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Hey guys! I’m taking the next week or so off, so you’ll be the capable hands of Uncle Lumpy, starting tomorrow and running through Sunday the 23rd. As usual, he loves you all too much and too equally to favor just one of your witty japes, so this week’s top comment will stand for a couple of weeks:

“We newspaper colourists get a lot of stick, but damn it, today I’m going to show what I can do! Look at the rich, fiery show of the autumnal Appalachians, with every leaf a unique shimmering blend of golds and reds and… [notices panel 2] SCREW IT, THEY’RE ALL GOING TO BE MUD BROWN” –Schroduck

These runners up are also hilarious!

“Is Dagwood having a midlife crisis? Cookie’s bride price would usually come from the owner of a luxury restaurant.” –Philip Moon, on Twitter

“I’m fascinated by this insight into mermaid developmental biology. I would have guessed that a merbaby would look a lot like a human baby in size and shape except for a fish tail. Instead, we see that the merbaby looks like a miniature adult. To hell with the zookeeper — sell the merbaby to a good research laboratory.” –Poteet

“Sam has been a consistent delight through this. I cherish his look of irritation in that first panel after the logo. ‘Abbey! Abbey, please, this is suede! Suede! The calves who died for this jacket were specifically chosen for their cuteness! Can you comprehend that?’” –Joe Blevins

“I like how elderly Rep. Bellowsworth looks like a perfectly-preserved dowager from the 1920s, while her millennial assistant sports shades, a Beiber haircut and is named ‘Selfy’. Just nice to know that the writer holds anyone who isn’t their exact age in deep contempt.” –pugfuggly

“CRT television? Check. Kerosene lamp? Check. Corded phone? Che– Waaait a minute! It’s touch-tone, not rotary!? Poser!” –Peanut gallery

“At the inquest, Sarge swore he didn’t realize that they had removed the lone branch sticking out of the cliff, and since everyone stopped giving a damn about Beetle Bailey 50 years ago, no charges were brought.” –Dread

“I don’t have my books handy, so could someone tell me which Philip K. Dick drug it is that Tommy’s been taking in lieu of Vicodin that’s making him younger (seeming) but will likely have horrendous consequences for the space-time continuum? Slow Death? Can-D? JJ-180? Anyway, I look forward to Tommy’s paranoid breakdown and eventual violent outburst at the pool party as he tries to tear off Mary’s ‘mask’ and — to everyone’s horror — succeeds.” –Effluvius Erratus

“Hello and welcome to Solving Crossword Puzzles 101. Look to your left. Look to your right. Look at 48 Across, ‘French Poe-litician.’” –Aphthakid

“I was wondering why the whole shoe-shining conversation would cause Daisy to look so excited/concerned. Then I realized that she’s in the middle of an existential crisis. ‘Wait a second! Shouldn’t there be a chair next to Dagwood’s, facing in a different direction. Are no comic strip tropes sacred anymore?’” –Pozzo

“Going against Hollywood trends, this modern reboot of De Sica’s Shoeshine is much less gritty.” –Ettore

“Regarding the Lunarian menace, the Constitution only applies to people (persons) — not to aliens. So I think we can safely revoke the ‘citizenship’ of these aliens and send them off to Area 51 for dissection … I mean study. See Alf v. United States, 185 U.S. 592, 595 (Secret Docket 1990); see also United States v. Mork, 134 U.S. 823, 824 (Secret Docket, 1982); In re One Extraterrestrial Being, 134 U.S. 777, 791 (Secret Docket, 1982).” –Voshkod

“The way that Grandmother’s China was bolded means it is a family heirloom from the 9th century court of Charlemagne. Please let Nikki drop a piece by ‘accident.’” –hogenmogen

“It takes serious dedication to your craft to have your palm of your throwing hand tattooed with the number 7 even if you’re not planning on trying out for the team. ‘Every time I throw a pass, I’m thinking it’s going for seven. I’m serious about this. Are you serious, Kevin? Well, are you?’” –Travesty of Justice

“Plugger men are henpecked — literally! (Because they never get to do what they want, and also because they’re married to chickens.)” –BigTed

“I’m thinking how freakin’ cool would it be to have Ant-Man and Spider-Man salt and pepper shakers? It definitely would one-up the Morgans and their four sets of dinnerware.” –Dood

“If Sarge really wants to experience the full effects of Miss Buxley’s perfume, he should adopt Beetle’s strategy of using his hat to permanently obscure his vision. Everyone knows that when you lose one sense, your other senses become sexier.” –K.M.

“Whatever you do, don’t think about the fact that Beetle just had sex with a woman he’s never even called by her first name.” –Steve S.

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And let’s give thanks to our advertisers:

• Two Party Opera: A daily comic that features the Presidents of the United States as they live on the stage of history and the day-to-day news of political mudslinging.
• Bluebeards Original is proud to join The Comics Curmudgeon as an advertiser! Company owner Paul Kaniewski is a longtime follower of this site, to the point that it inspired him to created the famed Aldo Kelrast MySpace profile. Bluebeards has been making top-rated beard care products for ten years now, so any bearded folks or those that love them, please check out the site and try their stuff.
• Oh, yes, and my novel is something you should buy, in hardback, paperback, or ebook form! It’s called The Enthusiast, and it’s about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy

If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Hagar the Horrible, 10/14/16

You know I’m fascinated by Hagar strips about the transition from Norse paganism to Christianity, but today’s strip is a particularly unsettling entry it that canon. Traditionally, Scandinavians believed in a sort of vaguely defined afterlife that resembled Greek and Roman versions of the underworld; the idea that there was a distinction between Hel and Valhalla, with only the latter allotted to brave warriors, comes from a late, post-pagan source, and is now widely discredited. So the idea that death might be followed by some kind of divinely ordained reward for virtue — or, in this case, awful, eternal punishment for inadequacy — is a new one, and one that some are apparently embracing with more gusto than others.

Gil Thorp, 10/14/16

Speaking of things that displease the gods: I had been holding out that we hadn’t yet seen the ritualistic season-kickoff bonfire in Gil Thorp because it precedes our heroes’ home opener. But here we are, with Milford playing its first game at Mudlark Field (note: may not be actual name of stadium) without having received the ordained benediction by fire. Already we can see the divine punishment beginning: that pouring rain will not cease until Coaches Gil and Kaz, the entire Mudlark team, and the heretical Milford school board that nixed the bonfire as a cost-cutting and public safety measure are wiped from existence in an awful cleansing flood.

Beetle Bailey, 10/14/16

One of the running bits I did in the early years of this blog was that the secret subtext of Beetle Bailey was that Sarge and Beetle were lovers, which I eventually dropped because, with changing mainstream mores and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the idea got a lot less transgressive. It’s good to see that the strip agrees with me and is upping its game when it comes to these two. I’m not sure what exactly is happening here today, but it’s definitely unspeakably perverse.

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Spider-Man, 10/13/16

Superhero comic trufans (of which I am not one, but I hear things) know that each iteration of a long-running beloved character, in different continuities across various media platforms, has slight variations when it comes to the nature of their powers. What, then, can we say about Newspaper Spider-Man when it comes to his famous spider-sense? We know it can’t warn him about some pretty important things he might like to know about, like that he’s about to be hit in the back of the head with a club or a brick. So what is it good for? Well, keep in mind that Newspaper Spider-Man is both a risible dolt and keenly sensitive to anything he might perceive as humiliation (earning less than his wife, a famous actress, for instance). And so, today, it’s finally coming out that Spidey and Ant-Man have been captured because Peter knew Egghead was out to catch Scott, and then went and tracked him down anyway. He knows that everyone’s gonna start yelling at him soon, and he deserves it, and his spider-sense is going nuts.

Gil Thorp, 10/13/16

Traditionally, soap opera strips end on a cliff-hanger every day to keep readers hooked. Unfortunately, it’s harder and harder to work this magic on young people, what with their Snapchats and so forth, so now Gil Thorp is experimenting by ending strips dramatically in mid-sentence.

Pluggers, 10/13/16

Pluggers have so many emotions and nobody they feel safe expressing them to :(