There’s not a monopoly on violence exactly, but those IOUs are essentially legal tender
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Dick Tracy, 8/28/24
I guess the woman in the final panel is supposed to be looking up at a big screen, but it really looks like she’s rolling her eyes in contempt at this unfolding scenario. “Ugh, the craft is jamming our drones, I told you we needed to fit them with more powerful transmitters, dad, why don’t you ever listen?”
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/28/24
It’s sad: under the Affordable Care Act, most health care plans provide free vaccinations and annual checkups, and at any rate the entire population of Hootin’ Holler surely qualifies for Medicaid. But the lack of communication with the outside world means none of them know this, and Doc Pritchart has no fear that a distant government might take notice of his scams, though he clearly has a healthy respect for the violence that might be visited upon him if he violates the local mores. The dentures thing is a whole different story, given that we strangely consider teeth to be an entirely separate realm from the rest of the body in terms of health care and the regulations around it; also, this may be a strike against my “the Smifs are Zoomers” theory.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/28/24
The inevitable failure of the human body, forcing us to abandon the parts of our lives we love the most even as we face years ahead of us until death? Technically a medical issue, so I’ll allow it as fodder for Rex Morgan, M.D.
173 replies to “There’s not a monopoly on violence exactly, but those IOUs are essentially legal tender”
It seems Truck may be giving Dr. Morgan the finger.
“Send up our drones” is the modern version of “Release the hounds!”
BGSS: They might be getting every medical procedure under the sun and some that are only legal in countries that use human organs as legal tender but nothing will cure the slack jawed tongue swelling that’s become characteristic of several generations of genetic overlapping.
MW: This storyline is really giving Keith’s some competition in how absolutely nothing interesting is going on. And just like that storyline, it still isn’t making me want to see Wilbur again. I do, however, want to see the pets again because they’re a lot more entertaining than these living moppets.
RMMD: I never thought I’d see a Pluggers crossover that didn’t involve the other wacky senior citizens…
The Smifs could still be Zoomers. They just live in a cycle of crippling poverty with its concurrent lack of education, readily available nutrition, or resources, resulting in terrible oral care and the loss of teeth by the age of 25. In fact, it’s refreshing to see young people being so proactive about their long-term health!
DT: Remember last week’s story about little old ladies wandering the streets to find policemen in that bygone era when everyone had their own motorized floor buffer but telephones were still unheard of? Well, now a corpo executive is in his personal NORAD bunker tracking a hostile UFO that has breached the Geofence while jamming all drone interceptors. Do try to keep up.
RMMD: What th- hey, Beatty, stop copying me!
Blondie: “Gadzooks! That drip is tubular, hep cat!”
HtH: Ikea, your one-stop location for… stealing artwork and valuables? Look, Hagar the Horrible, we can all agree that Ikea is very funny as stores go, but this joke needs a few more minutes in the brainstorming microwave.
JP: Off-page: A police boat has arrived, located the corpse, dredged it up, positively identified it, and communicated this information to be disseminated to all personnel and bystanders in the surrounding area. Meanwhile, Glen, Glenmom, and Trey have either concluded their questionings without issue or escaped police custody, while everyone else is busy elsewhere, possibly playing a cops vs party guests rugby match or seeing how many people they can fit in a single bathtub.
On-page: “Waaaaaah! Draaamaaaa! Waaaaaah!” “Oh, shut up!”
Luann: Luann has spent the last decade establishing that Shannon is physically and emotionally out of control, and these past few weeks have been dedicated to showing that this situation has only been getting worse, culminating in her injuring another child. But as quickly as we’re told that, NOPE! It was just an accident, and the other kid is totally fine, and Shannon’s not to blame for anything at all despite her professed carelessness, and this was all just an excuse to spend a week having a straw-Karen yell about nothing. God, this comic sucks so fucking hard.
MW: “I’ll be meeting your contemporaries! Boy, I sure am excited to meet the people alive in the same era as you, Ed!” “Uh, maybe you should brush up on your human lingo a bit, Estelle.”
CS: Remember the triple-A movie premiere at the Valentine Theater a couple months back, which many of us denounced for its many legal and logistical impossibilities? Lillian’s multi-author signing event in her attic bookstore is on a much smaller scale, yet is equally (if not even more) absurd. But that’s a rant for tomorrow, perhaps. For now, “enjoy” another day of Harry Dinkle being the world’s biggest [397 words of pure profanity omitted].
REX MORGAN M.D.: Uh-oh. Looks like Truck’s fingers have become arthritic due to decades of masturbation. What? this is a “family paper”. Ok it’s due to decades of (heavy finger quoting) “guitar playing” then
DT: Chief: “This better not be a drone”
Woman: “I’ll keep it short then, sir”
MW: “Stell and Ed head to the Veterinarian’s convention”
Ed: [glares at narration box] “Stell? STELL? Do you have the kind of history with her that permits that amount of familiarity?”
RMMD:
“Lemme use this as inspiraton for a lyric. ‘My hand felt jes’ like two balloons.’ Naw, somebody already done that!”
Chix (sic): I get the diaphragm but what’s up with the spoon?
DT:
“May I ask a question? — why are you guys wearing suits and ties? Why haven’t we gone ‘workplace casual’ like the rest of the world?”
MW: It’s obvious that Estelle is only going as arm candy. (paw candy?) She’ll be the veterinary equivalent of a car show girl.
RMMD: Truck’s so talented; you can set his every thought to doleful music! The man just leaks lyrics.
9CL: Learn to love the water, Alistair. At least 85% of your future action will be taking place in it.
RMMD: I look forward to the upcoming country song about Dupuytren’s Contracture, which can be caused by alcohol abuse, and maybe your wife and dog leaving you. I mean the song writes itself.
RMMD:
“Maybe this all started when I took that swing at Mountain Murphy when he was actin’ up — you know, when ol’ Truck here had a ‘Mud‘ flap!”
DtM: Dennis’ rudeness provides the smokescreen while Joey reaches for Alice’s purse from behind.
MW: Lemme guess, Eshtelle’s gonna arrive at the convention and it’s gonna be a ‘boys club’ circa 1956 with lots of catcalls and Dr. Mr. Ed’s buddies talking about how he’s ‘finally getting fitted for a ball and chain’ and he’s gonna disappoint all the ‘wimmen’ he knew and bedded BEFORE he met Eshtelle.
This causes Eshtelle to flee the Santa Royale Veterenarians’ Convention (ConVETion?) in tears and seek out Saint Mary.
@jroggs: On JP: Hey, it’s already Wednesday. No time for all that off-panel stuff you described. We gotta get to the ‘and so, fall comes to Cavelton’ strip by Labor Day!
@jroggs:
On Crankshaft : Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe the upcoming anti-book protest will earn the nickname “The Burnings” because the mob is going to burn Harry Dinkle at the stake.
…Yeah, and while I’m being wistful, the mob burns him not because Harry Dinkle’s dumb biography is on their blacklist, but because they have NO IDEA who he is, and mistook him for one of the authors of the books they’re protesting.
***************
On Luann : Toni not giving Shannon any rules or safety tips, like “wait your turn” and “don’t go down the slide while another kid is there”, has lead to Shannon accidentally hitting another kid. But we’re supposed to think that Toni and Bwad are awesome parents
*and that Shannon spending more time than usual with them has “tamed” her*, so that anyone objecting to Shannon’s antics at this point is just an evil joyless scold.*This was not actually shown@jroggs, Luann: Thank you (and others) for taking the plunge this week reading “The Rehab and Retcon of Shannon”.
JP: Wait…. are they wrapping up this arc so soon? We haven’t even gotten to Drunk Investigator.
RxMD: How can this be blamed on Rene Belusso?
Curtis: Greg is so Luddite, he writes checks to pay bills and he uses a card catalog system at work to look up license information.
LUANN: Hey remember a couple of days ago, when a commenter here complained that the term, “Karen”, was being overused and exploited to almost strawman proportions? Well if you don’t, not to worry: Luann has helpfully provided a visual aid demonstrating the poster’s point!
LUANN (2): Hey you know those times when Josh occasionally brings up a common comic-strip writer trope of creators using their strips to take petty thinly-veiled potshots at people who pissed them off in real life? Why am I bringing this up about a slightly-offscale-but-still-very-distinctive-looking woman seething at our…er…”heroes” in the entitled rage of a straw-woman? Oh…no reason….(whistles inconspicuously and then walks away….)
RMMD: Truck knows the root cause of his pain after a lifetime of singing and playing the songs of the South. His neighbor is a demon -hence the side-eye.
SS & BG – How many teef does it require to slurp down some stewed squirrel and a mess o’ greens in pot likker?
MW – Does…does Karen Moy not know what the word “contemporaries” means? Because I’m pretty darn sure she didn’t put that wrong word in Estelle’s mouth tjust o make Estelle sound stupid(er.)
That’s just plain embarassing for a professional writer. The word you were grasping for was “colleagues,” Karen.
@Anonymous: Re Luann: You dare doubt Brad and Toni. They’re going to be awesome parents, what with the way they’re teaming up to gaslight a little girl and all (You’re ‘ok’, clearly upset and crying child, right?”)
@Chance:
Or meth. Or cocaine resulting in tooth-grinding.
An interesting fact about the English language is that it contains pronouns, which allow a speaker to refer to something someone has mentioned without repeating the exact phrase they already used, Dick Tracy.
DT You know whats a funny word? Drone. Drone Drone Drone. Drone.
BGSS Interesting how there are no values on any of those I.O.U.s. I mean, not shocking that Snuffy would be completely numerically illiterate, but amazing that he manages to play (and win!) at card games. I mean, I assume that ‘poker’ here refers to cards, but now that I’m writing out I can imagine of a few other games of lower skill…
RMMD I was going to do a joke about he’s no BB King, because I remember an old ad where he talked about taking something (advil?) for joint pain. But now all I can seem to fund are ads for diabetes strips? Sorry, no joke here I’m just really having a Mandela moment…
MW: “This is huge, Estelle! All the very top names in veterinary medicine will be here. ‘Back Alley’ Barnes, ‘Petey Probation,’ ‘The Scientist,’ ‘Three Finger’ Borne, ‘Vicki the Vivacious Vet,’ ‘The Fight Doctor,’ ‘Money Upfront’ Murphy, ‘Nicky Needle,’ ‘Bad News’ Brown, the list goes on!”
“Oh my, they all have such colorful nicknames. What do they call you?”
“Doctor Death.”
SS: So…the Hootin’ Holler lolling tongue epidemic is due to a lack of “r’placement dentures”? And here I was thinking it was some combination of janky moonshine and “mef’.”
2048: Rex Morgan, M.D. Hospice and Home Health Services hires Shorty and Beanpole as music therapists to sing “Glenwood Hotel” to Truck, gets a reminder letter that euthanasia is not covered under the Medicare benefit. (Truck has been dead for years, it just takes a while for the strip to notice.)
@Quiggle:
The janky moonshine and meth is WHY they need the shoddy replacement dentures.
BARNEY GOOGLE & SNUFFY SMITH: Cheer up, Josh. You’re “The Smiths’ are Zoomers” theory could still have some merit. The dentures could simply be due to “meth mouth.”
BARNEY GOOGLE & SNUFFY SMITH (2): Also keep in mind you might be half-right, Josh. It’s possible that Snuffy is an old-man who simply hooked up to a much younger woman due to her “wide birthin’ hips.” Louweezy hair hasn’t gone gray after all (in Hootin’ Holler, that makes you Kate Upton.) It does make it a bit creepier when she calls him “paw” though.
@astroboy:
MW: I was puzzled too by Moy’s choice of word. Estelle’s either eager to meet other vets to see what other fish are in the sea OR wants to meet other vets’ significant others (if any) and get the inside scoop on what it’s like to be married to a vet. Maybe they can form a support group and trade war stories.
“What was that? Finger locked up on me!” (Mud, nearby, sighs) “Mud, you mind taking a look at this for me?” (Mud pointedly ignoring him) “That never happened before!” (Mud continues ignoring) “Kinda hurt too! Come on, take a look” (Mud rolls eyes, turns) (Truck is flipping him off)
@5 jroggs: on Crankshaft: I hope the missing words include the phrase “fucking sucking chlymidia infested dickwadass of such massive proportions it dwarfs a SpaceX Starship-Extended Edition and William Shatner’s ego combined.”
PS: I don’t follow the strip. From everyone’s comments, I gather he’s not on Santa’s “nice” list.
RMMD: “That’s it! That’s the inspiration I’ve been looking for. I got Those Guitar-Pickin’ Joints A-Clickin’ Time’s A-Tickin’ Ar-the-ritis Blues! Thank you, Lord!”
JP: “I wouldn’t eat any crabs or fish you catch around here for awhile”, said the Detective.
FC-I think Mommy is talking about green pills.
When Europeans say that the US healthcare insurance system is like gambling, they don’t know how literally it is!
RMMD – Ugh. I had to give up playing guitar due to arthritis. Which was at least in part brought on by many years of playing guitar. Isn’t it ironic (don’t you think?)
No snark on this one. I feel for him.
MW-I honestly don’t know to respond to this. Estelle is working in a vet’s office. She should know how to do things and what some of the lingo is.
MW-“The other guests will know. We are going to brand you with a big letter ‘G’.”
Snuffy: Replacement dentures? I sure never see these two with teeth in their mouths. What they really need are replacement tongues. Tongues that are a healthy red color and have a tendency to stay behind their lips, instead of unfurling like that. What do they have now, albino eels living in there?
Of course the Smiffs don’t have Medicaid! Hottin Holler is eternally stuck in a world before the TVA, let alone the War on poverty!
MARY WORTH: Oho! Once again the subtle nuance of Mary Worth shows why it remains a creative force all these years. We in the audience were bowled over in such stunned amazement at the utterly insane direction Estelle’s wedding plans were going in that we let the other baffling absurdities of the story slip by, like “why the hell is Dr. Ed bringing the unpaid receptionist to a business conference”? Aren’t those usually only open to people in the actual profession? Was Estelle concerned about all the “veterinarian groupies” these conventions regularly pull and came because of the need to protect her fiance’s fidelity from them?
MW – “Welcome to the Veterinarians/Society for the Use of Wrong Words convention! I’m Dr. Bernard Leibowitz, Dr. Ed’s contemporary. You must be Estelle, Ed’s representative! Congratulations on your enforcement – you must be very indicted!”
DT: “Then jam the craft that’s jamming our drones!” “Can’t sir. The craft is jamming our jamming devices too.”
BGSS: Better IOUs than IUDs, I suppose.
RMMD: Truck is in luck, because Buck knows the best doc (pronounced “duck”).
Phew! It looks like the Rex Morgan M.D. creative team finally stopped trying to care about non-roots country characters to bring us more of the roots country drama we’ve all been craving. These story lines are our “Muddy Boots”.
Frazz: Name-dropping doesn’t mean you’re intelligent, Caulfield.
Luann: Ugh, yes, Shannon should apologize for something that was her fault, but, of course, the Evanses have to roll out this lady to make Shannon look like an angel in comparison. At least we’re seeing definite reasons why Brad and Toni shouldn’t have their own children.
CS: Christ, what an asshole.
Dustin: “You’re asking me, the dumbest son of a bitch you’re gonna meet all day?”
Pluggers: Give us a break. Pluggers can’t bend over that far.
GT: Damn, this is fascinating!
BG&SS — Given that those IOU’s are fungible (in Hootin’ Holler at least) there’s no way that Snuffy hasn’t already bartered them for janky moonshine and mef’.
9CL: Ooh, another distinction between the Overlook Twins: vertical vs. horizontal stripes. Sure, it’s the same color scheme, because Brooke can’t be arsed to do that much additional work.
RMMD — Truck finds out the hard way that “working til I die” isn’t a realistic option. . .
MW: “The only thing you need to do is not laugh when everyone brings up the subject of euthanasia.”
FC: Even Jeffy is like, “Jeebus Crust, Billy! That’s pretty fucking stupid!”
Luann: The last time the Evansii brought in a Karen-straw to
justify actions that would be clearly and reasonably wrong outside the Evansiiversepush the plot along was the mother who complained and got Luannfiredgiven half-time so she had to quit to make ends meet, because shebrought Tara into a classroom unannounced with weapons to a roomful of kidswas promoting “war”.@Weaselboy:
LOL! It’s going to be one hecacre of a Veteran’s Convection!
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi famously lost the tip of his middle finger in an industrial accident, forcing him to finger the fretboard of his guitar with only two fingers. This led to his frequent use of two-fingered power chords, a basic element of heavy metal.
Truck Tyler may want to look into switching genres, is what I’m saying. And since Mud Mountain Murphy seems to be somewhat chameleonic, shifting public personas as needed depending on whether he’s playing a small-town club or a cruise ship, he would be an ideal bandmate in their new metal band, Trucks ‘n’ Poses.
“So send up our drones!”
“Can’t, sir. They have some anti-drone technology.”
“So deploy our anti-anti-drone tech!”
“We tried. They’re using anti-anti-anti-drone fields!”
“Cut though with our anti-anti-anti-anti-drone beams!”
“No dice. They’re anti-anti-anti-anti-anti-drone shields are deflecting our anti-anti-anti-anti-drone beams!”
“The deviousness. OK, can we launch our anti-anti . . . . .”
Six weeks later
“. . . . anti-anti-drone meerkats?”
“‘fraid not. They have anti-meerkat cobras in the field.”
“Of course, but our anti-anti-meerkat-cobra-mongeese can surely handle that!”
“Good thinking, chief!”
MW: Ed’s “contemporaries” are probably young, attractive, female DVMs. Didn’t Ed add a young female vet to the practice some time ago when Nephew Stephen burned out? Whatever happened to her?
@Thelonious_Nick:
I’m a big fan of the Youtube channel “Your Favorite Band Sucks,” which is basically celebrity roasts for rock bands. When they did Black Sabbath, one line that had me rollin’ was (paraphrasing from memory): “Black Sabbath started out as a blues band, but they were so terrible at playing the blues, God took away Tony Iommi’s fingertips to make them stop.” I’m a huge Sabs fan (even named one of my bands Electric Funeral) but that is funny., I’ve heard the early blues stuff and they did indeed suck at it. Thankfully, they soon found their true calling.
DT: “Send Up Our Drones,” the hit eleven o’clock number from the unpublished Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Assault on Tehran.
RMMD: Hey, are you all ready for 6-8 weeks of hard-hitting medical drama about repetitive motion injuries? Too bad, you’re getting it anyway.
@TheDiva: DT comment for COTW.
Send up the drones /
There ought to be drones /
Well maybe next year.
The country guitarist in Rex Morgan comes down with a mild case of alien hand syndrome, a.k.a. Dr. Strangelove syndrome. Instead of hailing the Fuhrer, his hand will merely involuntarily flip the bird to the audience. Ironically, this will anger his fans far more than the Nazi salute would.
The Smifs could very well be toothless zoomers; soda has taken on currency status in some parts of Appalachia due to the fact that you can buy it with food stamps and the coal companies haven’t dumped pollution in it yet.
@Thelonious_Nick: I’ve heard the same joke about Def Leppard’s drummer. Apparently the car accident didn’t prevent him from keeping up with the band’s pace.
(I know that’s terrible, ableist, and Rick Allen actually did a lot of work to be able to perform again. But that’s the joke I heard.)
MW: Things looked to be building in a certain direction and now we’ve gone back to excessively mundane. Sunrise, sunset…
MW: “Veterinary lingo”? Like…”cat,” “dog,” “kennel,” “shot”…??
C’shaft: Protip, Harry: the next time you’re trying to be humble, do it without the self-satisfied face-splitting smirk. It kind of gives the game away.
Dustin: “Thanks, asshole, now let me be more specific: DO-YOU-HAVE-ANY-SUGAR-FREE-OR-DAIRY-FREE-OPTIONS?”
GT: You ever get the feeling these Very Important Episodes are plotted like a random D&D encounter? “Okay, and for the girls we will have (rolls d6) Dorothy struggle with (rolls d20) an eating disorder!”
JP: I see Trey has stopped trying to hold back the Obviously Guilty…
Luann: I actually agree with Straw Grandma here. Yes, Shannon didn’t deliberately hurt anyone and the damage was minor, so flying off the handle or punishing her would be excessive. But she still needs to understand a) the importance of owning and apologizing for the harm you’ve done, even unintentionally and b) what she can do to prevent it from happening again, like waiting to make sure the slide is clear before she takes her turn. But Brad and Toni, with their Designated Hero status, need only project a vague “cool adult” (for certain values of the term) vibe and then pat themselves on the back and say, “We’re such good parents!”
MW: I’ve been to quite a few professional conventions, and they’re usually not something you can decide to pop in on at the last minute, and certainly not something you want to sit through unless you’re really invested in the subject (and sometimes not even then). But how else will we get the “Oh no, Ed and I have different interests! How can this marriage survive?” crisis?
Phantom: I’m a little fuzzy on the protocol here. Is “going to visit the secret colonialist shadow government hidden in the jungle” one of those things your security detail should be informed about, or is that more of a plausible deniability thing?
RexMD: Dupuytren contracture? Wow!! (not making fun of the actual condition, of course…my husband had hand surgery to correct it, bless his heart.) It’s just that I am so unaccustomed to seeing an actual honest-to-goodness medical story in a medical-oriented comic strip…I mean, what’s up with that??
CS: I hate Harry Dinkle possibly even more than I hate Crankshaft.
@TheDiva: Harry Dinkle puts the “ug” in “gug.”
@Professor Well Actually: Don’t worry. Les Moore will be along shortly to put them all in their place.
DT – We be jamming’….
BG&SS – Medi-apathy….
RMMD – Sadly, a lifetime of pinching waitresses asses can lead to Dupuytren’s contracture….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Daisy: Whoa, slow down there, Professor! Some of us didn’t go to four years of vet school to learn all this stuff! (Or, in Estelle’s case, any school period.)
@TheDiva: On Dustin It actually took me awhile to figure out who was who in today’s strip, since some random dude was getting the fatshaming abuse that Ed usually gets, and Dustin is being an asshole to a paying customer like the random service personnel who Ed encounters.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
Phantom: “Certainly not! Put her in the back seat.”
FC: Today’s strip reminded me of how my mom would only buy the green and orange Kool-Aid because she actually thought it was better for us. In reality they’re the blandest of the flavors. When my sister and I were old enough to be trusted with going to the corner store by ourselves we’d pick out the most exotic flavors they had.
Snuffy Smith: The dentures comment is drawing attention to the fact that all the characters in Snuffy Smith look and act like senior citizens regardless of how old they’re actually meant to be, suggesting Hootin’ Holler is – in fact – the subject of some kind of hellish time bubble that makes everyone physically decrepit but incapable of dying. Pretty grim!
Rex Morgan: Oh, God! A threat to roots country music playing! This will get Rex’s immediate and undivided attention, since roots country is the most important thing in the RMMD world. Sorry, patients in need of organ transplants, you’ll just have to wait!
Pluggers: Anthony Burcher, Williamsburg, Virginia. Occupation: Professional Button Gwinnett reenactor.
MW: Dr. Ed yesterday: “Sorry, Stell, I have work on my mind. Animals at the clinic depend on my help. It’s going to be really busy at work this week. Several animals are not doing well!”
Dr. Ed today: “Convention, woo!”
Rubes: A joke to make you think. Or at least to look up what “ANKH” is.
BG&SS – Poor dental care in Hootin’ Holler and junk food being the only thing really sold by Silas guarantees false teeth by the age of 30 for most denizens. They may be Zoomers yet.
Rex Morgan, MD – Mud is going to be trained as a service animal to handle guitar playing for Truck while he can still sing.
HtH: This room is clearly the nobleman’s “man cave.” Portrait of a busty leering redhead; statuette of a prancing nymph with no pants on; and the Viking on the far left is tossing a butt plug into his booty cart.
Zits: Jeremy is entertained by his… Palm Pilot?
love is… crapping down the same hole together.
@Flipper: Pocket Pal….
Phantom: This is a Phantom crossover, right? Not!Jeff Bezos had nothing to do this morning after trolling Not!Elon Musk over the failure of his moon probe so he’s decided to have a drone war with Diet Smith.
RMMD: See I would have guessed that the next Truck Tyler medical issue would be a hive of parasites living in his muttonchops.
JP:. Where is Lucas? Is he ok?
Accidentally posted on yesterday’s area.
BLONDIE:. Is “fleek” a real saying?
CROSS COMIX:. PmP explains why CURTIS dad is aging so fast
JP:. Too much too fast. Has body been identified? Lucas or Dad? Why is suspect allowed to talk and plan alibi with suspect? In gentile Hamptons, will Uncle be allowed to sit in front seat of cruiser, no pre-punishment by police?
6C:. Quit complaining, dish. Spoon lifts your load every chance she gets.
@jroggs: RMMD: What th- hey, Beatty, stop copying me!
Looks like you’re due a writer’s credit.
@Old School Allie Cat: Favorite sign I saw on a visit including several BBQ places in Kansas City: “Need no teef to eat my beef”.
RMMD: No need to get all fancy with our medical theories. The very fine progressive bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice had to quit performing in 2013 after his diagnosis for a painful case of….tennis elbow.
DT: Gotta be Moon People. Fuckin’ Moon People, always swinging their dicks around.
FG: Love the third panel, Dale Arden taking care of business, flat-out hacking that Murder Squad T0rturer into itty-bitty chunks. And her choice of interjection. “Yahh— sorry sorry sorry.”
Bizarro – This kid sees it as boring. For Baja Gaijin, that toy was a traumatic experience that scarred him for life.
Mary Worth – What human being talks like this? Even in the 1800s, when conversation language was more elaborate, human beings didn’t.
Rex Morgan – Whatever is wrong with Truck’s hand, it will be boring.
“Doc, after I get this surgery, will I be able to play the piano?”
Frazz – A third grader reads Carl Hiaasen. Sure.
Crankshaft – Harry Dinkle’s self satisfied smirk makes me think of the word backpfeifengesicht for some reason.
9CL – Speaking of backpfeifengesicht …
@Little Guy: Re JP – The drunk investigator is Detective Yelich. He hasn’t appeared in this story. He could be in rehab again while moonlighting as a private investigator.
@Inspector Gotcha: I second the COTW nomination for the Diva
I’m freaking rich.
Got my own hair.
Set here at last on the ground
Something’s midair.
So send up the drones.
Just when I start
High profit wars
Something so new comes along
To prevent all my scores
So send up the drones–there ought to be drones.
And then they start
Jamming my drones
And a smart-alec girl telling me I can’t keep them at bay
Giving my orders again with my usual flair
Sure of myself
But no one cares
Don’t you love farce?
Thought I could fix this but Tracy will save me, no fear.
Can’t send up the drones
There ought to be drones
Well, maybe next year.
@1 minute agoDetails
“Ah…..the haunting “Send In The Drones” number from Steven Sonheim’s “Dick!-The Dick Tracy :MCUsical- Music to kill people by.
Apologies for oversnarking myself, Spellcheck didn’t like the show apparently. Everyone’s a critic.
@Professor Well Actually: CS: I hate Harry Dinkle possibly even more than I hate Crankshaft.
_________________
I’d love to know where Les Moore and Lillian McCrankshaftneighhbor stand on that hate scale.
Apologies for oversnarking “Send in The Drones”, I should have realized it was so obvious a ref someone else would have said it already.
@UncleJeff: That beats Gene Rayburn’s report of a nudist colony’s bakery named Get Your Buns In Here.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Spanish to English.
Those mean I.O.U. one competent Doctor. Unfortunately Snuff will never be paid off.
@Sequitur: “How do you milk a cow Aunt Loweezy?”
______________
“Keep reusing the same old hillbilly jokes for 100 years, Jughead.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Can I hang my coat in here, Polonio?”
“No… That closet is for Don Abundio’s suits”
“It’s a combination of antique doll clothes and hand-me-downs from ventriloquist dummies”
@astroboy:
#38. RMMD:. Astroboy, sorry about your injury’s keeping you from your love. Athletes have similar injuries stopping their game, as do most people with repetitive movements. I hope you changed to a different instrument or, if you sang, try Acapella.
MW: Unbeknownst to Dr. Ed and Stell, his maniacal car with its slithering window eels has taken control, sealed the windows and locked the doors and is speeding even now, not to the convention, but to Kelrast Kurve and their inevitable demise.
The End.
JUDGE PARKER: How can a story move to slow and too fast at the same time? I guess it’s just that old Judge Parker magic (notably it’s the procedural work that is skipper over. Way to stick to the core mission of this legal-based strip, Ces.)
MANDRAKE:. Rats, the steps belonged to an invisible human and not a bear. This would have been such a better scene with Rex. But the writers were probably over budget.
FG:. Thanks for the reminder to check out this strip. It’s new to me, and I’m already identifying with Dale.
JUMP START:. Poor Peterson, thought he had this promotion snagged. There’s such a shortage of experienced officers, I’m sure Crunchy’s wife can put him on a new beat.
@Old School Allie Cat: The wise hillbilly saves that expensive buckshot for possums and coons. More meat on those boogers.
BG&SS: Others have suggested that the Smiffs could be Zoomers who need dentures; I’d add that even if they don’t actually need them, there’s historical precedent for people in some cultures getting all their teeth pulled before they rot away, since that was the only form of preventative dental care they knew about. I wish I had something to add to this to make it funny, but I don’t! It’s pretty grim!
Crank: Okay, Dinkle is at his absolutely most insufferable, and is evidently going to have his ego enabled all week. I’m out. Someone let me know when this stops. I’ll even take My Pizza With Batty over this.
Curtis: Desiring to bond with his dad, Curtis pretends he has any idea what a cheque is. Of course Curtis only ever tries to bond with his dad in order to ask for money, and he’ll quickly learn that now is absolutely not the time.
FC: Billy, Jeffy is looking at you as if he thinks you’re a moron. Jeffy. Just think about that for a moment.
FG: Does Flash actually recognise these masked goons who’ve mutated into insect creatures since he last saw them as the specific goons he has a grudge against, or does deciding that that’s who they are just make it easier?
GT: Bajaras’s butterfly mind means I honestly can’t tell if the storyline is still “Keri is distracted by something” (hey, write what you know, I guess!) and it hasn’t occured to him that Dorothy’s lines, which are just there for Keri to be distracted from, might be concerning. Or if he really is doing “Dorothy has reached her ideal weight and immediately wants to go to Milford’s cholesterol centre. Let’s talk about something called bulemia, kids!”, Keri’s “um” is because they’ve clocked this, and we’re just going to forget about whatever was happening in yesterday’s strip.
RMMD: The body’s been found! Do we get to see that happen? Of course not, because it’s time for good old Uncle Trey to start ranting about how glad he is that Harold’s dead like it’s the second Saturday of a Dick Tracy Minit Mystery!
Pluggers – Correction: If you have ever spoken to something you dropped on the floor, and then eaten it, you’re plugger.
@Sequitur: Bwahaha!
@Activist: Here’s the definition for “on fleek” provided by Merriam-Webster.
LUANN: Thank you to the Mudges who have eloquently made it unnecessary for me to rant about this idiocy.
Sherman’s Lagoon – The comic strip that dares to speak the truth.
I have the same affliction. Doctor’s call it TRIGGER FINGER!
H&L: Hi watches his kids exhibit their usual level of unnecessary stupidity with feelings of melancholia but later feels better when he reads today’s Family Circus; “and I thought my kids were stupid. I mean, they are but this is another order of magnitude.”
MW:
“I brought a bunch of some pretty excited congers along for the ride, Stell. I hope you won’t think eel of me!”
@taig: I was just thinking the other day about how for a few months people said “on fleek” all the time, but it had totally disappeared years ago. I guess that’s about right for it to be showing up in Blondie now.
JP: HUH??! The body has been located and positively identified in what, half an hour?? I’m here to say it often takes longer than that in a seventy-acre Iowa lake. I doff my battered hat to Hamptons law enforcement, unless Dad’s body was dumped so close to the beach that the top of the head was visibly bobbing up and down on the water surface and Sophie’s near-drowning was actually a joke.
@Hibbleton: Not gonna look. Not gonna look. NOT GONNA LOOK!
@Peanut Gallery: I continue to be happy with SHERMAN’S LAGOON, and am grateful to the Mudges who recommended it. My only “complaint” is that the stories are so short, apparently because Jim Toomey’s brain is still bubbling over with story ideas after thirty years.
@taig:
#111. Taig, wow– not only a real saying but included in Merriam Webster’s. The things we learn on Josh’s blog! You’re on fleek today.
MW: The gravel road in front of my house is currently serving as an informal local detour for a few months, and the traffic and dust are driving me crazy. I mention this because we don’t see much traffic in MW, even though I would have guessed that California urban traffic near the ocean would be kinda heavy. Does Mary, powerful alien passing as human, somehow arrange for her friends and neighbors to not have to deal with traffic, as well as providing muffins and advice?
@Peanut Gallery: @Poteet: It got a smile out of me this morning too. I especially liked how, in the final panel, Herman was able to clench his fins into little fists.
GoComics just sent me a A Comics Crossover You Didn’t Know You Needed.
I have to jowl my guts out when downtrail coffin eyers try to use lingosnips they think heppaweeders are mumblin’ in complipraisin’.
Get some flappin realistiks, Dag!
Hi and Lois: ARGHH! RABIES!
FG: Careful, Flash. Dale is really getting into killing people. Before you know it you’ll have Captain Savarna on your hands.
Blondie: I would like to see this “on fleek” bow tie as well, since judging by Dagwood’s stare it’s being worn by someone off-panel.
I’m not sure, but I think I’m seeing a week-long theme in Zits.
Yeah, yeah, Hammie’s all-boy because he’s a smelly dirtball. Har har.
Insanity Streak: Someone sprayed foam insulation in the guy’s drink.
@Poteet: #122 This might actually make it worthwhile to be an acquaintance of one Mary Worth. Almost.
Quiz of the day.
Guess where Mark is going.
@Poteet: #120
I love “Sherman’s Lagoon” too. It’s one of a very few strips that genuinely make me laugh out loud. Toomey captures the whimsy of these aquatic characters grappling with real-life “human” issues so perfectly. His stories do seem to zip by (literally, as with the stampede of seahorses that ended up with Hawthorne the crab saddling Sherman and yelling ‘giddyup’ as he whirled his lasso in an attempt to corral the little varmints; or – my absolute favorite – when Toomey introduced a couple of tardigrades (“water bears”) and had the Great Kahuna transform them from microscopic size to “life size” and they proceeded to torment everyone in the lagoon with their caustic Don-Rickles insults…I could not stop laughing!)
Anyway, strips like these are a real treasure!
@Bob Tice: #116
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…”THAT’S A MORAY!!!”
*hee hee hee hee* *scampers off*
@LTJpezcore1: HAR!!
@taig: DT: “Then jam the craft that’s jamming our drones!” “Can’t sir. The craft is jamming our jamming devices too.”
We’re jammin’, jammin’, I hope you like jammin’ too!
I refuse to read Don Abundio unless Yum Yum is in it.
If it’s related, adjacent to, or vaguely associated with roots country, it’s on-point for Rex Morgan. I don’t know why, but hey, I don’t make the rules.
@Daisy: Yes!! I loved that mini-stampede! I’ll bet JT could make most of his stories last at least two weeks and never run out of ideas for good strips, but he keeps churning out new themes.
Meanwhile, over at CROCK…
RMMD: If we readers are expected to play a finger-problem guessing game, I demand that Truck turn his hand around and hold it close to the camera so we can see if the palm shows the characteristic changes associated with Dupuytren’s contracture. Which I did look up and clearly it’s no fun, sympathies to those who have it.
I do have trouble ginning up real sympathy for Truck, however. He asked “Muse” for “somethin’ good” and is now unhappy that Muse responded by giving him direct inspiration for a song about what it’s like to have to deal with hand pain. Or post-forty body pains in general. C’mon, Truck, you can do this. The potential audience is huge.
@Ukulele Ike: This is very true. I saw a news story this week about a bald eagle that was found on the ground in Missouri and was thought at first to be injured and was taken to a clinic for diagnosis, and then it turned out the eagle was “too fat to fly” because of feasting on raccoon, probably roadkill. An x-ray showed a raccoon paw in the eagle’s tummy. Some of us, meaning me, can really identify with that eagle. Not the raccoon-eating part, however, we prefer cheesecake.
@Poteet:
#141 RMMD. Post-40 pains– I’ll go with the heartbreak of psoriasis as it rhymes with dis, piss, abyss, hiss. Or with balding with following lyrics on scalding and I guess that’s about it. Or arthritis….
@Sequitur: The only question is, is he going with Toto or with Hall & Oates?
Last week I predicted the police in JP wouldn’t find a body in the surf. Turns out they did, though we didn’t see any of this happen. The fact that we are told — not shown — in a quick narration box suggests to me they did it to spite me.
Yeah, right.
Phooey on you, Slylock Fox, for having as one of the changes one lousy star missing from a sky of dozens. I did find it eventually, but may the mirror in your telescope remain out of focus.
CS: I do not advocate burning books, even if if they’re Harry’s, so how about a compromise? Gather them all and lock them in an abandoned and isolated warehouse. That way they’ll still be available 1,000 years from now and archaeologists can still stumble across them and discover one of the things that brought down this civilization.
@Daisy: I love Sherman’s Lagoon, too. The artwork is the reason I started to follow it – it always makes me smile. The detail Toomey puts into the strip is wonderful – like the schools of fish. It’s nice to read a strip that causes a smile instead of wanting to slap all of the characters.
@Ukulele Ike: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s finest moment.
@Peanut Gallery: I’d prefer if he went with Weezer.
@taig: I like the way that video parodies the pretend-playing in music videos!
@Peanut Gallery: I do too! Also, when you invite Weird Al to guest on the video, how can you not include a parody element?
@144 Peanut Gallery:
It’s possible that Africa’s answer is NO!
@Sequitur:
#151. THANK YOU, SEQ. Don’t get me started but just to say the cultures of African nations do not exist for naive Western romanticism nor has colonial robbery stopped (search Congo and cobalt, for example)
@Cleveland Mocks: Genius!
@Daisy: Crikey! As Jeff Corwin would have said….
JP This will wrap up with: “I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.”
Blondie: Alexander can hardly pass for a teen anymore but “on fleek” is practically prehistoric so it all balances out.
C-Shaft: Never mind Harry Dinkle not showing. Lillian’s real problem is that she’s trying to set up an author signing for Fahrenheit 451 and nobody has been able to get in touch with this Bradbury fellow.
Dustin: Freudian displacement alert: Dustin is going to lose this job because he instinctively lashes out at paunchy middle aged men in a way that he won’t let himself do with his dad.
GA: Gasoline Alley has long been known for highlighting a certain nostalgic view of small town American life. Of course “nostalgic” implies something that at least resembles an idealized version of the past, and if there was a time when cat food brands made hourlong infomercials with $10 million worth of animatronic work, I’m not aware of it.
JP: “Why do you always have to answer a question with another question. WHY?”
“When did you get so picky about my speech patterns?”
Luann: Well you can’t have tunnel bumpers roaming around free so the short version is that Bwad and Toni will have to have Shannon put down, but don’t worry, they’ll still try for that baby of their own.
Phantom: The Deep Woods of 21 Phantoms…Ask for it by name.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: On Blondie In subsequent strips, Alexander will acquaint Dagwood with more teenage lingo, such as “groovy”, “23 skidoo”, and “I love my wife, but oh, you kid.”
@Rube: That’s the bee’s knees!
@157 Rube:
Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)
@Poteet: Raccoon paw is the best part of raccoon. Like chicken wings are the best part of chicken.
@Ukulele Ike: They’re a dream come true…three, actually….
@Sequitur: t seems Truck may be giving Dr. Morgan the finger
______
Jerry Seinfeld would be more impressed if he gave him the toe.
@taig: I….don’t get it. This was a mediocre (though bestselling) pop song by Toto. Did a huge bunch of people cover it with identical versions? Where is the comedy element from Weird Al, aside from playing it on the accordion, which has been anointed an acceptable pop music element since Clifton Chenier and They Might Be Giants? Is my world crumbling?
@Ukulele Ike: Raccoon paw is the best part of raccoon.
_
How do you expect him to grant your wish it you eat his paw?
The best part of waking up is raccoon paw in your cup.
@Ukulele Ike: Raccoon paw is the best part of raccoon.
___________:____________
Tanukis tend to favor another body part.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: if there was a time when cat food brands made hourlong infomercials with $10 million worth of animatronic work, I’m not aware of it.
________________________
Wasn’t the Purina™ Cat Chow lady a life size puppet like on “D.C. Follies”?
@astroboy: I refuse to read Don Abundio unless Yum Yum is in it.
_________________
“Yum Yum” is Spanish for Cassandra Cat?
@jroggs: At least, mention lingonberries.
@168 Ecce scudder:
Ah, Monsieur Scudder. These people have a message for you.
@Rube: And for more tense situations, “A pox on you, sirrah!”
@Sequitur: 169
But is it Federated Lard?
@171 Avoiding the Madding Crowd:
It is if you want it to be.
@Mikey: That’s a very different thing, you A/H. Don’t make light of peoples’ medical issues, or Santa will put you on the naughty list.