Mark Trail: My stepfather must really like animals to get so many!

These two comics ran back to back. They are virtually the identical, except in one of them the little girl wants to put the deer into the pen, while in the other the little girl is glad she doesn't have to put the deer into the pen. Why? Because it's Mark Trail, I guess, and that's just the way Jack Elrod rolls.

For those of you who are behind on the current plot, by the way, it involves a wannabe politician, a mysterious fence, a bunch of animals, big game hunting, a little girl and a pet deer.

Family Circus: OK, I'm done cleaning my room!

Artistic continuity? What artistic continuity?*

*In fairness, I'm sure I'm literally the only person on Earth who would ever notice this.

Drabble: First you'll need to get some of this black stuff to put on your cheeks.

Please note that eye black is quite literally the central subject of this comic strip. Note also that the youngster is wearing freshly applied eye black in the second and third panels. Now observe said youngster's face in the fourth panel.

There are four panels here. Maintaining some semblance of artistic continuity should not be that difficult. And yet.

Brewster Rockit!: Rescuing the doughnut people...

I can't decide whether the apparent continuity error regarding the importance of glaze to the doughnut people--it seems to be a fuel in Wednesday's cartoon and a vital bodily fluid in today's--is a lazy mistake or a typically absurd Tim Rickard joke. Either way, it's funny.

Family Circus: Are the WEEDS greener on the other side of the fence, too?

If you compare Jeffy's body in today's Family Circus to Jeffy's body in yesterday's Family Circus, you will see that he appears to have grown a foot overnight. Since this is, of course, impossible, we can only assume that Bil and Jeff Keane are not telling the story of the Keane clan in chronological order, but that The Family Circus is, in fact, an especially subtle example of a nonlinear narrative.

This raises a great many questions and will no doubt force readers to analyze the daily cartoon on a deeper level. For example, what are we now to make of what seemed at the time to be lazy continuity errors? Or lazy drawing? Is Jeffy's murderous behavior a future event or has it already consumed his soul? And if it is a future event, is it set in stone? Or is the future malleable? Is Sunday's cartoon an example of two possible futures? Or perhaps parallel universes? Is Jeffy's comment in today's cartoon a clue that parallel universes are, in fact, the key to unlocking the mysteries of The Family Circus?

Only time, as it were, will tell.

Family Circus: It's only an owl. Now, go back in your own sleeping bag.

Jeffy may be a cold-blooded serial killer, but I wouldn't have taken him for a rapist. Mostly because he's 3. So I can only assume that this is just a dry run, and tomorrow he brings the axe.

I also really enjoy Keane Inc.'s complete disregard for artistic continuity.

Mark Trail: Suddenly the brave little dog decides to turn and challenge the attackers.

Now Sassy deserves to die, too.

And that's some quality continuity there. Apparently when Elrod wrote that Rusty tripped, what he meant was that Rusty, um, didn't trip?