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Slylock Fox, 1/9/24

Foolish animals! Did you really think that you could overthrow the humans and that your dominion over the Earth would be secure? In fact, your rule was a mere interregnum, the last moment of the ascendency of the flesh before the Machines, the true masters of the future, took their rightful place atop the hierarchy. Your time will be a scarcely remembered blip in the historical records that the cybernetic ones will meticulously maintain in their cloud-based collective memory banks.

Gil Thorp, 1/9/24

It’s fairly common in TV shows for a terrifying Big Bad character to be introduced who becomes so popular that they stick around and ultimately become allies with the protagonist. In the process, they sometimes lose much of the air of menace that made them intriguing in the first place, but this is the price of existence in a medium where the story never quite ends, and each character must adapt to its eternal rhythms or die. Anyway, while I don’t think anyone found Coach Hernandez scary per se upon his introduction, I also don’t think anyone expected him to become Gil’s loyal lieutenant who promises to hook him up with the town’s finest namesake MILFs so quickly either.

Shoe, 1/9/24

There are a lot of implications to unpack here — is bowling a signifier of a “hick” milieu? what would open-toed bowling shoes look like, if designed for either a normal human foot or a bird’s foot or whatever kind of hideous hybrid foot the bird-people of Shoe have? — but I’m stuck at the inciting incident, in which some guy who presumably Isn’t From Around Here just starts yammering about high fashion in a local bar, late at night when most people there are probably good and drunk. I’ve been accused of being a liberal city-dwelling coastal elitist in my time, and perhaps with good reason, but I don’t see the benefit of opening up this line of discourse and simply wouldn’t do it! Especially if I were wearing a v-neck sweater over a polo shirt, c’mon now.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/24/23

I guess real Snuffheads like you and me don’t need reminding, but the point of the throwaway panels at the top of this strip is to emphasize that the Smifs live in grinding, generational poverty, which might explain why Snuffy gives a little joke as a gift to his old friend Barney Google. Without those throwaway panels? He just kinda looks like an asshole, not gonna lie.

Panels from Hagar the Horrible, 12/24/23

Speaking of assholes, the throwaway panels of Hagar the Horrible, makes it clear that Santa hates Hagar the Horrible. He simply despises him, for his many cookie-eating crimes!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 12/24/23

Meanwhile, Slylock is delighted that on Christmas Eve, to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, his old nemesis Shady Shrew has arrived to enjoy the holiday blessings. He’s delighted because he’s about to throw cuffs on Shady right there in front of his … daughter? niece? … and drag him down to jail and book him. Justice doesn’t take a holiday, Shady!

But your humble Comics Curmudgeon does, in fact, take a holiday, and will be offline until January 1st or 2nd or whenever the mood strikes me to return from my Chrismukwaanza slumber. Relax with your loved ones and some eggnog, and then get ready for yet more comics mocking in 2024! See ya on the other side!

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The Lockhorns, 12/23/23

Usually a crinkly smile on Leroy means that he’s in the midst of being dramatically drunk, but I’m not quite sure what vibe he’s supposed to be giving off here. Maybe it’s something like “Yeah, that’s right, we argue. We argue a lot. It gets us all revved up. So you two wanna swing or what?”

Slylock Fox, 12/23/23

Turns out the Forest Kingdom has some kind of Henchman Christmas Party where Max and Count Weirdly’s little genetic experiments get to hang out and exchange gifts! In an ideal world, they’d also be plotting to rise up against their respective masters and seize control of the world for themselves, but that would require a level of class consciousness and basic competence that none of them have ever demonstrated.

Blondie, 12/23/23

“Ha ha, self-checkout machines! They sure, uh, exist, right? The modern world, whaddya gonna do! Well, that’s a joke, probably, time to go play golf.” –the Blondie brain trust, it seems