Somewhat sexy Saturday
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Gasoline Alley, 1/21/23
Does anyone put a lot of energy into predicting how Gasoline Alley plots will get resolved? Like, no one does, right? Not even me? Well, let’s pretend we all do for the sake of this next joke, OK? [clears throat] Wow, I don’t think any of us had “Santa’s prayers were answered by a hot new she-elf showing up, causing Bunky to abandon his plans for an exciting, independent adventure and instead pledge another century of his eternal (?) life to serving Santa, due to horniness” on our Gasoline Alley plot resolution bingo card, which is a thing we all definitely maintain!
Bizarro, 1/21/23
I guess Bizarro has finally figured out what it takes to get noticed on this blog, and it’s weird interspecies sex stuff. One thing I enjoy about this panel is that usually in gags where a fish has crawled up onto a barren shore, we’re supposed to imagine it representing the first vertebrate colonizing the land sometime in the late Devonian period, but here our brave fish encounters a tiger, meaning that at the very earliest we’re several hundred million years later in the Miocene. That fish isn’t an evolutionary pioneer or anything, it just wants to fuck a mammal.
Beetle Bailey, 1/21/23
I’m sorry, I think all of us have always assumed over years reading this strip that Sarge is functionally illiterate. This “joke” is not very good, and certainly not worth forcing me to completely restructure my idea of what Sarge is all about to accommodate the possibility that he can write a restaurant review! “But Josh,” you’re probably saying, “this is a one-off joke that will never be referenced again,” but sorry, it’s canon now and I have to update the wiki and everything, how dare they do this to me personally
206 replies to “Somewhat sexy Saturday”
Pluggers: There are at least two things wrong in this one panel: First, as if a Plugger can bend over and reach his shoes without breaking a law of physics and his back. Two, Pluggers wear those stylish Velcro-fastened shoes not laces.
Family Circus: You know what? I think I like stupid malapropism Dolly than snarky Dolly.
Luann: M(r)s. Horner’s Story Sense is about as useful as Newspaper Spider-Man’s Spidey Sense and about as accurate.
Mary Worth Mashups, Missing Final Panel: Do any of these added panels add to your enjoyment of the strip?
Gasoline Alley-“Santa, I want to bop your new secretary.”
Sally Forth-All work and no play makes Ted a dull boy.
RMMD-Meanwhile at home Rex is sobbing and rocking himself in a corner wondering where June is.
JP-Are you ready for two weeks of retelling?
FC-Cinderella’s lawyer is a rat. Seriously. The Fairy Godmother turned a rat into a lawyer.
Spiderman-Michael Corleone the Kingpin ain’t. Attack the gang leaders individually one by one.
Archie-$1.50 for a hamburger. How can Pop afford to sell a hamburger at that low of a price?
@Baja Gaijin:
A smug, self-satisfied Tracy is always a winner in my book.
How the hell did Gasoline Alley turn into a North Pole workplace comedy?
Gasoline Alley: Like any good cult leader, Santa is keeping his followers in line through love-bombing. But you have to wonder if “Allure” is really an elf, or some sort of sexbot created in a special part of the toy factory. Given her odd way of speaking and lack of a nose, I suspect the latter.
Bizarro: I’m not sure if this weird scene from Earth-creature evolution is actually occurring, or if it’s just how the space alien hiding behind that word balloon will describe it to his friends back home.
Beetle Bailey: Poor Sarge… he’s getting the best service at the finest restaurant in town, yet somehow he still ended up eating a chicken breast with Lima beans. (Of course, it’s 100 times better than the goop Cookie shovels out of an oil drum back at camp, but the chef still seems shocked that he’s enjoying it.)
Pluggers: Once again, I call shenanigans. No plugger over age 7 can lean over like that — at least not without a lot of groaning, and stars representing pain coming out of his back.
Mary Worth: Are you sure you actually want to go out with this guy again, Stell? The way he’s needling you about the last time, he seems like kind of a jerk. (Also, I’m pretty sure his fingers have been up your dog’s butt.)
Sarge obviously bullies Beetle into writing the reviews to which his name is attached.
GA ‘May your kindness never be obliterated’ sounds like something an android would say, and it makes me think that Santa just bought a literal fuck doll to incentivize his horny workforce.
Bizarro I don’t know why the tiger should be smiling here unless.. yeah he’s just going to eat that fish, huh?
BB Yeah, I’m sure that the restaurant is just dying fir a good review from Human Trash Compactor Weekly…
Beetle Bailey : Sarge has only ever known Camp Swampy as a workplace, and being a drill instructor as a job; of course he assumes that EVERYONE functions under the constant threat of inspection, specifically him doing the inspection and beating up people who fail them.
The REAL question is why does the staff of this restaurant all look like the resultant offsprings of Plato and Rocky mating?
*********
Crankshaft : yeah, sure, the thing the bookplace needed was a creepy lifelike statue of a decrepit old lady.
…Come to think of it, this could lead to endless variations of jokes about how the clientele can’t tell Miss Marple and Lillian apart, and usually assume one is the other, so there’s at least a metanarrative reason why Lillian doesn’t simply tell them “Keep your statue, get it reimbursed, and give me THAT money”.
*********
Gasoline Alley : wait, is the weird, noseless, muppetlike creature supposed to be sexy, rather than disquieting?
*********
Gil Thorp : ….Phew, it’s not drug dealing, they’re just selling the band candy-grade sub-flavor-aid drink mixes as vape juice. So, this is still in “shaving off-the-counter pain pills to make placebo Adderall” territory.
*********
Phoebe and Unicorn : is probably the only comic strip that can get away with the punchline of “I’d LOVE to talk to my best friend about respecting boundaries, but I see her completely naked and then sit on her all the time, so…”
…Too far?…BB – Sarge learned everything he knows about being a restaurant critic from the movie “Chef.”
Pearls Before Swine-I’m sorry, Pig, but houses nowadays are made bigger than older houses. In my neighborhood a house burned down and they are building a new house on the spot. The new house while it is single story like the other houses it towers over the older 1970s houses.
Beetle Bailey-If Sarge likes the food he’ll cancel the airstrike on the restaurant.
GA: “May your kindness never be obliterated,” sounds like something Obi-wan Kenobi would have said to Luke Starkiller in George Lucas’ first draft of Star Wars.
9CL: “Da capo” is Italian for “from the beginning.” “Porte-jaratelles” is French for “wearing suspenders.” “5 7/8” is Arabic numerals for a fraction equivalent to “5.875.” And “Brooke McEldowney” is American English for “stroking one’s self in several different ways at once.” I’m starting to think McEldowney got into comics not out of passion for art and storytelling but because it’s an activity that only requires one hand.
RMMD: “Siren. Ambulance is almost here. That’s good. Cold. Car can provide warmth. Warmth is good. Will do later. Must check other crash victim. Hungry. Not good. Must food soon.”
@David Conner: “How the hell did Gasoline Alley turn into a North Pole workplace comedy?”
And how did it turn into a North Pole sex comedy? Especially since the story started with three little girls wanting to visit Santa. And those girls are presumably still there.
MW: Estelle is really defying fate here. “I’m sure Wilbur won’t turn up and ruin everything” – those are famous last words.
I really hope that Wilbur hears about this somehow and turns up at the date, determined to win Estelle back. ANd this time, he’ll be armed with better weapons than karaoke. I’m looking forward to it!
Dustin: For once, a punchline that is not about humilating Dustin, fat-shaming Ed, or blaming innocent service workers for system failures. Instead we get just an innocous pun. An atrociously bad pun, one which makes Crankshaft seem like a literary genius, but still nothing denigrating or humiliating. That’s really nice for a change!
The fact that Dustin manages quite well to humiliate himself by the utter inanity of his conversation is of course a different matter.
JP: “I have our witness, Sam!”
“Oh, detective. What have you done? No, literally, what did you do? Who is this kid and where did you find him in the ten minutes you’ve been gone?”
“This is Judge Duncan’s living son. I think. I’m not sure, we only saw him in one panel four months ago and I’m not subscribed to Comics Kingdom’s archives. Anyway, don’t stress about the details. Go ahead, kid, tell them who murdered your mom and brother!”
“…You did it, Detective.”
“I did it? …Crap, I probably did. Maybe I have been drinking too much.”
“Ha! That’s our Yelich!”
*iris-out shot of Yelich grinning and shrugging*
RMMD: All together now, gang: AMBULANCES ARE GOOD!
Phantom: This is a very odd date. Savarna climaxes before the Ghost even gets to first base.
Luann: Mrs. Horner looks a bit too excited at overhearing this very private conversation, and a bit too enthusiastic at pressuring Luann into writing a story (essay? interview?) about it. I think there’s been a mistake and she’s teaching the wrong class – this is a creative writing workshop, not Gossip 101.
Joke’s on Bunky. That is clearly an artificial intelligence merely designed to look like a sentient being in order to facilitate comfortable interaction, as evidenced by the machine saying, for no reason at all, “may your kindness never be obliterated.”
There are a still a few bugs to be ironed out, obviously. It’s day one.
BB: Someone obviously turned Sarge on to ChatGPT.
A&J: Brooke McEldowney could learn a thing or two about portraying chivalry from this comic.
GT: “Oooo, ‘make bank.’ I love it when you talk hip.”
JP: “Oh Defective, what have you done? . . . Did I say defective? Ha ha, I mean . . . No, never mind.”
RMMD: June knows that the siren means an ambulance is approaching. That’s why it’s so crucial to have a trained professional on the scene.
CS: Aw, I thought it was Mary Worth.
@jroggs:
Don’t quote me on this but I had heard somewhere, that George Lucas had ghostwriters who wrote the original Star Wars films for him. One of which, was notable sci-fi author Alan Dean Foster.
It wasn’t until the prequels that Lucas starting writing the scripts on his own, and it showed…
Ed appears to be one of those old goats who dyes his hair jet black or, worse, wears a black toupee and is completely oblivious to how ridiculous he looks.
GASOLINE ALLEY: I see I’m not the first, but fembot immediately came to mind. Santa is a benevolent and cunning despot, indeed.
MW: To avoid future date drama, just go somewhere that Wilbur would never go. That means no karaoke and restaurants where you eat from a plate instead of a big ol’ greasy bag.
Raise your hand, if you were the one who wrote to Scancarelli requesting an arc where Santa’s Elves are invaded, and ultimately assimilated by The Borg.
Whoever you are, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Family Circlejerk – Definition of conflicted: Cheering on Dolly for embracing the #metoo movement while leering at her mom’s rack.
@Baja Gaijin:
No. 4 works for me, Baja!
@Baja Gaijin: Last one. You can never top Wilbur’s AUGGH! face.
Gasoline Alley: So, this is the comic now? No Walt, Skeezix, Slim. It’s now entirely a comic about Santa Claus and hot Elf on robot horniness?
I can accept a retool, and Gasoline Alley has been desperately needing one for years. And I am not complaining. BRING ON THE WEIRD!
Gasoline Alley-How Santa keeps his Elves perpetually employed to him. Parade a little tail in their face and they’ll work for free for life.
That tiger is one of the worst drawings I’ve ever seen
JP. Good news everyone. The NY Post put up an update on the Alex Murdaugh case. Now the Typist has something new to rip off and can move on from ripping off Cousin Eddie.
@BigTed: Mary Worth: Are you sure you actually want to go out with this guy again, Stell? The way he’s needling you about the last time, he seems like kind of a jerk. (Also, I’m pretty sure his fingers have been up your dog’s butt.)
I know it’s early days, but this one has my vote for COTW.
GA: It’s so weird… Bunky’s design. The hat, the baldness. I have SEEN that exact design before somewhere, but I can’t recall. Back when Josh first introduced him on this blog, I knew I saw him somewhere before.
Was it a character in a cartoon? A videogame? Me meeting one of Santa’s elves when I was a kid, but forgot because I “grew up”?
I guess I’ll never know ;-)
Actually… I was about to hit send, when I remembered. Whoever Bunky reminds me of, had a bell on the end of his hat. And may or may not have been a mouse.
Deeper and deeper…
MW: Taking Estelle out for dinner is only a clever ruse on the part of the vet. This is Ed’s way of meeting up with Wilbur.
GA: Maybe after 99 years Allure can get a nose, my God, even Voldemort at least had holes, in what world is it sexy to have no nose, “Cathy” isn’t sexy; case closed
Yeah, I’m sure thay Bizarro is thrilled that they are noticed by only a few more people I can count on my hand.
Luann: “Is Bernice still rockin’ that weird “little old lady” persona? Does she know about my fetish?” (Reaches over and squeezes Mrs. Horner’s butt)
Gasoline Alley: Maybe Allure isn’t intended to be a robot, but rather, the comic is written by a machine that does not understand human interactions or dialogue.
@The Rambling Otter: Indeed. And Leigh Brackett wrote Empire, IMO the best film in the franchise.
BB: I’m assuming this is an Italian restaurant, due to the long red tablecloth and the fact that every employee has dark hair. The best possible outcome for this storyline is that Sarge gets bounced from the service after the uproar caused when he spells it “Eye-talian” in his review.
GA: The she-elf might be planning to hook up with Santa. Imagine how disappointed she’ll be when she finds that he only comes once a year.
@taig:
They must have all been inter-writing the same scripts, maybe sitting at a table together throwing around ideas? because I recall that Foster was the one who thought up Cloud City.
Frazz: Shopping is yet another weakness that exercise and discipline overcome.
Luann: I can’t imagine why a character with this depth and sparkling personality disappeared from the cast for a while.
FWCS: “I took it out of your share, so, uh, you owe me $114.97.”I’m also looking forward to a future storyline where Lillian thinks she’s got an intruder in the store and Crankshaft sets fire to “Miss Marple.”
Arlo and Janis v. 9CL: Just for fun, since I have the subscription at GoComics, I put these two strips together in my daily list so I can see how a writer/illustrator shows a warm relationship between a couple and compare that to the dumpster fire presented by Brooke.
GA: Browny, I can assure you that Allure is not going to be interested in someone who just settles for their dead-end job.
Bizz: The fish somehow missed seeing the remains of the tiger’s last victim. Oh well. Red in claw, and all that.
BB: It’s about time someone wrote about restaurants that don’t get consideration for Michelin stars, like Applebee’s.
I know Funky Winkerbean is dead and buried, but even with Crankshaft still around, there is a videogame franchise outright despised in North America because the translation inserts TERRIBLE puns everywhere.
The puns are still a million times better than Batiuk’s attempt at humour.
For example, one pun, a generic enemy is an evil manta ray. “Ultra Violent Ray”
Batiuk wishes he could pun on a level so godly.
GA – May your stupidity never be underestimated….
Bizzaro – A wise choice – not like that stupid frog with the scorpion on its back….
BB – The shit on a shingle is magnifique….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Dustin: Not pictured: Jeffy from Family Circus beaten and bloody after uttering that phrase. Like all the other Dustiverse characters, Hayden can be a real dick.
FC: Did I get concussed this week?!? That’s two Family Circus strips that made me laugh instead of roll my eyes. I guess one of the symptoms of a concussion is forgetfulness, so I might have forgotten about the bonk on my head…
MW: Doodly Doodly Doot…Wilbur screeching into a microphone, while restaurant management attempts to remove him while shouting, “Sir! This is not a karaoke bar!”
I was waiting for the “Somewhat Sexy” part of the Beetle Bailey situation and didn’t find it, unless… “Update the wiki” is some kind of euphemism
@Pozzo:
Besides Santa already has three Hoes.
@Baja Gaijin: I like option #2.
A Helen Moss option also would have worked.
@The Rambling Otter: I imagine there was some collaboration. The community was fairly small back in the day.
The tiger could eat…devour… swallow (I can’t think of a word for consumption that doesn’t sound sexual within this context) that primordial-evolution fish thingy… but really if I was the tiger I would simply eat that slice of pie.
“Life of Pie”
BB: This is the Computer Age. You don’t have to be able to write to be a critic when there’s Tik Tok.
Gasoline Alley: Santa’s smile is gonna disappear real quick when he walks in one day to see that elf fucking the secretary right on her desk.
Bizarro: You can imagine what happens immediately after this panel, which is presumably the tiger eating this horrid fish mutant alive.
Beetle Bailey: Pay in the army must be really shit nowadays if Sarge is having to start up a side gig like this.
A she-elf is clearly correctly referred to as a shelf.
GA: I don’t appreciate the “I’ll be in my bunk” vibes of panel two.
MW: Estelle may have finally eliminated Wilbur out of her life but assholes will find a way to asshole.
CS: by one one I assume comics guys mean life sized.
@ectojazzmage:
It never actually occurred to me, that serving in the military was an actual paying profession. I always just assumed they got perks while enlisted, such as a bit of spending money while in town/port to go get a drink or meal or such. And everything else was benefitted after one retires, or to their families if they fall in battle.
Gasoline Alley: “The Elf on the She-Elf.” Rated X.
9CL: “Thank you….thank you….and now, my wife will fuck anyone in the audience for ten dollars.”
@McCapwell:
So Bunky will be the “Elf on the Shelf”?
@The Rambling Otter: Not only that, but while filming the original trilogy, people were willing to say “George, you can write this s***, but you can’t say it” as Harrison Ford put it. However, with the prequel trilogy, no one working on the project had the ability to tell him “no.”
@Uncle Lumpy:
You made the (more or less) same joke right before I did, I apologize xD
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Worth mash-ups – The second one.
@gardenornament: He could learn about a healthy, loving relationship, too.
GA – Allure taking the secretary job is just the beginning of an elaborate scheme to avenge herself on Santa for failing to bring her a nose.
Bizarro: Waitaminute! Stop the presses! This is not the comic we were promised! We sent our clients over for what was supposed to be a slapstick Predator vs Prey scenario. Ya see – the Fish was supposed to be slappin’ a Tiger instead of a Bear! Hilarious!
But NOOOO, they turn it into an interspecies sex farce! Or at least that seems to be the innuendo here. I just dunno what’s happening to the Saturday comics panels – first Bliss starts pushing the envelope of decency on the weekend, and now Bizarro. We can only be thankful the kiddos are busy watching their Saturday morning Looney Tunes on TV and not reading this sleazy stuff with their breakfast cereal.
MW: Hey, listen – just because they got an audience upsurge with the return of Libby and Pierre is no reason to “downsize” them now! Their adoring fans want to be able to see them and their revealing expessions without havin’ to zoom in! [zooms] Wait – did Pierre’s eyes get stuck like that? We warned him that could happen…
Don Abundio, translated:
“Say! You’d like my father, he’s a professional athlete”
“Cool, huh?”
“Sure…”
“Unless he’s a baseball player; they’re all assholes”
Hey, Rex Morgan MD is set in England! Amazing what you can discover by reading onomatopoeiatic sound effects.
JP – I just realized that it’s only a few weeks until Valentine’s Day. Considering the glacial pace of this story, the Christmas tree will still feature in the background. Here’s a hint for Abbey – take the green Hershey Kisses out of the bowl on the table and leave the red ones. The red ones are appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Then in March put out the green Kisses for St. Patrick’s Day. I’m sure this train wreck of a story will still be stuck on Election Day/Christmas Eve, but the calendar does move on.
Pierre: Don’t worry, Doc, we got it covered. If Wilbur shows up, Libby is going to pee on him, and I’m going to take a chunk out of his leg.
Rex Morgan – No thanks, I don’t need an ambulance. I can drive myself to the hospital.
Pluggers – When he ties those laces, he still has to remind himself which way the rabbit goes.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
Now I HAVE to check out Bliss…
@The Rambling Otter: “Gasoline Alley: Maybe Allure isn’t intended to be a robot, but rather, the comic is written by a machine that does not understand human interactions or dialogue.”
Sounds plausible. That would explain a lot about why GA is like it is.
It would also explain why Allure seems like a robot. When a machine is trying to write a sexy character, of course they’ll look and speak like a robot.
@The Rambling Otter:
Aside from an LSD joke, I found nothing really “adult”
Some bizarre… (Peanuts and Nancy?) some existentially depressing (Dog: There has to be more in life than just being a “Good Boy”) and tons of people walking through snow… no real joke, just walking through snow… what?
@gardenornament:
And Mayor Melba of course, but she’s far from sexy. (Actually I’m not really sure if she’s supposed to be sexy or not, never really thought about it)
@McCapwell: “A she-elf is clearly correctly referred to as a shelf.”
So that’s where the term “shelf-bra” comes from?
@I speak Jive: “Pierre” obviously is from Mary Worth.
Gasoline Alley: “May your kindness never be obliterated”: maybe add “vaguely sinister” to “hot” and “new” in the descriptor list?
@Professor Well Actually: “CS: by one one I assume comics guys mean life sized.”
I think they do. “Scale one to one”.
@The Rambling Otter: “So Bunky will be the “Elf on the Shelf”?”
That sounds like a GA/Dr. Seuss crossover.
Come to think of it, “May your kindness never be obliterated” sounds like the benediction at an old-school Presbyterian worship service. Are elves Presbyterian? Mental note: research elf denominationalism, or at least elf sects.
GA: Allure has no nose? How does she smell?
(Answers are underneath this post.)
@gardenornament: Savarna is the type who expects multiple orgasms during each and every sex bout. If it doesn’t happen for her — FOOOMP! BOOOMM!!!!
Bizarro: After multiple jokes about how mammals are disappointed to discover fish/mermaid “sex” involves the male jizzing over a clutch of eggs that the female has already laid, after which they never see it or each other ever again, it’s kind of refreshing to see the someone approach the concept from the opposite perspective.
GA: “May your kindness never be obliterated” is alien homunculus speak for “thank you for becoming patient zero in our plan to overtake the North Pole via mind controlling parasites.”
@The Rambling Otter: re Bliss: Well, today’s episode didn’t involve any of our clients, but there was one memorable Saturday when our Avian client was shown “nesting” with a small human female! That was disturbing, I’m tellin’ ya. Plus he looked like he’d been drugged, so we went over and picked him up, stat! And his tests showed he’d been ingesting LSD – their drug of choice. Fortunately he was negative for STDs.
@The Rambling Otter:
Great minds run in the same gutter!
GA: Thanks to today’s comic, I have a new and whimsical twist on how I thank people and wish them well. “May your kindness never be obliterated.” Say that to the bag boy at the grocer’s and watch his befuddlement! I love life!!
@pastordan: On the one hand the elves are working for a canonized saint, which would seem to imply Roman Catholicism. But on the other “Santa Claus” as we now know him has been mostly stripped of his religious duties, specifically the ability to receive prayers and intercede with God on behalf of petitioners, indicating a more Protestant view. Maybe they’re a form of High Church Episcopal? There’s got to be some reason why they keep wearing those goofy hats.
@The Rambling Otter: “And Mayor Melba of course, but she’s far from sexy. (Actually I’m not really sure if she’s supposed to be sexy or not, never really thought about it)”
She’s supposed to be a bit on the flirty side, I guess, but I suppose the artist considers her both too old (well, middle-aged – old in the GA-verse is over 100) and too dignified as a mayor to draw her as sexy.
I understand that she was drawn as sexy before she became mayor. I didn’t follow the strip back then, but she was drawn as young and with a strappy dress with straps that kept falling down. I supposed that was intended as sexy. It’s hard to know with the art style of GA.
FC: Who would have predicted that Dolly Keane would be the next up and coming feminist doyenne of 21st century America? I sure didn’t…
Gasoline Alley (with apologies to Bruce Springsteen):
Well Kris Kringle, I do believe I’d be better off dead
And if you can take an elf’s life for the thoughts that’s in his head
Then won’t you tear up that letter and think it over, Clause, one more time?
And let ’em shave point up my ears and put me on that gadget-making line
Just call me Bunky 99
@The Rambling Otter:A little Googling indicates that a sergeant of Snorkel’s seniority should be making around $3700 a month, plus benefits.
@TheDiva: Fair point on the hats. On the other hand, they do have that work ethic. We’ll have to see how much they drink to make a true determination.
MW: Aw – Pierre and Libby are the best little matchmakers ever!!!
And…I think we all know that Wilbur will crash Estelle and Ed’s dinner date…
@pastordan: “GA – Mental note: research elf denominationalism, or at least elf sects.”
Elf Sects is wandering into Brooke McEldowney territory. I assume they wear the toy maker costumes the whole time, and she winds his crank until the top pops open and the clown flies out?
Or did I get the spelling wrong?
@Baja Gaijin: “Do any of these added panels add to your enjoyment of the strip?”
All of them do, but I like #4 best. My interpretation is that Wilburs
spidermayo-sense picks up a disturbance in the Force when Ed and Estelle (they sound like a comedy duo, don’t they?) agree on their date. He will not rest until he has tracked down the location of their tête-à-tête and either crash it or ambush them when they exit. Estelle must be brought back into his clutches!I seem to have rather a lot to say about Gasoline Alley today:
“Bunky, I notice that you seem besotted with Ms. Allure. In fact, I’d say you were love-crazed when she’s around.”
“There ain’t no sanity, Claus!”
@pastordan: [The ghosts of the Marx brothers appear, baseball bats in hand]
@pastordan:
‘Cause I’m an elf who’s gone a little off his head
With thoughts of taking that sweet-ass elf Allure to bed.
So put me back to work with all the elfin girls and boys
I swear I’ll never fall behind at building up those toys
Just call me Bunky 99
Don Abundio: That lady could teach even Thel Keane a thing or two about jutting. I know it’s a hoary old cliché, but she could poke an eye out with one of those. (The really crazy thing is that she’s drawn fairly realistically – some women really looked like that in the 1950s, or so I’m told).
BB: This is a universe where secretaries, who are still called secretaries, still exist. Sarge will just dictate his review.
@auntie velvet: What I don’t get is the she-elf’s over-the-top gratitude. All Bunky said was that he was leaving temporarily without any mention of assisting her. Why is Allure so effusively thankful for that? For all she knows, he’s just excusing himself to take a dump or simply get away from her hoping she bothers someone else instead.
@Anonymous: Your choice, whatever will cause you to fall into the deepest Wikipedia hole.
@Uncle Lumpy: I knew I could count on you for a second verse.
If you’ve ever wanted to read Barney Google & Snuffy Smith without having to see any of the characters’ grotesque faces, today’s your day.
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely number one. In fact, I think EVERY comic strip would be improved by a guest appearance by a green-skinned Cuban detective with a unibrow.
9CL: I fail to see what’s “surreal” about this or any of the other strips this week, other than Brooke’s assumption that this is somehow relateable and/or amusing.
C’shaft: “You idiot, I SPECIFICALLY asked for the Hercule Poirot!”
Dustin: With Funky Winkerbean gone someone has to take over providing the comics page with terrible, overly labored puns, and Dustin has the right amount of “bitter Boomer angry at everything in the world” energy to pull it off.
GT: They’re going to sell the Plup Fiction briefcase!
JP: Yes, Detective, what HAVE you done?!…specifically, who the Hell is that and why do we care?
Luann: You sense wrong.
MW Take Estelle to a vegan restaurant; that’s sure to keep Wilbur away.
RMMD: “I’m not going anywhere…especially since I’d have to pack all my intestines back in first.”
@97 gardenornament: Aaaah. Now I understand. I thought number 2 would have been most popular of the set. It’s my favorite.
@pastordan: @Uncle Lumpy: Yeah, that “Nebraska” was the feel-good album of the year.
I saw her standing on her front lawn just twirling her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir, and ten innocent people died
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed-off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path
I can’t say that I’m sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while, sir, me and her we had us some fun
Now, the jury brought in a guilty verdict, and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest
Sheriff, when the man pulls that switch, sir, and snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin’ right there on my lap
They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void my soul’d be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world
@Anonymous:
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Damn interface! I blame 9CL!
@taig: #35
“ Arlo and Janis v. 9CL: Just for fun, since I have the subscription at GoComics, I put these two strips together in my daily list so I can see how a writer/illustrator shows a warm relationship between a couple and compare that to the dumpster fire presented by Brooke.”
There is just no comparison, is there. A&J is warm, affectionate, droll, wise and mature…while 9CL is juvenile, awkward, prurient and the very antithesis of everything that makes human life and relationships praiseworthy.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: 9CL – This is what he wants the strip to be every day. No background no plot just Edda and Amos and a piano and cello duet where she flashes a lot of leg and sometimes wears a dress slit up to her neck with a garter underneath.
She just drawn too cartoony for these to be sexy. She needs a better come-hither look than just the eyes and mouth drawn as mere slits.
@Daisy: “MW: Aw – Pierre and Libby are the best little matchmakers ever!!!”
Dogs are good. As are cats.
@Daisy:
Good grief -I was responding to taig’s comment #46!
All I can think about is what the reception would be if there was suddenly a new food critic whose bit was that he was an active duty Army sergeant who came to the restaurant in full uniform. We’d be doing Twitter bits about it for weeks.
9CL – Over at Arcamax its been pointed out that “”jarretelles” are actually garters worn as suspenders, which are not nearly as sexy.
Also, Edda needs some dollar bills stuck in her garter, so she can make change for the customers in the audience who want to buy a piano bench dance.
@Anonymous: What’s really amazing, and what I didn’t learn until much later, is that it’s essentially an acoustic Suicide album, written largely because Springsteen thought he had nothing to lose.
GA: “May your kindness never be obliterated.”
Now I have absolutely got to hear a conversation between Allure and Mary Worth.
Sarge doesn’t have to be literate to be a restaurant critic. He could be operating as a critic via his new podcast, “Eats and Beats”, in which he delivers restaurant reviews and the occasional sound-only violent assault on his cohosts or guests.
Funky Winkerbean is gone. But is it? Son of Stuck Funky gives us a bit of the retcon (sometimes called Act II) that occurred between the original vintage Funky Winkerbean on Comics Kingdom and the 20 or so years from the beginning of the Comics Kingdom archive that starts with 1998.
However, it should be noted that the vintage and regular archives are now NOT available. That’s just as well, I guess.
Day By Dave: Today is National Sweatpants Day and also Squirrel Appreciation Day.
Go out and put sweatpants on your favorite squirrel.
Luann: Piro “hung” with Bernice. I get what you mean, Luann, heh heh! You’re incapable of double entendre, so you mean he shared Bernice’s company.
BB: Maybe I’m cynical, but I always assumed that alerting restaurants you were coming, so you’d get special treatment, was the entire reason people became restaurant critics. Then you pan them anyway, because what are they going to do about it now?
Crank: It’s hard to tell what with the art style and everything, but that looks like the Geraldine McEwan Miss Marple to me, and should therefore be destroyed immediately. Joan Hickson or nothing!
DT: Okay, I actually went back and checked, and it turns out they did explain how Dick knew Chandler was part of Dekko’s scam — that was the info Blaze Rize found when she went there. There doesn’t appear to be an explanation of how Wunbrow knew Dick would be interested, but this could be because Wednesday’s strip is missing, and is actually a repeat of Monday’s. (And I don’t think any of us noticed at the time? “Yeah, Sue Reel’s talking about Paul coming home and Dekko isn’t telling her he’s dead, that sure is a thing that’s continuing to happen, typical comic strip pacing.”) Maybe the missing strip explains why Wunbrow called Tracy. Maybe it even explains why he’s in Panama City!
GT: I honestly wonder if there’s a rule that, when Gil Thorp dabbles in the world of Teen Crime, it has to be not just extremely minor, but a crime that it’s really obvious couldn’t possibly work, lest it lead the millions of teenage readers Comics Kingdom fondly believes it has astray.
JP: I did not go back to check if this is the witness from before with the dumb line that I assume was meant to be memorable, but clearly wasn’t because I just remember it was dumb. I’m pretty sure that even if I did want to go back and check, that was so long ago it’s not covered by my non-member CK access.
@taig: A few weeks ago, I followed a social media link to a restaurant review that started off talking about one of the most expensive, trendiest restaurants in London, then basically said “I took one look at the place and went to the kebab shop round the corner. It’s a great kebab shop.”
@Horace Broon: Now that’s my kind of restaurant reviewer!
JUDGE PARKER: Sam: “What have you done? You’re actually doing work, and moving this case forward? You bastard! You’ll ruin everything!”
SPECIAL TO POTEET: June Morgan Without June Morgan’s you-know-what.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Ok, my theory is what’s really going on here is that June doesn’t actually want to cook for her whiny ravenous brat children and is hoping that by participating in these “emergency delays” that Rex will eventually get the hint and throw some Hot Pockets in the microwave or something (good luck with THAT, honey!)
June: “Oh look…that guy in the in the distance probably has…a injured finger, or something. Oh well, as a ‘concerned citizen’ I have no choice but to exit on this out-of-the-way off ramp and ‘help’ by telling him to get to a doctor.”
If elves live forever, what happened to Santa’s *last* secretary?
@gardenornament: Dogs and cats are good. But for the ultimate in sinful pleasure….a budgie.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: See #63. I also thought Edda looks like a ten-dollar whore.
@Horace Broon: That is a review I can appreciate.
@Sequitur:
No it isn’t. It just morphed into Funky Winkerbean II: Ecentric Funk-a-loo (you guys call it Crankshaft for some reason.
Yes, in a fitting case of synchronicity, Tom Batiuk is as “dedicated” to his “retirement” as his characters in the strip.
While I do ship Bernice and Piro, it’s been so long since we’ve seen him that I don’t remember what happened. Does anyone?? I’m pretty sure the Mermaid Jack-and-Jill-off-fest and the Nil FWB thing happened since then, but now here is shaved star emo guy talking about “us” like something happened beyond him crashing on her couch and her getting all twitchy twinkle about it. And then dressing in a giant housecoat and sunglasses for some reason.
Blondie: After the false start with “How to Chill,” Dagwood would come up with the idea for “How to Chili,” which will eventually rival À la recherche du temps perdu in size and ambition.
@Sequitur: re Day by Dave: Hey, EVERY day is Squirrel Appreciation Day around here! At least for marketing purposes….
Don’t forget to order your Squirrel action figures! New from Flybynight Novelties! What you do with them is your own business…..
@BigTed:
Estelle (enthusiastic): “‘A jerk’? Ooh baby, sign me up!” (Remember this is Estelle, Santa Royale’s biggest doormat we’re talking about here.)
@pastordan: And may the odds be ever in your favor!
@Victory Garden: I think he finally kissed her, then she didn’t feel anything….but after that…nah, I thought he joined the Foreign Legion or the Merchant Marine or something…
MARY WORTH: Unfortunately for Estelle, Norbert, the tubby, greasy, balding, bratty child she used to babysit, will get in the way instead.
@gardenornament:
Those
clumsy and awkwardsmooth dance moves Wilbur picked up when he was being sex-grifted in Columbia? (Estelle might actually be impressed since that would be the first time Wilbur has ever been “stiff” in front of her.)Luann: Dredging up the old “Questions” game on Whose Line Is It Anyway.
RMMD – “I’m not going anywhere. I just now made it to level 27 in Confectionery Crunch.”
BB: So is nobody gonna point out how Sarge’s head doubled in size between the first and second panel?
Pearls Before Swine: And by “plane” he means “penis”.
Way to get by the censors, Pastis.
MW – “Are you sure this time, Stell? Because I paid good money for a big box of condoms that have just been sitting on a shelf, collecting dust, and I’m sure that they’ve expir…. er. that I can get some nice fresh ones, no problem!”
@70 Peanut Gallery:
When I see how good you do Don Abundio, I can’t help do a translation of Spanish Rex Morgan M.D.
Santa was already tearing up that resignation letter so it appears he hired Allure deliberately to keep Bucky from quitting by using the elf’s libido against him. I always thought his North Pole workshop was probably an HR nightmare but I had no idea the depths.
Pluggers: There’s no way a plugger will be able to tie a double knot much less untie one.
@149 Tabby Lavalamp:
Ha! The joke’s on Bunky. He forgot that elves have no genitalia.
Big Ben Bolt. Drew Boone. Red Dowdy.
They should have named this vintage strip “Fun With Names”.
BB: There is so, so, so much to unpack in this one Beetle Bailey strip. First of all, Sarge routinely (?) takes Beetle to dinner at fancy, sit-down restaurants. What exactly is their relationship? Because this is clearly the kind of place you’d take a date. This establishment is formal enough to have a sommelier. (Or some kind of ketchup sommelier, it appears.) Because of this strip, by the way, I learned that the thing a sommelier wears around his neck is called a tastevin. I’m also amused by the fact that the employees all have these strained, fake smiles plastered on their faces … except for the chef, who just looks worried. Last but not least, I think Plato’s mother works here. See if you can spot her.
GA – Bunky’s been here how many centuries and he still doesn’t know that “new secretary” is how Santa instructs his hookers to introduce themselves?
Speed Bump: At the viewing they had the casket upright and open. Dagwood Bumstead stooped in front of the casket for ten minutes looking for something good to eat.
JP: Who’s he? Oh, just some kid I found hitchhiking on the highway. After I make things right I’m going to take him to the nearest hotsheet motel and try out a few things from my NAMBLA magazine.
@cheech wizard: Elves are so damn small. The idea of Santa hiring elf whores is kinda disturbing, as if he had a “thing” for little girls. I hope Allure doesn’t sport a Brazilian wax job.
@157 Ukulele Ike:
Ever see the movie ELF? That elf wasn’t so damn small.
Are Sarge and Beetle dating, now that don’t ask don’t tell is gone? Cause that’s fraternization, and that’s still a thing, even if you’re asking and telling.
@Victory Garden: LUANN – She pined after him quietly for over a year. We had a variety of trademark “Luann” false flags where he was seeing a therapist who might have been Mrs. Phelps and may or may not have been a thief, or homeless, or not even a student at all. And there was the subplot of someone having stolen the TV from the common room, and someone having smashed into the vending machines and Piro was an obvious suspect. But, per usual, none of these loose threads ever had any payoff or resolution. One day, Piro kissed her, and Bernice instantly decided she wasn’t into him an more, and then the dorm thief turned out to be a new character called Tara Star, and Piro vanished fore- damn! – Piro vanished until he suddenly turned up at a writing workshop just now.
Now, will the brilliant plotters choose to continue the “Romance novels sell Billions with a B, and are real literature” plot, or was it all just to “set up” the return of Piro? Although, why do such an elaborate setup that has nothing to do with … hey! suddenly it’s that character nobody missed! Turns out he was hanging out at the school the whole time!
@Ukulele Ike:
“For ecstasy, a goat.”
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: OMG, it was a REALLY long time ago since Bernice wasn’t living with the Breakfast Club Stereotype Crew (the Bimbo, the Hippie, the Hot Nerd). And I don’t remember him seeing a therapist or the kiss.
@Flipper: “Luann: Piro “hung” with Bernice.”
He crashed on her couch once. She went into her private bedroom that she had because she was an RA. But, then she worried that she’d not locked the door to the outside, so she put on a Burka and grabbed a baseball bat and tip-toed past Piro to check the lock, just to make sure he didn’t get any naughty ideas.
@2+2=7:
#129
“I have no choice but to exit on this out-of-the-way off ramp and ‘help’ by telling him to get to a doctor.”
And of course she’ll hand him one of her Morgan Clinic business cards while she’s at it. Can’t waste any opportunity to solicit more prospective patients and their copays!
@gardenornament: #97
My fond hope is that Ed and Estelle go to a pet-friendly eatery (like a “cat cafe”) and when Weelburr shows up after stalking them, Ed sics his big *Rottweiler on him! Hilarity ensues!
* the dog – the DOG! Good gracious! Must everything be spelled out in this forum??
(Note to self: yes. Everything must be spelled out.)
:-)
Bizarro TFW you think you’re the first fish to grow legs and crawl out of the primordial ooze, but that actually happened 100s of millions of years ago and its furry distant descendant is about to eat you.
GA: “May your kindness never be obliterated”? Ah, so Allure is a killbot who’s been reprogrammed for toyshop secretarial work. Things are starting to make a lot more sense, believe it or not.
@157 Ukulele Ike: Remember how Clement Moore described Santa in “A Visit from St. Nicholas”:
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
So Santa is in fact himself an elf. That’s how he fits into the chimneys.
@The Rambling Otter: #55
“Life of Pie”!!
Got the reference! :-)
@seismic-2: That explains a lot.
Carry on, old beardy man, hire all the elf escorts you can handle.
@The Rambling Otter: GA – the Rice Krispies mascots: Snap, Crackle and Pop? Enid Blyton’s elf character Noddy (who has a bell on his cap)?
@Victory Garden:
Bernice only ever roomed with Dez (even though it was a quad? Were Sun and Viper supposed to also be her roommates?), not ever with Bets and Steff.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
It’s weird how anyone could have picked up “Bernice is slowly falling for Piro” vibes when she always treated him with fear and suspicion, huh?
Also weird : how she almost immediately gave up on him once she found out he was innocent.
9CL: Look, I know hypnosis/sleepwalker/mind control exists as a category in online fetish material, but I don’t need to be reminded of it while reading the funnies.
Curtis: “So obviously your life as an adult is going to suck, but that part was never really in doubt, was it?”
DT: Dick Tracy and his Cuban counterpart Wunbrow team up to take on a murderous art thief in an adventure that will…Oh. Well I guess Wunbrow getting bored and wandering off as soon as he learns what the case is about works too.
Dustin: Rightly or wrongly there are social taboos against irregularly employed twentysomethings hanging out with unrelated little kids. Maybe the former can get around it by pretending the latter are 50-year-old dentists.
Luann: Sorry, granny. Your grand story sense must be on the fritz.
MW: Stella is sure this time because now she hires a sniper to follow her everywhere she goes, and he’s memorized a certain pattern of male baldness.
Phantom: We don’t know yet if the current path is better than Mozz’s prophecy, or even substantially different. We certainly know that it’s loud, though.
@167 seismic-2:
Are you sure you want to trust someone’s delusional, drunken description of a person that doesn’t exist?
@Anonymous:
Thank you! :-)
While Noddy isn’t bald, I believe that hat is what I was thinking of.
@Sequitur: “If youse don’t cough up some dough, I might have to tell the insurance company how you staged your little slip-and-fall ‘accident.'”
@173 Sequitur: Yeah, I believe Clement Moore when he says that Santa is a chubby elf with a little round belly. The concept of Santa as a full-sized fat man owes much to the advertising campaigns of the Coca-Cola company, and we certainly shouldn’t trust that.
@Sequitur: “someone’s delusional, drunken description of a person that doesn’t exist”
I remember that book. And the other one just like it. And another. A whole genre really. “Fiction”, I think it was called, though I may have just made that up,
@gardenornament: The test isn’t whether Wilbur shows up or not. The test is whether Estelle can refrain from interacting with him if he does. She failed at this last time. What’s the over/under on her managing it this time?
@richardf8: “The test isn’t whether Wilbur shows up or not. The test is whether Estelle can refrain from interacting with him if he does. She failed at this last time. What’s the over/under on her managing it this time?”
It depends on if you mean that she and Dr. Ed should ignore his antics completely. That could be rather difficult considering how in-your-face Wilbur can be (remember when he turned up at Iris’s window with in the middle of the night, serenading her by singing to a ghettoblaster?).
On the other hand, last time Iris not just interacted with him, but in effect accepted his challenge to a karaoke duel and tried to out-Wilbur Wilbur. If she can’t resist doing that this time, she doesn’t deserve a date with Ed.
GA: It has been clear for many years that the vast majority of GA characters are not allowed to have attractive noses. This, alas, looks like the result of Allure losing her temper over that in front of Her Creator.
MW: I’m going to try out the Bechedal Test, but alter it a little.
When Estelle and Ed are on their date, see how long it takes before Estelle brings up Wilbur.
@Poteet: Be honest — don’t you prefer a noseless Allure over a Jimmy Durante-schnozzed elf chick?
@Ukulele Ike: “don’t you prefer a noseless Allure over a Jimmy Durante-schnozzed elf chick?”
I dunno. The inability to breathe properly through her nose is likely to negatively impact her ability to perform certain, very important, sex acts.
DT: “‘Paul Chandler’? So this suspect is an ordinary-looking human being with a common first and last name that aren’t a pun or a reference to his appearance or to some crime he might have committed? Dick, call me back when you have some weird villain to deal with.”
@Joshua K.: “DT: “‘Paul Chandler’? So this suspect is an ordinary-looking human being with a common first and last name that aren’t a pun or a reference to his appearance or to some crime he might have committed? ”
No, that’s not the suspect, that’s the murder victim. The main suspect is Art Dekko, who has a punny name and also looks a bit gekko-like, I suppose.
@Poteet: “GA: It has been clear for many years that the vast majority of GA characters are not allowed to have attractive noses.”
I think it’s pretty clear that GA characters aren’t allowed to be attractive, or even look like normal human beings.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: “Phantom: We don’t know yet if the current path is better than Mozz’s prophecy, or even substantially different. We certainly know that it’s loud, though.”
I think it diverged substantially from the prophesy when the commando Bandar warrior women turned up. At least I don’t think Mozz ever said anything about the Ghost and Savarna (“Ghavarna”?) getting Bandar reinforcements.
RMMD: I think I feel the tectonic plates moving at the same pace as this story.
@McCapwell: And Elf missionary position is correctly referred to as “Elf on the Shelf?”
@The Rambling Otter: I just made it too, and I have no regrets; it’s the subtle variations that make life interesting.
@gardenornament:
“I think it’s pretty clear that GA characters aren’t allowed to be attractive, or even look like normal human beings.”
Every so often, Jimbo slips in a character that is based on a real purpose and it is always jarring given how the others look. Usually because the character is based on a real person (Terry Miles or those fiddler dudes) but sometims you have no idea who the person is supposed to be.
@Sequitur: I’d heard that about angels, but elves…who knew….
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Tell me about it. I keep a French bulldog.
Should’ve gone with the poodle.
Gasoline Alley: Coming up next on ABC: “The Elf Erection that Saved Christmas”
Luann: This week has been a thankful step up.. partly because with the Erotic Novel arc taking a small break, I don’t have to hover over and ocasionally see people rage at pornography like this was 1950. But they not only brought in Bernice’s Neightbor lady as Luann’s mentor again, but also Piro… you remember him right? The guy Bernice was intrested in who evaporated into thin air so she could have a romance storyline with Jack that went nowhere then somehow date his best friend instead? He existed right? I’m honestly more excited about the old lady as she’s neat, but it gives hope Knute and Krystal will come back. If your wondering why put myself through luann every day, besides being fun to riff on.. that’s why. Hope.
Pooch Cafe: Another comic I don’t really have riffs about, i’ve just been enjoying it’s utterly weird arc about a mad scientest who makes a frankenstien dog and has to deal with the minutae of having a dog. It’s terrific. Some strips just spin their wheels but Pooch Cafe instead choose to get really weird with it at some point. If your not reading it should: Cerebus, yes the mythical hound of hell, is a recurring character and an entire arc was spent late last year on a witch doing a hansel and grettl only with a house made of meat and bones. How they avoided doing any innuendo is beyond me, but point is it’s great.
Safe Havens: The next generation of the cast spends their time talking to Leonardo Da’Vinci, whose not only a part of the cast, but the grandson of main character samantha’s daughter’s future self who can travel thorugh time, because this is the comic strip equilvent of x-men and I love it for that.
On the Fasttrack: Fi’s husband is apparently into sports.. which is heavily contrdicted not by any previous canon but the fact the guy is a school principal who looks like norman osborn.
Sherman’s Lagoon: from yesterday not today but as predicted Hawthorne won the runoff. Which begs the question: Why have this storyline. This strip isn’t horrible but there’s a fine line between wacky mayoral schemes and “Something that should probably happen that could be intresting to see how a character reacts to it. “. It’s again why despite it’s flaws, I like Zits a bunch: it dosen’t change a ton but every once in a while they’ll change just enough to get some new jokes. Hawthrone has been the corrupt mayor since I was in high school
Liberty Meadows: This is a strip in reruns but while i’ve been skipping rereading the latest arc due to the fact it’s use of the evil mirror universe is nothing special even for the early 2000’s and Mirror Frank is just.. ace rimmer for some reason I did wince hard when I passed by today’s strip, which has Mirror Frank crack “Let’s skip the foreplay” from a guy who holds entire panels to rant about how “I’M NOT DRAWING WOMEN SEXIST BY FOCUSING ON THE MALE GAZE IT’S THE CHILDREN WHO ARE WRONG”, is just.. blegh. I like the strip but this is a case of seperating art from artist for me as the strip does have good funny animals.. but man or man are the huamns and their bs, even their mirror dopplegangers, a waste of time.
Big Nate: First Class: Yes another reprint but i’ts one that points out why I only check out Big Nate sporadically: it’s francis having opened a betting pool about when his best friend will break up with his girlfriend. This would’ve better fit Gina or someone who you know.. is supposed to hate nate as there’s a line between “hilaroius banter” and “Your best friend admitting he didn’t think you and your girlfriend would last all that wrong and who actively bet on you being a terrible partner. “. See in comedy the target of stuff like this has to either deserve it or simply respond in a way that’s funny or relatbale. While Charlie Brown frequently got beaten down by life the how of which was often so ludcrious it was funny or sad enough it wasn’t meant to be. Nate’s getting taken down a peg by his two besties only works when he’s being enough of a dick. All he’s doing here is.. moving on from harassing a girl who was never intrested to one who genuinely likes him.
Big Nate: In an ironic twist the regular Big Nate… actually did a great storyline I forgot to read and will go back for, and doing something it should do more often: focus on the side cast that’s actualy tolerable: Gina and Chad add a lot to the strip so having a full arc where Gina melts down about Chad getting an acting job instead of her is great stuff, and the payoff of her apologizing to Chad only for him to , obliviously as he does explain he not only knew, btu accidently make a dig at how bad she was at hiding it.
@Liam:
Gasoline Alley-“Santa, I want to bop your new secretary.”
____________________________________________
He’s going for the trifecta: Bopping Mrs Clause, the new secretary AND Rudy’s girl, Clarice.
@195 Garrison Skunk:
And probably that magic talking doll too.
“Oh magic talking doll. Take me away!”
@Charterstoned: Thanks!
Cassandra Cat jumps out of the birthday cake, icing clinging to her fur, singing, “Haaaaaapy Biiiirrrrrrrthday to you, Mr Webber Jr, Haaaaaaaapy Biiiiiirrrrrrrrrrthday to you.”, purring like Miss Monroe.
There’s a mental image for your Somewhat Sexy Saturday. Enjoy.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Also, Edda needs some dollar bills stuck in her garter, so she can make change for the customers in the audience who want to buy a piano bench dance.
All she needs is a handful of dimes and nickels.
Josh obviously took his vacation seriously and missed the start of Sarge’s new job.
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/beetle-bailey-1/2022-12-24/
@Jacob Mattingly: Liberty Meadows has animals?
@202 Ukulele Ike:
Oh, yeah.
Poteet, did you miss @128 Baja Gaijin?
Marmaduke: David Bowie had it wrong. It was a dog that sold the world.
@Ukulele Ike: Yup… though it’s easy to forget as the people drama takes up way too much. But when their the focus we get great slapstick. And I wouldn’t MIND humans being mixed in: it’s clear the strip was based on bloom county, and Steve, Binkley and Milo were just as important to the mix. Here… their mostly just straight men and Frank and Brandy just don’t have a ton of personality beyond NERRRRRDDD and frank cho’s linda carter thing.
Nice that the wine stewart brought a hot water bottle of the restaurant’s best PBR for Sarge.