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Mark Trail, 2/4/12

Oh my God, can we please spend some time dwelling on the insanity that lurks in the few words bandied about by our cheerful bank robbers, and the abrupt transitions between them?

“Relax, Jamie, we dumped the car we stole…”

[Remember when we got into that car we never saw before, Jamie, and then I made it go without a key? That’s called “stealing.” Kind of like we did with the money! And then we just left on the side of the road, which I like to call “dumping.” Doesn’t that sound more exciting than just “leaving”? More daring?]

“…all we have to do now is hike a few miles to our hideout!”

[That’s why we brought these absolutely enormous backpacks on our crime spree. For the hiking!]

“This is bird hunting country … no one will be looking for us in these woods … We’ll be safe as long as we stay out of sight!”

[They’ll be all, “They dumped their car right near the edge of those woods, but why would they go in there? That’s bird hunting country! Bank robbers wouldn’t go and hunt birds, that’d just be silly.”]

“I hope you’re right, Jeff … I told my wife we were going on a fishing trip!”

[If she finds out that we were in bird hunting country the whole cover story will be blown to pieces! Why wasn’t I kept in the loop about the kind of recreational animal-killing landscape we’d be fleeing through?]

Luann, 2/4/12

When I read this strip, I said to my wife, “Oh, that wacky Knute!” But then I had to clarify that I wasn’t talking about Newt Gingrich. Which brings up an important question: Is the K in Knute silent, as I’ve always assumed? Discuss, as said discussion will certainly be infinitely more rewarding than actually talking about this comic.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/31/12

Nobody should be at all surprised that virulent anti-intellectualism makes good grades a romantic liability in Hootin’ Holler. However, I think we should take note of the variant of the common rhyme in panel two. Usually you hear “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” but this isn’t the local version of the saying — and with good reason! Having long been isolated from flatlander optometry, Hootin’ Holler residents must make do with the few pairs of eyeglasses that have managed to come into the community via extended trading networks. Girls who wear glasses, far from being considered undesirable as mates, are viewed in awe for their ability to see at a distance or at night, and in some circumstances even read.

Apartment 3-G, 1/31/12

Well, being a nurse midwife is really more of a specialization you decide on when you’re getting your graduate degree in nursing, rather than just a course you take online from the University of Phoenix or whatever, but, uh, sure, Tommie, why don’t you go to it? “Are you serious? I’m going to get to pull people out of ladies’ hoo-hoos? Oh boy!”

Mark Trail, 1/31/12

“Yes, Mark, I too was on the verge of a violent life of crime! I’ve got a gun and everything. So your friend better come through with this TV movie deal or else I’ll probably have to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, ha ha! No, but seriously, get down in the crawlspace.”

Luann, 1/31/12

So, the past week in Luann has been dominated by an eternal teenage conflict: Gunther likes Rosa and Rosa likes Gunther and, uh, what now? Today we learn the answer. No couple in Luann can come together until a man defeats a romantic rival in passive-aggressive combat.

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Mark Trail, 1/23/12

OK, here’s a thing that has been persistently confusing to me about the current Mark Trail storyline: Tommy keeps insisting that he runs a “dog training business,” which, to an effete urban dweller such as myself, summons up an image of an obedience school where a Cesar Millan disciple explains to you how to establish an inter-creature dynamic within your household that prevents your adorable little Pomeranian from urinating on your newly restored hardwood floors. But Tommy only talks about Butch the blind dog and the rest of his business in terms of hunting, so I guess out in Real American “dog training businesses” are all about training your dog as a hunting companion, seriously, why would you even own a dog if you weren’t going to hunt with it? And so obviously a blind dog would be useless in such a context … unless Mark can prove that Butch has what it takes after all. Of course, the fact that Tommy is so transparently eager to get a 10-minute segment about Butch onto Animal Planet or the Outdoors Channel or Pointing The Camera At Nature or whatever basic cable channel Mark’s friend works for just goes to show that even Real America is desperately in thrall to the coastal media elites.

Hi and Lois, 1/23/12

It’s really quite sad that this is what Hi and Lois think a “quickie” is. And Lois isn’t even fully committed to it! You can’t drink tea at a coffee quickie, Lois.

Apartment 3-G, 1/23/12

Ha ha, Tommie is so boring that Lu Ann is going to call her “Margo” as she waves the MapQuest page she printed out all by herself at her. In the background, the actual Margo sees where this conversation is going and quickly decides to be anywhere else.