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Mark Trail, 8/17/09

What we’re witnessing, as this Mark Trail storyline reaches its baffling denouement, is a master class in outdoorsmanship. Who once said “The pen is mightier than the sword”? Probably some wimpy writer type who got tired of being threatened by bullies with swords and then went home and bitterly scribbled that supposedly bad-ass saying in his little journal, with a pen. But what Mark Trail is showing us is that a level head and the ability to navigate your way out of an old-growth forest is mightier than a high-powered rifle. Mark’s steely pathfinding will lull the assassin into complacency, and once they see the light of day outside these accursed woods again, he will presumably be so grateful as to meekly submit to being punched in the jaw.

Herb and Jamaal, 8/17/09

I’m as surprised as anyone to discover that I have a “favorite” kind of Herb and Jamaal strip, but this is it: the kind where one of the strip’s bland supporting characters says something incredibly depressing that forces Herb and/or Jamaal to stop living in his happy-go-lucky dreamworld of nonspecific cultural references and confront his own mortality with wide-eyed horror. I’m not sure if it’s ever actually happened before, but I’d like it to happen more often in the future.

Marvin, 8/17/09

Please let that be a clean diaper. Please let that be a clean diaper.

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Mark Trail, 8/16/09

Ah, there’s nothing more relaxing in your Sunday Mark Trail than seeing terrified horses running from an all-consuming inferno! This week’s edutaining Sunday strip reminds me of why I find Smokey the Bear so unsettling, which is because he’s wearing pants and no shirt. I can sort of see the chain of logic that got clothes on him in the first place — they had to put the hat on him to show that he was a forest ranger, and then once that happened he was a little too anthropomorphized to get away with no pants; I just don’t understand why the thought process stopped there. Surely there’s some sort of snappy uniform shirt they could have put on him? Because as it is he sort makes me think that forest rangers used to lounge around their fire towers shirtless, like slobs, which makes me glad that they all got fired due to budget cuts and replaced by people calling on their cell phones and saying “Hey, is this the government? I, uh, I think your forest is on fire.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/17/09

I’ve been avoiding talking about Rex Morgan because I or someone I love losing their memory and forgetting who all their loved ones are is one of my very worst nightmares; and so, grasping at straws, I’m willing to accept this half-hearted conversation as a sign that we’re getting back to what I thought this storyline was all about, which is to say adultery, and suspicions of adultery. Normally I don’t root for uninteresting, semi-attractive people to flirt in the comics, but if it takes panel time away from “I don’t know who I am or where I am and I think I’m married to this person who isn’t my husband, ha ha,” then I’m all for it.

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B.C., 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because one of the B.C. characters whose name I don’t remember wants to sleep with one of the other B.C. characters whose name I don’t remember, and thinks the best means to that end is to act like she’s a stripper, or a prostitute!

Gil Thorp, 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because Ted is going to find out how much blow you can buy for $60,000, or get punched in the face, or both!

Family Circus, 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because the litigious nature of society, which is tearing our civilization and sense of community apart, is ingrained in children at an age so young that it’s impossible to dislodge! Also, it’s funny because their vacation is ruined!