Post Content

Your comment of the week momentarily, but first, an important item that you almost certainly missed if you fail to read the Letters to the Editor page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Fortunately, faithful reader Mary from Richmond reads it for us, and noted the following nugget in the midst of a rambling diatribe from Eric Pickering in Midlothian about cruelty to animals and the relative newsworthiness thereof:

The police shootings happened in tense domestic situations where owners allowed their little Fido to attack the policeman. While these shootings may have been inappropriate, none of this would have happened if the animal was controlled. Loose, unsupervised animals will cause trouble somewhere and also have a good chance of getting hurt by another dog, car, or person. Mark Trail should learn this with his puppy Sassy.

You can read the whole thing here (it’s the first letter on the page), but trust me when I say that no more context is provided to those who do not follow Mark’s adventures than what you see in that paragraph.

And now, your comment of the week, which refers to some commentary of mine in this post:

“Josh, I don’t even play golf and I know what Torrey Pines is. I do not, however, know what ‘Eli Roth-style torture porn’ is. I think this says more about you than it does about me.” –Monkey David

And your runners up! Also hilarious!

“Ha ha, Tommie’s a bit more sadistic than I gave her credit for. ‘Are you in those tacky clothes that you wear every day yet? Laughing at you today will provide one of the few non-bleak memories that I have in life.'” –Fata Morgana

“Why is Dr. Mike holding a giant kitchen match? Is he going to try to immolate Mary Worth? Oh what joy! She’ll burn and burn, but not be consumed!” –zenvelo

“Dr. Mike’s hand gesture in panel one needs a little work. You’re supposed to raise the middle finger, doctor.” –Digger

“I don’t call Jenna because I’m in love with her. And I keep my computer screen turned out toward my office because it shows respect for HIPAA privacy laws. They don’t call me Dr. Opposite for nothing, Mary.” –Patrick

“Besides, Mr. Policeman, sir, we need him to ’member where we buried PJ.” –T Clone

“I can’t believe my political opponent is about find out I have cancer, and I haven’t even managed to find out his name. Talk about an informational imbalance!” –ks

“Dr. Mike’s attempt to intimidate Mary with a demonstration of his physical strength backfires badly: ‘Alas, because of previous failed romances, my heart is as fragile as this pencil. One more disappointment could cause me to snap, just like this … like … this … wait, give me a minute … mrphh … just like THIS … RRRGGH…’ As Dr. Mike, red-faced and grimacing, wrestles the unbroken pencil to the floor, Mary leaves to go plan the wedding.” –Walker of Dog

“A ha! Its obvious that Dr. Roberts deliberately did not contact her right after the date knowing that meddling Mary Worth would come in and request an appointment to demand an explanation. Cha ching! Now he can bill Mary’s fat health insurance policy and still get the girl. ‘Uh yeah, I’ll contact her, um, I think you also need a MRI.'” –Government Cheese

“If Dr. Mike’s feelings are too intense to express, he should try chugging down a bottle of wine like Jenna. It takes the edge off.” –Petal Metal

“Hronk? That’s a noise I expect from a Mark Trail second-panel goose, not a … second-panel … deformed … hand? What IS Gil Thorp known for these days anyway? I’ve lost track.” –Dragon of Life

“My take on that last panel is that the mortgage crisis is far worse than we knew — they’ve foreclosed on Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged hut. The giant kettle was probably considered a fixture, so they got that too. And now Baba’s hungry, so hungry. Townsfolk, keep your children close.” –Écureuil Écumant

“The cop says ‘Let’s go get your dog’ but didn’t add and ‘Let the punching commence’ because that goes without saying. Or, perhaps, ‘Let the punching commence’ because Murf thinks Mark might like to make a play on words. He’s wrong.” –Farley’s Revenge

“With Mary in the shrink’s chair, I’ll be over here desperately praying that a cigar remains a cigar for the duration.” –jayjaybear

“It took me several minutes of serious thinking to figure out the ‘joke’ in Wizard of Id. Not only is that the longest period of time I’ve ever spent concentrating on this particular strip; it’s also the entire allotment of time I’ve set aside for reading Wizard, ever. I didn’t expect to use it up so abruptly, but then, I didn’t expect this strip to still exist as late as 2010.” –Mollie

“Obviously the waitress is giving him the cake to placate him until the police arrive. The seventh difference is the police in the bottom panel won’t show up before the massacre begins.” –Flamedrake

“Wait, Smitty’s alibi is that he was just sitting there watching TV with a giant ceramic pig in his lap?” –Andy L

“It’s too bad Mark doesn’t have a ring like that Phantom’s, that would permanently scar those he strikes. Instead of a skull, it could leave an indelible imprint of Rusty’s hideous visage. Then again, Mark would never wear jewelry of any kind. So maybe he could just pick the kid up and swing him like a baseball bat, whacking the bad guys with his face.” –cheech wizard

“Oh my. ‘Sam seems to have taken a liking to Jules!’ Does it still count as subtext if Judge Parker puts it right there in the narration box?” –Ed Dravecky

“I think Kat’s right about being mindful of the message one’s appearance conveys. She went through some heavy deliberation before settling upon the image she wanted to project: Hillary Clinton, business leprechaun.” –Violet

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And here’s where we could be giving thanks to advertisers like you! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 7/26/10

Ha ha, dognapper! Mark Trail and Officer Murphy have used technological wizardry to track your ransom call back to your home! Dognapping being a crime of the most heinous nature, they don’t need any warrant from any fancy judge in order to rip your house to pieces looking for the poor mutt! In fact, since this is a “ticking time bomb” scenario (who knows what horrors he has planned for that dog, or for America?), they’re well within their rights to torture you, by letting loose that horrifying demon-thing at the lower left of panel two! Let’s take a closer look at this gap-toothed, bug-eyed monster, shall we?

Yes, we can see why you wouldn’t want this little demon in your house, screeching and clawing at the faces of your wife and family. But I guess you should have thought about that before you became a crime suspect, crime suspect!

Apartment 3-G, 7/26/10

In panel three, it’s clear that Tommie has become far too accustomed to the abuse that everyone heaps upon her, as it appears that she’s decided to save everyone a lot of time and just punch herself in the face.

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 7/25/10

It seems my earlier suspicions — that this strip’s implacable torment has shifted from Les to Funky — has now been confirmed. Thus Les’s sheepish smirk in the final panel: he knows that every car accident or cancer diagnosis Funky is involved in means one less pregnant daughter or dead spouse for him. Holly is grinning like a maniac mostly because she knows Funky will be dead soon, and then she’ll be free, free.

Family Circus, 7/25/10

I think my favorite of the “Ma Keane is irritated by her children” panels here is the one at the lower right. In most of the other ones, she’s just intervening in momentary crises so as to prevent her arrest for child neglect and/or public nudity ordinances. But it’s when she’s forced to play some stupid ball-toss game with her feeble little daughter that the rage lines really begin to radiate from her head. “Damn it,” she thinks, “Does she never get bored with this inanity? I’ve been trying to work my way through this damn novel for the last eight years!”

Slylock Fox, 7/25/10

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever seen Slylock mediate in a human vs. human dispute. It goes to show how low the status of H. sapiens has fallen in this nightmare world of bipedal talking animals that the Josh family would be willing to turn to a canid law enforcement. If I were Slick Smitty, my defense would be that I was trying to protect the boy’s delicate mental health, as waking up every morning to find that piggy bank grinning at you like that is a guarantee of nightmares and insanity.

Meanwhile, in the six differences, a little boy has extorted some free cake out of the local diner by bashing one of the counter’s stools with a baseball bat. “Hand over the cake or this clown in the hat is next,” he growls.

Beetle Bailey, 7/25/10

As part of its atonement for years of making light of sexual harassment, Beetle Bailey has begun putting out a series of PSA pamphlets on social and relationship issues. This one is called “How to tell when you’re in an abusive relationship.”