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Slylock Fox, 10/6/13

There’s an awful lot of fun things going in today’s Slylock Fox — that “How To Draw” bull looks more exasperated than raging, for instance, and I’d dearly love to know what’s going on in the Six Differences, in which ordinary animals seem to be ganging up on a baffled Grimace-thing. But the best little detail is that Max Mouse is surreptitiously dialing 911 as Slylock outlines the ratiocination sequence that will convict Shady Shrew of larceny and assault. He knows Sly’s been pushed to the limits by Shady Shrew’s constant low-level criminality, and fears that this might be the day when, instead of handing Shady over to the owl-run justice system, the predator-detective will just grab the insectivore between his powerful jaws and shake him back and forth until his neck snaps. Even though they’re on different sides of the law, Max can’t stand to see his fellow small mammal go down like that.

Beetle Bailey, 10/6/13

Welp, Beetle Bailey is still fixated on sex robots, but at least this time they’re imagined as part of the camp’s chilly rationalist’s vision of a dystopian, dehumanized future, so I guess that’s progress?

Momma, 10/6/13

Haha, it’s funny because Thomas and Tina’s house is literally infested with vermin, augh augh augh augh

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Mark Trail, 10/5/13

Whoa you guys, Mark is using high technology to defeat his enemies. And by “high technology” I mean “a cell phone that appears to have a seven- or eight-inch screen.” That counts, for this strip! Hiding an enormous tablet-slab might be slightly trickier than stashing away a smaller phone would’ve been, though.

The tragedy of today’s Mark Trail is the terrible coloring job. Mark appears to be wearing a charming western jacket with arrows embroidered on it. Do you expect me to believe that the whole thing is just a dull brown? For shame, King Features colorists! We want to see Mark’s jauntiest outfit ever in all its glory!

Beetle Bailey, 10/5/13

Normally, if a beloved long-running family comic strip that runs in thousands of newspapers had a character openly arranging an orgy, you might think that was kind of noteworthy, you know? But now my attitude is “Well, at least all of the women he’s planning on having sex with are biological life forms and not crudely anthropomorphic robots,” so well played, Beetle Bailey!

Shoe, 10/5/13

This bird-lady and her bird-husband went on a second honeymoon and, despite her husband’s advanced years, they were able to have all the intercourse they wanted, thanks to modern pharmaceutical science.

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Greetings, faithful readers! Your comment of the week in a moment, but first a brief reminder that open talk warning shirts are available for purchase at my CafePress store. Here we see faithful reader/genius A-wel Cruiz, who designed the logo, modeling his own attractive work:

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and purchase!

Also, go forth and enjoy this fine comment of the week:

“Is that really what Jeff looks like? Mary’s been ignoring him so long I think she’s starting to forget. ‘Let’s see … Frank Sinatra eyes, Mitt Romney hair, John Goodman chin … did he have a neck? Probably, but I won’t include it in my vision until I check the photos.'” –pugfuggly

And the enjoy these runners up!

“Pluggers continues the series of strips in which the dog has usurped the man’s place in the woman’s heart, yet the man is also a dog married inexplicably to a chicken woman (perhaps the one from The Kids in the Hall?). My theory that the comics page reflects the true reality we refuse to see in order to protect our sanity (the horrors revealed by 9CL, Slylock, Luann and Pluggers) seems more and more rational. At night, I now dream of the lost glistening city and hear the chanting of eldritch frog people (again, the men in 9CL certainly share a batrachian quality). I fear I may not survive to post again. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” –Everything Is Better with Monkeys

“Great use of that owl, making direct eye contact with the reader. ‘WHO can prevent the animal uprising? Only you.'” –Joe Blevins

“Note there is a time skip between the penultimate and last panel, so we don’t know quite how far he took the analogy. I’m guessing ‘slaughtered like pigs’ came in at some point, and perhaps ‘boiled down for glue.'” –Danel

“Ed’s feeling it too, and I KNOW what it is — another STROKE! Ha ha, get it? No, but seriously, call 911.” –Chyron HR

“‘Momma, we have a difference of opinions…’ ‘…and we’d like you to solve it.’ ‘Please! I’m not King Solomon. But I have received divine instructions to slice both of you in half.'[or:] ‘Please! I’m not the Hague. But some legal authorities do consider this strip to be a crime against humanity.’ [or:] ‘Please! I’m not the DC Circuit Court. But I do have several vacancies where Alzheimer’s has eaten away my brain.'” –Nekrotzar

“Man, I hate Mond… what? Are you serious? Miss Buxley’s just gonna steal my Mondays riff? I COOKED A DAMN LASAGNA FOR THIS.” –Dan

“This is the freshest air I’ve breathed in a long time! And, hey, look at that bobcat about to kill that white rabbit I brought with me and just released into the wild. That’s what I really came here to see: bloodshed! Not that pansy-ass arguing they call ‘bloodshed’ in Washington. I want to see a living thing be torn apart just for my amusement. Well. Say, Dusty, have you ever read a story called ‘The Most Dangerous Game’?” –Christopher

“Meanwhile, Pac-Man watches Heathcliff’s travails from within his giant obsidian cloud-ship. He laughs bitterly at the follies of man. Or cat, or ape, or whatever this comic strip is about, I don’t even know.” –C. Sandy Cyst

“Senator, meet Dusty Rhodes, and his fellow rangers Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka and George ‘The Animal’ Steele. They’d like to have a discussion with you about your policies. Oh, look! A vicious bobcat! You’d better get in this protective steel cage with the rangers!” –aphthakid

“Y’see, there are cult classics, such as Rocky Horror, The Room, Battle Beyond the Stars, and Garbage Ape. They became cult classics because their humor was unintentional. They were chosen for veneration by the fans. Then there are pandering attempts to court the midnight movie audience (Can’t Stop the Music, The Worst Movie Ever Made!, Trash Chimp), and the results can be smelled a mile away. Basically, I’m saying: Don’t screw this up for me, Heathcliff.” –The Mighty Untrained FOOZLE

“I’m jest one gimpy leg from the glue factory! Also, Snuffy fucks me! So yeah, the horse comparison is pretty solid.” –Doctor Handsome

“Don’t try to figure out what’s happening, Mark. It makes no sense to us, either. Just stick to your strengths: bide your time until someone admits being evil and points a gun at you, then beat them savagely. You might as well go punch the oil rigs as try to make sense of American energy politics. If you actually try to influence the legislative process, you’ll probably end up with the Keystone XL Pipeline running through Cherry’s kitchen.” –Master Softheart

“Note how Marvin and friend are looking back on a past event so traumatic that only now, these many months later, can they bring themselves to speak of it openly. It’s not enough that the strip continues to mine rich veins of unpleasantness unfit for the comics page. No, it must also tease us with the suggestion of long-repressed memories that will now come spewing forth from Marvin’s subconscious, very much like a tsunami of regurgitated processed-meat products, until we long for that simpler time when all we had to worry about were poopy-diaper jokes. ‘We didn’t know how good we had it,’ we’ll say. Well played, Marvin. Well played.” –Dr. Moreau

“I like the way the pizza makers are now completely bored with Heathcliff. It’s like, ‘Yeah, the talking cat came in, we got the birds, we baked the pizza and now we’re just so totally over the whole thing.'” –Lily Sincere

“4-20 blackbirds? Finally, a clue to the inspiration behind Heathcliff.” –zaratustra

“‘It’s sort of like how we shed flakes of dead skin, except we do it constantly. Trees only do it when they’re about to go into their winter hibernation. We’re shedding flakes of dead skin all the time. That’s what all the dust all over our house is made of. You know what’s really cool? Little tiny dust mites all over the place eat up all that dead skin. And then they turn it into a totally different kind of dust by shitting it all over the place. You know where you find the biggest concentration of dust mites? Mattresses. When you go to sleep at night you’re sleeping with billions and billions of mites eating your dead skin and shitting all over you.’ And thus Dolly plants the seeds for Jeffy’s obsessive compulsive disorder.” –Christopher

“Today’s Rex Morgan is quite sad. I know that most human unicorns face a lot of mockery and pain in their lives, but they need to overcome this, see themselves for the wonders that they are! Not seek out some shadowy doctor who’s willing to run a back-street hornectomy. Face it, Buck, even without the horn, the trail of glitter you leave behind and your creepy attraction to virgins is going to make it clear what you really are.” –Voshkod

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And as always, we must give thanks to our advertiser, who has sponsored the mobile version of the site this week:

• Chicken Outfit: The comic: Rusty McDoodle isn’t having the best week. His web clients aren’t paying, his girlfriend left him and his social skills have deteriorated from freelancing in a vacuum. His best friend Stan works in online porn, toiling away in a virtual sweat-shop lorded over by a maniacal boss and his dog-like cronies. When Stan’s latest project goes up flames late one night, he asks Rusty to join the company and help him uncover the truth behind his Kafkaesque employer. These two web-lackeys soon discover a series of events have been set in motion so bizarre, that their world is engulfed by epic chaos. With the help of an alcoholic psychic and his fishing buddy, they’re roped into a nightmarish struggle with bloodthirsty demons and money-mongering yes-men. Can they keep their jobs and sanity intact when they can’t trust anyone and there’s an axe lurking behind every back?

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