I personally would be very romantically interested in someone with useful skills
Post Content
Crock, 1/13/21
I was going to go all in on “Why is it funny that this woman is a blacksmith,” but we all know the reason why it’s supposed to be funny: blacksmithery is not a traditional feminine job so can you even imagine going on a date with a woman who would engage in it? What would you even call her? A blacksmithrix? Haw haw! Anyway, that’s stupid, so instead I’m going to focus on something actually puzzling: the assertion that weekends are “the busiest time for blacksmiths.” I guess that’s when most Renn Faires are? Are we dealing with a universe where blacksmiths are a vital part of the everyday economy, making horseshoes and tools and such, or are we in a more modern environment where mass manufactured goods are omnipresent and easy to get, and the only people who go to blacksmiths are weirdos who are obsessed with swords? This is the Crock worldbuilding background that I have a million times more in interest in than I do in Poulet’s love life.
Crankshaft, 1/13/21
Hey, remember how Crankshaft can only feel tiny glimmers of joy and he isn’t going to be able to feel them again until he gets his beloved garden catalog? Well, bad news! Extremely devastating news, actually! Side note: It’s gotta be fun to live in a world where even when you receive extremely devastating news, the ironclad laws of the universe dictate that you have to wade through terrible sub-puns in order to learn the details.
Family Circus, 1/13/21
“How come I can’t kill people with my mind, it’s not fair”
140 replies to “I personally would be very romantically interested in someone with useful skills”
Crock: Is there really a need for blacksmiths in the desert? I guess some dudes would ride horses, although members of the Crockiverse seem to prefer camels. But it’s more likely that “The Blacksmiths” are actually a diverse indie-rock band who only perform on weekends, because that’s when people want to hear Morrissey covers.
Crankshaft: C’mon, most old guys would love the idea of their favorite store going out of business. Can you say “clearance sale”?
Family Circus: When young punkinhead is still shooting blanks 20 years from now, we should just feel relieved that his DNA won’t continue.
Luann: Ha, Luann, you lovable idiot! Well, one out of two.
I’m a million times more interested in dating a blacksmith than I am in knowing Poulet’s name.
Crock: You know, you could have done the joke where the blind date was an actually blind woman. It wouldn’t have been more respectful or funnier, but at least use the setup!
Billy probably can’t click his fingers because they’re jointless stumps.
(Appropriately named) Crock – I think there’s the kernel of a pretty good strip built around a blind lady blacksmith. I’m getting a Mary Tyler Moore kind’a vibe….
Crank – The world isn’t the same – remember when I waited anxiously for the Montgomery Ward catalog for the new ladies dainties ads to drool over. Those were the days….
FC – Oh Dear! How will Billy ever grow up to be a tea smoking hep-cat jazz musician without a rhythm setting snap like a gun shot….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Crock: I can’t even tell which way Lieutenant Prettyboy (can’t be bothered to look up his real name) is supposed to be facing. Is he looking back over his shoulder or facing forward. Either way, that’s a pretty lumpy body for a supposed hunk.
Crock: It’s nice that Preppie got in one last burn on Poulet before sinking into the quicksand the two of them wandered into.
CS: “Dear Customers, it turns out that naming your business after two companies that sell faux-outdoor attire to yuppies isn’t a great way to market gardening supplies. However, you can still purchase farming equipment from our sister company, Pentboy.”
RMMD: “….on the plus side, I can get that new COVID vaccine today.”
Luann: Luann is an idiot part 1,234,567
That last Crock panel speaks volumes. “Damn,” he thinks, “He got me with the blacksmith ploy again. Shows me for letting my libido lead the way. I’m a simple man, really. Just want a cute, good-tempered dame who doesn’t heat metal and shape it with a hammer. Practical but fun-loving, caring but not smothering, completely unfamiliar with the bellows, the sort of girl you can take home to mother. Lord knows I’m not a demanding person, I don’t expect a perfect life, but is it too much to ask for someone who loves me as I am, wants to spend the rest of her life with me, and doesn’t forge curved iron objects intended to protect hooved quadrupeds? A pox on Captain Preppie! I hope he takes his vows at the anvil!”
FC: SBD: Silent but dull-witted.
Crankshaft: There’s something very poignant about mulch, which is used to promote new growth, being the last line of a farewell message. It’s too much to hope, though, that Ed has any potential for growth even if he’s now getting a taste of the metaphorical shitting on others he’s done for decades.
@Dennis Jimenez: I was imagining Billy aspiring instead to become a bad lounge singer.
Crock: God this strip is just completely committed to not committing to a time period. Blacksmiths, phones, ‘dating’, french colonialism? Just toss it in a blender and see what we get!
Cshaft: Terrible pun aside, I simply refuse to believe that ‘Bean’s End’ is not a quirky upscale coffeehouse. Well, I guess if the current user has no use for the name, it probably will be soon.
FC: I like that: it sounds almost like someone half-remembering that line about one hand clapping. A moron koan, if you will.
RMMD-It’s diabetes. It’s not a death sentence.
JP-“Sophie, I’ve already found and bitten the ears off your chocolate Easter rabbit.”
FC-“Why won’t my fingers make lion sounds?”
9CL-“It sounds like Mommy is playing a skin flute.”
“You remember that Simpsons joke about Moe ogling the Sears catalog instead of the Victoria Secret catalog?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll make a joke about Crankshaft getting sexually aroused by a gardening catalog! And the universe will deny him his spanking material!”
“Batiuk, you genius!”
Crock: Just come right out and say that she’s burly. “Burly” at least is a funny word; “blacksmith” just confuses people. How does one write a comic strip for years without learning the basics of a joke?
If gardening is a popular hobby with a lot of expenses, shouldn’t always be a vast arrays of gardening catalogs to choose from? On the other hand, if the markets have decided to forgo profit just to screw over Crankshaft, maybe they are rational and working for the greater good!
Actually, I know exactly how Billy feels…I’ve never been able to snap my fingers either. It was a real detriment when I was singing in a male chorus.
Billy was warned that if he had fun with his hand he would go straight to hell, but he cannot even damn his eternal soul the right way!
I’ll be all in on this story line if someone tells Crankshaft that he can get his gardening supplies from Amazon and it leads to him dangerously driving his bus in the South American rain forest.
—
Billy’s totally going to grow up to be a finger guns douchebag, isn’t he?
9CL – Well, we’ve quickly escalated from “the kids might see us!” to “maybe they will like it” to the inevitable “let’s put on a live sex show for our infant children”.
Meanwhile, the kids are even more insufferable (hence, less sufferable) than I’d ever anticipated. Maybe it’s the chunky kid appendages paired with him drawing them in sumptuous poses? Nah, it’s mostly the condescending supercilious air they have and the fact they are already jaded and over it all.
GT: I assume Tessie’s pleased with losing by 14 because she’s a betting against her own team and is shaving points to throw off the spread and maximize her winnings. What I don’t understand is how this is in any way a Gil Thorp story. First of all, it’s women’s basketball, so it’s not like Gil coaches that team or that’s she’s his responsibility, and second of all, even if he was the coach, it’s not like he’d actually take responsibility for his player and do anything about a degenerate gambler tanking the team.
Lockhorns: Now we know how they pay for all those vacations.
9CL: I guess it’s not out of character that these two can perform sex acts while toddlers are watching, but babies this (apparent) age need attention because they do not stay put. I guess there’s not that much trouble they can get into in 30 seconds, though.
Phantom: Someone explain to me — were the Trusting Man and Linda Ellerbee working together all along, before they got on the bus? If so, how did they hook up in the first place? And if not, then why was the Phantom on the bus? And either way, why did neither of them have any plan?
Crock: I’m more interested in the assumption of a five-day workweek, a 20th century custom.
@Liam: RMMD: exactly. He’s an overweight man who inhales carbs. He’s going to have to clean up his diet. It’s not a crisis.
MW: get on with it Saul, call Mary and get her involved. We all know you will so just do it already. And please explain why crying would mean a trip to the emergency room. By the way I think Eve feels her grief is still too sharp to enter into a relationship with a man. Mary will fire a few irrelevant platitudes her way straighten her out.
MW: I confess I do talk to my dog but usually to ask if she would like to go for a ride or what the hell she’s barking at so loudly, unless someone is stealing our garbage, then she doesn’t have to explain. In any case I don’t discuss serious life issues with her.
RMMD Once again, we have a character with an education who has never once suspected that someone displaying all the classic symptoms of diabetes has diabetes.
Crocky — Blacksmith? That’s not funny. Now a milliner–that’s comedy gold!
FC — Billy’s repeating something he overheard from his parents’ bedroom, but he didn’t quite get the whole conversation right. . .
I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that Billy’s ‘blank noise’ would be weaponized by the military as it was found to induce cranial hemorrhaging in humans. The good news is that they found out when everyone in his family bled out from the ears.
MW – Greta’s pissed that she missed a chance to drink tears. Mmm salty tears!
I can’t help thinking that “Bean’s End” is an overly subtle fart joke, perhaps the first subtle joke in Crankshaft history. I assume they’ll blow it (ha! Get it?) tomorrow with some comment about going out with a bang.
JP: Is Abbey heading for the airport, or driving Sam and Sophie to the circus-grounds for their new job as Human Cannonballs?
Crankshaft missed a major pun opportunity. It should have read “It’s ‘bean’ our pleasure …”
@Ukulele Ike: Sam looks catatonic.
Gil Thorp – If this doesn’t end with some hair pulling and a kick in the privates, I’m going to be miffed. I’d also like for the girls’ storyline to go somewhere, too.
Pibgorn: Floaty monk says, “Glub!”
GT: I thought Corinna Karenna transferred to Milford from a school that didn’t have q sports program. How does she get good so quickly?
@Lord Flatulence: We didn’t plant for it to end like this.
Crock: Due to the nature of my work, I actually know a lot of blacksmiths, both men and women. There is an amazing resurgence in the field, and the work produced is fantastic. Also, much like glassblowers, all blacksmiths (male, female or other) are very attractive. There is your art reporting of the day, inspired by Crock!
VA3G – This storyline is a much better medical drama than Rex Morgan. Sudden severe illness vs chronic condition that should have been spotted earlier. (Not that diabetes can’t be serious – but Buck’s case is clearly manageable.)
C’shaft: “We’d especially like to thank Ed Crankshaft, our only customer for the past five years.”
Crock: It’s funny because female blacksmiths have been a thing for centuries, and the profession didn’t automatically turn them into brawny titanesses.
Crock In fairness, the line was originally “That’s the busiest time for crack whores.” Damn Syndicate censors!
9CL: I’d worry about the psychological scars on these kids, but they’re obviously evil alien Village of the Damned babies so what’s the point?
DT: I’m irrationally amused by the helpful “blue” signs, especially since I’m looking at the colorized version of the comic.
FW: YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT UNIVERSAL, TOM BATIUK.
Luann: Yes, Luann really is That Stupid.
MT: This Week’s Special Guest Foreground Animal: Existential Scream Parrot!
RMMD: “Oh no, it’s not serious, I just said ‘let’s sit down and talk’ because I wanted to tell you about this cute cat video I–OF COURSE IT’S SERIOUS, WHEN HAVE THE WORDS ‘LET’S SIT DOWN AND TALK’ EVER PRECEDED A NON-SERIOUS CONVERSATION?!”
9CL: I am officially triggered. Brooke goes to such effort to draw sexy, sexy legs – and then give Edda cartooney feet??!?!?
Phantom: Ghost-Who-Has-Unresolved-PTSD-Issues.
Family Circus: The melonhead is jealous because Daddy can finger bang Mommy but he only fires blanks. That’s how it works, right?
Crock – Go for it, Poulet! Maybe she’ll “spread her chestnut-tree” for ya!
@Effluvius Erratus: GT: I assume Tessie’s pleased with losing by 14 because she’s a betting against her own team and is shaving points to throw off the spread and maximize her winnings.
* * *
What else is Tessa shaving besides points? It appears that Corinna will soon find out.
FC: It’s so unfair. Billy’s sister has a finger that produces moans and screams.
Crock: I kinda want Captains Poulet and Preppie to look down and see that their legs are missing. “Dear god! How are we floating like this?”
‘shaft: That L in “mulch” is the hardest-working consonant on the comics page today. Without it, this is a grim, humorless scene of an old man losing one of his last remaining pleasures in life. With it … well, it’s still that, but with a delightful pun!
FC: Check out the amazed expression on Billy’s face. This is probably the first time he’s ever snapped his fingers, and he’s so ignorant, he probably thinks he invented it. “Mom!” he’ll yell. “You are not going to believe this!”
@Pervy McKinkerson: Brooke is a leg man, period. That’s his fetish and his only interest (other than writing about boinking, of course). He has as little interest in drawing feet as he has in drawing faces.
Frazz – I’m sorry, but I will never be able to think of an earworm of Lightning Strikes as a song in my heart.
Rex Morgan – Forget Buck. Get that baby checked out stat! Her head has ballooned while her arm stopped growing.
6Chix – It might have been funny if the waiter said wine by the bottle or by the saucer. But what do I know; I’m not a professional cartoonist.
@But What Do I Know?: I know you were all rooting for us, but it’s been a tough row to hoe. We leaf this business proudly.
9CL – The twins were born last spring, which makes them less than a year old. They now look like bottom heavy four year olds. And they’re talking! And already into pretentious blather.
Their parents start out talking about kissing in front of them and quickly moved to writhing around on the floor in foreplay to boinking. All of this while the twins watch. Edda and Amos seem to be determined to turn those horrible twins into sociopaths.
Get help, Brooke.
@I speak Jive: #53: The comic strip creators seem to be taking a lead from the TV soaps, where babies grow to adulthood in 10 years. That’s because other than being kidnapped or switched at birth babies and toddlers provide few plot angles.
MT: Hey, Intern – did we send any talent over to Mark Trail today? Is that multicolored blob one of ours? Well, tell me – what is he? Huh? You’re supposed to keep up with these things … how the hell am I supposed to do the promos without a positive ID and an alliterative name? This looks like some kinda parrot-turkey hybrid…
Have ya seen the numbers on Li’l Sparky over at BGSS? Man, this comic is doin’ better than ever after the two-legger cast went on hiatus. Great job by all the supporting Animals, too. I hope this buzz holds up and other comics see the advantage of goin’ with a cutesy all-Animal cast! We got the talent ready to go!
@Guillermo el chiclero: And in a genre where you don’t have a lot of time for retakes, working with toddlers is exhausting. Comic strips don’t have that constraint.
Crock: I dated a blacksmith for a while. When she saw my rod she immediately started pounding it. Good times.
Jim Henson’s ‘Thanos Babies’
Luann: I would totally do that
9CL: I thought it would sound like Dad was the one eating the mango.
Late Mary Worth: In Saul’s defense, the issue is not that she was crying, the issue is that she was mid-sentence and looked up at a mannequin and then had some kind of fugue where she went “Uhhhnnn….” That would worry me a lot more than the weeping. That seemed like the beginning of a stroke. But apparently that’s just how she starts crying? Life’s rich pageant I guess.
Crankshaft: Gotta say, it takes a lot of…something…to combine the names of two well-known clothing companies for a joke, only to make the end result a gardening catalog.
@Hugh G. Rection: Hugh! Long time no see! You were the guy in my class in junior high who only showed up on days when we had a substitute teacher.
@Victory Garden: 9CL: I had the same thought, but consider too the hell-maw teeth with which Edda eats. What the twins are hearing probably sounds more like a … well … eggbeater.
@Tom T.: Hugh! Long time no see! You were the guy in my class in junior high who only showed up on days when we had a substitute teacher.
I was also the guy who showed up at your house when your mom wanted some action while you were at school brown-nosing the teachers.
MARY WORMTONGUE: “Was it something I said? I mean, I always knew my conversation had the power to make women *yawn,* but *cry*? That’s a new one! Such power!”
9 CHICKWEED LANE: Edda and Amos haven’t had the “talk” with their spawn yet, but they HAVE had the “show and tell.”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yeah, it didn’t take long for Brooke to realize that infants are boring and cause too much mundane work for the parents, a distraction from his all boinking all the time agenda.
By next week those sociopathic brats will be in middle school.
@Pervy McKinkerson: Darn! I was hoping Brooke had given Edda Mr. Natural feet.
Crankshaft: Moss’s End will be revived several years later and become a fixture in Funky Winkerbean.
FW: Speaking of which, I never have seen Funky wearing glasses. EVER.
Ziggy: He’s addicted to one thing. That is, not being able to…”PUT ON SOME PANTS AND SHOES!”
MT: What the heck is that expression in the final panel? Is Happy Trail the old “starey eyed HOOO guy” from FOOB finally getting an adult role?
There’d better be a boatsplosion by Friday. That’s all I’m sayin’.
GT: I think what Miss Milford means by “14 points…not bad” is that’s how many she scored in the game (not bad).
It’s generally considered bad form in sports to be happy about your individual statistics when your team has lost the game.
The final panel with Corinna is definitely foreshadowing that CK is making a move on her classmate and I don’t mean a “cross-over dribble followed by a spin move” if you know what I mean. Wink Wink Say No More Bow Chick-a Wow Wow.
Baby Blues: So Darryl can’t use a phone to call in sick because he has a sore foot? Fingers do the walking, pal, and if I were Wanda, both my middle fingers would do the talking too!
Pluggers-Sounds like my dad.
9CL-Sadly the twins are teenagers who can around wearing diapers and look for the love that they never got from their father. “Maybe if you had any musical talent I would love you the way I love your mother.”
@I speak Jive:
The twins are like that from all the deviled eggs Super Mom has made.
Luann-The power is out and Luann is going to plug a light into a nonworking outlet. Our main character, everybody!
@Rube: #56: According to California’s child labor laws toddler aged children in a movie or TV show can only work half a day at a time. What studios do is hire a set of identical twins. One twin works mornings and the other afternoons.
@Liam: They were conceived with deviled eggs and deviled sperm.
Actually, satanic possession would explain a lot.
Crankshaft: “Thank you very mulch”? How fitting that one of this strip’s most annoying and unfunny annual arcs should end with a reference to fertilizer.
Crock: Silly me. When I first read this, I thought the joke was that his blind date was a horse waiting to be shod.
Family Circus: I’m sorry, but I can completely sympathize with Billy in this situation. I, too, have never been able to snap my fingers or really make any sort of noise with them, a cruel jest of anatomy and physiology which has kept me from acknowledging aurally when I’ve thought of a idea; from getting a gang member role in my high school’s production of “West Side Story”; and–saddest of all–kept me from fully taking part in any sing-alongs of the theme songs to “77 Sunset Strip” and “The Addams Family.” It’s probably also the reason I never warmed to the Justice League of America’s teenage mascot, “Snapper” Carr, in their Silver Age comics. Those of you with snappy digits may laugh and mock if you want, but trying walking a mile in Billy’s and my fingers.
@69 Barnaby Scones: It’s the tired old “a man’s a wuss when he’s sick” trope, which should be on the trash heap with the “wimmens be shoppping, amirite?”
FC: Billy killing with his mind was part of the abandoned Family Circus movie that had David Cronenberg attached as director.
@But What Do I Know?:
Weed like to stay, but times are turf.
FC-“I wish your father fired blanks.”
Crock-Heavy emphasis on blind.
Luann-“She’s never going to move out is she?”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Do you have any talent ready to eat?
@J.J. O’Malley: #75: Being able to snap your fingers is not something that’s shared by the entire human population, along with whistling and curling your tongue. My sister can do none of the three so she would probably sympathize with Billy.
Crock: Maybe this whole conversation is two spies talking in code language.
You see that look? That’s the look of a man who’s thinking, “my last relationship was with a farrier, and she’s gonna think I’m not over her.”
BG&SS: Has the entire human population of Hootin Holler died of Covid and now only the animals are left to take over? Could this be the origin of Pluggers?
BB: Looks like the men of Camp Swampy are going to have to go to war with the Barbary Pirates again. General Halftrack should not have insulted the Bey of Algiers.
@80 Liam: Of course she’ll move out. Her new “apartment” will have padded walls and nice people in white coats to be sure she doesn’t drown in the shower.
Pluggers: When I first saw today’s strip the caption was cut off. Naturally, I thought pappa Plugger was worried about making it to the bathroom on time (without the caption, you don’t catch on that he is looking at his watch) . Well, I thought, a funny Pluggers. Then I saw the caption. Yawn.
Googling “Lady blacksmith porn”.
Bliss-“Someone set your house to evil.”
@Salavating T-Rex: “Do you have any talent ready to eat?”
That’s NOT what I meant by ready “to go” heh heh heh You gotta real sense of humor there … is anyone reppin’ you or do you freelance? If this Animal-based comics trend continues we might could do business together .. and don’t let anyone tell ya your day has passed. They’re just tryin’ to get ya to work cheap ….
@Matt McKinney: “You should have gone for the melonhead.”
Crankshaft: Bean’s End is a combination L. L. Bean and Land’s End, which are both clothes catalogs, but it’s a seed catalog. I don’t have a joke for that. That’s just weird.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I used to be represented by Cretaceous Critters, Inc. but I didn’t renew my contract. Your offer REALLY has me salavating!
Oops. Sorry about that.
@Liam:
Pluggers-Sounds like my dad.
****
Also sounds like me.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I can snap my middle and index fingers, but I remain bewildered by everyone in the Avengers MCU franchise who can use their middle finger and thumb.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: I can snap your spine.
@UncleJeff: and I don’t mean a “cross-over dribble followed by a spin move”
Don’t sell technique short. Some of my best orgasms started out like that.
Crock: Wait, no Lady Blacksmith Mambazo references yet? Well now there is.
FC: I’ve never been able to snap my fingers in a way that emits anything but a pathetic wee thud. And now, late in life, I find out that there are a fair number of us. I feel a warm glow of kinship with all you other non-snappers. But I still think we should exclude Billy from our snapless community. Requiring that each member have at least one finger with an actual joint doesn’t seem like too high a standard.
@Poteet: I can make your fingers snap.
CRANKSHAFT: I was fond of a certain local bookstore long ago, and when it went out of business, I didn’t commemorate the occasion with a shrug and several awful puns. Crank is kind of a jerk.
And it’s time to give him a new hobby. He has been a blight on gardening for long enough. Send him off to plague the community of old-car restorers or embroiderers or whittlers or something.
@Poteet: Would you like me to eat him? I can swallow him whole and he could have a hobby of exploring my digestive system. I can later poop him out and he can tell you about the experience.
Today’s joke in Crock would make a little more sense if it was in Wizard of Id (which I just learned was also co-created by cartoonist Brant Parker). I imagine the Crock cartoonist recognized this, but just thought “This joke is so good I just have to tell it, I’ll stick it in Crock, and people won’t even notice it’s a complete anachronism, because they will be laughing so hard and I’ll have more women than I’ll know what to do with – but no blacksmiths! God, I’m funny…”
Adult Jeffy is laughing at his own private joke. “My big brother can only fire blanks, but he has several children. Guess who provided his wife with the bullets?”
@Salavating T-Rex: Sounds like someone could use a few cookies!
@Poteet: Just the Girl Scouts, please.
Family Circus: An overheard reference to his Mommy’s snapper has this little guy wondering what the big deal is.
@Salavating T-Rex: Hey, Big-T, I know ya gotta brand to maintain, but if you’re gonna get anywhere in this business, ya gotta show a little finesse, polish those rough edges. Our agency offers some public relations seminars for potential clients, as well as help with spelling. You can even sign up online.
@lorne: A search like that would just turn up a bunch of black women, right? Hmm, maybe that was the original Crock joke. Because the Crock gang lives in Africa? I’ll go write a self-criticism now.
@Hugh G. Rection: Well, you gotta strike while the iron is hot.
@Ukulele Ike: I would love for R. Crumb to be the 9CL guest artist, and show Amos fondling / humping Edda’s fat ass.
@But What Do I Know?: (on Crock), @Dan: Rather than a milliner or a farrier, maybe the original joke involved a blind date with someone who made fishhooks.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: What? I can spell. Oh, you’re talking about “Salavating”. Yeah, I get that all the time. That’s my real name. It’s what my parents put on my birth certificate and I figure if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. Besides, I like being a bit quirky.
Say, did you know your intern and I went to school together? We would pull stunts like he would put his head in my mouth and I’d pretend to bite it off. It would scare the bejeebers out of people especially when he’d took his head out but pulled his shirt over his head first. Ah. Good times. Good times.
C-Shaft: Somewhere in the middle of pouring himself a third scotch, the Bean’s End webmaster notices his typo. He hopes that their erstwhile customers don’t read it as an egregious gardening pun, but knows deep down that at least some will.
Crock: This strip was written at a time when it was universally understood that female blacksmiths were sexually undesirable? That’s, um, “fascinating.”
9CL: You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a dry heave is just a dry heave…
GT: Corinna identifies as an enigmatesbian. She’s all about ambiguous phrasing.
Shoe: Wonder if Roz’s neighbors know she’s watching them through binoculars. Actually there’s a good chance they just screw openly on a tree branch, so they have no right to be too surprised.
Luann-“Should we go down there and see what she plugged the cord into?”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Find out how long he can hold a pose, Dinosaur Comics might want him. I understand the job involves preparing to stomp on a K-car, and OK, you have to do it every day, but how can that EVER get old?
@Zla’od: Stoned Agin, Keep on Truckin’, Don’t Forget to Wipe Yer Asses Folks….
@Salavating T-Rex: Ah yes, he only wants to eat the Brownies.
@117 richardf8: In bed.
@Liam: She’s got it all figured out.
@richardf8: That’s my cousin, Fix. As in “Fix T-Rex”. He doesn’t really pose all that time. He had photos taken and they use those everyday.
@Baja Gaijin: Exactly right.
Thursday’s Early Comments
Mark Trail: The Right Fist O’Justice, or iiiiiiis it?
Slylock Fox: Um, Mr. Weber, Jr.? Not the best placement for the two flying birds. Looks like Tigra has some serious digestive issues going on.
@Baja Gaijin: I haven’t checked tomorrow’s strips, but I’ll bet the new MT breaks more towards stern stink-eye of indignation…..
@123 Dennis Jimenez: Click on the bolded Mark Trail in my comment to see the strip.
Crock: Lady blacksmith’s can’t be sexy? Whoever came up with that one never saw Kathryn Bigelow here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkz0Lx6VyxA
Saying she isn’t hot is quite a reach.
@Peanut Gallery: She’s got it all figured out.
I still remember with some embarrassment how much time I spent, around age 5 or 6, trying to understand why this didn’t work. One idea I eventually had was to plug it into the wall, let it sit to allow the electric charge to build up, then quickly pull the plug out of the wall and plug it into one of the receptacles on the strip, and try to “catch” the electricity in a perpetual motion cycle. Clever, in a horribly stupid way.
@126 Just John: The difference is you were a preschooler; Luann is of collegiate age.
@Baja Gaijin: In the first, Tigra had Chili for lunch, in the second he had a low calorie french silk pie sweetened with sugar alcohols.
@Salavating T-Rex: You’re his cousin eh? Maybe you can answer the all important question: after that picture was taken, did he get to stomp that K-Car?
@Salavating T-Rex: Hey, you’re funnier and more multi-dimensional than I was giving you credit for. I apologize. Belated welcome to CC.
MT: Whenever it’s convenient in the storyline, I’d really like to know who the guys are in the short-sleeved khaki shirts. If it’s supposed to be obvious, it isn’t to me.
MW: In Thursday’s strip, “WOOF!” means “If only I could bite this leash in half and free myself from having to listen to any more of this! Either shut up or put a sedative in my water dish!”
CRANKSHAFT: Oh for crapsake.
@131 Poteet: Daddy’s henchmen.
FW: This is the origin story of another dentist along the lines of the one in MARATHON MAN.
JP: I’m having trouble buying that hat.
@134 Poteet: Have you tried Amazon? Redhatstore dot com? Maybe Target–it’s Target’s trademark color.
@Baja Gaijin: Thanks! Wow, really? He has henchmen with matching outfits? Little bit of a Batman vibe there, interesting!
@Baja Gaijin: HAR!
9CL: The alleged babies are gone, at least. I’m grateful for small favors. The babies must be sedated and back in their closet as usual, because Brooke has never shown us a babysitter. And I find it very hard to believe he’d miss an excuse to draw another teenage girl.
Nancy: I don’t get it.
FW: The first panel came closest to telling a joke, although Funky should have used a more recognizably Star Trekky line (like “Warp Eight, helmsman!” or “Shields up, arm photon torpedoes!”) so he wouldn’t need the other panels to explain…ah, I guess that explains it.
9CL: Weren’t we just talking about bringing R. Crumb onto the strip? I guess this is as close as we’re likely to come.
@139 Zla’od: I don’t get it. I don’t understand why the optician didn’t shove the Phoropter up Funky’s ass over such a craptacular comment?