Reefer madness
Gil Thorp, 10/30/09
I may not be the most knowledgeable guy in the world when it comes to football — I lost all my play money in my family’s NFL pool by the end of week four this year — but I know enough to know that generally when one of your guys runs a punt back 98 yards for a touchdown, that’s a good thing, right? And yet there’s Coach Kaz, looking horrified and flapping his hands around theatrically. I suppose it’s not considered classy to run up the score when you’re already winning by more than two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and we’re going learn some Valuable Lessons About Sportsmanship.
In a larger sense, I’m finally figuring out that there are really only two basic story-driving Mudlark character types: troubled loners and loudmouth jerks. And in this year’s football storyline we’re getting one of each! In SAT analogy terms, Duncan Daley:Cully Vale::Jamarr Gaddis:Andrew Gregory.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/30/09
Oh, man, just when I thought I couldn’t love Cue any more, what with his shiny bald head, his general attitude right on the border between menace and dyspepsia, and his continued and reckless use of the word “crib,” it turns out that he’s also a small-time pot dealer! “Take it easy man … I just called to get some weed” shall be solemnly inscribed in the book of Greatest Rex Morgan Quotes Ever; it certainly compares favorably to “Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to kill your buzz” for soap opera drug lingo verisimilitude. Now, you might think that Cue is being pretty selfless, passing up an opportunity to profit from the sale of illegal narcotics in order to bring these poor souls back to their home, but he’s actually thinking strategically. Someone in his line of work would love to have contact with a group of people who are largely idle all day, have a little bit of money, and don’t particularly care about any damage they might do to their short-term memory. Yes, sir, this trip’s gonna be lucrative for ol’ Cue, reward or no.
For Better Or For Worse, 10/30/09
Today is the day when I break my blood oath to ignore the pure rerun installments of FBOFW on this blog. I do so because I am so very, very amused by the title of the girlie magazine that John is reading not ten feet away from his wife in panel three. What sort of photography, pray tell, graces the inside pages of Nacho Man? Are there pictures of nearly nude ladies, their most intimate parts concealed only by a thick, gelatinous layer of melted nacho cheese? Are there sexy photo spreads featuring other popular bar foods, like chicken wings or mozzarella sticks? The mind boggles, and one ought to be thankful that we can clearly see both of John’s hands. Also of note is the ad on the back of this fine publication for Lion Tamer cologne, which, I assume, smells of sawdust, circus peanuts, panicked sweat, and lion shit.
Crock, 10/30/09
I kind of love the miserable expression on the face of Anonymous Legionnaire On The Left in panel two. It’s as if he knows that he will only appear in this one strip, and that his only purpose in his mayfly-brief existence is to elicit the punchline for this awful, awful joke, but despite that terrible self-knowledge, he is incapable of stopping himself.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
A football point: generally, when a punt is going to land at the 2-yard line, it is better to let it bounce in to the end zone for a touchback (putting you at the 20 yard line) than to catch it and risk being pinned near your own goal line.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I read it as “Nacho” too, at first, but closer inspection seems to indicate that it says “Macho Man.”
Which is clearly gay porn. Yes, indeed, it takes an active imagination to fantasize your wife as one of those men, doesn’t it, John?
(I will say that the rerun FBOFW seem to portray John in a bad light. I didn’t read it back then–or really before this blog–so I wonder was that how it was, or is Lynn choosing the bad ones in light of how she later came to see her real husband?)
October 30th, 2009 at 9:42 am
It’s called writing, dammit.
Spruce up your comments from a collection of Supernatural Collective Nouns! Then a snarl of minotaurs or a drudge of skeletons will take notice!
October 30th, 2009 at 9:42 am
John’s magazine’s title is a poorly drawn “Macho.”
He’s both a perceptive, thoughful, and wise old soul if he’s getting off on a girlie magazine in the living room while his wife’s four feet away, presumably ignorant of what he’s “up to.” I predict it will go very well for him when she turns around.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Because who doesn’t wait until the kid is right outside the open window the wife is looking out of to raunch it up?
October 30th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Let’s see — John is getting a little worked up reading his girlie mag, and Elly is leaning against the windowsill, her arched back thrusting upward the impossibly perfect hemisphere of her right buttock. Next panel, please.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:59 am
The constant rehashing of 1970s style sexism and feminine misery in FBOW is just bizarre. Why in heaven’s name didn’t Lynne just retire? To write such a consistently miserable and seedy group of characters? Bah.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:00 am
RMMD: The character I’m starting to get curious about is ol’ Beardy Unfiltered here. Generally when all you see of a character is their mouth at a telephone receiver, that’s visual code for “evil mastermind.” But since he’s shown up, Beardy has mostly been acting as Pierce’s Jiminy Cricket/rabbi. An external conscience who just needs some herb.
S-M: Remember when the Bugle hosted that seminar on journalistic ethics. Well neither does Peter Parker, because he slept in that day and photocopied some other guy’s certificate. It’s just that he’s never really had the initiative to fake a story until now. I’m guessing that he plans to stage photos of the Sandman robbing Jukt Micronics.
Archie: “Phoebe? We always thought your name was Cammy?”
MC: Oh my. The gauntlet is thrown. This is a keeper.
DtM: I could make fun of Dennis for not knowing the difference between Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time, but what would be the point? Instead, I’ll point out: dude ranch? Where did that come from?
S4th: Love you, Ted. Never change.
MW: Adrian returns to one of her greatest memories, the first day she felt liberated enough to give a man a BJ on a public park bench. Admittedly this was a pretty good day for Steve as well.
FC: “Don’t interrupt while Grandma is tripping on painkillers and tequila, young man.”
DT: Oh, go ahead Mr. Pops. Go Jerome Robbins dancing right into the tiger’s cage. You’ll have done us all the favor of getting this story over with.
M-Dawg: “Also maybe we should send him outside. He’s starting to grow those tentacle things in his mouth.”
H&J: Looks like the free market hasn’t been as good to John Stossel as he figured it would be.
Luann: The family that acts like a bunch of anal killjoys together stays together.
Cathy: If you see anything more horrifying this Halloween than the inkblot mouths of Cathy and Mothirvinglaw as they await melty milk chocolate, let me know.”
SFx: Aagh! The tree! It’s so rotted out, it’s going to fall on the fence and lie on the neighbors’ property. The families will be tied up with insurance paperwork for months. The humanity!
October 30th, 2009 at 10:01 am
FW: That’s right, Cory, upset that policeman.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:01 am
The picture on the front of Nacho magazine could be either a lady with bee-stung lips, or a bearded lady, which although plausible in light of the lion tamer theme, surprises me. I didn’t know John went for she-bears. I do know I has to have me some nachos today. Damn!
October 30th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Nacho man?
Next panel. John looks up from his magazine with a devilish look.
“Ellie I am in the mood for a fish taco.”
Nine months later April is born.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Dear sweet ever-lovin’ lord! Is that Ziggy in a wig on the cover of Macho magazine?
October 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am
This may be the retro-Foobs, but Elly’s ass is as big as ever.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:08 am
MT: The only thing that can save Sassy is Andy!
Go, Dog, go!
October 30th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Y146 Bryan,
Apparently, Ghost-Who-Walks is such a good shot that he can shoot the gun out of a criminal’s hands without injuring them. I’m sure that this particular trick took some learning, but it would be unfair to count the few dozen smugglers he snuffed while he was practicing against him.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:09 am
It’s fitting that the only porn in the Foobiverse consists of be-wigged muppets.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:09 am
In today’s FOOB -panel two, why is the one boy, Twerg, on his knees in front of the other boy who appears to be unfastening his pants? Just askin’…
October 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
If you needed a reason to love this blog even more, then you only have to look at the description of Cue. It’s not everyday that dyspepsia is dusted off for usage.
Heretofore, I’ve only associated that condition as one belonging to older men like Rich Uncle Pennybags, or Alfred the Butler. Mercy me, you can learn something new every day.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
This FBoFW makes The Lockhorns seem like a lighthearted, affectionate look at the ups and downs of married life. You can laugh at John’s nacho fetish if you like, but the scenario — husband and wife in the same room; wife gazing sadly out the window, lamenting the loss of youth; husband so completely oblivious to her presence that he’s reading his girly magazine right in front of her, when she’s trying to have a conversation with him — strikes me as overwhelmingly bleak. I think I need Funky Winkerbean to cheer me up.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Josh, as others have pointed out, it’s “Macho,” not “Nacho”. This is one of the strips from before the days Lynn could afford talented ghost artists.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Danny Boy. Apparently one of the stipulations for this fantasy play is for the boy standing up to have a bag on his head.
Just sayin’. . .
October 30th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Rex M.D. – Goddammit, Cue….when you got customers that are pretty much tweaking without getting a blunt, you gots to supply it..that’s money down the drain, bro. Focus.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:23 am
GT: Coach Kaz just can’t get that Vulcan salute down.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:28 am
DT: “Stop, Mr. Pops, before I lop off your top, you big top flop! I’ll mop up the floor with Mr. Pops ’cause I’m a top cop! No riding crop will stop me while I hop on you, Pops! I’ll punch you ‘BOP!’, in the chops till you flop in the glop and slop, you fop! Chop-chop! Pop-pop! Now DROP!! Hop to it, outta the shop! (by the way, are you, by any chance Italian?)”
October 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
#24 (me): I’m half Italian myself, btw.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Macho Man apparently features scantily clad muppet?
October 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Archie – That’s right, Camm-er, Phoebe. Just smile and say the lines. Yeah, the ALGJU3K’s gags about ambiguity of interpretation in hu-man language aren’t exactly scintillating, but professionalism and pleasant on-set behavior will get you a lot more work than insisting that everything be good. Just look at Shia LaBeouf.
DT – Yep.
F- – gets a big grin and thumbs up from me today.
FW – See, I know Batiuk is trying to make us come down with the vapors at the sight of this good-for-nothing young hoodlum, but fuck that, I like this kid. Sure, he’ll probably be gruesomely gunned down in years to come to teach us a valuable lesson about how worthless kids are, but man, Cory, you’re one of the best characters in the whole damn strip.
JP – What’s with the hard hat? And the pallete of boxes? Are times hard enough that Rocky has to have a side job unloading stuff? Or is this some sort of method art thing that he thinks brings him closer to his audience?
Luann – It’s scary when newspaper comics are apparently supposed to serve as our moral guardians, isn’t it?
MT – Yep, back to the Mark Trail standby, “it’s not really serious unless a puppy is involved.”
MW – You know, I was pretty much going to leave the blame for that terrible, terrible storyline with Jeff and Mary, but looking at the cretin’s shit-eating grin in panel two, I’ve changed my mind. I mean, seriously, what is that look? “Woo-hoo, she’s in emotional turmoil and thus vulnerable to my advances?” Scott has to share in the guilt. Die, Scott. Die.
MC – Okay, this was already funny, but it just got taken to whole new levels of wonderful. I only hope that Batiuk isn’t too wrapped up in his own supreme artistic importance to notice.
SM – Spider-Man, Spider-Man, plots to commit fraud whenever a spider can…
October 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
C’shaft: How does Crankshaft know the kid doesn’t have a sister? He doesn’t seem like the type who would care enough to know about the children in his neighborhood. Is he just assuming the boy is lying because he believes everyone is as hateful and misanthropic as he is?
Curtis: Oh God, the “bitter observation about daily life in place of a punchline” epidemic is spreading. We need to quarantine Funky Winkerbean before it’s too late!
FW: Normally I’m not an advocate of police using excessive force, but in this case…
reFOOB: It’s funny because men have sex drives and are therefore evil, amirite ladies?
Luann: It doesn’t take that much effort, really.
MW: Why does Scott have a tiny Band-Aid on his neck? Did he nick himself shaving in addition to his other injuries?
October 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Considering we all know Ellie is a stand-in for the strip’s cartoonist, it’s interesting how much time and detail Lynn devoted to drawing her own ass.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
@#17: Considering what we know about Lawrence from the original run, I think we all know why he’s on his knees.
Michael’s the one that has me a bit surprised here. I guess every kid has his phaes though…I wonder if Deanna knows?
October 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am
y115 True Fable,
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to notice Spidey’s radioactive-powered dick move regarding Sandman. On the good-evil scale our “hero” rates a “Slightly better than Bigshot, maybe.”
October 30th, 2009 at 10:42 am
GT: That’s actually an old sports cliche, the coach yelling “No, no, no!!! GOOD PLAY!,” but they couldn’t manage it here without the expense of a fourth panel.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hey, Kaz, just because his name’s Jamarr doesn’t mean you have to flash those gang signs at him! What? Your hands look like that all the time? Uh, never mind then…
October 30th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Friday Hopefully Funnies – whoa, what do you mean Josh has the thread already up??
Archie: Whu? What’s the joke? There’s no mention of a quality before the third panel. It looks like some kind of secret agent code, but Phoebe mistook the gang for fellow undercover agents. So they laugh at her. Unless she’s telling them discreetly that one of Reg’s quality is his boring capacity, as in the sexual innuendo of the mining meaning of “to bore”. Unless he was boring while boring, which would be Totally Reggie.
Curtis: Why is Curtis laughing? He’s rather directly involved in this, no? In fact, it’s not funny at all.
Dick Tracy: Grisly tiger devouring in 3, 2…
FC: That’s not hair on grandma, that looks more like a continuous controlled nuclear explosion. It would explain the complete nonsense spilling out of her mouth.
GT: Okay, I was wrong last time, but THAT first panel is prancing, right, right?
Big Dog: That’s the same joke two days in a row, and twice that a dog consumes a large amount of hallowe’en snacks, most of which involve chocolate. He hasn’t keeled over. He’s not human I tell ya! ….oh. I meant canine. Hell, I meant alive, period. Pitfiend, most likely.
My Cage: Ed Power, are you doing this just to make us squee? I mean, it’s working, but I hope it’s not going to alienate readers in papers where Funky Winkerbean has never appeared and they have no idea what you are parodying. Mind you, you also put it so that it is not central – the sacrifical lamb is priceless. Mel wins another round. Good thing it wasn’t a scape goat, or True Fable would have had… words with you. :)
Sally Forth: This is going to be disastrous. Bring it on.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:48 am
So the guy on the right in Crock is holding his hand up in such a way that only the tough guy could see his lips moving, and the word-balloon is pointing in no uncertain terms towards the guy on the left, who isn’t saying anything. If you can’t keep your characters’ actions and the directions of your word balloons straight, you really shouldn’t be a comic book artist.
Either that, or just have random woodland creatures fart out word baloons, a la Mark Trail.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:56 am
#29 Ethan –
How to Draw Elly’s Ass — Get a jar of spaghetti sauce. Trace around the bottom.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Peanuts: Hey, whoda thunkit? Lucy was the first manga fan on her block.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Crock – The guy on the left is pitiable not only because his job is to set up a lame punch line, but because he also has to hold the other guy’s word balloon in panel 1.
Oh, and Josh? No soap opera drug lingo will ever surpass A3G’s timeless “Wow, this dope is super — I feel great! Let’s go look at some art!”
October 30th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Jumble tie-in to panel three of FBOFW! The first word is “dumpy.”
October 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Lynn,
We get it. WE. GET. IT. John/Rod is a selfish, chauvanistic douchebag. There is no need to keep bludgeoning your readers with this EVERY GODDAMN DAY.
Please go get help. Seriously. You can afford it.
[/rant]
October 30th, 2009 at 11:13 am
y157 One-Eyed Wolfdog: This clearly doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things, but here’s another case of the WashPost print edition making a correction to a comic online (it happened a few days ago with a misplaced Mark Trail dialogue balloon, too); the print DtM says, “from daylight savings time”—which makes more sense, because we do indeed get to sleep an hour later. But you’re right: the online version says, “to.”
Weird: Print is being corrected (I assume) while online is left as is. And meanwhile, I’m getting discombobulated by the comments here.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:15 am
…and I needed to do my own correcting: print edition correcting an error in a comic online. (Because what I said makes no friggin’ sense.)
October 30th, 2009 at 11:16 am
It’s like John has traded pornography with Dagwood! I wonder what kind of depraved Canadian porn he had to offer to get Dagwood to part with his copy of “Nacho Man”.
It involves Moose, doesn’t it?
October 30th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I think I prefer the line, “It’s called the Dell, but I really need some smoke!” Some “smoke”? He must be a real addict.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:18 am
#36: “How to Draw Elly’s Ass — Get a jar of spaghetti sauce. Trace around the bottom.”
I wasn’t actually insulting the ass. I kinda like ‘em like that…
October 30th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Also of note is the ad on the back of this fine publication for Lion Tamer cologne, which, I assume, smells of sawdust, circus peanuts, panicked sweat, and lion shit.
Putting on my chemist’s hat here (which I guess is the newsboy hat I am currently already wearing), you’d be amazed at what various stinky natural products smell like in low concentrations and hence what chemicals you would put in cologne.
I actually want to market a unisex cologne/perfume called “irony” (the ad campaign would feature Alanis Morrisette). The irony would be that it would have nice “clean” smell but be made up using chemicals one would find in “dirty” things like fecal matter, etc.
Speaking of irony (well, not really):
Beardy has mostly been acting as Pierce’s Jiminy Cricket/rabbi. An external conscience who just needs some herb.
The misnagdim claimed that the Besht was smoking opium rather than tobaccy in his (omnipresent) pipe. But I think you are not that far off: many a Hassid does seem like they are toking up (I guess auf Yiddish the expression would be “getoikenig”?).
Actually, in my dorm in my freshman year there were some upper-classmen who were 1960s style “Jesus freaks” (even though it was the 1990s): I never did smell any pot but they sat in their room in all their free time and read the Bible while listening to Pink Floyd.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Curtis: if things are that dire, why not sell the tv and cancel the expanded cable?
9CL: {gasp of horror}
JP: “This morning”? This morning?! It feels like Godiva fell off her horse sometime in 1982.
Luann: Gaaaah! Shut up, all of you.
PBS: Now that’s more like it!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:28 am
There really is nothing like the Elly-ass, yellojkt. It is perikily spherical yet simultaneously, paradoxically saggy, and sadly pretty much undesirable.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I’m torn between admiration for John that he can comfortably read porn in his wife’s presence, sadness that he’s clearly missing his wife’s cues that she’s up for a little fantasy-play, and suspicion that he only reads the magazine for ads like the one on the back for “Lion Tamer Cologne.”
October 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Curtis: Please can we take up a collection to send Billingsley back to Comics School for a refresher course in Punchlines 101? This is the second day in a row he hasn’t had one.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am
#46 DAS,
You’re talking about the first Besht, right? Because why settle for second Besht?
Thank you. I’ll be here all week.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Macho Nacho Man… I want to be, a Nacho Man…
Horrifically, “NACHO” actually does sound like a good name for a lad-mag.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I just have to say that “indifferent to continuity errors, the raterpillar…” is made of awesome.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Judging from that sandwich, Dag’s been hitting the pipe too.
DtM – “Reset the Rooster”- sounds kinda dirty to me.
MC – Perfect.
Ed, I hope you don’t wake up one night with flaming bags of smirks on your front doorstep! : D
October 30th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Night of the Living FBoFW: Lynne Johnston’s subconscious self-loathing appears in the form of her own bulbously drawn bottom, or else it’s a guest-artist’s conscious resentment.
RMMD: Am I offbase in assuming the Hirsute Cigarette Mouth belongs to Tim, the creepy guy who’s been driving that supporting-character woman around? What has become of Rex Morgan, M.D., and June? What does this story line have to do with the comic strip?
Get Fuzzy: Chubby Huggs?
As for the rest in my paper today: unfunny, and not even snark-engendering.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
In 10 years, everyone will say the breakthrough “point-shaving by your own coach” storyline was what enabled the Gil Thorp franchise to hire real artists and transform itself into America’s most popular comic strip. And sometimes, they’ll say boy, was that Josh Fruhlinger guy off base, or what?
October 30th, 2009 at 11:51 am
@#2: Your inquisitiveness prompted me to check the book. While she’s only used maybe half the strips in it so far (and moved on to ones from later on), I don’t see any particular pattern in which ones she’s been using. Not that I’ve been paying a whole lot of attention.
I’ma see if the library has some of the full-sized collections, see if this theory holds up.
Frazz this week is dragging on almost as badly as a Gasoline Alley storyline, with as little actual humor. I’ll say the same thing about it that I always say about Gasoline Alley: the payoff had better be spectacular.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
GT. — Number 36 is preparing for his Rockettes audition. After all, it’s just about time for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular!
MC. — Win.
Today’s Nacho Trivia. — “Nacho” is a nickname for “Ygnacio.”
RMMD. — Rex must have lost his razor overboard. And, as a doctor, he really should know enough not to smoke.
Phantom. — You’ll get over it.
DT. — He has obviously confused the circus with Jeannie Weenie.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
“Take it easy, man! I just called to get some weed!” is awesome, and also something no one, anywhere, ever said in the history of ever.
And believe, me I know me some dope smokers.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Cory: ironic, isn’t it?
Cop: Oh, for God’s sake, you make him listen to Alanis Morisette, too?
October 30th, 2009 at 11:59 am
#34 Niall-Dick Tracy: Grisly tiger devouring in 3, 2…
That’s what I’m talking about!
Luckily everybody has been practicing their horrified looks for the past 2 months. There also seems to be a lot of gravity defying leaps in this circus. But I guess that the circus for you.
Is it too early to pull out one of the classic Jumbles?
What the tiger said after he ate the clown.
THAT TASTED FUNNY
Hee Ho Haaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Although I lack rudimentary punctuation skills, apparently.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Gil Thorp- Coach Kaz looks like he is channeling the spirit of Wolverine in panel 2.
FBOFW- John, you idiot. Order the girlie magazine to come to your dentist office. Don’t take that thing out in front of your wife.
Does Lion Tamer cologne smell like dead Zebra? Is it the cologne of choice for people who practice bestiality? Dammit Josh! You said you were not going to clutter our minds with this FOOB crap.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
59- Except for Maynard G. Krebs and other beatniks.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I’m surprised Cory even understands the meaning of the word “Ironic.”
Curtis – Mr. Wilkins is always bitching about money, or the lack thereof. Actually, he almost always is bitching, period.
Didn’t Curtis say the other day he also owned a Wii and an IPod?
What about all those cancer sticks Dad smokes too? They ain’t cheap.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Gil Thorp – No, Josh, this one’s not about sportsmanship. It’s going to be about putting the team before yourself and the comeuppance of the cocky Jamarr. You basically never field a punt at the two yard line. (While there are a very few circumstances in which you might consider it, if you are up by 17 in the 4th quarter, you should never, ever do it. No exceptions.) The odds of that decision leading to a good result are minute compared to the odds of it leading to a bad result (starting a drive with your back to your own end zone, fumble on your own two-yard line, etc.).
Jamarr basically ignored a fundamental rule of punt returning (it’s a safe–though not absolute–assumption that even a high school kid would know this, but that’s definitely going to be the story line here) because he saw an opportunity for personal glory. The result was good, but the decision was dumb. The sports cliche that will probably play out is that the coach will now bench him, despite the touchdown, because he did something stupid because of the potential benefit to himself, despite the risk it posed to the team’s success. And if this were to happen in real life (so that we can set aside our preconceptions about Coach Thorp), the kid probably should get benched.
In short, Coach Kaz’s reaction in panel two is EXACTLY how ANY coach would react to his player fielding a punt at the two-yard line in this situation.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
OMG! What beeyootiful hands there in Gil Thorp! It has been some time since we’ve gotten a flash of digits like those. And what expression! The emotional range is beyond measure – angst, anxiety, terror, begging, hopelessness – just ‘wow!’.
And, lordy, Coach Kaz, um those are, uh, really big hands, too. My oh my, yes indeed, they sure are big…
October 30th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Monkey David is right, especially when your team is leading by 17 in the fourth quarter.
You’re taught as a punt returner to place your heels on the 10-yard line; don’t chase anything that goes over your head.
I’d immediately bench that punk Jamarr.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I’m so glad you mentioned f00b, even if you took the “Nacho” route, despite its being a skewed “Macho.”
WhoTF reads any kind of pornish magazine with his wife in the room (and not participating)!? Is it part of their arrangement? He’ll be a good provider, on the condition that he can have as much pr0n as he likes when the kids are outside?
October 30th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Besides, 7 is a quarterback’s number. I don’t read Gil Thorp except when Josh brings it up, so are we supposed to believe that Milford’s starting QB is returning punts? Inconceivable!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
John only reads Nacho Man for the articles.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
1. Marmaduke ate all of the Halloween candy – two days in a row.
2. Why do you acronym it as FBOFW when the official Web site is FBOrFW.com?
October 30th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I have a dentist friend named John Patterson. He asked me if his wife Elly could make an appointment with me. He didn’t specify the problem but I said, “Sure. Have her call my office and make an appointment.”
When the day of Elly’s appointment came she came into my office. When I saw her I immediately knew what her problem was.
“Mrs. Patterson.” I said. “I can see that you are in need of an assectomy. I’m sorry, I’m not a plastic surgeon but I can recommend a good one.”
Wouldn’t you know it. She did a grand huff and stormed out of my office. I just don’t understand why. The same thing happened with Jennifer Lopez.
What?!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Y109. bats :[ : Masky McDeath already was an anthropomorphisation of the concept of death (made with human attributes). What Jeff’s son is doing is a theriomorphic rendition (combining human and animal forms).
Y125. True Fable: fun sexual relationships between adults with candy? Sign me up! :) Tuxedo these days is a costume, alas.
Y119 Lisa: Six Chix is making a pun on the restaurants that have the sign “Thank you for dining with us today” at the exit.
Y137 Little Guy on Foob: the saddest part of that? Having seen Lynn Johnston in the last month, she may not be all-curvaceous but she is not ugly at all, and has grace and some charm, and the few times she smiled, there are more than a few who would think of her as pretty, even at her current age. If she has insecurities, they’re internal (and not helped by the deluge of false image models).
Y160 Paul1963: It’s not a blue duck, it’s a blue platypus, and yes, he’s in his late 20s and bald. We’re told he shaves it as a form of statement on male baldness.
41. buckyswife: curiouser and curiouser…
66. Anonymous: Are you saying that today’s GT was realistic?? End times, end times, who wants their end times, piping hot fresh…
71. PapperjackCandy: Noooo.. John reads NachoMan cause he wants the sauce. (If no one else knows this expression in pr0n terms, stay that way.)
October 30th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
#46 DAS — “getoikenig” = word I must use, someday, somehow.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
The Jamarr Gaddis character in Gil Thorpe is obviously Neal Rubin’s homage to American literary pioneer William Gaddis who, like Jamarr, had an inflated sense of self and a penchant for returning dangerous punts.
(Note to actual Gaddis people: Gaddis did not, in fact, have an inflated sense of self. The punt thing is totally true, though.)
October 30th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Clearly John is “fantasizing” to gay porn. What I fond a little disturbing is his particular fetish. It seems that the “Man” in “Macho Man” is intended somewhat tongue-in-cheek; judging by the cover-man’s thick mustache and heavy eyebrows, and Farrah wig, I’d say it’s a niche publication focusing on lumberjacks in drag.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
MW: “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP I’M TRYING TO DIE HERE!”
I still expect Amenisa when he gets out of the coma. Or that faces thing from Funky Winkderbean which in Mary Worth wouldn’t seem that absurd and probbably a blessing.
FW: Soap? SOAP? I can only assume that the guys with the spray paint ran faster.
My Cage: Be a hoot if the guy lives through the story arch eh?
October 30th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
28. TheDiva re MW: vampires. They walk among us, you know.
Hey, speaking of Scott! And Adrian!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I like to think that Coach Kaz is yelling about Jamarr’s pent-up anger and/or hatred, which he must have because it’s a requirement for the Milford starting string. Specifically, Kaz is yelling at Jamarr to let go of his pent-up anger and/or hatred, hence, “Let it go, Jamarr!” Meanwhile, Jamarr seems to have been painted in some sort of glowing paint to make him more readily identifiable to all players on the field.
I don’t think I like the direction this “Rex Morgan” storyline is taking about the punk drug dealer with the heart of gold. I think it would be much more interesting if Cue, upon delivering his charges back to their nursing home, meets a retired narcotics trafficker who sets Cue up with his old contacts, setting the stage for a retelling of “Scarface.”
I like to think that in today’s FBOFW, John isn’t fantasizing about other women as much as he’s fantasizing that his wife simply isn’t there at all.
Today’s “Crock” unintentionally points out a real situation currently occurring in several countries; namely the use of child soldiers. It’s a shift away from horrible attempts at jokes towards highlighting sensitive issues in need of immediate resolution, so I approve.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
MC: I’m usually tepid to lukewarm about this strip, but “Groovy Blinkerlegume” cracked me up. Only, Niall, what do you mean you “hope it’s not going to alienate readers in papers where Funky Winkerbean has never appeared”? Are there really places where FW is unknown? Tell me more about such paradisiacal locales and how I might book a long vacation there.
DT: I hadn’t been following along for the last couple of weeks, so my natural reaction to today’s development was “Do you mean to tell me they’re still in the f***ing cage???”
Curtis: I want to see a Curtis – Funky crossover wehre Funky goes to the DMV and finds himself at Greg Wilkins’ window, and the two of them discover they’re soulmates in misery and lob humorless punchlines at one another until realizing that a suicide pact is the next logical place to take their relationship. Or would that be too dark for the funnies? Oh, wait…what am I saying?
MG&G: Who gives out ice cream bars to trick-or-treaters? I don’t mind suspending disbelief for a good punchline, but this ain’t it.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Re-FOOB: In panel 3, you can already see SmElly’s fat butt, which, as we all know, only gets bigger with time……and John wishing that she “was more like the girls in this here magazine, eh?”
Lynn deleted panel 4 which shows John whacking off while sitting on the can.
And St. Michael is, was, and always will be a fucking ASSHAT.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
#46 DAS — “getoikenig” = word I must use, someday, somehow. – Josh
I am feeling so ferklempt now. That’s why we should all speak Yiddish. It’s so expressive. And if a word doesn’t exist, one can make one up that just sounds exactly like what it means.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Oh, what the hell. . . .
Nacho Man
Roddy — sure, your life’s facade-y
Mm, Roddy — ’cause your day job’s ploddy
Yeah, Roddy — and your wife’s butt’s waddy
But, Roddy — don’t you think it’s shoddy?
Oh, Roddy — knockin’ back that toddy
And packin’ cheese in that doughy body?
Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Nacho, nacho man!
Squeeze EZ Cheez straight from the can
Nacho, nacho man!
Got no probiotics, got no bran!
[The Author]
You can make some nachos: Doritos on a plate –
Pop ‘em in the oven, you hardly have to wait
Squeeze on cheese and ketchup, that’s all you have to do
Later you can retch up what doesn’t turn to poo.
Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Nacho, nacho man!
Who needs a long attention span?
Nacho, nacho man!
Sweet escape from fathering your clan!
[The Accountant]
Top with pickle relish to add a little fire
Now you got your nachos — what more could you desire?
Sit back and put your feet up, and switch on the TV
This must be what it feels like to be young and proud and free!
Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Nacho, nacho man!
When you got foil, who needs a pan?
Nacho, nacho man!
Ain’t it great to be Canadian?
[The Dentist]
You can watch some hockey, or read a girlie mag
Send the wife out shopping — pretend you’re livin’ stag.
Make a plate of nachos — don’t live your life in chains:
Take ‘em to the basement, and fiddle with your trains!
Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Nacho, nacho man!
Nachos and Molson’s: that’s the plan!
Nacho, nacho man!
Been this way since time itself began!
October 30th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
58. odinthor: I was disappointed to discover that “Chuy” was a nickname in our Hispanic community for Jesus (Hey-SOOS), not Chewbacca.
74. Niall: theriomorphic…cool! I learned something today. (Now if I can only remember it…)
I don’t know that Masky McDeath really is anthropomorphizing the concept of death — more of a personification of it. It seems to me that anthropomorphizing something has to do with it being a tangible item: an animal (Spongebob), a plant (wasn’t there a superhero carrot?), a mineral, or even something a little more esoteric but still “real” (when I was a kid, Reddy Kilowatt was a little guy made up of lightning flashes with a lightbulb for a nose). I guess death is real, though.
I think I need to have a lie-down now.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Wait till Cueball McDrugpusher discovers that the oldsters are so wracked with maladies that they qualify for medical marijuana prescriptions. He’ll keep them locked in his basement for years, with nothing to do but watch TV and nothing to eat but Lunchables and the occasional pot brownie. And they’ll still be happier than they were in that retirement home.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
“Nacho Man” is not an adult magazine. It is actually a comic book. John fantasy is to be a character in this obviously superior cartoon. Contrary to popular belief, though, Nacho Man is not a superhero. He is an ordinary nacho vendor at the circus who sells nachos to improbably beautiful women and cologne to lions.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Also, I don’t know if anyone else has addressed this yet, but the reason Coach Kaz was upset is because it is generally a bad idea to catch a punt inside your own 10 yard line. You risk getting tackled right by the goal line or fumbling. It is better to hope the punt bounces into the end zone, so you can get the ball at the 20 yard line.
Or it could just be that Coach Kaz was just incredibly eager to get his own giant paws on the ball, and he was jealous that Jamarr got there first.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
78: Also, John seems to really get into the lumberjacks-in-drag scene or what-ever’s featured inside this week’s Macho Man. The look of pervy wide-eyed glee on his face is priceless.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@Niall #74: The only thing that comes to my mind when I hear “sauce” and “pr0n” in the same sentence is what the term means on image boards. That’s probably not what you were referring to though.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I read the last panel of Crock as “The kids had gun racks on their testicles,” which really scared the hell out of me.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I don’t think Gil has ever shown as much emotion during a game as Sideburn McForelock just did. Well, maybe “hysteria” is the word I’m looking for.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
# 84 Uncle Lumpy — I don’t remember the entire original song, but I’m still laughing like a drain.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Maybe I don’t get out enough, but I associate gun racks on vehicles with sparsely populated rural backwaters, rather than violent inner-city neighborhoods. Perhaps the two soldiers are actually worried about some sort of Deliverance-style scenario erupting.
“Surchan, you sure do have a pretty mouth.”
October 30th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Kaz is looking particularly awesome today, jazz hands and all.
Continuing the GT character types into the adults in the strip, troubled loner:Marty Moon and loudmouth jerk:Gil Thorp himself.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
ReFoob — What kind of twisted child forces his playmate to actually go down on his knees to show his fantasy defeat and submission? That’s it, Michael — I’m through giving you any kind of mental pass because you’re a kid. You were born an asshat, you grew up being an asshat, and you ended up as an asshat adult writing asshat novels. And probably reading NACHO MAN.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
What kind of doctors do they have at Santa Royal Hospital? Don’t they realize this man needs a medicinal puppy, stat?
October 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Kaz has a bundle riding on the game, and now that the little bastard went and covered the spread, two very large men are going to come a-callin’.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
#96 – Mike, no Tabula Rasa for you, you bad bad
asshatboy!October 30th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I wonder if John also reads “Nut Boy.”
It’s nutty for sure!
October 30th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
It’s the Foreign Legion, for Chrissakes! You’re not supposed to know anything about the pasts of your brother Legionnaires, least of all where they came from.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Rose is Rose: Today’s episode sponsored by Lunesta®!
October 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Retail: Not to harp on this, but today’s Retail is even more brilliant than yesterday’s. Having it be straitlaced Stuart who’s shown up as Marvin? Awesome.
Oh, and queek (yester-yesterthread #235), no worries! I once had someone say they liked a cover of mine better than the original, and it actually embarrassed me because I’m such a big fan of the songwriter (and because it was quite likely he might actually read the comment…yikes!). So I’m never offended if someone doesn’t find my renditions equal to the original. Especially in a dream! I try to keep my artistic ego in check wherever possible. :)
October 30th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Hey, FBOFW! I remember that! It’s about boring Canadians, right?
October 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Gil Thorp: You know what Kaz could use? Handerpants, underpants for your hands! Right from the website:
* Fits Most Hands
* Breathable Cotton
* Form Fitting
* Prevents Chafing
* Absorbs Sweat
* Distracts Enemies
* Non Toxic
* Great For Jazz Hands
October 30th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I can’t help but notice the similarities between the first panel of Gil Thorp and the STOMP ad to the left. Now there’s a crossover I’d pay to see.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
FOOB: A preview of the pictorials in this month’s Nacho Man:
“Cheese Me, Please Me”
“Hot ‘n’ Saucy”
“In the Chips”
“DD-Dairyland Delight”
“Velveeta Vixen”
“Double Dip” (two-girl spread)
October 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
# 107 Spectacular — Hey, I’d look at Velveeta Vixen.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
AD – Peter’s drilling an anachronistic well in front of BC’s modular cave. Can’t he even wait for the Dinosaur to die first?
Dick – But will the tiger get him before the big black fanged thing that’s swooping down on him in the last panel? (Well, sure it will. Laws of Irony and all that. What am I thinking?) Dick, you might have mentioned the tiger in your awkwardly phrased exposition, for the benefit of any reader who’s managed to forget or otherwise miss the last seven weeks.
Gasoline – Betty Boop’s just smug because she’s managed to keep working as a character actor.
Marmaduke – “Mom! You’re going to have to buy another Halloween joke! We’ve used this one twice this week already!”
Marfield – Hey, don’t have a cow!
Grimm – A Klondike bar? What kind of creative codger is this guy, giving frozen treats that will be horridly inedible by the time somebody gets home with it, and will likely ruin other stuff in the bag? I’m impressed!
My Cage – My scapegoat line is pre-empted but I still have to say something. I have no joke, and I must praise!
Pluggers remember the past, yet they are still doomed to repeat it to their bored grandkids.
Rose – Voiceover: “Aunt Betty had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually four years old, but also a girl.”
comment spam @y148 – Subtle.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
The football art in Gil Thorpe is like looking at photos of performers doing an interpretive dance tribute to the sport, only the dancers have never watched a football game and only know of it from descriptions given by a person who has also never seen a football game and, furthermore, is only able to communicate in grunts and barks.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Wolfdog @y157 – I was sad to hear of the death of LaPrise, back when it happened, but then I learned the sordid truth, that “The Hokey Pokey” was really a bit of a plagiarism from an older British song called “The Hokey Cokey.” Shattered my world when I learned that. I mean, what’s it all about, really?
Paul1963 @y160 – He’s really a blue platypus.
formerly Ben @8 – Don’t be fooled, Ben! Cammie has, uh, different hair! Well, neater hair, anyway. Phoebe: Cammie… Know The Difference! Use this mnemonic: Cammie makes cameo appearances, and Phoebe utters feeble punch lines.
@31 – I had a comment written about Spidey too, but it was too similar to Fable’s to use — I even mentioned breaking parole. People here are just too fast, and I kept having to leave the computer to do other stuff today. Also I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.
Niall @34 – “Quality time.” Reggie says it in the first panel. These hu-mans and their words!
Alan’s Addiction @80 – Re FOOB: Bam! Perfect; nothing to add.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
ReFoob — Re the Lion Tamer Cologne, I googled “lion tamer” and found out that there is apparently some definition of that term on Urban Dictionary that has to do with, um, sex. My slow connection refused to connect me, and I’m taking that as a sign that I’m better off not knowing.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
#109 Muffaroo – Nice Harlan Ellison shout-out there.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
#34 Niall on Gil Thorp: Oh, yeah, that’s prancing all right. No mincing, mancing, or sashaying there.
#54 Calico: I thought “Flaming Bags of Smirks” is how Toaster Tooties are sold.
#73 Dr. Krude&Rude: Assectomy is what you need if you’ve been eating whole Flaming Bags of Smirks® brand Toaster Tooties without prancing, mincing, mancing, or sashaying off the calories.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
reFoob – Oh please. Look at Ellie at the window, just HAPPENING to be making conversation with her husband about fantasies, while her husband is using a dirty magazine – the viagra of its day – to get in the mood.
And look at her. Come on. She’s presenting.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
GA — Gertie’s deep tender concern for the safety and well-being of a man who is about 110 years old, as I recall(!), and who was only out at night in the first place because of Gertie’s determination to go to this concert and drag him along, and who was a victim of her dimness regarding scalped tickets, truly touches me.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
#115 AMC, last sentence: AAAAAGH!
October 30th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
To the creator of Real Life Adventures: It’s really pretty sad when iCarly did the same joke far better than you managed to.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Red & Rover
“everyone’s familiar with … conquest“?
May there be a plethora of pestilence in your shorts.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Lion Tamer™ Cologne? Does it come with a hat?
October 30th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
A3G: A narration box telling us that Bobbie is frowning is a lot easier than drawing a different expression on her face.
GT: To echo Monkey David in comment #1, the problem isn’t that Gaddis is running up the score, it’s that he stupidly took a punt on the 2-yard line. He should have let it bounce into the end zone, and the offense would get to start at the 20-yard-line.
Of course, maybe he’s justified in running back that punt since he’s clearly fast enough to be able to spontaneously turn into a white guy.
H&L: I don’t think Chip is trying to prove his toughness as much as he is embarrassed that his coat is a hand-me-down from his uncle, who is either Tommy James or one of the Shondells.
JP: Well, Rocky, I’m sorry to hear that Godiva might leave you, but I’m kind of a smug, arrogant asshole who doesn’t pay attention to his own wife. If you’re looking for advice or sympathy, I’m probably the wrong guy to be talking to. However, I’m your man if you need someone to help out by doing something unethical or illegal. Preferably both.
Luann: If you like the idea of turning Halloween into a statement on childhood literacy, I’ve got more great ideas. On Thanksgiving, instead of eating turkey, let’s go out and pick up litter. On Christmas Day, instead of giving presents, give pap smears and rectal exams. On Easter, instead of coloring hard-boiled eggs and going to church, Greg Evans can go fuck himself.
MW: Oh, what happy times those were. Me, with my spine recently removed, and you, dressed like a pimp for the undercover sting operation later that night.
MC: I’ve got no snark for My Cage. This is great stuff.
RMMD: Hey Cue, have you ever seen old people with Alzheimer’s? Have you ever seen old people with Alzheimer’s on weed?
October 30th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
# 112 — I found out, and sure enough, I was better off not knowing.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I would like to think that “Nacho Man” has some of the dirtiest Mexican porn available. Obviously Jon has been so beaten down by his life, looking at pictures of a donkey show in his living room is the only escape.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
In Cue’s universe, all amnesia victims are pre-identified by some vague governmental responsibility to put labels on the nutcases, in his eyes. And of course, our failure to simplify his world merely serves as more gasoline on the fire of Cue’s rebellion. He sees no contradiction between his defiance of authority and his fierce conviction that authority let him down by not being all-powerful. Cue, in short, is incapable of functioning rationally in a free society.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Gil Thorp: I realize that kickers have a rep as the, um, least masculine guys on the team, but the wrists on the punter in panel one seem particularly dainty.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
It’s nice to see that Gasoline Alley is embracing a Calvin and Hobbes-esque storyline in which Gertie’s head gets progressively smaller while her body slowly becomes larger.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
ReFOOB: Fantasizing! Roleplaying! Ahh, soon John will splash on plenty of Lion Tamer® cologne and brandish a whip, while Elly dresses up in a cat costume and hunkers on all fours on a kitchen chair while arching her back, hissing!
October 30th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
If you look at today’s Gil Thorp without reading any of the dialogue, it appears to be scenes from Gil Thorp: The Musical. You’ve got the high-kicking “Line of Scrimmage”, and Kaz belting out the big showstopper, Running Back to Your End Zone. Particularly moving is the ballet of the mutant deformed hands.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Curmudgeon comment from 2011:
You know, Gil Thorp turned into Glee so gradually I didn’t even notice.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
So Lynn redraw the old Foob strips but with worse art?
October 30th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
115. AMC: I can *almost* imagine a David Attenborough voiceover (I’m trying not to imagine it too much), but I think he’d take a fork to his larynx rather than comment on this…
October 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
#130 Yolm –
Yup. And she’s been doing it a long time.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
121. Darkefang re Luann: well, my calendar’s all filled up now. Thanks!
127. fishmorgjp: if you promise that Elly will then fall off the table (or that it will collapse under her weight) and hurt herself, I’ll sign on.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
81. Esther Blodgett: For places where FW is unknown, I’d say “Canada” but then, I don’t believe any Canadian paper carries My Cage as well, so that would be a moot point. But is it not impossible that a paper might carry My Cage but not Funky?
85. bats :[ : Flaming Carrot was indeed a comic book, but it was more parody, send-up and outright weird than any attempt at anthropomorphisation of anything. Bob Burden’s mind is a scary place.
90. Steve the Pocket: that would be it exactly.
91. Steve Dore: now that’s a really weird mental image of “packing firepower” I didn’t need.
108. Poteet: my brain is trying to conjure up a memory of a “Velveeta Vixen” I may have seen. No, you don’t want to know. I’m starting to realise the depths of inanity (and really, really bad art) I’ve subjected myself to over the years.
111. Muffaroo: Ah, thanks. (Hey, if Josh can miss an obvious word right in the strip, so can I!) Shows how boring the strip really is, doesn’t it?
October 30th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
B.C.: Wait a second. If they are living in the age of the dinosaurs, where’s the oil coming from and if there is oil, for what are they using it? And this isn’t even funny, just slightly ironic.
And… hold it. This is B.C. Never mind.
The Barn: I think there’s a poop joke in here somewhere.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
#134 Niall – I’m starting to realise the depths of inanity (and really, really bad art) I’ve subjected myself to over the years.
Hey, welcome to the Internet ;)
October 30th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
#134 Niall -
“But is it not impossible that a paper might carry My Cage but not Funky?”
Not only possible, but an established fact. The St. Paul Pioneer Press does just that. And Lio, too. At least one paper gets it.
Of course, they also carry Marmaduke, Pluggers, Pajama Diaries, HtH, and Garfield, so there are still a few bugs in the system.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Forgive me if anyone has said this already, but Pooch Cafe’s Paul Gilligan has explained the recent volunteerism-themed comics:
“At the Reuben awards in Hollywood last May, film director J.J. Abrams appeared unexpectedly and asked if all the NCS cartoonists would consider helping promote a viral volunteering campaign. The idea was that rather than various organizations requesting volunteer help from folks individually, it would be better if the very idea of volunteering was planted in people’s minds in a more general way, so that it would occur to them more readily to give some of their time to whatever causes seemed relevant in their lives.”
October 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Okay. Who’s responsible for this?
October 30th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Speaking of Reefer Madness
October 30th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Is it wrong to make fun of Winnie the Pooh?
October 30th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
#139 Sequitur – Wow. Hurray for Jim Davis. It’s everything you’ve ever loved about Garfield posters, buttons, pins, t-shirts, magnets, posters, calendars, hats, keychains, window decals, stickers, coloring books, mugs, kids dinnerware, shower curtains, bathmats, blah blah blah…… On the internet!!
October 30th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
You know you’re a plugger when you remember when the SATs had analogies.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
142. MolyBendum
Is that your tongue in your cheek?
October 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
$144 Sequitur – Ay-yup. I’m digging this mouseover thing too.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
DtM: OK, Dennis may be a dumbshit, and clearly doesn’t know which time were moving to or from, BUT! He does correctly say “Daylight SAVING time” instead of the extremely common, but wrong, “Daylight savingS time”. How’d that happen?
The dude ranch setting has been recurring over the years. I think his parents send him there whenever they have a group-sex weekend.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
#141 Sequitur – It’s not wrong to make fun of the comic strip, that’s for damn sure. What a load of…utter unremarkability, actually. Even Fred Basset is more interesting.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
wow adrian thats the best oral sex i ever received on a park bench . i know my job is dangous but i want to marry you . if you let me have the 50 thousand you gave to the guy who called you queenie i could open a store selling awesome augers . i just have to do one more mission for something called operation h- town before i can resign
October 30th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
147. commodorejohn
Fred Basset is indeed the bottom of the bottom of the comic strips. So I guess that it’s appropriate that Pooh is under it.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
And with the introduction of the pot-dealing motif the dawning realization that Cue is well-nigh indistinguishable from at least half a dozen of my ex-boyfriends is cemented. Um…thanks, Rex Morgan?
October 30th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
#145. MolyBendum.
Only trouble is that, unless a person spends his whole day mousing over everything, stuff slips by. For instance, did anyone mouse my Weenie at #58? Um…wait a minute…that didn’t sound quite, er…
October 30th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
My wife and I had a heated discussion this morning about whether “Macho Man” was or was not gay porn, straight porn, or other. She claims the cover model has “sexy lips” and thus it is a lady. I claim that it is a beard, and thus it is at best fetish porn and most probably a shemale catalog. How else to explain the title? Village people, anyone?
Why is John reading this in the living room, of all places? I think in the answer, the madness of Ellie doth lie.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
151 odinthor – Yeah I know. I moused all the titles for my comments earlier. I haven’t decided if it’s worth the trouble yet. And for the record, I moused your Weenie.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
#153 MolyBendum: Hey! Get a room you two. No “mousing” someone’s “Weenie” in public.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Guess Coach Kaz held the previous punt return record. Move on man, move on.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
#15 Danny B — At the time it was forshadowing the day Lawrence would come out of the closet.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
IT’S MACHO NOT NACHO HAHA HAS ANYONE SAID THIS YET HAHA ERROR ERROR ON THE INTERNET
Okay, my real comment now: I (as always) think Lynn gets a lot of crap simply for being female, and gets specific gender-related, sexually-loaded insults that Batiuk or McEldowny almost never do.
So, in that light, I’d like to point out that even if she IS picking out all the bad strips in retrospect, she’s not making up new anti-John strips, which I think is a significant point. Another is that John was often the butt of jokes. So many strips originally had the VERY common family dynamic trope of having a goofy father figure that she may not be picking out anti-John strips at all.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Perhaps an alternative would be the <acronym instead of anchor.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Curtis’ father must be the only state employee that isn’t in a union. The typical DMV job starts at 40K a year and he’s been at that job forever…..
October 30th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
158 Ribinin – Buncha evil html genii running around here. I like it, thanks, I’ll try that tomorrow.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Okay, while you see a girlie magazine called “Nacho,” I see a magazine called ironically called “Macho” with a “girlie” on the cover who is obviously a husky guy with three days’ worth of stubble, flaunting his junk with the help of a Sally Struthers wig. Again ironically, John is enjoying his fantasy world while his wife is bent over the window sill suggestively wagging her nothing-if-not-ample ass … and if he would just turn his head ninety degrees to his right, he could consummate his wildest fantasy while (again, ironically) his wife is forced to wave and smile as the puzzled children look up and wonder why she’s making so little progress at jumping through the window.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
143 kostia: The SATs don’t have analogies anymore? Does this mean I’m a Plugger if I took them back when they did? Oh man, I knew the Pluggers would get me sooner or later!
October 30th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
135 Sequitur -
B.C. isn’t in the stone age. It’s a post-apocalyptic world, with bits of modern culture and technology being dimly remembered and emulated. The dinosaurs were created by genetic engineering from before the end of the world. Just like the Flintstones.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
#162 AirForbes – Probably not; I’m pretty sure they still had ‘em when I took the SAT back in 2004. I wonder if they still have the reading comprehension questions where you have to determine the protagonist’s emotional state, precise level of ennui, and geneology back to the seventh generation from a description of his shirt?
October 30th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
120: The snag is, if I call Mr. Chipperfield and say to him “Look here, I’ve got a 45 year old chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer”, his first question is NOT going to be,? “Does he have Lion Tamer™ Cologne?”
October 30th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
154. Baka Gaijin
Hey! I want to watch!
163. Dr. Weird
Well, like I say, this is B.C. Let’s flush it.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
165. Vince M
Oh, yeah!
October 30th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Cue is the trailer-park-dwelling, pot-dealing version of Dr. Venture.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
While looking at today’s Garfield and makingthree different parody images of the past three days, I realized something. I used to like this comic. I went back and read some of the archives (I spent about four hours actually) from when I was growing up (the 90s) and I realized that this strip has changed a lot since then. I also looked back in time and traveled from 78 to 85 in the archives just to see the changes. Lyman pretty much vanished. A character I never knew about. Additionally the jokes were funnier, more sarcastic, and a bit out there. Hell, there were even adventures and the great Halloween things.
What the fuck happened? About 1996ish the strip started getting stale, and a lot less interesting stuff happened. Now its all just blah.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
104, Lolsworth:
As a Canadian I can tell you… Yes, FBOFW’s only purpose now seems to bore me to death.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
It’s Macho Man, Josh, as in “I want to be a…”
2: No, this is an original. I remember reading it in one of my Mom’s books. The early to mid years did portray John as having a wandering eye (though he did manage keep it in his pants. Can’t say the same for Rod.).
This is a typical “John’s a lech” gag. Another is Elly and John on a tropical vacation where Elly proclaims the scenery beautiful…while John stares at a gorgeous woman in a bikini.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
#169 Jackuul – I’m not really sure why Garfield declined so much over the years. Maybe it’s just that it’s difficult to keep any work fresh over a period of multiple decades (see also: Dilbert, late-run Peanuts,) but I think the mid-90s were when Davis looked around at the vast merchandising empire he’d constructed, realized hey, this thing basically runs itself, doesn’t it?, and said “the hell with it” before abandoning any pretense of effort.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I’m surprised no one’s commented on the word “twirg”. I can only assume it refers to some sort of word used by paper bag asphyxiation fetishists to refer to non-paper bag asphyxiation fetishists, as demonstrated in today’s Foob, and that this is common knowledge. I apologize.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, eye patch, macho.October 30th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
174 sugarpie: Hee! One of my favorite sugarpie moments ever, and you let me relive it!
October 30th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
# 143 kostia — Well, shoot, dangit, what was wrong with analogies?. If I do say so myself, I was quite excellent at them.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Coach just lost his money due to points spread.
Yep he bet against his own.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
@177 Tiki Carol: Well, you know the history of this team—wouldn’t you?
October 30th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
175, buckyswife You know I did it for you!
October 30th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
#143 kostia, #162 AirForbes, #164 commodorejohn— I guess that makes me a SuperPlugger. Not only did the SAT have analogies when I took it, but I had to take an all-analogies exam, the Miller Analogies Test, to get into grad school. It was a really tough test, as the analogies ranged from difficult to impossible. Fortunately, my life-long addiction to puns (the lowest form of analogy), helped me to do well on the test, and I got into the university I most wanted to attend. Therefore, it was good for me that I never developed analogy to puns.
*cringes and ducks*
(Not worthy of a Padumpum.)
October 30th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
#176 Poteet— Sorry, I should have included you in my post @ #180. It might not matter, as it looks like my post may have been a thread-killer. And just when the discussion of the uproarious topic of analogies was reaching a crescendo!
October 30th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Sheila Sternwell, 157 I’ve been thinking about LJ getting more gender-related and sexually loaded slams. I admit I haven’t been reading the FOOB comments with that in mind so I think I’ll go to the archives and see whats up.
Lynn seems to set herself up for it, pig that I am, it seems my first snark-instinct is to aim for the sexual. Today’s comic is a shining example-the juxtaposition of Elly’s detailed bottom and her husband slobbering over a girlie rag. Who can resist?
Karen Moy gets slammed a lot, but then A3G isn’t a newspring roman a clef, so pretty much her personal situation isn’t commented on. Guisewite gets drubbed for being stuck in the 70’s, generally lame, and such a quisling in the venus/mars war. The Dinette Set is just hated on principle alone by all right thinking people (though J. Larsen herself doesn’t ever seem to be a target).
Batiuk gets hammered all the time for what appears to be his personal outlook on life in FWinkerbean. Admittedly, not so much of it is sexual or gender oriented but aimed toward his churlishness and rampant misanthropy.
McEldowny? Well. It seems to me his sexual proclivities and creepy focus on Edda’s body are the subject of 30-40% of the comments about him. I dont think of him as a lothesome man but as a lothesome human. (I dont read Pibgorn-yuck-too much like watching someone masturbate.)
You may be right, though, and it’s certainly a valid subject to bring up.
I
October 30th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Argh. lothesome=loathsome
October 30th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
i just wanna say fusco brothers and bizzaro is always good thats why they never get any grief here .
October 30th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
@169 Jackuul, 172commodorejohn:
My theory for why it happens in general is that the older a strip gets the more established it becomes. A sort of Baeysian credibility builds up and you end up with the fact that it takes bigger events to shake things up and keep things fresh, but those events become less and less believable to the fans. For example, you could say John was an alien in the first few years of the strip and it would be taken in stride, but Pets Inc. can’t go that far now without the impression that they’re insulting their fan base’s intelligence. John and Liz becoming a couple is about as far as they can go… and it has injected some life in the strip, it’s certainly much more interesting and much more believable than Liz and Anthony.
There are a few ways I can see to combat this: retire when the going is still good, end the current strip and spin off a new one periodically, include many running themes so you can drop off stale ones and bring in new ones if necessary (you can also radically change one of the themes periodically if you want because the other themes will still be stable and familiar for the fans), or create a very fluid universe where the fan base can expect a complete shift in things periodically.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
184 – no one give Fusco Brothers and grief because no one reads Fusco Brothers.
It is sort of like Fight Club, only without the need for the rule.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
@172 commodorejohn: I guess you are right, since he now just does basic sketches. What I don’t like is the lack of continuity, where as back in the day each strip sort of lead into another with even the Sunday’s being tied in. Now its seeming like machine jokes or rehashes.
Garfield used to be harsh, and almost a sociopath. He’d threaten Jon, take no mercy on Odie, and would torment Nermal. You know what did it? The Cartoon series – one of my favorites growing up – was the last major creative gasp, with strips after that relating to some of it. The nine lives, the gangster story, and all of those interesting and involving things died off around 96-97, and that is about when I started losing interest.
The jokes started getting lame, and instead of cutting them out and pasting them all over my school supplies I began to just let them wear off into nothingness. Garfield died in 98 I think. What we have now is his re-animated corpse being controlled by a corporation and stock humor. I can almost hear a laugh track being added to each strip.
There was a time when Garfield may have been edgy. Out of curiosity, looking at the pre-internet and computer strips of the 80s, there were mentions of suicide, and even Garfield making stinging zingers about Jon’s apathy and worthlessness. Plus we had incidents of grandiose mischief, and they left the goddamn house now and then.
What do we have now? Everything happens in the house almost all the time, I haven’t seen Odie but only now and then or short runs, Jon is pathetic, although his story is finally going somewhere, and Garfield is reminding me more and more of Crankshaft, minus the venom and cancer.
I really feel some kind of loss to be honest. I parody it not out of some kind of self-promotional narcissism, but just because I want some of the “funny!” back. I mean, when I delved into the archive, I actually had laughs from what I read. Even the first strip made me laugh.
Jon: “Our only thought is to entertain you”
Garfield: “Feed me.”
If Jim Davis reads this, I hope he realizes what he has done and turns it around. The moment the creator lets go of his creation like he has, its no longer got the spark or the flame it had.
Burn down Jon’s house – force them to change into a new environment!
Investigate the basement and find out what happened to Lyman if you don’t burn the house down!
Have Nermal get hit by a car and an unsympathetic Garfield cause him mental anguish as he recovers!
Bring back the mentions of cigarettes and alcohol keeping Nermal stunted and young!
Add back that cutting edge blowtorch sort-of feel, even if it was really the heat from a glue gun and some doobies!
Come on man, don’t let the 31 year old strip become a zombie and just wither away with merchandising! Fight the power!
If only one more thing could be said, making it amusing again and giving it some teeth, brushing off the cobwebs and having them DO things will increase gains and overall profit…
Shit, it’s like watching your favorite series turn into mush in a slow motion transformation of “what the fuck!?”. Its like Tom “That cancer loving bastard” Batiuk’s Funky going from a comedy to a dramedy to a god damned morbid cancer death-fest of boring, pain, self-loathing and suffering, only slower and instead of being emo, just being bland.
Fuck.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
184 – no one gives Fusco Brothers any grief because no one reads Fusco Brothers.
It is sort of like Fight Club, only without the need for the rule.
– sorry, my fingers were drunk.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
@185: Brent: That too.
Although I think it could just be brought back step by step regardless of establishments. I.E. just get back to basics, and find out what the hell Lyman has been doing in that basement since 1988.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
@Jackuul: Are you sure it wasn’t coffee and cigarettes that stunted Nermal’s growth? That’s how I remember it, from back in the day.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
MC: “Groovy Blinkerlegume” for the win.
MW: I’m still back on that ring Adrian is sporting. Damn thing looks like it has spikes imbedded into the rock. Why? Who knows? Perhaps this is Adrian’s way of trying out the “Insane Goth Drama Whore” look, not to be confused with “Insane Prince Valiant in Drag” look that’s worked so well for her in the past.
By now, after days spent with Daddy Jeff blubbering by the bedside and now Adrian’s soggy emoting, Det. Scott is willing himself to die to end his agony.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
#187 Jackuul – Well said, sir.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
When I immediately saw the mag as MACHO, I seemed to recall that as the name of a gay porn mag; then I had to wonder why gay porn had a girl on the cover; then I wondered why (ostensibly hetero) John was reading gay porn. Then I wondered why I’m wasting so much time wondering about reFOOB.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
commodorejohn, jackuul I’m not as up to date on the wide spectrum of comics as I could be. What I’m wondering is: have any comic strips managed to achieve that kind of turn-around? Or is it a lost cause?
October 30th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
136. commodorejohn: I’ve been on the internet for over 20 years. I should welcome most others on it. :)
180. Alfred E Neuman: I never did the SAT – there’s no such thing up here in Canada that I know of. I’ve always been curious about taking it, though, but I knot it can’t be done for fun. (The high-school students would kill me, for one.)
On Garfield: yes, the Nine Lives is pretty much the last high point. After that, well, the animated strip cemented its own doom: being suddenly really popular in plushes and cutesy, kiddified version, the strip had to reflect it so that new people would recognise the product and want to read it (pester papers to run it, pester papers to not drop it). So it had to be “fixed” to coincide to the endless re-runs of the animated series and the ubiquitous merchandise projecting a single look and message. That arm then, and still, controls the “creative” direction.
(The same retroactive continuity is found in, say, the Marvel and DC comics which are retrofitting and changing rosters, powers and costumes to mimic the look and feel of the animated series or the movies, much more popular than the comic itself, despite no real feedback figures showing those loving the by-product start wanting to read the original product.)
October 31st, 2009 at 12:03 am
“But your grandpa was the jackass she ended up with! Right, Gramma?”
October 31st, 2009 at 12:03 am
#194 sugarpie – Look no further than everybody’s favorite oddly effeminate husband and oddly butch wife, Ted and Sally Forth. The strip, under original author Craig Howard, wasn’t terrible, but it was a fairly unremarkable suburban sitcom of a comic. When Ces came on board, though, things began to improve, and in the past couple years it’s been one of the funniest strips in the paper, a gazillion times better than it used to be. Or for a slightly less wildly successful turnaround, you could compare B.C. in Johnny Hart’s final years to B.C. today.
So yeah, it’s rare, but it can happen. A lot of strips could achieve similar improvements if the authors and syndicates would recognize the problems and bring in new blood (or at least new ideas) to liven things up. The question is, will they?
October 31st, 2009 at 12:04 am
I’m so relieved My Cage does not have a sacrificial goat.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:50 am
Macho Man was a song by the Villiage People. A porn maagazine named after a song by them gives me an image in my mind I’d like to forget,
October 31st, 2009 at 12:59 am
# 181 Alfred — Actually, your post made me realize that “quite excellent” was a bit of an exaggeration. I dunno how I would have done on the Miller test.
# 194 sugarpie — I seem to recall that at one time, PEANUTS was getting criticism for being stale, and then it got better again for awhile. But I don’t remember how much better. Now that my paper is carrying strips from the late fifties and early sixties, I’m being reminded of how good it was at first.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:14 am
10/31
A3G — Please tell me this will end with Bobbie and Margo in a cagefight. Please, please.
FW — WTF? Suddenly Cory is just sitting at his desk back at school, after being brought home as a truant and a vandal and then dissing a cop? Do you stay awake at night thinking of ways to drive me crazy, Batiuk?
LUANN — Some prescient Mudge predicted this. Congrats to that Mudge.
MW — I don’t know about Scott, but after several days of Adrian emoting, I’m ready to shuffle off this mortal coil.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:23 am
Gil Thorp
“generally when one of your guys runs a punt back 98 yards for a touchdown, that’s a good thing, right? And yet there’s Coach Kaz, looking horrified and flapping his hands around theatrically. ”
Depends how much you bet with whom as to how badly your team would lose.
Visions of cement boots or plum fairies dancing in your head. Which would you prefer?
October 31st, 2009 at 1:25 am
10/31:
Curtis: How the hell does Barry manage to do an exaggerated reaction like that after he was leaning on the bed in the last panel, in the same direction he’s now keeling over?
BG warning: Do not look at 10/31 F Minus!
Groovy Blinkerlegume: (That’s a keeper!) Yeah, that’ll teach the little whippersnapper you spawned, Groovy.
MG&G: No, I’m pretty sure that’s just about what the real Spider-Man would do. Even if you managed to drag him away from his TV in the first place.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:28 am
Undoubtedly it’s the sherry talking, but after seeing todays strip (10/31) I have a new found respect for Apartment 3G.
Poteet,200 I sometiimes get confused by Peanuts chronology. The only way I can tell what decade a strip is from is by the shape of their heads.
Off to the land of nod…
October 31st, 2009 at 1:44 am
Hey, folks! Let me be among the first to wish you all a Happy Halloween! (Well, and a few friends…)
October 31st, 2009 at 2:04 am
106: That was the first thing I noticed. STOMP and Gil Thorp together at last.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:05 am
106: That was the first thing I noticed. STOMP and Gil Thorp together at last.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:22 am
#187, Jackuul:
The Nine Lives book came out in the mid-80s… definitely a time when things were still creative. I still love that book (my younger sister got it as a present because I was “a little old for that kind of stuff”), with all the different styles and genres and overall playfulness with the Garfield universe… the sort of thing that other comic strips should consider doing.
Personally, I’d put the end of the creative part as not long after the famous “Garfield’s Death” arc in Oct 1989. That was really a trip.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:24 am
RwO: “…the Pulitzer was a shoe-in” is a shoo-in for the Pulitzer.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:29 am
reFOOB: Yeah, yeah, “men are evil”….again. Lynn, either STFU and retire, or get some damn therapy.
In fact, do all three, you lazy, no-talent, never-was(it’d be too nice to call her a “has-been”) hack.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:33 am
Oops, I forgot to add: “ignorant” and “sexist” when describing Lynn.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:47 am
FW
Wait… so FUNKY is cleaning up the mess his son made at school? That’ll surely teach Cory a valuable lesson!
October 31st, 2009 at 2:59 am
Poteet .. i mean Gwirt .. how dare you question Michael … I mean supreme Overlord Gor-Michael .,.
He’s president of the drama club, so he gets to say “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” is the class play!
October 31st, 2009 at 3:01 am
Sinners in the hands of an angry Jumble — VI
(Warning: Clue mouseovers = Jumble spoilers)
We EGGAU our days in vain pursuit
Of CILRYised but base desires —
All rendered TUIFLE, null, and moot
In HARTHSing on Gehenna’s fires.
Behold how sinners may be put to ******
In terror of the searing endless night.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:11 am
Now with barely visible underlined mouseover comments!
Curtis – Another among the multitude of things that irritates me about Curtis is the “woe to the poor inner-city families” reality one day, inevitably followed by Curt making frivolous purchases or complaining/bragging about his computer/phone/some expensive piece of technology. But, to be fair, so do a lot of comic strips, because it is just a comic strip after all. But don’t expect me to give a rat’s ass when you go on about something important, Billingsly, because I know it’ll be followed up with “humorous hijinks” .
Dennis – Most menacing thing he’s done all year.
F Minus – Wow. First time I ever heard of a feral clown was here. You can make of that what you will. But I really like the clown saying “HSSSSS”, I think that is freakin hilarious.
Garfield – Well, that’s the one thing I miss this year is skipping work and watching horror movie marathons. On the rest of the “Garfield sucks anymore” debate I totally agree, and don’t think you could save it now. I’m not sure there’s anything to be saved: there’s an entire generation that grew up with slightly-chubby, do-nothing, mildly-rude Garfield. Not to mention the secretaries and assorted cubicle dwellers (really, no offense, I’m saying the ones without ‘taste’) who keep buying the watered-down Garfield crap. I never thought about it this way, but Niall @195 is probably right that the tv show killed the old Garfield forever.
Get Fuzzy – Haha, more funny words. Funny words and talking! Take that, people who want them to get out of the apartment!
Herb & Jamaal – Uh, Jamaal….nobody asked you to eat it. And which is more likely: Tyrone walked out to the nearest farm, slaughtered a cow –or– He found a dead cat laying behind his dumpster? I think I’m getting too wrapped up in the semantics of H&J. Fuck ‘em both.
Marmaduke – Does it look to anyone else like Bill Hinds (Cleats, Tank) guest-drew the kids?
Spiderman – It’s pretty asshole-y that Spiderman knows everyone else’s secret identities and where they live, but he’s all “Nobody can know who I am”. I’ll go back to ignoring Spiderman now.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:16 am
Anyone remember when The Simpsons had the joke where Homer sang “Nacho Man” to “Macho Man”, and then a few years later a commercial for, uh, probably nachos, did the same thing? Yeah. I wonder if someone got sued.
Anywhatsit, I came here to comment on comics when I realized the ones I was going to comment on were webcomics and not newspaper comics. And no one here cares what I think about Skin Horse or Sheldon, mainly because the deepest thought I have about them tonight is “Mmm. Ham hocks.”
October 31st, 2009 at 3:27 am
@Niall #134: Well then I have no idea why you think people are better off not knowing what it means. (For the record, it’s a mispronunciation of “source”, used to ask where anonymously posted porn came from. I regret NOTHING!)
@ the Garfield conversation: Here’s my theory on Garfield and every other zombie strip out there: Once a comic gets popular enough, it stops mattering whether it’s entertaining anymore; nobody’s going to dare pull it from the paper because by God it’s POPULAR. Thousands of newspaper editors can’t all be wrong, right?
And then, woe to the writer who doesn’t have a good, brutally honest laugh-o-meter to bounce ideas off of: With so many readers, no matter how lame the comic gets, there’s never a shortage of positve fan mail. And who pays attention to the hate mail? Most of it is little old ladies complaining that they were scandalized by the use of the word “pee” in Tuesday’s strip, and they’ve long since hired someone to screen out that junk. And of course nobody ever laughs at their own joke. So there’s no longer any way to know if they’re still funny anymore. Often they let their standards slip without even knowing it.
And I have no reason to believe there are any exceptions. Show me a comic that’s been around for more than a decade or so, that still has its original writer, and is also still as consistently funny as in its heyday. Just one.
And with that, on to the snark:
9 Chickweed Lane: Also you were telling her all this stuff while you were in the room with Gran. Protip: Switching to headset does not make you inaudible to those around you.
Blondie: Don’t you miss the good old days when after weeks of preparing themselves for scary stuff, all it took to terrify kids was an obvious half-costume? Ever since they stopped making the plumbing out of lead… Ah, but just wait till the Keane kids drop by; it’ll all be worth it!
Crankshaft: Ed buries himself alive today. Let’s see if he can do us a favor and stay there.
Dennis: Wow. OK, that’s officially menacing and scary.
Luann: Who called it? I know I saw someone predict this.
My Cage: I’ve heard that saying before, but I wonder where it comes from. Unfunny comedy is as easy as ass-pull drama, and, as nine out of ten comics attest, will still amuse the little old ladies who still read newspapers.
Six Chix: It’s Luann as a kid!
This week’s Unexpectedly Funny Award goes to Crock!
October 31st, 2009 at 3:31 am
Humor has a lot to do with context. Those zombies that have been not very funny all week in Zits would be hilarious if placed in the fantasy sequence in the second panel of today’s MW.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:38 am
Happy Halloween — or, as the DeGroots call it, Saturday:
A3G: Margo…. it’s over. Even you can’t top that fireball! ….right…?…
BBlues: Now, now! One family of DeGroots is enough!
FW: Shouldn’t — uh — Cory be doing that?
H&L: I see this strip as half-assed.
MT: Aw, nobody wants to be Sassy’s friend. She’s like the female, canine Michael Scott.
MW: Okay, now Adrian’s in a coma! (I know, I know — “How can you tell?”)
Ghost-Who-Boohoo: …or see if she, you know, HAD ANY!
RMMD: Omigod, he’s going to get them drunk and have his way with them, isn’t he? Eeeeewwwww…!
Ziggy: Same difference.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:41 am
#217, Steve the Pocket:
Arlo and Janis. Still written by Jimmy Johnson, part of the same generation that brought us Garfield and Foob. Has never really lost it’s edge, but also was never a huge success (not one of the 2000+ paper club). Which is possibly why it hasn’t changed much (well, other than the characters ageing at about 1/2 speed). JJ’s simply never reached the “name bigger than the title” level of fame which guarantees you get isolated, because at that point you get surrounded by yes-men that don’t want to criticize the master.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:53 am
217. Steve the Pocket. Peanuts did a pretty good job of keeping up the quality, even though it went through some periods where it wasn’t up to the first decade. Pogo got better in its later years.
Doonesbury is as good as it was in the 1980s, I think, although perhaps you wouldn’t consider it strictly a humor strip. Dilbert has managed to keep the same quality (given that it was always a bit hit or miss)—today’s strip reassured me that it can still raise a chuckle. Also Monty has been around about 20 years or so since its start as Robotman, and I still like it.
Some of the older strips like Our Boarding House also had long runs and were still pretty good, but I don’t know enough about the history of who drew them to cite a specific example.
However, I’d have to agree with you in general, despite these few exceptions.
The same would be true in radio and television comedy. I can’t think of anyone who had a long career in TV comedy, however Bob and Ray would be the exceptional case in radio.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:21 am
FuBar: I don’t believe it. A Dalí reference.
(NSFW if you work with mathematicians with dirty minds.)
October 31st, 2009 at 5:12 am
#176 Poteet: How about these sample questions?
Lio is to funny as Cathy is to:
A) Funny
B) Cathartic
C) Inane
D) Not Funny
Pearls Before Swine is to awesome as Funky Winkerbean is to:
A) Funny
B) Carrageen
C) Insane
D) Soul-sucking depression
Ziggy is to funny as For Better or For Worse is to:
A) Funny
B) Cathartic
C) Icky
D) Wretched
Mary Worth is to hurry as Spiderman is to:
A) Funny
B) Casserole
C) Idiom
D) Action
Mark Trail is to bolding as Coach Kaz is to:
A) Funny
B) Clitellum
C) Inion
D) Handerpants
October 31st, 2009 at 5:28 am
Mark Trail: Sassy doesn’t understand the hostility toward her.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:47 am
223 Baka G – Haha, clitellum. Worms are dumb. Are they all D or can I opt for E) Suicide pact forming?
October 31st, 2009 at 5:51 am
Poor Cue. All he wants in life is for everyone to know whose crib it is. Poor, poor Cue.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:15 am
Clitellum? I thought that was some kind of dinosaur?
(Actually, it’s part of a worm’s reproductive system, so it’s not that far off from that old standby joke.)
October 31st, 2009 at 6:36 am
Old El Paso’s “Nacho Man” commercial came well before Homer sang the jingle on “The Simpsons”.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:49 am
RMMJ: “Get some weed…” — I called this one three days ago when I suggested it would be more realistic to show Mouthy McGoat with a spliff danglin’ from his lip like Second Officer Guido.
October 31st, 2009 at 7:44 am
225, MolyBendum:
So you find Ziggy funny? Or Foob not Wretched?
Personally, I’m thinking B for that one… the stories in Foob gave me exactly as much emotional catharsis as Ziggy has ever given me laughs. Namely, none.
I’d also go with A for the first one… because although Cathy is not funny (and Lio is), it’s just so inane that it doesn’t deserve association with the word “funny”. Even in the negative.
Although, if the questions are using Cathartic in the sense of a physical purging… then I go with B for the 1st and A for the 3rd.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:21 am
RMMD: Cue is already counting the money he’s going to make by producing and selling some Alzheimer’s porn starring a liquored up and high as a kite old golf pro and a naughty gggmilf;
October 31st, 2009 at 8:22 am
Oops, forgot to add, the working title of the first feature is “The Golf Lesson”: Slow and Sloppy
October 31st, 2009 at 8:55 am
230 Brent – Ziggy is without a doubt the most brilliant comic strip ever created. From the astonishing simplicity of the art (oh yeah, I said “art” and I meant it) to the subtle genius of the writing (oh yeah, I said “writing” and I meant it again), no comic today can even compete with the sheer beauty of Ziggy.
Except maybe The Dinette Set.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:09 am
Pluggers: Pluggers don’t put up birdhouses to give birds shelter – they are hoping to catch and eat them. A free Thanksgiving entree!
October 31st, 2009 at 9:19 am
Tommorrow’s Luann 11/01/09
Outside the recently Bulldozed FORMER DeGroot Residence….,
Stan – “Gosh Unca’ Elwood. The Cadaver Dog-Puppies have SEARCHED every square inch of rubble. We CAN’T find those damned DeGroots ANYWHERE! They MUST have ESCAPED!”
Rachel – “ESCAPED!? (Sniff) I feel CHEATED of a RIGHTEOUS and JUST REVENGE! (Sob)”
Alice – “HELL, yeah! Those STUPID ‘Suger-Free Bran Muffins’ have LEFT Me SULLEN and EMOTIONALLY SCARRED for Life! The DeGroots MUST PAY!”
Elwood – “Now, don’ ya’ll WORRY! Ah’ll find them DeGroots! They ain’t nevah gonna Goof-Up Halloween a-gin!”
Neighborhood kids – “HOORAY, Uncle Elwood!!”
Elwood – “Now all ya’ll git on tuh’ bus. Ah’m taking ya’ll to Ben ‘N Jerry’s fo’ ice-cream an’ cake. Then ah’m gonna take ya’ll to Best Buy an’ GIT ALL ya’ll uh NEW Playstation 3 with’ muh NEW Zeye game in-stalled! CLYDE, bring up tuh’ bus!!!”
Neighborhood kids – “HOORAY FOR UNCLE ELWOOD! PRESIDENT for LIFE!!!”
Clyde – “I have admit sir. Your PLAN is working BEAUTIFULLY!”
Elwood – “You BET yo’ ASS it IS! Ya gotta WORK that “Youth-Vote”, EARLY. Ya’ll take care ‘o the kids. Ah gotta drive over tuh 9 Chickweed Lane an’ RE-CLAIM Muh FI-AN-CEE!”
____________________
DEATH to TJ and ANYONE ELSE who gets in the WAY!!!
October 31st, 2009 at 9:26 am
Sassy’s in trouble again. It must be Saturday.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:56 am
H&J: “The homeless: They are probably planning to eat your pet. This message brought to you by the Fear Council.”
October 31st, 2009 at 9:59 am
Between Friends: “Dear Mr. Montgomery, please excuse Emma’s ongoing and uninterrupted production of fail. The apple, the tree… you see what I’m saying, I’m sure. Thank you.”
October 31st, 2009 at 10:12 am
FW: I can see that Batiuk is now taking lessons from Ed Wood the master of the theater of the incoherent. I mean WTF?
MW: Scott is by now wondering if life is really worth it.
9CL: There comes a time when you just don’t care. This it.
October 31st, 2009 at 10:19 am
Saturday is cold and dreary / Let us snark to be more cheery
Curtis: I call shenanigans – there’s not a single urban child in this continent who is not acutely super-aware of Hallowe’en time and which day it is.
Thorp: Teases! We’re only told about a match that involved girls killing each other, and not shown the single most interesting thing to happen in that universe?
Marm: …okay, credit where credit is due, that would be the scariest costume for kids.
My Cage: Hmm. Not sure it succeeded, but at least it tried.
PBS: Crowning sundae.
Still tired, guess that’s all I have today…
October 31st, 2009 at 10:26 am
MW: Oh good GOLLY, we have to see Scott’s entire life flashing before our eyes? We’re not the ones in a coma here! Although we might be by the time this storyline actually gets somewhere . . .
October 31st, 2009 at 10:33 am
My Cage: This fruit, it hangs very, very low. But congratulations for grabbing at it.
October 31st, 2009 at 10:35 am
BB: ‘I MISS YOU SARGE’…..’BURMA SHAVE’.
Blondie: Never mind the foam rubber shark head; check out Blondie’s black leather skirt, matching choker, tight pink blouse with matching pumps. Happy Halloween, indeed !
Curtis: “Here, Barry….try this ‘gum’.” *clunk*
FW: In real life, Cory would be doing the cleaning ’cause he would be on court-ordered community service during his school suspension. At least in some townships. In others, he would be forced to sit in front of a twenty-something counselor and discuss his ‘feelings’.
HtH: Floating castles in the sky are a little pricy, Helga.
H&L: I subscribe to Chip’s philosophy about leaf removal. My neighbor’s feel otherwise as they run the flashlight-assisted leaf blower after sunset.
MC: Winky ?
MT: Poor Sassy. She always gets framed in a embarrassing pose….ass and tongue hanging out. bats:[ will be using that for a mash-up. =)
MW: Adrian looks like she has gotten caught up in a Jehovah’s Witness publication. “Should I marry and produce two genetically mixed children ? Or should I preach about the end times to Bolivian natives and tell them how much fun the 144,000 survivors of the apocalypse will have ?”
October 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
Lockhorns: “Speaking of which, I have this amateur video of your lovely bride…yadda yadda yadda….and I take all major credit cards.”
October 31st, 2009 at 10:46 am
208. Brent: Ah, I keep forgetting there was a book of Garfield’s Nine Lives – I was talking more of the animated special, which came out some years later.
217. Steve the Pocket: on ’sauce’ (and I hadn’t realised it was from ’source’), it was just that to know it, you had to have been on those archives, and on most of them, I wouldn’t wish them to most of the intelligent people here I consider friends. I try to treat my friends nicely. :)
Listening to the local college radio’s great Saturday morning folk music programme, I was greatly surprised to hear them play, due to the day, “Vampire Beavers” – Frank Zappa is usually as far from folk as you can get… and while it played, my mind came up with Mark Trailian images. I need to fully wake up, becuase I’m starting to scare myself.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:20 am
@173 Black Drazon: I’m pretty sure that Twirg is intended to be an alien-sounding name for the denizen of the surrounded planet. The kids haven’t yet learned the convention of comic strip alien naming conventions relying heavily on Q, X and Z.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:21 am
Sunday ReFoob Advisory: Elly tells Mike to get rid of all his excess Halloween candy; since she’s stooopid and useless, she thinks that he’s complied with her demand when he’s actually tossed all of Lizzie’s.
Sunday Funky Winkerbean: Cancerview High ensures that the next school levy will pass by threatening the voters with a band concert if they don’t pass it with a huge majority.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:26 am
GT: :Yep, Jamarr is good. Very good. I see a full boat scholarship to State U in his future.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:31 am
how come the gators only come out when the sideburn brothers are in the woods . as for mary worth adrian is dreaming of giving her future daughter the same haircut as her !
October 31st, 2009 at 11:33 am
Halloween Funnies:
A3G: Bobbie, you’re my new hero!
Baldo: Actually, that’s really funny.
‘Shaft: So was this. Is there something wrong with me?
FW: So the cop DID make Funky pay for his shitty parenting. Cool.
Garfield: This one was funny, too, if only because that’s what I’ve done.
Luann: Dammit, who predicted that something like this would happen? I know someone did, and unfortunately, Evans botched it again.
My Cage: Loved it. I don’t know what else to say – it made its point so perfectly.
PBS: So odd, yet so funny.
Pluggers: So you’re a plugger if you like to feed the purple martin finches? Oh, God…
Zits: Are you done YET?
October 31st, 2009 at 11:37 am
OK, kids, take a drink every time John Patterson’s an asshole. A day after Nacho Man, he ate all the kids’ Halloween candy. Monday he’ll poop on Elly’s Dia de los Muertos altar.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:48 am
A3G – Oh my God, is Bobbie going to run into Crazy and Won’t Win at the makeover dealie? I love this strip.
BR – Brewster Rockit gets in a nice little dig today.
Crankshaft – You know what, Crankshaft might be an old bastard, but this is just pretty damn awesome.
DT – Yeah, one elementary physics lesson, coming up. Mr. Newton, if you please?
FC – Billy dressed as Death meets Flava Flav. I have to say, that’s the most frightening Halloween costume I’ve ever seen.
FW – Yeah, if I’d been spawned from the loins of that doughy flesh-lump, I’d be embarrassed, too.
GT – Wait, wait, wait. You mean Milford has a blood sport and we don’t get to see it!? There is no justice in the world.
HOTC – Hey! Heart is going as Liz Patterson!
Lio – is win.
Love Is… – drugs.
MT – “My sideburns give me super-hearing!”
MW – Look, I really hate to be joining in with the “any time a character wants to get married and have a family it’s retrograde and/or sappy” crowd, but…Jesus is this ever nauseating.
MC – Thirty seconds of uninterrupted guffaws, that’s what this got. I can only pray to God that Batiuk will try to respond. Bravo, Team My Cage! Bravo!
RMMD – I love this guy! Why isn’t he the main character? He’s certainly a lot more likeable than Rex.
Edison Lee – Okay, fair’s fair. Edison Lee got a laugh out of me today.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:53 am
I can’t believe it – Josh opens with GT, and over 250 comments later, nobody’s mentioned Billy Cannon’s 89 yard touchdown against Ole Miss? 50 years ago today, and here in Baton Rouge, at least, it’s been all over the news for weeks.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/67831057.html
The people who care about football around here (which is most of them) seem to feel it’s the most important event in the history of college sports. I guess Milford had to go one better, and you know, add another nine yards.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:58 am
Does anyone follow Ink Pen? They took a nice swipe at FW today.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Ghost in the Stripey Pants: “Yes, I should have heeded the formless mutterings of a guy who goes trick-or-treating as Darth Vader in his underwear, who mentioned a prophecy with Delphian vagueness, a prophecy that could have just as well meant that Diana was going to take a shower behind an earth-toned curtain. So, forgive me Mister President, I must ignore a crime that left your city with a smoking crater and hundreds of pounds of human gore decorating the trees like Christmas lights, and the fact that while Chatu may have masterminded it, his non-jailbound minions executed it. I’m off to have a scotch with Ol’ Hanky Head to hear him bullshit about how my wife was applying nail polish (he will say that the shade was Apricot Ice) when she was atomized by an LPG IED! And buy a lottery ticket. Toodles!”
October 31st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Am I evil for hoping for a future storyline in which Adrian can’t conceive? That gives us potential to have a story from Mary Worth about the child she never had/aborted/sacrificed in a pagan ritual/keeps locked up in the basement. We could consider international adoptions, medical intervention (like arm slings), and eventually get some sexual instruction for Adrian.
Or maybe it has to be new contraceptive technology, as clearly the children in her ghostly thoughts are clones of their respective parents.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
RMMD – “And that’s how we discovered that grain alcohol cured Alzheimer’s.”
October 31st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
#231 – LOL still
#236 – Yes, but was she caught soaping up windows?
FC – Masky crossover!
#251 – The whiskey bottle’s empty already. So what does that tell you?
Time to carve the pumpkins!
October 31st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
#256 – Then comes the fertility clinic storyline, in which Adrian finally conceives 9 little rug rats at once. Then comes the “reality” show contract.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
A3G: Margo needs to ditch her lame non-@#?!!*! roommates and move in with Bobbie ASAP.
Actually, she probably shouldn’t kick Tommie out, now that I think about it. If Tommie wasn’t around, who would clean up the blood splatters and various bits of corpse that will invariably be strewn around the apartment?
Curtis: If Curtis really just wants to make school interesting, he can just defy the laws of perspective and physics, like Barry is doing in panels two and three.
MC: Win!
Also, spleen is undoubtedly the funniest of all the organs.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
FW: How hard is it to wash soap streaks off of some windows anyway? Couldn’t you just take a hose to it and be done with it in minutes if not seconds?
On a related note, that has to be the tamest form of vandalism ever conceived.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
analogies
If they haven’t been dropped from tests, they should be. The “right” answer depends on how one thinks.
For me:
Lio is to funny as Cathy is to funny.
If I were taking a test, I’d be asking myself: What do they want to hear?
October 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
GIL THORP
Wow, you really don’t know football! Never touch the ball inside your own 10. He should have ‘Let it go’ and they would have had the ball at the 20. For every 98 yard return there are 100 times your team gets stuck inside their own 10.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
A3G – Well, it’s not the suit that needs the makeover. Salesgirl TV seems to be shaking a paint brush, and probably has a bucket of blue satin acrylic paint so that Bobbie can be just like everybody else. Just like everybody else. Just like everybody else.
Close2, Crankshaft, Crock, Luann – Halloween brings out the best in some people. All three strips are pushing adequate today.
Dick – Soon, soon, this violent remake of “Goodbye Mister Chips” will reach its conclusion, after which there will only be another three weeks or so of strips featuring the characters telling each other what just happened.
Fred – Fred’s right. He can achieve anything he sets his doggie mind to. Look at the landscape forming a giant Zed. He’s bored the bloody countryside to sleep!
Gasoline – She’s looking for Walt in the cemetery. Optimist.
Marmaduke – “…Oh, and also, he ate all the candy!”
Mary – Somebody stop her! She’s going to sing “Geraniums in the Winder” from Carousel!
My Cage – Only ‘Groovy Blinkerlegume’ would drag it out for several months. I’m not saying you should, but that’s what would happen.
Pluggers – don’t need singles ads to look for cheap, fly-by-night, dog-on-bird sex.
Rx – We have alwaysh depended upon the kindnesh of shtrangersh. Hic.
Cue doesn’t know it, but every time those two get out from now on, they’re going to show up at his trailer, with eager, expectant looks on their faces as they yammer about golf and supper.
Slylock – Which two ghosts are exactly alike? Number one, who ghosts ‘Hi and Lois,’ and number three, who ghosts ‘Beetle Bailey.’ The other two are the ghosts for BC and Shoe, respectively.
Spidey – “That’s MISTER Sandman to you, Wall-Crawler! Just like that joke Muffaroo keeps trying to make!”
October 31st, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Poteet @200 – I still have the greatest respect for Schulz’s one-man body of work (and for the great stuff before, say, 1974 or so), but once it became the Snoopy and Woodstock and Peppermint Patty show, it never recovered.
Frozen @207 – Hey, stop taking credit for Anonymous’s lines! That’s my shtick!
MolyBendum @215 – If you’re not just joking about Tool having “come up with” that term, I yam disgustipated.
Mibbitmaker @219 – H&L comment wins.
BenG @261 – Try it! Rub a bar of soap over a window, and then see how easy it is to get off. The stuff takes some work, especially if you press down when you’re rubbing it on there. You can get about 75% off of it right away, and another 10% with some work, but then there’s the part that just doesn’t want to leave.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
? The acronym tag doesn’t work the way I thought it did. Consider this a test…
October 31st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Somebody tell me the right syntax for acronym tag. In the meantime, here’s my first comment with the title tag in its place. Gah.
A3G – Well, it’s not the suit that needs the makeover. Salesgirl TV seems to be shaking a paint brush, and probably has a bucket of blue satin acrylic paint so that Bobbie can be just like everybody else. Just like everybody else. Just like everybody else.
Close2, Crankshaft, Crock, Luann – Halloween brings out the best in some people. All three strips are pushing adequate today.
Dick – Soon, soon, this violent remake of “Goodbye Mister Chips” will reach its conclusion, after which there will only be another three weeks or so of strips featuring the characters telling each other what just happened.
Fred – Fred’s right. He can achieve anything he sets his doggie mind to. Look at the landscape forming a giant Zed. He’s bored the bloody countryside to sleep!
Gasoline – She’s looking for Walt in the cemetery. Optimist.
Marmaduke – “…Oh, and also, he ate all the candy!”
Mary – Somebody stop her! She’s going to sing “Geraniums in the Winder” from Carousel!
My Cage – Only ‘Groovy Blinkerlegume’ would drag it out for several months. I’m not saying you should, but that’s what would happen.
Pluggers – don’t need singles ads to look for cheap, fly-by-night, dog-on-bird sex.
Rx – We have alwaysh depended upon the kindnesh of shtrangersh. Hic.
Cue doesn’t know it, but every time those two get out from now on, they’re going to show up at his trailer.
Slylock – Which two ghosts are exactly alike? Number one, who ghosts ‘Hi and Lois,’ and number three, who ghosts ‘Beetle Bailey.’ The other two are the ghosts for BC and Shoe, respectively.
Spidey – “That’s MISTER Sandman to you, Wall-Crawler! Just like that joke Muffaroo keeps trying to make!”
Poteet @200 – I must have missed it when Peanuts stopped being stale. I still have the greatest respect for Schulz’s one-man body of work (and for the great stuff before, say, 1974 or so), but once it became the Snoopy and Woodstock and Peppermint Patty show, it never recovered.
Frozen @207 – Hey, stop taking credit for Anonymous’s lines! That’s my shtick!
MolyBendum @215 – If you’re not just joking about Tool having “come up with” that term, I yam disgustipated.
Mibbitmaker @219 – H&L comment wins.
BenG @261 – Just try it. Rub a bar of soap over a window, and then see how easy it is to get off. The stuff takes some work, especially if you press down when you’re rubbing it on there.
…
Whew.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
My Cage – Good show. Someone has been taking lessons from bats :[
October 31st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
#267 Muffaroo: Per a View Source on this page, MolyBendum’s successful acronym tag coded as follows: <acronym title=”[hidden comment]“>[Visible Text]</acronym>
October 31st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Let’s see a wealthy drug addled rageholic who staggers between trying to transparently buy the favors of people whose names she can’t be bothered to remember and screaming fits at random strangers. Oh, and her ingrate husband is cheating on her which is okay with her as long as he keeps the cash and percodan flowing and has the decency to keep his dirty bits private.
I’ve got it! This is about time travel! “Bobbie” is actually Margo from the future come back to set right some terrible wrong – or to just kill all those losers she should have offfed back when she had the chance, damn it.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
My prediction for Action Sunday! in Dick Tracy: Mr. Pops fires at Tracy (and misses). The gun’s recoil knocks him off balance and Mr. Pops falls backward into the tiger cage. The end of Mr. Pops. The end of this dismal storyline.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
SM: As always, Spidey’s timing is impeccable: He’s arrived just in time for Jay Leno.
MT: Sassy, while wandering through the swamp, takes a moment to practice her Crane Pose.
What’s up the ghostly, shadowy figure in the background? Did Elrod spend so much time on Sassy’s realistic rendering that he was too exhausted to finish the Poachin’ Pal? Or is this his clumsy Elrodian nod to Halloween?
MW: Oh. My. God. I wish someone would shoot me in the arm and put me in a coma so I could lie in blissful unawareness until Adrian’s soliloquy is over.
(Scott seems to have somehow gotten a little dirt on his cheek—unless that’s stubble burn from Jeff’s recent attentions….)
October 31st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
8th Man Fan @269 – Oh, thanks for checking that for me. I thought of checking the source, but I’ve been doing family stuff. I’ll give it a shot.
bats :[ @271 – Your preiction seems mostly on target, but I’ll refine it to say it will take at least two days for Mr. Pops to fall. “Oh no! I’m falling! The ground seems to be getting ever closer as I approach it!” “Good Lord, he’s falling! According to the laws of perspective, he appears larger by the moment to those of us on the ground!” “Rrowr! Re’s ralling! Roh boy!”
October 31st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
# 213 Marion — I will never kneel to him! Never! Never! It’s bad enough that I can’t stop myself from reading about him. Arrgh…I’m Gwirt.
# 223 Gaijin — Sorry, I’m laughing too hard to answer them.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
#261 – The thing is, Funky has to make it look as difficult as possible and be a martyr in the process.
This is the way of the Funkyverse.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
214 Uncle Lumpy: I like the poems this way; it’s like reading some weird Jonathan Edwards / Lewis Carroll hybrid. “Twas brillig—in the fires of hell!”
October 31st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
271. bats :[
That should take a
goodwhole month.October 31st, 2009 at 2:20 pm
# 267 Muffaroo — I remember reading somewhere (and noticing) that PEANUTS improved somewhat for a time, but I don’t know anyone who would claim that it ever became as good as it used to be.
From wiki: “Despite the widespread acclaim generated by Peanuts as a whole, some critics have alleged a decline in the strip’s quality in the later years of its run, as Schulz frequently digressed from the more cerebral socio-psychological themes that characterized his earlier work in favor of lighter, more whimsical fare. For example, in an essay published in the New York Press at the time of the final daily strip in January 2000, “Against Snoopy”, Christopher Caldwell argued that the character of Snoopy, and the strip’s increased focus on him in the 1970s, “went from being the strip’s besetting artistic weakness to ruining it altogether.”
October 31st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Have I done too many Vikes today (take it easy, man, I just called to get some hydro!) or does today’s Luann rhyme? The whole thing?
October 31st, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I’m baffled by this misconception that “Nacho Man” is some sort of girlie magazine. It’s clearly a comic book. Like Superman and Spider Man, Nacho Man is out there fighting to preserve our way of life. Along with his sidekicks, Pizza Boy and Corn Dog, he spends his days battling the health food mafia for control of America’s kitchens. I personally loved issue #363 where Nacho Man defeated the Salad Shooter in a junior high cafeteria.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Just gotta say: I don’t know if anyone does sarcasm as well as Ruben Bolling.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
MW: Why do I have the feeling Adrian will start singing “The Way We Were”?
October 31st, 2009 at 3:39 pm
#271- Bats- Don’t forget that the tiger cage had steel bars across the ceiling with an opening for the trapeze. We all know that the artist for DT pays attention to all those little details. So I’ll go out on a limb and say that there is NO way the clown will fall into the cage. Remember, there IS a ceiling. There will be absolutely No falling into the cage with bars across the top. Not gonna happen….
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?week=1&date=2009/10/17&name=Dick_Tracy
October 31st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
DT: We don’t KNOW that Mr. Pops has climbed on top of the tiger cage. He may be on the lion cage, or the giant snake cage. Both roofless. (And we know how roofless Tracy can be when there’s a criminal on the lam. “And the lion shall lie down with the lam…”)
I just love typing “Mr. Pops.” Wasn’t he eating a sucker the first time we saw him? I betcha that’s why he’s called “Mr. Pops.”
October 31st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
– Gil Thorp –
Well, I was closer than everyone else in my prediction that yesterday’s performance by Jamarr “The Brother Who Would Smother Your Mother” Gaddis would lead to him hitting on Valerie. But wait…what’s this? Character development for Jamarr? Look at how smooth he is when he’s being supportive of and taking an interest in the girl he’s stalking! It’s pure poetry in motion. It’s like running a punt back from the 2.
– Rex Morgan –
Cueball is one passive aggressive mother humper.
– Apartment 3G –
I guess makeovers are about clothes. I’ve never seen a makeover show (because I’m a guy and my fashion sense comes from my girlfriend or, in her absence, the hottest salesclerk I can find in the store ) but I always thought they were about facials and minor plastic surgery. Whatever. Google has cured me of my short-sightedness. I would feel insulted if someone randomly asked me if I was here for a makeover too. I would probably even say “god damn” in my reply to whatever TV urchin asked me the question. Well, I guess I’d snarl a lot just like Bobbie there. Again it seems my point is: “Bobbie has a penis”.
269 8th Man Fan – Thanks.
271 bats :[ – See, this is what happens when I get busy, I can’t post my prediction on Dick Tracy (which was about identical to yours except I daren’t speculate on how impossibly long it will take) and get beat to the punch. I totally agree with you on substance.
283 Jumble Jeff Haha, you said “artist” “Dick Tracy” “pays attention”.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Re: Peanuts. (Poteet, Muffaroo). — I started reading the newspapers when just a li’l tyke–I think it was in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination—and so was reading Peanuts in the mid and late 1960s. As the 1970s began, I very distinctly recall thinking, “Ugh, this is never funny anymore,” only for decades of bemused wonder to follow for me as I saw folks in general elevate Peanuts to empyrean status. As a comic character would say, “???”. For me, Peanuts was entertaining and admirable for a short time, then unamusing for a long time, then sad and a bit alarming at the end. May all comic strips have a period of being entertaining and admirable! Thanks for that, Peanuts!
October 31st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
#285 MolyBendum- That’s just professional courtesy.
Haha I said “professional”. You know what I mean.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
C’shaft: Is it too much to hope that he’s stuck there and won’t be noticed until his family notices the rotting pumpkin is giving off an even more pungent funk than usual?
DT: I know this is a circus and unusual physical feats are common…but just HOW is Mr. Pops balancing on top of that cage?
FW: If my dad were Funky, I’d be embarrassed too.
Luann: You make Dr. Seuss cry.
MW: Adrian’s not going to let a little thing like Scott’s death stop her from living out her dreams–she’s already planning their wedding at the Pearly Gates.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Oh how I’ve missed making fun of the foobs. Sniff. The later years of FBOFW were a goldmine of snark (from the readers, not the strip).
I do think the strip was kind of funny back in the day (”Nacho Man” aside) but it is ruined now because I know all the characters are going to become assholes, especially the Great Canadian Novelist Michael. I am looking at Elly and knowing she will get uglier and uglier (inside AND out) until she is so ugly she could blind someone, and her nose gets wider and wider until she could be mistaken for a Muppet. As for John, well, in the more recent strips, John probably offended me least, but looking at these old strips I wonder if that’s only because he was always kind of a jerk, and I was used to it.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
OK, I’m not going to read through 280 comments to see if anyone’s made this point, so bear with me if so. Coach Kaz was quite right in panel 2; Jamarr should not have tried to field that ball. Let it go into the end zone, and you have the ball on the 20 with a 17-point lead. Touch the ball but don’t come up with it, and all of a sudden it’s a 10-point lead.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:43 pm
When did Coach Kaz start grooming himself to look like a 1950s greaser? Didn’t he used to look like the Heat Miser in drag? What, as they say, is the deal?
October 31st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
# 280 Oregonian — Bwahaha! You made me snort water though my nose. And I now assert that when Nacho Man, Pizza Boy, and Corn Dog need an August vacation, they head for the Iowa State Fair, their Nirvana.
And of course the cover of the current issue shows Nacho Man’s girlfriend, Chocolate Woman, who is at the Fair and just caught her first glimpse of the display of winning entries in one of the fudge contests in the Elwell Family Food Center. Hence her orgasmic expression. And the fact that she’s not wearing much is further evidence that she’s at the Fair.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
#223 MolyBendum: Number 3 is A, all others are D.
#262 dale: What? “Lio is to funny as Cathy is to funny.” Are you shroomin or something? jk
Note to LUJBEM FEJF: I don’t know how you do it. For post #223 I tried finding just 4 5-letter words beginning with “i” and 9-letter words beginning with “c.” Just once. That was tough. Hats off to you.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Just a reminder for y’all: If you’re not sure about the HTML syntax, just look at that little list above the textarea where you type, below your name & stuff. That usually clears up the kind of thing you’re just absent-minded about, e.g. [s] vs. [strike].
October 31st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
In my opinion, Peanuts started sucking when Marcy and Peppermint Patty started dominating the strip. No wait – it was when Spike and all the other Snoopy relatives showed up – No, wait! It was when the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special hit the airwaves, and after that Peanuts became just another corporate shill.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
288. TheDiva re Luann: I’ll bet the De Groots (and probably all of Luann’s little friends) are the only people in the world who Mister Rogers would ever punch in the head.
292. Poteet: ah, yes, Nacho Man’s girlfriend, Chocolate Woman, known to her close friends as “Coco.”
October 31st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
KarMann, except this is html, not a bboard, so you need angle brackets not square ones.
My earliest memory of For Better or For Worse is browsing a compilation book published about 35 years ago. The strip that is permanently seared into my memory is of Elly, standing naked in front of a mirror musing, “I haven’t seen myself with no hair there since I was twelve.”
October 31st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
296 bats: [ —Coco as in the woman who designed Pill Poppin’ Bobbie’s makeover-worthy suit? It’s all starting to come together now….
October 31st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
@Aviatrix: Right, but it’s just obnoxious to go to the trouble of making the angle brackets. That’s why I said to look at the list, not my own example. If I were giving specific directions, then yeah, I’d be going <s> and stuff.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
#297 Aviatrix – I’d beg for brain bleach, but I don’t think even that could help. I’m just going to go sob in the corner for a while.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
A3G: Oh! I just realized that the makeover pusher is holding a microphone! I was so perplexed–thought it was a round brush or something, which seemed like an odd implement to be walking around with.
I should have noticed the “TV” on the makeover pusher’s jacket, indicating that she’s from the “TV Network,” where they have the “TV Shows.”
October 31st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
A3G: Another realization (because analyzing this comic strip is much more fun than grading “Escapist Entertainment in a Time of Economic Crisis: Living Vicariously Through the Silver Screen”): Any actual reality-TV recruiter worth her salt would NOT be recoiling in horror from Bobbie’s outburst. No, she’d be practically drooling with desire over this arrogant nutcase with a hair-trigger temper. Move over, Omarosa; stand back, Richard Hatch—we have Bobbie Merrill!
October 31st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
<acronym title=”Sonoma County Orchid Society”>SCOS</acronym>
SCOS
October 31st, 2009 at 6:06 pm
@commodorejohn #300: I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I saw was a critique of my use of square brackets instead of angled. And absolutely nothing in that big blank area that followed that, nuh-uh.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
297 Aviatrix -
What!? A comic strip 35 years ago was able to talk about shaving one’s nether regions, no matter how obliquely?
Was this in the proto-FBoFW book strips she did about having a baby?
October 31st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Dr. Weird I was less than twelve myself. The book was in the remainder bin at a department store. That’s all I know. It’s possible that she had an opened bathrobe on rather than being stark naked, and yes it was in the context of preparation for childbirth.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Batman Beatles -
“MW: Why do I have the feeling Adrian will start singing “The Way We Were”?”
Actually, I can see her singing Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.” But as horrifying as that sounds, if you visualize her singing it in a Daffy Duck voice, complete with spitting, it becomes a lot more fun. Try it!
October 31st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
293 – Baka Gaijin
I meant what I said. Cathy is not funny. I don’t find Lio particularly amusing, but it is creative. It would work better as a Sunday only.
Monster Cards – those were funny.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:25 pm
i wonder why no one noticed that sassy was scooting . scooting is when a dog has a pieace of crap that just once drop so they scoot to it drops .by the way in rmmd what kind of drug dealer lives in a abandoned golf course trailer !!! i guess the police arent as good as they are in santa royale at busting drug rings .
October 31st, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Zits: Another reason it would be cool to have zombie parents…It’s unlikely they’d ever show up at your school to passive-aggressively clean up after your prank. And, you know, they’re not Funky Winkerbean in general.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Regarding Peanuts, I found it hard to read in its final years. It became a one-theme strip (Snoopy and cookies), and even the artwork became shaky as Mr. Schultz’s health was failing.
At first, I wasn’t happy about the newspaper’s decision to rerun old strips, but I have to admit I do enjoy seeing some of those classics. The ones this week, with Linus and Sally in the pumpkin patch, are great (”If you try to hold my hand, I’ll slug you!”).
October 31st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Prince Valiant’sAdrian’s not quite clear on the concept. You are suppose to talk about things that will make him want to live, not give him an incentive to go into the light.October 31st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
291 Joe Blevins: I think it was when the new artist Rod Whigham took over in March or April 2008 that Kaz started looking like he does now. The old artist, (Frank Laughlin) drew Kaz with Heat Miser hair. In the interim between when Laughlin quit and Whigham took over, Frank Bolle of Apartment 3-G drew the strip for a few months, and then Kaz looked like Alan/Eric/Nora’s boyfriend/all generic blond guys from A-3G.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Aviatrix
I’m almost certain that was “proto-FOOB” then… LJ began cartooning with the desire to read something while waiting in the chair at the OB/GYN, and did some cartoons on the humorous aspects of preparing for childbirth, collected in books (”David, We’re Pregnant!” was one title I recall offhand). They were put next to the FBoFW collections in the bookstores, so you may have not been the only youth so traumatized.
And unfortunately for me, the subject of denuding down there is relevant to my interests (as they say online), so juxtaposing that with Elly… well, brain bleach alone won’t do. I picked the wrong day to give up drinking!
October 31st, 2009 at 6:52 pm
#314 Dr. Weird – The worst part is that it’s only a matter of time before one of the FOOB scholars around here digs up the cartoon in question and posts it. And when that happens, it’s going to be a battle royale between my foreknowledge, good sense, and self-preservation instincts and my innate compulsion to click on any link I am presented with. God help me.
October 31st, 2009 at 7:25 pm
A comic featuring a rugless-Elley? Is this true? Or some sort of horrific Clive Barker-ish Halloween prank you all (commodorejohn, Aviatrix and Dr. Weird) cooked up together? If so-good work-because its scaring the hell out of me! If true…oh dear God, take me now!
October 31st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Halloweenie comics
C-Shaft: Credit where credit is due. This is pretty funny. Moreso when you imagine Crankshaft falling asleep in the hole and getting buried the rest of the way.
RMMD: You can’t fault Cueball’s hospitality. Could the assisted living facility maybe give him a job? I’m sure the residents would appreciate a host/bartender/pot dealer.
A3G: Did not foresee Bobbie wandering onto the “I Dressed in the Dark” set in a liquor & pills stupor. This should be good.
6C: The malign influence of the deGroot family widens.
Marvin: If, on the other hand, you lay a turd in your costume, everyone will know you’re Marvin. That’s enough of a scare.
S4th: Among the other guests there’s a guy with a funnel on his head and a lady with a strap-on over her nose. The Forths could have had a more productive brainstorming session if they knew you could just tape a common household item to yourself.
DT: A clown unbuttoning his costume to whip out a big gun? We’re apparently trawling along in the cartoonist’s repressed memories now.
Ziggy: Ziggy picked the wrong night to tune into the Snuff Movie Channel.
MC: Beautiful. Sincerely wish you better luck in your next lifetime, Sam.
MW: Watch out Adrian. This is Moy and Giella’s last chance for a Halloween strip for a whole year. And you’re hovering right over Scott while he’s trying to have a nice coma. I’m sure those hands are still strong enough to choke.
October 31st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Gil Thorp: A dozen kills against Goshen? You mean while the boys play football, the girls are in gladiatorial combat? Why you know show that, Ruben?
October 31st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
#265 Muffaroo,
Well, to be completely accurate Peanuts became the Snoopy and Woodstock and Peppermint Patty and Snoopy lookalike who lives in the desert show.
It does seem to me that Schultz–as good as he could be–dropped a lot of the kid characters who would have been in Charlie Brown’s life, and who could be funny. (Well known casualties were Shermy, Violet, and Original Patty.) And there was an overemphasis on certain recurring schtick that became predictable.
Why was this? Laziness? Profit? Maybe it’s just too much to expect anyone to stay inspired year-round for decades on end.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
303 Ribinin: Oh, cool: I learned a new HTML trick!
Thanks!
October 31st, 2009 at 8:17 pm
11/1 PV — Congratulations, Ig! You’re In with the In Crowd!
October 31st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
MC: My guess is that Ed saw a repeat of “Ducklahoma” a few weeks back. ;-)
October 31st, 2009 at 9:02 pm
formerly Ben @319 – Thanks, but I wasn’t interested in being completely accurate, or I’d have had to mention Marcy as well. I like her better in her grown-up gig as Honey in Doonesbury. As to the recurring shtick, I don’t think he was pandering to anybody. He just didn’t think he could keep it fresh with the original characters and kept trying his luck with a newer cast. It’s just unfortunate that the newer cast sucked bowling balls.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Peanuts quality rule of thumb: The bigger and rounder Snoopy’s head became, the lower the quality of the strips in general.
I have a deep and abiding love for peak-years Peanuts (remember when Snoopy’s doghouse had a fire and he had to send out the Van Gogh and the pool table to be cleaned?). I wasn’t too happy when it became mostly about Spike (a dumber version of Snoopy) and Rerun (a dumber version of Linus). But I cried when Charles Schulz died, and I’ve only cried over a small handful of celebrity deaths in my life (Jimmy Stewart was another).
On a brighter note, I’m handing out Halloween candy in full Goth-chick makeup tonight! So that’s fun.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Just posting again because I noticed that my laptop didn’t have me linked to my blog. Not that I’m pimping or anything… :)
October 31st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Muffaroo@267 re disgustipated: Sometimes I wish there were different, widely known, internet text colors to indicate levels of sarcasm and/or intended inside jokes. But that’d take all the fun out of it, so here we are. And anyways, what would the internet be without misinterpretations and hasty assumptions? Why, it’d just be a big steaming pile of porn. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:39 pm
# 326 MolyBendum — Because of one MT storyline many months ago, I once, in all innocence/stupidity, googled “beaver” because I wanted information about beavers. The Internet IS a big steaming pile of porn. But there are islands of other topics, and I try to stick to the islands now:-).
October 31st, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I still have a letter from Charles Shulz around somewhere. I was a gullible kid who believed the rumor he was angry about Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxzg_iM-T4E
Shulz assured this dumb kid that he wasn’t mad; he thought the song was great.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Muffaroo@ #265 (and #267): Okay, okay I believe you!
November 1st, 2009 at 1:37 am
Sunday, Sunday! Bring your camera!
MW: nice touch, the black sleeves on the pink jacket, Adrian. Maybe there will be a future segment of “I Dressed in the Dark” filmed in Santa Royale.
Mutts: awwwwwwwwwww!
November 1st, 2009 at 1:44 am
A lot of the Peanuts strips that are being rerun now are from the Fifties. I don’t remember them in the paper but we had some collections around the house when I was growing up that I remember some of them from. These were good, particularly when Snoopy was more of a real dog.
However, I think the strip got even better in the early Sixties with topics like the Great Pumpkin. Maybe it was the first TV show that marked the end of this era.
In the mid-Sixties Schulz started doing the Snoopy vs the Red Baron stuff which I thought was awful. It was very popular though.
After a few years he dropped this stuff and that is the period when I think that the quality improved for a while, though not quite back to that of its glory years.
After that most of the original cast was dropped and Peppermint Patty and Marcy were introduced, which was the beginning of a long slow decline.
In fairness a cartoon about children is pretty challenging to keep fresh over a long period of time.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:56 am
#279 Victory Garden – It’s a nod to the fact that the book in question is by Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel).
November 1st, 2009 at 1:57 am
#327 Poteet – More information about beavers can very definitely be found on the Internet. In fact, it’s hard to avoid.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:14 am
11/1
A3G — Yay, random inexplicable fist-shaking in public! I can’t wait til Margo meets this chick.
C’shaft — Isn’t that mildly stupid?
MW — “Dear heart.” “Beauty.” The puce, er, white picket fence. No wonder Scott’s expression in Panel Three says “Kill me now.”
November 1st, 2009 at 5:13 am
#308 dale: Clam down, man! I was just joking. That’s what the “jk” at the end of the comment is for. You can like or dislike whaterver comics you want; this is a free
countrymessage board.November 1st, 2009 at 5:57 am
Sunday’s Strips:
Rose is Rose: Damn you to hell, cat! All the way to the 6th circle of Hell where the Fooberverse is. Success is redefined as “Four claws and thirty teeth planted firmly into that Lucky-Charm-floating twerp’s cranium.” Epic fail, kitty.
Sally Forth: Is this a Fight Club-style schizophrenia, the child being the manifestation of Ted’s desire to be gaily dressed in spandex while… Oh hell with it, Ted, stop deluding yourself, open the closet door and step out into the sunshine.
Pickles: “If you’re sick of old hags playing calypso on your bald gourd, join ‘Hair Club for Men.’”
Blondie: Girl, by now you should know that Dagwood’s pastrami sense tingles when there are cold cuts in the fridge, uneaten. You should also know that you need to hop on that salami before Dag goes downstairs. By “salami” I mean “weenis” and “goes downstairs” means “humps his salami in the cold cuts indecently ala ‘American Pie.’”
Marvin: In a few years we’ll see a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” with a 400 pound first grader with red hair and a load in his supersized Depends. Believe it…or not!
Pluggers: Well if you got more exercise than pushing the buttons on the clicker you may not need a tableful of prescription meds.
One Big Happy: So THAT explains Ruthie’s “storytelling” in school. Next question: where did Ruthie’s arm flapping come from?
Foxtrot: Congratulations Amend! You took a completely tired premise (kids eating a lot of candy at Halloween) and found a fresh way to poke fun at it.
Cathy: She says she’ll compost herself but she never does. Dammit!
Curtis: BURN!!! Report to the nurse for your first degree burns.
Apartment 3-G: Don’t tell me that nerd/random guy Tommie is/was dating/seeing/mooning over is Bobbie’s husband/beard?
Buckles: Women will never understand the link between a man and a Vette. Never.
Pearls Before Swine, Lio: Great as usual.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:38 am
Adrian’s dream future with Scott appears to include an actual picket fence and precisely two and a half children, which is coincidentally the same as the number of brain cells they have between them.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:40 am
Pluggers: Yet ANOTHER “I can’t open up my childproof- cap prescription bottles” strip, WTF??? Again? Hey, Plugger, go find a child to do it for you, ha ha ha! Better yet, stop taking all those pills and accept your fate – just DIE and put yourself out of your misery.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:09 am
Doonesbury: detailed military vehicles for the win.
BB: detailed military vehicles for the lose.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:56 am
You know, complaining that Schulz in the 90s wasn’t as good as Schulz in the 60s is a little like bitching that Bob Dylan isn’t as good as he was back then either. In both cases you have artists who redefined their medium and who, while they might have entered a bit of slump at times, still were/are able to turn out stuff better than 95% of their imitators/contemporaries even well into their golden years.
Furthermore, unlike any other cartoonist of his day Schulz never surrendered his strip to ghosts, never turned it over to his less talented kids and always turned in something that was 100% his own.
Bottom line is that the man was, and is still, the best newspaper cartoonist ever and Peanuts is still the high water mark for the medium.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:03 am
Rerun Place: Today’s strip has been featured in a book called “How to Survive Earthquakes.”
In other news, a record breaking 18.3 Earthquake has destroyed all of Africa, most of Asia & parts of Europe. The source is reported to be 4 pouty melonheads, each weighing over 4 tons.
Number of weeks since the Rerun Place published a new strip on Sunday: 17
November 1st, 2009 at 11:14 am
Is it just me, or does the girl on the cover of “Macho Man” have a 5 o’clock shadow?
clearly he’s reading a transvestite skin mag.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:16 am
#340 Hank – Hear, hear!
A3G – Oh, this will be beautiful. Ruby the force of unstoppable good cheer interacting with Bobbie the force of dead-eyed resigned depression, with Tommie caught in the middle? Sheer hilarious bliss, my friends.
Crankshaft – I’d pay good money for an Army Of Darkness parody poster with Crankshaft and the leaf-blower.
Crock – So…was this run the day after Halloween because Rechin & Wilder thought it would give them a chance to take advantage of the Sunday format? That’s…kind of sad, really.
Curtis – appropriated this gag from Calvin & Hobbes, which is odd, since it’s not really the sort of Argyle Sweater hackery that needs to go around stealing material.
DT – Please enjoy this shot of exactly what an ass does not look like.
FW – Okay, does Batiuk just have some sort of flutophone fetish, or what?
H&L – Um, what? At one item a day it would have an absolutely insignificant impact on dental health compared to just about anything else they’ll be eating. Duh.
JP – I have to give Baretto credit. In the absence of improbably shapely women, he’s really going all-out to make a couple rich white guys talking business and marital woes visually interesting. I absolutely love the sky shot.
Lio – is just pure awesome. I wonder if there are any Far Side characters there? I bet they have some interesting tales to tell.
MW – Adrian dreams of looking like Thel Keane while her daughter does the YMCA song? Well, at the very least that’s less stultifying than the lives of most Charterstone residents.
NS – Homer versus the Reavers. This should be interesting.
PV – Yeah, bring Sir Sticky-Fingers along with you. I’m sure his kleptomania won’t bring any trouble with notoriously greedy underground dwellers, no sir!
RMMD – Sweet Jesus, how long can this possibly go on? This is making Dick Tracy look fast-paced.
SF – I love this strip.
SM – Why would you want to cross-reference your work to Spider-Man 3?
Edison Lee – Unlike Curtis, Edison Lee really has nothing of its own to offer besides pseudo-political commentary so bland and vague it could have come straight from Herb & Jamaal, so it just goes dressing itself in Calvin & Hobbes’s trappings and hoping that will magically makee it good. It’s a cargo-cult comic.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:21 am
How do people view Sunday comics?
November 1st, 2009 at 11:29 am
#344 Anonymous – A variety of ways. The Chron does technically have the color Sundays, it just doesn’t let you look at them through the menu. Dean Booth has created a page to work around this. That won’t get you the Sundays of the black & white strips, but goComics runs a lot of those; if, like me, you can’t stand the goComics site, you can also get to many of them through my goComics viewer script. Finally, some of the strips not available through either of the above can be accessed on comics.com.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:38 am
340: Hank. Thank you.
Shulz was a hero of mine. I met him once and it was one of those “wow, what a nice guy” moments you’ve always hoped for in an encounter with someone you admire.
His final strip was such an emotion-filled farewell to his fans and then to hear of his passing a few days later gave one the feeling that he had given everything that he had…and he just didn’t have anymore to give.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
The Peanuts Question. —
Back quite a long time ago—Victorian times—some members at a meeting of the British rose society were doing as hobbyists will do, growing rather heated in asserting to each other the perceived merits of their personal favorite rose varieties. A clergyman who was an officer of the society happened to be standing by, and, during a lull in the battle, said words to the effect of, “Gentlemen, we all have wonderful wives. It is well that we all do not love the same lady.” They all went home,
swapped wives,and calm prevailed. It is well that we do not all love the same comic strip.November 1st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
MW: why don’t they just rename the strip “Adrian Talks to an unconcious Scott”
November 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
MW – I can visualize two different scenarios for when Scott regains consciousness: (1) He feigns amnesia, claiming he has no idea who this helmet-haired harpy is, or (2) he sends a message to the comics authorities, pleading to be transferred to Funky Winkerbean instead. Even non-stop misery, cancer and death is a better alternative than the hell Adrian has in store for him.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:43 pm
27 (commodorejohn): You like Cory Winkerbean? Based on what? The only evidence we have of his existence suggests that he is lazy, ignorant, and a thief. He also exasperates his father, but not to the extent of causing a major heart attack, which would at least be useful. I don’t recall any good point we’ve been allowed to see of the boy.
Pluggers: sure do love them some drugs, man.
Non sequitur: Does anyone read these “Homer” strips? Because I gave up three or four iterations ago, but I’d like to know exactly how awful they are, but I still can’t make myself read them.
Zits: Jeremy dresses to the left.
Phantom: Isn’t she dead?
’shaft: The surprise isn’t that Ed’s house is covered with toilet paper. The surprise is that it’s not used toilet paper.
Fuzzy: I don’t read the strips with the cockney cat. What makes you think I’ll read this?
November 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
MC: Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back! Love you Ed and Melissa!!!!
November 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
#311 – “If you try to hold my hand, I’ll slug you!”.
That line would work for Bobbie the bipolar pill-head as well.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
ForbetterorWORST: Michael you’re a grade A douche bag! P.S. your sister will replace Deanna’s birth control pills with smarties later in life! So there!
November 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
#350 gleeb – I like Cory because he’s about the only character in the strip who’s remotely self-aware and doesn’t take his pompous, melodramatic universe seriously. Yes, he’s an asshole, but wouldn’t you be, in his situation? Stuck in a world of misery, disease, and despair, with a bunch of twits who can only moan and groan and act as though anything that happens is in the least bit believable, his anarchy is the only reaction that makes sense. He’s the closest thing in the strip to a relatable character.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
#350 – Cockney Cat?
Where can I get one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3sX30NubTs
November 1st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
354 (Commodorejohn): I still think he should just pop his father one in the mouth. but I get your point.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Way too tired from the party I attended to be too coherent… but I’m really not sure about My Cage today. It could be a good payoff, but I hope it’s not jumping a shark. Even if Jeff’s not particularly tall.
Of course, we can look forward for next week when the cuteness of Mel will grace the strip. :)
(Party lasted 9 hours. I got home at 5:30am. Not counting the time change.)
November 1st, 2009 at 1:29 pm
A3G: I have a feeling the whole juicy, rife-with-possibility “I Dressed In The Dark” subplot was merely a device to get Ruby and Tommie to run into Bobbie the Skanky MILF. Grrrr!
MW: Oh, come ON!!! If I don’t get some plot development within the next two weeks, there is gonna be trouble.
My Cage: Tee hee!
Phantom: My, that Kit is one obnoxious little twit. Poet, know it, etc.
Spidey: A Gazillion people? Don’t flatter yourself, Stan. I still want the two hours of my life I wasted on that film back (and I only watched it in the first place because there was a RiffTrax of it. Even the boys weren’t enough to make that film enjoyable.)
PBS: Hey, Ka’anapali! I used to live right near there. (Also, funny strip, Stephan…and thanks for taking the trouble to sync your Sunday strip with the dailies.)
PV: Panel 3: Aaaah! It’s Adrian!! Run!!!! (Also…Gawain broke into Merlin’s quarters? I’m not familiar with the timeline of PV. Has Merlin already been locked up in a tree by Nimue or whatever?)
November 1st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
#353-lorem ipsum reFOOB Mike surely is (I’d like to think that the self-contradictions or the new-ruins negate any canonicity for this instance ). However, he’s being driven to it by Elly, who is ultimately responsible for Lizzie losing her candy. She’s the adult, it’s her dumb rule, and it’s her responsibility to see to it that it’s properly followed and that Lizzie isn’t exploited.
Mike is a 6 year old who is being taught that he can only keep things he likes by subterfuge, or steal from others. Worse, that he can only enjoy sweets in a sick race against the clock before they get taken away. Not until he’s had a few days without a sugar high – but for good. Way to go about setting the stage for an eating disorder!
A lot’s been said about how reFOOB is often an exercise in the authour getting back at her ex – but it’s clearly also a sad portrait of her psychological issues with food.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
#356 gleeb – No argument there!
#357 Niall – Yeah. I’m hesitant, but we’ll see where this goes…
November 1st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Lio – Now that’s how it’s done, Scancarelli.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I actually remember the older Peanuts strips. I mostly enjoyed Snoopy, but even Charles Schultz admitted Snoopy took over the strip. And some of that was sheer laziness, i.e., a single panel of kids talking and thought balloon over Snoopy saying “and don’t forget cookies” or “don’t forget to feed the dog”. Cheep n’ eezy laffs! And Spike and his damn cactus – how many ‘funny’ things can you do with a cactus?? Very few, but CS kept on trying…. I always enjoyed Peppermint Patty in her clueless, optimistic journey through life, and her straight talking friend Marcy. I don’t have the faintest doubt that, doofus that she was as a child, PP grew up to be a success in some sports related field.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
@356 gleeb: I like the idea of Cory popping Der Funkster in the chops, particularly if he’s shouting, “You’re not my real father anyway!” while doing it.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
358. mollificent: Twit? Perhaps, but a young boy’s chance to be alone with his father as they go “investigate” that well-known-to-him tribe of strong, nearly-naked amazons… Diana’s no fool, but she accepts that this is how boys get to be men in the jungle. Mr. Walker will be the one paying out of his own pocket, though. The joint account was NOT meant for this.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:57 pm
My own take on Peanuts…
My intro was, if not possibly the holiday specials, the small paperback collections I read starting in the late ’60s as a kid. I was already a fan of the Snoopy stuff. It seems that the idea that Peanuts went downhill with Snoopy’s fantasy life is based on the singular preference for the deeper, psychological stuff (not just from some comments from here, but also that great place for Peanuts fans, the Comics Journal message board) most personified by Charlie Brown.
I love that psychological stuff, too, but also the fantasy-related things like the Red Baron parts (I’ve always adored the literally colorful parts of the WWI air battle on the Halloween special and similarly mod/psychedelic book “Snoopy & His Sopwith Camel” that I still have from c. 1971), Snoopy pretending to be other animals, etc. And I love the quirky things, too, like the talking schoolhouse (also the kind of thing that once made Funky great back in the ’70s). So, I don’t really see Peanuts going downhill after the ’60s — that time, admittedly, being the strip’s absolute peak.
Even when Peppermint Patty took over the strip considerably in the 1980s, it was still, for me, a fascinating character study.
There are Jump the Shark signs, I admit. Ironically, once Sparky was freed from the constraints of 4 same-sized panels, it actually hurt the strip some. Maybe that’s a lesson he could’ve learned from his fellow Charles M., Mr. Jones, who used serious limits in the Road Runner series to great effect.
Also, Snoopy’s relatives were a bad idea, especially Cactus Joe (well, he should’ve been called that!). That might’ve worked as its own, separate strip (where the Chuck Jones rule might’ve worked), but it brought the Peanuts universe too out of its orbit.
The Snoopy/cookies bit was my least favorite thing. It just wasn’t funny. Cookies just couldn’t be made funny. Cookie Monster was it, pretty much. That was at the start of the ’90s, where Peanuts did, finally, see a real decline. Still better than most of the comic page, as hank said, but a decline. However, I (and most Comics Journal posters) really loved Rerun’s “underground” (read: indy) comic books in the last year or two of the strip. Rerun was getting to be a real charmer, but, unfortunately it was the end by then.
I can see end-of-the-run Rerun fitting in really well at Cul de Sac, actually.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Monday ReFoob: It’s a single panel strip that depicts Elly being horrified because Mike doesn’t know he’s too short to help with the trash.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
344, 345:
Also check out http://www.seattlepi.com. It carries many of the Sundays (and also some nifty word games).
November 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
OK. It’s Sunday, so Chatu didn’t blow up Diana Palmer!?!? Well, I don’t think Chatu actually blew up Diana, but we’re supposed to think he did. But only on weekdays?
November 1st, 2009 at 4:17 pm
#252 — MW: What commodorejohn said yesterday. It applies to the whole weekend (and the whole past week, actually). For the love of heaven, someone turn off the treacle before we all get cavities!
November 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Look, it’s clearly NACHO MAN. A lot of people are fantasizing an M just because it makes marginally more sense. But an N is an N is an N – it’s there for all to see.
November 1st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Foob – Does anyone else think of Homer Simpson’s Nacho hat?
November 1st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
368. prospero: correct – the Sunday Phantom is on a different storyline than the weekday one.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
@#317: Wait, so you’re saying there’s a “right” time to tune in to the Snuff Channel??
Curtis: She drew her teacher with an udder… How do the editors keep missing this stuff? First Marvin’s “bull milk” and now this!
Hi and Lois: Or, you know, the kids could just brush their goddamn teeth. This joke has been done a million times before and it shouldn’t even be funny the first time because it makes no sense. Also, bonus WTF moment in the throwaway gag: Is Dot saying she wants the government to turn Communist?
Marvin: Did anyone else get some “Peanuts” vibes from this strip? This is a rare glimpse of good writing in Marvin, although if you haven’t already seen it, I’ve probably hyped up your expectations to the point where you won’t like it now.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Regarding Peanuts, while I do believe that the strip started to decline in quality in the 1980s, I don’t mean that to detract from its earlier greatness. I started buying “The Complete Peanuts” compilations and eventually I plan to buy all of them up until they get to the period where I actually notice the decline.
I liked most of the Peppermint Patty/Marcie material but I could do without Spike and Rerun. Rerun was so nondescript for many years that I didn’t even realize he was a separate character from Linus. I was surprised when I was in my early 20s to realize that Rerun had literally been a character in the strip for my entire life.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:46 pm
#223 Baka Gaijin
Answer (e) This makes my brain hurt.