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Crock, 10/16/16

Buns of Steel — you remember: Alaska fitness entrepreneur Greg Smithey, VCR tape, 1987? Thirty years ago? Inherently funny. I mean, “buns,” heh, that’s comedy gold amirite. So, are we done here? Draw it up and publish — just be sure to put a big butt in there somewhere.

Judge Parker, 10/16/16

THINK, NEDDY, THINK!

THAT NEWS LADY WILL TRY TO PIN THIS ALL ON YOU.

CHEATING THE OLDS. LOCKING THEM IN STEEL BOXES. BRIBING THE BUILDING INSPECTOR.

SO UNFAIR.

WAIT, HERE’S HANK.

♫ “Hi, Hank!” ♪

THIS WAS ALL HANK’S IDEA. WASN’T IT? YES IT WAS. HE USED ME. THE BRUTE.

SO UNFAIR.

♫ “Thanks, Hank — ‘Bye!” ♪

SAY, I WONDER IF MARK STILL WANTS TO GET MARRIED? HONG KONG SOUNDS PRETTY SWEET RIGHT NOW.

Spider-Man, 10/16/16

Next to their endless faux-clever dialogue while they “battle,” the thing that annoys me most about superheros is the ham-handed logic used to get them out of jams. The conceit here is that the reformulated shrink-gas that took away Ant-Man’s “powers of a man” affected only Spider-Man’s man-strength, leaving his spider-strength untouched so the joke’s on you Egghead a.k.a. Elihas Starr, nemesis of the first Ant-Man Hank Pym and the second Ant-Man Scott Lang. But hey waitaminute – if that long-ago bite gave Peter a spider’s proportionate strength, shouldn’t shrinking leave him with the actual strength of — a spider? So splot, right?

Algebra is hard. I think Egghead’s chosen the right approach here.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mark Trail, 10/15/16

And it’s an invasive wild boar – the very worst kind! What’s more, he’s either a really ROUGH sort, or a real GROUCH – it’s hard to tell from context. Maybe both!

But hey waitaminute: what are wild boars doing on a volcanic atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? I’m guessing they weren’t carried ashore in bundles of firewood like the ants. Maybe the neo-Aztecs who built the mountaintop temple imported boars for sacrifice until the boars figured out the deal and turned the tables?

Most likely it’s all a plot by Abbey Powell’s sinister “U.S. Department of Agriculture.” Alarmed by the invasion of fire ants, they brought in Formosan termites to control them. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. So they shipped in “beneficial” nematodes, which promptly started eating all the coral. The marine iguanas they imported to kill the nematodes quickly overwhelmed the beaches, so they airlifted in packs of boars and here we are. In a desperate attempt, Abbey has conned Mark Trail to come in and punch the boars into submission. I hope it works, because the next step is nuclear weapons.

Dick Tracy, 10/15/16

When someone is killed for persecuting an ethnic group with exactly two members, the police know where to start their investigation. When both of those members are friends or relatives of Dick Tracy, they have a pretty good idea where to stop it, too.

Phantom, 10/15/16

OK, so the Phantom has one of those Lone Ranger-style “see my unmasked face and die” gimmicks going on, and it apparently includes his wife??? Brrr….

Maybe he only goes all shadowy like this when we’re watching, which frankly hurts my feelings a little bit. Dude, we’re your fans. We stuck with you through Hide the Lion. We toughed it out through The College Kid — that’s gotta count for something. How ’bout a little peek at them baby blues?

Judge Parker, 10/15/16

OK, now that Bob Dylan has his Nobel Prize we’d better get used to the fact that Boomer culture is universal culture everywhere and forever.

At 77, ’60’s icon Spencer Davis (Gimme Some Lovin’) is old enough enough to work at Neddy’s factory, but not desperate enough for her starvation wages. From his retreat on California’s Catalina Island, he writes:

♬

Well, the factory’s collapsing, got a hole in the floor
Canes and walkers clacking on their way to the door
Let me through granny, I don’t want to be entombed
And you better hobble quicker, ’cause this place is doomed.

And I sure hope you make it — we olds can’t take it
You’ve got to: gimme some running (gimme, gimme some running)
Gimme some crushing, (gimme, gimme some crushing)
Gimme some shoving everyday.
Hey hey.

Hi there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in through Sunday the 23rd while Josh takes a break. Please let me know if you experience any access or comment-posting problems at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/14/16

All week long we’ve been enduring tell-don’t-show conversations about “hazing” followed by weak-sauce wordplay, ain’t-it-awful mopery, and one incredibly off “joke” about depriving a sick old man of his oxygen. So I suppose we should be glad that Sunday’s strip finally shows us some actual hazing? And even more glad that hazing is now a thing of the past, having been overcome through unspecified single-handed efforts by our chop-jawed heroine Becky here?

Nope! This is Funky Winkerbean, and that last panel is there to show us that no matter how good things may seem, somebody suffers. Somebody always suffers.

PS. If you really want to suffer, try taking a nap on a Sousaphone some time.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/14/16

After learning that Dolly Pierpont artificially spun up Sarah’s career by buying all her horsey pictures and museum books, Rex spent the week telling her to back the hell off with the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, private-school tuition, art lessons, museum donations, and soirée guest-of-honor slots, and let Sarah earn her own honors. Dude, who are you, and what have you done with the real Rex Morgan?

Now we learn that Dolly was only trying to buy Sarah as a replacement for her dear departed Linda. You know, if she’d come to Rex with that deal in the first place, I’m sure they could’ve worked something out.

Judge Parker, 8/14/16 (panels)

I’ll spare you more “Neddy has a sad” panels. The real action is rolling down from Morristown in the rain, doubtless approaching Chekhov’s Curve off the main road to Alpine Pass. Enjoy A Sip Of vodka, Zeke and Ms. Honey “Does Not Understand Inventory Management” Ballenger – you’re in for a long night!

Well, that’s it for me. Thanks for a fun week — Josh will be back bright and early Monday.

— Uncle Lumpy