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Dick Tracy, 12/19/18

“Someone has to pay! And it will be either a high diver or the general manager of the local Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum! Fate has intervened!”

Meanwhile over at The Dail[y…], some enraged managing editor is walking around waving this morning’s paper in the air. “Just two stories and one photo on the front page of the Entertainment section?” he shouts, livid. “A banner headline that only goes across three columns? Someone has to pay!”

Judge Parker, 12/19/18

I love the looks of delight on Judge Parker Senior and Katherine’s face as they open the extremely expensive gift that someone just left in their house. It’s a pair of gorgeous baubles, just for them, fallen as if from heaven, which they clearly feel they deserve! But wait, what’s that note? Are there possibly … consequences to this? Strings attached? NOOOOOOO, THIS IS A NIGHTMARE

Mary Worth, 12/19/18

Wait a minute … wait a damn minute … is the Cameron who’s going to be tempted by another in this storyline … Ian? Is this perfectly nice looking young woman going to throw herself at an unpleasant chinbearded academic blowhard, while Toby, toned and constantly lounging about in athleisurewear, remains un-flirted with? This will not stand.

Family Circus, 12/19/18

A spectre is haunting the Keane Kompound … the spectre … of Santa.

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Funky Winkerbean, 12/4/18

Ha ha, this story has gotten more off-putting more quickly than even I could’ve predicted. It’s only day two and we’re learning that Funky’s dad definitely fucks. The expressions in the final panel are a real journey: Funky’s is the face of a man thinking “Holy shit, my dad fucks?” and the receptionist’s is the smirk of a woman thinking “Heh heh, this guy’s unpleasant old dad fucks … and I’m telling everybody.”

Kevin and Kell, 12/4/18

Oh, hey, by the way: the furries of Kevin and Kell? They don’t just kill and eat one another; they also fuck. They also talk to … a … tree, via some kind of … intercom system? But don’t let that distract you from the important thing, which is that they fuck.

Mary Worth, 12/4/18

You might think that this whole cat allergy business is just one more indignity Mary Worth the person and Mary Worth the comic strip has dumped on our poor Dr. Jeff. But remember, Mary once cruised a guy at his mother’s funeral and then contrived a fight with Jeff so she could dump him, only to deign to return when she realized that only Jeff was willing to subsidize her seafood habit. She enjoyed an extended Manhattan flirtation with handsome Broadwaysman Ken Kensington and only broke it off when she realized New York City’s traffic was dangerous to a small-town California girl like herself, accustomed to just stepping off the curb into the street willy-nilly. And so sure, maybe Mary’s foster cat sent Jeff fleeing from her apartment for his life, but in fact Libby has achieved the seemingly impossible: gotten Mary to refer to Jeff as her “boyfriend”! It’s too bad Jeff is miles away, doped up on Benadryl, and can’t hear it.

Judge Parker, 12/4/18

Meanwhile, in Judge Parker, Neddy has fled in failure and disgrace to the family compound, but is tired of hearing from everyone in her family about how she really needs to stop fleeing in failure and disgrace to the family compound, and so needs to go to the maid for emotional reassurance. Why should she even need Marie’s number? Isn’t the whole point of a maid that they’re always close enough that you can summon them by ringing a bell or clapping loudly and order them to bring you soup or tell you that you’re pretty and smart?

Mark Trail, 12/4/18

Looks like Cool Motorcycle Guy (or, to use his “government name,” Raul) is about to fall to his death. It seems somebody’s getting his just desserts for violating the number one rule of jungle karma: never insult a toucan.

Dennis the Menace, 12/4/18

Mr. Wilson had hated Dennis’s constant intrusions into his life for years, of course. But he finds his presence strangely comforting these days, now that Martha finally left him.

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Mary Worth, 12/2/18

Just about every time I sit in for Josh on the Comics Curmudgeon, something amazing seems to happen in Mary Worth: a shootout, say, or a beloved character’s return from the dead, a dramatic drowning rescue, or a smoky tropical seduction. This time, Mary adopted a cat!

But what a cat! Libby is a scrappy, female Snake Plissken of a feline with biohazard dander and a “don’t shed on me” attitude. Watch her drive Dr. Jeff, starved and weeping, from his paramour’s apartment! Thrill as she snacks on the roast her “mistress” offers boxed to go! Gasp as she dares to live by her own code — in the immortal words of Wayne Dyer, “Whatever has to be done, it’s always my choice!” MEOW, bitches!

Crankshaft, 12/2/18

See this just plain doesn’t make any sense right here. We expect digestive ructions, elementary reading ability, and hours spent hogging the john from a selfish old creep like Crankshaft himself, not dainty, beleagured Pam. Just change the final speech balloon to “This’ll cover me through …” and show the Sunday Crankshaft draped neatly over that towel bar where it belongs.

Judge Parker, 12/2/18

OK, work with me a little here. Judge Parker is the side-hustle of Sally Forth author Francesco Marciuliano and Phantom daily artist Mike Manley, and um … it kinda shows? So why not make things easy for everybody by dropping the zany, well-etched characters of Sally Forth into those gorgeous Phantom backdrops of Bangalla, New York, and Tibet, and just calling the result Judge Parker? Easy peasy!

Here, Hilary returns to the Skull Cave to confront Sally about Ted’s capture during his failed rescue of Faye from terrorist Ralph’s Bronx warehouse lair. Sally tries to distract her with loot from the Treasure Room, but Hilary has already sent faithful Duncan to steal her father’s jet, pick up Nona in Lhasa, and join her to save the day!

See, it’s working already! Bonus: Alan, Randy, and Sam are recast as Ted’s ineffective, rarely-seen brothers.

Oh my gosh has this been a fun week. Special thanks to team Mary Worth, Carl the Turtle, Libby the Hell-Cat, and you, faithful reader! Josh will be back Monday to kick off the glorious “Mary dumps her cat and/or boyfriend” arc, and I’ll see you next time around.

— Uncle Lumpy