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Mark Trail, 9/1/15

I see Lesley is still irritated enough with Mark to play games, shipping the equipment they need but making them solve her elaborate puzzle to figure out where it’s going. Fortunately Ken’s local smarts will crack her code! Fortunately also Ken’s already festooned his car with skulls, preparing for the Mad Max-style post-nuclear apocalypse that this lost radioactive material presumably presages.

Apartment 3-G, 9/1/15

It’s sad how difficult it is to tell in the current dreamscape atmosphere of Apartment 3-G whether Margo is meant to be dissociated and confused or the strip itself is dissociative and confusing, but it’s clear that our gal Magee is in trouble. “I don’t have time to play crazy with you” is an extremely sick burn, and normally she’d be returning it in kind instead of begging for companionship.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/1/15

Ha ha, yes, this all seems like an extremely up-and-up series of actions that probably doesn’t constitute corporate malfeasance, at all!

Mary Worth, 9/1/15

“Wait, I’m not going to be married to an English professor anymore! I don’t have to worry about any of this ‘how many words are in a word’ crap! I’m free! I’m free!”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/30/15

Guys, let me take you on a magical journey back to 2007, when Milton Avery, not yet demented, was presumed dead after his plane crashed into the Atlantic. Heather’s stepson Hugh, who had never met Heather but was the same age as her and referred to her as a “gold-digging nanny,” immediately attempted to seize control of the Milton’s company, which Heather and company factotum Pete attempted to prevent, with help from Rex. Our heroes succeeded via confusing boardroom skullduggery; eventually, Heather and Hugh made peace, Milton turned out to not be dead after all and, in a plot point I never quite understood, Pete was secretly trying to kill everybody the whole time.

ANYWAY, here we are a mere eight years later, and Heather is apparently planning to use the last shreds of Milton’s lucidity in a heist-like manuever to gain control of the company for good, right under the nose of Avery International’s taco (?) loving security staff. Presumably once her poor husband manages to smile amiably and sign whatever documents the lawyers put in front of him, he’ll be bundled off to a drafty castle in his native Britain, to “rest,” while Heather runs (and profits from) his financial empire. The only question is how Jordan will attempt to betray her.

Mary Worth, 8/30/15

Meanwhile, Toby is leaving Ian and taking all the linens with her. Sheets? Towels? Pillowcases? You won’t have access to any of those in your new post-marital existence, Ian. Hope you enjoy getting out of the shower and flopping your soggy body onto your uncovered mattress, because that’s your life now.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/30/15

“You know what they say: I keep getting older, I keep using increasingly transparent philosophical maunderings to justify my sexual obsession with teenage girls!”

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/18/15

Back a couple of months ago, when Darrin suggested to Les that he should “write about how you met my mom … how you met Lisa,” this is what I had to say on the subject:

What you should do with your next book is write about how you met and fell in love with Cayla, your current wife, and how that new relationship helped you move forhahahahaha obviously I’m kidding, write about Lisa, always Lisa, write about meeting Lisa and it will seem exciting and romantic at first but a miasma of despair will always be floating over it, always, because Lisa is dead and Lisa is always dead and you’re going to write about Lisa’s death forever and ever.

I’m ashamed to admit that at the time I had forgotten that Les had already written that book about Cayla, two years ago, and had promised to turn the trip to micromanage the vanity press that he would pay to publish it into a fully tax-deductible Hong Kong vacation. Except … that never happened? And now Les’s “publisher” has decided to not publish that book, which I’m sure Cayla enjoys thinking of as a “sequel,” until it can be integrated into the Lisa Trilogy of which it is obviously an integral part.

Anyway, Cayla’s been spending a lot of the strip lately staring dead-eyed and silent at Les as he douches it up, and I’ve been wondering: what if she decides to divorce him? At first, this seems extremely likely, as it would no doubt up the misery quotient for the strip. But I don’t think any character has actually received a deserved comeuppance for their terribleness in this strip since Cindy left Funky when his drinking got completely out of control. The pain people in the Funkyverse suffer is capricious and arbitrary. An arc where they experience negative repercussions as a result of their conduct would require someone to acknowledge that there was something wrong with their conduct in the first place.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/18/15

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, gold-digging former nanny Heather Avery is still young and vital, making it all the more tragic that her older, wealthy husband is sliding into dementia. I’m not sure if she’s coming on to the hired help here or just engaging in her right as an aristocrat to imperiously dissect her servant’s personal life in front him.

Mary Worth, 8/18/15

My questions as to whether the participants in the latest Mary Worth dinner from hell recognize it as a dinner from hell have now been answered. Look at Ian’s expression in panel two. That’s the face of a man who’s seen some shit, by God.