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Let’s cut to the chase: You love Cassandra Cat, everyone’s favorite alluring, sinister woman of mystery from Slylock Fox. Whether she’s sneaking into a movie theater, starting a media circus on false pretenses, plotting to rob public libraries, getting tied up, or luring Max Mouse to his demise, she does what she does with grace, aplomb, and style that will make your heart go pitter-patter. You want her any way you can get her, and since she’s actually a cartoon character, the only way you can get her is on a t-shirt or other product of some sort. Well, now you can buy just those sorts of items at the Comics Curmudgeon store at CafePress!

“But wait, Josh,” I hear you saying. “Your parodies are all well and good, but you can’t just reproduce a copyrighted character on one of your products. That would violate the intellectual property rights of Slylock Fox creator Bob Weber, Jr.!” That’s absolutely true. That’s why these merch items are sporting a logo designed especially for the purchasing pleasure of Comics Curmudgeon readers by Mr. Weber himself!

Did I just blow your mind? If I didn’t, the logo itself surely will:

Do I need to push this any more? I think not. Buy some Cassandra merch already! You know you want to. As usual, I’ve put up some starter items, including the more popular types of t-shirts and, naturally, underwear, but you can email me if you’d like me to Cassandra-ize something else.

UPDATE: Uh, as noted, there’s a typo in Cassandra’s name on the shirt graphic. Those of you who care about minutia like spelling will want to hold off on those purchases until I get an updated version from Mr. Weber…

UPDATE II: Fixed graphic to come within the hour; I’ll let you all know when it’s fixed.

UPDATE III: OK, as you can see above, the typo has been fixed, both here and in the store. I think that those of you who have already ordered will get the corrected version, because your orders haven’t actually gone to production yet. But if you do get the d-less version, feel free to auction it off on eBay for three times what you paid for it.

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Blondie, 8/29/07

Long-time Blondie readers have always marvelled at the uncanny resemblance between Dagwood’s neighbor/golf buddy/source of free tools Herb Woodley and mailman Mr. Beasley. The same face, the same bulging forehead, the same mustache. Could they be long-lost relatives? Was Herb actually the neighborhood mailman, assuming a new name and identity as he walked his route for inscrutable reasons of his own? Today, though, as his long-firmly-attached hat goes flying, we learn that, unlike Herb, Mr. Beasley in fact completely bald. It is a testament to the power of the comics and the long-running features within that this has completely blown my fucking mind. Cynic that I am, I can’t stop looking at his bare head.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/29/07

ha ha ha foolish girl no patterson is ever free

Mark Trail, 8/29/07

I’m beginning to suspect that Shirley the Duck has special powers, and I don’t just mean her stunning plumage, which has won her drag king competitions all over Lost Forest. No, first she somehow convinced the construction foreman to halt work on this extremely important mall, and now she’s working her sinister magic on the son of the big boss himself! As more and more people come within range of her mind-control rays, her army will grow larger and larger, until that mall finds itself transformed into a Shirleytarium, dedicated to her care, feeding, and worship. There will be bread crumbs. Many, many bread crumbs.

Slylock Fox, 8/29/07

Wow, that lion is pissed — and, really, can you blame him? Most doctors don’t even take their patients’ pulse themselves, and here some nosey freelance detective is getting Panthera Leo, M.D., to put his hard-earned medical skills to use to bust someone for stealing magazines from the waiting room. I think someone’s going to have some angry words with the managers of Medical Plaza. Presumably the only way to calm him down will be to allow him to eat Slick Smitty, whether he’s guilty or not.

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(I was planning to comment on the FOOBs today, but the image from gocomics.com was so ludicrously large that I thought it might cause blindness and dementia to those who looked upon it, so I’ll just say in passing BLARRRGGGH.)

Slylock Fox, 8/19/07

Pity poor Count Weirdly! It’s like a guy can’t even have a press conference atop his most scenic turret to promote his faked moon landing (like the so-called “real” ones weren’t!) without some nosey fox sticking his snout where it doesn’t belong and criticizing his Photoshop skills. If telling bald-faced lies at press conferences is illegal, I know a lot of more important venues where Slylock should be putting his patented brand of pedantic deduction to work. As it is, the only organization apparently gullible enough to accept the invitation to the Weirdly Moonshot announcement appears to be Agence France-Presse, as indicated by the reporter’s micro-miniskirt and the cameradog’s beret (and good luck getting any usable footage out of this nighttime press conference with absolutely no artificial lighting, Fideaux). In fact, this pair is probably more likely to be filming for the series Les Hommes Les Plus Étranges Au Monde than they are to be taken in by the idea of air-tight Chuck Taylors.

Mary Worth, 8/19/07

Man, that Dr. Drew is one smooth operator, isn’t he? One date’s worth of his bland, slick-backed handsomeness and Mary-style aphorisms and Vera is literally throwing herself at him! And of course we can see why Drew would be so eager to draw Vera into his web of love. “Ha .. ha .. I’ve decided to go out in public in shoes that I have no idea how to walk in! I belong in a sideshow like the circus freak that I am! AARRGH, I just fell over! Did I mention all the sexual tension with my brother?”

Apartment 3-G, 8/19/07

So I have to admit that when I joked about Alan being an addict and Jones the beatnik being his dealer, I didn’t actually think it was true. I guess I have a lot to learn about the soap opera comics’ willingness to obliquely take on tough themes! Alan’s commitment to sobriety ought to be obvious from his deeply square sartorial choices, as his white dress shirt/black vest combo would get him laughed out of any drug den in the five boroughs. Still, the years of chemical abuse of his brain have taken their toll; he’s undoubtedly spending this entire strip trying to keep his shit together despite the fact that events keep repeating themselves, and his and Eric’s hair keep swapping colors.

Crock, 8/19/07

And speaking of drugs … the combination of misplaced geography (Inca pottery in North Africa?) and garden-variety stupidity is all too typical for this feature, but the final panel pushes today’s Crock into the realm of peyote-addled nightmare. A little boy named Otis in the middle of the sun-blighted wasteland, chatting with a vulture who’s sporting a baseball cap? And where are they going to get the toilets, huh? Where are they going to get the toilets? Ye gods.

Dennis the Menace, 8/19/07

There is no reason why Dennis shouldn’t have unloaded that ball directly into Henry’s nuts in the third-to-last panel. None. They even set it up with the whole “waist high” thing. Still, this’ll keep dad from attempting to spend any quality time with his kid for the rest of both of their lives, leaving Dennis with more time to get into extremely low-level unsupervised hijinks.