Post Content

Gearhead Gertie, 10/2/25

I was actually visiting a friend in Durham on the day Dale Earnhardt died, a date that I will always think of as “North Carolina’s 9/11,” so I know the strong feelings that his life and death elicit, and hopefully I’m not about to step out of line in this post, but: Dale Earnhardt died in a car crash during the Daytona 500? Because he ran into a wall at 160 miles an hour? And had previously complained about some rules that NASCAR had changed that slowed down races, and so NASCAR tweaked the rules again for the “aerodynamic package” allowed for cars, in order to (in the words of the remarkably detailed Wikipedia article on the subject) “keep cars bunched up close together and to allow more frequent passing at high speed”? Anyway, Gearhead Gertie has been a lot of business about her petty gripes with her husband lately, so I’m pretty excited that today’s panel is about Dale Earnhardt’s ghost or soul or whatever, which has been trapped in a photo on Gertie’s end table, saying, “Learn no lessons from my death. Go faster. Ever faster. Never slower. If they tell you to slow down, tell ’em to go to hell and leave them in your dust.”

Mary Worth, 10/2/25

Santa Royale is a bucolic California seaside college town, a fairly transparent stand-in for Santa Barbara, so it’s very funny that we suddenly have introduced into canon the idea that it’s immediately adjacent to a vast, dense forest, with no cell reception. I assume that Saul is terrified because he knows it’s full of … brigands? Wolves? Fae folk? Looking forward to finding out!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/2/25

Look, I’ve talked a lot of shit about the roots country Americana Ameripolitan scene on this blog, but I’m not such a hater that I won’t admit that a wedding full of musicians who are all playing for one another would be extremely fun and interesting! Not Rex and June, though. They need to go home and go to bed. They’re very boring people!

Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/25/25

Wow, back in the day, you could write a long, crazy yarn about an unlikely trio hot-air-balloon-crashing into the remote woods, where they’d never be able to get back to civilization and have to turn to cannibalism to survive. But now they have cell phones and can just call an Uber to come get them or whatever. Boring!

Gearhead Gertie, 9/25/25

It seems particularly cruel for Gertie to use NASCAR analogies for defeating her husband in their arguments, since their arguments are inevitably about NASCAR. But I guess literally everything she says, does, and thinks about is NASCAR. She has no other context! It’s NASCAR all the way down!

Six Chix, 9/25/25

I of course am on the record as enjoying the Tuesday Chik’s sandwich sex strips. But when it comes to perversity, I have to say that I’m even more impressed with this one, which starts off as a corny, punny joke but very quickly gets to a place where we need to accept that this lady loves, has married, and, yes, has sex with a sentient set of stairs.

Post Content

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options.

The Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser is in full swing! Swing along, with a generous PayPal contribution, web or newsletter subscription, Venmo transfer, Patreon sponsorship, or in-kind transfer. And thank you, generous reader!

Mary Worth, 8/14/25

Never one for subtlety, Mary Worth foreshadows by planting an actual red flag.

Mark Trail, 8/14/25

That gator is really excited at the prospect of a new pond! Meanwhile, Mark shoves a bush aside to clear the gator’s path. Not quite Fists of Justice™ territory, but at least macho-heroics-adjacent.

Zits, 8/14/25

There is no evidence that sulfurous smells repel bears, and Jeremy scrupulously avoids contact with ammonia, bleach, and other cleaning agents that do. Sorry, Hector, that tent is looking flimsier by the moment.

Family Circus, 8/14/25

Jeff Keane’s tax auditor, probably: “Mr. Keane, the IRS is known for its generosity in granting tax exemptions for creative professionals such as yourself, but are you really going to go with ‘How can I draw the Golden Gate Bridge without taking my family to San Francisco for a week?’ Frankly, I’m still getting grief about that Crankshaft determination.”

Gearhead Gertie, 8/14/25

“You mean that movie starring a charismatic and attractive male lead in a high-stakes drama with a ‘rookie vs. veteran’ dynamic that depicts a growing bond between former rivals, with authentic racing sequences, behind-the-scenes explorations of racing culture, and an iconic romantic interlude, led by a director associated with the Top Gun series? Sure, here’s a ticket to F1: The Movie!”

Gertie turns it down because the cars look different. Stupid Genie.

—Uncle Lumpy