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Slylock Fox, 7/14/08

My deep and abiding affection for Reeky Rat has been captured on film, so there’s really no point in denying it any further. Today’s strip is awesome not because he’s rear-ending soft-hearted hippos (though there is that) but because of his stunning fashion choices. We’ve previously seen Reeky in trailer park casual and nothing at all, but today he’s gotten all gussied up, wearing his best fringed vest and no doubt spending hours and a lot of product getting his pompadour fluffed out to epic proportions. The question is, where could Reeky possibly be going that might require this level of sartorial sophistication? My guesses are “uncomfortable visit to babymomma’s parents” and “court appearance.”

Archie, 7/14/08

I don’t normally encourage Photoshoppers to turn objects in innocent family comics into bongs, but there are some days when you just have to run with what they give you.

Gil Thorp, 7/14/08

“You know, the way that Mr. Vargas thought that by the time Elmer finally found out the truth about his immigration status, it wouldn’t matter. Woo-hoo! Web of lies high five!”

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Slylock Fox, 7/13/08

Justice for Cassandra! There’s nothing illegal about walking your dog in painfully high heels and a ludicrously short skirt, and there’s nothing illegal about huffing glue and rooting around in the back seats of taxicabs to see if anyone left anything valuable there. If you don’t want your precious gems studding the collars of local pets and/or S&M bottoms, you should probably keep better track of them.

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing: the fact that there’s a mouse crawling around on the back of the dog owner in the top Six Differences panel, or the many unsettling possibilities as to where that mouse might have gone in the bottom panel.

Judge Parker, 7/13/08

“Sam and Steve shop for golf clubs,” scheduled to run for the six to eight weeks, will make you long for the days of such exciting Judge Parker fare as “Raju gets a makeover,” “Marie sprains her ankle,” and “Sophie recites global warming data she found on the Internet in an unsettling monotone.”

Crankshaft, 7/13/08

It’s nice to see Crankshaft trying to fill the void left by the departure of They’ll Do It Every Time, but the execution seems to lack a certain zing.

Dennis the Menace, 7/13/08

“Meditating” = “high as a kite,” obviously.

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Family Circus, 7/12/08

Since the America-hating ACLU prevents the Keane kids from forcibly saving the souls of their classmates during school hours, and no other children voluntarily spend time with them outside of the classroom, they’re left with only one target for their relentless soul-saving agenda: their pets. While their attempts to wash away the sins of their demon-spawn cat went horribly awry, Dolly is thinking that they might have better luck with the dogs. I urge Barfy and Sam to surrender their lives to Christ with a minimum of resistance, as the Keanes’ exorcism techniques have been known to destroy the body in order to save the soul.

(Speaking of the Family Circus, thanks to the many, many readers who sent me a link to this fabulous panel from the ’80s, in which Ma Keane imagines Dolly being hunted for sport.)

Mark Trail, 7/12/08

I admit to being strangely unmoved by the current Mark Trail storyline, despite the fact that it consists almost entirely of Kelly Welly being foolish again. But the prospect of a joint moose/megabeaver attack on Kelly’s hapless assistant, who will scream for help while Kelly snaps gruesome photo after gruesome photo for her new When Animals Kill column, does perk my interest up a bit. Don’t disappoint me, forest beasts! Do your worst!

Cleats, 7/12/08

I was moved to break my long silence on Cleats by the installment in which the genial children’s strip suddenly took a page from a nightmarish Harlan Ellison story. I assumed, naturally, that it couldn’t get any worse and I could get back to ignoring it, but that was before the hungry, sinister carrion eaters arrived, determined to begin picking the flesh off the still-living soccer ball as it lies roasting in the hot sun.