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The 2020 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser has ended — thank you, generous readers!

Well, pretty much all the newspaper comics have caught up with social distancing, personal protective equipment, and the whole shebang. No more escape from reality for us!

Six Chix 9/12/20

In this Slylock Fox prequel, it is only the animals’ disciplined hygiene that protects them against the plague that wipes out careless, inconsiderate humanity.

Zits 9/12/20

It’s ironic: the cheerleaders conceal their hotness to ensure that only the hot survive. Also, those outfits look hot, though not in a hot way.

Sherman’s Lagoon 9/12/20

Too grim? Then let’s all come together as a nation to tell this chirpy usurper that the one and only NOAA mascot is always and forever Mark Trail.

Funky Winkerbean 9/12/20

Nah, he’s still right behind you.

Phantom, 9/12/20

Charles Darwin once inferred the existence of a moth with an 11-inch proboscis from an orchid with an 11-inch nectary. By that same principle of complementarity, I infer that the 22^nd Phantom will be [trumpets] Heloise Walker. Well that and the fact that I’ve been ‘shipping her for this for fourteen years.

A legendary hero/ine must have a nemesis, and Kadia Sahara is clearly emerging as Heloise’s. Kadia has:

• Terrorist DNA from her father, Eric THE NOMAD Sahara.
• Profound Daddy issues — Eric tried to murder Heloise, her college BFF/roomie.
• A complex backstory and relationship with the hero/ine — Heloise is Kadia’s BFF, but beat up her Dad and put him in Gitmo.
• As Imara announces here, Kadia now has access to global resources and connections that allow her to usurp her father’s role and carry out his mission

A couple of details need to be worked out, not least of which is there are now TWO terrorist masterminds imprisoned by the Walkers: Chatu in Wambesiland and Eric THE NOMAD in Gitmo. But it’s easily resolved: The Elder Phantom frees them both to “let them settle it” or some such nonsense; they fight it out for control of the organization; Chatu wins (have you SEEN that guy?); Kadia sneaks up and kills him in her supervillainess-defining moment, and takes over. Then Kadia knocks off Elder Phantom, Heloise swears a blood oath, young Kit takes another bong hit, yadda yadda yadda. All hail Kadia, THE NEWMAD.

An earlier, incomplete version of this post appeared early yesterday morning because I scheduled it to the wrong date. That’s right, I literally forgot about 9/11.

— Uncle Lumpy, America’s Worst American

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Zits, 7/18/20

Zits has been doing this mildly funny thing all week where various characters in or ostensible creative personnel behind the strip have been absent because they’re “on furlough” (ha ha, it’s funny because the world is in an economic crisis leading to widespread mandatory underemployment!), but today’s edition took, for one brief panel, a turn for the horny! But that wasn’t just restricted to Zits: there’s a real epidemic of horniness in today’s funny pages.

Beetle Bailey, 7/18/20

The “Halftracks hate each other” Beetle Bailey strips have done angry horny before, but this is a particularly egregious example. I think what really makes it is not that Mrs. Halftrack has hired some shirtless himbo to bring her liquor as she sits in her poolless back yard, and not even that General Halftrack is staring at her out the window; it’s that Major Greenbrass, the General’s subordinate and golf partner (I hesitate to say “friend”) has been roped into the ugly scene, much against his will.

Blondie, 7/18/20

Blondie is also extremely horny today, though it takes great pains to emphasize that this horniness takes places entirely within the boundaries of normative suburban heterosexual monogamy. I can’t put a finger on why, but I find the idea of Dagwood going all ahWOOga after seeing his wife’s hot bod while wearing a tan polo shirt tucked into black khaki shorts particularly distasteful.

The Lockhorns, 7/18/20

Today’s Lockhorns isn’t horny per se, but seeing Leroy angry because this movie isn’t arousing him the way he wants it to is at least horny-adjacent.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/18/20

A stern, mysterious old woman, dressed all in black, ordering Rex to follow her detailed instructions if he wants to win June’s affections? That’s so not horny that I think it’s looped all the way back around to horny again.

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Judge Parker, 2/27/20

How’s Judge Parker Senior’s mayoral campaign going? Well, when he had his surrogates float the idea to the media that he might be thinking about a run, they ran a story on the evening news featuring footage of him being led off to prison in handcuffs, so, not great, it turns out! Still, Sam urges Alan to keep his focus on the people he’s really working for: the prisoners, the ones he met in jail and who helped him understand things about society that he never had before, the ones who he’s going to free by dynamiting the prison walls and turn into an unstoppable army that he’ll use to rule Cavelton with iron fist. Remember how Bane ran Gotham for the last half of The Dark Knight Rises? It’ll be like that.

The Lockhorns, 2/27/20

Wow, never mind the typical gloomy facial expressions on Leroy and Loretta: check out the profoundly intense frown on the face of their poor houseguest. I mean, you don’t expect anyone hanging out with them for any length of time to be happy about it, exactly, but this poor fellow seems to have absorbed the house’s negative energy like a sponge and is probably going to drop dead of a bile overdose at any moment.

Zits, 2/27/20

Zits is not a strip I talk about very often here, but I promise you this: I will always absolutely let you know when it abruptly veers into ass-themed body horror.

Mark Trail, 2/27/20

Wow, you heard it here first, folks: Rusty is going to get red-pilled by reading the unpleasantly ribald comments about Luann on GoComics.com.