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Shoe, 1/31/14

Comics and other media that present us with a world of anthropomorphic animals generally elide the problem of what that universe’s relationship between predator and prey is like. But it’s hard to avoid if you spend any amount of time thinking about it. Take the birds of Shoe, for instance: the Perfesser is an osprey, according to this unsettlingly detailed chart on the strip’s Wikipedia page. What about the sea life that forms his natural diet? Did they have hopes and dreams? Did any of those fish or mollusks have mothers that they loved? Did they ever feel the stirrings of romance or the icy breath of their own mortality? Today we learn the awful truth: that the squid do indeed have their own independent society, an undersea counterpart to the Shoe gang’s Treetops, and that its leaders are happy to lead predator birds to the regions of that nation where the most vulnerable take shelter. The poor, the mentally ill, the squid who fall through the cracks? They aren’t Squidtown’s problem. They’re food for someone else. And if the squid leadership looks the other way, then the rest of their culture is left alone. This is the worst kind of nightmare.

Apartment 3-G, 1/31/14

Speaking of the worst kinds of nightmare, who on earth could look at the awful top half of that deer head and think “she’s beautiful” and not “AHHH AHHH AHHH GET IT AWAY FROM GET IT AWAY FROM ME”? To be fair, Lu Ann used to be (still is? who even knows) a kindergarten art teacher at a fancy Manhattan school, which means that she probably needs to be very good at smiling and saying nice things about little monsters.

Judge Parker, 1/31/14

Ha ha, look at Judge Parker Senior’s face in that last panel! I’ve decided I’m just going to stop worrying and learn to love his hilariously oblivious privilege-stumble through danger. Car chases? Whee! Snakes? Lovely! Forming an uneasy alliance with narco-terrorists? Charming! It’s not like he’s in the law enforcement game anymore, is he?