More sacrilege from The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan, just in time for Easter:

 

If you’re waiting for this cartoonist to go all Johnny Hart for the occasion, you’re gonna be waiting a long, long time.

Happy Good Friday, if ya sellabrate it, an’ Happy Not-so-Good Friday if ya don’t:

Things iz bin busy ‘round the Kuzzents household lately, so I thot I’d give Mr. Kuzzents a helpin’ hand by deezinin’ a card fer Mrs. Kuzzents’s birthday, which it is t’day:

 

 

Mister Kuzzents sez he’s glad th’ sofa iz comfertibble fer sleepin’ on.

Sparky

The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan marks the start of Holy Week in high style—High Renaissance style, that is:

 

They’re breaking in a new Pope, folks…get in all the sacrilege you can while there’s still time.

 

     This is the first day of spring, so as usual, all of us in Funsville are digging out from the biggest blizzard since the first day of spring last year. Pressed for time, we’ve once again turned this space over to our friend Frank the Alligator, who’s begged off shovelling snow on account of what he claims is a bad back. I'd claim his front isn’t anything to write home about, either.

     Try not to take anything Frank says too personally—what he lacks in tact, he more than makes up for in rudeness.

Uncle Fun

Thanks for the big buildup. Count on getting your Tom Collinses made with Fresca until further notice.

That comment should’ve clued all you Sherlocks out there into the fact that I work as a bartender. The palpable intellectual understimulation involved in my profession means I’m on the internet a lot.

If you stay on the internet long enough, you’ll realize that it’s a giant landfill of toxic nonsense. Check out this dump truck full of stupid that pulled up to a buddy of mine’s Facebook page last week:

Um…actually, every time I spend money, I’m reminded that I wasn’t GIVEN a vote to cast. You weren’t, either. Hands up, everyone who WOULDN’T vote for a world where you got everything you wanted for free.

Yeah…didn’t think so.

You might want to ask the people of Cyprus about that one too. Sounds like a bunch of inept bankers and politicians tried to proxy a vote for a world where ordinary people take a 10% hit out of their pocketbooks to make up for the ineptitude of bankers and politicians.

In case you were curious (and who would be?), the fridge light of a brain behind the inspirational quote is taking up space in some dim forgotten corner of the head of a graduate of Brown and Columbia. Guess the world her rich mommy and daddy voted for is one where 10-watt dimbulbs with rich mommies and daddies get the kind of expensive and prestigious Ivy League educations that make the rest of us ignorant plebes have to pay attention to any old drivel that oozes out of their mouths.

Because I hate to see dumb animals suffer, I’m lighting a candle and saying a prayer on behalf of actual small-l liberals everywhere that people like Spending-Money-Is-Like-Voting Girl stop appropriating liberalism for themselves and just shut the hell up. Until they do, they’re going to keep making the case for reactionary politics far better than the Rush Limbaughs of this world ever could. “Mom and Apple Pie” comes in a variety of flavours…but they all taste like manure. How much more discerning are you for eating a great big slice of donkey manure à la mode, instead of elephant manure?

Speaking of donkeys and elephants (and if you haven’t figured out what those critters stand for by now, look it up—you’re already on the internet, for Pete’s sake), anyone with two bits’ worth of gray matter to rub together ought to know when spending money equals voting.

It usually happens during elections. I have friends from Canada who haven’t stopped bending my ear on that subject since their last election.

Anyway, the kind of world I want is one where I’ve got better things to waste my time on than this, so goodbye already. That’s for free, too.

Oh yeah—might as well chuck in a free “happy first day of spring” at no extra charge. There’s a six-foot snowdrift outside my front door, so it’s not like I’m going anywhere for a while.

     (Don’t let him fool you…he’d already planned to spend the rest of the day looking at lolcats. —Uncle Fun)

(Aw, bite me, you pumpkin-headed blabbermouth. –Frank)

 

The St. Patrick’s Day edition of The Funday Sunnies finds Duncan once again visiting Fantasyland:

 

You can tell it’s Fantasyland because someone there thought anything associated with the Eurozone was a safe investment.

 

In case ya wuz wonderin’ howcum it’s been two whole weeks b’tween updates in this here blog now (an’ even if ya wasn’t, I’m gonna tell ya), Uncle Fun has been off an' away at th’ Vatickun. Whut with a vacancy fer Pope bein’ vacant an’ all, he saw a opportunity ta do sumpin’ he called “passin’ th’ collection plate among the faithful” in St. Peter’s Basilica. (I allus thot a basilica wuz one’a them li’l bags fulla granular stuff that they put in pill bottles an’ suchlike ta keep ‘em dry, but it turns out I wuz wrong.)

He’s also bin hangin’ round th’ papull confab puttin’ in a good word among th’ cardinals (who I thot wuz in Florida at spring trainin’, but it turns out I wuz wrong there, too) on b’half of a friend of ours. This dint work out too good fer our side, apparently — nor did Uncle’s Fun’s bid ta sell th’ namin’ rights fer th’ next pope, which iz too bad, ‘cuz “Pope Dot Org” hazza modern up-ta-date Infurmashun Age-y ring to it, an’ even tho’ registerin’ th’ intelleckchweal property rights on classic papal names like “Athanasius”, “Innocent”, “Eutychius”, an’ “Hormisdas” cost zero dollars, zero cents in totull, they also yielded a big fat goose egg fulla empty frum th’ boys in th’ pointy hats in th’ Sixteen Chapull. That pack’a killjoys dint even bite on the perenniyul favert “Sylvester”.

So whut did they choose fer th’ new pope’s name? Whut else? Francis. Never mind all that “where wuz you durin’ The Dirty War in Argentina, Jorge?” stuff — that there handle they pick’d out fer him iz one heckuva bang-up choice azza nom de pope fer a Cath’lick Church that’s got problems wit’ its image. Gee whilkers, itza good thing they dint pick sumpin’ that wood invite ridicyule…like, fer exampull, a name associated in th’ entiyure English speakin’ world with sumpin’ completely loodicrus — oh, I dunno, say…sumpin’ along th’ lines of a talkin’ mule comes ta mind here somehow. Here’s th’ leader of a billion er so card-carryin’ rosary owners in th’ Vatickun stables, with his close friend an’ persunnal advisor, Cardinal Donald O’Connor.

I wuz disappointed they dint even cunsidder my two persunnal faverts. There hazzunt bin a Pope Urban in a good long while, so I thot they otta get that name back inta th’ mix, an at least have th’ first Pope Suburban.

I’da even have settled fer a Pope Rural.

Anyway, back ta th’ post-mortem on our candidate fer pope whut wazn’t.

Our pal, th’ musician, advenchoorer an’ obscure-musickull-instrumint-trapper Alex Eddington (pickhoored above on safari) has a buncha qualifickashuns that wooda made him a exsellunt choice ta drag Catholcissism kickin’ an screamin’ inta th’ twenty-first cenchoory, er at least nudge it gently in th’ gen’rull direckshun’ a th’ nineteenth. He’s married, so in one fell swoop, it’s goodbye ta th’ whole “sellibassy a’ th clergy” d’bate. Also, he’s not Cath’lick, so he comes free of all that baggage that th’ restuv th’ Holy Mother Church is encumberated with — things like guilt…an’ havin’ stuff ta be guilty about, an’ so forth. Sometimes a orginizashun’s gotta recroot frum outside ta get a fresh start, y’know.

Anyways, Uncle Fun sez that Pope Alex’s lack’a bein’ Cath’lick an’ whatnot wooden’a necessarily bin a impediment ta his settin’ sail on th’ See of Rome. (That’s his joke, folks, not mine — cast th’ first stone, er whatever it is yer s’posed not ta do, in his genrull dirckshun.) One’a th’ things that Unk’s bin doin’ while at th’ Vatickun is peddlin’ holy relicks attribyootid (by him, anyway) ta th’ first Jewish pope, Harpo I…

…who briefly subbed in fer Pius XII during The Great Schism of 1948, which wuz about whether Leo Durocher otta be excammunicatud fer signin’ up ta manage th’ New York Giants after he manag’d th’ Brooklyn Dodgers. Th’ thinkin’ b’hind this at th’ time wuz that it wuz better ta have a pope that said nuthin’ than a pope that said th’ wrong thing. Th’ originull issue seems triviyull enuf ta us modern-day sofistickates, but it evenchewally led ta a breakaway fackshun namin’ their own rival pontiff — Auntie Pope Jonathan Winters I.

Uncle Fun sez this issue is tray au courant (whatever that means), on ackount’a wimmin wantin’ more rights as Cath’licks instead’a just more Cath’lick rites.

Persunally, I think it’s kinduva drag.

Drag…?

Get it…?

Aw, who needs ya, anyway?

Sparky

Another Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan, another coffee shop:

 

This would have tasted better than the latte in the last coffee shop I went to.

 

This week in The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan, we bring you another heart-warming slice of domestic life:

 

In this household, March appears to have come in like a sea lion.

 

     Here it is again, March—the month named after Mars, the god of war and nougat-filled chocolate bars. For a mercifully brief few days, the dedicated pacifists of Funsville turn their attention to matters martial, in anticipation of the town’s annual military maneuvers, held appropriately enough on March Fourth. (The date was first used at the suggestion of Funsville resident Major R. Tillery-Strike, inventor of the long-range pun.)

     The word “maneuvers” makes the exercise sound a lot more efficient and (not to put too fine a point on it) organized than it actually is. Once the Funsville Civil Defense League and International Flag of Truce Colour Guard assembles at the local armoury (which is located next to the local shouldery), all they do is wander aimlessly towards Rookies’ Memorial Park (veterans already have enough memorial parks named after them), then ask directions to the Tomb of the Unknown Deserter. If nothing else, the undertaking ensures that, no matter what the weather may be, March comes in on terms somewhat similar to both lion and lamb.

     Speaking of March and lions (well, not really, but relevance is where you find it), I’ve just received the latest news from my old friend Dermot the Circus Worm (click on the blue letters you just read past to remind yourself who that is). As he does every winter, Dermot has been training at the winter quarters of Professor Vermiphile’s Worm Circus, in a window box outside a third-floor walk-up near Sarasota, Florida.

     Those of you who remember Dermot may also recall that he occasionally partnered with a hamster in a lion-taming act.

     Dermot and Leonardo di Hamstero (alas, only a stage name, but one with a fair bit more panache than the hamster’s real name of Leonard Jones) have been using their furlough time to put together some new material. March is the final shakedown for the show before it hits the road: Dermot and Leonardo have high hopes for a new trapeze routine they’ve been working on.

 

     They should have most of the bugs out of it before they reach the bigger cities. That’s what the first part of a tour is for.

     Speaking of tours, Kurt Fitzpatrick’s one-man show Cathedral City (directed by Mrs. Cousins; lush sound by Mr. Cousins) opens (like a lion, we hope) tomorrow at the Rogue Festival in Fresno, California. For show times, ticket prices, and all the other things that responsible consumers of serious theatre need to know, click on the blue letters just ahead that say Kurt in Fresno.

     I hear Fresno is lovely this time of year, as a town known far and wide as The Raisin Capital of the World should be. As if that weren’t enough incentive for a road trip to catch Kurt in action, here’s an audio preview. (You did get that the letters that said “an audio preview” were the link, didn’t you? Good—go ahead and click—no-one’s judging you. This is guilt-free web-surfing, of the kind a certain Canadian political advisor should have mentioned, instead of the kind he did.)

     Just in case there’s still someone reading this who hasn’t dashed off to their travel agent or the nearest Greyhound bus depot, getting to Fresno couldn’t be easier. Take a map of California, draw a line northeast from Los Angeles and a line southeast from San Francisco, and head in the general direction of where the lines cross. A further note to any Fresnonians who may be reading—be kind to the visitors I’ve sent your way. They’ll be easy to spot: just look for people meandering around, staring at maps with two crossed lines on them.

     Oh—and if by chance you folks in Fresno happen to come across any political appointees made by the current Prime Minister of Canada who’ve been reading this and have gotten the idea that your fair city might be a good place to lay low until the heat’s off, the Canadian people would like them back as soon as possible. The government is busy building a fresh spate of jails, and it would be a shame to let any of their nice shiny new cells go begging.

Uncle Fun