Post Content

Mark Trail, 11/13/15

This game of cat-and-mouse has gone on long enough. Mark and Ken lurked in the bushes and let the bad guys empty the clips of their machine guns harmlessly into other bushes; now, the punching can begin. Mark graciously allows Ken first punch, and it’s a doozy: a flying leap that catches two bad guys at once, sending their sunglasses and now-useless firearms flying. Kudos to the anonymous colorist for accurately recognizing that arc of liquid coming from the left-hand bad guy’s mouth and making it blood red! Anyway, if this is what Ken has to offer, surely Mark’s punchery is going to be even more impressive.

Curtis, 11/13/15

When Curtis launched in 1988, it totally made cultural sense for Curtis to be a huge fan of rap music and for his dad to hate it. Now, nearly 30 years later, thanks to comics time this is not so much the case: it seems unlikely that Greg, the father of two young children, is much older than 45 or so, which would have made him a teenager himself during the age of old-school hip-hop. Anyway, the matter of Greg’s age has been left more or less untouched for most of the strip, which is why it’s all the more shocking to learn that one of his first-ever crushes co-existed with the age of web browsing, which would certainly make him younger … than … me? Oh my God I’m older than Curtis’s dad

Crankshaft, 11/13/15

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of our post-9/11 surveillance state, but if Crankshaft just accidentally watched an al-Qaeda video and is now on some government watchlist that will get him extremely thoroughly searched every time he flies anywhere, I’m not gonna complain.

Blondie, 11/13/15

JULIUS C. DITHERS: BRONY

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 11/12/15

Welp, looks like now that ol’ Greg is riding into town with his James Bond money, Eric realizes he can’t compete in terms of providing Margo with all she ever wanted, and so he’s out. He and Greg aren’t even going to talk to each other! Because if there’s one thing we all wanted as this storied strip rides into the sunset, it’s a complete lack of conflict of any kind.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/12/15

If you need more evidence of how desperately poor Hootin’ Holler is, check out today’s strip, in which the community’s chief law enforcement officer can be bribed for a mere $5.

Hi and Lois, 11/12/15

“Don’t be ridiculous! Now you just lie immobilized in bed and look at these huge blank posters I’ve hung around your room until your mind goes empty.”

Post Content

Family Circus, 11/11/15

The “Keane Kid looks disheveled and drops his stuff on the ground and leans back on the door as he arrives home from school” is a bit of visual shorthand for “tough day” that the Family Circus deploys a lot. I’ve always had minor practical gripes with it (don’t the kids all come home from school together? are Jeffy and Dolly outside pounding on the door trying to get in?) but today it occurred to me that it also kind of looks like Billy has run desperately into the house and is trying to keep out someone — or something. Something that stalked and devoured the children sitting on either side of Billy in his classroom. But he made it out alive, by remaining absolutely silent.

Spider-Man, 11/11/15

So this lady who straight-up bashed in the Atlantean guard’s helmets with a club of some sort is … just some random doctor? Who wanders the docks of New York, looking for fish-children to forcibly rescue? I did a cursory Google search for “Liz Bellman” and “marvel” and have satisfied myself that this isn’t the secret identity of some random long-standing Marvel superhero/villain who I’m not familiar with but who will be starring in a Netflix original MCU series in 2017, but please be sure to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong!

Marvin, 11/11/15

Marvin, you’re starting a bank to bilk babies out of money they don’t have and your hobby is shitting yourself. Please don’t try to pop-shame your father.