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Mark Trail, 7/14/15

Look upon panel three, O Mark Trail readers, for here is a chunk of exposition of which you will not see the amazing like again for months, if not years. “Good thinking, Mark,” says the professional wordsmith, “I am aware that Doc is a veterinarian!” There are two potential explanations for this that make the slightest sliver of sense: either Mark goes into Doc’s veterinary bona fides whenever he brings him up in conversation, and Bill is cutting him off so he doesn’t have to listen to 20 minutes of blah blah about Doc’s MCAT scores and how he settled on the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, again; or Bill made an embarrassing error on this topic earlier and is covering up for it. “Ha ha, yes, of course I am aware that Doc is a veterinarian! 100% aware of that fact. And someone who knew that definitely wouldn’t have sent Doc a bunch of emails trying to convince him to prescribe Adderall, would he? Definitely not!”

Spider-Man, 7/14/15

A quick glance at Spidey’s awkward position atop this bat-glider (side note: should Batman sue Hobgoblin for appropriation of the bat- prefix?) shows that it’s not his feet that he needs to squeeze closer together, but his thighs and calves, which is pretty obviously what he’s doing in panel two. Not sure why he doesn’t say this; maybe the syndicate is trying to desperately draw attention away from the blatant humping going on here? Also, I’m not an engineer or anything, but I’m thinking that damaging the exhaust pipe of this contraption won’t so much slow it down as give the rocket’s output nowhere to go and possibly cause the whole thing to explode, which may not be the best outcome for our hero, but hey, let’s watch this play out.

Heathcliff, 7/14/15

“And in unrelated news, there’s a lot of hair on my cat’s chin! But let’s go back to talking about why your husband isn’t interested in you sexually and never has been.”

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Spider-Man, 7/11/15

The usual marital dynamic in Spider-Man involves Peter being unreasonably and dickishly jealous about MJ’s financial success and/or interactions with other dudes, so it’s been refreshing (?) this time around to have the dynamic reversed and MJ jealous of the Black Widow. But now the two women have had a heart-to-heart, and the Black Widow revealed that she knew Spider-Man’s secret identity — and marital status — all along! This will make the coming conflagration, in which a helpless, spread-eagled, humiliated, and conspicuously unmasked Spider-Man slams into the movie set and explodes, all the more hilarious.

Heathcliff, 7/11/15

GOD DAMN IT HEATHCLIFF DOESN’T RIDE A MOTORCYCLE

HE ALSO DOESN’T GO TO CHURCH

AND THOSE EARS BUILT INTO HIS HELMET PROBABLY MAKE IT LESS SAFE

AND THE WHOLE THING LOOKS MORE LIKE A SPACESUIT THAN MOTORCYCLE SAFETY GEAR

GOD DAMN IT HEATHCLIFF

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Pluggers, 7/10/15

I had a little difficulty parsing the text of today’s Pluggers — it’s actually a pretty good example of why I’m O.C. (Oxford comma) for lyfe. There was a brief moment where I thought maybe “Beltone and the Scooter Store” were a wacky morning DJ duo on the most old-person-friendly radio station around. In fact, they are, respectively, an apparently perfectly respectable hearing aid manufacturer and a company that manufactures mobility scooters that went out of business in 2013 after being having perpetrated upwards of $50 million in Medicare and Medicaid fraud. In other words, even Pluggers’ old-people cultural references are several years out of date! But the overall theme of today’s panel still stands: the U.S. Postal Service largely exists as a marketing tool for companies that try to make money off the elderly.

Mark Trail, 7/10/15

“Yes, we can afford this expensive office in a Manhattan high-rise because unlike literally every other print publication on the planet, Woods & Wildlife Magazine is insanely profitable, thanks to one thing: boat explosions. Our readers can’t get enough of them! So I don’t care what that wife of yours says, you’re going out on that boat, and if it doesn’t explode on its own, you make it explode, do you hear me?”

Heathcliff, 7/10/15

I spent a lot of time trying to relate this joke to the octopus having eight tentacles and Heathcliff having two feet and that adds up to ten, but then I realized that two of the octopus’s tentacles are being held aloft like arms and then also I checked with my perennial beginner surfer wife and she told me that the whole point of “hanging ten” is that all your toes are off the board, which is exactly what we’re not seeing here, so you know what? Screw you, Heathcliff. Screw you.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/15

“The reunion…! The one … foretold … in prophecy!” I have no idea where this is going but I’ll bet it’s gonna be pretty grim!