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Mark Trail, 10/21/10

Some of my readers rushed to declare Friday’s Mark Trail, in which our hero leaps over a barbed-wire-topped fence to knock a rifle out of a senator’s hands, to be the greatest Mark Trail ever. Well, I hope you all feel a little sheepish now that you’ve seen today’s strip, a glorious single-panel tableau in which Future Governor Frank kicks a fawn in the butt while his stepdaughter, Mark, and the man whose political patronage he’s been so desperately seeking all look on in horror. We of course can’t declare this strip the best of all time — for, in a world that has brought forth such wondrousness, how can we put limits on the potential joys of the future? — but it sure is pretty great.

Shoe, 10/21/10

Something doesn’t seem right here: I thought that, in the Shoe world, Roz serves coffee and comfort food from a diner counter on a tree branch, whereas booze is dished out in smoky bars that do not appear to be tree-based structures. But this is mere nitpickery, I know! I should just enjoy the hilarious joke here, about how the strip’s main characters use their crippling alcoholism as an excuse for being cheapskates.

Luann, 10/21/10

So, yeah, I haven’t really been able to bring myself to comment on the “Brad and the gang deal with the serious problems of stalking and domestic violence with Three’s Company-worthy hijinks” plotline over the past few weeks. But then I got to today and saw Brad and TJ talking about ladies underwear, and I thought to myself, “No way in hell am I suffering through this alone.” SO HERE IT IS! LOOK AT IT! LOOK AT THEM TALKING ABOUT PANTIES!

Judge Parker, 10/21/10

Ha ha, it wouldn’t be a Judge Parker story if one of the already wealthy principals didn’t become even richer at the end of it. Sam plays golf with a guy for 10 minutes and sees him get killed? Boom! A $100,000 advance check for Judge Parker! Sam violates legal ethics willy-nilly to sort of half-assedly solve a mystery? Wham! A cool hundred large for him too! Now the hour or so he spent helping Jules set up an Excel spreadsheet will net him a third of what will no doubt turn out to be an insanely lucrative business. It’s a good thing his house is so big, because he’s going to need someplace to put his huge piles of stupid money.

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Judge Parker, 10/1/10

I realize that I haven’t been keeping you abreast (Ha! See what I did there?) of developments in Judge Parker, so: Neddy and her breasts have dumped Jules, but the three of them will still be accompanying him to his big shoe show in Milan. Because she adores him! And the best thing you can do when you adore someone is to hang out with him immediately after you break up with him, torturing him with the failure of your relationship together, in the midst of a stressful professional engagement that could make or break his career. That’s just what best friends do!

Family Circus, 10/1/10

Man, I have never seen the Family Circus kids looking more wracked with ennui than they do here. “You’ll start makin’ it when you start losin’ teeth,” Dolly says, with the dead-eyed expression of someone who now just sits around the house all day, feeling her teeth with her tongue and waiting for the next one to fall out so she can add to her pile. PJ, meanwhile, is utterly unimpressed with her hoard of cash. “What’s the point?” he thinks to himself. “All this money hasn’t made Dolly happy. No amount of money could make any of us happy. Why go on? Why do anything at all?”

Apartment 3-G, 10/1/10

Hey, remember when a newly made-over and re-energized Tommie was going to take the world by storm and have interesting adventures? Yeah, me neither. Oh, look, it’s a plotline involving two ancillary Apartment 3-G characters! Let’s watch Lu Ann and Margo deal with this for the next six to nine weeks.

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Blondie, 9/23/10

Blondie launches an unprovoked, totally unjustified attack on the Comics Curmudgeon Fall 2010 Fundraiser! Boy, you’ve got some nerve, Blondie! Just wait ’til Josh gets back from vacation — just you wait!

Judge Parker, 9/23/10

Oooh, this is promising: L’il Judge Randy’s packin’ heat! OK listen up, Judge Parker — Chekov’s gun is now officially on the table, and we expect either a) incompetent mayhem by a public official with collateral damage to innocent victims, or b) sexy target practice with CIApril Bowers involving sexual innuendo, leg silhouettes, hair-shaking, and nuzzling. Nuzzling, dammit! Deal? OK, now deliver!

Hi and Lois, 9/23/10

Atop the Salmon Throne of Ranch House Doom in the deepest suburbs of Mordor Meadows, the Dark Lady summons her thrall: “Hi, honey! Oh, nothing much, just thinking of you! Ash nazg durbatulûk, sweetie, bye for now!”

Mark Trail, 9/23/10

Mark submits articles to Woods and Wildlife but is apparently not a subscriber. Time to call Woods and Wildlife Editor Bill Ellis: “Say, Bill, I have a question about those stories I keep sending you! Do you ever publish any of them?”

He’ll be heartbroken to learn that his “Nature Journalist” job is just a fiction his occupational therapist Cherry cooked up to get him outdoors and keep his mind off his massive head injury and memory impairment. No matter: he’ll call Bill again tomorrow, just like always.

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— Uncle Lumpy