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Spider-Man, 6/5/15

As entertainment becomes more and more dominated by reboots and sequels of well-known franchises, moviemakers are encountering a real dilemma: is it worthwhile to spend significant portions of the first movie of a rebooted continuity covering the protagonist’s origin story? Can we assume that pretty much everyone already knows about the radioactive spider, great power great responsibility, Bonesaw is ready, etc., and just skip to the superheroics? Or are there still newbies out there who would end up baffled and alienated by this approach? Today’s Newspaper Spider-Man proposes a radical solution to this problem: simply start each new series with the main character explaining his background story to a Freudian analyst. Problem solved! Storytelling problem solved, I should say; Spider-Man’s deep and crippling emotional problems certainly aren’t going to be resolved in just one session.

Slylock Fox, 6/5/15

When this puzzle appeared in a Sunday strip in 2009, I mostly saw it is a convoluted trick by Grandpa to make his grandkids feel like jerks for not remembering his birthday. But now that we get a closer look at him — his stubble, his wild eyes — I’m getting a different vibe. A crazier vibe. A “last year was 72 and this year is 74 and you add the digits and you get 20 which is what the Illuminati invoke as a ‘triangular’ number” vibe.

Pluggers, 6/5/15

Nice job, colorists: textual clues clearly indicate that those are supposed to be white stars on a blue background, the better to make American flag footwear for the Fourth, but by making them red you’ve turned our plugger child into a promoter of Godless Communism.

Apartment 3-G, 6/5/15

I know there are only two kinds of background in Apartment 3-G anymore — “dowdy mid-century apartment interior” and “mid-century New York City streetscape” — but a narration box in Wednesday’s strip said that Lu Ann and Mike’s gross flirting was happening “at the hotel.” But now suddenly there’s a knock on … some door? And Tommie’s arrived? And she’s keeping busy? And the background is different? WHERE IS EVERYONE WHAT’S GOING ON WHAT IS HAPPENING HELLLPPPP

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Slylock Fox, 6/1/15

Despite the violence that must’ve accompanied the animal takeover of the world in the Slylockverse, it’s actually amazing how much of human culture has been maintained. The animals live in human homes in human cities, drive human cars, even wear clothes, albeit modified a bit to accommodate their anatomy. No doubt they see themselves like the first Germanic groups seizing power from the faltering Romans in the fifth century — they came not to destroy civilization, but merely to enjoy the benefits of it that had previously been denied to them. Thus it’s no surprise that the animals’ new leadership would leave up the statues of the human warriors of old; after all, they see themselves as those men’s cultural, if not biological, successors. But that surly rabbit teen — he doesn’t know anything about the Before Times. He’s grown up in a world run by animals, and he looks around and sees all these statues of hairless apes and he doesn’t get it, man. Why should he have any respect for these dead symbols when the only humans he’s met are opportunists like Slick Smitty or freaks like Count Weirdly? Slylock might look into that angry face and wonder what exactly and his fellow revolutionaries unleashed; but the future, the baffling future in which the animals would have to blaze their own cultural path, would belong to Ronny Rabbit.

Mary Worth, 6/1/15

“Adam’s been great, Mary! So great that I’m going to take one of these roses, which you’re cutting wearing thick garden gloves so you don’t prick yourself on their many thorns, and I’m going to grip it with the palms of my hands as tightly as I can while I think about how great he is!”

Apartment 3-G, 6/1/15

“Yeah, it’s a threat! I’m gonna come back to this … random street corner … where I just kind of bumped into you by chance … and hope you’re here! So if you’re trying to avoid me, you’ll just have to pick one of the thousands of other street corners in this town! I’m very threatening!”

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Slylock Fox, 5/26/15

You know, for too long I’ve thought about the transition from human to animal rule in Slylock Fox in terms of revolutionary violence. But perhaps I’m mistaken. Look at the episode in today’s Six Differences: maybe the revolt began not with acts of carnage, but acts of love, as newly sapient animals freed their dear ones from enslavement. Like all oppressors, of course, the gentleman holding the leash doesn’t see it this way; he’s furious because he can only understand that his own previously unquestioned authority is now under threat. The Great Change did entail violence, of course, but maybe the animals didn’t initiate it.

Apartment 3-G, 5/26/15

Oh hey, remember Margo’s ex-boyfriend Greg, who plays James Bond? Well, here he is, the guy playing one of the most high-profile characters in the movies, just wandering around the streets of New York sans entourage, ready to bump into Margo and make small talk with her about her agency, which … you know, I sort of thought that Greg had been Margo’s client? Of course, she’s a terrible publicist and all, but probably even she’d be smart enough to advise him not to ruin his Bondian cred by appearing in public wearing a green jacket. Anyway, on the surface, this may look like the same kind of disconnected dreamscape conversation Apartment 3-G’s been mired in for months, but replying to your ex-lover’s “Have you missed me?” with “It’s lovely to see you” is from my point of view a delightfully sick burn.

Heathcliff, 5/26/15

Dear Heathcliff and Creators Syndicate: you can’t just make a character cool by having him stand next to another character widely considered cool and then have a third party say “That’s a whole lotta cool.” That’s not how being cool works!