TGIF, fellow office drones!!!!
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Marvin, 3/17/23
Most people would tell you that Marvin’s main innovation is that it’s a newspaper comic strip that’s mostly about peeing and pooping, but let’s not forget that it’s also about a whole family — three generations of people, plus pets — who simply do not like one another and would abandon one another for a better offer at the drop of a hat.
The Lockhorns, 3/17/23
I think we can all agree that Leroy is a fairly unpleasant person generally, and so I’ve always assumed that his coworkers spend as little time interacting with him as possible, which probably goes a long way towards explaining his perennial lack of professional success. This is probably the most attention any of them have ever paid to him, which no doubt makes the whole experience sting all the more.
Blondie, 3/17/23
I like that this guy just takes it as a given that, even in his own internal mindscape, Dagwood would not be smart or resourceful enough to escape from a leprechaun on his own initiative.
143 replies to “TGIF, fellow office drones!!!!”
Marvin – Marvin made sure to include the requisite poop with doo-doo bag held by the other dog owner.
Lockhorns – The coworkers are especially happy LeRoy is on time, since it means they get appear in a fully drawn out comic, not the usual void.
Blondie – I have to feel like it was originally a joke about a giant sandwich, but the syndicate called and reminded the Blondie creative team they were obligated to make a St. Patrick’s Day reference
Top o’ the morning to ye!
Lockhorns: Freakishly long desk, and weird conformity of clothing.
Blondie: Freakishly long body and short legs on this coworker, and weird office design.
9CL: Freakishly long back seat, and weird choice of diner-waitress dress.
Luann: Just freakish from beginning to end.
JP. The legal themed comic strip that doesn’t understand the need for lawyers to graduate law school and pass the bar before making partner.
MW: “Try getting the landlord to let you into Ed’s apartment and surprise him with a hot meal. I often do it for Dr. Jeff but of course I’m only wearing an apron.”
9CL – When this started, there were four of them in the car. Now, two of them have disappeared, and the car has morphed into a couch sitting on the sidewalk.
Maybe they should find the rest of the car and drive back to the high school, where Sister Byzantine isn’t working?
Blondie: “And then for St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, we’ll do… *throws dart* …Mr. Dithers is a jerk boss and… *throws dart* Dagwood likes naps, and the hilarious joke that connects it all together will be… *throws dart* …damn, I missed the board. Whatever, good enough!”
9CL: Surprisingly, yesterday McEldowney looped back around and actually showed the water balloons hitting the high schoolers in the
tableless diner boothback seat of the convertible. Unsurprisingly, he’s just repeating yesterday’s joke today and the offended pair is just another palette-swap duo of Edda and Amos. Also, McEldowney seems to have forgotten that two couples means four people. I guess having sixteen interchangeable Leggy Nympho and Horny Dweeb pairs is fine, but seventeen would just be too much.RMMD: I’ve joked about this a lot, but now I’m just going to state it: Terry Beatty has turned Rex Morgan into softcore feeder erotica. You cannot look at this and tell me it has any other storytelling purpose.
The leprechaun would have had better luck if he’d threatened Dithers with returning Dagwood units the ransom were paid.
Wary Morth:
“It sounds like his job’s not a typical nine to five. It’s almost like medical professionals who do actual work have to make time for their patients. I wouldn’t know, since Dr Jeff does nothing at all. Especially to me.”
__________________________
Inner Beautystan:
The Evansi actually nailed Burnice’s genuine character in Panel 3. She’s being the be, all right.
Marvin: Sorry, Marvin’s Dog, but in order to enjoy a porterhouse you’ve got to have your teeth facing the right way.
LHs: I always wondered where Leroy worked, and while ‘ Kooky Downtown High Rise Funeral Home’ is not something I would have guessed, it does seem to fit his personality.
Blondie: I love how we zoom in on the desk in the last panel as if it had anything to do with the punchline. “That desk! Right over there! Where I had my nap!” Fascinating stuff.
Actually, Marvin’s family would abandon each other at the drop of a turd.
Lockhorns: That one guy looks too much like Les, push him out the window.
Blondie: It’s wild what goes through their digestive tracts, judging by the way they’re standing.
Lockhorns: I guess that female co-worker didn’t get the “Dress in black to reflect the strip’s overarching sense of gloom and hopelessness” memo.
Blondie: Suspension of disbelief I get, but really. First thing you do when a co-worker says; “I had this dream…” is change the subject.
“A giant leprechaun…” So Dagwood gets confused by average sized Irish people?
MW: At least Estelle is still using a glass, and not drinking her gin straight from the bottle.
The most incongruous bit of Lockhorns canon is that Leroy has a big city office job. Intellectually, I get that it’s possible to wear a suit and carry a briefcase while sipping Starbucks on the subway heading to your skyscraper where you do… whatever urban professional job involves a degree in philosophy, and also live a precarious paycheck-to-paycheck life constantly worried your wife’s next shopping spree will bankrupt you. But I don’t think the strip does anything to help sell that idea. He’s just a lower middle class schlub, and then he puts on a suit, and suddenly he’s a high powered businessman. It’s like a really bad superhero transformation.
MW: As Estelle stares at the melting ice-cubes in her drink she contemplates whether giving up meat for greens will curb global warming. “Apparently not,” she says out loud.
Lockhorns: judging by his co-workers, Leroy’s got one minute before the end of Office Happy Hour.
I didn’t initially see the clock over Leroy’s head, and just assumed that he was extremely unhappy that people were glad to see him. Now that I see the clock, I stand by that interpretation.
Marvin: This conversation might very well have started like “Hey, what do you feed your dog? Our Bitsy has been unusually constipated lately.” Or maybe “What’s in the bag, lunch or dog poop? Or both? Ha ha! I don’t get out much.”
@Schroduck: update: I just noticed Leroy has upgraded from briefcase to tote satchel. I love this both an accurate depiction of modern business fashion, and because it hints at unseen Lockhorns strips where Loretta complains he wasted more on a leather tote than she’s ever spent on a purse.
JP: Remember how Alan Parker was in an alcoholic funk because Randy was in hiding with April and Sam pulled him out of it by making him a partner in his law office? Man, Marciuliano got even less mileage out of that than he did with Abbey’s run for mayor, and now he’s just completely forgotten about it, along with that class-action lawsuit they were supposed to be working on.
Instead, it seems Sam had so much fun being Gloria’s useless sidekick that he decided to make a fulltime job out of it. I’m not sure why Gloria would want him, but then again I’m pretty sure she was never a lawyer and Sam’s almost definitely been disbarred by now, so maybe she and Sam are just working as legal-themed middle-aged strippers. Pretty niche market, but look how happy Sam is! Honestly, I’m not really sure why. They say if you love your job then you’ll never work a day in your life, but Sam’s been living the second half of that idiom for years.
MW: Goddamn, Mary gives such terrible advice it’s unreal. Even with the dire lack of information about this predicament, it’s not that hard to give decent guidance. Figure out what the problem is, and then come up with a solution. This is especially easy given Estelle’s situation. This is not a matter of two very busy people struggling to find overlapping availability. Estelle has nothing going on in her life besides filling pet food bowls a couple times a day; she is wide open. But all Mary says is, “Keep doing the thing that has failed for three weeks straight, LOL.”
Couldn’t it just be that Dr. Mr. Ed really isn’t into Estelle? She’s incredibly boring and unintelligent and she ditched him last year to make up with the mayo muncher. Ed has plenty of reasons to not like her very much. This whole “too busy with work” thing is a bad contrivance at best. I cannot believe that his clinic’s management is so awful that they simply can’t stop overbooking appointments and allowing late walk-ins without having the personnel to attend to them every single day for a month or more.
Spiderman-“We’ll paint the town red literally. I got a really good bargain on red paint.”
RMMD-“Glad we got here before the Early Bird rush.”
JP-Wait until you meet your coworker Ted Chadwell.
MW: Hey, Dr Ed, it wouldn’t kill you to stay in contact more consistently. Then at least, Estelle might actually KNOW that yes, you’re understaffed and, no, you DON’T have a 9 to 5 job. She’s not going to figure that out on her own, you know.
RMMD: Diners Are Good. Got it.
9CL: Get busy, kids. It’d be a shame to waste that football field – sized back seat.
Lockhorns: I don’t care for this reboot of “Mad Men”.
Marvin – I like it that side character in panel one has a sack of shit in his hand…cuz it’s real….
Schlockhorns – Just what does Leroy do among this attractive and erudite cohort? Troll, court jester, ass-wipe….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: Dr. Ed could solve this whole problem by re-naming his practice from “ANIMAL HOSPITAL” to “9-to-5.”
DtM: Thwarted by his mom and the teacher who insist he wear clothes, Dennis tries to stay true to his innate Visogothic ancestry by eschewing woven cloth in favor of animal skins which, in his case, consist mostly of roadkill.
Luann: I wish Bernice hadn’t taken off her glasses. Honestly, TJ has huge bug eyes, compared to this.
The Lockhorns: Memo from corporate: the good news is, we’re getting that high-rise Manhattan office with a window that looks out over the city. The bad news? Rent is so much that we can only afford one desk for all six of you, plus a digital clock from Five Below.
JP: Awww, what a disappointment! I was hoping we’d see more of Judge Randy on the bench today.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“Ahem, your honor . . .”
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
“JUDGE! Ixnay!”
“Oh all right. It’s just that I haven’t wanted to be back at work this much in years, but I really missed banging this little hammer.”
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Blondie-Naps is what Dagwood calls the times Dithers beats him unconscious.
FC: [Enter Billy] When I read this strip I often wonder how many times a day Thel must fight the urge to punch a baby.
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Dennis the Menace-Dennis is more of a cotton whiskey person.
Dennis the Menace-“How is cotton gin different from the bathtub gin my dad makes?”
RMMD: When we lived in the Northeast, my wife and I would like to visit different diners to try the local flavors. We would often tell our friends about our dining experiences. I realize now that we owe apologies to a lot of people .
Dustin: If you’ve had concerns lately that women are too hard on Dustin and Fitch, and just snark at them for just sharing a bar with them, this strip will calm your worries. Women aren’t sarcastic to and dismissive of our heroes because they are mean or hate men. They are sarcastic and dismissive because D&F are truly pathetic and thorougly deserve it.
DtM: Those are actually good questions and the situation is not very menacing at all. What would be menacing is if Dennis asked about the inventor of gin-and-tonic.
Blondie: It’s rather telling that Dagwood isn’t the least embarrassed or shameful about telling his colleague that he sleeps at work. And that his colleague doesn’t seem the least surprised that he does.
H&L: Chip has odd tastes in comics (sorry, graphic novels). Aren’t teenagers supposed to read comics as a form of escapism, to get away from their boring lives and experience fantastic new worlds? But Chip’s comic seems to be about himself. I’m definitely with Ditto here!
RMMD: Is there some sort of competition about the most boring drama comic possible? Because in that case, this story arc must be a favourite.
@gardenornament:
The twist is that Chip said “a teen” and used no pronouns or posssessive adjectives; the main character of the graphic novel is a girl.
Chip likes this graphic novel because he thinks a girl that’s into other girls is hot.Marvin – “I tried to substitute an ordinary T-bone once and he damn near ripped my lungs out.”
@Schroduck:
I can see the Lockhorns as people coming up from the lower middle class ranks and trying to improve their status. They live in Levittown, the very model for post-war suburbia. They attend a lot of fancy parties, and on occasion Loretta tries to drag LeRoy to the opera, ballet or other cultural event. I can see them stuck between their lower class beginnings where they got married early due to social pressure, their keeping up with the Jonses middle class economic situation, and desire to join the ranks of the elite.
GT: Gil is gonna try to turn Jami’s friend into a REAL boy who his father can respect. First lesson: Stop hanging around with Jami.
RMMD: If this strip gets any more exciting, I’m gonna have to start taking an hour rest between panels.
CS: I wonder how much time Batty spent trying to decide if “Public demeanor is getting meaner every day” is more Crankshafty than “Public demeanor is getting more demeaning every day.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Your ‘crash diet’ worked wonders”
“Thank you, Don Abundio! But can you hold this string for me?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I tend to blow away in a strong wind!”
Wow, Mary is totally nailing her role as Captain Obvious this week!
@jroggs: I was under the impression that Gloria was running a DETECTIVE agency, not a legal office. Something else Francesco knows nothing about, no doubt.
Missing fourth panel from Blondie: “So, hey, today is Saint Patrick’s Day, right?” “Yep.” “Great.”
Phantom: Babudan and Supa-Hot Flaming Skeleton should have their own strip. I suggest we call it Babudan and Supa-Hot Flaming Skeleton.
@Inspector Gotcha, JP:
Let me update for you:
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“Ahem, your honor . . .”
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
“JUDGE! Ixnay!”
“Oh all right. It’s just that I haven’t wanted to be back at work this much in years, but I really missed banging this little hammer.”“Oh, that’s not just the stenographer. That’s my wife, and we love judicial dogging!”BAM! BAM! BAM!
More than once we were told that Dithers saw Dagwood as a son — Young also drew Dithers to look like Dagwood’s businessman father, who has not been seen since the 1930s. And Dithers is usually depicted as the arch-capitalist. Yet, when it comes to treating his son, he’s more like Stalin.
JP: Lil’ Dunc is going to wake up from a fever from gun wounds, right?
RMMD – This guy has obviously never had a Bloomin’ Onion.
The co-workers are right to hate Leroy. He was the one to insist to get back to work in person, since commuting was preferable to working from home with Loretta
M: “Monroe is very strict on what he eats and what falls into his domain. You could even say he has a Doctrine”
The Lockhorns: What’s worse, getting heckled by your coworkers, or getting heckled by the animatronic coworkers purpose-built by your boss for this very reason?
MW: Ed is a veterinarian who apparently owns his own clinic so no he isn’t in a typical 9-5 job. In fact, it’s not a job it’s a business. Where does Mary get her reputation for wisdom?
RMMD: I’ve been in lots of mom and pop restaurants that were not good. Just saying.
Shoe: It’s a nice way euphemism, at least for some definition of “nice”, but I can’t help thinking about what kind of warranty this old bird used to have before he outlived it. “You get a new body of the old one stops working” would be rather nice, but I suspect the grim truth is that his doctor has told him that if he gets cardiac arrest at his age, it’s no use trying to revive him.
@Professor Well Actually: “RMMD: I’ve been in lots of mom and pop restaurants that were not good. Just saying.”
Yeah, the main reason chains became popular is that you always knew what you were going to get, compared to the hit and miss nature of mom and pop places. There’s a reason why generations of fathers have told their sons “Never eat at a place called ‘Mom’s, and never play cards with a man named ‘Doc’ “.
Blondie: “Giant leprechaun” is in the same field of oxymoron as “jumbo shrimp,” implying great size to something that by its nature is diminutive. Perhaps “giant” is a similarly comparative adjective, and Dagwood was being held captive by a supernatural cobbler of Danny deVito proportions.
L’horns: I have to wonder what everyone was doing around that one laptop before Leroy came in. Comparing brackets, perhaps?
MW: “Keep trying Stell! I’m sure the animal population will decline very soon. Have you ever read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest? Well I haven’t either, but apparently there’s a character who is a drug addict in recovery who murders pets. So, have you talked to Tommy about this? He’s in the building a lot. I make him special muffins.”
In John 8:59, it is written – “So they picked up stones to throw at him . . . .” Although one of his co-workers tried to warn him with that sign on the wall, Leroy is neither religious enough or sufficiently well-read to get the reference.
MW: Folks, it looks like what we got here is a failure to communicate. Sure, it’s a handy dramatic device, when used in moderation. But it’s time for Ed to *communicate* his feelings of anxiety, overwork, mid-life crisis, whatever. No, not to that nitwit Estelle – to HIS CAT ODIN! Have they forgotten he has an Animal Companion who would patiently listen to his troubles? A Cat whose thoughtful insight would help Ed get in touch with his feelings… Ya know, it just writes itself!
Well, we haven’t forgotten… we have several excellent candidates on standby for the role. I just hope they don’t fall down the memory hole like “Brandy’s Cat”….
SLYLOCK FOX — SIX DIFFERENCES: In the first panel, the adult bird delivering the earthworm is working for DoorDash; in the second panel she’s working for GrubHub.
Luann comments are LIT today. The TruFans are in the rarest of form. Let’s take a peek…
This comment on its own encapsulates the schizoid nature of the TruFan. And the misogyny. And the overall incelebration atmosphere. But I digress…
OK, first of all no. Second of all, I’m worried about this TruFan’s grasp on reality. Meanwhile, someone sort of has a clue:
And this guy made me laugh out loud:
But wait, there’s still more! If you order now, we’ll also send you a set of
Ginsu steak knivescommentary from other assorted weirdoes and shut-ins, including everyone’s favorite MorCock666!TruFan comment of the decade:
And now a few examples of “talking about the characters as if they exist in real life. You know, like the people who talk back at the screen when you go to the movies.
And on that note, I’m going to bathe in lye.
9 CHICKWEED LANE: “On the downside, she made me a junior priest. So now I’m only allowed to neck with choir boys.”
(Bad taste joke, I know; I blame not being fully awake yet. Bad Shrug! Bad Shrug!)
Lockhorns-Leroy isn’t often late but he is always drunk.
9CL: If he were really clever and not a standard-issue Brookworld Twerp, he would have made a Song of Solomon remark.
C’shaft: Paging Mr. Kettle, you have a phone call from a Mr. Pot…
Dustin: “Pacifist Gerbils” would be a good band name.
JP: So this entire exercise was just a means of setting up a hurt/comfort romance?
Luann: Nothing will turn a guy off on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy faster than Bernice trying to fulfill it.
MT: Okay, who had “improperly disposed trash” as the culprit? Everyone? Carry on then.
(On the plus side, I always loves me a good slap fight.)
MW: Mary’s just beating back a “nobody wants to work these days,” you know it…
Phantom: “You think looking out for your spandexed white ass is EASY?”
Pluggers don’t have a drop of Irish blood in them, but an excuse to drink is an excuse to drink.
RMMD: On the downside, the “house red” at this Mom and Pop place is clearly Welch’s grape juice.
@Ettorre: ” And Dithers is usually depicted as the arch-capitalist. Yet, when it comes to treating his son, he’s more like Stalin.”
I see no contradiction there. In fact, the business owner who has right-wing views when it comes to national politics (especially economic and social policy) but runs his company like a communist dictator is quite a common trope in fiction.
The Lockhorns: That lone container of pens has seen some shit. There were the terrible long months when no one came to visit, yes, when the pens went unreplenished and the container had to listen to the office plants screaming as they died of desiccation. In light of the reduced foot traffic, the container could understand when the reception desk on which it sat was “converted” to a conference table by being sawed off to two feet high, the better to serve the gnome-like workers who huddled around a laptop to parse the disasters that were their March Madness brackets. But Leroy Lockhorn, on time and sober and not bitching about his wife or the LIRR? That shit was new.
@Bono Vix: #3
“JP. The legal themed comic strip that doesn’t understand the need for lawyers to graduate law school and pass the bar before making partner.”
And on St. Patrick’s Day, “passing the bar” is the hardest part.
@gardenornament: Or the communist who turns out to be a harsher boss than the capitalist one
@Voshkod: Holy shit you’re right
B: Dagwood once heard about the ‘Crying game’ and knows that Irish terrorists do kidnappings. Being completely ignorant about any history outside the USA (and probably most history in the USA), he assumes that the IRA are leprechauns
DtM: It’s one thing to interrupt class with inane questions. It quite another to interrupt class by rubbing the teacher’s thigh.
Leroy has his priorities straight. If he’s late, no great damage will come to the world. But he must make sure that his wife is NEVER late!
BLONDIE: Dagwood is keeping his distance from his own desk because he’s worried it might not be infested with leprechaun cooties.
LUANN: No, Bernice, “be” is not how you usually spell that word. Try starting with “bi” instead.
Blondie: Today on “Office Workers Learning Never to Speak to Dagwood at the Water Cooler”: this guy.
MARY WORTH: Maybe Estelle ought to take inspiration from that old NATIONAL LAMPOON cover and send Dr. Ed a photo with a message “Keep a date with me or I’ll shoot this dog.” Of course, Estelle is dizzy enough that she’ll probably get it wrong and send a photo of herself with a message “Keep a date with me or my dog will shoot me,” or possibly “My hovercraft is full of eels.”
@Dennis Jimenez: #25
“Schlockhorns – Just what does Leroy do among this attractive and erudite cohort? Troll, court jester, ass-wipe….”
When Wally once asked a similar question after an office reorganization in the DILBERT office, he was told “organ donor.” I suppose Leroy could handle that job all right, if you ignore the alcohol-diseased kidneys and such.
@made of wince: #28
“Luann: I wish Bernice hadn’t taken off her glasses.”
Another old movie cliche goes to LUANN to die. “Why, Miss Halper, without your glasses . . . you’re even less beautiful!”
Lockhorns: Everyone in a black suit? Either Leroy’s job is in lower Manhattan, or this is a firm of undertakers. The woman in pink is in charge of serving frosted cupcakes after the services.
Ziggy-Ziggy knows ‘Sister Golden Hair’>
Lockhorns: Come on. Nobody believes Leroy buys fancy coffee with a sleeve over his cup.
Blondie: Glad to see Dagwood is still embracing the anti-Irish nativism that he espoused when the comic was launched in 1930–closer to the time of the Know Nothings than our own time.
@Ukulele Ike: I figured them for Conservative Jews. Maybe Orthodox, I dunno, I’m not up on field identification these days.
@Inspector Gotcha: #30
“Oh all right. It’s just that I haven’t wanted to be back at work this much in years, but I really missed banging this little hammer.”
https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/poofjudg.php.html
First Judge: (very camp) Oh, I’ve had such a morning in the High Court. I could stamp my little feet the way those QC’s carry on.
Second Judge: (just as camp) Don’t I know it, love.
First Judge: Objection here, objection there! And that nice policeman giving his evidence so well – beautiful speaking voice … well after a bit all I could do was bang my little gavel.
Second Judge: You what, love?
First Judge: I banged me gavel. I did me ‘silence in court’ bit. Ooh! If looks could kill that prosecuting counsel would be in for thirty years.
9 Chickweed Lane: “A junior priest” would be a “deacon” and/or a “curate.” C’mon Brooke, if you’re going to make Catholic jokes, at least get the jargon right.
#79 – “Keep a date with me or I’ll shoot this dog.”
Don’t give Wilburp any ideas!
@Professor Well Actually: #57
“RMMD: I’ve been in lots of mom and pop restaurants that were not good. Just saying.”
And what would you like to drink with your burger?
Oh, just some pop.
No can do, sorry — Pop died a few years ago, so now this is just Mom Restaurant.
@TheDiva: #60
“Dagwood was being held captive by a supernatural cobbler of Danny deVito proportions.”
https://www.gocomics.com/theflyingmccoys/2023/03/17
Marvin: Love how smug this dude looks about something that one should not be smug about at all. “Yeah, it’s a total pain in the ass caring for this dog. I gotta buy a steak from the most expensive place in town every single day or it just won’t eat. Doesn’t that make me awesome?”
Lockhorns: Nice to have confirmation that pretty much everybody does indeed hate the Lockhorns in-universe as well as out.
Blondie: Unfortunately for Dagwood, this was a semi-prophetic dream, and the real leprechaun would not so easy to evade.
@KMD: #84
“Lockhorns: Come on. Nobody believes Leroy buys fancy coffee with a sleeve over his cup. ”
It’s an empty cup that he fished out of the trash barrel next to his bus stop a few weeks ago; he just carries it around to the office to impress people. (It sort of worked for a couple of days, and then the cockroaches came crawling out.)
DtM: The teacher is explaining how the invention of the cotton gin made processing raw material much more efficient and profitable, which led to an expansion of the slave trade in order to have larger forces working the cotton fields, and Dennis is NOT HERE for this woke CRT shit.
MARVIN: Y’all aren’t mentioning the best (well, “best”) part about the scenario: only one of those people has a doody bag (you’ll never guess which person!)
REX MORGAN M.D.: Hey remember the intermitable ” Dogs are Good” plot from Mary Worth a few years back? Did you want to see it recasts as “Diners are Good”? Well too bad, cause here it is anyway! (And, hey, did you like how that arc had a potentially more interesting storyline that was inexplicably relegated to a “b” plot? Well guess what….?)
@2+2=7: I didn’t notice, I was distracted by the anatomical nightmare happening in the second panel.
Marvin- Monroe’s a pleb. The Porterhouse is the ‘Kim Kardashian’ of steaks. All glitz but no substance. A true steak aficionado orders a ribeye.
MARVIN: Blue-shirt Guy: “We’re picky so we just eat porterhouse steak.”
Goes home.
Blue-shirt Guy (opening bag): “Hey, this isn’t our take-out….”
Luann: could it be that Borenice is neurotic and frigid? What’s so hard to understand about posing according to what the artist wants?
Six Chex and A Cat Named Jim Carrey: Someone just saw “The Truman Show”!
JUDGE PARKER: Lawyers don’t need go to law school or pass the bar or anything like that! I bet all those aspiring attorneys working hard to make partner feel pretty stupid that they didn’t simply take the shortcut of getting themselves involved into a drug-and-murder plot.
@Danielakiiki: No, no…why remove the bone from a perfectly gorgeous rib steak? Chewing on that sucker is the best part of the experience.
Blondie the Neighborhood Bumstead: …but did Dag get his giant Lucky Charms™?
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even leprechauns may die.” By which I mean, the slumbering void ate him.
RMMD: The key to finding the perfect house wine is selecting a diner with paper napkin dispensers on the table.
SFx: There are seven differences today. If the six you find don’t match the six in the solution, does it still count?
Blondie:
It was a sex dream wasn’t it?
Leprechaun: Rub my giant Shillelagh and I’ll take you to the end of the rainbow!
Blondie: If this comic really needs to have a St Paddy’s-themed strip, it should be an “Erin go braless” joke with Blondie playing the part of Erin.
Of course, that would be totally lost on Dagwood, who only gets turned on by food, but it would be popular with the readers.
Blondie – As someone who has dozed off at her desk more than once, it’s not something to be proud of, or admit openly. Especially if you’re out so long you hit extended REM sleep. I’ve had the “head-falling snap-awake” version of dozing off. In my defense, I was still recovering from a tonsillectomy, and we were in a new office that had white noise. I’m a far better employee than my work-hours posts on CC would indicate.
Luann: Bernice has actually understood what Nil hasn’t: that just painting a perfect copy of Mona Lisa is a waste of time, and desperately tries to make things more interesting by trying to look just a little bit sexy.
That it’s Bernice, of all people, who sees a need to look sexy speaks volumes. Nevermind that she fails; at least she tries, which is more than you can say of Nil.
@Ukulele Ike: Porterhouse isn’t a rib steak.
Does Dagwood sleep his work hours away because Mr. Dithers does not value him or does Mr. Dithers not value Dagwood because he sleeps his work hours away. This is ultimately irrelevant. That you wouldn’t want to be either of them ought to be your main takeaway from this.
@gardenornament: Some of you people need the gentle touch of an actual woman.
@Old School Allie Cat: “Blondie – As someone who has dozed off at her desk more than once, it’s not something to be proud of, or admit openly. ”
But you’re not Dagwood (and thank heavens for that).
So why is Dagwood admitting it so freely? Take your choice:
a) He is proud that he has such a privileged standing that he can sleep away half the day at his desk and still keep his job.
b) He doesn’t really care if he keeps his job or not – Blondie’s catering business brings in enough money to sustain them, and if he lost his job he could take naps all day.
c) The writer doesn’t care about making sense anymore, and hasn’t for the last fifty years or so.
Okay, I’ve been avoiding/ignoring Luann all week…..
yyLuann: Did anyone say, “The Smirking (Cancerless) Lisa”, by Batty (Rtd.)?
@pastordan: “9 Chickweed Lane: “A junior priest” would be a “deacon” and/or a “curate.” C’mon Brooke, if you’re going to make Catholic jokes, at least get the jargon right.”
Not to speak of the fact that I don’t think a nun can “make” anyone a priest, no matter how junior. I’m no expert on the Catholic church, but wouldn’t that be the bishop’s responsibility?
yyLuann: @jroggs did a Batty allusion. Close enough.
@Professor Well Actually: If Borenice was a real person, she would be utterly intolerable. She’s a humorless shrew; she’s rude to her best friend while at the same time depending on same BFF’s family for room and board, she’s an uptight snitch who rats out her friends in her dorm (none of these students drink or take drugs on Luann’s planet, so what’s the big deal); and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with being uninterested in sex, she leads men on to THINK that she’s interested, and then acts like a victim when those men respond to her advances. It’s not so much that “posing according to what the artist wants” is hard to understand, it’s that Borenice as characterized is an attention whore. All take and no give.
The scene a few months back where Borenice had this list of rules for her romance with Nil actually reminded me of a gal I dated very briefly in high school. When we kissed, I was reminded “no tongue.” I could touch her breasts over her bra, but not under. One prohibition after the other. We lasted about two weeks.
@gardenornament: Why would Nil bother to try? She gave him this list of rules that made any kind of intimacy impossible, and then he said “fuck it,” and decided she was his muse.
@pastordan:
9 Chickweed Lane: “A junior priest” would be a “deacon” and/or a “curate.” C’mon Brooke, if you’re going to make Catholic jokes, at least get the jargon right.
_____________________________________________
Somewhere Brooke is saying, “Oh! Now I get that joke on “The Odd Couple”….Ad Exec: “We want Deacon Jones to do this ad. Felix: Why do you want a priest to do a shaving blade commercial?”
@brendancalling: ” Why would Nil bother to try? She gave him this list of rules that made any kind of intimacy impossible, and then he said “fuck it,” and decided she was his muse.”
I meant that you’d expect him to try to create an original piece of art, not just a copy of Leonardo’s original. He’s clearly just considering Bernice his model and nothing else right now (and I suspect he chose her because as his self-appointed muse she will pose for free), but he might still want his painting to look sexy, or at least different from the original.
@brendancalling: Bernice has actually been shown to be interested in sex – she’s turned on by steamy romance novels, and by the risk of being discovered making out with Nil (when they still were making out). But she’s being extremely neurotic and uptight about it, so the result is that she ends up not getting any.
I can buy the rest of your assessment.
FC: Maybe there’s no green eggs and ham but Thel will definitely be hitting the green beer before noon. Erin go braugh! Slaite!
RMMD: The late Andy Rooney once said that he’ll never go to a diner that advertised real home cooking on it’s sign. If he wanted home cooking he’d eat at home.
Phantom: Real brave of you, Babudan. Shoot a guy in the back from a dark corner. Stripey’s no-kill rule doesn’t apply to his hirelings.
Phantom: Strange how in the middle of an intense firefight Stripey and Babudan can engage in some light banter like they’re making a buddy road trip movie.
@Danielakiiki: Nope. Porterhouse is sirloin, tenderloin, and tail. Take the tail away and it’s a T-bone.
A ribeye steak, however, is a boneless rib steak = a rib steak with the bone removed = what I said.
@Guillermo el chiclero: “FC: Maybe there’s no green eggs and ham but Thel will definitely be hitting the green beer before noon. Erin go braugh! Slaite!”
And when Bil reproaches her for drinking before noon: “But green beer doeshn’t count! (hic) Itsh not like I’m incoxit… inxotica… drunk, I’m jusht shelebrating Shaint Paddy!”
Phantom: “Strange how in the middle of an intense firefight Stripey and Babudan can engage in some light banter like they’re making a buddy road trip movie.”
Well, it is a common trope and a good way to so some exhibition and action at the same time.
Talking while trying to sneak through a well-guarded prison would of course get them killed in real life, but this is an action adventure, dammit!
Phantom: ”I have enough on my plate! All you guys are so BIG.”
@Ukulele Ike: You left out the tomahawk ribeye, which still has the bone attached, usually sticking out a few inches. Sirloin is a flavorful steak, but tougher than a ribeye. Tenderloin is very tender but is often wrapped in bacon when served alone to add flavor. A ribeye is very flavorful and almost as tender as a flavorless tenderloin. Patrician tier.
@gardenornament @Garrison Skunk: Right, a bishop ordains someone to the priesthood. There’s a discernment/ordination process, but the bishop has the final say and does the sacramental laying on of hands that consecrates the ordinand. In Catholic (and other episcopal) tradition, one is first ordained as a deacon, and might stay there, or after some time, go on to be ordained as a presbyter or elder.* So unfortunately the Odd Couple joke doesn’t work: a deacon and a priest are two separate offices. Such is life.
This has been your lesson in church weirdness for the day. Should any of this information become actually useful, you want to say ten Hail Marys and kiss your ass goodbye.
*In my tradition and others, there aren’t deacons, and ministers are ordained as presbyters. The Catholic priests I’ve known find this a bit disconcerting, considering the process they have to go through.
@Voshkod: #62
Great reference! They do look like they’re about ready to hurl stones at Leroy. Which is fitting.
Hey, that Lockhorns is actually pretty funny. It’s a red letter day.
Red and Rover: The boy feels Irish because he ate an Oh Henry candy bar, then in the fifth panel we see him slouching away with his pants so low we see a pair of cheeks, although no butt crack???
How is this Irish?
Even his dog has a “?” Above his head before he gets a treat, to which Rover says, “O’YUM!”
@pastordan: 9CL: I would have gone with “sexton.”
FC: Thar she juts!
@gardenornament: LUANN: Bernice has actually been shown to be interested in sex – she’s turned on by steamy romance novels, and by the risk of being discovered making out with Nil (when they still were making out).
Oh, it’s even worse than that: she wasn’t merely “turned on” by the risk of being caught. It was a full-blown requirement, as in she wouldn’t even start kissing Nil unless and until they were in imminent danger of someone walking in on them. So for about 5 seconds things would look good, but then once someone did walk in on them she would act offended and upset at Nil, and shut everything down. She deliberately sabotages any chance of closing the deal, while having a convenient scapegoat to point the finger at. That’s not someone who’s interested in sex, that’s someone who’s frigid but looking for an excuse never to get physical.
So after a few times of that Nil wisely gave up on the idea of getting with Bernice.
Luann: Niles spin on the Mona Lisa is that she will be topless. Mind you he doesn’t know what Borenice’s boobs look like. Neither does Borenice.
DT: I know Nero Wolfe isn’t an “action guy” — that’s what he has Archie for — but I do feel that if he leant backwards at this point, sheer mass would do most of the work in taking down Duncan.
JP: Honestly, I don’t care if Gloria being a partner makes no sense — the idea that we’ve gone from “Sam’s junior partner Steve and secretary Gloria leave to get married/ set up their own firm because Sam doesn’t actually have any clients”, through a surprisingly long period of “Abby tells Sam that if he wants to play at being a lawyer he can do it in the barn” to “Sam is now Gloria’s junior partner because he doesn’t have access to the barn any more” is objectively hilarious, and I’m glad I got to see it.
MW: Having deduced that someone who has to keep cancelling dates because of working late may be overworked, Mary tops this by suggesting it’s also possible he doesn’t keep regular office hours. And then her actual “advice” is … “keep trying”. What’s in her “water” glass, and how much of it has she already had?
(Or, of course, this could all be further evidence for my theory that Mary wants Stell and Dr Ed’s relationship to fail, so she can have another go at shackling her to freaking Wilbur.)
RMMD: Days since a Rex Morgan MD strip was set in a diner with characters droning on about how great diners are: 0. We didn’t even make it a week.
Possibly the first time ever that a character in The Lockhorns has cracked a smile – and not just one but five people.
Blondie the Neighborhood Bumstead 2: “…that Leprechaun was after me Dagwood Charms™…my red roastbeefs, yellow moonpies,blue Dagwoods,purple hot peppers, and green pickles!”
Blondie: Dagwood wasn’t so much kidnapped as detained for questioning in the big Lucky Charms heist.
Lockhorns: Give your coworkers a break, Leroy. Since none of them seem to have any work to do, they know mass layoffs are likely imminent, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be the only one on the unemployment line.
C-Shaft: …the parent-hostile school bus driver says from a glass house riddled with cracks.
DT: Wow. Good thing master detective Dick Tracy says that Wolfe hasn’t been kidnapped, or this might cause some concern.
Dustin: Well, it’s not the absolute worst gerbil-related icebreaker he could have used.
JP: Sam is happier to drive across town to work with his hot widow partner than he was to just walk across the lawn to his above-the-stables office. I was going to ask what Abbey thought about that, but quite honestly Sam shows little interest in having one woman in his life.
Luann: Rather surprising that Nil hasn’t put Bernice off with a, “Give it up, honey, I’m gay.” True or not, it’s gotta be tempting.
MW: You probably won’t kill or injure yourself or others by applying custom vinyl window lettering while drunk, but it’s still not recommended.
Pluggers: Pluggers are too poor to afford a change of clothes.
CS: When will Ralph and Keesterman realize that they’re just being used as straight men to set up Ed’s malaprops?
Rex Morgan – The nonstop action of “Roots Country” must have been too much excitement. Buckle up for six months of “Mom and Pop Diners Are Good.”
Mary Worth – “…In any case, if you want a relationship with him, keep trying.” Wait a minute. Where are the platitudes? This is an imposter. What have they done with Mary?
Judge Parker – Wait a minute. I don’t remember Gloria being an attorney. She was originally Sam’s secretary, and when she and her late husband worked together, she wasn’t an attorney. I guess during this last train wreck of a story, when she wasn’t screaming “What’s happening!?” she managed to do three years of law school, including working on the Law Review, and pass the bar exam.
Frazz – Taking credit for something you didn’t accomplish is a no-no, but it’s perfectly fine to be smugly superior to people who don’t adhere to your lifestyle.
9CL – Brooke buried the lede. These are time travelers from 1944.
I was away for a few days, and when I got home I wasn’t able to catch up on everything until yesterday and today. Reading the past week of Judge Parker all at one time was enraging. I already loathe this strip, but if I hadn’t hated it before, I surely would now.
JP: Isn’t Gloria supposed to be Hispanic? With a name like “Shannon?” Is she one of those people who’s so into Padraig festivities that she not only wears green on March 17, but changes her name for the day?
DT: Not a real kidnapping, just some sort of elaborate orchid-based sex play between Wolfe and Zeck. The blindfold gives it away.
Blondie the Neighborhood Bumstead: “That giant leprechaun was after me Dagwood Charms™ with my red roastbeefs, yellow moonpies, blue Dagwoods, purple hot peppers and green pickles!”