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Slylock Fox, 10/16/10

Oh, hi, kids, while you’re busy trying to remember which organs participate the digestive process, this doctor and nurse are just going to look on in undisguised horror at something at the back of this poor man’s throat. Whatever it is must be truly and spectacularly large, as the nurse can apparently see it from across the room. Is it the biggest tumor either of these longtime medical professionals have ever seen? Is it a glowing sac of alien eggs dangling from his uvula? Or maybe it’s not something visible — maybe it’s the awful stench of death evident on his breath. Whatever the case, when I see expressions like this on the faces of health practitioners, I expect the subject to be immediately placed in an isolation chamber and whisked away to a secret NSA lab by top government scientists.

Popeye, 10/16/10

I generally only mention Popeye here when produces something that’s hilarious out of context, and I think today’s meeting of old acquaintances (and former lovers?) “Poopdeck Pappy” and “Tuna Salad” fits the bill.

Mark Trail, 10/16/10

Wow, I was all worked up about some discrepancies in adherence hunting safety rules in yesterday’s Mark Trail, but now that our hero has covered twenty yards or more, leaping over a fence in the process, and hurled himself directly in front of someone who’s about to fire a rifle, I now know that safety is quite obviously the last thing on anybody’s mind here. Carry on, lunatics!

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Mark Trail, 10/15/10

There are lots of things about this rapidly developing scenario that seem very, very off to me, though since I’ve never gone hunting I can’t be 100 percent sure. Like, do hunters really shoot deer that are this small/young? Do they shoot at deer when there are crazed children running around downrange? Do they shout at each other at high volume when deer are 10-15 feet away? Maybe they do! These are all mysteries to me.

However, I do feel like I’m on firmer ground in questioning the current senator/gubernatorial candidate interpersonal dynamics. Frank, right now you need Senator Whatshisface to convince his fat-cat donors to give to your campaign, and maybe even to contribute a bit from his own WhatshisfacePAC. And even after you’re elected, you’ll still need to make nice with him so you can get the sweet, sweet federal earmarks that lead to campaign photos of you cutting a ribbon on an eight-lane highway through Lost Forest. So maybe you shouldn’t brusquely bellow orders at him? Trying to create a relaxing environment where he can have fun and maybe kill a few things was a good idea, but you can’t force someone to enjoy himself by browbeating him.

Apartment 3-G, 10/15/10

Boy, Lu Ann sure is flailing her hands around a lot at about head level. Presumably her “awesome” hair extensions are making her scalp feel really weird, and she has to constantly hold herself back from just ripping them out in a frenzy.

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Panel from Mark Trail, 10/13/10

The first panel of today’s Mark Trail is so glorious that I felt you deserved to see it as large as I could give it to you. It’s almost like you are some corpulent political insider, hoping to enjoy a little canned hunting and some desperate promises from the next governor, when suddenly a deranged little monster and her dead-eyed deer lunge at you, demanding that you refrain from doing exactly what you’ve paid to do.

Note that her upper body seems disproportionately larger than her legs. That’s probably a carefully crafted technique that provides the illusion of the little girl moving rapidly towards you. It certainly isn’t because she’s been crudely assembled out of whatever clip art has been left lying around on the floor of the Mark Trail studios, no sir!

Panel from Mary Worth, 10/13/10

Also worthy of close inspection is our first encounter with Adrian’s opinionated friend Jill, here expressing her opinions with an eye-roll so epic she appears to have sprained her face. We’ve all been preparing ourselves for some kind of epic battle of the meddlers over how Adrian’s wedding should be run, but Jill’s deep thought-ballooned sarcasm seems to indicate that she’s already bored with the whole exercise. Perhaps she will realize that Mary is eager to do dull stuff like watch Adrian model a series of indistinguishably hideous bridal gowns, and she’ll excuse herself to go do something that doesn’t make her want to slit her wrists.

Dick Tracy, 10/13/10

Wow, it seems that the famous hobo solidarity completely falls apart once it turns out that one of them has money, and that the true proletarians are about to turn on the kulak who’s been lurking in their midst. Dick Tracy will be truly conflicted if he ends up triumphing due to the thing he hates the most: class struggle.