Trixie will be rendered using what critics are calling “the most unsettling CGI yet”
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Six Chix, 5/24/23
Six Chix is a long-running feature that dares to ask the question, “What if women wrote a comic strip? What would we learn about the female sex in the process?” I think we can agree that the answer, if we’re just going by the content of Six Chix, is that women are floridly insane, but you have to admit that they’re more interesting than men, who are just annoying and boring.
Gil Thorp, 5/24/23
One of my tasks as the creator of a blog about newspaper comics, the most nostalgia-infected art form ever created, is to fight against the particularly pernicious type of nostalgia that leads people to say that the past is always better than the present. Like, for instance, longtime Thorp-heads probably would smugly say that, in terms of unpaid randos who helped coach the Mudlark baseball team, it wouldn’t get any funnier than a guy who called himself Clambake and lied about being in the Negro Leagues. And yet today, in this supposedly fallen year 2023, we have a blind guy urging two blindfolded teenagers to hurl baseballs in his general direction, simultaneously! Truly, I tell you that we still live in an age of wonders.
Hi and Lois, 5/24/23
I know the media landscape is troubled and subject to ongoing corporate consolidation, but I don’t know that teasing the idea of an incredible crossover between Spider-Man and his Avengers Pals with the Walker-Browne Extended Universe is the best way for King Features Syndicate parent company Hearst Communications to solicit a takeover bid from the Walt Disney Company.
184 replies to “Trixie will be rendered using what critics are calling “the most unsettling CGI yet””
Sunbeam — the whore!
MW:
“Many a sneer has to fall/
But it’s Saul in the game.”
— Tommy Edwards (adapted)
MW:
“This looks different from what I threw you, Greta girl! And what’s this unusual inscription on what you brought me? — ‘U.S. Army land mine – for demonstration purposes only.’ ”
KABOOM
Rex Morgan Missing Final Panel: A simple reaction shot to The Harwood’s second honeymoon proposal.
MW:
“Are you sure you weren’t a retriever in a past life? — let me throw you a dead bird to test the hypothesis!”
COMING TOMORROW!!! Saul tosses the ball again, and Greta retrieves it!
COMING FRIDAY!!! Saul tosses the ball again, and Greta retrieves it!
COMING SATURDAY!!! [Dare we hope?]
Crankshaft : Why is Pam reaching up to the cupboard to hand her dad her(his?) phone? Was this joke initially about her giving her dad laxatives/anti-diarrhea medicine (depending on if her solution is “can’t poop without reading? Here.”/”this should help you hold it until we get a copy of today’s paper”)?
**********
Dennis the Menace : “She wasn’t removed from MY family Dennis. She was removed from CHINA so my parent’s cousin could adopt her.”
…Too far?…**********
Gil Thorp : Greggg Hammm is going to recreate the moment he turned blind, complete with the catcher beaning him with a revenge throw. Then Bully Girl and… whoever the guy is supposed to be will be out cold concussed for a couple of weeks, leaving Milford’s baseball teams without pitchers, and Gil Thorp’s dumb plan of bringing a former student as a special tutor will have completely backfired.
**********
Hi & Lois : angling for a buyout? Nah, this is the Spinning Crown sounding the alarm to both the House of Mouse and Sony that they’re running out of Newspaper Spider-Man to rerun again (Mary Jane will have defeated Killgrave by throwing a tarp on him by early july, in my estimate), and they need to figure what to do next. Is Newspaper Spidey just stuck in a timeloop where he has the same 4-6 years worth of adventures over and over again?
**********
Luann : C-complex!? COMPLEX? He’s a blank, personality-less cypher! He barely registers as what he’s meant to be (a “brooding, taciturn, yet secretly sensitive” type, I think), much less have any sort of nuance to indicate he’s a deeper character beneath the surface!
…And his backstory is not dramatic. It’s barely even sad, especially from Piro’s side of it.
**********
Pluggers : Huh, what a huge, uncaught typo : they put “first” when the art means “current”.
Peter Parker got old and out of shape, so he created a new identity and moved out of New York into the suburbs, getting himself a steady professional job and a family (including a wife called Lois, which does confuse comic universes a bit). But sometimes, when he’s feeling nostalgic, he still gets those old newspapers out of the attic and remembers the good old days.
Now that Hi and Lois takes place in the MCU, whenever a character disappears from a long-running King Features strip for years on end, you can just assume they died in the snap. Tommy from Dennis the Menace? Died in the snap. The eponymous Judge Parker? Died in the snap. The entire cast of Funky Winkerbean? I mean that one’s a gimme, what other way could the story end but mass death by comic book.
6-C – It’s called a cocktail, cuz the bartender stirs it with his dick….
GT – Now, be the ball while I club you with this bat….
H&L – Let’s move before they raise the parking rent….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
GT: Kwan looks on and mutters, “[What the hell have I done?]”
CS: “Try not to get shit on it.”
RMMD: “For our make-up honeymoon, let’s follow Mud around on tour! Unless, you know, he’s going to transition again and turn into Mister Rogers.”
JP: April, self-criticism is a philosophical and political concept developed within the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism (meant for others, of course). It’s not what Karens do. Now quit sniveling, pull up your big bitch panties, and go ream Alan a new one.
RMMD: The do-over honeymoon: spending six months as Mudheads. Because you can’t yell “Muddy Boots” enough times.
BG&SS: What is “it?” Do I want to find out? I do not.
MW: Saul blissfully ignores the fact that if he bought the farm right now, Greta would eat him.
DtM: Margaret has all the annoying qualities of a pedantic old woman, and, depressingly, her whole life to develop them further.
6C: BLUx must be one of those trendy new cafes where all the faux-beverages are served with derisive scorn. They have mocktails, scoffee, disdainquiris, and the “BLUx Special,” which is $7.95 for ice water garnished with a lemon peel and naked contempt.
JP: Remember how April and Randy recently raised Charlotte together in hiding for at least a year? Francesco Marciuliano doesn’t! So now April is a “ghost story” to her two-and/or-six-year-old daughter. And that’s a tough problem to solve, especially when you completely give up after trying absolutely nothing.
CS: The patented Batty smirk is because she just handed him Jeff’s phone. Not even Pam can stand Jeff.
GT: “Did the doctors later find out why you went blind?”
“Yes. Excessive masturbation”
You know, “Six Chix” should be out there to demonstrate that women can be as funny as men, not as funny as “Dustin”
6C: They’re mocking you because of that awful combover, my dude.
GT: Today’s strip is not The Sphinx teaching The Mystery Men to use their superpowers, but it’s approaching that.
HnL: As a reader of this strip only when it appears on the blog, I have to ask: does Dawg always look this weird?
@Baja Gaijin: That reaction is definitely the Dramatic Chipmunk of this strip.
@taig:
Does Dawg always look this weird?
No. His ears and tails are usually bigger, and not colored bright blue(!?). Also, his eyes are usually not visible.
JP: April Fools!
Frazz: Caulfield is not interested in you bourgeoisie notion of work ethic, Mrs. Olsen!
Luann: “Piro’s the most complex person I’ve ever met,” said the most simplistic person in this strip. Admittedly, he does have 1.5 character traits, so that does make him a veritable Shakespearean character. Also, it looks like Jack has been keeping up with his reading of Mary Worth.
CS: You know that
phoneelectronic device is going to end up in the toilet. Hilarity will ensue!@Anonymous: Thanks. He looked like he wandered in from a story by Dr. Seuss.
9CL: It’s
David Cronenberg’sBrooke McEldowney’s The Praying Mantis!@17 taig: Have you noticed much Dawg’s and Chip Flagston’s faces resemble each other? I’m not saying bestiality was involved in the latter’s genesis, but I’m not not saying it either.
Six Chix – In this comic by women “daddy issues” just means the comics they put out based on something their Dads said, in this case at a brunch he was dragged to on a Sunday morning instead of being able to watch golf on TV.
Gil Thorp – Either Gregg is trying to be Master Yoda and will have them use the force, or he will be beaned so hard in the head that, by sitcom miracle-cure logic, that he will be able to see again (but suffer a terrible concussion that will give him amnesia, requiring another hit on the head to get his memory back, but that could cost him his sight again).
Hi and Lois – Last week I made the COTW Runner Up list joking about falling down the rabbit hole of the theology in Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC properties and ending up the Kevin Feige of their Cinematic Universe. Now this week they more or less announce it! As a man of my word I will begin my tenure. If you don’t see me commenting as much anymore, it’s because I am binging through the old Beetle Bailey cartoons and figuring out how to integrate the characters into Phase 5 of the MCU
Dustin: You think that’s the joke, but everything is a low bar in this strip.
FC: Bil is not looking forward to cleaning up Jeffy’s corpse after the flowers finally do come up.
MW: “Woof!” I sure wasn’t wearing a ridiculous bow tie in my past life, you piece of shit!
@Baja Gaijin: And Lois would never claim it was the best sex she ever had.
Six Chix, 5/24/23: SIX CHIX “women are floridly insane,”. NUFF SAID!
My reaction to today’s Six Chix: “This is so stup…wait, hmmm, that’s a good point, actually.”
Things I wasn’t planning on thinking about, but now have to think about: Crankshaft straining to take a shit. Maybe if he took some Metamucil, he wouldn’t be so backed up.
@30 brendancalling: Maybe if he didn’t have his head up his ass all the time…
LUANN – “Piro’s the most complex person I’ve ever met!”
“A fascinating study!”
Remember the source. These are the two “adult women” who took a life-altering trip to New York City that they still reminisce about as a coming of age moment. They went to a nightclub and were quickly kicked out for being underage, then went home and were in bed, separately, by 9:30.
Gil Thorp – Clambake and Tarzana Nights were two of the best Summer of Thorp story arcs. There was some golf cheating kerfuffle a few years back, but nothing beats the “Ease up, friend!” of an Early 2000s Kaz.
FC:
Daddy, I’m fertilizing my flowers!
Uh, Jeffy. Shouldn’t you pull your pants down first?
@taig: #26: re-FC: But the flowers will be gorgeous, fertilized by Jeffy’s rotting flesh.
H&L : In a cost-cutting measure, the Daily Bugle has become a once-a-week paper and just runs archived photos on its front page. J. Jonah Jameson sits alone at his desk all day, screaming at imaginary minions and longing for the sweet release of death. Hi still gets it for the crossword, though.
6Chx: “And for all that cash, they serve it to you on a slab of unhewn wood in a blank blue room. Where are we anyhow?”
GT: God, I am hoping against hope that this whole ‘blind’ thing is just a scam, and that Blondie there is going to steal all their equipment while these dorks try to practice blindfolded.
H&L: I like how Spidey looks less like he’s doing battle with Doc Ock, and more like ht’s written an op-ed about the dangers of these new ‘woke’ superheroes
MW: “Are you sure you weren’t a RETRIEVER in a past life? HAHA! HEH HEH HEH! HAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HOO, HOO, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—*GASP!*”
Clutches chest and keels over. Greta sniffs the dead body, woofs softly.
“Huh. Some joke. I don’t get it.”
JP-Since April was a CIA agent shouldn’t that be a “spook” story.
RMMD-“In fact I want to call a do over on this whole marriage.”
Gil Thorp-He’ll never forget the beating Gil gave him in hope it would restore his sight at least that’s what he tells himself.
MW-“That’s not my ball. That’s not a ball at all. It’s GOLD!”
FC-“PJ’s going to make a good fertilizer.”
9CL – So, this is where it’s going. Rather than plots or storylines, we have endless time travel as we endlessly revisit the love of Amos and Edda, through time. From birth to their mid twenties when they stopped aging and experiencing new things, and just did flashbacks to things that never happened the first time.
Maybe if there were some nuance or variety to their love story, it might be interesting. “They were born in love and have remained that way ever since” isn’t exactly a compelling tale.
And, call me a beefwit (Beefwit!), but it feels like Amos first panel dialogue is essentially “I never insulted you, because you had stolen my heart, so I could not praise the thief” and this makes no sense whatsoever.
At least we have the final panel payoff of two young children making out with each other.
Six Chix: Hilariously enough, this might just be the most coherent Six Chix strip I’ve ever seen.
Gil Thorp: Soon the players and coaches are all blindfolded. They wait for instructions, but hear none. Eventually, they remove their blindfolds and find the blind man and their wallets gone.
Hi And Lois: I’m just saying, we’ve never seen Hi and Spider-Man in the same room.
The bar in Six Chix is better lit than the darkened room save for a beam of light that Hi is reading his newspaper in.
***
There’s nothing right about those hands in the first panel of Gil Thorp. The angle they’re coming from no matter which of those two people they belong to or the way they’re grasping at that blindfold, these were drawn by someone who has never seen hands before and has certainly never tied anything together. This is the stuff of nightmares.
JP: “I was a FOOL, Randy — this was all a huge mistake. I’m going back to the penitentiary.”
Next week: Randy cooks up a scheme to dress April in a fat suit and pose as a jolly British housekeeper called “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
It makes me uneasy to see some actual effort and thought put into H&Ls layout and details today… were all local golf courses and bars closed on the day this was drawn?
GT: “I like to call my technique ‘Whose Hands Are They Anyway?’ After awhile, you’ll realize you not only know, you don’t care. And that’s what the sport of baseball is all about. Well, it sounds good, doesn’t it? Admittedly, it looks like crap!”
@made of wince: *After awhile, you’ll realize you not only DON’T know, you don’t care.
Sentences are hard.
GT – “I started to lose my vision while pitching a game.”
“While playing?”
“No, I was in the corporate offices of Milton Bradley pitching them the idea of Blindfolded Twister. Ironic, huh?”
“Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station! Uh . . . why . . . why is the planet still there? Budget cuts? I didn’t order any . . . Vader, did you order budget cuts? Well, did we destroy anything? Anything at all? We . . . we warmed a lap. For an infant. That’s it. No more Death Stars. Just . . . just train our troops to actually shoot to kill and let’s get started, OK?”
RMMD: “And if the old man has keeled over dead when we get back, the budget will be *unlimited*! We won’t have to beg the geezer for money any more!”
If the above seems like a heartless remark, I have Horrible Hank the Elder in the dead pool.
Snuffy Search Engine and Barney Smif:
Smif should go to Doc Halfway again, not Doc Pritchard…but, unfortunately, Doc Halfway wants payment in cash, not stolen chickens, and his fees are higher.
Wrecks Moregone:
“We’ve got a large budget…large enough to just pay Rene Belluso to leave us alone, but we’d rather keep whining about how he’s ruining our holiday.”
Wary Morth:
Tomorrow, Saul wipes the tennis ball with a handkerchief and tells us that he’s so blessed to have Greta.
Again.
RMMD: is Rene being dismissed from this storyline just so he live on to bumble scam again (scumble) again? Never mind hind he’ll be wanted for attempted murder and possibly doesn’t have his passport.
@Charterstoned: We should be so lucky.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
And when they got back to Evansistan they couldn’t stop talking 19 to the 12 about their trip at the airport, like a couple of 12 year olds.
Luann: If Burnice is Mary Worth, who is Inner Beauty?
Dr Jeff? Toby?
H&L: I find the thought of Trixie being rendered extremely disturbing. Are we talking soylent green? Wilbur on the other hand…
“I started to lose my vision while pitching a game. I confused the baseball for my left eye. Jammed that baseball deep into my eye socket and hurled my eyeball, a screamer across the plate, but the batter caught the corner of it, spraying ocular fluids up into the stands. People were screaming, I realized there was blood pouring down my face, and the referee was considering throwing me out of the game for use of a foreign substance, but Coach Thorp managed to convince him it was all a mistake. They gave the batter the base – he ended up with my cornea on his shoulder, so he was ‘hit by ball’ – and I got ready to pitch again. To make a long story short, this time I confused the baseball for my right eye!”
GT: There is a fine line between “disabled people have dignity and worth as human beings, and should not be treated as burdens on society” and “disabled people don’t need any assistance because they basically have superpowers which compensate for their physical limitations*” and Gil Thorp is well over it.
*Not to be confused with “disabled person who really does have superpowers, eg. Professor X or Daredevil”
H&L: I’m guessing the Hi and Lois incarnation of Spider-Man won’t have a big role in Across the Spider-Verse.
@Professor Well Actually: Well, rendering is one way to remove baby fat.
@54 Ukranazi Stepan: Toby Cameron. Maybe Hanna “I can drive, I just need eyeglasses” Dingdong as a close second.
9CL: What’s this? She’s some kind of creature who, if her ego’s stroked enough after shamelessly fishing for compliments, unlocks the ability to transfer consciousness into her past self to suck face with his past self? … nobody but Brooke McEldowney has as much concentrated “horny” to come up with this crap!
@Anonymous: GT: I thought that was former assistant coach Mullet. Greg Hamm makes more sense.
JP: Oh, Jesus, April. You’re an accomplished murderess. Just go over to Alan’s house and snap his neck, like Wurst taught you. We know you want to.
Phantom: God, just look at all those faces. They’re all so darn excited to hear the actual voice of the Unknown Commander!
”He sure sounds like that big hunk we were excited to make babies with a year or two ago. Do you think….? Nahhhhh.”
6C: “They’re all laughing at you!”
Suddenly, a carefully prepared bucket of properly proportioned fruit juices with a few dashes of bitters is dumped on one guy’s head. He then proceeds to psychically murder everyone else in the bar, which luckily was dull and unpopular.
Dustin: Today’s strip would be infinitely funnier if you replaced Dustin with his father.
JP: “Oh well, I tried. Back to my glamorous life of adventure as a rogue secret agent!”
Luann: Piro fits the Depressed Goblin Nightmare Boy trope about as well as Luann and Bernice fit Manic Pixie Dream Girl, ie. very badly.
RMMD: I hope Hank and Yvonne keep trying to “do over” their honeymoon and Rene keeps showing up to throw a monkey wrench into things. He tries to shove Hank off Niagra Falls, he turns up at Sandals Ochi as a phony psychic, he dons a bald cap and poses as Pope Francis while they’re touring the Vatican…
@TheDiva: RMMD: I like the way you think but I recommend Reichenbach Falls.
Luann The women are chasing Piro, the sullen standoffish asshole, while ignoring Jack, the affable hunk. I’m not saying that strip is actively pursuing the incel market, but I’m not saying it isn’t.
@Baja Gaijin: Have you noticed much Dawg’s and Chip Flagston’s faces resemble each other? I’m not saying bestiality was involved in the latter’s genesis, but I’m not not saying it either.
Dawg, Chip, Thirsty, and Beetle Bailey are all related.
That’s no sunbeam, it’s an errant blast from the Vision’s forehead-ray. Hi is about to be vaporized!
Reserved for Scratchy’s Scrotum
Sorry Scratchy, I didn’t get the reserved sign down in time.
Hi and Lois – Wikipedia provides the backstory: “In 2002, Sunbeam emerged from bankruptcy as American Household, Inc (AHI). Sunbeam was owned by Jarden Consumer Solutions after Jarden’s acquisition in 2004, which was itself later purchased by Newell Rubbermaid (now Newell Brands).” Then it was spun off again and purchased by Foofram Industries, where none of the top execs wanted to be bothered with it, and that’s how the company fell into Hi Flagston’s lap! His best strategy is to get Thirsty put in charge, which should result in another bankruptcy within 6 months.
Don Abundio, translated:
“What do you think of my new voodoo doll?”
“It looks like YOU, Don Abundio. And we’d better move to another room…”
“Your piranhas are getting too excited”
@68 Lord_Flatulence: The depravity under the surface is frightening.
@70 Garrison Skunk: He owes you one.
Stan sighed. He thought membership in the Green Square Society was going to mean something. All the money he spent, the rituals, the hazing, it was all going to be worth it when he could slap down that green square on the bar in the Lodge. But no. Mocktails? The guy next to him wearing an orange shirt? This is what I paid a $12,000 initiation fee for? For this I received the 22 sacred spankings? What a waste, what a waste. The rosemary grapefruit fizz was ashes in his mouth.
@Lord_Flatulence:
Dawg, Chip, Thirsty, and Beetle Bailey are all related
____________________________
It all goes back to that Beat Up Bailey storyline with the experimental Army DNA serum that kept turning Buxley into a poodle prostitute.
GT- “Multiball! Multiballllllllllllllllll!!! Blern! Blernnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!”
@Baja Gaijin: The depravity under the surface is frightening.
I believe that’s the elevator pitch for most comics, except 9 CL, which omits ‘under the surface.’
@Baja Gaijin: Rex Morgan final panel – That’s appropriate, but the more I see of the world’s most boring couple on the world’s most boring honeymoon, the more I hope for the flaming meteor. The flaming poo would work, too.
@Voshkod: Poor Stan. He should’ve gone opted for the Freemasons.
Zits from Spanish to English
The Familliar Mucus: Bil immediately regretted telling Jeffy the “Baby Garden” variation of the birds and the bees when babies started disappearing from the families around the compound.
JP – The rehabilitation makeover of April has begun. She cares about her daughter! She can’t be a toxic psychopath if she likes her kid. She must have a heart of gold under that murderous exterior. Maybe we should look at her softer side and start to care about her.
That didn’t work for Loathsome Lillian, and it won’t work for April.
Rex Morgan – Oh, wonderful – A honeymoon do over. Will it be another boring cruise? A visit to every boring roadside attraction in the Midwest? A tour of boring mom and pop diners? I can’t wait.
Crankshaft – Pam needs to have a bucket of Lysol ready to dunk that phone when he comes out.
Laughing Redhead Comics – If any of the 6 Chix ever leave, here’s her replacement.
Pluggers – He can almost write his name on that.
9CL – If any teacher sees that exhibition with childhood Edda and Amos, they should remember that teachers are mandatory reporters. Inappropriate behavior like that among children is a huge red flag.
@83 I speak Jive:
Laughing Redhead Comics? Never heard of it but I found it and you’re right.
@I speak Jive: If any of the 6 Chix ever leave, here’s her replacement.
Leave? The Chix are Tantalus in the river. Prometheus chained to the mountain, awaiting the birds. Ixion on his wheel. Sisyphus rolling the rock, awaiting the fall. They can’t leave. Drawing Six Chix is their eternal punishment. Oblivion is their escape.
GT: “I’ll never forget that day for two reasons. The main reason is that day, May 24, was when the scoreboard exploded and left phosphorus burns on my retinas. Now I see ‘5/24’ even when I close my eyes.”
Anyone have Rufus in the dead pool?
Cranky’s Wrath: “Pam,I can’t poop without reading the paper.”
“There’s a solution,Dad…..Tetris™…!” (Announcer: Ask your doctor if Tetris™is right for you.) If your poops continue to resemble Tetris™ blocks four hours after use be sure to consult an actual physician.
This portion of Crankshaft has been brought to you by Tetris™ (addictivous videogamious), and Poopie Paper™brand disposable computer screen sanitizer sheets.
Snuffy – The reason it “ain’t gittin’ enny better” is you’re going to the wrong kind of doctor. What you need is a script doctor.
(And not the one in Mutts. That one stinks.)
BAJA! Do not read Rubes today!
@Rube: “Luann The women are chasing Piro, the sullen standoffish asshole, while ignoring Jack, the affable hunk. I’m not saying that strip is actively pursuing the incel market, but I’m not saying it isn’t.”
Where does Gunther fall on that spectrum? Is his celibacy involuntary because he lives in his mother’s back yard and is too scared to try anything? Or is it voluntary, because he could always grow a pair and tell his mom that he’s an adult now, or go somewhere other than the backyard storage shed to make sweet, albeit brief, love to his main squeeze?
@Sequitur: Do it!!!!!!!!
@Voshkod: The last one to leave, if I am reading Wikipedia correctly, seems to have been Martha Gradisher in January 2020. Which means Bianca Xunise has only been there about three and half years. Seems longer.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: And then there’s Brad, who is married and yet to consummate said marriage.
@Philip:
Six Chix – In this comic by women “daddy issues” just means the comics they put out based on something their Dads said,
___________________________
So you support the theory that Six Chix is the end result of a baby’s dad trying to interpret a baby’s “bababa”s as actual thoughts?
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Gunther’s another incel fantasy. By rights, women should want nothing to do with this petulant momma’s boy, but he gets more tail than any guy in the strip. (Meaning, some. And not including Kip, who’s basically a Chad with a Stacy.)
6C: There are many ridiculous hills I choose to die on over word usage and grammar and such. I have lately been arguing that Molotov cocktails should be called Molotov mocktails, since they lack alcohol. Are there really women more floridly insane than I am?
@Sequitur: Not exactly, be he IS pretty high up on my “Comic Strip Characters I’d Really, Really, Really, Like to See Dead” list, if that counts for anything.
@Jym: Some Molotovs are alcohol-based. Maybe we need to distinguish between Shirley Molotovs (gas-based) and True Molotovs (booze-based)?
@Voshkod: Make mine a Shirley Hemphill….
@Voshkod: I once scored a bottle of 151 proof vodka, which was intended to make house bitters with, but which I used to make Vespers of exceeding strength. That stuff probably would have made for a fine Molotov cocktail.
@Voshkod:
Some Molotovs are alcohol-based. Maybe we need to distinguish between Shirley Molotovs (gas-based) and True Molotovs (booze-based)?
True Molotov Cocktails come from the Molotov region of Russia. Otherwise it’s just Flaming Potato-Ade.
@Old School Allie Cat: True Molotov Cocktails come from Finland as a trench-warming gift to invading Russians.
@Rube: A Vesper of Exceeding Strength sounds like a high-level D&D spell that brings down the night hard, or a James Bond film featuring one of Bond’s lovers, long-thought dead, returning as a cybernetically enhanced villain.
I thought you’re a Plugger if your first tablet device was a pill splitter.
I’ve been angling to get the Molotov Cocktail re-named the Marinus van der Lubbe Cocktail. Burning down the Reichstag is just much more satisfying.
MT: Mark inexplicably fails to mention that everything he knows about how bad the technology is comes from a single source who repeatedly contradicted himself and thought he’d made friends with the bears. Remember, AI can spread misinformation, but so can actual people, and what’s more, we’re better at it!
SH: Sure, there’s a bad side to oceanic noise pollution, but have you considered that it also prevents sirens from luring sailors to their doom?
Hi and Lois-As long as it’s not Sunshine in daddy’s lap.
Hi and Lois-“Sorry, Dawg but I follow the Sun.”
@Horace Broon: I just get my crew to tie me to the mast. The tricky part is convincing them to untie me later.
GT: I’m sure that the blindfolding isn’t supposed to make me think of 9 ½ Weeks and yet…
6C: I mean, he’s not wrong, but if you want to get both drunk and robbed instead of just one of those things there are still plenty of places that will accommodate you.
Just heard on the news. Tina Turner passed away at age 83. RIP.
H&L: It’s ironic that one reading Hi and Lois in a printed paper would certainly recognize newspaper Spider-Man and the Daily Bugle – if it had only been printed large enough for them to see it.
I miss the old, large-format newspaper comics, as well as the pre-internet newspapers themselves.
@Ukulele Ike: #107: Yeah, but wasn’t he just framed for the fire and didn’t actually set it?
@Voshkod: #104: The Finns made up the name to mock the Soviet foreign minister. They also called the bombs that Russian planes dropped Molotov bread baskets because Soviet propaganda claimed they were just loaves of bread dropped to feed Helsinki’s starving masses.
@Guillermo el chiclero: True. I just like typing that name.
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe
9CL: Oh jeez. I know Mary Worth talked about how the past is only what you choose to remember or whatever, but trust the Burbers to go and make it graphic.
Blondie: (Obligatory) “He isn’t going through a dry spell. E’s joined the bleeding choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot!”
C-Shaft: The fact that Pam is still having this conversation with her father marks her as a glutton for punishment. Then again, what does that make me for reading it?
Crock: An insight into the gender conventions of whatever species these two and the Grimace are.
GA: If Rufus dies today and tomorrow Walt Wallet has a few fewer wrinkles on his face some pieces will really fall into place.
Phantom: “Or you could keep pushing if the idea of Jungle Patrol latrine duty appeals to you.”
RMMD: No, really, this is too much. This strip isn’t called Hank Horwood, No, The Other One, it’s Rex Morgan, MD. Rex may be—nay, is–a dullard, but he’s our dullard. So whatever revenge Rene Belluso has planned, please get to it posthaste so we can get pack to pseudo-medicine.
@Voshkod:
Leave? The Chix are Tantalus in the river. Prometheus chained to the mountain, awaiting the birds.
_____________________________
Speaking of awaiting the birds, where ‘s the long promised Six Chix/Shoe crossover we’ve been promised for so long?
@Guillermo el chiclero: RIP Tina Turner. Rock and Roll heaven gets its Queen.
So is tomorrow’s Gil Thorp going to jump forward to the blind guy waking up from a coma after he gets simultaneously beaned by two baseballs he couldn’t see coming, thrown by two blindfolded girls who had no idea where his glove was?
Because that could lead to a great cautionary tale for any of the kids reading Gil Thorp…if nobody can see, it’s a bad idea to try and play a sport where people regularly get hit.
Since I read Crankshaft right after reading Hi & Lois, I had this thought: what is it like when superheroes have to take a dump?
@Hoot Smawley: Yeah, there’s an actual sport, beep baseball, for the visually impaired, which it might be interesting to have a story about, but it looks like this is going to be some “Feel the Force” stuff.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Don’t mess with the Finns. For example, do you see the Finnish sniper hidden in my comment? Neither did the Russians.
@taig:
As a tribute to appearing alongside Six Chix today, HE BOUGHT A LONG BLUE WIG! HE HAS NO IDEA WHY HE BOUGHT A LONG BLUE WIG!
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Reminds me of when Ike Turner died, the ever classy New York Post ran the headline IKE BEATS TINA TO DEATH. Sorry to hear she’s catching up. :( RIP,Tina.
@Sequitur: Let’s see.
A guy with a probable concussion whose only “treatment” was a snort of home brew liquor?
Naw.
He’ll pull through and it will be hilarious.
@Mr. Whipple: Something something unstable molecules.
Gi Thorp-Say that too much pitching can cause you to go blind.
@Peanut Gallery: Nice callback!
@Mr. Whipple:
rankshaft right after reading Hi & Lois, I had this thought: what is it like when superheroes have to take a dump?
_________________________________________________
Batman does it hanging upside down
Superman does it hovering in midair
Wonder Woman does it in her invisible plane
Spider Man does it while watching TV
Wolverine does it with claws retracted
Wilburp Weston does it in his BVDs
Pete Moss does it while shooting John Darling
Iron Man does it with magnets
Hot2Trot does it wherever she wants to.
H&L: “Sunbeam is in Daddy’s lap now. Christ, what an asshole.”
God DAMN it! Tina Turner AND experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger die the same damn day?
If you’ve never seen Fireworks, The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, or Lucifer Rising….remedy that posthaste. They’re all short and probably on YouTube.
(PS: Yup. They’re there and they’re free)
Riptina was the girl who turned us down for going to the prom in high school
@jroggs: HUH!
JP is obviously trying to gaslight readers! I shall attempt to defend myself by resolutely refusing to accurately remember past stories, past characters, current characters, and why anyone in this strip has ever done anything. I see success ahead.
6ix Chix: Today’s etymology is brought to you by Dolly Keane.
GA: I actually found it disturbing over the past few days that Joel would just dump a friend with a serious head injury into the straw on top of a donkey. So it’s probably time for me to take a break from GA again. Unless Rufus dies and Joel is successfully sued for negligent homicide. In that case, I will forgive the entire past five years of this strip.
Gil Thorp: “I’m only blind in one eye. I just can’t see out of the other.”
@Horace Broon: I now regret that I ever complained about the parade of MT orphan animals named Lucky. Come back, Lucky! Come back, all you Luckies! I didn’t realize how Lucky we readers were!
@Peanut Gallery:
You know, that Long Blue Wig cartoon has grown on me with time. I laugh when I see it. Maybe another interpretation is intended, but I see it as Mary Lawton confessing that she’s mildly insane and has simply learned to live with it, never mind what others may think. Maybe we all should follow her lead.
One for the Scratchy Files…while waiting on line at Wendy’s, the car ahead of us had the number R69-KFC.
MW: Seriously, I do NOT want Saul to keel over dead and turn this into a story about finding a new home for Greta. Don’t do it, Karen and June! I am in your core potentially-keeling-over demographic, and a lot of us would not be happy! If you want someone to kick off, kill Doctor Jeff. He’s petless as far as we know, he doesn’t have much of a life anyway, and throwing Mary back into the Singles Scene would be interesting. And I’m not just saying that because I have Jeff in the Dead Pool. I swear.
@120 Mr. Whipple: I’m not a sci-fi buff, but if I were a superhero, I would get Captain Scotty to beam my turds up. Ditto for pee.
FC: Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail nor gloom of night will part Jeffy from his obsessive compulsive disorder to wait for his flowers to sprout . . .
H&L: I do not understand Josh’s comment after three reads, but that’s quite all right. I’m just fortunate that my ignorance about the corporations in question does not impinge on my comic-strip enjoyment more often. *waves cane*
SHERMAN’S LAGOON: I added SL to my list well over a year ago, and I continue to be intrigued by the way the stories are short and end abruptly, even when it seems they could easily go on for at least another week and still be entertaining. SL stories are the opposite of some comic-soap stories that drag along forever. I wish the SL stories would last longer. You could do that, Jim Toomey! You’re funny enough!
@Poteet: The death flags are definitely there. Or, rather, they would be if this was a competently written comic with any stakes whatsoever. Saul is not going to die. At worst, he will suffer a sprained ankle, leading to needing someone else to take care of Greta while he recuperates. In a competently written strip, this could potentially lead to Greta doing the dog-equivalent of couch-surfing where we get to check up on a lot of the characters who each take Greta in for a few days. But this is Mary Worth, so Greta will be sent to exactly one other home (most likely with Eve or Mary) where boring no-stakes events will proceed for a few weeks until it’s time for the two-month epilogue of Mary praise. (It’s also very possible that this suspiciously ominous spotlight of non-action is exactly what it would be in a non-narrative universe: Saul just killing time until he can go on walkies with Eve and her dog after their vet visit, reminding us in the meantime that Saul likes his dog and dogs are good.)
@143 Poteet: on H&L
Look closely at the newspaper Hi is reading.
@Poteet: I may add SL to my list (remember enjoying it years ago in the dead tree NY Daily News newspaper) and at the same time delete Heart of the City, which has brought me a total of zero joy since I included it about a month ago.
@146 Ukulele Ike:
What you’re reading is 2nd generation Heart of the City. The original Heart was done by Mark Tatulli who also does Lio. The original was a fun read. When Mark decided to stop doing the strip.the syndicate looked for someone to take it over. I read the new one for about a month before dropping it for much the same reason you did.
Here’s a couple examples of the old strip. Example 1 Example 2
These were picked at random.
UNCLE LUMPY! A comment of mine went into moderation FOR NO GOOD REASON.
Please help. Thank you.
@Poteet: @Ukulele Ike: I’ve been following Sherman’s Lagoon for some time now, and I always enjoy it. I love the artwork – it always makes me smile.
@Danielakiiki:
Sound Effects courtesy of Don Martin Industries.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Piro is damaged goods, and women like to fix things.
@150 Garrison Skunk:
PAF
GALOON
GLONG
GADNG
ARGLE
GLARGLE
GLUK
FERRIP
CHIKA-CHUNK
THWIZZIK
ZAK
@79 I speak Jive: How does it look?
@123 Peanut Gallery: How does it look?
@Baja Gaijin: It’s right on target. Looks great.
@I speak Jive: #148
I love Sherman’s Lagoon! Consistently funny, even hilarious, and surprisingly topical – most recently with Marina, the internet-hacking Dumbo octopus, and this week, a suspicious looking large white balloon that’s been hovering above the lagoon. Clever writing and delightful artwork!
@Poteet: #143
I adore “Sherman’s Lagoon” – it is so cleverly drawn and written – it’s one of the few strips I look forward to reading every day.
@Braniff: #142
FC: It would be totally in character for Jeffy to bury one of Dolly’s hair ribbons in the ground and expect to see a new baby sister sprouting up.
@Baja Gaijin: The real reason Trixie’s gotta move: Dawg is floridly insane!
@153 I speak Jive: Now imagine the perspective. Is the flying flaming feces really large and far away or really small and close up?
@157 Peanut Gallery: The long blue wig’ll do that to ya!
@Just John: I’m willing to confess to being mildly insane, but I draw the line at buying a long blue wig.
@159 eanut Gallery: Of course you don’t buy a long blue wig: you’re only mildly insane, not floridly so.
Why are we still doing this blind pitching thing?
@Baja Gaijin: My perspective evaluation ability was damaged on Monday by those giant shoes in 6 Chix. I’m guessing that the flaming poo is close up and about to hit Hank and Yvonne in their faces. At least I hope so.
Hi and Lois: What they’re calling a sunbeam looks more like a transporter beam.
Some space ship is going to have a fine side table and lamp.
Oh, it’s good to see Lampy found some work.
@153 Baja Gaijin:
You may know this but you can isolate the individual mashups.
Just click on the mashup and you get a larger version of it. Then right click and choose “copy image link”.
Like this or this.
To be honest, this works for Firefox. I’m not sure how it works on other browsers.
By the way, Dawg is lit.
@164 Sequitur: Buh, buh, but this way I get more exposure for each mashup. Thanks for the suggestion.
// Is it annoying to have two unrelated mashups on one link?
@jerp+jump: Pretty sure it is related to Barajas having absolutely no interest in how sports are actually played.
@166 Baja Gaijin:
Not annoying but confusing. When I open the link the first time I wonder what the second mashup is doing there.
The advantage of the isolated mashup is it’s much larger image. This makes it easier to see if one is using a tablet or phone.
@167 Sequitur: Ah.
I just realized my numbering may be off. A comment I made over three hours ago is still in moderation. It will be counted as a comment on my computer but not on others.
@Sequitur: Sympathies.
@jroggs: I will remember your words of prophecy as this saga continues.
@170 (I think) Poteet:
I left a message for you at
@Sequitur:
@Sequitur: Ohhhh. Thank you. And me a newspaper fan. To be honest, I still don’t entirely understand what Josh wrote, but now a big piece of the puzzle is sliding into place in my brain. *grinding sound*
@Ukulele Ike: I definitely enjoy SL. I just find myself thinking, when some SL stories abruptly end, “What? Wait! I liked that story! You coulda gotten another few days of funny out of it!”
Which is something I never think about certain other strips, and I’m sure you know what I mean.
@Poteet:
Don’t overthink it. Hi and Lois is not worth it. Spend your time on a more worthwhile endeavor such as making yourself a delicious cocktail.
@I speak Jive: I really like it too. I just wonder — what happened in regard to that sleepover theft awhile back? What happened right after the golf adventure? Etc. etc.
I do respect the philosophy that it’s better to end a story too soon than too late. It’s just that Toomey is good enough that I’d welcome a little more length in his stories. Maybe it doesn’t happen because ideas keep bubbling up in his brain so often that he has to keep changing themes.
@Daisy: Yes. Even on a relatively blah day, it’s still good enough that I enjoy it. That is not true of all comic strips, I have noticed. *cough*
@Sequitur: Thanks. *drinking sound*
@Poteet: MW: I think Saul is safe. Greta, however, not so much. She’s got the ball that mean-looking dog was fetching yesterday, and Eve is already at the vet to console the distraught Saul. I hope they don’t go there, but it’s looks like they might.
Helpful hint for Sherman’s Lagoon newbies: The storylines typically run a full week, but Toomey starts them on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. He may have to check his calendar.
@146 Ukulele Ike:
What you’re reading is 2nd generation Heart of the City. The original Heart was done by Mark Tatulli who also does Lio. The original was a fun read. When Mark decided to stop doing the strip.the syndicate looked for someone to take it over. I read the new one for about a month before dropping it for much the same reason you did.
Here’s an examples of the old strip. Example
@Sequitur:
And another example.
And my last two posts cover my comment that has been stuck in moderation for the past seven hours.