The thrill is gone for some but still here for others
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Shoe, 8/6/22
The original iteration of Shoe was created by Jeff McNelly, a political cartoonist who presumably actually worked in a newsroom, some of the time, and so it makes sense that the characters are supposed to be engaged in journalistic banter on the regular. But at this point I assume everyone on the creative team is many steps removed from the editorial process, and so the closest you get to our bird-heroes doing real journalism is when they ask each other for headline ideas as a way to set up a terrible pun. Even still, usually the proposed stories that are the germ of these pun setups are things that might plausibly run in a newspaper? Until today. Today is the day when one of the last two employees at the last newspaper in this terrible bird-town thinks, “Enh, nobody reads this, what if I just wrote an article about my golf game? Write what you know, that’s what they say, right?”
In other non-realistic journalism news, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a newsroom myself, but I’m reasonably sure that it’s not common to just have ankle-deep piles of loose paper everywhere? But these are birds, I dunno. Maybe it’s for them to shit on.
Blondie, 8/6/22
If you’ve ever wondered if the Bumsteads are still horny for each other and how they “keep it fresh,” today’s strip has your answer: yes, and they go snorkling and ogle each other’s hot bods, underwater. A little weird, but honestly I think we all assumed it would be something much more off-putting involving food, so I’ll allow it.
190 replies to “The thrill is gone for some but still here for others”
Phantom: Oh, great. The assassin’s got the hots for Kit. [Baja puts his black suit back in the closet.]
Rex Morgan: “…or a stroke. The bad news is you were so bored with your life here you developed spontaneous narcolepsy. It will continue until either you’re dead or you move to a more exciting strip like…like…uh…hmm.”
Sally Forth: Wandering through a forest infested with psilocybin mushrooms, yeah, you might imagine fantastical things.
Garfield: Garfield’s a Plugger.
Mary Worth: In your dreams, Wilbur. Here’s the REAL Estelle thought bubble.
Blondie has morphed into 9 Chickweed Lane so slowly we barely noticed.
“Even underwater”? EVEN underwater? What, does water typically quench hotness?
@Twinkles the Elf:Yeah, whoever would have thought that a woman with a huge rack would look hot when she was soaking wet?
FC: Jeffy giggling; “Mommy, what’s a ‘shitstorm?'”
MW: Dawn interrupts her father; “Speaking of ‘breaks’ dad, I gotta use the shitter.” Runs from the table; “Don’t wait up!”
Tina’s groove: Look, if you expect your customers to eat the flies you serve them, you’d better put them on the menu. That way, you could even charge extra! I
9 Chickweed Lane : ENOUGH WITH THE UGLY NEBBISH HUSBAND FAWNING OVER HIS VAMP WIFE WHILE THEY SWIM IN A NON-DESCRIPT LAKE ALREAD- Oh, wait, that’s BLONDIE, not 9 Chickweed Lane. My mistake.
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Bizarro : …Isn’t that Mooby Cow from the Kevin Smith films, where they had the Mickey Mouse stand-in be a Golden Calf?
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Crankshaft :
1) …this is about the Great Resignation, right?
2) So, Max and Hannah’s new job is going to mean they’re gonna be able to afford to move out into a house of their own almost immediately, won’t it? They introduced the concept of Crankshaft living with his great-grandchild, did nothing with it, and then unceremoniously remove it in a way that makes you wonder why they bothered introducing the plot point in the first place.
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Hagar the Horrible : …aren’t all three of these characters illiterate, and thus couldn’t even tell the Welcome mat is the wrong way around, much less be able to figure out the implication of doing that?
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Moose and Molly : Oh no! Molly’s brother is a cannibal, and he’s going to EAT Moose! How… horrible?
MW: Dawn’s neck continues to grow in disbelief as her father is complaining to her about his dismal sex life. This is not what she expected when they sat down for a father-daughter talk!
Shoe: Ron Howard already did that movie. It was much better.
Blondie: As noted above, this strip seems to have been guest written by Brooke McEldowney.
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, that seems more like it.
DT: At least Marina isn’t so distraught as to give up her visible hair-streak support for Ukraine.
Frazz: Janitors who live in glass houses…
9CL: Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.
Luann: Yet another “brilliant” misdirect by the Evanses.
She called me “inconsiderate”! Can you believe that?
Shoe: “You know, for a humorous article about my golf game “Splash” is a pretty good title. Thanks!”
MW: “Turns out she liked me better when she thought I was dead.”
Dustin: Awwwww, Dustin doesn’t want his dad to suffer a heart attack or debilitating stroke.
CS: I missed some strips where these two clowns definitely earned all this stuff.
FW: Is it too much to hope the cookies were laced with rat poison?
FC: “It was funny when she pooped on the wall all the way from the other side of the room.”
MW: “My time on the island,” Wilbur says, completely glossing over the fact that he let a bunch of people think he was dead for at least a week. I hope Stell reevaluates their relationship and realizes she’d be better off with anyone else, but Mary will assuredly meddle her into continuing on as Wilbur’s door mat.
@Anonymous:
Hagar the Horrible : ”…aren’t all three of these characters illiterate, and thus couldn’t even tell the Welcome mat is the wrong way around, much less be able to figure out the implication of doing that?”
Not necessarily illiterate. There’s evidence that many Vikings knew at least the basics of the runic alphabet.
But there’s another thing about this comic which rings false: Hägar isn’t supposed to be subtle! For Odin’s sake, he’s a bloodthirsty Viking chieftain! Subtle passive aggression really isn’t his thing.
DtM: “If you were nose high to everyone’s ass, you’d agree with me!”
RMMD: Oh, that Tildy, so spunky and feisty! The doctor really wants to smack her.
LUANN: Seriously, rich dad. Security system, estate manager, nanny…do SOMETHING.
MW: Sorry, Moy. Despite your best efforts, we’re just not buying Wilbur as the Hef of Charterstone.
FW: The presenter silently calculates if HE’LL have enough to retire on after baptizing Funky with scalding coffee.
Blondie: That’s not how snorkeling works, and Dagwood’s neck wrinkles are freaking me out.
Blondie: Pro snorkeling tip, the top of the snorkel is supposed to be above the water.
MW: I’m relieved to hear that Estelle didn’t take Wilbur back after his Caribbean shenanigans. Despite all Mary’s
gaslighting efforts, the woman still has some sense left in her!
MW: “Inconsiderate”? That’s all? I could easily think of a dozen more appropriate adjectives, and, judging by Dawn’s incredulous stare, so could she. Estelle is really too nice for her own good.
Shoe meta: I was the sports editor for my college paper. Section editors would request a specific number of pages each in advance because the total number would have to be divisible by four, and we editors were dutybound to fill those pages come hell or high water. And sometimes for varying reasons you ended up with a deficiency in content coming up on the deadline. So you could either screw over everyone else on the staff or you could write something on the spot to fill those gaps. Now, I never sank so low that I wrote an article about my golf game, though I doubt my barstool-tier rants about the NFL and MLB were much better. But by golly I filled those pages in the end, because that’s what journalism is really about: shoveling out content no matter what it is.
Blondie: With this beach episode, a normally family-friendly comic turns to blatant fanservice. And, to boot, 9CL-esque fanservice. Perhaps the syndicate is feeling that their readership is dying off from old age, and want to attract new readers from Judge Parker?
That aside: yes, I think nobody can disagree with Dagwood’s assessment: Blondie in a bikini is hot, even underwater.
But that thought bubble emanates from both their heads, and that puzzles me. There’s no way I can accept that even his wife would consider Dagwood, with his bizarre anatomy and even more bizarre hairdo, a ”hottie”. She clearly need to have her eyes examined!
@jroggs:
“But by golly I filled those pages in the end, because that’s what journalism is really about: shoveling out content no matter what it is.”
You can certainly notice when the papers have a slow news day by all the filler articles they bring up from the
wastepaper basketarchives.Shoe: “Splash, you know, like the 1984 hit Tom Hanks romantic comedy? Eh? C’mon, we work at a newspaper, that’s topical enough?”
Blondie: The Shape of Water
30001920@Oversized Garden Ornament:
Yeah, but her eyes are way up there.
FC: Thel had really been looking forward to dining in this restaurant during their NYC visit. She and Bill had been reading restaurant reviews, their mouths watering in anticipation of the delicious fare; Bill had made the reservations half a year in advance; and now they were finally here, all dresseed up, with the children at their best behaviour.
And then catastrophe struck, in the form of an innocent question by Billy. The darned kid just had to mention Grandma’s Mexican misadventure. She’d come down with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge, and her stories had of course caught the imagination of the children. So niow, after Billys unfortunate remark, their stories of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhoea just came pouring out of their little mouths like, well, like their subject matter. She prayed to God for them to change the subject, but they just wouldn’t stop, and in a swank place like this you can’t start yelling at your children to stop or they’ll be sent to bed without dinner.
Mortified, and suddenly not at all in the mood of eating, she sank back in her chair and waited for Bill to do something, but seemed busy fighting back nausea, turning visibly greenish. The patrons at the tables around them shrank back and she imagined – or thought she imagined – hearing retching noises.
It came as a relief whenthe Maitre d’ finally approached Bill with a heavy face.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave. You are disturbing the other guests.”
That night, back at the hotel, Thel brought up her iPad and started googling famous child-murder cases.
Blondie: Nothing says “hottie” like syndactyly and loose neck folds.
MW: Wilbur says “my time on the island” like he was at Guadalcanal or stranded in some uninhabited place for years, when really he was just drinking and lying around at a resort for a week.
9CL: Brooke, you don’t get brownie points for rejecting traditional deviancies when you replace them with even weirder ones.
MW – “inconsiderate” is putting it very mildly. Dude sprang an out-of-nowhere proposal on a woman he had just got back together with, then dealt with her (totally understandable) rejection by getting stupid drunk and falling off a cruise ship. Then, miraculously (coughcough), Wilbore somehow washes up on Party Island and just decides to hang out for a week without bothering to so much as to make a single phone call to his family or friends who he knows are back home mourning him and probably planning his funeral.
No, Wilbore, you are far more than “inconsiderate.” You’re pretty much a narcissistic psychopath.
MW: how did Wilbur didn’t get bobbited by one of those women?
Luann: Sorry to rain on your parade, but if your previous business opened you up to litigation, starting a rent-a-cop business without the necessary permits must be straight out illegal. I’m looking forward to the next story arc, which is a courtroom drama, and then the ensuing woman’s prison arc.
RMMD-“You’re pregnant.”
MW-Wilbur, you made people think you were dead. If I was them I would correct that mistake.
FC-Grandma was a mule?
FC-That’s weird. Is that a restaurant? It doesn’t look like an apartment.
Spiderman-With the Hulk, the Lizard, and Spider-Man I always figure Spider-Man to be a bottom.
@Professor Well Actually:
“MW: how did Wilbur didn’t get bobbited by one of those women?”
I think it took a lot of meddling by Mary, and some psychoactive muffins, to calm them down.
GT – Gil may have been an inconsiderate clod, but Mimi’s latter just sounds annoyingly passive-agressive to me. The very act of leaving a letter rather than just, you know, texting or calling him seems weird.
Who’s on the phone? Bethany the barmaid? Ms. Holmes from the helicopter? Both? A Thorpian throuple?
GT – whoops, that was a plane not a helicopter.
H&L: This is supposed to be a light-hearted family comedy, right? But today’s strip, while it does contain a joke, strikes me as domestic tragedy. That look of utter, hopeless exhaustion on Irma’s face, as she bravely attempts some gallows humour, speaks volumes about her living hell married to an alcoholic. At least, Thirsty is the kind, benevolent kind of drunk, so I don’t think there’s any abuse involved, but her life is still a hopeless struggle to cope with her husband’s addiction while trying to keep everything afloat. This is stark indeed.
@astroboy:
“GT – Gil may have been an inconsiderate clod, but Mimi’s latter just sounds annoyingly passive-agressive to me. The very act of leaving a letter rather than just, you know, texting or calling him seems weird.”
Well, there’s the great American tradition of the Dear John letter, but even as such, this letter strikes me as very hesitant and passive-aggressive.
The question is: will Gil miss his family? The kids never do anything anyway, and while Mimi acts as a foil and discussion partner, Gil’s heart seems to be more into his work. And now that he has a bartender with the hots for him, and the mysterious woman from the plane, it’s not as if he hasn’t any alternatives.
John Wayne Bobbitt is the most famous alumnus of my high school. Pretty big school, you’d think they could do better.
Dagwood’s dying thoughts: “Oh, not snorkel…scuba! Shit!”
@Baja Gaijin:
“Phantom: Oh, great. The assassin’s got the hots for Kit. ”
Well, the assassin is Kit Jr’s wife/girlfriend, the formerly cute barista from the tea house, right? So I suppose she’s reacting to his resemblance to Kit Jr. and not just to his general (for an old guy) hotness.
“Too bad that we didn’t meet under better circumstances,” she thought. “It would have been nice to get to know him better…” For a moment, her vision blurred slightly, but then she blinked and the image in the scope steadied. “Don’t forget that he killed some of our best men” she thought as she squeezed the trigger.
MW: My God, Dawn is looking STRAIGHT AT ESTELLE’S FLOATING HEAD!! She can see it! All this time, I’ve been assuming the heads were only private thought balloons, and now it turns out they’re visible?? So all during dinner Dawn has been treated to a parade of disembodied heads floating around the room? And this happens all the time to these people…? No WONDER everyone at Charterstone is so fucked up!
Blondie’s missing thoughtbubble: “Wow! Underwater, Dag’s strange underneck-wrinkles are even wrinklier!”
One Big Happy: So Mr. Foley invented the concept of solo car date.
Family Circlejerk: This is awesome – Holier than Thou Grandma praying to the porcelain throne. Or maybe she just did like Marvin and shit all over the place.
MW: It doesn’t seem like she’s taking much of a “break” if Estelle is wasting her precious time away from Wilbur to think about him even harder as she mulls over their relationship. She should mull some wine instead. Just sayin’.
JP: Maybe I have a dirty mind, but the way Sophie keeps talking about “Reena and I”, and her wistful smile when she says it, makes me wonder whether the shippers aren’t really on to something.
@Charterstoned:
“MW: It doesn’t seem like she’s taking much of a “break” if Estelle is wasting her precious time away from Wilbur to think about him even harder as she mulls over their relationship. ”
As we’ve seen in the last few strips, Wilbur embellishes the story of all his romantic misadventures quite a lot, so it’s quite possible that the “mulling” is just Wilbur’s wishful thinking, and Estelle is really doing the bars looking for prosperous, middle-aged singles.
@Uncle Lumpy:
Blondie: “She clearly need to have her eyes examined!
Yeah, but her eyes are way up there.”
It must be irritating to Blondie that the only person who ever looks her in her eyes is her optometrist.
astroboy: John Wayne Bobbitt is the most famous alumnus of my high school. Pretty big school, you’d think they could do better.
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I love how many serial killers/abusers/guys who get their cock cut off are named John Wayne . . . In fact, I do believe the Mudge who got me going on this site is so named.
I think on The Tonight Show it was Ellen Barkin who said, “What did Jeffrey Dahmer say to John Bobbitt? You going to eat that.”
Also . . . I got my vasectomy in 1994, right when all this was in the news. Madame Ovary (we weren’t yet married so maybe she was Mme. Ovary or whatever) took me to the doctor. When I checked in I said, “I am Mr. Scrotum. I have an appointment with Dr. Bobbitt.” The receptionist, with a note of panic, “We don’t have a Dr. Bobbitt. Are you sure you have the right clinic?”
At least Mme. Ovary got the joke. We also wondered if the receptionist, when she saw what I was there for, finally got it.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
To be fair, he was just “John” in school. The media always included The Classic Middle Name, because it’s the Classic Middle Name I guess!
MW/Bl: “Then there was Blondie. She was such a hottie but I didn’t have enough cowlick for her”
@Oversized Garden Ornament:
I’m seeing Thirsty’s freshly murdered corpse (note : no Zzzs) and Irma saying she intends for the lawn to hide her crime.
We’ve finally figured out where Dag’s neck rolls come from: every time they take an inch off Blondie’s waist, they put it on Dagwood’s neck. He now has a 50 inch neck
Shoe – Shanked….
Blondie – It’s a waste to resort to that asphyxia stuff on perfection like Blondie. Not bad to have in the bag of tricks for, say, Cora Dithers….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW – Coming this week: Dawn runs through HER list of failed romances with accompanying Floating Heads.
There was Dr. Drew, who cheated on her with a girl from the horsey set. And One-Armed Jim, who dated her because…she looked like his dead sister (hey, I don’t write this shit!) And Frenchy LaRue there, who avoided a tearful scene at the airport by promising to continue their relationship long distance and then immediately forgot about it because all he was ever after was some American ‘tang on his trip, to tell the hommes back home about.
And Dr. Ned who turned out to be married, and Harlan the Professor who..well, we never did find out exactly what was up with all that. Maybe this week! Stay tuned!
Blondie: Brooke McEldowney is taking notes.
Blondie – This strip gets right everything that Brooke gets wrong about the whole “Fuck Lake” concept.
MW: the Wilbur origin story run a few days helped me to understand why Wilbur became Wendy but I still don’t understand why the writers made this pathetic twit an advice columnist. Wouldn’t it have been just as to make him a sports writer?
Bizarro: Beefy Cow==Porky Pig. Notice, he’s even doing the “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks.” pose.
@Baja Gaijin: S4th – I’m voting for “flea venom” myself. They’re going to have to dip Hilary when they get home.
@White Rabbit: oh, okay. I confess I didn’t get it at all.
Shoe: Assuming the purpose of the paper warren at the bird-people’s feet is safe habitat for the Perfesser’s feral, snake-like tie. It keeps the newsroom rat population down!
@richardf8: By which I mean the final bubble being shared by both Blondie and Dagwood expresses mutual lust/affection and not the transactional thrall/viper relationship of 9CL. The Bumstead marriage is Buber’s I-Thou, the Van Hosen marriage is I-It.
FW: Holly’s going to end up buying about five timeshares to hide how embarrassed she is about Funky being an asshole.
MW: “Sure, I manhandled her cat, ruined her date, and foisted a dog on her that I didn’t want because he failed to be a chick magnet to get her jealous but she said I was inconsiderate for letting people think I was dead! Seriously, what’s wrong with her?”
Some people have self-serving memories. Wilbur Weston literally rewrites and retcons history to make himself look like the victim and the wronged party in every situation. And at the end of his pity party, Dawn’s either going to have a revelation about how she doesn’t want to be like her father, completely sympathize with him and agree that he’s been wronged so many times, or try to make his misery boner wither by bitching about how she’s been through so much worse.
RMMD: “You’ve been ingesting so much rat poison that you only have two minutes to live. Sorry, but the tests really did take a long time…”
I just realized Brooke couldn’t have done this Blondie strip, because there’s no way Bledda would have a thought balloon indicating she thought Damos was a hottie.
@richardf8: I missed this before I posted.
@Anonymous:
H&L: ” I’m seeing Thirsty’s freshly murdered corpse (note : no Zzzs) and Irma saying she intends for the lawn to hide her crime.”
That’s even grimmer. Maybe Irma finally snapped. We’ll see if Thirsty turns up for work tomorrow.
@Oversized Garden Ornament: Thank you for noting this about Hagar. The other half is this his MiL would never take the hint.
(And I am willing to accept that the mat is in the the elder futhark, and that Walker-Browne have done readers the favor of translating).
@Professor Well Actually: None of the women involved were micro-surgery speCIALISts.
Blondie: “Would you like to wax your chest for me, since it’s just going to be you and me at the beach and the sight of your sleek skin under the water really grinds me gears?”
Dagwood: “It stings for a moment, but all right, since it’s for you. I better leave the big tuft of hair sticking out of my shirt there so the readers don’t get confused, though.”
@Sparko+Heaps: #3
Please, cartoon gods, do not turn those two into chinless, hell-maw grinning monstrosities like Amos and Edda. Please. =:0
@taig: #13
Tiffany hasn’t learned a thing has she…does she share some DNA with Luann?
@richardf8: Uncle Lumpy. Please release the comment from moderation. When I finally figured out what pissed off the Mod Bot, I felt it so germane that I emphasized it rather than bowdlerized it, and I want it displayed verbatim.
I think I’ve finally figured out what’s the deal with Dawn’s neck. It’s like Pinocchio’s nose, except that his nose grows whenever he tells a lie, but her beck grows whenever Wilbur embellishes the story. At this rate, she’ll be able to get a job at a circus as the giraffe woman.
@taig: #16
Re Estelle and the mope – I think we all know by now that’s Karen Moy!s MO…I would love to see a strong, mature self-actualized woman in this strip but such characters are not allowed. I don’t know why I keep wishing for the impossible…sure, Estelle – take poor Wilbur back. He deserves love and sympathy and coddling. And take Libby and Pierre back to the shelter where they won’t be subjected to his abuse. Sheesh.
@taig: That’s OK, I missed it while I posted which is why it’s a reply to my own comment.
Another of Dawn’s failed romances I just remembered – this was an early one: “Woody” Hills. He helped Dawn try and break up her father and that Liz person. Who was gold-digging…an advice columnist? (I may be misremembering that part?)
Minerva Monroe was the last truly strong, independent female character I can think of in The Worth-o-verse, and that was in the late 90s!
How many posters are masturbating over Blondie? Worse yet, Dagwood.
@Daisy: It’s sad, because they’ve set Tiffany up as the one character in the strip I can root for.
@Oversized Garden Ornament: #22
I’ve been hoping against hope that *someone* in this pathetic strip has the guts to call out Wilbur on his despicable behavior, but if the author herself won’t do it, none if her characters will. I’m so tired of this.
@Daisy: I will be angry if anything happens to Libby and Pierre to accommodate Wilbur.
Luann – I look forward to Tiffany getting shot down on Shark Tank: “I see all kinds of liability issues here and I don’t think it’s scale-able, and for those reasons, I’m out.”
Luann: Of course he gets a uniform. She’s going to hire him out as a stripper.
@taig: Libby is literally the best character in the entire strip because she is easily the most empathetic character, has taken care of Estelle far better than Wilbur ever will, managed to get Wilbur to sit in a puddle of her piss with a knowing smirk that it wasn’t an accident, and better embodied the phrase “Fuck off, fat boy” better than anyone ever could. The only regret was that in her short time as Mary’s pet, she couldn’t give the wrinkled harpy toxoplasmosis.
@ThePurgingLutheran: Worse yet – auto-erotic asphyxiation over Dag. BtW – I don’t want a messy death – just something simple and dignified…you know, like David Carradine….
Blondie: The more I think about it, the more Blondie and 9 Chickweed Lane have in common. Not only do both feature nerdy husbands married to women well out of their league, both feature protagonists who improbably remain employed despite spending more time indulging their fixations (napping, sexy lady gams) and both feature almost monomaniacal fixations on the protagonists’ turn-ons (food, sexy lady gams).
@Daisy:
MW: “I’ve been hoping against hope that *someone* in this pathetic strip has the guts to call out Wilbur on his despicable behavior, but if the author herself won’t do it, none if her characters will. I’m so tired of this.”
Well, it seems as if Estelle did indeed call him out on it, though he doesn’t seem to understand what she meant.
I’m waiting – against reason – for Dawn to say, “Really, Dad, you brought all this on yourself when you acted like a jerk”. She looks like she may be thinking that, anyway, but she’s probably just thinking about how Jared wronged her while waiting for Wilbur to stop talking.
@richardf8:
HtH: “I am willing to accept that the mat is in the the elder futhark”
The younger futhark seems more likely, since the elder futhark went out of use just at the beginning of the Viking age (9th century). Not that this strip was ever bothered by anachronisms, of course.
9CL: I mean, it is good to know Brooke draws the line at incest…
FW: “Okay, forget the 50% off…if you sign up I’ll charge your full consultation fee to this asshole for wasting everybody’s time.”
GT: How is Gil getting phone calls on a Nintendo Switch?
HotC: Can confirm.
MW: Fat, bald, and clueless, Wilbur serves to warn Dawn of the fate that awaits her if she doesn’t amend her ways, like a Ghost of Pathetic Singlehood Yet to Come.
Pluggers are DEFINITELY using that monitor wrong; they haven’t had 120/80 blood pressure since their late 20s.
@taig: #80
Oh, me too. Really angry. And the two goldfish – does Wilbur even care about them anymore? Are they still alive (I won’t dare ask if they’re “thriving”)?
FC – Holier than thou Grandma with the shits made my day. Imagine the platitudes she could come up with.
FC – “What will Madame have to drink?” “A bottle of the house vodka. Make it two.”
FW – Funky plans to take the leftover cookies to his AA meeting so his audience has something to eat while he blathers his rambling, pointless monologue.
JP – “Marie! Sophie will be leaving soon, so make sure you’re ready to drive her.”
“Let’s see who can stay under water the longest”, when proposed by people wearing snorkels, is not about holding one’s breath. No, it is a test of sheer willpower and stubbornness in the face of eventual boredom or hunger or general discomfort. Unless… if this body of water is not uniquely warm, the contest will eventually be about withstanding hypothermia.
Several hours in, Dagwood and Blondie gaze upon one another in mutual admiration for their metabolic fitness to remain warm in cold environments. “Wow! Even under water, what a hottie!” they think on strictly literal and thermal terms.
@ThePurgingLutheran:
“How many posters are masturbating over Blondie? Worse yet, Dagwood.”
I’m not. I’ve actually never found Blondie very sexually attractive – she’s too artificial-looking, like an enhanced Barbie doll. And God help us if anybody finds Dagwood attractive.
God help us if somebody is.
Shoe: “Gee, do you think we should reference Splash like that? It might date us!”
“At least something will date us!”
Blondie: There’s no way Dagwood would just think the line in panel three. Even underwater with a snorkel over his mouth, he’d try to say it out loud. Blondie? She might just think it.
@Oversized Garden Ornament: Now, now, Barbie is far less plastic than Blondie is, especially since Barbie has a much more varied resume and several doctorates by now.
@Needless_Exposition: #83
I so heartily agree – I love Libby. A character with a real personality and spunk. I think the quandary for me is how to “read” this strip any more. The strip from earlier decades had the soap-opera drama and not much, if any, intentional humor, while this iteration has silliness and stupidity disguised as tissue-thin drama. But it is so tedious to read I can’t even laugh at it…I just shake my head at how ludicrous it all is. But either way, Moy has sucked us in, hasn’t she. :-p
@TheDiva: #85
And today’s strip certainly invites that comparison. It’s really odd to see a strip without any reference to food or Mr Dithers screaming at Dagwood or any of the other tropes we regularly see.
@95 Daisy: Maybe you’d like today’s strip better with Added Libby.
MW – I wonder if Moy didn’t originally realize that it was not a good move for Wilbur to hang out on the island for a week without bothering to contact anyone. Maybe the blowback on commenting sites was a revelation to her, and she thought she had to address it.
Frazz – Frazz is a smug, judgmental know it all, part 254,681.
Vintage A3G – Bradley yelled at his doctor and fired him, and in the Sunday strip (address in the CK comments), Tommie confronts him about it. He says that the doctor knows him well enough to know that he didn’t mean it. In other words, Bradley’s an asshole, so whatever. Also in the Sunday strip, Bradley’s mother arrives at the hospital and is delighted that Bradley and Tommie are going to get married. (They’re not.)
These are some of the most horrible, insufferable people I have ever seen. I loathe this story.
Vintage JP – He’s late because he spent at least an hour getting that wave in his hair just so. He used an entire can of hair spray to set it.
Seriously, the guy is about to lose his job. This story is so involving, unlike the Vintage A3G story running now.
astroboy: “GT – Gil may have been an inconsiderate clod, but Mimi’s latter just sounds annoyingly passive-agressive to me. The very act of leaving a letter rather than just, you know, texting or calling him seems weird.”
Richard Pryor had a bit where he is screaming at his girlfriend “Baby, please don’t leave me!” and she responds with a flat “I’m sorry. I am leaving” and it all escalates with his screaming and her flat, passive replies.
scratchyscrotum: “I love how many serial killers/abusers/guys who get their cock cut off are named John Wayne . . . In fact, I do believe the Mudge who got me going on this site is so named.”
When I was a reporter, I came upon several criminal cases involving mooks named “Jesse James”.
Is that what you call ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’?
@Oversized Garden Ornament: #86
I still need to see Estelle make a clean, *complete* break from Wilbur and move on with what could be a happy life for her (ie, with as much happiness as anyone in this made-up world is *allowed* to have). Until that actually happens, though, it looks like she is still keeping the door open for yet another attempt at reconciliation with her beloved, misguided, quirky gentleman friend. IIRC, she did say on the cruise ship after Wilbur’s accident that she loved him, and her codependency will compel her to forgive him again. At least that’s my interpretation as an armchair psychologist. :-)
@Dennis Jimenez: “BtW – I don’t want a messy death – just something simple and dignified…you know, like David Carradine….”
If I had a choice, I’d prefer to leave this mortal coil like John Entwistle. (Pete Townshend called it “the perfect rock ‘n roll death”.
(Or a demise like wrestling promoter Herb Abrams. Look it up).
I didn’t get up at 4:23 am, and so my jejune observation about Blondie having morphed into 9 Chickweed Lane so slowly we didn’t even notice is pretty much obsolete. Enjoy your day.
DT: So Dick’s refusing Marina’s advances will have consequences? If that meeting is not plotting how to conquer the Earthlings I’ll be surprised. The question is of course which side Marina will choose.
DT: Do all Lunarian women wear those skintight, backless, braless outfits? If they don’t conquer the Earth physically, perhaps we could wish for their fashions to conquer Earth’s fashion scene? That would be a preferable outcome.
Frazz: Is Frazz having a rare moment of self-awareness here? Or is he oblivious to the fact that he himself seems to have that gift? I’d guess at the latter.
@Baja Gaijin: #97
Yesss!!! That is perfect. I love how Dawn appears to be looking right at Wilbur’s thought balloon with trepidation…
You know, for a man whose most lasting legacy is being the namesake of the sandwich equivalent of your computer’s recycle bin, Dagwood’s not got a bad beach bod.
A&J: A while ago, we had a power outage at the store where I work.
Only a couple of cash registers were open.
During the lull, I tried to explain to a couple of teenagers how credit cards used to work, with the sliding impression machine and carbon paper.
They were stunned at the mere idea of carbon paper.
Blondie-“And that’s how he really died, Officer,” Blondie says.
The Phantom: Well, my Thursday prediction of a Friday strip with Kit gamboling with the kids and a Saturday strip of Kit slumped against a rock came true.
Now, will Mozz be doing his Happy Dance on Sunday? Or will it just be a continuation of the Sunday ‘strolling through the tombs with Kit’ series?
@106 Daisy: Welp, I couldn’t stop myself. How about a crazy interpretation of today’s strip?
@Daisy: Libby’s got that perfect “Piss off, you grubby little wanker!” face.
Mary Worth: Sure, Wilbur, you and Estelle are “on a break” just like the Czech Republic and Slovakia are “on a break.”
Shoe: The colorist started out his job with enthusiasm, eager to use his artistic palette to help sell today’s gag and to do his part to make America smile in these difficult times. Then he got to Panel 2, read the punch line, and reacted appropriately.
@I speak Jive: #98
Re vintage A3G – I agree. The beginning of this arc was entertaining, showing how out of control Bradley was and how Tommie called him out on his craziness but now it’s just spiraled ridiculously downward.
Re Vintage Heart of Juliet Jones – wow! Isolde is dark, and dangerous. If Jackie can look beyond his greed, he should get away from her and fast. He already has his brand new car and a check for 5K – if he gets sucked further into her schemes he’s going to lose everything. I don’t know how he’ll react to her further emasculating him by shoving him to the floor and calling him “little boy.” Wow. Are they going to go on a crime spree like Bonnie and Clyde now?
@Baja Gaijin: #112
OMG OMG ONG OMG!!!!!!!!
@Needless_Exposition: #113
She does!! Cats rule!!!
FC: This 1977 strip was left out in the 2001 repeat run. It’s nice that Jeff thought it was high time to poke fun at our neighbor-to-the-South’s water again. I wonder if Jeff will also include the 1977 strip where Alejandro the waiter retaliates by telling Billy about his grandmother’s famous Tijuana donkey show.
BCN: Speaking of repeats, I wondered why this strip repeated old strips this week. Turns out the real-life-kitty Tommy passed away last month, so Georgia is running a week of tributes. That’s pretty sweet.
@Daisy: #117
Not sure what “ONG” means, but I certainly said it with feeling!! :-)
DT: would Dick be guilty of infidelity if he slept with Marina given she’s not human?
@Daisy:
Libby has spunk.
I hate spunk.
Blondie: “Wow, when was the last time we went snorkeling?” “Let’s see who can stay under the longest!”
Is…is it all a euphemism?
Blondie: Yep, even at his age, Dagwood’s bod has still got it. (“It” being “the absence of nipples”.)
What are those neckwrinkles? Is it like one of those things that signified something in 1930 and now the artists keeps doing it, without them or the audience knowing why, like his hair-tennas? Is it like really old slang? “Myah, yes, this will show that he is a real neckwrinkler, see, and that is slang that everyone will understand, myah, and this is 1930, see!”
@Professor Well Actually:
” DT: would Dick be guilty of infidelity if he slept with Marina given she’s not human?”
I’d say yes, definitely. She a person even if she’s not human.
From a purely technical åoint of view, however, would it count as bestiality? Is inter-species sex allowed in Dick’s legislation? If not, he’d have to arrest himself, which would be a bit awkward.
@Twinkles the Elf: Don’t you know about shrinkage?
Blondie – Girls flip for guys in jams.
MW – Dawn is thinking, “Geez, how many more of these does he HAVE?”
RMMD: Look, Mrs. Brobowski, if I wanted smartassery I can get all I want from Funky Winkerbean in the next room.
FW: Why is someone who owns a restaurant needing to mooch some stale cookies, unless he’s planning a new ingredient for his pizzas. One time I suggested to my wife why someone doesn’t offer a turkey and gravy pizza with a crust made out of stuffing. She said no one would buy that. I said, well, I never thought anyone would want pizza with pineapple chunks, which I consider an abomination but apparently there are.
FC: Thank you Jeff Keane. Now I have this image of a bare-assed HTH Grandma on the toilet.
Is it possible to bleach an entire ocean after Dagwood’s had sex in it?
@130 Guillermo el chiclero: on Funky Winkerbean: Have you had a Thanksgiving sub sandwich? They’re goooood. The turkey and gravy pizza on stuffing crust tempts me. Once Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa Johns run out of places to shove more cheese and pepperoni, maybe they’ll work on your specialty pizza.
@130 Guillermo el chiclero: on Family Circus: I didn’t have that image in mind but now I have. I wonder if Amazon can get me a pallet of brain bleach delivered within the hour?
@Guillermo el chiclero: On Funky Winkerbean Why was somebody who owns his own restaurant asking a friend how to cook wieners and peas? The only reason is that Batiuk pays no attention to his own characters.
Blondie: Still half-asleep while reading the comics this morning, I thought that was Cookie and Alexander. The third panel shocked me fully awake.
Blondie: Given his lifestyle, Dagwood is probably the one with the more unlikely figure.
Shoe: Confirmed: Cosmo is the only reporter working at the Treetops Tattler because there’s basically no news to report.
@LKJAndersen: It’s chest hair. Which, yes, the artists have definitely forgot a long time ago since it stopped making sense now that he’s shirtless. (See above.)
9CL: Relieved because that might be the one thing capable of getting the strip canceled.
C-Shaft: This one’s sort of accidentally topical, referring to the troubles many workplaces are having getting employees to return to the office. Which apparently matters even when no one knows what the company does or what anyone’s job is.
DT: “Woman to woman, I can tell you there’s no cure for a broken heart like planning a bloody global conquest.”
FC: Thel looks crestfallen because she and Bil had a bet on which of the kids would say something vaguely racist in front of a service worker and her money was on Jeffy.
H&L: Sure, the long grass is hiding her recently murdered husband for now, but it’s summer. Pretty soon some mixture of smell, flies, and carrion eaters will give the location away.
MW: Stella is understandably peeved. First Wilbur gets into a feud with her cat, then he spends the cruise drunk and stupid, then he falls overboard and lets everyone think he’s dead while he’s playing Robinson Crusoe, now he’s dragging her into floating head territory when she needs to leave for her nail appointment.
@136 Amelie Wikström: Huh. I’d have guessed it’s excess skin to allow Daggy’s neck to swell up to swallow those gigantic sandwiches whole. Like chipmunk cheeks without the cuteness.
@astroboy: Wilbur may have suspected his friends were celebrating and not mourning, and was nice enough to not ruin their celebration!
This is probably my favorite Family Circlejerk ever. Beyond Grandma shitting her holier than thou intestines out, it’s another fun puzzle to figure out the year of the original art. When, if ever, was it affordable in New York to feed six people at a place so fancy that you have to wear a suit. When the bill for that metal charge plate comes, Thel is going to be spending a lot of time on her back to make the payment. Outstanding work, Bil/Jef.
H&L: Re Irma’s motivation for not cutting the knee-high grass, Thirsty is not dead as some have surmised. He’s so drunk he forgot to put on pants.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: At the beginning of this excruciating trip we determined that the original run was 1977, and that it was rerun in 2001. (Thanks to the comments at Comics Kingdom for the research.) Even in 1977 it would have been very expensive to feed a family of six in a New York restaurant.
That restaurant has a lot of empty space for a NYC restaurant, too.
@mw: #122
Would it be a violation of Libby’s civil rights if we asked her what religion she is? :-)
(Riffing off of Lou Grant when he interviewed Mary for her future job)
GT: “Is she leaving me, because she thinks I care too much about my awards?” Gil wonders, as he stares at the only thing that gives him solace, his wall of awards.
JP: I hate that I’m invested enough to remember this, but wasn’t Reena ordering an Uber?
FC: Alejandro the waiter is thinking, “Go ahead and insult the Mexicans all you want, you little shit. It’s no skin off my Puerto Rican ass”.
MW: A thoroughly creeped out Dawn is thinking, “Wait till it’s my turn with the holographic projector, Dad. I’ll treat you to a scene of Hugo raw-dogging me in the ass”.
MW: Run, Dawn. No bowl of green chili salad is worth sitting through of your dad’s self-pitying tirades.
Shoe: “Why don’t you parody a current movie and use “Caddy-$#!+”? “
@144 Horace Broon:
I couldn’t find her doing that but I did find her booking a flight.
They forgot the panel where Dag inhaled all the water through the snorkel leaving their two bodies resting on the sea bed. Later Police and assorted Chickweed911 personnel stare at Blondie’s wet body.
Shoe-Fear and Loathing at Ed’s Mini-Golf.
@141 Hibbleton: on Hi and Lois
And Thirsty will soon have chiggers crawling around his groin. Thirsty will be the new “Scratchy Scrotum”.
Blondie-It’s been awhile since Blondie was wet while looking at Dagwood.
Beat up Bailey: “…I read the article about your golf game in the CAMP SWAMPY TIMES.”
@Guillermo el chiclero: MW: A thoroughly creeped out Dawn is thinking, “Wait till it’s my turn with the holographic projector, Dad. I’ll treat you to a scene of Hugo raw-dogging me in the ass”.
***
I’m sure Baja can provide us with a floating head (or whatever) for this.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
I would certainly be interested in a scene showing Dawn giving floating head.
Blondie to Dagwood: “Well, of course they float. What did you think?”
JP: Watch it, ladies. If you slam your boobs together too hard you may achieve critical mass.
FC: Never thought I’d ever need to use HTH Grandma and Hershey squirts in the same sentence.
@Baja Gaijin: #132: Save some extra brain bleach for the image of a laundry hamper full of soiled granny panties with big, runny brown skid marks in the crotches covered by a swarm of buzzing flies.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
” JP: Watch it, ladies. If you slam your boobs together too hard you may achieve critical mass.”
That would result not in a tit tornado, but a big boob bang.
@astroboy: To be fair, he was just “John” in school.
Hey, small world.
Surprised Josh skipped over Mark Trail Mix’s huge story advance today: CHERRY GETS AN IDEA!
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat and can not fit a BP monitor any higher than their wrist. Pluggers also are stupid and can not tell left arm from right. Fat, pluggerly, and stupid is no way to go through life,
songrandpa.Flunking Wrinkled Brains: “You didn’t say 500 what, so I’m assuming 500 penny consulting fee, here’s my $5 to end all this carp so we can get home and find out what Les has been up to.” “Sir, that’s not how any of this works.” “Fine, 500 Montoni Bucks..each one good for five free pizzas, NOW can we go?”
SHOE: This genuinely does remind me of what has happened to the GREATER COWPLOP GAZETTE over the past fifteen years, a newspaper that used to be reasonably good for its size. For “my golf game,” substitute “the writing of dubious romance novels by certain local residents.” I like “my golf game” better.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
” JP: Watch it, ladies. If you slam your boobs together too hard you may achieve critical mass.”
That’s why Abbey wears a lead-lined bra.
@White Rabbit:
Blondie to Dagwood: “Well, of course they float. What did you think?
______________________
Does that make Blondie 44/100 percent pure?
@Garrison Skunk: 99-44/100%.
@Guillermo el chiclero: MW: A thoroughly creeped out Dawn is thinking, “Wait till it’s my turn with the holographic projector, Dad. I’ll treat you to a scene of Hugo raw-dogging me in the ass”.
Watch Dawn’s expression turn into fear when Wilbur is actually into this and gets ideas from it. “So you can do it in the ass, huh…?”
The Familiar Mucus: “No,Bil, for the last time, I’m NOT doing a Marylin Monroe on the subway grating!”
@White Rabbit:
You give her a lot more credit then I do ;)
@153 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I don’t believe we have a panel showing Dawn doing that. We do have one, though, in which Dawn and her art professor / boyfriend / yoga partner Harlan study their next yoga posture.
@169 seismic-2:
Monty Python did an animation of that statue where the guy plays the girl like an ocarina.
@Oversized Garden Ornament: Yeah, I doubt Dawn does much active listening.
@Baja Gaijin:
@95 Daisy: Maybe you’d like today’s strip better with Added Libby.
______________________________
Everything’s Better With Libby
For some reason I first read that as Will-burp saying “Estelle and I shared the same fetishes.”
“Blondie”: A punchline that’s not about food? Is that allowed in this strip? Well, anyway, I’m sure that as soon as he finished his thought about Blondie, Dag immediately thought, “Oooh! There’s a fish! Fish and chips, yum! Ooh! Another fish! Looks like a tuna! Sushi, how delicious! I’m hungry!” then ran out of the water towards the nearest seafood restaurant at full speed, leaving Blondie still underwater and staring in dismay at the enormous wave Dagwood created by running away so fast. (It happens every time they go to the beach.)
“Rex Morgan”: The bad news is there’s nothing wrong with Tildy. That’s bad news because everyone hates Tildy.
“Mary Worth”: These two are on break more often than they’re together. I don’t blame Estelle from wanting to be away from Wilbur, but I do blame her for not simply saying, “Get out of my life and don’t ever come back, you lying twit.”
@Alison: In Estelle’s case, the problem is rather clear that she pretty much feels like she has to have someone to be with even if they’re a horrible person. I don’t think it’s helped by Mary constantly shoving Wilbur in her face and going on and on about she basically can’t do any better so she should settle for the dented lemon rather than the late model sports car.
Flunking Wrinkled Brains2: “Can I get a cup of coffee without a giant hair floating in it?” “Pube less coffee is for closers Mister!”
@Oversized Garden Ornament: LUANN: I’m looking forward to the next story arc, which is a courtroom drama, and then the ensuing woman’s prison arc.
You have this confused with a strip where things actually happen. No, on Monday we’ll instead cut back to Bernice being insufferable and Luann being a nitwit. Oh look, her room is so messy! Haha, that never gets old!
FW: “You may take all the cookies you want, as long as you do not — and I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT — sign up for this service.”
MW: “I thought things would work out with Stell — you know, without me putting in the slightest amount of effort or changing my behavior or being nice to her.”
GT: “She can’t leave me! Look at all my AWARDS!!!”
RMMD: “Mrs. Bobrowski, you’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you.”
“Nothin’ gets past you, does it, quack?”
“The good news is that you didn’t have a heart attack or stroke. Let me rephrase that. The news is you didn’t have a heart attack or stroke.”
FW: Too bad the Sunday strip doesn’t usually follow the daily arc. We could be treated to everybody in the room forcibly shoving those stale cookies up Funky’s ass.
RMMD: Maybe tomorrow Tildy will pull back the sheets and find out they amputated both of her legs. Then she can do the Ronald Reagan “Where’s the rest of me?” schtick.
@176 Bryan: Oh come now. You’ve been reading the strip long enough to know “Bernice being insufferable and Luann being a nitwit. Oh look, her room is so messy!” is the Sunday strip. No, that was last Sunday. This Sunday has to be “Luann and her parents interact; the latter experience the consequences of letting her lick the lead paint in her room as a toddler.”
Daddy Daze – It’s the story of technological progress in a nutshell: We have amazing new flying cars, but we still don’t go anywhere interesting.
@180 Peanut Gallery:
With levitating wheels. No axles necessary.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
(555) SNARK-4-U
@182 Garrison Skunk:
I called that number. I got Josh. He was making love in the shower. He says, “$#@&*!”
@Needless_Exposition:
Mary is so terrible to Estelle. She must hate her. I would only try to convince somebody to date Wilbur Weston if I hated that person with a burning passion. Maybe not even then.
I think Estelle is just one of those characters the writer hates and does as many bad things to as possible, for reasons unknown to the readers. FOOB ended up being that way with April Patterson to a ridiculous degree-like, pretty much everything in her life went wrong and yet people just told her off when she dared to get upset about it. Estelle seems to have been a punching bag in this strip right from the start when she got scammed by online dating site guy, and it’s just gotten worse from there. Oh well, at least Estelle can be comforted by the fact she has Libby, who is the best character in the entire history of the strip!
@184 Alison: I’m hoping Libby’s been hissing and biting on Wilbur whenever he shows up at Estelle’s condo. Even though California’s in a multi-decade drought, I approve allocating her a few gallons of water a day to ensure she has urine on deck at all times to pee all over Wilbur and his belongings whenever possible. Wherever possible too.
@Baja Gaijin:
Yes! I’m all for this. Bonus points if Wilbur slips in the cat pee whenever he comes over, and bangs his big fat head into the wall every single time. (Libby can giggle to herself in cat language, “Life is brutal!”)
@186 Alison: I like the way you think.
Wilbur was in a rage. “If that cat pees on me one more time I’ll…”
Suddenly, Libby gets in her spray stance and shoots an extremely well placed stream of urine into Wilbur’s mouth.
“Sputter, phu, argh! *Spit*… Hey, wait. That’s not so bad! Could use a bit of mayonnaise, however.”
@188 Sequitur: I was with you the the final 2 sentences. Not that I disagree, I just don’t want to think about it.
@Horace Broon: She was, but she got distracted by the drama and lost the thread. From this, we may infer that she is an author-insert.