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Mark Trail, 10/19/12

Oh, man, I can tell it’s going to be hard to not just post Mark Trail and say “THIS IS FANTASTIC!!!!” every day during the current Mark Trail storyline. It is pretty fantastic, though! I myself would rather take a fancy boat than the vague promise of money, since I assume there are people who would pay good money for a fancy boat. But I don’t know how liquid the black fancy boat market is at present? I also thought at first that our villain was winking lasciviously as he urged Mark into his boat, but now I’m pretty sure that he’s actually experiencing a stroke.

Judge Parker, 10/19/12

Obviously I always knew that this Judge Parker storyline wasn’t going to end with Avery’s bloody death, but I thought it would take more than a week to get from “Bubba threatens to dismember Avery with a chainsaw in a dank abandoned mine shaft” to “Bubba and Avery relax, drink scotch, and talk about modern art in a climate-controlled abandoned mine shaft.”

Heathcliff, 10/19/12

Heathcliff, everybody! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this blog for more than eight years and haven’t taken on America’s second-favorite long-running cartoon cat. But Heathcliff will be in my rotation from now on! Anyway, it turns out that Heathcliff is kind of an asshole.

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Spider-Man, 10/18/12

So Kraven the Hunter has been out of prison long enough to get his own Vegas show, but the Daily Bugle is only now getting wind of it? Maybe they aren’t the hard-charging journalistic enterprise I’d always imagined. I guess it’s telling that Robbie is reading this information from a dispatch still hot from the fax machine.

What do you suppose is going on with everyone’s relative head sizes in the second panel, by the way? Is this just a cinematic way to show that Peter is dwelling on this conversation hours later, hearing JJJ say “they pardoned him?” in his head, over and over, as he smacks his forehead in exasperation at America’s failing justice system? (No, actually, the correct answer is “clip art.”)

Dick Tracy, 10/18/12

Famous model Sparkle Plenty is the daughter of B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie, which means that she’s the full sister of whatever horrifying baby-creature sent these medicos fleeing in terror. Got all the good genes, I guess! Anyway, this diseased ne’er-do-well she just met appears to be attempting to sell her drugs. Is this how famous people obtain drugs? I don’t think this is how famous people obtain drugs.

Momma, 10/18/12

So, is Momma a terrible hypochondriac, or is she a desperate pill-head who will say anything to get a fix? Which possibility is funnier? Which is sadder? Is your answer to both questions the same? Discuss.

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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/12

If you were seeing this strip out of context, you might think that its implications about Killer’s notoriously aggressive sexual advances are really quite dark, with Miss Buxley’s worries about the “tree” being “hurt” being some kind of protective psychological displacement mechanism. But longtime Beetle Bailey readers know that it probably just has something to do with the fact that both Killer and Miss Buxley like to hump up on trees, constantly.

Mark Trail, 10/17/12

There’s a lot to say here about global income inequality, which means that someone who considers themselves middle- or even working class in the U.S. lives a life of unimaginable privilege compared to most in the developing world; or we could discuss the ambiguity that arises when employees have access to corporate luxury assets, and what this says about their wealth in practical terms. Mostly, though, I just wanted to put this comic here so that every embittered worker in the various dying wordsmithing industries can grab panel two and use it as their computer desktop wallpaper.

Apartment 3-G, 10/17/12

Guys, I’m … I’m beginning to suspect that Margo may not be very good at running a publicity agency.