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Panel from Mark Trail, 10/13/10

The first panel of today’s Mark Trail is so glorious that I felt you deserved to see it as large as I could give it to you. It’s almost like you are some corpulent political insider, hoping to enjoy a little canned hunting and some desperate promises from the next governor, when suddenly a deranged little monster and her dead-eyed deer lunge at you, demanding that you refrain from doing exactly what you’ve paid to do.

Note that her upper body seems disproportionately larger than her legs. That’s probably a carefully crafted technique that provides the illusion of the little girl moving rapidly towards you. It certainly isn’t because she’s been crudely assembled out of whatever clip art has been left lying around on the floor of the Mark Trail studios, no sir!

Panel from Mary Worth, 10/13/10

Also worthy of close inspection is our first encounter with Adrian’s opinionated friend Jill, here expressing her opinions with an eye-roll so epic she appears to have sprained her face. We’ve all been preparing ourselves for some kind of epic battle of the meddlers over how Adrian’s wedding should be run, but Jill’s deep thought-ballooned sarcasm seems to indicate that she’s already bored with the whole exercise. Perhaps she will realize that Mary is eager to do dull stuff like watch Adrian model a series of indistinguishably hideous bridal gowns, and she’ll excuse herself to go do something that doesn’t make her want to slit her wrists.

Dick Tracy, 10/13/10

Wow, it seems that the famous hobo solidarity completely falls apart once it turns out that one of them has money, and that the true proletarians are about to turn on the kulak who’s been lurking in their midst. Dick Tracy will be truly conflicted if he ends up triumphing due to the thing he hates the most: class struggle.

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Family Circus, 10/9/10

Thanks to the many faithful readers who took time out of their busy weekends to email me the great news that millions of dollars are going to be spent creating a Family Circus movie. (The comments on that story I linked to are actually pretty great, my favorites being “Hell yeah! This means The Lockhorns can’t be far behind! Team Loretta!” and “Who asked for this? Ida Know. Who wants to see it? Not me.”) Apparently the strip is already moving into the edgier subject matter that Hollywood demands, with Dolly coming to the conclusion that her only way out of the Keane Kompound is as a child bride.

Crankshaft, 10/9/10

If the endless “Pam and Jeff reminisce about the violence Crankshaft has done to the English language” strips had to end — and, really, they could have kept at it for as long as comic strips continue to exist as a medium, as far as I’m concerned — then this is a pretty good way to wrap it up. Our two protagonists, having briefly rediscovered the emotion that normal humans call “happiness,” cringe in terror as they realize that Crankshaft’s soul, having been rejected by both God and Satan, has returned to his mortal form.

Beetle Bailey, 10/9/10

Honestly, there really ought to be someone employed at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC whose sole job is to pose this question before the day’s Beetle Bailey is sent to papers. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke? I mean, would any of our readers recognize this is a joke, or something resembling a joke? We are still doing strips with jokes in them, right?”

Mary Worth, 10/9/10

“Some people at the hospital use another word for her! Or, wait, ‘war criminal’ is really two words, isn’t it?”

Adrian sure is setting Mary up to hate and fear this “outspoken” “type A” lady. One can only imagine what sort of terrible description of Mary she’s been giving to Jill. I’m starting to guess that she’s doing the meddling biddy equivalent of putting a couple of bugs in a jar and shaking it up.

Spider-Man, 10/9/10

“Oh, right, because I’m a terrible actress. God, this play is going to flop! The boos will be deafening!”

Apartment 3-G, 10/9/10

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Six to eight weeks worth of plotlines in which Tommie is not deemed interesting enough to appear.

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Dennis the Menace, 10/4/10

The Mitchells’ pastor ought to be concerned about young Dennis’ decision to turn away from the Christian God and instead offer his worship to Skynet, the superintelligent computer network that will soon destroy us all.

Jumble, 10/4/10

As usual, I’m too dumb to actually solve the Jumble, but I do want to point out that “vomiting” would fit into the solution blanks nicely.

Luann, 10/4/10

After setting this foolproof plan in motion, TJ will head off to his job as a master cat burglar/puppeteer.

Mary Worth, 10/4/10

Let’s hope Jill Black at the hospital has some knife fighting experience, if that oh no nobody’s horning in on MY meddle expression on Mary’s face in panel two foreshadows things to come (and please, please, let it foreshadow things to come).

Slylock Fox, 10/4/10

Shady’s new membership in the Bloods is about to be revoked with extreme prejudice after the other gang members find out he obsessively hoards golden kitty-kat figurines.

Crankshaft, 10/4/10

“Also, we might occasionally be allowed to experience joy!”