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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/13/13 (panels)

What is the relationship between art and reality — among the dreamer, the dream, and the dreamed? Magritte gives us one viewpoint, Snuffy Smith another.

Snuffy reveals how the artist not only creates a work but selects its audience, source of his reputation and claims to authenticity. He is his own best example: once a mere usurper in Barney Google’s strip, he now asserts his own membership in the very elites who read his Sunday “throwaway panels” in their expansive flatlander newspapers or on high-falutin’ electronic devices. With a delicate hanky-dab at his nose, he rises — refined and redefined, “Snuffy” no more!

Judge Parker, 10/13/13 (panel)

Boy, this lady sure hates hats, doesn’t she?

Beetle Bailey, 10/13/13

You know, there are plenty of attractive and willing human partners around, like Sarge’s Sgt. Louise Lugg, Beetle’s Miss Buxley, and Killer’s groupies, but it’s all surrogates with these guys: robots, trees, and again with Beetle’s beloved pillow here. I’m just saying that’s kind of messed up.

Mary Worth, 10/13/13 (panel)

We had to wait a long time to see Mary’s head impaled on a fish, but I think we can all agree it was worth it.

Mutts, 10/13/13

Mooch ignores the comics’ prohibition of “FLICK” to imply that Earl has sex with his own parasites.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 10/12/13

Every long-running drama has a character I call “the Dann”, after Dann Florek of TV’s Law and Order. The Dann’s role is to say or do anything — heedless of consistency, motivation, and common sense — that will advance the plot. Depending on where the writers want to go, it could be: “You know I’ve got your back.” / “I’ll have your badge for this!” / “I stand up for my detectives!” / “The Chief of D’s wants you gone!”, or for that matter, “There’s a funny noise in this room!” / “Who cut the cheese?”, or “Friendship is magic!” Sometimes the writers roll dice or play drinking games to decide what to make him do. It’s a tough gig being the Dann.

“Friendship is magic, dirtbag!”

Pity then poor Marty, Lu Ann’s art student and current Dann-doyenne of Apartment 3-G. Since May, this little whirlwind has gone from oppositional/defiant with the Governor of New York, hyper-vigilant and protective of her sad-sack father Cole, in denial about Cole’s PTSD–alcohol–head trauma–substance abuse–depression–chronic pain–being really stupid issues, intrigued/repelled by “bad girl” Tori, enraged that her Dad concealed his brain tumor from her, bingeing with Tori on booze and smokes, to simultaneously contemptuous of her father and furious with Lu Ann because of, um, the reasons? Oh yeah, and somewhere in there she dyed her hair.

But have all her Dann-ite exertions moved the plot of Apartment 3-G forward even one narrative inch? No, they have not: day after day, it’s still just two people standing in a room talking. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I wish Tommie would come back and liven things up.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/12/13

“You may have cheated death, honey, but remain irremediably ignorant! Ha ha!”
“Lady’s got a point, Funky! Hu-yuck, Hu-yuck!”
And there’s your smirk, Josh — the perfect Funky Winkerbean!

Judge Parker, 10/12/13

Parkers are so accustomed to unearned cash they have a private slang for talking about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/12/13

Rex suspects some of those old Polaroids may have survived the bathhouse fire. Depending on her next move, Becka could be enjoying a long vacation and a big raise, or sharing a shallow grave with Buck. Tread lightly, Becka!

Hey, Josh is taking a week off and I’ll be here through Sunday the 20th. Drop me a line at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if the site starts misbehaving. Enjoy!

Ooh, Becka. Oh, Becka! Beckabeckabeckabeckabecka!

— Uncle Lumpy

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The Lockhorns, 8/25/13

Only one of the multiple Lockhorns panels crammed into the extra Sunday space is worthy of note today, and that’s this mysterious tale of restaurant carnage. How exactly are Leroy and Loretta managing to enrage so many put-upon Olive Garden managers across whatever suburban hellscape they haunt? I mean, usually their bad behavior is restricted to passive-aggressive sniping at one another, and if you kicked out everyone who did that, the restaurant industry would collapse. Moreover, how does Sizzler fit into this scenario? Perhaps the venerable and ailing chain of steakhouses is striking back at the new generation of casual dining franchises that usurped its place it the hearts of customers the only way it knows how: by offering enticements to people to go into the Olive Garden and make a loud, socially uncomfortable scene. Another plant sits by the door and loudly proclaims “You sure wouldn’t see this sort of boorish behavior at a Sizzler! Sizzler: Thinking fresh every day®!” as they’re kicked out. It’s sad that you actually have to go through the charade fourteen times just to get a single shitty Sizzler steak dinner, but I guess it gives Leroy and Loretta an outlet for their agressions that isn’t each other.

Archie, 8/25/13

Most horrible and depressing Archie ever? Probably! The throwaway panels, which make light of partner violence, are bad enough. Then we’re dragged through the ugly truth of Archie’s monogamy-rejecting ways, which are normally played for laughs, as we have to endure Archie and Betty’s excruciating relationship talk in which she discovers that their perceptions of the commitments they’ve made to each other are radically different. And don’t neglect to put the two narratives together: since Archie was trying to borrow money form Veronica, it stands to reason that the “girlfriend” who owes him money is yet another girl, meaning that he’s two-timing (three-timing?) both of our beloved Archie comics gals. Tune in next week when Archie has to explain to the many young women who may think of themselves as his girlfriend about all the STDs!

Heathcliff, 8/25/13

For sheer horror, though, it’s hard to top today’s Heathcliff! The erotic charge of the throwaway panels is bad enough, but then we discover that the Heathcliff has a closet where he keeps the severed and meticulously preserved heads of his defeated cartoon-cat rivals, and some days he wears these heads like a mask in a grotesque triumphalist display.

Judge Parker, 8/25/13

I have to admit, I assumed that this whole “Neddy’s friend has been kidnapped in Niger” plot was going to end in Abbey writing a check for the ransom money, not sure about the ethics of the act, or even about whether the ransom demands were real or just part of a scam Thalia was pulling. But now I’m really looking forward to Sophie leading a team of ex-special ops mercenaries into Niamey, guns blazing. Sure, she doesn’t have much combat experience or training in small unit tactics, but wars interest her, and if she’s able to go from bullied nerd to superstar cheerleader by sheer force of will, surely nothing is beyond her powers of self-fashioning.