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Gil Thorp, 4/24/15

Don’t worry — Gil hasn’t squeezed all the air out of that blonde in the pink outfit and glasses; they’re actually two separate people. The one on the left is an Athletic Department admin, currently down in HR filling out a sexual harassment complaint. The one on the right is Marjie Ducey, the local newspaper sports reporter who shows up when the strip needs to unload some exposition.

So Wednesday night Aunt Lumpy and I were watching our beloved local major-league baseball team squeak out a win over their hated rival from the detestable Southern Part of the State, a team whose name is literally synonymous with evasion and cowardice. Watching a slow-motion replay of our heroic pitcher’s delivery, Aunt Lumpy wondered aloud “how do these guys not hurt themselves every game?” Now comes Gil Thorp, who is putting True Standish in as pitcher. You remember True Standish — the phenomenal nationally-ranked quarterback who has a scholarship lock at any college he chooses? The guy who led the Mudlarks to their first state championship since the Pleistocene? Accident-prone True Standish?

True to form, Gil cannot find a way to care about the kid’s welfare or future — his mind is all on wrapping up this interview and rushing over to his chiropractor’s office.

Mark Trail, 4/24/15

Wallace Wood “just wants one good year selling his lumber” so he can ask Susan to marry him. But ha ha, Nature hates Wally, and is determined to ruin his life. Parasitoids got the emerald ash borers under control? No problem, we’ll burn his trees to the ground. Fire goes out? No problem, we’ll get those beavers to put his land under water. Breach in the dam? Ha! That wolf will just stone-cold attack and eat Wally. Wally escapes the wolf? No prob, we’ve got a moose around here somewhere.

Find yourself a nice city fella, Susan.

Sherman’s Lagoon, 4/24/15

OK OK OK so Team Sherman here narrowly beat Paul Allen’s sub to sunken WWII battleship Musashi. They found the keys still in the ignition, and it started right up! But Allen’s research vessel, incomprehensibly armed, is closing in fast.

Allen, of course, owns the Seattle Seahawks, hated rival of our beloved local National Football League team, so I’m kinda hoping maybe the Musashi’s guns work, too? Is that so wrong?

Just a reminder that there is no Comment of the Week when I sit in — Enlong’s gem gets to ride up top a little longer.

–Uncle Lumpy

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Curtis, 4/23/15

When you create a character who is as unlikeable as oh, say, Ed Crankshaft, from time to time you have to fake up some appealing qualities or history so the audience doesn’t come to its senses and give up on the strip entirely. So here comes “Backstabbin’ Bedwetter” Barry Wilkins — who can singlehandedly make you feel sorry for his brother Curtis — totin’ Teddy and talkin’ tough, ready for redemption.

There’s no precedent at all for Barry’s altruism — he was just as bored/disgusted by his brother’s romantic aspirations in Tuesday’s strip as he ever was, and nothing changed on Wednesday. There won’t be any consequences, either — Barry will be just as hateful as ever the next time we check in on him. It’s just time for a quick karma rinse-and-run.

I’ll take it all back if Michelle falls hopelessly in love with him.

Mary Worth, 4/23/15

NO NO NO TERRY DON’T DO IT YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK. Aw crud – gave it up, and for nothing.

A small irony here is that Terry Bryson was introduced to the strip as a privacy consultant who helped Toby Cameron understand how to defend herself against intrusions into her confidential personal and financial information, and that people shouldn’t be dopes. Well, Terry, you can kiss your own precious privacy goodbye. Dope.

B.C., 4/23/15

Oh boy — the long-awaited B.C./Crankshaft crossover.

Shoe, 4/23/15

I know Shoe is sort of the go-to strip for avian reproductive humor, but eww.

–Uncle Lumpy

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Dick Tracy, 4/22/15

Any gang that attracts Neil Young, Hercule Poirot, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a force to be reckoned with.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/22/15

Rex Morgan explores the narrow isthmus of moral terrain between “social-media shaming” and “mob hit.”

Gasoline Alley, 4/22/15

Ooh, ooh, pick me — I know this one! Parasitoids! Right, Mrs. Hatley?

Mark Trail, 4/22/15

“If this works, some of your trees might potentially not get too damaged — so it’s possible not all your years of effort were wasted, and you might not have to go completely bankrupt quite as quickly! It’s like it’s your birthday or something!”

–Uncle Lumpy