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Gil Thorp, 9/3/14

Captain of Industry Art Standish lays down the law to a public employee over whom he has no power, and who can inconvenience him mightily with no effort or risk of repercussions. I bet ol’ Art just cracks ’em up down at the DMV: “What’s that, sir? Oh, you pay my salary? Hey, Denise, we got a VIP with us this morning — this gentleman taxpayer here pays my salary! Well sir, why don’t you just stop paying those taxes — I bet that’ll fix me good won’t it?”

Curtis, 9/3/14

An alternate-dimension Curtis arrives to teach Our Curtis a Valuable Lesson, misuse the word “identical”, and start an argument about who is argumentative. Don’t worry, Our Curtis — evidence suggests that you are indeed the “smart” Curtis, although frankly this speaks poorly of dimensions everywhere.

Mary Worth, 9/3/14

Mary advises acting on only your most powerful delusions. Isn’t that pretty much how delusions work?

Judge Parker, 9/3/14

Speaking of delusions, this is Neddy’s business plan! Hey kid, your landlord doesn’t need to see it unless you want to use the space rent-free, in which case you are looking for money.

And isn’t Bebe already a thing that exists?

Josh and Amber rolled into Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, to stay with family overnight and start moving into their new home today. I’m on the clock for a little while longer to give Josh time to find his computer, connect to the Internet, and catch up on all the action in Apartment 3-G.

And so ends the Westward Bound! Comics Curmudgeon fundraiser. Every contributor will be receiving a personal thank-you from Josh, but I’d like to add my own: thanks, you guys are the best!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Gil Thorp, 8/30/14

Oh ha ha, a nationally-ranked star quarterback just fell into Gil’s lap because Valley Tech “didn’t feel right” or some such B.S. Panel-2 Gil can barely suppress his glee (that’s Gil glee – trust me on this). With True on board, he’ll be able to bluff his way through the entire season and still win a game or two; maybe even make the playdowns. Of course rivalries will tear his team apart and his betrayal will scar his young charges for life, but let’s keep our eye on the bigger picture here, shall we?

Dick Tracy, 8/30/14

In their vulnerable moments, even law-abiding citizens of peaceful countries can be overcome by dark paranoid fantasies in which armed officers chuckle as they blithely ignore law and principle in service to their wealthy masters. For more than 80 years, it has been the role of Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie to present this paranoid hellscape as a kind of utopia.

Citizens! Don’t let the face of Sam Catchem be the last face you see! Comply!

Apartment 3-G, 8/30/14

I bow to no one — not even the Comics Curmudgeon himself — in my devotion to Apartment 3-G, which I have been following since the Kennedy administration, and daily for the last eight years. But when I saw today’s strip, I realized I had absolutely no memory of this “Rick” (Tommie’s recently deceased fiancé was named Jim). That implies that Rick is unmemorable even by the standards of Apartment 3-G men — a sort of black hole of interest from which nothing can escape. A long grind through the archives yielded this image from the March 2012 “Tommie is going to be a singer or some damn thing” story, so yup:

Apartment 3-G, 3/9/12

The steady degeneration of Tommie’s boyfriends brings a chilling thought. What if all this didn’t begin in May, 1961, but further back — say, at the Dawn of Time? Imagine Tommie as not a woman but as Woman Herself: Eve, Helen of Troy, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, Wu Hou, Jeanne d’Arc, Nzinga Mbande, Pocahontas, Florence Nightingale, Colette, Lucille Ball, Eva Perón — all hanging around with the likes of Gary from IT, ol’ Doc Buckethead, and this “Rick” here. It’s disgusting.

Mary Worth, 8/30/14

Predictably, Dr. Drew has been secretly replaced by some kind of insane judgmental robot, condemning his fellow doctors as much for their humanity as for their errors. He seems quite certain about Kaphut’s fate, probably because he plans to carry it out himself.

Mary’s point, of course, is that Kaphut should suffer worse than merely being torn apart by a crazed homicidal machine, even though such a thing is not possible. That way both Drew and Kaphut come up short, so it’s win-win in her book.

Splashdown — in Austin! Midway through their 3,000-mile trip, with a well-earned day of loafing ahead. Then off again, into the searing West Texas heat.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 8/28/14

Ah, Tommie’s Parade of Paramours marches on – today it’s IT Gary, whom Tommie didn’t find so robotic back in the day:

Apartment 3-G, 12/4/07 (panel)

The background on this baffles me a little – is Gary just not that into her?

Anyway, Tommie and Gary got pretty serious until Gary pulled up stakes and headed for Colorado in search of IT fulfillment, expecting Tommie to follow. She didn’t, because as Margo helpfully explained to her at the time, “You don’t even SKI!” These days, of course, people visit Colorado for all kinds of reasons other than IT and skiing. Which raises the question of how Tommie would act if she went to Colorado and got really, really wasted — like Maureen Dowd wasted. I think she’d probably spin around the room with a vacant expression on her face, getting into endless, pointless conversations with her roommate Carol.

Archie, 8/28/14

Ooh, menace points for the little scamp in Archie. But is this even a thing people do any more? In California where I live, state agencies and TV newscasters encourage people to turn in their water-wasting neighbors for fines and reëducation; we have camps. There’s even an app to make shaming them more convenient. So it’s more likely somebody would write “Thanks” on a dusty car, and “Don’t waste water” in mud on a perfectly clean one. And then get fined for wasting water to make mud.

Gil Thorp, 8/28/14

Hey it’s Marty Moon! Marty takes a lot of grief here for being a pissy little alcoholic failure. And while that’s 100% accurate, credit him for being the only voice in Milford to call Gil on all the B.S. he dishes out in lieu of doing his damn job. Sure, right now it’s looking good with the 7-man practice of all against all and Sa’ad Shamoun’s muscle mass, but wait ’til mid-season when he pulls out the Wing-T or 5-wide or some nonsense and everybody mutters, “Sure, Coach.” Right now, though, it’s the first day of school, and Gil has other things on his mind – that enormous stein of coffee isn’t going to drink itself, you know.

Gasoline Alley, 8/28/14

The team at Gasoline Alley wishes to remind its readers that while “real life” may be where you live, it is most definitely not where they live.

And while we’re on the topic of gasoline: you can just see it on the poor guy’s face — “How, oh how can I possibly afford all this costly fuel?”

Faithful Comics Curmudgeon readers can think of a way!

— Uncle Lumpy