Please do not mistake me for a snob, I love a starch
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Shoe, 5/26/23
I know that restaurants generically calling side dishes like potatoes or rice or whatever “starches” was a thing at one point, but is it still a thing? I’m sure someone’s going to be like “there goes Josh the coastal elitist again, who only goes to hip, Instagram-savvy restaurants when real Americans in the heartland are happy to order a side starch whenever they go out to eat,” but the joke’s on you because the hip restaurants have started eschewing that bland Instagram aesthetic and are pivoting to TikTok, which rewards motion and video so now they’re doing frankly gross shit like serving dishes where the waiter breaks it open for you and cheese gushes out everywhere. Where was I? Oh, right, I was talking about the phrase “with your meal, you’re allowed a starch,” which honestly doesn’t seem that appetizing to me, and I don’t think Roz saying it with come-hither eyes while holding the menu three feet away from the Perfesser really helps.
Dick Tracy, 5/26/23
Dick Tracy is doing a plot about how boring film-themed villain Silver Nitrate is in prison, and in case you were wondering how he’s doing: he’s doing pretty well! He knows who to avoid now, and it’s the other Dick Tracy villains who tell him, explicitly, that they don’t want to hang out with him. Honestly seems pretty straightforward!
Beetle Bailey, 5/26/23
A group of Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC staff sit around a table, sweating. They’ve just broken open the “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY (THE KIND WHERE YOU RUN OUT OF BEETLE BAILEY JOKES) BREAK GLASS” case that’s been hanging on the wall of the office for as long as anyone can remember. Inside is a single scrap of paper, on which someone has written four words that terrify them: “Sgt. Lugg gets horny.”
153 replies to “Please do not mistake me for a snob, I love a starch”
MW:
“Oh, where, oh, where, could my lady be/
Eve Lourd took her away from me.”
— J. Frank Wilson, “Last Kiss” (adapted)
RMMD:
“Road hog!!!”
“Oh, look, Yvonne! — it’s fellow toon Mr. Magoo!”
it’s extremely difficult for me to imagine the Beetle Bailey writers sweating anything out, unless the HVAC system is fouled up
Luann: HAHAHA, nobody wants to see Nil the Nihilist’s crappy paintings, but not because they’re crappy. It’s because, like most people in the Luanniverse, they’re all about age 5 mentally and are attracted to bright images of cartoon animals.
BB: Wouldn’t it have been more expedient for Sgt. Lugg to get herself promoted until she could just ORDER that snaggle-toothed moron to service her?
MW: Greta is hiding to avoid being tongue-kissed by Saul in public. It’s just too damned embarrassing!
DtM: I’m surprised, if anyone were left outside all night, my money would’ve been on Dennis.
9CL: Parenting? What a nuisance, when one could be having aquatic nookie instead!
FC: The clock says 12:45. Do they regularly go black-tie to IHOP, or is this the world’s most inept baby-sitter?
MW: Forgetting that Greta is a dachshund with legs even shorter than his own hot dog, Saul ignores the plethora of hidey holes that litter the park, and instead diligently scans the high canopies of the surrounding trees as he searches for his missing pet.
“With your meal, you’re allowed a starch.”
“Fine, I’ll take Purex Sta-Flo.”
(Yes, Shoe has me Googling “brands of starch.”)
9 Chickweed Lane : “*creepy, monotone unison* Mother, could it be that you are incapable of distinguishing us, even when we are NOT rapidly exchanging places to obfuscate our identities?” “Of course I can tell you apart! Now, which one of you is MOLLY and which one is HOLLY again?”
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Beetle Bailey : Sarge is not freaking out because he’s unattracted to Sgt Lugg and she’s going too far too quick (though that IS a factor), he’s freaking out because he has no “place” of his own, he’s only ever lived in the barracks
(we’re still going with “Orville Snorkel is a vat-grown mutant from a failed super-soldier experiment” thing, aren’t we?)**********
Dick Tracy : Uh, what do Stooge Villers, Mumbles and Double-Up have in common that they’ll hang out with each other, but shun poor Silver Nitrate? It can’t be “legacy villain rather than half-baked new idea”, because Double-Up is there, it can’t be “secretly a good guy deep down” because Mumbles is there, it can’t be “obnoxious gimmick the current team finds fun so they’re in every storyline” because Stooge Villers is there.
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Gasoline Alley : that cellphone is a literal Deus Ex Machina, it make no sense Rufus would own one, and it seemingly only exists because there is no logical way Joel could be able to get Rufus the emergency help he needs otherwise.
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Mary Worth : Saul looks down on his phone for a split-second, and then we he looks back up, not only has Greta disappeared, but apparently all the other parkgoers and their dogs? Is this storyline going to be about invading aliens kidnapping all of Santa Royale?
FC: IDK, maybe they’re the only black ones he could find. Still, I’m hard pressed to figure why Bil is wearing a pair of baby shoes.
Dick Tracy: “G’losht” = “Go low, shit”? “Get lost (drunkenly slurred on Prison Toilet Wine)“?
@9 Hibbleton: Ted Forth has dainty little girl wrists. Daddy Keane has dainty little baby feet. Saves him money on footwear seeing as he and PJ share shoes.
Shoe: There are indeed people who use the phrase “you are allowed one starch with your meal,” and they’re all employees of food service government contractors. Roz’s diner is just a side gig where she serves up the leftovers from her primary job at the local prison cafeteria.
BB: Looks like one of the sickly, malnourished children who assemble pieces of recycled art 16 hours a day in King Features’ legacy comic sweatshop put Lt. Blips’ legs on Sgt. Lugg. It’s an unforgivable mistake that carries a dire penalty in that cruel workplace: demotion to the Blondie team.
JP: DRAMA! Just look at all that empty, meaningless emoting! The gloves are off and Marciuliano will do whatever it takes to make us forgive and sympathize with the psychotic murderous terrorist! (Except anything of actual substance or that which has to be depicted on-page.)
RMMD: Lest you forget that Hank Jr is a senior, today he’s shown driving slowly down the highway in the fast lane.
DtM: Sure, they took the dog in but now you’re stuck talking on the phone with a six-year old until the school bus comes.
GT: And Henry clears that shark by plenty!
“With your meal, you’re allowed a protein, which will be tofu. See what we did there?”
GT: “Is he pitching with his eyes closed? He is!!!”
*PLINK!!*
“OH! If he saw it he could have fielded that come-backer with his glove rather than his toothy grin…”
JP: April: “It’s not going to be ok Randy! It’s just not!”
Randy: “Well, saves me the trouble of trying then.”
DT: Silver: “…so I know who to avoid…like Lenny and how he keeps droning on about how this isn’t anything like Rikers. We get it Lenny -you’re a bad man”
RMMD: So they’re sitting next to each other talking about nothing important. The drive back is going to be pretty much the same as the entire cruise, especially if Rene springs from the back seat and tries to push Hank out the window.
MW: Nice going, Saul. You gave Greta her chance to escape, and now she’s looking for someone to remove that stupid bow tie from her neck.
BB tomorrow will feature Sarge tied in a knot while hanging from a tree on a cliff side, tongue hanging from his mouth. Thus begins the Fifty Shades of Olive Green arc.
Meanwhile, GT will feature Leo levitating from the mound. Thus begins the Crouching Korean Nightmare, Hidden Muklark arc.
In MW, however, nothing new will begin as Greta is just in a bush trying to ditch the bow tie.
Shoe: The Perfessor has a point: as an obligate carnivore/piscivore, starches have no place in his diet, so you might as well just skip right to the antacid to deal with the horrible things that a mashed potato will do to his gut. Frankly, it’s amazing that Roz’s can even survive, what with all the varied diets of the myriad of disparate species that frequent it.
DT: Thanks for the recap to the storyline that presumably just happened? I’m sure it will be very useful in understanding the next plot that i will also ignore.
BB: Man, Sarge’s face in that last panel is something to behold. Do you figure that he’s intimidated by Lugg sexually, or that he just remembered that two portions of chili that his sphincter is barely containing?
MW: Those seniors and their phones! It’s like they block out everything going on around them. That “calling” will be their ruination.
Mort Walker drew plenty of Beetle Bailey comics with nudity and sex, which he could only publish in Sweden, but he wished he could deal with sex in the US strips. This is a very rare case where a legacy strip actually honours its creator and respect his mandate
Shoe: I too am not a snob; I love an antacid. But if I’m not mistaken, Maalox has been off the market for more than ten years now.
Shoe: Roz points to where The Perfessor signed his contract/menu; “No substitutions. See!”
Shoe – A lot of fast casual places started using the word “protein” for the interchangeable ingredients in their dishes. “Starches” as a term probably died when carbs became the enemy (and, for a good while in the 2010s , gluten, at least until most of those newly-minted gluten intolerant people took up making sourdough during COVID lockdowns).
Beetle Bailey – Sarge isn’t actually disgusted by Sgt. Lugg’s advances. He’s looked up and seen whatever horror that has blotted out the sun and bathed the background in night while the restaurant they just left is still in daylight. Whether aliens, locusts, Godzilla, or just China sending every aircraft they have to invade, Camp Swampy is the last line of defense, and that should concern us all.
Dick Tracy: The word “G’losht” left me thinking it was a slurred version of the villian’s name, and when I realized it was really Silver Nitrate I tried working it out. I couldn’t and “Get lost” was beyond me, so I’ll probably end up shivved in the shower.
DT: You can tell us, Sprocket! We’re just the friendly people reading your expository internal monologue!
Shoe: It’s fine if Maalox is a starch since I’ll then have both in my shorts.
Sprocket, Silver, whatever!
DT – That’s right, Silver, keep telling yourself you’ve voluntarily chosen not to sit at the cafeteria table with the cool kids, even though the truth is they told you to “g’losht.” I had no idea prison was so much like high school.
Wary Morth:
Oh no! Greta ran away to sea! Oh wait, she’s back! Only it’s Rene Belluso disguised as Greta! Now he can scam Saul forever!
Wait, he can scam Saul forever of kibble and dog biscuits. Didn’t think this through, Rene.
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Wrecks Moregone:
Which of the roadside attractions they come across will be Rene Belluso in disguise?
(Sadly for the daily strips, an incompetent scammer is the least uninteresting character in all of them put together.)
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Luann:
OK, that’s not altogether unrealistic. I wouldn’t want to look up a painting’s nostrils either.
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Questionablecontent:
I know nothing about video games. Anyone has any idea whether the gobbledygook of the last few days means anything, and if so, what?
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Beaten Daily:
Sarge lives in the same barracks as Beetle etc and I assume Lugg lives in the same barracks as (?)Bips or whatever her name is, so Lugg’s real question is, “Do you get off on putting on a porno show for boys or girls?”
DT – Silver Nitrate is a fan of old-fashioned Soviet-era secrecy, and will not associate with any gang that promotes glasnost.
Shoe – If the purpose of today’s Shoe was to get me to Google “Can birds get diabetes,” then congratulations, mission accomplished. (Yes they can.)
Beetle Bailey-Sarge, it’s time to come out of the closet and tell her about yourself.
Spiderman-Luke Cage Hero Who Hijacks Taxis
MW-Greta has gone off to a better comic.
JP-“We just have to get a new writer, April.”
FC-“Aw, Mommy, the purpose of the party isn’t to go home with the person you came there with.”
Shoe: Roz replies; “There’s no need for euphemisms. The place is empty. Here’s your White Russian.”
RMMD Hank remains totally chill about somebody trying to murder him, somebody who is still on the loose due to the gross negligence of the cruise line. I get more upset than this if a Beemer cuts in front of me in the crosswalk.
Sarge is trying to remember the lyrics to “Skinny Legs and All” by Joe Tex.
Don Abundio, translated:
“How do you feel about her inviting all her former lovers to the wedding?”
Family Circlejerk: Thel’s not wearing panties, is she?
Shooooey — It’s a restaurant–I’m pretty sure he’s allowed to have anything on the menu in whatever quantity he wants.
DT — In fairness, Silver Nitrate’s lawyer (still allowed those in Neo-Chicago?) did ask that he not serve his sentence in the Dick Tracy wing of the prison.
DT: Look at the big galoot with the antenna cowlicks in panel one. The prison weight room has really bulked Dagwood up.
MW:
“There’s a hot dog-shaped vehicle driving down the roadway parallel to the park. Could she have gotten in there somehow? — nah, she wouldn’t be in a Wienermobile, would she?”
Gil Thorp– Rose goes in the front, big guy.
FC – This looks like a minimalist staging of “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music.
@19 pugfuggly: on Beetle Bailey: The expression on Sarge’s face is his realization that he’s really really not into punane.
@27 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Whaaa?
Shoe: Starches are complex carbohydrates, and Maalox is aluminium hydroxide and magnesium hydroxide, which means no carbon, so Maalox is not a starch. WHY AM I DOING THIS?!?
DT: I wonder if they’re with the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, or the Nuestra Familia.
BB: Lady Sarge just needs to offer Sarge a bunch of food, and he’ll be down for anything.
This is my second time in the pen, so I know who to avoid. Ms. Piston, she knew how everything moved. The Cartridge Family, a self-contained gang. The Dip, messy but the hipsters loved him. And above all, Mr. Nib, unless I wanted to be smeared all over the place. It was going to be tough, but if I knew one thing about the pen, it was that it leaked. I’d be out in no time.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: no wonder you’re scratchy.
@Baja Gaijin: no wonder he’s scratchy.
@Voshkod: If there’s any justice in the galaxy that must be COTW.
Shoe: This is a kind of sequel to yesterday’s comic, showing what the Perfesser is doing instead of watching his child, who has been left in the care of some weird hobo stranger.
Dick Tracy: Honestly, I’m pretty shocked that Dick Tracy took enough criminals alive for a story like this to even be possible. One would think the jails of Neo-Chicago would be basically empty, given how its police rarely arrest anyone in favor of subjecting them to horrific ironic deaths.
Beetle Bailey: This is the average newspaper comic reader’s idea of raunchy humor.
DT: Thank god, Silver Nitrate is in jail. For 24 horrible hours I thought he had teamed up to do crimes with “The Jumbler.”
BB: As they have spent the last several hours in Mama Rosa’s Italian-American restaurant, Lugg is fully aware how much Sarge enjoys “eating out.” She can’t wait to get that snuggle-toothed head between her weird, skinny legs.
My father, who’s 83 years old, still sometimes says stuff about “starches” with your food, like someone might say “You need some proteins.” So it USED to be a thing, and I guess still is with some of our elderly. AKA, the readers and writers of Shoe. I don’t know about a menu since 1970 actually bringing it up, though.
Frazz: What a refreshingly laid back and down-to-earth philosophy! I’m surprised to find it in this strip
Luann: Of course the twelve year olds masquerading as college students would be attracted to primary colors. Nil shouldn’t be surprised at all!
CS: You know, there are larger devices…who gives a fuck?!?
@Peanut Gallery: Dammit, I had to type all that out in Google Translate to find out what he really said.
Come on, Lugg. You have to let Snorkle get in the mood first. Stop by the barracks, let him beat Bailey into a funny pile of broken bones, and he’ll ready to go for the rest of the night.
CS: Mother of the Year Edda can’t tell her own children apart, because twins are absolutely identical in every way, including personality. This feels like we’re seeing the origin story for the Amazon Prime remake of Dead Ringers.
Dustin: “Well…no. She cancelled 15 minutes ago.”
FC: I figured Dolly would be most likely to accept HTTG’s indoctrination.
MW: She’s playing in that {squints} doggy obstacle course.
@taig:
Nobody told Cranky touchscreens let you pinch to expand pages.
I am so overwhelmed with lack of surprise.
BB: Either “Sgt. Lugg” is a teenage Russian spy wearing a GI Jane costume or the United States Army really needs to emphasize Leg Day.
@Ukranazi Stepan: But now you know how to say “the line for the box office of the cinema” in Spanish!
Mutt & Jeff – Now I really want to see some scenes inside the zoo, so we can find out if the animals wear white gloves all the time, or only when they’re going out on the town.
BB: Snorkel’s expression suggests both anticipation and dread. He knows that Lugg is an insatiable sex machine. By morning, he’ll be 30 pounds lighter and drenched in his own sweat. Far too weak to administer his usual beating to Beetle, barely enough energy to give the other man a displeased grimace.
BB: who would want to marry their own body double. I, for one, wouldn’t?
@Ukranazi Stepan: RE: QC–long story short, gacha is a subgenre of pay-to-win games that involves scantily-clad and unrealistically-proportioned anime women doing battle with each other, and apparently Marigold is an addict. However, she could also make a little more money off of streaming herself playing one, so she is conflicted.
IOTW, it’s the usual sort of low-to-no-stakes nonsense that became the norm for the strip after Jacques decided to play to his Tumblr fanbase and was why I stopped reading it regularly.
mary worth- soon saul will receive a call if you want to see your dog again send fifty amazon gift cards to this p.o. box
@Jay Fawley: Thanks — I hadn’t heard of that song. James Brown, who apparently was involved in some sort of feud with Joe Tex, used the phrase “skinny legs and all” in “Mother Popcorn.” I still don’t know why he did that, but at least I know where the phrase came from!
LUANN – Poor Nil. He works hard to create art that is different, thought provoking, not just some portraits like you’d make at a school carnival. And then it turns out to not be popular with the masses attending the school carnival. :(
9CL – Edda just takes any excuse. “Look, there’s a rain puddle in front of the apartment. I guess I have no choice but to put on a skimpy swim suit and spend all day dipping my toes in it.”
Shoe-Here are his options: cornbread stuffing or regular stuffing and does he want the stuffing on the side or it stuffed into his inner cavity.
Based on replies to this, it occurs to me I should have put quotation marks around it to indicate that the Perfesser (or whoever that bird pervert is) was speaking the line.
My shorts are fine. But thank you for your concern.
Damn serendipity with the number I got for my insight about my shorts.
I’ll give Shoe this much: selling crappy diner food is in fact a new frontier in findom. (You do not want to know what the Perfesser has to do to get to dessert.)
MW: Hey, Sid – why did Greta walk off the set? Is she showing solidarity with the striking writers?
@Pozzo:
Make mine a Niagra.
@Tom: Thanks. So basically not worth thinking about.
@Peanut Gallery: Da, spacibo.
Beetle Bailey: That there? That there is the face of a man praying for the arrival of Truck-kun, only to realize it’s already arrived in the form of his date, and he indeed will shortly be isakaied into a very dark world of sexuality and romantic attachment.
I don’t give a crap about how you’re trying to defend yourself. You’re still a coastal elitist. And an idiot.
Dick Tracy: Orange is the new black and white, so really kind of boring, dated, and without the crazy plots, indelible character acting, and rampant lesbianism. Perfect for Dick Tracy!
@Harvey Harveyson: You’ve got a strange hobby, dude. And trust me, we know from strange hobbies around here.
@Harvey Harveyson: But he’s our coastal elitist. And our idiot. So we stick with him. Unlike you.
@Harvey Harveyson: The soapbox is aaaaalllllll the way over there.
Love Is-Hoeing
HH’s appearance has pretty much become predictable at this point. I wonder if he’s actually Greg Evans.
DT: Silver plays it cool, but much like the protagonist in a teen girl comedy he both resents the cool kid clique and secretly dreams of the day when he can join them, if only to get the cute guy who works next to him in the farm labor crew to finally notice him.
Shoe: I have never had a restaurant offer me “starches;” anything under that umbrella is lumped under the generic “sides” label. Clearly I am not hip enough for Roz’s restaurant, or this is an arboreal avian society regional thing.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: He’s from Baltimore; that’s more The Wire than Coastal Elite. Of course, now he’s in L.A., so he’s definitely moving in an elite way. Anyway, I thought fear of a Coastal Elite had given way to fear of the Deep State?
BB: good Moon placement, and the correct phase for once!
FC: Quite the babysitter they’ve got there, letting the kids stay up ’til 10:00pm. Or is it almost midnight?! Jeffy must have liked her, though, because he replaced the original liquor bottle in her arms to… uh… a box of cereal?
BB: Sarge’s immediate behind-the-back boob grab suggests he’s okay with rutting right there on the street. Unfortunately, his facial expression suggests the date may have just prematurely ended.
BCN: Georgia Dunn returns next week! I’m stoked, though I’ve enjoyed the look back at the vacuuum cleaner drama this week.
RMMD: If this were a slasher movie Rene would be in the back seat with a really big knife.
BTW: The killer in the back seat was one of Roger Ebert’s most hated movie cliches. Don’t any of these people look in the back seat before they get in the car? My favorite hate is the cliche where the kids try to flee the killer and of course, the car which was running fine the first half of the film, won’t start.
RMMD: If Rene really was in the back with a big knife if wouldn’t be a total loss. Horrible Hank would finally have the inspiration for his magnum opus, a graphic depiction of his son and daughter-in-law being disemboweled.
Luann: The only person interested in Nil’s nostril paintings would be Bil Keane.
Luann: Doesn’t the woman running the cartoon animal paintings booth look like a real person instead of the usual Evansii potato heads, possibly a friend of K and G?
@Cartoon Moon Pedant: You’re doing God’s work, CMP.
@Guillermo el chiclero: My personal movie hate is the line where the villain tells the hero “We’re not so different, you and I.”
We *&^%ing get it! Show don’t tell, you @#£%!
9CL – Is he realizing that he may need to assign each of The Twins a distinct personality trait, to make them seem like distinct individuals? Maybe, like, one could be condescending, and the other could be disdainful? Something drastic like that?
Better yet, they could vanish again and we could just snark about how you never see the twins anymore and maybe mommy sold them for swimsuit money?
@Cartoon Moon Pedant:
@taig:
A squamous, eldritch, blasphemous, tenebrous, gibbous moon…
DT: Yeah, how can anyone complete a word puzzle on their phone? Surely such a thing is beyond the scope of modern technology! By the way, anyone know a word that fits I_I__? Should be a “D” somewhere in there…
Lio: Are the flowers hitting on Lio? Because it sounds like the flowers are hitting on Lio…
Luann: So we’ve gone from “modern art is pretentious and stupid and any child could replicate it” to “modern art is unappreciated by the unimaginative masses who just want happy pictures of fuzzy duckies.” If this keeps up Luann is going to start showing off her legs and giving combination ballet/piano/public orgy recitals…
MW: Please let it be revealed that Wilbur kidnapped Greta in a desperate attempt to make himself appealing to women… (Yes, I know he tried the “adopt dog, get chicks” thing once already, but when has a little thing like failure through absolute ineptitude stopped him?)
Pluggers’ five-second rule is measured in minutes.
RMMD: Unfortunately for Rene, who’s strapped himself to the undercarriage of their car, Hank and Yvonne will drive through a cactus patch before stopping at the rake factory.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Luann: That’s Suzy Stafford. The Evanses are probably trying to piggyback on the success of “Suzy’s Zoo” because it shares the same target demographic of “Luann.”
@TheDiva:
Poor Rene. At this point he’s the only character in comicsdom I don’t hate.
@Flipper:
Aging incels?
Beetle Bailey: Have we ever seen the enlisted men’s bare legs in this strip? If they’re anything like the stems on Sgt. Luggs, those long training hikes really do constitute an overly cruel punishment.
Pluggers: Is the joke here that pluggers enjoy eating off the floor? Or that they’ll endure the pain of bending over only if it results in a crunchy snack? No, I think today’s panel is actually about how they can somehow open a bag of potato chips from the side, a feat that we all thought was impossible.
Shoe – Starch my shorts – I’ll eat them at home….
DT – A smoking jacket never changes it’s spots…unless it’s goulash Friday….
BB – Can I use your shitter?
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Shoe – I’ve only been asked about or seen reference to a Starch at like higher end Steak Houses.
Or at least, Steak houses that try to appear high end. Especially old school ones.
@93 TheDiva: The “Plugger Five Second Rule” doesn’t apply to any vegetable that’s not deep fried or anything else that’s conventionally considered “healthy.”
Listen, I am all about celebrating different body types, but holy smokes what is happening with Sgt. Lugg’s legs? Her featureless, kneeless, untapered legs? Both of them together could fit in her forearm. Both of them together could fit in her *mouth*! Her femur must be the width of a pencil! What bizarre material are those legs made of, to support the weight of a normal human body atop them? What do they *end in*? Sarge’s rictus of terror isn’t so much about emotional commitment as it is about having his shoulder dislocated by a Lovecraftian horror that’s been hiding in plain, olive-drab-clad sight. (Although he’s probably used to the Lovecraftian horror part, given whatever the hell is going on with everyone’s ears.)
@TheDiva: The only reason Wilbur would do it would be if the market was out of his usual wieners.
@Anonymous:
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Dick Tracy : Uh, what do Stooge Villers, Mumbles and Double-Up have in common that they’ll hang out with each other, but shun poor Silver Nitrate?
_____________________________
They’re all furries, and are on opposite sides of the Disney vs.WB question of superiority.
@Ukranazi Stepan: “We’re not so different, you and I.”
“Of course we are. You’re a villain, I’m a hero!”
“Yes, but we are . . . identical twins! Raised apart, kept secret from each other.”
“So what? Nature and nurture, buddy. We were raised differently, so we’re different!”
“You might think that. But I took the liberty of swapping our brains while you were in my death trap. So we’re nearly identical!”
“Wait, so I have your villainous brain? And you have my heroic brain? But you’re still the villain? I’m confused.”
“So am I.”
“Aha, see, we’re both confused. We’re not so different, you and I!”
“Wait, isn’t that my line?”
@Anonymous: Aren’t the current denizens of Santa Royale the invading aliens? Or are they the aliens that were abandoned by their ships?
Six Chex And A Cat Named Nick Nick na Nick Nick Nick Nick Nickelodeon: Who invited the “Steven Universe” reject?
MW – Karen Moy needs to call Lynn Johnston immediately. Lynn can tell her how killing off Farley led to an outraged uproar from the readers. It’s permissible to endanger or even kill off an adult character (Wilbur, Aldo Kelrast), but don’t ever do that to a dog. Moy can expect an avalanche of half a dozen outraged letters if she goes through with this.
Rex Morgan – Boring roadside attractions! They are going to stop at boring mom and pop diners, aren’t they?
Pluggers – It’s too much trouble to pick up a piece of paper that he dropped, but he’ll be on his hands and knees eating those chips off the floor.
Speed Bump – That’s a well dressed, sophisticated dog. And I love any reference to Magritte.
BB: The fact that Sgt. Snorkel is just not that into Sgt. Lugg is not news. Yet he keeps agreeing to go on what-looks-like-dates with her. Which, I guess, means that as a strategist he fits right in at Camp Swampy.
DT: Don’t be so sure, Silver. The comedy team of Mumbles, Doubleup, and Bob Hope work best as a trio, but they might be looking for a crooner to sing between skits, and you’ve got a certain Steve Lawrence thing going on.
Luann: When the hordes of the damned are released from the shadow realm of Limbo, they will be naturally drawn to the brightness of the forgotten world of Life. So their tastes gravitate towards kitsch…so what? It’s better than whatever crap Nil came up with.
RMMD-And then from out of nowhere Rene appears and tries to run them off the road.
Ziggy-Someone’s going to get a visit from Mary Worth.
Jump Start – They’re jumping the gun. Lanternflies aren’t flying around yet. The nymphs haven’t appeared yet. I’ve been watching for them, and we’ve been talking about putting tape on our maple trees to catch them like we did last year.
They’re much easier to stomp on when they’re in the nymph stage. They start out as black with white spots, then turn into red with white spots. Once they reach the adult stage, they’re difficult to swat because they move fast.
These pests are harmless to humans and animals, but they’re incredibly destructive to the plants that they like, such as some trees and grape vines. They consume the sap from these plants and weaken them.
@taig: Re Frazz – Notice that Frazz isn’t there to join the conversation. I’m sure that it would be different and much more smug if he were there.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’ve encountered it more often in novels, but the cliche that drives me insane is when the detective (professional or amateur) figures out who the murderer is and goes on his own to confront him, without telling anyone where he’s going. Don’t call for backup or tell your partner. Even Michael Connolly has done this.
JP: Our crazed, muderous CIA agent has morphed into Sophie.
Phantom: Here comes The Dork Patrol!
BB: Sarge is gonna get lucky!
@Garrison Skunk:
I read that in the exact intended cadence and tones. Well done.
Beat up Bailey : They could have had Sarge say, “Sgt Lugg, are you making a three day pass at me?” But that would have involved stealing from “MASH” and giving the comic an actual punchline, not sure which the writers would consider the bigger no-no.
The Family Circus from Spanish to English
9CL: Parents of identical twins generally find small differences with which they can tell said twins apart. Edda, to the surprise of no one, has not.
Crock: And today’s “Tell, Don’t Show” award goes to…
MT: A funny fact about bears is that they plan their migration patterns around the avoidance of really annoying stans. Don’t expect to see any around here for a while.
MW: Looking forward to Waiting for Greta, a play by Karen “Li’l Sam Beckett” Moy.
Phantom: The Jungle Patrol really don’t have much to do, do they? Might be something to look into once you’re done with this whole jailbreak thing.
Pluggers: Before the scary vacuum cleaner gets to them?
@Sequitur: Some days they eat the dog food, some days they ARE the dog food.
HtH: Today I learned that snert is a Dutch split pea soup, and has been around for thousands of years.
Mary’s Worst: Cue Wilburp walking by finishing off a giant hotdog bun.
Pluggers: Even if those potato chips landed in the cat’s litter box a plugger would still fish them out and eat them.
@Anonymous: Mary Worth: It’s the Rapture, and Saul wasn’t included.
FC: You never wear a white frock coat with a black tie. Major fashion feaux-pas.
Sex Organ V.D.: “Lets stop at this McDonald’s and find out what they call a Quarter Pounder here.” “They call it a Quarter Pounder, brainiac, we’re back in the U.S.” “‘ A Quarter Pounder Brainiac’?, that’s weird, is brainiac their word for cheese?”
Remember that show Josh co-starred in, “I Love Starchy” and Josh’s catch phrase, “Starchy! You got some ‘mudging to do!”
Anyone know where I can stream it?
@Bobby Sneakers: Thank you for trying. I used to be able to figure out what was being mumbled when I was a child warping my mind by reading ancient DT story collections, so I think the fault is not yours or mine. I think it’s just bad mumbling. Hmmph.
DT: Is there likely to be a scene wherein Silver Nitrate bends over in the shower? I don’t follow the New DT, so I have no idea what twists and turns the stories take now, possibly so to speak.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: “ 9CL: Parents of identical twins generally find small differences with which they can tell said twins apart. Edda, to the surprise of no one, has not.”
It just never occurred to her that there would be a need to tell them apart. They literally raise themselves. Why put in all that effort trying to tell your kids apart, when that is time you could spend staring at your own reflection?!
MW: I have told myself in the past that the excellent Animal actors in MW (tip of the hat to Sid) are constantly off-leash when they are outside because of legitimate magic-realism reasons. So I am going to be very annoyed if we readers are about to be jerked back to Reality As It Actually Is, in which letting pets run around outside off-leash in urban areas is generally a bad idea that can have very bad consequences. I’ll have a few things to say if that happens, yes indeedy!
So I hope it won’t happen. If someone in MW is to be injured and receive medical care, I vote, emphatically, for Doctor Jeff. And killing him off in a tragic touching fashion would be fine too. Yes, I have him in the Dead Pool, but I swear that is not affecting my thinking.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Thank you for these updates. Sounds as bad as ever.
@108 Artist formerly known as Ben: on Beetle Bailey: Sarge is using Lugg as a beard, in an Urban Dictionary way.
@131 Poteet:
Greta’s in that tube thingy getting lost.
Dachshund’s are so dumb.
Audience: HOW DUMB ARE THEY?
They’re so dumb they can get lost in a tube thingy.
@Sequitur: That’s because it feels like home to them.
FC: What Dolly REALLY said: “Daddy, you and the baby sitter really got it on. Say ‘I really had a nice time with you’ to her and ‘Thank you’ for the blow job’ “
Juliet Jones – Eve doesn’t understand why Skeets is upset. Just because Skeets’s rich boyfriend kissed Eve! This was after the brilliant idea of having Eve pretend to be the fiancee and meet the family. Three’s Company rejected this plot because it was too stupid and contrived.
Why doesn’t Skeets just pass her rich boyfriend a note?
Do you like me? Check one:
Yes___
No____
Do you like Eve?
Yes____
No_____
Vintage A3G – Betsy might come across as the salt of the earth, but she’s a manipulative schemer. The sick kid is annoying. The baseball player dad is a wimpy nonentity. Time to move on. Just so the next story doesn’t feature Newton Figg. Anything but that.
Vintage JP – Thank goodness for this. These hard boiled criminals are idiots.
DT: I honestly don’t remember if we learned how Sprocket escaped? Like, I don’t remember ever thinking “But how did Sprocket escape?” so I assume we did, but I don’t recall the details, which maybe suggests it wasn’t as interesting as Silver is making it sound. But maybe we didn’t, and we’re supposed to be thinking “At last, we’re being teased with the solution to this mystery from several years ago!”
HtH: Wait, does this imply that Hägar’s longhouse is not at the beach, but is a full day’s travel from it? Seems impractical for a seafaring man.
MT: Your regular reminder that this nutbar is Mark’s only source for the many and contradictory evils of Sid Stump.
OTF: Since I’m usually quick to point out when a comic artist draws a real location without even running an image search, and just basing it on what they imagine it looks like, I will give Holbrook credit for pretty good shots of the Circle of Lebanon and Egyptian Avenue. Too bad he needed to get the most out of his Google search by then stuffing the whole Wikipedia page into the mouth of a character.
Phantom: I don’t understand why Colonel W is so desperate to be implicated in this not-remotely-legal enterprise. But then, I also don’t understand when the Jungle Patrol turned into a creepy Cult of John X. Seriously, if tomorrow they’re sacrificing the Colonel to their new god, I will consider that to follow perfectly logically from today’s strip.
RMMD: “Looks like there’s nothing remotely interesting ahead!” “Well, let’s slow down and enjoy that!” The Rex Morgan MD mission statement.
Shoe: Once again, the Brit is culturally adrift. I don’t think restaurants referring to “a starch” was ever a thing over here (when I was growing up you didn’t get a choice: fancy restaurants had roast or boiled potatoes, fast food places had chips, Chinese and Indian restaurants had rice, the one Italian place had pasta, and that was it), and I also had to look up what Maalox is.
Luann: Has it already been pointed out that “Nil” is a synonym for “nothing, naught, zero”, and Nilart is thus a high concept proposal for a project that will likely provide exactly that level of experience to exactly that many viewers?
@Ibrahim Moizoos, University of Tennessee at Chicago: Nil ex nihilo.
@Lord_Flatulence: BB: Sarge is gonna get lucky!
What, have an aneurysm and be rushed to the camp infirmary, thereby avoiding time alone with Lugg?
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Nil ex nihilo
His former lover means nothing to him now, you’re saying.
I actually found today’s Beetle Bailey genuinely funny.
@Harvey Harveyson: And you are still sucking up oxygen that could be better used by a higher lifeform. Like a sewer rat.
One more here alarmed at the extreme difference in the sizes of the legs of Sgt. Lugg and Sgt. Snorkel.
@Horace Broon: re: OTF: But are they visiting the renovated half, or the spooky half that’s still falling apart? I’ve been to several of the prominent London boneyards, but haven’t made it to Highgate yet.
re: Shoe: Speaking of Asian-British starch, I’ve had a variety of slammin’ noodle dishes at the Malaysian restaurants on Gerrard Street.
re: DT: I distinctly remember Sprocket Nitrate catching some guy’s eye and meeting him in a cafe after donning a pair of shoes (!) while Silver was busy getting arrested. Object: Matrimony — or maybe just nookie.
@Horace Broon: #138: re- DT: As I recall Sprocket didn’t actually escape but just ran off with some pipe-smoking McBeardo professor type who she took a liking to.
@145 Jeffmcm:
Kind of reminds one of the old Joe Tex song, Skinny Legs and All.
Along with most, I suppose, I actually found today’s Six Chix genuinely disturbing.
@149 person who finds today’s Six Chix genuinely disturbing: If she was going for that “long blue wig, why did I buy it?” look, she didn’t quite hit the mark.
Slylock Fox. Ha haw! And we can’t go up this creek without a paddle.
Saturday’s Archie: I do believe Hot Dog is singing Werewolves of London.
@151 Anscudulous:
I imagine the name of their boat is Lard Bucket.