A match made in heaven
Gil Thorp, 1/12/05
I’ve done a lot of diligent reading over the past few weeks, but I still can’t say for sure that I can tell you exactly what’s going on in Gil Thorp. I’d heard that the strip was a hotbed of conservative agitation, and it seems to be living up that reputation: one of the two (or possibly three) plots going on right now involves Hadley, a player for the girls’ basketball team, who’s outraged that nobody pays attention to the girls’ basketball team. This results not in an onslaught of sisterhood and feminist agitation on the part of the other team members, but rather a lot of eye-rolling and belittling. In a classic move used against feminazis everywhere, Hadley’s teammates have decided that what she needs to shut her yap is a boyfriend. Unfortunately, as we see here, they’ve set her up with Steve Luhm, an effeminate poindexter who’s every bit as determined to smash the patriarchy as she is.
Which brings me to the thing that actually interests me most about Gil Thorp, which is the hair. The barbers in the blighted, high-school-sports-obsessed burg where the strip takes place seem to have never met a flattop that they didn’t like, but Steve’s puffy, floofy ‘do may be the weirdest featured in this space since good ol’ Tommy went back to the clink. Panel one looks like what they used to call a “flattop with fenders”; panel two looks like he stuffed his hair into pantyhose and let it fall over his forehead. It makes the weird, Susan Sontag-ish white streak in Hadley’s hair look kind of normal.
Leons Petrazickis
January 13th, 2005 at 12:35 am
He reminds me of me. I too am an effeminate pointdexter determined to smash the patriarchy. Whoo, me!:)
Joe
January 13th, 2005 at 10:49 am
I assume you went to high school, and have a slight understanding of sports. Attendance at games in not mandatory, neither is performing in the pep band. People attend games who want to- plain and simple. People that complain about things they have no control over are ignored. The strip seems dead on on this issue.
Bill Altreuter
January 13th, 2005 at 10:55 am
The strangest thing about this particular storyline is the name of the feminist hoopster: Hadley V. Baxendale. It’s been gnawing at me for weeks, so I finally looked it up: Hadley v. Baxendale is a 19th Century decision by the Court of Exchequer which lays the foundation for all subsiquent law on the question of remoteness of damage in contract.
The plaintiff owned a mill which was obliged to shut down operations when a crankshaft broke. The old shaft had to be sent to the manufacturer to be used as a model for the replacement, and the delivery service didn’t deliver it in the timely manner promised. The plaintiffs sued for the lost profits during the delay. It was ultimately held that this sort of consiquential damage is not ordinarilly recoverable.
Every first year student reads this case. I have no idea what the significance of it is in this context.
So-Called "Austin Mayor"
January 13th, 2005 at 11:00 am
Joe,
The issue isn’t that playing in the pep band is mandatory. It’s that the pep band only plays at the *boys’* basketball games and not the girls. How can we expect the girls’ team to win state if no one is playing an off-key rendition of “Illinois Loyalty”? And you utterly failed to address the issue of locker inequity. Only an “oil slick” could think that such a system was fair.
“We’re loyal to you la la la… we’re backing you all la la la…”
dalton
January 13th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Wait – the one on the left is Hadley? That’s supposed to be a guy???
Hubris
January 13th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Cross reference:
http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=188
“The Sontag” is sweeping the comic pages just as “The Jennifer Aniston” took over America in 1995.
Hubris
January 13th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Josh F,
It looks like Gael Cooper over at MSNBC is trying to horn in on your action; reader letters applauding various strips with Gael adding witty headers such as Fun at the “Circus” and Doggone Funny.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4326967/
Josh
January 13th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Hmm, Hubris, thanks for the tip. Here’s one of the comments:
“ ‘Family Circus’ is great for small children. It speaks to them at their level and helps them “learn†/ “develop†a sense of humor. A marvelous first grade teacher I know, uses it to help the children visually and verbally learn the nuances of humor. Many adults never did.  The ‘funny papers’ need a variety of ‘humors’ for those 6 to 90. â€Â    Â
I’m not feeling so threatened.
jf
Mark Jackson
January 13th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
“We’re loyal to you la la la… we’re backing you all la la la…”
You left out the best part:
“We’ll back you to stand
‘Gainst the best in the land
For we know you have sand
Illinois!”
manfred
January 13th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
You all have failed to grap the following;
1. Steve Luhm is suppossed to be gay.
2.Josh is too far off the subject in his “Family Circus” comment..
3. The “Gil Thorp” comic leaves big holes in the plot line that the reader has to fill in.
4. I think this comic is drawn by 2 or 3 different artists.
5. Gil’s old assistant coach was caught molesting young girls, So any problem he has now is trivial by comparison.
5. What is an “Oil slick”?
Tim Begley
January 13th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
I don’t know about the rest of you, but all of us in Omaha are thrilled to see Gil and the boys play Bishop Tardy. I’m betting that ‘The Don’ leads them to victory over the Mudlarks. Josh, can I be your local coorsepondent for the game?
Tim
So-Called "Austin Mayor"
January 13th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
“Oil Slick” defined: http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=161
Grrrls Rule!
January 13th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
Steve Luhm is dreamy. I hope he passes me a note in study hall.
Also, boys need bigger lockers because they seem to enjoy stuffing one another into them in a manly fashion.
Dub Not Dubya
January 13th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
You’re all missing the point–that’s not Steve; it’s Austin Powers! Once you realize that, the comic possibilities are endless…
Reid
January 13th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Lesson of the day: Dont pull in a Poindexter – he’ll Quisling on you for a few hair care products. Get Tommy over from May W – his batch of illcit wares – shockingly, near-lethal as they are in some cases – would have solved everything.
Dorky Med Student
January 14th, 2005 at 1:04 am
A comment about Hadley’s hair… there is a genetic condition called Waarderburg’s syndrome, and it consists of hearing loss and a “white forelock”– the white streak in Hadley’s hair.
J
January 14th, 2005 at 2:17 am
//…Hadley’s hair… there is a genetic condition called Waarderburg’s syndrome, and it consists of hearing loss and a “white forelock”…//
Most of the men in my family had their forelocks removed at birth.
Hubris
January 14th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
I just realized, with a jolt, that Luhm is based on Sally Jesse Raphael.
Tim Begley
January 14th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Isn’t there also a sports writer named Steve Luhm?
Tim
Eliot
January 14th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Having read the entire online archive – that would be five years’ worth – of Gil Thorp upon its last mention on this site, I feel duty-bound to fact-check manfred’s comment above. The former assistant coach was *wrongly* accused and exonerated of inappropriate behavior toward girls on the team – he was in fact fired because he had a boner for the milf-tastic Mrs. Thorp, and was stalking her.
Matt McIrvin
January 16th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
What I always noticed about Gil Thorp was that everyone in it had enormous, square jaws, including the women. It was Life in Mandible Town.
LTJpezcore1
January 17th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
I’m guessing Josh, that as a non-devoted Gil reader (and just someone who reads the comix), that you don’t actually understand much of the history of Milford. Which is fine — I think all of about a hundred people left in the country do.
The fact is it WAS a right-wing mouthpiece when penned by the Jenkins’. Now, it is, unfortunately, just bad. There has been a littel improvement since the change of authors, but for the most part, it it still bad, very bad.
Plot holes? Those are the least of our worries. The strip is so poorly drawn, you could make parallels from Monday’s strip to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the White House….
It’s not a big deal, and I’m sure that, like the reamining few fans, you would like to see the strip not completely suck. But this Hadley story line really is the least of the problems at this point.
ma
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:06 pm
What the hell? is that cotton candy on his head?
A turban? An alien?
It’s everchanging and alive!
Jared
August 25th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
I dunno ma. I dearly wish that it were a delicious confection placed upon his crown. However, whenever I see it (especially in panel 2), I keep hearing “And I raaaan, I ran so far awaaaay” in the back of my head. Odd. Maybe it’s from all the talk of athletics in the strip…
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