Filmmakers … always trying to create “drama”
Post Content
Gil Thorp, 4/30/24
This week in Gil Thorp we’ve learned that star Mudlark pitcher Leo Atazhoon is Native American (this may actually not be new info but rather just something I forgot) and also (definitely new information) lives on the “Milford Rez.” This sent me spinning into new realms of the perennial “Where is Milford, anyway?” question until today, when we learn that he’s, uh, probably in one of four states, out West, where the climate doesn’t match what we see in the strip? Unless he’s Navajo and living on a non-Navajo reservation which is … possible, I guess, but I don’t think that’s something that happens all that often? Anyway, don’t let these cultural/geographical questions distract you from two of the funniest things that have every happened in Gil Thorp, which are the director (?) guy doing that frame thing with his fingers and a narration box that says “Leo Atazhoon. Pitcher. Vegan.”
Gasoline Alley, 4/30/24
Good news, everyone! Gasoline Alley’s name will forever remain “Gasoline Alley,” just like Walt named it back in the day! Bad news: Walt is about to be aggressively pepper-sprayed for damaging public property, then tasered for “resisting arrest.”
218 replies to “Filmmakers … always trying to create “drama””
MW: Apologies to anyone who has any concern for the driver of that car because it’s deemed completely unimportant compared to Wilbur’s throbbing biological urges. After all, nobody cares about if someone is alive or not; Wilbur is
desperately hornylooking for love RIGHT NOW and will not be ignored!Mary Worth Mashups: Which of the linked final panels be the most appropriate for Wilbur?
Mary – I love that Wilbur has the self-esteem to think he rates a Meagan. And to think that his sad fish tank rates as an aquarium.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m just proud that you remembered the mayo.
MW:
“I’m Meagan.. I distractedly toppled the statue of the Buc-EE’s mascot the other day, and I got chased by an angry mob of shoppers for miles!”
“I’ve found my soul mate!”
MW: As a professional advertising writer, Meagan knows how to write a dating site profile that strongly sets her apart from the rest. I wonder if she also enjoys the extremely niche hobbies of music and having fun.
Frazz: My goodness, did Frazz just empathize with another human being? Nah, he’s just the kind of stalwart moral paragon who only talks shit about people behind their backs while sucking up to them when face-to-face.
Luann: Karen Evans thinks people yelling thoughtlessly insulting rhymes and alliteration about their supposed friends is a lot more comedic, endearing, and interesting than it actually is. The only positive is that this strip usually flips plots every 2-3 weeks to refresh the dynamic (mostly with just a slight rearrangement of the unfunny asshole ensemble), but here we are in Week Six with no end in sight, and this is going from bad to downright grim.
CS: Remember how the Winkerbeans moved to Florida? Well, Tom Batiuk needed one of them for a one-off joke, so at least for today that never happened! Of course, a visionary artist like Batiuk would only dumpster his comic’s fundamental continuity for an absolute banger of a joke, so surely the punchline will be devastatingly funn- oh.
Josh, I think you accidentally said “bad news” about Gasoline Alley. Pretty sure that should be good news twice over.
MW: Everyone fiddles with facts on their dating profiles, but it’s going to take a Pulitzer Prize winning ghost writer to render Wilbur palatable. Maybe a Hugo recipient.
9CL: I’m hoping The Vatican will just shut this whole strip down.
GT: Even SAYING “beef” appalls the lad. Is there such a thing as a verbal vegan?
I wouldn’t be surprised with how self serving the universe has been to Wilbur that the old man is going to be related to Megan and he’s going to hook up the two of them. You know, because Wilbur is just such a hero.
DT: Once again, my low-expectation predictions about the course of events are thwarted by the writer going a significantly dumber route. The children’s book of clues was stupid, sure, but it at least had the potential to be fun-stupid. But of course it was just an excuse for fanboy extraordinaire Mike Curtis to gobble some empty-calorie memberberries about cartoon mice, and now we’re on to more pointless memberberries in the form of a goofy car driven by a lame hillbilly character that Curtis loves forcing his artists to draw but can never remember to give any kind of personality whatsoever. But there’s a totally good reason for this, because… uh… Croptop’s car spontaneously broke while it was illegally parked on the grass in Grant Park for hours without getting towed because that could possibly happen maybe! And calling a cab or an Uber is out of the question because reasons! And the boring hick just happened to be driving through the middle of the park in the Batmobile he won in a comic convention raffle because I must be having a stroke!
JP: As it always goes in Cavelton, Francesco Marciuliano writes himself into a corner and then frantically pulls the ejection seat handle by arbitrarily jumping forward in time so he can look backwards in time and describe a smattering of various ludicrous plot details retroactively. And so we gather here today to celebrate the life of one of the most despicably evil fictional characters I’ve ever read about, with April having become extremely sentimental about her mother despite endorsing her completely pointless suicidal plan with barely an objection or comment. As godawful as this story’s conclusion was, these epilogues are always packed to the brim with insanity, so get ready for a fun week.
@MKay: Wilbur just has to be himself. He’s an acquired taste, but if he puts himself out there I have a hunch he’ll make a fast and strong connection with a lovely woman by the name of Martha Zerro.
@Baja Gaijin: I think a picture of Artheur would be good. Anyway, I hope he gets catfished like Estelle did.
GT “Leo Atazhoon. Pitcher. Vegan. Flag on the moon. How did it get there?”
GA: Sweet, I think we’re about to see Electricity get its revenge…
@Baja Gaijin:
On Wilbur’s date identity : I feel robbed that none of the choices are Meagan, as she is shown in today’s comic, but with the missing third panel revealing “she” is, in fact, Arthur Zero running another con.
************
Gasoline Alley : Nah, Walt’s not getting arrested for breaking that ancient light fixture; having been made before safety regulations, breaking it released a bunch of chemicals that, when exposed to air, turn into a cloud of lethal gas. Yeah, this city will be known as Gasoline Alley for the rest of all* of its citizens’ lives, which is going to be the next 18 to 35 seconds.
*Yeah, the strip ended that NOT EVERYONE was present at this City Hall meeting, but I prefer to believe the entire population of this city (and thus, the entire cast) is going to die, strip over.
************
Gil Thorp : “Seriously though, I don’t have “beef” with Rod, or with ANYONE on the team. I compete against the guys on the other teams, not with my own teammates, regardless of what a bunch of college sport headhunters would make you believe.”
*************
Luann : … I would have prefered if this storyline had gone down the path of “use AI to deepfake Luann’s video to produce ‘Before’ and ‘After’ videos from it that fit Batubs’ business plan better”, or even “go back to Luann, tear down her newfound self-esteem until she’s a depressed, jaded, despairing mope, then film her in THAT state, label it the ‘Before’ video, and the first video ‘After’ “, because “take credit for Luann’s newfound enthusiasm and joy at having unlimited potential” is not the zany scheme this strip seems to think it is. Heck, it’s not even a lie, they really DID inspire Luann to feel better about herself!
JP: [Bugs Bunny voice] Aaaand so, having re-re-RE disposed of da monster, exit our he-roes….
MW: Soldiers used to say ‘somewhere there’s a bullet with my name on it.’ Poor Meagan, she doesn’t know it but somewhere there’s a Wilbur with her name on it.
@jroggs: Ten bucks says this is just a placeholder gravestone because ‘they never even found the body…’ Laugh track, freeze frame, roll credits.
MW: Can we just skip to the part where Wilbur takes Meagan on a double date with Zak and Iris and makes an ass of himself.
GT: World’s nerdiest gang sign.
There ain’t enough Photoshop editing available to make Wilbur’s pic acceptable, so he uses one of Ed Asner instead.
Gasoline Alley: It would be the height of irony if Walt got electrocuted by banging his cane into a light socket. It would also be a quick, merciful death and the end of the strip, but you can’t ask for everything. Or can you?
@Hibbleton: I hope it’s just Zak and the ladies talking about their fitness routines and Wilbur’s chowing down while thinking that Iris is seething with jealousy and that both women want him so much. Cue his massive disappointment when they all leave him behind (but at least Zak paid the bill).
Maybe that director guy is just trying to show solidarity with Leo by throwing what he mistakenly thinks is a Navajo gang sign.
MW: my name is Wilbur. My favorite things include indulging in bizarre fantasies while stalking women.
GT: That was a naked attempt at beef/vegan wordplay.
GA: That was a government light fixture, so the replacement cost will bankrupt Walt. Ironically, he’ll have to change his last name!
JP – Ok, so if April’s mom was able to have a bomb smuggled into Pavel’s compound and detonated by her mole on his staff, why did she have to be there in the first place? Why didn’t she just blow him up while she and April were drinking mojitos on the patio? Or did she have to do the smuggling herself and those were C-4 breast implants she had? She did look awfully perky for an old gal.
GT: He assumes that Navajos are too stupid to realize what beef means in this context.
BTW, who’s Rodney Barns? Does he raise cattle?
MW: We discover that randomly knocking strangers down is heroic.
Frazz: There’s a missing fourth panel where Frazz tells Mrs. Olsen that as a runner, he can just leave Funkville with a little effort.
Luann: Well, yes, apparently Mayim Bialik needs a bit of a rebrand, but why did Bets bring her up?
CS: Since you’re already there, Holly (literally inexplicably), can you do one more flaming baton trick and burn down the bookstore? Thanks!
RMMD: People who get a text and photo from this vet of their dog lying on its back with X’es on its eyes aren’t as happy.
9CL: Those are the facial expressions of two people getting ready to pass gas.
“Ac mae’ch gwên mor hyfryd â’ch gwallt.”
“Ydych chi’n mynd i gyfaddef hyn i gyd?”
“Mae popeth rydw i wedi’i ddweud yn wir. Pam y dylai fod yn rhaid i mi fod yn absennol ohono?”
“Nawr mae’n rhaid i ni fod yn rhydd o gochi.”
LUANN – Was “batubs” ever explained? “Bets” and “Tiffany” somehow make a portmanteau of “Batubs”? None of these marketing wizards thought it sounded like ‘bathtubs” and would be confusing?
It can be a useful habit of mind to not think too deeply about something. Family tragedy, for example, often can’t be absorbed all at once but needs to seep in over time so we aren’t overwhelmed.
Clearly, Greg and Kar are adherents to this notion. Just put something resembling a plot out there and then don’t have anyone think too hard about it and hope to muddle through without needing to explain anything.
MW: Is it too much to hope that this leads to Wilbur getting eaten by a shark?
Zits: The real lesson should be that your teenage child will of course listen to one of their friends about sage advice, even if you’ve said it dozens of times.
FC: Even Jeffy is like, “That’s pretty fucking dumb, sis.”
GT: “Sorry. Do you have a buffalo with Rodney Barnes?”
“Who’s that? Frank King?” So are the characters of Gasoline Alley aware that they’re comic strip characters then and none of this BS matters? That the name of their town was never going to change anyway, because keeping an IP matters, even one that nobody cares about like Gasoline Alley?
MT: So… AI causes wildfires? Is there nothing we can blame AI on?
JP: So, this storyline is wrapped up, right? As if this storyline needed to be wrapped up other than “Government officials raided all of Pavel’s holdings, and he is now cellmates with El Chapo.”
Curtis: So, same thing?
@taig, 9CL: Hey, which search engine has the Translate for Lovecraftian Old Ones?
@Baja Gaijin: Wilbur is definitely pining for Zakape.
@Hibbleton: Just wait until you see the photo from Kristi Noem.
MW: Aquariums? AQUARIUMS! Waitaminute, Ladies… I thought we had an understanding that my clients would NOT appear in this cycle of Wilbur-assery! …. huh? … Well, we’ll just SEE about that….
Hey, Intern – better give the Special Ops Stunt Double agency a call. See if they have any that do Goldfish.
9CL – If we are just going to do clip shows of “beloved” prior episodes, can we at least pick interesting ones? I think most people who didn’t grow up in the comforting bosom of the Roman Catholic Church do not have the same enduring fascination with its anointed authority figures and the constraints placed on their lifestyles as Brooke and his co-religionists do.
Surely there are other eras we can suddenly time travel into?
What if Edda had a sexy sexy piano recital … in the age of the Dinosaurs!!!?!
What if Amos was kidnapped by Neanderthals who consider him the most effeminate and thus sexy thing they have ever seen?
What if a huge train wreck killed off the whole cast, except they didn’t die right away but had to lie there and wonder about what child brides do on their honeymoon?
Eh, skip the last one….
@Little Guy: I found this site, which provides the following translation:
“Ng ymg’ smile ah Iiahe lovely Iiahe ymg’ hair. ”
” ymg’ ah l’ bug confess nilgh’ri fahf?”
“nilgh’ri Y”ve mgep’ai ah mgleth. Ahh ahnythor Y’ mgep l’ ah absolved ot h’?”
“hai c’ mgep l’ ah absolved ot blushing”
That feeling when you want to make a joke about Walt Bucket reenacting the scene from the Circe chapter of Ulysses where Stephen Dedalus smashes the brothel chandelier with his “ashplant” and you suddenly understand why nobody thinks you’re funny.
GT – Where’s the beef! Clara Peller!! Tiny Wendy’s versus the giant McDonald’s!!! Pop culture trends must spread slow by smoke signal….
GA – Who’s that? John D Rockefeller….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Josh reads the comics so I don’t have to, but seeing the comments made me go check out today’s Mary Worth because it sounded like Wilbur’s break from reality and rampage through the streets just… stopped. It did, and a chill ran down Meagan’s spine.
@Baja Gaijin:
I really want to see Mary have to date Wilbur, and realize what she’s been foisting onto her so-called friends for all these years.
Gil Thorp – You’d think The Great Vape Cape storyline, where poor investment in youth athletic programs in favor of the prison-industrial and gambling-industrial complexes came together would make a far better story for filmmakers to cover. But my guess is these guys are out-of-work reality TV crew who are hoping to exploit Native American stories for some easy plaudits from critics who will praise, but not watch, a documentary on an “important” subject .
However, too many years watching and producing reality TV has warped what they consider a story. Time to fake some drama and continue the cycle of exploiting Native Americans and their culture.
@Needless Exposition:
I was thinking she’d be the mother of the child he “saved.”
@4 Needless Exposition: The mayo in the jar or in the sandwich?
@12 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Gotta save something for future mashups.
@14 Anonymous: See above.
@26 cheech wizard: That’d be some true “plastic” surgery!
@36 taig: Uh, yeah.
@44 Lauralot: Do you want “old” Mary or “new” Mary?
FC-“And this is something dad did thirty years ago”, Jeffy says showing his cartoon.
MW-Looks more like Wilbur is looking at a picture that came with a picture frame.
@Baja Gaijin: Uh, yeah, indeed.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
Was Batubs ever explained?
It’s an acronym. Bets And Tiffany’s Unique Branding Service.
why did they pick a name that sounds like “bathtubs”?
This scheme is MEANT to be a bad idea doomed to failure… which makes it lasting a MONTH now all the more bewildering…
@Baja Gaijin: I like #1, the Mary Lawton self-portrait. Maybe she could do a cartoon of Wilbur, actually improving his appearance.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Bets And Tiffany Usomething Branding Service. I forget exactly what the U was. Ultimate, universal, underwater, ulcerous, Uruguay; take your pick.
@Anonymous: The lengthy story line gave the Evanses room to discover Luann is a bland, generic character they have no intention of changing. That’s something, right? Never mind, I’m sure they already knew that.
So, predictions: On their first date, will Wilbur
a) call Meagan by Estelle’s name
b) call Meagan by Iris’s name
c) push Meagan into traffic
d) drunkenly fall into a shark tank
e) some combination of the above
Pluggers: If you can’t keep your clothes straight after the orgy, you’re a plugger.
—And a tip o’ the hat to Dorothy “Oh, Do Me” O’Donnell of Brackenridge, PA
@2 Baja Gaijin:
Speedo Plugger bear. Plus, an imgur extra.
GT: “Is your name ‘Lo?’ As in ‘Lo, the poor Indian’?”
LUANN – @Anonymous: @jroggs: “BATUBS”
Of course! That makes perfect sense.
Unlike the service itself, which seems to involve paying them to come up with a nickname for you. “You have two eyes. I’m gonna call you ‘eyes’. And your friend has a sweet rack and some nice cake under wraps down below. I’m gonna call her “Side Piece”.
MW: You want to know who was driving the car in both incidents of fugue state Wilburman, the hero?
Meagan.
@Ukulele Ike: “GT: “Is your name ‘Lo?’ As in ‘Lo, the poor Indian’?””
Nay, it is Lo as in:
“For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle Is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, And the vines with the tender grape Give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, In the secret places of the stairs, Let me see thy countenance, Let me hear thy voice; For sweet is thy voice, And thy countenance is comely.”
Comely indeed.
I’ve had a box turtle for over 25 years, he’s an odds-on favorite to outlive me. But I have never once heard him express the voice of the turtle. I let him wander around the yard and lost track of him once, but I set my dog to “Go find Tekkie! The turtle! You know!” and in less than three minutes he had tracked him down on the other side of the yard and was barking for me to come see.
Luann: I thought “Batubs” is the author insert into that comic strip with that horrible man and that horrible woman and that depressed man and depressed woman and CANCER CANCER CANCER and somehow crappy pizza is involved.
MW – “They call me Wilbur ‘Swipe Right’ Weston!”
@jroggs:
Well it is when we do we do it here! The Luann people just suck at it. Now if you’ll excuse me…. (puts on shades, leather jacket, pompadour and obnoxious Brooklyn accent)
“Hickory-dickery-doc/Luann can….”
GA – It’s one of those “here we go again” endings, when Walt has a sudden inspiration: “I hereby rename this town Broken Glass Alley!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Officer, you look nervous”
“Being on school duty is getting to me”
“Isn’t our school relatively safe?”
“No. I get shot at every day”
[Sign: SCHOOL ZONE]
@Lauralot: Wilbur drunkenly pushes Meagan into the shark tank while calling her Iris and the shark Estelle and then the shark pushes Wilbur into traffic?
@The Quiet Man: Until recently, I would have considered that scenario implausible at best.
@Baja Gaijin: I writing in “Gunther in his Jean Luc Picard P.J.s”
GT – Leo Atazhoon. Pitcher. Vegan. Sound effect.
@The Quiet Man: And afterwards “Megan” magically transforms back to her original form and goes back to the Sherman Lagoon comic she belongs proclaiming that her work is done.
@jroggs:
Wilbur is an acquired taste, and that taste? Mayonnaise.
GA – Putting the moves on the mayor there Walt? You’re gonna get Me-Tooed right out of your own strip, especially since you keep waving your staff around wildly like that.
GT – Now I want Navajo Tacos for lunch. But, there will be beef.
@Baja Gaijin: All fine choices. At first I thought # 3 or 4 as a toss-up, but going with # 1 for bobbit potential
@pugfuggly: Leo Atazhoon, starring in Coleman Francis’ “The Beef of Milford Rez.”
@2+2=7: Bwahahahahaha!
“You are the cavalry to the rescue. The 7th Cavalry, to be precise. In other words, you’re going to make everything worse and then die. We’d have been better off at Calvary, at least there we’d get to the crux of the issue.”
MW: And to think we could be seeing Dawn’s desperate, flailing attempts at bonding with her harridan mother right now.
GIL THORP: “Hey, are you Native, guy who lives on a fucking ‘Rez’?”
GIL THORP (2): I supposed the director has to ask questions like this to get interviewee at ease when they ask you to take off your shirt.
GT – Getting the idea from reading Luann, Leo decides he needs to establish his brand.
Phantom: “In Llongo tribe, when stupid kid give back talk, get slap on side of head so hard ears ring till next morning. Just sayin.’”
@69 richardf8: Jean Luc Picard pajamas. Are they PJ’s the character wore on the show or pajamas with little Jean Luc Picards printed on them?
@75 Situation Normal: Good point about the knife. To think I almost used the lady who bought a big blue wig then regretted buying a big blue wig.
CS: I doubt Dinkle would be able to recognize Holly like that, considering her once-majestic fringe spike now flaccidly droops down her forehead like a wet curly fry. The fact that she shares a last name and a face with Funky could have led to a much more awkward conversation.
Zits: This is going to be a week-long thing, isn’t it? Saying things that should be completely obvious to someone that has even slightly competent parents that aren’t constantly passive-aggressive assholes to their teenage child?
MW: …did we just skip a week? No word on the person whose car crashed? If there’s any justice in this world, the person behind the wheel was this Meagen. Upon meeting Wilbur, the person who caused her accident, she sues his ass for everything he’s got.
@Anonymous: The image I retain of High School Holly is mostly the Peter Lorre hardboiled-egg eyes and the lashes that swept up like the majestic wings of the mighty golden eagle. Old Holly shriveled in some areas whilst she expanded in others, but she sure looks nothing like her 1970s version.
MARY WORTH: Come on, y’all. We all know how this storyline is going to go.
Next Tuesday….
Wilbur: “Megan, my darling, I notice in our last correspondence, you spelled you name A-R-T-H-E-R….”
MARY WORTH (2): Of course this potential scenario is likely as well:
Next Tuesday….
“Ahh, it’s you ” Wilbur said matter-of-factly as the “Megan” who entered the motel room was Estelle all along.
“I never knew!” Estelle exclaimed as they both share a big hearty laugh at their predicament.
Having defeated the name “Electric Acres”, Walt now sets out on a mission of revenge against everything electric. Coal gas and paraffin were all you needed when he was a boy, and the idea of clean, perpetual light delivered by wire without anything burning seems somehow indecent.
GT: So now you need a Navajo Code talker to decipher the storyline. The more things change!
CRANKSHAFT: “Holly Budd…the woman who introduced her whole god-damned family to me only a few years ago, so I should be well aware of her marital status? You’re looking good, Holly. Being off-model really suits you.”
GA: I still say just rename it ‘Green Acres’. The humor is bad enough to slide right in there! Really I just want to see a ‘Walt Wallet vs. The Ghost of Eddie Albert’ cage match. There will be manure!
@Baja Gaijin: #2
#4…Wilbur races to his bedroom to pull his well-worn black Speedo from the bottom drawer, shakes it out, then lovingly rinses it clean before he plans his big date with Andy Bear. (Ewww…)
@Blazes Boylan: I would like to make a clever reply to your excellent joke, but Nothung comes to mind.
MW: Ugh, we’re doing “Wilbur Tries to Find a Date” AGAIN? What’s he gonna do, talk about Iris AND Eshtelle this time?
I think the best part of today’s strip is it reveals Wilbur instinctively objectifies a potential partner. He doesn’t see “Meaghan” as “this woman” or “this person.” It’s “this one,” like he’s choosing the pepperoni Hot Pocket over the Stouffer’s frozen lasagne. This perhaps explains why he has such bad luck in love: in his heart, Wilbur is a self-obsessed churl.
@Blazes Boylan: tI would like to make a clever reply to your excellent joke, but Nothung comeso mind.
Dick Twacy/Mary’s Worst: …and thus began the epic struggles between B.O. Plenty and Wilburp Weston for the trade mark rights to the superhero name B.O.Man.
@Cartoon Moon Pedant: Ack!
Gil Twerp:”Hey,kid, how do you get those laser beams to come out your eyes? That would be awesome on camera!”
Gil Thorp: With the dramatic emphasis on Leo being a vegan and his shock at the director saying beef, I presume that the writer thinks a vegan is some kind of sleeper agent who is activated by any mention of meat in their presence.
@Cartoon Moon Pedant:
@Cartoon Moon Pedant: Ack!
_____________________________
How’s retirement going for you, Cathy?
@92 Daisy: I predict a run on brain bleach at amazon dot com in the very near future. I know I’ll need to replenish after reading this comment.
@ectojazzmage:
that the writer thinks a vegan is some kind of sleeper agent
___________________________
I thought he was a bagan who wouldn’t eat Gil’s bagels for humanitarian reasons.
REX MORGAN: Don’t worry everyone. Candy’s going to be just fine…a fact we already established just yesterday when she was happily licking Sarah’s face with her vomit-soaked tongue.
RMMD – “Hey, that’s not from the vet, that’s from Rene’! And why does she have a copy of today’s paper propped up in front of her? And he wants HOW much???”
JP: That has to be an empty grave. You can’t convince me that after that giant explosion they found enough of Helena to bury. After a couple of years when Ces needs to fill in another gigantic plot hole he’ll pull her out of his ass again.
@Guillermo el chiclero: My thought was that they scooped up the bits into an urn and buried it. There’s probably some of Pavel in there too, and the Japanese gardner.
GA: Walt’s lingering anger at the whole notion of electricity is palpable.
GT: “Beef” as in “interpersonal conflict” is a well-known idiom and much-discussed Netflix miniseries, but otherwise this is a barrage of gibberish, so I can’t really blame Leo Atazhoon for being perplexed.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: “They call me Rim Job because of the way I can get a perfect salt crust on the margarita glass.”
FC – Jeffy thinks, “Hmm. She can’t draw to save her life, so she couldn’t white out old TV sets and replace them with flat screens. I’ll be able to take over Daddy’s zombie strip after all.
Maybe Jeffy isn’t as stupid as he looks.
Pluggers – It looks like Earl is doing his own laundry. I wonder if Henrietta flew the coop.
Frazz – Now go find Caulfield so you can mock Mrs. Olsen behind her back.
9CL – Why is he rehashing this shit? The only couple that would be less appealing is (and I hesitate to say it) Arthur Peel and Nan-Lin.
GT: BEEF? I get it! Pitcher, vegan, Native American, Leo thinks “beef” is some kind of incomprehensible jab at his sincerely and deeply held dietary beliefs. [Fill in your own meat-related jokes and puns in this space!]
@erdmann: Leo Atazhoon, starring in Coleman Francis’ “The Beef of Milford Rez.”
Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Bram Stoker’s Wes Craven’s Tim Burton’s “The Beef of Milford Rez”… A Francis Ford Coppola film.
FG: There’s a popular trope in sword and sorcery fiction referred to as “northern barbarians”. The basic rule is the colder the climate the scantier the clothing, often just a bearskin diaper and metal armbands. I see the Ice Giants are following it.
I come from a state that has a lot of transplants. When someone asks, “You native?”, it has a different connotation than Gil Thorp.
@Baja Gaijin: I like Mary Lawton. I second the approval of the knife, for whatever reason she has it.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Congratulations on placing Emmitt Pissmire in Bizarro. Do you also represent the other Ant, or is that a double exposure of Emmitt?
@Voshkod: When I was in junior high school, one of my classmates made a comment in Latin class about “the calvary and the Indians.” The teacher reacted very strongly and chewed the kid out, saying, “Calvary was where Christ was crucified!” I’ve never forgotten cavalry/Calvary, and it was the first thing I thought of when I read GA.
@Baja Gaijin:
Given Wilbur’s past history, I’d go with the crazed woman carrying a knife.
A plugger with a thong? Ugh, but maybe it’s Wilbur’s style.
9CL: While they’re “blushing” both Horny Priest and Horny Nun look like bored Nixons. Brooke’s subconscious might be trying to tell him something.
Blondie: “You can either wear the Tennant trainers or the Smith bowtie, but not both. We don’t mix Doctor Who metaphors in this office.”
C-Shaft: The fact that Holly is now married to Funky Winkerbean feels like something Harry should know. I mean, I’ve been forced to learn it, so it would be only fair.
DT: Yesterday Croptop and her men found a random suitcase in the dirt and concluded that it must be part of Scardol’s haul. Today she’s hitching a ride in a superhero car driven by a guy with marital ties to the police. So about average intelligence for Neo-Chicago criminals.
Dustin: And he hasn’t filed a motion to quash the order? Stunned.
JP: We were cheated in not seeing Helena’s eulogy. “We are gathered here today to honor a woman who…well she chose…at some point she… I dunno, man.”
MW: Twist! “Aquarium”-loving Meagan is a catfishing profile. Double twist! Wilbur himself set it up, but now he doesn’t remember or have any idea why.
@2+2=7:
Now you’re making me think of the Pina Colada Song
@Anonymous:
#17. MW:. The fact knowledgeable April is mourning signals to me there was a womans body found. Hope they did a DNA analysis to see if it was Blythe/Helena and not Ann/Doris or bones from the costume shop.
It may be a while, but I do plan to see both her and Pavel again. Too good to kill off.
Highly niche complaint incoming: As a Connecticut native, I literally only glance at Gil Thorp for the CT town names they like to sprinkle in. So the fact that they went for a Western U.S. tribe instead of the still-active tribes and reservations in the state is irritating. I know “Golden Hill Paugussett” might be harder to fit in a word-balloon, but maybe someone could tell the AI who writes this confusing story that that’s the closest “rez” to real-life Milford.
@Lauralot: I’m pretty sure there’s a law forbidding Wilbur from going near small children…and if there isn’t, there should be.
@Baja Gaijin: In the jar. It’s always wasting away after Wilbur uses it up without a single care.
Agnes: Perhaps this is what Baja needs for late thread.
@Ukulele Ike:
#82. PHANTOM: “and Don, what are these ropes and gsg going lying on the ground?”
“Ah, shucks, Dad, I tied up a killer spy and informant but guess he got loose. Better practice those skip knots, eh? Don’t worry, I’ll watch the horses just fine.”
Super-Fun-Pak – The only superhero Wilburman could defeat in combat.
@Activist 1234:
#123:. First sentence should read, ” And Son, what are these ropes and gag doing lying on the ground?”
@121 Sequitur: You WANT to see fish filets floating in tomato glop covered in edible glitter???
@123 Peanut Gallery: I wouldn’t bet the house on that.
FC: Jeffy is thinking, “Quit stealing my schtick, Dolly. I’m supposed to be the stupid one.”
CS: Dinkle is thinking, “That’s Holly Budd? How did she get so goddam fat and ugly?”
GA: Judging from Walt’s new look, it is apparently possible to lose a lot of weight merely by taking a stroll through Gasoline Alley City Hall. Slim, take note!
Phantom: Stripey Sr. has come to the realization that Junior will only be good at what is known in the military as a REMF, or Rear Echelon Mother Fucker, in the rear with the gear.
@I speak Jive: Arthur Peel? The man who wrote a piece of instrumental music so sexy that anyone who heard it was compelled into spontaneous boinking? Brooke just doesn’t come up with fascinating concepts like that any more.
I guess it was better than composing “Gloomy Sunday.”
@Blazes Boylan: Wait, you are referring to the book called “Ullyses,” right? I figured that out! Now I feel a little smarter! And you have obviously read that book and are applying a scene from it to GA, right? Now you seem smart and literate! Cool!
Betty: I’ve ragged on this strip for its habit of having its characters sitting around and talking about dull things. Well, color me surprised! They’re using the streaming of this season’s hottest miniseries to discuss sitting around in an entirely new way!
@Ukulele Ike: Dang. For just a moment there I thought you were referring to some actual intriguing composer, until I saw the dreaded word “Brooke.”
@Mikey: Walt Wallet vs. The Ghost of Eddie Albert’ cage match. There will be manure!
_______________
How will the Ghost of Eva Gabor pronounce ‘manure’?
Crank: “Holly’s flaming baton trick is back to being a comedy scenario this week! Sometimes it’s a traumatic backstory involving a pushy stage mom and severe burns, but not today!”
DT: Holy unfeasible plot developments, Hatman!
MW: Jeez, even the thought that Moy might be about to recreate the delights of “Iris on SilverDaters” is soured by it being about Wilbur. What’s his dating app, anyway? MayoMatch? SandwichSoulmates? Come to think of it, since gay people don’t exist in the Worthiverse, maybe the sandwich-themed dating app is called Grindr.
Phantom: Stripey knows Kit isn’t going to learn anything whether he stays behind or not.
P&HU: “Hang on, I’ll google it on my phone.”
RMMD: The strip where nothing ever happens didn’t kill an adorable dog! I guess I can move off the edge of my seat now.
SH: Speaking of nothing happening, called it.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
CS: Dinkle is thinking, “That’s Holly Budd? How did she get so goddam fat and ugly?”
_____________________
Two words: Montoni’s Pizza.
Is it just me or has comics kingdom been even worse than usual lately: hiding random features from the main list, mostly, but also Sunday had a bizarre situation with several strips posted multiple times, sometimes sideways, soimetimes uncolored, I can’t even remember all the issues.
@2+2=7: Yeah, but that included introducing him to Funky’s dad, who was in the Bedside Manor band Harry was running at the time, so I guess Holly just knows Harry doesn’t remember anything that’s happened since the day he retired. (For a while, he didn’t even remember he had retired, because he kept showing up anyway!)
(Now I’m worried this is all deliberate, and Batty’s doing a slow-burn Alzheimer’s story. But more likely he just doesn’t keep track of anything. It’s called writing!)
@Ukulele Ike: That completely slipped my mind! Wasn’t the composition called “Reverie?” That’s right – Xiulan forced him to compose it for a Korean TV show that she was producing which was never mentioned again after the music was written.
I hope that mentioning the Peels doesn’t summon them from the depths of Brooke’s mind. They were extremely unappealing.
MW: The driver is fine, by the way. She walked away from the scene while continuing to daydream about being a NASCAR driver.
I just learned that CJ Sansom passed away. He wrote the Shardlake novels, a series of mysteries set in Tudor England and featuring a hunchback (his description) lawyer. He was one of my favorite authors. RIP. I doubt if he was in anyone’s dead pool.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: It probably needs more Veronica.
I have a hard time believing that Santa Royale is in modern day Southern California with metal garbage cans, everyone is straighter than a surgically modified spinal cord, all but Wilbur have startlingly blue eyes, and there’s been little to no presence of anyone who isn’t white. They probably changed their name from Stepford…
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
: It would be the height of irony if Walt got electrocuted by banging his cane into a light socket. It would also be a quick, merciful death and the end of the strip, but you can’t ask for everything. Or can you?
_______________________
It would be the origin story of Cane Man™, defender of Pluggers and other gas powered obsolete objects, directing bolts of the Devil’s energy source into arch enemy Albert Imaswine, Causing him to Hedley Larmarrishly catch phrase “That’s IMASWINE, not Einstein!” until Mel Brooks demands his joke back.
MW- I have to ask. Since her profile didn’t mention sandwiches, karaoke, hatred of cats, or failure to let go of exes; did Wilbur even check out any other person on the app?
Blondie Spanish to English.
@Baja Gaijin:
@Baja Gaijin:
@121 Sequitur: You WANT to see fish filets floating in tomato glop covered in edible glitter???
_______________________
Didn’t you see the warning, Sequitur? DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BAJA!
@146 Garrison Skunk:
Nope, didn’t see any warning and if there is one I’m ignoring it.
@Maltmash3r: Wilbur strikes me as the “half illiterate” type who knows how to write words but can’t be bothered to read them. He sees a pretty girl’s face and his mind immediately goes, “Oh, that’s my type! I can totally see us together!”
What A Frazzhole: Frazz tries to break the news easily that Mrs Olson’s Westview vacation has resulted in coffee cancer.
@142 Needless Exposition: In the past Wilbur had blue eyes. I have to keep that in mind when I do the mashups.
@146 Garrison Skunk: He always ignores the warning.
@Sequitur:
“Fine. Let it be on your head”-Felix Ulysses Unger,Portraits a Specialty.
@I speak Jive: re Bizarro: Yes, that is indeed a boffo performance by Emmet Pismire himself, and, I think, his reverse clone created by their hi-resolution mirror technology. But I’m afraid I can’t take the credit for his gig – he still works free-lance without a rep. He’s somethin’ of a loner even though he comes from a society-based background…
I was hoping he’d stop by here on his media promo tour and give us the scoop on this environmentally friendly feature. I’m glad he can get gigs that are meaningful social commentary celebrating Ant values.
@Baja Gaijin: “Don’t It Make My Blue Eyes Brown”
Six Chex And A Cat Named 7-11: Maybe because you’re drinking your Big Gulp™ through your nose.
@Horace Broon: Funky’s dad, who was in the Bedside Manor band Harry was running at the time
________________
You just brought back the “We’re Harry Dinkle’s Lonely Bedside Manor Band” earworm!
@Baja Gaijin:
@146 Garrison Skunk: He always ignores the warning.
_______________________
I guess it’s useless then to point out DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE HAPPY FUN BAJA to him, don’t worry, if he folds you again, I’ll make sure to iron you flat again.
@Peanut Gallery:
Nancy Walker, no!!!!!
@I speak Jive: “ 9CL – Why is he rehashing this shit? The only couple that would be less appealing is (and I hesitate to say it) Arthur Peel and Nan-Lin.”
Arthur was fond of discussing his “wattles” and tags as a reason he might be too old for Nan-Lyn, but they ended up boinking just like everyone else.
Didn’t they both have the last name of “Peel”, and Brooke found this to be the heights of hilarity, so that he specifically wrote Xiulan as having picked Nan-Lyn for that reason?
Brooke eventually gave up and had Arthur roger her roundly in the back of the coat closet during intermission of the inevitable concert, then they both disappeared forever and ever again, Amen.
Im almost forgetting the bit where he threw his cell phone under a truck, because a symphony is not a song, dammit!!!
9CL – Aside from them lacking a personality, they seem like a perfectly inoffensive couple. I think the author has once again overestimated the grip that authority figures of the Catholic Church have on our culture.
They do seem to have genuinely fallen mildly in love. I guess next come the endless trips to the swimming pool to boink the day away.
@Baja Gaijin: Either works!
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Father Gooseliver here must be turned on by long noses. I wonder if he keeps autographed glam photos of Nixon and Bob Hope in his monk’s cell.
MW: Over 160 comments and no one’s pointed out that this Meagan chick looks like she could be Wilbur’s daughter?
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: They might change things up and use a bathtub! (or BATTUB)
@Ukulele Ike: #161: Not until I see a shape-shifting nose on her like Dawn’s, Lord Voldemort airholes one day, Karl Malden honker the next.
MW: I’m really starting to wonder if June Brigman has ever held a cell phone in her life.
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, the woman with the knife. She can take care of the problem pretty quick.
@Ukulele Ike: on MW: Because it’s too horrible to contemplate?
GT: Good grief, Leo, either grow a PROPER toothbrush moustache, or shave off that half-assed attempt!
@Auntie Velvet: Yeah, the Navajo Reservation is huge, but I don’t think it stretches to the mid-Atlantic states. They’re just pulling things out of the air like putting a reservation near Milford so they can have a Native character. Let’s just hope they don’t do or say something insulting about the culture.
Well, I’ll be darned! Somehow I recognized you were Holly Budd after all these decades, and even though we spent those decades living in the same general vicinity, and there are a bunch of judgmental, nosy blabbermouths in this place, I had NO IDEA you were Holly Winkerbean now! Guess my brain is on the sidelines! –SNORK–
9CL: I don’t know. When you’ve illustrated two characters who like Rachel Dratch could play both of them, you’ve done something special.
9CL – if you were trying to write a story of the dullest people in the world, you would start with these two.
I think he’s relying way too heavily on his readers remembering the prior storyline for these two, which I assume had more of a plot.
I’ve been reading the strip since 2007 and they were already an old storyline from the distant past that we just checked in on occasionally to see how many babies they had made already.
Unless you consider “they were going to become Catholic clergy, but they decided to fuck instead” to be thrilling in itself, I just don’t see how they are interesting. People who were around for the first iteration might find it … nostalgic?
What’s next, do we go back to the “Tango Club and the Humiliation of Mary” plot and finally learn what is in Amos’ special spaghetti recipe ( of course, if Amos has a recipe, it would be for spaghetti. Like his famous buttered white bread recipe – The secret is to toast the bread first!)
Sssshhhh – don’t spoil the secret!!
Late Thread Cuisine: Of the five ingredients in this, uh, “soup,” two are unexpected, at least to me. You can rule out fish of any kind, aspic and Jell-O, sliced olives, whole olives, crustaceans, tomato parts, parsley, peas, dietetic soda, imitation anything, and curds in any form.
@Baja Gaijin: Any leeks?
@Baja Gaijin: Caldo Verde, national dish of Portugal and Brazil.
Chicken stock, onions, garlic, potatoes, some kind of garlicky pork-based sausage (linguica, chorizo, kielbasa), and thinly sliced kale. Love it love it.
Basing it on water rather than stock would reduce the ingredient count to the requisite five.
@172 taig: No leeks. I’d consider that within the usual ingredients of a soup.
@173 Ukulele Ike: You sorta got one: instant mashed potato flakes. Soup with potatoes, yes, mashed potatoes, no.
@Baja Gaijin: How about okra? That’d be weird.
@175 taig: Unfortunately, okra is an expected, though gagtastic, ingredient. The remaining mystery ingredient is a meat or meat-related foodstuff.
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur is
desperately hornylooking for love RIGHT NOW and will not be ignored!Does Karen Moy have what it takes to write a bunny-boiler story arc?
@Baja Gaijin: Rabbit?
MW: I’m sending around a sympathy card for Meagan, signers welcome. No point waiting.
@178 taig: Um, no.
@Baja Gaijin: Well nerts, I was going to guess “slime mold.”
@171 Baja Gaijin:
Peperoni.
@Ukulele Ike: Wait a minute, I can handle garlic, so that sounds like something I could actually eat and enjoy, if more and different spices weren’t in the sausage. Huh.
@Baja Gaijin: Prosciutto?
Gil Thorp:
“Awright, who cut the cheese?”
“Cheese? I’ll have you know, good sir, I am lactose intolerant.”
“Ah, nuts.”
“Oh, and that allergy, too.”
“Don’t be such a chickenshit.”
“Again. Vegan. Are you even listening?”
@Baja Gaijin: Goat.
@182 Sequitur: You peeked! It is pepperoni.
MW: We’re about to see the story of how and why Meagan decided to become a Carmelite nun.
@171 Baja Gaijin: It’s a “hearty green soup”, so the mystery meet is… heart!
@seismic-2: er, “meat” rater than “meet”. Although “meet” is also appropriate, since this soup and I haven’t been properly introduced.
@Poteet: It’s very good. Just use Polish kielbasa, it doesn’t have the red pepper or cumin you would find in linguica or chorizo.
Slice sausage into rounds and brown in the bottom of your soup pot. Remove to bowl. Sauté chopped onion and garlic in rendered fat until light brown, add diced potatoes and cover with meat stock (or water). Simmer until potatoes are soft, then purée the soup with a hand blender (or potato masher). Put the sausage back in. Prepare kale (or collards or turnip greens or even cabbage) by rolling the leaves tight together and slicing crosswise into thinnest shreds you can achieve. Add greens to soup and simmer until tender. S & P to taste.
Easy peasy.
@191 Ukulele Ike: OK, now I have to retract the mashed potatoes as a weird soup ingredient. Your recipe uses them.
@taig: @Baja Gaijin: Wait. You two don’t like Creole gumbo? Okra IS gumbo. (After adding the okra, it should be cooked until it’s falling apart and is nearly imperceptible in the gumbo)
Okra succotash with corn, tomatoes, and onions is nice, too, especially in late summer.
love is… knitting to the oldies.
@Baja Gaijin: I made a German kartoffelsuppe from a Gunter Grass novel during the cold snap last week. Also puréed, to achieve a velvety texture.
@193 Ukulele Ike: Okra is the Wilbur Weston of the vegetable world.
@195 Ukulele Ike: The Germans know their taters.
@Garrison Skunk: Nancy Walker handled bigger piles of shit than Wilbur Weston with nothing more than a paper towel….
@Baja Gaijin: It is like eating a comb-over.
@197 Dennis Jimenez: I don’t even want to know about this Nancy Walker/paper towel/poop thing.
@198 taig: Covered in slime.
@Baja Gaijin: Bounty — the quicker picker upper!
@Ukulele Ike: Wait, you made a German potato soup by pureeing a Gunter Grass novel? I hope it was a paperback.
@200 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Oh. Cute commercials. So much spilled coffee.
@201 Myrtle: That’d be bad even for a Late Thread Cuisine recipe.
luann come on betts and tiff look at trying rebrand luann as a challenge and practice for trying next on steph at last . mostly trying to make luann less wishy washy and dull. after so long. mw and thus begins the catfishing of wilbur by special guest from rex morgan renee bellouse from his hospital room still
@Guillermo el chiclero: You misspelled ‘weeks’. After all, the only other live story at this point is the ongoing misadventures of Yelich seeking Ann-Doris.
I’m still waiting for the inevitable combination of these storylines.
@Dr. Pill:
My grandfather, a full-blooded Wahta Mohawk didn’t live on a reservation, so I don’t think that it’s an exclusive rule that they have to.
But yeah, by avoiding negative stereotypes, hopefully this comic won’t do anything stupid.
I mean, Disney more or less disowned the incredibly racist Native American song from Peter Pan. It’s the only song from the film that isn’t in the sing-along features.
@erdmann: #76: I’d have to rate Coleman Francis as an even worse director than Ed Wood. Wood’s films at least show a genuine love for the genre and can provide some unintentional laughs. Francis’ films are ugly, hateful, and mean-spirited. I’m surprised the Medved Brothers never brought his life and career up in their worst movie books. We can thank MST3K for finally pulling Francis out of obscurity. As Tom Servo said during their airing of Red Zone Cuba, “This movie dares you to watch it.”
BTW: Francis was found dead in the back of his station wagon in 1975, apparently from the same thing that killed David Carradine, auto-erotic asphyxiation.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Ewww. At least Carradine had enough class to do it indoors.
And I fully agree with you about his movies. Ugly and hateful.
@Guillermo el chiclero: @erdmann: Huh….he’s new to me.
I’ve seen The Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba, but only in the MSTied versions. I see the boys also covered The Beast of Yucca Flats — must go look for that. Haven’t seen a Tor Johnson movie in ages.
@Sequitur: love is… knitting to the oldies.
I see she is nekkid in her nuditity. Hope she doesn’t get her pubic hair tangled in her knitting needles. Oh, oops, she’s clean-shaven. Never mind.
Mary Worth prediction— Wilber will swipe right on Meagan and end up meeting Keith Morrison from Dateline!
GT: I always thought Gil Thorp took place in Milford, Pa as it is only a few exits away on I-84 from Goshen, NY, Gil’s rivals in the strip. I would often think of Gil Thorp when I passed by these two towns on my trips back to Pa. However, there are no Indian reservations anywhere in Pennsylvania, let alone near Milford. Yes, I researched this.
I guess what I am saying is thanks for taking the only interesting thing about the strip for me, GT creators.
@Ukulele Ike: caldo verde is great. So is Portuguese kale soup. I’d eat that.
@Baja Gaijin: Hard disagree on okra. Okra is awesome.
@210 Late night lurker:
Well, not quite.
@213 brendancalling:
I enjoy okra breaded and fried.
A&J: Arrrrrrrgh. I’m glad Luddie is under the official protection of Jimmy Johnson, because I’ve heard a few horror stories about casually-vetted-and-hired house sitters.
@216 Poteet:
Don’t worry. Nothing evil happens in this strip.
“Pitcher. Vegan” is just the hip, 2020s version of putting “Husband. Father” in your twitter bio.