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Marvin, 1/31/21

I feel like I’ve touched on this in a few recent posts, but I want to talk about it in slightly more detail today: I have become somewhat worried lately about coming across like one of those people who do ninety-minute YouTubes where they dissect all the “mistakes” in a movie, intending to “prove” that the filmmakers are idiots but mostly proving that they’re focused on minutia and not really taking in the big picture. Like, with today’s Marvin: I feel like before I go in on how weird it is, I need to establish that yes, I’m 100% aware that the idea that these characters are sort of like adults with adult worries and problems but are also babies isn’t something that’s wrong, in the sense of an IMDB “goofs” entry for Looks Who’s Talking that says “The movie depicts talking babies, but all these characters are far too young to be capable of idiomatic human speech.” I’m fully aware that the they’re-babies-but-they’re-not tension is itself the joke-radiation in which this whole strip is bathed. I’m just saying, if you’re inviting us to imagine babies who are capable of thinking, in very adult ways, about their future, and one of those babies is stressed about her parental expectations about her future education and extracurricular activities, and the other one is apparently planning to keep on shitting his own pants well into junior high — well, the “error” you’ve made is one of judgement, not world-building.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/31/21

The text of the solution to this crime sort of implies that Slylock has set up this mystery to teach these animals about the complex web of institutions and processes that make up the industrial civilization they’ve taken from the humans — that cans of pea soup don’t just grown on trees, but must be purchased from a store, where someone places the can on the shelf, and someone else drove the can there in a truck from a warehouse, and it got to that warehouse from a factory, and so and and so forth back up the supply chain. But the drawing makes it seem like he’s mostly saying “See this guy? This is Count Weirdly. You see him, your job is easy. If he’s one of the suspects, he fuckin’ did it, man.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/31/21

Obviously I know that, in this fallen, degraded age, newspapers feel free to print unspeakable filth in the comics section without shame. Still, even I thought there were some limits; but now that we see a proper Hootin’ Holler matron depicted in fully color without her kerchief, hair all exposed — well, now I know there truly is no depravity to which these people won’t sink.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/24/21

We haven’t checked in with Cassandra Cat’s incredibly transparent attempts to lure Slylock back to her apartment lately, have we? Mostly I wanted to show today’s panel for the delightful array of details in Cassandra’s retro-hip shag-carpeted pad: Catsmo magazine, a nice little tin of sardines open on the end table for snacking, the wall of photos of cartoon cat heroes, and, of course, a cat dancer toy, for later, when Cassandra convinces Slylock to put down the magnifying glass and send Max home.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 1/24/21

One of the great ironies of the Lockhorns’ lives is that they drive everyone else as crazy as they drive each other, but while their baffling decision to remain married means they can never avoid each other, other people are generally able to avoid them. The terrible social claustrophobia that results leads them to often bother total strangers in public with their gripes and musings. I think today is the best of these I’ve ever seen. How long has Leroy been deliberately lurking there, waiting for an actual child to pick up that book so he can go off on how his darn wife never cleans out the refrigerator, a complaint the Dr. Seuss-reading set will surely fine extremely relatable? I particularly enjoy the kid’s facial expression, which to me reads as “Sir, I know I’d get in trouble for saying this out loud, but … sir, what the fuck.”

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/17/21

Here it is, folks: an extremely rare Slylock Fox mystery where the accused isn’t guilty. Having proven her innocence with a little elementary ratiocination, Slylock can now move on to more difficult questions, like what exactly the shop manager’s deal is, making wild accusations against a random woman who just stepped through the door to dry off. Is the shop failing financially and he’s hoping to sue this aristocrat to plug the hole? Do he and Lady Lynx have some bad blood or ugly romantic history? Is he just psychologically damaged and lashing out for kicks, looking to use Slylock’s usual laser-focus on finding people guilty as a tool in his sick game? Whatever the answer, we’ll need more advanced tools than raindrop-noticing to figure it out.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/17/21

Oh, you say you can’t handle any more terrible wordplay punchlines in Funkyverse strips, huh? Well, what if we did a strip … without any wordplay at all, and also without a punchline? Would you like that better? Oh, you would? You’d find it kind of confusing but still preferable overall? Well, uh, we’ll take a note of that, thanks for the feedback. Anyway, enjoy today’s strip, it really seems like it’d be up your alley!