Post Content

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options.

It’s the 2020 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser! The only good thing about this year!

Six Chix, 9/8/20

I’ve come to see Six Chix as a puzzle feature and not a comic strip. Every day, it presents a collection of images and words, and implicitly asks the reader, “How is this a joke?” I’ve gotten pretty good at it — I can find one or two a week now! But today they upped the ante and added “How is this a chart?”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/8/20

I like fill-in-the-blank puzzles, too! Just imagine how other strips would handle this joke:

Rhymes with Orange, 9/8/20

We are all in very serious trouble.

Sally Forth, 9/8/20

Good luck, sweetie!

The shutdown has been a fascinating time for logistics geeks, as established supply chains broke down and became reëntangled in novel ways. For example, there was always plenty of toilet paper — but in bicycle-wheel-sized rolls of single-ply locked up in the storerooms of shuttered office buildings. And food — in March, I scored a ten-pound bag of chicken quarters for three bucks. They were chilled (freezer space was overwhelmed almost instantly), restaurant-sized (retail chickens are usually much bigger), butchered in-store in a hurry (bandsaw marks, bone fragments), and priced to move. It was probably diverted from the commercial channel by foodservice distributor and logistics prima ballerina Sysco, which turned on a dime to supermarkets once the bars, restaurants, and corporate cafeterias closed.

So a strategic sourcing specialist like Ted ought to be right in his element, puzzling all this out and planning how his company will avoid it next time. Certainly nobody’s going to fire a guy with skills like that at a time like this. But Sally is clearly conflicted about going back to her team of scatterbrains, and who can blame her? Maybe the strip will make a 180° turn and become the story of a happy, well-adjusted stay-at-home mom, her hardworking, sensible husband/breadwinner, their lovely family, and neighbors who still fence in their front yards in case the Forths revert.

— Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/23/20

Well, it looks like Rex Morgan, M.D.’s “Lockdown Stories” isn’t going just involve Michelle tearfully being separated from her husband so she can work the COVID ward, and, uh, Rex gleefully being separated from his family so he can work in the COVID ward; we’re also getting … THE RETURN OF RENE, BABY!

Rene! You know we always want more Rene!

Remember, Rene was introduced as an amiable art teacher/former forger when Woody Wilson was writing the strip, but under current writer Terry Beatty has become a criminal mastermind, with grifts ranging from classic comics fraud to new age scam artistry. You’d think that a global pandemic wouldn’t require the services of this strip’s only actual villain to ramp up the drama, but now that he’s here I’m sure we’re going to learn he’s into some fun stuff. Will it be PPE hoarding? Hawking colloidal silver as a COVID-19 miracle cure? Did he develop the novel coronavirus in a lab specifically to make Buck’s life miserable? Can’t wait to find out!

Six Chix, 8/23/20

Note that the lady in this strip is sipping coffee or perhaps tea from her mug as she enjoys her weekend crossword, probably in the middle of the afternoon, while the dude is walking around holding a glass of wine (who even knows how many he’s had at this point), drunk and belligerent and looking to ruin somebody’s day. It’s dark!

Dennis the Menace, 8/23/20

Did you ever think about how Mr. Wilson, the gruff antagonist in the syndicated newspaper comic strip Dennis the Menace, probably has a pretty depressing life? Well, today’s Dennis the Menace would very much like you to think about it, for some reason!

Beetle Bailey, 8/23/20

Man, if exuberant and energetic displays of joy make you mad, you should probably not work in an ice cream parlor!

Post Content

Six Chix, 7/19/20

OK, I’m saying this as a writer: everything a writer produces comes, at some level, from themselves. You can only interpret ideas and events through your own lens, and honestly much of what you come up with will inevitably draw from your own immediate experiences. It’s just that, well, sometimes the inciting incident that produces a work of art is more obvious than others, you know?

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/20

Man, if there’s one thing Les knows how to do, it’s tell someone how to act like they’re in love with Les, right? Anyway, this movie looks terrible, I assume everyone in the final panel looks so happy because there’s a carbon monoxide leak that’s addling their brains.