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Mark Trail, 8/29/12

Gosh, what are our sheep-killing, camera-stealing, Rusty-menacing doofuses up to now? Just a little light illegal organ harvesting, that’s all! Say, what do you suppose those “other parts” the dark-haired fellow is referring to might be? (SPOILER: Probably aphrodisiacal bear penis.) I also like the way this fellow carefully explains to his friend why his bear-bagging idea is so potentially lucrative. You’d think he’d already know this, but maybe not? “Black market? I … I thought we would just go out and hunt for the sport of it. You know, you and me, in the wilderness, testing ourselves against nature, really getting to know each other … God, I feel like such a fool.”

This isn’t the first time Mark Trail has grappled with gallbladder poaching, either. But then, all Mark Trail characters and plot points return again eventually, in slightly different combinations, following the strip’s dream-logic. Organ harvesting? Indian artifacts? Two dumb guys stealing Rusty’s camera? Every strip is an exercize in déjà vu.

Mary Worth, 8/29/12

Oh, man, this is great! Wilbur has come through a near-death experience and hasn’t deepened spiritually at all; instead, he’s learned that life is short and the time to get his is now. “There’s strong buzz about the disaster! Readers will be interested in my first-person perspective! A showcase piece in the Santa Royale Whosit will catapult me to the network morning news shows, an instant book sold in airports everywhere and, with any luck, a made-for-HBO movie starring Kevin Spacey as me! I’m gonna be rich, rich, filthy rich! Say, I wonder if I should tell Mary that she can stop doing my job for me without pay?” Oh, you’ll wish you did, Wilbur, because it sounds like she’s going to lay a load of heavy meaningfulness on some poor letter writer that’s probably going to ruin all your fun.

On an unrelated note, I dare you to explain how Wilbur’s hands are supposed to be attached to his arms in panel one. In panel two, I already know how Mary’s head is attached to her shoulders: very securely.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/29/12

I guess this is supposed to be about the fire department attempting to draft Snuffy and Lukey and force them to contribute something back to the community they’ve sponged off of for years, but when I first read it I thought maybe our protagonists were about to be burned at the stake.

Beetle Bailey, 8/29/12

YAAAY, PEACE HAS BROKEN OUT EVERYWHERE, THERE’S NOTHING MORE FOR THE ARMY TO DO EVER AGAIN

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Mary Worth, 8/28/12

You know, there’s nothing like leaving town and not reading the comics for a week and then coming home and reading the comics to really put into focus how little happens in the average week of, say, Mary Worth. As I left, Wilbur and Dawn where being heli-lifted to safety from their terrible cruise wreck ordeal, and in the interim … Ian angrily watched a news report about the crisis, and Wilbur and Dawn re-enacted it with hand puppetry over dinner with Mary, and that was it!

But now I have come to believe that Mary Worth was holding off on its big guns just for me, waiting until I came home to serve up this, because yes, when we talk about Mary Worth and “big guns” obviously we are talking about Wilbur making jazz hands and burbling merrily about how he is a living, breathing refutation of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. “Life is brutal,” Wilbur will tell those residents of the Santa Royale micropolitan area who get their news from the dying print media, “and yet I, Wilbur Weston, still breathe air and eat mayonnaise, while so many stronger and smarter and less sweaty souls drowned in terror in the balmy, calm Mediterranean waters. I stand before you as proof that there is no justice in the universe, alive through no virtue of my own. You cannot kill the ultimate mediocrity, my friends! I am unstoppable.”

Apartment 3-G, 8/28/12

Meanwhile, in Apartment 3-G, Margo the publicist has managed to land a client who literally refuses to tell her what he’s doing that she might publicize. It’s OK, though, because he’s a hot piece of ass (or at least we assume that a shapely bum lurks forever just below the bottom of the panel) who is also conceited and arrogant. What would be the fastest way to convince him that Margo would be a suitable sex partner? Would seeing her imperiously dress down a subordinate do the trick? Done and done! Added bonus: this episode also serves as part of Margo and Evan’s dom-sub play. Girlfriend is nothing if not efficient!

Blondie, 8/28/12

All right, let’s ignore Alexander’s woefully sexist views of how polyamory should work and instead focus on the real important story here — namely, the insane layout of the furniture in the Bumstead living room. I’ve commented on it before, but it’s only now occurred to me that it can be explained fairly easily as just Dagwood’s attempt to keep any of his family members from trying to interact with him while he watches TV. Usually, as we saw just yesterday, there’s a sofa turned away from Dag’s sittin’ chair, so that he can maintain the illusion of spending quality time with his loved ones without actually having to look at their stupid faces. But as we saw, even then people expect to talk to him and have him respond to their word-noises, and so now he’s gotten rid of the couch altogether, leaving Alexander nothing to sit on but the ottoman. His icy silence as his son blabs about his relationship problems says volumes.

Spider-Man, 8/28/12

“It’s almost as if he wanted to gather a large group of people together so that he could threaten them with violence and rob them, as he’s done in the past! Anyway, this should be quite a spectacle, I’m glad we came.”

Momma, 8/28/12

Momma may have come down some in the world, but she certainly isn’t about to engage in any tawdry sex-for-lamp-discounts schemes.

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Luann, 8/27/12

Good morning, everyone! I’ve returned from my week-long comics-mocking sabbatical, and what better way to jump right back into the icy waters three-panel laffs than today’s Luann? Yes, Brad DeGroot has at last come into his own, lounging about in his tough-guy tank top, showing off his biceps and his fire department tattoo, running a comb through his greasy hair. The effect is somewhat undermined in panel one because that tank top looks long enough to be a cocktail dress, but still, let’s let him have his moment.

Momma, 8/27/12

Now let’s swim into full-on horror by moving on to Momma! Today’s strip is fantastic because just when you settle into a nice bit of disgust at the phrase “seeing some other mother,” you realize Francis is emitting audible groans of satisfaction and you want desperately to return to a world where the worst you had to deal with was a little light Oedipal humor.

Blondie, 8/27/12

Dagwood’s look of befuddlement shows that there can still be surprises in a marriage that’s lasted more than 80 years, and that those surprises are terrifying. “Wait a minute,” he seems to be thinking, “I’m the one in this marriage who goes on ‘wacky’ food binges in a doomed attempt to fill the yawning emptiness inside me. If that’s not my role anymore, then what am I?”

Hagar the Horrible, 8/27/12

In an example of the meticulous attention to detail that has made Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC famous, the irony in Hagar’s statement is driven home by the blasted, barren landscape his savage warriors trudge across, all the crops having been burned during the course of his band’s predatory raid.

Crankshaft, 8/27/12

Oh, goody, there have been 25 years of Crankshaft, so we will now be treated to some Crankshaft flashbacks! Nobody, not even Crankshaft himself, thinks this is a good idea.

Pluggers, 8/27/12

Hey, all you fancy-pants city folks with your computers! A little girl can’t sit on the dog-goned Internet, now can she? Check and mate!