A spooktacular comics roundup, part 2

Enjoy never sleeping again.

Before you go out trick-or-treating, I invite you to cleanse your palette with some seasonally appropriate comic strip parodies.

Time for a spooktacular Halloween comics roundup!

These people are not trick-or-treaters! Do not open your door to them!

The frost is on the pumpkin, the leaves are on the ground, and the kids are all back in school having their spirits broken. That's right, fall is underway! And I have such a limited imagination that I can't think of a better way to celebrate autumn than with another comics roundup! So let's rake some comics into a big pile and then dive in!

It's an old-fashioned summertime comics roundup! (Part 1)

Sadly Priscilla's Pop is not one of the strips covered in the following article.

Hey, y'all! How's your summer going? That's nice.

I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood to throw some more newspaper comics onto the rusted-out Weber barbecue grill in the backyard and char them to cinders. Does that sound like fun? Okay, then. Let's get to it.

Comics are fun for everybody! Let's read some now!

Batman is not in this article. This image is lying to you.

I know I just did a comics roundup a few weeks ago, but I figured it would be a nice change of pace to post something non-Ed Wood-related to this blog. So let's dive in and swim, huh?

Oh dear. It's time for another comics roundup.

"Take that, you judgmental old biddy!"

The comics, like the waterfalls, never stop. That's a big part of their charm, the constancy. Sure, the newspaper industry died at least ten years ago, and the last non-ironic reader of Judge Parker died twenty years ago. But does that mean King Features Syndicate should just stop paying people to write and draw Judge Parker? I hope not.

Anyway, I haven't done one of these comics roundups since February, and they've been building up on my computer, so I figured it was time. Past time, really.

Another roundup of comics parodies by Joe Blevins

Remember these?

Well, folks, it's that time again. The long-running comic strip Mary Worth has just wrapped up another glacially paced story, so I figured it was time to do another assortment of comics parodies, takeoffs, and spoofs. I've accumulated quite a few of these over the last few months.

Is it already time for another comics roundup? Apparently.

Yep. In colors. Plural. We're going all out here.

Look. If you read this blog, you already know the deal. Occasionally, I like to clear off the images I have saved to my computer and start fresh. Specifically, these are various parodies of newspaper comics that I've done over the last couple of months. That's what this is. Not into that? Then this isn't the article for you. Move on to something else.

Let's have fun with the funnies! Part One: The Random Stuff

This is your cultural legacy, America. Don't neglect it.

It's been a while since I've done a post like this. As you know if you follow this blog, I do a lot of parodies and remixes of newspaper comics. Occasionally, I like to collect these and post them here so I can delete them from my hard drive in good conscience. That's what this is: another collection of random junk headed for the incinerator.

Let's go.

This is just a bunch of comics parodies and remixes, okay?

This book never existed, but don't you kind of remember it in bookstores anyway?

Look, I'll level with you. I was going through the images saved to my hard drive, deciding which ones to chuck, and I found some  comics parodies that I hadn't posted here yet. So I wanted to collect them in one big post before deleting them from my computer forever. That's what this post is. There's nothing else to this, so don't expect any incisive commentary.

Let's mess with Judge Parker a little today, huh?

Ah, now that dialogue seems a little more natural.

Retired magistrate Alan Parker (no relation to the director) is rarely seen in Judge Parker, the long-running comic strip that bears his name. Most of the stories these days revolve around handsome, wealthy, arrogant lawyer Sam Driver and occasionally around Alan's dull lookalike son, Randy, who is also a judge. But today, the original Judge Parker himself is center stage in Judge Parker. And it feels all wrong.

To be honest, I read the strip every day and can't really follow it worth a damn. Lately, it's been on some kind of spy kick. Randy is married to April, a secret agent (?) who is being double-crossed by the CIA or something and had to abandon her husband without warning. See that baby Alan is holding up there? That's Randy and April's newborn daughter (or at least I think so). Don't know her name, sorry. Let's call her Cinnamon Bun. Alan has been taking care of Cinnamon Bun while his daughter-in-law is busy with spy stuff. I think April is in custody and is telling her side of the story to the media. And, all the while, Alan has been -- for reasons I cannot explain -- way more knowledgeable about all of this than most of the other characters. So now Alan's wife Katherine is mad at him.

Got all that? Good, 'cause I don't. If you need to know, over at The Comics Curmudgeon, guest blogger Uncle Lumpy has given us an excellent rundown of the characters in Judge Parker.

Today's strip finds Alan and Katherine at home, embroiled in a spat. But it's more like half a spat, because Alan is perfectly oblivious while his wife is increasingly irritated. This kind of marital dynamic seems less suited to Judge Parker and more suited to Bunny Hoest's unkillable domestic comedy The Lockhorns. So I decided to take Alan and Katherine out and put Leroy and Loretta in.

You're welcome, I guess.

P.S. - The next Judge Parker strip also reminded me of another beloved pop culture character.

John Banner, you are missed.

A heartwarming moment from today's 'Judge Parker'

No need to go on Maury, Randy. You are definitely the father!

I've had a love-hate relationship with the comic strip Judge Parker this year, especially when this long-running legal soap opera spent several months heaping misery and sorrow onto the smug, rich Driver family. I mean, sure, they deserved it. Big time. But after a while, enough was enough. That story seems -- at long last -- to have concluded, and the strip has shifted its focus from the Drivers to the Parkers. (Dig that symmetry, huh?) Specifically, hotheaded Randy Parker has just reunited with his estranged wife, April. And, to put it mildly, he didn't handle it well. But his temper tantrum did provide the inspiration for the parody you see at the top of this post. Here is the original for comparison.

Did someone ask for an Armadilloid version? No? Well, here's one anyway.

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

And why not a Mary Worth crossover, too?

I like how Wilbur's flowers match his/her glasses.

Blah, blah, blah, Mark Trail, something, something...

Aw, man, you couldn't burn Old Wave or Back to the Egg instead?

I was looking through old files on my hard drive, and I found a little Mark Trail remix that I hadn't put up on the blog yet. So here's that. You're welcome... or I apologize, depending on your reaction. That doesn't seem like enough for a post, so here's a Marvin parody, too:

It's funny 'cause he's abandoning his wife and infant child.

And here's a Judge Parker, too:

I just liked the haunted look on Ned's face.

Finally, here's a Marvin/Funky Winkerbean crossover, since I know you were all waiting for that.

Well, at least she didn't miss those leaves.