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Slylock Fox, 12/11/23

I think we all (and by “we all” I mean “me and you hapless fools who somehow cannot get enough of my Slylock Fox commentary”) have long ago agreed that the animals of Slylock Fox are living in the ruins of our own civilization. In our ongoing discussion of this strip, we seek to determine which technologies and social habits they have retained which they have rejected or have failed to keep working. Today, for instance, we learn that the animals understand intuitively that operating automobiles is a dangerous business that must be regulated by the state, and yet have apparently lost the capacity to manufacture or use the simple radar gun. Instead, the police must detain anyone suspected of reckless driving until one of the higher animals arrive, in the hopes of getting the offender to offer an anecdote that serves as an accidental confession when subjected to basic algebraic analysis. Seems like an overly elaborate way to run a highway patrol to me, but in this reality I would almost certainly have had my face eaten off by a beaver in the process of achieving sapience long ago, so it wouldn’t be my problem.

Shoe, 12/11/23

If you’re asking about the original Fantasy Island series, Shoe, it broadcast its last episode on Mary 19, 1984. There have been occasional attempts at a revival, but none were anywhere near as popular as the original, and the latest reboot was cancelled on May 8, 2023, after two seasons. Or are you asking what happened to the world of Fantasy Island, its compelling and mysterious setting, after the cameras stopped rolling? Well, my friend, you might want to explore the rich world of fan art and fan fiction, on World Wide Web sites such as DeviantArt, Tumblr dot com, and An Archive Of Our Own! Truly, amazing new worlds limited only by our collective imaginations await you!

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 11/26/23

CASSANDRA [bursting through the studio door]: Quick, Kopy, I need a favor. Put this portrait up on your easel and act like you’re painting me. I’ve already made sure that I’m wearing the same clothes as in the picture; let me get myself in position so I get the strut exactly right.

KOPY: Gee, Cassandra, this painting is completely dry, and I don’t even have any blue paint out. Slylock’s gonna see right through this scheme! You’d better just run if you don’t want to get caught.

CASSANDRA [posing sexily, just they way she knows Slylock likes it]: Who said anything about not getting caught?

Dick Tracy, 11/26/23

OK, yes, ha ha, Sam’s colleagues on the Major Crimes Unit are razzing him by implying he’s going to extract saliva from their suspect X. Libris by smooching her, and Liz is even demonstrating the frenching technique he’ll used to acquire an adequate sample size, but we need to talk about the metaphor Sam is deploying in response in the final panel. I guess we’re supposed to visualize him … face down in the gutter? Sort of swimming along? But he’s wearing a snorkel, so he can get a real good look at what’s going on down there? And these floating brains keep blocking his access to air? It’s all very unsettling, and once they solve this series of gruesome stab murders, probably everyone on the squad should sue everyone else for creating a hostile work environment.

Gasoline Alley, 11/26/23

Hey, did you know that back in the early ’80s, Bolero was considered a top “sex record”, a cliched thing you’d put on the old hi-fi if you brought a special person back to your pad and were ready to get down? Not saying that’s what’s going on here, but I do invite you to imagine going home with someone and instead of hopping into bed they insisted you wait for a bizarre cat food commercial featuring singing mice, to “set the mood.”

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Slylock Fox, 11/6/23

One thing I’ve never really considered about the post-animalpocalypse Slylockverse: what do the other sapient animals think about the great apes? Are they considered just one more stone in the brilliant mosaic of a multispecies world? Or are they too close to the mostly exterminated H. sapiens for comfort? Today we learn that at least some of these apes unnaturally trim their fur to better resemble stars of the clownish human entertainments that the animals still watch and half-understand. This is, I assume, off-putting for everyone involved, as Slylock’s facial expression here seems to indicate. Yet if Slick Smitty were to catch site of these stooge-apes and fly into a violent rage at their cruel mockery of his massacred fellow humans, he would be the one put in jail! Is there no justice?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/6/23

Sure, there have been a lot of changes to Rex Morgan, M.D., over the years, but we should never forget that this is primarily a strip about Rex and June Morgan, who react to perceived bullshit with some of the most hilariously withering facial expressions known to man. Whether you’re about to start a fight at a funeral or filming an informercial on your recent kidnapee’s cell phone right before you turn yourself in to the cops, the Morgans will not attempt to compose their faces into expressions of polite interest or even mild distaste.