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Mark Trail, 5/6/09

Ha, what’s the strange taste in your mouth, Mark? Could it be betrayal? “But … Rusty is my half-neglected ward! Why would he want to go off and become the ward of these other men? Haven’t I done enough for him? I let him wander unsupervised around the forest! I got him that whiny little dog! I’ve convinced him that that toy camera I gave him has a ‘memory card’ inside! Sometimes I let him interact with other humans! Am I a bad quasi-legal guardian? Could he really prefer a man with sideburns to me?”

In the wake of Rusty’s departure, Mark will have to take a good, hard look at his other relationships, and figure out what he needs to do keep them strong. Will he agree to increase the frequency of his marital relations with Cherry to thrice annually? Stay tuned!

Pluggers, 5/6/09

Sex organs aren’t the list, as pluggers haven’t had anything to do with them — not anyone else’s, and certainly not their own, as that’s the devil’s work — for years.

Dennis the Menace, 5/6/09

As one might have expected, Dennis has made the Mitchells’ weekly three-way with their neighbor particularly awkward.

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Gil Thorp, 4/29/09

So it looks like the coming Gil Thorp storyline will involve old-school coach Gil taking on the terrible cesspool that is Internet sports blogging and fandom. People who get all their information from newspapers will finally learn about Websites with crazy, incomprehensible Web 2.0 names like “T.A.P. Room” run by jackasses with stupid haircuts who say things like “you’re en fuego, coach.” (Admittedly, anyone who says “you’re en fuego, coach” should in fact be killed.) It’s kind of too bad that reliable Thorp media nemesis Marty Moon isn’t behind this nonsense, but longtime readers know that any technology more advanced than a bottle opener baffles and terrifies him. One can only hope that these darn Intertube punks irritate Gil to the point that he unleashes a Buzz Bissinger-style tirade about how the Internet is a sewer and why don’t people read print media anymore and get off my lawn.

Cathy, 4/29/09

Here’s a sentence you don’t want to hear about any creative endeavor you’re involved with, ever: this strip has apparently decided to steal ideas from Marvin. In fact, if there was strip that could in my eyes make Marvin look good in comparison, it’s Cathy. Cathy’s in-laws are more grating and awful than Marvin’s grandparents, and they aren’t drawn anywhere nearly as well. On the bright side, there will probably be fewer jokes in this strip about people shitting themselves.

Dick Tracy, 4/29/09

I guess it’s sort of part of my job description to point out when insane, over-the-top violence takes place in Dick Tracy, so: look, it’s insane, over-the-top violence in today’s Dick Tracy! I’m not sure what I like more: the fact that Dick’s go-to surprise attack move is to rip off his opponent’s nose, causing blood and boogers to splatter all over his face, or the terrified look of the innocent couple in the second panel, who just wanted to gamble away what was left of their life savings at the roulette wheel in peace and totally didn’t sign up for any of this flying shards of glass and tumbling bodies crap, man.

Mark Trail, 4/29/09

Yeah, they’re really having to work pretty hard to “go after” Sassy, who appears to just be standing there waiting for them to pick him up. “Please, I don’t want to ever have to look at the deformed, neckerchief-wearing freak again!” he barks. “Take me with you on your ill-thought-out multi-state crime spree!”

(In other news: Hey, everybody! Here is a thing I wrote, about how they try to market computers to the ladies! Read it, won’t you?)

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Family Circus, 4/26/09

Because I am admittedly a terrible person, the only Family Circuses I enjoy nonironically are those in which current artist Jeff Keane depicts his cartoonified childhood avatar Jeffy as being humiliated in some way, for psychological reasons one can only speculate about ghoulishly. The key to today’s strip is that young Jeffy is peppy and excited throughout the little episode portrayed; only grown-up Jeff seems to remember (or be tormented by) Daddy’s expression of disappointment and Billy’s expression of palpable disgust.

Mark Trail, 4/26/09

“If ash wood becomes unavailable, manufacturers are confident they can find a suitable substitute for making bats … like, say, aluminum! Boy, aluminum bats sure would help break some old batting records, wouldn’t they?”

Marvin, 4/26/09

“And yet they keep pumping me full of children’s Benadryl like it’s Kool-Aid! Why would they … but … so … sleepy … [ZZZZZZ]”