Blasts from the past
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/10/25
Even as I age, I stick to one of my core values, which is that nostalgia is, ultimately, a poison, a way to project your discontent onto an imagined past that includes only your hazy, positive memories and none of the very real problems present in any historical period. Still, I recognize its fundamental appeal. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when professionals would be addressed in a friendly way by a shorthand nickname based on their well-respected job — “Teach,” “Padre,” and such? And wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when a high school teacher could spend so much time at the bar that the bouncers there would be like “Oh, that guy? The one who’s here so often that you easily recognize him? He’s a high school teacher, and no, I don’t really know how he can get up in the morning in time to get to class, given how much he drinks here every night.”
Herb and Jamaal, 2/10/25
Speaking of nostalgia, remember Herb and Jamaal, the strip I used to talk about mostly to make fun of its extreme nonspecificity? I let it drop off my rotation a while back due to [some throat-clearing here to gloss over how I get access to comic strips in such a way that allows me to have each post written and published by around 4 am every day and sometimes accidentally earlier] but now I’ve gotten another source on them, and the big question is: are our heroes still telling cutting-edge jokes about what’s going in the present day? The answer, surprisingly, is yes! Just as I’ve found new sources for comics access, Herb and Jamaal have dug into the informal supply chain and acquired one (1) egg, a precious commodity in our current H5N1-afflicted hellscape! Unfortunately, given that the two of them run a restaurant together, this seems like it’s not going to scale up in a way that will be helpful to them.
Dick Tracy, 2/10/25
I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t really get into the Dick Tracy fights the neo-Nazis storyline that’s wrapping up now — fights quite literally, as all the bruises on Dick and Sam’s faces will tell you. Having tuned out, I’m honestly not sure who “himself,” sitting at the bar and enjoying a healthy lettuce sandwich on white bread while he plies our lawmen and -women with a gelatinous nacho blob, is supposed to be. Should we recognize him from the story so far? Is he some new character heralding the next adventure? Is he Michael Kilian himself, the bar owner, or possibly Michael Kilian himself, the guy who used to write Dick Tracy until he died in 2005, paving the way for the truly deranged Locher era? More on this as it develops, if I can maintain my attention span for it, which I probably can’t.
Family Circus, 2/10/25
Look, I’m not saying that “become a radfem separatist and eject all boys from the Keane Kompound” is the correct reading of the King James translation of the Lord’s Prayer, but I’m willing to wait and see where exactly Dolly is going with this.
Shoe, 2/10/25
Roz’s diner in Shoe is on the receiving end of a trope that generally rubs me the wrong way, which is “This is the place where the characters hang out all the time, but they also talk shit constantly about how bad it is, and they’re really mean-spirited about it.” But if Roz really strikes up conversations with her customers by saying things like “So, you’re gonna die soon. Are you being irresponsible about it?” then maybe her naysayers have a point.
158 replies to “Blasts from the past”
RMMD:
“You want I should toss him out?”
“Nah. Mangle him and leave him here.”
FC:
“Well, I guess she’s never going to be the next Marie Sklodowska Curie,” laments Thel.
RMMD: Feeling particularly betrayed by today’s strip for promising something in panel 1 – that the entire strip is about to turn into The Simpsons‘ Planet of the Apes musical starring Troy McClure – that makes panels 2 and 3 seem even more flat and boring by comparison.
H&J: That’s nice, Jamaal got a scale model of his head.
DT: Now that Dick has killed all the real criminals, he’ll have to turn his attention to other, pettier social annoyances. Like people working low-status service jobs, who feel they have to add “-self” to the end of every pronoun because it sounds polite and deferential even though it’s not grammatically correct, thus amusing the very snobbish customers they’re attempting to impress. “You’d better not be quick to use reflexive pronouns,” Dick sneers, cocking his gun, “or we’ll have to see just how quick your reflexes really are.”
RMMD: I get it; this is a theme bar, where it’s required to speak in 1930’s cinema vernacular. Get it, youze mugs?
MW: Dawn finally sprouts a spine, after being shamed by the fact that Jared, who has the machismo of a butterfly, was willing to step up for her.
DT: They’re making the waitress as Irish as possible without actually saying “Faith and begorrah!”
RMMD: I like to think bouncer man is holding the jerk off the ground under his arm like a sack of flour in P3.
BLONDIE:. Only comic* I saw that was post Superbowl whereas yesterday half were about the game. Obviously, most cartoonists must be KC fans.
* Not including BoT, which is Sunday only
JP: Congrats to yesterday’s Mudge who said Sam would send it by M-A-I-L. Only it actually was a homonym.
6CX:. Took a while looking for lettering before I noticed nonverbal communication. Thanks for making me think, Bannerman.
FRAZZ:. Hit me on the nose. Do all young kids think events and holidays and parties “just happen?”. I know I did.
RMMD – Not to nitpick vernacular, but shouldn’t it be, “Youse.”
H&J – Yes! And perhaps toss in that you took out a second mortgage, but it’s so worth it….
DT – I like how Sam is making the universal I wanna squeeze some tits gesture. Very risky these days, but effective….
FC – Tell me again about the implications of this being an our home is our castle doctrine jurisdiction….
Shoe – Yes – two stools – two steaming, stink wafting stools – that’s a fair rating for today’s effort – tough, but fair….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Activist:
#7. 6CHX. A woke comic, both birds are male.
If you’re going to go so heavy on the Irish theming that you only hire redheaded waitresses who call customers “you lot” and you “himself,” you should be wearing a green suit or at least tie. Or serving, like, minty peas instead of nachos.
Wary Morth:
Yes, he really called her an “aapstert hashtag dollar dollar percent euro”. What at *you* going to do about it, Mister Onlooker? Huh?
TG:. Not true for everyone. My doctor said I had no feet in my intestine.
PHSNTOM:. New arc begins
@Pozzo: You get it.
“Faith and begorrah” always makes me think of the P.G. Wodehouse book where Gussie Fink-Nottle is extremely nervous about a speech he has to give at a school prize-giving, so Bertie has Jeeves suggest a couple of clichés and a joke about two Irishmen walking down Broadway. Gussie then gets extremely drunk before the speech, resulting in the following:
FC: Thel adds, “You forgot your father.”
Dolly makes a crack about her brothers whilst the pitch black void looms ever closer. She mentions her brothers because there is no one else but the family, there is nothing outside the Kompound. They may pray to the Lord, but He abandoned them to oblivion long ago.
Look, kudos to Rex Morgan, MD where it’s due, that’s the realest bouncer I’ve ever seen in a comic strip. Needs some sleeve tattoos, maybe a really worn t-shirt of an indie rock band from Chicago of 15 years ago, but let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Shoe: Roz is wondering if he’s decided whether he wants his remains fried or roasted being a bird and all.
Wrecks Moregone:
Abu Mole al Bounceri heaved a sigh. ISIS had ordered him to keep a low profile, to blend in, to draw no attention to himself, until the orders came to unleash mayhem. He’d done the best he could, even to the extent of taking a job at a place purveying the cursed Crusader poison of alcohol. But, he worried, was he taking the cover story too far? Was he identifying too much with some of these Crusaders? That sad man, for instance, who came here every night to swallow the poison; Abu Mole had long since ascertained that he was a mere schoolteacher, without an evil bone in his body. And that painted trollop he was with tonight? Al Bounceri had listened in to their conversation, thanks to his ISIS cell-brother Abu Beardo al Ponytaili sitting next to them, and she seemed to be a perfectly normal woman, on top of which she was fleeing persecution. Abu Mole’s eyes briefly teared up at the memory of how his own family had to flee after Bush’ invasion of his homeland, how his own mother had, after a Predator drone murdered his father and sisters, sought refuge in another man’s house. Well, no more of that would happen here. Not on his watch.
“Do you want me to toss him out, Teach?” he rumbled. “Or should I just behead him? Let me borrow a knife from the kitchen. You can take the video, Teach.”
“But…”
Abu Mole al Bounceri leaned forward and gritted his teeth. “I said *you can take the video*.”
Dustin: Now I have this mental image of the poor doc running his lubed finger up Ed Kudlick’s asshole.
Dustin: The doc seems way too eager for my tastes.
Ah, Josh, you big city innocent. In Morgantown, teachers run into ex-students everywhere. Ushers, doctors, park rangers..
This bouncer’s back story is too obvious to bother filling in : Football player who got passed on orders of the Principal.
Luann:
Coming up, one full week of TJ scheming to get into Bwad’s pants. Again.
Oh joy.
MW: I can’t remember, did a Black woman talk to Estelle in her yoga class after she screamed from Wilbur’s window-peeping, or is this the first time a Black person has spoken in the strip since Zak and Iris’s wedding?
Rex Morgan, M.D.: As someone who is often referred to as “Chaplain” or “The Minister,” occasionally “Father” or even, yes, “Padre,” I am here to tell you nostalgia is…wait, where was I going with that?
RMMD: The correct quote is “Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!” Granted, this is a newspaper comic, so Beatty has the choice of substituting either a grawlix or “darn” in place of the cussing.
MW – My dream of Jared dropping Dirkhead with one punch and leaving him bawling on the floor is dead, but now I want *everyone* at BOWL to punch Dirkhead and leave him bawling on the floor. My new dream is alive!
FC: Yeah there was this one show I watched growing up, about a secret society of kids fighting evil adult oppression.
“Codename: Kids Next Door” It was pretty good, especially once Season 2 hit and the plots started getting deeper and less cartoony. Although The Family Circus reminded me of one episode, where an evil woman was going to get rid of all males, by inventing a machine to turn all boys in the world into girls against their will (And even tomboys into girly-girls)
I just didn’t expect Dolly Keane to be in cahoots here.
Dick Tracy: Wh-what is that thing they’re serving at Michael Kilian’s? Does…does it move? Is Sam intending to dig into with his bare hands? Did they get it from Mary Worth? Sadly, the answer to all these questions is “No.” Tomorrow: a new adventure involving obscure characters from this strip’s past and no formless blobs, unless Formless Blobtop returns!
Shoe: This is basically a perfectly normal conversation goes in the end-of-life-care world goes. It’s utterly unsurprising that it would be familiar to the creators of a legacy comic strip, given their age.
Phantom: “At last….the surgeons here should be able to remove this monkey’s paw somehow attached to my right arm.”
I’m impressed that Himself is eating a lettuce sandwich while simultaneously doing the can-can and the twist and falling backward onto the bar, without spilling a drop of his beer.
@Lauralot: I went back and checked, there was a Black man in the yoga class, but it was a white lady who comforted Estelle. You’d think a strip written by a woman of color would be more diverse, but here we are.
RMMD: I want you to toss him out so hard he lands on Dirk the Dick in Mary Worth.
FWIW it’s worth I think the bouncer was a student of said teacher.
DtM: Dennis’ takeaway from the Sunday sermon is that his idols have feet of clay.
RMMD: In the throwaway panels of the strip for February 2, Augie said he doesn’t usually go to this bar; he’s only there to see his nephew’s band. So how does the bouncer know him?
RMMD: I can’t help reading Mr Goatee’s dialogue in Charlton Heston’s voice, which makes the bouncer’s voice default to Dr Zaius…
H&J: “A love egg! Bend over…” (sorry, it’s been way too long…)
DT: Ah, nachos Irish style: eight alternating layers of old cheddar and tortillas, sprinkled liberally with shamrocks!
FC: Love that look that Thel is giving: “Keep going, dear, you’re missing one more…”
Shoe: It’s funny because Biz is a mess financially and physically and he just can’t die soon enough!
Dustin: Reminds me of the look of relief on my GP’s face when I tell her she doesn’t have to examine my prostate because my urologist did it last week.
It’s the Dick Tracy universe, so the guy who treats other restaurant patrons to free nachos must obviously be named Nacho Bill.
Shoe: “I can barely tie my shoes…let alone deal with my prolapsed cloaca.”
RMMD: “Actually, I want you should stop calling me ‘Teach’ and letting people know that I had you in high school English.”
I know it’s just the limitations of the medium making them blend together but I would be really happy if the bouncer had his really long beard woven into that t-shirt.
Augie is going to get his ashes hauled tonight, isn’t he?
Well, he probably would in the real world, but in RMMD, he’ll probably get Summer’s phone number and a handshake.
Dick Tracy: If I’m reading this panel right, then Sam Ketchum is about to grope some nacho-hash onto his saucer while a disproportionately giant redhead watches.
Please tell me I’m not reading this right.
Dick Tracy – The problem with communal nachos that are stacked like a Jenga tower is contamination, and cheese fingers. Also, only the top layer is covered in cheese, and once they’re gone, you’re left with nothing but a subsurface of dry, naked chips. Mozzarella Sticks are clearly the way to go with a larger group like this. Jeez, man. Get a clue!
DT: Well, looks like George W. Bush has given up his promise not to drink and is now hanging out at Irish pubs.
FC: Who trespasses against us? How about Ida Knoe. That wretched doll has bred, and her evil offspring have moved to other comic strips!
Marvin-“My parents have stopped talking to each other.”
MW-“Quick! Someone inform the Mary Worth that he said a naughty word!”
MW: did Dirk the piece of shit asshole only just realize he’s in a public place?
Luann: Brad’s cake fell because this is 1958 and you forgot your mom’s warning about loud noises, slamming the front door, or the kitchen floor.
BG&SS: Crossover time! Hootin’ Holler (with 1930s-era cellphone service) is visited by a Plugger (who forgot to lament the good old days when gas stations gave out maps).
RMMD: Goatee Guy is acting like someone who’s never had a bouncer put hands on him. Somehow, it’s an unconvincing performance.
“Many minutes later as she faced being stoned, Dolly Keane was to remember that distant afternoon when she napped during a Sunday school session on the Gospel of John.” – Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de cabeza de melón.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Spanish to English.
Six Chix: Love on the cheep.
@Lauralot:
Moy has, or at least had, Mr. Allora and Brandi. But, she seems to have completely abandoned those characters to make room for more endless Weston drivel.
Rex Morgan, MD – I assume Augie Shuster was this bouncer’s English teacher in high school. The bouncer wasn’t his brightest student (notice the bad grammar), but Augie took pity on him and improved his speech from his family’s even more basic grunt-and-gesture based communication at home.
Herb and Jamal – I am glad Hern and Jamal’s guy that supplied the egg also drops off early comics to Josh for our curmudgeoning pleasure.
Dick Tracy – At least they didn’t go with “Irish nacho”, which was the way the bad “Irish” pub in my college town called loaded fries. That bar was luckily tucked away in small city Midwest, far from the prying eyes and car bombs of the IRA.
Family Circus – I made a joke the other day that Thel was reading a special story time book that had a hidden folk-magic enchantment to make her children fall asleep, only available in the backroom of the Christian book shop. Now I wonder if The Family Circus isn’t taking a narrative swing into the secret world of women in a patriarchal cult.
Whereas The Handmaid’s Tale was popular during the first Trump Administration for the #Resistance set, it is an unsubtle dystopia that preaches to the choir. But perhaps we’re about to slip into a Pan’s Labyrinth style storyline, where Dolly will go on a fantastical adventure of discovering a parallel world of of magical women making space for themselves, and manipulating the men who only think they are in charge.
Shoe – Pluggers was founded by Shoe creator Jeff MacNelly, and I think any submissions that are too sad even for Pluggers get turned into “jokes” set in Roz’s diner.
DT “Tell Himself thanks, but we’re Chicago cops. We weren’t paying anyway.”
Richard Tracy:
The Ghost of Reinhard Heydrich strikes again.
Dustin: “Next up we have a court order to castrate you to make sure you can never reproduce again”
Shoe: “Your scheduled date to be euthanized is next week”
DtM: She ditched you, she saw her opportunity to leave and she’s not coming back.
GT: We now return to Henry Barajas’ “Mystery Theatre,” where once again readers scratch their heads and mumble, “What? Huh?”
Pluggers: Now that’s one I believe. And they don’t take either one off when they eat.
SFx: This strip is meant for little kids. How many of them do you think give a crap about the habitat of the three-horned Jackson’s chameleon?
@Voshkod: Excellent, right on target!
MW: I’ve genuinely spent a lot of time this morning trying to figure out what Dirk could have possibly called Dawn that would cause a group of people IN A BOWLING ALLEY to gasp at what he said.
Indignant toward a man being that aggressive towards a woman? Sure. Shocked at someone saying something vile? Whatever Dirk said it was probably not in the top ten of horrible things I’ve heard at a bowling alley and I don’t even bowl often or in many of the seedier establishments that exist…
Honestly, belligerent weirdo, the bouncer is doing you a favor. NO ONE in Rex Morgan M.D. is worth fighting for.
H&L: Ha ha, wimmen and their vanity, amirite? [eye roll]
RMMD: I don’t have a lot of experience with bouncers. Are they always this pleasant?
CS: I was questioning the characterization of a gray-haired man running for state senator as an example of blinding ambition, but then I realized that it must be in a loser town like Centerville.
MW: Not only do the other bowlers say “GASP!” rather than just gasping, the dude who speaks up says “OMG!” rather than “Oh my God!” I suppose the bowling ball also said “THUD!”
MW: I can’t even with this storyline. Moy is both trying to FastPass Dawn and Dirk’s relationship but is also handling the subject of domestic abuse in a way that is even more insulting than if we actually saw Dawn getting hit and having to hide a black eye with sunglasses.
Abusers do not act like this in public. If anything, they’re more superficially charming in public because they don’t want to be perceived as an abuser. It’s much easier to keep their victims under their thumb if no one else sees that dark side of them.
Moy has portrayed more examples of domestic abuse with her main cast of characters than she has with Dirk. Wilbur is such a needy attention seeker that he threatened to strangle his then girlfriend’s cat because she dared to take attention away from him. Both Dawn and Jared treated each other poorly when they were in a relationship where Dawn checked out other guys in front of Jared while Jared was considering dumping Dawn for one of his patients. Estelle berated Dr. Ed for working too much to pay for a stupidly themed expensive wedding instead of being a meal ticket to show off.
The only time Moy has accurately written someone with abusive behavior was with Keith Hillend using underhanded tactics to hook up with his old flame and his vegan spoiled brat of a not-daughter…and we were supposed to root for him!
Blondie: Dithers moved his desk out into the bay with the peons? Not likely.
FC: “Mommy, please tell me that Billy, Jeffy, and PJ are going to hell.”
Insanity Streak: Cruel comic of the day.
DT: I think this is supposed to be the governor who nearly got blown up at the clock tower? Maybe instead of nachos he should be giving them all a strict lecture on why last-minute heroics may look good on paper, but leaves way too much to chance.
FC: Does Dolly assume “trespass” here implies the modern definition of “unlawful intrusion on another’s property” or is she speaking in reference to the original Greek ??????????, which more accurately translates as “debts”? I’m trying to figure out if she wants her brothers to stay out of her room or if they just owe her money.
RMMD: Some guys never let go of being the high school quarterback; Beardy here will never get past playing Big Jule in Guys and Dolls his senior year.
@Needless Exposition: Don’t forget Jared getting all cozy with Jess when she was hospitalized by her previous abusive relationship, creating dependence in her at a time when she was very vulnerable.
what Jamaal isn’t telling us is that the last guy in that chain is a chicken and the penultimate guy is selling him a farm fresh egg for the total price to purchase, feed and house a chicken until it lays one (1), egg.
@TheDiva: And Moy had to backpedal on just what happened to Jess because she couldn’t stand for her Golden Geek being anything but a Nice Guy.
FC — And God spoke to Dolly, saying, “What hast thou done with Billy, and with Jeffy, and with P.J.? And Dolly answered unto Him, “Am I my brothers’ keeper? Isn’t that why they’re supposed to make those dashed lines to mark their path?”
@Bob Tice: RMMD: We’d both like to stand and gloat over his bloody corpse.
Frazz: You thought #69 just happens? :-)
MW: I hope the crowd is mad at Dirk because it’s obvious what a poseur he is. Dirk’s been showing so much over-the-top seething anger at nothing. But when he gets pushback from Star Wars wimp, which would play perfectly into this act, Dirk just gives him a light shove. Dawn could have broken his foot, and she gets a not-at-all-intimidating hand raise. “This is an 1950s bowling alley, sir. If you want to be hypercompetitive and beat your woman in a drunken stupor because your parents didn’t hug you enough, you’d be far from the first. But put some effort into it.”
C’shaft: I can’t tell if this guy is starting his campaign way too early or way too late.
Dustin: I obviously wouldn’t know from experience, but are prostate exams physically uncomfortable or is Dustdad just having a “no homo” moment?
GT: “Well, did the waiver say I can’t punch you film nerds in the face if I don’t like the results?”
“….What notes did you have in mind?”
MW: Look, I’m all for public shaming of abusers–Kendrick Lamar seems to be making it work for him–but this is the equivalent of a second grader running up to the playground monitor while yelling, “Teacher, teacher, Bobby said a bad word!”
SH: Look, I get that you’re trying to push this “we’re all one big happy family on this planet we all need to survive,” thing, but “we’re the same species, only one of us breathes water and lives several centuries” is a bit of a hard sell.
@TheDiva: Gaaaah, I don’t know how to format Greek letters here. The Latin transliteration would be ofelimata.
RM: I appreciate the burly guy with the dyed beard’s commitment to his chosen occupation of “muscle for hire” even on his off hours. Sure, he’s just hanging out at his neighborhood bar, shooting the shit with the other salt of the earth working folks like teachers, administrative professionals, and roots country musicians, but he can still drop into the patois of the Goon at the drop of a hat. “You want I should break his legs too? D’aaa, ohkay Teach.”
DT – “Enjoy your potato-and-cabbage nachos, lads. Faith and begorrah, am I ever Irish!”
@Cleveland Mocks: Respect!
@TheDiva: Dustin: I obviously wouldn’t know from experience, but are prostate exams physically uncomfortable or is Dustdad just having a “no homo” moment?
***
More likely the latter since he probably goes to those naughty massage parlors where they do happy endings and possibly prostate massages.
RMMD – In the original novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle, the humans demonstrated their intellectual ability to their ape captors by drawing the conic sections: Ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola. After this guy’s “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” outburst, he’ll try that tactic. But ironically, in real life the only people who are impressed by it are high school teachers.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Juan, you’re a handsome movie star. People can’t take their eyes off you!”
“I’m afraid I have the face of a wizened gnome!”
“It’s a good thing you’re rich, huh?”
@matt w: And wearing company-approved “flair”.
Lots of “flair”.
MW and the Mystery of What Dirk Said: In an early episode of the Harley Quinn animated series, Wonder Woman throws a station wagon at Doctor Psycho and he responds “AHHHH! That really HURT, you C*NT!” The crowd goes completely silent, a dog halts peeing mid-pee, and the Earth literally ceases to turn on its axis. Psycho is publicly shamed, kicked out of the supervillains club, and is reduced to employment as one of Harley’s henchmen.
(In Great Britain, this is considered a vulgar yet acceptable insult applicable to either sex, along the lines of “asshole.” VIZ magazine runs a comic strip called “The Real Ale C*nts” about Brits who are entirely too fussy about beer.)
““Oh, that guy? The one who’s here so often that you easily recognize him? He’s a high school teacher, and no, I don’t really know how he can get up in the morning in time to get to class, given how much he drinks here every night.”
I’m a public school teacher (high school and middle school). Augie does indeed drink every single night. That’s BECAUSE he’s an English teacher.
DT: I first thought it was the governor, too, but a commenter in the Seattle Times confirms it’s a tribute to dead writer Michael Killian, whom Costello commemorates with his own pub and a tasty watercress sandwich, must be his birthday or something. But Mike really should be treating the cops to Irish bacon, creamed cabbage, and a boiled potato.
@Brendan Skwire: English teachers, able to forestall complaints about their drinking with one word: “Hemingway.”
Dustin – “We’re still going to do the prostate exam.”
“But… that hasn’t been considered a useful screening test since 2018.”
“Oh sure, ‘medical science’ doesn’t think it’s valid! I suppose next you’re going to tell me you don’t want the leeches either!”
Herb and Jamaal are so committed to non-specificity that they are now referring to everyone as “a guy,” or “his guy” in lieu of proper names.
9C: Oh goody, a week of Thorax and his wacky observations? And with opaque political spin? Be still my beating heart.
@Cleveland Mocks:
Sometimes #87 just happens
Um… testing.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Wasn’t that a Seinfeld episode?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: @The Rambling Otter: Yeah, George had a massage done by a man, and then was afraid that he was gay for enjoying it.
@Voshkod: “Lewis, O’Neill, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck.” It was once pointed out that all the U.S. authors with the Nobel in Literature (Pearl Buck excepted) were wither alcoholic or hapless drunks. This was a few years before Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan won.
@Peanut Gallery: I read that as “Drawing the comic sections”
Human: Let me free you dirty ape, or I’ll write more Funky Winkerbean, and maybe Gasoline Alley!
Ape: No… must resist hate read!
Such a scenario is kind of an inverse of the 1001 Arabian Nights legend.
@Needless Exposition: It actually occurred to me that while Moy constantly shoves Wilbur into everything because his insufferable behavior is like a zoo animal and a sideshow minstrel combined, Jared is the one that is portrayed as always being right and a Nice Guy whose only flaw is that he’s a geek who looks like someone who put out a forest fire with a screwdriver.
Except he’s a whiny, mincing little creep who acts like women are only attracted to good looking jerks and that a Nice Guy like him will never get the girl. And then when he does get the girl, he becomes an absolute stick in the mud and mood killer because he wants his girlfriend to do what he wants and to share his interests. Not that Dawn is exactly a prized pig but the narrative blamed Dawn for the relationship not working out and ignored Jared creepily cozying up to Jess who was clearly vulnerable and broken down.
tl;dr Jared is even more of a writer’s pet than Wilbur.
@Ukulele Ike: I think it’s “The Real Ale Twats.” But Viz did groundbreaking work bringing “c*nt” into the public discourse through the one-off strip “Bertie Blunt, His Parrot’s a “C*nt” — which featured the parrot anticipating Dawn Weston by dropping a bowling ball on the head of Bertie’s elderly grandma.
Shoe-Please don’t tease us that “Shoe” is ending.
RMMD-What sort of loser are you if follow into a bar the woman who walked out on your date?
@Ukulele Ike: This gives me the impression, that Superheroes and Supervillains are just on the clock, each doing their jobs like Ralph Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog from Looney Tunes.
Then I realize, that is exactly true. Except Supervillains get paid, Superheroes don’t.
Luann-“Do you know how long it took to bake this cake? I don’t have the recipe for it anymore.”
@The Rambling Otter: Unless the Superhero is mostly just in it for the money, like Booster Gold or Plastic Man.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve told myself that I need to limit my drinking to when I’m writing; that way, I’ll either write more or drink less.
RM,MD: I appreciate the boldface emphasis on TOSS, in the bouncer’s query, as if he is asking whether there should be another, different verb there, like, “you want I should KNOCK him out,” “you want I should RUB him out,” “you want I should SHOW him out,” “you want I should WEAR him out,” and so on and so forth. And furthermore, I appreciate his saying “You want I should…” like a Brooklyn gorilla in a thirties movie, back when Brooklyn had a reputation as the home of tough guys, rather than hipster influencers.
Either that’s a turkey egg or Herb and Jamaal are surprisingly tiny.
I just had two comments disappear into the ether.
FC – The worst trespasser is Holier than thou Grandma. If Thel had her way, there would be a restraining order, and the old bat would have to stay at least five hundred feet away from the Keane compound.
Let’s try this again…
H&J: He’s going to propose to him with that
ringegg-box isn’t he.@Activist: NTTAWWT.
@Professor Well Actually: FWIW I think the bouncer was a student of said teacher.
That’s what I thought, too.
@Voshkod: Yes, and look what happened with him, although it could have been due to brain injury from the two plane crashes (in one day!) that he was in.
Rex Morgan: Are we not supposed to notice that Summer’s rageaholic jerk of a date and the supposedly nice, cool teacher she’s enjoying a conversation with are wearing exactly the same “sleazy disco barfly” outfit? I assume the subliminal message is that whichever guy ends up with, she sure knows how to pick ’em — very, very badly.
Family Circus: I’m pretty sure Billy and Jeffy and PJ will also need to learn the Lord’s Prayer, depending on which 12-step program each of them lands in after hitting rock bottom.
The word order of the phrase “you want I should toss him out?” is one that I usually associate with native Yiddish speakers, specifically my grandmother, so I’m having a hard time reconciling it with that facial hair.
Also, someone in Shoe committed a HIPAA violation.
@The Rambling Otter: Horrifying to contemplate!
@Cleveland Mocks: MW: Not only do the other bowlers say “GASP!” rather than just gasping, the dude who speaks up says “OMG!” rather than “Oh my God!” I suppose the bowling ball also said “THUD!”
Well, it is the same strip where a crying character said the word “sob” in her own internal monologue.
@Ukulele Ike: “Being drunk, dead, or Bob Dylan is no way to go through life, son.”
@I speak Jive: I think it was a different brain injury that did him in.
@The Rambling Otter: I assume Plastic Man just puts everything on his credit card.
@The Rambling Otter: Well, one of them should. They’re like the black homosexual version of Ross and Rachel with their “Will they, won’t they?” crap.
@Nekrotzar: Goatee guy decides to talk tough right back at him: “You toss me out!? You should live so long!”
@Voshkod: Yeah, no recovering from that last injury.
He was in two plane crashes in one day. In the second one, he was trapped when the small plane was on fire. He head butted his way out. After that, he underwent personality changes, and that may have contributed to his killing himself several years later.
A few years ago, we visited his home in Key West. Interesting place.
Between Friends – So when someone says “I couldn’t be happier” you have to immediately jump up and swap places with whoever you’re sitting with? Canada has such peculiar customs!
FC: I see that Thel’s sweater puppies are in good form today.
@White Rabbit#100:
“rather than hipster influencers”
I wonder if he’s referring to you, Ike.
Would Josh’s polite professional nickname be “Bloggy”?
@I speak Jive: I was down in Key West last month in a hotel just a block from Hemingway’s house, but sadly my schedule prevented me from getting in. I did see a few polydactyl cats through the fence. I remember the ‘two crashes one day’ thing. For his many and myriad flaws, the man did not lack for courage.
@The Rambling Otter:
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: @The Rambling Otter: Yeah, George had a massage done by a man, and then was afraid that he was gay for enjoying it.
George: It moved.
Jerry: What moved?
George: It!
DT: (Looks at previous comments) Huh, looks like all the comments I thought of about Irish pubs, Irish pubs that sell nachos, and Irish pubs where the waitresses are required to refer to the owner as “himself” have already been done.
JP: I was kind of surprised that Sophie calls Randy “Mr Parker”, but I guess they don’t interact much; he’s just her dad’s friend/former employer’s son whose family drama is even more likely to involve corpses than her own.
MW: I too would be shocked if I heard someone called a @#$$%€. Because I don’t even know how you pronounce it.
OTF: Please say we’re gearing up for a timeskip here to bring Fastrack and Safe Havens into sync (the “reverse Funkyverse”). The Mars storyline went on way to long the first time; I don’t relish a POV sequel which is just Dethany at mission control reacting to stuff.
Phantom: I can’t even remember if Sarvana has actually shot Police Chief Jampa outside Old Man Mozz’s fanfic, or if the last time we saw her was just setting up that she was probably going to. Either way, a return to the Mountain City means a return to the Prophecy That Never Ends.
S4th: Wait, Ralph is doing nerdy pop-culture references now? Either he’s been hanging out with Ted too long, or he’s been written by Francesco Marciuliano too long.
RxMD: Our protagonists are being bullied. The solution is to introduce a bigger bully. Always.
Rex Morgan: Why and how does this bouncer have a black beard but red head hair?
Herb And Jamal: My guess is that this is the egg of an extremely endangered species that Jamal plans to eat for the sake of feeling rich, not that he’ll get a chance before law enforcement busts down his door and arrests him for poaching.
Dick Tracy: The second I saw that link on “Locher era”, I KNEW it was gonna be the “guy getting eaten by rats” strip.
Family Circus: Just noticed that Dolly’s actual dolly looks exactly like her, which could carry some rather creepy implications if you want it too.
Shoe: I like Roz’s expression. She’s totally blind to sarcasm and is SHOOK by the revelation that Biz can’t tie his shoes.
@Cleveland Mocks: Eppur si muove.
@Little Guy: It worked for the Luann cast…
Ziggy-“Here smell my fingers,” Ed says.
SHOE: I read an angry letter to an advice columnist years ago from a woman who bitterly complained that certain elderly female relatives were playing bridge and enjoying themselves instead of cleaning out their cluttered houses, which meant she would be stuck cleaning out their houses after they died. Upon reading today’s SHOE, I realize that one way to possibly avoid being blamed like that is to become so feeble that you can barely hobble your way to a dubious diner for a cuppa joe. Duly noted.
FC: I of course am not creeped out at all by comparing Dolly’s shape to her mother’s shape and realizing that Dolly’s waist is larger and also that she might actually be tall enough to vaguely resemble some kind of deformed real child. The trick is to focus on the weirdly-constricting pink nightgown and that black, black sky.
Well, it’s officially been over 6 months since the last installment of
KidpornPibgorn, so I’m assuming Brooke abandoned it once he realized that he could age and de-age the Overlook Twins as needed in order to indulge his fetish for sexualizing adolescents, and thus Luda was no longer needed.@Voshkod: shit, I doxxed myself.
PHANTOM:. Isn’t that man the monk/guerrilla leader KJ will study under in Mozz’s vision? If so, I hope the author is not transitioning us to a new writer or to the end of strip.
FC: In the black, featureless shadow of the approaching asteroid, Thel instructs Dolly to say her prayers.
@Voshkod: A few of the famous cats were roaming through the house and grounds when we were there. There is a burial plot for past cats on the grounds.
It’s too bad you couldn’t go – it’s an interesting place.
@Voshkod:one word: “Hemingway.”
______________________________
How much DOES a hemingway, anyway?
CS – Batiuk named the guy on TV after the person who wrote one of DC’s most well known characters. I’m surprised that Batty didn’t honor the writer of the really fast character, but I don’t know who that is. I refuse to look it up.
Earlier today I tried to make this comment twice, and it completely disappeared both times. Are those names verboten?
@I speak Jive: @I speak Jive: CS – Batiuk named the guy on TV after the person who wrote one of DC’s most well known characters. I’m surprised that Batty didn’t honor the writer of the really fast character, but I don’t know who that is
The real life Robert Kane is notorious for having stolen from writer Bill Finger the credit for creating B*tm*n, as well as for using “ghost” artists and writers to do most of his work on the character while signing his own name to the work.
JP: I was wondering why the hell Randy was suddenly making major efforts to help his sister after the very extended ranting he did about her earlier, and then I remembered how charmingly she behaved toward him in that prison scene. *eyeroll*
@GarrisonSkunk: Anywhere from 120 to 220 lbs, I’d guess, depending on the war.
@TheDiva:
Here’s the ASCII-to-HTML entities converter that I use.
MT: The Mark-is-in-a-coma-dream theory may need to be revived.
Having been tossed from a few bars, many moons ago, I enjoy that this bouncer is giving others the decisive factor. Yeah, nobody there then probably would’ve opted for me to stay, but dammit, I would’ve liked the OPTION to be there.
Jamaal scored with Henrietta Beak and the egg is his son or daughter. You’re welcome.Brain bleach is on sale in the lobby in convenient single serve containers! Please help yourselves.
Ziggy – Too bad they don’t have anybody who does funny jokes.
@GarrisonSkunk: Oh, about a buck, two-fifty. Same as a Grecian Urn.
MW: Hmm… six letters… elicits an “OMG!” from onlookers… I can’t believe Dirk just called Dawn the n-word!
MW: I certainly hope that the Santa Royale bowling gawkers will hold Dirk accountable for his transgressions!
The most appropriate punishment in this case will be the good old fashioned ribald Game of Thrones “shame” walk from the bowling alley to Charterstone. Jared can ring the shame bell.
@Noel: No wonder the sole non-white person couldn’t believe that the skinny white girl with a bad haircut would be called that.
If no one sees the bomb, did it really exist? They went on and on in Dick Tracy about this old bomb supposedly in the clock tower that we never saw in position and sure as heck didn’t see go off. I feel cheated.
@Cleveland Mocks: On SFx: It is supposed to be an educational strip, so later in life the little
monst–kiddies can say “Slylock Fox said so, so it must be true.”@Liam: Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooo!
@Dr. Pill: We got a peek at the xylon bomb in the first panel of Friday, Feb. 7. It was shaped, oddly enough, like a torpedo. Maybe Totten’s plan was to lift it in his mighty Nazi paws and hurl it from the clock tower at some predetermined target.
(Not The Green Mill, please, Herr Totten! It’s one of my favorite jazz clubs!)
@ectojazzmage:
Arrested? I think it’ll be far worse than that.
MW: my wild guess is that Dawn will attempt to break up with with Dirk the Dick but that will enrage him. He will begin to stalk her and send threatening text messages.
FC: Thel’s right is in fine jutting form. Is her left feeling a bit withdrawn today?
@Dr. Pill:
@Cleveland Mocks: On SFx: It is supposed to be an educational strip, so later in life the little monst– kiddies can say “Slylock Fox said so, so it must be true.”
Ah, of course! You have made a very salient point — and for me, a personally very painful one.
I’ve never told anyone this before, but when I was in 4th grade, a nun blind-sided me in front of the entire class with a question about the lifespan of the two-toed Tew Toad.
I blanked. My eyes widened. My little bottom lip quivered. I wet my pants.
And they laughed at me. Yeah, that’s right, they all laughed at me.
If only I’d had Slylock Fox back then, I wouldn’t be in Shawshank today.
@Professor Well Actually: Tomorrow Dirk will propose. “MARRY ME, YOU @#$$%&!!!! Be my repo wife!”
@Professor Well Actually:
MW: my wild guess is that Dawn will attempt to break up with with Dirk the Dick but that will enrage him. He will begin to stalk her and send threatening text messages.
Then he will throw Wilbur off the stage at KARAOKE BAR and rage-sing “You’re No Good.”