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Family Circus, 11/16/17

I have to admit that I’m extremely hung up on Billy proposing to go eat at the home of someone named “Corbin.” Corbin? Is this a thing that Americans are naming their children now? I of course immediately turned to the indispensable Baby Name Wizard for answers, and learned that Corbin has seen a huge uptick in usage recently, beginning the 1980s (presumably with the fame of L.A. Law heartthrob Corbin Bernsen) but really hitting new heights in the 2010s, so … it’s possible? Still, that’s all relative: in 2011, 475 out of every million boys born in the U.S. were named Corbin, whereas William, which has plummeted in popularity from its late 19th century peak, is still bestowed upon boys around ten times as often.

It’s also possible that this is a reference to British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Billy represents young people turning away from neoliberal austerity policies and towards the promises of socialism. The name “Corbin” derives from the Old French word for “crow,” so we can’t rule out the possibility that Billy is has joined a bird-cult and feels unstoppably drawn to the great Nest of his sinister Raven God, to feed.

Mark Trail, 11/16/17

Dick Tracy just doesn’t serve up graphic, violent deaths on the regular anymore, so it’s good that Mark Trail has stepped into the breach, showing us a man about to be horribly killed by a tornado. Looking forward to him hurtling downward, screaming in terror, his ponytail flapping wildly behind him, until he makes a neat, viscera-filled crater on the ground of ghost town, right in front of Mark and everybody else.

Crock, 11/16/17

Crock: The Strip Where The Cacti Don’t Fuck Anymore™

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Hi and Lois, 11/8/17

One of the true underrated tormented souls in the comics is Trixie, who has a fully adult mind but has been trapped for more than half a century in an infant’s body, unable even to vocalize her thoughts and communicate with others. So it shouldn’t be surprising that she’s had decades to contemplate the nature of her tiny, awful flesh-prison and go down some very dark paths. What if a person had two mouths? What if they had no mouths? What if mouths weren’t a right, but a privilege granted based on good behavior? We would recognize the vile as they walked the earth with a smooth, unbroken face, and the virtuous for their multiplicity of mouths, all yawning and babbling independently of one another.

Mark Trail, 11/8/17

Hey, kids, were you looking forward to Sideburns Sherriff pumping hot lead into the bald bank robber? Well, too bad, his precious gun glitched! I guess this shows the benefits of using normal, modern firearms of the sort typically issued to law enforcement officers rather than theatrically old-timey rifles. Anyhoo, Pilot Ponytail is now parachuting conveniently into position behind the sheriff, so it looks like evil’s about to triumph.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/8/17

Say what you will about Marvin’s solid decade-plus of doing almost nothing but jokes about peeing and pooing, but I’m pretty sure that strip’s never actually depicted a turd before. Congrats (?) to Mother Goose and Grimm for being the innovator!

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Six Chix, 11/7/17

Each of the titular six chix only gets a comic in one day a week in this strip. So, I can see how frustrating it would be if your assigned day was Tuesday, but you came up with a joke about Daylight Savings Time that’s so side-splittingly hilarious but also poignant, timely, and not at all baffling or opaque that it seems a crime not to publish it a few days later! Thank goodness King Features decided to treat this whole week as “Daylight Savings Week” and allow continued time-laffs through at least Saturday so we could enjoy this strip.

Mary Worth, 11/7/17

Technically, Wilbur isn’t an explorer at all, since he’s travelling to countries with long-established populations that are well-connected to our global civilization. Iris, on the other hand, is an explorer, as she’s going to explore her long-neglected erotic sensibilities — which, again, is in contrast with Wilbur, whose signature sex move is to remain absolutely still until the danger passes.

Mark Trail, 11/7/17

As an LA resident, I personally find this Mark Trail very relatable. Driving all the way to LAX is a huge pain in the ass, and there are a variety of easy transit and ridesharing options you can take without too much expense or hassle. If you pick someone up at the airport, they had better be the perfect guest, in my opinion!

Beetle Bailey, 11/7/17

I know Major Greenbrass’s line in panel one is phrased so unnaturally in order to set up the punchline, but I’d like to imagine that he’s careful to avoid big technical words that General Halftrack doesn’t understand, like “electricity.”