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Luann, 9/21/10

Brad, I will say words to you now, so squint up your eyes and make the “I hear you” face. If you tell the girl “Now that Dirk is back you and I should wed”, you should not tell her “Dirk must not be the boss of us”, too. You are the one who wants to make him the boss of you, so you two can wed! It is wrong to say both things! It is like you and you in some kind of big talk fight! Stop it — got that?

The pants of this girl rule your mind!

And don’t just say all kinds of stuff when you get mad! Think hard, and try to make it sound like you want to make sense when you talk! Girls like it a lot when you try hard to be smart for them! I know it hurts, but you have to do it — keep your mind on the pants!

What, once more? You say not so fast this time? Here you go: pants!

And oh, yes: nice truck. Why do you two have to stand in front of it all the time like that? And talk so much? By “so much”, I mean “at all.” And by “in front”, I mean “where we can see you.”

Apartment 3-G, 9/21/10

Whoa! After years stuck in the early ’60’s, A3G stomps on the accelerator — no sooner does Tommie get a makeover than a woman of color shows up! I’m pretty sure that’s a first, and if they keep up this pace, I hope the gals watch out for flying cars ’round about next week or so. Ted Forth’s gonna be so pissed.

Pluggers, 9/21/10

You bet, ’cause you know if it were, this guy would be right there with his épées, vaulting pole, and rowing shell.

Thanks to everybody who contributed yesterday — don’t forget that if you want to send Josh a check or something, I’ll be happy to send you his address. Just email me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net — I mean what the hell, it’s not like it’s my address or anything!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Click above to contribute by credit card or PayPal, here to contribute by check, or here for more details — Thanks!

Josh Fruhlinger started this blog as a hobby in 2004; now thousands of people read it every day to get a chuckle from comics they’ve followed since childhood. Twice a year, I encourage readers to join me in financial support of the Comics Curmudgeon, to help keep this fine entertainment going.

Click the banner above to contribute by credit card or PayPal. Full details (and an index to the fundraiser banners) here. Thank you!

And while you wait for your generous offshore wire transfer to slip beneath the radar of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, please enjoy this Comics Curmudgeon exclusive, Random Dick — the Dick Tracy Continuity Randomizer:

Dick Tracy values continuity even less than the so-called Rights of the Accused. Can you find any differences between a regular Dick Tracy strip and a random collection of panels? Let’s find out!

Dick Tracy, 7/22 — 9/18/10 (panels)*

Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy

* Random Dick may not work in some browsers and RSS readers. If you can’t see it or it runs too slowly, please use the fast large-format version at this link instead.

Notes: OK, it’s not completely random: strips are assembled from one randomly-selected “Dick Tracy” panel, one “Other Person” panel, and one “Building or Object” panel, and then presented in random order. Many thanks to young codemaster Spiff Lumpy for scripting, html, and debugging.

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OK, let’s leave Mary Worth‘s Mike and Jenna alone on the beach to figure out one more time why it makes a lick of sense for Lonnie’s death to propel them into each others’ arms. Other soaps beckon!

Apartment 3-G, 9/20/10

Credit Apartment 3-G for playing the long game. Faithful readers will remember that Blaze recruited Tommie back in January to sing in his theatrical production (Stop the World: I Want To Get Off! set in a Turkish prison) — the diversion that lured her to the stage of I Dressed In the Dark. But only the truly obsessed will recall the misty origins of the Great Tommie Makeover — in 2006, when Tommie’s old flame’s cheatin’ wife Lucy dismissed suspicions of her husband’s adultery on grounds that Tommie and Ted were both just too dull for sins of the flesh. She was right, of course, but for some reason it didn’t sit well with Tommie.

Josh commented at the time, “I can’t wait to see Tommie try to tart herself up.” Well, he had to, but she did, and I just hope everybody’s happy.

Judge Parker, 9/20/10

Sometime around 1965, Judge Parker figured out that law is ghastly boring and they’d better diversify. That was a huge boost for the career of Sam Driver on the right here, who got all the wet work while Judge Alan opined from the bench and L’il Randy was all “O jeez, Dad!” Well, Randy — the one with the brush cut on the left — is all grown up now, and a judge himself! But manly glass-thrusting aside, he’s still pretty much “O jeez!”, only now it’s Sam pitching the worldly wisdom.

Tonight, he will school his young protégé in cars, the ways of professional criminals, and how to slip the cunning traps of chesty sylphs who even now plot his enslavement, in the kitchen, over wine. And after that? BUSINESS PLAN!

Mark Trail, 9/20/10

One odd thing about Mark Trail (and there’s a party game for you!) is its covert but abject horror of Nature: truly wild animals — hibernating bears, for example, or gators — are implacable malevolent soulless evil beasts who would as soon eat your sorry ass as look at you and need to be wiped out. WIPED OUT!!!

Ahem. But give ’em a collar, train them to walk on their front legs, or name ’em “Lucky” and they turn into helpless forest flowers who would never hurt a soul and, after some half-assed “wild animals should not be pets” lecture, deserve a nice warm kitchen, a saucer of milk, and eternal vigilance over their welfare.

So if Stepfather Frank had taken the trouble to stock his pen with unruly, poorly groomed, loathsome wild animals instead of dozy half-pets, he and his pals could blast away all afternoon and Beth would be all smiles, cookies, and lemonade. And if he had shown the foresight to 12-gauge Lucky to kingdom come before that vermin set one goddamn hoof in his kitchen, well, he’d be halfway to The Honorable Stepfather Frank B. Mr. Governor Sir by now, wouldn’t he?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/20/10

Mayor Stu, the slowest student in the history of Public Relations, is determined to get as far behind this story as he possibly can. When he sees the “MAYOR HAS PROSTATE CANCER” billboard atop City Hall, he’ll demand — demand — to know the signpainter’s name. He’s making a list, by God!

— Uncle Lumpy