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Spider-Man, 10/26/17

Aww, isn’t that poignant — Spider-Man wishes he could use his superpowers to win battles against not just mutants and space aliens and mad scientists, but against sadness. If it makes you feel any better, Spidey, most of us don’t actually call you a super-hero.

Hi and Lois, 10/26/17

Ditto often strikes me as the happiest member of the Flagston clan, and today’s strip offers great insight into his secret: he keeps his expectations extremely low.

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Mark Trail, 10/24/17

Hey, remember this guy? The guy from the bank-robbing gang who was so worried about the fancy new facial recognition software the FBI has on hand? Of course you do, because the last time you saw him, way back in April, it was literally the same drawing:

Now, I know what you’re saying: “Ha, this guy was worried about facial recognition software but he thinks he can beat it by just getting a haircut?” Well, sadly, he didn’t even do that! He just died his ponytail to match the upholstery in his plane:

Anyway, I’m not sure why, if the bank-robbing gang had access to a plane, they didn’t just all get in the plane to escape, rather than one guy getting in it and the other two taking the money and a hostage to a remote airstrip and meeting up with the plane guy there. I guess that’s why I’m not in the bank-robbery game! Too many moving parts for my feeble intellect!

Hi and Lois, 10/24/17

There’s so much that I don’t understand about what’s going on here. Is there an occasion for this strip, in which Hi and Thirsty are suddenly taking the subway home with Leroy Lockhorn, Walt Duncan, Greg Wilkins, Homer Simpson, Mario, and … an Orthodox Jewish (?) character in the foreground I don’t recognize? Is there some common theme holding these guys all together, other than “they’re from cartoons, or, in the case of Mario, a video game?” Aren’t crossover events usually cheerful affairs? Why is this one built around a totally unrelated “joke” about how Hi and Thirsty feel unmoored and adrift in life, with everyone looking extremely depressed? Why does Walt look so disheveled? Why is Homer given a standard white-person flesh tone rather than his native bright yellow? Why are Thirsty and Hi on a train when they’ve always been depicted as driving back and forth to their pedestrian-hostile suburb?

Funky Winkerbean, 10/24/17

Funky Winkerbean: You Always Swore You Were Going To Get Out Of This Town, But Somehow You Never Did™!

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Mark Trail, 10/10/17

Say what you will about Mark Trail’s methods, but he will never, ever stop laying down the nature facts. It doesn’t matter how desperate the situation is, who’s sticking a gun in his face, whatever. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, probably a third of the soliloquies we get in the Sunday strips happen while he’s under extreme duress of one kind or another. If someone has a misapprehension about tornados or whatever, Mark will nip that false line of reasoning in the bud. If “A tornado is the vortex of wind, not the condensation cloud!” is the last sentence to pass his lips before he takes a bullet to the gut, it will have been an honorable death.

Hi and Lois, 10/10/17

I actually kind of love that, having seen this little one-bedroom bungalow with a pool, a fireplace, a deck for grilling, and satellite TV, our bachelor has flipped out his collar, ’70s-style. His emotional world was shattered and he was living in a depressing rented hovel but now thanks to Lois’s real-estate savvy he’s back, baby! These are the days when the job is really worthwhile to her, when she makes a difference in someone’s life. The difference is he’s gonna be having a lot more sex, and she’s earned that commission.