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“Hello kids, and welcome back to World of Animals — I’m your beloved host, Carl. Well, it’s been quite a while, so let’s all catch up — on entertaining Nature Facts from the wonderful World of Animals!”

Arctic Circle, 9/5/21

Did you know that turtles get parasites? It’s true! We’re prone to nematodes, tapeworms, flukes … a few roundworms even help with our notoriously slow digestion—thanks, symbionts! But we try to be a little discreet about it, you know? We don’t go walking around with some blood-sucker hanging off the outside of our shell, like this guy. That’s just vulgar!

Mark Trail, 9/5/21

Everybody knows spiders are arachnids and centipedes are arthropods and bees are insects, but did you know they’re all bugs? It’s true! And don’t go hating on them—you humans are badly outnumbered!

Mutts, 9/5/21

Have you heard the saying, “Dogs are good?” Don’t believe it! They are emotionally manipulative con artists, thieves, and gluttons!

Slylock Fox (panels), 9/5/21

Did you know that animal societies are quite complex, with interactions we can’t always explain? It’s true! Fortunately, Nature always leaves clues.

Slylock Fox (panel), 9/5/21

Spoiler Alert! Like most reptiles, crocodiles are very polite!

Thanks so very much for your kind attention. I do hope we have an opportunity to get together again soon!

Very truly yours,

— Turtle Carl

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So ends the 2021 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser! Thank you, everybody!

Mark Trail, 9/4/21

It’s charming that with Mark’s long-running Woods and Wildlife gig at an end, Rusty and Cherry act as guides to his new wilderness of freelance work, relationships, and social media. And reassuring that Cherry never, ever shows him Twitter.

Lockhorns, 9/4/21

Loretta, it’s like you haven’t been paying attention the past fifty-three years.

Gasoline Alley, 9/4/21

Oh look, it’s Boog and Aubee, scions of the dead-eyed Skinner couple, Rover and Hoogy, recapping the story of Aubee’s sylvan birth. “Aubee?”, you ask, “What kind of name is that?” Well, upon delivering her, “Chipper” Wallet, who by the way is a PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT, exclaimed, “Well I’ll be! You have a beautiful, healthy baby girl.” Hoogy immediately named her daughter “Aubee,” because she pays as little attention to her children as we’d like to.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/4/21

Gah, it is so on-message for a high school in Funky Winkerbean to have a teachers’ “workroom” instead of a lounge, even though we’ve never seen anybody doing anything more strenuous there than drinking coffee, nor more intellectually demanding than complaining with those mopey little half-mouths of theirs.

Anyway, the white-haired guy with the lame bon mot is Jim Kablichnik. Everybody knows somebody like Jim Kablichnik. It’s a shame, really.

Dick Tracy, 9/4/21

Now I’m no history scholar like Josh, but I’m pretty sure history will still be a thing of the past even when we get better tools to investigate it. But don’t let me rain on Ace’s parade: he’s an official cigar-smoking member of The Apparatus at last!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/29/21

Oh, poor Les is leaving Hollywood—a place he slags relentlessly, creeps out, ham-handedly bilks, and now pretends to relish leaving.

But apparently his self-satisfaction is tinged with regret that high-school English teachers aren’t held in the same high regard as Hollywood writers. Fortunately, good writers—and even Les—draw material from their own lives, so here’s the seed for Lisa’s Story IV: Les Moore is a Pompous Hypocrite.

Mark Trail, 8/29/21

After delivering a helpful lesson about birds breaking wind, Mark is himself educated by a goose. I bet it plans to “modify his habitat,” too.

Prince Valiant, 8/29/21

Long story short, Val has been drugged by a mysterious hooded sorceress on his way back to Camelot. But he convinced a couple of raven-hallucinations to alert his wife/sorceress Aleta, so mystical help is only a matter of time. While we wait, let’s all admire that shark-on-a-rope guarding the throne.

— Uncle Lumpy