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Slylock Fox, 1/22/07

This little scene immediately brought to mind a quote I’ve always liked, from A.W. Brian Simpson’s Cannibalism and the Common Law:

Leading cases are the very stuff of which the common law is made, and no leading case in the common law is better known than that of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens. It was decided in 1884 by a court in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. In it, two profoundly respectable seamen, Captain Tom Dudley and Mate Edwin Stephens, lately of the yacht Mignonette, were sentenced to death for the murder of their shipmate, Ordinary Seaman Richard Parker, after a bench of five judges had ruled that one must not kill one’s shipmates in order to eat them, however hungry one might be.

Fortunately for Slylock, who’s grinning a grin here that’s a little too sly, as a non-human animal his conduct is governed not by the common law, but by the Law of Nature. Max will make a tasty little snack to take the edge off until the raft washes up on the west coast of New Zealand, where our vulpine detective will use his powers of elementary deduction to solve long-running land disputes between the government and the Maori before dining on the native fauna, which is completely unadapted to mid-sized predators.

Also beyond the Queen’s justice in this vignette is that crafty bottle-stealing octopus. I will say again that Slylock Fox has some of the best incidental details of any strip out there.

Dick Tracy, 1/22/07

So the Tracys seem to think that kicking a little cash at some Alzheimer’s researchers will somehow atone for the monstrous crime of erasing a man’s mind. Note, however, the “Inc.” in the address. That’s no high-minded government research lab, it’s a for-profit pharmaceutical firm — probably a shell company in which GlaxoSmithKline owns a controlling interest. Dick and Tess will no doubt be seeing a generous return from that generous thing she did.

Elsewhere, some dude plans to break into a jewelry store with a crowbar, in a totally interesting criminal act that will surely demand the attention of the world’s greatest, most techno-enabled detective.

Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 1/22/07

Jeffy’s blatant assault on his mother yesterday was apparently just the beginning; today, she must bribe him with food to stave off another barrage, a strategy that will last only until his little tummy is filled up. Meanwhile, the snowball offensive has spread to Dennis the Menace as well. Mrs. Wilson looks fairly shocked by Dennis’ naked aggression; no doubt years of sub-par menacing have lulled her into complacency.

If all the children in the comics pages rose up senselessly and violently against the adults, like the birds in The Birds, I for one would be a happy guy. I’m sure Elmo has a lot of aggression he needs to work out against Dagwood.

Apartment 3-G, 1/22/07

Lu Ann needs to make nice with her ghost, so she’s brought in … her incredible psychic microwave! Good lord, she’s even dumber than I thought.

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Family Circus, 1/21/07

I thought I had seen the depths to which Keane family dysfunction could sink, but that was before murderous little Jeffy sweet-talked his mother into lovingly handcrafting the very projectiles with which she would soon be pelted. In a way, this cartoon is emblematic of that dark, little-discussed side of parenthood: sometimes, you can pour all of your soul into that little life that you nurtured first in your body and then in your home, neglecting your own private life, personal development, and relationship with your partner to help them become a person, only to see them transformed into an inscrutable monster, an opaque being who only resents you for crimes you can’t imagine or explain, who, despite the years of midnight feedings and changed diapers and band-aids and drives to school and hot meals, is ready to crack your skull open with a ball of ice the moment you turn your back.

On the other hand, she did call him “little man.” I’d be pretty pissed too.

Beetle Bailey, 1/21/07

I know they’re called “throwaway panels” because they just get thrown away, but really, this isn’t even trying. “Hey, I’ve got to fill these two panels with something — how about something that isn’t funny on its own, and that doesn’t really fit in with the main joke, but is just close enough to it that you sort of stare at it for a while scratching your head waiting for it to make sense, but it never does? Bingo! Tee time! I’m off!”

Judge Parker, 1/21/07

With what look like new Barretto-drawn strips back in the daily Judge Parker, our anonymous fill-in artist is offering his swan song with some entirely gratuitous Abbey T&A. I ask you, does anyone rock the chino capris like Ms. Spencer? I think she goes down to Old Navy and buys the Ass Crack Revealing Cut version in bulk.

Also, Sunday’s Mary Worth was a wasteland of exposition and white people, but in the final panel we did get to see her terrifying all-seeing third eye!

I never doubted your powers, o master! Please to not tear my soul asunder with your oculus of ultimate power!

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Due to my crazy schedule I probably won’t be doing the Sunday comics till Monday sometime (and what happened to the Houston Chronicle? Now I have to read them on paper like a chump!) but I didn’t want to deny you all your Monday morning comment of the week satisfaction! Let’s start off with this week’s winner:

“Whoever draws Mary Worth is obviously woefully unfamiliar with drawing non-whites OR non-olds. I can’t tell if the bellboy is Asian or Vincent Price.” –Rhekarid

There were an unusually large amount of runners up, but that’s what happens when you have such a bevy of funny folks making comments:

“Yar, mateys, we set sail at dawn for the Main. We shall fire a broadside into the fort and take the town. Avast, and ye shall be swimming in old women’s purses ere dusk! Wheat pennies! Heart medication! Striped candy! ‘Twill buy many a wench in Tortuga! Ar!” –IdolsofMud

“I contend that B.C.’s repetition of the boomerang joke, thus ‘bringing it back around’ is exactly the sort of multi-tiered meta-comic that forces the viewer to readjust his perceptions of — wait a second, is that a rock with a pedal on it being pushed by a caveman?! Man, screw that guy.” –Plumberduck

“Peace Village is Mary Worth’s Mtigwaki. It’s a place where white people go to feel noble helping darker-skinned folk, but once there they just obsess over their sad failed romantic lives.” –yellojkt

“Of course Max takes every opportunity to grab some willing and quite literal tail. He’s a bite-sized rodent sidekicking an always-hungry carnivore. Life is short. And if this strip is a fair indicator of his uselessness, it’s gonna get even shorter.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Melody is Max’s sister. If he hasn’t figured out yet how city streets are numbered, he sure isn’t going to able to figure out how to get into a tiny mouse vagina.” –King Folderol

“I’ll just say this once: You know what Marvin fills his diaper with? Other Marvin strips. That’s what Marvin fills his diaper with.” –Marion Delgado

“The reason Miss Buxley has never exposed her irises like that before is because they basically appear to be giant bay windows overlooking the barren wasteland of her terrified soul.” –PD

“Jesse stole Liz’s harmonica because he wanted something to remember her by. And because the elders won’t let them take scalps anymore.” –cheech wizard

“Is ‘snow fly’ some kind of slang term for a desert made with chocolate chip cookies? Because that’s the only way I could see this being a joke. Otherwise it’s more a series of mundane events.” –Christopher

“When I saw (DT)GT, I was horror-struck by that freak in the last panel — and as a regular reader, I’ve seen plenty of questionable characters. It’s like the head of a sixty-year-old man pasted to the smaller body of a different sixty-year-old.” –gh

“Dinkle is just another broken hero for Batiuk to drag through the funky streets of the Tragic Kingdom; just another meat piñata in this Carnival of Souls, just another Cupie Doll hanging on a rusty hook in Satan’s ringtoss on the 24-hour boardwalk that rims the ninth circle of Hell.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

“A few days ago in Pearls Before Swine, they complained that there was no food on the plates because Pastis couldn’t draw food. By that logic, Mary Worth should not have gone to Vietnam and Gil Thorp should not contain people.” –Deanbooth

“Every time I see the word ‘plugger,’ I just think of the age-old question: ‘You pluggin’, or ruggin’?’ (i.e., ‘Are you using a tampon or a sanitary pad during your period?’) I assume all Pluggers are pluggin’, regardless of sex or age.” –Harold

“Why is Beetle walking around with his towel around his neck, lettin’ it all hang out? That’s all well and good at the local bathhouse, but it’s really not the way I would imagine the military. Actually, I take that back — that’s exactly how I imagine the military.” –Alex Blase

“You know you’re a plugger if you’re a horrible man-beast, as if a part of some horrible scientific experiment gone completely awry! Also if you don’t care for computers.” –Raznor

“I like to think Tommie will spend her time alone engaging in a long, luxurious and ultimately unsatisfying weekend of masturbation.” –Tracer Bullet

“Pluggers keeps smiling even though their arteries are choked with gristle and their heart rate is about 475 beats per minute and the plant is about to close because robots are smarter than they are.” –Trotzenbonnie

“Marmaduke: The funny thing I saw was how the guy on the left is bent over in that ‘Oh God, here we go again’ sort of way, and then while remembering all the times he’s been forcibly sodomized by Marmaduke regrets not having thought of the poodle angle before now.” –Sunny Mel Blatherscythe

“It took Josh this long to become bored with Mark Trail? The strip that set the world land speed record for boring?” –Derelict

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