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Apartment 3-G, 4/25/11

In a bold departure from the usual Apartment 3-G fare, the current male guest star, Dan Diller, is not a sandy-haired clean-cut young white man, but is rather a sandy-haired clean-cut young white man wearing an obviously fake beard and wig. Thank goodness non-wigged/bearded but still sandy-haired, clean-cut, and white Rick is here to keep us anchored to what we understand to be A3G reality! In addition to being a clean-cut young man in a suit, Rick is also apparently pretty relaxed about telling everyone about the mental health practitioners he’s seeing. Of course, this strip’s only known therapist is notorious quack Professor Ari P., and one assumes that he’s already blabbed to anyone who will listen about Rick’s depression/anorexia/borderline personality disorder, so there’s no point in keeping a lid on it.

B.C., 4/25/11

So the bird has covered the turtle with … sexy feathers? So a bird will have sex with the turtle? Or maybe another turtle, which will be aroused by the feathers? I’m kind of beginning to worry about B.C., to be perfectly honest.

Pluggers, 4/25/11

Even total strangers are pretty psyched about pluggers’ impending death!

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Slylock Fox, 4/18/11

When your cartoon is populated by anthropomorphic animals, you eventually run into awkwardness when you need to introduce some non- or semi-anthropomorphic animals, a conundrum known to philosophers as the “Goofy-Pluto Paradox.” Here, for instance, we have a a gaggle of clothed, house-dwelling animals confronting a pair of naked (albeit still bipedal, or at least upright) animals who are accused of doing animal-type things like eating tomatoes on the vine. Are the snake and raccoon meant to be understood as mere beasts? Or do they belong to some caste that is oppressed and excluded from Slylock-world society due to prejudice, despite their ability to reason? Either way, once Slylock fingers the guilty party, it looks like he’ll be subject to brutal mob justice rather than taken under the gentle wing of owl law.

B.C., 4/18/11

Speaking of sentient animals, here’s a sentient bird who chose a bad hiding place and now is going to be devoured alive! That … that’s the joke, I guess?

Mark Trail, 4/18/11

You might find the premise of this strip incredibly unrealistic, but think about it: if someone were so unable to understand human nature that they would consider Mark a good guy to approach with a “personal problem,” then he’d probably also have trouble relating even to the people closest to him.

Pluggers, 4/18/11

Yes, these hideous mutant abominations will continue to mate with one another and produce ever more freakish offspring — no matter what our elected officials in Washington say or do. I think our only hope is to call in the military.

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Mark Trail, 2/28/11

“His name is Mark Trail and he is American.” God, has any phrase ever been so perfectly calculated to make your proud to be from the U.S. — or, if you aren’t from the U.S, to make you ashamed for being a filthy foreigner who can’t vote for the same President that Mark Trail votes for? (Mark Trail casts his ballot with his fist, so that there’s never any question of “voter intent”.) My heart was so swelled with patriotism upon reading this that I almost missed the insane implication that underlies this statement, namely that Mark somehow drifted in his small boat to another country, an exotic tropical island inhabited by white people. Who are these mysterious tribeswomen? Why have they dragged Mark back to their home rather than seeking medical attention for that festering black wound on his forehead? What oppressive regime causes them to fear being discovered in even this half-assed act of kindness? Why does Mark keep an autographed photo of his wife in his wallet? Is it in case he forgets her name, or forgets which of the baffling and terrifying females in his life he’s married to?

Crock, 2/28/11

God help me, I have to say that I like almost everything about this Crock strip. I like the way the camel is drawn to some kind of realistic scale, dwarfing the bartender and all the human-sized furniture in the strip. I like his nonviolent but apparently extremely effective threat to slobber all over our speciesist barkeep. But mostly I like the dialogue-less third panel, in which the camel grins at us triumphantly, with the telltale cartoon bubbles over his head indicating that he’s already well on his way to being drunk. Kudos to you, my soused desert-dwelling friend!

B.C., 2/28/11

Today’s B.C. accidentally raises an interesting question about primitive societies: in tiny early hominid bands — there can’t be more than, what, 10 named characters in the entire B.C. universe, right? — where everyone knew each other intimately, could much of what we think of as crime ever happen?

Apartment 3-G, 2/28/11

Ha, it’s only Monday and Margo is already getting lit. There’s a number of ways this story can end — in recriminations, in violence, in oversharing — and all of them are delicious.