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Baby Blues, 8/9/23

C’mon, Darryl, you don’t need Wren for a three-legged race; just tie a shoe on that nose.

Crankshaft, 8/9/23

They train surgeons not to say “Oops”, but Ed’s dermatologist missed the class on “Holy $#%!!”. I hope she took the Continuing Medical Education unit on “Get me the belt sander.”

Between Friends, 8/9/23

Don’t get too relaxed there, Susan—Lucky Eddie could be lurking just around the corner, looking to get lucky.

Luann, 8/9/23

It’s not unusual for authors to tire of their main character—I mean, Arthur Conan Doyle is a famous example, and look what happened to Barney Google. Judge Parker turned into Sam Driver, Action Lawyer and stayed that way for decades. Team Luann has done a lot to sideline their protagonist: shunted her off alone to Community College, gave her dweeby thrall Gunther an actual girlfriend, introduced secondary characters (Tara, Stef) with far more robust backstories, etc. So why keep Luann around? Waiting for readers to get as sick of her as her creators have? I have news: that ship is a mere dot on the far horizon.

Anyway, former hottie Tiffany is hosting a pool party at her Dad’s house (persistently and annoyingly called “the Manse”). Tiffany covets and covertly ogles Stef’s boyfriend Kip, who is staying at the pool house because of the reasons, and complains that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. But Tiffany has never had a boyfriend; her Whole Deal was that she was “popular” in the abstract, i.e., she had a world of choice but never made one. It seems pretty clear that she “wants” Kip only to shore up her sagging, um, confidence, because Kip is so dull and dimensionless he couldn’t get cast as a Ken in that Barbie movie.

Sherman’s Lagoon, 8/9/23

Your son, Herman, Megan, c’mon, get with the program.

In an echo of February’s “Chinese Spy Balloon” incident, Sherman ate a bunch of helium balloons found in a crate of derelict property that fell into Kapupu Lagoon en route to Whacko’s Party Store. The Kapupu Self-Defense Forces seem a lot more on the ball about territorial integrity than our own armed forces were, for which their reward will be a deluge of shark guts.

Josh has sworn a Blood Oath not to cover Luann. A Blood Oath. Worth more than a few bucks, wouldn’t you agree? Make a generous contribution to the Comics Curmudgeon today!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Slylock Fox, 9/7/22 (panel)

Well, you could find all the S-words. Alternatively, you could assign names beginning with the letter S to all the elements: Siamese, sycamore, stratus, sun, starling, shack: try it!

Slylock‘s original premise seems rooted in the ancient gnostic belief that knowing the “true names” of things and beings confers power over them. You could give that a try, too, and maybe acquire godlike power over the stuff in today’s episode of Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids. For which, congratulations, I guess.

Gil Thorp, 9/7/22

Wow, the plot developments in the new Gil Thorp are coming thick and fast. Here we learn that the Thorps’ impending divorce has less to do with Gil’s roving eye or frequent absences and more with Mimi’s long-suppressed LPGA dreams. Which I could really get into, except Mimi’s Mom is wearing Gil’s face and it’s creeping me out.

Luann, 9/7/22

It’s an iron law in comics that nothing must ever change. Calvin and Dennis must stay five forever; Marvin never leave his diaper; Charlie Brown never grow up. When a cartoonist slips up in the name of “progress” or “development,” all hell breaks loose. Characters in real-time strips like For Better or for Worse or Gasoline Alley age out of their cute zones into boring adults or, eventually, horrifying rattletraps like century-and-change Walt Wallet. The famous time-skip in Funky Winkerbean tried to shift focus to sons and daughters, failed, and went back to its increasingly creaky main cast.

So it is with Luann‘s post-graduation stories. A few characters got cashiered outright: Knute, Crystal, Mr. Fogarty. But with some obvious substitutions—ethnic ciphers Dez and Bets for ethnic ciphers Delta and Rosa—the cast and plots are the same, except for Tiffany here. She literally grew out of her “shallow, pretty cheerleader” role when she gained weight “dealing with depression” in 2017. So, in classic Darwinian fashion, here comes Stef to occupy her niche. The strip is now working hard to throw her a lifeline with a “poor little rich girl” role. Hold onto it, Tiff—hold on for dear life. The shadow of Walt Wallet looms large.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/7/22

Buck! Buck! All is forgiven! Come back Buck, please! Buuuuuuuuuuuuck!

–Uncle Lumpy

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Arctic Circle, 9/1/21

Arctic Circle started out as a nice little fish-out-of-water joke-a-day strip about three penguins (Ed, Oscar, and Gordo, from left to right) stranded in the Arctic, sort of a cold-water Boner’s Ark. It has evolved into a 24/7/365 environmental catastrophe sermon, with some version or other of “ain’t it awful?” in the final panel. But today’s seems to suggest that we mass-murder insects to reduce pesticide use on soybeans, raising the question: how?

Phantom, 9/1/21

Hey, remember the last time we saw Savarna eight years ago, Old Stripey was lecturing her about their “incompatible methods,” how her “killing days end here,” and taking away her weapon? Yeah, well, looks like that ship has sailed.

And as a long-time Phantom/Savarna ‘shipper, let me add—are those eyes really empty behind that mask, or do I detect the subtle BRAKOOOOM of LOVE?

Sally Forth, 9/1/21

“That thing I do, the one that looks like it stems from reciprocal affection and a shared sense of impending loss? It’s hatred, Hil, and resentment! I’m a sociopath! Welp, great summer, girlfriend, see ya around!”

Luann, 9/1/21 and 3/17/2010 reprint of 3/18/1985

Where, oh where, will Luann be in 30 years? Let’s just look back 36 years and see if we can establish a regression line!

Hmm. Not “regression,” exactly, but hardly progress. Better get to changing those media stereotypes, Bernice, or at least the sheets.

Family Circus, 9/1/21

And if Billy starts avoiding Bibles, speaking dead languages, and smelling of brimstone, it’s ’cause he ate those deviled eggs.

Is “Venmo” a verb? Try it and see!

— Uncle Lumpy