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Mary Worth, 8/10/17

Someday, I guess, I’m going to stop featuring the amazing Dawn-Ned-Jared love triangle on this blog daily, I suppose when it stops being amazing, but today … is not that day! I just want to make clear that, despite the fact that I’m physically repulsed by Jared’s simpering antics, I’m not rooting for Dr. Ned to win Dawn’s heart (or whatever), because that would also be distasteful. I mean, look at this perfectly gross little flirtation session they’ve got going on right now! This is literally a step away from using a classic student-teacher roleplay where the student says “Can I use the bathroom?” and the teacher says “I don’t know, can you?” as a lead-in to sex, or worse. What I’m trying to say is, everything about this is distasteful.

And yet I can’t look away from it! Not least because of great touches like Jared lurking in the background, sullenly watching the romantic scene unfold.

COMPUTER, ENHANCE

COMPUTER, DE-ENHANCE, NOBODY NEEDS TO SEE JARED’S SEX-RAGE IN SUCH DETAIL

Mark Trail, 8/10/17

Do you think the drama of this little scene is undercut by the fact that we already knew this lady was a bad guy? I guess that’s why we get some other surprises here, like the fact that she’s sexually aroused by seeing her boss get punched out. “An exhilarating display” indeed! Look at her, she’s cross-eyed with lust!

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Mark Trail, 8/9/17

Oh, man, we’ve gotten to the part of the Mark Trail storyline where Mark punches a guy and so you know that’s gonna get top billing on today’s blog post on Josh Reads Dot Com! As we often do on these sacred occasions, let us revisit the greatest sentence on Wikipedia, which can be found on the Mark Trail article: “His assignments inevitably lead him to discover environmental misdeeds, most often solved with a crushing right cross.” Today’s strip is notable because Mark starts with a right, and then, when Baldy McBankrobber neglects to fall over, follows up with a left as well. Bank robbing is a kind of environmental misdeed, right? Whatever, please spend the rest of your day enjoying Mark punching a guy in the mouth twice in two panels.

Dennis the Menace, 8/9/17

Who even knows to what year Dennis the Menace is supposed to be mapping onto exactly, but was there a time when kids Dennis’s age were supposed to sit in the back seat of cars but were not yet confined to specialized child seats? Because he definitely doesn’t looks like he’s a child seat, right? I think the real menace here is that Dennis and Alice have been placed in different rows just so we can see both of their faces easily. Doing things to make things easier for writers at the expense of narrative coherence is a menace against the literary contract with our readers!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/9/17

So I’ve been informed by more comics-savvy people than I that this dude is supposed to be legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby, whose 100th birthday would’ve been this week and who is being punished by an appearance in Funky Winkerbean as a result. Anyway, Jack Kirby’s advice to get a comics job is to have a portfolio of really great work, which seems … correct without actually being helpful?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/9/17

Ha ha, look at the kid’s face! He knows the answer is “no”!

Mary Worth, 8/9/17

God damn it Jared, why does all the stuff you say when you’re trying to be chipper sound like a threat

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/4/17

A couple years ago, Snuffy Smith brought back a beloved (?) character from days of yore, Granny Creeps, an old folk magician crone who lives in a cave. She adds an interesting element into Hootin’ Holler’s cast of characters and opens up possibilites for new kinds of stories and jokes, but thanks to the violent nature of the Holler’s society, those stories and jokes are mostly going to be about the enlistment of her dubious magical powers in the service of various long-running clan feuds.

Mark Trail, 8/4/17

HELL YEAH MAN IT’S A TREE GETTING STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AND THEN A HORSE JUMPING OVER A CLIFF

THERE’S CONTEXT FOR THIS BUT YOU DON’T REALLY NEED IT

IT’S A HORSE

JUMPING

OVER

A CLIFF