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Six Chix, 9/2/19

I am not comfortable with the whimsical, knowing look the lady on the right is giving us in this panel. Combined with her weirdly phrased dialogue, it makes the whole thing fairly sinister, to be honest! “Hee hee, our picnic has been [a odd chittering undertone, almost impossible to hear, is in her voice for the following word] selected by the marching ants! Will they march us into their underground city? Will their tiny chitinous legs sweep over our naked bodies, down there in the dark, until we no longer feel them individually, until they just feel like a swift, running stream? Will eventually our minds, our very selves, be dissolved into their collective consciousness erasing us but somehow making us something greater than we could’ve ever imagined? Who knows how our picnic will be [voice suddenly drops five octaves] TRANSFORMED”

Mary Worth, 9/2/19

Oh my God, has anxious Dawn postponed the “what are we doing with this relationship” conversation with Hugo to the drive to the airport? This is simultaneously absolutely hilarious and also so relatable to me personally that it makes my stomach hurt, almost as much as Dawn’s stomach is hurting right now.

Mark Trail, 9/2/19

Wow, looks like the private equity fund that bought Woods and Wildlife after its corporate parent went bankrupt has come up with a new strategy to juice pageviews, and it’s “Find (and, if possible, kill) animals that don’t actually exist.” Now, most people are reading this strip and thinking “HOLY COW MARK TRAIL IS GONNA PUNCH THE BEARD OFF A HIMALAYAN CRYPTID” but I’m much more interested in Dr. Camel. He’s a camel with a Ph.D.!!!!

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Dennis the Menace, 8/31/19

Lord knows I’m sympathetic to the dilemma that syndicated comics artists find themselves in, trying to generate new joke-bearing scenarios out of varying combinations of the same basic components year after year, but I don’t think today’s Dennis the Menace rings true. Could George Mitchell, who barely tolerates Dennis’s presence in his house, and who also generally can’t avoid Dennis because he never leaves his house, really have been convinced to take Dennis to a movie? Sorry, I can’t suspend my disbelief, though I do buy the idea that the precocious and mature Margaret would easily be able to navigate the cinema experience by herself, as we can see in the background.

Blondie, 8/31/19

You know, the whole goofy Dagwood food thing makes a lot more sense if we read it as an elaborate metaphor for sex addiction. Dagwood can get sandwiches in his own home any time he wants — his wife is of course very good at making sandwiches, and in a pinch he’s pretty proud of how well he can make one himself — but that can’t satisfy him anymore. He needs new sandwiches, different sandwiches, sandwiches in weird and unlikely places. He’ll make up any ridiculous excuse to go anywhere if it seems like he might be able to get a sandwich out of it, and now he’s gotten to the point where he’s not even trying to hide it from his wife anymore.

Hi and Lois, 8/31/19

If you want a more mature, realistic take on what happens when a seemingly innocent trip to the golf course descends into lies and marital strife, we recommend Hi and Lois.

Mark Trail, 8/31/19

We haven’t seen a lot of Andy the dog in Mark Trail lately, and now we know why: he’s no longer fit to appear in a family comic strip because, as we can tell by his wide eyes and lolling tongue in panel one here, he’s become a sicko pervert who gets turned on by watching humans “do it.” (A lingering closed-mouth kiss what passes for “doing it” in the Mark Trail universe.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/31/19

Oh, sorry, have we not spent enough covering the denouement of the whole “Rex unmasks the Miss Galexia scam” plotline? Well, buckle up, because Rex is about to tell June the whole thing, in detail.

Family Circus, 8/31/19

HOLY SHIT

THE KEANE KIDS LIVE IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE WHERE SEPTEMBER IS 31 DAYS LONG

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

OR MAYBE AUGUST IS JUST ONE DAY SHORTER AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS EXACTLY THE SAME

STILL, IT’S PRETTY WEIRD, RIGHT

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Folks! I’m back from vacation! Thanks for being so kind to your favorite Uncle Lumpy, and huge thanks for being so kind to me in the summer fundraiser! Those of you donated will be getting a personal thanks from me shortly, but you’re all my beloved pals who help keep this site going! Meanwhile, let’s catch up on what the strips have been up to in my absence! Probably none of them are in the midst of a rambling week-long dialogue that’s obliquely about me personally and the site I run, right?

Mark Trail, 8/29/19

Uhh … Mark …?

Gil Thorp, 8/29/19

Anyhoo, it looks like Gil Thorp is finally zeroing on what this year’s football season plot is going to be! Seems like we’ll be taking on the perennial question, “Can you convince your ungrateful stepchildren to love you by lying to them about how good they are at sports?” Jury’s still out!

The Phantom, 8/29/19

The Phantom has really tried to clean up its act over the past couple of decades, wokeness-wise, but does it occasionally return to its roots: extolling the virtues of a powerful white superhero whose powers are largely the result of resources extracted from the colonized nation he dominates.