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By the time comics — with their six-week lead times and Eisenhower-era worldviews — get around to acknowledging hard times, it’s hard times. Let’s see how they’re taking it:

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/11/11

The recession forced little Sarah Morgan to grow up fast — looks like she’s about thirty in panel three there. Rex sees it as his chance to regress, and turns his cap around like one of the Cool Teens. Pssst, Rex! Not Coors — Pabst!

Funky Winkerbean, 10/11/11

Ha, it’s funny because books are antiques. And the store owner got steamrolled by technology. And looks like Funky. Sucks to be you, Book Guy.

Shoe, 10/11/11

In hard times, it’s human nature to point the finger at something like the stock market — even when you lack human nature, or fingers.

La Cucaracha, 10/11/11

Big Peanut seems an unlikely villain, but OK. One quibble, though: for young and old, rich or poor, Spam® alone is Spam, absolute and irreducible.

Judge Parker, 10/11/11

And I think we know who’s really to blame.

Mark Trail’s Greatest Hits – a Fall Fundraiser special, part 2

Mark Trail — 1/21, 2/13, 8/5, 10/3, 11/21/06

Sincere thanks to everyone who’s contributed so far — y’all are great! All contributions received by 5:00 EDT Tuesday will ship Wednesday A.M., and appear on the GOOSETRAX map with Wednesday’s post.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 10/8/11

Wow, Margo’s standards of work would shame a junkie — her grand reopening for the Mills Gallery boiled down to cadging a favor from an ex-client and putting up a sign. And while her “Art without Rules” gimmick must have seemed clever at first — no standards, can’t fail, right? — now Queen Bee’s anarchists are tagging up the joint, trashing all the work Trey conned out of his partners, and returning the Mills to its roots as a crack house.

But just like last year’s Great Hypothetical Piano Delivery, we don’t actually get to see any of the alleged “Art without Rules” — just a couple of mopes talking about it. “Tell, don’t show” — it’s like a rule or something.

Archie, 10/8/11

Wow, Fred’s getting more enjoyment from that newspaper than anybody has for 40 years. You can bet he’s not reading Archie.

Judge Parker, 10/8/11

Wow, check out CIApril Bower in panel 3 there. Seems like only yesterday she was Randy’s timid, dumpy secretary, fending off his ham-handed advances over chewy takeout sushi. Now a willowy oenophile and multilingual Lady of Mystery, she jets to global hotspots under World Bank cover from her stylish country home. Here, standing amidst the obscene symbols of the Spencer-Drivers’ good fortune, she recalls the moment it all changed for her, too. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Touched by a Parker!

The Phantom, 10/8/11

So yeah wow, El Guerrero Latino, the good lucha libre wrestler who beat nasty cheatin’ ol’ El Bucanero Infernal is in fact Police Chief Ernesto Salinas, who mysteriously bailed on Kit right before the match. This will come as a revelation to absolutely no one but the Chief’s son Emiliano, Ciudad Jardin’s slower version of Rusty Trail.

There’s a lot of pumped-up mystery about how very much depended on the match, and an uncommon amount of attention paid to Ernesto’s training partner Victor Batalla and his son Vincente, so watch for some hero-on-the-inside father-and-son stuff down the road. But for now, what if Chief Salinas has been gaming the Ghost Who Walks all along, and this is the payoff: “OK, ‘Walker’, now that you know my secret identity, how about telling me yours? It’s the way we do things here in México, my friend. You know — like men!”

Hey everybody, I’m sitting in this week while Josh takes a vacation. Contact me about site trouble, spam, comment issues, etc. at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. Thanks!

– Uncle Lumpy

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Dennis the Menace, 9/22/11

Mrs. Wilson knows she needs to calm her radical anti-establishment husband down if this encounter is to end without violence. “Now, dear, you and I both know that 911 is a joke, but there’s no need to call him a pig to his face. You’ll just get tasered in the neck again, and I don’t think your heart can take it.”

Judge Parker, 9/22/11

Wow, that’s quite a large amount of cash that Sam and Abbey can just pull out of their bank account on a whim. Do you suppose that all subsequent Judge Parker storylines are going to be more and more transparently about the Spencer-Driver clan’s wealth? Will every strip in April of 2012 just consist of the two of them sitting around counting out hundred-dollar bills, pausing only to occasionally blow their noses into them?

Marvin, 9/22/11

Despite my burning and irrational hatred for Marvin, I have to admit I feel a twinge of sympathy for him in the second panel. Look at his growing sense of panic as he learns that, as his life draws to a close decades from now, even the joys of eating will elude him! Quick, someone tell him something reassuring about old age, like that he’ll finally be able to start wearing diapers again.

Spider-Man, 9/22/11

Yesterday’s post implied that Spider-Man would inspire by sick children by going to the hospital and getting arrested. In fact, he’ll inspire them by going to the hospital and telling them that being a superhero is for suckers and quitting in disgust. We regret the error.