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Dick Tracy, 11/3/16

For my money, the line “this is no place for you” is the funniest thing in the comics today. At first I thought it meant that Selfy was a big shot who shouldn’t be risking getting monkey poop on his shiny shoes or something. But then I realized that I had it backwards, which was even funnier: the zoo is too good for a scumbag like Selfy! This is a decent place, where we cage wild animals for bored schoolchildren to gawk at! It’s no place for political hacks who wear tuxedos in their daily life and other monsters. Ol’ Vic tried to keep Selfy on the straight and narrow, tried to teach him the way of the feces shovel and the tranq gun, but it was too late: he was well on his way along the all-too-common young-hood-to-congressional-staffer pipeline, and not all monkey chow in the world could save him.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/3/16

Hey, it looks like Chekhov’s packages of frozen cash finally went off, a year after they were placed on the mantlepiece in an extremely non-casual manner! Anyway, my top two choices for what happened to the money are (a) Heather used it to hire a hit man to kill Milton and make it look like Jordan did it, so he has no choice but to obey her whims, sexually, or (b) Milton used it to wire the house with explosives so that he can go out on his terms, which is to say with some of his faculties still intact and taking his wife and household staff with him. Either way, Jordan is right to “oh, boy!” dramatically!

Family Circus, 11/3/16

That’s actually not right either, Dolly. Mommy is letting the breeze ruffle her hair and is imagining what it might be like to be driving a convertible, by herself, in whatever direction she pleases. Mommy stopped looking for Jeffy a solid twenty minutes ago.

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Dick Tracy, 10/30/16

I was a little dubious when Dick Tracy introduced what I assume is supposed to be a Millennial character, a guy who is a narcissist and keeps taking selfies and also is named “Selfy Narcisse.” But now it turns out that he regularly takes his car out on sweet jumps over drawbridges right as they open? I guess the kids are at least somewhat all right, after all!

Funky Winkerbean, 10/30/16

Whoops, seems I totally failed to recognize Cindy in yesterday’s strip! Anyway, Cindy and Mason are definitely not living in a world of denial that will soon be shattered by the inevitable progress of time, at all.

Hi and Lois, 10/30/16

Ha ha, it’s funny because Lois is wracked with anxiety that for some reason is manifesting itself as jack o’ lantern perfectionism, and it’s so bad that her entire family is scared and upset!

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Mark Trail, 10/15/16

And it’s an invasive wild boar – the very worst kind! What’s more, he’s either a really ROUGH sort, or a real GROUCH – it’s hard to tell from context. Maybe both!

But hey waitaminute: what are wild boars doing on a volcanic atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? I’m guessing they weren’t carried ashore in bundles of firewood like the ants. Maybe the neo-Aztecs who built the mountaintop temple imported boars for sacrifice until the boars figured out the deal and turned the tables?

Most likely it’s all a plot by Abbey Powell’s sinister “U.S. Department of Agriculture.” Alarmed by the invasion of fire ants, they brought in Formosan termites to control them. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. So they shipped in “beneficial” nematodes, which promptly started eating all the coral. The marine iguanas they imported to kill the nematodes quickly overwhelmed the beaches, so they airlifted in packs of boars and here we are. In a desperate attempt, Abbey has conned Mark Trail to come in and punch the boars into submission. I hope it works, because the next step is nuclear weapons.

Dick Tracy, 10/15/16

When someone is killed for persecuting an ethnic group with exactly two members, the police know where to start their investigation. When both of those members are friends or relatives of Dick Tracy, they have a pretty good idea where to stop it, too.

Phantom, 10/15/16

OK, so the Phantom has one of those Lone Ranger-style “see my unmasked face and die” gimmicks going on, and it apparently includes his wife??? Brrr….

Maybe he only goes all shadowy like this when we’re watching, which frankly hurts my feelings a little bit. Dude, we’re your fans. We stuck with you through Hide the Lion. We toughed it out through The College Kid — that’s gotta count for something. How ’bout a little peek at them baby blues?

Judge Parker, 10/15/16

OK, now that Bob Dylan has his Nobel Prize we’d better get used to the fact that Boomer culture is universal culture everywhere and forever.

At 77, ’60’s icon Spencer Davis (Gimme Some Lovin’) is old enough enough to work at Neddy’s factory, but not desperate enough for her starvation wages. From his retreat on California’s Catalina Island, he writes:

♬

Well, the factory’s collapsing, got a hole in the floor
Canes and walkers clacking on their way to the door
Let me through granny, I don’t want to be entombed
And you better hobble quicker, ’cause this place is doomed.

And I sure hope you make it — we olds can’t take it
You’ve got to: gimme some running (gimme, gimme some running)
Gimme some crushing, (gimme, gimme some crushing)
Gimme some shoving everyday.
Hey hey.

Hi there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in through Sunday the 23rd while Josh takes a break. Please let me know if you experience any access or comment-posting problems at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy