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Gil Thorp, 7/17/17

Oh, man, it looks like I stopped paying attention to Gil Thorp back in, uh, May? We all learned some valuable lessons about how domestic abuse is bad but also it’s possible to construct an elaborate narrative scenario that makes someone seem like a domestic abuser when they really weren’t, so don’t jump to conclusions, but also you shouldn’t let anger get the best of you or pretend to like some girl just because your friend likes her friend. Anyway, baseball’s over and now we’re coming to … football? Ugh, remember when Gil Thorp used to do delightfully insane summer storylines, like Coach Kaz moonlighting as a rock star’s bodyguard or Marty Moon getting grifted at golf or Gil wrestling a possibly senile old pro wrestler, for charity? Anyway, this year’s football plot actually looks a lot like last one, when an ex-trainer turned unpaid assistant football coach helped a goofy linebacker (?) who wanted to be a quarterback but who was extremely bad at it get marginally better at it, but never actually play a meaningful down. Anyway, are these … the same people? Does Kevin want to be a fullback now? Who are the tall Watchers cooly and dispassionately observing them from the stands? Are we gonna get a fucking bonfire this year or what?

Mark Trail, 7/17/17

There was a brief moment when I thought we were about to have a big reveal where the lady we’ve thought was a hostage this whole time was actually a member of the gang, but, nope, she was already tied up and gagged while Baldy McBankrobberboss was talking to another criminal associate, which, whatever happened to that guy, anyway? But the important thing is that I find it 100% plausible that these two FBI dudes spent hours staring at video footage of a bank robbery and thinking “There’s something off about this robber, who must be a man because bank robbing is something men, not women, do. But what it is it? Can’t put my finger on it, let’s send it to the nerds down in Analysis and see what they come up with.”

Spider-Man, 7/17/17

I’m not an expert in How Hollywood Works or anything, but I’m finding a studio flack telling an actress “thank God you weren’t killed in that freak armadilloid attack that destroyed half of Brentwood, because we need you at a junket in San Francisco right away!” to be extremely believable.

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Mark Trail, 7/10/17

Ahhhh, finally we get the payoff to this long story of the Great Water-World Disaster, a delightful panel depicting our wayward walrus giving birth in the shattered, water-logged shell of a formerly high-prestige sport utility vehicle. Given Mark’s previous downplaying of the disastrous nature of this episode, you’d think that he’d be a lot cheerier about helping this majestic sea-beast in its time of need; but instead, he and Johnny are watching the birth process with expressions of open horror. One suspects that this is the first time they’ve become truly acquainted with the procedure through which baby walruses are born, and are beginning to connect the dots to the human children they occasionally encounter as well.

Lesley, meanwhile, has purported throughout her retelling of this anecdote to be in a high dudgeon, but her expression and body language in today’s strip resemble nothing so much as Bernini’s frankly erotic depiction of Saint Teresa in ecstacy, so maybe we need to re-evaluate everything we thought we know about her attitude towards Mark and her obviously complex inner life.

Pluggers, 7/10/17

Pluggers may leave a trail of pollution wherever they go, but by God they aren’t going to SHARE THEIR CAR with SOMEBODY ELSE like BIG GOVERNMENT WANTS THEM TO like some kind of COMMUNIST

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Mark Trail, 7/8/17

Oh, huh, I’m actually a little disappointed that Lesley’s fancy Escalade was only bashed into rubble by a she-walrus in paroxysms of panic and labor pain. My true hope was that the upholstery had been ruined by massive amounts of walrus placenta. I’m not a biologist, but I assume walrus afterbirth smells extremely bad.

Dennis the Menace, 7/8/17

This panel elicited a genuine laugh from me, because “we took our car for a boat ride!” is exactly the sort of entirely banal incident that would nevertheless completely blow Joey’s feeble mind.

Gasoline Alley, 7/8/17

I have absolutely zero interest in explaining whatever the hell it is that’s happening in Gasoline Alley right now. I just wanted to share the final panel with you, in which a leering, bearded, one-eyed (?) man announces to no one in particular that fish “will be even better tastin’ in my mouth!” HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYBODY