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Slylock Fox, 6/25/12

One of the great strengths of Slylock Fox is its ability to create little self-contained stories with only a single panel and a few sentences; still, I think today’s installment could have used a bit more fleshing out, particularly when it comes to how Benny Beaver (aka the “Toothy Tumbler,” a nickname he presumably only earned at this precise moment) came to just fall out of a plane without a parachute. More to the point, why is he taking a flight in tiny airplane with Max and Sly in the first place? We all know that Slylock’s world is a dictatorship where the power of police is not restrained by any kind of independent judiciary, so my first instinct was that Benny was a political dissident that Slylock was eliminating Argentine junta-style, but Slylock’s showy rescue obviously eliminates this possibility. Unless it’s elaborate theater, an attempt (one that Slylock will deliberately botch) to show that he tried his best to rescue the clumsy water-rodent, despite Benny’s known subversive attitudes towards the benevolent Slylockian state? Anyway, since Max appears to have been left alone in the airplane — an airplane with controls that he is far too tiny to operate properly — Slylock may be taking care of several of his rodent problems at once here.

Blondie, 6/25/12

I would find this clerk’s befuddlement more believable were it not for the fact that he’s working in some kind of vintage electronics store, what with the countertop ad for a flip-phone with an antenna and the clearly visible Apple Newton and handheld VHS cameras in the display case.

Archie, 6/25/12

I keep meaning to tell y’all: If you are interested in some of the really quite fetching clothing designs that have appeared in Archie Comics over the years, you owe it to yourself to check out the Betty and Veronica Fashions Tumblr. I bring it up now because if there were some kind of evil mirror-universe version of this Tumblr that focused on hideous, ill-drawn outfits from the mid-’90s reruns in the Archie newspaper strip, Reggie would totally have earned a place in it by wearing whatever the hell it is he has on here.

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Panel from Mary Worth, 6/24/12

“We’ll visit several wonderful places before going to Milan. Milan isn’t wonderful at all, of course. It’s basically a big pile of garbage. ‘Garbage town’ is what I like to call it. That’s where we’ll be staying most of our time in Italy. I can’t wait!”

Judge Parker, 6/24/12

The best part of this strip is the hilarious final panel, of course, but I do think it’s made even more hilarious by Sam chatting smugly on the phone just a few feet away. “What’s that, Honey? You hear a series of wacky Three Stooges-style noises getting progressively fainter? Huh, we must have a bad connection or something.”

Panel from Hi and Lois, 6/24/12

“Want to sit down and reminisce with me? Want to feel the crushing weight of nostalgia pressing you down into the couch, the ennui of times past making you so enervated that you can barely hold your eyes open, barely move forward into the future because you’re being dragged under the waves of time by the enormous anchor of the dead past?”

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Apartment 3-G, 6/23/12

“No paramedics, Scott!! They follow their rules, not ours.”

Ahem. Let’s just enjoy that line again, shall we?

“No paramedics, Scott!! They follow their rules, not ours.”

Oh, man. I mean really, it’s too delicious! “No paramedics, Scott!! They follow their rules — their medically sound rules, based on a century of science and years of training and experience dealing with people who need medical attention, not our crazy patchwork of imperious and contradictory commands and whims that we’ve developed over the course of a lifetime of wealth and privilege — wealth and privilege that have kept us isolated from anyone who might tell us that we’re wrong about anything, ever. Damn it, if I want this baby sucked out of me through my bellybutton by powerful magnets, then that’s how it’s going to be! Who do we know with a medical degree who’s weak-willed enough to do exactly what I tell them to, no matter how stupid that might be? Oh, right, Tommie Thompson. Call Tommie!”

“No paramedics, Scott!! They follow their rules, not ours.”

Excuse me, be right back, getting that tattooed on my ass.

Mark Trail, 6/23/12

It actually makes me feel kind of bad for Mark Trail, because on most days his “Hmm, I’m being pursued by armed killers, let’s wake up this hibernating grizzly bear, that can only result in positive outcomes” plan would be the most deranged and hilarious thing on the comics page. But not today, my friend. Not today.

Mary Worth, 6/23/12

I’m not sure if this is the narrative intention or not, but I am 100% more interested in Mary’s upcoming stint as an Ask Wendy pinch hitter than I am in Dawn moping her way across Italy or whatever. Mary is finally beginning to realize that this newfangled “printing press” technology will allow her to meddle in lives on an unprecedented scale, forcing people to bend to her will without ever having to meet them in person! And the rest of the world is also rejoicing at the news, as the front page of the Santa Royale Gazette indicates: stock markets are going through the roof now that Mary will be dispensing advice in the newspaper, and I have no doubt that the “RESULTS ANNOUNCED IN NEW POLL” indicate unanimous support for Mary’s appointment as dictator for life.

Judge Parker, 6/23/12

Uh oh, looks like Avery’s about to fall to his death! I certainly hope that he’s had time in the car to write a new will that leaves his vast fortune to Sam.

Ziggy, 6/23/12

OK, so here’s a funny story! I was pretty much all ready to write a joke along the lines of “These birds yearn to feast on Ziggy’s flesh” and move on with my life, when something about that seemed naggingly familiar; sure enough, a little Google searching revealed this Ziggy cartoon from four years ago:

…and at the time I in fact made the exact joke I almost made about this panel. The weird part is that this isn’t just a repeat panel — it’s completely redrawn, which makes me wonder if, much like me and my birds-eating-Ziggy joke, Tom II thought of this joke again and forgot that it had already appeared in his strip and completely redrew a panel for it. That sort of problem is frankly forgivable and inevitable, for who can avoid repeating themselves when they need to produce seven jokes a week, every week, every year, for the rest of their lives?

Actually, I’m sorry, that wasn’t so much a “funny story” as a “depressing” one.