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Mark Trail, 1/21/14

WHOA, you guys, Mark is actually taking Rusty fishing, again. Do you think he might actually … like him, or something? Not if today’s strip is any indication! Remember, kids, Mark Trail knows all sorts of useful nature facts, which is why you should follow his lead and just feed pelicans by hand when they fly into your boat, even though they’re aggressive hypercarnivores with huge, powerful wings. Clearly the only reason Mark is doing this is because he’s hoping the pelican will mistake Rusty for a tasty fish and eat him, or because an hour on a boat with his misshapen ward has sapped him of his will to live and he figures an agonizing death in a pelican’s gullet is preferable to this.

But our pelican friend subbornly refuses to kill, so Mark just decides to violate all the rules of space and time by casually grabbing onto the pelican’s ankle desite the fact that the pelican is clearly like six or seven feet away from him. “Jessica Canupp, pelican point … hmm, interesting! I hear they’re doing top-secret experiments on faster-than-light travel there! Come on, Rusty, let’s follow this pelican through the wormhole that brought him here, since the laws of physics are clearly collapsing in this region and our very molecules will collapse into subatomic goo if whe stay much longer!”

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/13

Honestly, if you told me that this strip was going to start focusing less on playful banter down at the Heart and Soul restaurant and more on Herb’s forbidden erotic fantasies, the kind he can’t tell anybody about, I’d have been cautiously open to it. But if this is the sort of thing that’s in store for us, then no thanks.

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Hi and Lois, 12/7/13

I’m sort of fascinated by the roller-coaster of facial expressions Hi is treating us to here. In panel one, he’s staring at Thirsty’s gut in shock and disbelief, as if he’s thinking “My God, he’s right! Everything they’ve told us about beer guts is a lie! What’s the point of avoiding beer if you’re still going to get fat? What’s the point of anything?” But in panel two, he switches to cruel superiority. “Ha ha, Thirsty, man does not grow fat on beer alone! Meat and bread are also full of calories! The world makes sense once again, though now that I know you’ve given up beer without any kind of introspective look at why you were so dependent on alcohol in the first place, it’s going to be even more pleasingly cutting to call you ‘Thirsty.'”

Crankshaft, 12/7/13

Turns out yesterday’s mind-bending encounter was just Crankshaft getting a mystical and terrifying glimpse into his own future, which has shaken his very soul. Naturally not only does nobody believe him, but they’re all very ostentatiously laughing at him, because this is a strip where none of the characters are capable of pity or empathy of any kind.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/7/13

Have you ever dreaded going to your mind-numbing, unfulfilling job and thought that, even though you’d be less well off in terms of material possessions, you’d be happier and more satisfied with a spiritual calling that allowed you to help your neighbors and give glory to God? Well, Herb and Jamaal’s Rev. Croom and I have got some bad news for you.

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Herb and Jamaal, 11/23/13

Don’t you just wish you were a dog, sometimes? Don’t you wish that all your intellectual human knowledge about sanitation, and all that ingrained human near-instinctive revulsion at dirt and contamination would just vanish in an instant, so you’d be free? Free of shame, free of rules, just able to eat anything you want whenever you want, to roll around on your kitchen floor and come up with a faceful of ketchup dribblings, then lie there and lazily lick it off your chin? Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s here. You can do it. You can do it right now. You’re free. You’re free.

B.C., 11/23/13

Speaking of things people wouldn’t normally eat, people will eat things they wouldn’t normally eat, when they’re poor and desperate and hungry! Don’t look so smug there, turtle, you too are for the most part edible and no cultural taboo is that strong.