Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/17/17

The last however many seemingly interminable days of Rex Morgan, M.D., have involved Kelly agreeing to take on extra after-school childcare duties at the Morgans so that June can go back to work at the clinic, with June talking a lot about finding a “balance” between family and professional life. Today’s strip is intriguing because it reveals the truth about the balance that upper-class families seek: that it is purchased at the expense of working-class people who need the money badly enough that they neglect their own personal lives so that the wealthy can enjoy a well-rounded existence. This radical political message is however a little undercut by the fact that we’re talking about Kelly, a high schooler who mainly wants to spend more time with her boyfriend on her off hours so she doesn’t have to give him surreptitious handjobs while she’s supposed to be babysitting. But, I would argue, if June deserves both professional fulfillment and a two-child family, then so too do Kelly and Niki deserve the full range of teen fooling around that their social betters take as a given.

Shoe, 5/17/17

Say, have you ever had the experience of seeing a comely tattooed young woman in a tight, short skirt, and you can’t stop seething about how the decline in America’s morals means that supposedly respectable girls go around dressed like prostitutes these days but also can’t stop visualizing her every time you close your eyes? Well, good news: if you have a comic strip that sometimes features erotically drawn bird-women, you can work your problems out … through your art.

The Lockhorns, 5/17/17

Wait wait wait, are Leroy and Loretta supposed to be … younger than me? Welp, time to die

Post Content

Phantom, 4/29/17

Hmmm … can’t shake a “feeling of death,” Big Guy? Maybe it’s because you sleep cheek-by-jowl with your ancestors’ corpses, decorate yourself with skull jewelry, and live inside a gigantic death’s-head?

Nah. More likely it’s just a premonition that your city-bred wife, out stalking a pygmy tribal chief in the deep jungle, is about to get all slain by one of his adorable little arrows.

Crankshaft, 4/29/17

Wait, sad to outlive your dreams? But that way you’d still be around to enjoy them after they turn into facts! Sounds kinda nice — sign me up!

Not Lillian, though — she’s lived in the Funkyverse long enough to know this ain’t no Disney movie (the depression cats are a giveaway). So she games the system, adopting only those dreams that will fail slowly enough to outlast her. That way, she can die basking in the delusion that her remaining dreams still had a shot. Not like her dream to open a used bookstore above the garage — that sucker failed from the get-go and mocks her to this day.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/29/17

OK, Rex Morgan has been setting up this porno for so long the only question left is the dramatis personae: Niki and Kelly, sure, but who’s on third: rich-girl Holly — or Kelly’s Mom Summer (ew)?

And pace Josh, Niki’s actually far from a novice at this sort of thing: a decade ago, June blackmailed him into “cleaning her garage,” if you know what I mean. And that was before he got his wet hands all over Rex’s trout.

Anyway, it’s great to see this classic soaper returning to its roots. Its sexy, creepy roots.

Spider-Man, 4/29/17

Spider-Man plugs Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise almost as hard as Mary Worth plugs Carnival Cruise Lines. Probably for more cash, but definitely with a lot less effort. Never change, Web-Slinger!

Hello, faithful reader! I’m sitting in while Josh enjoys a Spring Break chock-full of enjoyable activities on a colossal liner steaming around the Caribbean, or maybe just sneaks out back for a delicious cigarette. Either way, reach me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if you have any problems with the site.

If you use the commenting feature, be aware that I’m notified automatically when a comment is placed in moderation, so there’s no need to alert me by email or in a follow-up comment. I’ll clear comments as soon as I see them, which won’t always be immediately. Thanks for your anticipated patience!

–Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/26/17

Oh, hey, what’s been going on in Rex Morgan, M.D.? A lot of boring blah blah about how Kelly and Niki don’t get to spend a lot of time together because of their after-school jobs (babysitting an amnesiac and delivering pizzas, respectively), and then Niki delivered a pizza to this girl’s house and she got real chatty with him. The whole time I thought she was supposed to be Nancy, Kelly’s nemesis (and, I think, rival for Niki’s affections?) but no, she’s just some other blonde who’s trying to steal Kelly’s man, I guess. A blonde art school nerd to boot. God, remember when Niki was a sullen petty thief with dumb hair? Remember when Kelly was a hot, sassy goth with a dangerous punk rocker boyfriend? Now Niki’s standing here in his chump-ass polyester pizza uniform half-assedly flirting with an aspiring commercial illustrator while Kelly’s off somewhere, I dunno, wearing a lame sweater or something. Still, we have to look towards the future, and the future I particularly am looking forward to involves Niki going with this young lady to see her classmates’ production of Snuffy Smith: The Musical.

Gasoline Alley, 4/26/17

Meanwhile, Gasoline Alley’s incredibly boring “Chipper gives a speech at the PA meeting” storyline is wrapping up in a fashion that definitely isn’t changing the mind of anyone who suspects that the strip has somehow become the main way that the AAPA communicates with its members. Anyway, if anyone wants to take a jaunt to Vegas next month, you could see a bunch of physician’s assistants lose lots of money at the craps tables, probably!

Funky Winkerbean, 4/26/17

Remember, one of the iron laws of the Funkyverse is that everyone has to be simultaneously as smug and as passive-aggressive as possible about everything. Can’t wait for Cindy to head over to a refugee camp to tell the kids there, “Wow, it looks like you have it pretty easy compared to a second-rate actor whose only crime was loving Stalin a little too much.”