Archive: Phantom

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Herb and Jamaal, 11/14/12

Jamaal mangles the ancient punchline, “… twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty”, and outs himself as an idiot.

Pluggers, 11/14/12

… b-but the joke is that Spaniel-man is spending exactly the same time looking for his glasses and wearing them. Right? Am I missing some subtlety here? Oh, wait — it’s Pluggers.

Phantom, 11/14/12

It’s time for Hide the Lion — and anybody can play! Hot Queen is ticked, and the mighty Llongo warriors look all mopey. Everything is proceeding as Pissy Elder has forseen.

Heathcliff, 11/14/12

Garfield is disgusting. Oh, wait, this is Heathcliff. Well, Garfield is disgusting too, but this is Heathcliff.

Apartment 3-G, 11/14/12

Hey, it’s Six Differences time again! Can you spot the changes Greg has made to Mrs. Bloom’s apartment? Moving the invisible piano doesn’t count. (Hint: he locked the Taser® up with the sex toys. Margo’s in for one hell of a night.)

Spider-Man, 11/14/12

Yes, Peter — Sherry would have dug Genghis Khan, and you would have dug out the yak wallow behind his yurt.


— Uncle Lumpy

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Phantom, 11/10/12

OK, stay with me here. The “panic to keep the modern world at bay” is a bunch of pissy Llongo elders’ plan to undercut their hot queen’s rare-earth mining deal with a story about a vengeful immortal lioness who protects the tribe’s sacred land. The plan requires hardworking Llongo warriors to secretly release a captured lioness near the village, publicly kill her, privately dispose of the carcass, and then go find a matching replacement lioness — repeating the cycle to keep the “immortality” myth going until either they run out of lionesses or the queen relents and shuts down the mine.

The miners’ ace counterplan is to lock the corpse of the next-to-die lioness in a cage, confronting the tricksy elders with steamy, maggot-infested proof of their bad faith, and breaking the cycle. Despite the toll on the poor decomposing lioness, the Phantom is apparently cool with this, since he doesn’t want anybody horning in on his family’s own long-running “mammal-who-can-never-die” scam.

PS. To Wambesi terrorist and Phantom arch-nemesis Chatu “The Python”: before your next attempt on the Phantom’s life, buy a nice strong cage, and maybe some air freshener.

PPS. Have I mentioned how much I like saying “lioness”? No? Lioness, lioness, lioness …

Gasoline Alley, 11/10/12

Despite appearances, this isn’t yet another tiresome “bullying is bad” lesson-comic. Boog’s helicopter mom Clovia smothers him in glurgy mash-notes and three-cupcake lunches to stupefy and fatten him into the image of his father, idiot-whale Slim Skinner. But these three young heroes will have none of it, bravely staging an intervention to keep their pal tough and slender.

Hey, grotesquely-drawn moppets gotta stick together, am I right?

Update — Boog’s mom is Hoogie, not Clovia, and Slim is his grandfather. Other than that, the story was accurate!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/10/12

Did you know that tomorrow is Veterans Day in the U.S.? Snuffy Smith does! And he has every right to join that parade, since he not only shares the nickname of a genuine WWII Army hero, but served in the Army his ownself:

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/24/1941 (panel, courtesy of The Comics Journal)

So what explains Snuffy’s descent from stalwart Defender of Democracy in the 1940’s to the shif’less no-‘count skonk we know and love today? The world’s longest-running case of PTSD? Bone laziness? My money, as always, is on the likker.


Hi there, I’m sitting in for Josh until Sunday, November 18th. You can contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net to report any site or comment issues. You can still reach Josh at bio@jfruh.com, but expect sloth-related delays.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Archie, 10/12/12

Let’s forget for the moment Reggie’s absurd claim that his laptop has petabytes of storage, and the fact that he and Jughead are having one of those hilarious “haha we are misunderstanding each other’s use of polysemous phrases, with hilarious results!” conversations that no humans ever have, ever, or even that Jughead might be vaguely implying that his beloved dog is a cyborg replicant. Let’s instead enjoy the glory and majesty of Reggie’s sweater, which is the ’90sest sweater that ever lit a candle at a spontaneous vigil that formed on the quad the night Kurt Cobain committed suicide and then later got a “Rachel” haircut. Admire it in all its Clinton-era glory!

Phantom, 10/12/12

Look, I’m the guy who will bawl uncontrollably in a movie whenever an adorable animal is killed or injured in the most transparently emotionally manipulative fashion you can name, but … hey Phantom, I know you’re hurting, but you’re being kind of a dick here? “HE WAS TRYING TO PROTECT BOTH OF US, OKAY? BUT MOSTLY ME, OKAY? BACK OFF, MAN, HE’S MY LOYAL WOLF-DOG!!!”

Funky Winkerbean, 10/12/12

“Yeah, my first wife sure scarred me emotionally and left me the morbid hate-sack I am today! How about your first wife? Oh, right, dropped dead. Hey, look, I have a whole pizza here, let’s punish our colons with it!”