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Mark Trail, 11/9/13

New adventure in Mark Trail, everyone! This week we’ve seen that it’ll revolve around the most hoary Mark Trail MacGuffin — Indian artifacts, and the stealing thereof, a staple of this strip that I’ve been detailing since the very earliest days of this blog. Still, I’m enjoying the pleasingly noirish setup here: two ex-cons, one literally just hours out of prison, drinking frosty mugs of beer, discussing their Last Big Score. The sad faces and the five o’clock shadow and the hunched shoulders make for nice atmosphere and maybe we’re even getting some foreshadowing that Jared will turn away from a life of artifact-napping before it’s too late (seriously, can you really believe anyone named “Jared” would be an unredeemable hardened criminal), but personally it’s the frosty mugs of beer that I’m fixated on here. I’m all the more fixated because a colorist’s error in panel two has made Jeff’s sleeve blue instead of brown, which makes it look like Jared’s arm is twisted around at an impossible angle, all the better to slosh beer foam everywhere, I guess.

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/13

Dennis and his awful band of child thieves are going to seal Mr. Wilson’s gold teeth right out of his head.

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Enjoy your first comment of the week of the post-daylight savings time season!

“Ionesco-like bedtime story about Ueizzi The Murderous Pig? Check. Melting wallpaper? Check. Margaret’s shoes placed cunningly next to his bed? Double check. Alice, you sly fox, what will you think of next?” –els

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Chip somehow remembers Studio 54, and that haircut looks strangely familiar … OMG Chip is the reincarnation of Andy Warhol!” –BigTed

“What really got me was the fact that the men just up and ran straight over the rock and fell down the other side, AND that they did it so fast that the last few men, seeing their fellow soldiers drop down the other side (but presumably not hearing them yell in horror as they fell into a pit? A ravine? That river full of alligators that the priest fell into at the end of Temple Of Doom? Who knows? I KNOW, with my new ‘Crock Alternate Endings Fan Fiction Website,’) where was I, oh yeah: seeing their fellow soldiers drop down but hearing nothing, just kept on going, to their doom.” –Briane Pagel

“I was thinking Marty was signing her dialogue for the hard of hearing — you know, since she’s speaking out loud to an empty room already.” –Kevin on Earth

“It never pays to ignore yourpublicpeter.com, a website where exhibitionists can post photos documenting their exposure.” –nescio

Mark Trail: “Those aren’t buttons on Mr. Dunlap’s shirt. That’s the access panel for his internal hardware. Mr. Dunlap is a Cybernetic Elder, or Sagebot, from the Euell Gibbons line. (There are several of these models still functioning, but it’s getting harder and harder to get parts. In fact, Mr. Logan there might actually be making a service call as the words he’s saying,’It’s my pleasure, Mr. Dunlap – it’s a story of local interest,’ sound more like some sort of machine code diagnostic routine than words that humans would say to one another.)” –Ned Ryerson

Judge Parker: “Randy Parker is Kate Jackson in Scarecrow and Mrs. King: The Next Generation.” –Master Softheart

“Shelley has decided to dedicate her award to the concept of shelter itself. Suck it, food and clothing!” –pugfuggly

“Can we just skip ahead to the part where we find out Mary’s friend has been embezzling millions from the shelter for years, please?” –tegrat

“I don’t think you could print ‘DESERTS’ in the small amount of space left on the front page. Maybe he ‘DIGS’ America. But does he Robbie –- DOES HE???” –Dennis Jimenez

“Meanwhile, the guys from the TSA and customs continue pursuing the wall crawler to find out whether he has any fruit to declare.” –aphthakid

“Is he? #slatepitch” –Frippin in the Krotz

“‘I don’t care WHAT the New York Post says about him, I don’t believe Spidey’s in league with the Sandinistas!’ NEXT: OR IS HE?” –Chyron HR

“Just a list of names to thank … starting with all the abusive parents, gang-bangers, and drug dealers, without whom there would be no troubled teens in need of a place like Promise Haven! Thank you, dregs of society, for giving me a reason to get up in the morning!” –Perky Bird

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And as always, we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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Mary Worth, 11/8/13

I think we really need to start wondering if Mary Worth has reached its logical end state: with Mary in some kind of fugue state, possibly full of drugs on her deathbed, just fantasizing about people praising her. She’s not even imagining herself doing anything praiseworthy anymore; she’s just being lavished with praise for things she may or may not have done in the distant past. This is why Mary is looking so ecstatic in panel two: this is her dreamscape, so she can hear Shelly’s very thoughts, and knows that for her entire speech Sheylly will just be smiling beatifically and saying “Mary … Mary … thank you Mary … Mary … thank you … Mary …” for two or three hours.

Spider-Man, 11/8/13

Spider-Man’s thought balloons, meanwhile, are pretty much par for the course in terms of his general unlikeability. “Yeah, it’s such a burden seeing my wife’s hit play, the success of which is making her happy and supporting me financially. I can’t believe I have to keep doing this. Hey, someone just praised me, all right!”