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Family Circus, 9/7/16

We all joke, of course, about the “melonheaded” children of the Family Circus, but we all just assumed their apparent macrocephaly was a quirk of Bil Keane’s art style, now handed down to his son Jeff. How wrong we were. How horribly, horribly wrong. Today we learn that the Keane Kids’ heads are grossly distended due to whatever monstrous science is required to keep them alive indefinitely, as they are transplanted from one child’s body to another — and really, the less time spent dwelling on how exactly those bodies are acquired, the better. “How old was my head in this picture?” Jeffy asks, his immortal life being nothing more to him than an undifferentiated blur of surgeries and tiny bodies that eventually fail and wither.

Gasoline Alley, 9/7/16

Speaking of awful nightmare visions, two members of Gasoline Alley’s extended cast are, for reasons I’m not even going to bother going into here, engaged in a little light accidental-woods-birth action. I’m sure this will turn out fine and not be nightmarish at all, but I am super unsettled by the array of woodland creatures, eagerly watching to see the baby’s head crown with big, adorable, staring, unblinking eyes.

Mary Worth, 9/7/16

“So, wait, you’re telling me there’s a pill … that I can take … when I have an unbearable urge to take another kind of pill? This new pill sounds great! I’m just gonna swallow a whole bottle’s worth all at once!”

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Six Chix, 8/17/16

I really, sincerely, hope that in the original version of this comic, rejected by the syndicate with extreme prejudice and disgust, the baby bird has already hatched from her egg, and the momma bird is vomiting half-digested worms into her mouth.

Gasoline Alley and Mary Worth, 8/17/16

Women! Always wanting to “talk” and “share emotional intimacy” and all that bullshit, amiright fellas? Who needs that? Certainly not you, so long as you have the glory of untouched nature and/or powerful opioid painkillers!

Hi and Lois, 8/17/16

God as my witness, I chuckled at “Noiz 2 Men.” I chuckled audibly. You might think, from reading my unceasingly negative comics blog, that I have a heart made of stone, but I am here to tell you that I do not.

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Blondie, 8/11/16

Uh-oh, look at that graph. Dithers Construction Company’s profitability is tanking despite robust top-line growth. That indicates significant diseconomies of scale, probably because tightwad Dithers underinvested in staff and equipment for so long. Now every new project increases the company’s reliance on outside contractors, who take advantage of tight supply and exact their revenge for Julius’ endless chiseling by driving their prices relentlessly upward. The staff is right to be alarmed — Dithers’ panicky plan to “grow his way out of trouble” only advances the day when savage job cuts will fall without warning. But yeah, how about those Olympics?

Dick Tracy, 8/11/16

Whew! Team Tracy finally slowed its march through the character archives long enough to give us a week-long standoff between Dick and aspirational nemesis Abner Kadaver at Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls, scene of Sherlock Holmes’ (temporary) death at the hands of Professor Moriarty.

Kadaver is a high-end hit man whose body is actually decomposing from some ill-advised makeup experiments during his former career as a horror-show host. His mouth is strangely unaffected, maybe because he runs it nonstop.

Gasoline Alley, 8/11/16

There are two humanoid species in Gasoline Alley. The Round-Eyes include patriarch Walt Wallet, daughter-in-law Nina, granddaughter Clovia, the annoying Frank Nelson character, and various animals, children, and cops. The Coal-Eyes include sons Skeezix and Corky, Clovia’s husband Slim, and the Bump family here, Rover, Hoogy, and Boog.

Now of course a Coal-Eye mother may deliver a Round-Eye baby, that’s only natural and God’s plan and why would you ever ask such a thing. But I always thought they developed in the usual, uterine, fashion. Now we see that a Round-Eyeling actually inhabits its Coal-Eye mother as an insatiable parasite, consuming the body of its host from within until its eyes glare out from her hollowed-out sockets, silently shrieking “How long ’til I am born, to shed this skin-prison and feed free?”

Wow, the comics teach you something new every day, don’t they?

Sally Forth, 8/11/16

Hilary Forth has the exact same schtick as her father Ted. In any confrontation that makes her confront her future — here, confronting her literal future self — she panics and spews any nonsense she can think of to change the subject. And it works! Present Hilary can take comfort from the fact that Future Hilary apparently didn’t think it was a problem worth solving.

Spider-Man, 8/11/16

Maybe its just the thought-bubble and the scowl, but I think Egghead and Ant-Man are the same guy! I mean, ants lay eggs, right? — it totally makes sense. Egghead probably hatches twice the number of evil schemes he really needs and blames Ant-Man for the 50% that fail because of stupidity or bad luck. Then he writes a tiny, tiny note saying “I quit! Signed, Ant-Man” and leaves it where Spider-Man will find it and blab his “scoop” to the Bugle. Investors will then flock to Egghead’s schemes, figuring that with Ant-Man out of the picture they’ll be 100% successful!

I’m beginning to respect the evil genius of this Elihas Starr, even though he talks down to people with those big impressive $100 words like “equivalent” and “commence.”

–Uncle Lumpy