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Archive: Crock

122

Good strips Saturday

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The Lockhorns, 6/14/25

Once, not long after we moved to Los Angeles, we were driving with friends through a historic neighborhood in Pasadena, full of Craftsman-style homes with neat, well-tended lawns, and we turned a corner and suddenly saw an utterly horrifying looking creature — Google Image Search would later confirm that it was a coyote with some kind of condition that had caused all of its hair to fall out — taking a big dump smack in the middle of one of said lawns, in broad daylight. It made eye contact with us and had the exact same expression on its face that Leroy has here, which is why I have to dub this Lockhorns one of the greatest ever made.

Mary Worth, 6/14/25

How are Wilbur and Dawn handling the fallout from the Belle Situation? Well, they’re sitting in pitch darkness, binging on fast food, and telling each other stories about all the terrible relationships they’ve had with dangerous, abusive people. This is … healthy behavior on their part, maybe? Healthier than usual? Less unhealthy?

Crock, 6/14/25

It’s crazy to call Crock an “innovator,” but this strip is from 1997, before most people had ever used the internet, and yet it manages to perfectly capture the experience of being online: you log on, and you get hit in the face with a bunch of water. Pretty sure all comic strips about the web in the subsequent 28 years have been downhill from this.

171

Hell is for children

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Luann, 6/9/25

Back when I was last reading Luann regularly, a decade ago, the whole deal with Toni’s niece Shannon was that she was a hellion but that was mostly because her dad, Toni’s brother, was a flaky, neglectful actor who was always dumping his daughter with his sister with little or no notice so he could do cool actor stuff. Well, Shannon’s still a hellion, but now apparently her dad isn’t neglectful at all, but is rather a dedicated dad who knows his daughter is the most important thing in his life, and also his acting career is going nowhere so honestly why not pay attention to his daughter, I guess. Not sure what Shannon’s excuse is for her irritating behavior anymore!

Crock, 6/9/25

Nobody seems to have ever produced a detailed timeline of Crock’s characters and lore, and I must confess that, despite my authority within the world of newspaper comics, I don’t have all the details either. I’m not sure when Grossie and Maggot’s beloved (?) son Otis made his debut in the strip; was this installment, which apparently ran in 1997 according to the copyright date, the one that heralded his coming, or is this some other kid, who they (as the dialogue heavily implies) ate?

Slylock Fox, 6/9/25

We humans read the hints in Slylock Fox about the great Uprising that heralded the animalpocalypse and shudder at thoughts of the bloodbath, with the suddenly uplifted animals dishing out brutal revenge for a thousand centuries of abuse at the hands of H. sapiens. Less explored, but certainly germane, is the animal-on-animal battle that must’ve ensued in the aftermath as the beasts fought with one another for access to the humans’ stuff. Perhaps the first rudimentary animal legal codes were developed on the fly to resolve such conflicts peaceably, with Slylock and Max still occasionally tasked with enforcing the Rule of Finders Keepers, the oldest law the animals respect.

125

Mostly kind Sunday

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Crock, 6/1/25

Imagine if you petitioned Almighty God for a full accounting of all the evil you’ve done in your life. This is information that He, being omniscient, has at His fingertips, and, moreover, because He is omnibenevolent, he reveals your sins to you as a spreadsheet, the most perfect and versatile data presentation and manipulation format ever created. I usually hate on Crock, but I gotta say, as a real Excel head, I’m a fan of this one.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 6/1/25

A very realistic touch here is that in this pose the lithe yoga girlies have their foot fully up on their thighs, demonstrating a level of flexibility that Leroy and Loretta have not yet achieved. It’s not realistic that Loretta appears to just be having a conversation with Leroy at full volume in the middle of a packed yoga class, but I find it very funny nonetheless.

Judge Parker, 6/1/25

Oh, are you tired of Judge Parker strips where the characters just hang out together and whine about their various problems? Well, what if there was a strip where they hung out together and whined about refusing to talk about their various problems, huh? Would it make it any better if pretty horses were involved?