Several historical deep dives
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Blondie, 4/15/25
When I read today’s Blondie, I had one immediate and overwhelming thought: isn’t Dagwood’s beloved living room chair blue, rather than the sort of grey-white we’re seeing here? Now, if this were a blog that, against all trends in online content production, had only been started a few weeks ago, I would’ve been stuck with that nagging Mandela effect feeling forever, as recent strips all had the grey chair. Fortunately, however, I have posted a statistically significant sample of Blondie strips every year for the past two decades, so I was able to do an in-depth study of this chair situation, and am happy to report that he had a blue chair in that spot since at least December of 2004, and was still sitting in it as late as April of 2024, which is a pretty good run for a chair, really. The grey one made its appearance sometime in the subsequent month. Too bad it’s the last thing he’s ever going to sit in, as the Council of Gynarchy has clearly decreed his execution, if I’m reading his facial expression in panel three correctly.
Mary Worth, 3/15/25
I was originally going to start this post with “I know Wilbur is hard up,” but you know what? Wilbur is not hard up. Between Iris, Fabiana, and Estelle, he’s had a more varied sexual history than just about any other recurring character in this strip. That’s why I’m saying something that I can’t believe I’m saying: Wilbur, you can do better than someone who tries to initiate sex by letting loose an evil chuckle. You really can! Dawn, meanwhile, once thought that the most brutal life could get was being dumped by some dude named Dave, but she never imagined that someday she’d be listening through Charterstone’s thin, thin walls to her dad fooling around with a lady who’s trying to kill her.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/25
Update to my previous Rex Morgan, M.D., update: this guy isn’t the widower of the late (?) former stalking victim Debra, but rather her father; and he didn’t shoot this guy with a magical booze and pills gun, but rather just strangled him to death with his bare hands. Don’t leave your windows rolled down when you pass out drunk and/or high in your car if you’ve made a lot of enemies, is the lesson I’m learning from this.
155 replies to “Several historical deep dives”
RMMD: I was going to ask how incompetent the police could possibly be to miss strangulation bruises around a corpse’s throat, but hey. It’s true to life.
MW: “My daughter seemed disappointed” What an astute observation, Wilbur. It’s insights like this that explain why you abdicated your advice column to Mary.
MW: So, Wilbur has to have seen the photo of Dawn that Belle defaced, right? What am I saying. Of course he has, and he just assumed the mayonnaise he smeared on it finally rotted to a deep black.
MT: Estelle has never quite gotten the hang of the “Live long and prosper” hand signal.
RMMD: I’ll bet the guy was already dead when he was strangled, and this is going to turn into a lengthy legal dissection of the concepts of intent and culpability. As one expects in a comic about a doctor.
Blondie: What do you think Dagwood carries in his briefcase? My guess: cold cuts.
RMMD: A guy who wears a blue blazer to a late night strangulation can’t be all bad.
“Don’t leave your windows rolled down when you pass out drunk and/or high in your car if you’ve made a lot of enemies, is the lesson I’m learning from this.” I hope Dagwood reads the blog today.
RMMD: That window was shut when Augie discovered the body. Did Baldy roll the window up after strangling him? Seems especially cold-blooded.
@BeckoningChasm: Never mind the photo, what about the murder attempt? All three characters are just going to act like that didn’t happen? Belle is not going to be in the mood for sexytime with Wilbur after he foiled her murder attempt, even if he did so unknowingly. (Which the artwork and narration very much contradict.) And if she is doing so as part of a larger scheme, then I ask: what larger scheme? Belle has nothing to gain from offing Dawn, who she just met.
Mary Worth, Gil Thorp, Rex Morgan and others are good at making individual strips that look like they’re part of a larger story. But if you try to follow the larger story, it doesn’t make a drop of sense. It’s as if the people who write newspaper drama comics have forgotten how cause and effect works.
Now we see where “Wilbie” got “Dawnie” from. He’s completely subsumed his mind to this mindless murder machine whose entire personality as far as we have seen is being obsessed with killing his daughter. And of course Dawn’s too spineless to ever think of leaving the two of them alone to enjoy Belle’s purportedly short visit so Belle is definitely going to get infinite opportunities to kill her until Wilbur’s involuntary powers of heroic clumsiness fail to save her. Don’t see how she’s going to survive long.
MW – Dawnie, get your ass out of bed and look Belle up on LinkedIn. Because she most definitely does not work at MegaCorp, let alone is she “immersed in her work” as Wilbie asserted.
Blondie: Being immortal like a Greek god, Dagwood can’t be killed. He can only be banished to some eternal torture. Most likely, he is cursed to be stuck fast to a comfy chair while a TV snack tray laden with his favorite foods is placed just out of reach. For added effect, the dog eats his liver.
MW: hold up. Alone in her bed, Dawn caresses the empty space on the pillow and thinks longingly of…WILBUR??!!! W.T.A.F?!
Can’t for the life of me figure why my comment at 12 is waiting approval.
@matt w: #8: True. I distinctly remember Augie having to rap on the car’s closed window.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Maybe the people who write comics have discovered ChatGPT, which still hasn’t mastered object persistence, much less cause and effect.
@Charterstoned: To be fair to Dawn — which I’m not entirely sure she deserves — The ceaseless pounding of the headboard against the wall makes it difficult to think of much else.
RMMD: With any luck, Augie and Vengeful Father have dramatically different finger sizes and we can end this soon.
MW: If Dawn hasn’t had the brains to purchase noise-canceling headphones by now, no sympathy.
FC: Billy says; “Boy, do I have HARD homework for you tonight, Mommy.”
Big Bil listening smirks; “That goes double for me!“
I like how many soap opera strips these days are about stone-cold murderers. No kids read the comics these days, so why not go wild with sex-crazed poisoners and vigilante junkie stranglers and whatever CIA assassin BS is going on in Judge Parker these days. Come on, Gil Thorp, up your game! Make Marty a serial killer, you know you want to.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Are you having a good time?”
“Yes, Don Abundio! It’s a unique experience!”
“I never dreamed I would ride in an armored truck”
“And if I had, I never would have guessed I’d be the cargo”
[On truck: ARMORED TRUCK]
I’m looking forward to Rex Morgan, MD finally coming to an end and passing the torch to its replacement, The Many Vengeances of Old Man Murder.
Mary Worth: Belle’s crimes, ranked:
1. That haircut
2. “Wilbie”
…
432. Attempting to poison Dawn
MW: For the past ten years all I have read about is how annoying we here on the Comics Curmudgeon find the Mary Worth crew, and now that we finally have a character that is willingly and gleefully going to kill them all for us, we just sit back without cheering her on? I am depressed.
I mean, don’t you see? Belle is one of us! And in some twisted Twilight Zone scenario she has somehow entered the “funny” pages. Just wait until Belle finishes her job in Mary Worth and jumps over to the Family Circus.
We are all going to be dripping with irony soon as we get our comeuppance.
“Submitted for your approval. . .
Obviously, the blue has leached out of Dagwood’s chair and into Dawn. Either that, or Belle succeeded the second time around, and Dawn is in fact dead. Which is okay, really.
Blondie – I guess it’s just you, me an’ the jar of peanut butter tonight, Daisy….
MW – Wilbie…as in, Wilbie ridin’ six white jacket male psychiatric nurses when they come….
RMMD – Would’a, could’a, should’a….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Debra’s dad could learn a lot from Wilbur. Wilbur may be blithely washing away the evidence of the attempt on Dawn’s life, but at least his daughter is still alive. There’s no need for murderous vengeance if your clownish antics prevent the murder in the first place.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Agreed on #1. It’s like 3 different hairstyles are fighting a cage match to the death on top of her head, and none of them deserve to win. I know Brigman thinks it’s amusingly whacky, but it’s just ugly and disturbing.
@Kirkout: If Belle were trying to kill Wilbur, I imagine we’d all be cheering her on. It would be Aldomania 2.0.
But she wants to have sex with Wilbur, so she disgusts us.
What I’m hung up on is that remark some days ago about “There’s no overt sign of foul play.” Oh yeah huh. When you strangle someone who’s passed out in their car, SURELY it leaves marks? How incompetent ARE these first responders*?
*A handy term when you have no idea if that was a cop, an EMT guy, a medical examiner, or the coroner.
Blondie: Silly pun aside, I’m really intrigued at what this argument could be about. I mean, Dagwood is a lazy, inconsiderate sandwich pervert, what would he have done on top of that to actually draw Blondie’s ire?
MW: Speaking of things I’m intrigued by, what is up with Belle’s hairstyle? Is that what they call the Franciscan Streak?
RMMD: I’m kinda sad that we know how this will end already, because now I can’t imagine that Debra’s dad is just going at the stalker’s face with a marker. “Let’s see: mustache, unibrow, penis on the side of the mouth. Ha, ha, you’ll rue the day you ever message with my daughter...”
MW: Gotta hand it to Belle resisting the innate urge to strangle Wilbur as the opportunity presents itself in P1.
@Kirkout: Well, if she’s going to wish them all into the cornfield, I could go along with that. Except there aren’t any cornfields near Charterstone. Hmmm. We’ve seen quite a few fields of humping land clams. Would that work?
@Lauralot: Every time I hear the Tom Petty song, Free Fallin’, I think of Aldo.
Blondie – Due to tariffs, the particular shade of blue ink is in short supply and cuts had to be made. If this trade war goes on, more rationing will have to happen, and the once colorful Sunday comics will be as grey and drab as a modern brutalist McDonalds.
Mary Worth – Thanks to the coloring in the second panel, we can see Dawn would make a best looking corpse she ever will in her life, so why not go out on top? It’s not like the next 50 years or so of her natural life offers much else.
Rex Morgan, MD – When Rex Morgan learns of this murder, he will be shocked something like this could happen in his community. There, but for the grace of God, could he have been asked to render medical aid to the victim.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I still think Belle is Dirk’s mother, out for revenge. And she’s using food-based murder in the same way that Dirk used food-based domination.
Wilbur is in on it because when he came back from Florida, Dawn started to talk about her problems and with Wilbur, that’s not allowed at all. Everyone must talk about Wilbur.
None of the above makes sense which makes it perfect for Mary Worth.
RMMD: a quick read through of the comments tells me everything I wanted to say has already been said, so carry on.
I do wonder, however, what Stalker Dude’s end game was. It seems his plan was to be creepy and irritating until someone punched his lights out, or, killed him. Is there such a thing as suicide by stalking?
@Lauralot: Wilbur has enough plot armor to survive a direct nuclear strike. He’s invited a psycho into his home, but we know he will never once be in danger. Nor will he ever be implicated in the murder of his own daughter, which is he is clearly helping with.
Wilbur is also a much better target for the murderous Belle. If she’s just after his money, which is the only reason anyone would ever find Wilbur desirable, offing him would be the direct approach. And it would be a much better story. She goads Wilbur into marriage, promptly kills him, inherits his home and wealth, and becomes Dawn’s stepmom from hell. Imagine Belle’s psychoface telling Dawn “you’ll call me ‘Mommy’ from now on!” (Note also that Belle looks a bit like Dawn’s actual mom, or at least Wilbur’s version of her.)
When this story is over, I want to re-edit it into something better.
@Twinkles the Elf: RMMD: I was going to go with if there aren’t any bruises, I guess the stalker was already dead when strangled, but a quick check shows pubmed discussion of bruising up to “hours” postmortem, so the writers don’t even get that benefit of the doubt. So the answer is: they’re in RMMD, how incompetent do you think they are?
JP: Meanwhile, Reena has her semi-annual attempt at remembering she’s her own person and not just Sophie’s NPC. Using it up to avoid an awkward family dinner rather than escaping a cool international job offer is a wise choice.
MW-“It’s bad enough seeing how the sausage is made but do I have to hear it as well,” Dawn thinks to herself.
RMMD-“I then saw him reach into the car. I just thought he was giving the man a hand.”
Six Chix-Trying to get ideas for a joke?
FC-“I better have a long hard talk with his teacher,” Thel thinks to herself.
What is going on with the Comics Kingdom comics and the Seattle Times? The comments for those comics don’t show up.
The misunderstanding? That it’s okay to bleach the furniture.
***
“Ha ha! Now I don’t have to make any noise, the one way anyone could find out I committed murder! Huh? What are you blathering on about? I never use my fingers to print, I only write in cursive, and who is D and A?”
***
Seriously though, the smart money is on this guy strangling a corpse.
@BeckoningChasm: It’s a good theory. Something needs to be driving all this. Lord knows the story hasn’t told us what that could be.
RMMD: McStalkie’s taillights don’t match. That’s how The PAvenger knew how to find him.
GT: “I believe I keep seeing a ghost in the office, Thorp. I suspect it’s the ghost of my long-lost self-respect, which disappeared now that I’m no longer your hated rival but your loyal toadie. I wish I was Coach Gerads. I hate myself.”
JP: “Sophie, you want me to join you for dinner with Sam and Abbey? No thanks. I’d rather eat with that dysfunctional Hamptons family you’re involved with.”
Zits: Are we gonna see Spinal Tap, the Comics Version? Oh please say YES!
CS: Yeah, Crankshaft, he dumps out the ashes from the urn and then rubs them in his hair. Christ, what an asshole.
“OK, so the vic was brain-dead from an OD and unrecoverable, but this mope strangled him, killing someone who was already for all intents and purposes dead. What do we do now?”
“Get Rex Morgan, M.D.? Maybe a medical opinion would help.”
“Yeah, get serious. What about calling in Judge Parker, J.D.?”
“Only if you want this case to take months and then not resolve with the changing of the seasons. Let’s just call Dick Tracy, P.D.”
“Only if you want the perp to end up dead . . . hey, I like the way you think!.”
I can snark with anybody, but today I want to give praise. Other than Snoopy, my favorite comic strip dog is Daisy. I just love her expressions.
Ahem. The Belle storyline is MW is stupid. There. I feel better now.
RMMD – This is shaping up to be a Murder on the Orient Express situation. Except stalker guy’s actually alive and well; everyone just attempted to murder the mannequin he left in his car.
RMMD: You know Belle is evil when she doesn’t even bother closing Dawn’s eyes after strangling her in her bed.
Is this a rare trifecta moment where three strips all have attempted or completed capital crimes?
DT: The Itemizer strikes and slowly the clue board is filling up. But we still lack the motive – what is the big score? Is it just about the money? Or does Uncle have a score to settle with Vesuvius insurance?
MW: Belle is a psychopath so trying to off hand kill Dawn with available means (credit to her improv) and now is onto further ensnaring Wilbur. It is surprising that Dawn isn’t doing a deep internet search on Belle – at least AI. Wilbur just proves the tired old but often true notion that many men think with their little wilbur. He is eagerly cleaning up the cup so he can go have fun with Belle completely ignoring all of the other clues, like how strangely viscous the tea was in the cup or the strong base smell.
RMMD: So the old guy looks like he is choking Stalker dude out for the big sleep. But then he opens the door, rolls up the window and closes it so later Augie finds a closed window up door? This will weaken his defense of a crime of passion – suggests some degree of thought and calmness. If this were a plot twist movie, we see three types of actions:
1. Augie wanted to confront and do something to Stalker but was too late to the game.
2. Old man wanted to confront and do something to Stalker and thinks he has the perfect opportunity and chokes him, not realizing that he is actually the second attacker… flash back even further.
3. Third as yet unseen and unknown prior victim or relative using the same method of hunting had found Stalker and killed him with an injection (the coroner will find a small needle mark between the strangulation pattern). Maybe the beat cop who was grilling Augie turns out to have a sister who was hassled by the Stalker, and that is why he was so quick on the scene and tried to tangle up Augie. Or ultimately the twist is that it is Kelly who is the true killer, but Summer, June and Rex cover it up and never speak of it again.
MW-What’s really scary is that Belle probably thinks Dawn is Wilbur’s and trying to kill her for that.
MW: For the past several days I’ve been stuck on the fact that Belle’s attempted murder weapon of choice was drain cleaner, a substance with a very strong and unmistakable odor, and yet both Dawn and Wilbur seem oblivious. Then I remembered that Divaling Two has recently discovered The Simpsons on Disney+ and has been going through the classic episodes, including the one where Sideshow Bob married Bart’s aunt Selma with the intention of murdering her for her money, a plot which hinged on Selma’s peculiar inability to taste or smell anything. I can only conclude that Wilbur and Dawn have a similar affliction, which would explain both Wilbur’s diet and Dawn’s ability to be around her father without retching.
RMMD: Okay, I have questions. Why was Debra’s phone on her dad’s nightstand? Why doesn’t she have any of the basic protections that would prevent him from looking through her stuff, like a password or biometric scan? If Dad is this dangerously overprotective of his child, why didn’t he kill Goatee McStalker when he was still hanging around her? Is there really any meaningful difference between “asleep” and “passed out drunk/stoned” that you can determine just by looking at a person? Wouldn’t it have been easier and possibly less incriminating for Dad to plug the exhaust pipe, turn on the ignition, roll up the windows and let time and carbon monoxide do the rest? How do these stories about romantic violence not realize that the “if you hurt my [female relative/significant other] I’ll kill you” mentality is just the other side of the coin? Is it bad that I want to check in on what the Morgans are doing right now?
@treetown: Oooh, maybe it’s like Murder on the Orient Express, where (spoiler alert for ninety-year-old book that’s been adapted like a dozen times) the victim has pissed off so many people that they all get together to off him in an act of vigilante justice. It would be convoluted but it would certainly make more sense than whatever’s happening now.
“Until when we can have one of our own . . . our own daughter, that is . . . maybe we can call her ‘Dawn’ as a memorial to your daughter . . . raise her just like your Dawn but she’ll be our Dawn and you’ll never miss your Dawn again. Mua ha haw!”
“What was that, dear? I was thinking of sex again.”
There are some things you can always count on in this world, like there being no health care drama in a Rex Morgan M.D. comic.
Dustin: “Okay, next we’ll be talking about how obsessive calorie counting may contribute to eating disorders…”
JP: “I hate your family and I’m even more eager to get away from them than you are.”
Luann: You’d think Dez would have figured out the dorm apartment she shares with three of the stupidest and most self-absorbed people on the planet would be a bad place for meditations. Surely there’s somewhere more peaceful nearby, like a preschool or a construction zone…
Dagwood’s argument with Blondie continues, Dagwood leaves Blondie and his parents accept him back.
-Cue Dagwood swimming in a giant vault of money like Scrooge McDuck-
RMMD: When I was a kid, I had a murder mystery game on my old Apple II computer. Where you play as a detective, get clues, find leads and such.
Although the game was so small, that instead of the dialogue being in the game itself. It gave you a number, and you look up the number in a book that came with the game, and read the dialogue there.
(Old Gold Box D&D games did that too)
When I was a kid, I was just looking through the dialogue book, and came to one line that said:
“I DON’T TALK TO PIGS!”
Obviously thinking back to it, that dialogue belongs to someone who hates cops.
But back then with literally no context and a more innocent mindset. I took it completely literally, I laughed my butt off! xD
@TheDiva: For RMMD, I’m betting we’ll learn that Debra killed herself because of the stalking, and that’s why this guy is so strangle-happy. It would explain why he has full access to her phone and why it was on his nightstand.
@TheDiva: Funny thing, even though the reveal is pretty well known at this point, I still want to read the book regardless, just because despite I know the outcome, I still think that it’ll be a good read either way.
9CL – Did Brooke have another stroke? We were well into a months-long Comic Strip Wedding storyline, and then without warning we just skipped over the actual wedding. Instead, we learn that the OTHER twin met a seventy year old billionaire the night before and fell instantly in love and married him off panel.
And now Twin 2 is trying to teach her new septuagenarian husband how to pick up girls with snappy come-on lines.
In my experience, women – whether they just met their husband the day before the wedding or not – are not usually encouraging of their husband’s efforts to make the secs with other women.
Maybe Brooke has had a different experience and all of his wives have immediately encouraged him to find someone new?
@The Rambling Otter: “RMMD: When I was a kid, I had a murder mystery game on my old Apple II computer. Where you play as a detective, get clues, find leads and such.”
I remember those. And the books you could buy with BASIC computer programs you could type in and then run, they used a lot of those “look up response # 61″ instructions.
I still have that Apple II on my desk, although it doesn’t run and the 5 1/4” actually “floppy” disk isn’t too reliable anymore. Bell and Howell Apple II with the black case!
GT: We will be skipping baseball season this year and presenting a SPOOKY GHOST STORY. Ahhooooo….
DT: “Keep in close touch. And when you solve the case, phone me immediately. I’ll be right here, waiting.”
Blondie: Josh does the stats so we don’t have to! That is dedication! (…or obsession…not sure which applies…)
RMMD; Funny thing – this is NOT a flashback.
The first responders got tired of waiting for the medical examiner and just left.
As a courtesy to the ME, they just rolled down the window of Stalker McStalker’s car to let the putrefaction stink out so the ME wouldn’t get sick when he gets to the scene in the morning.
Baldy left the scene, came back because he lives nearby, found the car still sitting there and remembered he lost his wristwatch sometime during the day.
Tomorrow, the investigation picks up where we left off.
Baldy has his watch.
@TheDiva: So…wanting to defend someone against abusers comes from the same mentality as wanting to abuse someone? That makes no sense.
MW:
Wow — Picasso painted Dawn during his Blue Period? I mean, I knew that Dawn was a little old to still be in undergrad, but I didn’t think she was that old.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: In another, different strip, “college-age hot-to-trot girl marries seventy year old man” would be the prelude to a “inherit the money via causing death by overexertion” plot.
RM,MD: If someone is really out cold, you don’t need to strangle them by the throat. You can just hold their nose and mouth closed for a few minutes. That’s probably something that’s not very nice to know.
Luann: Gunther likes a clean cooter.
@Tom: 9CL – “In another, different strip, “college-age hot-to-trot girl marries seventy year old man” would be the prelude to a “inherit the money via causing death by overexertion” plot.”
Of course it would, and should. But Brooke doesn’t write “plots”. He draws situations where sexy girls in bikinis spend most of their waking lives hanging out by LOCALBODYOFWATER – but not actually swimming in it.
RMMD:
“There. I just sicced Edward’s Dog on you. Good boy, Edward’s Dog!”
RMMD:
“Here, you miscreant! — have some of those berries that Brooke Shields and Christopher Adkins had in Blue Lagoon!”
C
@White Rabbit: “If someone is really out cold, you don’t need to strangle them by the throat. You can just hold their nose and mouth closed for a few minutes. ”
Hypothetically … how many minutes would it probably require before you could be 100% certain that they were dead? Like, there would be zero chance that they would wake up suddenly at an inopportune moment after the cops showed up? Five minutes? Ten? Does that thing where you hold a mirror under their nose really work? Asking for a former friend… (“friend of mine” … not a “friend of ours”, in case you are worried.)
MA-ry – I actually think I know where this is going. It’s canon that Wilbur is like a negative chaos god; his foibles are in fact heroic and he has saved at least two lives by being careless. We’re setting up for a series of attempts on Dawn’s life, all foiled by accident through Wilbur’s carelessness. Eventually, Belle will break and get angry that Wilbur keeps accidentally foiling her. Hopefully, this will end in Wilbur becoming the world’s most silly superhero, Sandwich Man, and then getting himself killed in the next strip.
GT: Now
“While we wait in the principal’s office, let’s send Aaron in to look for the spirit.”
“Whoa! Did you hear that?”
“We can easily see a demon emerging on the monitor. You! What is your name?!”
“Meemaw.”
“Whoa! It spoke its name!”
Is this where Dawn finally moves out? It’s about time considering she’s 43.
@The Ghost of Jarrod: So, basically, Addams Family Values.
@Kirkout: [MW] And the reason she looks like that is the heroic amount of drugs she has to take to get close to Wilbur without screaming.
@Banana Jr. 6000: It’s as if the people who write newspaper drama comics have forgotten how cause and effect works.
You’re talking like you think forgetting how cause and effect works would necessarily cause the effect you’re seeing. It might not. Could be just random correlation, or correlation with some third factor. It really makes us think.
Dawn should move in with her (only) pal, Cathy. They could get jobs at the SPLAK! factory and have whacky adventures like Laverne & Shirley. Schlemeil, schlamazzo, Hotzenfeffer incorporated!
@Lauralot: If Belle were trying to kill Wilbur, I imagine we’d all be cheering her on. It would be Aldomania 2.0. But she wants to have sex with Wilbur, so she disgusts us.
Ninety minutes of really good sex might finish off a man of his age and state of physical fitness. Don’t give up hope.
@Tom: No, being violently protective of a wife/daughter (because she belongs to you and it’s your job to defend her) comes from the same mentality as being violent towards the wife/daughter herself (because she belongs to you and you can do what you like to her).
@Bob Tice: Dawn was also the model for The Old Guitarist. Pablo made her wear a head-cover rubber mask for that one.
@White Rabbit: Don’t worry about it. I watch Strangers on a Train every other year to stay up on Bruno’s strangulation tutorial.
@Hibbleton: For added effect, the dog eats his liver
__________________________________
….with onions?
Wilburp is hoping Dawn will be sent to the Mayo Clinic.
MW: Remember how Wilbur was practically kissing his own ass about how he was such a good father because he was taking Dawn to a restaurant that she liked after he spent several days bragging about how much he got laid on his vacation with graphic detail while brushing aside her whole “emotionally abusive relationship” scenario? I’m willing to bet after this is over that he’ll gaslight her into only remembering that he’s so lucky that someone is willing to kill his offspring just so they could have him. Wilbur’s feelings are the only ones that matter, after all.
Blondie-Blondie is right. Why should she come home and cook for Dagwood after spending all day cooking for complete strangers.
@The Rambling Otter: I haven’t read any Agatha Christie, only watched adaptations (though Mr. Diva went through her bibliography a few years back), but I’ve found her stories worthwhile for the logistics and character studies even when you know the reveal–And Then There Were None is a good example.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yeah, a big problem I have with the current Mary Worth storyline is that Belle went from zero to murder in like five strips. Before Apartment 3-G went totally off the rails, there was a story with Bobbie wandering around where for a long time it was unclear who she was and why she had a gun, and when we found that she was Margo’s dad’s original wife it was great. It kept my interest!
That’s right, I’m complaining that soap strips today are too fast-paced. This is the most elderly thing I have ever done.
Josh, JUST LIKE A MAN, you’re missing the wifely forest for the husband’s tree. It doesn’t matter what color the chair is now! Blondie has fully moved her own loveseat out of the room, and now Dagwood is trapped in a Lockhordian void.
I’ve said it before yesterday and many people are saying it today but it’s high time that Dawn moves out.
“But Dopey Dawnie has more of a right to be here than Batshit Belfrey! This is her home!”
Ay, but that’s the rub. Wilbur pays for everything since Dawn hasn’t had any notable employment since the whole incident with Simp Jared and the two timing doctor. Her second time with getting involved with a two timing doctor, might I add.
What Dawn needs to do is move out of Charterstone to get away from Wilbur and Mary and all the other creeps and weirdos (especially Ian who we know likes his wives young enough to be his daughters). She can be roommates with the one person who isn’t Charterstone influenced or a spineless simp: Cathy (Ack!) and try to find a job while finally finishing college. And maybe stay away from doctors unless they’re prescribing more antibiotics…
@Guillermo el chiclero: And if Baldy rolled the window back up, how did he do it? Did he have to put the key back in the ignition? Do some fiddling with a key fob that I don’t understand because my car is from the ’00s? Even RMMD can’t try to get away with hand-cranked car windows.
@Needless Exposition: Worse, he wasn’t bragging for several days. After he asked Mary to keep doing his job for him even though he’d returned, a narration box told us it was several weeks later. Dawn’s heard about his sex life for over a fortnight now.
@Lauralot: Good God, how much bragging can a man do and why didn’t she react like a normal person would by telling him to shut up before vomiting excessively? Especially with his callous disregard for what she’s been up to, though Dawn also downplayed the event because the little spine she grew from Dirk has already worn down to revert her to jellyfish status.
Luann-Three college women. You should shower together. Bets can upload it for views.
Rex Morgan – Thanks to the Mudges who pointed out that the car window was closed when Augie checked on stalker guy. I couldn’t remember. I do note that Dad is getting his fingerprints and DNA all over the car, but the police will still target their investigation at Augie and charge him.
I don’t want a search for strangulation on my Kindle history, but I do recall from reading mysteries that there are some pretty awful facial damages from being strangled. Bulging eyes, broken blood vessels in the eyes, for two. There would be a lot of bruising on his neck.
I don’t know if the mystery writers give an Edgar award to comic strips, but if they do it’s a safe assumption that Beatty won’t be nominated.
Pluggers – So what? All the food stains will cover that up.
9CL – One would think that these two would buy clothing from this century
@Needless Exposition: I’m sure that when Moy has stories with Wilbur and Dawn, the clicks and comments are through the roof–she needs them to keep the strip read. If she got rid of the Westons, the strip would be dropped everywhere.
In contrast, I don’t remember the last time Mary herself was in the strip.
MW: I imagine Dawn, like myself, is silently praying that Mary Worth suddenly Kool-Aid-Man-crashes through the wall and prevents us all from seeing Wilbur’s sweaty, post-coital comb-over in tomorrow’s strip.
@Needless Exposition: Dawn has probably been lying on the couch with throw pillows over her ears for weeks, muttering “life is brutal” to herself in a futile attempt to drown her father out. I bet she wanted to go to My Thai in the hopes that returning to the scene of one of Wilbur’s greatest humiliations might humble him a bit.
@BeckoningChasm: The last time she showed up was in a Sunday strip where lazy ass Wilbur was letting her do his work for him because he “wasn’t ready” to go back. After all, he worked so hard exploiting hurricane stories three months after the hurricanes hit and in one of the least impacted areas of Florida rather than, say, North Carolina or Georgia (though he can stay the hell out of my state) which was hardly prepared for the reach of Helene.
@Lauralot: Then that would mean she might have wanted her dad to dab soy sauce off her blouse with his hands like he did to Iris. Eww…
What do all those women see in Wilbur, anyway? Pete Davidson may not be conventionally attractive either but he has humor and charm. Wilbur’s personality veers between buffoonery and immaturity. In fact, as drawn by MW’s former artist Joe Giella, he looked more like a scheming EC Comics scientist who suffers the effects of the story’s twist ending.
@Tonio: It’s like why George Costanza from Seinfeld had a constant string of far more attractive women going for him when he was a narcissistic, self centered know it all who lived with his parents at several points. Then again, his parents were insane so he had a minuscule pity factor.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Hypothetically … how many minutes would it probably require before you could be 100% certain that they were dead?
Well, I believe there’s an empirical test for that. When their heels drum on the floor, the job is pretty well done. If memory serves, Burke and Hare used that method on unconscious drunks.
RMMD: Although his car was parked, the stalker seems to have died…at full throttle!
*guitar sting*
@Needless Exposition: Dawn would fit perfectly into Luann.
RMMD: The strong emphasis on “daughter” in Panel Two seems to imply that Killer Dude would have been much more okay with the stalker going after, say, his niece or his mother.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Too bad that stupidity is multiplicative instead of additive because the two half wits, Dawn and Luann, would end up making a quarter wit rather than a full wit.
@I speak Jive: #96: re- Pluggers: By the end of the day Andy Bear’s shirt will look like a Jackson Pollack painting.
A&J: Arlo is right, the carpenter bee is defending territory, and wildly waving arms at it won’t help. Just stroll calmly away, Janis. Carpenter bees are moving north thanks to climate change, so more people will be seeing them in future.
MW: Dawn’s face does not have the weary, disgusted expression one might associate with listening to her father have wild wacky sex with a horrible girlfriend. Instead, her face seems to be in sad-dreamy mode as she thinks about her very brief happiness with pre-jerk Dirk and as she contemplates going back to the bowling alley to seek another Prince Charming.
@Hibbleton: Probably because of “t0rture.”
@Kirkout: I would prefer that Belle work her magic on Crankshaft or the cast of Judge Parker.
@Mountain Mama: Daisy is wonderful. Another good one is Roscoe from Pickles. He does some great expressions, too.
Dogs are good!
@Poteet: No surprise there when you consider that Dawn is pretty much Wilbur’s backup wife rather than his daughter since she practically worships the ground he walks on and he’s telling her things that no father should share with his daughter.
@Tonio:
Wilbur’s hung.
Luann-“We’re all four letters.” And I have to be four sheets to the wind to read this.
@Liam: You omitted ‘should be’ after Wilbur.
FG: Magic Town! They made it to MAGIC TOWN!!! The Magic Gatekeeper will pull a nickel out of Dale’s ear, ask Flash if THIS is his card, and produce a rabbit from Zarkov’s hat! And Sir Bok will say “I seen that one. He had it up his sleeve.”
…..wait. Aren’t we already getting this plot in Alley Oop?
RwO: Folks, you’ll be glad to see that Stellan has picked up a one-panel role today! A change of pace where he co-stars with a Mermaid as her book light! Yeah, they figured adding a light stem to his head was cheaper than hiring an actual phosphorescent Fish. Those babies don’t come cheap. And don’t worry, it’s a non-invasive prosthesis with no damage done.
Maybe working will distract him from his anxiety about the missing Willa – she disappeared after going over to the MW set to pick up her belongings after they didn’t renew her contract. We did get a note from her saying she was in “protective custody”… as per the tip we got from her devoted fan Daisy. But I dunno. It didn’t really look like Willa’s handwriting and the note wasn’t even wet!!!
@Liam: We all wish that Wilbur is hung…in the gallows.
If you were Wilbur’s son or daughter, which would be a worse experience?
1. Being murdered by your dad’s girlfriend.
2. Overhearing them having sex.
DT: Now that this strip is the only reason I’m still going back to GoComics, I love that we’ve followed “guy goes to confession” (and I can’t even go back in the archives and check if he’s appeared before!) with “Dick learns something we already know and which doesn’t notably change his plans, and carefully makes a note of it.”
HtH: Look, it’s been a long day. I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy to research the history of the germ theory of disease and what Vikings believed the causes of illness were, then mock seriously explain the historic deficiencies of this strip. It’s wrong, we all know it’s wrong, Walker-Browne LLC themselves probably know it’s wrong, whatever.
JP: Sophie decided Reena was going to Norway and she only made a token protestation, but dinner with Sam and Abbey? Hell, no.
OTF: The inane literalism of the metaphor aside, you know how most tech-savvy people protect their blender from online attacks? By not having an internet-connected blender! In my experience, actual technical types regard unnecessarily “smart” gadgetry with extreme suspicion, and will quote Cory Doctorow’s “Unauthorised Bread” at length to anyone who so much as brings the subject up.
RMMD: Okay, fine, despite my certainty that Stalker Guy really had died of natural causes, I admit that it does appear that a murder has actually been committed in Rex Morgan MD. And yet, somehow, it’s still boring!
@The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers: 90 minutes? Of good sex? Wilbur???
Bizarro: I need to mention the great job done here by our fantastic Feline duo! Two speaking roles in one panel! This was an attempt to do a fresh riff on the “nine lives” mythology! I thought it was successful!
It’s been an unusually slow spring for most of my clients – and Cats don’t get nearly the buzz that Dogs tend to do. We were especially glad to get a placement for Manfred Manx, since gigs for tailless Cats are rare – they don’t fit the Feline appearance expectations. But here they decided a tail coming from the back of his pants would be “distracting”….
MW: Wilbur should be well hung… IN A TREE!
I hear Wilbur has a big dick.
@Horace Broon: re OTF… as an IT manager, I would probably never hire Bud or Cleonia because of their overreliance on technology. I might hire Art, since despite all the apparent laziness he’s probably good at legacy technology and scripting/automation. I’d probably consider Patina and Dethany’s husband (who’s name I can’t remember) since they are new enough to the “game” that I could probably fix some of their bad habits. And Dethany would make a good project manager or scrum master, as long as I could convince her never to touch tech at the workplace.
@The SURREAL Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads: #124: No, he is a big dick.
MW: As to why nobody detected the strong smell of the drain cleaner, remember, this is Wilbur’s apartment (or condo?). Anybody who’s lived there
awhile has gone as noseblind as the people in those TV air refreshener ads. You could probably drag a dead horse into that kitchen and Dawn would only notice when she tripped over it.
@Guillermo el chiclero: and when Dawn trips over it, she’ll either be reminded of Dave, or say that the death was “brutal.”
@The SURREAL Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads:
Wilbur’s milkshake brings all the girls to the yard,
And they’re like, “it’s better than yours,”
Damn right, it’s better than yours.
And by milkshake, I mean his penis.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: And Wilbur will cheerfully say “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Dawnie!” before laughing at his own joke.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Is the bias against cats as bad as it used to be? When I took an advertising class in college in the 90s, they told us that consumers (in the US, at least) like dogs a lot more than cats. So you don’t see cats in advertising, except for cat-related products. But you see dogs in things like truck commercials. I feel like that’s changed over time, though.
Argggh. PICTURES should be hung. WILBUR should be hanged.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yeah, we’ve come a long way since Cats were associated with witchcraft and evil! But ya know, there is still a perception that Dogs are more “relatable” and “loyal” than Cats. You see it all the time in the comics… dogs tend to get the feel-good roles.
Of course we sometimes get a rare break-out Star like Libby! She quickly became a fan favorite with her distinctly antagonistic stance with Wilbur! But I’d llke to think she woulda been a big hit even on her own by the strength of her attitude and stage presence. She’s doin’ okay, btw, on her extended hiatus. She and Pierre are doin’ some travelling. Unfortunately Odin gets motion sickness and had to decline the road trip.
Zak has a big dick. Wilbur *is* a big dick.
I figure Wilbie for a “Tuna-Can Tommy.”
Kewpie doll for anyone who gets the reference.
FBoFW: After two years in college, you’d think they’d know the rules for communal living.
LUANN:. Ditto
BETTY:. Agree with Betty, I assumed a swing plane was analogous to a party bus.
BIZARRO:. Read a pertinent riddle this morning:. Why is a frog luckier than a cat?
A: A frog croaks all the time, a cat only can nine times.
CURTIS:. I don’t get last panel. Is Mom’s look one of exasperation or of humor?
FRAZZ:. Comics are educational! I’d never heard of Goodharts Law until yesterday (though we did have something similar in intro physics)
GA:. Stuck on Sunday’s strip?
JUMP START:. Stuck on 2023 lessons?
MW:. Like Cassandra, Dawn. Sometimes no matter how you warn people, they won’t believe you until it’s too late. So take action yourself instead of being passive.
PHANTOM:. So will Northern Empire still bomb monastery, using Jampa’s murder as a pretext? Ah, why not!
6 CHX:. Need help here. Are ’90s movies romantic or sunny or advice giving or something?
TG:. Aren’t servers, like bartenders, banned from over serving customers?
@The Rambling Otter: Dagwood’s argument with Blondie continues, Dagwood leaves Blondie and his parents accept him back. -Cue Dagwood swimming in a giant vault of money like Scrooge McDuck-
Happily Ever After is the dull part of the story, so we leave it out.
RMMD:
“Let me see if I can reason with this hirsute recidivist. Ahem. Yo — Chinbeard.
“A Glenwoodian and an indolent squawk into the gloom,
Asymmetric’lly exposed woes
They emerge with no compromise, having opened doors that were previously closed
Schmos.”
“W-what exactly are you trying to impart to me, man???”
“Your Lin-Manuel Miranda warnings!”
Rex Morgan: Strangled to death by Mr. Homn. What a way to go!
@Banana Jr. 6000: I think the reason that they don’t show cats in truck commercials is because
1- Cats are harder to train.
2- The cat will just gladly shred the seat cushions.
3- When in a moving vehicle I believe that there’s a rule that cats have to be in a carrier.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I mean, when Tommy was smoking pot, Mary could smell it through the vents from her own apartment and was very passive aggressive to Iris about it. “I believe I smelt something funny coming from your apartment”
@The SURREAL Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads: Shut yo mouth! Well, I’m talkin’’bout Wilbie….
@Banana Jr. 6000: Cats are evil witches in disguise. When the midnight hour strikes, they regain human form and are immediately transported to the convocation of witches to worship their Hellish master.
It’s just science, man.
MW: Is Dawn hearing dad-Belle sex sounds now? There might not even be cause to poison her now. She might just do the job herself.
RMMD: Stalky McFacialhair was still dead already, right? Because if Terry Beatty is saying that the angry dad could strangle a man by reaching through an open car window…no.
@Bob Tice: Ah, my favorite song from Rex Morgan: The Musical–“The Room Where Nothing Happens, Ever.”
I would argue Blondie better depicts the Peace of Westphalia. Dagwood is Emperor Ferdinand III, these ladies the newly-accepted Imperial Diet, Blondie, the Dutch Republic, and Papal Legate Fabio Chigi is, as always, Papal Legate Fabio Chigi. They beat you over the head with it, really.
@A Grave Mind: I’m sorry, but none of the ladies that work with Blondie need a diet.
@TheDiva: …in the white room, with beige curtains, at the clinic….
9CL: It looks like this ancient sweater vest dork is misunderstanding things, since you’d think Polly meant for him to introduce himself to other people. But for some reason she’s not correcting him.
C-Shaft: While I’m not suggesting that a unicorn should traipse through the diner—I remember Edda Burber’s encounter with one—it would be more believable than Crankshaft making a Keats reference, accidental or not.
DT: How are they even going to stretch it out to the weekend. All Dick and his squad have to do now is withstand some of Auntie Claire’s flowery insults.
HtH: Well there’s one gag that never would have made the funnies five years ago. Nature is healing.
JP: Oh, calm down, Reena. The TikTok videos you watched about Kaffepause took up maybe 40 minutes total.
Zits: Jeremy actually has a point. The Beatles were starting to fray before Yoko got there. Sonic Youth broke up because the core marriage fell apart. Yo La Tengo still together, etc.
@Ukulele Ike: Or, cats are aliens.
Traveled to ancient Egypt, the Egyptians believed them to be Gods and were told by the cat aliens to build the pyramids as part of some big elaborate setup, possibly to sync up with the other pyramids scattered around the planet as some sort of signal amplifier? Giant laser? To blast a planet we never even heard of? Who knows?
@Joe Blevins: Crackers, just like Kramer.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: RMMD: Stalky McFacialhair was still dead already, right? Because if Terry Beatty is saying that the angry dad could strangle a man by reaching through an open car window…no.
___________________
Well, he WAS Young Frankensteen Jr, don’t forget that!
Did I just hear Mel Mare whinny?
Six Chex And A Cat Named Nancy Walker In Search Of A Punchline: Not sure how “Cant Stop The Music” will help you, try “Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” with George Burns as Mr. Kite he can cure a rainy day.
@The Rambling Otter: 3- When in a moving vehicle I believe that there’s a rule that cats have to be in a carrier.
______________
If the object cats are carried in is called a carrier, should a pregnant cat be called a cattier, because she’s carrying kittens?