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Gil Thorp, 9/15/21

[clears throat] [extremely Beavis from Beavis and Butt-Head voice] FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! [takes a long, deep breath, representing the years 2016, 2017, and 2018, when the annual Milford bonfire was mysteriously absent] FIRE! FIRE!

Whew, it’s bonfire time again, everybody, guaranteeing a robust grain harvest and fewer barren wombs among the townsfolk! Every year we learn a little something new about the bonfire, and today’s panel one shows us that, assuming the student body doesn’t shlep all those logs by hand to some open field somewhere, it takes place a lot closer to the school itself than I would’ve guessed. Legend has it that Milford will only win a state championship if the flame is allowed to burn the building to the ground!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/15/21

One of the running jokes in the early days of this strip, when it was mostly fun gags about a bunch of goofy teens, was that Les Moore wielded a machine gun as part of his hall monitor duties. I keep waiting in the post-Turn-to-Grim Funkyverse for this to get retconned into the result of some awful school shooting, and that hasn’t happened yet, but until then I’ll console myself with “Majorette Holly’s flesh was a mass of scar tissues due to ever-more-dangerous baton tricks her deranged mother forced her to perform.” I guess today’s colorist glanced at the text and thought, “Oh, these pictures are all supposed to be close-ups of burn wounds, huh,” which is a nice touch.

Daddy Daze, 9/15/21

Look, man, I spent several hours with a couple babies this past weekend and they didn’t seem happy at all! They cried multiple times just because they had to go to the bathroom or were hungry or whatever. I mean, I had to go to the bathroom and was hungry too, but I managed to hold it together, for once!

Mary Worth, 9/15/21

WILBUR WHEN A CAT PISSES IN HIS SPOT ON HIS GIRLFRIEND’S COUCH: Animals are bad! They interfere with me having sex!

WILBUR WHEN HE HEARS A GNOMISH OLD MAN MET A NICE WOMAN JUST BECAUSE HE OWNS A DOG: Animals can help you get sex? Go on, Mary, I’m very interested.

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Gil Thorp, 9/9/21

Big news, everybody! Usually football dominates the Gil Thorp fall storyline, just like it dominates the American sports fan’s mind, but this year we’re going to acknowledge that there are other sports happening in the fall as well, sports like volleyball and gymnastics, and that girls play them too! So far the main point of this plot seems to be “if you play two sports the same semester, you don’t have much time for a social life,” but the last time we did a gymnastics plot in this strip, it ended with racists getting beat up so I’m willing to see where this goes.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/9/21

Speaking of being willing to see where something goes: A mysterious figure from Jordan’s possibly retconned past has showed up, tempting him with a big payday to go on one last mission. Good news, though: Jordan’s not going to do it. No hard feelings, says Griff, as he leaves the strip forever! Whew, that was almost interesting there for a minute.

Dick Tracy, 9/9/21

OK, fine, I’ll stop ranting about time travel stuff in Dick Tracy and talk about something else. Like, in today’s strip, isn’t it kind of weird that we appear to have skipped over exactly one sentence of dialogue between panels one and two, and it’s a sentence that Dick himself needlessly summarizes? I guess it’s structured this way so that the dialogue alternates between Dick and Chief Patton. Or, maybe Diet’s time-viewing experiments have started interfering with the very nature of reality, causing temporal discontinuities in everyday l[I am felled by a single sniper’s bullet to the head]

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And remember, there’s no Comment of the Week on my watch—look for an extra helping from Josh next Friday.

Mary Worth, 9/3/21

Wilbur canonically has exactly four hairs in his combover, never one more nor fewer. But his rage over %$#@! cat Libby’s shocking disrespect has released a flood of hair-sprouting testosterone, and now he can’t get enough. As if caught in a terrible Jason Statham movie, he must now keep the rage alive, until at last he stands utterly alone but glorious in his ’80’s arena-rock hirsute majesty.

Gil Thorp, 9/3/21

That’s it? Gil Thorp‘s legendary reporter Marjie Ducey says “Oops, I wanna retire!” and in comes this usurper and that’s it? What am I supposed to do with my Marjie Ducey is Gil Thorp’s Side-Piece fanfic now, huh?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/3/21

Uh-oh, looks like Jordan Like the Country’s stolen valor confession was itself a cover story for some dark secret which, in the manner of comic-strip dark secrets, has come back to haunt him.

But tread lightly, Griff! You think you can just waltz back to fill your buddy’s humdrum life with drama and passion? Look into those steely eyes—he’s heavily invested in this tedium. And if he has to go all Jordan Like the Rogue State Whose Interests Do Not Align With Those of Major Powers, so be it!

Between Friends, 9/3/21

Of the three principals in Between Friends, Susan and Kim have concerns (about aging and financial security, respectively), but only Maeve here has conflict. She’s been maintaining an exhausting long-distance relationship with love-interest Steve because of her relentless careerism (and, to be fair, his). Last week, though, she decided to march right up to her boss and quit in the interests of True Love.

Ah well, character runs deep and so does whatever she‘s got. Perhaps Steve will find solace in the arms of Marjie Ducey down there in the sweet enveloping darkness of the memory hole.

Venmo—like Vendo, without the candy!

— Uncle Lumpy