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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.”

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Judge Parker, 8/2/26

Oh wow, as predicted, that big Hollywood exec loved Ann’s little sermon and green-lit the series as soon as she stalked out of the room. So now it looks like all’s well that ends … wait, what’s that? April’s calling? She wants to make sure her intellectual property rights to Netflix’s new daughters extended universe are respected? And she’s calling on whatever number Neddy has for her in her phone? Which presumably could be very easily tracked by [tries and fails to remember who April is on the run from exactly, decides it’s not worth investigating] her enemies?

Mary Worth, 8/2/26

So Dawn has been unable to track down Tommy ever since he overheard Wilbur talking shit about him, leading him to purchase drugs and subsequently flush them down the toilet. This has caused Dawn some anxiety, but good news! He’s fine. He’s come by to tell Dawn that her good words strengthened his resolve, and he did a bunch of drugs to prove to himself that he can quit whenever he wants and that he’s not an addict anymore. Problem solved!

Suburban Fairy Tales, 8/2/26

Suburban Fairy Tales is a strip whose main characters are the Three Little Pigs, and one thing that’s always bugged me about it is that it neglects the Three Little Pigs’ best-known defining characteristics: that they have wildly divergent skills when it comes to building structures that can endure abuse. Well, today is a shout-out to us Three Little Pigs oldheads, and I for one appreciate it.

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Luann, 8/1/26

Much as it pains me to give Luann some credit, and much as it pains me to say anything positive about the “Brad and Toni have sex in the shower” interlude, I will admit that it’s a positive step that the strip has finally moved beyond ribaldry and is now admitting “Yes, the couples in our strip have sex, like normal people do.” Or at least some of the couples! Because I guess Phil and Luann might move in together, but possibly in separate bedrooms, and Luann is like “Oh, huh, well, this is … not what I expected?” Very odd situation for college (or older?) age adults to find themselves in, but at least we’re back to the old sexually confusing and/or gross Luann scenarios we all know and love.

Gil Thorp, 8/1/26

Quite an interesting list of wedding guests vendors Gil has assembled: his enemy-turned-pal/employee Coach Luke is his officiant, his enemy-turned-frenemy(?) Marty Moon is his DJ, and his still-current-enemy Coach Gerads is, nonconsensually, his bartender. Ha ha, he’s wearing Groucho glasses as a disguise, what a kook! I assume that he murdered the bartenders Gil hired and, via a slow-acting poison in the drinks, has also murdered most of the guests at this point.

Hi and Lois, 8/1/26

It’s not clear to me if Thirsty failed to make his usual golf time with Hi because he’s passed out drunk so Hi has been assigned a partner on the course, or if Hi has decided to make a new friend because Thirsty is chronically drunk and unreliable, but this guy’s shocked expression in panel two shows that he has a lot to learn about Hi’s complex emotional life. A guy who’s playing golf … even though he hates playing golf? Who ever heard of such a thing!

Archie, 8/1/26

So in order for this strip to work, you have to imagine that Archie’s dad abruptly and without explanation told his family to pack, checked out of their hotel early, and now they’ve been driving in silence for hours until his wife finally got the nerve up to ask what’s going on and he replies, heavy lidded, “I’m tired, dear. I’m so tired.” Pretty chilling!

Shoe, 8/1/26

Biz, I don’t think you should be making a sly, flirtatious face at Roz as you explain that all your friends are dead! I think that’s going to make everyone uncomfortable, actually.