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Slylock Fox, 4/22/11

Everyone knows that the quickest way to make something adorable and kid-friendly is to make a li’l child version of it; this is the logic that produced Muppet Babies and Animaniacs, to great success. Still, when you’re dealing with a mummified corpse reanimated via the ancient magic that still lingers in some musty tomb, a child version seems less cute than terrifying and soul-crushingly sad. Look, the little damned soul is about to taste its first dessert since he died sometime during Egypt’s 19th Dynasty! Too bad his tongue is going to crumble to dust in his mouth the moment it touches that ice cream.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/22/11

Ha ha, yes, I’m always up for a good joke about Mary Worth showing off her vagina, but still … still, this is kind of the moment when you realize, “Wow, I don’t think the people at the syndicate are actually reading the comics anymore before they just ship them off to America’s few remaining newspapers,” what with jokes that only make sense in the context of, “Hey, remember that movie in the ’90s, where you saw that lady’s vagina?”

Pluggers, 4/22/11

Pluggers are too respectful to call their teachers by their first name, but never could get their head around all these crazy ethnic names they have these days, like “Van Pelt” or whatever Dutch craziness.

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Slylock Fox, 4/18/11

When your cartoon is populated by anthropomorphic animals, you eventually run into awkwardness when you need to introduce some non- or semi-anthropomorphic animals, a conundrum known to philosophers as the “Goofy-Pluto Paradox.” Here, for instance, we have a a gaggle of clothed, house-dwelling animals confronting a pair of naked (albeit still bipedal, or at least upright) animals who are accused of doing animal-type things like eating tomatoes on the vine. Are the snake and raccoon meant to be understood as mere beasts? Or do they belong to some caste that is oppressed and excluded from Slylock-world society due to prejudice, despite their ability to reason? Either way, once Slylock fingers the guilty party, it looks like he’ll be subject to brutal mob justice rather than taken under the gentle wing of owl law.

B.C., 4/18/11

Speaking of sentient animals, here’s a sentient bird who chose a bad hiding place and now is going to be devoured alive! That … that’s the joke, I guess?

Mark Trail, 4/18/11

You might find the premise of this strip incredibly unrealistic, but think about it: if someone were so unable to understand human nature that they would consider Mark a good guy to approach with a “personal problem,” then he’d probably also have trouble relating even to the people closest to him.

Pluggers, 4/18/11

Yes, these hideous mutant abominations will continue to mate with one another and produce ever more freakish offspring — no matter what our elected officials in Washington say or do. I think our only hope is to call in the military.

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Gil Thorp, 3/28/11

It’s never a good sign when Gil Thorp openly admits it’s recycling plot ideas. Hey, remember alt-country sensation Slim Chance from last summer? Well, this is just like that, except that it’s, uh, a chick! Yeah, that’s it! And nobody seems to like her music. Nobody except Mr. Preppie in the front row there, who looks like he’s very interested in what Woody Guthrie and this hippie-musician-ballplayer have to say, much to the consternation of his girlfriend. “Chad, I’m already sitting in your lap and thrusting my ample bosom up against you! All you have to do to look at my cleavage is just lower your eyes! What’s it going to take to get you to pay attention to me? Chad, stop looking at the open mic night girl! Chaaaad!”

Apartment 3-G, 3/28/11

We can’t say for sure because the lettering here is all in capitals, but I’m definitely detecting an upper-case “H” at the beginning of Blaze’s “Him” in the third panel. This makes sense, as we’ve gotten plenty of hints that Dan Diller isn’t the hobo Iris has mistaken him for, and the only non-hobo with that kind of hair/beard combo is obviously God himself. “Iris?! What’re you doing here with YHWH, the Creator of the Universe? We all know you’re ritually unclean!”

Momma, 3/28/11

Normally Momma jumps on any opportunity to denigrate her daughter-in-law and encourage her son to divorce her, so it’s kind of surprising that she isn’t more triumphant over Thomas’s suspicions about her infidelity. It’s not surprising, however, that she has some kind of sick posture fetish.

Luann, 3/28/11

I’m not a parenting expert, but I’m pretty sure that in this scenario you’re supposed to at least pretend to think that your daughter has a chance to win the beauty pageant.

Marmaduke, 3/28/11

“The first barbecue is like Christmas for Marmaduke! That’s because he doesn’t worship Jesus; he only worships delicious, cooked animal flesh.”

Slylock Fox, 3/28/11

Yes, we all know that silk is created by animals, not plants! That how we can suss out the lies of Shady Shrew … who lives in a world of … anthropomorphic … animals … OH MY GOD SHADY SHREW IS ENSLAVING SENTIENT SILKWORMS AND FORCING THEM TO CHURN OUT SHIRTS FOR HIM TO SELL ON THE ROADSIDE