Post Content

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/26/20

When I was a kid, presumably after I had burned through the entire Encyclopedia Brown corpus, I got way into T*A*C*K, a series of children’s’ books that made so little impact on our collective cultural memory that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia article, just one on TV Tropes. The books featured four kids who solved … not mysteries, exactly; more like petty real-life annoyances, through puzzle-logic that would be familiar to anyone reading Slylock Fox. Though I’m sure I read all four books, I only actually remember two of the stories in any detail: one where the little brother of one of the protagonists was at a sleepover at someone’s house and there was a cat there and he was allergic but had forgotten his medicine at home and didn’t have a key (the kid loved cats and it made him so sad and as I cat-loving kid I felt very bad for him; I do not remember how the mystery was solved) and one where two characters are arguing over how to fairly cut up a birthday cake, with the proposed solution — one person cuts the cake and the other chooses a piece — being functionally identical to the one proposed here. Anyway, the actual answer to the question posed is that these artifacts belong in a museum, and if our two treasure hunters deliver them to the nearest undersea archaeologists together, they’ll be able to equally share the pride in doing the right thing, which is an infinite resource for those who deserve it.

The Lockhorns, 1/26/20

A lot of Leroy and Loretta’s gripes about each other are exaggerated and performative, but I always assumed there’s a grain of truth to it when Loretta belittles Leroy for not making enough money. That was before I found out they took a vacation to Niagara Falls, Rome, Venice, Scotland, and Greece, though.

Family Circus, 1/26/20

Wait, who’s the dead dude in yellow crawling around on a cloud listening to the prayers of other people’s grandkids? Since his soul is in Paradise, forever in the radiance of our Creator Himself, doesn’t he have literally an infinite number of better things to do?

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 1/13/20

As everyone knows, my favorite kind of Slylock Fox is not the kind where he uses (useless) FACTS and (dubious) LOGIC to DESTROY CRIME or whatever, but rather the ones where we get a glimpse of what the strange, terrifying moment of Transition must’ve been like, when the animals suddenly became sapient and human civilization was wiped away in a wave of chaos. Clearly, humanity lost: the only humans we ever see in the world of the strip are Slick Smitty and Count Weirdly, who live on the fringes of the new animal society built on our ruins. But in those first (or last, depending on your point of view) few chaotic days and weeks, things must’ve gotten pretty crazy, and I absolutely believe that some desperate humans eventually resorted to just ramming their cars into the newly aware but still confused animals that were wandering through the cities, still not entirely sure what they were looking at or dealing with. This scene must have been towards the end of the carnage, as the giraffe is being tended in what looks like a human-built hospital; if the H. sapiens behind the wheel survived the crash, they were presumably thrown into a cage at an abandoned veterinary clinic by a jeering hippo or something.

Mary Worth, 1/13/20

Guys! Did you know that January is Thyroid Awareness Month? Are you more aware of disorders that affect the thyroid, such as Hashimoto’s, thanks to the syndicated comic strip Mary Worth? Looks like the PR firm repping the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists finally got tired of banging its head against a wall with Rex Morgan, M.D., and sent this year’s press release over to the Mary Worth team instead.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/6/20

Hey, Mark, I just want to point out that you’re on an expedition through the Nepalese foothills of the Himalayas, something that most people would consider the trip of a lifetime, and not only are all your expenses being taken care of but you’re earning your salary by being there. And all you have to do in return is write an article about it; if you actually do find a yeti, it will be the story of the century, of course, and if you don’t, well, there are all sorts of angles you can take about your weird trip with an obsessive, larger-than-life personality that will both entertain readers and allow you to work out any feelings you have about Dr. Camel. My point is, maybe you don’t have to act like such a giant pissy baby at all times? Just a thought.

Slylock Fox, 1/6/20

I really feel sorry for the kids in this strip, not just because they have arrived with big, eager smiles at Career Day to learn about some potential job possibilities only to be fed a bunch of patented Slylock useless-fun-fact bullshit, but also in a larger sense because the Animal Kingdom that they inhabit seems to have an entirely pedantry-based economy, and their post-graduation career prospects are extremely gloomy, as the entire society is probably already overdue for a collapse.

Pluggers, 1/6/20

These are this plugger’s last words because he had a massive coronary later that afternoon. “Famous” is probably a strong word, but when his wife and their friend finally connected and heard about the last phone call he took, they had a good chuckle about it, anyway.