Post Content

Slylock Fox, 5/16/22

My intense study of the post-animalpocalypse world of Slylock Fox has been ongoing for sixteen years now, but every day we are still learning new things about how this society works. For instance, as we humans understand law and justice, Slylock is surely an agent of the government: he works directly for high regime officials, and has the authority to both investigate and prosecute crimes. Yet here we see him in the process of investigating insurance fraud, something that in our own economic system would be considered a civil matter. This hints that their government and law enforcement have a broader reach than ours do: maybe the regime believes they have an obligation to protect corporate bodies against harm just as they protect animal citizens against violence, or perhaps the insurance industry is itself wholly state-run rather than in the hands of private entities. These are rich avenues for study and more than justify the renewal of my academic research grant, so hopefully that check will be coming my way soon.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/16/22

Sometimes, when you’re the producer of a media product that’s been running literally since the Wilson Administration and whose whole main shtick is a fairly problematic series of running jokes at the expense of some of America’s most economically desperate citizens, you need to spend a week or so getting new readers up to speed on your characters and letting them know why they should care about them. For instance, did you know that Snuffy Smith refuses to help around the house, and is also deeply in debt? Tune in this week for eight more endearing (?) facts about this dwarfish, potato-nosed rascal!

Pluggers, 5/16/22

Pluggers cannot bat away the constant, intrusive thoughts about death, because they’re aging and physically declining and will themselves be dead soon. That’s it! That’s the whole joke!

Post Content

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/4/22

This strip has honestly sent me into a tailspin trying to figure out what the relationship is supposed to be between actually existing Appalachia and the faux-hillbilly cultural biome of Snuffy Smith. The fact that Snuffy is obviously envious of the level of infrastructural development in West Virginia ought to make that state’s inhabitants feel something approaching pride, or maybe relief. It’s also sad to see that Hootin’ Holler does not share real-world Appalachia’s rich heritage of songcraft, because these lyrics do not scan at all.

Slylock Fox, 4/4/22

The operation of law enforcement and the court system in the Forest Kingdom, and where Slylock stands in relationship to either, is always something of a mystery to me, but today’s strip seems to imply that Sly can just drag anyone into court on a whim, and will there serve simultaneously as prosecutor and sole witness. I sincerely hope that he spotted Slick Smitty’s little trick and then immediately arrested him, and that his date is still sitting at the restaurant waiting for the check while this sham of a trial rushes towards its pre-ordained conclusion.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/4/22

Absolutely loving the spit-take in the final panel here. This woman is shocked, shocked to learn that women can have jobs now! What’s next, voting?

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 4/1/22

In the Book of Genesis, there is a moment, immediately after Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when their minds shift before their habits: they’re still naked, as they had happily been before, but now they have a moral code that deems that nudity shameful, so they immediately have to lurch into action and create makeshift clothes for themselves. So too did the animals of Slylock Fox move haltingly from their previous, brutish existence into the post-animalpocalypse world we know. In today’s strip, these birds know that the old ways, in which the momma would simply vomit those worms down her child’s throat, are no longer acceptable, but they have yet to realize that their ability to manipulate tools like pails and silverware means that they can simply abandon that nest and forcibly evict the hapless humans from the comfortable house below.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/1/22

Ha ha, the “tin ceiling!” You know, because the video game was located in Montoni’s. And in Montoni’s the ceiling is … made of tin? Oh, you don’t know that? You’ve read Funky Winkerbean daily for years and you would never in your life make that connection? Well, screw you, man, today’s strip is for the real fans, who definitely exist.

Gil Thorp, 4/1/22

Say what you will about Gil Thorp, but the strip always manages to come up with new odd combinations of characters and traits for their storylines. Did any of us have “kid obsessed with baseball trivia with a dad who ghostwrites terrible CEO ‘leadership’ tomes that get sold at airport book stores” on their bingo cards? No, but I for one appreciate that we got here.

Mary Worth, 4/1/22

Speaking of unique new storylines and/or the lack thereof: hey, Toby, remember when your husband had a vague flirtation with a student that boosted his ego but didn’t go anywhere, and when he was given the opportunity he declined to dispute your description of it as an “emotional affair”? Well, I don’t know about your job, but marriage-wise, that’s what we call a “get out of jail free card.”