Cranky (but Crankshaft-free) Tuesday
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Dustin, 1/12/21
You know, I’ve griped about Dustin slamming on millennials (as represented by the strip’s title character), but I haven’t put that much effort into it because, enh, millennials, probably they have it coming. But when you decide to come after librarians? When you say that librarians don’t want people eating and drinking in the library (which literally ruins books that cost money to replace that they’d have to pay out of their shrinking budget) and they don’t want people reshelving books (which patrons aren’t trained to do and if they screw it up it makes books difficult or impossible to find) and they don’t want people talking on their cell phones in the library (this is literally annoying to everybody, who could possibly object to idiots talking loudly on their cell phones in the library being asked to leave) because they’re frumpy martinets who love rules? That’s when I declare that you’re garbage person and I swear a sacred oath to destroy you. Be warned!
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/12/21
So it looks like Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has decided on what the defining feature of its hot new character, Li’l Sparky, is going to be: it’s going to be puns based on noises horses make. As we can tell today, a key aspect of this bit is that Li’l Sparky is going to really insist that everyone acknowledge that he’s doing it, until all the other horses (and, I assume, eventually the non-horse characters) come to dislike him. Can’t wait!
Mary Worth, 1/12/21
“Greta, our friend Eve started weeping openly in public but doesn’t want to talk about it. Is there some way I can make this about me?”
168 replies to “Cranky (but Crankshaft-free) Tuesday”
MW: I finally understand. The reason my dog sometimes doesn’t eat her food is that I don’t have her name on the bowl.
Sparkplug will be the next merchandising foray, replacing Garfield. After two weeks, noone will like him either
Haha, Noodlefoot strikes again!
“Woof”
[run Google Translate: DOG > ENGLISH]
“I didn’t evolve these sharp teeth for tearing apart arugula, buddy. Gimme the chicken or you’ll never figure out where in the apartment I pooped.”
Dustin: Maybe Dustin was worried he’d fall for the whole “sexy librarian” thing, in which she’s stern and mean but secretly hot behind the hair bun and glasses. And yet, somehow, I don’t think that will be a problem here. Unless he’s mostly into the “stern and mean” part, in which case he’s a goner for sure.
Mary Worth: “Greta, I don’t get our friend Eve at all! Not only won’t she go to the hospital to be tested for her negative emotions, she seems to think it’s strange that I eat roast chicken for dinner but feed kale salad to my dog. Weird, huh? I thought that as a 70-year-old bachelor I must really understand women by now, but it turns out I don’t!”
Pluggers: You’re a real plugger if your nonstick frying pan is an 80-year-old cast-iron skillet, with multiple indentations in the shape of your husband’s head.
Dennis the Menace: I was actually kind of worried to learn that Alice was speeding, with Dennis in the back seat. Until I heard the ancient, sexist drivel he’s probably been spouting throughout the entire drive, and realized that any injuries he may incur are his own damn fault.
Fumbly Circus: “Be quiet, Jeffy. Kitty is making biscuits with your doughlike body.”
The Phantom of the Parasite: Walker just called in those helicopters, and already they’ve travelled from their base in Bangalla to the bad gut’s hideout in Rhodia? Either they can fly at supersonic speeds or this strip really does function at the level of a children’s adventure game being played out on a Saturday afternoon.
Rex Morbid, Missing Daily: “And, Buck, remember to keep wearing a mask after the safety protocols are lifted!”
Mary Worth: Face it, Saul: you’ve convinced Eve heterosexuality’s overrated. She and Toby are upstairs “exploring their feminine sides together” if you know what I mean, and no, they won’t let you watch.
MW: “All right, Greta. For dinner, I’m thinking mixed greens with carrots and roast chicken. And for myself, a half-cup of Purina.”
“Dennis, I have never gotten a speeding ticket in my life, and I’m not about to start now. Shut up and watch me work.”
BGSS: Are we to presume that only other animals can hear what Li’l Sparky says? Because if the residents of Hootin’ Holler ever hear him say “Aren’t I” instead of “Ain’t I” he’s going to be processed into dog food.
BGSS – “Well, that’s enough puns about horse noises. How about a little snort? Get me drunk and I’ll let you peek at my nickers.”
@N. L. Urker: Or it could be because you’re feeding her salad.
I don’t know how, but you’ve done it. You’ve made me wonder what happened in Mary Worth, of all things, in the intervening days.
Mary Worth: “Woof!” said Greta, meaning, “If you’re gonna eat that entire roast chicken by yourself and all I get is a bowl of dry spinach the reason Eve’s not calling you is you’re an unfeeling asshole.”
MW: Either the syndicate colorists don’t read English, or they can’t be bothered to actually read the comics they’re working on. As a kid I tried to feed a piece of lettuce to my dog, and she bit into it before immediately dropping it. She must have been thinking, “Hey, it must be good if you’re eating it…hey, what the hell is this? Haven’t you humans ever heard of protein?”
Cranky: If Batiuk didn’t write his strips two years in advance, he could have had Pam add, “And a-woman.” We’ll probably see that come up in early 2023 after everyone’s forgotten it.
BG&SS: Note the rare appearance of “aren’t” in place of “ain’t.” That’s because Li’l Sparky learned standard English from the fancy equestrian types in Barney Google’s distant barn. The creators have thought out the back story of this character in surprising depth.
Crankshaft only pretends to be looking at the catalog. He knows that the real appeal in the Bean’s End catalog is in the clothing section.
https://www.salon.com/2000/06/01/saucy/
I’ve never seen a dog this ambivalent over food or a “woof” more likely to be translated to a resigned “God, you’re a self-absorbed asshole, Saul.”
Dustin: I’m just sorry I missed the lead-in to today’s strip where I imagine that Dustin stumbled into the library, head spinning, yelling “What is this place? What are all these packets of paper? What is a pee-ree-odi-cal? WHY ISN’T THERE A STARBUCKS IN HERE? Oh please help me, I am a stranger in this arcane land…!”
BGSS: So after 80-some years, Barney Google is adding a new character to spice things up, kinda like how a spring of parsley brings new life to that plate of last month’s backed beans leftovers…
MW: Jesus, what exactly is Saul having for dinner? A full roasted chicken that he’s already started eating at the counter, with a side of raw carrots? Meanwhile he’s giving his salad to the dog? Mary, please drop whatever other meddle you’ve got going right now, this really needs your full attention…
Snuffy: Uh, why are all the horses wearing bridles? I realize the horse-blanket is a tradition…
@BigTed: (on Dustin) I can almost imagine it now:
Dustin: OH YEAH OH JESUS TAKE IT BABY SAY MY NAME !!!
Librarian: Shhh !
Are word balloons visible to inhabitants of the Crankshaft world? Lettuce sounds exactly like let us.
RMMD-“Do wear a mask when you come.” Preferably one from a costume shop.
RMMD-“Do wear a mask when you come. I can’t stand looking at you and I don’t want imagine the horrible face your wife has to see.”
MW-“Uhm where’s the garnish?”
FC-“Kittycat’s claws are digging into a sensitive area.”
Spiderman-“I hear with what Jameson pays you you have to live off of your wife’s money.”
You’re a Plugger if your cataracts have affected your vision to the point that you mistake your frying pan for a hand mirror.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you, Sparky. You’re a little hoarse.”
If I were that librarian, and I explained all the very basic ass rules of libraries and the numb f*** I just hired responded with “you must really like books” I would would just accede to the inevitable and fire him before he starts ripping pages out of the Oxford English Dictionary for rolling papers.
But this is the casual anti-intellectualism of newspaper strips. Like, dude. Libraries are more relevant than newspaper comics, old media shouldn’t be dragging on anyone.
9CL – How much penance do I have to do for going on and on about the babies never appearing? I deeply regret it.
It’s time for these horrible, feral, budding sociopaths to disappear completely. It’s also time to call the authorities on their parents.
JP – Ces has been getting pointers from Terry Beatty on dragging out a story on a character no one gives a shit about.
John Rose and Sarah Rose? Is that his nine year old grand-daughter? I hope it’s his nine year old grand-daughter and not a separate personality he’s developed over nearly twenty years of writing and drawing this thing for no apparent reason.
Pluggers – I can’t get past Sheila’s huge hairy arms. When did that happen? I thought she was the Plugger who had a tiny bit of self respect and cared about her appearance.
Dustin: Here’s a good way to tell someone hasn’t been in a library in at least a decade: their librarian character is a bespectacled, bun-wearing matron whose only interests are shushing and punishing rule breakers.
MW: Saul just made that entire chicken for himself and Greta? Hope he likes a sold week of leftovers.
Spider-Man : a rare instance where “BTW, Peter Parker, your wife Mary Jane Watson is infinitely more famous and popular than you, and makes more money, too!” actually relieves Spidey instead of aggravating him, which would go to show that he values his double life remaining a secret over his own self-esteem.
******
Dick Tracy : …why is it still important we know there’s a blue balloon in the bunch, complete with arrow pointing towards it?
******
Dustin : is this going to be like when Dustin becomes a substitute teacher or a dog walker; ie, they show how shitty the *job* is but they don’t show *Dustin* being shitty at the job? And then one wonders why he doesn’t try to get more temp jobs like THAT (you know, jobs he seems to enjoy and not be terrible at) instead of office jobs he sucks at?
…Also, as the son of a librarian who ended up working at a second-hand bookshop, thank you Josh.
******
Hi & Lois : “And everytime you walk away, mom, he closes that empty worksheet tab to look at pictures of naked ladies instead of working”.
******
Luann : has to ask whether or not there are any candles in her own house, which she lives in all the time, while Shannon already knows where to immediately find the birthday candles even though supposedly she only comes over very briefly and not very often.
******
On the Fast Track : “Thanks, Bud, but wouldn’t you like to know WHY I’m more productive at home? It’s because, when I work at home, I DON’T HAVE TO FACE ONE HOUR AND A QUARTER OF HEAVY TRAFFIC TO ARRIVE IN A WORK PLACE WHERE EVERYONE CONSTANTLY MOCKS MY “INCOMPETENCE” TO MY FACE”
*******
Phoebe & Unicorn : Dakota is upset because Alexandra took away her two interchangeable bully girls, which mean girls like her always have in these kind of cartoons. Meanwhile, Phoebe is surprised those characters have names and aren’t just “Bully 1” and “Bully A”.
*******
Slylock Fox : Extra difference : in the picture on the left, the dog has caught psittacosis from that and will probably have serious health issues from it.
The fact that an entire panel is taken up explaining that this comic strip is now about the former main character’s horse’s grandchild is much funnier than the strip itself.
“Woof.”
“I dunno. Do you really think burning down Charterstone will help?”
“Woof.”
“You’re right. I guess something beautiful might rise from the ashes.”
“Woof.”
“What? You want to be called Sam now, and you think of me as your son? OK, Sam. I’ll get the gasoline.”
9CL: Get he–what am I saying, there’s no help for this.
C’shaft: Noooooo, what will they do for Running Gag #53 now?
(Calling it now: Crankshaft’s obscenely large purchase will single-handedly save the company from ruin; next week, everyone hates Lena’s brownies!)
FW: Oh, suddenly we object to terrible dad jokes, Funky?
9CL – Well, I think today’s strip goes a long way towards answering the question of what happened to Brooke as a child that led to his lifelong obsession with children encountering sex for the first time. There’s a memory still scarring him and no matter how many times he re-enacts the scene using drawings, he still isn’t over it.
Even accepting his trauma, “hey let’s just go ahead and screw and who cares if we are lying on the floor right next to our kids, they’ll probably get off on it as much as we do!!!” is not Mother of the Millenium-worthy parenting.
Librarian here: Kelly and Parker are slipping into Plugger territory here. The most common complaint we get is that we allow food, drink and cellphone conversations, and that things are not like they were back in the day when those rules were stricter.
Why would she not want to spend time around a Mister Magoo-lookin’ weirdo who makes a whole chicken for his bow-tie wearing dog? Something must be wrong.
CS: What Bean’s End needs to save it is a good old-fashioned Pandemic, where people would stay home and re-discover gardening and growing their own food! It’s too bad there’s not one in Cranky’s world. Maybe in a month or so one will pop up.
@TheDiva: Dustin: Here’s a good way to tell someone hasn’t been in a library in at least a decade: their librarian character is a bespectacled, bun-wearing matron whose only interests are shushing and punishing rule breakers.
* * *
Thank you for that. Well said. There are some creative comic-strip writers out there, but it seems the majority are like [whatever-the-name-of-the-Dustin-author-is] with their collection of “[wimmen, librarians, etc.], amirite?” observations.
@N. L. Urker: MW: Why is Saul feeding his dog spinach and raw carrot?
“Now, the books that drink blood and the books covered with human skin are kept back here, under 666.”
“I thought 666 was ‘ceramic and allied technologies’ in the Dewey system?”
“Yes, ceramic and allied technologies and ancient eldritch lore. The Potter’s Bible, Glaze-Firing for the Professional, and the Necronomicon. And von Juntz’s guide for the best porcelain vessels to hold blood sacrifices, of course. Anyone, your job is to feed the books.”
JP: “….clove cigarettes…oh! I still don’t know which college in NYC I’m supposed to be heading for.”
Mary Worth – Gram loved roast chicken and carrots.
Dustin – Um…but nothing about jacking off in the bathroom over the Rubens art books, right?
BG&SS – Don’t be a nag….
MW – Woof = Get ready to clean up LOT of diarrhea buddy….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: I watched a video a while ago promoting the BARF (Biologically Active Raw Food) diet for dogs. The bowl prepared for a much larger dog than Greta included a chicken drumstick, but raw and a small amount of fruit and vegetable.
Having worked in the busiest section of a large city library, I have to say my worst memory is from the discovery that a male patron had taken a Kim Kardashian photo book into the restroom, all of which is to say that librarians do love rules, because patrons are disgusting.
Wow. Arthur Zerro has gone so far as to disguise himself as an elderly woman and meet his victim in the flesh before ghosting him. Truly a magnificent criminal mastermind.
Bliss: The triumphant return of Cat Feliday, starring today as Queen Charlo-catte! Of course that’s not her *real* fur – they paid a bundle for those extensions. That’s why my clients like appearin’ in Bliss – they spare no expense there.
MT: And the triumphant reign of Ichabod ibis continues! Whatta vocabulary he’s got! We’re shoppin’ him for some action movie voiceovers when he finishes this gig,
MW: Greta has a limited vocabulary for responding to Saul’s whining, and still didn’t use “Ruff.” Hint hint, Saul.
BGSS: I have questions. In panel 1, whom does Li’l Sparky ♥? Since when is daily BGSS a four-panel strip, with an intro panel, no less? Is John Rose passing the strip on to his daughter, à la Greg Evans? Finally, what happened to Dad Sparky? I bet there’s a story there.
A young horse is a colt, not a pony.
Sparky never caught on with the kids as a mascot, but restaurant chains found “Horse In a Bag” to be just the kind of novel idea that their troubled business needed.
@Dennis Jimenez:
Dustin – Um…but nothing about jacking off in the bathroom over the Rubens art books, right? –
When I was in college, I briefly dated a guy at another university, and his school had removed the stall doors in the men’s bathrooms at the school library because of a rash (lacking a better term) of literary-induced emissions.
Whereas at my school’s library, they had every issue of Playboy (minus the centerfold) on a one-hour loan. For the articles, I have to assume.
MW: What exactly is Saul doing with his meal? Does he not own plates? Why are his carrots just on the table? Are they raw? Did he even cook the chicken? What is he feeding Greta? Do we need to call Eldercare?
D: Mrs. Bicycle is a librarian and trust me, the American Library Association will be condemning this before the day is out.
MARY WORTH: “Why would she not want to talk with me, an emotionally-stunted gnome with a creepy obsession with dogs?”
@31 Anonymous: on Luann: Ha ha! You seriously think Miss Inner Beauty™ has mastered object permanence? Ha ha!
DUSTIN: I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Josh. As many filmed documentaries have told me, once that librarian takes off her glasses and and let’s her hair down out of that bun, she’ll be all about “breaking the rules.” (and she’ll suddenly look like a supermodel, to boot!)
BG/SS: I get that it’s traditional in this strip for a horse to be depicted wearing a large bag, but why? Is it like with cars, to keep birds from pooping on them? It seems then that you’d want to take the horse out of the bag before riding it, though.
@grsblvnyk: The most common complaint we get is that we allow food, drink and cellphone conversations
Specifically: “That person is caked in food and drink and having a conversation with himself.”
FW – I had an appointment with the eye doctor this morning. At the reception area I checked to see if anyone had cut out this piece of hilarity and taped it to the wall. No one had. Imagine.
Dustin – I wish this authoritarian worked at my local library to put the fear of God into some of the entitled patrons. Some of the damage I have seen: books with cracked spines, books with drinks spilled on them (one book looked like someone dropped a piece of buttered toast on a page), pages dog eared, pages marked apparently so someone could remember where they stopped reading…Mr. Jive reads a number of series, and someone checks off the list of the author’s other books. One person leaves a distinctive mark on the first page of books he has read. These entitled jerks must think that they can treat library books worse than their own books.
I used to make copies from the library’s newspapers of the New York Times crossword puzzles I missed when i was traveling. Don’t get me started on the criminals who complete the crossword and other puzzles (in ink), or worse, steal the NYT page with the crossword.
@Uncle Lumpy: Yeah, some of ya may have missed my post at Sunday #73 where I explained about Spark Plug’s son, Spark Plague. He was a neer-do-well who got busted for winnin’ a race with a gasoline engine under his blanket. He’s now doin’ time at the work farm, and Li’l Sparky went to stay with Grandsire after his Dam left town. She went into show biz under an assumed name. I heard all this from Melody Mare, so I think it’s reliable.
MW: Greta: I don’t know. Bitches, man.
Saul: Ha, good one.
SSmith: In that subset of ponies whose legs are barely long enough to have knees, sure.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Don’t hold your breath. We still see doctors in the comics with those reflectors on their heads.
MW: Saul mostly speak with his dog, so Eve just need to bark or make a guttural sound for him to consider it a dialogue
Dustin meta: At my local library, when it’s actually possible to hang out (i.e. not the past ten months) people routinely talk on their phones, especially at the computers. The librarians only put their foot down with really loud people. I mean, hopefully at least then.
Pluggers is obviously reusing an entry from the 1970s. Plenty of younger foodies have moved away from nonstick for health reasons and back to cast iron. The Boomers are the ones who grew up with supposed miracle of nonstick.
Barney Google & Snuffy Smith: Are they setting up to make the strip all about Li’l Sparky, so that they can retitle the strip to “Barney Google, Snuffy Smith, & Li’l Sparky,” securing the much-sought “longest newspaper comic title” crown, or is he throwing out puns to make it less tragic when desperate poverty leads the Smiths to turn him into Sparky-burgers?
@Maltmash3r: “This here is thuh way!”
@Old School Allie Cat: literary-induced emissions
But enough about Brooke…
MW: Greta’s expression in the last panel reminds me of an old Furry Freak Brothers cartoon where Fat Freddy decides to give his cat dried instead of canned cat food. The cat looks at his dish with disgust and thinks, “Hey, what’s this dried up shit?”
MW – Greta and Libby came from the same animal shelter, by the agency of the same woman. They are now each the emotional caretaker of a retiree with a tween level of maturity. Give me a story line in which they get together and compare notes Dammit! Maybe Max could even stop by and clue us into Eve’s major malfunction.
Pluggers: Sheila Roo is fortunate to have that 80-year-old cast iron skillet. New ones are expensive, and it takes some time to “season” them to be non-stick. Mine, inherited from my Mother, is at least that old. I’m still able to lift it with one hand, so far.
MT: Jules: “You all are tired on angsty Millennial whining? You want action? HERE’S YOUR FUCKING ACTION! Bite me, TRMT FanBois!”
9CL: It’s a matter or some controversy whether Aileen Wuornos counts as a serial killer, but in any case women are seriously underrepresented in that profession and there have been no sets of female identical twins in their ranks. So here’s to Edda and Amos looking to address that imbalance.
DT: It would be a kick if the colorist were on his last day and painted the balloon with the “blue” arrow labeling it yellow.
FW: “Excuse me, I’m the title character and I make the execrable stabs at humor around here.”
MG&G: Well duh, she sneaks around rooftops all night. Same reason you take naps around Waynetech all day. Also, while it’s cool that Harleen Quinzel is using her degree again, don’t you think she might lack a certain objectivity?
@I speak Jive:
Worst is starting the crossword puzzle in ink, and then getting hopelessly marooned three clues later on three letters for “Wonder Woman’s Gadot.”
@I speak Jive: #62: Hell, we still see people reduced to dire poverty wearing barrels instead of clothes, gangsters in pinstripe suits, burglars in striped shirts and flat caps, mustachioed ethnically insulting Italian restauranteurs making the OK sign with their thumb and forefinger, etc..
BG&SS: Once again, not unlike the “it’s vs its” grammatical donnybrook, the strip glosses over the contraction of “Little” as “Li’l”, when it doesn’t take into account the final “e” and should be “Li’l'”.
@Uncle Lumpy: That’s true – they usually just start the puzzle and give up around a third of the way through, just enough to make the puzzle useless for anyone else. And it’s usually a Monday or Tuesday puzzle.
The jerks who stole the pages with the puzzles were smarter or at least more ambitious, because they took only the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday puzzles.
@Old School Allie Cat: Whereas at my school’s library, they had every issue of Playboy (minus the centerfold) on a one-hour loan. For the articles, I have to assume.
* * *
My dad was foreman of the box section (insert joke here – he always did) at the post office. Back then Playboy was mailed with a slip-on brown cover, which could be slipped off. The day they came through the box section, he knew the guys were hiding behind things, slipping off the brown cover, and enjoying the contents (not enjoying too much, I hope). I guess one time they opened and closed the centerfold so much that the bottom fold got so much wear that it ripped off. Another time on Playboy day, someone else was there with my dad. He said “Watch this,” picked up the mike, and bellowed, “You there! Close that magazine!” What followed was the sound of “Fwap, fwap, fwap.” (Not the fwap, fwap, fwap of elbows but of the guys closing the magazines.) My dad liked to have fun at his job.
Back in those days, there was a low viaduct over Washington Avenue, a main artery, about a mile from the post office and about a block from where the Vikings stadium was. Trucks driven by out-of-towners, not familiar with the hazard, often got stuck. My dad told me one day as he was coming out of the post office, some trucker asked him where some building was. It took my dad a second or two to think of where it was, long enough that the trucker bellowed, “What’s the matter? You don’t even know your own town?” My dad then realized that the place the guy was looking for was only a couple blocks to the north. But the trucker was so rude that my dad sent him west – on Washington Avenue, straight for the viaduct. My dad liked to have fun at his job.
@31 Anonymous: on Dick Tracy: The note for the big heist is in the blue balloon.
@Guillermo el chiclero: The burglars always wear a black mask covering their eyes and carry a bag marked with a dollar sign.
I thought that “okay” sign was considered insulting in Italy because there it means “asshole.”
MW: Eve teared up after lunch at the mall food court and then never stopped crying. That makes it pretty easy to guess when Saul started farting.
2+2=7
January 12th, 2021 at 8:42 am Reply
DUSTIN: I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Josh. As many filmed documentaries have told me, once that librarian takes off her glasses and and let’s her hair down out of that bun, she’ll be all about “breaking the rules.” (and she’ll suddenly look like a supermodel, to boot!)
I speak Jive
January 12th, 2021 at 8:49 am Reply
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Don’t hold your breath. We still see doctors in the comics with those reflectors on their heads.
* * *
Good ones – both of you. Thanks.
If I may get serious for a moment, since you all know what a serious guy I am:
First, this one pisses me off, too. My mom was a librarian. I have benefited from libraries in many ways. Yeah, I know, this is the comics, but the authors who just indulge in all these stereotypes – and there are many in addition to the dipshit who does Dustbin – are day-after-day demonstrating their lack of any creative talent.
Second – yes, I’d like to see more discipline, too. However, I got a different perspective a few months ago about how libraries have become safety nets for a lot of people. I am in a govt. communicators organization. We had a workshop at one of the local tv stations, arranged by the director of communications for the county. She got a call from an investigative reporter – one she has a good but sometimes adversarial relationship with – about reports of drug use and other unsavory behavior at one of the inner-city libraries. She was able to work with the reporter to frame the story a little differently, on how as other social services are cutting back on helping the homeless and those with mental illnesses, libraries – like it or not – are becoming havens for many of those folks. This isn’t to excuse bad behavior but to show how libraries are taking on another important function. When I’ve been in the main library in Minneapolis, I see a lot of these people, ones who have no where else to go. Most know enough to behave, and the library security folks seem skilled at dealing with them. Some get out of line and get booted. Yeah, it’s sometimes a pain in the ass to have to deal with it all, but I was glad to have another perspective yet another important role libraries fill.
Please check out the story:
https://www.fox9.com/news/public-places-safe-spaces-how-libraries-help-the-homeless
It will take only a couple minutes, and then we can all go back to fart jokes and mocking the morons like the Dustbin author who seem to have only “Amirite?” quips in their arsenal.
Thanks.
@I speak Jive: Your list of library crimes is surprisingly tame. Every university library I’ve used has had problems with students marking up texts like they own the books: underlining, highlighting, and writing all over the margins. Not in every book, but it’s an occasional unwelcome surprise.
Right now I live in a conservative part of South Africa where the Calvinist church is influential, and the books at the public library are actually censored to avoid taking the lord’s name in vain. You flip through novels and see little black blots where “God” and “lord” etc have been blacked out. It took me by surprise; I’m not used to seeing librarians deface their own books.
FW: “Look, when I attend appointments, I’m the one who does terrible wordplay in response to simple statements! Your job is to react to this with a combination of boredom and annoyance!”
MT: I don’t hate Rivera’s art in general, but when your main action is a boat being thrown into reverse, and you have to put a “REVERSE” sound effect in the previous panel, you have failed and you know you’ve failed.
Phantom: The Trusted Man is clearly considering that “Towns Ellerbee” being another “trusted man” must mean he isn’t that bad. This works if being trusted is something he’s had to earn, from people who don’t trust too readily; it doesn’t work if the people who trust him are the most gullible paramilitary force on the continent.
@I speak Jive: It’s apparently a Known Thing in British libraries for elderly ladies to mark off the inside cover of the romance novels, so the next time they pick it up they can see it’s one they’ve already read (because how else would you be able to tell?) It’s usually a light pencil, but still.
I once got a popular-maths book from the library (yes, I’m a huge nerd, I am aware of this) in which someone had written a lengthy refutation of the Monty Hall Problem in the margin. In ink. And it fell directly into one of the mistakes explained in the text as a common misunderstanding of the problem. (The one where you forget that Monty knows where the car is, and the door he opens isn’t random.)
Archie-Later that night tragedy occurs when Moose finds out Midge doesn’t bend certain ways.
I already hated Dustin, but today it crossed the line from contemptible to evil.
Dustin-Sorry, Dustin, she won’t tell you the safe word. You have to find that out for yourself.
Dustin-Inside every middle aged stereotypical librarian is a dominatrix waiting to get out.
@Horace Broon: Your mentioning “British” then “Monty” genuinely made me read what you wrote as “Monty Python.” I thought the mathematical problem would involve European swallows carrying coconuts.
GIL TWERP: “One night later, the girls hit the road.” I like to think this means not just that they are playing an ‘away’ game, but that they became so bored with the boys’ car talk and with this strip in general that they are all moving out of Milford to somewhere more interesting, like Hootin’ Hollow.
DICK TRUCULENT: “General Francisco Franco, still dead; blue balloon, still blue.”
9 CHICKWEED LANE PUPPYLUST: Not a comic I’d have expected to do an homage to the last scene in the movie version of CARRIE.
https://www.gocomics.com/9-chickweed-lane-classics/2021/01/12
Mary Worth: For the love of Pete, Saul, first you killed your old dog by feeding it Mary’s salmon squares and now you’re trying to give Greta kidney damage by feeding her big bowls of spinach. Are we sure you’re really a dog lover?
@grsblvnyk: #36
“Librarian here: Kelly and Parker are slipping into Plugger territory here. The most common complaint we get is that we allow food, drink and cellphone conversations, and that things are not like they were back in the day when those rules were stricter.”
Retired librarian here. Yeah, that was pretty much my experience too.
As a librarian who is also a millennial I really just don’t know who to root for in this Dustin (kidding, obvs, I’m rooting for everyone to vote yes for the library levy every time).
BG&SS Okay, if you’re going to do a strip about horses, you might want to learn a couple of things:
1. Is Li’l Spark a pony or a colt? A pony is not a young horse, it is a term referring to specific breeds that are traditionally 14 hands (56 inches/142 cm.) or less when measured at the withers;
2. It is sometimes acceptable practice to leave a halter (aka.headstall) on a horse (that red thingy on Li’l Sparky’s head) when the horse is not being worked. It is rarely acceptable to leave reins on a horse that is not being ridden or being lead around, as the case of the chestnut (brown horse) on the far right. You run the risk of the reins falling off the horse’s neck and being tangled in the front legs, which is not a good thing.
Dustin There are male librarians, too. Decades ago, I knew a male Library Science grad student at my Old U, who said one of the perks of attending the library school was the male/female ratio.
@2+2=7: #57: In a lot of those Hollywood ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan movie tropes rather than hire an unattractive actress they always take a beautiful actress and put eyeglasses on her, do her hair in a bun, and put some frumpy, nerdy clothes on her. When she finally comes out of her shell all the guys suddenly gawk and say, “Wow! She’s hot!” A long time ago I saw an old beach movie from the early 60s where the nerdy, brainy girl (who no guy wanted until she let her hair down) was played by a then unknown Raquel Welch. I’m sorry, but even with half her teeth missing and an eyepatch a young Raquel Welch was still smokin’ hot.
@Guillermo el chiclero: #75
Once again recommending this book for those of us who like to muse about the staying power of said old comic tropes:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16065629-american-cornball
Dustin: How do Dustin’s eyes work? Do they shrink down to black dots when he wants to look especially blank?
Snuffy: Poor Li’l Sparky. He gets fourth billing in a comic strip about himself.
MW: C’mon, Karen Moy, this strip violates a cardinal rule of Mary Worth! Namely, you couldn’t follow the plot by just reading the parts in bold type. “At all!” “… didn’t …” “Woof!“ That’s not a coherent story!
Jack LaLanne.
Man, what a joke. What the hell did he ever accomplish?
Julius Caesar Dithers.
Now here’s a 175-year-old man who can stand on his head, kick adults twice his size across a room, and rock a pair of skinny trousers from the 1920s like nobody’s business.
@TheDiva: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I frequently check out digital books from my local library website, and download them directly to my Kindle without any human contact. But I like to imagine there’s an old-timey librarian in there somewhere, working alongside Ask Jeeves.
FC: If Kittykat digs her claws any deeper maybe she’ll puncture Jeffy and let the air out.
DT: Why doesn’t Pouch just make more than one blue balloon and if a customer insists on a blue one sell him the balloon without the inserted message? Uh-oh. There I go again, trying to apply rules of common sense to a legacy strip.
@Shrug: #97: Without reading the book you recommended I’m going to guess that the trope of poor people wearing barrels comes from the days when clothes were expensive and most goods were shipped in barrels. Back then one could go to any loading dock or freight depot and find piles of disgarded barrels, most of which ended up being smashed into firewood. Today a good barrel will cost as much as a high-quality off-the-rack men’s suit.
Dustin, a strip about and for morons.
Years ago, I was working on the copy desk of a Texas newspaper during election season. One of the issues on the ballot was whether to allow horse racing in the state. My headline.
Racing Issue: Yea or Neigh?
Stick that in your feedbag, ya conceited little oat-burner!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Good comment, and good article. Another function, at least in the local library I used to use, is access to computers. Folks without computers (or homes) can at least come in and look for jobs as that process is nearly all online now. And then there were the tutors — sitting at the various tables were kids getting help with schoolwork in a safe place.
I wonder what Andrew Carnegie would think of libraries today. I hope he’d approve.
@Dr. Pill: #103: Coming from a state (Ohio) that always had par-mutual betting, for both thoroughbreds and trotters, when I moved to Texas in1981 I was surprised that a state that prides itself on its western traditions, cowboy culture, and horsemanship did not have horseracing.
Dustin:
“You must really like books.”
“No, I really like my vibrator. Books are just how I put food on the table.”
@So What: And, as the exterminators say, “let us spray.”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Extensions? Bah, that ruins the joke for me.
Nice artwork, though.
Mary Worth: Try serenading her outside her bedroom window, Saul, preferably using a boombox. If that doesn’t work, send a photo of your wizened junk to her phone.
@Guillermo el chiclero: It was the gambling they hated.
Barney Google: “I may be just a little pony, but I’m hung like a horse.”
@Voshkod: I dunno. It somehow worked for Funky Winkerbean.
FAMILY CIRCUS: Jeffy: “Wow, the last time a pussy on my lap caused me this much discomfort, I had to go to the free clinic.”
@101 Guillermo el chiclero: on Dick Tracy: In a Three’s Company-esque twist, Pouch would give the blue balloon to the wrong customer. Hilarity ensues when Mr. Furley finds the heist plans, Jack leers at whoever is replacing Suzanne Somers that week, and Janet tut-tut’s whatever fun may be happening or is about to happen.
@108 Maude R. Fawker: That’s right up on the list of “OMG! No!” with Mary Worth’s wizened, whatever.
<9CL Of all of Brooke’s obsessive fetishes – and he seems to have a boxcar load of them – the making out in front of the kids seems to be the weirdest and most perverted. Is he constantly reliving a scene scarred into his conscious from his youth or is it a repressed and unfulfilled desire that his wife refused to accommodate when he was a young father? Only his analyst knows for sure.
@Dr. Pill: Dr. Pill
January 12th, 2021 at 12:04 pm Reply
@So What: And, as the exterminators say, “let us spray.”
* * *
I was in Denver in 1993, right after the Pope had been there, and there were all sorts of Pope things still available at discounted prices. The person I was staying with was trying to find some tacky item she could buy and send to her sister. About the tackiest was a lawn sprinkler that said “Let Us Spray.” She was trying to find out of those light switch covers with the Pope on it, the ones that had the opening for the switch in his scrotal region. No such luck. She didn’t buy the sprinkler.
Josh, just a message from librarians everywhere – Thanks, and we love you too!
@115 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Was she able to score a Pope-On-A-Rope soap? I’ve heard about ’em, never saw one.
@Guy Actively Avoiding Work: one of the perks of attending the library school was the male/female ratio.
Judging by the visuals of today’s installment, while the odds may be good, the goods are odd.
MT I know Mark Trail is apolitical, but given the current story line, this story could send him over the edge:
“Florida manatee with ‘Trump’ etched on back prompts investigation”
@Anonymous: Just for the record, I did not post this. It was someone else under an assumed name.
MW: “WOOF!” *”You forgot the Honey Balsamic dressing, scumbag.”
@Baja Gaijin: Was she able to score a Pope-On-A-Rope soap? I’ve heard about ’em, never saw one.
* * *
No. It could be that was available when the Pope was there but sold out by then.
Somewhere in our mountain exploring, we saw some discarded underwear and someone made a wisecrack about the skidmarks being the Pope’s or something about Pope shit. The woman I was staying with said, “Well, we were in the woods.”
@Chip: There are two of us!?
DtM: As a more effective punishment, Dennis will next propose that the patrolman give Alice a spanking.
FC-Any chances of having grandkids has lessen.
In panel #2 of the Barney Google/Snuffy Smith extravaganza, ‘L’l Sparky,’ a horse, appears to have the flippers of a manatee. Is the Pluggers inter-species breeding program now creating strange, exotic, hybrid character for other strips?
I knew someone who used to be a reference librarian in the main library in Philadelphia. One day an older guy asked to look at something out of the locked case. She asked for his driver’s license, which they kept to make sure the item was returned. He was of the opinion that they were going to record his name for a list of people who were looking at the forbidden books, and he refused to hand it over, so she told him he couldn’t look at the item. He turned on his heel, stalked the length of the room to the door, turned, pointed at her, and shouted, “It’s people like you who are responsible for half the sex crimes in Philadelphia!”
@Chip: Three, probably, unless I am talking to myself.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Hell, we still see people reduced to dire poverty wearing barrels instead of clothes, gangsters in pinstripe suits, burglars in striped shirts and flat caps, mustachioed ethnically insulting Italian restauranteurs making the OK sign with their thumb and forefinger, etc..
In yesterday’s Lockhorns, Loretta was shown holding a steering wheel, to help indicate she had wrecked her car.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Were the bears Catholic?
They say the “Dustin” strip does not understand Millennials, but I disagree. They managed to make the perfect AITA comics!
9CL: The idea that one’s attention might be diverted by having to watch the babies, if only to make sure that they don’t hurt themselves, doesn’t seem to have occurred to Brooke. Them again, I guess there are no sharp objects in the featureless void (other than Edda’s teeth).
Ponies are a different breed, not just small horses. You might wonder, “what if Spark Plug married into a Pony family?” But would you really believe that “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” endorsed miscegenation?
@Uncle Lumpy: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Were the bears Catholic?
****
Good. I was afraid the reference to the Pope in the woods was too subtle. Glad to know people caught on to the snark.
We have no problems with eating and drinking in the library. Everyone has to wear a mask.
@White Rabbit: Comeback: “And I assume you’re responsible for the other half.”
@Just John: #129: Loretta Lockhorn has destroyed more cars than Joe Mannix and Sheriff Roscoe combined. Women drivers, amirite?
To anyone not old enough to remember the Mannix TV show he was always getting his brakelines cut by the perp and ended up diving out of his car just before it plunged into the Topanga Canyon.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
As a middle aged, male, librarian, who was formerly an engineer, I break most of the stereotypes of librarians. I don’t even own one cat.
If you look at big city libraries, they generally have a social worker on staff so that they can help the people who have no where else to go get the help they need. A real improvement over the SSSSSHHHH and get out past.
Also, librarians are really hip to social media, computer problems, and all things electronic. I work Saturdays at my local public library and most of the questions are on technology. You have to be well versed in all platforms and apps so that people can be helped. Not that I don’t like books, my main job has books going back to the 1750’s and have never been digitized. People are always amazed that you had to look in a book to find an answer for them. Some sort of weird shaman rituals must be in play. They think it is magic.
Now SSSSHHHHH and get back to snarking.
@Peanut Gallery: Would have been good.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: If I ever get elected pope (or acclaimed pope by the Holy Spirit, which is apparently another possibility–thank you, Dan Brown), I plan to issue an encyclical on this. Any Latin title suggestions? “De cacatus silvis” or something like that?
@Ettorre: It’s bad enough that it promotes all this over-friendly intercourse between flatlanders and hillbillies.
@Anonymous: See? The Deep State wants to suppress the political opinions of manatees.
@Guillermo el chiclero: The Baptists in Ohio must be of a less lethal variety.
@Dr. Pill: MLP:FIM fandom owes you royalties.
@Horace Broon: (on MT) I couldn’t tell what was going on here, either. I figure Jules must be rushed / glued to the news / busy fucking randos.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Look at me! Just look at me!
https://www.lonestarpark.com
All this library talk reminds me of an old (c. 2000?) webcomic whose name I can’t remember. It was a fumetti, I think. Anyway, the artist had apparently worked in a library in Arizona, where a major issue was the fact that homeless people always hung around there in order to take advantage of the air conditioning. But of course they had to treat all the patrons the same. Anyway, for some time, the artist had noticed that somebody kept cutting eyes out of the magazines–that is, any photo of a model’s face or something, he would cut the eyes out. And the artist could never figure out who was doing it. But one day he went into a toilet stall, and there found like, hundreds of cut-out eyes.
Anybody else remember this comic?
@Unca $crooge: 9CL- “who knows? In years to come, they may recall this precise moment as something beautiful and unforgettable.”
That’s pretty much a confession by our author as to the origin of his obsession with what kids think about sex and how they would react to seeing how it actually works. All of Amos’ “if you could only know how smoking hot your mom was when I fucked her and allegedly impregnated her” letters to ‘his’ kids fit into context as well.
If my earliest memory was of seeing a tiny man wearing baggy, pea-green pants, a dark orange collared wraparound, and a collared, lime green shirt rubbing his overbite all over my mother for thirty seconds before he passed out and mom proceeded to pleasure herself over his sleeping body for the next five hours, I’d get the dry heaves just thinking about it too.
@Lone Star Park: #142: When legalized horseracing in Texas finally came up to a public vote in the late 1980s I voted for it. Why should neighboring Louisiana get all the money? Houston has the Sam Houston Racepark just north of town.
9CL: That is one ugly fucking pair of babies.
Wednesday’s Early Comment
Mark Trail: Ooooh, foreshadowing! And some weird thing in the third panel that looks sorta like a tie-died manatee.
@Ukulele Ike: Even the babies are doin’ it now? Brooke’s gone too far this time!
@Peanut Gallery: They do seem to be bumpin’ up against each other, but I was just referring to their fat thighs, which do not look like any baby thighs I have ever seen.
Scraggly orange hair also.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Does a Plugger shit in the woods….
Fun fact: in England, any kind of mess or disaster is called a “dogs dinner.” And, yes, Saul certainly is making a dogs dinner of this budding relationship and life in general.
@150 Dennis Jimenez: Yes. And behind the shed, and behind the 7-11/Circle K/Casey’s…
Hi, leaving books on tables or resolving carts is actually a very simple way to save your library! We record books as being used even if they weren’t officially taken out by a patron, which is done by recording books left on tables/carts/etc as used in-library. This is used to prove the library is getting used, which lets us argue for increased funding, and proves there’s still interest in the individual books so they don’t get removed from the system! Even if you just take a book off the shelf to look at the cover, please put it on a table, your librarian will thank you! Signed, your not-so-local-but-definitely-friendly high school librarian
@HanaTheHobgoblin: RESHELVING carts, this is what comes from commenting from my phone
BG&SS: I’m glad to see there’s still a spark in Ol’ Spark Plug’s Spark Plug.
@HanaTheHobgoblin: You go girl!
Hey, you want to meet up after check out?
@richardf8: Libby and Greta, the best and most expressive characters added to the strip, conveying so much emotion within single utterances. “Meow!” “Woof!” I’m all for a team-up.
9CL: If Brooke’s plan is to have the babies grow up impossibly quickly so he won’t have to be bored by them for so long, while keeping Eddamos young and boink-obsessed forever, fine, okay, it’s his strip. But get them out of diapers and give them bodies like real children. They are grotesque baby-child hybrids currently, and it adds to reader suffering in a strip that makes us suffer enough already.
@HanaTheHobgoblin: Thank you for that excellent suggestion! The next time I visit the library, I plan to toss every book I see onto a table or cart. The librarians ought to be thrilled with me.
9CL: “And Dad sounds like he’s eating a stack of soggy pancakes without using his hands, and starting with the pancake on the bottom.”
BG&SS: I’d be very interested in what Melody Mare has to say about those feet. Er, hooves, sorry.
@Charles Nelson, really!!!: When I finally do my Barney Google parody, the horse is going to be named Butt Plug.
@162 Zla’od: Of course.
@Tom T.:
I’m pretty sure those are badly drawn horse blankets. Despite the name, they’re basically coats for horses, you put them on the animals when it is cold. Often you only do it at night, since that’s generally the coldest part of the day, but it depends on the weather. You generally do take them off to ride the horses, but I guess the joke is that hillbillies are too stupid to do that. You also have to clean them regularly, but given that these horses seem to be wearing the same ones 24/7 I’m just going to guess they’re wallowing in their own filth, because that matches the strip’s depiction of Hooting Hollow inhabitants.
Dustin:
Ha ha it’s funny because they don’t have to wear masks. Oh wait, that’s actually nostalgic or something.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith:
Wait until they light up the Whicker Man
I’m late to this party, but as a librarian (who works with millennial librarians!) I thank you for reassuring me that the very basic “rules” of the library are not so inscrutable and opaque as to be inevitably baffling a Boomer cartoonist.
Of course, it does occur to me that getting my pop culture trends from the comics page is not exactly putting my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. (For example — again thanks to this page — I just learned that Spark Plug is supposed to be wearing a patched blanket and not Little Yellow Kid comedy pajamas. Back in 7th grade history class we learned about “The Yellow Kid” and I somehow made the connection with the otherwise baffling Sparkplug sack back then… and it just stuck until I was today years old.)
Library page here. It is very appreciated when you follow the rules.
@TheDiva last Tuesday: C’shaft: Noooooo, what will they do for Running Gag #53 now? (Calling it now: Crankshaft’s obscenely large purchase will single-handedly save the company from ruin; next week, everyone hates Lena’s brownies!)
You’re 1-for-2, Diva, but it’s still impressive.