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Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/22/06

Grimm is about to euthanized.

Slylock Fox, 9/22/06

This adorable bunny is about to collapse from thirst and then be killed by a poisonous snake bite. Afterwards, its corpse will be eaten by vultures.

Mary Worth, 9/22/06

A drunken Aldo Kelrast has gone careening off an extremely ill-placed cliff. His body is about to be shattered, as is his bottle of liquor, which he seems to be desperately trying to protect.

Mark Trail, 9/22/06

Molly the bear and Andy the dog are about to either drown or tumble over a waterfall. Meanwhile, Hoyt demonstrates that he lacks the charisma necessary to hold an angry mob together for very long.

(Of course, we all know that Molly and Andy are going to be fine. It’s interesting to note that, as near as I can tell from people’s comments and my own reactions, Molly has engendered more of an emotional attachment among Mark Trail readers than any human character this strip has ever seen.)

B.C., 9/22/06

Clumsy Carp cannot afford the medicine upon which his life depends. The prehistoric caveman pharmacist looks on smugly.

(And wow, I never thought I’d be saying this about B.C., but: Hey, Pluggers! If you want to make this joke, only actually kind of funny, this is the way to do it.)

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For Better Or For Worse, 8/30/06

Never has the flabby make-it-up-as-you-go-along nature of the Foobian plot been on display as nakedly as it is here. I mean: How far away is Liz’s apartment from her parents’ house that she would considering moving back there to shave a little off her commute? And she’s been back down south for, what, three months now? Don’t they have leases in Canada, or are Pattersons just allowed to break them with impunity? And doesn’t Ellie have any say over whether her totally adult and self-sufficient daughter decides to up and move back in, or is she just going to go on with the passive “It’ll happen if it happens” attitude? These are questions that I want answered. In return, I’ll answer April’s question about why Liz wouldn’t want to move back home: it’s because she’s, like, 26, and living at home when you’re 26 and have a job is for looooooosers.

Dennis the Menace, 8/30/06

Speaking of losers, Dennis is continuing his trend of eschewing menacing, preferring instead to hone his floral-themed dinner-table bon mots. It actually took me about 45 seconds to grasp the “bud”-“blossom” wordplay going on here, and I finally only got the joke because of the presence of the rose on the dinner table, which I assume was intentional. Note to cartoonists: If you need to put in a visual aid to forward the cause of a pun in your comic, your pun needs work.

Slylock Fox, 8/30/06

Apparently it’s terrified prey week in Slylock Fox. As if the terrified beaver wasn’t traumatizing enough, check out the discarded ribcage, presumably of one of his family members, next to the crocodile on dry land. Today’s scene of the savagery of nature provides a backdrop for a true/false quiz. “True or False: Sometimes things that are cute and basically good die in agony for so that something more powerful and vicious can survive. (Answer: So very true!)”

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Slylock Fox, 8/29/06

Ah, what a cute little game in which little kids can hone their powers of observation … and learn that adorable, tiny mice live in a world of constant fear, knowing that at any moment a powerful predator might swoop down out of the darkness and rip their frail bodies apart with its ravenous beak and razor-sharp claws, devouring them so quickly that they’re no doubt still alive as they slide down its gullet. By extension, kids also learn that the world is full of things that are powerful and threatening, and that they have no hopes of surviving in it, and so should just stay inside their safe, suburban homes, never taking risks or exploring, until eventually they graduate from college with no life skills or sense of wonder or adventure. Slylock Fox: Breeding a generation of weaklings since 1987.

Pluggers, 8/29/06

Stupid Plugger! There’s no porn in there!