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I hope you will have a little patience before we get to this week’s COTW. I’ve been meaning for some time to share with you a fascinating item I received in the mail from faithful reader loudfan, and have only today gotten around to making some scans of. Behold, the glory and majesty of Mark Trail’s ® Book Of Animals (North American Mammals)!

The book was published in 1955 and written by Ed Dodd, Jack Elrod’s predecessor at the helm of all things Trail. It’s essentially like a Sunday strip, in book form, with Mark only making a single cameo appearance on the title page:

He sure looks pleased, doesn’t he? I wonder what’s in that pipe.

Anyway, the book contains lots of information on — and pretty nice black and white drawings of — animals (North American mammals). Here’s an example, selected particularly for faithful reader and goat fan True Fable:

As you can see, Mark Trail has never been shy about proclaiming the hard truths in life, using boldface to blow tiny little minds everywhere with information about the mountain goat’s non-goat status.

Humans are actually pretty scarce in the pages of this book, but this appearance of an elderly foppish cowboy is particularly amusing:

Wait, are there people who seriously accuse mountain lions of cowardice just because they don’t want to get shot? Who on earth could this page be defending their reputation from?

Maybe from wolverines, who, when confronted with the incursion of armed humans into their territory, respond not by skulking deeper into the woods, mountain lion-style, but by arming themselves. WOLVERINES!

Finally, you can see that this feature’s fascination with dog vs. raccoon fights has deep roots:

Oh, and Mark, maybe raccoons wash their food because dirty food is gross. This page tells me more than I ever wanted to know about dinnertime at the Trail household.

In totally unrelated news, here’s a tidbit from faithful reader RaJ:

I apologize for bringing this to your attention. I do it only because I thought it might shed some light on the obviously troubled Keane family. It’s a picture of Jeff, in hideous drag, pummeling some poor man to death.

If that linked sentence entices you, you’ll want to click forward to the 11th picture in the gallery (there’s no way to link to it directly, which is probably just as well).

And now! At long last! The comment of the week!

“Reeky regularly watches COPS; it’s like Facebook for his kind.” –gnemec

And the runners-up! Also funny!

“I’m fastidious enough to be a little concerned about Luann spilling her glass of soda in panel 3, but I suppose it’ll just end up mixed into the big puddle of Brad’s insecurity that’s already sloshing around the linoleum.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Dagwood’s candidate is Lyndon LaRouche, who will have lunch with anyone. I assume Dagwood was buying.” –Jana C.H.

“My god, when did Mary Worth become the abode of the undead? Mary, the funeral make-up still fresh on her face, gazes blankly as Jeff vainly struggles to remember the taste of food. Soon they will lurch out into the sunlight, their unsolicited advice an ungodly gurgle in their throats, forcing Toby to shotgun them both.” –Idols of Mud

“Watching a sailboat race: boring. Watching boring people who are watching a sailboat race: thrilling excitement, Rex Morgan Style!!!” –ring around the collar

“I think that by making a sailboat race part of the plot, Rex Morgan, M.D., has joined the worldwide hunt for something less interesting than Rex Morgan, M.D. I wouldn’t be surprised if this week ends with Rex explaining the difference between different types of knots and how that knowledge helped him win.” –ESJ

“The best thing about today’s Mary Worth is how the colorist gave up on filling in half the background. It’s as if he thought, ‘Eh, who needs green trees or a colored table cloth when Mary Worth’s just going to suck the life out of them anyway?'” –kelsy

“The seemingly metal pizza pan bothers me. Is Thel trying to set her house on fire? Actually … she probably is. I would if I were her.” –Angry Kem

“Mark knows that women are only interested in one thing; he just doesn’t know what it is.” –boojum

“Daddy Keane has thrown himself diagonally across the bed, burying his face in a pillow in the classic posture of one overwhelmed by grief. I wish I knew what tragic event in the Keane household brought this on. So I could imagine it happening, over and over again in my mind.” –Joe Btfsplk

“I know you all have been hating on Big Time as something of an underwhelming villain, and not without reason. But today’s strip shows that he’s not just a large man who likes clocks. He’s a criminal mastermind! Parking the truck near, but not too near the rear door of the museum? Genius! Because if the truck were too far away, then they’d have to carry the loot all the way to the truck, which would take longer. But if the truck’s too close, then they couldn’t get the door open. It’s thinking through details like this that make Big Time a foe to be reckoned with.” –Spunde

“I like that Peter Parker is a regular ‘Joe Six-Pack/Plumber’ like me. Not at all like that elitist Jamaal who uses a ‘bed’ to sleep.” –Red Greenback

“Uh, Peter, if you’re losing consciousness and gripping your left arm, you aren’t falling asleep, you’re having a heart attack. So much for spidey sense.” –Bribaby

“Perhaps at some point she hobbled him a là the film Misery.” –Calico, on why Dr. Jeff now has a cane

“If Margo’s talking tears, they’re someone else’s, brought on by their sweet, sweet humiliation.” –willethompson

“I’m not an avid enough reader of Gil Thorp to know who Dr. Wally Lamb is but I assume he’s the strip’s resident mad scientist based on (A) the fact that he’s wearing a lab coat and glasses, and (B) in panel 2 he appears to have shrunk himself to about 6 inches tall. Judging by the total lack of surprise on his wife’s face, this happens all the time.” –Rachel K

“Luann is steadily becoming a race to see which couple will not have sex first.” –Anonymous

“Don’t hold your breath for diversity in this comic. There aren’t even any characters with brown eyes.” –Charlene, on the prospects of a gay character in Mary Worth

“Of course pluggers don’t have flowers. They can barely care for themselves.” –tj

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Pluggers, 10/27/08

It’s well documented that the definition of “plugger” is notoriously slippery. For instance, before today, you probably didn’t realize that typical, average Americans who sit around the kitchen table out of their minds on a psychedelic mix of prescription medications are in fact pluggers! The shocking revelation that even pillheads can be pluggers leads us to ask: who else is a plugger?

Apartment 3-G, 10/27/08

Alan’s parents are probably pluggers! That’s why they hate and fear the great city of New York, refusing to bury him there, instead taking him home to a simple, all-American rural Maine cemetery. This move on their part has put an end to Margo’s brief experience of something resembling human tenderness, as she prepares to leap to the defense of her home city, and I have to come in on her side here. After all, it’s not as if Alan’s going to overdose at his own funeral, seeing as he’s already dead and all. And if his burial service is thronged by crazed junkies who ultimately pull his body from the casket and attempt to grind it up and smoke/snort/inject it so as to enjoy the residual dope still in his veins — well, isn’t that what he really would have wanted? It would certainly be more fun than the “private service” his parents have planned, with the glassy-eyed, pill-numbed plugger hordes drooling aimlessly in the pews.

Wizard of Id, 10/27/08

The peasants in Wizard of Id are also pluggers, because they’re staying cheerful and making do with what they’ve got! In this case, “what they’ve got” is their rickety wooden furniture, and “making do” involves burning it for heat. Because they live in desperate, crushing poverty, you see! Ha ha! The nonstop larfs will continue as they turn first to prostitution and then to cannibalism.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/27/08

The Funky Winkerbeaners are perpetually glum and despondent, so they do not in fact qualify for plugger status. I find it interesting that Les needs to consult the yearbook so as to successfully navigate his high school reunion. True, everyone in the cast has aged horribly, due to various cancers and general soul-blighting depression, but as far as I know, virtually all of them have remained in town, so it’s not like their current wizened state should be a surprise to Les. Hell, half of them work with him, either at the high school or the pizzeria, Winkerburg apparently being a black hole of misery from which no joy can escape.

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Shoe, 10/26/08

Sunday’s Shoe has discovered the ultimate recipe for hilarity: have a bunch of characters, most of whom you’ve never met before and have no attachment to, sitting around telling tedious jokes about how boring they are. In the gut-busting climax, the Perfesser tells a joke that’s both boring and ancient; ironically, the syndicate seems to have demanded that the awkward phrase “in eminent danger” replace the more obvious and straightforward “dying,” thus making the gag even duller.

By the way, I shaved the initial panels off of the shockingly huge Sunday Shoe graphic, because they were even less interesting than the ones you see here.

Mary Worth, 10/26/08

Speaking as a connoisseur, this is an extremely satisfying Mary Worth, combining as it does fan favorites (random, rambling platitude-laden thought ballooning) and exciting new elements (laughable fantasy skating action). Mary’s “ocean wave” riff is echoed by the oddly shaped clouds out her window; it’s possible that those are actual ocean waves, and her plane is about to plow into the sea and deliver her to her watery grave, but that’s probably asking too much.

Slylock Fox, 10/26/08

I actually agree that Rachel Rabbit’s accusation is ridiculous. It’s obvious that any attempt on Reeky’s part at electrical work more complex than plugging in a hot plate would result in his immediate painful and high-voltage death.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/26/08

Yes, of course he is, dear.