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Slylock Fox, 1/18/09

Slylock has been called upon to solve some pretty petty crimes in his day, but never before have we seen him use his powers of ratiocination to compensate for the utter incompetence of his sidekick. And Sly is all smiles and soothing hand gestures, but perhaps some of the ancillary matter in the bottom row of the comic — a penguin cheerfully toting a wide-eyed and terrified fish off to its doom, and a slavering, fanged bear — represent what’s going on in his mind: a desperate hope that one of the many predator animals in the bucolic scene will devour Max and leave him free to find a slightly less moronic assistant.

Panels from Hi and Lois, 1/18/09

The throwaway panels in today’s Hi and Lois are particularly bizarre, with Hi responding to a pleasantry from his wife with rambling, paranoid nonsense. In the second panel, she is clearly closing her eyes and thinking happy thoughts about Chad, the 23-year-old ski instructor.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/18/09

“Yes, when my dad shows up at practice every day, silently and intently watching me and other nubile young teenage girls work out, it sure makes me want to delay having sex … forever, since I plan to flee to Southeast Asia, join a Buddhist nunnery, and take a vow to never speak to another human being again in order to escape him.”

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Ziggy, 1/17/09

I was about to launch into an ill-conceived tirade about Ziggy shamelessly pandering to America’s still-endemic anti-Italian prejudice with this repulsive caricature; however, I soon realized that this hirsute, mustachioed fellow is probably supposed to be Ziggy’s tormenter, the cruel, sadistic proprietor of the deli he frequents. The thuggish cook has put on a greasy fake wig and ludicrous Super Mario Brothers-style mustache just to show his contempt for the Italian people. (My proposed term for this act of hate is “oliveface.”) Since this racist bastard has been established as a nonsympathetic character, this cartoon is not prejudiced against Italians but is actually cogently commenting on anti-Italian prejudice. My proposed Order of the Sons of Italy-led boycott against Ziggy will have to wait for another day.

Dick Tracy, 1/17/09

So, to summarize: Dick Tracy, who is a prominent law enforcement official, is living right up the street from this explosion-happy professor, knows where he lives, has a wife who has entered into some kind of business arrangement with him, etc. Meanwhile, the CIA is on the trail of the guy, and rather than check with other law enforcement agencies, plans to implement an enormously expensive and completely impractical technical method to find him. In other words, this Dick Tracy storyline is the strip’s most shockingly realistic yet.

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Spider-Man, 1/16/09

Most of us actually go out and do things when we’re in college, but once we get older and get married, we mostly just stay at home, watch TV, and bitch about stuff that annoys us. So it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that newly time-jumped college-age Spider-Man is engaging in a surprising amount of superheroics. Fortunately, the core attribute of the Spider-Man newspaper universe — namely, that everyone there is dumber than a box of hair — remains unchanged. Our hero has been knocked unconscious by a stream of water he unleashed himself, and our “triumphant” villain is driving off in armored car of loot with its rear doors open, allowing said loot to fly out into the street as he makes his getaway.

Dennis the Menace, 1/16/09

Isn’t Dennis’s usual schtick in this context to repeat insulting things his parents have said behind their unsuspecting guest’s back, rather than just letting lose with his own insults? As this is the sort of thing that can laughed off thanks to kids and their darndest-thing-saying ways, I judge it to be less menacing, unless “grapefruit” is some kind of obscure ethnic slur that I’m not familiar with.

Ziggy, 1/16/09

Ha ha, Ziggy asked the star to fulfill some foul, perverted sex fantasy!

Wait, did I say “ha, ha”? I meant “OH GOD I JUST THOUGHT ABOUT ZIGGY’S SEX FANTASIES WHY WHY WHY”

Family Circus, 1/16/09

Aw, isn’t that cute! Jeffy thinks he’s going to college!