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Judge Parker, 5/16/17

Everyone who had “the kidnapper is Abbey’s half-sister from her dad’s secret family” in the pool, stand up and take a bow! I’m enjoying the punchline of “Sam doesn’t recognize what his own wife looked like as a child,” though I suppose in a scenario where you see a picture of a kid that looks more or less like pictures you’ve seen of your wife as a kid, and the kid in the picture is standing in front of someone who’s definitely your wife’s dad, you would just kind of assume. Plus the hair! Who else would have that clownish color of hair? It must be a Spencer gene that passes down through the male line but only expresses itself in females! The fact that the grownup kidnapper has bland brown hair means nothing: clearly she’s keeping her Spencertude in disguise, waiting to reveal it at just … the right … moment. Either that or the syndicate coloring folks have been doing it wrong this whole time, ha ha, who can tell!

Pluggers, 5/16/17

A Twitter follower pointed out to me last week that the length of time I’ve been writing this blog is longer than the entire run of Calvin and Hobbes, which is definitely a fact that doesn’t make me want to hop into a coffin and close the lid behind me, at all! Anyway, one of the signs of time’s inevitable passing and my own impending death is the treatment of technology in Pluggers. Way back in the early years of this blog, in the mid ’00s, pluggers hated and feared the Internet so much that they’d rather thumb through an almanac than get access to the wealth of knowledge online. Today, they’re still eschewing the Web’s more educational functions, but they are definitely not above joining their children and grandchildren in the performative dance of social media, in which our every waking moment becomes a quantum of digital information to be shared and ranked.

Crankshaft, 5/16/17

At least I’m not so old that I’m excited about the appearance of some pro golfer in Crankshaft, though! CONFIDENTIAL TO PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCED ANY GLIMMER OF ENTHUSIASM FROM READING THIS STRIP: it’s just a drawing, and there are lots of reference photos online, he didn’t actually have to participate in the creation of it in any way, SORRY

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So ends the Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2017 fundraiser — thanks one and all for your attention, patience, and generosity. This is a uniquely agreeable little corner of the Internet, and it’s a privilege to help keep it going. If for any reason you just missed your opportunity to contribute, you can sneak a late one in here — I won’t tell anybody, promise.

Crankshaft, 5/6/17

Remember how Andy Greenhat there got this story started with, “Ed has had a passengerless school bus for years”? You do? Hey, maybe you should be producing Crankshaft — can you draw bricks?

Judge Parker, 5/6/17

Well, it’s pronounced “bomb,” but let’s not quibble.

Mark Trail, 5/6/17

Baldy and Billy committed a heist, but a guy shot Billy so Baldy took off his mask and kicked the guy. The getaway driver (who was not happy about the mask thing) dropped Baldy off at the airport so he could go in, take a woman hostage at gunpoint, and recruit Mark Trail to rent a car and drive them out to the country.

To Baldy, it seemed so simple at first: grab a ride, evade capture, get the hell outa Dodge. That was before hours spent struggling to stay awake in the over-warm SUV, crawling across the Black Hills moonscape five miles per hour under the posted limit, to the drone of Mark’s honeyed baritone and Blondie’s endless snoring. By now, Baldy’s plan had disintegrated into a waking fever-dream of disconnected fragments — unload the money, sure, or was it drugs? Put it in the camera bags, that was the ticket. But wait until you’re at the ranch, where the light’s better. Litter the car with lenses, filters, and mounts. Claim you’re part of a strange new crew who can’t operate the equipment, won’t open the bags, and keep their hands mysteriously out of sight. Pick up yet another hostage. Count on Mark to announce the cover story to rental clerks, bunkhouses full of old pals, service station attendants, anybody really. Rescue Billy, maybe — who was he again? Count the ferrets — sweet, endangered, mink-sized. But also solitary, nocturnal, constantly on the verge of extinction — how would he find them?

Mark turned the heat up a click and ran on, “… mustelid … habitat collapse … viviparous quadruped … sylvatic plague ….” Look, a deer has fallen asleep — how Baldy wished to join her! Careful, little prairie dogs, there may be predators about, vicious cousins of Asia’s steppe polecat — no one can possibly know how many! What was that thing they called polecats? And criminals like himself? Ah, yes … “varmints.” Good night, good night, sweet varmints everywhere.

Gil Thorp, 5/6/17

Ryan van Auken reaches out with his feelings, and Barry “Darth” Bader Force-catches a line drive. Two days late and a couple quatloos short, Milford.

Oh come on, of course I know that!

–Uncle Lumpy

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Between Friends, 5/5/17

Susan looks at death and disappointment the same way as Lillian from Crankshaft, and fears an afterlife tormented by regret. Her funeral director husband Harv sees death every day, and has abandoned such romantic notions. Is there anything grimmer than Canadians in despair?

[Psst … panel 4 — “don’t want to be”?]

Blondie, 5/5/17

Dithers knows that on any food-themed holiday he must abandon any pretense of running the firm that bears his name.

Somebody tell that guy in the middle that his pet monkey is up to no good again.

Judge Parker, 5/5/17

Good call, Sam, lawyer to the last — challenge Lieutenant Snouty there; explain things to him; tell him what to do. Or, if you sincerely want S.W.A.T. to back the hell off, repeat after me: “BOMB!”. Nouns are your friend, Sam.

Mary Worth, 5/5/17

Yes you should, Esme! He’s a) gorgeous, b) dark-haired, and c) a hunk! Also, d) a challenge! You want him — and you know you can have him! Most of all, we Mary Worth readers deserve some entertainment, and you are an Entertainer! You guys swear an oath or something, right? Well get on it girl, we are dying out here.

Crankshaft, 5/5/17

The week grinds on, the jokes wear thin, and attention wanes. “Exactly”? WTF, “exactly”?

Exactly.

–Uncle Lumpy