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Curtis, 12/14/16

Curtis is a strip that I have many, many soft spots for, even when it comes to its eternal running gags, and since I admitted that I basically found this hemorrhoid joke in Crankshaft funny, I will admit this: I always laugh when Barry does something childishly disgusting to annoy Curtis. Panel three, with its extremely vivid nose-picking sound effects and motion lines, is all the more a marvel in that it managed to get past whatever remains of the comics pages’ editorial oversight.

Mark Trail, 12/14/16

Oh, in case you’re wondering, Mark and Abbey successfully leapt off that exploding island, into the ocean! Probably they’re about to be rescued by Cal, in Abbey’s stolen borrowed boat, but Abbey is taking no chances, and is clearly attempting to evolve into a magnificent cetacean, adapted to permanent life at sea, in the final panel.

Gil Thorp, 12/14/16

Ah, at last we get to the meat of the Gil Thorp basketball season storyline: the trial and tribulations of Aaron Aagard, who’s always first in alphabetical order for everything! Riveting stuff, I’m very excited.

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Gasoline Alley, 12/6/16

As is my wont with Gasoline Alley, I have no desire to bring you up to speed on the current storyline about beardy PA Chipper Wallet, and fortunately have no need to either, since nothing happening in today’s strip had any kind of earlier setup. I’m guessing that the strip was tied by some mysterious web of obligation to mention Reg Carter of the PA History Society — like perhaps the PAHS deposited a tidy sum into a certain Swiss bank account controlled by an intermediary shell corporation owned by Gasoline Alley intellectual property holder Tribune Media, or maybe Mr. Carter lost a bet. Anyway, obviously what this transaction needs to make it interesting is a little sex appeal, and what better way to deliver that than to have Chipper’s redheaded assistant practically throwing herself at him? Look at her fluttering her eyelids in panel one. That’s the stuff that gets red-blooded comics readers hot under the collar, I tell you what. The PA History Society’s really getting its money’s worth.

Mark Trail, 12/6/16

If there’s something funnier in the history of comics than Mark’s pose in panel two here, I can’t imagine what it might be! Since he’s talking, I’m pretty sure he’s not actually running yet, just posing extremely dynamically to impress upon Abbey how very fast they’re going to have to run in order to not suffer an awful death by lava.

Pluggers, 12/6/16

“Nothing gets a dog hornier for a chicken than the smell of fruit pastry” –a nationally syndicated comic panel, apparently

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Crankshaft, 12/3/16

One of the ongoing Crankshaft plots that I find particularly unpleasant is “Crankshaft’s elderly neighbor has joy brought into her life by tween twins who alternately are baffled by her and condescend to her, which she ignores because she’s very lonely and figures this is as good as it’s going to get.” Anyway, like most old people, Ms. McKenzie is great at providing some backstory! Today, for instance, we learn that the present-day Montoni is not just some huckster who slapped his appropriately ethnic name on a storefront to help sell deeply mediocre pizza; in fact, he inherited his business from his immigrant parents, who ran it as a genuine Italian restaurant before he took over and cut costs by rebuilding the menu around deeply mediocre pizza. As you can see, Montoni still keeps some single-serving pasta Lean Cuisines in the freezer in the back, to placate the few customers who still remember the what the place was like before he ruined it.

Mark Trail, 12/3/16

Mark and Abbey: Still fleeing from a paroxysm of volcanic destruction, in case you’re wondering! It’s good to know that even in moments of high tension, the strip still sticks to its core values: our heroes may be fleeing from an unstoppable river of deadly, fast-flowing molten rock, but doesn’t mean that Abbey needs to cut corners by contracting “we are” to “we’re”.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/16

OH MY GOD REX AND JUNE DECIDED IT WAS “FINE” FOR THEIR PRECIOUS LITTLE SARAH TO TAKE THE BUS TO SCHOOL WITH THE NORMAL CHILDREN AND THEN SHE WAS IMMEDIATELY HIT BY A CAR

THE LESSON IS: THE WORLD IS FULL OF DANGERS YOUR CHILD MUST BE PROTECTED FROM BY A MOB CHAUFFEUR

AND IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD A MOB CHAUFFEUR THAT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE OF A MORAL FAILING ON YOUR PART AND MAYBE YOUR CHILD DESERVES TO BE HIT BY A CAR, A CAR SAFELY TRANSPORTING OTHER, MORE WORTHY CHILDREN TO THEIR DESTINATION