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Slylock Fox, 3/5/07

Wow, so Slylock Fox is keeping with its overall mystery theme, but seems to have moved from cutesy Encyclopedia Brown-type mysteries to late night Cinemax “erotic thriller”-type mysteries. This shift can probably be attributed to the hiring of the sexy Cassandra Cat, who featured in a previous disturbingly adult installment of the feature. What really ups the squik factor me, honestly, is not merely Cassandra’s bound state, or even the fact that she really was tied up by a “friend”; no, it’s Slylock and Max’s creepy, expressionless, voyeuristic stares. You sort of get the feeling that they’ve been halfway into that window for a while now.

By the way, I didn’t even notice the goldfish, thrashing around on the floor as it dies slowly, until I read the solution to the puzzle. So thanks for making me contemplate that little horror in the midst of this perversion, Mr. Omniscient Upside-Down Slylock Fox Narrator.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/5/07

I’m not sure what Herb’s expression in the final panel is supposed to indicate: that he’s reveling in squinty-eyed glee at his own lame internal joke, or that he’s taking a dump in his pants. Frankly, both scenarios would provide him with roughly equal amounts of dignity.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/5/07

I don’t really have a ton to say about today’s TDIET, except that “Richard Kahane” is none other than faithful reader and occasional commentor Obélix, who scores points for actually making his entry comics-related. Comics Curmudgeon readers have now supplied four or five TDIETs over the past year or so, which may say something about what percentage of this feature’s readership we make up.

Spider-Man, 3/5/07

Sadly, today’s thrilling remote control nabbing makes panel two the most exciting moment in Spider-Man in several weeks. Still, it’s nice to see that Brendan Fraser is still getting work.

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Herb and Jamaal and Wizard of Id, 3/3/07

OK, cartoonists, white and black alike, we get it, we get it. Rap music is a defining genre for a generation of young people, black and white alike, but you just don’t care for it. Feel free to intersperse your rants against rap among your rants about the fact that young people don’t seem to find the comics relevant anymore.

At least the admonishment in the Wizard of Id makes some vague sort of sense, since it takes place centuries before the birth of hip-hop. Presumably the rap aficionado is a time traveler from the future, being urged to keep quiet about his aesthetic choices lest he somehow alter the timeline and create a twentieth century Earth ruled by Hitler, or possibly by KRS-One.

Gil Thorp, 3/3/07

More proof that Marty Moon is from Mars and the Lady Mudlarks are from Venus. “Nothing seems to bother the girls”? Jeez, Marty, do you think they always look like a bunch of numb-eyed, emotionally stunted zombies? Oh, wait, this is Gil Thorp, I suppose they do.

Mark Trail, 3/3/07

Mark’s doing exactly the right thing here. When I took a swim safety class in high school, they taught us that you can save a drowning person just by believing in their abilities hard enough. Also, in a situation like this, you should never leave your breakfast unattended, because your bacon might get cold.

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Marvin, 3/2/07

All right, Marvin, listen to me: “like that popular toy” isn’t something that any human being would ever in a gazillion years say. An actual human being would say “like Dancin’ Elmo” (and substitute the actual brand name of whatever animatronic Taiwanese-manufactured hunk of plush crap is being demanded by all the little squallers this year for “Dancin’ Elmo”). The only situation in which you’d say “like that popular toy” is if you had a law firm on retainer that was terrified of angering some major toy manufacturing concern vetting your dialogue before you speak it.

Of course, these are all Marvin’s thought balloons, and I suppose that we don’t really know how pre-vocal infants think, so it’s possible that their internal narrative sounds like it was composed by a committee of overcautious corporate lawyers. But I kind of doubt it.

By the way, Floppet, if the way I’m interpreting that last panel is correct, as soon as Marvin starts walking around and shaking his diapered butt vaguely in time to the Barney song, you’ll be finding yourself in a box at the Salvation Army in short order.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/2/07

I find it charming that Ezekiel’s mom looks so horrified that her son is apparently making the essentially arbitrary choice of underwear style by a somewhat whimsical method. Presumably, if she knew the truth — that Ezekiel had gone through some horribly misguided career-selection algorithm that boiled things down to two possible life paths, one of which involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in education expenses for her, the other involving her son being repeatedly punched in the head until he’s left a near vegetable at the age of thirty, and that he’s using random chance to determine which road to take — she’d be totally fine with it.

Family Circus, 3/2/07

P.J. from the Family Circus + pornstar mustache = my weekend ruined, thanks a lot.