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Slylock Fox, 7/13/08

Justice for Cassandra! There’s nothing illegal about walking your dog in painfully high heels and a ludicrously short skirt, and there’s nothing illegal about huffing glue and rooting around in the back seats of taxicabs to see if anyone left anything valuable there. If you don’t want your precious gems studding the collars of local pets and/or S&M bottoms, you should probably keep better track of them.

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing: the fact that there’s a mouse crawling around on the back of the dog owner in the top Six Differences panel, or the many unsettling possibilities as to where that mouse might have gone in the bottom panel.

Judge Parker, 7/13/08

“Sam and Steve shop for golf clubs,” scheduled to run for the six to eight weeks, will make you long for the days of such exciting Judge Parker fare as “Raju gets a makeover,” “Marie sprains her ankle,” and “Sophie recites global warming data she found on the Internet in an unsettling monotone.”

Crankshaft, 7/13/08

It’s nice to see Crankshaft trying to fill the void left by the departure of They’ll Do It Every Time, but the execution seems to lack a certain zing.

Dennis the Menace, 7/13/08

“Meditating” = “high as a kite,” obviously.

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Maybe it’s the approach of yet another announced “sell-by” date, or the challenge to “knock [its author] off the page”, but suddenly everybody in the comics is trying to muscle in on the territory of For Better or For Worse. And since the funny page is such a vicious nest of vipers, every strip has picked out its own vulnerability to exploit:

Judge Parker, 7/1/2008

“Twenty-five thousand and one dollars, Sam, not a penny less! Real money, too — I mean Canadian dollars.”

Spider-Man, 7/1/2008

Meanwhile, Spidey hones his use of wordplay as a substitute for plot development. With his back to the audience and botched delivery, he looks like a strong contender to snatch Foob‘s crown.

Sally Forth, 7/1/2008

The Forths’ strategy targets the famed Foob flashback technique. Sorry, Forths — yours is still far too effective to compete.

Mandrake, 7/1/2008

Hey, look who’s here! Mandrake retains the egregious stereotyping of founding author Lee Falk, but it’s not aiming for The Phantom, or even Foob. With its dapper hero, hot babe, and low-water-pressure storyline, this strip has Rex Morgan, MD squarely in its sights.

Hey! Too much comic goodness for just one post today — stay tuned!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Fists aplenty as the new week explodes with action! Let’s dive in:

Judge Parker, 6/30/2008

“Cheatham House” is a good choice to publish this novel — there may be rough bloody justice on the dust jacket, but it’s 400 pages of contract negotiations on the inside. Manly stalwart Sam Driver is up to the task, with the proviso he won’t have to kiss any icky girls.

Mark Trail, 6/30/2008

“Unpredictable” Kelly Welly closes the deal on a week of foreshadowing, planting good Moss Green in the good green moss.

The Phantom, 6/30/2008

Ghost-who-trespasses got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Dick Tracy, 6/30/2008

Dick’s high tech is stymied again, and all he can do is wave his tiny fist in panel 2. He’s the Ted Forth of crimefighters.

— Uncle Lumpy