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Slylock Fox, 9/3/18

It’s hard to deny that the new animal regime of which Slylock is the enforcer has a human problem. Humans make up a vanishingly tiny portion of post-animalpocalypse Earth’s sapient population, but it seems like Slylock is constantly being called on to deal with their petty crimes and disputes. Of course, the fact that humans are a despised, impoverished minority who just lost what must have been a bloody and devastating war to the regime has nothing to do with this, so the animals in their benevolence have decided to confine the humans to a beautiful rural area along with the few animals who never made the Change, where they can steal each other’s omelettes in relative peace.

Gil Thorp, 9/3/18

It’s time for the Gil Thorp fall storyline, and the Gil Thorp fall storyline is about insufferable cineastes. Remember a few years back when the local tattoo parlor used bootleg DVDs as a loss leader, except the DVDs turned out not to be bootleg after all? Well, by making cinematic entertainment seem “edgy” and “cool,” that long-departed tattooist planted the virus of cinematic appreciation in the minds of the local youth, and now the kids all have home theaters and 2001 posters and obsessions with mid-’90s indie films and whatnot. I desperately hope we see each and everyone one of these children get repeatedly stuffed into lockers by the football team, who just want to bring pride to the community by tackling people and don’t want to get drawn into tedious arguments about auteur theory.

Dick Tracy, 9/3/18

Hey buddy! I know when you got into the drug-dealing game someone probably said “this stuff sells itself!” but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. You have to at least tell the kids that you’re selling drugs before they’ll buy it. You can’t just lean against a pole thought-ballooning about it!

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/20/18

Time has, it goes without saying, not been kind to the core cast of Funky Winkerbean, the ones who were all in high school in the original, carefree iteration of the strip, and even though they look extremely wizened and beaten down, I guess they’re supposed to be at the oldest end of Gen X, now in their early 50s. This puts them squarely in what’s being called the “sandwich generation”: forced to simultaneously care for both their belligerent and confused Greatest Generation parents and their smarmy, unlikeable Millennial children. You’d feel bad for Funky and his cohort if not for the fact that they themselves are also completely and utterly insufferable.

Mark Trail, 8/20/18

Hmm, Rusty, did you ever think that maybe Becky is selling the copies on the black market as an elaborate sting operation to catch the artifact-rustlers who have been plaguing the Yucatan for far too long? I mean, she’s not, of course, because everyone in Mark Trail is exactly as villainous as they appear, but still! Anyway, I’m enjoying the vision of Becky spending years making and discarding two-dimensional copies by just jamming them into a photocopier, shaking her head and waiting for the day when technology finally catches up with her criminal ambitions.

Slylock Fox, 8/20/18

It’s bad enough that the animals rose up and largely exterminated humanity and then moved into our cities and took over our civilization as if it were theirs. But now they’re erasing our history, producing films that imply Cleopatra and her subjects were something other than full-blooded H. sapiens. I know casting minority actors isn’t always “convenient” for directors who have a core set of performers they usually work with, but I’m sure that Slick Smitty is available and more than willing to wear a wig.

Pluggers, 8/20/18

Oh no, I know this movie is nearly 20 years old and this point but it’s still avant-garde weirdness and pluggers will not be able to handle it. Abort, plugger, abort! Reruns of Matlock are on all afternoon, why not settle in for them instead

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Dennis the Menace, 8/19/18

Man, I’ve been asked to believe some improbable things about Dennis Mitchell in my time — that he’s six and allowed to roam unsupervised around the neighborhood, that his parents talk smack about other adults in front of him somehow not anticipating that he will immediately spill the beans when he meets said other adults, that he wears literally the exact same clothes every day and hasn’t been diagnosed with a serious personality disorder or reported to child protective services, etc. But I absolutely refuse to go along with the idea that Dennis can distinguish between different types of jazz, and moreover prefers some types to others! I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/19/18

Wait, how is this Weirdly-bot getting power? Has the kooky Count developed some form of perpetual motion machine, or perhaps an engine that can derive electricity from the air or ambient light? Once again, the lede is extremely buried.

Mark Trail, 8/19/18

Mark, I have to disagree with you: I think the relative harmlessness of snakes sounds like a delightful topic for breakfast conversation! Nothing like shoving cereal down your food hole, maintaining unbroken eye contact with your partner, and saying, “Look, I know hognose snakes are venomous, but they aren’t likely to pose any serious threat to human beings. So go ahead and pick it up! What are you, a baby?”