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Heart of the City, 5/14/07

Heart’s worries are all too well-founded. When I was in sixth grade, I spilled a pot of boiling chicken soup on my foot while I was stirring it and had to go to the emergency room; I ended up with bandages around my foot for some weeks. My plan was to refer to the cause of my injury as “boiling water,” but I made the mistake of telling someone the real deal and was “noodle foot” for the remainder of the school year. What I’m trying to say, Heart, is that I only wish I had hurt myself doing something cool, like cheerleading practice.

Wait, I think that might have come out wrong.

Slylock Fox, 5/14/07

Ever felonious? Try ever sextaculous! Seriously, if Slylock Fox is part of some secret long-term plan to make kids more open and accepting of the lifestyle of furry fetishists, I’d say it’s scoring another point every time Cassandra Cat appears, especially if she keeps showing up in paradoxically prim-yet-sexy outfits like the turtleneck sweater/tartan combo she’s got on here.

The amount of time our fox/mouse detective duo spend tailing (ha ha, see what I did there?) Miss Cat probably indicates their forbidden lust for her more than their desire for justice. Max Mouse’s infatuation with the sinister feline is well known, so it should come as no surprise that he’s checking out a Krazy Kat collection, since that feature revolved around a cat in love with a cruel mouse tormentor — no doubt the reversal of the real-life situation soothes his tiny besotted bowler-covered brain. Slylock’s appearance here reminds me of another episode from my misspent youth: when I was in high school, I worked in the local branch of the public library, and one day a patron appeared who was apparently notorious for exposing himself in the reading room, and I was assigned to keep an eye on him and kick him out if he did anything funny. He mostly just sat there with the newspaper in his lap, though not with the disturbing look of preternatural alertness that Slylock is sporting here.

Mary Worth, 5/14/07

I can’t even begin to explain to you what the hell is going in the second panel. Is Mary about to demand a horsey ride from Vera? A horsey ride of meddling? In panel one, Vera is following the lesson she learned from hard experience — “be ever vigilant in guarding your crotch” — so Mary may have had no choice in going for the backside attack. But since Vera appears to still be sitting on the bench, what in God’s name has Mary done with her legs?

Gil Thorp, 5/14/07

If Clambake isn’t giving down-home, country-style prostate exams by the end of the week, I for one will be very disappointed.

Ziggy, 5/14/07

Ziggy is going to die from some kind of venereal disease.

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Herb and Jamaal, 5/7/07

I had pretty much written off the constant ambient friction between Herb and his mother-in-law as a true-to-life but still lame-as-narrative depiction of intergenerational extended family dynamics … that is, until today, when we get to see her relaxing over a smoldering cup of something or other and smiling blissfully as she reflects on the deaths of everyone else in her demographic cohort. I’m assuming that she probably killed all of them off one by one in single combat, a là the Highlander saga. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

I’m curious about the implement in her hand in panel two. If that’s supposed to be a toothbrush, I sure hope she can unhinge her jaw.

Sally Forth, 5/7/07

Cinematic foreshadowing alert: At the big banquet that will follow another inevitable losing season for Team Forth, Ted is going to beat his coaching nemesis to death with that bat.

Slylock Fox, 5/7/07

A lot of people hate on the obscure clues in Slylock Fox, but you know what? Not all mysteries are there to make you feel good and clever when you solve them. Sometimes they should challenge your brain, or even introduce you to new knowledge that you can take with you. Kids gotta learn the difference between oil-based paint and water-based paint sometime; why not in this harmless context, rather than during the brutal entrance exams for that elite private preschool you’ve got your eye on?

I’m more concerned about this strip’s relentless class-based hatred. Sure, Shady is nothing but Poor Shrew Trash, as you can tell by his broken window, prominently displayed sock, discarded chicken leg and fish skeleton, and various dark-nook-inhabiting beasties. But hey, he’s trying to get his house as nice looking as his neighbors with his latex paint, all right? The fact that the “good” neighbor is an elephant just makes the strip’s heavy-handed pro-Republican agenda more obvious.

By the way, don’t frogs breathe through their skin? Our aggrieved critter is going to be comically indignant for another minute or so, and then drop dead.

Mark Trail, 5/7/07

Sam Sam Sam Samantha Sam Sam Sam SAMANTHA Sam Sam Sam Sam Samantha Sam Sam Sam Samantha Hill Sam sam (Sam sam SAM HILL Sam) SAM Samantha Sam, Sam, Sam Hill, Sam largest breasts and bust-to-waist ratio ever to appear in Mark Trail Sam Sam Sam SAM.

Speaking of large breast-to-waist ratios: Pibgorn returns May 14th, and will be appearing at gocomics.com (aka the Universal Press Syndicate’s Web site). More information can be found on the Internet — specifically, the Brooke McEldowney’s blog part of the Internet.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/6/07

Yesterday, we saw Lu Ann’s oxygen-starved brain conjuring up images of everyone who had singularly failed to rescue her from her sinister spectral captivity, leaving open the question: who will save her, since actually killing her off would be unthinkable? Today, we get the surprising answer: It’s Margo’s comical immigrant mother, Gabriella! There’s a certain justice to this; she’s the one who essentially told Lu Ann that ghosts were awesome in the first place, so now she’s going to have to knock down that door in her bathrobe, babbling in fake-o Spanish and wielding a fistful of protective charms from the Old Country to save our dim blonde heroine. Remember: do not rely on WASPs to fight against the forces of the Other World. Only ethnics can do so, and the Professor has become far too assimilated to help.

Slylock Fox, 5/6/07

Ah ha! Our oft-harassed beaver, previously seen being victimized by loose women in discos and harassed by humans in airports, at last has an alliterative name of his own: Brendan! He’s also upgraded his wardrobe, sporting a pimpalicious chartreuse suit with matching befeathered fedora. And of course, he’s as hilariously outraged and quick to tattle to Slylock as ever.

By the way, I know it’s almost impossible to read the solution in this graphic, but Count Weirdly is about to be hauled off for the entirely victimless crime of jamming Brendan’s TV so that it only receives the Chess Channel, and the only evidence of wrongdoing is that he’s eating his broth with a fork. Does a little eccentric behavior make you automatically guilty in Slylock Fox’s police state? The man’s name is “Weirdly,” for God’s sake; you can’t expect him to consume soup like a normal person.

I do like the vicious attack stork in the “How To Draw” feature at the bottom of the page. As for the six differences, the most prominent one that I could find is that the kid in the top panel will eventually go on to a successful career as an illustrator and graphic novelist, while the other boy will take “practical” courses in school and go on to a soul-sapping life of quiet desperation as he toils away in a job he despises.

Mary Worth, 5/6/07

If panel three demonstrates a typical battle in the war for the elder Sheilds’ love, I think Vera’s a bit to quick to blame sexism for her low state. Note that her brother is pouring the old man a tasty flute of the finest champagne, while Vera is thrusting a plate bearing two lumpy, shapeless brown things at him. Advantage: Von.

The grammatical set-up Vera uses in panel seven (“when my father’s death occurred”) is quite revealing. Usually people do that sort of thing when they’re trying to deny their own agency in the matter. She’s not explicitly lying, but she knows she won’t keep Mary on her side if she says “Years later, the situation changed when I bludgeoned my father to death.”

Funky Winkerbean, 5/6/07

Oh, Les, you cut-up! There’s nothing that helps your pedagogical strategies like a little public humiliation. We’ll all have a good laugh, at least until the inevitable HIPAA lawsuit.

Zits, 5/6/07

Desperate to extend a moment of happy camaraderie with his son but unfamiliar with the concept of the fist bump, in panel five Walt crosses a line that can never be uncrossed.