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Mark Trail, 9/17/10

We’ve learned from Apartment 3-G that the world of soap opera strips is sometimes haunted by mysterious, ghostly blue figures. These shades can watch and murmur inaudibly, but never speak or interact with our heroes. Today’s Mark Trail, though, contains the first ever sighting of mysterious blue bottles. Is this why our evil cage-hunter is so bitter and angry? He drinks the ghost-booze, constantly, and yet he never gets a buzz, because this beverage primarily exists in the spirit realm.

Beetle Bailey, 9/16/10

Ha ha, yes, the lady in the GPS computer, she tells you to order a pizza even when you have a pizza already in your lap! Beetle Bailey’s Sarge: portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic compulsive eater.

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Mark Trail, 9/11/10

Have you ever had a moment when something you’ve looked at every day, for years, suddenly reconfigures, and your entire worldview shatters and reforms with searing clarity? Well, that’s what happened when I read this Mark Trail, which reveals that “Mark,” “Cherry,” and “Rusty” are actually three adorably frolicking horses — horses that like to imagine what it would be like to be human. Everything is explained: the unnatural dialogue (based on the deliberately child-like and stilted speech that humans use when they talk to animals), the freakish morphing forms (can we really expect interspecies facial recognition to go off without a hitch?), the fact that human society as depicted has less and less basis in reality the further we get from Lost Forest. It’s sort of heartbreaking that the weirdly malformed humans we’ve spent so much time with are actually these beautiful galloping animals. Too bad Frank is going to lure them into his hunting pen and let his political buddies shoot them for sport.

Apartment 3-G, 9/11/10

Do you think that comics colorists simply have too much pride to admit when they make a mistake? I mean, technically there was no indication when Lu Ann appeared on Thursday what color her hair was supposed to be, so red was as good a guess as any. But now that we learn that Lu Ann’s hair is supposed to be a “rich brown,” and our colorists are refusing to take the hint. “No, damn you! The Lu Ann of my masturbatory fantasies is a redhead, and a redhead she will remain!”

Gil Thorp, 9/11/10

Ha ha, look at how happy Gil and Kaz look! It’s because they’ve once again found someone who, as a result of some gaping emotional wound, is willing to do their jobs for them. And before the first game is even played, too!

Luann, 9/11/10

After Dirk strangles the DeGroots, the strip’s narrative will (literally) violently change directions, as it gets renamed The Talented Mr. Dirk and follows its new title character’s unseemly adventures.

Ballard Street, 9/11/10

I only discuss Ballard Street here when its “insane lunatics doing baffling things” schtick crosses over from “bonkers” to “unsettling,” and I think today’s panel, which features a sour-faced old woman engaging in harrowing self-harm, more than qualifies.

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Mark Trail, 9/2/10

You know, I was about to make fun of the idea that a caged hunt of semi-tame exotic animals could be this hideous, unpleasant man’s ticket to the governorship, but then I reflected on the mysterious ways in which the government works in the Mark Trail universe. This, after all, is a world where land use disputes and criminal investigations are handled at the same meeting of some ill-defined board, and where zoning hearings take place in dramatic trial form. So why shouldn’t the state’s chief executive be chosen in the context of shooting penned-in beasts? It makes as much sense as anything else. So you can just forget this fancy “voting” talk, Mrs. Evil Politician, because the only votes that count are the ones cast by the severed heads of majestic wildlife.

Gil Thorp, 9/2/10

I admitted on Twitter the other day that I actually enjoy seeing beloved former Gil Thorp characters pop up from year to year in this strip. This year’s returnee is Jamarr Gaddis, aka “the Ghost,” the team’s talented but self-aggrandizing egotist. I vaguely recall being amused by Jamarr’s cheerful self-promotion, so it will be good to have him back; today’s action implies that we’re going to learn about his inner struggles, or at least see how he reacts when people mock him for having a cold. Seriously, why does everyone find the fact that he’s sick so damn hilarious and/or enraging? Check out Coach Beardo in the first panel — he’s a third-in-command high school sports coach, so he’s got a lot of nerve acting so superior just because some poor kid decided to stay home with a fever instead of coming to practice and giving 110 percent right up to the point where he drops dead from exhaustion.