Gil Thorp joins the future
Gil Thorp, 7/5/09
HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS GIL THORP HAS A TWITTER! GIL THORP. HAS A TWITTER. And before you say, “Oh, the character Gil Thorp has a Twitter within the context of the fictional Gil Thorp universe, how mundane,” let me just assure you that while Gil Thorp may be a narrative construct his Twitter feed is all too real. Just think of the tweeting slap-fights that will soon break out with Marty Moon!
I am a little concerned about Gil’s statement that he has “a whole beautiful summer to figure it out.” Summertime in Gil Thorp is supposed to be about total deranged lunacy like Gail Martin hiring Coach Kaz, P.I. and Marty Moon getting grifted by Ben Franklin and little girls beating the crap out of each other at gymnastics and Von the teenage DJ protecting his older lady friend from a stalker who can’t spell. Last year’s long, boring continuation of the tale of Elmer the Accidental Illegal Immigrant was a terrible disappointment in this regard, but it will seem like a crazed, non-stop roller-coaster ride on PCP by comparison if we spend the next two months watching nothing but Gil laboriously hunting-and-pecking his way through four or five Twitter updates a day.
Blondie, 7/4/09
Underlying the the absurd, low-stakes suburban antics of Dagwood and his friends has always been a sense of ennui, a feeling that there must be more to life to experience that carpools and borrowed tools. Thus, it’s not surprising that Dagwood and Herb have decided to form a two-man anarchist terror cell, determined to spread destruction for its own sake, offering to their neighbors the joy of being alive that only close encounters with death can provide. Today the bowling alley goes up in flames, tomorrow Dithers Enterprises LLC’s headquarters!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/09
Good lord, why would Peter ever even consider stepping out on his lovely wife? Estelle the Nutritionist may be fetching enough, but she’d probably look at that plate of lo mein and mutter under her breath about sodium and MSG; Becka, meanwhile, knows just how to drive a man wild, sucking a single long noodle slowly up from the plate while locking her unblinking, reptilian eyes on Pete. Undeniably HOTT, am I right people?
Spider-Man, 7/4/09
If panel three is any indication, the way that Peter Parker makes moments last forever is by crapping in his pants. That way, if someone asks him, “Peter, what would consider to be your greatest achievement as a professional photographer?” he can say “That’s easy! It was the day I got the Bugle to buy my pictures at twice their usual rates! I remember because that was also the day I pooped in my drawers.”
July 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Trouble in the Alzheimer’s building? Like what? An elderly forgetful coup-d’etat? Elderly forgetful zombies? Elderly forgetful vampires? What?
July 5th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Blondie: Considering the way the Blondie characters are drawn, it makes perfect sense that they would incorporate a classic cartoon bomb into their repertoire at some point. On Monday we will see Dagwood in his chair napping while Dithers is next to him with a pair of scissors while an anvil suspended above Dag with a rope is moments away from falling.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Beck and Peter are having the asian meal that is NOT served at the Beijing Hotel in Apartment 3G.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Stick with Becka, Peter: hot lips, sized right.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Hate to bust your bubble, but Peter Parker is only day-dreaming about getting double pay for his work.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I cut out panel 3 of today’s Spider-man and put it in a big, gaudy frame.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Poor ol’ Peter Parker has apparently forgotten which now-lame series he’s in. This isn’t Heroes, Spidey! You can’t just close your eyes really hard and freeze time!
July 5th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Don’t make Spider-Man into Marvin, Josh! For the love of God, please don’t make Spider-Man into Marvin!!! (sobs)
7/5 JP: Today’s cop-out is brought to you by the Nixon administration, the 2000 Supreme Court, and the Iranian mullahs.
(Hey, if the 9/11 perps can go to a strip joint, the mullahs can judge a cheerleading contest)
July 5th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Wow, I haven’t seen a shiny cartoon bomb like that in years… *sigh*
July 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
MW: Omigod, that’s Aldo’s long-lost son, isn’t it?
July 5th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
As I don’t scrupulously follow Spiderman, how exactly does he take photos that he’s in? Does he have a ghost-photographer? Is he taking credit for other people’s work? Is he just taking stills from a webcam’d laptop he carries with him, mostly so he can watch Hulu in the park? What? How does that even work?
July 5th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Blondie: My only hope is that in the coming week Herb and Dagwood will continue on this course and star in a violent, profanity-laden Mametian oeuvre showcasing the oppressive bleakness of suburban life.
Rage, Dagwood! Rage while still the blood still flows in your veins!
July 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’m sorry because I know this is gonna get tiresome to y’all real fast, but I have to say it again: I like the Spiderman daily strip because it feels like the old Spiderman comics used to. I’m changing my handle to permanently reflect that, and I will certainly snark on the strip when the particulars are unbearably deserving.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Hey, an old-timey “BOMB” bomb! Boris Badenov must be on the next lane.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Peter Parker: Photoshopper.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
MW: Delilah was driven almost to the breaking point by Mary’s clever and insightful argument consisting of repeating how special marriage is until their eardrums bleed, until she was suddenly distracted by the stunning good looks and witty repartee of what appears to be a young Stephen Fry.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Peter Parker is obviously off his nut, asking for double the fee for his photos while J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie have to share a single chair.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
J. Jonah Jameson is totally getting ripped off — by the time those double-priced still photos appear in his old-time newsy-paper, a high-def video of the entire fight will have been running on TMZ for more than a day. (For that matter, Doctor Octopus was probably live-tweeting the whole thing with one of his free arms.)
July 5th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Clearly it’s only a matter of time before Blondie devolves into Spy vs. Spy. …is devolve the word I’m looking for here? Do I possible mean “becomes incredibly awesome by turning”?
July 5th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I guess Peter Parker has something in common with Marvin, though Marvin leads a more adventurous life.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Look at the picture Gil Thorp chose for his Twitter account. At first I thought it was one of those instances where it was just cropped weird when uploaded to Twitter, but no. He really did decide that his chin had no place on the internet. (And I’m not even going to mention those creepy eyelashes.)
http://twitter.com/account/profile_image/CoachGilThorp?hreflang=en
July 5th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Woo, Gil Thorp on Twitter! Hold onto your hats, folks, ’cause the #sexting hash tag just got a whole lot less interesting.
July 5th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Note how drastically Dagwood’s arms have shrunk in the third panel. He’s not going to be rolling that bomb very far without any elbows. The most surreal suicide bombing on record?
July 5th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
“Thus, it’s not surprising that Dagwood and Herb have decided to form a two-man anarchist terror cell, determined to spread destruction for its own sake, offering to their neighbors the joy of being alive that only close encounters with death can provide. Today the bowling alley goes up in flames, tomorrow Dithers Enterprises LLC’s headquarters!”
Uh, technically their objective would more likely be to induce the proletariat into rising up and destroying the oppressive capitalist state through their propaganda of the deed, so the lives of their bourgeoisie neighbors are probably forfeit too.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Take out the first panel of Gil Thorpe and it becomes one of the dirtiest sounding things to come out of this comic.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Who knew that Sacco and Vanzetti liked to bowl.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
“I’ll be twitting with the best of them in no time.”
“Don’t you mean tweeting?”
In most instances, yes, he’s right. To use Twitter is to tweet. However, I can’t imagine Gil Thorp doing anything besides something called “twitting.” “Twitting” (from “to twit”) for Coach is an existential fact, similar to “being” for most humans.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
“I heard they were having trouble over in the Alzheimer’s building.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I forget.”
July 5th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
You get a real good sense her of Spider-Man’s mercenary racket of fighting super-villains just to get hotos for The Daily Bugle, as he pauses in the middle of alleged combat to mug for his own photo in that second shot.
I bet he gives Wolverine and Dr. Octopus each a cut.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Tlachtga @11 – Spider-Man has an amazing little camera, that can be webbed in place without falling down before he retrieves it. While there, it ‘automatically’ catches perfectly composed shots of the most dramatic parts of the action, which Pete sells for a pittance. In short:
1) Stick camera to wall
2) “Here a miracle occurs”
3) Profit!
July 5th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I think Peter’s greatest photography achievement probably involves taking pictures of his television set.
Dagwood’s neighbor seems to be an honest-to-goodness psychopath. Pretty much every time he shows up he either tries to get Dagwood killed or at least alludes to the fact he wishes Dagwood was dead. I know it was a long time ago, but I can’t forget the strip where Dagwood needs to climb onto his roof and Herb holds the ladder for him, then drops it because he hears his phone ringing, causing Dagwood to fall off the top of the ladder and land head-first in the bushes. And then Herb comes out and laments to his near-dead friend how “funny” it is that the call was a wrong number. PSYCHOPATH.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Dagwood hurling bowling ball bombs is just the kind of villain Spiderman could handle.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I don’t really follow Rex Morgan M.D., so I was surprised by the choice of the names for what I assume are hospital buildings: the Alzheimer’s Building, The Dell… It’s like the all the adminstrators said, “You know, screw trying to come of with fakely comforting names. We all know hospitals are depressing; let’s name our buildings are after diseases and computers that catch on fire. Let’s be Funky Winkerbean.”
July 5th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Let’s try that again with all ten fingers:
You get a real good sense here of Spider-Man’s mercenary racket of fighting super-villains just to get photos for The Daily Bugle, as he pauses in the middle of alleged combat to mug for his own photo in that second shot.
I bet he gives Wolverine and Dr. Octopus each a cut.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Blondie: Viva la revolution!! Although I’m sure the local SWAT team will make short work of Herb and Dagwood, us patriots will long remember their sacrifice.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Please tell me this GT comic isn’t a continuation of the internet hijinks plot of recent. I really don’t need to see Gil Thorp naked.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Now that Gil Thorp has discovered Twitter brand messaging and the putatively hilarious possibilities in its nomenclature, it’s only a matter of time until the “Marvin” strip devotes a full week to him talking about it in his wacky babyspeak: “I made a twat!”
Maybe it’s time to introduce both strips to the concept of Keyboard Cat. We could glue some letter keys to Garfield and get him to eat Marvin. And then we could all go watch TV while Garfield played Schroeder’s toy piano forever.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
#18 BigTed: (For that matter, Doctor Octopus was probably live-tweeting the whole thing with one of his free arms.)
I want to see the Doc Ock twitter! I might even pay money to see it. (Okay, probably not.)
3:27: Need money for experiments–going to withdraw some at the bank.
3:38: Drat that Spider-Man!
3:39 Memo, steal new TV for S-M. Digital. Keep him busy.
3:40: Oooo, adamantium. What’s with goatee he’s sporting? Never there before.
3:41: Forget Wolverine-adamantium idea; adamantium is hard metal and won’t melt.
3:43 Kill Wolverine for fun of it, then.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Doesn’t look like a poop face to me. THIS is a poop face:
http://www.puolenkuunpelit.com/kauppa/images/gb_supermario_advance.jpg
Hey, wait a minute. How can you deride Marvin for relying on poop humor, and yet do the same yourself?
Fruh = Hypocrite!
July 6th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Yeah, that’s not a poop face. That’s Peter Parker’s orgasm face.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Remember when Gil Thorp had a six week story arc about a hideously scarred little girl and the “artwork” was such that she often looked better than the supposedly non-hideous little girls? Remember when characters’ arms were almost never attached to characters’ shoulders, and all the high school girls had male-pattern baldness, and Coach Kaz wore lovely 10mm pearl earrings and plucked his brows? Remember? ‘Cause that was AWESOME.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I have long awaited the day when Dagwood or one of his coworkers @ Dithers LLC went postal on the old man. He’s had it coming for years.
Muffaroo @ 30: Nice S. Harris reference.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
S-M: Seriously. Jonah needs a shock collar that activates when he implies how evil Spiderman is, no matter how innocuous the appearence.
The convolutions depends on how convoluted his explanations.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Spiderman made Boom-Boom in his pants!
(Ok, so I’ve been watching too much ‘Penguins of Madagascar’ with my 5-yr old, but really – imagine it with a deep, sonorous, TV anchor-voice of old…)
July 7th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Eldaglass, they call it the Alzheimer’s Building because they can’t remember what it’s actually called.