Mark Trail, 2/17/12
“What am I going to do, Mark? The blind dog that I irresponsibly left alone in this forest is gone, and is probably lost and hungry and scared. And just a few hours before it was finally going make some money for me! Where am I going to find another blind dog on such short notice?”
Marvin, 2/17/12
“Oh, dear, you’re not getting old. You’re just addicted to painkillers!”
Mark Trail, 2/13/12
It’s well known that in the moral universe of Mark Trail, kindness to animals is the highest value. So, let’s ask ourselves: who are the real villains in this story? Mark and Tommy, who left poor Butch the blind dog alone in a field with only a jacket for company, and who have gone back to Tommy’s comfortable home to plot how to exploit Butch for big-time TV money? Or Jeff and Jamie, who, despite being on the run from the law and hiding out in some rustic cabin, are prepared to take pity on a poor hungry dog they’ve never even met before? I certainly hope that, instead of punching, this storyline ends with Mark taking a long, hard look at what he’s become.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/13/12
Starting with a punchline (even a good one, which this is not) and working your way back to create the set-up is always a terrible, terrible idea in comics. I mean, can you figure out any context in which it would make sense for Snuffy, Parson Tuttle, and a quartet of nameless Hootin’ Holler elder ladies to be gathered around one of the community’s few working TV sets to try to pick up the Grammys on its bunny ears? I guess it’s possible that inveterate lawbreaker Snuffy and notorious grifter/fraud Tuttle lured the town’s grandmothers to this viewing as a cruel prank, knowing that they’d be embarrassed and horrified by the flatlanders’ outlandish music and whorish outfits. So, yeah, actually, this totally makes sense in the strip’s milieu, forget I said anything.
Mark Trail, 2/12/12
Oh, hey, Mark, have you slipped something completely horrifying into the last panel of Sunday’s nature lesson? Yes, let’s all gaze upon the repulsive New Zealand flatworm, which has no natural predators. Presumably once they finish devouring all the earthworms available, they’ll start moving up the food chain, and by the time they get to humans they’ll be about six feet long and completely unstoppable. Fortunately, these monsters appear to be confined to island nations at the moment, but it’s probably best to eradicate all life in New Zealand and Great Britain with atomic fire, just to be sure.
Beetle Bailey, 2/12/12
Of course, it may already be too late for the rest of the world, as even members of the U.S. military appears to have been infected with awful mutagenic diseases that can transform them into horrific beast-men.
Funky Winkerbean, 2/12/12
And don’t forget, Crazy Harry, every birthday brings you closer to the moment when you’ll tumble through the narrows of the hourglass of time onto an awful pit of impaling spikes! ARE YOU SMILING AS YOU BLOW OUT THOSE CANDLES, WHY ARE YOU SMILING, BIRTHDAYS ARE FOR THINKING ABOUT DEATH AND ONLY DEATH