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Slylock Fox, 6/3/13

Ha ha yes blah blah blah geography facts it’s the Pacific not the Atlantic very good, Slylock Fox, now let’s get at what’s really happening in today’s puzzle. Weirdly, self-appointed Count, green-skinned and twisted and one of the last remaining inhabitants of Earth that we might recognize as “human”, has an illegal island lab (forbidden by what legislation? Does Slylock even know the sources of the law code he so ruthlessly enforces?) where he dabbles in genetic experiments. Experiments that might explain a little something about the strange menagerie of creatures ruling the crumbling cities where human beings once lived. Experiments that might transform a species of smallish and clever but nonsentient canids into bipeds capable of ratiocination and operating an airplane and distinguishing between — well, if not between right and wrong, then between what is permitted and what is forbidden. Assuming that Slylock’s enhanced intelligence gives him the skills to somehow land a jet plane on a tiny island with no airstrip, the worst that’s in store for Weirdly is that he’ll be hauled before an animal-run judiciary and thrown in an animal-guarded cell. Slylock, meanwhile, will find out some harrowing details about himself, about where he came from, about his relationship to his Creator. Somewhere in the endless levels of blood-stained cement-walled corridors below that island, there is a cage, and inside that cage is a fox, a fox that doesn’t wear a deerstalker or walk on two legs or solve crimes. It just skitters back and forth in its little prison, eating pellets and drinking water from its automatically refilled bottle and hissing at whoever comes into the room. Will their eyes lock when Slylock finally enters this chamber? Will they both finally understand what has happened, the one with only dim animal instincts, the other with terrible clarity?

Apartment 3-G, 6/3/13

Never mind whatever’s happening with Marty and her dad. Let’s all give a big hand to Doris, who received a Laurel of Merit at the Purple Olympics!

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Apartment 3-G, 6/2/13

Last night I saw Frances Ha, a low-budget indie film that takes place mostly in New York but includes a brief sojourn to Paris that, I was surprised to see, was actually filmed in Paris. Admittedly it was all done with low-cost and probably handheld digital cameras, but even the cost of plane tickets for the star and a few crew members had to run into thousands of dollars, not an insignificant chunk of indie movie budget change. Comic strips are not restricted in this way, obviously, as any number of reference photographs available for free on the Internet could give an artist instant material to draw, say, an Italian cityscape as a background to Tommie’s adventures there, which is of course why the current storyline focuses on Lu Ann’s ill-defined children-of-veterans art education project, taking place in what I guess is the Mills Gallery. Still, it may have been all worth it just to see Marty tell Lu Ann what all of us have been waiting tell Lu Ann pretty much forever.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/2/13

Funky Winkerbean very, very rarely focuses on the positive. Still, the message I’m getting from today’s strip is: if your father was killed when you were a baby, maybe it’s just as well, because maybe he was an asshole you would’ve hated.

Marvin, 6/2/13

Marvin would like to take a break from its endless Marvin-pooping-in-his-pants jokes to offer you a Marvin-peeing-in-the-pool joke.

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Marvin, 6/1/13

Marvin’s dad’s brief attempt to interact socially with non-wife-and-Marvin persons ended in abysmal failure when his co-worker Ted clumsily attempted to flirt with bar-ladies in his presence. I guess Jeff had been brought as “wing-man,” since there’s nothing that makes you more attractive to a woman than a dead-eyed friend with a combover? Anyway, Jeff will now briefly enjoy his home life again, at least until the next Marvin-expelled toxic event reminds him that hell is other people, no matter what their age.

Heathcliff, 6/1/13

Heathcliff is taking a little break from its downward (upward?) spiral into insanity to do some classic cat humor — haha, the cat wants to eat the delicious, delicious birds! — but I still have some questions about the context here. Namely, is Heathcliff playing in an all-cat baseball game? It would explain why the outfield fence is only 18 inches high, I guess.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/1/13

Having successfully expelled Frankie from their lives with righteous indignation, Darrin and Jessica are getting back to what they do best: smirking at each other while engaged in passive-aggressive one-upmanship.

Pluggers, 6/1/13

Pluggers would rather spend hours driving around Chicago whining about parking than take the elitist communist L train.