Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

Wow, I’ve been wasting my short time on Earth adding to this blog for a whole year!  I’d been doing mashups for some time before, but this has been a cheap fabulous way of setting them down in pixels and hoping that they’re making some folks laugh…or chuckle…or groan…or scratch their heads.

I don’t even have a mashup to commemorate Anniversary #1, but hey, June Morgan is in a bikini today, so maybe that’ll inspire me (I say “inspire,” because considering how June looks in a bikini, I think I’d just be depressed otherwise…).

Okay, I lied.  Well, no, I just got inspired.  And the more I looked at the first panel in the 3 April strip, the more I wondered why we can’t see ANY of June in the mirror.  Of course the bathroom in her cabin is larger than any of the ones in MY HOUSE, so that could have something to do with it, but I prefer a more logical reason (a bathroom that large for the run-of-the-mill cruise guest is hardly logical, after all).

Thanks to Josh F., The Comics Curmudgeon hisself, for his great blog, and to Dean Booth, whose mashups first inspired me and continue to do so several years after discovering just how PhotoShop can be abused! (also to mr. bats :[ who puts up with these doodles and at least pretends to follow all the convoluted plot machinations in Mary Worth and Rex Morgan et al. when I start sputtering about them; True Fable ‘cuz he’s sweet; Mooncattie, who’s also sweet and doesn’t mind appearing in the occasional mashup (right?); and a whole buncha CC folks who I know drop in here!)

…where there are weird critters and more sheep than people.

Mark Trail would love it.

Go figure.

New storyline in Mark Trail! Alert! Alert! And for the second time, it looks like the bad guys (yes! TWO of them!) have no discernible facial hair.  If this keeps up, Mark is going to punch Johnny Malotte out of sheer frustration.

Then again, if acquiring Rusty’s camera with the incriminating photos in it is so simple, we might be working on a totally new storyline by the beginning of next week.  Maybe it’ll have an Evil Saquatch in it!

Hey, Baldy McBadguy!  I guess you’re evil when you don’t understand the concept of “No means No!”.  Rusty doesn’t want to sell his camera, even for a gajillion dollars.  If you and your buddy are on the lam, why don’t you just get the hell out of town (what’s keeping you in Lost Forest, for god’s sake?!?) and go somewhere where there might be a slightly-larger population base that you can melt into?  And where the post office has more than two “Wanted” posters?

But I digress.  “Forget it, Baldy — it’s Lost Forest.”

It looks like the current story-line in Mark Trail is coming to an end.  Ken accepts the responsibility for shooting Bucky and knocking his wife around (no mention of counseling or anger management classes…saying “I’m sorry.” is as good as a man’s firm backhand handshake in Lost Forest).  Bucky will be relocated. Patty will continue to be a ditz. The End.

AAAAAAAAAAAnd...not quite the end.  Ken sweetens the deal for Patty to stay with him and his abusive ways by considering a baby!

Oh, crap.

I’m not half as livid as a lot of folks responding to this “look! everything’s okay, now!” turn. I just screw around with the comics.  Be careful what you wish for, Kenny boy.

Evidently the first week in March has been designated “‘It’s All My Fault!‘ Week,” at least among comic-strip characters.  Maybe it has something to do with Lent.

Confusing?  Yes.  Deserved?  Maybe.

Quick! There’s two more days left to beat your breast, dress in ashes and sack-cloth, and moan “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”  Or you can just go out for a nice dinner, or at least a Dairy Queen sundae.

And it’s not like we didn’t know this was coming.  Even if we were all ignorant of the fact that nothing it certain but Death and Taxes, Batuiuiuiuiuk would’ve telegraphed that fact for months for our collective benefit.

…here’s a quick update on the very peculiar domestic abuse/exotic animal as pet storyline in Mark Trail.

Bucky the deer was shot by Patty’s husband Ken;
Bucky was only grazed by the bullet and ran off.
Bucky got in a tussle with another deer, and their antlers locked.
Mark hack-sawed the deer free of one another.
Bucky ran off in a panic.
Ken went out looking for Patty in the woods and came across Bucky.
Bucky gored Ken and ran off.
Mark and Patty found Ken.
Patty blames herself for … um, I guess everything: Ken’s injuries, Bucky’s flight, the global economic melt-down, the hole in the ozone layer caused by aerosol hairspray.

Bottom line: Ken’s hurt! Patty’s hysterical! Mark’s … um, I dunno.

Here I am, playing the apologist for Mark Trail.  While the real strip seems to indicate that the economic downturn is reason enough for lumberman Ken to take out his frustrations on his wife, rather than all the good folks at Lehman Brothers et al., I’d like to think that Mark knows what’s right and what’s wrong.

At least when his attention isn’t divided.

…or one small psychotic cat!

[I don’t know why I’m doing so many mash-ups the last few days.  I guess spending five days at an S.C.A. event, followed by several more of paperwork having to do with the event, has me really jonesing for PhotoShop.  I wonder if there’s an AA equivalent.  Or if I can get money for being a poster child or something…]

And lest anyone think otherwise, Mark Trail doesn’t just ball up his fists and punch.  Violence is not the first option, or the second.  Mark examines the evidence, considers implications, suggests alternatives, investigates solutions…

…and then he punches somebody.

[I loved the 21 and 23 February panels.  While Mark is very likely agreeing with Forest Service Same about the sorry state of the economy, his brusque responses immediately caught me as something to the effect of “Ask me if I care.”, and “Oh, boo hoo — cry me a river, Sam.”.]

Meanwhile in Lost Forest, Ken Brillohead, Lumberjack with Issues, terrorizes his wife Patty and threatens to shoot her pet deer.  Unfortunately, he does own a closetful of guns, so he could make good on the threat.

A friendly piece of advice, Ken: Judge Parker’s literary agent, Dewey Cheatem, had a closetful of guns, too.  Do you know where Dewey is, Ken?  That’s right, on a slab in the Scottsdale morgue!

I don’t even think Lost Forest has a morgue:

I have to admit, I could give a rat’s patoot (or a venison burger with seasoned curly fries) as to what happens to Bucky (the deer, not the cat).  But now we’ve crossed into Extreme Close-up Territory (aka, ECT), and that’s always a winner!

I guess it stands to reason that a dim-witted, lonely housewife in Lost Forest who befriends an orphan fawn and raises him to adulthood might not be particularly creative when it comes to naming it.

Still, it confuses matters a little…