“Well, I still like dialect humor,” says the native Milwaukeean and comic strip commentator who wants only to be known as Uncle Lumpy, “but people are really ultra-careful about using it these days.”
But today’s cautions didn't hinder Lumpy’s appreciation of what’s funny about and from different people. And his old hometown helped develop it. “When I was growing up, Milwaukee was very recognizably multicultural—German and Polish as well as African-American and Hispanic—which expanded the range of humor styles I was exposed to.” Spending his youth in the Cream City prepared him well for his position filling in for Josh Fruhlinger on his 16 year-old blog poking fun at newspaper funnies, The Comics Curmudgeon.
Curmudgeon may trade in satire of a commercial artform decreasing in mass cultural currency, but, as Lumpy notes, “Comics used to be a very big deal! Cartoonists like Al Capp (Li'l Abner), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), and Chester Gould (Dick Tracy) were legit celebrities, and the 1961 launch of (soap opera-styled strip) Apartment 3-G was a Star Wars-scale cultural event. That happens very rarely anymore; The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes are the last strips to really make a mark.”
Yet, Lumpy continues to see in the form he takes to task the potential to transcend its role as a mere diversion from the day’s news, “When it’s done really, really well,” he observes, “by developing and exploring characters like Ruthie Lombard (One Big Happy) or Janis Day (Arlo & Janis), comic strips have an economy of expression that’s close to poetry.”
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Cracking Wise?
It’s challenging, however, for Lumpy to crack wise about such sympathetic characters and the well-written strips in which they appear. As he explains, “it’s really hard to trash a strip that has characters you really like, which is why you’ll see Crock and Funky Winkerbean a lot more often than One Big Happy or my personal favorite, Arlo and Janis... I’ve tried for years to make fun of Arlo and Janis, but it always feels mean-spirited."
Sometimes, however, superior strips, and not always the funny ones, are ripe for Lumpy’s barbs. As he notes, “Whether a comic can be parodied or not has little to do with whether it’s good or bad. The Phantom has terrific stories and art, but so many quirks that it’s an easy target.”
The Phantom is one feature both Fruhlinger and Lumpy give some ribbing, but each blogger has his own distinctive approach to being Curmudgeonly. “Josh completely gave up on Luann and 9 Chickweed Lane, so I have to cover them at least once when I sub. If a strip tickles one of Josh’s many, many nerd-zones (public transportation, trade patterns in Medieval Europe, California geography), he’ll take a deep dive into it. The humor comes from the fact that he’s taking, say, Hagar the Horrible so seriously, and in the contrast between the cartoon and real world.
“I tend to be more punchline-focused. One commenter pointed out that I seem to have gotten crustier over the past few years, and I think that’s right. There are some really bad strips in repeat or on autopilot, and they’re blocking new, better cartoonists.” As for some of what Lumpy misses about dormant or defunct funnies, he offers, "The strong female characters in Little Orphan Annie and Brenda Starr, and I hope Mark Trail comes out of reruns soon and brings back its cast of great secondary characters.”
Trail is another target of mutual snark and affection for Lumpy and Fruhlinger, “but the easiest targets are still the soaps like Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, M.D., and, of course." the strip that inspired Fruhlingher to start the Curmudgeon, Mary Worth.
Uncle Lumpy's current substitute shift on The Comics Curmudgeon concludes on Sunday, September 13. Read it at www.joshreads.com.
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