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The Lockhorns, 11/3/15

INT. – UNDERGROUND HACKER HQ – NIGHT

Dozens of malicious HACKERS sit around a conference table in a murkily lit room. All have laptops in front of them; banks of computer servers with blinking lights line the walls.

HACKER #1
Gentlemen, I’ve summoned you here today to present you with … some disturbing content.

HACKER #2
Please. We’re the kings of the dark web. We’ve seen and heard things that would send normal people’s minds spinning into insanity.

HACKER #1
That may be, but this is horror of a different kind. I want you to turn your attention to today’s Lockhorns.

HACKER #3
You mean the comic? From the newspaper? I didn’t know they were still making those.

HACKER #1
Please point your browsers to the “Comics Kingdom” website, where you’ll be able to find the most recent panel.

HACKER #2
But it’s a paywalled site! How can we see it without paying?

All the HACKERS laugh uproariously as they effortlessly HACK the site with a few keystrokes. Their laughter ends abruptly as they see today’s Lockhorns panel.

HACKER #2
My god.

HACKER #3
They made a “dark web” joke.

HACKER #4
In a newspaper comic strip.

HACKER #2
Does this mean…

HACKER #1
Yes. Hacking is over. Being a hacker, knowing about the dark web … it’s not cool anymore. None of it.

The hackers close their laptops and begin smashing them to bits with HAMMERS.

HACKER #3
So, anyone else have any life skills?

HACKER #2
I waited tables for a while.

HACKER #4
I can do some bookeepping.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and The Family Circus, 11/3/15

Here in the United States it’s Odd-Numbered Election Year, which is important to voters in a few states (enjoy, Louisiana!) but mostly pretty low-key. That hasn’t stopped a couple of longstanding legacy comic strips from getting political, though — specifically, from expressing outright contempt for the whole concept of electoral democracy. How did the dinosaurs come to rule the earth? Through some fair election process? Don’t be a chump. They seized control of the planet with their teeth and claws. Maybe the piddling political issues of the day can be resolved by voting, but when it comes to basic questions of species dominance, we still live in the constant war of all against all. Snuffy’s neighbors might feel smug about performing their so-called “civic duty”; but Snuffy knows he’s doing the real important work, which is preventing our planet from being overrun by fish-men.

Mary Worth and The Phantom, 11/3/15

oh

HAPPENING

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Gil Thorp, 10/21/15

Wait, so, they’ve already broadcast the first episode of this reality show without having figured out how they’re shaping the storylines going forward? This makes me actively angry. Reality shows shoot hours and hours of footage over weeks and only then start sifting through it all to figure out how they’re going to shape what appears on screen. That’s how you create gripping drama out of the minutia of everyday life! You don’t just shoot a few days and then throw something together and then (and here’s the worst sin) let the subjects of the show watch it and then try to figure out what comes next! This why we should be mad at Holly and her crew: not because they’re being mean to Gil or whatever, but because they’re demonstrably bad at making a reality show.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/21/15

Sure, Snuffy and his clan are notorious lawbreakers, but can you really judge them, considering that the legal system in Hootin’ Holler is notoriously corrupt? Here we see the community’s only magistrate auctioning Snuffy off to whichever flatlander for-profit prison will pay him the largest kickback.

Mary Worth, 10/21/15

“Time to catch up with my emails…”

From: web@theorganicgrocer.com.sg
To: Mary Worth Subject: Dear Winner

This is to Notify you has the lucky winner of this year lottery. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 7-1-8-36-4-22 under agent ID: 18 and lucky ball number 7363789,which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category.

“Oh my! This is very exciting!”

You have therefore been qualified for a lump sum payout of One Millions (£1,000,000) Great British Pounds(GBP) which amounts to $1,500,000.00 (One Million,Five Hundred Thousand United States DOLLARS) in cash, drawn in your favour, as the soul beneficiary and covered with the highest level of Insurance policy called the IRREVOCABLE GUARANTEE OF PAYMENT BOND.

“Irrevocable guarantee of payment bond! That sounds extremely official.”

Due to mix up of some names and winning number, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claim has been processed and your money remitted to you, in your perspective country. Because this is part of our new security protocol to avoid double claiming and forgery of winners identity in this program by some unscrupulous persons.

“Yes, yes, that sounds very sensible. Can’t be too careful!”

Your winning will be delivered to you personally upon visiting our lottery headquarters in London, however,you must first stop in PORT HARCOURT,NIGERIA, in order to complete vital paperwork to avoid tax in both the united states and England. Please reply to this email in CONFIDENCE for more details.

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s time for me to make a trip.”

Crankshaft, 10/21/15

At last, this is what this dull mayoral campaign needs to liven it up: huge hellpits forming in town, threatening to swallow up the citizenry! Which candidate can stop the complete implosion of Centerville’s surface area, leaving the whole municipality just a gaping maw into the awful hell-dimension that lurks below the Earth’s surface? Certainly not Ralph Meckler! Why, he fell into the first one, just minutes after it formed! VOTE MAYOR KANE: the only candidate with the experience to defeat the Mole-Demons.

Dennis the Menace, 10/21/15

“What happens if my insides become my outsides, in a great rush of blood and viscera?” Step aside, Dennis: there’s a new menace in town, and he’s arrived with a flourish of nightmarish body horror.

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Mary Worth, 10/14/15

Oh, poop, it looks like this whole week is just going to be Toby and Ian apologizing to each other and reaffirming the majesty of their love. Bummer! At least we get a good closeup on Ian in panel one so we can see his various textures. The thick matt of arm hair poking out from the ends of his sleeves; the undulating chinbeard hair; the bristly, astroturf like consistency of his suit jacket — it’s like you can reach out and feel him. Comics need this sort of totally immersive experience if they’re going to compete against other entertainment media in the modern marketplace.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/14/15

I like the knowing glance Snuffy is giving the reader, as he sits next to the hand-cranked ice cream maker that has for years met his family’s dessert needs but will now be immediately abandoned in favor of Silas’s fancy softserve machine. “Eh?” he seems to be asking us. “Eh? Modernity?”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/14/15

Welp, looks like the “Morgans get steeply discounted stuff” phase of this storyline is done with, and now Rex is faced with the humdrum reality of family practice medicine: dealing with patients and their eager buttholes.

Spider-Man, 10/14/15

THANKS A LOT DEBLASIO