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Archive: Mark Trail

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A bad case of the Mondays (in the INFINITE DARKNESS)

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Mark Trail, 6/13/16

Our long national cave-nightmare may finally be over: Mark, Gabe, and Carina have found what appears to be an underwater passage out, and Mark is going to attempt to swim to daylight, and then come back, somehow. If he doesn’t come back, well, he can’t tell them what choices to make. Should they draw straws to see who gets eaten during the inevitable turn to cannibalism? Should they live in the cave forever, eventually breeding a race of blind, cave-adapted mole-people? Mark is not here to judge. Mark knows they have to do what’s right for them, alone in that cave.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/13/16

Well, it seems that this was a way for the cast and crew of the current Starbuck Jones reboot to assemble all the old men who used to be fanboys back in the day, to attempt to cheer up bitter old former Starbuck Jones actor Cliff Anger (and also presumably build positive media buzz and word of mouth for said reboot among said fanboys). Cliff was briefly thrilled, but it’s good to see that when faced with actual people who enjoyed his work, he’s retreating back into heavy-lidded contempt.

Dennis the Menace, 6/13/16

How much do I love the expression on Henry’s face here? “That’s … that’s what you’ve got? That’s the most menacing thing you have to say to me this morning? Christ, it’s gonna be a long week.”

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Congrats to Mark for just thinking “what th'” instead of blurting it into Carina’s mouth

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Mark Trail, 5/31/16

OH SNAP, it’s that time again in this Mark Trail adventure: the time when a young lady misinterprets an innocent act of life-saving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as an adulterous romantic advance on Mark’s part! Remember, when you’ve stopped breathing due to a build up of water in your lungs, the first thing you’ll feel as you regain consciousness due to someone else forcing air into your respiratory system is languorous erotic delight, right before you puke up a bunch of fluid. Anyway, I can’t decide what I like more: Mark’s bug-eyed startlement at feeling a woman react to his touch with arousal, or his grim-faced explanation that, yes, he is indeed legally bound to another human in the contract that our society calls “marriage,” and he’s very, very happy about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/31/16

Oh, whoops, it looks like even with its new writer, the Rex Morgan rule about the Morgans always getting free money at all times is still in full effect! The juxtaposition between the sad, dark past when children were forced to watch their favorite comics burn at the whims of puritans, and today, when Rex is rubbing his chin and smirking and thinking about how much money he could get for these smutty comics, is a delight.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/31/16

Finally, the Zodiac Killer has come out of hiding and has cryptographically announced his intention to kill again — right here in Centerville! The best part of this time jump discontinuity is that whenever Pam or Jeff are irritating in Crankshaft, we can console ourselves with the knowledge of their eventual grisly end.

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THE GOLD STAFF OF IMMORTALITY! No, wait mortality, it represents mortality, never mind

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Gasoline Alley, 5/26/16

Gasoline Alley seems a little too square to engage in metanarrative chicanery, but how else should we interpret today’s strip? After weeks and weeks of a boring, convoluted prison break storyline featuring some of the strip’s most irritating recurring characters, we suddenly switch back to Walt, complaining that the ceremony in which he received the Golden Cane Of Agedness from the mayor, which we never saw in the strip, wasn’t covered properly in the media. Poor Walt! Anyway, I’m very intrigued that whatever municipality he lives in has an expensive object that can literally only be taken from its owner by prying it out of their dead, cold hands.

Mark Trail, 5/26/16

OK, let’s be real: the last few weeks of “Mark ’n’ friends try and fail to escape from the cave” have been super boring. But today at least Chekhov’s rock-climbing gun, which was prominently mounted on the wall of the set in the first act, finally goes off. We also some mid-air derring do, as Mark and Carina almost tumble to their death off a cave waterfall but Mark saves them at the last minute by jamming his rock … climbing … axe … thingy into the cliff wall. And kudos to the strip for taking as much care to acknowledge the biology of Homo sapiens as it does for the other animals it covers; whereas most action movies feature characters grabbing onto things in mid-fall and suffering no ill-effects, Mark has saved himself and Carina at the cost of shattering his rib cage, just as he would in real life.

Family Circus, 5/26/16

Haha, I love PJ’s look of heavy-lidded disdain here. “God damn it, Jeffy, enough with this ‘everyone has a valid perspective’ bullshit. Kill the wolf! Kill it!”