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Hagar the Horrible, 11/14/18

You know there’s an “uncensored” version of this where Sven is out there pulling gold teeth out of corpses, and that armor glove at the right in panel two is a severed hand. Honestly, given the level of editorial oversight the syndicated comics have seen lately, that probably could’ve run in the paper and nobody would’ve noticed.

Gil Thorp, 11/14/18

Sadly, this plotline continues to spiral downward away from wacky hijinks, and today has reached the depressing end state of far too many Gil Thorp plots, where Gil And Kaz Solemnly Decide To Do The Right Thing Even Though It’ll Cost Them. BORING!

Mark Trail, 11/14/18

Oh, hey, you’re probably wondering what’s going on in Mark Trail! Specifically, you’re probably wondering “Is Rusty’s mouth becoming an increasingly puckered and inhuman orifice, a baffling and unnerving opening in his face-flesh?” I regret to inform you that the answer is yes.

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Ahh, Sunday Mark Trail nature facts, what do you have for me this week?

Mark Trail panel 1, 10/28/18

“Very few!” That certainly sounds extremely reassuring.

Mark Trail panel 2, 10/28/18

Wait, WHAT. What the fuck. Holy shit. Savage. Child-sized. SQUAMATES????

Mark Trail, 10/28/18

WAIT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE AFRAID OF THESE HIGHLY INTELLIGENT LIZARDS OR NOT. ARE THEY FRIEND OR FOE. ARE THEY ONE OF THE VERY FEW KINDS OF LIZARD THAT POSE A THREAT TO HUMANS OR ARE THEY JUST A DANGER TO, LIKE, THE ECOSYSTEM OR WHATEVER BUT THEY’RE NOT ACTUALLY GONNA EAT US. LIKE I KNOW WE’RE PART OF THE ECOSYSTEM, ULTIMATELY, BUT LIKE ARE YOU USING “ECOSYSTEM” IN THAT REALLY INCLUSIVE SENSE HERE. PLEASE MARK I DEPEND ON YOU TO LET ME KNOW HOW MUCH I SHOULD PANIC

Shoe, 10/28/18

You know, I spend a lot of time on this blog musing about how the animals took over in Slylock Fox but next to none on the background of the bird-world of Shoe. And while I believe that the animal regime in Slylock was established by a sudden and violent revolution, I think that the Shoe bird-folk evolved to fill the niche left open after humanity went extinct on its own. The bird-men’s paleontological sciences are apparently underdeveloped, and they believe that many of the landscape modifications we left behind — the golf courses, for instance — are simply natural features of the landscape; the more religious among them see them as proof of a loving Bird-God who wants them to be happy, or, in this case, mildly frustrated.

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Mark Trail, 10/26/18

[dramatic music sting] SHOCKING TWIST! But how can this be? Extremely Cool Motorcycle Guy has LONG HAIR and a MUSTACHE and STUBBLE??? How could such a ruffian be an ally of Mark Trail? I certainly hope that once we learn that the faction of Jose and Cool Motorcycle Guy was really being run by Mark from behind the scenes all along, and that Mark was happily using Rusty and Mara as bait to catch the artifact-nappers, our friend pulls off his wig and wipes off the fake facial hair to reveal the clean-shaven, crew-cut hero beneath the surface.

Dick Tracy, 10/26/18

How can we tell that Dick Tracy takes place in a heightened, parallel world, similar in some ways to our own but fundamentally different from it? Well, one clue is that Dick Tracy and the Neo-Chicago Major Crimes Unit routinely kill suspects without due process and face no consequences for doing so some syndicated newspaper cartoonist launching a strip about a forgotten pair of movie heroes from fifty years ago is “dominating the entertainment news today.”

Dennis the Menace, 10/26/18

The weirdest part of this panel is the word “countryside?” Like, that’s not a huge plane, but it looks to be a twin-engine commuter jet, probably carrying at least 75 people, and while those planes often fly to airports that serve smaller cities, you’re not going to land it on some dirt airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, I guess the real menace here is that Dennis has slowly wormed his way into Mr. Wilson’s trust, until he gets the point of opening up with his innermost hopes and dreams, at which point his wife can belittle and humiliate him.