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Six Chix, 2/8/15

I prefer to think that this episode takes place in the Slylock Fox world in which sapient animals have risen up and taken over — maybe several generations later, when the few remaining human holdouts, the Slick Smitties and Count Weirdlies, have finally gone extinct. With no humans left and none even in living memory, it’s no surprise our talking mountain goat can’t answer any questions about the vast vaguely simian face carved into the side of this cliff. George Washington’s shocked, staring expression is particularly poignant here, as he contemplates his state as a baffling final reminder of a vanished race.

Panels from The Lockhorns, 2/8/15

I got not one but two genuine laughs out of today’s multipanel Sunday Lockhorns. I’m definitely curious about the backstory to Leroy’s grim online mission in the top panel — does he have his own blog, or popular Twitter feed, which attracts Internet haters? Or does he feel compelled to wade into the comment sections of local newspaper articles or, God forbid, Wikipedia talk pages and correct people who are being wrong on the Internet? The second panel is more self-explanatory: Like Dante, Leroy and Loretta journeyed into the bowels of Hell, where God punishes in eternal agony the souls of the wicked, and got married, in a ceremony presumably conducted by actual, literal demons.

Panel from Mark Trail, 2/8/15

Wow, Mark really cares about whelk purity. “Hey Mark, look what I found on the beach!” “That’s not a true whelk, Rusty!” [slaps it out of his hand and into the sea]

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Spider-Man, 1/31/15

This week’s Spider-Man has involved some confusing business about Peter sauntering into the emergency room after a robot fell on him and then sauntering out again diagnosed with a cracked rib and I honestly don’t know enough about his spider-powers (the proportional powers of … a spider) to know whether rib-breaking is a thing that could happen to him, and so whether this is all genuine boring medical talk or a boring ruse to protect his boring secret identity. The fact that the fracture in the x-ray extends beyond the rib itself seems to indicate the latter? Either way, Mysterio lets the wall-crawler know who’s boss by crumpling the x-ray up and fucking it.

Gil Thorp, 1/31/15

In any other narrative context, an athlete whispering, essentially, “Please! I hurt so bad!!” to a trainer would be a cue to start a Serious Issue Story about performance-enhancing drugs of some sort. But since the person being implored is the dorky student manager who only cares about fundamentals and sweater vests and branding, probably he’ll just get some advice about dribbling or something. Gil Thorp can be a pretty disappointing comic strip most of the time, guys.

Six Chix, 1/31/15

You know, Six Chix usually manages to fly under my radar, but it’s had a banner week this week, all bloated corpses and petty grievances and other bloated corpses. And this is a pretty solid capper: a woman dressed all in black, like a burglar or a puppetteer, attempts to buy a robotic simulacrum of a loving family, only to be rebuffed in favor of her own cat, who is in turn repulsed and terrified by the android’s steely embrace.

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Six Chix, 1/30/15

Oh, man, kids today, am I right? Always conceptualizing the food they eat as aesthetic experiences worthy of being shared with others, am I right? In my day, we saw food for what it was: a disgusting mass of organic matter that, if you were lucky, had been pumped full of preservatives to slow down its rot. This’ll show those punks who get so excited about putting pictures of their brunch on the MySpace or whatever. Hey young people: those Eggs Benedict are basically a festering corpse, when you think about it!

Hi and Lois, 1/30/15

But … but …

there are only five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries

you are being screwed here, Chip

Azerbaijan does not count

it is clearly part of the Caucausus, not Central Asia

no wonder these kids are doing so badly on their standardized tests