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Mark Trail, 12/22/08

The list of Incomprehensible Things That Happen In Mark Trail For No Earthly Reason That Anyone Could Fathom is, I admit, very, very long. And yet while I accept many of those things (the Jack Elrod sphere spouting dialog today, for instance) without question, I am having a hard time figuring out why the fact that his buggy’s carburetor has rusted has resulted in Pop resting with his head in Sue’s lap, unless this is all a ploy on his part to get her to do something about the fact that his “buggy’s” “carburetor” has “rusted.” Now that sexy Mark has appeared on the horizon, she will no doubt literally throw him aside, and he’ll flop face-first into the rapidly drying swamp.

(Something that just occurred to me: who is watching little Pamela while all this red-hot swamp action is going on? Is it … Sneaky the filthy raccoon? OH MY GOD SNEAKY OH MY GOD)

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/22/08

Seeing that I griped a few days ago about the comics’ awkward attempts to grapple with the economic crisis, I suppose I’m now duty-bound to praise Mother Goose and Grimm’s depiction of the seasonal labor market, which ignores current economic conditions completely.

Apartment 3-G, 12/22/08

Reason To Love Margo #283: In mere hours of strip time, she’s gone from “Eric is an innocent man!” to “I am morally and professionally obligated to break into Eric’s apartment and remove incriminating evidence, then possibly use it later for blackmail purposes if he refuses to marry me!” Like the lady herself, Margo’s logic is so very seductive.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/22/08

Ha ha, Herb “molds himself” to Jamaal’s “deformities”!

Uh, I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean. Ha ha, Herb and Jamaal are going to have sex, on the down low!

Programming note! Tomorrow will be my last day of posting before my annual week-or-so-long Hanuchrismwaanza break, so I’m just going to postpone the comments of the week by a day.

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Mary Worth, 12/4/08

I realize that I have ignored a very exciting last several days in Mary Worth. Lynn had a picture of … a boy in her pocket! And then Mary saw it! And Lynn freaked out! And she fainted! (But she’ll be fine.) But there’s something even more troubling than the stress-related faint! And that more troubling thing is … IS …

(The fact that all this constitutes a very exciting last several days in Mary Worth tells you pretty much all you need to know about Mary Worth.)

Anyway, bets are now being taken as to what the “troubling” unexplainable medical condition will be. Potential answers: pregnancy, venereal disease, insanity, Electra complex, droopy-ponytail-itis. While we’re waiting, I dare you to make sense of the arrangement of grey and off-green on the wall behind Mary and Evil Figure Skating Father-Coach, either in the individual panels or taking the strip as some kind of theoretical whole.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/4/08

If my years of reading Herb and Jamaal have taught me anything, it’s that this potentially interesting story about Herb’s crime-terrorized barber will be dropped after today, and that his discomfiting anxiety has been trotted out entirely in the service of a cheap gag about shaking hands. Tune in next week for similar yucks when Jamaal’s doctor turns out to have a devastating alcohol problem!

Crankshaft, 12/4/08

This just in: everyone in Crankshaft, without exception, is terrible. “Really, son, this paycheck just goes to show that getting in on the ground floor somewhere to pursue your dreams is for suckers and poor people. Why not work in a high-paying job you hate so you can look as beaten down and miserable as we do at all times?”

I am kind of amused by the fact that the sepia-toned, old-timey album photo panel, once reserved for storylines like Crankshaft’s days in the minors in the late ’40s, has now just become Crankshaft shorthand for “events that happened previously” — even when, in this case, the events occurred well into the era of digital color photography.

Mark Trail, 12/4/08

“I wish I had let Andy come with me!” “I’m beginning to worry about our friend too, Andy!” Hey, guys, Andy can’t always be there paw-holding you as you make your way through life, OK? You’re going to learn how to do things on your own. Meanwhile, it’s obvious that the real hero of this storyline will be Sneaky, clawing at the face of anyone, or possibly everyone, within reach once the melee starts.

Family Circus, 12/4/08

Getting a new encyclopedia for Billy is obviously unthinkable, since it would be full of all that devilish “new learning.” Even the 1955 World Book was chock full of sin, which is why Mommy had to consolidate the clean parts into this single tattered volume.

Apartment 3-G, 12/4/08

At last, Margo’s going to live out her ultimate fantasy — a three-way with two dudes who look exactly alike! Oh, wait, I just described every M-F-M three-way in the Apartment 3-G universe.

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Gasoline Alley, Dennis the Menace, Blondie, and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/24/08

Hey, remember a while back when Blondie hit its 75th birthday party and the whole comics page was forced, apparently at gunpoint, to celebrate that achievement of inertia? Well, today is the 90th anniversary of the launch of Gasoline Alley, and its longevity is being celebrated by the entire industry these three insanely long-running legacy strip: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (almost as old at 89, though Snuffy Smith himself did not appear until 1934), Blondie (now 78 years old, showing itself still classy with this reach-around), and Dennis the Menace (a relative baby at 57).

The Gasoline Alley strip itself rather nicely gives us a look at the first three men who worked on the feature; we shall know current artist Jim Scancarelli only as a enormous and terrifying disembodied hand, at least until the strip’s 120th anniversary in 2038. Of the tributes, Blondie wonders if it will be on top of its game, with side-splitting joke after side-splitting joke about giant sandwiches and workplace abuse, fifteen years from now; Barney Google transforms beloved Gasoline Alley patriarch Walt into some kind of pinheaded monster from the depths of your worst nightmares; and Dennis the Menace is too boring to merit further typing on my part, so I’ll stop right here.

Mark Trail, 11/24/08

Say, remember last year when Mark had some kind of extremely half-assed flirtation with Sam Hill, sexy biologist, that was entirely one-sided (and not on Mark’s side) and led to absolutely nothing? Well, apparently it elicited lots of angry letters to Mark Trail headquarters about the sanctity of marriage and whatnot, because now every time we get even a glimpse of what I guess is supposed to be the quarter-assed flirtation between Mark and Sue the Confused Industrialist, one or both of them reflexively start blathering on about his joyless, asexual marriage. Today Jack Elrod has decided to dedicate his artistic skill to one of those awesome crabs with one freakishly large claw, and who can blame him when his other option is to draw these two dopes totally not coming on to one another?

Aren’t those giant crab-claws the result of sexual selection? Perhaps this symbolizes something about this slow-motion love triangle — like, maybe Cherry is about to show up and bludgeon Sue to death with her enormous forearm.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/24/08

Well, our long-promised Morgan Family Cruise Boat Adventure is finally here, after a brief interlude for yachting hijinks (this being Rex Morgan, three and a half months really does count as “brief”). Anyway, we’ll soon find out what sort of nautical medical drama Rex will have to deal with on this dreadful voyage — Legionnaires’ disease? nausea? boredom? — but for the moment, I’d just like to point out that in the world Rex Morgan, M.D., the taxicab industry is dominated by Rastafarians, or at least by dudes in rasta hats.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/24/08

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mexican food makes defecating uncomfortable!