Post Content

Prince Valiant, 11/18/12

OK, so when his cultured wife Lady Winnifred died, Lord Grunyard fell apart, leaving Lockbramble’s lush but chilly northern lands in the hands of greedy, archery-obsessed overseer Roger Runetyne, who impoverished them in a vain attempt to grow tea, which he figured Britons might like. Moral: marketing insight is no substitute for operational capability!

Ace archer rebel Rhoda Red Hood plans to enter and win Lockbramble’s archery tournament in disguise, humiliating Runetyne so the rebels can reinstall Grunyard as their puppet ruler. One of those Hunger Games-y “win the contest and save the land” plots.

And oh yeah Val and Gawain wander in, get caught and released by the rebels, and allay Runetyne’s fears that the royals are onto him by showing up at the castle plastered.

But mainly, after this week in Rex Morgan, M.D., I figured you’d just want to stare at that first panel for a little while.

Phantom, 11/18/12

While the daily Phantom putters along playing Who’s Got the Lion?, the Sundays loop back to the year-and-a-half-long Diana’s Rescue story, in which gun-totin’, pirate-hatin’, Phantom-lovin’ Captain Savarna played a prominent role.

Once the Phantom finds that skeleton in the final panel, he’ll search for proof it’s Savarna’s: the purple notebook she always carried, filled with her 785 practice signatures — Mrs. Savarna Phantom Walker* in loopy schoolgirl script, with little hearts above all the i's and j's.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/18/12

Hey, let’s look in on the happy couple!

With his daughter off at college, Les married Cayla as a replacement foil for his execrable pun-like utterances. But Cayla is a take-charge ex-baseballer who doesn’t mind taking down a rival, or a mere annoyance like her new husband. And she is so done with his Lisa shit. Three strikes and you’re out, buddy.

That’s it for me: Josh will be back later today with Comments of the Week, and regular posts starting Monday. Thanks for a fun week!

–Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

So ends the Comics Curmudgeon Fall 2012 fundraiser. Thank you, generous readers!

Gasoline Alley, 11/16/12

Any hopes of social acceptance for coal-eyed monster Boog — from the cruel attentions of bullies to his prospects of a future mate — hang on the slender thread of his mother’s ability to keep his school — nay, the entire town — stuffed and brain-addled from her carbohydrate-laden snacks. Bake, Hoogie, bake! Bake like you’ve never baked before!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/16/12

Rex Morgan, M.D. plots are notorious for starting from an intriguing premise — Rex and June investigate a brothel — and then larding in so many trivial digressions that readers lose track, and eventually interest. And so we have Honey’s plumbing emergency, Ginger’s stockkeeping crisis, Edna’s heart attack and Herb’s gratitude, June’s free clam lunch (with extra free crab cakes — come back again for more free!), Dolores’s battle with cancer, Nurse Amber Thomas coaxing Rex into a TV spot for CPR training and his consequent public acclaim, Ginger’s Rex-poaching plans and backstory conflicts with the Marine-pilot wife of an former paramour and scheming clamshack waitress Rose. The shame in all this is that when the whole rickety edifice finally collapses in a hail of gunfire or ceremonial award of yet another boat, no one will much notice, let alone care.

Gil Thorp, 11/16/12

Talented and yet somehow Irish footballer Terry Gallagher has let his largely-fictional triumphs on the American gridiron go to his head! Here, the Cool Girls conspire in some vague iPhone-related plot to take him down a peg, because if the stars of the NFL have shown us anything, it’s that a deep and abiding humility is the key to football success.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/16/12

OK so Big Walnut Tech is obviously a Designated Villain in Funky Winkerbean: they routinely crush the Westview Scapegoats in football, and it was team star Frankie who got Dead Lisa pregnant (she was not yet dead at the time), so that Les could heroically give her a lift to the hospital and the Fairviews could get Darrin to adopt. And today Big Walnut Tech bests the Westview High crowd yet again, this time by remote control.

Sounds like a pretty interesting place, doesn’t it, this Big Walnut Tech? I’d like to know more about how their coach managed to maintain a consistently successful football program over so many years, and how they built an academic environment that develops clearly marketable skills in fields like robotics. And what about Frankie? Did he build on his high-school social and athletic successes to become a man of consequence? Were his dreams bigger than Westview?

I like to think of Frankie taking his final box of trophies out to the curb and drawing a last deep breath of Westview air, with its faint smell of bad pizza and flop sweat — then firing up his trusty old van, scene of so many conquests, and driving it down the sad main street out of town forever without a single glance in the rearview.

Judge Parker, 11/16/12

All along, Avery was just looking for a place to hang his hat and park his trout. He would see it clear enough if he took off those ridiculous glasses.

— Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 11/9/12

So, yes, as predicted, an innocent if somewhat ham-handed query about why the word “comic” usually means “funny” but doesn’t in the case of comic books has led to a week-long and increasingly self-important diatribe about the history of the medium and why it’s been forced unfairly into a ghetto where nobody takes it seriously, man (The question that was actually asked was answered fairy succinctly by webcomics hero David Willis.) Hat-bro has been allowed to occasionally say quasi-funny things this week making the point that, ha ha, this answer sure is going on for a while and is boring, but he’s now been silenced, and in today’s final panel the oppressive crush of verbiage manages to drain all color from the room as it reaches a critical mass.

Apartment 3-G, 11/9/12

Ha, so, Aunt Cathy, Evan’s mean girl aunt, is … running a publicity agency that competes with Margo’s? And Evan is secretly working for Margo’s agency as a mole? And he’s spiriting young starlets away to his aunt’s agency by convincing Margo that they’re rivals for his massage-y affections? This makes so much less sense than anything else I thought was happening, which is really something of an achievement.

Mary Worth, 11/9/12

Haha, I love Dawn’s wide-eyed expression in panel two, as she realizes she’s basically been given parental authorization to just stone cold make out with a bunch of dudes without having to worry about boring old “commitment” or anything. Of course, her new friend/love interest Jim is possessive and controlling, so I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear about her plans to play the field.

Shoe, 11/9/12

In world gone mad with ruthless and pointless competition, the Perfesser knows that the only winning move is not to play. That’s why he’s just going to sit in his overstuffed armchair with a beer, eating a pizza right out of the box, and staring at the TV with dead eyes until the reality show that is reality declares a “winner” he can get behind. Till then, he’s opting out of the whole thing. Where do you suppose the pizza box went between panels one and two? Do you think there are a bunch of other pizza boxes piled up there, wherever he threw it?

The Lockhorns, 11/9/12

Here … enjoy the greatest Lockhorns ever written.