That woodpecker looks pretty guilty, you have to admit
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Slylock Fox, 2/15/21
Here’s my hot take on this supposed “crime”: who gives a shit about a little light fire alarm prankery? Yes, it’s annoying, and theoretically a waste of the fire department’s time, but you know what else is a waste of their time? Taking meticulous notes and pacing around trying to figure out who pulled the fire alarm in the first place, instead of just yelling at everybody and then getting back into the fire truck and taking off! And sure, Walter Weimaraner probably wasn’t actually bowling when the alarm went off, but let’s be honest: a guy hanging around a bowling alley in a double-breasted suit and fancy little boots, conspicuously not bowling, is probably up to no good anyway. Slick Smitty alone can see the truth, even if he needs to lie a bit to open our eyes to it!
Mary Worth, 2/15/21
Sometimes, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, the best incentive to get out of the house is that your house will be full of dog poop if you don’t. Saul and Eve are here to testify!
Dennis the Menace, 2/15/21
Honestly, I’m more concerned about the broken heart of whatever poor soul was supposed to be the recipient of that box of candy. Each scenario I come up with as to how Dennis and Joey got their grubby little hands on it is more menacing than the last!
177 replies to “That woodpecker looks pretty guilty, you have to admit”
Slylock Fox-Oh sure! Arrest the only human around you speciest.
MW-Saul’s problem is how he lost his parents in Europe when he was a child.
JP-Time to move back to your Paris apartment.
FW-“Uh, this flute smells a bit fishy.”
Spiderman-Reverse the formula from shrinking to growth and you could make a killing on the Internet.
Funk Off And Die: Eye detest this arc as much as the last one.
Judge Dreadful: “I’m one year closer to death! Yay me!”
Judge Cratered: You’re still living where you’re not wanted, Neddy? That could be anywhere on Earth, and this Thursday Mars will have a few words of its own about that.
Rex Snoregan, Mighty Dull: Buck, there’s bad news and there’s good news. The bad news is, adjusting will take the rest of your life. The good news is, with your lack of willpower, how long can that be? (I didn’t say it was good news for you, Buck.)
“A witness saw Slick Smitty pulling the fire alarm, but Smitty says he was too busy bowling and couldn’t possibly have taken a break to pull the fire alarm. Why does Slylock Fox think Smitty is lying? Answer: Smitty isn’t wearing bowling shoes.”
There, now this comic makes sense, even if the art has to be different for it to work. What, did the artist realize too late the boots couldn’t go on one of the comic’s regular villains and try to play it off as someone not bowling not being suspicious?
CS: What full name would a woman have to use the diminutive “Art”? Because that’s the only way that Centerville would have an Arts Commission.
FC: Dolly would run this country into the ground perhaps moreover than biden, assuming such a thing is even possible.
Pibgorn: Ha ha, It’s funny because he’s shy about his massive boner!
MW:
Broke: Jesus is the answer to all your psychological issues.
Woke: Dogs are the answer to all your psychological issues.
Today on Jules Rivera’s Twitter feed, we learn that “Lord of the Rings” is racist. (Ditto Harry Potter.) “It’s a fantasy story by white people wherein the fantasy is that I don’t exist,” she explains.
@Liam:
Finding Saul:
The heartwarming story of a son, accompanied by a mentally unstable member of the opposite sex, who set out to find the former’s lost parents! On the way they meet a great white sh…a great white person named Bruce, who is a mugger trying to reform himself; are nearly run over by an angler towing a boat with which to fish; are stung by anaphylaxis from a jelly; make friends with a 150 year old hippie with a crush-ing handshake; and are helped by a very very large woman named Whale. At last they find his parents, whose skulls are used as anatomy demonstration models in a dental college, manage to trick the dentist in charge Iny throwing them out, rescue them, and return to great accla….a sequel.
(She ought to love Conan. Those stories are full of women like her.)
Taking care of something else helps us forget that we’re just insignificant specs of dust, hurtling through space at millions of miles per hour, without a defined purpose!
yy9CL: Brooke aside, this is probably one of the worst situations for a husband for your wife to go “You’re Not My Supervisor!”
Pibgornhub: I see someone got a Betamax copy of “Teen Backdoor Sluts 69” as a Valentine’s Day present.
yLuann: Bare shoulders under sheets at bed usually indicate nekkid bedroom mischief and procreation. Not in the Evansiiverse.
RxMD: So, take THAT, Narration Box!
Slylock Fox normally goes in for slightly more obviously animal names than “Walter Weimaraner” so my guess is that he isn’t representing a dog at all, but the spirit of the Weimar Republic. Like the Communists after the Reichstag Fire, Weimaraner is being falsely blamed for the fire alarm by Smitty, who will now declare a state of emergency, suspend the constitution, and install himself as dictator.
SFx: You know who I feel bad for this in this scenario? That bird silhouetted in the background. Everyone else is having a blast at the bowling alley with their clothes and hot food and opposable digits, and this guy is probably off to eat some raw fish by the creek in the nude. Actually, have we checked out his alibi?
MW: “So, I think a dog would really help you with your problems”
“I already have a dog, remember?”
“That’s right! Problem solved.”
DtM: A broken heart doesn’t matter if it’s ‘Choc-Lit’, the great new literary genre that’s just long detailed descriptions of people consuming chocolate. It’s not porn, but it’s not not-porn, if you know what I mean…
DtM: I’m glad they put in that hyphen otherwise there’s a possibility Dennis pronounced the syllable “clit”.
SFox: The woodpecker is worried they’ll ask him how he has a pair of arms instead of wings.
SF: The woodpecker is terrified as this false alarm threatens to expose the sick animal-human bowling fetish he has with Smitty. Too late! You shouldn’t have shared your bowling shoes in public.
@Little Guy: (on yesterday’s Luann) I wanted to say that the first panel depicts erotic love, the second love in the sense of storge or familiarity, and so on. But now that I think about it, panels 2 through 6 all depict something being tasted or consumed (popcorn, an ice cream bar, Ox, lipstick, dog food). This suggests that panel 1 should also involve eating or tasting.
It doesn’t matter that the person expecting the chocolate got their heart broke, ‘coz Dennis lit their house on fire and burned it down. Ok, this is seriously getting menacing.
Dennis the Menace: It’s really hard to say what’s the real menace here: that someone stuffed hockey pucks in a heart-shaped box or that Dennis and Joey are gullible enough to think they’re food.
Today’s Slylock Fox features a celebrity guest appearance by Walter Weimaraner, an artist best known for his photographs of humans in various costumes and poses.
Is Bill’s Tummy Brain now going by “Scott”?
Slylock Fox – Bonus question: Why can’t that alligator dance?
Answer: He’s got two left feet!
Sfx: “Hey, I thought I was going to the Gator Bowl! What a rip-off!”
Pibgorn: Apparently this kid is for grow, not for show.
Slylock: All the bowlers have balls but we know Walter is innocent because he doesn’t.
Mary Worth: All the bowlers have balls but Eve knows Saul is innocent because he doesn’t.
Dennis the Menace: Dennis is young but you just know he already has massive balls.
DtM: “A broken heart doesn’t matter if it’s choc-lit”. What was really menacing was when Dennis became a cardiologist and started to present this a therapy to his patients
The last part of the “solution” is that Shylock determined Smitty did it. HOW? Let’s see some of that fabled insight you have, or is the solution-“when in doubt, the human did it”?
MW: “Taking care of something else helps us to forget about our own problems.”
“Poor Mary Worth, she must have so much pain to forget for her to take so much concern in other people’s problems!”
“No, she’s just an old biddy”
“A broken heart doesn’t matter if it’s choc-lit.” The true menace is “Dennis the Menace” breaching “Cathy”’s turf
DtM: There are many ways to draw two small children whose mouths are stained with chocolate. All are wrong. Making them look like they have three-day stubble is one of the more wrong ones.
SF: The crocodile and the bird are very uncomfortable. Since they are not mammals, they are not used to have their balls in the outside
“Mary Worth” engages in blatant anti-cat propaganda! Having a dog forces you to altruism and opening up, a cat doesn’t. You might say, “didn’t they give Estelle a cat?” Yes. They also gave her Wilbur. My case rests
MW: “Saul, dogs are very helpful against depression! They make you go outside, they help you socialise, they keep you company!”
“Yes! Do you also use a jar of peanut butter to improve your love life?”
“What?!”
“Nothing”
Rex Morgan: “Buck finishes his chat with his nutritionist. The extreme close-up made him briefly wonder whether she was wearing any clothes at all. He put those thoughts aside and went to find his pink-haired love goddess.”
@Flonatin of Bologna: Artoria, Artemisia, Artemis…something classical and kind of pretentious. That having been said, it wouldn’t be that shocking for a town like Centerville to have an arts commission, though it would be a part-time or volunteer gig.
SF: After the Animalapocalypse, we abandoned every rule of human civilization: human supremacy, fair trials, wearing matched shoes
@Zla’od: The sad part is that there are MUCH better arguments for LOTR being racist than the absence of Hispanic people (though I disagree with them, I can at least see where they’re coming from), while in Harry Potter having Hispanic people would not reflect demographic reality, seeing as there are extremely few Hispanic people in the UK. (I specify Hispanic people here because Rowling actually did have characters who weren’t white, but they were from groups that actually have substantial populations in Britain.)
Rivera has brought some much needed freshness and verve to Mark Trail, but her writing would probably improve if she got her head out of her digestive system and looked around a little.
@Flonatin of Bologna: @Tom:
On the Centerville Arts Commission : Of course there is such a thing, there at least has to be ONE personal evaluating if the expenditures incurred from having to constantly replace the statues Crankshaft’s bus destroys is worth the split-second of beautfication they bring every morning before the old bastard purposefully smashes them again.
DtM: The real menace here is “choc-lit,” undoubtedly one of those cheap, artificially-colored, -flavored, and -texturized confections so loved by children despite it containing no actual chocolate and being as appetizing, flavorful, and toothsome as a microwaved crayon dipped in high-fructose corn syrup.
FW: Batuik pays homage to the Portsmouth Sinfonia.
MW: Yesterday the esteemed Daniel Mangena told us, “Instead of forcing yourself to be positive, allow yourself to be present in the now.” Somehow Karen Moy interpreted this as, “Find something to distract you from your crippling misery, preferably something with constant and immediate needs you have to address so you aren’t dragged into the crushing darkness within.” Ah, but then again, Eve said that yesterday doesn’t exist and all we have is now, so whatever Mr. Mangena said isn’t important because he said it yesterday. Then again, Eve said that yesterday, but yesterday doesn’t matter, so what she said doesn’t matter either? Hmm. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Or maybe I’m just annoyed that this story about abuse trauma and finding romance late in life has been 95% about the joys of dog ownership.
PIBGORN – We keep having weeks go by with no update, then a new strip will finally appear that completely fails to advance the plot or introduce any new dynamics. She’s been bathing in the river and giving Aqua Teen Horny Monk, and his accomplice Nob Rubber, boners for cumming on two years now. If the inspiration for what happens next hasn’t risen up yet, maybe it’s time to toss off this abomination and see if something else will emerge in its place.
@Ettorre: Dennis sounds like Buck Wise’s nutritionist.
@Maude R. Fawker: Seriously….is the artist showing the buttcrack of a canonically pubescent girl?
9CL – You know how thrilling it is to listen to another couple talk about how wonderful their relationship is and how they were just meant to be together and omg he did the cutest thing the other day and ……
That’s now every day for this strip. Let’s spend some time with these two indolent narcissists and revel in how much they love each other! Oh, we don’t see them make thoughtful gestures, or reveal their generous and friendly personalities, or any of that bullshit. But we can see them discuss how horny they always are and how they have been horny for each other since before they can remember.
At least they don’t have any children to neglect. Well, none that don’t eminently deserve it…..
Sly: I couldn’t have pulled that alarm. I’m not wearing bowling shoes. Oh, and no soap, radio also.
DTM: Dennis and Joey found this box in the dumpster behind the drugstore where all the individual candies have melted into one big blob of choc-lit.
MW: So an outhouse would serve the same function as a pet dog?
@Uncle Jeff: PIB – “ is the artist showing the buttcrack of a canonically pubescent girl?“
I think we determined that, at some point in this inconsistent and drawn out storyline, she transmogrified from a canonically 13 year old girl into a magical faerie being who is beyond time and thus it is ok to draw her twat peeking out from the see-through bathing gown that the adult Monk apparently bought her.
Slylock Fox: Look at Walter Weimaraner, how righteously pissed he is. “I will have this unjustifiable inquisition tossed out of court on the basis of the ancient doctrine of ‘Qui bonus est puerum!'” he sniffs.
The best thing about dogs is that they help slow down curses like the one that’s turning Saul into a ventriloquist’s dummy.
MW: Next: Saul does a PSA for The Animal Shelter on adopting a dog, becomes an unlikely celebrity and sex symbol, starts getting texts from women who are wearing nothing but a bowtie.
I still think something interesting could happen in this comic. But probably won’t.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Somehow, your explanation makes it seem even more pornographic.
DtM – How many times in your life have you seen a solid chocolate heart in one of those red boxes? I’ve eaten a lot of Valentine’s candy in my life and for me, that’s a zero. The red boxes are basically Whitman’s Samplers – the squares are caramel, and everything else is a grab bag of creams, nuts and nougats. I love them. I hate that we’re under a sheet of ice today, or I’d be getting myself a half-priced box and eating them in my car, possibly while crying. It’s just a little thing we call tradition, OK, Dennis?
PIB – And this is the rebooted storyline, the first one stalled out at exactly this point almost two years ago ….
https://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2019/05/29
Clearly, his vision for the story began and ended with “hot tween magical being who is not subject to age of consent considerations cavorts naked by a lake and gives all the boys boners.” Piano benches get a lot of grief, but there may be more “sex in a lake” strips in Brooke’s spank bank than anything else.
Only after Slylock had conducted four excruciating cavity searches did Max point out that they weren’t at the boweling alley after all.
Crankshaft: Thank god that “flu epidemic” is over!
SFx – Are Count Weirdly and Slick Smitty the only humanoid-types in the SFx universe? Not very flattering as to the human character. I mean, not near as dark as reality, but still….
MW – Before Greta, Saul spent all his time in his apartment stroking his Weimaraner….
DtM – Shit-eating is all that comes to mind. Does that count as a snark? Did I do good….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
“Hey, I do a great Mary Worth impression, check it out! (Ahem). Taking care of something else helps us forget about our own problems!”
“Dude, that is spot on!”
@Old School Allie Cat: I think they’re eating one of these. [Warning: Lifelike representation of internal organ!] The heart-shaped box is just left over from the victim they mugged before this one.
MW: Eve should get a horse. They generate a much larger volume of excrement than a dog, which means they are even more helpful, right?
@Tom: There’s also much better arguments for Harry Potter being racist, when you come to it. (Let’s just say Cho Chang is really not popular among Asian readers.
If Rivera (or anyone else) would like to see some good Hispanic fantasy representation, I’d direct them to Silvia Moreno-Garcia, whose Gods of Jade and Shadow was one of the best things I read last year.
CEO JULIUS C. DITHERS DIES AFTER ASSAULT BY BANJO MUSIC. LAZY, GLUTTONOUS OFFICE MANAGER HELD FOR QUESTIONING.
MW: “Taking care of something else helps us to forget about our own problems,” explains so much about Mary’s MO.
SFx: Searching for an alibi, Slick Smitty picks the one animal that looks like he was just wandering past the bowling alley on the way to his court appearance. You’d think after all this time he’d be better at this.
Either Dennis and Joey are rubbing their faces all over that unmelted chocolate for the sheer thrill of doing so, or Joey’s beard is coming in nicely. Dennis, maybe try again in a few years.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I assumed that, although Luda was physically aged up by the magic puberty lute, she has the same idiot thirteen year old brain, which still makes the whole situation suspect (why did Brother Ut have something like that in his possession anyway?). Since Luda hasn’t displayed any magical abilities yet, I assume that she has to absorb all of the sexual energy of those around her to achieve her final form. Exactly why this has hasn’t happened yet is anyone’s guess.
@TheDiva: Re Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Check out Mexican Gothic. One of the creepiest books I have ever read.
I didn’t know about her or her work until I heard an interview with her on NPR about Mexican Gothic. It sounded interesting, so I bought it. It’s an interesting, very creepy story. I also learned a little about Mexican history.
C’shaft: That’s Crankshaft’s official title anyway.
FW: Nothing like seeing Harry Dinkle to make me think, “You know, I wonder what Les is up to these days….”
Pibgorn: Not that we needed proof that Brooke doesn’t even bother trying if lithe nymphettes aren’t involved, but…
BlondieNice to see the Kingston Trio’s still getting gigs.
// Do they still play “Greenback Dollar”? I hope Dagwood paid them enough for the subway fare home, anyway.
@I speak Jive: It’s on the “to read” list, though it sounds like I should push it a bit higher in the priority ranking. (Jade and Shadow, being about Mayan death gods, is also suitably creepy in a Guillermo del Toro way.)
The woodpecker is really worried because this is a league game.
His name is Donnie.
@Old School Allie Cat: I’d be getting myself a half-priced box and eating them in my car, possibly while crying.
The strip tease is always best when the dancer is crying. I never knew that angle about choc’lits, though.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: PIBGORN: How would you describe this current version if not “stalled out”? I mean it feels like we’ve been repeating the same story beats for 3 years now. It’s like 9CL with its “wander around Normandy, kill some Nazis, boink, wander some more, rinse repeat.”
Slylock: I’m very concerned for that fireman dog (firedog?) emerging from the bowling alley. He looks traumatized, like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have. Best case scenario: he went to the bathroom and saw someone had pooped in the urinal. “You should have seen it! It was this big!”
MW: So many eyelines in panel two. What are they looking at? We’ll never know. But Max, Saul, and Eve have each found something fascinating to stare at in this apartment.
DTM: I know it’s supposed to be chocolate on their faces, but that shading looks like the stubble Dennis and Joey will undoubtedly be sporting when they’re homeless and sharing a bottle of Thunderbird in an alley someday.
@Tom: #36: During an interview Professor Tolkien was asked how he thought of Orcs as looking. His answer was basically one of the more unattractive Mongolian races. There are non-white people in LOTR. The Sothron mercenaries (the elephant riders) that served in Sauron’s army were described as dark skinned.
SFx: Meanwhile, across town, Walter Weimaraner’s brother, Wesley, is burning down their failing, family-owned business for the insurance.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: no idea, but whoever it is needs to keep the current politics out of it. This is our oasis from politics.
@Guillermo el chiclero:I think he may have softened it a little bit by saying something like “unattractive (at least to white people)”, but yeah, despite what a great book LOTR is, there’s some problematic aspects.
9CL: It’s just so darned convenient that Edda gets wet at seeing how time and genetics are slowly decaying Amos’ ability to produce the testosterone that would let him continue to do things like grow hair (and have a sex drive, but let’s not engage in anything resembling reality here). It’s almost like this strip is written by a man so far past his sexual prime that he can’t remember what it’s like to not be able to pee first thing without struggling—well, not because his prostate is as hard as a racquetball, anyway.
Ooooo! Girl Genius finally wrapped that excruciating Solstice story and has brought us back to the main plot with a very tasty double-length Recap! Me likey!
Dennis the Menace- Nasty little bastards eating someone elses candy. They should be whipped good.
Luann – . Are they mimicking the threes company theme with the same plots involving someone eavesdropping on a conversation and getting the facts all wrong. And Bernice is such a whining wimpy bitch – she cant get a life or a clue. Jack seems interested but needs to move on to a girl who doesnt have Bernices whiny insecurity issues.
Mary Worthless – They sure do like to drag out the same fucking thing for months. Lets talk about our stupid insecurities and paranoias for 6 months. The writers of this strip are so fucking lazy.
Hi and Lois – Whats with Dennis the Menace and the kids in this strip putting their dirty grubby little hands on someone else valentines day candy. they all need a good butt warming and grounding.
Moose Miller – Ever notice that all of the other married couples besides the Millers in this strip are in unhappy marriages . and its almost always a bitchy lazy jealous wife. You would think that Molly would have already taken a shotgun to Moose but then again she kept letting him nail her for several kids and now he’s sponging off her mothers money.
Rube @75: Fantasy fiction from earlier generations certainly can cause a bit of tooth-grinding. One of my favorites is Charles Finney’s 1935 The Circus of Dr. Lao, which climaxes with a lengthy ritual honoring the pagan god Yottle.
Lots of dancing about by Golliwog-looking natives, and I’m hesitant about recommending the novel to sensitive types…
Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books avoid this by using a monoracial setting, which is problematic in its own way (Hiya, Jules!)
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: #y75
“LUANN – So, is Jack the only survivor from alll the characters they invented for the college years?”
Besides the ones you mention, I think Professor Zebo showed up once or so in the last few months. But the broken-neck-appearing female drama instructor at Mooney U dropped down the memory hole when Quill and Luann broke up. And Tiffany briefly had a room mate in the dorm, and said roomie’s boyfriend also hung around — but they seemed to be gone within a couple of weeks. I can’t even remember their names (nor that of the drama instructor).
If they’re going to circle the wagons back to just essentially “the basic high school crowd” again, I wish they’d at least bring back Crystal and Knute.
On the other/third hand, at least we now have the addition of the dynamic goldfish Monstro, who should be good for, oh, any number of extended exciting plot developments.
@Tom:
If you want to read some Middle-Earth history from another viewpoint, I recommend The Last Ringbearer. Unlike LoTR, which is derived from the Gondorian Red Book of Westmarch, Ringbearer is derived from Mordorian sources. In it, the aftermath of the War of the Ring is examined from the POV of an orcish narrator. Rather than a war of good vs. evil, the war is presented as a conflict initiated by the magical elves and their allies against a coalition of technology-using humans led by Sauron VIII of Mordor. The elves regard humans and their technology with a mixture of fear and disdain, believing that Middle-Earth should remain under elvish stewardship with humans as willing servants. Since Aragorn won the war, the Gondorian royal version of history (victory over incarnate evil, thanks to the leadership of the heir to the Dunedain bloodline) is the one most commonly known.
In our world, the book was written in Russian. Alas, due to copyright issues, an English translation has never been officially published. Last I checked, it can be found and downloaded in electronic form without too much trouble.
DtM: “Mmmm, choc’lit!” “Mmmm, feces!” “Ow!” “Ow!” “You got choc’lit on my feces!” “You got feces on my choc’lit!” “What?” “What?” “Mmmm, delicious!!!!!”
FUNKY WINKERBEAN: Thursday’s strip: “Somehow Mrs. Howard ‘accidentally’ pushed herself down a flight of stairs, so I have the honor…I mean tragic duty of taking over her class permanently.”
FUNKY WINKERBEAN (2): You know, when the holidays come up again, I think I’ll give Dinkle (and probably Batiuk as well) a dictionary with the word and definition of “Retirement” highlighted.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Keep in mind this is what Buck said the LAST time too…right before he started shoveling artery-clogging stuff down his gullet by the bucketfull.
MARY WORTH: The implications are scarier then you think, Josh, considering that Saul previously had a dog when we met him (he must have subscribed to a lot of newspaper back in the day if you get my drift.)
@2+2=7: REX MORGAN M.D.: Keep in mind this is what Buck said the LAST time too…right before he started shoveling artery-clogging stuff down his gullet by the bucketfull.
Any habit (and that’s what this is) requires a commitment to go cold turkey to start out. We may wish it were otherwise, and for some tiny but fortunate minority it may be, but generally a plan to be “mostly good” is no plan at all. Buck intends to eat what he wants when he wants, and his “plan” is actually only that he thinks he can “want” a bit less than before. That’s no plan. I hope it plays out with full consequences.
Do you have deep anxiety, depression, or other psychological problems?
Why try therapy, psychiatry, medication, or other so-called “help” when you can add an innocent life that is totally dependent upon you for its well-being!
Yes, adding further responsibility and stress to your life can only result in good things for your mental health problems! Just ask this couple who decided to add pets to solve their marital woes.
Leroy: My life is a living Hell.
Loretta: My only joy is hoping he dies first.
Mr. Fish: I’m the tenth “Mr. Fish”. My predecessors all committed suicide.
Phantom: Hee hee. This strip immediately made me think of The Coasters’s “Riot in Cell Block Number Nine,” and I was all set to post the video, but then I got distracted by The Zombies’s Much better prison song.
@GeoGreg: I was not impressed by The Last Ring-Bearer. It went a bit beyond “from a different perspective” and went into “downright falsification.”
MT: On Friday, it was daylight and Happy Trail was astonished to see Rusty.
MT: On Monday, it’s nighttime and a mysterious figure runs past Mark as he turns away from the Trail compound.
So, Jules. What happened over the weekend?
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: PIBGORN – “ Luda hasn’t displayed any magical abilities yet”
She hasn’t used her telekinetic power to fling horny males hundreds of yards into the air yet, but she did transform from an illiterate peasant girl who didn’t know her own name, or what a name is, into someone who “had learned to speak Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, could write in English, and had invented a codification of her own Gallic. Furthermore, the works of Pythagoras were indelibly inscribed on her memory and poured forth from her practiced hand” all in the time it took a teenaged monk’s dick to get hard, so obviously she is now a fully developed magical unicorn girl.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Indeed. I should have made it clearer that what I meant was that there are better reasons than a lack of Hispanic people in a fantasy world based on a kind of proto-Eurasia to regard LOTR as racist. Though, as I mentioned, I’m inclined to disagree with the contention that LOTR is actually racist.
Regarding Tolkien’s racial attitudes, it is worth noting that in unpublished materials the two missing wizards of the five who came to Middle-Earth went off to the east and south, and apparently stirred up enough trouble that Sauron was unable to use the full strength of Harad and Rhun.
@Effluvius Erratus: Buck from Rex Morgan M.D.: “But…um…I’M allowed eat one of those microwave crayons, right Ms. Nutritionist?”
@Tom:
That’s one reaction. But, of course, it assumes that Tolkien was somehow telling the “truth” about Middle-Earth in LoTR. Ring Bearer is definitely non-canonical fanfic. If, as canonically stated, LoTR is a work passed down from ancient sources, then it stands to reason that other, contradictory, sources might exist. Tolkien built Middle-Earth as a proxy mythology for England. It’s certainly true that, for example, Greco-Roman mythology has stories that are hard to reconcile. Why shouldn’t the tales of Middle-Earth also show that feature? If you think the book is poorly written, fair enough, but I am on board with a Middle-Earth corpus based on lost sources now argued over by scholars as to which is the most reliable.
It’s like the Funkyverse timeline. Some contradictions just can’t be reasoned through
Slylock: I had never really noticed that large parts of “Forest” are completely urban. This area is paved over right out to the horizon. Is Forest a … county? An autonomous area? It can’t be that big if it only has one bowling alley. Maybe … FOREST is short for “Fox-policed Organized Region for Entities with Sentience and Tails.” And Slick Smitty & Count Weirdly have vestigial tails? Now it all makes sense.
@UncleJeff: re MT: The mysterious figure is the “in-the-past” young Mark who we saw in a flashback much earlier in the “story” leaving home. But I don’t know why it is now dark after everyone has arrived for the denouement (?) I think everyone was there (in daylight) on Saturday.
What happened on Sunday is just between us and the Lovebugs.
@Arabella: Maybe it really is still daylight, and Mark is remembering that it was a “dark and stormy night” when he left home as a teen. That makes more sense.
9CL: If you look at today’s and yesterday’s 9CL classic, you can see that this used to be a fun strip.
@UncleJeff: I believe that is young MT leaving home—it’s a flashback.
MT: I finally removed Mark Trail from my reads when I realized I was clicking away without reading it anymore. I’m more engaged by the vintage A3G, which explained today that Janice Brooks “has subtly rejected” the bartender by discussing what she had read about the play. Silly me, I just thought she was having a conversation with someone she just met. Thank you, narration box!
Girl Genius: It took a lonnnnng time to resolve this storyline, especially when I got the impression it was meant as Xmas filler.
FW: “Is to have everyone swap back to their correct instruments.” Did I miss something? Did Mrs. Howard make the students play inappropriate instruments? Is it supposed to be a pun? Do I have cheese for brains (don’t answer that, please).
@yyJust Jim: Plot Twist: “Grandma Edna” is slowly dying in Germany, caught by the SS working as a double agent.
@Bill’s Tummy Brain, Girl Genius: Yeah, but it didn’t have Agatha in a pond naked from the waist up while a teen monk hid his erection.
*phht* Pikers.
LotR was also published before “Hispanic” was a separate racial category in the U.S. Census (1970); such people were counted as “white” and the FBI still combines these groups when tallying crime stats.
I think it’s, ahem, a reach to try to imply racism when the sociological category didn’t exist as a separate category when the book was written, though it would’ve been really funny if there were a group of exaggeratedly macho guys with dark mustaches who pulled knives quickly and got aggressive when they drank. I’m not going to propose a name for this fictitious race because of it’s obvious racism but you’d at least have some diversity.
SLYLOCK FOX: I suspect what’s really going on is that this is a gay bar (a classy little joint called “The Ball Handlers”) from the 50’s that’s just been raided (the “bowling motif” is just a cover…which is why doggy there is so pissed that he’s being “outed”)
(As an aside, today’s strip is subjected to some exceptionally poor logic. Whether Walter was bowling or not has no bearing on whether he could have pulled the fire alarm during the game. Lord!)
@Flonatin of Bologna: #4
“CS: What full name would a woman have to use the diminutive “Art”?”
I’ve actually met a woman whose first name was Arthur (her parents apprently wanted a boy), but she went by “Artie” rather than “Art.”
Otherwise, there’s “Artemisia.”
@Bill’s Tummy Brain: Switching instruments is a prank band students might play on substitute teachers, but Harry Dinkle’s onto their tricks.
@Bill’s Tummy Brain:On FW: I had the same reaction as you, but according to the commenters at Son of Stuck Funky, Dinkel knows that the kids would try to screw with a substitute teacher by switching their instruments. That’s probably it, but it’s not an obvious joke to get.
@Hugh G. Rection:
The strip tease is always best when the dancer is crying. I never knew that angle about choc’lits, though.
My only experience with strip teases was “tassels class” I took with the local burlesque troupe. Worth every dime, and came with a set of tasseled pasties. I was laughing too hard to cry that day. And yes, I got them to twirl.
The crying while eating thing is something my friends and I joke about when we’re stressed, upset, etc. I’m not saying we do it a lot, but have I personally done it? Yes. To quote comedian Aparna Nancherla, “Any pizza is a personal pizza if you cry while eating it.”
@Joe Blevins: #71
“MW: So many eyelines in panel two. What are they looking at? We’ll never know. But Max, Saul, and Eve have each found something fascinating to stare at in this apartment.”
Mary’s not-concealed-well-enough webcam?
MW: Saul told Eve that if it weren’t for Greta, he’d probably be holed up in his apartment, refusing to come out. It’s in that moment Eve realized what must be done.
@GeoGreg: #81
Another “the Orcs are the sympathetic ones” fantasy novel is Mary Gentle’s GRUNTS!, though that’s played somewhat for laughs (if blackly humorous ones).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunts!
Hilary Forth, Arlo, and The Garbage Ape wish you the best Presidents Day ever!
@Patrick: Eagles fans are a fictitious race?
Since Walter, the alligator, and the woodpecker are wearing the same outfit, I’m guessing they’re on some team together, which means the alligator and the woodpecker know Walter’s the culprit but are terrified at the thought of what Walter will do to them if they share what they know. “Snitches get stitches!” warbles the woodpecker. “If they’re lucky,” adds the alligator, “With Walter, it’s more likely that snitches end up in ditches!”
JUDGE PARKER: Wait, if she’s just going to do all of this from the apartment, why the (heck) did Neddy even need move in the 1st place? This looks like this straight-up could have been a work-from-home job.
And why the (heck) is she “living where she’s not wanted? She can probably afford her own apartment. Why would WANT to spend all this time in a cramped place watching Ronnie creepily make out with her doppleganger? It’s all so weird!
@2+2=7: Nutritionist: “Oh yeah eat all you want, they’ll go right through you.”
TWO WEEKS LATER
Plumber: “I’ve never seen anything like it before, but your main clean-out is completely plugged by an unholy mixture of wax and feces!”
love is... pushing the button that makes him fart.
Slylock: It’s been awhile since I went bowling, but as I recall we got a pair of matching shoes. Smitty and Woody are each wearing a mis-matched pair. in fact, it looks like they got them mixed up. Was this supposed to be a clue, or was it just a red (and blue) herring?
@Old School Allie Cat: “Any pizza is a personal pizza if you cry while eating it.”
That one goes into the ol’ one-liner file I’ve been keeping.
As for the tassels class, if I ever cross paths with you, I will have to remember to first cash a twenty at a nearby convenience store, for a fistful of ones. Abilities like yours should be kept in practice.
Though, I would make sure to also keep some fifties on me, in case you preferred to earn your dollars faster than one at a time.
@Sequitur:
Finally. Our electric is back on. It snowed all night, got down to 4 degrees F (-15 C) then the electric went off about 6:30 a.m. Central time.
Where in this polar vortex are you? I’m in Nashville, TN – it hasn’t gotten above freezing since Friday(?) and it looks like we’re basically screwed until a week from now. We’ll see. Thankfully, we haven’t lost power, but we’re getting so much sleet today, it feels like a matter of when, not if…
I’m not trying to be a stalker – just curious.
@Uncle Jeff: PIBGORN: Yes, and it’s faaaaar from the first time he’s sexualized her, even before her weird magical growth spurt. Check out the strip for March 18, 2020 and remember that this is when she was still physically 13 (not that her now looking older makes any of it okay). Then maybe give Chris Hansen a call on all our behalfs.
9CL, Pibgorn: So, in the one strip, Amos is saying that Edda made him just as horny in eighth grade, but she just didn’t have any boobs yet for him to bury his face in. In the other, a thirteen-year-old girl is showing her naked bottom not just to the horny monk but also to all of us.
Imagine the drawings he *doesn’t* publish.
Ziggy-The next two hams are William Shatner and Nicolas Cage.
Curtis-Curtis just wants a cut of what you sold Barry for.
@Sequitur: love is… pushing the button that makes him fart.
Indifference is… making sure she is aware that the date is over when the happy ending is reached or her right hand gets tired, whichever is first.
@Patrick: …the Irish, right?
@119 Old School Allie Cat:
Well, I was about to answer your question, ready to press the “POST COMMENT” button when my power went out again for about 35 minutes.
Anyway, I live about 40 miles north of Dallas in what is called “North Texas” which does not include the Panhandle.
We went below freezing late last Thursday and we’re not expected to be above freezing until next Saturday afternoon. The last time I remember this happening here was 40 years ago in 1981. We’ll get to -1 degree F. overnight tonight. I understand that’s warm for some of you northern people but I haven’t been in a negative degree situation since was age seven living in Connecticut. That was just before moving to Florida.
We’re scheduled for another big snowfall on Wednesday.
@Nehemiah Scudder asseverates: That’s cheerier than my scenario. I figured they were a barbershop quartet called the Superspreaders, and one of ’em already died from COVID-19, contracted during one of the few random days each month when the pandemic “phases in” to the Blondieverse.
@Barnaby Scones: I see by the placement of the apostrophe, and by the Garbage Ape’s costume, that George Washington has been retconned out of this holiday in Heathcliff Land. I’m guessing it’s not so much political as that Washington seems more like a dog person and Lincoln more like a cat person.
Crank: Hooray, it’s a bunch of people I’ve never seen before! I can’t wait to find out why I hate them!
DtM: Wait, do the Dennis the Menace creative team think the heart-shaped candy boxes inevitably seen in US Valentines Day media contain … a single giant heart-shaped chocolate, which Dennis and Joey have broken up like an Easter egg? Because I may be a foreigner, but I’m reasonably sure they don’t.
@Hugh G. Rection: Reminds me of the Bloodhound Gang classic “The Lap Dance is Always Better When the Stripper is Crying”
“Well I find it’s quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
So, Bambi’s goin’ on about how she can make all my fantasies come true.
So I says, “Even this one I have where Jesus Christ
Is jackhammering Mickey Mouse in the doo-doo hole
With a lawn dart as Garth Brooks gives birth to something
Resembling a cheddar cheese log with almonds on Santa Claus’s tummy-tum?”
Well, ten beers, twenty minutes and thirty dollars later
I’m parkin’ the beef bus in tuna town if you know what I mean.
Got to nail her back at her trailer.
Heh. That rhymes.
I have to admit it was even more of a turn-on
When I found out she was doin’ me to buy baby formula.”
@Old School Allie Cat, @Sequitur: I am sending warm, electrical thoughts your way. I know that what you really need is actual warmth and electricity, but I’m sending the thoughts anyway.
@Will: 9CL – How quickly did it transition from a strip about a single mom raising a precocious daughter into a story about how hot Edda is and how she is always having sex?
Other than people emailing me with Solange strips, I didn’t start reading regularly until the strip in Brussels where she sings “hey big spender” in a cheerleader costume to try to clue Amos in on what she wants.
And apparently we had the unicorn sequence before that, but was it as objectively sex obsessed then? Because ever since Belgium its been full on hard on all the time. Edda screws Amos on a Bosendorfer and hot air balloonists live stream it to the world and everyone watches, so much so that his winning the contest is possibly tainted by people having seen his taint already and thus somehow being more inclined to vote for him because of the video. And we just ran with that and never slowed down…..
@Ettorre: Max prefers deviled ham.
@Rube: Thank you! That explains why the students were smirking. (Thank you, too, Anonymous.)
it would’ve been really funny if there were a group of exaggeratedly macho guys with dark mustaches who pulled knives quickly and got aggressive when they drank. I’m not going to propose a name for this fictitious race because of it’s obvious racism but you’d at least have some diversity.
I’ll name them: Boggies, from the LOTR parody.
RMMD – Hey, this is just like reading one of those pamphlets you can pick up at a doctor’s office! Except a LOT less interesting.
@Peanut Gallery: Astute observation.
@Ukulele Ike:
Lol. I love the comments section here. Yeah, call ‘em the Micks. Our Lady of the Gaels ora pro nobis.
Slylock Fox-The fire alarm was pulled to distract people from a crazed vet threatening to shoot another bowler.
@Sequitur: #125: Weather report from SE Texas. Where I live, about 20-25 miles southwest of Houston, we’re expecting lows in the teens or single digits tonight. We actually got snow. It’s not supposed to warm up here until about Friday. Houston area hasn’t seen a hard freeze of this magnitude since 1989. My house was built in 2007. Luckily it has the high-tech PEX plumbing which is designed not to burst during a hard freeze. The local newsies are having a field day. It’s like a Cat 5 hurricane blew into town.
SFx: So do Slylock and Max respond to all false alarms on a motorcycle? Or were they just out riding around and saw the commotion?
Dennis the Menace-What’s scary is that in the past Dennis might have killed people and ate their hearts. He prefers the chocolate ones over the real ones.
9CL Do you think they killed the nun and tossed her body to the twins?
Luann “So how thin are the walls, Bernice?”
“So thin that I can here her and her electric toothbrush, night and day, day and night. I’m starting to have my doubts because who brushes their teeth a dozen times every day?”
@Liam:
The vet was going to shoot them with a tranquilizer gun and then proceed to spay/neuter them as an attempt to stop the animal apocalypses.
FW: Isn’t Harry around the band all the time because they are a little short handed in the director position?
He would know exactly who played what.
Unless, during the actual band practice he is practicing the skin flute with Les.
RMMD – “Excuse me, but – food is the sole source of pleasure in your sad life, right? And now, you’ll never be able to have the things you enjoy ever, ever again? I’m sorry, but that just cracks me up.”
Phantom- Ceiling Phantom watches you stomp three prison guards half to death.
@Unca $crooge: 9CL is like “The Omen,” except with narcissism in place of Satanism.
@Sequitur: Power outages! I hope your refrigerator doesn’t…uh, never mind.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: After reading that, I feel like I need a bath.
@Tom T.: My God, we need to see the Swedish 9CL cartoons.
@Peanut Gallery: I have vague memories of a 12-volume set of “Bible Stories for Children.”
@Patrick: Also, Tolkien was from Airstrip One, not Megacity One.
@GeoGreg: Sort of like the conceit that Prince Valiant is actually a tapestry which is slowly being translated.
@GeoGreg: I think I read some of that (in English) online. Wasn’t it post-apocalyptic too?
Central Asia scholar Christopher Beckwith says the orcs are Turks. Apparently the LOTR is largely inspired by Byzantine history. On the other hand, Michael Moorcock was definitely onto something with his “Epic Pooh” essay.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Ooh, I should have cc’d you to the above post as well. (I’m reading backwards.)
@Bryan: Brooke seems to be planning to turn Luda into Pibgorn the fairy. That means she has to be cursed or something. Cursed for what–playing the wantons? Works for me. Anyway, that means all this has to build to some sort of supernatural creature capable of changing her into a fairy. Some sort of resolution with Ut etc. would also be desirable. Maybe…he accidentally curses her? After catching her torn between two naked boys? Maybe he prays for God to keep her safe from teenage boys, so God turns her into a fairy?
@TheDiva: Rowling was trying. (There were also the Patel sisters.) The Sikh family from “The Casual Vacancy” was well portrayed.
@Myrtle: Yeah! Saul could become a phenomenon, like that Bernie meme.
@Uncle Jeff: As I’ve said before, there is reason for legal concern, since US child pornography laws apply to drawings as well as photos. Brooke and/or his syndicate should definitely consult a lawyer, who might recommend something as simple as establishing (canonically, if you will) that some time has passed, and Luda is now 18.
MW:
Now that Saul has suggested to Eve both working out her problems with a therapist and now, forgetting about them, Eve has had a revelation as to what must be done. She must move. And change her land line.
@Zla’od: 9CL – She’s already been transformed. Brother Ut gave Luda a Lute and when she strummed it she exploded into a shower of light, turned into an academy award statue for a bit, then passed out and woke up with boobs.
Start here: https://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2020/05/18
PigPorn- So….Brother Padraig is hung like a pimple? Glad to see the Brooke is consistent. And is still basing his male characters after himself.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I assumed that Luda’s inexplicable brilliance stemmed from the fact that all of Brooke’s heroines have to be hot, sexually aggressive geniuses. Since Luda hasn’t manifested any of Pibgorn’s magical powers yet, I assumed that she’s still supposed to be more or less human, albeit now with larger breasts and the ability to play the lute.
This Modern World: If you recognize all the publicity pictures these images were based on– then you might be a Trekkie.
Sally Forth/S4th: I thought the story would get more compelling when it returned to Faye moving. Unfortunately, it has not.
@Charles Nelson, really!!!: What “This Modern World”? But the pictures were all of Republican senators! Are you sure you have the right comic?
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Okay, so she’s already a fairy, because magic lute, and she just doesn’t know it? That’s…kind of an origin story, I guess.
@Consul, the Almost Human: S4: Ces has commented that this story will not have a happy ending. He didn’t mention that it also wouldn’t be the least bit interesting.
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: @Zla’od: PIB – I’d originally interpreted her sudden brilliance as just the usual special snowflake nonsense. But I read the discussion here, and having her suddenly have become a ravenous busty sex fiend upon playing the lute, while also simultaneously being transformed into an Eldrich magic wonder faerie being who is beyond all notions of time and space and age of consent started to make a whole lot of sense somehow. If you reread that sequence with that interpretation in mind, it fits. But so does “Brooke is obsessed with the magic that takes place in an underage girl’s special places”….
Pib- The plot has been atrocious for a long time and McEldowney has obviously no idea how to advance his story, but his drawing has always been top notch… until today. Perhaps he’s suffered another neurological event?
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I will start by saying I quit reading Pibgorn several years ago, not sure what the sequence is that made me say “enough is enough”. But, because of the posts on this board, I went back at read the story with Luda from the beginning. Brooke’s writing style is definitely one of the things that made me dislike this strip so much but the appearance of yet another Edda wannabe was another deterrent. Today’s strip shows a guy obviously enthused by the bare backside of Luda who Brooke has established as 13 years old. Or did I miss something in the mind-numbing prose that shows she is somehow now older? I mean, if she is really supposed to be only 13, and all kidding aside, there is something fundamentally wrong with this picture. And, although I am neither a lawyer nor a representative of the law, it’s probably not legal to portray this in this manner. So set my mind at ease and point out where she suddenly became twenty years old.
DTM: Joey is wearing a Pop Art T-shirt, inspired by the 1960s movement.
Pluggers: In the post-animal apocalypse, they will flock to every business in Pluggerville to get half off Valentine’s Day merhandie.
Ziggy: The sign on the front door of the grocery store should remind customer like Ziggy to…”PUT ON SOME PANTS AND SHOES!”
@Liam:
That got me thinking about John Goodman (obviously) and I was thinking of his place in a Slylock Fox comic.
Would he be a human like Slick Smitty or an animal parody?
Then I got to thinking that he wouldn’t be bad if he played Little John in the supposed (heavily realistic) CGI remake of Disney’s Robin Hood (All I’ve heard is rumours) but I would adore him in that role if so.
DtM @pugfuggly: “Choc-Lit” is ancient Dennis canon, along with his dad keeping money in a “wallop.” But what I’m wondering is whether it will converge with “Sluggo is Lit” over in Nancy?
Pibgorn: Thank you for lol of the explanations.
I think we can all agree with the summation:
“EWWWW! Brooke! Get help!”
@The Dimensional Otter: I guess the Furries are running Disney now.
@Tom T.: Maybe to him word salads are nutritious.
@Unca $crooge: 162
I think CCB 160 explained it pretty well. Note the part about “…beyond all notions of time and space and age of consent…”
PIB – But, is it still of questionable legality if the eldrich magic faerie being is ravaging an underaged monk? Plus a village idiot – some things never change.
Her current victim clearly is no Teen Monk Titan (is that a fallen leaf in your pocket or were you just caught short to see me?). Aqua Teen Hunger Monk will have to do. Though he’s no Meatwad…..
9CL – 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 thrice before her and 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.
MT: Jules’ father, whom she recently told to go to hell on Twitter, has a birthday coming up. Jules says she has timed the MT strip for that day to reflect her feelings about her father. I can’t wait.
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.
FW: That’s the great thing about being syndicated–you don’t have to be funny every day. The newspapers will carry you whether you’re funny or not. You can just kind of coast until your kids take over the strip.
9CL: Wasn’t somebody just saying that the couples are almost interchangeable?
Walter Weimaraner! There’s a name I haven’t heard in forever. Walter Weimeraner used to hang out at the bowling alley, trying to convince me to buy term life insurance and various narcotics. He made it sound like a package deal.
Come on, Slick, you’re telling us the one guy in the crowd who isn’t wearing bowling shoes was in the middle of a bowling game? Sure he’s a crook but what the hell’s your game? Even if the fire brigade somehow took your obvious lies for gospel, what then? They’ll bill Walter like, 300 dollars. You think it’s going to drive him out of the bowling alley? Or is he going to scam people harder to pay it off? You’ve got a bowling ball. Start thinking about real solutions to your problems.
DTM: A broken heart doesn’t matter if it’s ‘Yo-Clit.’
I’m very curious as to Slick Smitty’s place in manimal society.
Is he a human quisling perhaps? Some desperate lowlife who guided the exterminators to hidden enclaves of refugees in return for a place in the New Animal Order? Tolerated but not accepted or trusted by virtue of his treachery, living every day in fear that some minor mis-step will lead to his demise? It would certainly explain his readiness to throw the blame around when accused such a trivial wrong.
Or is he not human at all, but, following the convention of every other character, named for his species? Is in fact a ‘smitty’, superficially human-looking but in fact some other type of as-yet-undiscovered hominid, like the orang pendek or the flores hobbit? Or perhaps he’s some form of relict android from the years of human domination, recognised as a fellow-traveller by the manimals but causing unease as he lives on, ageless and unchanging, while generations of creatures live and die?
Cranky’s Wrath: They still haven’t fixed the ‘F’ on the door of the Centerville arts Council door.