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Hello everyone! I’m back and very grateful to Uncle Lumpy for his guest-blogging prowess … and extremely grateful for everyone who donated to the Comics Curmudgeon fundraiser! Individual thank-yous are, per usual, coming your way in the next week or so. And now, tanned, rested, and ready to take on … Dick Tracy? Sure, why not.

Dick Tracy, 9/14/20

Brenda Starr and Little Orphan Annie, two iconic long-running continuity strips, sadly came to an end in the last decade, but that hasn’t stopped Dick Tracy from still plugging along (because America likes violent cops more than it likes newspapers or orphans!) and gathering up its syndicate’s intellectual property into a Tribune Content Agency Cinematic Universe. Now Brenda is going to teach Annie and Dick’s half-alien granddaughter Honeymoon to write a journalistically rigorous feature article on … vampires? Sure, why not. I’m honestly surprised that the head of the University of Neo-Chicago’s Department of Ghouls and Draculas they’re interviewing isn’t named “Professor Stakes,” as that’s the sort of on-the-nose nomenclature this feature specializes in.

Crankshaft, 9/14/20

It’s a difficult environment out there for indie booksellers — especially when they have to compete against nice old ladies who operate unlicensed bookstores over their garage, flouting the ADA and any number of fire safety codes and just daring the city’s toothless permitting apparatus to shut them down.

The Lockhorns, 9/14/20

A lot about The Lockhorns, especially the fact that they spend most of their time in a semi-featureless void space, can be explained if you imagine that they’re kept captive in some kind of containment field, possibly floating in a sphere high above the earth, and the rest of the world watches a livestream of their dysfunctional antics for entertainment and/or as a cautionary example. In this alternate universe, journalists like Jake Tapper (?) comment on major milestones in their lives, and presumably everyone’s focus on them brings us together as a nation.

Mary Worth, 9/14/20

I was pretty dubious about Saul Helps A Tween Heal, but I am cautiously optimistic about Saul Woos A Giantess!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/14/20

Honey, just because you’re saying it louder doesn’t make it true

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/1/20

Here’s a fun “lockdown story” for you: for pretty much the whole time my wife and I have been married, she’s been prone to minor colds — nothing serious, but maybe a few days every other month or so — in a way that I’m not, which has resulted in a certain amount of good natured teasing about which one of us has a superior immune system. But a few weeks ago, she realized that she hasn’t had a cold since March, which is when her job had her start working at home, like I do all the time. In other words, it’s not that my immune system is any tougher than hers; it’s that I, like Harwood père, have been quarantining for the last twenty years, pretty much. Anyway, I’m glad that this strip has wrapped up the story of the flamboyant con artist so we can really focus on the guy who’s exactly as boring as me, a guy who blogs about newspaper comic strips for a living.

Crankshaft, 9/1/20

It took me years of reading this strip to realize that Keesterman, the guy whose mailbox Crankshaft annihilates on a daily basis due to some combination of incompetence and spite, is also one of Crankshaft’s only two non-work friends. Anyway, you might at first glance think that Keesterman (who it’s also just occurred to me has a name that means “Ass Man,” which is neither here nor there) is honoring his late friend Crankshaft, who passed away peacefully last night, in a uniquely appropriate way. But of course, that’s not true; Crankshaft will never die, due to the aforementioned spite, and Keesterman is just being extremely passive aggressive.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/1/20

Speaking of hateful Funkyverse characters who will never die, I feel like it’s been years since we’ve seen any sustained Les-Cayla interaction, so I’m excited to see them snipe at each other about the heady melange of danger and sexual attraction to a young actress playing Les’s dead first wife he’s been experiencing in Los Angeles, city of dreams!

Marvin, 9/1/20

I guess “reckless” is supposed to imply something … sexy, maybe? … but look, I’ve read enough columns in celebrity tabloids by “body language experts” to know that these two — sitting next to each other on the couch, facing forward, arms crossed — now only stimulate each other via taunts and cruel misdirection.

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/13/20

Oh, look, everyone! Les is saving Lisa twice! The “Montoni’s Burns Down” plot happened during the gap when I wasn’t reading Funky Winkerbean, but has anyone ever suggested that maybe Lisa got cancer because of breathing in the hazardous fumes formed when Montoni’s truly noxious pizza sauce caught flame? Just spitballing here! Probably Marianne will end up dying of cancer too for similar reasons not long after finishing filming Lisa’s Story (Mason’s hair product cabinet caught on fire, maybe?) and Les will accept her Best Actress Oscar. His sad yet smug self-importance will blot out the sun.

Beetle Bailey, 8/13/20

I was going to get absolutely enraged that this furry is clearly a wolf and yet his briefcase says “Grizz & Assoc.”, but then I realized he’s probably the “associates” and “Grizz” is his boss (a bear furry, obviously). Anyway, what’s your favorite thing about his outfit? When you answer, keep in mind that his outfit consists of a vest, a suit jacket, a bow tie, and nothing else.

Mark Trail, 8/13/20

Hey man, I was pretty sanguine about Tabby’s abandonment because I was 100% sure she would find a safe home with the Trails, but I am not cool with how cavalier Mark’s being about the packs of rabid feral dogs roaming the area! Sure, Rusty’s had his shots, so the worst that could happen to him is that he gets lightly-to-mediumly mauled, but we don’t want Tabby’s story ending in an Old Yeller scenario, or, worse, a Cujo situation, so let’s get moving on that rabies vaccination, shall we?

Crankshaft, 8/13/20

I really hope they get through to Jeff Bezos, and I hope he takes them seriously! I hope he pulls out all the stops and uses all the power that’s accrued to his trillion-dollar megacorporation to just absolutely crush this streetside lemonade stand, the illegal, unpermitted bookstore it’s attached to, and the entire Centerville economy, just to be on the safe side.