One-ish panel Saturday
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Six Chix, 3/29/25
Look, man, everyone claims to love mermaids in theory, but a chimeric monster that’s half mammal, half fish was not meant to swim in the waters of our planet, and the only reason any seaside coffee hut should be catering to them on “National Mermaid Day” is as part of a sting operation allowing our military to capture one of these nightmarish cryptids and put our best scientists to work studying them so we can learn more about their weaknesses.
Pardon My Planet, 3/29/25
You know how sometimes you come up with a great gag for a cartoon, and then you draw the whole cartoon, but then you realize you’ve left a key visual signifier out of the cartoon so it doesn’t make sense, and it would be a big pain to redraw everything? Well, good news: you can just write the name of the thing you forgot to draw at the bottom of the panel and call it a “caption.” Nobody will stop you, or even care that much.
Family Circus, 3/29/25
“How do we know He won’t just spend it all on drugs? Why doesn’t He get a REAL JOB?”
151 replies to “One-ish panel Saturday”
FC:
“Dad, that guy behind you has a worse toupee than Carl Perkins of blessed memory had!”
FC:
“Dad, that man in the pew over your shoulder has the same kind of mustache that guys have in those movies you like to watch when Mom is out of town!”
FAMILY CIRCUS: Musk then hires Jeffy for his DOGE
scamcommitteeFC:
“Where’s Mom? Why isn’t she sitting next to you, Dad?”
“She’s become an agnostic!”
Six Chix: I’m no business genius, but I can guess why a place that serves hot coffee on the beach would end up giving it away.
Pardon My Planet: “I’m mad because you watch too much TV and don’t like doing laundry.” See? Instead of a passive-aggressive gag that doesn’t even make sense, use your words!
Family Circus: Uh-oh, Jeffy figured out the flaw in many organized religions. The jig is up!
Mary Worth:
Dawn: “Say, I’m starting to think maybe my dad’s some kind of sex creep.”
Us: “Oh, you just figured that out, huh? Maybe you should have been reading your own comic strip for the past decade or so.”
Blondie: So that’s why Elmo hangs out at his neighbor’s house all day, playing with a toy truck — he has radium poisoning from glow-in-the-dark pajamas.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if feel itchy at night, and you don’t know whether you should be treated for nerve damage or fleas.
FC – Bil has no soul – Mammon wants it, I’ve got it, and that settles it….
PMP – Pardon my confusion….
6-C – The jokes on them – they’d get free coffee every day if they’d just show their tits….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
FC: Pastor makes mental note: “Next Easter cycle, skip the ‘Jesus casts the money changers out of the temple’ part.”
MARY WORTH: See, this is why I said many of you shouldn’t have complained about how “pornographic” Mary Worth has been lately. You should have saved if for now where the setting is really worthy of the description! For what can be more vulgar than the scenarios I feared and predicted where Wilbur’s trashy girlfriend competes with his daughter for his doughy sweaty affection. Much like Wilbur himself in these situations, y’all “shot your wad” a bit too early.
FC: Not a bad joke but if Adult Jeff is going to go through the trouble of updating the panels anyway; adding an exclamation point before the question mark as Jeffy points to the pastor’s cyber truck, would have really sold it.
FC: That night, Jeffy is visited by a vision. He is told to keep his trap shut, OR ELSE.
RMMD: By now, a sensible man would have concluded that Summer’s more trouble than she’s worth and gone home. Not Augie Do-Right here; he’s about to get arrested for assault.
9CL: The only people who would attend these concerts are those who think that porn isn’t porn without classical music.
6Chx: Oh, I get it! Starbucks, right? Because of the mermaid on the cup…and…is that a mermaid?….no, that can’t be it. Nevermind…
PmP: When I read this initially I didn’t scroll down enough to see the caption, so I just thought that this dude’s mind was being blown by the very concept of a washer. Anyhow, sad to see that Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers aren’t doing so well these days.
FC: The star of this panel has to be the man in green, one pew back, doing a straight-on The Office-style aside glance, just letting us know he’s never been happier with his decision not to have children.
PMP: Scrolling down the page, the caption was hidden below the window and I’m trying to figure out “What am I missing here? Did she install a stove burner in the washing machine?”
LUANN: What I love about this is that TJ is essentially giving the same “advice” he gave Luann when she was worried about
doing ither “no-no spot” getting all tingly. And a good thing too, because the last thing you want in a desire to get pregnant is the temptation to engage in sexual activity of any kind!LUANN (2): I am, of course, being silly. Once they take a few rides on The Topsy-Turvy at 100 mph with belly full of fried greasy funnel cake, they will be so in the mood to get it on
LUANN (3): I would get too excited there, Toni. If the path of this storyline is any indication, the car is going to end up getting stuck on the uphill climb for a frustratingly long time (certainly before the train can even enter it’s first tunnel .)
Just checking in real quick, as I was skimming the yesterday’s comments to see how folks were reacting to Sophie railroading Reena in JP and noticed I was a topic of coversation. I stopped hanging out here a couple of months ago for a variety of reasons dealing with enjoying posting here less and being increasingly busy with other life stuff, such as (according to the comments late yesterday) joining the KKK and the Nazi party and probably the Trump
administrationmanagement and the Illuminati and who knows what else. Because if you get tired of spending time on a comics blog, it follows logically that you must be preoccupied working for right wing hate groups, I guess.Anyway, for the folks who care, I’m in good health and doing well. I might still lurk on occasion when something especially uproarious happens in one of the few comics I’m still following, but I’ve got no plans to return to posting here. Seriously, all’s good, I’m just doing other stuff now. Take care, all.
(Oh, and the resolution to that Ann plot was some goddamn bullshit.)
Regarding Josh’s desire to capture a mermaid: stop reading Hagar the Horrible now before any further damage.
FC — “What’s God going to do with all that money?”
Well, somebody’s got to cover the cost of that free mermaid coffee. The beans and beachy shacks don’t grow on trees!
6Chicks — And Lucky Eddie thanks his lucky stars that the holiday fell on a weekend this year so he doesn’t need to suffer the indignity of asking Hagar for the day off.
6C: Thank god no-one told the Hagar team about National Mermaid Day. I don’t think I could handle the Lucky Eddie fish erotica they’d treat us to.
PMP: “what happens when that which you’d die without meets that where you’d die before you go”? Thanks for making me worry I was having a stroke, Pardon My Planet.
BG&SS: Whew. This is not the personal girl talk i was expecting from Loweezey.
Blondie: Those glow-in-the-dark Jammie explains Elmo’s stunted growth. Why he’s been in grammar school for 60 years has yet to determined.
MW: Can they change seats? Wilbur’s lipstick marks are putting me off.
Luann – So they’re going to fuck on the roller coaster? Get help, Evansii.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: No need for alarm, any sex that happens will happen off panel. We’ll only know about it when the Name Broni’s baby contest turns up on LuannFan.com
Six Chix-It’s the one day of the year when Lucky Eddie’s love for mermaids won’t make him him seem like a creepy pervert.
FC-Follow the money, Jeffy.
FC-The Man in the Green Jacket slowly pulls out a gun. He’s been commanded by God to smite all those who question him.
RMMD-It’s Rex Morgan! Who for some reason is now forced to live in his car.
MW-Belle has no other place to stay. Santa Royale doesn’t have hotels for some reason.
GAHHHH you people needed to put a warning on your discussion of Mary Worth today, I was not prepared.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Won’t you get soaked walking back to the office, Abundio?”
“Money solves all problems”
“Too bad he doesn’t give a damn about anyone else!”
FC: You don’t want to know the answer, Jeffy. It’s either buying a jet plane or propagandizing the nation toward theocracy.
FC…He will be using it as a slush fund to assist the clergy with their legal bills. Remember what happened at choir practice?
FC: Billy, you should see what happened last time He had a Job.
@MKay: RMMD: By now, a sensible man would have concluded that Summer’s more trouble than she’s worth and gone home. Not Augie Do-Right here; he’s about to get arrested for assault.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I wouldn’t have called the police. I would have gone back in and gone to bed.
By the way, in case anyone’s interested, I am doing a Bluesky thread where I rank the darkness of Hi and Lois from 0 to 10 Quiet Desperation Units.
@Nobody: Those sexually harassed church secretaries aren’t gonna pay off themselves…well, I guess they do cut the check, but it takes approval from the board of deacons….
Mary Worth: Wilbur isn’t going to wash his face for a month, is he? “Mornin’ Zak, making out with a woman sure is fun, isn’t it?”
FC: “Well, son, He wants to spend it on the poor, but Pastor already has his eyes on expanding the sanctuary and then getting a better job at a bigger church. That’s what they teach them in Pastor School.”
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@Dennis Jimenez: If only…
GT: Milford shouldn’t feel crushed by that basketball loss – given the first panel, they were playing in some altered space-time with the basket several stories above the twisted floor.
Meanwhile, bets on whether Reena will break the 4th wall in the next Judge Parker to comment on being dragged along with Sophie’s job since she clearly only exists as a secondary character with no ambitions, family ties, or plans of her own?
6C: Six Chix wants to muscle in on Blondie’s obscure holiday racket. Unfortunately, their wise decision to begin with a day that cannot easily be spun into a food-related celebration is hampered by awkwardly working in a food reference anyway.
FC: That is a lot of cash in the collection basket. Either the Keane’s church didn’t get on board with electronic giving the way most churches did with COVID, or the pastor has insisted on donations coming in small unmarked bills.
“Just curious to see what happens when that which you’d die without meets that where you’d die before you go.”
“Just curious to see what happens when that which you’d die without meets that where you’d die before you go.”
“Just curious to see what happens when that which you’d die without meets that where you’d die before you go.”
It’s not quite as incomprehensible as “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” but it’s up there.
Today’s Pardon My Planet probably reads a lot better in the original German
Six Chix: Major missed opportunity to not have Eddie from Hagar The Horrible here to celebrate his favorite holiday, preferably with mermaid orgies.
Family Circus: Jeffy has begun to catch on to the Keane Kompound’s financial scams that keep the cult alive, so Big Daddy Keane begins making mental notes on how best to dispose of him to keep him from talking to the feds.
“Doc, I unironically enjoyed Six Chix and Family Circus today!”
“Well, that’s not so seri- wait, and Family Circus?”
(responds with the tiniest of nods)
“Spend some time with your family, son.”
Six Chix:
“If we drink this coffee and then jump in the water too fast, we could cramp up. Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem, because we’re fish!”
PMP: Hey kids – the first one to correctly diagram that insane, convoluted sentence gets a free cup of mermaid coffee!
FC: “I don’t know what *God* might do with this moola but *I* sure do,” Bil thinks to himself as he makes a mad dash to the exit during the offertory prayer when every head is bowed and every eye closed…
XKCD: Who would have guessed that Big Bird is a velociraptor? That explains the six foot height.
FC: A good question indeed, Jeffy. But be on the lookout for lightning bolts when you leave the church. Plus, who knew PJ could read? Plus, the church has a mini-version of the hymn book for toddlers!
9CL: Alistar, the 16-18 year old, looks like he is about 45.
jroggs, above: Glad you posted, I have always enjoyed your particular take on the comics.
FC: Years back, my Great-Grandfather (who was a full-blooded Native American) lived in a small town and the Government announced that they were going to give the Natives funding. They would give the money to the church, to give to the Natives.
Except in this small town, the Pastor was… “I ain’t giving money to no damn injuns!” and kept the money for himself.
Yes, the church literally STOLE from the Native people.
So my Great-Grandfather one night, took some dynamite and blew up the church.
Unlike Ninjas who are stealthy through years of training and discipline, Natives are born stealthy. He just disappeared into the wind and the authorities never found him.
While I don’t condone illegally blowing up buildings, I don’t deny that the Pastor being the thieving scumbag that he is, had it coming.
@MKay: #10
“ RMMD: By now, a sensible man would have concluded that Summer’s more trouble than she’s worth and gone home. Not Augie Do-Right here; he’s about to get arrested for assault.”
Or heaven forbid, the *victim* of an assault if the guy behind the dark glass whips out a gun…
C’shaft: There are a variety of depressing fates that can befall the elderly–slowly losing your cognitive ability, being abandoned in a nursing home, falling down the stairs and breaking your neck and not being found until your neighbors call the police about the odor a week later–but having Ed Crankshaft as your only form of emotional support has got to be near the top of the list.
Dustin: Look, I’m not saying I’m not grateful for the towel, but we all know Dustdad is the kind of person who would stand on a scale starkers just to pretend he’s a couple pounds lighter than he is, right?
GT: Couldn’t think of a way to wrap this all up before baseball season, huh?
JP: “You’re right, I need to milk this for family drama before going ahead and doing what I want anyway. As for Reena, I’ll just tell her we’re planning a Vegas weekend, get her good and drunk in the airport bar, then explain everything after she sobers up and the plane is in the air.”
Luann: Like many women indoctrinated into a heteronormative mindset, Toni believes she needs to have children but deep down doesn’t particularly want to have them. Or at the very least, she doesn’t want to conceive them with Brad.
MW: Ugh, Wilbur’s going to avoid washing for several days just so he can show those lipstick prints to everyone he knows, isn’t he?
RMMD: Good one, Augie, you’ve terrorized some poor senior citizen who just pulled over for a minute to figure out where Mulberry Road is.
@The Rambling Otter: Hell, I’ll condone it. Your great-grandfather was doing the Lord’s work, or whatever the indigenous version of “the Lord’s work” is.
Dustin: This is almost an exact copy of yesterday’s strip.
Keep in mind, this is the same strip that’s main message is that young people are lazy and selfish.
You’re always making fun of Jeffy for being dumb, but has Dolly exposed the scam that is modern evangelical Christianity? Checkmate, Josh.
JP: Soph and her bud are being offered a long paid vacation in Norway, with free housing and a travel allowance. THIS is why you look for a rich boyfriend. “May I speak with one of the co-directors of the Oslo office, please?” “One of them is in Ibiza and the other one is in Rome. Uh, doing research.”
Phantom: Today’s panel two Kadia is brought to you courtesy of The Penitent Thief in Hieronymous Bosch’s Christ Carrying the Cross.
@JamesBont: We were supposed to get a full week of “low battery” jokes, but the syndicate editor cut the first four. Maybe the towel was missing, I dunno.
Luann: I’m enjoying how the past couple of strips, especially the one with the calendar, are basically a set of instructions on using the rhythm method of contraception as well as the old standby, “sex avoidance.”
PMP…So? What happens when those 2 things meet? Other than his disbelief of the level of stupidity you have of course.
6C: One of the “fun” things about this strip is you never know where it’s going to go. I know I wouldn’t have predicted “Free coffee!” as the punchline.
PMP: The nice thing about this is that, by leaving the McGuffin as a caption, people can print this strip out and passively-aggressively fill in something pertaining to their various partners. “YOUR IRREPLACEABLE CAR KEYS” “YOUR FAVORITE MAYONNAISE”
FC: Anecdotally speaking, I think God will just use that money to buy elections and hoover up government contracts.
@Bob Tice: Seriously, it’s on sideways.
The Family Circus: [Pastor, sotto voce from front of church] He’s going to pay my salary, kid, get your own racket!
Pardon My Planet: Counterpoint: It still doesn’t make sense.
Luann: There’s a chance Brad could accidentally impregnate Toni on The Vortex.
CS: Only, that band-aid is one that’s been floating in the pool for half an hour and has a scab stuck to it. {Apologies!}
9CL: What is the audience for a pair of performers playing 30 seconds of a composition before making out on stage? I think Edda is mishearing some Romance language word for “refund.”
6C: Literally everyone’s already done the Lucky Eddie jokes, huh? (Also, I googled to check if National Mermaid Day was a real thing, and turns out it’s actually International Mermaid Day. Today is also National Smoke and Mirrors Day, World Piano Day, National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day and PayDay It Forward. I haven’t found out why or even who decides these things. Was the date picked by the International Mermaid Council?)
DT: Of course! Piltdown left a comb and toothbrush at the office, enabling them to do a DNA test on the body and prove it’s not him! Never mind that they have almost no reason to do so once Claire’s identified the body beyond the fact (and I know I keep harping on about this, but it keeps being true) that Costello knows she’s lying, so the cops must kind of know it as well!
JP: Oh, hey, I guess Ces did notice the Reena thing was a bit weird, but only after he’d sent yesterday’s strip to be drawn. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while; I was reading a piece about novelists being divided into the ones who have everything worked before they start writing (planners), and the ones who just see where the story is going as they write by the seat of their pants (pantsers). And it said that good pantsers will then go back once they know where the story’s gone, and make sure it looks like it was always going there.
But that’s a novel. You can’t do that in a serial format because the start of the story is already out there, so your best bet is to be a planner. But in an endless serial, you don’t really have time to do that either; you’ve always got more story to write now. So I guess it comes down to how good you are at making it look like you haven’t drastically changed your mind or simply lost track of where the story was going. And Ces is not good at that.
(Of course, if you’re only the occasional writer on an endless serial, writing set storylines while the main writer takes a break, you can be a planner, but this doesn’t necessarily help. You can tell Costello planned the Piltdown Scam from the beginning, given the thudding of the details as they’re carefully dropped where the MCU will find them, but it still doesn’t actually make any sense.)
P&HU: So, apparently this is the last strip? That’s a shame, but it’s nicely done; a combination of calling back to the first strip and “It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy, let’s go exploring.”
Phantom: Seriously, this really does look like Kadia is desperately trying to attract the freighter’s attention before Kit drags her away. “Help! A crazy woman is trying to mate me with her brother as part of her family breeding program!”
SH: So it turns out the strip which counts both merpeople and magicians in its regular cast couldn’t care less about International Mermaid Day or National Smoke and Mirrors Day. Call them when its National Ethically Questionable Genetic Engineering Day!
MW: Here’s a thought: Wilbur and Belle should perform a duet at karaoke and then make out in the middle of the song. It’s brilliant, and I don’t know why no one has thought of this before.
Dustin: Maybe you shouldn’t keep stepping your fat ass on the scale and draining the battery by making it count to 374.
RMMD: Big twist coming! That’s not the Stalker – it’s the Police! The Morality Police!
“We got a report that two unmarried adults were co-habitating here alone overnight, a felony in this jurisdiction. We’re gonna have to take you both in for public shaming and re-indoctrination, you pervert!”
@jroggs:Good to hear from you. I’ve been maintaining “let’s really get into how little sense Dick Tracy and Judge Parker are making” in your absence.
@Ukulele Ike: I thought he be carrying a pennant – GO THIEVES!!!
@matt w: Ha! I love it! Keep it up!
@Peanut Gallery: They’re making the cover for “Abernathy Road”.
MW: They’ve danced around the subject before, what with the multiple failed relationships, the fake secret son, and her own existence, but this is the first time Dawn has had to deal with the idea of her father as a sexual being head-on. I say she’s managing to contain her revulsion rather well.
Family Star Trek: “Dad,what does God need with a Starship?”
@Horace Broon: re: 6Chx: The date was picked by the Siren Grand Round Table. Funny, you just can’t say “no” to those people.
re: Heavenly Nostrils: Phoebe: “Mom says the pills are starting to work.”
@Dan: Better than I am.
@jroggs: You got together with Baja and formed a vaudevillian comedy duo, didn’t you? Which one is Beanpole and which one is Shorty?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: When I was a kid under forced church attendance at the local Methodist establishment (“We’re like the Baptists, but we wear shoes”) I just assumed that the collection plate was what the minister’s family lived on.
”Oooooo, dad put in a ten dollar bill! Pastor Jones eats steak this week!”
6 Chix: Funny, a few years back one person on reddit was talking about her roommate who takes baths constantly and sings a lot, then she found a few fish scales around the apartment (she has no fish) and was genuinely starting to wonder if her roommate was a mermaid.
I suggested that the put a camera on the bathroom ceiling to catch her in the act. But really, I only said that for an “aerial view” pun.
@The Rambling Otter: #72
I saw what you did! :-)
@Horace Broon: P&HU I’m genuinely wondering if Dana (after her recent revelation about Ozy and Millie/Milo) that maybe she wants to jump back to that comic.
I mean, I could suggest that she just juggle both comics at once, except the fact that unlike Batiuk and Holbrook, Dana Simpson is actually sane.
Is there some kind of “newspaper comic strip conservation of energy”?
Because while Shkade is knocking it out of the park with Flash Gordon, Gil Thorp amazes me by becoming even less comprehensible.
Yes, the slick transition from loosing a football game to middle of basketball season by going to The Bucket to drink it off was pretty slick. For Gil Thorp. But this “And they almost all lived happily ever after” transition from rasslin’ to baseball is even worse whiplash than the private airplane flight with an unknown female co-pilot to scrog Beth transitions. WTF? Where’s Marty Moon? Is he still sitting in a gutter with no pants, eating a red crayon? Did he just get written out of the strip?
@GarrisonSkunk: Pierre is dead!
Due to the fashions and the dad seeming slightly off-model, I did a search on Newspapers.com and today’s Family Circus is originally ran 50 years ago, in March 1975. The dad in the mid-70s was still showing the last vestigial signs of being “Steve,” the original FC dad when the comic debuted in 1960, who was much heftier and had a bit of a drinking problem
@Daisy@The Rambling Otter: #72
I saw what you did! :-)
_______________________
Smile! You’re on “Candid Commudgeon”!
@The Rambling Otter: First kudos to the pastor for embezzling the funds that he was probably supposed to use to build an “Indian School.”
Second, good for your Great-grandfather for fending that whole thing off.
Luann: I’m still of the opinion that despite all of this disturbing interest in Broni’s sex life, actual sex in this strip is still reserved for the ‘Bad’ characters like Stef, who practically forces it on unsuspecting Nice Guys like Kip. I suppose one could apply that logic to Bets and Gunther as well, but I didn’t shell out for that little ‘Our Superfun Van/Sex Roadtrip Romp’ graphic novel and unless and until someone pirates it and makes it available for free I’m operating on the logic of ‘didn’t see it, didn’t happen’. In fact, that logic applies here as well. All we’ve seen are some Xs on a calendar and Brad scarfing turds… er, *walnuts*. The Evansii can still fall back on their old Master of Misdirection shtick by saying ‘well, they PLANNED to have all that sex, but were always too tired from work/chores/tying Shannon up before she burns down the house!’
Mark my words, after this little ‘spontaneous’ outing to the amusement park, they are going to be too exhausted to even *think* about having icky, icky sex. I’m still just waiting for the Evansii to cut to the chase, have Toni’s ne’er do well brother conveniently die in an off-stage car accident and have Shannon become the pwecious wittle bundle of joy they’ve always wanted. GLURRRGEEEE!
I don’t believe its National Mermaid Day until I see Dagwood sitting behind a plate with a giant fish spine on it and TravS.D.’s blog entry on Famous Mermaids In Vaudeville.
Pardon My Planet – I spent more time than this was worth trying to parse that sentence. @Daisy: #41 had the right idea, although I doubt if diagramming would help.
FC – @TheDiva: , that was my thought, too – what’s with the pile of cash? Back when I was a churchgoer, the church gave boxes of envelopes to the congregation to use for their offering. The envelopes had the member’s name on them so the church could keep a record of who donated and how much. Mr. Jive’s church does this; they send out statements quarterly. They also do not pass a basket (in their case, offering plate) around during the service, but have a collection box on the wall at the back of the church. They also accept donations online.
Judging by the width of Bil’s necktie, I guessed that this was from the 1970s. Thanks to @Don: for the confirmation.
Rex Morgan – I’m pretty sure that the art museum date was on a Saturday, so this must be Sunday morning. Maybe the guy in the car is someone picking up an elderly neighbor to take her to church.
9CL – What an unpredictable, original comic strip. Readers never know from one day to the next what unexpected hilarity will ensue.
Six Chix
“…put our best scientists to work studying [mermaids] so we can learn more about their weaknesses.”
According to Six Chix a mermaid’s weakness is coffee which makes sense to me because when I’m out pulling trash near bodies of water I almost always find a coffee cup with a mermaid logo printed on it.
@matt w: following you!
Let me vent for a minute. I found a hairline crack on the outside of my toilet tank today and I ask my brother-in-law if he has any caulk or putty so I can fix. He is going around like he should fix it. This guy tries to make himself out to be like some sort of big man like he is the most important person around.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Pardon My Planet: Counterpoint: It still doesn’t make sense.
_____________________________
“Shana, They knew what they were doing, they bought the tickets, I say LET ‘EM CRASH!”
Ziggy-Ziggy, don’t give them ideas.
@Horace Broon: P&HU – I think she’s still doing Sundays. Also she’s quitting the dailies so that she can focus on the P&HU books she writes for Scholastic, which is where most of her readers are.
GT – The final narration box should read “…hopefully, baseball season will go more smoothly!” Other than that, the strip is perfect.
Phantom: Not to worry, Kit. Looks like she’s got a pair of excellent flotation devices.
MW: Time for Dawn to take Belle bowling.
@Weaselboy: So you’re not going to attack the use of “hopefully” as a disjunct? Bold choice, but entirely defensible!
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
@The Rambling Otter: #44: I certainly hope the thieving pastor was inside the building when it blew up. I also hope your great-grandfather had the foresight to abscond with the money before he blew the place up.
Apparently mermaids main weakness is goofy looking Vikings in funnel hats
@Chance: @brendancalling: Thanks! I figure if I’m going to be the world’s leading Dark Hi And Lois connoisseur, I should make something of it.
Mary Worth Spanish to English.
FG: A gladiator helmet full of coins paid out of state tuition for a four year degree? College must be a lot cheaper on Mongo than here.
GT: At least they’re ending their basketball season arc before March Madness ends. One year the Mudlark hoopsters were still dribbling even after the NBA finals ended in June.
Day By Dave celebrates International Mermaid Day.
Vintage Funky Winkerbean: If you celebrate April Fool’s Day early, people don’t take you seriously.
Josh criticized a mermaid cartoon without mentioning Lucky Eddie?
@Guillermo el chiclero: Mongo has universal health care and paid parental leave, too. Ming may have been merciless, but he wasn’t an asshole.
@Sequitur: Damn, you’re right. That looks like no cigar I’ve ever seen, but it does resemble the “Camberwell Carrot” (a massive reefer) from Withnail & I.
Withnail: “Who says it’s a Camberwell Carrot?”
Danny: “I do. I invented it in Camberwell….whhhhfffff….and it looks like a carrot.”
@Buck Ripsnort:
Yes
FC: Thel and Billy stayed home today, citing preemptive embarrassment.
6C: Kind of a curveball in that two mermaids go for free coffee on National Mermaid Day, but they don’t patronize the national coffee chain with a mermaid mascot. That could be because they can only travel a few feet on land before their tales start to chafe. Or it could be because the Starbucks receptionist called security when Stephanie Piro tried to discuss a product placement deal. Who can tell?
Pluggers: Damn fleas.
What’s God going to do with all that money? I don’t know, maybe buy some shoulders for the men in that church.
Pardon my Planet: In the guy’s defense, I wouldn’t want to go into a washing machine either. I wouldn’t rather die first, but then someone who’s claustrophobic might. Tormenting people with their phobias is a good part of a healthy relationship, right?
Pardon my Planet: Having St. Anselm guest-write a comic sounded better in theory than it worked out in practice. TBH it didn’t sound great in theory either.
@Sequitur: re Pluggers: When Andy Bear spends time in the woods, it’s no surprise he picks up fleas, ticks, chiggers, and other vermin. Bathing and grooming before going to bed might help,. Is Sheila Roo into grooming?
FC-God needs the money to buy a starship.
9CL: That’s my line, Amos. And why are you and Edda still there? No, don’t answer that.
DT: Sam found a toothbrush. Lizz found a card from the dentist. It’s starting to look like this Piltdown guy might have had teeth. That blows the case wide open!
Dustin: If you guys are trying to beat this joke to death you can stop now.
JP: Never give your living props a chance to mess up your plans. That’s one thing Sophie learned in business school, or whatever school she’s been filling time at.
MW: I like to think that for June Brigman, the chance to once in a while draw a good, reliable toaster oven in the background is what makes it all worthwhile.
Ziggy: As obligatory sequels go this one would actually be pretty good. Your mileage may vary on replacing an aging Harrison Ford with something from the Muppet Workshop.
Today’s Six Chix is awful in that typical “Eh, I came up with this in ten minutes, good enough” Six Chix way, but Pardon My Planet is baffling, not just in the sense that Josh talks about, but also in that the concept of the joke is also terrible? Like this woman is being insanely passive-aggressive to the guy, and then couching it in unnecessarily poetic terms, for some reason? It’s a lot, psychologically.
“Seriously? You put my mermaid in the washing machine?”
Six Chix –
?Under the sea
Under the sea
Coffee is better
When you’re no debtor
’cause it is free!?
Pardon My Planet – Turns out, you need more than a shared love of vests to make a relationship work. Communication is key.
Family Circus – The guy in the green suit sees a little of himself in Jeffy. Once you really start questioning the operations of organized religion, you free your mind to bend morality to your will. Even when he finds out the little melonhead is an idiot, all the better. People who think themselves free thinkers, but who never truly learned to think at all, are the true marks. Green Suit Guy’s whole crypto operation runs on those types.
@Sequitur: #100: Everybody in the old strips have tiny, pointed noses. When did the potato nose pandemic hit Westview?
@115 Guillermo el chiclero:
I blame Lynn Johnston.
@Sequitur: #116: Strange how Lynn Johnston would draw the younger women like Elizabeth and April as dolled up and pretty as her talent allowed while family matriarch Ellie was still drawn as cartoonish as the strip’s first day, with a nose like a cassava melon.
Dolly, after Billy is struck by lightning: “You didn’t answer his question. What does God need with all that money?”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Remember the day we saw Ellie eat? I still have nightmares.
@117 Guillermo el chiclero:
If I remember correctly, back in the day, we on this site referred to Ellie as “Potato Nose”.
@Buck Ripsnort: He wanted to leave something for us.
@Bob Tice: Its the Shatner3000!
@Artist formerly known as Ben: 104-6C: I think it’s the whole mermaid-naiad rivalry, actually. Wouldn’t be caught dead in the double-finned world
@Guillermo el chiclero: Actually, the original FBOFW style was small/normal-nosed women & kids, potato-nosed men (see https://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/monday-september-10-1979/). We had the first collection around the house growing up.
Pardon My Planet, 3/29/25: No, NO PARDON FOR THIS €RAP!
@Philip: Green Suit Guy’s whole crypto operation runs on those types.
That’s one of the things that Jeff had to update. It was a Multi Level Marketing scheme in the original.
@GarrisonSkunk: #78
Ha!
@GarrisonSkunk: #78
Ha!
@Daisy:
Oops! I guess that’s “Ha Ha!” (I wondered why the comment bot told me to slow down, I was posting comments too fast,
@Peanut Gallery: I love having another grammar geek on here. And yes, if Associated Press now approves it, hopefully I’ll be okay with it, too. Thanks for sharing that.
“What do you care what God does with the money, kid? You pay for nothing. You’re too dumb to want anything. The fact your mother feeds you alone makes your awful self spoiled. Why? WHY???”
Is what he thinks. But Daddy Keane never speaks. There are are terrible volumes here, friends. The screams are WITHIN.
@CanuckDownSouth: #123: Christ, what happened to her?
MW: Wilbur looks positively blissed out, having been besmooched he’s going to wear it as long as possible. It’s either that or the roofie Belle slipped into his cola.
@Daisy:
You just sought a 2nd opinion is all…
@A Grave Mind: Ideally the last ever Family Circus would just show Bil with a smoking crater where his head used to be, but really I think the chance has passed.
@Sequitur: Those were the days – Blanthony…the beerbongophone…I pity the foob….
@Bob Tice: Bwahaha!
@jroggs: Thanks for letting us know you are well and enjoying life. May that continue, and best wishes.
@The Rambling Otter: That is a good story, and I’m glad he got away. I hope he lived happily ever after.
@Poteet: Ditto. Now that is a great Great-Grandfather.
@jroggs: Glad to hear you’re doing all right. I always liked your posts.
Bullshit by regular standards or Judge Parker standards?
@jroggs: And now I have another reason to look forward to future comics uproariousness.
@Dennis Jimenez: “Pardon my Puzzlement.”
Just for alliteration’s sake, y’know. (That’s about the best you can give the strip today.)
FG: Almost “Flash Gordon without Flash Gordon” last week. Even the climax of the series happened without him. Best be a good boy, ol’ Flashie, you can be replaced.
LUANN: I’d bet that Toni will end up pregnant as yet another 2025 disaster. My pity for myself at this prospect is only exceeded by pity for the baby. Today’s strip is a reminder that the poor child will be getting pathetic genes from both parents and will spend a lot of time with Bwad’s family, including Aunt Luann and Shannon. The mind reels.
@Poteet: Toni will end up pregnant by SATAN.
SATAN is its Father!
His might is stronger than stronger! His power will last longer than longer!
(Brad traded his paternal role to the coven for a shot at being named Fireman of the Month. He’s tired of seeing that Dalmatian up there all year round)
@Poteet:
@Guillermo el chiclero:
@richardf8:
@TheDiva:
Thanks for you guys supporting my Great-Grandfather’s cause.
Sorry for the late reply, I didn’t know what to say for a while really.
And yeah, my grandfather (supposedly before the church incident went down) actually did go to one of those schools where they “tried their best to beat the Native out of him”
The pastor is dead now, at any rate. I hope he saw the irony when he winded up in Hell. “But… I was a pastor, isn’t that enough to get into Heaven??”
Pardon My Planet seems like it would be relevant 30 years ago when people used cable TV and therefore remotes a lot more. But maybe people use remotes now a lot and I’m out of touch.
@Ukulele Ike: I love that entire idea soooo much. I can see it now, Toni being carried half-conscious through the fake linen closet as the chanting grows louder. I read that novel as a teen and remember it well. Hair Satan.
Pardon My Planet: So…she’s trying to kill him, right? That’s what I’m getting from it.
“What’s God gonna do with all that money? All that money, near the season the bunny?”
“He’s gonna get-get-get-get some honeys. Get some honeys with all his money.”