Post Content

Mark Trail, 2/13/06

It’s troubling times in the soaps: Mary Worth has been reduced to thought-ballooning platitudes to herself; Rex Morgan has managed to make a plotline about war, drugs, and gambling boring. Therefore, it’s nice to see that, after a long time of losing his way, Mark Trail has finally delivered the goods. There’s been a lot of awesome stuff in this storyline — half-brother-on-half-sister leering, Mark naked and nippleless, a skinny bumpkin thrown to the pigs, a St. Bernard fighting an alligator — but this scene, in which our hillbilly triumvirate is brushed back with a lusty ZZIP! like so many inbred bowling pins, brings everything to a pinnacle that we won’t reach again for many moons, so take a moment to enjoy it now.

Post Content

The Phantom, 2/11/06

Panel three: Does that teaser line imply that the Bandar are going to eat the Phantom’s kids? Please, please, please let the Bandar eat the Phantom’s kids. I hear white tweenagers are pleasing to the Bandar tongue.

Mark Trail, 2/11/06

Ah, the classic “Look! Over there!” move. Mark may be getting fancy in this adventure with his jungle traps and whatnot, but he’s always willing to go to the basics when they work, as they inevitably would against this clan of mouthbreathers. Question for discussion: is the point of this ploy to further emphasize the “hillbillies are stupid” theme we’ve got going here, or just a desperate attempt to bring things back to the origin of this plotline?

Post Content

Judge Parker, 1/26/06

Yeah, I’d bet you like her to “define” “physical” for you, wouldn’t you, Sam? I know that floor-length purple jumper has been driving you wild all night (a night that has, by my reckoning, lasted since about November). Still, you’re eventually going to have to come to grips with the fact that your clown-haired girlfriend gets most of her jollies through spying on her daughter. Oh, the shame.

Down in the rural south, on the other hand, the folks have a less complicated relationship with their physical desires:

Yeah, “entertainment.” Check out Mark’s Spock-style eyebrows in this panel. Maybe he’ll take care of this clan of bumpkins with some well-timed Vulcan neck pinches.