Alex states the obvious about Thursday's comics

Because the noise that vacuum cleaners make isn't entertaining!


Washing, vacuuming, and shampooing things makes them cleaner!


Being annoying and saying "bump beds" repeatedly instead of "bunk beds" doesn't make you any less annoying!


The art in Gil Thorp isn't as painful to look at anymore, but I still can't tell who anyone is!


But nobody laughs at Hi and Lois!


Those two should kill Mark Trail!


You also know you're pregnant when you're (hetero)sexually active, your period stops, and your pregnancy test is positive!

Wednesday's Mark Trail

Ooooohhhh, that's some dog-on-Mark action going on there in panel three. Andy's well-trained to know that Mark needs it bad when he gets home. I'm guessing that in the non-existent panel four Andy gets slapped away and told, "Now now, Andy!"

Or not. What's really scary, besides the possible bestiality, is Chucky Rusty in panel two. It's like he's about to throw an ax at Mark and then eat his brain.

Saturday's Mark Trail

You know, when you're releasing birds in an airport to force taxpayers to buy up your useless property for a new airport, there are a lot of things you can do to make yourself seem less like a suspect. One is not getting in the face of the attack's victim and shouting about what the attack means and referring to it with "the" instead of "your", which kind of makes it seem like you don't actually care about the victim of that attack. Another thing is not to shout about being accused of releasing birds when, in fact, you have yet to be accused of releasing birds. Of course, the city commissioner doesn't seem to know these things and is totally blowing his cover.

Gosh, if I wrote the paragraph above in any other forum, I'd be instantly labeled psychotic.

Tuesday's Mark Trail

Look into my eyes! I am Sam the Sexy Scientist with the Big Sexy Eyes, look into them!

We've gotten used to the Mark Trail convention of zooming out to animals so that it looks like moose's asses are talking and things like that, but the extreme zoom in here makes it seem like Sam Hill's nose knows more about how to stop the bird releasers than Mark does, and, well, that sounds about right.

Friday's Mark Trail

"Eyes are up here, Mark."

Of course, if I had flown with someone and she got shards of glass thrown into her face by a duck crashing into the windshield and had to be hospitalized, and then she showed up at my door wearing the same blouse, then I might be looking at that too.

One liners from last Monday!

This Mark Trail makes me wonder just what sort of "pleasure" one would raise game birds for.



Doctor: It's time we had a talk.... about your cravats. Dude, Blaze, you dress like a moron.



It's nice to know that Clambake cares so much about Ken to dislocate his shoulder to put his arm around him.



HA HA! MARY'S POOL PARTIES SUCK!

Tuesday's Mark Trail

I'm going to assume that Mark Trail is an expert on biology or nature or something (hey, stop laughing!) and that he knows from the shape of the duck's cloaca that it was born female. That would mean that that coloring is part of the duck's expression of his true sex, like an FTM duck, and that Sam the Sexy Scientist got her eyes knocked out by a transgender duck. AWESOME!

What are the chances that Mark will find an eyehook in the duck? Then the story would come FULL CIRCLE!

Friday's Mark Trail

Y'know, I'm not a biologist who's built a career out of studying the habits of birds, nor am I a nature photojournalist/kick-ass protector of wildlife, but I do think that I know a thing or two about nature. For example, I know that ducks tend to stay close to water when they're on the ground. So if I were to see them at an airport where the nearby wetlands had been drained in a misguided attempt to protect the environment, I might think that someone put them there, perhaps a professional duck trainer (if such a profession exists outside the Mark-Trail-iverse). I may even begin to wonder if it had anything to do with those guys who were trying to get that very airport deemed unsafe so that they could develop another at the taxpayers' expense. But I'm going to guess that solving this mystery will have less to do with knowledge of nature and more to do with finding an eyehook and making wild speculations. And if there's one thing I know about the Mark-Trail-iverse, it's that WILD SPECULATIONS ARE ALWAYS TRUE.

Panel two is rather unsettling. Sure, having shards of glass blast into Sam the Sexy Biologist's eyes because a duck flew through a window is great entertainment for the kids, but wouldn't it be more appropriate to fall back on Mark Trail convention here and zoom out to a giant wombat or something while she relates what will surely be a key clue in solving the Mystery of the Airport Ducks?

Monday's Mark Trail

One of the most exciting images in Mark Trail history is just to the right of the border of panel two - a woman in a trendy scarf with glass shards in her eyes. I mean, yeah, that's pretty violent and gruesome, but I'm not the one who thought it up, now am I?

It is good that it happened, though, so that Mark Trail could commandeer the plane and avoid being flown around by a girl.

Tuesday's Mark Trail

It's details like this that keep Mark Trail interesting: Sam Hill getting ready to fly consists of putting on a scarf. Yep. Because you can't fly with a cold neck.

Monday's Mark Trail

I'm interested in Sam Hill's panel two comment: "Yes, I fly for both business and pleasure! I enjoy being in the sky!" One might say that it's the sort of thing that no one would ever actually say, but as someone who went to another country with no ability to speak their language and taught himself through books he bought there, there were definitely times when I knew that I sounded just like Sam Hill here. I knew that, while I was getting my point across, I was still using really simple sentences and sounded like a moron on a language tape.

Like this one time I went to an art exhibit way out in the country in Brittany, and I met one of the artists, and what I said literally translated as "I like your pictures. I like art. I'm going to Paris next week. I will go to the Louvre." The dude just looked at me and went to go talk to someone else. Just walked away.

So maybe that's the problem with the dialogue here.

Mark Trail

Sam's taking Mark on a tour of projects devoted to killing/moving birds by destroying the local environment, and Mark has to drive. Seriously. Look, Mark, she's devoted to environmental destruction too. Let a woman drive.

As a gay man, I suppose it is incumbent on me to notice fashion (as I sit in front of my computer in basketball shorts and a T-shirt). Here goes: Miss Thing does NOT have it goin' on with that pink V-neck sweater and pink polo shirt combination. It looks like a jelly doughnut up and exploded on her! And Mr. UPS Uniform, double breast pockets are so 1996.

Or not, actually I have no idea. I'm looking over that previous paragraph and I think that I may have found something that I'm too butch to do. Haha, I said "butch". That gets me some femme cred back.

Mark Trail

I'm thinking I could get down with the MT brand of environmentalism. Some birds in the way? Destroy their entire habitat! Don't like that landfill nearby? "Clean it up" - as in, move all the garbage to someone else's backyard. MT's answer to global warming: more air conditioning.

Because, you know, I was joking earlier. But now I'm just thinking that the only environmental comics strip in the funny pages is being written by someone who hates the environment. And who willing to deliver this faux-environmentalism through the steamy lips of Sam.



****

Ugh, I don't have time to finish up right now. Gil Thorp and TDIET later tonight. I know, I know, I'll miss you too!

Wednesday's Mark Trail

"So we moved the landfill and dumped the trash in Guatemala, sprayed the cracks with brine to kill the worms, and paved over the swamp!"

I know MT is supposed to be the edutainment comic, but this is just getting out of hand. No, I don't own an airport, so I have no use for this knowledge, MT. Even if I did, I'd probably take great joy in killing birds there.

Mark Trail

I once saw a movie, I don't remember the title, where this one guy got his face blown off by a bomb, and he reconstructed with the face of a doll. It was a really nasty horror movie, and that villian looked a lot like Rusty Trail in panel one. Rusty Trail in panel three, though, is the real horror. But I feel like I'm stuck in an anti-Dorian Grey, where I'm just staring at a picture that's so repulsive that I can't look away. Several months from now a friend of mine will come visit only to find that I've wallpapered my house with printed copies of Rusty Trail in panel three, and I'll have to be locked away.

Mark Trail

As Cathy would say, "Ack!"

Not another white collar crime story line in Mark Trail! Considering how incredibly exciting insurance fraud was before, I just don't know if we can handle a misappropriation of funds storyline now. I mean, it's just too much fun.

Although I do like the close-up in panel two. Yes, a right hook would look great right there.

Mark Trail

I'm with Andy's penis on this one; I'm glad it didn't work.

Qomics for Queers is still holding out hope for Ted Forth

That's going to be how I introduce myself in every room I enter from now on. "NO, I THINK I HAVE THE RIGHT ROOM-HI, MOM... ....PROFESSOR WILKINS!" Or maybe: "NO, I THINK I HAVE THE RIGHT ROOM-HI, TOILET... ... TOILET PAPER ROLL!"

Wednesday's Sally Forth:

Well, it's no secret that I have a little thing for Ted Forth. When it comes to middle-aged men, they don't get much hotter than Ted. He's sensitive to irony yet remains above the fray with his pro-value innocence. And considering how I often feel trapped between market-driven apathy and cynicism parading as reform, value-positivity can look pretty hot. Enter Ted Forth.

Hillary's little comment here provides some hope, even though it's supposed to be a from-the-mouth-of-babes jab at Ted's masculinity, gives me a little hope, hope that we'll see a "Hillary has two daddies" story line a few years from now.


And Tuesday's Dennis the Menace:

I love the expression on Hank's face. It's just saying: "Don't out me in front of the cop, Dennis. Our people don't have a good history with the po-po."

Or maybe that's just my imagination.


Thursday's Mark Trail:

Oh, man, I was right! Not only are they fighting, they're carrying on a conversation while doing so! Not like Dick Tracy, which stops the speech bubbles during a fight scene, Mark Trail doesn't skip a beat.

But Dan raises a good question: HOW did Mark find out so fast? The eyehook under the boat really didn't say much besides, you know, there's an eyehook under a boat, not insurance fraud, although Mark's crazy assumptions turned out to be correct. Yes, a very convenient narrative turn....

Now what sort of "deal" does the EMBARRASSED Dan have in mind? I've read a few Nifty stories that started this way....


And your Family Circus Leslie Feinberg rewrite:

Mark Trail

Oh, man, I was right! Not only are they fighting, they're carrying on a conversation while doing so! Not like Dick Tracy, which stops the speech bubbles during a fight scene, Mark Trail doesn't skip a beat.

Now what sort of "deal" will Dan strike with Mark? I've read a few Nifty stories that started this way....

Update: I make it a point not to visit Josh's site before I've read the comics and posted here what I wanted to, to maintain some sort of creative purity (don't ask me, I don't understand). Even though he makes fun of the comics and I out the comics, there might be a day when that straight boy can pick up on the subtleties of queerness embedded in comics and make a blow job joke to go with it, and I want to at least know that I caught it myself.

So I just read his take on the climax of Mark Trail's insurance fraud storyline, and I have to give him some link love. Here's a bit:

It is of course laughable that Dan would skulk around a hotel wearing a cheap wig and fake beard when he could have simply purchased hair dye and grown real facial hair (Dan, did you know that if you stop shaving hair will grow right out of your cheeks?). Another wonderful possibility is that Dan did in fact dye his hair and grow a beard but Mark’s fists are so powerful that they are capable of punching the lies and deceit right off of Dan’s face.

Mark Trail

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!