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As this Thanksgiving holiday weekend draws to a close, I really am grateful for a lot of things in the comics pages. For instance, I have to give thanks to Rex Morgan, M.D., for producing this panel:

And to Judge Parker, for this lovely image:

And to Sunday’s Mark Trail, which featured a conversation taking place between a nut-nibbling squirrel and a leaf, while an eight-year-old adds his own commentary, featuring the word “Etc.”:

And, now some full-length comics thanks.

Mark Trail, 11/24/06

Is there anything sexier than a heavily armed and emasculating Kelly Welly? Mark has the vaguely amused and/or smug expression of a man who’s no longer engaged in the little drama going on before him, but appreciates good work when he sees it. By the way, Ella isn’t the only one in the funnies with psychic powers: Mark was so sure that this adventure would be resolved on the 24th, he had the date stitched just above his left breast pocket.

Apartment 3-G, 11/25/06

Man, I guess this goes to show why I wasn’t much of a player back in my single days. Because apparently worming your way into other people’s Thanksgiving dinner by acting mopey rates makes you “Mr. Smooth,” whereas I would have thought it made you “pathetic.”

You can insert your own “stuffing the turkey” and/or “gobble gobble” jokes here.

I earlier touched upon the fact that everyone in this little scenario seems to mysteriously have no family to share Thanksgiving with, but it occurred to me today that Margo in fact lives in the same city as Gabriella, her comical immigrant mother. Presumably as a foreigner she’s unfamiliar with the concept, and nobody’s told her about it in the decades she’s lived in the United States so that they don’t have to invite her to dinner.

Spider-Man, 11/26/06

And finally, we should all give thanks to Peter Parker today, who spent his Sunday thoughtfully narrating the entire current Spider-Man scenario in his head in great detail for those of us who were having trouble keeping up. If only the type in the word balloons had been a little bigger, we might have been able to eliminate the superfluous pictures entirely.

I spent part of this weekend with my mom’s side of the family for our traditional Christmas at Thanksgiving celebration, and one of my little cousins squealed with glee at receiving a set of Spider-Man action figures. Since my main contact with this franchise is through the newspaper strip, I was surprised that that Spidey didn’t come with a couch and television set as accessories, or feature extra whining powers.

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Slylock Fox, 11/20/06

There are some puzzling narrative decisions going on in this Slylock Fox. Apparently the artist has tired of actually drawing the mystery scenarios and has decided to settle for the thrilling visual spectacle of Slylock reading a word problem to a group of schoolchildren. Still, I’m so God-damned trained by this feature that I keep staring at the clock on the wall, thinking that the fact that it’s ten after nine is an important clue of some sort.

Perhaps once he’s assessed their fitness for detective work, he can explain how you can make a living from butting into other people’s disputes and solving them with elementary deduction. Max Mouse, meanwhile, is just courting death. It’s bad enough that Slylock brought the tiny rodent into a class full of predator animals, but Max’s inability to keep away from the teacher’s apple should by all rights get him devoured before recess.

Judge Parker, 11/20/06

As Raju heads off into the boat-wrestling sunset, I hope that we get lots and lots more Celeste Black to fill the void. I’m loving her swoopy arm gestures in the first panel here; presumably she’s performing an interpretive dance piece entitled “Jesus Christ I’m so hung over WHY ARE THE LIGHTS ON SO FUCKING BRIGHT IN HERE I hate you all”.

Archie, 11/20/06

Archie is, of course, a moron, but the setup for this joke was so convoluted that it’s hard to blame him for his poster verbiage faux pas. I’m more concerned about the fact that this placard was created in an art class, and yet is essentially just a bunch of words on a big piece of paper. The curved line at the bottom doesn’t make it “art,” and “Mr. Weatherbee” isn’t even centered properly. Pretty sloppy, Andrews.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/20/06

Sorry I couldn’t work up the energy to cover last week’s Rex Morgan, during most of which June was holding our mop-haired purse-snatcher at broompoint. If you only follow this strip through my commentary on it, you should know that we learned a few things last week about our cast of characters. We found out that Nikki and his trashy mom are Katrina-driven evacuees from New Orleans, forced to live in the slums of Rex Morganville because George Bush doesn’t care about white people. We also learned that if you take June’s purse she will never let you forget about it.

There’s some problematic punctuation going on in our omniscient narrative box at the upper left. No sentence in which the main verb is modified by the word “reluctantly” should ever end in an exclamation mark.

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Judge Parker, 11/12/06

Oh man, Sunday’s pre-“Meanwhile” Judge Parker packs in as much queasy adolescent sexuality as a John Irving novel. The image of Ned sticking out her ass for her mother, and asking “You don’t think it’s too revealing … too sexy?” is somewhat alluring, but mostly horrifying. Abbey’s blatant look of mingled horror and arousal in panel five adds to the squirm. She probably would like to complain about her daughter’s trampy outfit, but realizes that she doesn’t really have the moral authority to do so since you can totally see her buttcrack in panel three.

By the way, Neddy, French women dress in sexy and stylish clothes, not like … that. Prepare to be mocked.

(Incidentally, Abbey isn’t Ned’s bio-mom … and I’m pretty certain Ned was adopted as a teenager. I’m not sure if that makes the underlying tension here better or not.)

Post-“Meanwhile,” the phrase “Nice work, Celeste … you smell like a still!” may be the best marital put-down this side of the Lockhorns. Still, it’s nice that Reggie gave her a full two hours get her drunken mess of a life together enough to get to the press conference.

Beetle Bailey, 11/12/06

There’s a lot to hate about today’s Beetle Bailey. It follows the weird stumbly, improvised, cumulative-joke rhythm that’s been somewhat typical of the Sunday strips of late. I also wonder what happened to Beetle’s perfectly presentable t-shirt-and-shorts combo while he was in the truck, or why Miss Buxley is the only person Beetle can think of to call in his predicament, or how Miss Buxley could possibly be so femme that she doesn’t own any clothing item that isn’t a dress, or any shoes that aren’t high heels. However, I’d like to reserve the brunt of my ire for the phrase “But it sure left its output,” which has never been and will never be uttered by any speaker of idiomatic English ever.

Mary Worth, 11/12/06

As Mary walks towards her date with destiny, it’s amazing just how rattled she is. First off, in the first panel she appears to actually be practicing her first greeting to her new archrival. In panel three, she looks like she’s sneaking down the hall way, ready to leap around the corner and bash in roller-suitcase-woman’s skull with her pan. But mostly I’m charmed by the look of grim determination on her face, which gives way to an utterly insincere smile in the final panel. Next week is going to be great.

Family Circus, 11/12/06

The lesson: You can’t have nice things when your kids are morons.