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Mark Trail, 6/5/11

It’s not often that Mark Trail sends me on an etymological adventure, but now the hunt is on! I was very suspicious that the loon was the ultimate origin of the word “loony,” and sure enough, a quick trip to the dictionary shows that it’s actually a 19th century slang abbreviation for “lunatic,” which, as the spelling implies, is derived from the Latin luna, or moon, since it was once believed that the phases of the moon affected mental states. I had assumed that “loon” as a synonym for crazy person shared the same derivation, but that seems murkier; the dictionary says it is in fact derived from the name of the bird (though “perhaps influenced by loony”), but has the bird’s name’s etymology somewhat different from the one Mark offers, deriving it from an Old Norse word for diver. Anyway, you might not enjoy sleuthing after word origins as much as I do, but surely this trip through the English language’s past has distracted you from that white-headed loon’s terrifying searing red eye blazing out at you soullessly from the final panel of this strip.

Crock, 6/5/11

Oh, look, Crock is celebrating the anniversary of D-Day! Isn’t that nice! Apparently the French Legionnaires of Crock are actually Vichy collaborators fighting for the Nazis? And they’re stationed in some desert section of Northern France? Eh, sure, why not, makes as much sense as anything else.

Dennis the Menace, 6/5/11

If Dennis is trying to up his menacing quotient, I’d say that staring at the Wilsons’ house through a fence for hours in eerie silence is doing a pretty good job of it!

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Dick Tracy, 6/4/11

Dick Tracy is about to face his most sinister villain yet: Dagwood Bumstead. Will his inevitable ironic death involve a huge sandwich?

Gil Thorp, 6/4/11

“Plus, everyone knows they don’t cut boys’ sports! Ha ha! Hey, let’s go back in and read the paper in the coach’s office for another two or three hours!”

Dennis the Menace, 6/4/11

Oh, man, look how darn happy Dennis’s mom looks! She ain’t coming back.

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Is it COTW time again? You know it!

“I love how gently rumpled Les’s tie is. It seems to say everything about Les, about this strip … and about us all? The human predicament: gently rumpled.” –Greg

And your runners up! Also hilarious!

“Of course, ‘mouse’ is the Smiths’ code word for ‘meth,’ as their racing brains are being kept up all night by the sound of their own teeth-grinding.” –BigTed

“The ‘raise the roof’ poses of everyone at Drew’s party seems rather awkward. I wonder if Liza got them all to attend by pointing a gun at them.” –Mark B

“I’ve followed this unbroken line of arrows that say CONFERENCE ROOM 3 all the way down the hall, but this last arrow ends 18 inches away from anything. So where the hell is Conference Room 3? Oh, could it be this door marked CONFERENCE ROOM 3? Guess I’ll give it a shot.” –ks

“All right, let’s get this party started! Who wants a cup of cake?!” –Ned Ryerson

“Les has so many facets of his personality, to the point where they’re all bad. I mean, there’s Mopey Les, which you could almost feel sorry for, but there’s also Self-Righteous Les, Creepy Les, Creepy Womanizer Les…” –Pseudo3D

“Hair of yellow, dumb as jello; hair of black, terror’s back; hair of red … that’s the boring one, right?” –jayjaybear, on remembering which A3G girl is which

“It’s not that you have to be old to be a plugger, but when you’re casting around for things to bitch about, it helps to have more years to look back on through your distorted lens of nostalgia, grievance-based ideology, and suppressed rage.” –Walker of Dog

“I like to think the whole assembled crew is totally in on Liza’s batshit scheme. ‘Yeah, so Drew tried to break up with me like, a jillion times after our really awesome date, but I am so not having that, so let’s throw him a surprise third birthday party! That’ll show him! Something.’ ‘Okay, Liza, but if we do your thing you have to help me kidnap my ex’s kid. You’re relatively familiar with the layout of Chuck E. Cheese, right?'” –Violet

“So being paid ridiculous sums for writing trash is less fulfilling than running his own little nepotistic empire? I think the moral of this story is that it’s always better to dole out unearned favors than to receive them. Go figure.” –A New Day

“T is for Talk, which is what the assembled suspects will do, eventually, after Officer Torturedog introduces them to Tina the Shark.” –gleeb

“Any time Reeky Rat cheats at Battleship or whatever, Slylock Fox is all up in his grill. But this fucking elephant can just jack the rabbit’s ice cream, and all we’re supposed to care about is ‘T’ words? I call bullshit.” –Doctor Handsome

“It’s a tragedy that vampires always have to wear poorly fitting clothes.” –Mark B

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