Family life
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Mary Worth, 5/9/24
Dawn is reconnecting with her Connecticut WASP mother by attempting to enjoy high-prestige social pursuits like the ballet. Wilbur, meanwhile, has reacted to his brutal romantic rejection by descending into unkempt couch-based schlubdom. This is an experience Dawn knows a little bit about herself, so no matter how annoying she finds her mother’s culturally elitist suburban clique, she should be thankful she’s not being pulled back into that morass.
Hagar the Horrible, 5/9/24
It’s sad, of course, that Helga has no friends she can confide in. But thanks to her husband’s canonical illiteracy, she can confide in her books to her heart’s content. It’s like being able to scream in a language he doesn’t speak, constantly!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/9/24
Rex Morgan is about to face his most terrifying medical challenge yet: his family’s emotions, which he’s apparently supposed to care about. Remember that crazy guy who wanted Rex to do a little experimental brain surgery on someone in an attempt to “cure crime“? He refused then, but now seems to be contemplating whether he could “cure feelings that require attention from me” using nothing but his trusty power drill.
186 replies to “Family life”
Mary Worth Mashups: The original second panel is far too upbeat. How about a trio of “darker” alternate final panels?
Immagine what an amazing historical source a multi-volume diary written by the wife of a viking chieftain would be! A first person testimony from a low literacy society in an era famous for the scarcity of sources! Historians would literally sell their soul for that, so please don’t tease us!
“Get used to it! Preteens are the new teens! It’s also possible that Sarah is a teen now, the time jump was a bit vague, we are not Funky Winkerbean!”
RMMD: The really terrifying aspect is that Sarah will be a pre-teen for at least fifty years, if not forever.
MW-Wilbur, keep both hands were we can see them.
FC-“Who do we call about Communists hiding out here?”
RMMD: Ah yes, the classic storyline of the emotionless robot trying to understand this human thing called emotions. Skip the chase and just install the emotion chip to Rex
MW: “Who cares?” Well, Wilbur doesn’t, but neither do we! It’s not clear who’s caring enough for this Wilbur storyline to proceed!
MW: What’s missing in P2? (besides any taste whatsoever in throw pillows) The heaps of greasy plates, empty pizza boxes and booze bottles. Our boy Wilbur is not one to suffer in tidy abstinence.
RMMD: “‘Emotions?’ I do not understand this word that comes from your mouth.”
Hagar the Horrible : And all those diaries would later be found by archeologists, who would translate it, leading to the Browne/Walkers putting its text to comic strip format… Wait, does this mean Hagar is the way he is because we’re only seeing him from HELGA’s perspective? Like, how certain historical figures might be misjudged because the only records we have of them is from their worst enemies?
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Marvin : probably shouldn’t do strips like this, where it focusses on a non-Bitsy dog talking to us… because it really highlights that the non-Bitsy dogs are just Bitsy’s design very slightly tweaked, and thus some readers would look at something like today’s strip and wonder if there’s been a coloring error.
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On the Fastrack : “Didn’t you say Tim had invested his ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS into that crypto app.” “Yeah, but I don’t feel sad about THAT. Just the speechlessness.”
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Pluggers vs Ripley’s Don’t Believe It : Pluggers will DIE of old age before they ever get to doing the things they’ve said they’ll get around to doing eventually… except for Earl Houndstooth, who is apparently immortal due to being 25 % less likely to EVER die…
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Rex Morgan M.D. : yes, dealing with people actually EXPRESSING emotions is a completely alien concept to Rex, who is a perpetually stonefaced impassible robot. Heck, without context, “over reaction” could mean that Sarah just said “that makes me upset!” in a neutral tone of voice.
Now we know while Hagar does not live in luxury despite many successful raids: all his plunder is going to pay the astronomical sum to buy all the parchment his wife is using! If I recall correctly, you’d need a flock of sheep just for one volume!
Listen, Mary Worth, we will let you know when we want to see one of your characters slumped back on the couch, pantsless, in a robe, legs dangerously sliding outward; and we will let you know whom we wish to see in such a pose, if ever.
We do not want to stumble without warning upon Wilbur Weston manspreading.
MW: An alternative read of panel two could be Wilbur wondering: “Who cares…enough about me to bother sending a text?”
RMMD: Good heavens, what an overreaction! Where does that child get off, showing some mild and very belated emotion to the realization that her careless mistake resulted in a beloved family pet being rushed to a vet clinic for emergency treatment? Rex is baffled, but June believes that Sarah’s aberrant behavior – you know, guilt over dangerous errors and empathy for a living creature that she cares about – must be her pubescent hormones flaring up. Not to worry, though, she’ll eventually grow out of it and be able to treat the irresponsible endangerment of precious life with the same robotic indifference as her far more respectable parents.
CS: Earlier this week, someone snarked that it would be Mort rather than Harry who sexually harassed Lillian. Well, it turns out ALL the elderly perverts are getting in on the inappropriate conduct. Very funny stuff. [smirk]
DT: “New car, huh? Let me ask the natural question everyone asks a casual acquaintance with a new vehicle, then – have you checked out the trunk? Anything interesting in there, like personal belongings I can unethically dig through without even asking?”
Luann: What the hell does an ocarina have to do with creative writing class? Is the next assignment about Legend of Zelda fanfiction? Or is Mrs. Horner going to play the Song of Time and de-age Luann back to 13 years old because this college years stuff has been nothing short of a disaster?
MW: Very nice touch on the hairy kneecaps of the pathetic couch-locked Wilbur, but I need a few more signifiers of squalor and horrible depression so I can truly enjoy his sad state. I recommend a few “Sluggo”-style patches and cracks in the wall plaster and maybe a half-drunken bottle of Scotch (his favorite!) on his lap. Shit, go for an EMPTY bottle. And maybe some “X” on those dead eyes!
NOTE: I realize now that a bottle of liquor cannot be “drunken”.
My defense is that I am drunken.
Come ON, Weelbur! Volunteer for the French Foreign Legion and get by Macron to the meat grinder to fight Russia! Go, man, go!
@1 Baja Gaijin:
Death by 1,000 muffins seems appropriate.
@Baja Gaijin:
The vulture.
Weelbur hanging is too similar to Weelbur getting abducted by a UFO.
@Ukranazi Stepan: *get sent by Macron…
I don’t know when Hélgã was retconned to be a reader. I had a Hägår book from 1979 where she claimed nobody on her side of the family had ever read a book.
*RMMD*: “Pre-teens are the new teens! You know, because early pubescence is being caused by all the weird chemical additives the corporations are putting in our food now! But nevermind that our daughter may be getting her first period, let’s just laugh it off as a ‘kid thing’.”
@Ukranazi Stepan: Yeah, I thought Hamlet was the only reader (coded as a “sissy pants”) in that family.
MW: Hey, Mary Worth, do you MIND?? I’m trying to eat my BREAKFAST here!!
Rex Morgan, M.D., Autist…would be an actually interesting comic strip.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: The puberty blocker! Push the puberty blocker, Rex! It is the only way!! Do you really want a Dawn Weston on your hands??!!
RMMD: You gals were right yesterday – this is “Sarah reaches puberty.” June attempts to explain the phenomenon to Rex, but he waves her off. “No, no, that’s woman’s stuff! Also medical.”
MW: Thank goodness June had enough black ink to shade Wilbur’s crotch, especially considering the bright, flashing illumination from his TV as he tunes in to old episodes of Pokémon.
MW: Things are really moving for Dawn: she’s reconnecting with her mother, she’s adopted a cool new goth look, and she’s discovered weed, by the looks of it. Good for her.
HtH: I’m really liking the idea of modern-day historians discovering the Saga of Hagar the Horrible, known primarily for his inability to out away dishes and his propensity to fart in uis sleep.
RMMD: Thanks to Rex for demonstrating in that second panel exactly how one should react to shocking news: limp facial muscles, cold eyes, and just a simple monosylabic noise sto let people know that you don’t understand (but probably aren’t interested in hearing more).
MW: Oh great, Dawn is one of those texters.
[ding] “Hey dad”
[ding] “Mother and i are going to the ballet tonight”
[ding] “We’re still trying to connect after so many years apart”
[ding] “It’s been really tough”
[ding] “You know what i meab?”
[ding] “*mean”
[ding] “Anyway gotta go”
[ding] “Talk to you soon”
[ding] “Bye”
[ding] “Idk the fat old douche is probably too drunk to read them right now”
[ding] “Shit sorry dad that was supposed to go to someone else”
[ding] “Friend thing”
[ding] “It wasn’t about you”
[ding] “Love you dad”
[ding] “Bye again”
[ding] “Bring condoms this time or i’m not down”
[ding] “Not having another abortion this year”
[ding] “GODDAMN IT I HATE THIS PHONE”
There’s only one thing left for Wilbur to do- fly to Connecticut to try to reconnect with his ex.
@jroggs: Spit my coffee laughing at this one. HILARIOUS!
RMMD: When are they going to change the name of the strip to Boring Is the New Black?
HtH: Shouldn’t Helga hide those diaries, regardless of whether Hagar can read them? It’s just as likely he’ll use one or more in the fireplace or (shudder) as toilet paper.
MW: Wilbur piles on the self-loathing by watching Jeopardy and realizing he can’t even get the $100 questions.
DtM: While they share a meal of meats and vegetables, the Mitchells insist that Dennis at least try his slab of corrugated cardboard.
Frazz: “We call it ‘fast fuel,’ because we’re not a bunch of plebs.”
Luann: Quirkiness, undiagnosed dementia. Potayto, potahto.
CS: The bizarre perspective shift between panel 1 and panel 2 was more unsettling than Mort doing his usual thing (still, I hope someone let Batiuk know that sexual harassment isn’t inherently funny before this got too far off the rails).
MW – We’ve seen this Wilbur spiral before. First comes the depression, then comes the alcohol, then comes the stalking. Meagan better keep a close eye on any shrubs and bushes. Wilbur will be lurking behind them, muttering darkly to himself. “Is that waiter a professional? Or, into illegal activities?”
Considering how close we’re getting to a Wilbur up-skirt shot, he’d damned well better be wearing underwear.
9CL: It’s been great to see some additional cast members, so we can get some insight into their lives. Did you know that they can laugh at or get horned up by a joke? Except Fleurrie, who doesn’t get it at all and must be patronized.
Zits: I’d have no trouble believing Pierce would go to Italy for circus school.
FC: “Then we find out how truly monstrous they are and why we must eradicate them.”
MW: Wilbur’s life takes an unexpected turn when he lands on a streaming channel wholly composed of the rants of “Emmanuel Goldstein.”
@Baja Gaijin: I do like the implication of Mary just mindlessly piling muffins onto a comatose Wilbur.
@Baja Gaijin:
Number three: We can only hope.
MW – I read Wilbur’s line as “Oh yeah, Dawn? So what if you’re going to a cultural event that’s open the public. I got a TEXT, which is a personal communication someone wrote just for me!” Of course, the text is from a scammer offering to sell him “Bad Date Insurance,” but it’s true that they did target Wilbur specifically.
As I have mentioned before, I am having a little trouble keeping track of the days of the week since retiring. Once again, I would like to express my appreciation to Mary Lawton. Any time I look at the comics and see a horribly ugly strip that makes absolutely no sense, I can go “Ah, Thursday.”
MW – Steeped in schlubdomery….
HtH – Bitch of the month club….
RMMD – So…our little girl I’d on the rag….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Oh! I really don’t think you have stand out here all day watching for snow”
“That’s where you’re wrong, boss. Snowflakes are sneaky!”
“But they can’t pile up if you never let the first one hit the ground!”
MW-What should be viewed as a serious psychological condition will get brushed off and treated with a muffin.
MW – Lean into your isolation, Wilbur. Turn off your notifications. No need to be interrupted while watching soft-core porn on Cinemax.
@Rube: re 6Cx: I know what you mean. The Tuesday panel is also a very specific date marker, but I’ve found I can remember to ignore that day if I use my Plugger daily pill container first.
MW. It’s a text from Dawn. Who would care?
MW: It’s implied that it’s been a fair amount of time since Dawn left for Connecticut to blend in with actual New England WASPs instead of Charterstone’s “We’re totally in Southern California and not New England” WASPs. You think she would give her dad a greeting and ask how he’s doing. No? Going right into talking about herself? Wonder if she got that from the same person who taught her how to sulk in self pity when she’s rejected…
@40 taig: Comatose? Check the eyes again…
Meanwhile, in a totemic attempt to master the power of language, Helga scrawls nonsensical runes over some of the earliest books. Cassiodorus’s Gothic History now looks like a metalhead teenager’s math book. Gesta orientalium principum is turned into a volume of Viking vitriol, but only in Helga’s mind. A complete version of Beowulf is condemned to the iron gall ink of doom.
Mary Worth – Even the Perfesser from Shoe can look at Wilbur now and raise his heavily lidded with ennui eyes, and feel a small glimmer of happiness that he isn’t that schlub.
Hagar the Horrible – There is a fan theory that the desert island scenes are the overarching framework for the Hagar narrative, where both Hagar and Eddie died and presumably were discovered years later. All the events depicted occurred before they were marooned on the island.
But unlike earlier Vikings tales based on oral tradition, Hagar’s historiography is better documented, first with the biography written by Lucky Eddie providing for his adventures at sea, and now Helga’s diary providing a long and deep look into his domestic life.
Dik Browne attended but never finished college, as academia rejected his radical use of this material for comic format instead of the usual MLA or Chicago research paper formats. However, many an academic who chose subjects like Rome or Medieval Europe kick themselves for not having a fraction of the contemporary material for their subjects like the Browne family has been able to assemble on Hagar.
Rex Morgan, MD – Rex was never a child himself, and never went into pediatrics since children can rarely give you things like boats that you didn’t really work to earn.
BF: Start by giving the kid up for adoption.
DtM: “I’m just going to eat this butter, okay?”
Phantom: “You punch the black guys and I’ll punch the white guys. That way Falk won’t get any bitchy letters from the readers.” Meanwhile, Junior slips into a doze.
@Baja Gaijin: Exactly. He’s dead to the world.
Dawn: “Life is brutal.”
Wilbur: “Life is futile.”
MW: As funny as it would be to see Wilbur go to Scotland, this final panel shows that nobody wants to see him in a kilt.
@55 taig: He’s dead
to the world. Fixed that for ya.MW: I like the third mashup best, but it should be a takeoff on the Charles Addams cartoon in which a man has tried to hang himself, has failed because one arm is upward in the noose, while his wife–oops, I mean Mary or Dawn is saying “Can’t you do anything right?”
Does this mean that Ian and whatsher name have to go listen to Wilbur doing karaoke again? Haven’t they suffered enough?
MW: Dawn must be typing three periods to put the ellipses at the end of each line… That’s rather quirky of her… Also quirky is making the word “connect” bold for no reason and owning an incredibly small phone…
RxMD: “She’s feeling overwhelming guilt for her actions that could have killed her dog.” “Naw, that’s just wishy-washy pre-teen mood swings. She’ll get over it.”
@Buck Ripsnort, yesterthread: Or, the cartoonist could make a well-timed snark against a blogger, THEN die.
@jroggs, Luann:
*steps from time machine*
Um, Mungeons, you’re not going to believe who is an award-winning, social media sensation with her ocarina…..
Mary Worth: Moy has today decided to torment me in particular by drawing Wilbur in nearly the exact same pose as the infamous DarkSydePhil masturbation stream. Thanks for that, Moy.
Hagar The Horrible: What Helga means to say is that she uses dark magic to bind her friends’ souls to books for her own amusement.
Rex Morgan: We make a lot of jokes on this blog twisting the personalities of characters in the strips, but the running gags about Rex being some kind of bizarre freak/robot/alien with no understanding of human emotions is honestly barely an exaggeration of what he’s actually written like.
@astroboy:
Wilbur: “No…it looks like that waiter is into Meagan and (dawning realization washes over Wilbur)…er…I should probably stop watching this….”,
@Baja Gaijin: No. He’s stunned.
I was hoping Wilbur’s seething rage would turn him into a super villain, but he’s too much of a loser to even give it a try.
MW: Wilbur, you’re no Sharon Stone.
FC: How did those greasy Italians get into the Keane’s neighborhood?
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
CS: Wow. Mort Winkerbean is now younger than his son.
REX MORGAN M.D.: I love that Rex seems completely unaware of his daughters development.
Rex: “A preteen? What? I just thought my kids were middle-aged munchkins, given the way they’re drawn.”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Also note to the Morgan’s (who remember are medical professionals): Carelessly killing off your dog is only related to a girl’s “natural” development into pubescence if she’s Kristi Noem.
Dustin Yes, what young person in 2024 can’t relate to the experience of being overwhelmed by the multitude of choices in a greeting card store?
RMMD In idiomatic contemporary North American English, wouldn’t you normally call a girl like Sarah a “tween”, not a “preteen”?
Oh, right.
Wilbur’s in such a dark place he’s stopped shaving his legs.
Dustbin – So, he went out to get his mom a Mother’s Day card, and he’s shopping in the Love & Romance section? This strip just got more interesting.
I am extremely concerned about Wilbur’s clothing changes between Weds and Thurs — We went from fully clothed and depressed to in a bathrobe and underwear and SO MUCH LEG HAIR in just one day…I fear what we will see of Wilbur by Saturday, for us, our society…
MARY WORTH: Come on, people, are you guys really not concerned? Now that Wilbur isn’t out and about accidentally pushing people out of the way of Santa Royale’s reckless erratic drivers while lost in erotic reverie, the emergency ward at the county hospital must be filled to capacity!
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!
If this is what Stellan and Willa are forced to look at every day, I wonder your clients haven’t sued you for workplace abuse.
@2+2=7: Not to worry, the hospital called in Dr. Ed to help out with his medical expertise, and he’s been bravely treating all the injury victims with… use of Asia? Youthful agency? I’m pretty sure it was youth-something. Either way, they say he’s doing a great job of clearing out the ER.
MW: Dawn’s STILL trying to connect with her mother? She’s been up there for weeks! Dawn obviously hasn’t even seen her mother. She’s just been stalking her. Wilbur would be proud!
MW: Wilbur: “Life is brutal.” Arrow to TV: “Game of Thrones”
Wilbur is in desperate need for a therapist and a shower. But he’s trapped under the thumb of a Machiavellian harpy who thinks that psychological therapy is some kind of witchcraft like online banking and veganism. So he’s not going to get the help he needs but instead muffin’d into submission unless he dies under his hoarding pile.
RwO: A rare behind-the-scenes slice of life from the SongBird community! You thought they knew all those tunes instinctively, but you now see that making it to the Top Tier requires professional instruction and practice, practice, practice! Good ensemble job today!
Speed Bump: Another ensemble winner with a Canine cast, showing Dogs *can* learn new tricks when it comes to communication modes! Next thing ya know they’ll be using “reply all”…
@Baja Gaijin: nice touch with the x’s over the eyes
Hägar, the Horrible Comic Strip: “Do you ever rant about me to your friends?” “If laughing about your small penis is ranting, then yes.
@Needless Exposition:
Wilbur is in desperate need for a therapist and a shower.
Add to that a scrip for Effexor or similar for the trifecta.
Look, it’s Mental Health Month, as my email keeps telling me. Maybe Moy and Brigman can actually do something helpful to their readership. Because mental health advice sure as hell isn’t coming from Pluggers.
@Charterstoned: re MW: Just relax, CS… Willa and Stellan are nowhere around. They only have to remain on the set for the brief time it takes them to do one of their scenes, usually in only one take. Of course we wouldn’t subject them to viewing this horror! We don’t even let them see the panels where they don’t appear. Not that they would even want to….
RMMD: I wonder if Rex and June will run into Amos and Edda in that formless void they’re living in.
MW: Wilbur celebrates having dodged a bullet with that unfaithful matrimonial prospect, by enjoying some quality time with the one he loves most. Living the dream!
@Old School Allie Cat: If Wilbur becomes the poster boy for Brigmoy’s submission for Mental Health Month, I wouldn’t be disappointed but it would feel like a lesson that won’t stick so it would go into insulting those who need help rather than helping them.
Luann-Wait until Luann finds out she signed up for Stereotypical Italian Mobster Italian and it is taught by Mr. Grey.
@Baja Gaijin: #1
Your third one looks like Wilbur is being abducted by aliens. If so, I can understand how they would come to the conclusion that there is no intelligent life on Earth unless they want Wilbur for their version of a zoo.
Rex Morgan – Rex is confused and struggling to understand. He thinks, “Come on, Rex. Think! They mentioned something about this back in med school. Teenagers . . . preteen girls . . . hormones, I think . . . I know! Something about bleeding. I better check on my supply of leeches.”
Crankshaft – The smirking has reached critical mass. Get out and run for shelter!
Frazz – I only eat processed food for runners. Let’s go make fun of people who eat fast food and don’t run.
Mother Goose & Grimm – A mood ring? Seriously? That would be an antique by now.
@2+2=7: Governor Noem’s Mom fondly remembers her little girl’s transition into womanhood when, at age thirteen, she shot the family dog in the face.
@jroggs: We’ve been having such fun with Dr. Ed’s enthusiasm for euthanizing pets — it’s great to see current events finally catching up with us.
@92 Daisy:
The aliens will do an anal probe on Wilbur. They deserve what they get when they get sloshed with mayonnaise.
Sunday we get to see how Stellan and Willa actually see Wilbur.
It ain’t pretty.
Mary Worth – It’s always enjoyable to see Wilbur wallowing in self pity, but I have some real concerns about how Mary advises him to deal with his depression. She previously advised him to go all out on singing karaoke, so I wonder what half assed “therapy” she will recommend this time. She can’t guilt him into adopting a dog, because that’s been done. We’ve also seen pet yoga, so that’s out. I guess she can throw a bunch of platitudes at him to see if any stick. I guarantee that whatever she prescribes will be infuriating, and they’ll talk about it and praise Mary for it for weeks, which will be even more infuriating.
As for Dawn, “connect” is what happens when you contact your old college roommate that you haven’t seen for years. Visiting your mother who pretty much abandoned you (regardless of your age at the time), and with whom you’ve had no contact since, goes a little deeper than “connect.” There are undoubtedly unresolved emotions and issues, but sure, text your worthless father about going to the ballet.
9CL – Just a reminder that Fleurie is a veterinarian, so she is well educated. It’s strange that she doesn’t understand jokes, because every other female in this strip has a highly honed sense of humor.
Seriously, is Brooke having health issues? That drawing of Sven in the second panel is off and alarmingly sloppy and bad.
@Sequitur: Looks like we’ve got a Wilbur Weekend on the horizon. Get your barf bags and your cyanide pills ready, kids. Just remember that the cyanide isn’t for you.
MW: I glanced at the last panel and thought it read: “I got a tent”.
But you are right, Wilbur: WHO CARES!
@Sequitur: What we really need is drunken Wilbur and quote box using lyrics from Warren Zevon’s “Splendid Isolation.”
@Ukulele Ike (#Y223) – Your comment made me break my rule about never reading Rose Is Rose. The fucking baby was yesterday’s strip, and I agree – I also really hate that fucking baby.
Today’s strip features poorly drawn animals, including a terribly drawn squirrel. Oh, well, at least Pasquale and his porcupine hair didn’t show up. Back to my rule of avoiding this.
@Baja Gaijin (#Y225) – You mentioned polenta – I may have said this before, but I made polenta once, and Mr. Jive hated it. He always refers to it as “placenta.”
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I like the second one.
LUANN: Next year? Aw, but I was hoping to see Luann burn her face off in welding now!
LUANN (2): Ok, I’m starting to think the Evans’ are ultimately taking the piss out of the community college experience. “Whee, it’s fun to hang around the arts n crafts building at Mrs. Horner’s Day Camp all the time instead of going to real college with it’s boring ‘majors‘ and ‘ambition‘ and whatnot.”
MW- If this arc doesn’t end with Wilbur’s limp body hanging from the ceiling I’ll be VERY disappointed. Bonus points if it’s a result of a accident during the act of erotic autoasphyxiation.
Maybe Sarah is just trying to escape whatever psychological experiment Rex and June are conducting that involves the walls constantly changing colors.
WtB: I really appreciate the bit where the gull becomes a buzzard in panel 3.
Maybe a tiny bit early for Cuisine threads.
But I baked a cake yesterday and wanted to show it off ^^
https://imgur.com/a/ogIXUBz
@The Rambling Otter: Looks colorful. Hope it was tasty!
@Needless Exposition:
Thank you, it was! ^^
@The Rambling Otter:
Coming next: links to a bazillion photos of my new grandson.
@The Rambling Otter: Yay! Cake!
@Just John: Congratulations on the new addition to your family!
@106 The Rambling Otter:
Eh, I don’t want to startle you but something’s been eating on your cake.
@I speak Jive: re: 9CL: Sven looks odd throughout. Maybe Brooke forgot what he looked like? (Seth)
More alarming, Tall Harpo the Surrey Harpsichord Builder’s Son needs to drive a good six hours from Manhattan to New Hampshire to find someone he can repeat a joke to. And he packed along Edda’s twins in the trunk, for company, I guess.
I’m in Provence.
I’m not in Provence
@I’m in Provence: @I’m not in Provence: I’m sorry, but the both of you will have to establish your provenance.
DT: “Old money.” Setting aside my intial “How can Dick tell that this cash is inherited wealth?” gag, that’s actually an interesting point. If Croptop hadn’t panicked and left the suitcase in the Flatmobile, what was she actually planning on doing with wodges of sequential bills from the … um, nineteen-twenteighties? … that wouldn’t immediately attract official attention?
GT: If I were a poor little rich girl seeking advice on how one orders a fast food, I’m not sure I’d turn to the person who is literally complaining there’s nothing here they can eat, but that’s just me.
(As a vegetarian myself, I should probably be sympathetic to Keri’s plight, and maybe I would be, if Banjaras hadn’t already established that they think “vegan” means “can only eat bagels.”)
Heath: May the Ninth be with you, I guess.
MW: Karen Moy would like to make it absolutely clear that nothing remotely interesting is happening in Connecticut. Unfortunately, I would still rather spend next week with Dawn and her mother trying to make awkward conversation against a backdrop of Swan Lake (I do not believe anyone in the Worthiverse knows that other ballets exist) than more Wilbur.
@Ukulele Ike: I’m Spartacus.
Rex looks as tired of being in “Rex Morgan, M.D.” as we are of reading “Rex Morgan, M.D.”
I am Grout.
Sam I am.
@I’m Spartacus: @Grout: Right, crucify the first one and use the other one between the tiles.
@120 Grout:
Isn’t that “Groot”?
@I speak Jive:
MW-“Wilbur, have you ever heard of a man named Jack the Ripper? He was a fellow with the same sort of problem you have.”
@Sequitur
I am Grout.
RMMD: Can’t wait for the very special next arc, where Rex informs the readers about human emotions, which he deems to be an extremely dangerous condition.
@125 Grout:
Can’t blame you, really.
Sex Organ, V.D.: “Rex, take that finger out of your mouth, you don’t know where that finger has been!” (Joke repurposed from “Airplane!1: The Original”)
@128 Garrison Skunk:
Yeah, Rex keeps forgetting his gloves when he does a prostrate exam.
3 minutes agoDetails
Tonight on “Junie And The Brainless”,watch as Junie asks Dr Brainless: “Rex, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” “Yes, Junie, I’m thinking the same thing we think every week:’how can we brick Sarah up in her room and make it look like an accident’.” “Don’t ever change, Rex.” “Don’t worry, I shan’t, Junie.”
@129 Sequitur:
And that should be “prostate” not “prostrate”.
@Sequitur: re MW: Well, great. Now you’ve let the Fish outta the bag, and everyone knows that Willa and Stellan do these scenes in advance! We’ve tried to preserve the illusion of immediacy, but actually we want them to be able to travel from their condo at the Aquarium Complex to the set in privacy and anonymity. When you’re big celebs like those two, avoiding the paparazzi can be a challenge.
But at least this means they won’t have to do publicity promos on Sunday, and I can maybe take the day off too. Maybe visit Mom up the river at Club Fed.
@Sequitur:
Nah, the left side just crumbled a teeny bit.
@Maltmash3r:
Wilbur should absolutely fly to Connecticut to reconnect with his ex. It’s so delusional, it just might work!
Six Chex And A Topless Cat Named Laptop: The Laptop Cafe has gotten really strict about lap dances!
@Uncle Lumpy: It would be simultaneously the most brilliant and idiotic thing that Karen Moy has come up with ever since she started writing.
@The Rambling Otter:
But I baked a cake yesterday and wanted to show it off ^^
https://imgur.com/a/ogIXUBz
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Looks like enough to feed a family of five, or one Wilbur Weston.
@Uncle Lumpy: @Needless Exposition: Wait a sec! What about Willa and Stellan? How are they supposed to get from California to Connecticut? Swim through the Panama Canal? That’s just ridiculous! I guess Wilbur leaving would mean they’d have to stay with….MARY! I’m afraid that’s a bridge too far… back to the negotiating table…
Mary Worth: I am seething over the fact that the text message, the “Meanwhile” caption and the sound effect are presented in the exact same white background, square box format. They couldn’t put some slight yellow on that “Meanwhile” box to show it’s an omniscient narration caption and not character dialogue? They couldn’t draw the sound effect or at the very least use a different font?
I know this is newspaper stripa but come on, show some basic interest in the craft of sequential visual storytelling!
FBOFW:. What she really needs is a book on how to teach your dog human etiquette. Mainly, how to say “hello, are you mate material” without sniffing.
6 CHIX:. Love today’s ambiguous sign. Does it mean it’s not a cyber cafe so no internet connection, no tech devices allowed (only face-to-face communication). Or is it a rif on no shoes, no shirt, no service so that people WITHOUT devices are banned. Will she, or will she not be kicked out?
MW: glad Wilbur didn’t pick up the phone as text was selling $300 food benefit cards if all you do is give the caller your SSN and mother’s maiden name. Dawn on the other hand, was texting her professor friend.
@Horace Broon:
117. MW:. Of course there is another ballet. You’re forgetting year-round productions of “The Nutcracker”. She’s not mentioning it, lest her father feel threatened.
@I speak Jive:
#101:. We had near-polenta many winter mornings as a kid. We just called it fried mush. Served with Maple syrup and bacon/sausage. Yum…thanks for the memories.
MW – “My daughter says ballet is brutal. HAH! She doesn’t know the meaning of the word! Next week her mother is taking her to the opera. Wagner. The entire Ring cycle. She’ll learn what brutal is, long before the fat lady sings.”
@Liam:
MW-“Wilbur, have you ever heard of a man named Jack the Ripper? He was a fellow with the same sort of problem you have.”
_________________
…”Explosive diarrhea? It’s like a storm raging inside you.”
@144 Garrison Skunk:
Doctors say four out of five people suffer from diarrhea. That means one person enjoys it.
@Activist 1234: Or is it a rif on no shoes, no shirt, no service so that people WITHOUT devices are banned. Will she, or will she not be kicked out?
I read it this way and since it’s a comic I didn’t think it was especially ambiguous in that regard. It’s a pretty good riff on hipsters, if maybe a decade or two passe.
MW-Sadly not pictured is the countless empty jars of fermented mayonnaise.
@Uncle Lumpy: Wilbur will be so charmed by the performance of the Hartford Ballet that he will climb onstage and start dancing along.
@Sequitur: What’s not to love? Think of all that time and effort on the john you save.
MW-I want to see Wilbur wondering if the bottle he is about to drink from either has urine in it or alcohol and not caring either way.
@Baja Gaijin: The vulture. The vulture. The vulture.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I’m sure Toby can sober up enough to look after the fish what with all the nothing that she has planned. Or perhaps Saul and Eve can stop fawning over their dogs for one second to provide proper aquatic care?
RMMD: I know it’s not much, Sarah, and it may not last, but after the past week (and okay, after cheating and reading ahead a few days), I like you more than I like the entire cast of LUANN put together.
MW: How did a woman like that end up marrying a man like Wilbur? If we didn’t know Wilbur, we could speculate that he has a warm, magnetic, funny, intelligent, extremely-likable personality. But we do know Wilbur. Didn’t she???
@Sequitur: I’ve always loathed that song, so seeing it in this context seems entirely appropriate.
MW-This reminds me of the scene in ‘The Wall’ when Pink’s agent and some paramedics force their way into the hotel room Pink is holed up in and Pink is given an adrenaline shot to make it to the concert. Come Sunday expect Mary to force her way in and give Wilbur a muffin.
MW: The irony is that if Wilbur had kept at it (social media), he could, I’m pretty sure, have found a woman who is desperate enough to date him, and possibly two or three such women. True, this wild surmise is based on past viewing of JUDGE JUDY cases that were set in California. But I still think it’s valid.
I’m hungry! Baja better hurry up and bring out some food!
@Sequitur: Yeah, I always look forward to Olive-Eye Thursday.
@158 Ukulele Ike:
How about Aspic Friday?
Luann: Luann, trying new and different things is nice but if you want a degree you’ll have to commit to a major, unless you want to be a professional college student the rest of your life. Oh wait. This is Luann we’re talking about. I guess I answered that question.
@160 Guillermo el chiclero:
I knew a guy who had 196 undergraduate credits yet never graduated.
He became a musician.
@Ukulele Ike: I hope Hugh didn’t have to make a bathroom stop during that six hour drive. Someone would have to redecorate the rest area’s rest room to look like his childhood bathroom.
It’s amazing how these twits always manage to run into each other, no matter where they are. And who knows where that is, since everywhere is a void.
@Activist 1234: Served with maple syrup and bacon/sausage – that sounds delicious. At least I think so. However, Mr. Jive gags at the very mention of polenta.
By the way, your cake looked very festive. Looks like it would be fun to make.
@jroggs: I cannot believe I’m doing this, but I have to defend Sarah Morgan. It has been made clear over the past six months, oops I mean several days, that no one in the family realized that Candy was capable of reaching and grabbing food off that counter. And if anyone should have figured that out first, it was the ADULTS, not their child. Next they should figure out if Candy is capable of turning the stove on and starting a house fire. Apparently that can happen.
As an aside, your Dawn texting sequence is a true masterpiece. I laughed like a drain.
@cheech wizard: This raises the interesting question of whether Wilbur is the kind of guy who would even know what the Ring Cycle is. *stares at Wilbur in today’s second panel* I vote no.
@I speak Jive: I know McEldowney lives in Maine, possibly in one of those picturesque small towns where it would be perfectly possible to run into everyone you know during a walk to the lobster boat dock or Saturday night Bean Supper at the church. It’s weird that he can’t remember New York isn’t like that.
For months, I’ve had a craving for cornmeal pancakes (aka “Johnnycakes”) with butter and maple syrup. Despite never encountering one in my life. I always thought they were an American Southern thing, but they are eaten in New England and the eastern Caribbean as well, in the latter with fried salt fish.
More trouble than polenta, but easier than cornbread.
@Poteet: I bet Candy is capable of delivering human babies, much like Ace the Bat-Hound.
@Poteet: Wilbur knows the Ring Cycle comes after the Rinse Cycle at the laundromat. He can read dials, bub!
I’m worried Baja ended up suffering Wilbur’s fate because of today’s Late Thread Cuisine.
I may not know what “morass” means – well, now I do, because of the internet! – but back in my younger days (five minutes ago) when I still thought it might literally mean “more ass”, I already agreed it applied to Wilbur.
@167 taig:
He ate too much of @106 The Rambling Otter:’s cake.
@Poteet: In the comic-strip cliche of the shotgun wedding, the man is the one who’s under duress. But there could be exceptions.
@Ukulele Ike: Take the easiest way of all!
@170 Peanut Gallery:
Yes, I see what you mean.
I wonder where Baja is. He must be checking his inventory.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve never eaten cornmeal pancakes. My grandmother used to make buckwheat pancakes from an Aunt Jemima mix, and I liked them.
I make cornbread fairly often, and it’s pretty easy to make. I put extra sugar in it because we like our cornbread sweet. I understand that sweet cornbread is Not Done in the South.
@I speak Jive: I’m in Brooklyn but I adhere to strict Southern rules with cornbread. Baked in an 8-inch bacon-greased cast iron skillet — NO wheat flour; WHITE cornmeal; NO sugar….just baking soda and cream of tartar and salt and a little red or black pepper, egg, and buttermilk.
Well over 20 years ago an ostensible “Southern” restaurant opened in the neighborhood, and I took Little Pianola (9 years old) out to dinner. After she checked out the contents of the bread basket she leaned forward and hissed “DAD….there is SUGAR IN THIS CORNBREAD.” I have never been so proud.
@Poteet: Well you know. You need people. You need the Doordash driver, you need the Uber Eats driver, and you need the kid of the owner of the last Chinese restaurant that does bicycle delivery.
Really Late Thread Cuisine: Let’s “see” what you think of this one.
This may be a rerun. If it is, I can post another.
@Baja Gaijin: It is nice of them to warn people off with those X’s.
@177 Baja Gaijin:
I said earlier, “I’m hungry!”
I’m not hungry anymore.
You asked if this was a repeat, well, I don’t think so but it doesn’t matter because I’m not hungry anymore.
@106 The Rambling Otter: That’s far too pretty and edible-looking to be a Late Thread Cuisine. Great work!
@109 Just John: As long as you don’t do any “diaper reveals.” Readers may think the Late Thread Cuisine arrived early in the thread.
@132 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I thought they’d do that scene with green screen and CGI background of the Watery Wilburface. Maybe suggest that to preserve the fishies’s sanity.
@147 Liam: I thought about that. The muffins won out though a jar of mayo appears in one of the mashups.
@153 Poteet: Wilbur’s ex was so drunk at the “pig party” she boinked one. So drunk she forgot “protection.” And this was a time before Plan B sooooo…unexpected Dawn.
@156 Poteet: I’d love it if he ended up with one of those dick-removing chicks. Irony points if she feeds the freed penis to Pierre. Double irony points if he and Libby do a tug-of-war with it.
@158 Ukulele Ike: Your wish, my command.
@159 Sequitur: Your wish, my tomorrowthread command.
@Ukulele Ike: #175: Some people will dump a can of creamed corn into the bottom of the baking pan before adding the cornmeal batter on top. Others will add shredded cheese or chopped jalapenos to the mix.
@182 Baja Gaijin:
Oh, gawd. What have I done?
Wilbur is “descending” into schlubdom? Nah, it’s a lateral move at worst.
All the comedy strips wish they were as funny as Wilbur falling asleep on the couch ignoring a text. Step up your game, Beetle Bailey