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Crankshaft, 3/3/18

So I didn’t cover Crankshaft this week because it was boring and mawkish, but basically the deal was that there was a little girl who had a book on “layaway” at the bookstore Lillian runs in her attic without a permit or a business license or proper fire escapes or anything like that — layaway in the sense that the girl would come in every once in a while and pay a few pennies towards the ultimate purchase price of the book, and then be allowed to read a little of her book before leaving it behind. Crankshaft, still hanging around the store after his futile attempt to get a different child interested in literacy and/or baseball, saw this touching scene, and decided to pay off the rest of the girl’s debt so she could take her book home the next time she stopped by. But! In possibly the greatest denouement of a Crankshaft storyline since Crankshaft’s best friend lost the mayoral election because Crankshaft forgot to vote, the whole thing, which we assumed was an attempt by the comic strip Crankshaft to manipulate our emotions, was actually an attempt by this little girl to manipulate Crankshaft’s emotions! And it worked! And she and her friend are pulling the same scam at bookstores all over the state! I want this pair of elementary school book-grifters to get their own comic strip, stat!

Mark Trail, 3/3/18

I guess it’s just going to be an occasional thing in Mark Trail now where an ancillary character tells an absurd shaggy dog story whose action we occasionally catch glimpses of, like the time we saw a walrus give birth in an SUV last year. I’m in favor of this development, obviously, just like Mark is obviously in favor of drunk, disheveled, injured clowns lurching out of the graveyard and sending innocent little children fleeing into the woods in a state of utter terror.

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Mark Trail, 2/28/18

Because I am an effete city boy, only child, and inside cat, I’ve never actually broken a bone. But you know what? From all reports I’ve heard, it hurts, a lot! Like, you generally have to go to the hospital to get it dealt with and everything. So I’m going to just say for the record here that if any of my bones are broken — even if it’s just a few of them — feel free to speak of it. Go ahead, tell people, “Josh suffered some broken bones, and he’s in a lot of pain and really didn’t like it. He’s not gonna die but he’s unhappy about it. Why don’t you stop by and see him, maybe sign his cast? It’ll really cheer him up!” Anyway, right in between panels one and two is when the acid Mark and Cherry took kicks in, I guess.

Beetle Bailey, 2/28/18

This is pretty heart-rending, what with Sarge’s own dog disavowing him and his fellow soldiers scowling at him with withering contempt, but you also have to remember that Sarge routinely violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice by dishing out violent and arbitrary punishments to subordinates, so don’t feel too bad for him.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/28/18

“I’ve always wanted to barf up some latte and biscotti onto a coffeehouse floor and then just walk away and leave it for someone else to clean up. I’ll be there!”

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Hagar the Horrible, 2/27/18

The central conceit of Hagar the Horrible is that it takes the classic American sitcom husband-wife dynamic and transposes it onto a family living in Viking-age Norway. So the conflicts between Hagar and Helga all revolve around the sort of things that would be at home in America in 1975: he spends too much time at the bar, he doesn’t like her mother, he’s a slob, etc. But tellingly, what they don’t fight about is his role as the leader of a band of opportunistic raiders and thieves, who leave a trail of corpses across Europe in their quest for plunder. Look at her little smile as he heads to the door to cleave the salesman’s skull with a single blow of his axe, then put him out of his misery by stabbing him in the throat. She doesn’t like it when he leaves chicken bones on the floor, but she’s never minded all the killing.

Gil Thorp, 2/27/18

So Marty Moon has reacted to his admonishment at the hands of teens by choosing to … hyper-pronounce Jorge Padilla’s name, as in this classic SNL sketch, and take advantage of getting to actually say a Latino’s name on the air by slipping in sponsored content for a local Mexican restaurant. I’m not sure what’s funnier: that he’s doing this to antagonize his young woke adversaries, or because he thinks he’s being respectful.

Mark Trail, 2/27/18

“Anybody break a neck or get permanently paralyzed? Any compound fractures, with femurs protruding horrifically from flesh? Tissues sliced so deep that the scarring will be permanent? Massive blood loss? Traumatic brain injury? C’mon, throw us a bone here, sheriff.”

Pluggers, 2/27/18

You can tell this is a “classic” Pluggers because the kid still knows what a radio is.

Six Chix, 2/27/18

What if an old person … had a mom??? You crazy for this one, Six Chix!