MORE MURDERS DAMN IT
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Blondie, 6/14/22
The first panel of today’s strip sent me into an emotional state that, if you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you know I experience far too often: indignation that a comic character’s whole longstanding deal is being ignored for the sake of a joke! OK, sure, Blondie started her catering business in 1991, which was a full 61 years after this strip was started, but it was also 31 years ago, so I think it counts as pretty well-established, and the lore is that Blondie and Tootsie run a full-on catering business, not a “sandwich shop.” But by the time I got to the end of this strip, I realized what was happening: this guy is one of Dagwood’s buddies from the online forums for real sandwich sickos hosted on the dark web. Anonymity on those sites is the rule of the day so that people can post their innermost desires without fear, but Dagwood managed to dox this guy and told Blondie just to say “the s word,” as the sandwich community puts, and she’d get a loan in no time. And people say Dagwood’s lazy! He’d do anything for his wife, even betray the most sacred trust among sandwichlads.
Dennis the Menace, 6/14/22
Dennis at age 6 realizing that sating one’s appetites to excess can rob those appetites of their pleasure, yet pressing on with mindless consumption nonetheless: reaching a new threshold of personal self-menacing. Or he’s just disgusting and covered with bits of food, one or the other.
Dick Tracy, 6/14/22
Look, Dick Tracy, none of us are interested in playing “the long game” with you and filing these little clues away for payoffs months or years in the future, OK? We want one thing out of you, and it’s murders, murders, murders.
235 replies to “MORE MURDERS DAMN IT”
Mary Worth: Mary Worth backing away from an obvious meddle. [Bing, Bing, BZZZT!]** The sound of Baja’s brain throwing a ‘divide by zero’ error on the sheer impossibility of this.
Mary Worth: Dude, pace yourself. It’s too early in the relationship to talk about pussy.
Garfield: Stop it, kitty cat! The comics page already has one Pluggers. It doesn’t need another, nor the one it already has if I’m being perfectly honest.
Garth Hudson of The Band — Dick Tracy’s most unexpected crossover appearance ever.
Dick Tracy, 6/14/22: Last panel confirms this guys nickname has KNUCKLES in it.
Lockhorns: Loretta is careful to match her bridge table with old Star Trek bridge chairs.
Blondie: “Now that we’re on the same page, how about $11,000? Ten thousand for you. One thousand for me.”
It’s great of Dick Tracy to celebrate Pride month with a storyline about Tracy coming out, but I do worry there’s a bit of an age gap between him and his future husband.
Dick Tracy : IIRC, the last time Dick Tracy did “this seemingly innocuous thing is going to be CENTRAL to one of Dick Tracy’s adventures, he just doesn’t know it yet”, it was about a poster for a Rocky Horror Picture Show night, and it eventually culminated with villain Sawtooth anticlimactly dying in a car accident during a high-speed chase.
DtM: Joey looks particularly wan today. Is he a kid who’s make-a-wish is to appear in a Dennis the Menace strip?
OK. I was gonna go with “Loving Husband and Father,” but I guess “He Catalogued the Deaths of Dick Tracy Villains” will have to do. I wonder how much the stonecutter charges for italics.
Blondie: I’m really starting to think that sandwiches = sex in the Blondieverse, and the combination of the banker’s sly smile and Blondie’s terrified expression is doing nothing to dissuade me of that notion.
DtM: So is this the prequel to the strip from last week , or did Dennis just not learn his lesson? Or does Dennis exist in a reality outside concepts like time and space and causality? Oh right, the third one.
DT: I love that last little dialogue box: “NO REALLY, THIS IS GOING SOMEWHERE! THIS ISN’T JUST AN OLD MAN BUMBLING AROUND FOR NO REASON, WE’RE NOT GASOLINE ALLEY, I PROMISE!”
9CL: I give up. I will note that Batiuk can learn a thing or two about how to meaninglessly extend a story, though.
Luann: Those Grindr hookups aren’t going to check themselves, Ox.
DtM: Who is Crummy?
H&L: Lois is surprised when she finds Dolly covered in bugs when she opens the door. Not because of the bugs, rather that Dolly has managed to crawl her way back from wherever it is she dropped her off.
DT: It’s documents that exonorate a person Dick imprisoned until needed as a plot device and/or killed so into the shredder it goes!
MW: The only difference between Mary and Helen are a pair of binoculars -and the flesh eating slugs under the eyes.
DtM: What is much more menacing is Dennis’s attempt at wordplay, which objectively speaking isn’t that great but from a five-year-old indicates a certain precocity.
If it’s important to Dick Tracy, then it’s NOT “legal.”
@pugfuggly: “Or does Dennis exist in a reality outside concepts like time and space and causality? Oh right, the third one.”
Didn’t Augustine make this same argument about God?
It’s not a bad idea for a catering business to run a retail sandwich shop. Public presence, less reliance on word of mouth, exposure to the lucrative (and weekday!) corporate-events sector, steady cashflow even if it runs at a loss. Blondie always had a good eye for business opportunity, even if her eyes are way up there.
@nescio: Who is Crummey?! Why, Clifford Crummey is the absolute legend who first used a lapsing power of withdrawal to apply the annual gift exclusion to gifts in trust without violating the present interest requirement!
Oh, wait, it’s Crummy. Just a crumby pun.
Blondie: When you want a ride, you’ve got to pay your way with gas, grass, or ass. At the loan office, it’s cred, head, or bread.
MW: Reverse these two panels and it’s a perfect joke.
Blondie: The loan is intended for the sandwich shop end of the business, though. Perhaps the county has ordered them to bring their failing refrigeration equipment up to code.
FW: How rarely does Cory visit his parents, if his fiance still needs directions to find the bathroom?
S4: “Hillary is crazy and we talk about it in pop culture terms” is just a variation on “Ted is crazy and we talk about it in pop culture terms.” This is almost every joke in this strip anymore, and I’m ready to quit.
@richardf8: Turns out God was right under our noses the whole time. Funny, I would have put my money on Snoopy.
@Kevin On Earth:
Nine people died before Dick learned “exonerate” doesn’t mean what he thought.
FC – The obvious answer is that Jeff handed his father’s inks off to the syndicate with no coloring instructions about the apples, but the obvious question “what kind of hell world has black apples, and is eating them what traps you there for all eternity?” remains intriguing.
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Great work, Sid, getting the mention of Jared’s cat into the storyline so early in the plot! TBH, I had given up on this arc, but now that there’s a cat involved, I’ll stick with it a while longer. Jess could turn out to be the token victim here, either highly and anaphylactically allergic to Jared’s cat, scratched up by Jared’s cat, hit by a car when she tries to save Jared’s cat from crossing SANTA ROYALE MEMORIAL highway, fallen from a tree when she tries to retrieve Jared’s cat from a high branch, mauled by a dog when she intervenes in its fight with Jared’s cat–the possibilities are endless! I think Moy intends to keep Jess in the hospital where both he and Mary can keep an eye on her. Jared’s cat is just the way to do it.
Blondie: I personally think this is an erotic dream Dagwood is having, imagining that his own wife has a sandwich shop. But even in dreams, he has to add an element of realism, hence the small business loan.
DTM: I feel like Dennis and Joey will be having this same basic conversation for the rest of their lives. One day, it’ll be: “I don’t feel so hot when I huff oven cleaning spray.”
DT: This guy looks like he belongs in Gasoline Alley, and I know Gasoline Alley/Dick Tracy crossovers are a thing. So this fills me with existential dread.
Mary Worth – Mary not meddling? I’m shocked. How dare that bitch not cause trouble.
Luann – Les is an asshole. end of story.
Blondie – Free sandwiches is codeword for free pussy.
DtM: “Do I feel ‘crummy’ because I’m a crumb eating everyone’s cookies or because I’m covered in cookie crumbs?”
Thinking about questions like these will keep Dennis out of high-paying jobs in the future.
MW – Mary passes by and suddenly Jared goes from sharing a common interest with a patient to being a crazy guy rambling about his cat and pets are good.
Dustin: DustinDad is a living wire mother.
FC: What fruit do the melonheads use to keep Daddy Keane away? Wait, that question answered itself.
MW: Mary realizes this relationship is going nowhere, as proven out by Jared opening his mouth in panel two and emulating Ralph Wiggum.
CS: It’s today that Mitch says his first word: “Bitch.”
FW: “And if you see me with a knife interrupting your shower, remember that it’s Cory in a wig, not me.”
Judge Parker: How is it that no one has mentioned the rendering of Needy in panel 1 of today’s strip?
DT: It’s the patent for the two-way wrist radio.
Blondie – Ah – well what figure are you willing to be bribed with? Of course, the lack of chair side boob is cuz she’s giving him the full frontal hypno-boob treatment….
DtM – Our humor is also crumbling – the gags are crummy – and overall this whole stichk is giving me a belly ache and the shits….
DT – Now I’m having a serious scale/perspective breakdown. If the box is the size he’s lifting in panel one, then the papers in the box in panel two, would have to be about the size of those pink(ish) phone message slips they used to use in the stone age of my work life. On the other hand, of if, the box contains eight stacks of legal sized documents (again, from the Alley Oop times), the box would have to be much larger and you’d need a fucking forklift to move it. And what’s the late Paul Brinegar doing in DT, to start with? I’m having doubts DT still has the firm grounding in reality that we’ve come to expect of it….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
9CL – Yesterday we wrapped up the high-stakes “Amos uses a strange word in a note” storyline by revealing that the strange word is one that Edda made up to describe Amos’ subservient status towards her.
Today, we wrapped it up all over again, except today we revealed that it wasn’t a strange word at all, just poor handwriting on Amos’ part.
Do you think he forgot he’d already resolved the plot yesterday, so he had to make up something else?
There is just only so much mileage you can wring out of “Amos worships Edda and his entire life revolves around praising her”, and said mileage hath already been wrung.
@LimberJoe: It was mentioned here yesterday that Manley is ill and other artists are drawing his strips. Things are going to be a little different for awhile, apparently.
Blondie: Given that we know that this strip takes place in the Dick Tracy universe, I’m going to guess that Blondie’s chronologically inaccurate “sandwich shop” is really some shell company for something illegal. I now look forward to Dagwood getting the crap kicked out of him by the Neo-Chicago badged goons while all he can manage to do is ask if he can order Quiznos from solitary confinement.
FC: The black apples aren’t a coloring error. Before Jeff updated the caption, they were originally used to show the Keane kids how women were the downfall of man in their Bible Stories for Children unpublished comic series.
MT: Another exposition beaver in panel one? Jeez, will whatever man Joolz is flirting with in real life please take the hint!
@LimberJoe:
Panel one looks like artwork for a new film from Almodóvar.
Chix(sic): I admire Xunise today. She decided to troll the bastards ragging on her strip every Tuesday by picturing herself with unshaven legs.
Mary Worth/Dick Tracy: Who is this mysterious lady who minds her own business and what has she done with Mary? Can that box of mysterious legal documents hold the answer? And what existential insecurities are in store for Mary’s and Dawn’s milquetoast love interests when virile, square-jawed Detective Dick enters the picture? That last Mary Worth/Phantom crossover merely left us hungry for another!
GT: The FBI has a public website listing all the people who are in witness protection??? Hah, who says the government is inefficient?
JP: “I’M weird??? Whatever you say, Balloon Lips. You should rent yourself out for kids’ birthday parties. If I give you a little nudge, will you float to the ceiling?”
Blondie – Obviously the sandwich this creepy little pencil pusher is thinking about includes him as the meat, Blondie and Cookie will provide the buns… Special sauce aplenty for all. Sigh… Some days.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: The sad thing is this was the “joke” at the beginning of this stupid story.
DtM: In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remembers how as a young boy he stole some pears even if he didn’t really want to eat them but for the thrill of doing something evil. From that, he would deduce his theology of perversity of man, original sin and salvation by faith alone. We can only hope that Dennis’ twisted psyche will be as influential for Western civilization!
DICK Tracy- Ye Gods indeed. The fifth horseman of the apocalypse DICK Tracy is about to be unleashed upon the hoarders like a monster truck sized can of whoopass. Stay low Auntie Josette, stay low.
DT: Listen old man, we appreciate that you look for Dick Tracy and are happy to provide him with evidence, but it is a bit presumptuous to believe he needs any legal justification for his actions.
DtM: Feeling crummy? Childhood obesity and diabetes are the true menace!
FW: Holly countenances this couple living in sin under her own roof??? Funky is going to be pissed. She didn’t put out for him until their first anniversary.
CS: Little Whatshisface is well on the way to wearing the mantle of the moron/asshole role that genetics has assigned him.
RMMD: Um, coppers, you might want to pay a little more attention. He’s holding TWO weapons.
“I’ll leave this alone FOR NOW. But I retain my right to interfere in these people’s lives at any time.”
Dick Tracy-One day this man will owe Dick Tracy a favor and he will call it in.
Archie-“What can I say…it’s inflation.”
MW-Oh who are you kidding, Mary. You love stirring up trouble.
JP-“Let’s go to a better comic.”
FC-“So nice of that kindly old lady to give us these black apples.”
DT – One day, someone among us will start a blog called “Hoo boy! It’s time to clean out the garage.”
MW: Mary experiences growing alarm as she overhears Jared admit, “Sometimes when I’m having a hard time, I TALK to my CAT.” Mary immediately heads back to Charterstone to prepare a batch of her “special” cat-treat muffins for Jared’s four-legged counselor, deftly substituting arsenic for the recipe’s half cup of sugar. “I’ll be DAMNED if I play second fiddle to a FELINE!” she murmurs grimly as she stirs.
The old man just found were the wills of the creators of every legacy comic have been stashed, the wills where they state they want their creations to die with them, so this is the last we’ll see of this story line… and of him. (Please hum some dramatic music now.)
Dick Tracy can do this forever, in my opinion. Just show us a different rando each day and assure us that at this point in said person’s life, they are not important to Dick Tracy (either the character or the strip, the details are unimportant).
@Charterstoned: re MW: YES! Not only did they confirm that Jared still has his Cat, it looks like they may be movin’ ahead with the “Pet for Jess” proposal!
We have a lotta good candidates for Jared’s Cat, even though a few pulled out after some of his less desirable personality trails were shown. Felines don’t fall for that “endearing quirks” crapola. And we’ve started the Dog auditions, hoping to match Jess up with a loyal and protective companion. Of course before we place any client in this story we need to check out the situation with Jess’s “abuser” … we can’t let any of our Animals be put in a dangerous position. If necessary, we may have to get pre-emptive restraining orders.
But it’ll be worth all the hassle and legal expense to get Animals back into the storyline!! Yeah, just like you, CS, a lotta people were ready to give up on this lackluster plot – but just the mention of a Pet reeled ’em back in!
The Nevada atomic test site opened in January 1951. Dennis the Menace launched in March 1951. Joey’s nose is the exact shape of a mushroom cloud. Coincidence?
Blondie: The loan officer thinks “sandwiches” are a euphemism for something judging by that grin.
“Dagwood? More like Dagcucked, mwehehe.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s sign your loan now, Mrs. Bum-Bum…Bum-Bumstead!”
FW: It’s not too late, Rocky. If they realize who your in-laws are, you might be able to expedite the paperwork for an annulment.
MW: Say what you will but I would rather hear about Jared’s cat than any of Mary’s empty platitudes and passive aggressive needling.
RMMD: Let’s see how Snake’s going to try and weasel out of the situation by trying to convince everyone he’s the good guy all along despite having instigated the whole thing. I’ll get the popcorn.
Speaking of murders, I think Jared bored Domestic Abuse Patient to death in Mary Worth.
MW – You know what they say, Mary – you stir the pot, you’re going to have to lick the spoon. And for once, it’s not carrot muffins.
@Old School Allie Cat: Though judging by Mary’s recipe book, they might as well be what she calls carrot muffins. You don’t dump two cups of shredded carrot into an existing recipe and pray for the best, you ignorant old crone!
DTM – Dennis makes a stupid pun. Joey is kinda-sorta smirking. Please welcome guest writer Tom Batiuk!
Also, I woke up this morning positively furious that we had an entire plot point about Gregg Hamm throwing wild pitches pretending he was going to drill opposing hitters with his fastball and not one person yelled “HAMMER DON’T HURT ‘EM!”
I’ll tell you what figure I have in mind, Blondie. Yours. Now let’s talk about that loan.
MW: “You couldn’t possibly make Jared more
of a doofus.”
Moy: “Hold my beer.”
RMMD: Well, all I can say is, The Sweeper had better get more hard time than Snake does.
9CL – It’s just insane that he has been writing a daily comic strip for three decades, and still makes it all up from one day to the next, resulting in amateurish and incomprehensible storytelling.
This story started when Edda found a note Amos has written about (but not to) her. There was a strange word in it, and she asked Amos what it means. Amos, who apparently knew the word and what it meant, immediately panicked and grabbed her and kissed her, thinking to himself that he must distract her from further, dangerous questions regarding the word. Nevertheless, she persisted, and Amos cringed in terror and fled.
Then Edda had her mother and her mother’s thrall drive down from New Hampshire so they could read the note and give her critical advice. Mom advised that Amos loves her so, so, so, so much and is in thrall to her beauty, which seemed to be what Edda needed to hear.
Then, suddenly, both Edda and Amos had no idea what the word means and were asking passers-by at the diner to interpret.
Then, suddenly, tween Edda was explaining to tween Amos that he was her thrall, but thrall wasn’t a good enough word so he would be her lonce instead, and was never to tell anyone about it. Right here, the “storyline” should have ended, with most of the stupid at least explained away.
But no! Today we learn it was all just Amos’ bad handwriting. And, presumably, the lonce conversation from the day before never took place. And Amos had no reason to cringe in fear and flee from Edda, because apparently the conversation where she warned him never to tell anyone also never took place.
One day this man will be important to Dick Tracy. That day is actually today. Today he’s going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and Dick Tracy will riddle him with bullets after mistaking him for The Elder Klutz, an old (in both senses) Tracy foe. The resulting civilian review board will blow the lid off the violence, abuse, and corruption of the Neo-Chicago Police Force. People with odd nicknames and strange facial features will line up to watch Tracy’s perp walk, and they will finally feel relief.
MW – “A cat? Holy crap. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep, he’ll leave.”
When I say sandwiches I mean fish tacos.
@The Bonnie Situation:
In bed.
Too easy
DT: Unless that’s Tracy’s license to kill, I don’t know see how some random paperwork is going to be important to him.
P: Whatever Savarna wants, Savarna gets…
MW: “Leave alone for now,” “I don’t want to stir up trouble”??? Mary, you are a viper. Stirring up trouble is all you do, along with stirring up endless batches of muffins. The woman has no moral compass…”true north” always points to her Ego. Wow. Ms. Moy must believe this is entertaining, but it is disgusting.
DtM: Puns are the lowest form of menacing, Dennis.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Hmmm. Snake really thought there wouldn’t be cops at the back door of this hostage situation? Yeah, Rex, I don’t think insane vigilantes performing at-home lobotomies on Snake would have made that much difference in any case.
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Geez, you’d think Snake of all people would remember to disguise himself as a cardboard box before trying to sneak around somewhere.
love is… using the same picture in the strip for the umpteenth time.
“Sandwichlads” is a delightful and perfectly cromulent word, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to Google it. “Bronies” was bad enough.
C’shaft: “Shut up, you destructive bastard, my insurance company had to create an entirely new rider just for living next to you.”
FW: Rocky knows she’s in for a lifetime of nagging for grandkids and criticizing everything about her house.
MW: Not even Florence Nightengale syndrome is enough to keep this rapport going.
Pluggers are proud of their unattractive, broken bodies.
RMMD: Obviously this strip isn’t set in Neo-Chicago, where Dick Tracy would’ve run Snake over with the bulldozer before ordering him to freeze and drop his weapon; or my hometown, where a suspect actually did sneak out the back door during a standoff with the police, went shopping and was shot while trying to sneak back inside the house.
FW: Holly: Rocky, you and Cory will be in his old room. Do you remember where it is?
Rocky: Yes, ma’am. We’ve [fornicated] there many times. Many, many, many times. So many times I’ve lost cou—
Holly [interupting]: Oh, look at the time! I need to start dinner! [flees the room looking shaken and pale]
Cory: That was unnecessarily cruel.
Rocky: Yes, it was. And that’s why you love me.
Cory [embracing her]: Ohhh, yes. Now, tell me what you have in mind for Funky. And remember, he’s got a weak heart.
Rocky [purring]: I’m counting on it, babe…
I have to stop reading Tuesday 6chix. Seven a.m. is too early to feel like I need a drink.
Dennis the Menace: Wait til Dennis grows enormous calves and buttocks and declares himself to feel R. Crumby. At that point, we have reached the singularity, and the world comes to an end.
MW: my loathing for Mary has ratcheted up multiple notches.
@MKay: RMMD: Well, all I can say is, The Sweeper had better get more hard time than Snake does.
***
They have nothing on Snake. No one saw him smashing that car, and any well-struck blows with the bat to StreetDork were in self defense.
DT — “One day this man will be important to Dick Tracy.” Oh really? This isn’t some avant-garde, expectation-frustrating, post-structuralist, random, and meaningless interlude in an otherwise utterly predictable comic strip? Well, then, thanks for the heads up!
MW: Hmmm…Chekov’s cat?
MW: We all know dogs are great, but when you are being violently attacked by your SO, there is nothing like chatting with your cat to make everything okay again! End of story arc!
@richardf8: Dennis as a deity? Menace Level: Cosmic.
“But Dennis is no kind and loving god! He is one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice! He demands cookies!”
After reading people’s complaints about 9CL for years, I finally decided to look at this thing. OMG! How anyone can even read it enough to notice the horrible storytelling is beyond me. That art is just plain hideous. Scary! I will never look again! And that’s supposed to be… sexy? Yikes
FC: Uh, no, Dolly…that’s just a folk saying to convey the idea that apples – and by extension, all fresh fruits – will keep a person so healthy they won’t have to go to the doctor for treatment of metabolic disorders caused by poor dietary habits. Dr. Cuthbertson is “daddy” to his children, not “Doctor,” so them eating apples will not keep him away. You see, adults have *many* roles in life…within the nuclear family unit, they are “parent,” and at work, they are…oh, never mind…I’m trying to explain basic existential facts to Dolly, which is inherently futile…
Jared might be desperate and in need for attention that isn’t being belittled and disrespected by his gold digging girlfriend with loose morals but Mary is truly the most loathsome of them all. She thought that Saul needed to “get over” his dead dog by pushing him into a situation where he had to get a new one because she drove him to the pet shelter against his will, practically blackmails Estelle into taking Wilbur back at least three times despite him not learning anything because she tells her she doesn’t deserve anything better, and that’s not even getting into her own passive aggressive treatment with her “loved ones” like Dr. Jeff whose proposals she refuses constantly because she wants to mooch off the sympathy of being a widow despite her husband literally being bones and dust in his grave.
tl;dr: If I had Mary and Jared in a room and I had two bullets, I would shoot Mary twice.
Blondie: Excuse me, excuse me! Everybody knows that “Sandwichlads” are the posers you find on Twitch. The real hardcore types can be found at dagwood.liverand.onion, and prefer to call one another “Sandnon.”
@pastordan: It shames me that I know enough to make this joke, it gets me right in the gut.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I’m looking forward to a month of “cats are great” conversation from a terribly abused woman and a social misfit. How I’ve missed the month-long conversation about ” dogs are great” from a terribly abused woman and a social misfit. Will she remember some guy shooting her life-saving cat? Does the hospital look like a mall? I’m all a-twitter. Which reminds me, when do we get this story with parakeets? Or horses? Melody would own that.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: #34
“There is just only so much mileage you can wring out of “Amos worships Edda and his entire life revolves around praising her”, and said mileage hath already been wrung.”
We have already circled the Earth countless times with this theme and the Earth is getting tired of it.
Now for DT to spend a week hashing out the “ancient documents” exception to the hearsay rule…
MW: Mary is the spider at the center of the web. She is the Moriarty of meddle.
Mutt & Jeff: Hold up a sec, Jeff. That’s not a number 17, that’s a seven! Give the man five pounds of sugar!
Blondie: This is how it starts, small acts of corruption…
Hägar “Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” Henry IV, Pt.2, Act 5 Sc.3
Stealing from Shakespeare! I’m impressed. Wait a sec, Hägar is Dark Ages, Shakespeare is Renaissance. Oh, ho! The Bard steals from Dik Browne! Even more impressed.
PbS: Torn from the headlines, eh, Pastis?
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: And this was a note that he, presumably, wrote fairly recently. So any human, when asked “What does “lonce” mean, would have said “What? Let me see that – no, that’s just my bad handwriting, I meant to say “love”.”
Even with comic exaggeration of the “ha ha can’t read your own writing” type, in no coherent universe does this story go to “I don’t know what a word I used means” rather than “I don’t know what I meant to say there”.
Operative word here being “coherent”.
DT: Instead of hanging an extremely apt pistol on the wall, the writers of Dick Tracy decided to lean on the far less exciting “Chehkov’s Receipt Hoarder” principle.
MW – He talks to his cat? No, no, no, Jared. Get a dog to talk to. Dogs are good. Cats don’t give a shit.
Frazz – Arm flailing at level 10, and smugly comparing a homework situation to a marathon. This is peak Frazz.
FW – Cory is, what, in his late twenties or early thirties? He looks like the male version of matronly. Holly looks like Harry Dinkle with longer hair.
MW: why wouldn’t Mary’s inner dialogue be along the lines of “That’s interesting but private and none of my business”?
@Needless_Exposition: #58
“MW: Say what you will but I would rather hear about Jared’s cat than any of Mary’s empty platitudes and passive aggressive needling.”
Amen to that!! I am so sick of the needless pseudo melodrama in this strip. For once, I would just love to see the denizens of Charterstone happily going about their normal, daily lives…Estelle playing the piano with Libby and Pierre singing along – WITHOUT Wilbur; Wilbur back to writing his column again, with his fish swimming happily in their tank…Iris and Zak contented and happy with their careers…Saul and Eve busy with enjoyable activities like walking their dogs, grocery shopping, going to the theater, taking online classes…and Mary stuffed with muffins, bound and gagged in her coat closet, forever…
@Mardou Fox: Oh, in a world that contains Mother Goose and Grimm and Six Chix, it’s not the art that’s the problem with 9CWL.
FW: Cory used to be a jerk, petty thief and all-around delinquent. Now he’s back from the Army, betrothed, and All Straightened Out. Maybe there coulda been a story somewhere in there?
@Professor Well Actually: “The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every pool party, the controlling brain of Charterstone, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of Aldo Kelrast — that’s the woman! Is she not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of a May-September Marriage, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure pathology that it is said that there was no man in the self-help press capable of criticizing it? Is this a woman to traduce?”
@I speak Jive: Except for Libby who cares about Estelle enough that she gave Wilbur a gold shower on his “throne.”
Ripley’s – A history lesson for Baja Gaijin.
FC – An old crone stopped by to give them those apples.
Vintage A3G – This story arc has been going on for only a short time, and I really, really want to move on to something else. I intensely dislike it. Mental illness is not cute. However, I suspect that Tommie’s patient isn’t actually mentally ill but is instead just a massive jerk.
JP – I don’t like this one, either, after just a few days. It’s giving me flashbacks to Donut Boy.
Rip Kirby – Rip saves the day. With a karate chop, not sanskrieg.
Back in the Day: A song for Baja Gaijin.
@Needless_Exposition: Which indicates that cats might be smarter than dogs.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: #66
You have perfectly described what a crazy quilt of inanity and stupidity this strip is. It’s like stumbling through one of those carnival sideshows with the crazy distorted mirrors and immediately feeling wave after wave of vertigo and nausea overwhelm you. :-p
@agony: 9CL – He wrote the note, which refers to her in the third person (“what a matchlessly beautiful lonce Edda is”) and was glad that she found it, but then she asked him what “lonce” means and his reaction was not “huh? are you sure you read that right?”, it was “OMG, I must distract her or she will ask me what the word means!!!”
Then Amos went around asking people what they think the note he wrote means. And then he remembered what it means, but then he forgot what it means again and concluded that it doesn’t mean anything, just poor handwriting.
Whatever happened to the comic strip with a focus on music and the arts? We’ve done not a single storyline with any background on their careers, the performing arts strips are all purely based on the idea that someone is going to get horny and grind one out on their partner’s lap while they play the pianner. Instead, we spend a week and a half on a typo.
@Daisy: I’d rather see a slice of life than a soap opera too. Real life is already so dramatic as it is; we need more escapism and less muffin-pushing meddling crones sticking their noses where they don’t belong.
@Itchycoo Scuds: Tune in next time, when Hagar says coquettishly: “Fig me, like the bragging Spaniard, you big galoot!”
MW- Meanwhile in Bizarro Mary Worth…….
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
Exactly.
We know we’re reading the funnies, we expect exaggeration, we expect absurdity, we expect misunderstanding for comic effect. But this mess doesn’t even hold together for two days in a row.
And it’s a shame, because it wasn’t always a terrible strip. Up until about Edda and the Unicorn, it could be relied upon to be funny now and then, and to depict a world that wasn’t shown much in other strips. Now, it doesn’t depict any world at all – none of them ever do anything, they have no lives, no thoughts, no actions, nothing but Edda worship. It’s like Love Is with boinking and wall-o’-text.
@Professor Well Actually: #101
“MW: why wouldn’t Mary’s inner dialogue be along the lines of “That’s interesting but private and none of my business”?”
Because the words “none of my business” don’t exist in her universe…
One day this man will be important to Dick Tracy. But on this day, he means nothing to Dick Tracy. He’s just another old man. Dick Tracy barely regards him as human. This man could die today and it wouldn’t affect Dick Tracy in the slightest. Until someone serves a specific purpose, Dick Tracy can’t be bothered to give a shit.
@107 I speak Jive:
Forget about ancient Egyptian clowns. I want to know more about President Calvin Coolidge’s pet pygmy Hippopotamus!
Dick Tracy: I can’t wait to see this storytelling trend take the comics pages by storm! “Someday, Gil Thorp will think back on this as the moment his marriage dissolved.””Someday, these pants will matter to Garfield.” “Someday, this sandwich will be important to Wilbur Weston.”
@117 jenna:
Dick Tracy is a honey badger.
@Peanut Gallery: What a Pistol! He always hands me a laugh.
9CL: Of course it’s sexy! Edda is wearing one of Brooke’s top fetish outfits, the one I have seen absolutely zero women wearing ever, which allows the gals to experience chilly shoulders and a sweaty neck all at the same time.
DT: He’s a little scrawny to be a Garth Hudson. To me he looks like B.O. Plenty’s slightly better put-together second cousin.
@Itchycoo Scuds: re: Hagar: “Rilchiam!”
(sorry for the Snark)
Sally Forth: Hilary starts sweating profusely. She starts stammering. She finally yells, “I CAN’T UNDERSTAND REALITY! **head explodes**
The End
Hey kids! I just had a great idea for a cartoon: Pluggers are fat!
// What do you mean, it’s been done?
@Needless_Exposition: This is also the Mary that told a woman that her husband’s wandering eye was her fault, defended Wilbur after the cruise, more or less cheated on Jeff with Ken Kensington, and covered up her own attempted sexual assault. Mary Worth actually has one messed up moral compass.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
Whatever happened to the comic strip with a focus on music and the arts? We’ve done not a single storyline with any background on their careers, the performing arts strips are all purely based on the idea that someone is going to get horny and grind one out on their partner’s lap while they play the pianner.
In the beginning I appreciated that angle, as well as the mom’s animal print underwear fantasies (kind of like the old Maidenform “I dreamed” ads), how Brooke drew the mom’s hair, and the cat (always the cat). That ship has long since sailed.
@agony: …no, that’s just my bad handwriting..
And Amos’ real name is Maitland W. Mottmorency.
@Ukulele Ike: Look out everybody! He’s got a Railway Share!
DtM: I’m an oldest child, and looking back, while I was challenging in some ways, I was oriented to adult approval and obedient. (Or kinda dumb, depending on one’s viewpoint.) My parents carefully doled out cookies and it didn’t occur to me to sneak them. And it also didn’t occur to me that I could spend my allowance at the candy store and never tell Mom or Dad. So I didn’t know what it felt like to gorge on sweets until I was well into high school.
Maybe if I’d gotten sick on carbs several times as a child, I wouldn’t be the sugar-craver I am now. Anyway, Dennis, take the lessons you are learning to heart. Forget the stupid attempt at a pun, eating huge amounts of dessert-food really is inadvisable, and in real life, Mr. Wilson wouldn’t be doing it and still living forever. He’d be pushing up daisies, safe from your visits at last.
@agony: 9CL – “It’s like Love Is with boinking and wall-o’-text.”
It’s like “Rose is Rose” with implied boinking added in.
That’s what he seems to be going for here, every day is free of all but superficial conflicts and the characters all wander around in a cloud made of lucky charms while blowing bubbles and blissing out.
The problem is that this only works if you like the characters enough to enjoy seeing them just going through their lives. That’s a stretch in Rose is Rose, and for 9CL its just not an option.
@Scudder figs on fruitfully: You should meet his kid. He’s a son of a gun.
@Needless_Exposition: I greatly appreciate your bullet observation. I have occasionally wondered if my CC homicidal daydreams regarding certain comic-strip characters are a little much, so it’s great to be reminded that some other Mudges have them too, and better than mine. No need to be elaborate, your idea is effective and efficient.
Slylock Fox: Rhinoman pawned his TV, bought a boat, and took up a life of crime on the high seas.
@Tom: You know, I thought Dennis was canonically five or six, but just the other day he said he was twelve! But he was talking on the phone to someone wanting to complain about his destructive behavior, so he was probably lying. Pretty high menace quotient.
@Little Blue Bicycle: re MW: Hmmm… a re-telling of the signature narrative – [Animals] are Good – with Parakeets, or Horses…. That’s genius, LBB! I’ll make sure you get credit if and when we make this happen.
I’m not so sure about using Melody for this type of story, though. Although she certainly has the dramatic chops, we feel she’d be best suited for a comedy role if she guest stars in Mary Worth. Since Horses are likely to be forbidden as Pets of Charterstone, we’ve developed this concept of her playing an Invisible Horse! We’re still not sure who’ll be the one person who can see her – like I say, it’s just a concept right now. But it’s destined to be a sure-fire laugh riot!
Be careful, Poteet!
// Page 48, bottom
@Bob’s Not your Uncle, Scudder: I had to google that – thank you, it’s funny!
I wouldn’t have pegged Blondie as the strip to take on the false imagery behind the “Girl Boss” trend that has produced such corrupt figures as Elizabeth Holmes, but here we are. Blondie will inevitably end up in prison, made a scapegoat in the coming recession to distract from the deeper problems of modern capitalism that incentivize such corrupt behavior.
But on the bright side, we get a future strip where Dagwood attempts to smuggle a file into prison by baking it into a cake, only to have his insatiable appetite ruin the whole scheme.
D T M – If you think that’s bad Dennis, my cousin Eddie says his drug habit is all that it’s CRACKED up to be..
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I think Jess needs a protective dog, a horse-sized protective dog. Could Melody play a mastiff?
@Little Blue Bicycle: It can be downright infuriating to see just how Mary views the world and how she thinks her actions are always right and she is free to condemn and censure those who aren’t with her twisted sensibilities. She sees the Westons and Camerons as good friends rather than obnoxious adult children and yet seems to find Estelle, an overall good woman with the unfortunate tendency toward the submissive, a woman who needs to be “punished” by tethering her to her most obnoxious “friend” even when he’s in the wrong constantly.
@Poteet: It’s actually pretty healthy to have intrusive thoughts like that since turning it toward fictional characters is better than letting out all that rage toward real people or holding in those thoughts without any sort of proper outlet. That’s what escapism is for, after all! And why I appreciate the insight of fellow Mudges.
Looks like they send the crap substitute artist over to JP (hello, Balloon-Lips Ned von Unibrow) and the talented one to Phantom (welcome back, sexually aggressive Hot Savarna! Grind a couple more times and Kit’s thoughts will stand out more obviously).
MW: I’m glad to see cats are finally getting their due as divine intermediaries between mortal beings and the celestial realm. Sharing one’s innermost thoughts with one’s cat can be transcendent. Even with one eye, they possess superior insight into the psychic realm.
Blondie-“What figure do you have in mind?” I would say that Blondie has a top heavy hourglass figure.
Dennis the Menace-Dennis is a ladies man.
@Daisy: I can agree with you on that, especially since I’m a pretty big cat person myself. Libby’s pretty much proven herself to be the most emotionally mature character in the entire strip considering she’s managed to do more to console and protect Estelle than her “friends” ever have. Mary herself is terrible at comforting people and is just happy to give them disgusting food and worse advice because that’s what makes Mary feel better.
GT: Hey, remember when “Gregg’s dad doesn’t like being photgraphed and is probably in witness protection or something” was a thing? Turns out it’s still a thing!
MW: I’d forgotten Jared had a cat. Have we been told the cat’s name? Is the name some ridiculous on-the-nose thing like Princess Stray-a or The Manda-claw-rian?
Phantom: Someday, Old Man Mozz’s interminable story about things that aren’t going to happen because he’s told Stripey about them will matter to literally anyone. Or maybe not.
RMMD: To be fair to Snake, he didn’t think the police had time to study the building plans, and they didn’t have the opportunity to question the Street Sweeper like he did, so how would they have known the back door was at the back?
Anyway, we’re about to get the comedy value of the Street Sweeper being all “Well, I guess the boys in blue can have him after all, then. Glad that’s all cleared up and … ah, hello, officers, are you here to talk about getting a Sweep Signal on the roof of your headquarters?”
(Although, now that I’ve written that, I’m not entirely sure that the cockeyed morality of the soap strips won’t decide that yes, the Caped Custodian may have kidnapped someone, but that person was bad, and also injured his arm, so he’s probably learned his lesson and we need say no more about it.)
S4th: “A main character slowly grasps that other people are actually real” would honestly have more effect if Ces used it in his other strip.
@Philip:
Great points. Plus I think Blondie would add a ray of sunshine to any State or Federal detention facility. Though am I terrible in thinking that Dagwood getting brutally shivved in the prison library is funnier than poor Blondie?
In any case: Herb Woodley must die!
Blondie-Later the loan officer finds out what Blondie meant by sandwiches. “Oh you mean sandwiches. I thought you meant ‘sandwiches'”.
@I speak Jive: FC – An old crone stopped by to give them those apples.
Kings Features Syndicate Inc would like to make it clear that their resident old crone does not give or sell people apples and never has.
@agony: New to Bob & Ray?
You have a treat coming to you – check https://archive.org/details/bobandraytoaster
// And you owe me a beer – Falstaff, of course.
MW: What Mary is saying is that she will check back in the future to see if there’s trouble and, if so, she’s going to stir it up.
@Horace Broon: That’s what they want you to think. Those apples are a gateway drug. Wait until she brings out the hard stuff – muffins.
Today’s Dick Tracy is a masterclass in foreshadowing. First, have a character say “I AM NOW DOING FORESHADOWING.” Then add a narration box that says “HE IS INDEED DOING FORESHADOWING!”
Wait a minute … like fifteen years ago there was someone trying to make a Dagwood’s Sandwich Shop franchise (probably the most thematically sensible fast-food-franchise you could make from the comics, really), although it collapsed in a bunch of lawsuits and accusations before it ever got going.
You don’t suppose someone’s trying to restart it, do you?
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: All signs point to
. . .
Toby!
@Scudder: Here you are!
@Joseph+Nebus: …there was someone trying to make a Dagwood’s Sandwich Shop franchise (probably the most thematically sensible fast-food-franchise you could make from the comics, really)
True. And it’s always bugged me that Dinty Moore’s Tavern, from Bringing Up Father was known for its corned beef and cabbage, not beef stew. Fie on you, Hormel! Fie!
It’s like, you open a Dagwood’s Sandwich Shop, and sell only Yankee Pot Roast!
@159 Nehemiah… Scudder!:
What kind of restaurant would SCUDDER’S be?
@Daisy: @Needless_Exposition: Yeah, what you said.
And Libby deserves extra respect because she has a much tougher row to hoe than some other comic-strip cats. BREAKING CAT NEWS is humor, sweetness, and light.. The titular character in GARFIELD has it pretty easy except for having to occasionally make faces at Jon. Ludwig is indulged and loved by two mature likable people in a truly classy strip.
But Libby? She lives with less-than-brilliant-Wilbur’s less-than-brilliant girlfriend and has to listen to them singing at the tops of their lungs, among other ordeals. All hail, Libby. Some of us deeply salute you.
@161 Poteet:
Bravo! A well thought out tribute to cats especially the Libster.
I’m thinking of Schrödinger’s cat. That poor thing has no idea what will happen.
@A Scudder in need…: Hoooly crap on a cracker, that’s…that’s……..that’s………… that’s………………..I’ll be a little google-eyed for some time after reading that. Definitely evokes early Seventies vibes, that does. Thank you. What a long strange trip it’s been.
Speaking of dining out…
Mary’s Worth It :”Sometimes when I’m having a hard time I talk to my cat. Mind waking up and giving me a little purr, it would really turn me on.”
“MEOW!”
“Yea, that’s the stuff.”
@Joseph+Nebus: “Sergeant Snorkel’s Big Hog Trough o’ Gluttony.”
Blondie-Blondie pulls the loan officer across his desk. “My husband can’t sexually satisfy me! I need a man damnit!”
FC-“Better than the muffins that old woman hurls at us.”
Wonder what Blondie’s insurance rates are to cover being wiped out by a Dagwood midnight snack attack.
@Joseph+Nebus:
Let’s open Wimpy & Dagwood’s Burgers and Sandwiches!
I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for your opening capital today.
@taig: CS: It’s today that Mitch says his first word: “Bitch.”
COTW!
@Sequitur:
What kind of restaurant would SCUDDER’S be?
_____________________________________
Like Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips ?
@Sequitur:
What kind of restaurant would SCUDDER’S be?
_____________________________________
Like Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips ?@Schroduck:
@N’Scud ?: Don’t worry. I’ve got this.
“Sam,what did you do with that box of wrongful death claims the Captain made us fill out?”
“Stuck it in some rando’s garage, Tracy.”
“Good work Sam.”
@Ratbender: Falstaff Beer… Trust the disembodied hands!
Sex Organ V.D.: “gulp, uh, I’m Batman!, see my bat,tell me,did I just literally say ‘gulp’? Anyone know of a good place to advertise for a boy wonder?”
@Ukulele Ike:
Look, if Kit wants to go all Batman of the Himalayas and Heloise is preoccupied with her Voyage of Self-Discovery with Kadia, I for one am foursquare behind sexually aggressive Hot Savarna slippin’ into the stripes.
@Garrison Skunk: Wasn’t there once a chain of casual-dining seafood restaurants (think Red Lobster) called “The Rusty Scupper?”
Sheesh, how ‘70s can you get? I’ll bet the barkeeps specialized in Harvey Wallbangers.
@Garrison Skunk: There really was a Wimpy’s fast-food chain, originating in the U.S. in 1934. I have personally never seen one; they were down to only seven franchises by 1977. They served hamburgers and duck, but if you wanted the duck, you had to bring your own.
They’re still big in Great Britain and South Africa, two areas I’ve never thought of as particularly Popeyecentric.
FC: I hate to disappoint everyone but there actually are black apples, but they only grow them in Arkansas. They’re actually a very dark purple, like a nasty skin bruise, but they call them black apples and the state’s tourism board makes a big deal out of them. On a drive from Little Rock to Branson, Missouri (the plugger’s Las Vegas) I must’ve passed several dozen fruit and souvenir stands selling them. They taste no different from any other apple.
@Itchycoo Scuds: #97: A foutra on thy office! I serve King Henry the Fifth!
@Ukulele Ike: There’s also a chain of Wimpy’s diners in Southern Ontario, primarily Toronto. They don’t particularly play up the Popeye connection. Their hamburgers are fine, but their all day breakfasts are probably their best feature.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: @Daisy: Well said. It’s fine to keep a theme through your work, but Brooke never advances it, he just replays the same thing over and over.
@Rube:
Not to mention the POPEYE’S CHICKEN CHAIN which is apparently supposed to refer to “French Connection’s Popeye Doyle, not Sweethaven’s Popeye .
@Sequitur: The kind where they don’t shame you for putting ketchup on inappropriate things.
@Peanut Gallery: Without that, where’s the fun in eating?
@Hibbleton:
Lockhorns: Loretta is careful to match her bridge table with old Star Trek bridge chairs.
__________________________
I’m looking forward to “Star Trek: Lockhorn” Can LeRoy drink Janeway under the table in the coffee drinking contest?
@Peanut Gallery:
Is it socially acceptable to put Heinz 57™ sauce on a hotdog?
@Garrison Skunk: Only in the British Isles and Commonwealth countries.
@Ukulele Ike: #186: Ike, you’ve got to remember the Sambo’s chain of diners around Cleveland in the late 70s. They claimed it had nothing to do with racial insensitivity or the “Little Black Sambo” stories but was a combination of the founder’s first names, Sam and Bo. The activist groups wouldn’t buy it so they ended up changing the name.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Naming it after Bo’s Uncle Ben didn’t help, though.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Thank you. Snake needs the support of good, upstanding citizens like us.
@Ukulele Ike: I think a friend told me, long ago, that the Rusty Scupper in Des Moines was known as a singles pickup joint. Or maybe not. I never ate at a Rusty Scupper, but if Rusty Scuppers were like Red Lobsters, I don’t know how the pickup part would even work. Trying to bat eyelashes invitingly while hanging over a booth doesn’t sound appealing.
Omigawd, now I’m thinking of the Bum Boat.
@Sequitur: It’s a very interesting concept. But I kind of wish it had been Schrodinger’s bedbug or Schrodinger’s dog tick instead.
DtM: Joey is all, “Man, you just blew my mind! What is this ‘too many cookies’ of which you speak?”
DT: Bold admission that this suburban senior will remain irrelevant to Dick until some unspecified point in the future. He looks like a slimmed-down Santa with Orphan Annie eyes, so I’ll guess about six months from now.
C-Shaft: Nah. When the kid is Crankshaft’s age he’ll be way too smart to let a baby steer a riding mower.
GT: You gotta figure Gregg’s dad is pretty private, since he won’t even let the artist inside the house.
JP: I don’t know if Reena’s deal is learned helplessness or what, but she seems like someone who would be quietly dropped from Hilary Forth’s friend circle after a few weeks.
Pibgorn: When kissing wins, we all lose. At first I thought Padraig was a raccoon with mange, but that was optimistic.
@193 Poteet:
If you just GOT to think of the Bum Boat, think of it this way.
POOCH CAFE: Yes, Cerberus is still a dog “at” heart. “At” fangs and claws and hellhound breath, maybe not so much. (And I like the think the squirrel he’s chasing is Ratotaskr, so he’s just defending his mythological turf from other pantheons.)
PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN: So, is the Shield of Boringness somehow also responsible for broccoli and Henry James novels?
BARNEY AND CLYDE: I have NO idea what this joke is about, and I’m strangely pleased with how the creators of the strip are OK with that. You do you.
@pugfuggly:
Blondie: I’m really starting to think that sandwiches = sex in the Blondieverse,
___________________________________________________________
Does George Constanza know that coffee + sandwich = orgy?
@Poteet: #194
I know! Why single out cats, for goodness sake? Cats saved Europe from the plague by killing the rats that bore the fleas that carried the pathogen (begins to sound like “This is the House that Jack Built,” ha ha!) Schrodinger’s ancestors might not have survived without cats. Talk about quantum indeterminacy…
@159 Nehemiah… Scudder!: Yeah, who ever associates Dagwood with Yankee pot roast.
@160 Sequitur: Scudder’s Restaurant and
LawnmowerTheremin Repair.@166 Ukulele Ike: And here’s the mascot. Click at your own risk.
@159 Nehemiah… Scudder!: Yeah, who ever associates Dagwood with Yankee pot roast.
@160 Sequitur: Scudder’s Restaurant and
LawnmowerTheremin Repair.@166 Ukulele Ike: And here’s the mascot. Click at your own risk–possible EVILSCARYCLOWN.
@jroggs: @Artist formerly known as Ben: 9CL/PIB- “ It’s fine to keep a theme through your work, but Brooke never advances it, he just replays the same thing over and over.”
Speaking of which, it’s been three and a half years now that he’s been drawing Ledda making out with the monk at the lake. Kissing may win, but it’s got to be exhausted at this point.
@171 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: STOP PEEKING!
@180 Ukulele Ike: I’ve been to Wimpy in England. Absolutely no visual connection to Popeye or any other characters. Rather blah as fast food burgers go.
@185 Peanut Gallery: Chicago? You’re talking about Chicago, right? They don’t mind when you put ketchup on anything inappropriate.
@193 Poteet: Don’t run that restaurant’s name through the Urban Dictionary. You’ve been forewarned.
@Poteet: “Dogs are great” has become memetic in Mary Worth snarking circles (God knows you can’t go through the comment section in CK without it being bludgeoned along with “Gram liked colors” though Madi was a pretty sad case) but all the dogs in Mary Worth really don’t act like dogs. Save for Pierre when he was in Wilbur’s possession, they’re all overly calm and relaxed around their older owners (no doubt thanks to the training provided by Agent Sid :P) while Libby had the appropriate reaction to dealing with Wilbur and his obnoxious behavior. She and Pierre are the only animals who actually act like…well, animals.
@201 Baja Gaijin:
And with your clowny Sarge, we got an imgur extra!
@209 Sequitur: Filing that away…
Ah, I actually realized something else! Mary Worth handles grief in literally the most appalling ways. Saul suddenly and rather senselessly loses his beloved dog who had saved his life and both Mary and Toby are like “get over it” with Mary forcibly driving Saul to the animal shelter against his will and refusing to leave until he adopts another dog. And this is two weeks after the event; they’re barely giving the man time to grieve! Then you have Madi (yes, of the color loving gram) who just loses her grandmother who she loved very much and what does her family do? Shove her into a condominium full of elderly people and expect her to work her grief out on her own! But both problems end up getting solved and handwaved because how dare people properly express time to grieve and mourn over loved ones?
@nescio:
Uncle Spunky “When a Bowling Pin Talks,Dont Listen”.
@Mardou Fox: I have the same reaction.
Anyone familiar with john Lustig’s Last Kiss comic? A shout out to 9CWL here, that pretty much nails it.
https://www.gocomics.com/lastkiss/2022/06/13
@Garrison Skunk: #184:. The Popeye’s fried chicken chain vehemently denies they have anything to do with the Popeye cartoon character nor was their restaurant chain named for him. However, in the words of the late Senator Robert Dole, who was there, saw it happen, and remembered, I do remember that back in the 80s and 90s the Popeye’s restaurants did use the cartoon characters in their advertising and promotionals. It’s kind of like King Features denying that Mary Worth was the Depression era Apple Mary, though we all know they’re lying.
@Sequitur: What kind of restaurant would SCUDDER’S be?
The finest Turduckhen, sliced at the table with scimitars, served with our House Slivovitz. We should be opening soon, once we take care of some trivial insurance issues.
@Poteet: I’m not blaming you, of course, we were all different people back then, but after the “Poteet” arc Steve Canyon and all his works and days disappeared from the St. Petersburg Times — forever!
@Needless_Exposition:The Madi story really annoyed me. When I was a kid, I lost my beloved grandmother one year, and my father the next. If I had promptly been dumped on an elderly asshole who yelled at me for not showing proper respect to his dog, I probably would have suicided.
@216 Chez Scudder’s:
Sounds good. Have you double checked the hilts on those scimitars?
@Guillermo el chiclero: A foutra on thy office! I serve King Henry the Fifth!
A whole fifth? No, no. Give King Harry a Falstaff or two… moderation is called for, don’t you think, especially after all that War of the Rosés stuff.
@Sequitur: Have you double checked the hilts on those scimitars?
Do you take me for a jobbernowl? A mooncalf? Of course I checked. The finest gilding, world-class craftsmanship, and innovative, too! If you twist the pommel just right, the hilt detaches for cleaning, which you know is essential for food service weaponry.
@Sequitur: She’s hallucinating. Why did I never see that before? She’s hallucinating. It’s so clear now. She’s hearing and seeing a fish that isn’t there.
I’d rather not have what she’s having.
@221♫ Defer, defer, to Nehemiah Scudder! ♫:
Oh, I notice you have a theme song. Very nice. Catchy. That should bring in some business.
By the way, how’s the spleen doing?
@Needless_Exposition: Kill Les Moore. Kill Les Moore. Kill. Kill. Kill.
@222 Poteet:
By the way, that fish on the wall is Singin’ Billy Bass singing a popular meme from a dozen years ago.
@Scudder abides: I’m soo, soo sorry. I don’t know what to tell you except what I’d tell the justice system if there were ever a real investigation. That crazy woman put something in my coffee that lasted for weeks. Weeks, I’m telling you. Look how skinny I am and that whacked-out expression on my face. I was sort of functional most of the time, she made sure of that, but I don’t remember most of what happened, I swear. There was a lot of that going around.
@Sequitur: Oh, I don’t mess with the blades myself anymore. Doing executive stuff. Ask Fingers, my barkeep.
@Rube: People mock it now but the story overall is a slap to the face. A girl whose lost two important figures in her life (her mother and grandmother) is being forced to spend the summer with a relative she doesn’t even know at a condominium full of elderly people (and Toby, the idiot who can’t make banana bread) and is painted immediately as a surly disrespectful brat because she doesn’t immediately get obsessed over Greta the way Saul is. And yet we don’t find out until a talk with Mary just what Madi’s problem is and yet her grief gets compared to Greta having not been able to find a home. Mary literally dismisses a grieving child’s issues and compares them to a dog’s! Infuriatingly enough, that winds up being helpful to Madi and she immediately becomes much more cheerful and nicer during her stay.
I was so pissed by this story because Madi doesn’t get proper counseling for her grief but instead her problems get compared to a dog’s.
@Poteet: Kill Les Moore, Kill Les Moore, Rah Rah Rah! Hey, look at that, Westview High’s got a new chant for their cheerleaders!
@227 Scudderific:
When I was a kid growing up in South Florida, my dad and I would always watch “The Game Of The Week” (baseball) on CBS. It was hosted by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. Diz would say, “Fans don’t you think it’s time to get yourself a Falstaff?” My dad would say, “Yeah I guess it is.” Then he’d take a trip to the fridge and get himself a Falstaff. He always would pour some in a little juice glass for me. Quite a bonding experience.
@Poteet: Yep. Always figured you as a Woman of Mystery…
@Sequitur: Always a classic!
@N’scudded: Thank you kindly!
And even if they did make STEVE CANYON and all his works and days disappear, I’ll bet some of the people who worked at that newspaper back then don’t remember 1972 very well either. Heh.
@Sequitur: So her hallucination isn’t even original. That’s sadder.
DT: Heeeey, I just finally clicked on Josh’s murders and think that first murder is probably the demise of the Queen of Diamonds, or was it the Queen of Hearts, whose elaborate costume got me hooked on DT for awhile, long ago. Memories…light the corners of my miiiiind…
And I’m up late hoping the sump pump will work. Good times.