Holidays loom ominously
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Judge Parker, 12/23/24
Aw, isn’t that nice? Sam is going to let Alan enjoy the holidays and wait until the new year until he yells at him for sheltering his criminal daughter. Personally speaking, I’d like to get it out of the way now, you know? No worse way to spend the holiday then dwelling on “Ah, what kind of pissy scold am I going to get from Sam Driver about my latest criminal antics” when I could be exchanging gifts with my family or getting drunk or whatever.
Blondie, 12/23/24
Look, I’m not afraid to say it: A giant stocking stuffed full with cookies and two kinds of meat sounds disgusting. It’s all going to get mixed together and lint from the stocking will stick to everything! I’m not a food snob by any stretch of the imagination but Dagwood’s whole deal is very gross.
Gasoline Alley, 12/23/24
Santa, famously, sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. To this list of surveillance crimes, add another: every time somebody gives birth, anywhere in the world, he’s watching. He’s watching … and he remembers. He remembers everything.
65 replies to “Holidays loom ominously”
Mary Worth Mashups
MW: As Pink Background Lady completely loses control of her frame, a vigilant BOWL attendant quickly activates the gutter guards to stop her careening trajectory across the lanes.
“Santa is a peeping Tom” would make a good song title for something on Dr Demento
MW: Is that woman wearing bowling MITTENS?
“Holidays loom ominously”
To be fair, Looming is a behavior that is difficult to pursue in a non-ominous fashion. Looming, by definition, is meant to be ominous, a foreshadowing that this Loomer is not quite on the level. No level Loomers, laughed Laura!
GA: I haven’t been following Gasoline Alley of late, but today’s “action” would make more sense and be far more intriguing if that envelope read “Festivus Pole”—since it looks like we’re about to hear Aubree’s airing of grievances.
JP: “Ann won’t mind cooling her heels in a cell while I do nothing until after Little Christmas, right Alan?”
JP: So tune in next year, Judge Parker fans, for even more
actiontalking. Long talking.Blondie: I’d like to think that Dagwood rewrote that entire poem around food. Well, maybe ‘rewrote’ is a bit exaggerated — at the halfway point I’m sure he abandons the rhyming scheme altogether and just starts naming cuts of meat in all caps.
GA: Ha, sounds like Mommy was doing more that kissing under the mistletoe that night!
lol dagwood eat a food
JP:
“Alan, you might want to give Ann some practice pointers on how to go about brandishing cafeteria trays and how to weaponize them, when you have a spare moment! — that’ll come in really handy when you’re in the slammer in these parts!”
MW: “Good looking and rich! He’s heir to all that Radio Shack Tandy cash.”
JP:
Sam calls Alan after Ann turns herself in to the police…
[pinching his nose]: “Do you have Prince Albert in a Can?”
My question is why Dagwood is reading A Visit from Saint Nicholas in bed.
GA:
“What her mom wrote you about her daughter’s experience of spotting you coming down the chimney appears to have been inspired by Sinatra!”
“Really? What did she write, Buddy?”
” ‘Aubee’s seeing you in all the old familiar places’ !”
I am loving the Karen Moy/On-ray Barajas/Rachel Merrill/June Brigman crossover – bowling with a deranged woman running down the lane with her ball. I can’t wait for this to get to Milford.
MW: Dirk Tandy, male prostitute.
MW: When Dawn tells Friend Jared about her new hunk, it will only prove to him that he was right; Dawn is shallow, shallow, shallow!
MW – Will Dawn invite Dirk along to the meet-cute with Jess and Jared not the Subway pedophile, or will she keep it to a threesome?
@LBSC: My question is why Dagwood is reading A Visit from Saint Nicholas in bed.
That’s funny, because my first reaction when I saw the strip was ‘why is he reading it on a tablet?’ I’m just used to technology being a punchline in and of itself in these legacy comics that I was sure the gag was going to be “THANK GOD I HAVE THIS STOCKING MONITORING APP THAT I BOUGHT WITH MY SUGRPLM-COIN! MERRY INTERNET EVERYONE!”
MW: “Drunk woman on lane 18. Repeat, drunk woman on lane 18. Request clean-up.”
GT: Um, don’t CITIES have police forces and COUNTIES have sheriff’s offices? Or is Milford in Milford County? Also, are criminals in Milford City/County given their own punny chapter titles for some upcoming book or documentary or funny meme? And has the sheriff’s office ever booked anyone with perfectly round fingertips before? Yes, Yes, and Yes. In HenryWorld, all things are possible.
Blondie – Dagwood’s mind is lazy, just shoving random foods. A real chef or food connoisseur might think of something like a pocket sandwich shaped like a stocking, one stuffed with BBQ Beef Brisket, one with seasoned sirloin tips, with the iced sugar cookies on the side.
No wonder attempts to make a Dagwood themed chain of sandwich shops has failed.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Well, of course! She’s her father’s daughter after all. Maybe she’ll get stinking drunk beforehand too, so she can brag about her ‘martial arts’ moves at dinner. HI-YAH! Then she finds herself ‘un’ invited from the orgy, and Dirk and Jared discover a new kind of love, leaving poor Jess out in the cold and we can add yet another person to the always-growing list of people who will curse the name of Weston to their dying day.
CS: Once again [for the ‘benefit’ of those whose private equity-controlled newspapers went to a 4-day publishing schedule and no longer run Sunday funnies] Merry Christmas, Ralph!
Luann: Ahh, cheapskates and passive-aggressive ingrates! Merry Christmas, you horrible, horrible people!
MW: “Nice to meet you, Dawn. They call me ‘Dirk the Dirk,’ if you get my shaft, er, drift. And, hey, why don’t you introduce me to your friend there. She’s probably not as easy as you, but she sure is prettier.”
The Italian folkloric figure Befana is a a gift-giver bringing sweets and toys on the 6th of January. It used to be an alternative to Santa Claus, but these days she is complementary. She closes the holiday season bringing sweets in a stocking. Dagwood should enthusiastically embrace this tradition, but being a rich WASP from the 1930s, he has a reaction to Italians which is Lovecraftian — literally
Blondie: Dude, the least you could have done is make it rhyme. I’ll get you started: “steak” rhymes with “milkshake.”
MW: Dirk could hear Dawn’s panties getting wet from a lane away.
MW: Dawn and Dirk are so smitten with each other they’re standing unawares in the center of the lane. No matter. The rules in this place allow bowlers to run across the lanes sideways.
TF is up with Pink Bowling Lady’s lower body? She has the physique of Cotton Hill.
SFx: You’ve got to admire this strip for not only opening children’s eyes to the matter-of-fact cruelty with which predators and prey live their every moment, but for also teaching them how to manipulate crime scenes so that they don’t implicate themselves.
Why is Dagwood reading his CornHub posts out loud to Blondie when she’s just trying to relax with The Comics Curmudgeon at Joshreads dot com before drifting off for the night with dreams of Sam Driver?
FC: The Keane kids are tuned to the Christmas pageant streaming from the new Holy Land themed casino located in downtown Phoenix.
“Put this gold on the red eight!”
@LBSC: Why is Dagwood reading his food porn in bed? Well…I can think of some reasons….
@Bob Tice: I’m pretty sure April must have covered it in her little talk with Ann we just don’t know because it happened off panel.
H&L: Because we eat Christmas dinner at 8am?
Dustin You know what my mid-twenties son and his friends frequently discuss? That’s right, what to do about their subscriptions to The New Yorker. It’s uncanny how in touch this strip is with the lives of contemporary young people.
Blondie-And Dagwood is always hungry.
Slylock Fox-The raccoon runs away laughing that he’s got another innocent animal sent away.
RMMD-“How long did Morgan keep me in that hospital? When I went in it was nice and sunny and I could wear short sleeves now it’s snowing.”
FC-“Followed a bottle more like it.”
@Rube:
…Maybe it initially was The New York TIMES, but editorial told Kelly&Parker “DO NOT TELL THE AUDIENCE THEY SHOULD CANCEL THEIR NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTION IF ALL THEY DO IS READ THE COMICS”.
Question: If we give Dagwood a Snickers candy bar, will that cure his insatiable hunger?
And when he turns back into “himself” who will he be?
@astroboy: for that matter, wtf is wrong with Dirk’s right arm? It’s like this withered little flipper. Maybe his mom took thalidomide?
G. *(&^#@$! Thorp – Marty wasn’t driving, was he? So why the arrest? Is he like Otis Campbell who is drunk so much that he just stumbles into the Mayberry jail and lets himself in the cell?
@Baja Gaijin: Yes she is and yes she does.
Dagwood’s insane, insatiable hunger probably started as a joke about real material suffering in the Depression or something and since then just deformed into a jokes about how consequence free eating disorders are.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Unless it’s a cotton loom.
@brendancalling: arms are @#£%ing hard to draw properly. But then I’m an amateur.
JP: It’s gotten to the point where I can’t tell Sam from Randy any more. Which one is married to who, again? Who’s got the Latina receptionist? Is Sam a private eye or does he drive Uber? Did we ever learn how Hunky Hank got from Alaska to Los Angeles, or why he got so small and skinny? Why didn’t Sophie’s roommate come home with her for Christmas?
MW: “Quick work, Dawn!” I thought it was the male prerogative to treat the women in cheap hooks-ups like meat. Very disheartening to learn ladies can be every bit as shallow and creepy as the bro faction.
GA: Santa’s help is needed urgently! There’s not a moment to waste in this emergency! I’d better send him a… letter? Really? Not even express courier or anything, either? Welp, at least Santa can rest easy, because Aubee’s definitely dead by now from… wait, she’s just “upset?” Sheesh, how hard is it to cheer up a bitter grade schooler?
MW: June Brigman understands bowling as well as she understands smartphones, human faces, and the value in not redrawing the same exterior building wall over and over.
This week’s Crankshaft:
Today: Ralph looks at the video tape that’s already taken several days to get to him.
Tomorrow: Ralph wordlessly looks at the video tape some more.
Wednesday: Ralph wordlessly looks at the video tape again in the first panel. Getting an idea in the second panel, he spots the VCR in the last panel.
Thursday: Ralph wordlessly inserts the tape into the VCR.
Friday: Ralph wordlessly presses Play.
Saturday: Ralph wordlessly sheds a single tear. We are never shown what was on the video tape.
Sunday: Ed Crankshaft causes an unrelated Christmas fiasco involving an incendiary device, a bad pun, and criminal negligence.
Next Monday: Tom Batiuk nominates himself for the Pulitzer Prize.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Was wondering this myself. If EVERY TIME you drink alcohol you get arrested by the police, then maybe drinking isn’t for you. I understand opiates are quite popular these days.
GA: It must have been inconvenient for Aubee’s mother not to have a name before Aubee was born.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #40: Lots of jurisdictions, like in Texas, have public intoxication laws where one can be arrested for staggering down a public way drunk but on foot. A lot of small Texas towns would even charge drunk drivers with that instead of DWI. The reason was in a case of public intoxication the town got to keep the whole fine while in the case of DWI they had to split the fine with the state.
GA: “Aubee’s upset”? The same Aubee who just had a fantastic adventure in outer space, and left a sentient creature on Mars to die of loneliness and insanity? There are probably other children more worthy of Santa’s attention on December 23, is what I’m saying.
MW: Ugh, this is going to be the “Wilbur gets romance-scammed” story again, isn’t it? And it’s going to ignore how Dawn was trying to change herself to at least not eat like Wilbur, isn’t it?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Public intoxication is an arrestable offense. Sometimes it’s done to protect the drunkard who’s an easy target. Other times, it depends on how pissy the cops are. It’s why drunk passengers in cars can be arrested even though they aren’t driving.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I think the noted legal expert Ron White covered that in his treatise on “The State of Texas v. “Tater Salad”.
9CL: So it’s an indoor pool?! Did we know that? The divining boards I have experience are extremely rough; besides being unnecessary and impossible, sitting like that that on a diving board would also be very very uncomfortable.
JP: One of these days, I’m gonna have a long talk with that boy.
JP. Notice Sam said “after the Holiday,” not “after Christmas.” That’s because, by the time this storyline wraps up, it’ll probably be set a week or so past Cinco De Mayo.
Meanwhile, Happy Festivus to all. We’ll save the feats of strength for later and will first commence with the airing of grievances.
Also, thanks to those regarding public intoxication. I knew there were laws on it but figured they must be rarely enforced. Guillermo el chiclero, that is interesting about a city going with basic drunkedness instead of drunk driving since it can keep the whole fine. But I also want to see Marty become such a regular that they just leave the keys out for him like Andy did with Otis.
9c: And the fan service sexual objectification of Brooke’s daughter by Cartoonist Brooke for Fan Brooke continues. Merry Christmas, everyone!
@Banana Jr. 6000: Good rundown of the coming week. And the next day might be the last for Crankshaft. Am I getting it correct? I recall Batiuk saying he was retiring at the end of the year.
Regarding Ralph (a character I always like): I remember when his wife had Alzheimer’s, which I thought Batiuk handled in a good way. It seems to me that somewhere through the years Ralph’s son, Timmy, died. Is that correct? What happened? Did he fall down a well?
@2+2=7:
#32. BLONDIE:. Why is Dag reading good porn in bed? Man, those sand witches are HOT.
JP:. Just a reminder, guys, first ask if Ann has a lawyer.
Judge Parker: We will have that talk, Sam, and soon. Right now, though, I’m putting all of my energy into deciding which tiny lamp I want for my desk.
Blondie: Meanwhile, Blondie is reading out loud from 50 Shades of Grey on her iPad, and also using ChatGPT to change half the original text to descriptions of food. It takes a lot to get things going in bed when you’re a couple of long-married weirdos, but darn it, they’re trying!
Judge Parker: So pardon me if I’m not up to date on Judge Parker lore, but does Sam have, like, any authority whatsoever to be talking to Alan like this? Because I feel like this is the kind of comment that in real life would be met with “go fuck yourself” and a hung up phone. I know for certain that Sam has no place to be judging Alan for something like this, given that the cast of Judge Parker have all committed at least one felony, I’m just not sure that Sam has any kind leverage that would allow him to talk to Alan as if he were Alan’s dad.
Gasoline Alley: “Good! I hope the little brat is upset! I’ll make it even worse by giving her two lumps of coal for Christmas! That’s what you get for pestering me with dumb letters, lady!”
Blondie: Dagwood must really be hungry; he couldn’t even bother to make up something that rhymes.
GA: Boo-hoo Aubee, you think you’re the only one who’s a little down in the dumps on December 23rd? It could be worse: you could be some poor kid trying to buy shoes for your dying mother when some smug bastard offers to foot the bill so he can brag about how he knows The True Meaning of Christmas now.
JP: Ah, the proud holiday tradition of gritting your teeth and pretending to get along with your family for a couple days!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I want to say Timmy died in Vietnam, but I can’t find anything to back that up. (Honestly with the time drift it would be more realistic if he died in Desert Storm.)