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Mark Trail, 6/1/19

Many years ago, Mark Trail provided us with a perfect, beautiful sentence: “You stole a friend of mine’s pet bear!” Today, we have what I think is a new contender in the contest to be the “cellar door” of America’s #1 outdoors adventure comic: “By the way, Mark, wasn’t it you who urged caution before we got too excited about the possibility of finding the vanishing mine!?” Feel free to use this sentence yourself in an appropriate scenario — for instance, when one of your friends or acquaintances gets real enthusiastic over some exciting possibility (the discovery of a vanishing mine, say) that relatively recently they had been skeptical about, perhaps even urging others not to get to excited about the prospect.

Mary Worth, 6/1/19

We last checked in with the sad tale of Estelle eleven days ago, and, uh, I regret to inform you that literally nothing has happened since, other than Terry Bryson turning Estelle on to some dumb federal cybercrime website that will definitely, 100%, not help Estelle get her $10,000 or her ability to trust back. The rhythms of this strip being what they are, if this plot were going to wrap up this week we’d be getting some kind of closure today, but apparently not! Apparently this is just going to keep happening. And it’s possible that something interesting will transpire next week, but it’s also possible that Mary Worth just stalled, and we’re just going to keep seeing Estelle sad and Libby and Mary comforting her, forever. Has … has anyone tried turning Mary Worth off and turning it back on?

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My friends, one week from tonight YOU can see my and other hilarious people do COMEDY JOKES on stage at 8 pm, if you’re in Los Angeles! What are you waiting for? Commit your body and soul by telling Facebook that you’re going!

And you can commit your body and soul to joy right now by enjoying your comment of the week!

“All Lockhorns comics are funnier with the following caption: ‘Jesus, Loretta, they’re going to sue us.’” –a.

And your runners up! Very funny!

“If $40 and a tip jar won’t pay for two crappy toy guns and a fake mustache, these guys are clearly shopping at the wrong guns and disguises store.” –Julia Margarita

“Today’s Rex Morgan, M.D., realises the secret dream of nerds everywhere: turning nitpicking, ‘just asking questions‘ and ‘actually’ into weapons effective in the real world.” –Ettorre

“After the apocalypse, when the survivors have reluctantly banded together into fortified communities but are still riven by mutual distrust, ‘What are you cooking there, neighbor?’ / ‘Just enough food to feed my family’ will become the new standard greeting.” –Schroduck

“[ring, ring] ‘You’ve reached the voicemail of COUNT WEIRDLY. Please leave a message after the beep.’ [beep] ‘Sly, old buddy, it’s Count Weirdly. I know you’re sneaking around my castle right now because, well, you always are. I’m on a business trip in, uh… Bismarck, the state capital of South Dakota! Or am I? You tell me, super sleuth! Haha! Anyway, can you do me a solid and feed my pets while you’re there? Thanks, chief. Oh, and no making friends with the purple thing; I’m planning on teaching it to commit mail fraud once it’s housebroken. Catch you on the flip!’ [beep]” –jroggs

“‘What’s wrong with Otto?’ ‘He wanted to piss on the bedpost but doesn’t have the opposable thumbs necessary to remove his uniform, so he pissed his pants. How’s your Alpo?’” –nescio

“I was in there so long because I was on the phone with Glenwood’s finest! Also, I think I might have a minor bowel obstruction. What? Now that the ‘robbery’ is over we need another source of dramatic tension, right?” –pugfuggly

“TIRED: The Pajama Diaries couple is into BDSM. WIRED: At least one of the Pajama Diaries characters has teeth instead of a toothless little dot mouth.” –Jenna

“I think the phrase Rob is looking for is ‘a productive and respected author and philosopher with influential theories about camp.’” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“‘Dating used to be much simpler’ thought Mary as she ate the salad with her bare hands, stopping only to roughly douse each piece of iceberg lettuce with mustard.” –Escape Zeppelin

“You know, if someone told me they’d just almost been hit by a truck, I’d have a pretty good idea why they looked depressed.” –Rube

“Oh Lettuce, King of Vegetables, I come to you in the name of Estelle, who is a human vegetable in her way. Help her find her true dressing!” –Little Blue Bicycle

“Estelle thinks cats have it easy? Mary is still worried about how Estelle is adjusting? I know where this is going. Spoiler alert: Estelle is going to start living her life as a cat. She’ll make herself some kind of crude cat costume, and she’ll start prancing around her apartment on all fours. Eventually, the Santa Royale police will find her scrounging through garbage can in an alley. They’ll shine a flashlight on her, and she’ll hiss. This is going to be great.” –Joe Blevins

“What’s the one thing more dorky than a stamp collection or barbershop quartet? Your hippie English teacher’s favorite century-old novelist! It wouldn’t seem possible to make attractive, athletic high-school girls completely unpopular, but I guess you can always find a way if you try hard enough.” –BigTed

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine an athletic cleat stamping on a human face — forever.” –Dmsilev

“Aren’t these guys all old enough to have qualified for Medicare years ago? ‘Curse you, LBJ, for forcing me to invent a contorted hillbilly spelling of inshorance!’” –Peanut Gallery

“I jes’ got me one o’ them HSAs — a Hillbilly Scufflin’ Account!” –Pozzo

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/31/19

Changes to health care policy are both politically contentious and incredibly complex to implement, with lots of unanticipated results both good and bad. For instance, increasing the number of insured in poor rural communities has documented benefits in terms of improved medical outcomes. But it also results in increased blood feuding! Can the social fabric in our beloved hollers withstand the increase in violent hillbilly-on-hillbilly crime that would inevitably follow in the wake of universal healthcare?

The Lockhorns, 5/31/19

You might be tempted to focus on Leroy’s puzzling assumption that a uniform shape is somehow a sign of a good set of pancakes, but I can’t stop thinking about who these people are and what they’re doing in the Lockhorns’ dining room at what we must assume is breakfast time. My guess is that they finally worked up the nerve to answer a personal ad on the local swingers website, and as their faces clearly show, have experienced an evening of harrowing discovery as a result.