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Luann, 6/9/25

Back when I was last reading Luann regularly, a decade ago, the whole deal with Toni’s niece Shannon was that she was a hellion but that was mostly because her dad, Toni’s brother, was a flaky, neglectful actor who was always dumping his daughter with his sister with little or no notice so he could do cool actor stuff. Well, Shannon’s still a hellion, but now apparently her dad isn’t neglectful at all, but is rather a dedicated dad who knows his daughter is the most important thing in his life, and also his acting career is going nowhere so honestly why not pay attention to his daughter, I guess. Not sure what Shannon’s excuse is for her irritating behavior anymore!

Crock, 6/9/25

Nobody seems to have ever produced a detailed timeline of Crock’s characters and lore, and I must confess that, despite my authority within the world of newspaper comics, I don’t have all the details either. I’m not sure when Grossie and Maggot’s beloved (?) son Otis made his debut in the strip; was this installment, which apparently ran in 1997 according to the copyright date, the one that heralded his coming, or is this some other kid, who they (as the dialogue heavily implies) ate?

Slylock Fox, 6/9/25

We humans read the hints in Slylock Fox about the great Uprising that heralded the animalpocalypse and shudder at thoughts of the bloodbath, with the suddenly uplifted animals dishing out brutal revenge for a thousand centuries of abuse at the hands of H. sapiens. Less explored, but certainly germane, is the animal-on-animal battle that must’ve ensued in the aftermath as the beasts fought with one another for access to the humans’ stuff. Perhaps the first rudimentary animal legal codes were developed on the fly to resolve such conflicts peaceably, with Slylock and Max still occasionally tasked with enforcing the Rule of Finders Keepers, the oldest law the animals respect.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 5/25/25

Every once in a while, I get frustrated with myself for not being able to remember my parents’ anniversary, or the names of people I’ve met socially on multiple occasions, but then on days like today I realize that those parts of my brain are being put to much more important uses, like remembering Slylock Fox puzzles from 2008 so I can immediately recognize when they get repeated. Today’s strip uses the same fake-Weirdly-hunger-strike gimmick as the previous version, but includes all new art, including the particularly grotesque detail of a duck cop sneeringly offering the Count a hot dog. In a world full of sapient pigs and cows, Weirdly may be refusing to eat primarily because he fears he’s being entrapped into a crime much graver than his usual misdemeanors.

Mary Worth, 5/25/25

I think we all kind of knew Belle was going to kill Willa, but I don’t think any of us expected her to eat her. I guess she saw Wilbur demonstrating genuine affection for his little fish friend and decided that she would need to actually consume her rival in order to gain Willa’s totemic power and transfer Wilbur’s affections to her. “But if that’s her M.O., why would she repeatedly try to poison Dawn, then?” you’re probably asking. “Wouldn’t that just befoul the meat?” That presumes Wilbur has ever displayed as much warmth for his daughter as he has for his fish, and I simply don’t believe that’s the case.

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Blondie and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/20/25

No one person can know the totality of human cultural practice, of course, even within their own country, and I’ve had the repeated experience on this blog of seeing some odd behavior in a comic strip, posting “Nobody does this, right?”, and then being told in no uncertain terms that said behavior is in fact normal and I’m weird for not knowing about it. For instance, at least one person claimed that “blonde moment” is not just a thing that people say, but is actually more common than “senior moment” in their experience. Life is a rich tapestry! Anyway, my main request to the comics is that they at least stay on the same page when they confront me with some novel practice. For instance, do children actually go door to door during the day on Easter Sunday asking for chocolate, as a spring mirror of Halloween trick-or-treating? Or is this the sort of plan that aspiring hillbilly grifter children would come up with, and we’re meant to understand that nobody would possibly go along with it?

Panel from Slylock Fox, 4/20/25

So, uh, who do you guys think drove that car into the ocean? They’re dead now, right? They received a watery comeuppance for their bank-robbing crimes? Their bones have been picked free of flesh by the crabs, and are loosely piled on the floor of the car?