Post Content

The Phantom, 3/8/17

Man, I don’t know about you, but if a guy who looks like this drugged and kidnapped me, brought me to his terrifying cave lair, and then thunderously demanded that I under no circumstances promote his brand, I would immediately cease and desist from all activities that could even vaguely be construed as brand promotion. Not our man Orson, though! Much to I think everyone’s surprise, Orson is turning out to be a brand-promoting warrior. You can’t frighten him. You can’t deter him. He will be promoting your brand, and the only way you can stop him is to put him in his grave.

(By the way, as several people have pointed out, this plotline may be a reference to a set of Phantom stamps put out by Australia last year. You can order some, if you want to risk the wrath of the Ghost-Who-Walks!)

Dennis the Menace, 3/8/17

Those are some menacing exchanged glances between Henry and Alice there. “Oh, George is dying? Finally?”

Blondie, 3/8/17

Sometimes you don’t realize you wanted something until you get it, and for me, Nihilist Bumstead definitely falls into that category.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 3/7/17

Normally this owl and this mouse would be involved in some epic predator-prey battle right now, but both are instead sitting absolutely still so they can hear every word of the hilarious conversation about this Water-World Theme Park Disaster that Cherry is indeed talking about.

Shoe, 3/7/17

Casually letting your boss know that you’ve been rummaging through the recycling bins behind your favorite lunch spot is a pretty passive-aggressive way of asking for raise, in my opinion.

Hi and Lois, 3/7/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Lois and Irma have learned to regulate their husbands’ mood swings with alcohol!

Marvin, 3/7/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because these babies are cognitively capable of figuring out why they have to smell each other’s shit all day but for some reason can’t figure out how to use a toilet!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/7/17

YUP, JUST A CIRCLE OF WOMEN DYING AND MEN ONLY COOKING FOR THEMSELVES WHEN WOMEN DIE

REAL CYCLE OF LIFE BUSINESS

Post Content

Mark Trail, 3/6/17

Mark Trail has had exactly three writer-artists in its 71-year existence — Ed Dodd, Jack Elrod, and James Allen — and Elrod and Allen both spent extensive periods assisting their predecessors before taking over the strip. Other soap strips have seen a higher turnover in syndicate-hired personnel, and I have it on good authority that, in the absence of organized archives, some of those writers resorted to using my blog’s archives for backstory on the strips they were taking over; but Mark Trail has institutional memory when it comes to the lore, man. That’s why the strip is able to casually bring back recurring characters like fecund Quebecker Johnny Malotte, who’s been around since at least the early ’50s. So even though I’ve been reading Mark Trail every day for the last 15 years and have never heard of Johnny Lone Elk (hmmm, Mark sure knows a lot of non-WASPy guys named “Johnny”), I have full confidence that the Water-World Theme Park Disaster was a real storyline that was published in newspapers, probably in the ’70s sometime, and was extremely hilarious. I am jazzed up for this next adventure, guys.

Hagar the Horrible, 3/6/17

I honestly love how Gus maintains his weirdly bug-eyed smiling expression even through Hagar’s blurted question in the third panel. You’d better believe there’s no ham sandwich, Hagar. There’s nothing Gus loves so much as blowing people’s damn minds.

Dick Tracy, 3/6/17

There are any number of hilarious things about this strip: The Spirit sleeps in his eye mask and white gloves! The Spirit has a bedside princess phone in his hotel! The Spirit thinks that a normal, comfortable way to talk on the phone is to lie face down on the bed and sort of rest the handset against the side of his head! Still, I’m a little disappointed that my initial interpretation of panel one, which as that the Spirit slept wearing a CPAP machine, turned out to be incorrect.

Slylock Fox, 3/6/17

Oh wow, it seems the colorists for today’s strip, in which notorious person of (green) color Count Weirdly implements an incompetent terrorist attack on a ceremony honoring law enforcement, have decided to suddenly portray him as Caucasian! Way to promote #whitgenocide, Slylock Fox.