Sunday madness
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Shoe, 9/10/23
I don’t play poker so I don’t know if it’s normal for three friends to be randomly assigned a total stranger as a fourth player for a game in a casino or card room or grim basement illuminated by a single lightbulb where you’re playing on a giant wire spool instead of a table. I do know that if in mid-game, that guy started, in the typical manner of his species, grunting out “Hey, who wants to fuck, huh? Who wants to fuck me. Who’s horny. I’m horny. I’m hornt up”, I for one would find it quite off-putting.
Gasoline Alley, 9/10/23
Speaking of off-putting, I can decide which possibility I find weirder: that we’re expected to believe that random people in the Gasoline Alley universe send letters looking for advice to Joel, a weird old man who does not have a newspaper column or blog or any other public venue in which to answer them, or that we’re expected to believe that people in the real world send letters looking advice to the creators of Gasoline Alley so that they can be answered in character by Joel in a Sunday strip. For the record, I don’t believe either of these things! I simply refuse to! I believe in a world that makes sense, damn it!
160 replies to “Sunday madness”
MW:
You can just tell from the look on Eve’s face in P-5 that she’s going to go all Famke Janssen-James Bond/GoldenEye on Saul on their wedding night.
RMMD:
“That was really uncomfortable. My ability to converse was trunkated — so to speak.”
CS. If you want to make a point about “climate damage,” maybe don’t use as your mouthpiece the character who drives a diesel school bus, gardens with a flame thrower and starts massive blazes every time he has a cookout.
The Lockhorns: Huh. I just noticed Leroy and Loretta no longer have trowel-shaped shoes. I’d advise them to avoid light brown footwear lest a hungry Dagwood Bumstead mistake them for hoagies. No one wants to see that feeding frenzy, though maybe certain Internet Rule 34 people might.
Luann: You’re not attracting guys because you’re getting contact shrewishness from Bernice “Man and Woman Repellant” Halper.
Sherman’s Lagoon: “Sarge” Snorkel has the same complaint about Barnes and Noble: books aren’t edible.
Listen Josh, I have read the advice from the endless number of advice columns published in many digital publications. It’s therapy. The suggestion is always therapy, or dump your boyfriend. So I don’t blame people for trying a different approach, whether Reddit AITH or Joel from Gasoline Alley
JP-“Let me straighten up a few things here first.” I’m sure something is straight.
RMMD-Why is there a hostage situation involved? Trying to up the thrilling nail biting excitement of royalty negotiations?
MW-Today’s quote provided by a divorcee. I wonder when she said it.
MW: Mary is thrilled when her protégés (victims) marry each other. When a problem crops up, it’s double the meddle, double the fun!
RMMD: Buzzy: a hell of an agent and the uncontested master of understatement.
SHOE: Poor Mr Peacock is the avian Leroy Lockhorn, so he gets his thrills where he may.
FC: You’d think a kid Billy’s age wouldn’t get much out of watching Rashomon but go figure.
GA: ‘Blood sucking fans look to Joel to solve all their problems’ is a strange vibe even for this strip.
GA: Joel is clearly becoming a composite of two far better-known comic strip characters. His ability to draw insects is reminiscent of Pig Pen’s constant grime, probably because Joel refuses to attend to his personal hygiene. People turning to Joel for advice despite being a constant screw-up with no redeeming qualities invokes Wilbur from “Mary Worth” who, also, has perennial hygiene problems. Let’s hope for the sake of the “Gasoline Alley” universe that Joel goes for a walk in the woods and the talking bear does all a favor and eats him,
Wary Morth:
Is it possible to hope that this story arc is over?
…wait, nobody’s praised Mary yet.
Flylock Socks:
Why does Slylock believe the bear?
Because if he doesn’t, she’s going to rip his head off just like she’s about to do to Shady.
RMMD: To relieve the tension, Beatty has water shoot out of Rene’s gun since he hasn’t cleaned it since he went overboard.
DT: This isn’t the worst Minit Mystery we’ve seen (for example, the last one with the museum heist where the writer just gave up immediately and had the perpetrator trip and drown in the sewers without Dick having a chance to do anything), but it’s still pretty awful.
1. I’m no forensic expert, but I’m pretty sure a cursory glance at that blood spatter would show which direction and velocity the blood was flying but would not really indicate the dominant hand of an attacker. That’s several levels of complex variables pulled from a single spatter; seems like a pretty irresponsible conclusion, even as something that’s intended to be a simple given for the sake of a very short mystery.
2. Similarly, the injuries (on the right side of Simpson’s face) arguably indicate a right-hander more, since a righty can hit that side of the face easily if Simpson was smart enough to turn and attempt to flee, while the lefty theory requires Simpson to just stand there calmly facing someone trying to kill him with a baseball bat. Also, any of these musclebound studs could easily muster killing force swinging either direction.
3. The height thing so dumb I feel embarrassed even mentioning it, but an adult’s baseball bat is generally over 30″ (76cm) long, not to mention the length of the attacker’s arms and the possibility of other factors like Simpson crouching. Maybe this argument could exonerate Peter Dinklage for Shaquille O’Neal’s murder, but it’s just silly here.
4. Shoulder pain doesn’t mean an inability to use your shoulder in a heated (or opportunistic) moment.
5. Wow. A towel in a locker room. Now I’ve seen everything.
6. How exactly were the manager and rest of the team and personnel excluded as suspects? Seems like the manager in particular had motive and opportunity as well. Did Slylock Fox or Inspector Danger give Dick and Sam a hand arbitrarily narrowing down the culprits?
I’ll at least give guest writer Eric Costello credit for trying, but this whole thing falls apart with any scrutiny.
Wrecks Moregone:
Behind the scenes:
The creative team gets a phone call.
“Hey, you know that strip of yours?”
“Yes.”
“You know that part where Rene Belluso waves his finger in Mud’s face demanding money?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, why doesn’t Mud, who’s twice his size, rip off his finger or hit him over the head with his guitar or something?”
“…”
“I mean, if Rene was armed, he’d have been shown that way, right?”
“…”
“Right? Are you there? Hello?”
If you don’t know who the peacock is, you’re the peacock.
Traced Dick:
Question:
Who’s the character who most resembles Reeky Rat?
Answer:
That’s the killer!
My guess — the “Gasoline Alley” team discovered that there is a hamlet named Mosquitoville, Vermont, and said, “That’s gold! How can we use this?”
Sad that this was the best they could do.
Shoe: To be fair, this was done correctly that the male peacock has the big lavish tail feathers and not the female.
Giving the female the tail feathers is a mistake done constantly in media, so… kudos to Shoe?
Shoe has never been strong on avian physiology, but do they think that a peacock’s feathers retract up into its butt loke a vacuum cleaner cable?
GA: Gasoline Alley is the world’s longest running shaggy dog joke, but sometimes the writer has to break it down and condense the process into a single strip. Set ’em up with mosquitos, mosquitos, and more mosquitos, then knock ’em down with… thoughtful advice about the harming power that words can have on your loved one.
Luann: Yep, that’s our Luann, always scowling. Does it all the time. Please don’t ask for any examples. Anyway, this is just the buffer day to reset the Trufanns’ brains for Monday’s plot pivot, so…
JP: Did Abbey’s house always have this neoclassical exterior aesthetic? Interesting. Well, more interesting than the sudden and arbitrary end of Abbey’s grievances with Sam after doing nothing to address them.
RMMD: Thanks for that fascinating observation, Buzzy. I’ll bet that getting locked in a trunk by an armed killer for an indefinite period of time was indeed uncomfortable. Really immerses us in your harrowing experience. Assuming Mud’s several-month apology tour had any significance, I’ll guess that Doug or Truck will have spotted our tedious trio in the parking lot and will have the police on the way shortly. “Boy, I guess it pays bein’ nice t’ folks!” Mud will say cheerfully. “Suppose you’re right,” Truck will say. “That makes sense,” Doug will add.
GA: A mixed message here: “Be nice to one another,” said as he murders dozens of mosquitos.
Shoe: It’s better than the Perfesser’s tell of releasing his cloaca.
Crankshafted:
Climate damage?
Are we to take it that storms, droughts, floods, blizzards and heatwaves have been hitherto unknown in the Crankyverse?
Hãgår thé Hørrïblê:
Meanwhile the other Lars, the one on his deathbed, the one two houses over from Hågär’s, died.
Frazz: Ummmmm, inertia by its very definition doesn’t create energy.
Luann: Ummmmm, isn’t that Bernice’s thing? Oh, I forgot, she’s a sociopath, so she sees everything in relation to herself.
CS: I hate when Batiuk decides he needs to clumsily deal with “issues” in his inane strip about inanity and bad wordplay.
9CL: Ye Gods, what a hideous comic.
Zits: It seems like Jeremy is too old for a “time out,” but I’m not conversant with the current parenting methodologies.
FC: Cool Akira Kurosawa homage.
MW: It’s nice of them to name check Josh in the comic, but Moy needs to do a little more research. Josh isn’t Saul’s age, and he’s already happily married as far as I know.
Also, we didn’t get to see what Saul had to say before Mary’s toast.
Shoe – It could be that he’s simply letting everyone know that the following program is brought to them in living color on NBC.
JP: Let me straighten up a few things here first – like move Eric’s stuff out of my bedroom.
Shoe: Ha, I knew Josh would feature this one!
Phantom: Today we see Jeff Weigel’s version of Savarna from the daily strip, and she looks more like Pazuzu, which is actually appropriate.
I think we’re all burying the lede here. Shoe just did a gag that plays on its characters being birds. Clearly the apocalypse is nigh.
From what I remember, peacocks also show their tail feathers to assert dominance. E.g. if you are hiking and come across a peacock, he’ll display his feathers to show you that you are encroaching on his territory.
Or maybe they do that because they’ve learned that humans will reward the display with food?
DT – So the Knights baseball team enjoys water sports. Maybe they should be called the Golden Knights.
Sunday Mary Worth Quotevestigation! Apparently Princess Diana did say “”I went to the school and put it to William, particularly, that if you find someone you love in life, you must hang onto it and look after it,” at least a 2018 Today article about Prince William’s wedding (no comment) ascribes this to a 1995 BBC interview and that’s good enough for me. But the specific “hang on to that love” formulation first shows up in Google Books in something called Princess Diana: The Book of Love that was obviously run up in a hurry after her death and is literally in Papyrus.
As for Gasoline Alley, I’d say that that letter better be fake, because Mosquitoville is small enough that just saying someone is from there is enough to doxx them. But I guess if anyone in Mosquitoville is having marriage trouble, their neighbors already know.
(I’ve never been to Mosquitoville.)
Gasoline Alley : it *is* weird that anyone would write a letter asking advice from these characters, and specifically the two hillbilly cretins, AND about mariage, AND ask the hillbilly cretin that DOESN’T have a love interest and has never shown any romantic inclinations.
Oh well, at least it’s not Chef Meowrice again.
************
Luann : sure, this is yet another strip where Bernice’s character flaws are projected onto Luann, but on the other hand, it’s nice to see Luann glare at Bernice in a way that says less “I don’t have time for idiots, so if you’re not going to add something useful to my life, go away”, and more the even more fitting “I’m going to start strangling you while beating your face in”.
…Now, if only Luann would act on that sentiment…
Too far?Shoe – The peacock’s bluffing. With the writers’ strike, there’s no way NBC’s fall lineup could be that good.
GA – Multiple choice: Skeeters don’t attack Rufus because he’s:
A. A g-g-ghost!
B. A robot.
C. A hologram.
D. An undead demon from Hades.
E. Too *!!@*ing stupid.
GA – “Be sure none o’ them winged rascals are hiding out in th’ envel’pe! Cuz that’d explain why we’re combinin’ th’ skeeters with th’ advice column, and we can’t allow ANYTHIN’ in this here strip t’ make that much sense!”
Hi Minus Lois begins with a particularly bad business trip and ends with Hi living alone under a freeway overpass.
Jungle Jim – The pilot radios his carrier. “Any change in the orders?”
“Not so good,” says the captain. “The order says two coffees, one sugar, where it’s supposed to be one coffee, two sugars. And Ensign Parker says if they don’t have jelly donuts, get cream-filled!”
The peacock is the only one at the table wearing pants, so he may just be confused about what the game is.
Shoe: I feel like there’s something sad about Josh — some random dude who reviews newspaper comics for a living — knowing more about birds and their biology than a comic creator who based his entire strip around said birds. Anyways I suppose the animal equivalent of “I have a massive erection” is a pretty obvious tell. Tune in next week when we see the tell of Shoe’s cuckoo poker buddy, who murders other people’s kids and replaces them with his own whenever he has a good hand.
Gasoline Alley: Lady from Vermont, if you even exist, then if you’re at the point where you’re asking Joel from Gasoline Alley for marital advice, it’s time to just admit that it’s not working and file for divorce. Besides, Joel has bigger problems to worry about than your shitty marriage; judging by his current situation and the throwaway panel that I’m choosing to interpret as a prophetic vision, he’s about to be under siege by the mosquito people as revenge for swatting their young!
DtM: Speaking of ‘Old School’ George and Martha’s foreplay begins by reenacting the typewriter ribbon scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
“Dennis, you have to go home now.”
Shoe: I mean, the tail could go one way or another–you really need to watch out if he starts screaming for no apparent reason.
FC: Jeff and his sister have different memories of the events of that day. But in any case, he changes the scene of his older brother being led to the electric chair to be more presentable in a family strip.
H&L – “I fixed the leak, Mrs. F, but you’ll have to get someone to repair the ceiling. I guess we got a little too rambunctious when you were giving me my ‘bonus pay,’ heh heh!”
MT: Noooo! From Wildebeest o’ Justice to Wildebeest o’ Heartbreak! Why does the Sunday feature keep bypassing Gnuton’s star power? It’s an outrage, I tell ya.
Okay, an unrelated Foreground Fauna shot of Patty O’Possum today, following a lotta random jibber jabber. And yeah, we furnished that Blind Texas Salamander… he has a side hustle as a blues performer… as well as the Leafy Sea Dragon. It’s not like you find ’em on just any street corner, so we charged a premium for them. As far as the Tardigrade, we don’t have the resources to handle them. We leave that to the Agent to the Microscopic Bioforms.
Shoe – Me too – that fucker’s got a boner….
GA – The only venomous toxic shit isn’t infused by flying vermin – some comes dripping off the Sunday funny pages in the form of platitudinous advice….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
How many others had the idea that Jeff’s “Finally” meant that Marvin had finally shit in the toilet? I can’t be the only one.
9CL: So Edda makes out with Amos so she doesn’t have to listen to him talk? The method is a bit extreme, but I can’t argue with the motivation.
C’shaft: “Why do you think I’ve been sending those grills into orbit? I’m trying to trigger a nuclear apocalypse here!”
DT: And to cap off the Abbot and Costello homage, I don’t give a damn.
JP: “This DOES mean we’re going to do the nasty, right? Cause I really, REALLY had my hopes up for that cabin…”
Luann: Yes, Luann, your problem is that you are too good for men and they instinctively sense it.
MW: Yes, when I think happy, functional marriages, I think of the British royal family.
Phantom: “Honey, did you start ANOTHER multi-generation colonialist scam?” *laugh track*
RMMD: Everybody is so chill about this situation–“It can’t be good for Buzzy,” “That was really uncomfortable,” “Sure, whatever.” Mudgus and Buzzy haven’t known Rene all that long but they know just how little a threat he poses.
MW – Don’t bother, Mary. Princess Diana has already said it all.
RMMD: Awww… he got him out? I was going to do this whole long sequence too…
Rene: You won’t give me the money? (knocks Mud out and puts him in the trunk along with Buzzy)
Truck comes out hearing the commotion.
Rene: He knows too much… -runs towards Truck- “AAAAGHHHHH!!!!” (knocks him out and puts him in the trunk as well)
Buck is walking down the street, sees what’s happening.
(Rene knocks him out too and puts him in the trunk.)
The Street Sweeper shows up: HALT EVILDOER I CANNOT LET YOU DO THIS!
(Rene knocks the Street Sweeper out and puts him in the trunk.)
Rene: I need to get a bigger car…
@The Rambling Otter: this is pretty much the General Chuikov’s Cupboard joke from the Hitler Downfall parody videos.
Doonesbury: Soooooooo, “the loudest sucking sound came from…” the only female candidate in the bunch?
What could you possibly mean there, Garry?
PV: Welp, we’ve got the leaders of both sides bound and at sword point, we’re heading to the meeting point and now we’re gonna have a little public demonstration of Camelot’s colonial power.
Phantom: Hey. These boobs already accept the idea of an “Unknown Commander” directing their national security policy through messages left in a safe in a closed office. Now, they’ve talked themselves into accepting a concussed “John X” as an inspirational super soldier.
Jeez, Diana. This job gets easier every year. Mary Worth’s got nothin’ on me!
The modern comics page are full of anachronisms to help make Boomers feel that time hasn’t passed them by, but I refuse to think that even they believe that anyone still sends letters through the mail anymore, even to… advice hobos?
Shoe: The joke would work better with no dialogue in the first panel. Trust the readers to figure it out.
Phantom: The unspoken problem that he’s dancing around is that if he was honest with the people who work for him, the whole silly command structure would come tumbling down.
A&J: Is he just referring to the collapse of college football’s traditional conference structure? Or something more specific?
Judge Parker: Let me straighten up a few things here first … with that DICK!
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Common joke I think, I was partially inspired by the “Candlejack” episode from Freakazoid.
Focusing on a in-universe creepypasta where every-time someone says the name Candlejack, he shows up and kidnaps them tying them up with rope.
So of course EVERY character ends up saying his name, to the point Candlejack himself questions their intelligence.
Midway through he runs out of rope, then later thinks about renting a bus to keep them all in.
Dennis – The horror of their anachronistic world: Too modern for typewriter ribbons to be available in the local stores, but not modern enough to be able to order them online. But that pales in comparison to the real horror: When George needs something, he just sticks his head into the room where Martha is serving dessert to some guests and barks his order at her. Martha deeply regrets that giddy moment in the late 1990s when she impulsively changed her name to martha.com.
@Bob Tice: Awww, geez! There’s not enough brain beach in all of Christiandom to wash away that mental image!
GA: I feel your pain, Josh, but let’s be honest. If the world made sense, Gasoline Alley would have stopped being a thing during the Eisenhower Administration.
Archie-Clearly Raj has snapped pictures of Betty and Veronica.
Hi and Lois-“Looks like another drip I have to take care of,” the plumber says hefting his wrench.
H&L: Lois is playing it cool, but eventually Hi will notice the young plumber isn’t wearing pants.
FC: Jeff updated this one by adding some stars to the flag.
DtM: The apple sure doesn’t fall far from the tree. Alice could offer to order a typewriter ribbon from Amazon, but she’d rather just quietly eat pie and watch the world burn.
MW: That was a good save by Eve saying the dogs thought Saul had a chance to find love. Certainly no human did.
A&J: What’s with the blinders? Does ESPNU have ads on the sides of the screen?
BB: Someone pleasegive theWalkersspaces,because thisstripis gettinghardtoread.
The problem with comics’ visual language is that if you see a characters with buzzing insect flying around him, you assume he is very smelly, even if you know they are mosquitos and not flies. You hear me, “Gasoline Alley”, you cannot escape the iron laws of the medium, even if you were there when the laws were forged!
Shoe: If you’re playing poker with John Holmes or Ron Jeremy, his tell would be if his end of the table rises.
The birds of “Shoe” are all flying birds and their world on top of trees is clearly designed for them. Peacocks are very bad at flying, so navigating a world made for flying birds would be like having a disabled person navigating hostile architecture. And are these birds helping their friend? No, they exploit his physical distinctiveness to take his money! Maybe they deserve their depression for their ableism!
Frazz – It’s good to see Mrs. Olsen calling out little genius Caulfield on his usual crap. Now the awesome janitor needs to get him to stop mocking people behind their backs. However, that won’t happen because Frazz enjoys it too much.
Mary Worth – We have the sitcom wrap up, so maybe this excruciating story is over. God, I hope so.
FC – We don’t see Thel’s version because she’s so sloshed that she didn’t notice that he left the house.
Rex Morgan – Buzzy is remarkably unconcerned about spending hours locked in the trunk of a car. I think I would be more upset about it if it happened to me.
I don’t understand why we’re enduring this dig into royalty payments to an incompetent con man. Remember all the fanfare a while back when Rex decided to dabble in surgery a couple of days a week? What happened with that? Of course, Terry Beatty’s knowledge of medicine is roughly equal to his understanding of show business, so any surgical story will be the usual boring bullshit.
“Watch out for those peacocks, they are bad at cards because they cannot control their nether region”. This is like stumbling across a prejudice I did not know about
@Peanut Gallery: Hmmmmm, 1941….the U.S. had not yet entered the war….so I suppose the Navy WAS accepting giant man-babies with gorilla arms. All this would change after Pearl Harbor.
MW Quote of the Week: And there are still those who say that little Sloane Ranger was not a deep thinker.
9CL: Those nearly-not-there shorts were drawn in in one of the later drafts.
CS: So it’s “climate damage” now? Man, blow 50 years of predictions to support your grifting and you get desperate to rebrand.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I’ve heard Tardigrades are bigger on the inside than on the outside, so it’s understandable you don’t want to deal with that.
@The Rambling Otter: Ah, Freakazoid, a show that went away too soon.
CS: so it’ll be a week of the old buzzards bullshitting?
MW: the dogs barking have to be pronouncing finis. Pool party tomorrow?
A&J: I’m confused about the blinders too, also wondering which school got stuck with the hideous color combination of orange and Navy blue. Either Arlo went to Princeton and Janis to Annapolis, or they both attended the University of Howard Johnson.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Ideally we’re inching glacially towards Truck showing up and being shot
@Ukulele Ike: I was wondering if it was supposed to be University of Florida, and the colorist messed up.
CS: a group of buzzards is called a wake. So Crank and cronies are conducting a wake.
@Ukulele Ike: re A&J: Jimmy Johnson is an Auburn University grad, and those are Auburn’s colors. Have no idea what the blinders are about.
@Peanut Gallery: Hey, a C-model Flying Fort and a Douglas Devastator in the same strip. Yes, definitely 1941.
“well, sailor, looks like you’ve been reassigned to assist our new war artist, some fella by the name of … Tom Finland?”
“I don’t know much about art, sir.”
“I’m sure he’ll teach you everything you need to know, son. Now go put on some shorts, we’re in the tropics.”
RMMD: Man, Mud’s agent is unflappable. If I was bound and gagged in a trunk, I think my complaints about the situation would go beyond discomfort. And his response to having a gun pointed at him is “Sure. Whatever.” Maybe this happens to him a lot.
@Ukulele Ike: Maybe a reference to all the news about conference realignment that distracts from watching the actual games?
RMMD; Rene Belluso has moved from being a pain in the ass to being a dangerous criminal. But why?
MW: Eve’s favorite treat.
@Wareagle: Strange — they don’t look Alabamanian….
@UncleJeff: Those panels didn’t appear in the By God LA Times this morning (the leading throwaway panels usually don’t), but, yeah, what’s up with that Garry?
Crank: I love the looks Ralph and Keesterman are sharing in the final panel, like they’ve just realised they’re sharing a diner booth with a sociopath.
GA: Stripped of folksy nonsense, Joel’s advice is that they shouldn’t say what the letter calls “say[ing] stuff they shouldn’t” and should instead say the “things they should have said to start with” to start with. Fantastic work, Joel. Hey, I think I’ve solved your problem as well: Have you tried not being bitten by mosquitoes?
MW: I mean, if I wanted to come up with an inspiring quote about how great it is that these two are getting married, I’m not sure my first pick would be a woman who had an arranged marriage with a man who was blatantly in love with someone else, following which they both had affairs, paraphrased from an interview she gave during the divorce proceedings.
Anyway, never mind that. Does Mary remember which half of that cake is suitable for humans and which half is for the dogs? Will anyone notice if she doesn’t?
Phantom: Well, at least Stripey isn’t pretending his latest bout of gaslighting the Jungle Patrol is motivated by anything other than his own ego.
SFx: Look, I’m not saying it’s Agatha Christie. I’m just saying it doesn’t have any of the “yes, but…”s that the solution to Dick Tracy’s Misfit Miseries does.
Shoe: This would make a lot more sense if they were playing strip poker.
RMMD; I’m hoping The Streetsweeper gets involved.
GA/MW: The crossover you’ve been waiting for! Joel passed his “advice columnist” test today, so he’ll be trading places with Wilbur and moving to Charterstone! Wilbur moves to bucolic Gasoline Alley to become a junkman and gets a new “pet” in Becky the Mule. This is just what is needed to liven up both comics, with new character interactions and hilarious hijinks! This was a genius move!
Luann: No, Bernice. Luann’s expression in panel 2 is more a Down’s syndrome vibe.
DT: Uh, Dick, you do realize that any halfway competent defense lawyer would tear your flimsy, circumstantially-based scenario apart in a court.
JP: Let me straighten a few things up, Sam, like get rid of all the spent, discarded condoms in my bedroom.
Rainforest Jim: Why is that carrier captain wearing his full dress whites with standup collar in the tropical heat midday? He should be in shirtsleeves khaki. Otherwise a good rendition of one of the early B-17s (no tailgunner position or top revolving turret).
@89 Myrtle:
Too bad we still don’t have Apartment 3-G. Joel could switch places with Professor Aristotle Papagoras. You could hardly tell the difference.
Crankshaft – So is this a Douglas Adams shout-out? This restaurant may only be at the end of the world, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Ed has been based on Marvin the despondent robot all along.
@Voshkod, I have a Bluesky invite code.
9CL – Today’s installment really lampshades the fact that the comic is mostly about this unappealing pair of twits wandering aimlessly in a featureless void. It’s “Waiting for Godot” in the sense that they have no purpose to their actions, no apparent destination, and no stated inspiration to wander the void in the first place. We just suddenly join them in the midst of their journey through life. (“Stop! Pay Troll!”)
Between this and Pibgorn, Brooke has fallen deeply into another “let’s see how many words I can possibly overuse in order to fail to say anything” phase. Brooke likes this part because he can just focus of drawing Edda’s juicy bits and doesn’t need to make up any kind of story as to what is going on.
@cheech wizard: “ Crankshaft – So is this a Douglas Adams shout-out?”
Well, all I can say to this is that I have an intense pain running down all the diodes on my left side, just from reading it.
DT – Ok, but if Mr. Hoo doesn’t speak English and needs a translator, how did he get angry about the names Simpson was calling him? I’m pretty sure something exactly like this was in the old Two-Minute Mysteries that were around when I was a kid. I would have thought Tracy had read them, too.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Seriously, he wastes an entire panel filled with text telling us that Amos is saying nothing.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Not only can he skip the story, Brooke doesn’t bother drawing the chinless faces with their enormous overbites. He can concentrate on what he loves – torsos and legs.
It’s revealing that he’s more interested in drawing their bodies than in giving them expressive faces.
Also, speaking of legs, that desire to draw meticulously detailed and shaded legs must be building up pretty severely. We’re about due a visit from Edda in her meticulously shaded tights.
@Sequitur: Oh. My. God.
GA: At the risk of being unfair to the artist, it looks to me as if someone thinks those mosquitoes are guys. And while some mosquitoes are guys, the guys are not the ones that bite. Male mosquitoes get to just wander around obtaining their nourishment from sweet plant nectar, tra-la tra-la, while the female mosquitoes are required to suck egg-nourishing blood meals from annoyed much-larger animals that, generally speaking, would like to kill them.
The females are attracted to perfume, especially floral perfume, which makes me wonder what Joel used to douse himself. We can see that Rufus isn’t being bothered.
Gasoline Alley-Mary worth has finally run out of ideas and is turning to ‘Gasoline Alley’ for help.
MT: Hey, would somebody get that *(^#$@% wildebeest out of my garden! Just like Mark to bring home a stray. This one’s not even cute! Rusty used to take care of the rescued wildlife, but now he spends all his time on BikBok. Kids today.
Now Mark’s off doing his Sunday podcast while this smelly herbivore is chewing his way through my inventory! Those plants are my livelihood! Does Mark want me to go back to being his cheerful helpmeet? It’s not like he can support us on a nature journalist’s income.
Wait, is that Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! driving up in a van? Has he come to get this menace out of my — YES! He and some weird-looking young guy are herding the wildebeest into the van! He’s gone! No gnus is good gnus! I wonder if I should have gotten a receipt.
@Sequitur: Hard to argue with that.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Thank you for keeping me in touch with the exciting latest developments! I take it the twins aren’t having sex all over the place quite yet.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Thank you for keeping us “in the know”! It is so gratifying to get the inside scoop on you and your Animal clients. I hope the Microscopic Bioforms agent cares for his clients as well as you care for yours. At least Gnuton will get more money. Patty Possum is showing her cute pink toes very nicely. And the Salamander and Dragon are putting on good displays.
@cheech wizard: #92: You beat me to a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference by five minutes. Oh well, I guess great minds think alike.
FC: All in the Family and Star Trek: The Next Generation also did a Rashomon-based episode. When the former first aired in the 70s I was watching it with a bunch buddies. When one commented about how clever and original the story was I told them it was done years ago by the film Rashomon. They all looked at me like I was speaking Klingon so I had to explain the plot of Rashomon and who Akira Kurosawa was. Like the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished I then had to endure a beer-fueled ribbing by a bunch of beefwits as to why I was watched some sissy, Jap art house movie.
GA: “Joel (last name not known) is said to have given tender words of advice to a young married couple before succumbing to malaria.”
@taig: And then, it exploded…!
@108 Artist formerly known as Ben:
Info on Joel’s last name. His full name Joseph L. Smith is mentioned June 4, 1965. His last name Smith is mentioned on June 28, 2001, as well as May 6 and 8, 2015.
At least that is what Wikipedia has to say about it.
MW: Sort of quoting Princess Diana made me think of Fergie and now I’m wondering if Saul is going to suck on Eve’s toes. Ew.
@40 Peanut Gallery:
It turned out to be Wilbur.
@Sequitur: Impossible! Wilbur is buoyant. Like a big, pasty beach ball.
@Guillermo el chiclero: #107: I should mention that I got revenge on one of those buddies a few months later. We were over at his place watching an episode of Charlie’s Angels and within the first five minutes I recognized it as a recycled Mod Squad plot. So I spent the rest of the hour ruining the whole show for him with spoiler alerts as to what was going to happen.
Blondie-The bigger question is how did Herb make the card reappear in Dagwood’s ass.
Lockhorns Upper Left-“Well maybe we would have more money if you didn’t spend it all the time!”
MT-“But why go to Saturn when you can find plenty of fantastical species on this planet?” Like the original Rusty with it’s cry of ‘Will you take me fishing’.
Shoe – The peacock stranger can only get it up when he is winning in high stakes gambling in shady situations.
Gasoline Alley – Wilbur is an advice columnists in universe, and other comics have done this schtick. Hell, Pluggers is based on users submitting suggestions and observations. I just know the day will come when a police officer on the stand has to admit the circumstantial evidence he used to arrest an innocent citizen was based on a reading of a Slylock strip.
@113 Ukulele Ike:
He is also stealthy.
Frazz: Panel 1’s a fart joke, right?
@Guillermo el chiclero: Golly, you and your friends DO have fun together, don’t you?
While they were laughing at your pansy-ass Kurosawa chopstick knowledge, you should have mentioned that his most famous movie got remade with Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson, and all five were waiting out on the front porch to come in and beat their asses for them.
Speaking of classic film, does Tess’s favorite movie in today’s PreTeena repeat actually exist, or is Barrows just teasing us?
Maybe it’s an oblique reference to Beat the Devil, which had Bogart, Peter Lorre, Bernard Lee, Robert Morley, and Gina Lollabrigida?
GA: I know if I’m ever looking for advice about love, I too like to write unsolicited letters to elderly alcoholics who live in a junkyard, in a one-room shack which they share with a donkey. An illiterate elderly alcoholic, it should be noted.
@Guy Nerdlinger: I don’t suppose Tom of Finland will have any problems with those gorilla arms pointed out by @Ukulele Ike.
“More good news, sailor: For this assignment, you will be issued some nipples!”
@Ukulele Ike: The movie in question is We’re No Angels.
@Sequitur: Hey, welcome back! Were you on safari, hunting Wilburs? Did you bag any?
@124 Peanut Gallery:
I’ve been sick. But I’m much better now!
@Sequitur: I’m glad to hear you’re back on your feet!
@taig: Ta!
@126 Peanut Gallery:
Back on my feet is right. One of the things I recovered from was a bout with gout.
@Guillermo el chiclero: by a bunch of beefwits as to why I was watched some sissy, Jap art house movie.
Got the reference!
@Sequitur: a bout with gout.
Hope you don’t loiter with a goiter.
Six Chex and a Cat Named Costello: Whoot’s on first?
Hope Shoe washes the cards after the peacock f***s his hand. Nice that the writer remembered that they’re birds,but shouldn’t the new player be a pigeon?
@Sequitur: Oh, lord. Total sympathy and best wishes.
Old saw: What’s the difference between rheumatism and gout?
Put your foot in a vise and close it until the pain is too awful to bear. That’s rheumatism. Now twist the vise one more time….
@133 Ukulele Ike:
Eh-yup.
On the plus side I lost 11-12 pounds. No, not British money
@taig:
@Ukulele Ike: The movie in question is We’re No Angels.
______________________________________________
“So,Sherman,the moral of the comic is ‘don’t bogart Bogart movies.’ ” “Mr Peabody,are you sure this isn’t an old ‘Aesop and Son’ script?” “Sherman, there’s a writer’s strike on, we all have to make do.” “I’m no scab,Peabody!”
@Sequitur:
Back on my feet is right. One of the things I recovered from was a bout with gout.
________________
Hope you’re not due for the flu.
@136 Garrison Skunk:
Had that too.
@Peanut Gallery:
@Sequitur: Hey, welcome back! Were you on safari, hunting Wilburs? Did you bag any?
___________________________
“It’s Mud Season!” “Wilbur Season!” “Mud Season!”
@Sequitur:
I’ve been sick. But I’m much better now!
__________________
Got the reference…John Astin as Buddy,”Night Court”. Seriously though, glad you’re feeling better.
rmmd if nothing else next truck will show up to talk and wind up helping mudd and buzz capture renee at last and mudd begging buck to take him back. as a client. for if renee wants his money in cash buzz better find an all night atm luann you don’t attract and keep romance luann for you listen to advice from bernice and did you forgot your latest realationship with jack.
BB: Most of the action is confined to Camp Swampy, where facial hair if any has to be strictly regulation. The general’s trip to town was written because the art intern begged for a chance to draw a hipster beard.
C-Shaft: Funny, I would have thought that it was those stuck talking to Crankshaft who would be looking forward to the apocalypse.
Crock: No harm, no foul. Since the Lost Patrol isn’t in the American Southwest the cactus was a mirage to begin with.
DT: “You have the right to remain silent, although you might find it difficult to do so after we bring out the hoses. I trust none of you other boys heard that.”
MW: MAYBE NOT THE BEST SOURCE ON HAPPY MARRIAGES SUNDAY QUOTEBOT!
Phantom: John X added a five o’clock shadow to Kit Walker’s look and thus entered the realm of legend. What this tells me is that everyone involved in the Jungle Patrol is profoundly bored, the Unknown Commander very much included.
@139 Garrison Skunk:
You always were the smart one in the family.
Mary’s Worst: (Sunday Quote) “Love is the meaning of life,life is the meaning of love”- Ron Nasty, Dirk MacQuigley.
Saul turns to Mary “How many balloons would you suppose it would take to get this apartment complex airborne?”
@143 Garrison Skunk:
Mary answers, “One, if it’s big enough.”
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Meanwhile the other Lars, the one on his deathbed, the one two houses over from Hågär’s, died.
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Awww, poor Phyllis and Bess.
@Sequitur:
Mom always liked you better.
Mary Worth – Personally, I think it’s okay that the quote is from Princess Diana. It’s appropriate that the People’s Princess is quoted by the People’s Meddler.
@146 Garrison Skunk:
Well, you did have a chicken.
Late Thread Cuisine: I’d like to meet the food stylist who thought a severed rice breast imprisoned in criss-crossed red pepper straps would be a perfect centerpiece to this meal.
@149 Baja Gaijin:
It marks the spot.
@Baja Gaijin: I thought “severed rice breast” must be a typo until I saw the pic.
@150 Sequitur: It diverts the eye from the horror that surrounds it.
@151 Artist formerly known as Ben: It’s the first thought that came to mind when I saw the image.
@Bob Tice: @Dr. Larry Erhardt:
Either that or Caulfield launched a Preperation H-bomb.
@Sequitur:
Is that a chicken joke?
@taig:
I know my response might be a little too late, but I heard talks of rebooting it.
Seeing how new Animaniacs has done… I’m not too enthusiastic. Also especially now that Ed Asner is no longer with us.
@Garrison Skunk: @Sequitur: Cut that out! You’re smothering us.
(by the way, whatever happened to the actress from “Share a Little Tea with Goldie?”)
@Steve Dallas: If I’m honest, I relished Ed’s frank admission that he is doing his best to immanentize the eschaton because he wouldn’t want to miss seeing it before he kacks.
@156 Ukulele Ike:
Goldie was played by was played by Leigh French.
You can read about her here.
Gasoline Alley: You should check out Joel’s Discord where we discuss some of his advice letters.
Not only that, Rufus is illiterate. At least he was for the first 100 years.