Iris and Zak 100% will not notice if Wilbur stops talking or just leaves
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Mary Worth, 4/21/24
You’d think that boxing talk combined with Wilbur going into a traumatized fugue state would be a perfect opportunity for a return of the boxing Wilburbabies, but, no, instead he’s fantasizing about being a superhero or whatever, probably because even he knows he couldn’t defeat Zak in a straight-up boxing match. I think it’s funny that his super-alter-ego is wearing a domino mask, I guess for disguise purposes? The character is called “Wilburman,” everyone knows it’s Wilbur, c’mon.
Beetle Bailey, 4/21/24
THING I ENJOYED ABOUT THIS STRIP: That the tattoo artist looks genuinely miffed about having to undo his previous work
THING I DID NOT ENJOY ABOUT THIS STRIP: Learning that Cookie’s distinctive shoulder hair is strawberry blond
Marvin, 4/21/24
CREATOR OF THE COMIC STRIP MARVIN, DESPERATELY TRYING TO AVOID DOING ANOTHER JOKE ABOUT THE TITLE CHARACTER PISSING OR SHITTING HIMSELF: Uh …. uh. Wife bad? Wife bad.
193 replies to “Iris and Zak 100% will not notice if Wilbur stops talking or just leaves”
DtM: Somewhere, a flat-earther is taping this to his fridge.
MW: Will we finally see Wilbur’s complete psychotic breakdown? Or are Brigman and Moy just teasing us again? Or — dear lord, you don’t suppose they have hopes of starting a spinoff Wilburman strip?
BB: So…Sgt. Lugg’s first name is Claire and she used to be brunette? I’m learning so much from this strip!
(choke) My one weakness, Wilburite! Growing… weak… (Wilburite is his word for a woman asking him to do literally anything for another person.)
MW: I think what that throwaway panel quote is trying to say is that you have to keep practising daydreaming, otherwise you might end up with poorly thought out, pathetic fantasies like Wilbur’s.
BB: I like how in the Beetleverse, tattoos seem to be removed by putting the machine in reverse and just sucking up the ink like a vacuum. Makes them a little less meaningful, but definitely more practical.
Marvin: My favourite part of this strip is the throwaway panel, where we see Jeff silently tapping away at his computer in with a look of disgust. It just makes me happy to know that he’s living a miserable life between these strips, as he deserves.
Marvin: Sure, Marvin is trying to get away from all the shitting and pissing gags but seriously, guys, Hi and Lois have the whole non-joke schtick thing covered.
MW: Don’t rescue her, Wilburman. She’ll just start droning on about workout routines again.
MW-This story can only end with Wilbur forcing some poor woman to marry him and then he’ll die licking cheap wedding invitation envelopes.
I’m gonna read this as Iris’s fantasy, sweetened by Wilbur’s histrionic and utterly ineffective attack on the brute Zak. Up your game, Tennessee Williams—Karen Moy has come to town.
Mary Worth: Get my name out of your freakin’ comic strip!” said Neil Gaiman after seeing today’s graphical assault on his beloved pop and fantasy culture.
Beetle Bailey: Cookie could’ve saved himself a lot of trouble by just adding an “E” for “Eclaire,” duh! Of course, then the troops would’ve expected him to learn how to make desserts more complicated than Jell-o squares with cubes of expired fruit.
Marvin: Of course, the best thing about today’s strip is that Jeff is overheating his junk by working with his laptop on his crotch, and therefore preventing the possible existence of any future Marvins! (Also, it’s not work, it’s “emasculated husband” porn.)
Dennis the Menace: That’s right, Dennis, follow the rules to the letter… while an authority figure is watching. You’ll get away with so much more as soon as their backs are turned, you adorable future criminal.
@BigTed:
Hey, everybody, the modbot’s taking Sunday off! Free Cialis for all!
BB: Unfortunately Cookie could only afford to get half of Claire’s name removed, but thanks to the supernatural center-alignment formatting baked into each tattoo, it’s still a pretty solid piece of body art celebrating Cookie’s terrible fury. Can’t blame the tattoo artist for getting upset, though, because it looks like some tradition or custom of shame required him to remove his own tattoos as well.
JP: Poor Rurik. Once the founder of a great dynasty of the Rus people, he’s been reduced to playing lackey for the world’s least convincing criminal mastermind, doomed to become the latest named henchman to be forgotten by Francesco Marciuliano.
RMMD: Terry Beatty really, really, really, really does not like inconveniencing his protagonists. It is extremely bad for this dog that she hasn’t puked this chocolate out, but Beatty cannot bear the thought of Rex and June having to clean up a mess like that. So sorry, Candy, but you’re going to have to hold all that lethal poison in and let it absorb into your system, at least until they get you to the vet and close the exam room door.
SlyF: this is literally just teaching children that racism is correct and useful what the fuck weber
MW: WTF
MW – I think what Iris/Moy is babbling on about is boxing *workouts*, not boxing lessons. Two different things. Boxing lessons would take place at a specialized boxing gym, not a regular fitness center gym like the one she and Zak have been talking about.
Actual boxing lessons would be highly unlikely for middle-aged Iris. Even boxing workouts are very tough, even if you’re in good shape.
MW — Does Wilburman have an origin story? Did he eat a sandwich slathered with radioactive mayonnaise?
BB – True, Cookie doesn’t have sleeves. But he does have that incredibly weird, long, ginger upper-arm-hair fringe and I hate it. It just disturbs me.
“His thoughts drift into a psychotic hallucination…”
BB – Claire isn’t even a blips, let alone a buxley. Her name must be Claire Flatasabord.
@But What Do I Know?:
No, he’s an alien from the planet Crouton, whose strange biology means his body metabolises mayonnaise in a way that gives him superhuman strength for 24 hours.
Of course, he has eaten so much mayo at once that the effects are not only permanent, but he has like 147 other superpowers outside of just enhanced strength, like super-ventriloquism, freeze breath, invisibility and the ability to shoot miniature versions of himself out of his fingers.
It’s interesting that even when imagining an idealized version of himself, Wilbur only gives gives himself a better body. Honesty though, good for him on not thinking that going bald is the end of the world. Speaking of questioning people’s self-images, however, it’s brave of Karen Moy to mention a good writer in the strip today.
B. Bailey: And under the heart on his other arm it once said… “Mom?” which he removed when he found she had been sleeping with his father? “How could she (sniff)?”
Bob Mankoff Presents: Show Me The Funny (Animal Edition) – NSBG! And Taig should probably leave it alone too.
New Mara Llave: Keeper of Time.
@Uncle Lumpy: Once in a while, you gotta risk working blue.
MW – … and jack off…right Neil….
BB – Don’t raise Cookie’s ire….
Marvin – With the Peloton I “suggested” you use….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
BB: Cookie doesn’t have full sleeves because no tattoo artist is willing to do all the necessary shaving first.
Marvin: The correct answer to Jenny’s question was “In front of an oncoming truck, with Marvin in it.”
MW – If Zak is a gorilla here, it seems Wilbur ought to be a three-toed sloth.
FC – Thel’s spending too much time picking up after the melonheads and too little time on the feng shui of the living room vis-à-vis the relationship of the sofa to the TV.
MW: I want to believe that ape man is actually singing all those “ooo”s, and he sounds like Smokey Robinson. He’s not so much scary as soulful.
(condescendingly) “A *single arm tattoo* is not a ‘sleeve,’ Beetle. Respect the craft of tattoo artistry.”
Today’s Mary Worth is just the final level of the popular indie game Braid?
@made of wince: Ape-man prefers The Kinks!
MW:
It would appear as if Iris and Wilbur are running neck-and-neck in the self-absorption sweepstakes, which makes you wonder whether they might have been a better match for one another than we first thought.
@made of wince:
MW: I want to believe that ape man is actually singing all those “ooo”s, and he sounds like Smokey Robinson.
I was thinking more of Louis Prima. “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I wanna be like you Ooo Ooo”
MW – Wilbur fantasizing about Iris being kidnapped by Joe E. Ross? Let’s see where this goes.
The character of Wilburman was originally written as Mayonnaiseman, but the artist inverted the letter on his costume and the rest of the staff said “eh, why fix it, it’s not like anyone is going to read this”. All-Action Wilburman holds the distinction of having been cancelled while the first issue was still being printed.
@Ken:
A psychotic break was my first thought.
Kidnapping IS illegal. It blows my mind that Wilbur writes a “Dear Abbey” style advice column and is yet so clueless.
We should have a separate comic strip where we get to read exactly what kind of advice he dishes out daily to his readers.
Beetle – Yes, it’s a good thing tattoos are so easily removed! Even the tattoo artist who has a whole “sleeve” got it all removed between Cookie’s two visits! Get a tattoo today, kids!
Marvin – If they had just ended with with the panel that says “Where do you think I should put it?”, we could all have written our own dumb punchline, which would be no dumber than theirs.
Marvin – They’ve had this demon toddler for decades now, and this is the first time they’ve needed to think of a place to put the stroller out of sight? Marvin’s reputation must be known far and wide. The only “company” that ever visits is the Hazmat team.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Did you have a good time touring the missile base?”
“No! I can’t enjoy the prospect of nuclear annihilation when I’ve got this awful toothache!”
“How sad! But don’t worry…”
“We can kill two birds with one stone!”
Marvin’s parents think it’s best if they remove any reminder that Marvin exists. Good call
Slylock Fox mystery – I’ll buy that solution, but only if the jewelry store was in France and everyone yelled “LE PEW!” as they fled.
9CL – Child-Edda suddenly grows into Adult Stripper Edda and does a sexy catwalk down the middle of the playground see-saw, while wearing a schoolgirl miniskirt and tights that would likely have had her sent home to change if there were more than just the two students in the whole school.
Child Amos remains Hideous Child Amos the whole time, however. The author’s need to exorcise his self loathing into his avatar is a problem. The whole strip is just about following the true and perfect love of Amos and Edda throughout multiple time streams, and the continued insistence that Amos remain a hideous, unkempt, clueless orphan of unknown origin or habitation gets more difficult to justify as he is now one of only two characters left and there is not much narrative to squeeze out of the situation anymore.
MW – I think I’m sophisticated ’cause I’m living my life
Like a good homo sapiens
But all around me everybody’s multiplying and
They’re walking round like flies man
So I’m no better than the animals sitting
In the cages in the zoo man
‘Cause compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees
I am an apeman
I think I’m so educated and I’m so civilized
‘Cause I’m a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don’t feel safe in this world no more
I don’t want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore
and make like an apeman
I’m an apeman, I’m an ape, apeman, oh I’m an apeman
I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man, oh I’m an apeman
‘Cause compared to the sun that sits in the sky
Compared to the clouds as they roll by
Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies
I am an apeman
In man’s evolution he’s created the city
And the motor traffic rumble
But give me half a chance and I’d be taking off my clothes
And living in the jungle
‘Cause the only time that I feel at ease
Is swinging up and down in the coconut trees
Oh what a life of luxury to be like an apeman
I’m an apeman, I’m an ape, apeman, oh I’m an apeman
I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man, oh I’m an apeman
I look out the window but I can’t see the sky
The air pollution is a-fogging eyes
I want to get out of this city alive and make like an apeman
Oh come on and love me, be my apeman girl
And we’ll be so happy in my apeman world
I’m an apeman, I’m an ape, apeman, oh I’m an apeman
I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man, oh I’m an apeman
I’ll be your Tarzan, you’ll be my Jane
I’ll keep you warm and you’ll keep me sane
We’ll sit in the trees and eat bananas all day, just like an apeman
I’m an apeman, I’m an ape, apeman, oh I’m an apeman
I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man, oh I’m an apeman
I don’t feel safe in this world no more
I don’t want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman
MW: I wonder how often Neil Gaiman daydreams about being a schlubby not-so-super hero. I’m going to guess never.
BB: The throwaway panels get even worse when you realize that smell is from Cookie getting Claire’s name lasered off his arm.
Marvin: That is the look of someone who has won the pettiest battle in the pettiest war ever.
Look here, Moy, you shouldn’t give us the setup of Zak and Iris getting boxing lessons along with Wilbur imagining her as a damsel in distress needing to be saved (by Wilbur) unless you’re planning to show us Wilbur getting his shit rocked
MW: The speech bubble was drawn to the wrong person. Iris is the one going “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” – even in his own imagination, Zak can pleasure her like Wilbur never could.
Marvin: I’m tickled by the way the font in panel 4 randomly gets smaller and narrower. Redraw the speech bubble when it turns out the text doesn’t fit? But that would require some kind of image editing software with hyper-advanced features like “Select layer”, “Undo” and “Draw line”.
Marvin: The absence of potty jokes has me feeling uneasy.
“Okay, I’ll put the shit-stained stroller in the garage and the shit-stained kid in the laundry room.”
There, I had to get that out of my system.
MW: This is starting to seem less like a daydream and more Wilbur’s rewrite of history. He can’t be the bad guy so rather than him dumping Iris for the sexy con artist even further out of his league, she’s obviously been taken away against her will despite being happy with her now husband. After all, Iris was supposed to be happily complacent as a rebound and not actually move on. How selfish of her to think about her own happiness and mental health!
@jroggs:
“First they came for the skunks and I did not speak out, because I was not stinky.”
Marvin: Bedroom: Probably already has a lot of stuff in it, may involve lugging stroller up stairs and back down again.
Garage: Cold, dirty, have to navigate around the other large items you have in there.
Laundry room: Accessible, extra space that will not be used while company is present
It’s not your wife’s fault your advice sucks, Jeff.
MW: Remember the movie Megamind? That’s the one where a supervillain accidentally destroys his superhero nemesis* and ends up feeling adrift and purposeless, so he tries to create a new nemesis by giving a shlubby guy superpowers, only to have the shlubby guy go all incel when the intrepid girl reporter/perpetual kindnap victim still won’t date him and become an even worse supervillain than he ever was? Yeah, don’t know why I thought of that right now.
*Okay the superhero faked his own death, but that’s beside the point.
MW, pt. 2: We all kind of know that Karen Moy just grabs what sounds good off BrainyQuote without looking at source or context, but today’s throwaway panels really hammer that home. There’s no way a person even slightly familiar with Neil Gaiman and his work woul go, “Yes, this is the perfect person to provide an epigraph for Wilbur’s self-gratifying superhero fantasy!”
MW: Later at Mary’s place; “So Wilbur, how’d your fantasy persona work out?”
“Not good. People kept mistaking me for the Hamburglar.”
MW:
“Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street…” – Joe Jackson
@matt w:
So, does this suggest the secret bonus ending which reveals that Iris is running away from Wilburman because he’s actually an atomic bomb or some shit like that? And when he comes into contact with Iris then “BOOOOM!!!”
@Sequitur: Thank you very much for the warning!
Frazz: I definitely wanted a lecture from this guy today. He’s even breaking the fourth wall just to make sure we get the message.
Luann: Karen Evans: There’s a lot of talk about us living in a patriarchal society. You know what the problem is? {Wheels out patriarchal stereotype}
CS: If this were a Dick Tracy mystery, it would take a while for them to solve it. Most competent detectives would talk to the driver of the bookmobile and go from there.
9CL: I think I’m going to stick with the translation of these strips to Welsh (hopefully, I won’t blow up Sequitir’s phone).
“Waw! Roedd hynny’n syfrdanol!”
“Beth oedd?”
“Rydych chi’n gwybod … y peth winci prennaidd-slinky hwnnw rydych chi newydd ei wneud! Ni allaf hyd yn oed feddwl am fynegiant ar ei gyfer.”
“….’Eto, os gwelwch yn dda’?”
“Dyna’r mynegiant.”
@Bob Tice: And yet neither of them come close to our Machiavellian protagonist, Mary Worth herself. She’s pretty much had the entire cast on her puppet strings for decades and acts like she’s approved all along when they make their own decisions.
Zits: Zitscat is the one with true superpowers. He should go by Plasticat or something like that.
FC: You don’t really see someone being an asshole in this strip (well, other than HTT Grandma). For a second there, I thought I had accidentally pulled up Marvin or Dustin.
C’shaft: Monday-Saturday: Lillian is forced to endure Harry Dinkle’s ego.
Sunday: Lilian imagines a story where someone is run over by a bookmobile.
Coincidence?
Dustin: “Also if that little bit of flailing elevated your heart rate that much, you make Wilbur Weston look like an Iron Man athlete.”
JP: God Helen, you suck at bartering! You don’t just take Pavel’s first counter-offer, you tell him April and Charlotte are off-limits but he can kill Randy and the Drivers, and then he proposes killing April but letting Randy live so Charlotte won’t be an orphan, and you say no, Randy’s death is non-negotiable, but you’ll be willing to throw in Alan Parker and a hit to be named later, and he says “deal!” and you both walk away happy.
Luann: “Say, you don’t think the hair thing is a result of the disparity in appearance standards for men and women, which in turn are a reflection of larger systemic issues which put women at a disadvantage in business and political spheres, which is the real reason there are fewer female billionaires?”
“…Nah, shaving our heads would solve everything.”
MW: It says so much about Wilbur that Wilburman is the best he can come up with. Not Stupendous Man or Mighty Man or I Shouldn’t Be Alive Man. Not even Mayoman or the Karaoke Kid. Not Ship Diver Man. Just Wilburman. It’s sad.
MW – Some very good suggestions for today’s soundtrack. I’ll add: The Dickies’ “You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)”
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I’ve always heard that lyric as “The air pollution is fucking up my eyes,” and wondered how they got away with it in 1970. I know Ray had some kind of legal problem in the 1960s that limited their initial U.S. distribution, because they really should have been as big a deal as the Beatles, Stones, and the Who.
@Hibbleton: All apemen should sound like Louis Prima. Or Christopher Walken from the live-action version.
@Sequitur: Oooo! Oooo! I KNOW this one! What you do is, you travel back in time to before the city was built, walk past where the wall will be, then return to the present! Stuff your advice up your ass, Biker Boy.
Slylock Fox: There was this cartoon a while back, about animal characters.
The one character, a skunk, was the only character who didn’t wear pants. Being a wacky cartoon animal it kind of went without saying, until one episode he outright states that when a skunk sprays it literally destroys their pants, so they just don’t bother with them.
That’s actually pretty good writing for a simple kids cartoon.
@64 Ukulele Ike:
That works great so long as you’re not standing where a wall will be built.
@Little Blue Bicycle:
There was this horrendous Disney cartoon years back, about three kids who decide to become superheroes, and end up making a deal with the government to fight crime. Despite being kids… the “Groovy” Governor who set this entire thing up doesn’t seem to consider that using children as vigilantes is a bad thing.
The one kid Crandall literally called himself “Captain Crandall” and his family never figures out his secret identity until the final episode -face palms-
What a load of crock. At least no-imagination Wilbur has the excuse of being a fantasy.
MW:. I think it was Estelle who dreamed (nightmared) of boxer babies with Wilbur. So glad she’s with Dr. Ed, who will ensure dreamy dreams.
PHANTOM:. What a waste of time, money, thought, effort, trust in order to play a childish prank on one’s loyal employees. And #21 is putting it in Chronicles as a plus! Man, he must be bored for entertainment.
JP:. Pavel is so naive he’s almost cute. Aside from the bodies buried in his Neighborhood.
CANDORVILLE:. Three besties from childhood, three different world views. Or at least city views.
FC – This reminds me of my son when he was small, except his toys were from the 1980s instead of the 1950s.
I always find it amazing that Jef Keane takes the time to white out the console TV and replace it with a flat screen but can’t be bothered to draw a stand for it. I guess a half assed job is okay if a tee time is looming.
6Chix – I know I’m old, but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I also can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be funny or if it’s one of her wallowing in depression strips.
Frazz – I wonder how many landfills are filled with Frazz’s and the lady teacher’s old running shoes.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve always wondered how Ray got away with “Lola” in 1970.
Happy to see a new “Mara Llave”. It’s got potential — but not if it follows the “Pibgorn” production model.
Slylock: This feels like a cheat. Presumably there would have been evidence of the skunk spraying, either from lingering smell or witness testimony. And if there wasn’t, because the customers and the clerks all fled simply on the supposition that the skunk might spray, then this all seems a bit racist.
@The Rambling Otter: I don’t know. Maybe this will be like the Dragnet episode about the Crimson Crusader, and Wilbur actually tries to become Wilburman and is just pathetic at it.
A couple of comments referring to Pepe LePew today.
Yesterday, a fringe cable channel called “Catchy Comedy” ran a couple Pepe cartoons as part of a Looney Tunes marathon.
I guess Pepe is no longer cancelled.
They also had a couple of LT’s violent 3 Bears toons.
No Wile E. Coyote. ?
@I speak Jive:
6Chix – I know I’m old, but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. …
Since I’ve moved to the south, I found this one funny. It’s based on the southern habit of injecting the word “Y’all” into ordinary conversation. —IMO anyway, y’all.
@I speak Jive: re: 6Chx: Commentary on Beyoncé’s new C&W album release? It WOULD be clearer if Bianca could figure out how to draw a cowboy hat.
@Sequitur: Check a map, see where the baseball diamond will be, and go stand there? H.G. Wells’s first Time Traveller was lucky he ended up in his backyard, and not inside a tree.
Mary Worth: I’m reminded of the Venture Brothers episode where The Monarch disguises himself as Blue Morpho, only to be captured by Wide Wale and his henchmen, who giggle over the silliness of covering up one’s eye sockets to conceal identity. Then they beat the crap out of him. Anyway, it’s much funnier than this, and I hope Wilburman meets the same fate.
HtH: Would Viking society really be accepting of a woman eating alone in a public house?
Nancy: Is the joke that she’s about to shoot Sluggo in the face really hard?
Reply All: Aren’t bagels typically a morning thing? Why is one woman fully made up and wearing jewelry? And why does she assume that the other woman is unfamiliar with the basic concept of a toaster dial?
@Sequitur: Wow. I had forgotten all about this. The art is still great but I have to wonder if having her drop in on Gallifrey is such a good idea.
Marvin: “Where do you think I should put it?”
“Turn around and I’ll show you.”
Beetle Bailey: Dammit, Cookie! The first rule of tattoos is: The only woman’s name you should put on your body is “Mom.” Everyone knows this! Even I know this!
9CL: The seesaw is an erection metaphor.
I just read other comments do here’s my take on yours:
SIX C:. I’m old too, but witch 1 is way more hip than witch 2. But then, I’m judging only by shallow appearances. Witch 2 may have way better eyes of newt.
SFx:. Don’t see this as racist as I’m not sure there was a theft. If they all ran out, leaving cases unlocked, just because a potential customer walked in (unarmed, making no threats, looking for a diamond for Cassandra’s finger) whos to say he didn’t just take merch to protect it from their negligence?
@Hibbleton: I think you figured it out. That never occurred to me (Northerner), but it makes sense. Thanks, y’all!
From what I gather from Mara Llave. It’s if Doctor Who and Flash Gordon (the franchises) conceived a child.
Not bad, but would probably be better if I started from the start.
@The Rambling Otter: If you figure out what a “Keeper of Time” is, let us know, okay? I can’t tell whether she time travels, controls time (???), refs Milford basketball games, or just owns a watch.
@Little Blue Bicycle:
Or “The Grey Ghost” from Batman the Animated Series (who was popular enough to seep into other DC media)
An actor who played a crime-fighting vigilante (which partly inspired Bruce to create his Batman persona) although The Grey Ghost seems heavily based off of The Phantom.
At one point the actor comes out of retirement and helps Batman with a case, because he’s too deep into the case itself at that point.
And is voiced by Adam West, but NOT as a joke. He’s played completely straight. Which is a nice change of pace.
FG: It’s nice that the Pirate Ice Miner Lords gave their robot slaves such appreciative manners.
@Ukulele Ike: She manages Morris Day’s band, obviously.
MW: Evansii Dirk X Batty Mopey Pete = Wilbur.
@Ukulele Ike, @I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Or she runs this web site.
Mary Worth: Wilburman is no Supercaptaincoolman.
“Join us today on MUTUAL OF OMG’s WILD BLINGDOM as Jim encounters the rare Californa Weston,which stalks, eats mayo, and leaves.
@Baja Gaijin: He could be Dr. Horse’s Ass.
I turned 67 two months ago and I’m just discovering that Cookie has arm hair? What else have I missed in my life?
@Peanut Gallery: Or she has bad reading habits. I’m a Keeper of The New Yorker, but I usually throw out issues that are more than two months old. Mara probably has baskets stacked with old copies of Time next to her toilet.
Pearls: this might be Pastis’s best/worst pun.
@Peanut Gallery: I’m hoping it wasn’t this website.
A better Wilburman disguise than the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ mask would be a decent toupee. Does he have any super power besides lunging and flexing his double chin?
@taig: Isn’t it great that the Internet Archive preserves this madness for future historians to analyze?
MW: Would this be the first time in the history of MW that the outline of butt cleavage gets such front and center treatment?
@Peanut Gallery: Indeed, and I have to wonder what those historians will think of this era, considering some of the context will be lost.
Neil Gaiman supplying a quote for “Mary Worth” is not so much “chocolate in my peanut butter” as it is “Hendrix opening for the Monkees.”
MW: To think that we’re only at the beginning of what is already proving to be a monumentally ridiculous storyline. Still to come: Mary the Meddler, in her own superhero costume that will be revealed when she swoops in with platitudes, advice, and more of the acid-laced muffins from the same batch that Wilbur consumed.
@Where’s Rocky?: “Hendrix opening for the Monkees”.
But would Hendrix ever have gotten gigs in the US with his British co-horts if it hadn’t been for Mickey Dolenz?
MW:
Faster than a speeding tortise!
More powerful than an imaginary gorilla!
Able to eat an entire jar of mayonnaise in a single sitting!
Look, on the couch! It’s WILBURMAN!
*cue an orchestra consisting of nothing but crying and farting*
@Hibbleton:
#69. Hibbleton, your reading was better than my (grn y hip-witch reading.). Such a delight to see other readers’ interpretations. Thanks
@Baja Gaijin:
@#90: Wilburman isn’t even Captain Klutz.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: No, I’m pretty sure it’s all about Brooke wanting us to know his masturbation preferences
MW: This strip does not deserve a quote by Neil Gaiman.
MW2: Zak as an ape is still more appealing than Wilbur.
BB: Didn’t Cookie have “Mom” tattooed on his arm?
BB: Does a Mom tattoo sounds a bit icky in 2024? Or do you disagree? Discuss among yourselves.
@Bono Vix: Brooke is such an old fuck it’s impressive he can get it up, even while he imagines his own daughter in her old school uniform. ‘Scuse me while I vomit.
Speaking of vomit, why does anyone trust Rex Morgan to doctor for them if he can’t even figure out how to make his own dog puke?
@UncleJeff: Ooooooo, Mickey Dolenz! Was he the Cute One or the Smart one?
Willberman, I knew Newspaper Spider-Man, Newspaper Spider-Man was in my regular comic reading cue, and Willberman, you’re no….actually now that I think of it…you ARE Newspaper Spider-Man.
So,Cookie basicly had Hair Loves Claire on his arm?
PV: I do like the heckling, but I’d like it more if they made it catchier and the crowd started to take it up. “WITGAR IS A WIMP! WITGAR IS A WIMP!” Even better, I like the way Witgar is nervously braid-twiddling. I used to do that back in third grade! That’s what long braids are for!
6Chx: I don’t understand this, but both witches are smiling, so yay for that. I’m guessing the meaning has to do with the hat Left Witch is wearing.
Ziggy Spanish to English.
FC: Got to give Jeff Keane a little credit for giving them toys that could have been manufactured in this century.
BB: What’s really bothering Josh is that Cookie is now a fellow ginger and a member in good standing of the Red-Headed League.
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat # 16,439.
Dustin: Ed Kudlick is a clumsy oaf # 4582.
Dustin: This comic surprised me. For a long time, I always figured Dustdad was the kind of asshole that never washes his hands.
@Poteet: I addressed this in post #75, but it looks like everybody skipped over it.
MW: Just the thought of being totally clothed in Spandex makes me itch, especially in sunny Santa Royale where it’s warm enough for shorts. Even in your own fantasy, Wilbur, Zak has it better than you.
@Ukulele Ike: Sorry about that! Thanks for explaining. I know very little about Beyonce.
@118 Poteet: How does the thought of Wilbur being totally clothed in only a black Speedo make you feel?
MW: Also, Wilbur, your fantasy insults Iris by implying that she’s too dumb and weak to kick Gorilla Zak in the nuts.
@Where’s Rocky?: #101: Led Zeppelin once opened for Vanilla Fudge and the fans kept chanting, “Give us the Fudge! Give us the Fudge!”
@Ukulele Ike: #109: Monkees fun fact: David Bowie’s actual name is David Jones but when he was starting out he had to change his name because Davy Jones (the cute one) of the Monkees already had dibs on the name.
@Baja Gaijin: It just made me laugh like a drain, especially if he kept the mask on.
Flashback Sunday: Salmon Squares!
Curtis: In the crossover nobody was expecting, today’s Curtis guest stars Hammy from Over the Hedge.
DT: It’s already been noted that Croptop’s lower face is possibly her least distinctive feature, but kudos to Bank Witness for coming up with a better description of what her hair’s doing than my “some weird mullet/fade combo”.
FG: Can you do “It’s okay that the heroes are ripping the miners to shreds, they’re just robots” and then have a scene from the robots’ POV extablishing that they’re self-aware and have emotions, even as they resign themselves to plummeting to their deaths? Apparently so!
MW: It’s kind of a shame the quote doesn’t lead to Wilbur as Morpheus — I could definitely believe in a Wilbur with the power to put people to sleep. But that would require Karen Moy knowing who Neil Gaiman is beyond “the alleged author of the first unsourced quote about daydreaming that came up when I searched BrainyQuotes”. (It appears to be a paraphrase of this, FWIW.)
SFx: What’s even the purpose of this? I mean, I know fictional identity parades always miss the point that you’re supposed to line up people who all fit the description, to see if the witness can distinguish the criminal from other people who look the same, but the line-up Deputy Duck is so proud of is particularly bad, expecially given that 1) presumably whoever reported the crime probably also mentioned that people fled because the robber was a skunk, because why wouldn’t they? 2) there isn’t even a witness here, just Slylock deducing from the incomplete information he’s been given that it was a skunk; something that, as mentioned above, the police must already know. Apparently, Sly just shows up at the police station sometimes and demands the cops turn a case into a mystery, so he can solve it, but preferably one that isn’t too hard, and so they drag the prisoners into biased and unnecessary id parades. The Forest Kingdom gets more dystopian all the time!
MW: There are all kinds of heroes. There are heroes like Mario, who saves the princess from her ape kidnapper, and there are heroes like Wilbur, who is listening to a CrossFitter talk about CrossFit and (so far) not being a dick about it.
MW: Original design for the logo on Wilbur’s costume.
@127 Anonyminimouse: Applause!
This Dagwood panel seems to be the beginning of a porno with “oral” its name.
@UncleJeff:
@Where’s Rocky?: “Hendrix opening for the Monkees”.
But would Hendrix ever have gotten gigs in the US with his British co-horts if it hadn’t been for Mickey Dolenz?
________________________________
He became a believer after taking the last train to Clarksville, and he listened to the band.
Today’s Slylock mystery is a rerun from almost 10 years ago. They redrew it. I approve!
@Baja Gaijin:
This Dagwood panel seems to be the beginning of a porno with “oral” its name.
_________________________
Wasn’t “Porno Oral” an Adult Swim show?
@Poteet: I know nothing of Beyoncé or any other contemporary pop music, but she occasionally makes news. I listened to her “Jolene” on the computer box because the right wingnuts were outraged that a black lady recorded a country album. (Bey is NO Bessie Smith or Dinah Washington, IMHO)
@Baja Gaijin:
Of course Sly assumes the skunk did it! We’re the Slick Smitty of the animal world. And Mr. Vulpine Brainiac, for your information skunks don’t stink unless some one pisses them off. Stand still right there and I’ll give you a personal demonstration.
SFx: I like the big goat/yak/wildebeest hybrid thing on the far left, in the farmer getup and the British workingman’s flat cap. What’s up with his broken left horn? I bet there’s a fascinating story behind that.
I cannot wait for Wilber’s distracted brain to take “We’ve been talking boxing lessons” as Iris saying her boyfriend hits her, and him to snap out of it, attempt to punch Zak and have it barely hurt but really fuck up Wilbur’s arm, and then Iris punches Wilbur with much better form because she’s been taking lessons. In the end they leave him crying and curled up on the side of the path, wondering where his glasses went.
@Ukulele Ike, @Guillermo el chiclero:
Monkees fun fact: Mickey Dolenz (as Mickey Braddock) was the star of Circus Boy, a 1956-57 TV series that I saw in reruns Saturday mornings from 1958-1960. It was pretty lame, but what else ya gonna do while waiting for Rocky and Bullwinkle?
@Anonymous: I think the fact that he’s daydreaming in ways that insult both of them (Zak as a gorilla, Iris begging for Wilbur) goes into rude territory.
@Anonyminimouse: More applause!
I now remember how Wilbur creepily implied that he was going to snatch up Iris should she and Zak divorce during their wedding reception. And Mary just rolled her eyes with an amused “That’s our Wilbur” expression instead of shoved his fat face into the table.
BB: “Should I take 30 seconds to look up what the equipment used in tattoo removals actually looks like? No. Afterall, that would almost double the amount of time I put into thinking about this job.”
@Ukulele Ike: Seriously, there was outrage about THAT?? Wow. I get tired occasionally of the frequent “Pig finds a fun way to escape grim reality!” theme in PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, but I can also see the point.
@matt w: Damn, now there’s the perfect intersection of newspaper strip criticism and 15(???) year old indie darling puzzle games I didn’t know I needed to see today
@Baja Gaijin: Thank you for another opportunity to see the Mary Famous Hair that made me occasionally imagine a potted plant falling from an upper story windowsill and just bouncing off Mary’s head.
@Baja Gaijin: Toby’s face clearly does not match her words, implying that she has sarcastic wit or trying to blend into the California diet scene has caused a loss of smell and taste.
@Poteet: Yup, there are certain networks that have a lot of rage airtime to fill up. You think country tunes may just be a fun thang that people enjoy on Hee Haw reruns, but it turns out it’s a holy sepulcher that must not be degraded by the savage class. (I hear Dolly Parton liked the “Jolene” cover. I bet Pig did too)
Speaking of skunks, Pepe Le Pew gets a shout-out in Close to Home. A day for skunks, I guess. (Perhaps a tad more interesting than toilets being the setting for two other comics, Baldo and Baby Blues [and Marvin’s in neither one!])
@BigTed: So Jeff is 9CL’s target audience? Good to know!
SlyF – Please, please, please tell me more about what happened to the Goat’s horn!
@UncleJeff: I think it was Nesmith who first hooked them up with Hendrix.
Though, to be fair, Gaiman opening for Mary Worth is probably less Hendrix opening for the Monkees and more the Velvet Underground opening for Lawrence Welk
@Dr. Pill: Pepe Le Pew’s cameo here is probably the best-drawn thing ever to appear in Close to Home.
@Ukulele Ike: @Ukulele Ike: No, we hated it because it sucked, it wasn’t actually country music and because she wanted everyone to forget that black artists like Darius Rucker, Charley Pride and Ray Charles have been turning out authentic country music for decades.
@Ukulele Ike: #146: CW singer Luke Combs caught some grief for covering Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, from both the wingnuts and the wobblies.
@Ukulele Ike: #75, @Ukulele Ike: #117, @Ukulele Ike: #133 – I missed replying to your comment because I was caught up with Hibbleton’s guess that 6Chix referred to the expression “y’all.” In thinking about it further, “y’alternative” and the cowboy hat could be a reference to Beyonce’s country album. (That’s more than I want to think about Xunise’s comics.) It could refer to the cowboy hat as the “y’alternative” to the witch’s hat.
I don’t know if I have ever heard any of Beyonce’s music. I was interested to hear that she recorded Blackbird, and Paul McCartney approved of her version. Haven’t heard it myself.
@UncleJeff: I love Pastis’s pun strips. He makes a real effort to set them up. I’m a huge Beatles fan, and I especially like the puns from Beatles songs.
@Baja Gaijin: It blows my mind that they’re eating those salmon squares with their bare hands, like cookies. I would think that salmon squares would be like a soft fish patty, but apparently they’re the fish version of granola bars.
@Uncle Lumpy: I remember watching Circus Boy back when it originally aired. I remember Mickey Dolenz/Braddock in the show, but I don’t remember anything else about it.
Several years ago I saw Mickey Dolenz in a touring production of Pippin. His biography in the Playbill listed every theater production he’d ever been in but did not mention Circus Boy, The Monkees, or any TV show he was in.
Late Thread Cuisine: What other superheroes think of Wilburman.
@122 Guillermo el chiclero: The 1969 tour in which Led Zepelin opened for Vanilla Fudge is considered by some to be the birth of Heavy Metal. In any case, it was the tour that gave us the (in)famous “mud shark” incident that was the basis for the Frank Zappa tune, so it certainly contributed to shaping the Heavy Metal lifestyle. True giants of the rock scene walked the earth in those days.
@Baja Gaijin: I’ll just stick with Hamburger Helper, thanks.
@109 Ukulele Ike: Davey Jones was the cute one, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork were the two goofy-looking musical ones, and Mickey Dolenz was the “acting” one. As @137 Uncle Lumpy pointed out, Dolenz had starred on a TV series “Circus Boy”, so the producers knew how he came across on television, and they cast him without an audition.
Personal story: In the early 1990s I sat in the seat next to Mickey Dolenz on a cross-country flight. He was an enthusiastic talker, and we engaged in conversation for much of the 5-hour flight time. He was particularly excited about the Open University courses in which he had been enrolled through British television, and he had a special interest in physics and in particular in quantum mechanics. So maybe he was in fact the smart one after all.
@Where’s Rocky?: I’ve always found this historical chestnut amusing:
https://youtu.be/t8tdmaEhMHE?si=hvGkjjZN2zKLi8RN
@seismic-2: #159: Mickey Dolenz also auditioned for the role of Fonzie in “Happy Days” but we all know who got the part. His father, George Dolenz, was a fairly well-known movie character actor.
@seismic-2: #157: Catch Vanilla Fudge’s 1968 appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, available on YouTube. Their performance of “You Keep Me Hanging On” was so intense I’m surprised there was any oxygen left in the theater.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Cool, tit for tat! (I always hated “Fast Car” and have no interest in listening to the Nashville version) Are you a Wobbly? I’m a Wobbly too! Don’t mourn — ORGANIZE! ONE BIG UNION!
@I speak Jive: Jesus, all the ‘60s rock references today. We are SUCH a bunch of Boomers. OKAY, BOOMERS.
@seismic-2: I saw Mickey Dolenz in a parking lot in L.A. once. We did not banter about physics. He was not wearing pants.
@taig: This recipe qualifies as an example of Hamburger Hinderer.
@163 Peanut Gallery: Just like Wilberman!
Grateful Dead free concert at the Columbia University sit-in, 1968. Out-Boomer that, Boomers!
(Pretty damn cool. Let the wingnuts bitch about THAT)
Sadly, these days Micky Dolenz is known simply as “the one who’s still alive.”
@Peanut Gallery: Huh. The Beatles outlasted them. There are TWO Beatles left. Who saw THAT coming?
@Ukulele Ike: And Keith Richards is still alive! (Allegedly.)
MW: To be fair, my mind would wander too if I was in this conversation.
@Baja Gaijin: Looks like the time a kid threw up on the school bus I was riding 25 years ago.
Wilburman is a great character design. It looks like some editing went into covering up his crotch, which I’m guessing is because someone thought a superhero with brightly colored underpants over tights was inappropriate for the comics page. And they ended up making that area blue anyway so it looks like he’s just wearing a blue body sock and a belt. Which, as far as I can tell, is just a basic civilian belt, but obviously he needed something to break it up at the waist. The red gloves and boots give it a touch of classic superhero wear, but then the world’s shortest drab little cape brings it around to whimsical. And he’s thought to remove his glasses and put on a fake muscle suit to give him huge shoulders and probably a deeply uncomfortable girdle to push his belly up, all plausible efforts to hide his identity while also looking good, while still flying around proudly showing off his comb-over.
Baldo – “Gracie! You expect me to wipe my ass with this!?”
“What the hell, it’s only an iPhone 7.”
@170 Needless Exposition: Does the picture look like the kid or the bus?
GA: I know that very few pastors these days do the legendary three-hour and four-hour sermons that were delivered in Unmerry Olde New England, according to some things I’ve read. But this seems weirdly short even by modern standards. Not that I’m complaining.
@I speak Jive:
Yeah, that was a thing. I saw Duane Hackman in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee in maybe 1966 or so, and Playbill listed every bit part he had ever been in, but not Dobie Gillis. BTW, he was great.
@Uncle Lumpy:
Gah, was that “Duane” or “Dwane”? Damn sixties.
I’m not a boomer but a proud gen-Xer. I met Peter Tork doing Hands Across America.
@I speak Jive: 6C – I think it’s a Beyonce joke. That country album of hers. So the witch is wearing a cowboy hat.
@Uncle Lumpy: I always thought he was just some hick, man….
Here I am bringing up the rear on comics comments again.
BB: As a rather hirsute individual myself, the pattern of hair on Cookie’s arms and shoulders is truly inexplicable. The tattoo artist with the kicky grape Kool-Aid mohawk-goatee combo is not happy to be working on that canvas. He’s not even in the military and he wants combat pay.
MW: “As an author, I’ve never forgotten how to daydream. Luckily my reveries have never produced anything like what’s going on here, or else I just might have to.” ~ Neil Gaiman
@Artist formerly known as Ben: “As a rather hirsute individual myself…”
Damn, who knew? Treat yourself to a can of Nair….the only defoliant commercial you can beat off to!
9CL: And how old are they supposed to be again? Too young for the quasi-upskirt pic to be appropriate, that’s for sure.
C-Shaft: Was the chalk outline drawn around Harry Dinkle? Almost certainly not, but just for today we can pretend.
GA: From the riotous laughter I take it this church has a two drink minimum.
JP: Pavel is about to repeat the “How about a magic trick?” scene from The Dark Knight. He’ll make the pencil disappear, then wonder why his own eye hurts.
Luann: Bwad’s belief that if his wife were Persis Khambatta he could be Beach Boy Dennis Wilson is about as much of the inner workings of his mind as I’m prepared to see.
Phantom: This prank reality show only has an audience of one but that one viewer is watching from a cave full of priceless world treasures so, okay.
RMMD: The more I see the Morgans talking the more I wonder if maybe Candy knew exactly what she was doing.
@Ukulele Ike: Damn, that was a while ago.
@Ukulele Ike: Once in a while…if you get a wild hair up your ass….
@Ukulele Ike:#165 Very good. And now for celebration of Bicycle Day…
@Baja Gaijin: A bit of both, really. Wherever you are, Chuckie, I’m sorry.
@seismic-2: And after this past week’s news about Dickey Betts, Jaimoe Johnson is the last original member of the Allman Brothers Band.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: ” the pattern of hair on Cookie’s arms and shoulders is truly inexplicable.”
You apparently haven’t seen professional wrestlers George “The Animal” Steele and Dirty Dutch Mantell.
STONE SOUP: It’s an Earth Day miracle. I liked Max today.
MW: Wilbur sees himself as a superhero we accept.
Wilbur sees himself with a full head of hair is “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves” territory.
I think it’s funny that in Wilbur’s fantasy, he’s still balding. Sure, super strength and the power of flight, but a full head of hair? Too unrealistic!
Mary Worth – It’s been obvious that the superhero trend of the past 15 years has run its course, but the greatest thing Wilbur has ever done for pop culture is officially end it by inserting himself into the genre.
Beetle Bailey – Some people eat their feelings, but even Cookie understands like everything else he produces, they are inedible.
Marvin – She is leaving Marvin in the laundry room with all the colorful laundry chemicals with unscrewed caps for his sampling pleasure.
“Learning that Cookie’s distinctive shoulder hair is strawberry blond” ….
https://y.yarn.co/0ff632ad-f5c1-4e0c-8634-2c68f8ab9b76_text.gif