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Blondie, 6/9/10

Here is a 100 percent true story: When I was about 10 or so, my dad and I were driving through downtown Buffalo, and this car sort of cut us off, and my dad said, “Jeez, what’s up with this clown,” exactly the way you would in such a situation, and then I looked closer and saw that the car in question was being driven by an actual, literal clown, in full make-up and regalia and everything. His car was not unusually small, nor was he sharing it with dozens of other clowns. This was endlessly hilarious to me, and whenever I see clowns depicted in everyday life, I think of this incident, and it makes me laugh. Certainly it was much funnier than Blondie’s grim and off-putting attempt to wring surrealistic yuks out of a vicious clown assault.

Mark Trail, 6/9/10

You know who really, really likes working zoning disputes into his stories? Jack Elrod, author of Mark Trail! Now, it probably is true that land use regulations are a much more important part of rural life than we city slickers realize, but now all of the sudden a dramatic change in zoning laws is arising as a plot point in this unusually urban storyline. Thus, I must assume that Elrod is a member of the small, misunderstood community of zoning fetishists, or “zonies.” While he toils away on the outdoorsman strip he inherited from Ed Dodd, he’s always hoping that one day one of the alternative presses will pick up Fred Gorski, Zoning Board Co-Chair Of Destiny!, the erotic graphic novel he’s been tinkering with for years.

Apartment 3-G, 6/9/10

Uh, is it just me, or are those oven mitts really, really big? They look more like the freakishly oversized novelty hands you get at sporting events. Naturally, Tommie has cut off the protruding index finger, as neither she nor anyone else believes her to be “number one.”

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Mark Trail, 6/8/10

Our long national nightmare of Rusty-face horror has finally ended, but now we’ve reached a new level of awfulness, as we’ve finally been brought back to Ol’ Lady Whatsherface’s terrifying animal gulag. “That old woman next door has brought more stray animals home,” the neighbors complain — though they dare not do more than gripe to one another, because of the old dognapper’s hair-trigger temper and propensity for savage violence. “It’s disgusting! She’s putting those puppies in the oven! Oh, God, I can’t watch!”

Mary Worth, 6/8/10

Oh, so it looks like Dr. Roberts will finally be allowing himself to love once Mary forces him to date financial consultant Jenna Thomas. Presumably they’ll realize that they’re perfect for each other once they talk about the shared sense of self-satisfaction they got from fixing Bonnie’s broken crazy money-spending brain. As we can see in panel two, Jenna is already prepared to deal with Dr. Roberts’s tiny, tiny penis.

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Apartment 3-G, 6/7/10

Ha ha, did you think that Ari was talking to his pill-popping love Bobbie, who he just weeks ago bundled off to some private upstate nuthouse? Don’t be silly; obviously he would recognize her voice on the phone, and surely no facility that specializes in making the problematic relations of rich people conveniently go away would allow its patients any method of communication with the outside world. No, I think we have to assume that the Professor has been sending out thousands of emails that begin with “Dear One: Do you want h1gh-quality prescription MEDZ, cheap?” and has finally managed to snag a customer.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/7/10

We’ve already established that Herb’s marriage fills him with nothing but dread, so it’s probably to be expected that Herb will plunge his living room into total darkness not so that he can get amorous with his wife, but so that he doesn’t have to see her.

Marmaduke, 6/7/10

A “face-off” with Marmaduke generally ends with somebody getting his or her face bitten off.

Oh, and hey, you know what? If Mark Trail is going to keep showing us day after day of Rusty face-horror, then I fully intend to keep sharing it with you, at full magnification:

Panel from Mark Trail, 6/7/10

Rusty’s eyes, having once shone with a terrifying inky dark light, have now shriveled down to tiny pits, and his cheeks have grown hollow with grief. He pretty much looks like the guy from “The Scream,” after he’s stopped screaming.