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Hi and Lois, 9/19/19

I don’t know why Lois even has an elaborate, frilly apron that seems like it wouldn’t be much practical use for protecting your clothes from cooking splashes and is probably from some catalog dedicated to eroticized maidwear … actually, scratch that, I know exactly why she has it: it’s for sex play, and she obviously deploys it on the regular when she watches the Donna Reed Show and gets hornt up, and, you know, good for her, BUT: Hi has clearly suffered some kind of vicious beating on his way home from work, with his suit badly damaged and his eyes wide and unfocused due to shock or maybe a concussion. This is no time for love, Lois! Read the room!

Gil Thorp, 9/19/19

Hey, remember this past summer, when we revisited a former high school athletic superstar who also liked books and learning, like a damn nerd? Well, welcome to this year’s football plot, where the star running back likes quiet evenings at home reading books, like a damn nerd. He likes books more than sex even. What madness is this?

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Gil Thorp, 9/3/19

Folks, I want you to cast your mind back to the year 2007, a much simpler and more innocent time, when we first saw Coach Thorp announcing the football team’s starters in front of what seemed to be a conflagration of some kind. This was the Milford bonfire, and it became an annual event. In 2008 the kids were throwing up devil horns in honor of the hellish inferno. 2009? Pumping fists. In 2010 the players started giving speeches, in 2011 the column of fire rose into the sky, and in 2012 Gil declared the bonfire was the only fire in the world, a symbol of the fire that burns inside each of us. In 2013 innocent cheerleaders were sacrificed to the flames, and in 2014 a dude named Jarrod, who would go on to lose the starting quarterback job, gave a wild-eyed speech as the fire burned. The guy who took Jarrod’s place led the Mudlarks to their first championship in years, and the next fall began with a fiery victory celebration.

And then … for four long years … nothing. The bonfire vanished from Mudlark lore without a trace, and it seemed like only I was keeping the flame alive, so to speak. I had given up hope on ever lay eyes on a Milford bonfire again, so you can imagine how happy I felt to see the smoke starting to rise from that woodpile in panel three. We’re seeing it just as it’s about to burst into flame! And sure, “Toast Oakwood” and “Fire It Up” are extremely cheesy signs, but you know what? None of these kids were even around in 2015. They’re having to reconstruct this tradition from whispered tales of times past. It’s gonna take them a year or two to get back in the groove.

Mary Worth, 9/3/19

Oh, Dawn. Oh, dumb, dumb, lovestruck, horny Dawn. There’s only one thing Hugo’s been telegraphing more obviously than the fact that he sees your romance as nothing more than a summer fling, and it’s that he thinks America is lame. It’s like you don’t want us to feel even a little sorry for you.

Crankshaft, 9/3/19

Ha ha! But seriously, folks, Crankshaft has never been in love. He’s simply not capable of it!

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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.