Hat Ghost: The Ghost Who Wore A Hat
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Blondie, 11/25/24
A common development in all sorts of open-ended narratives (comic strips, TV shows, what have you) is that ancillary characters are introduced to fill a specific purpose, like being the main character’s barber, but then you have a lot of strips/episodes to fill, and sometimes you use them to flesh out the backstories of those ancillary characters, and sometimes that process (when done well) reveals that these characters have full, rich lives beyond the specific purpose they were originally created for, but other times that process (when done poorly) simply tells you that the barber’s off-panel life consists of more barber, endless barber, barber all the way down, barber (as revealed today) that stretches back in time across generations. The one non-barber aspect that peeks through is Italianness, which is why our guy is allowed, as a member of that fiery and emotional race, to shed a single tear in panel two.
Mary Worth, 11/25/24
Haha, yes, it begins, and by “it” I mean Mary’s friends bailing on her now that she’s too sick to put a piping hot turkey dinner in front of their face on Thursday. A normal person would hear “I’m too tired to even make my homemade chicken soup for myself!” and ask “Oh, Mary, what can I do to step up and help,” but instead Toby is all “Don’t worry, I forgive you! You just lie there on the couch in your own sick while use this adorable tiny easel I bought on Etsy to paint a cat with fetal alcohol syndrome that I hope someone will buy on Etsy ironically.”
Gil Thorp, 11/25/24
Big news! With Gil steadfastly refusing to return to work and the Mudlarks doing even worse than usual in his absence, Coach Hernandez is consulting … a pipe-smoking ghost??? Who doesn’t really seem to have any specific football knowledge? More on this important story as it develops.
65 replies to “Hat Ghost: The Ghost Who Wore A Hat”
Mary Worth Mashups: Which Missing Final Panel is most likely to happen?
MW: “No, Toby, you’re not listening! I said I’m too sick to make meals! That means I have nothing to eat! Bring me food before I die, you vapid gold digger! …Hello? Hello?”
JP: After spending way too long with the Spencer girls, Judge Parker is finally returning to its roots with its titular whiny and self-pitying judges. A full calendar year has not dulled Alan’s pain from the brief return of his prodigal daughter Anndoryl. Having been banned from every diner in walking distance from his house, Alan has been stymied at every effort he’s willing to make to right the wrongs of the past and has taken to brooding in his dimly-lit study filled with unwashed scotch glasses and unsold copies of his vanity press novels, wallowing in his affected grim sorrow like the world’s lamest blood-cursed gothic aristocrat. Fortify your soul for the tragic tale to come, for there will be… ellipses…
SlyF: Really, Slylock? You’re going to convict the man over something you heard on the news? The same news that’s talking about how someone just landed on the sun?
RMMD: If there’s anything we’ve learned from millennia of storytelling, it’s that every good tale needs a miserable nagging bitch wife who exists solely to wag her finger and put a prompt end to any happiness or fun she sees. Rex Morgan refuses to be an exception, as June, Mindy, Yvonne, Kelly, Lauren, Michelle, Tildy, and every other one-off missus aggressively demonstrate every time they appear on page. Having written dozens of viciously unlikable harpies, Terry Beatty approached new arrival Lana Lewton with his long-trusted axiom: if you don’t care if it’s broke and the syndicate pays you no matter what you do, why fix it?
CS: Agatha Crispy. Agatha. Crispy. I cannot stress this enough – Tom Batiuk never has an idea for a comic that he discards as not good enough or that he refines and polishes before publishing.
Gil Thorpe: If you Google the artist’s name, you can see that she is capable of doing some pretty good work. I guess she’s busy doing that work, while allowing her five-year-old nephew to draw Gil Thorpe.
Blondie: The elaborately barber-themed backstory is funny enough, but it doesn’t come close to the ironic barber meta-humor of Peanuts, which established that bald 8-year-old Charlie Brown’s father is a barber.
GT: Luke is visited by the ghost of …Golden Age Mark Trail?
MW: This plot seems like it might be an homage to the classic Christmas movie The Year Without a Santa Claus, and if it is I am here for Wilbur in tights playing Heat Miser.
While Gil’s body is falling apart and betraying him, it’s Luke’s mind that is collapsing and leaving him powerless. This is a zombie strip literally about decline and slow march into death
Blondie: “It all started when Uncle Vito got his head stuck in the turkey carcass. He likes his vino, heh, heh.”
MW: I’m expecting this to continue on Tuesday and Wednesday with more phone calls — maybe even a montage, if such a thing can be pulled off in three panels — where all Mary’s Charterstone friends give Toby-like answers of minimal sympathy and no offer to host Thanksgiving.
Then the punchline will be Thursday, when (not having told one another their plans) they all show up at Mary’s, each with a 20-pound turkey and all the side dishes. Except Wilbur, who has two freshly-microwaved Hungry Guy turkey dinners.
I’m sorry, but if you are going to talk about barber tools cutting edible meat, I am going to demand at least Sweeney Todd
I am sorry, but if you are going to call her “mama” instead of “mamma” and rant about turkey, a tasteless meat with little impact on Italian cuisine, you are just as much Italian as Spaghetti bolognase!
“Ian, Mary is not preparing the Thanksgiving dinner this year!”
“Good, with my colleagues we often discuss how Thanksgiving is an imperialistic celebration of settler colonialism!”
“… you don’t want to prepare the Thanksgiving dinner yourself, do you?”
“Hell no!”
“And you don’t want me to do it?”
“You have neither the ability nor the will”
“Fair enough”
Ghosts, having died decades ago, are not up to date to the latest prohibitions about smoking indoor. Also, they don’t care about second-hand smoke, because they are assholes
Sure, blow dry your Turkey! The problem with turkey is that often it’s not dry enough!
MW: Wow, I’m pretty low on the Nuturing Woman Scale, but even I would’ve managed to scrape together some packaged chicken noodle for the old girl.
RMMD: “I didn’t understand the word ‘walk’ until it was uttered by someone who’s been to med school. Also, he’s a man, and you’re just my silly wife.”
DtM: Lucky for you, Dennis, that you live in a part of the country where they stand “in line” and not “on line,” or you’d be denied that scathing quip.
GT: The last time we saw creative hallucination, it was a heart attack. I’d say Luke’s in trouble.
MW:
“Sounds as if the only dish you’re going to have an encounter with is a Petri dish, Mary!”
MW:
“I’m so exhausted I can’t even reach into the cupboard to get a bowl for my canned broth, and so I’m just going to pour it into a nearby shoe.”
“No. Don’t say it, Mary.”
“Yep. Chicken soup for the sole!”
FC: Jeffy stops his shuffle dance mid step when he hears Dolly’s latest brainless utterance. “And they say I’m the stupid one.” He thinks.
@InvasionOfTheZIM: He is not bald, it’s just Schulz’s minimalistic style — whose father was indeed a barber
@Baja Gaijin:
My brain shut down at Number Three. I am now brain dead.
GT:
“I’d recognize that pipe-smoking, avuncular wraith anywhere! — it’s the ghost of Fred MacMurray!”
MW: Say what you will about Moy’s writing, Brigman really nailed the angry cat as audience proxy.
Blondie: Barbering is, after all, a profession traditionally filled by Italians in the popular culture to which “Blondie” hearkens back. It could be worse, though — at least he didn’t end up as an organ grinder.
Wary Morth:
I have a vision of world peace,
where all the people –
(Russians, Ukrainians, zionists, Palestinians, both factions of Sudanese, etc etc etc)
– are gathered together on a vasty field
as far as the eye can see
chanting in harmony.
Hark what they chant
“Drop dead Mary! Drop dead Mary!”
as they pump their fists in the air!
Does it not make you wish
that you were standing there?
MW: Wait, isn’t Jeff (her perennial beau as Wikipedia calls him) a doctor? Why isn’t she calling him up to ask for really good drugs—at least a chest x-ray? Pneumonia is no laughing matter among the aged, and he could at least get a peak at what’s under her blouse even if it is a black and white study of rib cage and a lung filling with purulent pus. You know, he just may find that a bit, ahem, titillating.
Blondie: Say what you will, Wa-Luigi the Barber is a far more relevant comic strip conceit than Blondie at this point.
Blondie: On the one hand, Dagwood’s barber is clearly certifiably insane, and you have to worry if there’s a Sweeney Todd situation going on with his mother slicing up the “juicy golden bird” in the backroom. On the other hand, there can’t be many barbers willing to style Dagwood’s hair antennas, and beggars can’t be choosers.
Mary Worth: One of the most unsettling things about with a partner for decades is you start to talk and think like each other, like your brain has been a bit taken over by another entity. I can only imagine the horror of having a little fragment of Ian Cameron living in your brain. By the time you’re pompously booming “My friend!” at people you barely tolerate, it’s too late for you. Like a zombie bite victim in a movie, you just have to accept it and succumb to the parasite.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: [Ettore dies of a rage stroke]
Blondie: Oh, you were inspired to be a barber by the way your Mama carved and served turkey? That’s not heartwarming, the result is Dagwood’s haircut. You need therapy.
My request for today: No more homophobic f-words. Please just stick to the regular f-words. Thank you.
DtM: Dennis doesn’t understand the satisfying feeling his dad gets buying his hard liquor in person.
Gil Thorp: Found your problem right here: that’s not a football play on the blackboard, it’s [squints] English-Calculus-Music. Perform an iterative integration after the barred eighth notes, leaving the present participle with the wide receiver, you’ll pick up six yards in the playdowns, guaranteed.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Where are/were you seeing said words?
@BeckoningChasm: Given the economics of the comics industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if she draws each strip in 5 minutes and it still works out as barely minimum wage.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Waluigi is the opposite of Luigi so he is not Italian, he’s… mmmmmh… let’s say Danish
Phantom: Yup, we really are starting a new adventure. Screw that poor whistleblower who only just escaped from We-won’t-say-his-name-but-everyone-knew-who-he-was and his private militia! She’s female and nonwhite, so she’s probably been fridged by this time anyway (if she had anyone at all who would’ve cared about her disappearance, that is).
Luann: Mrs. Horner is about to eat them out of house and home.
RMMD: Boy, Lana Lang really hit the skids after Superboy left Smallville…
Gil Thorp-Finally artwork that matches the writing.
MW-This will end up with everyone going over to Mary’s place and each of them contributing a dish.
@Ettorre: As a half-Dane myself, I say well-played, Sir, well-played.
@Ettorre:
Stuffing. Not that’s it any better
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Yesterday. It was in a quote from a movie, so at least not directly from the poster, but – like the n-word – it would be better to not actually spell it out but use asterisks or something. I’m not looking to make a big deal out of it but would rather not see it.
MW: OH NO. The look on Toby’s face is very much “Now is my time to SHINE!” It should never be Toby’s time to shine. Never ever. The only person who should be shining less is —
**Wilbur bursts through the wall like Kool-Aid Man**
Edited to ask — Is Toby trying to draw Princess Caroline from BoJack Horseman???
@Pozzo:
If Blondie was more current with its’ stereotyping the barber would be drawn completely different
Wouldn’t it be great if he has a mistress named Lois?
@Joe Momma: I think you meant “peek”—women Mary’s age don’t have “peaks” anymore. Just sagging blobs.
@Bob Tice: Let’s hope her remains the avuncular Fred MacMurray of My Three Sons and The Shaggy Dog and not the amoral, adulterous, murdering salesman of Double Indemnity. But maybe Coach Luke ought to be reading the fine print on the Milford coaching contract regarding employer-purchased insurance just in case!
MW: “Don’t WORRY about it, Mary! I can fend for myself—I have two cases of gin in my pantry!”
Dustin It’s funny because the people in this family brutally insult each other to their face.
The only Gil Thorp ghost I want to see is Clambake.
I wouldn’t let anyone near my hair who doesn’t know how a blow dryer works. I’d be a little pissed if it just left my head all steamy.
***
Half an hour later a can of Campbell’s comes crashing through Mary’s window with the words “STOP BEING SO PRETENTIOUS” scrawled on the label.
In a rare flash of self-awareness, Toby realizes that even Mary deserves a break from Ian Cameron.
The Gil Thorp colorist seems not to be helping again. Shouldn’t the guy at the blackboard in the first two panels have dark hair?
Mary Worth, 11/25/24: “…in your own sick while use this…” Okay…if your college degree doesn’t include PR00FREADING, GET SOMEONE TO PR00FREAD FOR YOU!
MW: Toby hangs up and goes back to her painting. “The EYES aren’t quite right…!” she says, frowning, and studies Libby’s features more closely. “One of your eyes is supposed to be shut! Maybe if I loosen that electric collar of obedience…!”
@Baja Gaijin: The second panel, which shows how perfectly you’ve completed the Moy Brigman Illustration Academy of Fine Automobile cut & paste.
Phantom- Just how do you get that desk chair to move around on a dirt floor? Lots of schooching I’m thinking.
Gil Thorp‘s Mudlarks need a coach whose magical assistant coach isn’t the ghost of Sir Francis Drake.
The English have disappointed in football every year since 1966.
@Ettorre: I thought it was just a Japanese pun. Luigi = ruiji, warui = bad, Waluigi = waruiji (Bad Luigi).
MW – Mary’s so sick, she’s disposing of her snotty used Kleenex’s in her coffee cup.
GT – If you answer a question with “no?!”, it means you’re not really sure, even with the exclamation point.
Shoe is gone from the Washington Post… But Wumo, which is -much- worse, is still there. How does that work?
MW- Even at death’s door, she can’t help but remind Toby that she makes homade chicken soup.
I’m guessing that during Thanksgiving, that’s how she introduces each dish.
No wonder everyone is thrilled that it’s cancelled.
I’m kind of disappointed that Brigman chose a smock as the visual signifier that Toby is an artiste.
It’s supposed to be a beret! Everybody knows that!
For some reason, your description reminded me of this scene from Harold and Maude.
@But What Do I Know?: Unfortunately, it’s the amoral, adulterous (but still avuncular) Fred MacMurray of ‘The Apartment’, who may not have been murderous but still drove poor Shirley MacLaine to attempt suicide.
MW: Fifteen years in art school and now Toby is able to trace a cat. She’s so proud of herself that she’s going to submit it to Slylock Fox’ “Your Drawing” feature.
CS: He wants to give it to Pam as a Crispus gift.
Frazz: Um, maybe that’s because we don’t live in 19th century London and also we don’t eat goose on Christmas. Did you ever consider that, you smartass little shit? I didn’t think so.
RMMD: “Yeah, Lana — but he’s an expert!”
“Yeah, Merle — but I didn’t charge you a hundred and twenty-five bucks.”
When a Hat Man passes on, he returns as a Hat Ghost. Memento mori, Josh!