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Slylock Fox, 10/17/23

Ahh, an idyllic barnyard scene, featuring various animals relaxing and frolicking with one another, showing no sings of the advanced cognitive abilities necessary to, say, operate a helicopter or have strong opinions about the display and curation of antiquities. What changes might be in store? Could they have something to do with the official Slylock Fox Facebook account’s Word of the Day on Saturday, “Singularity: A hypothetical point in the future when technological growth becomes uncontrollable”? Are we left to imagine that most humans transcended physical form into pure digital energy when this Singularity occurred, leaving behind a few baffled or insane remnants like Count Weirdly and Slick Smitty, with the animals rising to fill the gap in our absence? Or did the technology accidentally enhance the animals instead, bringing them to our level and setting up an inevitable conflict that we lost? Much to think about.

Hi and Lois, 10/17/23

Speaking of change and transformation, it was just last month that we learned that Trixie was beginning to experience physical growth for the first time in her decades of existence. And now Chip has begun doing a chore than has hitherto been his father’s domain! Looks like the progression of linear time is finally catching up with the Flagstons, which is really too bad for them because it means they’ll probably all be dead soon.

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Dick Tracy, 10/16/23

Dick Tracy loves gadgets, of course, but I assume he’s bored and vaguely disgusted with fancy “forensics,” because they allows detectives to learn information about criminals with zero investigatory violence to speak of. But his face in panel three looks truly deranged, like a lot of horrible things are falling into place for him. “Fluids, eh? You’re telling me this fancy detecting machine needs bodily fluids from suspects in order to work? I bet I know how I can get some.”

Slylock Fox, 10/16/23

Today, as Cassandra attempts to liberate a plundered piece of cultural heritage and return it to the few remaining Egyptian humans left after the animalpocalypse, I find myself contemplating Slylock’s customized “Fox-Flyer” helicopter. Is it truly “his,” as the caption refers to it, meaning that he’s a private contractor who owns his own equipment, insisting on high fees from the Forest Kingdom’s treasury in order to provide the law enforcement capacity that the state lacks? Or is he a public servant with enough clout that he demands the government pay for a series of whimsically fox-themed devices that enhance his personal brand? Either way, it seems he has more in common with his supposed enemy Count Weirdly than he would care to admit.

Hi and Lois, 10/16/23

This is great. The whole Flagston family is angry and sad! That’s the joke!

The Lockhorns, 10/16/23

You guys, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you: THE LOCKHORNS ARE MILLENNIALS

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Blondie, 10/10/23

I once saw an interview with John Singleton and Stephanie Allain, the producers of the movie Hustle and Flow, about a scene where the characters kick a woman out of the house they’re living in, and how physical to make that confrontation, and they settled on using as a model Fred Flintstone gently yet firmly dropping Dino on the front stoop in the opening credits of The Flintstones. Fred’s act in turn has a context in the time not so long ago when people’s pets freely roamed outside much of the time and in particular were not expected to stay indoors at night, though dogs at least usually got their own little house in the yard for shelter. This was an arrangement that might still hold in rural areas of the U.S. today but has been unheard of in cities and suburbs long enough that I found it puzzling when I watched decades-old Flintstones reruns in the early ’80s; but legacy newspaper comics are the most ossified form of cultural production known to science, and so Blondie was still sticking with it as late as 2007. Today, finally, in the futuristic year 2023, we have confirmation that Daisy lives inside full-time with the Bumsteads (though frankly we knew even back then she slept indoors some nights). Honestly the most unrealistic thing happening here is that Elmo knows what a “doghouse” is.

Gasoline Alley, 10/10/23

I don’t want to sound like a killjoy but, talking bears aside, the moral of this Gasoline Alley plot seems to be “if you find a child and don’t know where their parents are, and the child seems to like you, you can use trickery and force to stop the evil government from attempting to reunite the child with said parents,” which seems, uh, not great? Obviously it would be worse if anyone read Gasoline Alley and it had any chance of influencing any opinions about anything, but still.

Dennis the Menace, 10/10/23

Setting whatever menace Dennis thinks he’s perpetrating here aside, we need to acknowledge his “dentist” is clearly just Mr. Wilson, who has “disguised” himself by shaving his mustache. As a retired postal carrier, Mr. Wilson lacks any of the skills necessary to be a safe dental practitioner, but I fear that’s exactly the point.

Hi and Lois, 10/10/23

Sure, working as cartoonist for a legacy newspaper comic is probably not that creatively fulfilling and doesn’t pay very well either. But when it comes to turning an annoying experience you had into a “joke” that you can be sure literally hundreds of people will read, it simply can’t be beat.