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Mark Trail, 12/23/10

Mark Trail’s superhuman power of punching is often remarked on in this blog, but what about his other, less violent talents? For instance, I feel strongly that we don’t lavish enough attention on his amazing bellowing ability. In panel two, for instance, we can see that he can achieve extreme levels of bolding and large font size without even opening his mouth.

Meanwhile, in panel three, I fear that Kelly is going to become an cautionary example in an imminent lesson on boating safely, possibly in combination with an abrupt and vicious seagull attack.

Lockhorns, 12/23/10

Loretta has reason to be angry at Leroy’s constant belittling of her cooking, but to be fair to him, it is kind of weird that she’s only brought out one portion of her blood-red chili. Presumably it’s been poisoned, and she’s going to force him to eat it so that she’s finally rid of him; Leroy will acquiesce, out of spite, but not before he gets in a few last punny, dead-eyed witticisms at her expense.

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Mary Worth, 12/21/10

Ever since she successfully cured Dr. Mike’s inability to love, Mary’s fancied herself something of an amateur therapist. Today we learn just how far she’s going with her little hobby: she’s apparently developed some extreme form of rational-emotive behavioral therapy where patients use their thoughts to control not only their emotions and attitudes, but their memories as well. “Jill, you were only abandoned by your fiance at the altar because that’s how you choose to remember it! If you simply rethink your memories, then perhaps you’ll realize that he did show up after all, and you’ve been happily married for the past seven years! If you go home and find your house still empty and lonesome, it probably just means that you’re not trying hard enough.”

Gil Thorp, 12/21/10

Notice that Gil actually gives Marty a straight and substantive answer about sports, — in response to Marty’s hesitant attempt to establish emotional intimacy with his long-term frenemy. “Jeez, I’m glad I didn’t tell him that what I wish I had but don’t: recognition from my journalistic peers and my parents of how hard I work on my sportswriting craft. Christ, I feel like an asshole now.”

Apartment 3-G, 12/21/10

Hmm, the girls are already dressed in their best party clothes — Margo in an actually rather fetching little black dress, Tommie in her Star Trek: The Motion Picture-era Starfleet uniform, and Lu Ann in [artist’s duty to think of third party outfit avoided by crafty foreground figure placement] — and Iris has gotten out the punch bowl and traditional balloon wreath, and yet this seems to be the first our trio of protagonists have heard of this party. The possibilities: either we’re in the last scene of an ’80s comedy and all Iris needs to do is mention a party to summon the various accoutrements thereof out of thin air while a Journey soundtrack blares in the background, or she was planning on throwing a swell party and not inviting the 3-G gals, a plan they ruined by stopping by unannounced on their way someplace else.

By the way, it’s nice to see that Iris is planning on repaying Mrs. Bloom’s kind offer of a free place to crash by trashing said free place with endless partying.

Mark Trail, 12/21/10

“Yes, just put your boat near his boat! I am ‘interested’ in being within seeing distance of him! This is because of something I will explain later. It certainly not because I am on a secret government mission, so do not believe that! I am, uh, interested in making sex with him! Yes, that’s it! That’s something humans say, right?”

Ziggy, 12/21/10

Since the mice in Ziggy are generally portrayed as anthropomorphic wisecrackers, the sight of one dead and dangling limply from a cat’s grinning mouth is fairly startling. What could make this worse? Oh, right, the thought of the stench of searing mouse flesh, the hint of which will always linger on the coils of the toaster’s heating elements! Yes, that will do nicely.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/21/10

Oh, look, despite a mysterious phone call from his dead wife warning him not to get on his flight, Les did not in fact die in a fiery plane crash. I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are.

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Panel from Crock, 12/19/10

There are still apparently people who only get the paper on Sundays so that they can go through the coupons, so the Sunday comics have to be treated as if they’ll be the only comics people see all week. Because Christmas is on a Saturday this year, that means that most of today’s strips featured Christmas themes almost a week early. In the spirit of the season, I will say a kind word for a strip I almost never have anything nice to say about: I genuinely found it funny to see Crock’s title character smiling sinisterly out at me from the middle of a festive wreath. Surely such wreaths would be big sellers at the Crock store, if any such thing actually existed.

Mark Trail, 12/19/10

“Yes, just about everyone in the world knows the story of the birth of Christ … except for children, who couldn’t care less about our Lord and Savior and instead worship a bastardized, commercialized version of an ancient Germanic deity, the greedy little pagans.”