, they should be big negative feelings, with ostentatious, theatrical bawling. Instead, she’s just looking directly into the camera, and, with a flat expression and eerily affectless voice, describing the terrible emotional desert through which a cruel God has cursed her to wander, like the Israelites, but not as well dressed. I’m assuming that the cameraman is only managing to hold that microphone up through sheer professionalism, and will soon be quietly weeping. Tommie should very much not be allowed on television.

Mary Worth, 11/5/09

Ha ha, look, Adrian is already trying to squirm out of the drunken promises she made to Scott when she thought he was in a coma and couldn’t hear her. Now they’re getting married when he’s “better.” “Adrian, I’m back on my feet and back on the job, and the doctor says that these scars from the bullet wounds are pretty much permanent, so…” “Scott, please! You know I can’t marry a man with any sort of disfigurement! You’ll make sure they heal, if you really love me.”

Gil Thorp, 11/5/09

Congrats to Gil Thorp for depicting what most scientists agree to be the douchiest high-five possible there in panel two. Meanwhile, the parallelism of the two cafeteria scenes leaves one to contemplate the question: where’s a worse place to eat lunch, high school or prison? Your fellow inmates are more likely to shiv you, but at least they won’t stoop to lying about going to your volleyball game.

Dennis the Menace, 11/5/09

I’m sorry, Dennis, this is a game attempt to work within this strip’s restricted ambit of bad behavior, but good manners are never menacing.

B.C., 11/5/09

Ha ha, you see, because one of them wants to kill her, and one of them wants to have sex with her! Women, am I right? They’re like prey animals!

Beetle Bailey, 11/5/09

Honest to God, anyone who opens a gay bar named “McGooey’s” on the outskirts of a US Army base will get free advertising on this site for a year.