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The endless wrapup

Dick Tracy, 7/21/10

Never let it be said that Dick Tracy phones it in. You could have been excused for thinking that Saturday’s strip was a the finale of the latest rambling, baffling plot that couldn’t be forced into some sort of coherent shape no matter how hard you tried; however, we’re clearly going to spend all of this week with the characters doing a half-assed attempt to explain it further, to no avail. Plus, that callous disregard for human life or dignity is the strip’s trademarked value-add. Yeah, Anja Nu, what a loser! Winners don’t get die in terror as they get cut in half by an airplane, am I right, people?

Dennis the Menace, 7/21/10

Well, if we can have Eli Roth-style torture porn in Crock, I suppose David Cronenberg-style biological anxiety in Dennis the Menace is fine. Watch in queasy fascination as Dennis crawls down an unwilling Mr. Wilson’s esophagus, discovering all manner of slimy, pulsating horrors within.

Gil Thorp, 7/21/10

Whoops, it turns out that Torrey Pines and Kemper Lakes are real-life golf courses, not made-up gated communities. It looks like my family was right and my aggressive refusal to learn anything about golf has come back to haunt me after all!

Meanwhile, this mustachioed golf impresario’s angry reaction to a “hronk” intrigues me. I’m not sure what a hronk is, but since to my knowledge “hr” sounds are generally restricted to Slavic languages, I think we’re all going to learn a valuable lesson about how wrong-headed it is to discriminate against Eastern Europeans. Will newspapers print racially charged but dramatically necessary dialog like “Get off of my golf course, you filthy bohunks”?

Beetle Bailey, 7/21/10

Ha ha, General Halftrack can’t smoke his cigars if he’s dead!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 04:23 pm and is filed under Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Dick Tracy, Gil Thorp. |

146 responses to “The endless wrapup”

Baka Gaijin
July 21st, 2010 at 4:24 pm [Reply]

Hazel: Are those woman boobs or man boobs in the lower panel? That has to be the most unsexy beach scene since, since, since I don’t even know when. Any help?
Dragon of Life
July 21st, 2010 at 4:26 pm [Reply]

Hronk? That’s a noise I expect from a Mark Trail second-panel goose, not a… second-panel… deformed… hand? What IS Gil Thorp known for these days anyway? I’ve lost track.
Oavis
July 21st, 2010 at 4:28 pm [Reply]

Looks like Don Martin is doing his guest-artist thing on Gil Thorp again. SPLOONGE!
Darkefang
July 21st, 2010 at 4:28 pm [Reply]

Gil Thorp is a strip that tries to demonstrate that high school sports don’t have to be all about winning championships to be interesting. It fails.
Pozzo
July 21st, 2010 at 4:29 pm [Reply]

BB: Waitaminute — didn’t Curtis try that on his Dad a few years back? Didn’t work there, either.
zenvelo
July 21st, 2010 at 4:31 pm [Reply]

I am still baffled as to how the puppet master in Spiderman knows what Tony Stark is thinking, saying , and seeing. It’s a voodoo doll. A month ago I thought SM was finally going to have a sensible story line. I should know better by now.
Poteet
July 21st, 2010 at 4:31 pm [Reply]

“HRONK!” is the noise the audience will be encouraged to roar when Margo, Lu Ann, and Tommie appear onstage in their ugly outfits.
commodorejohn
July 21st, 2010 at 4:32 pm [Reply]

@yaoi huntress earth (Y295): Eh, it all comes down to how Simply Incredible those Burber women are. I don’t know quite why Brooke has to reiterate again and again and again how ~~bitchy~~ strong-willed and ~~juvenilely hypersexual~~ erotic and ~~pretentious~~ cultured his leading ladies are, especially when he so plainly has put his own person into the body of Amos (and the other Cultured Men Turned Into Babbling Nincompoops By Those Amazing Women,) other than to speculate on the presence of whips and black leather in his bedroom, but it’s an obvious, recurring pattern that rings absurdly hollow most of the time it shows up (I’ll buy shy-nerd Amos or tuned-out geek Roger as being profoundly shaken by the sudden onslaught of wild sexual experiences, but how come they keep being so utterly disabled by it? And Kiesl the Brave Honorable Nazi Military Man being reduced to a buffoon by a farm-girl-turned-singer-turned-fucking-lunatic? No. Just no.) It’s half the reason I stopped following 9CL on a regular basis.
Écureuil Écumant
July 21st, 2010 at 4:34 pm [Reply]

DT: Cellohead Chinnuts, there, is a fine one to be critical.
zenvelo
July 21st, 2010 at 4:34 pm [Reply]

Mary Worth- Dr Mike thinks he’s Jake Barnes from A Sun Also Rises – injured, impotent but not emasculated. Either that or he’s about to come out of the closet.
Bitter Scribe
July 21st, 2010 at 4:35 pm [Reply]

@Dragon of Life (#2): What IS Gil Thorp known for these days anyway? I’ve lost track.

Wildly inconsistent artwork.
Cooler King
July 21st, 2010 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

Special Bulletin: “Get off of my golf course, you filthy bohunks” is your COTW. Regular posting will resume on Monday. Have a great weekend, Channel 1!
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 4:39 pm [Reply]

Army: PTSD Had Role in Massacre
General, Soldiers Still Missing
by Shadow Looming, Disassociative Press

July 28, 2010, Fort Leonard Wood, MO. An Army spokesperon has stated that post-traumatic stress disorder may have played a role in Brigadier General Amos “Tamerlane” Halftrack’s massacre of his own soldiers and staff at Camp Swampy last week, although the spokesperson was unwilling to speculate as to what may have triggered the event.

The camp’s sole known survivor, Private Beetle Bailey, who was apparently napping at the time of the massacre, awoke to find himself under a pile of corpses. “Sarge [Sgt. 1st Class Orville P. Snorkel] had just beaten the living tar out of me, so I was sleeping it off under a tree. They must’ve thought I was a corpse too and started putting the bodies on top of me.” Private Bailey doesn’t remember much detail from the horrific scene. “I was in a sort of half-dream fugue state for a while. I remember hearing the General [Halftrack] asking the same question over and over again, ‘What is best in life?’” The brigadier general must not have liked the answers. The death toll currently stands close to 2,000 individuals, with more than 300 soldiers currently unaccounted for.

Relatively unknown to the general public, Halftrack spent most of his career as a U.S. military advisor in south and central Asia in the 1970s and ’80s and was well-known in military circles for his unconventional counterinsurgency methods which earned him his nickname “Tamerlane.” As details of his career came to light at the end of the Cold War, the Army admitted that then-Colonel Halftrack’s methods may have been sometimes “excessive” and “unsound,” but that he was a valiant and patriotic Cold Warrior in the fight against Communism. He was promoted to brigadier general and then quietly cashiered to Camp Swampy in 1991 where he garnered a reputation as an avid golfer, a lax disciplinarian, and something of a lush. The Army is not commenting on Halftrack’s current whereabouts, which remain unknown.

The government denied any connection between last’s week’s massacre at Campy Swampy and the recent sack of St. Louis, which local law enforcement blames on an outlaw biker gang known as the “Green Horde.”
Josharella
July 21st, 2010 at 4:44 pm [Reply]

I hope this summer’s wacky and fun Gil Thorpathon is all about invasive species, as some sort of foreign goosefowl take over the golf course, giving us weeks and weeks of Gil and his spoiled WASP teenagers chasing them about with rakes… wherein they are unable to practice their strokes, inevitably lose the final tournament, and discuss the valuable lessons they learned over a delicious dinner of goosefowl l’orange.
bourbon babe, unbuckled
July 21st, 2010 at 4:46 pm [Reply]

@littlestevie (#y300): The Sun Also Rises is one of many books taught to high-school kids that shouldn’t be—not because of any naughty bits but because the real beauty of the book is often wasted on them. There’s this whole cool thing in Sun with the tension between Romanticism and Realism embedded in the structure of the novel, and…. oh, comics? Yeah, sorry…. How about that Mary Worth, huh? ((sends lit-geek self to go make a cocktail and be quiet))
PoeWar
July 21st, 2010 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

I’m Hoping for five things:

1. Hronk means that there’s a goose on the golf course.
2. Mark Trail makes a guest appearance
3. A zoning dispute erupts
4. Gil Thorp and Mark Trail exchange Punches
5. Gil Thorp and Mark Trail exchange Fluids
Chyron HR
July 21st, 2010 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

Today’s Dick Tracy gives a secret insight into the creative process behind America’s favorite comic strip!

Jim Brozman: Well, what was that nonsense with the rocks through Tracy’s window and the signs on his lawn?
Dick Locher: Christ, I don’t know, Anja Nu did it. There, happy?
Jim Brozman: You’re a loser, Locher.
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

Archie: What just happened there in panel 2? Did reality fold in on itself and then re-explode? What does that have to do with clowning?

Crock: It’s funny because, Grossie’s trying her damndest to lose weight and get healthy but instead is being bamboozled by some diet fraudsters! Oh, no—that that’s not funny. It’s rather sad.

FW: Don’t let Funky’s characteristic glumness fool you. He’s not being sarcastic. Even if he’s only bringing schadenfreudean amusement to two people he doesn’t really like, it’s the most meaning his life has ever had.

@PoeWar (#16): Mark Trail and Gil Thorpe exchange punches, which leads to a visit to Rex Morgan, MD, which leads to an exchange of bodily fluids leading to feelings of confusion and regret, which leads to Mary Worth for some advice, which leads to Judge Parker to be arraigned on murder charges.
Steve S
July 21st, 2010 at 4:56 pm [Reply]

It kind of looks like Dennis is reenacting the poison-in-the-ear murder from Hamlet, but that would mean he . . . ewwwwww!
Walker of Dog
July 21st, 2010 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

I was initially confused by that Dennis the Menace panel. Before I recognized the flashlight, I thought Dennis was holding a portable vacuum cleaner and trying to suck off Mr. Wilson’s face.

Now I’m left wondering why Dennis is shining the light in Mr. Wilson’s ear if he wants to see into his throat. Dennis is stupid? Hronk?
But What Do I Know?
July 21st, 2010 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

GT: Hey, wait a minute–didn’t someone make that joke about “Pebble” in the Comments section yesterday?

/way too lazy to look it up myself
Ranger
July 21st, 2010 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

DT: I’m hoping the “she was a loser, Tracy” is the segue into the next story arc. “Speaking of losers Tracy, time to go bludgeon some more. We haven’t brutally mauled anyone in more than a month!”
seismic-2
July 21st, 2010 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

MT: HRONK! “Oh, no. Not that again! Another damn herd of migrating rhinos farting all over the 17th fareway. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?”
This Guy
July 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

GT: “Hronk” is just the catch-phr… uh, catch-sound of Ultimate Warrior’s *SKRONK* knockoff, the Supreme Soldier. He’s not a very good knockoff–everything he says is clear and rational.
Shawn S.
July 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

“Hronk!” Oh no, looks like those Duke boys are at it again!
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

Beetle Bailey — In the immortal words of Rocky the Flying Squirrel: “Hokey Smoke!”

Hagar the Horrible — I prefer “Hagar the Not-So-Funny” myself!

Ballard Street — Nancy and Sluggo: The Later Years!

Archie — Is it Archie’s inherent clumsiness… or his flaming red hair that makes Veronica think of him as a clown? (Hey, it seems to work for Bozo and Ronald McDonald!)
JAChicago
July 21st, 2010 at 5:09 pm [Reply]

Ms. Buxley clearly served as an assistant to a top-level CIA official during the 1960s and picked up a trick or two from their attempts to kill Castro.
Jacquie
July 21st, 2010 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

Gil: I definitely read “Hronk” as a goose, but now I’m thinking “Eastern European goose.” (“Gooskies”?) Is it wrong to hope we’re entering a Mark Trail crossover plotline, whereby the mustachioed dude in panel 3 attempts to exterminate the (former) Soviet geese befouling his golf course, and finds himself on the receiving end of the FIST OF JUSTICE.
cheech wizard
July 21st, 2010 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

GT – “Hronk!” I thought Torrey was blowing that huge honkin’ nose of hers.
The Man with the Golden Nose
July 21st, 2010 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

Excellent. That balloon-font “hronk” in Gil Thorpe almost certainly will lead to the bludgeoning death of a goose (with a five iron, of course; you use a three wood to bludgeon a duck to death – check with your caddy regarding bludgeoning other waterfowl) which will lead to the inevitable Mark Trail crossover, with random bolding and punching action. If only we could add Sam Driver . . . . but a driver, in golf, is a wood, and Sam Driver is pretty wooden, so we’re over half-way there.
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#15): One of the most annoying complaints I’d hear from my colleagues (used to teach H.S. English) was the “kids these days!” complaint. “Kids these days don’t read!” “Kids these days can’t appreciated the beauty of” whatever book. I would point out that kids THOSE days didn’t read and didn’t appreciate the great books when they came out. They weren’t written for kids at all, so how can we expect kids these days even approach those texts without some help? For example, Moby Dick perfectly captures the relentless, monotonous boredom of a whaling voyage, punctuated by brief episodes of intense excitement and activity, but to most people, it’s just boring.

Back to comics.
seismic-2
July 21st, 2010 at 5:15 pm [Reply]

@But What Do I Know? (#21): Er yeah, I made the same joke yesterday that a character in Gil Thorp did today. And yes, I am profoundly ashamed of that. The only thing that now makes my life at all bearable after that abject humiliation is the thought that at least it wasn’t a character in Ziggy.
Alfred E. Neuman
July 21st, 2010 at 5:19 pm [Reply]

@Rocky Stoneaxe (Y #285) Re: GT— And if you want one of those goofy Hollwood-style names for your golfing kid, what could be better than Winged Foot? It’s unisex, too!
seismic-2
July 21st, 2010 at 5:20 pm [Reply]

@seismic-2 (#32): My version of Torrey’s joke is here, BTW.
Ed Dravecky
July 21st, 2010 at 5:28 pm [Reply]

@PoeWar (#16): Good news! Your wish that Gil Thorp and Mark Trail exchange fluids is coming true in a very special August 13th strip. Bad news! Here’s the dialogue from that strip: “Mr. Trail, here’s your Diet Pepsi.” “Thanks, Coach, and here’s that liter of puppy blood you ordered! Cost me a thousand dollars to retrieve it!”
GarrisonSkunk
July 21st, 2010 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

Hronk!?! It’s Zombie Tony Randall!!!! Run!
[Old Man] Muffaroo
July 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

@bats :[ (#y286): Well. Good to know. Thanks for the correction.
Alfred E. Neuman
July 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

@The Man with the Golden Nose (#30): GT could be riffing on an episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry kills a golf course goose that attacks him. It turns out that the goose was the favorite pet of the owner of the course, so hilarity ensues as Larry and his bumbling friends try to cover it up.

As to Sam Driver, I’ve never associated him with wood.
littlestevie
July 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

GT: I didn’t realize that Walter Cronkite was still alive and working as a golf pro.
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 21st, 2010 at 5:40 pm [Reply]

DtM — Dennis is about to discover that Mr. Wilson keeps a loaded .45 ACP under his pillow!

B.C. — The “P” in GPS stands for “Piss”!

Luann — Brad and Luann: The Later Years! (I’m convinced the DeGroot offspring are living their lives backwards… like Benjamin Button!)

Heart of the City — Well, you can try LISTING it on eBay, but there’s no guarantee someone will actually buy the furshlugginer thing!
These Strange Worlds
July 21st, 2010 at 5:41 pm [Reply]

GT

I’m pretty sure Hronk is the name of a Wookie in one of the Star Wars spin-offs.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hronk

Wouldn’t it be kewl if Wookies invaded the golf course?

What?

OK, wouldn’t it be kewl if a Darktide Rhino invaded the golf course?

You’re sure?
tymime
July 21st, 2010 at 5:41 pm [Reply]

Isn’t it obvious? Mr. Golfstache just has a very noisy Wookiee!
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hronk
Austria
July 21st, 2010 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#15): All I remember about that book is that I had to read it in a day because I had totally forgotten when it was due, and the girl had a boy’s name so I thought they were gay at first. I was like “Whoa, they’re letting us read this?” Then I realized what’s-her-name was a girl, but it still confused me every time.

FW: Yeah, we were pretty amused. Look, I think the fourth wall just crumbled!

MT: Hey, what happened to Stachey’s stache? That was the one redeeming feature that marked him as a villain! A Mark Trail villain without facial hair is more like an antihero.

MC: “Rowf”……………..*dies of cute*
bourbon babe, unbuckled
July 21st, 2010 at 6:11 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#31): Agreed. You put an age-appropriate text in front of those kids, and they suck it up like ‘mudgeons do snark. Kids do read—but like anyone else, they want to read things they like. And really, what 15 year old likes to read about emotionally deadened post-war ex-pats drinking themselves into stupors? (Lucky for me, I read both Sun and Moby-Dick in grad school—and loved them both.)

@Austria (#43): Oh, there’s plenty of good ol’-fashioned hetero sex in the book (witness Brett’s panting over the matador’s tight pants and the affair that results), as well as homoerotic innuendo up the yin-yang.

Back to comics, for real this time…..
commodorejohn
July 21st, 2010 at 6:20 pm [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#44): Amen. I think one of the big reasons I was such an avid reader as a child was that I was homeschooled and my parents didn’t feel like forcing me to read through all the books that “should” be covered (and they gave up on the idea of book reports after a couple attempts, thank God.) With no assigned reading or attached homework sucking the fun out of it, I got to snarf up huge volumes of text as a kid, everything from The Hobbit to books about UFOs and Bigfoot. Good times.
bats :[
July 21st, 2010 at 6:25 pm [Reply]

Josh, you also see Hr- in Old English and Old Norse (keen names like Hrothgar, Hrafn, Hraði, Hrafsi).
Me? I’m thinking Canada geese are crapping all over the greens again.
bourbon babe, unbuckled
July 21st, 2010 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

@commodorejohn (#45): And even some classics can work. I LOVED teaching Romeo and Juliet to 9th graders—so much fun. But I was required to teach Julius Caesar to 10th graders, and that was like slogging through the buffet leftovers at a Charterstone pool party: an unpleasant quest to find the few tasty bits, destined to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth for quite some time.
bats :[
July 21st, 2010 at 6:32 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#31): I read Moby Dick (and a slew of other American literature classics) in my sophomore high school “accelerated” (more or less, honors) class. It wasn’t the worst thing we read, not by a long shot. It probably had something to do with the fact that our teacher Mrs. Bickerstaff had spent much of her life in New England and knew a frightful lot about whaling. She’d get so excited about the book and all the maritime trivia that if someone had given her a harpoon, I’m fairly sure someone would’ve gotten killed over the course of three weeks.
commodorejohn
July 21st, 2010 at 6:47 pm [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#47): Oh, definitely. I loved the hell out of anything by Jules Verne or H.G. Wells (still do.) Some things are classics for a reason, and more than you’d think are perfectly accessible to people of almost any age :)
wossname
July 21st, 2010 at 6:47 pm [Reply]

@Poteet (#Y296): Oh. My. God. Do you really think this whole meandering illogical self-congratulatory tale, that we’ve been excoriating/trying to ignore for almost a year, has been told in one night? I guess I was assuming the telling took place over weeks, at least. On a lighter note, I’m getting better and better at ignoring it.

@bats :[ (#286): I knew about the raccoons (I don’t know what gives with Racoons, however) because a fairly weird friend of mine, long gone, proudly wore what he claimed was a raccoon os penis (not his words) as a pendant on a chain around his neck. But I had no idea how common this was until bats :[‘s post got me curious enough to do a little wikiing.

@Ed Dravecky (#35): Heads my list of at least 20 COTW nominees for this week – and it’s only Wednesday.
survivor
July 21st, 2010 at 6:49 pm [Reply]

30 – You’ll have to ask Davidson College fraternities which type of golf clubs they would recommend. That’s been an initiation practice at that college for years:

http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/768/NC/US/
Johnny Knuckles
July 21st, 2010 at 6:54 pm [Reply]

@Baka Gaijin (#1): At first I thought you were referring to the army lady’s boobs in BB.
survivor
July 21st, 2010 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

Holy crap. I’m actually starting to believe that Gil Thorp may have a ’summer insanity’ storyline taken from the headlines based on Davidson College activities.

“Yeah, they’d probably live out on a golf course if it weren’t for ….” “HRONK!” “… oh, GODDAMMIT! CAN YOU PLEASE NOT VICIOUSLY KILL A FUCKING GOOSE FOR ONE GODDAMNED SECOND, PLEASE?!?”
queek, source of Cuteness, Kawaii Commando
July 21st, 2010 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

@Austria (#43): Austria, I thought of you earlier today when I saw this.
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 6:57 pm [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#47): I’ve taught both those play to the same age groups. The kids could obviously relate to R&J, but I was surprised at how many 10th graders responded positively to Julius Caesar. I anchored the unit around whether Brutus or Caesar was meant to be the tragic hero, so maybe that gave them something to focus on as they read. Then again, I did have one student argue that Brutus was the hero because look at all the nice things Antony says about him in the funeral oration. I had a hand-shaped welt on my forehead for about week after hearing that.

@bats :[ (#48): That there’s the key. The teacher’s got to find a way to make is accessible. The Maltese Falcon was probably the easiest book I ever taught because I didn’t have to do too much to make it accessible. Dashiell Hammett was from our county, plus the book has a good deal of drinkin’ and fightin’, to which kid’s in St. Mary’s could automatically relate. I also had them do a compare/contrast with Falcon vs. Dick Tracy. No lie. They by and large thought DT was bizarre and lame and that Sam Spade was cool and awesome.
un_malpaso
July 21st, 2010 at 7:00 pm [Reply]

Nothing fascinates me more than scoping out any new, non-Euclidean angles or POVs that the Gil Thorp artist uses. It’s everything I’ve always imagined one-eyed sports reportage to be.

It takes a truly visionary artist to position his protagonist in just the right position that he appears to have a golf club jammed up his nose. Meanwhile, Miss Torrey Oaks’ hand is… just… wow, I think I just had an out-of-body experience, trying to construct a mental reality in which panel 1 could depict an actual scene!

Maybe the golf club positioning is a hint. The artist suffered a golfing accident in his youth that destroyed his parietal lobe.
Jeff
July 21st, 2010 at 7:14 pm [Reply]

Wish I had thought to do this!
http://www.timesunion.com/comics/?feature_id=Oh_Brother
Alfred E. Neuman
July 21st, 2010 at 7:18 pm [Reply]

@bats :[ (#46): “Hr” words are also seen in the Czech language. Former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, Roman Hruska, was of Czech descent, as am I. As to the “HRONK!”, maybe one of the golfers on is blowing the horn on his Skoda golf cart.
Ectobiologist
July 21st, 2010 at 7:26 pm [Reply]

FW: Don’t worry, Funky. You’re not providing amusement to anybody.
Joe Blevins
July 21st, 2010 at 7:28 pm [Reply]

DTM: I can’t believe I’ve never noticed this before, but Mrs. Wilson is a complete dick. It is she, not Dennis, who is the true “menace” of this feature. Time and again, she orchestrates these encounters between Dennis and her husband, presumably so she can take voyeuristic pleasure in the consequences. Take today as an example. The responsible, humane thing for her to say would have been something like “Mr. Wilson is ill today, Dennis, and he needs to rest.” But no. She instead opted for a folksy colloquialism that literal-minded Dennis was bound to misinterpret. There’s a special corner in Hell for enablers like you, Martha Wilson.
RussH
July 21st, 2010 at 7:30 pm [Reply]

Beetle Bailey: “Gear up McGee and DiNozo! We have a dead General!”
Fashion Police
July 21st, 2010 at 7:39 pm [Reply]

Has anyone else noticed the Liz the Policewoman has gotten a lot squarer of jaw since her elevation to chief? We are also profoundly disappointed that she has yet to take it upon herself to design a more flattering uniform. We used to think her quite stylish, in a butch kind of way, back in her detective days.
the good ship thetis
July 21st, 2010 at 7:39 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#31): I am always a little amazed when I re-read books now that I was forced to read in high school and find them so much better than I remember. High school kids are way too sheltered (or at least I was) to appreciate most classics.
Sgt Saunders
July 21st, 2010 at 7:47 pm [Reply]

Looking for fun? Milford’s hottest club is called “Hronk”. Club owner Kas Kazinsky has gone crazy. It has everything. Total JAP golfers with huge noses and massive egos, psychotic boy golfers with Von Haney hair, and just when you think the fun has ended, knock-knock, it’s drunk GIl Thorp! This is the club that answers the question “what th’?” There’s even a sick party room with human bathmats, you know that thing where teenage golfers grow dreadlocks and lay face down on the floor? HRONK!
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 21st, 2010 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

Pluggers… are also too lazy to put on their pants when they leave the house!

Family Circus — Thel’s thinking: “You’re right — this isn’t our house! So I don’t give a rat’s ass where you poop and pee!”

Bizarro — Proof positive that all dogs don’t go to Heaven!

One Big Happy — El Gato is saying he likes his prey medium RARE!

Rose is Rose — I’d like to say something nice about this strip, but I’m afraid Pat Brady will come to my house and lay one on me!
Shawn S.
July 21st, 2010 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

@Joe Blevins (#60):

While I definitely agree(she even gives him cookies to sugar him up), Dennis has really horrible parents that deserve the blame. They let him run all over the neighborhood at the age of what? Seven? Maybe that was ok in the ’50s but not today.
Rusty
July 21st, 2010 at 7:49 pm [Reply]

FW: Funky has a near-death experience, only to come back fully transformed as Archie Bunker. What an old douche. Batiuk, that is.
Poteet
July 21st, 2010 at 7:55 pm [Reply]

@wossname (#50): Sorry, I meant to refer to the last several weeks, er, days, during which Edna or Echidna or whatever her name is has been sharing one final 24-hour period with Kiesl before he flies to Vienna and she goes to see Bill, which we know will seal her fate. If you haven’t been following the plot and don’t really know it, I would like to switch brains with you. Thank you.
Rusty
July 21st, 2010 at 7:58 pm [Reply]

@commodorejohn (#8): One of the many squicky things about 9cl is the hard-on Brooke has for his female characters.
Evan
July 21st, 2010 at 8:01 pm [Reply]

“HRONK” – Geese. $50 says it’s geese. Typical Gil Thorpe – mysterious cliffhanger…. and it’s geese.
Anonymous
July 21st, 2010 at 8:04 pm [Reply]

@Evan (#70): I really think it’s an obnoxious SUV car horn belonging to Torrid and Kramper’s high-pressure golf dad. He’s been alluded to too much to not be part of the plot.
Emily K [Riff Chick]
July 21st, 2010 at 8:05 pm [Reply]

FW: Who are you kidding, Funky? This is what ALWAYS passes for humor in Tom Batiuk’s world.
Anonymous
July 21st, 2010 at 8:05 pm [Reply]

@littlestevie (#39): How dare you disparage “Uncle Walter”!!!
Anonymous
July 21st, 2010 at 8:07 pm [Reply]

@the good ship thetis (#63): I had the same experience, often when rereading books I was going to teach and hadn’t read since I was a student. I hadn’t read them again till I had to teach them because I remember most of them sucking. Maybe it was for the best because it made me resolve to make them not suck for my kids. Oh, and Antigone was another one that kids didn’t have much trouble getting into but A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was. Go figure.
Shadow Looms
July 21st, 2010 at 8:08 pm [Reply]

@Anonymous (#74): Glarghle Bharghle. It’s me.
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 8:09 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looms (#75): Uh, is me?
Andy L
July 21st, 2010 at 8:19 pm [Reply]

You can’t be too careful where fire safety is concerned! So let’s throw some burning clothing into a giant heap and go into the next room to have sex.
Yaoi huntress earth
July 21st, 2010 at 8:35 pm [Reply]

@commodorejohn (#8): So once again it is Brooke’s personal, self-absorbed masturbation fantasy? Besides, anyone who gets that disabled like that might need to seek some professional help.
Yaoi huntress earth
July 21st, 2010 at 8:41 pm [Reply]

@Rusty (#67): No he didn’t. Archie was likable, had wit (in his own way) and was capable of empathy.
OKStan
July 21st, 2010 at 8:47 pm [Reply]

Hmm,
So it’s okay for Dennis to remove his shoes before jumping on a couch, but not okay to climb all over Mr. Wilson? And what’s with the stylin’ saddle shoes? Did Dennis just step out of the 1950’s…oh, wait. Nevermind.
Dark Corner
July 21st, 2010 at 8:56 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#55):
Huh? Brutus is the tragic hero of that play. (As far as stage-time goes, Caesar is hardly a character). Antony says as much in the last lines of the play (as opposed to his sarcastic speech to the crowd): “This was the noblest Roman of them all.” I hope you didn’t fail that kid. :-)
Joe Blevins
July 21st, 2010 at 9:06 pm [Reply]

@Shawn S. (#66):

I am reminded of Dr. Will Miller’s review of the Dennis the Menace TV show:

A smokescreen suggesting that young Dennis was an incorrigible child, this show is, in fact, not about a bad boy. It is, rather, a show about bad parents. The Mitchells are weak, indecisive, and unable to set appropriate boundaries. As in most of these cases, what is not understood by many parents is that permissiveness is not an excess of kindness. it is rather a cruel form of abandonment.

Ouch. I still feel sorry for Alice Mitchell, though.

Incidentally, the book Why We Watch: Killing the Gilligan Within — though intended largely as a joke — is a great, insightful read. And it’s available embarrassingly cheap.
Shadow Looming
July 21st, 2010 at 9:11 pm [Reply]

@Dark Corner (#81): Oh, there’s some debate as to whether Brutus is the hero or not. Some scholars argue that the Elizabethan audiences for whom he wrote would have identified with Caesar and his monarchical aspirations (a political order they accepted as the natural order) and recoiled in horror at Brutus’s rebellion against his ruler. But that’s neither here nor there. The kid lost points for using Antony’s sarcasm-drenched funeral speech as evidence of Brutus being an honorable man, and he completely overlooked Antony’s closing lines. So he failed not for choosing Brutus, but for failing, utterly, to support his choice. I hope that assuages any unease your may have felt at my seeming injustice.
Buck Ripsnort
July 21st, 2010 at 9:19 pm [Reply]

DTM: Worse for Wilson, it turns out Dennis isn’t hold a FLASHlight, but a FLESHlight. Hijinks ensue.

GT: If “Honk” is a goose, “Hronk” must be a swan. As a man who’s been mugged by those damned fowl once too often, I really hope we see one hit in the beak w/ a niblick before the end of the week.
seismic-2
July 21st, 2010 at 9:36 pm [Reply]

Hronk if you think the Dad is a jerk.
Dark Corner
July 21st, 2010 at 9:38 pm [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#83):

Fair enough. (I’m guessing that kid never got to the end)!
Flying Manatee
July 21st, 2010 at 9:49 pm [Reply]

MARY WORTH: I’m guessing Doctor Mike has a fatal disease.
bup
July 21st, 2010 at 10:01 pm [Reply]

I think nearly every comic strip that has has introduced golf jokes or golf plots can see that introduction, in retrospect, as a jump-the-shark moment. It’s a really good metric of when the artist’s life has gotten too easy, and he spends too many days golfing anymore, and can no longer relate to what the strip was originally about.

Oh, you want a funny? Go to hell.
Josh
July 21st, 2010 at 10:04 pm [Reply]

@Dark Corner (#81) and @Shadow Looming (#83): One of the things I’ve read about JC (which is among my favorite Shakespeares, that and the Richard II-Henry IV-Henry V cycle) is that many stage productions of it end up editing out important chunks of the text because they’re determined to make either Brutus or Marc Antony the “good guy,” often based on contemporary political ideas. Personally I don’t think there really is much of a good guy in it. Brutus I suppose is the tragic hero (if you want to schematize it like that) because thanks to his enormous self-regard, the plotters convince him that “the Republic needs him” and get him to fulfill their own self-interested ends.

Personally I’ve always read the play as being about the horror of mass political violence. The riot Antony unleashes with his oration is the lynchpin of the whole story, and it’s the payoff that Brutus gets for what he thought was a move to save the state. I’d love to do a cast-of-thousands movie version of the play with the riot scene in the middle consisting of ten minutes of pure mayhem. Julius Caesar’s funeral in real life was something like the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeni, with the mob hijacking the funeral procession and burning the corpse in the middle of the forum.

@Sgt Saunders (#64): +1,000,000 for elaborate Stefon pastiche.

Josh

(PS Currently starring in the “Julius Caesar” film adaptation in my mind: Patrick Stewart as Caesar, Richard Gere as Brutus, Ian McKellen as Cassius, Edward Norton as Antony.)
Rimpy
July 21st, 2010 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

FW:Did anybody notice that Funky’s wife’s (?) “joke” about the “deer in a headlight” (7/21/10) was recycled from a Crankshaft (1/3/07)?
[Old Man] Muffaroo
July 21st, 2010 at 10:17 pm [Reply]

@Buck Ripsnort (#84): If “Honk” is a goose, “Hronk” must be a…
Wait! I’ve got it. “Hronk” must be a groose!
Dark Corner
July 21st, 2010 at 10:35 pm [Reply]

@Josh (#89):
Jove has spoken.
(Still and all…Gary Oldman as Brutus)!
commodorejohn
July 21st, 2010 at 10:41 pm [Reply]

@Flying Manatee (#87): His pencil doesn’t want to sharpen.
mumbles
July 21st, 2010 at 11:09 pm [Reply]

Crankshaft: With all this talk about wealth redistribution, here’s hoping that in tomorrow’s strip Joe the Plumber shows up and kicks Crankshaft’s ass. Not that I don’t disagree with Crankshaft, personally – I’d just like to see his ass kicked.
mumbles
July 21st, 2010 at 11:10 pm [Reply]

Ugh. I meant “not that I don’t agree with Crankshaft.” I got caught in my own triple negative.
Nekrotzar
July 21st, 2010 at 11:13 pm [Reply]

In the last panel of DT, it looks like his contact lenses are bothering him, which isn’t surprising since they are almost certainly square shaped.
Austria
July 21st, 2010 at 11:17 pm [Reply]

@queek, source of Cuteness, Kawaii Commando (#54): Oh, Pasta-kuuuuuuuunnn.
NoahSnark
July 21st, 2010 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

I can’t say exactly why, but the curtains in today’s Dennis the Menace really make the scene more horrible for me to look at. Maybe it’s because the pattern makes it obvious just how long the strip has been running.
sugarpie
July 21st, 2010 at 11:26 pm [Reply]

@bats :[ (#48): Yeah, go figure. I spent a teen-aged summer ripping through most of Henry James, and yet when junior year started up it took me two grueling weeks to get through An American Tragedy.

Years ago I helped some friends stage Titus Andronicus, set in Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Guyana. We did it in an small outdoor venue and unfortunately it rained every night-during the summer monsoon season. By closing night the final scene wasn’t so much about the horrors of conquest, subjugation, and canabilism but more about not slipping in the puddles of stage blood mixed with rain.
Baka Gaijin
July 21st, 2010 at 11:39 pm [Reply]

@Rocky Stoneaxe (#65) on Pluggers: No, Pluggers aren’t wearing pants because they’re lazy. It’s because they split their pants attempting to bend over to get the leftover fried chicken from last night. Their giant chicken wives put it on the bottom shelf of the Norge in a pique of sadism, knowing their bear/rhino/dog husbands are too fat to bend that far down.

@Rimpy (#90): Nope. I ignore that strip as much as possible. The past few weeks it’s made my reading of this board go so much faster. Add that to the active avoidance of the 9 Chickweed Lane posts and those two and three hundred post threads take 5 minutes to read.
Nekrotzar
July 21st, 2010 at 11:40 pm [Reply]

@Josh (#89): I read ‘Henry IV Part 1′ in 9th grade. The teacher, who was also the founder and director of the school decided to switch from JC, which she had taught in previous years. I was glad she did, because it was her favorite, and she was really passionate about it. It remains my favorite as well: I love the way it combines elements of tragedy and comedy, sort of a precursor to ‘Fargo.’

The teacher had us focus on the how the progression of the fates of Hal and Hotspur formed a mirror image (WS altered the historical age of Hotspur to make it fit better), but when I reread it 15 years later it occurred to me that she had not extended this ‘mirror image’ to include Hal and Hotspur’s respective sidekicks. I wanted to go discuss it with her, but alas she died a couple of years ago so I never got the chance.

But, when we were assigned to memorize and recite a passage from it, I recited “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” instead. Just to be difficult. (I got full credit.)
Hi There
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:25 am [Reply]

Hi There is currently on vacation. Filling in today is Hi There’s friend, Tweedle Dee.
Tweedle Dee offers this interpretation of Thursday’s ‘Funky Winkerbean’:

A black lampshade.

A brown picture frame.

Mustard drapes.

This is a room where good taste goes to die.
Great American Satan
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:42 am [Reply]

Kudos! Just when I’m starting to ho-hum at CC entries, I get a day that makes me LOL again. Muhahahaaha! Hilarious, sir. I have no curmudgeoning to contribute at this juncture.
Shawn S.
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:42 am [Reply]

@bup (#88):

This. Or the original creator died and the strip continues to stay published for some mind boggling reason.
Walker of Dog
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:44 am [Reply]

7/22 strips –

A3G: The essence of A3G is on display today:
- Tommie is pleading for anyone to take notice of her.
- Lu Ann is staring at the back of Tommie’s head, wondering if that’s where the talking noises are coming from.
- Margo is hunting up a refill.

RMMD: “Mayor Stu, don’t be such a drama queen. In our town’s council-manager form of government, no one will even notice when you’re gone.”
*look of horror from Stu*
“For treatment, I meant. Gone for treatment. Oops.”

JP: Since I have no idea why Sam is so stricken by Neddy’s recent socializing, I’m just going to focus on the soothing, repetitive stage business. Vase of flowers, can of soda, vase of flowers, can of soda…

MW: If no one has already selected “previous romance cut short by tragic death”, I will put my chips on that. Now let’s play “What’s Mike’s Deal?!”

And Mike, if you’ve got a heavy load, you’re sitting in the wrong kind of seat, in the wrong kind of room.

Phan: “Big Red Circle of Off-panel Communication, don’t fail me now!”

S-M: That’s considerate of Tony not to repulse, incinerate, or otherwise humiliate the cop, especially today. That’s his youngest in the front seat; it’s Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
ElkMeadow
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:04 am [Reply]

Tomorrow’s (the 22nd) Brewster Rockit strip has Mary Worth tell Ziggy to put some pants on!

You go, girl!
Carrie
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:30 am [Reply]

S-M: Jesus Christ, who just casually walks up to single-handedly arrest a superhero like it ain’t no thing? Never mind Spider-man, I want to see a strip about that dude’s adventures. Maybe this is the prequel to Axe Cop before he found the axe.
Aviatrix
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:32 am [Reply]

MW: Here, let me help by loosening your constrictive clothing.

And the great thing is that if anyone walks in on them, they’ll just see him lying on the couch. Mary keeps her jacket on and she’ll blend perfectly into the upholstery.
Poteet
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:48 am [Reply]

7/22 9CL — A good time for that random terrorist missile to hit the hospital would be RIGHT NOW.
True Fable
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am [Reply]

9 Dickweed Lane Please lord, let this be the end of this tedious little dramedy. End end end end end.

3 white chicks sitting around squabbling What? Tommie is finally getting a backbone after how many decades?

AJGLU3000 Aw c’mon, Archie. You’ve been juggling Jughead’s balls for years. ‘Fess up.

Children of the Circle I just noticed, Billy is built a lot like Gumby.

Sam Driver’s Pretty People Posse! Wait just a damn minute here. Abbey’s calling Neddy a grown woman? Last year (Parker time) she wouldn’t let her travel on the railways in Paris alone and had to get Cedric to keep her from getting drunk the night before art school registration, but now Neddy is mature enough to wade through convoluted relationships? Bitch, please.

Fist O Justice Theater “Sometimes I feel like/ a squirrel is watchin’ me…” everybody force yourself to sing along with Rockwell!

Mary Worth, Wanton Hussy Now that she’s got you where she really wants you, Dr. Cleancut, Mary’s going to Aldo the hell out of you. Bow chicka bow wow!

Kit Walker, Absent Ranger! This may be unrelated to anything to do with the plot, but I have to ask: Just how did she put on that form-fitting, scoop-necked pullover dress that apparently doesn’t have any zippers or buttons or hook-and-eyes? Is it made of spandex? Is Katy Perry going to start wearing this ‘trapped in a Matawan prison look’ at all her gigs now?
Poteet
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:04 am [Reply]

7/22 PHANTOM — I want to know what Diana plans to say to the police dispatcher during her brief time on the phone. “I’m the wife of The Ghost Who Walks! Get word to him at the Skull Cave! He thinks I was killed by The Python, but actually I took a few huge green leaves and draped them over the prison fence and… Ouch! Ouch! Heeelp, the guard dogs caught up with me!”
Mibbitmaker
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:45 am [Reply]

@True Fable (#110):

Thel: “Billy…?”
Billy: “I’m Gumby, dammit!”
Lucky
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:58 am [Reply]

Hi & Lois – Poor colouring gnomes must be kept inside all the time as shown by the fact that the one who did H&L today has no idea what sunburn looks like.

Marmaduke – Nope, Freud would have nothing to say about this. At all.

Mary Worth – Mary is finally ramping up his meddling by moving to psychoanalysis. It was only a matter of time really.
Sheila Sternwell
July 22nd, 2010 at 3:24 am [Reply]

DT: Either I’m more feverish than I thought, or that last panel is a pointed reference to the strip’s increasing irrelevance.

MW: I’m getting a decidedly American Psycho vibe from Mary’s posture today.
Mr O'Malley
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:12 am [Reply]

9CL: Are they both dead? About time.

When my mother tells stories of her youth, it’s about interesting stuff like the time Eleanor Roosevelt’s bodyguard taught her how to use a handgun.

A-3G: Margo breakfasts on a glass of chardonnay.

BC: Funny! I don’t remember anything similar in the Hart days.

FW: Now we know what the new name of the strip is going to be once Funky kicks the bucket.

MT: Having a character in this strip say “You’re aren’t going to believe this” is a concept that should be used at least once a week.

MW: Orange walls and fluorescent green furniture. I bet that puts the patients at ease.

My new Pogo books are mostly the older strips. One of them is the first collection, published in 1951. One of them is one of the more modern collections that Kelly’s wife put out that’s a kind of grab-bag of stuff including different cartoonists caricaturing Ike, Walt Kelly’s Christmas cards, etc., plus a whole passel of strips.

It’s true that the strip was a bit uneven at times. Also, he did repeat ideas, but at least they were totally redrawn every time. But Walt Kelly on an off day was still better than most other cartoonists will ever be.

One thing that’s interesting is that some of the bird characters that have walk-on parts are drawn very realistically, Mark Trail style. The recurring bird characters like Mallard de Mer, the Seasick Duck, and Mr. Miggle are more anthropomorphized.
Roman Fingers
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:26 am [Reply]

RMMD: Geez, who is the mayor’s opponent? Lucrezia Borgia?

Gil Thorp: Great–Mr. Peake has the only noisemaker on earth more annoying than a vuvuzela. Blow that thing one more time, and I will personally enter the strip and shove that thing up one of your orifices. Sideways.

FW: I love how his “loved ones” talk like he’s not even there. When you can walk on the rice paper, Funky, and leave no trace…well, it won’t mean you’re ready, but it will be physical proof of how little you’ve impacted the world.

Crankshaft: “The Barber of Seville”, and “Rabbit of Seville”. You heard it hear first.
jamoche
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:32 am [Reply]

@Shadow Looming (#55): Wish you’d been my teacher for Julius Caesar – mine decided that we should write about what one of the other characters were thinking at the time of the assassination. A good idea on the surface, except she chose the characters – boys had to write about Brutus, girls about Calpurnia.

My position that she wasn’t thinking much because she didn’t know it was happening did not go over well.
James D.
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:26 am [Reply]

MT: That squirrel is quite fascinated by the goings-on in Sally’s neighborhood. Must be the resident Lost Forest gossip.

GT: Earl Woods playbook, huh? Guess Kemper and/or Torrey will have 42 mistresses by the time they’re both 30. Wonder if he has another kid named “Pinehurst #2″?
Ed Dravecky
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:28 am [Reply]

@Roman Fingers (#116): Oh, I’m sorry but the correct answer was Wagner’s Ring Cycle and “What’s Opera, Doc?” Thanks for listening.
gleeb
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:16 am [Reply]

Dennis: And shouldn’t he be facing the water?

Gil: The old man in the first and last panels has obvious contempt for the reader. “Hey dimwit,” he’s implying, “look up there and read what ‘m saying.” Which is incompatible with a guy who looks like affable 40s character actor Nigel Bruce.

Wizard of Id: Dick joke! I know the strip’s got “Id” in its title, but come on.
Pere Ubu
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:54 am [Reply]

So GT’s “summer insanity” is an old guy on a golf course with an air horn.

I dunno, “insanity” it’s obviously got, but it’s no Clambake.
Écureuil Écumant
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:55 am [Reply]

Dreadlocked donkey squee to start your day off with a little heehaw…
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:03 am [Reply]

Pluggers… buy all of their books at flea markets and yard sales, so they can’t return them!

Soup to Nutz — It’s Old MacDonald’s Farm vs. Laser Action Bugbot Alien Transformer Cyborgs!

Nancy — Fritzi Ritz suns herself on the beach while listening to “Havana Daydreaming” by Jimmy Buffett! (In the immortal words of George Gershwin: “Who could ask for anything more?”)
bourbon babe, unbuckled
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:07 am [Reply]

MW: Worst. Porn. Set-up. Ever.

MT: Well, at least the squirrel’s on the edge of his seat.

A3G: So Tommy endured the humiliation of believing that her singing ability earned her a shot in a Broadway show and that her friends and family were all there to support her, while really she was being set up for public mockery of her appearance—and she’s the one who most buys into the process? I’m with Margo: the only way I can stomach someone that pathetic is with another drink.

FC: “You can ride your skateboard in the water, Billy. But remember, you must always hold on to it, even if it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. And if you have any problems, I’m sure that ‘Dreamboat Donny’ will save you.”

BB: Yeah, that “bad cooking” approach is working out really well there, Cookie. They can barely fit both your bellies into the last panel.

JP: “But,” thinks Sam, “what if Neddy chooses Mark over Jules? Will he return to Paris? Will I ever see him again—with that pouty mouth and scruffy chin and baleful look, like a Frenchy basset hound, but with more whimpering? What about our hours in the barn, happily grinding shoes with cans on our heads? Oh, Neddy, please choose Jules—if not for my sake, then for the shoes! Good god, think of the shoes!”
killercoconut
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:12 am [Reply]

It’s death by Mary Worth: She meddled him into physical submission and now she’s advancing upon him to put a mint green pillow over his face and crappy decor him to death.
Écureuil Écumant
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 am [Reply]

GT: So, the Golf Course Kidz’ daddy is Dr. Phil. That certainly explains the dickishness.
Ellie
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:24 am [Reply]

Ooooh, Dr. Roberts is gonna bargain with Mary, suggesting she give him a bj and he’ll call Jenna. She’ll do it, too, just to ensure herself a successful meddle.
TheMagicMel
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:27 am [Reply]

The Seattle Post Intelligencer site map has Funky Winkerbean categorized as ‘fun.’ Clearly, no one at the SPI has ever read said strip.
wossname
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 am [Reply]

A3G – WTF is going on with Margo’s right hand? Is that a wineglass? Or is she supposed to be crushing a beer can in a blind rage at Tommie’s ridiculous request? Has Bolle been taking post-grad courses at the Whigham-Brozman Institute of Freakish Appendage Drawing?

MT – Good thing the Lofo City PD put their top phone-tracing technician, Det. Sciurus “Hammie” Carolinensis, on the case. Not only did he trace the call but he already knows all about the perp.

Brewster Rockit – pure win! If anybody can get Ziggy to put on pants, it’s Mary.
The Party Sim
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:36 am [Reply]

The Dick Tracy cast can try to explain the events of the past weeks all they like, but here’s something they can’t explain: In the 7/12/10 strip, second panel, Anja is shown with both hands next to her face in horror. But in the first panel, there’s a hand at waist level peeking out from under the plane. Is Anja Nu’s horrible secret that she had three hands?
bourbon babe, unbuckled
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:37 am [Reply]

@wossname (#129):

Brewster Rockit – pure win! If anybody can get Ziggy to put on pants, it’s Mary.

Agreed. And I’m also grateful that the “Could you put on some pants” line appeared in Brewster and not in today’s Mary Worth.

What other comics characters could La Worth meddle with?
“Thelma, children are a blessing! Find joy in the bounty you’ve been blessed with, and you won’t need to get all liquored up.”

“Margo, instead of raging at your friends, find joy in the blessings of friendship, and you won’t need to get all liquored up.”

“Jules, for goodness’ sake, no woman in her right mind would wear a shoe like that. Perhaps you ought to just get all liquored up instead.”
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:41 am [Reply]

Funky Winkerbean — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying, so why am I not surprised by Mrs. Funky’s choice of reading material?

Monty — Too bad Monty isn’t a lip reader!

Family Circus — Who lets their child take a skateboard to the beach?

Scary Gary — Happy 702nd Birthday, Gary… and many more to come!

Ripley’s — Uwe Mitzscherlich of Possendorf, Germany is one sick puppy… er kitten!
Doug Puthoff
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:45 am [Reply]

7-22 FW:

Fifteen years ago, if someone had told me that the first reference to Kubler-Ross in a comic strip would be in “Whiny Finkerbean,” I would have answered, “No sh–, Sherlock!”
Écureuil Écumant
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:47 am [Reply]

@TheMagicMel (#128) said:

The Seattle Post Intelligencer site map has Funky Winkerbean categorized as ‘fun.’ Clearly, no one at the SPI has ever read said strip.

Indeed, the strip anagrams as “We break funny ink”. To which I respond, “Ban winy Funk reek.”
wossname
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:49 am [Reply]

@Flying Manatee (#87):

MARY WORTH: I’m guessing Doctor Mike has a fatal disease.

I’m joining Flying Manatee in this prediction, especially with the added evidence from today’s MW that Dr. Mike has to lie down on his fainting couch.

@Sheila Sternwell (#114):

DT: Either I’m more feverish than I thought, or that last panel is a pointed reference to the strip’s increasing irrelevance.

I think the last panel (and we had an identical last panel on Sunday) is the DT equivalent of a Charterstone pool party, just lacking the salmon squares and the extras in Hawaiian shirts. Another alternative would be a panel that said “New story arc starts here.”
wossname
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:54 am [Reply]

@bourbon babe, unbuckled (#131): Ooh, the whole MW story about the figure skater with the domineering obsessed father could be totally mashed up with the current GT story line! I’m sure there are large chunks of meddlistic platitudes in there that could be addressed without alteration to Mr. Peake and his kids.
Écureuil Écumant
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:57 am [Reply]

@wossname (#135) on DT: My take on that last panel is that the mortgage crisis is far worse than we knew — they’ve foreclosed on Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged hut. The giant kettle was probably considered a fixture, so they got that too. And now Baba’s hungry, so hungry. Townsfolk, keep your children close.
Rocky Stoneaxe
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 am [Reply]

Mary Worth — Mike Roberts and Mary begin their regular psychotherapy session! (Who would have guessed that the latter is actually a licensed buttinski?)

Wizard of Id/Speed Bump — Two Pinocchios, two “wooden” jokes!

Tundra — Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?

Dog Eat Doug — Stinkyman steals Spider-Man’s shtick!
Artist formerly known as Ben
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:46 am [Reply]

7/22

A3G: Margo: Um, no. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

GT: Stan Lee just spent the last hour writing a year’s worth of Spider-Man scripts, and now he’s feeling mischievous.

MT: Thank you for the exposition, Brother Squirrel.

MW: What’s worse? The fact that Mary’s pantsuit perfectly matches Dr. Mike’s Fisher-Price office furniture? Or that without the dialogue balloons, it would look like the two of them were about to make wild love on the couch? Mercifully, the two horrors seem to be cancelling each other out in my brain.

BC: What’s the joke here? And is it any good?

BB: Because there’s no connection between quality of food and obesity? Oh wait, did any of my friends just see me arguing with a fictional moron?

H&L: “And we didn’t get the house painted, because Jerry just spent three hours staring at my chest.”

DT: I’m sure the city’s homeless will be comforted by the knowledge that the streets will continue to run red with blood, courtesy of Detective Dick Tracy.

WofI: The connection between “Pinocchio’s nose” and “Viagra complications” is not one I’ve ever made, nor one that I’ve wished to.

SFx: A first-time equestrian is careening through the desert with dishwashing gloves and no saddle. The vulture sits back, secure in the knowledge that its next five or so meals are taken care of.

RMMD: “Say, your opponent sounds like a pretty clever fellow. What’s his name? I think I’d like to make a donation.”
ArtisticPlatypus
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:24 am [Reply]

My instant reaction to the sound ‘Hronk’ is ‘hippopotamus!’
Icepick Jones
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:51 am [Reply]

I really should get credit for that Golf Course thing, brah. I called that, big time in the comment section the day before.
PantsAreHard
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

I almost could have sworn that Mr. Moustache in Gil Thorpe said “Oh no, not that Asian!” Ha ha, it’s funny because racism is implied over at White Pines White Golf Club for White people who are totally White.
nil zed
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:18 pm [Reply]

@Jacquie (#28):Gil: I definitely read “Hronk” as a goose, but now I’m thinking “Eastern European goose.” (“Gooskies”?)

Gosjkrsky.
Braniff
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:11 pm [Reply]

Beetle Bailey: “Ms. Buxley, we knew Jack Kennedy. We laughed at the antics of Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy had some wild ideas. And Ms. Buxley, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Yellow Cat
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:32 am [Reply]

7/22 MW — OMG. Laugh-out-loud funny!

I think that whoever’s writing MW these days — gets it.
pharmacy technician
August 25th, 2010 at 11:25 am [Reply]

Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!

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