Funky Winkerbean: Too much heartbreak is never enough
Funky Winkerbean, 3/27/07
Man, just when I thought Funky Winkerbean couldn’t dip any further into emotional turmoil and human anguish, I think we’re about to see Coach Dude Whose Name I Forget ask his childhood bullying victim to inseminate his wife. Which will be more awesome, this or the FBOFW teen sex storyline? Only queasy, uncomfortable time will tell!
Mark Trail, 3/27/07
As a long-time fan of Mark Trail, I totally accept things like giant talking skunks without a bit of hesitation. But I’m having trouble with the giant talking rug in the third panel here. Which appears to be on the wall for some reason. Or is it perched on Mark’s shoulder? Or are Mark and Cherry actually standing on the wall, their bodies held parallel to the ground by some strange force, like Lionel Richie in the damn “Dancing on the Ceiling” video? Is that what’s going on here?
zen velo
March 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
mark trail stinks like that skunk!
TaxiGirl
March 27th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I’m just impressed by Coach Dude’s elbow.
Is that dirt? Or does he really have that kind of definition in that sole body part? And if so, what the heck is he doing?
Somehow I doubt it’s just isometrics.
shane shiner
March 28th, 2007 at 12:08 am
So, after reading Wednesday’s FOOBFEST…what will happen when the rents find WINE in the rec room?! They will think she was drinking alone? Not cool April. Get in trouble better.
Ralph the Kakapo
March 28th, 2007 at 12:08 am
I sincerely hope Lynn Johnston hasn’t become so bored with grafting Angelina Jolie’s lips onto Liz that FBOFW is going to be spiced up with underage FOOB porn…I don’t need to know if April decides to skirt pregnancy concerns by “relaxing the sphincter.”
Mighty Sam
March 28th, 2007 at 12:09 am
From the looks of that forearm, methinks Coach Dude Whose Name Josh Forgets has been spending too much time inseminating his own right hand. No wonder he and Linda are thinking of adopting: the Magic Baby Juice has all been wiped up by leftover McDonalds napkins and inside-out sweatsocks.
Maggi
March 28th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Depressy Depresserbean strikes again. Jeez. Can’t one character be happy? Happy in a way that doesn’t involve sad little smiles and trying to be brave?? Even a minor character like this shlubby coach would be fine, but noooo go ahead, make him infertile. I want you to.
t.a.m.s.y.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Wait, what’s the intended significance of the flashback in Funky Winkerbean? Am I supposed to catch the irony of the threat that follows “Listen… I’ve got news for you…”? Is it, like, “Listen… I’ve got news for you… if you don’t give me your lunch money, I’m going to punch you so hard that you ejaculate into my future wife’s vagina”? Was that the bully’s catch phrase in the 1980s?
Mighty Sam
March 28th, 2007 at 12:19 am
And, in Thursday’s Foobville, the Patterson Elders catch Gerald desperately rubbing one out on their back porch, thereby taking the mastur-baton from Wednesday’s FW.
Who’ll be jerkin’ it on Friday: Ziggy? Jeffy Keane? Ole Chinbeard? Crankin-his-shaft? Scaduto? The Wizard of Id?
I think I’ll skip the Friday comics.
Ron
March 28th, 2007 at 12:20 am
And thus we learn the difference between French bedroom farce and Canadian bedroom farce. And which one is actually funny.
Chat Noir
March 28th, 2007 at 12:20 am
No dice on the roadside trip in Wednesday’s FBorFW. The arrival of the ‘rents necessitates a premature evacuation for Gerald.
He is, however, still stuck on the back porch without cash. There’s time for discovery!
I don’t usually comment on other comics, because I only read Lio and Get Fuzzy. But all the Margo-ing has intrigued me and prompted daily looks at A3G, Judge Parker and the rest. So, few things:
JP – the hair would suggests otherwise, but the girls might be in for an employment recruiting pitch from what is almost certainly a French pimp.
Crankshaft – Oh, those crazy women! Who let them get hold of more than a wooden spoon!
Mark Trail – were I in this comic, I too would fake my death to swim away, at least to FW, where they have pizza and probably decent health insurance.
SecretMargo
March 28th, 2007 at 12:21 am
It’s the smugness on Les’s face in FW that unnerves me the most — how long is he going to savor his former bully’s (fairly literal) emasculation? Until he insists on seeing the broken man’s single testicle, a sad reminder of his bout with testicular cancer (doesn’t this seem like the next logical revelation)? Until he takes a picture of it for his horrifying scrapbook? Until he starts laughing at the empty pathos of it all, then “passes” in a fit of spontaneous avian flatulence, leaving the bully alone again, and still childless?
(As my first comment after an odyssey of lurkin’n'laffin’, let me also declare my online crush on Dingo. There I said it. Confession is good for the soul. As a Chicagoan until recently, let me tell you I’ve voted and voted against the tyranny of trains for you, and for the good of the world. Godspeed, you Northern Illinoian!)
zqfmgb
March 28th, 2007 at 12:28 am
that skunk has gotta be 20 stories tall. The Lost Forest hasn’t been cordoned because of nuclear waste and mutations, has it? that maybe explains the appearance of every human in Mark Trail.
Hobbes
March 28th, 2007 at 12:32 am
The art class jack Elrod took in high school must not have covered perspective. It did, however, cover how to draw a skunk that looks like it’s about to eat a house, and mountains that can talk.
zqfmgb
March 28th, 2007 at 12:37 am
I’d also like to point out that cherry seems to have four eyebrows in the last panel.
Jamus The Bartender
March 28th, 2007 at 12:48 am
FOOB: “But i’m not. And you didn’t” —April Patterson on her near miss.
But i’m not and you didn’t. But she will again, John and Elly, and You. Must. Take. IMMEDIATE action to prevent April from going roadside ever again.
I strongly recommend an ankle bracelet to keep track of her activities at all times. Like prisoners wear on work-release or when the prisons get too crowded. A trip to one of those bad-girl church camps where they “pray the sin away” might also help.
Yeah, a forty-eight hour stretch of scripture writing ,prayer and cold showers, I think we’ll have this all under control soon enough. Oh, Elly, you gave me the idea for this one. Make her shave EVERY single sheet in the house. Plus the curtains. That’ll teach her to have sex while babysitting. Bad April. Bad Bad Bad.
ChefMike
March 28th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Happy Wednesday folks:
Actually Bull’s inquiry about adoption segues into a reminiscence about Lisa’s Teen Pregnancy storyline from years ago.
And In Mark Trail, the bear in the last panel seems to have all the answers. Maybe Mark needs to pay that bear a visit, hey maybe he knows what happened to Molly too.
and the most recent Mary Worth storyline, unsurprisingly ends up sounding like every other Mary Worth Storyline “As God is my Witness I’m going to get that new tenant to tell me her whole life story, so help me”
In Beetle Bailey, Miss Buxley finally admits that she really has been trying to trap the general all these years.
Blondie struggles for cultural relevance by using the word website in the punchline.
Luann has a new love interest, setting the stage for the inevitable “Return of Aaron Hill” in about a month or so.
And in the Sex Sells department: Corky of Corky’s (new and improved) diner in Gasoline Alley has just hired two (what passes for cute in GA) blonde chicks who happened to be named Joy and Dawn, they could have been named Lifebuoy and Lava, they still would have been hired, because it’s been a long, long time since ol Corky got some. I guess though they were the best choice considering the other applicants he had all week. Go, Corky! you deserve it.
Randy S
March 28th, 2007 at 12:49 am
MT: This was already alluded to by someone else in the last post, but Wednesday’s MT has entered new levels of weirdness in speech balloon placement.
First Cherry is having a conversation with the potato she’s peeling, then in the next panel, two spots on her forehead are talking to each other, until in panel 3 it’s almost a return to normalcy to see the last comment made by a giant bear.
Has Elrod fallen off his meds?
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Mark Trail: Well, I for one am happy to see this new turnabout in Mark Trail. First we had Vincent D’Onofrio as a bearish detective and now – NOW! – we have an actual bear as a detective in Lost Forest.
What dish could Cherry be making with milk and one potato?
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Mary Worth: Can’t wait for Mary to introduce Vera to the standards of Charterstone: a little tea, some apple spice cake, and waterboarding. Out with it, Vera!
zqfmgb
March 28th, 2007 at 12:55 am
18- she could be making scalloped potatoes. I mean potato.
Talking animals are one thing, but the produce that has opinions on things it has never seen or heard before? I can only assume it’s psychic.
ChefMike
March 28th, 2007 at 12:56 am
18: Dingo: I’m not sure, but that poor potato seems to be pleading for his life by agreeing with whatever Cherry says. I wouldn’t mess with that woman, she cuts up innocent, sentient vegetables.
ElSanto
March 28th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Whoa, check out Wednesday’s Luann. I don’t know why, but that last panel looks really … dirty.
Mibbitmaker
March 28th, 2007 at 1:04 am
3/28 (my Wednesday newspaper edition):
GF: Uh… that’s RichAndAmy’s cat, right?
Garfield: The Emily Litella of sight!
Curtis: …well, not on purpose, anyway.
FOOB: You do know they’ll probably suddenly cut back to the party on Thursday, right?
BBailey: Jeez, you can’t win, can you, General H?
A3G: Mustn’t fall asleep… or the paint fumes that caused the ghost hallucination will certainly kill her. There’s still a chance…
DaveyK
March 28th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Christ, now Mary’s talking in asides for two day’s running. Apparently Vera has some sort of contagious disease that makes characters unable to appreciate how obvious a plotline is to the reader and, as a result, engage in needless expository asides.
DaveyK
March 28th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Christ, now Mary’s talking in asides for two days running. Apparently Vera has some sort of contagious disease that makes characters unable to appreciate how obvious a plotline is to the reader and, as a result, engage in needless expository asides.
Analyzer
March 28th, 2007 at 1:13 am
The “camera” takes two opposing positions in the first and last frames of Mark Trail, giving us a glimpse into the spatial layout of the room in which they stand. If you look at Mark and Cherry so that Cherry is on the left, then you see that they are in front of a wall on which a rug, as Josh notes, is puzzlingly mounted. If you look at them so that Mark is on the left, then you see that they are in front of a formless beige void into which the chameleonic Mark seamlessly blends.
Also, the giant skunk is not only talking but sniffing their has-a-void-for-a-wall cabin.
Trilobite
March 28th, 2007 at 1:20 am
I think the coach is going to threaten Les into stealing a baby for him. What with all the time Les apparently spends at the hospital visiting other members of the Funky Winkerbean cast during their chemotherapy, he could probably slip one or two newborns under his shirt and smuggle ‘em out, no problem.
Either that, or in a misguided attempt to extend the frontiers of medical science, the coach is going to try and impregnate Les. I imagine they’d save that for the Sunday strip.
jaybrrd
March 28th, 2007 at 1:29 am
I think the giant skunk is being used as a cutaway. When we come back, Mark and Cherry are actually lying on the floor and are mysteriously shown only from the belly button up.
Essentially, the world’s fastest half-clothed sex has taken place behind a placard of an enormous skunk.
Mibbitmaker
March 28th, 2007 at 1:33 am
3/28 (My Chron Build-up Page edition):
MT: Aw, you guys beat me to it since I posted my “My Newspaper edition” (and I haven’t caught up on the last thread yet)! I thought maybe Cherry’s brain (an oxymoron, I know) was conversing with itself in panel 2. And isn’t that Molly, herself, discussing the case in the last panel? Jeez, it’s like Elrod breathed all the paint fumes for LuAnn 3G.
9CL: Fishnet stockings on the woman’s gams, and you’re thinking of fish??
Agnes: Fleas the size of bats?! Is she ghost-writing Mark Trail? Nah, that part aside, I think she’s probably ghost-writing Mike St.Foob’s next novel.
JP: So the seedy-looking punker is actually going to save the gals’ lives? If Derrick & “Onion” were in Judge Parker’s France, they’d be saving a baby girl from a burning building.
MW: Traumatized because she’s new to Charterstone? No, she’d be traumatized if she were familiar with Charterstone! “I know about the intervention murder of Aldo! I…I’m going to curl up with my p-pillow in the corner now, if y-you don’t mind…!!”
PC: Stantis goes full-on leftist, film at eleven!
RMMD: “Bad things never happen to Heather… it’s not like she’s in Funky Winkerbean or anything!”
SappySwami
March 28th, 2007 at 1:52 am
I obviously haven’t been reading Mark Trail long enough, because each time an animal is shown, I feel like it should play some role in that strip. Which is ridiculous, really. How would it be preachy if animals not in distress had anything to do with the day-to-day strips?
Keregi
March 28th, 2007 at 2:00 am
FOOB- Didn’t April (and John for that matter) just learn about sex from a book Elly left in the Rec-Room of Iniquity? If Elly finds out about the near hosephonium playing that nearly took place, she should be really proud of what a fast learner young April is.
Canaduck
March 28th, 2007 at 2:09 am
t.a.m.s.y, (7), I nominate you for COTW. Not that it runs on nominations, but whatever.
That was hilarious.
Maggi (6) was pretty funny too.
Me, I’ll just stand here backstage and work the spotlights. Sigh.
Hobbes Fan
March 28th, 2007 at 2:11 am
I’ve gotten used to the random animal cut-aways in “Mark Trail,” but for some reason I want to believe that the skunk is actually chiming in with Mark, interjecting with an added observation that our hero may have missed. The entertainment value of the strip increases tenfold that way.
Sheilagh
March 28th, 2007 at 2:14 am
I’m puzzled. How exactly was Gerald going to get home if the parents had come in at the expected time? He still wouuldn’t have any money… and he doesn’t seem to have a car… and if his home were walking distance, why would he be bleating about “money” at all? Is April supposed to give him busfare in exchange for the nookie? Or what?
Sheilagh
March 28th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Also, re Curtis: Curtis can’t squeal on Derrick and “Onion” because they’ll beat him up. But Chutney has a recording of their confession. Sooooo….. what? Curtis can now squeal on them and they WON’T beat him up? CHUTNEY can now squeal on them? (They won’t beat HER up? They won’t beat Curtis up for knowing her?) What I’m saying is, how does this help?
AppleGirl
March 28th, 2007 at 2:26 am
The talking potato in Mark Trail is the funniest thing since the guy beating himself with tree bark in (DT)GT. In fact, every panel of MT is hilarious today, I am laughing out loud. Thank you Josh, for getting me to read this comic gem.
FBOFW – When I was a teenager, the last thing I’d think of when sneaking a boy out of my house would be to call a cab. From the very first moment of his visit (“Gerald! How did you get here?”), April seemed to be preoccupied with transportation.
TurtleBoy
March 28th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Happy Wednesday!
A3G: It’s always raining in LuAnn’s world.
MT: God, today’s strip is beautiful. Abso-boxcar-lutely beautiful.
Foob: Speaking of Lionel Richie, you can almost hear it pouring out of the boom box in Apwil’s room. That or Bryan Adams.
MW: Mary’s gotta be the biggest bitch in the world. Not satisfied with goading a recovering alcoholic to his fiery death and stealing a presumbly competent physician from a village of horrifically sick Vietnamese infants only to leave him convalescing uselessly back in the states, she’s now out to drive her latest hand-picked vict…er…neighbor…batshit, ga-ga, Gaslight insane. “If she’s not traumatized yet, by Jove, she will be when I’m done with her.”
Trilobite
March 28th, 2007 at 2:34 am
In post 36, Applegirl remarks: “From the very first moment of his visit (‘Gerald! How did you get here?’), April seemed to be preoccupied with transportation.”
Well, there’s one obvious explanation for why she’s asking him how he got there and calling him a cab to get home: ever since she and Gerald gave each other cheek-hickeys at school, April’s been consumed by thoughts of transportation. Mostly of trains going into tunnels, of course.
cjb1986
March 28th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Speaking as someone who has experienced what April’s about to go through, I’m going to be sorely disappointed if we don’t see a shotgun within the next few days.
Lynngineering
March 28th, 2007 at 2:56 am
FBOFW: It’s Mike’s ongoing dream, he’s enjoying the push and pull of precarious situations all leading to seeing April finally get hers. But as it’s not Liz, but April, he seems almost ambivalent in his handing out of penance for not babysitting his progeny. So he’s giving her a chance still – even though it’s just a matter of time.
Like a fantasy, this has the same familiar house, yet within, a guided tour of another house, as April introduces all these new angles to the same places – she practically does an explanation of the rec room’s fittings for Geraldiot, who could care less as he checked out – what else – the fold out bed she sort of- duh – didn’t notice? or mention? and now another sequence of perspective not known, hiding at the backdoor at night, for a STRANGE taxi to be called.
Mom and Dad come home and everything straightens out, including the comic drawing, no more twisting bodies, its all people standing and stuff.. Michael’s dream centers back on
Mom-who-loves-Michael-and-his-friends-and-helped-him-edit-his-book, who is, as we know, actually one and the same as “the house”.
It’s Mom versus April. Back a while, in the car, April wanted to leave home, and Mom said ‘can I go with you’. The Identity crisis – John wanted to get the other house, Mom wanted to leave the house she stands for. Everything will come together in this scene. Mom IS BACK, she is HOUSE, the CLEAN DOMAIN, and April is BASEMENT, BACKDOOR(with TAXI).
Dad…. is Toys in the yard.
So the dream is going to restore the balance by centering on Mike’s kids (not even Dee is necessary anymore) for the moment.
Dreaming along, he can’t help but enjoy giving the precarious setup (Geraldiot outside, all blueballs, waiting for of all things, a cab – like, gee, will the cab ring the doorbell? will April get the money to her stud without being caught, etc..-) and just to sweeten the deal, supplies April a false sense of security, the smart ass response in her mind to prolong the moment before sudden impact with Mom, the messenger of M.A.D. (M.ichael A.ll D.ay)
just sayin- Gerald is so over
Jym
March 28th, 2007 at 3:04 am
=35= Curtis (Sheilagh): Not too be too unsnarky or anything, but that’s a great drawing of Chutney in the last panel of yesterday’s strip:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20070327&name=Curtis
Tracer Bullet
March 28th, 2007 at 5:27 am
(DT)GT: I’ve got a picture of the girl’s basketball team at Mount Holly (NJ) High School from 1923 that was fucking intergrated, no less and they expect me to believe that 50 years later this dizzy bitch couldn’t find some way to exploit her gargantuan dimensions on a basketball court? No. No. No.
Pozzo
March 28th, 2007 at 5:41 am
I thought Mark was holding a metal barrel on his shoulder prior to throw it at something, Race Bannon-style.
As for FW, the immediate impression I got was that Bull (if that’s his name) was about to reveal that he and his gay partner were going to adopt. Something about the position in which he was sitting says “Love that dare not speak its name.”
John C Fremont
March 28th, 2007 at 6:02 am
No, that’s not a rug on the wall in Mark Trail. Mark’s hoisting a bail of hay on his shoulder. Mark Trail has a horse, right? Do giant skunks eat hay? Hey, if potatoes can talk, then giant skunks can eat hay. At least in my universe. And, apparently, in Mark Trail’s universe.
… and, and – and those word balloons – now he’s just plastering them randomly like sticky notes on a refrigerator. Like a refrigerator filled with talking potatoes.
dreadedcandiru2
March 28th, 2007 at 6:03 am
FBoFW: “I’ll phone you a cab”? She’s gonna phone the Continental a bloody TAXI, for Margo’s sake? That’s as unlikely and inappropraite as Mikerobe rushing into a burning attic for his laptop. Too bad StaLynn doesn’t see that, or else this mess would be a lot more enjoyable.
smacky
March 28th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Phantom: When the dog attacks the sole remaining bad guy today, what is it that is making the “BAP-BAP-BAP” sound effect? In a fit of terror, the man releases a torrent of gas, as Moz looks on, offended.
Harry Worth
March 28th, 2007 at 6:17 am
After a story arc where the Mighty Mary doubted her powers and had to go on a spiritual journey to Vietnam, SHE IS BACK!!!!
Pedal to the MEDDLE!!!!!
Jamus The Bartender
March 28th, 2007 at 6:40 am
22. Because Luann’s legs are up and vibrating, and her face seems to be in the throes of orgasmic bliss upon giving Sgt York her email addy, that’s why.
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 6:44 am
MT – Where to begin? First, Cherry’s domestic skills are being unfairly slagged. It takes a hell of a cook to make a meal out of 1 qt. milk, one potato (regardless of how articulate it is) and a cube of…sponge?
The potato: I’ve always suspected that Jackelrod was a frustrated ventriloquist, what with the chronically misplaced speech balloons, and now, this tuber. I get the feeling that we’re the test audience for his latest act ‘Jackelrod and his Talking Potato!’ Which sounds like a Roald Dahl book gone horribly wrong.
Oxygen tank, eh? Not SCUBA or air tank? Friend Dan hooked an emphysema rig under the boat and walked away on the lake bottom pulling it on its little wheels? Don’t worry – he’ll be floating up by summer, two plastic tubes stuck in his carp-nibbled nose.
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 6:53 am
#34 – Perhaps “I don’t have any money” has a slightly different meaning.
At least April won’t get pregnant that way.
reader-who-posts
March 28th, 2007 at 6:55 am
FW: I really called the plot issue wrong based on Josh’s explanation. The only way I could think of the two of them adopting being “half right” was that Bull was adopting and Linda was dying of cancer.
Sean
March 28th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Hey, I’m no geologist, but aren’t skunks a nocturnal animal?
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 7:00 am
MT Wed. – Mark is practising his voice-throwing skills onto a spud! Work it, Mark. You be da man!
In panel 2, Cherry has a long-running conversation with herself. One word, Cherry: Thorazine.
MW Wed. – in panel 2, Mary also has a comparable long-running conversation with herself.
She’s also made her shirt grow a long sleeve, from a short one in the first panel! Such power cannot be ignored.
Jamus The Bartender
March 28th, 2007 at 7:02 am
34. Gerald wasn’t thinking about any of that Sheilagh. He’s fifteen and horny. He was thinking about the Promised Land. Details like cabfare and how to get home would be dealt with later, if at all. Trust me.
Mr. Coffee Nerves
March 28th, 2007 at 7:05 am
FBOFW: Does anyone really think that Elly isn’t going to use her Mutant Nagging and Meddling powers when she goes into the rec room? She’ll notice the disheveled sheets, the 1/16th empty bottle of Tim Horton’s Back Bacon Wine, the pure sex that is Rush coming from the “boom box” and immediately determine that her April isn’t protecting the five hole. Expect lots of Patterson lecture goodness from Liz and Saint Mike — and just maybe a real-world “Run. Run while you can. It’s too late for me, but you can still get out!” from Deanna.
Of course, we should also be thankful that this isn’t Funky Winkerbean or Gerald would have “snuck over” to tell April that his parents were caught in a tree chipper and the Pattersons would actually be at a party for Mike’s book “Dead. They’re all dead: How all my children died of necrotising facitis.”
Jamus The Bartender
March 28th, 2007 at 7:06 am
39. Of course you mean Elly will have the shotgun, cj. I wouldn’t trust John with anything more lethal than a dentist’s drill or a Tyco Express train.
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 7:10 am
How do you get a potato to talk?
By threatening to poke out its eyes.
Week! Veal! Waitress!
Wren the Reader
March 28th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Ahem, hello everyone? Long time reader, second-time poster here. I just read this morning’s comics and I recognized myself in BOTH Pluggers and TDIET. I just came over here to say goodbye before I kill myself now.
klipper
March 28th, 2007 at 7:18 am
BB: General: “You look like a whore!”
Tukla in Iowa
March 28th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Maybe Mark and Cherry were bitten by a radioactive spider.
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I can see it now-a T-Shirt with a potato printed on it with a speech balloon that says “That’s what I believe happened.”
That panel of the talking potato made my day.
t.a.m.s.y.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Man, the final panel of today’s FBoFW barely even makes sense, except interpreted as Lynn Johnston’s saying OH SNAP! to everyone complaining about how poor April was gonna get so grounded.
I’m pretty sure Lynn redid the whole thing yesterday after dinner. Wednesday’s original strip was probably just one panel of April being mercilessly beaten with a cat-o-nine-tails.
Anyway, the new and improved moral of the story is, Binge drinking is totally awesome, and you don’t need to use a condom as long as your parents never find out.
(if these jokes give you déjà vu, it’s probably just a glitch in the Matrix.)
klipper
March 28th, 2007 at 7:30 am
#61: Mark Trail is really like a crazy acid trip. I thought it was the butter telling her “that’s what I believe happened”, but I’ll go with potato.
Also, in the second panel, her forehead appears to be talking to itself.
And, of course, there’s the giant talking bear … par for the course at this point.
Colonial
March 28th, 2007 at 7:33 am
MT — let’s see, we have a talking potato in panel 1, talking hair follicles in panel 2 and a talking bear detective in panel 3.
I get it now! Mark Trail is like a Sid and Marty Kroft TV series (Lidsville, HR Pufnstuf), only Elrod smokes tree bark and acorns, unlike the magic mushrooms Sid and Marty had.
klipper
March 28th, 2007 at 7:36 am
sorry #17, I hadn’t read the comments yet
Saxman
March 28th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Mark Trail:
This is why Josh is a *professional* comics reader and I’m just a rank poser.
I can accept giant birds, squirrels, moose, and even bears.
But a giant skunk? That’s just crazy.
Hysterical Woman
March 28th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Poor potato tries to be helpful, but still gets the knife. Mark Trail is going into Funky Winterbean terroritory.
Also, #7 rocks.
Squawk
March 28th, 2007 at 7:40 am
FW: Actually, I think the idea that two guys who were bully and victim in high school become friends as adults is good storytelling. What strikes me as tasteless — and typical for FW — is the apparently gloating way the guy with glasses pries his former tormentor about his lack of virility: “So……Mr. Meatyfists has a low sperm count, eh?”
Wirrrn
March 28th, 2007 at 7:48 am
MARK TRAIL: The third panel seems to be a cameo appearance from Robin William’s Genie in Disney’s ALADDIN, here shapeshifting into a flying (and talking) carpet. Look for a giant talking mouse, duck and…some sort of dog-thing in later issues…
Goaty
March 28th, 2007 at 7:49 am
#55 – Man… the pure sex that is Rush… boy does that bring back memories…..
And as for the potato, I firmly believe we all were potatoes in past lives.
jules
March 28th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Wednesday’s Comix Cavalcade!
FW: I shouldn’t be surprised that Lisa looked like a 60-year-old woman when she was a senior in high school, and yet I am.
MT: Eyehook in bottom of boat leads directly to oxygen tank and insurance fraud! Of course! It’s a natural train of thought! Also, Cherry was having a lovely conversation with herself, till that bear butted in. Dang nebbynose bears.
(DT)GT: What the hell are “playdowns”? I’m a moderately sports-minded person, in the sense that I love baseball, like soccer, and tolerate basketball. I have heard the word “playoffs,” but never “playdowns.” Is Rubin making up his own language here, or have I missed something? We want Dancing Waiter Man back!
FBOFW: Ha ha! April shoved Gerald out the door half-naked, and totally hot & bothered! No, really. That made me laugh. I’ll laugh some more when Elly finds the wine bottle in the rec room. I am SO mean-spirited. Need coffee.
That said, I am enjoying Dilbert’s “Jeff the Human Ashtray” this week (“I don’t know my own ash from a hole in the ground!”), and Get Fuzzy’s Parade of Auxiliary Characters is still cracking me up. Up with Chubby Huggs!
Justafoob
March 28th, 2007 at 7:53 am
In Post #55, Mr. Coffee Nerves said,
That and the used condom on the mattress. Apewill and Gerold would use a condom for a handjob session just because they are kids and don’t know that the only way to get pregnant is via a blowjob.
T. Chicana
March 28th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Sheilagh and Apple Girl, I said the same thing about April to my husband as we read that this morning before work! I was like, “Damn, if that was me, I’d be like, ‘Just get the boxcar outta here, dude! I don’t give a flying boxcar how you get home!’” Cab fare?! He needs to get his saturn together if he wants another chance to put what Apey learned in that “planted” teen sex book to use!!
Pelagius
March 28th, 2007 at 8:06 am
MT: It’s good to see that Towelly found work after South Park, but living in Mark Trail’s world can’t be helping his sobriety. I know I’d want to get high all the time if I had to put up with that stuff.
AAckTTpth
March 28th, 2007 at 8:07 am
This is dumb comment, but Foob has pissed me off with seriously wasted opportunites; I am so pissed off right now, all I can focus on is MT’s oxygen tank.
It’s not a bloody oxygen tank. It’s an air or SCUBA tank with of 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen and whatever exhaust gases came from the compressor used to fill the tank. Unless Dan is using a Nitrox or EAN mix of 36% oxygen/63% nitrogen/1% other, which still is more nitrogen than oxygen, so wouldn’t it be a nitrogen tank? I hope the tank was all exhaust gas and no actual air.
Dammit, doesn’t any cartoonist do any research? It’s so dammned easy these days with Wikipedia, for crying out loud!
Ah well. What do you expect from a strip drawn by 45 foot tall deer mice?
Islamorada Girl
March 28th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I do believe MT’s giant skunk is turning up it’s nose at the Jack Elrod ball as if it’s finally found something really noisome.
drewbobw
March 28th, 2007 at 8:15 am
MT: Cherry is absolutely having a nervous breakdown. She’s started to answer her own questions.
MW: Lost third panel. “You know what, screw it. I don’t care about her trauma. Wanna get high?”
FC: All I can say to Billy is “YAH mule! More zippers!”
Krazy Kat
March 28th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Dingo, Didn’t you ever have potato milkshakes growing up? That was a staple in our home.
MT-I love seeing Jack Elrod using even rudimentary symbolism Skunk=something stinks!
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 8:17 am
#49 willethompson: First paragraph: LOLOLOL! COTW!
Well, I haven’t been awake very long, but just read all the comments, and man, I’m definitely going to make time to read the comics today, especially FOOB and MT. Yessiree! First, however, COFFEE!
Dennis Jimenez
March 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
MW – Thought balloon – Where’s my rubber hose and hand crank telephone generator?
MT – I wonder if the bear or cabin know anything about insurance fraud or mob hits – MT doesn’t have a clue.
TDIET – If they have OCD.
JP – Nothing in the comics like this since the great Aldo/Worth capisce incident.
Citric
March 28th, 2007 at 8:21 am
The sad thing about Mark Trail is that the rug has more personality than anyone else in the strip.
Tweeks_Coffee
March 28th, 2007 at 8:23 am
MT: I think what we’re actually seeing here is Cherry snapping under the pressure. Mark has actually been ignoring her for years and hasn’t said anything to her for even longer. So now she imagines various objects talking to her. Potatoes, rugs and various animals all carry on conversations with her. The second panel is where we start to see what’s really going on here, it’s all her interior monologue.
Mr. Coffee Nerves
March 28th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Actually, upon closer examination of today’s “Mark Trail” (and there’s a sentence that, when overheard, is virtually guaranteed to get the speaker endless propositions from supermodels of varying sexes) I have to think that the MT crew was actually renting out the featureless void from “Family Circus” and panel three is really showing an oncoming whiskey barrel thrown by an irate naturalist, bitter over his failure to turn whimsical outdoors trivia into a multi-billion-dollar media empire like Mark.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 8:26 am
TDIET is “DIE” within two “T”s. I’ve eaten out a lot in my life (hey, no oral sex references here), and I’ve never seen people clean their own plates so that it makes it easy for the waitress, but then again, I never saw a kid with a flame red haircut that just screams “Smack me around and 20 years later talk to me about adopting a baby!”
John C Fremont
March 28th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Gee, all the comments about talking spuds, and no one’s mentioned Devo yet. Well, I mean, up to this point, since I’ve obviously brought it up and – oh, nevermind. The point is, it’s a talking potato. I think we can all agree on that.
Krazy Kat
March 28th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Mark Trail is turning into manga. Look at Cherry’s eyes in panel two. Talking potatoes and giant bears are not new territory to this genre. Next week a demon will appear from a well.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Evil, meddilin’ Mary … I LOVE IT!
Mary: “She seems low key… maybe she’s traumatized!”
Toby: “I dunno, maybe she’s just new here.”
Mary: “After I get my meddling hands on her, she’ll be spilling her secrets like oil from the Exxon Valdez! Bwahahahaha! Oh, did I just say that out loud?”
Message to all nosy or aspiring biddies everywhere: Vera’s secrets are her own and you should give her space. When she’s ready she’ll … nah, on second thought, tie her to a chair and sweat it out of her! WHO IS VON? TELL US OR SUFFER OUR WRATH!
UnderstatementJones
March 28th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Luann mustn’t fall asleep, or Freddie Krueger will get her. Awesomest. Storyline. Ever.
Krazy Kat
March 28th, 2007 at 8:47 am
The time had come for the daughter of the Potato King to be married.
Her father suggested: “What about Irish Potato? He’s strong and hard working.”
“No,” she said, “I can’t marry Irish Potato.”
“What about Sweet Potato? He will always be kind to you.”
“No” she said, “I cannot marry Sweet Potato. My heart belongs to Bill O’Reilly!”
“I will never allow you to marry Bill O’Reilly!” Her father the king exclaimed. “He is just a Common-Tater!”
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 8:51 am
#68 – my comment at #50 should have been directed toward this bully-turned-low-count dude!
I’m just all mixed up today.
Must have been due to witnessing a wayward potato hypothesize.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 8:53 am
MT: Hey, everyone! There’s a talking potato! Already heard that one? Cherry’s forehead is having a conversation with itself… ok, how about “Kelrast” is an anagram of “stalker”? The Foob site blinks? Um, yeah.
A3G: Oh crap, Luann is asleep again. We all know what that means. Strange sailing dreams? No, her letcherous neighbor is gassing her in order to do some nude portraits while she’s knocked out.
Erika
March 28th, 2007 at 8:53 am
FOOB: Is it bad that I will laugh if Gerald gets kidnapped/beaten while trying to hitch a ride home?
Dennis Jimenez
March 28th, 2007 at 9:00 am
92 – I’m game as long as it’s the priest and cop from Mystic River.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Foob: So Geritol planned this little rendezvous with April but had absolutely no way of getting home? No cash for a cab, no one to pick him up. Thumb it, loser. You can tell which cars have axe wielding maniacs in them because they have US license plates. Don’t get in those, eh?
Mnemonica
March 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
MT: I thought it was a talking egg. I was wondering what she needed the knife for.
FW: After all these years, Lisa still doesn’t know who adopted her baby? It’s not that big a town, is it? Hasn’t she been in the same pizza joint as him? Wouldn’t there be a family resemblance? Wouldn’t someone comment on it?
Derelict
March 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
FBOW: We can’t wait for the inevitable lecture from Ellie. This should be delicious–especially when St. Liz weighs in with her oh-so-trenchant observations on sex and the nature of love. She, after all, has a spectacular track record of picking the best men. Just ask Granthony. You’ll find him down in his basement, rubbing his Canadian bacon in his minature house of horrors.
Bunnë
March 28th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Secrets of the funny papers revealed: if you look closely at Cherry’s left hand, you will see that it is not connected to her body. That’s right! Mark Trail uses of hand models, just like the top fashion magazines. This is the kind of quality you can expect every day in your local funnies.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am
#52 – Sean Hey, I’m no geologist, but aren’t skunks a nocturnal animal?
I’m not trying to mock a fellow poster, but Sean, even if you were a geologist, I doubt you’d be qualified to discern the daily rituals of the Mephitidae Mephitis, as geology is the study of rocks.
Justafoob
March 28th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Gerold will be hitching home and get picked up by Howard Erk.
The two of them will be able to trade stories of getting frosted by the Saints.
Then they will continue on until the find a municipality that will grant them a marriage license.
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 9:12 am
A3G: WTF is going on with Luanne? Has her story perhaps continued in papers or on websites other than the ones I read? Please someone elucidate: why is she crying? Why must she keep working? Or is all of this hallucinations brought on by paint thinner? I went to the WaPo archives to see if yesterday’s strip cleared any of this up, but it didn’t.
MT: Classic! I can’t add anything to the already excellent snarks. This stands as the paradigmatic MT, I think, except it would be even better if the talking bear were a little bigger or were replaced by yesterday’s giant mutant skunk.
Suburban Legend
March 28th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Tom Batiuk is laughing maniacally right now because he has created a parallel flashback universe where Chris Farley is a hotheaded jock, and most people won’t find that strange.
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 9:16 am
#99 – that would be anywhere in Canada now, actually.
#98 – I think the geologist comment was a joke.
And, finally, SlyFox – I thought worms didn’t have feet. Hahahahahhahahhah! (Large cane reaches out to pull me off the stage)
Dennis Jimenez
March 28th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Gawd, I missed the MT talking spud – what a hoot. 57 – I might have gone with something like by cutting out its eyes, which is a normal part of the preparation process (and has a nice Reservoir Dogs kind of feel to it), but never the less, well played.
ChefMike
March 28th, 2007 at 9:22 am
I wanted to comment on this yesterday but missed my chance. In Baby Blues they’re doing a “Hammie gets a haircut” series this week, and Tuesday’s strip, hammie accuses his dad of jealousy, cause “I have enough hair, and you don’t” for a ‘Conan O’Brien’ style cut. I don’t know what drawings the artist is looking at, but I think Darryl’s bright red clown-do is better suited for a conan style than his son’s buzz cut black hair (courtesy of mom’s clippers, no doubt)
juggernaut
March 28th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Has there been a panel missing in every Fuckin Winkerbean this week? Is it NOT supposed to make sense? Will the writers of Gil Thorp be filing a lawsuit for theft of intellectual property? When did all of these comics start reading like “Naked Lunch” on a crystal meth jag?
Gadge Cubic, Mole Preener
March 28th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Yes, the talking potato would indeed make an excellent t-shirt – but
dammit[boxcar] we need margo boxcar saturn shirts (see two posts ago). Did you know that if you promise to buy an MBS t-shirt, cancer will be cured before the decade is out? And Iraq will be as peaceful and contented as Iowa at 3 in the morning after a snowfall? Plus – free sex for everyone! (Not from me: that only happens if you don’t buy a shirt.)TransplantDuck
March 28th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I too agree that Mark Trail would be far more entertaining if the humongous animals were allowed to speak in order to drop hints to Mark and Cherry once in awhile. It certainly would help move the plot lines along. Maybe this week a gigantic Theodore and Castoria could surface from their underwater lodge to tell him,”Hey, PSST! Mark! Look,Dan left his scuba tanks by that rock on the shore after he made his getaway!” Jackelrod could use this plot device at least once a year,say on April Fool’s Day.
Josh
March 28th, 2007 at 9:39 am
People, your Comics Curmudgeon needs your Funky Winkerbean info, since I missed about ten years of it. Who exactly was the father of Lisa’s baby (i.e. Darrin)? I know that Lisa and Les dated in high school (who can forget the heartwarming strip where their braces locked together) but I don’t remember if that was pre- or post-birth; it definitely doesn’t seem like Les is the father, since he doesn’t really seem all that worked up about the kid. Since this is FW I’m assuming the daddy walks among the current characters so as to painfully remind Lisa every day of what she lost … or, she was raped, by her uncle. One of the two.
Josh
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 9:41 am
MargoBoxcarSaturn, why is the potato so damn funny? I’m scrolling thru this thread laughing like a hyena huffing NO2 all because of a poorly placed balloon. Whoda thunk a potato would be comic Yukon Gold?
Shirt/cup count
16 shirts and 16 cups. Almost halfway!
Plinko Commie
March 28th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Back to Wednesday’s Funky Cancerbean: I don’t know if this has been pointed out yet (I’m too ADD to read all the comments or to keep my leg from shaking), but if he’s half-right about adopting, then maybe he means Funky’s got half the letters in the word “adopting” right.
So let’s see …
A _ _ _ T I N G
Technically that’s more than half right, but let’s give Coach Bully a break, he probably spells it “in’” instead of “ing” anyway.
Now what can we spell with those spaces that ISN’T “adopting”?
The answer should have been obvious to any current-run fan. FW is crossing into the final frontier: dead babies.
Gadge Cubic, Mole Preener
March 28th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Does anybody else remember a comic called “Down and Out Dawg”? It ran for a while in UW’s campus newspaper (The Daily Cardinal) in the early or mid eighties. I ran across a page referring to it here – which reminded me that one point the writer solicited guest strips from readers, which I responded to with this strip (sorry about the low quality – it’s all I had. Rose drew the middle panels; I xeroxed the first one and drew the last one – a rare instance of my being able to do so with minimal competence…).
kayrbear
March 28th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I’m thinking the Trails have recently stumbled upon this WikiHow article: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Sideways-Room and have decided, “to hell with the rustic-nature-look — it’s time for a change! I know, we’ll put the rustic-nature furniture on the wall! Take that, Martha Stewart!
jules
March 28th, 2007 at 9:51 am
#89 Krazy Kat – I swear I don’t know whether to give you a Bronx cheer or a standing ovation. But I laughed really hard! :)
Krazy Kat
March 28th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Josh:
Lisa’s babydaddy was an older guy who only appeared to father the child and then move on. Les was there for her during and after the pregnancy.
The guy showed up again a few years ago to try to blackmail her–that is, reconnect with Darrin, etc. But that never got anywhere.
cheech wizard
March 28th, 2007 at 9:55 am
MT – Cherry’s schizoprhenia is kicking into high gear — not only is the potato talking, but she’s clearly stressed by out the voices in her head in panel 2. Of course, you’d be nuts too if you’d been locked away in a log cabin in the wilderness for the past 20 years by some renegade outdoorsman. Too bad Euel Gibbons isn’t around to tell her that certain wild berries are a natural source of Risperdal – they go great on Grape Nuts.
Galactic Emperor Chennux
March 28th, 2007 at 9:56 am
ATTENTION EARTHERS! THWACK YOUR NOGGINS WITH BRANCHES IN TREMBLING! CHENNUX SPEAKS!
CHENNUX NOTES THAT EARTHER POTATOES HAVE THE POWER OF SPEECH! MOST INTERESTING! DO THEY SCREAM WHEN YOU PLUNGE THEM INTO HOT OIL? HOW ABOUT IF YOU GOUGE OUT THEIR EYES? THIS MAKES EATING POTATO SALAD MUCH MORE INTERESTING! HAHA!
ALSO, ON THESE M!B!S! MUGS! ARE THEY SYRUP AND CHLORINE-SAFE?
END TRANSMISSION!
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 9:58 am
#100 – Old Fogeyette: Luann is on a plant painting binge because Eric Mills said that he liked her minimalist pictures of daisies, hostas or whatever. She was going to have a show of her own if she could crank out a ton more of them in order to wind up as the throwaway insert for picture frames sold at Wal-Mart, Target or K-mart. Either that or some booth at a street flea market, or blueprints for a color-by-numbers book that Eric is putting together. Any way you slice it – MORE PAINTINGS, MULE!!
Krazy Kat
March 28th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Thanks, Jules:
It’s a horrible joke but it’s the only potato joke I know.
ChefMike
March 28th, 2007 at 10:05 am
According to the archives found on Funkywinkerbean.com the teenage Lisa was impregnated by a football player named “Frankie” nd that’s the only name given
Little Guy
March 28th, 2007 at 10:06 am
FBOFW: Maybe April should have pushed the OnStar Button for Roadside Assistance.
T. Chicana
March 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
FW answers/questions: Right, I saw in some flashbacks that young Les was there to help young (umm 60 year old) Lisa go to Lamaze class to have that baby. But the baby grew up to be Darrin? The ex-friend of the really depressed boy w/ the circles under his eyes?
It really bears repeating: WHY did they make Lisa look like an elderly (sorry Shannon) retarded woman while she was in high school? How did she snag this older guy in the first place?!
lesles
March 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
no comics comment, but i just want to say thanks to josh and everyone who sails in this boat of his.
i’ve just had an unresolved horror week trying to deal with a friend who’s in major mental health crisis territory and seems to be heading relentlessly towards homelessness, the cops, &/or suicide. coming back here tonight gave me the first moment of internal lightness or brightness and levity i’ve had in days. it hasn’t changed the world, but you mob certainly help me feel a little better about the shittiness of it. cheers.
Lyman Returns
March 28th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Get Fuzzy-I love it that Chubby Huggs has a “hug sequence” that once started, cannot stop for ten minutes. Awesome.
Phantom-Wow, they’re really on a roll the past two weeks. Heads smashed on steps, car crashes, the phrase “Ghost who packs heat”, a midget in a fez riding an elephant, and now a wolf mauling a guy with an AK-47. Good times!
TDIET-Holy moly, how much food did this family of three eat? Did Dagwood, Garfield, and Jughead Jones meet them for dinner, or what?
Blondie-Dagwood is LATE FOR WORK and totally RUNS OVER THE MAILMAN! LOL!
GT-That last panel is kind of creepy-looking. Does the coach have death grips on the backs of each girls necks, forcing them to get close and kiss or something?
MW-She wasn’t traumatized before you started grabbing her wrists at random times, Mary! Sheesh!
FBOFW-She’s a teenage girl alone at home on a Friday night…OF COURSE she’d be in bed at eleven!
MT-Cherry is like, “Damn Veggie Tales characters! Always spewing goofy homilies and looking cute…Mr. Slicey here’ll take care of ‘em!”
FW-It seems Batiuk is going to start stealing plotlines from ‘The Big Chill’. Next we’ll see Wally Winkerbean hurting himsef by running and jumping into his Humvee.
C-Shaft-Ah, another visually arresting example of sequential art, depicting mulitple angles of a grouchy old man driving a bus and talking to himself. Seriously, who’s he talking to? Is there a weird kid in the seat behind him, hanging on his every bile-tinged word?
JP-Sunken-eyed, blade-weilding, mohawk-man to the rescue! What an awesome plot twist it will be if this guy’s on the old lady’s payroll.
Primate
March 28th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Is Cherry giving herself a breast exam in panel 3?
I’m a Yogi, Not a Pooh
March 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am
98. Hogen Mogen:
Pretty sure that was part of the joke….at least it made me laugh… b ut maybe I was laughing at him and not with him
Plinko Commie
March 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am
122 — Glad we could help in our own little way. I hope the Funky cartoonist doesn’t visit, or he might use your story in his next arc.
AhClem
March 28th, 2007 at 10:14 am
#105 – juggernaut –
I’m sorry, but using “Gil Thorp” and “intellectual property” in the same sentence makes my brain hurt. Where is my self-flagellation log?
Foobar
March 28th, 2007 at 10:15 am
…”seems to me almost… traumatized?” she suggested coyly. And the response, “Maybe it’s because she’s new here!” makes no sense at all. If someone can be “traumatized” by moving into a new apartment they probably have problems too severe for even Mary Worth to address.
21- Hilarious observation. That sycophantic potatoe made my daye.
bootsybooks
March 28th, 2007 at 10:17 am
MT: The bear’s next panel.”…and then I ate him!” YAY bear! Note, this is not Molly. She went home with Buck, her
boyfriendowner. This is ass-shot grizzly.My ire toward TDIET is usually reserved for Al’s Caduto, but today, no. “Hubby”, you suck.
Phantom: Where’s this ghost? Why doesn’t he show himself?”
Jesus, cuz he’s a ghost, you dipshit.
Holly
March 28th, 2007 at 10:18 am
OK, I gotta know. Why is Geraldcakes the Continental?
Gal Friday
March 28th, 2007 at 10:18 am
MT: Mark Trail is starting to morph into Slylock Fox: “Slylock Fox suspects that his friend, Dan Beaver, faked his death in an insurance scam with girlfriend Casandra. His only clues are a hook, a contour map, and new fishing equipment. Can you guess why he’s suspicious?”
Laura c
March 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
…Playdowns????…(never mind, don’t think about it, just keep reading, don’t let it — ) PLAYDOWNS???? (never mind, never mind, you’re stronger than Gil Thorp, don’t let it — )
Laura c
March 28th, 2007 at 10:20 am
PLAY–DOWNS?
gkl
March 28th, 2007 at 10:25 am
MW: Vera didn’t reveal her trauma to you… but maybe she did reveal it to your higher truth.
So, really, the only thing to do is hunt down your higher truth and bitch-slap it until it reveals its secrets.
Gabe
March 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Hey, since Molly’s look was never consistant, the giant bear could be Molly. Hi Molly! We miss you! We don’t understand the hostility either!
jules
March 28th, 2007 at 10:30 am
#131 Gal Friday – does this mean there will be a sexy cat talking out of an inappropriate body part in tomorrow’s MT? Awesome!
#122 lesles – as long as no one tries to wrestle the boat, we’ll be here for ya. (((take care)))
TDIET: Okay, sometimes I stack the plates off to one side of the table when we’re all done eating – but what the hell is Catastra doing? Cleaning them with her own spit and a Kleenex, as near as I can tell.
MW: My God, Mary can’t even control herself anymore. Last week (or maybe the week before) she was demanding details of Ben’s lovelife, despite not having seen him for a couple of years; now she’s plotting to make Vera spill her apparently-traumatic life story. Ve haf vays of making you talk!!
athena
March 28th, 2007 at 10:41 am
In FW, how do we know that it’s the coach who’s infertile and not his wife, or neither (as is the case in about 60% of couples who fail to conceive)? And I actually think that the strip is being much more optimistic than usual in that they’re speaking of adoption as a positive.
Or maybe I’m just reading it that way because I’m an adoptive parent, and if I see one more reference along the lines of “Angelina Jolie has three adopted children and one of her own” I’m going to commit grievous bodily harm. (What, she’s leasing the other three kids?)
Or maybe I’m just reading it that way because I actually like FW (yes, I said it!)
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 10:41 am
#11 — Welcome aboard the Snark Express, SecretMargo, making all stops (and as for your Dingo adoration — the line starts waaaaay back there [points to horizon line])! I’m quite taken with the idea that Batiuk, in a typically batty-yucky move, seems to have Les compiling a photo album of his high school torments. Les has even gone as far as to get Matthew Brady to take the picture, as evident by the sepia tint and mounting corners.
Oracle Steven
March 28th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Mark Trail – - – What the hell did Dan do?(interrobang for emphasis)! And why did he do it? For cryin’ out loud! There’s nothing but mutant talking animals and wierd lookin’ people in this forest! There’s no reason to come up with a plan to do anything at all… except maybe get the hell out.
Wait… I just figured it out. Mark Trail is a modern-day Dr. Moreau (in a 50’s guy sort of way). The animals we see everyday are his mutant creations. Each an attempt at sentient life, but all with some wierd defect. Usually, the part that talks is wrong, like the anus, but sometimes, the defects are even wierder. Cherry is his crowning achieivement, or the “cherry on top” if you will. Her defect is that she randomly mutates at wierd times and her voice emits from random apertures.
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Yowza! I hadn’t read the posts last night, only leaving my two Trailian messages. SecretMargo, you’ve made me blush and tingle. Thank you.
What would possess you to leave Chicago?
Islamorada Girl
March 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am
MT–That rug on the wall is the last reminder of the Indians who used to live at Lost Forest until Mark ethnic cleansed them all out with the Right Hook of Genocide.
Islamorada Girl
March 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am
MT–That rug on the wall is the last reminder of the Indians who use to live at Lost Forest until Mark ethnic cleansed them all out with the Right Hook of Genocide.
Mrs. Kelrast
March 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Shouldn’t we start an official Dingo fan club? Dingo, what WOULD it take to un-gay you?
Aardy
March 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
62. “I’m pretty sure Lynn redid the whole thing yesterday after dinner. Wednesday’s original strip was probably just one panel of April being mercilessly beaten with a cat-o-nine-tails.”
Whoa, so April and Gerald are into hardcore S&M? This comic just reached a whole new level of creepy…
MossMoses
March 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“not yet”. What an evil thought balloon. Mary seems to have contracted that thought balloon disease from Vera, curses be upon her. It almost seems as though she could read Vera’s thought balloons. I suppose there would be no plot if Mary Worth just left people alone and minded her own business but Vera has given every indication that she does not want the nosy biddy’s advice and just wants to be left alone. Still, Mary Worth persists inexorably, holding her hands, dropping less than subtle hints and now gossiping with ToeBee about her. Why can’t she just leave people alone? If Vera is traumatized, the last thing she needs is some busybiddy making it worse.
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
March 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
TDIET:
Dear Mr. Scaduto:
Will you just go ahead and change her name to “Castrata,†that’s what we’re all reading anyway.
by Tak, the Hideous New Girl
kingklash
March 28th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I still miss the talking Space Invaders machine. That’s the biggest heartbreak in “Funk you, Winkerbean!”
t.a.m.s.y.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I think Wednesday’s Mark Trail is supposed to be like Rashomon as directed by Timothy Leary: This is what Mark remembers. This is what Cherry remembers. This is what a potato remembers. This is what Cherry’s bangs remember. This is what an unaffiliated bear remembers.
What really happened? No one can ever know, for the perception of recollection is subjecti—aww, fuck it, just go with the potato.
Gal Friday
March 28th, 2007 at 11:20 am
142–C.O.W.!
New-Me
March 28th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Soooo Six Chix is having a drug party! What part of “children read the comics” don’t you understand?
Gabby: “Nina, why do they call a bowl of pills bridge mix”?
Nina: “Well, If you go to some ummm no ahhh go ask your mother”
Red Baron
March 28th, 2007 at 11:21 am
I’ve been reading CC for months now, but finally feel prompted to make a comment (and observation) based on this episode of Dick Tracy:
http://images.chron.com/apps/comics/images/2007/3/27/Dick_Tracy.773.g.gif
Because, as we all know, when you’re threatening someone with a gun, that’s the perfect time to switch gun hands.
AAAARGH!!
gump worsley
March 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I’m sure something like it’s been done, but with apologies to The Band:
I pulled into Charterstone, wishin’ ol’ Von was dead
I just need a place without a Murphy bed
Hey Mary, can you tell me `bout the thought bubbles round my head?
She just gripped and crushed my hand
“Yo,” was what she said,
“Take a whole lot of meddling
Take it all from me
Take a whole lot of meddling
And (….and….and)
You’ll take it all right from me.”
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
#117 Hogen Mogen, thank you for the lucid explanation of LuAnn’s travails. It’s good to see some lucidity applied to this comic strip.
#122 Lesles: so sorry for your awful week. Let’s hope your friend gets it together. I will send good energy (metta) your way, which is as close sa I get to praying.
#137 Athena: I like Funky too! Now there are two of us!
#139 Oracle Steven, I like your explanation, but I think it fits within my theory, expounded many yesterthreads ago, that MT actually takes place within the Underground Kingdom of Zork. And I believe that Cherry is a grue.
Today’s MW: Karen Moy is so reading this blog.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
March 28th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Re today’s Luann: “E-dress”? “B-friend”? I’m sorry, no T-ager talks like that. I call B-shit.
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
#138 – Oh my God, Batuik beat Lynn to the Punch!
(Not referring to largeboy’s fists)
And, slightly off to the side, I ordered both a MBS
T-shirt and mug from Wille. Thanks!
MrP
March 28th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Of course it’s a talking rug. Cherry’s “WTF talking rug?” expression makes that all too clear.
MonkeyHawk
March 28th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I’m no geologist, but I think it was a joke.
On the other hand, skunks do rock!
MossMoses
March 28th, 2007 at 11:43 am
157. “I’m no geologist”…but I play one on tv.
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 11:47 am
132 Laura, “Playdown” is in the dictionary as “play-off: chiefly Canadian.” There were plenty of references on Google to Canadian sports leagues having their playdowns. On the other hand, I’m no geologist, so….
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am
#145 MossMoses
You are correct. She suffers from VSD:
http://joshreads.com/?p=1005#comment-206395
Tomorrow look for the little fleck of spittle at the corner of her mouth. Poor Mary, in some ways I feel sorry for her. But she should have paid attention to the sign over the sink that says:
All Meddlers Must Wash Hands Before Returning To Smirk
queek
March 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Rhymes With Oranges does another “snakes on a plane” joke. LET IT GO!
Candorville: I was not amused with the first two strips of this arc, but today’s was terrific, in a really non-PC way.
Gasoline Alley: Dishwashers. Named “Joy” and “Dawn”. shoot me now.
Lio: score one for Ishmael! Tomorrow, the hentai begins. (nice butt-shot on hostess-girl in panel 1.)
Trotzenbonnie
March 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Did everybody have their Wheaties this morning? There’s some mighty fine snarking going on and it isn’t even noon yet. It’s a good thing Dingo has been too busy stuffing ballot boxes to add much more or I’d be drowning my monitor with coffee spit-takes.
Is anyone else out there loving Mutts this week? A cat in a pink car playing with a paddle ball damn near killed me.
queek
March 28th, 2007 at 11:53 am
46: that’s the AK-47 going off. Not sure why a trained merc would have his finger on the trigger.
“Ghost Who Sends the Dog In First Until They’re Out of Ammo”
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Talking potatoes. Talking rugs. Since when did Mark Trail’s cabin turn into Peewee’s Playhouse?
Paperback Rifler
March 28th, 2007 at 11:57 am
157. “I’m no geologist, but I think it was a joke . . . On the other hand, skunks do rock!”
Perhaps it wouldn’t have confused so many people if #52 were phrased thusly: “Hey, I’m no geologist, but aren’t skunks a rockturnal animal?”
Yeah, so now you see what I have left over now that all my “talking potato” jokes have been already made. Curses on you, Von!
ChefMike
March 28th, 2007 at 11:58 am
164: the secret word for today is “potato”
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 11:59 am
#162 Trotzenbonnie
I, for one, am reveling in Mutts this week. The paddleball was a classic.
Marked Trail
March 28th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
More information about geologists can be found on the Internets.
Laura c
March 28th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
#159 stinky pete
You know I generally look the other way with all this Canada-bashing that goes on here, in spite of actually secretly liking Canada (an underdog kind of thing) but this is too much. Not even Canada deserves to be blamed for DT(GT). I’m still trying to figure out what law of perspective exactly was broken yesterday when Newpaper Girl and Newspaper Boy appeared to be stuck together at the neck.
bootsybooks
March 28th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
#122, lesles, hope your week gets better. We’re a curmudgeonly group here, but only about the comics.
#143, Mrs. Kelrast (do you look like Mrs. Capt. Kangaroo?) why in Zeus’ name would you want to un-gay Dingo? He’s perfectly FABULOUS the way he is!
Hey Dingo, I voted too!
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
More information on rockturnal animals can be found at
http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?anywhere=skunk&anywhere_boolean=ANY&total_hits=0&request=search-simple&searchtype=simple&hits_per_page=10&previous_hit=0&sort=relevance&x=8&y=4
You’ll need to scroll down, but it’s quite edifying.
Ribinin
March 28th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
DtM I’m no geologist, but it seems that Dennis is simply reminding us how un-menacing he is now compared to the Dennis of old. A moment of nostalgia perhaps, but no laugh here.
Will the good old menacing times ever return? I think not.
Former VP Dan Quayle
March 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
What’s this about a potatoe? Was it in Gil Thorpe?
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
#143 Mrs. Kelrast:
ahem…
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t cheat at church Bingo
You don’t pull the mask offa ol’ Lone Ranger
And you don’t try to un-gay Dingo.
AirForbes
March 28th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Josh –
Reaching back in the recesses of my memory, the general plotline was that Lisa and Les became platonic friends in high school. She stopped hanging out with Les after a while, when a guy on the football team started dating her.
To answer T Chicana’s questions, Lisa was not supposed to be a popular girl – she was supposed to be a little higher on the social ladder than Les, but far down enough that getting asked out by one of the football players was big excitement for her. The guy’s motivation was to score off the field as well – she was an easy target, plain and simple.
Lisa later turned up in Les’ life again, pregnant, after the jock dumped her. There were many poignant and Winkerbeanian conversations between the two of them before she went into labor at the pizza place and had to be rushed to the hospital in the delivery van by Montoni.
She gave her son up for adoption, and then went to stay with her Grandma. Readers were let in on the fact that he was unknowingly adopted by the principal and his wife right from the beginning.
Lisa and Les then re-established their friendship after college, when she was living somewhere else – maybe Seattle? They used to write back and forth, and eventually she moved back to Ohio.
I’m not so sure that Lisa doesn’t know that Darrin is her son. There was a big hint years ago that she did figure it out, and just never said anything to anyone. When Darrin was about six, they met at a Halloween party. The prinicipal introduced her to his son, and she peeked under his mask, and then smiled and said “Of course – I’d know him anywhere!”
I stopped following the strip regularly though, after it became all cancer, all the time.
Mrs. Kelrast
March 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
OK OK I’m chastened. Jesus, you don’t have to drive ME off a cliff.
Bunnë
March 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Damn, t.a.m.s.y. (#148), that’s the time someone’s had me laughing uncontrollably at my desk.
Poteet
March 28th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
# 122 — Lesles, O’Fogeyette speaks for me also.
MT — Much as I like the ubiquiducks and other animals to date, I’d like to see some giant animals that I haven’t seen before. Of course I’m a relative newcomer to MT, but I don’t think I’ve yet seen a giant dragonfly, carrion beetle, praying mantis, shrew, garter snake…Come on, Elrodball, there is plenty of new territory to be covered.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
po tat oe / po tot o So no one else’s potato’s talk to them? No celery singing to you? Brocolli dancing?
I need to quit watching Veggie Tales it is messing with my mind!
(btw, I changed my name back to Nina, because the new has worn off)
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
FW I’m no oncologist, but . . .
MW I’m no phrenologist, but . . .
TDIET I’m no archeologist, but . . .
Pluggers I’m no zoologist, but . . .
JP I’m no linguist, but . . .
Garfield I’m no gastroenterologist, but . . .
Garfield, this week only I’m no ophthalmologist, but . . .
RMMD I’m no psychosexualogist, but . . .
Kronkina
March 28th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
RMMD: Sara with her giant head makes another appearance today. June’s impeccable parenting skills shine – her preschooler demonstrates insecurity and stress due to the Rich-Man’s-Wife/Girlfriend’s appearance with news of the Rich-Man’s plane going down, AND this being the very morning after all the rigamaroll involving Niki and his unfit-mother-turned-saint and Elvis and Eightball, etc. – and what does June say?
“Get out of here! Can’t you see I’m trying to have phone sex with your father, for crying out loud?!!! Good grief, its the only sex I get thanks to Elvis interrupting a perfectly good garage-cleaning!”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
March 28th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Despite what some dictionaries may say, I’d like to point out that this lifelong Canadian has no recollection of ever encountering anyone referring to “playdowns”. In the NHL, for instance, they’re always called the “playoffs” (or “les eliminatoires” in French).
Maybe in high school or college sports, which tend not to be as big a deal in Canada as the US… but still, the term doesn’t sound natural to me.
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I was trying to explain CC to my racquetball partner this morning. However, to the guys on the other side of the locker wall, it must have sounded like a meeting of the Justice League or a roll call of Dick Tracy villians…
‘Blah blah Squid Countess blah Mole Preener blah blah MonkeyHawk blah Galactic Emperor Chennux blah blah Stinky Pete blah blah Hogen Mogen blah blah Dingo and Mibbetmaker.”
Has anyone else had ‘normal’ people look at them as if they were a talking potato when discussing CC? Or is there a ‘No talking about Fight Club’ rule that I don’t know?
Uhhhh, not that we aren’t…normal.
What is it about that [margo]ing potato???
commodorejohn
March 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I don’t want to believe that FW is going to have an artificial-insemination storyline, but I have a hard time seeing where else this could be going.
AirForbes
March 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Mark Trail is like some strange, hallucinogenic experience. Cherry asks a question, a potato answers, she asks another question and the voices inside her head answer it immediately, and finally a bear weighs in on his theory of the criminal’s M.O. Jack Elrod isn’t even trying anymore to align the word balloons with the characters. He’s figured out that the strip is far more entertaining when the dialogue is just randomly placed on the panels.
Awesome.
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
169 LC Further geological research indicates that GT(e) is currently written by a SoCal native now living near Detroit. So why he’s using Canadianisms in the strip is unclear, unless it appears in more Canadian papers than US ones.
As for Canada bashing, it’s just collateral damage from all the Lynn Johnston bashing that goes on here.
man behind the curtain
March 28th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
FBOW — Of course Gerald doesn’t have any money. If he had any he wouldn’t be expecting a freebie from April. With all the possibilites, today’s strip was very, very, LAME.
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
182 SQB, the first page of Google references to the term led me to sites for high school football in Toronto, and curling in Alberta and B.C. Don’t know whether those qualify as a big deal or not.
Gil Thorpe
March 28th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
“playdowns” are a carry over from the Jack Berrill days. Rubin didn’t introduce the term, he’s just continuing it.
ElSanto
March 28th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I’m a Detroit native (now in Seattle), and I’d like to posit a theory about the “anti-Canadian” humor from a Midwestern perspective.
Usually Detroiters consider Canadians as our brethren (hell, we’re probably the only city in the US that has hockey as the city’s #1 sport), so we love to snark on each other as much as possible.
I received a rude awakening when I moved to Seattle, and I made a Canadian joke. The people in the car with me were all, like: “Don’t be so hard on them, gosh, what did Canadians do to you?”
To which I replied: “Don’t you see? I wouldn’t be making fun of them if I didn’t love ‘em like a brother.”
Mike Nelson (of MST3K fame and Wisconsin native, I believe) once made the interesting observation about the distinctiveness between Midwestern and West Coast humor: in the Midwest, jokes are based on self-deprecation, so that stuff rolls off our backs. But in the West Coast, they’re all about positive attitudes and self-actualization, so they’ll turn to you and say: “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s OK.” :)
dariaclone
March 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
For Josh and others wondering, Batiuk has kindly put the “Teen Pregnancy Arc” comics in the archive of FW.com
http://www.funkywinkerbean.com/archive.html
Trotzenbonnie
March 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
#183 – wille
My husband is slowly coming around. Even more so since I’ve managed to convince him that I wouldn’t be sneaking off in the middle of the night to rendezvous with someone named “Dingo” or “Stinky Pete” at the Lafayette Bus Terminal. Things did get a little tense when he began to take the Canadian Invasion a little too seriously. I couldn’t possibly explain this to anyone else besides my dad who introduced me to Smokey Stover and Mad when I was 5.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people can make it through the day without reading the comics. I just don’t trust them.
Justafoob
March 28th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Hopefully, FBOFW wont take up the idea of the FW arc.
I don’t think I could take Apewill being preggers for nine months.
ewwwww
Margo!Boxcar!Saturn!
March 28th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
SHIRT ALERT!
Just wanted to let you know that we’re just two shy on the M!B!S! shirt orders. Keep it coming folks! The cups are lagging, tho.
(For those not aware, Margo!Boxcar!Saturn! shirts and coffee mugs are being produced in a special limited edition, but you must be like FOOB’s Gerald and act on or before April first…)
wille
andreavis
March 28th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I guess I’m lucky, I can talk about CC with my spouse because he actually reads the site on occasion. He doesn’t look at the comments, though, so he’s not going to understand why I want to make baked potatoes for supper tonight (the potatoes, they speak to me…)
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
#144 – Aardy: Whoa, so April and Gerald are into hardcore S&M? This comic just reached a whole new level of creepy…
Creepy? It’s the first cool thing they’ve ever done in any of the Foobie’s lives! Gimme some leather! If you’re in to the scene or not, it sure beats Wonderbread namby-pamby kissy-kissy with an occasional ass-grab for sport. Gerald and April have been dating for like two years (which in the life of a 15 year old is like two decades to an adult) and this week is the first time the two of them have been alone since they made out so long ago when April and Beckster were still friends…
Am I really thinking too much about this adolescent non-platonic-yet-somehow-non-sexual relationship? Damn I hate myself today.
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
192 TB: You won’t? Damn.
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
#183, 192 — My wife knows merely of the existence of CC, as two friends (a couple) who lurk here spilled the beans about the blog in front of her during a car ride. So i played it off to her as if i was just a lurker as well, even though one member of the couple knows i comment. My wife has no idea that this place holds such great importance to me. Believe you me, i’m not the least bit ashamed of my presence here — quite the contrary. But you try to explain what goes on here to an outsider! It does sometime feel like i’m having an illicit affair with several hundred people.
And Trotzenbonnie, Notary Sojac to you!
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
#179 – Nina So no one else’s potato’s talk to them?
No, but I had a celery stalk me. I met an artichoke with heart. I know a carrot named Stewart, and I call him “Stew”. Lettuce pray that I stop now. Besides, I’m beet.
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
#199 — Thank you for staying away from “leek.”
Calico
March 28th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Tee hee.
http://www.rush.com/
http://www.bryanadams.com/
http://www.timhortons.com/
Actually, TH is owned by Wendy’s Inc. in the US. Weird.
And, Bryan Adams is quite an accomplished photographer. His photos beat the music by a mile, at least.
Hogen Mogen
March 28th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
It came as no surprise to my wife that I enjoy the CC, since before I found it, I used to rant in person about the comics to her. She’s a big FBOFW fan, so you can tell just how well that went over. She’s glad that she doesn’t have to hear it. And she’s such an understanding wife that she didn’t even raise an eyebrow at my unnatural interest in Mary Worthless.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Hogen Mogen- I sense you are a little jealous because the voices only talk to me. hummmm
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Darn I meant the vegetable’s only talk to me! MARGOBOXCARSATURN!
Gabe
March 28th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
My wife is foreign, and has never followed any US comic strips, other than Peanuts (which was apparently translated to kanji) as a kid. This site would be lost on her.
(She’s promised to read my Get Fuzzy books sometime.)
SecretMargo
March 28th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
140: Dingo — The lure of a job, alas. And now I am learning to become a Francophone bitch who hates children and whiny, entitled mustache farmers. Well, I guess the “learning” is restricted to the Francophone part.
Oh, and the last thing I’d want to do is have Dingo “convert.” I considered choosing a different, more butch nickname to avoid confusion, but realised that adding more “butch” to Margo was like dividing her by zero: an only imaginary possibility.
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Hmm… tasteful matching outfit all in purple and blue. Chiseled good looks to break the heart of a young clerk-typist. Wheels to speed out of her life.
Von? (SFW)
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
SecretMargo, I hope that this Francophone job doesn’t force you to work in a leopard-print bustier or give directions to boorish American tourists!
MossMoses
March 28th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
183. How about working at a place that tracks the websites you go to? Yesterday my colleague (the security fascist) said, regarding material in an email he sent, “you would have known that, if you weren’t so busy discussing Mary Worth”. I had never discussed comics or comics curmudgeonism with him or other colleagues previously so hopefully he likes the site and can post here himself! He can post as “Snoopy Sniffer”.
King Folderol
March 28th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
MT – That is actually a giant band-aid. It represents the pain that Mark is feeling over the loss of his friend due to deceit, since Mark cannot express human emotion through tears, gestures or words. It also represents our pain as readers of Mark Trail, as such a band-aid would be great for snuffing ourselves out.
FW – That’s some crazy hair Bull had there. He looks like Ringo Starr circa 1965, which would never have made him one of the cool football players. Not even in Gil Thorp.
Gabe
March 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
“you would have known that, if you weren’t so busy discussing Mary Worthâ€.
This is probably not a phrase heard much in the real world.
Dick, the doorbell
March 28th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
A GUIDE TO WHAT’S TALKING IN MARK TRAIL:
First, observe that neither Cherry or the bear opens her/his mouth.
Panel one: The question emanates from Cherry’s 666 tattoo on the back of her head. Nuff said. The reply is from her left thumb. No explanation.
Panel two: Her head lice have been debating the disappearance since day one. (Hey, they live in the freakin’ woods!)
Panel three: The guest wing knows because that’s where Dan and Sally discussed their vague plot.
The bear, though it is not indicated, is humming “Bear Necessities”
True Fable
March 28th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
#183 willethompson – I get the same kind of bizarre looks from acquaintances when I talk about the CC community, as when I do about anything I talk about. (“wtf?!”) But I do have a pair of friends who have taken it even further. They greet each other with Gadge’s name, especially if they are in a crowd of people and need to locate each other. “Gadge Cubic!” “Mole Preener!” They Marco Polo back and forth until they connect. Nobody else but one guy in the world is going to answer to names like that, and it clears space around them very quickly too I might add.
Gee, Gadge – you’re an icon, AND a sonar device!
My son just came in and found me laughing at the Mark Trail potato and when I tried to explain it to him, he patronizingly chuckled and then took a step to the side in case the Fool Killer decided to appear and finish me off.
Holly Golightly
March 28th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I know Marvin is not often discussed here (and with good reason), but can anyone explain to me why the babies hover ABOVE the floor instead of crawling ON the floor?? It really creeps me out . .
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
#209 MossMoses
Is there some sort of poll we could stack against your nemisis (or for you)? We seem to be pretty good at that. We could make you CEO and you could replace him with Dingo.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
MossMoses – Don’t You just HATE those “snoopy sniffers!”
bootsybooks
March 28th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
#192, Trotzie, I’ve seen the Lafayette bus station, and stinky pete would class the place up. Dingo would too. Actually anyone with teeth would.
The IT people here have this firewall from hell, pun intended, so I miss many of the links. They one time tried to block this site from me, if you can believe that, but when I showed it to the gatekeeper, she thought it was hilarious and restored my access to it.
Try explaining to people why you are wearing a shirt that says “More information about licorice can be found on the Internet” and see how they look at you.
I’m actually beginning to shout “margo” in place of “stupid motherfucker” when I’m driving so I think positive social changes are happening as a result of this site.
Gabe
March 28th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
214: The same force that keeps the cars hovering in the Foobworld.
Fool Killer!
Gabe
March 28th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I used to have Fool Killers trading card. Best Occupation discription ever: Killing Fools!
AhClem
March 28th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Am I the only one here who thinks that “I’m not a geologist, but…” would look great on a T-shirt?
#183 willethompson -
Back in the stone-age days of dial-up BBS systems in the late 80s, a group of us would occasionally meet in person at local restaurants. I always wondered what people at adjacent tables thought about our overheard conversations: “AhClem, this is Topper, Seymour Sea Monster, Anemone of the People, Ty Konderoga, Gallifrey Gal, Lucinda Sniffle, Your Father and Chezz.”
ben
March 28th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I’m no masochist, but I still read FOOB every day.
commodorejohn
March 28th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
#185 – I’m increasingly of the opinion that the panels in Mark Trail are simply random drawings of Elrod’s featuring recurring characters he likes and the ginormous wildlife he adores, and the syndicate just pastes in prefabricated word baloons on top. Elrod wants nothing more than to draw 1940s Americans and infinite varieties of wildlife (by which I mean bears, moose, and ubiquiducks,) and the syndicate wants a nature-themed serial strip – they’re symbiotic. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.
#193 – Oh. My. God. LJ using her stick-around-throwaway character to introduce another “controversial” topic (teen pregnancy?) And getting to make unloved April look like an immature, irresponsible ditz in the process? I fear for my sanity – you just may be right.
mattt
March 28th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
#61 – Calico, I would pay cash money for that shirt.
#109 – willethompson, I think the potato is funny not just because it’s talking, but because it seems to be talking with such glee (!) right before getting knifed. Weirdly funny. I actually laughed out loud.
#131 – Bahahahaha! Girl Friday, I think you’re in the running for COTW.
Paperback Rifler
March 28th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
214. Yikes! I never noticed that before, Holly! Maybe the babies hover because it’s a clue that everybody in that comic strip is actually dead, sort of like in The Others or Funky Winkerbean. Or maybe Tom Armstrong of Marvin picked up a few panel composition pointers at the Jack Elrod School of Speech Balloon Placement and Giant Woodland Animal Rendering.
ZingoPink
March 28th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Long time lurk, first post.
Lisa’s football-star babydaddy was actually a date-raping, arm-twisting abuser, just to keep with the general light-hearted Winkerbean theme. Batiuk discusses it here.
http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/batiuk/home.asp
queek
March 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
194: “but you must be like FOOB’s Gerald and act on or before April first…”
*dies laughing*
that’s funny stuff right there! :-)
Stranger…
March 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I think Miss Buxley is trying to up her vote count in the National Coolest Comics Character Contest with today’s outfit.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I wear my “I’ll Deny you Missy” tee all the time and people just don’t understand :(
cheech wizard
March 28th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
We never saw either April or Gerald in any state of undress during the current episode, so I think it’s safe to conclude they didn’t have sex.
What they did have, though, is a bottle of wine. Which is enough to get a 15-year-old neophyte drinker totally smashed. And busted, when her folks smell it on her gently bruised lips.
rich
March 28th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
One of these days, Al Scaduto, one sweet day, you’re going to slip up and write “Castrata” instead of “Catastra.” And then — ha ha! — my TDIET-reading life will at last be complete!!
Oh, who am I kidding? Most people probably assume that it says “Castrata” anyway…
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
JP I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but our punk seems to be tri-lingual (except for the French, of course). Comprende? Where did that come from? I posit that the punk is NAFTA certified to work throughout North America as a bodyguard and is actually employed by Cedric the Sinister Butler to watch out for Neddy and Abbey. Cedric was able to bring him to France as he’s also ISO 9000 certified.
Edgy DC
March 28th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Criminy, would you look at how clueless Mr. Elrod has rendered poor Cherry: “Me female, Mark. No understand good.”
Somebody liberate the Nymph of the Lost Forest from the woman-hating contempt of her elephant-hating god.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
ZingoPink thanks for the link. Batiuk’s high school experience is “pretty much” the same as FW. Just where the Margo did he go to highschool where everyone had cancer? Stay the Boxcar away from that place.
Justafoob
March 28th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Wine?! Hah.
I bet Gerold is too much of a wimp to get real wine.
I bet it was an unmarked bottle of Welch’s Grape Juice.
bootsybooks
March 28th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I’m no geologist, but this site rocks!
As wille would say: Week! Veal! Waitress!
rich
March 28th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Nothing apparently incites a meddler like the phrase “I’m somewhat solitary by nature.” (i.e., “Leave me alone, lady, I have my own support system, please just butt out!“)
“I don’t understand it, Toeby, Vera seems troubled by something… it’s as if she actually wants to be alone, and doesn’t need my problem-solving skills! But how could that be?!” (i.e., “Must pry, snoop, and meddle!!”)
I would SO not fit in at Charterstone.
WithoutaK
March 28th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
So…I was going to comment on FOOB; you know, something to the effect of how it’s got a touch of realism in that teens don’t always get caught…huzzah…surprised…still kind of annoyed that no one will think of the children…etc. BUT then I was distracted by that link to TDIET and Hogen Mogen’s synopsis peaked my curiosity so I clicked on it and…*sigh*…we do that. My family, I mean. It’s mostly my mother’s neat freak tendencies, ingrained in her by her mother and so sometimes before the rest of us are even finished she’s dragging plates to the edge of the table, stacking them, scraping any extra food onto the topmost plate, etc.
On the plus side, this wasn’t noted in Pluggers.
uncle balustrade
March 28th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I think that’s a prayer shawl flying through the room in the third panel of Mark Trail. It is obviouly trying to make in in time for Passover this coming Monday, and is very, very lost and confused.
uncle balustrade
March 28th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
“obviouly”=”obviously”
jules
March 28th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
#166 – AAAAAAUUUUUGGH!!
Cranky
March 28th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
228: Canadian sex is very very different from sex in the rest of the world. It involves maple syrup and moustaches. Disrobing is optional but highly discouraged.
uncle balustrade
March 28th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
“in in”= “it in” . How come I proofread my comments a dozen times, and never spot the typos until they’re posted? One of life’s mysteries, I guess, like lost prayer shawls flying through rural mountainous areas….
Cornwhacker
March 28th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
#217 bootsybooks: My car’s taken a sudden turn for the worse this month; I’m trying to keep the engine going just long enought until I can buy a new one. So, similarly (except for the positive social change part), I’m saying “Margo Boxcar” to myself a lot. And yes, it’s a Saturn.
#229 rich: The only ‘castrata’ in the TDIETiverse is the unfortunately-named Loppie.
True Fable
March 28th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
RMMD Maybe it’s the way I read it – or not, you be the judge – but it looks like June is reacting to lil Sarah’s innocent comment about nothing bad happening to Heather by calling Rex to make Sure nothing bad Rex did happened to Heather. “Go play, kid – I’ve got to check with Dr. Oh-how-did-that-speculum-get-so-very-very-dirty.”
MW Mary just can’t STAND it when someone doesn’t cough up their life story for her, and it had damn well better be full of tragedy so Mary can get her meddlin’ on. And after all that work getting Jeff home and Mary hasn’t even so much as checked in on him. Dog in a manger.
DtM Ah Dennis; reliving the Glory Days when you USED to menace, you worthless little Yard Ape? Standing there so natural on the park bench with one foot jauntily draped across the other’s ankle – who the fuck do you think you are? Cary Grant? Get off your bench and menace, you little weiner. MenaceWatch2007 is about to burn your license to annoy, since you’ve already lost your menacing allowances. Dickweed.
BB Well, you go, colonel! Show that walking morals charge that you aren’t going to go for her rank-stripping career-ruining attempts to destroy you with sexual harassment charges! Have her transfer to Paris, I understand there’s a hooker in leopardskin who needs her black dress back. For formal fuck occasions, you know.
JP Speaking of which… my knowledge of French is restricted more or less to yellow condiment bottles, so the best I could figure out on my own from panel 2 is, “You are entering a woman, get lost.” That is why (a) I will never travel to France, and (b) why making up meanings is as much fun as making up what will happen next to My Favorite Redhead and her tramp-in-training. See, I don’t care what it says, I’m having a blast just winging it.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
WithoutaK: My mother in law will take a glass OUT OF YOUR HAND and go wash it. Dining out, she scrapes all the plates and stacks them, wipes the table down and everything. We all just let her do her thing and then after she is dropped off at her home all of her son’s talk about putting her in a nursing home or something. She is a real plugger
Mountain Mama
March 28th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
FWIW, I’m back. :-)
I wish I could snark about the current Mary Worth plot, but I’m just too mortified.
She’s malignant evil personified. That is all.
Dennis Jimenez
March 28th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
240 – Don’t forget the requisite case of Molson’s.
Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
#242 Cornwhacker -
Yes, poor Loppie. But there for the grace of God go you, if the podiatrist who named you had aimed just a couple feet higher.
Cornwhacker
March 28th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
#247: …and if I was born a boy.
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
#243 True Fable
In all fairness to DtM he’s STANDING on a bench! It could tip over! Okay, that’s not exactly menacing, but if DSS found out they might investigate his parents.
oceanology
March 28th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Oh good lord do I want an “I’m not a geologist, but…” T-shirt now. I may have to go find a silkscreening place or something. (I probably shouldn’t let my graduate advisor see it. He’s paying me to be a geologist. I shouldn’t burst his bubble like that.)
Date a geologist, feel the Love Waves.
Marion Delgado
March 28th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Ralph the Kakapo:
You don’t HAVE to watch Sweeps Week, but everyone does anyway!
Underage Sex Foob got an 8.2 Wertham rating.
Abbey and Neddy do Paris got a 6.3
June’s Pectoral Pilates trailed with a 3.4
But sweeps week is only half over
We still haven’t seen what Funky Winkerbean’s Jesse and Rachel have on offer.
Marion Delgado
March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
In all seriousness, I think Coach is the father of Lisa’s kid (no, it wasn’t the virginal Les). He wants to find him and adopt him or something.
Marion Delgado
March 28th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
… Because Lisa doesn’t have enough problems, so she’ll welcome a reunion with Coach while they track down the product of their treasured 10-second high school tryst.
Professor Fate
March 28th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
MT: it’s not just that the potato talks, its that she continues to peel it – I surely would make some note if my vegtables started yacking away (like dropping the knife and screaming) but no she continues to peel away. Then again her hair talks as well so I gues she just takes all this in stride.
FOOB: Ugh. No matter how dull and wrong and stupid I expect the plot to be, Lynn manages to make it worse. This is a bad. And at this rate the Liz-porstache wedding will be the comics equlivent of absolute zero where all motion stops.
t.a.m.s.y.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Yeah, that pretty much encapsulates my entire romantic history.
Gal Friday
March 28th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
220, 250 Yes!
Margo!Boxcar!Saturn!
March 28th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
OK, I just couldn’t resist.
The Mark Trail Potato has his own strip! It’s a spin-off from today’s adventure. Click here to see it and scroll down past the intriguing M!B!S! artwork and offer…
Marion Delgado
March 28th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Oh wait, it was Frankie at Big Tech or somesuch (Lisa’s baby’s father. So if “Coach” was in the same year as Les, that’s not possible.
Marion Delgado
March 28th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Josh:
It was Frankie at Big Walnut Tech – a college boy.
http://www.kingfeatures.com/pressrm/gallery_funky_preg.htm?strip=
That is the bulk of the pregnancy series, too. And it even ends with Lisa coaching Darrin in French and being weirded out that his birthday is when she gave him up, la la la, but not fully guessing.
gh
March 28th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Speaking of trying to explain oneself, I can see myself telling my grandkids “I was there at the birth of Margo! Boxcar! Saturn!. See, first it was just [Margo]. We all just about bust a gut. But then, uh, it’s kind of hazy, but anyway Saturn! and, and Boxcar!” You kids think you know funny? Now, that was funny! Wait, let me tell you about the potato in Mark Trail! Hey, where you going?
dariaclone
March 28th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Does anyone know the year of the original pregnancy story? It’s bringing back odd high school memories and I would like to be able to place them in context.
Nina
March 28th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
September is “Marry your babydaddy month”
for real.. NOT a joke
True Fable
March 28th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Dammit! I was working on a Killer FoobRant, and Microsoft Word ate my rant. Ate that sombeech UP, Jack; can’t pull it back and save it at all.
It was so juicy too, full of flavor and outrage and snark. Well, that will make the next one twice as biting. :)
Ukulele Ike
March 28th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
#237 Uncle Balustrade: “I think that’s a prayer shawl flying through the room in the third panel of Mark Trail. It is obviously trying to make in in time for Passover this coming Monday, and is very, very lost and confused.”
Not necessarily. Cherry’s maiden name is “Kirschbaum.”
Her folks were seriously pissed off when she went and married the World’s Biggest Goy, but at least she’s raising Randy Jewish. And you’ll note that she keeps a Kosher kitchen — with the talking potato/egg thing, milk, and sponge, she’s preparing a milchig meal — not a fleishig scrap in sight.
I’m hoping for an invitation to the seder!
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
183 & all that followed, my wife & teenage daughters know I am a CCer, and regard it with varying degrees of bemusement. As it happens they are in Paris now*, and before they left I mentioned that the current JP storyline has 2 Americans lost in a seedy part of Paris, so don’t let that happen to you. My wife looked at me like I was crazy, my 14-year old thought I said “CD part of Paris” and had no idea what I was talking about, and my 18-year old just said, we’ll be fine, dad.
So I don’t mention it much around the house.
*Yes, I am Home Alone (ö)
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
When Mr. O’F and I were out on our walk yesterday morning a bike racer cut us off, and I muttered “Rolly Church of Crete.” Mr. O’F asked me what I’d just said, and I thought about explaining, but he is a very literal, linear person who doesn’t even read the comics and never laughs at the funny ones I point out, so I decided just to let it slide. He knows I spend a good bit of time with blogs, but he thinks they’re all professional or political.
Edward
March 28th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Congratulations, Josh!
MossMoses
March 28th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that the girls have been detained by the sociology major from Brooklyn, New York and lewd boy in the car. Otherwise, Abbey and Neddy may have walked right into that riot at the Paris “transfer station” yesterday.
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
#266 — O’F, you are to never sully our presence with the accursed word “professional” again! Capisce?
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
#270 — Back on the disclosure to friends and family thread, i do on occasion send my wife A3G strips whenever Margo has reached the pinnacle of her beyotchitude.
HBGlord
March 28th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
And why did i just point to myself numerically on my last comment? Has it really just devolved into me muttering to myself in blog comment spaces?
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
270 HBG, you think that’s bad, I just spent 5 minutes reading comment 270 over & over & over.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Hey, everybody! Re: #267 Edward -
Josh wins The Week magazine’s Blogger of the Year award!
Yay, Josh!
True Fable
March 28th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
#249 gh – Well…okay. Dennis is standing on a bench, I suppose in this day and age that would constitute Child Endangerment, but that is also why Dennis is no longer the Menacer.
None of the shit he would have pulled in years past would fly now. He’s ‘way too PC; some little kid will see the strip and say, “hey, I wonder what would happen if I saved MY best friend’s head and blamed it on him?” and then they’d get in twubble. Or, “Maybe I can dig a hole in the backyard so Mr. Wilson will break his ankle or his hip and then his health will deteriorate from there because he’s like 80 or something and his bones are brittle” and then they do it and bammo, someone sues the Ketchum Estate for putting such ideas into widdle kids’ minds.
They are already IN widdle kids’s minds, pal. It’s just that no one wants to admit it aloud.
Or, “It’d be funny to assault Margaret with a brick for raggin’ my ass.” Well, it would be… but again, you’ve got those silly lawsuits.
Or, “Why don’t I slap MY mommy too, and tell HER Daddy was right, the neighbor is a LOT nicer and has bigger jugs?”
In that case, it should be Dennis the Not-Quite-A-Good-Boy, or Dennis the Potential Lawsuit.
Yeahhh! Dennis, the Potato Peeler! Dennis, the Ubiquiduck Plucker! Dennis the Penis!
Power of 1000 Lemons
March 28th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Perhaps the key is “you’re half right.” “I’m gay, and I’m adopting a kid with my new boyfriend!” That fits right in with FW’s controversial style, no?
Also, how pathetic is it that so many of these characters work at the exact same high school they attended? You’d think they’d have wanted to get as far away from it as possible.
True Fable
March 28th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
# 267 & 273 hooray, Josh! that is the coolest! Blogger of the Year!
Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Picture of Josh in a suit!
stinky pete
March 28th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
First the millennipost, now this! Congratulations Josh.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
March 28th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Congratulations Josh! Using my Slylockian powers of deduction, I conclude this must have something to do with the SECRET ENGAGEMENT cryptically mentioned in the previous post. (And also, Josh’s earrings were cold.)
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Josh: So THAT was the mysterious place you had to go the other day. Mazel tov, Pope! Great stuff! It’s an honor to be one of your curminions!
Rhadamanthus
March 28th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
MT: The talking potato is one of Count Weirdly’s early experiments. Cherry has already removed the eyes that appeared after some pore creature’s mind was transferred into it.
Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
#282 Rhadamanthus -
Wait a minute! If a potato isn’t a “pore creature”, what is?
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Yay, Josh!
Rhadamanthus
March 28th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
#283 – Yeah, that’s why I wrote “pore”, instead of “poor”. That’s the ticket. It has nothing to do with first-time-poster-nervousness.
Dean Booth
March 28th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
MT: Samuel Butler said, “Even the potato, rotting in its dank cellar, has a certain low cunning.” Probably enough to outwit Mark.
Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
#285 –
All in fun, R. – Welcome!
Chubby Haggis
March 28th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
FW: I haven’t been following this plot…is Les about to get “turned out”?
Jamus The Bartender
March 28th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
* Reads from a crumpled letter* …”but i’m not ….and you didn’t” Truer words were never spoken, right Stella? * Stella barks as if to say yes* You betcha…* walks along the beach*
(that would make one heck of a t-shirt, no? Oh, congratulations Josh on the blog of the week thing)
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Josh! Josh! Josh!…Oh, by the way, SmartPeopleOnIce is still with us! (check out bottom of previous post). Life is good!
PS. SPOI, sorry about the shirt. I will gladly pay the dry cleaning bill for ya. If you happen to have Sailor Moon underpants in need of professional laundering , Hell, I’ll pay for those too!
Squid Countess
March 28th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Trying to comment as I go along, sort of :
#6 Maggi – Hilarious! Snark more! (I want you to! Really!)
#7 t.a.m.s.y. – There’s a piece of tuna sandwich lodged permanently in my lungs, now, but that was worth it.
#121 – AhClem- Someone else has probably already mentioned this, but if there were such a thing as a self-flagellating log, guys could get a lot more done.
WilleThompson – I said in my e-mail that I only wanted one mug, despite the whole eight hand-having thing, but if it’s close in the end, I’ll take two.
O’Fogeyette- Here’s my favorite 2 liner, as wonderfully, wrongly told by my mom:
What did the corpse say to the pharmacist?
“Have you got anything I can take for this casket?”
*sniff* I miss mom.
Al
March 28th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I think Foob Gerald managed to loosen April’s bra straps in Wednesday’s edition…
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Oh yea-a-a-h, one more thing SPOI. “Kasplorgle” is now firmly ensconced in my personal CC-inspired lexicon. Thank you Sir.
Tomcat
March 28th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Luann- Gawd! Y’know, it’s monotonous stories like this that jeopardize the continuing success of such humerous comics, even like Luann. Jesus Fuckin’ Christ, Luann! When are you gonna learn?! Ben Halper (Or Ben York, whichever) could not have less interest in a girlfriend right now! He’s a sergeant in Iraq, doing some Texan Monkey president’s bidding, for god’s sake! Even if he was interested in a girlfriend, it sure as hell won’t be a self-absorbed, air-headed, ditzy 16 year old, who goes ga-ga over any good looking boy who gives her a little attention, and treats all the other guys like boytoys! Yeesh!
And why did the latest Brad story suddenly stop with finding a glove on the floor which Toni Daytona left behind? What was the idea of the glove anyway? A cheap condom? Something to slap Brad around with?
Toni: (Slaps Brad with glove) “Damn it, Brad! I’m looking for love here! Wake up! Quit chasing me around and just show me some fuckin’ love!”
Brad
March 28th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
#294 Tomcat -
Well, sink me!
Pendragon
March 28th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Congratulations to Josh — you deserve it!
Dilbert, this week only — I’m no butt, but…
And I’m no geologist but Psychic Potato would be a great name for a rock group. Love Waves, indeed.
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Sorry about the long ass post. Here’s some fail-safe Rodney Dangerfield one-liners:
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
I’ll tell ya, my wife and I, we don’t think alike. She donates money to the homeless, and I donate money to the topless!
One night I came home. I figured, let my wife come on. I’ll play it cool. Let her make the first move. She went to Florida.
I asked my old man if I could go ice-skating on the lake. He told me, “Wait til it gets warmer.”
My doctor told me to watch my drinking. Now I drink in front of a mirror. I drink too much. Way too much. My doctor drew blood. He ran a tab.
When I was born the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, “I’m very sorry. We did everything we could…but he pulled through.”
I come from a stupid family. During the Civil War my great uncle fought for the west!
My father was stupid. He worked in a bank and they caught him stealing pens.
My mother had morning sickness after I was born.
My mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.
My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.
I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.
One year they wanted to make me poster boy… for birth control.
I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
My uncle’s dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair.
One time I went to a hotel. I asked the bellhop to handle my bag. He felt up my wife!
This morning when I put on my underwear I could hear the Fruit of the Loom guys laughing at me.
I’m a bad lover. Once I caught a peeping tom booing me.
My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.
It’s tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won’t drink from my glass!
My wife isn’t very bright. The other day she was at the store, and just as she was heading for our car, someone stole it! I said, “Did you see the guy that did it?” She said, “No, but I got the license plate.”
Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.
A girl phoned me and said, “Come on over. There’s nobody home.” I went over. Nobody was home!
A hooker once told me she had a headache.
I went to a massage parlor. It was self service.
If it weren’t for pick-pocketers, I’d have no sex life at all.
Once when I was lost I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, “Do you think we’ll ever find them?” He said, “I don’t know kid. There are so many places they can hide.”
I remember I was so depressed I was going to jump out a window on the tenth floor. They sent a priest up to talk to me. He said, “On your mark…”
When my old man wanted sex, my mother would show him a picture of me.
I had a lot of pimples too. One day I fell asleep in a library. I woke up and a blind man was reading my face.
My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.
Last week my tie caught on fire. Some guy tried to put it out with an ax!
I met the surgeon general. He offered me a cigarette.
I was making love to this girl and she started crying. I said, “Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?” She said, “No, I hate myself now.”
I knew a girl so ugly that she was known as a two-bagger. That’s when you put a bag over your head in case the bag over her head breaks.
I knew a girl so ugly, they use her in prisons to cure sex offenders.
I knew a girl so ugly, I took her to the top of the Empire State building and planes started to attack her.
I knew a girl so ugly, the last time I saw a mouth like hers it had a hook on the end of it.
I knew a girl so ugly, she had a face like a saint–a Saint Bernard!
I was tired one night and I went to the bar to have a few drinks. The bartender asked me, “What’ll you have?” I said, “Surprise me.” He showed me a naked picture of my wife.
During sex my wife always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.
My marriage is on the rocks again. Yeah, my wife just broke up with her boyfriend.
One day as I came home early from work, I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy, “Hey buddy…why are you doing that for?” He said, “Because you came home early.”
I went to see my doctor… Doctor Vidi-boom-ba. Yeah…I told him once, “Doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror I feel like throwing up. What’s wrong with me? He said, “I don’t know, but your eyesight is perfect.”
I told my dentist my teeth are going yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie.
My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a second opinion.” He said, “All right. You’re ugly too!”
I was so ugly, my mother used to feed me with a slingshot!
When I was born the doctor took one look at my face, turned me over and said, “Look, twins!”
And we were poor too. Why, if I wasn’t born a boy, I’d have nothing to play with!
With my wife I don’t get no respect. I made a toast on her birthday to ‘the best woman a man ever had.’ The waiter joined me.
I’m not a sexy guy. I went to a hooker. I dropped my pants. She dropped her price.
I tell you, I’m not a sexy guy. I was the centerfold for Playgirl magazine. The staples covered everything!
What a childhood I had, why, when I took my first step, my old man tripped me!
Last week I told my psychiatrist, “I keep thinking about suicide.” He told me from now on I have to pay in advance.
I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!
Oh, when I was a kid in show business I was poor. I used to go to orgies to eat the grapes.
When I was a kid I got no respect. The time I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers sent my parents a note they said, “We want five thousand dollars or you’ll see your kid again.”
I tell ya, my wife was never nice. On our first date, I asked her if I could give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek – she bent over!
I tell you, with my doctor, I don’t get no respect. I told him, “I’ve swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.” He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.
Some dog I got too. We call him Egypt because he leaves a pyramid in every room.
With my dog I don’t get no respect. He keeps barking at the front door. He don’t want to go out. He wants me to leave.
What a dog I got. His favorite bone is in my arm!
Last week I saw my psychiatrist. I told him, “Doc, I keep thinking I’m a dog.” He told me to get off his couch.
I worked in a pet store and people kept asking how big I’d get.
Ben York
March 28th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Message to Luann DeGroot. Suubject: “Your boy habits”
Luann, I am well aware that just because I gave you a little attention at the bowling alley that you think I should love you and worship you for eternity. Well, let me lay out the facts for you.
1. I am a sergeant stationed in Baghdad, Iraq.
2. Any given day could be my last, and having a relationship with a ditzy airhead would have no meaning.
3. Soon enough, you’ll leave me to rot while you go and flirt with other guys.
4. You ignore guys like Gunther Berger and still expect him to worship you anyway.
5. If I am to come back soon enough, there’ll be a ton of stunning babes just waiting to break my door down.
6. If you really want all the guys in the world to play with as you damn well please, go become a pornstar, and do a threesome, or a DP.
Sorry to disappoint, but I am an army sergeant; I’m tough as nails.
Regards,
Sergeant Benjamin Halper York
FlaGator
March 28th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Josh, I can’t believe you don’t blog “Alley Oop.” It has everything you love/hate in a strip: Pointless, meandering soap-opera plotlines that go nowhere and take months to do so; incomprehensible or simply absent punchlines; a bevy of ugly, unlikeable characters who haven’t changed or grown in 70 years. It’s like the bastard child of Gil Thorp and B.C.!
http://www.comics.com/comics/alleyoop/
Dean Booth
March 28th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Congrats, Josh. After a quick glance, I thought the ad at the top of the Editor & Publisher page was for “12 million students…The Heckler Institute,” and thought “So that’s where he learned his art!”
Ukulele Ike
March 28th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Ahhh, Josh. The two-button jacket thing is SO 1998. Why didn’t you call? Here, at least let me alter the lapels….we’re wearing them a half-inch narrower this year. And what’s going on down there? CUFFS? Am I seeing CUFFS? Where’s my damn chalk?
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
O’Fogeyette. Sorry, I didn’t catch the “two-liner” criterion until after I posted. Well, maybe I can try to turn Sir Rodney of Vegas’s 1 liners into 2 liners…Lemme know, I’m glad to oblige (Mary J. O’Blige that is)…Sorry again. I’ll just quit while I’m behind.
Trotzenbonnie
March 28th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Congratulations, Josh!
Hmmm. Anybody want to guess what the acceptance speech was like?
“I want to thank Mary Worth for being such a biddy….Tyler for whacking himself in the head with a stick…”
And – tomorrow’s Mark Trail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Potato_Eaters
willethompson
March 28th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
JOSH!
You hung out with Tom Toles? TOM TOLES???? Formerly of the Buffalo News??? If you tell me that you Rick Ricigliano too, I will PLOTZ!
Ukulele Ike
March 28th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
#299: Hey! Do NOT be ragging on ol’ Alley Oop! The Oop RAWKS.
I first got acquainted with Uncle Al through Denis Kitchen’s wonderful collections of the 1940s stuff, including Doc and his Time Machine. Ooola in seamed stockings. And the inimitable OSCAR BOOM!
I see through your link that Oscar is back in action, and in trouble, lost in time. Thanks to you, I now have YET ANOTHER damn strip I have to read every day.
“There’s a man in the funny papers we all knowwwwwww….
And he lived way back a long time agooooooo….
He don’t eat nothin’ but bear-cat soooooooooooop….
Well, this cat’s name is — uhhh — Alley Ooooooooooop…..”
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Whenever I’m dealing with too much heartbreak, I have a healthful and delicious heartbreakfast and it turns my frown upside-down!…Oh yeah-h-h-h, I’m talkin’ Captain Crunch.
Dingo
March 28th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Yowza. It was a long day today and I just now decided to play the fun game of searching a thread for your name. Yowza! What I missed! Blushin’ and a-tinglin’ all over the place!
Folks, we got an editorial in my hometown paper today. They commented on the huge surge in votes for Starved Rock at the last moment to keep it in the competition and urged everyone to keep voting so that it would win. Huzzah, curminions and curmudgeonistas!
Enjoy Illinois – especially Starved Rock State Park. I’m sorry to tell macb that Chicago is now between Wrigley Field and the Museum of Science and Industry.
I wonder if Vera Shields ever worked for the Illinois Office of Tourism.
Patrick
March 28th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
The body language in FW is really interesting. Dork ( I have no idea what the names of these characters are ) has his hands and legs positioned in order to take up space. His hands are in the “I’m in charge” pose, but he’s protecting his body with his legs. Bully is in the Invading Territory pose, moving into Dork’s space. Dork is clearly terrified.
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Speaking of wholesome delicious breakfasteses, when i make homefries,they don’t say shit until I put them into a hot skillet, then they say “SHHHHH”…Like they’re saying “STFU, Red, because I like to talk to my spuds when they fry…CHENNUX, do you have the same problem?
Mr. O’Malley
March 28th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
305. Ukulele Ike, “He’s got a chauffeur that’s a genuine dino-sawer” Oh yeah!
I’ve only been reading AO sporadically, but here’s what I know.
Oscar turned out to be an ex-con, but everyone said that was okay. Then Oscar vanished. Then Spanish galleons started turning up in Moo. Apparently Oscar took time travel technology to a new unscrupulous employer.
That was a few months ago. The concept didn’t seem too promising, so I stopped reading.
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Has there ever been an anthomo…anthragoric…anthramophordite… abbidee, bidee, bidee …Missing link…OK, you know I mean…manskunk in Pluggers? Nevermind.
Mr. O’Malley
March 28th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
308. Red, we have only mute potatoes here, but our sausages sing when we cook them up.
That’s why people call them “singing hinnies” in the Old Country (assuming that one’s OC is just slightly south of Hadrian’s Wall).
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Vera Shields…worst…mime…partner Yarnell ever had!
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Mr. O’- I always wondered what “the OC” meant. Never watched the show, but I’m sure I woulda checked out a coupl’a episodes if it was called “The Singing Hinnies”…Thank you…RG
queek
March 28th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
snorg T girls, even more delectable than dirty pixel girls.
Wonder how Wonkette will handle Chennux showing up, demanding the model in question, with a side of potatoes.
MossMoses
March 28th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
306. RG, “Captain Crunch”? It’s Cap’n, pronounced cap-un. It stays crunchy in milk but unfortunately the contents have about as much nutrition as the box itself and sugar is the #1 ingredient. Still it is my numero uno favorito breakfast cereal.
When someone meddles in Mary Worth’s life she kills them, albeit not with her bare hands. When other people refuse to let her meddle in their lives she turns into a meddlesome busybiddy stalker herself. She is every bit as convinced of Vera’s need for her advice as Aldo was that she didn’t want to be alone.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.slowart.com/slow/corporate/capncrn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.slowart.com/slow/corporate/image2.htm&h=432&w=239&sz=29&tbnid=tL4hTdxzmYTTBM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=70&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcap%2527n%2Bcrunch&start=2&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=2
Len
March 28th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Kevin the Whiteboy got a new roommate. New roomie WANTS roaches in the dorm (for his transformation), and warned Kev that he’ll be coming home at odd/late hours.
The answer to Kevin’s prayers? I think the new roomie is a super-hero. “The Cockaroach!”
That, or a cannibal axe murderer. Hilarity shall ensue.
http://www.comics.com/wash/watch/archive/watch-20070328.html
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Okay, I’m a bit off the tangent here. But what if “Mark Trail” took place in Scotland. What would a talking haggis say?
WithoutaK
March 28th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Just wanted to throw in my congrats to Josh, too. So…Congrats, Josh!
Oh and Dingo, just so you know, I’m not computer savvy but I can delete my cookies like the wind and thus have been voting like crazy for Starved Rock. Never been to Illinois but Starved Rock looks beautiful.
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Moss. D’ja ever notice Cap’n Crunch looks like Wilford Brimley. Which is weird because WF was a spokesmodel for Quaker Oats…OOOOeeeeeOOOO (cheezy Ed Wood theremin sound effect added for dramatic impact)
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Sheesh…WB (Quakerpimp)…Just stick a fork in me…Ooooh, new post(toasties)!!!!
O’Fogeyette
March 28th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Squid Countess and Red Greenback: thanks so much for the punchlines. Red–Rodney will probably keep me going for a few months. And I’m well-versed in turning multi-lines into two-liners.
Red Greenback
March 28th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
O’Fogeyette: Glad to Mary K O’Blige…How’s Google doing?
Len
March 28th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
#238 — So, maybe Towelly (that’s the name of the pot-smoking dishrag in South Park?) has a Jewish friend named Tallis? Who visits Mark Trail? I can’t wait to see the Ubiquiducks wearing legbands that say “Kosher for Passover.”
Have a taste of Cherry’s talking potato kugel. It’s worth wandering for thirty years in the desert — or Lost Forest.
(Cherry’s maiden name was Schnapps.)
Len
March 28th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
#324 — Can we have a Tee shirt of Cherry grabbing her face, Home Alone style, screaming “OY GEVALT!”?
The idea of the Trails being secretly Jewish is making me giggle uncontrollably. Marcus Trailstein, Yeshiva-trained outdoorsman and naturalist. Can Babelfish translate the misplaced word balloons into Yiddish?
Famous Author Rob Byrnes
March 28th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Re: Mark Trail.
Unused fishing equipment?!! That’s how one wife figured out that the boys in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ were, um, getting busy instead of fishing on those fishing trips. You don’t think that Mark and Dan…?
Time for the mind bleach.
Poteet
March 28th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
# 312 — Thanks, Mr. O’Malley. So THAT’S what “singin’ hinnies” are. I did wonder. Oh the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree, etc.
Len
March 28th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
#265 (Ukulele Ike) — Great minds think alike! And snark in Yiddish.
Cherry KIRSCHBAUM? That would make her “Cherry Cherrytree!” I feel a Neil Diamond song coming on!
alamo
March 28th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
fw — maybe the coach is hatching a plan to kidnap (rescue?) the foob babies who obviously are in danger the longer they remain in that strip.
it is a sad commentary when the “for better” in fbofw means being kidnapped and inserted in fw. “for better or funky winkerbean” — that is the question — whose answer is tragedy either way.
however a life doomed to end in some tragic carcinogenic trauma has got to be an improvement over the psychological damage thrust upon them daily in foobville. at least they might have some hope in fw — some semblance of a life pre-cancer.
LariLee
March 29th, 2007 at 3:12 am
In FW, is that really “Coach Dude Whose Name I Forget” or the female coach, ’cause it looks just like my high school coach and she needed help impregnating her wife as well.
Or is FW drawing from real life… real, miserable, deadly, unhappy, painful life… again?
rich
March 29th, 2007 at 10:03 am
299: Haven’t seen Alley Oop in years…it’s gotten pretty freaky looking. That 3/29 strip looks kind of like Reid Fleming, World’s Strongest Milkman.
azperi kogh
June 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
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