OK THEY SHOOT A DOG TODAY IN MARY WORTH AND DON’T WORRY HE’S FINE BUT STILL WTF????
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Mary Worth, 2/16/21
OK, I don’t want to tell anyone how to open up and share their past trauma, but I do think it’s wild that Eve led with a big reveal that her late husband used to trip her, a sinister but relatively mild form of abuse, only to later casually drop into a fun conversation about how great dogs are the fact that, oh yeah, he also tried to murder me with a gun except that my dog saved me by getting shot in the neck. Don’t worry, the dog is fine, though! He’s right there in that strip I linked to above, looking fine! Unless Eve has had … a series of identical dogs named Max? Who she treats as the same dog? Best not to think about it, although now I can’t think of anything else.
Pluggers, 2/16/21
I didn’t think anything could make me more simultaneously angry and confused than “pluggers like to ‘accidentally’ drop their pants in public,” but “non-pluggers get food particles out from between their teeth like this, but pluggers get food particles out from between their teeth like this,” so, uh, congrats to today’s Pluggers, I guess!
Shoe, 2/16/21
Ha ha, it’s funny because Shoe, the character, doesn’t know what an escape room is, and possibly Shoe, the comic strip, doesn’t either!
208 replies to “OK THEY SHOOT A DOG TODAY IN MARY WORTH AND DON’T WORRY HE’S FINE BUT STILL WTF????”
MW: Read this comic strip, or we’ll shoot this dog!
Eve’s expression in panel 2 was the same as mine reading the damned thing.
I guess Karen Moy must have realized that Saul and Eve were rehashing the same points every day, and decided to throw in something a little more exciting.
So–CC fundraising banner. What should the caption say?
“Sacrifice yourself…for the Comics Curmudgeon!”
MW: Is Max’s pose lifted from an issue of “Krypto the Super-Dog” or something?
love is... pulling the ol’ “No penis in my pockets!” trick.
Mary Worth: Oh, look, he’s wearing a white T-shirt under his button-down and tie. What are those called? Right. Yeah, I don’t think we want to call them that anymore.
Pluggers: A plugger only gets lost in thought when there’s a thin wooden stick going through his teeth and all the way up into his brain.
Shoe: Every sitcom and detective drama aired over the past two years has done an episode centered around an escape room. So Shoe actually is keeping up with the culture, almost. Plus, they were way ahead of the curve on the open-air dining trend.
Ballistically speaking, that bullet would have gone through the dogs skin and into Eve, yet all he’s guilty of, is tripping her. Wow, serious denial
@Zla’od:
“Contribute generously to the Comics Curmudgeon … or we’ll kill this dog!”
Gotta go with the classics.
Dr. John Bellome is actually a dentist in Kansas. Is his Pluggers submission meant as a commentary on the inadequate oral hygiene practices in the local population or is he cynically promoting the toothpick as a substitute for flossing to rake in that sweet gingivitis cash?
Who am I kidding….THEY SHOT A FUCKING DOG IN MARY WORTH!!!!
Also worth noting: today ends the streak of “Josh never gets the good Mary Worths” that began in 2010 with the Shootout at the SantaRoyMart.
Bizarro : introducing the new addition to the Beetle Bailey cast!
*****
Crankshaft : So, the “flu epidemic” storyline is followed by “it’s such a shame no one is coming to our big gathering!” storyline that is also simultaneously a “man, this year’s winter’s been unusually warm, hasn’t it?” storyline? And to top it all off, it’s also a “Crankshaft’s community is completely helpless to stop him destroying things and ruining big events” storyline? Batiuk, you spoil us! Rotten! Your like comics are!
******
Crock : Yeah, you’d be excused for thinking someone wasn’t expecting perfection, or even a moderately competently done job, in Crock.
******
Dick Tracy : So, the Neo-Chicago cops just have cameras everywhere they can just zoom and enhance to get the face of killer instantly at any time?… Also, why did it take them so long to find this footage? Did they REALLY have to interrogate a random junkie to be able to intuit that “though Dollar Bill’s body was found at the docks, he might have been murdered elsewhere. He usually hung out at the park, maybe that’s where it happened”?
******
Funky Winkerbean : Westview is not only the cancer capital of the US, it’s the mononucleosis and herpes capital as well. All so the students can pretend to be a different brand of terrible when a music substitute shows up (as opposed to their usual terrible).
******
Mary Worth : Mythomania is a plausibility, as well. Would be a weird direction to take this story in, though!
*****
Phoebe and Unicorn : Hey, not planning out your story and having difficulty filling the plot between introduction and ending is perfectly excusable for a comic doodle by a kid during school hours! Heck, it’s been excused in a whole bunch of professional fiction written by adults!
MW – His full name is Max The Amazing Kevlar Dog.
MW: Unfortunately, Eve found the one dog that wouldn’t jump up to bite his face and hang on.
I’ve known people with smaller dogs when, in attack mode, would have Purple StripeyPants’ Devil holding their water dish. Just sayin’….
MW: I believe this is the point that Saul will ask, “Why didn’t you write to your elected officials and demand stricter gun-control laws?”
MW: Eve has been dropping little hints and reveals about just how abusive her late husband was. Just dropping a story about shooting a dog in mid-week may be high, but I feel we’re coming up to her “IT WAS A CHICKEN!!” Moment.
I don’t care if you’re from Lawrence, Kansas – if you’re a doctor, you’re not a Plugger! What’s next? Plugger software engineers? Plugger ad execs? Plugger hedge fund managers? Will we learn that the Plugger private jet is when you’re the only person in first class on your red-eye flight into Silicon Valley?
I can tell that Josh doesn’t have kids. The point of the pluggers comic for today was a joke about the dance called flossing that every kid does all the time, reaching levels of annoyance close to baby shark. https://youtu.be/0Kj3wWKjMSQ?t=23 Or did he know that and I just missed his sarcasm?
Look, domestic abuse awful. It’s made especially worse where abusers have easy access to guns, because it makes killing their spouses simple. Any representation of domestic abuse and gun violence in any medium needs to be carefully considered. A simple art style can still get a serious point across well, but a more detailed art style really needs to consider where the focus ends up being. The odd proportions and weird angles in Mary Worth are not working to convey the serious subject matter of the story. I can’t help but think that the only reason Gary shot Eve is because he can’t hit her properly with his tiny hands.
@Little Guy: Oh, hell. I’m calling it.
Eve’s going to reveal that she killed Gary. Totally justified, cops probably put the pieces together, but the autopsy revealed “Natural Causes”, the case shut and buried deep, and the advice give to Eve is to move far far away from Philly and start over.
Shoe: I assume Shoe is referring to his wedding? Is that the “joke,” if that’s the correct term to use in reference to “Shoe”?
Josh gets so inexplicably angry at Pluggers, I’m starting to think one shot his dog…a dog who…flossed, I think.
During the Great Moon Hoax of the 1830s, when a New York newspaper posted a series of fake articles alleging the discovery- “by means of a giant tekescop using an entirely new principle” – of life on the moon, each succeeding article tried to outdo the previous one in terms of “fantastic discoveries” to maintain readers’ interest.
I was reminded of this because Karen Moy obviously felt her “domestic abuse” story was going nowhere fast when it came to merely tripping. So she moved on to (? I didn’t really understand if it was one) black eyes, but even that didn’t hold enough, uh, drama for an audience used to seeing Irish stuff a roll down Weelbur’s drunken gullet. So, like the paper, which left its greatest wonders (such as winged humans and a temple surmounted by a sculptured sun) to the end, Moy finally decided, “This isn’t working. What is he tried just to shoot her?”
Edgar Allen Poe, who watched the Great Moon Hoax unfurl and left some snarky observations about it, would have had fun with this. Adam (whatever his real name is) tried to shoot Eve, Max (von Richthofen) flew in between then and took the bullet. Adam, thinking Eve (who had fainted) was dead, walled her and Max up in the cellar. The police came enquiring, and from the depths of the cellar sounded a mounting crescendo of noise:
“Woof. WoofwoofwoofWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF.”
Adam: “Fiends! Devils! Tear down the wall! ‘Tis the noise of her tell tale terrier!”
MW: you’d think Eve would have started her story with telling about the time Gary tried to shoot her. I’m absolutely boggle minded by this development.
RMMD: ffs get on with it.
@Jihadi Colin: telescope, not tekescop
“Oh, yeah, and later Max ate him while he slept, so it’s all good.”
Pluggers: I take it the plugger is using a toothpick, which he keeps in his shirt pocket.
Mary Worth – Well, talk about burying the lede! I don’t even know where to go with this, but I have to admit, it’s at least more interesting than “life is brutal”, or Iris Beedie’s change-of-life malaise.
MW: I feel like this is proof that Mary Worth is reading the comments. “Oh, was the tripping thing not enough for you? Ok fine, Eve was actually married to Yosemite fucking Sam in a Gap outfit!”
Pluggers use their after-dinner time for deep philosophical thought, or ‘flossing’, as they call it.
Shoe: “Ha ha, kids these days and their ‘escape rooms’. In my day we went to Vegas, got loaded and got tried to weasel our way out of our own quicky weddings. Is that what I’m saying? I think that’s what I’m saying…”
@Jihadi Colin:
“Merely tripping” is Mary Worth‘s baseline mode!
Eve faked her own death to get away from Aldo there, and has come to Santa Royale to seek closure at his grave.
Please?
Pluggers: Why does he look so worried? Go for it, man! Go get that shred of pork meat! Don’t live in fear anymore, running your tongue repeatedly over the gristly abomination stuck in your bicuspids, wondering if pigs really are smarter than dogs, wondering how you can live with yourself, turning yourself into a great big bundle of guilt and nerves. Just pick out that flesh particle. Pick it out and swallow it again, in fact, because you are one carnivorous son of a bitch!
MW: You can’t fool me. Gary was totally aiming at the dog.
Mary Worth Chapter 3: Parabellum.
MW: I am one of those people that strongly dislikes dogs wearing bandanas, but if Max wants to wear one to cover the gnarly scar from when he took a bullet for his mistress, all I have to say to him is, “Who’s a good little bandana boy? YOU ARE! YOU ARE!”
RxMD: IHey, Buck, they’re not sit-ups unless you actually lie down and then, y’know, sit back up.
I suppose in Shoe an escape room is a metal cage with a perch and The Treetops Tattler-Tribune lining the bottom.
Plugger dog, pickin’ his teeth as he looks up at Max being shot. “Yup,” he says calmly, “I’m eatin’ another human today.”
MW: Okay, that doesn’t solve the problem unless there are five more dogs.
“Mary Worth” has taken up from “Mark Trail” the mission of demonstrating that peculiar facial hair are proof of evil
MW: The only way today’s strip can be rationalized is if Eve is sick of trying to open up about her past to Saul only to have him ramble about how he loves his dumb fucking dachshund and just went for the nuclear option of dogloving oneupsmanship. But let’s be real, this is Karen Moy we’re talking about. The face value is fact. So what does all that mean?
1. On top of cruel-but-mostly-weird abuse like tripping and shaking his fist at her, on at least one occasion Gary pulled a revolver on Eve and tried to shoot her to death.
2. Eve stayed with Gary even though he pulled a gun on her and tried to shoot her to death. Eve justified this by saying, “hindsight is clearer than foresight.”
3. Max is some kind of superdog that is able to survive gunfire to his vital organs as well as seemingly several decades.
4. Eve stayed with Gary even though he pulled a gun on her and tried to shoot her to death.
5. Max the superdog understands what firearms are, how they work, and intervenes to protect his owner not by attacking the gun-wielder or pulling the intended victim away from danger, but by performing a perfectly timed Secret Service diving bullet-interception.
6. Eve stayed with Gary even though he pulled a gun on her and tried to shoot her to death.
7. Eve must have covered up Gary’s dogshooting, either by lying to the authorities or taking Max to some kind of back-alley veterinarian that doesn’t ask questions.
8. EVE STAYED WITH GARY EVEN THOUGH HE PULLED A GUN ON HER AND TRIED TO SHOOT HER TO DEATH.
9. Even thinks that having one’s spouse attempt to murder them with a gun is the kind of information you mention casually over dinner while talking about how much you like your pet.
10. EVE STAYED WITH GARY EVEN THOUGH HE PULLED A GUN ON HER AND TRIED TO SHOOT HER TO DEATH.
This is absolutely bananas. Not one single second of reflection was put into any of this before it was published. Moy just says, “And then this happens,” and that’s that. We joke about all this, but my god, this is just terrible.
The “Mary Worth” writer is so cynical to believe that the readers are black-hearted: they will laugh at domestic abuse. Only showing a character shooting a dog will demonstrate that he is evil. Unfortunately, the writer is right.
@Maltmash3r: Depends on the bullet. The way the strip is drawn makes it hard to tell what size the revolver is supposed to be, but if it was low caliber it might not have gone through the dog.
S: Bird-Elvis is still alive. Birds have cloaca and shit everywhere, so there was no toilet to die on
Does Mary Worth speak dog? Because I think Max is going to need quite a bit of meddling, and some platitudes.
MT: In lighter news, Mark seems to be planning to find out how well taxidermied animals explode. I don’t know how that’s going to help his friend get his land back from Mark’s dad, but somehow I think it will.
MW: “I had always suspected, but that’s when I knew that Max had super powers. Soon he began flying a lot, and then one night I had him on the leash and we flew to Manhattan. He has x-ray eyes too, and is super smart, and once he knocked down Gary with his laser beam that comes from his eyes. I lost him for five years but then his we got his super stone back in his forehead, and molecules reassembled and he was good as new as long as I never leave Santa Royale and Mary’s protective shield. Funny, I said “shield.” They want to take him away from me, but that will never happen. Cake?”
@Maltmash3r: @Tom: It’s more about the type of round rather than the caliber. An FMJ round would have a high chance of penetrating compared to a hollowpoint. Gary’s preferred load, however, seems to be some kind of .38 miniaturized supernova bullet.
9CL – (Repost from the wee hours)
I think it was Joanie Caucus from Doonesbury who had a list of requirements before she would go back to her husband. Number one was that every day, upon awakening, he would bow down before her and thrice chant ‘sisterhood is beautiful’. And she never got to number two before he ran away forever.
I think the Burber women have a similar rule for their thralls, as Juliette demonstrates in today’s installment. The key is to find someone with low enough self esteem that they don’t flee like a gazelle after the first condition.
MW – Eh, try living with an alcoholic, having them chase you around with a loaded gun is just another Wednesday night. The key thing to remember is that they are so drunk that they will only be able to hit you by accident. The dog shouldn’t have panicked like that, jumping in front of the bullet is a rookie mistake.
Pluggers: Is Dr. John Bellome any relation to Haywoodjia?
I would have thought that “Plugger flossing” would be using dental floss, with the implied alternative being that “flossing” dance all the kids are doing with their mincerafts and fortnights. Rather than “Pluggers use toothpicks to pick their teeth!”
Now that I think about it, there could be another comic showing “plugger fortnight”, with Rhino-Man marking the day he needs to pay his bills on his calendar, every 2 weeks.
side note: I looked up the term “fortnight” to make sure I had the number of weeks correct, and Google auto-corrected me to “fortnite”, which got me unreasonably annoyed. I do hope that’s not a sign of early-onset Plugger.
Well, at least the dog didn’t have cancer—Tom Batiuk later today, probably.
@Tom:
That’s an empirical question. I’ll get the ammo; you go round up a bunch of dogs.
The only way this storyline can be saved is if Mary’s name causes Eve to freak out at a pool party. Or maybe “Gary” was Mary all along?
@jroggs: You are absolutely correct. This is mind boggling and appalling. Weeks of talking about being tripped and then, “Oh, by the way, he pulled a gun on me and my dog got shot.” She stayed with him after THAT? I guess his bank balance must have been the deciding factor.
I’m wondering if anyone called the police. Assuming the dog survived the shooting, it would have needed treatment from a veterinarian. Are veterinarians required to report gunshot wounds like doctors?
RMMD-“I can’t eat solids anymore and I love solids.”
MW-Eve dropped Max into the path of the bullet.
JP-It’s Mr. McGuffin calling.
JP-Thank heaven for sudden interruptions for they get more delightful each day.
FC-Billy, they should have retired your number when you stopped wearing it.
Sorry, gag strips. That panel of the dog heroically taking a bullet like he’s a secret service agent is the funniest panel of the day.
AMAZELESS SPIDER-MEH: Aw, isn’t that cute! Icecube Ant-Guy and Icecube Spider-Guy have bonded so much over this silly plot that they are now sharing a speech balloon, and they apparently both thought the same thing at the same time, even if that thing was only “!?” — does this count as a new superpower for each of them? Sorry, typo, I meant “new stupidpower.”
DICK TRUCULENT: I think it was only a few weeks ago during the “Yeti the inept meteor thief” storyline that we learned that NeoChicago now has regular drones survelling its urban core. I guess Junior doesn’t have the budget to cover all of the less-dense suburban/park/etc. areas with them, so he has to make do with an array of trailcams to — spy on the local racoons? Did Junior wash out of the Major Crimes Unit but find a home better fit to his talents in the Keeping an Eye on Critters Who MIght Knock Over Somebody’s Garbage Can Unit?
FUNGAL WILTEDBRAIN: “O.K., and now your underwear.”
MW: It’s an unfortunate truth that many woman find themselves unable or unwilling to leave an abusive relationship, even after the abuser pulls a gun on her. Karen Moy in her wisdom has opted to explore exactly zero of these reasons; Eve’s motivation for not leaving Gary seems to come straight from Bartleby the Scrivener.
Pluggers have the worst personal habits.
@I speak Jive: @jroggs: Sadly, people do stay with abusers, even after violence like this. Terror is a hell of a drug.
Dustin: #1: Beach driftwood would smell mainly like dead fish and rotting seaweed, wouldn’t it?
#2: Apparently Helen Kudlick’s first husband once shot her in the neck!
“So they shot a dog in Mary Worth this morning? Go on…” —Aged, non-ironic daily comics readers
RWO – She’s running to the store to buy bread, eggs, milk, and toilet paper.
6Chix – No comments on this yet?
Calvin and Hobbes – I hope one of those custodians wasn’t Frazz. Calvin will see his future and immediately go stick his head in the oven.
Crankshaft & FW – I can’t decide which is more annoying – the heavy lidded ennui of the ice festival planners or the smirks on the kids in band class.
Pluggers get their laxatives from their lawn not from a drugstore! [picture of plugger dogman chewing on a big chunk of grass]
Bliss: The cat is about to use up one of its nine lives, when the cannon recoils.
(Bliss has become one of my hate-reads.)
9CL – This makes no sense. Amos picked up this Dutch lingo from Elliott and Juliette’s pillow talk? Was he observing them?
Why do we never see Amos’s family? Does he even have one?
“Ma’am, this is the nineteenth dog you’ve gotten from this shelter. Is there something you want to tell us?”
“Well, I know my husband had at least eighteen bullets . . . .”
PHANTOM: Actually, “The Macho Facists” might be a good name for a Lucha Libre tagteam.
9 CHICKLUST LANE: “It’s been a good forty years since I was a girl.” What was so good about them? Oh, right, the adulation and the boinking. Silly question. Move on.
9 CHICKLUST LANE CLASSICS: And another answer to the above might be that “At least for the last ten or so, I haven’t had to put up with a teenage Edda living at home.”
@I speak Jive: 6Chix – No comments on this yet?
I’ve referenced her narcissistic style before, and doing so today seemed like shooting fish in a barrel.
@Zla’od: I thought the same thing. Max should have a thought balloon saying “Great Rao! I’ve been shot with a red kryptonite bullet! What will happen to me now?”
Anyway, I think we have the first nominee for this year’s Worthy Awards Panel of the Year. Geez!
9CL: We may need to nuke Brooke’s house from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
C’shaft: “Well, the bus driver shouldn’t be a problem this year; such dangerous incompetence must have cost him his job, right?”
“…”
“….Right?”
“Oh honey, you must be new in town…”
FW: Ha-ha, the Kids These Days can’t pull one over on ol’ Harry! He’ll spend the entire week proving that if he has to!
MT: Man, Gaston’s tavern has fallen on hard times.
@I speak Jive: I’m wondering what they told the police when they showed up to investigate the gunshot. What city did Eve say she was from?
It’s funny because (the character and the strip) Shoe’s attitude toward women is unbelievably toxic!
@Little Blue Bicycle: The best superdog in the comics is Cubby, alias Barketype, sidekick of Archetype, the Superman expy from “The Crossovers.” He’s a dachshund.
@Ettorre: I won’t believe he is truly evil until I see him hurl his bubble gum onto the sidewalk.
@cowking: I regret to inform you that, at least around here, the flossing dance is over. I was going to say my kids haven’t flossed in like five years but I did the math on how old they are and it’s at most two years, three at the absolute limit? My sense of time is messed up. Also maybe it’s just that they’re not doing it because they haven’t been in any large gatherings with other kids? Dang, I need to read some Funky Winkerbean to cheer up.
@Ned Ryerson: Thanks for covering my occasional “Does this Plugger’s address undercut the implicit claim to be a salt-of-the-earth working-class person” beat. Professional requiring an advanced degree in a college town, NOPE.
@Little Guy: Philadelphia! Thank you. So–do police in Philly normally investigate gunshots?
Damn, and even after shooting her dog, he still demanded pictures of Spider-Man.
@Little Guy: If so, then this should end with Eve pulling a gun on Saul, and Mary having to talk her down.
@Just John: I feel like the joke about Reese’s would work better if one of Helen’s flavors wasn’t literally ice cream?
@jroggs: I can’t even snarc about this storyline.
RMMD: if the point of this is that Buck isn’t happy about changing his lifestyle but rises to the challenge, then why don’t we cut to Jordan and what’s her name for a while and check back on Buck and Mindy in six months? If Buck does something stupid and suffers the consequences, get on with it.
CS: I guess time for another Crankshaft is an asshole and terrible bus driver who never suffers consequences.
MW – see, Max wasn’t wearing his Kevlar Kerchief in the Gary days. After getting neck-shot, he’s never without one.
MW: my theory is that Gary is a detective with the City of Philadelphia PD, which is why his attempt at murder was covered up.
@Sequitur: love is… pulling the ol’ “No penis in my pockets!” trick.
Indifference is… telling her there is no money for dinner and a movie, so can she just skip ahead to the sex part of the evening.
MW-Talk about shooting the shaggy dog story.
“Have you ever been to an escape room?”
“Just life. One big prison I keep trying to escape from. I don’t know how many times I’ve jumped off a high branch only to remember I can fly. Why do you think I keep coming to this diner? For the food? For the goddamn ambiance? I’m hoping for salmonella in the short term, a coronary in the long run. Now go batter-fry that bacon for me. Papa’s got cholesterol to build up.”
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Thank you, you made me laugh till I had to mop my eyes, the way only someone who knows what you are talking about can laugh. Just another Wednesday night indeed!
Eve is putting on a masterclass in acting here. The leap from “There’s got to be a way to escape from Screaming Young J. Jonah Jameson, and I’ve just got to think of it, THINK!” in panel one to the expansive “What the HELL, dog?!? Are you getting SHOT?” in the exciting denouement is downright Streep-ian.
@Zla’od: I won’t believe he is truly evil until I see him hurl his bubble gum onto the sidewalk.
Are you from Singapore or something?
9CL Haha, Juliette’s bored with her thrall but can’t get rid of him because he’s her assigned love interest until death and the hereafter. Hope you’re miserable and regret all those times you were unnecessarily cruel to your bewildered students, you harpy!
@Ned Ryerson: I think he might have vaguely heard that The Kids had a dance called “flossing” and tried to make a joke on that.
MW: I occasionally watch contemporary western Longmire. One of the characters in Longmire is female deputy Vic who also fled from Philadelphia. Eve is just like Vic. Except Vic fled to Absroka County, Wyoming and Vic has big boobs. Other than that they’re the same. Oh and Vic doesn’t have a dog.
TBH, looking forward to finding out what “Plugger Nae Nae-ing” is (and kinda scared about “Plugger Whipping”).
MW: Wowsers!! I TOLD ’em this would get things poppin’! The buzz is off the charts! And of course Max is OK… that’s his stunt double, Lucky, doin’ the heroic sacrifice in today’s staged flashback. You’ve seen enough of Max to know he doesn’t have that kind of emotive range. Besides, he’s a wussy.
But unfortunately this may be Lucky’s last gig. He gotta little too into the role and mauled the guy playin’ Gary. Bad enough that there’ll be a new guy playin’ Gary in subsequent flashbacks. So after Lucky’s detention and quarantine, he’ll be heading to the Old Comics Farm, upstate. Hey Intern, you did renew the liability policy, didn’t ya?
@Tom: Yeah, but what kind of wuss would own a sidearm that won’t even go through a dog? Not our Gary, certainly!
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: #46
“jumping in front of the bullet is a rookie mistake.”
The “Rookie of the Year Award” ceremonies can be combined with the “In Fond Memory of Those We’ve Lost” moments of silence, saving time and effort at the awards banquet.
9CL – So, the answer to the mystery is that when Amos buried his face in Edda’s boobs and said something, he was talking about her boobs and his voice was muffled! And he couldn’t do that in eighth grade because she hadn’t developed yet! And her boobs are really big enough for the “gag” to work, Brooke just doesn’t draw her that way because boobs don’t usually interest him.
These strips where we pan over from Young Brooke Avatar getting in bed with his young hottie wife to Old Brooke Avatar getting in bed with his, to all appearances, young hottie wife are very off-putting. What is wish fulfillment to him is nauseating to everyone else!! A feeling he should be used to by now.
@Just John: At least this one can actually draw.
@FrivYeti:
Yes, I believe I overlooked that possibility. Dr. Bellome may not have been prepared for the reaction when he asked patients “Are you flossing regularly?”
MW: I say that Eve escaped from the nut house in Philly and escaped across the country with a dog she found. She showed up at the Charterstone which is the perfect place to hide from the authorities.
All of the stories about Gary are in her mind. That is why she keeps changing what happened to her from a trip and fall scam artist to a victim of attempted murder. She has multiple voices in her head that she listens to each day. Soon she is going to become disenchanted with Saul and decapitate him and cut off his arms. Just like she did to her brother Gary.
@N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods:
My theory is that Max is a secret agent assigned to foil the Snidely Whiplash villain known as Gary.
Gary: A dog…?
(Max puts on a Fedora)
Gary: Max the dog?!
The scary thing about today’s MARY WORTH is that it’s only Tuesday, so Moy will probably feel obliged to up the ante every day for the rest of the week:
WEDNESDAY: “And after shooting the dog, he went to the local animal shelter and shot five more! He explained he didn’t want to have to bother to reload for just one bullet!”
THURSDAY: “And then he shot the staff at the shelter, too! And the police when they came to investigate!”
FRIDAY: “And stole a cropduster airplane and a tank of napalm and dowsed downtown Philadelphia and several suburbs!”
SATURDAY: “After which he made a pact with The Dark Ones Who Lurk Just Beyond the Threshold, Sharpening Their Claws and Grinding Their Teeth, and allowed them to break through the dimensional barrier and turn the entire east coast into a brimstone-coated hell on earth, where the shrieking victims that were once human beings prayed in vain simply to die!”
SUNDAY: Recap — “And then he came back and shot the dog again. And, uh, did some other stuff.”
@The Dimensional Otter: #100
“My theory is that Max is a secret agent assigned to foil the Snidely Whiplash villain known as Gary.”
http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Series_4/39.htm
Trapper: You want Teddy Salad?
Carpenter: Yeah … (the man looks around rather furtively, to see if anyone is watching, then takes Carpenter’s arm and indicates the dog team) I don’t see anyone.
Trapper: The one on the end, on the right. That’s Salad.
Carpenter: That’s a dog!
Trapper: (confidentially) No only bits of it.
Carpenter: What do you mean?
Trapper: Listen, Teddy Salad is the most brilliant agent the CIA ever had, right?
Carpenter: Right.
Trapper: That’s how he made his name (indicates the dog) – disguise!
(They look at the dog in silence for a moment.)
Carpenter: That’s incredible!
Trapper: He had to slim down to one and a half pounds to get into that costume. He cut eighteen inches off each arm and over three feet off each leg. The most brilliant surgeon in Europe stuck that tail on.
MW: Boy, it’s a good thing no one shot at Saul and Eve when they were out on their walk. That really would have been a trigger, so to speak.
@Vice President John Adams:
Not truly J. Jonah Jameson if he doesn’t have a Hitler mustache.
Which Gary should have had, to elaborate how “EVVIIILLLL!” he is also needs a comically enormous cigar.
@I speak Jive: 6Chix – No comments on this yet?
* * *
All I could think of was masturbation jokes.
MT: Very funny, Sid. You told me “get to Florida, you’ve gotta gig in Mark Trail” … of course I should have known there are no Elk in Florida, no live ones anyway! But Florida sounded good right now, so here I am.
Now you folks know I’ve occasionally done trophy gigs before, but only when I’m a featured “head”, not just part of the background. Maybe they thought that Cat would fit better into the panel foreground, I dunno. Maybe wanted the teeth for the “creepy” factor? No way I could ever look “creepy”
Anyway, not much exposure – but I’m sure my legion of fans will recognize me. And since I went to the trouble to get here, I’ll “hang around” (snort,snort,snort)
@Jihadi Colin: Dang, and here you had me thinking that a tekescop was some kind if 19th century pseudoscientific hi-tech about which people wrote treatises like Chaucer did with the astrolabe in the late middle ages.
Now I haz a sad.
@Just John: That Bliss? I just checked out the comics he drew in collaboration with Steve Martin. (In fact, I see “Bliss / Martin” in the credits so this must be another one.)
Well, can’t be any worse than “6 Chix.”
@cowking: I think your reading of it is wrong. If the joke was about the dance, the plugger would be flossing with floss, as actual flossing is plugger flossing, if you get my drift.
Whereas this “joke” is about how salt of the earth hard-working pluggers use good old American toothpicks and not fancy-pants liberal elite coastal dentist-recommended floss.
@Effluvius Erratus: And this all raises the troubling qustion of just what freakish injury Saul’s bowtie hides?
@Ettorre: I think tomorrow we get to see Eve’s right fist ‘o justice? It’s needed a job since Mark traded it in for the furrowed brow of angst.
Tales of Suburban Despair: Hi, despite owning a home and working an office job, is so poor he has to fake being poor to ask for charity from garage mechanics. Or maybe he’s worked out another way to pay off the bill.
I’m back, baby!
MW: A bullet from Gary’s gun wouldn’t even pass through a dog to give his wife a flesh wound. Sigmund Freud was cremated and he still perked up just now.
Shoe: When you ask Shoe—a canonical bitter multiple divorcé—about escape rooms, it’s as inevitable as the next day’s sunrise in the east that he’ll make reference to one of his former marriages. That said reference is as incoherent as this may come as a surprise but it really shouldn’t.
Mary Worth: We don’t like Gary. He seems to have a mean streak to his personality.
@I speak Jive: 9CL – I’ve never seen Amos with a family, not even for his wedding. There was an O’Henry sequence where he sold an incredibly pretentious and valuable cello he got from his parents in order to buy Edda something something but that’s as close as I’ve seen. Did he have a family when he was in eighth grade? Or was he raised the same way he is now raising the next generation – by just letting him roam free and learn from his own mistakes?
9CL: When your characters lose interest in what the other characters are saying they might be trying to tell you something.
DT: Fitting enough that a camera that features enlarged animals pulling focus be named after Mark Trail, or maybe his father, Happy.
H&L: In addition to wearing dirty and patchy clothes, Hi’s got a dopy and blissed-out look on his face. When he tries crying poverty he goes straight to the Dragnet version of hippie culture.
Marvin: I’ll take “Jokes That Didn’t Really Need All of Three Panels to Tell” for $600, Alex.
Pibgorn: Pure saltpeter in PNG form, folks.
6C: No vibrator pictured, so these dates-with-self have to be pretty old school.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: All I could think of was masturbation jokes.
And this would be different, in what way, from every other day of the year, for every other comic?
MW – I guess in MW, a penciled-thin mustache signifies a pretty high level of evil – even darker than Mr. Mooney – that’s for sure….*
Pluggers – Periodontal disease has left enough space that they can use a match book…or a spoon….
Shoe – Well, I evacuated my bowels at this greasy-spoon cafe…but I guess you know about that. Cleared the room pretty fast, though….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
* Note – I hate all forms of domestic violence and gun violence
Are we sure that Max survived this, and that Eva really HAS a current dog named Max? If you reread the whole “animals are great friends” discussion and consider that Max is not actually in the strip, it makes it a lot more interesting. And Saul’s pretending to see Ghost Max play with his pup is then…sinister and disturbing. A much more satisfying storyline!
Eve’s story is so wholly unbelievable that I’m now certain SHE killed Gary and has chosen Saul as her next victim…..
MW: Since when do dogs act as Secret Service substitutes and act as HUMAN SHIELDS, rather than simply attacking the aggressor? Man, canine evolution has really taken a big step forward in Santa Royale (or since Moy kicked up that three-martini lunch)Q!
Hägar, the Horrible Comic Strip: Eddie offers his cherry to Hägar! Wonder if Hägar will pop it.
MW: Please tell me we’re going to get a flashback to Eve’s awkward conversation with the vet, where she tries to explain how Max got a bullet in his neck without implicating Gary.
Pluggers: At first, like many of you, I thought the “joke” here was the traditional meaning of the word “flossing” versus the current slang meaning. But then I noticed that our plugger here is using a toothpick rather than dental floss. So is the joke that pluggers are out of date or that they’re unsophisticated? Is it both?
Shoe: You’ve gotta admire Roz’s optimism here. She’s heard about these “escape room” places and thinks they may be fun. But she wants to ask around. Who, in her small circle of acquaintances, might know about such things? She decides to approach Shoe, one of her regular customers. Sure, he’s cynical, depressed, inert, and ruled by routine — heck, he orders the same thing every day — but he’s also the editor of the local newspaper, which at least suggests some level of interest in the outside world. Maybe, just maybe, he can provide some guidance, Roz hopes.
@Joe Blevins: #123
“MW: Please tell me we’re going to get a flashback to Eve’s awkward conversation with the vet, where she tries to explain how Max got a bullet in his neck without implicating Gary.”
Our dog is very intelligent, so my husband trained him to clean his gun for him. Unfortunately the “check to be sure it wasn’t loaded” part of the training didn’t take all that well, since we happened to run out of dog biscuit rewards just at that point in the syllabus.
@richardf8: Hmmm, I wonder if the bowtie is made from velvet?
Shoe-“Let that be a lesson. Never hang out with Raoul Duke.”
MW-But did Max give the customary NO yell?
Pluggers: I admire the way the Plugger is shown raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes up, as if deep in thought. Of course a Plugger does have to give using tools some careful thought, or he might poke his eye out with that thing.
Here is something I just found, where some other people discuss why they hate 9CL. I expect that some of our regulars are part of that conversation.
https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2020/5/6/the-unbearable-horniness-of-9-chickweed-lane
MW: nothing happens for months. Once you’re lulled into thinking nothing will ever happen, you get a meth lab or someone shoots a dog.
Shoe – Or unless you count that crib with the weird baby.
It’s Escape Room Week in the comics!
Shoe – Or unless you count the time I saw Rupert Holmes in the Stardust Lounge at the Holiday Inn and he kept playing that damn Pina Colada song. He opened with it, he did it in the middle of the set, he closed with it, and he did it again for the encore!
@Creepy Condescending Wonka: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: All I could think of was masturbation jokes.
And this would be different, in what way, from every other day of the year, for every other comic?
* * *
Well, the topic of wanking didn’t come to mind as I read Mary Worth today.
OK, maybe a little?
Is the secret to getting published in Pluggers to add Dr. after your name?
Look for a scintillating observation there soon from Dr. Scrotum.
@richardf8: Goiter. You really do not want to let Saul take that bow tie off.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: That was the first thing that came to my mind, too.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: He has no family and no personality. He exists only to worship Edda and remind her constantly that she’s hot, and to try to boink when she feels like it.
Amos is a drone bee?
CCB @115 re: 9CL: There was a short storyline in the old, funny 9CL wherein middle school/school Amos was giving a cello recital at school, and neither of his parents showed up. He was devastated.
Juliette gave those Van Hoesens a pretty good piece of her mind, let me tell you (although they were never shown)!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: OK, maybe a little?
There you go. I knew you could do it. Good for you. You’re The Little Engine That Could Wank.
@Tom T.: thank you! It’s good to know I’m not alone…
MW: Good thing no that no one will try to shoot Saul. Greta can only protect him from the knees down.
At some point, months from now, Saul’s comforting will turn into a warm, trusting embrace. Weeks after that, the BIG moment will come: Saul will lean in for the first kiss.
But then Eve will pull away. Over the next several weeks, Saul will rehash all this to Mary.
THEN, just as happened today, there will be a SHOCK STRIP, in more ways than one. Eve will detach her rubber mask, and stare into Saul’s eyes, which are now wide with horror.
MADI: I made you some… BANANA BREAD.
I appreciate what Max has done to protect her, but really he should have done more than just snarl at the raised fist and tried to disarm Gary. And if you ask how a dog should know how to do that, well, this one knew to watch for the trigger finger and jump at the precise moment, so I assume his obedience classes were simply unusually thorough.
@I speak Jive: @Ukulele Ike: 9CL – I remember a sequence where we learned that Amos has compiled a book illustrating every form of obscene gesture he can discover and defining its meaning. He proceeded to demonstrate an example from some exotic culture I can’t remember. This seems a totally appropriate obsession for what we do know of Amos, a pretentious little shit who loves the idea that he is getting away with insulting someone without risk of Edda having to step on and physically defend him from his target.
@Zla’od: Sorry, but he’s not Krypto. Krypto has a CAPE! Although, come to think of it, Max would look rather fetching in a cape.
@N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods: Actually Vic–who in the novels looks nothing like Katee Sackoff and everything like Craig Johnson’s wife–ended up in Wyoming after she turned in a corrupt cop and earned the ire of her equally corrupt married lover, who stalked Vic and husband until getting his come-uppance. Meanwhile Vic’s husband actually divorced her because she had been more macho than he while held hostage by white supremacists. In the end, she put on a dress and moved in with Walt. In short, the novels were better.
Fumbly Circus: “Don’t worry, Billy, I won’t stain the shirt tails like you did!”
Judge Cratered: Uh, Neddy? Think you can write Godiva to be like the worst villain you’ve ever seen? You know, make her into another Hamburglar or Grinch?
Happy Trails To You: “And why aren’t they talking to me?”
MW: Oh man, finally! After enduring so many bland, dry storylines that have fizzled out to nothing for the past few years, finally we get some of that good ol’ classic style Mary Worth insanity that’s been missing for so long. This is the first time this strip has made me laugh out loud in a long time.
@mw: MW: I say that Eve escaped from the nut house in Philly and escaped across the country with a dog she found. She showed up at the Charterstone which is the perfect place to hide from the authorities.
And after dealing with Mary & Company, she comes to her senses and returns to the laughing academy.
BREWSTER ROCKIT: The ageism jokes directed at Oldbot are getting, well, old.
In yesterday’s Luann, Bernice’s brother bringing up Luann’s bedroom walls being thin apropos of nothing makes my skin crawl.
Also, this darndest-things kid-innocently-saying-inappropriate-secrets shtick is deeply psychologically concerning behavior for someone of his age.
@pachoo: I think there’s a Russian Roulette angle here, and Max could hear when a round was chambered.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Sounds like a post-Unicorn sequence to me. Was it?
@I speak Jive: I checked the animallaw daught info site, which says that in California, “Reasonable cause to believe an animal has been a victim of animal abuse must promptly report to law enforcement
West’s Ann.Cal.Bus. & Prof.Code § 4830.7”
Presumably things would snowball from there, when the police learn that Gary was shooting at his wife.
My first thought was that Shoe got himself in an undesirable shotgun wedding situation at an Elvis-themed Vegas chapel, but then I wondered if Shoe is using “escape” in a positive sense. The Elvis-themed Vegas chapel offered an escape to a simpler time when Elvis was the undisputed King of Pop, before those mop-topped boys from Liverpool arrived and ruined everything.
@Noel:
That we’re getting this new, even more insane moment of insanity so soon after Vin and the Crack Pipe Conundrum—the best Mary Worth moment of insanity in year, till today—worries me it will be a solid decade before we even come close to either one of them again.
@Noel: #150
“Also, this darndest-things kid-innocently-saying-inappropriate-secrets shtick is deeply psychologically concerning behavior for someone of his age.”
I don’t think it was “innocent;” Ben was clearly trying to embarass his sister. Best construction would be that he was pretty sure Jack was *not* in Luann’s room, and threw out that “thin walls” factoid out so that Jack would not react to it, Bernice would see that Jack is not reacting and thus was in fact innocent, etc.
I’m not sure why Ben cares if Bernice is wised up or not, though; in his place I doubt that I would. And even if it worked, Bernice would probably just go on to then fixate on the idea that Nil or Hair or Piro or T.J. or somebody from the distant past like Knute or Elwood was in the room overnight instead. (Maybe all of them!)
@Ukulele Ike: 9CL – Yes, very post unicorn but pre baby blues and the associated retcons.
@Noel: LUANN: The fact that this guy is 25-26 years old and still interested in Bernice’s middle-school level gossip is beyond me, especially given all the life experiences he’s had not even counting his military service. If there’s anyone with the ability to simply tell Bernice to grow the fuck up already, it’s him.
For years Max had begged Slylock to let him go undercover. Finally Sly relented, sent him to New York to investigate a domestic dispute. “You’ll have to go as a dog,” Sly told him. “Rats aren’t too welcome in the Big Apple.” So Max went in under deep cover, but things went wrong. Really wrong. But Max kept his cover, protected the woman, and was given a very respectful funeral in a matchbox.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: The cello recital anecdote from the Before Times choked me up a little. When our son was nine his flute class gave a performance and the Ukulele Lady and I were both under the impression the other one was skipping work to go, with the result that he was the only kid who didn’t have a parent in attendance. He cried.
He’s 25 now, and I still feel like shit when I think about it.
Mary Worth – Look, I adore my dog, and she seems to like me pretty well – she will only drop the slipper/sock/contraband item of her choice when I tell her to “Drop it!” like… 46% of the time – so I think the odds of her taking a bullet for me are slim. Now, if someone were pelting me with cookies, or beating me with a jar of peanut butter, I’d like to think she’d step in.
MW: “I have been depressed and anxious since my ex-husband kinda shot my dog.”
“That’s not so traumatic”
“Well, replace the word “kinda” with the word “repeatedly,” and the word “dog” with “son.””
@Little Blue Bicycle: I believe I mentioned before that we went to a book signing with Craig Johnson and found him very entertaining. He’s very personable and speaks like his writing style.
I agree that Vic in the TV series looks nothing like the character described in the books. I also picture Walt as looking like Craig Johnson, not the actor who plays him in the series.
One of the books, Kindness Goes Unpunished, is set in Philadelphia.
@Rocky the Flipped-Out Squirrel: I don’t know what the mandatory reporting requirements are in Pennsylvania, where Eve lived when the incident happened. I did a cursory review of the Pennsylvania Code but couldn’t find anything. At the very least a veterinarian would question pretty severely a person who brought in a dog with a gunshot wound.
Love Is-She’s going to be pimping her man out. https://www.artfulaspreycartoons.co.uk/love-is-color-16-february-2021/
Blondie-Dagwood eats in bed and not what Blondie wants eaten.
@Old School Allie Cat: Mary Worth – Look, I adore my dog, and she seems to like me pretty well – she will only drop the slipper/sock/contraband item of her choice when I tell her to “Drop it!” like… 46% of the time – so I think the odds of her taking a bullet for me are slim. Now, if someone were pelting me with cookies, or beating me with a jar of peanut butter, I’d like to think she’d step in.
* * *
When she drops it another 23% of the time you will have a nice doggie.
Luann – D’awww. Jack wants to strike up a bromance with Ben, but Bernice won’t even let THAT happen.
Say Scratchy, we ever get a clear winner for “most despicable?”
@Ukulele Ike: it’s funny how school recitals and their ilk have been transformed from “things you tolerate and put on a good face for because it’s all about the kids” into “precious precious moments that you would be devastated to have to miss for a very good reason, and send your wife instead, with the understanding that your turn is next.”
@Tom T.: 9CL: Yup, I found that site myself around six months ago and added my contributions to the comments section.
@I speak Jive: just tell the vet that the cops raided the wrong house and this is the result.
@Bryan: I thought that was you!
I had to post to claim credit for the “Tales of Ribaldry” comparison. Josh never comments on Chickweed anymore so he couldn’t have come up with it anyways.
@Der Rosenkavalieren:
He is Krypto’s alter ego, Max. You probably didn’t recognize him with the glasses on.
Pluggers: There’s a current slang meaning for “floss”? Do you think Pluggers would know that? No, I think the joke is that Pluggers care so little about the environment that they’ll cut down the forest primeval for wood to clean their teeth.
@Cleo: #172
“Pluggers care so little about the environment that they’ll cut down the forest primeval for wood to clean their teeth.”
But if they cut down all of the woods, where are all the bear pluggers going to . . . you know, never mind; I’m happier not knowing.
Gary has murdered so many people that Max has learned through repetition the cause and effect outcomes of Gary raising his gun towards someone, enough to leap in front of the bullet. I hope Eve gave that good boy some extra belly rubs, after the anesthesia wore off from the veterinary trauma surgery.
@richardf8: Bernice ruled!
https://surveyhero.com/results/299186/af0bb48355482e6e0e4422fb446c2707
Shoe-An escape room is what he calls his basement dungeon.
DT: “Too bad we can’t identify the perp in the first frame, but he’s wearing a mask.”
FW: Oh, hey, it’s yesterday’s joke again. The most enraging thing about this is how cheerful the kids look. “Ha, we thought we’d play a prank on the Band Leader Eternal, but he’s too smart for us! Touché, Mr Dinkle, you are a worthy opponent!”
Also, isn’t pranking on substitute teachers based on the logic that a) they weren’t there last week, so they don’t know what’s usual and b) they won’t be there next week, so no long-term consequences? It doesn’t work if the sub is actually there all the time for unclear reasons.
MT: I realise that Mark Trail has never been what you might call “subtle”, but we really are pulling out all the stops on “Happy Trail: Enemy of Nature”, huh?
MW: Saul is shaken by what he’s heard. There was a time when Eve and Max didn’t wear matching bandanas? He doesn’t know this woman at all!
Shoe: “Look around you, Roz. This whole insane businesses-perched-on-branches setting is an escape room, and there are no clues that would help us escape!”
@Anonymous: Dick Tracy : So, the Neo-Chicago cops just have cameras everywhere they can just zoom and enhance to get the face of killer instantly at any time?
Oh, no, it’s much stupider than that. This is footage from Junior Tracy’s wildlife-spotting camera, which Tiger Lily just happened to walk in front of with a dead body. (This prompted Junior to say “Not again!” suggesting this ridiculous chain of events has happened before.)
@Sequitur: Or he’s halfway through the “Would you like to see my impression of an elephant?” trick.
@Horace Broon: #178
” This is footage from Junior Tracy’s wildlife-spotting camera, which Tiger Lily just happened to walk in front of with a dead body. (This prompted Junior to say “Not again!” suggesting this ridiculous chain of events has happened before.)”
To be fair (Junior checks his notes) it was probably a *different* dead body before. (Doublechecks the notes.) “Yep. Well, that’s not so unusual then. Now let’s see what the racoons are doing today….”
@Tom T.: I had read this before but this is the first time I had read the comments. Yow!
In case you wanted to have everything in 9CWL explained, try this link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicStrip/NineChickweedLane
Personally, I can’t floss because my teeth are weirdly closely stuck together. I have a narrow mouth; had like eight teeth pulled in my teens to make room. It also means I hardly ever need a toothpick, although when I do it’s because some scrap of food is stuck tight in there. The point here is, today’s Pluggers is nothing but a shallow, toothless body shaming “joke”.
@Just John: I’ve never been there. It’s kind of scary–they’ve got laws against defecating in elevators.
@Shrug: @Calvin’s Cardboard Box: In the movies it’s usually a mistake made be the guy just about to retire from the force.
@Unca $crooge: #181
“In case you wanted to have everything in 9CWL explained, try this link”
I didn’t know that I wanted that, but thanks anyway, I think.
@I speak Jive: I checked the animallaw site for Pennsylvania and found this:
“LIMITED Mandatory Duty (under administrative reg.)
Veterinarians must report repeated acts of negligence or animal abuse by a professional colleague.
49 Pa. Code § 31.21”
It looks like Gary would only get in trouble if he were a veterinarian with a habit of shooting dogs and repeatedly took the animals to a colleague. This doesn’t say much about his business sense.
Seriously, the only way Eve’s story works is if she’s lying.
@The Dimensional Otter: At one point Capt. America forced Jameson to shave that mustache, saying it made him look like Hitler. But he grew it back later.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: (on Shoe) I guess the pair-bonding thing is a myth.
@The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers: I kind of wish Gary were still alive, so Mary could give him advice, or maybe date him. Hey, what if the guy in the casket was actually his (good) twin brother?
MW: Apparently Eve’s husband is like the dark universe’s Spock, Gary Worth.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: The “Dr.” goes before your name. “Ph.D.” and / or “M.D.” goes after your name. (Don’t do both at once!)
@pachoo: It’s so difficult to make a dog understand the basic mechanism of ballistic weapons.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: In high school, we had so many band and orchestra performances that there was never any question of my family going to see them all.
@Der Rosenkavalieren: Perhaps he’s one of the numerous offspring of Radar, the Hound Supreme (from Alan Moore’s stint on “Supreme”).
@Ettorre: Ooh, that would be such a great twist! Like the last episode of M*A*S*H.
@Cleo: Pluggers clean their teeth (or tooth, as the case may be) with a Mlkbone….
Capt. America making J. Jonah Jameson shave his Hitler mustache (you’ll have to scroll down):
https://imgur.com/gallery/f7ZtH#hRP0dC8
RMMD: Buck either needs to do something stupid and butterscotch related or move on. Jeez. This is ridiculous.
@Ukulele Ike:
Have you talked to him about it? ‘Cause if nothing else, he’s probably beating himself up about something he thinks he did to you, and maybe you could trade? Things get screwed up when people don’t talk.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: God, that Tales of Ribaldry comparison was one of the finest things ever (and I’ve heard it elsewhere on the internet since then.) I’ve used it myself numerous times to talk about how Luann (the strip as well as the character) is simultaneously obsessed with and terrified of sex. It’s like a 13 year old boy in its treatment of the subject.
@Unca $crooge: That’s weird: every time I’ve tried posting a link it just shows up as blank space. What am I doing wrong?
MW: Gary wears blue, abuses his wife, and shot an innocent dog. Three guesses what his dream job is.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: LUANN: I just posted the poll link to GoComics so we can all watch the Trufans have a conniption.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I had to post to claim credit for the “Tales of Ribaldry”
You’re billy the skink?
RMMD: I was at my endocrinologist today (I am a type 1 diabetic and I have to go lie to the doctor every four months) and I swear I saw Buck there. I approached him and asked where the best butterscotch milkshakes were and he just blew me off.
So much for honor amongst those with the sugars.
@Rocky the Flipped-Out Squirrel: I saw that section when I was reviewing it. It looks like what you said. Apparently PA’s concern is the conduct of veterinarians. Of course, if the police happened to catch Gary shooting the dog, they can charge him. It’s just that nobody has to report it if they’re not around.
@TheDiva: @pastordan: It is so easy to be judgmental and say Why doesn’t she leave? I realize that abuse is a complex problem and that there are no simple solutions. That’s what makes this story so infuriating. Maybe Eve should be examining why she stayed with Gary, but instead we’re being told that she got a dog and the problem is solved. It’s trivializing and dumbing down. Maybe serious issues shouldn’t be comics stories unless they’re treated seriously.
@Bryan: No idea. I just copy the link and post it.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: As far as I know, Amos’ parents have never been seen, presumably because he was originally intended to be a feral neighbor child, like Elmo in Blondie. We don’t even see Amos’ parents during his own wedding, although the Pibgorn characters were inexplicably present. It’s even stranger, given that Edda made a big deal about changing her name to Van Hoesen to separate herself from her deadbeat dad when there’s no evidence that Amos’ equally unseen parents are an improvement.
MW – The dog is airborne and pretty stretched out and that may have a way of, uh, flattening things out, but there is detail to this artwork enough that if that were a male dog there would still have to be some sort of protuberance. This Max looks to be more of a Maxine. This is what my Zoology Degree has finally led me to.
MW: Looks like Eve didn’t take Max to the vet, but patched him up on the kitchen counter.
MT: Looks like Jules is going to shed some light on…a whole jumble of social issues. Today’s is racism in rural land valuation.
MT: Looks like this black lawyer did more interviews than Mark did.
Luann: “Squeeze those glutes” should have been panel 2. They’d just have to erase Jack’s left hand.
9CL: I wonder what those clothes smell like? Panel 4 is probably right.
MW: Tomorrow: “Oh Mary–I’d do anything to re-animate by beloved pet…even if it costs my immortal soul.”
Also, Gary sodomizes Eve in the mouth.
Anybody know how to get in touch with June Brigman? Some Jehovah’s Witnesses want to hire her to illustrate some pamphlets.
@The Mighty Captain E: You can’t impose cis-normative concepts of gender! This is what my humanities degree has finally led me to.
@cowking:
Which makes the comic worse in my opinion because Plugger “flossing” should be regular flossing and this dog dude isn’t even doing that!