Take the middle way, neither ho ho ho nor humbug
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Dennis the Menace and Curtis, 12/19/24
Well, I guess yesterday’s Curtis is the start of an arc about how the kids today celebrate holidays differently, using technology, and I like that Greg’s exhausted facial expression tells us what he thinks about this but he still will only say philosophically that the only constant is change, all is vanity, etc., etc. Dennis the Menace put cyber-Christmas advocacy in the mouth of its most annoying character as well, but otherwise doesn’t outwardly condemn it. And if they won’t, I will. This is tacky and it sucks! Curtis, that app was a trick to get you to download cryptomining malware onto your phone, and Margaret, you are texting with a scammer in Southeast Asia who will convince you to send him your parents’ credit card and Social Security numbers by the end of the year.
Gearhead Gertie, 12/19/24
Speaking of celebrating Christmas differently, I’m not actually that interested in the fact that instead of enjoying classic modern-day Christmas tales Gertie would rather — surprise! — consume NASCAR-related content. I’m more curious about who the other two people on this couch are. Do Gertie and her increasingly alienated husband have [squints] a daughter and a grandson, or perhaps two grandchildren, and they’re staying together for their benefit? Or are these just two people they recruited off the street because they needed a “rule of three” setup for Gertie’s punchline? (Fun fact: Gertie thinks the “rule of three” is when Dale Earnhardt descends from heaven and implements his thousand-year kingdom on Earth).
Hi and Lois, 12/19/24
Remember: due to the oddnesses of comic-book time, we’ve been enjoying Trixie’s antics since the Eisenhower Administration, but she’s been alive for less than a year. This is the first time she’s ever experienced winter. She thinks Sunbeam, her only friend, is old and dying. Pretty bleak!
60 replies to “Take the middle way, neither ho ho ho nor humbug”
Mary Worth Mashups: Missing Final Panels
RMMD:
“Why the vapid, coprophagous grin in the second panel, Officer?”
“I’m higher than a kite, Mr. Lewton!”
MW:
“Dawn, you have to get back on the horse and try again!”
“Yeah, but whenever I do, I always seem to end up in deep pucky, for whatever reason!”
From the first panel alone, I thought at first, that Josh was showing the same Curtis from yesterday. I was confused for a minute.
Interesting how many strips seem to be jumping on the “no punchline” bandwagon. Curtis’ dad states a truism. Margaret sent her list to an app designed for that. Gertie would like to watch a NASCAR themed movie that has a Christmas Eve scene. I kind of enjoy these little slices of life that are neither funny nor poignant. No humor is so much better than attempted humor.
GG. Shane Black called. Even he thinks this is stretching it.
Ah, so you’re going for the desperate cliche of the Southeast Asia scammer joke! Even my cat saw that coming, and he was already bored with you the moment you started saying “ha ha, it’s funny because…” for the hundredth time!
@Baja Gaijin:
Dusk totally likes woman on top with her partners, that’s what I got out of today’s last panel.
RMMD:
If one looks at the second panel, unless his middle finger bends upward at an almost impossible angle, Mr. Lewton is a polydactyl. You have his thumb; then his index finger to which the pulse oximeter is attached; then some kind of protuberance which has to be the start of a finger; and then three additional fingers standing straight up. In fact, if you look at his left hand in the first panel, he’s even more clearly a polydactyl, because he has four fingers of almost equal size next to his pinky, and then the hint of a thumb opposite the pinky.
Mr. Lewton is in good company. Past and present polydactyls include Anne Boleyn, Taye Diggs, Drew Carey, Halle Berry and Oprah, among others.
I often think being a cartoonist for a daily comic strip must be one of the most depressing jobs out there. Every day you have to come up with something you hope is funny, or dramatic, or at least interesting. And for those strips that have been out there for thirty years or more, that must seem like an increasingly impossible task. But I guess Mike Smith has all the gusto he needs to cram out Gearhead Gertie, because it always seems to be presented with palpable enthusiasm. It’d be nice if he’d try to make it funny, though.
Gearhead Gertie : …is Days of Thunder set on Christmas, or have a significant scene that’s set on Christmas? Because I’m sad for Gertie otherwise, because if she liked action movies she could have said “Die Hard 1/2”, horror movies she could have said “Gremlins”, superhero movies “Batman Returns”, spy movie “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, but for “cool guy wins the race” movies apparently don’t have a faux-christmas movie.
….She would have had better luck if her family had wanted to watch Cronenberg movies, and we get “The Fly”, “Videodrome”, “Naked Lunch”, and she says “FAST COMPANY!!!!”
*************
Hi & Lois : …I guess that’s why they sometimes call sunsets “sundown”. Because the SUN ITSELF is SUNDOWNING.
Wrecks Moregone:
So the stabbing story – the most potentially interesting tale in Wrecks in years – is over, including Buste’s exoneration. Interesting story arc successfully aborted! (Wrecks creative team mops their collective brow in relief.)
Pigborn:
Is thisstrip over and done? Not that its “plot” was going anywhere, but it’s been more than five months!
DtM – that text looks like (squints) hiragana, and so Japanese Santa is saying (squints again) “how in the hell is this comic still a thing?”
@Anonymous:
As far as I recall (I watched the film over 30 years ago) Days Of Thunder is set entirely in sunny, presumably summer, weather.
Curtis: They’re both just little simulated snowstorms. There’s no reason to hate on a digital snow globe.
This Is Priceless: Eerie painting from 1860 depicting a guitarist in clothing and sneakers from today.
DtM – If you add a SuperChat bribe, it moves you up on Santa’s list….
Curtis – Well…actually, it’s post-nuclear ash, but it sure is pretty….
GG – Soylent Green….
H&L – Oh Sunbeam – render this soulless Babylon planet into a barren corn flake….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@1 Baja Gaijin:
I. CAN’T. BELIEVE. YOU. USED. A. CLOWN. IN. THE. MASHUP!
Curtis: If neither good nor bad, why the judgmental face?
H&L: Not sure when Trixie started anthropomorphizing the sun as an elderly person, but it’s probably better than if she assumed it was a weakening god that needed to be fed the sacrificial blood of thousands of slaves to regain its strength. Then again, if Trixie decides to give the old ways a test run with her family and neighbors, it may not affect the sun too much but it would certainly make my day a little brighter.
GT: So much for the bar drama, then. Instead, the two worst human beings in Milford not named Keri wrap up a night of ruined lives by commiserating over the pain of a lost high school football game. Presumably this is supposed to evoke sympathy.
JP: Whoa. Whoa. …All right then. Neddy might be optimistic about reconnecting with Hank, but apparently that isn’t stopping her from exploring contingencies closer to home in the meantime.
CS: Ed found his old porn video, “Busty Buss Shoves It Into Overdrive.”
MW: “As your best friend, Dawn, I’ve got to be honest with you. You must be a lousy lay.”
GT: “Coach Gerads just sent me a picture of himself — mooning me.”
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
MW. We all like to clock out of work a little early during the holiday season but June using recolored Estelle clipart for 20 year-old Cathy is taking it a bit far.
@Everything is Better with Monkehs: and so Japanese Santa is saying (squints again)
_________________________________________
Japanese Santa is probably selling KFC.
MW: Personally, I’d like to see the back story on this “Billy” character. If it turns out he was an actual horse, that puts Dawn in a brand new light and, frankly, one I think that’s worth exploring. I’m also curious what role Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Might have had in this sordid relationship. Did he introduce Billy to Dawn? Did Dawn mistake a reference to “bridle” for “bridal” and hear wedding bells? At least Billy had enough horse sense to throw Dawn over for a horse of a different color…Melody Mare? So many questions!
@Bob Tice: Don’t forget the (novel version of) Hannibal Lecter.
Whoa Curtis there taking apart the whole liberal political project huh? Going to be hawking bitcoin next.
@Sequitur: He’s using progressive exposure to get over his coulrophobia.
(Won’t work, Baka, they’ll still come through your window tonight to get you.)
It makes sense that Gertie and Mr. Gertie might be visiting their daughter so they would be sitting on a different couch than previously depicted. It does not make sense that this single mom would have deliberately bought a couch that’s long enough that everyone has to share it with Gertie.
Hi and Lois: Trixie’s concern that the days are growing shorter actually just serves to remind us that the sun will eventually, as it consumes the last of its fuel, swell up and consume the inner planets, wiping out any life that remains here on Earth. Ha ha ha, kids say the darnedest things!
DtM: I really hate when this strip does jokes about technology, mostly because they suck, but also because it creates a weird anachronism with the style. Like, that cell phone means that this scene is taking place in recent times, which means that Margaret’s parents have dressed her up like that as some kind of weird 60’s cosplay, a thought that deeply disturbs me.
GG: Gertie is a NASCAR fanatic to the point that she can talk about literally nothing else, and yet her house seems completely bereft of any kind of car-themed decorations, even on the Christmas tree. I can only assume that this isn’t her house, and she’s murdered the actual residents, probably because they didn’t like NASCAR.
H&L: You also go to bed early, Trixie. Maybe, in the larger cosmic context, our sun is but a child like you? Or maybe it’s just a flaming ball of gas millions of miles away from us all. What was my point again? Right, nothing.
Yeah, you’re just as bad.
MW – The Christmas tree ornaments are groaning in agony. I feel their pain.
DENNIS THE MENACE: Now to be fair, Josh, the “scammer” is actually Dennis (it’s why he’s smiling.)
@matt w: PS I was going to criticize that old Gearhead Gertie for parking a truck labeled “Cable TV” out front, but I’ve decided that that doesn’t step on the punchline but is necessary setup. We need to know in advance that the cable guy is there, the revelation is that he lives there.
PPS But I will criticize Gearhead Gertie for forgetting what Gertie’s couch looks like.
PPPS Also I noticed that the URL for the first post I linked is “Wednesday one panels” but the title is “Thursday one panels.” I’m not going to criticize Josh for that. We’ve all been there!
REX MORGAN M.D.: Also gotta love how the dopey police needed to “investigate” a conclusion they already formed when they arrested the perp on sight.
(Why yes, I did say this yesterday, but it applies more strongly here)
Curtis: waitaminit phones have motion sensors. If your digital snow globe doesn’t snow when you shake your phone it sucks.
MW: Something’s off about that Christmas tree in panel 1, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. All the ornaments are just cut-and-pasted on. Those of you who have been speculating that Cathy is just Eshtelle with brown hair might indeed be onto something!
MW – So, Cathy is encouraging Dawn to steal Jared away from Jess, then ride him reverse-cowgirl style? I’m starting to like Cathy.
@Marge: Go away, troll.
MARY WORTH: Cathy: “Dawn, you have to get back on the horse and try again!”
Dawn: “Reminds me of Dave.”
MW: “You gotta get back on that horse!”
“I tried that already, and now I can’t go back to that petting zoo!”
Just seems like a set-up to a really dirty joke, right?
Dennis the Menace: I dunno, Josh, that looks more like サンタ犬, Japanese Santa Doggy, to me. Got the scammer part right, though.
MW: so the Weston apartment will become The Charterstone Riding Academy.
JP: Neddy has that just laid look.
DtM: Since when has Santa had a mustache but no beard? That’s the Monopoly Man!
Right. As if Gertie’s momomania would allow her to have a tree full of generic baubles instead of being covered in licensed NASCAR garbage.
RMMD: Thank heavens we have that settled! Dogs are good! Now we can get to the *real” plot. Lab work and other testing at the hospital will reveal the Serious Medical Issue that brought Merle to Rex’s office to begin with, which Rex didn’t bother to investigate.
Dennis the Menace: Is Margaret texting with… a snowman? Maybe some kind of seal? I don’t know how that picture on her phone fooled her, y’all, doesn’t she know you can put a Santa hat on pretty much anything?
Curtis – Oops, yesterday I wrote that due to comics-time, Curtis was too young to remember when the App Store first opened and it was dominated by new novelty apps, which would have included a snow globe app. And I gave this very comic setup as the joke that would have been told years ago.
.
I forgot to factor in that while comics characters stay the same age, legacy newspaper comics writers are perpetually stuck 10 – 15 years in the past.
Dennis the Menace – Margaret is so smug about her embrace of decades old technology that she hasn’t noticed that Dennis has stolen and is wearing Santa’s pants and boots. The North Pole has fallen to The Menacing.
Gearhead Gertie – Sorry, but there is no way Gertie’s tree wouldn’t be top-to-bottom NASCAR themed ornaments, perhaps done up in a way to resemble actual NASCAR tracks.
Hi and Lois – Trixie is too young to fully understand the theology of Christmas, buried as it is under commercialization and her being less than a year old. And while everyone has that annoying Facebook atheist friend who has to do their annual “Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas” repost, Trixie, in her ignorance, still understands the reason for the early winter Solstice holidays: We have a primal fear that the world is dying and need a colorful feasting holiday before the dark times and depravations of winter sink in fully.
DT: It’s nice to see that the NeoChicago TA hires the handicapped.
GG: I refuse to believe anyone would willingly associate with Gertie, including her own family. She’s basically one of those “why did you cut contact with your parents” stories on Reddit.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Take these… they’re my autographed pictures”
“You do realize they’re just throwing those in the nearest trash can?”
“It’s still good publicity”
“People always remember someone who annoys them on the street”
FC-God rest between merry ladies thighs.
MW-Uh, Dawn, you may need to open your eyes wider. This is the second woman to hit on you.
GT: “I failed them, Beth. Why did I bother going back?”
”Don’t say that. I heard the same thing over and over all night at work.”
Curtis: Greg’s mood ruins Christmas when Curtis switches the TV to a “Yule Log” channel for 10 seconds.
@Ukranazi Stepan: According to the Wikipedia plot summary, Days of Thunder explicitly shows the running of at least two races, the Firecracker 400 and then the climax of the film at the Daytona 500. At the time, the Firecracker 400 was run around July 4th, while the Daytona 500 is around President’s Day weekend. There are parts of the movie that take place between these dates, which would include Christmas, making Days of Thunder a Christmas movie.
Curtis –“History–just one damn thing after another, amirite?”
DtM — Kind of impressed that Margaret was able to track down Santa’s phone number–or did she just use 1-800-HOHOHOH?
H&L: You see, folks! Even a baby two-legger notices that the Sun is taking a lower path across the sky every day! And it will eventually just disappear below the horizon if we don’t DO SOMETHING! We are readying the bonfires in LoFo as we speak to light up the sky and bring back Ol’ Mr. Sol from his death journey!
This is of course the reason for our Winter Solstice Festival, but we have various age-appropriate refreshments and entertainment, too! Don’t worry – this will be a controlled burning, and we’ll have representatives from the Forest Service standing by. We haven’t burned the woods down since ’03, in your calendar years.
No need to RSVP – just come as you are. I hope someone can give Trixie a ride so she can be a part of this!
DtM: “What does texting look like?” “I think it’s one of those things like a chat room, like on a BBS, but you have a picture thingy on the screen.” “Thanks!”
Curtis: That’s just lazy. You should have to at least shake the phone for a second or two to get the snowglobe effect!
GG: Did I search for “Is Days of Thunder a Christmas movie?” Yes. Do I regret the time spent doing so? Also, yes.
HnL: Trixie better hurry to get that “Fiddler on the Roof” revival going.
@Charterstoned: I have shelved my potential snark to second this post.