I think it’s weird that Slylock enforces laws about both deceptive advertising practices and major felonies
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Slylock Fox, 8/3/26
I have no idea what the relationship is between Count Weirdly and the little purple being who’s always hanging around his workplace/castle — is it his creation? his adopted child? his [gulp] biological child? was it spawned by some unnatural process that doesn’t fall into any of those three categories cleanly but falls into all of them in part? — but clearly it views the count in a paternal light, and it’s pretty devastating that it’s so excited to show off the Count’s supposedly legitimate business enterprise to Slylock, only for the Fox Detective to immediately debunk the whole scam. Also, unrelated, but I’ve never really had much reason to contemplate whether Weirdly was wearing anything under his trademark shapeless nightgown, but the very vivid buttrack on display here implies that he probably isn’t.
Crock, 8/3/26
The past is in fact another country, as this Crock strip from 1998 demonstrates. Sure, the idea of a boy baby aggressively hitting on a girl baby and being punished for it is timeless, but why is the girl named “Cyber”? Was this the setup to a joke about computers that turned out to be too hard to execute so they fell back on the classics, or did the Crock creative team in 1998 simply say “What are they naming girl babies these days? Cyber, right? That’s a word I hear a lot but I don’t know what it means, so it’s probably a girl’s name.”
The Lockhorns, 8/3/26
I spent some time trying to parse Leroy’s facial expression here and the conclusion I came to is that it’s supposed to represent “sophisticated horny.” Like he’s thinking, “Ah, yes, women’s beach volleyball … the intellectual’s sport. You get to enjoy athletes at the top of their game demonstrating their prowess at leaping and spiking the ball, all in a beautiful seaside setting. And if one of these statuesque competitors were to engender a pleasant feeling of arousal in me while I watched? Well, I’m mostly trying to keep tabs on various stats to see how my fantasy team is doing, but that would be an added bonus.”
64 replies to “I think it’s weird that Slylock enforces laws about both deceptive advertising practices and major felonies”
GT: Call the police. Also, when you learn that a madman who has declared himself your mortal enemy has kidnapped your bartenders to take their place, maybe don’t drink the cocktail he’s prepared for you?
Crock:
“If I said you had a beautiful onesie, would you hold it against me?”
THWACK
Slylock: If Count Weirdly uses the universal solvent to dissolve the apparently sentient blob of ooze on his wall, will Slylock charge him for murder?
Slylock Fox:
Looking at the wall, I can see where the oobleck from Dr. Seuss’ Bartholomew and the Oobleck went.
Slylock Fox:
If American folk artist Edward Hicks had done The Unpeaceable Kingdom, it would have ended up looking like pretty much every Slylock Fox tableau.
Crock: [Thought balloon] How can I work a Cyber attack into a strip about the stone age? ….. Got it!
Sfx Loys going on in this scene but I really love that little blob on the wall that seems super jazzed to see Slylocks. I guess when you aoend your days oozing around a mad scientists dungeon you don’t get many visitors.
Lhs You know, I really doubt that Leroy is interested in meticulously following the points of individual volleyball players, so Im going to assume that ‘fantasy volleyball league’ is something else entirely, perhaps powered by whichever AI engine still allows you to do nudity….
Slylock Fox : that creature holding the bottle of water… that’s not Count Weirdly having tried his hand at making a Frankenstein Creature, that’s an uplifted Animal Count Weirdly brought back down by giving it a LOBOTOMY!
Slylock: Water is “often” referred to as the universal solvent? I guess. I mean, I’ve never heard anyone call it that. But maybe the writer of Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids is hanging out with a more intellectual crowd.
Crock: Ah, this comic takes me back to a time when the pickup lines starting with “What’s a nice girl like you …” were only 30-40 years out of date instead of 60-70 years out of date.
‘horns: Loretta, if you catch Leroy smiling lasciviously at his laptop computer, you had better hope he’s just leering at female volleyball players. This is a best case scenario.
ShyFox — Fortunately no Real World influencers read the comics. If they did, my spam email accounts would be inundated in three, two, one . . .
LockedDown — At last, thought Leroy. Somewhere on the Internet that I can gaze at a plethora of young, fit, scantily-clad women. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
Children of Crock — A sandbox in the Sahara is an absurdity. Wouldn’t it consist of some arbitrary barriers plopped down in some random spot with no distinction between inside and outside? Of course, given that the artist is too lazy to draw them we’ll never know. . .
Slylock Fox: I’ve always assumed that that thing was M. le Comte’s enormous, semi-autonomous scrotum.
SLYLOCK: The seemingly sentient snot blob on the wall is concerning.
LOCKHORNS: I’m getting more of a “had a stroke while ogling bouncing boobs” vibe.
Slylock is concerned about deceptive trade practices, but not the fact that Weirdly practices brain surgery on one of his minions. It’s no longer human law, but it’s still bourgeois law
I used to have sympathy for people deceived by quacks, thinking they were simply uninformed, but then I have seen how they are eager to believe anything and hostile to debunkers and fact-checkers. What I am saying is, fuck them Count, take all their money or some other fraudster will!
Slylock Fox:
“Slylock, let me ask you this: since Count Weirdly basically exists to be involved in one criminal caper after another, why don’t you just see to it that he’s locked up for good?”
“That’s simple, Max. I’d be out of a job if I did that!”
Count Weirdly has a castle with ray guns and all kinds of weird creature minions and he’s spending his time trying to scam $200? The property taxes alone on that castle have to be at least 5 figures
GT: “You know that’s kidnapping.” “Who do you think you are, Slylock Fox?”
JP: “We’re back home, and…. why do the past 40 years seem more different than I remember?”
yDT: Dick Tracy, Sanitation Worker.
FG: Ming chuckles as he continues to script out the current storyline.
Slylock Fox: Even mad scientists now have occupational health therapists warning them that they’re sitting too close to the computer screen. Although someone should really tell Weirdly that he’s going to get terrible back pain on that non-ergonomic stool.
Lockhorns: Some people would get aroused from watching fit young women in swimwear jumping around. But not Leroy. No, he has a much more elaborate fetish. He can only get off looking at spreadsheets of numbers relating to said fit young women in swimwear jumping around. The Orlando Valkyries are beating their ace ratio by 4.2 percentage points on the 2025 season? Oh yeahhhhhh, Leroy’s going need a cold shower.
@Lauralot: This could’ve been a “Ha ha! I slipped the bar tenders a $100 to let me behind the bar! Congratulations, I can’t wait to beat you next season!” But instead has turned into a deranged felony.
SFx: Slylock deduced correctly that it is a bottle of water. However, with data centers and climate change causing massive droughts, the bottle of water is correctly priced at $200.
@Joe Blevins: Crock: Are there even “places like this” for nice girls to be in anymore? Haven’t they all been gentrified into gastropubs?
Lockhorns: Why haven’t you eaten your sandwich? ….and where’s my hand lotion?
FC: Tight short shorts and shaved legs aside, it’s hard to go cruising with four kids.
Looking at how many of his servants have had their skulls cut open Count Weirdly has obviously watched the Jordan Peele movie “Get Out”
Pugfuggly: “I really doubt that Leroy is interested in meticulously following the points of individual volleyball players”
I don’t know, I think that probably does describe his interest quite well.
The Lockhorns: I dunno, Josh. Leroy is giving me “drunk, as usual” vibes. Possibly “gotten food poisoning from that sandwich, but wearing Depends so no big deal.”
Shoe: Whenever the character Biz is mentioned by name I’m reminded of the rapper Biz Markie and even though he’s dead now I don’t think it’s a good look to be joking about dating younger women
SF: Count Weirdly sneers triumphantly at Slylock, as he explains his “universal solvent” is water with 30% ethanol, which dissolves more substances than pure water. Slylock then arrests him for not getting a liquor tax stamp for every bottle.
SFx: WTF’s up with the creature peeking out from behind the computer saying, “Yer sitting too close, boss?” Is he worried about Weirdly getting eyestrain or is it a ‘personal space’ thing?”
Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids: In my past life, I was a lifeguard. Swimmers would cling to my fur as I towed them back to shore. I saved many lives this way, many human lives, and for what? Only for them to perish in the Great Animal Awakening. Or was it that I pulled the bipeds from avalanches, from what would otherwise be their snowy graves? I cannot remember, I only know that that the grave afforded me blessed peace and relief from the heartbreak of a futile existence. Until he came along. And now here I stand, serving humanity (of a sort) once again, this time by holding an overpriced gimmick. Just holding, while the Fox sniffs around and that little purple shit babbles away. In two lives, in two brains, I have served and suffered quietly. Pity me, for I am a Good Boy.
@Lauralot: Considering that this is the strip that actually depicts ICE taking people away, this is an absolutely *insane* “let’s laugh off a felony” moment. The only thing that would redeem it would be the first panel being Gil’s imagination and Gerads meaning they’re “tied up” figuring out the escape room exit from the deluxe adventure package he’d bribed them with to get to take their places.
JP April’s back! With all the exciting adventures not only occurring off-panel, but also safely keeping any update-the-family recap there, too! After a “thanks for taking care of our little girl” we can sweep this attempt at death-defying derring-do under the rug and get back to the drama of sandwiches and horsie-drawing.
RMMD OK, this is some deliberate character design – guessing Marti has chromosomal/ developmental anomalies and will be Especially Vulnerable to the Scam Twins, allowing not-so-little Sarah to save her
@Bob Tice: I love the many ways DC comics tries to justify this with “The Joker”
-Being caught by a vigilante (i.e, not an actual member of law enforcement) severely reduces his sentence.
And
Batmite: I want you to fight The Joker.
B*****: The Joker is securely locked up in Arkham.
(Batmite snaps his fingers and the radio announces that The Joker escaped)
This explains so much!
@Anonymous: There was a cartoon I used to watch about a kid superhero. Two of the villains he would fight were wizards who lived in a huge gothic castle.
One episode, the protagonist is invited to a friend’s birthday party and finds one of the evil wizards performing magic for the kids.
During break, he asks the wizard about this.
“Listen kid, my brother and I live in a giant castle, with a dragon to feed. We have to pay the bills somehow.”
I love little shades of realism in these things.
@CanuckDownSouth: On JP – I’m smelling a status quo shift, on the order of the one apparently in the offing over in Luann. Think about it, Ces is basically pulling a do-over with this whole ‘Ann Gets a TV Show to Tell Her Truth’ bit.
Barring yet *another* ‘One Last Job’ twist (which is certainly possible), it sounds like April’s going to take the raspberry-haired brat off Sopheddy’s hands and go off with her and Randy to Somewhere in Somewhere, like that senile millionaire arms dealer Rex Morgan declared was mentally competent so he could go into the peaceful good night with his trophy wife.
Aaaannnnnnd so Autumn will come to Cavelton as the strip bids farewell forever to the Ballad of CIApril… until Ces gets bored and wants more ‘splosions and offscreen knife-gutting again.
Slylock: That Blob on the wall, why am I getting Rick and Morty vibes from it?
It’s nice of the little frog behind the monitor to care for Count Weirdly’s eyesight even if his boss probably performed experiments on him to see if his species could in fact copulate with pigs. Do they even have Muppets in this messed up talking animal world?
***
I’ve never been happier to have Leroy drawn behind a table because that lower half situation is something that should never be rendered in this art style.
SFx – It’s like that “clever” kid in Middle School that does a science fair about Hydrogen Hydroxide and how it can kill people and that we should try to ban it – then – shocking plot twist – it’s water! Hydrogen Hydroxide is water, you idiots.
F*** that kid. Also, f*** the one who does the “Is Prayer Good For Plants?” project. That may just be a thing here in the deep south.
@Anonymous: Woops, that was me. Guess I haven’t fully woken up yet…
I always found the word “fantasy” to be a very ill-fitting adjective for what that dumb game actually is. They should have kept the word “rotisserie”, which at least doesn’t set up any lame jokes like this one.
I’m a sports fan, a math nerd, and a gambling enthusiast, and I find fantasy sports to be boring and tedious.
Slylock Fox:
This puzzle has run before, but this time we get the added detail that Count Weirdly is apparently left-handed, making him even more of a persecuted minority than he was already.
This is not merely a case of deceptive advertising. Slylock knows that exposure to dihydrogen monoxide is universally fatal; everyone who doses themselves with it will die. Worse, it’s also incredibly addictive. Just one hit, and that’s it. You’re hooked for life. Slylock is giving the Count one chance to submit quietly to arrest, but after that, the Animaltopia SWAT team is going to be breaking out their battering ram and storming the castle.
Lockhorns-Now Leroy’s browser is going to be full of the beach volleyball ads that you can’t rid of no matter what you do without an adblocker.
RMMD-“I want to try and draw you like the French girls.”
MW-And then it’s off to Mary Worth’s to thank her for all her help.
Lockhorns:
I’m trying to determine the meaning of what Leroy is doing with his left hand. Is he doing the “money” gesture where you rub your fingers and thumb together? After all, Loretta says he’s more than a mere participant in this fantasy league, he started it, which means even if he doesn’t win he gets to keep a portion of the pot. It’s kind of a relief to know that Leroy’s interest in these young women is mostly financial. He’s probably not even looking at stats, let alone actual games—he’s just seeing people join his league and hearing cash register noises.
Slylock – The tables are turned on Count Weirdly when an online scammer charges him $400 for an “advanced text input device with individual pushbuttons for each letter of the alphabet.”
Crock – What does “down the way” mean in a featureless desert? I think she’s telling him either that she’s some sort of burrowing animal, or that she’s a demon from Hell. Either way, he’s in love!
Don Abundio, translated:
“Pierre, couldn’t you do that a little more quietly?”
“Not on my budget!”
“You see what I have to put up with just because I won’t buy him a Cuisinart?”
That blob on the wall may be smiling, but it’s also flashing a middle finger at the Rational Reynard. Careful, Thoughtful Tod, if it has a finger, it can pull a trigger, and who knows what it’s hiding in its pulsating mass.
@Peanut Gallery:
This joke hinges on the fact that the asian eating utensils have the word “chop” in their name, and that the audience knows of a piano melody known by the same name.
…That doesn’t really work outside of english…
Crock: Today I learned there was a period in the late 90s when the creators of Crock were putting less effort into the art than usual, which frankly is too embarrassing to contemplate.
SFx: Dude, everyone knows it’s water. All the efforts of the Glorious Animal Regime have not been able to completely reverse the effects of human-generated climate change, or the widespread droughts and wildfires that persist as a result.
SF: I think the puzzle is asking the wrong question. The question should be how Slylock knows that the solvent really isn’t “universal” as Count Weirdly describes it. If Weirdly really had a universal solvent, then it could dissolve anything — including the bottle it is held in.
(Thanks, Encyclopedia Brown!)
GT: kidnapping, no doubt assault and battery, all major felonies. Are we heading towards a “Carrie” like ending to the evening when Coach Gerard finally snaps? “The doors are chained shut!!!’
JP: April “We’re back! Did you miss us! By the way, did Bogdan contact you? He is such a dear. I hope you were nice to him! Um, where is Charlotte???”
MW: Okay, setting up the big hug between Tommy and Wilbur.
@Anonymous: Good point. I’m so used to translating these in my head that I didn’t even notice that.
Maybe they should’ve changed the sound effect to PALILLO PALILLO PALILLO. (Oh no, the cook has murdered Arnold Horshack!)
Today’s Slylock Fox is a rerun, or at least a recycled riddle. I seem to recall reading it circa 2008
Turns out the riddle is recycled, but the art is new, and Josh covered the original:
https://joshreads.com/2008/04/many-jokes-none-good/
C’shaft: Oh good, Crankshaft is going to destroy his own property for a change.
Dustin: From what I’ve seen, big money is more likely to make people completely detached from reality and incapable of empathizing with others, so…well, both of you are still two for three there.
GT: Okay, leaving aside the facts that Coach Permawave has committed a felony just to trash talk Gil at his wedding reception and Gil seems content to do absolutely nothing about it, what the HELL is going on with those bar staff uniforms? The last time I saw anyone wearing a bowtie that big I was watching Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street with the Divalings.
JP: Something tells me we’re never going to hear an explanation for what the hell has been going on with April all this time, and honestly I hope we never do. Like Calvin and Hobbes’ Noodle Incident, any description would be less interesting than the mystery itself.
Luann: Great, Luann’s going move in with someone just as anal and judgemental as Bernice, but also male so they can indulge in trite awkward relationship tropes.
MW: “….Because your hypocritical asshole of a father acted like I was an irredeemable junkie!”
RMMD: Does Marti have Down Syndrome or is that just the bad art?
Heheh, look at the little rascal, so young and already a tombeur de femmes, you can tell he is half French! Wait a minute, he’s also half Arab! Did I… did I do a problematic!?
I want to thank the Lockhorns’ artist for showing both hands of Leroy above the table
I don’t know, maybe $ 200 is a normal price for a bottle of water. The Animalapocalypse must have caused major disruptions, so some inflation would not be out of the ordinary
The beach volley is just a cover for something much more nefarious! Look at Leroy’s left hand! He is learning how to become Italian!
GT: Henry Barajas holds up a copy of the Judge Parker strip and says;
“Kidnapping is not a big deal, right?”
@TheDiva: I’m still hoping for a “you can pinpoint the second Luann’s heart rips in half” moment.
H&L: What in the world is that in the background of the first panel? Did the death star fire it’s super laser at the earth, missing it by three feet, exactly where the Flagstons’ house is located?
S4th: This story raises a new question about time travel for me. If Sally went back 40 years and got her mom and aunt to make up, then returned to the present to find out for the first time they’d been friends all this time, consider what the last 40 years must be like for Mom & Aunt: Sally grew up always knowing they were friends, yet almost exactly 40 years after they buried the hatchet, Sally abruptly has absolutely no memory of any of that.
Slylock: Non-toxic my ass. Weirdly is obviously part of the DHMO cabal. Read up on the conspiracy here: DHMO.org
@CanuckDownSouth: Marti has Down Syndrome. There was a plot about it when she was introduced, I think.