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FAITHFUL COMICS CURMUDGEON READERS! You see before you the last set of Comments of the Week that I will write as a resident of Baltimore! I’m spending the next two days in a frenzy of packing, and then over the next week and a half or so my wife and I will be driving across this great land we call “America.” Uncle Lumpy will be in the (metaphorical) driver’s seat on the blog until about … September 3rd? Sure, let’s say that. Subject to change! But probably September 3rd. Anyway! See you on the other side of the continent, guys! But first, the promised comment of the week:

“In Rex Morgan today, Judith Martin aka Miss Manners agitates for industrial action. The bourgeois Morgans turn their heads from the plight of working academic nurses now, but come the revolution they’ll answer to the sisters whom they forsook in their hour of need. Solidarity! I can’t wait to see Rex up against the wall, his blindfold pressed in a perfect French pleat.” –Jessie

And the usual array of hilarious runners up:

“Mary Worth is such a hipster. ‘I was an Indigo Child before it was cool.'” –CanuckDownSouth

“No, but just look at panel 5! June really is sorry about what happened to Suzanne and the others. She is sorry about what happened to Suzanne and the others. She is sorry … sorry … sorry … I do not want my wallet. I should give it to June. June will know what to do with it. June is very helpful.” –Spunde

Mary Worth: “I may have saved Olive’s life … But in all modesty, I have to point out that what I saved is incredibly valuable! Yay, me! Wait, is that modesty or the other thing?” –Peanut Gallery

“The writers of Pluggers have hit the sad realization that their target audience is dying off and they needed to reboot the concept. ‘Kids like extreme sports, right? This’ll get them off that interwebs and x boxers. Dear God, please don’t let them cancel us. I can’t go back to teaching cartooning at my local community college. I can’t'” –Bono Vix

“I see the bank robber has a gun. I imagine a doughy, bespectacled casually clad man suspended on ten foot metal stilts will make an easy target at twenty to thirty feet.” –Optimus Prime Rib

“If Spider-Man wasn’t already jealous of Doc Ock, he sure will be when he sees that pretty blonde in the last panel. No attractive lady ever gazed up so admiringly and longingly at his crotch, in spite of all those years he’s spent splaying his spandex-clad legs high above the city streets!” –Perky Bird

“If you Google ‘bear on roller skates,’ the first results you get are videos from North Korea and China. Which can only mean that pluggers’ worst fears have finally been realized: The last domino has fallen, and they’ve succumbed to the influence of global communism.” –BigTed

Crankshaft: “Note the date: today noted skeptic and science-hater Ed has confirmed his belief in anthropogenic climate change. Not only that, but he’s going to write a letter! So I guess the joke here is that while we’re all responsible for the state of the earth, our individual actions are so meaningless in the grand scheme of things that we might as well not bother.” –pugfuggly

“Maybe this isn’t a pickup line, but it is the end of a longer explanation. ‘Your siren song lured my crew to dash the ship upon the rocks, and they all drowned. Eddie and I somehow swam to these desolate holds of cold stone surrounded by miles of empty North Atlantic waters. If you have the tiniest shred of decency, how about a nice, warm hug?'” –hogenmogen

“I hope True Standish changes his mind about going to Valley Tech. He’s a quarterback who’s so lackadaisical about the sport that he hasn’t touched a football all summer, he’s so clumsy that he can’t step off a curb without hurting himself severely, and he is so uncoordinated that he can’t even shake hands. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the sports hero that Milford deserves!” –seismic-2

Funky Winkerbean: “How delightfully clever! By unrealistic authorial fiat, two lackluster storylines that were staggering to unsatisfying conclusions — each notionally developing an unpleasant member of the regular cast by having them do things they initially despised but sort of came to appreciate in the end — are revealed as merging into one amorphous mass of narrative waste product.” –Master Softheart

“Desperate to talk to literally anyone about literally anything, Roz asks the Perfesser an inane but open-ended question only to have the Perfesser immediately turn to his electronic device so as to avoid even that most basic of social graces — small talk with acquaintances. Is this simply a new level of passive-aggressiveness or has the Perfesser finally found an addiction that suits him, the female voice in his smart phone?” –Flippin Arkansas

“What TV program could possibly be provoking the wide-eyed, blissed-out wonder we see from every member of the notoriously jaded Miller clan? I can only imagine that the Discovery Channel finally went and green-lit A Guy Jangles His Keys in Front of the Camera.” –Joe Blevins

“I am looking forward to seeing Parker covered in effluvia and exiting through some storm drain 300 yards from the bank a half hour after realizing sewers do not provide easy access to buildings.” –Anonymous

“Say what you will about his oppressive, magic-supported reign of terror, the King of the Idiots has amazingly good spray-painting skills if he can do six lines of words in New Century Schoolbook without a stencil.” –Chip Whittle

“The procedure went well! I’ve always wanted to be a Morlock!” –Marcus Theory

Mark Trail: “I guess they call him ‘Dirty’ Dyer because ‘Beady Eye Flop Sweat’ Dyer doesn’t scan as well.” –Voyage of the Oversnark

“Mommy, you didn’t cook P.J. enough — he crawled out of the roasting pan! Can we order a pizza now?” –AhClem

“Why, if you rearrange the letters of ‘Starbucks,’ erase some, add a few more, you get ‘Hitler.’ Our records show that he’s dead … or is he!?!” –Dr. Mabuse

“PJ didn’t understand. There were five places set at the table, and six Keanes. This was the way the nightly game went, and at long last, he had beaten his father out. He was just inches from dinner. Who was Dolly to deny him his victory? The hunger he had learned to accept long ago, but even he was surprised by the rage and frustration that built within him. The worst part of it — he knew this even as an infant — was that when the cops grilled him about years later, it would no longer make sense. Even to him, the motivation for his horrific actions would remain obscure.” –pastordan

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I am in the midst of packing up my entire life for my impending move to California, and I have a sad story to tell. Earlier this year, a faithful reader asked for my mailing address and promised to send me a mysterious art project. Several weeks later, a box appeared at my house, literally hours before I was to leave on a trip, and rather than opening it, I stuck it in our storage room downstairs, intending to check it out later. Did I remember to do so when I got home? Dear reader, I did not.

This box was rediscovered just as we were figuring out what was in every room in our house to see what we can keep and what we need to give away. And then I rediscovered the box, and opened it, and … oh my. It was a Spider-Man themed work of art called “Cage of Loneliness,” based on this strip, and it was amazing, and sadly because we are so space-constrained in our new place (HEY GUYS THE LOS ANGELES RENTAL MARKET IS VERY EXPENSIVE WHO KNEW) it cannot make the voyage with us. I know of a local Curmudgeon-friendly home for it, though, so it will be in good hands. But! Then, to compound my error, I could not find the email of the person who sent it to me in the first place! And so, I now thank them publicly, if anonymously, and ask them to take a bow, and email me with their particulars and I’ll even post a link to the page or project of their choice!

AT ANY RATE. Among the packing I’ve ALSO been keeping an eye on your hilarious comments, and though it was difficult I have selected this one as best:

“Interesting kid. He loves football, but differently from his dad. While his dad would prefer to yell at the players to relieve some of the stress and powerlessness in his own life, this kid would rather try to hit other people as hard as he can until he hears a wet crunch. Same game, different ways of loving it. Interesting.” –Chareth Cutestory

These runners up are also hilarious!

“What does it mean when Heathcliff sticks a fork in a shark? It means he’s sick and tired of all the hype surrounding ‘Shark Week’ and is sending the network suits a message that ‘Shark Week’ is done. Hopefully next year they will replace it with a theme week that is newer, hipper, and more in tune to what the people want: ‘GARBAGE APE WEEK.'” –gelded wildebeeste

“Usually Funky Winkerbean is just a steaming pile… but this one had a chance to approach being a joke. All it would take would be the person we’ll call The Neck in the last panel saying ‘Talk to the talent again and you’re out of here.'” –Dr. Mabuse

“Solution two: Slylock is counting himself as a thief as well as a platypus, because he charged an exorbitant fee, plus airfare and lodging, to come to Australia to ‘work’, under the guise of providing ‘Specialized Investigation’ services to these local rubes who have never ventured beyond the border of their province. He suspects the platypus as well because the platypus is always brought up as a ‘wacky’ Australian wildlife example and because it’s really hard to work the Coriolis Effect into a single panel cartoon about Australia even though that was your original idea.” –Mikey

“Dennis isn’t really scolding Mr. Wilson so much as he is fascinated by him. ‘All you ever do is nap or eat cookies… You… you can DO that?’ It looks as though the young lad has just had his eyes opened to the possibility of a new decadent lifestyle, and I expect his future actions to become extremely menacing, as he does whatever it takes to keep up a supply of those sweet, sweet chocolate chips and pillows.” –Brad

“‘Dumpty’s Big Fall’ is how the media refers to the scandal that erupted after the it was discovered that the band uses pre-recorded backing tracks at their live shows. Their instruments aren’t even plugged in!” –Guts Dozier

“So now we know where Heathcliff gets all his money for fish and unicycles and hot-air balloons: on weekends he shills for the American Egg Board with his band, playing songs about how HDL cholesterol is actually good for you and might even reduce the chance of coronary problems.” –pugfuggly

“This sequence is one of the most beautifully meta-level Judge Parker conversations ever! Sam’s actual law practice has been abstracted away and the readers have been invited to assume that it was churning along in the background, ready to spit out a new plot development if needed. Sam handles the California winery’s legal needs when Trudi’s jutting proves incapable of smoothing out their business problems (is Sam even bar admitted in California? Who cares!), handles real estate and basic contract work for Rocky Ledge while giving him informal marriage advice, and ignores every rule of legal ethics to leap to the assistance of a criminal defendant when Randy can’t handle the first and only court session he’s held as the new Judge Parker. He also had vague but grandiose plans to shift his entire practice to boutique environmental law in order to facilitate sustainable industry on the advice of his pre-teen adopted daughter.

But now, we learn (apparently at the same moment that Sam does as well) that he has no clients and no real work. Sam looks rather stunned to learn that his entire law practice has been a fiction and he does nothing professionally except collect obscene fees for performing odd jobs and mismanaging Abbey’s investments.

And remember hiring Steve Shannon? Steve agreed to work essentially without regular pay until he had ‘proven’ himself to Sam, despite caring for his sick and elderly mother and dealing with his own handicap and crippling PTSD? Has Steve been busily stealing all of Sam’s old, anonymous clients over the last few years by providing the prompt, courteous, and legally impeccable services that they never received from Driver & Parker and now feels himself ready to abandon his nominal boss, or has he just been boffing Gloria on Sam’s desk all day for the last few years and relying on his military pension and health benefits to keep up? I guess that’s the part of JAG work that they don’t tell you about…

And the great thing about all of this is that Sam looks precisely as confused about these questions as we are. ‘You mean that all this time while I was being stalked by murderous strippers in Phoenix and getting implausible deals from murderous pot growers and Hollywood producers, no one was actually running my practice? I thought we had just abstracted the legal stuff out of this comic to focus on people giving me money and how amazing retired Judge Alan Parker actually is. No one told me that unless I practiced law on panel, it didn’t happen!’ I look forward to the personal crisis of identity and self-worth that Sam is about to suffer as he wonders why he bothered with Harvard Law instead of art school and finds that his evening bottle of wine is no longer enough to keep at bay the terrible shallowness and graveyard of wasted potential that his life has somehow become.

And you may find yourself living in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, well — how did I get here?” –Master Softheart

“wow

so career

much crisis

wow” –Chyron HR

“So is this fantasy sequence running parallel to events that are actually happening, or is Les just furtively masturbating on set?” –Bunivasal

“Looks like the sequel to Blackfish is going to have a lot more awkward flirting and, improbably, be even more disturbing and depressing.” –Shoe Substitutes

“Is Pluggers even TRYING to be funny? Or are they just randomly quoting the owners’ manual from their car?” –Briane Pagel

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Hope your mid-August is going pleasantly, and that this hilarious comment of the week makes it more so!

“No more water, Jeffy, fire next time. FIRE. NEXT. TIME.” –Chyron HR

These very funny runners up certainly won’t hurt, either!

“The Singing Clam has gone solo? Does he still perform songs from his old band, The Bivalvet Underground?” –gelded wildebeeste

Judge Parker: “How about two weeks in your own Parisian flat two blocks from the Eiffel Tower? However, you can’t keep the money that sometimes leaks from the plumbing. That’s ours. Just let it accumulate in the buckets that have been set out for the purpose and Ned or I will collect it the next time one of us happens to be there.” –cheech wizard

“Ahh, the problem is revealed in panel three. The shape of Pam’s ear indicates that she’s an elf from Middle-Earth, perhaps an Eldar, who has lingered long in the corrupt and declining world of men, far from the Blessed Realm. This is why everything in this Funkyverse is so forlorn. She knows that none of these trucks will serve Lembas. She knows.” –Joe Momma

Mary Worth: “Her voice says ‘intuitive about a lot of things’ but her pointy finger says ‘I can say with experience that she’s a magical psychic being with powers of precognition your puny minds cannot comprehend! Do not doubt my powers!’ It’s all in the wrist, with Mary.” –Mikey

“So, you hear about that new bull in the barn? Yeah, he’s hung like a horse … Wait, is that a compliment for a bull? Anyway, he’s big. I like ‘em beefy. Oh, yeah, ‘beefy’ isn’t polite. He’s horny, too. I mean, you know, because he’s a bull. Okaaay, I heard Edna got killed, ground up and packaged yesterday.” –hogenmogen

“If Camp Swampy has a hygiene problem, maybe it’s because there are just two small sinks for an entire barracks. And everyone walks around barefoot in the latrine area. And Beetle appears to be lathering his face with a toothbrush. And Cookie… well, let’s not even talk about Cookie.” –BigTed

“Sam is looking through an early draft of his book, Eye Contact and How to Avoid It.” –Joe Blevins

“Sure, I’ll give you the horns as soon as I drink from this canteen … with the cap still on! Ha ha!” –Little Blue Bicycle

Funky Winkerbean: “Oh, I know so many things about Pavarotti, all from this biography right here! Tomorrow I’m reading about Guy de Maupassant — Mason, have you considered syphilis?” –Uncle Lumpy

“I don’t know why people wouldn’t want to ride in a taxi cab with a driver with hollow eyes that swallow your nightmares. Where to? how about the darkest corners of your soul?” –Chareth Cutestory

Funky Winkerbean: “Yeah, yeah, more talk about nails. Say Les, there’s three nails right here! Let take them and this hammer and go over to the set of The Last Temptation of Christ. I want to show you something!” –Mikey

“The Treetops Tattler-Tribune, despite being part of a rapidly shrinking market in a moribund medium, continues to survive in the Shoe universe of ornithoid/humanoid beings, but not due to its curmudgeonly weather hotline, which is outdated even by pre-internet standards. Rather, it owes its continued success to two words: cage lining.” –Chad Sexington

And we must, of course, give a shout-out to our sponsor for this week:

• Self-Loathing Nerds: Humor fiction, news, reviews, and other crap by some huge god damned nerds.

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.