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Mark Trail, 8/29/14

Listen up, narration box: it’s not an “open field” if there’s A HERD OF ELEPHANTS IN IT.

Apartment 3-G, 8/29/14

It may be that this inventory of obsolete boyfriends is essential for Tommie to process her oft-mentioned though seldom-seen grief for her dead fiancé, but it sure feels like the strip is wrapping things up before shipping her off to Crock or somewhere before bringing in a new girl (Beth? Is Beth coming back?). Or maybe letting Margo and Lu Ann (remember them?) duke it out one floor down in Apartment 2-G.

Anyway, here’s Tommie with her colleague and suitor, Dr. Joe Kelly:

Apartment 3-G, 4/28/09 (panel)

It didn’t end well.

Beetle Bailey, 8/29/14

Amos Halftrack is alarmed at the prospect of having sex with his wife, and terrified at her determination to carry out the act. There is an ancient and nameless horror at the core of their marriage.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/29/14

Wow, Funky Winkerbean is outsourcing its lame wordplay to a one-shot walk-on. Sets some kind of baseline, right there.

Josh has his hands full as he racks up the miles across the bosom of this great land, but still manages to keep abreast of developments in popular culture. Here, he stops in at Chi-Chis — or is it Hooters? — and bumps into Dolly Parton, titular Queen of Country Music. Then back to the car, flick on the highbeams, and damn the torpedos, it’s full speed ahead: California or bust!

OK I’m a nine-year-old, but Josh started it!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 8/28/14

Ah, Tommie’s Parade of Paramours marches on – today it’s IT Gary, whom Tommie didn’t find so robotic back in the day:

Apartment 3-G, 12/4/07 (panel)

The background on this baffles me a little – is Gary just not that into her?

Anyway, Tommie and Gary got pretty serious until Gary pulled up stakes and headed for Colorado in search of IT fulfillment, expecting Tommie to follow. She didn’t, because as Margo helpfully explained to her at the time, “You don’t even SKI!” These days, of course, people visit Colorado for all kinds of reasons other than IT and skiing. Which raises the question of how Tommie would act if she went to Colorado and got really, really wasted — like Maureen Dowd wasted. I think she’d probably spin around the room with a vacant expression on her face, getting into endless, pointless conversations with her roommate Carol.

Archie, 8/28/14

Ooh, menace points for the little scamp in Archie. But is this even a thing people do any more? In California where I live, state agencies and TV newscasters encourage people to turn in their water-wasting neighbors for fines and reëducation; we have camps. There’s even an app to make shaming them more convenient. So it’s more likely somebody would write “Thanks” on a dusty car, and “Don’t waste water” in mud on a perfectly clean one. And then get fined for wasting water to make mud.

Gil Thorp, 8/28/14

Hey it’s Marty Moon! Marty takes a lot of grief here for being a pissy little alcoholic failure. And while that’s 100% accurate, credit him for being the only voice in Milford to call Gil on all the B.S. he dishes out in lieu of doing his damn job. Sure, right now it’s looking good with the 7-man practice of all against all and Sa’ad Shamoun’s muscle mass, but wait ’til mid-season when he pulls out the Wing-T or 5-wide or some nonsense and everybody mutters, “Sure, Coach.” Right now, though, it’s the first day of school, and Gil has other things on his mind – that enormous stein of coffee isn’t going to drink itself, you know.

Gasoline Alley, 8/28/14

The team at Gasoline Alley wishes to remind its readers that while “real life” may be where you live, it is most definitely not where they live.

And while we’re on the topic of gasoline: you can just see it on the poor guy’s face — “How, oh how can I possibly afford all this costly fuel?”

Faithful Comics Curmudgeon readers can think of a way!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Spider-Man, 8/27/14

“B-but if I’m busy taking pictures for Jameson, how will I be able to keep an eye on Dr. Octopus? Think, Peter — think!”

Mary Worth, 8/27/14

As word of the Kapuht scandal spreads, Santa Royale Hospital quickly dragoons Dr. Drew Corey — son of Mary’s long-suffering paramour Jeff and no stranger to talking out of both sides of his mouth — to handle damage control. “Dr. Kapuht? Oh, are we still talking about that? Well, certainly, he did lose a patient on the operating table, and, yes, he was found using heroin. But there is absolutely no reason to believe these two are related in any way. For example, suppose he hadn’t been found out — do you seriously think the outcome would have been any different? And isn’t this all proof that the system works? Now let’s all put this unfortunate incident behind us, stop interfering with poor Dr. Kapuht’s recovery, and let the family grieve!”

Phantom, 8/27/14

Wow, team Phantom seems to be going through a dark period lately. Two days out of their multi-month tale of torture, extralegal rendition, and more torture, they had Barker here shoot an innocent homeless man in the head to impress “Shotgun”, his partner in a planned hijacking. Now the pair run from the crime scene with Barker waving the murder weapon and Shotgun indulging in the kind of twisted Phantom-logic that makes people run toward murderous armed lunatics.

Or maybe these utterances are linked more tightly than it appears? Shotgun: “That was murder — for what?” Barker: “Ha, ha — because you get a free drink, buddy, that’s what!” Shotgun: “Wow, I like free drinks – guess I’ll stick around!”

Call me old-fashioned, but I think Savarna did cold-blooded murder with a little more grace.

The second leg of The Road West runs from Asheville (shown) to Memphis — maybe even as far as Little Rock. New information and pictures posted if/when they arrive. Don’t forget those generous donations!

And stick around for the free drinks!

— Uncle Lumpy