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People! Normally, I don’t bother you with metaposts mid-week, but I’ve received a bevy of Mark Trail related delights from readers over the past few weeks that I feel deserve their own showcase!

First up is a book discovered by faithful reader Charterstoned:

Note that it’s Mark Trail’s Fishing Tips Created By Ed Dodd, with the actual authorship left vague. Presumably this book was churned out by strip creator Dodd’s lowly assistant, while Dodd partied till all hours with Hollywood big shots.

This is clearly the high point of the whole book, in which an innocent young boy cringes in terror at the approach of a menacing weirdo in a hat. Don’t worry, kid; he just wants your gum … for now.

Also, you can tell the difference between the various almost-identical kinds of catfish you catch, assuming that counting the number of rays on on a dead, smelly fish’s fins is your idea of a good time.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Mark Trail without a freakishly oversized animal. Fishing dude who may or may not be Mark is so smug about his little pie-pan trick that he doesn’t even notice the giant carnivorous moth that’s about to latch onto his face.

Meanwhile, faithful reader Jasper Jinks sends a couple of scans from a 1956 Mark Trail comic book put out by the U.S. Public Health Service.

An “industrial problem” that’s “being licked all over America by plain citizens, working together at the local level for everyone’s benefit”? Translation: Mark Trail is a dirty communist. A dirty communist in terrifying jodhpurs.

The plot of this tract involves a rotten little kid who gets a little under the weather after swimming in a watering hole containing industrial run-off from some awesomely profitable factory. Here’s a scene of the crazed Marxist lynch mob Mark puts together to put a stop to progress. Note that Mark is clenching his fist in case political agitation fails and he needs to punch pollution out of the water:

Of course, seeing old Mark Trails like this makes one wonder how similar they are to the current version. Well, a lot more than you might think! Faithful reader These Strange Worlds has put together an exhaustive comparison showing how much of the current storyline is recycled from one that ran 30 years ago.

And, finally, fans of Mark Trail and making fun of Mark Trail should check out Mark Stale. “What’s wrong, Rusty? Why are you lying awake, whimpering like a baby?” (Thanks to faithful reader festoonic for the tip.)

Oh, also, if you are going to be in the mid-Atlantic region over the weekend of May 22, perhaps you will want to get in on a meetup faithful reader bourbon babe is planning? Certain bloggers who live in that neck of the woods will in all probability make an appearance! (HINT HINT)

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Your COTWs (CsOTW? never sure how to pluralize that) coming shortly, but first, a few items of interest! To begin: thanks to many, many tipsters who sent me the link to Bill Watterson’s first interview in more than 20 years. It’s pretty brief, but interesting, and includes this key quote:

It’s always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip’s popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now “grieving” for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I’d be agreeing with them.

Also! Normally I only post photos of people wearing merchandise from my store, but I genuinely feel a need to give back to all that Mary Worth has done for me over the years, and thus I present to you my first off-store model: faithful reader Rachel in her new Mary Worth t-shirt:

If you haven’t already, you should totally check check the store out! And even if you have, you need to go back, because they aren’t resting on their laurels over there. YOU CAN TOTALLY BUY MARY WORTH VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS YOU GUYS! And if you’re over at CafePress anyway, well, you’ll obviously want to check my store out as well.

Also also! Faithful reader Ed Dravecky recently attended the Dallas Comic Con, where he had this picture snapped with former Judge Parker artist Harold Ledoux:

Back when Mr. Ledoux was drawing this feature, the cast wore baggy, physique-hiding clothing while flirting half-heartedly, and I have to say that if I had met him, the temptation to say something along the lines of “So, the new guy sure likes drawin’ ladies, don’t he?” would have been overpowering. Ed says that Ledoux talked about Sam Driver’s introduction to the strip, which pushed out its title character; the syndicate apparently wanted “somebody who could do some punching,” presumably to compete with Mark Trail’s fisticuff-driven popularity.

And now, without further ado: your comment of the week!

“If Mary-Jane whipped ’em out whenever the storyline got dull, Spider-Man would make Judge Parker look positively Amish.” –commodorejohn

And the also funny runners up!

“Or maybe Family Circus has had a coloring error, and Billy has buried his younger brother in concrete. ‘Mommy’ is no doubt just out of range as well, laughing hysterically at her moron son’s imminent starvation.” –Captain Hammer

“Great Caruso’s ghost! If there’s one strip with more potential than Spider-Man for inaction and inanity, it has to be Spider-Man: Miami.” –Ed Dravecky

“Is … is Dawn going to break up with her father? I could get into this story yet.” –Rita Lake and the Special Goddesses

“MJ’s actually looking pretty ripped herself, albeit only in her left arm. Perhaps the Parker household TV-remote-lifting exercise regimen is finally paying off.” –Dan

“Maybe Pete should go along, in case there’s a production of Nippleless Nippleby.” –Muffaroo

“If the girls in A3G would just stop turning away from the person they’re in the middle of a conversation with, forcing them to violently snap their head backwards when the other person responds to what they just said, they’d save a lot of strain on their necks. I imagine the whole scarf fascination is just to hide the surprise-take stretch marks that all A3G regulars must have by now.” –AndyL

“Well, it could be a boom box. Judging by how that mutant talking camel-thing has a head in place of its left foreleg and a bizarre abdominal protrusion forcing both of its hind legs to its right side, that oddly spherical lump could be anything, really.” –Rhekarid

“And what’s with MJ wasting an entire word balloon on an exclamation point? If the rest of us could actually utter a punctuation mark, there might not be any more wars.” –Mr. Paul Maul

“I hope Wilbur can find one of those newfangled DNA clinics that does cheek-swab testing. Otherwise, he’ll have to decide which of his four hairs he’s willing to sacrifice.” –BigTed

“At last. No longer must I yell ‘Paternity test!’ every time I read MW. Now it’s back to ‘Haircut!'” –Joolz

“By ‘encore’ he means a quick round of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Let all those that bear the kerchief rejoice and let the Gods themselves regret their scarfless immortality tonight!” –lunarhalo

“What is it with Gil Thorp and shiny, shiny floors? I know basketball courts are well-polished, but today’s strip looks like Walt Disney’s Hackneyed Basketball Advice On Ice!” –Patrick

“A plugger’s doc is even less pleased when his patient tries to pay the bill with a mason jar full of pennies, five tattered books of Blue Chip stamps, and a stale Dorito that looks a little like Jesus.” –Mr. E.Z. Mark

“Crankshaft: Pam is just now noticing that her father is an annoying dope who makes the English language cry? Only now? Has she spent the last 20 years on a ketamine high?” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Also, in spite of having ‘connected on many levels’ with Wilbur, Kurt seems not to be quite connected to himself in panel one, where his torso is improbably shifted to the left of his hips and legs. If he were a horse, he would probably be put down.” –Charterstoned

“Is Sarah still in a car seat? Unless she’s biologically short for her age, in which case I apologize. Maybe I’m still jaded by the time Sam and Abby’s kid went to bed in footie pajamas and woke up as jailbait, but I think it might be time for Sarah’s height to catch up with her college-level elocution.” –Black Drazon

“Any guesses as to why Wilbur has unicorn bookends? My current theory is he’s actually an eight-year-old girl.” –Anonymous

“Dawn: ‘Wilbur! We’re out of Miracle Whip!’ Wilbur: ‘It matters! It matters! Oh, dear Lord, it matters! Quickly, to the BreadMobile!'” -KarMann

“What IS going on with that Family Circus blanket? Did the real-life Keanes just mess up drawing her hands and say, ‘Fuck it, let’s just make her hold some laundry. Chicks do that, right?’ Or is it covering something, like a sculpture or a prize ham that she was about to reveal with a dramatic flourish when she found her children pilfering sweets from the cabinet?” –Revenge of Chesnut

“In many contexts, Wilbur’s statement would be an affirmation of the value of the relationships we create over those which societal convention predetermines for us. In Mary Worth, it probably means he’s afraid of needles.” –perchingpath

“I wonder if Eula would take any comfort in living in the Family Circus, where angels watch over their survivors like giant voyeuristic harpies.” –bunivasal

“No wonder Steve Luhm is poised for a coaching breakthrough; Coach Kaz has been damn scarce since he took on a second job as Randy Parker’s hetero sex-double. Now I’m left to ponder what Marty-Moon-related money hemorrhage caused this temporary drop in finances, one so sharp that he would throw himself willy-nilly into the tit-crazy world of JP.” –rocketbride

“I can’t explain it to you, Dawn. There’s not even room for another ‘we’ in this speech bubble.” –Comics Fan

“I’m going to give the Perfesser the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is just the first day his newspaper will be published entirely in tweet form.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“At breakfast, Sam continues to spout racist diatribes against cobbling elves!” –Chyron HR

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And we must of course give thanks to our advertisers:

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Your COTW coming shortly, but first! You might recall that last fall I was sentenced to prison in the Jumble. Well, according to this past Sunday’s edition, I’ve been freed but sentenced to almost as sad a fate: toiling in the dying print newspaper industry!

Appropriately, the Sunday Jumble is nearly impossible to find online, but faithful reader queek took a picture of his physical “news-paper” and sent it to me! I include the adjacent bridge column so you can get the full experience of reading this the way our primitive forefathers did.

Also, this is not really comics related, but, indulge me: speaking of things that will kill print, I somehow briefly bamboozled my way onto CNN as a “tech analyst” (thanks to one of my other gigs) talking about the supposedly exciting upcoming Apple tablet thingie. My 15 seconds of glory begin at about 0:33 on this video. Despite my unabashed Apple fanboyness, I express some ambivalence about the future success of this device!

If it appears that I’m not looking at anyone in particular, that’s because I’m not! I filmed this in a closet-sized room in CNN’s Washington studio, and the people actually putting the segment together were in New York, so I was just talking to a disembodied voice in my ear. I swear that I said funny things during my filming session, but alas none of them came through in the segment, and I admit to being jealous of the Motley Fool dude’s “iManPurse” line. My tie, at least, looks good. Also, Wolf Blitzer was in line ahead of me at the makeup station, and his beard is even more fluffy and magical in person.

Ahem! And now that that narcissism is out of the way … your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“In Rex Morgan, MD, The Movie, I would like the part of Sarah to be played by Danny DeVito.” –Ned Ryerson

And the runners up! Very funny!

“When a goose with a thirty foot wingspan warns me to stay out of his end of the lake, I usually comply.” –AndyL

“Sam’s hands are so furry I’m tempted to believe he’s evolving a sophisticated array of sensitive cilia that warns him when Abbey is getting too close. I shudder to imagine his matted back.” –trey le parc

“Are Rocky and Godiva known to the tabloids as ‘Gocky’, or ‘Rodiva’?” –imperturbe

“It looks to me like Dagwood and Herb have joined one of those door-to-door religious cults — maybe ‘BREAKFAST FOR BUDDHA’ — with their matching bacon-layered briefcases and wacky waffle shoes. There’s no god like a syrupy god.” –R in CT

“Still, there’s something special about the way Mary’s eyes light up in the second panel with all the warmth of xenon laser death beams suddenly acquiring a target. If there’s a problem, yo, she’ll solve it.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Mary’s just disturbed because Dawn only gave her a half-baked version of the Nazi salute. ‘Look, Dawn, we’ve gone over this and over this. Do I have to show you how to hail me properly AGAIN?'” –Amateur

“I love the look on Mary’s face in panel two, just like someone who in passing puts a quarter in an airport slot machine and hits a $50,000 jackpot. For the mere investment of a ‘hope you had a nice holiday,’ she receives an e-ticket to the schadenfreude express.” –Sans Sense

“Come now — it’s called ‘foreshadowing.’ Or maybe ‘side-shadowing.'” –Zla’od N

“I can’t be the only one who can’t look past the bizarrely bright nighttime of Blondie? Perhaps the colourists spend so much time bathed in white florescent light while chained to their desks that they have never experienced darkness?” –Anonymous

“For some reason, the artist of Mary Worth thinks that extreme closeup = extreme emotion, usually negative. If ever we see someone in a killing rage, presumably it’ll just be a drawing of enormous eyes, possibly framed by downturned eyebrows.” –Carly

“That Blondie strip is obviously a glimpse into an alternate universe in which Dagwood and Herb are a hilariously argumentative gay couple. And in the daytime, the sky is black.” –Super King

“My growing suspicion that Wilbur Weston has never actually had sex in his life has since led me to suspect that Dawn actually sprang, fully formed, from his forehead. Which would explain the comb-over.” –mojo

“It appears as if the lake itself is yelling at the Parker Brothers in panel one. Perhaps this isn’t a fight between the brothers and the dudes in the canoe, but a violent battle between the personification of water and people who haven’t realized that hairstyles have evolved since 1973.” –Patrick

“I think Chip’s friend works as an organ-grinder’s monkey on the weekends.” –bats :[

“Oh, please. Winter or summer, Chip and friend would be doing the exact same things: playing Wii or surfing for porn. I’d update the septuagenarian writers of Hi and Lois on advances in technology, but I don’t know how to send them a telegram.” –DaveyK

“I’d think the easiest way for Hootin’ Holler residents to care for their personal hygiene is with their disturbingly capacious tongues.” –jvwalt

“Tonight! The Keane Kids and Max Von Sydow star in Ingmar Bergman’s Frosty The Snowman.” –Rachel K

“What, exactly, is Ted Forth wearing? Some kind of Masonic snuggie?” –Joe Blevins

“The Family Circus is turning into Calvin & Hobbes so slowly that we’ll never see them get to the good part.” –Kibo

“Dennis has failed to learn the valuable lessons of this week’s FC: Snowmen are, at best, fleeting friends. To love a snowman is to know death.” –Rusty

“On what planet do teenage comic book nerds NOT already know the history of comic book characters? If this was reality, a ‘back in the good old days’ comment like that would be met with five hours of nitpicking and debate until the old dude just went and shot himself to make the trivia stop.” –Carrie

“‘Steve Luhm’s been giving Micah Huang some pointers’? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? And by ‘it’, I mean being thrust into the world of womanhood by a janitor in a closet that that smells of bleach and dashed dreams.” –skullcrusherjones

“Dagwood, stop bothering that poor man about the bird and get to the real burning issue: what on Earth is he wearing? Are they making mustard-yellow maternity wear for men now?” –Roger

“If I were that little guy, I’d be concerned about what Billy’s got in his pocket. Never bring a snowball to a knife fight.” –Makya

“I’m in luck! Sabretooth can’t find me! Or hear someone yelling from ten feet away, because his four evenly-spaced faces leave no room for ears!” –He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And we must of course give thanks to our advertisers:

• Advertise your t-shirts here: Find out more about the BlogAds t-shirt hive! Connect with young adults eager to sport your shirts! Reaching a tremendously expansive audience at a very low cost, the BlogAds T-Shirt Hive is comprised of a well-rounded set of over 30 social media elite blogs, who speak to a young hip male and female audience of clothing enthusiasts. These readers are seeking back to school threads, everyday wear and tear shirts, and any clothes that are stylish or humorous.

To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.