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Mark Trail, 6/21/14

Looks like Mark’s new safari buddies Chris and Lori are going to reproduce the Jessica and Marlin dynamic: virtuous wife who likes Mark married to evil husband who is immediately suspicious of Mark. Is Chris a secret rhino-horn poacher/Jacob Hickman kidnapper? Probably! Still, it’s not fair to say he’s unemployed, since being Guile from the Street Fighter video game series is probably a pretty good gig.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/21/14

Hey, were you wondering how the drama with Les’s terrible cancer-porn screenplay is affecting Les and Cayla’s sex life? No? Well, too bad, because it’s been bad for their sex life. Bad. They’re not having sex. If you know what I mean. Wait, of course you know what I mean, because I was very up front about it. Anyway, I guess if you had to learn the answer to the yes/no question “Have Les and Cayla had sex lately?” then it’s marginally better that the answer be “no,” but really, not by much.

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Judge Parker, 6/20/14

Good news, everyone! Everyone’s shared love for Judge Parker Senior’s unreadable book has helped broker a truce between warring factions, and now the wedding reception can continue. Now we can focus on the important questions, like: did Randy get married in a mint green suit? For real?

Mary Worth, 6/20/14

Wow, this is a disappointing revelation on a number of levels. First, it seems kind of lame that the heavenly prophecy Olive received was just “don’t go near the pool, kid.” But even worse is how casual she seems about it. “Mommy, mommy, a glowing, heavenly messenger of the divine with huge, terrifying wings came down from heaven and whispered in my ear and told me never to go swimming!” “That’s nice, dear. Say, do you want to take swimming lessons?” “Enh, maybe, let me think about it.”

Mark Trail, 6/20/14

Welp, looks like Woods and Wildlife’s expose on rhino poaching has been derailed because their African contact has been kidnapped or killed or something. But don’t worry, Mark’s glommed his way onto some white couple’s safari, so he’ll be coming back with a bunch of wildlife pictures that look exactly like the wildlife pictures available from wire services or Wikipedia. He’ll still be expensing the whole trip, of course.

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Crock, 6/16/14

Somehow, it ain’t like the old days, right everybody? It used to be that when someone said “boombox,” you had a pretty good idea what they meant: a luggable radio with a built-in tape deck, built as large as it could get while still being portable, so the huge speakers could put out really loud bass. But boomboxes have been out of favor for 20 years, so who even knows what that word means anymore, or what any word means, for that matter. Kids today and their slang and their polysemy make language a baffling morass. Is a boombox a metallic glove now? Sure, why not!

Lockhorns, 6/16/14

This joke, obviously, is some kind or riff on Loretta’s eggs (or maybe biscuits? what pairs with brownish goo that you need to eat with a knife and fork?) being so poorly prepared that they have the consistency of vulcanized rubber; nevertheless, my immediate assumption was that Leroy was referring to Vulcans from Star Trek, which makes sense because obviously the emotional hellscape of his failed marriage is something he desperately wants to escape by whatever means necessary. Perhaps he’s trying to put himself through the Kolinahr, the Vulcan monastic discipline under which the last vestiges of emotion are purged away. “How long does it take to complete the Vulcanization process?” he wonders aloud. “When will I become a creature of pure logic? When will these awful, awful feelings stop?”

Mark Trail, 6/16/14

MARK IS IN AFRICA, everybody, and by “Africa” we mean some nonspecific country in Africa where there is fine dining but also ladies who carry things on their heads. Mark is supposed to be meeting Jacob Hickman to save the rhinos, but Jacob Hickman has been kidnapped so Mark is just going to sulk at his hotel restaurant instead. “Now I’m stuck here! I’m bored! There’s nobody to punch!”