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Gosh darn it, those Sunday strips are so big! With my feeble attention span, I could only focus on these small bits of them:

Panel from Mark Trail, 6/8/08

Hmm, there were 50,000 grizzlies in North America, but now there are about 1,200 … plus another 30,000 in Alaska? Apparently the Russians, not satisfied with merely reversing the political consequences of the Alaska Purchase, are secretly in the midst of building a canal down the Alaska-Canada border and using the resulting dirt to fill in the Bering Strait, thus making the grizzy-rich Seward’s Icebox a part of Asia! Mark Trail’s gonna have to punch a lot of Russkies to stop this.

Panels from Shoe, 6/8/08

The philosophical implications of Roz’s first statement here — “I hate time” — sort of boggle my mind. Does she hate time as an abstract concept? Does she wish that everything happened at once? Is she actually opposed to entropy, which scientists call “time’s arrow”? These intellectual musings serve to distract you from her statement in the second panel, which, given that Shoe takes place in an all-bird milieu, we must take quite literally: Roz has horribly mutilated one of her fellow avians and is wearing its feet as some kind of grisly trophy. Her “somewhere” implies that she doesn’t even know the whereabouts of her hapless victim, implying that she committed her ghastly crime in a fugue state — so perhaps it’s “lost time” that she really has a beef with.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/8/08

Speaking of philosophical dilemmas, Rex is about to find out just how hard it is prove a negative. “See, here’s my ID, which says, ‘Rex Morgan, M.D., a doctor, and totally 100 percent not a cop.'”

Panel from Family Circus, 6/8/08

Ha ha! Jeffy is terrifying his little brother with some kind of horrific demon mask! Oh, it’s all fun and games until Daddy finds out he’s been poking around in the Ritual Room again.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 6/8/08

“She is convinced that Shady Shrew is the nut-grabber.” Oh, well played, sir.

UPDATE: Oops, that’s actually “nut-nabber.” Curse you, tiny type and failing eyes! I like my version better anyway.

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Mary Worth, 6/7/08

Oh, it’s “grassroots political activism,” is it? I think Mary is starting to realize that Ron’s silver hair and electric blue suit disguise an America-hating leftist. Their date will probably end with Ron hurling a brick through the window of the local Starbucks and spray-painting SMASH THE IMF across the front of the local bank.

I probably shouldn’t assume that the word “grassroots” only applies to one end of the political spectrum, though. It’s also possible that Ron is the head of the “Keep Santa Royale White” campaign — which, from the look of things, has been pretty darn successful so far.

Hi and Lois, 6/7/08

“It is, however, Afghanistan. That’s why my wife wasn’t able to talk directly to a man she isn’t related to, but needed to stay in the women’s quarters in the back of the house while I came out and told you to leave.”

Herb and Jamaal, 6/7/08

Man, as if I needed confirmation of my basic misanthropy, I now have as evidence the involuntary giggle that arose when Jamaal, having been isolated from interactions with his fellow humans by modern life, slipped in the earbuds and let the music from his iPod that popular MP3 music player that everyone’s talking about bring him to a state of emotionally neutral, heavy-lidded numbness.

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Apartment 3-G, 6/6/08

Reasons why Margo might have the Wedding March set as her phone’s ringtone:

• She’s read the The Secret and now believes she can make a marriage proposal happen by sheer force of will; thus, she surrounds herself with wedding-related media at all times.
• That ringtone indicates a phone call from her hapless assistant Sam, who’s been left in charge of her now largely forgotten wedding planning business. He’s probably calling for help about yet another peacock-related disaster.
• That ringtone’s been assigned to Eric, about whom Margo finally stopped caring about five minutes ago. He’s using his satellite phone to make his one phone call from the police station allowed by Chinese law before he has his organs harvested, but Margo’s decided to fall for Jack’s brushcut charms instead.

(By the way, that strip with Sam in it that I linked to above is more than a year old, and Margo is already boasting about her imminent engagement! So sad, so sad.)

Mary Worth, 6/6/08

“That’s right, Mary! Now that my mother’s literal dead weight is no longer holding me back, I’m someone of stature and consequence in this town! That woman in the hideously patterned shirt … that intellectual snob, out reading in public … why, I could have either of them thrown in jail, their lives destroyed, as easy I can clench my right fist, like so! I’ll be ordering you the house Chianti at La Rosa, but I won’t be drinking any; I’m already drunk with power!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/6/08

“No way, man! You’ll pry my filthy, soiled wrestling mats from my cold, dead, MRSA-infected hands!”

Slylock Fox, 6/6/08

Cowboy one is out of his mind on mescaline; cowboy three is taking a “spirit journey” thanks to peyote; cowboys two and four are tweaking on good, old-fashioned meth.