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Mark Trail, 7/15/14

“Call me Dirty, Mark, like my good friends do! You like me, Dirty, don’t you? I sure like it when you talk to me: Dirty. And I will be Dirty for you any time and any way you want!”

In Carson McCullers’ novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, people constantly confide their deepest feelings in a character who is utterly incapable of understanding or helping them in any way. Mark Trail is exactly like that, but with more elephants and no actual hunting.

Archie, 7/15/14

One of the paradoxes of experimental psychology is that the paradigm for secondary reinforcement, which increases the frequency of a behavior, is identical to the paradigm for frustration, which decreases it. Both paradigms present stimuli associated with a primary reinforcer such as, oh, say, sexual release, but withhold the primary reinforcer itself. Archie, of course, has been dining out on that association for a long time – start with a stereotypically porny setup like oiling up your mostly-naked girlfriend by the pool in front of her angry but impotent father, but then cut to some dumb pratfall. Readers know it won’t deliver — it hasn’t for 72 years, and never will. I guess I’m just asking why anybody reads Archie, since it’s not porn.

Lockhorns, 7/15/14

It didn’t occur to me before seeing this panel today that Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn are never shown in casual daywear — check it out. Apparently in the absence of any sort of emotional connection they had been relying on deeply-ingrained but meaningless rituals to keep their lives from flying apart: parties, dress codes, weekly visits with Dr. Pullman, and other mechanisms to sustain their empty, endless charade of a marriage. It worked, too, right up until the instant Loretta said, “We’re not staying together for the sake of appearances — any more.”

Judge Parker, 7/15/14

OK, I’m posting this partly because the dialog doesn’t make any sense – it’s like the authors pasted in speech-bubbles left over from other strips so they could make a tee time:

“What do you know about the fashion business?”
“Lots! Remember Jules? He didn’t know anything about business!”
“We met at an institute design class! That has nothing to do with business either!”
“But Jules was into shoes! Are we even talking about business any more?”
“That’s what design classes are for … to spark a passion! For shoes! Or Jules! Certainly not business — or design, whatever that is!”

But I mostly want to express my irritation that we are probably headed for a do-over of one of the most grindingly dull Judge Parker stories of all time, justly ignored in Josh’s retrospective: Mopey Eurotrash Jules and Sam the Man with a Business Plan. Spoiler: Sam winds up with a million-dollar stake in Jules’ business just because.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/14/14

Sarah writes:

“And then there was a bully and he said my picture was BAD but I told him NO and all the kids were like ‘YAY CAN WE BE SARAH’S FRIEND’ and the Teacher said ‘SARAH is the Boss now!’ But the old lady came and smelled like pee but she was the boss of EVERYBODY and told them whatever SARAH wants and gave me the money for the museum so Kelly can’t kiss Nikki ANY MORE and has to give me rides WHEREVER I WANT. And then the Daddy says, ‘Tell it again, Mommy! Tell the story again about SARAH!'”

Judge Parker 7/14/14

Neddy explains:

“Ready-to-wear for princesses ‘cuz they’re princess dresses and they’re named after princesses and you feel like a princess when you wear one! This one’s the Rapunzel, and this is Snow White, and Pocahontas with the beads, and Belle. The one that comes with a scarf is called Jasmine and the swimwear is Ariel! Sam, will you help me with the licensing?”

Gasoline Alley 7/14/14

Did you ever get up in the morning and really, really want to draw a steam locomotive? No? Well then, my friend, I’m pretty sure your name isn’t Jim Scancarelli.

Gil Thorp 7/14/14

“Now we have to find a football program that’ll do right by True. That’s why we’ve come here to Milford to talk to you, Coach Thorp. Wait, that didn’t sound right somehow. Let’s start over again at the top, OK?”

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mary Worth 7/13/14

Little Olive Taylor is a sensitive spirit-child who fears water, sees fairies, takes instruction from angels, and indulges in a little routine precognition. So it’s fair to say she inhabits that uncanny halfspace between the spirit world and our own, is it not? That was a rhetorical question; of course she does.

So she knows she’s in a world of hurt. Consider:

• The little cyst on her torso may prove to be, as a surgeon once delicately explained to me, “the type of cyst that tends to reoccur.” Thus the doctor’s routine torsopsy may indicate the need for a torsotomy — or even a full-scale torsectomy, leaving poor Olive a stunted freak with legs emerging from her neck, and an arm from each ear. And what then, if the contagion spreads to her lap, or heaven forbid her nape?
• Don’t her parents seem just a liiiiitle too invested in a medical resolution to what seems like a family-dynamics problem? (“But Olive, you told us you always wanted a little cyster!”) No doubt they are in a rush to foist her back off on Mary so they can resume their casual neglect and nonstop rutting.
• Finally, with her gift of second sight, Olive can instantly recognize the chillingly named “Dr. Kapuht” as none other than the risen demon-stalker Kelrast, come to exact terrible revenge on any whom his Mary does not spurn.

Am I wrong? I don’t think I’m wrong:

Aldo always said that when one door closes, you just knock incessantly on another one until some fool tells you to come in. Run, Olive!

Slylock Fox (panel), 7/13/14

Ms. Mayfair, before going all-in with your fascist animal oppressors, consider that the entirety of your mating options consists of a) Count Weirdly, and b) this guy. Think it through, girl.

Prince Valiant, 7/13/14

Oh my gosh look you guys it’s Prince Valiant! Val and Aleta with family and friends set sail on the Island Queen for the Misty Isles, but in a great storm and with the crew distracted by a mystic bewitching siren song the ship is caught between massive rocks and a great whirlpool and ripped apart! Val is captured by a band of Sirens and forced to battle a Cyclops, whom he defeats by luring to the edge of a cliff.

But the Cyclops is revealed to be a mere man, “enchanted” beasts mere house pets, and goddess-queen Calypso a nutjob with anger issues. In short, the story starts like The Odyssey but ends like pretty much every episode of Scooby Doo ever.

Ruh-roh!

— Uncle Lumpy