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Mark Trail, 1/13/19

It’s always been pretty obvious that loresman and aspirational mansplainer JJ Looper was destined to be the villain in this storyline, what with his bad attitude and overall squintyness. Today he has committed the ultimate sin within the Trailiverse by referring to adorable baby animals as “dumb,” when everyone knows it’s the people in Mark Trail who are dumb. Anyway, he’s about to get his comeuppance remarkably swiftly, and presumably after he’s mauled to death by that ocelot Mark and company will just go take what they need from his store and enjoy some low-key, risk-free gold mining fun.

Gil Thorp, 1/13/19

OK, not to go back on my praise earlier this week for Gil Thorp’ scattershot, tell-don’t-show visual/narrative style, but … you can’t have everyone praise Jocelynn’s hat without showing us the whole hat, guys, c’mon. We gotta see the whole hat! We’re only seeing the bottom of hat. How far up does that hat go?

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Mary Worth, 4/5/19

Ahhh, Toby’s great internet scam adventure, who could forget it? Back in 2008, the Dark Time before internet video streaming, Toby tried and failed to find a DVD about Scotland because she can never think of what to get Ian for his birthday, so she ordered it from the extremely real website enormoushop dot com but then subsequently fell for a painfully obvious phishing scam and her card was misused by northern criminals. She was devastated despite suffering no harm whatsoever, and worried that Ian was going to leave her for being stupid, but it turned out that he didn’t care, like at all. What we didn’t know was that this was Toby’s superhero origin story, and she subsequently dedicated her life to becoming extremely good at computers. So watch out, “Arthur Z”! No matter where you hide in the most disgusting corners of the Dark Web, Toby will find you! [Toby pulls out her 2011 Dell laptop and begins typing: “G … O … O … G … G … wait, that’s one too many Gs, I think”]

Mark Trail, 4/5/19

While most people looking for gold probably are more interested in physical equipment, like pickaxes and stuff, I have to admit that if you’re specifically trying to find a magical disappearing gold mine that a mysterious stranger led you to years ago, you would want a guy who specializes in the lore side of the mining business.

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Dick Tracy, 4/3/19

Well I for one am excited that this current Dick Tracy storyline, about a journalist who’s also a serial killer, seems to be entirely focused on the journalist-serial killer’s dissatisfaction with the nickname he’s had foisted onto him. He apparently would prefer to be known as “The Professor” because he “teaches the teachers,” which, not to sound like an elitist or anything, implies that he wholly misunderstands the distinction between secondary and tertiary education. Also, since I guess I’m going to sound like an elitist no matter what, it’s a little less impressive to “teach the teachers” when the teachers you teach are all gym teachers.

Gil Thorp, 4/3/19

Ahh, finally we’re learning what the “family stuff” was that kids were missing precious softball scrimmages for: doing “stuff” at a convention with your “family” of fellow content producers in the pop culture industrial complex. It looks like our spring Gil Thorp storyline is going to answer that age-old question: can a jock also be … a nerd?

Mark Trail, 4/3/19

Whoa, check out the quick swivel Mark’s got going on in the first panel here. “I’m sorry, is someone other than me needlessly reassuring a woman who’s talking about outdoorsy stuff that she hasn’t made an embarrassing error? And does that other person have the hint of a beard? I sense trouble brewing!”

Beetle Bailey, 4/3/19

As the U.S. military crumbles and the homeland itself is subject to enemy invasion, we’re down to our last line of defense: the troops garrisoned at Camp Swampy. With artillery raining down on the command post, things are not looking good.