11/12/08
Wait, so the Raccoon Contest is a raccoon, chained to a log, vs. multiple dogs? And people bet on which fierce beast is going to win? Mark Trail isn't pissed off in panel one - he's freakin' confused.


11/13/08
Mark Trail is a master of wit, and is even better at responding to questions. Mr. Rabbit, or whatever his name is, can't believe that Mark's name 's "That's a PET raccoon, and I came to take it home." For one, it's not even grammatically correct, the poor schmuck. For two, there's actually a pet raccoon on the log. Might young Mr. PET Racoon be here to abscond with it? Don't they know what a catch this raccoon is? It came with a collar, for easy chaining!

Nature writers spoil all the fun!

Enough Mark Trail to make your fucking head explode!

Baby, I know I've been downright despondent when it comes to you. I didn't mean to leave you behind for a few weeks, I swear! Sugar, it'll never happen again.

10/25/08

Drill, baby, drill, says Sue. Environmental responsibility, says Mark. Only you can prevent forest fires, says the PSA Seagull.

If I were Sue, I'd probably hit Mark with a wicked "Always low prices, always" remark, followed by a promise to roll back on already low prices. Instead, she's trying to entice Mark by sitting sexily on a log. Sex does not work on Mark, only animals.

10/26/08

Protip: Cats are Fuckin' Evil

Here, we see that a gaggle of familiars has tricked Mark Trail into speaking directly to them. This has been regarded as a rather cunning plan on the behalf of felines, as they now know that a 32-year old nature writer knows of their dark powers. While they choose to maintain innocence on the strength of Mark's complimenting them, Mark Trail will be one dead motherfucking scratching post when he least expects it.

Cats: Inseparable from witches. FOR human sacrifice. Black. America, we cannot afford to risk our well being on these arrogant, sharp toothed-bastards

10/27/08
Sue is doing her damnedest to lure Mark away from the sanctity of his marriage, but the lure of Cherry's flapjack breakfast remains too strong. Besides that, Cherry knows that her place is in the home, while Sue is some big shot, 19th Amendment-loving, estrogen filled corporate something-or-other.

Still, that desk job sounds mighty tempting, don't in Mark?

10/28/08
I mean, it isn't like you're in any hurry to answer her question. You're clearly 30 pieces of silver away from being a Judas to animals, plants, and Al Gore.

10/29/08
Sue's building, whatever the hell goes in it, will bring jobs and prosperity to an area full of rednecks who trap raccoons and chain them to logs for fun. Somehow, Mark wouldn't call that progress. Somehow, that doesn't offend Sue. For some reason, she'd rather hear about Cherry's flapjacks than convince Leading Nature Writer Mark Trail that this building is for the best.

10/30/08
I hope Charlie continues to speak like he just got off the set of some awful noir-styled B movie. Heck, I hope he keeps popping up in such villainous fashion, too. Imagine...

Later, at Lost Forest:

Mark Trail opens the door to his house. Charlie just so happens to be inside, sitting on a recliner!

Mark Trail: CHARLIE...how did you get in?

Charlie: Your wife...she knows that I'm the one trying to drain your precious wetlands! She also happens to make terrific flapjacks.

Mark Trail: Tell me about it.

Charlie: Furthermore, this dame Sue: Lay offa' here, Trail. We're both gentlemen, yes?

Mark Trail: Sue?

Charlie: A classier broad couldn't be found! Gentleman's agreement, Trail: You cut out of Many Miles Away, leave Sue and the land developing to me, and stay here, nice and quiet in Lost Forest...

Mark Trail: Sue?

Charlie: OR I'LL BLAST YA!

Mark Trail: Yeah, that's fine. Do you know where my wife is? She's usually around with the pipe and slippers by now.

Charlie: Tied up in the bathroom.

Mark Trail: So that's where I left her...

The two men share a chuckle. Mark punches Charlies lights out for kicks.

10/31/08
Charlie may be a heartless lobbyist, but damn it, he's got a crush on you, Sue! Awful taste in furniture and beeches and clothes included! This khaki-clad nature writer comes along and you're all the sudden ready and willing to give it up? You're willing to watch this whole empire, built on drained wetlands and fueled with the blood of hundreds of thousands of animals, crumble in a feeble attempt to woo the most chaste man on the planet? What about Charlie? What about the 'stache? He loves you for who you are, as long as you're not a beach-combing, nature loving hypocrite! What's it gonna be, Sue?

11/01/08
Well, crushing Charlie's masculinity and maintaining your confused status quo is one way of responding to a man's pledge of eternal love...

11/02/08

Protip: Jellyfish are alien invaders hell bent on ruining games of beach blanket bingo!

Not only are jellyfish heartless, soulless things, but as Humanity conquers their homeland, they've turned their attention towards attacking the hapless youth population as they frolic on one of the world's many beaches. Jellyfish are a menace that need to be obliterated. They're 97% water, so their destruction would solve the water crisis.

11/3/08
While Sue slams the door on Charlie's torso, Sneaky the raccoon sneaks out of the house. Boy, if this isn't the most exciting comic strip ever!

11/4/08
Jack Elrod is clearly ridiculing Barack Obama in some sort of racist doublespeak. Look at that raccoon, redistributing the wealth of America's lakes and streams to his mouth!

11/5/08
You might think that this is an obvious plot point in a strip that involves racoon fighting, but you'd be wrong. The Straight Talk express ran out of gas on the way back to Arizona, and without the RNC or McCain-Palin 'o8 paying at the pump, the assembled staffers, media representatives, and Palin children have been forced to trap for their food.

11/6/08
Panel 1 contains what is possibly the greatest sentence ever. It also contains the most grotesque drawing of a raccoon ever, and those things have popped up in Heathcliff.

11/7/08
Panel 2 may be symbolic of Corporate America's anguished yell to people who expect them to innovate in this time of economic crisis. Or it may just be truly awful, cliched dialog. Sue clearly doesn't know how many trees she'd save by switching to paperless billing, or how many fish she'd save if she stopped pouring her old motor oil into rain gutters.

11/8/08
Hell yes, Charlie. You keep talking like a badass. I may yet give you a tag.

11/9/08
The buffalo's status as a protected species has had some unintended consequences. Sure, if you continued to hunt for the big motherfuckers, game in the area would become scarce, but I'd rather have an active, frantic buffalo than one that is barely able to keep itself from distraction.

11/10/08
Sue fails to realize that she's already on the phone with Mark, which is for the best, because it's about time we got down to some serious Raccoon Contest action!

11/11/08
Mark Trail plans on dressing up like a big raccoon and betting on himself.

Mark somehow already wrote his article about draining the swamp, which was previously only mentioned before being derailed by alligator attacks and Raccoon Shows. Sue is clueless as to why a nature conversationalist would want to conserve nature and wants Mark to explain it to her in more personal terms. That means that she wants to do it on the beach amongst the talking gulls.

Not only does Sue pump up Mark's infantile ego, she proposes a trip to the beach, promising a scene not seen since the hayday of the Victorian beach party. Sue may not make it though: Mark's sheer radiance is scrambling her face. I shudder to think of the destructive capabilities of a radioactive Mark Trail and can only imagine what the poor creature next to him must be feeling.

Probably a craving for a Baby Ruth.

Sweet Jesus this is a talky strip. Mark, thinking that all women are succubi, races to the conclusion that Sue wants to bump uglies with Mark, which, as fate would have it, is true. Fate also dictates that at any given time, two people on the internet are Googling for information on each other, so Sue has inevitably seen the Wikipedia article on Mark, and Mark has seen the...uhh...Many Miles Away Post-Gazette Times-Forum article about the Wal-Mart she built six years ago on an Indian burial ground?

Thusly, we are now locked in an arms race. Either Mark knocks Sue's block off with a Right Fist 'O Justice, or Sue gets all Joan Crawford on Mark in her quiet, secluded place in the the forest she's only been in once.

Place your bets.

Super Long Catch-Up Post

I know, I know. This blog has gone sorely ignored lately. I'm sorry. Schoolwork and politics distracted me from my love of mocking comics. If you don't forgive me, I understand.

While I was away though, things in Many Miles Away have taken a zillion turns for the awesome. While the crocodile has been handily defeated and turned into boots, more problems have manifested that ensure that poor Cherry will be making pancakes for one for the time being. Let's hit the trail...

10/14/08

Hockey Midget really liked Sue, the evil, nefarious woman in charge of the development company that's killing everything around her. That's not a shock - women tend to like other women who like killing everything precious on this earth. Mark likes her too, but in a strictly platonic way. The other kind of like can never be, for that kind of like implies love, and by love I mean love, and love is icky and gross.

8/15/08

But then again, Sue is sooooooooo sexy in her white tank top and pajama pants. It will be hard for Mark to resist her allure. Charlie, whom it obviously sucks to be, is stuck kicking plants in a fury because Sue will not return his love. Then again, their kind of love can never be, mostly because the mustache ride went out of style in '79.

10/16/08
Nothing says "a little fun" like having your dog fight potentially rabid wild animals. Nothing says "town full of inbred hicks" quite like a game of this nature being advertised so blatantly at the local post office.

10/17/08
Those are the best rules for animal vs. animal fighting ever. Dog vs. Raccoon, with the raccoon chained to a log in the river, first animal to drown loses? Sounds like a freakin' spectacle!

Come and watch a wild animal DOOMED to die when a lucky hound dog chosen from the live audience falls off and sends the log rolling! Then, after the show, catch a concert and flaming crossbow demonstration from legendary rocker, Ted Nugent! Tickets are just five bucks!

10/18/08
Why yes Mark, there is a law against that sort of thing, but no less an authority than the United States Post Office is turning a blind eye! They're even advertising and providing books of Forever stamps to the victors!

Pop doesn't know anything about it except for that it happens. If Mark wanted information on the event, he could have just looked at the poster. Or, maybe, Pop is playing ignorant to hide the fact that he's been training Sneaky to be the Riki Tiki Tavi of the Raccoon Contest universe.

10/20/08
Mark Trail is so offended about the Raccoon Contest that he's going to go to it. No worries though, he's only taking $20. Don't want to lose your perfectly pressed, double pocketed khaki shirt over something as stupid as betting on a chained raccoon to drown a dog.

Meanwhile, Mark multitasks on an old IBM Thinkpad. Via the power of Google, he'll have figured out that Sue is the culprit six or seven strips from now!

10/21/08
Sneaky prepares for the Raccoon Contest by humping Andy into submission. Meanwhile, Sue Butler is going to begin her campagin to seduce Mark while Mark limp noodles his way through adulthood. Somewhere in this mess, right fists o' justice will be meted out.

It couldn't be any more obvious, Mark. That's not an everyday question, and your paths wouldn't cross again otherwise. Just punch her already.