Particularly pointy serpent teeth
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Dennis the Menace, 3/30/21
This is one of those comics where I feel like the joke is convoluted enough that I have to reason it out from first principles. Like, we know Mr. Wilson doesn’t have any friends — we know this with absolute certainty — so I guess the book he’s going through is supposed to be the White Pages, rather than a particularly thick personal address book, even though I’m pretty sure they stopped publishing the White Pages years ago and also the DIRECTORY heading never appeared at the top of the page in the middle of the book for whatever reason. Anyway, who do you think he’s calling? Given that Dennis has upgraded his menacing from “dropping by to annoy Mr. Wilson” to “dropping by with a friend to gawk at Mr. Wilson like he’s an animal at the zoo,” I certainly hope that it’s finally Child Protective Services.
Funky Winkerbean, 3/30/21
I guess the new hilarious “Harry Dinkle has blood running down his face” running gag comes from him biting his tongue when his god-like talent as a band director isn’t recognized by the ladies of this church, who live in a different town from where he taught high school and have literally no reason to know anything about him. That said, the funnier explanation would be that his face is starting to crack due to the pressure put on it by wild swings in expressions like the one we see between panels two and three, and pretty soon it’s going to just slide off the front of his head altogether.
Family Circus, 3/30/21
You may think Big Daddy Keane’s little smile here is cruel, but you have to understand that the minute Billy is large and/or skilled enough to defeat him in single combat, his reign as head of the household — and his life — are over. That day is coming, but it hasn’t come yet, Billy. Not quite yet.
160 replies to “Particularly pointy serpent teeth”
FC: Keep trying, Billy. Eventually you will be able to eliminate Daddy and have Mommy all to yourself.
FW: I was excited when Dinkle got the job after interviewing for the job, but I’m nervous that now he has to interview for the job. Hopefully by the end of the week he gets the job, which will put him in a strong negotiating position next week when he has to interview for the job in order to get the job.
FC: Let’s all just be glad that Billy’s Oedipal coup d’etat was thwarted in its first phase.
MW: I’m not sure what’s worse about Brandy’s therapist impersonation – her advice or her blackface.
FW: A little blood? You know what that means! Time’s up Harry! You can’t spell Dinkle without “DIE” and you can’t spell unending misery without “FUNKY.”
Funky Winkerbean : …Did they publish the strips out of order? Why did Harry Dinkle excitedly return to his wife to tell him he got the job (at the cost of being visibly bleeding from the mouth from all the tongue/lip biting), and now he’s back having the interview (while nervously biting his lip/tongue)…
Wait, I think I know what happened : they switched the strips that would run on Sunday, March 28 and Sunday, April 4th around. See, I think someone forgot that April 4th 2021 would be Easter and the plan to run the “Harry Dinkle is horny, his blob of a wife only wanted a pizza” on that day, while what I predict will be a “Harry Dinkle livens up a church service with masterful organ playing” was to run last sunday.
RMMD-“One more step and I will sue you for malpractice.”
MW-“I mourned that his body killed him before I could.”
Spiderman-Score some airline tickets? Peter you are deluding yourself. At what a freelancer like yourself makes you are walking to Los Angeles.
The Toronto Star has changed their comics page to the new Comics Kingdom format. I hate this because it is so difficult to navigate. You have to go back to the main comics page to go to a different comic.
FC: Adult Jeff depicts the key moment in his lifetime, when Billy failed to best Bil in hand-to-hand combat, so according to the rules of Rex Nemorensis, he would not get the position of cartoonist for “Family Circus.” Jeff would later succeed and get the position. However, he often wonders whether Billy knew what his life would be like running “Family Circus” and lost purposefully.
DtM: Finally, some POC in this strip! Why weren’t they introduced earlier? Oh
FW: “De facto, because changing the rulebook of the choir is somehow harder than amending the US constitution”
DtM: “Mr Wilson is a master hacker! Somehow, he managed to obtain the phone and address of most people in town! Now he can dox them easily!”
FC: Billy tried to defeat his father through Oriental trickery, but Bil showed him that good old-fashioned American fighting spirit and racial superiority would always prevail. Sorry, Billy, this Laius is not going to be bested so easily!
DtM: Misunderstanding “Mister Wilson has so many friends that he keeps their name and numbers in a huge book.” Not at all menacing
Spreading the rumour “Mister Wilson just received a diagnosis for a STD, so he has to call every person in town to notify them”. Much more menacing
DtM: We can only hope Mr. Wilson is calling Dial-a-Joke.
DtM: If you had a long, curly hair sticking out of each nostril, people would be gawking at you too.
@Liam #6
On Comics Kingdom at the bottom of every page is a list of the all the comics in links, just scroll down on any page.
Uh, where are the serpent teeth?
Not on Mark Trail, where Ralph the Rat Snake has been supplanted by the Great Lost Forest Palm Controversy.
Not on Mary Worth, where the serpents are only metaphorically biting the souls of anyone reading this Never Ending Story.
Not on Pigborn, where a 13 year old 12th century girl in weekday of probably 19th century dress is covering the privates of a naked monk with her skirt.
And not on Dennis the Menace, where Mr Wilson is finally calling the hitman whose mail he used to deliver years ago and who promised him a free murder for keeping his secret.
@Jihadi Colin: what is probably.
Not weekday of probably.
@Jihadi Colin:
Uh, where are the serpent teeth?
It’s either a reference to “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”, talking about Family Circus and how it seems that Billy is training up to usurp his dad’s position by besting him in hand-to-hand combat…
Or Josh is referring to Funky Winkerbean, and telling us that Harry Dinkle has serpent teeth because he’s a reptilian/demon/evil monster rather than an ordinary human.
Luann: is this just one more Tiffany is stupid storyline or is it the Evansii that are clueless about how much this dinner is going to cost?
Once a year Mr. Wilson takes out his old misprinted phone book and studiously calls each number he hasn’t previously scratched out for being no longer in service or the listed person being dead, each time drawing a line through more and more listings. He once worried that he’d eventually have to find a new hobby, but he now knows that the last working number gains possession of Dennis and he can finally die in peace.
Dennis – Wrong holiday, Dennis. Getting inscribed in the Book of Life and/or Death is Rosh Hashanah, not Passover. Now let’s talk about the tenth plague. You’re an only child, right?
FW: Next strip: “And we’ve been thinking about adding more instruments besides the organ. Do you know anything about leading a band?” I know the deafness didn’t stick, but a horrific tongue injury would at least shut him up for a few strips.
FW: These jokes about Dinkle biting his lip remind me of a far superior entertainment, Shane. When Joey asks Shane, who is a skilled professional gunfighter, if he can shoot, he replies, “Little bit,” and he doesn’t have to bite his lip. Heroes were modest in those days. And they didn’t expect everyone to have heard of them in advance of their arrival. But then, hasn’t Dinkle openly claimed to be the world’s greatest band director? So maybe that’s part of his comedic character, like Jack Benny being stingy. If anyone knows who Jack Benny and Shane were any more. You have to be careful with these cultural references from the Olden Days. Half the jokes in MSTK3000 seem incomprehensible to the average voter now.
DtM – I’m not buying it. A real Plugger like good ol’ Mr Wilson would never use a cancer-inducing wireless phone. Nothing but a black rotary dial Western Electric desk set would do for him….
FW – Oh yeah? Well, Lisa used to bleed from the mouth AND had a dangerously low T cell count….
FC – At least Barfy has the good sense to bow down before Battlin’ Bil….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Sorry Josh, this is just the set-up for the Sunday strip where Mr Wilson calls a pest control company and then, when they arrive and ask what his pest problem is, he’ll say “HIM!!” and point to Dennis sitting quietly somewhere. Then Monday we see him buying large quantities of antifreeze: “This works on kids, right?”. Tuesday he glares intently at Dennis drinking a Coke: “That’s right, you little monster. Drink…” By Wednesday he’s rolling his eyes because Dennis’ funeral clashes with the football. Thursday he’s being put in the back of the police van yelling about his right to kill trespassers and Friday a newer, better comic strip debuts.
FC: Rather reluctantly, I have to admit that this passes the smell test. Ippon seoinage, the one-armed shoulder throw in judo, is intended to lessen the advantages of a taller, heavier opponent. When the opponent is this much taller and heavier, however, the move can be countered quite simply by stone-cold not giving a shit.
@N. L. Urker: #19: Actually, Tiffany’s bootleg nail salon was doing quite well until SS Sturmbannfuhrer Bernice shut it down.
DtM: Bringing your new friend to gawk and laugh at Mr. Wilson as his dementia manifests as pawing through a 40-year old directory and making imaginary calls into the box his phone came in? Now that’s some A+ menacing.
FW: The blood is cancer. It’s always cancer.
DtM: Dennis mocking Mr. Wilson checking the guest registry as he calls and thanks the people who came to his wife’s wake. Truly menacing.
GA: Second day of the “new” (i.e., old) Walt. Has he finally arrived in the old comics’ home? The likelihood that he has done so seems to be improving.
@Anonymous: Sadly, no. Dinkle bit his tongue for the first time in Friday’s strip (“Have I…!? A little…”), but it was not explained that he was doing that, and there was no mention of blood. The “punchline” came in the Saturday strip, when he came home to Harriet; she noticed he was bleeding, and then he explained why. The Saturday strip led directly into the “Dinkle is horny” Sunday strip. Today, we are revisiting last week’s two-day tongue-biting joke, turning it into a running gag. It all fits together like a horrible jigsaw puzzle.
DtM: they still publish phone books these days, but I don’t think it’ll be long before our host is right and they dispense with the things.
JP: Nothing says stakeout like a bright yellow Vette just sitting out in the open.
@Guillermo el Chiclero, Luann: So, we should expect Bernice to shut it down because she called all the City Permit Department, the Tax Accessors, the Insurance People, causing Tiffany and her dad to lose the house?
Wait, this is the Evansii Hate Against the High School Cheerleader. Of course it will go that far.
Bil?
Yes son?
I want to kill you.
Thel?
Yes son?
I want [wild melonhead scream out]
@Ukulele Ike: #y176
“Does every university have a variant on this story? Shrug, speak up.”
No “sinking into the ground” rumors, but (for real) the underground stacks in the archives/special collections building at the U of Minnesota early on required heroic efforts to defend the contents from water seepage.
RMMD: Hey, now I see where this is coming from! Paste-Pot Pete!
No image on the Wiki page, but Pete’s first incarnation wore a smock and a floppy beret, and he carried a big bucket of glue around.
@White Rabbit:
You hit the nail on the head. Dinkle’s original character concept, back when the strip was wacky and fun, was “marching band dictator”. He thought that the band was the center of the universe, and that he was the center of the band. It was a genuinely funny caricature. Then Batiuk somehow convinced himself that readers would care about Dinkle’s hopes and dreams, and it was all downhill from there.
Dennis the Menace: Classic Comic Strip Syndrome going on here, seen it many times. First they introduce bit characters for no good reason. Then the cultural referents become vague to the point of baffling, then the technology falls a good twenty years behind. You can see we’re already at a pretty advanced stage in this strip, won’t be long before they go full Archie and lose any kind of visual perspective, existing as flat, featureless outlines whose only purpose is to nod to something their readers used to remember, something that was relevant once upon a time. What was it again? It had something to do with children, and how they said the darnedest things. Ah, no matter, up on the fridge it goes. Surely the grandkids will appreciate it this time.
@Shrug: IIRC, the U of M campus also has an engineering building dug several layers below ground level, mostly for the purpose of showing they could.
EXISTENTIAL COMICS has a funny CALVIN AND HOBBES theme/riff today:
https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/387
DTM: Personally, I wonder what Dennis’ companion is pondering so theatrically. Hopefully, it’s that this supposed friend promised to show him something cool, and now he’s just staring at an old man in a burgundy sweater calling his oncologist.
FW: Supposedly, depicting blood as black rather than red is a way to get a movie’s rating down from R to PG-13. But no one under 13 is reading Funky Winkerbean. They can’t be. So I want to see the red, red vino on tap.
FC: Is this the day the father feeds his eldest son to the dog?
@Ukulele Ike: #37
Some images of Pete 1.0:
https://tinyurl.com/5y36f8h4
FW: So, Harry has been hired without so much as an interview to determine his credentials, let alone any input from the clergy or vestry. I suppose when most people in your universe have forsaken their obviously cruel creator for the comfort of comic books and pizza, beggars cannot be choosers.
Oh boy, Funky Winkerbean is going to do Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, but set in a church. I can’t wait!
[O]ne by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. And the Red Death smirked.
@Little Guy: No, it will shut itself down when Tiffany discovers that the $300 fee won’t even cover the food/wine, let alone pirate decor and wages for three workers.
Maybe Teej will be able to come up with a romantic menu involving only radishes, leeks, rutabaga, and peanut butter. And tap water.
The younger version of Mr. Wilson was seen making crank calls in yesterday’s Pluggers. Today’s DtM is current day, Mr. Wilson calling the local market and asking if they have pig’s feet so he can say, “Put on some shoes and nobody will notice.” Tomorrow Mr. Wilson will call Moe’s Bar and ask Moe to page Benoit Bahls.
And today’s Pluggers is a rip-off of The Twilight Zone’s Time Enough at Last.
FW: “There was only a trickle of blood in the beginning. Harry laughed it off. But then the incidents became more serious and more frequent. Finally the choir persuaded him to see a doctor. The family general practitioner missed the cancer, and precious months passed until the dire diagnosis came from a specialist. Harry went down hill quickly after that, and passed fitfully as Christmas dawned. Immediately I thought of Lisa, as did everyone else in Westview. I remember our last Christmas together in my new book, ” The Last Christmas with Lisa, ” now on sale out in the lobby in a special Amazon paperback edition with the fold out map. Yes, I was her Chemo Sabe.”
Shrug @43: Thank you! He was some looker, wasn’t he? Must be difficult to do crimes when you don’t even have a free hand — Pete should have incorporated a shopping cart into his arsenal.
@Joe Momma: Do you mean sexually?
Pibgorn: There’s a new one up, where Brooke acknowledges that he’s writing about children.
MT: I was not expecting Rivera to be a suburban libertarian. When it was Happy’s land at issue, it was a terrible thing that he wasn’t respectful of the environment and his neighbors’ wishes. When it’s Cherry’s land, she’s going to plant whatever the heck she wants!
TheDiva @44: Hell, Dinkle hasn’t even proved that he can play the damn organ.
@seismic-2: re GA: I’m going with “dream sequence” rather than a reboot or Walt going to the Old Comics Home. The Face in the Mirror tells him it can’t be happening and to just enjoy it. However, I would like to see Walt “retire” to the OCH with an occasional look-in to see him and other long-gone comic characters.
I’d like an oval sticker with “OCH” for my car.
Mister Wilson’s enemies list is just a copy of the white pages in which he has crossed out the people he doesn’t want to kill. As you might guess, when he finally snaps, Aaron Aaronson is going to feel the pain.
C’shaft: Do these girls have friends? Parents?…..Anyone or anything else in their lives that’s better than hanging around with Lilian? A pet goldfish, maybe?
GT: “No, it’s not okay. Get out of my office.” (FIN)
Luann: Normally I’d be worried about someone trying to poach staff for their own business during work hours, but it’s the Fuze, so the Hell with it.
MT: Please let this end with Mark punching an entire HOA…
MW: While I appreciate the effort to inject even a little diversity into the Mary Worth cast, maybe the colorists should choose…a slightly less corpse-y skin tone?
Pibgorn: So now Luda suddenly cares about nudity?
@TheDiva: As clergy, I can attest that you go with the director the choir wants, regardless of qualifications or hiring process. The real question here is if they’ll make him do a criminal background check, and if he’ll pass.
MW: I’m digging the golden irises, though. Eve’s therapist may have a lick of the leopard in her lineage.
Luann: this is heading toward another Tiffany is stupid and doesn’t have any inner beauty storyline, isn’t It? I hate the Tiffany is stupid and doesn’t have any inner beauty storyline. The question is, what will the disaster be? Will Tiffany lose a shitload of money, or will the house be destroyed? I’d love a Gunther and Bets get food poisoning storyline but the repulsive TJ is magic so that won’t.
Luann: Why can’t the Evansii go against expectations and have something work out for Tiffany? Surprise everyone and have the evening go really well. Sure Tiffany miscalculated costs but she loves the process and finds a way to make money. Maybe Tiffany could take hospitality course at Moonie Uni. Or maybe she could quit her stupid job at the stupid Fuze and get a job at a good hotel. I have an idea maybe her stupid rich father has contacts that could help her.
Ah, forget it.
How is random bleeding even worthy of comment in Funkyverse Ohio? “Oh my… you’re bleeding. If not from suddenly-appearing wounds, then from an onset of disease that has caused you to cough blood. And if not that, simply bleeding from the eyes at random intervals. Like all of us, you never become accustomed to the pain, no matter how long it lasts.” (grabbing lapels, hoarse whisper) “Because we are in Hell.” (trembles, deep breaths, regains composure) “Anyway, you have the job. Be here this Sunday. A parishioner, Les Moore, will deliver a guest sermon, ‘The Meaning of–‘” (chokes back tears, regains composure again) “‘The Meaning of Art.'” (slight edge of manic hysteria) “He’ll be reading passages from his book!”
FUNKY:
HARRY [angrily]: Do you know who I am?
CHOIR BIDDY: Are you that bus driver asshole?
@pastordan: Fair enough, but I’m guessing your interview process was a bit more involved than “random dude comes in unannounced thanks to an ad in the Weekly Shopper.”
The current music director at my church was educated at Cambridge and Yale, has an extensive knowledge of Anglican/Episcopalian liturgical music, is a concert-level organist who has composed for the instrument, and also has the best “seriously, WTF?” look when someone misses a cutoff. I kind of want to show him the recent Funky Winkerbean strips, but honestly the pandemic has forced him to cope with a bare skeleton of a music program for over a year and he’s suffered enough.
@TheDiva: I was always in small-to-medium churches without strict liturgy, so basically the interview process ranged from “He/she volunteered” to “We heard of this dude, let’s try him out and see what we think,” or occasionally, “Let’s hire this person, decide we don’t like them, then force them out.” The Funkyverse congregation looks a bit bigger than that, so yes, the might actually have a more involved process.
You could use your last sentence, minus the music reference, on pretty much anyone these days.
love is... standing in line at the store with your eyes closed to return a defective heart.
Pibgorn: No no no, Brooke. You put shoes on the male, and show the female barefoot, preferably with red polished nails.
Do peasant girls of that era even wear panties? What we have here is her lifting her skirt in order to press her naked mons against his naked buttocks. No sexual intent in that I’m sure.
@55 pastordan: > The real question here is if they’ll make him do a criminal background check, and if he’ll pass.
That should disqualify Harry. Everyone in the Funkyverse is guilty of crimes against humanity, by virtue of their very existence.
@jroggs: MW: I’m not sure what’s worse about Brandy’s therapist impersonation – her advice or her blackface.
* * *
Please don’t interpret my correction that it’s Eve, not Brandy. I truly appreciate the “I don’t give a flying fuck-a-shit” attitude toward Mary Worth. We should all emulate that.
Inspector Gotcha
FUNKY:
HARRY [angrily]: Do you know who I am?
CHOIR BIDDY: Are you that bus driver asshole?
***
Good one. Also, this old joke would also qualify.
HARRY IN THE NURSING HOME [angrily]: Do you know who I am?
ANSWER: No, but if you go to the front desk, they should be able to tell you.
JP – I think the only explanation for Sam staking out April in a bright yellow Corvette is that he wants to be discovered and for her to stalk him. In her underwear.
@Mr. A:
I remember, that was when he wore his bandleader’s peaked cap down over his eyes, like Beetle Bailey.
MW – Well, of course you mourned! You had to give up that thrill of relief whenever Gary missed! Adrenaline is addictive in its own way!
Next Week: Saul and Eve take the dogs whitewater rafting.
JP – Goofus says “We each make our own fun. Gallant says “If April DOES appear, I’ll tell her about our little problem and that will be 13.”
Phantom – We gotta get these guys to Saint Paul’s east side. They will absolutely LOVE Hamburguesas El Gordo!
S4th – When did this become the Ed Crankshaft origin story?
@Ettorre: HO. LEE. SHIT.
That is some menacingly offensive stuff!
@N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods: I’d like Tiffany to poison them all, then skip town and start her life over.
DtM: Even if he’s too young—despite being a child of the Eisenhower era to all appearances—to know what a phonebook is, Dennis is aware that he’s the closest thing to a friend that George Wilson has. This is all very patronizing.
FW: Not that I can blame Batiuk for forgetting that Harry Dinkle has lost much of his hearing, but having him walk into a church and immediately get two plum jobs does nudge him even more into the Les Moore zone of blessed and insufferable protagonists.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re FW: Yes, Harry retired due to increasing deafness, but I believe at some point he regained his hearing. I don’t remember if it was a miracle or just getting hearing aids. They had to find some way to get this beloved character back into the band room.
9CL: Brooke wants in on that sweet MW dog cash.
Luann: “Blow jobs for everybody!”
Pibgorn: Hey, isn’t this more or less the Garden of Eden story (with Ut playing the role of God)? How come Luda gets to wear clothes? She doesn’t have any shame yet!
Thank you Poteet for your kind words! (y202)
@Dan: Can we have him debate Amos van Hosen? (Remember that week where Brooke was going on about whether music symbolizes anything, or some such.)
@TheDiva: (on MW) I think they’re aiming at Kamala Harris’s complexion.
@Ettorre: Ever see the “Doc Savage” movie? It has a fight scene kind of like this.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I know I make a lot of typos, spelling misstakes, and general fuck-ups, but this time I meant what I said. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to check my references first. See, Eve’s therapist has a slight part in her bangs with juicy clementine earrings, while Brandy prefers a more stalactite-inspired bang style and modest orange Skittles on her ear lobes. Totally different women. My bad.
@Shrug: Am I right in understanding that he couldn’t work in anything about the actual John Calvin? Great strip though.
Fight scene from “Doc Savage”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9fESQChRYQ
@Ettorre: Wow. That’s horrible.
@Dan: You just made me realize that Funkytown is really Night Vale, which leads me to wonder who Cecil is.
GT: If this kid is a week late then the first week of the season was too boring to appear in Gil Thorp, a mind-blowing concept in itself.
Phantom: So Salinas was the Phantom of Unnamed Mexican Metropolis? I wouldn’t talk too much about that. Grape Wetsuit Guy might have second thoughts about the competition walking around free.
Pibgorn: Not shown: the murder of crows, who can fly and prefer to keep their distance from proto-Amos and Medieval Thorax.
6C: Okay, so the next Marshall Applewhite has at least one recruit lined up.
WofI: When Ten met Eleven on Doctor Who, Eleven was able to extend his Sonic Screwdriver further. As I recall, that just opened him up to a bunch of “overcompensating” jokes.
@Arabella: Ah, okay. Somehow the miracle cure hadn’t made an impression on me, just the aftereffects.
That Is Priceless – Not to mention that the evil mayor will triple your property taxes.
Hi & Lois – I have never seen a canister set with the sugar canister larger than the one for flour. Where are the coffee and tea canisters?
FC – Next: hilarity ensues when the CPS lady visits after they have to take Billy to the emergency room because of his dislocated arm and shoulder.
Rex Morgan – Credit where it’s due – those masterpieces on the wall are great. Beatty must have had fun doing this.
Crankshaft – Oh, come on, Lillian. You can figure it out. You figured out how to ruin your sister’s life – you can figure out bookmarks.
@Zla’od: And people talk badly about today’s superhero movies!
@brendancalling: @I speak Jive: Come on it was a different time! It was the 1920s! [Checking notes] Wait, it was the 1970s?!
JP – Even Wilbur Weston figured out that if you want to spy on someone, you hide in the bushes.
“Verrrry interesting.”
@I speak Jive: #83
“Hi & Lois – I have never seen a canister set with the sugar canister larger than the one for flour”
Just checked; our flour and sugar canisters are the same size, which is “same as the coffee and tea canisters stacked together.” Is that standard? (Things I never thought to question, part xxxx.)
@Voshkod: Any relation to Masky McDeath?
@Arabella:
I missed any explicit mention that Harry D had somehow regained his hearing. I thought that Boathook assumed that no one would remember he was deaf, or maybe he forgot about it himself. Or maybe, just maybe, he just didn’t care.
FC: Bil is practicing some serious tough love here. “No, Billy, I’m not going to go flying over your shoulder, like it tells you that I will in that heathen book you brought home proclaiming some foreign religion called ‘Judo’. Instead, I’m going to toss you over my shoulder and out the window… into the waiting arms of Satan!!!”
@richardf8: Phantom: Hamburguesas verde.
@Austria: They’re just kissing cousins, but a good team. Red Death sets ’em up, Masky takes ’em home.
@jroggs: Totally understandable. And please continue not giving a flying fuck-a-shit. It’s what Mary Worth deserves.
cheech wizardMarch 30th, 2021 at 8:04 am Reply
JP – I think the only explanation for Sam staking out April in a bright yellow Corvette is that he wants to be discovered and for her to stalk him. In her underwear.
* * *
Your Scroteworthy comment reminded me of the original Scrotum of the Week (August 2018), which I re-represent in honor of our beloved Baja (nee Baka) Gaijin:
Judge Parker: April’s gonna get them out of this mess by lifting her top and baring the Bazongas Of Justice. Please?
FUNKY WINKERBEAN: It’s from being in the hallowed halls of the church. Quick, throw holy water on his and we’ll finally be rid of him for good!
@Shrug: Now you made me wonder, too. I did a quick internet search, and it looks like they come in a variety of sizes, although most are like I remember: flour, sugar, coffee, and tea in that descending order. It doesn’t look like there’s a standard, though.
I had a stoneware set in the same pattern as my dishes, but I stopped using them years ago because they had loose lids, and I ended up with weevils in the flour. Now I keep everything in Tupperware containers that seal.
I was sure that I’d see ads for canisters when I came back here, but I got one for dog stairs.
@pastordan: I live in a university town, and our choir director has a PhD, teaches voice, and wrote his own lengthy and haigiographic Wikipedia entry.
Pluggers: Why is Andy Bear in drag?
Phantom:
“These are tasty burgers! Say, do you guys know anything about the Unknown Commander”.
“Naw. And I’ve worked for him for years.”
“Anybody know anything about this ‘Towns Ellerbee’?”
“Anybody know why we do the dirty work for guys we know nothing about?”
“Did you know I once wore a mask to hide my identity so I could clean up the area around my town?”
“I remember a masked guy saying he was a cop who blew up my prison to free a bunch of gunmen. Was that you?”
“Hmmm. Could be.”
DtM: I honestly understand the basic premises of this comic. Why is this five-year-old able to just walk into his neighbour’s house at any time. And while that would be annoying I also don’t understand why Mr Wilson holds such venomous hatred to the little boy. Nothing makes sense.
@Northernlurker: Mister Wilson is Dennis, travelled back in time to monitor and/or kill himself before the menacing gets too great. He’s a man out of time, who left his real wife and children back in the future and was forced to marry this woman as cover. And he’s tormented; if he kills Dennis, he ceases to be, so clearly he hasn’t killed Dennis, so has he failed in his mission? Time travel PTSD, man, it’s hell.
@Northernlurker: Not to mention, why would a 5-year-old boy want to spend so much time with a grumpy old man? I seem to recall that Mrs. Wilson likes baking and is happy to give Dennis food, so I can understand if Dennis wanted to come over and ask her for cookies or something, but most of the time Dennis seems to just hang out with the Wilsons for no reason at all. He seems to spend more time with the Wilsons than with Joey, Gina, and Margaret combined, and almost as much time with the Wilsons as with his own parents.
FW – The most chilling thing about today’s strip is not Dinkle’s egomania or bloodied tongue. It is the chilling moment in panel 1 when you realize that loathsome Lillian has been directing the choir for the past ten years!
@billman:
That’s the main site which I try to avoid as much as I can. I read their comics through the newspapers that carry them.
Dennis the Menace-You should see Mr. Wilson’s enemy list.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: And this is the thing that bugs me the most. A halfway decent writing team would have her developing the Tiff As Nails concept, which had demonstrated viability, rather than doung this farm to table horseshit that they’re spinning on now.
Dennis the Menace: Why is Mr. Wilson using a phone? He has no mouth.
He must be a time and temperature junkie.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Ciudad Jardin, to be precise. The character and setup was introduced in a trio of stories from 2011-12: A Detente With Crime, establishing that Ernesto Salinas and the local crime syndicates battled for territories in the wrestling ring. (I can’t argue you into buying the premise, but this is a superhero universe where there’s, like, rules to how Good and Evil interact.) The arrangement breaks down, with the involvement of a Chinese crime syndicate, battled in the story The Den Of Tigers. Then in the story Mexico’s Phantom our favorite stripey-panted hero gets the whole mess cleaned up and does some lucha libre fighting himself.
There’s rough plot summaries on the Phantom Wiki, starting at https://www.phantomwiki.org/A_Detente_with_Crime and continuing the next two stories.
Luann Tiffany has just strolled into the restaurant where she works and told her boss that she has started a competing business and that she expects him to work for her. And he just says that he will get right at it.
Honestly, this strip is less connected to reality than Spider-Man and The Phantom put together.
@106 richardf8:
It seems Grubhub is diversifying.
@N. L. Urker: LUANN: Can’t it be both?
FC: Child protective services may have some questions to ask about Billy’s dislocated shoulder.
FW: “And our choir sells fresh turkeys every year as a fundraiser. Can you help with that?”
Harry Dinkle explodes
MW: That therapist’s facial expression looks like it was carved into wood. Which might explain her wooden advice.
Q. Hi! Can you think of an example where a teenager asks a stupid question that no teenager would ever ask, so that the answer will be some sort of maudlin punchline?
A. You bet! Outside of “very special” episodes of sitcoms, read today’s “For Better or For Worse”.
@Joseph Nebus: And, forgot to mention. The Phantom universe has a fair number of other characters running their own superhero-vigilante business on the side. The most important would be Mandrake the Magician, but in recent years there’ve been Captain Savarna, The Locust, Kit Junior’s tutor in that Tibetan monastery, and this Ernesto Salinas guy, as examples.
I like this trend, as I tend to prefer stories where the world is big and stuff that happens to the protagonist happens to other people too. Also it dampens the white-savior racism built into the premise if, like, every municipal area worth anything has its own weird guy who trains 42 hours a day so he can punch crime.
Luann-Looks like the Fuse will be going out of business. TJ has already been filling the place with gas for the day he would need to burn the place down for the insurance money.
For Better or For Worse-Don’t worry. The day will come when dear old dad has a stroke has to live with you.
Since Stephen King got his school shooting fantasy Rage dropped from publishing – which, if we can be real for just one second, prevented me personally from doing something very stupid to my school back in my teens – I for one am looking forward to Family Circus recreating its violent father/son confrontation and its inevitable results.
Crank: “But, um, how can I put this politely? You’re idiots.”
GT: Calling it now: This is Gary’s son, he’s going to get on the baseball team, and as a result of this is not going to want to move to Denver.
Phantom: Chosen Man’s got a point. “Once upon a time, there were a lady cop and waitress who went to the Jungle Patrol Academy…”
@Amelie Wikström: Er, maybe I have to clarify, it was reading the book that stopped me from doing a mass murder, not the book being pulled from the market.
Oh boy! If you’ve already grown bored with the Grandpa Walt story in Dustin, or the melodramatic Faye-moves-in arc in Sally Forth, over in Baby Blues land we’re about to have fun with loud, obnoxious, man-boy Stan!
HONK HONK
@Liam: I’m using Seattle PI, which so far hasn’t:
https://www.seattlepi.com/comicskingdom/
“You’re learning an important lesson here, Billy. Books and the knowledge they claim to impart are worthless, all that matters is brute strength. Now let’s get a book bonfire going.”
Eve, relationships are a part of us. They require a lot of work, and sometimes things just don’t work out. For example, salmon must swim upstream for miles and miles through unimaginable obstacles, and in many cases when they’re so very close to achieving their goal of reproducing, they’re brutally snatched from their environment, murdered, and hacked apart so some elderly busybody can force their flesh down the throats of hostages, er… guests. Sorry. Freudian slip. *BURP*
Phantom: “So we came halfway around the world to Bangalla and you serve us….hamburgers? Not the exotic tasty local cuisine? And fuck, we’re Mexicans….if you wanted us to feel all homey you could have rustled us up a couple taco platters, no?”
@White Rabbit: I’m not a huge fan of westerns in general, but SHANE, wow. It blew me away. And Jack Benny is still one of my favorite comedians. I remember marveling as a child at how he could inspire huge laughter by just assuming his classic pose.
Harry Dinkle, however, can go piss up a rope.
Crankshaft: I’m still holding out faint hope that this will end up as “Dinkle vs. McKenzie: The Final Smackdown”.
@Horace Broon:
Thanks.
Dennis the Menace-“Navin R. Johnson. Sounds like a real jerk.”
FC-And when the doctor asks you how you pulled your arm out of your socket what are you going to tell him.
FW-That’s nothing. There’s a wet stain spreading across the front of his pants.
@,128 Liam:
What’d ya expect? Poteet just told him to piss up a rope!
@Mr. A: #38: I too liked it better in the strip’s early years when Dinkle was just an arrogant martinet played as a caricature of a power-tripping band director and it was never mentioned whether he was any good at his job. I just assumed he was as incompetent as the rest of the Westview faculty.
@Ukulele Ike: But what’s *in* the hamburger? It may be more exotic than they think.
In real life, a missionary friend-of-a-friend was telling us how, while stationed in Kenya, he ordered chicken at a local eatery, and got served something with four drumsticks.
@richardf8: It turns out that the nail-polishing industry is about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Hey Josh, if you need more comedians for your shows, I’m available. No? How about straight men? Need any of those?
@richardf8: Do all these people belong to the same religion (Presbylutheranism, I guess), or do they just covet the raw power that comes with being an organist and/or choir singer? Is this all about earning, I dunno, 50 bucks?
@UncleJeff: Hey, do these stripey panties make me look fat?
Don’t know how authoritative it is, but salary.com says a Church Organist makes between $82,833 and $113,238. Beats Fry Cook by a mile, and comes in $82,833 to $113,238 ahead of Second-String Comic Strip Blogger.
@Poteet: #125
” I’m not a huge fan of westerns in general, but SHANE, wow. It blew me away.”
I’m not a huge fan either, but I read TRUE GRIT last year for the first time (somehow had never gotten around to it before) and had the same reaction. Have not seen either of the movie versions, though.
@134 Shrug:
If you ever do decide to see the movie and you only what to see one of them, in my opinion, the remake is better than the original.
@Uncle Lumpy: Whew! I gotta get me some of that sweet religion money. What’s the going rate for being the drummer in a praise band?
@pastordan: You left out the best part:
THE END
MT – The gratuitous beaver shots are getting more frequent. And more gratuitous.
@Sequitur: Bwaha!
@Shrug: I read the novel long ago and was impressed and liked it, even though I hate it when snakes are used as heavies. (This is probably not a problem for most readers.) For whatever it’s worth, I saw all of the first film version and part of the second film version, and just from what I saw of the second version, I agree with Sequitur. I’m not sorry I missed the second-version snake scene, though:-).
@Sequitur: Agreed, per #140.
@Horace Broon:
That’s weird. I click on the link and the comic page is the old format but if I go to it through the front page of the site the page is the new format.
@Zla’od:
But they could have done a sensitive and educational story about Purple Toes Syndrome!
I believe it’s the GRIT channel (all old TV Westerns and old Western movies) that sometimes has marathons when all day they just play the 2 versions of True Grit back-to-back, for maybe 18 straight hours. Since it’s sort of an episodic story you can just watch a while, go do something else, and come back and watch some more, and by the end of the day you will probably have seen the entirety of both versions. I prefer the second version, too.
@Mr. A:
Don’t forget: this IS the Funkyverse we’re taking about here, so it could be something far worse than a horrific biting-your-tongue injury. An oral or upper GI tract cancer? A bleeding disorder? A blood cancer? Maybe Dinkle will be dancing with the Phantom before too long.
@Zla’od:
re Luann: Gunther is going to be busy.
@75 Zla’od:
A blow job in Luann is Tiffany using a hair dryer.
Poorly Drawn Lines: Give a mouse a cookie…
@Shrug: I actively hate Western movies, but about 20 years ago tried to overcome my prejudice and rented Shane. The Ukulele Lady (who loves Westerns) walked into the room and proclaimed “Shane sucks!” So I returned it and got The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which reaffirmed my suspicion that every John Wayne character is a misogynistic shithead.
For the record, I love Spencer Tracy’s 1955 Bad Day at Black Rock and Kirk Douglas’s 1963 Lonely Are the Brave, but I think those two are kinda “meta-western” or “neo-western” and not the Real McCoy.
(I enjoy Lee Marvin and George Kennedy playing sadistic thugs. The Big Heat [1953] is another favorite)
@Ukulele Ike:Have you tried the Cavalry Trilogy? Or the Lonesome Dove miniseries?
@Ukulele Ike: If you enjoy watching lee Marvin play a sadistic thug, then surely you enjoyed The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the John Wayne character notwithstanding? Marvin appeared to be having the time of his life in the role of Liberty.
@Ukulele Ike: #150: I once read an interview with George Kennedy where he said that he got a lot of his early acting gigs because they needed big guys for the hero to beat up. One of my favorite movie tough guys/sadistic thugs was Leo Gordon, though he spent most of his career in low budget films. He was a Roger Corman stalwart, as actor, writer, and director. His most famous role was the gunsel punched out by John Wayne after the famous “I ain’t gonna hit you. The Hell I won’t!” line. In real life Gordon (Who did time in San Quentin and was one of the most feared prisoners.) probably could’ve broken Wayne in two. Andy Griffith Show fans will remember him as the reformed ex-con who returns to visit Andy in the famous “High Noon at Mayberry” episode.
Larry McMurtry just died. One of the Uke Lady’s favorites. I never sat through the Lonesome Dove stuff myself.
Yes, Marvin was a GREAT bastard in Liberty Valance. But Wayne was such an ass (How DARE Jimmy Stewart teach MY WOMAN how to READ) that it shat up the whole movie for me.
Besides, John Wayne was a Fag.
Not that there’s….anything wrong with that.
@seismic-2: I have skimmed very short synopses of many Westerns by scrolling through the GRIT schedule, being as how I can get GRIT via rabbit ears, and doing that has confirmed that most Westerns are not my cup of tea. But I’ve never seen a TRUE GRIT marathon, so I’ll have to watch for that.
I just took a quick look on IMDB to see what the ratings were for several of the “classic” Westerns (High Noon, The Wild Bunch, etc.) Most were rated about 7.8 or 7.9. Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven beat them all, at 8.2. But The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly came in at a whopping 8.8, making it the #9-rated movie on all of IMDB. Needless to say, your mileage may vary (greatly) for that epic oater in which no scenery was left uneaten, but if you do enjoy a good “thug” role, Lee Van Cleef pulls out the stops here.
@Poteet: 156
Rabbit ears? I bet you can get a lot of Hopalong Cassidy reruns. Hah hah hah! OK, I’ll see myself out.
MW: Shouldn’t Yoda be putting the verbs at the end?
@Ukulele Ike: Speaking as an American living in Africa, the Mexican food here is TERRIBLE. “Mexican” restaurants serve a cruel, mayonnaise-slathered parody of what you can get in the States, and you can’t buy the right ingredients for Mexican food at the local grocery store. You know what you can buy at my local grocery store? Ostrich burgers! Or ordinary beef burgers, if you prefer. There’s even a McDonalds in my town. So, yes, it seems totally reasonable that these guys are eating hamburgers, why not.