“Massing,” “mobilization,” same diff
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Crock, 3/16/23
A fun fact is that this is literally how World War I started — or, I guess, is literally why World War I couldn’t be stopped after it started even though everyone kind of knew it was a bad idea.
Gasoline Alley, 3/16/23
Ha ha, Ida Noe, the creepy talking doll, seems to know a thing or two about shaking a dead person’s hand! You can cover her mouth all you want, but ultimately you cannot stop her.
Judge Parker, 3/16/23
RANDY PARKER! He’s tanned, rested, and ready for this assignment. Like, really tanned. Leathery. He spent the entire period when he was off the bench in a high-powered tanning booth. Why did he do this to himself. Is he even human anymore, under all that tan???
Pluggers, 3/16/23
Ha ha, were you planning on spending the rest of your day not thinking about your tongue and how old it is? Well, too bad! And here you thought the only body horror Pluggers delivered was its parade of freakish man-animal hybrids.
175 replies to ““Massing,” “mobilization,” same diff”
JP. The Cavelton Code of Judicial Conduct: A suntan and some meth dealing by your successor is enough to erase your own felonious conduct with your paid assassin ex(?) wife.
I thought World War I started when a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.
RMMD-Sarah realizes that she has made a big mistake.
MW-Mary then volunteers herself to work at the vet’s office. “Oh it’s only animals. How hard can they be to deal with.”
JP-As for Ted Chadwell no one ever saw him around town anymore.
FC-Thel is thinking, “Oh god I hope the bubble does burst tomorrow.”
@Tony: That was David Duke. Before he was elected governor of the Louisiana Purchase.
Do Pluggers still have their own teeth?
JP: “Randy Parker, who took back the empty bench left by my…by Judge Duncan.”
Randy: “Welp, Duncan is dead. Guess I’ll just show up and take his place.”
Everyone else: “Um, okay.”
Pluggers: So this is what a plugger’s hook-up dating site profile looks like? At least it’s direct.
MW: “He’s working too much? It’s possible he’s working too much, then.” Insightful as always, Mary. Look, Estelle, if you want to get your man’s attention, then take a page out of the Plugger Playbook and put your mouth where your money is.
Luann: Don’t you hate it when you dress up your ex-girlfriend like an old woman and she can’t stop flapping her gums?
RMMD: Listen, I have more to offer the world than just GILF blowjob jokes. For example, here’s an elderly man giving a giant alligator a handjob. Diversity truly is strength.
So I’m going to spending my day thinking about how I now know what a plugger who snapped looks likes as that rictus grin haunts my every waking hour.
Funny, I had recently been wondering where/when/how that phrase “tanned, rested and ready” originated.
Turns out it was in reference ol’ Tricky Dick himself:
“Now, on the eve of his 57th birthday, Richard Nixon was tanned, rested and ready to leave California’s sun for the snow and subfreezing temperature of Washington.” (Newsweek) Jan. 1970
There were plenrty of earlier references to various politicians, including Nixon, being “rested and ready” or “tanned, fit, relaxed” and so forth, but the Newsweek bit seems to be the earliest use of the full phrase that researchers can find.
This has been your Useless Trivia for today.
… But everyone is a little bit older than their teeth. Pluggers skipped elementary school science and never learned about milk teeth I guess.
Everyone who has lost their baby teeth is now a Plugger. Adulthood sucks.
JP: “They were all tried by a new judge…We got rid of jury trials a while back. Too messy.”
Dustin : the best case scenario is that the oatmeal DustinDad isn’t that kind of hippy organic oatmeal DustinSister is describing, and he’s getting angry that she’s all “actually, there was a healthier choice you could have made”.
…But, knowing the character, my interpretation is that DustinDad is getting pissed because he hates healthy food and the environment and charity
because he thinks it’s “virtue signaling”, and thus is regretting his choice because he doesn’t want to appear to support any of that stuff.********
Gasoline Alley : are we sure Ida Noe is a doll? She appears to be the same size as the other girls in the second panel, and she doesn’t look more “doll-like” than the rest of them…
Maybe they’re all dolls, or Ida Noe is human and the other three are dolls?********
Judge Parker : so, is Stephen Colbert in the first panel supposed to represent a legal counsel, one of the crooked cops, or a meth gang member?
********
Pluggers : “Body horror” and “how old individual parts of your body is” reminds me of this short story :
https://bogleech.com/creepy/creepy16oldme
(The twist is that brain cells DO regenerate over time, right? And that the narrator is the original’s dimwitted copy, while the original killed themselves from despair of having been turned into a gross homunculus of dead cells, right?)
Crock: This is a great example of the weird non-humor that is Crock. I can recognize that there is a joke there — a bad joke, but a joke — but if anyone were to ask me what it is I would never be able to explain it.
GA: Really tickled by the idea of some hayseed rushing Lincoln’s funeral train to shake hands with the corpse while a crowd of onlookers stand in mute shock.
JP: “…and immediately started his own meth ring. Sun rise, sun set…”
Pluggers are going senile and ramble on incoherently about the age of various body parts. Their children are concerned.
@Tony: “I thought World War I started when a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry”
It was all going swimmingly until six million heavily armed Germans hove into view!
@astroboy: I can’t imagine Nixon tanned. In my head he’s always as pasty as a ball of lard
Wary Morth 1:
Is Eshtelle’s Panel 2 beginning transformation into an elderly ewe an attempt to get herself taken to the Animal Hospital so she can have some DrEdHarding time?
______________________________
Wary Morth 2:
“Why does he cancel dates with you? Is it because you’re a whiny wet blanket who just wants to play the piano and rant about how Weelbur is stalking you?”
______________________________
Inner Beautystan:
Null made the mistake of thinking he was posing Burnice as a model for his version of the Mona Lisa. Burnice knows Kopy Katt level art could point be achieved by painting the Moaner Lisa.
@Where’s Rocky?, JP: I was going to allude to numerous overturned convictions due to conflict of interest, but your observation melds with the SPDverse.
Oh, I’m sure there are no renegade “lone wolves” out there there. Ces wants to wrap up this storyline fast.
MW: “He could be overworked…not sure. Actually, I can’t give a definitive answer cause work is not really my thing. Let’s talk about muffins.”
RMMD: A disappointed Sarah says; “When you said roadside attractions, I thought you meant roadkill. hmmph“
JP: It’s time to put an end to the endless corruption in Cavelton, and so the city turns to… Randy fucking Parker?!
The guy who abandoned his previous post as a judge in a paranoid panic to hide in a bunker? The husband of a traitorous international assassin guilty of killing countless US government officials and other innocents, whose exploits have been widely documented in a Netflix minor hit, with whom he was willingly cooperating to keep safe from the authorities until just recently? The son of another previous judge who abused his position to forge legal documents to help enable his murderous fugitive father-in-law? The family friend of several people directly involved in the wave of killings and corruption endemic in Cavelton before and during the Judge Duncan fiasco? That guy? That’s who was appointed to not only fill the judicial vacancy but preside over the trials of the local police and gang suspects?
Christ on a crutch. And I thought Yelich handling the investigation was going to be the stupidest part of this epilogue. If nothing else, I tip my hat to Francesco Marciuliano for being able to keep shocking me with his ineptitude every day. What happens tomorrow, does Abbey get elected mayor retroactively? Will Sam be appointed director of the FBI for his stellar investigative work? Will Lil Dunk EGOT all over the entertainment world with his freshly-functional vocal cords? Will Sophie conquer the professional wrestling world with her signature face-pounding move?
Blondie: Getting mixed signals as to what they’re actually binge watching here. We all know Dagwood is only turned on by food but hard to believe that would motivate Alexander to play pocket pool. Are they using a VPN to stream topless cooking shows from Bangkok?
(Appropriately named) Crock – No Mass – it must be the Spanish army….
GA – Where’s Waldo? Oh – off somewhere desecrating Lincoln’s corpse….
JP – Bad Cops – Bad Cops – what’ca gonna do – what’ca gonna do….
Pluggers – Pluggers wear falsies…in their mouth….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Pluggers lift folksy adages about age from Miracle on 34th Street.
Blondie: You see guys. When you subscribe to a streaming service like Netflix, you can watch all the shows you want. You don’t actually pay for each show you watch individually… Oh, why do I even bother. For Tomorrow’s joke, Dagwood tears apart the couch cushions searching for change to put in the coin slot on his console television so he can watch Picard.
@Schroduck:
I had a vague idea that the phrase was in reference to someone more recent-ish like Al Gore or John Kerry (yeah, was I WAY off!) Nixon sure wouldn’t strike me as the George Hamilton of politics. He did live in Cali though, so probably had some tan over the pallor.
Crock – In 2014 a YouTube series called The Great War started a years-long project where the events of World War I were covered in real-time, 100 years later.
Reading reruns of Crock on this blog sometimes feels like that.
Gasoline Alley – Ida Noe has been sent to uncover the long-held truth, that beloved (?) World War I veteran Walt Wallet is the descendant of the true assassin of Abraham Lincoln, or at least the Judas that betrayed him
Judge Parker – Judge Parker plans to protect himself from the corrupt cops that still exist in the system by being able to blend into the color of the wood of the courtroom walls.
MW: A Jelly and marshmallow parfait is just the thing to top off a two-gallon bowl of salad greens.
@Hibbleton: Blondie is pretty bizarre in how it takes ordinary modern things, like Uber, Siri, Amazon and Netflix, and totally misunderstands how they work. I wonder if, back in the day, there were comic strips that had people people buying cars, then complaining about how expensive it was to get a new one every time the gas ran out.
Crock: God: Ite, missa est. This is not difficult, people!
@Hibbleton: Pretty sure Blondie is referring to exceeding their internet plan’s data cap rather than extra fees from Netflix. Even still, lots of streaming services do have additional premiums for certain conveniences and content irritatingly more frequently. So either way today’s strip is on point, though they still forgot to make a joke.
Gasoline Alley: Picture this with me, if you will. There’s a creepy talking doll. A. Creepy. Talking. Doll. And it is still less realistic than young children these days knowing or caring about who shook hands with Abraham Lincoln. Why, next you’ll tell me anyone cares about scrapbooking!
Lockhorns: [A single cough emanates from the audience] Leroy is miffed because Loretta blew the bit. At their age, pull-ups refer to a certain, guaranteed to get a laugh, moisture proof underwear.
Judge Parker: I dunno, a judge who literally blends in with the woodwork is pretty appropriate for this strip, wouldn’t you say?
GA – Geez, you guys! All Ida Noe was going to say was, “Before or after Lincoln was shooed away from the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet for hiding a stack of pancakes under his stovepipe hat.”
Pluggers kill other, slightly younger, pluggers and take their teeth. To wear. In their mouths.
@Hibbleton: Agreed, except everyone knows you should eat the parfait first for maximum enjoyment.
@astroboy @Schroduck: Huh. Here I always thought that was a reference to JFK.
@jroggs:
Hmm, I’m pretty sure the creators of Blondie have no idea what the words Data Cap mean.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I will be the first to the top of the mountain”
“I don’t see how, Don Abundio. You’re last in line”
“As we near the peak I will overtake the other climbers in one mighty bound”
“Faster, losers!”
Pluggers: A plugger is as old as her tongue and a bit older than her teeth, and…tripping balls on that edible her son got her for Christmas?
Alt joke: Fun fact: use of cannaboids among seniors, including THC-laden gummies, skyrocketed during the COVID pandemic. I mention this for no particular reason.
Crocky — No offense to the unnamed opponent, but wouldn’t it be much easier to unmass? I myself find it much simpler to leave a party than to enter one. . .
Pugging — I was about to call BS (surely a Plugger’s false teeth be much younger than they are) when I realized they were talking about bay teeth/permanent teeth. But surely the permanent teeth are just as old as the Plugger, just not expressed for their entire lives?
No, I haven’t had any coffee yet. Why do you ask?
GA — And didn’t Mark Twain do this “crazy old coot telling stories about having met a long-dead president” thing already?
9 Chickweed Lane: It’s like Brooke heard the complaints about not seeing the kids in the convertible and delivered…a totally unrealistic joke about random teenagers being terrified of a nun who they have no relationship with?
Also: Oh goody, Brooke found an excuse to draw sexxxy lady legs. Again.
Oh, I should have known Moderationbot was going to impound that comment.
JP: Randy Parker has turned into…Legal Chameleon, Cavelton’s newest superhero! No capes, no masks needed. His disguise is his background, with his ethics, opinions, and complexion all changing to match his surroundings!
Pluggers: Swiping lines from old movies (Kris Kringle uses this line in “Miracle on 34th Street”)
Marvin/HtH: Marvin’s embracing of filth, anti-social behavior, and overall befouling of nature would make a lot more sense if you just changed the name of the strip and its format to Young Hagar.
Judge Randy Parker! He of the inexplicable hair! Is it frosted tips? Is it a tonsure? Is it a child’s bald cap that doesn’t quite match his skin tone and is just kind of… sitting on top of his head? Who knows? It’s Judge Randy Parker!
Objection! I believe pluggers generally have dentures and are thus a lot older than their teeth! I declare Nancy Burns from Ontario, Ohio to be a fake plugger!
Also: “They’re mobilization to attack”?
You know you’re a Plugger when you’ve been making variants of the same joke for the last fifty years.
Year book quote: I’m as old as my gums but older than my teeth!
Still rues; “I should have said ‘tongue.'”
@pastordan: Now I have to submit “Pluggers don’t have a dealer, they have a dispensary” to that AOL email address.
GT: “Your Dad is nice — you know, except for prying into our conversations.”
RMMD: “I like how my son poses with strong, powerful, manly things and his wife poses with that womanly thing. You gals remember that in case you ever go anywhere.”
JP: Hoo boy, you don’t want to be in Sam’s shoes when he is dragged before Randy as an accessory to murder.
CS: “Oh, I had my pill-tainer turned around. It’s been SIX days.”
Whoa! Slam on balls of lard out of nowhere.
“It’s possible he could be overworked at his job.”
“Gee, Mary, I never thought of that! I’ll bet you’re right! I’m so glad I came to you! The Salad Town Super Bowls are on me!”
MW: This is reminiscent of a 1950’s ad. “Is it my breath? My (gasp!) feminine daintiness?”
RMMD: Can’t laugh, I’ve been on many such road trips.
9CL: I’d love a car with a free-floating back seat. Plenty of storage.
MW: Hey, Estelle! You may have a little better relationship luck if you consider other people. 2 salads but only 1 fork? C’mon, let the old woman eat!
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: DO IT
In Athens there once was the ship of Theseus, that had borne the great king to Crete, where he slew the Minotaur and saved the children of Athens. As the ship aged, planks were replaced, sails resewed with new material, paint scrapped and applied anew, and the philosophers asked, ‘if every part of the ship of Theseus has been replaced or rebuilt, is it the same ship?’ Today is the day Pluggers dips a hairy toe into those same fraught philosophical waters.
JP: Randy has written up so many decisions he’s worn all the vanes off the rachis of the quill pen pictured.
RMMD: Not how I remember the flatiron building.
@Weaselboy:
… Which lifted the quote from Jonathan Smith who said it a couple of centuries before.
GT: Say what you will about Gil Thorp’s new extended cast list, but I’m excited to see what Milford High sports can do with Pikachu.
MW: I see that salad dressing continues to be banned in Santa Royale.
The “Pluggers” gag is ripped off from the classic 1940s movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” where Kris Kringle puts that as his age on his Macy’s employment application.
@MKay: “9CL: I’d love a car with a free-floating back seat. Plenty of storage.”
Didn’t there used to be four “Highschoolers” in the car? Were two of them banished to the trunk when they apparently removed the back seat and put it on the sidewalk for these two to make out in?
When you can’t keep the plot straight for your “four kids are making out in a car and then Edda drops Water-Filled Balloon Bombs on them” plot, maybe it’s time to take Mrs. Horner’s Writing Class over in “Luann”?
Pluggers: Pluggers are just a little bit older than their teeth. They get dentures at an early age.
Pluggers: I guess they used the teeth as a comparator because telling us that a Plugger is slightly older than its pubic hair was just a bridge too far.
Luann: if Nil is trying to do some kind of take off on The Mona Lisa, wouldn’t it make sense to use a picture of that painting rather than Borenice?
Luann: I’d have thought that by now, Bernice should be used to people just wanting her to shut up and be quiet.
@Professor Well Actually: “Luann: if Nil is trying to do some kind of take off on The Mona Lisa, wouldn’t it make sense to use a picture of that painting rather than Borenice?”
Well, yes, it would. But you’re far too demanding, requiring people’s motivations in this comic to make sense.
Pluggers don’t need your hoity-toity French philosophers to know continuity of self is an illusion! The rapid decay of their body teaches it much more efficiently, and they didn’t even have to read Althusser.
Dustin: We all know that Ed hates healthy food, and especially healthy food that doesn’t taste good. But is that enough to cause his bloodpressure to skyrocket to the point where he looks about to have a stroke? Or is it the fact that a percentage of the proceeds are donated to charity that makes him positively apoplectic?
I can only draw the conclusion that it’s the latter. The mere thought of his money going to charity gives Ed fit. Nice guy!
Snuffy – They’re serving green eggs and ham? I would not eat them with a kugel. I do not like them, Barney Google!
@jroggs:
Ces: “they *liked* it when Woody Wilson did stuff like this”
well, “like” is a strong word, but Wilson was just *better* at cooking up improbable ways for people to hand the DrPaSp conglomerate fame and fortue
grr. “fortune”
Judge Parker: I really love Mike Manley’s art for this feature. Look at those faces in panel 1: those two dirty cops/meth gangsters/defense attorneys know they’re fucked, because Judge Dark Brandon shows no mercy!
Between Friends – Just take the hint, saleslady, and show her the vibrators already.
Like Hagar, Crock is not a linear chronology, but the focus jumps from point to point in the timeline. After the collapse of the Fourth Republic, the colonial generals and settlers hoped that De Gaulle would preserve French Algeria, but the new president negotiated an orderly withdrawal (and probably always intended to do so since 1958, because De Gaulle a proud man, but he was always a realist). Poulet represents those members of the military who support the champion of Free France, recognising the inevitability of coming to terms with the National Liberation Front. Crock as always is a hardliner and he will probably join the Putsch of 1961, the final humiliating fiasco of the colonial army.
So literally this whole story arc is “if you shake hands with someone who shakes hands with someone who shakes hands with someone who shook hands with Abraham Lincoln, why that’s exactly the same as shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln,” and then going on to describe the chain of handshakes?
I mean, Lincoln was a politician, he probably shook a lot of hands. That’s like bragging you slept with JFK
FC: Is that Dead Grandpa?
GA: “My great-grandfather actually shook hand with Lincoln…”
“What’s that?”
“What, you don’t know about Lincoln?! Don’t they teach you anything in school?!”
“No, I know who Lincoln is, but what is shacking hands?
“Oh right, you grew up under Covid, or Spanish-Flu-Two, as I call it!”
FC – Well, it sure as hell didn’t end in the late 60s/early 70s, when this strip evidently first ran.
@random driveby commenter: Woody Wilson just liked to give his characters undeserved windfalls. What Francesco Marciuliano is doing is more like chopping someone into pieces with a felling axe and then using an office stapler to stitch them back together, creating a macabre mockery of a restored status quo he himself destroyed.
GA: “Uncle Walt, why are you telling us that if we shook hand with you and you shook hand with your great-grandpa and he shook hand with Lincoln, we shook hand with Lincoln?”
“Well, you are too young to know how you get them, it is never too early to learn about chain of infections for VDs! When we were soldiers, they taught us that through Lincoln’s handshake, because we did not have that catchy song!”
We usually get “Pluggers are old and hate young people”, “Pluggers are rustic and hate urban (and urban) people” or “Plugger are not sophisticated and hate sophisticated people”. I did not expect “Pluggers are cyborgs and probably hate pure ‘fleshies'”
Crock: “Oh. They can’t unmass. Oh well, what’re ya gonna do? Let’s head back in and-“ *gets blown up by an artillery shell*
Judge Parker: I haven’t really mentioned it because I usually only comment on the strips Josh is featuring here any given day, but the fact that Judge Parker actually fucking did a time skip and is just speedrunning it’s vast “drug dealers rule Cavelton” storyline via narration in hopes of getting it the hell over with is absolutely hilarious. Also, I love how after all this build-up and hype of the cartels that supposedly run Cavelton, so powerful and omnipresent they can casually gun down judges in peoples’ front yards like nothing and allegedly own the entire police force, is just being arrested and tried like normal criminals. Some cartel this is.
Pluggers: This strip won’t end until you’ve been made to think about every Plugger’s every single disgusting body part in entirely too much detail.
JP: “Shouldn’t you, Judge Parker, recuse yourself from this trial given your personal relations to the case?”
“No, I can sit on this case because, ironically, Judge Duncan established the precedent that anything goes”
Mentioning a specific moment in time near Ida Noe will activate her curse, transporting everyone in the room to see Waldo Wallet lose a game of “Give me five, up high” to the legendarily gangly Abraham Lincoln before pitching forward into the horse-turd-filled muck of 19th century Gasoline Alley.
FC: The doomsayer dressed like an Old Testament prophet carrying a sign was a very popular comic strip trope in the 60s and 70s, much like the castaway on a small island with just one palm tree.
RMMD: The giant alligator statue looks like he’s taking a piss on Hank Jr.
JP: I can’t add anything more than what’s already been said other than I called it! Over a month ago I predicted Randy would get Duncan’s vacancy.
@Ettorre: #77: Yes, Lincoln shook a lot of hands. The Smithsonian has a plaster cast of Lincoln’s hands made while he was campaigning in 1860. The right hand is noticably larger than the left, swollen from too much hand shaking. Even without the swelling those were some big, muscular hands, probably from all those years of rail splitting and keel boating.
“Judge Parker, what happened to your skin?!”
“Listen, the newsletter of the Federalist society told me that there is no career for white people in law because of reverse racism! I had to make a though choice between going Caitlyn Jenner or going Rachel Dolezal!”
@jroggs: Evocative imagery, sir.
Certainly, the best way to attack a fortified position held by a foe with superior firepower in a featureless desert is by a massed assault on a single position. Now we see the only reason Crock’s fortress has lasted – his enemies are as incompetent as he is.
@Guillermo el chiclero: “FC: The doomsayer dressed like an Old Testament prophet carrying a sign was a very popular comic strip trope in the 60s and 70s, much like the castaway on a small island with just one palm tree.”
I was thinking that, too. It’s another one of those odd tropes, since it’s hard to think of why it was so big. I’ve seen a lot of nuts in the big city, including a lot of nuts with signs, but I don’t ever remember seeing one with a sign about the imminent end of the world.
Judge Parker is pissed. He told the Court Clerk that he wanted a crazy straw, and all he came back with was a long bendy straw. His mood will lead to harsh sentencing and a round of appeals that ultimately peter out in the Supreme Court, which rules 6-3 that ‘whether considered de jure or de facto, a long straw is not per se crazy.’
@Hibbleton:
Dagwood only watches Westerns, so he’s shelling the last of his money to watch Yellowstone and the various spinoffs
@Voshkod: Parker v. U.S. Straw & Coffee Stirrer Co. LLC, 599 U.S. 101, at 107.
@The Paralegal That Always Gets the Case Pulls: Now Shepardize that for me. Can we use it in Forth v. American Plastic Straw?
Luann: Nil is deeply regretting his decision to tell Borenice she’s his muse, and with good reason. First she dresses up and acts like an ass, then she turns on a dime and demands, nastily, to be entertained. Nil should dump a bucket of paint on her head and show her the door.
Pluggers: I’ve seen that saying in an L. M. Montgomery novel (“Pat of Silver Bush,” 1933). A plugger is also someone who steals from dead people, it seems.
@Pozzo: #5
“Do Pluggers still have their own teeth?”
Around here someplace, yes.
(Kidding. I’m only down about 2 1/2 teeth after 77 1/2 years, so even if I were Walt Wallet’s age I should at that ration have all but about four.)
So, I have Judge Parker going to the Sweet Sixteen in my bracket – is that a mistake? Are they going to lose to Zippy the Pinhead in the first round?
@Rube: #28
” I wonder if, back in the day, there were comic strips that had people people buying cars, then complaining about how expensive it was to get a new one every time the gas ran out.”
Or every time the ash tray filled up.
@Schroduck: Just coming here to write that. Maybe Pluggers are born with teeth, not being human. But even puppies are born with no teeth. Can’t speak to bears and llamas and such.
@Liam: “MW-Mary then volunteers herself to work at the vet’s office. “Oh it’s only animals. How hard can they be to deal with.””
Mary is very frustrated when her attempts to meddle with the animals all fail. Sure, they gobble down her muffins and salmon squares, but they just ignore all her friendly advice. It’s almost as if they didn’t understand what she was saying.
@Hibbleton: “Blondie: You see guys. When you subscribe to a streaming service like Netflix, you can watch all the shows you want. You don’t actually pay for each show you watch individually… ”
I didn’t read it that way. Dagwood is saying that their internet bill went up. It seems they have a very old type of plan where they pay per gigabyte, or perhaps even per megabyte. Even at just a few cents a megabyte, watching Netflix is pretty expensive entertainment.
Blondie: The other day, somebody commented on the fact that newspaper comics have started mentioning actual real-world brands, where they used to be very careful either to invent new brands (“Netfilms”) or using indirect language (“That big streaming service that everybody uses”).
I think this may be the way they’re surviving a declining market, dying newspapers and a dying audience. “Let’s see which streaming service is willing to pay us the most for a product placement… Wow, Netflix gave us a whopping $100!”
@Patrick+Duke: #76
““if you shake hands with someone who shakes hands with someone who shakes hands with someone who shook hands with Abraham Lincoln, why that’s exactly the same as shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln,”
Alexander died,
Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the
dust is earth, of earth we make loam. And why, of that loam
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
@ectojazzmage: #84
” after all this build-up and hype of the cartels that supposedly run Cavelton, so powerful and omnipresent they can casually gun down judges in peoples’ front yards like nothing and allegedly own the entire police force, is just being arrested and tried like normal criminals. Some cartel this is.”
This JP plot resolution put the horses’ asses in front of the cartel.
@Guillermo el chiclero: #87
” Even without the swelling those were some big, muscular hands, probably from all those years of rail splitting and keel boating.”
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
@Ettorre:
“the colonial generals and settlers hoped that De Gaulle would preserve French Algeria, but the new president negotiated an orderly withdrawal (and probably always intended to do so since 1958, because De Gaulle a proud man, but he was always a realist)”
Yes, I believe De Gaulle said something like “in politics, it is necessary to either betray the electorate or the country. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
@Anonymous: #107
Whoops, that was me.
@Ettorre: This reminds me that Alan Ginsburg used similar logic to devise a chain of b*uggery from Walt Whitman to himself.
REX MORGAN MD: “I’ll be the envy of every old codger roadside attraction photo collector in town. Sure, some of them have photos of a relative posing with the giant moose or the giant alligator, but I’m the only one with a photo of his son posing with the elusive giant “TERRY BEATTY 3-16-23” billboard.
@WEP:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
shouting O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done!
MW: shouldn’t those salads be brown by now?
@Shrug: Walt also shook hands with Shakespeare, but that’s another (boring) story.
Rail-splitting, keel-boating, brown salads…y’all keep sending me to the Urban Dictionary and wow, am I getting an education!
@Guillermo el chiclero: “FC: The doomsayer dressed like an Old Testament prophet carrying a sign was a very popular comic strip trope in the 60s and 70s, much like the castaway on a small island with just one palm tree.”
The cartoon made me wonder how much backing in reality that trope had. I mean, there are some more-or-less eccentric street preachers, doomsayers and self-styled prophets in every big city, I guess, but how many of them actually dress like that? And how common is it for them to carry a sign saying that the world will end tomorrow?
@Ettorre: “I did not expect “Pluggers are cyborgs and probably hate pure ‘fleshies’””
Well, it will probably be quite some time before there are Plugger cyborgs on the streets (first there will have to be cyborgs to begin with, which is probably rather imminent if it hasn’t already happened, but then they’ll have to grow old and fat and jaded. So we’re probably safe for several decades more.
But I think it’s only a matter of months before some internet company announces the first Plugger AI. “Press the ‘ask a plugger’ button on the search page, and you’ll get authentic, synthetically generated Plugger wisdom from our patented PluggerBot ™”.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
@Fred Astaire’s Face: “FC: Is that Dead Grandpa?”
No, it’s Billy.
Wait, so pluggers got false teeth as children, and are still using the same set? I guess that explains her grimace, and possibly pluggers’ bad attitudes in general.
Nixon: I thought the phrase originated in the popular joke poster of my teen years (available at your local head shop or from ads in the back of National Lampoon) HE’S TANNED, RESTED, AND READY — NIXON IN ‘76!
WWI: I made several trips to Yurrip between 2014-2018 and was always impressed with all the “One hundred years ago today” articles in the British, German, and French newspapers. As opposed to The NY Times, which barely mentioned the fucking war to end all wars at all. Yeah, grandpa didn’t get his ass oversea until 1917, but still: Large Event.
Gasoline Alley—Ida Noe is a cautionary tale of just how uncomfortable ChatGPT is going to make everyone in the future. Casual comments about assassinations are just the beginning. Wait until she starts talking about weight gain, cancer diagnoses, and suspicions of marital problems.
Luann: If Nil really wants this image to go viral, he should have Bernice hold an ornate painting frame around her head.
@astroboy: Eli Whitney saw Abe Lincoln and Joshua Speed brown salading in the swampy bottom. It’s on Wikipedia….
@Baja Gaijin: “Luann: If Nil really wants this image to go viral, he should have Bernice hold an ornate painting frame around her head.”
When Nil first told Bernice to take off her muse outfit, I thought he was going to paint her in the nude. And then when he handed her the other outfit I figured it would be something interesting. But instead he made her dress up like the original Mona Lisa. What’s the point? As many people have pointed out, if he was creating a copy of the Mona Lisa, why not just copy the original painting? Why use a live model if she is to look exactly like the original?
…oh, I get it. He has an avant-garde idea that there’s a difference between a copy of the original painting and a painting of a live model that looks exactly the same, even though the audience can’t see the different. Yes, he’s on to something there. That would have been quite original in his grandfather’s days.
@gardenornament: #117
“Well, it will probably be quite some time before there are Plugger cyborgs on the streets (first there will have to be cyborgs to begin with, which is probably rather imminent if it hasn’t already happened, but then they’ll have to grow old and fat and jaded.”
Today’s BREWSTER ROCKET is fairly relevant:
https://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2023/03/16
Gasoline Alley-Shook hands. Right. If he shook hands with Lincoln after he died it would be called necrophily.
@gardenornament: Whenever I see a discussion of Luann I wonder whether the question of ‘when will the first ChatGPT-created comic be published’ has already been answered.
Shake Abe Lincoln’s hand? Big whoop. John Tyler was US president from 1841-1845, and still has a living grandchild.
Beat up Bailey: Plato has sex with his book.
@Voshkod: It’s odd. Greg Evans is, obviously, a successful artist. Yet, his portrayals of artists seem as disconnected from ordinary reality as his portrayals of everything else.
Is Josh sleeping in too much corned beef and cabbage for breakfast, or did someone just forget to plug in the JoshBot?
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yes! I remember reading about this! Very weird.
And another point of longevity trivia, especially for the Viking fans–Bud Grant, who died recently, was the oldest living player who had won an NBA championship at the time. . . Yes, the NBA.
@gardenornament: LUANN: I figured it would be something interesting.
If you thought that then you must be new to Luann. Interesting things may be teased, but they never actually come to pass.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
> ”Even without the swelling those were some big, muscular hands, probably from all those years of rail splitting and keel boating.”
And vampire hunting. Don’t forget that.
@nescio:
Everyone who has lost their baby teeth is now a Plugger. Adulthood sucks
___________________
Pluggers don’t ‘lose’ their baby teeth, they keep them in the junk drawer in case they someday need to replace the clicky thing in the spray paint can.
MT: Special to Ms Poteet — I know you have taken the pledge on Mark Trail, but I thought I’d give you a head’s up that it’s Foreground Fauna day. “Two bucks fighting in nature”
But I gotta say, it looks like they’re just phoning it in. Bored expressions, lackluster performance. I hafta admit, nobody’s feelin’ the vibe over there any more. Anyhow, I need to speak with those two – we expect a more professional demeanor from our clients. Even if hardly anyone is viewing. You don’t need to view after the first panel…..
@Bryan: “If you thought that then you must be new to Luann. Interesting things may be teased, but they never actually come to pass.”
I’m not new to Luann, so I should’ve known better, but one can always hope.
@Shrug:
Is Josh sleeping in too much corned beef and cabbage for breakfast,
____________
If “Blondie” has taught us anything it’s – What foods a man sleeps with is private between him and his significant other.
Besides, as any Constanza will tell you, corned beef is the most romantic of the cured meats.
@pugfuggly:
Pluggers are going senile and ramble on incoherently about the age of various body parts. Their children are concerned.
__________________________
But do they sell their used body parts? The answer to that question will tell us if Ferengi are Pluggers.
Now that there is a Judge Parker back in Judge Parker, the strip is about to wrap itself up, right?
Sally Forth-“And so three months later Sally’s mother was still living with us.”
@Peanut Gallery: “They’re serving green eggs and ham?”
Looks that way, don’t it? Unless those green ovoid things are kiwis… Are kiwis good with ham?
@Gourman D. Scudder: Only if you pluck their hairy feathers first.
Mary Worth – I’m calling it. Estelle is officially dumber than Dawn and Toby combined. If you doubled ‘Stell’s IQ, you’d have a half wit.
When Mary says “It’s possible he could be overworked at his job…”, that’s going to fly right through Estelle’s empty head. Like Mary, she has no idea what a job entails and even less interest in finding out.
@Hibbleton:
JP: “They were all tried by a new judge…We got rid of jury trials a while back. Too messy.”
_______________________________
I didn’t know Judge Parker took place in Dick Tracy’s jurisdiction.
Blondie-That’s not how it works. You don’t pay per show. You pay a standard monthly fee.
Archie-Raj is talking to Veronica about pictures of her without clothes.
@Ukulele Ike:
You had to look on the society pages. For example, an item from 1915 might read: “Philanthropist Dr. Stephen Lawrence married Miss Lita Garner of New York. A planned honeymoon in the south of France has been temporarily postponed due to the recent unpleasantness.”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Thank you, Sid! I really appreciate your taking the time!
I realize that of course you have your own high professional standards for assessing the performances of your clients. But I did read the entire strip, and compared to the other three panels, your “Bucks fighting in nature” are the highlights by far. And reading the whole strip confirmed my plan to visit and enjoy your Foreground Fauna and keep skipping MT on other days. Any of your Animals, even if they’re having an off day, could outshine those bros.
MW: Sheesh. My vet and I have occasionally discussed her heavy workload, and we are just friends. I hope Doctor Ed is not headed for a stress-induced suicide attempt, with Estelle playing the role of Ms.Inexplicably Clueless.
PLUGGERS: Okay, I give up. What animal is this? A bear? A dog? Some hybrid created by Count Weirdly? The terrifying result of someone finally casting an effective curse on Mary Worth?
Don’t pluggers purchase their teeth? Like get them from a doctor and keep them in a glass at night, something like that?
@pugfuggly:
Crock: This is a great example of the weird non-humor that is Crock.
_____________________
Crock’s “mass” appeal?
GA: Okay, Ida Noe the doll in Gasoline Alley is way creepier than Ida No, the ghost in Family Circus, and probably more so than the unnamed devil doll in Sally Forth. Is there a Chucky possession thing going on here?
JP: The illustrated bad cop’s defense lawyer looks like he’s ready to be done with this case, and all the wedgies he’s been getting from his client.
Pluggers: Whichever brave orthodontist is out there fitting dentures for bears, we salute you!
@Tony: I thought World War I started when a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.
“This week, on Drunk History….”
Crank: My favourite Crankshaft strips (that doesn’t sound right; least unfavourite?) are the ones where I imagine Batty thinking “The Chief Plugger still hasn’t got back to me. Screw it, I’m running this one myself.”
GA: Okay, I’ve been resolutely not learning anything about Ida Noe if I can possibly avoid doing so, but she’s a magic talking doll, right? Which I guess is why covering her mouth stops her talking, just as if she were a real person and not a hollow plastic shell with a speech synthesiser inside. So why do her speech bubbles have the jagged edges that are universally recognised as meaning “recorded, transmitted or artificial speech”? One or the other, guys. One or the other.
GT: Honestly, kid, given just how broadly Bajaras is portraying your dad as Absolutely The Worst, even if you were more of an athelete, he’d probably feel threatened rather than proud and put you down even more. I realise that doesn’t help exactly, but at least you know it’s not you.
JP: Just as Rex Morgan: MD has to contain at least one medical story a year, this single panel of a judge named Parker justifies the title of the strip for the foreseeable future. We will now return you to Sam Driver whining about stuff.
MW: “…but it’s also possible he’s lying about that, and actually cheating on you. And you know who wouldn’t do that, probably, very much?”
Pluggers: And now I’m imagining Batty thinking “Seriously? They picked that over the pill thing?”
World War I seems like the sort of war that was inevitable.
@jroggs: The husband of a traitorous international assassin guilty of killing countless US government officials and other innocents, whose exploits have been widely documented in a Netflix minor hit,
To be scrupulously fair to Ces, I’m … moderately sure that the show is about how she was just the unwitting patsy of her ruthless handlers, and hardly even killed anyone, and even if she did it was because she thought they were bad people and she was being a patriot, and it’s not her fault…
Mostly because she made it very clear what would happen to Neddy and Ronnie if it didn’t say that.
@Shrug: #131
“did someone just forget to plug in the JoshBot?”
Oh, wait, today is *Thursday,* not Friday. It’s felt like Friday all day. Sorry, Josh. //Emily Litella voice: “Never mind.” // close Emily Litella voice
9CL: If one of the Burbers or Burberesque women make out with their guy in a moving vehicle or anywhere else, it’s sublime. If the woman is over size 0 she’s a trollop.
DT: “If he leads the police here, be prepared to blank out my eyes so I can pass myself off as Oliver Warbucks.”
H&L: Seem to recall shrinkflation being a problem of George Costanza’s on one episode of Seinfeld.
Luann: In the spirit of Borges’s Pierre Menard, the Author of Don Quixote, Nil wants to be [Real Name], Painter of the Mona Lisa. Only with Bernice as his model, God help him.
MW: It’s worth noting that Ed had plenty of time for Stell when he was shouldering the burdens of the vet practice by himself and is always canceling on her now that he has to hold his nephew’s hand. I don’t know if Mary Worth has ever been called on to fire somebody’s inept relative, but I’d love to see her try.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I believe Ida Noe is the reincarnation of Talky Tina from TWILIGHT ZONE. She won’t get to murder Telly Savalas this time around, but she’s hoping for a good shot at murdering Aubee, and I for one am rooting for her.
9c: Someone here once commented that 9c was basically a bunch of strips fell on the floor and they were printed in whatever order they were picked up. We had the Water-Filled Balloon Bombs (registered trademark) thrown, land, a chase sequence, a nun grimaced retreat and denouement. Then today, one week later, we have the point where the Water-Filled Balloon Bombs make impact.
@Peanut Gallery: “Lawrence?” “Garner?” The Times society page of 1915 would never have included such ethnic weirdos. Anarchists and Wobblies, all of ‘em.
Luann: Look! It’s Bernice! With no glasses! And a load of Renaissance-era clothing! And a wig!
Why, she’s beautiful! Like….like….a bowl of fruit!
@Poteet: I mean, I knew Walt Wallet was going to outlive Aubee, but these are fresh details.
@Shrug: I did wonder if you had time-traveled to tomorrow morning, as Josh has sometimes been known to do.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: MW – Easier solution: May will fix up Estelle with Steven. Hey, it worked with Iris & Zak!
@Liam: World War I seems like the sort of war that was inevitable.
With a name like that, it was the sequel that seemed inevitable.
JP: They don’t call him Randy “Conflict of Interest” Parker for nothing!
Luann: Borenice is less an objet d’arte and more a “piece of work.”
@Ukulele Ike: My comment at 170 was for you!
JP: Judge Randy Parker looks constipated. He needs an enormous dump.
“Oh it was AFTER the assassination, Ida! Yes, the great Wallet Necromancy Dynasty sure has been places and seen things, I tell ya!”
@brendancalling: Bernice is a “still life.” Or, in France, a “nature morte.”
In bed.