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Apartment 3-G, 10/8/11

Wow, Margo’s standards of work would shame a junkie — her grand reopening for the Mills Gallery boiled down to cadging a favor from an ex-client and putting up a sign. And while her “Art without Rules” gimmick must have seemed clever at first — no standards, can’t fail, right? — now Queen Bee’s anarchists are tagging up the joint, trashing all the work Trey conned out of his partners, and returning the Mills to its roots as a crack house.

But just like last year’s Great Hypothetical Piano Delivery, we don’t actually get to see any of the alleged “Art without Rules” — just a couple of mopes talking about it. “Tell, don’t show” — it’s like a rule or something.

Archie, 10/8/11

Wow, Fred’s getting more enjoyment from that newspaper than anybody has for 40 years. You can bet he’s not reading Archie.

Judge Parker, 10/8/11

Wow, check out CIApril Bower in panel 3 there. Seems like only yesterday she was Randy’s timid, dumpy secretary, fending off his ham-handed advances over chewy takeout sushi. Now a willowy oenophile and multilingual Lady of Mystery, she jets to global hotspots under World Bank cover from her stylish country home. Here, standing amidst the obscene symbols of the Spencer-Drivers’ good fortune, she recalls the moment it all changed for her, too. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Touched by a Parker!

The Phantom, 10/8/11

So yeah wow, El Guerrero Latino, the good lucha libre wrestler who beat nasty cheatin’ ol’ El Bucanero Infernal is in fact Police Chief Ernesto Salinas, who mysteriously bailed on Kit right before the match. This will come as a revelation to absolutely no one but the Chief’s son Emiliano, Ciudad Jardin’s slower version of Rusty Trail.

There’s a lot of pumped-up mystery about how very much depended on the match, and an uncommon amount of attention paid to Ernesto’s training partner Victor Batalla and his son Vincente, so watch for some hero-on-the-inside father-and-son stuff down the road. But for now, what if Chief Salinas has been gaming the Ghost Who Walks all along, and this is the payoff: “OK, ‘Walker’, now that you know my secret identity, how about telling me yours? It’s the way we do things here in México, my friend. You know — like men!”

Hey everybody, I’m sitting in this week while Josh takes a vacation. Contact me about site trouble, spam, comment issues, etc. at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net. Thanks!

– Uncle Lumpy

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Mary Worth, 8/15/11

The comics have presented us with many wonderful images today, but none are more delightful than young Gina and her boyfriend taking in the world’s most wholesome skateboard kid and his ludicrously clean-cut cheering section. “Look, Gina!” Bobby’s saying in panel two. “This guy’s doing some awesome tricks, and yet he’s wearing khaki shorts and has neatly parted hair! Have you ever seen the like?”

Gil Thorp, 8/15/11

This is the kind of sensitivity that makes it so easy for Gil to really connect with his young students. “So, Kenny, I hear your mom’s a lush! What’s up with that?”

Apartment 3-G, 8/15/11

Oh my goodness, it looks like Lu Ann is going to join Luann in teaching the kids today about the importance of resisting sexual pressure — only in this scenario, it’s Lu Ann who’s the insatiable lust-monster and her boyfriend who’s saving himself for … when he’s older? Like, how much older? Because I’m pretty much assuming he’s about 35 now, based on appearances. I guess he’s saving himself for marriage, unlike that harlot Lu Ann, who, just look at that face in panel three that’s supposed to be “crazed with desire,” it’s almost as hilarious as the skateboard kid in Mary Worth.

Panel from Mark Trail, 8/15/11

Mark Trail strips often seem to be pieced together out of pre-existing bits of art, and today’s first panel is probably a good example. “That was a good story you did about the mountain man!” That could be the summary about every fifth Trail storyline for the past thirty years.

The Phantom, 8/15/11

Meanwhile, the Phantom is getting satellite TV. ACTION! ADVENTURE!

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/31/11

Today’s Snuffy Smith demonstrates how complicated it can be using visual signifiers in a strip that’s nearly a century old and that takes place in some difficult-to-pin-down time and place. Obviously the joke here is that our rustic hillbillies are living a lifestyle that very modern environmental and local-food advocates would endorse. And yet the only way the strip can depict someone as a fancy city-dwelling type is to dress them up in clothes that seem to date from roughly the Coolidge Administration, a time during which a flatlander would be much more likely to head up into the hills looking for precious coal to strip mine, not researching sustainable agriculture. Of course, it’s wholly possible that there’s a Brooklyn subculture of young lefty hipsters for whom bow ties, suspenders, and straw hats are the height of fashion, so maybe I’m just not with it enough to get what’s happening here.

As a side note, I’m pretty impressed that the strip managed to sneak in a joke about mule farts in the middle there.

Mary Worth, 7/31/11

I love that Mary has to consciously remind herself not to stiff the waitress on the tip. “Normally I assume that the trampy young women the waitressing lifestyle attracts just spend all their free cash on prophylactics and reefer, so I leave them nothing. But this one gets the full 10 percent!”

Phantom, 7/31/11

High-tech superhero lairs sure seemed a lot cooler before the Internet, didn’t they? It’s not as exciting to see the Phantom get a crucial piece of information from a Google News alert.