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Slylock Fox, 4/27/20

OK, fine, you know what, “throwing ice cubes at a parade” is an extremely low-grade crime, so I can understand why Slylock did not feel like he needed to personally follow up on the tip they got from a busybody rabbit neighbor or whatever, but: the suspect’s still a wolf, you know? A wolf who could eat Max in one very efficient bite, should he, say, catch the poor sidekick rodent attempting to open a refrigerator door that weighs easily 20 to 30 times more than he does. And yeah, I guess he’s a wolf who’s idea of sinister behavior is throwing ice cubes at a parade, but he’s also a wolf with a visible ham in the fridge who lives in a society where pigs are citizens with rights, so he might be more dangerous than you think.

Six Chix, 4/27/20

Look, it’s not secret that newspaper cartooning isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Sure, we’d like to think we have artistic integrity and all that, but if a nice man from the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association called you up one day and explained how some well-intentioned but overzealous laws about chicken living spaces are really hurting America’s family farms, then suggested a joke for a comic and floated a tidy little sum that might be sent your way upon publication, well, would you really argue that much with him? It’s a pretty good joke!

Dennis the Menace, 4/27/20

The US Postal Service — for which Mr. Wilson worked — began home delivery in 1905, so I don’t think this is true, on any level? Unless … is Mr. Wilson immortal, an eternal being kept alive over the centuries by pure grouchiness? It would explain a lot.

Gasoline Alley, 4/27/20

You know what would really help farmers out? Slavery! Child slavery.

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Mary Worth, 4/18/20

OK, I’m sorry, I’ve been willing to indulge Hugo’s cartoonish Francophilia, but did he really say that Hamilton, America’s most beloved cultural product of the last decade, isn’t as good as some tired-ass cabaret show that’s been running for more than 20 years at a venue that caters strictly to tourists and nostalgists? This will not stand, monsieur. This means war.

Judge Parker, 4/18/20

“We’re all gonna touch each other and stand in each other’s personal space and breathe into each other’s faces and give each other Covid-19! It’s gonna be a blast!”

Six Chix, 4/18/20

Big news, everybody: aliens are real and they’re horny as hell

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Beetle Bailey, 4/7/20

Way back in the mists of time, like the late ’90s and early ’00s, many people looked at the Internet on primitive CRT screens that could only display 256 different colors, which gave rise to a limited “web-safe color palette” made up of shades that you could be sure all your users would see properly. I’m reasonably certain that when I first started this blog in 2004, the colorized comics from King Features still used that palette, which would explain some of the odder coloring choices, like the electric blue sports coats so beloved by the square gentlemen of my late beloved Apartment 3-G.

Anyway, I assume that the anonymous, underpaid comics colorists long ago shifted to accommodate the literally millions of distinct shades that modern monitors and touchscreen devices are capable of displaying, which is why I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that what Cookie is serving up today isn’t a “sloppy joe” as most of us would understand it, i.e., ground beef in a dark red sauce. No, the men of Camp Swampy have their plates running with bright, red, fresh blood, its color picked out of a near-infinite spectrum to indicate that they’ve been offered the still-steaming viscera of something — or someone — who’s been freshly killed.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/7/20

Wow, I have to admit some deep-rooted prejudice that I wasn’t even conscious of holding: I’ve always assumed that Doc Pritchard was a flatlander who ended up in Hootin’ Holler as part of a federal rural medicine program to clear his loans from med school, or maybe he’s just lying low to avoid multiple active malpractice suits. But no, it looks like he’s actually from this place, or at least is tied to its rocky soil via kin; since he’s familiar with their down-home rural ways, that may explain why he’s cheerfully moonlighting as a large-animal vet today.

Six Chix, 4/7/20

Look, the world’s a little crazy right now, so if you have the modestly prominent platform of a day’s share in a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip, why not use it to air out your most petty and specific grievance? Do you believe not only that deep-dish pizza is garbage, but that those assholes from Chicago don’t even really like it? Go ahead and tell the world! What are they going to do, violate “safe at home” orders to come get you?