Post Content

Mark Trail, 3/18/09

Thank goodness Mark Trail has given up on its attempts to depict all-too-realistic and depressing human behavior and is going back to its bread and butter: attempting to depict hilarious and completely incomprehensible human behavior. Because the following list of activities is in order of increasing conspicuousness, obviously:

• Two dudes hanging around in a restaurant in broad daylight, drinking coffee and wearing hideously colored shirts.
• Two adults accosting a child they don’t know and offering obscene sums of money buy his camera.
• Two random people appearing in the background of a terribly composed picture, which will be printed automatically from a machine and put into a sad little scrapbook by a neglected orphan who lives in the woods and has no friends.

Luann, 3/18/09

OK, so Luann is clearly never going to give us less of … this, so from here on in, I want more. More, do you hear me? The only way this strip’s never-ending stream of queasy sexuality will become palatable to me is if it just goes completely over the top, turning the whole thing into some ludicrously repulsive French sex farce. I want to see Mrs. DeGroot seducing TJ for information (“TJ, I can’t stop thinking about the other day in the bathroom … but my fantasies would be so much hotter if I knew what you did for a living!”). I want to see Brad accidentally invite Toni to dinner at an S&M club (“Gosh, I thought that meant they served salad and macaroni!”). I want to see Bernice arrange a tryst between her soldier brother and Delta — and then retreat back to her room to watch via the hidden cameras and masturbate furiously. I want to see Gunther at the San Diego FurCon ’09 after-party, grinning bashfully while being serviced by dozens of obedient piggies. I want to see Luann and Elwood … no, wait, never mind, even I have my limits.

Hi and Lois, 3/18/09

Sunday’s neglect-o-thon made the case for a Child Protective Services visit to the Flagston residence, and today that case just got a little bit stronger. As Trixie sits alone in the middle of the floor, surrounded by scattered toys, she notes that her family “disappears” every day, but doesn’t mention anything about anyone coming to her house in their place.

Curtis, 3/18/09

Barry is right to be concerned. Curtis does not have the right attitude to find much financial success as a prostitute.

Ziggy, 3/18/09

Even Ziggy’s computer is repulsed by his sexual advances.

Pluggers, 3/18/09

Sure, they eventually put on the belt, go to their soul-killing jobs, then come home and eat pizza and drink beer in front of the TV until they doze off; but for most pluggers, that moment in the morning when they contemplate suicide is, perversely, the high point of their day.

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 3/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because the baby keeps injuring herself!

Marvin, 3/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because the old man’s friend hates him now, because he’s poor!

Mary Worth, 3/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because Adrian is so desperate for any bit of human affection that she’s falling for the most obvious bit of scammery since, you know, two Mary Worth storylines ago!

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 3/8/09

My goodness, today’s Hi and Lois presents one of the most searing indictments of standard-issue suburban heteronormality that I’ve ever seen — it certainly strikes me as more compelling than Revolutionary Road, which, I should confess, I didn’t see, because it looked pretty snoresville. Side note: I think Revolutionary Road should have been marketed as a Titanic sequel, and framed as a dream sequence going through Leo DiCaprio’s character’s mind as he froze to death in the North Atlantic, imagining what his life would be like if he survived and married Kate Winslet’s character. The numb, soul-crushing lifestyle he envisions for their future would really just reflect the fact that his body and mind are shutting down in the icy waters.

Wait, where was I? Oh, right, Hi and Lois. Lois, driven completely bonkers by her unruly brood, contemplates just leaving, just walking out, getting some “fresh air” and not coming back. Her wide-eyed look in the next-to-last panel is particularly harrowing: she’s just staring off to space, thinking, “What if I just keep standing here? They say that freezing to death is just like falling asleep. You don’t even feel anything. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice to fall asleep in the nice white fluffy snow, forever?” Eventually, she decides that venturing into her hell-house is marginally better than dying of frostbite, so she turns around and returns, a wan little smile on her face.

The first two throwaway panels add an extra little bit of awful to the whole affair. “Woah,” Hi says, “Your mother sure looks like she’s about at her breaking point! I’m just going to take this newspaper with me to the bathroom and not come out again for the rest of the night.” At least Chip doesn’t actively flee when asked to help, though I note that he “took over” without once getting off the couch or even looking up from the tiny little screen on his cell phone.

Mary Worth, 3/8/09

On that note, I should mention that Mary Worth appears to be setting itself up to compete with the recently completed “sometimes we slap and terrify our partners because we love them too much” Mark Trail storyline in the repressive patriarchy department. Adrian may be a full-grown adult and a doctor to boot, but we’ll soon learn what happens when a fragile, vulnerable, young little girl attempts to choose her own husband: betrayal and grifting and heartbreak and despair. Once Ted has left town with her life savings, Adrian will finally agree to the plan her father has been pushing all along: an arranged marriage with the son of Dr. Jeff’s neighbors, so that their children will eventually inherit both estates and achieve a higher status in the ranks of the local landed gentry.

Family Circus, 3/8/09

Ah, NyQuil — is there any problem you can’t solve?

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 3/8/09

There’s nothing Mr. Wilson longs for more than to pound back a few bourbons, get in his car, and slam himself into a tree.

Crankshaft, 3/8/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because Crankshaft is old, and all his friends are dying!