Post Content

Mary Worth, 1/8/13

Oh my God, has this Mary Worth cake design contest plot secretly been a Mary Worth Dr. Jeff gets jealous plot all along? Have I been extra good this year, to be rewarded so handsomely?

For those of you who are relatively new to Mary Worth fandom, the last Dr. Jeff jealousy storyline was pretty delightful. While volunteering at the hospital, Mary met a pair of brothers who were feuding even at their mothers deathbed. Then Mary picked up one of the dudes right at his mom’s funeral (under the guise of helping him with his grief or whatever), and they went on a date where he boasted about his political power — with Mary having broken a date with Jeff to do so. Somehow they made it into the local paper’s gossip pages, which left Dr. Jeff angry and humiliated, and they broke up, for a like a minute, but then Jeff repented and stated leaving pathetic, begging messages on Mary’s answering machine. But wait! It turns out the new beau hated seafood, which was a huge deal-breaker, so that relationship ended a little too amicably later that week. Mary and Jeff eventually reunited, bandying about unsettlingly erotic metaphors.

Since then it’s been smooth sailing, but now the green monster of jealousy is rearing its ugly head again! Poor Jeff just spent all that money on a semi-convincing blond dye job in order to look more youthful and vigorous, and this is how he’s repaid?

Apartment 3-G, 1/8/13

Meanwhile, Margo’s Christmas adventure just keeps getting more entertaining! I think at one point she and Greg were going to see Professor Ari working in a soup kitchen in a Santa outfit, but they wisely decided to stay in and make out instead. So Santa’s come to them! And he’s ready to get ripped.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/8/13

The Smif Menfolk Fambly Reunion is just day after day of unceasing violence. Just Smifs beating the crap out of each other in the streets, in houses, in Smif Fighting Pits with greased walls. The women can only cower indoors and pray, and prepare to tend to the survivors.

Post Content

Crock, 12/10/12

As if the poor colonized subjects of French North Africa don’t have enough to worry about, now they have to deal with an outbreak of sexually aggressive camels.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/10/12

Why should the men of Hootin’ Holler bother investing in machinery that will lift them out of a subsistence economy if their wives do all the manual labor?

Apartment 3-G, 12/10/12

Evan and Margo’s sexual banter is pretty much as gross as you’d expect.

Mary Worth, 12/10/12

“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.” –Albert Camus

Hi and Lois, 12/10/12

THE DOG SYMBOLIZES THE DYING NEWSPAPER COMICS INDUSTRY, EVERYBODY

Post Content

Phantom, 11/10/12

OK, stay with me here. The “panic to keep the modern world at bay” is a bunch of pissy Llongo elders’ plan to undercut their hot queen’s rare-earth mining deal with a story about a vengeful immortal lioness who protects the tribe’s sacred land. The plan requires hardworking Llongo warriors to secretly release a captured lioness near the village, publicly kill her, privately dispose of the carcass, and then go find a matching replacement lioness — repeating the cycle to keep the “immortality” myth going until either they run out of lionesses or the queen relents and shuts down the mine.

The miners’ ace counterplan is to lock the corpse of the next-to-die lioness in a cage, confronting the tricksy elders with steamy, maggot-infested proof of their bad faith, and breaking the cycle. Despite the toll on the poor decomposing lioness, the Phantom is apparently cool with this, since he doesn’t want anybody horning in on his family’s own long-running “mammal-who-can-never-die” scam.

PS. To Wambesi terrorist and Phantom arch-nemesis Chatu “The Python”: before your next attempt on the Phantom’s life, buy a nice strong cage, and maybe some air freshener.

PPS. Have I mentioned how much I like saying “lioness”? No? Lioness, lioness, lioness …

Gasoline Alley, 11/10/12

Despite appearances, this isn’t yet another tiresome “bullying is bad” lesson-comic. Boog’s helicopter mom Clovia smothers him in glurgy mash-notes and three-cupcake lunches to stupefy and fatten him into the image of his father, idiot-whale Slim Skinner. But these three young heroes will have none of it, bravely staging an intervention to keep their pal tough and slender.

Hey, grotesquely-drawn moppets gotta stick together, am I right?

Update — Boog’s mom is Hoogie, not Clovia, and Slim is his grandfather. Other than that, the story was accurate!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/10/12

Did you know that tomorrow is Veterans Day in the U.S.? Snuffy Smith does! And he has every right to join that parade, since he not only shares the nickname of a genuine WWII Army hero, but served in the Army his ownself:

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/24/1941 (panel, courtesy of The Comics Journal)

So what explains Snuffy’s descent from stalwart Defender of Democracy in the 1940’s to the shif’less no-‘count skonk we know and love today? The world’s longest-running case of PTSD? Bone laziness? My money, as always, is on the likker.

Hi there, I’m sitting in for Josh until Sunday, November 18th. You can contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net to report any site or comment issues. You can still reach Josh at bio@jfruh.com, but expect sloth-related delays.

— Uncle Lumpy