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Hi everyone! Yes, I’m back, and Uncle Lumpy’s reign is over, as you can tell by this totally-posted-in-the-early-evening update to the site. As our good Uncle so aptly put it in the wee hours of yesterday morning: “Josh, amiright?” Anyway, thanks go to my illustrious pinch hitter, and HUGE thanks go to everyone who contributed in the pledge drive (though of course each and every one of you will be getting personal thank-yous in the next few days).

Part of what delays me, as ever, is my obsessive-compulsive need to read at least the high points of the strips I missed! Here’s one panel that jumped out at me, fairly aggressively:

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/27/10

“Garage painting” is of course a euphemism for oral pleasures of long standing in this strip, so what this panel is revealing is that Rex and June and planning on holding their dewy young layabout houseguests hostage, as sex slaves. Either that, or Nikki did a really, really bad job painting the garage, since that all happened, what, three weeks ago, in strip time?

Meanwhile, America’s Teen Sweethearts offered material of more philosophical interest:

Panel from Luann, 3/26/10

Here, Tiffany offers an intriguing analysis of the experience that staged drama brings to its audience; Brecht would be proud of this description of a play as both intensely real and transparently false.

But the most important thing that happened in the world of the comics last week didn’t happen in the funny pages, but in movie theaters, where the full-length Marmaduke trailer finally dropped:

That of course is Oscar nominee William H. Macy as the subject of not one but two getting-hit-in-the-nuts jokes. Perhaps this year he’ll finally take home that golden statue (in the newly created “most times hit in nuts by CGI dog” category). Just keep telling yourself “It’s only fake real.”

And now! There were also comics today! Let’s get on it!

Apartment 3-G, 3/29/10

While I usually find the art in this strip pretty blah, I actually think Ari’s stunned silence in the final panel is quite effectively executed. He’s probably supposed to be figuring out how exactly he can avoid the violent episode Bobbie’s about to perpetrate onto him, but I’d like to believe that he’s more concerned about all those scripts he wrote. “Wait, she’s not taking the pills? The beautiful, delicious pills I so thoughtfully prescribed for her? This relationship is nothing but a mountain of lies!”

Dennis the Menace, 3/29/10

When Dennis joined a new church, one whose services featured glossolalia and snake-handling, he finally found the immediate and ecstatic connection to God that he had been searching for his entire childhood. Still, the suit-clad WASP squares at his parents’ Episcopal congregation sure found it menacing.

Judge Parker, 3/29/10

Oh, this battle for Neddy’s love/purity is going to be delightful! I can’t wait to see what sort of snide comment her fashion-world boyfriend has in store for Sam’s epically minty argyle sweater.

Luann, 3/29/10

Back to the fake real! Turns out that theater prodigies Luann and Quill were only capable of creating on-stage romantic chemistry because of their mutual lust for their shared pale good looks. Now that they’ve been transformed into non-Aryans via stagecraft wizardry, they’re no longer attracted to one another, and the play will bomb.

Crankshaft, 3/29/10

I may have missed the thrill-o-coaster that was last week’s “Mary returns a blouse,” but by God I will be here for each and every delicious minute of “Crankshaft gets dumped.”

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The Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2010 Fundraiser

Click above to contribute by credit card or PayPal, here to contribute by check, or here for more details — Thanks!

Breaking News Update — President Obama reads Pickles; nation mourns.

Political blog Wonkette, for which Josh writes reviews of editorial comics under the title Cartoon Violence, has published a photograph showing a Sunday comic on President Obama’s Oval Office desk. Which comic? Alas, it’s Pickles — which never appears here because it is beneath notice even in its lameness. Original comic here. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Faithful readers of the Comics Curmudgeon will have long ago figured out my schtick: scan for a theme that links two or three comics, riff on it with a few cross-references to established CC tropes, glissade to some bizarre plot turn in a soap or clumsy foulup in a joke-a-day strip, and so to bed.

Mostly the comics oblige, with a banquet of lunatic plotlines laid out like gleaming slabs of red meat, verbal and graphic faux pas arrayed around them like trays of toothsome hors d’oeuvres. But on nights when those tables are bare I am alone, straining through the muck beneath Quigmans or Cleats for some — any — undigested morsel, my anguished moans for this cup to pass met with stony silence, except for the ticking of the clock toward 1:46 AM and spatter of desperate tears on my keyboard.

It is in those dark hours that I turn to Crock.

Crock, 3/25/10

And what do I get? A technology joke rejected as too lame for Pluggers (“A plugger’s netbook is the Cabela’s catalog.”) or For Better or For Worse (“Is John gambling online in the den?” “Yes, he’s on the netbook … in his bet nook!” “Hahahaha!”). Marred further, if such a thing is even possible, by the redundant “three-day” in panel one.

Thanks, Crock.

Mark Trail, 3/25/10

Ah, Mark — never too busy for the Safety Lecture, are we? Y’know, if Gladys had her wits about her, she’d shoot Mark in panel three and claim he looked just like a purse-snatcher.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/25/10

June is intrigued: ineffective pleading by a nominal male; icy rejection by the bitch in charge — looks like love to her!

Dick Tracy, 3/25/10

After-hours Exposition Dump in Dick Tracy. Public service, really — saves decent citizens the trouble of paying attention.

The Lockhorns, 3/25/10

“Agree with him and I’ll put another dent in that head of yours, Pullman!”

A sincere thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Comics Curmudgeon already this week. If you’re not yet among them, please consider this: lots of factors go into choosing whether to blog or not, but for a freelance writer/editor like Josh the tradeoff between blogging time and income is inescapable. The more we can make the Comics Curmudgeon an economically rational choice, the more time and enthusiasm Josh can devote to our entertainment. And who doesn’t want that?

— Uncle Lumpy

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The Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2010 Fundraiser

Click above to contribute by credit card or PayPal, here to contribute by check, or here for more details — Thanks!

Mark Trail, 3/24/10

Narrow escapes a-plenty in today’s comics! Let’s take a look —

Here ends speculation about how Mark would escape his awful “weapon-wielding woman” dilemma (“Must punch!” / “Can’t punch!”). Yesterday’s baffling snapshot turns out to have been no mere appeal to feminine vanity (a concept unknown to Mark anyway), but a crafty ruse to bring a lady-safe weapon to hand with which to disarm an unpunchable adversary. Well played, Mark — say, are those wiles you’re using? Where did you get those? Does Cherry know?

Gil Thorp, 3/24/10

Personality theorist Gordon Allport held that drives (“elope!”) originating in motives (“get married!”, “avoid parents!”) could grow independent of them, or functionally autonomous. And there’s no better example than surly dimwits Ray and Cassie here. But listen to master psychologist and negotiator Steve Luhm unravel the fabric of their self-deception: “Go to Vegas? Why? You can get legally married right here! And Cassie’s parents can’t do anything about it, so why not wait ’til they get back and stick it all up in their faces, yo! Nobody expects you to behave like adults, anyway!”

After the wedding, Cassie’s new husband and her dad join in a savage mutual beat-down of Steve, their only shared interest. The annual beatings, like their friendship, far outlast the marriage and their memories of the day.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/24/10

I had a disturbing thought today. We all know that Rex and June Morgan haven’t really been themselves for some time, what with Rex’s sexual-identity issues, June’s out-of-control obsessions with housekeeping and other people’s children, and the disengaged silence of their lives even as everyone and everything around them crashes into sick burning hell. Despite their recent carefree what — three-day? eight-month? — Caribbean cruise, they seem depressed. And when these two loser twentysomethings showed up, Rex and June couldn’t even summon the energy for more than a stern chat.

Are Rex and June leaving the strip? Are Toots and Brook their replacements?

It could be a desperate marketing gimmick to attract younger readers, or just a salary dispute — after all, who can afford an M.D.’s salary and an R.N.’s just to fill up that tiny patch of newsprint every day. It could be a charitable effort by their syndicate to give these two comic stalwarts the rest of their lives back after all those years of faithful service. In the end, it’s not ours to judge: thank you, Rex and June, and farewell!

So many questions for our new First Couple! What about Abbey (stay!) and Sarah (go!)? Brook, we assume you’ll want to cut back those bangs — folks around here are used to a little more eyebrow, you know what I’m saying? We can talk about wardrobe once you’re settled in, but let me say for now that a certain double-breasted zebra-print belly-sweater is not part of the long-term picture. Also, would a little lipstick kill you, girl?

Oh hi Toots — you still here?

Yeah, they’ll fit in just fine.

Apartment 3-G, 3/24/10

Ha ha panel-two Margo sure is steamed to be listening to her Dad’s treacle while the scent of blood hangs in the air.

Crankshaft, 3/24/10

“Heh, heh — we can’t reward your cheerful attention and hard work in the culturally-accepted way, because it would trivially complicate our petty, exaggerated displays of fairness to one another — people who actually matter! We’re either sure you understand, or unconcerned that you don’t! Hey, my coffee’s cold — get a move on, willya — you’re not gettin’ paid to stand around talking!”

Hey, it’s the Spring 2010 Fundraiser — please join your fellow Comics Curmudgeon readers and me in financial support for Josh Fruhlinger and his fine work on this blog — thank you!

— Uncle Lumpy