I’d like to think that Dustin’s parents were just driving around aimlessly to avoid their kids
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Blondie, 11/12/23
You ever notice how most of the women in Blondie have pretty normal-looking eyes but most of them men have these inky black stretched out ovals that take up half the height of their skulls? Honestly, despite years of reading this strip, I really hadn’t, until they decided to do a whole Sunday strip where the premise is that Dagwood just had his pupils dilated at optometrist, and now it’s all I can think about — which, honestly, is more appealing to dwell on than “ho ho, Dagwood would certainly be horny, if he could see better,” so I’m not complaining.
Mary Worth, 11/12/23
Having been fortified by a Mary Worth pep talk, Keith has dug deep into his Marine training and is going to fight for a decent, meaningful relationship with Kitty and then his daughter, no matter how fraught these conversations get or how hard he has to tr– oh, wait, what’s this, he got halfway through his apology and then Kitty was like “Oh, sorry I was so mean, let’s have a decent, meaningful relationship going forward. My treat! We’ll have lunch and I’ll explain how you can make friends with our daughter. Don’t worry, it won’t be difficult.” Problem solved, everyone! Problem sovled.
Six Chix, 11/12/23
Actually, Tom, I think what they’d say is that it’s been thousands of years since the civilization of their Builders passed away and not once since have they been bedewed with sacrificial blood. They’re thirsty! So thirsty! They’re an ancient megalithic monument, so they definitely don’t know what TripAdvisor is, but they know what human blood tastes like and they miss it terribly.
Dustin, 11/12/23
I’m kind of burned out on raging against Dustin but I do want to point out that Dustin’s parents — or, I guess more accurately, the people who write the strip from Dustin’s parents’ point of view — think getting Doordash/Grubhub delivery involves calling somebody. Jokes on you, dummies! Kids today are even less motivated than you think!
183 replies to “I’d like to think that Dustin’s parents were just driving around aimlessly to avoid their kids”
That was a pretty good “Doctor Who” story if you ignore the subplot with the goofy lights.
MW: Kitty’s change of heart seems miraculous, but thanks to the Worthwide Web, Mary can now manipulate people she’s never laid eyes on. Sonia’s next!
DtM: George Wilson: savvy enough to master tech in his golden years, yet stupid enough to reveal his password to an embryonic Public Enemy Number One.
RMMD: Fergus Mud is disturbed by Buzzy’s naked avarice. That is NOT what this is all about.
“Hmm,” he thinks. “I wonder if a few more days in the trunk will help him see The Way.”
Blondie-Sorry, Blondie, Dagwood only gets it up for food. Those aren’t the pies he likes to eat.
Slylock Fox-Slylock then kicks Max into the fire.
RMMD-The downside is that they are getting threats from Mary Worth.
MW-This time it’ll be Keith’s turn to storm out.
FC-“We now need to find a way to drive that Randolp Hearst out of town.”
Blondie is disappointed he won’t be horny when he gets home. “Maybe if I rub some mayonnaise on my breasts.” She thinks.
I hardly need to be the one to say it, but Dagwood has to be in some serious pain here. Not even wearing sunglasses after getting his eyes dilated? The joke isn’t that he can’t see the hawt ladies, the joke is that he decided to fry his retinas immediately after seeing an optometrist.
MW: Someone should demonstrate to all those dexterously challenged folks in Santa Royale that the speaker feature would allow them to use their cell phones without actually having to hold them.
Blondie: In the last panel of the second row, that’s a guy in drag. He’s wearing shades to cover up his tell-tale eyes.
Blondie: So Dagwood is constantly horny. I guess since every time we see him he is either eating or sleeping, the rest if the time he is just fucking with wild abandon. No wonder he stays so trim.
MW I love that they attributed that quote to Alexander the Great, as if his conquering if the Persian Empire was an Eat, Love, Pray voyage to get his mojo back.
6Cx This group had apparently toured Henge Moving and Storage, a place to keep your monoliths during the off-season.
Dustin: Peppers ordering food? To their homes? Even Andy Rooney is rolli g his eyes from beyond the grave..
Blondie: The obvious joke is that Dagwood can’t see all the hot babes passing by on the street. The secret joke is that his eyes look exactly the same when they’re “dilated” as when they aren’t. And the final joke is that Blondie and Dagwood seem to live in a city populated entirely by women, which is why she literally can’t do any better in the husband department.
Mary Worth: “I don’t like feeling regret, so I deflected my self-reproach towards you!” “Huh? What are you saying? No human being talks that way!” “I’m sorry, a lady called me and said that she lives in your building, and that I had to use those exact or she would never give you the antidote to some poisoned muffins.”
Dustin: “This whole country seems to get less motivated every day!” grouses a couple who haven’t walked more than three steps since this morning.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you jump into a pile of leaves and then remember all the hammers, nails, screwdrivers, and rakes you left lying in the yard.
Slylock Fox: Slylock is delighted, Slylock’s date is curious, and Max’s date is downright terrified, as Max acts out his plans for their foursome that night.
I’m not “motivated” to cook my own meals, I’m just poor. In your face, Dustin writers!
Mary Worth takes place in a dystopia where America has been conquered by mediocre therapists who force everyone to talk like them (under penalty of being charged $100 a hour to not be listened to in a small office over a hair salon). If I ever say a sentence like “I didn’t like feeling regret, so I deflected my self-reproach towards you“, please put me on the ice floe and let me drift peacefully out to sea.
MW:
“And it’s 1, 2, 3
What am I fighting for?
Don’t ask me; I won’t shift; I’m daft
The next stop is me at Taft
And it’s 5, 6, 7
Open up the surly spates
Well, there ain’t no time to blunder by
Whoopee! We’re all gonna sigh….”
— Country Joe and the Fish (adapted)
MW:
For the first time that I can recall, Ian Cameron has serious competition for Oaf of the Year.
RMMD:
Does Buzzy not have a shirt in his collection that doesn’t sport some kind of garish floral look?
Blondie – I think they all could use a good Dianetic clearing….
MW – They both need a good Dianetic clearing….
6-C – If these stones could talk they’d tell you that you all need a good Dianetic clearing….
Dustin – Oh shit! The whole world needs a good Dianetic clearing….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Maybe Keith shouldn’t take relationship and human relations advices from Alexander the Great, unless what he aims for is become a belligerent drunk, alienate and sometimes kill your trusted friends and companions, never get over your loved one’s demise and marry multiple women without ever loving any of them.
MW: Adding one panel at the end: Keith hangs up the phone and thinks; “That’s not the Kitty I know” would make this the perfect opening scene in a new Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
MW:
“Any ideas, Kitty, on how I might be able to make amends with Sonia?”
“Well, maybe stand outside the window of her room with a boombox, in the grand Wilbur Weston tradition. But I probably wouldn’t have the boombox playing McCartney’s ‘Listen to What “The Man” Said.’ “
Do we need a new “Dustin” strip every day? Can’t we just reprint the same one that says “Gosh, you young people are doing a terrible job at being raised by us!”
Blondie should know that Dagwood cannot be horny for women, because his brain is too busy being horny for food. The only reason he managed to consumate marriage and have children is that his synapses strongly associate his wife with the cooking of three meals a day
6 Chicks — Sure, like I’m going to take a recommendation from a bunch of stoners,
MW — “There is nothing impossible to him who will try.” Except of course, living longer than 32 after killing hundreds of thousands of people. .
Mary Worth Mashup: Somehow I expect their next meal to end like this alternate final panel.
Dustin: “Kids today are so lazy, ordering food online. They should do what we did in our day: make our wives do it!”
Small translation error. The stones did not say that the tourists needed to give five stars on Tripadvisor, but that when the five stars align, the dark gods will return and bathe the world in blood. Honest mistake Tom!
@Ettorre: You know in cartoons where someone is really hungry and they hallucinate their friend’s head turning into a sandwich or a rotisserie chicken? Well, Dagwood does the same thing during sex.
Blondie: “Your eyes are still dilated from your eye exam, aren’t they?”
I guess they repeated the word “eye” because otherwise people would assume it was a …prostate exam?
“Boy, that Dr Morgan really gets carried away.”
MW:
“Now, a word of warning, Keith. Sonia will be picketing the front of the restaurant to try to prevent you from coming in and seeing me. But don’t let that deter you!”
Memo to the Blondie writers: Dagwood is horny for food, not women. This isn’t The Lockhorns. Thank you.
Dumplings have feet?!!? I always thought they just moved about on a trail of slime, like snails.
MW: Kitty introspectively understood that she had DEFLECTED her own SELF-REPROACH, and now she realizes she’s ready to rekindle her relationship with Keith. Up until now, both her heart and her libido had seemed to her like a huge fireplace littered with the ashes of her long-lost past, yet with a new fire laid, ready to light—but nothing to spark the flame. Her psychological mind suddenly knows that Keith is the perfect MATCH. Yes, she’s been burned before, but this time she won’t run from the blazing love that is her destiny with her lusty, muscle-bound Marine-cop. Also, she has no furniture and she imagines Keith’s stuff will work in her space. (Which it would, except not that hideous throw pillow.)
MW:
Kind of an odd choice of words for Kitty, don’t you think? She might direct self-reproach toward Keith, but ordinarily, when you’re deflecting something, you’re deflecting it away, not deflecting it toward.
Blondie—all those women have bruises on their faces! They must be near that awful women’s shelter in Mary Worth. And speaking of Mary…
MW: Is it took much to hope for that Sonia’s mom here (I forget her name, who cares) is wildly bipolar, swinging from sullen silence to screaming rage to complete euphoria every couple of hours (or, hopefully, every ten minutes)? That’s asking too much, isn’t it?
MW: Next Sunday, we attend Mary’s poolside party where she introduces Keith to the Charterstone residents, in which the first panel shows Wilbur playfully pushing his new neighbor into the deep end.
“Oh! Most miserable wretch that I am! Why have I not learnt how to SWIM?” —Alexander the Great
FC: Kitty asking Keith to come over for an apologetic blowjob would still be more believable dialogue than Jeffy using the word “editorial.”
Blondie: The last time I got my eyes dilated, I felt like I was in a JJ Abrams movie. It’s no surprise Dagwood is distracted.
MW: Men don’t exactly have to do a lot of heavy lifting, emotionally, in this strip, do they?
6C: They’d also wonder how they got so smooshed together and ask if they could be put back at their respectable distances from each other.
Dustin: Today’s strip is a fine example of why I dropped this comic from my list. Thanks for your service, Josh! (As a side note, I have no idea why I can tolerate the insanity in 9 Chickweed Lane but can’t stand this strip. It’s probably because Dustin’s misanthropy is a feature rather than a quirky side effect of 9CL‘s “storytelling.”)
Asking those, who are in the know about The Bible.
I found an old Family Circus collection, one comic has Jeffy goes over to Dolly saying “Mommy just read us a Bible story about a Punchy Pilot!”
I would love some context on this, very much please :)
Frazz: It’s fitting that Caulfield would be smug while wearing a Duke sweatshirt.
Luann: No wonder the foster home(?) where Shannon spends the rest of her day doesn’t want her there.
CS: I don’t know what you were looking for, Crankshaft, but you found the dead body of that child you “accidentally” ran over. {Smirk!}
@The Rambling Otter: He’s referring (in his darnedest way) to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered Jesus’s crucifixion.
Zits: My favorite aspect of this comic is how no one at the school even raises an eyebrow at Jeremy toting around a laundry basket. It’s like he does this kind of thing constantly!
FC: PJ has already sold the paper to a venture capitalist company so he can enjoy his retirement. Everyone else will receive their pink slips in 15 minutes.
@Baja Gaijin: It makes me wonder how many stories of people Keith killed with his bare hands to get Kitty to feel this way.
@The Rambling Otter: Pontius Pilate. He flew too high and got burned by the Son.
9CL: I don’t know. I’d also have a difficult time with a jigsaw puzzle that was just a monocolor blob.
Pluggers Another advantage of the leaf blower is that the plugger gets to annoy his neighbours while doing something pointless.
@Charterstoned: Because he was punchy.
MW – Damn, Obi-Wan Kenobi had a tougher time convincing the stormtrooper that these were not the droids he was looking for.
@Rube: He’s a pilot for Spirit Airlines, no wonder he’s punchy.
MW – “The sweet taste of victory”
— Alexander the Grape
Make America Cook Again
MW – Oh! Here we all thought we were getting a story about reconnecting with lost love, but instead it’s about bipolar personalities! Well-played, Moy, I didn’t see that coming.
Dustin – You can tell we’re supposed to think Helen Kudlick is a good person, because even when she’s alone in the car with her husband, she uses the dog whistle “people today are less motivated” instead of explicitly saying “young people today are lazy.”
Dustin – Pluggers wash their clothes on rocks down at the river, even though they have a perfectly good washing machine at home. Because they’re MOTIVATED!
Jungle Jim – Later, under cover of night, Jim grabs one of the house servants and twists the man’s arm. “Come on, talk,” Jim orders. “What’s Thorson up to?”
“No need for force, Master Jim,” the servant whispers hoarsely. “I work for FBI!”
“What!? You too?”
“Yes, Master Jim. Servants, bodyguards, cook, chauffeur, everyone here under cover for FBI. Everyone but Thorson, and we still not sure about him.”
What intern wrote this Blondie? Everyone knows Dagwood is 100% sandwichsexual. They had to make a new Kinsey scale just for him.
@The Rambling Otter: Explain? Well, you had just smoked a big fat joint and gone to a garage sale, and it was Sunday afternoon, when everything is 3/4 off, and you came across a box of old cartoon paperbacks and thought “okay, I’ll spend one dime, so it’s Family Circus or Broom Hilda,” then. . .
Oh, you mean explain Punchy Pilate? That’s just the Keene mom trying to make a guy being nailed to a piece of wood and left in the hot sun to die kid-friendly.
FC – Usually when there’s a balloon buffet on Sunday, Bil and/or Thel are there with glum expressions as they suffer their kids’ drivel. They’re probably in the bedroom drinking box wine while watching the latest episode of the Frasier reboot.
Luann: Who is more like a six year old: Luann or Shannon? Discuss. And please show your work.
MW: To show that Kitty is not a real part of the Worthverse, they show her holding a cell phone properly.
That hussy.
Blondie: Given the way all the women are walking hunched over with usually blank expressions like they’re stumbling aimlessly under the influence of drugs and Blondie is clinging to Dagwood with a fearful look, I thought the joke was that the happy couple had accidentally walked near a crack den.
Mary Worth: Few days ago, I made a comment claiming Sonia and Kitty were actors hired by Mary to play this part for her latest meddle against Keith. I feel today’s strip proves this true, given Kitty’s abrupt turn which just so happened to coincide with Mary giving Keith advice suggesting she would act that way. I now refuse to accept any other explanation; Kitty may have slept with Keith once, but Sonia is just some lady who looks vaguely like him pulled off the street and both are being paid to gaslight Keith into carrying out Mary’s latest morality play. She’s done this before and intends on doing it many times in the future.
Six Chix: Okay, I’ll admit it, this one got a laugh out of me. A sensible chuckle, really, but nonetheless.
Dustin: Christ, even by this comic’s standards, this one is bad. The smarmy self-righteousness is like a fog around it, and of all the things they target as signs that “things suck nowadays”, they go after food delivery, as if that’s something people haven’t been doing for decades at least. We’re Dustin’s Dad and Dustin’s Mom making these snide comments about themselves when they were ordering pizza during their precious youth or were they too good for that to?
Do you ever read a comic and just instantly, without even the slightest doubt, know that the person who wrote it must be utterly insufferable to interact with in real life? That’s how every Dustin strip makes me feel.
@ld: I present these scribbles of Luann and Shannon. The one on the left is Luann looking way more like a six year old than Shannon. I ate the crayons so I can’t provide any more examples.
New Improved Flash Gordon: Thanks for the recap, Aura! Ooo, that’s a doozy of a situation you’ve put yourself in!
6C: I don’t blame this guy for fishing for online reviews–they’re vital to the success of a small business, appeasing the mysterious Google algorithms much in the same way Druidic blood sacrifices sated their capricious gods. I do, however, blame him for choosing the idiotic “Tom’s Tiptop Tours” for his company name.
Dustin: Yeah, why don’t the Kids These Days spend the thirty minutes between their ten hour shift at Walgreen’s and the gig job they have to make up for the fact that Walgreen’s doesn’t pay them a living wage to create a nice, home-cooked meal with the groceries they can’t afford? I’ll tell ya why, it’s because they’re lazy. (And in Dustsis’ case, a minor legally and financially dependent on her parents, but that’s no excuse.)
MW: Of course, we can’t have people thinking that Kitty actually had some valid reasons for turning Keith away. No, she was just ashamed of having missed her chance to devote her life to a man–a Marine, no less–and projected that onto Keith! Now all we need is for Sonia to come in and admit she’s just been prejudiced against the police ever since one told her off for loitering when she was twelve, and everyone’s happy and singing Mary’s praises!
Blondie: Never has the phrase “Throwaway Panels” been more apt. Guessing the writers sent advance word that today’s comic could cover an entire page if necessary.
Not to mention all the dog shit – and/or Plugger shit – under those leaves.
MW – Kitty, at least make him put on a rubber this time.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Awwwww, but Keith got used to rawdogging it in the Marines and in the police force.
@Schroduck: See Mary Worth is actually a prophetic vision showing us an apocalyptic nightmare of what the our nation would look like if the “Mirakle Method” took the world by storm. Stop the madness before this dystopian future comes to pass!
Dustin:
Daughter: What’s for dinner.
Mom: I don’t know. What are you cooking?
DT: Good visual storytelling today. No notes. (Okay, maybe one note: needs more face-eating rats.)
Lio: I would think this would fall more under the “no motorized vehicles” rule. Or maybe “no drones.”
Luann: Man, if only there were responsible adults who could have told her to do her demonstration in the middle of the room, or better yet outside…
MT: So, full of empty calories and overpriced?
Phantom: The Ghost With Too Many Aliases should spend less time sorting out this “John X/Unknown Commander” mixup and more time coming up with a better logo for the Jungle Patrol. Preferably one that doesn’t look like the symbol for allegorical Nazis in a speculative fiction story.
RMMD: Three hours? Man, they’d better be serving a meal with this seminar. Or at least bathroom breaks.
Dustin: Kelly and Parker seem to be losing the generational-warfare plot more and more every week. It’s doubtful there are many parents out there expressing frustration that their sixteen year old daughters remain in easy contact at home and make sure to touch base about family dinner plans before going off and handling their own feeding.
CS: “Oh, whatever did I come down into the basement to find? I must be having a senior moment! Pam, sweetie, ask those officers if they’d like some cookies to go with their coffee! …Christ, this freezer is a mess. Where’s the rest of that damned corpse?”
H&L: Haha, men be like “It’s game time, boys, let’s watch two NFL games in a row, which I somehow believe is a rare occurrence on Sundays!” and women be like, “Even though I’ve been affecting neglect for years because of this football sport, I am still completely unfamiliar with its scheduling and game format, and cannot plan for family walks before the game or during half-time!” Mars and Venus, amirite?
JP: “Get a hold of yourself, April. Remember, everything we say and do is being closely monitored right now, so show some composure. Anyway, like I said, the reason I had you turn me in was so we could trick these CIA buffoons into thinking you’re loyal to them. I can’t believe those morons fell for it!”
@Ettorre: Hey, you never know. Maybe Keith’s into horses. Like, really into horses.
Mary Worth: “Keith, make your heart as large as your freakish hands, and you will find lasting romance.”
“What if I just want to get laid?”
[Glances at Keith’s jeans] “Cut back on the steroids.”
DUSTIN: See it’s funny because according to wistful halcyon memories of the Boomer
stereotypegeneration, the last panel actually is how “it used to be.” See, you got what you wanted, Helen, so strap on your apron and heels and get cracking!I used love reading this blog but I’m not sure I can anymore. In just the last week, Gil Thorp & Dagwood (11/11), Chip (11/10), & Rex Morgan (11/08) have all turned, dead-eyed, to stare out of the pages of the funny papers directly at me, trying to pull me into their time-stuck, two-dimensional world. I don’t want to be a cartoon. I DON’T WANT TO BE A CARTOON!
FC – Charles Schulz? This strip is already signed by a dead cartoonist.
Rex Morgan – Take a look at the audience. He’s wearing glasses, but the guy on the far left in the first row – OMG! It’s Aldo Kelrast!
Frazz – Caulfield already knows that he’s superior to everyone. Why does he bother to look for reasons? He could spend that time cutting up people behind their backs.
Pluggers – I’m having trouble understanding this. Did he leave the hammer in the tree, and it dropped to the ground when the leaves fell? What was he doing with a hammer in the tree? Or did he leave the hammer on the ground under the tree? If so, why didn’t he notice it before the leaves fell, when the ground was bare?
SlyF – Ah, so we’re in the tenth circle of hell, the one unimaginable by Dante, where anthropomorphic mice mime Anglo Saxon riddles by the light of the hellfire.
Blondie – This joke depends on Dagwood having a wandering eye, which is just not a thing. In order to work, those other women would need to be pot roasts, deep fried turkeys, and bone-in hams.
Luann – Well at least she didn’t play ball in the house.
MW – Um, did Kitty just self-meddle?!?! Mary’s gonna be pissed!
Blondie: I’d joke that they hid the salami that would truly turn Dagwood on, but what’s the point? It would be a literal salami. It would taste like garlic.
6C – Josh, do you remember how Tess died in Tess of the D’urbervilles? Yeah, those stones have had their thirst slaked more recently than you think.
@Baja Gaijin: Are you saying that the Keith-Kitty relationship will be on an endless loop, like “Dogs are good” was?
@taig: A few years ago I saw a jigsaw puzzle of the cover of the Beatles’ White Album. I wish I’d bought it.
@richardf8: That was such a gloriously silly episode of The Brady Bunch, which is saying something for that show.
@I speak Jive: That would have been cool, which is quite the opposite of what 9CL offered.
LUANN: AAAAAaaaarghhh!! Another instance of EVERY character in Luann being disgusting human beings! The reaction of normal, well-socialized children to causing a cascade of destruction in the home is shock, distress, sorrow, shame, and the fear of consequences.
But not Shannon!
Shannon thinks all that destruction means she is “great”, which means that (as we have seen multiple times over the years) Brad and Toni are among the WORST examples of parenting out there! Well-socialized children DON’T DO THIS!
What in the name of ever-loving FUCK goes through the minds of the Evansii when they create this crap?
@TheDiva: If I know both my Big Book of Liberal Stereotypes and all three Mary Worth plotlines, Sonia will come around now that her parents have resumed appropriate heteronormative pair-bonding, her big stance against “the man” just being a front for a huge mess of “daddy issues.” But now there is patriarchal authority in her life, so sucks to be you people being oppressed by the police and poverty or whatever, but Sonia has a man in her life now so she knows where the totality of her focus is supposed to be.
MW: I hope you folks caught yesterday’s inspiring performance by the Doves o’ Love Plus Two! The suits at MW didn’t wanna pay Sunday rates again. But it worked out better with more notice for the quartet performance – nobody bumped into the windows this time.
I’m tellin’ ya – things have been in a panic over there lately. You’ve probably noticed how their ratings are tanking – everyone’s complaining about these new unlikable characters, and Mary herself… well, she’s being especially annoying. More so than usual. So The Ladies gave me a call to get my advice on how to get things back on track.
And I see today they are beginning to use my suggestions! I told ’em to cut their losses and wrap up this crapola PDQ. Let the newbies resolve their “situation” with Mary’s instructions and just move on. Of course I put in a word for a new Pet-centered story – I think this debacle has proved that’s where the money is!
I hope Keith, Kitty, and Sonia’s contracts don’t call for them to stay on for a specified time – I don’t feel I can place any Pets with them without violating our ethical standards.
MW: “Let’s repeat and rewind at the same place” is Karen Moy’s motto.
@Peanut Gallery: Shouldn’t Thorson be holding a bullwhip in his left hand? A riding crop, at least.
@Justice Hairhead: You don’t see the hilarity ensuing from a child causing property destruction?
@The Rambling Otter: Drugs. The explanation is drugs.
Oglaf- So so bouncy!
@Bob Tice: No, that’s his brand.
BLONDIE: Blondie, come on girl! Your husband ain’t Sir-Mix-a-Lot! You know full well that Dagwood ain’t gonna be looking at “back” unless it’s surrounded by the words “baby” and “ribs.”
DT: “Another vicious rare book-related knifing by the woman the press are calling the ‘Letter-Opener Murderess…’”
Dick, Sam, Lizz n’ Lee: “If only we could find a clue of some sort….”
Blondie: “I’d hit it… I’d hit it… I’d hit it… I’d hit it… I’d hit it… I’d hit it… yes, of course I’d hit you too, dear.”
Gotta hand it to Dustin’s parents. They look really good for two people who are very clearly Boomers.
Drive-thru restaurants date back to the 1950s (though oddly McDonalds started relatively late in the game at 1974), with their antecedent the drive-in first popping up in 1921. The dramatic increase in food delivery services came a century later largely because of the worst global pandemic during this whole stretch of time.
Did the boomers of Dustin’s intended audience just forget all this, or has that strip been secretly taken over by the undead fin de siècle consortium that keeps Gasoline Alley afloat?
“And another thing about KIDS THESE DAYS! They can’t even be bothered to work when you HIRE THEM FOR TEN CENTS AN HOUR ON FIVERR to write your comic strip about KIDS THESE DAYS! Their strips use the SILENT PENULTIMATE PANEL, a recognized trope of lazy writing! No wonder we’re losing the Cold War!” *aide whispers in ear* “YOU’RE FIRED!”
MW: “Let’s repeat and rewind so one of the Brigmans doesn’t have to draw a new background or restaurant.”
Dustin Food delivery apps have been common for years, and became extremely popular during the Pandemic, but most comic strip writers apparently have no idea how they work. I’m not sure what this means, but I suspect it doesn’t speak very well of how much modern comic strip writers get paid.
Snuffy throwaway panels – Hey, that’s just what Dustin’s parents say!
@MacBlank:
Blondie—Heck when I leave my ophthalmologist I’ve got an oversized pair of dark glasses that would make Roy Oribison envious and I still can’t see squat.
MW: I see that Karen Moy is still using an early version of Chat GPT to write dialog.
@The Rambling Otter:
Jeffy goes over to Dolly saying “Mommy just read us a Bible story about a Punchy Pilot!
_______________
Assuming you’re not being sarcastic, the joke is Jeffy is confusing Pontius Pilate with Punchy, the Hawaiian Punch™ mascot.
@52 Peanut Gallery:
@taig: @Charterstoned: @Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: @Garrison Skunk: @I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Thanks guys :)
I literally never heard of Pontius Pilate but now I’m a little more educated, and the drugs comments made me laugh xD
I wish you all a good Sunday
Awww, I sent a message thanking all of you for explaining and it didn’t send.
REX MORGAN M.D.: I love how Beatty is trying to imply that Buzzy is a greedy ASSHOLE, so greedy that he’s still going to give Rene his cut and credit, despite no legally-binding agreement to do so, the jerk!
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Also, I wouldn’t count your money yet Buzzy, because I’m sure those deflating rubber dolls you’re using as seat-fillers are going to cut into the profits
MW – “Dinners on me”, Oh! It’s one of those restaurants!
6ix Chix: If these stones could talk, they would tell you they are bloody tired of being moved twice a year for Daylight Savings Time.
C&H: I don’t know much about art, or marketability, but I’m very impressed that Calvin can even get snow to do that.
6C, meta: This is where I dredge up the remains of my Celtic Civilisations course and point out we know nothing about the people who made Stonehenges, and there’s no evidence they were into human sacrifice. Of course, the fact people think they were means it’s possible someone did have a go more recently.
DT: Pro-tip: killing people after they’ve told the police their suspicions about you doesn’t actually make that problem go away. I mean, assuming the guy was actually killed by X. Libris and didn’t, as the art suggests, simply get washed down the drain.
Dustin: A quick websearch suggests the first food delivery service in the US was in the 1920s, and it was fairly common by the 1950s. I know Josh has talked before about how Dustins’ parents are still written as boomers, when the complexities of comic-time mean they should actually be Gen X at this point, but it turns out they’re actually from the 19th century. If Dustin and his sister have time to sit around on their phones, they have time to sweep the chimney and blacken the grate!
MW: You think Moy got to the point of actually having to write this conversation, and then thought “Wait, am I going to have Keith insisting that he needs to have a relationship with Kitty and Sonia, whether they like it or not? I have a vague sense that that … might be bad, somehow?” Because honestly, the fact she thought it at all sounds like progress to me, and I’m not going to knock it!
Phantom: Okay, on the one hand kudos to Woburu for being one of the few people in this strip with two braincells. On the other hand, that will just make it all the more irritating when Stripey comes up with some bullshit reason why John X can’t be the Unknown Commander, and the Colonel swallows it without question. Or possibly swallows some amnesia drugs without question.
PV: Sorry, but this is that classic storytelling mistake, forgetting the characters don’t know what you know. There is no reason for Val to suspect that “long walks alone” = “falling prey to evil forces”, except for the fact that the writer knows that’s what’s happening.
RMMD: Give Beatty credit where it’s due: having seen this scene, I now understand that it was actually important that he spent several weeks making it absolutely clear that this isn’t a scam, because you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell otherwise.
Dustin: “Hi, Mom. Have a good time with Dad at Makeout Lane? Don’t try any of that creepy shit at home, okay? Ew.”
We wish to apologize for the misplaced ‘s’ in our above post. We meant to type Daylights Saving Times. We wish also to apologize for any misstakes in this apology.
MW: “I promise I won’t storm out.” “Not good enough. Do you also promise to say ‘yes’ to anything I ask you to do?”
@Justice Hairhead: i like to imagine Shannon being hit by a car.
@Ettorre: I’m going to have to disagree. Blondie is STACKED! Bustline and cleavage clearly overcomes gluttony.
Phantom – I’m looking forward to next week, when Col. Woburu candidly notes that all this Unknown Commander business and sneaking around in the middle of the night means that he has not been able to ask for a raise in 15 years.
@The Rambling Otter:
Rambling,. The Punchy Pilot refers to a kid mishearing the old name Pontius Pilot. I haven’t looked it up for a cite but in the Gospels he was the official who reluctantly sentenced Jesus to death. At the insistence of the mob.
@taig – “You don’t see the hilarity ensuing from a child causing property destruction?”
For comedy, it’s not the destruction which is supposed to be hilarious, it is the reaction to it. For instance, if Shannon looked at it and said, “I didn’t do it!” Or B-wad said, “I gotta go take that class!” Or Toni said, “Could you do that at your dad’s place?” All these reactions would elicit a laugh.
You see? It’s not the crime which is bad, it’s the cover-up. Covering up by denial, by distraction, by running away, and any of the other tropes of comedy. But saying, “I’m great!” — well, seeds of sociopathy anyone? Remember B-wad and Toni encouraging Shannon to bite? Yeah, real good child-raising.
At this rate, by age thirteen Shannon would be burning down the family house of the little girl who didn’t invite her to her birthday party.
Dagwood only likes chicks with a bit of meat on their bones.
FC: Dolly “Jeffy, Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo will be visiting us all the way from South Park, Colorado! Put that on the front page.”
Billy: “PJ: Get a picture of Kenny–dead–and another one of Barbara ‘Mecha’-Streisand destroying our house”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: According to Mark Trail, that’s good for the lawn.
If the joke at the end of today’s Dustin seems a bit limp, it’s because it’s a last-minute replacement after the syndicate rejected the original final two panels where Dustin’s dad quietly swerves the car into a crowd of young pedestrians and smashes directly into the side of a building.
@Justice Hairhead: To be perfectly clear, I don’t find Shannon’s antics cute or funny at all.
Blondie: This strip might have worked if each woman had been carrying a grocery bag or two, complete with mandatory French loaf and/or stick of celery poking out of the top.
@Anonyminimouse: Forget it, Jake. It’s Blondie.
@Ettorre: How about just “children are worthless.”
The good news from this week’s Mary Worth Quotevestigation is that “nothing is impossible to him who will try” is indeed attributed to Alexander the Great as far back as the 19th century! The bad news is that it appears in 1874 or 1882 in “The Royal Path of Life” by Thomas Haines and Levi Yaggy, the kind of self-help pablum filled with made-up quotes that we see even today. “Hackdom is eternal”–Matt Weiner. Put that on brainyquote and maybe I’ll see it in Mary Worth one day.
@Horace Broon: On PV: There’s also the classic storytelling mistake of being amazingly implausible. A young woman who is heir to the kingdom simply wouldn’t be allowed to go walking around alone. If she tried it, Aleta would call for the Royal birch.
There’s also the classic mistake of this strip of going back to the goddamn “Magicks”.
MW: Fun fact: In Iran the conqueror we call Alexander the Great is known as Alexander the Accursed.
@matt w: Kind of the Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun of its day, huh?
@Rube: Also, if your scheme is to lure the impressionable young heiress into the dark paths of witchery, you should at least supply the lunch.
“Oh, Ingrid. Egg salad again?”
“Oh, Ingrid. Egg salad again?”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Hey, Iran: Nobody likes a sore loser.
@Rube: re PV: Sorry, dahling, but one person’s “goddamn Magicks” is another Horses’s opportunity! Since I am “between roles” right now, this may be the door opening for another star turn as Morgan le Fay’s faithful ride! We worked so well together before…
However, she is quite capable of transporting herself in most situations, so I told Sid I would be willing to *create* the role of Ingrid’s Horse as a backup gig. Yes, I know the Royal Horses have the inside track for the part, but I think I could bring a new direction and a fresh outlook to the characterization. And I already know the Irish Wolfhounds, Baron and Hunter, so maybe they’ll put in a good woof for me…
@Ukulele Ike: #130:
“Egg salad again?”
Morgan le Fay will be farting all night.
MW: You’re right, Mary! I’ll give it another try! I’ll conquer Persia yet! Now excuse me while I go recruit some more mercenaries.
Morgan was hoping for a haunch of roast venison — poor Harpo and Groucho there haven’t had meat for days, and they’re starting to look at her like a haunch of venison. And wolfhound eggfarts are even worse than witch eggfarts.
Speaking of “nobody wants to work anymore”, Dustin’s parents better not take a look at Six Chix, because there’s somebody (several people?) who barely work at all and apparently make a pretty good living at it, at least in this Sunday strip they actually filled in the entire panel with stuff instead of just fading out into a void on the edges.
@Pozzo: Definitely what I come to this site for is the casual transphobia in the comments. Quality stuff. Feel extremely proud of yourself for this comment about masculine eyes, a definite real thing you didn’t just call out of your arse.
@The Rambling Otter: I literally never heard of Pontius Pilate but now I’m a little more educated,
For a good introduction to Pontius Pilate and his unfortunate speech impediment, see Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
@The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers: I appreciate the correction. Now do Valentimes Day.
MW: There is nothing impossible to him who will try.–Alexander the Great
Do or do not. There is no try.–Yoda
FC: I was thinking that this family newspaper thing was dragging on way too long but I’ll still take it over one of Mary Worth’s never-ending victory laps.
PV: Don’t worry, Val. Morgan le Fay isn’t trying to turn Ingrid over to the forces of darkness. She’s just trying recruit her into her LBGTQ rights movement.
Dustin: Got to give the creators of Dustin some credit. They used the actual names of the food delivery services. If Batiuk were writing this it would be Grubschlub and Floordash.
Late Thread Cuisine: That’s a nice looking fork. I didn’t know they made special cantaloupe slice plate.
Sex Organ V.D.: “The Mud Mountain pinatas are selling well considering what they’re filled with…”
@Garrison Skunk: They’re filled with…yesterthread’s Late Thread Cuisine?
@Guillermo el chiclero:
What do they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
@Baja Gaijin: The fork can’t distract from whatever got barfed up on that plate.
@TheDiva:
Or at least bathroom breaks.
____________________________
Are you kidding? Bathroom Break is Mud’s middle name.
@Baja Gaijin: You get the fork & plate when you order from DoorDash.
@Baja Gaijin: Repurposed butter dish. Who ordered the dog’s dinner on a toasted English?
My mother-in-law had flatware like that fork….stainless steel tooled to look like bamboo. It was like having every meal in a Trader Vic’s.
@Garrison Skunk: Oddly enough, they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese an “Alexander the Great.”
A Big Mac is an “Attila the Hun,” and a Fish Sandwich is a “Suleiman the Magnificent.”
@Ukulele Ike: Did she serve Zombies?
@The Rambling Otter:
Glad to help.
Family Circlejerk – Five ads from HTT Grandma? How many times does she have to advertise the rapture?
@143 Baja Gaijin:
At first I thought that’s what you get if you throw up on an English muffin but I located the recipe and found out those chunks are mixed vegetables in a butter, tuna, white wine and cheese sauce.
The cantaloupe is nice.
@Baja Gaijin: Are you sure there’s tuna in that? All I see is glop on an English muffin. The glop has a peculiar shine, too, which is usually a sign of a lot of cornstarch.
The cantaloupe looks like it’s passing judgment on the tuna glop. Or gas.
MW: “I deflected my self-reproach towards you.” Yes, but did Kitty “review past interactions” like Mary’s former yoga teacher once suggested.
@I speak Jive: Looks like the cantaloupe is giving the tuna a big smile.
@Sequitur: A good Tuna Melt can be a wonderful thing. Mixing a frozen bag of “mixed vegetables” with tuna, butter, cheese, and wine and pouring it over English muffins is a Tuna Melt gone Mr. Hyde.
rmmd better watch it buzzy for your sounding like you need a refresher course with the merkel method for you seem to be taking a play out of rennes old book. dustinn what could be worse finding dustin and his sister deciding they will be infucers and using the house as a bed and breckfast
While preparing/devouring your Tuna Melt, it is imperative that you be cranking up some Hot Tuna.
Dustin: I sort of want to see the kids turn the tables on their parents by cooking, but it’s something boomers have never heard of out of their super whitebread bubble and would refuse to eat. Maybe tofu-eggplant yellow curry with mango sticky rice.
Also: I use drivethru all the time now to cut my risks of COVID and that’s a bad thing?
@Human-eared Dragon: Boomers INVENTED tofu-eggplant yellow curry with mango sticky rice, because we were all hippies back in the day.
Except we made it with BROWN RICE. Suck on it, millennial youthboy!
@Ukulele Ike, @Rube: And did she serve werewolves of London?
The mention of a kid-friendly Bible brings yesterday’s SMBC to mind.
MW: I’ve never had a child, so this is not my area. But isn’t it kind of a big deal to have a child and not let the father know for, what, twenty years? To me it seems like a big deal. It’s not that I’m begging for nasty drama — this just seems so unrealistic.
But yeah, of course, duhh, this is MARY WORTH. If OEDIPUS REX took place in Mary Worth, Oedipus would just talk to Mary and calm right down after finding out he’d killed his father and fucked his mother, and then he and his mom would talk it over in some casual-but-nice cafe and they would agree to have a much healthier relationship in the future. Somehow.
@147 taig: Yeah, it’d take a lot to distract from the mess on the plate.
@149 Dr. Pill: Ahhh, maybe that’s it. The DoorDash driver ate the original meal then barfed it up on his delivery journey.
@150 Ukulele Ike: Who ordered that? Methinks the Chicken of the Sea people are involved somehow.
@155 Sequitur: I would be surprised if horror movies didn’t use this recipe for on-screen vomit.
@156 I speak Jive: I am laughing so much at the cantaloupe passing judgement and/or gas at the glop.
@161 Human-eared Dragon: The kids should make their parents “Creamy Vegetables with Tuna.” See comment #143 for a photo of the, ahem, “meal.”
Blondie – The creators of Blondie heard that NPR story explaining non-mongamy and decided to stuck their toe in narrative wise.
There are some problems, however, inject that into a long-running strip with its own rules and lore. For example, Blondie and Dagwood are forced to seek out potential partners on the street, because the stereotypical line “we saw you across the bar and liked your vibe” is undercut by Dagwood wolfing down two whole appetizer sample trays intended for groups of six.
Mary Worth – This better have a twist, or else we we need a new storyline where Keith starts dating Dawn, who could be his own daughter. Keith, the decorated Marine and Cop trying to get the approval of human sandwich bag Wilbur, and his daughter hating her Dad dating so much younger, yet Mary bringing in Iris and Zak in to discuss age differences put her in a tough spot ot not be a hypocrite…these are the complexities we read Mary Worth for.
Six Chix – The five star review actually refers to a Pentagram. Tom stumbled into the tour gig drifting through life, and now he’s found something that pays the bills, he’s hoping to now get a pagan Goth girlfriend.
Dustin – Creators of Dustin are so unmotivated they just added Doordash and Grubhub to a decades old lament about fast food they plagiarized from better comics and called it a day.
Meanwhile Millennials webcomics creators are generating reusable, memeable comics all the time that inspire thousands to edit and reconceptualized everyday occurrences, current events, or events in culture and history in new ways, reaching audiences into the millions, in ways newspaper comics haven’t since Charles Schulz died.
Blondie: Where are they walking, anyway? They’ve passed more gorgeous women than I might see in a year.
@143 Baja Gaijin: The photo identifies this glop as an example of “no-fuss tuna dishes”. That’s a recipe from out of Mary Worth’s cookbook: “You will eat this tuna casserole, and I shall tolerate no fuss.”
Hagar – In a rare instance of historical accuracy, there’s no Burma Shave sign.
Look for a reprise of this setup next Sunday, with the fortune teller saying to a turkey, “You will soon be surrounded by friends and cranberries.”
@104 The Rambling Otter: Roman governor Pontius Pilate is not to be confused with Pontius Pilates, the inventor of a popular first-century exercise regimen.
@Bogeyman Weather: 73 “…In just the last week, Gil Thorp & Dagwood (11/11), Chip (11/10), & Rex Morgan (11/08) have all turned, dead-eyed, to stare out of the pages of the funny papers directly at me, trying to pull me into their time-stuck, two-dimensional world. I don’t want to be a cartoon. I DON’T WANT TO BE A CARTOON!”
Take a look at the babe staring directly at you in the penultimate panel of Blondie, you may change your mind. Ha chacha.
73 Bogeyman Weather: “… In just the last week, Gil Thorp & Dagwood (11/11), Chip (11/10), & Rex Morgan (11/08) have all turned, dead-eyed, to stare out of the pages of the funny papers directly at me, trying to pull me into their time-stuck, two-dimensional world. I don’t want to be a cartoon. I DON’T WANT TO BE A CARTOON!
Take a look at the babe in the penultimate panel on Blondie today. You may change your mind. Hachacha!
Blondie: The fact that Dagwood isn’t ogling the women on the street would be dog-bites-man even without the eye dilation. We all know that Blondie is the only woman for him, and more importantly that the vast majority of his libido has been sublimated into sandwiches.
MW: Flooding the zone with psychobabble? Paying for lunch? This has “psychological jiu jitsu” written all over it. Keith chats with Mary over inedible muffins, Kitty reads Sun Tzu. We shall see who prevails.
C-Shaft: Is he talking to Pam or to Jeff or to that package of frozen chicken tenders they keep around for the grandkid?
H&L: “I guess what I’m trying to ask is, how oblivious is your old man during football season? And speaking of old men, are you one for silver foxes?”
Luann: Honestly I blame Shannon maybe 1% and the two grown-ass adults who had ample warning of what she was doing and did nothing 99%.
MT: Mark Trail, taking a bold stand in favor of pumpkin spice coffee.
Phantom: Uh-oh. What does it say in the Phantom Handbook about what to do when your paramilitary second-in-command suddenly grows a frontal lobe?
RMMD: At the risk of sounding like Hank Jr.’s wife Yvonne, the point where my favorite roots country singer takes off his ten gallon hat and puts on a headset is the point where I’m out of there. Yet the rubes seem to be eating it up? I don’t think I understand this world anymore.
S4th: Bettina already has an advantage on Billy, age 7.
Blondie: “most of them men have these inky black stretched out ovals” – AND DOGS. Did you miss Daisy right there?
@170 seismic-2: “No fuss” indeed.
@JustSomeGuy: Is it possible that the men in Blondie are not actually humans but are in fact some kind of human/dog hybrids, hence why Dagwood and Daisy would have the same eye shape? A sort of precursor in evolution to the beast men of Pluggers? If nothing else that would explain what is going on with Dagwood’s hair; those are his canine whiskers.
Low and Hi-less: Lois suggests a walk in fear that Hi will finally notice how much Chip and Ditto resemble Thursty,seeing them sitting there next to each other on the couch.
@Justice Hairhead: LUANN: How long until Shannon’s antics are met with Brad and Toni simply doing a Befuddled Dagwood Stare right at the reader? “Oh, that Shannon! If only there were some way to stop her, but of course we’ll never even make an attempt!”
Snuffy Smif: Yep!! Granny Creeps is gonna steal my money… er patient. An’ I needs me some new shoes – look how these ones is done wore through!