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Mark Trail, 7/8/07

Wait … a tree? A tree? You waste an entire Mark Trail Sunday strip on a tree? An admittedly freaky-looking tree, but still! The Mark Trail Sunday strips I know bring me wonderful visions, like flying jet-propelled squid and elephants throwing hapless souls across the savannah. This tree crap is weak. There could at least be some unnatural, horrifying beast lurking in the tree, like…

Mary Worth, 7/8/07

…there is in the next-to-last panel here! It’s a squirrel! It’s a possum! It’s a … small badger! It’s … well, I hope it’s going leap out of that tree and latch onto either Dawn or Drew’s face with its razor-sharp claws, if only to put an end to this awful flirting.

I’m assuming that someone over at Mary Worth central has been informed about the Grey’s Anatomy phenomenon, and “Dr. McHottie” is another misguided stab at topical relevance. I’m not sure if they didn’t just come out and say McDreamy because a team of King Features lawyers spent two to five billable hours in conference and ultimately urged them not to, or because they’ve never actually watched the show and just got it wrong. I will gain new respect for all involved if the latter turns out to be the case.

Panel from For Better Or For Worse, 7/8/07

I know that this panel is supposed to represent these jaunty young lads mooning the camera, no doubt the high point of the young foobs’ day at the beach, but it sure looks like April will be uploading a whole new set of pics to her teenage scat porn site this afternoon. For better!

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Hey everybody, I’m about to upgrade the software that runs this blog. So, if you are experiencing technical weirdness with the site, that’s why, so sit tight for a minute while I work it out. Among other things, this upgrade holds the promise of fixing the problems with the comment RSS feed, which should be of great interest to the three of you who use it.

By the way, while I’ve got your attention here, Ces Marciuliano of Sally Forth and Medium Large fame has a new blog, Francesco Explains It All. Check it out!

Update: Hmm, upgrading seems to have screwed comments up. Working on it!

Update to the update: OK, you can comment again, but the “See it before you say it” functionality doesn’t seem to play nice with the new upgrade, so that’s turned off for the time being. Sorry for the inconvenience … I’ll try to figure that out in the next little bit.

Meanwhile, another link to entertain you: if you like Slylock Fox and/or the popular Web comic PvP, you’ll probably like this.

The updates, they continue: “See it before you say it” has been restored, though it’s now more prosiacially named “preview” and “post.” The way it works it a little different now — now when you preview, you’ll see your comment in the context of the list, though its background color and a header will indicate that it’s a preview. Try it, you’ll like it! And if it comes out screwy, let me know in the comments.

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Apartment 3-G, 7/7/07

Spider-Man? For all his web-slinging and super-strength and relative [fill in the blank] of a spider, we know him to be a self-absorbed, useless mope. The Phantom? A guy who openly admits that his main “power” is messing with his opponents’ heads. No, today we learn that Ruby Wright has the most incredible superpower in the funny pages: the power to shut Margo up. Admittedly each panel is just a frozen instant in time, but that vision of Margo, her mouth a perfect O of surprise, stunned into silence, is one that no ordinary human could bring about. Still, no matter how powerful Ruby is, Margo will counterattack; the Professor, who a moment ago was eager to get back to his own apartment to continue servicing Gina, now looks eager to stick around and watch the fireworks.

(By the way, Lu Ann’s maiden name is “Wright”; “Powers” is the name of her husband, a fighter pilot who was shot down over Vietnam, which incident has presumably been retconned to Grenada Libya Iraq Somalia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq stay tuned!)

Gil Thorp, 7/7/07

The first panel of today’s Gil Thorp, in which the Milford baseball team lets loose a mighty, fist-pumping cheer in salute to willful ignorance, may be one of the most simultaneously sad and delightful things this strip has ever presented — and it’s presented a long list of simultaneously sad and delightful things.

Now that we know that Otha earned the “Clambake” nickname during his Navy days, I really, really don’t want to know the origin story. Really.

Mark Trail, 7/7/07

There’s been plenty of wacky animal action in Mark Trail this week, including yesterday’s memorable talking moose, but none pegged my disturb-o-meter like today’s strip. The idly munching cow seems innocuous enough, despite the fact that its horns are the exact same color of milky brown as the rest of its coat. But then you see Sam’s suddenly enormously dilated pupils in the next panel. Her eyes have the exact same numb, soulless look as the brutish bovine’s. And then you realize that something very, very bad happened on that plane.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/7/07

I’m going to ignore the subtext here and just focus on the flat-out ludicrous text. Look at Rex in panel three, with his fist clenched and and that look of steely determination in his eyes. “As God as my witness, Niki, we will! If it’s the last thing we do!” They’re going to hang out by a river and catch a damn fish or maybe not, not climb Everest or cure cancer. There’s no point in being … so … oh, hell, who am I kidding. TROUSER TROUT TROUSER TROUT TROUSER TROUT TROUSER TROUT TROUSER TROUT