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Dennis the Menace, 9/8/21

We all know, of course, that every time the Henry and Alice Mitchell attempt to make friends, their very first social engagement ends in disaster when Dennis says the darndest/most insulting thing in front of them. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, on the other hand, don’t have any friends, which I’ve always assumed is the reason why they allow Dennis to come over to their house all the time, because the irritation he causes Mr. Wilson is a welcome distraction from the irritation they cause one another. Anyway, George has apparently browbeat some acquaintance, maybe just some guy he played chess with in the park once, into coming over to his house, and Martha has been nice enough to prepare some coffee, but here comes Dennis to ruin everything, just like he does with his parents. I’m beginning to suspect that he acts out just so that he can be center of attention at all times and nobody makes non-menacing acquaintances????

Beetle Bailey, 9/8/12

Sadly, it’s not a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for a general officer to attempt to “build buzz” to create a cult of personality around himself and/or “go viral.” A real oversight, in my opinion!

Dick Tracy, 9/8/12

“Stealing the Time Drone won’t be easy. Dick Tracy’s a close friend of Diet Smith. He always shows up when Smith’s tech is threatened. Plus the Time Drone itself provides its owner with near-omniscience, allowing anyone to see plots unfolding in the past! Diet and Dick are probably watching us right now, from the future!” SORRY I KEEP HARPING ON THIS EVERYBODY BUT IT’S TRUE, I WILL NOT BE SILENCED ON THIS POINT!!!! [flips the bird at Diet Smith, who I assume is watching me type this in the future]

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Hello, everyone, I have returned to my comics mocking duties! Everyone who gave to the summer fundraiser will be getting a personal thank you note, but I want to send everyone a huge public thank-you now, and also send a huge thanks to the always amazing Uncle Lumpy (and his pal Turtle Carl) for filling in for me on the site!

Mary Worth, 9/7/21

Big Mary Worth news always seems to happen in my absence. In this case, it was Wilbur getting dumped, which was almost as emotionally violent as the big gangland shootout I missed back in 2009. As usual, I’m just left with the hilarious aftermath, which in this case is Wilbur “lamenting” his situation, if strutting angrily around the perfectly manicured Santa Royale grounds with clenched fists absolutely seething about how his girlfriend dumped him just because he was an asshole counts as a “lament.”

Dick Tracy, 9/7/21

In Dick Tracy, meanwhile, we have a couple new masked playing card themed villains to deal with, and frankly I think keeping their masks on while just hanging around their lair/office shooting the shit may be overcommitting to the bit somewhat, unless Diet Smith’s Time Drone really can spy on anyone, anywhere, in which case they’re the first people to catch on to the new reality where we’re all going to be wearing ski masks all the time now.

Marvin, 9/7/21

I had to go back to the strips from my vacation to make sure there wasn’t a Marvin plot where Jenny got pregnant or something, but no, there’s no real context for this strip, in which Jeff and Jenny are lying in bed staring at the ceiling in horror at the thought that another hell-child might someday join the hell-child they currently have. So I assume that we’re seeing the moment just after they almost gave into their lustful marital urges but resisted at the last minute because the prospect of creating a Marvin-sibling, despite what I assume are multiple medical interventions to prevent such an accursed outcome, once again snuffed their arousal out.

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So ends the 2021 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser! Thank you, everybody!

Mark Trail, 9/4/21

It’s charming that with Mark’s long-running Woods and Wildlife gig at an end, Rusty and Cherry act as guides to his new wilderness of freelance work, relationships, and social media. And reassuring that Cherry never, ever shows him Twitter.

Lockhorns, 9/4/21

Loretta, it’s like you haven’t been paying attention the past fifty-three years.

Gasoline Alley, 9/4/21

Oh look, it’s Boog and Aubee, scions of the dead-eyed Skinner couple, Rover and Hoogy, recapping the story of Aubee’s sylvan birth. “Aubee?”, you ask, “What kind of name is that?” Well, upon delivering her, “Chipper” Wallet, who by the way is a PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT, exclaimed, “Well I’ll be! You have a beautiful, healthy baby girl.” Hoogy immediately named her daughter “Aubee,” because she pays as little attention to her children as we’d like to.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/4/21

Gah, it is so on-message for a high school in Funky Winkerbean to have a teachers’ “workroom” instead of a lounge, even though we’ve never seen anybody doing anything more strenuous there than drinking coffee, nor more intellectually demanding than complaining with those mopey little half-mouths of theirs.

Anyway, the white-haired guy with the lame bon mot is Jim Kablichnik. Everybody knows somebody like Jim Kablichnik. It’s a shame, really.

Dick Tracy, 9/4/21

Now I’m no history scholar like Josh, but I’m pretty sure history will still be a thing of the past even when we get better tools to investigate it. But don’t let me rain on Ace’s parade: he’s an official cigar-smoking member of The Apparatus at last!

— Uncle Lumpy