Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

This was suggested by CC’s Aviatrix, and I’m going to include her personal instructions for this lively game!

It’s time to prepare your bingo card for some Mark Trail bingo. Mark off a grid of five by five squares and write the letters T R A I L above the first row. Now for each column choose and arrange selections from the appropriate group.

Under the T: Talking wildlife
choose any five species native to the Lost Forest

Under the R: Redressing problems
choose any five possible guest character woes for Mark to solve, such as: illness, unemployment, grief, disability, marital problems, lost in LoFo, wounded, poor fashion sense, vehicular breakdown, missing pet or family member, chained to a log, fallen in the water.

Under the A: Actions and phrases
Choose any FOUR awkward things for Mark to say and do, such as: mention writing an article about something he encounters, “we can’t have this happening in Lost Forest,” awkward reference to current events, using technology in anachronistic ways, telling a law enforcement officer what to do. Mark the centre square in the column as the FoJ Bonus Square.

Under the I: Incredible powers of speech
Choose five non-mouth body parts (human or animal) for speech bubbles to emerge from, e.g. forehead, butt, ear, elbow, hand, nose, neck, inanimate object.

Under the L: Lots of hair
Choose five types or style of head and/or facial hair, e.g.
sideburns, beard, mustache, goatee, muttonchops, wild eyebrows, mohawk. Note: it is a bad idea to choose any personal hairstyle worn by a normal person after the 1950s, because it just isn’t going to happen.

Now read the strip day by day and place a an Elrod ball-shaped marker over each square as it appears in the strip. The FoJ square is a free square, you may mark it off right away whether Mark has punched anything or not. Because he WILL!

Ready to play? Let’s go!

Mark’s nemesis is inadvertently bonked on the head with a 55-gallon drum of toxic waste and will probably live.  Yay! Crisis solved!

So what do you do for a job well done?  You GO FISHING! Yay! Fishing!

Even if Cherry is sick of having Rusty underfoot and forces you to take the little freak along, it’s still a pretty sweet deal…

Yay! Charterstone’s favorite trophy wife is back!

And in honor of CC’s own “Perky Bird” for the following runner-up Comment of the Week:

I’m not sure what Mary is serving Toby, but based on the paleness of contents of both bowl and pitcher (http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090824&name=Mary_Worth ), Mary has taken that old adage to heart: If life gives you a bowl of peeled boiled potatoes, make potato-ade.

Why do I have the feeling this is just a subtle (or not) rehash/continuation of the Greatest Love Story in the World?  Thankfully, it appears that Toby is losing interest already:

I am officially through with Delilah and Lawrence.  (If they rip each others’ clothes off, if Lawrence has a massive coronary during the family-making, or if Charley bursts into the hotel room for a hot three-way, I could be persuaded to return.)  However, This Story Is Over, whether Moy and Giella want to admit it or not.

I really thought today’s Mary Worth would be a very welcome Charterstone Pool Party (yeah, how sad is that?). Nope, more Delilah and Lawrence.  So, for no good reason than to compare and contrast this tense, unbelievable relationship with another tense, unbelievable one on the comics pages, Ms. Moy’s dialog is surreally dropped into 23 August 2009’s edition of Funky Winkerbean.

Compare.  Contrast.  Hurl.  Do what you will.

Okay, so it’s not dialog you’d find in a French arthouse film or a Bergman classic. Check out The Comics Curmudgeon’s “Friday One-Liners” thread for CC’s very-disturbed (read, my hero!) AeroSquid’s take on those.

…courtesy of people who are better than we are (i.e., movie stars and Mary Worth).

Famous, rich, beautiful, and still willing to look out for the Little People (i.e., us, not necessarily Munchkins).  Okay, so HUGE star Godiva Danube was thrown by a horse when paparazzi spooked it, but this is referred to as a “Photo Op,” in the biz:

And heck, since when does Mary have to wait for a chance to meddle and express her opinion? Every waking moment of her existence is an opportunity!

Live Safe!

Well, I thought of the obvious (gut-busting laugh #1), but CC’s Wenkelmobil pointed out that PJ was mysteriously absent from the car (gut-busting laugh #2)…

…which pretty much is all the funny one sees in an average of two weeks’ worth of Family Circus.

I’ve appropriated Dean Booth’s (what? you’ve never been to Dean’s website! fie! go over there now! I mean it!)  “Deathcat Friday” theme.   Just because it’s too good to pass up.

Okay, this is Friday.  Please, if there is a God, the Love Story of the Ages will end tomorrow, and Sunday’s big splashy comic will be Mary recounting “all’s well that ends well” to anyone who’ll listen to her at the almost-the-end-of-summer-but-not-quite Charterstone pool party.  (Meanwhile, Charley will be masturbating behind the privet hedge.)

All which means: time to use those last stilted panels of Lawrence and Delilah planning for their future (which, given Lawrence’s long-time two-pack-a-day, three-martini lunch habit, should be about six months)!

Margo has returned home to Apt. 3-G, after losing her one true love Eric in a crevasse in Tibet or Timbuktu or the Andes (there were lamas or llamas involved).  Lu Ann has returned from East Dakota.  Rather than dwell on the death of Eric, Professor Poppycock suggests to Tommie that they remember Eric’s unflagging, derring-do spirit, like helping the Tibetan freedom cause and courting Margo.

Oh, yeah. That’s why you’re a Professor, right?

I have to admit, though, nothing is more fun than when it’s just the three gals together — no smarmy old goat, no confusing boyfriends. (Ruby can stay. Her killer bows rock!)

Let’s see what’s happening in Lost Forest:

Barrels of toxins dumped…perpetrator found…perp shot by real perpetrators…perp-turned-victim taken to hospital by Mark…Mark returns to the scene of the crime…

real perp loses way in forest…Mark and Andy find him…perp shoots at Mark in a tree and misses…perp shoots at Mark on a ridge and misses…okay, you’re all caught up:

Faithful CCer buckyswife has become quite philosophical (and not just “feel-good” philosophical like Lawrence McChopra, either) about some of the more esoteric aspects of Mark Trail:

As some have noted, The Man Who Tried to Warn Joey Williams looks a lot like… Mark.

So is this the Star Wars moment, when the elder Trail, who veered from good (nature writing, punching hirsute villains) into evil (wearing orange, using his gun as a communications tool), reveals his identity? “Mark…. I am your father, Mark…..”

Of course, the news won’t send Mark into an existential crisis, a downward spiral of self-doubt and depression. No, he’ll just say, “Holy mackerel! What are you talking about?” and forget about the whole thing by the time the pancakes are on the table for dinner that night.

Maybe buckyswife is being a little too critical of Mark’s abilities (or inabilities) to think.  Then again, maybe not: