The surreal and the terrifying
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Alice, 4/15/24
I’m happy to report that, sine I started reading Alice a few weeks ago, I have fallen thoroughly, 100% under its spell. This strip takes perfectly ordinary situations, like when you receive parrot medicine from beloved novelist and short story writer Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) but are then unable to give it to your parrot because it flies away, and turns them into delightfully surreal episodes. Ha ha, that parrot does not want to take that medicine! Also Alice (?) is … flying? And her head …. looks like that? Anyway! Alice, I don’t fully “get it” but I’m keenly interested to see what it’s doing next!
Crock, 4/15/24
Look, man, I get what you’re going for here and it’s basically cute and whimsical, but maybe don’t have your characters stumble upon a field of hacked-off human extremities rotting in the desert sun if your comic set is against the backdrop of grinding colonial insurgency, OK? Just … trust me on this one.
The Phantom, 4/15/24
So this current Phantom storyline, it turns out, is about Kit Jr. joining the Ghost Who Walks on one of his adventures, so we can all find out if he really has it what it takes to step up, become the 22nd Phantom, the ultimate jungle warrior and seemingly immortal crime fighter, and fulfill the destiny he was born and bred for. Anyway, turns out he definitely does not have what it takes! He’s just going to get strangled with a chain by some low-level henchman wearing a tank top, because he wasn’t paying attention, like a dumbass.
166 replies to “The surreal and the terrifying”
Crock: You think this is bad, wait ’til they get to the headlands.
PmP: I finally figured out what LMAO means.
6C:. Is it a sexist stereotype to think of the adage, “a man works from morn to sun but a woman’s work is never done”? What if we change it to, “mow the lawn every time or do all the laundry, your pick”?
JP:. We know! We know! Mom got in and will now eliminate the problem due to her new alliance with The Deleter. (MANDRAKE, past two days)
PHANTOM: as Llongo guard found out, always work in pairs, even if one of them is a Wolf with sharp teeth.
Phantom: The henchman looks more forlorn than fearsome. “These chains of love shall bind us!”
Phantom: I guess the silencer on the chain is just above the top of the panel.
GT: Well Cami, you gave her about a foot of space between you and the screen and she still got the pitch to the catcher so…yeah, she should be pitching the “opening”
FC: Bil’s off to panhandle at the entrance to the “Food Team” in the hopes his grotesque kids will elicit more donations.
Alice – This is a suppository gag…right?
(Appropriately named) Crock – So much better than the pee-ed mont….
Phantom – I’m assuming that’s Devil Dog and not…WOLVES!!!
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Crock: The enemy must be nearby. Looks like a foot patrol. [“Booooo!”] We always knew our adversaries were trying to get a toehold in the region. [“Booooooo!”] Truly, these heels have become our arch-nemeses. Destroying us is their sole purpose. This is just the first step to- [*gets pelted with rotten fruit, expired eggs, and stray feet*]
Phantom: Everybody gangsta ’till the trailer park vampire shows up.
I’d love to see the Crock depiction of The Grand Tetons.
Luann: The inner beauty gal may be vacant, but she’s not THAT stupid.
ALICE:. My mom used same treatment… If we were sick, we had to eat her milk toast.
PHANTOM: I hope Baja is, even now, working the wolf into a Mary Worth mashup. That kid sprawled on the sidewalk would be easy pickings.
MW: If Wilbur REALLY wanted to be a hero, he would pay for the surgery to correct the kid’s Reversed-Leg Syndrome, and then write “Walks now. Ya, or maybe even RUNS now!” in his diary.
Crock: How did a “As drawn by Billy, age 8,” FC strip wind up here?
Phantom:
“Didn’t you see the sign, pal? — NO TANK TOPS!”
Kurt Vonnegut’s beloved older sister was named Alice. Really. Kurt claimed that whatever he wrote, Alice was his imagined audience — if he thought Alice would like it, it stayed in. If not, out it went.
She died of cancer in 1958, two days after her husband was killed in a train wreck. Kurt helped raise her three orphaned kids.
I guess “Alice” is a cartoon about the Vonnegut family in some sort of surreal afterlife. I hope they’re having fun!
Luann: Not that it makes any real difference since all these characters are loathsome in their own special way, but who are the Evansii thinking we are supposed to be disliking right now? The two young ladies showing initiative with (what they think is) their new business idea, or the dullard who’s being instantly dismissive of them?
SF: Thank the heaveans we aren’t being subjected to anything regarding Kev’s date. Sometimes Marculiano’s plot ADHD does work in our favor.
JP: Speaking of which, Pavel didn’t want to ‘destroy this family’, lady. He wanted to keep being a rich, untouchable arms dealer and now he wants the money you apparently stole from him. I’ll just let jroggs take it from here, he does this so much better than I do….
MW: “Hey Mister!”
“Yes, cute little boy who could look up to me as a role model after I just inadvertently saved you from a horrible road-sploofered death and could pull me out of my insufferable and totally unjustified funk?”
“You owe me a new ball!”
Alice: I thought that was Donald Sutherland’s Hawkeye Pierce, who became a veterinarian after the Korean War.
Crock: Guest written by Quentin Tarantino?
Phantom: I wonder if Junior Kit will remember he has a tool that will free him from his chains.
MW: After a long walk, Wilbur reaches his destination and completes his transaction. He thinks; “Lucky for me, no heroic act is needed produce this feeling of euphoria.” as he swallows a handful of Percocet.
MW: I dunno…. and hear me out…. but I kinda like Bumbling Hero Wilbur. We can outsource him to other strips:
JP: Walking around, he kicks a pebble into a clearing, hitting a bear. In a combined Rube Goldberg/James Burke “Connections” aspect, Pavel’s organization is brought down, with Pavel, his henchmen, and all his CIA contacts dying.
MT: By petting a nice wild horse, Wilbur inadvertently brings down Tad’s horsemeat scheme and the Federal Agency assisting Tad.
GA: In Corky’s Diner, Wilbur accidently spills his bowl of alphabet soup, which spells out the Perfect Name to rename Gasoline Alley, that everyone (except Imaswine) approves.
Phantom: Four Words — The Chronicle of Wilbur.
Phantom: Sun Tzu has many wise things to say about surprise in warfare. “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not will be victorious”. “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill”. “Strangling your enemy from behind with a big ol’ iron chain is usually a good idea, but maybe if you’re attacking a guy who is holding a giant bolt cutter you should try a different strategy.
Alice: If you’re going to depict Kurt Vonnegut in the comics, you should use his preferred self portrait, *
@The Quiet Man, Luann: Oh, that’s easy. Which one has Inner Beauty™®©?
Phantom: Now we see why Kit Jr. suddenly, and without advance notice, returned to the Deep Woods from Himalayas Tech – he flunked out. It isn’t that he struggled with the advanced courses such as “Philosophical Defenses of Colonialism” or “Tax Loopholes Regarding the Plundering and Hoarding of Antiquities” or even the intermediate-level courses such as “Wearing Ridiculous Costumes“. No, this dunce couldn’t even manage the very basic courses such as “Skulking Silently“, “Situational Awareness 101“, and the lab course on “The Hazards of Chains“. Up in the big Skull Cave in the Sky, 20 previous generations of Phantoms are watching this sad spectacle, shaking their heads, and saying “No. Just no.”
Crock: It’s the agony of da-feet.
Alice: I’m fairly certain that ‘Parrot Medicine Time’ was an electro-folk indie band from the mid aughts, and “2x Daily’ was the name of their first and only album, released only on cassette.
Crock: Well, I learned something today: the characters in Crock don’t seem to have any kind of blood or bones, they’re made of a kind of homogenous pink matter, like a kind of living pâté. It doesn’t really increase my enjoyment of the strip, but it does remove the last bit of sympathy I had for the characters, as at least avatars of humanity.
G. *($@##@! Thorp – I’ve always been impressed with how women can remove their top undergarments without taking off their outer garment, and Dorothy has achieved this, getting rid of the black sleeves, as her pitch zips in. Wonder if she took her bra off, too.
MW – Wilbur leaves a wake of good deeds in his footsteps without even knowing about it. It reminds me of Frank Drebin in Naked Gun, only he left a wake of carnage. This strip would work better if Wilbur were doing that – knocking the kid in front of that car, things like that.
MW: It’s I wish I WERE someone’s hero, Moy, not I wish I WAS. Like this:
If I were someone’s hero, mayo mayo mayo munch mayo mayo mayo much, all day long I’d mayo mayo munch, if I were someone’s hero!
With deepest apologies to Norman Newell.
Crock: In the film UHF there was a joke parodying a commercial for funeral services. Which shows a cemetery with random arms and legs just sticking haphazardly out of the ground.
In the audio commentary, Weird Al Yankovic says “We paid extras a lot of money to be buried alive… just kidding! We paid them the same amount we pay everybody else.”
Frazz: It’s nice that the kids have such a strong interest in their teachers’ personal lives. I’ll have to consult with Brooke McEldowney to make sure, but “nice” is a synonym for “weird,” right?
Luann: If they’re going to change Blands to Brands like they’re some niche Ellis Island, they’re not going to find a lot of customers.
CS: Oh, great, a loathsome-off! No matter who wins, we all lose!
CS: Characters like Lillian Mackenzie are why I think Tom Batiuk is a terrible writer. Characters like Harry Dinkle are why I think Tom Batiuk is a terrible person.
JP: How many betrayals, murders, and various other serious crimes and misdeeds does Helena have to commit before other people stop listening to her and taking her seriously?
DT: “…What? No, it doesn’t ‘pay’ anything. It’s a book. I thought you wanted to read it when I was done.”
“Right, Croptop. Sorry.”
“S’fine. You guys wanna get dinner?”
“Depends. What’s the take?”
“Dang it, Broadside, you’re doing it again! We’re not committing crimes! I’m just hungry!”
“Sorry, Croptop.”
“Whatever. I’m going to the bathroom.”
“All right. I’m in.”
“For the last time, it’s not a paying crime, Dave!”
“I know. I just want to watch you pee.”
@Hibbleton: Billy is filling in while the undead corpse of Bill Rechin is on vacation.
Slylock: Weirdly’s snatching and Slylock’s mission to reclaim his prize would lead to the death of tens of thousands as retold oft times in the classic opening of the animaIliad.
9CL: I was hoping last week’s laff-filled “story” would continue into this week!
Today’s double-translate is through Maori.
“Sigmoid!”
“Port!”
“You two should be friends! I am so ashamed of you two!”
“Sigmoid.”
“Port.”
Crock goes for a “Police Squad” joke! And fails!
@Lurker Who Rarely Comments: In the afterlife you don’t have to wear sunscreen, and people never misattribute quotes to you.
Is Alice based on the comedian (or “comedienne” based on the time of her peak fame) Phyllis Diller, but without having to pay her estate?
***
Kit Jr. is learning why you can’t do this job in regular clothes like a dumbass. The reason for wearing a garish skin-tight costume is that the confusion is audible in the bad guys, alerting you to their presence behind you.
Zits: It looks like Walt is on his way to the bathroom, Jeremy. Best not to bother him now.
MW: Now that child is going to think God will send a schlubby angel down to protect him every time he does something dangerous.
FC: Hmph! He better not forget Mommy’s liquid cookies, Thel thinks.
FC: The mood turns somber when Bil stops in front of the liquor store. When he exits the car, Billy turns to his siblings; “Don’t say nothing about cookies or anything else. Just be quiet.” PJ cries.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Re Gil Thorp: She also reversed the colors on the front of her shirt. With skills like that, I say let her pitch the opening! I have no idea what that means, but it sounds dirty.
Alice – Today’s Alice is like reading one of the Blondie parrot shop strips on LSD.
Crock – Josh may not appreciate this strip for its mixture of feet and implied violence, but Quentin Tarantino just optioned Crock for his next film.
The Phantom – The henchman looks like the vampire equivalent of a squib from Harry Potter – Born of vampire parents, but for some reason has none of the powers or vulnerabilities. He was nurtured to be a predator toward humankind, but because he does not having the hypnotic powers and charisma most vampires naturally have, he instead turned to low-level henchman work.
MW: Wah-wah-waaaah!
Don Abundio, translated:
“I feel lucky! Let’s find a couple of rich saps to show us a good time”
“Right”
[Newspapers: REAL ESTATE, STOCKS]
“How about those two?”
“No. Let’s try that bench”
[Newspapers: LUXURY PRODUCTS, STATUS]
“They’re rich but gullible!”
FG: Ohhhhhhhhh. Queen Fria! NO CAPES!!!
Phantom – In Kit’s Phantom moment of truth, he lets a drunk, emaciated flunky sneak up behind him. In Kit’s twin Heloise’s moment, she literally kicked the shit out of an international terrorist, The Nomad, crash landed his jet safely in a neighborhood, outran airport security, and used her jungle skills to hide-in-plain-sight as she evaded capture in New York until Daddy Phantom picked her up. Good thing the purple spandex is one size fits all…
RMMD-Then Mike Brady shows up to tell the kids to get out of his yard.
MW-Sorry, Wilbur, but I don’t think any restaurant will name a sandwich after you.
FC-This trip to downtown has just turned interesting.
The Wilbur Sandwich: Drunken Noodles with Mayo, served on a shirt.
Alice: This comic always feels like finding some kind of hieroglyphics scrawled onto a cave wall by an ancient civilization.
The Phantom: Oh no, look out, Kit! It’s a Ghost Rider cosplayer!
Crock — When trying to get out of the Foreign Legion, most guys just shoot themselves in the foot–clearly this was a highly motivated squad!
CS – Les Moore is in Centerville and he’s really old and he’s changed his name to Harry for some reason. Oh, that’s Harry Dinkle? Great, he’s an insufferable prick who’s written a book. Those are some big shoes to fill, Harry.
@astroboy:
Served on a shirt?
Is this for the “Late Cuisine thread”? ;-)
MW: I’m calling bullshit on this whole scenario. No kid that young is going to regard this situation as an eye opening experience in mortality. He would be rushing inside to his mom and screaming his head off about how some fat, bald asshole bumped into him and caused his ball to bounce into the street where it was struck by a car. The only crying here is Wilbur in his pity party.
Pluggers – “What do you get when you cross a dog with a chicken?” “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to see what sort of animal they add into the mix for the grandkids.”
Crock: Now, if these guys had been stationed in the Belgian Congo, they’d be coming across a field of severed hands.
Alice: Vonnegut? No, that’s Elliott Gould again, just after he appeared in yesterday’s DtM. What is this sudden rash of Gouldomania on the funny pages? Did he die, or did his style of thespian magic come back in vogue for some reason?
@jroggs: It’s not Tom Batiuk’s characters that make him a terrible writer and a terrible person: it’s his choice of subject matter.
“OK, so Crock said we take a right at the leper colony to reach the fort.”
Alice: Perhaps it’s not the parrot who needs the medicine but Alice herself who needs her medicine to solve her delusions of talking parrots and her scribbled viewpoint. The doctor is actually talking to the reader, putting full responsibility on us.
@Ukulele Ike: You know, I was thinking that, but I wasn’t going to say it. Anyway, that’s more Tintin than Crock.
I suppose in the next couple days, we’ll learn that the Phantom’s writers have never actually used bolt cutters, and think you can cut a length of chain with them quickly, while some thug is using that chain to strangle you.
Alice: We’ve heard plenty of stories about the troubles with giving dogs and cats medication, it’s nice for birds to finally have their turn.
Phantom: Why did we just spend two years on why it was so important for Kit to take up his father’s purple spandexed mantle? He can’t even handle one vaguely antisemitic thug.
@Voshkod: What was the point of the Belgian imperialistic atrocities in the Congo Free State if we can’t enjoy a little chuckle over it with our coffee and flapjacks?
(Warning: DO NOT GOOGLE “Belgian imperialistic atrocities in the Congo Free State” because they were fucking horrifying)
@Ukulele Ike: Indeed, indeed, he chuckles as he sips his tea while a little voice whispers ‘the horror, the horror’ in the back of his mind. Also, do read King Leopold’s Ghost if you want to learn more about Belgian imperial atrocities in the Congo Free State.
C’shaft: You can just push him out of the choir loft, Lilian. If you’re lucky he’ll break his skull on the stone floor.
Dustin: So, a Pluggers comic then?
Luann: They’re business majors, shouldn’t they have had at least one course in “Sales Techniques That Don’t Make You Come Off Like a Pushy, Confusing Idiot,” right?
MW: Wilbur doesn’t want to be a hero, in the sense of someone who consciously, consistently, and selflessly works to make the world a better place in some way. He just wants to be someone’s hero, in the sense that he is admired and adored for no reason other than existing. Lucky for him Karen Moy is all too happy to oblige.
RMMD: How old is Sarah again? Her general body type says “tween” but her clothing says “Mary Kay representative on her way to a sales party.”
Phantom: Stripey had better hope they make those purple onesies in female proportions because Junior just failed on so many levels. The Phantom finds you… my ass.
FG: I think it’s time for a blast from the past. Once they pull the full face helmets off those bootleg miners one of them will be somebody Flash had a previous run-in with. My vote is long-haired pretty boy Airman Sojas.
@Ukulele Ike:
@Voshkod:
I wonder if King Leopold sported that huge beard to hide all the skull punch marks courtesy of one of the previous Phantoms.
A lot of Belgians want to tear down the statues of Leopold. I say leave them up but chop off the hands.
Between Friends – “One of these days I want to write one of the world’s great novels. I’m thinking probably either The Great Gatsby or Great Expectations.”
@Voshkod: Yes — fascinating book. Fucking horrifying, but fascinating.
Crock – The Beatles did it better in Yellow Submarine.
@TheDiva: Mary Worth and Rex Morgan are two comics whose attitudes towards children are firmly rooted in the 1950-1970s where children are essentially nonentities unless they’re prodigies or brats. The former decided to take the route of “no children under nineteen allowed” with co-dependent co-ed Dawn Weston being the youngest cast member while the latter treats Sarah Morgan like a young adult with her brothers essentially acting like her little monkey slaves.
Sure the sight of severed human feet strewn about the landscape would be a horrific sight to most of us, but for members of the Lost Patrol it looks like meat is back on the menu, boys.
For Better or Worse & Rex Morgan: Dog disasters ahead! Ole Farley will die saving April (again) and that mutt in RMMD is about to scarf down a pan of chocolate chip cookies. CHOCOLATE! fatal to dogs.
Sid! Say it isn’t so.
@Guillermo el chiclero: The previous Phantoms were probably chopping off hands to defend Belgium’s economic interests.
Phantom – Is the bad guy half wolf? The snarling teeth and long nose look about the same.
Crock-Wait until they come across the headlands.
Phantom – and he has pointy ears like the wolf!
Seems to have time to shave his face and underarms while living rough in the jungle.
Hmm… Maybe trying suppress his wolf genes.
I’m worried about Phantom 2.0. Those are clearly bolt cutters, but he thinks they’re a ‘piece of cake.’ The upcoming dental work is going to be expensive.
Phantom: After being repeatedly rejected for a minor part in the “Twilight” sagas, the immortal Max Schreck finally secured a cameo in the “Phantom” comic strip.
@42 McManx, @61 Guillermo el chiclero: Kit Sr. and Heloise have discussed the possibility of her becoming the 22nd Phantom. She pointed out the problem with her wearing the costume and whether that would destroy the legend. Kit Sr. deflected those questions by holding out the intriguing possibility that neither one of the kids would succeed him. Maybe he is expecting to sire the next Phantom with Savarna rather than with Diana???
@Voshkod: Say what you like about Wheezy, but she was smart enough not to take down Eric Sahara until after dessert was served. She really wanted that piece of cake.
RMMD- Be still my beating heart.
Crock: This is only going to get worse once they reach the schlonghills.
Mary Worth & Rex Morgan – The MW kid’s behavior is a bit off (what a surprise), but he looks like an actual child. Credit where it’s due, Brigman can draw children who look like children. Maybe she could give pointers to Terry Beatty. The Morgan boys continue to look like a Byzantine artist’s drawing of the infant Jesus.
And don’t get me started on the Van Hoesen twins and child Edda and Amos.
Frazz – Missing panels: Random kid says that every day is rest day for Mrs. Olsen, and the kid and Frazz laugh about her behind her back.
Crankshaft – Loathsome Lillian and insufferable egomaniac Harry Dinkle! I just realized that I loathe, despise, hate Dinkle even more than I loathe Lillian. I didn’t think that was possible. I loathe Dinkle with the heat of a thousand suns. Lillian is a horrible person, but Dinkle is such an insufferable, egomaniacal douche that he sucks the air out of every story he’s a part of. He should be nuked from orbit.
And for some inexplicable reason, Batiuk seems to think that he is a beloved character.
Edge City – More bread products.
@taig: Re Frazz – To be fair, at least Mallett’s characters are smug about their exercise routines and not about their matchless beauty. As much as I hate read Frazz, I’m very thankful that there are no meticulously drawn legs and underwater boinking. Frazz causes massive eye rolling, but 9CL makes me want to take a Silkwood shower.
Re Crankshaft – Thanks for “loathsome-off.” I laughed out loud.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Why not both?
Alice. Say what you will, but I’m just glad that Tom Selleck found a new gig that doesn’t involve hawking reverse mortgages.
Alice: I’m glad you enjoyed this comic, Josh. For me, it’s Six Chix level.
Alice: I think Parrot Medicine Time was when Jimmy Buffett got sick. RIP.
CS: Will somebody in God’s name please give this SOB a long-deserved comeuppance. Even Les Moore has had the wind taken out of his sails on occasion.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#84 CS:. An opportunity for a comeuppance is nigh. No sane organizer of s nook festival will display his books.
@Activist 1234:
#85 CS:. Meant to say book festival. Snook festivals have much lower standards.
@I speak Jive: I definitely agree about 9CL. We don’t need a second one. We honestly don’t need the first one.
It must be Sisyphus day.
Carpe Diem
Six Chix
@Guillermo el chiclero: CS: Will somebody in God’s name please give this SOB a long-deserved comeuppance.
Well, Andrews McMeel could fire him at the end of the year, for turning his good comic strip into his crappy, self-indulgent, canceled one. That would do it.
Oh… you meant Dinkle.
CS: I remember Harry Dinkle being an amusingly egotistical band director. There’s nothing amusing about this POS.
Crank: “Hmm,” I thought, “Maybe I should give Crankshaft another chance and see if it’s any less intolerable than when I noped out during the ‘record number of cars behind a bus’ storyline.”
“Oh,” I thought a second later, “It’s Harry Dinkle looking particularly smug about his terrible book. Well, that answers that!”
JP: “The problem with the last convoluted plan was that it just wasn’t convoluted enough. Some parts of it almost made sense, and I don’t think there was more than one or two convenient coincidences we couldn’t possibly have planned for! Trust me, by the end of this plan, Pavel won’t know what’s going on, and nor will anyone else!”
MW: If you’d asked me to imagine “Mary Worth doing ‘Gunther’s a hero because he clocked a bully in the face with his backpack accidentally’, only stupider”, I’d have said “Making that stupider simply isn’t possible.” Congratulations, Moy, on exceeding everyone’s expectations yet again!
RMMD: Oh, good, Beatty hasn’t completely forgotten Abbey exists. (Or possibly has suddenly been reminded Abbey exists. Anything to add there, Sid?)
I thought Dr. Vonnegut was talking to the parrot about Alice’s medicine, illustrating the problems with Dr Ed’s revolutionary parrot medicine delivery system Par-Care™
@Sequitur:
It must be Sisyphus day.
_________
It’s not official untill Dagwood celebrates it, as far as I’m concerned.
JP — maybe I’m missing something, but is there any reason AT ALL that April and her family can’t just kill off Pavel and his daughter? I doubt the henchmen would care once their paychecks stop coming in.
MW: I maintain that the art work, which is totally different from yesterday’s, does not in any way reflect someone being knocked inadvertently away from danger. Yesterday it looked as though The Dumbass Kid was never in danger at all. Today, it would appear that Wilbur knocked The Dumbass Kid nearly into the path of an oncoming car.
Fight me.
@Ukulele Ike:
Alice: Vonnegut? No, that’s Elliott Gould again, just after he appeared in yesterday’s DtM. What is this sudden rash of Gouldomania on the funny pages
________________________
Was Alice that woman Trapper John trapped in the restroom, earning his nickname? No wonder why she’s trying to get away from him so fast, she’s levitating.
@Professor Well Actually: Dinkle was a great character in early Funky Winkerbean. He was a deft satire of a certain breed of egotistical, overdemanding high school teacher – and band directors were often this breed. He felt real to high school students, just like the Pointy-Haired Boss felt real to cubicle workers.
The problem is, FW stopped being about high school, stopped being funny, and it stopped being the 1980s. Dinkle’s shtick hasn’t aged well. Tom Batiuk worsened this problem by putting him in charge of adults in the 2020s, and trying to plug-and-play the same tropes. Adults wouldn’t tolerate his behavior, and his employers wouldn’t either.
Dinkle should have been written out of the strip after he lost his hearing. When he lost his high school band director job, he started a music program at the old folks’ home. That would have been a great way for Dinkle to ride off into the sunset: still doing what he loves, and bringing a little joy to people in a bleak place.
Instead, the old folks’ home got a recording contact and a tour, and Dinkle’s hearing magically returned, because Batiuk gonna Batiuk.
@Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads: For my part, the ball went “sploof” on Sunday, yet shattered like a china doll.
@Activist 1234:
Snook festivals have much lower standards.
_________________________________
Almost as low as snark festivals.
Alice: No Linda Lavin snark?
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: JP — maybe I’m missing something, but is there any reason AT ALL that April and her family can’t just kill off Pavel and his daughter? I doubt the henchmen would care once their paychecks stop coming in.
You just put more thought into the strip in one post than the writer put in over the past eight years.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Wait, Batuik has a “good” comic strip? Why haven’t we seen it, then?
@Banana Jr. 6000: Okay, I agree about Dinkle being fun occasionally during the 1970s. I remember a 3-panel strip with repeated drawings of Dinkle yelling, hat pulled over his eyes Beetle Bailey-style.
”When we get to the band competition, we’re going to be the BEST band there!”
”That’s the PURPOSE of good music!”
”To WIN.”
@I speak Jive:
Edge City – More bread products.
______________
….mule! (Snarking for Finger Quoting Margo).
@Ukulele Ike:
@Banana Jr. 6000: Wait, Batuik has a “good” comic strip? Why haven’t we seen it, then?
_____________________
It was called “John Darling”, and was Batuik in name only.
It was humorous and interesting so Tom killed it.
@Garrison Skunk: And its title character, for good measure.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
Alice: No Linda Lavin snark?
_______________________
Alice Hyatt doesn’t live here anymore, she changed her name to Tina and got a new groove.
@94 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: What all these idiots in this family are missing is that all they have to do to get rid of Pavel is to let the FBI know where he is. If even half of what he claims about his “business dealings” is true, he must be on their “Most Wanted” list for numerous arms trafficking charges.
Wilbur wants to be a hero for every selfish reason imaginable: he wants attention, he wants to get laid, and he probably even wants a parade in his honor. But because he’s a lazy, self centered schlub who can’t be bothered to care about anything except himself, his only option is to have the most contrived coincidence be misinterpreted as heroism. And you can bet your ass that Moy is going to have him ride that gravy train into the ground.
@Ukulele Ike: Wait, Batuik has a “good” comic strip?
Well, he has one comic strip that still has legitimate fans, or at least did until 2023.
@seismic-2: #108: On top of that, isn’t Randy a seated elected official? A threat against him or his family would have the FBI (the US Government’s actual law enforcement agency, Ces) all over Pavel like stink on shit.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Not to mention the fact that most arms dealers don’t show up in jurisdictions where they can be arrested (see Le Carre’s ‘The Night Manager,’ for example). They tend to be able to afford – and arm – disposable mooks or, more likely, not pull stupid shit that can get them arrested and instead write off the occasional theft as the cost of doing business.
@Guillermo el chiclero: @seismic-2: @Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Here’s another for the road – what about Pavel’s high-ranking subordinates or superiors? In all of Marciuliano’s clumsily-juggled canons, Helena has been running rings around Pavel, destroying the organization’s enterprises and now getting massive amounts of money lost in frozen or pilfered bank accounts. Where are the other top dogs who would be getting very quickly fed up with this and increasingly eager to see Pavel replaced or at least gone? But these figures don’t seem to exist; all Pavel has is lots of security detail [sic] and planted spies in every plot-convenient organization.
The Phantom-I don’t know. I don’t think two people jumping rope with a short iron chain is a piece of cake.
@Liam: It can be done — the wolfy stooge will just have to press up really, really close behind Junior. Luckily, he’s into 17-year-old blondie beefcake.
@I speak Jive:
Also, Dinkle whines about what a “hardship” is life is, despite he’s actually one of the few Batiuk characters who hasn’t had anything bad happen to him.
Well, aside from going deaf but even that was undone.
@Needless Exposition: yeah. There’s no suggestion he wants to be any kind of better person.
RMMD: I’m assuming the other dog will eat the brownies, get sick and need the attention of a vet =medical drama.
SFx:. Count Weirdly and Max are in a ship powered by a fuel engine. Is Slylock more responsible by using an electric ship– anD how long is that extension cord?
@Horace Broon: re RMMD: Yeah, HB, it looks like they *did* remember that Abbey was part of their cast! Maybe they got our suggested storyline of how to have her retire heroically — but, ya know, she looks to be in great physical shape and is doin’ a challenging action scene there! And they also decided to feature Candy in a dramatic role… which should introduce us to her acting skills. We’ve hardly got to know her in the, uh, “several” years she’s been there.
So maybe we helped them out by reminding them they could focus on the Pups for a while. And it’s cost-effective since they’re already on salary. Of course we get no compensation here – we don’t rep either of them. But we still like to put in our two cents as a Friend of the Canine.
@118 Professor Well Actually: Or else the other dog (Candy?) will pull the hot tray of brownies over on her, burn her leg, and have to be fitted with a boot like Andrewxyz’s.
@Activist 1234: Can Max run on a hamster wheel?
@Garrison Skunk: Kiss my grits….
@seismic-2: Of course she’s going to steal the brownies. You’re asking for trouble, calling your dog “Candy.”
@Dennis Jimenez: Just don’t grit my kisses.
Alice: What disturbs me is that Alice? has no line for the top of her head – it just fades away into nothingness.
@Professor Well Actually: RMMD: I’m assuming the other dog will eat the brownies, get sick and need the attention of a vet =medical drama.
No licensed vet being available in the vicinity, Rex will branch out on the spot and rush over to perform an emergency chocolate-ectomy surgery on the poor doggo.
Today’s Alice reaffirms a notion that I’ve had, which is that there are basically two kinds of comic strips currently running: ancient legacy strips that carry on as a result of cultural inertia and merchandising value, where the artists/writers are ensconced in extremely comfortable sinecures (Gasoline Alley, Family Circus, Garfield etc.). And newer strips that can’t rely on using the characters for calendars and plush dolls (Gearhead Gertie, Six Chix, etc) and as a result appear to be written and drawn as part-time gigs for just a couple of hours a week.
So basically every crappy comic strip is either a result of laziness and greed, or extreme lack of resources. Alice, with its empty gradient background, oddly sketched characters and barely-there “writing” counts as one of the latter and I assume an entire’s week’s strips are conceived, executed and delivered in a single day, if the Doordash gigs aren’t too busy that day.
@LBSC: That’s only one of the many many things that disturb me about Alice, starting with her dress.
I love it when Josh adds new strips to his reading list, but Alice and Tina’s Groove have me concerned about his notions of self-care. Read the new Flash Gordon, dude. Bok can be your friend too. NO CAPES!
@Jeffmcm: Hats off; very well put.
But now I want a plush Tuesday Chick doll. And a Gearhead Gertie RealDoll, for the long lonely nights.
Late Thread Cuisine: Oooh! Cherry tomatoes and carrot curls!
DT: See, this is why co-ed caper teams don’t work. Either you got to pay for TWO hotel rooms, or the boys have to listen to Croptop when she tinkles. And are they splitting up after the division of the loot, or are they all going to squeeze into that one double bed? “What the hell is THAT? Is your DICK hard?!? GO SLEEP IN THE CAR.”
And you just know the beefy bald guy had burritos for lunch….Ginger is gonna have to burn a whole pack of matches if he even wants to get past the bathroom door. And who gets control of the teevee remote?
@118 Professor Well Actually: Oh you simple summer child. Candy the dog will be found lying on the floor with brown stuff on her nose. After freaking out, Sarah looks at the intact pan of brownies, untouched by the canine. Hilarity ensues when they discover Candy has poop on her muzzle. The end.
@131 Baja Gaijin:
Julia Child just puked and that’s not easy for a dead person.
Vonnegut’s son, Mark, is actually a pediatrician but not mustachioed like his father. Actually “Alice: looks kind of like one of Vonnegut’s surreal pen and ink illustrations in “Breakfast of Champions.” And birds do figure in Vonnegut’s corpus like the one that goes “Po-Tee-Weet!” and the Blue Footed Boobies in “Galapagos.” Say, wouldn’t it be cool if a photo of Vonnegut’s mother, who committed suicide, looked like Alice? Perhaps in another universe the curmudgeonly Vonnegut pere was a beloved doctor? If his father and overbearing older brother Bernie (who actually invented cloud seeding and caused the disastrous floods of 1951) hadn’t browbeaten him into going to Cornell and becoming a publicity man for General Electric? So it goes.
luann so much for betts andt tiff getting their new venture off the ground next plan b bernice.phantom and looks like heloise will finaly get her shot to take over as phantom though odds are devil will pull off a save. rmmd and looks like the morgan family will be making not only a visit to the vet but the kids will learn to make sure both dogs are not in the kitchen when they are cooking.or worse sadly learning of doggie heaven
@The Kangaroo: What’s wrong with Cornell? That part of upstate New York is heaven on earth, you come out after four years with a fancy Ivy degree, and Ithaca is gorges. Also, our gracious host is a Cornell Man. As was E.B. White, editor of The New Yorker and author of Charlotte’s Web, one of the best novels of the last century. And Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Frank Morgan, and Ricky Jay.
@131 Baja Gaijin: If you had asked me before today just what could be made from sour cream sauce, lemon gelatin, lemon juice, dillweed, blender-chopped vegetables, and canned chicken, I would have had no idea. Now I see that someone has used this combination of ingredients to construct some sort of garbage disposal.
@Baja Gaijin: It certainly does look like a “distinctive main dish salad.” People will be talking about it for a long time, especially when they need to remind themselves why they’re turning down future invitations from the hosts.
Phantom: Look out Kit. Nosferatu’s right behind you.
@Baja Gaijin: “Canned chicken?” Is that still even a thing?
Buy some raw breasts or thighs, poach for an hour in salted water with an unpeeled sliced onion, and you have usable chicken for sandwiches or salads PLUS a quart of free chicken broth. Cheaper than a can of chicken. Yeah, you have to wash a pot.
@141 Ukulele Ike: Note that the list of ingredients specifies “canned chicken”. It says nothing about removing the chicken from the can.
@134 Sequitur: SNERK!
@138 seismic-2: You’re right, it looks as if it could grind up stuff like the lettuce and tomatoes. Ironic as it’s made of ground up stuff.
@139 taig: It’s the perfect dish to serve for people you don’t want to return to your home but are too afraid to tell them to their faces that they’re hideous bloated freaks who shouldn’t be seen in public.
@141 Ukulele Ike: I don’t know. [Googles] Yes they do. The “canned chicken” looks like chunks of chicken, almost like canned tuna. It’s not a whole chicken shoved into a 5 ounce can.
This recipe is copyright 1987. I guess they didn’t have time to poach some raw breasts back then. Too busy watching “Ishtar” and listening to “The Return of Bruno.”
@142 seismic-2: SNERK!
@Baja Gaijin: Oh jeez. Now I know why it seems like everyone we know is a bad cook…
@Baja Gaijin: Who puts Eight great chickens in that little bitty can?
@141 Ukulele Ike:
Yes. In most stores you find it right next to the canned tuna or maybe in the retro food section.
@Ukulele Ike: I just searched the CC archive and found that only two Gearhead Gertie cartoons have been featured so far (this one and this one), and Gertie’s head appears to be have been copied and pasted; it looks exactly the same in both cartoons. So, very doll-like indeed.
@Baja Gaijin: If Gearhead Gertie sees that salad, she’s going to think someone swiped a gear out of her differential.
@The Kangaroo: Umm. It had never occurred to me before that the Po-Tee-Weet! bird might possibly be doing a takeoff on my name.
@Baja Gaijin: Bruno has forgotten more about can chicken (and rubber biscuits) than I’ll ever know….
@Ukulele Ike: I love those. There’s another collection here.
@seismic-2: But the CIA is infamous for not communicating with the FBI!
@Jeffmcm: You’ve made a categorical error placing Garfield in the legacy class. It was always a vehicle for Paws Inc. merch.
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur wants to be a hero for every selfish reason imaginable: he wants attention, he wants to get laid, and he probably even wants a parade in his honor.
Yes, exactly! Wilbur is jealous that Stell’s new boyfriend is a hero who gets to march in the Veterinarian’s Day Parade.
“We’re lucky, we just passed a sign that said TOLL 50 FEET AHEAD”* plus who kicked that football that’s dangling in the air?
“Where are we Old Fred?” “Oh, the foothills of the Headlands,John.”
(Cue: “All Together Now.”)
*in the Don Martin tongue.
@Sequitur:
“Canned chicken?” Is that still even a thing?
_____________________________
The problem with canned chicken is that it gets bitter after its been fired.
@Peanut Gallery: To be honest, I only know them from the MAD magazine parody. Which I first saw in my copy of THE RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE MAD, a treasured possession since age 11.
@Ukulele Ike:
@Baja Gaijin: Who puts Eight great chickens in that little bitty can?
________
“Crock” just put two stolen visual jokes in their itty bitty comic strip.
Whooops, I mean age 8. I’d hate if everyone thought I was old.
@Emily Riposte: Having used a bolt cutter on several occasions, I agree with you.
On the other hand, seeing the actual shadow of the chain on Kit’s lovely lemon-colored hair as the chain starts to swing down and kill him is kind of enchanting.
“Parrot Medicine Time” is my one-person experimental electronica band
@Voshkod: Probably not. The Phantom has always been the paternalistic type of colonialism rather than the ruthlessly exploitative kind. Whoever was alive at the time would have seen Leopold’s boys as being like the pirates who attacked umpteen times great grandaddy’s ship.
@Poteet: Like Poteet, Texas?
@Ukulele Ike: Vonegut used its alumni as an example of a Grandfalloon [false Karass].
@richardf8: You’re saying it existed as a merchandising exercise before it was a strip? Bold gambit of Jim Davis to start a strip several years before Paws Inc. existed.