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Slylock Fox, 5/20/07

All of Slylock’s fancy brain-thinkin’ seems to have gone to waste here: it’s pretty obvious that the sadly un-alliteratively-named turtle is the only one gripped by guilt for what he’s done. Perhaps he never imagined himself embarking on a life of crime; maybe he just needed to pay his gambling debts, or score some tiny turtle smack; maybe now he’s thinking about how tough life’s going to be for a turtle in the big house, or at least wishing he was able to run away from the cops a little faster. At any rate, he’s just about the only Slylock Fox villain I’ve ever seen look remorseful; usually Shady Shrew or Slick Smitty or Count Weirdly react to being snagged by the long paw of the law with a smug, shit-eating grin, knowing that they’ll be out on the street committing more petty crimes in a pointlessly convoluted fashion soon enough.

Also, I think there may be Fourth Amendment issues involved in this police station’s “check all suspects for ear mites” policy.

I’m too lazy to figure any of the differences in the “six differences” puzzle, but I’m pretty sure the dude on the bed is dead in both versions of the cartoon. At least he appears to have died happy. The cat seems pleased about this situation, but presumably it will change its mind when there isn’t anything left of the corpse to eat.

Judge Parker, 5/20/07

This is clear illustration that more than $2.5 million in the checking account + a total lack of impulse control = big, big trouble. For a while, many have believed that Roger has misrepresented Rachel’s dementia and his right to dispose of her property; today, I’m beginning to suspect that this isn’t even Roger at all, as he’s clearly peeled off his fake mustache as he heads out the door (and somehow managed to become even more unattractively simian-looking in the process).

Crock, 5/20/07

It’s a sad day indeed when God Almighty’s awesome power of omniscience falls out of favor in the popular mind and must thus be rebranded as “heavencams.” Of course, since He created all of time and space, He really only has Himself to blame.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/16/07

I’m pretty sure I don’t get this. Is it supposed to be funny that General Halftrack is all excited about his “fan club,” only to find to his disappointment that it consists of a single person? But really, wouldn’t having someone form a fan club composed only of himself still be kind of flattering? It would have at least made sense in the context of the Beetle Bailey milieu if the “General Halftrack fan club” had been founded by Lt. Fuzz as another outlet for his loathsome sycophancy, but adding a third panel in which the towheaded kissup actually appeared would have apparently required too much additional painstaking detail work on the background to make it worthwhile.

Kudzu, 5/16/07

Ha ha! Man, Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson only broke up, what, six months ago? How do these guys come up with zingers like these so quickly?

Judge Parker, 5/16/07

Wait, I knew that the Cabots were rich, but … Cabot Island? “Oh, it’s just a little place … they used to call it ‘Sicily’ before we bought it.”

By the way, Roger, I don’t care if you do you own your own island, no man with a mullet as stringy as yours should wipe his mouth with a napkin that daintily. It’s just against the natural order of things.

Mark Trail, 5/16/07

Man, I sure hope panel two gives us a hint about the Wicked Commissioners’ secret airport bird-attraction scheme: they’re going to regurgitate worms and grubs all over the runway in a bid to woo their feathered friends and disrupt air traffic! That’s why the dude’s taking his jacket off in the final panel. You don’t want to get half-digested larvae all over your nice suit.

Phantom, 5/16/07

Oh, by the way, the Phantom has started a new storyline that involves bickering wealthy white people on a huge yacht. And thank goodness for that, really, because the other serial comics have been terribly neglectful of the dramatic possibilities that could be built around money and the dilettantes who squabble over it.

Gil Thorp, 5/16/07

I had some kind of juvenile “pitcher/catcher” joke ready to go here, but then I realized that nothing I could say about this strip could possibly top Dean Booth’s take on it.

Ziggy, 5/16/07

THIS COMIC HURTS MY SOUL.

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Archie, 5/12/07

Hey, Archie creative team, do you think I like making joke after joke about how your comic strip reads like it was written by a computer that almost understands the humor and emotions of biological life forms, but doesn’t quite? Well, I don’t, OK? So just stop writing jokes that sound like they were written by a computer, damn it. I mean … shiny … penny … Betty … glowing for some reason … WHAT THE HELL. CUT IT OUT.

It’s also possible that the lady in the third panel isn’t actually Betty, but some new one-off character named “Penny,” and that everyone looks alike in this strip and the only way to tell them apart is by their hair. In the interest of saying something nice: those are some sweet-ass pants on whoever that girl is in the third panel. (That’s sweet-ass pants, not sweet ass-pants. I mean, they may be sweet ass-pants, but we can’t see the back, so I’m not going to take a position on that.)

Judge Parker, 5/12/07

Roger has already been established as a villain because others have been talking smack about him before he arrived, plus he’s astoundingly hideous. But, you know, a less careful reader might assume that Rachel really had succumbed to dementia “these days” — she seemed pretty sharp the last time we saw her, but of course that was more than three months ago. Except that, as near as I can tell, those three months have covered less than 24 hours of strip time. DON’T THINK WE’RE NOT KEEPING TRACK, JUDGE PARKER OVERLORDS! Anyway, it looks like we’re in for a Very Special Elder Abuse storyline as Groves and Rachel are held captive by this evil refugee from the Allman Brothers Band.

As you may or may not know, Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, M.D., are both written by the same guy (Woody Wilson), and both are currently in the midst of storylines involving the dissipated, ungrateful sons of the rich attempting to protect their inheritance from ancillary family members. Wild speculation in the comments as to the motivation is encouraged.