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Mary Worth, 8/15/16

I’m back, everyone! Let’s give a huge shout-out to Uncle Lumpy, who did admirable work while I lounged around my darkened bedroom in a Vicodin haze, the shadows emphasizing how ripped my torso is. I was worried for a bit that I’d get fired, but then I realized that I own this darn website! I can do all the pills I want!

Anyway, after reviewing the past week of Mary Worth, I’m glad to see that the current storyline continues to promote the pill-popper lifestyle. For a minute it looked like Tommy might have some trouble doctor shopping, but it turns out that if you’re clever and determined enough, you can get all the delicious painkillers you needed, as you can tell by the pill bottles lined up on Tommy’s bedside table. And now that he’s being fired from his lame sandwich job, he’s got more time to enjoy his Vicodin. Win-win!

Judge Parker, 8/15/16

Meanwhile, in classic Judge Parker fashion, we’ve been treated to both the drama-filled run-up to Derek’s band’s gig and the ecstatic aftermath without actually seeing the performance itself. The important thing here is that Zeke, having been corrupted by Honey’s flirtatious banter, has switched from Monster® Energy Drink to Osipov Vodka. This is apparently not a real vodka brand, though Googling it led me to a book called The Rise of the Centaurs, so I have no regrets. Anyway, it’s going to be very sad when this bad decision leads to all these teens being killed in a drunk backseat driving accident.

Gil Thorp, 8/15/16

Speaking of getting killed in a drunk driving accident, Barry Bader’s drunk driving dad is going to, uh, take a plea, I guess? Given the lightning-fast pace of the U.S. court system, this plot should finally be wrapped up just in time for football season in 2019.

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Pluggers, 8/12/16

“Our media choices are better than your media choices.”

You know, I had assumed that the Bear-Roos and the Houndstooth-Beaks, pluggers all, would just naturally know one another and sit in the same row at the movies — to chat, take too many bathroom breaks, let their phones ring over to voicemail, chew their food with their mouths open, and generally annoy the hell out of me. But in an archive dive of the last three years, I can’t find a single panel that shows Andy and/or Henrietta with Earl and/or Shiela. That’s some pretty admirable consistency, Mr. Chief Plugger! But now my discredited assumption makes me feel like one of those people who says “But you must know him – you’re in the same Army.” You know the people I mean: pluggers.

Spider-Man, 8/12/16

There’s no way she’s not trolling him right now: “Does he show up uninvited at picnics? Can he sit quietly without fidgeting? Does he work in venture capital? Have Mommy Issues?”

Beetle Bailey, 8/12/16

Killer’s appetite for sexual risk only grew until the day they found him in the woods, naked and blue, with a taut chain from his neck to the axle of a stalled Jeep.

Gil Thorp, 8/12/16

“Hmm, there’s a rift between Barry Bader and the rest of the team. Can I get True to take care of it for me? Nope. Can I fob it off on Kaz? Nope. Oh, well — guess I just gotta make the kid figure it out himself. Hope Mimi put that wine in the fridge — this is shaping up to be one tough day!”

There’s a reason his cup says “GIL” and his nameplate says “THORP.” The word “COACH” belongs nowhere near this guy.

Just a reminder that there’s no Comments of the Week this week — BigTed’s contribution gets an extended ride!

–Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 8/9/16

Freed from the demands of writing Apartment 3-G, Margaret Shulock tries out for that sweet Funky Winkerbean gig.

Love the art, btw: I haven’t done a rebus in years.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/9/16

Apparently we’re just talking about hazing this week? With no actual hazing in evidence, is that it? Or maybe Forehead Girl and Horn Boy are just stone-cold hazing the crap out of one another right this instant, except they’re bonded so tightly from Stockholm Syndrome that it feels to them like the giddy throes of First Love? Sure, makes as much sense as anything.

Gil Thorp, 8/9/16

Welp, Barry “Darth” Bader, ditched at last by the teammates he’s dissed all season, has his final little locker-room sad, then it’s onward to “Somebody’s Mom is Sick.” After all the operatic hard-drinking, drive-drunking, hang-judging, Boo-murdering, funeral-going action this summer I was expecting a bigger close, but hey — there’s only a month left ’til football, and that time’s not gonna waste itself!

Judge Parker, 8/9/16

Sam and Abbey have grown so emotionally and sexually anesthetized toward one another that the only flashes of feeling they experience come from spying on and meddling in their children’s relationships. Knowing this, Sophie and Neddy stage little Facebook dramas to spark up their parents’ lives. Now playing are “Hank is leaving,” “Who hates Honey Ballenger?,” and “Neddy starts a business.”

In reality, Sophie’s the B-student treasurer of her public high school’s Future Farmers of America, and Neddy’s a Carmelite nun. Nobody tell Sam and Abbey — and especially not the strip’s new writer, who’s going to be terribly disappointed when he shows up for work at Spencer Farms on the 22^nd and sees how things really are.

PS. Abbey looks nothing like that, chews tobacco, and is wearing a parka.

–Uncle Lumpy