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Marvin, 8/9/25

Sincere thanks to the editors who demanded that Marvin‘s creative team add the garden hose, change the punchline, and recolor the runoff.

Blondie, 8/9/25

Like me, Dagwood is of a generation for whom drinking out of the backyard hose brings back cherished summer memories of refreshment, petty transgression, and freedom. If Elmo’s lemonade was tapped from such a wellspring of fond nostalgia, Dagwood will savor it all the more. Nevertheless, he’ll make damn sure it came from Elmo’s own backyard, not that pissy toddler’s up the block.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/9/25

And anyway, it could be a lot worse.

9 Chickweed Lane, 8/9/25

Way back in 2016, I outlined the problem faced by 9 Chickweed Lane after the 2008 consummation of Amos’s and Edda’s courtship, which resolved the sexual tension that had long been the foundation of the strip. The solution, then as now, was to create Amos and Edda surrogates and run the whole will-they-or-won’t-they routine (spoiler alert: they will) over and over again.

But after nine years of barely disguised reruns, the narrative present has become overrun with Amos and Edda surrogates whispering coy innuendos, sublimating their lust into musical performance, and humping all over the damn place. What to do?

Apparently this: slip the bounds of time and plant those recaps in the past and future. Hence today’s legacy Edda demanding attention from prepubescent Amos, the pair’s future children, teenage twins Lolly and Polly, tormenting their own thralls, and an assortment of past, present, and future walk-on foils being sexually one-upped by the regulars. One constant is that they all seem to migrate to this lake here, which by now has got to be more grotty than Marvin’s pool.

Hi there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in for Josh through Sunday the 17^th, with a sampling of comics even Josh won’t touch, as well as the old soapers I know you crave. If you run into any issues with the site, subscriber emails, or Patreon posts, please contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net and I’ll do what I can to help. Enjoy!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Daddy Daze, 9/21/24

How it started.

Blondie, 9/21/24

How it’s going.

Archie, 9/21/24

Veronica tries a little too hard to sell Archie’s lame observation—not even a joke, really. Foreground Babe knows the score.

Luann, 9/21/24

What is it with this strip and basic repairs? We’ve seen Toni use a torque wrench to remove bolts (when the torque is zero you’ll know it’s off!) and a pipe wrench backwards until the fitting broke and flooded the laundry room. And now instead of splurging twelve bucks on a good flap valve, Bets here commits to a lifetime of jiggling the handle. Which is somehow a metaphor for her relationship with Gunther but I don’t wish to explore that any further thanks.

Gil Thorp, 9/21/24

Coach Kaz—man of action—has a go-getter’s literal-mindedness. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for Gil. Here, at this table, drinking wine with you! He invited me!”

Program note: Rod Whigham, Gil Thorp‘s artist since 2008, is retiring. He will be replaced on September 30 by Rachel Merrill, who looks to me like a good fit. Congratulations, Rod and Rachel!

9 Chickweed Lane, 9/21/24

Here we see that Edda’s self-image pretty much corresponds to Amos’s image of her, albeit with subtle enhancements. And Amos, “briefed” isn’t quite the right word; the one you’re looking for is “pantsed.”

Well, that’s all for me; Josh will be back tomorrow. This was a lot of fun—thanks, everybody! But as much enjoyment as I get subbing in for Josh, it’s also a lot of work. So I think I’ll go find myself a nice park bench and sit for a while.

—Uncle Lumpy

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Luann, 9/6/24

I won’t trouble you with the months-long “Brad and Toni consider having a child, then reconsider after caring for Toni’s niece Shannon” narrative. But it firmly established two principles of marital sex (ugh, “romance”) in Luann: 1) Sex is permitted for procreation only, and 2) the presence of a child in the home absolutely precludes any sex. That’s why Brad looks so giddy in the last panel: he knows he’ll have sex with his wife exactly once in the next eighteen years, so he figures it must be really great.

9 Chickweed Lane, 9/6/24

These people, on the other hand, are having sex all the time, on pianos, under restaurant booths, in showers, and most of all in lakes. All, with the merciful exception of Lolly there, who is underage and just talks about sex all the time while her swain Alistair mumbles and hiccups erotically in reply. Hugh may be a foul-mouthed brute, but he’s an articulate foul-mouthed brute.

Pluggers, 9/6/24

Married pluggers acknowledge and respect their spouses’ separate interests, and remain affectionate with no need to climb all over each other all the time. Pluggers are well-adjusted!

Crankshaft, 9/6/24

Apparently the Burnings referenced in the final days of Funky Winkerbean started when Les Moore bought copies of the banned Fahrenheit 451 for “Booksmellers” to give away to his students. Pretty on-brand that the insufferable Les triggered a civilization-ending apocalypse! Pretty efficient of a censor-arsonist to target bookstores: “Eh, choosing’s hard; I’ll just burn all the books!” And pretty surprising that Lillian’s walkup firetrap survived the blazes.

Or is it? We know Lillian is a spiteful harridan who ruined sister Lucy’s love life out of petty envy, and left her to die alone in hospice care. Is it really beyond her to torch competitors, the bastards, so she can maybe sell a few damn books once in a while? Don’t dig too deep, Skip Townes, you may not like what you find!

Why hello there, faithful reader! I’m subbing for Josh through Sunday the 22^nd, with a sampling of the Comics Even Josh Won’t Read Because He Doesn’t Have To, as well as plenty of old familiars. If you run into any issues with the site or subscriber emails contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net and I’ll do what I can to help. Enjoy!

—Uncle Lumpy