The Comics Curmudgeon

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Friday one-liners

Archie, 2/27/09

“It’s actually working out pretty well in that regard, because it’s about four times as large as a normal credit card and has no text or numbers of any sort on it, so I can’t convince any of the stores here that’s it’s actually a credit card.”

Herb and Jamaal, 2/27/09

Oh my goodness, Herb has finally figured out how to harness the nonspecificity that dominates his world … for evil.

Marvin, 2/27/09

Marvin all this week has been about his diaper rash and the disgusting effects that sitting in one’s own urine will have on one’s buttocks; and yet it is only today, with Marvin complaining that his ass is so sore that he can’t even lie down, that I’ve been moved to express my complete disgust.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/27/09

I liked this strip better when my eyes glossed over most of the longer word balloon in the first panel and I read it as saying “Yep, she’s taken up speed!”

Ziggy, 2/27/09

Ha ha! Ziggy and his entire neighborhood are about to be annihilated by a barrage of cruise missiles!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27, 2009 at 05:51 am and is filed under Archie, Barney Google & Snuffy Smith, Herb and Jamaal, Marvin, Ziggy. |

376 responses to “Friday one-liners”

True Fable
February 27th, 2009 at 6:09 am [Reply]

And just what would Veronica want to buy in those stores, anyway? Check out the first panel: that’s a coonskin cap in the store window, for cryin’ out loud.
Frank Parsnip
February 27th, 2009 at 6:09 am [Reply]

Ziggy’s finally heard about “shock & awe”? Or else perhaps Wilson drew this one 8 years ago but simply had such a huge backlog of brilliant Ziggy ideas that this one just went right in line behind all the others to wat its damn turn.
Monkeyhawk
February 27th, 2009 at 6:11 am [Reply]

Between “¡Caramba!” and Mary Worth’s endless dinner/infomercial-for-eHarmony.com and Dagwood Bumstead hiring Elmo to do those things only a prepubescent boy can do for a man…plus texting… I’m losing my will to live.

Even worse, this week’s “Get Fuzzy” is reruns.

“Are?”

Can I borrow somebody’s gun?
Frank Parsnip
February 27th, 2009 at 6:13 am [Reply]

TrueF: That coonskin cap is pretty effed up, but Betty’s purse just makes me say: “OH YEAH!!!!” while breakin’ through walls. Now, if anybody can explain Sean Young’s cameo in panel 2, I think I’ll be able to go to sleep happy.
Charlene
February 27th, 2009 at 6:13 am [Reply]

#1, maybe Veronica wants to be queen of the wild frontier.

Or is that Jughead?
True Fable
February 27th, 2009 at 6:16 am [Reply]

# 4 Frank Parsnip – HA! I noticed that too. Jeez, Riverdale makes Greater Metropolitan Roopville look like a fucking cosmopolitan mecca for style.
Mr. O'Malley
February 27th, 2009 at 6:23 am [Reply]

1. True Fable. Haven’t you heard? Uggs are so Bush Administration. Jughaids are now the cutting edge in young women’s fashion.
Mike P
February 27th, 2009 at 6:25 am [Reply]

Today, we’re treated to Spider-Man abandoning his aunt in front of a hospital and swinging away into the night. During a black-out, no less.
Frank Parsnip
February 27th, 2009 at 7:04 am [Reply]

I’ve come to the gradual realization that “spidey sense” has very little to do with common sense.
Yanni
February 27th, 2009 at 7:17 am [Reply]

I know this probably makes sense in Ziggy’s world, but why would someone put a roadside in the corner of a room?
Mack
February 27th, 2009 at 7:22 am [Reply]

I think what’s actually happened is that Ronnie has managed to capture Mr. Lodge in the Phantom Zone! Betty, realizing that Veronica has doomed her own father to an eternal screaming limbo, can only took on in silent terror.
Sue D. Nymme
February 27th, 2009 at 7:33 am [Reply]

OMG THAT’S REGGIE IN DRAG IN PANEL TWO!
gleeb
February 27th, 2009 at 7:44 am [Reply]

Pigborn: You know how I wanted McDowner to move on to a new story? Maybe I was wrong.

Archie: Where is the AJGLU? Is it in Betty’s winking bag? Or has it become the unidentified woman in the second panel in the cobblestone dress? Is the AJGLU able to take human form now, ready to re-enter our world and make it over in its own image?

Baldo: So, this has all been to prove that Baldo’s co-worker here is as lazy and worthless as Baldo?

Curtis: Forget the book; why is that kid walking on the table?

Doonesbury: Second time reading this, and it still makes no sense. They’re in their sixties, right? Both been working steadily for decades? The house should be free and clear; it’ll make much more sense to stay there and get a part-time gig to cover day-to-day costs. All of this is besides the point that the Washington Post’s buyouts have been more than generous, if Gene Weingarten can be trusted. Yes, I know that Trudeau is trying to underline the state of the newspaper business, but it’s just such a tone-deaf way of going about it.

Mary: “What I’m saying is, you haven’t knocked my little girl up, have you?”
John C Fremont
February 27th, 2009 at 7:47 am [Reply]

I refuse to believe that any Plugger would know the name Uri Geller.

GT – Is that supposed to be Cartman on the Cheezy Poofs poster? Looks a little like Charlie Brown, only heavier and on crack. I guess that would be Eric Cartman then, so nevermind.

MW – Margo Magee’s mom dines at the Golden Corridor? With a generic 1950’s business man? Must be that Martin Magee fellow. Meanwhile, Race Bannon sports a powder blue sport coat while, apparently, selling Fuller Brush products from that sample case. America. What a country!
Mibbitmaker
February 27th, 2009 at 7:48 am [Reply]

Marvin gets all sore over a non-insult (though the dog sure seems all punchline about it)? That’s mighty rash of him. He wasn’t the butt of a descernable joke. What a pain in the ass! He oughta just take a powder.
Little Guy
February 27th, 2009 at 7:49 am [Reply]

11: Came for the Phantom Zone reference, is satisfied.

Big Nate: At leastshe isn’t barging into your bath handing you homework.

JP: yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes

yCandorville: Global Warming?

Candorville: “I wanna do bad things to you….” No, I’m not singing the them to “True Blood”. I’m just expressing what I want to do to this storyline.
Little Guy
February 27th, 2009 at 7:50 am [Reply]

12. Actually, with that Barettoseque figure, the operation was a heck of a success.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
February 27th, 2009 at 8:07 am [Reply]

Archie: Who’s that cute guy in the dress in panel two?
Catu
February 27th, 2009 at 8:35 am [Reply]

Judging by the look of his round, rifted, bumped muzzle, Bitsy can probably relate to Marvin every time he eats.
Patrick
February 27th, 2009 at 8:38 am [Reply]

All the incidental women in today’s Archie strip seem to be eavesdropping on Betty and Veronica from a long distance away. Perhaps daddy’s personalized “credit card” is really a bugging device, complete with a set of lesbian toughs, ready to pounce on Veronica should she decide to overspend on a coonskin cap or a fur-trimmed pimp coat.
TheCasey
February 27th, 2009 at 8:45 am [Reply]

9CL – Obviously the censors got to this one. Amos is supposed to say, “It’s the only way to get you to shut the fuck up for one goddamned second. Christ!”

A3G – Mule? MULE!? Oh crap. Margo’s about to lose it.

Crankshaft – Again, did this sound like a good idea to anyone over the age of 10?

DT – How many different people are standing around watching this car wreck, anyway?

FC – No, it’s wishful thinking.

Luann – Seriously, hasn’t TJ been living there for almost a year? He’s extended family, at least.

Marvin – Um, since Marvin’s not really talking, why is he yelling his thought balloon?

OBH – Thank you, grandma. I know several people who’d be happy to burn that thing for you.

Pluggers – I want to make fun of this, but I totally snapped a spoon in half this week.

RMMD – “A co-ed prison! With old people sex!”

RwO – Dynamic Duo, maybe?

Spiderman – So, Spidey just dropped his aunt, one of the two most important people in his life, off at the door of the hospital like she’s an OD’ing hooker? You stay classy, big guy.

13, Gleeb: Doonesbury – These are reruns. Last year, maybe? I don’t recall exactly when.
Grover Cleveland
February 27th, 2009 at 8:51 am [Reply]

I see that the terrorist fist jab has reached even unto the Appalachian hollow of Snuffy Smith. Can basic literacy be far behind?
Big Thyme
February 27th, 2009 at 9:09 am [Reply]

Crankshaft: It’s moments like this I remember whenever Crankshaft is bitching about the stupidity of another character. And, why oh why, do the creators never bless us with Crankshaft seriously injuring *himself*?

DT: This one is certainly demonstrating why Dick Tracy is famed for cruel, violent ends that aren’t given much rational thought or emotional impact.

MW: The artwork in Mary Worth is serving up extra strength servings of self-satisfaction.
AMSTERDANG
February 27th, 2009 at 9:09 am [Reply]

DT: Watching someone burn alive in car fire while casually bragging about the incredible gas mileage your hybrid gets — sadly, that is exactly the kind of smug self-satisfaction that causes so much unfortunate bitchslapping of Prius owners. Hmmm. Maybe strike “unfortunate” and insert “wholly justified”?
LITTLE A. WITH THE CRYSTAL BALL WHO HAS NEVER WON THE LOTTERY
February 27th, 2009 at 9:09 am [Reply]

DT: Dick Tracy is a practical man. While he watches somebody burning to death, he thinks about fuel efficiency.
AMSTERDANG
February 27th, 2009 at 9:14 am [Reply]

GT: Yeah, I’d like to put my ZAGNUTS on her, if you know…oh, Christ, I suck. Better get started on the penance: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners….
AMSTERDANG
February 27th, 2009 at 9:17 am [Reply]

MT: Love the saw. Can’t help think this saga would come to a quicker, more colorful conclusion if Mark just cut off Bucky’s head.
Whippersnapper
February 27th, 2009 at 9:17 am [Reply]

DT: Only Dick Tracy would stand by extolling the virtues of hybrid cars as a woman blinded by acid dies a horrible fiery death.

GT: Only a Zagnut? No Nut Boy? I guess Bryce hasn’t really won her over yet.
Pozzo
February 27th, 2009 at 9:28 am [Reply]

I’m trying to figure out if that’s a mannequin in the second panel of “Archie.” If so, that’s one smug-looking mannequin. She’s sporting a “Winkerbean”-worthy smirk.
Brick Bradford
February 27th, 2009 at 9:34 am [Reply]

DT It’s all been said. Dick’s a sadistic bastard.
Enjoying her screams of agony and terror, Dick?

MT I keep trying to come up with something for this situation, and I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than what’s there on the paper.

JP Linguist? I’ll avoid the obvious joke as we cut to the boom chick a wow wow music. Barreto’s just playing with us, isn’t he? Mind you, I’m not complaining.

9CL I don’t want to kiss a mouth overflowing with anything. Ick.

Phantom The Ghost Who Wears Cheesy Sunglasses meets Captain Nemo’s great-granddaughter.

RMMD Uh, June, I’m pretty sure the water in your coffee hasn’t been boiled–June? June? June! Oh God, June!

SM Nothing like leaving a sick older person out in the cold night air where they might not be found for hours. Slick rescue there, Spidester.
Brick Bradford
February 27th, 2009 at 9:36 am [Reply]

Archie–Anybody else notice that Betty’s bag is made from Garfield’s severed head?
gleeb
February 27th, 2009 at 9:43 am [Reply]

21: Yeah, I know it’s a rerun. That’s why I said I’m reading this for the second time. If I thought it was new, I’d note that the housing market in Washington has collapsed, so it’s a really bad time to sell. Last year, it might still have been all right, depending on where exactly they live. My point is, though, that newspaper writers are solidly middle-class by income. After having worked for a long time, there’s no reason to assume a character like Rick would be facing economic ruin. If he was a construction worker or if he had bounced from one job to another, never feeling financially secure enough to save, sure. But not someone who has such a long history in the same well-paying job. Besides, like I said, these buyouts have been more than generous.
Here’s what Weingarten, the guy I mentioned earlier said:
“The deal I turned down would have given me $200,000 in cash and a lifetime yearly pension of $45,000.”
So, it’s a little disingenuous to talk about selling houses. His wife is still employed, and he’s doing OK.
Calvin's Cardboard Box
February 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am [Reply]

Luann – Does anyone else get this strip in color? The coloring gnomes have suddenly decided this week that TJ is black, and with the ‘fro and the jheri curl, I guess it fits.
Dragon of Life
February 27th, 2009 at 9:49 am [Reply]

Wait, wait, I can’t agree with the assessment — that was the most specific H&J ever. He points at a telephone and calls it a telephone. Not a “semi-modern communications device.” Not “that handset that sends your voice to other people.” No, telephone. If you take away every panel but the first, H&J is still funny, because then you can read it as the characters actually managing to name an item in their world. It’s like if there was just one panel of Charlie Brown kicking the football.
Rusty
February 27th, 2009 at 9:52 am [Reply]

Marvin: Has the artist totally forgotten how perspective works, and/or the relative size of things. assuming Marvin is 2, that dog is bigger than a cow. It’s the same problem Family Circus, except I do believe those kids are a different species.
Rusty
February 27th, 2009 at 9:55 am [Reply]

#32: I agree. I also think the characters had down-sized into an apartment, or may have always lived in an apartment, so I don’t get the financial angst.
Crankshafts funky smelling corpse
February 27th, 2009 at 9:57 am [Reply]

9CL: Strip is over.

Luann: TJ and his mouth again….

Crankshaft: I am actually entertained by this. Now all that needs to happen is a spark and a fire (whipped up by the leaf blower, of course) and we’ll be cooking.

FW: Continuing to be clicheville.

Doonesbury: Trudeau has run out of ideas, just like the newspaper industry.

Phantom: Like, I know its a farking fantasy strip, but a farking ‘automated’ freighter, run by farking uniformed hindu chick, farking wating around in a farking port in farking Africa, is simply too silly and clumsy a plot device to allow it to pass unremarked upon.

Jugs Parker: This is just an excuse to draw hot chicks in tight dresses. I heartily approve.
Rusty
February 27th, 2009 at 9:58 am [Reply]

H&J: Since the guys are on the downlow, Jamaal should have known it was his mother on the phone, because there is no other woman in his life.
kalki
February 27th, 2009 at 10:03 am [Reply]

9CL: “Invective”? Is that what they call it? Can a woman snowball invective back into a guy’s mouth?

BabyBlues: “It helps not to wipe after going too.”

Archie: Scary strip today with the robotic prowling lesbians in the mall and the winking Betty purse…Welcome to Riverdale…a suburb of greater Stepford.

Blondie: And Dagwood’s self-respect slips yet another notch. One more and Blondie will get to have sex with other men in full view of Dagwood in their bed at home.

Crank: It gets better…now Crankers can head back home, act surprised and then blame the whole thing on inner city youths hopped up on drugs.

DTM: “Are you kidding? Have you met my little demonseed? If I could have, I would have had my tubes tied before he was even born. On a side note, you should never snort uncut heroin while pregnant.”

CircusJerk: There’s a challenge for everybody here…write a dirty limerick using: “There once was a tired daddy, whose kids went right to bed…”

There once was a tired daddy
Whose kids went right to bed
He wasn’t their real daddy
Some mailman lied to Thel and said he would just put in the head

FW: ooo drama.

GA: “Lose weight? Great idea! I think I’ll start with 150 lbs of annoying bitch wife. Where’s my tire iron?”

Luann: “We are one incestin’ family…uh, I mean rocking…uh, I mean…pity fuck, guys? I said ‘Guys’, Luann.”

S-M: Oh my god…I can’t stop laughing…when you care enough to dump your loved one’s helpless unconscious body outside the hospital on the cement and swing away before you see what stranger is going to assist her…it yells “Hallmark moment”!
Ignatz
February 27th, 2009 at 10:13 am [Reply]

B.C. Hey! Alzheimers! That’s always good for a barrel of laughs!

Baldo: Has anybody mentioned that Joey should be saying “Zoiks!” and hanging around with Scooby-Doo?

Crankshaft is the stupidest human being on earth.

DT: And while she burns to death, Tracy contemplates the benifits of a hybrid. And silly you thought that they were just to save money on gas.

Fred Basset: If there was REALLY global warming, snow would cease to exist.

Gil Thorp: You’re a total asshole, but I’ll flirt with you anyway.

Mallard Fillmore: Holy crap! Bruce Tinsley wrote an actual joke!

Rose is Rose: Rose and her mom apparently kicked out Edda and Amos.
Calico
February 27th, 2009 at 10:16 am [Reply]

Good Ol’ Hootin’ Holler – where everyone is toothless due to poor hygeine and meth addiction.

Oh, and, anyone here got $400,000?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/02/26/comic.book.auction/index.html
Matmaduke
February 27th, 2009 at 10:18 am [Reply]

Um Dick Tracy, one thing you could do instead of blathering in is call 9-1-1, or maybe find some water, or you know, anything other than stand there. I half expect him to walk over and just start roasting marshmallows.
dreadedcandiru2
February 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am [Reply]

Canadian Zombie Warning: Tomorrow’s strip will be much like today’s: Elly-of-Koi (to use True Fable’s term for her) reacting in horror because of an eminently foreseeable event she’s too inattentive and dumb to have foreseen. Eventually, she’ll need to run home to mommy to cry about all these awful things that ‘just happen’; Marian will reply by reminding her that no, they don’t and thus BE EVIL.
150
February 27th, 2009 at 10:28 am [Reply]

Somehow it doesn’t really surprise me that Veronica can’t tell the difference between a credit card and a 3×5 photograph.

I actually laughed at Herb and Jamaal! I could stand to see more of Evil Herb.
x
February 27th, 2009 at 10:30 am [Reply]

Shock and awe? That is so 2002.
Matmaduke
February 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am [Reply]

@1 coonskin caps are soo hot right now,

#1 accessory: Coonskin Cap
#2 accessory: Fringed Leather/Pleather Jacket
#3 accessory: Ass-less Chaps

Wait… sorry I just made a list of what I imagine Mark Trail wears to Forest Ranger Gay Pride
mojo
February 27th, 2009 at 10:43 am [Reply]

H&J: Ooooh, baby! I tells ya, guys, nothing turns wimmens on more than by you calling her a “bucket”. Other items that may work: “pail”, “tub”, “trough” and “roadside ditch”. Things that require more research before we can assess their effectiveness include: “manure heap”, “cesspool” and “cloudy fishtank”. So in the interests of SCIENCE, give it a try and report your results today!!!
Little Guy
February 27th, 2009 at 10:43 am [Reply]

MT: I hate to say it, but better writers would tip their pen at Elrod’s double meaning. Well played, sir.
papa zita
February 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am [Reply]

9CL: I spy with my little eye Amos, and what do I see? Oh my god it’s a jumpsuit! With a shirt and tie, yet. I thought jumpsuits mercifully went out in the ’70s. And now here’s the slug, bringing back a fashion error that looked good on nobody outside of funk bands.
dimestore lipstick
February 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am [Reply]

Yanni –
I know this probably makes sense in Ziggy’s world, but why would someone put a roadside in the corner of a room?

Well, I’ve been known to GO roadside in the corner of a room…
tb4000
February 27th, 2009 at 11:00 am [Reply]

Archie: Woman in panel 2 is obviously hankering for some “experimentation” with those two innocent looking teen girls, if you catch my drift. Those eyes give it all away, baby.
Calico
February 27th, 2009 at 11:06 am [Reply]

Damn you, Ces, you just made me get some memory in my eye, too. ; )

MW – Ted really is in a hurry. Adrian must have one hell of a life insurance policy.

MC – “The Office” meets “The Sopranos.” Heh.
Nick
February 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am [Reply]

Did anyone else notice the “Tinkle” sound effect in Crankshaft? Are we to understand that he not only broke every one of this poor woman’s nicknacks and curios, but also urinated on them, for good measure?
Dingo
February 27th, 2009 at 11:16 am [Reply]

So, yesterday Adrian bathed herself in eau de trollette and we snarked on her. Today, however, please look at the table to the left. What man conducts business with a Hello Kitty attache case?
Artist formerly known as Ben
February 27th, 2009 at 11:18 am [Reply]

Ziggy: As long as we’re doing these up to the minute topical references, why not have Ziggy meet Toby Keith at the corner of Shock and Y’all?

Marvin: Bitsy is smiling because he knows Marvin’s legs are only two inches long. Bring it on, kid.

H&J: The really disturbing part is that Jamaal’s mother spent the next two minutes describing the lingerie she was wearing.

DT: Hey, I know you guys are enjoying the fumes and the skin-searing heat, but shouldn’t someone call the fire department? I mean, just to see if you’ve still got hopes of arresting a liver person? Then again, this is Dick Tracy we’re talking about.

RMMD: “Of course I passed the time by making Arthur my bitch, but that became tiresome after the first three or four times.”

OBH: Finally someone said it!

WofI: Yup, nothing funnier than police states that threaten to kill dissidents.

FB: Oh well, at least he’s pithier than Mallard Fillmore.

Cathy: And the people at the photo store have never seen a naked woman before? Trust me, unless your “before” picture features you being penetrated by a dog or a carrot, no one will even notice.

9CL: An alternate answer to Edda’s question would be, “It’s the only way to shut you the fuck up.”

Luann: Even the de Groots are shocked that anyone could watch this sad little scene and want to be part of the family responsible for it.

BC: Good one.

Popeye: No ability to control her own creations? Haggy really needs to work on that. She doesn’t want to fall prey to the leading cause of mad scientist deaths.

Agnes: Theoretically, i’d be interested in seeing Agnes’ art project. The hitch is that the whole strip is drawn by someone who doesn’t draw very well.

S-M: “On the other hand, he left a sick elderly woman lying in the parking lot and didn’t even tell anyone. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this guy sucks.”
not track 5, not chainsaw juggling
February 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am [Reply]

FC: Am I the only one who took a first glance at this and thought Daddy Bil was trying to breastfeed PJ?

Crank: Forgive me if this has been covered already, but I thought Lillian (that is the sourpuss old woman’s name, right?) was forced to sell her house and move in with Crank and the rest of the gang. If that’s the case, why the f*ck does she all of a sudden have her old house back? Is this a series of repeat strips like Doonesbury is?
blammers66
February 27th, 2009 at 11:23 am [Reply]

FunkWink: Please miss, please miss, please miss oh please oh please oh please oh please …
Coops2001
February 27th, 2009 at 11:25 am [Reply]

Archie: What’s with Betty’s lean in on Veronica in panel two? Looks like Betty’s looking for love in all the wrong places (or is it the right places)? Guess we know who’s got upper…
Patrick, Interlibrary Loan Lending Division
February 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am [Reply]

Cartoon/comic crossovers:,/b> Today, in the background of today’s Mary Worth, Dark Time Lord is an appearance by Jonny Quest’s Roger “Race” Bannon in the background of the restaurant.
Stij
February 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am [Reply]

FW: When did Keisha become an exaggerated blackface characterture? Around the same time that Summer become a member of the Beatles circa 1965, I guess.
Patrick, Interlibrary Loan Lending Division
February 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am [Reply]

Arrgh! Stupid bolding error!
Stij
February 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am [Reply]

*became
Kevin Moore
February 27th, 2009 at 11:31 am [Reply]

So when Tom Wilson heard about “shock and awe” — the military strategy that killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, which is still recovering — he thought, “Man, this would make a great Ziggy cartoon. But…how?” Six years later, we have the brilliant result. Someone hand that man a Pulitzer, because there will be no better commentary on current events this year from political cartooning. (Which, sadly, is probably true.)
Natalie
February 27th, 2009 at 11:31 am [Reply]

H&J: What the hell kind of sound is “snick”? Is it like “snicker,” only “urban”?
Artist formerly known as Ben
February 27th, 2009 at 11:34 am [Reply]

#39 kalki

Blondie: And Dagwood’s self-respect slips yet another notch. One more and Blondie will get to have sex with other men in full view of Dagwood in their bed at home.

Yeah, but that level of self-loathing will eventually lead to a murder-suicide. Especially if Blondie adopts a pet deer.
Perky Bird
February 27th, 2009 at 11:36 am [Reply]

Having not read Marvin this week, I’m relieved to learn that diaper rash is the reason for Marvin’s sore butt. The dog’s smug look was suggesting a far more disturbing reason.
Master Softheart
February 27th, 2009 at 11:37 am [Reply]

Today’s comics illuminate much wisdom for their readers:.

GT/FW: These strips teach us the true purpose of high school sports. Teenagers are naturally self-absorbed, arrogant, emotional twits; joining a sports team forces them to think beyond themselves and put the good of a team before their own ego. It expands their conception of the good to include others and to subordinate their search for personal validation to the achievement of collective ends.

But more than that, GT teaches us that simple Pavlovian conditioning involving zagnuts and the possibility of sexual attention from a hot blonde can cause post-pubescent young men to insincerely mimic almost any values or behavior. Probably not something that anyone doubted, really. The latter alone would be enough for me. And FW teaches us that the high school sports can play a valuable role in helping emotionally troubled young girls to sublimate an Electra complex into bouts of savage violence that can be manifest in socially acceptable and even socially rewarded ways. Admittedly a more disturbing message than the one offered by Bryce and Ashley, but profound in its own way.

And taken collectively, both of these strips generate a deeper insight still: Amos and Edda from 9CL really should have been forced to play team sports in high school to overcome their borderline solopsistic self-absorption and boundless feeling of entitlement. Or at least they might have been soundly thrashed by their school’s version of Summer Moore, which would have been immensely satisfying in its own way.

SF: Come on, Sally – this Harry Chapin moment is a bit self-indulgent when Hillary’s still in Jr. High school and composing rock ballads about werewolves. Besides, you’ll always have man-child Ted willing to make cookies with you.

More seriously, this fits well with Sal’s desire for a second child last year and the recent story arc involving her insecurity and defensiveness over Ted’s friendship with Aria. Ces deserves a great deal of credit for adding emotional depth to his characters, even if the punchline does come from a 1981 Garfield strip.

Garfield: And speaking of the narcoleptic mutant, I have learned something of great worth today: it’s even sadder to see oneself reflected in a Garfield strip than it is to ask whether you might be a Plugger.

Peanuts: Well, the press sympathy strategy might not have worked out for John McCain, but the vision I had of Snoopy joining Mike Huckabee as a host on Fox News made this strip work.

Phantom: My suspension of disbelief wavers. Maritime automation has indeed gone far in the last two decades – to the point where the safety of large cargo ships is seriously impaired by the lack of qualified people to stand watches or to even operate safety equipment in the event of an accident or emergency. Like Mark Trail, there is a fascinatingly distorted reflection of the real world to be found in that. The idea of only one person to run a cargo ship, however, would violate even the maritime safety regulations of Liberia or Aruba – all of which supports my theory that he is actually trying to bribe a Starfleet officer to help him with his Crocco plan.

Of course, none of that really affects my suspension of disbelief; what struck me was actually the fact that the colorists chose to make the Hindu cybernetics expert captain blonde.

JP: Between the expression on April’s face in the second panel and the initially unidentified cylindrical object being held by the slyly smiling Katherine in the third, I momentarily wondered what she was doing right then that was so very satisfying.

FB: I foresee an infinite potential for Fred Basset strips along these lines: Fred standing in a flat open field thinking “So much for the earth being round.” Fred in an ascending elevator thinking “So much for the theory of gravity.” Fred reflecting on his owners and food dish thinking “So much for natural selection.” No, I suppose not – that last one might actually qualify as a joke.
markytom
February 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am [Reply]

MT: Love the saw. Can’t help think this saga would come to a quicker, more colorful conclusion if Mark just cut off Bucky’s head.

I think Ken will oblige in tomorrow’s strip.
tb4000
February 27th, 2009 at 11:41 am [Reply]

#67 – I do confess it is interesting seeing the typical deadpan snarker Sally actually having feelings. She comes across sometimes as just being there to sarcastically react to the retarded nature of those around her, but this is pretty good.
buckyswife
February 27th, 2009 at 11:42 am [Reply]

A3G: Today we learn that Margo is powerless against only one force: a barrage of cliches.

SM: I’m in a really crappy mood today, and the one thing that’s lightened it a bit is imagining an ambulance running over Aunt May in the dark.

MW: Does anybody actually EAT at the Golden Corridor? We see lots of menu reading, and some glasses raised, and I guess Adrian had a spoonful of random white stuff the other day. I’d speculate that Moy and Giella can’t draw food, but that would be stating the obvious.
buckyswife
February 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am [Reply]

And… Hagar the Horrible has a rare moment of authenticity today, presenting a joke that likely was being told back in Viking times.
Bootsy
February 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am [Reply]

MT: Ken comes through the door, still oddly clean-shaven. “Patty! Patty! Where are you? Have you forgotten about that deer yet? Have you? Have you?”

This guy is going to get away without being punched! It’s going to turn out that he’s good after all! He just had a little lumber setback. His business is going down the toilet so it’s understandable and perfectly reasonable to come home, hit his wife, and shoot her pet.

Great rubber alligators, jackelrod! You suck! Here I am, defending Mark Trail, loving the ginormous animals, talking potatoes, sweet bears, amorous beavers, plucky raccoons, dogs with PhDs and opposable thumbs, and you had to blow it.

If, however, Ken gets his, and goes down in a flurry of fists, hooves and antlers (well, not anymore, thanks to Mark and his saw, christ) I will come back and apologize. But I am not holding my breath.
Artist formerly known as Ben
February 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am [Reply]

#21 TheCasey,
Wow, didn’t know you had done the ‘zect same 9CL joke as I was planning.
Carlo
February 27th, 2009 at 12:05 pm [Reply]

Archie: The Joker as drag queen in panel 2 is very unsettling.

Ziggy circa 2014: Have you heard about this Obama fellow?
Krankenstein
February 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm [Reply]

DT: Wow, I think Tracy’s crossed the line from mere egregious dickishness to outright psychopathy. Smugly gloating about your hybrid while somebody burns to death before your very eyes?

FB: Sigh. Weather is to climate what individuals are to demographics. Dolt.

And now, for some praise:
OBH: Actually made me laugh today. Going for one obvious joke, and then subverting it with what everybody’s thinking (the do-rag) is not a tired old cliche (yet).
Artist formerly known as Ben
February 27th, 2009 at 12:07 pm [Reply]

#71 buckyswife,
Yes, but in the actual Viking version, Hagar would be holding Dr. Zook’s severed head aloft in front of Lucky Eddie.
Idols of Mud
February 27th, 2009 at 12:11 pm [Reply]

Archie: I’m glad Sue D. Nymme (#12) and Naked Bunny (#18) also noticed Reggie is in drag in panel 2. That was absolutely chilling. Betty’s shriek of horror at seeing Mr. Lodge in the Phantom Zone (tip o’ the cap to Mack at #11) pretty much reflects my feelings.

Marvin: Ha ha! It’s funny because Marvin’s parents are turning him into a serial killer!
buckyswife
February 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

76 AfkaB: Which would have made me laugh as hard as if Aunt May had gotten run over. Why should all the senseless violence in the comics be confined to Mark Trail?
Li’l Bunnë FooFoo
February 27th, 2009 at 12:13 pm [Reply]

H&J: Nope, nope, doesn’t ring true. “The woman who loves you” implies there’s only one, and it’s not really appropriate to use that to refer to a person’s mother. Congrats, Herb, you tricked your best friend by lying to him; it would have made just as much sense if you’d said “it’s the pope”. And bonus: you got your friend to talk sexy to his mom. THANKS FOR THAT.
gnome de blog
February 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

Remember sports fans – you only have until March 3 to vote in the big Oregonian which-comics-shall-we-dump? poll at http://biz.oregonian.com/comicsurvey.

You get to vote for 3 keepers (discriminating voters recommend supporting Comix Curmudgeon Contributors Ces, Corey Pandolph and Richard Thompson by voting for Sallly Forth, Elderberries, and the brilliant Cul de Sac).

On the dumper side, the choice is easy. DUMP FOOB!

This is our chance, people. The website again is http://biz.oregonian.com/comicsurvey. Polls are open until March 3.
mojo
February 27th, 2009 at 12:17 pm [Reply]

MW: So Adrian’s getting married the last Sunday in August. Ya know, honey, there’s a REASON why weddings are traditionally in June, and why the bride holds a bouquet of flowers. June because, May is usually when the weather’s finally warm enough for a gal in the Middle Ages to take her yearly bath, which is particularly welcome after the long winter. And the flowers were to cover up any smell that might return in the month AFTER said bath. But gadding about all day in a huge heavy dress in late August in southern California? Why don’t you just hold your nuptials in the freakin’ sauna at the local Y?
Fashion Police
February 27th, 2009 at 12:19 pm [Reply]

49, Papa Zita:

Amos is actually still dressed in white tie and tails, plus his overcoat, which really should be black. I think Brooke just went grey for contrast. That’s a forgivable error.
BigTed
February 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

Out of context, today’s “Marvin” is clearly about a beaten child who continues the cycle of violence by turning on his pet. In fact… forget context, someone call Child Services!
BigTed
February 27th, 2009 at 12:26 pm [Reply]

Hey, “Snuffy Smith,” you’ve clearly gotten two weddings confused. It’s obviously the Barlow-Barlow weddin’ and the Hawkins-Hawkins weddin’ — otherwise it would sound as if people got married when they weren’t already related, and that’s just crazy talk.
Niall
February 27th, 2009 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

Archie: Today is a momentous occasion; not so much for the laughable attempt at depicting a credit card, but for what had to be the first actual transsexual portrayal in an Archie publication. Look at panel 2, and tell me this walk-on isn’t post-hormonal treatment. (Whather it’s pre-op or post-op matters little for the look of the upper body at this stage. Yes, I know from experience. No, it’s not personal experience.)

Herb & Jamaal: I have to agree with Josh: once the authors actually embrace their non-specificity, our minds get blown because the gag is actually funny.

F Minus: I found actually pretty darn funny today. The psychologist’s expression in particular made it.

Apartment 3G: Only Margo’s mother could call her a mule and live.

Judge Parker: I’m feeling that there was supposed to be a speech balloon in panel 3, but once Baretto was done drawing it, he just… wistfully smiled, admiring his own handiwork, and decided that no silly writer was going to let him mar art of this magnitude.

I have a weird and very disturbing recent memory of seeing Funky Winkerbean strips in which Les is undoing his pants to take off his belt in order to punish his daughter but it looks more to the readers like he’s about to have sex with her. I never watch FW strips. And yet, I fear to watch the real ones because I think my false memories (from comments on this blog) are more wholesome than reality. (Just checked the last week’s worth of strips. Where in hell did I get these false memories from??)

Luann: Panel 1, minus TJ’s remark, is rpetty much how the game, since it is a game, can be fun. A family can do something together and really enjoy themselves. Of course, it can do the same with cards, too. I doubt the game itself would bring a dysfunctional family more together, but weirder things have happened. (Now a whole family playing Carcassonne or El Grande, that’d be unusual.) But, usually, if your guitar player’s on the left, you tend to be the leftmost player too. It’s quite confusing to have to look across another guitarist’s notes.
commodorejohn
February 27th, 2009 at 12:37 pm [Reply]

A3G – Where the hell is she from? Spaintaly? Mexigreece? Ecuadoromania?

AS – WHAT

BrS – Well there’s some symbolism. What is this, Arlo ‘N Janis?

Crankshaft – Naturally, this has all been carefully engineered by Batiuk the ~~Spiteful God of Torment~~ Master Writer. Coming home from her sister’s deathbed, still caught up in the realization that, even at the end, Lucy didn’t recognize her, Lillian will arrive to find all her precious things and irreplaceable mementos destroyed in the most impossible fashion ever depicted in the funnies. She will either commit suicide or simply expire from grief, and Batiuk will have succeeded in making the entire nation want to kill itself. Well played, sir. Well played.

DT – “Well, Hobbes, I guess there’s a moral to all this.”
“What’s that?”
“‘Snow goons are bad news.’”

FW – Wait, Summer is either a little to the left of Thirty-Four there (who will go on to have quite the interesting career after her brief cameo in this strip, let me tell you) or directly behind her, and Keisha is also to Thirty-Four’s left. But the ball is either A. to Thirty-Four’s right and the size of a cantaloupe, rather than a normal basketball, or B. somehow far back enough to appear smaller, probably just above Keisha’s torso, yet somehow appearing in front of Thirty-Four, in complete defiance of the nature of spacetime. Also, if Keisha and Summer are both to Thirty-Four’s left, and yet Keisha is throwing the ball around Thirty-Four’s right side and still having it reach Summer (who is not moving to get it, just standing there doing her “trapped in a glass box” impression,) Keisha must somehow be able to throw the ball in a horizontal arc, possibly by altering its course via telekinesis. Christ, I’ve seen Gil Thorp sports action that makes more sense.

GA – DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

GT – Holy crap, Ashley is telekinetic! Either that or she’s just harnessing the unusual nature of geometry in Milford. Maybe she’s the one who taught Keisha over in Funky Winkerbean how to alter the course of a ball after it has left your hand.

HOTC – Hey, Heart, you could write for 9 Chickweed Lane.

JP – A linguist, huh? Say, April, you don’t happen to know any good sociologists, do you? Okay, seriously, I really like the arrangement today; I’m not sure what the silent final panel is supposed to signal, but whatever it is, I think it works pretty nicely.

Love Is… – realizing that the condom had two open ends anyway.

Luann – “What, you mean I’m not part of your family? Okay, I guess you’ll have to die with the rest when I finally shed my mortal exterior and achieve my true inner demonic form.”

MF – Ha ha, nerd prostitution? What?

MT – Oh, sure, just go ahead and saw them off, there, Mark! It’s not like they may have to, I dunno, use them for combat or anything. And it’s certainly not like they were only very slightly caught in the first place and easily detanglable. And when did you become the Jolly Brown Giant, anyway?

MW – Man, Dr. Jeff sure is getting sloshed right quick. I do love the REALLY REALLY SUBTLE FORESHADOWING in today’s strip, though.

MC – Uh, yeah, you pretty much deserved that one, Norm. But on the bright side, Maureen is even cuter when she’s mad.

OBH – I like this one for the completely unrelated punchline.

Phantom – Admit it, guys: if you were the only person running your ship, you’d buy a ridiculously rococo set of office furniture, too. Ten bucks says she has a box of cigars in the desk drawer, which she lights up any time she has the urge to feel ostentatious.

Pluggers – Pluggers still think Uri Geller jokes are relevant.

RMMD – “Then some young Canadian punk heard about it and wrote some God-damned piece of tripe after listening to about two sentences of my account. Purest barnyard excrement, but it only sold about three copies outside of his hometown, so I guess there is some justice in this world.”

SFx – Hey! It’s Oasis from Sluggy Freelance! Ariel Corbett, I salute you for your good taste!

SM – Make sure you strap the unconscious old lady down good and tight, guys.
buckyswife
February 27th, 2009 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

80 gnome de blog: I just tried to take the comics survey, and the link took me to the “thank for taking our survey” page, without my having taken the survey. Is there another way to get into it?
Esther Blodgett
February 27th, 2009 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

#56 not track 5: You’re going to make me go there? You’re going to force me to admit to keeping up with the Crankshaft plotiverse? Sigh. OK, here goes: Lillian and Lucy McKenzie are longtime neighbors of the Family ‘Shaft. Lucy is currently circling the drain in elder care under the watchful eye of Barney the Death Cat. Lillian is flying home from an abortive San Fran vacation because she her wrinkly old spidy-sense told her that BtheDC was about to claim Lucy as his newest victim. Crankshaft is stoopidly destroying Lillian’s tschotschkes with a leaf blower because he promised to “dust.” The old sourpuss who moved in with ‘Shafts (I know that’s only Ed’s last name, not the family’s, but you can’t make me care enough to remember what it is) is Rose, whatisname’s mother, who did in fact sell the ancestral home to move in with the family. She is not currently dying, but you can’t have everything.

God, I feel dirty.
yeff (Jeff Soesbe)
February 27th, 2009 at 12:40 pm [Reply]

Give the lacivious look on the unnamed female in panel 2 of Archie, I’m guessing there’s a potential lesbian threesome in Betty and Veronica’s future.

Or so unnamed second panel female hopes…

- yeff
yeff (Jeff Soesbe)
February 27th, 2009 at 12:41 pm [Reply]

Oops, that’s “lascivious”…
teddytoad
February 27th, 2009 at 12:48 pm [Reply]

Veronica has trapped her father in the Forbidden Zone, apparently. I’m still more interested in the Obamas’ new Portuguese water dog than Archie.
Esther Blodgett
February 27th, 2009 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

DT – So, does burning to death inside a gasoline-powered vehicle result in a net increase or decrease to your carboon footprint?
Sequitur
February 27th, 2009 at 12:57 pm [Reply]

DT: Dude! I don’t care if your car’s a hybrid. It’s still got a tank with gasoline in it. It could still do a Crankshaft.
Heraldguy
February 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm [Reply]

Coming soon, to an arena near you!!!

The hottest act in show business today!!!

For one night only, Abbey and the Sweaterpuppies!!

Featuring Abbey Driver on vocals
Katherine Parker on keyboards
Gloria Sanchez on bass
April Bower on guitar
Neddy Spencer on drums
Heidi Roberts on saxophone
Special appearance by Dixie Julep as The Dead Muse

Opening act Sophie and the Cheerleaders

Get your tickets today!!!!
gnome de blog
February 27th, 2009 at 1:14 pm [Reply]

87 buckyswife:

Sorry, I don’t know of another way in. It doesn’t appear to be linked to the Oregonian’s regular website, http://www.oregonlive.com.

I just did the survey (again) and it worked fine. According to the brilliant Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol if you clear out your cookies first, you can do the survey more than once.

Thank you for making the effort. I’ll vote in your newspaper poll any time. Just let me know.
Calvin's Cardboard Box
February 27th, 2009 at 1:18 pm [Reply]

#95 – No problem! Just reading today’s FOOB and Marvin was enough to inspire me to toss out my cookies anyway!
papa zita
February 27th, 2009 at 1:28 pm [Reply]

@82: Gee, when I wear an overcoat, it has buttons on it. What is that thing, a zip up raincoat with lapels? I don’t find the error pardonable from someone who spends massive time shading for visual effect, using dutch angles, etc. If he’s going to throw the story away for visual effects (something he should have done long before he ever started this story line), then he should get the drawing part right. Which is why I snarked it – whatever the slug’s wearing, it looks quite ridiculous. In certain panels over the past few weeks, it really does look like a jumpsuit.
Aviatrix
February 27th, 2009 at 1:29 pm [Reply]

I don’t read Dick Tracy (and no I don’t want you to forward me a link: I need my eyesight) so I’m trying to wrap my mind around the inescapable suggestion that today’s episode shows a man cracking jokes while a woman, already blinded by acid, is immolated in a burning vehicle.

I guess he couldn’t say “that sucks,” because this is a family newspaper.
buckyswife
February 27th, 2009 at 1:32 pm [Reply]

95 gnome de blog: Aha! Must have been cookie issues, because that worked. Gotta support Cul de Sac!
Sue D. Nymme
February 27th, 2009 at 1:40 pm [Reply]

#56 re: FC. Yep, that’s what I thought when I first saw it today. Creepy Bil.
Krankenstein
February 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm [Reply]

#92 Esther Blodgett: I guess that depends on your life expectancy at the time of incineration. If it’s more than, say, two weeks, then it’s a net decrease in your carbon footprint. For a Dick Tracy villain, a car-B-Q is a net increase. This means today’s episode of Dick Tracy can add contributory ecocide to its list of crimes.
migellito
February 27th, 2009 at 1:51 pm [Reply]

JP – So, she was a cunning linguist? I like where this is headed.
Nurse with a penis
February 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm [Reply]

I’m more with #89 yeff. Second panel of Archie looks more like my lesbian friends than my drag queen friends.
kalki
February 27th, 2009 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

70. buckyswife: You just made me laugh harder about Spider-Man today.

It led my imagination to a dark path where I remembered that old joke: Aunt May tells the orderlies what a horrible day she has had with the blackout, passing out and then seemingly being left on the concrete by her nephew…then the orderlies start disrobing…Aunt May screams “What are you doing!!??” and one of the orderlies responds, “Well, maam…this just ain’t your day, is it?”

I apologize in advance.
kalki
February 27th, 2009 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

65. AFKAB:

Yeah, but that level of self-loathing will eventually lead to a murder-suicide. Especially if Blondie adopts a pet deer.

Do you think so? I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Poteet
February 27th, 2009 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

# 88 Esther — I appreciate your sacrificing a little of your sanity to write up that background so entertainingly. I’ve only been reading the strip for a couple of weeks, so thanks!

If you get a similar question in the future, you could order the questioner to report to the website below. It’ll serve ‘em right:-).

http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/crank/charactMaina.htm
Muffaroo
February 27th, 2009 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

Tricky Cad – I found the one I thought I had in a book. It had cleverly moved to another book, but no matter: He-e-e-e-ere’s Tricky! Larger sizes available, but this one’s sized for web viewing instead of printing.

A3G – “Now, that’s hitting below the belt, Gabriella! Daddy said you liked comparing him to a mule, and there wasn’t any of this ‘two peas in a pod’ stuff, either.”

Curtis – Watch out for Mufaro’s beautiful daughters, Curtis! When they’re upside down, they look like old men with mustaches. (ps: It’s not as filthy as it sounds, honest! Click the pages when you get there.)

DTracy – “Boy, look at her burn! Fire hot, eh? It’s a shame. That car had a sweet stereo system in it, and a GPS system that I really liked. So, seen any good movies?”

FBasset – Okay, that’s not bad, but you have to stare right out at the audience when you say that, and cock your head a little. Wryly, you know.

GThorp – I respect your authoritah! I’ll have a Zagnut, please.

H&Jamaal – “You little dipshit! I thought it was your mama!”

Luann – Sorry, TJ. The undead don’t get to have families.

MTrail – Look a sawbuck! Looks like Mark’s performed the world’s first ungulant sex change.

Momma – The solo good-cop-bad-cop act continues. I hear she’s doing “Will Rogers Tonight” next month.

NSeq – It was kind of funny to start with, but now it’s wearing thin, like every other story line involving Harpae.

1BHappy – I feel kind of bad commenting on good strips that make me laugh, but.

PCity – Four panels of activities and landscape as enigmatic as an Edward Gorey book. I should be grateful, but.

R=R – It’s been a quiet week in Lake Letthingsbee, where all the women look like Rose, all the men are Jimbos, most of the children spout unintelligible gibberish, and everybody spews Lucky Charms shapes.

S-Man – I’ve seen this scene before, only it was Imogene Coca, and she was tied to the top of a car.
Muffaroo
February 27th, 2009 at 2:15 pm [Reply]

True Fable @1 – Looks like she’s shopping in “Saks’ Hootin’ Holler” today. Maybe she’s going to get the coonskin cap for Jugh**d.

kalki @39 – The line doesn’t work for a limerick, but how’s this?
“There was a tired daddy named Bil
Whose gum-flapping brats wouldn’t chill.
Their names I’m not tellin’,
(Each looks like a melon)
I think they’re all jabbering still.”

@104 – HA! You sick little monkey!

Calico @41 – $400,000 in that condition? Cripes, back in my day, we could go to the corner store and get Action #1 for three grand, and they’d throw in a mylar bag.

My old boss, Chuck Rozanski, once told me about a sort of shady dealer who bought a copy of Action #1 in “fair” and later advertised one in “near mint.” The buyer started feeling like it looked odd to him somehow, and finally went and put it next to another copy of the same issue. The one he’d bought was smaller — the dealer had apparently put it in a paper cutter and chopped three edges off to make it look better. (I couldn’t do that. My hands would shake.)

mojo @47 – “Cloudy fishtank!” Oh, man, what an image!

Nick @53 – Good one, dude!

Master Softheart @67 – Well, you know, everybody keeps saying it’s going to get “dark” when “night” comes, but I look outside my window and it’s nothing but sun, sun, sun out there. Why should I believe anything those alarmists say?

markytom @68 – If the speculation on this site is correct, all Ken has to do to cut off Bucky’s head is lock Patty in the house.
Poteet
February 27th, 2009 at 2:19 pm [Reply]

S-M — What in the name of…is this the beginning of Spidey trying to wrest the title of Most Insane Comic Strip from the many other contenders? In what conceivable dimension of the universe does it make any sense to dump a really sick person on the parking lot of a hospital emergency room during a night blackout and then take off? Without even waiting to see exactly which parts of her anatomy are crushed by the next arriving ambulence?
Anal, Annoying Minor Goddess of Pedantry
February 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm [Reply]

# 109 — It’s “ambulance,” you idiot.
Marthas Rolling Pin
February 27th, 2009 at 2:21 pm [Reply]

Today’s Archie indicates that the AJGLU, in its continuing quest to achieve human comic sensibilities, has assimilated the Barretto Rule: When your strip is going nowhere, toss in a gratuitous pair of gorgeous boobs. Unfortunately, the AJGLU did not assimilate the corollary that said pair should be attached to a female template.
Poteet
February 27th, 2009 at 2:26 pm [Reply]

# 67 Master Softheart — Thank you. Because of your comment, I finally know just what I wish upon Edda and Amos. I wish they’d been forced to participate in high school marching band for four years under the director I had. It’s a really ghastly thing to wish upon anyone, but that’s what 9CL has driven me to.
Joe Btfsplk
February 27th, 2009 at 2:30 pm [Reply]

Rabbits Against Magic (Feb. 24), referenced by Josh yesterday, and The Family Circus (Feb. 20)… You know how on King of the Hill, whenever Hank sees something so profoundly disturbing to him that it unsettles the very foundations of his values system, like someone grilling with charcoal, or Bobby wearing a dress or something, and he gets that look of wide-eyed horror on his face, and shudders, and says, “BWAAHHaaahh!?” I imagine that very reaction coming from any cartoonist who sees his own work being anticipated in any way by The Family Circus.

Not that what I’ve seen of RAM inspires much more than a mostly noncommittal kind of “meh” reaction from me, but this sort of thing shouldn’t happen to anyone, really.
bats :[
February 27th, 2009 at 2:30 pm [Reply]

86. commodorejohn re JP: oh, heck, just go for the obvious…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/3314615848/
Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol
February 27th, 2009 at 2:34 pm [Reply]

FW — A couple of observations:

1) Don’t Summer and “Special-K” play the same position?
2) Since Summer is so damn wide open, she should just drive in for a lay-up. After all, her jumper stinks as bad as her mom’s oncologist.

From yesterday — I still say she committed an over the back foul in blocking that shot…
trey le parc
February 27th, 2009 at 2:41 pm [Reply]

Crankshaft: That’s the most finely rendered onomotopaeia I’ve ever seen in this strip. Actually it’s the best anything I’ve ever seen in this strip. I hate this strip and everything in it. Except today’s onomotopaeia. Ononmotopaeia. I like to say it out loud. Try it. See? Ah, hell, I need a life.
Hank
February 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm [Reply]

RE Dick Tracy. I’ve seen some unrealistic things in this strip but nothing as unrealistic as today’s claim that-somewhere, anywhere-there’s a cop who drives around in a hybrid and not a Crown Vic.
Funky Al
February 27th, 2009 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

Well, from the looks of the second panel, the AJGLU-3000 has discovered transvestites. It was only a matter of time.
seismic-2
February 27th, 2009 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

GT: So much is going on here that it would qualify as information overload, if any of it were actually remotely interesting. In panel 1 I am less concerned about the gigantic inchworm that is crawling up the wall than I am about the poster behind the cash register. It appears to be an ad for “Cheezy Pooft!”, and the artwork seems to be making the claim that consuming this product will make your flatulence “cheezy”. Is this product really necessary? Perhaps it is, since consuming almost anything else that the Shitty-Mart sells will make your flatulence smell like a herd of wet sheep in a garlic patch, the week after they died, so merely “cutting the cheese” would be as fresh an aroma as a biscuit warm from the oven. Then in panel 2 we have the Apostle-Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus epiphany moment, as Bryce reports who won the game: “Milford did. [pregnant pause and heavenward gaze for divine revelation]….We did.” Yeah, Bryce, you’re one of the locals now. No more being the rich black kid who’s slumming among these low-lifes in their tank-town. From now on, your Dad’s precipitous drop down the economic ladder has relegated you to attending public school, dining at The Bucket, and eating Nut-Boy and whatever the hell that Shitty-Mart junk food is that Ashley is handing you in panel 3. Just say it , Bryce: “Ich bin ein Milfordian!” Accept with open arms, giant begging hands, bowed head, closed eyes, and reverential supplication the whatever-the-hell-it-is that Ashley’s handing you, and be sure to swallow your Cheezy Pooft! within 5 minutes of consuming it. As a consolation for your new life of Paradise Lost, at least take advantage of the offer to stick around and check out the zagnuts on Ashley!
Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol
February 27th, 2009 at 2:55 pm [Reply]

117 — Depends on what your definition of hybrid is. I’ve owned several former cop cars that had CNG/gasoline combos.

And in FunkyWinkerbeanVille, apparently, they do have a gas/electric combo working the streets — http://www.funponsel.com/blog/vehicles/ford-provides-hybrid-patrol-car-for-cleveland-police.html
anaceofkidneys
February 27th, 2009 at 2:58 pm [Reply]

“Hot, passionate bucket of love.” That’s what I’m going to call my husband from now on. “Hot, passionate bucket of love, where’s the salad dressing?”
Spunky N. Tadpole
February 27th, 2009 at 2:58 pm [Reply]

@ Josh:

Ziggy and his entire neighborhood are about to be annihilated by a barrage of cruise missiles!

From your blog to God’s ears……
Muffaroo
February 27th, 2009 at 3:08 pm [Reply]

[footnote]

Just for those who don’t live in front of the tube, “Cheezy Poofs” are one of the favorite snacks of Eric “Respect Mah Authoritah!” Cartman, the really obnoxious kid on “South Park.” Eric is sort of depicted on the sign.

The problem with real life: no footnotes. Friends at science fiction conventions solved the problem at panels by holding up pieces of paper with asterisks on them, an idea that spread to Usenet in the form of [*] and [*]? in comments.

Too many times, alas, the problem is that we don’t even necessarily have anything to tell us that we are in a footnote moment right now.

[/footnote.]
markytom
February 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm [Reply]

GT: Panel 1 has a South Park reference to Cheesy Poofs, and that may be a crude drawing fo Eric Cartman too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14vltXn8BE4
markytom
February 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm [Reply]

Oops – 123 beat me to it
Crankenstank
February 27th, 2009 at 3:24 pm [Reply]

I wish all the best for Ziggy — perhaps the palettes full of reconstruction money that will follow can be used to buy him some pants. Or at least a burka, for god’s sake.
sarcastro
February 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

DT: In Dick Tracy’s universe, hybrid vehicles are not the combination of gasoline engines and electric powertrains, but some combination that is inflammable; electric motors and plutonium, perhaps. “And hey, what luck, Ethan Noll left some marshmallows in the trunk!”
sarcastro
February 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

er, “not” inflammable, rather.
kalki
February 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm [Reply]

108 muffaroo- excellent effort with the limerick. I must admit my own was like trying to force a square peg into a round hole…or something like that.
Joe Blevins
February 27th, 2009 at 3:48 pm [Reply]

AJGLU3K: That’s no credit card. It’s a mirror that reveals your true self. Betty is properly horrified to learn she’s actually an angry, middle-aged man.

ZIGGY: Way to capture the zeitgeist. But be careful, Zig. Don’t step off that curb or you’ll fall off the end of the earth.

MARVIN: Did Marvin and the dog always have these sexually-charged conversations, or is this some kind of cheap attempt to capitalize on the remarkably-similar Brian/Stewie relationship from Family Guy? Any Marvin experts/historians out there?
ColetteNicole
February 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm [Reply]

I never thought Riverdale was the type of place where a shop run by a cross-dressing furrier with thinning hair could thrive. Live and learn, live and learn.
NoVan
February 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm [Reply]

Marvin could be worse. His grandparents could have the same problem.
Aeva
February 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm [Reply]

“Archie” terrifies today in the second panel, wherein the saleswoman looks on with a vacant smile as Betty takes on her mutant black slime form and begins her assimilation of the human host via the shoulder.
Anson Pants
February 27th, 2009 at 4:08 pm [Reply]

Did Mr. Lodge commit a crime on the planet Krypton ?
Catu
February 27th, 2009 at 4:10 pm [Reply]

Thanks again, Muffaroo.

I LOSE IT, GOD!
sugarpie
February 27th, 2009 at 4:26 pm [Reply]

#114 bats :[ naughty giggles… THANKS!

#67 Master Softheart, #69 tb4000 I must respectfully disagree. It seemed more like a rejected Family Circus cartoon (but with better art).

I really like Sally Forth and expect a lot from it. However, today and the recent strip where Sally goes limp after Ted calls her on her Aria bullshit -pppththt! I’m all in favor of character developent, but only if it is well thought out and logical. This ersatz Hallmark-y moment is demeaning. Maybe she’s pre-menopausal? In which case, YAY CES!

Esther Blodgett Thanks for stepping in front of that firing squad! And for doing so, you get to take another mental health day.
Talking Squirrel
February 27th, 2009 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

119 seismic-2 says: “It appears to be an ad for “Cheezy Pooft!”, and the artwork seems to be making the claim that consuming this product will make your flatulence “cheezy”…Then in panel 2 we have the Apostle-Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus epiphany moment.”

I’d characterize it more as a Cheezy Pooft moment, complete with a wiggling-nose line. Instead of seeing a vision of the Messiah, Bryce is looking and acting more like he just caught a whiff of Beelezebub.

But when all you’ve got is a minimum-wage gig at Shitty-Mart, I guess you pilfer all the poofts you can, and to hell with the customer relations.
dale
February 27th, 2009 at 4:40 pm [Reply]

127/128 – sarcastro

“Inflammable” does mean “flammable”.
The “in” is not a negation. Think of the verb “inflame”.
PattyCake
February 27th, 2009 at 4:45 pm [Reply]

64 Natalie: >snick< – that’s the sound of Jamaal’s razor sharp elbow digging out Herb’s medula oblongata. The expression on Herb’s face bears that out.
Dr. Robotnik
February 27th, 2009 at 4:46 pm [Reply]

#13 “Doonesbury:… but it’s just such a tone-deaf way of going about it.”

Are you new to reading Doonsbury?

Archie:

I was going to comment on Marlon Brando in a toga trapping Veronica’s father in a spinning mirror and sending him off into space only to end up in today’s Archie strip but it didn’t flow so I decided not to.

Besides #91 seems to have beat me to it.
Dingo
February 27th, 2009 at 4:49 pm [Reply]

Whene’er I see the word inflammable, I always think of Dr. Nick Riviera.

Inflammable means flammable? Ugh, what a country!
mollificent
February 27th, 2009 at 4:51 pm [Reply]

Crankshaft: Looks like the Flyspeck Island Chameleon has manifested over in Batiuk-world.

DtM: “Well, yes, actually. You see, there was this incubus…”

DT: Dick Tracy, Prius owner. Doesn’t have the ring to it I would expect. He seems more the Hummer type to me.

H&J: “Hey, Jamaal, you’ve got a phone call! It’s every sitcom since the invention of the telephone. They want their joke back.”

JP: “A linguist’s life is not nearly as cunning as I was led to expect!”

*hangs head in shame* Sorry. My resistance is low right now. Plus I’m sure about five people beat me to it. Oh, hell with it. :)

S-M: Are you Frrrrgghhhkkking kidding me? He just DUMPED Aunt May outside the emergency room and left? Gimme that hockey stick, True Fable. It’s ass-whuppin’ time. And I’m overdue to dole some out, so this is going to HURT.
Lettuce
February 27th, 2009 at 4:52 pm [Reply]

Mark Trail: Oh great job, Mark. Just leave your hacksaw in the grass. Now not only are the bold-font “dangerous” deer angry, but they have access to SAW TECHNOLOGY.

Mallard Fillmore: Hey, Mallard… you just recycled a three-week-old Doonesbury punchline. Bet that just stings, huh. Kills you a little inside, I bet. Doones-frakkin-bury. Serves you right for trying something other than having a duck break the fourth wall…

A3G: Okay Mama, you’re use of mixed metaphors and half a Spanish phrase has led me to rethink my selfish ways. Note that, despite your outburst, my head is not bobbing — from that you can tell I’m serious.

Phantom: This is the scene in the Phantom musical when they dance around the bar and then the Russian soldiers come over and they dance around the bar too.

Hi and Lois: They say those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. But those that don’t understand the present are doomed to awkwardly try to address it in the comic strip “Hi and Lois.”

Pluggers: Pluggers make obscure 1970s pop culture references when ignoring their doctor’s orders about not exacerbating their diabetes.

Blondie: Dithers accidentally hired a one-use Real Doll again.
Lettuce
February 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

Ziggy: The sad thing is that Shock Street and Awe Avenue were both renamed after Martin Luther King, JR and Rosa Parks, respectively in the 1980s. What we’re seeing is Ziggy, who is a horrible racist, restoring them to their original names.
mollificent
February 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

P.S. #114 bats:[ you rock! and were able to, at once, be funny and allude to (but avoid) the obvious joke, which I couldn’t. Great. :)
seismic-2
February 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm [Reply]

DT: “Fire’s too hot.” Snow’s too cold. Water’s too wet. Sky’s too blue. Strip’s too dumb.

GA: Thanks, Scancarelli. My computer was so horrified when it displayed panel 2 that it froze that way, and now I have the screensaver from Hell.

JP: A few days ago folks herein were talking about their ages. Maybe the only good thing about being my age is that, when I take off my reading glasses, I can’t quite make out what Kathryn’s holding in panel 3, and by squinting just right, I can convince myself that it’s a strap-on. The bad thing about being my age, of course, is that reading JP is the only action I’ll get all week.
Donkey Hotey
February 27th, 2009 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

#106 Poteet – If you’re new to ‘Shaft, you’d be well advised to ignore that official Crankshaft who’s-who page. Half the characters listed there are either dead or MIA.
Spunky N. Tadpole
February 27th, 2009 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

# 146 – seismic-2:

Re JP: you’re not the only one: my first thought was that it was a vibrator: my second was that I have probably been reading too much Comics Curmudgeon lately…..
Poteet
February 27th, 2009 at 5:56 pm [Reply]

# 147 Donkey — Thanks for the tip! Yeesh, if no one cares enough to update that site, I’m even less concerned about who the characters are. So far I like Barney the Death Cat best. He’s the only character who really seems to know what he’s doing.

FW — Okay, I’ve had it. I didn’t sign up for a sports strip (yuck!), let alone one that takes forever to get through a single game. I hereby dump FW and replace it with Barney Google. At least the alleged humans in BG are cheery.
Black Drazon
February 27th, 2009 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

Oh Marvin, you scamp. Your mutant stump-legs aren’t long enough to reach anyone’s head!
Jesse C
February 27th, 2009 at 6:11 pm [Reply]

Nothing like an image of Dick Cheney miming “talk to the hand” to curb youth spending.

the more you know.
Esther Blodgett
February 27th, 2009 at 6:15 pm [Reply]

I can’t believe I didn’t notice this earlier…what is Luann’s Delta doing in the Archie universe? Could it be that she’s so angry about being stuck with the obligatory “black character meets black president” plot (complete with lame “Yes We Can” punchline), followed by a week of “ha ha! white people don’t have rhythm!” jokes, that she’s decided to abandon Greg Evans and take a chance on the AJGLU? Don’t do it, girlfriend! Betty and Veronica may offer hotter g-on-g action, but Knute always has way better weed than Jughead can get his hands on in Riverdale!
Dingo
February 27th, 2009 at 6:18 pm [Reply]

I am not a woman so I cannot speak of this from personal experience but is there someone out there who would want to be referred to as a “hot, passionate bucket of love” by their spouse? I’m sorry. I’ll be your hot tamale, your chorizo of love, Mr. Asscandy, or a plethora of other bon mots but I am not – NOT – responding to being a bucket of anything.
Esther Blodgett
February 27th, 2009 at 6:20 pm [Reply]

#153 Dingo: I’ll buy you a Coke if you change your nym to Mr. Asscandy! :D
ScienceGiant
February 27th, 2009 at 6:23 pm [Reply]

Luann: not even FOOB ever stooped to such pandering. That’s just pathetic. In a strip about teenagers growing up, TJ needs a mentor, not a father. Or at least a sugar daddy.
Dingo
February 27th, 2009 at 6:35 pm [Reply]

Esther #154: I think the name is already taken by Rex Morgan.
queek
February 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm [Reply]

153: problem with being a bucket is the whole “chased by vengeful walrus” issue.
Esther Blodgett
February 27th, 2009 at 6:42 pm [Reply]

Dingo: That’s Dr. Asscandy to you, buster!
mollificent
February 27th, 2009 at 6:45 pm [Reply]

#153, #154, #156, #158: Stop it…laughing too hard…can’t breathe…
Dingo
February 27th, 2009 at 7:00 pm [Reply]

Penthouse Letters:

“… and then, while helping the crew recuperate from a debilitating flu epidemic, much to my surprise I found myself becoming attracted to one of the passengers, a medical professional on vacation with his wife and a small aged dwarf in plastic children’s sunglasses. He assisted in the sick bay. It was hot and steamy in there. We began working with our shirts off. He was furry with rippling pecks. He kept ogling my smooth Latin pecs and, when I would make eye contact, dart his head and begin speaking in medicalese. One afternoon while working together, we trip over the edge of a cradenza and spilled to the floor. I landed on top of him and swore I heard him squeal like a little girl.

I asked him, “Are you alright, doctor?” His brown eyes gazed at me like two pools of post-coital santorum.

“Don’t call me ‘doctor,’ Guido” he whispered. “Call me Dr. Asscandy.”

I pressed myself against him and forced a bearded kiss upon his lips. He moaned a gutteral sigh and flailed himself around me like an octopus, his body attaching to mine and not releasing. How soon before he spilled his ink?

to be continued…
Talking Squirrel
February 27th, 2009 at 7:02 pm [Reply]

158 Esther Blodgett says: “That’s Dr. Asscandy to you, buster!”

Alas, I think that one’s already © RMMRSA, LLC.
Anonymous
February 27th, 2009 at 7:12 pm [Reply]

Mark Trail –

Saw, a deer, a pet male deer
Spray, a bullet from a gun
Patti, a name I call myself
Far, a long long way to run
Slap, a palm against my head
Duh, no action follows so
Beat, I cringe and then I’m dead
They will bring me back as Jane Doe
AMC
February 27th, 2009 at 7:13 pm [Reply]

I didn’t mean to be anonymous…..
Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol
February 27th, 2009 at 7:14 pm [Reply]

160 — Dingo — I always saw Rex as more of a “pitcher” than “catcher”…
Talking Squirrel
February 27th, 2009 at 7:28 pm [Reply]

Speaking of His Rexness, the reason Meemaw Lush didn’t get sick on the previous cruise is that her serum alcohol level is inimical to pathogens.

164 Al: Pitcher, catcher … it’s all baseball.
bats :[
February 27th, 2009 at 7:38 pm [Reply]

Awwwww right! Dingo/Rex porn (or something like it)!

And for those of you following Kit’s exploits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/3314370595/sizes/o/
corinthian
February 27th, 2009 at 7:49 pm [Reply]

It would appear Ziggy’s world has already faced demolition based on the fact that there are no buildings or people in the background. Perhaps this is a scene forever frozen in time, ala the burnt shadows following the atomic bomb blasts in Japan. Rest in peace, Ziggy
Jamus The Bartender
February 27th, 2009 at 7:50 pm [Reply]

Pluggers: If you were to ask me which famous psychic would be referenced in Pluggers, Uri Geller would have been dead last on the list. I might have guessed David Blaine.
9CL: Amos is so looking forward to the angry hate sex he’s sure to have with Edda. Which I totally understand, without approving or condoning.
Luann: If they absolutely MUST form a band for some kind of local Rock Band video game contest, we had better see Luann and Mrs. Degroot in their best, tight spanglies. Plus, they should fight over male groupies. Naturally, Dad, Brad and TJ will watch and laugh without doing anything.
Spider-Man: I think Peter got the idea for this from Pulp Fiction.
Sally Forth: At first, I was gonna point out how dangerously close to FOOB/Family CIrcus territory this strip was veering, but….dammit, I want some chocolate chip cookies now. Argh.
MW: Great. Another August wedding. Please. No one tell Cassandra.
MT: Okay. Need some help on this one from the nature people and anyone associated with their state’s Dept. of Natural Resources. Would you use a hacksaw to saw apart two deer’s tangled antlers? I mean, there’s blood vessels in them, right? That must hurt a little, right?
JP: “I think that’s enough small talk, don’t you? The hot tub’s this way…”
Annon
February 27th, 2009 at 7:51 pm [Reply]

#59 Patrick Good call. I thought it was Don Johnson.
LightningDuke
February 27th, 2009 at 7:57 pm [Reply]

Crankshaft – Thus ends the Crankshaft quota of action drawings for 2009.

FC – There once was a melonheaded little boy who groped his dad’s moob at bedtime. Then social services was called in, and dad and his moobs were sent to jail with the other members of NAMBLA that were training their sons in foreplay too.

Marvin – I’m sure that there are fisting enthusiasts that have bottoms that are sore for less time than Marvin’s. So what exactly… OH GOD!

Momma – Oh goody, Momma’s jealous that her boys want to bang each other and not her. What is wrong with Mell Lazarus?!
Ukulele Ike
February 27th, 2009 at 8:03 pm [Reply]

DT: You know, I’m really gonna miss Angelglorious (sp?) Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to see her as a living, breathing human being. I’ve empathized with her cares and sorrows, rejoiced at her small triumphs. Bravo, Locher, a masterpiece of in-depth characterization.
Uncle Lumpy
February 27th, 2009 at 8:09 pm [Reply]

#168 Jamus –

Re: Antler-sawing –

One Saturday in October, 1996 I visited the first-stage (bottom) shrine on Mt. Fuji, near Fuji-Yoshida. By chance, I had come on a festival day. After a tasty ritual breakfast of fish-gelatin blocks in grey soup, I took a seat at the edge of a chain-link corral where strapping lads wearing “I am working” headbands were stretching and stringing their lariats. (Apparently, Japanese lariats have flexible stays that keep them open, so a strapping lad can just drape the loop over his target’s head. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure.)

At the appointed time, a couple Shinto priests in full ceremonial outfit and über-cool ventilated priest-hats climbed into the corral, carrying hacksaws. Someone opened a gate, and eight or ten young male deer rocketed into the pen and started running clockwise around the priests in the middle, while the strapping lads around the perimeter tried — and utterly failed — to drape their lariats around the deer’s heads.

This went on for geologic time, until the deer got so tuckered that they waited just out of reach of the lads, and walked away when they approached. Finally, four or five lads conspired against some poor deer, cornered him, somehow worked the lariat over his head, and proudly presented him to a priest.

The priest uttered the canonical phrases, then tried — and utterly failed — to saw the antlers off the deer. From my spot, it looked like the saw was getting all gummed up with antler-goo, but I can’t claim to be an expert. This went on for geologic time, while the crowd thinned out to, well, basically me. Finally, the priest sawed (more likely wore) off a branch of antler, and held it triumphantly aloft.

I gave him the thumbs up and left – I had a mountain to climb. So here’s what I know about antler-sawing:

1) Use a bow-saw with a pruning blade, not a hacksaw.

2) Allow plenty of time.
Black Drazon
February 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm [Reply]

Missing scene from today’s Archie: when Veronica ripped off the decorative “V” on her chest, threw it at her father, trapping him, Ursa and Non inside their new credit card-shaped prison.
edp
February 27th, 2009 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

Oh AJGLU! You fooled no one with your lame attempt at convincing us that the strip is funny by showing us glaringly random bystanders who are wryly smiling at the upcoming hilarity.
Joe Blevins
February 27th, 2009 at 8:30 pm [Reply]

Judging from his expression in panel 3, Bitsy would like nothing better than to be kicked in the head by a pretend horse. Oh, god, I wonder if there’s a fetish site for that.
Cheeky Wee Monkeys
February 27th, 2009 at 8:39 pm [Reply]

Good move, Mr. Lodge. Otherwise, your kid might buy out the mall’s…coonskin caps.
Islamorada Girl
February 27th, 2009 at 8:40 pm [Reply]

Archie: The AJGLU is offering you guys fan service in the second panel, and you’re laughing at it! You are going to be so very sorry when AJGLU breaks free and comes after you for calling the Barretto parody girl a drag queen. AJGLU will not be ignored!
Jamus The Bartender
February 27th, 2009 at 8:47 pm [Reply]

172. Wow. I got a story from the base of the majestic Mount Fuji, and all thanks to Mark Trail. Thanks, Uncle Lumpy. :)
Poteet
February 27th, 2009 at 9:11 pm [Reply]

# 163 AMC — I like it! Except for the earworm effect, and that song is a painful earworm.
Citric
February 27th, 2009 at 9:29 pm [Reply]

Ziggy: About to? He’s at the corner of a white void, he’s had his ass blasted all the way to purgatory.
BenG
February 27th, 2009 at 10:29 pm [Reply]

Archie: Yikes. Betty’s silhouette in panel 2 looks like a Jack-in-the-Box.
Jordan
February 28th, 2009 at 12:28 am [Reply]

“Daddy got me one! He thought it would curb my spending… so I had him imprisoned in the Phantom Zone! HAHAHAHA!”
Jordan
February 28th, 2009 at 12:30 am [Reply]

Shoot. I shoulda posted that one before my nap. It’s been used in the meantime.
Muffaroo
February 28th, 2009 at 12:39 am [Reply]

Archie – “They make compactors now that smash a person down to the size of an iPod!”
“Oh, I know! Daddy bought one!”
“He thought he could scare me with it! Right, Daddy?”
ChattyGenes
February 28th, 2009 at 12:42 am [Reply]

#172 Uncle Lumpy. I enjoyed your description of Japanese cowboys!

Or would that be deerboys?:-)
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 1:25 am [Reply]

I come bearing Japes and an observation about Saturday’s Spider-Man:

Electro has brought the city to a standstill and frightened Aunt May into a cliche…but it’s only today that we learn how diabolical his plan truly it. He’s knocked all the TV stations in town off the air. When Spider-Man finds out about this, probably soon after he attempts to turn his TV on to watch his thirty-seventh-favourite show, there is going to be hell to pay.

Oh…and is it just me…or is Crock completely freaking head-pounding brain-smashing insane? ‘Cause I don’t think it’s just me.
PunsKillPeople
February 28th, 2009 at 1:51 am [Reply]

Is it just me, or is Veronica’s dad doing a “Heil Hitler” Nazi salute in that last panel?

“He thought it would help me curb my spending…since we have to save up to rebuild the Third Reich!”
Gallowglass
February 28th, 2009 at 1:58 am [Reply]

Josh, the AJGLU 3000 is reaching out to you once more. This time its chosen to communicate via Betty’s purse, giving you a sly wink to let you know that it is aware of your site and, indeed, everything that happens on the Internets.
Trekkie
February 28th, 2009 at 2:11 am [Reply]

2/28 S-M: So, you’ve caused a citywide blackout…and then and only then do you realize that you forgot to ask for the ransom beforehand? Does Electro work for Dr. Evil or something?
kurt
February 28th, 2009 at 2:22 am [Reply]

If no one else caught it, the 2/25 Marvin has our little friend’s legs posed so that his maleness would be visible. Of course there is nothing there…
because there is nothing to HIDE!

M’s artist’s let the secret out! Marvin’s NEUTERED! Rejoice in that he will never reproduce!
LarryKingLive
February 28th, 2009 at 2:27 am [Reply]

Has anyone acknowledged the fact that Marvin and his freaking dog have telepathic abilities? That’s amazing!
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 2:38 am [Reply]

2/28 S-M — This is the first full story I’ve followed in Spider-Man, and if I’d known the villains were so entertaining, I’d have started long ago. Electro looks faaaabulous as he assumes that Venice-boardwalk pose in those yellow briefs, and he has the proportionate intelligence of a dung beetle. This is great.
commodorejohn
February 28th, 2009 at 2:41 am [Reply]

#186 Angry Kem – It’s not just you. I gave up trying to make sense of Crock around the time goats with Maggot and Grossie’s eyes (perhaps they were sorcerously transformed? Perhaps there just is no explanation?) made a fart joke.
DrPill
February 28th, 2009 at 3:24 am [Reply]

Muffaroo, No. 42 yesterday: Pleased you caught the reference from the days when Comics were Comics.

I’m not worried about bystanders in Archie. I’m worried about Betty. Every day, seems like, she’s the one who has to be the foil for every lame joke the other characters inflict. I fear soon she’s gonna go Carrie on us, gut everyone at Riverdale High and burn the place to the ground.
Wangdoodle
February 28th, 2009 at 3:28 am [Reply]

MT: Holy Moley, is Ken about to meet ironic punishment? Hang on, I’ma get some popcorn!!

DT: Will somebody PLEASE buy Locher an anatomy book? I just threw up in my popcorn!

FW: So it’s become a series of random moments to suggest what an awesome team they’ve suddenly become? Silly me, I was expecting to see if yesterday’s shot went in or not.

Luann: Evans finally takes the sexual imagery one step too goddamn far.

Mallard: Don’t worry, Bruce…we’ll pay for everything out of the surplus!! Haw! Haw! …Remember when we had one?
Joe Btfsplk
February 28th, 2009 at 3:28 am [Reply]

That’s not Tracy with the hybrid car; it’s the guy Angelorious ran into. Tracy has Noll’s car, which is even more efficient, so much so that Tracy has apparently decided to keep it.
Mr. O'Malley
February 28th, 2009 at 4:04 am [Reply]

RMMD: I kind of like the way the only color is different shades of purple, except that Sarah’s shorts spoil the whole color scheme.

Pluggers: The chicken-lady would have a hard time fitting herself in that shrunken EuroEdsel, much less the hulking Dog-man. The late great Al Scaduto knew that the key to fitting into a car that’s smaller than your body is to get a convertible.

MW: Stilted dialogue, Lovecraftian perspective and meddling—entertaining.
Stilted dialogue, Lovecraftian perspective and no meddling—not entertaining.
Get to the point and expose the Internet-using globetrotter for the scoundrel he is!!

MT: Here we go! “Patty? I want to apologize for my rude behavior by taking you out to a nice restaur …. AUUUGH!!” Deer are not constrained by the facial hair rule.

JP: Why do these people have a tree on the landing? Oh well, who cares really? The first time I read it I thought she said she was going to grow boots. Oh well, boots, roots, what’s the difference? Wait … back at the landing … Dixie!!!

EC: Nonsense. Web pages are text. You don’t need any software to build them. Middle school kids do it. Of course, in the comics world, that’s big laughs … middle school kids build websites using Notepad while adults blow big bucks on Dreamweaver and don’t get anywhere. Say … what a pity Al Scaduto isn’t still around.

Doonesbury is in reruns, and from not too long ago either. If Trudeau wants to take a vacation, I wish they’d fill in with some of the much older stuff.

Crankshaft: Did I get this right? She had a psychic vision that her sister, who’s been incurably insane since her husband died one year after they were married 60 years ago, has just been suffocated by a cat. Classic Batiuk.

A-3g: Finally one for O Poteet. The first time I read it, I thought she was frying chicken and biscuits. I need to get a bigger monitor. For all I know, fried biscuits could be a heartland delicacy, I suppose. Yes, here’s a hilarious recipe! It just shows how out of touch I am here in foodie paradise. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “canned biscuits”.

I thought that Lu Ann was supposed to be spending her time painting threatened prairie wildflowers. Of course, planning her trip when there’s still 15 feet of snow on the ground would leave her with some time on her hands.

How exciting that Lu Ann’s grey-haired non-bandannaed father can be distinguished from the other males. And coming up, the mystery of what happened to her mother. Lost her way in a blizzard? Joined a polygamist cult? Went to Africa as a missionary to the Croccos?

But we won’t find out much about that, because soon we’ll be back to … Margo’s confrontation with her father? Eric being tortured in a Chinese prison? … no, none of that. Probably GARY FINDS AN UNINITIALIZED POINTER IN THE HOSPITAL SOFTWARE!
Donkey Hotey
February 28th, 2009 at 4:09 am [Reply]

2/28
MT: YES! Wife-Beatin’ Ken’s gonna get GORED!
MW: “Thanks, Dad, but we’re not kids and we’re not crazy. We’re very lucky adults in love….What? What do you mean, ‘Common figure of speech?’ If it were common, I certainly would have heard it. I mean, I’m not stupid or gullible.”
R is R: What a humorless bitch!
Sherman’s Lagoon: See, that’s the kind of thing I’d do. I laughed.
WoI: Recycled joke from a Wizard of Id collection I have, but the punchline then was “I’m only going to explain it one more time.”
LightningDuke
February 28th, 2009 at 4:11 am [Reply]

Cathy – I know that when I accidentally send near-nude pictures of myself at my least desirable to the photo store, the first thing I do is CALL MY MOM and have her know that they exist, pick them up, and have evidence to destroy me with for the rest of my life.

DtM – Mr. Wilson is going to “fix” Dennis and Joey in a veterinary way, right? Please say right. Please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…

Marvin – More confirmation that Marvin can’t reproduce here. At least that partially makes up for the fact that I received a Marvin Full Monty to get that info, even if it will haunt me for the rest of my days.

MW – The glacial pace of this strip is so torturous right now. I just want to fast-forward time to that magical point at which Mary meddles the wedding beyond all repair, with the manipulation of Dr. Jeff into destroying his own daughter’s attempt at happiness being the cherry on top of it all.

OBH – “I’m sorry, that’s the rule… not until you say the safety word!”
Donkey Hotey
February 28th, 2009 at 4:16 am [Reply]

#197 Mr. O – You’ve never had canned biscuits? They’re tasty. Plus they give me an excuse to annoy my girlfriend by doing my Pillsbury Doughboy impression. http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/cookery/us/dumplings/02dough.jpg
Mr. O'Malley
February 28th, 2009 at 5:08 am [Reply]

Research results on “fried biscuits”:

To my mind, biscuits (in the US, anyway) are made from wheat flour using baking powder. There’s a similarity to Irish soda bread but the details are different and the biscuits are smaller. Anything of a similar size made with yeast dough, if baked, would be a bread roll, or in some parts of Canada, “bun”. Also called a “cob” or “bap” in the British Isles.

200. Donkey Hotey. Pillsbury biscuits don’t come in a can around here, they come in a twistable cardboard tube, like various other premixed baked products. Although “Buttermilk Artificial Flavor Biscuits” don’t really sound very appealing however they are packaged.

In the Northeast “fried biscuits” refers to fried yeast batter, which is essentially like a doughnut. In Indiana the concept seems to have started at the Nashville House Restaurant in Nashville, Indiana. However, this seems to be also using a yeast dough, as far as I can tell.

Hush puppies are fried dough using baking powder, but made from corn flour.

The only recipes I’ve found for fried biscuits follow the same general path as the rather amusing one I posted above:
1. Take some biscuits
2. Fry them

Given that people already deepfry all sorts of disgusting things like Twinkies, I suppose anything can be deepfried, but the concept of applying it to biscuits doesn’t seem very appealing. I would think the result would be dripping grease. I know that bread dipped in beef fat was considered to be good eating back in Dickensian times, but there are some historical and sociological experiences I am willing to avoid.

My research also showed that many people think Popeye’s has pretty good (non-fried) biscuits, and since one has opened up near my workplace, if I ever get more than 20 minutes to eat lunch, I might investigate further.

The comics, what a springboard they can be for learning something new!
Big Thyme
February 28th, 2009 at 7:10 am [Reply]

DT: We’re in the wrap-up phase of the Tracy strip, now that we’ve gotten a brutal death achieved. I can’t blame Tess for looking so forlorn in panel 2. Not only has she been humiliated by her own stupidity, Dick has apparently been shattered in an off screen accident and reassembled by aliens with only a passing familiarity with the human form.

A-3G So an entire week established Margo’s personal crisis and built up to a possible interaction with her estranged father. Then, bam! Suddenly we’re with Luann for a single strip this Saturday. Do they pace this strip with a dart board and a espresso guzzling capuchin monkey?

MT: Try as you may, Mark Trail team, but you’ll never achieve the bone-deep moronic, coincidental lunacy of Dick Tracy. Good to see you’re in there punching, though.

Popeye: Swee’pea, you and the evil, violent android go out and play together unsupervised for a while. That’s a good kid.
True Fable
February 28th, 2009 at 7:25 am [Reply]

oh lets just snark a little, shall we?

9CL Here, take THIS finger!
A3G I just can’t get worked up over this storyline, namely because I just don’t give a flying fuck where Mama is or why Eric/Alan/Tim/Gary/Docent decided to go gray.
BB I guess it is pretty hard to meet your lover’s parents for the first time, but at least Sarge can see their eyes.
Cathy (Must DIE) Sweatflop. Pointy finger in the air. Weird butterfly mouth. Yep, all the usual irritating Cathy Crap.
C’haft Yeah Ed, hurry! You don’t want to miss seeing her DIE, that’ll be the highlight of your whole day.
DtNotInTheLeastMenacing It would have been better if he’d said Mr. Wilson’s motto was, “If it ain’t broke, Dennis will break it eventually.” But no; Dennis is too big a PUSSY these days to say that.
Dickweed Tracy His Assholiness likes to punctuate every fiery death with a little pun. Wah Wah Waaaaaah….
Children of the Circle Oh for God’s sake, woman, feed that child!
Canadian Zombie Foobs are too stupid to adjust crib railings so the child is not in danger of toppling over the sides when she stands up. I suppose Elly intends for Lizzie to land on the puppy in order to break her fall.
Flaky Winkerdinker Do I hear someone whistling “Sweet Georgia Brown”?
WTF GT The Nerd Herd? No, ladies, you look more like the Disjointed Ditzies.
Scenes from Suburban Hell Oh, so I guess it’s okay to talk about Thirsty’s Tragic Drinking Problem again.
Jugs Perky I hope this means we’ll have a Sunday panel full of Barreto-y goodness tomorrow, featuring gorgeous babes in slinky fashions standing around undressing each other with their eyes!
Fist O Justice Theater Oh damn it. Now after Ken gets ironically gored by Bucky the Vengeful Deer, Jackelrod had BETTER NOT have Patty all weepy about it or I will be severely pissed. Actually, it would be fitting if Ken saw Mark and Patty stroll up hand in hand as he took his last dying breath.
Marmadick Imperial Margarine called. It wants its crown back.
Meddling Heights Who the fuck really talks like this?!? I mean besides the maladjusted freak show residents of the Charterstone community.
MC Awww. That’s sweet. In a way.
Kit Walker, Bangalla Ranger The maiden voyage of the Enemy Mine has left port at last!
RMMW If the Morgans do nothing else, I hope like crazy that they buy Sarah a different fucking pair of sunglasses!
S4th Ted knows what’s important.
SpiderDick *sigh* There’s just no one to cheer for in this thing, is there? Because I can’t root for some dumbshit in a Carnevale costume strutting down the mean streets of New York in anticipation of extorting funds when there was a much more workable solution to his problems all along, any more than I can cheer some dickweed with super powers who abandoned his unconscious elderly aunt in an ambulance drive at a hospital during a blackout.
Anonymous
February 28th, 2009 at 7:59 am [Reply]

that Black woman mysteriously placed in Archie, is Luann’s Black friend (sorry, I have no idea the name).. Does the Union know?
migellito
February 28th, 2009 at 9:09 am [Reply]

Ziggy, Saturday.
We all know the chef is going to put something up Ziggy’s butt. Ziggy knows it too. Yet, oddly, he seems alarmed for some reason.
dreadedcandiru2
February 28th, 2009 at 9:13 am [Reply]

Sunday, Fooby Sunday: In tomorrow’s Canadian Zombie, Elly, who is bathing at the time, ends up pointlessly upset with her children because of her refusal to lock the bathroom door. Ah, my….What would Lynn do for plot ideas if her main character diodn’t get bent out of shape because she was blindsided by the predictable?
Amateur
February 28th, 2009 at 9:17 am [Reply]

MT: At last! The Revenge of Bucky! If I might adapt a turn of phrase from Mr. Elrod, this COULD get EXCITING!
Tragic Magic
February 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am [Reply]

Why is Loweezy hanging onto her shopping bag babushka? Everybody knows it’s thumbtacks in buns anymore.
NightRaven
February 28th, 2009 at 10:16 am [Reply]

Just thought I’d show you guys the new official home page of the Beetle Bailey magazine:
http://www.billy.no
Among the “gems” featured on this page are calendar pages for the year featuring Miss Buxley:
http://billy.no/images/download/Fryd_Feb09.jpg
http://billy.no/images/download/Fryd_mars09.jpg
Remember, here in Norway, The Beetle Bailey Magazine is among the best selling comic magazines. I cannot, unfortunately, explain this in any way, it’s just part of our national shame I guess…
gleeb
February 28th, 2009 at 10:24 am [Reply]

Dick: In an attempt at penance, Tracy is punching himself in the kidney.

Funky Thorperbean: This is the longest basketball game I’ve ever seen. And just as interesting as any I’ve seen, too.

H&L: Thirsty’s off the wagon. He must be really lit to not feel the cold, lying around like that.

Katherine Parker, bad listener: “Gee, the job you just told me is dull sounds really interesting.”

Duck: Dude, blind people don’t drive, and they get a big fat tax deduction.

Mark: Ken being unwhiskered, it will have to be Bucky the Buck who takes him out.

Mutts: I was hoping he’d do “A Coney Island of the Mind”.

Spidey: Good idea! There’ll never be a cop anywhere near the mayor, waiting to pump lead into your ignorant skull.

Zig: If he turns his back, he’ll still hear the zipper.
ChattyGenes
February 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am [Reply]

#209 NightRaven. Thank you for those links. All this is rather mind-blowing, to say the least. You just never know what things from your own country will catch on in another.
Amanda M
February 28th, 2009 at 10:34 am [Reply]

Why is the store behind Veronica selling a Davy Crockett coonskin cap? Are Betty and Veronica going to fight at the alamo when they’re done shopping? What the hell.
ChattyGenes
February 28th, 2009 at 10:35 am [Reply]

FAMILY CIRCLE. Unfortunately, this made me smile. We have great photos that we took when Daughter #2 was about two years old, of the time we went to a park with a pond with some carp in it. We had brought along stale bread to tear apart and feed to the fish. I guess Daughter #2 was hungry because she started chowing down on the stale bread herself, making me feel guilty and look like the worst mother that ever was.
sugarpie
February 28th, 2009 at 10:36 am [Reply]

#209NightRaven Thanks! That’s hilarious and puzzling and totally puts Norway on my ‘To Visit’ list. If Miss Buxley can have a calendar, why can’t there be ‘Judge Parker’s World of Easy Virtue Calendar’?

Why, Why, Why?
papa zita
February 28th, 2009 at 10:46 am [Reply]

@203 True Fable: Re:RMMW: Those sunglasses are there to embarrass the hell out of Sarah when they pull up the “family photos” in ensuing years, especially when she’s in middle or high school and her friends come over. Rex and June will happily haul out the laptop and show all Sarah’s embarrassing moments to her friends and dote over them, while her friends laugh and lose all respect for her and an enraged Sarah conceives revenge.

Slug and Freak: Give me your hand, Edda, I want you to polish my spire. Ring? What ring? I want more hand sex!
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 10:49 am [Reply]

# 197 Mr. O’Malley — Thank you, and yes, I’m so excited that we’re back with Lu Ann! Well, not that excited, but as excited as I get over A3G.

Re the biscuits, I’m puzzled too, but will defer to South Dakota Mudges. The use of biscuits in the strip reminds me of the time a dietician came to a town in this area to give a speech about healthy eating, and she said something like “I’m going to make you all as afraid of a biscuit as I am!” Not the most effective thing she could have said, because we aren’t biscuit people here. And sure enough, it turned out she hailed from the southeastern U.S., which is my idea of biscuit country. Maybe I’m wrong.

If she wanted to strike fear here in Iowa, she could have referred to corndogs. Or dumplings, though they are less common than they used to be. Or doughnuts, which seem to be a universal sin.

To get back to Lu Ann, yes, she’s supposed to be working for “The Prairie Conservancy,” not hanging around waiting for Bolle and Trusiani to get her family soap opera underway. I hope Mama, wherever she is, wears a neckerchief.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 11:01 am [Reply]

MT — Hahaha! I’m sorry, Bucky, but you seem more aww-cute than dangerous. I’m used to corn-fed bucks that weigh 300 pounds. Still, I hope you’ll hit Ken hard and leave a few puncture wounds in his torso. I don’t like him.
Dingo
February 28th, 2009 at 11:14 am [Reply]

This can only end with Bucky tying Ken to a tree and commenting on his pretty mouth.
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 11:15 am [Reply]

What happened to the sawed-off antlers? Did Bucky magically regenerate them in five minutes, a la Christine the Car regenerating herself after going nuts time and time again?
This could get really good. Go, deer.
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 11:18 am [Reply]

#218 – Or chaining him to a log and working him like a claw.
John C Fremont
February 28th, 2009 at 11:37 am [Reply]

#186 Angry Kem – Today’s jape gets two thumbs way up! Hooray for boobies!

#197 Mr. O’Malley – Your fried biscuit link includes an ad for a Zinc Alloy Reversible Meat Pounder and, well, I couldn’t stop laughing! For the low, low price of $34.95 (plus shipping and handling) I could be pounding my meat in 7 to 10 business days!

#220 Calico – I wish I’d said that.

A3G – I had no idea that Lu Ann’s dad was Rory Calhoun, that actor who stands up. The reason he looks so unhappy in panel three is because they’re having chicken and biscuits. He knows that it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s Fritters, and he’s got a hankering for some of that other white meat. What he needs is a Zinc Alloy Reversible Meat Pounder, available online for $34.95 (plus shipping and handling).

MT – And as he races toward Ken, inches away from impaling him with his three-point antlers, Bucky will shout, “You just shot a friend of mine’s pet ME!”

(Did someone make a similar joke a few days ago? If so, I beg forgiveness.) (You know, Ken might be able to hold his own if only he had a Zinc Alloy Reversible Meat Pounder. Too bad he doesn’t have 7 to 10 business days to wait. He doesn’t even have 7 to 10 business seconds. Except that we’ll have to wait until Monday to see what happens. So maybe if he paid for express shipping…)

MW – In the last panel, Jeff’s going all Green Goblin-y. Cool.

DT – What a heartless bastard!

GT – Oh, Nerd herd. I thought it said Nerd Hero, as in that video game Luann’s dad has been playing.

Well I gotta go fry me up some biscuits and pound me some meat. Catch you further on down the trail. Gabba gabba hey and mecca lecca hi!
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am [Reply]

# 168 Jamus — Saws are indeed sometimes used to free locked-antler deer if one or both of the deer are still alive. I can’t imagine the sawing would feel good, but if it’s done during rutting season in late fall, the sensitive velvet has already been stripped from the antlers, so I would think it would be much less painful.

I don’t know what’s going on in LoFo. It appears to be summer there, Bucky’s antlers seem to be too small to get locked, and Patty looks like a deranged bluebird. Sorry, I know Patty is not part of the topic at hand, but I couldn’t help myself.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 11:52 am [Reply]

# 221 John C. F. — I have been hanging around this site much too long, because when I read “meat pounder,” I think…never mind what I think. Forget I said anything. Please.
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm [Reply]

FC – Aw, crap, when are they going to stop the Child-Who-Eats-Everything-on-the-Ground theme?
Wonder if PJ has found Kittycat’s litter box yet.
Muffaroo
February 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm [Reply]

9CL – “Amos, if you pull my finger, you’ll regret it.”

A3G – “But I do wish Mama were here.” “Yeah, yeah. Sheesh! One lousy drunken car crash, and they never let you forget it.”

C2Home – If I want to think about Muppet sex, I’ll watch MEET THE FEEBLES again, thank you.

Cshaft – Happy ending coming, as we learn that the toxic universe that surrounds the Crankster is so deadly, the cat succumbs as well.

DTracy – “…oh yeah, and if you’re not too busy, maybe send some of the boys to go look at the wreck, and have someone call the ambulance guys. Oh, and the fire department.”

FCircus – “You are not a bird, PJ!” “…Quit crapping on the benches!”

HtHorrible – Ha ha! Hagar’s friends are running out the window because Helga came home early. Why aren’t they wearing their pants?

MFmore – Very thrifty, that ‘re-use of drawings’ thing.

Mduke – “Yes, when we weren’t looking, he called a jeweler’s and had the thing designed and manufactured to his specifications. Then he went to the bank and took out a second mortgage to cover the price of it. He’s such a naughty boy. Yes he is! Yes he is!”

MWorth – “You kids ’scuse me… I gotta go ‘fresh my tea a little bit… yeah, thass it…”

Phantom – I like to think that if the “Crocco Ship” joke hadn’t been made here a couple of weeks ago, I’d be making it now.

Pluggers – Be sure and see if they’ll put a handle on top for you so you can carry it around.

S-Man – There’s excitement in store as Electro sits in the Mayor’s waiting room for two hours, reading old magazines by a light bulb in his mouth. You’ll gasp as he realizes those things get hot after a while.

Ziggy – I concede defeat. Nothing I can say here will make this more disgusting. (Though gleeb @210 made it more funny.)
John C Fremont
February 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm [Reply]

# 223 Poteet – Yeah, just like Lou Costello, I’m a baaaaad boy! I think I’m going to try to avoid saying anything meat pounding-related the rest of the day. Betcha I fail.
Muffaroo
February 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

Joe Btfsplk @196 – It’s not just any guy, it’s Schelomo Tracy, the CIA agent. Pretty amazing coincidence that the only three cars out moving in the big city were all driven by major players in this story, eh?

LightningDuke @199 – Interesting. All this time, I thought “the full Marvin” referred to a diaper. A diaper that’s full. Full of… Marvin.

Mr. O’Malley @201 – Oh, I love hush puppies. The kind you eat, not the shoes. Dad used to experiment with possible ways to make them when he was out camping, starting with a cornbread mix. I’m not sure he was ever satisfied with the results, but his other specialty was bannock, and that was delicious. He’d make it at home to hone the ingredients, so I got to have it a bunch of times. Flat, dropped-batter breads with nuts, plus raisins and dates and molasses for sweetness.

True Fable @203 – Yeah, I was thinking how nice it was that Thirsty finally got to have a beer again.

ChattyGenes @213 – Come to think of it, here’s my daughter, Sarah, in 2004, feeding bread to the ducks that lived around the pond by our old house.
Esther Blodgett
February 28th, 2009 at 12:32 pm [Reply]

MT – Yesssss! [settles in with extra-large tub of popcorn to await the awesomeness that will be Monday's strip]

GF – Darby runs far too many reruns, but I love me some Shakespug, I gotta say.

Bizarro – Adorable turtles = automatic score!

NS – I actually did this for six years when I managed my office checking account. Then I got promoted and my successor had to sort it all out. That’s the part of the analogy Wiley left out.

S-M – Seems to me that’s the sort of detail you don’t want to leave for the last minute, but then, I wouldn’t wear those colors together, either.

H&J – “Woman, I said I wanted a bee, and you bring me this can of fermented malt beverage?! Why do I bother being specific?”

#203 True Fable – I had better things to do today than hear “Sweet Georgia Brown” in an endless loop in my head. But Keisha does sort of look like Curly Neal with a weave, doesn’t she?
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

The following mild rant can be regarded as being comic-related because The Freaking Bloody Family Circus has caused it.

As someone who grew up with a birder father, I find myself giving this lecture a lot:

Please don’t feed bread to the ducks (or to birds in general). They can’t digest it properly, and it plays havoc with their general health; it also gets them way too dependent on humans for food. There are certain wildlife reserves in which you can feed ducks special birdseed sold by the people who run the reserves themselves (we used to visit one of these places often when I was a kid), so if you really need to feed the birds, sniff out one of these locations. This site will go on at you in a rather frightening way about the dangers of stuffing ducks with bread, just in case you need to be convinced further.

We’re too used to that iconic image of people standing beside a pond, throwing bread to the ducks. The stuff is really not good for them. We think we’re “helping” them by giving them food, but we’re truly not doing them any favours. (I once had to discourage someone from feeding her whole sandwich to a couple of urban ducks. Apparently, other people had been giving them chocolate Easter eggs.)
kalki
February 28th, 2009 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

9CL: Vomit bags on standby…I mean fresh vomit bags on standby…

BabyBlues: They call that the diabetes highball.

Archie: Let’s see…Archie in front on the receiving end and Jughead pushing up from behind…yep…all normal here.

Blondie: Dagwood is learning. Go shopping by himself and Blondie can’t buy anything. Looks like a few brain cells are still active in Dag’s noggin.

Crank: Too late. The cat by now has one paw shoved in each of Lucy’s nostrils and is sitting on her mouth. The kitty killing spree kontinues.

DTM: You know, Mr. Wilson…that hammer looks mighty handy….Dennis has his back turned….Sure, Joey is looking, but he’s slow-witted…A couple of whacks is all it would take…That shovel is handy too for a couple of shallow graves…I’m just saying…

CircusJerk: Have they ever done this bifocal panel before? Cause it is freaking me out, man. If you stare at it too long it looks like one panel with another Thel head and arm growing out of her crotch.

FW: In a way, this kind of makes me miss the Comets.

GA: The truth slowly dawns on him that Corky just uses him. Start the next scene: Bloodbath at Corky’s House of Sodomy.

Luann: That’ll be the only thing Dad nails in the house for a long while to come.

S-M: “Yes…I’ll just walk here out in the open in my costume, all the way to City Hall…hmm, look…a Target…I think I will take their red and white symbol and place it on my chest…and I will make it glow too…that will make the Mayor know I am coming…of course, it might make me a target to SWAT snipers…but my electrical blackout makes their bullets useless…uh, wait…”

I’d love to see the Avengers show up in force right about then and watch Electro tangle with Thor.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 12:44 pm [Reply]

# 229 Angry Kem — Giving chocolate to ducks??!! That is so wrong in so many ways.
Uncle Lumpy
February 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm [Reply]

#201 Mr. O’M –

I suppose anything can be deepfried. . .

It is very difficult to deepfry bacon. It helps to render out most of the fat first, at low temperature so it doesn’t get crispy. Then dredge it in cornstarch, then egg, and finally coat with breadcrumbs (panko is best) and deepfry until the coating is golden brown. Tasty enough, but most of the texture and flavor come from the coating, and it’s not the transcendental experience that deep-fried bacon really ought to be.

Let me say this about panko — it’s Japanese-style breadcrumbs. The word itself is cute: “pan” is Japanese for “bread”, from the French pain, and “-ko” is the Japanese suffix for “baby”, so: “bread-babies” – hee! Wherever a recipe calls for breadcrumbs, use panko instead, then exclaim, “Thank you, O thank you, Uncle Lumpy!”

You’re welcome.
buckyswife
February 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm [Reply]

MT: The Fists o’ Justice rendered flaccid by the economy, the Prongs o’ Justice must now take over!
buckyswife
February 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pm [Reply]

136 sugarpie: re: Hallmark moments–I don’t know; I’m pre-menopausal, and most of my moments aren’t very Hallmark-y. Unless by “Hallmark” you’re talking about that mean, cranky old woman with the dog? Then, um, yeah.
Brick Bradford
February 28th, 2009 at 1:05 pm [Reply]

MT I called it! The Right Antler O’Justice is about to TCB. Here you go, Bucky, right up the ol’ Hershey Highway!

DT Yeah, nothing picks up a dull evening like an attempted murder and a woman burning to death. Yawn. What’s for snacks?

A3G So many plots percolating. Too bad none of them is interesting.
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 1:10 pm [Reply]

#231 Poteet: If you didn’t see me two seconds after I heard about the idiots who had been feeding chocolate to the ducks, you have never witnessed true rage.

The sandwich was absurd enough, but the chocolate? What on earth is wrong with some people?

I’m actually not sure what Ma Keene is feeding those birds. It looks sort of like popcorn. These are the Keenes we’re talking about, so I’m expecting the popcorn is coated with caramel and perhaps laced with cyanide. Ma is using reverse psychology on PJ. Says Ma Keene, “You are not a bird, PJ!” Thinks Ma Keene, “Eat it! Eat it and DIE!”
Anonymous
February 28th, 2009 at 1:28 pm [Reply]

Today’s (2.28.09) Luann:
http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/200000/70000/5000/000/275077/275077.full.gif

I know that he’s talking about sex; you know he’s talking about sex; and judging from the look of dawning horror in his wife’s eye, she knows that he’s talking about incest.

Well, that or masturbation . . .
Captain Insano
February 28th, 2009 at 1:29 pm [Reply]

Today’s (2.28.09) Luann:
http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/200000/70000/5000/000/275077/275077.full.gif

I know that he’s talking about sex; you know he’s talking about sex; and judging from the look of dawning horror in his wife’s eye, she knows that he’s talking about incest.

Well, that or masturbation . . .
Mooncattie
February 28th, 2009 at 1:43 pm [Reply]

QUICK! To the Crankmobile!!
(cue music, opening titles, etc.)
Malethoth K
February 28th, 2009 at 1:57 pm [Reply]

Luann – I had to look it up, because I’m not that familiar with Guitar Hero: World Tour, but “On the Road Again” actually IS in that game. So, that’s consistent with their dialogue, and the instruments they’ve been using. This is wigging me out.
commodorejohn
February 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm [Reply]

A3G – Okay, long time 3Gers – remind me what the story here is, again?

Crankshaft – Yeah, yeah, yeah. ARGH.

DT – He’s directly explaining it and it still makes no sense. Par for the course in Dick Tracy, really.

GT – This thing rambles through more different plots than “Supper’s Ready.”

JP – We sure like you, April. Especially in outfits like that.

Lio – Aww.

Love Is… – Ed Gein roleplay.

Luann – ‘Nuff said. My mind’s eye, it hurts so very much…

MT – Oh, for God’s sake.

MW – Okay, the first panel clears it up: Ted is one of those nineteenth-century penny-dreadful hypnotists.

MC – This is charmingly absurd and demented.

Phantom – Thank you, narration box, I’d completely forgotten what those guys we just saw last week looked like.

RMMD – Sarah, you forgot the butterfly net!

SM – Turn off the TV? In Spider-Man’s city? Oh no he din’t! You just bit off more than you can chew, Spikey.
bats :[
February 28th, 2009 at 2:24 pm [Reply]

231. Poteet re giving chocolate to ducks: no, shit, that is so wrong.

Everyone knows that you give chocolate to bats :[
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 2:30 pm [Reply]

#229 – I would also think that Cheese puff snacks (Cheez Doodles, Pirate’s Booty, Cartman’s Cheesy Poofs, etc.) would not be good due to the air and possible expansion in their stomachs when the snacks get moist.

Seriously, thank you for the info. Good to know.

Purina must make Duck Chow – I have fed Trout Chow to some very spoiled fish, and seen Goat (! TF) Chow as well.
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm [Reply]

#203 – Re: MT – …and Mark lets Patty keep the deer too. And lets it sleep with them. Cherry gets a bale of hay to sleep on in the animal pen. Rusty is nowhere to be found.
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm [Reply]

#243 Calico: I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s certainly specially made birdseed for sale in pet stores, but I wouldn’t suggest feeding it to ducks in the city. For one thing, uneaten birdseed attracts rats. It also gets ducks used to being fed and sometimes discourages them from migrating.

NO CHEESY POOFS FOR DUCKS!

(Seriously, though…part of the problem with bread is that it also expands when it gets wet. A duck stuffed with bread feels full but is getting few of the necessary nutrients.)

Yes, I do feel strongly about this issue.

In other news, we need to start a poll:

In Mary Worth, is Ted:

a) a gold-digger?
b) a serial killer?
c) a man with five wives?
d) a woman?
e) an actor hired by someone running an Internet dating scan?
f) Adrian’s long-lost twin brother?
g) evil?
h) supernaturally evil?
i) up to some dastardly skullduggery, possibly involving trained lemmings?
j) simply unbelievably boring?

You decide.
buckyswife
February 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

231 Poteet: Years ago, I taught English to a group of Korean businessmen, and I took them to the National Zoo here in DC. They wanted to throw their cigarette butts and snacks at the animals in the enclosures. I was appalled, of course, and they couldn’t understand why. They explained that that was what one did at the zoo. (My tolerance of these guys was just about all used up by that point, what with their incessant racism, sexism, and anti-Americanism, so I think I replied rather undiplomatically.)

I’m not sure what my point is, except: some people are ignorant. These four men certainly were.
Gap-Toothed Starey "HOOOO" Guy
February 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm [Reply]

9CL: Okay, Edda’s “I am a neurotic bitch” argument is perfectly valid. But in what universe would their marriage mean either one of them having to give up a career? Is there some secret rule that dancers cannot be married to cellists — or, even more bizarre, that if a dancer marries a cellist, she has to become his accompanist?
Uncle Lumpy
February 28th, 2009 at 2:47 pm [Reply]

#240 Malethoth –

Evans bought “Guitar Hero: World Tour”, and will deduct the purchase price from his taxes as “research” — just as Karen Moy deducted her trip to Vietnam, Margaret Shulock hers to Tibet, and Dick Locher his hallucinogens.
brb
February 28th, 2009 at 2:54 pm [Reply]

#201 Mr. O’Malley Boy, have time to pop into the comments for a rare occasion and get hit with the memories!

Back in my adolescence, a fast food restaurant opened in my small south Georgia hometown. If memory serves, it was called The Shrimp Boat, or something like that. And, as it happens, their bread of choice was deep fried biscuits, exactly like the Paula Deen recipe you found right down to the honey butter. I was quite taken with them, to the point of trying it myself at home.

I would say that you haven’t lived until you’ve had a dinner of fried shrimp, french fries and deep fried biscuits, but if fact it would be more accurate to say you won’t live long afterward. I’m probably still trying to lose that weight some 35 years later.

I guess it made the kitchen design much easier, since all you needed was a manufactured building with a deep fryer.

Also, I think “canned” biscuits are in fact the same thing as the cardboard tube – at least in modern times.
True Fable
February 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pm [Reply]

#243 Calico – GOAT! Goat chow!
Mibbitmaker
February 28th, 2009 at 3:09 pm [Reply]

S-M: “…so I’ll wait to give the mayor my demands! Then, I’ll be told the mayor will see me now, and I’ll walk right in! Then, after the mayor is finished laughing hysterically…..” (Which’ll last even longer than if he’s told the mayor of Southtown he’d make it snow there)

MT: Finally, Kenny boy gets him some karma! He’ll get punched by Mark Trail’s Foreshadowing o’ Justice!

Curtis: Looks like Ted Confey’s Most Embarrassing Mustache in the Comics has some competition…

DT: Vailglorious (now an Angel in Hell) (A Hell’s Angel??) died having the gall of trying to solve an energy crisis that stopped existing last fall. However, if she tried to solve the wider problem of polution and dependence on oil from our adversaries, well……. no good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

GT: In Thorpland, the following scene is apparently really common:
Principal: Students, the school dance is next Friday.”
Students
(in unison): “NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

H&J: I’d complain about the sexism of this one (and for damn good reason), but I’m afraid that’d be fairly predictable by now. Still…!

Big Fur-shlugginer Dog: He may take himself seriously, but he also isn’t very bright — Marm’, this is UNITED Feature Syndicate, not KING Features!

MW: “Dearest daughter”? Really???
MAN!, it’s really bad when you have to remind a soap opera strip that it’s “dialogue” is too melodramatic!

MC: Maureen and “Daddy” Blanthony Caine sure do think alike, don’t they?

Ghost-Who-Loves-Rude-Surprises: Perfect opportunity for some Joel-style riffing…
Crocco (in growly monster voice): “Hi there, folks. Boy is she gonna be shocked. I’m yer pal Crocco. God bless…”

Popeye: Swee’Pea concussion # 3,864,688,676,889 in a series. Collect them all.

R&R: Rover is now Dilbert’s boss.

RMMD: June: “…and stop bouncing your speech balloon in your hand, dear!”
Baka Gaijin
February 28th, 2009 at 3:15 pm [Reply]

Saturday’s Cathy: Why would Cathy be ashamed of picking up her horrifying “before pictures.” No one at the local WalMart photo department is going to see her; they’ll all be bumping into each other and the equipment from the hysterical blindness and wailing about what they saw before their brains’ self-protection kicked in. You have to handle those pictures with exorcism tongs or suffer the consequences. Extra extra extra long professional strength Damian-brand Exorcism Tongs.
Calico
February 28th, 2009 at 3:21 pm [Reply]

#241 Re: GT – I’d really enjoy seeing SR performed featuring Mary Worth or Margo Magee (or perhaps Crankshaft) as Evil and Mark Trail as the force of Good. Mary would need a mask, of course.
Anonymous
February 28th, 2009 at 3:50 pm [Reply]

247: Professional performers have a hard time with marriage because they travel all the time. They don’t just have different jobs; they live separate lives.
mollificent
February 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm [Reply]

A3G: Dear ol’ Dad is lookin’ awful shifty-eyed in the last panel. Did he sell Lu Ann’s mother into a prostitution ring, or something? Is her shovel-hacked body buried out behind the shed?
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 4:08 pm [Reply]

# 236 Angry Kem & # 246 buckyswife — Gaah! Thanks for doing what you can to protect animals from ignorance.

I fed bread to pond ducks as a child when visiting my grandparents, whom I’m sure had never heard it was a bad thing to do. But cigarette butts?? *mutters bad words*

# 242 bats :[ — And if any chocolate is left over after that, it can go to Poteets.
Dingo
February 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm [Reply]

I’ll take the milk chocolate and y’all can have the antioxidant-filled dark.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm [Reply]

# 245 Angry Kem — It would be interesting if Ken had some kind of grudge against Mary Worth because of some early experience in Crapa Royale, and was courting Adrian as part of an elaborate revenge scheme. But I think that kind of plotting is way beyond what is likely in MW, not to mention that a hash would be made of such a theme if it were attempted. So I’ll put my money on some version of A and/or C, with a side bet on J.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 4:15 pm [Reply]

# 248 Uncle Lumpy — BWAHAHA!

Seriously, Mr. Locher, find a dealer who carries better stuff. You’re giving hallucinations a bad name.
gogiggs
February 28th, 2009 at 4:16 pm [Reply]

FW – Well, we know this is going to end badly, It’s Funky Winkerbean, after all. The question I find myself surprisingly eager to have answered is: how badly? Will it be as benign as a simple missed shot and defeat for the Scapegoats (it is the Westview Scapegoats still, isn’t it)? Or are we headed for a full-on Million Dollar Baby scenario? Maybe something in between like a career-ending knee blowout?
This site has renewed my interest in comics to the degree that I’m checking every day to find out and twisted that interest such that I’m actively hoping whatever tragedy is inevitably coming to the Winkerverse arrives on the same day Ken gets gored in Mark Trail.
buckyswife
February 28th, 2009 at 4:17 pm [Reply]

257 Dingo–Thank you–dark for me, please (I like my chocolate just like my men: dark and filled with anti-oxidants).
These Strange Worlds
February 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm [Reply]

168 et. al. Antlers

I know more about sawing off deer antler than makes me happy. It does hurt to saw them off, especially early in the season when they are covered with velvet. Normal humane procedure is to trank the deer or deers (they tend to get stuck in fenses or wire or chains a lot more than each other I think). In this case, you can use any good saw or (cover your eyes) a chain saw. I don’t think the chain saw is optimal and probably not a good idea if the deer hasn’t been tranked.

Which brings up another point. The deer is going to be in a lot more danger struggling to get away from some do-gooder with a saw (especially a chain saw) than some pain from the sawing itself. Even if exhausted. I know bucky is supposed to be tame but the other one would probably be struggling with all those humans around (maybe a little from stone-faced khaki-man but a hole whole lot from flibberty-gibbet demin girl).

One final distrubing tidbit. There is a flourishing market for deer horn elvet — especially that from young deer early in the deason. Like Bucky! Just what did MT do with the horns? It seems there is a rumor that the velvet contains human growth hormone. You scrap it off and — I kid you not –pulverize and inject it.

More information about wacky deer velver folk medicine is available on the Internet: http://www.hghtalk.com/nutrients/deer-antlers-connection-with-hgh/

I trust everyone is now sadder but wiser. Add chainsaw-armed deer velet poachers, their limbs swollen to enormous size through exposure to HGH to your list of “things to be scared of late at night.”

As an aside, I put up the “STIX Technology market research done right” ad here (via the wonderful Project Wonderful option). I figured Joshreads was a long shot for my target market and was not surprised. I got really good click through rates for my entirely separate “These Strange Worlds” science fiction site and so-so for STIX. (Albeit, it took me only $3 to confirm this). Would-be advertisers take note. A griffon logo is never going to get as much attention as a cute girl with sunglasses and purple hair. Words to live by.
commodorejohn
February 28th, 2009 at 4:47 pm [Reply]

#262 These Strange Worlds – ‘Roided-up chainsaw-armed mutants in the backwoods, harvesting deer antlers? Best theme for an evil cult ever.
Citric
February 28th, 2009 at 5:01 pm [Reply]

Once a frightened deer ran into my car, it took out both fenders on the drivers side and caused several thousand dollars worth of damage. So really, knowing just how hard a deer can hit something, this Mark Trail will be AWESOME.
Artist formerly known as Ben
February 28th, 2009 at 5:05 pm [Reply]

2/28

MC: I like this. It’s sweet, but not sticky sweet.

PBS: Here’s a hint, Pig. If you see Rat that happy, run.

Luann: That’s the only thing you’re nailing tonight, Frank.

S-M: Walk into City Hall wearing that much spandex and they’ll just assume you’re David Lee Roth arriving for a photo op.

MT: If this ends up with Ken being injured by Bucky and Patty realizing that Two-Fist McBattering is the most important thing to her, I’m gonna be sick.

6C: “Oh yeah, and if I make it to 10:30 I plan to have my first lesbian experience. You in, Foxy?”

Ziggy: The only apparent point is to leave an opening for disgusting possibities. I have it narrowed down to semen or devilled eggs.

Phantom: Does the Crocco realize that he’s a guest star on Cannon?

M-Dawg: Marm apparently used Imperial Margarine to help his last victim go down.

DT: “Ha! Ooh yeah, she got burned! See what I just did there?”

FC: It’s all Thel’s fault, really. Her nipples were so sore from the other three that by the time she got to PJ, she’d feed him by chewing up food and spitting it in his mouth. The confusion was inevitable.

FB: I would have thought that Karl Rove was busy plotting the next Republican coup d’etat to appear in a tepid British gag comic.

H&L: Dotty, Ditto, and Dawg are the three musketeers of enabling. I’m thinking that if Thirsty thinks it’s a good idea to sit in a lawn chair and chug brewskies in the icy winter, he’s already past the cutoff point.
Ukulele Ike
February 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pm [Reply]

Malthoth K @ #249: Really? “On the Road Again” ? The old Memphis Jug Band tune?

http://www.amazon.com/Memphis-Jug-Band/dp/B000000G83
Karasu
February 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm [Reply]

Uncle Lumpy @ 232

Please forgive me, but as a student of the Japanese language, I see a couple of small errors in your explanation of “panko”. While “pan” is a cognate of the French “pain”. it actually comes into Japanese from the Portuguese word for “bread”. “Ko” does mean “child” when written with the kanji “?”. However, the “ko” in “panko” is written with the kanji “?”, which means a powder or granular substance – such as ”???” (“komugiko” – “wheat flour”) or “????” (“kareeko” – “curry powder”).

Japanese is simultaneously a simple and complicated language. The range of sounds in the language is much more limited than English, meaning there are many more homophones than in English. “Ko” can be, among other things, “child”, “powder”, “small”… You can tell which one is meant by the kanji used…

I enjoyed your story about the ritual at the base of Fujisan. ^_^ Did you actually climb it? Every time I see it from the shinkansen, I think I’d like to try climbing it one day, but I think I’m probably too old and out of shape at this point in my life to do so….
Karasu
February 28th, 2009 at 6:33 pm [Reply]

…and it seems that the board doesn’t like kanji. *chuckle* They showed up just fine in the preview….

Sorry about that. I didn’t realize they wouldn’t show in the post….. -_-;

:-/
Charlene
February 28th, 2009 at 6:42 pm [Reply]

RMMW: Why does Sarah suddenly look like a miniature Elton John complete with glasses?
Dingo
February 28th, 2009 at 6:58 pm [Reply]

I had a deer run out in front of my car one night. I grabbed the steering wheel at 10 and 2 and screamed like white trash at a tent revival. Very happy that I was in the car alone. Swear I heard the deer say, “Geeeeez.”
Muddtallica
February 28th, 2009 at 7:06 pm [Reply]

Happy though I was to see Bonnie again in today’s Slylock Fox, I have to confess that my enjoyment of the recent Bonnie & Boo Boo output has been tempered by Boo Boo’s newfound penchant for disrobing at any meagre opportunity. I know this is a free country and all, but honestly, having seen Marvin go one lowered foot away from full-frontal today (God, I wish I didn’t just type that), I feel like I should be entitled to the right not to live in fear of bumptious, melon-headed little cretins running nude through my funnies pages on a daily basis. Is that honestly too much to ask, people? :(

And the worst part is that through this all, there’s still no hint of Bonnie getting her kit – actually, I won’t complete that sentence.
Talking Squirrel
February 28th, 2009 at 7:07 pm [Reply]

269 Charlene: Those are the infamous “X-Ray Specs”. Great for seeing through lifeboat covers, old wrestling mats …

229 Angry Kem: Someone should send Elrod that link. I can just picture a Sunday MT leading off with some bold, boxed text: “Without predators you’d have parks full of dead, rotting ducks!!”
Amateur
February 28th, 2009 at 7:11 pm [Reply]

It’s Inappropriate Facial Expression Day in the comics!

Curtis: Someone reboot Barry — his brain’s locked up. You can tell because normally he’d be taking that as an insult and yelling “SCREAM!” instead of standing there looking deadpan.

PBS: First Rat hangs on to the :-)~ a little too long; then he abruptly exchanges it for a :-| for no apparent reason. Get it together, Rat!

And in other news . . .

Classic Peanuts: Snoopy’s gone cannibal zombie on us! “Dog brains. . . . Must have dog brains. . . .”
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 7:31 pm [Reply]

#272 Talking Squirrel: The text would have to be accompanied by an extremely realistic graphic depiction of the scene the words described. The kiddies would love that.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 7:38 pm [Reply]

# 262 Worlds — Thanks for all the info. Interesting.

I’ve read that elk velvet is popular for the same uses, and elk ranching for velvet harvest is controversial in some states. I mention that only as one more example of the many things Mark could be writing about and/or having adventures regarding, if his strip weren’t so fixated on cute animals named Lucky and Bucky. But given Rex’s version of being a doctor, Sam’s version of being an attorney, and Dick’s version (shudder) of being a detective, Mark’s version of being an outdoor writer makes perfect sense.
Poteet
February 28th, 2009 at 7:44 pm [Reply]

MT — I saw a buck run right into the driver’s door of the small car behind mine several years ago. It was rutting season, when a lot of bucks sort of lose their minds, like some frat house residents during keggers.

But that buck was a lot bigger than Bucky. Not to sound obsessed, but every buck I’ve ever seen with more than four points has been bigger than Bucky. Many of the rabbits and robins in LoFo have been portrayed as being bigger than Bucky. Face it, LoFo animals — when the Elrodball decides to make you into a pet, you shrink.
Uncle Lumpy
February 28th, 2009 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

#267 Karasu –

Thanks for the correction — although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Panko spelled with the Kanji for “baby.” I suppose it could have been a pun, or my wishful thinking.

Yes, I climbed from Gogome 5th station, camped overnight at the 8.5, and reached the 10th-station shrine late morning. Don’t let age stop you – thousands of grandmothers make the climb every year, and only the last mile or so is really hard.

I recommend going on a weekday well after peak season (June – September) to avoid terrible crowds, but not so late you’re caught in a sleet storm and get soaked!
Islamorada Girl
February 28th, 2009 at 7:50 pm [Reply]

255 Mollificent: 3G I’ll take her shovel-hacked body buried out behind the shed for $200, please. Anything to get this plot moving along.
Ukulele Ike
February 28th, 2009 at 8:09 pm [Reply]

Islamorada Girl @ 278: Which plot? We got three cookin’ along strong right now, one for each of our girls. Wait, Margo now has about four plots to herself — missing Eric, failing art gallery, upstate oddly-nice rival, reunion with mysterious Dad. I can’t determine which of them interests me the least!
Noah Rodgers
February 28th, 2009 at 8:11 pm [Reply]

I’ve don’t read “Snuffy Smith”, mainly because it’s not run in my home paper (The Connecticut Post). It was only until I happened upon this fabulous blog that I started reading it with any regularity.

It’s only now that I notice that in almost every panel of every Snuffy Strip EVER, at least one character has his or her tounge sticking out. I can’t even begin to ponder why this maybe. Perhaps some strange contamination in their Ozark water supply is causing an endemic some strange disease that causes swollen tounges, or perhaps years of inbreding amongst the inhabitants of these backwoods hillbillies has produced a mutation that causes relaxed jaw muscles. Shit like this keeps me up at night.
Dingo
February 28th, 2009 at 8:19 pm [Reply]

Poteet, to borrow a plot from Seinfeld, maybe Bucky just got out of the pool.
Austin
February 28th, 2009 at 8:22 pm [Reply]

Just wanted to point out that Josh’s Jeopardy! was repeated tonight in Orlando.

Spoiler alert: The Final Jeopardy! question is Golda Meir.
Uncle Lumpy
February 28th, 2009 at 8:24 pm [Reply]

#280 Noah R. –

Those tongues are lolling– they do it in every panel because they’re so durn proud they invented LOL before them flatlanders gone and thought it up they ownselves.

Consarn it.
Dingo
February 28th, 2009 at 8:26 pm [Reply]

I’m still disappointed that Alex Trebek didn’t have Josh on Naked Jeopardy! Golda Meir would have been worth at least a pair of boxers.
ChattyGenes
February 28th, 2009 at 8:32 pm [Reply]

#227 Muffaroo. Great photo! And very much like ours except that Daughter #2 was very slow to get hair, and had very little at the time compared to Sarah.
dyslexic dog
February 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm [Reply]

GT: Prepare for the Antlers Of Justice!
dyslexic dog
February 28th, 2009 at 9:02 pm [Reply]

9CL: I know, I know! It’s Superman with a hardon!
Muffaroo
February 28th, 2009 at 9:20 pm [Reply]

Zits – “What are we watching.” “Your crotch, jerk!”

Poteet @276 – That’s a good observation, but it doesn’t consider animals that are smaller to begin with, like Andy and Sneaky. I’ll refine your proposition to suggest that when the Elrodball makes you a pet, you gain or lose in size to approach some sort of platonic ideal pet size — probably Andy.

ChattyGenes @285 – Sarah came equipped with terrific hair. She was a spiker! She already had the determination to one day rule the world, too, as witness her first official portrait.
Angry Kem
February 28th, 2009 at 9:49 pm [Reply]

#288 Muffaroo: ……My God…that kid is Dr. Horrible!

That’s fantastic.
ChattyGenes
February 28th, 2009 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

#288 Muffaroo. that is one TERIFFIC photo! And I see what you mean:-)
P
February 28th, 2009 at 9:57 pm [Reply]

Meanwhile, most of the Over 75 crowd who reads Family Circus for the sake of cuteness have been reportedly fainting because………..

THE FONT CHANGED.
Donkey Hotey
February 28th, 2009 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

#201 Mr. O., #232 Uncle Lumpy, and anyone else who believes BACON is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy -

Feast your eyes (and harden your arteries) on THIS! http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/allyoucaneat/2009/02/10/bacon_explosion_with_slight_er.html
Oort
February 28th, 2009 at 11:08 pm [Reply]

Hey! You’re on Jeopardy right now!
Jeff
February 28th, 2009 at 11:11 pm [Reply]

Holy cow, your episode of Jeopardy is being rerun tonight! (I see you did as well as I did, in my turn)
Mel
February 28th, 2009 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

232 and 292: I prefer these for bacony goodness — also known in some circles as Angels on Horseback when done over open flame:

http://mimttm.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/deep-fried-hotdogs/
bats :[
March 1st, 2009 at 12:11 am [Reply]

Yay. The house is empty of guests (welcome though they might be), and any minute now, Rex Morgan is going to be exciting again. In the meantime…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/3318329232/sizes/o/
Winky's Spleen
March 1st, 2009 at 12:21 am [Reply]

NightRaven #209 – So you’re saying that Beetle Bailey is to Norway as Jerry Lewis is to France? I’m so sorry.
Donkey Hotey
March 1st, 2009 at 1:07 am [Reply]

#297 Winky’s Spleen – I’d say France is the real loser in this scenario.
Angry Kem
March 1st, 2009 at 1:54 am [Reply]

Ah…here it comes. Sunday’s Mary Worth finally brings the goo-gooing to a long overdue end with the shocking revelation, which all of us only saw coming from about a hundred and fifty miles away, that darling Ted is broke. Gosh, but I want to punch him in the face. Of course, I want to punch every Mary Worth character in the face. I would also want to kick every Mary Worth character in the balls, but none of them have any.
Dingo
March 1st, 2009 at 2:23 am [Reply]

Oooooooh! J’accuse! Daddy Jeff picks up the check at the Bum Boat and Ted whiffs a sigh of relief. Before everyone here snarks on poor Ted and calls him out as a lout, let me just say this. Ted mentions his wife, Lydia. He went Mary Worth yellow/blue when he did it. I’m thinking that the bird had a long-term illness that debilitated not only her but their bank account. You see, I’ve seen the bill for my hospital stay. Six days of lying on my back while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me and it came to $46,000. I’m driving a nine-year-old car, have a computer I bought in 2002, don’t have a couch in my living room, and am sleeping on a twin bed. Why? I’ve only been at my job for six months and I wanted to wait to spend money once I knew that things were secure what with this economy. In six freakin’ days, I spent more money than all of those items combined. Luckily, it looks like I’ll be on the spot for around a grand. Thank a great benefit package at work! When Toeby talked to the nice lady technician about computer fraud, she found that the tech had been taken. Ted has mentioned Lydia far too many times for one “first meeting of the in-laws” dinner. I think she wiped out the accounts and this is his first non-ramen meal in weeks. Let’s give the guy a break. Lord knows he ain’t interested in Adrian for her looks.
Mr. O'Malley
March 1st, 2009 at 2:55 am [Reply]

266. Ukulele Ike. I have to admit that if there were a Jug Band Hero game I would seriously think about getting one.

283. Uncle Lumpy. LOL goes back to the 1920s. (Note: I believe these have just been published as a book.)

Thanks for the bacon recipes, everyone, but I have to think about my cholesterol.

209. NightRaven. We had a Norwegian cooking show on TV here for a while. Everything was cooked outdoors on a dock next to a flat barren wasteland under cold grey skies. I mentioned this to someone I know who’s married to a Norwegian and she said “Did they use mayonaise in every recipe?” So now I have another Norwegian stereotype to add to my collection.

My deer story: I’m driving back through the mountains from Santa Cruz one day at twilight (we call them mountains but they’re only 2000 feet high) with fairly heavy traffic moving fast. It’s a four lane highway. Suddenly the car in front of me swerves violently all over the road. Just as I begin to form the words “What is that idiot doing?” I realize OH SHIT I’M BARRELLING STRAIGHT TOWARDS A DEER AT 55 MPH AND IT’S ONLY A FEW FEET AWAY! I pull my own evasive move and luckily the deer wanders nonchalantly off the road because there are plenty more cars behind me. The other people in the car are going “What did you do that for?” because it happened too fast for them to notice. It really would have made a mess of the car if I’d hit it.

I’ve seen deer on the road other times but usually when there’s less traffic. I’ve driven the Transcanada Highway east to Calgary and there you have elk on the road but you get more advance warning because of all the tourists standing around on the side of the road with cameras. Also there are lots of mountain goats, but I didn’t see any actually on the road.

In rural Australia they have similar problems with kangaroos, and an iconic image is the ute (pickup) equipped with roo bars.

I guess the Sunday comics are up now, so I’ll just mosey on over there.
Nurse with a penis
March 1st, 2009 at 3:17 am [Reply]

MW – Sun – They’ve been at dinner so long, they’ve removed the green drapes for cleaning.
Mr. O'Malley
March 1st, 2009 at 3:37 am [Reply]

A-3G: Well, here’s a miniscule advance to the plot. Janey is Lu Ann’s criminally insane sister, a sick horse, a pet deer. I thought Lu Ann’s parents hated her. Perhaps just when she’s wasting time painting instead of cooking for them.

FC: You can look out now, children, our house has arrived at its destination.

JP: So there’s no ice in the basement after all?

SlFo: Reeky Rat is too much of a stoner to commit a crime that takes so much energy.

Funny thing … I’m getting all these comics on Feb. 29.
mollificent
March 1st, 2009 at 3:41 am [Reply]

#278 Islamorada Girl: I know! We were ripped from a riveting expose on the scandalous beginnings of Margo for…THIS?

There damn well better be some trash-bag-swaddled corpses to be had somewhere, that’s all I can say.
Wangdoodle
March 1st, 2009 at 5:02 am [Reply]

Sunday, bloody Sunday…

FC: GO, TARTAR!! …Tartan?

Blondie: Wow, given the current situation, that’s pretty anti-funny.

Crankshaft: Blue Sky’s award-winning “Bunny” did it better, and that had an elderly cartoon rabbit hallucinating as she died from gas fumes from her oven.

Curtis: Mean ol’ Uncle Sam! Schooling your dirty little punk! Arming the officers who will one day take him down! Building the prison that will take care of him for the rest of his life!

H&L: Wait, Lois actually needs this explained to her? The contest is on, folks! Who’s the bigger idiot? Tess Tracy for her perfume-sales business model, or Lois?

Mallard Fillmore, M.F.: We’ve seen your mug shot, Bruce. People in glass houses, and all that… (“Sale?” Oh, wait, I get it…you just lack the skill to create contrast between the word balloons and background signs. See, even Greg Evans could handle something as simple as that…)
Baka Gaijin
March 1st, 2009 at 5:34 am [Reply]

Sunday’s Apartment 3-G, last panel: Father to Lu Ann: “Your mother’s afraid of leaving Janey alone.” Daddy, are you implying that Janey’s even more ~~retarded~~ “special” than Lu Ann? OH MY GAWD!
Baka Gaijin
March 1st, 2009 at 5:49 am [Reply]

Beetle Bailey: Um, after looking at Sarge’s outfit, I have my doubts about his homosexuality. Would a gay man, even deep in the closet, really wear checkered pants with a polka dotted tie and tiny purple bowler hat?
Baka Gaijin
March 1st, 2009 at 5:57 am [Reply]

Mary Worth, throwaway panel: “It’s a blessing to see you so happy, Adrian.” Mary, you passive-aggressive bitch. Adrian’s too lovesick to understand what you really mean:

It would take God’s intervention (blessing) for you to be happy, you pathetic thing you.
Baka Gaijin
March 1st, 2009 at 6:13 am [Reply]

Cow and Boy: Man, what a loser you are. Even the friend-whores are staying away. I’m not on Facebook and I’ve been friended 20 times today.
Baka Gaijin
March 1st, 2009 at 6:15 am [Reply]

Is anyone else getting the ad for “Pickup Lines for Men” at the top of their pages? What could be causing that? No, on second thought, I don’t really want to know.
tuesy
March 1st, 2009 at 8:57 am [Reply]

SF: Whoa, Ted. Keep an eye on those jazz hands.

MW: Let the meddling commence!
Brick Bradford
March 1st, 2009 at 9:31 am [Reply]

JP The lesbian sexual tension continues to grow. “I hope we get to see more of you”. She spoke for all ouf us.

FC So, what were the little tads up to before mommy walked in and broke up their dirty little party, hmmmm?

MW Either Ted is a bad ‘un, out to take Adrian and her family, or else he’s a good ‘un trying to cover up his financial problems. Either way, Mary is going to be an interfering pain in the bum boat.

RetroFoob Notice that only one person in the house wasn’t in the bathroom sneaking a peak at Elly?
C. Norris
March 1st, 2009 at 9:56 am [Reply]

I LIKE EATING FOOD. THE JOY IT BRINGS ME SURPASSES ANY OTHER PHYSICAL, MENTAL, OR SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE I’ VE EVER FELT IN MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE. THANKS AND GOODBYE.
Talking Squirrel
March 1st, 2009 at 10:19 am [Reply]

Is it OT to mudge on the ads on the dead-tree page next to my dead-tree funnies (not the ones on this website, never that!) ?? Hearing no cries to cease and desist, then, I’ll unburden myself.

It’s this new perfume, “DKNYMen The Fragrance”. First of all, the timing on this is highly suspicious. With Angel(gl)orious having just been S’Mored, is Dr. Noll now trying to run the table on her heirs by raking in huge profits in the mens’ stinkery sector during the prime post-Valentine’s stinkery season before they can assert their claims in Jugs Parker’s probate court?

And secondly, I don’t trust any product that has to append its function to the end of its name. It smells like misdirection — as if perhaps the product may actually be best suited for something else — as an eye-blinding balm, for instance.

“DKNYMen The Fragrance”? What next — “Charmin The Asswipe”?

Lastly, how the hell do you pronounce this stuff without sounding like some charlatan? Like God forbid it actually stinks kinda purty, and your GF asks you what’s that new stuff you’re wearing?

What else can you say but “It’s Dick-Knee-Men…”?

A name like that, it hollers “male enhancement for the sagged-and-bagged”: Dick-Knee-Men, for the man who has to wear his shorts low.
True Fable
March 1st, 2009 at 10:22 am [Reply]

Canadian Zombie I really hate a comic strip that tries so hard to make children look bad at every turn, this time for plotting to interrupt Mommy’s bath. It also tries to make men look evil because John is shown paying more attention to the paper than his children. And most of all, I hate this poor-put-upon routine of Elly’s that happens not just this time, but EVERY time she wants “me” time.

Remember Blondie’s 50th anniversary strip? In it, Dagwood gets up early, has a leisurely breakfast, strolls past the mailman, gets to work on time, puts in a productive day, gets a raise, goes home to a great dinner, bowls a perfect game with the guys, and goes to sleep happy. In the last panel, Blondie sits up and bed and breaks the fourth wall saying “After all these years, he deserves a day like today!”

Elly will never get that day, not even if Lynn lives to be 210 and still drawing. It’s just far too important to her that Elly is the perpetual victim and she fails to realize that by doing so, she makes Elly look like the most incompetent, short-sighted person in the history of Ever. The fact that Rod/John looks like an uncaring lazy oaf must simply be icing to her.
gleeb
March 1st, 2009 at 10:23 am [Reply]

Dick: If there’s already fre, you might help catch an arsonist, but isn’t it a bit late to stop one?

’shaft: “We prefer to just play records instead of chasing the homicidal cat out of people’s rooms.”

‘bean: Yeah, that’s why you’re there, Darin. Why drag Mopey Pete along? Do you need someone to make you look good by comparison?

Mary: Aha! Gov. Dewey was lying about having all that money! Either that or he doesn’t carry much cash on him, enough for the Bum Boat maybe, but not the Golden Corridor.

Rex: That’s the very best juice box Sarah’s ever tasted.

Slylock: Well, Reeky is kind of a slob, and tossing a bottle out the door is just the kind of thing he would do. Elsewhere, Orangutans 1 and 3 know orangutan 2 just farted.
True Fable
March 1st, 2009 at 10:27 am [Reply]

CZ Oh, and one more thing: Elly left a moronic five year old to look after a toddler who stripped off her clothes and jumped into a fully filled tub to play in the water, just so Elly could go give John the Dirty Glare of the Downtrodden. Maybe this is so after Lizzie drowns, Elly will be able to get an extra five minutes in the bath. That sounds like a dreadful, horrific plan to us, but to Elly Patterson it probably sounds plausible and even useful.

Damn it! I’m back to ranting about Canadian Zombie! Even worse – I’m ranting about RERUN Canadian Zombie!

Goddammit Lynn. Just RETIRE already, you fucking hack.
/rant
Amanda M
March 1st, 2009 at 10:34 am [Reply]

Sunday’s Mary Worth has made one thing clear: Ted’s not evil, he’s just broke. An interesting storyline averted once again!
Calico
March 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am [Reply]

#315 – Lynn at 210 – Hellllp!!!

MW – I want to see Jeff’s face when the “Impressive number” charity check for Peace Village bounces like a giant super ball.

FC – Plato’s cage, revisited. The little urchins look as blind as moles.
Patrick, Interlibrary Loan Divison
March 1st, 2009 at 11:56 am [Reply]

#296 Bats :[ Thanks for the morning laughs! That was a good one!

Mary Worth: I think Dingo has already called the MW plotline to come. We’ll find out that Ted’s dying wife wiped out their finances completely and he’s more than broke. Ted’s in so deep, he’s willing to marry the android, uh, Adrian.

Judge Parker: A visual feast of fair maidens.

ReFOOB: So far, I’m still resisting. From the sound of True Fable’s rants that’s a good thing.

Mark Trail: After Bucky impales what’s his name, what’s his name will regret how he treated Fay Wray and apologises as he dies in her arms. After an “appropriate” period of “mourning” Fay Wray and Bucky disappear into the Lost Forest. Like that will ever happen!
Calico
March 1st, 2009 at 12:00 pm [Reply]

True – I love your Blue-in-the-Face FOOB rants, whether Retro or Potato-nose/menopause version of Elly’s endless angst and martyr/angel stylings.

A good new name of the strip might be “Canadian Castration.”
John C Fremont
March 1st, 2009 at 12:04 pm [Reply]

I used to have a Fiero. An SUV tried to kill it, but it took a deer to finish the job. I never got the chance to see how seriously the deer was hurt because he ran up a hill and jumped a fence.

#319 Calico – Hey, you stole a friend of mine’s pet Mary Worth comment! I could have gotten mine in first, but noooooo! No, I had to hit “Preview” first. Oh well, here it is anyway. As Carol Cleveland once said, “But it’s my only line!”

MW – So does this mean Ted’s check to Peace Village is going to bounce?

(Dammit! Calico’s is funnier.)

JP – Wow! Just, well, wow!

Well, off to shave, shower, and slap on some Dick-Knee-Men.
Muffaroo
March 1st, 2009 at 12:43 pm [Reply]

Beetle Bailey – I’m guessing Sarge was a rent-boy at a nuthouse.

FCircus – Either this is drawn by someone eight feet tall, or the house is sinking into the ground. Thel seems to lose a foot in height between panels, so perhaps the latter.

Dbury – Trudeau’s hit on something very similar to my Kitten-of-the-Month club, including its implications. Well done.

TDBug – Again, Bolling takes us below the surface. Sadly amusing.

JParker – It almost looks like the writer ran out of stuff before the last panel and told Barreto to just fill in, but it’s actually just the way it’s laid out. Huh huh, I said laid out.

My Cage – I don’t want to seem like a griper, but there could have been several more attractive young women depicted in this strip. I mean, who needs dialogue, right?

S4th – Maybe some time Medium Large could show us what a Sally Struthers strip would look like. (Any detail I might add at this point would only deaden whatever mental images that gave anybody.)

TDIET – Well, it was in the Time Tunnel, and I figured, what the heck, but nothing there but the sad news from 2007. Rest in peace, Al!

Zippy – What does it mean, Z? It means your pants just went to high school in the Carlsbad Caverns.
Aviatrix
March 1st, 2009 at 12:43 pm [Reply]

@318 Amanda M. What do you mean “just broke”? In the Charterstone universe being broke is lower on the ladder into the depths of depravity than being an obsessed stalker.
Wolf Shepherd
March 1st, 2009 at 12:45 pm [Reply]

Luann – This week the color monkeys had T.J. blackified and today they have Delta honkified.
sugarpie
March 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm [Reply]

FWinkerbean Ok, TJ and Brad we (mostly) all sort of agree on.

Now what’s the deal with Darin and Pete? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what they have going, God knows that anyone in the Fwinkerverse that can find a little solace in furtive hurly-burly deserves my respect.

Why is Batiuk being so coy? He’s not afraid to torture Alzheimers sufferers, or give deadly cancer to one of his few sympathetic characters. Is there an even more dreary fate in store for these two guys? Yeah, probably.
kalki
March 1st, 2009 at 12:51 pm [Reply]

Luann: “Ha ha, Luann, you’re a dumb bitch.”

“Bernice! You’re supposed to be my best friend!”

“What gave you that impression? You are the dumbest bitch ever…you haven’t noticed me insulting you since the day I met you? I hate your guts. I just love tormenting you”

“Oh…so want to sleepover at my house tonight?”

Crank: Smother her already and let’s move on.

FOOB-redux: What’s more disturbing…A)Seeing every naked inch of your mom, B)Your mom yelling at you to leave her alone, C)Seeing both your mom and baby sister completely naked at the same time, D)Your mom leaving your toddler sister completely alone in a full tub of water, or, E)All of the above?

Blondie: Actually…a perfect joke today. Well done!

Circus Jerk: Quick! Close the blinds again before the sudden exposure to sunlight makes their little bodies grow to what should be normal sized for such ginormous melon heads.

S-M: Let’s see…Electro continues his leisurely pace to City Hall as a glowing human target for every police sniper…Spidey continues to function after failing to realize that leaving your ~~hopefully dying~~ unconscious aunt on the ashalt outside the emergency room is not even in the same ballpark with providing any real care at all…and places in order of importance: 1)the woman who every other guy in high school (except Pete) scored with, 2)Aunt May, 3)The city that Pete is supposed to be protecting, with a population significantly higher than one slut and one old woman.

Meanwhile, the male prostitutes MJ hired to act out her “2 robbers and the horny housewife” fantasy arrive in character on her balcony.

DTM: Slam! *click* “Uh, Mr. Wilson, you accidentally locked me in your basement! I can hear you! Why are you laughing like that? What’s that noise? It sounds like the doorway is being bricked up? Why is your maniacal laughter fading? Hello? Are you still there, Mr. Wilson?”
kalki
March 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm [Reply]

Ok, so Elly didn’t leave Liz in a tub completely alone, but close enough. Who thinks Mike is going to stay in the room with his sister, much less watch her and make sure she doesn’t drown?
buckyswife
March 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm [Reply]

I have a deer experience that gives me hope for the MT outcome: I was walking my dog in the park, and we came across a small group of deer. My dog is very big, and she LOVES deer. I was holding her back on her leash but allowing her to watch the deer, who were watching us. And then a young Bucky-like buck started coming towards us, stomping its feet and snorting. We had to back off because that deer certainly wasn’t going to.

However, I’m preparing myself to be let down this week. The satisfying outcome to the Ken/Patty/Bucky story? Bucky gores Ken, and then Patty runs up and digs her pointy-toed boot into the wound as Ken writhes in pain; Patty says, “So, how do you like that, you ridiculous bully?” Mark runs over, saying, “Ken! Ken! Are you okay?,” startling Bucky, who gores him, too. As Mark lies on the ground, dying, he says, “I realize now that there’s no excuse for spousal abuse, not even the economy.” Both men die a rather prolonged and hideous death.

Oh, and then giant chickadees crap on them.

Sadly, though, I’m guessing that none of this will happen, save for perhaps some minor Ken-goring.
kalki
March 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm [Reply]

oops that was asphalt too…not ashalt. asshalt sounds nasty.
Eric the baker
March 1st, 2009 at 1:04 pm [Reply]

/me stands up
Hi, my name is Eric, and I’m a recovering FOOB addict.
(All respond: Hi Eric!)
I’m proud to stand up today and annouce that as of today, I have been FOOB free for 6 months. That’s right, on August 31st last year year, I read and snarked on my last FOOB.

Recovery hasn’t been easy. There have been times when I thought about going back. Days when I was reading my local dead-tree issue of the comics and there it was, right at the top of the second column of strips. My eyes started reading the first panel, but then I remembered all the horror and vitriol the strip gave me the first time around. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, I forced my eyes past the strip and further down the page. Sometimes I didn’t think I’d make it even one more day. But then I remembered how to do it: “One Day at a Time.”

I’m not proud of the time I spent reading FOOB, in fact I hate thinking of myself then. I was in pretty bad shape. I don’t have much to say, other than I’ve made it this far, and each day from here out just adds to what I’ve already done.

I know some of you are still struggling with your FOOB addiction, but if I can do it, anyone of you can. It won’t be easy, but you can do it too. If anyone needs to talk to me, or needs a sponser, I think I might be ready to help others on the path to recovery.

Thank you.

/me sits down
Dingo
March 1st, 2009 at 1:07 pm [Reply]

kalki, asshalt sounds like a cologne for Rex Morgan.
buckyswife
March 1st, 2009 at 1:10 pm [Reply]

Have any of you ever, in your entire lives, had a conversation remotely resembling the one that’s been going on in Mary Worth for, what, the last 10 years now?

If so, you have my deepest, most heartfelt sympathies.
Anonymous
March 1st, 2009 at 1:16 pm [Reply]

326 sugarpie: Actually, if you hadn’t pointed out, I wouldn’t have recognized Mopey Pete. At first glance I just assumed that was Darin’s wife.

So… yeah.
Wolf Shepherd
March 1st, 2009 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

Today’s Hagar the Horrrible appears to be clever satire on Obama’s “Hope & Change” mantra. Hagar is hoping really hard, but he’s not getting the change he wants. I never before thought of HtH as political or clever or insightful.
Muffaroo
March 1st, 2009 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

kalki @327 – “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GOOD OL’ MISTER WILSON!!” (from “The Cask of Root Beer”)
mollificent
March 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm [Reply]

RMMD: Guido is my favorite RMMD character EVER. He has the best facial expressions, the best sexual innuendo since Niki…he’s the total package. Oh, Guido, take me away!

S-M: Spidey will probably grab the villains, deposit them in front of the nearest police station, and swing away, calling cheerily, “There you go, boys! Be sure to get yourselves locked up nice ‘n’ tight, now!”
Uncle Lumpy
March 1st, 2009 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

#334 Anonymous –

Mopey Pete isn’t Darrin’s wife? Who knew?
Esther Blodgett
March 1st, 2009 at 1:47 pm [Reply]

#332 Dingo: I keep telling you, that’s Dr. Asshalt to you. Don’t make me come over there.

MW: Ha ha, Ted’s a bum!

RMMD: Agnes’ litmus suit has changed color to let her know it’s time for another vodka gimlet to restore her delicate blood-alcohol balance.

MT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nature is awesome. Now get back to the goring.

FC: Ha ha, the Keane kids are vampires!

GF: It’s funny because I’m German and Mr. Blodgett is Italian.

FW: I’m missing the punchline here. And the setup. And the point.

BB: Is Mort Walker a nudist? Because he draws clothing as if he has very little firsthand knowledge of it.

Ballard: Feral hamsters are hilarious. Period.
Wolf Shepherd
March 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm [Reply]

#326 Sugarpie – I’m thinking AIDS … a long, slow, painful, soul-crushing decent to oblivion.
Marion Delgado
March 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm [Reply]

It would make Mark Trail hip and transcendent in a retro way if Patty were already carrying a Greek nature demigod.
Charlie
March 1st, 2009 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

Reminder, you have until Tuesday to vote for favorite and least favorite comics in the Portland (OR) Oregonian. If you feel inclined to give Barreto’s Judge Parker a favorite vote and FOOB a “time to go” vote, please do so.

Link: http://biz.oregonian.com/comicsurvey.
True Fable
March 1st, 2009 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

Had to go out and admire the unusual sight of Snow in Greater Metropolitan Roopville! Yeah, it will probably be gone tomorrow, just like plot advancement in Apartment 3 G.

I Haz Mi Wife’s Comik Actually, I would be interested to see Dagwood in the unemployment line for real. I bet Ted Forth is the better man.
C’haft I like Dean Booth’s treatment SO much more. Scroll down and you’ll see what I mean.
DtNon-M Doesn’t Alice ever feed this kid?
Children of the Circle Mother Keane likes to taunt the kids in her little gulag by displaying a back-lit scene of “Outdoors” just to get their hopes up. Now turn off the lights and sleep, you little bastards. We need more mules for the factory tomorrow.
Finicky Wankerstank Ohhh brother; I hope this doesn’t mean all next week we get to drag around in the gloom and despair of Mopey Pete’s world, but I’m afraid that’s what might happen.
Scenes from Suburban Hell OH MY GOD THEY ARE IN GREATER METRO ROOPVILLE
Judiciary Playtex Damn. Randy came back too soon, we almost had Katherine suggest they go explore the rest of the house.
Meddling Heights See, I toldja he’s a merry widower and he’s about tapped out; that’s why he wanted to elope. Oh, this will be a regular Meddle-A-Go-Go here pretty soon.
RMMW June…I think you fondled Guido a little too forcefully in panel five. See how he retreated over to the old lady so fast?
SFx All I can say is, that would have been one hell of a fish skeleton in Six Differences.
SpiderFlake I hate cutesy future exposition. “Somehow, I feel I’m going to let her down again and again before I finally abandon her to save Aunt May who probably would have preferred going into that good night anyway. It’s not like Aunt May hasn’t been at death’s door more times than not ever since I’ve known her. And hey… where the hell are my parents, The Fly and The Wasp? Oh yeah. RIP, folks. You were good providers even if you were a little crunchy.”

Gonna go play in the snow now and aim some hard-packed snowballs at the Flagstons if I see them.
Wolf Shepherd
March 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm [Reply]

After reading Curtis and Mark Trail, I could see today’s Dennis the Menace going in a much more menacing direction.

Dennis: “Can I have another frozen waffle?”
Mr. Wilson: “No! The economy is bad.”

Mrs. Wilson prepares one any way, but blows a fuse when she starts the toaster.

Mrs. Wilson: “George, can’t we upgrade the wiring in this house?”
Mr. Wilson: “No! The economy is bad.”

POW! Mr. Wilson punches Mrs. Wilson in the face.

Mrs. Wilson: “Owww (wimper). Oh George, why did you do that?”
Mr. Wilson: “Stop nagging me. Have you seen our 401K?.”

Mr. Wilson goes to the basement to change the fuse and Dennis follows. After a few minutes, there is loud noise, and Dennis comes back upstairs.

Mrs. Wilson: “Dennis, is everything alright?”
Dennis: “I’m fine, but Mr. Wilson had an accident.”
Mrs. Wilson: “Oh dear! Should we call an ambulance.”
Dennis: “Nah, let’s wait until the economy improves.”
Fortunato
March 1st, 2009 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

327: You forgot: “For the love of God, Mr. Wilson!”
kalki
March 1st, 2009 at 2:51 pm [Reply]

332. Dingo–Asshalt would still be a step up from TAG body spray.

336. Muffaroo–Yes, that would be George Everett Montresor Wilson.
Islamorada Girl
March 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm [Reply]

279 Ike: Any plot in 3G would be welcome. Any plot moving ahead would be just fine with me. Like you, I’ve ceased to sit on the edge of my seat waiting for resolution to anything.
Donkey Hotey
March 1st, 2009 at 3:55 pm [Reply]

Sunday in MT: What the HELL is up with that miniature bipedal rabbit in frame two? Bunny got back!
commodorejohn
March 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pm [Reply]

A3G – Okay, folks, start taking your bets on who or what “Janey” is.

Crankshaft – Ha ha! Decay and death! Ha ha ha!

FW – Dear Tom Batiuk: PEOPLE DO NOT USE COMMAED APPOSITIVES IN CASUAL CONVERSATION.

JP – My God, we just had a week and a half of this conversation? It only felt like five minutes. There’s something I never thought I’d write about Judge Parker.

Lio – I’m sure this is a reference to something, I’m just not sure what.

MT – Yeah, well, frankly, the Conquistadors were kind of stupid.

MW – Oh, there we go, interest averted.

MC – Mmm.

OBH – One Big Deathy.

Phantom – Finally, Stormtrooper Marksmanship Syndrome explained!

PC – Wait, wait, wait, when did Prickly City’s art start not sucking?

PV – Well, Prince Valiant doing Pygmalion can’t possibly be as bad as Pibgorn doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right?

RMMD – “And wash your hands constantly! Don’t stop! For anything!”

SFx – Yeah, right. Reeky drinks “soda” in dark glass longnecks like the characters in translated SNES games drink “cider.”

SM – Watch it, Stan, you’re coming perilously close to violating the Almight Will of Quesada.

Edison Lee – has done the unthinkable: make Iron Man boring.

WoI – Today, on The Wizard Of Id: oviposition money shot!
bats :[
March 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pm [Reply]

I’m not getting June’s reaction in the final panel of the Sunday RMMD. Utter revulsion at the prospect of Rex dealing with sick people!?! “Gah! Is that what doctors do? I should’ve married a lawyer!”

Still, do we really care what June’s thinking when Guido’s absolutely stealing the scene?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/3319462525/sizes/o/
Poewar
March 1st, 2009 at 4:13 pm [Reply]

Sunday Funnies:

Luann: I stared at it for a good minute trying to figure out what was going on, and then I realized that nothing worth knowing could be found there.

Sally Forth: I agree with Sally, Ted, What a wonderful weird man you are.

FOOB: Ellie leaves her baby alone in a full bathtub, but John is supposed to be the bad parent?

FW: Not funny, but not depressing either. I guess that will have to do.
Joe Blevins
March 1st, 2009 at 4:16 pm [Reply]

In the year or so that I’ve been following this blog, I’ve never really enjoyed the comic strip Luann. It’s far from the worst strip covered by CC — that would be Momma — but there’s something about this strip which keeps me from enjoying it. I’ve pinpointed two main causes for my dislike: (1) how the characters look; and (2) what they say to each other. Notice how I’ve neatly solved both problems by replacing all the characters’ faces with TJ’s grinning rictus and replacing all the dialogue with Cy Twombly scribblings.

Behold.
commodorejohn
March 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm [Reply]

#352 Joe Blevins – I could see this becoming the next Garfield Minus Garfield.
Poteet
March 1st, 2009 at 4:23 pm [Reply]

# 352 Joe — Best Luann in a long time. Maybe ever.
mordock999
March 1st, 2009 at 4:29 pm [Reply]

Today’s Luann 03/01/09

Alright, Evans, enough IS ENOUGH!!!

TODAY’S gag is the LAST STRAW!

Read this VERY cafefully:

There is NO teenager

in the United States of America

who is THAT FUCKING DUMB!!!

Ya GOT that???

And furthermore:

_______________________________________

DEATH to TJ!!!!!
Wangdoodle
March 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm [Reply]

I’m afraid the outcome of the current crisis in Mark Trail will leave everyone unhappy in order to prove Mark’s point about the dangers of keeping wild animals as pets.

How I see it ending: As Bucky takes his wrath/vengeance out on Ken, Patty will come upon the scene (through her new-found mutant power of teleportation) and have to choose between her abusive-asshole husband and once-gentle pet. Even in tears, she will prove to be a better shot than Ken. Ken will be rewarded further by Mark, who will help him find employment. Ken will abruptly transform into The Sweetest Guy A Gal Could Ever Hope To Get Kicked Around By. Mark will repeat his lecture to Patty, who will still be sad, yet happy to be back “in her place.” Mark will stand in front of a blazing sunrise, posed heroically with his fists on his hips. TEH NED.

I provide this now so you can be slightly less infuriated later.
Wangdoodle
March 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

…Oh, and Ken will invite Mark for dinner. Venison. You kill it, you cook it.
Poteet
March 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

# 317 Sir Fable MTK — Excellent ReFoob ranting. Thank you.

And thank you also for mentioning Michael’s age. Since the strip has been portraying him in varying ways that only indicate he’s probably somewhere between three and twelve, I’ve been wondering.
Charlene
March 1st, 2009 at 4:50 pm [Reply]

“There is NO teenager in the United States of America who is THAT FUCKING DUMB!!!”

Most Americans (and non-Americans) over age 20 would take issue with that, as would everyone who has ever spent five minutes at Yahoo Answers.
Poteet
March 1st, 2009 at 4:51 pm [Reply]

PLUGGERS — One reason I read this strip is that it makes me feel, for one brief moment each day, like a health nut. And today it makes me feel like Jane Brody.
LightningDuke
March 1st, 2009 at 4:54 pm [Reply]

#352 – I disagree that Luann is not the worst strip covered. The flaws in Luann aren’t nearly bad enough to be unintentionally hilarious as they are in Momma, nor does the strip ever escape the unrelenting blandness that dampens everything, making it more of a pablum of strips. Certainly, it’s bad, and evokes an eyeroll nearly every day at the very minimum, but I’ve never made vocal sounds of disgust at it like I have towards Marvin.

To me, Luann is more of an indication of what Cathy would be like if it was set in a high school, which while not something to look at, is forgettable enough to be able to ignore comfortably and have one’s eyes drawn to it like the train wreck it is. I had this problem when my local paper carried Hi and Lois, and found myself drawn to reading the strip every morning, despite hating it immensely. I could not just scan over it and not register it, like I did with Doonesbury and FBoFW, but instead my mind forced me to read every panel and seethe for a minute inside as I had a little mental replay of how I hated the art, the facial expressions particularly, how bad the dialogue was, how stupid the strip was in entirety, and the like.

Luann, on the other hand, I forgot about most of the time, and only really paid attention ocassionally. In such a reaction, I can only intuit that Luann’s role on the comic page is to be an anchor to say “Hey, no matter how bad your day is, at least you don’t live in Luann,” on the days that are mediocre. It provides situations that aren’t completely awful in concept, like Brad improving himself to be a fireman, but fall flat on their face in execution, thus providing a touchstone that brings out the truly awful concepts in other strips that attempt to have situations in the same vein.

In conclusion, Luann provides a very important role on the comics page. It does not exist to be liked or despised, but rather it exists solely to exist. Luann is the neutral point on the gauge, where everything is bland without being untoward truly good or bad. It exists so that there can be a control to which other things can be definitively measured against in degrees of individually conditionalized snark.

And as such, I believe all comics pages should be organised with good strips above Luann, and bad strips below, so that it provides a definitive warning against venturing into those waters. A sort of sign that says, “Warning! Here be Marvin!” and “Legacy strips ahead!”
LightningDuke
March 1st, 2009 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

Correction: I disagree that Luann is the worst strip covered.

That should be the correct first line. The double negative was unintentional. Much apologies for letting that slip through the proof.
Poteet
March 1st, 2009 at 4:59 pm [Reply]

LUANN — If I had ever thought of a “gag” this dumb, I wouldn’t admit it, let alone draw and publish it.
Talking Squirrel
March 1st, 2009 at 5:37 pm [Reply]

363 Poteet: My first guess was that they didn’t actually think of it at all, but rather they stole it from Herb and Jamaal. Of course, this is because of the mention of “those eye drops you use”.

Cut to the second panel, though, where we see an all-too-familiarly-shaped dispenser. Shades of Garfield without Garfield — friends, what we have here is product placement without product placement.

I always wondered whatever became of Wormwood from C.S Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”. Now I know: He became a Mad Man.
Islamorada Girl
March 1st, 2009 at 5:50 pm [Reply]

352: Joe Blivens: Thanks for the best laugh I’ve had this weekend.
John C Fremont
March 1st, 2009 at 6:53 pm [Reply]

#357 Wangdoodle – According to the former frontman for the Amboy Dukes, that would be “Kill it and grill it.”
Patrick, Interlibrary Loan Divison
March 1st, 2009 at 7:03 pm [Reply]

#355 mordock999: Well, if you’ve ever done jury duty, you’ll painfully discover that there are some teenagers actually that dumb or worse.
Fortunato
March 1st, 2009 at 7:06 pm [Reply]

Crankshaft: Now that Mr. Magoo has decided to crossdress, there is no place left for this strip to go.
sugarpie
March 1st, 2009 at 8:10 pm [Reply]

#350 bats :[ If you ever self publish I would be first in line for a bound copy!

#352 Joe Blevins We have an amazing Twombly gallery in town, and I ~~think~~ hope he would approve of your work. If not-eh, screw him. I even think Evans would probably approve of your work. He’s got to be even more bored with Luann than his readers.

Why does he continue? Can’t be the $: according to EVERY cartoonist they almost have to pay the newspapers to include their strips. Can’t be the excitement of drawing nubile teenagers, there isn’t one of them much worth a second look, much less worth the tortured, spirit-crushing tedium of drawing it every day. Why does he go on?
Donkey Hotey
March 1st, 2009 at 8:26 pm [Reply]

#355 mordock999 -

I am a high school teacher, and while I have to say there aren’t MANY teenagers that dumb, there definitely are some. However, Luann’s actions most of the time, while annoying, definitely don’t make her come across as one of them. So I too call “foul” on the “gets the red out” gag.
Muffaroo
March 1st, 2009 at 9:18 pm [Reply]

kalki @346 – Actually, as 345 reminds us, Wilson’s middle names must needs include “Fortunato.” Dennis would be Montresor. No doubt his parents intended to send him to a Montessori school and misread the name on the sign. With howl-arious consequences!
da Germ
March 1st, 2009 at 11:22 pm [Reply]

Whatever happened to Barney Google anyway? Seems he retired way before he launched his search engine…
Poteet
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am [Reply]

# 355 mordock999 — I must regretfully voice my opinion that there are human beings of all ages who are indeed that dumb. Fortunately, many more are not.
cre8ive
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:10 am [Reply]

This week’s Archie is a 7 pointer… 3 bust-shadow-crescents at 1 point each and 2 crotch-indicating-Ys at 2 points each.
Lunarhalo
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm [Reply]

Archie:

You credit not your father’s heros, nor
the scavenged skins they wore. Re-taled pursuits
like theirs don’t interest daughters that adore
winking talismans from the cult of cute.

Yours are relevant relics – dangling for
a moment from your ear. But they were charged
by speed-ball expletives your father swore
in his kinetic fields of youth. Enlarged

commitments may have overwhelmed the rage
of boyhood dreams, but they remain within
that phantom zone behind your need to cage
limitless worlds in brittle plastic. When

the numbers fade, when Earth’s four corners bend
whose wrath will fund your appetite to spend.

You know, I thought I was all clever noticing that Mr. Lodge looked like he was in the phantom zone a couple days back, only to notice that 2 out of the first 10 posters mentioned it already(although it’s difficult to be disappointed in an internet community that fast on the uptake).

fortunately I can still be the first person to try to make some obscure reference to Fess Parker or grind out some half-assed Speedball(the marvel superhero) pun.

woo
Steve
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

Herb and Jamaal made a joke that I actually found funny… I’m not sure, but I think that this may be cause for ritual suicide

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