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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/4/20

“Get lost, kid; can’tcha see I’m working? Go huff glue or something.”

Judge Parker, 9/4/20

Producer Ellen knows the score. Don’t confront a hysterical narcissist who has the attention span of a gnat. Just spool out empathetic-sounding noises until she loses track and falls into incoherent screaming.

Kevin and Kell, 9/4/20

Net neutrality is a policy that regulates Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as common carriers. ISPs generally hate net neutrality, because it doesn’t let them prioritize, meter, block, or differentially price different types or volumes of traffic. So Kevin is acting against his own interests here — maybe he’s a customer-service-driven altruist? We’ll see what happens when a couple basement-dwelling teenagers choke his routers with game and porn downloads from The Pirate Bay.

Or maybe haha he’s a rabbit and doesn’t want to be a tortoise.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/4/20

Ol’ Grimm is on remarkably good terms with his parasites.

For Better or For Worse, 9/4/20

Long-time readers will remember when For Better or For Worse was a BIG DEAL here at The Comics Curmudgeon. I remain impressed at the author’s gall in promising “new-runs” that would blend legacy strips into new material to create a “Michael and Meredith nostaligize” narrative, only to drop that pretense the instant editors fell for the scam, offering instead flat-out reruns for the next thirteen years.

One of the strip’s unresolved puzzles was how insufferable Michael and vapid Elizabeth could Do No Wrong (even in the choice of the execrable Anthony as her spouse), while relatably human younger daughter April could never catch a goddamn break. Here, in recap, we see the exact moment April was ostracized. It appears that Les Moore may not actually be the biggest asshole in comics!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Judge Parker, 9/3/20

Oh c’mon people, this show should obviously and entirely be about April Bowers-Parker. Norton is comic relief, Godiva’s dead foot showed up in one frame, and her vengeance-crazed Austrian producer/druglord/CIA-stooge boyfriend didn’t even rate a name. Neddy? Two lines and a Supporting Cast credit as “Entitled Girl,” best case.

And don’t forget that Neddy and Ronnie rewrote the script to April’s specifications at gunpoint. April put “her truth … her life” in Neddy’s hands, demanded Neddy not disappoint her, and threatened murder if the studio made revisions to the script. So if this doesn’t turn out to be April’s story, Neddy’s gonna die, ’cause April’s nuts, yo. All in all, pretty terrific television!

But does any of this matter to Neddy? Nope. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see her set up a hit of her own, to stop more interesting people from stealing all that sweet attention.

Beetle Bailey, 9/3/20

I’m delighted to learn Mort Walker isn’t really dead, but alarmed that his human form is being eradicated line by line in some afterlife purgatorium while his creatures grin and wave.

Phantom, 9/3/20

One of my least favorite Spider-Man and Silver Age Superman tropes is the Secret Identity Crisis, as in: “Oh Jeez, somebody took a photo of me rescuing a bunch of Burmese kids and now they want to make a stamp out of the photo and when they postmark the stamp the O’s in “Rangoon” will frame my eyes like glasses and everybody will realize I’m Clark Kent!” But I think the Walkers have legitimate grounds for concern here. Kadia Sahara knows that Heloise’s Dad is a mysterious well-built guy who never shows his eyes, is good at heroics, and is in with Bangalla’s President. Mom Imara has seen — in and out of costume — a mysterious well-built guy who never shows his eyes, is good at heroics, and can be reached by mailing a letter to the Walkers. Connect the dots, Saharas!

And Walkers, change either that “Ghost Who Walks” tagline or your family name: “The Schwimmers” has a nice ring to it!

Hello, faithful readers! I’m letting Josh out of quarantine for a well-deserved break through Sunday the 13th; reach me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if you have any problems with the site.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/2/20

Man, Funky Winkerbean is really going for it with this fire, huh? This strip strongly reminds me of one from 2009 (note to self: embark on a rigorous journey of self-discovery to learn why I have instant recall of eleven-year-old Funky Winkerbeans) where Funky gets a text from his doctor about his cancerous prostate while a TV in the background drones on about the collapse of the economy. Today’s strip has a different vibe, though, in that the foreground action is actually upbeat for once. I’m assuming that everyone’s happiness is going to be upended when the fire destroys, you know, everything, but it would be kind of funny if we never hear about it again, but we should just keep in mind that it was there during a happy moment, like a skull hidden in the corner of a painting from one of the Dutch Masters to remind us of our own looming mortality.

Judge Parker, 8/2/20

I’m not really sure if calling the wife of one of your opponent’s primary backers is the “obvious angle,” actually, but I guess I’m only beginning to appreciate how byzantine and vicious the politics are of a small suburban town in Connecticut (?), where I assume the primary job of the municipal government is to negotiate contracts for snowplowing services.

Mary Worth, 8/2/20

Aww, despite her initial hostility, Madi has finally made friends with both Mary and Greta. Will she also bond with Saul? I hope not! I hope she keeps leaving her clothes all over his condo for the next three months, until her CIA assassin dad comes back to collect her!