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Here comes the groom, all dressed in skin-tight purple spandex

The Phantom, 10/9/05

Maybe I still have weddings on the brain, but there was nothing in Sunday’s comics more amusing than the wedding flashback in the final panel of The Phantom. And I thought we had an eclectic guest list! Mr. and Mrs. Walker (for GHOST-WHO-WALKS, everybody!) apparently invited, from right to left: a shirtless white dude; a Native Canadian fresh from FBOFW’s pow-wow; a sad clown from a velvet painting; Bruce Willis; a top-hatted fop; a Keebler Elf in a cone hat; and, of course, Rex Morgan’s Buck, before graduate school reduced him to a pus-encrusted drifter. The groom apparently couldn’t even be bothered to put on a tie for the occasion. Why not take some sartorial cues from President Luaga, Ghost-Who-Has-Only-Two-Outfits? He seems like quite the natty dresser.

Incidentally, what exactly is the Phantom doing with his left hand in the second panel of the second row? It looks like he’s about to pick a chocolate out of a sampler box on the president’s desk … very dramatically.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9, 2005 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Phantom.

68 responses to “Here comes the groom, all dressed in skin-tight purple spandex”

2fs
October 9th, 2005 at 10:19 pm [Reply]

That’s not Bruce Willis. That’s E. Graham Lewis from Wire.

Oh: uh, “One!” (Sorry – got my ordinals and cardinals mixed.)
gnome de blog
October 9th, 2005 at 11:03 pm [Reply]

Is the top-hatted fop possibly Mandrake the Magician?

Will he gesture hypnotically™ and make the entire story-line go away?
Dub Not Dubya
October 9th, 2005 at 11:32 pm [Reply]

The “Rhodians” are up to no good? But of course. We Rhode Islanders are proud of being villains in seldom-read comics. It’s much better than being a unit of measurement (”a forest fire the size of Rhode Island”) or being mistaken for a suburb of New York City.

Also, as to what the Phantom is doing with his left hand, I’m more concerned about that in regards to the leftmost panel in the third row. I thought Saint Ellie Patterson was the only comics character allowed to scratch her butt and make the readers watch.
kippetje2000
October 9th, 2005 at 11:40 pm [Reply]

The Big Grape’s underwire bra is showing under his right breast in panel one of the second row. And my, those are some hairy knuckles he has, don’t you think? Is his lovely bride tatooed from the neck to the wrists? She looks a bit like the human Enigma. Mawitaan is that in the neighborhood of Mtigwaskifooberville? Me not so good at geography.
Bill Peschel
October 9th, 2005 at 11:58 pm [Reply]

Is it only me who always giggles at the word “Bangalla.” Maybe that’s why President Luaga’s keeping his chin firmly in place in panel 3.
glynn
October 10th, 2005 at 12:54 am [Reply]

Yes, it IS Mandrake and the Bruce Willis clone next to him is his trusty sidekick Luthor! It all makes sense!
Matt
October 10th, 2005 at 2:46 am [Reply]

His bride to be probably wouldn’t be smiling so broadly if she knew his thirty-seventh title was “Ghost-Who-Can-Just-Be-Friends”.
mako
October 10th, 2005 at 4:46 am [Reply]

…
WTF is the joke supposed to be in BC today?
Mumblix Grumph
October 10th, 2005 at 5:16 am [Reply]

“From the vile minds of criminals…charming…Hey, donuts!”
Kaliflower
October 10th, 2005 at 5:50 am [Reply]

Mr. Ghost Who Walks seems to be gearing up to give that box of donuts a hardcore knuckle sandwich. Carbohydrates? POW!
yellojkt
October 10th, 2005 at 6:58 am [Reply]

Three posts in twelve hours. What is giving Josh this burst of energy? The honeymoon must be over.
anon
October 10th, 2005 at 7:28 am [Reply]

The purple one has a “dear friend”? That sounds odd coming from a masked spandex clad crime fighter, but then, everything does. Why wasn’t Tarzan invited to the wedding? Maybe the shirtless white guy is “Boy” standing in for his dad.
Rifleman
October 10th, 2005 at 7:55 am [Reply]

Finally, Lynn gets back to the nasty neighbors story line in FBOFW. Mike shares his house with one other couple and the land lady. No, they wont recognize themselves!
mooselet
October 10th, 2005 at 8:02 am [Reply]

Gee, Josh, I bet now you wish you wore purple spandex at your wedding, doncha?
BigJoe
October 10th, 2005 at 8:33 am [Reply]

Today’s Crankshaft. Huh?

http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/comics/archive/showComick.mpl?date=20051010&name=Crankshaft
payola
October 10th, 2005 at 9:01 am [Reply]

Yee haww, Mike? Clogging at the Paleface Powwow next?

And who put ibogaine in Mary’s sherry? Just enough wind for a pleasant breeze but not enough to stop us? Stilted suggestions of consummation? Maybe, but with cardboard cutouts or action figures standing in for the protagonists. Hot Geritol coupling by proxy.

I believe Santa Royale actually exists, in two dimensions. Bad feeliing about the boat ride–an ill-fated encounter with Dread Pirate Clutch Cargo, if they aren’t waylaid and shanghaied with GHB-laced aperitif’s at the Bum Boat by Space Angel.
Sheila
October 10th, 2005 at 9:21 am [Reply]

Does the Phantom have a weight room? Just askin’.
Zzedar
October 10th, 2005 at 9:29 am [Reply]

I think there’s a sheet of paper detailing what they know about the assassination scheme on the desk, and the Phantom’s either about to pick it up or has just put it down. See, in the previous panel Luaga is gesturing at something on his desk.
Big Ben
October 10th, 2005 at 9:42 am [Reply]

Hey, am I supposed to feel nostalgic about raking leaves after reading today’s (10-10) Crankshaft? WTF, eh? Or are they hinting that it’s the last time he’ll do it, like they’ve been doing for the last few weeks? It’s most likely the ulcers from running over kids and mailboxes.
yellojkt
October 10th, 2005 at 9:51 am [Reply]

In the absence of weights, the Phantom uses Bandar pygmies.

And I think the Crankshaft Rorsharch test is that the size of the leaf piles is proportional to the size of the tree. But WTF?, your guess is as good as mine.
Maughta
October 10th, 2005 at 10:09 am [Reply]

Oh. My. Gd.

I never thought I’d live to see the day that Lynn would actually revisit a dangling plot thread in the Foobverse. What’s next? Howard Erk on trial?!?
BigJoe
October 10th, 2005 at 10:17 am [Reply]

#19 – I considered that possibility (leaf piles correspond to tree size), but then he’s making a third pile near the driveway next to…an evergreen. Even if the pile size corresponds to the tree size….so?

It would have been better if the comic had piles under the trees and one “pile” under Crankshaft. (He is rather old after all.)
elduende
October 10th, 2005 at 10:20 am [Reply]

the new mtigwacky section of st. lynn’s website has made my life easier AND more meaningful:

Mtigwaki (mm-TIG-wa-keh): the “land of trees” where Elizabeth lives

Below is a pronunciation guide for the vowels and stops used in Ojibwe words:

aa: all
ii: see, tree, glee
oo: toe, no
e: red
a: up, cup
i: tip, bit,
o: book
‘: indicates a stop or pause
Irina
October 10th, 2005 at 10:36 am [Reply]

Josh has a cat named Hoagie.

That’s adorable :)
Library Cat
October 10th, 2005 at 10:38 am [Reply]

“You officiated at our wedding, remember?”

Remember? Do you remember that time…she wore all white and a veil… the cast of Carnivale was there…I was wearing purple spandex with a hood and a big belt, you know, like the outfit Iâ€™m wearing now… remember?
MotoMike
October 10th, 2005 at 11:02 am [Reply]

Hey, Get Fuzzy is actually back to the form that might provide humor – and today’s make me laugh, albeit lightly (”… stabbeth the messenger”?). Curious that this happened at the same time that FBOFW got away from the travelogue. Coincidence? I think … actually, I think so: no way on God’s green earth that the same person could write both GF and FBOFW. Hard enough to read both of them.
By the way, though, did anybody catch the Sunday Bizarro – “Bil Keane on vacation, so Albrecht Durer filling in” and the last panel showing Billy (that his name?) being terrified and running from a woodcut of the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse? Real satisfaction…
Maughta
October 10th, 2005 at 11:23 am [Reply]

Remember? You had to be rescued by helicopter? And it crashed? Into the zoo? And the tiger? And then you caught fire?

And you were wearing your blue jumper…
Old Fogey
October 10th, 2005 at 11:24 am [Reply]

Uh…not that anyone was speaking of Sally Forth, but I quit reading it a couple of years ago because it had gotten so boring, and now I see that Ralph is apparently working at McDonald’s. Did he get fired? Why? Who got his job? Sally?

Old Fogey
Archivalist
October 10th, 2005 at 11:43 am [Reply]

Never mind the cast of freaks at the wedding — since when did Ghost-whose-crotch-is-always-off-panel marry Loretta Swit?
Library Cat
October 10th, 2005 at 11:48 am [Reply]

Old Fogey, (gosh that sounds rude)

We could tell you but then we’d have to kill you…with boredom! HAHAHA No, actually I think I can help you out here. A new exec. type came in as Ralph’s superior and started noticing, with a little help from Sally, that Ralph didn’t do anything. The exec. implied to Sally that he would give her Ralph’s job so she worked extra hard doing all the things Ralph didn’t do anyway. And then he turned around in evil exec. style and told her to put together a list of other people to hire for Ralph’s job including an old friend of his. In the end, the exec. hired the old friend who turned out to be a “good guy” but the depressing office status quo remains because budget cuts force them to use the same coffee filters over and over. Ralph went through a period of ennui and called Sally every few days to complain of his feelings of boredom and worthlessness. Ralph then saw teenagers working at a food court and decided he could be their leader with his vast experience of slackerism and ennui. Now let’s all take a nap.
Mazement
October 10th, 2005 at 11:52 am [Reply]

Sally Forth: It all kind of blurs together in my head, but I vaguely remember that Sally’s company got a new vice president who fired Ralph for general incompetence. At first it looked like Sally was being considered for Ralph’s job, but then the VP hired one of his friends, which lead to some speculation that cronyism was involved and the new supervisor would be even worse than Ralph. But he actually turned out to be an OK guy and all the employees like him. Of course he’s hardly ever in the strip; having a good boss doesn’t present too many comic opportunities.

The latest storyline shows a lot of promise, though. Hilary doesn’t have any friends at her new middle school and has started spending a lot of time drawing. Apparently she’s pretty good, and I’m hoping that things will take a Vincent Van Gogh twist.
BigJoe
October 10th, 2005 at 11:53 am [Reply]

#28 – Sally Forth – yes, Fogey, Ralph was forced out by the new management and now works managing a fast food place. He was replaced by some outsider. The story was setting it up as if Ralph’s boss forced him out to get his pal in, and that the pal may be “evil”. But then he turned out to be a decent manager. And then….I don’t think there ever was an “and then” after that. Wherever that storyline was going it just kind of disappeared.

And I’m ashamed to admit I know that whole boring story.
Library Cat
October 10th, 2005 at 11:55 am [Reply]

Well, I’m glad we all cleared that up.
BigJoe
October 10th, 2005 at 11:56 am [Reply]

#30 – Library Cat – Bah ha ha, I love your recap even better. Now let’s all take a nap. Perfect.
The Rexecutioner
October 10th, 2005 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

RE: yesterday and today’s A3G
Why does it not surprise me that the only 24 hours of reader tension that A3G has ever managed to produce was in fact due to something as lame as a bad telephone connection?
arto
October 10th, 2005 at 2:04 pm [Reply]

Why is the Ghost-Who-Wears-Pants getting married in costume, anyway? Does he not have the standard superhero Secret Identity? Or is he actually some kinda spandex-clad, pygmy-saving bigamist?
gnome de blog
October 10th, 2005 at 2:18 pm [Reply]

His Secret Identity is Mr. Walker*. He wears a fedora, sunglasses and a trenchcoat so he can blend in with the populace. This works really well in tropical Africa, where he spends most of his time.

The purple spandex probably has secret Bandar™ cooling properties.

President Luaga, on the other hand, always wears a morning suit. He must be English.

______
*for Ghost Who Walks
2fs
October 10th, 2005 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

Re the mysterious synchronized schedules of FBOFW and GF: Clearly, Lynn Johnston kidnapped and drugged Darby Conley, then took him off to Mt. Foob where they went totally roadside for a few weeks. Rob’s disheveled hairdo in today’s cartoon is the only hint Conley has that anything untoward happened.
Old Fogey
October 10th, 2005 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

Thanks to everyone for clearing up the Sally Forth mystery. Whew! What a relief!

31: do you mean you want Hilary to cut her ear off? Sounds interesting….

Old Fogey
anon
October 10th, 2005 at 3:32 pm [Reply]

I’m still all agog over that Phantom Wedding. Is the Ghost-Who-Walk’s “dear friend” an actual ghost? She’s solid white. That gallery of freaks in the background – what’s with the top hat?
dre
October 10th, 2005 at 3:46 pm [Reply]

re: crankshaft – i think he’s just po’d cuz he found a dogpile underneath that little tree. he raked around it. you’re supposed to understand that he’s plotting to “neutralize” the canine population in his ‘hood. this will lead to an armed standoff with the fuzz and that damned strip will finally come to an end.
JB
October 10th, 2005 at 3:56 pm [Reply]

Well, that will teach me to read Josh’s verbiage a bit closer. Here I thought he was directing my attention to the first panel in the third row when he expressed “…heâ€™s about to pick a chocolate out of a sampler box…” I thought that was some clever new euphemism for picking a wedgie/scratching your backside. In fact, I think I’m going to start using that one from now on…maybe even adding in “on the presidentâ€™s desk.”
Islamorada Girl
October 10th, 2005 at 4:16 pm [Reply]

What IS with the president always wearing a morning suit? Does he receive new ambassadors every day or what? That would be the only time the chief executive of a country would have to wear a morning suit. Just once, I’d like to see that guy a nice business suit from Men’s Warehouse. He’s hot. Seeing him in like shorts and a Beasely Hawiian shirt is just a dream, I guess.
Anne Nonymous
October 10th, 2005 at 4:22 pm [Reply]

“Seeing him in like shorts and a Beasely Hawiian shirt is just a dream, I guess.”

I-Girl, he IS pretty good-looking. Never mind the shorts and Hawaiian shirt, think “little-bitty, really tight Speedo.”
kippetje2000
October 10th, 2005 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

He Who Must Chaff Alot seems to have the secret power of turning the background to purple whenever anything gets tense. Middle Panel Second Row. Crankshaft is actually raking leaves over the corpses of the two neighbor bitties, after losing another gardening contest to them. The third pile is for the latest mailbox he’s creamed with the bus. He still drives a bus doesn’t he? Or have they finally taken his liscense away? You know those old people get confused over which is the gas or brake peddles and then plow through some farmers market at high speed.
gnome de blog
October 10th, 2005 at 6:35 pm [Reply]

Then again our president never wears a morning suit and look what we got.
Frank Drackman
October 10th, 2005 at 8:58 pm [Reply]

Is that the Indian Chief from The Village People in the background of the Phantoms wedding?
Mibbitmaker
October 11th, 2005 at 1:55 am [Reply]

10/10 – 10/11:

FBOFW: Oh, my God, they rescued the Kelpfroths from Letters Hell! And Mr. K is dumber than a bag of fertilizer; he thinks ratcheting up the offenses for which Michael is getting even in print won’t possibly lead to more revenge articles. You get what you deserve, Kelp, baby.

FW: Uh-oh… (sigh!), what horrible tragedy’s going to befall the cast *this* time…….

A3G: What do you do when you’re to dumb to think on your own? Steal someone else’s idea and pass it off as your own, business rat style. Two days of disapproving looks from the 3rd wheel of this living arrangement tell you anything, Lu Ann?

SF (today): That’s just the lazy, please-everyone Classic Rock station we hear too much of these days. Ideally, they could expand in terms of album tracks, groups played, and styles squeezed into the format. It would help, too, if they’d remember that classic rock is SUPPOSED to be ’60s-’70s, not ’70s-’80s. I first listened to classic rock IN the ’80s to ESCAPE from ’80s rock.

(I guess I should never complain when Beasley goes all off-topic, huh)

10/11 FC: Looks like someone snuck in one of those Disfunctional Family Circus spoofs into the mix. Kinda nice, ain’t it?
MrP
October 11th, 2005 at 7:32 am [Reply]

Having actually read the comic about The Phantom’s wedding, I can say that that’s definitely Mandrake and Luthor in the background. As for the rest, uhm… Lessee… There’s the wise old man-type guy from the Bandar village, whose English name I don’t know… There’s Lana’s mom (Lana’s her English name, right? For some reason, they named her Sala in the Norwegian translations), I think. The white kid is Rex, the Phantom’s adopted son. Whose name is one usually reserved for dogs because, well, he’s the actual son of some king somewhere.

Aaaand I’m sure the few I haven’t mentioned are the chiefs of those tribes nearby the Phantom’s always settling quabbles between. Y’know how it goes: “You stole our cattle!” “Nuh-uh! You stole ours!” And then it turns out that an outside force stole the cattle/kidnapped the chiefs’ sons/whatever to provoke war between them.
MotoMike
October 11th, 2005 at 8:15 am [Reply]

Re: #38
Ah, it all becomes clear now. The behind-the-scenes machinations of comic authors are rife with drama.

There’s a country-western song in there some place.
joeyjoejoe
October 11th, 2005 at 8:31 am [Reply]

Two questions about (Death To) Gil Thorp:

1) In today’s strip, did Gil accidentally glue his hand to his head? If not, what the hell is going on?

2) Is “Kenya” the only guy on the cheerleading squad, or the only girl on the football team, or an androgynous, multipurpose token black character who does double duty?
Sassy_Rocks
October 11th, 2005 at 9:41 am [Reply]

How many platitudes would a meddler spew if a meddler could spew platitudes?

plati-spewed
Robert Canipe, PhD
October 11th, 2005 at 10:32 am [Reply]

I think both Conley and Johnston were on vacation at the same time so their strips were “fill-ins” and boy do they waste ink, paper, and time!
jamison
October 11th, 2005 at 10:38 am [Reply]

9cwl—if only they could stay like that. sigh.

i’m sorry. i like when boy meets girl, and discovers she’s….wonderful. i hate the complications that follow.
Smitty Smudflap
October 11th, 2005 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

Oh no! Will M**ford have to forfeit those first two victories, due to the participation of “Brick?”

I sure hope so. And then I hope the jocks turn on him and give him the beatings he so would’ve gotten the second he showed up at the first tryout at any high school in North America.
Smitty Smudflap
October 11th, 2005 at 12:10 pm [Reply]

Outstanding comment of the week this week, by the way.
rich
October 11th, 2005 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

More crossovers – Mrs. Kelpfroth in today’s Mother Goose and Grimm.
rich
October 11th, 2005 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

Upcoming in Fborfw:

Kelpfroth fires a pistol at the ceiling, tragically striking Meredith amidst her innocent nightly chant of “Bounce!! Bounce!! Bally-Ball! Hit the Wall — erk!!!”

Meredith’s gigantic puffy lips join Farley’s ghostly dog visage in the cloudy skies over Foobville.

Mike finally quits his day job with the publication of his best-selling memoir, “The Two St. Pattersons You Meet in Heaven.”
Irina
October 11th, 2005 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

Something similar occured to me, Rich, but not nearly so macabre –

We can see that ol’ Melville is hitting the ceiling now hard enough to make the plaster/drywall come down.

Maybe if he pounds it hard enough, he weaken its structure sufficiently that next time Deanna’s mom comes by, the old biddy will fall through, and break her neck, thus solving two of Mikey’s problems — that of his M-I-L, and giving Lovey enough justification for throwing the Kelpforths out of her apartment …

Like she hasn’t had enough already.
dimestore lipstick
October 11th, 2005 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

It’s come to this. I’ve Googled (DT)Gil Thorp.

I must now perform ritual suicide to rid my family of the shame.
Mibbitmaker
October 11th, 2005 at 1:54 pm [Reply]

I’m actually alittle surprised Blondie and Dagwood didn’t show up at the Phantom wedding, given that Mandrake and Lothar made it. “Surprised” as in relieved.
gnome de blog
October 11th, 2005 at 2:26 pm [Reply]

Mandrake and Lothar are there because Phantom and Mandrake were both created by Lee Falk.

Not only that, Mandrake’s long-time girlfriend (now wife) Princess Narda looks an awful lot like Phantoms long-time girlfriend (now wife) Diana Palmer.
Sassy_Rocks
October 11th, 2005 at 3:14 pm [Reply]

Is Lynn Johnston a born again evangelical by any chance? She sure paints a stark contrast between the morally perfect, responsible, upright, saintly Pattersons (and Saintly native Mtigwakans) and the devious, low-life, cigar smoking, ceiling pounding, bad cheque writing Kourtneys, Therese’s and Klepfroths of the world, eh? It’s kind of like “You’re with the Saintly Pattersons or you’re with the terr’ists”.
yellojkt
October 11th, 2005 at 3:15 pm [Reply]

joeyjoejoe,

Kenya is also the school guidance counselor that told Gil he is forfeiting the season. She has to run around real fast between panels to change costumes since he/she plays every African American in the strip. Just like Garrett Morris in the original SNL.
mooselet
October 11th, 2005 at 7:18 pm [Reply]

Is a plati-spewed a cousin of a platypus? Only in human form?
mooselet
October 11th, 2005 at 7:23 pm [Reply]

All things being equal in the Foobverse, I’d rather deal with the Kelpfroths and Mrs. K’s odd facial angles than the endless slideshow of Mtigiwannahackaloogie.

If the Kelpfroths’s were serious about sueing, they’d sue the paper, not the St. Pattersons.
mooselet
October 11th, 2005 at 7:28 pm [Reply]

Will this more-dull-than-watching-paint-dry plot in Spiderman never end?? My God who cares???

And over in the medical world of RMMD, is there really a question as to why the solider/patient is depressed? One doesn’t need a medical degree to figure that one out, you quack!
ballyball
March 12th, 2006 at 7:13 pm [Reply]

Don’t know what the hell this post is about but feel free to visit my blog and enjoy my adventures.

P.S. I love comics

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Here comes the groom, all dressed in skin-tight purple spandex

68 responses to “Here comes the groom, all dressed in skin-tight purple spandex”

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