10/12, uh, blaze it? Do I have that right?
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Panel from Slylock Fox, 10/12/25
Look, by anthropomorphic animal logic, it’s fine to have an anthropomorphic animal wearing a shirt but no pants or underwear. But what you can’t do is have such a character standing right next to another character who’s talking about the fact that animals in this universe wear underwear, because then all anyone is gonna think about is WHY IS THAT DUCK NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR OH MY GOD
Panel from The Lockhorns, 10/12/25
I’m not going to say that The Lockhorns are great art by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say that there are certain things that the workshop that generates Lockhorns panels absolutely nails, and one of those things is a facial expression I call “chewing joylessly.”
Rhymes With Orange, 10/12/25
You know, newspaper comics as a medium were thriving in 1933. Do you think that once the 21st Amendment was enacted, there were a bunch of extremely square strips that were like, “Ha ha, alcohol! The intoxicant we all know about!” I assume not, because I assume the majority of contemporary comics artists were raging drunks.
75 replies to “10/12, uh, blaze it? Do I have that right?”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these added reaction panels match your reaction to today’s Mary Worth?
@Baja Gaijin:
That penultimate MW panel was begging for the FC crossover. I do like the carpet bombing of A/C units.
Slylock: An hour and a half later when all the laundry cycles have finished and the patrons can finally check their clothes to see what’s missing, the convict is in the next county by then. Way to go, Dumbfuck.
“10/12, uh, blaze it? Do I have that right?” For a moment I thought Josh posted another set of tomorrow’s comics.
FC-Don’t tease them like that. Those kids are never going to grow up and leave home.
MW-RUN! Olive can control the animals!
Slylock Fox: So Slylock’s brilliant investigative technique comes down to “ask around.” I’m pretty sure anyone with half an ounce of sense could have figured that out. (Meaning… not Max.)
Lockhorns: Is Leroy accusing Loretta of buying the sandwiches at a filling station, or saying they taste like gasoline? Either way, I doubt they could afford the price tag of $3.99 each, in addition to buying those name-brand squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup.
Rhymes With Orange: Look, you’re an eye doctor — you should be glad this guy is treating his glaucoma.
Pluggers: This retired plugger is so worried about living on a fixed income that he’s taken to cornhole hustling. (A general warning: Never bet against a guy who calls himself “Minnesota Catz.”)
MW-The Daughter of Sam
Garfield: A genuine laugh. The physical humor. Funny!
The Lockhorns: The table and chairs are from the Dagwood Bumstead “Furniture for People with Short Weird Legs” collection.
SF: I thought the size of the uniform would also be involved. No point interviewing the lizard, and the koala looks small. And, now that Josh points it out, the rules of the animal culture regarding who gets to go bottomless are also important.
The Lockhorns bought that low table and chairs for a Japanese themed dinner party they threw last year and now due to economic circumstances they’re stuck using it for every meal.
SFx: Only underwear? And no hat? Absolutely scandalous!
LHs: No Leroy, I think she ordered them from the waitress at the restaurant you’re clearly at. See the condiments on the table? Did you forget where you were? Have you been day drinking again?
RwO: No, let him keep going. If there’s one thing I’, really good at while high, it’s word games like that…
@Baja Gaijin: If a barrage of AC units takes out everyone in that vast, dense forest, I’m all for it!
MW: Suddenly Olive is shy about claiming her powers? Did she hit her head getting out of the balloon?
MW: ‘The rescue team brings down the last of the stranded balloon passengers.’ You mean Olive and Stanley? Or were there other passengers not mentioned because they weren’t essential to the story? Even the narration box has lost interest.
MW: Mary handled her severe acrophobia by eating five edibles and tearing off her bra. Now she has some ‘splaining to do.
SLYLOCK: Unattended laundry will be INCINERATED? Pretty Draconian, as laundromats go.
LOCKHORNS: She could have picked them up from Quaker Steak & Lube, but I’ve never known them to use REAL motor oil in their cooking.
Slylock Fox:
Oh, that’s easy. He read the upside-down printing that’s in the panel. That’s a lot easier than trying to reason things through, particularly if you’re a member of the lower animal kingdom.
How’d I do?
FC: A dead Barfy in the right of the panel would have really sold it.
MW: How many more demonstrations of Olive’s “special gifts” do we have to endure before that girl heads back to New York and goes to SCHOOL? I mean, the first quarter has ended, and she’s missed all of her classes: English, Biology, Advanced Algebra & Trig, Ancient Egyptian, Air Conditioning Repair, Pre-Veterinary Medicine, and Swimming—not to mention Driver’s Ed. I don’t see her parents home schooling her in any subject but Sex Ed, so how is she supposed to catch up on all of that missed school work?
ShyFox — Does that sign really say “Unattended laundry will be incinerated”? Like, unattended for how long? I haven’t been to a laundromat in some time–is this a thing now?
Slylock Fox:
The furtive look of the marsupial over Slylock’s right shoulder tells me that he’s an accessory to this crime. I’ll bet that he and the convict are planning to make their getaway to Koala Lumpur.
Slylock Fox: The sign in the background really adds to the layers here. It’s a shame a crime had to interfere with Slylock’s favorite passtime: incinerating other people’s laundry.
RWO: “4/20 vision” is when you bribe an opthalmologist to write you a scrip for glaucoma so you can some of that sweet medical marijuana.
10/12 blaze it? Sure, it’s Canadian Thanksgiving Day–get wrecked, eh.
Slylock Fox:
The odd-toed ungulate behind Slylock hopes that he isn’t delayed on account of questioning by our mammalian detective protagonist, because he has an appointment for a rhinoplasty.
Uh, that might be tomorrow. What do I know?
@But What Do I Know?: Yeah, our Thanksgiving is Monday, but it’s not as big a deal as in the States.
T is for “Thai stick”, F is for “fatty” — this is fun!
Slylock Fox:
Always in search of a little extra cash, and clued in by the presence of the convict at the establishment, Disco Duck scans the washer’s interior in search of evidence of money laundering.
I’m gonna leave JUNGLE JIM! right here.
Now run, or you’ll be blown to bits!
Absolutely jaw-dropping Slylock Fox. It was so incredibly obvious that the convict had swapped for some freshly-cleaned clothes that I was looking for a narrower solution. Like, he didn’t take anything from the duck because ducks (apparently) don’t wear pants… the lizard (too small) and the rhino (too big) are obviously not his size… that leaves the chicken and the koala. It’s the koala that he robbed, right? Because probably chickens dress like ducks, with their tailfeathers hanging out? Or wait — the sign says “Unattended laundry will be incinerated,” so obviously all these other animals have been sitting RIGHT THERE the whole time, so they all saw the convict take whatever it was? — And after all that, the solution is just “he swapped clothes — ask what’s missing”? And I thought, GET REAL! Anyone who’s lugged the whole hamperful to the laundromat does NOT have pinpoint knowledge of every single goddam garment that was in their hamper. It could be WEEKS before they miss that pair of jeans and that t-shirt. and meanwhile they’ll be all “wait, what about my party dress, was that in there?” In short, a MUDDLED MESS. Do better, Bob!
Rhymes with Orange:
” ‘T’ is for triskaidekaphobia; ‘F’ is for flaccinaucinihilipilification; ‘Z’ is for zygomaticoauricularis….”
@1 Baja Gaijin:
Yes, the air drop of air conditioners.
@Baja Gaijin: The fifth reaction panel is best, but I’ll give the overall win to the first strip for that quote.
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely the wing of AC units, as it has the best chance of taking out some of the characters!
MW I’m getting plot whiplash from Olive suddenly hiding her powers, like some Special Kid wrapping up a TV show episode (“Oh Uncle Gadget, what would we do without you!”). But if it means we can be done with this and have her go off to save people from falling objects in New York, I’m for it
H&L Psst… just get a turkey and say you’re celebrating Thanksgiving like your neighbours to the north.
FC Bets on whether this is a slightly updated 60s strip? The cars outside look pretty modern, but what’s with the sideburns, bags, and suitcase? (Is Dolly carrying a huge makeup case or was that the ladies carry-on size style at the time?)
On October 12, Arlo is an apologist for Christopher Columbus and Irma Thurston complains that the world is too woke.
Good we have our regular stand-bys: Pluggers are into cornholing, and Augie, knowing he won’t get anything from Summer, plans to go home and “polish the final draft.”
H&L: “I don’t even know what holiday we’re celebrating anymore.”
It’s getting harder and harder for Irma to rationalize Thirsty’s drinking.
FG: I’m working on the concept of Queen Fria as “beautiful.” And somehow getting an image of a teenaged Schkrade wacking to headshots of Barbra Streisand, Cher, and Jimmy Durante.
H&L I can’t blame Irma for her confusion, especially with no solid ID of the US state she’s in, as the second Monday of October is for Columbus in *some* states, for Indigenous Peoples in *some*, but also a *few* actually co-celebrate BOTH simultaneously.
MW: Waitwaitwait! Everyone just gets back to solid ground and that’s it? Olive was supposed to go sailing off alone in that balloon!! How do I contact Comic Managment? This will not stand!!
JP: The face on the raspberry-haired brat in the final panel, that’s the face of someone who wishes they were the little girl in ‘Firestarter’.
RMMD: DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!
SFx – I love how all the animals are completely invested in this mystery with wide-eyed stares except for the duck on the right who’s thinking, “I don’t have time for this shit. I’ve got to attend to my laundry so it doesn’t get incinerated.”
Slylock Fox: The answer to a visual puzzle mystery is “ask the witnesses?” I CAN’T ASK THE WITNESSES, I’M NOT A CARTOON! Seriously guys, give us something about the size of the hole for the convict’s tail. We’re just inches away from “Slylock called the prison and asked who escaped,” and no one wants that.
I looked all over the Slylock Fox art looking for some nonsense (like most of them are clearly wearing clothes that are too small for them) thinking, “All he needs to do is ask the customers if anything they have is missing,” only discover that the shocking answer is yes, Slylock Fox is going to act like an actual detective for once in his god-forsaken life. Going against expectations? Well played, Bob Weber Jr. Well played.
Another low-res Lockhorns panel? Josh: There are free tools available to resize and jack up the DPI settings. For PC, there’s IrfanView. For PC or Mac, there’s XnViewMP. At least this one was less fuzzy than the last one.
Putting in the good word for the consistently well-done Macanudo, which is a little more compelling than usual today.
@Victor Von:
“Hello, prison? This is Slylock Fox. Who escaped?”
“A duck with no pants.”
And that’s how Donald Duck was deported to South Sudan.
@14 MKay: on Mary Worth: That’s a mental picture you didn’t have to paint.
@26 Bob Tice: GROAN!
@32 CanuckDownSouth: on Family Circus: Definitely the 70’s. Look at the van outside with the circular window on the side. Total tokin’ wagon if I ever saw one. And I saw one in a Cheech and Chong movie.
@40 Tabby Lavalamp: Slylock is no Columbo, that’s for sure.
@42 ValdVin: Ha ha ha HA HA HA!
Dustin: Glasses, utensils, bowls, and plates piled in the sink are one thing. But Dustin and his friends cook? News to me.
Blondie: Nothing about the Bumsteads’ home and neighborhood has visibly changed since there was a Kaiser-Frazer dealer in town, and in 2025 they have an HOA?
MW: If Max and Greta could read Olive’s mind they’d hear “I’m stuck in a tree”. To actually find them suggests God was watching out for fools.
Slylock Fox: Really? Slylock’s big spectacular deduction is that the criminal is wearing clothes? I’m sure that’s gonna be real helpful tracking him down. What other important clues is Slylock gonna find? That the convict breathes oxygen?
Rhymes Wifh Orange: I can picture the writer coming up with the idea of a 4/20 themed comic, forgetting about it, than remembering about it months later and hurriedly making it even though 4/20 was months ago.
@Baja Gaijin: @43 Twas not I who painted that cock-eyed nightmare.
L’horns: I’m not sure what the joke is here. Is Leroy implying that Loretta’s cooking (philosophical question: does making a sandwich count as cooking?) is so terrible that it tastes like it came from a convenience store, or is Loretta actually serving convenience store sandwiches as part of the grim misery that surrounds the Lockhorns’ entire existence? I suppose it makes no difference as the actual punchline is, as ever, “Leroy and Loretta hate each other and go out of their way to show it.”
SFx: No, sorry, but if your whole shtick is Encyclopedia Brown-level logic puzzles disguised as “mysteries,” you have to go for something a little less immediately obvious than “the fugitive, finding himself in a place where clothes were readily accessible, took some clothes to wear in place of his prison uniform.” That’s like a filler scene in The Fugitive, not an exercise in deductive reasoning.
Today’s Slylock Fox has layers of commentary, when you really think about it. “Ask witnesses and bystanders” is not just the laziest “detective puzzle” solution ever. It’s also a sad state of the American education system as well as propaganda for a growing police state. “What happenes when even the best police officers forget even the most fundamental aspects of police and investigative work?” Be grateful that he is still asking questions instead of mowing down the customers in shame of his confusion, and then having the laundromat shut down as a potential antifa sleeper cell.
DT: In the great tradition of American capitalism, Diet Smith has intervened on behalf of the inventor of a really neat killing device.
H&L: Irma — go with Smallpox n’ Syphilis Day, to commemorate the bounty Old Europe bestowed upon their friends in the new world.
DT: Hey, I thought this woman was FBI; she’s somehow affiliated with the court system?
“No death ray murder charges will be brought. The jury was made up of twelve butch lesbian electronics researchers and engineers, and they voted unanimously ‘not guilty.’ Also, they each want to try the death ray out while they touch themselves.”
@UncleJeff: DT: Money buys law.
SLYLOCK FOX: I dunno. A case that involves stripping off a prison uniform really seems like it should be a Cassandra Cat caper (“Oh dearest me. I’ve discarded my uniform and now I’m here in my underwear. I sure hope a ratiocination-obsessed vulpine cutie doesn’t catch me and take advantage of my intimate vulnerability. Tee hee!”)
Don Abundio, translated:
“This has been a delightful evening!”
“It’s very late. Would you like to stay the night?”
“I think you forgot this is our house”
Slylock: Awwww, those belly shirts with the big stars on them! I remember those from … I wanna say, the ’90s? Obviously, Mr. Rhino hold onto his clothes for a long time.
Slylock: This is one bold criminal we’re dealing with. He walked into a crowded laundromat in full prison garb, stripped off his orange jumpsuit in the middle of the place, and then just started swiping items from the other customers. And to make it more difficult, he chose that one laundromat that was built in the converted hockey arena where the floor is still extremely slippery ice.
‘horns: Condiments do not get “passed” in this household. Loretta will have ketchup. Leroy will have mustard. And that is just the way it will be.
Orange: This strip may have finally found its target audience, as the perpetually stoned probably spend many hours thinking about what rhymes with orange.
DT: So it all worked out in the end!
Dustin: You might think the casual cruelty exhibited by the Kudliks and their associates to be their own little quirk, but today’s strip reminds us that it’s endemic to their universe.
JP: Actually, that’s exactly the reaction I would expect from a kid who sees an adult trying way too hard to sell them on an experience.
MW: Olive’s false modesty has me hoping the bear from Judge Parker will wander over for a cameo.
RMMD: Augie is so cagey about details regarding his latest novel (or the five that preceded it) that I’m convinced that a) he doesn’t have a novel, much less six, and is lying to give himself a more interesting profile than “high school English teacher” or b) he’s writing some utterly filthy My Hero Academia fan fiction.
Slylock smiled, silently but toothily, as he contemplated the sign. Animaltopia needed a way to deal with …undesirables, and hiding the facility in plain sight was one of his best ideas. Soon, that prisoner would be returning to the laundromat, for the last time.
RMMD- These two have been blue longer than Jonah. It looks like Auggie’s balls are gonna stay blue for the foreseeable future.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Ok people, would you look at the stilted awkward dialogue presented here of two people struggling to maintain conversation and assume that this date is going great? If “no”, then you’re certainly not Terry Beatty!
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Also, why is there a big mystery about Auggie’s book, where he can’t even tell his lady a plot synopsis of what it’s even about, much less let her read it?* Do parts of it need to be redacted by the Feds before the government will allow it’s release? Is it The Epstein Files: The Novelization?
*I mean besides the fact that Beatty can’t set up “tension” if his life depended on it, so men in his strip are cagey and secretive for no real reason at all, while the women in their lives just swoon and cook up lard-fried gravy or whatever.
@TheDiva: Re: MW: That’s not “false modesty.” That’s more “Olsen-twins-mugging-for-the-camera” antics there. That last panel is just begging to be followed up by a laugh track and the ending theme to some late-80’s sitcom (She’s WORTH It, now playing on ABC…and then dumped to syndication 6 episodes later.)
SFx: The only one who appears to be the right size for that prison jumpsuit is Slylock. Just sayin’.
Fred Basset, Peanuts Begins: Two really great wordless gags today.
MW: After a near-drowning and now a balloon getting stuck in a tree, most parents wouldn’t let Mary Worth within 3000 miles of their daughter.
@62 Wool Worth: Emphasize “most.” Olive’s parents are happy when anyone takes her off their hands–more tee-hee time! for them.
That rhino has the worst eyebrow toupee EVER!
RMMD: this makes no sense at all. I’m working on a couple of books. You have questions I’m happy to answer. Maybe they’re about Idiot Augie’s secret life as a stripper.
@Will: Fred Basset, Peanuts Begins: Two really great wordless gags today.
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I’ve never read “Fred Basset’s Peanuts Begin”
Gasoline Alley: It seems the spin cycle on her washer isn’t working either.
Slylick Fox And Comix For Kinx: That’s Scratchy Scrotum’s suit, you’ll find him in a mesh bag in the back, yelling “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty animals!” But take it easy on him, he’s still upset he wasn’t issued prison number 0069!
@Peanut Gallery: What’s Spanish for “three way”?
Gassed Up Alleycats: “Milking in the barn”? Is that a euphemism for you know what? Naughty, naughty GA!
Lockhorns: I notice there’s no Speedway.
Hate to break it to Slylock, but back in my 20s (college and just after) when I relied on laundromats and having change (or at college these weird little cards), I crammed as much as possible into each machine and I would have had no idea what was missing even after the loads finished.
Note to Josh and or Josh’s webmaster: please swap 68 and 69. Thank you.
@Jobiska: Hi, Auntie — what’s for dinner? I have a strange craving for eggs and buttercups fried with fish.
@Liam: “10/12, uh, blaze it? Do I have that right?” For a moment I thought Josh posted another set of tomorrow’s comics.
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I think Josh was referring to the sign “UNATTENDED LAUNDRY WILL BE INCINERATED” suggested that they were going to burn down the laundromat, and wait for the.naked human to come running out on fire.