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Mary Worth, 8/15/13

Mary’s long depressing walk in the desert with what’s-her-name where they talked about widowhood, which I found so boring that I’m not even bothering to dig up a post to link to, took for-frickin’-ever and I hated every minute of it. But this amazing “talk group”? It can go on for years as far as I’m concerned. Let’s everyone just let loose with some free-form anxiety/complaints! “My kids are out of control and I don’t know what to do!” “I’ve alienated everyone who’s every loved me!” Will Mary be so overloaded with meddling possibilities that she’ll shut down with smoke coming out of her ears, like a computer from the original Star Trek confronted with an elementary logic paradox?

Gil Thorp, 8/15/13

Oh, man, is Gil Thorp going to get in trouble for breaking kayfabe and revealing to the world that pro wrestling is staged? Not sure what the punishment for Gil Thorp the strip will be, but Gil Thorp the guy will be punished by getting into the ring with a man who’s quite physically fit but isn’t mentally all there, and who might have a hard time sticking to the script that they only half-assedly worked out.

Blondie, 8/15/13

Check out those weird circular wrinkles around the base everyone’s neck in this comic. Almost as if they’re wearing a garment the exact color of their skin? It appears that for the past eight years or so, Dagwood has continued his habit of wearing shirts made out of human flesh, and has even convinced the local youth to join his nightmarish death cult.

Family Circus, 8/15/13

If the Keane Kids are going to wander through this sterile, baffling condo complex for days and eventually starve to death, as I assume they will, it’ll be kind of appropriate that they were literally killed by suburban conformity.

Wizard of Id, 8/15/13

Here is a comic about a sexually aggressive dragon, enjoy!

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Apartment 3-G, 8/14/13

Hi everybody! I’m back from scenic Canada, and as always am appreciative for Uncle Lumpy’s fine comics-mocking skills and your pleasant behavior. Just to show you how dedicated I am to vacationing: I found out that Mark finally took Rusty fishing just like you did: on joshreads dot com, your #1 source for Mark Trail news. It was an interesting feeling and it made me think: what if I treated my relationship with the comics like the normals do, and didn’t bother to read the ones that I missed while I was away? This idea lasted roughly five seconds, because Apartment 3-G left me floundering in confusion, because wait why is Peter kissing Margo oh wait that’s Zoey what the hell did she always look exactly like Margo only with short hair? Turns out no, she used to look more like Margo’s mother Gabriella, but expecting Apartment 3-G characters to maintain stable facial configurations for more than a week or two is pretty much asking for disappointment, so whatever.

Mary Worth, 8/14/13

I also went back to see what was happening (for certain extremely limited definitions of “happening”) in Mary Worth, but I kind of regret that now. Wouldn’t it have been better to take in today’s strip without any buttressing narrative structure and just appreciate it for what it is: a guy with a mustache angrily complaining about his terribly disappointing life to the vaguely sympathetic members of a “talk group”?

Funky Winkerbean, 8/14/13

I actually deliberately stopped myself from going back and reading previous Funky Winkerbeans. I don’t want any context for this. I don’t even want the context supplied by the first panel. I just want the image of Harry Dinkle, smiling beatifically as he imagines a freakishly huge version of his younger head vomiting out a marching band. Where is the band coming from? What horrible non-Euclidean hell-dimension lies inside the Dinklemaw? I want this image and only this image, forever.

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B.C., 8/13/13

Prehistoric or not, it’s time to catch up when Prince Valiant beats you to a technology joke by two years.

Crankshaft, 8/13/13

“And by ‘great practice’ we mean ‘pointless and expensive truck rolls that put us at risk, endanger the public safety, and have had no effect on the frequency or recklessness of your life-threatening behavior.'”

“As part of your award, your family and the Montgomery County Court have arranged a special honorary bunk for you at, um, ‘Firehouse Manor’, where you’ll be on special honorary permanent assignment under the “Honorary Heroes” program, Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 5122.01(B). Your new Captain will give you additional orders on your arrival. Be sure to take all the vitamins she gives you so you can perform all your special honorary duties! Been great knowing you, gramps!”

Dick Tracy, 8/13/13

Dick Tracy‘s new creative team has been referencing, recapping, and extending old characters and plots all the way from the strip’s 1930’s origins through the Moon Madness of the 1970’s. Today’s second panel recaps the final episode before the team took over from Dick Locher in 2011: in it, Mordred tries to kill Dick Tracy in an abandoned granary but is eaten alive by rats before he can seal the deal.

So what happens now? Does the strip move forward from the present moment, with new villains to overcome and crimes to solve? Or does it start recapping the recaps themselves in an ever-tightening spiral until Dick Tracy shrinks to a single image, of a solitary rat nibbling on the last morsel of a villain, every day forever?

Heathcliff, 8/13/13

Heathcliff Moves On, Part XLIV: By car, scooter, balloon, elephant, and now by cannon, a cat’s gotta travel.

BOOM, I’m outta here — apparently, I’ve been selected for some sort of honorary program, and I don’t want to be late for my initiation! Josh returns Wednesday morning with more of the rich, savory comic goodness you’ve come to expect from the Comics Curmudgeon. Thanks!

–Uncle Lumpy