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Mark Trail, 9/9/13

Guys, it seems that those surveyors we heard about last week are looking for good spots to drill for oil in Lost Forest! They’re being backed by Senator Mason — a senator who Mark “supported,” which means that … he voted for him, or gave him money, or wrote a long puff piece about him in Woods and Wildlife Magazine, who can tell, but the point is that Mark owns this guy and how dare he sign off on fracking near Mark’s idyllic forest. I hope he doesn’t mind Mark stopping by unannounced! I’m sure he won’t. There’s literally nothing our elected officials like better than when random citizens ring their doorbell at dinner time to demand the advancement of their pet causes.

Mark has had some senatorial encounters before: he was pals with a senator who liked to pimp-slap sassy citizens, even if that meant that he got punched in return, triggering a near-fatal heart attack. Together, he and Mark exposed the sweaty corruption of his senatorial rival. But neither of those senators was named Mason, so I guess this is a third guy? Lost Forest has three senators? Sure, why not, makes as much sense as anything else in this strip.

Spider-Man, 9/9/13

Ha ha, Spider-Man is just kidding, except deep down inside where he’s totally not kidding. It’s almost as if being an unlikeable loser who literally nobody likes has hurt his self-esteem, somehow.

Apartment 3-G, 9/9/13

“Is that giggling I hear? Levity? At a time like this? Kids, the lieutenant governor just had a massive stroke, show some fucking respect.“

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Better Half, 9/8/13

One of the things I appreciate about the Better Half is that on Sunday, instead of just cramming in a bunch of unrelated panels that could have easily stood alone as dailies like the Lockhorns does, it offers a selection united by a subtle but definite theme. Today’s theme: Stanley hates himself! He doesn’t like the way he looks; he feels like his life is a malfunctioning piece of software that he wishes he could reset back to some long ago pristine state; and he’s eager to shift the blame for his many manifest failings onto a too-permissive society. Obviously all this anxiety and self-loathing leads him to panic that Harriet will leave him, but he needn’t worry: she just doesn’t have the energy to go find anyone better!

Family Circus, 9/8/13

As usual, the Keane pets are wearing little secret smiles. They quite frankly look awfully smug for a couple of dogs who are destined for damnation in eternal hellfire.

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Slylock Fox, 9/7/13

Once again, we have a Slylock Six Differences that offers a glimpse at the moment when our planet stopped being a human-dominated ecosystem. Today we see the early days of the Great Animal Rising, when the formerly “lesser” life forms still felt a need to hide their new intelligence and powers from their human oppressors. This scene is interesting because it shows that even from the outset, animal society wasn’t unified, presaging the endless petty animal-on-animal crime we see in the present-day Slylockverse. Clearly the cat-dog rivalry has survived both species’ transition to sapience, even in the face of a greater threat. “Him! He’s the one who’s walking around on his hind legs and using tools and … um … I mean, meow?”

Funky Winkerbean, 9/7/13

That was a nice attempt to slip some Jesus into your public high school English lesson, Les. Too bad computers are their gods now.