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Slylock Fox, 4/16/12

The most hilarious Slylock Fox mystery solutions are the ones that rely on animal biology. I mean, in practice all Slylock mysteries actually rely on just arresting the only suspiciously named serial criminal who appears in the strip and/or assuming that anyone who’s been accused of a crime is in fact guilty, but the details needed to trump up charges against these people are always important, and so it’s great when those details involve, say, the average heart rate of a typical rat. The typical rat, of course, does not walk on its hind legs, wear clothes or “bad to the bone”-style sunglasses, live in a house, or grow to a freakishly enormous size. Rats also do not usually have the cognitive ability to either deliberately sabotage advanced traffic management systems or derive twisted satisfaction from the automotive carnage that results from such mischief. But sure, Rodney’s heart couldn’t have been measured at 72 beats per minute, right? Say, where’d you learn that little factoid about rats, Slylock? Did you read it in a book or look it up on the Internet? Because those are totally things that foxes do.

Apartment 3-G, 4/16/12

Tommie and Nina had a conversation earlier about how Nina’s mother died when Nina was a little girl and she was raised by her wonderful dad and that’s why she never learned to have lady-emotions. The fact that Margo seems to know a bit about this implies that she and Tommie have been comparing notes on the Gaines’ marital dysfunction back at Apartment 3-G, except obviously Tommie knows not to speak to Margo unless spoken to and why would Margo bother speaking to Tommie, ugh, so boring. Therefore, I have to assume that Margo and Scott are desperately trying to stave off their drunken lust for one another by just toasting things at random. “Here’s to Nina … and Nina’s father! She’s got a dad, right? Still on good terms with him? And hey, how about whoever decided to paint the underside of these yellow cabinets blue? Bold choice! Let’s toast that person!”

Mary Worth, 4/16/12

Mary Worth holds her teacup in a death grip. “So far,” she thinks, “I’ve heard about the unpleasant alcoholic whose life Nola destroyed, and some smelly vagrant, but I haven’t heard anything about my advice at all. Nola can’t possibly be on the true path to righteousness until she submits to my will.” Mary’s so focused on Nola’s failure to acknowledge her meddling primacy that she hasn’t even noticed the woman’s disproportionately large eyes, which probably indicate that “Nola” is a grey alien wearing an ill-fitting wig.

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Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/3/12

Hmm, hey, did someone decide to have a Best Sidelong Glance In A Soap Opera Strip contest and somehow NOT ask me to be a judge??? That’s OK, because I enjoy each glance on its own terms and don’t feel a need to quantify them or pick one as the “best.” Each has its own charms! For instance, I like how Mary is looking somewhat hopefully at Jeff, hoping that he’ll look past the theatrically weeping televangelist and see the more general analogy she’s trying to draw. You know, sometimes you get wake-up calls in this life! Like, when your asexual not-girlfriend keeps rejecting your marriage proposals! Maybe that would be a sign to wake up and move on with your life? Not just come over to her house and bother her with your jabbering while she’s trying to watch the bad man crying on the teevee?

June’s glance, meanwhile, is more one of mounting panic, as she realizes that Rex is about to be zero help in dealing with this sexy not-dressed drunken lady who’s demanding more booze, for drunkenness. “Sure … give me a minute,” June says, backing slowly towards the liquor cabinet, not taking her eyes off Iris lest she suddenly and violently attempt to drink the lamp.

Dick Tracy, 4/3/12

Speaking of contests, it appears that Dick Tracy heard that Mark Trail was going to depict the world of marijuana use and/or distribution in a hilariously square fashion and thought, “Whoah there, I’ll bet we can do them one better!”

Slylock Fox, 4/3/12

This is pretty much the saddest Slylock Fox since that guy brought his skeletonized fish to the vet. In fact, it may be even sadder, because while that guy will probably move on with his life eventually and the fish is past caring, these two star-crossed aqua-lovers are stuck for their short lives in their too-small bowls, without even a fake treasure chest to hide behind while pressing their lips against the glass and imagining what it must be like to feel the physical touch of someone who really loves them.

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Slylock Fox, 3/26/12

Never let it be said that Slylock only uses his detective services to buttress the prevailing capitalistic power structure! Count Weirdly can drive around with his sinister magnet and cheerful octopus sidekick all day, wrenching valuable steel and iron out of the skyscrapers where the wealthy gather, cackling all the while. Who cares? The Count himself is a member of the aristocracy, so let’s just let the rich fight it out. But these easily terrified homeless beavers — they must have their feelings soothed, through comforting scientific explanations, so that they know that they were never in any real danger (except for danger from death by exposure, when their two wagons’ worth of cans don’t garner enough to pay for a flophouse for the evening).

Mary Worth, 3/26/12

Speaking of America’s tragic homelessness problem, words cannot express how completely giddy I am at the prospect of a week-long summit between Suddenly Conscience-Having Nola and this magical hobo. Presumably, having been softened up by a drunken tirade of abuse from her latest victim, Nola will learn the true meaning of kindness from this man, who, despite having a beard so filthy and ill-kempt it can only be described as “lumpy,” still takes a moment out of his busy day of shouting at invisible demons and not freezing to death to spare a kind word for a weeping businesslady. Will Nola repay this act of generosity by volunteering down at the soup kitchen, or let him camp out in her sweet office, or perhaps move on with her life a better person and never once spare a thought to any existence this homeless person might have outside of the few moments he spent interacting with her? Yeah, probably the last one.

Apartment 3-G, 3/26/12

Margo being an all-heels all-the-time gal fits in pretty well with her personality and whatever we can glimpse of her cultural milieu through the fog of Eisenhower Era-ish art, but I was still kind of surprised to hear her say it, probably because we almost never get to see her below the solar plexus, so who knows what her shoes look like? Does she even have feet?