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Mark Trail, 10/16/12

In ancient Greek tragedies, hubris is inevitably followed by a generally violent comeuppance. And so too in Mark Trail! Mark and Bill Ellis thought they could party like big shots on Woods and Wildlife’s fabulous corporate yacht (not pictured), sailing down to the Caribbean for a few days’ worth of fishing, but instead they’ve been waylaid by these gun-toting, festively dressed, splendidly mustached foreigners. I suppose they’re going to turn out to be drug smugglers or the like, but given that Mark and Bill seem to have just sailed down there in the yacht and then started a-fishin’, I prefer to believe that they’re customs officials from some extremely relaxed island nation that doesn’t feel a need to spend a lot of money on “uniforms” or “offices” for their government employees. Another possibility, given that Lead Baddie’s exposed chest has suddenly become bright pink in panel three, is that they’re shape-shifting aliens who want to kidnap Mark and Bill to their outer-space probatorium.

Marvin, 10/15/12

Let’s say you’re a person who writes jokes, on the Internet! If that were the case, there would be few things more harrowing than a cartoon dog sitting at a desk, taking a desultory slurp of coffee, and then tapping out some terrible humor-like prose, all while sporting a numb, heavy-lidded facial expression. BRRRRRRR.

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Marvin, 9/7/12

Yes, Jeff, don’t you find your wife as sexually appealing as she was when she was 12? Be very careful about how you answer this question! Today’s Marvin has been cleverly designed to elicit sighs of relief when the strip moves back to its usual jokes about soiled diapers.

Hi and Lois, 9/7/12

Look, Chip, don’t expect coherent answers from your dad when he’s lounging theatrically in his man-cave and listening to his old records and smoking tons of weed, OK?

Momma, 9/7/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Momma knows Francis doesn’t have any friends!

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Marvin, 8/7/12

So Marvin is celebrating its 30th anniversary by having baby Marvin travel to his own future with his 30-year-old grown-up self. The time-travel process caused baby Marvin to spontaneously become 30 years old himself, despite the fact that travelling back in time didn’t turn 30-year-old Marvin into a baby, and if there’s one thing that offends me almost as much as constantly gleeful poop jokes, it’s inconsistent rules for time travel within a fictional universe.

Also, if you’re curious, the next thirty years will be an unending grind of economic malaise, and babies born today will never have the financial independence that generations of Americans have taken for granted! I’m kind of missing the poop jokes now, actually.

Mark Trail, 8/7/12

In a shockingly non-predictable development, Rusty was not captured by the sheep killers, who will now presumably menace the entire Mark-less Trail clan with their sinister, looming foreheads. I was going to say that the worry that Rusty would head right to some prison warden to show off his pictures is kind of bizarre, but you know what, it’s not like the kid has any friends his own age, paling around with some mid-level bureaucrat in the local Department of Corrections makes as much sense as anything else.

Mary Worth, 8/7/12

A lifetime of disappointments has trained Wilbur to set his expectations very, very low. “Well, this vacation didn’t end in our deaths! I guess we can call it … mostly enjoyable?”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/7/12

Haw haw, ladies sure be hatin’ their bodies, amiright fellas