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B.C. and Herb and Jamaal, 9/20/13

Well, congratulations, B.C., you have done the impossible! You have created a strip that made a technology joke in Herb and Jamaal look hip and with-it by comparison. Sure, Jamaal, still adds a weird, awkward “and tons of other means” to his list of social media services in panel one; but at least that list consists entirely of real, actual websites that exist and are popular right now, on the day the strip was published. And the punchline to the joke actually reflects a reasonable observation about how social media affects our day-to-day relationships with other humans! Another way that social media affects us is of course that sometimes we find it so overwhelming that we fly into a panic and then write a cartoon in which a bunch of ants spout gibberish at one another.

Crankshaft, 9/20/13

The entire plot of Crankshaft for the past two weeks has been that there is a new bus driver who is a lady, and who is nice, and who actually cares about being good at her job and nice to her co-workers and to the children who ride her bus. Naturally, she’s viewed with suspicion and loathing by the monstrous assholes who are the ostensible protagonists of this strip. Today their long national nightmare is about to come to end, though, because Crankshaft is clearly relishing the thought of murdering her by running her over with his bus.

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Beetle Bailey, 9/4/13

I was going to say something snide here about how if you hear the phrase “3-D printing” on the news you can’t just panic and throw it into a comic at random, you have to do a few minutes of research about what 3-D printing actually is, but then I thought: what if Gizmo has one of those 3-D printers that can create living tissue and has decided to make another version of General Halftrack, piece by piece? If nothing else, this horrible 3-D-printed abomination of science will allow us to do some good nature vs. nurture studies about terrible, crippling alcoholism.

Mark Trail, 9/4/13

Now that Mark Trail’s gotten all the punching out of the way early, the strip is free to draw out the rest of this storyline as one long, dull anticlimax. “Thanks for the tip, Dusty … it turns out it was surveyors who had been damaging our fence! They had been leaning their equipment up against it. I explained to them why they shouldn’t do that, and they apologized and said they wouldn’t do it again. Anyway, good luck catching those poachers! I’m going to go get some pancakes.”

Apartment 3-G, 9/4/13

Oh my goodness, which character from Apartment 3-G will suddenly find themselves appointed the new Lieutenant Governor of New York? Probably Tommie, right? Lieutenant Governor is about the most boring political office America has to offer, Tommie’d be perfect.

B.C., 9/4/13

Wait, none of the ant-adults in B.C. have jobs? All the stories about their work ethic are just lies!

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B.C., 8/13/13

Prehistoric or not, it’s time to catch up when Prince Valiant beats you to a technology joke by two years.

Crankshaft, 8/13/13

“And by ‘great practice’ we mean ‘pointless and expensive truck rolls that put us at risk, endanger the public safety, and have had no effect on the frequency or recklessness of your life-threatening behavior.'”

“As part of your award, your family and the Montgomery County Court have arranged a special honorary bunk for you at, um, ‘Firehouse Manor’, where you’ll be on special honorary permanent assignment under the “Honorary Heroes” program, Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 5122.01(B). Your new Captain will give you additional orders on your arrival. Be sure to take all the vitamins she gives you so you can perform all your special honorary duties! Been great knowing you, gramps!”

Dick Tracy, 8/13/13

Dick Tracy‘s new creative team has been referencing, recapping, and extending old characters and plots all the way from the strip’s 1930’s origins through the Moon Madness of the 1970’s. Today’s second panel recaps the final episode before the team took over from Dick Locher in 2011: in it, Mordred tries to kill Dick Tracy in an abandoned granary but is eaten alive by rats before he can seal the deal.

So what happens now? Does the strip move forward from the present moment, with new villains to overcome and crimes to solve? Or does it start recapping the recaps themselves in an ever-tightening spiral until Dick Tracy shrinks to a single image, of a solitary rat nibbling on the last morsel of a villain, every day forever?

Heathcliff, 8/13/13

Heathcliff Moves On, Part XLIV: By car, scooter, balloon, elephant, and now by cannon, a cat’s gotta travel.

BOOM, I’m outta here — apparently, I’ve been selected for some sort of honorary program, and I don’t want to be late for my initiation! Josh returns Wednesday morning with more of the rich, savory comic goodness you’ve come to expect from the Comics Curmudgeon. Thanks!

–Uncle Lumpy