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Mark Trail, 10/5/09

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mark Trail’s clan is part of a network of isolated, hard-working, rural-cabin-based families who don’t get many visitors. Our reluctant poachers actually have more than a passing similarity to his old friends who own Sneaky, except instead of harboring sinister raccoons they just have a cat — a heavily sedated or dead cat, if the limp, compliant way it’s just letting Cindy tote it about is any indication. Anyway, one wonders how they all stay in touch. They could swap rustic livin’ tips on the Internet, or at least they could if any of their rustic shacks were actually connected to municipal electric or phone lines.

There’s something distinctly unsettling about Mark’s quick transition from “Rusty has been complaining about my cooking” to “You’re a beautiful young lady, Cindy!” The best case scenario is that Mark is going to set her to rustling up some grub for his young ward, both as a way to get her accustomed to her womanly duties and to see if she’d make a suitable mate for the lad once they both reach the traditional Lost Forest marital age of 13. But more likely, part of the purpose of this camping trip is to teach Rusty that sometimes when you’re very hungry, you need to eat things that you wouldn’t eat otherwise, and Nature’s Way is to start with the smallest and most feeble. (You’ll notice that we haven’t seen Sassy in a while.)

Dennis the Menace, 10/5/09

Today’s Dennis the Menace offers an amusing set of metaphorical nesting Russian dolls when it comes to absolute and relative chronology. Henry Mitchell is the father of a child who, I’ve always assumed, is in the 6-8-year-old range; obviously there’s an extremely wide range of ages that Henry himself could be based on that, but if pressed, I would place him somewhere between 35 and 45, and probably at the lower end of that scale. So, yes, he’s safely in the generation that spawned the whole “cartoons for grownups” phenomenon, which really took off with the monster success of the Simpsons twenty years ago. Which in turn of course means that Dennis could not possibly remember a time when cartoons were, in fact, for kids.

And yet, Henry goes about his day wearing black pants and a white shirt and a bow tie most of the time, which marks him out as a Stereotypical ’50s Dad, which has him being born in, I dunno, 1920 or so. This makes him about 90 years old, or means that he’s watching the 1955 version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Family Guy or whatever (and note that one of the cartoon characters is himself sporting Henry’s trademark outfit) on the DuMont Network.

Apartment 3-G, 10/5/09

Make fun of Dr. P (side note: my new nickname for the Professor is “Dr. P”) all you want, but before I met my wonderful and charming wife, I had a certain attraction to women who were mean, bad, and/or crazy (see also my devotion to Margo Magee), so I can sort of see where he’s coming from here. Pill-addled? Possibly suicidal? Hinting at a troubled, mysterious past? Shouting into the phone at someone who is probably supposed to be bringing her more drugs? Sign me up!

Pluggers, 10/5/09

You know, this cartoon would be a lot less confusing if the sarcastic postal clerk weren’t himself capable of flight. “Sorry, we don’t deliver via carrier pigeon anymore. I mean, I’m a carrier pigeon myself, but … you know, union rules. Now they’ve got me behind this desk, and let me tell you, it’s a drag.”

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Mary Worth, 10/1/09

So, everyone who bet on Scott surviving in the pool: you seem to have come out on top … for now. But will he pull through the surgery? And who exactly is this “Dr. Good” character? Does his name define his character, as the names of beloved Highlights icons Goofus and Gallant do? Or is it one of those ironic names, like when you call a big guy named “Tiny”? “Oh, look, here comes Dr. ‘Good.’ Hey, is that a lower intestine stuck to the bottom of his shoe?” If that’s the case, maybe Scott did die in that shootout after all. “Yeah, just give the corpse to Dr. Good and let him muck around in there for practice; it’s not like he can make things worse, right? And send the live one to Dr. Actually Good.”

Pool bets are now open on how long Adrian will stand there clutching at her chin in gape-mouthed horror. Hours? Days? Weeks? Will someone at least gently push her chin up so that her mouth is closed for the funeral?

Pluggers, 10/1/09

OH MY GOD FIXIE-RIDING HIPSTERS ARE ACTUALLY PLUGGERS EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG

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Mark Trail, 9/28/09

You know, while Mary Worth was busy pumping ancillary characters full of lead, Mark Trail was offering us the unusual spectacle of Mark experiencing the blunt head trauma-induced unconsciousness he usually dishes out to others. The most exciting aspect of this plot is not any danger to Mark — surely he can punch out any real threats to his person while out cold — but rather the prospect of the feeble Rusty wandering aimlessly around the alligator-lousy swamp with only his own hideousness to protect him. Sadly, we weren’t even given a few hopeful days to imagine that Mark’s deformed ward had been devoured by a vicious reptile before the inevitable discovery that he’s safe and as sound as he ever is. I don’t normally root for stories about children in danger, but I make exceptions for Rusty.

Dick Tracy, 9/28/09

Oh, also, the soulful-eyed clown, who I pegged as the killer pretty much upon his first appearance, then briefly began to doubt the guilt of, turns out to be the killer after all! Thank goodness Dick Tracy isn’t challenging my plot-related expectations in any way, as I don’t think I could handle it.

Really, though, Dick Tracy isn’t particularly interested in the big-picture strokes of the plot at all: it’s not a “mystery” strip as such, as your most base impulses (sinister clown = murderer, in this case) are always likely to be correct. No, it’s more interested in following its own drifting dream logic on the way to its predetermined conclusion. So Ringo was a corporate whistleblower (OK) who was put into the care of the witness protection program (makes sense) and given a job running a circus (wait, what?). And Mr. Pops the clown worked at the company Ringo worked at, or something? And now everybody at the circus also hates Ringo, because … they also were profiting from the corporate malfeasance … or maybe because he’s a bad boss, or bad ringmaster? You might think that Mr. Pops’s accusations will be followed up on in future strips, but trust me, they won’t, not to anybody’s satisfaction, anyway. It’s not so much a “tightly constructive narrative” as one of those nightmares you have where you’re in college or a new job and you haven’t done your homework or learned any of your duties, and everyone is mad at you, and eventually you get eaten by a tiger.

Pluggers, 9/28/09

Kudos to pluggers for allowing their yards to revert to prairie, but why not go all the way? They ought to allow their human-style dwellings to decay, strip off their clothes, and go feral, like the beasts that they are. Of course, they may be devoured by their wild cousins who never experienced the softening effects of domesticity, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Beetle Bailey, 9/28/09

Ha ha, Sarge is closing his eyes and pretending that the only words he hears are “bigger,” “job,” and “harder”! Jesus, I am a fucking twelve-year-old.