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Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/7/11

You really need to read the solution and think about its implications to this realize how gross today’s Slylock Fox is. That suitcase is full of stolen money and mammal milk, implicating the bear lady. (I wonder what will become of her cub when she’s sent to the slammer? Will it be sent to Ursine Foster Care, i.e., left in the forest to fend for itself?) Since we now know that a bird can’t be expected to have a milk bottle in her suitcase, we’re left to figure out for ourselves just how she’s going to feed her little chick en route. Is there hidden in that unopened suitcase a bottle full of fish guts that she vomited up? Or will she just be puking a portion of her airline-provided meal directly into her child’s mouth, disgusting all of her fellow passengers?

As a side note, the criminal bear’s bottle has not been placed in a ziplock bag and put through the x-ray separately from the rest of her luggage. I sure hope that’s what triggered the search of her suitcase, because it would be depressing to me if our human universe TSA’s regulations are even more pointlessly stringent than those in the world of Slylock Fox, which is a notorious police state.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/7/11

Parson Tuttle is a notorious grifter and fraud with little or no theological training, so it’s not that surprising that he’s desperately hitting up one of his community’s elders for some pearls of spiritual wisdom that he can drop into his Sunday sermons. I do love how incredibly put out he looks when Grampy finally gets to the point. “I can’t wait for my enemies to die, that’ll take forever! And killin’ ’em all just sounds like work.”

Crankshaft, 8/7/11

I’m not sure if either Abbot and Costello or The Who have really been victimized particularly badly here, but if Crankshaft wants to start apologizing for its terrible punchlines, I’m certainly not going stand in its way.

(Also, as faithful reader David Willis points out, today’s Crankshaft probably takes place a decade before today’s Funky Winkerbean, meaning that Crankshaft is dead, maybe! Hooray!)

Panel from Crock, 8/7/11

This right here pretty much says all you need to know about Crock.

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Lockhorns, 7/25/11

I am absolutely in love with the enormous frown on the kid’s face in this panel. It’s like, he’s just gone down to the newsstand to buy the latest Superman comic (because like all of today’s youth he loves twee retro affectations). He didn’t expect to be harassed by some squat middle-aged stranger. Certainly he didn’t expect to be offered an observation so dense with emotional anguish and post-love ennui; he’s far too young to really understand it, but he feels the pain of it flowing out of Leroy and crashing over him in waves. He’s going home a changed person, and he’s going to be looking in his funnybooks for the real stories, the stories about what makes people human (hint: it’s suffering).

Slylock Fox, 7/25/11

Once again, Slylock proves that he simply can’t stop with the sleuthing after tiny clues, even when it isn’t necessary. I’ll bet he makes the poor techs down at the CSI lab work for days with him on figuring out the make of the tires that left those treads in the concrete before finally admitting that he also has access to the perp’s license plate, which they could connect to his registration and home address by spending about thirty seconds in front of the computer. I’m less interested in his sad and increasingly desperate little game than I am in the nattily attired duck standing on the corner. While everyone else in the neighborhood appears traumatized by the reign of automotive terror that just blew through the subdivision, he just stares forward with big, soulless eyes, like he’s a jarring minor character from a David Lynch film.

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Slylock Fox, 7/17/11

Oh, Slylock, it’s really getting to be kind of a compulsion with you, isn’t it? You could have just gone over to the two chatty she-beavers and asked, “Excuse me, are one of you Benny’s wife?” Or, even better, you could have just gotten your hands dirty for once and helped find the contact lens yourself. (Max is helping! For once, the dumb detective stereotype magnifying glass you guys haul around with you is useful!) But no, you’ve gotta be all “Ah! Benny, don’t tell me which of those ladies is your wife, because I can figure it out myself … with logic!” You’re impressing nobody, do you know that? You’re impressing nobody.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/17/11

You’ll notice that I’ve ignored Rex Morgan for a whole month, because it’s involved boring old people and their liver transplants rather than the sexy mom/sexy daughter drama we were promised. At last, we’re finding our way back to these two … only to discover that their family dynamic also involves a hilariously belligerent punk rocker! This is just more proof that we need to focus on this storyline and only this storyline, from here on in.

Mary Worth, 7/17/11

Please, Dr. Jeff, do you honestly expect to win Mary’s hand in marriage while standing upright? You’ll need to get down and do this in the traditional manner if you want to have a chance. Sure, Mary knows all about your crippling knee pain, but, look, do you want to marry her or not?