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Judge Parker, 10/17/13

Why it’s the Harrisons! Hello … Audrey! DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!!

Judge Parker, 6/21/13

Well, Audrey, the Parkers actually consider it their table, and you’ll be pretty *&^% lucky if they let you sit down at it, placecards or no.

But as the solitary drop of rain to have fallen on the Parkers’ parade in recent memory, dear Professor Harrison, won’t you please sit over here with us, and your husband too? May we freshen up those drinks for you? Now tell us, in careful, patient detail, leaving nothing out, all the ways that Alan Parker’s The Chambers Affair is a derivative, puerile, monotonous, steaming mass of gelatinous offal. We’ve got all night.

Back at the Parkers’ table, that is the purplest “California chablis” I’ve seen in my life. I’m beginning to think Sam and Abby aren’t very capable vintners.

Mark Trail, 10/17/13

Ah, the lunatic majesty of a Mark Trail plan. All he has to do is confront two heavily armed co-conspirators in the middle of a wilderness. What could possibly go wrong?

I do love the action pose in panel two — if that phone weren’t already dead, it would be in for one heck of a beating right now.

Crankshaft, 10/17/13

The joke is that Crankshaft thinks this is a joke. The shame is that he steps completely out of character to backstop a stupid golf gag. The tragedy is he’s even less appealing this way. The irony is that those charming panel-one leaves demonstrate a level of craft and imagination far beyond anything the text deserves.

Luann, 10/17/13

These little flickers of self-awareness never amount to anything.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Slylock Fox, 10/16/13

Extinct or not, when a saber-toothed tiger menaces you with its 12-inch canine teeth, do not be the one to say it isn’t technically a tiger. At the very least, don’t be first one.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/16/13

Sarah toils unceasingly over her book in her basement prison. Rex is moved – Stockholm Syndrome is so adorable in the very young.

Six Chix, 10/16/13

Yes, because drug addicts need a loyalty program.

Phantom, 10/16/13

Gah, both Josh and I have been neglecting the Phantom for months because it’s just been such an incoherent mess but it’s the job so here we go:

Remember the mystery aeronaut of Mozz’s dream who had been rescued during WWI by the 19th Phantom and whose spectre showed up in the Deep Woods wearing a tattoo like the logo on drug pilot Ted West’s business card? And how the Phantom went to New York and a) forgave Ted for working with the drug gang because they threatened his family, b) broke into the drug boss’s house, c) knocked out all the minions, d) took a call that told him a big caper was going down at 3:00 AM, e) recorded the boss’s admission that he had taken a hit out on West, and f) here he is at 2:00 calling the cops?

Well the plan here is to use the Phantom’s own break-in as the pretext for a search that will lead police to incriminating evidence on the boss. There are, of course, constitutional safeguards against such behavior, but Dispatch Lady seems to think it’s pretty clever nonetheless.

Unresolved are a) what’s the big caper at 3:00, and b) what’s the connection between the aeronaut and Ted West? There you go: six months of the Phantom you’ll never have to read. If only there were some way to express your appreciation!

9 Chickweed Lane, 10/16/13

If you’re speaking English, it’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” This is true even if you’re having a conversation in English with a German concert pianist. The only reason to switch to German is to show off, and because Germans are required by law to correct your pronunciation, nobody would ever switch to German in this context unless they were pretty damn sure their audience didn’t speak it.

What I’m saying is a couple of thug spooks can kidnap her, drag her to a dungeon, hang her up in chains, and Edda Burber will still find a way to be the biggest jerk in the room.

Of course no real pianist would say it was ‘a’ fugue in C-sharp minor. WTC Book 2 (and why not Buch Zwei Edda hmm…?) includes one and only one fugue in each of the 24 key signatures — why, that’s the actual point of the exercise, is it not? Bach certainly seemed to think so, though I suppose he lacked your chops as an underwear model. Anyway, dearie, tell all the gals back in dance class that it was ‘the’ fugue in C-sharp minor, won’t you? Or just Number Four. Goodness, I’m certainly glad I’m not in that room.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Heathcliff, 10/14/13, 10/15/13

What goes on by night in Heathcliff’s neighborhood just got a lot more disturbing. Heathcliff has quintupled his garbage consumption in just a few short months, and now requires armored strikes by Garbage Ape just to keep him in slop. I fear he is building his strength for an apocalyptic conflict with Marmaduke for absolute domination of the comics page, and I’m not sure which one to back. In this business, you don’t want to be wrong about something like that.

One Big Happy, 10/14/13, 10/15/13

Meanwhile, Ruthie’s got a raven to sleep in her princess doll bed, hide in her closet, and share her breakfast. The raven tells her secrets. Terrible, terrible secrets that all ravens know but little girls must not.

Stupid raven, leave her alone — she’s just a little girl! I don’t care how much you like Trix!

Gil Thorp, 10/14/13

First I wrote, “Gil Thorp is getting a little annoying”, but the sentence just laughed at me so I put these other words around it. John Pascoe is a skilled football player who can talk but doesn’t. Nobody else can seem to shut up about this. Including, now, me. Crap.

— Uncle Lumpy