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Mark Trail, 1/23/12

OK, here’s a thing that has been persistently confusing to me about the current Mark Trail storyline: Tommy keeps insisting that he runs a “dog training business,” which, to an effete urban dweller such as myself, summons up an image of an obedience school where a Cesar Millan disciple explains to you how to establish an inter-creature dynamic within your household that prevents your adorable little Pomeranian from urinating on your newly restored hardwood floors. But Tommy only talks about Butch the blind dog and the rest of his business in terms of hunting, so I guess out in Real American “dog training businesses” are all about training your dog as a hunting companion, seriously, why would you even own a dog if you weren’t going to hunt with it? And so obviously a blind dog would be useless in such a context … unless Mark can prove that Butch has what it takes after all. Of course, the fact that Tommy is so transparently eager to get a 10-minute segment about Butch onto Animal Planet or the Outdoors Channel or Pointing The Camera At Nature or whatever basic cable channel Mark’s friend works for just goes to show that even Real America is desperately in thrall to the coastal media elites.

Hi and Lois, 1/23/12

It’s really quite sad that this is what Hi and Lois think a “quickie” is. And Lois isn’t even fully committed to it! You can’t drink tea at a coffee quickie, Lois.

Apartment 3-G, 1/23/12

Ha ha, Tommie is so boring that Lu Ann is going to call her “Margo” as she waves the MapQuest page she printed out all by herself at her. In the background, the actual Margo sees where this conversation is going and quickly decides to be anywhere else.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/22/12

Wow, how hardcore is Slick Smitty about committing petty, pointless crimes, constantly? Hardcore enough to sneak out of his own hospital room and steal flowers and chocolates from a heavily sedated goat, for no good reason. One imagines that he had to cradle the the things in his tender and heavily bandaged hands, trying not to grunt in pain at the pressure on his still-healing flesh, all the while leaving an incriminating trail of toeprints behind him. And how do you think he burned his hands in the first place? Probably from trying to steal a hot frying pan from a duck or something. It’s a sickness, Smitty, get help!

When I first read the puzzle question, the detail my mind settled on was that Smitty claimed the flowers and candy were from his girlfriend. I half expected Slylock’s solution to be “Wrong! Slick Smitty doesn’t have a girlfriend. He only stole these gifts to fool the world — and maybe, in the process, to fool himself — into believing that someone, somewhere might love him.”

Panels from Hi and Lois, 1/22/12

Hey kids! You might have heard a lot of socialist talk about how corporate media consolidation is bad! But without it, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy seamless cross-platform entertainment experiences like these, where you can check out the adventures of your favorite licensed characters in multiple media simultaneously. (Just remember, don’t download movies illegally off the Internet, the Internet is full of child molesters and demons.)

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Hi and Lois, 1/20/11

All week I’ve been trying to figure out what if anything to say about the distinctive shift in art in Hi and Lois this week. I can’t decide whether it’s a sort of simplified version of the previous artwork representing a move to a more digital process, or if it’s just a new hired hand taking over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC coming up with a more stylized take on the characters (which, I have to say, I kind of like). I was about to trouble my pretty little head more about it, but then I realized that I was troubling my pretty little head about Hi and Lois, which really hasn’t earned the trouble. Any artists out there who have better insight into how cartooning actually works should compare today’s strip to, say, this and give us your expert opinion. Or, you know, don’t! Lord knows we won’t hold your refusal to think about Hi and Lois against you.

Apartment 3-G, 1/20/11

Ha ha, Lu Ann has known that the couple that raised her weren’t her biological parents for maybe an hour or two now, and already she’s calling them by their first names rather than “mom and dad.” She is so done with Ken and Vera, you guys.

Ziggy, 1/20/11

Oh, man, those environmental regulators: overzealous, amiright? But seriously, no matter what your opinion on the EPA and the Endangered Species Act and the spotted owl and what have you, I think we can all come together and celebrate the fact that Ziggy is going to prison.

Marmaduke, 1/20/11

It had been a long time coming, this moment. Phil had watched so many innocent souls go down Marmaduke’s gullet, heard so many screams for mercy, saw so much carnage, so much blood. Years ago he knew that he couldn’t be just an observer in the awful process forever, that one day the demon-hound would come for him. “Hungry?” he asked. There was no fear in his voice, only sadness, and a small bit of relief. The huge, gore-soaked paw on his chest was almost gentle.