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Six Chix, 4/30/16

Sure, “Kids Today” and “Technology Bad” are two of the classic themes, but if you want to go full plugger, Mom, you gotta grow the tail.

Archie, 4/30/16

Even the folks at Team Archie know this joke would be unpublishable with the roles reversed. Hey panel-2 Veronica: his eyes are down there!

Curtis, 4/30/16

Oh man, I was all set to go off on newish tertiary character “Heart-throb” for what I thought was a transparently false boast about an obviously impossible YouTube video. But then I checked and learned that kids all over the world post School Fight videos faster than Google can knock ’em down, and of course some of the fights are staged specifically for the videos.

What I’m saying is kids today are terrible, and technology makes everything worse.

(Checks behind for tail; still OK whew)

Judge Parker, 4/30/16

Hey, remember when Derek tried to go to a party with his real girlfriend Honey Ballenger and it made Sophie want to get all trained up at military school and flat-out murder everybody? But then Honey got grounded so Sophie dropped the idea and resumed her campaign to stalk/purchase Derek?

Well, those slick brochures from the military school kept coming, and they’re like porn to poor Marie here. Look at her caress that embossed coat of arms, dreaming of the sweet barracks pleasures she’d enjoy if only she could escape her hated employer/tormentors.

“Did you know they have a separate school for aerospace studies?” she coos. It’s her ultimate fantasy, to slip the surly bonds of Spencer Farms and fly, alone and free, into a brand-new life. Well, maybe one little strafing run first.

Hello there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in for Josh through Sunday, May 8 while he wraps up his book tour and recovers from same. Drop me a line at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if you need any admin help, for example if one of your comments gets hoovered up by the site’s new and voracious spam filter.

– Uncle Lumpy

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Hagar the Horrible, 3/13/16

Hagar’s role in the 9th century economy is essentially parasitic, extracting resources via violence from peasants and townsfolk whose rulers are too weak or too distant to protect them. Naturally, in order to justify this position, he tells himself that everyone — savage Viking raiders and helpless serfs alike — is equally morally bad. Presumably he’s trying to set off a riot in this village so that he and Eddie can steal some stuff in the confusion.

Curtis, 3/13/16

Haha, sure, Diane, scold Curtis for his zombified Humpty Dumpty, but I know for a fact your book ends with the beloved egg-being falling to his death, shattered to pieces in a scene of awful horror. Who can save him? The government? Not in this fairy-tale kingdom, where the military is sent in to provide substandard medical care to its citizens! Barry will be crying his eyes out. At least in Curtis’s version you’re relieved when he dies in the end.

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Mary Worth, 1/6/15

Oh man, just when I thought that this Mary Worth storyline was petering out into dullness, Mary has decided to take her new protege under her wing and interrogate a homeless man! Has he really retained his faith through all his hardship? Or has he only written that on his sign because he discovered it made people more likely to give him money (that he desperately needs to survive)? And even if he does still retain his faith, what kind of faith are we talking about here? A faith in the Gods of the one the traditional, outmoded religions? Some vague belief in the goodness of humanity, or of the universe? That won’t do. Once Olive summons her otherworldly messenger, this fellow will either have his soul shattered into infinitely tiny shards or will emerge from the experience a disciple of the new faith, Olive and Mary’s faith, the faith the will cleanse the world of the unclean and unworthy.

Curtis, 1/6/15

I’ve been down on this Kwanzaa storyline so far, but kudos to the spirit of the holiday for bringing the word “barfed” to comics pages everywhere. It would be better to show than to tell, of course, but I understand the editorial limits of the medium and applaud the strip for even getting this far. More teens magically transformed into superstars vomiting on presidential candidates in the funny pages, please! More, I say!