The (continued) dark side of Mark Trail

Ha! It's funny 'cause somebody probably died!

I don't know why I find the comic strip Mark Trail so endlessly amusing. It's one I used to read as a kid, and even then my appreciation was ironic. Nowadays, I keep up with it through Josh Fruhlinger's Comics Curmudgeon blog. For the uninitiated, Mark Trail is a nature writer, adventurer, and outdoorsman who travels around and gets into life-and-death scrapes while doing research for undoubtedly boring articles. His employer is a publication called Wood & Wildlife. Almost always clad in a tan jumpsuit and sporting immaculately Brylcreemed hair, Mark is simultaneously the squarest, dullest, and manliest character in American newspaper comics today. Here, we see him chatting with his equally-boring editor, Bill Ellis. They're so humorless and straight-laced that it's almost too easy to make fun of them. But I do it anyway. Forgive me.

Brief updates about my exciting, eventful life

Title card from new new video which lampoons AMC's Mad Men.

Happy Friday, one and all!

Josh Fruhlinger's blog, The Comics Curmudgeon

Just wanted to give my readers (all both of you) an update on some recent happenings involving your humble blogger. First, I landed another article in the Onion AV Club. This one was a change of pace since it was based on an assigned topic from an editor rather than one I pitched myself. But, still, I hope it turned out well. It's about a fake trailer which reimagines the popular cable drama Mad Men as a 1970s blaxploitation film. Please do go read it and watch the video while you're at it, too. The fake trailer, which was apparently made by a real-life advertising firm, is exceptionally well-produced and is fun whether or not you're a Mad Men junkie. Secondly, and now we're entering truly arcane territory, I was thrilled to have one of my smart-alecky remarks named the Comment of the Week at Josh Frulinger's venerable blog, The Comics Curmudgeon. Josh writes with incredible wit and insight about newspaper comics, and his blog has attracted a large and loyal fan base who come up with some very funny observations of their own. This little victory was especially sweet because my comment was about one of the soap strips, Apartment 3-G, which are always much, much funnier than the comic strips which are intentionally comedic. Anyway, these two little things made my day. Unless something awful happens in the next six hours, I'm going to declare today a success.