Archive: Mark Trail

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Mark Trail, 6/12/17

This Mark Trail kidnap plot has been going on for approximately all of eternity at this point, but we still don’t really understand what motivates our bald-headed kidnap ringleader. What drove him to a life of crime? Why does he pretty much always look like he can’t poop and he’s real mad about it? Today we get a hint of his sad, empty emotional life: as a man who could only muster a casual “too bad Billy got shot” when a member of his crime-brotherhood was gunned down by the police, he can never understand the bonds that tie together real friends. You can keep robbing all the banks you want, but all that money isn’t going to fill the empty space inside you!

Mary Worth, 6/12/17

Unironic shoutout to the Mary Worth art team, who with Esme in panel two managed to perfectly capture a facial expression that says “Actually, it’s exactly what it looks like.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/12/17

The folk in Hootin’ Holler really only ever nominally adhered to the flatlanders’ sky-religion. When times get tough, they go out to the hidden lakes and commune with their ancient fish god.

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Mark Trail, 6/9/17

Oh, man, I haven’t kept you up to date on Mark’s Kidnap Adventure, huh? Well, that’s because literally nothing has happened except for Johnny getting a little too far ahead of the group for Bald Kidnapper Guy’s comfort, but now we know that our heroes are going to triumph through the power of … trick riding! Pretty sexy, eh? Trick riding? That’s a sexy thing? [looks it up on Wikipedia] Oh, it’s just business about riding a horse in a fancy way, never mind.

Mary Worth, 6/9/17

Meanwhile, Katie and Derek are having a big blowout argument — the sexy kind, the kind that stirs the passions and reaches a climax when anger turns to lust and [squints and looks more closely at strip] nope, nope, never mind, this is the kind of argument that erects a wall of emotional distrust between two people and it’s hard to ever come back from it to a loving, intimate relationship, forget I said anything.

Phantom, 6/9/17

Fine, here’s an actual sexy soap opera strip. Yes, it’s doing a particularly weird version of the thing where if the readers at home glimpse the Phantom’s eyeballs, we’ll all die, but just … there are pecs, OK? Large, sexy, hairy pecs. And underboob shadow! Something for everyone!

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Mark Trail, 5/19/17

Oh, hey, what’s up with Mark’s whole kidnap situation? Well, he and the bald kidnapper and the blonde kidnappee arrived at Johnny Lone Elk’s log cabin on the reservation, and Mark has been forced to give some weird story about how these total strangers are his new “camera crew,” and all the Lone Elk clan can do about it is joke about the bald dude. Ha ha! It’s funny because this lady’s entirely correct suspicions are being dismissed! I admit to being impressed by their casual use of the correct term for a fear of baldness, especially since they all have such amazing hair that surely they harbor no such fear themselves.

Mary Worth, 5/19/17

Oh, man, I guess Derek is just going to rescue Katie from her bathroom prison? And maybe this moment of panic and fear will bring them closer together, rather than driving them apart, as sinister, sensuous Entertainer Esmé hoped? This is seriously disappointing to me. Esmé had better have some more homewrecking plans up her conspicuous lack of sleeves!

Blondie, 5/19/17

Pretty sure “what kind of sandwich?” generated my first character-driven laugh from Blondie in more than a decade, kudos all around!