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Hey all, just a head’s up: I’ve updated the posting and discussion policies for the site, mostly to reflect and explain how I already run things around here anyway. If you’ve never read this, read it, and even if you have, check out the updates, particularly the new FAQ/Socratic dialogue I’ve added that will hopefully be illuminating about how not to get banned/yelled at!

And now, on to comics.

Dick Tracy, 9/30/10

Is it possible to construct a more delightful phrase than “Dick Tracy, undercover hobo”? I believe the answer to that question to be a firm “no,” but only because no English word-sequence can truly convey the awesomeness of panel one, where Dick’s eyes glow hypnotically out of his shadowy, bearded face. Dick’s gone undercover among the scruffy unhoused set to track down a bum who’s handing out thousand-dollar bills. As a homeless man handing out thousand-dollar bills would in all likelihood be almost immediately robbed and murdered, but just in case that isn’t in process, Dick makes sure to shout out his location as loudly as possible, for no good reason.

Mary Worth, 9/30/10

Desperate for some way to enliven this offensively smug scene, the Mary Worth artist distracts us with wacky perspective shifts. Panel two, for instance, caters to every reader’s fantasy by showing what it would look like to be a master assassin lurking in the bushes across the street, watching Mary and Jeff through the scope of a high-powered rifle, and waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/30/10

Oh, Elviney (if that is your name — I’m pretty sure it is but I don’t feel like looking it up), why do you sigh so? Is it a sigh like “Oh, that tired old chestnut?” A sigh like, “Darn, I was hoping for some effective weight-loss tips from my portly friend?” Or a sigh like, “Good lord, all of us in this blighted hamlet are so very poor and hungry?”

Wizard of Id, 9/30/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Floyd died terribly, for no good reason!

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It’s the final day of the Fall 2010 Fundraiser — if you enjoy the Comics Curmudgeon, please take a few minutes to make a donation of any amount to support Josh and his fine work. You’ll feel great about it, and so will Josh — thank you!

Gasoline Alley, 9/24/10

Even beyond the bus plunge trope beloved of generations of lead-type print journalists, the current Gasoline Alley plot is chock full of old-timey goodness:

• Sound effects in dialect — “Kee-rash”, y’all! “Smootch”!

• Regionalisms — “Let’s don’t”, like Louisiana’s “might could”, Josh’s beloved upstate N.Y. “pop”, and the “bubbler” (water fountain) of my own Milwaukee roots.

• Agricultural sexuality — Rural kids don’t have much patience for courtly love. But Rover won’t fall for Miss Chris’s comely charms either, considering what’s waiting at home.

• Picaresque plotlines — A forgotten lunch, excess cell-phone use, failed brakes, missing spare, sudden infatuation: what us know-it-all city-folk call “incoherent.”

Blondie, 9/24/10

OK, cartoonists, listen up. It’s wonderful that you’ve got friends and neighbors, and peachy that they give to charity and get married and whatnot, but won’t you please, please stop sticking them in your comics? Your audience doesn’t give a rip about these people, and they always look creepy and out of place. This is not how to treat friends and neighbors in print.

Sally Forth, 9/23/10

This is how to treat friends and neighbors in print.

Dick Tracy, 9/24/10

Chief Liz is right. In fact, Dick will eventually fool himself, arrest himself for vagrancy, and then die a grisly and mysterious death at his own hands while in self-custody. His last words will be a lame wisecrack about how he died. At the funeral, friends will say, “He would have wanted it this way”, and they’ll be right, too.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Click above to contribute by credit card or PayPal, here to contribute by check, or here for more details — Thanks!

Josh Fruhlinger started this blog as a hobby in 2004; now thousands of people read it every day to get a chuckle from comics they’ve followed since childhood. Twice a year, I encourage readers to join me in financial support of the Comics Curmudgeon, to help keep this fine entertainment going.

Click the banner above to contribute by credit card or PayPal. Full details (and an index to the fundraiser banners) here. Thank you!

And while you wait for your generous offshore wire transfer to slip beneath the radar of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, please enjoy this Comics Curmudgeon exclusive, Random Dick — the Dick Tracy Continuity Randomizer:

Dick Tracy values continuity even less than the so-called Rights of the Accused. Can you find any differences between a regular Dick Tracy strip and a random collection of panels? Let’s find out!

Dick Tracy, 7/22 — 9/18/10 (panels)*

Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy

* Random Dick may not work in some browsers and RSS readers. If you can’t see it or it runs too slowly, please use the fast large-format version at this link instead.

Notes: OK, it’s not completely random: strips are assembled from one randomly-selected “Dick Tracy” panel, one “Other Person” panel, and one “Building or Object” panel, and then presented in random order. Many thanks to young codemaster Spiff Lumpy for scripting, html, and debugging.