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Crock, 10/17/11

It may demolish everything you hold dear to hear this, but, when I go on vacation, I often don’t catch up on many of the comics that otherwise make up my daily rotation. I mean, obviously I need to keep up to date on every bizarre moment in Gil Thorp (OMG THERE IS AN ASPERGER’S SYNDROME STORYLINE YOU GUYS FOOTBALL SEASON MAY GET GOOD/HORRIFYINGLY ILL-CONCEIVED YET), but, you know, I usually don’t feel like I really need to check in with all the Crocks I missed just for completeness’s sake. And yet today’s installment left me scrambling through the archives, desperate to figure out if, as the word “still” in the opening word balloon here implies, that there was some sort of ongoing plot involving the two hotbox prisoners finally going insane due to heat and isolation. But no, there’s no explanation, really, except maybe this, which only makes sense if the prisoners in the hotboxes are also vultures. Which seems insane, but, when you think about it, no more insane than the idea that one of the hotbox prisoners is having a psychotic break in which several cultural touchstones from the 1980s and 1990s merge together to form some kind of spectacularly unfunny punchline-like utterance. But focusing on the details here causes us to miss the important big picture, which is: don’t do drugs, kids, for serious.

Spider-Man, 10/17/11

I understand and respect those who simply cannot work up the energy to deal with newspaper Spider-Man on its incredibly inane terms, but really, panel two does remind me why I love it so. I’m trying to parse precisely what kind of dumb Spidey is supposed to be exhibiting here; my guess is that he truly believes that MJ has spontaneously acquired spider-sensing powers, which comes as an enormous shock to him because he knows better than anyone else that his supposed supposed spider-sense doesn’t actually exist.

Slylock Fox, 10/17/11

Fun fact for you: frogs and toads are no longer considered distinct groupings by biologists. The order Anura embraces all frogs and toads; any species of that order that lives most of its life on land is labelled a “toad,” but these species don’t have a single common ancestor distinct from the common ancestor of everything in Anura. I found this out while doing a bit of research to come up with a joke about this strip. Slylock Fox may call itself “Comics for Kids,” but I’m 37 years old and I still learned something from it! So I feel a little churlish pointing out that today’s puzzle’s solution hinges on something of a scientific inaccuracy, and furthermore that said solution focuses on the amphibian life cycle and yet the illustrative comic includes a frog with a belly button.

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Crankshaft, 10/9/11

Lucy McKenzie died in a nursing home in 2009, demented and unaware that her jealous vicious harpy sister Lillian had stolen and concealed a letter from her beau Eugene proposing marriage just before he shipped out for WWII. Lucy came back this year to haunt Lillian into taking her to the ruins of the Wisteria Ballroom so she could hook up again with Eugene, as we see here. Aww.

But hey waitaminute. If Lucy and Eugene are both dead, why not just hook up on the Other Side and save Lucy the busfare back? To hear Eugene, it’s pretty damn sweet over there, what with the eternal flowers ‘n’ stuff. And as far as we know, Eugene’s not dead — we saw him in one of those then-and-now flashbacky things back in March, taking flowers to Lucy’s grave. So as long as Lucy’s in the neighborhood, why doesn’t she drop by Eugene’s for a quick haunt-and-cuddle instead of wasting time on this sepia imposter?

Comics are hard.

Sally Forth, 10/9/11

Panel-four Ted embraces the Dark Side, or makes his lucha libre début. You never know with this guy.

Six Chix, 10/9/11

Pluggers: Origins

Slylock Fox (panel), 10/9/11

Weirdly and his accomplice have been using their transporter to loot marijuana dispensaries. That is one stoned monkey.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix and Marmaduke, 10/5/11

I was pretty sure that today’s frankly S&M-themed Six Chix was the most perverse thing I’d see on the comics page today. Then I saw Marmaduke, and remembered that looking at Marmaduke is always like looking down a long, dark tube, at the end of which is the most terrifying hell you can imagine. It’s funny because he’s got melted-faced zombie Hitler on a leash, you see! Makes our cute li’l ginger dominatrix and her shirtless slave look positively wholesome.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/5/11

Speaking of unspeakable perversity, this strip would be bad enough if it were just about a pig who understood both English speech and the fact that she would be someday killed, dismembered, and eaten. But the fact that someone has added a prettifying bow to her head makes me all the queasier. Are we supposed to think that Lukey can’t bring himself to turn her into delicious pork because he’s bewitched by her beauty? What of the cheefully oblivious non-bowed pig who makes an appearance in panel two — does he know what awful things his fellow swine has to do, just to keep the two of them alive?

Slylock Fox, 10/5/11

2) The human hair that right now is lying on your head in a great, heavy heap is dead, dead, dead, and is basically a part of you that’s already a cadaver. Answer — 2) True! Your whole body is covered with death! Remember, kids, be sure you have plenty of Bactine on hand before you start screaming and pulling out all your corpse-hair in huge, bloody chunks.