Sad boys
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Family Circus, 2/19/21
I’m not too proud to admit that I’m extremely terrified of my brain slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) dulling as I age, and so when I’m confronted with something like today’s Family Circus, which like all Family Ciruses seems simple enough but which today I nevertheless cannot quite parse — well, I start to worry. Like, Jeffy’s “too” implies that he’s reacting to something, but what exactly? Ma Keane telling him that she can’t carry him because she’s tired? But the “nobody is carrying ME” part would only make sense if someone was carrying her. Does he want to be carried like the boxes from her shopping trip? Does … does Jeffy think the boxes are tired? Anyway, all that aside, you know I enjoy a good Jeffy meltdown, and I like the composition of the panel, with Jeffy kind of hidden from the hustle and bustle of the street by this wall. Nobody can see him, Thel. You could just start walking away, and then keep walking. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever know.
[UPDATE: ah ha yes Thel is the one delivering the line, actually, the puddingification of my brain is proceeding apace]
Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/19/21
So after Buck binged on fast food and had to do some mild exercise to fix his blood sugar, and then he got very mildly and passive-aggressively sassed by his nutritionist, he seems to have resigned himself to his fate. And, look, I slag on Buck a lot here, because I consider him unlikeable and irritating, but that said I find his current predicament extremely relatable! I don’t have a great diet and I like greasy fried food in (what I tell myself is) moderation, and so I truly feel the pathos in his facial expression in panel one as he contemplates what might constitute a “tasty diabetic-friendly chicken recipe” and whether a swift death as he rides the high of an insulin spike would be preferable.
146 replies to “Sad boys”
Fumbly Circus: “For Pete’s sake, Jeffy, you’re as lazy as the artwork!”
Judge Dreadful: “–and none of my other voices want Godiva in my head, either!”
Judge Mental: Tilt your head a bit more, Neddy, and let Godiva’s voice fall out.
Happy Trails To You: “No, my henchmen sleep out back, in Andy III’s old dog house!”
The Phandumb: Walker, why not make the rounds, punch out the guards one by one and release all the prisoners? Then punch your way through the Rhodian police and military as they try to keep you from leading them to Bangalla, or even to safety?
Rex Morbid, Missing Daily: Go on, tickle those taste buds! Maybe we’ll get to see Buck die laughing.
There’s a simple solution: Thel is delivering the line, but you can’t tell because of the masks.
I think it’s actually Thel giving the line, or at least that’s what makes the most sense, even though adults in The Family Circus rarely have lines and even more rarely have punchlines. This shows one of the downsides of widespread masking for cartoonists, which I think we can all agree, are suffering more than anyone else in this pandemic.
@matt w: Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Luann: By normal human standards, it reads like Jack is being really evasive either because he’s really dumb or is trying to mess with Bernice, but this is Luann, so I know it’s just so he can set up an extremely forced punchline.
With FCs penchant for re-using strips and adding new words, was this originally used for the Spanish Flu? Or is he covering his bases, and we’ll see this again in the next pandemic? Either way, I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about.
RMMD: great frolicking Wilbur in a Speedo get on with it. I either want Buck in a diabetic coma or for this strip to move on to Jordan’s restaurant.
RMMD: don’t be such an infant Buck. Be strict with yourself for a week and the cravings will ease. There might be a little brain fog but who would be able to tell?
Shout-out to whoever’s job it is to draw face masks on old Family Circuses (I guess the same person who paints in seat belts and makes the TVs flatter), although they might want to work on finding some way to show who is actually meant to speaking in the panel.
You’ve finally overthought a comic strip!
Jeffy said “Carry me, I’m tired!” and Thel then delivers today’s zinger of a rebuke.
FC: This is what the Jesus footprints fable is in 2021. Yeah, you’re tired and life’s hard, but you can either pick yourself up and soldier on or just lie there on the sidewalk for all we care. Everyone else has enough problems and even the Son of God has better things to do, so quit milking it and man up.
I kinda knew that FC was going to be featured today, but I thought Josh would get what was going on. In addition to the mask issue, I think the problem is that
(a) there’s no joke here, this is just the kind of thing that an annoyed parent says to a whiny kid; and
(b) it’s off brand — the Keanes don’t generally show any annoyance with the kids, no matter what they do.
Q.E.D., sadly.
Luann:
Ben: “One more question: Has Luann ever seen your penis?”
Jack: “Yes she has. I got paid for it, though.”
FC: Since she’s wearing a mask, Thel mouths the words “you little asshole” at the end of her line and Jeffy is none the wiser.
Crankshaft : “I am very confused as to why no one has tried to put me on criminal or civil trial for the multiple times I’ve destroyed property!” We all are, Ed, we all are.
******
Lockhorns : I wonder if this is the censored version, and if Loretta originally talked about knives and forks and other silverware utensils rather than bread rolls.
******
Phantom : I’m sure the wretches you walked past and perked up from their cages because they thought they might finally be freed will be happy to know you’ll be sure to have their cases thoroughly examined by a neutral third party to correctly determine which prisoners are innocent enough to be freed for the next prison break*, Ghost Who Walks.
*No one but Ernesto Salinas is getting freed for THIS prison break, and the next prison break has not been scheduled yet.
******
Pros & Cons : Samuel looks that old, that someone hears “I’ve been a lawyer for twenty years” and they assume he had another noteworthy job experience? Or that the answer to “what did you do before that?” isn’t “I was a student at law school”?
How about this : “How long have you been a lawyer, Mr Rhodes?” “Twenty successful, fulfilling years that bring me pride and joy.” “What was your greatest accomplishment as a lawyer?” “Learning how to lie so convincingly you actually believed me when I said the past twenty years have brought me any success, fulfillment, pride or joy.”
*****
Slylock Fox : How to draw… an off-model Heathcliff. Now you too can be an animator at DiC! …Oh, most of the work is outsourced overseas? And also DiC has been long bought out by another company, and that company got bought out, and so on? Well, that’s too bad.
@matt w: Yeah I was thinking the same thing when I read Josh’s comment. And I think it is really funny that this situation, Josh not getting the joke because you can’t tell who is talking, is so much funnier than the actual comic because it is a real complication of the whole pandemic face mask thing, as a quasi-teacher myself, “I’m like who said that!” all the time.
@matt w:
It’s definitely Ma Thel saying the line. In the original art, it was clear. This panel is at least from the ‘70s.
FC: “I think Jeffy’s dialogue makes the most sense if it was in response to Thel saying “Stop carrying on and being silly!”, or maybe “God am I tired of carrying the burden of my stupid children!”
RMMD: Every Friday night I sit down with partner and plan out a week’s worth of meals, and even though I love cooking, eating and her, I hate it more than anything. Trying to figure out what will make leftovers, making sure we don’t eat too much of one type of starch, planning what to do with the rest of a bunch of celery because I want it in Tuesday’s soup but what the hell else tastes good with celery in it…it sucks. Anyhow, I’ve never felt more like Buck in my life and that sucks even more.
Rex: “Hey–scroll back up, I think I saw a good one.”
“Buck, that’s an ad for Little Debbie Snack Cakes.”
Family Circus: A simple fix to the dialog would have made things clearer. “I’m tired too, and nobody is carrying ME, Thel you sag-titted old slut.” Then there wouldn’t be any doubt that Jeffy was saying it.
The last time I dinged Josh for not getting the joke, I thought afterwards that probably he DID get it and was just going off on a tangent, and I in fact was not getting HIS joke. But today… did Josh not get it? I.e., didn’t realize that it’s Thelma speaking? Or is this four-dimensional chess again??? Stop toying with us, Josh!
FC – Alternate caption: “‘Spare change?’ Aw, why don’tcha get a job, you little deadbeat!”
RMMD – “Scroll back up, I think I saw a good one. Oops, no, that was a speck of dirt. Could we maybe try this on a device with a screen bigger than a deck of cards?”
@Anonymous: Lockhorns : I wonder if this is the censored version, and if Loretta originally talked about knives and forks and other silverware utensils rather than bread rolls.
* * *
Good observation from my favorite commenter. They missed the opportunity for an early pandemic version; could have had Loretta stealing all the toilet paper.
Of course, then they’d have to put masks on them and we wouldn’t be able to tell who was talking, and it would be as confusing as a typical Family Circlejerk.
(Thanks to all who pointed out it was Thel talking to the melonhead, not vice versa. Josh wasn’t the only one confused by it. I also was flummoxed. Also, there should be a comma after “tired” and before “too.” How are the melonheads going to grow up to be productive members of society if Thel can’t speak with proper punctuation?)
FC: I’m not sure whether this is reused artwork or if the artist still thinks stores give you your purchases in boxes tied with string as in Blondie. I only ever see that done today by bakeries (and rarely at that), and given the way Thel’s holding the box, her pastries are smashed to hell.
love is… living in a good neighborhood where you can leave your undead zombie on a street corner for several hours and nobody steals or vandalizes him.
As Mindy helps Buck find the best combinations of light seasonings to sprinkle on a steamed, skinless chicken breast, she has to be considering gorging on a bucket of KFC in front of him. That would be a normal, human reaction to Buck.
MW: Dang, it looks like Saul has succeeded in his first very meddle all on his own! I know he had a brief lunch with Mary, but she didn’t give him a single one of those dog-base platitudes he used to teach Eve that if you focus your mind like a laser so that you perpetually perceive only present moment and never, ever think about the past, it’s like those bad things that happened to you never happened! It’s not as elegant as Mary’s solution of selectively rewriting your memories so that the bad stuff never happened in the first place, but it’s not bad for a first outing.
Blondie: Although I can’t figure out the punchline of this one, I enjoyed the name “Thurnpopper.” Blondie, High and Lois, and Sally Forth sometimes seem to have creative names for random people.
Luann: “I have lots of friends who are girls.” Is Jack: a) a disguised alien who is unfamiliar with the English language; b) deliberately trolling them; or c) gay?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Always wondered what kind of business it is where the only visible work product is “The [proper name] report.” I think they’re contractors for the CIA.
“Wow, that maple-glazed honey-drizzled chicken in a milk chocolate molé sauce served over a bed of Cocoa Krispies with Oreo crumbles sounds great!”
“Oh, sorry, wrong page. This is diabetes-friendly, not diabetic-friendly. That’s why it’s sponsored by Big Al’s Prosthetics of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.”
“Oooh! Fifty percent off the wholesale price if the limb’s a hundred percent off!”
Curtis – Curtis once again shows why in 20 years he will either be living at home sponging off his enabling parents or homeless while Barry will probably be successful as an investment banker or similar.
Sally Forth – STFU Hilary and stop whining.
Her character is such a one note act of either hysterical neurosis or fantasy. Sure Mom take in 2 people and pay their way . OK Hillary but we have to kick you out in order to do that.stupid bitch.
Zits – Cancel culture plot is so past history.
Lazy writers.
Mary Worthless – This is like the Seinfeld of strips. Stories about nothing. Drone on about the same fucking thing for 6 months. This strip gets to be like Blondie where the central character is mostly absent.
RMMD – I can see Buck is going to fuck up his diabetes. Too predicatable and we’ll have this 6 month drawn out crap of him in a hospital bed with his boring punk rock wife spouting eupelhemisms.
The Phantom – Im ready for the “next week a new adventure” tag line . the current storyline has dragged on far too long . how many times will we see the same prison guards and the phantom babbling the same thing over and over.
ASM -time to drop this strip since its nothing but reruns . I don’t think they’re ever going to write new strips.
MT: So Mark hasn’t been in touch with his mother either for however many years, and this is the first moment he thinks to even ask about her? Cutting off all contact with a parent is indicative of major trauma, and now we see both that Cherry did so with her mother and Mark with both parents. I suppose it makes some sense that they found each other and live in isolation.
Yes, Thel is delivering the line. You assume Jeffy’s talking because he’s the one in motion. Why didn’t they realize that and just forgo the masks? That’s a stumper.
The true tragedy of mask dictatorship: making it confusing which “Family Circus” character is speaking
FC: We’re tired too Thel, tired of your dimwitted, annoying, and obnoxious offspring.
Buck prefers to bludgeon his taste buds.
JP: “She’s the last voice I want in my head.”
“You should have thought of that when you wrote the script, you dumb bint.”
RMMD-No, Buck. That one is a scam ad. “This chicken recipe was voted most beautiful now see it now.”
JP-“The Godiva voice tells me to spill the blood of people.”
FC-“But I got the Corona.”
FC: Sucks not to be first born, Jeffy. I’m sure Thel never let Billy lie in the street. Still, anyone would have a hard time picking up Jeffy after he’s lain himself down in a urine filled alley.
I too would find something interesting on a recipe site for diabetic-friendly chickens.
@matt w: Reminds me of George getting “The Penske File” on Seinfeld. Everytime I see a Penske truck go by or watch stock car racing and see Roger Penske’s name, I think of “The Penske File.”
Love Is-Too stoned to realize it’s raining. https://www.artfulaspreycartoons.co.uk/love-is-color-19-february-2021/
FC: That’s actually Thel’s line, her smackdown of whiny-ass Jeffy, who is such a whiny-ass that the presumption seems to be that Billy is whining. But hey! It’s 2021! Masks! AmIright?
@Ignatz:They’re outside and not near anybody outside the family unit. They really could have skipped the masks without it being a big deal.
@Ignatz: Objection! Assumes a level of thought about legacy strip repurposing not in evidence.
@Mr Moustache: “Cancel culture is so past history.”
Baen Books: “Yesterday is past history?”
RMMD: “Diabetic friendly chicken recipes.” Most chicken recipes are diabetic-friendly. It’s a protein. The only way to get a carb rush off chicken is if you drown it in batter. It’s not that difficult to eat food if you are diabetic. Cut back on the processed carbs. Eat a vegetable. Have an egg for breakfast instead of a bowl of chocolate frosted sugar bombs. It’s not rocket science. Kudos, though, to this strip for making it seem like a depressing burden and like the only thing worth living for is a big bag of crap from the drive-thru.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Hey!! You’re Penski material! Would you ever consider coming to work directly for me? You are aware…..
It’s understandable to be confused, I think this it the first time Thel has spoken since, like, 1973? Somewhere in there, Nixon was definitely president.
I also thought it was Jeffy talking on first read. Who knew that being confused by Family Circus would be one of the effects of the pandemic?
9CL – Hey kids! Here’s some advice. If you ever come home from working all day at the Music Factory, and your wife is wearing an outfit she has kept in storage since the eighth grade and starts grilling you on when you first found her sexually attractive and what parts of her fourteen year old body were most appealing to you …. run. Ride like the wind. To be free again.
The third panel sums it all up. She looks like a pinup silhouette you’d find painted on the nose of a B-17 bomber. He looks like a schlub wearing a suit that is four sizes too big for him and still looking for where he left his lower jaw. I’m sure Edda could fish for complements somewhere less repulsive.
FC: Jeffy turned up lame. You’ll have to shoot him, Thel, just like in those old westerns that elderly cartoonists think that kids today still watch.
FC: Fat lot of good that mask will do Jeffy when he’s rolling in the assorted scutz found on an urban sidewalk.
@Tabby Lavalamp: why would it have to be chicken breast? Why would it have to be skinned, or steamed? Why would it have to be lightly seasoned? I eat very little refined sugar and I don’t miss it.
FC – it’s that footprints in the sand crap all over again, you whining little shit….
RMMD – Buck in panel 2 – The index finger implies, I do declare. Because when the subject is chicken, Buck channels the Colonel….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
No one’s carrying you? Not even Jesus? Has that motivational poster been deceiving us this whole time?
FC: Editor: Jeff, sorry, we can use that copy.
Jeff: Why not? It’s funny. It’s a little kid with a mask, and kids aren’t used to wearing masks, so….
Editor: No, Jeff. We can’t use that line. Have you read the papers?
Jeff: Read the papers? I just got up to the news that you need to wear masks because of the pandemic. I included them in the strip, and then I thought…
Editor: I’m going to stop you there. Jeff, sit down and let me tell you about George Floyd….
Fambly Circus: Like everyone else, I initially thought it was Jeffy speaking, then realized this is one of those rare “Thel speaks!” strips. She rarely gets a line, I think Barfy has almost as many barks in the strip. All this confusion because of the stupid masks. (Rant alert) No masks, please. Don’t do it. No. No! I do not want COVID being portrayed in the comic strips. Comic strips to me are an escape from the real world, a place to go to be somewhere else for a while. Stop bringing COVID into it! I said stop! Oops. Ahem. Carry on.
Judge Parker: Was Godiva Danube really that bad? I don’t remember that much friction between her and Neddy back in the day, they seemed to mostly get along. Except for Godiva’s “Where’s Rocky!?” episodes (there will be hell to pay…), Godiva was a little over the top but mostly just another character.
See Josh, almost two decades of this blog and your readers still can’t understand when you try to make a meta-joke.
FC: “That’s right, you little simpleton, I’m not carrying you anymore. When you’re done sniveling, start walking, it’s fourteen miles home. Look for the smoke where I burned down the house on your idiot father’s body.”
MT: “Dad, look at these animal heads! Where is Mom?”
“Look at the head under the cheetah.”
“[EEEKKK!] Mom!!!!”
“One damn flapjack too many, I said.”
FC: A lot of confusion could have been avoided if Family Circus had employed one of its rare speech balloons to give Jeffey a set-up line. It wouldn’t have solved the main problem with the strip–namely, that they have clearly taken a 1950s shopping scene and slapped pandemic masks on top of it–but it would have been a start.
RMMD: Thrilling meal-planning action!
9CL: “You hear me, I want you to treat me exactly like a horny teenage boy would! Every woman wants that!”
C’shaft: “That was close, I nearly suffered a consequence.”
Luann: Wasn’t her brother in….you know what, never mind.
@Peanut Gallery: love is… living in a good neighborhood where you can leave your undead zombie on a street corner for several hours and nobody steals or vandalizes him.
Indifference is… showing up for your date high as fuck and tripping balls.
Josh’s Family Circus confusion was cleared up by @matt w in comment #2, but mudges continue to pile on. Now it’s just elderly abuse.
GT- “My grandma says ‘Children are like a box of chocolates. Sometimes they’re sooooooo sweet you just wanna puke.’ “
Hi & Lois- At first I read this as “She’s giving you a shitting ovation.” but then I realized this is Hi & Lois, not Marvin.
MW: Apologies if this is over snark (this week has been busy) but what is wrong with Saul? He has a major meltdown when Eve talks about he bad trips in Philly but when she tries to tell him about the cold blooded murder attempt his reaction was “Meh. You want to ditch the dogs and hit the food court?”
Saul is not really there except for being Greta’s ventriloquist dummy.
Squirrel!!
@TheDiva: 9CL – Well, of course every woman wants a trophy husband. Someone hideously unattractive, with a minimal personality, horrible fashion sense, and unable to perform sexually without collapsing in a heap and begging for mercy. She’s lucky that a catch like Amos was still available …. somehow ….
Between this sequence and what is going on over at Pibgorn, Brooke is really working the tween sex fantasy angle hard these days. Or, as hard as a sixty plus man can still work it, at least.
@matt w: that’s what I thought too. She’s telling Jeffy to shut his fucking pie hole.
Damn it, Jeffy! No one owes you anything! You pick yourself up! Have you learned NOTHING from Big Book of Ayn Rand we read to you every night?
Luann – “I have lots of girls who are friends!”
If this comic had competent writers, this would be a pretty clear statement that Jack is either playing for the other team, or a total simpleton. But “Luann” just loves to work the ‘have everyone act like a complete idiot and phrase things as awkwardly as possible to maximize the chance of hilarious misunderstandings’ beat.
Jack is channeling his inner Amos. “Why are you waking over to me and reaching down like that, what could your intentions possibly be? … !!!! … !!! … OMG!! It never would have occurred to me that when you grabbed my penis and started rubbing it, it was an invitation to participate in teh sex!!!!! Nothing in your past behavior could have prepared me for this!”
Man, the Family Circus adaption of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is bleaker than I would have expected.
@Tom T.: If Jack is trolling Ben and Bernice, he’s justified in doing so. The fact that Ben, who has just met Jack, keeps asking him about his relationship with Luann should be very annoying to him.
MW:
Our local paper doesn’t publish on Sundays. So, I never get to see the multi panel full color Sunday Mary.
With all of Saul and Eve’s recent talk about learning from our dogs, loving creatures who live in the present, taking joy where they can find it, I’m pretty sure I know where the current storyline is heading for its Sunday payoff.
Eve glances down and notices what the cartoonist, by the placement of Greta the dog’s head, has so cleverly hidden from the reader. Saul takes her hand and places it on the massive bulge in his sansabelt slacks. It’s been a long time, but the moment is right. Clothes are quickly shed, as Saul and Eve give in to their desires with a little of the old ‘in and out, doggy style’.
I’m so thankful that my local paper doesn’t publish on Sundays.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: As a regulat Luann hate-reader, I’ve come to recognize some of the Evansii patterns. ““I have lots of girls who are friends” is typical Evansii hamhanded foreshadowing: sometime between Saturday and Tuesday they’ll reveal the character is gay.
It’s blindingly obvious.
@Voshkod:
Do you have a link to that Patreon? I’mma give BIG.
Love Is-The song is called “Singin’ In the Rain” you need to be singing.
@Uncle Lumpy: Bye and bye they came to a set of dotted lines cooked into the tar. They just suddenly appeared. He squatted and studied them. Someone had come out of the woods in the night and continued down the melted roadway.
Who is it? Said the melonhead.
Not me. Idaknow. Nobody. Who is anybody?
Shoe: Biz would indeed like to be remembered, having heard that his ex-wife is in town for the express purpose of dismembering him.
FC-Jeffy, if you don’t walk they are going to shoot you.
Thel speaking the line makes the comic make sense, but it also strays quite dramatically from the central conceit of the Family Circus, leaving “kids say the darndest things” behind and caroming dangerously into “adults just straight up being dicks to obnoxious kids” territory. I’m not saying I approve, but I’ve been trapped in my house with my entire family for almost a year as we all try to do work and school remotely in the same small space, so, I mean, I GET it.
RWO – I’m having a hard time figuring out what these critters are. They’re not squirrels or chipmunks; based on the short tail I’d guess that they’re hamsters or guinea pigs. Sid needs to negotiate for better makeup artists.
FC – This isn’t close to “Stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” on the hateful parenting scale, but it’s not on the good side either.
Crankshaft – If those heavy lidded morons didn’t recognize Crankshaft’s name as the bus driver from last year’s catastrophe, they deserve everything that’s coming to them.
Luann: Obviously, Jack and Nils were lovers. He’s now absent from the strip because he was literally torn apart by Jack’s massive phallus and died of a hemorrhage. (“Rectum? Hell, I killed ‘im!!”)
FC: I’ve got a notion that it’s Thel who’s delivering the line. Anyone else?
@brendancalling: LUANN – Jack can’t come out as gay, he’s currently the closest thing to an available love interest the strip has for Lu and Bern and the gang. If he comes out, his narrative usefulness drops to zero.
Now, if you asked a real person over the age of 13; “do you have a girlfriend” and their answer was “I have lots of friends who are girls”, then, yes.
REX MORGAN M.D: Found the “tasty diabetic chicken recipe!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixHFyr8I0g
That’s not Jeffy talking.
That’s Thelma telling Jeffy she won’t carry him.
@Weaselboy:
Thel mouths the words “you little asshole” at the end of her line and Jeffy is none the wiser.
The ability to say things under my breath in the confines of my mask is probably one of the best things about wearing them, short of their ability to lessen my chances of getting the virus.
Much like one of the greatest benefits of hi-def televisions is the ability to read the lips of players and coaches on the sidelines of sporting events. There are several words that even the amateur can decipher with ease.
@Tom T.: B and C. Also possibly A judging from his shape (not the running tights shape). He came from a planet that’s near, but not identical to, Pru’s home planet. Those are fairly close to Ferenginar. You can tell by the disproportionately huge heads.
9CL: I hate to mention the Ferengi twice in the same comments page, but Amos is trying to give Edda oomox and she’s not feeling it. They should try it the other way around.
FC: Oh, come on, you know it IS Jeffy whining the dialogue. When the intern updated and added the masks, he mistakenly erased PJ, who Thel was carrying under her arm.
Luann- “I have lots of friends who are girls.”
Jack’s playing the field and isn’t interested in a exclusive relationship, it’s as simple as that. Or, since he lives in So Cal he’s a male ‘performed’ and is slaying 2 female ‘performers’ per day and using the money he earns to pay for college. Reader’s choice.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Luann: The GoComics fans seem to think this was a perfectly reasonable way for a grown man to answer that question. I’ll be shocked if Jack is revealed to be gay; I think it’s just the Evans writing as if their characters are still in junior high.
RMMD: I fail to see why a diabetic would want the chicken they’re eating to also be diabetic. Or friendly, for that matter.
MARY WORTH: The lesson kids is that being shot at by deranged partners is no big deal for you or your pets and becomes just another collection of amusing platitudes to regale your friends with.
MARY WORTH (2): I just find it so funny that this whole spiel is rhapsodizing about doggie resilience when Greta was introduced in the strip suffering from some type of PSTD. Which makes me wonder what the heck could have caused such trauma since having bullets extracted from the body the doesn’t do it. Maybe the very idea of being swept into the hoary old bromides of Mary Worth was enough of a trigger (understandable.)
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: “If he comes out, his narrative usefulness drops to zero. ”
Since when has that EVER been an obstacle for the Evansii? This strip is LITTERED with characters with no narrative usefulness.
C-Shaft: They could be luring him to the site in order to kick his ass, although that would make a little too much sense.
Lockhorns: These people are Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn. Pilfering restaurant bread and hoping that it doesn’t go stale in the next day or so will be the most romantic thing they’ve done in…their lives together, I’m guessing.
MW: “Please let these wrinklebags send us out of the room before they start fucking.”
Hey guys, I just realized: that’s the mom talking in that one cartoon.
FC: Hey, Thel, I see you went to, uh … (zooms in) Trundels (?). They always have the best, uh … (zooms in again) stripey cardboard tubes (?).
RMMD: “How about we try all the recipes — one a day for 24 wacky days. Then, on the 25th day, you push me in front of a moving train. Sound like a plan?”
JUDGE PARKER: Neddy, we don’t want Godiva’s voice in our heads either.
Now her Barreto/Manley image on the other hand….
Poor Josh.
He’s had to put a “mea culpa” on the front page (“front page”?) of the site explaining that he, in fact, “did” get the joke in FC.
Josh and Ted Cruz: tied together explaining perfectly rational decisions.
(Who wants to be in Texas when it’s freezing and snowing and there are people suffering and “decisions” to be made?)
@Voshkod:
She walked down the sidewalk in the gray light and stood and she saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless squalling child on the intestate concrete; darkness implacable. The crushing black vacuum of her home, her children. And somewhere hidden her own mate, trembling like a ground-fox in its cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. “C’mon Jeffy. Time to go home.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Inhospitable chickens always taste better.
@2+2=7: “White people don’t season their god-damn food!”
— that Lovecraft Country teevee series that was on a couple months back
@Ukulele Ike: Its Thel alright.
@Uncle Lumpy: Nice, except McCarthy would never stoop to using an apostrophe.
I have to weigh in on Family Circus. It’s actually a first responder yelling at Grandma Keane, who’s slumped against the WT Grant storefront with her empty flask at her feet.
Crank: Okay, so Batty is doing the thing I thought was too stupid for him to do, and is trying to pretend that pointing out how stupid it is in some way justifies this. I don’t know why I expected anything else, really.
FW: Harry Dinkle: Great at spotting kids pretending to have problems, absolutely no help at all when kids do have problems.
MT: “Sadly, no, I’m here with my ranting clone.”
MW: Seriously, has Moy never watched Animal Planet? Mistreated dogs do in fact become extremely wary of humans and have trust issues, and pretending they don’t doesn’t help anyone, least of all the dogs.
@brendancalling: Including the title character!
@UncleJeff: Okay, is the thinking that Josh phrased his explanation that he did get the joke as an apology for not getting it in order to preserve the joke of his original fake mistake?
I only ask because I know I made the exact error Josh claimed to make, and if I’m stupider than a reasonable person should believe anyone is capable of being, I’d like to know.
What had Limbaugh in the death pool?
@Voshkod:
OMG, Cormac McCarty is Marigold from Phoebe and Her Unicorn. I would not have expected that, though I always wondered why it wasn’t called Phoebe’s Unicorn.
@brendancalling: Luann – In this strip, narrative ambiguity is the best form of usefulness. Does Luann like Jack? Does Bernice? Do they “Like” like him or just like him? Is he interested in any of them in return? Is he gay? Asexual? Eddasexual? As long as these questions are never answered or directly addressed, we can have a dramatic strip like today’s without needing any effort or creativity or narrative motion. The readers will create their own adventure!!
Oh! Also, Gunther is dead. His plane spiraled in. The readers were the only survivors. Pass it on!!!
@Uncle Lumpy:
Because the unicorn is not the star of the strip. Everyone thinks the unicorn is the star, but I’M the star. I’M THE STAR I’M THE STAR I’M THE STAR!! *sob*
@Phoebe: Now now Phoebe, don’t go all Dakota on us.
RMMD: Chicken? Tickle your tastebuds? You need to learn to pluck the feathers off before eating it.
@Phoebe: She started to cry the unicorn isnt the star. Im the star, Im the star. She couldnt even convince herself.
Puddingification of the brain is a common outcome of reading Family Circus every day.
@Zla’od: #y12
“@Anonymous: (on Luann) They’re not running, they’re “power walking” (i.e., walking). The brother is just out of shape.”
I assumed Ben was just pretending to be winded, dropping back to force Bernice to interact with Jack. I’m not sure if he’s actually trying to promote romance between them or just, brother-like, is having fun making Bernice be uncomfortable — probably the latter, judging by other strips this week.
@Rube: #y29
Whoops. Oversnarkyesterdayapologies.
@Cormac McCarthy:
You’re the star. Nya nya.
@Horace Broon: You’re not
None of are.
We”re all alright.
We’re all alright. (Sob)
@N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods: #7
“RMMD: don’t be such an infant Buck. Be strict with yourself for a week and the cravings will ease.”
Didn’t work all that well for Tommy the Tweeker. He probably failed to hear about Mary Worth’s famous “imagine your past was different and it will be” solipsistic twaddle. Might work for Buck, though; he seems pretty twaddle-advice-adjacent. Worth a try. (We will now get another seven days of Buck not having a milkshake, which counts as plot development in this strip, right?)
@Schroduck: #8
“Shout-out to whoever’s job it is to draw face masks on old Family Circuses (I guess the same person who paints in seat belts and makes the TVs flatter), although they might want to work on finding some way to show who is actually meant to speaking in the panel.”
Maybe they could borrow the old arrowed “BLUE” indicator for the blue balloon in DICK TRACY (which seems to be no longer needed) and repurpose it? They could even retain the first two letters and just change the text to “BLITHERING.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #29
“Blondie: Although I can’t figure out the punchline of this one, I enjoyed the name “Thurnpopper.”
The Holy Therns are the evil White Martian villains in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ THE GODS OF MARS (and in the movie JOHN CARTER, which I liked even if I apparently wasn’t supposed to do so). So, allowing for a one-letter typo, the Thurnpopper Report probably has something to do with John Carter reporting how many evil cultists he’s destroyed lately. This may indicate that Dithers Inc. is considering opening a branch office on Barsoom, which would be the most interesting plot development in BLONDIE ever.
@Tom T.: #34
“Cutting off all contact with a parent is indicative of major trauma, and now we see both that Cherry did so with her mother and Mark with both parents.”
And we’ve never seen any indication that Andy ever tried to keep up communication with *his* mother either. He probably excuses that behavior by saying she was a real bitch.
FC-Jesus would carry her but Mary Worth is busy carrying him.
@popamatic: #59
“Judge Parker: Was Godiva Danube really that bad? I don’t remember that much friction between her and Neddy back in the day, they seemed to mostly get along.”
That’s my memory as well. As best I can recall, Neddy had no complaints about her until their joint-venture sweatshop building collapsed into a sinkhole and Godiva ran off, leaving Neddy to face the bad publicity alone. Considering that shortly thereafter Neddy also ran off, to shack up in Alaska with Hardhat Hank and leave (I guess) her family to face the bad publicity alone (while also leaving them to deal with the trauma of Sophie’s kidnapping), I can’t see Neddy as having a really good claim here on any moral high ground.
I suppose she’s also angry that Godiva was a bit snotty to her when she later encountered her in Los Angeles, but considering that Godiva was already a years-long B-List actor (maybe C-List at worst) and Neddy was working as a waitress at the time (apparently because she was so dumb as to believe that’s really the standard way to get a foot in the door in Hollywood, even if you’re independly wealthy and wouldn’t need to find a crap job while you worked on your screenplay or whatever), I again can’t really blame Godiva for snarking.
Perhaps Family Circus needs a snarky narration box to tell the readers what is going on?
“But are you really tired, Thel?”
LUANN: You know, I usually find the phrase “someone flipped her Bitch Switch” to be kinda misogynistic, but it perfectly describes Bernice’s sudden tantrum here. This girl is just so awful.
Rex Morgan: I have no interest in whether Buck’s taste buds are tickled, but I wouldn’t say no to tickling the pink-haired lady’s tonsils.
Jeffy looks like he’s dying. I’ve seen a lot of meltdowns and tantrums in my short life, and absolutely no child throws a tantrum/has a meltdown like that. He looks like he’s legitimately in pain. Considering how the Keane children are usually depicted, my money is on deformed feet. Trust me, feet are delicate things, and if your arches are just a little bit too high or too low, you’re out of luck. In fact, I had to have special inserts made for my shoes because 1. I could barely walk because of the pain, and 2. because no factory-made inserts are built as high as my arches are. I’m not fishing for pity, I’m just pointing out that Ma Keane either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that her abomination of a child is suffering from a very painful condition that is relatively easy to treat. Conclusion: Jeffy isn’t being a drama queen, he’s just in pain.
@Shrug: JP – The most important factor was that the old authorial regime was in charge for the whole “Neddy is going to start up a business inside used shipping containers and save money by hiring senior citizens and not giving them health insurance” nonsense. Day one of the new author taking over was literally a sinkhole swallowing up the entire venture. Prior to that, Godiva was a mentor to Neddy, who was an aspiring sweatshop manager. The whole “blame Godiva for everything” part was purely a creature of the new author.
@Shrug: I’ve dropped Judge Parker off my reading list. Mark Trail. Neither interests me any more.
Mary Worth is so over the top stupid I’m forced to watch-kind of like a train wreck.
@Shrug: some people say sugar is as addictive as cochise.
@N. L. Urker: cocaine. I don’t believe Cochise is addictive. Damn you auto cucumber.
I had the exact same confusion with Family Circus. Blame the cartoon- not your brain. At least for the moment.
And while I’m posting- Comic Curmudgeon is such a wonderful part of my day. Thank you!!
Inspired by events in 9CL, 99 year-old Nina wore the same frock that she used to vamp 14 year-old Skeezix back in the day. Skeezix, just days past his 100ht birthday, took one look and suffered a massive heart attack. Cartoonist Jim Scancarelli apologized for the sudden demise of his popular character but vowed that 135 year-old Walt Wallet would soldier on without his beloved “basket baby”.
@N. L. Urker: As a kid, I was hooked on Tonto….
FC-Poor Thel. No newspaper wanted to carry her spinoff comic.
Actually it’s Mom talking to ‘what’s it’s name’.
Are you sure it’s the kid who is speaking? Sure sounds like something a mom would say.
Hagar the Horrible-Lute plucks Honey’s string.
FC: I carried you for nine months and all I got for it were floppy tits and stretch marks! (her impressive jutting these days is courtesy of Wonderbra)
@mw:
Seriously, has anyone ever done that? Write a novel where the pet dog is actually speaking and performing actions through the human who is actually just an empty shell?
I CALL DIBS!
@Liam:
“Thel on Hard Times”?