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Mary Worth, 9/19/09

Some cops slip a spare gun in their boot for extra protection. Jason of the Argonauts lashed a Gorgon’s head to his shield and turned adversaries to stone. Confusing the two, Detective Scott paralyzes his foot.

Crankshaft, 9/19/09

Crankshaft‘s old-timey photo reminds us: generations come and go; only pain and loss endure. After that fateful game, Grimace abandoned his dead-end mascot career and opened discussions with McDonald’s.

The Phantom, 9/19/09

Long into the night, Chatu stares at his pinups and spins elaborate, violent fantasies. Not so special after all, are ya, pal?

And in other news:

Rhymes with Orange, 9/19/09

Hey lady — pills for that now, they have!

9 Chickweed Lane, 9/19/09

Juliette Burber, who bullies insecure college students and trustees, chides her mother for bullying a sales clerk. Next: Edda kicks a Cub Scout!

Hey, Josh is off for the week — if you have any trouble with the site, etc., reach me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. You can still reach Josh at bio@jfruh.com, but expect a wait.

Uncle Lumpy

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Spider-Man, 5/24/09

Hey, remember how newspaper Spidey used to be married to Mary Jane, but then a enormous wall of text told us that he wasn’t anymore, because we had gone back in time to his single college days? Well, it’s not even six months later and apparently we’re done with that. This is fully in keeping with the overall milieu of the strip, in which anything can happen at any time because whatever.

I do note with some amusement Peter’s shock in panel two about getting married without gainful employment, since much of the “drama” of the pre-time-jump strip revolved around Peter whining endlessly about how his underemployment made him less of a man. I guess they got hitched even without him having a steady job, proving that the best way to overcome obstacles in this life is to lower your standards.

Mary Worth, 5/23/09

All this jawing is leading me to believe that this storyline will, against all odds, have a happy ending after all: Dr. Jeff’s adolescent crush, to whom he never dared reveal his feelings, has returned in the shape of the man’s handsome young son! Now, in a more enlightened age, their love can finally be expressed. As added bonuses, Mary will have her heart broken lose control of her current whipping boy, and Adrian will once again be permitted to chose her own romantic partner (which will ultimately lead to her kidneys being stolen and sold on the black market, but that’s a small price to pay).

9 Chickweed Lane and Apartment 3-G, 5/23/09

These two strips are stacked pretty much right on top of each other on my Chron page, so naturally my assumption upon reading them was that Gary was pregnant.

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Blondie, 1/3/09

Ah yes, “this” — by which we are surely meant to understand the first week of January — truly is everyone’s very favorite time of year! What with the lingering resentment towards one’s family after too many hours spent in close quarters with them, the need to box up all the Christmas decorations and figure out how on earth to dispose of the tree, the grim prospect of returning to work or school after an extended absence, the arrival of the first round of credit card bills with holiday gift purchases on them, the radical diets undertaken after the horrifying results from the first venture onto the scale in weeks … why, there’s just nothing not to like about it! That the Bumsteads have time for parties and get-togethers in the midst of all this is a tribute to their sandwich and/or meth-fueled stamina.

You know, it’s almost as if this strip, published on the first day of the NFL playoffs, were originally written when pro football’s regular season was shorter and the playoffs really did coincide with the holiday season. The last year that was the case was 1982, when the strip was a mere 52 years old. But the thought that Blondie might just be repackaging strips written years ago is obviously laughable.

Curtis, 1/3/09

Curtis Kwanzaa stories will now forever be judged against 2007’s glowing telepathic otter, and while the Three Unpleasant Maidens Who Are Jealous Of Some Other Maiden’s Magic Water Jug has been dullsville so far, things have undeniably picked up today, as they vomit out increasingly horrifying nightmare visions after drinking out of said magic jug. If the three-eyed frogs and baseball-sized spiders (side note: would these ancient Africans even know how big a baseball is?) rise up to devour our nosey trio, who, after all, only wanted in on an apparently unlimited fresh water supply in a society that doesn’t have indoor plumbing, this will certainly be the most gruesome Kwanzaa yet. Perhaps “mind-numbing terror” should be added as the holiday’s eighth guiding principle.

Judge Parker, 1/3/09

Ah, check out stone-faced Sam in today’s final panel. Just another crazed, murderous stripper shouting “I was dead a long time ago!” as she commits suicide by cop, charging knife first into a hail of automatic weapons fire. If you’re Sam Driver, it’s just another thing to drop a few ironic, detached witticisms about before heading off to the next adventure. The man is such a joy.

9 Chickweed Lane, 1/3/08

9 Chickweed Lane readers, when opening their papers and/or Web browsers Monday and discovering a strip that does not revolve around this endless Belgian cello competition and/or fucking, will come to the logical conclusion that the story has in fact ended with a triumphant Edda killing and devouring Amos right there on stage. To those pleased by such a development, I must temper your satisfaction by pointing you to this.