The Comics Curmudgeon

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Slouchsketball!

Dick Tracy, 1/29/09

Dick Tracy is well known for such stunningly pointless narration box scene setting as “In another room” and “Elsewhere,” but I have to admit to being somewhat intrigued by “Much later”. By using qualitative, not quantitative, terms, the strip sets up an intriguing narrative tension about exactly when the third panel is supposed to be taking place. Are we meant to read it as “Much later, after Dick’s gruesome, nine-hour ‘enhanced’ interrogation of Professor Noll, at the end of which he described the secret project he was working on, confessed to a number of crimes he couldn’t have possibly committed, and then was shot ‘trying to escape’?” Or as “Much later, after the human race has evolved into a species with no pupils, shiny black skulls, truncated, pointy breasts, and a tendency to name people things like ‘Driller’?”

Gil Thorp, 1/29/09

Of course, Central has an incredible home-court advantage. Playing basketball on a court with four-foot ceilings does limit the number of home fans who can come and cheer, but for teams unused to such conditions, the stooped, simian lope that they make necessary can be a real distraction — one that the permanently hunched over Bobcats can exploit.

I’m not sure what the two clowns standing behind Marty are up to — trying to get their faces on the radio? That’s not how it works, guys — but I sincerely hope that the blond-haired glasses-wearing dude is making the universal jerk-off motion with his left hand, as he appears to be.

Blondie, 1/29/05

I strongly disapprove of the set-up for this joke. Dagwood can’t possibly be much older than, say, 50; obviously anyone born after 1960, when asked by a child if some common, century-old device were available during their childhood, would respond not with “Yes, and yet I’m also going to offer a description of an archaic technology that will make me seem even more wizened to you,” but with “JESUS CHRIST ELMO HOW OLD DO YOU THINK I AM,” followed by some serious soul-searching and a series of inappropriate and regrettable music and clothing purchases.

Mary Worth, 1/29/09

“Yes, before I came to visit you, I never imagined the hatred and despair that lurked just beneath the besequined surface of this beautiful sport! Now every time I see a coach talking to a skater on TV, all I’ll be able to think of will be the many ways that each has been able to wound and disappoint the other over the years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my glass of blood as soon as possible and get the hell out of here before this little papered-over truce you’ve established inevitably collapses in tears and acrimony and slashing blades.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 05:05 pm and is filed under Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gil Thorp, Mary Worth.

217 responses to “Slouchsketball!”

McManx
January 29th, 2009 at 5:09 pm [Reply]

Jesus, what is Joan Rivers doing in the Dick Tracy comics?
McManx
January 29th, 2009 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

Hot damn! I made first post and squandered it on a cheap shot.
Pozzo
January 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

Those two basketball players in the first panel are obviously attempting to recreate the celebrated Jerome Robbins choreography to “Cool” from “West Side Story.”

“Cool!” “Crazy!” “Go!”
cheech wizard
January 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Mary Worth drunk – how many toasts have they done by now, anyway?
Pozzo
January 29th, 2009 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

DT: “Drill, baby, drill!”
cheech wizard
January 29th, 2009 at 5:13 pm [Reply]

MW – And what’s the deal with that row of lights lining the doorway? Are they having dinner in a strip club?
NoVan
January 29th, 2009 at 5:18 pm [Reply]

Family Circus: “And this is a picture of that dog down that street that Dad doesn’t allow around Mom anymore.”
BeeF
January 29th, 2009 at 5:20 pm [Reply]

The best thing about Blondie today is the “Beep Beep Text Beep Beep Text…” of Elmo’s Blackberry. Obviously, Blondie’s target demographic needs to be reminded that the kid isn’t just playing a happy song. Or using a wireless telegraph.

Also, Elmo has a Blackberry?
Idols of Mud
January 29th, 2009 at 5:22 pm [Reply]

Gil Thorp: They ARE making the universal wanking gesture, and it’s most likely inspired by Josh’s naughty nurses advertisements.
Anonymous
January 29th, 2009 at 5:24 pm [Reply]

MW – And why is our poney-tailed superwoman toasting herself. Hear! Hear! Is that not bad form?
"Onion"
January 29th, 2009 at 5:25 pm [Reply]

MW: And Mary’s eyes roll back into her head and she falls backward drunk.

Mother Goose and Grim: What a time for some Gitmo satire, right as its closing. Even though these comics are written weeks in advance, Mike Peters should still have known by then that it would close.

6 Chix: I won’t even try to understand it.

Curtis: It looks like Barry will be adopted by a family that actually loves him, and would actually try to find him if he got lost.
BeeF
January 29th, 2009 at 5:30 pm [Reply]

Can’t wait to see Milford line up against Central in Footcrawl…
thatquietkid
January 29th, 2009 at 5:31 pm [Reply]

The only way Electro could top yesterday’s “Awkwardly-Going-Into-a-Flashback” Strip was to act so self-centered that he doesn’t care about his fellow co-worker yelling out a not one, not two, but THREE L “Helllp”, a task only Max Dillon could accomplish so well. In fact, He is shocked to see his boss change the subject of his non-deserved raise.
sally
January 29th, 2009 at 5:33 pm [Reply]

MW: Tears, acrimony, slashing blades and kneecapping. You forgot kneecapping.
Anonymous
January 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm [Reply]

And the same thing goes for Mary Worth herself. When someone proposes a toast and describes you as “our wise friend,” you do not respond, “I’LL DRINK TO THAT!” Well, maybe you do if you are half in the bag. The more common response is, “Thank you. You are too kind.”
BigTed
January 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm [Reply]

Dagwood: “Yes, Elmo, of course we had telephones when I was a kid. If by that you mean a big black box that sat on your desk or hung on your wall, with buttons that you had to push individually in order to call someone, or sometimes a heavy dial that you had to force around with your finger for each number, and which was attached to an equally heavy handset with a thick, curly wire that often got tangled up, and that would just keep ringing and until someone answered it or the caller hung up in despair, because there was no way to leave any kind of message, and for which you’d pay special “long distance” charges whenever you called someone outside your neighborhood, which would be collected by a single company with no competitors, because that’s just the way things were back then.”

Elmo: Geez, Mr. B., how old ARE you?!?”
Big Sims
January 29th, 2009 at 5:38 pm [Reply]

Yea! Lyn’s a great skater but Mary takes the Gold! The Gold ‘Meddle’* that is…

*tip o’ the hat to AhClem
Violet
January 29th, 2009 at 5:43 pm [Reply]

I think Elmo might be excused for some confusion as to Dagwood’s antiquity given that the latter is strolling jauntily down the street in a dashing cerulean frock coat carrying an old-timey washboard.
Patrick
January 29th, 2009 at 5:45 pm [Reply]

“Exactly right, Mr. Tracy, it wasn’t the perfume that exploded, it was the bomb I made! So you see, you can’t arrest and/or punch and/or shoot me for making exploding perfume, because what I made explodes, but has nothing to do with a line of fragrances! Muahahahahahaha!

…oh, wait.”
Comrade Denny
January 29th, 2009 at 5:51 pm [Reply]

DT: Prof. Noll’s (never finished his doctorate I suppose)(which isn’t surprising since he still hasn’t mastered the whole acids-into-bases thing) perfume appears to be mutagenic as well as explosive.

FC: Dolly, just because he’s kept in a cage out back and fed rotting scraps of meat trimmings doesn’t mean PJ’s an animal any more than having having a big melon head means you’re smart.

GT: Good on Gil for not discriminating against hunchbacked mongoloids, even if they can’t run, jump, or shoot very well. Take that, Marty Moon.

MT: Woah, looks like someone forgot to put the safety on on his Giganto-Shrink Two-Way Ray.

S-M: “I want a raise.” “Take it up with your union rep. next time contract negotiations come around, Mr. Skilled Public Utility Employee.”
Mac
January 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm [Reply]

I believe that this is actually a redrawing of a previous Blondie strip that ran early in its run, in which Elmo asked if they had writing when Dagwood was young. “Yes, and before that, we had cuneiform!”
Naked Bunny with a Whip
January 29th, 2009 at 5:55 pm [Reply]

Glad to hear you’ve got your mid-life crisis all planned out, Josh. That’s the sort of thing you want to be prepared for. Especially at your age.
shMerker
January 29th, 2009 at 5:55 pm [Reply]

Blondie is funny because just like in olden days you need to go to a special office with a specially trained operator to send a message to someone and then another operator in a similar office on the other end decodes the message and hands it off to a courier who hand delivers it to its recipient. Yep, the more things change the more they stay the same.
Beatrice
January 29th, 2009 at 5:58 pm [Reply]

Who’s the redhead sitting at Frank and Lynn’s table? Did they invite a runner-up to dinner just so they could crush her soul a little more?
maughta
January 29th, 2009 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

Aww, I was really hoping you were gonna mention Luann prostituting herself at the behest of her friends, but I’ll take Gil Thorp’s WTF first panel if I must.
Evan
January 29th, 2009 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

Blondie’s joke would make a lot of sense if the telegraph and texting were remotely similar.
Chyron HR
January 29th, 2009 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

Spider-Man – “HELLLLLLLLLP!” I admire you for trying, Harris, but I don’t think the Elite Beat Agents are going to do a crossover with The Spectacular ~~Electro~~ Spider-Man.

Between Friends – Enjoy your taquitos, ladies, but when the toaster oven blows a circuit in your building, have fun waiting for the repairman to finish whining at his boss for a raise before he fixes it.

9 Chickweed Lane – Amos, that’s not a ring, it’s a teabag. No, the other kind.

Crankshaft – “Organ donor? Sure, I want to get somebody’s hopes up before they cut me open and see what 200 years of smoking, drinking and school bus driving have done to my innards.”

Edge City – “He’s not a drug dealer, bubeleh. Now serial killer, that’s looking pretty likely.”

Gasoline Alley – Do fancier restaurants have this same kind of insane slang? “I’ll have the filet mignon, medium-well, and the calamari appetizer.” “Lady Godiva on the run and 20,000 leagues!”

Judge Parker – I miss Cedric’s ex-wife, but you don’t hear me whining about it.

Popeye – “Lil’ boy kid”? Eighty-odd years of debate about Swee’pea’s indeterminate gender, and Sagendorf just settles it without a second though. Thanks for ruining the mystery, bubeleh.

Zits – “How can you live with something that constantly annoys you?” “Well, sometimes he goes into verbal contortions just to set up a joke for me.”
CanuckDownSouth
January 29th, 2009 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

#24-Beatrice [no_snark] That would be Lynn’s choreographer. We now return you to your regularly scheduled snark…[/no_snark]
Poteet
January 29th, 2009 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

MW — When I first saw this strip last night, I couldn’t figure out why Mary’s eyes looked so bizarre. Thanks for the tipoff, brother and sister Mudges. Another reminder that I unfortunately can never spot when others have had too much to drink unless they actually barf on me.
L.D.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:03 pm [Reply]

At the pace Dick Tracy moves we should be seeing events forshadowed in the “much later” narration box sometime around August 2013. Thank goodness Judge Parker didn’t use it, since we will all be long dead by the time that plot unfolds.
Draktyr
January 29th, 2009 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

#1 – Look closer, it’s not Joan Rivers, but fashion maven Gloria Vanderbilt
kk
January 29th, 2009 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

Didn’t Dagwood and Blondie meet in the 1920s? He’s just reminiscing about when telephones were new.
Of course, the slow movement of time in the strip really makes you wonder about the properties of Blondies’ cooking.
Cheeky Wee Monkeys
January 29th, 2009 at 6:08 pm [Reply]

When I was sixteen I begged my parents for my own telegraph so I could beep out messages to my friends all night. But no, I was forced to use the family one. That was SO UNFAIR.
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 29th, 2009 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

Whatever that critter is in the last panel of BC, it’s hilarious. Possibly the single funniest thing on the page today.
fnord3125
January 29th, 2009 at 6:12 pm [Reply]

re: Mary Worth – What did she really expect with a sport that requires the use of knife boots?
LA Steve
January 29th, 2009 at 6:15 pm [Reply]

Dagwood and Blondie met in 1930 and were married three years later (they’re both very well-preserved), and well into the 1960s they used a “candlestick” phone — the antique sort with no dial and a separate earpiece on a cord.
Uncle Lumpy
January 29th, 2009 at 6:17 pm [Reply]

Mary Worth —

Dear Ms. Karen Moy:

May we please have a pool party now? It’s been an awfully long time — and we’ve been very good! I miss Random Adult-Looking Child and Man-on-Stairs, not to mention Wilbur Weston, who never goes anywhere but the pool anymore. And Carlos Alora!

Yours truly,

Uncle Lumpy
Ginger Yellow
January 29th, 2009 at 6:18 pm [Reply]

Ah yes. Who can forget the time when Ming the Merciless had a sex change and took on Dick Tracy?
Trekkie
January 29th, 2009 at 6:20 pm [Reply]

FW: Les is too busy trying to get some non-spectral action to notice that his daughter is trying to decide which is the fastest way to off herself.

Luann: Would the last bit of reality to leave this strip please turn out the lights?
Matmaduke
January 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm [Reply]

The driller…sounds like the name of a porn actor. Why don’t you just call him/her the penetrator, or the french tickler, or the quarter pounder (with cheese and extra mayo)?
The Not-So-Amazing Whitney
January 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm [Reply]

Blondie: You are all missing the real joke here. The crux of this strip isn’t “younger generation dismisses older technology in favor of new technology, but then in a comedic turn inadvertently demonstrates that aforementioned new technology is superficially similar to old technology.” Oh, no. That’s too easy, and it’s been done to death.

The true humor of this well-crafted strip is that, technically, ANY technology that allows direct data transmission without physical transport can be considered “telegraphy.” Here, Elmo is exposing Dagwood’s ignorance by demonstrating that telegraphy is still alive and well in the 21st century. Dagwood, realizing that he has been shown up by a child, displays his disquiet via an exclamation mark protruding from his scalp.

See? COMEDY GOLD, PEOPLE.
Uncle Lumpy
January 29th, 2009 at 6:24 pm [Reply]

#38 GY –

Hey, speaking of Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon is doing um, a “flashback” featuring his own bad self!
AsleepOrDead
January 29th, 2009 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

RMMD: My, the girls are really standing at attention today. And by girls, I of course mean June’s breasts.

Blondie: My god, look at the size of that Blackberry! It’s too big to fit into the palm of his hand!

Marmaduke: Oh Jesus! Okay, listen Norman, just back up slowly. Don’t make any sudden moves. And for the love of God, if you want to keep your appendages, don’t look him in the eye.

H&J: I’m freaking out! Make it stop!

FC: So, PJ’s a hellbeast? That explains a lot . . .
Count Duckula
January 29th, 2009 at 6:27 pm [Reply]

So, Phyllis Driller is on the phone to her husband?
Mibbitmaker
January 29th, 2009 at 6:35 pm [Reply]

(apologies if I’m repeating any yesterthread jokes)

Blondie: Yes, Elmo, I remember back when We had telephones, just like Dagwood remembers. In fact… (looks past the computer screen to the table behind it)…. I STILL HAVE ONE!!

DT: Joan Rivers, no, but she looks like she may be related to the Family Circus kids with her big furshlugginer melon.

GT: The 1st panel is a bad attempt at a new sport: Synchronized Basketball.
Alex Blaze
January 29th, 2009 at 6:37 pm [Reply]

I don’t know about Blondie. Dagwood was born some time before the 1920’s, and so it might be possible that a kid would believe that there weren’t any telephones when he was a kid.

Instead, Dagwood is more surprised that Elmo pulled out a cell phone. Everyone’s stuck in the time warp, but apparently Elmo was able to break through the matrix and bring back something that would indicate that this particular strip was originally published some time after the 1970’s. Questions of the meaning of time and the nature of reality are encapsulated in that half-assed exclamation point above Dagwood’s head in panel 3, but, more importantly, we all want to know just who are these new creators who keep on creating new events in their lives, presumptuously replacing the gods of yore who deemed that all jokes in the Blondie-verse would center around sandwiches, Eisenhower-era gendered marriages, and vague office work?

In other news, the creators of Blondie think that the “beeping” (if you will) of Morse code is comparable to texting. It probably explains to all their friends why their text messages are incomprehensible.
bobk
January 29th, 2009 at 6:52 pm [Reply]

GT: Panel 3 looks to me like Matt Damon & Ben Affleck are hanging out, waiting for an opportunity to show Marty their screenplay for Good Will Hunting 3: Have Good, Will Hunt.
Harold
January 29th, 2009 at 6:57 pm [Reply]

Second try at posting this -

What is Sinestro doing in Dick Tracy? And where did he get those earrings?
Tim
January 29th, 2009 at 6:59 pm [Reply]

Forget telegraphs, I want a cell phone that makes ‘text’ sounds.
PeteMoss
January 29th, 2009 at 7:05 pm [Reply]

Gil Thorp[e]
I blame panel 1 on all the cut-backs the newspapers have been making. The editors refuse to give the artist enough room for the art, so these poor high school students are forced into a box that is much to a panel that’s much too small for them. Ultimately, I blame Craigslist.
PeteMoss
January 29th, 2009 at 7:12 pm [Reply]

BigTed @16
I hate admitting it, but I remember those heavy, black telephones courtesy of Ma Bell. Here’s the question regarding the rotary dials: Did you just remove your finger immediately after cranking the dial a full turn, or did you let your finger ride the dial all the way back before choosing the next number? Also, you’re almost a Dagwoodian if you remember telphone exchanges like Broadway 9-2299.
Crankenstank
January 29th, 2009 at 7:18 pm [Reply]

Dang it, I remember steam-powered internet and single-digit zip codes, Pete.
Mike's Dumbmerica
January 29th, 2009 at 7:19 pm [Reply]

In re Gil Thorp’s first panel: I’ve coached basketball, and somehow I missed that little bit of fundamentals. Who knows how many more games my girls could have won if everyone had only played the game with their backs perpendicular to the floor?!
Dr. Weird
January 29th, 2009 at 7:20 pm [Reply]

Did anyone else see the ad for “Tales of Pirates” game, featuring the line “Make friends to against finance crisis here?”

Did the analysis of Dick Tracy’s poor language usage summon up such a product, the way all the talk about female “talent” in JP and RMMD gets ads like the “Fear” one put up?
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 29th, 2009 at 7:26 pm [Reply]

#51 – PeteMoss:

Hey! You don’t have to date back to Dagwood’s youth to recall lettered telephone exchanges – I recall (Spunky says, brushing his long gray beard off the keyboard) when they went over to the infamous “all-digit dialing” – and I was older, even, than Elmo!

Telephonic trivia: the standard system for phone numbers in the US – (000) 000-0000 – was actually set up in 1950: but they retained the “exchanges” for years afterwards, as they thought people would remember “names” better than mere digits. Unfortunately, they also didn’t foresee the explosion in phone-number demand 60 years on: I think we will run out of 7-digit numbers by 2015 or so.
Ptychozoon
January 29th, 2009 at 7:30 pm [Reply]

NO Blondie, NO! That is a FALSE syllogism! The beeping made by Elmo’s phone is a byproduct of text messaging! It is not actually necessary for the communication! Thus IT IS NOT IRONIC! AAHHHH!!!!
Ptychozoon
January 29th, 2009 at 7:32 pm [Reply]

Dick Tracy: “So it wasn’t the perfume that exploded, it was something else?”
It’s as if they WANT us to make an inappropriate joke here. Must…resist……
In your pants!
Mister Beautiful
January 29th, 2009 at 7:42 pm [Reply]

Pete Moss @51: It wasn’t that long ago, was it? My parents’ number was Geneva 8-4616. I was definitely a finger remover. I’m not that old. Am I?
Rusty
January 29th, 2009 at 7:44 pm [Reply]

GT: Marty Moon appears to broadcasting from his car, with a couple of young “friends” in the back seat.
Ignatz
January 29th, 2009 at 7:51 pm [Reply]

I remember the telephone exchanges. But then I’m so old my Social Security number is “3.” I got there early.

Jack Benny beat me. He was “2.”

Georgie Jessel was 1.
Jesse C
January 29th, 2009 at 7:52 pm [Reply]

Little know fact: All of the extras from the opening scene of 2001 were Central grads.
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 29th, 2009 at 7:57 pm [Reply]

MW: Another clue, O Poteet, ought to have been that fact that Mary and her party are partying at a completely empty table: the management must have figured out Mary was likely to go down forehead-first, and wanted to get the breakables well out of the way!

Curtis: Speaking of telegraphy: anybody go back and do a count of how many ‘Mudges got the Western Union on the lame “lost-Barry” plotline? I recall at least four….

MT: Either Bucky has shrunk himself to about six inches in height, or he’s scampered off about 50 yards away – either way, it’s going to make it hard for Mark to take his picture.
Joe Blevins
January 29th, 2009 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

MW: Panel three of Mary Worth almost reads like an advertisement for Mary’s now-even-more-thorough wisdom. It might as well be, “Mary Worth: now with retsin!” I bet she can hardly wait to get home and add “grit behind the glamour of competitive skating” to the Areas of Expertise section of her meddling CV. She hasn’t been able to add anything to that list since “identity theft,” and that was, what, six or seven years ago?
Mel
January 29th, 2009 at 8:18 pm [Reply]

We still have two big black rotary phones in the house.

You could beat an intruder senseless with the bakelite handset and tie their hands with the stretchy cord all while calling 911 — and they still work when the power is out.

60 Ignatz: does that make George Burns 0?
Donald the Anarchist
January 29th, 2009 at 8:18 pm [Reply]

MW “Now wiser to the grit behind the glamour of competitive skating!” Uh, I know Mary Worth moves at a glacial pace, but wasn’t there a Will Ferrell movie covering this very topic just last year? What’s next, a soap opera version of ?

DT I love how this strip creates suspense. You have to wait several days just to find out what simple English phrases mean. It’s like if the dictionary had a “To be continued” tag.

GT This strip, on the other hand, leaves you in doubt as to whether time and space themselves have any meaning. Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher would either approve, or be just as confused as the rest of us…

Blondie “Well, when I was growing up, radio waves moved through something called the ‘ether,’ and we believed in theoretical substances like ‘phlogiston.’ Plus women didn’t have orgasms.”
Ignacio Nova
January 29th, 2009 at 8:21 pm [Reply]

Technically, Dagwood IS old enough to have been around when telegraphs were a more pervasive component of American Life. But surely the characters aren’t aware they’ve existed in their current states for nearly 80 years, are they? Is the concept of the Blondie comic far deeper than any of us could have realized?
Donald the Anarchist
January 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm [Reply]

Oh, and the Will Ferrell movie was Step Brothers. I couldn’t remember his latest one and went to look it up on Wikipedia, but then promptly forgot to enter it as I was doing the rest of my snark. My teachers always DID say I was lacking on “attention to task”…
PeteMoss
January 29th, 2009 at 8:25 pm [Reply]

Mister Beautiful, Spunky N. Tadpole, Ignatz

Ok, maybe the exchange thing wasn’t that long ago. However, wouldn’t you agree that you would have to be a Dagwoodian to get today’s Lio ?
dale
January 29th, 2009 at 8:33 pm [Reply]

Telephones
I always removed my finger from the dial. I didn’t want to confuse the thing, and it seems to do the actual dialing on the return swing. I still have one connected on the extension jack.
I remember telling an operator a 3 or 4 digit number followed by a letter. This was in a Chicago suburb during the 50s. Went on a tour of the local phone exchange when I was in the Cub Scouts – real ladies using patch cords.
PeteMoss
January 29th, 2009 at 8:33 pm [Reply]

MW – We’ve been witness to the grit behind the glamour of extreme meddling! Competive? Mary has no competition!
fishmorgjp
January 29th, 2009 at 8:45 pm [Reply]

Dick Tracy will soon battle this new villain: a transsexual Howdy Doody puppet!!
Alfred E. Neuman
January 29th, 2009 at 8:46 pm [Reply]

BB— The snark for today’s strip is best left to Dingo.

FW— I see where this is going. Les and Cayla’s budding romance will be destroyed because their daughters hate each other. However, it doesn’t really matter, because they’ll all suffer and die anyway.

RMMD— The mysterious boy is actually a spirit who is accompanying the ship because it is Outward Bound, or Between Two Worlds. It’s destination: Crocco Island.
Mac Divot
January 29th, 2009 at 9:16 pm [Reply]

I know this may be a little off topic, but I don’t understand Luann’s reluctance to dating Elwood, especially given such a noble cause. Honestly, as weird a dude as he obviously appears, he bears a remarkable similarity to her dog, Puddles.
WillieO
January 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm [Reply]

“Yes, it may have been Milford’s best game so far, but lets talk about a game they’re not even CLOSE to winning. That game is Scoliosis Prevetion and education, and its time to get off the pine and get in the game! Because Scoliosis NEVER takes a time out and neither can we! “
Charterstoned
January 29th, 2009 at 9:28 pm [Reply]

MT – Bucky assumes his new position as Patty’s epaulette.

MW – Notice how no one in that fancy schmancy restaurant is reflected in the mirror on the wall? Either they’re all vampires and that really IS blood in Mary’s glass, or the mirror just can’t bring itself to double the number of HIDEOUS outfits those diners are wearing. Geez, is that girl still wearing a sweaty warm-up jacket?
sugarpie
January 29th, 2009 at 9:46 pm [Reply]

#42 Uncle Lumpy Now thats how to move along a plot! Rex, June, and their daughter Rhoda have taken what? three weeks to go through one day of this Voyage of the Darned? I wish Stoppard would do a comic strip.

Sally Forth Someone above mentioned skipping SF for a while since her new group of coworkers seem to pretty much suck. And yeah, they do. I know new characters have to be introduced but can’t any one of them have an interesting or likable trait. The more I think about this the better the idea of a SF hiatus sounds.

I don’t get why the author is batting her around. Seems like Ces (if I may be so familiar) is pushing some fairly Batuik-like tropes into Sally’s small world. Also, wtf happened to the silent feud Ted and Sally were having over Aria? I’m pretty sure what Batuik’s answer would be: “its called writing.” Doesn’t hold water in the Fwinkerverse or in SFworld.

Seriously, something has gotten off track in this strip.
Uncle Lumpy
January 29th, 2009 at 9:48 pm [Reply]

#64 Mel –

911? Surely you mean “Operator, this is an emergency.”
Mr. O'Malley
January 29th, 2009 at 10:08 pm [Reply]

The whole abusive husband plus wife with a deer thing in Mark Trail reminds of a story by Arthur Machen or Saki or someone like that. The husband ends up getting impaled.
Dragon of Life
January 29th, 2009 at 10:19 pm [Reply]

On first glance, Marty Moon looked as if he were doing a C. Montgomery Burn “Eeeexcellent” pose. I’m sorry he isn’t, since him getting shot by an infant would be entirely in keeping with the dramatic tone of the strip.
Mr. O'Malley
January 29th, 2009 at 10:23 pm [Reply]

Tough times in the alternative comics business—http://thismodernworld.com/4667
Mr. O'Malley
January 29th, 2009 at 10:25 pm [Reply]

Hmm. Tough times in the alternative comics business—

http://thismodernworld.com/4667

Ah. Now that’s a clickable link.
Poteet
January 29th, 2009 at 10:26 pm [Reply]

MT — Mark is taking this news about an emotionally-abusive, violent husband with remarkable calm. I bet he’d have that same expression if he came home and found Cherry lying dead on the floor. He’d call 911, but his mouth would still retain that firm half-smile, the one that says Death is just another bad guy with facial hair.
papa zita
January 29th, 2009 at 10:32 pm [Reply]

Telephones were fairly widespread in the very early part of the last century, long before Dagwood may have been a child. By the thirties. the telegraph was used mainly to send death notices (which is why nobody liked receiving a telegram back in the old days).

The candlestick phone was a cool device, actually. You could pick it up and flip the earpiece to your hand, thus impressing many flappers. By the miracle of the party line, you could also amuse yourself by listening in on your neighbors’ conversations.
Uncle Lumpy
January 29th, 2009 at 11:06 pm [Reply]

We had a party line when I was a kid.

By cracky.
Joe
January 29th, 2009 at 11:07 pm [Reply]

BoV Mushrooms again? Don’t the Snorkles ever eat anything else?

CD&3 Can you believe panel three? I bet Nina couldn’t do that with one of the big balls.

COOT I am sorry, but evil space lasers do not go “PSSSST”

DFG Apparently principal Willmore is on a crusade to end the evils of pre-marital spooning.
True Fable
January 29th, 2009 at 11:13 pm [Reply]

Hell, in Greater Metropolitan Roopville, we take pride in utilizing the finest string-and-Dixie-Cups in the land! Yessiree, Greater Metropolitan Roopville – where progress is spelled S-O-F-U-C-K-E-D and we recognize the streets in Scenes from Suburban Hell.
Malethoth K
January 29th, 2009 at 11:22 pm [Reply]

Curtis – Wow. Everyone predicted this turn of events, like, four days ago. As if Momma Wilkins stopping in front of the TV going “HOLY SHIT, SOMETHING RELATED TO THE CURRENT CRISIS ABOUT OUR SON (AT THE PRESIDENT’S INAUGURATION) IS ON THE TELLY!” didn’t tip off even the most clueless. Gosh, Diane, you’re almost as good at foreshadowing as Kris Straub is at driving a mediocre concept for a webcomic into the ground!
Angry Kem
January 29th, 2009 at 11:23 pm [Reply]

There is a Jape today. It explains why PJ should actually be eating out of a dog dish.

I remember rotary phones. I also miss them. They had rhythm, and they did not play loud and annoying songs in the middle of films. When you threw them at people, you knew that somebody was going to get hurt.

I wish to pick up Mary’s glass of blood and grind it slowly into her smug, sanctimonious face. Then I wish to take this storyline out to the back forty and shoot it through the head.

I remember those guys in the first panel of Gil Thorp from the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
These Strange Worlds
January 29th, 2009 at 11:23 pm [Reply]

76 Sugarpie
Sally4th

I keep waiting for a cute, attentive, artistic male creative arts subordinate to show up and invite the new boss-lady to lunch to discuss some ideas he had.

Role reversal hilarity ensues.
Peason
January 29th, 2009 at 11:25 pm [Reply]

Besequinned? Let me think.
(Oh,I received a death telegram only once, and the man who delivered it said it was discreetly marked with a red star on the outside of the envelope so that he would know to wait around til I read it, in case I fainted or something. This was in Vancouver in the 70s. The telegraph company would also not deliver a death message over the telephone he said.)

sequin. sequinned. besequinned. No?
Lisa
January 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm [Reply]

[I hate admitting it, but I remember those heavy, black telephones courtesy of Ma Bell. Here’s the question regarding the rotary dials: Did you just remove your finger immediately after cranking the dial a full turn, or did you let your finger ride the dial all the way back before choosing the next number? Also, you’re almost a Dagwoodian if you remember telphone exchanges like Broadway 9-2299.]

We had a Triangle exchange when I was little, then later it was changed to a Wellington exchange. I have books that I took to school to read that have my name and phone number in them… WE1-3594. Sometime in junior high they went with all numbers as listings, that is, 931-3594. I found some old advertisements in a house I was living in around 30 years ago, for local businesses of the time that had two digit phone numbers. DIamond 34, for example. That seemed so cool to me, small enough population to only need a few dozen numbers.

And you definitely didn’t want to leave your finger in the dial hole after you got it all the way around, because if you paused on the way back, the phone thought it was a different digit and messed things up.

Speaking of the candlestick phones, my aunt has a couple that her late husband had converted to lamps. If you want to turn the light on, you take the receiver off the hook. To turn it off, you hang it up. I want one of those phones badly.
Mr.Death
January 29th, 2009 at 11:29 pm [Reply]

I’m pretty sure that Beep Beep Text Beep Beep Text Beep is the beat to a crazy German Techno song. And who says Blondie isn’t relevant?
Josh
January 29th, 2009 at 11:36 pm [Reply]

#90 Peason — You’re right about the “i” but my dictionary has only one “n” in “sequined”. I fixed the “i”!

And in re: rotary phones, we have a fully functional bright orange bakelite rotary wall phone hanging in our kitchen, with a dial and classic physical-bell ring. Sadly, we got rid of our landline a few months ago and now it’s just for decoration, but it sure is purty. (Amber bought it on eBay many years back.)

Also I saw a (not 50+ year old) truck the other day for some local moving business which had said business’s number written on the side in that old-fashioned letter exchange form, like “KLONDIKE 5-1234″ and then (555-1234) in smaller numbers underneath. (Obviously that wasn’t the real number, but I don’t remember what the real number was.) I was pretty flabbergasted.

Josh
Uncle Lumpy
January 29th, 2009 at 11:42 pm [Reply]

Shouldn’t there be an iPhone app that mimics a rotary dial? That’s a rhetorical question — yes, there should.
Farley's Revenge
January 29th, 2009 at 11:43 pm [Reply]

Today’s Beetle Bailey: Wow. That’s an interesting menage a trois, with the emphasis on menagerie. Gives a whole new meaning to “doggy style”…and I don’t mean that in a fun way.

Are the cartoonists even trying to hide the relationship between the three characters? Or are they banking on the new administration doing away with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell, and don’t bark at the wrong time” policy?

One of the nastiest cuts I’ve ever seen was on the forehead of a young teen girl. Seems she and her older sister got into a fight over who got to use the telephone and the older sister creamed the younger on the noggin with the phone receiver from one of the old rotary dial phones. Kid required a dozen stitches to sew up her forehead.

The dad said the older one was grounded from using the phone for a week. I’m not sure if he meant grounded from using the phone for communication or from using the phone as a weapon.

Although, if you think about it, hitting someone upside the head with a phone definitely communicated a message of some sort.
druidbros
January 29th, 2009 at 11:46 pm [Reply]

MW – I am just sure that the father put riacin in Mary’s drink and she will die a slow and painful death in the next few days – at least thats what normal people might do if someone meddled in their family affairs like Mary.
sugarpie
January 29th, 2009 at 11:48 pm [Reply]

#89 These Strange Worlds YES! If only! Anything to rescue this very likable strip from self-sown seeds of boredom.

#81 Mr. O’Malley I’ve been writing the editors at The Houston Press about dropping This Modern World. Im really pissed, because they make piles of $$$ on all the massage, ~~Luann~~ escort, and modeling ads in the back sections of every issue.
Black Drazon
January 29th, 2009 at 11:53 pm [Reply]

I bet if Dagwood explained smoke and drum signals to him he’d beat his cell phone over a rock before setting it on fire. Social commentary at its finest.
un_malpaso
January 29th, 2009 at 11:55 pm [Reply]

re Blondie:
I am sure this has already been explained by someone in a former post, but the sad truth is that Dagwood is actually well over 100. If only he lived in “Gasoline Alley” time instead of “Incorruptible Ancient Syndicated Comic Time,” this would be tragically obvious, since his children would be well into their 80s and Elmo himself would be the one with the dead-end job.
Carly
January 30th, 2009 at 12:09 am [Reply]

Oh hey, my grandma could play basketball in that league!

I’m not convinced naming a kid Driller is all that strange. I bet there’s already at least one kid (or pet bulldog) out there with that name. And worse.

Either way I’m kind of charmed by the art in that last panel. I can’t even explain why. I do know I like the fisted right hand while the left hand has a delicately extended pinky, as though she’s having a cup of tea. One must always be polite when one is conspiring on the phone.
Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
January 30th, 2009 at 12:33 am [Reply]

Dick Tracy:
Ahhhh!! The third panel , a perfect caracature of my homecoming dates mother! (From 22 years ago, my homecoming date from this year had a passed out drunk cool mom). I can almost hear her asking me what my career plans were and what neighborhood I was going to be in 10 years from then. oooh eeerie. Needless to say if Tracy doesn’t drown her in a vat of toxic perfume or run her over with a ice cream truck I’ll be dissapointed for certain.
Aitherion
January 30th, 2009 at 12:34 am [Reply]

@27 Chyron HR) You must admit, however, that the EBA bursting through a wall and doing their rendition of Barbie Girl would make this arc much more interesting.
commodorejohn
January 30th, 2009 at 12:41 am [Reply]

Every now and again, I realize that I’m probably one of the last people to grow up with rotary-dial phones, and that kids five years younger than me never got to experience classic Mac OS (I’m talking System 7 and prior, not your poofy PowerPC garbage!) If I weren’t so out of the loop culturally, I’d also know whether I’m one of the last people to grow up with Bill Cosby doing Jell-O ads and hits-collection informercials with the track list scrolling up the screen, but I suppose it’s possible they still do those.
commodorejohn
January 30th, 2009 at 12:41 am [Reply]

And I’m only 23.
Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
January 30th, 2009 at 12:50 am [Reply]

Gil Thorp:
Judging from the first panel it’s easy to see that the desire to win has consumed both Milford and Central to the desperate extreme of recruiting jungle boys via the masterful strategy employed by Coach John Amos(The John Wooden of the Silver Screen) in the 1973 Masterpiece “The Worlds Greatest Athlete”. Sure they can’t read or write and grunt a lot, but half the offensive line men at my high school were much worse. Plus I hear Walnut Tech is unthawing frozen cavemen to fill out their back court.
PeteMoss
January 30th, 2009 at 12:58 am [Reply]

Joe @ 85

I can’t believe you still waste your time reading CD&3. It blows!!
Poteet
January 30th, 2009 at 1:20 am [Reply]

When ChattyGenes and I learned our first phone number, we recited it as Lincoln 00000, the Lincoln dialing as 54. My other old-phone memory is working several hours a week at my college dorm plug-in switchboard, and later temping at a similar police switchboard.

Back when I worked the police switchboard, my local paper was unfairly discreet about certain crimes involving people with status and/or money. So working the switchboard and keeping my ears open was educational. Har.
dreadedcandiru2
January 30th, 2009 at 1:32 am [Reply]

1/30

ReFoob: In a “plot twist” almost as predictable as the one in “Curtis Wilkins (Deceased)”, Deanna moved away while Mike was down with gastroenteritis brought on by his mother’s horrible cooking. His response is to make wordplay that’s impossible for someone his age.

Curtis (Deceased) Barry’s home and, by the looks of things, he’ll be an only child tomorrow.

FW: Les tells Summer that you can’t let grief consume your life. Tomorrow, Funky tells her you can’t let your job come between you and your family and after that Khan tells her that arming terrorists for fun and profit is a bad idea.
True Fable
January 30th, 2009 at 1:40 am [Reply]

When I was a tad we also lived in an exchange-first, WOrd-6500 world of phone number but what the fuck, I don’t remember what the name of our exchange was. There’s only so much room in my head for information and most of that is taken up remembering odd trivia about goats.

I do remember when our phone number was converted to ~~Catholicism~~ all numbers and I still remember those particular numbers. I recall it in particular because my ne-er-do-well cousin used to come use our phone all the time and she’d repeat our number aloud to the operator to reverse charges because EVERYTHING was long distance back then.

…Did you know goat milk can be digested in less than 20 minutes, as opposed to all day for cow’s milk? oh my! EDison-5243! I MADE ROOM!!!
Lisa
January 30th, 2009 at 1:41 am [Reply]

The exchange here is/was Diamond, as I implied above. Sounds pretty ritzy, the Diamond Exchange, for a small mid-IL county seat cum state university town, no?

Poteet, a now retired co-worker worked for a temp agency for a while when she first got married in the late 60s. She was on call for a company that still had an old style switchboard, like you see in old movies from the 40s, because she had operated one in high school. When the person in that company that knew how to operate it went on vacation or any kind of extended leave, she was the only one the agency had who could do the job. When she left that town, after her husband graduated, and after the regular person retired, the company got rid of the switchboard and went to whatever was the big thing back in the early 70s. Moral of the story: it’s good to have obsolete skills; you never know when you might need them.
Poteet
January 30th, 2009 at 1:49 am [Reply]

# 110 Lisa — I heartily agree with you. And while switchboards may not make a comeback, keeping my ears open is a skill I still use:-).

1/30 MT — After Mark writes his article about how one shouldn’t make a pet of a wild animal, perhaps he could write another about how one shouldn’t marry a violent asshole.
papa zita
January 30th, 2009 at 1:51 am [Reply]

The telephone exchange our number was on as a kid was GLadstone. Even today, the office that holds the switching equipment is still called that.

Anyway, early Friday:

A3G: Margo’s smiling. Is she heading in for the kill?

MW: Mary’s blood cocktail is coagulating and turning black.

June Morgan, Slow Thinker: Okay June, lemme ask you something – wouldn’t the last port of call been where you got on? Only a day has gone by and the ship hasn’t docked anywhere. How could it? Everyone’s on strike and as soon as they touch port, the ship will be seized, Jeez, Rex may have a dumbass look on his face, but I think you two were made for each other. Just be grateful the little brat didn’t inherit your mental limitations.
Sister Sestina
January 30th, 2009 at 1:53 am [Reply]

My favorite flea market has one seller who specializes in selling reconditioned rotary phones; she seems to do a roaring business. I don’t have a functioning one anymore, but over at my mother’s there remains one of those odd transitional things, the faux-push button; it’s not touchtone but employs rotary-type signal instead. It also somehow receives radio signals; I’ve had conversations on it accompanied by a faint background obbligato of sportstalk or Air America that I definitely knew was not being played on the other end.
Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
January 30th, 2009 at 1:55 am [Reply]

103 – Not so Commodore John, I grew up in rotray dial-land myself. It was refreshing to have that clickety clak pause between numbers. As for the Jell-o commercials, my flummoxed children still contort with confused embarrassment when I pull out my horrible Bill Cosby impersonation.
Sally Villarreal
January 30th, 2009 at 2:08 am [Reply]

Dagwood (or the cartoonist) apparently thinks that the person Elmo is texting can hear his beeps.
Zach
January 30th, 2009 at 2:22 am [Reply]

Curtis: Dammit, I was really hoping Billingsley was gonna kill Barry. He could have pointlessly provoked a gang member only to realize that there was nobody he could run to for protection from getting killed “for no reason.”

I realize that Barry is never gonna get into any trouble, but he really should. He went along with Curtis’s plan, he got seperated from Curtis as much as the other way, and then he snuck past secret service and whatever other security they had there.

Given Billingsley’s tendency to repeat strips, I wonder if in the archive he’s got a strip where Barry meets the Bush twins
Steve the Pocket
January 30th, 2009 at 2:28 am [Reply]

Ha! I cought a duplicate Herb and Jamaal! In fact… it is in fact the exact same strip, except that, unlike real reruns, it actually contains the current year in its copyright notice (which has been re-written in a different panel gap, even). Also a dash has been replaced with a comma for no apparent reason. I wonder if this was an un-agreed-upon day off on the writer’s part and he’s trying to pull one over on the folks at Creators Syndicate.
Malethoth K
January 30th, 2009 at 2:53 am [Reply]

117 – Apparently Josh’s theory that Bentley is trying for perfect timelessness in H&J is completely accurate after all.
True Fable
January 30th, 2009 at 2:55 am [Reply]

Curtis And so he died. Next on “Barry”, Barry decides to wear a stiffly awkward hat backwards and develop a hopeless crush on a snobby neighborhood princess.
FC These kids NEVER grow after all these years. So why does Thel still buy oversized jeans and roll up the pants legs to fit him?
FB It must be a British thing that Scotty dogs regularly fling themselves up into the air like that.
FW I call shenanigans! He HAD to have just realized that little nugget of wisdom and is only PASSING IT OFF as something he’s figured out over time.
GA Does it really take more time to write “sausages & mashed potatoes” than it does “zeppelins in a fog”? Or “black coffee” rather than “cup of naked”? I think she’s just showing off now.
Now, Viking Isn’t sleeping with a woman who wears a horned helmet like yours, punishment enough? Suppose she rolls over, she’ll put your eye out. or worse.
Generic Comic “That sappy chick flick” could be any of 50 films from last year alone.
Scenes from Suburban Hell And just WHY is the guest kid so eye-popping stricken with horror at the idea of doing weekend homework differently? Oh noes! He’ll have to whack off at the sappy chick flick at the theater all by himself.
JP Very subtle hint that she’ll need money for a boob job, Sam.
Luann Delta could eliminate the middleman, or middlegirl in this case, and have Elvis as her own sugar daddy.
MT Oh My GOD, This is better than even MY warped brain imagined! You Go, Jackelrod ball!!
RMMW Rex hung his head in shame as he realized June was just using all that as an excuse, nothing more.
S4th Wearing her finest Century 21 jacket, Sally realized she could cave in like other office managers!
Peter Hillock
January 30th, 2009 at 3:01 am [Reply]

“Now wiser to the grit behind the glamour of competitive skating!” “Now wiser to the grit behind the glamour of competitive skating!” “Now wiser to the grit behind the glamour of competitive skating!”
Say that three times fast!
Mibbitmaker
January 30th, 2009 at 3:49 am [Reply]

1/30:

GT: St. Snobbus and the Tea Sipper Academy? Isn’t that where Brooke McEldowney went to school?

MT: Overly Jealous Ken will punch Mark Trail, then Mark Trail will punch Ken. Besides the self-defense, Trail will do it because of the facial hair of Ken’s soul.

Big Furshlugginer Dog: I’ll bet Odie is better than Marmaduke at it.

MW: “I know I won’t be alone” — because of that guardian angel in gold, who will be much more help than Mary ever really will.

NS: That’s why they all stick to golf.

PBS: Good thing they got rid of him — that kitty has ticks!

Pluggers: One day you’re one of the most popular teen idols of c.1970, next thing you know, decades pass and you’re stuck sending lame ideas to ridiculous comic panels. Sad, really.

S-M: Max Dillon does his Rod Blagojevich immitation; the Electric Company impeaches and removes him.
True Fable
January 30th, 2009 at 4:20 am [Reply]

Mark Trail could just hear his friends now:

“This would have never happened if you wouldn’t mainline my Viagra!” Sam Driver would scoff. Stupid bastard; what did a man who overlooks his smokin’ hot wife AND stiffarms interested guest babes know?

“You ought to blend in with your surroundings,” Eric Mills would say. Well hell yes, if I looked like every other man in my world, maybe I would. Wait, I…hm…okay, I’ll get back to him.

“You should have made a play for Ken instead,” Rex Morgan would suggest. But then, Rex Morgan would suggest that any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Mark supposed he was lucky Mary Worth was off bedeviling the hell out of some poor figure skater, and not ready with a heaping plate of platitudes for him. Oh, that would just drive him over the wall.

But none of that was helping right now, not with Ken bearing down on him with a big beefy fist at the ready. Damn it! Just when Mark was reaching to push Patty’s ‘button’! Well, it was a safe bet Ken knew who Patty meant when she referred to her “little dear” now. It was time to swing the Fists O’ Justice into action, and Mark would pretend that Ken’s eyebrows were the hairiest things he ever saw. Yeah, hairy eyebrows. That would bring forth the Punching Power!
kitty
January 30th, 2009 at 5:16 am [Reply]

GT: Too much depth? The longer you stare at the player on the left in panel one, he ceases to look like a human being, let alone one running, and much more like a jumbled bunch of CPR-dummy appendages recently flattened by a steam roller. So, you know, business as usual for Gil Thorp.
Mr. O'Malley
January 30th, 2009 at 5:18 am [Reply]

I subscribe to a philosophy that I learned from my college roommate, that you shouldn’t have to get up from your chair to answer the phone. I have not yet achieved this ideal, but anyway we have a phone in every room in the house.

In one room we have an old AT&T rotary dial phone. It still works—those old AT&T phones were built to last—and in that room it would only ever be used for answering incoming calls.

A friend of ours dropped over and we happened to be in that room, when she asked if she could use our phone. When I directed her to the dial phone convenient to us, she gave me a look like I had asked her to solve a Rubik’s Cube before making her call. But I know she grew up in the time when rotary dial phones were all that was available.

I remember an old movie—maybe it was “Asphalt Jungle”—where the plot turned on a mechanism to record the operation of a rotary dial phone.

The origin of the rotary dial phone is vey interesting. A brief version can be found at
http://www.strowger.com/history.html (Scroll down).
Mr. O'Malley
January 30th, 2009 at 5:37 am [Reply]

I forgot to include…

Mrs. O’Malley, who is so retro that she grinds her own flour to make bread, bought a candlestick phone at an antique store in Seattle. It lasted about two weeks after we brought it home. It was kind of cool while it worked, though. I had an urge to rattle the hook and rap out “Operator, get me Park 1024″ while adjusting my fedora.

Crankshaft has a joke about modern phones, but it would be funnier with those earpiece phones. For example, someone I know got into an elevator with another person. As the elevator began ascending, the other person suddenly said “Hey … you wanna go for lunch?”
Alfred E. Neuman
January 30th, 2009 at 5:55 am [Reply]

#100 Carly— “Driller” is undoubtedly a popular name in Alaska. Expect to see it soon in one prominent Alaskan family in its abbreviated form, “Drill”.

Crankshaft— Brad has been missing from “Luann” of late. Now we know that he’s spent his time waiting in line with Crankshaft at the driver’s license bureau.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
January 30th, 2009 at 6:22 am [Reply]

Did you just remove your finger immediately after cranking the dial a full turn, or did you let your finger ride the dial all the way back before choosing the next number?

I’d remove my finger unless I was going to repeat the number.
Talking Squirrel
January 30th, 2009 at 6:34 am [Reply]

MW: In the background of Panel 1, we see Marty Moon entering the room behind the door with the bathroom-vanity lighting.

In a guest appearance, he’ll be doing the color commentary on the victory drinking debauch. This bodes no weal for our turgid-ponytailed protagonist.

RMMRSA: “SOMEBODY brought the boy aboard!” Um, izzatso? How many times have kids sneaked onto airplanes and boats? This kid’s parents probably just figure he went to DC for the inauguration.

FW: “You can’t let your grief become the substitute for the one you love”. C’mon, you’re making that shit up. It doesn’t even make sense, especially considering it’s coming from someone who sees and converses with dead people.

9CL: Smooth move, Amos. The security cam video of this faux pas will be up on YouTube tonight, and the next time you visit the ‘Dam and drop into the Bulldog for a bag of Jack Herer, they’re gonna smirk at each other and hand you the oregano.
dreadedcandiru2
January 30th, 2009 at 6:48 am [Reply]

#119 : True Fable —- I have to agree with you about the fat lady on GA. She’s deliberately trying to confuse that fat simpleton; maybe after her shift is over, she can do something equally sadistic like set kittens on fire.
Mal
January 30th, 2009 at 6:57 am [Reply]

MF: Tinsley, we get it already. People fuckin’ love the new administration, and people also collect the stupidest shit. Do you seriously need to spend a week on this?

I only started “reading” MF in the past 8 months, was there a similar week(s) long impotent rage-fest directed at the commercials for WTC commemorative coins made from silver found at ground zero?
Big Thyme
January 30th, 2009 at 7:08 am [Reply]

DT: Yeah, Tracy, it’s none of your business! Leave Professor Noll alone, like all those firefighters did right after the massive, window shattering explosion happened in his home in a residential area. They didn’t have any problem with him just up and running right back into his home moments after the explosion. And they don’t need to conduct any kind of nosy in-vesty-gation, either, you snooper! So what if he’s got a explosion prone laboratory in there? You’ve probably got a bumper pool table in your basement that could cause problems! So what the Professor just damn near outright stated that he’s doing contract work on explosives in a house that neighbors yours? Ye Gods, but you’re a buttinski!
Charterstoned
January 30th, 2009 at 7:11 am [Reply]

#82 – O Poteet, I vote for yours as Comment of the Week! “…Death is just another bad guy with facial hair.” BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! In my book, you’ve already won!
Big Thyme
January 30th, 2009 at 7:13 am [Reply]

DT: Oh and I help help but sympathize with that poor CIA agent desperately trying to track down Professor Noll. When you’re got a mastermind like this leaving only the faintest glimmers of evidence and maintaining such a impenetrable deceptive front, it would take a miracle of detective work to run him to ground!
Jack Parsons
January 30th, 2009 at 7:17 am [Reply]

a series of inappropriate and regrettable music and clothing purchases

Bought a Miata last summer. Ok so it was a ‘91. But I still call it “midlife crisis”.
Big Thyme
January 30th, 2009 at 7:20 am [Reply]

Phantom: Mozz, sotto voce: Sooner, Phantom, if you’d stop being such a chicken and just sail in there!
Big Thyme
January 30th, 2009 at 7:29 am [Reply]

RMMD: Man, no one can touch Rex Morgan when it comes to hilarious, petulant sulking! All we need in that third panel is the “Wha-wha-whaaaaa” noise. Don’t ever change, Rex.

S-M: Man, who knew that anyone could portray the grandeur and tragedy of a skilled lineman so consumed by greed!
TJH
January 30th, 2009 at 7:37 am [Reply]

Gil Thorp’s art continues to amaze.
gleeb
January 30th, 2009 at 7:54 am [Reply]

A&J: In other words, the gag is, “nice tomatoes, Toots!”

9CL: I knew he wouldn’t have enough money and would turn to barter. But I never suspected he would try to widen even further the Walloon-Flemish gap that plagues that small country.

Baldo: All he does all day is follow his boss around talking to him. Baldo’s the laziest kid in the caomics.

’shaft: No, Ed, Rest easy. No one has ever nor will ever love you.

‘bean: Ten years of talking to imaginary blue cats later, Creepy Les realizes he has to find something else to obsess over. Does this mean we won’t have month-long series of strips about the annual my-wife-died-from-cancer walk?

Sophie Driver, poor strategist!: Yes, throw yourself among those who have mocked you in a situation where subjective judgments of your merit can be defended.

Barney Google: Jughaid and Jamey were sent to juvie for molesting that mountain.
Little Guy
January 30th, 2009 at 8:01 am [Reply]

Zits: Drazi Peach! Drazi Nipple Twist!

Big Nate: The photographer will still take a lousy picture of the corpse in the post-mortem.

138: Sophie Driver — As if Brooke or Lynn decided to start posting on CC. Brilliant idea, Sophie!
Little Guy
January 30th, 2009 at 8:16 am [Reply]

Forgot one:

Mark Trail: Right Hook O’Justice meets Right Slap of Spousal Abuse? (runs, gets popcorn)
Saluki
January 30th, 2009 at 8:53 am [Reply]

Ha Ha, the fist ‘o’ justice is on the other ~~foot~~ hand!
RSR
January 30th, 2009 at 9:16 am [Reply]

Is there any other way to read today’s Ziggy other than to assume he’s trying to have sex with his laptop? Because I can’t come up with a single one. I’m also fairly certain I’d start growling if Ziggy tried to have sex with me.
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 30th, 2009 at 9:17 am [Reply]

FC: Billy’s fingers wouldn’t forget for weeks, and with the word “Victor” stamped into his palm, he wouldn’t either.
Charterstoned
January 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am [Reply]

MT – WHAT little button is Mark urging Patty to push???? That line reminds me of the question put to Mark by one winsome lass a couple of years back: “Can I see your little otter?”
papa zita
January 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am [Reply]

9CL: Why is it that when we get to the punchline, it’s always stupid? He’s trying to palm off a very thin book and cash for a ring? Big Book of Dutch Humor, bah. It’s a wonder it has any pages at all. Again, does every young woman in this strip look like a Burber, down to the same haircut? An alien race took over, I guess. Or McEldowney can’t draw a woman except to spec.
John C Fremont
January 30th, 2009 at 9:55 am [Reply]

MT – In the immortal words of Flounder, “Oh, boy, this is great!!”

MW – From the looks of her, I’d say that statue lady has really gotta go pee. Or maybe it’s just me.

Phantom – Has he been pulling that dingy behind him all along? Isn’t it going to fill up with water and sink when they go through the waterfall? Am I making too much of this stupid comic? Questions, questions, questions flooding the mind of the concerned young person today…

RMMD – Oh, poor Rex. As was once said of Elvis Costello, his aim may be true, but his balls are blue.

SFx – Bonnie alert!
Amateur
January 30th, 2009 at 9:55 am [Reply]

“Trying to get their faces on the radio?” made my morning. Nice one, Josh. :-)

And Poteet at #82 for COTW!
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
January 30th, 2009 at 9:57 am [Reply]

Not much time to snark! Five-word Speed Snark, begin!

9CL: Do Belgians say “Mon dieu!”?

A3G: She couldn’t bring the tape?

Archie: Archie’s lumbar tumor horrifies Betty.

BaBl, BeBa: Two “BB” strips about donuts?

Bizarro: Huge baby or tiny remote?

C’Shaft: Youngsters and their newfangled “phones”!

Curtis: What sound does “!” make?

(WT)DT: Noll’s new name: Winky McDeadmeat.

Dilbert: Settled: Dilbert works for Chrysler.

Drabble: “Lackluster Video” made me LOL.

F-: “Garbage man” doesn’t equal “hobo.”

Garfield: Then can you cure “onepaneljokestretchedtothreepanelitis”?

thorps. “He’s right. You do suck.”

LC: Is Sanjay Gupta from Mexico?

Luann: “…We’re just haggling over price.”

MT: Patty and Trail! They’re cops!

MW: Who are you again, lady?

Momma: Actually, that was last week.

PC: Bush was the fascist, idiot.

RMMD: My harbor’s between June’s thighs.

SFx: Hey, this is a repeat!

SS: New hillbilly recreation: Mountain fucking!

S-M: Electro… Christ, what an asshole.

W&E: Yet, he can afford beer.

Zits: I’m glad this isn’t “Luann.”
kalki
January 30th, 2009 at 9:58 am [Reply]

9CL: “And zeet still has zee pubic hairs of monsieur attached to zeet!” Actually…why is this dame saying “Mon Dieu!”. Brooke…French is not the national language of Holland. Oh wait…was that an insult to Holland too, like “The Big Book of Dutch Humor” being tiny? What the hell do you have against the Dutch anyway? Did they deport you for trying to buy child porn in Holland or was it the complaints of the prostitutes in Amsterdam about you demanding multiple Cleveland Steamers?

Archie: Is there a law that applies to the number of hands inserted into one’s pockets to play “pocket hockey”? Jughead apparently needs both hands. Betty only needs one, but I don’t know what the female equivalent of “pocket hockey” is called. “Sim Clitty” perhaps?

Beetle: Nope. I think Beetle is turning Sarge on now. It is only a matter of time before Beetle mentions donuts with sprinkles and Sarge will be across the room “Snorkeling” on Beetle.

Blondie: “Honestly, if his wife didn’t keep coming down here to give me some Rusty Trombones, I’d fire his worthless ass.”

Crank: That Crankers would believe that a total stranger in line at the DMV would fall in love with his wrinkly old ass makes him even more utterly pathetic than he usually is. It is unfortunate for Crankers that Anna Nicole “I don’t just love him for his money” Smith is no longer around.

DTM: What the hell was Dennis doing to Mr. Wilson that he needed to be face down biting a pillow between his teeth to muffle his screams?

CircusJerk: “Making that motion with your hand is called ‘jerking off’, not ’snapping your fingers’, dear. I know how you get those two confused, but for the sake of your little wee wee, I suggest you don’t.”

Hi/Lois: Ok. This was a good one. I am enlarging it, printing it on a special iron-on print and then giving the t-shirt to my teen as a reminder.

GA: Corky is apparently still encouraging food references from the World War I era to describe his food. Of course, ‘zeppelins’ and ‘cup of naked’ could just be the waitress trying to ask Slim to bend her over. I’m so confused…

Luann: Bernice is really adamant that Luann whore herself out. Is this just Bernice’s way of getting back at Luann because Luann will get to screw Bernice’s brother Ben before Bernice will?
kalki
January 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am [Reply]

FW: “Yes! Ok? I miss your mom! Why, Lisa!? Why? Why did you have to die and leave me!? Fuck….that’s it! Summer, let’s go see your mom right now!!! AAAAAHHHHH….” The last thing Summer sees is their car racing at high speed across the ice and snow towards a waiting oak tree.
Josh
January 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am [Reply]

More rotary dial fun: Don’t forget that push button dialing was originally an option that you had to pay extra for. Well into my childhood (so, mid-to-late ’80s at least) both my grandparents, and, perhaps more surprisingly, my father and stepmother had not switched over, despite the fact that push-button dialing was at this point available for a purely nominal fee (something like 50 cents a month, I think?). Naturally, their actual phones had push-buttons at that point, but they had to be set so that when you pressed a button, it simulated the clicks of a rotary dial.

When I moved in with my wife and her aforementioned orange bakelite phone, I was actually pretty surprised to learn that the phone system’s computers still recognize those dailing noises and will connect calls dialed rotarily.

Josh
AMSTERDANG
January 30th, 2009 at 10:26 am [Reply]

Crankshaft: Cell phone hater or racist? Discuss.
tb4000
January 30th, 2009 at 10:37 am [Reply]

Blondie: Yeah, we can laugh at Dag’s dated response, but when you discover that he and Elmo are on the way to the local apothecary to pick up some leeches because they’re “good for what ails ya”, you suddenly understand where he’s coming from.
Anonymous
January 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am [Reply]

Curtis: I hate Barry. That smug little shit has his very greatest opportunity to date, to thumb his nose at Curtis as Momma and Poppa bundle him off to the kitchen for a chicken leg and piece of pie. While they ooh and aah over his Big Adventure. Nothing much will happen to Curtis, unless you count being sent to bed without chicken and pie, and mopping the bathroom floor. Oh, and there will be a nighttime conversation between him and adorable little brudder coming up. Just you see.

We had a rotary phone well into the 90’s (as everything dragged into our house just stays there forever). I (not wearing a fedora, but a frilly apron, high heels, and a string of pearls) could pick it up and bark “Bessie, connect me to Doc Martin, will you?”. Hilarious to watch young neighborhood kids calling home on it – they didn’t ask questions but tried to figure out that dialing thing by themselves. And that phone lasted longer than the house roof, the three or four subsequent shoddy pushbutton phones we eventually had to buy, and both our cars. Our next goal: cellphones! (Since we still have AOL dialup and can’t figger out the high speed internet deal….)
B
January 30th, 2009 at 10:42 am [Reply]

151: My parents were pretty late to switch to pushbutton dialing. In fact, at one point we had a cordless phone that still used the rotary clicks to dial.
LaziestManOnMars
January 30th, 2009 at 10:43 am [Reply]

Gil Thorp’s running commentary on a basketball game has to be the most mind-numbingly boring thing to ever appear on the comic page. (Well, at least since the last “poignant” Herb and Jamaal strip.) At least basketball is a fast-paced game. It would only take a year or so for a whole game to pass in a daily format. If they did it with baseball, time would go backwards.
buckyswife
January 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am [Reply]

MW: Lynn looks like she’s pretty much done with being grief stricken. One victory, and she forgets all about… you know, what’s his name–dead kid?
buckyswife
January 30th, 2009 at 10:48 am [Reply]

Ken’s a lumberjack; he’s not okay:
To cut down trees he wore a tie today.
He wants to punch Mark Trail.
Let the Fist o’ Justice loose!
Cranky
January 30th, 2009 at 10:51 am [Reply]

I admit, I’m completely fascinated by how Electro’s origin story is going to turn out. “$500? To assist a fellow worker and human being who is dangling precariously from a pole? That gives me an idea: I should make an awkwardly pointy mask and threaten to electrocute bank employees so I can drive off with their money in a van with the back doors open.”

Meanwhile, the Wall Crawler himself, depressed about his defeat at the hands of a pigeon and gravity, has swung onto Rex Morgan’s Hell Cruise. He and Rex have barred themselves in Rex’s cabin, resolving to watch the on-board closed circuit TV loop instead of searching for the lost boy. June thrusts her breasts forward helplessly, underestimating the power television has over Spider Man as well as the power a man in skintight lycra has over her husband.
commodorejohn
January 30th, 2009 at 10:57 am [Reply]

9CL – Okay, I’ll buy a leap into comic absurdity. It’s certainly better than whatever Brooke would come up with in the way of a serious explanation.

A3G – Oh man is some shit about to go down. If Margo is going to take a page from Mary Worth here and start butting in on the lives of people she’s slightly acquainted with to fix their problems, but actually leave them worse off in the process, I can only give a mad grin and a hearty thumbs-up to Margaret Shulock.

Crankshaft – Hey! It’s Brad the Passive Sexless Lump from Luann! Truth be told, I think the Winkerverse is the place for him, since shoulder-sagging defeat by life is pretty much his modus operandi, no matter how many easy balls life pitches him in the Luann-iverse. Let Summer take his place; she’d still wind up in a lot of squicky situations, but at least it wouldn’t be her own father leering at her.

Crock – That’s not how it works.

Curtis – Yeah, now the bloodbath.

DT – Would it be nitpicky of me to point out that he’s absolutely right and it’s none of Tracy’s business, either as a civilian or in his capacity as a police officer? Dick.

FC – “No, seriously, mom. I’ve lost basic motor coordination and am only standing because I haven’t tipped over yet. Help me! OH GOD I’M NOT JUST BEING CUTE HERE, STOP SMILING LIKE THAT!”

FW – What are you talking about, Les? That’s basically your role in the new strip in a nutshell.

GA – Oh, this is just the dumbest plot in all of ever. It’s the textbook example of Roger Ebert’s “idiot plot”: everyone involved would have to be an imbecile for it to happen at all. Of course, this is Gasoline Alley, where this criteria is well and truly met.

GT – For my money, Gil Thorp ought to feature more doofy, awkward insults.

JP – Looks like Wilson decided to throw Baretto a bone.

Lio – Now that’s menace. Dennis, you pansy, take note.

Luann – “Do it! Being a whore isn’t so bad!”

MT – “Oh yeah, baby. Push the button…just like that…”

MW – cheech wizard is right, Mary is clearly loaded to the gills here.

MC – Psst, Norm, Max may not be the best person to ask for career advice. Well, any kind of advice, really.

NS – !?

Phantom – “Perhaps soon is waiting for us in there!”

Pibgorn – I see we’re following the Wonder Woman model of “super-strong leading lady who nonetheless gets restrained, tortured, etc. a whole lot.”

SM – Um…I admit that I’m not an electrician, but he doesn’t actually seem to be in any kind of imminent peril here. Maybe he’s suffering from an acute TV deficiency?
The Great Kazoo
January 30th, 2009 at 11:00 am [Reply]

Zits, am I the only one weirded out by Jeremy yelling “Twisted Nipple” over and over again at his perky boobed mother?
UncleJeff
January 30th, 2009 at 11:03 am [Reply]

ORange 2-4260.
Why can I remember my parents’ phone number from 49 years ago but I can’t remember my own cellphone number?
Are there any public payphones left in your town?

GT: When I broadcast high school basketball games for my hometown radio station, I would almost always be in the stands with the fans. Usually, I would be located near the scorers table so there would be some teachers/school officials nearby to deter any problems but I’ve also had to turn around and tell “adults” to stop swearing because their cussing was going over the airwaves. (This was pre-”wardrobe malfunction” but post-”7 Words You Can’t Say….”)
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am [Reply]

#151, #154:

Yep, the “clicks” of the old rotary-dial phone are the “Pulse” in the “Tone or Pulse” option one still finds on telephones to this day. The development patterns of technology are amazing, though: the principles of a dialing technique developed in 1891 are still preserved in 21st-Century telephones; while a 5-1/4-inch floppy disc (from 1991) is an unreadable antique*.

*like Gasoline Alley
commodorejohn
January 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am [Reply]

#163 Spunky N. Tadpole – Bah, 5.25″ floppies are perfectly readable if you bother to install one. Any PC with floppy capability can be made to accept a 5.25″ drive with the appropriate cable or plug converter, it’s just that you kids these days are too lazy to get one.
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 30th, 2009 at 11:09 am [Reply]

#149 – They’re in Belgium, not Holland, and Brooke is trying to tap his audience’s comfortable familiarity with Belgian stereotypes of the Dutch. Which is a stone riot, I know.
buckyswife
January 30th, 2009 at 11:11 am [Reply]

164 commodorejohn: Wow, relative codgerism! Instead of walking five miles uphill in the snow, it’s “Back in my day, we used floppy disks, and we liked ‘em!”
commodorejohn
January 30th, 2009 at 11:14 am [Reply]

#166 buckyswife – Damn straight! And another thing, what’s with all these new-fangled iPods!? Back in my day, we had physical media for our music distribution!
CanuckDownSouth
January 30th, 2009 at 11:14 am [Reply]

That had better be sarcasm in the last panel of 9CL.

Oh, and BFriends? Mini fridges: much less absurd than the toaster oven. Lot of offices have ‘em. Not a fire hazard or anything. Almost as common as coffeemakers on some campuses. Not a good “ratchet-up” wrapup.

The jealousy in MT, for once, actually seems well-motivated. So we all know that after yelling “Patty and Trail!?”, Ken will go attack the deer. Or the horse.
Meanwhile
January 30th, 2009 at 11:15 am [Reply]

1-30 MW: OMG OMG OMG! Mary has allowed her foul, necrotic energies to seep forth from her outstretched hand and leech the vital essence from her chalice of blood, transforming it into a lifeless, inky-black sludge.

Why am I excited by this? For the first time in recent memory, I feel as if something is about to happen in Mary Worth.
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 30th, 2009 at 11:19 am [Reply]

1/30

S4th: So does the manager’s job description include caving in to employee tantrums after 15 seconds?

MT: So String Tie Ken is now jealous. Of his wife. Being with Mark Trail. Just let that one sink in for a moment.

Ziggy: Do we even want to know what it means for Ziggy to “get to close with the laptop”? Hey man, those keys are sticking for a reason.

GT: Oh that’s right. Andrew Gregory is Milford’s point man for “being a prick.” Thorp actually does know his players’ strengths.

C-Shaft: “Hey lady, are you making a date with that Les Moore peanut? Take it somewhere else. I don’t need to hear that.”

RMMD: If I bring myself to read the dialogue, I know Rex and June are talking about the child stowaway. Still, I’m convinced that the pictures are from a little-seen fifties PSA on honeymoon impotence.

S-M: “Five C’s? I bet I could by some sweet green spandex with that kinda cash.”

Archie: Archie’s ass hurts. Reggie is standing behind him giggling. The tack on the chair is a workable theory, but not the most interesting one.

M-Dawg: Okay, reel that monstrosity back in, Gene Simmons.

Shoe: Cassett and Brookins wisely skip over the dull business of shoe meeting someone, falling in love, getting engaged, etc. No, they know the real goods are in the zero context broken engagement and cheap insults.

FC: “I heard one of daddy’s friends say you had a nice snapper.”

DtM: Dennis is Elvis? Reincarnation is a bitch.

MC: I know Norm is being sarcastic, but the list of poets who have dealt with disappointment in just that way is pretty long.

OBH: I’m intrigued by Joe’s claim to be black. His perception of the culture may lead him to wear grills and finish every sentence with “a’ight.” Then comes the crossover where Derrick and “Onion” don’t bother to beat up Curtis because they’re too busy beating on the new cracka wannabe.
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 30th, 2009 at 11:33 am [Reply]

#149 kalki,
Gotta defend Brooke on this one. They’re actually in Belgium (still,,, God!) where French is one of the national languages.
aan
January 30th, 2009 at 11:36 am [Reply]

your site make me laugh…
it’s good job
Matmaduke
January 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am [Reply]

Dear Beetle Bailey,

I am not in the armed forces so can you please just refer to the px (Post Exchange) as the store, so I don’t waste time trying to figure out where in the world you are sending Beetle. I thought it was some weird abbreviation for the pharmacy or an incredibly lazy attempt to shorten “coffee house” so you can still sound butch. Thanks.

Also, I know I have a pretty constant dirty mind, but has Jeffy confused the snapping motion for a different one altogether featured in Gil Thorpe yesterday?
buckyswife
January 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am [Reply]

170 Artist: Actually, isn’t Mark considered quite the stud muffin within the world of the strip? Women of all species are attracted to him; men fear his testosterone-laden fists. Only we, the wise and omniscient readers, see him for the impotent husk of manhood that he really is.
Laska
January 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am [Reply]

I think I need to take up drinking just to get the horror of Jeremy and his mom yelling “twisted nipple” at each other out of my head.
bats :[
January 30th, 2009 at 11:42 am [Reply]

162. UncleJeff:
WIndsor 4-1828.
Yeah, I remember my folks’ number, too.
Calico
January 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am [Reply]

#176 – 661-9039.
Incredible I can still call that up (pun perhaps intended-not completely sure)

MW – Well, I guess this is the closest we’ll ever get to seeing Mary Worth on Ice.

MT – speaking of gadget dysfunction, Patty wouldn’t know a laptop from a wind-up phonograph.

FOOB – approaching FW territory! Put on your anti-depression shields.
Spunky N. Tadpole
January 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am [Reply]

#175: Laska:

Although with Connie and Jeremy yelling “Wheat Sheaf!” “Twisted Nipple!” “Wheat Sheaf!” “Twisted Nipple!” at each other back-and-forth, maybe Frank thinks he’s walked in them arguing about their favorite bands – seems to fit.

Spunky N. (nee CRestview 4-5286 – some things you never forget)
TheNewGuy
January 30th, 2009 at 11:57 am [Reply]

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my glass of blood as soon as possible and get the hell out of here before this little papered-over truce you’ve established inevitably collapses in tears and acrimony and slashing blades.”
I think we all know she wouldn’t say something as crazy as that… she’d most definitely stick around – for the blood to be inevitably shed is required for Mary to maintain her undead, wrinkled form…
blueberrygrrrl
January 30th, 2009 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

#152 AMSTERDANG : Crankshaft hates her neither for her race nor her cell phone habits. He just hates anyone who indulges in that “love” crap.
Artist formerly known as Ben
January 30th, 2009 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

#174 buckyswife,
I suppose you’re right, what with “gorgeous” Kelly Welly throwing herself at him numerous times. But still, the dramatic irony is pretty rich.
Mel
January 30th, 2009 at 12:13 pm [Reply]

77 Uncle Lumpy:

“Operator, we have…oh, that you, Myrt? How’s every little thing?”
Muddtallica
January 30th, 2009 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

Oh my! Today must be a new record of some sort, because three – count ‘em, a whole three – out of the 37 so-called “comical strips” which I read on a daily basis actually made me audibly laugh today!

That two of them were My Cage and Pearls Before Swine is fairly par for the course, but I was also pleasantly surprised by Bonnie & Boo Boo today. I have an, uh, affinity for this strip that’s fairly well documented, but it’s usually a case of being gently charmed by it rather than actually laughing; still, there was something about Boo Boo’s bluntly and cretinously assholish conduct here that just tickled me.

That, and Bonnie showed some more leg, which is always peachy.
Matmaduke
January 30th, 2009 at 12:18 pm [Reply]

Herb and Jaamaal: Apparently Herb wanted to see “That Sappy Chick Flick” again, this time he must be watching it on DVD or something, as opposed to 11/20/07 when it was in the theaters.
Perky Bird
January 30th, 2009 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

My parents have a telephone in their bathroom. They installed it back when my dad was a lineman with the local power company (not an evil lineman, though!). He didn’t want to miss an emergency work call if he was in the bathroom, and no one else was home to answer the phone. They don’t use it much now. But sometimes when I call home in the evenings, my mom will answer, and I’ll hear water sloshing, and know that she’s talking to me while sitting in the bathtub.

And on very rare occasions, they will ask if they can call me back “after flushing”, and I suddenly wish they would have just let the answering machine pick up instead!
Muddtallica
January 30th, 2009 at 12:52 pm [Reply]

#184 Matmaduke – That, or this time he’s talking about the sequel, “That Sappy Chick Flick 2: Judgement Day”.
cheech wizard
January 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm [Reply]

148/Spider-Brick – Curtis: What sound does “!” make?

A click. Curtis is apparently Bantu.
queek
January 30th, 2009 at 1:15 pm [Reply]

Frazz, HotC and Cul de Sac were all wonderful and clever today. *applause*

A&J: once again, the naughtiest couple on the funny pages. Well done!

MT: RFoJ in 3,2,1. . . .

Overboard: I laughed. I’m sorry, but I did.

SF: I have been at that meeting! Word for F@#$% word!

NS: wtf?

Maintaining does a Garfield ref.

AS: Hilburn, you talentless hack! Somebody please forge a C&D from Larson and get this crud off my paper!!!! *rage*
CanuckDownSouth
January 30th, 2009 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

177-Calico: If retroramaFOOB goes all Winkerbean on us, with them all catching cancer from the chemicals overused in cleaning the house of everything except stomach flu germs then I am all for it
cheech wizard
January 30th, 2009 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

There’s a trick with rotary dialing that you supposedly could use to make free calls on pay phones. In Steal This Book, Abbey Hoffmann claimed that you could make free calls by rapidly clicking the arm you hung up the phone on – he claimed that with practice, you could lightly click out a series of numbers that the system would interpret as dialing and you could place long-distance calls for free. It somehow bypassed the phone’s coin-and-dialing circuitry and gave you direct access to the AT&T system. Of course, it was a skill that was damn near impossible to master, especially if you’re trying to crank in 10 digits, even more so if they feaure lots of 7s, 8s and 9s. We tried it a few times and it did seem to connect with the system, but we never got beyond a few low numbers like 3 or 4, and were never able to actually call anyone.
queek
January 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

81: The legacy strips respond:

http://roflrazzi.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/celebrity-pictures-peanuts-snoopy-charlie-brown-happiness.jpg
Bootsy
January 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

Anonymous, @154:

I (not wearing a fedora, but a frilly apron, high heels, and a string of pearls) could pick it up and bark “Bessie, connect me to Doc Martin, will you?”.

If you are not a guy, I am very disappointed.
blammers66
January 30th, 2009 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

Actually, I like the way Summer, in her own fit of depression about being the second banana on the team, decides that she’s going to drag everyone down with her. Today, it’s Les and the spectre of death. Tomorrow: “Hey Funky – do you miss the alcohol-induced haze?” Next day: “Hi Harry, do you miss the sense of hear- I SAID ‘HI HARRY!’ YES, HELLO! I SAID THAT TO YOU.”
Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol
January 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

151, 154, 163 — Occasionally, I’ll win a bar bet by dialing a land-line phone simply by operating the switchhook to simulate the clicks of a rotary phone.
Paul1963
January 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

My mother had a rotary phone–which she was leasing from Verizon!–until 2006 or ‘07, when I bought her a digital phone/answering-machine combination.

Doing the math: Blondie and Dagwood met in 1930, when wealthy Dagwood apparently had no money of his own and was dependent on his parents for support. Let’s say he was 25-ish and Blondie was a year or two younger. So he was born in 1905 or so and she in 1907. Son Alexander was born in 1934 and was cruelly referred to as “Baby Dumpling” until he was six or seven. Daughter Cookie was born in 1941, but clearly isn’t supposed to be seven years younger than Alexander. So Dag is 104, Blondie is 102, Alexander is 75 and Cookie is 68.
Fun!
“Jesus Christ, how old do you think I am?” was my response several years ago when I was out in my 1968 car and someone asked me if I was the original owner. I don’t think I was even 40 yet! Yeah, I bought it new–when I was five.

Curtis: So, have we decided that the Wilkinses live in Washington?
Bootsy
January 30th, 2009 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

MT: Giant fist o’ malevolance!

MW: I’d like to think the little woman on Lynn’s shoulder is telling her “Kill them! Kill them all!”

GT: Giant random hand!

Phantom: The missing narration box could answer that!
Calico
January 30th, 2009 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

#187 – Might you be referring to this culture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C7%83Kung_people
nowukkers
January 30th, 2009 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

MW: Is it my imagination, or does Lynn, in Panel 2, have the same pie-eyed expression as MW in Panel 1? Except her head’s cocked at the reverse angle. Could MW have succeeded in subsuming the last vestiges of Lynn’s persona (what there was of it) into her own? Olympic Zombies on ice anyone???
cheech wizard
January 30th, 2009 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

197 – That’s it – although apparently Bantu and other cultures use click consonants as well.
Anonymous
January 30th, 2009 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

There’s a trick with rotary dialing that you supposedly could use to make free calls on pay phones. In Steal This Book, Abbey Hoffmann claimed that you could make free calls by rapidly clicking the arm you hung up the phone on – he claimed that with practice, you could lightly click out a series of numbers that the system would interpret as dialing and you could place long-distance calls for free.]]

Actually, you used to be able to use this trick to make calls from the ATM phone – which had no dialer. And yes, it actually worked.
Perky Bird
January 30th, 2009 at 2:11 pm [Reply]

Archie: It’s nice to see that the young lady in panel two of today’s strip isn’t letting that giant, hideous, face-distorting tumor on her lower jaw ruin her life. She’s showing that you can be horribly disfigured and still lead a normal, productive life. You go, girl!
kkarenb
January 30th, 2009 at 2:18 pm [Reply]

In the 1950’s my parents’ and grandparents’ phone numbers were three digits and a letter. There was no dialing – the caller gave the number they wanted to reach to the operator. Our county switched to dialing and seven digit numbers in 1961 or 1962. We had an assembly in school where they explained the new system – the dial tone and how to dial. Modern technology!
tb4000
January 30th, 2009 at 2:32 pm [Reply]

Archie: Now, I have been an avid reader of Archie comics for years, and I know how their gags work, but if you just erase Jughead’s text bubble and look at this final panel, your mind just wanders into places it should never tread.
UncleJeff
January 30th, 2009 at 2:34 pm [Reply]

202 kkarenb: What I remember most from when the phone company in my rural town brought in “direct-dial” phones in the 1960s was that for several years, you could look in the directory for numbers for both “phone company” and “fone company” (and, of course, the real name of the telephone cooperative).
Calico
January 30th, 2009 at 2:35 pm [Reply]

#202 – Enjoy these videos:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=McOGxK5JcEU
(Silent)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=3zjlLb0tqGs&feature=related
(With sound and a very weird intro)
One-eyed Wolfdog
January 30th, 2009 at 2:42 pm [Reply]

You pulse-phone-and-phone-number-nostalgia-reminiscing people are going to go straight back to full “Ha ha, Mary Worth sure is boring” mode without batting your eyelashes, aren’t you? Heard any good ZIP codes recently?
kalki
January 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

165 & 171. I sit corrected. Belgium, not Holland. I honestly don’t know why I forgot that particular fact, since this storyline has been going on for what seems like half my lifetime.
PeteMoss
January 30th, 2009 at 2:47 pm [Reply]

Take out the speech balloons and today’s Rex Morgan could easily be an advertisement for an erectile disfuntion drug. Just look at the expressions on their faces! The disappointment, shame, frustration! If only there was a fourth panel with the Viva Viagra Band playing a song of hope!
PeteMoss
January 30th, 2009 at 3:07 pm [Reply]

Dang it! Artist formerly known as Ben @ 170 beat me to that ED joke and did it BETTER. Sorry, AFKAB.
texas buddha
January 30th, 2009 at 3:08 pm [Reply]

Hey everybody,

I’ve been slacking off of the New World Order Family Circus.

Instead I’ve been working on My would-be movie BEER TRAIN.
Lardella
January 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

Wow, Close to Home was actually kind of funny today. My world is imploding.
Calico
January 30th, 2009 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

#206 – Hahaha!
I’m not sure if Mary Worth even remembers the Fresno phone transition of 1927…
Maryse
January 30th, 2009 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

67. Donald the Anarchist – Blades of Glory perhaps?
Baka Gaijin
January 30th, 2009 at 6:54 pm [Reply]

#60 Ignatz:

I remember the telephone exchanges. But then I’m so old my Social Security number is “3.” I got there early.

Jack Benny beat me. He was “2.”

Georgie Jessel was 1.

#64 Mel:

60 Ignatz: does that make George Burns 0?

No, that would be Fred Allen.
Donkey Hotey
January 31st, 2009 at 4:13 am [Reply]

Assholine Galley: Who ever heard of a diner where the cook was responsible for coffee?
MW: Lynn has gotten religion?
S-M: I was an English major, and even I know high-tension poles don’t look like that.

PeteMoss @ 51: When I was a kid, my grandma’s phone still had the SIX-digit number (RAinier 3735) on its dial. Her number had been changed to 7 digits (PArkway 2-3735), but the phone itself hadn’t been updated. I was also a finger remover (except when I was “speed-dialing” by forcing the dial to spin back faster than usual). And my bedside phone is a 1970s Western Electric Trimline. Oh, and our beach cabin had a party line well into the 1980s, so we often got to hear snippets of our neighbors’ conversations (and they not infrequently listened in on lengthy segments of ours). When we dialed a long distance call (no area code needed for anywhere in western Washington), the long distance operator would come on and ask for our phone number for billing purposes. And no, we never gave our next-door neighbor’s number.

I also remember when said beach house’s address was changed from Rural Route 7, Box 563, to the vastly more urban-sounding 9702 Cascade Loop Northeast.

And regarding telegrams, did everyone know Western Union closed its telegram division a few years back? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11147506/
betamaxrules
January 31st, 2009 at 8:18 pm [Reply]

Does the writer of ‘Blondie’ think that texting involves nothing other than making little beeping and texting noises? Is he not aware that words are also involved? Certainly seems that way.
inn pigeon forge
July 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am [Reply]

Red Roof Inn Pigeon Forge centrally located hotel puts you within blocks (or a short trolley ride) to most of Pigeon Forge’s top tourist destinations, exciting specialized events

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