Soapy catch-ups
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Gil Thorp, 5/22/23
Oh, were you wondering if the Great Vape Caper was still underway and still funding the Milford Athletic Department and/or the lifestyles of certain Mudlarks? Well, it seems that the kids are still in it just long enough to pull off one last score, which is too bad because Marty Moon has finally gotten bored enough to start following teenagers around and taking pictures to see if he can find any who are doing something interesting enough to put on his podcast before he gets arrested for it. Normally at this point in the season Marty would be very drunk most days and wouldn’t have the energy or initiative for this, and I don’t think Gil and the gang have reckoned with how their lives are going to be more difficult now that their main antagonist (media division) is sober.
Mary Worth, 5/22/23
Oh, were you wondering if the next Mary Worth plot would be about that couple at the Bum Boat who were looking at their phones instead of talking to each other? Well, too bad, it’s going to be about Estelle and Ed’s vet clinic, and about Old Man Wynter and his giantess girlfriend and their respective dogs. Those dogs better get a clean bill of health! I know I just made fun of Rex Morgan for having zero narrative tension, but I don’t want to see any god damn animal suffering in this strip! We do not need to see any more enormous dog tombstones, you hear me?
216 replies to “Soapy catch-ups”
GT: Marty exposes a teen vape-selling ring on social media but still gets slammed for filming in portrait mode.
GT To truly honour the memory of Al Jaffee, I printed out this strip and folded it in thirds. It doesn’t make much sense, but there’s 33% less Gil Thorp to look at, which I consider a win. Thanks, Al!
MW My God, did you hear that? WOOF. What a bitch.
MW: “Greta why don’t you want to go to the park? Wait, what is this? Mayonnaise on your bow tie and fur? That’s it, Weston has to be suppressed! Where are my steak knives?”
Gil Thorp – Marty Moon will probably get an award for this hard-hitting coverage, if only because he is the nominee for the Sports Podcasting – High School Sports category
Mary Worth – I can’t look at the “Adopt Don’t Shop” sign and not imagine the local animal shelters also have a poster of Wilbur with “Do NOT Adopt Out To This Man” written on them.
I’m still waiting for the part where Saul Wynter attaches a shitload of balloons to his house.
MW: Can we start a gofundme to make the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade balloon of Eve linked to by Josh a reality?
GT: Marty? He’s still in this strip? I really thought that was Coach Luke.
Al Jaffee, Meta: yBarney and Claude did a nice Snappy Answers tribute.
RxMD: He could be anyone and anywhere. The Captain. The kiddie impresario. Yvonne. ANYONE.
In other news, YAY! Rene’s escaped. We’ll find out he’s either a Changling or the Universe’s Most Pathetic Terminator.
Phantom: Wait until the Bandar encounter the Walking Dead. They’ll have to teach multiple lessons.
MW:
“Who’s your favorite jurist, Greta Girl?”
“Woof!”
“Did you say Felix Frankfurter? — good girl!”
MW: Wait—WTF? You mean Moy is starting a new story without resolving the last one? What happened to that couple in the restaurant? Are you saying they had dinner and then just went HOME?! Mary never meddled them!
Gil Thorp – J Jonah Jameson is going to pay big money for those photos of Spider-Man without his mask on.
MW – Wait, Eve bringing ‘her dog’ insinuates she only has one, but this isn’t the dog she was walking before. Is Eve a dog ‘black widow’
Mary Worth: Now that Mary’s had her two weeks on panel, they can put her back in the cupboard under the stairs knowing she hasn’t been “Barney Google’d” out of her eponymous strip.
RMMD:
“You have my assurance, Mr. Harwood, that we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to locate this dangerous miscreant Belluso. Why, among other things, we have cruisegoing jurists Learned and Augustus, baseball player Brad, and football player D’Shawn scouring this level for him!”
“No. Don’t say it, Captain.”
“Yep. All Hands on deck!”
@Josh, I guess Eve being a giantess explains why Estelle is suddenly giving with the height jokes: “Dr. Harding will be with you and Max SHORTLY.”
RMMD “You can’t find him? This a fucking cruise ship! There’s limited space, there are security cameras everywhere, and you have actual goddamn Gurkhas providing security! How is it possible that you can’t find him?”
“Narrative convenience.”
@Baja Gaijin: Don’t bet on it. Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Seems to have lanes a long-term contract that will feature dogs and cats in various locations for the foreseeable future. Mary’s only chance to stay relevant at this point is to get blinded in one eye and catch the mange.
FC: “Oh, you’re still funny, Jeffy…but it’s the kind of ‘funny’ that gets a syndrome named after you.”
DtM: “Try this one, Padre: ‘What to do if a woman grabs your genitals.’ I bet that will fill the pews.”
(Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
MW: Has this dog always worn a bow tie? It’s way too early in the day for me to be looking at this
GT – When you the Moon is in the seventh house; And Jupiter aligns with Mars….
MW – Dr Harding will euthanize you and Max shortly….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
GT – Mr. Barajas, what do you say to complaints that the Gil Thorp plots have become impossible to follow?
“What, me worry?”
Mary Worth: I support any plot that doesn’t rely on Wilbur-shilling.
Slylock Fox: Max is staring at that bird in horror because they just told him his eyes look tasty.
@16 Charterstoned: I think we’re saying the same thing but from different ends. You’re saying the cute pets are taking over the strip. I agree. To keep the strip from being renamed to “Cute Pets on Parade With No Buttinski Biddies In Sight,” Mary has to show up on panel periodically each year. She met the requirement with the past 2 weeks’ bee grinding strips.
@18 Zipper Mule: Yes. Saul put small bowties on every dog he’s owned no matter how creepy in an “EVILSCARYCLOWN in the Sewer” way it looks. Increasing the creepiness, he matches his and his pet’s bowties.
MW – “Thanks. But don’t call me Shortly.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“The last time I went for 50 they dropped it on my head”
“I don’t want to push my luck”
Six Chix: You can have any cartoon you like, as long as it’s not funny.
Lockhorns: “One day we’ll look ‘back’ on this and regret we ever looked ‘back’ on this.” Passive-aggressive Leroy can’t rue the past without throwing in a jab about the size of Loretta’s backside.
MW:
“I’m thinking of doing a sequel to my popular children’s fable book. The working title is ‘The Dog Who Cried “Woof.” ‘ Oh. Wait a minute. It isn’t Sunday yet.”
— Aesop
MW: The exam room door closes. Eve and Ed embrace passionately. They know that Saul is safely occupied at the park and Estelle is too stupid/busy cleaning up droppings to suspect anything.
RMMD: For crying out loud, is Junior going to have to don his cape and be a hero AGAIN??
Fortunately, he was in the Crimestoppers Club in High School.
GT: I can’t say I’ve seen a tribute like this to Al Jaffee. I don’t mean that in a good way.
MW: I wonder if there will be a moral about dogs in this story?
GT: Stupid dedication to snappy artist.
Frazz: This almost captures the dichotomous relationship children have with time. There, I said something good about this strip.
Luann: The masters of misdirection have struck again! Who would have thought Jack would show up?!?
CS: “Don’t make me constipated. You wouldn’t like me when I’m constipated.”
9CL: I’m thankful Edda won’t answer the “hunk of what” question.
Dustin: Meg is here to scroll through Instagram and spew insults, and she’s all out of insults.
FC: “Yes, Jeffy. Just not in a way people like hearing about.”
FC – “‘Anymore?’ Please, don’t make me laugh…that’s right. You don’t.”
FC: You’re right, Jeffy. You’re no longer funny. You’re just plain stupid.
FC: I still talk about you to the neighbors, Jeffy. Everytime I start a conversation with do you know what that moron did it’s about you.
Gil Thorp – Are we sure that’s Marty Moon and not Coach Hernandez? Marty never works that hard for a story. I’m just saying…
Or Corinthians 69.
GT: When they sell their last case? Who knew there was a booming teen market for (presumably stolen) vintage Mad magazines? I certainly did not.
@pugfuggly: You are into “comment of the week” territory.
Spiderman-You should go to the drugstore and buy some Plan B then.
Slylock Fox-Smitty then smacks his forehead. “This is why my brush isn’t getting clean.”
MW-Such a big apartment complex and we are focusing on only a few of it’s residents.
JP-This is the secret origin of Sally Forth’s mom.
FC-Come up with some material of your own instead of repeating what other people do, Jeffy.
@Baja Gaijin: @16 Charterstoned: I think we’re saying the same thing but from different ends. You’re saying the cute pets are taking over the strip. I agree. To keep the strip from being renamed to “Cute Pets on Parade With No Buttinski Biddies In Sight,” Mary has to show up on panel periodically each year. She met the requirement with the past 2 weeks’ bee grinding strips.
You’re not counting all the rats in the Bum Boat, then…?
GT – Maybe if we folded in the strip, it would make sense.
GT: Yeah? What about George Booth and Ed Koren, fucker? In for one, in for all.
@Hibbleton: “You don’t need to call me ‘Padre,’ son. I’m an Anabaptist.”
Gil Thorp: Marty goes up to the principal of Milford to rat out the vape-sellers, they ask what proof he has, he says “I follow teenagers around all day while filming them from a distance!”, and is baffled when he gets fired and threatened with legal action.
Mary Worth: I never thought I’d say this, but thank God, a Saul storyline. With how obnoxiously over-long the “Iris’ boyfriend’s babysitter looks JUST like her!!!” and “Estelle gets stalked by Wilbur and bangs a veterinarian” plots were and how they blurred together, this strip talking about ANYTHING other than Wilbur’s creepy life or the tepid, toxic relationships of middle-aged losers is a relief.
Luann Creepy oddball Piro is back in Bernice’s life for 5 seconds, and he’s already being jealous? This seems healthy.
JP: “April, you’re taking this personally.”
CS: “Dad, the delivery guy has only one arm, so cut him some slack. You’ll just have to hold it in.”
RMMD: “So I’m sorry to say, we won’t be able to dock until we find him. We’ll just keep sailing up and down the coast until then. Hope this doesn’t inconvenience you.”
RMMD:
“How confident are you that you and your intrepid seafaring staff will be able to locate Mr. Belluso before he is able to engage in more nefarious felonious activity, Captain?”
“Let me put it to you this way, Mr. Harwood: I wouldn’t be standing so close to the rail if I were you!”
“Woof! [Why, yes, I would love to go to the park, even though all the other dogs will make fun of me for having to wear this ridiculous bow tie. Because it sure beats sitting around here watching you decay.”]
Ah, dogs. A simple woof can mean so much. “Yes, I want to go to the park.” “Hello, pet me.” “Excuse me, but I am hungry.” “Hey, asshole, take the fucking bowtie off me. I’m not Louis Farrakhan!”
@Voshkod: Saul’s original name for Greta was “The Honorable Late Senator from the Great State of Illinois, Paul Simon,” but it proved to be a bit of a mouthful.
GT: Dedicated to the late Al Jaffee, a pervert known for secretly photographing minors, apparently.
MW: Was I too hasty to abandon independently reading this strip over the yoga pets? Well, here’s the series kicking off a new plot about the nutbars that worship and dress like their dogs. Yep. Yep, I’m good.
MW: Hooboy, talk about short notice! We only learned late yesterday that Max and Greta would be reprising their established Animal companion and therapist roles! Barely had time to get Saul and Greta’s ties to The Dry Cleaners – had to pay extra for express service…ouch. And we didn’t have time to get Max to his usual groomer. That’s why he looks a little different today,@Everything Is Better With Monkeys. They fluffed him up more and enhanced his color a bit. You may remember some of his appearances as being lighter with brown, stitched-on ears. Well, that was his stunt double. But that’s the real deal you’re seein’ today… I think..
So we had to tell all those hopefuls for the role of Brandy’s Cat we wouldn’t be needing ’em yet. But wait — that sign! Adopt, don’t shop! Is this foreshadowing that either Saul or Eve (or both!) might adopt another pet – maybe a CAT! Hey Intern, get Ms Moy on the phone … call from the burner phone and maybe she’ll answer…
Gil Thorp: Milford Athletic Department, MAD magazine? Work with it.
@Ukulele Ike: Having met and shook the hand of The Honorable Late Senator from the Great State of Illinois, Paul Simon, I can attest the man was approximately dachshund-sized.
Blondie: Dagwood gives his morning wood a pep talk; “Rise and Shine, [Little] Bumstead! Time to make some memories!” but decides to go back to sleep when he sees his wife has already left the bedroom.
RMMD: make a public announcement about a life changing seminar with Professor Mairakle and Rene will show up. Never forget he’s dumb as one your dumber rocks.
@Ukulele Ike: I will name my next dog “The Honorable Late Senator from the Great State of Illinois, Paul Simon,” just so I can shout across the dog park “stop humping that German shepherd’s leg, The Honorable Late Senator from the Great State of Illinois, Paul Simon!”
Mary Worth: Calling it now: the real tension in this strip is going to involve whether June Brigman sticks with analogous color schemes, or if she moves to something like a triad or a complementary. In the case an over-the-top major event, like the return of Aldo Kelrast, we could even get a double split complementary, but whoa whoa whoa, let’s not get all crazy here, let’s just take things one #e5eae4 and #8fb5cc combo at a time, shall we?
GT: I get wanting to honor Al Jaffee. He was an icon, a man who lived a long, full, and influential life, and few are the humorists and comics artists of a certain age who have not been entertained and influenced by his work. But throwing a generic Mad cover randomly into one of the fifteen plots you’re trying to juggle is not what I would call a tribute to his life’s work.
MW: Realizing that competing with Rex Morgan in the slow, no-stakes drama arms race is a recipe for mutually assured boredom, Mary Worth has decided to take on Gil Thorp’s “switch plots every week and see what sticks” territory.
@Little Guy: It’s not marked as an Al Jaffee tribute, but Adult Children also did a Snappy Answers gag today.
GT — I’d say this tribute was written by the usual gang of idiots. . .@pastordan: Milford Athletic Department — High School Sports, brought to you by the usual gang of idiots. . .
Meanwhile, Gil Thorp‘s take on the classic HBO series The Wire has started off slowly. Sooner or later the bodies will start hitting the floor, I assume, if only off-panel.
Slylock: Smitty gets off by claiming his abhorrent behavior was the result of inhaling VOC’s from the deck stain.
@pastordan: Hence the bowtie schtick. Better to be known around Washington as “That Senator with the bowties,” than “The teeniest little Senator ever.”
@Voshkod: I swiped the joke from an old Daniel Pinkwater novel, wherein one character’s adopted Dada name was “The Honorable Venustiano Carranza, President of Mexico.”
9CL – With the years of retconning Brooke has done, it’s not surprising that he’s lost the plot.
Remember those two years we spent rewriting the strip so that Edda and Amos met at birth, and have spent every second of their lives together? The frequent flashbacks to Squished Edda and Hideous Geek Amos as small children, with Edda tormenting everyone around her and Amos standing there watching her?
Other than continuity issues, however, its a joke and the punchline is delivered competently. For someone who spent a whole week on having the entire cast show up to try to decipher a typo in one of Amos’ hourly love notes to his Lonce, it’s progress,
Since when do dachshunds say “woof?” In my experience, it has always been “yap.”
@Rube: “Luann – Creepy oddball Piro is back in Bernice’s life for 5 seconds, and he’s already being jealous? This seems healthy.”
The Stasis Quo always wins. What, did you expect that suddenly Bernice and Piro would be a couple and do couple’s things together? While Bernice still lives with the DeGroots and is afraid to pee after dark because she might wake someoe up? Then we would have to introduce a whole new character to serve as a mysterious, but always only potential, love interest!
9CL: I would have gone with “steaming pile” myself.
C’shaft: “Dad, I told you to get toilet paper when you were at Costco last week…”
Dustin: She’s texitng “Good news, I just found a new way to make my dad miserable!”
JP: Come on, if you’re going to go with the pseudo-Zipatone look use it for the whole strip. That second panel is just BEGGING for that Lichtenstein aesthetic!
Luann: Now here’s a bunch of “artists” I wouldn’t mind seeing replaced with an AI program.
RMMD: “On behalf of the Carnvial Corporation, we apologize for losing your attempted murderer and would like to offer you a $500 future cruise credit good on any sailing departing before May 25, 2025…”
(A cruise line did lose my luggage once, which was annoying enough–“It’s not like this is an airport and you accidentally sent it to Dubuque, it’s either on the boat or at the pier!” It worked out in the long run, so hopefully Hank and Yvonne can look forward to having Rene mailed to them a few months later.)
Gil Thorp-Life in Milford must be so boring that they have to make the selling of perfectly legal items seem like it’s illegal.
@Ukulele Ike:
“You don’t need to call me ‘Padre,’ son. I’m an Anabaptist.”
But that just tells me that you’re not a Baptist. It doesn’t tell me what you are. Very suspicious, Padre.
Selling vape cartridges in order to save up to collect Mad Magazine might be the nerdiest example of organized crime I’ve ever heard of.
Oh wait, crypto. I retract my statement.
@Inspector Gotcha:
Yeah, she should keep in mind that none of us want to see her either!
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: I didn’t notice the joke. Too busy marveling at the outfit Edda chose to hang around the Void today. Married lady, mother of twins, still dresses like a 15-year-old skank at the mall.
There’s always plenty of reading matter in Crankshaft’s crapper: Sheridan’s The Rivals, a dogeared copy of The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra….
@41 Charterstoned: I said “pets,” not “the ‘turf’ in ‘surf and turf.'”
MW: Karen Moy spun the Mary Worth plot wheel, and it landed on Saul, woo! Well, it was actually a coin flip, but still… it’s Saul!
CS: Pam should just let her dad go outside until she can put down more newspaper.
GT: Snap! Don’t you hate it when you’re so busy taking a picture, you don’t even realize that you should follow up with some selfies because you’re smiling the best selfie smile ever? Flip that phone, Marty! You look super-smug and particularly well-groomed.
@Voshkod: The only “vacants” in Milford are the trophy cases outside Gil’s office. . .
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box, 9CL: I remember when Juliette was the Ur-Karen with biting withering complaints to service industry peons about insignificant things.
CS: Now look, Dad. It was your bright idea to start rationing the toilet paper. Once I finish husking these ears of corn you’ll have plenty of stuff to wipe your ass with.
Mary Worth – I know I’ve kvetched about this before, but not all that recently, so indulge me – this is a strip that has a format perfect for introducing new characters WHENEVER THEY WANT. So why do we keep leaning on the same, small, homogenized cast?
#MaryWorthSoWhite
@Voshkod: Hold on to your dreams, young Voshkod! You CAN do this!
Gil Thorp-Marty has to get pictures of teens anywhere he can since he’s no longer allowed in hot locker room.
@Bob Tice:
“Did you say Felix Frankfurter? — good girl!”
________________________
But can she say “ba ba ba”?
Slylock Fox: No, the clue wasn’t Slick trying to wash oil based paint off a brush with water. Slick Smitty is the one man crime wave who just yesterday broke into Slylock’s office in broad daylight with a dead flashlight and ditto phone, for no comprehensible reason. He’s obviously an idiot.
No, Slylock suspects Slick of porch piracy because the first thing he did was look at Rachel Rabbitt’s Ring(tm) video, which she showed him, and, after, all is what real detectives check first anyway, and he saw Slick do the crime.
// So what was in the delivered package? Elementary. A wooden bird feeder, a can of oil-based stain, a paintbrush, a tennis ball, and a garden hose. As TV’s Sergeant Preston would say, “This case is closed.”
Six Chex and a Cat Named Arlo: You can have any shoe you want at Six Chix Restaurant.
9CL – Brooke’s ideal woman is lounging around on the couch in a short skirt and halter top. We forget, as does the author, that these two live in Seth and Fernanda’s apartment, and have twin daughters who are probably outside playing in traffic. Edda is reading “The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure”. Amos is not going to like how this plays out….
9CL – Edda is reading “The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure”. Amos is not going to like how this plays out….
9CL – Tried to speculate as to what Edda is reading. Socialist Feminist tracts and the spam filter do not get along. So, I’ll go for the classics. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”,
@Ukulele Ike: “There’s always plenty of reading matter in Crankshaft’s crapper: Sheridan’s The Rivals, a dogeared copy of The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra….”
and Cranky’s favorite poem: Vol. 20 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Ode to Pay.
There’s something about Alfred E. Newman being drawn in (one Bing later…) Rod Whigham’s style, squinting from the cover, that would make any young people stumbling on this strip think MAD was about normal looking angry people who are maybe upset about their freckles. The average aged newspaper comic reader will be wondering if dementia is finally setting in and if they are misremembering what MAD magazine was about.
9CL – Spam filter does not like the word for the economic system that is an alternative to capitalism, with collective ownership. Probably because it has the same letters as that pill that makes your dick hard-ish so you can sort of fuck with it.
So, I’ll speculate that, rather than radical feminist literature, she is reading “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”, and got stuck on the first chapter.
SlylickFox and Comix For Kinx: Slick Smitty accused Rachel Rabbit of being a raging alcoholic and drinking his turpentine, leaving him with just water to clean the brush. Rachel bursts into tears and suddenly admits her life has all been a lie.
@taig: MW: Dogs are good!
1 and Done: Hmm. This could work two ways. Either the potties are going to be trained or these are the work stations for the students when they arrive.
JP – Everyone knows that when kids make gruesome faces, an adult tells them, “Your face will freeze like that!” Well, look at those frowny faces. That’s not an old wives’ tale.
6Chix – Did Bannerman drop acid when she drew this? That perspective is mind blowing. The shoes look like they’re the size of boats, and they’re just plopped on the shelves without any connection to them. She would have done better to draw a view facing the shelves without the perspective.
Bannerman must have skipped class the day they covered perspective. It’s too bad, because she’s one of the more competent artists among the six. She’s usually better than this.
Frazz – Get back to class! How can you be smugly superior if you don’t get an education?
MW – I’m not religious, but I’m praying that Saul and Eve don’t get into doing yoga with their dogs. Namaste.
@Rube: RMMD: Some cruise ships are pretty big. The last one we went on had over 6,000 passengers and crew.
@Lord_Flatulence: Oh, sure, but it’s still a ship. You can’t just run away.
Agnes: Hmm. This strip could go one of two ways. If this is a one-off strip we’ll never see a fish but sometimes it has a story that goes three to four days. If that happens we may see a fish and SID will get a commission. But don’t get your hopes up SID. This is a very low budget cartoon strip and we could go three or four days with this story and never see a fish. Besides, the artist probably can’t even draw a fish. He can barely draw humans.
Crankshit (literally this time) – I recall years ago when the Minneapolis dead tree had an ombudsman, he wrote of conversing with an ombudsperson colleague from somewhere else, who told him she got a message from someone regarding a delivery problem. This guy was upset that his paper came so late that he had to delay his morning toilet functions. So we know where Batty got his idea for this one.
@Ukulele Ike:
There’s always plenty of reading matter in Crankshaft’s crapper: Sheridan’s The Rivals, a dogeared copy of The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra….
_____________________________
‘Long as I already have the earworm….You can read anything you want in Ed Crankshaft’s toliet bowl/ sit right down,it’s around the back/ big enough to fit Old Cranky’s crack. and when you’re finished don’t make us sick/hose it down with that gallon of Air Wick™. The seat is plush/no need to rush/ and if a big job don’t forget the double flush. You can read anything you want in Ed Crankshaft’s toliet bowl.
@Garrison Skunk: It’s no “Tenser said the Tensor,” but I’m sure it will drive peepers out of your head.
I can’t help being curious about the noise a phone makes when magnifying a camera image. Is it a mechanical whirring noise like you hear in movies, or is it an actual human voice saying the word ‘Zoom’? Unfortunately I’ll never find out, as the only Android users I know are my parents, and they are far more likely to use a Plugger zoom lens of holding a magnifying glass over the phone.
@Rube: Rene probably stole a life boat.
@Garrison Skunk: Hey, it was good enough for Abe Lincoln…
@Bob Tice: “Yep. All Hands on deck!”
And Disney Legend animator David Hand!
Dirk Twacy, No Longer Dreaming: “…then Thing Addams and Lady Fingers kept stealing our money…”
@I speak Jive: 6Chix: Those aren’t shelves, those are shoe bleachers. Foot Locker used to have them.
Dirk Twacy, No Longer Dreaming: “…then Thing Addams and Lady Fingers, our stagehands, kept stealing our money…”
Hi and Lois: I hope you both enjoy the elephant tartare.
@Lord_Flatulence: And having been on a cruise ship, you know that’s impossible, but since everything else in this story has been impossible, that’s probably it.
Silver and Sprocket Nitrate were hands-down the lousiest criminal characters introduced in Nu-Wave Dick Tracy (with the possible exception of the guy with the fish head). So nice to see them back.
@Charterstoned: MW: Meddleus Interruptus.
@Sequitur: “Sir, I hope you understand that we cannot slaughter an entire elephant for a single dish of elephant tartare. May I recommend the gnu ragout?”
Mark Trail Vintage: Mark, before Cherry.
@Peanut Gallery:
@Garrison Skunk: Hey, it was good enough for Abe Lincoln…
_______________________
I didn’t know Lincoln was into rabbits.
Gil Thorp: While you can still subscribe to the great Mad magazine, it’s just a bunch of reprinted articles from old issues. (So you might get, say, a Back to the Future parody, plus “The Lighter Side of Hippies.”) Meanwhile, Gil Thorp still publishes an original comic strip every day, and probably will forever. There’s probably a lesson there, but I don’t know what it is.
@Peanut Gallery, @Sequitur, @Poteet: Re: last Friday’s username discussion, it looks like if I wanted a new handle, I’d have to get a different subscription account, or just stay logged out so I could change it manually. Both of which, screw that noise. So pastordan it is! (I was kinda looking forward to trying out “I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV,” oh well.)
@Ukulele Ike:
of elephant tartare. May I recommend the gnu ragout?”
_____________________
“This tastes more like OLD ragout.”
@White Rabbit: Yes!
@allangary: thanks!
@Inspector Gotcha: You might think that “Anabaptist” means “not a baptist”, but the “ana” prefix in this case means “again” or “re-“.
The name Anabaptist means “one who baptizes again”. — Wikip.
// So they believe in baptism, but not infant baptism.
// Me, I believe in infant baptism. Hell, I’ve seen it done!
@Ukulele Ike: DT: Wasn’t one of the Nitrates killed off?
@Extremely Rev. N. Scudder, the Guiding Wight: Hence the phrase, when some annoying person comes into view, “Oh no, here comes that anapest again!”
@UncleJeff: Damn if I can remember. I think Sprocket (whose whole personality was that she didn’t wear shoes) broke away from her brother after he hit her in the face, and took up romantically with ?????. Possibly another villain, maybe an innocent bystander, hell, Groovy Grove for all I know.
I really liked “Ghost” Pepper, the murdering cook/restauranteur…what a great face! I know he got et by a giant jellyfish, but isn’t there somehow we can get HIM back?
@Lord_Flatulence: Whatever they are, it’s a terrible drawing.
@114 pastordan:
Ah, I was hoping for “Chihuahua Transport”.
I know why Crankshaft wants the newspaper in the bathroom. He loves to piss on the comics.
Hi and Lois-And put it all on Mary Worth’s bill.
@Sequitur: I mean, I guess I could bring back “Best Garage Door Yerevan.”
@Extremely Rev. N. Scudder, the Guiding Wight:
The name Anabaptist means “one who baptizes again”. — Wikip.
I feel strangely vindicated.
I own two dachshunds and dachshund owners are a crazy bunch, so let me offer you some advice, Mary: unless you want to answer a bunch of angry strongly worded letters, keep your hands off the wiener.
Heathcliff: If you wake up with a bone-in ham under your pillow you’ve had a very busy night.
Crankshaft-Somebody refuses to wear diapers.
@126 pastordan:
Or you could use, “CLICK THIS!” and have it link to this.
Pickles: Grandpas never lie.
Pardon My Planet: What’s the guy on the left doing with his hands?
@Ukulele Ike: “Damn if I can remember.”
Yep. DT in a nutshell.
@Hibbleton: I thought it was one who doesn’t kidnap one who decides who can handle the job. You know, an a-nab-aptist.
@Peanut Gallery:
Abbey Road: The Cutting Room Floor Tapes
♫ Have you seen Anapest Ann?
She’s good looking but her poems did not scan,
She asked “What can I do?”
They said, “Just write haiku,”
Eventually she moved to Japan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♫
@Sequitur: Why would I want to do that to Baja? (Because it’s fun, that’s why.)
FC: Just wait a few years, Jeffy, and your mom will start telling people what you did again. Only, this time it won’t be entertaining little stories meant to elicit a response of “awww, how cute!”. The response Thel will be waiting for then is “How horrible! You have my sympathies.”
@Extremely Rev. N. Scudder, the Guiding Wight:
Ah, I see. Thank you. So either Colonel Korn was wrong or my memory of his interrogation of the chaplain is faulty, probably the latter.
For the record, I am not an anabaptist. There, I said it. Are you happy?
@Sequitur:
…and why the pinup of Bart Simpson?
@92 I speak Jive: and @104 Lord_Flatulence: about Six Chix
Academy Sports displays their shoes like that too.
RxMd: I know, I know, I know!! I know who helped Rene escape – Augustus Mirakle!!!
Oh wait…
@141 Garrison Skunk:
You sure that isn’t a deformed Minion?
I’m analog.
@Ramblin’ Nehemiah Scudder, Folksongerator:
Her name was Yoko/ but whereever we’d go/people would call her Sonny Bono.
Slylock Fox: Rachel Rabbit is not pointing at Slick Smitty but rather to her package sitting just off panel.
I suppose that’s better than Rachel Rabbit pointing at Slik Smitty’s package.
@Sequitur: re Agnes: Wait – you didn’t see the Fish? He’s right there in panel 2. Of course you could have mistaken him for a small bottle or a deflating balloon. He’s just gettin’ into The Business and said he’d take anything… that was decent, of course. So we gave “Agnes” a one-week package deal for as many appearances by him as they choose. It’s up to them to use it wisely.
@148 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
You’re right. The strip is so dark I missed it.
@pastordan: Wait….I know this one! You’re the surgery patient’s mother!
6Chx: I’m waiting for someone to mention the peplum on the hem of the customer’s skirt. Or is that technically a flounce? In any case, it’s weird as hell.
@151 Ukulele Ike:
Maybe her petticoat’s too long.
A&J – Yep, Arlo’s always craved a rocket launcher. I’m not surprised, but some son-of-a-bitch will be.
@taig: Anna Log, Anna Log – All my dreams fulfilled….
@153 cheech wizard:
Perhaps he’s wondering where the lions are.
@Extremely Rev. N. Scudder, the Guiding Wight: Anabaptists are Hutterites, Mennonites, and Amish. I am a member of the middle one.
No, we don’t eschew electrical conveniences.
Yes, I do cuss. (Hope that isn’t a shock to anyone.)
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I always thought that Pluggers should have one of those slow moving vehicle triangles bolted to their butts….
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Can Amish shock people? Or is that too electrical?
FC: …I have the distinct feeling that Adult Jeffy is trolling for snark, and I don’t like it.
GT: “When we sell the last case. Because obviously our supply of vapes that we can sell at less than market price and still make a profit is limited, due to the way we acquired them. Which you already know, of course, and so I don’t need to explain that any further.”
Also, since even comics don’t care about newspaper comics any more, I guess we’re never going to see this nonsense made even more nonsensical as Bill Thport or something, which is a shame. We’ll just have to keep making fun of it ourselves!
HtH: It’s ironic that the king is putting Hägar to work mining salt, since that’s possibly what he was there for in the first place. (Also, today Hägar is set in the 800s, apparently.)
JP: “Seriously, you kidnap your own daughter one time, and she never lets you forget it!”
MT: Hey, remember how the camp was literally impossible to leave, somehow? Well, turns out that goes down the memory hole along with “Jeter made friends with the bears”, “the whole point of the camp is for Sid Stump to get investors for his poorly-defined AI project, but actually none of them have any money to invest”, and all the other aspects of the plot that Jules suddenly realised didn’t make any sense at some point after sending the strips in.
RMMD: “Well, captain, that all seems to make perfect se… AHA!” Before the so-called captain can react, Hank swiftly pulls off his moustache.
It makes quite a mess, but eventually the screaming stops. After which Hank is given plenty of opportunity to figure out how Rene escaped from the brig.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes. Saul put small bowties on every dog he’s owned no matter how creepy in an “EVILSCARYCLOWN in the Sewer” way it looks. Increasing the creepiness, he matches his and his pet’s bowties.
Increasing the creepiness further, Eve does the same thing with her and Max’s bandanas, although for some reason a dog in a bandana is not, in itself, as creepy as a dog in a bow-tie.
@Ukulele Ike: Silver and Sprocket Nitrate were hands-down the lousiest criminal characters introduced in Nu-Wave Dick Tracy (with the possible exception of the guy with the fish head). So nice to see them back.
Honestly, they were pretty terrible, but at least they had something vaguely resembling coherent personalities and motives, and weren’t just an excuse for Mike Curtis to share some wildly inaccurate stuff he read about Monopoly.
@Sequitur: Perhaps, but a rocket launcher would be overkill even for big game like that. A .505 Webb is more than enough, while a 6.5 Mannlicher is up to the task and also works well on cuckolded Great White Hunter husbands.
@Ukulele Ike: I was so distracted by the giant shoes that the customer’s dress didn’t register with me. That’s a flounce, not a peblum. A peblum is a flounce at the waist. It’s the most unflattering look ever for any woman who has hips more than a quarter inch larger than her waist. Even if her hips are smaller than her waist, the peblum will make her hips look enormous.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I am not an Anabaptist, but I have Anabaptist ancestry. My ancestors on my father’s side were Mennonites from Switzerland.
@114 pastordan: You don’t have to go through all that trouble; just change your “Display Name” on your existing account. I still log in as my original handle, bakagaijin, yet “Baja Gaijin” shows on my comments.
PS-Thanks to Sequitur for suggesting the name. Boo to Sequitur for trying to use you to trick me.
@163:Baja Gaijin:
Well, you did challenge me. I was ready to let things rest but NO, you had to imply I was a plugger if I didn’t try.
GT:
“I promise we will quit.”
“You said that last time. Why can’t we quit each other?”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Baptists are also Anabaptists, which seems like it doesn’t make sense, and never has.
MW: “Dr Harding will be with you and Max shortly. Please have a seat. Yes, sit, girl! Sit! Good girl! Who’s a good girl?”
@Sequitur: Thank you very much for linking, last night, the exact strip that shows details of Rene’s fake hairy items and his fake white head. You go generously out of your way to provide special features for us Mudges, and in this case, going back through Rene strips deserves extra credti.
@Dennis Jimenez: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I always thought that Pluggers should have one of those slow moving vehicle triangles bolted to their butts….
***
A capital idea, which I shall broach with my Amish sort-of brethren/sistren.
@Baja Gaijin: Fascinating.
@pastordan: You may not be planning to use that Cthulhu name now, but some of us will remember it:-).
I think Quakers are included, which makes sense since we’re all peaceniks. Especially that Nixon guy.
@Poteet: Ah. Cancel that last thought.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Righto! You guys are the best smelling anabaptists!
// They invented the revolutionary speedstick deodorant. ♫ dum, dum, dum, by Mennon! ♫
The lucky ones
go insaneforgetstop posting on joshreads.com first.@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Huh. According to Wikipedia, neither Baptists nor Quakers are Anabaptists. Dunkard Brethren are considered Anabaptists, however, so they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.
@Poteet: “…the exact strip that shows details of Rene’s fake hairy items”
Let me tell you about MY fake hairy items, heh, heh, heh.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Well they ALL sound like a very confused bunch, especially those Drunkard Brethren.
// You are quite right to stick with the Lovecraftian pantheon.
@Scudly the Sailor Man: I’m not cute enough to play Yog-Sothoth.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Ah, but now you’re getting into the Quaker schism of who is a real Quaker? Nixon went to a meeting with a hireling preacher, so he’s not really a Quaker (at least according to the Quakers I hang out with). Fortunately, Quaker holy wars are usually bloodless.
@I speak Jive: I’m here for the comics snark, but I stick around for the dressmaking and millinery tips.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I’ve always considered myself a Nyarlathotep sort of guy.
@Ukulele Ike: The theological discussions are groovy as well!
@Ukulele Ike: Yeah, The Crawling Chaos for me, too.
@Hibbleton: @Voshkod:
h). Fortunately, Quaker holy wars are usually bloodless.
_________________________________
Where do you stand on Quisp v.Quake?
@Ramblin’ Nehemiah Scudder, Folksongerator: Very good! Of course, the last several tracks of Abbey Road are the Cutting Room Floor Tapes.
@Poteet:
Cthulhu
__________
According to Les Nesman that’s a yappy dog from Mexico.
@Garrison Skunk: No, that would be Cheye-Cheye Rogerguize’s Cee-Who-Who.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: @Voshkod: Amish people seldom shock other people, though they sometimes shock themselves, esp. when they are eschewing electrical appliances.
// Kids: If you must eschew an electrical appliance, make SURE it is unplugged!
@nscudded: Unplugged? Ah, what’s the fun in that?
FC: “No Jeffy, you’re merely a rotten melonhead. Your time in the patch is gone. Sorry”
@nscudded: The shocking thing is that in at least some Amish communities, you’re allowed to have electric lighting in the barns, because candles and hay don’t mix well.
@191 Voshkod:
I bet they have to go out to the barn to charge their smart phones.
@168 Poteet:
Thank you for your kind words. But to be honest it took me only about a minute to find that Rene strip.
Gil Thorp: Teen #1: “I promise we will quit…when we sell the last case.” Teen #2. “Man, don’t you watch movies or TV? Last day to retirement, last big score, etc., that’s when bad things happen.” Teen #1: What, me worry?”
Wrecks Moregone:
It’s almost as though he had a disguise kit available in his luggage and can make himself look like anyone; a clean shaven blond man in a flower shirt for example. Oh well, never mind then.
Flylock Socks:
So, Slick Smitty got away with the break in yesterday. And how lucky for the red jackal that the stain manufacturer knows his customer base is so illiterate that he has to mention in bold letters that it’s an oil based paint! Anyway, Slick will just get away again once he bribes Slylock with half the contents of the package. Which then turns out to be carrot chips.
Wary Morth:
Let’s see, Eve Lourd is at the vet’s, Saul goes looking for her at the park, doesn’t find her, panics, calls whatever the Charterstone emergency number is. Mr Allora, as first respondent, drives up in a powered lawnmower and begins Sherlock Holmesing the park. Greta runs off to look for Madi and runs into Weelbur, who, stalking along the shrubbery as usual. Weelbur captures and takes her to the vet to identify her, sees Eshtelle, and throws a fit. Meanwhile Eve agrees with DrEdHarding and Eshtelle that Dogs Are Great. Hilarity does not ensue.
The real Thil Gorpe story:
Marty Moon is so angry that the kids are selling no longer published MAD issues that he broke his phone screen with his thumb.
Mary’s Worst: “We replaced the fine Greta normally served in Charterstone with the plastic model from the Doggie Doo™ game,let’s see if O. M. Wynter notices…”
@Sequitur: Yeah, but you can only get the Amish Internet. Lot of churning videos, many involving butter.
@198 Voshkod:
Yeah, but those funny goat videos are hilarious!
MW: If this turns into another paean to dogs (“Dogs are good!!” ad infinitum), I wouldn’t blame Libby and Odin for going on strike.
Mutt & Jeff: Good thing Mutt finally got his underpants back from the cleaners!
What fresh perversion is this with the Love is… lovers? They seem to be wearing clothes ALL the time, nowadays. Has Bill Asprey, after drawing the panel for 50 years, become so jaded that he no longer cares to draw naked, totally asexual bodies?
@Where Scudders Dare: I suspect Asprey got tired of people making remarks about how perverted it looked. So now the characters are clothed almost all the time. But once in a while there’s still a nude panel, which is weird, because I imagine it must look extra perverted to anyone who started reading the strip after clothes became the norm. But I think the nudity is never full frontal anymore, which tones it down a bit.
@202 Where Scudders Dare:
I think it had something to do with chiggers.
@Sequitur: Also a strong possibility!
@Sequitur: Love is… checking each other for ticks regularly.
Late Thread Diversion: I found Scratchy Scrotum’s favorite freeway exit.
MW: Saul Wynter has a heart attack while walking Greta who gets Mary who meddles Death. Everyone agrees dogs are great.
@207 Baja Gaijin:
If Scratchy gets caught they’ll change the sign to this.
@Professor Well Actually: That immediately reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode with Ed Wynn making a marathon sales pitch to Death to prevent him from taking a young child. However, if Mary is involved, Death may find himself loaded down with the biggest batch of muffins he has ever seen. By the third or fourth platitude, he’ll be out of there.
That Twilight Zone episode scared the crap out of me when I was nine years old.
@Sequitur: Too much time in Itchycoo Park.
@210:I speak Jive:
Death by muffins.
@I speak Jive: Per TWILIGHT ZONE, several different Deaths showed up during that series. And having seen most of the episodes, when my time comes, I want Robert Redford. Give me the Sundance Kid or give me life.