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Slylock Fox, 8/13/12

Today’s strip truly shows the limits of Slylock’s philosophy, and indeed of his life’s work. Sure, his keen powers of observation have allowed him to easily identify the defects in the new royal timepiece. But his simplistic deduction can’t help uncover the structural defects in Princess Pussycat’s government that have contributed to this debacle. What are the flaws in the government contracting process that allowed the monarch to spend thousands of tax coins on a luxury item that doesn’t even work properly? Shouldn’t there have been some sort of inspection before money changed hands? Does the freakish long-necked bird-person have a good reputation in the clock-building world, or did he get this job by personal connections or through a bribe to a lower-level government official? And of course, now that he’s gotten that sack of money, it’ll take more than a little ratiocination to claw it back from him, shoddy workmanship or no.

B.C., 8/13/12

Oh, the silly, superstitious cave-man, running off in terror because he believed a bleached, dried human skull was speaking to him! In fact, the talking was coming from two giant ants inside the skull, and they were talking to each other, in English, which isn’t something to be scared of at all.

Dennis the Menace, 8/13/12

Dennis is eager to close this deal, since he knows from experience that his thoughts and opinions aren’t worth anything.

Ziggy, 8/13/12

In order to feel better about himself, Ziggy has started watching the Failure Channel.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/13/12

Say, do you enjoy the overall oppressive sense of gloom that hovers over Funky Winkerbean, but feel that the strip falls down on the job wen it comes to having its less appealing characters sharing way too much personal information and whining about not getting enough action? Well, today’s strip is for you, my friend!

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 7/29/12

I don’t even want to get into the sad, sick nature of Slylock and Cassandra’s relationship, in which she’s sexily guilty so long as Slylock can show that it’s not impossible for her to have committed a crime. I more want to point out three actual crimes happening in this panel right now: (1) that seagull is stealing Max’s hot dog (in a world where a fox can arrest a cat, surely he can also arrest a bird); (2) that stand is grotesquely overcharging for one-scoop ice cream cones at $5 a pop; and (3) Slylock thinks wearing a cape with no shirt is somehow an acceptable fashion choice, what the hell.

Panel from the Lockhorns, 7/29/12

The meaning of this Lockhorns panel is 100% opaque to me, and since Lockhorns panels are generally not subtle, I assume that there’s some bit of cultural ephemera that I’m not hip to that this is a reference to. Is there a popular show about an identity-stealing person with a shaved head, on the TV? Am I actually too square to get the pop culture references in the Lockhorns? Or is this just some weirdness about how … Leroy is bald and thinks people pretending to be bald are pretending to be him? No, still doesn’t make any sense. I like the way the bald guy is theatrically musing on his coffee options and pretending he can’t hear Leroy and Loretta’s insane mutterings, though.

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Slylock Fox, 7/23/12

You know, if I had a time machine, I’d probably do a lot of prep research before voyaging into the past, getting down all the details I could to make sure I go to just the right time and see the most awesome and interesting things … at least, for my first few trips. After that I imagine I’d get kind of sloppy, as one tends to do when things become old hat. Instead of going down to the library and spending hours figuring out the exact place and time where I could, say, catch Napoleon alone to have a few moment’s intimate conversation with him, I’d just hit Wikipedia real fast to make sure I have the date right and head off into history. I mean, whatever, everyone today just knows the Wright Brothers as “the Wright Brothers” and I just want to go sit out on the dunes with a cooler full of beer and watch them fly that crazy plane. I don’t really give a shit which one was at the controls, you know? It’s not like I’m going to get close enough to talk to them and, oh, I don’t know, alter the course of history and disrupt the timeline, Slylock.

Meanwhile, speaking of disruptions, why exactly is Slylock hanging out on the lawn of Count Weirdly’s mountaintop castle-lair with a bunch of kids and some tie-wearing duck? Were they planning on sneaking through Weirdly’s labs while the Count was away, forgetting that time travelers can always just return to the present moments after they left? Clearly Slylock has been caught off guard and decided to pull this “Loser can’t tell his Wright brothers apart” dick move to distract from his own misconduct.

Beetle Bailey, 7/22/12

“Puritanical” is not a word I usually associate with Private Bailey, but here he is, worrying about the coarsening effects of the Internet on our language, right as he’s getting punched in the throat.