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Crankshaft, 2/15/14

This week’s Crankshaft “plot” has been far too inane to discuss, involving a reality show called Ice Road School Bus Drivers — it’s like Ice Road Truckers, but for school bus drivers! — filming our characters in action. The producers are no doubt disappointed that Crankshaft didn’t engage in any of the property destruction or reckless endangerment of children for which he’s so famous, but nevertheless, the new reality show stars are getting their reward today: cheap giveaway hats emblazoned with the show’s logo. The drivers’ overjoyed reaction to this is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Life doesn’t get any better than this!” proclaims Crankshaft, a man who helped defeat the Nazis in World War II, who has children and grandchildren, who played professional baseball, who overcame his own struggles and learned to read as an adult, who helped pay for a group of underprivileged kids from his bus route go to college. “Life doesn’t get any better than this.” He pulls the ill-fitting cap tightly down onto his head.

Mark Trail, 2/15/14

“I sure hope Trail is what he says he is … for his own good! If he’s a person, like he says he is, then that’s OK! But if he’s an animal, then I’m going to have to taxidermy him. I can’t stop taxidermying animals! But wait … what if a person is a kind of animal? Oh no. Oh NO. My taxidermying fingers are gettin’ itchy!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/15/14

Well, it looks like Sarah was right to be suspicious of her editor, because her editor intends to put her in a cage and let other little kids come and gawk at her while she churns out books. This is quite frankly the best business decision anyone at the museum has made at any point during this storyline.

Mary Worth, 2/15/14

“But let’s not talk about such heavy topics now, Wilbur. Look, I’ve figured out that I can hold a full coffee cup using just my mouth! Pretty neat, huh?”

Pluggers, 2/15/14

All across America’s strife-torn inner cities, members of the Bloods and Crips put down their newspapers with stunned expressions on their faces. “Why are we fighting all the time?” they ask. “No matter what crew we roll with, we’re all pluggers. We are all pluggers.” Consider the peace increased.

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Archie, 2/13/14

Good lord, Pop’s facial expression in that last panel chills me to my very core. “That’s right, Archie, Mr. Lodge doesn’t like you,” he thinks. “None of the adults in this town like you. Your time as a teenager, during which social convention demands that we be halfway pleasant and encouraging to you, is almost over. Prepare yourself for adulthood. Prepare yourself for … the shunning.”

Judge Parker, 2/13/14

So we’ve finally met April’s mysterious dying-of-cancer dad and he’s … one of the greatest things Judge Parker has ever seen? I’m not sure if he’s based directly on Hunter S. Thompson or if he’s been filtered through Doonesbury’s Uncle Duke, but he’s fantastic and I want him in every panel from now until the heat death of the universe finally brings this storyline to a close. My only regret is that April has actually drawn attention his tarantula companion; I sort of wish that it had just sat there on his shoulder, unexplained, for the next few weeks’ worth of strips, with everyone he meets reacting to it with silent but visible disgust.

Mary Worth, 2/13/14

Yep, Tommy’s coming back to Charterstone, all right! By the expression on her face you can tell Mary is almost as excited as I am.

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Mary Worth, 2/12/14

It looks like Mary’s encounter with a sad divorced woman and her child was only a warm-up meddle; she merely anonymously paid their dinner bill and moved on. No, Wilbur is about to put her back in the professional syndicated meddler game by once again begging her to take over his Ask Wendy column/persona. You might recall that, after Wilbur had a near-death experience, he started a column about how shlubs like him survive true horrors despite all logic, and so handed his advice column off to Mary, who naturally was driven mad by the power and influence it afforded her. Less than a year later, though, Wilbur had the nerve to eat Mary’s sandwiches but then ask for the column back, to distract him from the fact that his girlfriend had dumped him to spend more time with her meth-addict ex-con son. Mary acquiesced, but now Wilbur is trying to get her to take the column over again, like she doesn’t have anything better to do, which obviously she doesn’t, but still, it’s the principle of the thing. There have been hints this week that maybe Iris is back in Wilbur’s life, along with her amazing drug-dealer son, but we’ve been teased with the prospect before, so I’m not going to hold my breath.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/12/14

By the 10th century, the Vikings had expanded their trade and plundering routes across a remarkably wide stretch of the globe, with Norse voyagers reaching Greenland in the northwest and Constantinople in the southeast. But it’s true, they traveled almost always over water, whether the open ocean in the case of the North Atlantic or the Russian river systems to reach the Black Sea. So, yes, Honi, the Mongols, landlocked deep in the Gobi, are probably not going to encounter any of your kinsmen, and thus are not included among your potential romantic partners. But what about the Finns? The Franks? The Inuit? The Celts? The Rus’? The Byzantines? The Bulgars? The Northumbrians? The Saxons? Why do we always want what we cannot have?