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Spider-Man, 6/17/12

You get to a point with these Newspaper Spider-Man villains where you just give up on them ever being actually fearsome and embrace their camp value. Thus I was genuinely delighted to see that Clown-9, in addition to being a goofy dope who drives a duck car and thinks a high-powered squirt gun is threatening and has no higher ambitions of evil than disrupting a Broadway play, also thinks “not” jokes are funny.

Still, the final panel worries me, delightful as it is to see “SPIDEY: 0” written out explicitly. Is Clown-9 suddenly transforming from a lovable weirdo into something truly terrifying? Is he gaining super-strength, Hulk-style? Is he unveiling some kind of super-weapon? Is he renouncing “not” jokes, which Spidey loves almost as much as he does?

Panel from Slylock Fox, 6/17/12

Whoops, sorry about the permanent injury you suffered from being dragged around by the ears, wholly innocent rabbit! I guess the lesson here is that you shouldn’t act twitchy around cops in Slylock’s thuggish police state.

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Slylock Fox, 6/11/12

“Hmm, yes, that is an interesting fact, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, about tadpoles not having legs. But did you know that adult amphibians, like Mr. Buford Bullfrog, breathe through their skin? Which means that they’d never smear ‘moisturizing’ gunk on themselves, because it would be a death sentence! So why would Mr. Bullfrog have stolen the moisturizer in the first place, hmm? It just doesn’t add up!” This is what Buford Bullfrog’s lawyer would say, if he had a lawyer, if defendants in Slylock-world were actually allowed decent representation. But no, they’re just dragged into court and forced to sit wide-eyed in terror as Slylock plays his little ratiocination games and everyone laughs. Then presumably comes the summary execution.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/11/12

Try as he might, Snuffy can’t break through the codes of sexual shame so prevalent in his community and tell his best friend that he was molested by a senator.

Mark Trail, 6/11/12

“Hmm, I just parted company with a bush pilot whom I openly accused of murder, though I’ve also made it clear that I’m the only one who knows about the evidence against him! Now a bush plane is flying low very close to me. I wonder what’s going on!” Thank goodness for Mark that our sporting killer only shoots people in the water.

Ziggy, 6/11/12

I have less of a problem with the mouse sitting on the pad than I do with the mouse sitting on the pad so … alluringly.

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Slylock Fox, 5/29/12

Every once in a while, Slylock Fox offers a little glimpse of the moment when our safe, normal, H. sapiens-ruled world suddenly turned into an awful madhouse of anthropomorphized animals with their own views on criminal law. Look at the facial expression on that fellow in both these Six Difference scenes! Is that a man who’s thinking “My goodness, this is an unexpected but ultimately pleasant blast of cool water on a hot day”? No, not at all! He’s terrified. That face says, “Wait, has that dog learned to operate a hose? Is he standing on his hind legs? Oh my God, he has thumbs. Thumbs. He’s laughing at me. Laughing! Oh God, this is it! I knew I should have sent a check when the Humane Society mailed me those address labels, I knew it! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I KNEW MY MOM WASN’T REALLY SENDING OUR DOG TO A ‘FARM UPSTATE,’ BUT I NEVER SAID ANYTHING! I SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING! OH, GOD, I’M SO SORRY!”

Luann, 5/29/12

You know, there was a time where I might have claimed that Knute and Crystal were my favorite Luann characters — not, of course, because of any virtues of their own, but because they were presented as a radical alternative to their fellow Pitts High students, and therefore were kind of likable by default, in a “the enemy of my enemy” sort of way. But now they’ve become just like all their fellow damned Luanniverse souls, in that their primary mode of interaction involves gross faux-titillating banter. At least today’s “Heh, I sure would like to get naked with you in the menswear section of this department store” episode is significantly more tolerable than “I wanna hear you pee.”

Judge Parker, 5/29/12

Speaking of faux-sexual antics, the seduction of Sam Driver is now in full swing, with Avery and Peaches gamely trying to prove that even fly fishing can be eroticized, if you try hard enough.