Post Content

Mark Trail, 2/20/18

Oh, man, sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on Mark Trail, but the short version of the story is that, after showering his giraffe-seeing son and monkey-riding-ostrich-seeing father-in-law with amused contempt and probably not even hearing about the nice campers who got attacked by a rhino, Mark finally saw a tiger with his own eyes and now all of the sudden the situation is very serious indeed and he needs to take charge of it! Based on Mark’s grim facial expression and his determination to stockpile on ammo, look for the tone of the strip to rapidly shift from “zany farce with wacky circus animals” to “gritty Assault on Precinct 13-style seige drama, with wacky circus animals.”

Mary Worth, 2/20/18

This Mary Worth plot about Ted Miller, sex creep, is doing a good job of simulating having professional dealings with an actual sex creep, in the sense that you have to sit through a lot of boring professional talk on edge wondering when the next hug that lingers right up to the edge of plausible deniability is going to abruptly arrive. Until then, though, I guess we should go back to the extremely improbable story of Mary as a muffin maven, a story that starts with her selling a plate of five muffins at Aileen’s Grocery and ends with everyone involved a millionaire! This story obviously requires Ted to wedge himself onto the loveseat with Mary to tell it, so she can feel the power of his narrative.

Pluggers, 2/20/18

A PLUGGER ONLY HUGS SOMETHING

AFTER HE KILLS IT

AND CHOPS IT UP WITH AN AXE

Post Content

Pluggers, 2/19/18

As you know, I’m not a plugger, and one of the ways you can tell I’m not a plugger is that I know jack-all about cars. So, like, when I read this panel, I was confused, because don’t all cars have shock absorbers? Is this panel trying to imply that pluggers have a pedestrian-based lifestyle and shun automotive ownership? Because that seems quite at odds with the image I’ve built up over the years! But, no: it turns out that some cars have shocks and some cars have struts. And maybe some have both? I then contemplated taking the next logical step: doing the research to determine if cars without shock absorbers were more “plugger-y” than those with them. But then I thought, “enh, my dude, you’re just spending time learning about cars.” So I gave up! True story!

Dick Tracy, 2/19/18

“Have you seen today’s paper, Chief Patton? Oh, you haven’t, but you’ve already heard about the murder of an extremely wealthy and prominent citizen? What with you being the chief of police and all? And also we live in a 24-hour news cycle, so even if you hadn’t heard it from police sources you’d probably see it on TV or Twitter or something? Well, whatever, I already had one of my aides buy this paper for visual effect, so God damn it, I’m going to hold it up meaningfully. This is how you hold up a newspaper, right? Very gingery?”

Slylock Fox, 2/19/19

OH HEY WHAT’S UP COUNT WEIRDLY IS JUST SENDING OUT HIS SNAKE TO EAT BABIES NOW

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 2/12/18

Hey, so, remember last year when the xenophobic Congresswoman Bellowthon tried to pass a law restricting the rights of Lunarians and Lunarian-Americans, but then she got murdered and the legislation never went anywhere? You namby-pamby libs were probably pretty pleased about that, but now that the leader of this alien species is on Earth, smoking fine cigars with a prominent military-industrial complex CEO and casually mentioning that his people are abandoning “Moon Valley” and journeying to our world, planting secret colonies everywhere, you wish Congress had fully funded the Space Wall!

Marvin, 2/12/18

Maybe I spend too much time dwelling on the romance plots in Marvin. I mean, technically, they can be framed as stories about “the sex lives of babies,” but in reality they’re all pretty chaste, and the cartoon convention where infants and animals are given adult-level cognitive capabilities makes everything more or less on the level. Here’s the thing, though: half the time the punchline to these strips are about how Marvin, who has a girlfriend, smells like feces all the time? Because he shits his pants? And enjoys it? And it makes you realize, “Oh, this guy who has a girlfriend, he’s literally in infant. That’s bad!” Anyway, here’s another strip about diaper-wearing babies who poop themselves but also date each other, I guess!

Pluggers, 2/12/18

Pluggers know that a good way to sleep as long as you want in the morning is to unplug your clock so it doesn’t even tell you what time it is. And then when you do wake up, if you have a beard you can paw at it and go “Oh no! How long have I been asleep?” like you’re Rip Van Winkle. It’s a classic bit!

Mary Worth, 2/12/18

WHOA WHOA WHOA TED IS MOVING IN FOR A HUG AND MARY SEEMS PRETTY PLEASED ABOUT IT, THIS IS A SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT AND MAYBE ALL THIS TIME THEY HAVEN’T BEEN TALKING ABOUT “MARKETING” AT ALL???? STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER ROMANCE UPDATES!!!