The Comics Curmudgeon

Main content:

Coming soon: the Momma-tossing contest

Momma, 3/28/08

Generally, I’m willing to let slide the fact that Momma’s title character is depicted as being roughly two feet tall; I chalk it up to artistic license, perhaps meant to metaphorically reflect the deep-seated feelings of personal inadequacies that drive her to her awful control-freakish extremes. But it’s harder to think of it that way when one of her normal-sized children, no doubt tired of waiting for her to toddle on her stumpy legs to Danny’s Place, simply picks her up and carries her. On the bright side, she probably weighs less than thirty pounds, so it won’t cost very much to get her good and drunk.

(Actually, Francis apparently just likes carrying inappropriate people to bars.)

Mary Worth, 3/28/08

That’s it? That’s the big flashback? Little Mary was poor, and her friend’s family was nice to her once, and then her mother remarried and all her problems were over? That’s crap. I’m disappointed in the strip, obviously, but I’m really mostly disappointed in myself, for thinking that this could be cool. As ever, I need to ratchet my expectations far downward.

It’s possible that this flashback has just served to set up the real story. Maybe in the present the older Cathy is down and out, and Mary will finally get to repay her parents’ kindness! Maybe she’ll have to journey to the hellscape that is the Downtown Women’s Shelter! Maybe … oh, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

Shoe, 3/28/08

I have to admit that I laughed unironically at Shoe’s completely absurd punchline today. Kids, this is why you don’t want to strike up conversations with random old people! They’re demented, and many of them are angry!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 09:54 am and is filed under Mary Worth, Momma, Shoe.

324 responses to “Coming soon: the Momma-tossing contest”

Uncle Lumpy
March 28th, 2008 at 9:58 am [Reply]

Mary Worth — Her friend’s parents said a prayer, announced that Mary was always welcome at their table, and fed her. Conflating these events, Mary now believes she is Moloch the Devourer.
Weaselboy
March 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am [Reply]

From the look on young Mary’s face, something is definitely shifting inside her, and not in a good way.
Smokehouse
March 28th, 2008 at 10:01 am [Reply]

The only thing that can save the MW flashback at this point is if young-Mary life is changed by witnessing a fight between a bear and a velociraptor. And maybe the bear has a laser cannon.
Sirkus Peanuts
March 28th, 2008 at 10:02 am [Reply]

What’s the drinking age for birds?
zenvelo
March 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am [Reply]

Momma hasn’t had a *single* hour of happiness, because she always drinks doubles, and goes for the two-hour Happy Hour!
Snark
March 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am [Reply]

I think that the writers of Mary Worth got bored with the whole flashback storyline right in the middle, and just decided to tie it off. “Oh, fuck it. This is boring. I miss drawing the guy with the neckbeard, and nobody really cares about Mary anyway. It’s not like she’s an actual character with motivations.”
Brick Bradford
March 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am [Reply]

Shoe–I think that’s the Roz’s diner, actually. The buzzard reminds me of an old Victor Borge line.
He claimed his father once asked him, “Borge, how old are you?” “7″. “When I was your age I was 8″.

You know, Cathy’s father looks an awful lot like a younger Dr. Jeff. This could lend a whole new meaning to the concept of something shifting inside. “When I grew up I stole him away from his wife and have made his life a hell of monotony ever since!”
4EvahFan
March 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am [Reply]

FOOB: Everyone’s pressuring Lizard to wear this disgusting dress! And then she wears this dress that’s fixed to disintegrate in the car?! Does she have to wear it to ask permission to wear it?

Iris is looking a bit concerned in the last panel. Is she afraid Chinnuts’s memory of his wife will come back and he’ll realize what a troll he married?
OverCat
March 28th, 2008 at 10:12 am [Reply]

Momma is two feet tall? I think you’re being too generous, Josh. She could be the baby sister in Family Circus.

A Momma/FC crossover? I really wish that hadn’t occurred to me…
AhClem
March 28th, 2008 at 10:14 am [Reply]

You know, if my 2-foot tall mother had told me that she never had a single hour of happiness in her entire life — which, presumably, includes giving birth to me — I’d be tempted to use her to practice my punting for football tryouts.
Islamorada Girl
March 28th, 2008 at 10:19 am [Reply]

There is no jury in the US that would direct a guilty verdict against Momma’s kids if they smothered her with a pillow
K.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 am [Reply]

that was a funny Shoe.

seriously.
philkaye
March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 am [Reply]

How is it that based on the fashions and hair styles we see being worn by everyone in these flashbacks, 97-year old Mary appears to have been a kid in the 1970s? And, judging from the look she’s giving the new step-sister, that “something shifting inside” Mary can only be the awakening of Sapphic love.
minor flood
March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 am [Reply]

Momma:
Osteoporosis is exacerbated by rampant alchoholism.

Shoe:
Alchoholism triples the rate of apoptosis in birds.

Mary Worth:
Alchoholism causes boring flashbacks.
Gagott68
March 28th, 2008 at 10:27 am [Reply]

Luann: Thanks, Brad. All the more reason to really not care where this “relationship” is going.

FOOB: Is Grandpa trying to cop a feel on Liz there at the end?

S-M: Kradis will “deal with” the Persuader later? Like after the Persuader is done beating him with Krandis’ own torn off arms?

GT: Time for Marty to lay the smack down on Mr. Gregory.

MT: Fear the giant chipmunk.
John C Fremont
March 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am [Reply]

# 197 Darkefang (previous thread) – My first reponse to Ten in today’s A3G was “Hey, it’s Morpheus!” But the thought of head-bobblin’ Eric as Neo made me go “Whoa!”

Regarding Mary Worth, let’s hope and pray to Mary’s “higher power” that this IS the end of the flashback. One more day of this crap and I’d – I’d, uh, just keep reading it every damned day. But I’d be bitter about it. Damn you, Mary Worth! Damn you and your painful, pointless flashbacks!!
Corkey
March 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am [Reply]

Francis looks far too satisfied with himself then a man who’s going to a bar with his mom has any right to be. He does however look exactly as satisfied as a man who can humilate his mother by carrying her like a ball should be.

Incidentlaly, if I was in a bar, and a man walked into a bar carrying his two foot mother, I would likely give up drinking for life. At the very least, I would do a humorus double take, and make a wry observation to the bar tender, such as “I think I’ve had enough.”
Lake Eerie
March 28th, 2008 at 10:40 am [Reply]

SM – I apologize if this has been covered before, but if MJ drew Spidey’s attention by calling for help, what’s stopping her from yelling, “Don’t! It’s a trap!”
Can you develop Stockholm Syndrome in 30 minutes?
If she does fall for either of her captors, I hope it’s for the Persuader – he did, after all, best her husband twice.
benro
March 28th, 2008 at 10:44 am [Reply]

MW – What we are seeing, of course, is Mary Worth’s recollection of her childhood hardships. What actually happened is likely a lot different. I don’t have time today to come up with a good possible ‘real version’ of the events, but I’ll plant a seed for the rest of you to think about.
Spaceman Spiff
March 28th, 2008 at 10:47 am [Reply]

#17 Corkey

If I was in said bar and heard your wry observation, I would chuckle indulgently while giving a brief smile of acknowlegement.
Lake Eerie
March 28th, 2008 at 10:49 am [Reply]

A3G – Appearting as Ten today, veteran villianous character actor, Billy Zane.
No?
Nice sunglasses, dude – anyone else wondering if he’s actually a Buddhist monk, or a bald guy who hangs out in his bathrobe all day? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

FBOFW – Perhaps Grandpa is begging, again, for the sweet release of death?
Little Guy
March 28th, 2008 at 10:49 am [Reply]

Luann: I’ve given up on the Brad/Toni relationship even before I came to terms with Liz and Anthony. Having Dirk come up, either physically or in spirit, is always going to happen.

The one thing to save the plotline is for Dirk to make one more menacing gesture, only to be dragged to the raging steroid pit of Hell by the corpse of Lyle Alzado.
Muffaroo
March 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am [Reply]

Mama – “…but the leprechaun was hard of hearing, so I ended up with an eighteen-inch pain in the ass.”

MW – Is the guy in the second panel the same guy who showed up in the last panel of Gil Thorp? Is this one of those weeks where all the cartoonists conspire to do something wacky together?
boojum
March 28th, 2008 at 10:55 am [Reply]

MW: “That incident stands out in my mind because I felt something shift inside.”

Well, you see, “Mary,” sometimes a young… person’s testicles don’t fully descend until puberty. The resulting gender confusion, free-floating anger, sexual frigidity/impotence, and self-loathing that can result are all too understandable, dear. Although — to give credit where credit is due — most people don’t make a religion out of it.
Hysterical Woman
March 28th, 2008 at 10:59 am [Reply]

10. If I was two feet tall, I don’t think the “hour” I gave birth would be that happy either!
(Only an hour?)
boojum
March 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am [Reply]

1. Uncle Lumpy:

Throw me something from the float next week!
Cavour
March 28th, 2008 at 11:05 am [Reply]

Foob: Who was with me in hoping that we’d see Marian standing in the clouds wearing a white robe, ala Family Circus, giving Liz the big thumbs down? Maybe Gramps will come through for us and curse her out.
Muffaroo
March 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am [Reply]

Curtis – I’m losing track. Is the barber Herb or is he Jamal?

DtM – “…and don’t think you can talk your way out of it with that lame Jolson impression, either!”

DT – Okay, all the cartoonists got together and decided it’s “Mammy! MMMMammeh!” day. (Too bad the crate didn’t have a “This End Up” sign on it, eh, Tracy?)

FC – I… I feel Jeffy’s pain. Whoa.

FOOB – “Perhaps it feels like yesterday.” Actually, if feels like Last March, when Gramps was prancing in front of the mirror with the dress on and had to stash it in the crawl space when he heard the family coming.

GA – Another creepy chapter of “Sturdy the Menace, or: What if Dick Van Dyke was a pedophile?”

MF – If Mallard would look at the keyboard when he typed, instead of the audience, maybe he wouldn’t type such stupid drivel.

S-M – These last few days are really taxing Spidey’s freakish ability to run around with the proportionate zip and motivation of a spider.

Muffaroo @23 – Preview is your friend, you know.
Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^)
March 28th, 2008 at 11:07 am [Reply]

Oh come on, we all know she’s going to say, “And now I will tell you about the other big event in my life – being raped by leper succubi on my 16th birthday, which drove me into a life of crimes against humanity!
Lake Eerie
March 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am [Reply]

DT – Get ready for some gratuitous violence … sometime … in the next two to three weeks. I won’t acknowledge the possible sexual, immature undertones to what Dick said, because, after all, it’s Dick Tracy
H&L – Shame on you, Lois, for forcing gender roles on your children at such a young age!
Zaq
March 28th, 2008 at 11:14 am [Reply]

Curtis: I’d probably have slugged the bastard too, having the nerve to lead on a couple of proper-thinking people then indicating support for Third Term there… okay, ratcheting back the politics by 75%, sorry.

C’shaft: The asshole gene is hereditary.

Archie: For some inexplicable reason, Archie reminds me of X (of Mega Man X) in the second panel, and I have NO IDEA WHY, because I can’t see anything that they have in common… but I still see that panel and think, briefly, “look, it’s X!”

Judge Parker: What is this, Foob?

Ziggy: Um, what? Question mark indeed.

Ghost-Who-Stalks: “Tattoo?” Really? Not “indentation,” not even the generic “mark,” but “tattoo?” Ghost-Who-Interferes-With-Lady-Cops-And-Waitresses actually carries around a tattooing set with him and permanently marks his victims with ink under their skin that will be there for all eternity? Okay then.

Popeye: Wow, I was actually surprised by this. If I had to guess which character would be able to see through the Sea Hag’s Clark Kent disguise, I would have said “none of them,” not Olive.

RMMD: If no one turns “You know public health!” into something unspeakably dirty, I’m going to be very sad. I’d also request that we stay away from public/pubic jokes, but I’ll take what I can get.

GT: “Not the jumper, dummy! Take this stiff to the hoop! You’d never measure up in the JUNGLE PATROL!”

Luann: Clearly, Toni and Dirk were high school sweethearts, and thus, by the Law of the Comics Page, are destined to be each other’s twoo wuv forever.

FW: Les talking to himself, especially in this rambling, insane manner, is clearly a sign of brain cancer.

Foob: Lynn’s fucking with us. She has to be.
Paul1963
March 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am [Reply]

I agree that Francis looks entirely too happy for someone whose mother just declared that her life has been entirely devoid of happiness. Sadly, Francis isn’t smart enough to devise a sufficiently sarcastic reply, like “Gosh, Momma, on behalf of your other two children, your grandchild and the man you were married to for 35 years, thanks a whole fucking bunch.”
gkl
March 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am [Reply]

MW: Thank goodness something’s shifting on the inside, ’cause ain’t nothing happening anywhere else in this strip.
Patrick, Day Watch, FOOB Contempt Division
March 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am [Reply]

Mary Worth, Narcissistic Excrement Portal: Mary Worth reminds me of the time I got renditioned to a movie theater to watch The Blair Witch Project. At the end when the credits were rolling, a guy stood up and shouted in rage, “Is that it? I want my money back!” It wasn’t me, but I agreed.

Mary Worth is a bleeping sociopath inflating a non moment into a pivotal event to make herself look oh so wonderful. Of course, she probably made all of this crap up and it never happened.

I’d like to think that Cathy’s dad is Dr. Jeff, but then he could be Drew, or Von with dyed hair. Not even The Shadow knows. Or cares.

A3G: When I see today’s generic jaunt to supposedly faraway lands. I can’t help thinking of this:

http://profmendez.tripod.com/html/apart3G.htm

Way back in the Day, comic strip artists actually bothered to come up with characters you could tell apart.

FOOB: I don’t even know where to start. I’m sure others have said it first, but who the hell wears a wedding dress across town who is not actually in a wedding? There are several ways this supposedly precious moment is incredibly insensitive to both Chinnuts and Iris. Assuming he remembered what the dress even looked like which it looks like he does. The idea that he could mistake his granddaughter for his first wife makes me glorp up my lunch thinking about it. When the strain of memory makes Chinnuts have another stroke, it will be the grandkids fault.

On Glarge Talk, what’s with all the “this is so much like real life” crap? If there are people in “real life” like the Pattersons, someone please give me advance warning so I can get a full tank of gas in the car and drive as far away as possible. Right now, I figure Lynn must really hate her daughter big time and she is recasting her to suit the evil machinations that the real daughter refuses to cooperate with.
Rotten Arsenal
March 28th, 2008 at 11:24 am [Reply]

I never realized until now just how bad the art in Momma is… does Francis have a tumor growing out of his forehead? I guess that’s his nose, but that would mean he has the unfortuante ability to look up his own nostrils.
I wonder what creature mated with Momma to produce the mutant DNA scheme that would create something like this?
gnome de blog
March 28th, 2008 at 11:32 am [Reply]

Instead of being struck dead Gwampa Chinnuts will be miraculously cured of his aphasia by the sight of Liz in The Dress.

More foobious treacle, Mule!
Harry Worth
March 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am [Reply]

jeez, can I get a job “writing” the Mary Worth strips?

I mean, I can phone it in just as easily as is being done now.

***Sigh***
Anson Pants
March 28th, 2008 at 11:36 am [Reply]

Momma If I was in a bar, and a man walked in carrying his two foot mother, I would stare into the camera with raised eyebrows, like Jim Halpert on The Office.
Dingo
March 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am [Reply]

The problem with today’s Shoe is that it gets the joke backwards. The average 36-year-old today wants to be considers 12 and acts it.
Poewar
March 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am [Reply]

Please God, he prayed as he willed his hand to rise, just give me the strength to slap some sense into my Granddaughter before I die!
Artist formerly known as Ben
March 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am [Reply]

The other scary thing about Shoe is the old guy’s fierce talon gripping the coffee cup. It’s like MacNellyInc. forgot to forget that they were depicting birds.
Justafoob
March 28th, 2008 at 11:46 am [Reply]

Just be grateful that LJ isn’t showing us Gwampa’s deranged and pornographic images (ala the foot rub).
Mischief Maker
March 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am [Reply]

I’ve finally figured out FOOB. Everything from why Michael and Liz look like clones of their mother to why Liz is so inexplicably drawn to Anthony.

Ellie is an alien, like the pod people, sent to destroy humanity by infiltrating the gene pool.

The Males seek out women and introduce viruses that slowly mutate them into patterson females. Deanna’s slow loss of any independent spirit and eventual obsession with moving into the Patterson home and recreating Michael’s life to the tiniest detail are symptoms of the virus.

The females seek out the blandest men possible, to ensure that none of the man’s milquetoast genes become dominant in their offspring and ensuring that the offspring are identical to their patterson mother. They attract and evaluate men with a combination of pheremones and their ability to expand their lips and lengthen their eyelashes at will. The more appropriate the man, the stronger the patterson’s effect.

Paul Wright was the least appropriate, quickly shaking off the effects and getting together with a human once out of the reach of Liz’s pheremone breath. She had a stronger effect on Warren, who began to creepily stalk her, and an even stronger effect on the guy that tried to rape her. But her effect on Anthony was the stongest, not only making him obsessed with her for years, but also making his obsession not to mate with Liz, but to BREED.

This, of course, is what makes Therese evil incarnate in the eyes of the pattersons. Not only does she put her career over the ever-important task of females to breed, breed, breed, she is maybe the only one who can detect them. She could tell that there was something wrong with Anthony’s obsession with Liz and after he whined his way into making her give birth to their daughter, some of that had gotten into her child. She had to get out and she may be the one lucky individual to escape the patterson people… for now…

…because while the patterson’s breed slowly, they spread at a geometric rate!
Patrick, Day Watch, FOOB Contempt Division
March 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am [Reply]

#43, Makes perfect sense to me. Invasion of the Patterpods!
Poewar
March 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am [Reply]

Sadly, Momma was killed later that night when the heated rivalry between Danny’s Bar and Danny’s Place escalated into gunfire. The turnout at her funeral was… sparse.
man behind the curtain
March 28th, 2008 at 11:53 am [Reply]

LuAnn — After the ball, Toni will take a 1-year leave of absence, return as Tony, and shack up with the captain.
A New Day
March 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am [Reply]

Am I the only one who thinks that Ten the Buddhist Monk is far and away the hottest male character ever to appear in A3G?
lynngineering
March 28th, 2008 at 11:56 am [Reply]

Momma: The strip may have ended, but the joke just starts with: “A man walked into a bar holding up his two-foot mother, and said: _____________________”

Weird premise, no matter what.
Lake Eerie
March 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am [Reply]

#45 Poewar:
But on the bright side, they saved much on her funeral by burying her in a shoebox
Dingo
March 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am [Reply]

Sorry, A New Day, but that guy isn’t a Buddhist monk; he’s really just a male prostitute. A cheap one. Got six bucks in your wallet? ‘cuz six will get you Ten.
JP (not Judge Parker)
March 28th, 2008 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

I’m surprised Dennis didn’t make the cut today. I got the impression he was telling Margaret how much he’s, uh, packing, but maybe my mind is just in the gutter.
Mrs. Buck Tuddrussell
March 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pm [Reply]

MW: I guess this is some watered-down version of a religious epiphany? Maybe? That’s what I’m getting out of it, anyway, but it’s so vague that the truth is anyone’s guess.

FOOB: They just keep being cruel to Grandpa Chinnuts. The guy is ill, people. Stop bugging him with memories of his past. His life is already flashing before his eyes.

Ages ago I stopped reading FW and Crankshaft because they were so idiotic as to be cruel, and I’ve finally gotten to that point with FOOB. FOOB used to be old-fashioned and misguided with an added layer of personal revenge for LJ, but now it’s just too uncomfortable to watch. Unless this turns into some kind of romance fantasy where Liz finds herself whisked back 75 years because her grandmother’s dress is some kind of time travel device, I don’t want to read it anymore.
Lolsworth
March 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pm [Reply]

Josh, please look up what “toss” means in Britain, and then NEVER TYPE ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN MY GOD.
T. Chicana
March 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm [Reply]

Maybe Gwampa Chinnuts is reaching out to what he thinks is the Angel of Death in that tattered corpse-y gown.
Gabacho
March 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm [Reply]

Mary Worth – okay, so now we know why you inflict casseroles on down and outers? But what happened that made you want to get revenge on the world by meddling?

FooB – Grandpa’s thinking, “Holy crap, Marian. How did you get so ugly?”

Sally Forth – Roseland Ballroom. I had a friend when I was a teenager whose aunt was a taxi dancer at the old Roseland. A blowsy old chainsmoking broad with a serious drinking problem – one of my favorites. Sadly, even during its taxi dancing days, its disco nights and its corporate event present, the place was and is still too hip for Sally and Ted.
Pepperoni Détournées (formerly Herro!)
March 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm [Reply]

MW: THEY DIDNT EVEN MEDDLE?! WTF? That was the perfect set-up for “Cathy’s mom intervened and ran a food drive and donated food for us bla bla bla.” What a tease!
rhymes with puck
March 28th, 2008 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

Shoe: Today’s strip is proof that even a blind squirrel can eventually write a funny strip about clothed birds talking at a diner.

9CL: Well, that was a rather naughty joke – unfortunately as lacking in humor as most of chickweed’s, but naughty nonetheless.

H&J: Sarah is right about that argument over that polictical issue everyone is talking about. She’s also right that having your your name engraved on your coffee cup ensures that you never accidentally exchange bodily fluids with your wife.
Anonymous
March 28th, 2008 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

#34- Been there, done that. Only I was 13, Gramps was 91, with dementia, and he thought I was his girlfriend before Grams (who was sitting right there). One of those scary, scary moments. Except I didn’t bring it upon myself by wearing said girlfriend’s old clothes. And I pretty much ran from the room.

Look I know Iris is down with the dead wife, but come on. At least call ahead and tell her that you are planning to show up at her place wearing the dead wife’s wedding dress.
T. Chicana
March 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm [Reply]

#58: That reminds me of the time my friend Juan went to visit his grandpa with his mom. His grandpa (who must’ve had dementia…?) took Juan aside and said, “I’ll sell you my seester.”
I can only cringe when I think of what Grandpa Chinnuts is going to do …or say? tomorrow. HOW can they think this was a good idea?
Eric the Grate
March 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm [Reply]

Mary Worth
“But that one incident stands out in my mind, because I felt something shift inside.”

Mary Worth was impregnated by a facehugger and died seconds later, when the alien burst from her chest.

I maintain that MW would be infinitely more fun if it had some sci-fi elements.
McManx
March 28th, 2008 at 12:19 pm [Reply]

FOOB – When Liz says Gramps seeing her in Gramma’s dress makes him feel the memory “like yesterday,” she is closer to the truth than she knows. Given the look on his face, Gramps is experiencing the first erection he’s had in 70 years.

MW — The young Mary in the flashbacks looks like Tatum O’Neal in “Paper Moon” except that it’s not set in the Depression. Then again, this whole fucking story line has forced me into a depression…
Gabacho
March 28th, 2008 at 12:24 pm [Reply]

Yesterthread Post #65 from Little A. of the Grand Concourse Jungle Patrol – Apropos of nothing as usual: do any of you snarkers know what The Grand Concourse is?

Heck yeah, Fordham Rd and Grand Concourse was my main hanging intersection. It was a much better street than Tiebout Ave. where we lived in Mary Worthlike poverty.

I even remember when the entire Concourse packed up and moved to Coop City one weekend in 1970.
kingklash
March 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm [Reply]

This “Non-Adventure of Li’l Mary Worth” still might be leading up to something. Probably her first pantsuit.
Bootsy
March 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm [Reply]

Oh Josh. We love your unbridled and boundless optimism! That’s what separates you from the heavy lidded hopelessness of Momma and Marvin and Sarge Snorkel and Margo Magee and…shit, way too many.

Snark on, fearless leader!
Poteet
March 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm [Reply]

# 3 Smokehouse — You owe me a keyboard.
gnome de blog
March 28th, 2008 at 12:28 pm [Reply]

I’m disappointed. I was expecting Sally and Ted to end up at some hip comedy club where they encounter a smartass comic-strip writer/blogger. And a Pope.
gnome de blog
March 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm [Reply]

I think the first time I heard my father say, “when I was your age I was 12″ was about 1954.
Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^)
March 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

A3g – This comic is getting worse than Mary Worth. Ok, not really, but close. “Acclimate?” Who would ever use that word, except for maybe Captain Rayford Steele from the Left Behind series. But what else would you expect from a guy named Rayford. But this character is named Eric… which means his dialog should be more like, “Duuuuude, heavy! This place is like tooootally… Chinaish!!1 Are we in China, duuude? Oh yeah man, this chick I love, is like a TOTAL BITCH. But I guess that, like, with her I’ll never need to buy a guard dog, right? Oh man, look! Purple dragons!”

Beetle Bailey – Honestly, this comic puts the military in a worse light than any terrorist organization could.

Dick Tracy – Today’s installment is rather… naughty. Yes, Dick, you are Lector’s special rare Chinese kwanxoi! Unload on him! We wish to see it!

Cathy – You know how sometime really fat people are referred to as Jabba the Hut? Now I know why. Yeesh.

FOOB – I knew that the moment gramps saw Liz in that dress, the humping would begin. Oh, and “It was meant to be.” GAH!!!!!!

Judge Parker – I am robot Steve Shannon. I will not demonstrate the fact that I am a soldier by reciting the exact amount of time that I have been out of Afghanistan to the hour. Because I’m a soldier, right? And soldiers do goofy stuff like that! Lawl!
JB
March 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

#3 — Smokehouse

“Sharks! With *lasers* on their heads!”

Look…I’m a Christian, and I’m cynical/sarcastic/smartass enough to not be bothered by much. But even I am offended by this MW dreck-fest.

This is what led her to faith? Ok, being lonely and having a single mother was certainly rough, no question. But one friend’s family saying grace and telling her she’s welcome in their house? That’s it?

Of course, nothing about Mary’s current life tells me she has faith in anything, other than maybe a FSM casserole; if we’re lucky, the flashback will end at the potluck picnic table, where Mary will point it out to Toby.
Nil Zed
March 28th, 2008 at 12:37 pm [Reply]

Ok, all Foobness aside, any married and no longer youngish gentlemen here? Hello, a question please:

When you saw your beloved coming up the aisle on the arm of her doting daddy, did you notice anything more than a general wedding dress blur and her lovely, lovely face? (anything other than the shotgun, I mean.)

If a young woman walked into the room this very moment wearing your wife’s wedding dress from however many multiple decades ago, would you recognize the dress?

OK, two questions. So shoot me.
oceans 111
March 28th, 2008 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

Luann: Although there’s snarkable material in here, I do think it’s good that there’s a place for a semi-realistic depiction of shooting-yourself-in-the-foot syndrome, to which I am sadly prone, and which has made my ~10-yr relationship far more difficult that I woudl have guessed at the beginning. This could be an interesting relationship – compare to FOOB for a moment: this couple was not joined at the hip since infancy; are not bored to tears with each other; are not completely controlled by their parents; share interests besides breeding; can get annoyed with each other (and for things that are not stereotypical male/female dissagreements [see Lockhorns for painful unreality check on this]); and if next few dates go well, will probably engage in pre-marital sex, like, oh, I dunno, 99% of Americans.
TheDiva
March 28th, 2008 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

213 yesterthread: Not only is the FOOB-”Gift of the Magi” comparison idiotic, it’s inaccurate. From the text of the latter, as reprinted on Wikisource:

“Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you.“ (emphasis mine)

Then again, the author didn’t seem to recall the title of the story, so Googling it was perhaps out of the question.
Mibbitmaker
March 28th, 2008 at 12:41 pm [Reply]

GT: I don’t entirely know all of what it would mean, but the words “Take this stiff to the hoop” sound like they should apply to Blanthony from FOOB.

FC: “Yes, little boy. Homeland Security was alittle concerned…”

FW: Maybe Les is having a similar problem to Marvin this week, with the thought balloons being replaced with speech balloons. Or Folger’s Chrystals. Let’s watch…

H&L: Trixie’s auditioning for a role on “South Park”.

MG&G: This’d be so much funnier uncensored. Relatively speaking, of course.

Nancy: That’s classic rock, idiot. Old guys… HA! At her age, Chip from H&L is an “old guy”. And considering how long she’s been in comics existence, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin she should call “Those young fellas” instead, anyway.

Buckets: Wainscoting. It sounds like a little Dorcett (sp?) villiage. Wainscoting…. wainscoting…
wainscoting!…”
Jilliterate
March 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm [Reply]

FBoFW: Great, the sight of Liz in a dead woman’s dress sends her grandfather into a stroke-inducing flashback, with a side result of death. I’m not sure if they’ll take this harder than when the dog died.

MT: You know, if I was a newly divorced woman, I’m not sure I’d take too kindly to an unsolicited animal named after my ex-husband, pissing on the floor everywhere…

RMMD: I really like the shady feel that Rex Morgan had taken on. “Here…nose around. Talk to my contacts…but don’t get caught!” You’d swear they were in involved in a child-smuggling ring, instead of the normal investigation of a disease.

We were talking about Staphylococcus aureus in my Osteology class yesterday, weirdly enough. It wasn’t actually that fun, but thinking about Rex’s horrified, overblown reactions was.

Mary Worth: After a three week flashback, we’ve learned that Mary was the 20th-century equivalent of Oliver Twist, and social services was too busy busting the basketball-playing teens of Milford to help a child who was actually starving.

Great. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my life at all.

Marmaduke: JESUS CHRIST THAT MAN’S FACE IS MELTING
Kumquat, Jungle Citrus Fruit
March 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

Luann – Hey Brad, here’s an idea: maybe Dirk would stay in the past better if you didn’t bring him up all the time.

GA – There’s a (much funnier) short story by Isaac Asimov that uses a variation of this joke; its female lead wants to assure her husband that he’s the best, but can’t stand to lie, so she routinely “tests out” other men – and indeed, all her tests confirm that she likes her husband best. She, however, was smart enough to realize that her husband wouldn’t approve of her use of the scientific method.
indrifan
March 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

53 Lolsworth – In case it isn’t clear, Josh is referring to the sport of dwarf tossing – AKA dwarf throwing or midget throwing. More information can be found you know where.

70 Nil Zed – I would probably recognize my wife’s wedding dress from 10 years ago. For one thing we went with a more casual look and her dress was a pale violet. It sticks in my mind partly because my Mom didn’t know what the dress would be like, and the dress she wore, though a very different style, was almost exactly the same color.

Oh, and though it’s rather late for ring stories, we have matching gold Moebius strip rings to let the world know we are nerds in love. While we were shopping for rings, one jeweller showed us a case with custom rings. My wife picked out an intriguing ring with a repeating wavy pattern, and the jeweller just said it was custom, but when she said it looked like sperm he admitted that it was indeed, and it had been made for a gay couple.

Regarding Mell Lazarus, when I was a kid I thought Miz Peach was one of the best comic strips ever. I’m afraid to look them up now.
Gattamelata
March 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm [Reply]

Wait, Mary Worth’s mom married Dr. Corey? And now he’s Mary’s gentleman caller? What the hell? And why does Mary’s little friend look like a midget goth version of Vera? Why do kids look like shrunken adults? Why does every woman with a pony tail wear it scalp-tearingly high?

Just when I was getting to think life made sense.
Mibbitmaker
March 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm [Reply]

#18 (Lake Eerie): That’s what I was looking for yesterthread: Stockholm Syndrome.

H&J: Herb’s got marital Stockholm Syndrome. And, again, the wife is one happy captor!
indrifan
March 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm [Reply]

Oh yeah, and the whole RMMD MRSA thing: I thought the CDC handled stuff like that. It does seem awfully amateur:
“Hey! My dad has a morgue! Let’s put on an investigation of a disease outbreak!”
Vice-Pope Chris
March 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm [Reply]

MW: That’s IT? That’s IT?!? Where’s the alcoholic Mom slapping the crap out of her? Where’s the runaway teen? Where’s all the troubled-kid-gets-salvation cliches, any of which would make a better story than this “saying grace saved my life” BS? Dang it, I wanna see Mary Worth as a teenaged heroin-whore!
boojum
March 28th, 2008 at 1:04 pm [Reply]

70. Nil Zed:

No. And No.

A little background might help. My wife made her own wedding dress, so it was a Big Deal. I had seen the fabrics, and had heard her talk about it for months. Plus, my mom and my sister were both seamstresses, so I was pretty aware of how important this particular dress was.

I didn’t notice it when she walked down the aisle. But then, I had a pretty bad case of wedding jitters, so I wasn’t noticing much. I started breathing about halfway through our pastor’s homily — partly because he was laughing at me about it, in the nicest possible way.

That dress has been in a box in our closet for 33 years. I have an 8 x 10 photo of my wife wearing it, one that I kept on my desk for many years. I don’t like stuff on my desk any more, but I came across this picture a couple of months ago when we were moving, and looked at it then.

So… I’m aware of the dress. But if you put that dress in front of me, and another one very much like it, I’m not sure I could tell them apart.

Does that answer your question? I thought it did.
jvwalt
March 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm [Reply]

I was deeply disturbed by the last panel of FOOB, depicting Grandpa weakly motioning toward Liz’s, er, lower midsection. It’s as if the sight of the wedding dress had sparked a faint memory of His First Time, in a side room of the church immediately after the ceremony. Heck, there might even be a faint remnant of a stain on the dress.

And today’s “Gil Thorp” was almost as anticlimactic as today’s “Mary Worth.” What, Big Ray comes back from his endless jungle sojourn, reads the evening paper, then instantly morphs from “Deadbeat Dad Who May Work for the CIA” to “Overbearing Stage Parent” in the course of a single strip? Also, judging by the usual storytelling style of this strip, we will probably never hear of Social Services again. Yep, yep, it’s just one big disappointment after another.
Perky Bird
March 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm [Reply]

#63 kingklash–

Yesterday, as I sat at home in an allergy-induced fog, I thought about writing a Mary Worth song parody to the tune of “Fancy”, where Mary’s mom buys her a velour pantsuit and sends her out with the words, “Just meddle with the gentlemen, Mary, and they’ll be nice to you.” Unfortunately, I’m not terribly good at song parodies. Anyone want to pick up this for me?
Batman Beatles
March 28th, 2008 at 1:15 pm [Reply]

I was naive to hope MW’s flashback would turn out interesting. Oh well…
Randall
March 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm [Reply]

LuAnn- Okay, Brad has shot himself in the foot and the date is now officialy over. Of course, any gal who brags about being asked by five other guys would piss me off too. What’s LuAnn doing now? Helping Army vet Ben work off some post combat anxiety?
Kurdt
March 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm [Reply]

Worst ending ever!
Does anyone remember that Simpsons episode where the kids are stranded on an island in a Lord of the Flies parody and suddenly at the end a narrator says something like “and then they were rescued by oh, I don’t now…Moe?” and then the episode ends?
Thats kind of like this Mary Worth storyline, only not funny at all, just really dissapointing.

By the way, does anyone but us mudges read Mary Worth? Maybe the writers thought no one was reading anyways so they said screw it…
Brad the Bold
March 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm [Reply]

Gah Brad DeGroot, you bring shame to Brads everywhere. You were but a few hours, and a few glasses of champagne, away from consumating a relationship with a woman who is out of your league on every level.

First she agreed to go to a formal event with you. (think prom for adults) Choosing you over several other suitors. – Green Light!

She goes with you despite the fact that you are wearing your dad’s tie and cologne. – Green Light!

She warms you up in the car with a pep talk about how looks don’t matter to her. – Holy Green Light, ugly boy!

Kablammo! You take her out of the moment by bringing up her ex!!!!! Gah!

She may have found your cluelessness endearing, but but you can’t get away with being a clueless asshole!
JC Lisbon
March 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

Maybe now Mary has to save Cathy from a loveless marriage to Irving?
tblue
March 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

The Monkees used this joke in their TV series back in the 1960s. Mike Naismith, masquerading as a middle-aged tycoon, asked a bellhop how old he was. The boy said, “Twenty, sir,” and Naismith said, “No good! When I was your age I was 28!”
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 1:50 pm [Reply]

So, this guy walks into a bar carrying his two-foot-tall mother. And the bartender says, “hey, what is this? Some kind of joke?”
Arglebargle
March 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm [Reply]

Worthless: “…Because I felt something shift inside.”

And THEN she ripped out the most outrageous, unimaginable wet wind-burst in recorded history, shattering windows, killing the man behind her and spraying everything in a thirty-foot radius with a high-pressure application of fudge-spatter.

C’mon! A fart joke is the only thing that can save this!
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 1:54 pm [Reply]

Josh, I’ve grown to realize that the word maybe, used in the discussion of anything Mary Worth, is perhaps the saddest word in the English language.
Pepperoni Détournées (formerly Herro!)
March 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

#47 A New Day: No. No, you’re not. Something about a bald-headed monk…
bats :[
March 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

I never follow FW…I’d read it, then forget it. Les wenting to EUROPE, searching for Lisa? Was she trying to get away from him, like Eric from Margo, Dr. Drew Mawhore from Mary Worth, and so on?
(Dang, this sounds like an updated version of “Clue” — name the stalker, the stalkee, and the remote destination to which the stalkee attempts to flee.)
commodorejohn
March 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm [Reply]

A3G – “His Holiness?” First they jump from Mexico to Tibet, and now they visit Rome in between strips? Did the Buddhists teach Eric some kind of magical Zen And The Art Of Teleportation technique?

BB – I’m vaccilating between congratulating Beetle Bailey for not playing to stereotype and having Corporal Yo know “karate” and being severely disappointed that they didn’t.

Curtis – I already told you, Gunther: if you want someone who “promises t’put th’ ‘going out of business’ sign on the IRS door,” Ron Paul’s your man.

DT – The hell with Dirty Harry – Dick Tracy knows how to bloodbath. Look at that smile on his face as he contemplates blowing the brains out of whatever poor grunt happens to open the crate.

FC – Yes, Jeffy, it was. And now it’s gone forever.

FOOB – OH JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.

GA – So why is it that Mary Worth’s storyline ends before displaying even one iota of the awesomeness it could have achieved, while the storyline I wish would hurry up and end rolls on?

GF – haha YES.

GT – “This stiff?” Which stiff? Everybody in that entire panel could reasonably be construed as a “stiff.”

Luann – Hint, Brad: the road to relationship success is not paved with dickish possessiveness.

MT – Are we sure that’s not just a stuffed puppy? I’m not convinced it’s actually alive, seeing as how it hasn’t moved since its first appearance.

MW – I think we’re misunderstanding: when Mary says she felt something “shift” inside, she’s referring to the MeddleBot 3000 nanotech neural implant Cathy’s family slipped into her food; panel two clearly depicts Mary in the process of having her nervous system assimilated by the machine.

SFx – Boy, and here I thought Boo-Boo’s resemblance to Belkar was coincidental. I look forward to seeing him grow up into a violent sociopath.

SM – Don’t worry, Mary-Jane. He’s clearly crossing the hall, travelling parallel to the door, not going through it. He’ll probably just encounter a TV and forget all about you.
Buck Ripsnort
March 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm [Reply]

Luann: Please, people– a little respect for the Reset Button. “And by date’s end, Brad made such a dick of himself that they both agreed never to mention the date again, and everything went back to normal.” What, you expected CHANGE or something?
Blondie: Leo? I always thought Dithers was a Scorpio– the douche of the Zodiac.
Momma: Just be glad this strip isn’t called Poppa; it’d end w/ Francis taking Daddy to a whorehouse.
Donald The Anarchist
March 28th, 2008 at 2:08 pm [Reply]

Momma was equal parts creepy and funny. Unfortunately, the memory of the joke will fade, but the creepiness just keeps going on and on…

MW I feel more cheated than if she’d said: “Then I woke up and found out my entire childhood had been nothing but a dream!” At least then Toby could just treat her like she’s batshit crazy, which would add a new dimension to the strip.
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 2:12 pm [Reply]

I was wrong, it’s a bustle instead of a butt-bow.

If Liz thinks maybe her Grandfather would be bothered by her wearing his dead wife’s wedding dress, why does she FREAKING ALREADY HAVE IT FREAKING ON when she goes to ask his permission?!
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
March 28th, 2008 at 2:20 pm [Reply]

#98 Girl Reporter: Yeah, great way to ask permission. It’s like Lynn doesn’t really understand how to convey respect, but knows that nice people are concerned about respect, and seem to function according to some rule book.

FOOB: Wouldn’t it have been interesting to have all three of them fighting, just struggling to shove Liz into the dress. Those old dresses are constructions, with no give whatever. And people who came of age during the Depression just were never able to pour on the body fat as we do today.

And the thought of Liz stuffed in a car, butt cascade and all, then shlepping around in the old folks home, as Mudges have pointed out, is too funny. It reminds me of Halloween parties, say around 11 pm, when my costume is dragging and coming apart and really freaking uncomfortable.
trey le parc
March 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm [Reply]

Let’s talk about Caring!

Luann: I sense Brad isn’t getting any tonight. Maybe the ball will liven up when TJ unpredictably shows up to deliver an unneeded condom to Brad. And then TJ and the fire chief lock eyes…ah, who cares?

Foob: Poor Grampa. Just before he saw Liz in his dead wife’s wedding dress he was fervently wishing he had the physical capacity to push a shotgun into his mouth. Me, I only wish he had the physical capacity to push a shotgun into Liz’s mouth. I guess I care enough to wish harm on everyone in FOOB except the gnome-like accountant Anthony took to the wedding that lauched this horrible, horrible storyline.

JP: Is it me or does anyone else think the artist is copping out by not drawing Steve’s prosthetic legs? Or did I miss a strip where they appear? Not that I care too much because if I miss a day I know that tomorrow’s strip will contain enough summary + one panel of new exposition that I’ll catch up and if not who cares?…it’s JP, after all.

RMMD: Is it too much to hope that this turns into a full blown Ebola epidemic that spreads to other strips? Because that is the single event required for me to invest any more interest in this strip.

Marvin: I, for one, would like Marvin to be the first victim of the RMMD Ebola storyline. I really hate the lazy plot device that imbues cutesy quasi-adult traits in kids. Thus I hate Marvin with the heat of a thousand suns. Fortunately, my paper doesn’t carry his strip, but in the RMMD Ebola storyline he’s the first to go, followed closely by Cathy.

Cathy: Oops, looks like she’s contacted hemorrhagic fever. Well, at least now she’ll be able to squeeze into that new CDC quarantine bag she’s been at odds with during her most recent diet. Not that I care.

Marmaduke: Can dogs get Ebola?
SF Reader
March 28th, 2008 at 2:24 pm [Reply]

So, this guy walks into a bar carrying his two-foot-tall mother. And the bartender says, “Why the long face?”
Tonio
March 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

In the previous century, many parents who escaped poverty or who emigrated to America had children who were much taller, because of the nutrition differences. I had assumed that Momma’s height was a caricature of this phenomenon.

In the entry shown here, I was preparing for Momma to whip her customary guilt trip on Francis.
Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^)
March 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

#100 trey – There was one strip where they showed his legs. If you search online and read every strip from the past three months you might find it, but it might be a little further back.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 2:42 pm [Reply]

Bad news, guys.

I got fired today.
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

I’m sorry to hear that. Go ahead and vent. That’s what we’re here for.
trey le parc
March 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm [Reply]

#100 trey – There was one strip where they showed his legs. If you search online and read every strip from the past three months you might find it, but it might be a little further back.

#103 How- Thank you! Now that I think about it I vaguely recall a panel where he was sitting on the bed in his shorts looking at his prostheses. I think it was in 2002, right about the time the Taliban shot off his legs, so it’s possible JP happens in real time and right now all the characters are reading this blog trying to figure out what we want them to do next.
Electro
March 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

I agree, Shoe was funny today. And strangely enough, after looking at the pastel-hued horror of Mary Worth, the art in Shoe looked by comparison, kind of realistic.
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 2:53 pm [Reply]

I had an awful roommate once who used to borrow my clothes all the time. She would shop my closet when I was in the shower and then already be standing there wearing my blouse when she did this whole Southern-coquette-little-girl-voice -”asking”-for-”permission” thing. Wow. I couldn’t stand her. Haven’t thought of her in 10 years. Thanks, Lynn.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

Thanks, Girl Reporter.

I was a girl reporter, too. But my job had become less and less fun lately anyway, mostly because of my new editor and publisher. I tend to think of them as kind of incompetent. I wasn’t growing under them the way I was under my last editor. Anyway, I’ve already been telling myself that this would probably be my last reporter job — not because I dislike journalism, but because the opportunities in my area are all kind of downhill from here, unless I want to be an editor, or move. I don’t like being in charge of people, and I love the city I live in too much to leave just now. So now I’m just facing the scary prospect of figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of my life. I’m sure something will turn up.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm [Reply]

To add insult to injury, I can’t seem to get my Chron page working.

NOOOOOO!
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 3:05 pm [Reply]

Whew! At least the comics are back.
ralph
March 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm [Reply]

104, I’m sorry, Gold-Digging Nanny, about the loss of your job. I am optimistic that you will find a new job that is rewarding and in which you are truly appreciated for who you are.
Alfred E. Neuman
March 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm [Reply]

#15 Gagott68 and a whole bunch of others RE: Luann— Everyone’s calling this one right. Brad is way too dumb to ever be able to grow into a position to handle a woman like Toni, or any other woman for that matter. Therefore, unless Evans has a big surprise in store for us, the Brad ‘n’ Toni relationship will continue along at its same level of boring lameness that it’s had for the past five years. “Luann” can be an interesting strip, but not when it features them. Now come on, Evans, end this crummy arc soon, and get back to one of the most fascinating characters in the comics, the deliciously perverted, ravenously incestuous, bisexual Bernice.
Violet
March 28th, 2008 at 3:22 pm [Reply]

In the second panel of Mary Worth, doesn’t Cathy’s mother look like she’s about to knock Cathy and Mary’s heads together Three-Stooges-style? I know I was certainly expecting the words “massive head trauma” to figure somewhere in Mary’s flashback.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 3:25 pm [Reply]

Thanks, ralph.
Perky Bird
March 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm [Reply]

MW– So did everyone just get up from the table and stand in awe around Mary, leaving their dinner to get cold? Come on, if you’re going to have a group hug, at least do it after dinner, so the mashed potatoes don’t get cold!

And, hey, she must have really had a divine revelation, like King Belshazzar, because there really is “writing on the wall” above her head!

Either that, or Cathy’s mom caught Mary and stiffled her budding career as a graffiti artist.
oceans 111
March 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm [Reply]

Say, is the PBS character generic today, or is he from some particular strip I don’t recognize?
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm [Reply]

GDN: March right down to the Unemployment office first thing Monday morning and sign up for every penny you’re due. That’ll give you a little breathing room so that you can really take a good look around and figure out your best next step.

Maybe you’ve covered a business you’d like to work in? Maybe you interviewed somebody you don’t need to keep journalistic distance from anymore? You’ve got contacts. We all know you’re a smart, funny, good writer.

Good luck. It’s kind of an exciting time. Although, I have to admit I’m happy I haven’t lived through that kind of excitement in some time. For awhile there I got to be excited every year right about New Year’s. I’d start having anxiety dreams on Thanksgiving.
Loopina
March 28th, 2008 at 3:37 pm [Reply]

Snuffy: And now we see the origin of Bill, the magic antidepressant puppy!

GA: (#28) – Dick Van Dyke? Nah, he’s Bruce Campbell all the way. Behold the mighty chin! Is Sturdivant supposed to sound like he’s from New England (”my dee-ah”) like the fisherman in Non Sequitor?
Bob Weber Jr
March 28th, 2008 at 3:43 pm [Reply]

104, I’m too am sorry, Gold-Digging Nanny, about the loss of your job. I wish you the best in your future endeavors. And I want to say I thoroughly enjoy all of your very funny Six Differences interpretations!
gnome de blog
March 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm [Reply]

96 Buck Ripsnort said:
“Leo? I always thought Dithers was a Scorpio– the douche of the Zodiac.

I once had a girl tell me Scorpio was The Sex Sign. Then she proved it.
Islamorada Girl
March 28th, 2008 at 3:49 pm [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny–Ouch. Dead tree newspapers are layin’ ‘em off left and right. What I did when I got unceremoniously downsized was start to freelance and teach writing. The first thing you do is sign up for unemployment, then check out the local colleges’s adult ed, , the online media and broadcast. This may turn out to be an opportunity, not a canning. A pox on your editor and publisher’s heads. Remember, Napoleon may have been a total scumbag, but he once shot a publisher! If yours is one of the rare two-paper towns, scurry over to the competetion, resume in hand. A sister writer is thinking about you!
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm [Reply]

120 Bob Weber Jr. — Thanks for the good wishes, and thanks for your compliments on the Six Differences interpretations. (Thanks, too, for making them so much fun to look for!) Wish I could have made it up to the MudgeMeet in Tucson.
teenchy
March 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm [Reply]

# 31: Luann: Clearly, Toni and Dirk were high school sweethearts, and thus, by the Law of the Comics Page, are destined to be each other’s twoo wuv forever.

Please refresh my memory, fellow Mudgeons: is this a true Law of the Comics Page or a corollary to Sparky’s Law (as passed along by Lunnuck): Thou shalt limit the introduction of new characters to thy comic strip?
teenchy
March 28th, 2008 at 3:58 pm [Reply]

My condolences to you, Gold-Digging Nanny. Here’s hoping you land on your feet again soon.
commodorejohn
March 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm [Reply]

#124 teenchy – It’s a cliche that’s been around a while (see: nearly every romantic manga ever made,) but I can’t recall anybody besides Lynn who treats it as the One True Path.
Poteet
March 28th, 2008 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny, I’m thinking of you too, and am crossing my fingers that you’ll soon land on your feet firmly and happily. Take slow deep relaxing breaths and remind yourself that you’re a good writer, because you are.
Poteet
March 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pm [Reply]

Luann — I glumly agree that it’s fairly realistic for Brad to lodge his big stupid foot firmly in his oral aperture, but I still wish he hadn’t done it, because I am very tired of Dirk. In fact, if Brad and Toni continued arguing about Dirk on the way to the ball and Brad got distracted and smashed the car into a large tree trunk and he and Toni perished abruptly in a giant ball of flames, my only real sympathy would be for the tree.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 28th, 2008 at 4:49 pm [Reply]

Islamorada Girl, Poteet, teenchy — Thanks for the good wishes and the confidence boost. I’m starting to feel better about things already.
Chance
March 28th, 2008 at 4:52 pm [Reply]

This is the first time I have laughed at Momma, ever.

He’s carrying her to the bar! And she’s not saying anything, just looking sad and resigned!

Seriously, that is demented and hilarious. It is dementilarious.
Fran Ledue Page
March 28th, 2008 at 5:02 pm [Reply]

104, Gold Digging Nanny: I’m sorry to hear of your job loss. I’ve been on a 5 month involuntary sabbatical myself. : ) I would merely advise taking some sanity time for yourself, and encouraging you to look for work that might provide an enjoyable interlude, since the age of the lifelong straight-line career has passed. The best of luck to you.

Josh, on MW: I know exactly what you mean. I had been hoping that Satan would appear to Mary at the dinner table. I was dreaming wildly, I know. On the other hand, I have found out that Mary Worth is my mother; she advised me and a coworker to give our volunteer coordinator what’s what about his behavior, and actually said: “You can pretend you’re concerned about the situation, and call it an intervention.” Thanks, Mom, but I live in the real world, and I’d be concerned about criminal liability if the douche in question ended up like Aldo.

Meanwhile, about Gil Thorp: where is the feeling of deja-vu I should be having, while I watch Big Ray (played by veteran character actor Lionel Stander ) verbally abuse Andrew on the court?
Fran Ledue Page
March 28th, 2008 at 5:05 pm [Reply]

131, me: I meant encourage, of course. Pardon me while I apply a patch to my grammar functions.
Poteet
March 28th, 2008 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

MW — I would find the second panel far more touching if Mary’s friend didn’t suddenly look as if she’s in her mid-forties. Apparently the strain of trying to draw two children who actually look like children was just too much.
Brick Bradford
March 28th, 2008 at 5:18 pm [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny–Not to sound like Mary Worth or anything, but every job I’ve lost/left has wound up being a step forward.

Go get you some of that sweet unemployment compensation.
AhClem
March 28th, 2008 at 5:26 pm [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny -
Very sorry to hear about your job. However, don’t think of it as a loss, but an opportunity to move forward and find something you really enjoy doing. I’ve been there, and it stinks at first, but in retrospect I think it was very beneficial in the long run. I’m thinking of you and wishing you the best.
LITTLE A. OF THE GRAND CONCOURSE JUNGLE PATROL
March 28th, 2008 at 5:50 pm [Reply]

62. DeAr Gabacho: down where I lived, 164th Street, they all moved in 1965.
Zaq
March 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm [Reply]

126 commodorejohn: I’m preeeeetty sure that most of the relationships in the Funkyverse sprung out of high school. Probably wrong about that, though.
Mooncattie
March 28th, 2008 at 6:01 pm [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny – I’m sorry to hear about your bad news today. You are a very good writer! I can confirm that anytime one is forced to leave a job, it seems to turn out for the best. I know that has been the case with me. Enjoy a really cathartic weekend, and a bit longer if you like, and keep us posted on how things go, OK?
Nil Zed
March 28th, 2008 at 6:12 pm [Reply]

Indrifan, well, it was only 10 years ago, and a unique dress, so you are probably the exception that proves the rule. My husband can’t recall what I wore, and he was there when I bought it!

but boojum, yes, you do prove my point.
Old School Allie Cat
March 28th, 2008 at 6:29 pm [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny -Exactly at this time last year, I was asked to either resign my position or I’d be fired. I chose to leave… and then the following day, broke my nose when I shut the trunk of my car, forgetting we’d just installed a bike rack on it.

There is nothing quite like going to job interviews with two black eyes.

“Yes, I have excellent attention to detail…oh, what, my eyes? I er…I wasn’t paying…attention and I…broke my nose…sigh.”

One year later, I love my new job and I’m happy as a clam.

This site, plenty of tylenol, and the soundtrack of Avenue Q were what kept me laughing.

Best of luck!
Mountain Mama
March 28th, 2008 at 6:32 pm [Reply]

Nanny: Sorry to hear about the job. I have been there as well and I hate that stomach-turning “now what?” feeling.

However, if you can type, you can find work. Take a few days off and then hit the temp agencies in town. Don’t be afraid to ask for the wage range you want and don’t be afraid to do anything they may throw at you.

It took me awhile to find a permanent job when I relocated, but I temped and was always busy.

All the best to you!
KT
March 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm [Reply]

Dear Ziggy:

Please stop ~~drawing~~ attempting to draw cartoons about computers. It’s just embarrassing to watch. Like “PC & Pixel”. Anybody remember that strip?

(And sorry to hear that, Gold-Digging Nanny. Wishing you luck finding a new job!)
Mountain Mama
March 28th, 2008 at 6:47 pm [Reply]

MW: I was expecting something colossally bad. I was kind of hoping it would be so bad it’d be good in its bad way.

This was bad, but it was just bad. And now there’s an empty place in my spleen.

Rats.
Lord-z
March 28th, 2008 at 6:49 pm [Reply]

I hope that the Mary’s flashback continues, just for a few more days, or weeks. I want to see her dead husband. Oh, I hope his name is Les. I want to see the man who was brave enough to share a home with Mary, possibly dreaming of one day kissing her. Or planning his cunning escape, who knows.

Maybe she is not a widower. Maybe Mr. Worth has escaped to the deepest caves of the south pole, in a desperate hope to get away from her meddeling. But there is no escape. One day, she will come, and he knows it. Oh, yes. Mary is coming for you, Les. You can run, but you cannot hide for the eternal destroyer of personal boundries.
Dean Booth of the Affect Ad Patrol
March 28th, 2008 at 7:12 pm [Reply]

Mary view of her life as full of compassionate altruism reminds me of the movie The Boston Strangler — the title character believes he’s repairing plumbing when he’s actually out strangling people.
Dean Booth of the Affect Ad Patrol
March 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm [Reply]

#60 Eric: From a couple of days ago, Sci-fi Mary.
Dean Booth of the Affect Ad Patrol
March 28th, 2008 at 7:30 pm [Reply]

#100, trey: Here’s the JP with Steve’s legs drawn (12/31/07).
gnome de blog
March 28th, 2008 at 7:31 pm [Reply]

131:
A year (or maybe two) ago, it was Lisa Wyche’s mom abusing her child on the court. I don’t remember exactly how it was resolved, but there’s something about Mrs. Coach Thorp making her an honorary assistant, letting her sit on the bench and telling her to shut up.
Little Guy
March 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm [Reply]

#104/109: Hopefully, the Great Cartoonist will bestow karma your way for another opportunity with the Mary-Sue speed of FOOB without the moving back home and needing to marry Granthony in a Rent-a-Havisham dress.
Fran Ledue Page
March 28th, 2008 at 7:40 pm [Reply]

148: I was referring to the narration in panel two: “…it’s clear that Ray Gregory is back in town!”, paired with his vocal behavior in the stands. To me, this implies that Ray habitually behaves this way, even though we’ve never seen it.

I remember the situation with Lisa Wyche’s mom, which, in the story, has nothing to do with this situation. I don’t know whether today’s scenario is a result of forgetfulness or sloppy storytelling, or perhaps an excess of controlled substances.
LTBF
March 28th, 2008 at 7:43 pm [Reply]

After my mother died, I came into possesion of her wedding dress. My father had already died. This was 22 years ago and it was wrapped in some plastic cover.

When I got married, it was too small for my wife but we still have the dress. The dress now is nearly 43 years old. We only have one child, a 10 year old boy, so we are at least 15 years or so before it could be used for his future wife. But it is still wrapped in plastic, not folded up in a box stuck under the house.

What kind of idiot folds up something as “poofy” as a wedding dress into a box? And why didn’t the dry cleanrers put the dress on a hanger and wrap it in plastic? Did Dee-mented fold it back up?
Kiesha
March 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

Girl Reporter – Be careful with unemployment benefits. If it was at all your fault, you may not be entitled to them. And the unemployment office won’t necessarily let you know that. You might get benefits for nine weeks and then suddenly get a letter in the mail saying, “Wait, you didn’t actually deserve that, pay us back.”

Yup. I learned that lesson the hard way.
Girl Reporter
March 28th, 2008 at 8:18 pm [Reply]

What I have learned by reading Mark Trail: Puppies and cross-dressing ducks cure divorce.
TheDiva
March 28th, 2008 at 8:42 pm [Reply]

151 LTBF–They do make display boxes for wedding dresses. Mind you, they’re significantly larger than the box Dee is holding, which could not hold a full wedding gown without the aid of vacuum-packing.
Thursdaynext
March 28th, 2008 at 8:59 pm [Reply]

#137–Yeah, and look where it got all of them. Would that we had such luck with the Pattersons.
Cheese-n-Pear
March 28th, 2008 at 9:05 pm [Reply]

MW: We still have at least one more installment of this series. Perhaps tomorrow we get Little Mary waking up to images of drunken stalkers driving off of cliffs, little dogs savaging each other, Lotharios driven by guilt to live in Vietnam, and other thoughts of meddling and ultra-violence, and saying to herself, “I was cured, all right!” Just setting myself up for more disappointment . . .
Pepperoni Détournées (formerly Herro!)
March 28th, 2008 at 9:07 pm [Reply]

#96 Ripsnort: Ouch. Yet I cannot refute the allegations.
LTBF
March 28th, 2008 at 9:45 pm [Reply]

154-It looked like the same box they found the dress in.
Erato
March 28th, 2008 at 10:00 pm [Reply]

FW- So apparently the “weekend manager” job involves standing around reminiscing about how depressing FW used to be, spouting inane platitudes/cliches, and/or making a classic FW smirk while wearing a Montoni’s apron in an empty restaurant. It’s a good thing Summer is at home or on a “solo car date” so she may avoid the wage slave humiliation her father has agreed to in order to spend more time with her that doesn’t involve lurking around the gym.
This might be the best comic strip ever.
Thatgirl
March 28th, 2008 at 10:02 pm [Reply]

Grandpa is mobilized by the sheer horror of Anthony. His feeble posturing is the reaction of a man who realizes that his daughter Elly has completely sold out his genetic destiny. He is the only one who has the sense to resist The Ho-o-o-omeless Accountant. Hence, Lynn half-killed him.
Eric the Grate
March 28th, 2008 at 10:21 pm [Reply]

#146, Dean- There you have it- there’s apparently an entire segment of the population that wishes a xenomorph would rip its way through Mary Worth’s chest. That’s either very disturbing, or very METAL.

Thanks for posting the link.
bats :[
March 28th, 2008 at 11:55 pm [Reply]

Saturday funnies:

FOOB: just too lame to comment upon, aside for the need for a sixth panel: Grandpa Chinnuts staring into Iris’ broad, bland face and thinking, “And now I wait for the Grim Reaper, only he never comes.”

MW: you can never be too careful these days…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2370576816/
Lightsyrup
March 29th, 2008 at 12:18 am [Reply]

What the hell is Mark Trail? Is he some kind of news anchor or paparazzi/paparazzo (however you say/spell it)?! He’s weird, man.
Kiesha
March 29th, 2008 at 12:21 am [Reply]

AUGGGGGH!!!!
PLUGGER CLEAVAGE!!!!
MY EYES MY EYES
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 12:22 am [Reply]

#104 Gold Digging Nanny – (1) Fuck your old company, they don’t know what fools they are!
(2) You’ll bounce back, hot and sassy as ever. I have faith in you, baby!
(3) Now you’ll have time to take that dream trip you’ve always wanted to take, to see the glory and wonder of Greater Metropolitan Roopville and its satellite, Unincorporated Clem! Or you could just settle for looking at this!

Anyway… I’m sorry it happened and best of luck, darlin’.
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 12:27 am [Reply]

# 165 — True Fable, sorry if I missed your exclamations of ecstacy, but the new 9CL is about goats.
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 12:28 am [Reply]

# 166 — Corry, folkc, that chould have been ecstasy.
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 12:33 am [Reply]

RMMD — This storyline kinda sucks, but Rex’s face is hilarious. In that last panel, we see what June saw when she first stood naked in front of him.
BenG
March 29th, 2008 at 12:36 am [Reply]

MW: Like the rest of us, Toby has finally given up all hope of this lethargic flashback going anywhere and is just trying to get the old nag to cram it in as polite a fashion as she can muster.

SM: We should be so lucky.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
March 29th, 2008 at 12:37 am [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny @ 109: I, too, was a newspaperman. In my 20 years, I learned that there are a lot of assholes in that business, and a lot of incompetent people besides. So many so that the Venn diagram of those two groups has a pretty large overlap area; if you meet a newsman who’s an asshole, pretty good chance he’s incompetent too. I ended up watching a paper with tons of potential go straight down the chute under the tender mercies of a publisher so dickish and incompetent that I founded a Yahoogroup where current and former employees of his could gather to share their hate for him. We don’t even mention his name. To us he is merely “The Suspendered One.”

Anyway, close to a year ago, he fired me for gross competence. Actually, he forced out my boss, hired an incompetent toady, and had him fire me. I was unemployed for five months and burned through my small savings, then had to borrow money from my parents.

Then I saw an online ad seeking an associate editor at a hobby magazine — a magazine I had subscribed to for more than 15 years. (OK, it’s Model Railroader magazine. Yes, I play with trains, just like John Patterson, ha ha. Wanna fight about it?) Anyway, they were overjoyed to have an applicant who both knew how to build a train layout and edit a story. I thought I would always love being a newsman, but the seven months I’ve worked here have been the most professionally fulfilling of my life. (Even if I did have to move from Florida to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin.)

Anyway, what I’m saying is, getting fired from a shitty situation isn’t necessarily the worst thing that can happen. Sometimes, it’s the best thing.

Oh, also, newspapering is an intrinsically mobile field. Since there’s only one paper in most cities, when you change jobs, you pretty much have to change hometowns. If you change your mind about moving, I have contacts in the biz who can help your search in whatever region you’d like to live. (Ask Josh for my e-mail address if you want to talk off-blog.)

But you know what condition the industry’s in; there’s never been a better time to get out of newspapers. I really recommend seeing if there are any magazines about your favorite hobby that are hiring. :-)
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 12:53 am [Reply]

# 170 Spectacular — The biggest newspaper in my state used to win Pulitzers fairly often — no more. I’m a newspaper addict, and the trends of the industry depress me. I like good reporters/editors. I admire good reporters/editors. I hope that somehow, in some medium, there will be a future for good reporters/editors. Glad you are happy at your magazine, but dammit, the world needs good reporters/editors. May The Suspendered One find himself trapped as a character in DT! That’s the worst curse I can think of.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 12:53 am [Reply]

9CL Well hell yeah, Brooke knows how to get on my good side. Mention GOATS!!
C’haft Yeah okay, we get it, Mom is a flip-flopping control freak bitch. Move along.
FC Billy got back.
FBoFW Once again blazing trails in the heart of Grossly Cold and Selfish Actions Without A Thought About Other People’s Feelings territory, Liz wears Gramma’s mouse-pee-stained dress over to Chez Chinnuts and parades before the old man, asking him questions whose answers had damn well better be ‘yessss’. Making the best of a bad situations, Iris not only professes to read his mind, she also gives him orders. Maybe she’s a Patterson after all.
Scenes from Suburban Hell Lois is rockin’ the Green Acres motif hard, and still manages to get Hi’s balls in a vise. And we ain’t talkin’ golf balls either.
MT Proof that the Jackelrod ball is the brains behind WildLife Magazine.
Mw No really, Mary! You don’t have to explain, I don’t Want to hear you expl – no, I – oh goddammit.
MC Gear combover, Dad.
Pluggers A dust bath with bubbles. Now you don’t see that every day.
RMMD Rex says “Oh dammit, you mean I have to forego eating ice cream so I can sit and back your ass up? Well, on second thought…”
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
March 29th, 2008 at 12:56 am [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny: I’m sorry to hear your bad news. You can really write, and I wish you the very best, as so many here already have. And how cool is it that Bob Weber Jr. enjoys your “Six Differences with GDN” as much as the rest of us?

If you have health insurance, my impulse is to suggest that you jump on the COBRA option, even if money’s tight… my suspicion is that keeping health coverage active between jobs helps to ward off future denials due to pre-existing conditions. Surely in your circle there is a more knowledgeable person than I who may have some insights on this issue.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 12:57 am [Reply]

#166 Poteet, my queen! – You are always looking out for your loyal subject, my liege! That’s why I am your sworn knight. Or your sworn-at knight, either/or.
GOATS goats goats goats! Truly the Age of Cud is upon us.
kippetje2000
March 29th, 2008 at 12:59 am [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny @ 109: Sorry to hear about your troubles. Maybe you should follow the wisened ways of a certain Monk we’ve come to know:
I think that his full name is .10%. He’s been nipping at that hidden flask for the last couple days. And I don’t think he’s offered Eric any. I say somebody’s about to fall off a cliff. Who’s going to finger a holy man as psycho-killer, cheng liu xie?
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
March 29th, 2008 at 1:03 am [Reply]

Pluggers: Even a city boy like me knows that constipation does not generally trouble chickens. Chicken Lady is almost certainly a mass producing guano factory even without the added propulsive effects of prune juice. Thanks, Brookins.
Arglebargle
March 29th, 2008 at 1:06 am [Reply]

My hopes and best wishes for you, GDNS. Kick some asses.

Luann: Did someone say “reset button?” It’s like the previous strip never happened. Or Evans said, “Wait! Forget the argument. I know something even stupider I can pull here!”

(But the simple truth is, there’s only one reason Dirk was even mentioned. DirkWatch is officially green, kids.)

RMMD: Uh, wow, Rex, what’s wrong? Are you going to miss American Yowler or something?

Sally Forth: “We came to New York completely unprepared and ignorant. Why? We’re not hicks living in a tar-paper shack, we have an Internet connection! Goldarnnit! Whar’s mah cornmash jug?”

Bizarro: Ha ha, I get it. Because there’s absolutely no difference between fried chicken and a random unprepared dead wild bird. Hey Piraro! There’s some 100% organic fat-and-sugar-free fudge floating in my toilet! It’s fresh from my oven! Dig in! (May contain animal by-products.)

Non Sequitur: Now that’s funny.
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 1:20 am [Reply]

168. Poteet: Rex’s look is priceless. There’s usually one of these each week, and it’s worth the price of admission.
Still, I’m a Count Morgu girl:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2370683956/
Jilliterate
March 29th, 2008 at 1:24 am [Reply]

3/29

DtM: You know, I think old Mr. Wilson might take Dennis’ threats of menace and deliberate hearing loss more seriously if Dennis was playing any instrument other than a freaking bugle. No one has considered the bugle to be either menacing or “rockin’” since the War of 1812.

FC: No, Billy, and if you continue to refer to pagan concepts such as “Mother Nature,” you’re going to find yourself excommunicated from this family pretty gosh darn quick.

Marmaduke: I know we all make jokes about the fine line between Brad Anderson’s artistic senility and drug-induced hallucinations, but those elephants really look like drug-induced hallucinations. Has Anderson even seen an elephant before??

FBoFW: Holy bejabbers! Seriously, I don’t even have anything snide to say here — Grandpa’s bizarre, Gollum-like hissing is just far too unsettling.
kippetje2000
March 29th, 2008 at 1:38 am [Reply]

“They’re thieves. They’re thieves, they’re filthy little thieves. They stole it from us. My dressesssss. Curse them, we hhhaaaates them! It’s ours it is, and we wants it. Aaahhh yesss.”
kippetje2000
March 29th, 2008 at 3:28 am [Reply]

It’s the hottest day of the summer in Westview. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can… go to Montovani’s Pizza

While closing, Les has forgotten to lock the door. Ed enters:

Les: Yo, Crankshaft.

Ed: What?

Les: Stay black.

Ed: Hey, Les. You the man.

Les: No you the man.

Ed: You the man.

Les: No you the man.

Ed: No. I’m just a struggling veteran trying to keep my dick hard in a cruel and harsh world.

Ed: Hey, Les, how come they ain’t no bus drivers on the wall? Yo, Les, I’m gonna boycott your fat pasta ass.

Les: You’re gonna boycott me? You haven’t got the *beans* to boycott me. Here, here’s your boycott, up your ass, you’ve got a boycott.

Ed: Hey. The only ass-kicking that’s gonna be done around here is gonna be done by me.

Ed: You attempted suicide causing, steroid abusing, gym rope abused, football playing reject, stood up for the prom, pepperoni faced, pizza reeking, pizza-slingin’, no-class substitute for a teacher.

Les: You alcoholic, crotchety illiterate, charcoal grillin’, mailbox killin’, limp-dick, Cleveland rootin, Harry Carey-faced, rearview driving, old lady jiving, Pansy planting, child endangering, diaper wearer.

Harry Klinghorn(entering): Yo! Hold up! Time out! TIME OUT! Y’all take a chill! Ya need to cool that shit out! And that’s the double truth, Ruth!

Ed: I detest this place like a sickness.

Needless to say, Montovani’s is a smoldering cinder as Funky arrives to open up in the morning.
ChattyGenes
March 29th, 2008 at 4:00 am [Reply]

I’ve been staring at the second panel of Saturday’s MARY WORTH for ages now, trying to figure out exactly where…how?… the rest of their bodies are. It kind of reminds me of the scene in BIG FISH in which the conjoined twins come out and start their act.
Mr. O\'Malley
March 29th, 2008 at 4:35 am [Reply]

109, GDN.

I’ve been through that too. You need to think “what are my skills” and how to inflate that into a new job. Keep in mind Charlie Chapin’s adage “60% of life is showing up”. (I am too lazy to look for references here.)

Research shows that people who are more intelligent are smart enough to realize what they don’t know and are more prey to self-doubt. Take a hint from the stupid people and make absurd claims about your skills. If you don’t know it now you can get it on-line. Everything is available online nowadays.

My mother, looking for a temporary office job (not connected to her former set of very specialized skills), got a job at a television network and ended up as a producer. TV networks are very short of people who can tackle chaos and wrestle it into some kind of managable status.

Being a television producer for a cash-strapped network is a very detail-oriented job, but that’s the kind of person she is. She did very well at it.

I’m only throwing this up as an example, but if you are a pretty intelligent kind of a person (as exempified by a habit of putting up witty posts here) you are probably smart enough to handle all sorts of things.

I wish you the best of luck.
Saluki
March 29th, 2008 at 5:03 am [Reply]

In what small town hell are the playoffs called playdowns?

Also every state in the union is done with their high school basketball tournaments by now – isn’t it time to see what’s not happening with the Milford baseball team?
Shut Up Eccles
March 29th, 2008 at 5:06 am [Reply]

Hey True Fable, are you aware of GOATS: The Comic?

http://www.goats.com/archive/970403.html
Saluki
March 29th, 2008 at 5:06 am [Reply]

Good recovery Brad. Go carting is unpredictable, fun, and you’re in separate carts so you minimize the chance of putting your foot in your pie hole.
Saluki
March 29th, 2008 at 5:09 am [Reply]

I finally get it. Mallard Filmore loves America, he just hates Americans. He thinks they’re all ignorant uneducated rubes who are all naive dreamers.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 5:38 am [Reply]

#185 Shut Up Eccles – GOATS!! Yes, thank you! Unfortunately, it have turned from The Path of Truth, Justice and Small Virtuous Faces and no longer show much if any goats in it.

This is tantamount to Blasphemy.

A Goat comic strip without goats? What does that make it, a Goat-flavored comic strip? Where the hell are the GOATS, dammit!

Fortunately, your linkage brought me back to the halcyon days of 1997, when ACTUAL GOATS WERE OCCASIONALLY DEPICTED in said strip. Ah, those were the days, back when a buck was a buck and a doe was a doe, when the Caprine Empire ruled the land!

Now I’m lucky to find a hoofprint. :-(
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 5:48 am [Reply]

#189 “It have turned”, indeed!

The presence of goats seems to have temporarily robbed me of my grammatical ability. During the yearly Goat Fair I turn into a blithering idiot.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 5:49 am [Reply]

188!! not 189!! Dammit.
Kurdt
March 29th, 2008 at 6:04 am [Reply]

Family Circus: Billy has not read The Odyssey and has not learned that it is not nice to question the gods. He will learn though, oh how he will learn…
Girl Reporter
March 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am [Reply]

Mr. O’Malley: TV networks are very short of people who can tackle chaos and wrestle it into some kind of managable status.

As it happens, I recently visited one of my old workplaces – a TV network in one of the Very Major Markets. They are down to about 90 people on staff. TV networks are just plain short of people. Short of people that they pay.
Moss_Moses
March 29th, 2008 at 6:55 am [Reply]

Where is the epiphany Mary Worth promised? Does it get any more anticlimactic than this? She dredged up this deprived childhood dreck for nothing? All the foreshadowing is for naught. Oh well, at least we learned that she was an androgynous little freak with a deformed male sex organ. I like the way she’s sitting on Toeby’s lap as she explains how she can’t explain.

“But I can’t explain (Can’t explain)
Yeah, hear what I’m saying, Toeby (Can’t explain)”
Lolsworth
March 29th, 2008 at 7:26 am [Reply]

I know what he’s referring to. I also know what being British makes it look like.
Mibbitmaker
March 29th, 2008 at 7:29 am [Reply]

S-M: Then both MJ and Spidey touched the door and were killed, the end.[/Mr. Mike]

Lockhornswitheachother: Hey, no fair! He gets 3 knuckles, and she only gets one!

FOOB: “…y’know… in the previous marriage. Now I’m stuck with trollface. Boxcar.”

A3G: Ugh!!! – - Oh, I get it! This is Margo’s fantasy about how this went down! That makes sense.

GT: Z-Train’s dad has a breeding farm, you know. Here, I thought it was his son…

NS: Well, now that it has only 3 fingers, it should be called “The Cartoon Fist”.

Garfield: You forgot “…baby”.

HtH: Yeah, right — when doesn’t he have his helmet on??

Curtis: …Just like politicians, it turns out.

Shoe: “… He gets lost on the course but won’t ask directions, and I buy lots and lots of shoes at the mall.”
gleeb
March 29th, 2008 at 7:32 am [Reply]

9CL: Goats? Is this some kind of third-world dowry thing?

Bizarro: He’s been on the other side so long, he doesn’t realize most people would treat this like an unexpected ortolan bonus.

Steve Shannon, attorney-on-bus: So, is his entire clientèle going to be disabled vets? Or just accountants?
The Divine O’F
March 29th, 2008 at 7:34 am [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny: Good wishes from another writer here. Islamorada Girl gives good advice. This may yet turn out to be an opportunity.
mordock999
March 29th, 2008 at 8:05 am [Reply]

177: Arglebargle – Luann – Did someone say “reset button”? Hell, did someone say “continuity”? How did we get from Brad nearly getting to first base to later nearly ruining it by saying something stupid, to today’s strip where everything is normal and the arguement appearently never happened?

Good Lord, Brad. THINK! You’re getting off Lite. You don’t wanna dance. She don’t wanna dance. Forget the chessey family resturant and head post haste to a Motel 6….,

____________

DEATH to TJ!
jerseygull
March 29th, 2008 at 8:33 am [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny: As a fellow journalist in a field that seems sadly to be fading fast, my sympathies.

Re Momma:
Man walks into a bar carrying his 2-foot mother. Bartender says ‘you can’t bring that freak in here.” Man says, “I’ll have you know that’s my mother you’re talking about.” Bartender says, “I was talking to the old lady.”
Anyone else want to try? Anyone?
Girl Reporter
March 29th, 2008 at 8:37 am [Reply]

gleeb says: 9CL: Goats? Is this some kind of third-world dowry thing?

We have a family joke that my niece will have a large dowry, with many, many goats. Because she’s soooo very, very good at getting her mother’s (goat).
Moss_Moses
March 29th, 2008 at 8:54 am [Reply]

How to explain the just busted Client #9 look on Rex Morgan’s face? Is he supposed to be the reluctant medical warrior going to battle with MRSA or did Doc just tell him that he knows about Rex and Niki’s shack fun?
Calico
March 29th, 2008 at 9:07 am [Reply]

#193 – I feel hot and cold
Way down my soul, yeah

(Or it’s salmonella poisoning from Mary’s stinking casserole and that horrible Montoni’s pizza)
Bunnë, Official Comic Execrator
March 29th, 2008 at 9:25 am [Reply]

FOOB: Colorist error alert! Colorist error alert! I’m pretty sure when Grampa and Grandma got married they were not grey-haired… though perhaps, since this is Grampa’s memories, he’s just remembering things wrong. Who knows, maybe he’s even got the wrong woman in that dress.
Bunnë, Official Comic Execrator
March 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am [Reply]

188, True Fable
There was only every one goat in Goats, really, unless you count Jon and Phillip.
Calico
March 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am [Reply]

FOOB – And as Lizardass bends down to mumble in Gramp’s face, we hear *RRRRRrrrriiiiippppppp”
Then Gwamps says over and over, “Mmmmmm Yessss! Mmmmm!”

MW – Why is Mary giving Toby a lap dance?

FC – Billy, Mother Nature hates you.
Here we go on the Keane Bipolar express again.
Phelps
March 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am [Reply]

For some reason, that Momma strip brings back Hitchcockian memories….

Mother: No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar! Ah ha! You think I’m fruity, huh?
Calico
March 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am [Reply]

And Gold-Digging Nanny – I am sorry to hear about your job loss, but also excited for you, too.
Good things will happen for you, I know it!
Synchronicity rules… : )
Mooncattie
March 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am [Reply]

#199 jerseygull –
Re Momma:
Man walks into a bar carrying his 2-foot mother. Bartender says “we don’t see many 2-foot mothers in here”. Momma says, “And at these prices you won’t see many more!”

Ahh, memory lane!
Carly
March 29th, 2008 at 9:55 am [Reply]

wow, two of these reminded me of my grandmother! Shoe, because my grandma is almost that crazy, and Momma, because my grandma is shrinking, and while she isn’t two feet tall, she kind of looks it next to her 6′5″ son.
TheDiva
March 29th, 2008 at 9:55 am [Reply]

FOOB: Okay, I’ve figured it out. Notice how the dress keeps changing? (Compare yesterday’s comic to today’s, or just panels one and two in today’s comic, for that matter.) Take that with the improbable good condition of the dress and the even more improbable “perfect fit” it is on Liz, and it becomes clear: it’s not a dress, but an alien parasite similar to Venom, forced onto Liz by her family as part of her reprogramming.

Sally Forth: Sounds like a good deal to me, actually. The local amusement park has just started charging fifty-five bucks per person, and they don’t have a cool Egyptian wing.
Shoebox
March 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am [Reply]

Longtime lurker and comics-reader, who must now chime in both with the Foob hate and the words of comfort, or at least solidarity, for Girl Reporter. I was just told earlier this week that there’s ‘no role for me’ in the latest office reorg, so can sympathise all you like.

Meanwhile, back in the Patterworld…good news, kids; when you get old, at least you’ll be useful as a prop for your family’s dysfunction! Bleargh.
Lake Eerie
March 29th, 2008 at 10:05 am [Reply]

Just jumping in to wish Gold-Digging Nanny some luck in dealing with her latest hardship (not that you know who the hell I am).
As a former newspaper person myself (albeit a sportswriter, the lowest form in a paper already intent on dumbing itself down further than middle-school level), I’ll offer unsolicited advice – don’t limit yourself to writing/editing. You can certainly write (better than my auditing staff, I’d say), open yourself to other opportunities where you can put this talent to good use.
If nothing else, you can write the best emails in any given company!
commodorejohn
March 29th, 2008 at 10:05 am [Reply]

…Looking at the previous thread’s title, it occurs to me that “The Reluctant John” sounds like the most horrible Don Knotts movie ever.

9CL – Brooke, are you lurking here? Is this really a True Fable shout-out?

A3G – Could someone in Apartment 3-G kindly explain what the hell is going on now? We’ve had quite enough foreshadowing, and I’m ready to get to the foreshadowed events. What is it that’s so perilous? Are they crossing through Yeti country? Are they going to stage a daring prison break for whatshisname? WHAT IS GOING ON!?

Crankshaft – Oh, don’t worry, lady. You’ll still have your mother-in-law to condescend to and steal precious freedom from.

DT – WHAT

FOOB – “Aaahhh…yesss” and “ohh…yess!” while looking at an (allegedly) attractive young woman in his wife’s wedding dress? Something tells me Grandpa isn’t actually paying attention to the conversation…good thing he has that blanket on.

JP – Is that Fencepost Frank!?

Luann – Yeah, I bet you’ll talk about “nozzles” and “hoses” and “spray.”

MW – Wow, a dual creeped-out edging-away!

PBS – Hehehe.

Preteena – Er…is this a flashback, or did they suddenly go ultra-Mennonite?

SM – I keep saying it: Mary-Jane is a better hero(ine) than her husband. Why isn’t she the focus of the strip?

WoI – Wow, a joke only twenty-plus years out of date!
Lake Eerie
March 29th, 2008 at 10:11 am [Reply]

Guy walks into a bar carrying his two-feet tall mother.
Bartender says, “Hey, are you a string.”
Mother says, “No, I’m a frayed —”

Wait, sorry. Wrong joke
Jeanne
March 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am [Reply]

Perhaps, as Lizardbreath marches up the aisle, a vision in Grandma Marion’s virginal white, Grandpa Chinnuts will travel back in his mind to when his bride wore the dress, and there will be a miracle as he leaps out of his wheelchair, sweeps his granddaughter into his arms and has his way with her there on the snow white ailse runner.
He can then die a happy man.
Shoebox
March 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am [Reply]

#211 me: Augh, I meant Gold-Digging Nanny, of course. Although, if Girl Reporter needs any sympathy, she’s welcome to it. :)
John C Fremont
March 29th, 2008 at 10:21 am [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny – I echo what everyone has said. Seriously, it’s their loss. And eventually something better will come along that you never would have found otherwise. As someone once said, “It’s hard to explain it, Toby.” (Sorry, I just got in touch with my inner Mary Worth and, as Chuck Mangione might well say, it “feels so good!”)

Seriously, screw them and their incompetent ways!

# 165 – TF, I appreciated your picture of the goats, but the guy off to the left – at first, I couldn’t see his legs, just the goat legs and udders. I was disturbed. But as Chuck Mangione once said…

MT – The guy in the second panel… Okay, this is a long way to go for a reference that’s only mildly amusing at best, but remember the MST3K short “Once Upon A Honeymoon?” Remember the Angel/Ma Bell Stooge with those fabulous glasses? I didn’t think so. But trust me, it’s him. Maybe. Probably.
Hugin
March 29th, 2008 at 10:23 am [Reply]

MW: Tobey’s response in the second panel — I get that she doesn’t want Mary to explain. I think we’re all tired of this pointless flashback by now and just want her to shut up. But “I understand?” Really? That makes only one of us.

FOOB: This is just utterly ridiculous and disgusting. The fact that there’s no way he remembers that dress aside, I’ve had enough of the selfish torture of Ol’ Chinnuts. But look closely at the last panel — it’s not the same dress!! So the joke’s on Lizardbreath. That’s acutally someone elses smelly, moldering, mouse poop smeared and urine soaked dress that she’s been prancing around in. Oh yeah, and the other joke is that she’s marrying Blandthony.

RMMD: Rex’s expression in the last panel was actually the funniest thing I saw in the comics today.

GT: Last panel: since when does Gil coach the 6th grade team? I know better by now to expect to recognize characters from one day to the next, but somehow the team just lost 6 years from one panel to the next.
Calico
March 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am [Reply]

RM – Rex should be happy he’s going to that meeting, so he can avoid having sex with his wife, as usual.
In the last panel, Rex looks like he saw Danny Bonaduce naked, and was sorely dissapointed (he has good reason to be).
Calico
March 29th, 2008 at 10:40 am [Reply]

FOOB – It would be kind of exciting if ol’ Gwamps decided to check out DURING the wedding.
That would be his ultimate revenge.
Jym
March 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am [Reply]

=v= Pluggers (29-Mar): I am eternally grateful that this feature doesn’t have a second panel.
Cheeky Wee Monkeys
March 29th, 2008 at 10:48 am [Reply]

Best of luck, Gold Digging Nanny.

Okay, comic age logic.
Childhood–You’re cute. No, you can’t do anything but be cute.
Teenagehood– You suck. No, you can’t have a bad day, or a bad teenage life. You just complain too much, damn kid!
Adulthood–All the kids, teenagers, and old people are out to get you. You best complain over coffee. Don’t worry, I’m sure everyone sympathizes with you. You’re Everyman/woman, right?
Elderhood–Everything sucks. Please complain. After all, things were different in YOUR day. Well, since you’re an unaging strip character (unless it’s an aging one), you never had a day, did you?
Sully
March 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am [Reply]

FBOW has actually deteriorated from predictably soppy to genuinely creepy. This whole thing about the moth-eaten wedding dress and a dead grandmother nobody remembers nor gives a rat’s ass about and her addled (barely surviving) husband is morbid and has more basis in the author’s own psychological problems than anything the readers might care about. Pull the plug on this crap, Lynnie, and get thee to a couch.

And the only reason what’s-his-name the son is hand-balming Momma to the bar is because he’s entering that evening’s dwarf-tossing competition.
gkl
March 29th, 2008 at 10:57 am [Reply]

GT: Playdowns? PLAYDOWNS?!?!? I shudder to consider the rift in space-time if you’d ever had to take a Wonderlic test.

GA: Not only has Adam closed the window between panel 1 and panel 3, but he’s installed a completely different window, from the standard two-paner to the old-timey four-paner. Just goes to show that us city folks are lazy bums.

Pluggers: Like there’s a floor on the planet that can support both a plugger and a tub full of water. Atlas shrugged, then screamed “One at a time!”

MT: Thank goodness that something else is happening in the town. It would be kind of creepy if time had literally stopped for everyone except Sad Madeline. Kind of like an Out of This World that went off its Prozac.

MW: No, you don’t understand, Toby, but you’re willing to lie in hopes of getting Mary to shut the hell up. For that, I award you the Comics Curmudgeon Medal of Freedom.

(As a commenter, I have that power, right?)
Little Guy
March 29th, 2008 at 11:02 am [Reply]

FOOB: Okay, that’s just too creepy for words.
lizo
March 29th, 2008 at 11:02 am [Reply]

I kind of love Toby’s expression in the last panel of Mary Worth — it so clearly says you don’t have to explain, Mary — in fact, please don’t.
Shoebox
March 29th, 2008 at 11:06 am [Reply]

Momma: You would think the title character would be on her knees every day giving thanks that her son is too much of a good-hearted simp to realise the extent of his power. Like for instance, “You moron, Francis!” “Oh, yeah? Well – [visual of Momma being chucked onto the high closet shelf, door closes]”

Foob: All snarking aside…just what exactly is wrong with the concept of taking the ruddy dress off, sitting Grampa down, and carefully deboxing it for him to see and touch while gently explaining what’s going on? Oh, yeah, that wouldn’t be ‘real life’ in the eyes of Lynn and her devoted cadre. If so, I weep for the loss of simple human dignity.

PBS/Sally Forth: Because I missed the fun yesterthread…while the PBS gag could’ve used work, the sheer audacity of the whole thing earns my undying affection and respect. And I had a lot to give PBS already.
Islamorada Girl
March 29th, 2008 at 11:10 am [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny: The publisher at my former paper was so generally loathed that we would sit in staff meetings and plot ways to kill him. He, too wore suspenders.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
March 29th, 2008 at 11:14 am [Reply]

I don’t want to think about what Dingo or Dean Booth could do with the third panel of today’s FOOB.

Wait, too late. Shit.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
March 29th, 2008 at 11:15 am [Reply]

I-Girl @ 228: He didn’t wear a cheesy mustache and little round glasses too, did he? You don’t, by chance, hail from a town in Michigan that shares a name with a country in Europe?
Melpomene
March 29th, 2008 at 11:18 am [Reply]

FOOB: Apparently Grandmother Marion had a time machine; she was able to purchase her wedding dress (in the 1940s) in the fashion of 2008. Liz, if you were really wearing a 1940s wedding dress, you’d be stuck with long sleeves, a high neckline and a slimmer skirt. It would be much more flattering for your (supposedly) stunning figure.
fishmorgjp
March 29th, 2008 at 11:32 am [Reply]

Bizarro is generally real good… but when it slips into vegan-lecture mode, it really slips…
kingklash
March 29th, 2008 at 11:34 am [Reply]

FOOB: How should I be hearing Gramps? In my head, I have Gollum, Beast Wars Megatron, Ren Hoek, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, and Mr. Burns competing for the right to say “Yesss….” And Cobra Commander is stepping up to the plate!
Shoebox
March 29th, 2008 at 11:40 am [Reply]

#233 – Go with Mr. Burns. Just the right combination of creepiness and cluelessness.
Vakar
March 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am [Reply]

MW: Who’s sitting in whose lap in panel 2? Vague anecdotes may be as much of a turn-on for Tobey as platitudes are for Mary.
oceans 111
March 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny: Sympathies etc., and as far as the health insurance, it’s different from state to state, but in all cases, unless you have an _immediate_ other coverage option, pay for the COBRA. Continuous health coverage is pretty important. If it’s too expensive to keep up for long and you don’t have on-going care needs, look into “major medical” plans in your area. I finally went and got Group Health’s high-deductable, emergency-oriented coverage (I’m a so-called “independant contactor,” i.e. “Why pay benefits for your workers? worker”), and it’s about 1/3 the cost of my COBRA. Because it’s Group Health, they also cover some preventive care.
Islamorada Girl
March 29th, 2008 at 11:54 am [Reply]

SSB—The cheesy pornstache, yes. The town was in Maryland, not Michigan, but I bet our publishers are closely and ineptly related!
He was just totally incompetent. When he was a reporter, he couldn’t report. When he was an editor, he couldn’t edit. When he was promoted to his highest level of incompetence as a publisher. . well you can guess the rest. The whole newspaper chain was humiliatingly awful. He was just the marachino cherry on our particular hell sundae. I heard after he was finally fired, he moved to Colorado, where he was driving a cab.
IagoPogo
March 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am [Reply]

# 185 – Has TheFamousEccles morphed into Shut Up Eccles? How goonishly clever of you, old chap!

Boy, do I ever miss Krazy Kat….
Islamorada Girl
March 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm [Reply]

231: Not to mention a wedding gown from the 40’s would have huge Joan Crawford padded shoulders. That Lynn! Always taking liberties with the truth and the fiction. Hang it up now, please. FOOB is a zombie strip and you’re like that old John Belushi SNL skit, The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave.
queek
March 29th, 2008 at 12:08 pm [Reply]

The past week’s worth of Lio has been beyond awesome. Mark Tatulli, you out-did yourself with this arc. (HotC was pretty nice this week too, but not at this level of awesome.)

PBS: love! a much simpler set up than the epic “enemy anemone” strips, but still wonderful.

Frazz today shows why I like so much. Its a very smart strip. RwO was also a nicely done strip for people with a bit upstairs.
Jess A.
March 29th, 2008 at 12:13 pm [Reply]

FOOB<: This comic inspires ever increasing levels of creep-out-ness, rage, and BLURGHHHHH every day, and yet I keep reading. Why??

FW: Ok, so we jumped ahead 10 years so as not to address the aftermath of Lisa’s death… and now we’re just going to sit around watching Les clean a pizza parlor and wax on forever to himself about crap that we already watched happen before the 10 year jump? Seriously?
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

220. Calico re FOOB: of course, if Chinnuts cashes out during the wedding, you’re going to hear Elly (who will no doubt hijack the planning for most of it…oh, you KNOW she will!) screaming, “Damn you, old man!! You ruined my wedding. MY WEDDING! All you men are alike — thoughtless bastards! Who needs you?!”

219: Calico re RMMD: GMTA:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2370683956/
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 12:45 pm [Reply]

227. Shoebox re FOOB: this is exactly how it should’ve played out. How was anyone to know what Grandpa’s reaction would’ve been? They’ve all seen him agitated and upset — why didn’t it cross anyone’s mind that seeing the dress on someone else (it doesn’t matter if it was someone he knows or not) might make him angry? What if he’d just sat there and stared? Heck, maybe that would’ve been taken as an EVIL OMEN! (”Dammit, Grandpa Jim doesn’t approve of my wedding! Let’s wheel him to the top of the apartment complex and expose him to the elements!” (since we’re fresh out of ice floes))
“Dignity” is such an alien concept to “FOOB” that they’re not even in the same sentence: they’re not even in the same paragraph, page, chapter, or book…
GotFuzzy
March 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny, my sympathies. My best advice for you is to wallow for at least one evening with a menu of spaghetti carbonara with extra bacon and parmesan, a crisp pinot grigio and Office Space on DVD. Hell, take the whole weekend to wallow if you want to. On Monday, get yourself signed up for unemployment benefits. They are not charity or a gubmint handout. You have had unemployment taxes deducted from your wages, most likely, and now is the time to get a litte of it back. Plot your revenge on your wrong-headed employers and take your time. You will land in a good place.

queek, I was just coming on here to say how much I loved loved loved today’s Lio. I would change my name to LoveLio, but I’d hate to give up my tribute to my late, much-lamented Bucky clone. So I’ll just proclaim my love for this twisted childhood fantasy whenever it strikes me.

Today’s comics:

’shaft: Evidently the ’shaftette was not just thinking that Max should move out, but was actively voicing that sentiment. So maybe she should just wrap her whole self in lead. Yes, that would be a big improvement.

DT: It’s nice to see that monkey paws are still represented on the comics page, even if Bolle has forsaken them in I?GT.

FC: Now this would have been a little bit funnier (or I guess I should say, a tiny bit funny) if it had been snowing instead of raining. But Billy does have a nice Patterfoob ass developing there. And a lovely Margo death glare.

MT: That’s right, puppies cure everything. Gold-Digging Nanny, run right out and get yourself a puppy!

MW: If it’s so freaking hard to explain it, why did you just waste several weeks of our time doing so? Gah!

Pluggers: Ew. Just ew.

FOOB: Why is Liz suddenly seven feet tall? We know she’s not wearing heels, because Lynn can’t draw them.
Kurdt
March 29th, 2008 at 1:02 pm [Reply]

Okay that Pluggers is wrong on so many levels. The thing that irks me the most is that it uses the old joke that all old people like prunes. Most of the old(er) people I know love wine and probably wouldn’t go near prune juice.

Plus: Naked chicken lady in the bathtub with visible cleavage? Ew!!!!
Godzooky
March 29th, 2008 at 1:24 pm [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny: For your consideration (if and when you’re ready to go “Once more unto the breach”): “10 Blogging Jobs to Apply for Today” – Problogger.net 3/27/08

Oh, yeah, comics. Spider-Man: MJ is so confident in her husband’s ability to get past Krandis’ lame trap, she effectively exposes his identity to try and save him. Lord knows he needs the help, though.
Girl Reporter
March 29th, 2008 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

Shoebox:

No, I’m good. But thanks!
jules
March 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm [Reply]

FC: Um…Billy said something that I say every spring, when it’s just days till baseball season but it’s still cold and rainy, and…uh…I agree with Li’l Billy Keane.

I can’t believe I said that.

gaaaaaaahhhh *head explodes*
Mooncattie
March 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm [Reply]

While reading about poor Grandpa Jim, the phone rang. It was the on-duty nurse from our local hospital to say that my grandmother has just passed away. She was 96, an astounding age to reach, and was only admitted to the hospital with her final illness in the last ten days. I was the last one in my family to see her, just under four hours ago. She was struggling for breath, eyes blinking but no longer really awake. Thankfully, there was none of this “YOU WILL BE HAPPY, WON’T YOU JIM?” crap. The hospital staff were wonderful, made her last days comfortable, and allowed her to pass on with a sense of dignity completely alien to Foobville.
Alfred E. Neuman
March 29th, 2008 at 1:41 pm [Reply]

#184 Saluki— I’m a sports fan, and I’m not familiar with “playdowns” either. A quick Google search indicates that it is a term primarily associated with hockey and curling championships in Canada and some northern border states. The only place I could find that uses “playdowns” for basketball is Vermont, so I guess that’s where GT lives.

#233 kingklash— As to “Yesss,” my nomination is Marv Albert. The only problem with his selection is that it may turn out to bite you in the ass.

#244 GotFuzzy— Remember, Pam is Crankshaft’s aging daughter. We can expect to see more chip-off-the-old-blockhead behavior from her in the future.
Spike
March 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm [Reply]

242 bats: Elly hijack her daughter’s wedding??? Surely you jest! Wouldn’t that put her in the same league as Mira Sobinski? Perish the tought! ;-)
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 1:56 pm [Reply]

The wonders of electricity — next, on Nature:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2371915994/
Ukulele Ike
March 29th, 2008 at 2:08 pm [Reply]

Preteena: In an attempt to beat some intelligence into their older, stupider daughter, Mister and Missus Preteena have locked in her a room with no electricity and forced her to read A Tale of Two Cities by candlelight.

9CL: I found today’s strip very funny, and was delighted on True Fable’s behalf for the goat reference.

Baldo: I liked this too, and was surprised because Baldo usually sucks really bad.

JP: I suppose it’s a good thing that the bus-riding accountant has given the bus-riding lawyer a lucrative job because they both had their legs shot off in foreign wars, rather than that they attended Yale together.

SF: At the Metropolitan Museum it’s okay to pay whatever you feel like paying and not cough up the entire twenty bucks for adult admission, especially if you’ve been unemployed for a long spell. At MOMA, however, you got to show the Jacksons to see the Pollocks, if you catch my drift.
Islamorada Girl
March 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm [Reply]

Mooncattie—My deepest sympathies on the loss of your grandmother. As you note, she was allowed to leave this world with her dignity, unlike certain cartoon characters we all know.
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm [Reply]

249. Mooncattie: awww, Mooncattie, I’m sorry to hear that! But 96 is pretty darned extraordinary, and it sounds as though your grandma was a big part of your life, which is pretty darned keen, too. I’m glad that she went in as much comfort as the hospital folks were able to provide for her, and on her own terms (at least we know that God isn’t some hack cartoonist ;)
Artist formerly known as Ben
March 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm [Reply]

3/29

JP: It doesn’t really bother me that Steve is picking up clients in a quasi-shady manner, as far less worthy people have profited from who they know. It does kind of bother me that the cutie with the pink alligator shirt will probably never be seen again.

GA: What is Skeezix talking about, and when did he steal Dagwood’s donut pajamas.

MW: Cue the wah-wah guitars. Toby and Mary are about to get bizz-ay.

A3G: So Brother Eric, tell me. Do these rockin’ shades make me look like Bruce Willis, or what?

FW: This being a comic strip, it’s hard to tell if Les is slurring. My guess, though, is that he’s found out where Funky used to squirrel the Johnny Walker bottles, and has been taking nips all night.

HtH: Never draw him without the helmet again, ever.

Shoe: So between us, we’re doing our best to keep the Nixon-era gender steereotypes alive.

DT: More disturbing Dick/Cole Lector ’shipping.

H&J: It was either wash the dishes, or clean Sarah’s garage.

9CL: Ghost written by T Fable?

Luann: Brad scores points by… talking about nozzles. Thank you, Herr Freud.

PBS: Pastis turns the sights on himself, today.

RMMD: The word “support” sends Rex into a wistful reverie on athletic supporters.

GT: Dropping in on the middle of the conversation, we don’t know what A-Train is saying “no thanks” to. Most likely it was Gil’s offer to put a Cully Vale hit on Big Ray.
Old School Allie Cat
March 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

#231 – Melpomene – also, wasn’t fabric rationed during the war years? I doubt there would have been yards and yards of anything to make the c’ass’cade in the back of that dress.

I seem to recall both of my grandmothers married in “traveling suits” in either light or pastel fabric (can’t tell – no color photos back then). And my paternal grandmother and grandfather both came from old money – but they married in my great grandmother’s parlor, then got on a train and went for their honeymoon.

My parents, married in 1970, had a minister – his parents, her mother, her best friend – they got married in the chapel on a Friday afternoon, drove to the beach for the weekend and were back to work on Monday. Mom wore a blue wool minidress and some little hat or bow accoutrement on her head. Dad wore a dark suit.

They must have done something right – 38 years last month.

Mr. Cat’s parents married in the early sixties at the courthouse one county over. They were married til death did they part – he died in 1976 – motorcycle accident -she never remarried.

Taking it forward to 2005, I wore a foofy white dress, no veil – in fact, I wore a $6 rhinestone headband and earring I bought at Target. Mr. Cat wore a tux – we each had 3 attendants and there were 100 guests. And in my circle, that was a fairly modest wedding.

I think the big crazy ass wedding thing started in the 80’s. I blame Princess Di.

And Mr. Cat and I talked about going off and knocking it out like our parents, but our families really wanted to throw a big wedding, and hell, I can’t say no to dancing and an open bar!
Agnostic Married Woman
March 29th, 2008 at 3:08 pm [Reply]

Aw, Liz is even wearing the bustle! Wait a minute…
Perky Bird
March 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm [Reply]

Pluggers: What they fail to note is that chicken lady’s bath wasn’t a bubble bath until after her third glass of prune juice.
One-eyed Wolfdog
March 29th, 2008 at 3:38 pm [Reply]

Playdowns are clearly a portmanteau of playoffs and beatdowns. Be content, Thorp fans, with what you got — the addled authors could just as easily have gotten it the other way ’round.
PeterW
March 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm [Reply]

Two noteworthy Saturday comics are Hagar (more disturbing than his fuzzball head is the change in the size of his eyes) and For Better or For Worse (ay! Were Grandpa and his bride their late 60s when they married? This is why the dress hasn’t disintegrated in a cloud of dust yet, right?)
Girl Reporter
March 29th, 2008 at 4:14 pm [Reply]

Fabric was rationed in the war years, but things opened up pretty quickly after, judging by my very glamorous mother’s satin number with a bias-cut circle skirt swirled just-so around her as she sat on the altar steps in one lovely B&W shot in their ‘47 wedding album. She looked like she’d been styled by Edith Head. But she and her girlfriends passed that dress around – nobody had sole possession, that would have been wasteful. I’m not sure she’d even been the first of her circle to wear it. The poufy skirt Dior “New Look” was a direct reaction to the rationing and privation of the war years.

And women also wore pretty heavy duty girdles every dang day of their lives back then. Dresses were cut to fit artificially cinched waists. There is no way anybody and her formal sweat sox is going to get her grandmother’s wedding dress zipped past her modern butt.
dyslexic dog
March 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pm [Reply]

Today’s Crock has chosen to give a fun back-asswards plug to the famed Barcelona eatery where rats definitely are not served, in favor of slow-cooked, meltingly tender wafer-thin pig trotters. Mmmmmmmm!

Especially considering yesterday’s most appropriate punchline.
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

And as my final bad-editor comment, let’s remember that readers suffer too, though obviously not as much as employees. A small paper here had an editor awhile back who liked to hold forth with incredibly pompous, condescending editorials on subjects about which he knew jackshit. I could hear teeth grinding all over the county when I read his stuff. Come to think of it, he could have co-written Foob.
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 4:41 pm [Reply]

# 174 Sir Fable MTK, you are so right. Goats are everywhere. There are goats on the hill, but I never heard them bleating, no I never heard them at all, ’til there was you.

# 178 bats — BWAHAHA! Thanks, I needed that.
Helena Handbasket
March 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

I don’t think this Mary Worth flashback is pointless at all.

Mary Worth is doing a public service and teaching readers a valuable lesson: never help the less fortunate. The neglected kid you feed today may grow up to inflict a lifetime of meddling on an innocent world.
4EvahFan
March 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

FOOB: Sorry if this has been said already — just logged on and am reading from the bottom up — “Anthony and I DECIDED to get married?” Why doesn’t she say, “Anthony and I decided to have spaghetti for dinner.” or “Anthony and I decided that the weather is pleasant in late spring.”? Could this person be any more blahse about her engagement. Decided? “Grandpa, we’ve both decided since our lives are so boring and there’s nothing to look forward to, that we may as well be married. Can I wear this dress?”

And speaking of the damn dress, we’ve all agreed that there’s no way in hell she would ever fit into that dress without massive alterations, which were never done because it went from crawl space to dry cleaner right onto Liz and right over to the Old Folks home. the design is ridiculous — have you ever seen a sexy-ish wedding dress in any of your grandmother’s pictures? Putting a little see-through sleeve (that sometimes is shown on the strip and most times is not) does not make it demur enough for the time in which it was worn. I’m sure Grams got married in a very high necked, overly laced, full sleeved garment. Not this almost strapless number with no chest coverage at all.

And do you think Liz wore her seat belt over the gown on the trek to see Chinnuts? do you think the seat belt smells like musty old gown?
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

#249 Mooncattie – big ol’ hugs from your ol’ Fable, dollface. I’m glad you were able to know your grandmother and that she had a dignified passing.

#265 Poteet, my queen! – Meredith Wilson never sounded so good, so right. Is it any wonder why I bow before you, my liege!
Alfred E. Neuman
March 29th, 2008 at 4:51 pm [Reply]

I’m sure True Fable drives a classic ’60s Pontiac GTO.
anonymous
March 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

#249 – (extending to you the Hand of Sympathy, holding a single red rose) Godspeed, Grandma Mooncattie, Godspeed….

Luanne: Does this mean we won’t ever find out who this “Tony” person is, that the captain is taking to the dance?
Godzooky
March 29th, 2008 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

Mooncattie: Condolences.

3/25 Brenda Starr: Mama looks ready to collect, but Boy Toy seems less than thrilled about this upcoming bill payment.

FOOB: Well, we have something old and something borrowed. What’s new and what’s blue?
4EvahFan
March 29th, 2008 at 5:17 pm [Reply]

Mooncattie: I’m so sorry to hear about your beloved Grandma’s passing. But I’m tickled to read your snarking about certain cartoonist’s in the face of your own sadness.

FOOB: I just went on Coffee Talk for the first time (since I’ve seen so many references to it here). I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 5:17 pm [Reply]

#269 Alfred E. Neuman – It’s proof that one can actually be pleased about having a goat full of gas.
bats :[
March 29th, 2008 at 5:36 pm [Reply]

271. Godzooky re Foob:
Something new? The pallet of butter tarts that Elly picked up for the wedding reception at the Milborough Costco? (Yeah, I know they won’t last…it’s just a clever, clever ruse to buy more.)

Something blue? Anthony’s genitalia.
Sorry.
Andrew
March 29th, 2008 at 5:38 pm [Reply]

Friday’s SHOE punchline was lifted from a routine on Steven Wright’s latest album, I STILL HAVE A PONY.
Alfred E. Neuman
March 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pm [Reply]

#273 True Fable— Bwahaha! They’re great cars, the only problem is that those old goats pass premium gas at a rate of about 10 mpg. I wonder what LJ drives? A poorly maintained hybrid, I’m guessing.

Hey, that gives me an idea for another brilliant CC contest: What kinds of cars do the comic strip characters and/or artists drive?
Here’s a few examples:
Gwampa Chinnuts: Porsche Boxcar
Wally Winkerbean: KIA
Tom Batiuk: A hearse
Sam Driver: (for Spanish speakers) Chevrolet Nova
Alfred E. Neuman
March 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

#274 bats:[ — Anthony has genitalia?
Godzooky
March 29th, 2008 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

#274 bats :[: Thanks for the laugh. I could only think of the readers being blue, but I knew if I posted it here, someone would come up with better fill-in-the-blanks.
AhClem
March 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm [Reply]

Luann – Dirk is working as a helmet polisher at the go-kart track, and will go berserk when he sees Toni and Blahd together. Remember, you read it here first.

Momma – A man walks into a bar carrying his 2-foot tall mother. The bartender says, “Hey, we have a drink named after you!” The man says, “What, you have a drink called ‘Whiny, nagging, incessantly bitter old hag?’”

No, that doesn’t work, either.
Citric
March 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm [Reply]

MW: And now Mary is sitting on Toby’s lap. I assume they’ll start making out, and then the last wisp of Toby’s standards, which had been imprisoned and tortured since she married Chinbeard all those years ago, will finally be brutally murdered in a hail of old people sex.
commodorejohn
March 29th, 2008 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

#276 Alfred E. Neuman – I seem to recall that sometime around Earth Day last year, we saw her driving a compact made out of pure, unadulterated self-righteousness.
Iris notIris
March 29th, 2008 at 7:05 pm [Reply]

Gold Digging Nanny, as an old broken-down journalist myself, I can say honestly that, outside of moving to a major market and joining the hoi polloi, the best jobs for a journalist are outside journalism. The ability to listen and to write is rare, I tell you, rare!

Of course, the outpouring here of other writers of various stripes just tells us why this is the most literate snark site on the Web!
Citric
March 29th, 2008 at 7:37 pm [Reply]

276: I bet the characters in Herb and Jamaal all drive that new model that’s been in the news. You know, the one with the features which are better than the competition, and that has that new technology for improving mileage. It might even be available in a popular color, and that body style which everyone is talking about.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm [Reply]

Everyone — thank you so, so much for the good advice and the encouragement. And the goats. The goats are awesome.

P.S. Guess what shirt I’m wearing today? That’s right….
ChristianPinko
March 29th, 2008 at 7:56 pm [Reply]

S-M – Based on the hamfisted manner in which the writers have foreshadowed the plot, I think we can all see what’s coming. Mary Jane will attempt to sacrifice her own life to save S-M. The Persuader, in turn, will sacrifice his own life in order to save Mary Jane.

Thus, Spider-Man will require not one but two people to risk their own lives to save him. His own super powers will be completely useless (his spider-sense, of course, will be completely ignored in order to drive this miserable storyline forward).

Has their ever been a more useless superhero? Ever? Even including Marvel silver-age girl sidekicks who did nothing but look hot and get kidnapped?

RMMD (3rd panel, specifically) – Cheer up, Rex! It’s not like he’s asking you to have sex with a beautiful woman.
ChristianPinko
March 29th, 2008 at 8:00 pm [Reply]

Oh, and also — Godspeed, Gold-Digging Nanny. And condolences, Mooncattie.
Shoebox
March 29th, 2008 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

#247 Girl Reporter – No problem. :) Condolences to Mooncattie as well – and to all of us with elderly relatives whom we actually treat as human beings, for having to put up with this Foobishness.

#285 – Y’know, somehow it’s so appropriate to the Spider-Man mythos that a comic strip he stars in would be this lousy. Spidey’s actually one of the most brilliant, influential characters in all of pop media, and the guy who oversaw his creation now can’t even get him out from behind the TV set?
Buck Ripsnort
March 29th, 2008 at 8:37 pm [Reply]

Saturday is the one day a week our paper prints Pluggers. So naturally, it’s not enough I be exposed to the Monster Chicken Lady (I think that was a Kids in the Hall character), but I get: You’re a Plugger if you use prune juice to make your tub a bubble bath”. Blurrgh!
As for FOOB, the only thing that can save this is Grammpa rising from his death-chair and molesting Liz. Or is that more of a Funky Winkerbean ending?
Poteet
March 29th, 2008 at 9:26 pm [Reply]

# 249 — Mooncattie, sympathies.
Artist formerly known as Ben
March 29th, 2008 at 9:43 pm [Reply]

#249 Mooncattie,
Well said. Condolences to you.
Solocardate
March 29th, 2008 at 10:00 pm [Reply]

Little A: Heck, I thought you meant the Grand Concourse as translated to science fiction in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels. It was a virtually endless multi-world shopping/tourism district connected by teleporters.

Umm…yeah, OK, I’m a big geek. So?
IdleDandy
March 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm [Reply]

FC bothers me today. Does Billy not understand that raining today does not mean it will still be raining later in the week? This seems to be a recurring theme in the Keane family. Grandma thinks the moon will never come back. Billy thinks it will never stop raining. I used to think the strip couldn’t get any more depressing.

At least Sunday’s is funny. Daddy Keane finally comes to terms with the sad truth that Jeffy is outwitted by the dog.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 11:13 pm [Reply]

FBoFW Once more, Lynnie persists in trying to make us believe that aphasia is the same as Alzheimer’s, just as she tries to convince us that the technical ability to draw the human figure is the same as being a good storyteller. Both times she wears a big FAIL button.

Poor Jim, he just can’t get a break. Iris is going to treat him like a thought-stunted simpleton just because he can no longer speak for himself, and Elly who only comes around when she’s got leftovers and needs a place to foist them, will believe whatever Iris tells her since she doesn’t want to bother to find out for herself how her dad is doing.

Grampa Jim Chinnuts will probably go to that great Farley Tree in the sky, since Lynn is probably itchin’ to get another round of kudos and awards from a senior citizen’s awareness group or something. Iris will then get dumped by the family as someone no longer of use to John or Elly, and the Settleocalypse will have its Poignant Moments all set to go.

“I’ve never seen a train wreck before, but then I started reading For Better Or For Worse.”
LTBF
March 29th, 2008 at 11:16 pm [Reply]

To the shock of nobody, Sunday’s Foob features the family feeding their fat faces. Jim is treated like a child and the grandkids don’t bother to visit.

And no wonder Jim doesn’t know why today is a big deal…his birthday was nine days ago!!!!!!! (According to Foob.com)
LTBF
March 29th, 2008 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

I think part of the reason Lynn wants to end the strip is she didn’t have the guts to kill off Jim and John’s parents.
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 11:26 pm [Reply]

#295 LTBF – The Hagar Twins from Hee Haw are featured in FBoFW?? Cool!

(I guess you meant Elly and John’s parents?)
Jane the Mostly Lurker
March 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm [Reply]

#296 True Fable – I think it might have been a bit more clear if LTBF had written: “…she didn’t have the guts to kill off John’s parents and Jim.”

On a related note, I hated this Sunday’s FOOB. Hated it. But then, why should this night be different from any other night?
True Fable
March 29th, 2008 at 11:46 pm [Reply]

#297 Jane the Mostly Lurker – Yeah, that’s probably what LTBF had in mind, and certainly what I meant but got wrong!

The entire FOOB strip has just gone to the crapper and wedged itself in tight. I like to snark on it, even though the real tragedy lies in the fact that there are people out there that are just lapping up this strip’s shit like chocolate syrup.

*sigh* I sure hope there’ll be some sweaterpuppies or goats or SOMETHING in the Sunday funnies, I need a slash of funzies.
Vakar
March 30th, 2008 at 12:22 am [Reply]

A3G: Brokeback Mount Everest.
bats :[
March 30th, 2008 at 12:28 am [Reply]

Big Sunday color funnies!

FW: Lisa Moore. Still dead. Still not funny. Still pretty much the Batituintik rule.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2371976278/

JP: all that colored ink, and no cleavage in sight! Sam might be a lawyer, but there ain’t no justice.

Mutts: I lost an email buddy a month ago to cancer; his nickname was the Captain’s Cat. This is a nice memory of him, and he would’ve gotten a kick out of Shtinky Puddin’ in the grass.

RMMD: I think with the lavender lips and the irregular spots, June’s friend might be the next MRSA victim…

FOOB: poor old Grandpa Chinnuts isn’t probably long for this world, and only Elly and John bother to make an appearance for his birthday? I’m not saying that a big stinking hoo-hah is in order, but a quiet dinner with the three grandkids? Damn, Jim, burn through their inheritance faster!
bats :[
March 30th, 2008 at 12:29 am [Reply]

Big Sunday color funnies!

FW: Lisa Moore. Still dead. Still not funny. Still pretty much the Batituintik rule.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/2371976278/
(This may or may not work…flickr’s being funny, and not iin a good way…)

JP: all that colored ink, and no cleavage in sight! Sam might be a lawyer, but there ain’t no justice.

Mutts: I lost an email buddy a month ago to cancer; his nickname was the Captain’s Cat. This is a nice memory of him, and he would’ve gotten a kick out of Shtinky Puddin’ in the grass.

RMMD: I think with the lavender lips and the irregular spots, June’s friend might be the next MRSA victim…

FOOB: poor old Grandpa Chinnuts isn’t probably long for this world, and only Elly and John bother to make an appearance for his birthday? I’m not saying that a big stinking hoo-hah is in order, but a quiet dinner with the three grandkids? Damn, Jim, burn through their inheritance faster!
Uncle Lumpy
March 30th, 2008 at 12:32 am [Reply]

Mary Worth — Finally, a message we can live by:

“Don’t feed strays — you’ll never get rid of them.”
Proteus454
March 30th, 2008 at 1:16 am [Reply]

Okay, seriously, For Better Or For Worse? This is the latest in a series of crossed lines drawn in the sand of Horrid. Please, please, please, please, PLEASE stop.

Please.
bats :[
March 30th, 2008 at 1:47 am [Reply]

Nertz! Josh, can you delete Post 301? Apparently, flickr.com isn’t the only thing messing up on me tonight…
Mibbitmaker
March 30th, 2008 at 1:51 am [Reply]

Sunday:

MT: The Spring Peeper? Aw, Dr. Robert Hartley will be disappointed — he thought his ol’ buddy was back in town. And not in some weird, long dream as a befuddled handyman, either.

S-M: “Fatal Finale”? Was my Mr. Mike snark correct??? Oooooooooo![/Les Nesman]

Zits: Nag, nag…

H&L: …nag!

Garfield: Hey, even Pavlov wants you to stop that, Cat!

FW: Awwwwww, Batiuk thinks that’s very moving!
Arglebargle
March 30th, 2008 at 3:44 am [Reply]

Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

Luann: God, Evans, we get it. Men are scum, women are goddesses. And you’re whipped.

RMMD: OH MY GOD! JUNE SEZ WE ALL GONE DIE!!!1 …No, wait, I gots me some hand lotion.

Zits: This would’ve been funny, if they hadn’t felt compelled to explain it on an elementary-school level in the last panel.

Sally Forth: And why do I keep reading this turd of a strip? We all have our little quirks, I guess…

PBS: Every day is like falling in love with it all over again.

Mother Goose & Grimm: Ha ha! He is confusing orange juice with O. J. Simpson with hilarious results! Ha ha! Someone fell into a time warp!

Monty: Once in a while, this one’ll make me keep the bookmark. This is one such occasion. However, since this is Fleshy, he’s gonna get skin cancer.

Get Fuzzy: Okay, thanks, didn’t need to see that, puke everywhere now, can’t stop sobbing, eyes burn ow.
Tats
March 30th, 2008 at 4:02 am [Reply]

Saturday:

A3-G: Eric’s inexplicable attraction to Margo reminds me of those women who write fanatical letters to imprisoned serial killers. I don’t think I need to explain why.

FC: So, wait… does that kid have hardcore back-fat or did he just swivel his head around 360 like an owl?

FOOB: Poor Iris. One of the only bearable characters in the strip, takes care of StrokeJim all this time and what’s her repayment? Getting dream other-womaned while she’s still in the room. Then again, this is FOOB, Land of Only Marrying the First Person You Ever Meet As Long As They’re Not Blood-Related and Even That’s Kinda Okay As Long As Your Mother Approves.

MW: What they say: “It’s hard to explain it, Toby.” “You don’t have to, Mary! I understand.” Toby then touches Mary Worth’s shoulder in a gesture of affection. What they actually mean: “Are you even comprehending my words, you simpleton?” “I’ll say anything to make you stop talking, old woman!” Toby then holds Mary Worth in place for the sniper.
Big Sims
March 30th, 2008 at 5:39 am [Reply]

Gold-Digging Nanny,
Sorry to here that, I don’t but pop in here occasionally, yet news like yours and Monncattie’s does still reach me and makes me sad that folks in the CC family are having a hard time.
As to whomever fired you – fuck ‘em. Jackasses don’t know what they’re losing. I mean could they find all six-differences in SFx? I doubt it.

Mooncattie
Best wishes to you and family. I hope you can take time to laugh and heal.
Shoshi
March 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am [Reply]

Regarding fabric rationing:

The advent of World War II imposed several sanctions in the forties, most noteworthy the rationing of materials that were needed for the war effort. . .

Ironically, wedding gowns were exempt from these sanctions, but consumers were mindful of silk rationing and the War effort, so rayon was enthusiastically received.

http://home.att.net/~design-house/history/history_1940.htm

Perhaps rayon holds up for decades?

(There are a number of examples of 1940’s dresses on that site, btw.)
MrsIrB
March 30th, 2008 at 6:15 am [Reply]

GF – Augh! Man nipples! Though I do have to give props that the artist has not shrunk away from drawing the shrunken chest 30yo as it is, rather than as a gym nut who has merely gone astray.
Shoshi
March 30th, 2008 at 6:23 am [Reply]

Pluggers remember the image of their dead wife in her wedding dress.
Shoshi
March 30th, 2008 at 6:34 am [Reply]

311 — I guess I should have said “A plugger remembers his…” Unless I wrote it that way ironically.
And The
March 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am [Reply]

DT: My, how convenient that the Kwanxoi ceramic statue that Mr. Lector is willing to bring into his villainous lair has a convenient hatch on the bottom for Dick Tracy to crawl inside. Sorry, I said convenient, but I meant moronic. And Locher, everyone noticed that you had supposed flunky call it “my statue” on Thursday and “Mr. Lector’s statue” on Sunday’s flashback. You’re not fooling anyone. Or that you’re such a rotten writer that you can’t keep track of your own major characters.

MW: I held off on this for a bit, since I wanted to make sure that this was it. And now? That was *it*? Man, it’s been said many times and many ways, but Mary Worth constantly disappoints in every way imaginable. The life changing event that led to this extended flashback of Mary Worth’s origin was someone politely saying grace for a guest one time? No wonder she gets all hot and bothered about picking up a stray dog for a few days. With this kind of perspective, she must consider passing the salt to be the equivalent of rescuing children from a burning building.

BBailey: Is it really Sarge’s job to take care of drainage problems, Fuzz? No wonder Sarge is always so crabby.

A-3G: How many years has this “Tim is missing” plot been dribbling out for now? Who *is* Tim? Why should I give a crap if he’s missing? Why is a Mysterious Oriental Monk straight out of central casting now on the scene? How I wish this would end like most Chinese martial arts films: with plentiful bloodshed and the vast majority of the cast tragically dying.

RMMD: Hooray, June! Finally someone in this strip doing their damn job in a genuine medical crisis without pouting comically. So sorry you had to miss the repeats of Charles in Charge, Rex.

9CL: Political apathy is funny *and* gives you cynical cred! It’s a win-win.

And this time I was smart enough to preview to avoid crappy bold tag problems.
Joe, Upper-Evergreen Contingent of FOOB-Contempt
March 30th, 2008 at 7:21 am [Reply]

FOOB: John looks like Elly, St. Michael looks like Lizzardbutt, Dopethany looks like Lizzardbutt, Lizzardbutt looks like Elly, April is starting to wear the death-bun…….they’re all morphing into Elly.

Yeeeech!!
commodorejohn
March 30th, 2008 at 8:44 am [Reply]

A3G – ENOUGH WITH THE VAGUE HINTING! WHAT HAPPENED TO TIM? TELL US ALREADY!

Crock – Well that was morose.

Curtis – Hehe, preach it, Mr. Wilkins.

FC – This would be disturbing enough if it weren’t written by Jeff Keane.

FOOB – So Lynn finally noticed everybody pointing out that April is the only character in the entire Foobiverse who gives a crap about her grandfather, and decided to do a SO THERE!!! strip. The only part that surprises me is that she actually paid any attention to the negative feedback.

FW – …wow. That’s actually pretty sweet and tasteful. Is someone subbing for Batiuk today?

MF – Tinsley, most of today’s strip is surprisingly sensible and to-the-point, but that’s not what that Orwell quote was about. Remember, kiddies: referencing George Orwell without actually understanding George Orwell just makes you look like an idiot.

Momma – You know, all the Oedipal stuff and random horrifying innuendos aside, the thing I find most disturbing about this strip is how the ladies in Momma’s neighborhood all take their sons out for walks and compare them like they’re show dogs or something.

SFx – You’d think Weirdly would have realized this in the testing stages.

Ziggy – Yes, nothing warms you up like draping your stubby legs in the deboned corpses of mutant animals.
Godzooky
March 30th, 2008 at 8:45 am [Reply]

By my count, the plots in purported story strips DT, FW, MW, JP, and S-M did not advance one single inch in the Sunday strips. In fact, in some cases, they went backwards. Along the way, some credit is due to Joe Giella and Stan Lee for truth-in-cartooning:

MW ( http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20080330&name=Mary_Worth ): Toby’s “Kill me now” stare in panel one is pretty much the proper reaction to a drone-a-thon about a non-event.

S-M ( http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20080330&name=Spiderman ): Sad to say, the last panel describes this strip in a nutshell.
gleeb
March 30th, 2008 at 9:14 am [Reply]

9CL: It wasn’t Seth, and it sure wasn’t Amos, so who’s responsible for Edda not being able to sit normally?

A3G: Not that the non-Tibetan-looking Tenzin isn’t interesting, but who are Tim and Nora?

Bizarro: Probably because you never shut up about soybean paste, or whatever that muck you eat is.

Steve Shannon, transit attorney: So, Nick. Dark pinstripe suit, conservative tie, accountant, and a funky 70s man-purse.

Phantom: Why is the UN in Bangalla? Are they trying to prevent the President from beating up any more civil servants?
Uncle Lumpy
March 30th, 2008 at 9:21 am [Reply]

How to Tell the Comics Apart:

Funky Winkerbean — It’s a panty, and you sniff it.
Mary Worth — It’s a pantry, and you stare at it.
For Better or For Worse — It’s a larder.
John C Fremont
March 30th, 2008 at 9:47 am [Reply]

# 296 – I can’t even imagine a time when the mention of the names Jim and John would have brought up memories of the Hagar Twins! There’s an image I’d like to delete from my hard drive! (Wait! That came out wrong!) (Wait! That came out wrong…) Anyway, the point is, we hates the Hagar Twins. Now if you had mentioned Misty Rowe…

A3G – I was all hunkered down for a Sunday recap, so I was not prepared for all new material. Not good material, just new. Well, sort of. The point is, we hates the Sammy Hagar.

MW – Wow, more flashbackin’ AND multiple quotin’ fun! With authors’ credit, no less. But what’s with that last panel? An excorcism? Is she choking? Has young Mary been replaced with Mutant Charlie McCarthy? Is Mary biting the hand that just fed her? We need answers! Well, I do, at least. The point is, we hates Hagar the Horrible.

# 315 – “Testing Stages?” Hey, Weirdly doesn’t test, man. Weirdly acts. He just thinks it up and does it, ’cause that’s how Weirdly rolls, man! (Which explains a lot, come to think of it.)

You know what would cheer me up right about now? Six Differences with the Gold-Digging Nanny!
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am [Reply]

Can someone post the Sunday comics link for me?
Uncle Lumpy
March 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am [Reply]

320 GDN –

Here you go.
Gold-Digging Nanny
March 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am [Reply]

Thanks, Uncle Lumpy! It’s so nice to see what everyone’s mocking.
Jeff O'Connor
March 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm [Reply]

“On the bright side, she probably weighs less than thirty pounds, so it won’t cost very much to get her good and drunk”

Yes, but will he sleep with her?!
TheMan370
August 5th, 2008 at 7:10 am [Reply]

I never bid believe in that one.

Please read the posting and discussion policies before posting. You are not required to supply an e-mail address to comment; however, doing so decreases the likelihood of your comment being flagged as spam. E-mail addresses will never be made public or seen by anyone but the site writers, who may use them to communicate with commentors.

Archives:

Comment of the week:

Main navigation:

Main content:

Coming soon: the Momma-tossing contest

324 responses to “Coming soon: the Momma-tossing contest”

Leave a Reply

All the cool kids…

Randomly Selected Post O’ Mystery