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Luann, 8/25/14

Luann‘s gimmick is to tiptoe right up to an interesting plot development, pull out the rug, and slam the door on the reader’s nose. To pick just a few recent instances, will Luann and Quill get it on in the costume closet, with ensuing romantic complications? No. Did TJ finally cross the line, blowing up both his food truck and his friendship with Brad? Nope. Is Bernice’s new roommate Dez with all the ambiguously sketchy visitors a drug user? Nosiree. Will Brad and Toni any verb in the English language? Hahaha.

When every single plot is a cheat, you have to fall back on “character” to sustain interest. In Luann, “character” means Everybody Gets a Trait. Thus Stoic Brad, Nice Guy® Gunther, Vain Tiffany, Smart Bernice, Plucky Toni, Cynical NancyMom, Clueless FrankDad, Shady T.J., Outsider Knute, Noble Stereotype Delta, and Whoops! The music stopped, but there doesn’t seem to be a chair for Rosa — had her eye on the “Noble Stereotype” seat, I bet, but Delta’s pretty damn fast. Sorry, kiddo, you gave up Yale for this and didn’t even get the t-shirt.

“It’s a small world after all.”

And so to Peru, or at least the version of Peru that tarts up Lima’s J.W. Marriott hotel with accessories from Epcot Center to make it look more international-like.

Already we see signs of trouble – Gunther’s loving the tourist life but dreads the filthy Ebola-ridden cesspit he imagines this ‘clinic’ may be. Rosa’s bored because she’s traveling with Gunther, duh.

There’s a chance this mess could still work out. After all, Uncle’s outfit seems to be a little less the “impoverished villager pays with a chicken” type of clinic and a little more the “Managing Director jets off to Madrid for a ‘big conference’ on the NGO’s dime” type. So perhaps Gunther will find contentment in the clinic’s ultra-modern Histology Lab, quietly and expertly preparing tissue samples under bright lights amid purring coolers and gently gurgling circulators. Rosa, of course, will learn that the interns are all Yale grads who ridicule her polysyllabically as she mops. Ay, insuficientemente rápido de remanentes chica!

Hägar the Horrible, 8/25/14

Hägar instructs his men to mock their dying victims as a public-relations move. Makes you wonder what they were doing before.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/25/14

Coach Bull Bushka angles for a pity hire from a place called “DUI” in full view of his current employer, who has absolutely no problem with that. Or maybe Principal Green’s just in a good mood because Les is off today.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 8/24/14

Pluggers II — Ascension

The Change came faster than anyone could have imagined. Proto-pluggers, still in animal form, quickly learned to operate the machines left for them as the humans devolved. Seduced by simple sense-pleasures, their former masters abandoned the responsibilities of economic life, cleaning up after themselves, and caring for their — what did they call them in the Before Times? Oh, yes — pets.

Mark Trail, 8/24/14

It’s good to see that despite the change at the helm, Sunday Mark Trail is sticking to its time-honored themes. Take it from NOAA: whether by tidal wave, lightning, flash flood, or this tornado here, Nature is an implacable monster and will stone cold kill you — probably by blowing up your barn or throwing a tractor at you or some shit. We oughta global-warm the hell outa that bitch.

Sally Forth, 8/24/14

Faithful readers, summer is on the wane. Think of the pops. You know Ted has. The pops! Soon they will be but a memory.

Crankshaft, 8/24/14

If you’re looking for humor, try “the food is terrible — and the portions are so small!” But if you’re in the mood for mean, pinch-lipped, incoherent spite, you can’t go wrong with Crankshaft.

Ohmigod, Josh — just two days until you hit the road! HURRY HURRY HURRY!

–Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 8/23/14

Pluggers Arise

Slowly, weighed down by the unfamiliar clothing, Betsy rose to stand on her hind legs … on her … legs. Powerful thoughts rose unbidden in her awakening mind. No more would she beg or heel for an “owner” or any other mistress: she would destroy them, and assume their place. She would have foibles … and, and, squalor, and resentments. And sweet prescription medications. Betsy’s time — her age — had come. She was next, and the world would tremble.

Her owner’s last shriek echoed in the gathering darkness: “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty plugger!”

Crankshaft, 8/23/14

The authors of Crankshaft wish their readers to know that they are perfectly capable of crafting a serviceable pun in English. It is their hateful main character, Ed Crankshaft himself, who alone butchers our language, out of spite.

Dennis the Menace, 8/23/14

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires Alice Mitchell to carry a Ionizing Radiation Hazard symbol with her at all times, because she is just that hot!

Edge City, 8/23/14

Obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin’s neurotic obsessions are approaching some sort of vanishing point.

Family Circus, 8/23/14

“All except the Oxy, Jeffy – I get those from Duwayne.”

Phantom, 8/23/14

Illegally imprisoned in a Deep Woods cage by a masked enforcer on trumped-up “terrorism” charges, Wambesi freedom-fighter Chatu is kept alive as bait to trick his followers into revealing their loyalties. When President Lamada Luaga can no longer tolerate the human-rights abuses carried out in his name, the Phantom subjects Chatu to a savage beat-down to show Luaga that his precious “Rule of Law” is no match for the Phantom’s own Law of the Jungle, so watch your step, pal. The terrified Luaga surrenders his principles and his rival’s fate to the sinister forces that underpin his regime, abandoning his citizen to a forgotten, hopeless future. Democracy’s heroes, ladies and gentlemen!

Spider-Man, 8/23/14

This would be nothing more than Spider-Man getting shamed by a real superhero yet again, except for the delightful rhyming onomatopoeia in the final panel: “Thok, Doc Ock! Btok! Sock, Pok! That’s a lock; off the clock — you rock!

Hey! I’m minding the store while Josh pulls up stakes and starts a new life in the City of Angels. Look for travel updates, old-timey postcards, and more ahead.

— Uncle Lumpy