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Click the banner to contribute to the Comics Curmudgeon. Details here.

Keeping the Comics Curmudgeon fresh and up to date is hard work! So twice a year I host a fundraiser to thank Josh for the time, effort, and talent he puts into giving newspaper comics every bit of the attention and respect they so richly deserve. And this time, we have a limited number of unique rewards for especially generous contributors — behold:

These are individual panels from Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, M.D. comic strips, lovingly selected, trimmed from daily and Sunday newspapers, and handcrafted into beautiful (and useful!) refrigerator magnets by faithful reader and comics panel hero Matt Crowe, who highlights a new classic panel every day on his Twitter feed, which you should totally check out. Thanks, Matt! The sensitive curation of this collection is apparent from even this small sample: many of the panels feature beloved JP and RMMD characters a) acting like entitled dicks and b) getting hit on the head with stuff.

Because of their limited availability, magnets (or at the contributor’s option, Margo bracelets from the Fall 2009 fundraiser) are available for contributions of $15 or more. If we run out of both, $15 contributors will receive a signed copy of one of Josh’s favorite panels from this year’s comics, matted and suitable for framing. Of course, contributions of any amount are warmly appreciated, and every contributor will receive a personal thank-you note from Josh, and our sincere gratitude.

To contribute by credit card or PayPal, click the banner at the top of the page and follow the instructions on the secure PayPal site. To contribute by check or money order, email uncle.lumpy@comcast.net and I’ll reply with an address. Full details here, along with an index to the banners in rotation at the top of the page and from previous fundraisers — almost 400 in all!

Thank you, generous readers!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Hey all! I’m taking next week off from the comics-mocking, but have no fear: your favorite Uncle Lumpy will be filling in with his usual hilariously avuncular stylings. So be nice to him! I shall RETURN on the 20th. But until then: you comment of the week!

“It’s a nice first try, but Ziggy hasn’t quite gotten the hang of blatant product placement yet. Here’s a quick tip: try not to make the readers imagine Ziggy having sex with the sponsor’s mascot.” –Brad

And your hilarious runners up!

“Hey, kids … did we have a nice day? Oh, sorry, and how are you, insignificant child-care provider? Did you tend to my child’s every beck and call?” –Dood

“There’s a drawer full of them … she wants to sell them! A whole drawer of horse pictures. It’s a giant flipbook, first the happy horse, but then the clouds roll in and the lightning strikes and it’s just page after page of spikes and horsemeat and rendering plants. It’s like a little horsey Guernica in that drawer. I dream about it at night, I can hear the frightened whinny of her horses. Please take her out of school and get her a DeviantArt account. Please?” –Voshkod

“We would like to remind you on this National Tea on a Propane Camp Stove Day to take time out to enjoy a nice pot of tea made on a propane camp stove. Thank you.” –Spokesman for Propane

“Inclement weather spoils another game of ‘Civil War wounded.'” –Doctor Handsome

“I’d like to imagine that the girl in front of Billy has awesome fashion sense instead of just being recycled art from who knows what era when someone thought The Kids Today were dressing like that. ‘Today,’ she said this morning. ‘I’ll push not just this podunk town’s boundaries, but America’s.’ Then she put on her Dr Bunsen Honeydew glasses, lavender polo, and red beret, smiling at the persona in the mirror. Is she French? A beatnik? Very, very old and shrinking? ‘No,’ she thought. ‘She’s an enigma.'” –Alex Blaze

“Slylock carried a magnifying glass once. However, seeing the world expanded, broken into digestible components so that no detail however seemingly meaningless was ever missed didn’t quite suit his style of hard-hitting arbitrary justice handed down from a brutal authority figure, so he elected to carry an ornate hand mirror instead and see the only font of truth necessary to convict ‘evildoers’: his own face, damning the perpetrators.” –bunivasal

“Yesterday I thought for a moment that Spider-Man, actual newspaper Spider-Man, had outplanned and outwitted and defeated a real Super-Villain. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly Doctor Doom or General Zod or something, just a fat man with lots of money who only qualifies as a Super-Villain through a loophole in the Lex Luthor Clause (and if he hypno-gas was fake, he might be disqualified entirely — I have to check the case law, but I think dicta in Gorilla Grod v. Flash is relevant here).” –Master Softheart

Apartment 3-G: “‘Fat missive from Greg’ is my new favorite euphemism.” –KreatureFeature

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

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Your comment of the week: Enjoy it!

“Not only does Kingpin hold the patent on the world’s coolest TV-anywhere-and-everywhere system, but he also owns the mind-control gas to make people watch it. COMCAST, do you read this comic strip? Behold, the new President of NBC!” –seismic-2

And your runners up: Enjoy them!

“‘We have a confirmed maternal situation on our hands’ is probably the most Rex reaction to a pregnancy I can imagine. Did this strip ever show him proposing? ‘June: we share a similar degree of physical attractiveness and biological maturity. Would you not agree that it is time to formalize our romantic arrangement in a manner recognized by the state? Please respond within a timely manner.'” –pugfuggly

“‘And how long did you study?’ asked the heavy-lidded Jughead, in his usual half-hearted tone. He very clearly didn’t care, but it was the question Archie had been waiting for. His time had finally come. His moment was now. The ambient noise outside the popular Lasagna Hardware store simply ceased. It was as though the universe melted away, leaving only Archie, his shite-eating expression, and his terrible pun. ‘About five … minuets.’ Finally. Now Archie could die, here, in this empty void, where he would finally have some peace.” –Roto13

“The first thing I’m going to do is look for my dad, John Darling. I know we were talking about getting shelter for your grandbaby, but before I find a place to live and make my life with my husband, we’re going to find this man that I’ve brought up apropos of nothing. Segue? No thank you, I prefer to walk.” –bunivasal

“Mock the Kingpin’s Hypno-Gas all you want. It has done wonders for Daredevil’s posture.” –Everything Is Better with Monkeys

“The aesthetic behind feet photos is showing that the person was there, was present. Not exactly in the moment, since you’re taking the time to take a selfie of sorts, but proof that you were there. Like that time someone changed your clothes after you thoroughly shit yourself.” –Chareth Cutestory

“Today Crock manages to pass the Bechdel test. Spiteful put-downs count, right?” –Emma J

“Kingpin has missed one opportunity after another to kill Spider-Man and Daredevil, and his excuses are becoming progressively less plausible. I conclude that his plan is not to kill them, but to make them his guests at a surprise birthday party for his henchman. He knows that Henchy McSunglasses is a huge SM/DD fan, so the three of them arranged the whole thing beforehand. Kingpin is totally earning that World’s Greatest Boss mug!” –Steve

“Forget Facebook, Marvin — you should be posting pictures like that to your Shitter account.” –NoahSnark

“I still hope I die as soon as possible; I just wish I were aready older.” –Doctor Handsome

“Normally, I would abstain from commenting on Ziggy. What good could ever become of such an endeavor, right?” –tallyHo

“So instead of ‘car explosion’ they meant ‘victim of a tragic corset accident?’ Right? Because oh my god look at her waist. Good thing she lives on the moon, because clearly she does not need to breathe.” –Holly Folly

“Are Darrin and Jess smirking, which seems likely in this strip, or do they combine to make one whole, almost human smile?” –bemibet

“When Shelly becomes nervous, she farts. Of course, being a refined lady, the farts come out as wafts of strawberry-scented cotton candy.” –Perky Bird

“Sam’s disappointment in Sophie is evident on his face. This isn’t the way he raised her. The Parker way of expressing displeasure with traffic conditions doesn’t involve shouting at one’s fellow drivers. It involves a helicopter ferry or, if economic times are tough, building a private closed-access highway.” –Voshkod

“Nothing says New York sophistication like a novelty outsized driver’s license, so Ted West should be all right!” –NonnyMus

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.