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Mark Trail, 9/25/04

So we’ve known for some time that Captain Simpson was up to no good. Now at last we’ve found out that the Macguffin for this month’s adventure is … priceless Indian artifacts! You know, just like it was two or three adventures ago, when Mark was left in the desert to die and managed to bring down an airplane with nothing but a chunk of petrified cactus. Does it mean that I’ve been reading Mark Trail for too long when I’m noticing that it repeats itself?

Personally, I was hoping that the fishing expedition was actually a front for drug running. But I guess I have to turn to Mary Worth if I want narcotics action.

I’ve also been wondering over the course of this storyline about Otto, the bizarrely accented cook. He has facial hair, so he must be bad, but he loves his cat, so he must be good! Now that the hirsute ship’s master has swatted the beloved Rosebud, it’s clear that Otto’s one of the good guys. Apparently, mountain man beard trumps Cary Grant mustache in the world of Mark Trail villains. Presumably he’ll help Mark defeat the artifact smugglers — and maybe even get a decent shave.

By the way, if you grow disconsolate between episodes of Mark Trail, the comic strip, you can now groove along to “Mark Trail,” the song, by Scott McKnight. That link takes you directly to the MP3 file, so don’t click on it at work unless you want everyone to know that you like Mark Trail. (The song was highlited (highlit?) by Editrix on the comments page of the Interbridge Weblog — how’s that for blogrolling?)

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Mark Trail, 9/7/04

I know, I know, I just did Mark Trail yesterday, but I couldn’t resist doing it again today as a bonus. I’d just like to point out that today’s episode is almost certainly actually about sex. That’s all. Carry on.

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Mark Trail, 9/6/04

Superman was crippled by Kryptonite. Wonder Woman lost her powers when tied up. So it makes sense that Mark Trail, too, has a weakness. But who would have thought that the passion for the environment that makes him such a great outdoorsman would also undermine his ability to ferret out evil?

As you can see, in the today’s episode, our hirsute yacht captain is charming Mark by demonstrating his environmental awareness (and yes, it’s sad that not dumping trash directly into the sea qualifies as “environmental awareness”). The respect shown for Mother Earth even moves Mark to unleash an “as you know”-prefaced chunk of exposition. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring an obvious fact: that the captain has a beard, and (in the universe of Mark Trail, anyway) is therefore obviously evil. His villainy is confirmed by the two shaggy, swarthy fellows in the final panel. Hopefully Mark will be lulled out of his eco-friendly complacency in time to deliver his knockout punch.

For the record, today is Labor Day, and there were not one but two woman-going-into-labor-on-Labor-Day jokes in today’s comics section (B.C. and Gasoline Alley).