If you think I’m updating you on the Judge Parker “plot” or whatever, forget it
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Judge Parker, 11/19/23
Way back in the early days of the War on Terror, “black site” was an ominous phrase used to describe grim, secretive locations in countries willing to look the other way when it came to various human rights laws where the CIA could torture people, but the phrase’s sense has shifted over the years, to the extent that in the 2019 film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw, there’s a recurring location that is identified as a “black site” on-screen that appears to simply be some office space that the CIA has rented in London. You can see why the Agency might have given up on the phrase in exasperation and now just calls them “detention centers”. Anyway, I’m really enjoying the pissy-face competition Sam and this CIA lady are having, which I assume will end either with him defeating her and becoming a high-ranking official in the American intelligence apparatus, or with him getting tortured to death right there in the middle of this “detention center.”
Six Chix, 11/19/23
Like all right-thinking people, I get nauseated just thinking about cottage cheese, but I note here that this particular can (?) of the accursed substance seems to be glowing with some unearthly power. Has the Cottage Cheese Board figured out a way grant their repulsive product the ability to hypnotize hapless consumers to overcome their natural disgust?
174 replies to “If you think I’m updating you on the Judge Parker “plot” or whatever, forget it”
Judge Parker: When they free Sam, the CIA will task The Questioner to follow him. I’ll be supremely disappointed if she’s not depicted peeking at him from behind bushes.
Mary Worth, Alternate Final Panels: Three alternate final panels. Do any of them enhance your enjoyment of this strip?
American Cottage Cheese was actually the original draft of American Pie. They changed the foodstuff when test audiences found the pivotal cottage cheese penetration scene too grotesque even for a gross-out comedy.
RMMD: You think Yvonne and Junior are pissed NOW; wait til Rene shows up at their door, atoning/seeking investors.
6CHX: So, a steady diet of cottage cheese results in a grotesquely misshapen head? Seems like something people should know.
JP: Sam leans across the table and kisses her full on the mouth. As he sits on the floor rubbing his aching jaw he thinks; “Boy, did I read that moment wrong.”
Chix (six): Nothing to add here. Yuck!
RMMD: I love how meta this strip can get sometimes. Strip away all the plot bullshit and CIA Lady is saying two things: “this is ridiculous” and “this doesn’t answer anything”, which is exactly what I was saying to myself when reading it.
6Cx: You know, normally when I read a Six Chix I ask myself “How do they come up with this ridiculous shit?”. But now I think we have out answer: they spend their time hanging around tubs of expired dairy products, and the weird infections are probably causing brain damage.
6C: I’m no expert on breasts, but the artist should put in more effort than two small, vague, “L”-shapes that get lost in the dress pattern.
Six Chix-You might want to get your eyes checked. I knew someone who died of heart eyes.
FC-“Oh great he wants to discuss the existential state of this place again.”
RMMD-His lawyer is Sam Driver and he’s just been told what is going on in ‘Judge Parker’.
MW-In his early working days Keith made a few movies where he played a “horse”.
FC: His guard down, Bil’s intrinsic hatred for his kids come to fore.
DtM: Are we to believe that someone with ADD as bad as Dennis thinks about Margaret for more than 10 seconds when she’s out of view?
@pugfuggly:
…they spend their time hanging around tubs of expired dairy products, and the weird infections are probably causing brain damage.
No doubt the plate of mashed wheat they pour the cottage cheese over before eating contains significant amounts of Ergot.
After an ungodly amount of years watching J.A.G and N.C.I.S… I assumed Black Sites were locations dealing with Black OPs operations, like locations hiding secret army testing weapons or something.
MW: Looking to rekindle their relationship, Keith lets slide Kitty’s use of the word “Idyllic.”
“Save that shit for the Navy,” he thinks.
6Cx: There’s also such a thing as cottage ham, so I guess it’s technically possible to make a cottage ham & cheese sandwich.
MW:
“It’ll be like riding a bike, Kitty! — mind you, a 1200-pound bike with flared nares and a mind of its own, but a bike all the same.”
JP: “And on a third hand…” Just how many hands does this CIA woman HAVE, anyway? Was she issued additional hands when she joined the CIA? Who’s PAYING for all these extra hands, I’d like to know? I’m assuming she’s allowed to carry a concealed hand, but you can’t do much with that unless you have the extra arm stock. No wonder our taxes are so high!
RMMD:
“Maybe so. But that still doesn’t answer anything, does it? — including, by the way, why this strip, so lovingly created and cultivated by Dr. Dallis, and then nurtured by Woody Wilson, somehow turned into a gratuitously violent pulpit for political diatribe and taking swings at a supposedly evil government that operates behind closed doors and denies every person that encounters it the basic protections of due process.”
JP: Randy could totally diffuse this uncomfortable interrogation by fixing the CIA agent with his brown eyes, drilling right through those horn rims and straight past her wrinkled bags into her own hardened orbs, and saying with steely intent: “I want you.”
Cottage cheese?
That’s obviously a zombie lusting after a can of brains.
MW: “I want to always be BUSY and ACTIVE.…” Keith says, and is taken aback when Kitty suddenly gets up from the table and snatches her purse as she storms out of the restaurant. “I’m sorry, Keith, but I can’t be with a man who splits his infinitives. DON’T call me.”
JP: CIA Lady is getting dangerously close to the critical truth: she’s a fictional character in a really silly story.
Luann: Aside from the all the other unbelievable nonsense going on here with Frank’s shorthand and describing his desire to be in a rock back as “I wish I could have been a Door or an Animal,” this joke finds even more ways to fall flat on its face. The premise is that Kids These Days probably aren’t familiar with the musical greats of “our” generation (you know, the really obscure groups like The Beatles), but these bands aren’t part of Frank’s generation either. He would have been extremely young or not even born yet when these bands were in their heyday. Points for effort, I guess, but how many people will have the energy left to chuckle by the time they’re done playing Six Contrivances?
RMMD: Yeah, I’m sure the prosecutors with an open-and-shut first-degree attempted murder case on a repeat offender criminal were really deeply moved by his claims of having reformed due to his latest get-rich-quick scheme. Might as well let Rene go on a plea deal that reduces his sentence from life in prison to a slap on the wrist, if even that. Seriously, this is just stupid and Terry Beatty should be ashamed to have written it.
@Bob Tice:
JP
Oops. Comment 16 is directed at JP, not RMMD; time ran out to fix the typo. RMMD remains faithful to the original cnceit of the st rip.
Judge Parker: And so we begin grinding into the resolution of this dumbass storyline with one more totally unearned display of sneering self-righteousness from Sam, who looks down his nose as these peon CIA agents arresting him for crimes he’s completely and unambiguously guilty of. Don’t they know who he is?! He’ll certainly lecture them about it as they put him on the plane to Gitmo.
Six Chix: What a strange remake of The Stuff.
RMMD:
A proponent of self-help, Hank, Jr. invites the freed Rene on a cruise, ostensibly to make amends, and then pushes him overboard.
@Charterstoned: Vishnu became the head of the CIA last year? Haven’t you heard?
JP: Ooooh, is Sam Driver going to get recruited into the CIA? Prepare for (even more) colossal blundering on the world stage!
6C: There are a lot of foods I don’t like, mostly from texture. This means I positively astound friends and coworkers when I start snacking on cottage cheese.
RMMD:
“Yvonne, this all makes me so nervous that it makes my hair want to fall out. Of course, I don’t have any hair, so it is, in legal parlance, damnum absque injuria.”
She boldly went.
Frazz: How whimsical! Did Jef Mallett get bonked on the head?
Luann: Why am I the one smelling burnt toast?
CS: “Welp, I’ll leave you to it.”
9CL: “Incomparably beautiful,” you say. It’s about time you expressed how you feel about Edda’s incomparable beauty, Amos.
@The Rambling Otter: Well, these days the mom-and-pop black sites we grew up with aren’t as economically viable in a competitive market. Now your secret government facilities have to offer a broader array of goods and services. Whether it’s weapons research, terrorist detention, total global domination, or just good old alien autopsies, CIA-Mart is your one-stop shop for all your clandestine needs.
Zits: Shouldn’t one or both of them be making a horrible comment about the other? Oops, no, I’m thinking of Dustin.
FC: Way better than Jeffy, who would point at his filled diaper and say, “Daddy.”
MW: Kitty’s last line feels really ominous. Whom did you murder on a horse riding trail, Kitty?!?
After five months and five days on hiatus, it looks like Mara Llave is finally rebooting.
@Baja Gaijin: The squirrels work best for me.
9CL – Your regular reminder that Amos is fated to spend his every waking minute praising Edda for her beauty. You’d think most people would tire of this constant stream of idle flattery. “You are the world’s most incomparable beauty!” “Yes, Amos, you just reminded me of this five minutes ago. And before that, when we were getting into the canoe. And before that, when we parked the car, and before that when we dropped the kids off to play in traffic, and before that when we rented the canoe and talked to the little man in the boat, and before that when…..
And she never tired of standing up and walking across the bottom of the canoe to reward her thrall for his obsequiousness.
“What do you want to do today ,Edda?”
“Same as every day. Bask in Amos’ ridiculously over the top, redundant, and insincere flattery.”
Listen “Judge Parker” writer, having characters in universe call out the implausibility of the events is only fun if the audience has enjoyed the storyline so far and needs just a small excuse to justify its suspension of disbelief. Do you think the audience has enjoyed the storylines of the last few years? If the newspaper were a two-way mirror to the readers, you could see that the two characters are not the only ones with a face contorted in disgust and anger!
Plea deals typically mean you’ve had your prison time decreased or suspended in return for testifying against your co-conspirators. Does this mean the person who helped Rene escape the brig is finally going to be revealed? I sincerely hope it’s Buck’s ex Doris who swears they’ll never take her alive (as she waves her nail gun).
MW – “Should we invite Sonia to come with us?” “Who?”
Family Circlejerk – Thel gets only a one-panel cameo, but she nails it. That’s a perfect under-word-balloon jut.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Hank Jr (affecting patented Rex Morgan M.D. “put-a-hand-on-his-chin-to-appear-like-this-empty-head-is-pondering-something”* pose): “Hmmm. Maybe we should have actually pressed charges when Rene tried to murder me and then escaped custody from the boat instead of shrugging it off to whine about roots country songs. Well golly. Live and learn, I guess.”
*aka The Schlub Contemplation
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Even of the dumb judicial system turns a blind eye to all of Rene’s other crimes, they definitely should at least book him for stealing the Hardwoods’ youth and life essence from them (look at them! They’re withering away to soulless husks before our very eyes!)
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Dammit, you made me look.
Today’s strip partakes of the canoodling in a canoe trope, a major reason why, when they enjoyed great popularity in the early part of the 20th century, canoes were regarded with great suspicion by the moralists of the day because precisely this might happen. (If you follow the link, you’ll need to scroll past some red-scare crap before you get to the canoe bits).
It should be noted that today’s canoes are lighter, faster, more maneuverable, and way more difficult to fuck in than the canoes of yesteryear.
JP: It’s no wonder she’s bitter. None of your clothes fit right when you have a third hand.
@Hibbleton: Maybe Rene turned state’s evidence against people like Buck or the Harwoods for the crime of being utterly dull.
(Also, it’s kinda unfair to expect Terry Beatty to know how a “plea deal” works. I mean it’s not like there have been any extremely high profile cases recently where that term has ever come up or anything, right?)
@richardf8: It makes sense, considering the period of time Brooke is forever locked in, that he would consider this transgressive then.
SlyF – The twins will be absolved when it turns out that they each have tattoos on both shoulders.
New Improved Really Angular Flash Gordon: Sure was lucky two of the castaways are young and cute.
OTOH, if Dale Arden had been chunky and middle-aged, she would have paired off sexually with Doctor Zarkov and Flash would have been free to copulate with various non-earth-based Hawk Girls, Lion Girls, Wolf Girls, etc. Hubba hubba!
JP, abridged version:
“How ridiculous this all is.”
“True.”
Six Chix – Ah, the rites of passage we have all observed since time immemorial. As tiny tots, loving cottage cheese. Growing into adulthood, ceasing to love cottage cheese. Except for those few unfortunate cases of arrested development…
Six Chix – The much less successful sequel to The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.
@taig: Well I’m sure that the next move is that, because the weight of both people is at the back of the canoe, meaning it is now quite unstable, we will be back to our regularly scheduled lake-fucking momentarily.
Jungle Jim – How the tasteful supervillain decorates his hideout: Rhododendrons and knotty pine paneling are IN.
What the well-dressed supervillain is wearing: Sorry, Thorson; monocles are jodhpurs are WAY OUT.
Six Chix: “I love you, Cottage Cheese. You and chicken broth and gelatin. My intestinal tract hasn’t imploded in years, thanks to you guys.”
@Uncle Lumpy: Actually, it’s been 8 months since the last Mara Llave comic. It’s been 5 months since the announcement that it would return soon.
MW – Dude, if you “want to always be busy and active,” then you ARE restless. As for being bored, this is Mary Worth; it’s endemic.
@Lord_Flatulence:
Aha, yes. Anyway, it looks visually interesting, if they can keep it up this time.
MT: Dear Mark,
When Florida Man has sex with a turkey they don’t arrest the turkey.
Sincerely,
The World
DUSTIN: Um…was this originally a rather dark “joke” about America’s penchant for mass shootings that had to get rewritten at the last minute? That’s the only way the extreme looks of panic in panel #3 can make even a lick of sense.
Lockhorns: Worrying about what he’ll wind up with if it’s a case of quid pro quo at the swingers party, Leroy decides it’ll be safer to call an escort.
MW: It started off okay but by panel five Moy just started copying dialogue from the porn she was watching.
“Want to go riding again?”
“We can test our old riding skills.”
“I have a feeling it’ll all come back.”
JP: It seems as though the agent was weaned on a sour pickle.
6C: Well, I guess I need to add “cottage cheese” to my personal list of “foods I like even though they seem to gross out everybody else.” I wouldn’t say I love it, though. It’s an okay protein option to add to peaches when I need a quick no-fuss breakfast. I’ve never met anyone who actually loves cottage cheese, let alone looks at it with heart-eyed adoration like the woman in today’s strip.
JP: I guess it’s not the improbability of this plot that grinds my gears. The vast majority of fiction is devoted to unlikely things happening. Nobody wants to read about a orphan girl living and dying in servitude without meeting a single prince or a hobbit having a quiet evening at home, after all. What bothers me is that there isn’t even the slightest attempt to make the improbability make sense in-universe. Everyone just says “well, this is strange” and moves on. At this point I’d welcome a fairy godmother or a wizard or a god descending from the rafters to clear everything up.
BB: Didja ever notice, on Sundays Sarge and Beetle wear brass buttons on their pocket flaps, but not during the week?
Pluggers – That’s not right. Instead of “Use your blinker,” it should be “Your turn signal’s been on for the last 50 miles.”
@Uncle Lumpy: Hurrah! Looking forward to Mara Llave’s time-travel adventures, especially since the art seems to have been rebooted by the Hernandez Brothers.
JP: “Oh, Mr. Driver, Mr. Driver……whatever are we to do with you?” Horn-rim Lady — international intelligence mastermind or junior high school principal?
BCN: BREAKING: Local cat throws up cheese all over the rug. Film at 11.
C’shaft: “Anyway halftime’s almost over, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget to bring some pie into the living room when you’re done.”
Dustin: Does anyone apart from the occasional small-time operation on Etsy use bubble wrap anymore? Most of the big online stores seem to have gone to those air pillow things, which are fun to take a pair of scissors to but generally useless in the fidget toy category.
MW: Objection! “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” was sung by Celine Dion, but it was written by Jim Steinman, the undisputed king of melodramatic power rock ballads. Credit where credit is due. (Also look up the music video on YouTube if you haven’t seen it, it’s as magnificently over-the-top as you’d expect for a Steinman piece partially inspired by Wuthering Heights.)
Also, Louisville is not the best choice for “idyllic rural Southern pastoral childhood.” It’s part of a big metropolitan area spanning two states. Mr. Diva grew up there and the closest he ever got to a horse was when his college band played “My Old Kentucky Home” at the Derby.
Pluggers deeply resent their spouses.
RMMD: What sort of plea deal could Rene swing? Did he give info on his old Mafia contacts? Are we going to see a Mirakle Method seminar end in a bloody gangland massacre? (Of course we won’t; that would be interesting.)
MW — a quote around forgiveness, eh? John Prine might help:
Father forgive us
For what we must do
You forgive us
We’ll forgive you
We’ll forgive each other
Till we both turn blue…
MW – “I have a feeling it’ll all come back.”
“Yeah, I got that feeling the last time we ate here too. We really should try a different place.”
The Cottage Cheese Board has their wheys, Josh.
I tried cottage cheese once,
Once.
***
It’s going to be interesting seeing waterboarding depicted in the funny pages.
re: Cottage Cheese: I don’t think I’ve ever met a cheese I didn’t love.
@oldgold: I’m waiting for Scratchy or Maude Fawker to expand on the pickle comment.
@W hite Rabbit: No, never noticed.
@Ukulele Ike: I’m waiting for Scratchy or Maude Fawker to expand on your #69 comment’s cheese.
Is Cottage Cheese juice boarding considered more heinous then water boarding now?
6C: If Dairy Maids sees even the slightest uptick in sales this Thanksgiving, the $1.50 spent on product placement will have been worth it.
Pluggers: Nancy Burns strikes again! Her last submission was just Tuesday. Andy Bear doesn’t ever use his right blinker because that taillight fell off years ago. And by the looks of this scene, I think it’s safe to assume there’s a shovel in the truck bed and Sheila Roo will not be making the return trip.
Crankshaft: More like Pamdemonium, right? Because her name is Pam? Heh heh. It’s a much more funny if you imagine it slowly stretched out over five panels.
@Peanut Gallery:
Which itself was a sequel to “Dances With Cottage Cheese.”
@Charterstoned: “Third hand” is one of my favorite “phrases that stupidly stop a stupid conversation”.
Others include anything with “paradigm shift” or “grow the business”.
@The Rambling Otter: That’s correct. Black sites were/are off-the-books locations not officially in use by the CIA or other intelligence agencies, typically in third-party nations where the rules were, ah, relaxed.
Was today’s Pluggers sent in by Richard Bucket?
Judge Parker: Once again, I object to this comic strip. Not for the silly plot — for the woeful under-use of beloved character actress Margo Martindale, what were you thinking?!
@Peanut Gallery:
Jungle Jim—P3
“Remind me to continue throttling you later. Meanwhile get a bucket an wipe the flagella off the walls.”
“I think they’re wormwood.”
“Whatever.”
@Ukulele Ike:
re: Cottage Cheese: I don’t think I’ve ever met a cheese I didn’t love.
______________________
A. Will Rogers
B. Wayne Rogers
C. Mr. “Fred” Rogers
D. Ginger Rogers
E. Sally Rogers
Is that your final answer?
@Situation Normal:
MW— Or John Prine’s hit
Someday I’ll go and call up Kitty
We worked together at the titty bar
What could I say if she asks “What’s new?”
“Nothing, what’s with you? Nothing much to do”
@UncleJeff: I like “One, two, three buckle my shoe.”
@UncleJeff:
Really, that’s low hanging fruit
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: “Wait!” Keith cries as Kitty heads for the door. “You’d leave me over a lousy split infinitive? But I’m a Marine! I was a policeman on horseback!”
Kitty turns back as she reaches the exit. “You’ll have to do better than that,” she retorts. “I left a starship captain because he split his infinitives. And HE fathered some of my children.”
@Baja Gaijin: #2
They’re all good! But to answer your question, nothing – NOTHING – will ever enhance my enjoyment of this strip.
6ix Chix: The past several Mary Lawton submissions have been disappointingly bland, but today we’re back to Peak Lawton. Hideous human character, check. Scribbly drawing style, check. Object that makes you want to avert your eyes, check. Tiny stylized breasts, check. Lack of any punch line you could explain to your father or your son but which some women at least may nod their heads and say “relatable,” check. There may be superior Mary Lawton efforts already out there, or yet to come, but this one at least checks all the important boxes.
@Situation Normal: @Unca Bob: I never met a John Prine I didn’t like.
”Hey, Bob Dylan! What’s the best John Prine song?”
”Oh, that’d be ‘Lake Marie’.”
”Why’s that?”
”It’s the most like something *I* would have written.”
Mary Worth: This dialogue reminds me of the first episode of the short-lived police parody, “Sledge Hammer,” in which the title character says to his newly assigned (female) partner, “I’d like to fight you, sometime.” Sledge was just awful, for comic purposes; Keith, he’s just awful.
DT – I might actually start reading this if Dick Tracy turns into Columbo. “Oh, Ms. Libris, there’s just one more thing…”
PV/MW: It looks like my return to Prince Valiant may be delayed now. Morgan is doing her impression of Freo, Goddess of Love, and she seems to have gotten there under her own power. I’ve really got to work on the Future Queen Ingrid angle…. Nice placement of those two Felines today, Sid. I’m glad to see you still have *some* influence there.
So I guess I’ll be taking on the Mary Worth gig, since both Keith and Kitty will be Horseback riding. I’m calling dibs on the role of Kitty’s Horse! She looks reasonably fit and trim and shouldn’t be a problem to carry, unlike Massive Manly Man. That takes a load off… I wonder why he got kicked off the police Horseback squad? See you soon on the trail!
MARY WORTH: This has to be the most erotically-charged (by which I mean awkward and inane: Mary Worth‘s kink of choice!) flirting since the days we found out that Hannah Dingdon plays a mean flute if you know what I mean.
For example….
MARY WORTH (2): Keith: “Do you want to go riding again?”
I…don’t think they’re talking about horses there.
6Chix – Lawton’s strips usually evoke a “WTF?” reaction, but she’s outdone herself here.
S4th – I’d eat that lasagna. Butternut squash – yum.
MW – Sort of like how my breakfast is coming back when I read this.
Rex Morgan – I have serious questions about which court has jurisdiction in Rene’s case. Didn’t the attempted murder happen in international waters? Who would try that case? Does it have anything to do with where the ship is registered? I’m pretty sure that it isn’t in Rex Morgan’s town in the middle of nowhere.
The plea deal probably requires Rene to make a presentation of his Mirakle Method at prisons.
Rhymes With Orange – In my late father-in-law’s case, the call would be for decades old home canned vegetables, cancelled checks from 1960, and every Christmas card they ever received.
MW: So, we talking standard cowgirl or reverse?
Doonesbury: heading down to “Curtis” territory with those darn kids and their short attention spans and their hippity-hop music.
PV: we interrupt this episode of “Medieval Aquaculture” to bring you “Ominous Cats”. (Valiant thinks he’s on vacation).
@Baja Gaijin: #1 – Verrry interesting.
@Baja Gaijin: Alternate panels – I like the squirrel one.
@Garrison Skunk: It’s pronounced “boo-kay.”
Melody Mare, we have a call for you on line two. Yeah a couple of folks on a conference call. Brigman and Moy.
MW: And then Mr. Lee Greenwood stopped by Keith & Kitty’s table to sing his 1986 hit:
“She wakes me gently, brushes back her hair
and she moves into my arms sweet and slow
I can’t wait to get up and go.
Gonna take my baby on a morning ride
when the sun comes slippin’ ’round the mountainside
‘Bout an hour, maybe two.
Ain’t nothin’ me and her would rather do.”
Well, it’s about horseback riding.
Isn’t it?
@Ukulele Ike:
Hawk Girls
____________
“Hawk Girls Are Easy”, my favorite Jeff Goldblum movie!
@Aaron:
MW: So, we talking standard cowgirl or reverse?
_________________
If Jeff(y) would draw Thel as a cowtaur she could jut at both ends.
FC: This must be the last scene in the Keane Kompound before Da-da-da performed a perforntal labbatomy on PJ.
Crank: Look, sometimes you want to make a Sunday strip out of a joke that takes two panels at best. I get it. But rather than stretching Ed’s line out like this, why not just have one big panel with the pans in the foreground and Ed commenting behind them?
DT: We’re (at least) four deaths in, and now Dick thinks that maybe they should try checking the CCTV footage and asking their weapon expert for an opinion. Seriously, what have these people been doing while we’ve been watching Tracy and Libris flirting?
HtH: So the house has been on the market for six months, but nobody bought it because it’s slowly sinking into the Earth. And either this accelerated dramatically in the few minutes they’ve been there (insert joke about Hägar’s weight), or Helga didn’t notice this when they entered?
JP: Your regular reminder that Helena decided she wanted the CIA to have the info (for reasons) and Sam “managed to retrieve it” in the sense that she handed it to him rather than directly to them (also for reasons).
Phantom: Stripey tries to sell the whole “I’m just an ordinary amnesiac soldier” cover and accidentally lapses into his origin story.
PV: Okay, I kind of lost the thread of the last storyline, but if the current topic is the differing portrayal of cats in Norse and Celtic mythology, I am very interested.
(Cath Pulag, incidentally, was the child of the giant pig Henwen, because Welsh myths are weird.)
SFx: Okay, I realise Weber wants to keep using the Weirdly Twins now he’s introduced them, which means coming up with new “how can Sly distinguish between them” bits, but I have to point out that we the readers cannot see the twins’ opposing arms to know that there isn’t a skull tattoo on them!
@richardf8: SlyF – The twins will be absolved when it turns out that they each have tattoos on both shoulders.
I had the same thought. They should have shown them full frontal with a tattoo on opposite breasts.
Slylick Fox And Komix For Kinx: The Weirdly Twins broke the glass box Sly keeps Max in, Meanwhile Our Terrific Artist draws Frank Gorshin from that Star Trek episode where he plays a triple breasted cat girl that Kirk beats up.
MT: Whew! I was afraid we weren’t gonna get *any* Turkey placements this year! Things have been slow, and I’m afraid we may have a lotta disappointed talent at the end of the week. But Mark Trail came through for us – and I’m tellin’ ya, it almost threw us for a loop when they wanted all those varieties! However, we’re pretty thick with the Turkey network and were able to round ’em all up.
We did almost have a dust up on the set when Mark insinuated that the Osceola Turkey, Otis, might have an arrest record in Florida! Like we would have any clients who haven’t been thoroughly vetted! Otis took offense, as you would expect, and started the attack version of the “fantail strut” – which Mark misinterpreted as a sexual advance! A little learning is a dangerous thing.
But they stopped the (Turkey) shoot, and calmed everyone down. They told Otis that his character would be a “Bad Tom” that all the Hens swoon over, and gave him a bonus. That’s Mark’s stand-in doing the last panel – I hear Mark is still hiding in his trailer. heh heh heh
@richardf8:Oversnarpologies.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
I had the same thought. They should have shown them full frontal with a tattoo on opposite breasts.
_________________
You should draw that and send it in to their Our Terrific Artist under the name Scratch E. Scrotum, Age 6. :)
6C: I associate cottage cheese with my grandmother, who lived through the depression and ate cottage cheese with fruit and my mother serving me cottage cheese on toast when I was sick. So I think of cottage cheese as a food from the depression and illness. A number of years ago, I noticed the price of cottage was really low. Apparently influencers discovered this gloop and now there’s a whole section at my local Whole Foods devoted to this stuff with the price being at least 3 times what it was a few years ago. Out of curiosity, I actually tried a small container just to see if maybe I would like it now. Nope. It still has the consistency of mucous.
Pluggers: “You’re driving too fast.” I think you mean, not fast enough. He got a little air under him this time, but nothing like the Dukes of Hazzard routinely achieved.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: They should have shown them full frontal with a tattoo on opposite breasts.
With green tits that only Captain Kirk could love.
@Baja Gaijin: the squirrels!
@Anonymoose:
Out of curiosity, I actually tried a small container just to see if maybe I would like it now. Nope.
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Smart move, the plastic is undoubtedly tastier and more nutritious than the contents.
@2+2=7: since the days we found out that Hannah Dingdon plays a mean flute if you know what I mean.
Got the reference! (Not.)
Google turned up nothing under that name. Alyson Hannigan? Michelle Flaherty? The American Pie band camp reference is the only thing that comes to this perverted mind. Little help please?
Judge Parker: Black sites. The CIA still operates under segregationist Jim Crow laws.
@I speak Jive:
@Garrison Skunk: It’s pronounced “boo-kay.”
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“Minding the giant rabbitroo, Hyathinth….”
Pluggers: Like that rust-eaten, oil-burning junker would have working directional lights.
Jungle Jim: What would be a trip is if after all of this skulking around and risking his life Jim finds out that Thorson isn’t running a secret submarine base but a private orgy island that political leaders and assorted corporate big shots can boink underage girls without fear of legal consequences.
@Maude R. Fawker: Oh, come on, Maudie! You’re old enough to remember the Mary Worth story about near-sighted Hannah, whose poor vision caused her to get into an auto accident with Ian Cameron, and then move to Somerset where they had a shuttle bus. She never found out she only needed new glasses.
But after the move, she STOLE MY MAN, Sean, with her “flute-playing” We’d had a good thing going with my “bassoon playing” before that hussy moved in.
6Cx: It’s strange that we all like to dump on cottage cheese but we leave its Italian version ricotta cheese alone.
The lady interrogator in Judge Parker hasn’t taken a shit in months.
@Uncle Lumpy: I heard a rumor about that on The Daily Cartoonist. But with Mara Llave having been at sea for over a year, it’ll take the buildup of a good sized archive for me to believe it’s more than misinformation from a Russian bot-farm.
MW: I never thought I’d see dirty talk on Mary Worth.
@Uncle Lumpy: It shows promise.
JP – At this point, the key to understanding JP is to recognize that it is a highly customized Monopoly game being played Ted Forth. The rent on Cavelton Prison must be astronomical since everyone tries to get off it within a single turn, but CIA Black site is where anyone who wants to curl up with a good book goes. And if anyone gets too close to creating an actual monopoly by, say, employing old people who work in boxcars, there’s always the Sinkhole option. Note that the link is my proof text that this statement is canon in SForth. It was created after the sinkhole episode in JP.
@Felicia, the forgotten plot device: Oh, come on, Maudie! You’re old enough to remember the Mary Worth story about near-sighted Hannah,
Thank you for the reference. Nope, she’s before my time. The Mary Worth and Me archives have brought me up to speed, with your help. I think the extra ‘h’ I was putting on Hanna was throwing off teh googles.
Slylock Fox: “How to rip off Jay Ward’s heirs by drawing a cheap knockoff of Bullwinkle J. Moose”
@Charterstoned:
JP: “And on a third hand…” Just how many hands does this CIA woman HAVE, anyway?
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Only her hairdresser knows for sure, and eight of her hands look younger then her Mother’s because she uses Ivory® dishwashing liquid.
@Maude R. Fawker: what about her sisters?
@Garrison Skunk: If she went to Madge the manicurist, her hands soaked it Palmolive to prepare for her manicure.
“You’re soaking in it!”
@Guillermo el chiclero:
6Cx: It’s strange that we all like to dump on cottage cheese but we leave its Italian version ricotta cheese alone.
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You gotta love ricotta.
@Horace Broon: Flirting? Libris looks like she wants to stick a letter-opener in Tracy and twist it.
Oooops, I gave it away…
@Garrison Skunk: what about her sisters?
Let Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest get their own fawkin’ comic strips.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: “Sam, double down on SCTV…see if they’ve blown up any celebrities recently.”
JP: I now follow JUDGE PARKER mostly to see how long it is between those rare strips when the characters are not either seriously pissed off at each other or bummed out to the point of near-weeping. Also to see how their holidays will be, you should pardon the term, celebrated.
Mary’s Worst: “….We can try out our old riding skills..what size saddle do you take nowadays?”
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter passed away at age 96. RIP.
I just can’t quite get over the highly whimsical contempt that Six Chix has for its audience. Like, this is another strip that is barely a “joke”, more like a fragment of a daydream, with art that has been dashed off crudely. I would love to understand the economics of the comic strip world, because it seems like older legacy strips are lucrative enough that they can support a team of artists/writers, but newers ones are apparently just part-time gig work for all six Chix on which each one works for maybe an hour or two a week, on top of their regular 40-hour jobs.
And now…for something completely different…a baby skunk eating cottage cheese (not my baby pictures!)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfyEcQO1E
@Guillermo el chiclero: That’s because the only good kind of lumpy is Uncle Lumpy!
@Baja Gaijin: I’m waiting for Scratchy or Maude Fawker to expand on the pickle comment.
“If you think I’m updating you on the Sour Pickle “plot” or whatever, forget it.”
Frazz Hole:”Oh, if only Hobbes could see me now!”
@Peanut Gallery:
@Guillermo el chiclero: That’s because the only good kind of lumpy is Uncle Lumpy
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How’s his gravy?
Late Thread Cuisine: In honor of today’s Sally Forth.
Late Thread Cuisine, another take: In honor of today’s Six Chix.
@Baja Gaijin: another take: In honor of today’s Six Chix.
Throw away the cottage cheese, take your chances on the remaining mold.
@Uncle Lumpy:
After five months and five days on hiatus, it looks like Mara Llave is finally rebooting.
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For a time traveler she has lousy timing.
Why is Mara Llave wearing such goofy-looking boots?
If she has to wade across the timestream, she’s going to come out with her boots full of chrono-trout.
@Anonymoose: My grandmother ate a lot of it, too, occasionally putting sugar on it. But while eating lunch at a military dining hall, I saw a soldier shake pepper onto a pretty good-sized portion until the top surface was black. Didn’t stick around to see him eat it.
@144 Ukulele Ike: They make her butt look sexy when she walks?
@Baja Gaijin: #140, lasagna – Yeah, processed American cheese is a staple in Italian cooking.
Seriously, NOPE. Also, barf. (I know I would like butternut squash lasagna. I would not like this lasagna.)
@Baja Gaijin: #141, mold – What in the world are the circles submerged in that mold under the hard boiled eggs? Zucchini slices? Pickles? Whatever they are, the entire concoction looks very unappetizing.
Was channel surfing last night and one of the plugger oldie networks was running All About Eve. My wife had never seen it and was constantly interrupting with questions about the plot. Luckily I had seen it several times so I didn’t miss anything, my only request was total silence while George Sanders was speaking. Didn’t want to miss a single one of his lines.
BTW: Something I never really noticed until now. Remember the scene where Eve’s friend makes a bogus phone call to the director’s house in the middle of the night claiming Eve was having some kind of dire emergency? After hanging up the phone the friend and Eve smile to one another and slowly walk up the stairs side by side, one with her arm around the other’s waist. I wonder if that was some kind of subtle lesbian reference they managed to slip past the censors.
@142 Just John: I think that’s what Alexander Fleming did to discover penicillin. He threw away the cottage cheese and took his chances on the remaining mo(u)ld.
@147 I speak Jive: Oh come on. Everyone loves fish. Why not stick it in lasagna? On the other recipe, the circles arranged in a circle around the egg slices? Cucumber. You know, decorative.
rmmd talk about fast for given renees list of crimes one would think the judge would say bail denied renees lawers must have been promised a cut of the profits by buzz to get renee free can one say double cross of mudd and buzz in the future by renee. luann come on bernice and luann surrely you recognize that frank wanted to be a rock star no need for an ambulence hauling frank away in a padded coat.
@demoncat_4:
That’s what SHE said.
@Baja Gaijin: Mara Llave could have any shoes in Earth history. She could get the sandals of Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. She could be wearing the delicate boots of Marie Antoinette, or the kicky heels of any number of Ziegfeld showgirls. She could have Taylor Swift shoes. So what is up with those fugly boots, which would clearly NOT make her butt look sexy when she walks?
I hope the creators of Mara Llave are just going to have her travel through time, trying on cute shoes everywhere. I would read the HELL out of that.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Love George Sanders! He’s always so slimy in his movies. That scene where he tells Eve never to laugh at him is perfect. Just finished watching “Now, Voyager”—another Bette Davis favorite. And, yes, the hidden lesbian thing…! Think “The Uninvited” and “Rebecca” for other similar characterizations.
JP: Sam is distracted by the vision of a thousand uptight CIA bureaucrats singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sam Driver” to a Sound of Music tune. Or maybe that’s me.
@Ukulele Ike: Why is Mara Llave wearing such goofy-looking boots?
Just to help reinforce the message, “my tits are up HERE, mister.”
@Poteet: Welp, we’re never gonna beat the Thanksgiving that Norton drugged Alan Parker with a shot of tranq to his ass after feeding him banana pancakes and raiding his liquor cabinet for the good scotch.
Because “the Holidays is a time for Family.”
C-Shaft: And to prove that all the demons are indeed at Ye Olde Crankshaft Manor, a pan that young Regan MacNeil retched in soaks in the sink.
Dustin: And nobody noticed that this kid walked into the ice cream parlor with a big piece of bubble wrap. Maybe because they were busy wondering if the dorky twentysomething with him was his dad or what was the deal.
Luann: Frank DeGroot is almost certainly a fellow Gen-Xer, so I’ll give him the Monkees, since they were all over syndicated TV when we were little.
MW: Okay, not touching “test our old riding skills” with a ten-foot pole. Just noting that this once-and-future couple look glumly resigned to Karen Moy, Mary Worth, and Celine all wishing them back together.
RMMD: “On the plus side, now that I know they’re such numbnutses, I’ll never pay another parking ticket.”
Ziggy: Somehow the names of those 35 hitchhikers who disappeared over the last three decades never attached themselves to Ziggy’s park friend.
@Baja Gaijin: Re tuna in lasagna – I’m weird when it comes to tuna. Love tuna salad. Hate tuna casserole. I don’t like tuna served hot, so I’m sure that I wouldn’t like it in lasagna. However, I do like tuna melts. And I do not like tuna steaks cooked rare.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Have you seen the original Village of the Damned? George Sanders stars. It scared the bejeebers out of me when I was a child, and it’s one of those movies I end up watching if I catch it on TV.
@Charterstoned: #153: Bette Davis was real popular with gays. Maybe the directors knew it and were slipping some fan service in under the censors noses.
@Garrison Skunk: Wavy!
@I speak Jive: #158: The first time I saw Village of the Damned I didn’t realize that was George Sanders until the end credits.
@Guillermo el chiclero: “You realize of course that last night was only a comedy.”
@Baja Gaijin: How long do you have to let salmon sit out for it to get moldy?
@163 taig: Apparently start in 1967.
JP: All I can think of reading this strip is the song, “I’m My Own Grandpaw!”
Why don’t the comics use comedy?
@Submarine Screen Doors:
I know, right?
@Concrete Parachutes:
I’d settle for some comedy here.
@Ejection Seats on Helicopters:
… The Aristocrats!
One of the things stated in “NCIS”, presumably factual but I haven’t looked it, is that the CIA calls their operative “officers” not “agents”.
When I have three things, I can’t help using “on the gripping hand” from the Niven and Pournelle “Motie” novels.
@Charterstoned: I watched the 1968 TV movie version of LAURA when I was very young, and because I was young and had never seen the original movie and thought the plot was clever, I was rather enthused. My mother heroically refrained from gagging at a production that (I just looked it up) was considered dreadful. But memory tells me that George Sanders was entertaining as Waldo. Of course.
If the website ‘Boobs Don’t Work That Way’ were still active I would definitely submit this Six Chix abomination.
Every once in a while, I’m reminded that Josh is an East Coast kid, not a California kid. It’s mostly charming, but there are times when he has a slip of the tongue and says something regrettable, like insulting cottage cheese.
He was just raised in a different time and place. It’s best to ignore such outbursts.