Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/24/09

A few days ago, we saw Patty get slapped around by her husband for the simple crime of letting a filthy, disease-ridden deer wander around in their house, pooping everywhere. I couldn’t bring myself to make a funny about domestic violence at the time, but I knew that Mark would eventually be called upon to deliver the righteous punches to Patty’s cruel spouse. And yet today, we see that Mark is in fact equally heartless, though the blows he lands won’t leave marks. “Say, I think it would be interesting to write an article about how bringing wild animals into your house is a terrible idea, for you and the animal! Let’s go take an extensive series of pictures of our idiot friend who did just that, and then run them in the article, with big captions that say ‘MORON’ and ‘ANIMAL ABUSER’! We won’t tell her what the article’s about until it’s published. I’m sure her husband will react positively to seeing her foolishness in print for everyone to see!” It’s about time this strip took on the power-hungry liberal media, represented by Mark Trail, who will stop at nothing to get his pointless stories for his stupid magazine read by nobody.

Gil Thorp, 1/24/09

I was in a creative writing class my senior year of college, and one of the my classmates wrote a story about a girl who was always looking in her bedroom mirror and thinking she was fat, and eventually she developed an eating disorder and died, and afterwards her mother realized that the mirror was bowed outward a bit in the middle, making her look fatter than she really was. We were not kind to that story when it came time for the peer review; and yet, when I moved out of my tiny studio apartment that summer, I discovered that my only full length mirror was in fact bowed outward just as the story described, and while I had not become a desperate bulimic or anything, I had been worried about what I perceived as my encroaching portliness.

My point is that young people are dumb and that this scheme, in which a perfectly healthy Bryce will be flimflammed into trying out for the basketball team against his wishes with Photoshop trickery, is actually halfway plausible. Bryce’s sister just wants him to join the team to make friends and get out of his funk, but I hope she’s happy when he commits himself to a grueling 18-hour-a-day workout schedule and limits his daily meals to a few pieces of diet bread. After he drops dead of starvation in mid-layup, his life story will be dramatized as the made-for-TV film Please, Bryce, Eat! presented as a special event on local public access cable, hosted by Marty Moon.

Dennis the Menace, 1/24/09

Good lord, look at Mr. Wilson’s pants — they’re obviously designed for a man at least six inches taller than he is now. The poor bastard isn’t sad about Dennis’s sub-menacing chicanery; he’s obviously realized that he’s shrinking rapidly, and will soon be no taller than his irritating houseguest, only to subsequently vanish altogether.

Post Content

Blondie, 1/23/09

I have to admit that I’m so charmed by Dagwood’s stunningly bizarre parking spot sign that I’m willing to forgive the fact that it completely ignores his long-established carpool. Not only does it declare his love for impossibly large sandwiches to the literate and illiterate alike, it also fails to indicate in any way that the parking spot it sits in front of is reserved for anyone in particular. Still, I’d be hesitant to park there, as it’s clearly the work of a madman. An extremely hungry madman.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/23/09

Whereas the gals, they’re talking about the fellers they met in their youth once, the ones that weren’t their cousins! Haw haw!

This strip seems to indicate that the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus would do well in this community, if not for the fact that speaking aloud the names of the terrifying demon-stars that move through the sky will get you burned at the stake there. The strip also seems to promise a series of gags lifted entirely from episodes of An Evening At The Improv circa 1989, such as the different driving habits of black dudes and white dudes and the unpalatability of airline food, but mention of flying machines and non-whites will also get you burned at the stake.

Beetle Bailey, 1/23/09

Gosh, Sarge, I’m not sure happy is how your stomach will feel about a box of matzo, a bowl of eggs, and a bottle of soy sauce.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/23/09

Say, remember when Herb and Jamaal ran this exact same strip two months ago? Remember how it wasn’t funny then, either?

Post Content

Marvin, 1/22/09

If there’s one thing that Marvin does well repeatedly, it’s come up with some labor-saving gimmick joke that can serve as a template for multiple days worth of material. We all remember the week of pure horror that was “Belly Laffs,” in which each new day proved just how not-funny a joke about women gaining weight when they’re pregnant can get. If there’s anything to console us during this cryspace.com nightmare, it’s that we started in the middle of the week, which means that we have at most two more days of this left.

Also, as a red-headed American, I resent the implication that the lady gingers need to bill themselves as blondes in order to increase their sex appeal. Nobody can dispute the attractiveness of redheads, people! And as a human being with a shred of decency, I am disgusted by the idea of a baby making her profile sexy, what the hell, this is monstrous beyond description.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/22/09

Little Sarah has always been a precocious child, and that, combined with the affluent upbringing her father’s medical practice has provided, may be bringing her down a very dark path, as she seems extremely intrigued by the prospect of joining this wizened alcoholic aristocrat in hunting a wily urchin for sport. “Come, child, let me tell you about the thrills of the most dangerous game!”

Apartment 3-G, 1/22/09

Some people have doubted whether Margo is really as awe-inspiring and terrifying as all that. All I can say is that if any roommate of mine had left me a list of imperative mood verbs like the one seen here, I’d respond less with a resigned sigh and more with a string of obscenities. Either Margo really can kill with her mind, or the surreptitious, never-talked-about sex must be amazing.

Marmaduke, 1/22/09

“Howling at the moon,” ha! Marmaduke is actually summoning his demonic Master to appear and accept the blood sacrifice of these two innocents. Naturally, Marmaduke will carry out this sacrifice himself.

Momma, 1/22/09

Ha ha, Momma called her daughter a tramp! A tramp wearing a tiny, tiny lampshade as a hat.