Marvin’s secret fate
Marvin, 11/1/09
Yes, why are the pleas for intellectual stimulation and emotional connection from Mavin’s little blond friend being met with only feedings, endless feedings? The answer can easily be found in the name of the toddlers’ preschool. Just as a corral is a vast pen where cattle are kept before being sent to the slaughterhouse, so too is the Kiddie Korral primarily a site where babies are held until they’re fat and juicy enough to be blended into high-grade and delicious baby paste. Marvin already seems largely resigned to this fate. But still, there are unsettling questions raised by this scenario. Specifically, are truth-in-labeling laws strong enough to ensure that members of America’s baby-eating community are informed when they buy a jar of baby paste that may contain an awful baby, like Marvin?
Judge Parker, 11/1/09
That Sam Driver is a real renaissance man! Not only is he an unscrupulous defense attorney, but he’ll gladly serve as an unlicensed marriage counselor for wealthy celebrities! Note that much of his advice consists of repeatedly telling Rocky not to ask for a refund on his wife’s seven-digit impulse buy at Spencer Farms.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Slylock – Angry, overlooked citizens of Omer, MI are already firing off letters to the editor. Riots rage in the streets of Ermo, Angola. Mormons in Orem are outraged, but that’s not exactly news.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Drat! I didn’t pace myself and put all my Sunday witticisms on Friday thread. My hatred for today’s Rose is Rose is evident.
By the way, is Dick Tracy still infested with creepy clowns?
November 1st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I am stunned by the negative-space figure in Judge Parker. Something approaching creativity? In a soap-opera strip? The artist must be found and stopped now!
November 1st, 2009 at 5:18 pm
#2 BG –
Yeah, but the clown is running toward the cage, and the inevitable clown-munching dénoument. Give it a month or so.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Why is Rocky wearing a hardhat when no one else is? What kind of room is he in, anyways? Is that black a shadow or a design?
As for Marvin, it reminds me of the small videos I used to see at my doctor’s office that talked of a sign language for toddlers and pre-schoolers, where the baby learned to communicate some of their needs beyond just screaming, and the appropriate responses supposedly made for happier and more peaceful babies (who didn’t get constantly wrong responses to their stimuli and, thus frustrated, cried a lot more). That Marvin may have seen the same bit and found a particularly unfunny way to make its point does not surprise me in the least. That it did so without directly mention poop surprised me a lot.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I have done my best to zip by Dick Tracy, but alas I do have an idea of what is going on. What is happening is, I’m glad I zipped by. Creepy clowns make me swerve. Mouse me, baby!
November 1st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
JP: Forget Godiva. I’d be more stressed about my habit of spontaneously vanishing into white space.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Baka Gaijin-Its strange, but evilscaryclowns never mattered to me before. Now when I see one anywhere on the interwebs I always want to warn you not to got there? I guess if you expired from extreme clownattackacardia, I would miss your snark!
November 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
preview preview preview…
November 1st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Don’t worry, pal. We know what the future holds for you. You’re the next Gerber baby.
http://www.snopes.com/business/market/babyfood.asp
November 1st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Baby Blues: Since when do laser beams leave a bad guy looking like Beetle Bailey after a night with Sarge?
NS: Uh-oh, Wiley’s starting to think that footnoting his strip a-la Spider-Man and Phantom is a good idea.
Slylock: Looks like Weber’s moving in on FEJF’s turf! This can only end in pistols at dawn.
Fortuitously, PBS appears right next to Family Circle in the local paper, so right next to it, we have a shot of the Keane kids eager to be fattened up for their consumption by the Raterpillar. Which can’t happen soon enough, frankly.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:35 pm
JP: Man, Sam sure drives fast!
November 1st, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Who the hell is the city planner in Judge Parker? That cloverleaf seems to be built directly on top of the sidewalk for a pretty significant building. Why isn’t the DOT in Judge Parker’s world aware of setbacks? And don’t get me started on the parking situation for the tiny ‘L’ shaped building.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Does that kid in the Chucky I mean Marvin strip have a thought balloon emerging from his mouth? No wonder he’s having communication problems.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
JP: Why do I have this sudden feeling that Rocky is going to be injured by the end of this “day”?
November 1st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
It should be easy to teach Marvin enough sign language to let people know what’s on his mind. “Point at your butt with this hand and hold your nose with that hand. We’ll know what you mean. Or you could just smile, like you do now.”
November 1st, 2009 at 5:50 pm
#4 Uncle Lumpy: Thanks.
#8 Latin Guy: Thanks for the thought. I’ll live in infamy as the evilscaryclown guy. I guess that’s better than the shitshispants guy.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
JP: Now I regret not having paid any attention to Juggless Parker lately, because I’d love to know where Rocky is. It’s an industrial setting with surgeons tapping away on computers and Rocky, a country music star, is in a hard hat. Given the presence of the guy who can hold up an entire piece of corrugated sheet metal with 2 fingers in the first panel, I’d say we’re in a secret government laboratory. Which doesn’t bode well for Sam OR the horse. Especially the horse.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
MWorth I can sort of make a case for Adrian spinning out a tranquil future for her and Drew. She’s just been conned out of 50K, her boyfriend is in a drug raid-gone-awry coma, and her father is dating a toad.
But what I dont understand is while she’s fantasizing about all the wonderful things lying ahead for them, why she doesn’t dream of a better haircut while she’s at it?
November 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
They were going to call it the Kiddie Koncentration Kamp, but the signmakers charged by the letter.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Rocky has apparently fallen into a white hole, the secret emergence point of all matter and energy consumed by a black hole. Of course, since Hawking radiation makes the existence of such a thing impractical, it’s clear he’s actually fallen into a nonsensical plotline.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:00 pm
#21 was me! Curse you, blog, you forgot who I am! I thought we had something special…
November 1st, 2009 at 6:00 pm
#22: Wow, okay, I just look dumber and dumber.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:04 pm
MC: I think you misspelled “Meta Your Maker” there, Ed & Melissa.
BB: As someone else pointed out by comparison with Doonesbury’s helicopter (and I noticed a nicely rendered Humvee the other day, too), that is about as un-airplanelike an airplane as it’s possible to draw. I’m sure even Hammy or Calvin could have done much better.
Blondie: More lack of double checking. I wonder why Dagwood is watching moves on TV?
Crankshaft: Well, I think the local paper was carrying this for a while on Sundays, but dropped it. Too bad we’re still saddled with Groovy Blinkerlegume. Anyway, it doesn’t surprise me at all that old Ed doesn’t give a damn about blowing the TP into his neighbours’ yards. And yes, a picture of an Ash-style Ed would be full of win.
MT: Just thought I’d share a memory about the bittern from my youth. The one time I think I might have seen one, I’m not at all sure about, because while it posed just like a bittern, it was high up in the old elm tree near our house. (Dutch elm disease claimed it a few years later. Damn you, Dutch!) Even then, I knew quite enough to have my doubts about it because of where it was, but I’ve never learned of any other bird that was a better match. I’ll just never know now, though.
MW: Eh, dream, nightmare, same difference, right Scott?
Phantom: Someone was asking, what’s Dana doing apparently alive and well in the Sundays? Well, it’s her turn now to live up to the Ghost-who-walks name, you see.
RMMD: In the second panel, Tim isn’t actually noticing that the Moon is rising. He’s noticed that the Moon has gone through another lunar cycle, and is now approaching full again, as this story drags on and on, month after month. (Full Moon is, indeed, this Monday this time around.)
DT: Thanks to the wonders of Dean’s cursicons, we can see that Pops is calling Dick a… kiopa?!?
November 1st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
The revelation that “you can’t make life’s problems go away by eating” naturally throws Marvin for a loop- after all, eating is a necessary precursor to shitting. And we are all too well aware of Marvin’s predilections in that regard.
I’m not sure exactly what the kid is bellyaching about. At those times when I’m worrying about my own doubts and fears, I’ve found that by far the best remedy actually is, in fact, to stuff a bottle into my mouth. A bottle containing lots of primo booze, preferably.
Query: does anyone ever actually use big words like “vocabulary” when thought-ballooning about how deficient their language skills are? Shouldn’t our googly-eyed moppet be thought-ballooning something more to the effect of “Sometimes having a limited… a limited… um a limited… oh ah jesus fuck this, Marvin, sometimes it sucks to not know a whole lot of goddamn words. Fuckity fuckity fuck! and give me a goddamn crayon for fuck’s sake!”?
November 1st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Well, here it is, a brand new month, with a brand new cause. No kidding!
November 1st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
#19 sugarpie on Mary Worth: Here here! Adrian should fantasize she has a bustline, too.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
#18 Sheila Sternwell – I was wondering about that, too. If Rocky is a country music star, who can afford to spend gazillions of dollars on his wife’s equestrian whims, why is he working in what appears to be an illegal cloning lab?
November 1st, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Oh my God look at panel 4 of Parker, he’s been cut out of reality itself.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
i thought for sure that tim was driving a regular car all this time . today hes driving a double cab pickup truck .i guess cue is going out to buy slim jims at 7-11 now
November 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
bats :[ 26 Girl, you’re crazy!
SCOS
November 1st, 2009 at 6:40 pm
#31, That totally didn’t work. But I will keep trying this goddam acronym stuff.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Rocky is part of Project Quantum Leap, moving from one life to the next to put right what once went wrong, mostly by threatening photographers.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
32 sugarpie: If I can do it, I have complete faith that you can, too!
November 1st, 2009 at 6:48 pm
@sugarpie: You have to be very careful when putting quote marks within the quote marks. It’s best to avoid it if at all possible; otherwise, make sure to preview very thoroughly.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Quote marks! Who knew?
November 1st, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Hooray to “Marvin” for furthering the eating disorders commonly seen in developed countries. What Marvin’s little friend fails to realize is that if Marvin continues to deal with his problems through obsessively eating, then he may very well be dead before he’s 40 (if we’re really, really lucky, he’ll be dead before he’s 25). So, in some ways, eating can solve some of life’s bigger problems, provided it’s the right party doing the eating.
I spent a few minutes trying to figure out where Rocky works – I’ve never seen any manufacturing plant where there are lab coated, science-type personnel 20 feet away from an assembly line AND a storage/welding area. And come to think of it, why would Rocky be the only person required to wear a safety helmet in such an area? I was forced to assume that Rocky is at the forefront of The Village People revival movement.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:09 pm
MW: Adrian keeps daydreaming about a future that is all yellow. As this moment, Coldplay is having its attorney prepare a writ of Stop Making Our Song Look Bad.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Lio – Aw, now this is some kind of impeccable awesome!
Sally – Now this is a coincidence! Peter Parker dressed up as Ted Forth, only he did all his trick-or-treating in his living room chair.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I always hated that “kids speaking with thought bubbles”!
November 1st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
JP: Okay, I thought Rocky was an actor or somesuch, does he do tech support on the side, or work on high tension wires? It’s the only explanation for that hardhat outfit.
MW: I SMELL A COMA WEDDING !!!
November 1st, 2009 at 8:01 pm
the Kiddie Korral primarily a site where babies are held until they’re fat and juicy enough to be blended into high-grade and delicious baby paste
So that’s why we hasn’t seen Ming-Ming in forever.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:03 pm
41. Jamus the Bartender: Godiva’s the actress, Rocky’s the country music superstar. Their new endeavor is constructing environmentally-friendly solar panels (I think).
Why the hell do I remember this stuff?
November 1st, 2009 at 8:08 pm
MW – The grimace Scott has on his face belies the pain that is in his crushed hand. It is almost like he is willing himself not to wake up.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
FW–Is there some town in the corner of Hell where the promise of cancelling a crappy school concert would work as political leverage? Are all the townspeople forced to go to these concerts by order of the great and powerful Band Geek God with his minions of flutaphone-wielding demons? And why am I still reading this stupid mess of a comic? CAN ANYONE ANSWER ME?
November 1st, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Judge Parker Rocky, on a 10 minute break from his job at the nuclear power plant, talks to his life-partner on the phone. They have a small tiff based mainly on Rocky’s insecurities about a horse, which is possibly a euphemism for erectile dysfunction. They make up quickly, though, and plan a nice dinner for later. “Godiva”, their codeword for makeup sex, is thrown in and Rocky realizes Sam is and always has been the only one for him.
That is what’s going on, isn’t it?
Dick Tracy Thanks, Crimestoppers tip. Because there’s nothing else unusual about a dude in a trench coat mixing a drink in a laboratory except the shoulder bulge. This tip should drastically reduce crime all over America as hoards of old ladies rush to report everyone walking around sporting a hard-on.
Family Circus Holy carp! What’d they do to Sam?! He looks like he got ran up in and rolled in the mud. Barfy, the good dog, knows he’s going to get a piece of candy or two and maybe a grooming afterward. Sam just knows he’s going to get kicked. Again. Because he’s ugly.
Mutts That’s what I love about adopting animals too! Carving them up. Making pies out of them. Toasting their insides and eating them.
What. That is what’s going on, isn’t it?
Rex Morgan These old people are absofreakinlutely hilarious. I would go see their show.
Slylock Fox Today’s joke/mystery can be summed up by rearranging the letters of the word that means the opposite of female. Moly knows the word. Do you?
Snuffy Smith ”You don’ mind me rubbin’ your arm like this, do you Lukey? Nah, you like it. Now let’s us haid off to that lonely li’l fishin’ hole an’ cuddle up unner a tree an’ make out for a li’l while. That’ll get my trout a-hoppin’!”
Positivity Get Fuzzy, Pearls and Over the Hedge have been consistently amusing as of late. Frazz has good too, hasn’t been preaching much. Knight Life is usually on it. (This is not an all inclusive list.) I know somebody reading this hates those strips for their own reasons. Except maybe Pearls, because why would you be on a blog that makes fun of comics and hate a comic that makes fun of comics, and then voice your hatred of the comic mocking comic on the comic mocking blog? (How much wood could a woodchuck chuck? Questions for the ages…) I’m just saying I like those comics and am throwing it out there in the spirit of saying something positive to offset the negative karma I breed daily. It is well that we do not all love the same things indeed.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
MolyBendum @46 – Four and a half cords a day, if he could chuck wood.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
He’s a fast mother chucker.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I am puzzled – is the expression of shock on Marvin’s face intended to be ironic? After all, this is a kid who solves all his problems by pooping his pants.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the Sunday title panel in what is now “Marvin & Family” before — is it new? When were the grandparents added?
And what’s with those expressions! Does anyone else think that Jeff, Jenny, and grandparents are all worried about being sent to the cornfield?
November 1st, 2009 at 9:01 pm
“Soylent Green is….Marvin!”
November 1st, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Luann: Really top shelf use of the filled ellipse tool today. Well done there.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Marvin: Putting the baby back in baby food.
@bats :[: I suppose you noticed today’s Vamos! section in the paper? If not, and for the benefit of those wondering: here you go.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
MW – I’ve been pondering the Emily Dickinson quote in today’s throwaway panel and I’m wondering how that relates to the rest of the strip. If you ask me, a quote from Edgar Allan Poe is probably more in line with the plot. Something along the lines of “Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the dead who groaned within.” The dead, and just about anyone else who has anything to do with Adrian.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I don’t know why y’all keep calling it “Judge Parker”. I haven’t seen a bodacious cartoon-art breast all strip long. And this is Sunday!
November 1st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Momma would have been funnier if she’d been hit by a truck coming around the last corner. I mean, yes, granted, you can say that about Momma most days, but today’s is particularly asking for it.
#54 – Poe, hm? Well, if this story ends with Scott dead and Adrian sneaking out to his crypt every night, then it will all have been worth it. Bonus: for afters, nothing gets the taste of necrophilia out of your mouth (so to speak) like a dubious tuna casserole.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:36 pm
The FDA has ruled that Marvin paste must contain less than 3 parts per billion of raterpillar poop, and that raterpillar poop must contain less than 2 parts per billion of Stephen Pastis.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:37 pm
43 bats:[ —Yes, wasn’t Rocky’s desire to buy some kind of solar-panel factory (he’s been on quite the little shopping spree) the original premise for his visit–way, way back in, oh, March or something? Either that, or he’s funding the Sultan purchase by working on the loading dock at the SantaRoyMart warehouse.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:40 pm
The idea of turning Cathy into compost is an appealing one, and I hope it can be documented with time-lapse photography. “Ack! I’m rotting!” Bwahaha. That’s a happy thought.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:44 pm
# 13 survivor — You’re right. That’s the weirdest traffic layout I’ve ever seen. Are we sure we’re not looking at some mockup put together by design students who were operating on two hours of sleep in the past three days?
November 1st, 2009 at 9:49 pm
# 24 KarMann — Not to insult your birding skills, and deep apologies in advance if I accidently do so, but is it possible that you saw a green heron? I speak as one whose birding skills leave a lot to be desired and who thinks that green herons sort of kind of look like bitterns, and green herons definitely show up in trees.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
JP — What very little I know about superstar celebrities had led me to believe that they have lots of friends, pseudo-friends, publicists, employees, groupies, and general hangers-on. In other words, when their relationships go wrong, I had thought they’d have plenty of shoulders on which they could weep, and would not have to depend on people they’d just met. But maybe I’m wrong, because I would also have thought that Rocky Ledge is a name that would only be found in a porno.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
I need some Josh comments, and fast, and soon, on Mary Worth, just to get me through all the blurge … help, help. Signed, Desperate.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I’ve noticed that Marvin now bills itself as Marvin and Friends. However, despite previous name shifts in comics like Popeye or Barney Google presaging a gradual refocus on another character, Marvin seems resolutely, bafflingly, and offensively determined to keep focusing on Marvin.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Jeez, Josh! Your commentary on today’s Marvin almost put me off eating babies.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:04 pm
# 64 Chance — It’s Marvin & Family, but I certainly understand the substitution. I myself don’t really want to believe that Marvin has close relatives. One of him is bad enough.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
#66 Poteet: How could I have been so stupid?? Marvin doesn’t have any friends!
November 1st, 2009 at 10:12 pm
MONDAY SPOILERS
ReFoob — In which we see more evidence that Michael was a blight upon the universe from the beginning.
LUANN — In which we’re back with TJ, Toni, and Brad, and wish we weren’t.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Beetle Bailey — Did they get the plane with the upside down wing from a “what’s wrong with this picture” sale?
November 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
53. KarMann: oh, you bet I saw this! I did the crossword puzzle (which was thoughtlessly printed on the back of one of the pages) very carefully so that I can hold onto the article itself. Very, very cool.
Oh, hey. Nice guys finish fourth. (Check out the slide show.) What is that? A tin metal? One of those made of chocolate? But we’ve put Murlow on the map!
November 1st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
#23 Drag(p)on – Don’t worry. About a year ago I changed the spelling of my name to “Shiela” as a joke about sockpuppets, then left my name misspelled for weeks. It happens to the best of us, and yes, I am saying you and I are “the best”, mainly because I’m not thinking clearly due to the epic amount of post-Halloween sugar I’ve consumed.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:45 pm
bats :[ saves the day! I completely forgot about Rocky’s solar (sex) panel amalgamated incorporated limited liability company.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Niall #364 from the “Reefer Madness” thread: It’s not so much Kit’s desire to go as his sheer omnipresent mugging in every single panel. “Can I go, Dad? Huh? Huh? I wanna go, can I go? Mememememe lookatme!!!”
November 1st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Marvin: I eat because I’m unhappy…I’m unhappy because I eat. Wait, scratch that last one.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:54 pm
# 26 bats :[ —
I just took a look at your brilliant public (pubic?) service announcement. Good lord, now I’m afraid to go for my annual check-up next month, for fear a giant smiling potato will leap out of my hoo-hoo! I’d better lay off the PotatoAde, just to be safe…
November 1st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
#50 (sally): The Sunday title panel IS the cornfield!
November 1st, 2009 at 11:06 pm
#26 (bats:[ ): That’s what Rusty believes happened.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Niall @ #5: I believe Rocky is working in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor. He appears to be the test subjest. Perhaps the helmet is there to protect the equipment in case his brain explodes.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:19 pm
74- That was a ripoff of Snoopy… My brain can’t get itself around any comparison between my hero and that ugly little baby….. {abort, retry, cancel}
November 1st, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Now that Sam has sold the horse, perhaps he can quit his second job as a bus driver. Or perhaps hire an artist with a sense of perspective.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:55 pm
@Poteet #61: Well, I must admit, I don’t think I’d have recognized a green heron, only a great blue one. If they have a neck anything like a great blue’s, that wouldn’t be it; that was one of the things about it that was distinctly bittern-like.
@bats :[ #70: Are we to assume that you’re the nice guy, LM, who got 4th, then? Congrats! But, could we see a larger version on your Flickr? I can barely see that the way the Post has it!
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
JParker Seems the bird’s eye view o’ the freeway works pretty well. The freeway is elevated above ground level, as are most freeway interchanges, and obscures what’s below it, sidewalks, storefronts, etc. The bigger question, for me, is why the heck is Sam shown driving through the Arizona desert. Dude, they aren’t resurecting Dixie are they?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:16 am
# 81 KarMann — Try this:
http://www.birdsasart.com/green%20heron.jpg
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 am
# 82 sugarpie — I’ve never driven in an urban area where the interchanges, on the ground or elevated, were that close to the buildings. Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made that discovery:-).
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 am
poogie @51 – Actually, I think Soylent Brown is Marvin.
KarMann @81 – We had blue herons in the pond by our house in Virginia. Loved watching them stalk around, then gracefully stab down and come up with a fish. One time there was a similar but stumpier bird that I figured might be a green heron. How it stacks up to a bittern, though, I have no idea. If I saw them side by side, I’d look for the bird manual (not, alas, Cap’n Wimby’s Bird Atlas) before coming to any conclusions.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:30 am
It’s nice of Sam to continue this conversation in polite, if emotionless detail, considering he’s actively being watched by the camera of a police chase helicopter. “After that, I’d take her out for a nice dinner at a fancy restaraunt while… hold on. No, officer, I have no idea how fast I was driving, my eyes have been focused on my cell phone. …Well then my condolences to their families, officer. Now Rocky, after that I’d take her out dancing. You a dancer, Rock?”
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 am
Poteet, 84 I know-yuck! There are too many freeways that look very much like that here in H-town. You can be driving on the freeway and see into the windows of the office buildings (if the traffic is at a standstill. At 60 miles per hour? Not so much). L. McMurtry has a great scene of a woman driving the Houston freeway at breakneck speed while putting on her lipstick in Some Can Whistle.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:36 am
Poteet: I think we have a winner! Thanks for clearing up that long-standing mystery; I think I never considered herons, because I always associated them with those long necks. Here, have an Internet!
Muffaroo: With or without the gannets?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 am
81. Karmann: sure, I can do that.
The contests run at the Style Invitational are mostly of a “vocabularic” sort, the kind of sick things (puns) Curminions seem to like (yes, more entries would be appreciated, so I’m spreading the word). I like the current one describing dubious foods (Lice Krispies: The cereal that goes “Snap! Crackle! Gaack!”).
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 am
Mark Trail —
Re: the bittern’s “stroke of genius” by swaying back and forth with the reeds.
It can’t help doing this. All prey birds (i.e., those with eyes on the sides of their heads, excluding owls and raptors) have reflexes that “lock” their heads to their visual surroundings — this is why a pigeon’s head moves forward in a series of steps as it walks, and appears to jerk back and forth violently as the bird lands, while in fact the eye is tracking a smooth arc. So if the bittern stands still and looks up, its head will sway with the grasses and reeds, even if — as is highly probable — the bittern is dumb as a box of rocks.
Birds have to move their heads to achieve a visual lock, because their eye movements are extremely limited (exceptions are predators and birds with massive beaks, like toucans). Birds’ eyes are much larger than they seem, and in many species essentially touch at the midline of the skull. So they’re packed in pretty tight, and the eye muscles are almost vestigial.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:34 am
# 87 sugarpie — You can look in the office windows while going down the freeway?? I’d last about two days in that kind of traffic before I headed back to Iowa with an expression just like THE SCREAM, and doubtless the drivers of H-town would be glad to see me go:-).
# 88 KarMann — You’re very welcome, and glad I could help. I see green herons once a year or so, and the first time I saw one standing on a branch way up in a tree (some kind of heron up in a tree??), I was gobsmacked. Green herons have less specific habitat needs than bitterns, so they are a lot more common here.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 am
11/2 MT — Mister Poacher, my best guess is that a hyena had a very unnatural fling with the offspring of a yellow lab and a dachshund.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 am
#88 KarMann: Also known as a “Night Herron.”
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 am
11/2 S-M — Gee, it’s just like that really touching scene in SOUTH PACIFIC in which Nellie Forbush and Emile De Becque are thinking private thoughts about each other that they are too shy to share aloud! Or not.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:46 am
&#$*#&%* Just realized with the end of Daylight Savings Time, the comics post an hour later for me. They better be worth it:
FC: I like PJ’s devil-may-care “crap in crap out” storing of decorations.
MC: cool! The kid even has Les’ Brillo-pad hair!
(Are Ed and Melissa in the Witness Protection Program yet?)
MW: what’s this about “the next day…”? How many days has Adrian been snurfling beside Scott? Has Jeff spelled her? Do I care?
RMMD: the sad this is, if there isn’t, Cue, you’ll be stuck with them…
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 am
11/2
A3G — Hey, First-Panel Tommie — you look alive! Attractive! Now keep looking at the camera! Don’t turn your head! No no, don’t show us your profi…too late.
MW — Yay! Scott’s expression in Panel Two is just about everything I could have hoped for.
RMMD — I like this guy. I won’t miss Blondie and Strange Outdoor Writer when this story is over, but I’ll miss Really Dim Perp.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:02 am
11/2 MW — Apparently Adrian is singing Seals and Crofts’ “Diamond Girl” to herself. Scott is damned lucky she’s not doing it aloud.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:42 am
Uncle Lumpy@90: So is there anything in an emu’s head besides eyeballs or is the entire bird controlled merely by spinal reflexes? Could the same be true of Adrian?
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:49 am
Broni Toni’s got a funny line today! Might as well, since TJ is playing the part of fussing wife-type.
Fist O Justice Theater It is DOGGY!
Mary, Bringer of Meddle Scott’s turned OLD. Can’t say as I blame him, especially looking at Adrian first damn thing.
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:05 am
#98 Aviatrix –
I don’t know from emus — there’s not much brain research on them because, y’know, why bother? Tasty eatin’, though.
As for Adrian, since her eyes are used mainly for staring and crying, they don’t really need to be connected to anything. Spinal reflexes? Last I looked, you needed a spine for that.
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:10 am
In her fantasy world, Adrian is somewhat pretty. Now, we all like to think we’re cuter, smarter, wittier than in actuality, but this borders on cruel. All I can hope for is for Scott to wake up and say, “If I feel as bad as you look, did I land in Hell?”
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:13 am
90. Uncle Lumpy. This topic came up here quite a while ago. I thought that pigeons moved their heads when they walked because they don’t have microsaccades, hence they have to move their heads in order to see. I had thought that all mammals had microsaccades and birds didn’t, but I haven’t been able to find enough information at places like this to prove or disprove my idea.
JP: buckyswife at 58 is correct. Way back before Gloria duked it out with the lady terrorist (and how long ago was that? less than a week in strip time and ages in real time) Rocky wanted to hire Sam to deal with the legal issues to do with starting a solar panel factory. Apparently in the intervening four or five days Sam has had the property rezoned and the factory has been built, staff has been hired and it is seemingly about ready to start production.
His fees may be high, but he gets results!
91. Poteet. On the elevated portion of I-80 going through San Francisco toward the Bay Bridge you can not only see into offices but into people’s apartments. City planning from the 1960s at its best!
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 am
The 2nd:
A3G: You’re not helping, Tommie.
R=R: Christ, what an asshole! (applies to every Peekaboo strip) (not Peekaboo Street)
S-M: Spidey learned professional ethics from Sam Driver.
BBlues: Sad.
Curtis: No, “chutney” is the sound of her gruesomely murdering Curtis someday in his sleep.
DT: The next sound you’ll hear coming from the evil clown is the sound of his body going “chutney!” Into pieces.
FC: No Thanksgiving stuff first? GAH! Just like the rest of our culture these days! No wonder I hate those brats. See? Even Heart’s mom from HotC hates that!
MT: He’s seriously considering puppy poaching, isn’t he?
MW: ( bat:[’s mash-up, panel 2, renders my planned snark moot) (”great minds, etc.”)
MC: “Why make us think when…” (emphasis mine)? And he finds that glop moving? Don’t let us down, Ed…
Ghost-Who-Has-His-Own-Method: “….Whattaya mean by ‘Magic 8 Ball’, Mozz…?”
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:51 am
Hey there folks, time for me to show you an example of when Garfield was at its best (since I ran into it by accident actually). I went to the Vault on Garfield.com and came across a great, wondrous moment of the strip.
Set the date to December 31, 1990. Then go forwards for a while strip by strip.
Then compare to today’s.
Also, its the only time I have ever seen Garfield use the word “sucked”. And also a shout-out to Isaac Asimov can even be found, followed by Jon being assaulted and later beaten over the head.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
MW: Braiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnssssssssssssssss…
A3G: The drug-addled revengeophile isn’t what I’d call “quite attractive”, but Tommie doesn’t doesn’t get out much so I’ll let it slide.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:52 am
Hm. When I relived my own birth & existence during my first several months, I was not nearly so existential. I was more into Hegel at that point. Then in my Terrible Twos I discovered Kant.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:01 am
MW, 11/02: Scott finally opens his eyes. Sees Adrian there. And spends the rest of his life convinced that he did in fact die that day, and was now spending his eternity in the torturous pits of hell.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:22 am
B.C. Uhhhhhhhhh…… If this wasn’t BC I’d think I was missing something, but I’m sure even if I got it it wouldn’t be funny.
Crock Some people don’t understand that unremorseful cruelty is hilarious. Crock gets it. People who find this amusing will also enjoy: kicking puppies, urinating on passed out homeless people, and sticking firecrackers in the ass of a cat.
Get Fuzzy I actually have a shirt that says “I heart weasels”. Mine is not pink though.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:53 am
MW: This is getting interesting. I just realized that Jor-El survived the explosion of Krypton and is now a patient in Charterstone Hospital.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:29 am
MW – Thinking fast through his coma-induced haze, Scott imagines his future life with the overwrought Adrian and manages to whisper:
“Who am I?”
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:28 am
MT: So poachers don’t quail at (ostensibly) man-eating gators, but line up behind the nearest tree trunk lest they be spied by a puppy. Makes sense to me, gators don’t piddle on your boots.
And wasn’t it just a few short days ago that we were knocking Elrod for not hanging a dogtag on Sassy? Why, yes it was. But today’s powder-blue collar and tag are so fetching. Man, talk about fanservice.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
MW: Be on the lookout for this week’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. It publishes an article on the groundbreaking treatment of coma patients at Santaroymart Hospital. Dr. Adrian Cory earns fame for her discovery that a game of peek-a-boo brings an ICU patient out of his coma.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
#95 — *SNORK* That was great! I was thinking of something along the lines of “GAH!” for Scott, but “Think dead thoughts” is way better. :-)
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
26 bats:[ —That’s great! But I’m not sure that imagining Mark Trail staring at my hoo-ha is really an incentive…. (I kind of like to minimize the spectator element of that particular task.)
70 bats :[ —Wow! Congratulations! I think the Invitational is pretty competitive—yay for you!
102 Mr. O’Malley: Has it been 4 or 5 days? I thought Rocky arrived yesterday, and they signed the contract and then went to Sam n Abbey’s for wine and horse-shopping, and then went to the high school to support Sophie, and then the next morning (i.e., this morning), the paparazzi came and Rocky got all Mark Trail on their ass, and then Godiva and Rocky fought.
And people say there’s no action in this strip!
Although now that I’ve written that out, it does seem a little implausible….
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
MW: The end is in sight! Adrian will turn around and see that Scott is awake, and they’ll kiss, and we’ll have four days of them telling each other how much they love each other, and by the weekend they’ll have jointly thought-ballooned their future, and we can move on.
Pool party!
Unless, in a cruel twist, Scott awakes and thinks that Adrian has given up and turned her back on him, and so he dies. We’ll have four days of face-clawing and platitudes, and by the weekend Adrian will be dating the mortician, and we can move on.
Pool party!
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
Monday funnies:
A3G: Ruby, you don’t want to take Bobbie on in a fight. She’s a hair trigger.
‘Shaft: I love Pam’s expression in the second panel. “How DARE you mock our sacred and holy newscasters who keep us in a constant state of fear and paranoia?!”
Curtis: What the hell is on Chutney’s head? A giant jelly bean? Some sort of kidney?
FW: Oh, I get it. Gym teacher. Dumb jock. Huh. Still, since 99% of the cast is employed at the school so they never need to actually, y’know, have lives outside of Westview, this could trigger a mass suicide among the layoffs.
GA: Walt’s over a hundred years old. If I were him, I’d hang out in the cemetary and wait for it to finally, finally end.
Luann: Y’know, so long as the creepy romance doesn’t turn into a soapbox about obesity or whatever, then I can tolerate it.
My Cage: I think this illustrates why we keep getting “cancercancercancer” from the media instead of real drama – it works. That’s the rub.
OBH: Ruthie’s already a grammar Nazi. Cute.
PBS: I loved this – because I hate Twitter.
Pluggers: Crisis averted! Thank God! Now all of our Plugger friends won’t have to brave the wilds of the big, scary Internet. (Reed Hoover has his latest phonebook’s worth of submissions ready to go.)
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 am
I thought BC was pretty funny, but I generally like strips with a joke that takes a few seconds for me to catch.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:11 am
MW: So Adrian’s histrionics were enough to bring Scott back to consciousness? I thought for sure Mary would have to meddle him back from the brink.
MC: Just when I thought this couldn’t get any better, Jeff’s son is Masky McDeath!
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
MT: I don’t know! You think maybe it walked?
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
MW: This is no time for your silly peekaboo games, woman.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
A3G – “NOT THAT I’M BITTER OR ANYTHING.”
BB – Please, if there is a God, never let the Walkers use the phrase “expanded your gross natural product” again. On the bright side, this should be a boon to Beetle Bailey slashficcers.
BrS – Women with guns shooting large animals? I bet G. Gordon Liddy’s found a new favorite comic strip.
Curtis – Uh, what?
DT – Oh, for the love of…END! END! END!
FW – Les first! Les first!
JP – “Well, you know, with feelings and stuff.”
Luann – Oh goody. I was wondering when we’d get back to the “Brad and Toni interminably think about maybe possibly expressing physical affection in some manner slightly less chaste than a stiff nod” storyline. Thrilling.
MT – Well, I’m no expert, but it looks like she walked.
MW – Am I a bad person for feeling glee at the thought that Adrian has been in that position for the past twelve hours?
MC – Wow! Funky Winkerbean, minus the pretention and with twice the talent! (In all seriousness, it’s nice to see that this storyline is taking the diplomatic approach, although I don’t think that’ll stop Batiuk from writing Ed off as a mouth-breathing Philistine.)
PBS – Sorry, Rat, you just failed at life. Take a sabbatical and come back when you’ve learned not to place stock in retarded Internet fads.
Phantom – “Hmm. Hard to see, the future is.”
Pluggers – And now the Pluggers contributors get up in arms because they can’t return the computer they bought so they could learn how to use the googlemail to send in their ideas, because they spilled Miller Lite into the vent and fried the motherboard.
RMMD – Cue is now tied with June for the position of my favorite Rex Morgan character.
Shoe – Yay, more gratuitous bird cleavage. And by “yay” I mean “this might not be a bad thing if it were done by a vaguely talented artist and the characters didn’t all look one step away from shooting themselves.”
SFx – You know what I love about Slylock Fox? The news crews, that’s what. Ever wide-eyed and credulous, no matter how spurious the claim, always up for a good fraud to milk a story out of…it’s just comedy gold. Thank God the real media isn’t like that, eh?
SM – Yeah, great. Drag out the plot with unnecessary complications. Woo-hoo.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:30 am
#119 One-eyed Wolfdog – Good god I’ve been staring at it for 3 minutes straight right now. What is the joke?
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 am
…and quite some days later, Brookins was beset by a plague of gastropods, sent his way by earnest pluggers whose urge to contribute exceeded their tiny protobrains’ ability to recognize and interpret metaphorical expressions.
–
#124 – The dowsing rod is mistaken for a terse way of asking “Why?”.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 am
Blork
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 am
So what does it take from Luann to get me sputtering with incomprehensible rage? A creepy story arc about an odd, troll-like mini-Elvis proposing to a high-school student just to get his dibs in early? A week of suggestions for the stupidest trick-or-treat handouts ever?
No, it’s the complete wrongheadedness of TJ’s risotto making. You don’t start the rice without the onions, and you sure as boxcar don’t leave the house while the rice is simmering. You mince the onion and saute it in butter and olive oil, and then you add the rice for a nice little rossolare before you give it all a dash of white wine. Then you start adding broth and STAY IN THE KITCHEN until the rice is tender before stirring in a handful of parmigiano reggiano and a pat of butter to get that perfect creamy consistency. Evans, you fail!
Dang, now I want some risotto.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Dennis: [animated GIF banner] Congratulations! You are the 1,000,000th comic to use this gag! Click here to claim your prize!(*)
(*) Your prize is a kick in the fork.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
@123 commodorejohn sez: “RMMD – Cue is now tied with June for the position of my favorite Rex Morgan character.”
The race may not be quite over yet — since, Cue being an inveterate herbalist, it would be within the realm of artistic license for Nolan to grow him a perky set of Snopesian puppies. Those might just enable him to nip June at the line.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
@126 Moly, in your defense I interpreted it as an invitation for BC to go massage his prostate till he obtains a handier source of liquid. I still thnk that explanation fits; hand in glove, as it were.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:13 am
So, one day I was at home preparing some risotto for some friends. It was all coming along nicely when suddenly I received a phone call.
“Doctor! We need you at the hospital, STAT!” said the voice over the phone.
“Well, foo.” I replied.
I asked my friends if they would watch the stove and food while I was gone.
I’m gonna miss that risotto.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am
So now it’s Marvin and Family? (Yeh, there they are, standing there like zombies.) Oh goodie! That means all the gags about crap and poop and heavy-lidded smirks and horrendous stenches are for the entire family instead of select fetishists.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
#132 (fishmorgjp):
“…gags about crap and poop and heavy-lidded smirks and horrendous stenches…”
Heavy-lidded smirks? Eeewwww, that’s disgusting!
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:58 am
Mary Worth: Is it bad that when I saw Scott’s eye’s open today my first though was “Oooh, I hope he wakes up with a homocidal “Rambo-like” personality and spends the rest of his days running through the streets gunning down thugs?” And then Adrian can start dating the ATF agent assigned to invesigate.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:26 am
11/2
MW: “Dammit. She’s still here. How long do I have to pretend to be a vegetable?”
RMMD: Over the past couple of years, Verizon et al have been hitting every phone booth and shell they can get their hands on and ripping out the phones, in a bid to drive up the demand for cells. Either Cueball has been extremely lucky to find one they haven’t gotten to, or the TARDIS just materialized.
Momma: Sonia, we understand if you can’t remember all your lines. Try to be more subtle about lookng at the cue card guy, though.
SFx: Count Weirdly is coming off his meds during a manic phase. Tomorrow he’ll be just barely able to get off his futon and grab that can of dinner Cheez Whiz. Slylock must be pretty bored if he thinks he needs to go on TV and debunk the Count’s ravings.
M-Dawg: Doggie treats have never put that expression on anyone’s face. Clearly Marmaduke has ransacked a meth lab.
HtH: Brought to you by two Vikings having a heart-to-heart in a featureless void.
DT: So the evil clown has climbed atop a tiger cage and then Frankenstein’s monster sneaks up and strangles him? Sure, why the hell not?
Luann: Snugglebunnies? Of course. It all makes sense. TJ is the bastard son of Opus the Penguin.
A3G: Apparently if Margo were fifteen years older, peroxide blonde, and had even less of an internal filter, she’d be just Tommie’s type. This does not come as a complete surprise.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:36 am
H&J. —
Only just about anyone on Earth, Jamaal.
MW. — Please, Scott, say “Jeff, darling, is that you?”. Please. For the children.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
Cathy: After a couple weeks with the in-laws, I almost welcome the return of Cathy’s obsessive conspicuous consumption.
FW: In his continuing effort to retcon everything in Funkytown to be as angst-ridden and depressing as possible, Batiuk reveals in panel three that Bull has Downs Syndrome.
Luann: Seven minutes? I’ll be impressed if Brad lasts five.
MW: Adrian consoles herself by reciting the lyrics to “Unchained Melody” in her head.
Pluggers: Well, thank goodness for that. For a moment there it looked like the Pluggers faithful would have to adapt to a technology they didn’t grow up with.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:46 am
If Scott has any brain cells left, he’ll start faking amnesia right now!
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
#95 bats:[
When I filled in my own Mary Worth snark, I had no idea you’d already done the same joke. And so much better.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Death to TJ’s onions!
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Josh, 4chan has forever ruined the phrase “baby paste.” Do not, DO NOT run a search on this phrase. In fact, please never use that phrase again, especially in reference to Marvin.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Lio: *small type at bottom* trained stunt actor. Do not attempt this at home.*/small type*
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Luann: The Full Story
“Can you turn the heat off in seven minutes?”
“We’ll try.” “Want us to do anything about the rice?”
“Ha ha ha. No, seriously, turn off the stove. I don’t want to burn this fucking house down again.”
“We just might be burning down our house, if you know what I mean.”
“Jesus Christ. Aren’t you retards supposed to be firefighters?”
“Well, we can’t fight our fire any longer!”
And so they all burned to death.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Marvin: Does it worry anyone besides me that Marvin and his little friends are all incredibly powerful telepaths who are able to communicate complex ideas from one mind to another while at the same time performing various motor tasks, and they still can’t control their bowels or bladders?
I find this terrifying.
DT: Clown tartare by Friday.
MW: After seeing this I was barely able to control my gag reflex long enough to choke down breakfast.
JP: Apparently Rocky’s music career imploded in record time and he’s had to go to work on a loading dock.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
MolyBendum -
After you heart a weasel, what exactly do you do with the heart?
I trust you don’t waste the remainder of the carcass.
This leads to the open question:
What should one do with a heartless weasel?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“Marvin” reminds me of one of the great short stories of all time — “Oil of Dog” by Ambrose Bierce. Hilarious, over-the-top, black-hearted satire.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
#143 – traditionally, one awards him a JD.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
SFx: Count Weirdly is unjustly slandered again by the upside down answer. It’s obvious he invented subspace radio and can therefore have nearly instantaneous conversations over vast distances.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
143: The Mustelidae Anti-Defamation League would like a word with you. . . . .
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Pluggers: Our long national nightmare is over! Brookins can still get to his PO Box!
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
MW: “It’s Alive! It’s Alive, It’s alive!”.
Still Scott’s expression of “who the hell is this?” leaves one hopefull that a “Scott has amnesia’ storyline is still a faint possiblity.
FW: Actually Bull has a point – Most High schools will fire the music teachers, the librarians, the english and social studies teachers, melt down the the band instruments for scrap and sell the library’s books for plup before they even think about cutting the sports programs.
Of course in the Funkyverse he who is confident will be destroyed so Bull will end up bunking with Les by the end of the month.
My Cage; I think this missed the point. Again it’s not the handling of things like cancer – it’s the hamfisted melodrama done so over the top that a hack victorian novelist would turn their nose up at it combined with the “this is art” protests of the creator that get my goat at least.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
My Cage: Wow…satirical and respectful at the same time? Nice job pulling that off!
PmP: “And my life…will be lived…for the THRILL!!!”
xkcd: Holy crispy crap. Geeks of the world, bow before your king.
http://xkcd.com/657/
(sorry, running late, no time for hyperlink.)
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Baby paste? Now sir you have gone too far!
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Pluggers: “You may resume sending…”
Somehow, the news that the universe was brighter for a few brief moments when apparently no Pluggers submissions were in the pipeline leaves me only more morose and world-weary than ever.
OK, I guess it won’t make any difference now. Go ahead and pull the cork out of Marvin’s ass.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Luann – Risotto again, TJ? I know it’s challenging, but you’re something of a culinary one trick pony. Also, I get a bad feeling they’re going to burn the house down. Again.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Luann – Yes, “It’s getting hot in herrre” references and “I’m leaving for seven minutes, be sure to stir the rice” can only be leading to one thing. BURN BABY BURN!!
Two house burnings and a ladder mishap in such a short time span – are Brad ‘n Toni as incompetent at being firefighters as they are at being lovers? And should Toni even be in the profession given that her lips are clearly made of wax and thus subject to melting if anywhere near an open flame? Is that why she is with Brad? There certainly is no risk of her getting burning passionate kisses from the Baron von Lumpenstein.
And if Toni considers snuggling on the couch watching Real Housewives reruns to be teh hotness, then she has found the right man! Just remember, Toni – these are the crazy, early times in your relationship, you can’t expect to maintain that level of sexual passion forever!
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
#154 CCB –
Oh, that hurts.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
#141 Chyron HR -
Thank you. (sniff!) I just love happy endings.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
@155 – Unca Lumpy
I had you more as a Duke. You’d make a kick-ass Duke! Or an Earl …
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
MW: I see it now! Scott is Ozymandias!
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
As Marvin and the rest of the urine-soaked inmates apparently communicate telepathically, let’s put it to the test:
Okay, Marv, I’m thinking something right now. Are you receiving? Yes, it does involve a baseball bat… Yup, there is violence involved… Why yes, there is a toddler-sized body bag in the picture! Amazing! You really are a mind reader!
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
# 56: “Makes sense to me, gators don’t piddle on your boots.”
That’s what you think. I had to throw out my brand new Wolverines.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
BB: Beetle uses his safe word with Sarge.
Dennis the Menace: Alice and Henry Mitchell, for all their mid-20th century upwardly mobile trappings, are Roseanne and Dan Connor, without the humor or the extra weight or the underlying warmth for others. They clearly diss others in front of Dennis, who innocently repeats the insults to the dinner guests, and now Alice gets Dennis to lie for her? What next, will CNN be reporting that Dennis is floating in a balloon?
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
dale sez:
Here in my state, dale, we usually elect ‘em to Congress.
Thanks! In the immortal words of Red Greenback, Veal! Week! Waitress!
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
archie – What does Cammie see in that big lug? He’s an eavesdropper, for cripes sake!
AD – Okay, it took a second.
All right, two seconds.
Close2 – A couple of decades late to be the second one to use this gag.
Dick – My god, it’s freakish! Horrific! Look at those hands — they’re like… normal human HANDS! AAAAAAAAH!
Gasoline – Walt roams around in this (nicely drawn) cemetery to keep in touch with the ones that aren’t in the Old Comic Characters’ Home.
Hägar – Love is closer than you think, Lucky Eddie!
Run like hell, Lucky Eddie!
Okay, five seconds.
Mark – I can’t tell. What’s Sassy peeing on in the first panel?
Mary – He’s moving — quick, call the nurses, and take all the sharp objects and rope out of the room! Stat!
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Phantom – “Mozz, I’ve come to…”
“Well, if it ain’t the Widower Phantom! Come on in!”
“Actually, I think I’m done here. I’ll be drinking at the Jungle Room if anybody wants me.”
Pluggers – A plugger’s e-mail box is a mailbox. With an E crudely scrawled on it.
Six – I’m guessing this is a “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on” joke.
Aviatrix @98 – This reminds me of a theory I used to enunciate that the thickness of bone in a cat’s skull is equal to one half the diameter of the cat’s head, give or take a cell or two.
Calvin’s Cardboard Box – Or maybe a Duke of Earl?
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
DTM:Ms. Mitchell shooshes the readers as she sneaks up, carefully, quietly, on the toddler who will soon be found in a shallow grave by the river.
Luann: No, this is gonna be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from last time! See, this time, Toni rescues BRAD. Whatta switcheroo, amirite?
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Mary Worth: It’s ALLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!! Spooky!
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Marvin’s Baby Paste – Soylent Brown. A fine meat product from Swift foods, I propose modestly.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Phantom: I’m not sure what it says about the chances of Diana being alive, but I’m going to assume that this is the opening of the 20 month arc that is mentioned here: http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2009/08/24/the-phantom-embarks-on-20-month-story-line/
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
167 seismic-2: Oooh, nice—the difficult double pun / literary allusion! The judges would give that one a 10.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Now there are more confused Pluggers than there ever was!
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
# 109 Little A — And from his expression, he’s thinking that dying in the explosion would have been much, much better.
# 125 GotFuzzy — Dang, now I want you to make it and give some to me.
# 133 artist — Now I think “Why the hell not?” is the official motto of DT.
# 156 AhClem — My thought exactly.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
The Russian judge gives it a 7.3.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
# 168 Quantum — Thanks! I’m thinking maybe amnesia, hooking up with someone who rescued her, and then being found by Stripey Butt, with anguish all around. But it’s good to know that in her other life, she’s heading for Europe.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
GA: Nothing like a generic gravestone. “To My Dear Husband…Rest In Peace Till We Meet Again.”
No name. Also, it sounds like the gravestone was a gift.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@160 Morten Jonsson says:
# 56: “Makes sense to me, gators don’t piddle on your boots.”
That’s what you think. I had to throw out my brand new Wolverines.
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Next time get Sassys instead. They ain’t a-gonna mess with those.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Pluggers: Where does that Plugger dog-gal live? A mailbox with one star? Is it a leftover mailbox from the old Soviet Union? Or is this General Halftrack’s personal mailbox being taken over by Pluggers?
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Luann: Forget Brad, Tony and T.J. What the heck are those vehicle-like (that’s right Ruthie, I used a hyphen) pictures on the wall?
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Forget the nonjoke in Curtis. What did the color monkeys do to Chutney’s hair?