Reading (the constitution of a destroyed society) is fundamental
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Panel from Slylock Fox, 10/13/24
The animal revolt that destroyed human dominance of the planet and put the newly sapient beasts in charge was no doubt commanded by a revolutionary vanguard that ultimately evolved into the dictatorial Forest Kingdom apparatus that Slylock serves. However, the new regime has, as is so often the case, laid the foundations for its own undoing, by encouraging its subjects to become literate so that they could learn about themselves and the societies that came before them. Reeky’s sister is apparently already exploring the concepts of constitutional law and the benefits of a limited government, and, sure, today the logic “Well, you lied about one thing, that eliminates all reasonable doubt and you are GUILTY” will pass muster in an owl-run courtroom, but as the political understanding of the animals advances, the arc of the universe will, eventually, bend towards justice for Reeky and all the rest.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/13/24
Most people in this strip are inexplicably Truck Tyler fanatics, so I kind of like the reminder that Yvonne, specifically, is a Mud Mountain Murphy stan, so dedicated to his signature hit “Muddy Boots” that she’s willing to be polite when he’s clearly deep in his cult era, or willing to refer to an on-stage simulated pants shitting as “stage fright.”
Mary Worth, 10/13/14
Mary, of course, loves being the advice giver and unlicensed counselor around Charterstone, loves it more than is seemly. Even so, do you think she ever gets a little exasperated by how dumb these people are? “So … job stress as a police officer took Jimmy from you before you could retire together … [long pause] … so do you think that with Ed … [even longer pause] … who you’re always mad at because he works too much … [long, exasperated pause] … at his stressful job … look, do I have to draw a diagram for you or what???”
76 replies to “Reading (the constitution of a destroyed society) is fundamental”
FC-“Jeffy, did you unclasp my bra?”
RMMD:
“Okay, a little off-topic, Mud, but what’s with that upward-pointing embroidery on either side of your shirt, anyway?”
“Buck, it’s a set of points such that for any point P of the set, the distance [PF] to a fixed point F, the focus, is equal to the distance [Pl] to a fixed line l, the directrix. Now here’s the dadgummest thing! — them two parabolic arcs ya see stitched there on either side is gonna be parallel to one another at infinity!”
RMMD:
“I don’t mean to alarm you, Hank, but as your physician, I must tell you that in the fourth panel of today’s strip, you appear to be morphing into a ’70s-vintage Joey Bishop!”
MW: This gender-flipped remake of Up is pretty boring so far, but it will really pick up when Estelle ties a thousand balloons to her condo and flies Charterstone to all her places her dead husband wanted to visit but never had the chance (an interstate rest spot with a giant moose statue, that one Dairy Queen that still has the 1970s signage, not Europe but that mall in Vegas that looks like Europe).
SF:
Why doesn’t Slylock believe Reeky? — simple. If Reeky were smart enough to invent the alibi he came up with, he’d have been even smarter enough to invoke his testimonial privilege against self-incrimination, in which event the conversation between the two of them wouldn’t be happening to begin with.
How’d I do, kids?
SFx: I was sure that the answer was going to be something like “Reeky Rat, as the name suggests, is a filthy rodent who would never voluntarily bathe or shower, except maybe to cover up a crime.” But yeah, window consendation too, I guess.
RMMD: You know, the only thing worse that using a whole Sunday strip to show your characters just killing time before an event is to have them remind the readership that, yep, we’ve already seen this all before.
MW: Once again, the breakout star of the strip is Pierre, who is going to capitalise on this emotional breakdown to nab himself a muffin! Ooo, t’es méchant, ‘tit chiot, but never change!
Bizarro : “No good. Barbara Millicent Roberts is currently away on a mission in deep space, teaching bellicose aliens to Love via the Power of really lame Corporate Pop Rock. She couldn’t return in time to help in this battle.”
***********
Rex Morgan M.D. : …wait, so this “Truck finger kinda hurts sometimes” storyline was entirely a pretext to justify a situation where Mud Murphy apologises for upstaging Truck by opening for him? This month-long slog through an old man sitting doing nothing was just to set-up the rectifying of the “injustice” committed to Truck in the Mud Murphy debut storyline!?
***********
Slylock Fox : “…Wait. That pink hair… Those eyelashes… That feminine body language and voice… Are you Reeky Rat’s sister herself, pretending to be her own brother again?” “…So, you’ve noticed, detective. Have you noticed I’m topless, as well?”
…Too far?…MW: Critical thinking isn’t Estelle’s strong suit, Mary. Just tell her what to do.
GA: Move over, “Muddy Boots,” you’ve got some serious competition!
RMMD: Oh no, Hank, Mud, Buck and Truck in the same place at the same time. I can’t keep up with whose one-syllable manly moniker belongs to who.
MW:
“When Estelle finally visited one of the three tropical destinations she and Jimmy had dreamed of — albeit alone now — she lovingly caressed the soil on which she had finally trodden, as if to conjure what she hoped would be a happier future.
“No. Don’t say it, Self.
“Yep. She rubbed her Bali for good luck!”
— Buddha
@Liam: I have never wanted to read a comic strip less than I want to read today’s FC after reading your comment.
I see the cast of CATS appeared at Lou’s and signed his wall.
RMMD: Lou is pleased with the larger than normal crowd until he finds Glenwood’s scatological club members are packing the place. “Let it loose, Mud!” They cry, as the female members throw their diapers on the stage.
@Liam: FC-“Jeffy, did you unclasp my bra?”
___________________________
by Joe Cocker?
SFox: Plot twist: the steam coming out of the bathroom isn’t from the shower. The plunger is Chekov’s gun.
Is that a pug? Can I assume this animal run world has no concept of pet ownership?
@Anonymous:
Too far?
Not for you. You’re in the circle.
Family Circlejerk – And like Dead Grandpa, Jeffy copped a feel.
I presume others noticed in the penultimate panel of Rex Morgan MILF Diver, it looks like Horrible Hank Jr. has a set of walrus tusks. It took me a minute to figure out that’s one side of the end of Yvonne’s hair. The other side makes it look like Yvonne has walrus tusks, too.
RMMD:
“Okay — I’ll go warm ’em up for ya, Truck. Like I was supposed to last time. But first, to cobble an expression from a country-themed song that dates to the 1840s, I’m gonna ‘skip to my loo, my darlin’ ‘!”
MW – “Isn’t that RIGHT, Stell? Isn’t that RIGHT? Answer me in the affirmative, Stell. Right now, Stell. You know what happens when you don’t give me the praise that sustains me. Don’t make me get the whiffleball bat again.”
HtH: No surprise that Lucky Eddie, the guy with a mermaid girlfriend, has no clue how to deal with beavers.
“Isnt that right, Stale?” “SOB!” “WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?”
AAGGGHHHH: Meanwhile in Nairobi…
RMMD: Love the autograph wall in Lou’s Nite Spot, though I’m highly skeptical they held a production of “Cats” there.
All right, all right, all right already, Mary Worth writing team, I have absorbed the concept that Stell missed out on world travel with her late husband.
@lynn:
You know which Mary Worth character likes to travel the world, and is lackadaisical in his work, so (in Mary’s mind) he’d be a perfect match for ‘Stelle?
WILBUR
MW: Uh-oh. Looks like Sid left the doors open on his bird cages again.
Luann Spanish to English.
FC: Jeffy floats across the floor into Grandma’s arms. “Nice hug, Jeffy. Now let’s go dunk you in some holy water and cleanse your unclean spirit.”
Andertoons: A gal for Baja.
Rex Morgan Mashups
@30 Baja Gaijin:
Vintage Mark Trail knows what to do.
MW: Mary, that’s BRILLIANT! How do you do that?! It’s like you added 2 plus 2 and came up with 4! You’re amazing!
CS: Is that it? Is this lame story over? Or are we going to see Les come out of hiding and gloat, only to be suspended by the school board? Or maybe half his students won’t read the book because they don’t want to get in trouble, and there’s not thing one Les can do about it. Oh well, for the time being at least, smirks all around!
RMMD: Oh boy, the whole gang is back together. And it only took a simple case of stenosing tenosynovitis to do it. Nice work, Rex.
Dammit, Estelle, that is not where the tears come out.
MW:
If Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and bandmates were to appear in person before today’s quote dispenser and announce their presence there to the wrathful villain of Star Trek, would that be “Cheap Trick, live at Buddha, Khan“?
@MKay: re RMMD: “Hank, Mud, Buck and Truck…” You forgot the other one-syllable male – Rex! But so does everyone else.
SFx (Upside down part) The invocation of Satan to bless disorder in the world is proof of the rat’s guilt….
RMMD – And now I’m gonna play my latest song, I Made Mud In My Adult Incontinence Garment….
MW – Better to be out of money than to be flat busted.
Confucius
Adios Amigos, DJ.
I want to introduce Estelle to Les Moore. They’re both undeservedly snobby, completely feckless, and let their life choices be dictated by their long-dead spouses. (Or, more precisely, their self-serving memories of their long-dead spouses.) Of course, Estelle and Les would instantly despise each other. Because they’re both awful in exactly the same ways, but they lack the self-awareness to realize this.
CS: Change the word “protestors” to “trolls” and this whole book-burning story becomes Sonichu.
I’m intrigued by the concept that Reeky has a twin sister that looks identical to him. Anyone see the Jeremy Irons movie “Dead Ringers” or possibly the Adam Sandler movie “Jack and Jill”?
Gasoline Alley: Ballad of The Avian Flu.
RMMD – Oh, Mud has stage fright, all right. Every time he gets on the stage, we all get frightened.
MW – I don’t know if that Buddha quote is bogus, but here’s one I found on wikiquote:
There. That makes me feel better about having read Mary Worth.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Ooh! That stupid bird missed again!”
@Uncle Lumpy: IKR? It’s also not how the tears flow down your face when it’s at that angle.
SF: Ces must pine for the days when you could just burn the leaves, and maybe cut down the tree too.
JP: Is the House of AIIEEEE!-den like a Tardis or something? From the outside it seems like a modest, smallish tract home, but that living room we’ve been seeing for the past 2 weeks seemed gigantic.
Oh, and Neddy’s whole world has come crashing down, or something, who really cares?
CS: We’ve hit the trifecta people! Sanctimony, gripes about modern technology, and now a paen to Blessed St. Stan Lee Who Like St Lisa Is Dead!
Now that the Atomix Comix Nitwitz are in on the gag, I’m gonna predict we get another week of platitudes and smirking, capped by one of Batiuk’s patented, surefire crowd-pleasing Sunday Book Covers (that you have to crane your neck sideways to read!) praising Lil for her heroic act of helping Les commit a low-level misdemeanor (there’s gotta be something they can be charged with, right?) and then boring a faceless mob into submission.
Anyone want to make guesses as to who get the ‘Tip o’ the felt pen’?
JP: Neddy, let’s review this – You heard a sob story about a false imprisonment and family estrangement but don’t worry, it was pardoned? expunged? Whatever, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t show up in a background check… and you fell for it not showing up in any news stories or *other* records like responding to a misspelled email demanding gift card payment for back taxes to IRS.gmail.com. Of course Declan figured he was in the clear after you failed that “too smart to scam” test!
RMMD: why are all these roots country lovers so upset with MM? They didn’t lose anything from his antics. The only one with reason to be pissed off at Mud is Truck.
Having successfully published three consecutive installments of their one-every-seven-days comic strip, the creators of Mara Llave: Keeper of Time take a little break to congratulate themselves.
While the background suggests Irwin Allen-like Time Tunnel stuff, remember that we still have no idea what a “keeper of time” does or even if this strip involves time travel at all. If poor Mara is “struggling to escape the clutches of the Amnar high council,” why not, like, go fifty years into the past, jump on a bus to someplace else, then return to the present? Just an idea.
MW: “In Ed I see a lot of my late husband. In the sense that he is always late to our dates because of his job. Also because I am going to kill him if he continues ignoring me!”
MW: Waitaminute, is this the prelude to that infamous ‘very rare’ Mary Worth where she advises a friend to commit suicide??
“…and since you’ve thrown away the last man who’ll ever love you…and you irrationally refuse to take Wilbur back and enjoy his ‘endearing quirks’…there’s only one thing left that you can do…Isn’t that RIGHT, Estelle????”
MW: I’m sorry Estelle, “sob” is not an answer.
@Ukulele Ike: Still in the terrible outfit, I see. Mara looks like she’s walking to the gym in her running jacket and galoshes on a warmish though still slushy March morning.
ME – “Also, don’t listen to Buddha. Dwelling on the past is my bread and butter.”
Dr Ed the Vet, please dump this walking talking flag redder than those of China, Vietnam, Morocco, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, and the old Soviet Union, and move on. Move on!
SF – “So you saw him fleeing with the converter through your bathroom window, eh? Then what was the thief doing in your house to begin with? And how did he fit through that small window? Looks like you’re facing criminal accessory at a minimum here.”
@UncleJeff: Get another screen name, kid.
DT; the temporary artist is really making ol’ Sam Ketchum look like a perv.
Rex Morgan: Y’all ready for this?
Crankshaft – We’ve reached the patting themselves on the back stage of this garbage.
FC – The other day Billy was running around nekkid, and now this! Get me my fainting couch.
Mary Worth – This is a real milestone for Mary – a meddlee dissolving into sobs. She’ll have to start carrying a box of tissues with her muffins.
I do like how Pierre is eying that plate of muffins.
Rex Morgan – It’s nice to see that beloved characters Hank and Mrs. Hank have joined the core group of beloved characters. Beloved character Mrs. Hank will undoubtedly call for beloved character Fergus to sing his beloved song Muddy Boots.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – Madi and Mark Trail reflect my feelings.
@Banana Jr. 6000: To be fair, Estelle has not milked Jimmy’s death for years by writing a series of glurge books about him, nor does she seem to have a massive, unwarranted ego like Les does. However, she is unlikable enough to deserve Les.
Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids: Yeah, “steam,” that’s what’s coming from Reeky’s bathroom. Learn circumlocution before the constitution, Slylock!
@Uncle Lumpy: @teenchy: Those are obviously prosthetic tears.
Phantom: Did they really have cool shades like that in 1590?
Rex Morgan, M.D.: What’s that in Rex’s carefully-held-offscreen glass? Prune juice, of course, the better to keep you regular and on a schedule unlike certain mountainous roots-country stars we could mention.
Mary Worth: Gosh, it’s moving to see Estelle at that windswept cemetery, with its weathered tombstones irregularly spaced…and crumbling with age…wait a minute…
Also Mary Worth: Fearless (or is fearful?) prediction: in a couple of weeks, we’ll meet Jimmy’s ghost at his grave, in uniform but emaciated and stretched out, so Estelle can proclaim her love and respect for the thin boo line.
Slylock Fox: Love Slylock’s expression here. He genuinely CANNOT believe that someone thought they could invoke basic civil rights in his presence. Reeky will learn otherwise when Slylock drowns him in his own bathtub and writes it off as a heart attack on his report.
Rex Morgan: So, like, why is Mud even here? He’s a moderately famous and successful musician – certainly far more of one than Truck – and everyone in whatever town or city that Rex Morgan takes place in hates his guts and treats him like shit because he failed to be deferential to their idol Truck. Why does he keep coming back to this place? Does he seriously have no other places he could do performances at? Has he become trapped in the town like some kind of Silent Hill? What is going on?
Mary Worth: While Mary and Estelle blabber about this cop husband who I’m fairly certain exists purely as a retcon, Pierre is making eyes at Mary’s “muffins”/indistinct blobs of uncooked dough. At least someone will be eating good tonight.
SFx: Or he could have just wiped a clear spot in the window, as happens. But no, he clearly must be guilty.
CS: Gosh, what compelling storytellzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
“Jimmy and I never lived out our dreams to travel the world because his heart gave out due to job stress. That’s not how it was meant to be! He was supposed to have a heart attack next to me while we climbed a monument in South-East Asia!”
@Peanut Gallery: Interesting discussion of today’s quote at Fake Buddha quotes. First two parts are accurate to one sutta, third part is the opposite of what that sutta says, but there are some other suttas that say something similar to that. So the full credit for this one seems to go to “The Federation of All Young Buddhist Associations of Japan” in 1934.
I’ll add that the February 1906 issue of School Education contains an anonymous poem “Be Happy Today” which begins “Do not dwell in the future,/ Do not dream of the past” (p. 52), which seems too close to today’s quote to be entirely a coincidence–even though past and future are reversed.
Mary the Gaslighter strikes again! “That’s right, Estelle! You are only lashing out against Ed because you think about his welfare! It’s not like you are legitimately angry at never being a priority and being ignored by his sanctimonious ass to the point of refusing to put someone else on his shift in the evening of your engagement party! No, it’s all about your nurturing instinct expected from your gender!”
People may be surprised to learn that the United States constitution still exists after the animals took over, but it goes a long way towards explaining how the alleged criminals that Slylock arrests on the most flimsiest of evidence don’t seem to spend any time in prison. No, the more shocking thing is how the animals (other than that damned Fox) seem more likely to abide by it instead of trying to ramp up their conviction rates in order to further their political ambitions.
Mary has decided to include fake Buddha’s quotes if she wants to ward off her main competitor: mindfulness apps
You might be wondering “Why is the due process clause of the US Constitution still active after the Animalapocalypse”. Well, have you tried getting two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states to agree on ANYTHING?! It’s easier to overthrow Homo Sapiens than amend the Constitution!
RMMD: Hang on a minute. Lou barely acquiesced to letting Mud fill in on guitar for Truck, and now Mud’s playing his own set? Did Mud pick up on some crafty foot-in-the-door tricks with his lunar playground woo-woo marketing, or is this a guerrilla performance that will blow this small town’s collective mind before Truck and Mud depart cackling into the hills while leaving Lou to deal with the enraged fallout? Or is this Rex Morgan where the most boring possibility is the only acceptable answer and Terry Beatty just got sloppy and forgetful about the details because they weren’t about tasty diner food?
CS: Yes, those book banners’ minds were set and closed to any discussion, which is why they patiently listened to Lillian filibuster about her side of the issue for hours and were just starting to try to discuss their counterpoints with her until she pointed and said, “Ah hah, look! Now I have my own gang! Get rekt, losers!” Lillian and friends definitely don’t have set and closed minds, though, which is why they refuse to even hear what the opposing views are, let alone give honest consideration and responses to them. Just fan-freaking-tastic work, Batiuk.
DT: Uh… isn’t this supposed to be a Minit Mystery? This seems like a pretty wild event to throw in past the halfway point of a two-week story. Oh well, good thing Dick can just openly rush a man firing a rifle at him, that should help speed this confrontation up. And don’t you dare call it blatant plot armor; see, he yelled “Cover me!” so that makes it totally tactical and clever and stuff.
Luann: Goofus is stupid, so he makes some beginner mistakes while seeking ways to develop his knowledge. Haha, what a fucking idiot, amirite? Meanwhile, Gallant is smart, so he does smart people things, like… you know, um… kicking back on the couch with a good book about trigonometry.
@matt w: We all suspected that Mary Worth would be laundering Fascist propaganda, but I did not expect it would be on this specific thing!