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Crock, 9/15/20

I get that Captain Preppie’s whole thing is that he’s vanity personified, but today’s strip takes that bit to a baroque extreme. I’m not entirely sure what the joke is here: Does Preppie so identify with the high status he associates with luxury brands that he wants to become a Rolls Royce, a man-machine that combines his biological perfection with the pinnacle of engineering? Or does he believe that getting run over by a $300,000 car is the only fitting way for someone of his quality to die?

Dick Tracy, 9/15/20

Jesus, Dick, there’s a lot more to vampirism than wounding someone in the neck so they bleed out! You also have to drink their blood in order to become immortal and feed the empty place inside you where your soul used to be. That newspaper piece on vampires can’t come soon enough.

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Hello everyone! I’m back and very grateful to Uncle Lumpy for his guest-blogging prowess … and extremely grateful for everyone who donated to the Comics Curmudgeon fundraiser! Individual thank-yous are, per usual, coming your way in the next week or so. And now, tanned, rested, and ready to take on … Dick Tracy? Sure, why not.

Dick Tracy, 9/14/20

Brenda Starr and Little Orphan Annie, two iconic long-running continuity strips, sadly came to an end in the last decade, but that hasn’t stopped Dick Tracy from still plugging along (because America likes violent cops more than it likes newspapers or orphans!) and gathering up its syndicate’s intellectual property into a Tribune Content Agency Cinematic Universe. Now Brenda is going to teach Annie and Dick’s half-alien granddaughter Honeymoon to write a journalistically rigorous feature article on … vampires? Sure, why not. I’m honestly surprised that the head of the University of Neo-Chicago’s Department of Ghouls and Draculas they’re interviewing isn’t named “Professor Stakes,” as that’s the sort of on-the-nose nomenclature this feature specializes in.

Crankshaft, 9/14/20

It’s a difficult environment out there for indie booksellers — especially when they have to compete against nice old ladies who operate unlicensed bookstores over their garage, flouting the ADA and any number of fire safety codes and just daring the city’s toothless permitting apparatus to shut them down.

The Lockhorns, 9/14/20

A lot about The Lockhorns, especially the fact that they spend most of their time in a semi-featureless void space, can be explained if you imagine that they’re kept captive in some kind of containment field, possibly floating in a sphere high above the earth, and the rest of the world watches a livestream of their dysfunctional antics for entertainment and/or as a cautionary example. In this alternate universe, journalists like Jake Tapper (?) comment on major milestones in their lives, and presumably everyone’s focus on them brings us together as a nation.

Mary Worth, 9/14/20

I was pretty dubious about Saul Helps A Tween Heal, but I am cautiously optimistic about Saul Woos A Giantess!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/14/20

Honey, just because you’re saying it louder doesn’t make it true

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Hi everyone! Your eyes do not deceive you: this is a truncated comments of the week post, because I’m doing a truncated week of blogging! Your favorite Uncle Lumpy is coming by tomorrow to do some guest blogging, while I take a relaxing vacation at an undisclosed location. Be nice to him, and each other! I’ll be back in the blogging saddle on Monday, September 14th, and as usual, Uncle Lumpy loves you all too much to try to choose a favorite commenter, so this week’s winner will stay up at the top of the site for a bit:

“‘Are you Corina Karenna?’ ‘Why? Are you authority?’ Oh man this bad girl with a heart of gold is gonna need so much of the discipline and integrity you only get from organized sports.” –Dan

This week’s runners up will also stand the test of time!

“‘That’s impossible!’ thinks Slylock, who has been mind-controlled into believing that the Acme Mind-Controlling Crown Company, a well-established corporation two towns over, can’t logically exist. (Their actual slogan is ‘We’re Space Aliens From From a Galaxy 5 Million Miles Away, So Your Friend or Neighbor Couldn’t Possibly Be Using Our Products on You!’) Slylock has also been made to believe he’s a hyperintelligent fox with extensive law-enforcement training, when he’s really only a moderately intelligent fox who attended a lesser state university.” –BigTed

“Shoe’s joke is so incredibly stupid that it annoys me and then I’m annoyed that I’m letting Shoe annoy me. Why a woodpecker? Why, dammit? Who’s eating those chickens? Can’t we have Shoe removed from the papers by a court order or something? So many questions.” –Chance

“I don’t know, but yours is going to be sent to Elon Musk’s orbiting nursing home satellites as soon as we can get the technology nailed down.” –Christine Lehman, on Facebook

“‘Corina Karenna‘ is what you call your protagonist when the Tolstoy estate refuses to endorse your Anna Karenina porn parody.” –Schroduck

“When I started my first corporate job, it was well-known that any email from our VP had actually been typed up by his secretary, per his dictation. I used to think this was just a power thing, but I later learned that he never typed anything at all. That’s because he couldn’t type, and had in fact had never used a computer and never planned to. This was 20 years ago, and it while it was slightly odd then, it would be unheard of now, where the current, 55-year old VP conducts business on his phone 24/7, and you can’t get him off it long enough to pay attention in a meeting. The point I’m trying to make is, the 3rd panel of Dustin should be: ‘Dude, shut the fuck up.’” –Carsick Yankee

“‘Reckless‘ behavior can be surprisingly tame for people who sit around all day pretending to be restrained by imaginary straight jackets.” –nescio

“Cayla doesn’t want Les running off, she needs to produce a body and a death certificate to collect on that insurance policy. Her first attempt didn’t quite pan out, but we’re all still rooting for you, Cayla. Don’t give up.” –K.M.

“The trope ‘A number of women greater than one struggle for Les’s affection’ is the Funkyverse’s worst trope. Please bring back depression/comic books/comic book-related depression.” –Ettorre

“Let’s do something reckless tonight — let’s reference Scrabble without putting the little circle-R symbol after its name. Come and get us, Hasbro!” –Pozzo

“My favourite part of this strip is the smile on the snake’s face, almost as if this whole gag was his idea. If this was a Chick tract, in the next panel that snake would definitely be telling Denis to skip church and listen to heavy metal.” –pugfuggly

“‘I gotta say, Will Thayer looks like he lived in the weight room all summer.’ ‘Yeah, he’s pretty disheveled all right. Do you really think he’s homeless?’ ‘Uh, that’s not what I meant. I … you know what? On second thought, let’s just enjoy this beautiful day in silence.’” –Joe Blevins

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