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So ends the 2026 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser. You guys are the best; thank you!

9 Chickweed Lane, 7/25/26

Say, did you know that people have sex? 9 Chickweed Lane does, and wants to show us as much of it as possible! It started in 2008, when Edda and Amos abandoned their adolescence and virginity on the lid of a Böesendorfer Concert Grand in Brussels. With the “will they or won’t they” tension broken, the strip sustained interest by introducing stand-ins Xiulan and Hugh Godalming, Fernanda Jons and Seth Appleby, Fleurrie and Sven Spocket, Diane and Francis Durly, Nan-Lin and Arthur Peel, and others, all with the same story: Will they or won’t they? Oh yes they will, and often!

Soon, horny couples crowded the strip and their stories grew monotonous. To escape that trap, the strip rushed Edda’s twins Polly and Lolly through adolescence into adulthood and marriage, and loosened up the timeline. Now lucky readers can look back at Edda’s and Amos’s awkward teen courtship while enjoying the sexual antics of three generations: grownup Amos and Edda and all the others in the present, daughters Polly and Lolly and their husbands in the future, and Edda’s stepdad Elliott’s lusty courtship of Juliette in recaps of the past.

Nice save, but not a long-term solution. After all, assuming monogamy, the maximum rate of couplings is (P/2)*f, where P is the number of people and f is frequency. I fear Team Chickweed may have its eye on combinatorics: C(P,2)*f, dropping the monogamy (and incest) restrictions, or even (C(P,2)+P)*f if we throw in self-pleasuring. After that, I fear for Edda’s cat.

One Big Happy, 7/25/26

Hey Joe, Pluto is the Roman god of Death and ruler of the Underworld, and you do not want to piss that guy off. And Disney’s copyright lawyers won’t go any easier on you, so tread lightly.

Lockhorns, 7/25/26

They have one, Leroy, and you’re not gonna like it.

—Uncle Lumpy

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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