Time keeps on slipping
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Beetle Bailey, 1/11/21
I refuse to believe that Beetle and Sarge are watching PBS or that Camp Swampy shells out for premium cable, so I’m left to assume that nobody at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC knows that you can pause streaming video.
Blondie, 1/11/21
“Did I think you looked goofy? Well, the two of us are, what, 40? 45? Not much older than that, surely, which means that when I saw you wearing bell-bottomed jeans it was the mid ’90s at the absolute earliest. So yes, I absolutely thought you looked goofy. Or wait, are you referring to JNCOs? Because those were exceptionally goofy.”
Pluggers, 1/11/21
Speaking of the shift of cultural signifiers over time, I feel like either Pluggers or I have absolutely lost the thread. Wearing shorts when there’s snow on the ground, usually on a day where it’s unseasonably pleasant but still “cold” by any objective standard, is something I associate strongly with my college days and therefore Gen X generally, which means that [checks Wikipedia for generally accepted dates for beginning of Generation X, subtracts from 2020] oh my GOD no, no, please, absolutely not
143 replies to “Time keeps on slipping”
Mary Worth: Saul you putz. Eve’s crying because you kept her out 19 hours while she wore her Playtex 18 Hour Bra.
Slylock Fox: Wrong-o, O Vulpine One. It couldn’t have been Mrs. Bear’s cart–it has a paper grocery bag with a bunch of celery sticking out yet her panties aren’t around her ankles.
Tundra: Formerly Wounded Elk, is that you?
Phoebe and Her Heavenly Nostrils: Unlike certain other strips, today’s entry actually intrigues me enough to want to see tomorrow’s entry.
RMMD: tomorrow Buck goes to the clinic and learns how to prick his finger. Wednesday Buck fingers his prick instead. They sure know how to make social isolation seem boring.
The new Pluggers cartoonist doesn’t understand what the strip is about. Wearing shorts no matter what the weather is, is what high school guys do. (And it’s those stupid below-the-knee “shorts” that aren’t real shorts at all but are basically just pants that are too short.) Actual Pluggers wear overalls (preferably splattered with engine grease or house paint), work pants that match the shirt with their name embroidered in the red oval, or (if retired) gabardine trousers pulled up to their nipples. Now get off my lawn, Pluggers faux-cartoonist.
Blondie: The strip is finally admitting its true age. Today, Dagwood worries that he might have looked silly back in the days when he wore bell-bottom jeans. Eventually he will admit that he also worries that he looked even sillier back in the days before that, when he wrore his boater hat and raccoon coat.
9 Chickweed Lane: Great; a week of music-notation puns. F this.
Oh wow a Luann story where you don’t have to look at the characters! Now there is an idea I can get behind
I mean, the other interpretation is that Blondie met Dagwood in the early days of the Great Depression and have been held in a mostly-timeless stasis ever since, his “sense of humor” assuring their mutual immortality, and they’d already been together for decades when Dagwood wore bell bottoms. Blondie is just assuring him she was already primed to accept whatever goofiness he threw at her.
Beetle Bailey: I’m going to try and take Sarge at his word and pretend “snack breaks” isn’t a weird euphemism for “chronic diarrhea”.
Fumbly Circus: “I don’t know, Jeffy, where’s the brain you should have inside your head?”
Family Squickus: “Mommy, why didn’t the fallout make you mutate like the rest of us?”
What The Funky: They’re watching the Westview High A/V Club’s production of “Downer Abbey,” the story of how Skunkhead John’s English grandfather introduced the savage Americans to comic books.
Judge Dreadful: Sophie bids farewell? Don’t anyone outbid her!
Happy Trails To You: “Birdy, birdy, in the sky,
Why’d you do that in my eye?”
Wait! What hit that nasty guy
Was Marky’s left jab on the fly!
Mark Trail: Is this the first time the Fists of Justice have literally decked a bad guy?
Pluggers wear shorts in the winter because the vet left them with nothing to freeze off.
Rex Morbid, Missing Daily: “Good idea, Buck! Think of how much weight you’ll lose when your toes need to be amputated!”
Today’s Nancy is a charming slice of life, while Arlo and Janis is a shout-out to a dead Country star.
Uh-oh.
9 Chickweed Lane: It doesn’t bother me that even though I have a musical background, I don’t understand today’s strip; in fact, considering that this is 9 Chickweed Lane, not understanding it is a decided relief. What does bother me, however, is wondering where the heck Chedda’s thought balloon is coming from. I’m thinking that the thought is coming from some sort of musically minded parasite somewhere on the lower half of her body; and I’m perfectly content not to think about exactly where on the lower half of her body it might be.
@seismic-2: Actually, and I hate to say it, I think the new cartoonist understands all too well that the Plugger generation now includes people born well after the Baby Boom and, while depressing from a vanity point of view, is more realistic than the score of legacy strips who fail to recognize that their supposedly “Boomer” characters would now be well into their 60s or even 70s.
MT – Yay! It’s the Right Fist ‘O
JusticeI Stole My Daddy’s Phallic Symbol And You Can’t Make Me Give It Back Neener Neener!JP – Don’t worry Soph, Guest Rooms and Home offices go in the barn now. They’ll be turning your room into a stable.
BB: Are you sure that’s your stomach, Sarge? It sounds a little more, uh, ‘intestinal’?
Blondie: There are times when this strip is kinda funnier if you acknowledge that all the characters are ageless immortal beings, especially when you imagine them struggling to keep up with the latest trends. “Are bellbottoms back in? I think I still have a box upstairs, next to the powdered wigs and the bowler caps…”
Pluggers wear shorts no matter what the season. Pluggers don’t always wear appropriate hats for the weather. Pluggers sometimes wander off the sidewalk and walk aimlessly through the woods. Please, if you see this plugger, contact the number below..
@9 Uncle Lumpy: I was wondering whether Guy Gilchrist is ruing all the tribute opportunities that he’s missed now that he’s no longer doing the strip. I was also wondering how cold Arlo & Janis keep their house, since panel 2 shows that even a few feet away from an open fire the room is apparently rather chilly.
Blondie: “Bell bottoms? You look goofy because of your fucking hair!”
First, “Judge Parker” becomes a sitcom, then “Mark Trail” goes Manga with meta overtones and now, “Pluggers” tries to appeal to, I think, the 90s Kevin Smith movie, grunge music, demographic. And, just like that, the legacy comic strips that haven’t changed for 70 years suddenly seem strangely comforting.
@Baja Gaijin: Re: Phoebe and Her Unicorn (the strip used to be called Heavenly Nostrils), yeah the dynamic between her and Dakota is usually pretty fun. At least the strip never gets as twee as her previous strip, Ozy and Millie, sometimes did.
Fists of Justice return and how!
Blondie: Good to see Alexander is on top of current fashion, with a simple but tasteful combination of blue jeans, a cream sweater, and anime swordsman sabatons.
H&L: I think Lois fried her own motherboard coming up with this “life-hack.”
MW: Don’t listen to her, Saul! Nobody gets weepy unless they are suffering from an urgent life-threatening medical issue! Take her straight to the ER! Bring her in at gunpoint if you have to, you’re saving a human life!
Well you know what they say…you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a plugger
If not for the “Are you still watching?” feature the entire Walker family would have starve to death during their first Netflix binge.
,,,
So Pluggers are either Gen X or 80% of Canadian men.
My Baby Boomer wife regularly comments disparagingly on twenty-somethings wearing shorts in the winter, leading me to believe that today’s “Pluggers” strip comes to us through the looking glass.
RMMD-“You have to come here tomorrow, Buck, because you’ll be dead the day after.”
MW-“Mary Worth, Eve was leaking water from her eyes but she won’t tell me why.”
JP-“Goodbye, room.”
FC-Mommy keeps her eyes closed or she would see nothing but hair.
Love Is-Screwing! https://www.artfulaspreycartoons.co.uk/love-is-color-11-january-2021/
@Guy Lumbago: 9CL – She’s farting it out.
So, this is the new Chickweed Lane. No more plots. Everyone hated the plots anyways, there was really only ever one plot (“sexually aggressive, narcissistic female pursues and ultimately captures emotionally immature and sexually inexperienced victim”), so it’s better this way. We have a stable of beloved couples who are madly in love and screw constantly and we can spend the golden years of the strip with little sweet interludes like this that work because of the deep well of affection for the characters that he has to draw on.
Pluggers – Not accurate. He should be wearing flip-flops.
I’m not a fashion guy but I always assumed everyone knew the bargain was that you looked cool now, for a relatively short period of time, while the monkey’s paw of it is that everyone is going to laugh at you until enough time has passed that your stupid clothes have become vintage. I chose to look like a schlub at all times and it’s worked out so far for me.
How in the WORLD is Josh dating these cartoons 2020? IT’S 2021!! 2020 IS OVER! HUZZAH!
PIBGORN – It would be a relief if he would just announce that the strip was finished and would not be trying any new installments. I could stop checking once a week to see if that damn naked monk’s ass is still floating in the pond. Even if he was just swimming, after his habit, he’s surely drowned by now and the carcass has bloated up and floated up to the surface. And nobody remembers what the plot was or who the characters are and they weren’t all that original or inspiring to begin with so let’s just call it a coda. “The monk stuck his head under her robe and what he saw there so terrified him that the attempted to swim away in panic before the heart attack took him down.”
I’ve always assumed the Bumsteads are a family of aliens sent to analyze our culture (a la Coneheads or 3rd Rock Form the Sun) in preparation for an imminent invasion. Case in point: Alexander, affecting the stock lounging-teenager pose he’s seen so often in Zits, realizes the chaise lounge in panel one isn’t suitable for his needs, so he uses his matter-transmutation powers to transform it into a more traditional chair … just as the concept of bell-bottom jeans causes him to lean forward in rapt attention, making the transformation unnecessary after all. I think the Earth is safe for a while, is what I’m saying.
BB: Sarge’s stomach is a sentient creature with desires and emotions all its own. This explains a lot.
Pluggers: Just look at that condescending smirk. He knows he’s gotten under your skin, Josh. HE KNOWS.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
It’s the pilot for a new strip, Monk’s Ass, in which the beloved detective overcomes his O.C.D. to become an exhibitionist.
Re: today’s post title. The Steve Miller Band is the Lillian McKenzie of rock music. America is its Ed Crankshaft.
Beetle Bailey: What kind of programming lacks commercial interruption? How about major world news events being reported live? I assume Beetle and Sarge are watching the Jan. 6th storming of the capitol, Beetle with his usual jaundiced detachment, and Sarge with a growing sense of dread as he realizes that he’s not going to have time to get a snack in before they’re called up and deployed to break up the coup.
@34 Uncle Lumpy: True dat. The first time I really felt ancient was when someone made a remark about what a contemptible fossil Steve Miller is, and I remembered that his first album, Children of the Future, came out when I was already in college.
Pluggers: The Divalings will wear shorts regardless of weather, so maybe this is less of a Plugger thing and more of a “just throwing on whatever clothes are clean and/or convenient” thing.
FW: Funky’s eyes are so bad he didn’t realize Holly threw out the DVR for a Roku three years ago.
MT: “I’ve never punched a hairless man before! It’s quite exhilarating!”
RMMD: “I mean, how was I to know that excessive thirst, fatigue, and unexplained weight loss were warning signs?”
BB: We all know the joke originally was “I don’t like show with no ads because I need my bathroom breaks”
When a Plugger talks about “the early days of the internet” he means Usenet, not 140-character Twitter
MT: Am I supposed to appreciate that the punching and boat-exploding is now happening ironically?
@Uncle Lumpy: PIBGORN – “ It’s the pilot for a new strip, Monk’s Ass, in which the beloved detective overcomes his O.C.D. to become an exhibitionist”
I think you may have misheard, the strip is actually called “Monk Sass” and it involves the 13 year old Edda clone being taught at the Monastery by a lovable if strict elderly monk, who is riled up by her constant sassing and disobedience, and Brother Bottoms Up here as a scrawny and poorly dressed young student who inexplicably has held a crush on her since the instant of her birth.
Luckily for Dagwood, flesh-coloured scarves will never fall out of fashion
Here come Hawa and Kay with a loud WHUPWHUPWHUP,
And those “Cruel Men” minions know their jigs are up!
They’ll be packed off to Gitmo or some darker hole,
Because they crossed paths with The Jungle Patrol!
The gals ‘copter ‘cross borders sans passports or visas,
Like stateless impunible terminatrices!
Only darkness survives where there once lived a soul
That’s what happens when you join The Jungle Patrol!
The Patrol is the Phantom’s irregular force:
Screw the Hague, they’ve got Ghost-Who-Walks whims to enforce!
They leave heaps of dead bodies when they’re on a roll;
You had better watch out for The Jungle Patrol!
“Did you ever think I looked goofy?”
“No, we’re so old that Goofy was created two years after us”
Don’t make me contemplate mortality, Josh. I share your Pluggers despair, though, as someone who caught pneumonia because of my college attire (oh, and habits).
I’m distracted by the Blondie chair though. Does the left arm appear magically, or does it retract and extend based upon where someone is sitting in it? Either way, I want one, preferably in this fashionable color.
JP: Sophie’s bedroom, otherwise known as the Chamber of the Green Drapes.
Warning, Plugger rant ahead! I often see people outdoors in subfreezing weather wearing shorts, often with flip-flops, with nothing but a light jacket on top. But they’re always young men, except one unfortunate Plugger-age guy whose legs are so swollen with cellulitis or something that he probably can’t fit them into long pants.
But apparently there’s a belief that spans all ages and genders, that humanity is helpless against rain. When it rains, I use an umbrella. But I almost never see anyone else using raingear of any kind. They just walk around getting soaked to the skin. I bet if I told them to open their mouths and look up, they’d drown.
B: “Honey, your sense of humor is what attracted me to you! Remember the original concept of this strip, that you were a millionaire’s son and your parents suspected I was a gold-digger but I was not? Or is the antiquity of this strip something to brag about but that doesn’t affect our daily jokes?”
@seismic-2: The high school guys might wear shorts all winter, but they wouldn’t be caught dead in cargo shorts!
Pluggers: All this talk about what’s in and what’s out reminds me of when I was in high school (early 70s) and we’d make fun of the class pictures hanging in the hall and how geeky the kids from the 50s looked. Flash forward about 15 years and I happened to be in a high school to watch a basketball game (former girlfriend’s kid brother was on the team). While heading towards the gym I saw several teenagers looking at the past class pictures and making fun of the kids from my generation.
Down here in Southeast Texas a parka over shorts and flipflops is almost standard winter wear regardless of age.
Blondie: I read the strip as confirming that Dagwood and Blondie are much older than they appear, owing their youthful looks to the fact that Dagwood’s neck is their portrait of dorian grey
@Liam: Ah yes, the couple that gets naked for everything EXCEPT sex.
Next week on the Adventures of Sarge’s Rapidly Evolving Tapeworm: “Sarge, what it is noise?” “Oh, I went to the opera yesterday, and Philip, my tapeworm, fell in love with Aida. He’s been singing O terra addio all day!”
Slylock Fox-Slylock did not find the traditional loaf of bread sticking out of the bag.
Blondie – Goofy bell bottoms? No mention of the shirt with one enormous button?
JP – I’ll pack her bags for her and take her to the airport if it’ll move this story along.
MW – Crying is a medical emergency? Saul is a kind person, and his heart is in the right place, but he’s an idiot.
Blondie-Dean Young current writer for ‘Blondie’ was in his twenties during the Sixties so this comic was written based on his experiences.
Frazz – Breaking News – Hell just froze over. I actually liked this. Frazz’s comeback was a joke and not a smug, subtle put down of Mrs. Olsen. Most of all, they agree with one of my pet peeves.
PBS – I don’t get it.
9CL – I get that it involves these unpleasant people boinking, but I’m a beefwit who never learned to read music, so I don’t understand whatever the musical notations are supposed to mean.
At least it’s new, ©2021.
I can guarantee you that at work today, I will see at least three men in their fifties or older wearing shorts (and we’re looking at a high temperature of 20F).
You’ll also see these men wearing sweatpants and those “loungewear” trousers that I think look like pajamas.
Why?
My guess is that they are so obese and/or lazy that they don’t want to take the effort to slide their feet through the smaller cuff at the end of the pants. And they don’t have to find the holes on their belts.
Their ensemble will also include sandals or shoes with velcro straps or Crocs.
If they are actually working on something, they’ll wear the classic bib overalls (sometimes cut-off above the knees).
We do have some younger men at work who wear shorts, but its usually because they have to do a lot of squatting and it’s just more comfortable for the knees and quads.
Of course he wore bell bottom jeans. The Dagwood has been alive for millennia. The key to The Dagwood’s youthful vitality are the millions of souls that he has ripped from their mortal shells with his teeth and swallowed into the eternal void of his stomach.
@I speak Jive: Saul is from the tough, old school where women cry only if they’re in physical pain. I guess he never saw all of Madi’s tears in the previous story or he would have taken her to the emergency room.
Josh, I’m of the same generation and I wouldn’t fret over the shorts cartoon. I’ve long associated cargo shorts specifically in all kinds of weather with millennials and Zoomers. Our generation has been much better known for mom jeans. Besides, Pluggers has always seemed to me to be less about aging and more about a specific generation’s mindset.
@Arabella: Good point. Madi cried a lot more than Eve did. Maybe Saul wouldn’t have been so concerned if Greta had been there to take care of Eve’s tears.
Slylock Fox: Hopefully Mrs. Bear ran and got the store manager to identify her as the rightful owner before Slylock’s stupid solution ruined all her food.
BB: I’ve been reading Beetle Bailey since childhood, and it only occurs to me now that Beetle and Sarge spend a lot of their free time together. Today we see that Beetle is acutely aware of the sounds Sarge’s body makes. It would have been easy enough to give that first line to Sgt. Louise Lugg, but the artist chose Beetle instead. I guess what I’m saying is, this strip is the one that made me believe that the rumors concerning Beetle and Sarge are true.
Blondie: I wish I had your sense of humor, Alex. I’ve seen pairs of pants before, but none that have made me break out in hysterical laughter.
Pluggers: I do not like the smile on that plugger’s face. “What? I’m just standing here, airing out my shins. I’m not even doing anything. See, I even have my hands in my pockets. This is all perfectly legal.”
Rex Morgan – “We’re starting treatment already?” No, dealing with a dangerous disease allows you one last milkshake binge. Eat a double order of fries with it. Tomorrow we’ll think about doing something about your diet.
I have a feeling that it’s going to take a ton of instruction to get Buck to understand the seriousness of diabetes and just how careful he has to be with his diet. In fairness to RMMD, I suspect that it’s not unusual for a newly diagnosed diabetic to fail to grasp the changes he has to make in his lifestyle. I guess it’s a form of denial, and it doesn’t help when the patient is not exactly Mensa material.
I had a great-aunt who was diabetic. My grandmother and I stayed with her when we had to evacuate my family home during a bad flood. A local bakery had no way to distribute their products, so they gave them away to the town population. My aunt ate quite a few of their snack cakes and raved about how good they were. She didn’t follow her diet for years, and eventually she had to have her leg amputated.
Blondie: Of course, a reading of the historical record will shop that what really attracted you to Dagwood was his money. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Bumstead–or should I say MISS BOOPADOOP?
Look, I realize 95% of comics require a willing suspension of disbelief (Blondie’s hairstyle; Crankshaft and Dennis not yet murdered; cats in a potato suit), but I draw the line at:
1. Libraries hiring
2. Libraries hiring Dustin
Pluggers – I have long suspected I was married to a Plugger – this confirms it – Mr. Old School has worn this ensemble down to the flat cap.
To be fair, Mr. Old School has a love of all things hat. We found a place in Cincinnati while on vacation there (what, you don’t vacation in Ohio?) called Batsakes – a hat shop run by a man in his 80s. He still makes custom hats. So we ordered one. It ended up taking several months to be ready, as the gentleman making the hat went into the hospital for a month in the middle of it all. But it’s a gorgeous hat. Even with shorts. Sigh.
That is one smug cargo-shorts-wearing dogman.
I was rubbing my hands together, saying “once again I get to bust someone for pretending to be a plugger while living in a former coal town that has been thoroughly suburbanized and now has a median income of over $80k,” but it’s the exact same former coal town that has been thoroughly suburbanized and now has a median income of over $80k as last time. At least I get to bust him for pretending to be in a snow-blanketed landscape when Midlothian, Virginia hasn’t had snow on the ground at least since Dec. 17.
The Plugger’s grin of contentment shows that his theory was a success: if he exposed his crotch to freezing temperatures for a few hours, it would finally get stiff. First time in years!
Judge Parker: Don’t let the front door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!
Baby Blues: I admire Darryl. He’s devoted to losing his “dad bod” while proudly sporting a 29-inch, 45 pound proboscis.
BB – An army marches on it’s stomach – and it must be a sight to see….
Blondie – Never mind the insect face – it’s the trousers that attract comment. BtW, Blondie looks especially scrumptious today….
Pluggers – Yes…piss stained shorts….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Anonymous Y #64: These were me. I remembered to fill in the blanks for the previous comment, but forgot the second and never checked back. Apologies.
@Baja Gaijin: re Tundra: (snort,snort) Yeah, you nailed it! I’ll admit I’m playing the role of “consummate gentle
manElk” Andrew today! As you know, usually the comedy roles go to my nephew Elwood, but in this case they felt they needed someone more seasoned, more mature, someone who’s actually bald under his antlers! Yes!! I am embracing my seniority and loss of head coat! Probably due to too much testosterone (snort,snort) And I was ready to shed those antlers anyway.Happy New Sun Cycle, everyone. It’s pretty quiet in the ‘Wood now while a lot of the Wildlife are still sleeping it off after the Solstice party. Fortunately I had the “alert” feature set on my Elkphone so I didn’t miss this gig….
Dustin :Without looking them up:
US History 973
World War Two 940.54
Japanese History 954
Military Science 355-359
Airplanes 623
Anybody want to double-check me?
“Boot-cut” jeans made a bit of a comeback in the early-mid 00s, when a bunch of 70s culture seemed to get some fresh air, so it could mean that Dagwood and Blondie were like 25 in 2005, putting them at the very edge of the millennial generatio–NOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOO
@78 Guy Nerdlinger: Oh. My. God. what a perfect name/comment combination.
BB: I’ve wondered about Beetle’s living situation. He’s past basic training, right? Would he and the other soldiers still be living in a large barracks, with their sergeant in a bedroom at one end, like we see in old movies? Is this TV that they’re watching in the barracks somewhere, or do they have to go to some sort of club to watch a communal TV set?
Pluggers was always going to have some oddities and inconsistencies because of the reader submission format, but under the new artist, it just seems arbitrary. Coming up: Pluggers order extra cheese on their pizza! Pluggers leave an extra set of keys with their sister! Pluggers own multiple brands of anti-itch cream!
@Rube: Pluggers read tired and banal comic strips just so that they can make fun of them on the Internet!
Bell-bottom pants would seem to be the least funny fashion Dagwood wore (or could’ve worn) over the past 90 years. As @I speak Jive #58 pointed out, Dag’s one-button shirt has been plenty odd, but through whatever style was trending, he stuck with his button. He does wear shorts occasionally in the summertime these days, but at his age, he could out-plug the smug cargo-shorts-clad plugger any time he wants. But he can’t — Blondie looks terrific 24 hours a day, so he’s got to make some kind of effort.
And what’s the big deal with the plugger, anyway? When I see people wearing running shorts on 30-degree days, I cease to worry about what should be worn when.
@seismic-2:Touche
MW: Saul’s insistence that Eve’s tears require a visit to urgent care is only a setup to establish only Mary can help. And say you dumbass dwarf. You’re wondering why she’s crying. Ask her.
BB: I, for one, am prepared to believe Beetle and Sarge are watching PBS. And I’m sure Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck is doing nothing to distract Sarge from his own ravenous appitite.
Crank: How often is the Bean’s End catalogue supposed to come out? Because I’m sure we just did this a couple of months ago.
DT: Well, finally. This seems like information it might have been interesting to clue the readers into before an entire week of “Oh no, Aquarius is going to get the blue balloon.” Also, isn’t the possibility someone might want to buy the blue balloon an inherent risk in this system in the first place?
RMMD: Wow, Buck’s a moron. “Can’t I spend some time processing the fact I have a potentially life-threatening illness before I have to do anything about it?”
FW: Flossing and watching TV. Are we finally seeing strips Batiuk wrote during the first lockdown, or is Funky’s life always this boring?
Rex Morgan – I don’t completely buy that this diagnosis hit Buck completely out of the blue. Granted, I grew up in a healthcare family, so I may be a little more attuned to that kind of thing, but I also grew up without the benefits of Dr. Google, and WebMD. And I know Buck knows how to use a computer for e-commerce purposes, so it’s not beyond the pale that he could have, I don’t know, done a web search? I have to think that if your blood sugar was in the high 300s and you’re sucking down a butterscotch shake, there’s going to be some general feeling of “off”-ness, right?
As for the “last supper” behavior, my father had type 2 diabetes, and by his own admission, knew it for a few months before the official diagnosis. He had the confirmation appointment right around Easter, and knowing what was coming, he scarfed a bag of his favorite Russell Stover jelly beans before going in.
For what it’s worth, I got a good bit of that DNA. I am not diabetic, but my A1C is borderline pre-diabetic. Like my father, I carry extra pounds, I’ve tried just about every diet you can think of, I can lose weight for awhile, but it creeps back on. Even at a normal weight, I’m a bigger girl. I know what I need to do to be healthy, I try to do it as much as possible, but especially during covid, I’ve found the call of carbs to be loud and clear.
So, while Buck is behaving like an idiot, I have a little sympathy. People who struggle with weight don’t do it because we enjoy the struggle, or because we’re inherently stupid. Are there stupid fat people? Sure, but the fat didn’t make them stupid. Sometimes the stupid contributes to making them fat, but there’s a lot of nuance. My great grandmother was rail thin and had type 2 diabetes. My father’s sister was overweight and never got diabetes. She died chasing an ice cream truck (just kidding, she had a massive aneurysm).
I’ll get off my soapbox – not because I’m done, but because it’s making creaking noises like it’s about to snap under the strain.
@Old School Allie Cat: Thank you.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I fundamentally agree with you, though I wish Brooke would take it as a personal challenge to do another six months of silent playing-with-the-panel-edges strips. Yes, those strips might become repetitive and boring. But as Brooke has shown us over and over, the same is true of boinking, only worse.
BB: Hey, Josh, there are many kinds of programming on PBS. I could totally see Beetle and Sarge getting caught up in the varied drama that is DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD.
Blondie: This just reminded me of that period of the Nineties where Seventies clothes came back into style. I was fine not remembering it.
@Poteet: DT’sN is abysmal tripe and represents ALL that is wrong with children’s programming. PBS and America in general would be better served running 30 year old reruns of Mr. Rogers’…
Between the creepy expression on the Plugger’s face and the baffling joke, I take it that the newest generation of Pluggers aren’t so much elderly flyover state dwellers as they are a bunch of freaks who get off on everyone seeing their unsightly calves.
@jenna: #95
“the newest generation of Pluggers aren’t so much elderly flyover state dwellers as they are a bunch of freaks who get off on everyone seeing their unsightly calves.”
Can’t we be both?
@Vardian: FW: Maybe Funky died and was sent to hell. The joke is on the powers that be, in that he hasn’t noticed anything different from life in Westview.
Blondie: If this fashion documentary that Alexander finds so amusing shows some more pictures of people wearing those “ridiculous” jeans, and he notices that one of them is in fact his Dad, would that public humiliation give Alex a case of the Bell-Bottom Blues? If so, then he had better not watch the next episode when they feature fashions from a decade earlier, and he sees a picture of his Mom in her Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polkadot Bikini.
BB: Sarge is hosting alien spawn in his gut. And they are unhappy with his terrible diet.
Blondie: I doubt that Dagwood was wearing bell bottoms back in the day. He was undoubtedly part of the “silent majority” who thought those hippie kids needed to go back to Russia.
@jenna: “Unsightly calves” made me wonder if there are bovine Pluggers.
@Guy Nerdlinger: I had to look up the cartoon just to figure out what this was about.
@seismic-2: He’s thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to be a Scotsman?”
Today’s Nancy establishes that Fritzi’s mother is still alive. I believe this is the first indication we’ve seen anywhere–in all the strip’s history–of other relatives for Nancy and Fritzi, (Gilchrist gave Sluggo a couple of bearded uncles.) Why now? Why this? Couldn’t the gag have worked about we well / poorly with Fritzi and Nancy doing the parts? (With messaging in place of e-mail, of course.) Has Olivia Jaimes taken a cue from Jules Rivera, and decided to go into the tragic and/or dysfunctional family background that led Nancy to being cared for by her aunt?
FW: When did Funky and Holly become the new Crankshafts? They look to be contemporaries.
Wait, Mark punched someone today? Man, you know Josh has lost interest in new-look Mark Trail when not even his Fists ‘o’ Justice warrant a mention.
BLONDIE: I wasn’t going to say anything, but Daddy Keane wore bell-bottoms just yesterday. They weren’t jeans and the bells weren’t very bellish, but they had the silhouette.
And of the silly things I wore between ’65 and ’75, I wouldn’t put bell-bottoms at the top of the ridiculous list. That honor goes to the *checks online to remind aging brain of the name* bright yellow short tent dress with huge white polka dots. It was a total tent, not modified. I was underweight but still looked pregnant.
SALLY FORTH: Swear to Ghu, there is a perfectly good whodunnit novel which uses “number of sneezes someone always does” as a major clue: THE CASE OF THE SEVEN SNEEZES by “Anthony Boucher.”
I like Boucher’s work (including this one) but the premise here was hard to swallow. The use of it in SALLY FORTH, though, not so much.
HAGAR THE HUMDRUM: “Oh, yeah, that ‘Marry, ‘nuncle’ bit never gets old! Or, er, “funny,” but it’s what we’ve got to work with back here in the late Dark Ages! After all, Monty Python and Bob and Ray are still centuries away!”
ARLO AND JANIS: If I apologize in advance, will someone tell me who K.T. is? Presumably a noted feminist who just died, and whose name I’m blanking on?
@105 Shrug: This comment disproves your Plugger status: Pluggers couldn’t remember such details for so long.
@107 Shrug: K. T. Oslin.
@Shrug: I have a bunch of those weird-looking early seventies omnibus volumes of crime novels, and you probably do too. The difference is I’ve read every book in the Frederic Brown, the W.R. Burnett, and the Jerome Charyn collections, and NONE of the ones in the Anthony Boucher.
Nonetheless, I attended all the BoucherCons between 1985 and 2000, because I was in mystery book publishing and well-paid to do so. They Bite.
You know, I can take the idea that Pluggers wear shorts when it’s cold, like dumb frat-boys. I can take the idea that Pluggers wear cargo shorts that have pockets on the knees for some reason. I can even take the idea that the dog-man’s ears begin halfway down his skull so he can wear a stupid English driving cap like a real boy. But I CANNOT take that “ain’t I a stinker?” smirk on his face. I just…hate him so much. *sobs*
@Esther Blodgett: How do you feel about Lillian in Crankshaft? The gray-haired grandmother in Family Circus?
@Baja Gaijin: Everyone loves Lillian in Crankshaft. She is…cuddelicious.
Zits – Jeremy, the correct comeback is “That’s why we practice.”
Ziggy is struggling to find the best way to remember his late lamented pet chimp, Zozo.
@Ukulele Ike: Cuddelicious. That’s strange misspelling of “odious twatwaffle.”
@Poteet: #104: There were regular bell bottoms, where the flare began at the knee, and then there were elephant bells, where the flare began at the hip. My biggest fashion mistake was a nehru jacket, which were super cool for about one year then became a joke.
@I speak Jive: We do all know that Greta was the emotional adult in that storyline. Hell, even Mary referred Madi to Greta for emotional support.
Tuesday’s Early Comments
Dennis the Menace: Aaah, I see now what’s going on: Alice’s trolling for a third for her ménage a trois with a cuckold kink on the side.
Mark Trail: With added patented Reverse Action!™
Mary Worth: Face it, Nebbish McBowtieface, you’re not Wilbur Weston. She ghosted you.
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 I figure you don’t.
Pluggers: Ha ha! Pluggers are too poor to afford new cookware.
Sherman’s Lagoon: A bug that hasn’t pooped in 2 years? Sounds like a future Sunday Mark Trail.
@Baja Gaijin: Or “loathsome hag.”
@Guillermo el chiclero: I remember a dressy version for women of those elephant bell bottoms called palazzo pants. I had a navy pair that I wore with a lime green top. This was around 1973.
I didn’t meet Mr. Jive until after Nehru jackets were in style. I don’t think he had one, although later in the seventies he had a leisure suit.
As horrible as seventies fashion was, it wasn’t as bad as what people wore in the eighties. Those enormous shoulder pads on women’s jackets were horrifying.
@richardf8: So Greta is Mary’s apprentice meddler? Greta needs to step up her wardrobe.
@Baja Gaijin: Re Mary Worth – Good grief, look at that food. Saul is preparing a gourmet dinner for Greta. It looks like he’s a better cook than Mary.
After he finishes fixing Greta’s meal, he opens a can of Alpo for himself.
@121 I speak Jive: I’m not sure of the wisdom of feeding a doxxie parsnips.
@I speak Jive: Hahaha, I remember those shoulder pads! And some blouses had them too. As for Eighties hair…nope, better not fall down that rabbit hole.
@Ukulele Ike: I actually have occasional disturbing thoughts about what could be easily done with Lillian’s head because her neck is so thin and scrawny. That’s one of the reasons I hate her. I never have thoughts like that except about her.
All the talk about bell bottoms reminds me of the only piece of clothing I had when I was a teenager that I really wish I had today.
They were primarily white bell bottoms with a pattern of blue, green, gray and yellow striping.
And they were fuzzy.
I don’t remember how I got them but I do remember my mother sneaking them out of my closet and throwing them away because “you weren’t wearing them anyway”.
(she thought they were ugly)
@123 Poteet: Wouldn’t the big hair and shoulder pads protect you when falling down a rabbit hole?
@125 UncleJeff: You were pimpin’ it up right!
@Baja Gaijin: Are they parsnips? I thought they were carrots. In any case, he has an entire chicken there. Yet the food in her dish looks like greens of some kind.
@Poteet: I think the shoulder pads were in everything – jackets, blouses, sweaters, dresses. Who thought that looking like a football player was a good look for women?
I thought of the hair, too – it was worse than the clothes. I guess the big hair was necessary for balance with those shoulder pads.
Between having fine, straight hair and having no ability to style it, I didn’t participate in eighties big hair.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I would have thought you looked super-cool in that jacket. And Time has, in a way, vindicated you. I just checked and saw a vintage Sixties paisley Nehru jacket selling for $350. Sixties tent dresses aren’t doing as well.
@128 Poteet: I’ll bet if Guillermo and Jeff combined their clothes, they’d be totally boss!
@Baja Gaijin: With a dark blue shirt with the top three buttons open annnnnd a gold chain.
@Poteet: You too fantasize about giving a hickey to her turkey wattle?
@Baja Gaijin: (on MT) It’s hard to tell what is going on here. Is Mark practicing Boat Jitsu?
@132 Zla’od: Yup. Boat Jitsu.
@Zla’od: Umm. No. But don’t mind me.
@134 Poteet: How about Lil’s wattle meeting the waffle iron?
@Baja Gaijin: Suffice it to say she’d need a small tasteful funeral afterward.
Meanwhile, we readers were supposed to believe that Ed could not bear to live without his beloved Bean’s End catalog arriving each winter, and instead he only cared enough to attempt an awful joke. Yecch.
9CL: Not only does Brooke portray babyhood in a deeply deranged way, but he doesn’t understand what really does cause dry heaves, namely, strips like this one.
MW: “WOOF! She was crying about her dead husband, you dingus. And I can’t believe you expect me to eat this green crap, even if you did make it. I’m not Doctor Jeff.”
MT: Is the white ibis a spirit guide, a narrator, a best buddy, what??
@138 Poteet: An audience proxy perhaps?
Today’s 9CL is very relatable. Brooke really understands his strip’s effect on its audience.
Actually, babies shouldn’t notice anything unusual when their parents canoodle. Elementary school children will be like, “Hey Mom and Dad, you’re nekkid! Hahahaha!” The twins are reacting like young teenagers here.
Luann:Yup, dim bulbs everywhere.
@Poteet: In a few years I should be able to give a hickey to my own turkey wattle.
MW: I’m pretty sure the sight of the Headless mannequins triggered Eve’s assignment-to track down and kill that son-of-a-bitch Van Owen. It’s Wilbur Weston, Eve.
Beetle Bailey: Sarge apparently hasn’t seen the new Progressive Insurance ad, where the speaker teaches people turning into their parents that “they’re not called ‘programs’; they’re ‘TV shows’.”