Soapy quickies
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Gil Thorp, 11/14/24
I don’t know why but it infuriates me that Marty is casually dropping “P.I.O.” into his patter. We get it, Marty, you know that they’re called “public information officers” and not “press secretaries” now, you’re very in the know and up to date and yet you still couldn’t convince them to violate HIPAA and tell you what’s wrong with Gil Thorp’s heart and brain, blah blah blah.
Mary Worth, 11/14/24
“Wouldn’t that be wild? Wouldn’t that be crazy! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” [the waiter arrives; Mary and Jeff order their usual dishes and spend the rest of the evening eating in silence]
Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/14/24
“You seein’ the pattern here, buddy? Long story short, I need you to hit me in the head with this shovel as hard you can. I’ll be rich!”
162 replies to “Soapy quickies”
GAH, the artwork in Gil Thorp keeps getting worse and worse. Is the artist trying to get fired? Is this a cry for help?
Mary Worth: That wasn’t an earthquake you felt this morning: it was the reaction of millions of Mary Worth readers falling over in a dead faint. Mary ordering something new at the Bum Boat? Unpossible.
Family Circus: Alternate Caption: Jeffy, your knowledge of anatomy qualifies you to be the Seventh Chix or the next Gil Thorp artist.
Mary Worth: Whoa! Mary’s in the mood for something new? Maybe tonight’ll be Jeff’s lucky night and he’ll get to second base. Over the double-knit polyester turtleneck, of course.
MW: Of all the people in the world, I would most expect Mary to caution us all about swimming within an hour after eating.
“It’s funny how life works sometimes. Look at the recent events in my life! They built on each other, ending in a definite telos! There was a plan, a design, a meaning in my life, it’s not just random stuff that a writer half-assed to meet a deadline!”
GT – So…it’s rainin’ men…hallelujah?
MW – Oysters and swimming spell stomach cramps – and sole searching….
RMMD – Well…not so much funny, as peculiar…mystifying…irrational…irrelevant…uninteresting….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Gil Thorp: I just suddenly realized, with the entire “bet” going on yesterday that if the team wins, its 50% off of the cars, if they lose the other coach eats his shoe…
This was a challenge to Gil, yet does not impact Gil in literally any way. In fact it’s a lose-lose situation for them as either the other coach (whose name I do not care to look up) eats a shoe, or Not-Hulk Hogan loses a profit.
MW:
“Are you having your usual salmon, Mary?”
“No. Call it a fluke, but I decided to get off my perch and go for catfish, since a fresh shipment just came down the pike. I guess doing so might make me end up feeling crappie, but if it does, I’m not going to carp about it!”
@Bob Tice: “Now if you excuse me, I’ll then have to help my old friend Truck Tyler tuna guitar as his hands aren’t what they used to be.”
“….and Dr Jeffy, you can play with my removable nose and attach it anywhere on your person.”
@Bob Tice: “That’s great Mary! Any chance today to see your octo-puss?”
MW: “Not tonight, Jeff. I am ordering filet of sole, and that is sole as in singular, alone, blissfully not married to you!”
Jeff will be ordering the usual cold fish.
RMMD:
“Truck, since this story arc is reaching its denouement and we’re going to be trilling together, I figured I’d entertain the mudgeship here by closing things out with an adaptation of the brilliant Flatt and Scruggs coda to a popular TV sitcom trope. Ahem.
“Well, now it’s time to say goodbye to Truck and all his spin
And he would like to thank you snarks for finally droppin’ in
You’re all invited back next week to this modality
To have a creepin’ helpin’ of his dross mentality!
“Trillbillies, that is. Fret a spell. Take your schmooze off. Y’all come back now — ya clear?”
@The Rambling Otter: “Mud Mountain Murphy would help him, but he’s been kind of floundering lately”
GT: Milford’s discount uniforms with no numbers or face masks lead to Coach Kim’s eventual exposure and dismissal for misappropriation of funds.
MW: Are we setting up for more (yawn) drama as Jeff dies of either a bad clam or swimming cramps? And will Mary be able to self-meddle away her depression afterward?
“You see, Mud, if the events leading to event A hadn’t happened, event A would not have happened! It’s so fun to learn about causality and linear time!”
@Baja Gaijin: Maybe tonight’ll be Jeff’s lucky night and he’ll get to second base.
__________________________________________
What’s on second.
MW: Swimming after dinner, Mary? Is this what The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy was talking about when he mentioned “a very rare Mary Worth in which she has advised a friend to commit suicide?”
RM: With an aging population and a struggling healthcare system, it makes sense that America’s leading medical comic strip would pivot to “Disease and disability – good, actually!” If you have respiratory disease, painful joints, or on-stage pants-shitting, ask your doctor if doing nothing about it is right for you! Or better yet, don’t bother them at all.
@The Rambling Otter:
“And that’s ’cause we’re chums!”
@Ettorre:
“Of course, when you think about, there’s no porpoise to my kissing that mug of yours, Mary! Let’s go back to ordering dinner — I hear the accompaniment of potatoes dolphinoise is nonpareil!”
GT:
“But now, as I’m looking at things a bit more closely, you can see from our third panel today that Milford is only fielding nine players, so they’ll have to forfeit!”
Gil – The Goshen-Milford rivalry has drawn such attention that the networks have pushed Marty Moon out of the regular press box and into a perch behind the end-zone bleachers. #norespect
BB: The garrulous river mammal is concerned with the not so smooth relative’s well being
FC: Billy is thinking, “And this little moron gets to inherit Dad’s gig.”
“I think I’ll order the bearded clam…er, I mean…”
Phantom: Don’t be so high and mighty about your democracy “President” Luaga. We all know you’re just a figurehead and Stripeybutt pulls your strings.
FC: “Jeffy, you should see Daddy’s copies of Playblow and Hustle if you want to see some anatomy.”
RMMD: “I used to have my own band, you know. I used to travel across the country playing the big venues. I was an icon. I was a star. But my fragile human body kept failing on me! I kept getting sick and hurt! I lost everything and everyone! Now I’ve been stuck in this crappy town for years, coughing my lungs out and screaming in pain in a dumpy motel room, playing the same dive bar every weekend, I’m engaged to some pig-faced truck stop owner, my only friend is some wannabe comedian middle-schooler, and now to pay my mounting medical expenses I have to make a duet album with you. This is hell. This is a nightmare from which I cannot wake up. I would kill myself with an overdose, but I can’t afford the pills!”
JP: Uh oh, now Abbey knows that Neddy didn’t do something that could have been somewhat scandalous if she had done it!!!!!! This event that explicitly did not occur is truly alarming!!!!!!
DT: There’s some of that classic Eric Costello dialogue writing. Always talking around every subject no matter how nonsensical or counter-productive it is; presumably aiming for intriguing enigma and subtlety, and instead just completely failing to communicate. For purely meta reasons I assume Sam is probably referring to terror attacks, but it could also be a number of other things (assassinations, unsanctioned mining, black market weaponry, illegal fireworks, whatever) and it’s not at all a reasonable conclusion for these characters to make with the information they have, let alone a valid excuse to not let Sam continue speaking and just say it. In other news, remember how Dick literally just got back from visiting the Totten Organization with Lee? Eric Costello doesn’t! So now Dick is asking Liz(z) to research where the Totten Organization is working.
JP: Remember how Glen was originally established as socially graceful and confident, even willing to push some boundaries with strangers? Well, now he’s a timid mouse waiting quietly for all the scary yelling to stop. Keep up.
Luann: This is all still the same Saturday night of the football game. What time is it even supposed to be at this point? This is getting to be as insane as the BATUBS arc.
JP: Sure, just go from pointless inappropriate public screaming to pointless unfunny quipping and eyerolling, who cares. Sure, just copy-paste the same panel two days in a row, who cares. It’s all good enough, and it’s not like any of your peers are trying, either. After all, it’s everyone else’s fault the American daily comic medium is dying, not the writers and artists.
GT: Again, loving the new art here. The contrast between Paul Kim striding carefully across what looks to be a flaming moon of Jupiter while the timid Milford team is slowly turning into grass.
MW: Three hours later, Jeff and Mary sit handcuffed in a police cruiser, dressed in black with rolled up ski masks still on their heads. “You know, next time I think I’ll stick with the salmon…”
RMMD: “Free will is an illusion. Our lives are meaningless, just leaves is a cosmic windstorm. Anyhow, my next tune is called…”
@Fucitol: It seems that you’re talking about me asking about Uncle Lumpy yesterday.
Alright, but I don’t see what that has to do with Beetle Bailey.
Baby Blues: If you’re going to have a character with a nose 500% larger than a real pe
GT: Did Ms. Merrill used to work on story boards for the film industry? That’s what her slapdash rough sketches look like.
Baby Blues: If you’re going to have a character with a nose 500% larger than any real person
“Coach Martinez, what’s the look of our adversaries?”
“Bed news, their marching step exudes strength and conviction, like Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of will”!”
“We cannot be artistically outmatched! Quick, assume the pose of Pellizza da Volpedo’s “The Fourth Estate”!”
Athens vs Sparta! Rome vs Carthage! Constantinople vs Ctesiphon! Venice vs Genoa! London vs Paris! New York vs Boston! Washington vs Moscow! Mmmm Milford vs Valley Tech?! I hope this was leading to some climax!
MW: If you’re going to do the “haha we’re so spontaneous” act best not wind it up with something that requires enough planning for you both to have brought your swimsuits [yes it absolutely does shutup shutup shutup]
Gil Thorp: I dunno, Marty. I’d say Milford is having a sketchy season, but then by the looks of it, we all are.
Mary Worth: I once had a dentist who liked to go cave diving in the Yucatan with someone who was not his wife and died there in a scuba accident. That was a strange letter to get from the practice. Anyway, hope your life insurance is paid up, Dr. Jeff!
Mary’s life is so boring and repetitive that just changing food order is enough to excite her. I guess I understand her fascination with Wilbur: he must be uncut cocaine to her
Luann – I’d say Kip is a lot smarter than Dr. Ed Harding.
Also it’s “clams casino.” You want a knuckle a la sandwich?
When she says “let’s go swimming,” Mary means Dr. Jeff is going to get some action tonight. And by “action”, she means she’s going to go swimming while Dr. Jeff sits on a deck chair pleasuring himself while watching her flail about in the water at night in her modest bathing suit,
“You see Jeff, I am able to break my routine and do things differently. For example, after you asked me to marry you ninety-nine times, the one hundredth time, I might say yes! Except I won’t because I don’t want to. I simply want you to know that I keep you in your place, capisce?!”
“Yes mistress!”
[“Clams a la casino” was the original form but the New York Public Library’s collection of menus, admittedly far from comprehensive, doesn’t have “Clams a la casino” since 1962 which is a bit old even for the target audience.]
FC: An angry Thel grabs the drawing. “Have you been eating paint chips again!?”
Gil Thorp – It’s already established that Milford runs on high school sports, making Gil Thorp a very important public figure. A regime change has profound economic, social, and political impacts. The only thing keeping outright bloody coups down is the relatively low pay, and the fact that most coaches would rather live in another community where high school sports area nice unifier, but not central to daily life.
Mary Worth – Poseidon waits angrily. He has twice been denied his due sacrifice of the monster Wilbur. Since surviving a drunken fall from the ship, what has Poseidon seen? They buried a freshwater fish named after Wilbur out at sea! An insult!
This mockery cannot stand. If Mary cannot deliver Wilbur, then Poseidon will take what he can from her. With Dr. Jeff leaving behind his surf and turf for a purely marine dinner, Poseidon has enough of an ironic twist to make this poetic.
Rex Morgan, MD – “What I am saying is that my story arc, professional life, and contributions to this strip are more medically based than the titular character, and I am thinking that I deserve equal credit and a chance to Snuffy Smith my way into lead status!”
Dustin’s creators certainly know how senior partners in large law firms spend their lunch time— eating from vending machines in the break room. DustinDad is probably just the guy who fixes the photocopier, and is always in such a bad mood because he is afraid of his family discussing his charade.
MW: I have never thought of clams casino as anything other than an appetizer so Dr Jeff ordering it as an entree is fine, maybe he’s not hungry, but he’s going to finish in like 10 minutes then sit and watch Mary eat a whole damn entree. Seems miserable, but I guess on par for the couple
Scrolling around that NYPL website (because the search function is broken) I was disturbed to realize that 78 menus contain pickled figs. But it looks like 76 of them are the Waldorf Astoria 1914, which is a relief and maybe explains why people longed for the cleansing fire of World War I.
MW: I predict Mary’s bathing suit will be one from the early 1900s. Jeff will try to wear a Speedo like Wilbur did in Bogotá, but Mary’s withering stare of disapproval will shame him out of that and, in fact, out of swimming at all.
RMMD – “I keep thinking of examples of how seemingly insignificant events can cause major changes in the future. I think I’ll call it ‘the moth effect’!”
@Lauralot: Just as well since the water he’d be jumping into is pretty cold.
MW — This is all code. Mary usually orders the salmon, which signals to Jeff he’ll be swimming upstream in any attempt at coitus–but tonight she’s getting the filly sole, which means she’s going it alone. Jeff, in response, reverts to clams a la casino, which means he’ll be cruising the tables at the local reservation looking for female companionship. Mary, seeing what a weak hand she is playing, alludes to rocking (the little man) in the boat and suggests searching for him after dinner.
MW: Mary read in one of her magazines the power of spontaneity, but she can only bring herself to order a different form of seafood as opposed to a whole different type of cuisine. This feels very much like the beginning of a “find yourself” comedy movie where she will learn over the course of 90 minutes how to expand her horizons and foster a sense of curiosity and adventure. It’s more likely to be leading up to Mary and Dr. Jeff wading in the ocean after dinner unable to talk about anything beyond the long-winded Estelle Extravaganza.
Baby Blues: If you’re going to have a character with a nose 500% larger than any real person than maybe don’t force us to consider how it looks when they try to put on a shirt over their grotesque head.
Hi and Lois: The kids are disappointed they didn’t almost burn to death in a real fire.
Curtis: His dad fantasizes about what it would be like to freeze to death in the coldest waters on earth.
Dustin: “Is your daughter also a fat disgusting slob? I need to know if she struggles to walk before I can agree to sponsor her in this charity event”
Bizarro: Do gingerbread cookies shaped like people get married and would they still be hot for each other after they were past the normal shelf-life of cookies? The answer is a resounding yes!
Dennis the Menace: Society has different standards for what is socially acceptable as people age. Finding out you are suddenly being held responsible for your own behavior, that’s very menacing.
Mother Goose and Grimm: Wouldn’t it be crazy if people enjoyed the smell of pumpkin pie and tried to emulate it in their homes? Wouldn’t it also be crazy if they preferred it to the usual smell of feces and urine in their bathrooms?
Shoe: Again this comic forgets that these are birds and that that they have different biology. They lay eggs!
Family Circus: Billy can’t believe Jeffy didn’t draw any breasts or genitals on his artwork.
MW – Woah, check out the big brain on Jeff. Jeff knows that clams casino was sometimes known as clams a la casino in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
@33 Anonymous: “Baby Blues: If you’re going to have a character with a nose 500% larger than any real person” …Aaaaand??? Don’t keep me hanging here. Please finish your thought.
@49 matt w: Was this entree on any of those menus?
RMMD: Ok Truck, here’s the deal: we need to test whether there’s a correlation between the severity of my injury and the magnitude of the good thing that results from said injury. We’re going through this list I compiled from smallest to largest and recording the results in this journal. Help me prick myself with this thumb tack for test one.
@55 UncleJeffers: Oh THANK you! My life can continue.
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
FC-You’ll never get a job at ‘9 Chickweed Lane’ drawing like that. Maybe ‘Six Chix’ or ‘Gil Thorp’ will hire you.
MW-“Why won’t you marry me,” Jeff whines.
GT- I think I know how Truck from Rex Morgan is filling his days. The artwork for Gil certainly looks as if someone with a dodgy finger is trying to draw.
MW – I’m quite sure Dr. Jeff has a bathing suit room somewhere on the S.S. Humonculous. Hell, he probably has an entire bathing suit warehouse. It’s on the Fiesta Deck, right next to the min-golf course. You can take the people mover.
MW: Maitre d’: “But madame! We have 30,000 salmon entrées for you, all identically cooked and gamma-ray preserved since 1957.”
MW: The thought of Mary in a bathing suit—and, please, God, make her wear a bathing suit!—make me want to hurl. And I didn’t even HAVE the clams.
A simple misunderstanding of a homophone would lead to Dr. Jeff stumbling around as the living dead after Mary fillets his soul.
For all the people who complained about Gil Thorpe under the old artist: You happy now? Today’s strip looks like it was drawn left-handed by a right-handed child.
Mary Worth: Dr. Jeff: Shaking up the usual order of things is fun! After swimming. . . maybe, buttsex?
Mary: WHAT!?!
Dr. Jeff: (looks down at his menu mumbling): I said. . . smoked chard sounds interesting.
@BeckoningChasm: GAH, the artwork in Gil Thorp keeps getting worse and worse. Is the artist trying to get fired? Is this a cry for help?
I assume it is another unfireable “diversity hire,” like the scribbler who took over “Mark Trail,” so the syndicate(s) can store DEI points while continuing to employ old white guys to churn out the few remaining profitable legacy strips from Walker-Browne, etc.
“Well, Jeff, sometimes you crave something similar but slightly different. Like sole instead of salmon, or swimming instead of walking, or an animal doctor instead of a people doctor…” and so Mary segues into the idea that they swing with Ed and Estelle.
GT: Uhm, why is Milford playing VALLEY TECH? The whole Coach Gonads gonna-eat-my-shoe-if-I-lose gimmick was for MIlford playing GOSHEN on the upcoming Friday. Looks like we can add “continuity” to “sports” & “drawing” as things about which this ‘creative’ team knows absolutely nothing.
@jenna: I was going to suggest that Dr. Jeff could know what it as like to swing with Estelle simply by asking the almost-identical Mary to put on a grey Farrah Fawcett wig but then realized that it is highly like that Jeff and Mary have never done the deed.
@Baja Gaijin: I can do you crown roast with mint sauce. Not sure about sweet and sour.
@matt w: Who says they’ve brought swimsuits?
Maybe they’re going to go ski….(the PDP “Public Decency Police” burst into my home and arrest me before I can finish typing)
MW – You wanna really rock the boat? Order some oysters. But we know that’s never going to happen.
Gil Thorp – The announcer’s booth is high above a corner of the end zone, not over the 50 yard line like in every other football stadium in the US. The nearest marked line is for the 30. So the stands below the announcer must be cantilevered over the end zone. This is going to make field goals tricky.
@allangary: #76: It’s also going to make field goals dangerous for the people in the announcer’s booth.
MW – Hey, Jeff and Mary. If you’re serious about shaking things up, try this: instead of paying your bill and leaving a respectable tip, you know, like you always do, go ahead and dine-and-dash. Comfort zone, shmomfort zone!
Mary Worth – A discussion about what to order in a restaurant? That’s Rex Morgan levels of boring. To be fair, however, Rex Morgan would spend a week on it instead of one strip.
FC – What’s the big deal? When he takes over from Bil, all he has to know is how to use Wite Out and how to draw a flat screen TV.
JP – Glen is thinking that first his father was found murdered, and it was all downhill from there. Does he realize that now he’s involved with the Harpy Sisters?
Brewster Rockit – Wimmen, amirite?
Mother Goose & Grimm – It could be worse – someone could be doing pumpkin spice colonoscopy prep.
@The Rambling Otter: Skiing? Skink hunting? Skittering? Skipping?
@Bob Tice: She’s going to order something different just for the halibut.
Luann: If this ends up with Tiff and Stef consoling each other in the fuck tent I’ll forgive the Evansii of all their former and future transgressions.
Luann: Isn’t that the same scrawny rent-a-cop that threw the gang out of the monster truck rally? He looks like a cross between Barney Fife and Zippy the Mailman.
MW: That humongous boat has Dr. Ed up to his neck in debt to the local loan SHARK.
Don Abundio, translated:
“These shareholder activists insist that nature should have a place at the negotiating table!”
“Bring in the new board member”
“Feel free to speak up if you have any thoughts!”
Wary Morth:
Mary and Dr Jeff get drunk and go skinny dipping. A Great White Shark eats Dr Jeff. Mary loses her way in the dark, gets washed ashore naked several kilometres from where she left her clothes, and dies of embarassment.
Everyone rejoices.
I’ll give Mary Worth this, just this once.
At least the comic outright goes out of its way to avoid mentioning “old people sex”
Well, The Golden Girls mentioned it constantly but it was actually funny when they did so that gets a pass.
Gil Thorp: The art change for this comic is so weird because it looks ALMOST like the old art but not quite the same and measurably worse. It’s as if there wasn’t any actual artist departure, the old writer just had some kind of devastating stroke and tried to keep drawing without any recovery.
Mary Worth: You ever notice how we rarely really see other people at the Bum Boat? It’s like Mary and Jeff go into some abandoned shack and pretend they’re having dinner, which is eerily plausible.
Rex Morgan: Mud continues to be the only relatable Rex Morgan character by looking like he’s fighting to stay awake while listening to Truck’s rambling, self-fellating monologue.
FG: “Next: Calisthenics!”
Best “next” box ever, or best “next” box EVER?
@The Rambling Otter: So… all this stuff about groupers and red snappers at the bum boat isn’t dirty talk….
CS: Hee hee, I bet tomorrow some poor kid will get snatched from their front porch by a pirate. That’ll be hilarious. And no, human trafficking isn’t a laughing matter, but we’ll move onto Crankshaft destroying ice sculptures before it gets too dark.
MW: Wanna swim with the fishes, Jeff? ‘Cause if you keep yappin’ about bein’ tired of the same old thing, you’re gonna be swimmin’ with the fishes, capisce?
FC: @I speak Jive: I’m gobsmacked that you didn’t pounce on the irony of Billy with his head on backwards commenting about someone not knowing anatomy. Gobsmacked, I say!
@Charterstoned:
Hey, they’ve made her so young lately, she probably fit right in with the Judge Parker crowd
Gosh, Dr Jeff is going to see Mary in her birthday suit!!! By which I mean she’ll wear a one-piece bathing suit up to her knees and elbows. Even as a newborn, Mary was very modest
“Now you have really rocked the boat!” Did he? Mary, I know you are avoiding the hints, but when Jeff talks about shaking things up, he has specific ideas. You know, butt stuff. Actually, even “stuff” would be fine.
I’m not an expert on football, but could it be that what’s affecting Milford’s season is the rain cloud that appears to be parked over and only affecting them? Before we drag Gil out of his convalescence has anyone even tried to appease Thor with a sacrifice of their enemies?
CS: “Well, actually, this kid looks smarter than mine, so never mind, I’ll just keep him.”
Frazz: “Station wagon. Sedan. People drove what they had.” As opposed to what, driving what they didn’t have?
MW: As a physician, Jeff knows he shouldn’t go swimming right after dinner, but his lust is such that he’ll do it anyway. Playful Mary, on the other hand, has no intention of going in the water and will stall on the shore as she watches Jeff flail around trying not to drown. “Hey, knock it off,” she yells. “You’re rocking the boat! Get it?”
@allangary: As someone who did HS play by play for football and basketball, this isn’t entirely true. You get some REALLY funky spots in press boxes for football at some of these smaller schools, and for basketball it’s even more haphazard. Showing up and finding out you had a card table at the corner of the gym was a huge win.
FC: As if Billy would know the word “anatomy.” It’s not a “dardest thing” that a kid would say. I see adult sibling rivalry at work here.
@Flipper: Re FC – Oh, my gosh – you’re right! I am slipping. I usually notice the backwards heads and shoulders, and they’re especially egregious today with Billy standing with his arms akimbo. It’s like a Mr. Potato Head put together by a drunk.
I think I didn’t notice because I was distracted by Jeffy’s drawing, which I thought was not bad for a three year old. He got the parts of the face in the right place.
@Cleveland Mocks: Re Frazz – Add “vehicles” to the list of things Frazz is smug and superior about.
@Arabella: “darndest thing” I don’t know why it got corrected to “dardest.” Most “dard?”
@Guillermo el chiclero: LUANN: Just as there’s only one taxi driver in the entire strip, there is also only one security guard. Yes, that’s the guy from the monster truck rally, because Greg Evans saw The Simpsons where there’s one teenaged employee who goes from job to job, and forgot that trying to copy that show is always a bad idea.
SF: Random observation:
I used to read Sally Forth regularly for years and years. And then maybe 15 years or so ago, they did an entire week’s strip about how one day they were too busy to prepare a home-cooked meal for supper, so they bought take-out from some burger joint. And then for the rest of the week after they had eaten, Sally and Ted agonized and flagellated themselves over the horrible example they had just set for Hillary.
And at that point I thought, Jeez, this is incredibly stupid, and I’ve had no desire to ever go back.
JP: Glen looks very uncomfortable, thinking “My date’s older sister is undeniably hotter than my date.” Also contemplating how to get them both into the sack at the same time.
@I speak Jive: It’s like a Mr. Potato Head put together by a drunk.
Ahh, there’s the Jive I know and love!
MW: it’s witty dialogue like this that keeps Jeff with Mary.
The obvious British fart bootlicker has no redeeming qualities and cannot avoid inserting their political agenda into their comments. I thought this blog was free of that.
@I speak Jive: One strip so far.
So many obnoxious things about Frazz. One of my favorites is how the author regularly compliments himself about his “insight” which in this case is the observation that trucks have gotten taller.
JP: Glen thinks, “And I thought MY family was messed up! Uh, maybe I can sneak out the back door and high tail it out of here while they’re still arguing.”
GT: “I need to make sure people understand Valley Tech are the villains–better draw them like they’re demons emerging from the very depths of Hell itself, just to be sure.” — Gil Thorp’s artist, probably
Gil Thorp: Milford throws the game so they and friends and family can get 50% off on cars.
They smile all the way to the bank.
JP:. Glen will take care of this.
BF: This is not a dream.
MANDRAKE:. Doesn’t hypnotism wear off after a while?
PHANTOM:. Mr. President does his country proud while Mr. Author gets his digs in. Calling Mollusk a low life was not enough.
@Grand pooba: You talking about me? I seem to fit that description. At least the fart bootlicker part. Good line (but still not as good as ISJ with Mr. Potato Head put together by a drunk – although I fit that description, too).
@Cleveland Mocks:
#102. Breaking Point:. Sometimes we all reach it. I used to read Pardon My Planet regularly, until I realized it was like Dustin– The people were despicable and the situations a waste of social privilege.
MW: Why does Dr. Jeff even exist in this strip? Is it to make sure there’s not a hint that Mary may not be straight? That would be a plot line “worth” pursuing! Ha, ha! See what I did…….I’ll show myself out.
DT: The fact they’re still calling him Sprengstoff even now that ICE have identified him and his explosive rap sheet leads me to conclude that this is, in fact, his name. Which means this bozo, on the run from international law enforcement, had a string of fake IDs in his own name. There’s “stupid”, there’s “Neo-Chicago criminal stupid”, and then there’s this guy.
FC: Once again, this strip delves into “Kids say things that are accurate and not very funny”. This could maybe be saved if Jeffy was replying “What are atomies?” I mean, it still wouldn’t be funny, but it would at least be shaped like a Family Circus “joke”, and that’s probably the best we can hope for.
GT: I love we immediately follow yesterday’s strip with Marty being all “Yes, it’s Milford vs Valley Tech, the only rivalry in this tournament that anybody cares about!” Somewhere, Gerads’ hair is recurling out of sheer rage.
Speaking of Marty, he’s quite well drawn in panel one. And not particularly in the style Merrill was drawing in even before (gestures vaguely at panels 2 and 3) … this … happened. If Merrill’s taken to just tracing over old Wrigham art then … well, can we get her to keep doing that, please?
JP: I realise we’re meant to see panel 2 as a wider shot now that the Spencisters aren’t getting in each others’ faces, but it really does look like Glen is slowly backing away, hoping that if he doesn’t move suddenly he can be outside before either of them remember he was there.
Phantom: “The Bangallan government will never be bribed into abandoning its democratic principles! Persuaded to ignore an extralegal prison run by the current heir to a hereditary line of gun-toting vigilantes because he’s a friend, yes, but bribed, never!”
Pluggers: Pluggers cheat at the most pointless things.
@mvg:They’re playing Goshen next Friday; the Valley Tech game is, apparently, this Friday. I’m not saying it’s coherent (that’s not something Bajaras has worried about for a while, if ever), but it does seem to be consistent.
@Mountain Mama: does anyone know the history of the Jeff and Mary relationship? I truly see no reason for it, unless Jeff is aaexual.
@Professor Well Actually: I do not. He just seems to pop up here and there. He wants to get married and she turns him down. He really needs to move on.
@Horace Broon: re: DT: Twelfth-level chess, my boy, twelfth-level chess. They’d never think of looking for him under phony ID using his real name.
Next time we see Sprengstoff he’ll be wearing a sandwich board sign reading “MAD BOMBER.”
God how great would it be if today’s Mary Worth was setting up a strip that won’t happen for a week or two of Mary and Jeff going swimming after dinner, getting terrible cramps, and drowning.
GT: “What Coach Thorp has given us is a surprising amount of Golden Girls fanart. And let me tell you folks, it is spicy.”
MW: Mary and Dr. Jeff will of course be washing the meal down with sex on the beach. Oh, but the bartender is out of peach schnapps? That won’t be a problem.
RMMD: “And if I hadn’t thrown that cup down when I had trigger finger who knows how long Wanda would have kept that ugly pattern?”
@Dennis Jimenez: MW – Oysters and swimming spell stomach cramps – and sole searching….
_________________________________
How long does it take to search a fillet of sole?
9CL: At this point the idea of holding your breath until you fall into sweet oblivion looks tempting.
C-Shaft: An illustration of how far you need to go if you want to maybe make Crankshaft look good by comparison.
DT: If Sprengstoff was really a dreaded terrorist for hire, you have to wonder how his buddies will take the news of his death. Gotta figure they’ll give it up for him getting killed while in police custody. (“Yeah!” “Badass!”) But for fare evasion?
Dustin: The deal is already less attractive since it doesn’t afford the possibility of Dustdad having a massive coronary.
JP: Keep those phones at the ready for your realization in 15 minutes that Glen has had a stroke and needs immediate—well, really sooner than immediate—medical attention.
MG&G: The grim annual slog known as “Pumpkin Spice Season” grinds on. Now a comic strip has introduced the idea of PS toilet paper. In a mildly surprising turn, it’s not Marvin.
@Horace Broon: Re JP: For “Spencisters” I originally read “Sphincters”, which would not be off-target.
FC: On the contrary…Jeffy’s rendering of his biological progenitor is extremely accurate.
MW: Is Dr. Jeff really willing to settle for a strictly platonic friendship with Mary? From his oft-repeated entreaties of marriage, I honestly don’t know. I just keep hoping he will serendipitously meet another woman who fulfils his romantic longings and then leaves Mary to stew in her own unfulfilled dreams.
Phantom: OH SNAP!!!!!! YESSSS!!!!!
@Baja Gaijin: #2
Doubleplusungood!!!!!
@lynn: #3
MW: This is the perfect opportunity for a crossover with “Sherman’s Lagoon”!
@Dennis Jimenez: #5
“and sole searching….”
…you’re just fishing for a compliment, aren’t you…
@Bob Tice: #7
For Jeff and Mary, it’s squid pro quo…
@Bob Tice: #12
Ha!
@Bob Tice: #19
AUGGHHH!!!
@Guillermo el chiclero: #32
Don’t storyboards imply a “story”??
Six Chex and A Cat In Search Of A Punchline: Is this a continuation of the “Desperately Seeking Sandwich” storyline, with a pie substituting as the object of amore? But, to paraphrase this blog’s head of wisdom, Daisy, “Doesn’t a storyline imply a story?” Good point, Daisy!
@Daisy: MW: This is the perfect opportunity for a crossover with “Sherman’s Lagoon”!
________________________________
Doesn’t Mary have enough crabs to contend with as it is?
When the eel smacks your eye like a big oyster pie, that’s a moray!
CURTIS:. Dad doesn’t even try to spin work as positive. Even with a job we hate you could mention
– you like the opportunity to help people
– you like the chance to keep roads safe
– you like the doughnuts in next door shop
– you like the regular paycheck
– you like someone’s sense of humor.
To paraphrase a wise person, it’s not doing what we like, but deciding to like what we have to do.
@astroboy: All aboard the S.S. Tiny P.P.
GT: Yes, the new artist certainly sucks swamp water by the gallon, but I’ll give her grudging, one-time-only credit for today’s panels 2 and 3.
Valley Tech coach Paul Kim strides into the stadium purposefully and confidently, sure of himself and his team.
Without the Mighty Thorp, Milford’s coaches and players sullenly stand around in the pouring rain, dreading their upcoming beat-down.
Meanwhile back at home, Gil is bingeing on ice cream, pork rinds, and “Coach” reruns.
In a shocking twist, Mary orders something that isn’t seafood, and Jeff has a heart attack from the sheer terror and excitement.
@Inspector Gotcha: I feel like I might be the only one, at least ’round these parts, who unironically likes Rachel Merrill’s Thorp art. She captures the feeling of things and people always being in motion. She might grow on more readers if she sticks around.
@Activist:
#139. Curtis cont.: If Dad can find nothing good to say about his job, he is admitting to his firstborn he’s either too lazy to look for something better or else he is enslaved.
@Craig!: In what universe is filet of sole not seafood?
I’m more worried about Dr. Jeff giving up his bloody rare steak in favor of shellfish. He’s probably going to need to stop for a couple of cheeseburgers on his way home. BEEF…it’s what’s for dinner.
(Yeah, okay, clams casino include chopped bacon as an ingredient, maybe that counts as red meat. Hey, did you know the dish was invented in Narragansett, Rhode Island?)
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I looked at it again and I realized that the problem with panel 2 is the coloring–the background is the same as the foreground and it’s a big smudge. Lo and behold, on GoComics the background is dark blue and gray and it is a shocking improvement. The blurry expressionism of the faces in a lot of the other panels still doesn’t appeal to me that much but at least it’s different.
(The slam upthread against the new Mark Trail artist seems pretty uncalled for too, especially when so many comic strips were literally passed on in the family. She’s certainly a capable artist whose drawings are far more dynamic than the artificial woodenness of Allen and even Elrod. The problem is that, it turns out, artificial woodenness is what I wanted from Mark Trail.)
@matt w:
It’s sort of become the brand, I guess.
MW: This time of year, sunset is around 5pm. Even taking into account the fact that Mary probably eats dinner at around 4/4:30pm, this still means it will be nightfall before they would ever begin their swim. Could we finally be seeing the end of Jeff? (We know Mary can never die, due to the deal she struck with the lich king)
@Activist:
Not easy to get a new job these days, regardless of industry. Speaking from experience; neither lazy nor enslaved.
@145 Ukulele Ike:
Agreed. Filet of sole is seafood.
But, not always.
@Consul, the Almost Human: Oh, I don’t know — I get offers to change “jobs” all the time. But Coach Deion Sanders said yesterday in a sports radio interview (quite wisely, IMHO), “A ‘job’ is only enough to get you to go back tomorrow. A ‘career’ is what I care about.”
@Activist: Mine was Safe Haven.
It was enjoyable when it was about a mom, her son and the kids at a daycare..
Then it got into really weird science and unbelievable (and unethical) DNA experiments.
@Professor Well Actually: #118
IIRC, umpteen years ago, Mary volunteered at the hospital where Dr Jeff once practiced (at that point he was retired). She was some kind of gatekeeper person who checked visitors’ credentials, and when Dr Jeff walked in and went straight past her, she jumped up and demanded he show her his ID or something, and the staff all told her he was the beloved retired Dr Jeff Corey and didn’t need ID and she apologized and Dr Jeff became intrigued by this handsome older lady’s boldness (and likely couldn’t believe that she didn’t know who he was) and they started meeting for coffee or something and a mutual attraction developed and there you have it. There was a cute scene one time of the two of them at the marina wearing matching sweatshirts (CAPTAIN for him and FIRST MATE for Mary) as they were about to board Dr Jeff’s much more modest and reasonable boat, the “SS Neversail.” The longer Jeff is with Mary the bigger and more grandiose his boats become, almost like he’s overcompensating, or something? After Mary’s latest rejection of his proposal I can’t wait to see what he’ll be piloting next.
@Cleveland Mocks: #102
That’s pretty much it for me as well, although I do like to sneak a peek at handsome Ronan from time to time!
@Daisy: Bwahaha!
@Bob Tice:
Something fishy about that post but we can’t quite fathom what.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I congratulate you. I tried to change jobs a few years and got nowhere.
Aside: I thought “Coach Deion Sanders” was a meme or similar snark since I hadn’t thought about him in decades. Did not know that he was an actual coach now.
@Daisy:
What a mess!
@The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers:
I’m glad no one here on the comment boards got crabby about this extended marine life wordplay.
@Consul, the Almost Human:
#149. True,it’s harder than it’s ever been. Especially for those without computer skills. Employment services will no longer talk with you if you can’t apply via their website.
But Greg has had DMV job for decades. He surely could have retrained for something different as he DOES have computer skills. AND access to a computer.
PHANTOM:. To whoever asked who’d get a punch with the skull ring, the answer is clear in Friday’s strip.
@Bob Tice: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=48d4ee0bf5e029f9&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS1121US1122&sxsrf=ADLYWIJ3Si56gfmrG-uqj_S-IFrS-3fiyA:1731705364774&q=kip+addotta+wet+dream&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLSz9U3MLKwyC0rUOLRT9c3LDTNSi7KMk7WEvQtLc5MdiwqySwuCckPzs9LX8Qqmp1ZoJCYkpJfUpKoUJ5aopBSlJqYCwC_tcRBRwAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimsf2Yod-JAxUc48kDHUrdE3gQri56BAg4EAM&biw=1476&bih=776&dpr=1.25