Menace decay, and not Dennis this time
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Curtis, 9/19/24
Derrick and Onion are canonically the bullies in Curtis, but their game has been slipping for a long time. Way back in ’06 they were hard-core car thieves, but their malfeasance dwindled into vaguely threatening confrontations in school hallways accompanied by labored “Yo Mama” insults. Onion lost his trademark (“Onion”) quotation marks around 2016 and honestly hasn’t been entirely himself since. Tuesday we learned his given name is Norman, which doesn’t carry quite the same panache.
Now Derrick and Onion are in Mrs. Nelson’s class along with Curtis, assaulting the poor woman with flowers, candy, and honeyed words. Is this a redemption story, in which the two Learn the Error of Their Ways? A Josh-infuriating trauma plot, with a Big Reveal about the characters’ Painful Past that Explains Everything? A long con, as Curtis suspects? Or, intriguingly, one of those postmodern reframings of evidence that was right before our eyes the whole time, revealing Curtis as the real bully? I bet Curtis’s brother Barry would like to weigh in on that last one.
Dennis the Menace, 9/19/24
Oh, speak of the devil low-ranking demon, here he is with his familiar, Hot Dog. Wikipedia correctly pegs Hot Dog as “rarely seen.” He doesn’t have the personality of the Mitchell’s dog Ruff, and mostly just sits there in a lump with a smug expression on his face. So how would Mr. Wilson know he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do? Maybe he just assumes that about cats, based on his observations of Heathcliff and Garfield.
Gasoline Alley, 9/19/24
What I love about Gasoline Alley is Jim Scancarelli’s art: the guy’s an old-school natural, and so long as he doesn’t try to get all photorealistic on us, there’s an easy elegance to his work that takes me back to when newspaper comics were a Big Deal and worthy of craft (cf. L’il Abner, Out Our Way, Pogo, Steve Canyon, many more). And it’s charming when Scancarelli gets locked in on something he clearly wants to draw, like a locomotive or today’s World’s Most Adorable Water Heater. Just look at that thing: lovingly rendered hot and cold water lines (copper, no PEX for 18″ ’cause it’s gas), corrugated vent duct shared with the chimney flue no backdrafting here no siree, igniter access panel, overflow pipe, inspection tag, for Pete’s sake! There’s even an International Residential Code-compliant stand to protect against ignition of flammable vapors. But what does that sucker hold, maybe two quarts?
It almost makes up for the cutesy animals and Joel’s lame pun.
Baby Blues, 9/19/24
Zoe turns the tables on the old “just wait ’til you have kids” trope: sour grapes for Wanda!
Crankshaft, 9/19/24
Crankshaft joins Arctic Circle in the Ain’t-It-Awful Hall of Fame.
—Uncle Lumpy
114 replies to “Menace decay, and not Dennis this time”
CURTIS:. As I remember, Curtis, via Barry, did a solid for these two a little while ago by giving them an assigned paper. Is being transferred to Ms. Nelson’s class a promotion or a demotion?
RHYMES with Orange:. What with all the cats, glad to see someone remembers the fish stars though they look more like props.
GA:. Speaking of props, Sid earlier said Me-Meow was just an altered mimeographed copy of a cat. But what about these kittens, which look more like week-olds rather than day-olds?
Newborn naked kits are cute only in their mothers eyes, though I loved them, to me they look like baby rats. The pics shown yesterday and today are credible for older kittens yet to open their eyes. Are babies this age allowed to work, or are they too just paper and glue?
FC-Claire also looks like a middle aged woman.
MW-Mary Worth only allows one vet in town and it’s Ed.
RMMD-But, Truck, Corey has no friends. His last friend died due to a medical oopsie. That must have been a ghost you were talking to.
CVS candy? I thought CVS was where Pluggers went to buy left over cheap candy the day after Easter and Halloween.
I may have to go out and buy a physical newspaper with Crankshaft just so I can burn it.
Curtis — No Menace 2 Society: The Clockwork Orange sequel you didn’t know you needed!
Baby Blues : usually, when I see dialogue that’s not in a speech bubble like this, I assume it was added by the editor “in post”, to add dialogue necessary for clarity and understanding. Mom saying “wow! how interesting! tell me more!” sure was necessary to understand what is going on in this strip!
VS DUSTIN : Meanwhile, this strip has to add this kind of aside in the first panel to justify why Dustin and his dad are eating an entire pizza while “watching the game”.
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Between Friends : speaking of editorial additions, I wonder if the female coworker sitting next to Maeve was one, because someone realised that if the entire office was dudes except for her, it further highlights the “Louise was right, Maeve was hired just to date the entire office” point?
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Crankshaft : …well, the last time this strip* did the “character smugly pontificates about the folly of man over a still smoking crater” bit, it was Les Moore refusing to console Cindy over the ashes of her house, so it’s at least an improvement because a) the victim’s home and belongings are wholly intact**; b) it’s not LES MOORE doing it
*Actually, it was in Funky Winkerbean, but they’re now basically the same strip, huh?
**There’s something to “the fire was just a lit puddle of gasoline in front of the steps that didn’t actually threaten the books or bookstore”…
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Frazz : from Caufield’s smug look, by “everything I do is important”, he means “I’M THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE” rather that “The assignments Mrs Olsen gives me are important, I should probably actually DO one for once”. Frazz, of course, praises Caufield for choosing the most self-serving (and procrastination-encouraging) interpretation.
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Gasoline Alley : “photorealistic” is a weird word to put under a comic strip that draws a cat as if it was a muppet/person in a costume, and her kittens as if they were gerbils.
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Mark Trail : throws the useful documents out the window immediately after finding them, blames it on the wind.
…It’s not just me, right? That’s what the art makes it look like?
MW: NO, she can’t call another vet! Look at that zealous glow on Ed’s face. He’s gonna be a HERO!
CRANK: Doesn’t Lilian write like, “cozy” mysteries, or something? I mean, I dislike them, but certainly not to the point of arson.
You know burning down a bookstore isn’t even the same thing as “burning books,” right? You do not have fascists piling gender science studies literature on the ground and setting fire to it in order to destroy knowledge that disagrees with ethnonationalist philosophy, you have a building that caught fire for unknown reasons that had books in it. It’s like wherever Les Moore goes, and I’m thinking of Les’ world famous book about his feelings about his wife’s death by cancer here, there follows events which “can” be described as universally recognizable pathos but only if you squint and look at Les as the main character of the universe.
yCurtis: One of the bullies is sitting in Chutney’s usual seat. They do know she has and will kick their ass, right?
CS: You got to give Batty credit. You don’t see the spectral figure of Blessed St. Lisa protecting the store, or kicking the arsonist’s ass.
Anyone else who wants a twist to piss on strip canon: we find out the arsonist is Blessed St. Lisa, alive and cured. She’s burning books for…. reasons.
MT: Okay, Jules, you’re just in Evansii/Batty territory.
BB: One might say that Zoe has some parental resentment but it’s likely she won’t ever make it to middle school. Interpret that however you will.
CS: An act of well deserved karma happens and everyone responds with sarcasm and apathy. More places need to burn down.
MW: No, she can’t go to another vet because if Dr. See is to be believed, not a single one of them gives a fuck after working hours and are probably getting plastered at the bar until it’s karaoke time. Because obviously Moy needed to find a flaw and she chose one that ironically makes Ed even more sympathetic than ever and outs our “heroine” Estelle as a self centered bitch.
WHERE are “Onion”‘s quotation marks? Is nothing sacred?
Oh that’s in the post. Can’t expect me to be up on something as recent as 2016!
FW: Incoming message! Surely, the Pulitzer Prize committee will take seriously a moral delivered in the style of a cheesy 50’s sci-fi movie.
DtM: Dammit, Dennis! Hot Dog is trying to have her kittens without you bothering her!
@matt w:
It was sometime between 2008 and 2016. “Rap” music held on a little longer IIRC.
DtM: Based on how Dennis is holding Hot Dog, he’s about to get his nuts shredded.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver: Can’t Truck just come out and ask Wanda for a hand job? She’s a grown woman; I’m sure she’s given plenty, many of them under the table in the restaurant.
Frazz: Procrastination is not a virtue, Caulfield. Thanks to some neurodivergence, I procrastinate, but it’s not something I go around bragging to people about.
Luann: Stop pretending Gunther would be capable of doing anything other than running to Mommy in this situation! FFS!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Sir! This is Rex Morgan we’re talking about. Handies in diners are strictly 9 Chickweed Lane territory!
MW: To further complicate matters, Ed’s own dog is father to the puppies.
“Oh Ed, how could you?”
CS: The ’Shaft gang throw themselves into a flailing frenzy of clumsy moral grandstanding as they gaze at the lingering smoke and wonder where Lillian’s house ran off to. Meanwhile, the fire department scarpers and no one examines the crime scene because Tom Batiuk is too busy worrying about the negligible air pollution caused specifically by infrequent book fires to research how arson investigation works. Come on, Tom, why fuss about trivial environmental damage when book-smoke lung cancer was right there for you?
Luann: Typical foolish Les. Googling how to diagnose and fix a running commode inevitably results in wacky advice involving garden hoses, safety goggles, and two-liters of Diet Coke, while people who go to college learn the right way when they take the mandatory freshman Toilet Troubleshooting 101 class. Well, most college students take it. I got kicked out on the first day because I kept giggling at the word “ballcock.”
DT: Remember the last time an unidentified aircraft showed up above Diet Smith’s compound and it resulted in an emergency with Diet being escorted to his bunker while his security team waged electronic warfare with the UFO? Well, now alien warships can just land freely on Diet’s tarmac and no one even bothers to call him and let him know, because… uh… because the last time it turned out to be an extremely dangerous and untrustworthy enemy, so logically the next person who does it should be nice…?
JP: How far away does Declanmom live that Neddy and Ronnie not only bought snacks for the road but still have to pull over for meals? They’re seemingly planning to drive for hours just for a conversation that could last only a few minutes, all because Neddy didn’t want to ask for Declanmom’s side of the story over the phone or be without her increasingly recalcitrant sidekick next to her as a safety blankie.
MW: “But Estelle, Mitzi Fitz is doing the splits with dilated lady bits and her owner’s throwing snits because she’s a bit of a ditz and she can’t call any other gits because her internet’s on the fritz!”
“Damn it, Ed, I’m at the end of my wits and I don’t give two shits! I’ve had enough, you and I are quits!”
“Aw, man… this is the pits.”
I like to think I’m a typical Mudge. I got introduced to this fine site about eight years ago, so that’s about how long I’ve been reading Judge Parker. Yet I still never have a clue about what’s going on. Does that make me a typical Mudge?
MW: It’s an honest question, but, unfortunately, I’m sure it’s delivered by shriek.
FC: Did Dolly…bring Claire’s mommy with her? Maybe Claire’s mommy should drive Dolly to the ER to get that knee looked at.
And while you’re at it, can you show me your mammaries? (Sorry, I couldn’t think of a word that continues the rhyme theme there.)
CS: Ed, who has never read a book in his life, can’t figure out what all the fuss is about.
Meanwhile, Jeff and Mindy joust in an effort to out-sanctimony each other, but since no one believes that Jeff actually knows what he just said, Mindy wins by default.
Frazz: It’s hard, really, to gauge the importance of following around the janitor all day.
MW: “Can’t she call another vet??? ANOTHER VET??? Don’t you know who I am? I am THE vet, the ONLY vet who matters in this burg! Don’t you understand that I’m INDISPENSABLE? Why do you hate animals? Look, you go ahead with your little party, and I’ll try to catch up later. I’ve got LIVES TO SAVE, DAMMIT!”
As a constant connoisseur of Archie Comics, Dennis’s pet named “Hot Dog” confused me. And for a brief minute I had to remember which comic I was reading.
Also doesn’t help that both Ruff and Jughead’s Hot Dog are big, white and shaggy.
RMMD: Spend any time in an emergency room and you’ll see that a majority of patients are elderly folks who have taken nasty falls with serious injuries whose biggest concern is being such a bother to their caregivers —which is why, in a sane world, Wanda’s response to Truck’s whining would be a swift kick in the ass.
MW – But wait, we just learned that Dr. See and Dr. Ed have been helping each other out for years, and she can’t help him out this time? Inconsistency, thy name is Moy.
Curtis: We did find out Greg’s backstory on stinginess was a lie.
Luann: You need college to fix a toilet?
So, is the toilet clogged or just running? Because even dropouts can hear water running from the talk and open it up by lifting the (somewhat heavy and breakable if dropped, funny) lid and checking.
I’ve read most of the Tiffany Ambition Plans Gone Asunder, even those that the Evansii hamfisted a conclusion just to make Tiffany fail because Cheerleader Wouldn’t Go To Prom, but this takes it to a whole new level. Even the early Brad Can’t Fix It Shit stories pale.
Holy crap, Dennis the Menace confused the heck out of me today. Jughead’s dog’s name is also Hot Dog, who bears bit of a resemblance to Ruff, Dennis’ dog, so what did this orange cat have to do with anything and where is the big white-furred mutt they’re talking about?
Making the readers question their hold on reality?
Menace level: 9
@The Rambling Otter: I’m glad to see it wasn’t just me.
@jroggs: RE: Luann: Unfortunately when Gunther comes back, it’ll turns out he only took Toilet Troubleshooting Theory at Moony U., and doesn’t know how to fix the commode either. (But if you need someone to write a 35-page essay on the ethics of toilet paper placement then…well Gunther wouldn’t help there either because all the characters in this universe are whopping morons.)
FC-the rest of the story: “Do you want to see Claire’s tattoo with her mommy’s name on it, Mommy?”
MW: “OH YEAH??? WELL IF YOU THINK MS. FITZ IS HYSTERICAL, YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!! NOW YOU TURN THAT CAR AROUND RIGHT . . . [bloop]
Maybe Mr. Wilson is just assuming that about cats based on his observations of *every goddamned cat*.
I for one would read many unexplained Curtis panels unfolding below the Better Call Saul theme. But only if led into unspeakable violence.
Gasoline Alley: Speaking of unspeakable violence, as one does, you don’t suppose we could get Jim Scanarelli locked in on depicting Mee-Meow shredding some rubes, do you?
CSA: Wow — Ed’s so devastated he can’t even get out a malapropism or a “This burns me up” pun.
FC: HTT Grandma is thinking, “Hmph. If Claire’s mommy wants to tart her girl up like a common streetwalker that’s her problem. Mark my words, Dolly, she’ll be paying the piper soon enough.”
Curtis: You know Onion shoplifted that Whitman’s Sampler from the CVS, right?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Then you’ll be reading Judge Parker as Ces Marciuliano wrote it!
Shaft – If the mob’s target is Lisa’s Story, this would be an act of environmental remediation.
RMMD: “You know what else, Wanda? We need to get YOU to a hairdresser. Good God, that beehive is hideous.”
Dustin: Yeah, because it’s completely normal to wait until nighttime to clean gutters. Hell, even Crankshaft knows better than that.
DT: It’s good to see the Moon Governor got all dressed up for this diplomatic occasion. At least he put on a clean tee shirt — an hour ago he was watching “Gilligan’s Island” Earth transmissions and wiping his Giant Moon Slug-flavored Doritos hands on the ratty old Led Zeppelin wifebeater he had on.
Side note: Hey, Guv? You ever hear the wise old adage “The only man who ever looked good in pleated trousers was Cary Grant?” Words to live by, dude.
Curtis – “Derrick and Onion? In my class?”
It’s more likely than you’d think.
(“CVS candy”? Is that considered the equivalent of overpriced Lady Godiva chocolates in impoverished inner city neighborhoods?)
GA – That’s the most perfunctory pun I’ve ever seen. No setup, no context. Looks like it was squeezed in at the last minute to fulfill some sort of contractual obligation.
FW – Au contraire! I’m helping both society and the environment this winter by heating my home entirely with copies of Lisa’s Story.
Don Abundio, translated:
“This car phone really keeps me occupied on long trips!”
“That’s right, boss”
“This way you’re not always telling me to turn left, turn right, watch out for that…”
“Hello! George’s Towing? I’ve had an incident of distracted backseat driving…”
GA: I’m sorry to have to disagree with Uncle Lumpy, admired and esteemed Keeper of the CC Flame when Josh is absent. (Thank you, U.L.!) But I have to say it. Those kittens are not “cutesy.” As a follower of GA, I have seen definitely-cute cats in the past, usually hanging around with Rufus for some weird reason. And these days, even Mee-Meow has her moments. Those kittens, however, seem to be the result of feline pity-sex with a decidedly-unhandsome tomcat. But don’t worry, kittens! You’ll probably look better when you get older! In fact, you’d almost have to! And if it turns out that you definitely take after your dad as adults, you can get by on your great personalities.
MW. So, Ed was a workaholic before Estelle went to work at his office, stopped being one from then to the point of the engagement and is back to being one after they got engaged. In the hands of a
more talentedwriter, this storyline could be an interesting examination of someone who has commitment issues and why. Here, it’s going to be basically the same storyline (Ed is overworked) as last time, with an abrupt dénouement of some sort then the exact same storyline two years from now when we learn Ed still hasn’t resolved this issue.Among all the stupidities of this Crankshaft storyline, somehow the one that hits me the most is that everyone seems to think that books are distributed only through bookstores, as if Amazon/Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo didn’t exist.
Back in ’06
things was so hard core
roughin’ up Curtis in the hallway
but always lookin’ for more
remember when we stole the police cruiser?
chillin’ in the bucket seats, me and “Onion”
drove it on down to Broadway
like we was Damon Runyon
@astroboy: Dr. See pretty much established herself as the type of doctor who can only care about her patients for so long because how dare those filthy mongrels interrupt her “me time.”
@Her Father, John Darling: Moy is making a huge stretch to try and make Ed unappealing but even then he’s still miles ahead of those Charterstone sociopaths who only care about themselves and how everyone else should cater to them.
Crankshaft-Ya hear that, Ed? You’re arsonist ways is ruining the enviroment.
GT: “Sure, kid. Why attend in the school district where you live? We have loads of players sleeping on friends’ couches & giving false home addresses. Just don’t tell the principal or the school board.” *wink*
@Pozzo, CS: Last time he did, he was reacting to the Apollo 1 disaster.
CRANKSHAFT: Number me among those who are most annoyed by the idea that setting everything on fire is only hilarious when Ed Crankshaft does it.
Slylock: In a massive case of hysterical blindness, no one notices that today’s strip features Max giving Slylock a handjob right out in the open.
CS: More evidence that nothing worth thinking about has ever followed the phrase “If you think about it…”
MW: I’m torn here because let’s face it, Ed is a DOCTOR — don’t care if it’s animal doctor or people doctor — and sometimes emergencies arise in that profession that have to be dealt with.
That being said…if a HUMAN doctor was indisposed for some reason, they would call another doctor. Other than lack of availability I have to admit that I’m a little bit with Stelle in that I wonder why this old bat couldn’t call another doctor for her hussy of a dog that got knocked up in a back alley somewhere….
Long story short (TOO LATE) I’m left once again without a lot of clarity in my feelings on a Mary Worth story line, so it does appear to be another day ending in Y
Crank: Today we see Ed thinking: “Next time, I should start the fire inside the garage, instead of on the steps. I’ll drive Lillian out of the neighborhood yet!”
MW: Is there any particular reason that a vet has to attend the birth of a litter of puppies, much less make a house call to do it? I just have to wonder: has Karen Moy ever owned a dog, or a pet of any sort?
CS: What if we had a book burning, and nobody burned any books?
When did Curtis change his chunky ol’ 1970s trucker cap for a skullcap? Why does Curtis keep a slice of vidalia onion behind his ear?
MW: Not to be insensitive, but what do you even do for premature puppies? Is there an animal NICU?
@Lauralot: Human preemies go into incubators. Doggie preemies have the vet play an electric hair dryer over them for a couple of weeks. Dr. Ed’s schedule is going to be very full.
Curtis – Curtis is a 35 year-old comic, and over time even comics that are supposed to feature bad characters mellow out with their creator ages. Early Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, and even Family Circus were edgier at their starts. Only in rare cases (Nancy, and Henry Barajas’ Gil Thorp) does a long-running strip get its edge back with new blood. most of the time it’s just a newbie brought on to keep the ship of IP steady.
Dennis the Menace – Hot Dog is straight up mugging for the viewer. Perhaps a new Dennis the Menace movie or TV show is in the works, and he is finally motivated to come out and be part of the action. It’s not like anyone under the age of 40 knows the lore of Dennis. The merchandising royalties alone will keep him hopped up on catnip for the rest of his nine lives.
Gasoline Alley – Jim Scancarelli grew up in the age where professional illustrations were still common in advertising, catalogs, and technical manuals. I am sure while other boys were nicking their father’s Playboys, he was lovingly looking over his father’s collection of hardware catalogs and dreaming of drawing for Sears one day. But photography, especially color, took away that style of art, and only simple drawing were needed for technical work. Comics were the backup plan, and while the humor never quite works, he does get to occasionally return to the type of drawings that inspired him as a young artist.
Baby Blues – Thanks to comic time, Wanda is a Millennial, so it’s only appropriate that after her parent’s generation burdened her with debt and had her work unpaid internships as a requirement to earn the right to paid work, she is then expected to serve as unpaid labor for their children growing up (See: JD Vance’s call for grandparents to serve as free day care)
Crankshaft – When not serving up bad puns, Crankshaft characters speak in inane Facebook comments of people who think their trite parroting of the consensus opinion is deeply profound.
@LTJpezcore1: Personally I think Moy is trying too hard to come up with a flaw for Ed since her well ran dry ages ago with her “heroes” in Charterstone so all she could come up with is “works too much” because just about everyone in this comic has a ridiculous amount of free time.
@Doc Wonmug, Curtis: It got swapped out years ago as a present received from Chutney.
@Rube: They’ve all been burned down off-panel.
Curtis – I’m sorry, why are Derrick and Onion even going to school? For the free meals?
Pre-Covid, twenty or so kids from the local high school would cut class to get stoned in the local park.
Post-Covid, at least 80 to 100 of them head to local bus stops, including one directly in front of the school, and head to shopping centers or parts unknown for most of the day. Or find a secluded spot to get friendly with their boyfriend/girlfriend.
When do Derrick and Onion age out of free, mandatory school?
@Rube: Yeah, as a fan of the Redwall fantasy novels growing up, I spent much of my childhood looking for the audiobooks (I have three) but it wasn’t until just recently that I discovered that all of them (as far as I know) are on Spotify.
Although only in specific countries, as my Filipino friend couldn’t access them on his spotify, which sucks.
CS: Lillian’s wearing a coat over her nightgown, while the others are still fully dressed. The arsonist is obviously someone who knows Lillian calls it a day right after Wheel of Fortune.
Curtis: Curtis’ mouth is disappearing in the last panel Matrix-style! How will he make bad puns when he has no mouth with which to speak?
Gasoline Alley: How the hell did Mee-Meow even get pregnant? She’s an inside cat as far as I can tell and I can’t recall any signs that there’s any male stray cats around the house. Do the writers think that cats reproduce through parthenogenesis.
Baby Blues: Zoe glowers as she takes her bite, already formulating a plot to kill her daughter before she can assume control of the social order.
Crankshaft: Check out Crankshaft’s expression here; dude is fucking miserable and it’s no wonder, considering he’s being hijacked out of his own comic by the moralizing dickweeds from Funky Winkerbean. He’s probably remembering the days when he got to tell jokes about being the world’s worst bus driver rather than just standing in the background while Batiuk’s mouthpieces blabber out “hot takes” cribbed from the news or occasionally Twitter.
MW – Stell doesn’t have a life, so Ed seems perfect for her. He keeps her busy.
My vet doesn’t see people on weekends. They list some 24/7 emergency vet services on their phone answering machine so you have someone to contact if needed, and leave it at that.
But we’re building up to Stell finally having a crisis and deciding she can’t do this. That’ll probably take another month or two, unless Mary steps in and saves the day.
Zzzzz…
Is Baby Blues a comic, where they will continue aging, like FOOB?
Or do the kids just freeze in time once they reach a certain point?
Fred Basset Spanish to English,
@73 The Rambling Otter:
Yes and No.
The strip started in 1990 with the birth of Zoe, the eldest child. They aged Zoe a bit and then Hamish [Hammie) was born and we still had a baby. Then Hammie aged and Wren was born. The strip is kind of frozen for several years with the current situation; Zoe being age 10, Hammie age 7 and Wren the baby,
Had they aged in real time Zoe would be 34 years old now.
@Philip:
I have a soft spot for all those old “industrial artists” who started out in catalog illustration: Scancarelli, Al Scaduto, Joe Giella, lots more. They just sat down at their drafting tables and did the damn job.
love is… wanting all the lubrication you can get!
@Needless Exposition: This is actually a perfectly reasonable explanation though it does send me down a rabbit hole of Office Space GIFs and the Bobs and “What exactly would you say you do here”
At least we know what that is with Ed
Pickles: Life imitates life.
@Sequitur:
Turtle Carl would also like a word.
@80 Uncle Lumpy:
Do you find him in that situation often?
@Sequitur:
He drinks a little too much.
@Doc Wonmug: After he read a YA biography of Sammy Davis, Jr., Curtis embraced Orthodox Judaism.
You ever walk into a burger joint and they tell you the onion man hasn’t yet made the daily delivery? Like myself, Curtis has sworn always to be prepared against that grim eventuality.
LUANN – Classic case of just jiggle the handle so the chain is no longer stuck under the stopper, allowing it to leak.
@82 Uncle Lumpy:
If Sid knew that he wouldn’t keep trying to steal him away from you.
CS: Is this perhaps one of the most smugly self-righteous strips in the Funkiverse canon? There’s some stiff competition there.
Come on, Arlo and Janis! Make an effing decision!
Okay, enough with this corn maze nonsense. And can we get “early Halloween kid” over with sooner than later? * eye roll *
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
Could also be crusty hard-water buildup under the flap, rusty hinge pin, or the flap slipped off one end of its mount. Plenty of good, cheap options available.
[Modbot detects commercial link; bans me for life.]
I was watching Court Cam, one trial involved a man from a city called Centerville, who while driving drunk ran over someone’s mailbox.
Sadly it was not Crankshaft.
DtM – Springfield edition.
Crankshaft-Moral of the story burning books is bad because it’s bad for the enviroment.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Then we burn hot dogs.
@Activist: re GA: Yes, you are correct that Mee-Meow is NOT a real Cat but a creation of the Gasoline Alley sophisticated mimeograph imaging technology. As for the Kittens, they are probably a MGI product, too… though it’s not clear what the source image was.
But in fact, even if we were supplying the talent here, those still wouldn’t be REAL Kittens. We’ve long had a policy of not workin’ with juvenile actors – the regulations and paperwork are unbelievable! Instead we draw from my Intern’s vast and varied collection of Beanie Babies, which he has accumulated through countless thrift store and yard sale expeditions. Occasionally we’ve made an exception if a Mom wants to bring her own kid to work, but that’s rare, and she has to sign a waiver.
Gasoline Alley-And how many of those kittens is the cat going to eat?
Luann – Does this storyline make Les a Plugger?
I know I’m not the first to make this obvious joke – maybe I’ll be the last?
The
The.
@The: Gettin’ your period, huh?
@The: Playing the Palace Theatre Oct.27
@Uncle Lumpy: “He [Turtle Carl] drinks a little too much.”
I KNEW somethin’ was goin’ on there!! This explains why Uncle Lumpy keeps Carl under wraps most of the year and monitors his contacts! That Turtle’s life is so troubled that he gets rolling-over DRUNK! He needs help, bad, and it’s up to us to do it! Intern, contact TPS, stat! And while Uncle Lumpy is tied up at CC Central Command, we need to recon the site and draw up a plan for a daring rescue!! Yes, we’ll probably need helicopters, as well as a ground force…. Huh? … yeah, better make that a SEAL team.. Oh, do you have any idea where he is?…
@Liam:
#96. GA:. Exactly what ive been rhinking, Liam! Make a new mother cat nervous by activity with or around her newborns, then like a new mother rabbit she will eat her kids.
Move the family now, and those kits are lunch.
Life is not Disney.
@ectojazzmage: Curtis: I have no mouth and I must scream.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
Trust me you do not want to send marine mammals in after Carl. Frankly, I’m hoping that when Carla’s eggs hatch Carl’s paternal instincts will help him find the strength to get sober. Although he’s never been good in the clutch.
Do you have any information about why Comics Kingdom has removed comments from all of its comics (at least the several I see)?
@Boise Ed: Comic strips listed as “Political” have had their comments sections removed, but other comic strips still have their comments. It doesn’t stop people from fighting in Non Sequitur, for example, which likes to jump into political waters.
@matt w: WHERE are “Onion”‘s quotation marks? Is nothing sacred?
______________________
Margo confiscated them.
@105 Boise Ed:
I just checked Mary Worth and it had 66 comments. When you press the COMMENTS button it is now a pop up.
AC: Quotewatch, surprise weekday edition. Honestly, the idea Andy has read a book called Revealing You: Strategies and Tools for the Goal-Oriented Teen raises all sorts of questions I’m not sure we’re ready to face the answers to.
Crank: Since, as always, researching whether a dumb platitude is factually correct is less mental strain than attempting to grapple with whatever Batty thinks he’s saying with it, let’s consider Jeff’s pontification here! Well, it depends on your definition of books, but if we go back to the invention of writing in the third millennium BC, yes, the earliest Sumerian texts were regularly put to the flame! Of course, they were clay tablets, so this was how the Sumerians preserved them, but that’s just details.
If instead we define a book as “a wodge of paper or similar material”, papyrus scrolls were developed in 2400 BC in Egypt. In Western history, burning a book because you disagree with it seems to start in Classical times with rival philosophers, and really gets going with the establishment of monotheistic religions crying heresy. All of which is long after the Egyptians developed papyrus. (The Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered Confucian texts to be burned in the 2nd century, which is around the same timeframe, although it was only a century after they invented the mulberry-paper butterfly-book.)
Books as we know them today, a series of paper sheets bound at one side and put in a cover, were also developed in the 2nd century. This definition makes Jeff’s comment more accurate, but also more trite, since people were already burning things that might as well be books before that. The invention of the book, by that definition, simply changed the format of what they were burning.
I suspect what Jeff’s thinking of is the Library of Alexandria, of course, where 40,000 scrolls were burned by Julius Caesar’s forces in 48 BC. But not only is that still long after the invention of the scroll, the Roman Geezer wasn’t even targeting the library! He was just trying to set fire to Ptolemy’s ships, and it got out of hand. This isn’t an example of book-burning, it’s an example of books being collateral damage because they’re flammable. And I’m sure there are examples of this going back to Ancient Egypt that weren’t recorded because they weren’t as significant as Alexandria, but does that really tell us anything about deliberate book-burning?
(TL;DR: This is stupid, and I hate it.)
DT: Yes, well done Mysta, really making the most of those mysterious Lunarian senses like “vision”.
Heath: Did … did the little mechanical Heathcliff eat the little mechanical cuckoo? Is that the scenario we’re being forced to contemplate here?
JP: Ronnie very nearly takes a bite of pancake, then gets distracted. I’m starting to think we’ll never learn if they’re the fluffiest or not.
OTF: Okay, so they advertise job vacancies that don’t exist, but make sure nobody can apply for them anyway. Because … telling applicants they were unsuccessful would be more dishonest?
RMMD: Ah, the most thrilling part of a Rex Morgan story; the part where a character badly summarises a week of strips where nothing actually happened. Sometimes it takes as long as it took to not happen!
S4th: If I were Francesco Marciuliano, I’m not sure I’d actually do an “it turns out the comic’s script wasn’t going anywhere and the characters are left lost and aimless” bit, even in my other strip.
@taig: Oops. I was talking about GoComics. Derp.
@Horace Broon: re: JP: Ronnie! Take small, ladylike bites. Unless Kat was initially attracted by your lusty sense of sensuality and gusto for life.
(Nah — it was the Boobs.)
@Boise Ed:
Sadly ‘Luann’ still has it’s comments.
FC: Special guest appearance by Peppermint Patty, before she started dating Marcie.
FC: Psst, Dolly. Is your gaydar not working today?
FC: Mommy, Claire even has a punch hole in her..uh, what’s a labia again?
@Uncle Lumpy: Oh… Hi, Uncle Lumpy! Didn’t see you standing there… I’m really glad to hear that Carl is getting your attention and support for his alcohol problem. You know we’ll all be pullin’ for him! And our best wishes to Carla in hopes for a successful hatch. If you later wanna do a family-type production, we have Turtle Beanie Babies in stock!
Hey, Intern – you can call off the SEAL team now… WHAT???