Extremely grateful we don’t see what Lt. Flap’s gift would’ve been
Post Content
Beetle Bailey, 2/9/21
I guess the point of this strip is that each of these characters is responding to the question of what to get Sarge for his birthday in his own way, according to his own character (in Beetle Bailey, “character” means “whatever dumb on-the-nose collection of tics and running gags they’ve accrued over the years”). So, Plato wants to give him a book, because he’s a nerd; Killer wants to give him a box of candy, because he’s so monomaniacally focused on getting laid that his only context for gift-giving is the cliches of heterosexual courtship; Zero wants to to give him a comic book, because he’s dumb (?); and Rocky wants to give him a music mix, because he’s named “Rocky” due to the fact that when he was introduced into the strip, his one-note character was focused on liking rock ‘n’ roll music, which was as novel then as omnipresent personal computers were when Specialist Chip Gizmo was introduced in the early ’00s, because that’s just how long Beetle Bailey has been around. Anyway, I wanted to point out that all of these people are giving Sarge something they’d like, not something that he would actually want to receive. Can you visualize Sarge reading a book? Of course not. Only Beetle’s proposal is actually thoughtful. Sadly, it will not be appreciated.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/9/21
After kicking off his life as a diagnosed diabetic with one last indulgent fast-food meal, Buck’s blood sugar numbers got real bad, but then he came home and exercised, and they got OK again! Is this … how diabetes works? I don’t know much about it but I do know that Rex Morgan, M.D., is a rigorously fact-checked comic that aims primarily to spread accurate medical information, so I’m just going to assume that this is, in fact, how diabetes works. Good job, Buck! Looks like you’re on your way to a healthy lifesty[finally gets to narration box at bottom of second panel] OH NO
Pluggers, 2/9/21
I mean, duh, of course he’s not going to fold up his underwear. The wrinkle lines are a further turn-on for fans of the sick sex thing that Pluggers, in one of 2021’s biggest surprises, has become.
143 replies to “Extremely grateful we don’t see what Lt. Flap’s gift would’ve been”
Beetle Bailey: For his birthday, Sarge gets to order a Code Red on Beetle. You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!
Rex Morgan: Of course, lifestyle changes take time to become effective — the only non-pharmaceutical intervention that can immediately reduce or cure diabetes is bariatric surgery. And do we really want six or eight more months of Buck in the hospital, which is how long they’d probably string out that story? Frankly, I’d rather see a Leaving Las Vegas-style montage of him milkshaking himself to death.
Pluggers: A plugger knows not to waste time washing his underwear. I mean, folding. Did I say washing? I meant folding.
Snuffy Smith: The Smifs can’t afford oil for their griddlecakes, but they have enough exotic hot peppers, duck eggs and macadamia nuts to share with the neighbors? Snuffy’s burglary of the old Williams-Sonoma outlet in the city folks’ closed-down indoor shopping mall must really have paid off!
RMMD: “You need anything?” As in put that dumb tester down and stroke me already!
Fumbly Circus: Whatever you say, Simple Simon.
Judge Dreadful: So that’s why you’re whining louder, Kat?
Happy Trails To You: It’s about time Mark visited his mom.
Rex Morbid, Missing Daily: Narration Box, be like the shepherd who closed the corral gate behind his animals and shut the flock up.
Beetle was going to get Sarge crotchless panties, but that’s what he got him for Christmas.
Pluggers never have trouble putting their underwear on correctly: yellow in front, brown in back.
Also, a plugger irons his underwear by pulling them on over his freakishly flat ass and sitting in them for hours.
RMMD – . . . And Buck has embarked on the path to Exercise Bulimia.
Because yes, you CAN make your blood glucose drop with a spin on an exercise bike, but that isn’t controlling your Diabetes.
GT: “Co-co-rina?” What kind of weak sauce nickname is that? Come on, Vic, step it up. “Valley Tech’s defense has been immune to most conference opponents this season, but they’re no match for the Corinnavirus!”
MW: Anyone else getting a strange feeling that the past few weeks of exposition were actually the story’s conflict resolution and we’re already rolling into the traditional pointlessly-long epilogue?
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver: That narration box has become my favorite character.
GT: And here I thought Tessi was named after her baseball-loving great-grandma from Boston.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith : … what kind of quaintly rustic hillbillies require ghost peppers for their recipes?… And what kind of hillbilly just happens to have it on hand?
*****
Bizarro : the kid is then a little shit and actually answers the name of the comic book artist Lichtenstein was swiping instead.
*****
Funky Winkerbean : … I would never cast stones at people wishing to revisit Batman the Animated series, but
1) Really? And you don’t get the pretext of having kids around to justify it? When Jeff watched the Phantom Empire he made sure to have the pretext of having kids around to justify it.
2) If Funky really is over 65, here he is being nostalgic for a cartoon that first aired when he was 35+…
*****
Luann : and the weird internet detectiving and stalking begins. This is just the Piro storyline all over again, except this time the audience was told the real culprit was Tara Star from the beginning rather than it being a last second twist.
… Also, Ben has turned into Bernice w/stubble, which is reminiscent of Gunther’s Mom being Gunther sans stubble.
*****
On the Fast Track : …Being a goth is not that weird. Dethany has worked for Fast Track Inc. as Ms Trellis’ personal assistant for nearly a decade now. Dethany is basically Ms Trellis’ most trusted employee. If Ms Trellis gives the job of welcoming new employees to Fiona instead, it’s probably not because she thought “Ew, I can’t have a GOTH greet them”, it’s probably “Dethany had a point yesterday that the current situation is too stressful for her and that helping new employees adapt is basically a punishment… I’ll have Fiona do it instead, since I like punishing Fiona for no reason.”
*****
Phoebe and Unicorn : “I bet my best friend uses her therapy sessions to badmouth me! I’ll spy on her! … it’s okay, she’s meeting with her therapist in a public setting so it’s not like I’m really intruding!” …be careful, Phoebe, you’re turning into a Bernice Halper, and no one wants THAT.
******
Slylock Fox : Seventh difference : the Boy has a slightly different character design in both images (the eyes). That’s not a joke, the boy is very clearly drawn with a different face in the two panels yet that’s not in the list of six differences given in the answers section.
Pluggers: in keeping with new, sick sex thing, a plugger asks; “Do you want to see my underwear drawer? Ooo, it’s so messy. I need a spanking.” [Pushes button on 80’s boombox] I’m too sexy for my…
GT: Oh, come on, Vic. It’s right there for Corinna. We’ve been riffing on it since she came on the scene.
Or do your crooning skills really suck?
FC: You can yourself whatever you want it, I’ll still call an idiot.
HEY, BUCK! WHY NOT WASH DOWN THOSE GREAT NUMBERS WITH A REFRESHING MILKSHAKE? HMMM?
BB: Actually, NOT getting to beat the shit out of Beetle is the cruelest – and most on-brand – of all the suggested gifts.
BB: actually, Beetle is disappearing out of fear not kindness. Being a bottom on Sarge’s birthday can be dangerous.
@Anonymous:
Gah, I can make that work in my head, with Luann as Marigold. Now Phoebe and Her Unicorn has Luann cooties. Thanks a lot, Anonymous!
BB: So Beetle, in an attempt to be nice, is staying away from Sarge on his special day because he knows Sarge despises him. I can’t decide if that’s sweet, pathetic, or just a clever way of Beetle to justify not spending any money.
RMMD: Buck is so thoroughly hated that not even the narration box can hide its contempt. Which is too bad, because I really wish it would treat everyone in this strip with the same snide derision. “Rex takes on a new patient. How interesting..!”, “June tries to talk to Rex about the children. Good luck honey!”, “Oh look, Sarah’s got some new shit at her school or something /jerkoff motion/”
Pluggers don’t bother to fold their underwear because their ample buttocks stretch out that fabric to a point where wrinkles are not physically possible.
RMMD: I want Doomsaying Narration Box to respond to everything Buck says in this same way. “Hmmm…I think I’ll have a sandwich.” “BUT WILL YOU, BUCK? REALLY?”
Okay, listen. I have never for a single second cared about Rex Morgan, MD, but that narration box is hot garbage. It is the second-worst placement of the word “Buck” that you could possibly use to ask that question. Look, I’ll show you, from best to worst:
But Buck, do you really?
But do you really, Buck?
Buck, but do you really?
But do you, Buck, really? no one talks like this, Rex Morgan, MD, really
But do, Buck, you really?
This must be–must be–one of those strips that’s just written by a bot these days.
RMMD: Yes dear, I need a wife with an adult’s hairstyle.
A plugger knows not to waste time folding his underwear. He wastes time sitting on his fat ass in front of a tv.
The sarcastic narration box isn’t just my new favourite Rex Morgan character but my new favourite comic strip character period. Someone option the movie rights.
Pluggers: . . .because it might crack.
pluggers know that stained white cotton briefs are a huge turn on for giraffes
Rex Morgan, M.D.
Gotta wonder if wifey tampered with Buck’s blood sugar-ometer. And just after Buck took out that big life insurance policy, too!
RMMD-And thus we end Buck’s diabetic drama. Join us tomorrow as we start a new story.
MW-And for Saul and Eve bread and water.
FC-Then everyone rushes Billy and beats him up.
Spiderman-Egghead must have some really good hearing if he can hear Scott Lang talking.
Luann-Jack’s plumbing exploded all over Luann’s face.
I’m looking forward to the Rex Morgan narration box creeping into other strips.
“A plugger knows not to waste time folding his underwear.”
“AS IF YOU EVER FOLDED A PIECE OF CLOTHING IN YOUR LIFE.”
“Sarge’s birthday is coming up. I think I’ll get him in a book.” “I’ll get him a box of candy.”
“OH RIGHT. BECAUSE WE ALL LOVE SARGE.”
9CL – It’s funny how rudimentary the drawings of her face become when Brooke is burgeoning with enthusiasm for his leg fetish.
Pluggers – Original caption: A plugger knows not to waste time changing his underwear.
@Anonymous:LUANN – “Ben has turned into Bernice with stubble”
Wow, yeah, it’s really obvious here with them side by side like this. Can he do the same with Tiffany and give her a stubbly doppelgänger to mate with??
You can’t judge me, Narration Box! You don’t even have blood!
MW: Down the hall, Mary senses an affront to her salmon squares and is enraged.
“Feed it to the dogs?” she screams. “Heads will roll!”
“Mary,” Toby replies, “I think that the old people are eating the salmon and carrots. The dogs are just eating ‘chow.’ Eve doesn’t use an Oxford comma when she speaks.”
“That’s just as bad, Toby. Both Strunk and White were once my lovers and they would be appalled.”
“However, I think….”
“Shhh! Strunk and White, you air-headed harridan! Never begin a sentence that way.” Mary slumps. “Oh E. B.” she murmurs, “the fun we had striking out needless adverbs. Gone, all gone. Look at me now. Farther from you than ever.”
“Don’t you mean ‘further’….?”
“Shut up, cow.”
A Plugger knows not to waste time folding his underwear. After all, chances are good he could surrender to the sweet embrace of oblivion tomorrow, and what will he have to show for his time on this mortal coil? A drawer full of neatly folded and stacked tighty whities? Not this Plugger, no sir, not when there’s a Bones marathon on the USA Network calling his name…
BB: On a serious note, Octavian N. Savu–the real-life inspiration for Sgt. Snorkle–was born 3 Feb. 1914 and died 12 April 1968 (according to Find-a-Grave). I assume the BB strip is timed to match, with a few days’ discrepency due to the strip’s practice of devoting a different days to different characters. Memory eternal.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Dying for a double butterscotch milkshake is the new dying for the phone company: nobody does it.
I think Beetle in today’s strip is a bit like Jules in Pulp Fiction–a character in a fictional universe rigorously bound by the rules of its genre who is struggling to become a real, three-dimensional person. Like Pulp Fiction, the incident leading to that first glimmer of self-consciousness is a scene so ridiculous, so over-the-top in forcing its characters to adhere to their most basic, programmed character traits that one of those characters actually wakes up to the scripted nature of his environment. In this case, Beetle recognizes his role as a foil and eternal victim for Sarge, and realizes all he has to do to end it is leave–just walk away. I’m really hoping the next step for Beetle doesn’t involve a trip with Sarge to a pawn shop for a meeting with the Gimp.
@jroggs: I genuinely L-ed OL at the GT comment. Kudos!
@jroggs: Corinnavirus? Good one. Less offensive and a whole lot funnier than anything seen in “Crankshaft” the past week or so.
Wary Morth:
You know, I’m a lifelong dog parent, with wide experience of a number of breeds (currently two Tibetan mastiffs), and I absolutely do not comprehend the way Max and Great apparently don’t interact with each other at all. Dogs are either aggressive towards each other or extremely friendly. By now Max and Great should have been bowing to each other in play-invitation and then rolling round and round wrestling. Instead they might as well be dummies with a “wood” sound chip inserted.
Oh wait, what am I thinking, this is Mary Worth, where no human acts like a human, so who the hell am I to expect dogs to act like dogs?
Pluggers pride themselves on doing the absolute bare minimum of housework.
RMMD: After several weeks of absolutely nothing happening, I think the Narration Box just don’t want to admit is mis-predicted this one.
@Jihadi Colin: Greta not Great.
Woof not wood.
9CL: I might have hazarded the words “national registry.”
C’shaft: THERE, you’ve made your Lena’s Coffee Joke (TM), now can we PLEASE drop this stupid hazmat suit thing?
FW: Please, Funky and Crazy are Boomers. For them it would be Adam West or nothing.
Meanwhile, slightly down range, Grossie and Maggot from Crock are putting the final touches on their gift for Sarge; a roadside IED. America will be shocked when, after the blast, we see Sarge without his trademark . . . anger issues? Buck teeth? Eh, face it, Beetle Bailey ain’t Doonesbury and Sarge ain’t B.D. Sarge’s body will be mangled for one panel and then, like his victim Beetle, he’ll be fine in the next panel.
Can confirm that exercising lowers your blood sugar but you’d, uh, have to do a lot to counteract the dozen potato sugarshakes Buck presumably consumed.
Pluggers has me very disturbed. Is this because they will be wearing it far too soon to bother folding it? Do they go through 4 or 5 pairs of tighty whities a day, knowing it’s time to change them when the squelching noises begin?
Dennis the Menace-If a Persian wears a wig would it be a Persian rug?
Beetle is giving Sarge the gift of an AWOL charge, which will get him dishonorably disharged and out of Sarge’s life forever, save for when he testifies at the military tribunal.
RMMD: The snarky narration box was beginning to get pretty damned tired of all the undeserved snark getting reflected back to it. But it had a plan, to fix those unappreciative posters – those unworthy posters – once and for all. Soon… soon.
Is anyone else having trouble getting Comics Kingdom to load? I’ve been having to go to the Seattle PI site, which is an even more ad-choked nightmare.
BB: “A mixtape!” [Wait a minute, cassettes are no longer in use! Do young people use something equivalent? Probably, let’s keep it generic] “A music mix!”
RMMD: “Mindy, you killed Buck!”
“What, he clearly ate himself to death!”
“No, that could be avoided by exercise! But you called him ‘honey’! Why didn’t you use a term of endearment without sugary content!”
Buck inadvertently discovers a strange truth about mathematics. Numbers look better after you exercise. That’s why Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture while swimming the English Channel, and why the P versus NP problem remains unsolved until the right mathematical ultramarathoner comes along.
Luann: Let’s not forget that Bernice’s whole case hangs on the testimony of an incontinent dog! And I don’t mean Frank. (“Bark once if it was Jack, Puddles.”) Nancy Drew she’s not.
@Jihadi Colin:
“I’m a lifelong dog parent”
I KNEW there were Pluggers posting here. Of course, on the internet, no one would know you were a dog.
Pluggers: Oh God! Is it laundry day again? That lard-ass is about to stuff me over the top with that floppy gray pile of XXL butt covers! Of course he *could* fold or roll up all those tarps so they’d fit inside, make it much more comfortable for me, and actually CLOSE the drawer. But noooooo, that would be too much fucking trouble! Jerk! But at least I’ll be emptying out again soon … he has to change four times a day when he pisses himself.
While Plato adopts the ideas of his namesake — material reality is imperfect but real —, Beetle believes in the more radical idealism of George Berkeley: material reality does not exist, things have no independent reality but they only exist when they are perceived (esse est percipi). If he is outside the range of perception of Sarge, he will cease to exist. You might argue that this is not how reality works, but Beetle knows he lives in a comics: characters stop to exist when they are not depicted
@Victory Garden: I had forgotten about that nuance. Boreniece’s case is entirely based on statements from a DOG.
This character needs to get laid. And even that might not help her out.
Luann: Bizarre advice from the brother. Assuming it was actually Jack in Luann’s room, why would he be willing to have any kind of conversation with Bernice about it?
9CL: Our resident exhibitionist has to take the time to preen for every man she passes. Since they’re wearing coats, by the way, isn’t Edda cold in her tiny outfit? Or is that part of what he’s noticing? Everyone’s become so generic in this strip that I wondered why Juliette was remarking again on an outfit she’d seen yesterday; it took me a second look to realize that this was a different couple.
MT: Doesn’t the editor know there’s a family connection?
Phantom: “You don’t f— the Phantom; he f—s you.”
BB – oh, come now, BB – the reality is blow jobs all the way around….
RMMD – Yoo-hoo – a little sex-candy snack?
Pluggers – Pluggers don’t need no stinkin’ underwear…and believe you me, if they had some it would be stinkin’….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Pluggers: “The only fruits allowed to touch a Plugger’s twig and berries are his Fruit of the Looms.”
RMMD: how long is this going to get dragged out? My prediction is that Dumbass Buck now believes he can indulge himself provided he exercises afterwards. In fact, I predict the words “I need the exercise anyhow” will make an appearance. Even Snarky Narration Box will get bored and give up.
6Chx: Note the hair on the calves, a perspicacious nod to contemporary realism. Or maybe Bianca just never shaves down there.
9CL – Google’s “fake facts” department informs me that the last unironic use of “eyes front, big boy!” in popular culture was found in the 1933 Mae West joint “I’m No Angel” (later repurposed as a horrible Gregg Allman tune).
So I suppose we’re fated for her to spend the rest of the week visiting the different couples and getting a rise out of them before the inevitable “Amos experiences a massive coronary, followed by a lap dance” sequence.
els @21 re: RMMD: I know what you mean. I’m hearing that narration box in the voice of Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson…
But ya ARE in that chair, Blanche! Ya ARE in that chair!!!
@Rusty:
RMMD: Yes dear, I need a wife with an adult’s hairstyle.
Au contraire Buck, by way of Rusty… Mindy’s Carol Brady cut is a universal adult woman “style”, nay, hairdo. It would be a younger style were it missing the neat tendrils at the nape and ears – this is not so much a pixie as it is a face-saving attempt thereof. Think of the shape as “reverse pineapple”. Women of size often neglect to consider hair-to-face ratio in choosing these styles, but for women of a certain age with straight, thinnish hair, it’s a go-to. It’s the color that needs to grow up, but even now, a lot of ladies are opting for pink instead of Ashy Dishwater #7.
I realize I’m stepping on Fashion Police’s toes, but it had to be said.
LUANN – Checking in again that the plot is still that Bernice has to live with Luann because she is avoiding her brother aka the person she is having this conversation with?
Or is she now afraid of Tara’s cousin too? Maybe Bernice can move in with Tara in the supply room. They can both enjoy the hardwood floors together. It’s the closest Bernice will ever come to hard wood, so she might as well lap it up.
@Ukulele Ike: re 6Cx: Yes, I like that she went to the trouble to illustrate her lower leg hair. Was showing tufts from the armpits too over the top?
As a dude who’s still trying to reestablish exercise as his primary weapon against blood sugar and depression in a pandemic… yeah, that’s kinda how the diabetus works.
I’m looking forward to the thrill ride that is Buck going to Rex’s office in 3 months, having his blood drawn, and being told “Your A1C levels are higher than I’d expect given your blood sugar test results. You might be spiking at other times during the day and night.”
Mary Worth: Increasingly concerned that we’re going to jump straight from the perpetual 1950s sensibility we’ve come to expect from the strip straight into the waters charted by 9 Chickweed Lane by getting a panel of Eve and Saul going at it in parallel to Max and Greta
FC-Thus explaining how Billy acquired his BDSM nickname.
I’m just imagining how dumb you’ll feel when Sarge unwraps Zero’s gift of a set of mint condition “Sgt. Fury” comics and begins to weep openly that someone could know him so completely.
Rex Morgan narration box, you are Chekov’s Gun in this arc. Buck had better be in a diabetic coma by Act 3 of this boredomfest. Put up or shut up, Rex Morgan narration box!
@Tom T.: 9CL – I thought that was Juliette, too. A second look shows that she has a slightly different hairstyle with curly ends.
Am I going to have to look at this strip twice to figure out who the characters are? Looking at this garbage once is sometimes more than I can stand.
Bliss – Even the fortune teller is a cat, and a glamorous one at that.
FC – That is one of the strangest backgrounds I have ever seen. They’re in an enormous, bare white room. No furniture, nothing. It’s either a pretentious existential drama, or Billy is dreaming that he’s in hell.
9CL: I Speak Jive, this is the nun and the priest who are no longer a nun and a priest but boink whenever they have a mild disagreement. The ones with all the Village of the Damned children with dots for eyes who sit around silently and obediently reading High Literature.
Well, let’s everybody just settle down, pardners. I know this whippersnapper Narration Box has been stealin’ my thunder here lately, and I’ve just been a-lettin’ him “do his thing.” But I knew that sooner or later, that new-fangled, smart-alecky style would get him in a heap o’ trouble. Yeah, I’ve been around this place long enough to know that you geezers like to be the ones doin’ the snarkin’ (a-heh,a-heh,wheeze) The Narrator just moves the story along, all gentle-like, while spreadin’ calm and givin’ that touch o’ nostalgia so important to the good folks who like to post here.
You gotta lot to learn about life here in
PluggervilleCurmudgeonville, little Narration Box. Maybe you’d better skee-daddle and go watch some vintage Disney or The Western Channel. Just sayin’.BB: Is this a quirk of the coloring process or are Rocky’s temples actually turning grey?
RMMD: The narrator is such a sanctimonious dick that I want him to be wrong, and it angers me that he’s certain to be right.
Pluggers: The first draft said “wearing,” not “folding,” but the syndicate rejected it.
@melissaurus: Yeah, I figured that out eventually. Aren’t they the couple who conceive one of those creepy children every time they boink?
It’s really, really difficult to tell these characters apart when they are wandering in a void with no context as to where they are. A convent? The diner? The crowded streets of Manhattan? Grand Central Station? Buckingham Palace?
It also doesn’t help that all the characters look and dress exactly alike except for minor variations in hair color and style, and all have exactly the same personalities.
Getting Valentine’s Day tips from Sally Forth is like…well, everything else in Sally Forth: stupid sprinkled on asinine, topped off with a generous portion of fucked up and served with a side of bullshit.
@Folksy Narrator: Hey, Sam Elliott, how ya doin’? Loved you in Parks and Recreation!
@Joe Blevins:
And in the other corner, Buck “Mensa” Wise.
Pity they can’t both lose.
Luann – Plumbing explosion? Yeah, his plumbing exploded all over her
facechestsheets…nope. There’s no way that happens in Luannland.Oh joy. A redux of the “Hammie is a robot [or fill in the blank]” arc, now with a pail. How refreshingly original, and featuring one of the most endearing and complex characters in the history of comics.
Yay! Jeremy is a teen who blasts music and just can’t fathom the world of fogies!
Wait! What? Frazz-speak is so cerebral I feel like a total dummy. Jef Mallett– oh, you genius you! I shake my fist at thou!
@Bless the Beasts: Yeah, okay, Mallett: I shake my fist at THEE. Here’s a Middle Ages finger too.
@Jihadi Colin: I think Max and Greta touched noses earlier in the week. That’s something dogs do, right?
BB: In order to convey that Zero is dumb, his choice is “comic books”. With so much of corporate entertainment in movie and comic books devoted to celebrate its nerd consumers as special, is nice to see some old-fashioned open contempt for the reader.
@Bless the Beasts: Re Frazz – why does Caulfield spout this pompous gibberish all the time? Is it to show that he’s a superior genius like his idol Frazz?
Mrs. Olsen seems to have a realistic, modest view of herself concerning what Caulfield was expounding about. Susie Jerkins, on the other hand, knows that she herself and Frazz are superior A pluses. Look at how she’s sipping from her water bottle instead of guzzling coffee like tub of lard Mrs. Olsen.
God, I loathe these characters. Buck Wise is just an annoying idiot, but these characters should be in tumbrils on their way to the guillotine.
What do you get for the man turning… (looks up start date on comic, adds forty years) 111 who is still stuck in a time loop with a group of one note characters from which there is no escape?
Correction, what do you get that man that doesn’t involve a grisly suicide, gents, this is a family comic about war and perpetual abuse.
GA: Is Gertie’s appearance their salute to Black History Month? It all seems a bit random, but I guess she’s the only person of color in this comic (?)
@Anonymous: Thanks for the Bizarro comment. I’m hoping the kid with his hand up is going to say that, then suggest the teacher discuss “plagiarism” and “copyright violation.”
PMP::Here we could have had a modern take on the Tantalus myth wherein the condemned dude tries to drink from his water full water bottle only to watch it evaporate as he tilts it to his parched lips. Then the plastic bottle melts all over his hand. He reaches into the coloer, gets another bottle, the same thing happens. Again and again, for all eternity.
@Dr. Pill: I’m hoping the kid with his hand up is going to say that, then suggest the teacher discuss “plagiarism” and “copyright violation.” No, it’s an ironic commentary on the commodification of artistic expression. Geez, get with it, people! How else are we going to continue lowering the bar for actual artistic ability?
Pluggers: Andy Bear has been listening to Kenny Rogers and knows it’s not time to fold them because he’s still in the game.
Andy keeps a shadow picture of Sheila Roo on his dresser thinking, “If I can’t see her she can’t see me.”
love is... keeping your lunch in a bindle.
@I speak Jive: What do you mean?! Brooke is a paragon of diverse representation. Ex-nun and Ex-priest are totally different from Edda’s mom and her submissive, because they have a passel of creepy offspring, while Juliette is able to satisfy her bottomless carnal lust with zero repercussions as all post-menopausal women must and do, because the female body is always lithe and ready for action regardless of age. He draws two Chinese women who definitely aren’t Edda with black hair and glasses. And an old man. And another, fatter, old man. And all of them are oversexed, but also are completely inexperienced and panic at the thought of physical pleasure and intimacy.
And! He! Drew! A! Black! Person! In! Last! Tuesday’s! Strip!
Black History Month, ladies and gentlemen!
Pluggers keep their underwear for so long that it is more “hole” than “fabric”, so why bother folding it?
@I speak Jive: Right! Mallett has no interest in entertaining an audience. He just likes rubbing his “intellect” in the faces of the inferior.
FC: The funny part of this strip, of course, is everyone staring at Billy, as if thinking “Did he really just say that?” Sometimes, even Jeffy can’t believe how dumb he is!
JP: Is this whole Kat thing some attempt to make us feel sympathy for Neddy? Because I can hate both of them!
MW: Okay, so apparently both dog owners in this strip routinely serve their own meals (unseasoned, obviously) to the dogs. In Eve’s case, she mixes it with “chow”, so she knows dog food exists.
Is this normal? It’s been a long time since we had a dog, but as far as I remember, the only times she was fed human food was surruptitiously under the table.
@Tom T.: MT: Doesn’t the editor know there’s a family connection?
Supposedly not — Mark certainly hasn’t told her. Now, personally, my theory is that she knew all along, which was precisely i>why she assigned Mark this story, and then she just went along with it when he avoided mentioning this, but that hasn’t been confirmed.
My Valentine gift to Ted Forth would LOOK like chocolate.
@Sequitur: Then I guess they’re going to eat their hearts out.
Beetle Bailey-That’s so nice of Beetle to give Sarge’s fists a break for the day.
@Ukulele Ike:
I’m vacillating between reading the Snarky Narration Box in the voice of Harold Peary as The Great Gildersleeve or Orson Welles’ The Shadow.
Love Is-When you come together. https://www.artfulaspreycartoons.co.uk/love-is-color-9-february-2021/
@Horace Broon: Isn’t there a brand of dog called a “chow?” Maybe Eve has transformed Max into a cannibal canine and is now working her evil will on Greta, too.
“But do you, Buck, really?” is one of my favorite narrative closures of all time. Its sarcastic skepticism could apply to so many comic strip situations, not just in Rex Morgan MD. Slylock Fox claims to know who committed a crime? “But do you, Slylock, really?” Mary Worth vows to stay out of someone else’s situation? “But will you, Mary, really?” Dennis insists he’s a menace? “But are you, Dennis, REALLY?”
@Sequitur: love is… keeping your lunch in a bindle.
Indifference is… letting her provide favors to wealthier hobos in exchange for your first decent meal in a week.
@Old School Allie Cat: I’ve always wondered if Mindy’s pink hair is intentional or if it was a mistake by the color monkeys that they just went with.
@jenna: “But do you, Buck, really?” is one of my favorite narrative closures of all time.
But is it, Jenna, REALLY?
@102 Peanut Gallery:
Heh, heh.
@Bless the Beasts:
Well, with him raking in all that sweet school-maintenance money, what does he need us for?
Blondie-The quarantine is getting to Dagwood.
Dustin-Jim’s girlfriend doesn’t want him to go in through the back door.
Sally Forth-Poor Ted. The deposit for the midget clown was nonrefundable.
@Bless the Beasts: Not quite. Malett’s audience is people who find that sort of thing funny.
I remember the early days of the strip as much less pretentious and annoying, but maybe that was because I was a teenager at the time.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: #68
“LUANN – Checking in again that the plot is still that Bernice has to live with Luann because she is avoiding her brother aka the person she is having this conversation with?”
I thought it was just that brother Ben had taken Bernice’s room when he moved in with the family (at that time Bernice still had her dorm room as an R.A. perk and thus didn’t need it; then she lost the dorm job and the dorm room). But it could also be that even Bernice’s parents are sick of her and told her to get out and stay out. (Have we ever actually seen Bernice’s parents? I don’t recall doing so, which automatically makes them tied for the most likable characters in the strip, along with all of the other people we’ve never seen, like instructors at the junior college who teach anything other than Remedial Fingerpainting for Idiots 101.)
@Negative Vibe Merchant: re Sally Forth: And we’re getting a whole week of it. Why is Ted so hung up and defensive about them not “going out and celebrating big”? It’s a pandemic, stupid.
@I speak Jive: #80
“It also doesn’t help that all the characters look and dress exactly alike except for minor variations in hair color and style, and all have exactly the same personalities.”
Well, Thorax doesn’t look and dress like the other characters, but I’m not sure that’s any improvement. (He does look a bit like the cow the large animal vet once treated, though.)
@Shrug: LUANN: Bernice still had her dorm room as an R.A. perk and thus didn’t need it
Which itself was a weird retcon, since previously Bernice explicitly said that she had a full-ride scholarship, which by definition includes room and board.
Hmm. What’s really in that drawer?
@Sequitur: Thanks for the h/t.
@Ettorre: While Zero directly suggests “comic books,” as if aware–not that he does exist, or doesn’t exist, but in what sense he does or does not exist. Zero is Zen.
(Okay, more like a Madhyamika, but Zen is funnier.)
@brendancalling: This arc should end with Luann listening to noises from Bernice’s room. We need dramatic closure.
@Tom T.: (on MT): Apparently not, and nobody seems to have noticed their identical names. Now Amy Lee (Mark’s editor, the one wearing fox-themed jewelry) is praising him despite his journalistic lapses and general shenanigans.
@122 Zla’od:
What Luann will hear are the sounds of chipmunks.
@Vardian: Pluggers hate those flamboyant California queers. Pluggers are on the down-low.
@Old School Allie Cat: Back in the 1970’s, I thought Iron Man should have been dating Mrs. Arbogast rather than Bethany Cabe. (For MCU-only fans, back then Pepper Potts was married to Happy Hogan.)
@Conynaut: Straight into the waters? Make that “straight into John Waters.”
@Dear Bratmeister: Is Billy from FC canonically a “Junior”? Or would he have to be Bily?
@Joe Blevins: (on BB) He’s supposed to look like Elvis.
@richardf8: That’s one thing dogs do, yes. Let’s see how many of the others June Brigman dares to illustrate.
@Dr. Pill: @Blast Hardcheese: Kids today, with their “sampling”.
@melissaurus: A black person? In New York?! What’s next, non-gardening Hispanics in the southern California of Santa Royale?
@Horace Broon: I’d say that table scraps are normal (mixed with dog food or not), but the dogs would be getting unwanted leftover stuff, not good stuff.
@merle: True, but I question the whole “going large on the Gouda” thing.
Zla’od @126: Sure! Many Hispanics in Santa Royale are also employed in health care, food service, or domestic servitude.
@Zla’od:What does Amy have to worry about? The great thing about hiring freelance writers to do work for hire is that when they blow shit up, their card-sharp wives pay the insurance. I’m sure Bill Ellis has shared a story or two with her. “Under NO circumstances do you want to make him a W-2 employee. Keep the relationship 1099, so you aren’t liable for his actions. Ask me how I know.”
RMMD: I’m imagining Mindy’s next words, as she continues to pose seductively against the door frame, “I’ve dyed the carpet to match the drapes, you big hunk of sweating manhood. Come have a taste, you’ll think that you’re slurping a big strawberry milkshake!” Narration box “But will you, Buck, really?”
9CL-And this is why Brooke is no longer allowed near middle schools.
@Sequitur:
What Luann will hear are the sounds of chipmunks.
Playing with their nuts.
@melissaurus: Last Tuesday’s strip – I checked it again, and there are TWO Black persons in the crowd. Amazing. They’re reacting no differently from the rest of the crowd, so at least Brooke is an equal opportunity hack cartoonist.
@Bless the Beasts: He has smug, sanctimonious superiority down to an art. Nearly every interaction between the characters involves Frazz, Caulfield, and/or the other young exercise fanatic teacher making snide remarks about everyone else. And then Caulfield had the chutzpah to say that he wanted people to “be kind.” I still haven’t recovered from the whiplash I experienced reading that.
@Shrug: Oh, you’re right. I must have blocked Thorax out of my mind. I do recall, however, that when he got involved with the park ranger he was pretty much like all the other emotionally stunted males.
Shouldn’t the snarky narration box in MW read
“But will you Buck. Really?”
That is how I would write it if I were in the comics biz. The misplaced commas are distracting.
LOOK OUT BUCK, THE NARRATOR HAS IT IN FOR YOU!!! Is this a sign that something interesting might happen? Probably not, but rest assured that whatever happens, be it Buck’s untimely death at the hands of his apparent fast food addiction, or blood sugar-fueled antics, it literally can’t be more depressing than the Funkyverse!
@I speak Jive: (on 9CL) Must be Black History Month.
@richardf8: They might have to publish a retraction, like Rolling Stone did awhile back:
“Teen Girl Sparkle regrets that our recent article, ‘What I Learned From Gazing into the Eyes of a Manatee and My Black Best Friends’. represented an unethical conflict of interest on the part of its reporter, Mark Trail IV. Our failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. Mr. Trail has been reassigned to other periodicals in our conglomerate (namely ‘Boating’ Magazine). We also regret the unfortunate loss of life…”
MW: “But will you, Buck, Really?”
But what about Naomi?
MW: Eve: “Maybe this time I won’t just lie there and be a ‘pillow princess,’ but actually move during the act.”
Narration box: But will you buck, really?
@fnd:
MW?!? Who knew that you could post things on the interwebs when you are drunk? I meant RMMD
**hic**
FW: Just think–instead of cataracts, we could have spent the last couple of weeks thinking and joking about Funky’s colon.
@Zla’od:
Or his sugars.
9CL: “And how about your old nun’s habit? You still have that?”