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9 Chickweed Lane
Mary Worth, 9/19/09
Some cops slip a spare gun in their boot for extra protection. Jason of the Argonauts lashed a Gorgon’s head to his shield and turned adversaries to stone. Confusing the two, Detective Scott paralyzes his foot.
Crankshaft, 9/19/09
Crankshaft’s old-timey photo reminds us: generations come and go; only pain and loss endure. After that fateful game, Grimace abandoned his dead-end mascot career and opened discussions with McDonald’s.
The Phantom, 9/19/09
Long into the night, Chatu stares at his pinups and spins elaborate, violent fantasies. Not so special after all, are ya, pal?
And in other news:
Rhymes with Orange, 9/19/09
Hey lady — pills for that now, they have!
9 Chickweed Lane, 9/19/09
Juliette Burber, who bullies insecure college students and trustees, chides her mother for bullying a sales clerk. Next: Edda kicks a Cub Scout!
Hey, Josh is off for the week — if you have any trouble with the site, etc., reach me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. You can still reach Josh at bio@jfruh.com, but expect a wait.
Uncle Lumpy
Spider-Man, 5/24/09
Hey, remember how newspaper Spidey used to be married to Mary Jane, but then a enormous wall of text told us that he wasn’t anymore, because we had gone back in time to his single college days? Well, it’s not even six months later and apparently we’re done with that. This is fully in keeping with the overall milieu of the strip, in which anything can happen at any time because whatever.
I do note with some amusement Peter’s shock in panel two about getting married without gainful employment, since much of the “drama” of the pre-time-jump strip revolved around Peter whining endlessly about how his underemployment made him less of a man. I guess they got hitched even without him having a steady job, proving that the best way to overcome obstacles in this life is to lower your standards.
Mary Worth, 5/23/09
All this jawing is leading me to believe that this storyline will, against all odds, have a happy ending after all: Dr. Jeff’s adolescent crush, to whom he never dared reveal his feelings, has returned in the shape of the man’s handsome young son! Now, in a more enlightened age, their love can finally be expressed. As added bonuses, Mary will have her heart broken lose control of her current whipping boy, and Adrian will once again be permitted to chose her own romantic partner (which will ultimately lead to her kidneys being stolen and sold on the black market, but that’s a small price to pay).
9 Chickweed Lane and Apartment 3-G, 5/23/09
These two strips are stacked pretty much right on top of each other on my Chron page, so naturally my assumption upon reading them was that Gary was pregnant.
Blondie, 1/3/09
Ah yes, “this” — by which we are surely meant to understand the first week of January — truly is everyone’s very favorite time of year! What with the lingering resentment towards one’s family after too many hours spent in close quarters with them, the need to box up all the Christmas decorations and figure out how on earth to dispose of the tree, the grim prospect of returning to work or school after an extended absence, the arrival of the first round of credit card bills with holiday gift purchases on them, the radical diets undertaken after the horrifying results from the first venture onto the scale in weeks … why, there’s just nothing not to like about it! That the Bumsteads have time for parties and get-togethers in the midst of all this is a tribute to their sandwich and/or meth-fueled stamina.
You know, it’s almost as if this strip, published on the first day of the NFL playoffs, were originally written when pro football’s regular season was shorter and the playoffs really did coincide with the holiday season. The last year that was the case was 1982, when the strip was a mere 52 years old. But the thought that Blondie might just be repackaging strips written years ago is obviously laughable.
Curtis, 1/3/09
Curtis Kwanzaa stories will now forever be judged against 2007’s glowing telepathic otter, and while the Three Unpleasant Maidens Who Are Jealous Of Some Other Maiden’s Magic Water Jug has been dullsville so far, things have undeniably picked up today, as they vomit out increasingly horrifying nightmare visions after drinking out of said magic jug. If the three-eyed frogs and baseball-sized spiders (side note: would these ancient Africans even know how big a baseball is?) rise up to devour our nosey trio, who, after all, only wanted in on an apparently unlimited fresh water supply in a society that doesn’t have indoor plumbing, this will certainly be the most gruesome Kwanzaa yet. Perhaps “mind-numbing terror” should be added as the holiday’s eighth guiding principle.
Judge Parker, 1/3/09
Ah, check out stone-faced Sam in today’s final panel. Just another crazed, murderous stripper shouting “I was dead a long time ago!” as she commits suicide by cop, charging knife first into a hail of automatic weapons fire. If you’re Sam Driver, it’s just another thing to drop a few ironic, detached witticisms about before heading off to the next adventure. The man is such a joy.
9 Chickweed Lane, 1/3/08
9 Chickweed Lane readers, when opening their papers and/or Web browsers Monday and discovering a strip that does not revolve around this endless Belgian cello competition and/or fucking, will come to the logical conclusion that the story has in fact ended with a triumphant Edda killing and devouring Amos right there on stage. To those pleased by such a development, I must temper your satisfaction by pointing you to this.
Mary Worth, 11/9/08
So for weeks now we’ve been watching the slow-motion buildup in this storyline, seeing Frank berate his sad sub-Olympic-level daughter, and wondering “When? When will the meddling begin? For the love of God, when?” Today, my friends … today is the day that the meddling begins. In the final panel, you can get a sense of the terrible wrath about to be unleashed as Mary’s face turns unnaturally blue and yellow and radiates pure meddling-energy. Her awesome and horrifying third eye is also beginning to become visible.
By the way, Frank, in case you’re wondering, it was the phrase “Mary, don’t interfere!” that sealed your fate. You may as well have danced in front of a lion shouting “Lion, don’t chew off my genitals!” while wearing underwear made of raw meat.
Dennis the Menace, 11/9/08
Here’s another entry in my occasionally interesting series of Comics Whose Tones Are Fundamentally Changed By The Throwaway Panels. Without that first row — which doesn’t appear in all newspapers — this strip consists of stomach-churning anti-menacing, in which our supposed hellion asks a loving God to shine grace upon all the people in his life, even those with whom he has an adversarial relationship. However, the opening panels reveal Dennis’s fundamental disbelief in anything so trite as a “happy ending.” In that light, his prayers can be read as a desperate plea to stave off the inevitable pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that will afflict his friends and neighbors.
And speaking of pain, heartbreak, and sorrow…
Funky Winkerbean, 11/9/08
“Okay, everybody! Say: achievement! Because even though you’re all 47 or 48 and yet look fifteen years older, it’s quite an ‘achievement’ that you survived being struck dead by cancer, or war, or cancer, or general despair.”
Also! In unrelated news, this week Amos and Edda, the two lead characters in 9 Chickweed Lane, finally had the sex, as indicated through the cartoonist’s usual elliptical methods. I read 9CL but don’t comment on it much, mostly because it’s simultaneously better in many ways than most of the strips I make fun of here and also is irritating to me in ways that don’t produce humorous commentary but rather just peevishness. However, all week commentors have been demanding my opinion on the Great Deflowering, which finally led me to write, in the comments section of the previous post, the following:
A comic appears on this site is not because something momentous happens in it, but because I can think of something funny to say about it. I can think of nothing funny to say about the aggressively virginal ape-faces in 9CL finally deciding to fuck and/or hand jive, for some reason. Sorry.
Upon reflection, though, that is actually a kind of funny thing to say, if I do say so myself, so I thank all of you for pushing me out of my comfort zone.
Luann, 6/28/2008
We readers get to see TJ “Jheri” Rictus lookin’ forlorn every six months or so. It helps us tamp back the rage. But merciful heavens, one panel is not enough. Not nearly enough.
Dick Tracy, 06/28/2008
Dick’s been congratulating his own clever self on his 1337 crimefightin’ skillz for a couple weeks now, only to be undone by the night janitor. Is that why he’s moping in a mere “squad room” today, instead of his jaunty “squad pod”?
9 Chickweed Lane, 6/28/2008
Okay, um, Seth neglected Mark while scolding Edda for breaking up with Amos, so Mark, hurt, hinted darkly at infidelity, creating a rift Janice now tries to exploit. Mark values revenge against Seth, whom he loves, but protects the integrity, which she lacks, of Janice, whom he spurns. These people are unclear on concepts like “love”, “revenge”, and — most of all — “gay.” On the other hand, they have “middle school” nailed.
Apartment 3-G, 6/28/2008
Ah. The perfect trio to discover Alan in narcotic déshabillé back at the gallery — Margo for rage, Jack for muscle, and Gabriella for histrionics. Madre de Dios, we’re in for a good time next week! But first — cake!
Judge Parker, 06/28/2008
The second in our series: Who does Judge Parker think he is — Michael Patterson?
– Uncle Lumpy
Spider-Man, 11/6/07
Oh, thank God, Spider-Man is here to crack the case with the proportional Google-searching ability … of a spider! With its, uh, many legs, all the better to tap out Google query after Google query with. The sad thing is that this exact set of ground-breaking detection techniques was also on display a month ago in Gil Thorp. Except that the Milford kids are are a bunch of no-talent losers with nothing better to do but sit around surfing the net all day, while Spider-Man is … oh, wait. At least Peter Parker is offering us some beefcake action by leaving his old man pajamas unbuttoned. In a few years, there will inevitably be a romance novel that features someone on its cover passionately Googling something, and it will look a little something like this. Only better drawn.
Mary Worth, 11/6/07
Something very, very deep inside Mary Worth caused her to offer to pay good money to save the life of some dumb dog, and in panel two you can tell that she’s fighting it with every fiber of her being. She can barely choke out the part of the sentence after “I’ll”; her teeth are gritted so fiercely that her face is transformed into a grim, deathly rictus (more so than usual, I mean); and her hand is clutching at the black, empty hole where her heart is supposed to be. And there will be payback. Oh yes, there will be payback. That dog is going to wish it died on the side of the road with a modicum of dignity.
9 Chickweed Lane, 11/6/07
Hot, hot possible thing Francis will be asking Diane to “indulge” him in: Hot, hot and totally papally sanctioned ex-priest-on-ex-nun-side-of-the-road sex in the back seat.
Horrifying and disturbing and more probable thing Francis will be asking Diane to “indulge” him in: “…so I told Thorax he could tag along on our wedding night. Hope that’s OK!”
Apartment 3-G, 11/6/07
YES PLEASE YES THE DAY OF WRATH APPROACHES
