#mark trail

So, I was killing time before getting my vaccines this morning and looking at the comic section of my newspaper and saw a strip from the series Mark Trail which apparently has been around since 1946 but I have never heard of it. I was struck by the main character’s wife. Her name is Cherry and just

that’s Kakyoin

That’s Kakyoin!

THAT’S KAKYOIN.

Her name is CHERRY and her hair is KAKYOIN’S HAIR that’s KAKYOIN

Apparently she used to look like this

but now she’s Kakyoin.

recent events in the newspaper comic “mary worth” (yes, the one about the old woman you skip over if you’re one of the 50 americans still reading newspaper comics) have been downright thrilling. local despised bastard wilbur finally bit the big one after drunkenly falling off of a cruise ship after another stupid fight with that stupid broad estelle. everyone on planet earth is pleased with this development, most of all the comics kingdom (the parent company) store, which is producing the best merch in honor of this event. i literally need this shirt or i’ll die.

for a mere $72.00 you can celebrate the happiest moment of your life

additionally, the 55-80 year old age bracket that reads mary worth (that aren’t ironic/not ironic fans from longtime comics staple the comics curmudgeon) is elated over this development. imagine bloodthirsty posts from the crowd that loves minion memes on facebook. ive done you a service of picking the non-horrifying ones.

love this discussion on the science of wilbur visiting davey jones’ locker.

but that’s not why i’m here. well, not entirely. i wanted to talk about two other insane instances in newspaper comics in the “modern day”. the first is the like, entirety of the 2017 comic arc of “the phantom”, a pulp hero comic strip about a guy in a purple costume who does both annoying and useful things in a fictional african country that’s been running daily since the 30s. this story, called “the phantom stamp”, involves a guy who is just orson welles but he wants to make a stamp of the local urban legend....THE PHANTOM!!

the phantom doesnt like that.

his whole thing is not drawing attention to himself unless necessary. so the phantom must arrive to make business negotiations.

by which i mean “call upon his native friends to have a laugh torturing this guy for 24 hours and repeatedly dousing him with hallucinogens”

im going somewhere with this i promise. anyway, when its just the phantom and his very high captive, orson is permitted to make his case for his stupid stamp everyone told him not to make.

which in turn leads to the funniest series of panels ive seen in a long time.

this last one is much shorter bc to chronicle the entire event would take forever. in 2019, a goon (something awful forums member for baby readers) named vargo who did a moderately critical quote tweet of the combination of the official mark trail and artist/writer james allen’s personal account. of the conservative slant, climate change denial in a comic about a nature lover, and lazy traced clip art. allen self annihilated immediately

and then again when this event wormed its way into the script

and then repeatedly and endlessly over the next year as he drew an entire storyline where a guy who looked suspiciously like vargo took mark trail and that lady who’s always with him on a wild goose chase looking for a yeti he claims bit off his leg. not-vargo wants fame...and FORTUNE!

anyway he dies in a bitch way in an avalanche chasing a noise he thought was a yeti and then is memorialized as a sensationalist liar

james allen was fired shortly after this for making a blowjob joke about AOC for literally no reason. he just did that i guess. no one working comics is known for their brains

thanks for reading!