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Judge Parker, 5/13/16

I can’t really decide whether Judge Parker HQ has an elaborate “follow the money” chart on the wall that explains precisely the complex financial relationship between country star Rocky Ledge, movie star Godiva Danube, Rocky’s tell-all book about his marriage to Godiva, and Neddy’s old person sweatshop, or if the details keep shifting and the point is just to keep these two good-looking nutballs in the strip somehow. All I know is that there are plenty of people who would pay someone good money to stare at them with eyes like Godiva’s in panel three and order them to “get down on your knees and thank us for your tawdry windfall.”

Shoe, 5/13/16

You might think, based on my last eleven or twelve years of blogging, that I’m a cynical guy who hates joy. Untrue! For instance, today’s Shoe provided me with the image of a group of elderly bird-people gleefully dipping their heads into a giant vat of applesauce, and I’m grinning as goofily thinking about it as Biz is.

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Mary Worth, 5/8/16

You know that movie moment when the hero/heroine makes some everyday gesture like taking off his/her glasses and the heroine/hero sees for the first time how attractive he/she really is? And thereafter their romantic entanglement is just a matter of time, typically seconds? Well that just happened for Harlan and Dawn in Mary Worth, and suddenly their whole world looks different and exciting! But don’t worry, you crazy lovestruck kids – gossip will still be gossip even after you systematically validate every accusation those haters make. So that George Harrison quote up there will still apply. Priorities!

New Wilbur waits for his entrance just offstage — four hairs askew; eyes locked on that beautiful, impossible sandwich; standing in a puddle of his own drool.

Mark Trail, 5/8/16

Of course for compelling Sunday comics art, one seldom needs to look further than Mark Trail. But the strip takes a chilling turn when it promotes giving a “colony” of timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus, for Pete’s sake) their own private Eden smack in the middle of densely populated Massachusetts.

“What’sssss the problem?”, whispers a tiny voice. “Those deathsssss were never documented, and everyone knows the peninsssssula … I mean the isssssland … is strictly ‘off-limitsssss.’ I mean we can read sssssigns, even if we can’t ssssswim.”

Mark, the serpent is a liar. Maybe you read that in a book once, long ago?

Judge Parker, 5/8/16 (panels)

Oh look, it’s Rocky, strolling in all relaxed and blissfully unaware of the histrionic and utterly pointless “where’s Rocky” subplot that’s been going on since last August. Hi, Rocky!

Haha once again, Josh has handed me the keys to the Comics Curmudgeon for a few days only to see something amazing happen in Mary Worth on my watch. It’s like my superpower, or maybe his. Back in 2010 it was a shootout at the Santa RoyMart warehouse; this time, it’s a major change in the Sunday strip’s artistic direction.

The new artists are the husband-and-wife team of June Brigman and Roy Richardson. Comic book fans will know Brigman’s work on Supergirl and as a founder of Marvel’s Power Pack; Richardson’s inking for Captain America, Iron Man, and The Flash; and their collaboration on the Star Wars: River of Chaos series of graphic novels. But I got to know their work from Brenda Starr, for which I was an unabashed fanboy. I am going to like the hell out of this, and I hope you do, too.

Outgoing (but not retiring – he’ll still do the dailies) artist Joe Giella, like Brigman and Richardson, is a comic-book veteran – check out his Wikipedia page for the portrait of a proud old-school Industrial Artist whose contributions helped define every comic-book “age” from Golden to right now. This interview is worth a read, too. He also has a great sense of humor, as revealed by this 2008 drawing that our usually lowercase Josh rightly called THE GREATEST MARY WORTH-RELATED THING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN.

And with that, faithful readers, I’m off the clock. Thank you for a great week, and for being so generous during the fundraiser. Josh returns Monday morning, with steaming hot cauldrons of that Joshy goodness we all know and love. Until next time!

– Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 4/30/16

Sure, “Kids Today” and “Technology Bad” are two of the classic themes, but if you want to go full plugger, Mom, you gotta grow the tail.

Archie, 4/30/16

Even the folks at Team Archie know this joke would be unpublishable with the roles reversed. Hey panel-2 Veronica: his eyes are down there!

Curtis, 4/30/16

Oh man, I was all set to go off on newish tertiary character “Heart-throb” for what I thought was a transparently false boast about an obviously impossible YouTube video. But then I checked and learned that kids all over the world post School Fight videos faster than Google can knock ’em down, and of course some of the fights are staged specifically for the videos.

What I’m saying is kids today are terrible, and technology makes everything worse.

(Checks behind for tail; still OK whew)

Judge Parker, 4/30/16

Hey, remember when Derek tried to go to a party with his real girlfriend Honey Ballenger and it made Sophie want to get all trained up at military school and flat-out murder everybody? But then Honey got grounded so Sophie dropped the idea and resumed her campaign to stalk/purchase Derek?

Well, those slick brochures from the military school kept coming, and they’re like porn to poor Marie here. Look at her caress that embossed coat of arms, dreaming of the sweet barracks pleasures she’d enjoy if only she could escape her hated employer/tormentors.

“Did you know they have a separate school for aerospace studies?” she coos. It’s her ultimate fantasy, to slip the surly bonds of Spencer Farms and fly, alone and free, into a brand-new life. Well, maybe one little strafing run first.

Hello there, faithful reader! I’m sitting in for Josh through Sunday, May 8 while he wraps up his book tour and recovers from same. Drop me a line at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if you need any admin help, for example if one of your comments gets hoovered up by the site’s new and voracious spam filter.

– Uncle Lumpy