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Mark Trail, 6/10/19

This current Mark Trail plot is moving along at what I wouldn’t call … the fastest pace of all time. About a month ago Mark ran away from bees then a couple weeks after that the gang found Skull Mountain and that’s been about it! Up until this crazy flood, that is. You’d think a flash flood would definitely be a sign that the drama has officially been amped up, but the whole thing with the bees only lasted a couple of days, so I’m reserving my judgement. I do like how Leola’s word balloon ends in an interrobang, indicating that something truly surprising, more surprising than a flash flood, is happening just off panel! Maybe it’s Mark continuing to run away from her, leaving her to drown in the flood? Sorry, Leola, the fewer survivors there are in this expedition the fewer people there’ll be to split the gold!

Family Circus, 6/10/19

There are like a dozen little hints in virtually every Family Circus panel that they represent repurposed art, or at least repurposed jokes, from an earlier era, an era when parents felt that children needed to be able to explore and test their limits unsupervised by grown-ups even at a very young age, and if that meant that some of them didn’t survive to adulthood, well, that’s why you start off having four of them, you know? I particularly appreciate how shiny the countertop is, teasing us that Dolly’s slippered feet are going to lose their purchase at any moment.

Beetle Bailey, 6/10/19

I feel like having Beetle surrounded by sand, in a loose pile and in a bag and in a wheelbarrow, wasn’t strictly necessary to make this joke work? In fact, since the joke is a metaphor, it’s actually actively distracting. If you’re gonna do it, why not go all the way with it? Why not have Lt. Fuzz be dousing himself with oil while grinning maniacally and extolling the efficiency of our armed services? It would make Sarge’s world-weary expression all the more appropriate.

Mary Worth, 6/10/19

Folks, if Wilbur and Estelle are currently at Delicious Grill chowing down on some sandwiches and making romantic eyes at each other, I am going to 100% lose my shit

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Mark Trail, 6/1/19

Many years ago, Mark Trail provided us with a perfect, beautiful sentence: “You stole a friend of mine’s pet bear!” Today, we have what I think is a new contender in the contest to be the “cellar door” of America’s #1 outdoors adventure comic: “By the way, Mark, wasn’t it you who urged caution before we got too excited about the possibility of finding the vanishing mine!?” Feel free to use this sentence yourself in an appropriate scenario — for instance, when one of your friends or acquaintances gets real enthusiastic over some exciting possibility (the discovery of a vanishing mine, say) that relatively recently they had been skeptical about, perhaps even urging others not to get to excited about the prospect.

Mary Worth, 6/1/19

We last checked in with the sad tale of Estelle eleven days ago, and, uh, I regret to inform you that literally nothing has happened since, other than Terry Bryson turning Estelle on to some dumb federal cybercrime website that will definitely, 100%, not help Estelle get her $10,000 or her ability to trust back. The rhythms of this strip being what they are, if this plot were going to wrap up this week we’d be getting some kind of closure today, but apparently not! Apparently this is just going to keep happening. And it’s possible that something interesting will transpire next week, but it’s also possible that Mary Worth just stalled, and we’re just going to keep seeing Estelle sad and Libby and Mary comforting her, forever. Has … has anyone tried turning Mary Worth off and turning it back on?

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Family Circus, 5/17/19

God, I honestly love Big Daddy Keane’s whole deal here. He looks beaten down by life, his facial expression numb and his tie just a little loose and disheveled, and mostly what he wants to do is take that spoon he’s holding delicately in his big, meaty mitt and just go to town on that enormous bowl of chocolate pudding. Look at all that pudding! That’s like a soup bowl’s worth of pudding! And it’s his due, as the family breadwinner. Jeffy sticking his grubby face into his peripheral vision is just pissing him off. Let the man eat his pudding in peace, Jeffy.

Six Chix, 5/17/19

I also enjoy today’s Six Chix, because based on the dialogue you’d expect the speaker to be sort of heavy-lidded and languorous, just dully shoving cookie after cookie into her mouth and barely tasting them, but in fact she’s staring at a half-eaten cookie wide-eyed with anxiety, as if she can’t fully articulate what mania is causing her to keep eating them. Her boyfriend is asleep, or maybe dead.

Mark Trail, 5/17/19

“Boy, am I glad we found Skull Mountain!” is the sort of thing a guy says, ironically, right before he gets killed by a bunch of spooky, evil skeletons.