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Mary Worth, 8/29/18

Oh, man, this Mary Worth, plot is getting really great right away, and having written that I realize it sounds sarcastic but I promise that it is not. What do you think it is that makes Mr. Wynter so unlikeable? Is he just a lonely, emotionally needy old man who will latch onto anyone who makes eye contact and drain them of energy with endless boring conversation? Is he a gross pervy weirdo who makes everyone, but especially members of the Charterstone early-middle-aged trophy wife set that comprises Toby’s peer group, profoundly uncomfortable? We also can’t discount the possibility that “Mr. Wynter” is the dog’s name, and he’s just really bitey.

Judger Parker, 8/29/18

Oh, right, I haven’t been keeping you up with Judge Parker, like, at all, but basically the CIA tracked down April and her father to their safe house not particularly safe cabin out in the woods, and he’s decided to sacrifice himself for her, going down in a hail of bullets while April escapes. And now she’s going to keep running, keep running until there’s no one left to chase her … or, as she appears to be doing in panel two, keep ambling, just keep just kind of gently jogging away from the dozens of trained assassins who want her dead until they lose interest, I guess.

Mark Trail, 8/29/18

Hey, remember when Rusty thought there was an ancient Aztec temple called Chicken Itza? Remember when Rusty almost got killed by a tree? Remember when Rusty got stuck under a car? I wouldn’t worry about how smart these kids are, is what I’m saying.

Pluggers, 8/29/18

It’s not clear what terrifies pluggers more: emotional intimacy or any reminder of their own mortality.

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Mark Trail, 8/23/18

Welp, it’s taken a while, but this Mark Trail storyline has finally settled into a groove, and that groove is mysterious, silent figures staring at our protagonists from a few feet away, causing a weirdly mild degree of consternation rather than the full-on terror that normal humans would experience. Shadow and light flicker across the scene, seemingly disconnected from any actual light source. It’s a horrifying dreamscape, in other words, and it’s only going to get more surreal and nightmarish as our curious children go deeper into this temple of awful secrets. Also, Rusty, has a new nickname, and it’s “crime dog” for some reason! Ha ha! “Crime dog!” Arf arf!

Gil Thorp, 8/23/18

“Hey, Josh,” you were probably extremely not wondering, “how’s that Gil Thorp golf plot going?” Well, the golf plot turns out to be a plot about golf cheating, which allows Gil to thunder extremely self-righteously about how golf is a sport built on honor, so that’s how it’s going, I regret to inform you. Gil seems beaten down here, longing for just a few short weeks from today, when he’ll be coaching football, a sport built openly on lies and deceit.

Pluggers, 8/23/18

Pluggers feel the icy hand of death on their neck literally every day of their rapidly shortening lives.

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/20/18

Time has, it goes without saying, not been kind to the core cast of Funky Winkerbean, the ones who were all in high school in the original, carefree iteration of the strip, and even though they look extremely wizened and beaten down, I guess they’re supposed to be at the oldest end of Gen X, now in their early 50s. This puts them squarely in what’s being called the “sandwich generation”: forced to simultaneously care for both their belligerent and confused Greatest Generation parents and their smarmy, unlikeable Millennial children. You’d feel bad for Funky and his cohort if not for the fact that they themselves are also completely and utterly insufferable.

Mark Trail, 8/20/18

Hmm, Rusty, did you ever think that maybe Becky is selling the copies on the black market as an elaborate sting operation to catch the artifact-rustlers who have been plaguing the Yucatan for far too long? I mean, she’s not, of course, because everyone in Mark Trail is exactly as villainous as they appear, but still! Anyway, I’m enjoying the vision of Becky spending years making and discarding two-dimensional copies by just jamming them into a photocopier, shaking her head and waiting for the day when technology finally catches up with her criminal ambitions.

Slylock Fox, 8/20/18

It’s bad enough that the animals rose up and largely exterminated humanity and then moved into our cities and took over our civilization as if it were theirs. But now they’re erasing our history, producing films that imply Cleopatra and her subjects were something other than full-blooded H. sapiens. I know casting minority actors isn’t always “convenient” for directors who have a core set of performers they usually work with, but I’m sure that Slick Smitty is available and more than willing to wear a wig.

Pluggers, 8/20/18

Oh no, I know this movie is nearly 20 years old and this point but it’s still avant-garde weirdness and pluggers will not be able to handle it. Abort, plugger, abort! Reruns of Matlock are on all afternoon, why not settle in for them instead