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Slylock Fox, 5/11/15

It’s more than a little sad, really, that even after the animals achieved sapience, even after they adopted the worst aspects of the mostly vanished human race — wearing their clothes, living in their emptied buildings, stealing from and lying to each other, going to museums to gawk at the detritus of the dead — they still retain some dim memory of, and yearing for, their previous state. The government that employs Slylock may be based in the garbage-strewn cities that humanity left behind, but they still think of themselves as forest dwellers, and so their national museum is still the Forest Museum, even though there isn’t a tree in sight. Perhaps the state’s figurehead ruler lives in the forest part time, for ceremonial reasons, but the animals are civilized now, as disquieting as they find that fact. Those rats, though — those brutal, grim-faced enforcers Slylock’s brought in to show the security guard what happens to lawmen who turn — those rats have never seen a forest in their lives. They’re city folk through and through.

Mary Worth, 5/11/15

“Curiously excited!” is a really specific emotion, Toby, so congrats on your ability to distinguish it at a distance on the faces of people you don’t know very well. I guess they were curiously excited about seeing how Adam would do in the first of the several tests Terry is posing to him during his trial period to see if he’s worthy of her love. Can Adam operate a hot air balloon in what appears to be the absence of a certified balloonist? Or will he send the two of them careening to their deaths on the rocky, forbidding mountains that surround Santa Royale?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/11/15

I love that “working hard” for Rex means drinking coffee and reading the newspaper and answering his daughter’s questions in as few syllables as possible. Also, I’ve come to accept the idea that creepy adult-child Sarah is an artistic prodigy, but if she manages to settle the age-old philosophical question “What is art?” while she’s still in kindergarten, I’m gonna be pretty pissed.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 5/10/15

Slylock is of course the king of being a dick to everyone around him, including his supposed friends, but this seems like a particularly low blow. Like all the sapient animals in this strip, Max is still pretty new to using language, and is maybe a little sensitive and awkward about it. “Hey, Max,” says Slylock, “did you know that what you perceive as a self-directed ability to generate ideas ex nihilo is just putting words in order that someone else thought up? Guess you’re not as smart as you think!” Max dies a little inside. Is he still the tiny, unthinking rodent he once was? Do his hat and shorts count for nothing? He’ll get past this moment of self-doubt, probably; Slylock will wait until his self-confidence is built up a bit more before dropping the Library of Babel on him.

Panels from Judger Parker, 5/10/15

Oh, hey, remember that whole Rocky-and-Godiva-are-fighting plot that was ultimately resolved when Rocky and Godiva stopped fighting and skipped out on dinner, so they could have sex? Well, bad news: seems they had sex … to death.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/9/15

Say what you will about our man Snuffy’s book learnin’, moral fiber, or long-term planning skills, but you have to admire him as a savvy realist. For instance, he’s well aware of the dysfunctional nature of the polity he lives in. He watched those fancy flatlander politicians from the state government cut the ribbon on the project that finally brought plumbing to Hootin’ Holler and thought, “Who’s gonna maintain them pipes? Folks around here? The guv’ner? The revenooers? Don’t want none for my shack, no thanks.”

Gil Thorp, 5/9/15

Looks like True’s awkward flirting is going great! “Why, yes, I have read one of the most beloved novels of the 20th century, one assigned to millions of high school students in their English classes! Mmmm, smell this hamburger, it smells like smug literacy.”

Heathcliff, 5/9/15

Never mind why Heathcliff’s owner-grandma seems scandalized by cats who aren’t wearing clothes: what’s Heathcliff’s owner-grandpa holding in his hand? Are those … calipers? Going to be working real hard at not thinking about the intersection between cat nudism and calipers for the next couple of days, thanks.