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Mark Trail, 8/18/16

Oh say, it looks like this new Mark Trail storyline isn’t going to be about whales after all! It’s going to be about ants, specifically invasive fire ants, who presumably set up a nest in the corpses of this amorous couple two years ago and have now evolved into unstoppable killers. Anyway, today’s panel two is definitely the best ever instance of Mark keeping a straight face while a government bureaucrat spells out an entire URL over the phone for some reason. While there really isn’t room in the panel to structure the word balloons this way, I like to think that the actual dialogue is something like this:

“That’s doubleyou doubleyou doubleyou dot”

“Abbey–”

“hungry pests dot com”

“Abbey, this all–”

“slash the dash threat”

[a pause]

“This all sounds like–”

“slash imported dash fire dash…”

Gil Thorp, 8/18/16

Marty Moon runs a radio show entirely dedicated to high school sports (and, apparently, the legal ramifications of the deaths of high school athletes). But it’s a well known fact that Marty is “out of touch” with the kids who should be making up the bulk of his audience. Today we learn that he doesn’t even have an app that teens can download to their beloved smartphones to get push notifications about the news they care about, along with messages from Marty’s sponsors and corporate partners! No, they’re getting texts from their parents about stuff Marty’s saying on the radio, which strikes me as very difficult to monetize.

Dick Tracy, 8/18/16

“I mean, why would I shoot my food, right? I could, I guess. Like if I shot my food a bunch of times, that’d break it up into bite-sized pieces. But that seems like way more work than it’s worth. Still, you know, for fighting and stuff, I think guns are the way to go.”

Mary Worth, 8/18/16

Ugh, Tommy, all the street hustlers in My Own Private Idaho did cool drugs, like heroin. You get your pills from the damn CVS, Tommy. That’s not cool at all.

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Spider-Man, 8/4/16

Ah, yes, the A+ way to convey through dialogue that a newly introduced character is a huge nerdlinger: hilariously stilted phrases like “I’m cognizant,” “I require an equivalent quantity,” etc.! It’s also always fun to be reminded that while Peter whines endlessly about his mistreatment at the hands of J. Jonah Jameson, he is in fact a not particularly good photographer and his only value is his ability to deliver photos of himself. I’m assuming that Ant-Man, like all other superheroes, holds Spider-Man in the appropriate level of disdain, and so Peter’s job just got a lot harder.

Mark Trail, 8/4/16

Hey, remember the last Mark Trail storyline, where Mark spent roughly 17 weeks stuck inside a cave? Well, brace yourself, because he’s about to spend the next who knows how many months stuck inside a whale.

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Family Circus, 7/29/16

This whole week of Billy at camp, dangerously self-actualized and unwilling to put up with any degree of camp-related bullshit whatsoever, has almost transformed him in my mind into the hero we need. Look at the way he’s striding confidently out of the craft area! The best part is that he got most of the way through making his wallet, so his exit has maximum effect. Billy could make a wallet, he’s totally capable of making one, but he chooses not to, because it’s unnecessary. He’s like a damn Ayn Rand protagonist at this point.

Mark Trail, 7/29/16

At last, Mark Trail has unleashed the “Mark and Cherry are lounging around in swimsuits” strip to respond to the famous “Rex and June are lounging around in their underwear” Rex Morgan, M.D. strip. The Rex Morgan strip ran more than eight years ago, because soap opera strip feuds are just as slow-moving as actual soap opera strips.

Crankshaft, 7/29/16

Good news! Crankshaft’s dying!