The Comics Curmudgeon

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What, are you too good for the East River now?

Apartment 3-G, 1/21/09

As a native Buffalonian, I resent Margo’s implication that “upstate” is a great place to go bury bodies or answering machines with terrifying messages or whatever else she’s planning to dispose of out there. (Yes, Buffalo is technically Western New York, not Upstate New York, but devout Manhattanites use “upstate” as a blanket term for anything north of Columbia University, and if you need any confirmation of Margo’s devotion, just look at how resentful she is at the very thought of letting the sun go down on her in Schenectady or wherever.) Does she think that the whole state outside of her precious Five Boroughs consists of nothing but decaying, abandoned industrial sites, or vast stretches of barren wasteland punctuated by the occasional slowly collapsing barn, where she can just hide evidence of criminal wrongdoing at will? I mean, she’d be right, but that doesn’t mean that we want snooty urbanites with their fancy New York City corpses messing up all the good hiding spots.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/09

Usually Herb and Jamaal’s primary mission is to suck all the fun and enjoyment out of the English language by making it as bland and nonspecific as possible, but I really like this new euphemism for masturbation that it’s introduced today. “I spent the evening in, ‘dating my shadow,’ if you know what I mean.”

Marvin, 1/21/09

Good lord, as if rendezvousing in person with someone you first met online wasn’t already fraught enough, can you imagine if you meet some guy you’ve been chatting with and are sort of excited about, and he turns out to be a literal, actual baby? Especially if he were a loathsome, hateful baby, like Marvin?

Spider-Man, 1/21/09

Spider-Man, well aware of his intellectual limitations, is right to ! in the final panel. If the little boy’s statement is correct, it’s a wonder that Batman can even figure out how to chew.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 04:28 pm and is filed under Apartment 3-G, Herb and Jamaal, Marvin, Spider-Man. |

255 responses to “What, are you too good for the East River now?”

One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm [Reply]

It’s either too bad, or possibly a very good thing, that [whichever nitwit draws Marvin, I can't be arsed to look it up] isn’t interested in theory of computation, or he might have had a different idea for the site.
tb4000
January 21st, 2009 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

Spider-Man: Honestly, that “!” is Spider-Man pondering how the fuck he’s going to bitchsmack this little kid and then dispose of the body for insulting his profession.
Uncle Lumpy
January 21st, 2009 at 4:35 pm [Reply]

Batman can chew in space.
Andrew Leal
January 21st, 2009 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

Given that the Spidey strip villains are equally dim and,any newly minted baddies are long the lines Big Time, it might be reasonable to assume the superheroes fall along similar lines. No doubt the kid finds Spidey a refreshing contrast to Never-Comes-In-from-the-Rain Man and Captain Mud Bucket. Or he’s rating Spidey’s intellect in contrast to the Hulk.

There’s an old comic book which featured the first, and last, appearance of a gamma infected Spidey becoming the Spider-Hulk. If that happened in the newspaper, he would spend his time going “Spidey smash!” and then having to buy a new TV.
Mysterious Shirtless Lawyer
January 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm [Reply]

Is it hypersensitive to think that today’s Spiderman is just the teensiest bit racist? I mean, how dumb do you have to be to be fooled by Spiderman’s “reasoning”? I mean, “spider strength,” yeah, yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada, but “spider reasoning”? In fact, Spidey always did have the brain of an arachnid.
Pozzo
January 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm [Reply]

As Bob Dylan said, “You’re an idiot, babe; it’s a wonder that you still now how to breathe.” Actually, if that kid had taken Spidey’s mask off, breathing might be a little easier.
Pozzo
January 21st, 2009 at 4:52 pm [Reply]

Is Tommie asking Margo if she’ll be gone all weekend because she’s (Tommie’s) afraid to be in the apartment alone, or because she’s planning a sex, meth, and Dr. Pepper binge and she doesn’t want Margo cramping her style?

My guess would be the former.
Dingo
January 21st, 2009 at 4:52 pm [Reply]

To quote from Kathy Griffin, everything would be okay with meeting Marvin until you see the tacky kitchen with the swiveling chairs and he offers you some iced tea on the way to the laundry.
Isaac
January 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm [Reply]

Clearly, the only superheros the boy in today’s Spiderman has met are the three crocodiles in the current storyline of Pearls.
Sunny Paris
January 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

“A HORRIBLE THOUGHT!!”

This reaction seems extreme. Perhaps Margo thinks that if she leaves New York city for too long, she’ll be kidnapped by a hoard be-kerchiefed identical South Dakotans? Based on what else is going on in the strip, her fear might have some basis.

Glad you got out of the DC tunnels alive, Josh
Michael O'Neill
January 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

Clearly the second panel in Herb and Jamal is code for “anal”.
Sunny Paris
January 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

“A HORRIBLE THOUGHT!!”

This reaction seems extreme. Perhaps Margo thinks that if she leaves New York city for too long, she’ll be kidnapped by a hoard of be-kerchiefed identical South Dakotans? Based on what else is going on in the strip, her fear might have some basis.

Glad you got out of the DC tunnels alive, Josh
Dingo
January 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

Josh, as an Illinoisan, I can commiserate. There is “Chicago” and “downstate.” I actually read an article in the Tribune where the writer referred to “downstate Rockford.” Rockford is near the Wisconsin border. There’s a group of individuals in the Windy City who believe that nothing of consequence happens beyond the lake, Congress Avenue, Halsted, and Irving Park. The fact that our newly-elected President is from Hyde Park and that puts him outside of the region must cause apoplexy (think of him being from Staten Island instead of Manhattan). I’m sure it happens all over the nation… and world.
Sunny Paris
January 21st, 2009 at 4:57 pm [Reply]

oops, sorry for the double post… not quite sure how that happened
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

If there’s one comforting thing about that Marvin strip it is that Amstrong (*), having drawn this one and seen how utterly lame and unfunny it turned out, will surely not burden us with carbon copies of it for the rest of the week. No, sir.

(*) Yeah, OK, I actually knew his name, but I would rather people thought I didn’t.
Idols of Mud
January 21st, 2009 at 4:59 pm [Reply]

Spider-Man: Now we’ll cut over to Fat Albert singing a song about keeping secrets, followed by Bill Cosby telling kids never to exploit a superhero’s stupidity.
150
January 21st, 2009 at 5:00 pm [Reply]

Why did you put the words “go down on her” in a sentence about Margo? Now I have to go shoot myself.
the abbot
January 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm [Reply]

Poor George Bush. Has to leave the White House and go eat at Herb and Jamaal’s.
survivor
January 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm [Reply]

Haha. Herb and Jamaal introduced a new euphemism for masturba- DEAR GOD WHAT IS HERB HOLDING IN THE 1ST PANEL?!?
Steve C.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

Cryspace, eh? Sounds like another Chris Hansen sting operation to me. If the next “Marvin” strip centers around a stammering redneck, a smarmy TV host and a six-pack of Smirnoff Raspberry, I’ll know I’m right.

(NOTE TO MARVIN WRITERS: Said strip would be greatly preferable to anything involving Marvin.)
B
January 21st, 2009 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

RE: Marvin: Josh have you not seen Me You and Everyone we Know?

Also upstate reprazent! I imagine Margo is planning on ditching the bodies in the crumbling Wellington Hotel on State Street in Albany, since Jerry Jennings will inevitably just raze the place.
Jessie
January 21st, 2009 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

Re: Herb and Jamal

The young man is clearly frustrated that his lady friends won’t consent to anal intercourse. Jamal is mocking the boy by advising him to sodomize his own shadow, an impossible and unsatisfying task.

Alternatively, “Date your shadow” could be an exciting new PG way of saying “Go fuck yourself.”
Master Softheart
January 21st, 2009 at 5:08 pm [Reply]

9CL: Much anger do I sense in this artist. Sure, lots of people never recover from the psychosexual scars of adolescence, especially if you went to a Catholic school. But no matter how your childish revenge fantasies might wish otherwise, we all have to face the fact that most people we didn’t like in high school in fact did not go on to become unibrowed mass murderers doing time in really goofy hats. For example, many of the people you didn’t like in high school went on to be Sally Forth’s co-workers, which is arguably much worse.

Archie: The framing and expressions in panel 2 are beautiful. Count today as a high point for the Archie team.

FB: Having written a case study for a doctoral thesis on industrial history, I’m probably really the prime audience for a joke involving the archaic term “line manager.” It really is kind of a shame that there wasn’t really a joke involved.

GT: This is all some bizarre game of mad-libs superimposed on a sketchbook – an artistic rendering of how Zippy the Pinhead could be dispensed with and real dada brought to the comics. I suppose I’m okay with that.

Donut Boy: The artist has decided to portray the strip’s new main character as a metaphor for God’s immanence in the universe: present everywhere, visible nowhere to the jaded, scientific minds of Rex and June. Well, except that his presence can be inferred from donut crumbs, which I admit does confuse the metaphor a bit.

JP: Abbey seems to have been exposed to a virulent strain of Sam’s Passive Bystander Syndrome and is fading out of relevance (at least she has the grace to look annoyed by that fact rather than Sam’s alternate reactions of stoicism and relief). I’d prefer to see her and Sue Ellen’s mother recreate the cat-fight scene being played out in Brenda Starr – even down to the red vs. blonde team markers – but if Barreto wants to do the scene with the mousy school counselor instead, I’m willing to grant him the artistic license.

Oh, and I love mousy counselor’s light pink nail polish in panel 2.

FW: Um, “rejected” your layup? She knocked you down with a clear foul that will likely leave you with a black eye. I know you’re Les’s daughter, but stand up for yourself, girl! And coach Jabba is possibly the least competent person to coach high school athletics since…. um, what am I saying – this is a profession in which Gil Thorp stands out for talent. Carry on.

MT: Clean shaven or not, I’m more afraid of Ken than of any MT villain I can recall. His understated menace even puts that chicken-kicking guy to shame.
Rubrick
January 21st, 2009 at 5:08 pm [Reply]

Batman does not need to chew. He has servants for that.

Also, let us not forget that Spider-Man has the proportional intelligence of a spider. And not, we can be sure, of the Charlotte variety.
P
January 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm [Reply]

I have a feeling that Channel 7 in Buffalo will play this before the 11:00 Newcast:

“It’s 11:00. Do you know where Margo is?”
P
January 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm [Reply]

Whoops, Newscast.
Little Guy
January 21st, 2009 at 5:15 pm [Reply]

I might have missed it, but couldn’t Brooke have used this Pibgorn strip as part of the 9CL Belgian Arm-Sex Extravaganza and just changed some of the dialogue?
jvwalt
January 21st, 2009 at 5:18 pm [Reply]

Since this is the newly rebooted version of Spider-Man, presumably opening the door to alternate storylines, could we possibly hope that little Jason will become his sidekick — Spider-Boy? Or even better, The Flea?

Naah. This was a temporary diversion, a way for Stan Lee to fill a couple days’ worth of strips. Jason will be long gone by the end of the week.
Erik A.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:19 pm [Reply]

Can somebody please, for the love of all that is sacred, explain today’s Mutts to me? I must be interpreting the third panel wrong, because the bestiality that would suggest is… well, it’s Trail-worthy!
Matmaduke
January 21st, 2009 at 5:29 pm [Reply]

Um Marvin, it says right on your site that cryspace is a social network for babies, no one is going to believe you’re some crazy 6′3″ giant baby, thought bubbling sleezy one liners at the “beautiful girls around the world” that are supposedly your friends. Also, I wouldn’t describe your hair as “coppery red” as it’s clearly “Garfield orange”.
Lettuce
January 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm [Reply]

Phantom: “I’ll see your prisoners now… oh wait! We’re standing right in front of them now, aren’t we? Awkward!” And “Crocco Island?” Really? Croccos live on Crocco Island? And the Mori live in “Mori Land?” Meh, the writing is still better than Mark Trail.

Family Circus: “Could you read that story again, but with a different ending? Cuz the Anne Rice version of Sleeping Beauty that Daddy reads to me is much more entertaining…”

Funky Winkerbean: This strip is *thiiiisss* far away from becoming a Don Imus rant that would get him fired.

Fred Bassett: It’s nice that Fred leads the anus-sniffing daisy-chain. There are so few organized anus-sniffing events for British dogs.

Dick Tracy: No, Dick, Perfume absolutely should explode. The fact that it usually doesn’t, especially when several scents are endorsed by Britney Spears, is a tragedy.

Mary Worth: She did it! She did her most difficult jump, a single 360-degree turn, which, frankly isn’t really that difficult at all. And the fact that it took all 4 of the Lynn-clones to achieve it is even more embarrassing.
Cranky
January 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm [Reply]

And the lettering guy for Marvin didn’t leave enough space for “of Monte Carlo.” Why not re-letter? Was that phrase a last-second addition? If so, why? And are we to believe Marvin photoshopped his face onto a picture of a 6′2″ dude in a tux? How creepy would that look in real life? Also, was “tap tap tap tap tap tap” really necessary? Would we have been confused about Marvin’s method of computer input without it? Is Marvin the laziest comic ever printed in newspapers? I the last ten minutes, have I spent more time reflecting on Marvin than Tom Armstrong has for twenty-six years? Hey, that last one I can answer! Yes.
Lettuce
January 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm [Reply]

Mark Trail: That’s hardly a nice thing for Mr. Crewcut McCupbreaker to say about Cherry!
Idols of Mud
January 21st, 2009 at 5:33 pm [Reply]

@Matmaduke (#30): Sleazy one-liners like “License to Chill,” ripped from a Saved By The Bell script.
ConcreteQueen
January 21st, 2009 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

If Spidey were a little bit smarter, he’d realize it didn’t matter whether the kid unmasked him or not. He’s still just some college-aged schmuck in a freaksuit. It’s not like anybody would recognize him.
McManx
January 21st, 2009 at 5:45 pm [Reply]

Hi and Lois — Lois asks for love and Hi responds by giving her a chocolate bar which he just produced from his arm pit? And she’s smiling? Christ, there’s going to be some loud, nasty sex going on at the Flagston house tonight.

Spiderman — Alternative line, panel 2: “Uh, whatchu’ talkin’ ’bout, Spiderman?”
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 5:47 pm [Reply]

#23 – Mousy? Mousy? I am throwing down the glove, sir.
Jesse C
January 21st, 2009 at 5:49 pm [Reply]

Something about Marvin’s smirky demeanor really makes me wants to throttle his neck. He looks like the red-headed demon spawn of Jon Arbuckle and Funky Winkerbean.
Niall
January 21st, 2009 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

32. Cranky: to say one good thing about Marvin, it’s still taking the care to hand-letter the strip, a dying skill. Okay, so it shows they don’t have it perfectly, but it’s still one good thing to say about Marvin!

36. McManx: Actually, I think Lois is faking it. A fair number of chocoholic housewives who need the stuff have more and more easily discovered the wonders of real dark chocolate, not the crap made by Hershey’s, through Trader Joes’ and a number of other distribution deals. Lindt would be a few steps up. She’s just smiling politely after receiving a half-melted, armpit-smelling large bar of fake chocolate, which in essence was Hi’s answer to her question. There will be loud nasty sex, but at Jamus’. (Which is okay since Violet is back with Rex.)
ConcreteQueen
January 21st, 2009 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

Of course, if this whole “Spiderman” thing doesn’t pan out, good ol’ Spidey can always get a job as Captain Obvious. The kid can be his sidekick, Duh.
Dr. Weird
January 21st, 2009 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

FW:

I didn’t do team sports in school, but if you foul a teammate and knock her down, shouldn’t you, you know, apologize, maybe help her up?
Comrade Denny
January 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

A3G: Margot’s unspoken thought, “What? And leave you home, alone, in your bathrobe? HUSSY!”

Crankshaft: A haunting image – Crackshaft gazes out his window into his neighbor’s window, only to see himself gazing back. If you stare too long into the abyss…

DT: This is how Dick Tracy earns his living wage and police pension, by asking the questions that don’t even occur to the rest of us, “And perfume shouldn’t explode – should it?”

Zombie FOOB: This is why prolonged flashbacks (such as this entire strip) don’t work. Because we know that Patterson’s weren’t ruined and left destitute by this destroyed check, there’s no drama. There never was any drama in FOOB to begin with, but somehow, there’s even less.

Garfield: How did Odie absorb the properties of the rock. Does he have some unheretofore-mentioned super power?

Get Fuzzy: Huh. I always assumed that Rob does “eat” dudes.

Phantom: Listen up, boys. If ever you find yourself trussed up like these two poachers, and you see a well-built, masked man in purple latex and striped undies coming toward you … well, just relax as best you can and try to enjoy what comes next.

Popeye: And this marks the return of the Royal Head Power storyline – Part 2: This Time, It’s Perskonal.

Sly. Fox: Again with the fish with anthropomorphic faces frozen in terror! Why is it that fish are the only prey animals in the Slylock universe? And why are they still drawn as if they have personalities like all the other animals? Is it some kind of comment on the homicidal depravity of mankind or on the amorality of the natural world?

Ziggy: I. Just. Don’t. Understand.
RJ Kassinger
January 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

So, is Spiderman – already playing fast and loose with time and space – gonna pull a Quantum Leap and have this kid be an 8 year old Barack Obama?
Jumper
January 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

Marvin’s parents have a pretty weird philosphy on childraising. He can’t speak, and there is some evidence he is not toilet trained. Yet he operates computers?!?

This is going to be a growing trend. Parents will leave the toilet-training and the learning-to-talk to the schools. Along with the bathing, teethbrushing, etc. Marvin’s parents basically keep him in a cardboard box and take him out only to dump him in preschool, don’t they?
NotMe
January 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm [Reply]

curtis – If Barak Obama finds little Barry or Curtis ends up finding little Barry sleeping in the Abe’s lap at the Lincoln memorial I may have to hurl.
Niall
January 21st, 2009 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

37. One-eyed Wolfdog: Oh, I don’t know, there’s been documented cases that mousy does not mean timid, shy or unable to deal with difficult people…
D/N
January 21st, 2009 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

FW – Batiuk might think he’s scoring points for realism, but I REALLY didn’t need to see Summer’s rather prominant pit stains when I browsed the comics today, and I don’t think anyone else did either. Unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case you can go take a seat next to Les in the bleachers.
Little Guy
January 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm [Reply]

yFW: Scanned the blog for “Ho Ho Ho Green Giant” reference. left disappointed.
UncleJeff
January 21st, 2009 at 6:18 pm [Reply]

46: Niall and One-Eyed Wolfdog: And just try to make money off an unauthorized Disney reproduction. You’ll find out how “mousy” Mr. Mickey and his lawyers can be!!!
Wayne
January 21st, 2009 at 6:33 pm [Reply]

Ask any Long Islander — upstate is any place north of Westchester.

But everybody knows that you’re supposed to dump the bodies in New Jersey.
Rivercat
January 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm [Reply]

OMG! I never realized how much Marvin resembles Clay Aiken before!
Al of the Christian Single Jungle Patrol
January 21st, 2009 at 6:37 pm [Reply]

Re 23, Master Softheart, 9CL — While what you say is true, I do take a small comfort in therapy sessions that a couple of my schoolmate tormentors did do jailtime. Of course, I went to a high school that, if the Internet was common 10 years earlier, would be remembered the same way Columbine is today.

I did know a couple of Amos types (and, sadly, I’ve attended some of their funerals); I myself, however, let the military get ahold of me. I went from 5′5, 110lbs to 5′9 150lbs during Basic. I had some fun times “getting even” on people who didn’t even recognize me.
Deb
January 21st, 2009 at 6:39 pm [Reply]

Re: Marvin –
Yeah, but it would be cool if you could meet that toddler from those E Trade (or whatever) commercials.
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 6:39 pm [Reply]

Right ho, Niall, insofar as the term is used to refer to actual mice or even semi-actual cartoon mice I am totally with you there. In general, however, when the term is lobbed at a human female (and given Baretto’s artistic talents it would be difficult to be mistaken on either point there) I believe one may safely infer that the speaker considers the party in question to be something less than, let’s say, a divine vision formed in star dust whose very approach is heralded by the sussuration of angels’ breath — which in this case is clearly a vile lie and a slander.
Jamus The Bartender
January 21st, 2009 at 6:40 pm [Reply]

Luann: I’m impressed at the way Greg Evans shows us that exploitation of tight, young female high school bodies is wrong…..by showing us drawings of tight, young, female high school bodies. And the teach disapproving. I like the way you think, Evans.
christian
January 21st, 2009 at 6:40 pm [Reply]

I used to live in connecticut and there was a rumour that the local higway off-ramp was regurally used to dump bodies (we were about an hour from NYC). i saw no reason to doubt that
Dr. Pants
January 21st, 2009 at 6:43 pm [Reply]

“Quick, Robin! To the Bat-Blender to liquefy my meal! I can’t seem to figure out how this infernal mandible works.”
bats :[
January 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

29. Erik A.: yeah, yeah, it might be Trail-worthy, but as the owner of cats, the ones who’ve shared the bed really like shpooning, particularly in the winter. Hey, THEY’RE the ones that instigate it!
On a very regular basis, mr. bats :[ or I will lie down on our side and **voop!**, there’s suddenly a cat wedged between thighs and stomach, on its side, pretending to be asleep.
Oh, well. Our heating pad just gave up the ghost, so I guess we’ll just have to live with our shecret shame…
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm [Reply]

#52 Al of the…
Jeez, the Army doesn’t even advertise that they can add 4 inches. To your height, I mean. Presumably they’d say if they could add it the other way.
Anonymous
January 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm [Reply]

31 – Lettuce Mary Worth: She did it! She did her most difficult jump, a single 360-degree turn, which, frankly isn’t really that difficult at all.

I don’t know about that. She starts out going backwards, jumps, spins, and lands going forward. I’m no expert, but I don’t know if that has ever been done before in major competition. That Mary is one heck of a skating coach.
Anonymous
January 21st, 2009 at 6:52 pm [Reply]

#55 Jamus – Wait, wait, this is the just the transition from Operation Bikini to Operation Wet T-Shirt. It’s betting better….
VE
January 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

Oh…Batman chews. I finally get it. I was wondering how they could call it “Batman Begins” when they’d already done a TV show and 5 other motion pictures. Now it is clear that is when he began chewing…
Brick Bradford
January 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

Josh, let’s take Margo to Lackawanna and LOSE her ass!

I just noticed that the kid in Spider-Man has pointed ears. -?-

MW Who’s the previously unseen redhead that Mary is boring to death?
Anonymous
January 21st, 2009 at 6:59 pm [Reply]

For you Mutts readers who are wondering why that Kitty doesn’t want to get “shpooned,” I offer you this:

“shpoon” definition
GG
January 21st, 2009 at 7:10 pm [Reply]

To be fair, Margo’s horror at going upstate is a surprising bit of realism in depicting New Yorkers. Remember, A3G is a strip that usually shows us some kind of bizarro all-white New York, where it’s surprising when artists use drugs and people are apparently excited to go to South Dakota.

Alternately, Margo could be referring to prison when she says “upstate,” which really tells us something about “gallery business.”
Amanda M
January 21st, 2009 at 7:19 pm [Reply]

So Marvin’s last name is Miller? Sadly, this is the most interesting thing I’ve ever read in Marvin.
Shlomo
January 21st, 2009 at 7:27 pm [Reply]

Josh, I think the exclamation point in the last panel of Spiderman is either Spiderman’s way of smiling, since the only part of his face you can see through his mask are the whites of his eyes or Spiderman’s way of saying “Kid, you are dumb enough to be a villain in this comic strip”
El Santo
January 21st, 2009 at 7:28 pm [Reply]

#43: Damn, I was thinking just that. Y’know, since the latest Amazing Spider-Man comic book has Obama on the cover and all.
PattyCake
January 21st, 2009 at 7:31 pm [Reply]

Me and my shadow
All alone, and feeling blue….
Gnol
January 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pm [Reply]

My god…what if the world of Apartment 3G really is an apocalyptic wasteland, and their town (as well as South Dakota apparently) is the only place left in tact? What if this comic strip had gone on all these years only for it to turn out that this is what was happening all along? I can see why people would turn to drugs in such a desolate time.

In fact, if the world of Apartment 3G isn’t an apocalyptic wasteland, I’ll just have to start my own Apartment 3G strip where it is.
bats :[
January 21st, 2009 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

64. Anonymous: yikes! We never do THAT with our kitties!
Alfred E. Neuman
January 21st, 2009 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

BB— It’s Wednesday and there’s no Miss Buxley? WTF?

Curtis— Poor Curtis, so helpless and alone. If only there had been some police officers at the inauguration, they could have helped him find his brother.

Luann— To you guys in line: Sorry, Bernice bought all of the tickets. She wants a private session with Tiffany.
BigTed
January 21st, 2009 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

I imagine Jamaal actually has some experience dating a “shadow,” if by that he means someone who’s taller than him, won’t touch any part of him higher than his shoes, and who disappears when the lights go out.
Mountain Mama
January 21st, 2009 at 7:40 pm [Reply]

Niall, from yesterthread:

Let me explain. My mom is into roosters/hens for decorative purposes. I saw that rooster and felt he was especially colorful and that my mom would like that.

I was thinking of making that picture into a print for her.

No dirty thoughts here! I don’t think my mom is capable of them, but that’s another post……
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

#70 – Gnol:

Given the -ahem – leisurely pace at which the plots in Apartment 3-G advance, your scenario makes a nontrivial amount of sense. Self-absorbed as she is, it might take Margo months of strip-time (i.e. 3-4 years in realtime) to even notice the City was gone. Tommie and Ruby, OTOH, might never notice – ever.
Patrick
January 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

Herb and Jamaal actually finds genders too specific to mention, which I suppose could be a bold statement about gay rights, but what I want to know is, does Herb generally make his customers talk to him from across two rooms, facing away from him?
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 7:53 pm [Reply]

The real question today is how Marvin ended up having Dick Tracy’s hands.
Comrade Denny
January 21st, 2009 at 7:54 pm [Reply]

#70 – Gnol, re: Apocalyptic Wasteland

That would explain why Luann’s flower paintings are considered the cutting edge of the New York art scene.
fishmorgjp
January 21st, 2009 at 8:09 pm [Reply]

Marvin the baby, posting a fake picture and description… on “CrySpace”!!! Ho ho, it’s as wacky as a cat that eats lasagna, you betchum!! I have to stop laughing now, my stomach hurts!!
Pendragon
January 21st, 2009 at 8:21 pm [Reply]

#21 – You know way too much about Albany. Actually, you know pretty much all there is to know about Albany.
danzig
January 21st, 2009 at 8:24 pm [Reply]

If Spiderman is in the past now….is the little boy that is trying to unmask him going to grow up to be “Wierd Harold” on “Fat Albert”?
Gnoll
January 21st, 2009 at 8:29 pm [Reply]

Don’t know what happened to the other l in my name earlier, oh well

#75: You’re giving Margo a little too much credit, Margo isn’t going to notice the rest of the world is in shambles until she has been in a nuclear desert ‘upstate’ for about three months real time, she’ll just be angry that she can’t find anyone in sight to talk to about herself.

#78: Exactly. Luann is probably the only artist alive in the world at this point. Though to be honest, if I were alive in this universe I’d rather just have no art than that art. I could always just try to remember what art is supposed to look like from memory.

I’m liking this apocalypse concept. Maybe that’s why the wedding business isn’t going so well…
Bryan
January 21st, 2009 at 8:34 pm [Reply]

Judge Parker: I’m getting a “Maura Tierney’s character Lisa Miller in Newsradio” vibe off the guidance counselor lady. Which means I love her.

Marvin: The prospect of baby-on-baby sex disturbs me. I think that, in my pantheon of strips, Marvin is my most hated.
queek
January 21st, 2009 at 8:51 pm [Reply]

41: in fairness, up until very recently, Summer and Special-K were rivals. Recent transfer and all that.
Gulielma
January 21st, 2009 at 8:55 pm [Reply]

The Philadelphia Inquirer dropped the Sunday FBoFW not long after Lynn Johnston froze the strip. Now it’s also dropped the daily one, with note, in bold type, that it’s because LJ isn’t offering any new story lines.

They’re still running “Classic Peanuts”, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, and Cathy, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
teddytoad
January 21st, 2009 at 8:56 pm [Reply]

Does she think that the whole state outside of her precious Five Boroughs consists of nothing but decaying, abandoned industrial sites, or vast stretches of barren wasteland punctuated by the occasional slowly collapsing barn, where she can just hide evidence of criminal wrongdoing at will?

“Her precious Five Boroughs?” Josh, I’m pretty sure that’s how Margo sees Staten Island.
teddytoad
January 21st, 2009 at 9:00 pm [Reply]

Re Marvin: I hear that cryspace.com is dead these days anyway, full of pre-natals and the five-year-olds that stalk them. Plus, too much HTML.
Muddtallica
January 21st, 2009 at 9:05 pm [Reply]

You know, I really hope that the next Marvin strip genuinely does feature Marvin breaking into a Monte Carlo bank, because it seems to me that doing so would increase the likelihood of Marvin being shot and killed.
MB
January 21st, 2009 at 9:08 pm [Reply]

“If you unmasked me, it wouldn’t be secret any more” is pretty much the same argument Brainy once used (successfully!) to convince Gargamel not to eat him. After all, once Gargamel ate a Smurf, that Smurf would no longer be available to be chased, caught, and devoured.
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 21st, 2009 at 9:29 pm [Reply]

Oh, my goodness, it’s getting to be like the logic section of the GREs. “Suppose at least one smurf can outsmart gargamel, and spiderman can outsmart some, but not all small children, and nothing is known about spiderman’s ability to outsmart gargamel. We may conclude that gargamel would outsmart: (a) some children some of the time, (b) spiderman, all of the time, (c) any smurf that is sometimes not able to outsmart spiderman, or (d) obviously incorrect answer to weed out drooling morons.”

(Correct answer: (e) Boy, Spiderman sure isn’t very heroic!)
Poteet
January 21st, 2009 at 9:33 pm [Reply]

“Dating my shadow” is definitely the best thing I’ve ever gotten from H & J.
sugarpie
January 21st, 2009 at 9:47 pm [Reply]

#42 Comrade Denny. Thanks for stating the obvious re Get Fuzzy. A week or two ago I questioned the, um, comic-ness of GF and was slapped down by a few of its apparatchiks. When they find you, and they will Comrade, try not to scream.

And we will light a candle to commemorate your bravery.
Ringo Beaumont III
January 21st, 2009 at 9:49 pm [Reply]

There’s a group of individuals in the Windy City who believe that nothing of consequence happens beyond the lake, Congress Avenue, Halsted, and Irving Park.

That’s just patently ridiculous. The western border of acceptability extends at least to Ashland, and some days I’m willing to go as far south as Roosevelt.
druidbros
January 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm [Reply]

JP – In the first panel I looked above the head of the lady on the left hand side and….So THATS where Spiderman’s ’spider sense’ went. This bitch stole it !
Poteet
January 21st, 2009 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

# 5 Lawyer — I see your point. However, I feel I must come to the defense of the arachnid brain. Most spiders are either competent at what they do or they die young. S-M, as far as I can tell from the past several weeks, mostly mopes along, occasionally whining. If he were a real spider, he’d be dead by now.
markytom
January 21st, 2009 at 9:53 pm [Reply]

“If you unmasked me then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?” should have been replaced in Spider-Man with, “If you unmasked me then I would have to kill you.” Then the guy in the hat could hae responded with a “!”
Steven
January 21st, 2009 at 9:58 pm [Reply]

Perfumes are mostly alcohol. I got in trouble many years ago by trying to send some through the mail. (Not much trouble, just a chewing out by the guy at the counter) It is considered a hazardous material.

Would have been a better Luann if the counselor made her take off the Bikini and put on a white cotton T shirt.

Just sayin
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

Please stop re-posting to apologize for some slight diference in the previous post.
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

Oops I meant difference. Thats my bad.
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

Oops – I meant “that’s” not “thats.
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:14 pm [Reply]

Ops – I left off an apostrophe when I said “Thats” in the previous post.
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:15 pm [Reply]

Ops – let me know when you’ve had enough.
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:15 pm [Reply]

That shold be “Oops” posts 101 and 102…
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:16 pm [Reply]

That shold ne should.
layla515
January 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm [Reply]

9CL: I know I shouldn’t be applying logic to a comic strip, but if he were doing 20 years without parole, wouldn’t the interviewer know it? At the very least, wouldn’t the interviewer know he was incarcerated by, say, the orange jumpsuit and leg irons? The presence of corrections officers? Seriously?
What?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:19 pm [Reply]

Well, who is with me on stopping the “apology for previous post” syndrome? We all make misatakes, I mean mistakes, so let’s just STOP THE INSANITY. If it it is material to the post then fine, otherwise just let it go, please…..
Gold-Digging Nanny
January 21st, 2009 at 10:26 pm [Reply]

Mutts: So, so disturbing. I concur with the earlier commenter who said the bestiality needs to be left to Mark Trail. Please, please leave the interspecies spooning to Sneaky the Raccoon and Andy the dog, or Bucky the deer and Patty the blonde chick, or any human being and Rusty the whatever that kid-thing is.
True Fable
January 21st, 2009 at 10:38 pm [Reply]

Name: Miller. Marvin Miller.
Age: Wise beyond my years -

I had to stop right there. What the FUCK?!? Wise?? No no no no no. Smartass, maybe; cloyingly smug and disgustingly unpottytrained, definitely.

Look, kid, if you haven’t got the good sense to know how to aim at a urinal or how to properly dispose of your own poo without involving another person in the matter, then you aren’t wise in the least. Now shut up and sit down.
Joshua Zelinsky
January 21st, 2009 at 10:40 pm [Reply]

Marvin also follows the old formula that if it involves computers and young people it must be funny. This involves very young people so it must be very funny.

I like how Tom Armstrong seems to have heard something about how some people lie about who they are on that internet thing and tried to make a joke about it. Maybe Armstrong should do double duty writing for Pluggers?
Wolf Shepherd
January 21st, 2009 at 10:41 pm [Reply]

#106 What? - Concur. And if my grammar or spelling or typos bother you, well … you can date your shadow!
Joe Blevins
January 21st, 2009 at 10:44 pm [Reply]

H&J: You know what I like to do when I go to a restaurant in a suit and tie? Sit at the counter and yell things like “Dating is so frustrating!” to the people working in the kitchen. Maybe this is why I’ve been asked to leave so many restaurants.

A3G: “Business to attend to?” Sure, Margo. Your outfit tells us you are sneaking away to attend Maude-Con 2009, where you are determined to win the costume contest. Say hi to Conrad Bain for us.

MARVIN: This is an elaborate dig at Daniel Craig, isn’t it?
Anonymous
January 21st, 2009 at 10:49 pm [Reply]

You know, I don’t think the Luann storyline is poorly conceived. I’m quite convinced by now the the strip itself is a genially crafted practical joke on its characters, the latest example being the school staff so fantastically botching this fundraiser that they decide to arbitrarily boot one unlucky student via some sadistic, nonviolent Russian Roulette. The characters have formulated a plan to get everyone in on the trip, but as the teacher suggests in the second panel, their maniacal overlord Greg Evans has other ideas.
LoonieBin
January 21st, 2009 at 10:50 pm [Reply]

Whoops, didn’t mean to be anon.
Angryhippopotamus
January 21st, 2009 at 10:58 pm [Reply]

Neil Patrick Harris is clearly disappointed that Herb didn’t “suit up” to hang out with him. (also, please not the gender ambiguous “someone”)
Sciencegiant
January 21st, 2009 at 11:01 pm [Reply]

Spider-Man: Um, right. If you think he’s smart now, wait until he’s older and married.

PS to Stan: next time, spring for the interobang. It’s worth the extra cash.
Dudette
January 21st, 2009 at 11:10 pm [Reply]

I got a serious case of deja vu when I saw Marvin’s head on the body of a man. The term “ManBabies” popped into my head like spittle in a cloud.

A quick google search brought me this:

http://manbabies.com/

Run… Run!
Signal 30
January 21st, 2009 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

RMMD –
Check out the pot leaves on June;s sundress.
Muffaroo
January 21st, 2009 at 11:26 pm [Reply]

re 9CL discussion: It occurs to me that I’ve had some slight experience in this area. In my first year of high school, I was regularly tormented in the locker room by a goat roper who had, more or less rightly, pegged me as an easy target for his hippie hatred. Things were made slightly better by another cowboy in gym class who was willing to say hello to me, which may have deterred some from joining Ron in making my life a daily hell. I finally snapped, in a small way, and after he called me a faggot for the thousandth time, I referred to his rather full lips, saying “At least I don’t wear lipstick.” I wasn’t sure if he would kill me for saying that or not. I seem to recall he was somewhat embarrassed and did nothing. Not long after that, he vanished from school. Word came from somewhere that he had actually killed his nephew (not on purpose, apparently) and been tried for manslaughter. I saw him one time after that. He was sacking at a supermarket owned by a friend of our family. I said hi or something, and he mumbled something back and then resumed watching his hands. He probably didn’t want to jeopardize his job for all kinds of good reasons. Maybe I could have needled him some, but I didn’t feel like trying it. I took my stuff and left, ending the story.

Brick Bradford @63 – It says who she is in the caption. I’ve already forgotten. I didn’t see much point in it, given that she’ll be just a pair of feet dangling at the top of a panel in a couple of days.

BIgTed @73 – Your reasoning is flawless. I bow my head in respect.

Any cartoon about young people on a date together and they’re just involved in separate conversations on their cellular telephones – Punch beat you to the punch in 19-freaking-00, using wireless telegraphy. Please see page 164 of A Century of PUNCH Cartoons for details. The book contains a lot of other antique versions of cartoons we still see every damn week.
Ramona Oates
January 21st, 2009 at 11:36 pm [Reply]

Can someone please explain to me how Curtis got to D.C.? When did this happen? Does his family live in D.C.? One day he was explaining his cover story of staying overnight at Gunk’s, the next day he and his brother are at the inaugaration. What did I miss? Did they use some of Gunk’s magic to get there? I thought Gunk lived on Flyspeck Island, not in Curtis’ neighborhood. Please help!
sugarpie
January 21st, 2009 at 11:46 pm [Reply]

#118 Goat ropers! I nearly swallowed my tongue! In 9th grade one of the goat ropers (Billy H.)punched me so hard that my head bounced off the metal lockers in wood shop class and I actually did see stars (like in the comics-go figure!) There may

I think it was because I flirted with his girlfriend in pre-calc (a class Billy H. was clearly unable to access, or hell, even pronounce).

My point being: I haven’t seen a reference to goat ropers in years. I’m all misty-eyed. Thanks Muffaroo!!!!!
Aitherion
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 am [Reply]

If it’s a social network for babies, who the hell does Marvin think he’s fooling by saying he’s 6′2”?
Niall
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 am [Reply]

120. Sugarpie: wait till True Fable sees Muffaroo’s post. Stars are going to fly there too. :)

98-106 What?: Just a reminder that humour works best in threes to make a point (which is quite valid). Past that, and nearly triple past that, it becomes so much more annoying than the original annoyance that your point risks backfiring into nothingness.

74. Mountain Mama: I apologise if my silly humour was not seen as such; I’ve been rather tired all day and I guess what seemed funny actually wasn’t. This said, it is a gorgeous rooster, and a great photo of it – your mother should be most happy!
rhymes with puck
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:24 am [Reply]

H&J: “I can never find someone who wants to do EVERYTHING I want to do” means, of course, he can’t find someone to go ass to mouth.
Lisa
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 am [Reply]

Re Luann and the inauguration: How much longer is this going to play out? The inauguration was yesterday. Seems to me that Evans should have started this story line a couple of weeks ago if he wanted it to be timely.

Actually that is probably the reason for the quick switch in Curtis too, time constraints.
sugarpie
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:34 am [Reply]

#124 Anybody? Pass.
Poteet
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 am [Reply]

# 118 Muffaroo — Per yesterthread, please rest assured that I was musing about Margo’s attitude toward upstate NY, not mine. Our family lived in Buffalo when ChattyGenes and I were very young (and I know that’s not really upstate NY, but as pointed out by our Pope, it’s probably all the same to Margo), and one of my happiest childhood experiences was visiting a family in upper NY who had access to a pond with fossils, a field with yummy wild strawberries, a creek where kids could swim — bliss.
cheech wizard
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:38 am [Reply]

109/ Joshua Z: The only thing I find tolerable about Marvin is the fact that it’s done by Tom Armstrong, because I can hope he’ll eventually end it the same way as John Darling.
Bobdog of the Jungle Patrol, Not an Elephant
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 am [Reply]

In programming, the “!” sign emoted by Spiderman is a unary operator that negates its operand — i.e. !true == false. Therefore it is called the “not” symbol. This leads me to read the last panel as if it were a nod to the old Wayne’s World trope — “You’re smart for a super hero … not!” (I assume it’s Garth speaking off panel, not Spider Man himself).
Rebochan
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 am [Reply]

127: Wrong Tom – Tom *Batiuk* is the guy who murders innocent characters for fun. Tom Armstrong is an entirely different kind of soul-sucking leech.
kanomi
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am [Reply]

Mary Worth:

“She’s setting up for her most difficult jump here, a half-ass spin. Excellent angst in that smile, and a complete lack of vertical leap.

“She’s landed it.”
John E.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 am [Reply]

What kind of horrible parents make babies dress like that? It’s just wrong. Then again, I’m pushing fifty and work in a filthy warehouse, so what do I know about suits.
mollificent
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 am [Reply]

Hi & Lois: I know it’s almost time for Thursday snark already, but I just have to get this off my chest: Hi, you think a crack like that is going to be smoothed over by a freakin’ HERSHEY bar? Get your ass back out that door and don’t come back until you’ve got some semi-sweet Ghirardelli, or better yet, Green & Black’s. Then we’ll talk.
mollificent
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 am [Reply]

P.S. #39 Niall: Great minds, eh? ;)
Angry Kem
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 am [Reply]

Marmaduke is being the medieval Antichrist yet again.

That picture of Marvin’s head on James Bond’s body is one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen…and I once saw skunks having sex.
Grook
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 am [Reply]

I could not stop laughing at your description of upstate New York, it’s spot on. I have a bunch of extended family in the Utica area, so I know all about the abandoned industrial sites.
Anna Nimity
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 am [Reply]

Marvin’s bio should also say,

Bottle: Shaken, not stirred.
Jessie
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 am [Reply]

From the elitists:

” . . . Nothing of consequence happens beyond the lake, Congress Avenue, Halsted, and Irving Park.”

“That’s just patently ridiculous. The western border of acceptability extends at least to Ashland, and some days I’m willing to go as far south as Roosevelt.”

We, the little people who live way the hell in Rogers Park, will rise. Just you wait.
Wolf Shepherd
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:22 am [Reply]

124/125 Explained in yesterthread #138.
Aitherion
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 am [Reply]

136) You just made me gag a bit. epic.
Poteet
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 am [Reply]

# 23 Master — BWAHAHA! Good one re 9CL.
Steve the Pocket
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 am [Reply]

#40 gets my nomination for Quote of the Week.

Meanwhile, One Big Happy shoots for the absurdist humor angle and scores. Funky Winkerbean shoots for political relevance and misses by exactly three days. Six Chix shoots for any semblance of a punchline and misses by one full semblance.
Malethoth K
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 am [Reply]

136 – I thought that was a reference to shaken baby syndrome.
mumbles
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 am [Reply]

A3G: It’s official. I now f—ing love Margo. She needs a wheelbarrow for the set she carries around.

GT: So, apparently Frankenstein’s monster plays for Oakwood?

MT: ….and meanwhile, Ken and Patty practice their updated version of Chinatown. “It’s a deer! (slap) It’s my boyfriend! (slap) It’s a deer! (slap) It’s my boyfriend!”
True Fable
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:35 am [Reply]

# 118 muffaroo – Not all goat ropers are assholes but those who are, stain the rest of us. I’m sorry you ran into one of them.
Cheeky Wee Monkeys
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:46 am [Reply]

I’m just glad Marvin didn’t but “Dating my shadow” under hobbies.
True Fable
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 am [Reply]

MT Crew cuts + big frowns = bad guys. Clever Jackelrod, mixing up the formula again! Also, guest star Will Ferrell!
Luann Question: why do we continually waste time on Luann, Berniece, Tiffany, Delta and Gunther when all these throwaway walk-on characters look more interesting than the principle ones?
JP Witch Hunter Robin is about to burn your ass, HotMama. And please, let’s not have Abbey feel guilty about being monied. Spare us the ‘poor little rich girl’ routine.
Canadian Zombie Thankfully John Patterson is not a moil.
BB For a moment, I thought this was some sort of nod toward Slylock Fox – “what do you suppose Snarky Squirrel did to the road?” Then I realized it was simply lazy Walker joke production.
IFHZ Lately Zits has been pretty decent, and Jeremy has not acted like King Bitch Asshat all week. If this is by design, THANK YOU Scott and Borgman! More of this and I shall change the call sign of this strip, not that my measly opinion matters any big measure.
Lisa
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 am [Reply]

138 – Thanks!
True Fable
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:02 am [Reply]

Scenes from Suburban Hell Uncle Beetle must have recently visited and left his shirt and its corporal stripes with nephew Chip. Chip can tell Ditto all about conflicted superheroes, or at least about conflicted lead characters in comic strips who stay in the Army in order to get alternately beaten up and sexually exploited by his sergeant.

On the bright side if such a thing can be found in Suburban Hell, Ditto is ready to go fight Spider-man and has a better than even chance to win. If Spidey can be bested by a hefty spray of water, imagine his helplessness against ice. Go Ditto, go!
Alfred E. Neuman
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:15 am [Reply]

#124 Lisa Re: Luann— This is a class trip to D.C., but not to the inauguration. In the Jan. 12 strip, Delta asks to have the trip date changed so that they can go to the inauguration, but Miss Phelps says no. If you look at the Jan. 12 strip, note the nameplate on the desk in panels 1 and 3. Greg Evans must have a low opinion of high school counselors.
Mibbitmaker
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 am [Reply]

12/22:

9CL: Ooh, I so hate Thorax! Even when he’s just loopy, I loathe the character design! ….But, God help me, I found today’s strip enjoyably funny — especially the far away Thorax in the last panel. I liked a Thorax strip. Damn you, Thorax! Daaaaaammmmmmn yooooooooou!

But, really, that guy’s normally the very definition of “and the rest”.

A3G: “I left a message on the note board — or was that a note on the message board? And where’s Nick Danger?”

BC: “…YOU’ve been dating a WOMAN in ‘MARK TRAIL’, HAVEN’T you?!?”

BBailey: Isn’t that how Howard the Duck entered our dimension?

DT: …Speaking of an alternate dimension…

JP: The real Kennedy-Nixon Debate (Mrs. Davis is Nixon).

MT: “BOOOOOOO!!!” — Joel, Crow and Tom Servo when a particularly vile moment happens in the movie.

SFx: And the Seventh Difference: the yellow of her hair.

S-M: What is this, Unreasonably Angry Mothers Day in the comics??
Uncle Lumpy
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 am [Reply]

#149 AEN –

Yeah, Evans has always done that with Phelps’ nameplate — sort of an hommage to Pogo.

Lordy, I miss Pogo.
Mr. O'Malley
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 am [Reply]

126. Poteet. So do you remember Tom Jolls doing “The Weather Outside” on Channel 7 with rowdy high school kids from North Tonawanda throwing snowballs at him, or Commander Tom and the Furry Burry Creature?

I once had a girlfriend who grew up in Niagara Falls NY, with whom I could reminisce about such things, but my wife, although she was born in upstate NY, grew up in Anchorage and Tacoma, and has a totally different set of formative experiences, e.g., seeing Hendrix play at the Spanish Castle!
Malethoth K
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:29 am [Reply]

Which is more embarrassing: that today’s Crock is a carbon copy of the 1/19/09 Crock, or that I immediately noticed?
ChattyGenes
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:46 am [Reply]

#152 Mr. O’Malley, re #126 Poteet.

I’m betting Poteet has gone to bed, but since it’s 5 pm here in Japan, I’ll take the liberty of answering for her. We lived in Buffalo when she was 3 and 4 years old (and I was even younger), so I doubt that she remembers what you’re referring to. (If she does, you’ll probably hear from her in a subsequent post.)

What I remember about Buffalo is Niagara Falls. Yes, I was very young (2 or 3), but our family visited the falls frequently, and they made quite an impression on me.
Mr. O'Malley
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:27 am [Reply]

Dilbert: Laws vary by state, but in California, where Scott Adams is, that would likely be true.

FC: What kind of effete postmodern barbershop doesn’t have a spitoon?

ReFoob: I’m imagining the second panel blown up to billboard size. Perhaps with the dialogue in Middle English.

FW: That is so 2008!

JP: I like the plaid miniskirt on the Solomonic principal lady. Maybe she’ll offer to have Mrs. Trotsky cut in half.

MW: “Skate with such feeling”? Now I’m expecting the Famous Flames to throw a gold lame cape over Lynn when she falls to her knees.

OBH: I’m not sure what it means, but it looks funny. Particularly the last panel.

Peanuts: This sequence of strips is amazing. Just imagine what it would be like as a 6-year old to be told that the Russians were planning to destroy your entire world any day, and you had to learn to hide under your school desk. That was what went on in the 1950s and early 1960s. Schultz really nails it.

Pluggers: Technically the “chef”, as opposed to the person who defrosted your food in the microwave, is an illegal alien in a factory in North Dakota. And screw the product placement.

PC: And as I remember it was Vice-President Spiro Agnew who uttered those words before he plead guilty. And then was assassinated by Nixon’s cronies? Follow the link and make up your own mind. William Safire coined the alliterative although meaningless phrase.

RMMD: Is this a Marlin Perkins cruise? Oh, I suspect that that drunken woman has something to do with that waif!

6C: Voyeurism is the new Kleenex in the washing machine.

ZtP: Is this a reference to the recent demise of “Da Free John”? I almost suspect it is. I remember when Berkeley was saturated with those flyers.

Zits: Back in the day when phone companies had human employees, I once sweet-talked my way into a phone number with four 8s followed by 9, by claiming I needed something that was “easy to remember”.

Brenda Starr: “But I’d never—Ouch!—drug a man for love.”
Mr. O'Malley
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 am [Reply]

154. ChattyGenes. She may have been old enough to remember the Furry Burry Creature. I guess we’ll see when she wakes up.

I was taken to Niagara Falls at an early age and what really stuck in my head as a child was the story of the boy who went over the Falls in a lifejacket (one might skip the second half) and survived.

And then later on, when I could drive, I realized that the Whirlpool Bridge was the most laid-back place to cross the border.

When I was in high school we were taken to view the spot where General Sir Isaac Brock thwarted the dastardly American invasion at the cost of his life, and as schoolchildren sang “those dear rights which we maintain, we swear to yield them never, our watchword ever more shall be the Maple Leaf Forever”.

The restaurant close by the Brock Monument has been a gathering place for our family gatherings for a couple of decades now.
Jym
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 am [Reply]

=v= A3G (Josh): Look, if we didn’t dump our bodies upstate, how would you ever keep up with fashion trends? ‘Cause you ain’t gonna find them at T.J. Pluggermaxx or wherever it is you people shop. We’re doing you a favor.
ChattyGenes
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:56 am [Reply]

#156 Mr. O’Malley. Interesting links; thank you! I read them while I ate dinner. And the ones about General Brock were doubly interesting to me because after we lived in Buffalo, we moved to the Detroit area (when I was four), which is where I grew up.
gleeb
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:35 am [Reply]

Brenda: She only drugged the parts of him she doesn’t love?

Beetle: I see. No one can escape Fort Swampy because the perspective gets all wonky out by the horizon. They are trapped in Hell.

’shaft: Actually, Ed means Czech. He has Vaclav Havel fantasies.

Bunny Hoest’s No Exit: Unlike Dagwood, Leroy owes money to his lettercarrier.
John C Fremont
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 am [Reply]

GT – So that’s what it looks like when Jerry Lewis plays basketball.

And, sadly, I also laughed at Thorax today. Damn.
Little Guy
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 am [Reply]

Welcome to Domestic Violence Thursday!

Candoorville: Later, Lemont sneaks off to Dinty’s for some roast beef and for poker with the boys.

MT: What, no grapefruit available?

Curtis: Yes, you react to the loss of one son by killing the other. Brilliant!

ZtP: Is it me, or did Griffy decide to reappear only when Obama became President? I liked the DIngburgian saga.

S4th: The Dilbertization of Sally continues.

S-M: *opens mouth, decides to close it for fear of Cockpit*
Pozzo
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 am [Reply]

Blondie – 1/21: It’s January freakin’ 21st! How can you be complaining about how late your tax return is arriving? Most people don’t even have their W-2s yet! Do cartoonists have any idea what time of year it is, or do they just pull cartoon ideas out of the jar at random?
Whippersnapper
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 am [Reply]

DT: “Not that I’m up to anything. ‘Cause I’m not. It’s all perfectly innocent. Seriously, though, stay away. From my lab, where absolutely nothing suspicious is going on.”
buckyswife
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am [Reply]

MT: Aside from Patty’s ability to engage in non-boldfaced conversation while being smacked around, I’m a little taken aback by today’s Mark Trail. Has Elrod ever included such overt violence towards a female character before? It’s a little weird. (Yeah, I know: “a little weird” is status quo for MT.)

FC: And so the dentist ponders the personal and professional consequences for surgically removing young Billy’s tongue. As Billy blathers on, the dentist’s hand tightens around his rarely used scalpel. Slowly, he turns to the chattering melonhead, and forcing a gentle tone into his voice, he says, “Open wide, Billy.”
Dan
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am [Reply]

Batman can chew anywhere, because he’s prepared.
nerowolfgal
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:30 am [Reply]

GOATS! Many goats!. Goats in trees, or rather many goats in one tree.(For those of you who like goats)

http://www.cracked.com/article_16966_p2.html

Picture number 8
Islamorada Girl
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am [Reply]

MT: Well, now that Big Bully Man has smacked Patty around, I think we can expect him to be kicked to death by Bambi. And not a minute too soon, either. The Right Hook O’Justice just isn’t enough for Crew Cut Abuser; he needs killin’. It’s LoFo Law and Order!
dyslexic dog
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 am [Reply]

#121 — Aitherion:
He’s just a big baby.

dyslexic dog,
Spuzzum, BC
tb4000
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 am [Reply]

Luann: Just make a strip with those four pervs in line as the stars…I would read that like a motherfucker.
tb4000
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 am [Reply]

Curtis: I think Billingsley should end this arc a la Robotman, where Robotman leaves permanently and Curtis is now an only child. It’ll be like The Sopranos, we never know what happened to Barry.
sully
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am [Reply]

Re: 27

I took the time to look at that Pigborn, uh, Pibgorn cartoon.
I can’t believe there is a comic strip out there that is actually more unreadable than Get Fuzzy. No easy feat!
Mooncattie
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am [Reply]

#152 Mr. O’Malley, ChattyGenes and Poteet – Thank you for the link to Commander Tom! I remember Tom Jolls well, and cannot believe it’s now a decade since he and Irv Weinstein retired. Channel 7’s Eyewitness News was required viewing in Toronto back in the day, the only newscast I know that used newsreel-style titles and soundtrack music for local stories. I followed Commander Tom’s between-the-cartoons adventures, often involving lengthy soap-opera style storylines involving in-house puppets Dustmop, Cecily Fripple and, yes, the Furry Burry Creature! Ah, memories. My Great-Aunt Mary lived in Buffalo’s unfashionably wooden East End, and whenever we visited I would pour through the Buffalo Evening News. Their Sunday edition (this was before Toronto had Sunday newspapers!) featured what seemed to be masses of comics that I would never come across back home. I’m pretty sure Prince Valiant was among them, and I’ve only recently been following it again due to the link kindly provided on this site. PV has the cutest sea monsters!
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:40 am [Reply]

Mistakes in Bizarro:
In the newspaper, instead of $100 it has K2 for Rusty’s total (nice touch) but…
1. Alex hasn’t had a moustache in years.
2. There hasn’t been a $500 catagory in years.
Oh, yeah. and
3. It ain’t funny.
kalki
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 am [Reply]

9CL: *sigh* This is the comic strip that I have been choosing to start my reading day…I think I need a new one.

Archie: And he’ll still choose the high maintenance slut over the girl next door, Betty. It is the way of stupidity in Archie’s emasculated world.

Beetle: Now the strip is trying to sell itself with visual mirages/art class basics.

Blondie: WTF?

Crank: That’s what people say about your ass, Crankers.

DTM: Today, Dennis is menaced.

CircusJerk: I hope the barber’s name is Sweeney Todd.

FW: “I mean, touch my penis…oh, whichever.”

GA: Oh, so this wasn’t just a one time gig?

Luann: “cold water”. Why did Greg have to re-emphasize that point? Just so he could draw in some points of his own on Tiffany?
Darkefang
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 am [Reply]

9CL: The humor train has officially derailed.

Archie: Veronica is such a whore. Just wait until Archie tells Betty when they’re out on their date later tonight.

FC: Psychologists or police officers would probably be a lot more interested than this dentist about hearing the details of what Billy’s been needing to spit out after a visit with the barber.

GT: Is that a giant basketball, or a tiny player?
papa zita
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:14 am [Reply]

A3G: Tommie’s List of Fun Things To Do, She should’ve been a professional maid.

MW: Mary putting the pedal to the meddle has caused a miraculous change in Lynn. In her black little heart, Mary is counting another soul in her knapsack and Lynn now has to pay for her Faustian bargain. I predict that soon (in MW-time that’ll be a few months) Lynn will disappear from the strip Never To Be Seen Again.

Rex Morgan, Empty Stomach: Pruneface’s black lipstick is really becoming, very Punk Rock. Moppet with the mobile face Sarah has suddenly turned into..Angelina Jolie.

9CL: McEldowney’s descent into madness continues apace. Next up: A man who gibbers and drools and says “Von Hoesen” over and over, tittering every time he says it.
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 am [Reply]

1/22

S-M: This is how the Superhuman Registration Act passed. One stupid voter at a time.

Marvin: There is no Marvin. Marvin is dead to me.

GA: It just looks wrong to me for a Truman era short order cook to be talking into a tiny lil’ cellphone. The stream of obscenities is fine, though.

MT: Ken leaves no doubt about his evilness, which must mean he has a thin, flesh-colored mustache. Now he’s even smacking his wife around. Or just making a loud WHOOSH! sound in front of her face.

C-Shaft: Things I hope never to see again: Ed Crankshaft standing smugly over a bed and saying “So tight.”

Peanuts: I forget with curminion said that the decades old Schultz cartoons are still more relevant than the mass of today’s zombie strips, but they called it.

H&L: Iceman is also one of Lee and Kirby’s original X-Men. Is Ditto ready to pay some serious royalties?

9CL: The sad thing here is that the TV news crew isn’t talking to Thorax. He’s just chatting up the guy at the feed store, the one who pretends to be a deaf mute.

M-Dawg: “And when he dances backwards and flames shoot out of the ground? Yeah, that give me a queasy feeling too.”

Phantom: Oh, man up, guys. How hard can it be to escape when you’re cuffed to a bamboo shower curtain rod.

S4th: “This is Mike. Should anything happen to you he’ll be known as Person of Interest #1.”

RMMD: “Reminds me of something my sister once did. Involved building this whole house full of gingerbread to draw in these abandoned kids. Forget how it turned out.”

GT: No wonder they’re struggling. Some wag replaced their basketball with a medicine ball. That thing is seriously huge.

BC: I’d say that’s more of a “deer sniffing glue” look.

Crock: Whoever the cartoonist now obviously figures that he can run the exact same horrible strip on Monday and Thursday and no one will notice. Aside from us he’s probably right.

OBH: Entertainingly random. That teacher must be wondering if Office Max is still hiring.

6C: Nice to see that Ugly Naked Guy from Friends is still working.

DtM: Ninja Margaret appears out of thin air to hear Dennis’ mild compliment.

A3G: Due to circumstances beyond our control, today’s Apartment 3G will be written by the Brothers Grimm.
LITTLE A. from Da Bronx
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 am [Reply]

Luann: Has anybody told this bunch of idiots that the inauguration was this past Tuesday?

Well at least they can get cheaper motel rooms.

Has anybody seen Delta, lately? Asked her what she thinks about this?

LITTLE A’S CLOUDY CRYSTAL BALL SAYS that Delta (and what a suggestive name that is, as has been pointed out I am sure) is a far more sexually appealing character than Tiffany, who is an idiot

LITTLE A’s CLOUDY CRYSTAL BALL TELLS HIM:

Delta borrowed the money from her mother or father and went down to D.C. by herself. Wanna make a friendly bet?

THE CLOUDY CRYSTAL BALL predicts that Curtis’ little brother Barry went home by himself. Or he has been picked up by a cop and taken to The White House AND GOT HIS PICTURE TAKEN WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA WHICH WILL WIND UP ON THE FRONT PAGE OF A NEWSPAPER WHICH WILL BE SEEN BY HIS PARENTS who will have a shit fit but will be so relieved that he is safe that they will break out in tears of relief but this of course will not save Curti’s be-hind from the strap.

How come Curtis’ parents haven’t called the police?

AND THE CLOUDY CRYSTAL BALL TELLS LITTLE A. that Curtis will wake up and find out is has all been a bad dream — and he of course has to get dressed and go to school.

This is a very cloudy crystal ball. Full of possibilities. I haven’t won the lottery yet.
Paul1963
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:48 am [Reply]

Sherman’s Lagoon: Okay, I know this strip is like Spongebob Squarepants, in that we’re supposed to ignore the fact that 99% of the action takes place under water, but really–basketball?
Underwater basketball??
What the hell is keeping their ball from floating to the surface?

Gasoline Alley: Okay, so Slim really thought working at Corky’s Diner meant he’d be able to eat all he wanted all day long for free, and now he’s surprised to find that a place that opens for breakfast at 5:00 AM requires its employees to show up for work before that.
He’s like Family Guy’s Peter Griffin, isn’t he–he’s really mildly retarded, and has just managed to get by for nearly sixty years without actually being diagnosed?

Funky Whatzisface: Gosh, this could really be a problem when Les and his daughter’s nemesis’ mother end up dating as Batiuk so obviously intends to have happen. But, hey, it takes us away from the Rana-the-cheerleader subplot that would work so much better if teen-Rana’s personality wasn’t a complete mystery thanks to the ten-year jump.
Joe the Plugger
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 am [Reply]

Ziggy: This is two days in a row of Ziggys that I don’t understand. Is non-comprehension of Ziggy a sign of early onset dementia?
Calico
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am [Reply]

Margo’s List of the Damned for Tommie, continued:

Buy more body bags
Clean up bleached bone matter in bathroom
Grab a few grams of blow to have ready for Margo’s return to 3G
Go to CVS for earplugs, for aural protection against Magee’s next coked-out rant
Malethoth K.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

The reverse, actually. If you can consistently understand Ziggy, your mind has irreversibly turned to mush.
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm [Reply]

#180: Joe the Plugger

Non-comprehension of Ziggy is a sign of sanity.
Anonymous
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm [Reply]

#45 – my thoughts exactly.

I really am surprised li’l brudder didn’t somehow show up on the TV screen so that his dad, watching at home, could do a spit take. Maybe it’s not too late! Maybe CNN could show li’l brudder’s mug during a post-inauguration roundup of human interest stories. (“Alma Doakes, age 80 walked 50 miles to see the inauguration….Joe Blow brought all his 6 week old quintuplets to see this historic…and now – Little Boy Lost! Separated from his big brother Curtis, Little Barry was discovered by the police….”)
Joe the Plugger
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 pm [Reply]

@182 Malethoth, @183 Knockum :

But usually I can understand Ziggy even if I don’t find it funny. These I just don’t even see what the joke is supposed to be…
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

185: Uh-oh.
Al of the Christian Single Jungle Patrol
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm [Reply]

Luann — It has just dawned on me that every dunk tank I’ve ever worked with has been drained by collapsing one of the canvas sides and allowing the water to spill out over the parking lot. THIS dunk tank is in a gym. How do they propose to drain the thing without destroying a million dollars worth of hardwood?
Al of the Christian Single Jungle Patrol
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

Monty — Didn’t Dilbert do this gag a decade ago?
Muffaroo
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm [Reply]

9CL – So, anyway, in a real filibuster, the object is just to keep talking away — yammer, yammer, yammer — filling time to prevent anything of substance from happening, and of course they run out of anything real to say in a fairly short time, so they just regurgitate any damn thing that comes to mind: anything they’ve ever memorized, old poems, songs, commercial jingles, TV themes…

AD – Ironically, the first clean break with the work of Mr. Hart comes in the form of the introduction of a type of fauna not noticeably present in the work of a man whose surname, literally, means a male red deer of a certain age.

Cshaft – Dick Cheney looks really scarey in the last panel today. “No, Mr. Bond, I don’t expect you to talk…”

DTracy – Stay tuned for more wacky explosive mishaps as “Winky” Noll tries to rebuild his chemical lab singlehandedly with no depth perception.

FWbean – But… “Stay the course” is three words! Not two! Oh, NOOO! Stop messin’ with my head, man!

GThorp – “With mere minutes left, the Milfordians invoke the protection of their sacred corn cob. But will it be too late?”

MTrail – Jealous? Just because he doesn’t want a wild animal crapping in his house? I think I understand why he has that sour expression on his face all the time. She may be attractive in Mark Trail’s universe, but she’s plain nuts.

Monty – Anybody besides me remember the various time Herbie Popnecker saw a girl who was almost a dead ringer for him, and he invariably thought to himself that she was ugly? (“Ugly mermaid.” “Ugly human.”)

My Cage – My favorite memory from the employment office was a little girl enthusiastically saying to the man she was with: “We don’t hafta wait out there any more, so now we can wait here, right, Bill?”

NSeq – Here’s a classic: “The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.” All the real brainy types are saying it.

1BHappy – You go, Ruthie! Being a kid ringleader is fun! You just do some goofy thing, and the other kids join in. (I once ran into a kid who reminded me of one such incident at day camp where I led the way in jumping around from benches to tables while repeating “Eeermp. Eermp.” Glory days, and they were over before I was seven.)

RMMD – I thought they were talking about one of those box things with a string attached to the stick that holds it up. Though a nice leg hold trap would work just as well, provided they get to the little beggar before he gnaws his foot off.

SSmif – I have an idea! Sing the little wretch to sleep! “Aw! Aw! AWWWW!, and good night! / Wi-ith lilies bedi-ight…”

Zits – This ties in with a number of new mathematical operations I proposed about twenty years ago to facilitate getting desired results. One of them was “beautification” in which unsightly digits were replaced with more esthetically appealing ones.
cheech wizard
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm [Reply]

129/Rebochan: Wrong Tom – Tom *Batiuk* is the guy who murders innocent characters for fun. Tom Armstrong is an entirely different kind of soul-sucking leech.

Not quite. Tom Armstrong was the main artist on John Darling – Batiuk was the writer. Armstrong returned to draw the last three weeks of the strip, so he’s just as guilty as Mr. Happiness in the murder of the eponymous character.
Muffaroo
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

Poteet @126 – You mean I’m not living in upstate NY? This is all new to me — I’ve just been here seven months — but I’ll learn. I think I’ll just say “Rochester area.”

True Fable @144 – I ran into more than one, actually. There was a humorous incident on my bus involving a knife. I should probably update my vocabulary. The term was routinely used to belittle member of the “Future Farmers of America” youth gang (who wore their colors to school). Actually, one of my best friends for a while was a guy we called “The Goat Roper,” so it wasn’t strictly pejorative.

ChattyGenes @154 – So far, I’ve seen the Falls once, when I was about 3. I had a “Dennis” or “Billy” moment there — I actually remember thinking someone had “left the water running.” I plan to go have another look, and see how our daughter (who turns 7 in a couple of weeks) reacts to it.

Mr. O’Malley @155 – Good old Marlin Perkins! By the time I was aware of him, his most notable feature was how he could take any “Wild Kingdom” situation and turn it into an ad for Mutual of Omaha. “We’ve just seen how the mother puma reacted when Jim violated the security of her home. You can protect the security of your home with a homeowner’s policy from…”

formerly Ben @177 – I’d call that deer’s look “Curtis eyes.”
Lady Pistol Whip
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm [Reply]

Technically, I believe that Yale University is considered Upstate New York.
Poteet
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm [Reply]

# 172 — Mooncattie, Mr. O’Malley, and ChattyGenes — Chatty is correct, and I don’t remember Commander Tom. From your descriptions and links, I wish I did. I think I do vaguely remember playing in lots and lots of snow in our yard. And I definitely remember our family trip to visit friends in upstate (outstate?) New York several years later, which was wonderful.

# 176 papa zita — HAR!! Re 9CL, I hope you are right. Drooling would be an improvement over today’s, um, dialogue.
Niall
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm [Reply]

I’ve got me some snark today! And some sleep, so hopefully I won’t say stupid things. (Stupider than usual anyway.)

Apt 3G: My grammary brain reads this as either a list of verbs (in which case “to bathroom” is slang for something I’m sure I don’t want to know, but which fits Margo to command Tommie, somehow) or a list of modifiers for the last noun (and why would Margo want only the bathroom to be incredibly, superhumanly clean? I do not wish to contemplate the answer). I sighed too, Tommie.

Beetle: Uhhh.. wtf? A grey, colourless duo in a toy jeep in a surreal oversaturated landscape? Well, there’s no sexual imagery, so it’s not Sarge dreaming but… what’s-his-name navigating. Feelings of inadequacy as well as being trapped yet never being his fault. Oh yeah, the camp counselor is going to be busy.

FC: More and more I’m thinking the Keanes are doing these just to bait us.

Trail: We’re still seemingly into animal perversion… but however Ken may be right, he just asked for multiple fistings from Mark after panel 3. …lemme rephrase that…

Big Dog: Lady, I’d be more worried that he’s in your yard! Although, since he’s a Big Dog (bwahaha), he is overlord of all he surveys and can roam at will among his subjects. For he is Big! (haha) and a dog! (hahaha)

Pluggers: I do not know of many anglophones who 1) know how to properly say “garçon”, 2) even know how to spell it with the cédille, and 3) use it straight except in the poshests of restaurants, and only French restaurants – and even I don’t say that to anyone in French restaurants, and I’m francophone. In fact, with their general xenophobia, seeing any Pluggers say that in a McDonalds (after H&L, the Product Placement Week continues) would only make me think they’re snarking and possibly insulting the cooking staff. Not that I would anyway, since I haven’t eaten McDs in well over a decade. So, sorry Brookins, but no. Not gonna work. I wonder if Mr. Mathew of Lima, OH had this in mind, or if it’s Brookins’ interpretation.

Rexie Baby: I suspect ole Lenore there just became a favourite character for many a Mudgeon. :)

SlyFox: All I can think of is that we’re seeing an alternate universe, young version of a Cassandra, still innocent, still with her dreams intact, even if they’re a little “typical”. And then I realise there’s just no hope left for me.
Poteet
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm [Reply]

# 191 Muffaroo — I thought just about anything outside NYC was “upstate New York,” but then I read our Pope’s previous explanation and learned that is apparently not the case. Maybe I’ll just go with “outstate New York” for everything not NYC.

Your childhood impression of the Falls may not be all that far off. I seem to remember reading that the flow over the Falls is routinely turned up and down, depending on how much water is wanted for hydroelectric facilities and how much is wanted for scenic purposes.
migellito
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm [Reply]

Curtis: In a tragic twist to the uplifting feature, Barry is found dead and Curtis lives out the rest of the strip tortured by the guilt of his brother’s death.

And hilarity ensues!
Aviatrix
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm [Reply]

Batman doesn’t chew. He swallows his prey whole then poops out the indigestible bits in little pellets.
Brick Bradford
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm [Reply]

Poteet, Chattygenes, et. al. Wow! Nostalgia Sneak Attack. My family lived in Buffalo from 1969-77 (The Blizzard finally ran my parents out). I remember Eyewitness News,and Weinstein, Azar, and Jolls–and the Weather Outside. Yes, exciting things did happen while that feature was going on. I swear I remember an outbreak of mid-winter bikini walk-byes, or some such thing. For some reason I don’t recall the Commander Tom show–guess I was too old (sniff). We actually used to watch Channel 4 news more than we did 7. Does anyone remember that bizarre bowling show on Channel 4, “Strikes, Spares and Misses”? It pitted women’s bowling teams from the Buffalo area against one another, for such lucrative prizes as a box of chip steaks or a jumbo can of potato chips. The grand prize was usually dinner at Bacchi’s Steak Pit–or some such place.
commodorejohn
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

9CL – You know a storyline is bad when a brief interlude with Thorax makes you smile.

A3G – Man, is there anyone in New York who isn’t Margo’s thrall?

A.D. – Didn’t we just establish on Monday that deer are polygamous (as, in fact, they are?) Keep your animal sex facts straight, Mason, or you’ll be getting a lecture from Mark Trail!

BB – I think I’m going to have to return to my theory that Camp Swampy is in fact the last outpost of semi-stable reality in the Beetle Bailey universe, because every time they leave, weird shit happens.

FC – *hums “Floyd The Barber”*

GF – This just keeps getting funnier.

GT – “The girls blow out New Thayer” while the boys engage in “another sloppy performance.” Man, what Clambake hath wrought.

JP – Does the teacher teach Sexy Posing 101 or something?

Love Is… – a summer-winter relationship.

Luann – What’s Bernice doing with her left hand?

Marmaduke – Marmaduke has destroyed the moon.

MT – …uh…

MW – Then Frank walks in and sees how much happier she is without him. Out comes the bottle, on turns the car.

OBH – I love this strip.

Popeye – Okay, it’s official: Popeye is completely insane.

RMMD – Don’t forget the box propped up with a stick with a string tied to it.

SFx – That bird is actually the reincarnated spirit of Les Moore. After he got cancer of the perversion.

SM – Condoleezza Rice hates Spider-Man.
Quail Man
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm [Reply]

I’ve been lurking here for a few months and this is the first time I’ve been moved to make a comment because I don’t think anyone else mentioned it. Sadly, it’s about “Marvin”.

Finding out that Marvin’s last name is Miller has led to me finally understanding that strip. Marvin Miller was the name of the former Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association who turned that union from a joke to a powerhouse. Clearly, “Marvin” was created by a conspiracy of Major League Baseball owners, out to weaken the players’ union by associating its great leader with one of the most vile comic strips ever created. I mean, that makes much more sense than the idea that it was created by a person who actually thinks it’s entertaining…
dale
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

Muffaroo
I have read that at one time, late 1800s I think,
the state of Indiana redefined pi as 3.

Curtis
I thought Curtis told his parents he was staying with a friend. Unless he overtly took Barry with him, he doesn’t have a problem. Just go home and keep your mouth shut.

Luann
On Wednesday, there were seven guys in line booing when they saw the coverup. Thursday we have seven guys standing in line to pay $5. Working backwards to allow for inflation, I don’t think I would have spent 50 cents to throw at a target I couldn’t hit when I could watch for free.

Separate thought 1: Does “senior class” as used here really mean something like “home room”?

Separate thought 2: If you had 3 balls, couldn’t you get more than $5 from some tabloid?
Meanwhile
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

OK, I know people lie about their physical stats in profiles all the time, but how is 6′ 2″ even an option at cryspace.com, where presumably everyone already knows you’re a baby? And who would ever respond to a 6′ 2″ baby anyway, even one who’s not as hateful as Marvin?

It would be like if I went on a dating site for gay men and claimed to wear a D-cup. Well, okay, not exactly like that. Stupid drag queens, wrecking all my metaphors. :(
Muffaroo
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 pm [Reply]

Poteet @195 – Did you ever wonder what was under those falls? Thanks to the intrepid, crazy types who document their explorations of such things, we can have a pretty good photographic peek into the eerie (or maybe Erie, ho ho) 1906 tunnel down there.
Uncle Lumpy
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm [Reply]

#194 Niall –

. . . an alternate-universe, young version of a Cassandra. . . .

Epic failures in Foob and Spider-Man aside, a “reboot” of Slylock Fox would be an utter hoot. Not only would we see young Sly as a Junior Detective, we could enjoy Max’s grad school escapades and Cassandra’s dunk-tank fundraiser. Of course, there were only five differences back then.
Foobaphobe
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm [Reply]

Curtis: I have a terrible vision of Dick Cheney finding little Barry and exacting one last, horrible act of revenge on an ungrateful nation which had turned against him and consigned him to a wheelchair.
Hank
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

Mr. O’Malley: Yes! Commander Tom!! I remember him! When I was young (late 60s-early 70s), most of our TV signals were from Syracuse or Rochester. However, during certain times of year (summer I think) the signal from Buffalo would reach us and we could get “Commander Tom” and “Rocketship 7.” To this day, I can’t think of the Grass Roots’ “Two Divided by Love” without picturing Dustmop “lipsyncing” to it.
cheech wizard
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

Archie – I once read about Linda Lovelace engaging in this kind of multitasking – it involved three guys and a pool table.

BC – Given the nature of this strip, shouldn’t the deer all be like, 20 feet tall? With fangs?

Phantom – “The Mori are just. You can choose death – or bunga-bunga!”
cheech wizard
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

195/Poteet: Yes, the flow over the falls is reduced each night to divert water for power generation. Water is actually diverted into reservoirs on the U.S. and Canadian sides, then allowed to drain through the power plants downstream during the day when demand for electricity is highest.
Calvin's Cardboard Box
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

#207 – I choose death … death by bunga-bunga!!

(Or should that be snu-snu?)
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm [Reply]

#187 Al of the Christian Jungle Patrol,
I’d guess that they’re just relying on all the myriad forms of stupidity in this storyline will cancel each other out. Hell, maybe the gym floor is made of quicksand.
The Dead Acorn
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm [Reply]

Not to defend Margo or anything, but I think she’s being pretty rational in not wanting ANYTHING to go down on her in Schenectady.
Niall
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm [Reply]

132. mollificent: No, Ghirardelli is as bad as Godiva’s; Green & Black is the best Hi could have access to, but not even that should be enough to cover that remark he made. He should drive, days if needed, to get proper Amedei Chuao or Valrhona Ampamakia. Then… then he might have a chance at distracting her.

133. mollificent: oh yes, but if G&B is the best you have access to… no, I don’t believe it, not in Seattle. Ask around. If you find Amedei Toscano Red, JUMP on it. Yes, it’ll be expensive. Yes, it’ll be worth it. If you can’t find any, come on over here. :)

178. Little A: Oh god, I think you’re on it with the dream scenario in Curtis. That would be why there was no explanation on how they got there. Or why one of Curtis’ schemes had finally worked.

203. Muffaroo: HOLY CRAP I’m shivering from adrenaline and dizzy from fear just reading that account. It preys upon all my fears. I’d have died of fright twenty paces inside the station.

Cool photos though… but yikes.

204. Uncle Lumpy: This might just drive someone to start a fanfic now. :)
Isaac
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

I’m actually getting the plotlines in Curtis and Spiderman confused. I think Spiderman just made Barry cry.
doug
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

I’m suprised nobody wondered why Curtis had, you know, failed to plan for a big crowd. Or why nobody has a cellphone. Or why nobody said “hey, if we get separated, let’s meet at the bus terminal”. Or how anyone could get lost in Washington D.C.
That said, I would like the arc to end with Barry saving Curtis’ ass by telling their parents some cool money-saving tips he learned from Tim Geithner.
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:51 pm [Reply]

Ooops! mis-posted!

Archie: “Multitasking”? I guess it does sound a little better than “gangbang” .

SForth: What’s with Sally’s weird black suit? Did she think that her new staff would be more impressed with her if she dressed like a Victorian schoolmarm at a funeral?

Phantom: From the look on Scruffy’s face in Panel 2, The Phantom’s breath seems to be punishment enough! What DO the Mori have for lunch, anyway??

A3G: I thought, from yesterday’s dialogue, that Margo was addressing Tommie as if she were an especially slow-witted servant. I guess today just confirms it. If I were Tommie, I’d do those chores, and leave the list for Margo to find when she comes home with one added item at the bottom: KICK MARGO’S ASS.

9CL: Shouldn’t someone let Brooke know that clothing an enormous, grotesquely obese character in overalls apparently made of couch fabric is NOT an improvement?
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:05 pm [Reply]

#213 Isaac.

Yeah.
“Momma! Momma! Spiderman made me cry for NO REASON!”
And her answer is typical of what Barry’s mom would retort.
Paul1963
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm [Reply]

Knockum Over Witda Pretzel @ 216: What, did she make Spidey clean the bathroom?
feraljane
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm [Reply]

I too thought today’s Spidey was a bit racist, although considering the amount of money schools in poor neighborhoods get, it makes sense that some in a low income bracket might think Spiderman was smart. I would expect to find more of that in Arkansas, though; urban kids are usually a bit more savvy than this poor blighter.

On the other hand…perhaps this young ‘un is going to be Spidey’s new nemesis {“L’il Smarty-Pants” would be a good name}. His mission is to confuse Spiderman so much that the kid can go on a vicious crime spree while poor Peter Parker simply stands there spewing punctuation marks.
papa zita
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

@211: I have a feeling Schenectady feels exactly the same way about her. Many cities probably would be very grateful not to have Margo go down on them.
Alfred E. Neuman
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm [Reply]

#187 Al of the Christian Jungle Patrol, #210 Artist formerly known as Ben Re: Luann— They could use a submersible pump to drain the tank. Or have Brad come over with a fire engine. He could drain the tank in about 15 seconds. Then he could hook up with Tiffany, and drain his tank in about 15 seconds.
Baka Gaijin
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm [Reply]

#220 Alfred E. Neuman: Get out the brain bleach. STAT!
UncleJeff
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:16 pm [Reply]

199 Commodore John: Love Is — making her cover up because you’re creeped out by her wrinkly bits.
Foobaphobe
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm [Reply]

What is this Schenectady bashing all of a sudden? It’s the City that Lights and Hauls the World, or it did, until all the factories closed!
150
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm [Reply]

#169: Oh my gosh, I totally agree. They’re adorable.
ChattyGenes
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm [Reply]

#203 Muffaroo. Holy cow! thanks for that link! That kind of historic stuff fascinates me. I haven’t had time to read much of the text yet (I have to leave for work soon), but I did skim through and look at the photos, and will get to the text when I can.
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm [Reply]

169 and 224: Aren’t those the guys from The Big Bang Theory?
UncleJeff
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

223 Foobaphobe: Schenectady (as I’m sure you know) is also the home of WGY Radio, one of America’s oldest radio stations. It went on the air in 1922 and as recently as about ten years ago (when I drove by the area) still had one of the most interesting radio antenna systems I have ever seen. Sad to say, the WGY web site doesn’t tell anything about the fascinating history of the station. Instead, it’s just another cookie-cutter Clear Channel Communications website and station. (I wonder how many of those local people got laid off on Tuesday?)
Little Guy
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

Speculative Spiderman — FROM THE FUTURE!!!!

I’m calling it.

Somewhere near the end of this saga, the Obama shows up, gives Spidey the Presidential FistBump Seal of Approval, and even Barry’s Mom will think Spidey is a hero is JJJ is an asshat.
Little Guy
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:13 pm [Reply]

….Barry’s Mom will think Spidey is a hero and is JJJ is an asshat.
Jude
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:20 pm [Reply]

Say, has anyone noticed that Captain Kangaroo’s trip to DC is going to be too late for him to see the inauguration?
Anonymous
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm [Reply]

218 feraljane – So, you think that SM is racist because one of the walk-on characters is black? Or is it because the little black kid in SM is portrayed as something other than a smart-ass adult wannabe? Do you think that A3G is racist because none of its characters is black? Would you also think that SM is racist if the walk-on kid were not black? Jesus Christ, some people are so hard to please!
Chyron HR
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

#230 Jude – Forget that, did you see the way Dick Tracy’s fingers looked in last Saturday’s strip?
These Strange Worlds
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm [Reply]

187 Luann (Draining the tank)

Perhaps they will discover a booming market on ebay for “Cheerleader drunking water”. Then they could empty it directly into water tight shipping tubes and pay to take the Junior class as well.

I’m still thinking $800 + $200 = $1,000 dividied by $5 = 200 boys, each with three balls (You know the kind of balls I mean!!?)

That’s 600 tosses. If they are very fast throwers, and say 20 seconds per ball, that’s almost three and a half hours of dunking.

That’s optimistic. Six hours is more like it.

Tiffani is gonna bail, and I don’t mean help bail out the dunk tank.

Who can replace her?
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 pm [Reply]

This is a job for Doorstoppo!
Steve the Pocket
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

@#179: I would assume they pump it full of water.
These Strange Worlds
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

La Cucaracha

Bwaaa ha ha ha

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2009/1/22&name=La_Cucaracha

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/6222353.html

This juxtaposition is as funny (and by that I mean not-particularly-funny-at-all) as the time last year when the Houston Chronicle’s Sunday Parade managine ran a multi-page, glitzy, optimism-tinged interview with Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto — a full two weeks after she was assassinated.

Damn that lag period between creation and publication. If only somebody would invent a way to deliver the news in near real time.
Uncle Lumpy
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:06 pm [Reply]

If only somebody would invent a way to deliver the news in near real time.

Maybe they could use flying cars to deliver the newspapers!!!
These Strange Worlds
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:12 pm [Reply]

237: Uncle Lumpy

I hope that joke isn’t copyrighted, because I am SO going to tell it to all my reporter friends. They’ll think it’s funny as hec…

OK, maybe they won’t think it’s funny, but I sure do.
Knockum Over Witda Pretzel
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm [Reply]

237: Uncle Lumpy

Isn’t that called the Internet?
Uncle Lumpy
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm [Reply]

#239 KOWP –

The Internet omits the essential “flying car” component.

Stupid, stupid Internet!
Alfred E. Neuman
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm [Reply]

#221 Baka Gaijin— OK, it’s on me, a round of brain bleach for all ‘Mudges. Let’s drain the tank!
Vince M
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm [Reply]

MT – hard to tell what’s going on here – reminds me of Paw in Chuck Jones’ Three Bears cartoons who will punch his big doofus son hard, but just swipes angrily at the wife, not making contact. But then it could be one of those Three Stooges hand-wave things, as done by an angry, mesomorphic Curly Howard.
cheech wizard
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm [Reply]

LuAnn – $5 for 3 balls? This sounds like the rate for pimping out Bernice, not Tiffany. It’d be a lot more profitable to just invest in some new signs instead of recycling the old ones. Damn kids have no business sense.
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm [Reply]

I notice the AJGLU is today bragging (by proxy through Veronica) about its capabilities. Also I guess suggesting that it is promiscuous.

I don’t want to think about it any more.
Violet
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm [Reply]

Wow, I really like Cinderella Tommie. And I wouldn’t have thought there was any modifier I could use for “Tommie” that would make that statement true, with the possible exception of “zombie.”
Buck Ripsnort
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 pm [Reply]

Why don’t the Luann kids do what REAL high school girls do for money– sell used panties online.
Anonymous
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm [Reply]

#194 – Pluggers: I am apparently married to a Plugger who, when confronted with a “furrin” word, willl pronounce it exactly as he sees it, proper pronounciation be damned. “Garcon” will be loudly pronounced “GAHR-KOHN”. “Bon soir” comes out “BOHN SOW-ER”. And so on. This doofus is actually proud of his own idiocy.

Oh, and speaking of Upstate NY, I live in Syracuse, proud holder for the umpteenth year of the Golden Snowball trophy, delivered by a caravan of meteorologists to the city with the most snowfall for the season. Buffalo has been trying to wrest the trophy from our grasp, being on Lake Erie and all, but WE have Lake Ontario! Nyah nyah!
Uncle Lumpy
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:49 pm [Reply]

#247 Anonymous –

Syracuse, Buffalo, it’s all the same: chakun a sewn gawt, gnawmean?
Allen Reynolds
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 pm [Reply]

Prediction for Sally Forth
Ted’s flame Ariel works in the marketing department. I bet we see it tomorrow.
UncleJeff
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 pm [Reply]

BTW 203 Muffaroo:
wow.
Niall
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 pm [Reply]

247. Anonymous: To your spouse’s defense, I don’t expect people who know nothing of French to be able to pronounce these words correctly; the cedilla (and all other diacriticals) and the diphtongues using syllables not found in English words is somewhat rightly of no importance to people using only their own language. Why make a lot of efforts on something you’ll use three or four times?

Which only fuels my groaning at seeing a correctly-spelled (which no Plugger would care about) french word used non-ironically in a situation (McD’s) in which it can only be applied ironically. Brookins, that ain’t no Plugger. (To clarify a detail: thanking the cook even at McD’s is not a bad thing; it’s in fact a nice ideal of politeness and general-friendship-with-humanity and good manners carried without regards for class or location, as ideals should be. Just.. not that way.)
Sparky
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm [Reply]

A3G: Margo does have their sex romps on video after all. Poor Tommie. I bet her will is interesting. So how in Hell did Lu Ann escape? I’m curious who ends up with the stuffed animals – who haven’t appeared for decades – Wilbur and Wendell ? The last panel is scary – Tommie can’t go bathroom until she’s done cleaning apparently.

Marvin: Marvin is one of the comics I’d never read. Lately, what I’ve seen says that it is a good decision. Sexing up babies is perverse.

Luann: Luann is different – they’re near adult teens. In real life, the prissy teacher would end up in the tank and “alpha males” in the the crowd would drag Tiffani off for sex to her profit (and future job training). I used to hang with the “Friends of Lulu” comics crowd and Greg Evans would drop by and chat. Hmm …

Sally Forth: Ted will end up with both Sally and Ariel and the goth girl his daughter hangs with – but the joke will be he can’t perform …
rata2e
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm [Reply]

#248 Uncle Lumpy, I lived in both places longer than I care to say, but I can’t cipher chakun a sewn gawt.
anon anon
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am [Reply]

That would be “chacun a son gout”, French for “everyone to his taste” – something like different strokes for different folks….
Niall
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

anon anon: actually, no, that’s “à chacun son goût”, or “to everyone their taste”. It’s a fairly common mistake, and a very understandable one considering the weird grammar. :)

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