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Mark Trail, 6/16/18

“It’s hard to describe, Mark! It just gives me an uneasy feeling … as if it were consecrated to some long-dormant winged serpent god, whose very avatar is following us now and watching us intently with Its inhuman eyes, ready to rise from Its century-long slumber when enough living men have gathered unknowingly in the sacred forecourt before the temple’s altar, ready to drink men’s blood once again to regain Its power and reign on earth for ten thousand awful years! You’ll see!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/16/18

Sheriff Tait sure is havin’ a good laugh at the idea of of having a cam’ra! Flatlander law enforcement officers are often fitted with body cameras to provide a record of their activities, because they’re responsible to elected officials and ultimately to the people they serve and can be held accountable for violations of the law. None of those things even vaguely apply to Sheriff Tait, who never faces either voters or any sort of county administration, so no, he won’t be recording the process as he violates Snuffy and Lukey’s civil rights, thank you very much.

Pluggers, 6/16/18

Do … do pluggers have $14K to drop on a kitchen remodel

Do pluggers live in a town where the median income is almost $90,000

IS EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT PLUGGERS WRONG

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Mary Worth, 6/14/18

Guys, guys, guys, are you ready for Tommy’s drug-free, Christ-centered summer romance? Because it’s happening! Tommy has chivalrously driven his comely co-worker home so she doesn’t have to take the bus, and I assume from his pregnant pause before “hang out” that her neighborhood was the site of some criminal adventures in his younger “very own meth lab” days. That’s probably where he went to buy — as an ahead-of-his-time entrepreneur, when it came time for him to peddle his wares, he did so in the leafy environs of UC Santa Royale, which unfortunately resulted in his immediate arrest. Anyway, I assume that Brandy lives downtown, which in the ’00s was a seedy, nightmarish hellscape filled with tank-top wearing toughs and abused women who had to suffer at the women’s shelter if they didn’t have a nice lady like Mary to take them back to her condo; but today it has a burgeoning arts scene and is, as Brandy notes, gentrifying nicely. Better not try any funny drug business around here now, Tommy! The cops actually respond to calls downtown these days!

Gasoline Alley, 6/14/18

Good news! Slim has finally received medication to help treat his terrible head injury, and it’s immediately sent him into an erotic desert island reverie. Did you know “play post office” is code for “three-way makeout fest”? I didn’t, and I’m now having to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about the American mail distribution system.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/14/18

Last week’s Crankshafts were all about how Crankshaft hoarded thousands of “Bean’s End Catalogs” (Bean’s End being like the combination of LL Bean and Land’s End, only … about gardening equipment rather than sensible clothing?) and eventually agreed to sell them off, and then they were purchased by obsessive collector Chester “The Chiseler”; meanwhile, ten years later in the Funkypresent, Chester, now the employer of Darin and Mopey Pete at a doomed comics startup, decided to unload his Bean’s End Catalog collection on eBay in order to bring in some cash to stretch out the lifespan of said doomed comics startup. I didn’t cover any of this at the time because it was all boring, but I am assuming that Funky’s dad lurking around weirdly and overhearing this conversation will lead to him buying said Bean’s End Catalogs as a gift for the now-comatose Crankshaft. I’m not sure how this dovetails in with the few things I seem to remember about Funky-dad’s characterization, which is that he’s an alcoholic and a real asshole, but if he ends up spending the bulk of Funky’s inheritance on a futile gesture of kindness towards a man who won’t appreciate or even notice it, that’s OK with me!

Mark Trail, 6/14/18

“A whole country full of ruins? An entire civilization laid waste by foreign invaders and the alien diseases they brought with them, their people reduced to a subordinate caste for centuries and their monuments left to crumble in the jungle? And now I get to climb all over them and take pictures? That’s amazing! I can’t get enough!”

Pluggers, 6/14/18

You’re a plugger if everyone you know is either sick or dead.

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Mark Trail, 6/1/18

Hmm, Mark is extremely circumspect about Professor Carter and this … lost temple, isn’t he? I mean, you can’t blame the guy. A few years back, some professor was so enthusiastic about this buried pyramid he’d discovered and Mark was just carried away by the excitement, and sure, he bought a share! Two weeks every year in a genuine pyramid — who can say no to that? Plus it’s an investment property you can sell for a profit later on! Well, it turned out this “pyramid” was just a double-wide in a “resort community” outside Sedona with a kitschy Egyptian Revival theme for the decor, and the pool in the development wasn’t even working. And there really isn’t much of a secondary market for timeshares, as he discovered! He’s been burned before, is what I’m saying, and he’s looking forward to learning more about this … lost temple, but until he gets a look at it, don’t expect him to get his wallet out.

Blondie, 6/1/18

Hmm, the question that’s about to become really important is exactly which kind of Cromwell Mr. Dithers just fired: a Thomas, who after years of faithful service to his sovereign was outmaneuvered politically and beheaded without trial? Or an Oliver, who raised up a New Model Army to do the unthinkable: defeat his king in battle and bring about his execution?

Beetle Bailey, 6/1/18

If Beetle Bailey abruptly became the story of a rogue U.S. Army sergeant funneling military weapons to the Animal Liberation Front, who used them in a string of violent attacks on cosmetics testing facilities and factory farms, I honestly wouldn’t be mad at all!

Mary Worth, 6/1/18

I’m sorry, if you’re not getting a little misty-eyed here, you have no heart to speak of and I bid you good day