Post Content

Sincere thanks to everyone who supported the Pledge Drive — and if the appeal didn’t fit your schedule, budget, or charitable priorities, thank you for your patience. No more fund-raising ’til fall I promise, although “surprise” contributions are always a welcome treat! The button’s at the left under the Comment of the Week there. Just sayin’.

If you missed any of the Pledge Drive banners, they’re at the bottom of this page.

— Uncle Lumpy

Funky Winkerbean, 4/18/09

Passive-aggressive zombie Lisa Moore deftly sinks the hook, assuring that the condom will stay in Les’s jacket until he needs to replace the elbow-patches again. (No, he does not keep the condom in his wallet: Lisa’s picture is in that wallet! Duh!)

Personal note: Most of the time, making fun of comics is like plinking cans with a .22 — an idle diversion, not too destructive. An especially irritating strip might make me wish for a slightly higher caliber. But when the Dead Chick shows up in Funky Winkerbean, I start wondering how big a thermonuclear device it would take to blow eastern Ohio to rust and splinters. I suspect this is an overreaction on my part, and I’m working on it.

Mark Trail, 4/18/09

In panic, Rusty bends time, space, and perspective as Sassy’s wild glee ends in dismay.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18, 3/28/09 (details, retouched: originals here and here)

Just as Seinfeld famously expanded the horizons of observational comedy, so Rex Morgan, M.D. opens new vistas for observational drama. Clueless yuppies Rex and June drift along on chitchat and ice cream, vaguely entertained by the epidemics, kidnappings, and murders that backdrop their meaningless lives. Great fortunes are reversed, families ruined, lives lost — none of it touches them.

Until now. In the person of Agnes Dunsmore, June confronts her own gin-soaked, loveless future. Staring through the veil at those fissures and spider-veins as into a mirror, she forms the thought that burns in her eyes, and breathes, “Guido — and now — before it’s too late!”

— Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Twice a year, I try to raise some money for Josh and this blog from reader contributions. It’s completely voluntary, but a good way to keep the Comics Curmudgeon going as a more-than-amateur but definitely-not-corporate voice. Please help if you can!



Please click above or here to keep the Comics Curmudgeon strong and independent. Thank you!

Piranha Club, 4/14/09

Mallard Fillmore meets Momma, and may God have mercy on us all.

Crankshaft, 4/14/09

Crankshaft is an Illiterate Moron meets Afterschool Special, and meh — what else is new?

Mark Trail, 4/14/09

Jack Elrod famously draws animals with far more care and detail than he does humans. So we can only assume that panel-three Rusty here has begun his horrifying transformation into Squirrel-Squirt, or Beaver-Boy, or some damn thing.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/14/09

Les “Ask Me About My Dead Wife” Moore utters those words every woman longs to hear, as his paramour’s rival wonders what scope she can afford for her Mauser SR-93. Oh, and good luck getting rid of those tickets on Stub Hub, honey.

— Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Judge Parker, 4/11/09

OK, I get that “Rocky Ledge” is a stage name, like Dixie Julep for Kathleen Patterson — but c’mon: “Godiva Danube”? If that’s a work alias, it’s gonna limit her professional options — just ask L’Oréal MacDowell or Lancome Rosellini.

On the other hand, if she was born with a name like that, I bet her Hauptschule nightmares make Sophie’s troubles look like ein gehen in den garten.

But hey, why speculate when you can generate your very own Judge Parker name right here! Choose a chiseled, craggy man-handle straight out of the American West, or an Old World nom d’une femme with just the slightest bouffée of elegant dissipation — we don’t judge! Then add your own title (“Sheriff”, “Vicomtesse”) and you’re good to go!

Your new Judge Parker name:

Funky Winkerbean, 4/11/09

“Susan Smith” (no, not that one) may be a commonplace name, but this gal is more than another mopey walk-on. Nope, she’s the ur-victim of Funky Winkerbean, its Dark Eve — wellspring of the miseries that rise like the cholera from every sewer in Westview. It was her incomprehensible crush on Les that launched the “Summer of Les ‘n’ Lisa” (1994) — until quite recently the most annoying European adventure in comics history. Since then, she’s endured a suicide attempt (1995), a dating abuse cycle o’ violence (1998), gross underemployment, and a divorce (2008), only to face her greatest challenge: feigning interest in Les’s 900-page opus, My Wife Was Nice But Then She Died. She comes out — well, not smiling, of course — but upright, breathing, and back for more. Tough dame!

What the hell is wrong with these people? — a new occasional feature!

Between Friends, 4/6/09 — 4/10/09

What the hell is wrong with this woman?

I’m sitting in for Josh through the 19th — if you have any problems with the site or non-public questions, you can reach me at uncle.lumpy@yahoo.com. If you need to reach Josh directly, it’s jfruh@jfruh.com and probably a bit of a wait. Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy