Walt, do NOT inform God that His plan to smite you failed
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Gasoline Alley, 6/11/24
So, the reason the electricity went out at Walt’s is that a big tree fell over and pulled down the power line running from the utility pole to the house, and now some guys from the power company have come out in the middle of the night to repair it. This is, obviously, annoying, and could easily be the most annoying thing that would happen to you in a given year, if your year was pretty good overall, but I do not think it could in any way be described as an “unbelievable ordeal.” It’s actually quite easy to believe! You think Walt and Gertie are going to describe it to other people and they’ll say “My God, you can’t be serious”? No, it’ll be more like “Oh wow, that sounds annoying. Nice that the power company came out to fix it in the middle of the night, though.”
Dick Tracy, 6/11/24
If we’re going to go through the trouble of continuing to make Dick Tracy comics, then I suppose part of that process has to be about exploring how Dick Tracy and his friends and foes would interact with modern-day stuff. I feel ambivalent about it, but I respect that they want to do it rather than just rehash golden age Dick Tracy stuff endlessly, and I have to say that I am marginally more intrigued to find out what Dick Tracy thinks about cryptocurrency than I was to find out what he thinks about furries.
Bizarro, 6/11/24
There are two things I love about this comic. The first is that the snowman outside the apartment has clearly spent a lot of time sculpting his snow-body into the flowing shape of a ethereal spectre, but is big enough to recognize that his friend’s cheap prop humor is more likely to win kudos than his own more subtle work. The second is that Bizarro has, in a bold refusal to adhere to conventions, chosen to do a joke about snowmen going to a Halloween party in the middle of the summer.
The Phantom, 6/11/24
A classic bit I do on my blog is to look at a day’s comic and say “Ha ha, surely the next development in this strip will be [something that is far too silly to ever happen in a comic strip]”, and a classic bit that the comics do in response is to produce a subsequent development that’s substantially sillier than I predicted. Anyway, I apologize for joking that “Space-Ox,” the private rocket company in the current Phantom storyline, is run by Elon Musk Ox (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also an ox). In fact, it’s run by Ian Mollusk (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also a snail).
203 replies to “Walt, do NOT inform God that His plan to smite you failed”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these reaction shots match your own?
Heathcliff: “Do you want me to wish him into the cornfield now?”
Phantom: could have been worse, Space Ox could be owned by Lumaca Morente.
Blondie: At long last, we’re starting the pastry chef hiring freak show, and as expected it’s off to an incredibly mild start. Kissing one of Blondie’s arthritic clawed hands is a bit inappropriate, but I guess we’re calling that a charming eccentricity rather than sexual harassment here. Still, years of experience, good references, and a positive attitude can’t make up for Blondie’s WASPy nervousness towards liberty spike mohawks and speaking casual English to one’s girlfriend. Better luck next time, Pepe Le Pew.
HtH: Uh, Hagar? Your antestature is currently under extremely heavy archery fire. If you had another front line before, it’s gone now. It’s time to focus less on reconnaissance and more on figuring out how to say “Please spare me!” in Welsh.
JP: You know what would be several hundred times less boring than listening to some character we barely know give a one-sided account of off-page events in the past? Actually getting to learn about this character by seeing him go through on-page events in the present. But no, for reasons completely unfathomable to anyone with an understanding of writing, we’re doing the former yet again, even though there’s absolutely no reason why M&M couldn’t do the “Decbro betrays Declan” story properly before doing this “That’s why Brother Dearest isn’t invited to my birthday parties anymore” DRAMA! stuff.
Luann: Sure enough, the predictable joke is exactly what we thought it would be, only delivered in the most awkward and unbelievable way possible. Meanwhile, Luann plays the straight man with the dull lethargic mumbling of a tranquilizer addict. Reading Luann is like watching a pro basketball player go for a lay-up on an ages 3 & up toy basketball hoop and fall flat on their back with a bloody nose after bouncing the shot off the rim into their own face, except every day for 40 years.
Today’s Phantom is going to appear in the Guinness Book of Records under “Largest Ass Cleavage for a Newspaper Comic Strip (Background Character)”
MW: The stupidest problems demand the stupidest solutions.
DtM: Dennis hopes that cutesy malaprops will get him a transfer to “Family Circus.”
9CL: If this is Alistair’s fantasy, it should serve to warn him that there’s still a slim chance to break free and grow a pair.
GA: Ordeal? You want to talk ordeal? Did your fish die? Did it?
MW: I wonder if Wilbur and Mary know that most “burials at sea” are to try and get rid of the body, not to show respect for it. Of course they’re also both too stupid to realize that they can save a trip and empty out the “coffin” at the boardwalk. Not only would they get the same result but it would also attract attention which both of them clearly want…though in this case, it would be more like watching a zoo exhibit.
That’s one helluva flashlight ol’ Gertie is carrying. The beam carries for ~100 yards with absolutely crisp edges, wow! With batteries like that, do you even need electric power lines?
Phantom:
“I wish that Mollusk would clam up, though! Of course, if I were to tell him that, he’d probably say, ‘Abalone‘ ! Say, look at the device for controlling the passage of air on that ascending rocket — bye, valve! Whelk, that’s it for today’s report, folks!”
MW: Seasick Wilbur throws Stellan over the side and immediately vomits in the same spot.
Mary in aside says to Jeff; “You know, I may have to rethink the whole ‘not a loser’ thing.”
Bizarro : Considering how “weird” that ‘snowman’ looks, there’s the possibility these are meant to be ghosts? I’m sure there’s ONE culture that celebrates a holiday centered around honoring the dead and involving wearing funny costumes in JUNE…
I was going to say the BON FESTIVAL but it turns out that’s in august…***************
Phantom : I’m still assuming Ian Mollusk’s deal is “EXACTLY like Elon Musk, except his dad has a ring-sized skull-shaped indentation on his cheek”. And that the story will end with “Ian Mollusk = EXACTLY like Elon Musk, except HE has a ring-sized skull-shaped indentation on his cheek”.
…Too far?…***************
Ripley’s Don’t Believe It :
a) … I hadn’t realised I had been assuming mummies were naked under their bandages until now.
b) Hey, isn’t one of the lesser-used Heathcliff gags that has he has to ‘deal’ with a little girl that overly dotes on him and dresses him like a baby and stuff, but the joke is that Heathcliff is actually SUPER into that stuff and LOVES it?
c) I’m willing to believe that the invention of “vague dummy to trick animals away from crops” is actually older than 3 millenia.
Bizarro: Probably even more gruesome when the lit stick of dynamite on top of the door goes off.
This is not a pipe (bomb?)
MW: “Now let’s get this place cleaned up! As soon as the neighbors find out about your loss, they’ll all be coming by to pay their respects, dropping off pound cakes and tuna casseroles. Oh, sorry…..”
Phantom: Well, well, well. After three years, Purple Stripeybutt has moved from MozzFic to going after Not-Elon. I’m wondering if that Idol with the last storyline is connected.
I look forward to Kit punching Not-Elon and leaving multiple Skullring Tattoos on his face. He’s had experience in dealing with fascists. After all, this isn’t his first Rhodia.
MW – You know, goldfish don’t live all that long, which means Willa’s clock is ticking. After going through all this with Stellan, Wilbur can’t just flush Willa or bury her in the backyard. That means well have to go through all this again in not-too-long and I can’t even.
yyJP: I take it back with non-binary Parker. Beatty has the pronoun dialogue down pat. Now if he can only work with the Bully-Bullied interaction to be more realistic.
Bizarro: Any costume that requires you to remove your nose is going to look gruesome.
I’m pretty sure that snowman is wearing a sheet with holes cut into it for eyes and carrot.
DT: But they’re staying true to their roots by using a 30’s-era slang call-out. (“Mazuma” = money) Their core audience are nudging each other knowingly.
MW: Taking someone who is, at best, in an emotional spiral, onto a boat is one of those things that in a vacuum might not be terrible, but after Wilbur leaps into the water with no life jacket will definitely have people saying, “Huh, yeah ok, maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”
Phantom: I wonder if the fictional version also leaves a trail of slime behind him.
GA: It’s a regular book of Gob in here.
DT: I’ll save you some time. The password is “password.”
Bizz: I don’t know. I feel like going to the trouble of sticking a spoon into one’s head shows some real dedication to the costume.
GA: In Thomas Hardy’s novel The Woodlanders, a bedridden elderly man was terrified that a tree was gonna crash down on his house and kill him. Villagers finally cut the tree down during the night. He woke up the next morning, saw the tree wasn’t there and died from a heart attack. Just sayin’.
GA: Hmm, I see that instead of a regular flashlight that just projects light, Walt has a device that cuts through time itself so you can see what your surrounding look like on a sunny afternoon. Seems a bit excessive to me, but I guess I’ve always had trouble figuring out this crew’s relationship with technology.
DT: I love the side-eye that Sam is giving that computer. Crack it in a few days? Give him an hour with that thumb drive in a dark room with a phonebook, he’ll have that spreadsheet for you in an hour, two tops.
Frazz: Ha ha ha! Winding a watch is more mentally stimulating than playing Wordle. You’re so right, Caulfield!
Luann: Tom Batiuk is rolling over in his grave.
CS: The moral here being, “Don’t meet your heroes.”
The Phantom: I believe if Ian were a snail, he would be Mr. Mollusc. Since he’s Ian Mollusk, I’m going to assume that he’s either some dreadful combination of a musk ox and a snail (possibly an octopus or some form of cuttlefish) and/or was originally presented in a 1997 album by the beloved American rock duo Dean and Gene Ween.
9CL: He clearly didn’t say, “Erm……..well……” (I hope I got the ellipses right), because it’s not shown on the page. Anyway, it looks like Amos is dead in this timeline. Good riddance.
Yesterday:
Today:
He tried to frame me for a crime.
And then he fucked my fiancée.
MW: I wonder what a freezer-burned goldfish corpse looks like.
Zits: Yep, you always go with the sensible friend when discussing plans to your parents.
FC: I’m just glad it’s not Wilbur saying this particular darnedest thing.
@Baja Gaijin: Reaction shot #1 seems like a perfect fit to me.
GA: “Ordeal” is someone in your house who needs their dialysis machine or (like my wife) oxygen machine to keep running.
I do like the drawing element of colors in the torch’s light and black/purple in the dark. It shows some thought and effort.
I know comic strips often have a hard time keeping up with advances in technology and the writers and artists don’t always fully understand how they work, but kudos to Gasoline Alley for having a creative team who have never seen a flashlight in action. That magical beam that shows what the world looks like during the day when you peer through it is something else indeed.
Phantom: Rick and Morty did this Elon Musk joke better. And that was one of the worst characters and episodes in the history of the show.
Imagine the host of the party having to keep their temperature at or below freezing to accommodate their 2 guests here. Unless the is a world of nothing but snow creatures that live on a world of ice.
The Phantom: Wired: Space rocket launches that take place on full exhibition.
Tired: Space rocket launches that take place in the middle of the night, with the press barred, causing everyone to wake up and ask, “What was that noise?”
No, the password is CHARLES ETTINGER MIKE CURTIS. She’s just like me – passwords written on post-it notes placed in an easy-to-access spot. Except mine, of course, are all foul words followed by my favorite number.
@taig: On Luann: Yeah, the Evansii looked at last week’s high-LAR-ious string of jokes (‘Ninety-Four!’) and said ‘hold my non-alcoholic beer’…
JP: ‘You see, my brother Don had some grifting operation going with some woman who went by the name Doris, but then he ripped off the wrong guy, some egg-head named after that guy from ‘The Honeymooners’. He pinned it on me, when all I wanted was to make an honest living working in this new factory that was being built from environmentally friendly shipping containers. Then that whole sinkhole fiasco happened and I knew Pater Pavel would not bear the shame of my crawling back to him, so I had to go on the run. Then this psycho CIA agent got on my trail…’
RMMD: Speaking of off-panel, we’re about to smash cut to Parker on the floor all mangled up Beetle Bailey-style while Jughead’s evil twin walks off going ‘Haw Haw!’, aren’t we?
FC: Jeffy returns from nude summer camp more militant than ever.
“Maaa! Clothes are a bourgeois concept.”
As a resident of Houston, having lived through several multi-day power outages including one less than a month ago, let me just say…. nothing. I got no joke here.
They suck and my family and I are lucky to have gotten through them as well as we did.
GA: “And tomorrow, let’s get the flashlight’s beam recalibrated. It pulls about twenty degrees left of where I aim it.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Waiter, please give our compliments to the chef”
“Of course, sir”
“Thank you”
“But Monin, I still think you should have ordered a merlot instead of that chardonnay”
The unspoken ordeal is clearly that they’ve been sent into a frightening shadow world where it is dark and yet, where the flashlight shines, it clearly shows that it is the middle of the day!
Slylock: In panel two, Sk8er boi finally notices that Ms Lavigne has a butt plug shoved in her ear.
DT: What Dick Tracy thinks about cryptocurrency is, if you can’t shoot it or beat a confession out of it, it’s not worth investigating.
Meanwhile, out in the woods…
MW: “I’m sure Jeff would be willing to take us out on his boat to do this.”
“Well, shouldn’t we at least ask him first?”
“He’ll do what I tell him to do. Now clean up this pig sty. NOW!”
FC-Jeffy’s auditioning for ‘Love Is’.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
Archie-Veronica wants Archie their to trim her bush.
Luann-Mrs. Horner is in a better place. Another comic strip.
Bizarro: The equivalent of a human costume that purports to show their brains and internal organs on a platter for consumption.
The Phantom: I have the forlorn hope that the storyline will show “Ian Mollusk” to be just as racist and hate-group-enabling as his real-life equivalent.
JP-“He lives deep in the heart of darkest Africa. He’s like a ghost to me. A Ghost That Walks.”
@1 Baja Gaijin:
Nice chicks.
Blondie: New Pastry Chef with Controlled Fansourced Picked Name will appear on Friday.
yyBlondie: It’s a good thing Dithers isn’t a bookworm. Otherwise, he would have hunted down the author, ranted in person, torn up all the books,and kicked the author in the ass.
Oh, wait. He only does that with Dagwood.
BIZARRO: “Now off to that costume party at Calvin and Hobbs’s….”
@jroggs, Luann: Reading Luann is like watching a pro basketball player go for a lay-up on an ages 3 & up toy basketball hoop and fall flat on their back with a bloody nose after bouncing the shot off the rim into their own face, except every day for 40 years.
And, somehow, Charles Schultz made the Football Gag fresh every time, and it’s been an icon of futility.
FG: Well Flash, this is a another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.
JP: Because you’re an over-the-top, emotional female, that would blow this out of proportion, that’s why.
6C: Maybe next week.
Phantom – Because when you’re a mega-billionaire, a thick, massive rocket sends a much clearer message than a big pickup truck.
Phantom: “And speaking of visions of what’s on full exhibition here today, get a load of the next-to-last spectator on your right!”
@Little Guy:
…I don’t think anyone is topping this.
@Baja Gaijin: Where did the panel from #1 come from?
Frazz: Wordle players — yet another group that Mallet holds beneath contempt.
JP: Um, do you two ever talk about anything? Or have you just been playing slap and tickle for the entire year?
CS: Ha ha, good one, Flash! Boy, just look at Jeff’s expression. He never saw that zinger coming! Those smirks are well deserved!
RMMD: “Mr. Dawson, there might be a problem. I think Parker might be in a battle of wits with that lame new kid who tries to bully us. The kid is dumber than rocks. Parker’s vocabulary has probably got him in a metaphorical headlock right now. Somebody should probably break it up.”
THE PHANTOM: Josh, I’d say, “Just like Elon Musk, but also a slug” would be more apropos.
THE PHANTOM (2): “Hahaha, good thing I’m good-natured, thick-skinned individual who can roll with the punches and laugh at himself”, says Elon Musk as he wonders how many shares make up King Feature Syndicate.
H&L: The best thing that can be said for this awful strip is that at least it didn’t run December.
Phantom: The Avarice lunar lander. Subtle, guys. Reeeallll subtle.
FC: Jeffy entertains ladies for their birthdays by jumping out of a cake. That’s why it’s his birthday suit!
GA: It was such an unbelievable ordeal that Gertie went for several hours without copping an attitude about NASCAR.
MW: Mary: “I’m sure Jeff would be willing to take us out on his boat to do this.”
[Jeff stops mid operation and shudders]
[patient flat-lines]
GT: Pedro scores his second home run against a Milford pitcher.
Phantom: The Phantom is going with Spongebob level puns now?
I’m waiting for Kit Walker and Ian Mollusk to battle for the soul of Africa, untouched by any hint of irony.
Gasoline Alley-Walt is upset that a tree didn’t crash through the house crushing him.
Gasoline Alley: The use of gray scale for darkness while anything in the flashlight beam is in color is a really cool and clever bit of artistry. What a shame it’s being used for the narrative equivalent of watching paint dry.
Dick Tracy: Yet more proof that the surest sign something has become old news is whether or not the newspaper comics are acknowledging it.
The Phantom: “Ian Mollusk! Who we assure our viewers is NOT some kind of sea-creature-themed supervillain!”
Just today, Nintendo Switch had an update, removing all connections to Twitter…
It’s probably Elon Musk not wanting to associate with Nintendo, but I prefer to think that its some sort of protest on Nintendo’s part.
@Pandrew:
Yep, it’s the latter.
“Nintendo joins Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox in removing X integration after Elon Musk hiked API fee pricing. It’s official: All three major video game consoles are now getting rid of their integrations with Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.”
Phantom: Is the ass-cracking fat lady in the second panel a plumber?
Fantome – This will really give us insight into how long the lead time on your typical Phantom strip is. Will Ian Mollusk be portrayed as a super-genius? It’s over four years. Will he be portrayed as kind of a doofus? About two years. Will he be portrayed as attempting to build a new utopia on the Moon, but only for white snails with divorced snail energy? Then these strips are being written right now. Anyhow, I applaud the fact that the rocket is still drawn like they drew them in the 1950s, some things should be eternal.
@Cleveland Mocks: (on Frazz) You can’t do Wordle while you’re smugly exercising!
GA – God doesn’t slam a door in your face but that he slams a window sash on your fingers….
DT – Why no disclaimer? CRIME INFORMATION – FOR OFFICIAL CRIME USE ONLY – Unauthorized users not committing crimes are subject to weaponized prosecution by the Department of Injustice including fines and imprisonment….
Bizzaro – Remember – what the door mouse said; feed your head….
Phantom – That rocket looks lik it came from Werner VonBraun’s estate sale….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
PBS: Oof, Pastis really phoned that one in.
The Ghost Who Foreshadows — Is it just me, or does the logo on the rocket fin look like the Phantom has already punched it?
RMMD: They’re going to find Parker stuffed into their locker, passed out! Where are the smelling salts when you need them?
Gasoline Alley: Having trees serviced, pruned, and inspected for dead branches is a skilled and potentially dangerous job — so it’s fairly expensive, and even more costly if there’s a trained arborist on the team. But it’s something homeowners should do on a regular basis, especially if they have large trees near power lines on their property. That’s something Walt and Gertie should have known, given that they’re, like, a million years old at this point. They are indeed lucky that nothing worse happened, but at some point they should stop being grateful and start feeling guilty.
Dick Tracy: If you know how to encrypt a thumb drive, it would make more sense to do it with the one holding half a million dollars in cryptocurrency, right? Of course, we’ve all heard stories about people who had digital fortunes but couldn’t access them because they lost their password — and as funny as Dick Tracy can be at times, it would never let us enjoy a situation as hilarious as that one.
Bizarro: I think the strangest thing about snowman life is that they live in urban apartments, like on “Seinfeld.” Clearly the one in the sno-cone costume is Jerry, because Kramer would have gone all the way and doused his head with flavored syrup.
The Phantom: If the character’s name was “Ox” (like his company Space-Ox), it would still make sense that he’d have changed the name of his Phantom-universe version of Twitter into “X.” But since his name is Mollusk, does that mean he decided to call his social-media app “SK”? That would be even more confusing than what happened in real life — and would cause chaos among certain ASMR fans, who’ve spent years listening to “sk”-sound videos at night because it puts them to sleep.
Pluggers: This plugger is about to scratch his nose with a dirty trowel — and then it’s back to the urgent care for yet another tetanus booster.
Mary Worth: This seems like a puzzle worthy of midweek Slylock Fox: You have a pizza box, a potato-chip bag, and a paper soda cup. Which is the right size and weight for burying a fish at sea? (Answer: Was it an intelligent, talking fish? In that case, it doesn’t really matter, because his relatives are already planning to jump onto the boat and push Wilbur overboard.)
Frazz – Caulfield’s routine of being an asshole and disrupting the class is superior to using one’s brain to solve Wordle.
FC – I was in the pool! I WAS IN THE POOL!
Mary Worth – This has gone on much too long. It was a damn fish. You’re depressed. Get some real therapy.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – The third one reflects my feelings.
@Powers: That’s how I see it, too.
The Phantom: While the name “Ian Mollusk” may appear to just be a silly play on a man’s name, it’s actually far more subtle. The vast majority of mollusk species are hermaphroditic organisms. By naming the notoriously transphobic Musk for one of nature’s best-known counterexamples to binary sexes, The Phantom reminds the reader of the true complexities of gender identities. It’s a sophisticated move for a comic about guy in striped underpants, and I wish I had the slightest confidence it was on purpose.
Seattle Times is advertising “The Planet Syndicate — New!” I go there and it tells me “No Comics Found.”
@5 Schroduck: Wait a minute. I thought either Ed Kudlick or Ed Crankshaft was the biggest ass on the comics page. [Sequitur whispers] Ohhhh, ass cleavage. Nevermind.
@29 taig: I bet Wilbur gets that one a lot.
@61 Lord Flatulence: Judge Parker. That’s Katherine. Originally she was sitting on the other end of the couch with the senior Judge Parker facing her.
@84 I speak Jive: I figured someone would agree.
Gratifying to see at least one of the newspaper strips has caught up with “Elon Musk is a creep and a weirdo.” Especially good news for The Phantom who correctly identified that they were already on thin ice with the whole “European savior hero operating in the jungles of Africa” conceit and that throwing in with a White South African billionaire and diamond mine heir would likely end them.
@Guillermo el chiclero, Phantom: Mike Manley is back!
Perfect.
Maybe Gertie meant the unbelievable part was a power company actually coming in the middle of the night to fix an outage.
Bizarro-All that’s missing is the strawberry syrup.
I’m excited about this plotline. Cryptocurrency, with its bizarre terminology, sci-fi flavor, and larger-than-life cartoon villain kingpins, is the perfect world for Dick Tracy to explore. They won’t even have to change Sam Bankman-Fried’s name.
MW-“You want me to do what for that fat lazy lush,” Jeff responds.
@Baja Gaijin: Gassed Up Alleycats: Gertie and Walt are shining the light on GA’s copyright notice. The “unbelievable ordeal” is obviously everything that’s happenend between 191? And 2024! Not even the characters can believe they’re still running.
You know, Mary, what would really help Wilbur is some actual psychological therapy rather than enabling this stupid “goldfish funeral.” He’s a middle aged man with his own adult daughter, not a four year old who doesn’t understand the concept of death. Just bury Stellan in your garden if Wilbur’s going to throw a tantrum about the toilet.
FC-“You’re father is the same size.”
Pluggers are so in love with their nose they worry about getting a little smudge on it.
MW: is there a reason Wilbur couldn’t drive to the nearest pier to bury Stellan at sea?
Ziggy: A disclaimer for Baja‘s Late Thread Cuisine.
@Professor Well Actually: Mary wants to use the boat so she can pretend that she’s wealthy.
GA: “Let’s pause a moment and give thanks – to our modern god, electricity! Oh great electricity, I beg forgiveness for my sinful rejection of the name Electric Acres. It was not until the ordeal of being deprived of your holy light that I saw the truth! … Come on, Gertie, let’s find a goat to sacrifice.”
Bizarro: This strip’s timing makes perfect sense because it’s set in Australia, where Halloween is celebrated on June 11 [citation needed].
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Today:
He tried to frame me for a crime.
And then he fucked my fiancée.
Tomorrow:
He hung the roll of toilet paper the wrong direction.
And tried to frame me for a crime.
And then he fucked my fiancée.
Sure, when a tree falls on a power line in Gasoline Alley, it does no damage to anything and the electric company comes right out to fix it. When a tree falls on a power line in the real world, it snaps the pole in half, rips my electric box out of the wall, requires me to reside the entire back of my house, and go without electricity for a week.
love is… not listening when a butterfly instructs you how to adorn yourself.
Tip for Baja Gaijin. Avoid tomorrow’s Bizarro.
@Baja Gaijin: The last time we saw the Judge and his wife was when he was wandering around town, asking random people if they’d seen his temporary daughter Ann.
@96 Needless Exposition: I think “four year old who doesn’t understand the concept of death” is a pretty spot-on description of Wilbur’s intellect.
Vintage Buz Sawyer: Getting gored in the groin by a rhino horn. That’s gotta hurt.
@Banana Jr. 6000: At least he and Dawn have the same emotional maturity.
Why wouldn’t summer be the best season for Snowman Halloween? What’s scarier than the prospect of melting when you go outside?
DT: Something tells me that thumb drive with the “Ma Zooma” on it is going to get “lost” in the Neo-Chicago Police Department evidence room.
@Tom T.: Try “Edge City — New!” instead. According to Sequitur, it’s got 15 year old strips as opposed to the 20 year old strips on GoComics. “New!” is a relative concept these days. Thanks, Obama. I mean, thanks, Bush.
@86 Tom T.:
Here’s the latest The Planet Syndicate from Comics Kingdom.
The latest one is dated May 9, 2024 and there’s no update after that.
Here’s the one from May 2nd. It must be a weekly.
JP: “He’s not just my brother — he’s my evil twin. You thought Ces wasn’t gonna go there, but he is.”
@95 Garrison Skunk: Um, what? I didn’t comment on Gasoline Alley.
@100 Sequitur: True dat.
@108 Lord Flatulence: Maybe this image came from when the Judge told her of his harebrained scheme?
Ziggy-A good warning for those who watch Dagwood eat.
The Family Circus: Thel’s about to point and laugh, isn’t she.
Marvin: One could lose 90% of their sense of smell and still smell Marvin.
DT: Mazooma is a real digital payment processing system, which Costello simply broke into two words for his fictional crypto. Whether this is a failure of creativity or stealth product placement I don’t claim to know.
GA: Gertie’s flashlight renders whatever she shines it on in perfect daytime color. Ted Turner’s people developed it in the late 80s.
Phantom: One small step for man, one lady onlooker who really needs to pull up her pants. This is unseemly.
Six Chix: No one is gonna talk to you if you stick a microphone in their face.
@Sequitur: Surely there is some female cartoonist somewhere in the world who DOES have one idea a week for a comic? How do we get that person Bianca’s job?
Mary Worth: I don’t think that’s a pizza on the table, I think it’s a picture of a pizza on a pizza box.
If I saw that picture of a pizza on a box, I’m not opening the box.
@123 Ukulele Ike:
I think Bianca has some blackmail info on the powers that be at King Features Syndicate.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Never play poker with a man called “Doc;” never eat at a restaurant called “Ma’s Oooma.”
9CL: Also, never get involved with a land war in Asia, never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, and absolutely never fantasize about a toddler character in a future menage a trois marriage.
Blondie: Stanley Kowalski has aged poorly, become a punk rocker decades too late, and learned to act French from Pepe le Pew cartoons, is what I’m getting from this.
C-Shaft: Now that Flash has gotten that royalty check the decision of whether to burn down the studio for insurance money is deferred for another month.
JP: Neddy’s family has been taken hostage by a Russian mobster and her dad’s best friend’s wife is an ex-CIA assassin, to the extent that the “ex” part of that description is even possible. Anyway, I suspect Declan is just trying to keep up.
MW: Mary will arrange it so that Wilbur can get out on the open water to bury Stellan. Will he also come back? Let’s just leave that as a surprise.
RMMD: Of course Mr. Dawson notices that Parker is missing now. You can’t teach The Wizard of Oz without the class’s own representative from the Lollipop Guild.
WofI: Mercifully, the horrifying next step (a choreographed dance to “Thriller”) is not shown.
@Sequitur: There’s a 79% chance that box has snakes.
@128 taig:
Slather mayo on the snakes and Wilbur’d eat them.
@Needless Exposition: #7:
“most “burials at sea” are to try to get rid of the body, not to show respect for it”
I guess they respected Lord Nelson enough to pickle his corpse in a barrel of brandy so it would survive the trip from Trafalger to London intact.
FC: I don’t like the way Thel is giving bedroom eyes to a naked toddler.
@Bob Tice: #9
HA HA HA HA!!! I’m laughing to hard I pulled a mussel!!
@Little Guy: #14
“After all, this isn’t his first Rhodia.”
D’OH!!!!!
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yeah, I get the impression that in recent years, more former sailors are at least asking for their ashes to be scattered at sea, but for most of history, a sailor’s dearest wish has been to survive the seas to die ashore and be buried there.
Crank: Wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.
Isn’t this guy meant to be the Batom Comics counterpart of Stan Lee? While “comic book creators have, in general, been screwed over by comic book companies” is an important message that deserves to be spread by someone other than Tom Batiuk, I’m not sure it works for a counterpart of Stan Lee. It’s kind of like having a bit about about the crappy wages Golden Age animators were paid, but the character complaining is your version of Walt Disney himself.
GA: “We can get a better look at the house if I use the flashlight to tear away this tinted plastic sheet!”
JP: Gosh, I’m bored of Declan’s story already. Although it appears I now remember his name, so I guess Ces has succeeded in getting me more invested in him than I was last week.
Phantom: We’re two days into this storyline and I’m already getting confused. “Wait, a thinly disguised version of a problematic billionaire with a dumb parody name? I thought I stopped reading Mark Trail ages ago!”
Zits: Okay, this is possibly an egregious stereotype on my part, but my understanding of the American middle classes is that Walt and Connie should freak out more when Jeremy explains “It’s fine, we’re going to take … public transport!”
Bizarro: The first thing that came to my mind was that the snowman on the right was reenacting the brain-eating scene from the movie “Hannibal.”
I am a sick puppy.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: The Neo-Chicago version is named after notorious crime family matriarch “Ma” Zooma.
Now I’m worried that this might actually be true.
@Sequitur: Correction: Some people will, but no one you would WANT to talk to.
@Sequitur: Pluggers are literal brown-nosers.
@138 Peanut Gallery:
Yeah, I think Jay Leno proved that with his “Jay Walking” segments.
..
@taig:
You mean Walt’s made a huge mistake? I believe it!
Today’s Phantom really illustrates the problem with being a print comic; specifically the problem is that the Elon Mollusc (like Elon Musk buy he’s a clam) gag was done by the agile and responsive webcomic crowd months if not years ago.
Although I suppose I should be grateful that any print comic strip included a reference to a public figure from any time after 1983
Is that a bowl or a cone to keep them from licking themselves?
@Guillermo el chiclero: Most people aren’t lucky enough to get pickled, let alone in brandy.
@Horace Broon: That would make it like Dredd but way worse…
Phantom: Strange how in the public eye narcissistic mega-billionaires like Musk, Bezos, and Branson spending hundreds of millions of THEIR money on their ego trip penis rockets=bad while NASA spending billions of OUR tax money on pretty much the same thing=good.
@Little Guy: #89: Yeah, Mike Manley IS back but he’d better start giving us what we crave, well-cantilevered babes, not some fat trailer park woman who looks like she’s auditioning to be the next Lume spokesperson by showing us her pits, privates, and beyond.
I’m surprised that it looks like only one person has pointed out that the snowman on the left is wearing a sheet and didn’t “sculpt his snow-body”.
MW I suppose that I am unusual, in that I don’t give a damn what my own funeral will be like. A “dignified funeral” for a fish strikes me as too stupid for words.
@Veronica: “Boy, they’re really sockin’ it to that Spiro Agnew guy again…”
@Pandrew: social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
I recommend calling it Twitter, temporarily known as X.
FG: You guys are paying full freight for Dale’s medical care and you don’t have insurance? You’ll be stoking the blast furnaces of that foundry for the next hundred years.
FG: Meanwhile, while Flash and Bok bust hump at the steel mill Zarkov is engaged in some “research” with a really hot-looking Hawkwoman seismologist.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Nah, Mongo has single-payer. Ming wasn’t nearly Merciless enough to stick the serfs with U.S.-style healthcare.
Bok: “Well, here I am, back in the bowels of the earth. At least the bowels of the earth in Sky City are still pretty far up. Thanks loads, Gordon.”
MW: Yes, Dr. Jeff would love to do this for you, Wilbur if only you would fall off the boat and stay off.
But Dr. Jeff is a
defeatestrealist and knows that he will have no choice but to do this as Marycommandspleasantly requests.MW: what are the odds Mary will reward Jeff by spreading her le…HAHAHAHAHA
@Braxwell Brontë: My belief is that they’re not a loving couple but instead she’s extorting his status to make herself feel like she’s one of the privileged and wealthy. If Jeff doesn’t do what she demands, Mary will out him to the public because Santa Royale is still stuck in the 1950s and anything LGBT related is considered on par with an immoral sin.
@Professor Well Actually: If anything, Mary would use that as a threat. Think the scene in The Emperor’s New Groove where Yzma’s trying to show off the dagger strapped to her leg but everyone else is cringing at the very thought of her showing her leg.
Mary: “Damn you, Jeff! Why didn’t you push Wilbur off the boat?”
Jeff: “I’m a doctor. We take an oath to do no harm.”
Mary: “Fuck you, Jeff, fuck your oath and fuck all doctors! I guess if you want something done…”
If Mary hadn’t butted in, Wilbur might now be interviewing Walt Wallet on Zoom. “Were any fish endangered when the lights went out? Y’know, you REALLY shouldn’t be alive. What kind of god would kill my Stellan but keep you above ground?”
He’d go on to make similar calls to Mrs. Horner (Luann), Mr. Wilson, Crankshaft, the geriatrics at Roz’s diner, and dozens of random Pluggers. Surprisingly, these calls had a positive therapeutic effect as these senior citizens joyfully contrasted their own lives to that of Wilbur Weston.
Late Thread Cuisine: It’s a Fiesta! [tart]
@Liam: Maybe for Bizaro…After Dark….
@Baja Gaijin: I doubt the dead shrimp (prawns?) think it’s much of a fiesta.
@Baja Gaijin: More like a Fiesta del Culo…
@160 Baja Gaijin:
Shrimp!
@160 Baja Gaijin:
And here’s something you may or may not want.
@Sequitur: I still don’t think he’s wearing pants…
@162 taig: Worse? The recipe calls for only the shrimps’ heads as garnish.
@163 Needless Exposition: I wouldn’t have a party THERE.
@164 Sequitur: What did I just see?
@165 Sequitur: Lampy’s looking a lot better not surrounded by dirty stinky Wilbur.
@167 Baja Gaijin:
It was a song warning if you eat shrimp you could get sick.
@Baja Gaijin: Quiche? Real Men don’t eat dat. (Okay, it looks pretty tasty. You’re slipping.)
@170 Ukulele Ike: It contains fennel. Do you hear me, FENNEL.
@Sequitur:
…Did… Did Wilbur take a shower while Mary was cleaning up his living room?
Who just excuses themselves to strip naked so they can shower while they have (non-related) guests present? That’s just begging for Mary to have the same bad porcine surprise as Rocky Rhodes once did!
On the other hand, maybe Wilbur simply shaved and put on a clean shirt, and, AT BEST, sprayed some Febreeze(tm) or something to hide the several weeks worth of stench@pugfuggly: Re GA, Bwahaha!
@172 Anonymous: Febreze? Wilbur-stink laughs at Febreze. They make a commercial-strength POOPH. They don’t make it in Wilbur-strength.
@Anonymous: Wilbur is the kind of asshole who just goes off and does something else while his “friend” cleans. If anything, he can dip into sexism and claim that it’s women’s work which is why Dawn does the cleaning.
@174 Baja Gaijin:
Yeah, Wilbur and Marvin have their own special brand of stink. I’m not sure who is worse.
GA: The most irritating part of this story so far, and the competition for “most irritating” has been intense, is the part where Gertie and Walt were astounded to discover that their yard had a very large tree in the first place. You would have thought the tree was an Ent and arrived in the backyard only last week. Also especially irritating was the visual depiction of the fallen tree, which made it look like the huge scary love child of an Ent and a giant squid.
@Sequitur: It’s like comparing an incredibly gifted amateur with a professional that’s been honing their skills for decades.
@Baja Gaijin: Apparently the fourth shrimp escaped. Yay for the fourth shrimp.
@Baja Gaijin: Late thread cuisine – I guess someone came up with that recipe before quiche was a thing, because otherwise they would call it that. It’s a quiche, dammit! The quiche-tart part of it doesn’t sound bad, but it lost me with the prawn heads.
GA: Hey Gertie? Three weeks ago, a half-mile-wide tornado ripped apart the house of a good friend and shattered the surrounding trees, and he and his wife and kids feel lucky to be alive and uninjured. Take your “unbelievable ordeal” and shove it.
@Drew Funk: How about “Walker, Bangalla Ranger.”
@179 Poteet: Now that you mention it, the garnish lacks symmetry.
@180 I speak Jive: The recipe is from 1967. When did quiche arrive in the US?
@Sequitur: That scene looks like full summer, with the water somewhat lowered in the channel. I’m thinking heat and ticks. I salute you, Sax Gorilla.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m sorry, you’ll have to narrow it down. The Judge has had so many hare brained schemes.
@Veronica: Yup! Linked one to my username.
@185 Lord Flatulence: Here’s the entire strip from 2018.
@Baja Gaijin: I can’t stand fresh fennel, either. Fennel seed, however, I use in Indian cooking and enjoy in Italian sausage.
@I speak Jive: At a N’Awlins Shrimp Boil, you’re supposed to rip the head off and suck it out before peeling and eating the decapitated shrimp corpse. Living near the seacoast is all kinds of fun!
@Baja Gaijin: Quiche has been around in the U.S. forever, but it didn’t become popular until the mid-70s. If you look at it sideways, quiche Lorraine is just ham & eggs.
@Poteet: Yeah, it’d been great if the tree were an elder god or something and it caused the storm as part of its reawakening. It looked like that’s what it was initially and so I was hoping for a little eldritch horror. Alas, we’re stuck with never-to-die Walt Wallet.
@Baja Gaijin: All you need is a clockwork and you can tell time with it.
Gasoline Alley-Praise be to Mary Worth!
@Baja Gaijin: “I made this perfectly good quiche and left it sitting on the countertop, and when I came back… it had severed shrimp heads on it!”
“Oh my God, you’re a dead man… You must have offended The Prawnfather!”
@Poteet: Think of those poor ticks, biting into the gorilla costume and getting a mouthful of cloth instead of blood. Yeah, it’s a nice thought.
On the other hand, I can’t help imagining that whoever receives the costume back at the shop is going to get a mysterious rash on their hands and think “How did I get poison ivy!?”
@Maude R. Fawker: #104:
He always left the toilet seat up.
He’d always eat the last slice of pizza without asking if anyone else wanted it.
Then he tried to frame me for a crime,
and he fucked my fiance.
@Uncle Lumpy: It’ll be like lemon jello rising up over a bowl of spaghetti.
@194 Guillermo el chiclero:
He would Bogart the punch line if you were telling a joke.
He’d fart in a crowded elevator then look at me like I did it.
Then he tried to frame me for a crime,
and he fucked my fiance.
@190 Dr. Pill: If it were a clock, Buck Wise’s wife’d sell it.
@192 Peanut Gallery: SNERK!
@195 richardf8: Damn, you saw tomorrowthread’s Late Thread Cuisine! I’ll have to choose another.
@Baja Gaijin: It serves 4-6 but only has 3 prawns? Well I guess mortal combat over the shrimp is just cheap entertainment for the dinner party!
@Baja Gaijin: Jeez! It’s not as if it’s coriander! And I like that a kosher variation is presented.
@198 richardf8: I hadn’t thought of that. I figured they’d do a “King Solomon’s Solution.”
@199 richardf8: Coriander! Yucko. Let me put some more cilantro in my salsa…😁
Bizarro: The snowman dressed in a ghost costume is wearing a sheet, it isn’t sculpted into a ghost shape. What did you think the cut-outs for its eyes and nose were?
@Peanut Gallery: HAR!!
Our power company says that we own the line running to the house and have to pay them to repair it.