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Mark Trail, 7/31/06

Is there anything more delightful than seeing Kelly Welly repeatedly throw herself in the path of killer grizzlies as part of an ill-conceived plot to advance her career and/or bed a rugged outdoorsman — any rugged outdoorsman? Well, maaybe Mark describin the situation with a sentence that would never spontaneously come out of the mouth of any under the age of 85. We could spend the rest of the summer in a continuous Kelly-does-something-foolish/gets-menaced-by-bears/gets-rescued-by-Mark-and/or-Rick/gets-yelled-at-by-Mark/makes-eyes-at-Rick-and/or-Mark loop and I would still be a happy guy.

Mary Worth, 7/31/06

Speaking of delightful: I don’t have much to say about today’s Mary Worth, except that today’s second panel might be one of the most pleasing Mary Worth panels in many a moon. The only way it could be better would be if she actually hurled her grocery bags into the air, with fruit, cinnamon, and flour flying everywhere — but still, we’ve got Mary shouting “AAUGH!” and radiating panic lines as a bow-tied Aldo Kelrast appears out of nowhere, so let’s not look gift horses in the mouth! In fact, let’s all bathe in the comforting glow of its pleasingness:

Aaaaahhhh.

Luann, 7/31/06

Just FYI, “couples retreat” is code for “swingers convention.”

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B.C., 7/22/06

See, this strip is actually a lot more clever than it might appear at first glance. By posing a series of incomprehensible humor-style elements — Do electronic components ever actually feature “charcoal” lettering? Wouldn’t black golf balls be easier to see than said lettering on said components? — it distracts from the central problem, which is, you’ve got cavemen talking about golf and electronics, what the hell.

Mark Trail, 7/22/06

I was going to say something to the effect of “The whole Kelly-Welly-as-Lost-Forest’s-official-tramp thing is getting old,” but then I realized that it wasn’t, and it never will. I particularly love the extreme closeup on Kelly’s dark, evil, seductive eyes in the third panel. I’m assuming that this is Ranger Rick’s point-of-view: in the world of Mark Trail, this is the last thing you see before you wake up with a nasty case of chlamydia.

Wizard of Id, 7/22/06

Ah, it’s Yet Another Lame Strip Written By An Old White Guy Featuring An Anachronistic Golf Joke (YALSWBAOWGFAAGJ™). You might not know this if you don’t have parents who watch the Golf Channel voluntarily, but all those beasts the Wiz is thought-ballooning about in the second panel are the nicknames of various professional golfers. That’s right: Id’s dwarfish despot is forcing his chief thaumaturgist to dismember the cream of the PGA’s crop just to shave a few strokes off his handicap, the sick bastard. Anyway, the reason this strip caught my eye is because the thought balloon in panel two has some shading on the bottom, which usually is a cartoon convention for anger, but this time around it appears to signify … nothing. Nothing at all. Wasted strokes. Wasted!

For Better Or For Worse, 7/22/06

Worst. Onomatopoeia. Ever.

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Man, a guy goes away for a few days, and some pretty twisted romance goes down in the funny pages. Let’s check in with the weekend’s high points!

First, Sunday’s Mary Worth will go down in infamy as the Day The Stalking Started. We need to begin by taking a look at this panel:

The fact that Mary doesn’t want to spend time with creepy sublettor Aldo Kelrast needs no explanation, but why does she feel that the best way to reject him is to babble on like a minor character in a Jane Austen novel? She seems to be taking the line that if she’s seen spending time along with a man 15 years her junior while her not-actually-her-boyfriend is out of the country, she’ll be branded as a whore. Which may seem ludicrous to those of here on planet Earth, but check out the two old biddies in the left half of this panel, clearly in mid-gossip. Already the tales of Mary’s trampish sluttery — talking to a strange man with her arms and shoulders exposed! — are no doubt spreading throughout the hallways of Santa Royale’s most exclusive mid-range child-free condo complex.

Meanwhile, Aldo forgets that the first rule of stalking club is: don’t talk about stalking club.

This panel has actually solved a little dilemma for me. Since Aldo first came on the scene, I’ve imagined his voice to be effete and quasi-British, like Dr. Smith in Lost In Space. Mrs. C. feels that instead it should be high-pitched and nasal — the classic movie nerd voice. Now, however, it’s clear that he talks like George Zimmer, the guy who does all those damn Men’s Wearhouse commercials.

Speaking of classic movie nerd voices, this weekend Raju got a little pep talk from Abbey:

Yeah, Raju, go for it! Go for it! And say, who’s lounging cartoonishly sexily in the next room?

Let the daughter pimping begin!

Meanwhile, in Lost Forest, Mark Trail is expressing his forbidden love for Kelly Welly the only way he can: by tackling her.

Despite the fact that even casual readers of this strip know that this is Kelly, Mark’s been referring to her as “he” and “him” for days now, presumably as another part of the sublimation process.

And speaking of forbidden love, “Dr.” “Troy”‘s head exploded.

He’s also, to the surprise of no one, not a real doctor. I keep waiting for Rex to laugh and say, “Join the club, Troy, join the club.”