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Mark Trail, 6/29/13

Once upon a time, my dad was driving through one of the more rural parts of Western New York when a deer jumped out in front of his jeep, and he ran into it and killed it; the sheriff came by and told him that because it was deer season, he was allowed to take home the carcass if he wanted to. He demurred on this, but it’s always made me wonder if you could just hunt deer by driving around near those deer crossing signs and then intentionally ramming them with your car. Anyway, Mark Trail has already made it clear that it considers “WHAM” a perfectly acceptable gunshot sound effect, but I’d still like to believe that what happened between panels one and two was Death by Truck.

Mary Worth, 6/29/13

Generally, one of the first things people say to me when they start reading my blog is “Wait, Mary Worth is still being published, how is that POSSIBLE, surely no newspaper is actually using part of its dwindling features budget to pay to syndicate it?” Well, here’s a little known fact: Mary Worth has for the last ten years or so been an “advertorial” product entirely funded by the Association of Condominium, Townhouse, and Homeowners Associations. Some days this is more obvious than others.

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Mary Worth, 6/25/13

Ha, I bet you thought that once Beth and Tom had admitted to Elinor that they were totally in heterosexual love and planned to get married and Elinor miraculously came around to the point of view that Beth shouldn’t live a solitary, unhappy life for the rest of her days, all the conflict in this plot was over and we could move onto something more interesting, with that something to be introduced during a pool party. WELL I GUESS YOU THOUGHT WRONG, DIDN’T YOU?? Here we are and we’re still paying attention to these three mopes! What dramatic conflicts remain for our protagonists? Will Beth’s gratitude for Mary’s intervention transform into adoration and then into obsession? Will she manage to alienate both Elinor and Tom with her incessant Mary-worship? Will Mary’s beatific face appear in a floating picture-thought-bubble in at least one panel of every strip for the remainder of this storyline? Let’s hope!

Spider-Man, 6/25/13

I think we can all agree that “Irony, anyone?” is pretty much the greatest Newspaper Spider-Man narration box ever. It will be harder to come to a consensus as to which panel represents the ultimate Newspaper Spider-Man image: Spidey gazing forlornly into his empty wallet, or Spidey rubbing the back of his head and staring dumbly off into the middle distance.

Mark Trail, 6/25/13

Baker’s been here for two days. Has he seen anything? Stay tuned to find out!

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Momma, 6/23/13

One of my favorite/least unfavorite Momma bits is Momma’s recurring nightmare that she and/or her children in some combination will be reduced to panhandling, due to her children’s shiftlessness and incompetence. I enjoy these installments because they’re about her constant mid-level anxiety that she and her family are trembling at the boundary of middle-class respectability and could be pushed out into the abyss at any moment, but the actual “jokes” of the strips generally take the form of weird passive-aggressive wordplay on signs that the Hobbes-hobos are displaying for the benefit of passers by. Today was actually the first time I noticed that these signs aren’t makeshift cardboard placards propped up in front of them but actually attached to the wall, which implies both a certain resourcefulness and collusion with the building owner. Come to us when can’t even afford thumbtacks, Momma! Then we’ll know you hit rock bottom.

Panel from Mary Worth, 6/23/13

Haha, look how startled Tom looks by this demand. “But that … that’s kind of my thing! It’s my trademark relationship move!”

Mark Trail, 6/23/13

“How are we going to get the kids interesting in birdwatching? Breakdancing? Do the kids still like breakdancing? Should we tell them that birds breakdance?”