Dagwood’s making direct eye contact with the reader, daring you to imagine his awful clothing line
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Blondie, 3/8/23
I’m intrigued here by the transition from light to dark between panels two and three — how much time has elapsed, and what conversation, if any, filled it? I’d like to believe that Blondie lay there in silence as Dagwood nattered on about his fantasy fashion empire, only to let loose this sick burn as she was dozing off, just in time to ruin her husband’s whole night.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/8/23
I recently learned that only a few specialized cells actually survive the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, with the entire rest of its body dissolved into goo within the cocoon to serve as food for the growing adult insect. Anyway, just in case you thought you had handle on the kind of awful body horror that would be required to effect Tater’s nightmare vision in reality, I’m here to tell you that you really don’t, actually.
Shoe, 3/8/23
“It was to protect them from the sun and the rain, as well as from all the dust the wagon kicked up as it moved over the plains. They may have lived in olden days, but they were no dummies!”
203 replies to “Dagwood’s making direct eye contact with the reader, daring you to imagine his awful clothing line”
Shoe: No goggle eyes of horror? Who’s drawing this?
I just think that Dag Swag would have to involve edible under
SNUFFY: I’m no entomologist, but from painful experience I’d say that huge “chrysalis” looks more like a paper wasp nest to me. Either that, or Hootin’ Holler is going to be hosting Mothra soon….
Luann – Well, at least she isn’t going down the Loathsome Lil path.
BLONDIE: Was Blondie trying to rhyme her remark, and just missed it? I think she meant to say “I don’t mean to nag, but “Dag Swag” makes my boobs sag.”
FC: Jeffy’s just using this as an excuse to cop a feel of his mom’s boobs, and judging by the bedroom eyes Thel is giving him she’s looking forward to it.
FC: Sam the dog is thinking, “Oh please, God, not me! The last time he slept with me he gave me mange!”
Shoe: All three millennials who read this comic strip are exasperated that the Perfessor did not drop in an “Oregon Trail” reference here.
BGSS: I don’t buy (1) someone in Hootin’ Holler knowing the word “chrysalis” and (2) pronouncing it correctly.
Shoe: Because The Perfesser’s relatives used to do flyby shits over the wagons.
Mary Worth: “Of your bitching, I am!”
(The Blondie writing staff, finishing their first day at kindergarten.)
“Wow, you mean words sometimes sound like other words??? And it’s called “rhyming”??? That’s hilarious! We’ve gotta write a comic about this!”
SIX DIFFERENCES: In panel one, the smiling sleeping bricklayer is remembering his wild sex tryst with Alice Mitchell in yesterday’s DENNIS THE MENACE. In panel two, he’s remembering his wild sex tryst with Henry Mitchell. Or possibly with Ruff.
Gil Thorp: I am honestly confused here. Who is the student with the dead mom? What are these bars the other student is referring to?
MW: Does this young ‘un even like animals?
MW: Tomorrow, Wilbur is going to show up with his goldfish and send poor Steve over the edge. Fortunately, Mary will show up on Saturday with muffins.
Blondie & Dagwood : Or, you know, very little time passed, Dagwood just angrily turned off the light when Blondie burned him.
********
Crankshaft : Pam’s clothes blanched with horror as she realised the reason they run out of dishwasher pods so quickly is that her dad keeps eating them.
********
Luann :
1) I like how the strip is reframing Piro instantly disappearing at the end of his initial arc as him ghosting Bernice, to absolve her of any bad behavior.
2) I like how Luann’s inner conflict over whether or not to give Bernice Piro’s letter was just nothing. I bet tomorrow, to make sure there’s absolutely no conflict, Luann finds out what was written IN the letter through Bernice indignantly reading it out loud.
GIL THORP: “My parents just bought a bunch of bars. They figure they can always resell them at a profit whenever REX MORGAN M.D. wants to introduce a new character to their strip.”
So presumably all this whining is leading up to something involving Estelle. What will it be?
Will Dr. Ed dump her so that he can devote all his attention to Steven’s deteriorating mental health?
Or will Estelle dump Dr. Ed when he takes to drinking and/or drugs after realizing that Steven is right about everything?
Or will Mary introduce Estelle to her long-time good friend Mrs. Brown, and they’ll hit it off famously, thereby driving a wedge between her and the good doctor?
So many boring possibilities, so much time to slog through one.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: Uh, from the size of that “chrysalis” I’m pretty sure it’s a hornet’s nest. Years of pent up frustration are about to end as Loweezy goes off to let Snuffy come check it out when she’s not around.
@Anonymous: #15
” To make sure there’s absolutely no conflict, Luann finds out what was written IN the letter through Bernice indignantly reading it out loud.”
“He says I’m supposed to make five copies of this letter and send one each along with a twenty dollar bill to the top five names on the enclosed list. He’s got some nerve asking that after ghosting me all these months! To show him I’m not a pushover, I’ll just send the copies and money to the top *three* names!”
JUDGE PARKER: “I know I must be drinking too much, Sam.” The people still trying to read this dumpster fire are envious, and decide that’s the first good idea any of you have had in months.
MW: Steven the Newbie Vet is pretty young to be having a mid-life crisis. I can see him questioning his career choice, though. So far, ANIMAL HOSPITAL seems to offer nothing but a lot of euthanizing and endless sanitizing for a disgruntled clientele, with none of the wild “do it with animals” lifestyle he was promised in veterinary school. I get that. Steven just hasn’t recognized the higher purpose of his calling. Enter Wilbur.
Mary Worth: He’s tired, but only because he has to talk to you.
Slylock Fox: Yes, for the love of God!
Th’ Smif clan bein’ insects would explanashun
a hell of a lotnothin’, really.MARY WORTH: “Let’s just let the animals vote!”
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: “And what better time to unmask than at Halloween? Or on March 8th; that works too!”
Hey Blondie, you helped plant the phrase in his head, don’t blame him for it.
Blondie: This is a pretty brazen attack on the creativity of others for a comic that hasn’t had an original joke or drawing in decades.
CS: Having missed out on the Tide pod craze, Crankshaft looks to kickstart his own viral social media phenomenon by munching Cascade dishwasher pacs.
9CL: What a malicious little pervert. For all that nonsense about the hokey pokey, Edda knows enough about sex to attack people just as they’re climaxing. I don’t even know what the payoff to this gag is supposed to be; we know that McEldowney isn’t going to draw the balloons hitting the high schoolers.
MW: Nobody accomplishes less in a week than Karen Moy. Just day after day of two characters repeating the same two thoughts over and over.
Blondie: “Dag Swag” sounds like a medical condition that causes men to wear supportive undergarments lest they step on their testicles. Also known as “Low Hang Drag.”
Pluggers: That Plugger is just deluding himself. That huge party sized bag of chips is a Plugger single serving.
Zits: Poor Charlie Brown can’t ever catch a break. Decades of having the football pulled away at the last second and now his torso lives on as a cactus planter in the background in Zits. He doesn’t even rate being in the foreground. Poor Charlie Brown.
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these Missing Final Panels float your boat?
It’s probably not a chrysalis at all; it’s probably Snuffy’s tobacco chaw he spit out a few days ago. It’s not going to metamorphis into anything but a “bee-yoo-ti-ful” case of oral hygene problems.
CS: Looks like we’re taking a respite from the usual Crankshaft is 80/20 asshole for a week of Crankshaft is 80/20 moron. I, for one, approve.
JP: Sam is bigly impressed. “Great plan, Yelich! Yeah, those bastards wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone perp-walking a man tied up with rope. But they wouldn’t dare shoot someone using Official Dick Tracy Handcuffs™! Genius move!”
GT: Henry used to be confined to giving us random panels from one day to the next. But now he’s giving us random sentences of dialogue from one panel to the next! He’s truly perfecting his craft before our very eyes! It’s like being invited in to watch Lennon and McCartney writing a song!
RMMD: You have to wonder what trauma happened to Beatty somewhere along the way that makes him afraid to write the words “men’s room.”
The Shoe Punchline I Expected: ‘Their lifeless corpses were being held proudly by the hunters who shot them as they traversed the sky.’ Not just me, right?
The authority figures in Dustin’s life won’t give up until he becomes a tower shooter.
BG&SS: Tater may have gotten into the jug.
MW: If Ed doesn’t unload this pissy little whiner, he can look forward to a lot more bad reviews.
9CL: Edda and Amos get in trouble. Amos cries. Edda sticks out her tongue. It’s going to be SO exciting.
Blondie – Those Blondie Tits Stand So Damn Good – My Pants Are Standing Sporting Wood….
BG&SS – This is about hillbilly crib death, right? Funnier than usual….
Shoe – The crappy history – oh children – it’s just a shot away….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Interesting fact about Australian English. The word “dag” literally means dried feces on the tail of a sheep, but has come to mean “dork” or “someone with no fashion sense”. Maybe Blondie has been down under!
@Baja Gaijin:
Regardless of the circumstances or the people involved, it’s hard to top No. 3, the satisfying all-purpose clincher!
Blondie: ‘Dag Swag’, he was a delta blues singer, wasn’t he?
BGSS: Sorry, not to go all Gasoline Alley here, but “bee-yoo-ti-ful” is clearly a Bugs Bunny/faux Brooklyn accent, not hillbilly speak. “Byoot’ful” maybe, but I’d have just gone with “purty”.
JP: When I wrote yesterday’s comment, I initially wrote, “While [the judge’s] offer will certainly be detailed in the coming days…” then thought better of it and replaced “certainly” with the word “likely.” It seems I made the right call, because Judge Duncan’s offer? Yep, we’re skipping right past it. Which is probably a smart call by Marciuliano, because fucked if I can even guess what these people have to offer each other that solves any of their biggest problems.
Instead, it looks like the world’s nattiest and soberest sloppy drunk has a plan of his own, which is to… drag the judge outside in handcuffs and get themselves shot by the drug-dealing commando teams surrounding the Spencer home? By this story’s own rules, Yelich won’t accomplish anything by arresting Duncan – not because they don’t have any evidence of anything apart from the dubious testimony of the other primary murder suspect, but because dirty cops something something therefore impossible. So yeah, let’s go die! This doesn’t solve the dangers presented by the corrupt police and oxy cartel, who have been trying to kill Sam and Gloria regardless and have no reason to stop, but at least they’ll be get rid of Judge Duncan!
And I guess we also won’t be hearing the rest of Lil Dunk’s story or the specifics of whatever happened to Steve. Between the lazy art and character handling, this story might as well be about popsicle sticks with frowny faces on them that get picked up and wiggled by one guy doing all the voices. Christ, that might actually even be better.
I realize that Dagwood just lamented everyone’s inclination to find fault, and it’s not my intention to heap further scorn upon the beleaguered chap, but I cannot forbear to say that his understanding of the fashion industry seems spotty at best.
Even in today’s relaxed editorial world, Blondie’s original response ” ‘Dag swag’ sounds f*g” attracted unfavourable attention.
I am grief-stricken over the reality that there are millions of struggling writers out there trying to make great art while the author of Blondie gets to make a comfy living with lines like “there are buttons and bow ties to be had… when you’ve got dag swag!”
Blondie: “I don’t mean to be a nag, but ‘Dag Swag’ sounds bad” is straight out of the waste bin of discarded Dr. Seuss lines.
@Pozzo:
Blondie: “I just think that Dag Swag would have to involve edible under”
Not just edible underwear. Edible everything.
Blondie – “Dag Swag” was definitely a proposed and rejected idea to make up for lost newspaper circulation with alternative revenue streams, which was repurposed into this strip
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – The dissolving of one’s body is a small price to pay for escaping Hootin’ Holler
Shoe – The birds of Shoe can travel by flying and by car, presumably through the trees. Did the Perfessor’s family travel on the plains, or through trees?
Shoe: Also, the wagons were covered to protect those inside from getting pooped on by the Perfesser’s relatives. Because his relatives were birds.
9CL – Tune in again tomorrow for the thrilling continuation, as the Water-Filled Balloons fall from the 15th through the 11th floors!
It feels like Brooke is done with the adult Amos and Edda. They are married, they have two kids to serve as background props for Happy Family scenes, what else is there for them to do? He’s not interested in portraying them as actual professional musicians. He’s apparently lost interest in storylines involving his other characters doing anything other than boinking each other performatively.
So we have the new normal with the squished down retcon versions of Child Amos and Child Edda engaging in the throwing of water-filled balloons out of the open tenth story window of their school. Edda is the same feral nightmare she’s always been, and poor Amos gets to keep the ratty hair and prehensile upper lip, but now he’s a complete simpering nonentity who complies in mute terror while Edda orders him around.
@jroggs: 9CL: I guess if a guy is brazen enough to bang his girlfriend in full view of a school, he’s not going to be shy about shouting out, “fire in the hole,” when the moment arrives. Although since it’s a Catholic school, maybe he’d go with, “Ave Maria!”
@pugfuggly: BGSS: “Boo’ful.”
Phantom: “How can I further screw up the flow of this story I’ve been sort of telling again and again in pieces for what seems like years? I know, I’ll flip into someone else’s angry imagination!”
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat #5982.
BG&SS: Isn’t what’s inside the chrysalis and the outer covering that Tater sees is the cocoon?
Spiderman-“Stop! At least let me buy dinner first before you unmask in front of me.”
RMMD-“I don’t truck with competing diners.”
MW-“No because I have a girlfriend who does this amazing technique to me. Have you ever heard of a blowjob?”
JP-“Those are better than the ones that I carry,” Gloria says pulling out fuzzy handcuffs.
FC-“Oh no. The last time I did that I wound up with fleas,” Sam says.
Rex Morgan “Of course I used to run a diner. I’m not a roots singer or in the comic book business.”
Crock: What the…?
This comic has established the female trooper (shouldn’t that be “legionaire”, by the way?), whatever her name is, as a tough, competent and independent woman who’s in every part the equal or superior of her male colleagues.
And now she’s suddenly depicted as a stereotypical delicate flower who complains about broken nails and uses her female whiles on her superiors. And all this for the sake of a very unfunny joke.
With any other comic, I’d be very deeply disappointed. But this is Crock, so I’ll just shrug and move on.
GT: “My parents just bought a bunch of bars. One’s in Milford and the others are all around whatever state this is. I’m worried because they have no experience running bars. There goes my college money. That’s why I called Bar Rescue. Hello Mr. Tapper!”
“Looks like I got here just in time. You’ll never make a money serving this $@@&” swill! You, cook! What’s your name?”
“Principal Pearl….”
“This is disgusting! How can you expect kids to eat this?! I’m bringing in my good friend Vic Vegas to show your so called cook how to make a decent meal. Now where’s the bartender?”
“This is a high school!”
“Yeah, a high school that’s going under. Don’t you think these kids deserve a good mixologist? Meet Lisamarie Joyce, the best bartender in Nevada! Say goodbye to milk and fruit juice, Milford High, this place is getting an upgrade!”
@Tom T.: “9CL: I guess if a guy is brazen enough to bang his girlfriend in full view of a school, he’s not going to be shy about shouting out, “fire in the hole,” when the moment arrives. Although since it’s a Catholic school, maybe he’d go with, “Ave Maria!””
Or, perhaps, “Gloria in excelsis Deo!”
That expression of Blondie’s in the first panel is the face of a woman whose husband has just turned her down for sex by demonstrating that he’s *very* busy reading a magazine.
@Charterstoned: Petition to make all joshreads.com comments begin with “I’m no entomologist, but…”
Blarney Gurgles and Snuffed Smithee: Oh Josh, it’s even worse than you know. I have no idea how they did this trick, but scientists were able to demonstrate that the butterfly retains things that it learned as a caterpillar, despite having been reduced to glop inside the chrysalis. The horror! The horror!
Oh look everyone, it’s the scene from the Aliens vs. Snuffy Smith the studio cut for being too disturbing. Don’t look in that “chrysalis” unless you want to find your colleagues, Tater!
“Yep, the kept the wagons covered to protect the settlers, and the pots covered so my relatives wouldn’t dry out during braising!”
CS: If this dialogue had come from one of the kids in Family Circus it would have been cute, because kids say the darndest things and it’s funny when they misunderstand how things work.
“Crankshaft says the darndest things”, however, isn’t very funny. Dementia isn’t cute, I guess.
9 Chickweed Lane: Why?
@gardenornament:
“Ad Deum Qui laetificat juventutem meam!“
But can “Dag Swag” rival “Hi Fashion”? https://joshreads.com/2023/03/more-like-hi-fashion-amiright/
No, seriously. I want these two white-collar suburbanite fathers to start rival fashion industries, like some zany cartoon plot.
9CL: Am I the only one who doesn’t see Edda’s smile in the first panel as cute, but rather as outright evil?
(That was a rhetorical question. I know I’m not the only one)
At first I was confused by the Perfesser’s age when he said “relatives” instead of “ancestors”, but then I remembered that they’re all freakin’ birds who live, work, and drink in trees in a grotesque mimicry of human civilization and started thinking about how it would look with their tiny avian bodies trying to handle presumably horses to pull the covered wagons.
BGSS: The word “bodacious” implies that the Bill & Ted movies have found their way into Hooten Holler’s nickelodeon.
Blondie: The branding may be bad but the product is worse. Buttons and bow ties? Is Dagwood proposing a trendy clothing line or an outfitter for men’s vocal ensembles?
If I recall my cinematography correctly, the strong yellow filter in the first two panels of today’s Blondie indicate they are set in Mexico, while the blue filter in the last panel shows the ‘action’ has moved to the U.S. Strange directorial choice given that all three shots are pretty much static bedroom scenes with no other indicators of setting, but who am I to judge the director?
@TheDiva: On “bodacious”, according to the online Merriam-Webster
Some of our readers may know bodacious as a word that figured prominently in the lingo of the 1989 film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Others may recall the term’s frequent use in the long-running “Snuffy Smith” comic strip. Neither the creators of the comic strip nor the movie can claim to have coined bodacious, which began appearing in print during the 1800s, but both likely contributed to its popularity. The exact origin of the word is uncertain, but it was most likely influenced by bold and audacious, and it may be linked to boldacious, a term from British dialect meaning “brazen” or “impudent.”
9CL: I know the Internet is Full of Things and Rule 34 and all that, but I’m willing to bet “making out in public in a convertible while being waterbombed by preteen Catholic students” is vanishingly small on the kink demographic.
C’shaft: Crankshaft has absolutely eaten Tide pods.
GT: Wait, are these the vape dealing guys or did we drop that like the trans kid, Kari’s school shooting PTSD and the rash of opiod suicides?
JP: “Look, Sam, are you familiar with the concept of a ‘human shield’?”
Luann: “Well, EXCUSE ME for never being interested in anybody’s problems but my own!”
MT: No he won’t.
MW: “That’s what the Adderall is for!”
@Rube: Note to self: write more Victorian characters who use the word “bodacious.”
@Rube: Ah – Dag fag hag swag gag – very good….
CS: Right, Cranky doing the dishes? Was there an airborne pig in the background that I missed?
Blondie: Dag must mean there isn’t enough food in magazine clothing ads. They have enough skin in them to interest anyone else.
BG&SS: That’s no chrysalis, Tater. That’s the severed scrotum of one of them Barlows your pa hung out as a trophy, next to the revenooers scalps.
FC: Thel is thinking, “Only if we sleep in the buff, honey.”
The creature now called ‘Tater’ imagined the coming day when he could cast off this lowly human form and revel in his full powers. Abandoned in this backward shantytown when Titania demanded a human child, the poor changeling must stay silent for the thirteen years of enslavement it agreed to. The Fae Queen drove a hard bargain when she had the advantage, and she always had the advantage. But the clocks ticked, and the days turned into months and into years, and even now it could feel wings beginning to squirm under the human skin it was glamoured into. Then, like the simple butterfly, it would become something more, and rain madness and cursed death upon these human fools. And with its strength and power regained, it would tear through the Wall of Thorns, back to Arcadia, to show Titania a thing or two about feuding it had learned from the mortals! Oh, yes, this shadow would offend, and nothing would ever be mended.
JP: doesn’t the Spencer-Driver compound have lights with motion sensors?
CS: OK, what’s Ed planning on using the dishwasher for? We all know it’s not going to be to wash dishes. My guess it involves one of his Bean’s End gardening tools.
@TheDiva: “9CL: I know the Internet is Full of Things and Rule 34 and all that, but I’m willing to bet “making out in public in a convertible while being waterbombed by preteen Catholic students” is vanishingly small on the kink demographic.”
But somehow I get the impression that the intersection of that particular subset of the kink demographic and the set of 9CL TruFans is far from empty.
Bird migration is seasonal, not permanent, so how did they square it with Manifest Destiny?
@Guillermo el chiclero: “CS: OK, what’s Ed planning on using the dishwasher for?”
I’m not sure he’s planning to use the dishwasher at all. Somehow I get the feeling that he suddenly got a craving and is going to eat the “dishwasher candy”.
…which might actually be a good thing if it puts a natural end to the comic.
JP: April must be destined to make an appearance. Alternatively the Spencer/Driver women wander out into a jail of gunfire and their clothing is shredded. But they are unharmed.
BGSS: Is it permitted to teach a nature fact when it’s not Sunday?! Does Jules know this?
Baby Blues: I hope they surprise us and show Darryl being good at taking care of the kids while Wanda’s away. I’m braced for weeks of Zoe correcting him every step of the way, though.
Blondie: Oh Josh… people being intrigued by a room getting dark when a lamp is turned off is a good example of why Oklahoma voted no on legalizing pot.
@Professor Well Actually: Having CIApril turn up might save this story. We find out the whole thing was a CIA operation that the DEA was trying to disrupt with help from the FBI who was assisting the ATF in a CIA operation and April has to come in to kill everyone involved. Then we rename the strip CIApril and focus on her blood-soaked globe-trotting adventures in overthrowing democratically elected governments.
Pluggers – If you’ve ever wondered what the face of a man-bear with an eating disorder looks like, here you are.
@Morgan Wick: Oh thank god there’s another
guy with no lifeComics Curmudgeon Historian who remembers this term, so I can be spared the effort of recalling it for links. I am amused that just 8 years later, reality set in to totally Regina George the strip, letting it know in no uncertain terms that “Dag Swag” is not going to happen! (Oh who am I kidding: by 2030, whatever AI simulacrum is still writing the strip will use this stupid catchphrase as the lynchpin to their upcoming line of pastrami-scented parfum)MARK TRAIL: Why are you calling him by his actual name, when “ConcreteBro” is just sitting there for the taking?
@Shrug: Only Mark’s enemies are ‘Bros.’ Cherry gets enemies with real names who like to walk around in full MOPP gear at all times, apparently.
S4: I’m a bit surprised that nobody has commented on the impressive jutting in today’s strip. You can tell that S4 has the same writer as Juggs Parker.
Are Dagwood’s donut themed PJs an example of his Dag Swag? He’s talking buttons and bow ties, but I’m sure we all know it would be a food themed line of clothes.
Pluggers: Plugger or not, can anybody start eating chips and stop after a “serving” of 11? In my experience, it’s either no chips at all or all of them. Or perhaps that makes me a plugger?
Blondie: I don’t mean to nag, but “Dag Swag” makes me gag.
There, that wasn’t so hard.
@Anonymous: I certainly HOPE we find out what in Piro’s letter.
”I yearn for you madly. You are my Muse. My Art is hotwiring cars and driving them to chop shops for forty bucks apiece.”
Blondie-If you are ever lost in the middle of nowhere your Dag Swag can also be eaten.
@pastordan: I happen also not to be a lepidopterist. Just for the record.
@jroggs:
Terry Beatty: “Challenge accepted!”
Blondie: Dagwood is clearly reading the wrong kind of fashion ads. He should switch to fashion mags aimed at women – those ads tend to be more… interesting. Or so I’ve been told.
@Charterstoned: What I hear you saying is that you are not renowned Russian novelist and pervert Vladimir Nabokov. Duly noted.
@2+2=7:
Terry Beatty: “Challenge accepted!””
Brooke McEldowney chuckles to himself.
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely #3, although I liked the second one as well.
@Baja Gaijin: #1 and #2 are perfect. #3 is a bit too in-the-face for my taste, but that’s just me.
MW – No, because Dr. Ed has access to puppy uppers.
Rex Morgan – I thought this would be a week of building suspense as Mrs. Hank tried to flag down the waitress to get the bill. Instead it’s going to be another week of chatting about diners.
Frazz – This is peak Frazz. He couldn’t be an accountant because it would cut into the time he needs to train for a triathlon.
9CL: I don’t know, folks. I find the concept of being unexpectedly hit bombed by cold water-filled balloons while enjoying a sensational simultaneous orgasm to be….curiously refreshing.
Shoe: “I didn’t think menus featured pictures back then.” “Yea, some pioneer family named Bumstead wiped my whole family out.”
JP: What has the Judge’s Plan B when he held Sophie, hoping to get his son. The cops/drug gangs/Rhodians/Valley Tech candy sellers will be outside to kill him as well?
Or is Ces acknowledging this abortion of a plot?
Phantom: Diana’s gonna kill Savarna. No snark, just go with it.
MW: Months from now, Trixie will be put down for mauling a young child, while her owner will still be posting negative reviews in prison.
@Little Guy: re: Phantom: Oh, yeah. I’d just LOVE to watch that United Nations desk jockey take a shot at Savarna.
I’m seeing the good Cap’n holding her off with one hand on top of Diana’s head, stifling a yawn, while Diana flails helplessly at her with her tiny fists.
@Ukulele Ike: It does sound a bit like an X-rated Mentos ad . . . the Freshmaker.
@TheDiva: 9CL: But Brooke made sure to show us that those water balloons are bulging and dripping and ready to pop.
@Ukulele Ike: OK, I’ll come over, but it’ll cost you $100.
Look, Dagwood, you’ve worn a shirt with one giant button in the middle of your stomach for some reason for like 90 years now. It’s a bit late in the game to pretend “there are buttons,” plural.
Blondie: Dagwood immediately begins plotting his wife’s death after one critique too many.
Snuffy Smith: That’s a big-ass cocoon. What’s gonna hatch out of it, Mothra? Hopefully that means Hootin’ Holler is about to be destroyed by a kaiju.
Shoe: Shoe is similar to Dustin in that it’s a strip that’s really just the writer indulging in a fantasy world where he can be a petty, cynical, sarcastic asshole to everyone and complain about everything without facing social consequences. As a result, I’ve noticed increasingly that its primary avenue for “jokes” is bitching snidely about things no normal person would bitch about. Such as, demonstrated here, learning about their family history. Where a normal person would probably be mildly and pleasantly intrigued to learn more about their heritage, the Perfesser twists it so he can whine/joke about his ancestors being ugly, yucking it up for a nonexistent audience that would agree with him. Truly a fascinating look into the mind of an asshole.
“That thar’s called a chrysalis,” said no one in Hootin’ Holler ever. Or anywhere else.
MW – “But I’m tired of helping animals. I’d rather eat them. So I’m becoming a chef.”
MW: I’m already tired too.
Tired of your bullshit!
MW: I’m finding ignoring this strip works better for me than reading and snarking.
MW: It’s a shame he’s moved on to whining about his upper-middle class job in general. I wanted to see a full week of harping on this woman for her negative Yelp review.
Snuffy: Tater could at least wait until he’s potty trained before he transforms into a flying critter. Which reminds me. All those cherubs depicted in art, all those winged babies, and not a diaper to be seen. And what about Icarus? Did he pee too close to the sun? It’s a puzzlement!
@2+2=7, @gardenornament: I give Beatty the edge because he stuffs his vapid characters with relatively balanced meals while Moy gorges hers with nothing but muffins. McEldowney is disqualified due to the inability to chart progress from a single point of data.
REX MORGAN M.D.; I hope you’re taking notes, would-be writer Luann Degroot: If you are hitting the same note (like, sat boring drivel about diner owners) over and over again, makes sure to slam that storyline right next to it’s newest doppleganger to make that aspect really, really obvious. That’s how you “show” instead of “tell!”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Cut to Hank with half his body through the bathroom window by that point (oops, there I go thinking about interesting story possibilities again. My bad!)
REX MORGAN M.D. (3): Wanda: “I didn’t mean to snoop, but since my tacky failing business is perpetually devoid of any customers, I have all the time in the world to eavesdrop on bland dull gossip!”
@gardenornament: S4: The jutting is wasted. Everything about this strip makes me shrivel. Why are either of them living with their mother? She hasn’t been shown to need constant care.
@Ukulele Ike: Luann: “Bernice. When I stayed the night (chastely) in your living room, I drank one of your bottles of coconut water. Enclosed please find $2.29. Reservedly yours, Piro.”
@Little Guy: Not every Plan B is an abortion.
FC – The picture on the wall is puzzling. Why a boat? Living room pictures are usually landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, prints of famous artists’ paintings, or something similar. The Keanes are religious, so prints of biblical scenes would fit. Instead, there’s a picture of a generic boat plopped in water without any scenery.
Maybe holier than thou Grandma got it for them (on sale, no doubt), so they put it up so she doesn’t nag them about it.
9CL – It’s easy to see why Amos grew up to WORSHIP Edda. What an adorable, sweet, lovable little girl. With good teeth.
@Tom T.: BGSS: “Boo’ful.”
How dare you…
CS: When I read this, I couldn’t match Ed’s babbling with the concept of dishwasher pods and thought that Pam was hiding her imported Jammie Dodgers in the kitchen cabinets.
JUDGE PARKER: Jokes on you, naysayers! Detective Yelich’s cuffs are forged from Themyscira metal, so Judge Duncan will be able to deflect those bullets Wonder Woman-style.
@Ukulele Ike: #102
“I find the concept of being unexpectedly hit bombed by cold water-filled balloons while enjoying a sensational simultaneous orgasm to be….curiously refreshing.”
“Was it soggy for you, too?”
@I speak Jive: I’ve seen generic boat pictures on people’s walls, but they’re always something picturesque, like a masted schooner or at least a sailboat. That thing looks like a Coast Guard cutter.
@Shrug: One word: WAP.
Pibgorn: Looks like Brooke found an elegant way to bring this story arc to a satisfying conclusion, after all!
.
.
.
.
.
Just kidding. Nothing since Boxing Day.
@made of wince: #115
As the old children’s rhyme has it
Little birdie in the sky
Dropped some white stuff in my eye
Me no worry, me no cry
Me just glad that cows can’t fly
SlylickFox and Komix For Kinx: As Rip Van Wrinkle’s “friends” continue to cement Rip into the wall let us take a moment and ponder what kind of animal would the SlylickFox-verse’s Alfred Hitchcock be?
Please discuss and show your work….
JUDGE PARKEDINTHESAMEPARKINGPSACEFORMONTHSNOW: O.K., time to give up. Much as I hate the “and then X awoke — it had all been a dream!” trope, compared to any possible “rational” resolution of this blitherfest, it’s not only acceptable to me but would be welcomed.
The only question is whose dream should it all have been. Sam? Abby? NarcoJudge? Sophie? Yelich? Gloria? How about some random horse out in Abby’s stable, hallucinating after a bad batch of ergot-laced hay?
@Dan:
Look, Dagwood, you’ve worn a shirt with one giant button in the middle of your stomach for some reason for like 90 years now. It’s a bit late in the game to pretend “there are buttons,” plural
__________
“There were buttons all around but I never heard them buttoning, no I never heard them at all till there was food.”- Paul McCartney, by way of the Blondie musical “The Dagwood Man” starring Robert Preston.
@Tom T.: re S4th: I’m also trying to understand why their mom is having to live with one of them. Maybe someone can refresh my memory. I may have forgotten the details, but I thought she had a house years ago. If she sold it, there should have been enough money for her to live somewhat independently in a senior community that would provide care progressively as she aged. She seems to function well enough to live in that type of setting.
I feel like I must have missed an important part of the history here.
@Ukulele Ike: I wondered if it could be the PT boat Bil commanded in World War II, but it doesn’t look like a PT boat.
It just looks like the type of generic boat that people regret buying as soon as they buy it.
@Shrug: The guard dogs?
@Arabella: As best I can recall, Jackie just took it upon herself to be a martyr, and is now upset about being a martyr. Which, I actually find fairly believable.
DAG Swag. Those who buy it will be devoured first.
Blondie: Fast forward 3 years. Dag Swag is the fastest-growing men’s fashion business in the world, run by a ruthless Dagwood doing his best impression of Gordon Gekko. And in a wonderful third panel, we see him, standing on a walkway, overlooking his sweatshop minions, lording his presence over them, while on the work floor, we see a raven-haired woman berated by Blondie, her manager, with a loud “More zippers, mule!”
Don Abundio, translated:
[Crate: LEMONADE]
“How’s business?”
“Terrible! What am I doing wrong?”
“Well, you can’t make any real money in these underserved communities”
“Just go where there’s already demand and grab some market share with a cheaper product”
“Get off my turf or I’ll break your legs, kid!”
[Umbrella: DELUXE SMOOTHIES]
SnufSnuf: Now recap the Season 1 finale of “Babylon 5”.
Blondie: DAG Swag or Dag Swag?
@I speak Jive: “Explain again, Lt. Keane, how you lost PT 108!”
“Ida know!”
@Little Guy: There is a hole in their minds.
@Shrug, JP: Hilary Forth.
And it’s her father’s fault for leaving “The Star Wars Holiday Special” on autoplay while she slept.
@msisaacs: #135
Shouldn’t that be “More button, mule!” ?
@Shrug: re JP: I hate to have to break it to you, dahling, but there are no longer any Horses in Abby’s stables, hallucinating or otherwise. The Horses were displaced when the barn and stables were torn down to build that atrocious Bed and Breakfast. Those who couldn’t find other positions took up residence at a neighboring farm – they were supposed to appear as extras for the riding pleasure of Abby’s guests. But you know how that turned out – the B&B was consumed by fire, cause
unknownundetermined.And we never had to worry about ergot-laced hay – they provided only the finest available products back in the “hay-day” of Spencer Farms.
@msisaacs: Yes, and then he loses everything when the entire sweatshop collapses into a sinkhole and the Bumsteads flee to Alaska.
SS:
“I recently learned that only a few specialized cells actually survive the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, with the entire rest of its body dissolved into goo within the cocoon to serve as food for the growing adult insect. Anyway, just in case you thought you had handle on the kind of awful body horror that would be required to effect Tater’s nightmare vision in reality, I’m here to tell you that you really don’t, actually.”
Well, that changes forever the way I will look at butterflies now. As little winged terrors that devour their own bodies. Thanks, Mother Nature.
@Baja Gaijin: On the one hand, I like the first. On the other hand, who are you and what have you done with Baja?
FC: Next scene: Mom, Dad, Billy, Dolly, PJ, Barfy, Sam and Kittycat all crawl into Jeffy’s bed and smother him.
FC: HTT Grandma is thinking, “Hmph. If they keep coddling that boy like that he’ll grow up to be a sissy for sure. Next thing you know he’ll be wanting to wear Dolly’s clothes. When Bil was that age and afraid to go to bed his daddy would fire a shotgun blast into his closet and tell him that took care of the monsters. Now go to bed or it’s a whuppin’.”
SForth: Dear sourpuss/altogether unpleasant/irritating/selfish grandmother: go to the kitchen and get your own stupid drink.
Blondie: A German line could be called Das Swag.
@brendancalling: #12
“Gil Thorp: I am honestly confused here. Who is the student with the dead mom? What are these bars the other student is referring to?”
Exactly. Another abrupt shift in narrative, it looks like. And why would a Milford High student be going to Corcoran High? Where is Corcoran High anyway?
@Dan: Well however many buttons there are, if Dagwood’s grumpy expression in panel #3 is any indication, Blondie pushed them all. Hiyo!
@Arabella: Sally’s mom needs to find herself a 70-year-old swole leprechaun, like Ted’s mom did.
MW: Is it too soon to foreshadow a relationship between insecure Steven and insecure Dawn Weston? Those two would certainly complement each other.
@Daisy: She’s not talking about a soft drink, and Ted’s probably busy hiding the booze.
@Charterstoned: “BLONDIE: Was Blondie trying to rhyme her remark, and just missed it? I think she meant to say “I don’t mean to nag, but “Dag Swag” makes my boobs sag.””
HERESY! That mustn’t happen!
Curtis: Mmm, onion chutney…
GT: I’ve just spent far too long looking at the past few weeks in the archive before deciding that this probably isn’t Rod and Toby of Operation Vape, but the other two, identical-looking kids who are actually selling candy bars, and don’t understand how Rod and Toby are making so much money. Because my first thought was genuinely “Wait, is Toby’s mom dead now? I’m pretty sure Toby’s mom wasn’t dead the last time he mentioned her.”
Also, I guess Principal Pearl wasn’t kidding on Feb 6th when she said she had to do a stint as a dinner lady to save the school money. (Mopping the floor while a paid janitor was standing watching her, of course, is still clearly some kind of sexual roleplay thing between her and the janitor, happening right there in front of the kids.)
JP: “I know I must be drinking too much, because I forgot that policemen carry handcuffs!” Sure, Ces, but why project it onto Yelich?
MT: “Ever since you made me stop killing plants with chemicals, I’ve had to find other ways of killing them!” Seriously, I’m very much the choir Jules is preaching to, and all I can think is that Captain Freakin’ Planet had more subtle villains.
MW: “Steven, every profession has its good side and bad side. Why not think about the good side?”
“I do. But let’s talk some more about the bad side, because I don’t know if I’ve made it clear how I feel about that. I feel it’s bad.”
OTF: Dethany doesn’t know what subtext is. Or how a ouija board works, which is arguably more surprising.
Phantom: Oh good grief, we’ve reached the point of Diana flashbacking to when she read the prophecy that we previously flashforwarded to. I hope DePaul comes up with an idea for the next story sometime soon.
Blondie: If you’re a female fan of Dagwood’s style you’re a Dag Swag Hag.
“Phantom: Oh good grief, we’ve reached the point of Diana flashbacking to when she read the prophecy that we previously flashforwarded to. I hope DePaul comes up with an idea for the next story sometime soon.”
I certainly hope so, or we may find ourself trapped in an infinite recursion of prophesy predicting flashbacks to flash-forwards of flashbacks of the prophesy, and so on ad nauseam.
“OTF: Dethany doesn’t know what subtext is. Or how a ouija board works, which is arguably more surprising.”
Ouch. A very convoluted way of complaining about something everybody hates (unnecessary meetings, that is), that makes less and less sense the more you think about it. Bad creator, bad!
By the way, I can’t stop wondering whether the “fastrack” of the title is supposed to be “fast track” or “fast rack”? A simple misspelling or a speedier, modern version of an old torture instrument?
@Ukulele Ike: Whatever happened to Boyfriend Gerald, who may or may not have been a ghost?
@gardenornament: #157
“Blondie: If you’re a female fan of Dagwood’s style you’re a Dag Swag Hag.”
And you probably subscribe to the DAG SWAG HAG MAG.
(When printing problems cause an issue to be late, they apologize for the DAG SWAG HAG MAG lag. If the apology is printed on a pull-out page within the issue, that’s the DAG SWAG HAG MAG lag tag.)
@Rev. Cheez: #14
“MW: Tomorrow, Wilbur is going to show up with his goldfish and send poor Steve over the edge.”
Wilbur: “Hey doc – my fish are covered with some kind of furry coating…are they turning into mammals?”
Doc-in-training Steve: “I’m afraid your fish have developed a fatal Saprolegnia fungal infection. It’s so advanced there’s no effective way to treat it. I’ll have to put your fish down.” [to himself: “AARRGGHH!”]
@Daisy: re MW: Yes! Stawn! Or maybe Dawven? Dawn brings the goldfish in to be polished and it’s love at first sight when she gazes into the crazy eyes of Steven.
@pastordan: Wow. Talk about damning with faint praise…!
@Horace Broon: “OTF: Dethany doesn’t know what subtext is. Or how a ouija board works, which is arguably more surprising.”
Ouch. A very convoluted way of complaining about something everybody hates (unnecessary meetings, that is), that makes less and less sense the more you think about it. Bad creator, bad!
By the way, I can’t stop wondering whether the “fastrack” of the title is supposed to be “fast track” or “fast rack”? A simple misspelling or a speedier, modern version of an old tort[censored] instrument?
(I had to repost this because the modbot objected to the censored word above. I also had forgotten the backlink to the post I was commenting on – sorry, Horace)
@Shrug: “(When printing problems cause an issue to be late, they apologize for the DAG SWAG HAG MAG lag. If the apology is printed on a pull-out page within the issue, that’s the DAG SWAG HAG MAG lag tag.)”
And when there are so many tags attached to the issue that your coffee table is bending from their weight, your furniture is suffering from DAG SWAG HAG MAG LAG TAG SAG.
@gardenornament: And if the warping of your coffee table makes you ill, you can always reach for a DAG SWAG HAG MAG LAG TAG SAG GAG BAG.
@gardenornament: I don’t understand how “fast track” would work in this context, so I assume Holbrook is referring to Dethany’s bedroom preferences.
No idea whether D. is a Top or a Bottom, but if she’s a Bottom I bet she tops from the bottom.
@Charterstoned: I’ve co-existed with several little paper wasp nests near my doors and had no problems. The wasps seemed unconcerned and have never attacked. I would not try that with bald-faced hornets, however. BF hornets have huge obvious paper nests and are quick to defend them. I was told in entomology class that the defense difference makes evolutionary sense. Big nests are more obvious to predators than little nests, so the owners of big nests often need to be faster on the draw.
Anyway, the thing in that strip looks, to me, a lot more like the beginning of a BF hornet nest than a cocoon. And if it is a BF hornet nest and keeps growing, as BF hornet nests do over the summer, and if Tatum keeps getting right up next to it, Hootin’ Holler could end up with a small, tasteful funeral centered on a very small, tasteful coffin. BF hornets don’t mess around.
BG&SS: You know those rubber scrotums that bubbas like to hang from the trailer hitches of their pickup trucks? I’d say that thing Tater is looking at is a set of trucknuts someone misplaced but then I remembered there’s no Hootin’ Hollerite that can afford or let alone knows how to drive a pickup truck.
@Melody Mare explains it all: As one of your many devoted fans, I would like to apologize for missing your message to me a few days ago. I really appreciated it when I found it.
And of course, as you reminded me, Val and Arn have their own Horses. (And good luck to those Horses as they endure the Val/Arn bickering that surely lies ahead.) I will still hope that the PV two-leggers will find that they need your special abilities and striking appearance for at least some part of the upcoming story. Meanwhile, I hadn’t read THE PHANTOM in years, but I looked at it so I could see you. I didn’t understand the story, but seeing you again was wonderful, yay.
@Voshkod: Bwahaha!
@Rube: Thank you!
@Shrug:
How do you know it’s water?
@I speak Jive:
. Why a boat?
______________
Why a duck?
@Ukulele Ike: What 70 year old swole Leprechaun would have her? She rates Wilbur Weston at best!
Blondie-“It don’t mean a thing if it don’t have that Dag Swag.”
@Voshkag:
And the absorbent cloth you put inside that bag is a DAG SWAG HAG MAG LAG TAG SAG GAG BAG RAG.
@Poteet: Huh! I didn’t think anyone had l’il Tater in the death pool.
@richardf8: Yeah, even Ted has acknowledged that his mother deserves someone better than his father. It’s quite arguable that Sally’s mother didn’t even deserve Gerald.
@Poteet: re The Phantom: I’m afraid *no one* understands what is going on here, including those of us in the cast. They never tell us if we’re doing “real time” , a flashback, a prophecy, or a flashback to a prophecy. Makes no Horse sense at all.
My role is at best sporadic – a few shadowy scenes so far. But I like to think I’m putting a lot of emotional connection on display when I’m being Diana’s confidante. And at some point you know we’re going to ride into the action, where she and that hussy will get into a catfight! If this gig continues to be “stories inside of stories” that never get completed, it may provide some long-term job security for me. Let the spinning continue….
@Garrison Skunk:
Why a boat?______________Why a duck?
You try and go across there on a duck, and you’ll find out why a boat.
@Poteet: Those BF hornets are nasty! Hate the yellow jackets, too. (I could never understand why, in the fall soccer season when the yellow jackets are always trying to sting as many people as they can before the cold weather sets in, the team parents were always asked to bring orange slices. Way to attract those bastards!)
@Melody Mare, as Diana’s Horse: Diana read the prophecy and got jealous at the idea of Savarna pregnant with Kit’s child. This is a moment of great suspense: is she there to kill Kit or Savarna over the thing that hasn’t happened?
@Morgan Wick: Wow, you have a good memory!
@White Rabbit: Am I a scorpion? Please say I’m a scorpion!!!
@Charterstoned: Having a quarter of a million bees in your backyard makes to realize just how docile honeybees are compared to hornets and wasps. You really have to go out of your way piss them off.
@Shrug: Fly
“Little fly upon the wall, Ain’t ya got no clothes at all? Ain’t ya got no shimmy shirt? Ain’t ya got no petti-skirt? Boo, fly, ain’t ya cold?” — Curly Howard in All the World’s a Stooge
I, too, recently learned how caterpillars turn into butterflies (or moths). After all these years (I only took one bug course in college), I discovered that this transformation is really, really interesting and downright amazing.
But it’s not like I’m going to cut open a chrysalis and marvel over insect goo…
Shoe: This really frustrates Roz because if Cosmo insults his own ancestors for being ugly then what’s she gonna do?
SSmith: Some Slavic variations on vampire lore say that they can manifest as butterflies. Just putting that out there.
C-Shaft: More evidence that Crankshaft has been regressing to Keane kid levels, especially if he’s eating the detergent.
H&L: Well naturally Trixie doesn’t like being reminded of the infantile alopecia that will only allow three strands of hair to grow on her pate.
JP: “I also know I must be drinking too much because everybody keeps saying to me, ‘Yelich, you’re drinking too much!’”
MT: “Burn”? It’s just baffling. When was the last time you heard someone talk about paving over their marriage? Was there even a first time?
Phantom: “Ha, I really showed that dumb book.”
SFx: So Jimmy Hoffa just picked the wrong time and place to take a nap?
Remember that time Dustin got respect?
Unbelievable! It’s International Women’s Day and Heathcliff went totally “Bro”?
What a Dilbert!
When does Crankshaft end?
@Asking for a Friend: When do the stars fall? When does the last light go out? When does hope die? That’s when Crankshaft ends.
@Baja Gaijin: Poor ol’ Charlie Brown… Yes, sir! Poor ol’ Charlie Brown… How I hate him!
Phantom: The great suspense is, if that baby turns out to be a girl, will it be Kit or Savarna who shoves her off to sea on the ice floe?
@Asking for a Friend: Not with a bang, but a Tide Pod.
@Ukulele Ike: You gotta start ’em off right! If you don’t ship ’em off on an ice floe, how are they going to get raised in the wilderness by motorcycle riding Baba Yagas who practice Mixed Martial Arts in their mortar-shaped dojos?
Thursday JP: But if the white-haired guy has finally decided to trust the police, after putting readers through what we’ve just been through, why doesn’t white-haired guy just CALL the police and have the police come to the house, instead of deciding that he will, all by himself, at night, convey Judge Shitface to the……Cripes, this plot would need several hours of major surgery to even begin to make sense.
LUANN: I don’t really like Bernice, but if she ever snaps and murders Luann, she should try to get me put on the jury.
MW: RUH-roh.
RMMD: This focus on diners is not nearly at GA-Scrapbooking levels, but it’s maybe perhaps sort of kind of possibly starting to begin to go there. Just be a little careful, Terry Beatty.
@Professor Well Actually:
With a CGI Dag Hammarskjöld as spokesmodel.
@gardenornament:
Blondie: If you’re a female fan of Dagwood’s style you’re a Dag Swag Hag.
_______________
“Omelets Dagwood Style”- Psy