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Slylock Fox, 7/30/13

Longtime readers know that I’m intensely interested in the moment in the Slylockverse’s history when the animals achieved sentience and rose up to overthrow their human oppressors. While I’ve speculated that there’s a rational, scientific explanation for the beastocracy, I’m also open to the idea that one day the animals simply awoke and, with the intelligence gap closed, overwhelmed humanity with sheer numbers. Today’s Six Differences strip hints at this possibility. “Wait a minute,” the big long-neck bird suddenly realized with perfect clarity. “I don’t have to sit around waiting for what crumbs this guy is going to bestow upon me. I can just yank the whole bag out of his lap and have it all for myself. See ya, chump!” As the man watches the bird walk off in blank terror, the other birds, only a few seconds behind in their emergence into sentience, begin to descend.

Heathcliff, 7/30/13

Speaking of terrifying animal scenarios, Heathcliff is usually the king of sang-froid, and I think this is the first I’ve seen him in a state of genuine panic. And well should he be! The prospect of dogs gaining the power of flight thanks to magic urine-powered hoverpads ought to terrify everybody.

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Shoe, 7/29/13

So, here you go: Shoe finally takes a stab at acknowledging that its denizens are sentient bird-men and -women, with puzzling results. First of all, I can’t believe I never made the flappers-bird connection before, and am reasonably sure that there’s some elaborate sentient-bird-women-as-flappers fan drawings out there, possibly on DeviantArt, possibly in the context of an all-sentient-bird Great Gatsby graphic novel. And yet the whole potential crossover is wasted, for the most part. Instead, Loon just tells a weird story about how his aunt used her unremarkable-in-this-context power of flight to … transcend to a higher plane of existence? Like in Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Or maybe she just died of exhaustion/oxygen deprivation? Anyway, if there were ever a situation where Shoe’s patented goggle eyes of horror would be appropriate, it’s this one — “let me tell you a fun story about my aunt that ends in her disappearance and probable death” — but instead the Perfesser just stares straight ahead with dead-eyed numbness. He stopped listening to Loon hours ago. He just says “Yeah?” during conversational lulls to feign politeness.

Gil Thorp, 7/29/13

It may be no Gail Martin mystery, but this summer’s Gil Thorp storyline has been zany in a low-key way, involving an amiable, Alzheimer’s-stricken ex-pro-wrestler and his also ex-pro-wrestler son wandering the nation on the dad’s whims. Today, our senile king of the squared circle is going to teach One-Armed Steve some wrestling moves! Steve seems amused and convinced this will all be in fun, about which he may turn out to be mistaken.

Family Circus, 7/29/13

I guess the tattered state of Jeffy’s blanket is meant to indicate that it’s a well-loved security object for him, but I prefer a different interpretation: it’s decayed during his multi-decade, Rip van Winkle-style nap. No, I’m not sure why Jeffy hasn’t gotten older or why his clothes and house are still intact, even though his family long since moved away and/or died. The important thing is that Jeffy has been thrust alone into a world he no longer understands, OK? Just … just give me this.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 7/28/13

Boy, Slylock is sure getting all Judgment of Solomon down at the trailer park today! You don’t even need to read the solution (it involves trying to assess the cream soda’s fizziness levels) to see the contempt he holds everyone in here. After all, whether the delicious soda rightfully belongs to Reeky or to Mrs. Beaver, Slylock is going to pop it open and ruin anyone’s chance of enjoying it on their terms. Presumably he’ll just roughly thrust it at whoever’s it turns out to be, saying “Drink it quick if you don’t want it to go flat.” Or maybe he’ll just gulp the whole thing down himself, as repayment for having to come down and sort this nonsense out in the first place.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/28/13

If there’s one aspect of life in Hootin’ Holler that I don’t think gets enough treatment, it’s the system of clan-based feuds that inevitably springs up in places where the nation-state’s justice system is weak, nonexistent, or distrusted. What deadly slights do those marks on the tree represent? How many generations of Smifs have been recording them against how many generations of Barlows? Is there any way to wipe the slate clean, except with Barlow blood?

Panels from Marvin, 7/28/13

For a while now the Marvin Sunday panel has consisted of Marvin’s entire family staring straight ahead in numb, wide-eyed despair, which as you can imagine has pleased me to no end. Today, however, Grandpa offers a specific complaint, which I like less, as I prefer to think of them having reached this state merely by contemplation of their own hellish existence.