From hell’s heart, I stab at thee
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Gil Thorp, 4/27/24
I’m not sure what the current consensus on how to win over the teenage kids of the divorced dad you’re currently fucking, but bribing them with video games and comics strikes me as pretty good. Kind of dubious that Dick Tracy should be the go-to comic here, but it seems to have worked, so I guess she did her research.
Mary Worth, 4/27/24
Can you imagine getting reduced to a bloody smear on the asphalt by an SUV while you’re screaming obscenities at Wilbur Weston? Can you imagine that the last thing you think or feel is a boundless, seething contempt for this man, a contempt that occupies you so completely that you don’t even notice the car vrrooming towards you? I can. Frankly this has now rocketed to the very top of the list of ways I want to go out.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/27/24
Close, Snuffy! Given the rustic setting, the real way to bamboozle those effette urban dwellers is to market this junk pile as outsider art.
200 replies to “From hell’s heart, I stab at thee”
Mary Worth Mashups: What drama unfolds behind Wilbur? Three Missing Final Panels answer that question.
MW:
What does Wilbur’s @$$ have to do with his being totally oblivious?
BGSS: Barney looks like a rejected love child of J. Wellington Wimpy and Uncle Pennybags.
MW: Things didn’t start going crazy until after Wilbur left that “pet shop” to get fish food. Then we saw cats in Snugglis, a rubber ball exploding, Wilbur’s shirt changing colors, the background changing without warning, Wilburman and his dead eyes…
Is Wilbur truly roaming around like a delusional idiot or is he on the floor of the “pet shop” tripping on the “fish food” he bought?
@Baja Gaijin: Number 3, of course.
I see you translated @$$ in the second panel. It’s clear that they meant ass, not just having a three-letter grawlix but by the symbols they used. Is that allowed? What would the grawlices be for FUCKER?
MW:
Are the trash collectors in Santa Royale on permanent strike? — every time a waste receptacle is depicted in this strip, it is filled beyond the brim and overflowing with detritus.
GT. Beth, I knew Mary Jane Watson. You, ma’am, are no Mary Jane Watson.
A 512 GB Steam Deck – the most basic model that supports Baldur’s Gate 3 – costs $548 on Amazon. The absolute fanciest collector’s edition hardback Dick Tracy comic seems to be $49. I think we know who the favourite stepchild is.
Gil Thorp: No, don’t get those kids hooked on Dick Tracy! Soon enough they’ll find the Madonna movie, and that will lead them to her Sex book, and eventually they’ll go down the “elderly people with bad plastic surgery” internet rabbit hole. It ain’t wholesome, I tells ya!
Mary Worth: Sure, sure, Wilbur just murdered someone — what I want to know is, if he’s fantasizing about himself in a superhero costume, why couldn’t he have chosen one that covered his very unattractive head?
Snuffy Smith: What exactly did Barney expect to find by metal detecting in Hootin’ Holler? All the local heavy metals are in the water supply, and they’re mostly distilled out during the moonshine-making process.
Pluggers: This plugger can’t open a jar because she has chicken fingers. (Mmm, chicken fingers… Oh, right. Sorry, lady!)
MW: You know, Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego Mr. Hyde started out knocking down a child before he progressed to murder. What I’m saying is that with any luck, Wilbur and Wilburman will both die soon.
GT: Not saying that Beth is playing favorites, but Keri has cause to feel a bit slighted when Jami received a $700 Steam Deck and all Keri got was some random middle volume of an old comic book from a used bookstore bargain bin.
MW: Wilbur might catch a manslaughter charge for this, but I think at least a little blame should fall on the shoulders of Plum Car Driver, who apparently did a double U-turn in the middle of the street to swing back around for a second go at flattening Angry Old Man.
GT: Josh, you overlooked the most unrealistic part of this strip–that Beth, a woman in 2024 who is maybe approaching forty at the oldest and lives in suburbia, calls Gil his kids’ “Pa” like she’s in an old Western or from the backcountry.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s less weird and creepy than some of the alternatives, but it’s an utterly bizarre choice of words.
@Baja Gaijin:
Number 3, obviously.
Is it ironic that when Wilbur was moping about how he WASN’T a hero, he accidentally shoved a YOUTH AWAY from being crushed by a car, and when he’s fantasising about how he IS a hero, he accidentally shoves a SENIOR TOWARDS being crushed by a car?
Like, how Wilbur is always the exact opposite of what he assumes himself to be?
************
Gil Thorp : Beth is visibly
traced fromhommaging Mary Jane Watson’s iconic “face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot!”Does this mean that, eventually, Gil Thorp is going to sell his ever having met Beth to the Devil in exchange for, I dunno, Mimi’s mom’s life or something?
Or that soon, Gil Thorp is going to become a lackadaisical sloth who spends all day watching tv, actively avoids doing any coaching, has to have the day saved by a special guest star, but takes all the credit (“In some nutty way, I guess *I* win”)?
the only significant change would be that now Gil would be watching TV all the time************
Hagar the Horrible vs Shoe : See, weird bird lady, what you gotta do to get people to accept your offers is to offer the assassin the right to all of your (husband’s) belongings and possessions, instead of a flat fee. By playing your cards that way, you can even get the assassin to agree to take you along so you can kill your husband yourself, as I’m guessing the lady propositioning Hagar will soon ask (instead of a cut of the loot).
@Bob Tice: The sanitation workers of Santa Royale left when the pool parties did.
Dream Iris seems to be looking rather masculine in this panel with that rather chiseled face, strong jaw, and thick neck. Is Wilbur harboring thoughts that don’t belong in the 1950s era of politics that Santa Royale has staunchly embraced for decades?
GT: Did I miss the strip where they established that Beth was from rural Minnesota? “Nice to meetcha. I broughts yas some kaamix and vidja games, yaaa!”
MW: Frankly, I feel like wandering unawares just a few paces to the right of actual drama is a perfect metaphor for Mary Worth.
BGSS: I call bullshit: in Hootin’ Hollar scrap metal must be the closest thing they have to standard currency.
GT: Don’t relax, Beth. Those two i-ended kids are running right off to call their i-ended mother and give her the scoop.
MW: Orange is the New Wilbur: Sent up for involuntary manslaughter. Visited in prison by three women; one bearing muffins, one with a cat lashed to her boobs and one who is obsessed about fitness regimens. Drops the soap in the shower. The End.
RMMD: Character analysis of the Morgan offspring in a nutshell: The Whiner, There-May-Be-Hope-For-This-One and The Unrepentant Hedonist.
SANTA ROYALE PICAYUNE-TIMES
Saturday, April 27, 2024
MONONUCLEOSIS EPIDEMIC SWEEPS SANTA ROYALE
“Kissing Nebbish” Walter Mitty Wannabe Wilbur Weston, Local Advice Columnist, Suspected Culprit
All I know is, if this Gil Thorp storyline ends with a marriage annulment enforced by Mephisto, I am here for it.
CS: Don’t be like that, Tom, nobody calls you “Bummer Batiuk.” They call you an untalented and tonedeaf misery merchant, or a self-congratulating prick whose attempts at comedy are more depressing than his efforts at tragedy. Unless they’re from a media award-giving organization, in which case they don’t call you period.
JP: “Do me a favor, little one” is an irritatingly verbose voice activation for a smart device compared to “Okay Google” or “Hey Siri,” but that Boston playlist isn’t going to start itself.
Luann: “That was a waste of two hours.” Not at all, Evanses. More like five weeks.
RMMD: I have no idea what the point of this story is except to characterize the Morgan children as sociopaths, and I’m fairly certain even that wasn’t intentional.
@Tom: “calls Gil his kids’ “Pa”” – She’s just the right age to have grown up on reruns of Little House on the Prairie.
Today’s ‘Shoe’ is actually amusing.
This month, Mary Worth shows you how to react when someone knocks you over as a result of being so consumed by their own self-centeredness. DO: Watch helplessly as a car destroys your ball and would have destroyed you too. DON’T: Yell obscenities at the guy even as you remain in the street to get destroyed by the car coming at you.
I am consistently forced to (grudgingly) admire Gil Thorp’s ability to create dialogue so cryptic and inscrutable that it feels like it’s the product of some secret 1960s government AI program.
BGSS The relentless war of newspaper cartoonists against modern art continues, long after modern artists have forgotten that newspaper cartoonists exist.
MW: Wilbur’s daydream comes true when Zak is sent to prison for running over Santa Royale’s long time mayor, Gramps “$%#@ You” McGrampy.
GT: In one reading, those seem like genuine responses. It’s equally likely they’re being sarcastic, though. “Wowsers, I can finally play a game that’s been out for a year. Thanks!” “Oh boy! A collected edition of a moribund comic strip. Gee, thanks.”
MW: Ironically, the splat he leaves behind will be in the form of grawlixes.
BGSS: Who wouldn’t pay out the nose for genuwine, one-of-a-kind hillbilly art?
Frazz: Carbo-loading is for marathons, doofus!
Luann: I bet Luann’s dates have similarly frustrating thoughts as expressed in panel 3.
CS: SMIIIIIIIIRK!
9CL: The Vatican version of The Squid Game is pretty weird. At least the translation for this strip is trivial.
GT: Panel one appears to be a tribute to the first time Peter Parker met Mary Jane Watson. I’m surprised she didn’t call him Tiger.”
Zits: It’s a good thing this isn’t Dustin. Dustdad would maul Dustin for nag-cancelling headphones.
FC: “Something about the boil on her ass…”
MW: 1 person saved from dying in traffic, 1 person killed in traffic. In all fairness to Wilbur, it balances out, doesn’t it?
@Baja Gaijin: I like the implications of options 1 and 2.
MW-I can’t help but laugh at the way the car is drawn.
FC-“Cindy also said that you should get tested.”
MW-Behold as the majestic mighty automobile angles before it makes it’s kill.
MW-People who fall into the streets are fair game for the wild automobiles that roam the streets of Santa Royale.
@Baja Gaijin:
My vote is for the third one. This will be the only place that we’ll see it.
MW: It is a shame that anyone’s last words on earth should be calling Wilbur a “Stupid @$$!”. When addressing Wilbur for the last time ever, one shouldn’t squander the opportunity to refer to him fully as a “Stupid Lard-@$$!”
9CL – We’re really going to do a re-imagining of this decades old story? They meet, they instantly fall forever in love, they quit the clergy and get married and then have a dozen babies because they won’t use birth control.
If we’re really going to just time travel from now on to visit past versions of the characters, can’t we give them something more interesting to do this time?
GT: Am I the only one reading this who knows there is a new limited series comic book of Dick Tracy with all new material….that is now a hot item in the comic-book stores?
@Pat O’Neill: Terence O’Brien linked to it yesterday.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: We need more of those stories where someone somehow decides they’re attracted to Amos and gets relentlessly humiliated for admitting it.
MW: Yes! Yes! Vehicular manslaughter! I want that on Wilbur’s record!
GT: Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dick Tracy is quite the combination. Even the most “mainstream” comics these days are for hardcore enthusiasts because the average person doesn’t read them anymore, so I think the video game should also be something old and obscure to match instead. “I can finally play Metal Slader Glory! Thanks!”
Gil Thorp-Face it, Gil, you just rolled a snake eyes.
MW – “Vroom” is the standard sound effect for rapid acceleration. Go ahead and arrest Wilbur but pick up Professor Plumb Car as well. That’s some serious intent right there.
GT: The decline of physical media is one of the few things I’ll get angrily Pluggerish about, so I was pleased when today’s comics-inspired rabbit hole revealed that there are indeed disc versions of Baldur’s Gate 3 in circulation. Now if I can just figure out why a non-binary Zoomer who was traumatized by an active shooter drill would enjoy the copaganda of Dick Tracy, today’s strip might make some sense.
MW: So, here’s a philosophical exercise for you. Say you take a common profanity like “ass,” and you censor it by replacing the “a” with the “at” symbol. Then you replace the two s’s with dollar signs. You now have “@$$,” a technically fully censored version that readers will automatically translate as the uncensored word. Is it still the original profanity? I like to call this “The Grawlix of Theseus.”
MW, Pt. 2: Not to take anything away from Wilbur’s dickishness, but it seems absurdly easy to accidentally shove random passers-by into busy oncoming traffic in Historic Downtown Santa Royale. If someone really wanted to be a hero he might start by petitioning the city council for some concrete barriers or something.
GT: Beth is wearing one of her hooker outfits, a clue that Keri’s REAL present is coming later that night.
Frazz: I saw this old movie where the star was using a candlestick telephone. Expand your horizons a bit, kid.
JP: Back at Pavel’s mansion, the television suddenly goes on.
FG: Schkrade, you’ve done it again. All the other soap strip writers should be following this and taking notes, no shit.
GT – In the first panel, I thought she was holding open a single large bag, as in “Put your little dog in here, so I can take him to the sheriff! There’s laws protecting innocent people, you know!”
@Baja Gaijin: #1. MW:. Bear. Definitely the bear to end Wilbur’s pity party. Plus Rex can always use the work, according to Sid.
GT: Typically oblivions, no one in Milford notices that Fort Dow down the road is blasting its sirens and the sky is the color of mustard gas.
GT – “The kids”? Geez, Gil, don’t overwhelm her with a bunch of unnecessary details. Why don’t you just introduce them as “some humans”?
Don Abundio, translated:
“Let’s take out all the files and throw them into the air!”
“If you insist, boss”
“We’re undoing all our work!”
“I know!”
“Ah! I feel liberated!”
“That’s nice!”
“But the little bastard ran off and left us to clean up this mess”
@jroggs:
#19 JP:. So Rurik (does he have a cube?) Is really working for Blythe/Helena. The inside man she bragged to April about.
And now this house also will explode into flames, again no bodies will be found. B/H will be found happily married to Pavel in Eastern Europe, and Alina will become part of Abby’schild collection.
And they all lived happily ever after. The end.
C’shaft: “Here, let me sign your book: ‘Remember, life is a meaningless void and we all die alone and afraid’…and who should I make this out to?”
HotC: Look, Kat, just let her get as far as The Goliath Chronicles, that will bring a screeching halt to the binge.
JP: “Oh, and if you hear any loud booms that’s, um….that’s Santa Claus testing out his new hypersonic sled, okay?”
Luann: Face it, Luann is just a black hole for personality.
Phantom: “Why are their red chain marks around your neck?”
“NO REASON!”
RMMD: One of the kids is concerned for their pet’s well-being. The other two are a) complaining about being bored and b) wondering when they’ll finally get around to eating some brownies. I’m just saying, you don’t need a DNA test to tell the difference between the adopted kid and Rex Morgan’s biological offspring.
MARY WORTH: Josh:
To be fair, that’s also the first thing people feel when they see Wilbur.
GIL THORP: Kids: “We love you Daddy’s slampiece!”
Gil Thorp-And if you’re good she has another extra special gift for you called a blowjob.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: That old man must also be trying to slip past the nanny-bot censors on the Comics Kingdom page (he knows what’s up.)
MW: I find the Wilbur is oblivious excuse not excusable. He shoved the old guy down. He deliberately acted.
Phantom:
Kit Jr.: “Happy to Oblige!”
Kit Sr.: “Well done, son!”
Devil: “BURP!!!!”
If Wilbur doesn’t end up behind bars, I will lose all respec… respe… Fine, I have no respect to lose for the Mary Worth creative team except maybe a little for their indefatigable mission to never provide interesting characters or compelling stories. I will forgive some of it though if we get a scene of Estelle visiting Wilbur in jail with all her pets and the animals just staring at him from behind bulletproof glass.
Crabgrass: This strip has been running a stupid Freaky Friday plot for weeks. Yesterday, people who read it were reminded, for the umpteenth time, that the only way to undo a Freaky Friday plot is to stop trying to undo it.
@seismic-2: I bet that guy tasted terrible.
@Tabby Lavalamp: I want to see Libby smirking at Wilbur as if she’s saying, “You thought sitting in my piss was bad? Just you wait, fatass.”
GT – I haven’t seen sun rays like that since Chairman Mao….
MW – Oh those angry little old men!! Shaking their fist at a threatening cloud as a freight train bears down on them….
BG&SS – War’s that thar Counterfederate gold horde….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Bob Tice y#41: I feel like there should be some form of ceremony when you lose your COTW cherry, but I’m not sure what that would look like. Swearing at Wilbur Weston while a Ford Taurus closes in for the kill would most likely be involved, though.
MW: Wilbur has truly become Wilburman; a universal agent for change. Watch as he saves children from being run over, and shoces old people to their doom. In a town as ageless as this, someone must end the old dynasty and bring in the new; who better than Wilbur?
MARY WORTH: Y’all. Can’t you see the theme that this strip is doing this arc? In it’s usual take on plausible realism, the car is going to swerve into the sidewalk (you know how cars are just randomly doing that), keeping the cursing old man Wilbur carelessly pushed out into the street safe (until he’s ran over by another car, but Wilbur’s “accidental heroism” only has to work once for it to count, right?)
This is all in service for the big lesson we are supposed to be taking from this, which is that Santa Royale has some terrible drivers and the city needs better traffic laws.
@taig: 9CL – “We need more of those stories where someone somehow decides they’re attracted to Amos and gets relentlessly humiliated for admitting it.“
Poor Mary. We never did learn how Amos’ special spaghetti recipe turned out (the secret is to boil the noodles until they get soft!)
They just reran a twenty year old strip where we learned that Amos always wears high heels around the Burber household, because he is ashamed that he is shorter than Edda.
It’s amusing that the author feels compelled to insert himself into the strip as the husband of the worlds hottest and horniest woman ever ever ever – and then needs to make him such a pathetic character that he inspires nothing but contempt … and a little nausea.
Gil Thorp: The homage to the iconic “you just hit the jackpot” panel from Spider-Man with Beth feels inappropriate, since Mary Jane didn’t romance Peter Parker by bribing his family members with gifts. Maybe it’s just meant to symbolize that Gil and Beth like engaging in comic book roleplay in bed.
Mary Worth: This old guy has been screaming at Wilbur next to the sidewalk for two or three days now, so this car driver has no “I didn’t see him there, he came out suddenly” excuse for running him over. Not that said driver seems to care about excuses, given that he’s swerving to make sure he hits the dude.
MW – I’m amused by the driver VROOMing instead of SCREECHing the brakes considering there’s a freakin’ old guy lying on the road directly in front of him.
This could lead to some exciting courtroom drama as a jury decides whether Wilbur or Psycho Driver gets life in prison for murder (no death penalty in Cali.) I vote for both.
MW: I think the driver who’s aiming at the man in the street and accelerating shares some of the blame here.
HotC: Do kids binge-watch TV these days, as opposed to YouTube and TikTok?
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@astroboy:
MW: Looks like triple absent minded contributory negligence: Willbutt for absentmindedly nudging the old man (and failing to render aid), the old man for absentmindedly lying in the street (last clear chance), and the driver from San Francisco who was absentmindedly parking wheels facing the curb while yelling at Howard Stern interviewing some geezer.
@Activist 1234: The object that Rurik is clicking is hopefully just a garage door opener that is being unintentionally over-emphasized. That’s the best case scenario.
It may also be a device that is sending some kind of signal to Helena through a device that went undiscovered during her two searches because it was neither a weapon nor an explosive. Very stupid, but still possible.
The worst case scenario is if it is the detonator for some explosives or incendiary bomb, as that will create another couple dozen gigantic storytelling problems. Sadly, this is the most likely scenario.
MW- After he gets out of prison, Wilbur is going to be buff. Then Iris, Estelle, AND Mary are going to be sorry they didn’t snap him up sooner.
Crankshaft – Mary Worth stares in amazement at her Kindle. “Wait a minute. You mean that if I wrote my own strip, I could pat myself on the back and have people praising me whenever I wanted, not just when Karen Moy decides that her stories are over?” *yells* “JEFF! Get the syndicate on the phone! I need to talk to them!”
Mary smiles. “Maybe I’ll even win a Pulitzer.”
Frazz – “For a second I thought it was about baked goods.” No, it’s humble complaining to remind everyone that Frazz has a fanatical running regimen.
MW: When Wilbur is preoccupied, swearing is justified. But first, get out of the damn street.
GT – That’s a cut-and-paste from a few weeks ago when she unhooked the clasp on the front of her bra. That one’s in the artist’s private collection.
@Where’s Rocky?: To be fair, Gil did “hit the jackpot” with her…if you know what I mean, heh heh heh (Sex. I mean he “won” sex from her.)
MW: Aldo was aiming to hit Wilbur(man) but was too drunk to aim properly.
@Unca Bob: 4th negligence is the design of a narrow sidewalk with no separation from high speed traffic. Killer stroad.
REX MORGAN: Rex (after hearing his children’s…”concern” for their dog) “Er ..maybe we shouldn’t have bought the dog training book by Kristi Noem….”
@Liam:
“Stay together! Watch out for the killer cars!” VRRM!
Now to solve this problem through the miracle of atomic mutation…
Beetle Bailey-Somebody didn’t get spit in their food.
Coincidentally, I recently got a Get Fuzzy book from over a decade ago, and “@$$” was used in one of the strips there. Not long after, “$$@” was used in the same context, and my first thought was that it was Conley’s response to readers’ complaints from the first time.
Isn’t this the 3rd time the Mary Worth guys run the same two panels? I realise pacing in these soap strips is slow and artists have a quota, but they have not moved for half a week by now.
BG&SS: Obviously scrap metal doesn’t have the value of Viking gold or Celtic weaponry. But I’d bet there is a scrapyard near Hootin’ Holler where Snuffy could take scrap metal and get paid by weight. Having done that with old wire fencing and other farm metal debris, I’d observe the money isn’t much, but it’s better than a kick in the head, and in this case, it would provide a little bettin’ cash for those Hootin’ Holler card games. And/or it would help bail Snuffy out of jail next time.
@2+2=7: Ackk! Too soon!
@2+2=7: Kristi Noem: “I decided I wanted a brown one.”
GT: Is that what teen girls are wearing now? *studies outfit* Looks uncomfortable. Better you than me, kid.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Bwahaha!
@Noel: I think Beth should have gone even further. Male teen gets Baldur game, female teen gets hardcover edition of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.
MW: Wilbur is eventually arrested and either thrown in jail for a long time or put in a facility for the criminally insane. Dawn has nowhere to go, so she moves in with her rich mother who helps normalize her after years of living with Wilbru and near Mary. If I never have to see Wilbur kiss another human being, even in one of his sick fantasies, I’m fine with that.
GT: “This is my son Jami, who’s a gamer, and my daughter Keri, who’s had an abortion. She can give you the business card of that clinic just in case, well, you know.”
*Wilbur. Wilbru is the name of his cousin in Belgium
Dig up a big pile of scrap metal and weld it together to make art? That’s not a grift, Snuffy, that’s actual work. Also, which one of these antebellum hillbillies has a metal shop?
BG&SS: Poor Barney. All the good copper wiring and plumbing has been long found, pinched, and spent by the local meth addicts.
GT: I can’t blame Mary Jane Watson for dumping Pee-Pee, but considering all the hunky supervillains like Kraven the Hunter that have lusted for her, did she have to settle for Gil?
BG&SS: Barney, maybe you should consider ginseng harvesting. I’ve heard it’s quite the cottage industry in Appalachia.
MW: The driver of the purple car is thinking, “Dammit to Hell! That’s the second time today that fat, bald-headed little shit shoved someone in front of my car!”
Curtis: So, in an attempt to disprove Barry’s claim that Michelle is self-centred and cares nothing for other people’s feelings, Curtis asked Chutney out, then when she said yes, immediately headed over to ask Michelle out as well, to compare their reactions? I’m starting to see why he holds such a torch for Michelle; they’ve got so much in common!
GT: Protip: If you’re writing a newspaper comic, firmly establish that Dick Tracy exists as a fictional comic strip within your world, especially if you’re going to do comic book homages (because that attracts Staton’s attention). At the last count, the Tracyverse included Little Orphan Annie, Brenda Starr, Popeye, Gasoline Alley, The Spirit, Green Hornet, Batman, Funky Winkerbean, and On the Fastrack, and those are just the ones with more than a throwaway mention! Don’t let your strip be next!
JP: Today in “Learn Ethics the Driver-Spencer Way”, it’s fine to kill Pavel because he’s a Bad Man, but it would be Wrong to do it in front of his daughter, so let her get about a hundred yards away first. Of course, there’s no other way of stopping Pavel. Ces may write the CIA as a cross between the FBI, Interpol, the Impossible Missions Force, and God, but they can only use these powers to harass our “heroes”, not to stop someone they have clear evidence connecting to a criminal empire!
MW: I am absolutely calling it now: the car is going to screech to a halt, the driver is going to offer a big cash settlement for almost running the old guy over, and the old guy will realise that he has the mighty Wilburman to thank for his monetary windfall! And if it’s not that, it’ll be something even stupider that amounts to the same thing.
RMMD: I was half kidding before, but Beatty really is sticking with this “Johnny is concerned about the dog, Michael is concerned about the chocolate” characterisation, huh?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Probably #\/€<£&
BG&SS: It’s too bad that Barney hasn’t seen those fake AI sculptures on Facebook, or he could suggest an easier get rich quick method.
BG&SS – “Yo’re rich?” gmafb. Way to forget that the entire premise is that Barney is rich and Snuffy is pore.
MW: The twist is that both the kid Wilbur saved and the old man he killed are the same person…Wilbur himself! With the revival of Flash Gordon, MW is taking a bold new scifi direction.
@astroboy: ICBW, but from what I’ve read, back when Barney was the main character of the strip, he was a ne’er-do-well waster whose only asset was Spark Plug, a race horse that couldn’t run. I don’t know if they made him rich later to contrast him further with Snuffy.
Gil Thorp: “Wow, the charging-hub for a Nintendo Switch, radical!”
@101 astroboy: @103 Horace Broon: A rich character and his poor best (i.e., only) friend is the premise of Barney and Clyde (a strip I haven’t read in years) rather than BG&SS.
@astroboy: @Horace Broon: Around 1930, Barney was a “promoter,” or small time gambler and con artist, in an unnamed metropolis not unlike Chicago.
In the continuity published in The Smithsonian Collection of Comic Strips Google was about to rake in $100,000 from the millionaire Senator Schnopps if he agreed to abandon the infamous femme fatale Madame La Mousse (inexplicably in love with him) and move permanently to China.
@43 Weaselboy: To be fair, the car driver thought Wilbur was sitting in the road. Who could resist the urge to fill in a pothole with that lard@$$ ?
@98 Horace Broon: on Mary Worth: It’ll be something much stupider. It always is.
Wilbur would do well to take Flash Gordon’s granpop’s advice, “A hero is something you do, not something you are.” Of course Wilbur, with his crippling full-blown psychotic break, is going to find keeping his mind on that to be pretty challenging.
Phantom – “Do we need anything else from these guys, dad? Guns? Ammo? Pineal gland extract?”
@Wool Worth: Technically Dawn is nineteen (unless you’re NPCs or have tummy brains, children under eighteen are not allowed in Santa Royale) so she’s legally an adult even if she’s not mature enough. Either she’s getting a job and student housing to stay in college so she can take more hiatus (and graduate when she’s ready for Social Security) or she can go back to Mommy in New England and be a prudish blue blood.
Or she can probably just be Ian’s new wife when Toby starts looking too old for him and Toby can go to her equal in intelligence and maturity: Wilbur.
@White Rabbit: The other thing Grandpa Gordon always used to say to Flash was “Pull my finger.”
@White Rabbit: Keep in mind that for Wilbur, a “hero” is something you spread mayonnaise on.
@Ranger Pseudonymous: MW: 1 person saved from dying in traffic, 1 person killed in traffic. In all fairness to Wilbur, it balances out, doesn’t it?
The life he saved may go on to lead a productive life for another 70 years, while the walking corpse that he dispatched to the grave probably had 3 or 4 weeks left at most. It more than balances out. Wilbur is the hero he always knew himself to be. Kudos and huzzah, I say, kudos and huzzah!
@Baja Gaijin:
Missing in Panel 1 is the sight of Wilbur offering the fair damsel a bit of tongue as part of the deal.
6ix Chix: Guest artist for Panel 3 today: the Thursday Chik, Mary Lawton!
MW: If the incident with the kid is setting a pattern, some unexpected good will come from this. The car will stop just in time and the man will be apprehended by police who have been searching for him unsuccessfully. He’s either a criminal or has a dementia and wandered off.
Re: today’s Mary Worth, if I’m going to daydream so hard I can’t hear a vehicular manslaughter nearby, I’m going to want the daydream to be a little more interesting than a pre-adolescent revenge/sex fantasy. It needs to be about solving Fermat’s Theorem or at the very least, having a full head of hair.
@Maude R. Fawker: Great Caesar’s ghost, Mary Lawton COMMENTED on today’s 6Chx (CK edition). “Great as always! (Heart-eyes emoji)”
Mary Lawton only wishes she could draw that good.
Is Josh about to set off the Genesis torpedo turning the lifeless void known as Gasoline Alley™ into the youthful and vibrant Electric Acres? (Yes, I know the quote comes from the book “Moby Dick Tracy: Aquatic Detective”, but I’m pretty sure more people today associate it with Ricardo Montiban’s chest. And yes,Jerry, it was real.)
MW: in recent years I’ve seen stories about people walking up to strangers and punching them or knocking them down in places like New York. Now it’s starting to make sense for me.
Bob Mankoff Presents: Show Me The Funny – I expect to see string theory guy at the end of a Baja Gaijin Mary Worth mashup.
RMMD — you can clearly tell which ones are June’s natural kids, and which one is adopted. The black haired ones are selfish little bastards.
@Ranger Pseudonymous:
MW: 1 person saved from dying in traffic, 1 person killed in traffic. In all fairness to Wilbur, it balances out, doesn’t it?
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Not by ball count: He killed two (the old man’s) and saved zero (the boy’s SPLOOSH!)
@Ukulele Ike: “Mary Lawton” has been making comments like that almost every day. I first noticed it on a Tuesday, and I thought it was a fellow Chik trying to buck up Xunise — you know, because of the whole clinical depression thing. But then I saw there was a comment like that on a Lawton strip too, so now I’m thinking maybe it’s not THAT Mary Lawton.
@Decima Dewey:
I’m reminded of this not very well known Canadian cartoon, about characters who live in a cartoon world.
A trope in cartoons when something bad happens, the protagonists trying to fix things, only makes things worse and worse. So after one of the characters in this show massively screwed something up, these characters think “What if we did nothing?”
Things still ended up worse and worse.
Then in the end, they discover that the fact that seeing as they’re in a cartoon, just to wait until the next episode starts, everything magically resets.
@Sequitur: Baja’s going to have trouble looking at the comic long enough to clip that art out, because of the two women with clown lips.
@126 Peanut Gallery:
I don’t think Baja has a problem with non clowns having clown lips. After all, he reads WuMo.
@Horace Broon:
and those are just the ones with more than a throwaway mention!
___________________
Don’t forget that “Get Fuzzy” sequence when Tracy tried to arrest Bucky as the notorious criminal Furface.
MW: Why is the car at such an angle? It is a good foot away from the curb. Or is it up on an ashcan that is in the street. Please. I only read the funny pages to get a perspective on physics. And combovers. Definitely combovers. And a modern take on sports lingo from Gil Thorp(e).
@Peanut Gallery: ….or it may be that OUR beloved Mary Lawton is clinically insane!
@Baja Gaijin: Are we supposed to vote? Because although the first two endings are great, I love the SPLOOF beyond all reason.
MT: I’m a day too late to make this comment, sorry. Unfortunately, I still feel compelled to point out that during several decades as a prairie fanatic, and after a couple dozen prairie conferences in eleven states plus Canada, I have never before encountered the term “plains fire.” Prairie fire, grass fire, grassland fire, wildfire, all definitely yes. But Wiki seems to indicate that MT might possibly be the first to roll out “plains fire.” If so, I don’t expect it to catch on.
@114 Maude R. Fawker: It’s bad enough that I have to look at THAT punim so much while working on these mashups. I don’t need to see him any more disgusting than he already is.
@121 Sequitur: Could be!
@126 Peanut Gallery: I didn’t notice the kielbasa lips. The disturbingly shapely buns transfixed my gaze.
@131 Poteet: No voting but I appreciate comments so I know people are enjoying the mashups. Thanks!
LUANN: It might well be possible to create a comic-strip character who is forever nineteen and still remains forever interesting, or at least not irritating. I might be forgetting good examples of that even now. But LUANN is not doing it, at least for me, and this latest story is just gross.
@Ukulele Ike: #106: I believe Barney Google was also a racetrack tout. For those not familiar with horse racing terminology, a tout is a person who’s been playing the ponies and hanging out at racetracks long enough to know that, let’s say, out of the ten or so horses running he can tell you which 4 or 5 are most likely to show (Come in at least third place for the smallest payout). What he’ll do is approach total strangers and make like he’s a track insider with a hot tip on a horse. He’ll do this with several people with a hot tip but on a different horse, figuring at least one will win. After the race he’ll hang out by the cashier’s window and approach the person holding the winning ticket expecting a cut for the hot tip, while avoiding the ones he gave a bum steer to.
@135 Poteet: Look only to Arlo and Janis. How well did he write their son? Very well.
Late Thread Cuisine: This looks like a normal hamburger, doesn’t it? Guess the mystery ingredient. Without Googling the recipe.
@Baja Gaijin: Oysters.
I just read tomorrow’s Mary Worth. The guy’s okay. A garbage can however…
@139 taig: Almost as unlikely.
@138 Baja Gaijin:
Such a pitiful salad.
Sex Organ V.D.: “Bad news, Doctor, the waiting room is still infested with Morgans!” “Nurse break out the emergency Morgan Motel™brand Morgan traps. Morgans check in, but they don’t check out.”
The Famillar Mucus: Too bad P.J. can’t talk yet! He’s the only one noticing Oh Yeah escaping the circular barrier! Who will alert Rover?
@142 Sequitur: They’re using “salad” in the UK sense: the lettuce, tomatoes, and other fresh veggies on a sandwich. I guess the food designer thought the salad looked better beside the burger than on it.
Since you brought it up, what’s the mystery ingredient in the salad? Again, no peeking at the recipe.
@138 Baja Gaijin: The meat patty looks like maybe it’s stuffed with filler of some sort. Hamburger Hinderer?
@Sequitur:
Such a pitiful salad.
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Pitiful Salad was my college band. Our gimmick was throwing potato salad at our audience.
mw and at last wilbur has given mary the okay to in the name of the guy wilbur just got killed to in turn kill wilbur now for no one kills without the okay of mary .even by accident. luann looks like tiffinay and betts idea worked too well for luann just showed them they need to rebrand the thing now for luann just outfoxed them
@145 Baja Gaijin:
Mystery ingredient? Could it be that beetle that has crawled halfway under the napkin?
@Sequitur:
I just read tomorrow’s Mary Worth. The guy’s okay. A garbage can however…
_________________
Will Wilburman survive his encounter with Garbage Ape?
@Baja Gaijin: It’s from England? Is the secret ingredient mushy peas?
@146 seismic-2: I counted 3 fillers: bread crumbs and flour. The third is the mystery ingredient other than the one in the salad.
@147 Garrison Skunk: You’re getting close to the burger’s mystery ingredient.
@149 Sequitur: Where? I don’t see it. Not that I want to.
@151 I speak Jive: As far as I can tell, the recipe may be from the UK though the mystery ingredient isn’t usually associated with England. No mushy peas.
@152 Baja Gaijin:
On the left. It just crawled out of the salad.
@154 Sequitur: Dude, please. It’s the shadow from the salad’s mystery ingredient.
@152 Baja Gaijin:
That bun’s not made out of potato meal is it?
@155 Baja Gaijin:
It’s green with stripes. That’s no shadow.
@156 Sequitur: You’re close! The mystery ingredient though is in the meat not the bun.
@157 Sequitur: That’s the pattern on the plate. Look at the right side of the plate that’s salad free. See the weird onionish pattern?
“I read the Mary Worth, oh boy./ A fat hero pushed an old man to his death/ and though the story was rather sad I just had to laugh I saw the photograph. He blew his mind out with bad mayo/I had to gasp/this guy’s an @$$/how long will this story go….on….. I’d love to turn it off.”- Ron Nasty (adapted) “A Day In The Strife”, Sgt. Rutter’s Only Darts Club Band.
@158 Baja Gaijin:
I still want to believe it’s a beetle.
Blowing up the picture the texture of the meat looks a bit odd. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s ground up beetles.
@160 Sequitur: You were sooo close in #156.
GT: Gil shows about as much awareness as you’d expect that his girlfriend is trying to buy his kids’ affection, or at least non-resentment.
MW: I’m pretty sure I’ve never killed anyone by fantasizing about an ex-girlfriend. Does that mean I win?
MW: After observing the astonishing recklessness of the mauve-colored car in both incidents (the little boy and the elderly man), nearsighted Hannah Dindon must be the driver.
@161 Baja Gaijin:
Potato in the patty mix?
BH: Broom Hilda got a tattoo of the Titanic sinking just north of her vag and I don’t know what else to say about that.
C-Shaft: Did Les Moore reproduce asexually? (Yes, I know he’s been married twice, but I’m not going to force myself to think about it.)
DT: Despite the probability that BO is just being a dope, I do hope there’s an alternate in-universe Batman named Hatman. “Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot. They’ll be confused and frightened by male accessories. I shall become a homburg.”
Dustin: If Dustin had made the team I’m pretty sure he would have led with that. Learn nuance, Hayden.
Luann: It will greatly increase my estimation of Luann if it turns out she’s deliberately screwing with them but I’m not getting my hopes up.
MG&G: Okay, mis-whatever-this-is aside, why in the name of Mike Peters is he vacuuming in a three piece suit?
RMMD: The good news is that Candy is alive, but Michael is dead. Dead serious about making more brownies. If he’s this excited they must at least have fudge frosting on top, right?
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely the SPLOOF.
@I speak Jive:
@Baja Gaijin: It’s from England? Is the secret ingredient mushy peas?
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Wilberbix™? Made the old fashioned way with real Wilbermen? Crunchy, yet edible?
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’ve heard the term “racetrack tout” but was never sure what it was. Thank you for the explanation, and you MUST be right. Sounds like the little shit anyway, with his goo-goo-googley eyes.
(Are all racetrack touts required to also vend tuttsi-fruttsi ice cream?)
@Garrison Skunk: Mushy cockroaches….
@Sequitur: I’ve got it! You form the hamburger patty AROUND an order of french fries before you grill it!
Voila! Burger and fries without the extra effort of having to eat them separately! Pluggers and Wilbur are going to LOVE this!
@Baja Gaijin: Pebbles.
@Ukulele Ike: Put the potato-meat patty into a potato roll, add French fries and a side of rice, and you’ve got a meal with enough starch to satisfy even Prof. Ian Cameron’s daily dietary requirement!
@171 taig:
Any other members of the Flintstones family? Dino perhaps?
@164 Sequitur: DING DING DING DING DING DING!!! Yes, “Grate in raw peeled potato” is an instruction in the meat patty preparation.
@167 Garrison Skunk: Good guess, though wheat flour is one of the fillers. That’s sorta like very finely ground
sawdust pattiesWeetabix.@169 Dennis Jimenez: I don’t think I ever saw a cockroach, mushy or otherwise, when I lived and traveled in England.
@170 Ukulele Ike: Definitely a plugger delicacy.
@171 taig: The stones or the Flintstone? Regardless, no.
@172 seismic-2: Another winner! Potato in the meat.
@Baja Gaijin: Banana bread.
BGSS: That sounds like a Mr. Haney scheme. Come to think of it, how close is Hootin’ Holler to Hooterville?
Have we ever seen each of them live on camera at the same time?
@177 ValdVin:
I don’t think they’re near each other. Hootin’ Holler is mountainous and Hooterville is farm land. Hooterville is probably where Poteet lives.
@178 Sequitur: Hooterville where busty babes bathe in the train’s steam water tower. I wonder if the town was named after…naah.
@179 Baja Gaijin:
I think you’re right. Go with your instincts.
@Baja Gaijin: Just think what would have happened if the town of Gasoline Alley had been renamed “Electric Acres”. Would waitress Baleen have won the title of “Miss Hooterville”?
@181 seismic-2: Thankfully I don’t know enough about Baleen or her hooters to answer this question.
@Ukulele Ike: #168: Not sure because I’ve heard tout pronounced toot, towt, and tote by different people.
@182 Baja Gaijin:
You know anyone named after a whale species ain’t gonna be small.
@184 Sequitur: Have you seen a whale’s hooters? I haven’t.
@185 Baja Gaijin:
Doesn’t matter. Baleen’s not a whale. Here she is with Slim.
@186 Sequitur: Have you seen Baleen’s hooters? I haven’t.
@187 Baja Gaijin:
They’re probably hidden under her bodacious apron. Frankly, I’m really not looking for them. They are what they are when they are whatever they are.
Baja, something new. Dog shit desserts from Thailand.
@189 Sequitur: Welp, now I gotta find another Late Thread Cuisine for tomorrowthread.
@191 Baja Gaijin:
Ha!
@Garrison Skunk: If Wilburman actually had a comic book series, all of his enemies would be some form of large primate. It makes a good bathroom read for the bottom of the birdcage.
@192 Needless Exposition:
Maybe King Kong should grab Wilbur and fling him into a monkey cage and lock the door. King Kong could then point at Wilbur’s crotch and laugh hysterically.
@Sequitur: Translated grunts: “He smells like a sandwich but there’s no pickle.”
@194 Needless Exposition:
Heh, heh, heh!
GT: What is less likely—a young person liking Dick Tracy or Baldur’s Gate 3 running (well or at all) on a handheld device?
@McCapwell: The latter. The former is possible by the law of large numbers, the latter is a matter of basic hardware limitations.
LUANN: As a reminder, Luann’s parents run a bistro (diner? Coffee shop? Whatever, it’s someplace where they serve food and drinks) that’s supported by the work of underappreciated service workers (we just spent time with one of them last arc). Just something to keep in mind as you ponder the delightful working conditions that must make up the Fuze’s business philosophy.
@Bob Tice:
Are the trash collectors in Santa Royale on permanent strike? — every time a waste receptacle is depicted in this strip, it is filled beyond the brim and overflowing with detritus.
___
The Garbage Apes are moonlighting in Wilberman’s fantasies.
GT: Jami Thorp: “I can finally play Baldur’s Gate 3! And by the shape of the object I’m holding, it looks like you bought me a Steam Deck to play it on! Holy crap lady you really want to bone my dad with the money you’re dropping on this!”