Comedic (or not) timing
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/2/25
Oh, hey, sorry I haven’t kept you up to date on the tale of Summer and Augie and the bad date that Summer ditched to hook up with Augie. The short version is that after making a real ass of himself at the bar where Summer met Augie and getting kicked out by the bouncer, bad-date-man showed up at Summer’s workplace at the Morgan clinic and made a real ass of himself and got kicked out by the building’s security guard. As is all too typical for me, that ostensibly “interesting” stuff did not move me to comment, but today’s strip? Where Augie’s going on and on about how much he likes regional artists and educational vacations to Kansas City? Well, you know that’s gonna hook me in. I’m extremely invested in finding out if “regional artists” become the new “roots country.” Meanwhile, bad-date-man has stalked Summer to the art museum, and I guess we’ll find out this week if he’s going to make a real ass of himself and be kicked out by a museum security guard or if he decides that these people are pretty boring, actually, and he has better stuff to do.
Beetle Bailey, 3/2/25
Without the top row of throwaway panels, this strip is absolutely nothing, a boring non-joke about how the General is obsessed with golf and his soldiers don’t respect him, for that reason and also a variety of other reasons. With the throwaway panels … there’s a whisper of something funny in there. Probably they could condense all the other panels down to one or two and then it might actually elicit a sensible chuckle. Keep plugging away at it, guys, you’re gonna write a good one of these eventually!
Dennis the Menace, 3/2/25
I gotta admit, I spent most of this strip thinking, “Wow, the whole neighborhood thinks Henry’s a dipshit, huh. Can’t blame them, really. Look at how he dresses!” But then I got to the last panel and it turns out that everyone was actually mad at [record scratch] Dennis, whose menacing behavior provides this strip with its very title??? Ashamed to confess that they got me with this one, folks. They got me!
149 replies to “Comedic (or not) timing”
DtM — Henry, nobody wants to see the Good Humor man if he’s not carrying ice cream.
RMMD-“I’m in the mood for eating out.”
RMMD — It figures that Morgantown would feature a beige-and-black art museum.
RMMD: Moondog from Monty works as a museum security guard. If he shows up, it would be interesting.
DtM – I figured Henry bought a Cybertruck but has to park it down the street because it would never fit in their 50s-style garage. But yeah, *yawn*, Dennis.
DtM: A shot of Henry’s car in the driveway with four cinderblocks where the wheels should be might explain why he’s walking home.
Rex Morgan: You’d think an erudite and academic man like Augie wouldn’t mind being stalked by the shadow of Abe Lincoln. Maybe it’s some sort of specter that followed him from the Lincoln statue in front of Kansas City’s City Hall? At least that would provide evidence that he’s actually been there, and isn’t just making up a bunch of pseudointellectual hooey to impress his date.
Beetle Bailey: [Joke asserting that today’s strip is a Joe Biden reference has been canceled due to bad politics and even worse timing.]
Dennis the Menace: Oh, no, this was all directed at you, Henry. The frowns and glares were from women, and the sneer was from a sarcastic baby who sees right through you.
Mary Worth: “Dear Readers: Let me take today’s column to discuss a private situation that a friend revealed to me in confidence, but using such general language that it becomes completely unhelpful and meaningless to you. And if you think I’m going to learn from this bad writing experience and not repeat it, you’re as pathetic as Dawn — er, as my friend is!”
RMMD: Big news drops in today’s Rex Morgan M.D. : original Alice in Chains vocalist Layne Staley is alive and is stalking people in art galleries. C’mon Layne, there’s ‘No Excuses’ for that kind of behaviour! Eh? Ehhh? God I miss the 90s…
BB: I’d like to think that those background panel colors are actually happening in universe, and that there’s a free-wheeling gaffer just off panel trying to bring the General’s story to life through the magic of gels.
DtM: Yep, Dennis has been busy hiding his father’s Facial Spasm Disorder (FSD) medication.
DtM: Henry fails to win over the neighborhood with his Cerberus impression.
Beetle Bailey, 3/2/25: I didn’t know slow joe biden was a general.
9 Chickweed Lane : How is Brooke so bad at this? Not the “making a superhero parody” part, not the “writing a newspaper comic strip” part,
those are taken for granted, I mean, the actual intention of these Superlative Girl interludes, which is “draw a sexy woman in skintight clothing in various salacious poses”. How is he so bad at that!?… Too far?…***********
Beetle Bailey : Nah, the General has not gone off the teleprompter, he is read his speech has written. He was just off his meds when he wrote it.
************
Crankshaft : they’re in The Valentine, and probably the only three people who came to see this movie. The only thing absurd about Crankshaft’s request is that he should be telling Max (or Hannah, depending on who is playing projectionnist right now) directly.
***********
Dennis the Menace : nah, the strip still hasn’t had Dennis do enough menacing for me to read this strip as anything other than “Henry
(unjustly)blames the entire neighborhood hating him on his son”.DtM: “Look at that geek. He must have King Kong Dong to have a wife like Alice. (hmph!)”
RMMD:
“Summer, I really liked the painting of the gemlike, glimmering red schooner that we passed a while back. Did you happen to catch the names of the work and of the painter?”
“Oh, yes. That’s ‘The Ruby Yacht‘ by Omar Khayyam!”
BB:
“Sighted stroke, sank same.”
RMMD:
“I don’t know about this modern art, though, Summer. This one just looks as if someone coughed up on the canvas!”
“Oh, that’s Dali’s The Persistence of Phlegmery!”
@Bob Tice:
“
BullwinkleSummer, I really liked the painting of the gemlike…”Slylock Fox: The answer to Slylock’s question about how it was possible for him to see a criminal suspect in water, without any gear, even though she remained dry? It was obviously yet another one of the sex dreams he keeps having about Cassandra Cat — although why he’d bring this up at the dinner table is the real riddle.
Hi and Lois: So the kids finally learned that their Hi and Lois view them as a horrible drain on their time, finances, and very lives, but Dot didn’t give a darn. Maybe it’s because she realized that their parents’ wildest fantasies are fairly mundane (see the Eiffel Tower and take a bike tour, check!), and they’d be back home watching TV within a month.
Pluggers: The snowballs in that guy’s freezer will turn into two-pound spheres of hard frozen ice by summer –so if he’s planning to whack somebody with them at the Fourth of July party, I sure hope he enjoys plugger prison. (That’s the one where you can complain that the Kids These Days don’t know a shank from a shiv.)
RMMD – Um…if you’re gay, I’m open to being your beard. I just wanted to put that out there….
BB – …that’s how I got those new Bradley fighting vehicles. The rumors that I sucked off the quartermaster general are just that – unsubstantiated rumors, and I want to set the record straight straight here and now….
DtM – You sacrifice a couple cats to Belial, and the whole neighborhood goes berserk…..
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Mary Worth – I’d like to think that Mary really *does* have some special custom operating system, that makes the screen *literally blank* except for whatever words of wisdom she is typing right now.
You see, for Beetle Bailey, I obviously would have gone for a Biden Harris reference, but I knew you wouldn’t do this since you’re a known sn0wflake.
Until next time, when I bypass my Wifi again, because I now know my comments hurt you…
MW: Wow, seven straight panels of non-stop banality! Mary is in the zone and FEELING IT! She’s showing ol’ Pubulus Syrus how it’s DONE, baby!
RMMD: In other words, Augie spent a lot of time as a kid getting beat up.
RMMD:
“The only bad thing about that tour in Kansas City was that some guy named ‘Wilbert Harrison,’ who was a part of our group, kept singing about the town while the rest of us were trying to concentrate on the artwork, which was very distracting!”
BB: For the punchline to land, the general needs to have just gone off script. So we have to assume the general just started ad libbing from “on the next hole…”, and he’s about to break off his golf talk to give a vivid blow-by-blow (literally) of last night’s all-holes-filled orgy.
DtM alternate punchline – I begged you not to give that local news interview about our 1950s cosplay/tradwife lifestyle.
DtM:
“Hey, how’d the two of us end up on the set of Barbie in the second-to-last panel???”
MW: Mary’s editor replies to the publisher: “You can’t have too much cornball.”
@Hibbleton:
I learned very recently that the “J.” in “Rocket J. Squirrel” and “Bullwinkle J. Moose” was a nod to their producer, Jay Ward. This is not apropos of anything in particular, but it was mildly interesting to learn.
Today’s Crankshaft
You can’t pause the movie in a theater
I enjoyed today’s Classic Calvin & Hobbes.
MW: Ask Wendy should be re-branded as Twat’s That?
@Everything is Better with Monkeys</@PROUD CONSERVATIVE!: What a brave and unique take you have
Dennis the Menace: You’d think “I got three frowns” might mean “three people frowned at me,” but the throwaway panel makes it clear that the real meaning is “I have three mouths and they’re all frowning.”
Not sure how monkeys name got in my reply. Sorry to unnecessarily involve you.
@PROUD CONSERVATIVE!: You got the candidates mixed up. Tomorrow, his Adderall having run out, General Halftrack stims to YMCA for thirty minutes in front of a full audience.
Marvin: He looks completely shocked in the last panel to see that this comic is now about an older lesbian woman??? I guess after 40+ years they have decided to completely change direction. Hopefully this time there’ll be less poop jokes.
Mother Goose and Grimm: This would’ve been funnier if these cosmetics salespeople actually started throwing poop at each other,
RMMD – Of course! Bad-date man is an art lover! Maybe even an artist himself! He has a goatee! All them beatnicks love art, the weirder the better!
RMMD – Dude is a terrible stalker. Broad daylight, lots of witnesses – including her companion, probably tons of cameras and on-site security. I mean, hiding in plain sight, I guess, but come on man, you’re just blowing it.
The General’s brain is mush, so “on the next hole” could refer to a war in the trenches story or a golf story or soldiers fraternising with civilians during occupation story
You all thought that Augie was TOO nice so you looked forward to uncover what horrible secrets he hid! Don’t get too excited! The presence of the stalker means that he is the only bump in the road in this love story! By which I mean that he will be as effective as a bump as you leisurely drive at medium speed on a residential road
RMMD: Is Broomstick Man a Custodian at the Museum?
MW:
@Little Blue Bicycle: MW: “Of course you may learn the wrong lessons if you have a sociopathic neighbor who enables your every disaster by dismissing it as a lovable quirk. But remember, without gullible people to manipulate, retirement is nothing more than endlessly baking muffins and denying sex to your significant other. So I await that next ridiculous move of my pawns.”
If Summer falls for “I was not like the other boys and you are not like other girls”, the stalker could do better!
MW: “Blah, Blah, Blah or, you just may be low on serotonin.”
DtM: You live in the suburbs, Henry. You park in your garage or driveway when you come home from work. You do not “walk up the street.” Upending situational reality for the sake of a (lame) punchline is menacing to my sense of continuity.
MW – Mary uses her MS Platitude program in Meddle AI mode.
RMMD – Augie’s probably just as big into sportsball as most guys, but he’s being really smooth here. Summer’s looking fetching in her tight, nice-gams-revealing skirt, F-me heels, and naughty librarian glasses and ponytail. Augie’s in yum-yum-gimme-some mode and it’s working. Dude’s a low-key playa.
The audience remained mesmerized as the general spoke. It wasn’t his words that held them captivated — as one of the privates noted, the general’s dull, meandering speech had clearly gone off-teleprompter. Nevertheless, the crowd sat transfixed. Was it the rotating riot of colour that appeared behind the speaker that kept them in their seats?
“It was the eyebrows,” explained Private Papagelis at the debriefing. “The eyebrows,” he shuddered. “They were there. Then they weren’t! There/not there. Then there again! There. Not there! It was … it was … I couldn’t look away. Even though I wanted to. Even though I NEEDED to. The eyebrows. There. Not there!”
RMMD: Phase one: Buy a bumper sticker that says, “I have yet to find a regionalist artist I don’t like.” Phase two: Affix that bumper sticker to your car. Phase three: See how long it takes before your car is vandalized. The over-under is three hours.
BB: General Halftrack’s speeches are so boring and uninspiring that a multicolored light show is happening behind him, just so people will occasionally look at the stage.
DTM: I remember when Dennis the Menace Sunday throwaway panels used to contain their own, separate jokes. Setup, punchline, the works. Obviously, no one in the Menace organization wants to put in that kind of effort anymore, but I still appreciate the glimpse of Henry Mitchell as Cerberus.
DTM: I genuinely thought at first that this was suggesting that this took place in the Black Mirror episode “Nose Dive” where people can “rate” other people through apps, which can literally destroy their social status if their ratings get too low.
Henry: A few more frown emojis and I could lose my job!
@Gotcha: “Because I now know my comments hurt you…”
What made you come to that conclusion?
DT: “….but you can call me ‘Boils,’ like everybody else.”
BF: Starting the day with a half-gallon of coffee and two dozen doughnuts is not optimal. I wonder if she waits till noon to hit the Scotch.
@Gotcha: Also, you keep bypassing your wi-fi just to insult a middle-aged comic strip blogger?
Seriously. I’m worried about your mental health.
DtM: After having read how Hank Ketcham abandoned the real-life Dennis—and who didn’t even tell the poor kid his mom had died until after she was buried—I can’t look at his avatar “Henry Mitchell” without wanting to punch him in the face.
RMMD: This guy is talking through his hat. Modern art begins and ends with Big Daddy Roth. ‘Nuff said!
Rex Morgan: That’s actually the shade of Abraham Lincoln, plotting his return to save the nation by destroying whatever insufferable town Rex Morgan takes place in so nobody has to suffer through its roots country-obsessed inanity again.
Dennis The Menace: With how non-menacing Dennis is these days, I actually find the red herring that everyone in town hates Henry’s guts more plausible than the actual joke.
RMMD: Initially I was worried that Augie was citing John Currin, a contemporary realist painter who does atrociously ugly stuff, but then I realized he meant John Steuart Curry, creator of Tornado Over Kansas and many other paintings that look so much like Thomas Hart Benton that most people don’t even know he existed and just assume that all of his paintings were done by Thomas Hart Benton.
Grant Wood, however, I like and would cheerfully hang in my home, especially any of his paintings that include a Chicken.
Sunday Mary Worth Quotevestigation! Ancient Roman and Greek authors are always a giant pain in the ass and I am perfectly willing to believe that Moy does this just to annoy me/keep me on my toes.
Publilius Syrus was “best known for his sententiae,” which is to say ancient brainyquotes, including according to Wikipedia such ones as “Ignorance is bliss,” “Least said, soonest mended,” “Honor among thieves,” and “No man is a hero to his valet.” But also according to Wikipedia, “the collection was interpolated with sentences drawn from other writers, especially from apocryphal writings of Seneca the Younger.” Exciting! “It is better to learn late than never” certainly appears as number 864 of Darius Lyman’s 1856 translation of the Sententiae, but searching for “numquam” = never in von Woefflin’s Latin text doesn’t yield any obvious counterpart. (This is very non-definitive.)
We can find the exact phrase in George Bennet’s 1745 “A new translation of the morals of Seneca,” which follows rather closely Roger L’Estrange’s 1682 edition which has “it will be better to learn late than not at all.” L’Estrange describes his work as an abstract rather than a translation. It comes from Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucillus and I think this passage may relate to letter 76, which includes sentiments such as “Now what is more foolish than refusing to learn, simply because one has not been learning for a long time?” (in Gummere’s translation). Oddly enough, the exact phrase that we are looking for shows up in The English Schole-Master (1646), an anonymous English-Dutch phrasebook.
Finally, the proverb “better late than never” or potius sero quam numquam is (according to Wikipedia) attested in the fourth book of Livy’s History of Rome.
Verdict: Tentatively busted, but given the 19th-century appearance in an edition of Publius Syrus, it’s not the brainyquoter’s fault. Probably could be attributed to Seneca, or maybe as “proverb” since the exact English phrase first shows up in an anonymous source (or probably somewhere else that isn’t on the archive). Latin attributions continue to be annoying.
DT: And the moral is that anyone who claims to take their legally-mandated breaks at work has something to hide. (Actually, the moral is that Costello has real trouble with the idea the characters don’t know everything he does, and he knows this guy has something to hide. You might think this particular blind-spot is a drawback when writing a mystery, and how right you would be.)
HtH: Dammit, I was all set to do my usual historical pedantry bit with “I think you’ll find the Rx symbol postdates the Viking age,” and then I actually looked it up and it dates back at least to medieval apothecaries and maybe to ancient Rome or Egypt. So … possible, I guess? You win this round, Walker-Browne LLC!
JP: “Why didn’t you just explain what happened to me, or Dad, or literally anyone, and get this plot resolved in about a week?”
“Kind of answered your own question there, Randy.”
MW: Wikipedia’s page on Syrus says “All that remains of his corpus is a collection of Sententiae, a series of moral maxims […] Due to the fragmentary nature of the collections, many of the sayings are contradictory or do not make much sense.” It’s the perfect Mary Worth quote source!
RMMD: Given that I only noticed this because I’ve just had to look up what American Regionalism actually is, I probably shouldn’t judge Augie for saying he’s yet to find a Regionalist artist he dislikes, and then naming the three that are actual headers on the Wikipedia article. But I do! What’s your favourite (scrolls down Wiki page) John Rogers Cox painting, Augie?
@matt w: So you’re saying Benjamin Franklin just swiped all the “Poor Richard” stuff from his Latin library?
DtM: The saddest aspect of today’s strip is that this exact same joke was a single panel in the ’60s & has now been painfully recycled by stretching it out over a half-dozen panels. I’m surprised not to see spots of desperation sweat on the finished effort.
@Ukulele Ike: Wouldn’t surprise me!
@cheech wizard: Wait, a Rex Morgan villain who has a goatee and likes art? You don’t think… (checks if anyone who Bad Date Guy encountered at the clinic has actually met Rene Belluso before. Nope!)
@matt w: Thank you for putting more work into this than I did (I got as far as checking the Lyman translation, then decided taking it further looked complicated).
RMMD – It’s a tragic case of mistaken identity as the sinister figure in the shadows readies his gun and thinks, “This time, Mr. Booth… This time, the tables are turned!”
Beetle – Anonymous clubman: “That story was a bit… under par, Commander.”
McBragg: “Quite.”
The real standout for today’s comics is “Heathcliff Kitty Korner!” about a cat that farts when it is picked up. Everyone should stop what they are doing and immediately go read Heathcliff.
Don Abundio, translated:
“The wedding was rather unexpected, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. One day I’m trying to seduce her and the next… Pffft!”
“I hope they’ll be very happy!”
“I wouldn’t count on that…”
“I sabotaged their brakes”
[On car: JUST MARRIED]
Yes, everyone knows that. But Augie Doggie is lying to get laid and, as we know, that doesn’t count as a lie.
@Hibbleton: Well, if it’s interesting, then it has no business in Rex Morgan, MD.
“A man has to eat after all” said Augie, as his hand slowly crawled towards Summer’s ass. Because art will lure a girl into bed, but eating ass will keep her there
Today’s Mary Worth is infinitely funnier if you change the words in the narration box from, “As Mary writes the ‘Ask Wendy’ advice column…” to, “As Mary fills out the online refund request form on Zappos…”
Sure, Bow Tie. That’s why people were shooting you nasty looks. You know who else wore a bow tie? W. Clement Stone. Asshole.
@Gotcha: Sick burn, dude!
PV: The Ravens are back!! After a prolonged absence, the Flying Familiars return to the scene. What you may not know is that we have new actors in the roles – the previous ones have been MIA for so long they figured no one would notice. Yes, time for a new generation of Raven talent to get a chance – and Rypp and Rorin are up to the job! Let’s give them a warm welcome!
Also a fantastic job as usual by the photogenic Irish Wolfhounds, Baron and Hunter! Just shows that Dogs have *always* been good! Sorry, Melody Mare fans, she’s not appearing today in PV – but you can see her in an understated performance in Sunday Phantom, where she has the lead Equine role as Phantom II’s Horse….. of course she’s also a semi-regular in Weekday Phantom, now as Kit Walker’s ride! Man, I just don’t know she does it all
at her age!Luann Spanish to English.
MW:. Today’s “Ask Windy” [sic] is nothing Wilbur would have written. Long-time readers of the column surely will note the different voice and style of the advice. Oh, right….
JUMP START:. Yes, support our local brick-and-mortar stores that belong to and hire local people. Use the cashier-assisted line that pays our neighbor a decent salary! Yet, when we do, the cashiers treat us with mild contempt and direct us to the self-service line or the company’s website. Hey, cashier, it’s YOUR job I’m trying to save!
PV:. Aren’t future royalty subject to the rule of the Regents until the kids reach age to govern? Aleta should be pleased the novice Wiccan will soon become a powerful queen.
S4TH:. Hint to novice runners:. Plan your run either so it’s half outbound and half inbound, or so that after the run you end up at coffeeshop.
Monty — How is it that, after being stranded on an island long enough for Monty to look like absolute crap, that Moondog looks totally unchanged?
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
#74PV:. Per Melody, sick burn, dude. I never expected you to dis your experienced clients, Sid!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: So did I. A “Real” teacher would have given his presentation on world population dynamics an A+.
@oldgold: RMMD: Is Broomstick Man a Custodian at the Museum?
– – – – – – – – – – — – – – – — – – — – – — – — – – — – — —
That’s Time Mop.
RMMD — He’s already holding hands with Summer, so +1 for Augie.
@BigTed:
I was thinking Abe Lincoln too, but then I thought The Man in the Mountain in New Hampshire, on their state quarter but then it crumbled and fell apart. Probably where this stalker’s career path, or at least dating life, is going in this plot line.
I still think he’ll be an arsonist and torch Summer’s home or work, but maybe he’ll just kidnap her and or Augie, aka Teach, or maybe torch the school, or the museum, or kidnap Summer’s daughter, unless he missed that part of the conversation before he entered the bar.
Ugh. What an ugly creepy storyline. Did they steal the concept from Mary Worth and Dirk the Jerk?
SlylickFox And Comix For Kinx: How to draw Captain Caveman after he clubs Fred Flintstone to death and takes his best suit.
@Anonymous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain
@The Rambling Otter:
@Gotcha: “Because I now know my comments hurt you…”
What made you come to that conclusion?
I want to make it perfectly clear right now that this Gotcha person is in no way related to, affiliated with, or endorsed by yours truly, the pleasant and cordial Inspector Gotcha, a long-time if infrequent commentor.
The Familliar Mucus: Join us, won’t you, as Dick Tracy guns down Billy, Age 7 when Billy,Who Was Murdered,Age 7, rips off Dick’s Crime stopper Notebook with his own Kid stopper Notebook.
I don’t know if anyone had any bets on this but tomorrow in Mary Worth, Wilbur returns.
RMMD:
“kicked out by a museum security guard”
Don’t think so, Josh. Most guards at art museums are old guys that look like Ed Crankshaft, usually retired cops padding out their pensions.
@Sequitur: Makes sense, as we can’t have him actually show any assistance to, or even interest in, Dawn’s well being.
Weren’t y’all talking about this yesterday?
Notice the guy in the far background looks like he’s walking around nude.
Frazz – Mrs. Olsen absorbs instructions as well as Caulfield does, but, unlike Caulfield, she’s not a smug asshole.
9CL – It’s amazing that Brooke managed to meet deadline with this strip. With several panels of meticulously drawn and shaded legs, he obviously spent a L O N G time on it, especially considering that he was drawing with one hand. He probably had to take a break and go to Costco on a Kleenex run, too.
Rex Morgan: “So that’s why you ended up teaching English?”
“No, that’s why I ended up living with a series of Daddy Doms through my early thirties.”
@Ukulele Ike: I love that Grant Wood painting. Also, belated thanks for linking to the Pastor Weems painting a little while back. I loved the cherries trim on the curtain.
We were in Chicago in 2015, and I’m still sad that we didn’t go to the Art Institute. We didn’t have time, plus I love art, but Mr. Jive doesn’t.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: That Leopard in Andertoons was fantastic. I don’t remember seeing him before.
@Anonymous: This is Rex Morgan. It will be the world’s most boring kidnapping.
@Sequitur: Excellent! Will he run into Dirk at a local meat restaurant, bond with him over the roast beef special, then bring him home to meet his daughter?
@Ukulele Ike: #57: I’d consider John Currin more of a neo-surrealist than a regionalist. Atrociously ugly, maybe, but weird ugly.
BTW: When you and your dad were buying that antique tuba in Elyria did you swing by Grobe’s Fruit Farm just west of town on Highway 113? Some of the best fresh squeezed apple cider around. Whenever I’m up there I always procure a few gallons.
@Inspector Gotcha: Thank you for confirming that. Your longtime pleasant and cordial reputation is secure, yaay!
LUANN: Awwwww. How not adorable.
Dennis the Menace-Maybe if Henry drove to work instead of commuting by public transportation he could have avoided the nasty looks.
RMMD-Let’s hope Moy doesn’t get any ideas for the next Wilbur story. Man goes on a bad date and turns into a stalker.
MT: This is really nice. Thank you, Jules. Three cheers for Lucky the Giant Stag Beetle.
@Ukulele Ike: Have I got a Grant Wood for you.
Okay, both you and Ed Crankshaft.
@Ukulele Ike: Thank you! I had not seen Tornado Over Kansas before, and I like it. And I have always liked that Grant Wood chicken.
@Activist: re Melody Mare: Au contraire, I certainly did NOT mean to show any disrespect to one of my … most seasoned clients! Her work ethic is beyond compare, outshining even those who have a chronological advantage!
Of course she and I have had our differences in our long relationship – like her tendency to free-lance occasionally and make her own deals. And yes, I’m still workin’ on getting her that mystery series she keeps nagging about. But we have the utmost in respect for each other!
Why, she just called to thank me for the promo and to remind me of those negatives she kept after giving up the photos. Always thinking of others, she is…
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: #102. As I remember back in the day Melody was one of the first stars to sign with your fledgling agency, Sid. While established agents were knocking at her door offering a gilded stable, she took a chance on you though your briefcase was empty because she recognized the hunger in your eye. Same as she had starting out. And look where you both are now!
So let’s let this dead dog lie, if things are ok with her. Just remember we can’t build ourselves up by tearing another down. And each of your clients has friends.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Thank you, Sid! I really appreciate your explanation of this changing of the Raven cast. When I first saw today’s strip, I was sad that the Ravens were being portrayed, it seemed to me, as creatures created by magic, instead of being real Ravens as I had always supposed. Also I wondered briefly if whatever Ingrid had done might have caused the previous Ravens to suffer any harm, arrrrrgh.
Now I know that however the amazing Ravens are portrayed in future, your clients are playing the roles, and of course you always take great care of your clients. And the same is true of the talented Irish Wolfhounds, yay! Now I will be able to more fully enjoy PV.
And if Melody returns, that will be fabulous, of course. It’s good to know she’s got a gig over in THE PHANTOM. I tried following THE PHANTOM for a short time when she was there, but I won’t try that again unless/until she has a bigger role. Thanks again, Sid, for giving us the inside stories!
JP: Oh yeah, how soon Randy forgets. Ann did several years of other bad stuff, and her happy happy face is not going to be sufficient for those other crimes to just be forgotten, pooey. Dang that mean old justice system, anyway!
BCN: Interesting. I’ve had only limited known exposure to bad AI so far, and it has been in the form of really cheesy yuck prose. Apparently there are a lot of bad AI graphics to not look forward to.
sex Organ V.D.:”All my friends were into sports, but I loved art! Thats why I invented SPARTS™- classical art for sports fans.I have franchise info in my car.Know any rich doctors with money to burn….I mean….invest wisely?”
RMMD: Terry Beatty just ran across mention of the Regionalist art movement on some rando’s podcast, and vowed to
inflictshare his newfound knowledgeonwith all of us@Poteet:
Madam, thank you. You are as gracious as you are charming.
@Poteet: I was sad that the Ravens were being portrayed, it seemed to me, as creatures created by magic, instead of being real Ravens as I had always supposed.
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“Yes, Sherman, an extremely sad case, Poor thing went mad, days turned into weeks….until finally Poteet became a…….” “Don’t say it, Peabody! I’ll cut off your kibble and bits!” “….A raven maniac!”
@Horace Broon: re: DT
“Everybody has somethin’ to hide – except me & my monkey.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Zits-On the Comics Kingdom site “Zits” is the featured comic with a bio about the author. He graduated from college in ’76 and started the comic in ’97. Explains a lot about the comic.
MW: Tomorrow Wilbur returns with a glowing tan and having gotten absolutely no work done in interviewing hurricane victims. Not that any of us would actually want to talk to him. I would ask why he still has a job but nobody in Charterstone seems to do anything in terms of work…except Ian but I’m pretty sure he’s just using his position to eventually trade Toby in for a younger model when she either gets her first wrinkle or her liver stops functioning.
@Liam:I would never suggest that Zits is an accurate look at the life of a young person in the 21st Century. But man, compared to Luann and Dustin ….
Rex Morgan, MD – The stalker date is bad, but Summer is dating a guy who became an English teacher not just to pay the bills, but because high school was the age he stopped maturing. Even his most moody “misunderstood” creative student are rolling their eyes at the pretentiousness. While he never got over being a loser in high school, at least his preference in women aged appropriately with him.
Beetle Bailey – Keeping the battle metaphors a little longer, and given a background the hinted at a battlefield would have done a lot more to sell this joke.
Dennis the Menace – You’d think Alice would already be aware of what Dennis did that day, which makes me think she’s actually disappointed he put up such low numbers of neighborly disgust. She sent him out to burn off energy so he would be too tired to menace them in their own home. Dennis still has enough menace to criticize her cooking over dinner.
BB: “Sank the putt,” Amos! “Sank,” not “sunk”! Doesn’t officer’s training at least cover basic English language verb tenses?
RMMD: Thanks to Josh for pointing out that the silhouette is Facial Hair Guy and not a statue of Abe Lincoln. That seems like something Summer and Augie should notice. Otherwise there’s not much here to snark. I appreciate that Terry Beatty has made an effort to create a character who can speak knowledgeably about art, since I still remember Dawn’s art professor going, “You need to know about Leonardo da Vinci and Leonardo da Vinci and maybe some other losers.”
9CL: Run like the wind, Millie and Bobby. Run before you’re aged up and have to do classical music performance and unappealing makeout scenes.
C-Shaft: This seems to be a “those darn teens today” joke pressed into “hilarious oldsters” duty.
DT: A woman with long bangs grilling a hapless nerd about his being on a “break”? Dick Tracy became Friends: The Comic Strip so gradually we never noticed.
Dustin: Dustdad is teaching his son an essential skill of professional life (dealing with condescending idiots.)
HotC: “Because you’re whi—Oh, you meant the puppet.”
JP: Ces really went the distance on this one to make sure that nothing would happen in the extra-long Sunday strip.
MW: If Mary is just going to type the same thing over and over until she meets the minimum word count on the Ask Wendy column she may as well put on the caps lock and submit “ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MARY A DULL GIRL”
SFx: More interesting to me is Max opening wide to take a big bite of hot Shepherd’s pie. Apparently there’s been an evolution in rodent eating habits between our time and his.
SFx: Between Max and that drooling duck, this is the most egregious display of bad comic strip table manners I’ve seen outside of Snuffy Smith.
My comment at spot #100 has been awaiting approval for close to 4 hours, reason unknown.
I hate being a Unc Lumpy pest, but it has another Grant Wood link, goddammit. With MORE CHICKENS.
CS – It’s funny because
Ed is so narcissistic, he wants a movie theatre movie paused for himas the only people screening a film in a theatre owned by their daughter and son-in-law, Ed’s request seems utterly reasonable.MW – Like a dog to its vomit Dawn returns to her stupid ways. But I will read Mary Worth again tomorrow, so I have little standing to criticize.
@The Rambling Otter: “Henry: A few more frown emojis and I could lose my job!”
Henry is canonically an aeronautics engineer. So now it seems he works at Boeing? Explains a lot. The 737 Max software must have been written on bring your
birth control accidentchild to work day.@Ukulele Ike: She’s a lady, Uke! It’s Franzia boxes in her cubicle bin!
@richardf8: I know….I’ve only seen her and her BFFs tippling wine. And the Canadians are famed for their abstemious attitude toward liquor consumption.
@Poteet: Don’t knock it. Shannon’s word count on her novel is now double Luann’s!
@richardf8: Lost Planet Airmen is a 1951 condensation of a 1949 12-part serial produced by Republic Pictures, a cheesy B-movie grindhouse vying with the new medium teevee for eyeballs. I wouldn’t search it on YouTube, let alone go pay to see it in a theater.
It DID star a long-in-the-tooth Mae Clarke, known in her younger days for being menaced by Boris Karloff in the original Frankenstein and having a grapefruit schmoosed in her face by Jimmy Cagney in The Public Enemy, both 1931….majorly iconic films in the horror and gangster genres respectively.
@Poteet: One of the hallmarks I’ve observed in AI art is animals with more orifices than they should have.
@Liam: I still think the Microbus to the Geo Metro was a mighty downgrade!
@Ukulele Ike: Of course, my mind went straight to Commander Cody . . .
@richardf8: That too! If Ed was aging in real time, he would have definitely been into a shitty early-70s rock band. Throw on the Grateful Dead’s Wake of the Flood, you limpdick.
As it is, he was playing minor-league baseball in the late 1930s and dancing to Benny Goodman.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
C-Shaft: This seems to be a “those darn teens today” joke pressed into “hilarious oldsters” duty.
His life’s work having been ignored for so many decades, Batiuk is trying to engineer a hostile takeover of the at-least-occasionally-funny Pluggers franchise. It’s his last gasp.
@richardf8: Commando Cody, that is. Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen were a band. Lost Planet Airmen, the movie, was cobbled together from the serial King of the Rocket Men. Commando Cody was the hero of the serial.
@Ukulele Ike: Max is frantically shoveling it in as if he expects Slylock to grab the food off his plate as soon he’s finished setting up the riddle.
@Peanut Gallery: Do you think that’s really a Shepherd’s Pie? There are no sheep at the table, And it would be crass for Shylock to serve up a Chicken Tetrazzini casserole in front of the duck’s girlfriend.
And why did Shylock and the duck get those sliced pickled beets when no one else was offered any?
Hold on, is the duck’s date also a duck? What is she, a Rhode Island Red Duck? Calling on Mudge Duck Farmers to check.
And WHO SERVES CASSEROLE AT A DINNER PARTY? Are all these people Shylock’s maiden aunts?
@Bob Tice: I learned very recently that the “J.” in “Rocket J. Squirrel” and “Bullwinkle J. Moose” was a nod to their producer, Jay Ward. This is not apropos of anything in particular, but it was mildly interesting to learn.
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Leading to Homer J. Simpson and Bart J. Simpson being named as such by Matt G. in honor of Rock and Bull.
@Hibbleton: @Ukulele Ike: Hold on, is the duck’s date also a duck? What is she, a Rhode Island Red Duck? Calling on Mudge Duck Farmers to check.
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“Come for a duck dinner, you bring the duck.”- J. Wellington Whimpy, esq.
@Philip:
One would hope so. His teaching career could come to an ugly end otherwise, and I don’t think Summer would want to be around for that.
Six Chex And A Cat Named Bruce Willis In Search Of A Punchline: I’m not sure if Good Sleep Hiygene is a thing, but I’m pretty sure that reading the book that was in the Pulp Fiction briefcase Isn’t it.
@135 Garrison Skunk:
And then there was Jimmy Walker who played J.J. Evans Jr. On Good Times. He liked Rocky and Bullwinkle so much he used both their “J”s for his character’s name.
This is not a true tale but who needs truth if it’s dull.
@Inspector Gotcha: Ooh! Inspector, you deserve your noble reputation!
@richardf8: Bwahaha!
@richardf8: *jawdrop* Probably nothing can really prepare one for that, but I do appreciate the warning.
@richardf8: Sometimes I miss what comic you’re talking about, and presume you’re referring to Ed Kudlick from Dustin. Which really your comment still fits perfectly with either character.
@The Rambling Otter: “Still fits perfectly with either character” Well, except for his grandkids owning the theater, but still…
@The Rambling Otter: Assholes are interchangeable. Especially if they’re both named Ed.
Beat up Bailey: Doesn’t the usage of teleprompters infer that the General’s speech is being televised?
@Sequitur: And then there was
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…Maude J. Findley……
@The Rambling Otter:[ “Assholes are interchangeable. Especially if they’re both named Ed.”- Rambling J. Otter] needs to be the next Mary Worth Sunday Quote if Mary is still doing Willburp’s column next week.
@Garrison Skunk: Rambling J. Otter, I like it!
Rambling Jack Otter, that sounds like a good name I could use. Sounds like the name of a conman actually, but I could still use that.