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Sam and Silo, 1/8/20

I haven’t been on the Sam and Silo train for that long, but the overall vibe has always been that it’s an extremely low-stakes strip about two lazy, incompetent cops who have the good fortune to work in a tiny community without any real crime. So it’s a little bit of a shock today to see our heroes suddenly trudging through the winter forest, guns drawn and more or less ready, on the hunt for a dangerous, desperate criminal who will no doubt decide that it’s them or him if they end up cornering him. Honestly, this strip would be just as funny and a lot more poignant if the exchange happened as a gut-shot Silo (or Sam, I honestly can not be bothered to keep track of which is which) bled out in the snow, just a few feet away from their quarry, who’s doing the same.

Mark Trail, 1/8/20

“Unable to withstand the elements or not enough money … all kinds of reasons! Well, really just those two. But aren’t they good enough? Doesn’t the failure of just about every exploratory expedition come down to either inadequate resources or inability to deal with the conditions in the area you’re exploring??? So those reasons cover all the other reasons????? GET OFF MY BACK TRAIL!!!!!!”

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Mary Worth, 1/7/2020

Ah, I think we’re about to learn this storyline’s valuable lesson: it’s very important that you not go to some doctor for normals and poors who accepts your cut-rate health insurance, because he’s just going to diagnose you with old. No, you need to go to Dr. Howard, whose fees only dot-com millionaires can afford, and who can pump you full of teenager blood to reverse the aging process, or at least offer you the array of modern cosmetic enhancement procedures that allow, say, Tom Cruise and Paul Rudd to be believable leading men despite being older than Wilford Brimley was when he starred in Cocoon.

Dennis the Menace, 1/7/2020

Dennis is breaking the fourth wall in a quite menacing fashion here. What is he going to do with Margaret that he doesn’t want us to see? I mean, probably just being a sullen dick to her while she attempts to have a civilized friendship with him, I guess, which quite frankly we’ve seen enough of.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/7/2020

PANEL ONE: Aunt Hildy oversteps her bounds, in a friendly but potentially irritating way!

PANEL TWO: June sets a firm boundary, while taking care to acknowledge the good intentions behind Aunt Hildy’s offer!

PANEL THREE: Aunt Hildy acknowledges and accepts the boundary June sets, as the reasons given for it make good sense! This is the sort of roller coaster of drama that we’ve come to expect from this strip, and I for one am exhausted.

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Mark Trail, 1/6/20

Hey, Mark, I just want to point out that you’re on an expedition through the Nepalese foothills of the Himalayas, something that most people would consider the trip of a lifetime, and not only are all your expenses being taken care of but you’re earning your salary by being there. And all you have to do in return is write an article about it; if you actually do find a yeti, it will be the story of the century, of course, and if you don’t, well, there are all sorts of angles you can take about your weird trip with an obsessive, larger-than-life personality that will both entertain readers and allow you to work out any feelings you have about Dr. Camel. My point is, maybe you don’t have to act like such a giant pissy baby at all times? Just a thought.

Slylock Fox, 1/6/20

I really feel sorry for the kids in this strip, not just because they have arrived with big, eager smiles at Career Day to learn about some potential job possibilities only to be fed a bunch of patented Slylock useless-fun-fact bullshit, but also in a larger sense because the Animal Kingdom that they inhabit seems to have an entirely pedantry-based economy, and their post-graduation career prospects are extremely gloomy, as the entire society is probably already overdue for a collapse.

Pluggers, 1/6/20

These are this plugger’s last words because he had a massive coronary later that afternoon. “Famous” is probably a strong word, but when his wife and their friend finally connected and heard about the last phone call he took, they had a good chuckle about it, anyway.