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Folks! I’m back from vacation! Thanks for being so kind to your favorite Uncle Lumpy, and huge thanks for being so kind to me in the summer fundraiser! Those of you donated will be getting a personal thanks from me shortly, but you’re all my beloved pals who help keep this site going! Meanwhile, let’s catch up on what the strips have been up to in my absence! Probably none of them are in the midst of a rambling week-long dialogue that’s obliquely about me personally and the site I run, right?

Mark Trail, 8/29/19

Uhh … Mark …?

Gil Thorp, 8/29/19

Anyhoo, it looks like Gil Thorp is finally zeroing on what this year’s football season plot is going to be! Seems like we’ll be taking on the perennial question, “Can you convince your ungrateful stepchildren to love you by lying to them about how good they are at sports?” Jury’s still out!

The Phantom, 8/29/19

The Phantom has really tried to clean up its act over the past couple of decades, wokeness-wise, but does it occasionally return to its roots: extolling the virtues of a powerful white superhero whose powers are largely the result of resources extracted from the colonized nation he dominates.

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Gil Thorp, 8/26/19

Four months later …

“Thanks, Marty — and I have to say, the Mudlarks really earned this championship! The season started rough when Sam Finn came back sick from his volunteer work in rural Haiti, but once he got out of the hospital his enthusiasm infected the whole team. We lost our running game, but at the slower pace of play our offense was unstoppable — I’ve never seen such a single-minded, determined group of kids. And they kept reminding themselves to play smart by yelling ‘BRAAAAAINS’ in the huddle. It really threw their opponents off! Pius X tried a completely ineffective crucifix-and-garlic defense; they must’ve thought they were playing some other team. New Thayer’s Crossbow-T formation gave us a lot more trouble, but our guys ate into their line until they came around. Well, heading off to the team dinner — they say they have a surprise for me!”

9 Chickweed Lane and Baby Blues, 8/26/19

Amos and Edda haven’t figured out whether they’re going to approach her pregnancy with a) cutie-pie relationship twaddle, b) vomit jokes, or c) yet more sex. Darryl and Wanda know the drill.

Mark Trail, 8/26/19

I will be very happy if Mark’s next adventure is tracking down and punching out some anonymous troll who torments Rusty online, so long as it’s not me.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Gil Thorp, 8/22/19

“Yes, but no, so let’s eat!” I call foul. Gil’s preseason chats with Marjie Ducey are supposed to detail the roster and telegraph the upcoming plotline. Cynical evasion, non sequiturs, and misdirection are for Marty Moon, dammit. Is Gil getting so lazy he can’t keep his own bullshit straight?

Phantom, 8/22/19

Whoa, looks like loss of blood is making our boy a little giddy; take on some fluids and maybe a Snickers? The Phantom has just rescued Imara Sahara here — wife of incarcerated terrorist Eric (The Nomad!) Sahara and mother of Heloise Walker’s best friend Kadia — from a very highly fortified and guarded compound during its annihilation by U.S. missiles, fighting his way through an army of unspecified allegiance to get her free, all to make good on Heloise’s idle boast, “My Dad will get your Mom out.”

BTW, Imara: if you compare notes with Kadia about the whole “Walker/Phantom” thing, don’t go expecting Bangalla Life and Casualty to take your calls.

But say, what if Imara, not Eric, is the real terrorist mastermind? Sure, they’d have to rejigger a few old plot threads, but wouldn’t it be just like the Ghost Who Condescends to miss a threat from across the aisle, just like he did with the Khagan in the Sunday series? And it would destabilize the family dynamics among the Walkers and Saharas, culminating in the daring rescue by 22nd Phantom Heloise of Kadia from a life of PTSD, self-medication, and pole dancing.

Judge Parker, 8/22/19

April’s story — her truth — is that an internal cabal of rogue CIA agents misled her into carrying out illegal hits, tried to kill her and her Dad Norton to cover up the mess, and got all massacred for their efforts. This has all been disclosed on-air in an exposé by reporter Toni Bowen, because April’s husband Randy can keep neither his pants nor his mouth shut. The story was elaborated further in Toni Bowen’s memoir about Norton’s corruption of literary lion Alan Parker, for which Parker has confessed and is now doing time.

So if you want to get out the rest of your story — your truth — April, I can think of a far better option than these two, and she’s doing the 6:00 news up in Cavelton.

Luann, 8/22/19

It’s tough being a Doofus Dad, and Frank DeGroot has it worse than most. Walt Duncan gives as good as he gets, Dagwood Bumstead enjoys the genuine affection of an excellent cook, and Darryl MacPherson is the beneficiary of Wanda’s voracious sexual appetite and otherworldly lingual gymnastics. But Frank just hangs around the house being emasculated by Nancy and ignored by Luann. When he’s had enough, he wanders out to the mall to find a clerk his daughter’s age he can sneer at with no risk of backtalk. This kid told him about cross-trainers on Tuesday, but he’s so invested in his “so many shoes” Pluggers schtick it blows right by him. What I’m saying is fuck you, Frank.

— Uncle Lumpy