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Slylock Fox, 8/13/12

Today’s strip truly shows the limits of Slylock’s philosophy, and indeed of his life’s work. Sure, his keen powers of observation have allowed him to easily identify the defects in the new royal timepiece. But his simplistic deduction can’t help uncover the structural defects in Princess Pussycat’s government that have contributed to this debacle. What are the flaws in the government contracting process that allowed the monarch to spend thousands of tax coins on a luxury item that doesn’t even work properly? Shouldn’t there have been some sort of inspection before money changed hands? Does the freakish long-necked bird-person have a good reputation in the clock-building world, or did he get this job by personal connections or through a bribe to a lower-level government official? And of course, now that he’s gotten that sack of money, it’ll take more than a little ratiocination to claw it back from him, shoddy workmanship or no.

B.C., 8/13/12

Oh, the silly, superstitious cave-man, running off in terror because he believed a bleached, dried human skull was speaking to him! In fact, the talking was coming from two giant ants inside the skull, and they were talking to each other, in English, which isn’t something to be scared of at all.

Dennis the Menace, 8/13/12

Dennis is eager to close this deal, since he knows from experience that his thoughts and opinions aren’t worth anything.

Ziggy, 8/13/12

In order to feel better about himself, Ziggy has started watching the Failure Channel.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/13/12

Say, do you enjoy the overall oppressive sense of gloom that hovers over Funky Winkerbean, but feel that the strip falls down on the job wen it comes to having its less appealing characters sharing way too much personal information and whining about not getting enough action? Well, today’s strip is for you, my friend!

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Apartment 3-G, 8/10/12

You know, in most forms of narrative, when a small but out-of-the ordinary event happens — like, say, a job applicant failing to include a reference’s phone number on his resume, but happening to have it on a business card — you sort of file it away in the back of your mind as potentially significant. But since this is a soap opera comic strip, it’s probably a safe assumption that the entire pointless action in today’s installment only exists to kill time and means nothing and will never be mentioned again. Which, frankly, is a good thing, because I have a hard time imagining a plot so boring that it hinges on The Mysterious Episode Of The Phone Number That Wasn’t On The Resume But Was Easily Provided Separately.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/12

Hey, everyone, Wally Winkerbean is working through his PTSD with the help of an adorable therapy dog, and is involved in a healthy romantic relationship! Don’t worry, though, he’s still perpetually haunted by the grim spectre of death.

Pluggers, 8/10/12

Pluggers urge their sports heroes to viciously injure their opponents in career-ending and crippling ways.

Ziggy, 8/10/12

I’m not sure if I’d trust a doctor who reads off of continuous feed paper printed out of his dot matrix printer, and who has a certificate hanging on his wall that just says “Doctor” on it. But then, I guess Ziggy can’t really afford decent medical care, what with his explicitly acknowledged poverty and all.

Mary Worth, 8/10/12

“I mean, can you believe it? Everyone fucking hates that song! The boat probably committed suicide out of shame.”

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Lockhorns, 8/8/12

The Lockhorns isn’t just another comic panel; it’s one of the grimmest and most unsparing glimpses into the ways that the absence of love can wear you down into a sense of misery that’s so all-pervasive that you don’t even realize anything else is possible. I love how dead everyone looks in this panel. Leroy is so far gone he can’t even imagine how pathetic and small his request makes him look in front of a stranger; Loretta is dying of embarrassment but can’t summon up the words to explain why; and the pizza delivery kid, slouched over and numb, gets another glimpse of what appears to be the universal soul-crushing awfulness of adulthood, and is getting a crappy tip to boot.

Curtis, 8/8/12

Just a little whimsy in Curtis, where the Wilkins boys help out an old cat lady with some chores and then she drops dead! The facial expressions in the final panel are so great that I feel comfortable forgiving future Weekend at Bernie’s-style zaniness in advance.

Pluggers, 8/8/12

You’re a plugger if you remember when you used to eat at actual restaurants that served recognizable food, but a fried chicken dinner at one of those places cost like $9 plus tip, whereas you can get a 10-piece Chicken Nugget meal for $6, and sure it’s not “chicken” so much as “processed reformed chicken meat” but you get more of it plus it’s a lot faster and you can order right from your car, what does anyone expect you to do, what do you look like, some kind of big city elitist?

Ziggy, 8/8/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Ziggy has finally realized he’s a slave to global capital!