Time makes fools of us all
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Blondie and Hi and Lois, 4/1/25
I know I’m “old” and “out of touch,” but I always thought April Fool’s Day was about cruel pranks. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this what it’s about now? Pretending to do nice things for people? And sometimes you just follow through on your “prank” and actually do nice things for them? That … that doesn’t seem like a thing that would happen on April Fool’s Day, at all! Sorry to be a traditionalist, but it’s weird to me!
Barney Google and Smith, 4/1/25
I guess I have to side with the lumpy hillbillies of Hootin’ Holler. Pulling off some prank that’s so humiliating that the victim will never talk about the incident or its aftermath, not even with their closest friends? That’s April Fool’s Day, to me!
Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/1/25
In non-April Fool’s news: remember Hiram, Mother Goose’s boyfriend, who she’s kinda dissatisfied with? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on his own in the strip before, but here he is, asking his boss for bereavement leave, which I take to mean that Mother Goose … has died? RIP Mother Goose, 1984-2025, you taught me … well, you didn’t teach me much of anything, if I really think about it.
163 replies to “Time makes fools of us all”
MW: I can’t tell if the colorist screwed up in making Dawn’s watch strap gold, or if Belle’s just completely out of her mind.
@Lauralot:
MW: I can’t tell if the colorist screwed up in making Dawn’s watch strap gold, or if Belle’s just completely out of her mind.
She meant the watch she found rooting around Dawn’s underwear drawer
MW: Dawn is fresh out of someone bullying her about being vegan. We will see now how sensitized her response will be.
DT: There is still that third nephew – it has been a while but ideally he would fill the gap height between the Mutt and Jeff.
MW: Belle’s mocking of Dawn’s situational veganism would have worked a lot better if Dawn’s watch strap actually resembled leather.
RMMD: I give Stalker credit. He didn’t linger in the comfort of his bed when there was stalking to be done. Of course he’s dead now, which is unfortunate. Will Rex be doing the autopsy?
BG&SS:
“Did Loweezy git’cha wif an April Fool t’day, Snuffy?”
“No, we don’t even bother with them anymore!”
“Hey, wait a dadburned minute thar, Snuffy! — yer diction, ellycution ‘n’ spellin’ are purrfect! What ‘n tarnation gives?”
“April Fool’s, you grizzled reprobate!”
Spoiler Alert:
Loweezy told Snuffy she was pregnant.
By Barney Google.
Happy April Fool!
MW: The cow died of loneliness, next question.
GT: Special guest star — Louis Gossett Jr.
Wrecks Moregone:
No, of course you didn’t kill him, Augie. You hired Mr Allora to do it for you.
Blondie: April fools would be a lot less complicated showing a single panel of Dagwood pushing his half-eaten dinner dish away.
BG&SS:
“Do ya know why it is we like this here board game so much, Snuffy?”
“I give up, Lukey.”
“On accounta we both have checkered pasts!”
BGSS: Do folks do April Fools stuff in the bedroom? God, the last thing I want to do is imagine what kind of sick perverted prank Loweezy pulled on Snuffy that he’s too embarrassed to tell his best friend about.
H&L: This strip confused me for a moment, because British Mother’s Day was actually just last weekend. My “Hi & Lois are actually Scottish” theory gets another data point.
Shrimp And Grits:
Grain? Drain? Stain? Train? Chain? Twain?
__________________________________
Andy Capp:
Andyphylactic shock.
Take a good look at Snuffy Smith. Imagine smelling him. What do you think “embarrassment” could mean to such a person?
MG&G – April Fool! We expect your corpse to show up promptly by 9 am, or else you forfeit your last paycheck.
FC: Today the kids are drawn impossibly short. Billy is barely up to Thel’s knee. PJ is literally walking at 12 inches tall. At those heights, all of them would be diagnosed with some awful genetic deformity. Does Bil Keane routinely drop mescaline on April fools day?
Phantom: “I’m not so sure you’re right about that. For sex purposes, you’re more than adequate.”
JP: “I’m going to worry about them being so near the North Pole. What if they run away to become elves?”
RMMD: “Well, y’know, we high school English teachers believe ‘Direct Action Gets the Goods’.”
MW: Dawn was today years old when she learned that leather comes from animals.
RMMD: Whoa, Summer! Glad you got THAT out of your system before the cops arrived.
DtM: Seriously? Mom’s pissed at THIS trick? On the Menace Scale, this is bupkis.
RMMD: “Di…did you kill him? Because I’m so turned on right now.”
MW – You can’t sell the leather shaming without actual leather.
@Colonial:
*meddling
The cow died of meddling.
Pluggers: Does this mean the character from Shoe is the Plugger, since *he’s* the one in the wrong strip? It’s bad form to borrow other artists’ characters and then insult them, but okay.
Luann: These two should get a room, and then not have sex in it.
Crankshaft: These two should put Ed in a home, and then not visit him there.
“Cruel pranks”? What, are you being overly thenthitive again? Are you being tormented by your own life again? Sure seems like it.
MAGA
BG&SS — Coming up with a way to not depict an awesome April Fools Day prank is much easier than coming up with the actual awesome April Fools Day prank apparently.
Do better, AI bot!!!!
CS: Get off his case, Pam. If there’s one thing your father is known for it’s his unerring foresight.
Dustin: He wants to be a cowboy? Like hell he does. Those dudes work. Drugstore cowboy would be more his speed if those still existed.
GT: “I remember, Clam. I remember. I got hammered, stripped naked, and ran around the field.”
MW: Lighten up, Belle. The cow donated her body to a tannery. She wanted to continue to serve mankind after she passed. It’s her legacy, and it’s a fine one.
@Yesyouarejoshthedumbfck:
Oh, look who’s back. It’s our favorite pustulent anal boil, oozing his characteristic wit.
Run out of mood stabilizers again, boil boy?
Mother Goose and Grimm: Cthulhu’s bereavement policy: thirteen months of support after the loss of a loved one. “Support” meaning “sympathy cards, telephone calls, occasional visits to check in, and slowly killing, eating, or driving insane your remaining loved ones,” of course. We also offer a death benefit of 100% of your salary to your survivors, should you happen to be eaten by an Old God. Disposal of your carrion an extra five bucks a month, though.
Luann: Bumper cars. Toni enjoys slamming Brad in the backside. No wonder they’re not pregnant.
@Cleveland Mocks: I think I know who this is, although I can’t remember the former user name. From Central PA, went off the deep end politically, then disappeared. Probably banned because he couldn’t keep the politics in check. Either that, or it’s the Real James Allen.
BG&SS: That’s probably meant to be a haircomb in Elviney’s bun, but it sure looks like a cabinet pull.
They also a Bevearement policy. It’s about anthropomorphic beavers. And sexual harassment
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
…Either that, or it’s the Real James Allen.
Too articulate
Luann: Soooo, this is just ‘We’re alone in the costume closet so let’s play dress-up!’ redux?
S4th: You may think you’re in the clear writing strips weeks ahead about an event almost a decade in the future, but never underestimate the ability of precision astronomy* to ruin a good Sweet Meteor O’Death punchline
(*I love the “emergency” telescope observations, as noted in https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/james-webb-telescope-takes-emergency-look-at-city-killer-asteroid-2024-yr4-ahead-of-close-encounter-in-2032)
Meanwhile, everybody’s noted the MW watchband discrepancy (is Brigman trolling Moy? because I can barely imagine that as a braided leather strap, it looks deliberately drawns as a segmented metal one), so I’ll just note that Dawn appears to confuse veganism with vegetarianism with that phrase about avoiding “killing” animals instead of “exploiting” them. I can’t wait for the dressing-down she’ll get by a real holier-than-thou vegan as she puts honey (or heavens forbid cow’s milk) in her coffee at the campus caffeine purveyor
JP: “I’m worried about her being so far from home…That, and the fact she got a charity job in Norway, one of the richest countries on earth.”
Blondie: So is the April Fool prank on Dagwood or on the reader? Blondie joining the circus wouldn’t fit his fantasy like the other panels, unless he has a kink for spangled leotards or clown makeup. Or perhaps both.
Mary Worth: I was 30 before I learned where gelatin comes from. Suppose Dawn doesn’t know either and loves Jell-O. Perfect opportunity for a bit of cruelty from Belle, revealing the dessert’s source right after Dawn finishes a serving.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
The one who kept attacking Baka? Fanatic Luann Trufan?
Six Chix-“Don’t you see, Bianca. You never had a joke inside of you at all,” the Wizard says.
RMMD-“I’m sure that some of the bullets I fired to break the window hit him in vital areas.”
Shoe-And they expect you to be back at work early the next day.
Hi and Lois-Hi is just softening the blow for announcing that he wants a divorce.
MG&G: The April Fools joke is Hiram is pretending to be his own boss, but the bad toupee gives it away.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Oh, Pennsyltucky (the space between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) can be a spooky area. There’s an exit from I-80 at the 225-mile mark called “Mile Run” which carries an ominous subsign reading NO SERVICES. I’ve been tempted to pull off there, but concerned I may never be heard of again.
MW: I can’t remember the last time I saw someone under 35 wearing a wristwatch. They want to know the time, they look at their phone.
MW-The leather strap goes with Wilbur’s leather ball gag.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – Yesterday, Augie Doggie Style told the fuzz that Summer is the woman he’s dating. But he won’t put a move on her? And now she’s wet because she thinks Augie offed a dude? WTF? Does this man have a scrotum?
Blondie /HI and Lois – Under the current political regime, cruelty is a daily occurrence, and the only way to resist is kindness, including in pranks.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – Snuffy was fooled into doing some honest labor.
Mother Goose and Grimm – Josh brought up the topic of “street jokes” when discussing Mother Goose and Grimm last week, and this is yet another example, though a terribly out of date one, since a more recent punchline would say: “If you die, you get the day off, but you have to provide someone to cover your shift!”
I haven’t worn a watch since the invention of the cell phone. Seems anachronistic and redundant. But, I’m something of a minimalist, so that fits with my nature. Nothing against watch-wearers. I’m no watchist. Your wrist, your choice.
So the latter two panels of the strip is a bunch of people doing nice things for Dagwood, but the first panel is Blondie suggesting she might quit catering to join the circus, which… doesn’t seem like something Dagwood would like at all? It would seem like Blondie’s existing job caters perfectly to Dagwood’s obsessive borderline-sexual relationship with food, while joining the circus would likely tear her away from her family for extended periods of time if we’re talking about a touring one? Is the relationship between Dagwood and Blondie a lot worse than I’ve been led to believe?
9CL: I wonder if Brooke’s wife reads his work any more. It has to be unnerving to see his avatar cavorting with a teenage girl.
Baby Blues horns in on Herb and Jamaal’s ‘vague references’ schtik today. “The regular religion.”
It’s a struggle to find anything funny in the comics today.
APRIL FOOLS! It’s a struggle every day!
***
Come on, Hi and Lois a real family would prank Lois by telling her that Trixie has melanoma from sitting in the sun for hours at a time.
***
Loweezy pulled the Canadian girlfriend of pranks. “It was such a good one, Snuffy is so embarrassed! No you, had to be there, telling you about it wouldn’t do it justice.”
MW: Boy Dawn can’t catch a break lately, can she? Wait until Belle sees how messy of an eater she is…
Exacly how old is Belle supposed to be? She looks fairly young face on but then from behind in the next panel her face somehow looks older. I can’t really place it
Blondie: April Fool’s Day is the only time Dagwood can pretend he’s not a burden on everyone around him.
MG&G: Dude must work in the Amazon stockroom.
Walker Browne Inc.: “We’re going to have jokes in our comic strips… April Fools!”
BG&SS: If it’s something that would have embarrassed Snuffy, I’m really glad we didn’t see the prank.
9CL – “I’ve always wanted to meet a man and slowly fall in love with him. BUT SCREW THAT!!! I don’t have time to wait! These silver foxes keel over and die every day. If I don’t have a prenup in place, then I’ve wasted my time and tongue thrusts for nothing!”
GT: OMG, it really is the legendary Clambake! And it appears he has joined the Cuban Revolutionary Guard. The mountains whisper his blood-soaked name. The Bourgeois fear his wrath. He is myth. He is legend. He is…Clambake!
Blondie-Join us tomorrow as we resume Life’s normal beating of Dagwood.
MG&G: “Ha, ha boss but seriously, there’s a mass shooting in the warehouse.”
@Anonymous: Like most sane people, Brooke’s wife quit reading 9CL after the Brussels cello trip and the Unicorn Incident. Now she just nods and smiles if he talks about his “work” in the breakfast nook.
@Morgan Wick: Free peanuts.
Rex Morgan: So help me God, I’m actually interested in what’s going on in this strip for a change. It’s probably a bad sign for Auggie that even Summer’s first thought is “So, you definitely murdered him, right?” Do we get a murder mystery now? Is it a convoluted scheme in which Stalker Guy fakes his death via Friar Lawrence’s Sleeping Death Draught from Romeo and Juliet to frame Auggie? Can’t wait for tomorrow’s strip, when Rex recounts the events via phone call to Buck.
Luann: Toni will soon realize that her plan to emasculate Brad has negative repercussions.
CS: “Maybe you could use it for personal grooming, Pam.”
9CL: It’s probably for the best that Polly(?) is consummating this March-December romance as quickly as possible.
C’shaft: Crankshaft is just indulging his desire to destroy things at this point.
DT: Everyone is making obscure comics references! Are they in Westview?
GT: I’m not sure I’d trust an AA sponsor who dresses like Fidel Castro.
JP: “And what about work visas? Language barriers? It’s not like she can just pack up and…what am I saying, this is our family we’re talking about, of course she can just pack up and move to the other side of the world on a whim.”
MW: Please, you think Dawn can afford real leather?
Pluggers: Many, many years ago, several comics artists celebrated April Fool’s Day by swapping strips (the one that sticks out in my mind is Dilbert and Family Circus, if only because the latter actually followed up the next day with one of the kids mentioning a strange dream where mom had weird pointy hair). Today’s Pluggers is kind of the sad, one-person version of that event.
RMMD: “I mean, is it MY fault if he didn’t notice me plugging his exhaust pipe so lethal carbon monoxide would flood the car interior?”
Questionable Content: I am loving this “Rodrigo” stuff — is it SO completely out of left field for this strip.
(Scroll back to Wednesday and Thursday of last week for the Coming of Rodrigo)
Bumstead v. Dithers Co
In conclusion, an offer of a ‘big fat raise’ and a ‘hefty bonus’ made on April 1, commonly known as April Fools Day, is a legal nullity. Action by Bumstead dismissed.
MW: No one calls out Dawn’s hypocrisy! Wilbur has a real dilemma here.
FC: C’mon, Billy. There are four of you and two of them. Start that bedtime revolution!
Dustin: Magic Mike meets Disenchantment Dustin.
MG&G – In a stunning turn of events, Shoe and Mother Goose switched creators today and nobody noticed. April Fools?
@Yesyouarejoshthedumbfck: Sick burn, dude!
RMMD: Always the gentleman, Augie leaves out the part that McStalkie was found dead mid-stroke while masturbating.
Dustin: Oh now I get it! He wants to be a male prostitute. Now it all makes sense.
RMMD: I picture stalker dude cocking his impotent little fist and telling the Grim Reaper can’t make him go. GR responds by silently picking him up with one arm and walking away with him.
MG&G – So, “Whom do I have to kill to get a day off around here” is narrowed down to just the boss.
MW: The one thing you can be sure about with vegans is they’ll always announce that they’re vegans.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I know you don’t like complicated games”
“You could play ‘One of these things is not like the others'”
“Yes! With sexy babe assistants!”
“Two bowling balls and an ingot”
@Ukranazi Stepan: That may be one of the stupidest things I have ever seen on the internet. Congrats.
@Ukulele Ike: It’s starting to sound like they’re pranking the character with the brown hair and there really is no Rodrigo. This is April Fool’s Day, after all.
@Peanut Gallery: But…but…the cold mountain stream!
@Ukulele Ike: The real Rodrigo was the Rodrigo inside all of us. Or something.
@Bob Tice: #12
CHECKMATE!!!!! :-)
@Ukulele Ike:
But since Jacques has sworn off all heterosexuality in his comic strip – his only remaining standard hetero couple, Marigold and Dale, has been memory holed – it’ll never go anywhere fast.
Like everything else in that strip post 2022.
@Vanya:
Glad to have made your day ???????????????????
Pluggers: Tomorrow’s edition of the Treetops Tattler will have an article by Cosmo Fishhawk about the bizarre sightings of a dog married to a chicken.
FG: Into the dangerous caverns of Kira! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Oh, wait, this is Mongo. Lionmen and Tigermen and Bearmen, oh my!
CS: Jokes on you, Pam. He will need those brushcutters. Your dad’s order of kudzu and Chinese tallow trees are already on the way.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Yeah, that might be him!
GT: With a little coffee, and some more AA
We’ll drink ourselves some water
We’ll rise above this Milford mess
With a little sports, and some spring baseball
We’ll win the playdowns of life together
We’ll slap Coach Gerads with our hands
‘Cause I’ve got a hand for you
‘Cause I wanna stay dry with you
Tonight, I saw you standing there
Your head was down, your eyes were red
No comb had touched your hair
I said get up Moon, and let me see you talk
We’ll take a walk together
Walk the straight road awhile, ’cause
‘Cause I’ve got a hand for you
I’ve got a get clean with you
Hold my Clam
Hold my Clam
Hold my Clam
Because I wanna sponsor you the best that, the best that I can
@Ukulele Ike: I know Mile Run well. I pass by whenever I visit my girlfriend.
The Pennsyltucky area of PA is really creepy and weird. A “hills have eyes” kind of place.
@Vanya: My ex-girlfriend (who I’m still close with) is a Ukrainian immigrant who took part in both the Orange and Maidan revolutions. Her cousin is currently fighting in the war, and her father was an eyewitness to one of Russia’s hospital bombings.
Every time I see these attempts at humor—more like Russian propaganda if you ask me—I am filled with so much rage and anger.
I wish we had a filter here, so neither of us would have to see that garbage.
@Hibbleton: #17
I know. That is just the way those children are drawn, to make them charming and appealing to the grandparents who clip the comics and tape them to their fridges. I totally understand the appeal, as grandchildren *are* precious. But these kids are infantilized in appearance to the point of absurdity, in my opinion. Likewise, statuesque Mother Thel is almost goddess-like in comparison, which (again my own opinion, perhaps reflecting how I tend to over-analyze things) might reflect the author’s intent to show Mothers as the Sun around which the husband/father and children orbit in adoration. Anyway, all the pontificating aside, I don’t find these grumpy young’uns very appealing today. Imagine shepherding four frowning, whining, crying kids to bed every single night. That would sure make a glass of wine or two or three mighty appealing to me.
I must say that the new GoComics website is off to an inauspicious start.
I’m not sure why I’d expected otherwise. -_-
@Yesyouarejoshthedumbfck: #24
Oh please…just…don’t.
@droosan:
GoComics has turned into Comics Kingdom 2.0 and now I can’t look at Funky Winkerbean without it being put behind a paywall
fuck my life
@CanuckDownSouth: #35
“I can’t wait for the dressing-down she’ll get by a real holier-than-thou vegan as she puts honey (or heavens forbid cow’s milk) in her coffee at the campus caffeine purveyor”
Oh, yes – from PETA:
“Profiting from honey requires the manipulation and exploitation of the insects’ desire to live and protect their hive. Like other factory-farmed animals, honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation.”
@astroboy: #46
I actually love my small collection of mechanical (self-winding) watches – no batteries to deal with, and I get to watch the tiny gears and flywheels spin around when I activate them! Yes, I *am* easily amused!! :-)
@Tabby Lavalamp: #50
“It’s a struggle to find anything funny in the comics today.
APRIL FOOLS! It’s a struggle every day!”
Bravo!!!!
@droosan: “The request is blocked”? Is this some kind of joke?
MW: I know most of us geezers stopped wearing a wristwatch when we got our first flip phone that showed the time. But I understand that some of the Younger Folk wear their phones right on their arms in the form of an Apple Watch – though I’ve only seen them with cloth bands. Anyway, Dawn has never appeared to be a technophile, so never mind.
Jared might be likely to wear one, as befits his status as a professional nerd.
@Guillermo el chiclero: The Tiger Men of Mars were a Buck Rogers thing. They were primary antagonists from 1930 all the way through the run. If Flash Gordon had introduced a Tigerman Philip Nowlan would’ve hit him with a lawsuit so hard it would have rocketed him back to Earth, with Dale and Zarkov tumbling after.
Meanwhile, down in the caverns of Kira, Flash is looking forward to doin’ that voodoo that Hot Witch Queen do so well. Poor Dale may have to phone in Syk.
@LTJpezcore1: That maybe a reflection of some plastic surgical work she had done in the past.
@LTJpezcore1: That maybe a reflection of some plastic surgical work she had done in the past.
“If you die, you get that day off. Next day, though, you’d better be up and moving as soon as the moon rises. If you have a problem with that, maybe you should have check the post-death employment clause of your contract, and maybe you shouldn’t have put in for a job with Frankenstein and Associates, Resurrectionists at Law.”
@csroberto2854: none of my devices will let me on go comics says its unsafe sight
I want to join in on the snarky commenty fun but my supplier has cut me off.
Congrats on the new site launch, GoComics! Bang-up job, there.
@treetown:
#96 — Where have I heard that before?
Seattle Times has all of its comics today.
I like that GoComics delayed the switch to its new style site until after the morning rush.
Seems to be working out oh so well.
Breaking Cat News knew this would happen. Unfortunately, everyone trying to read it on GoComics can’t benefit from their advice.
Glad I got up early and read all my stuff on GoComics.
It’s like they say, “The best people in computer programming don’t go into comic strip websites, and the best people in comic strip websites don’t go into computer programming.”
We’re scraping the bottoms of two barrels.
Say, with GoComics glitched, today would be a great time for all of us to do an archive plunge into The Bellybuttons (Les Nombrils).
Yup, still beating that dead horse. IT’S A GREAT STRIP, GOD DAMN IT. Show some support for our Canadian cartoonist friends!
You dropped quite a few humanity points today. I hope there’s hope for you and anyone like you
FG: “Stay frosty, my friends!” I guess this means keep your cool. I like the way characters are periodically re-introduced. I hadn’t known that Bok the Dragonman was from the underworld of Mongo.
@UncleJeff: You da man. I forgot about the Seattle Times.
Curtis – Hahaha! It’s funny because Curtis and Barry are too sexually immature to appreciate the fuckability of the sunmaid raisin girl mascot!
@Daisy:
#89. MW:. Actusly, my guilt at again eating meat was somewhat abated by a cartoon. Think it was “Tom, the Dancing Bug” in a story about Lyle the Talking Pig who was the spokesbeing for the Pork Council. Lyle defended himself saying that pigs didn’t make cuddly pets, so the only way to make sure piglets were born, raised, and cared for was to shorten their lives a little. Really, if not for bacon, the only pigs in America would be in zoos.
MW: Still no word from Willa since she got that mysterious message to pick up her belongings at the Mary Worth set, and to “come alone”!!! I’m tellin’ ya, we are worried sick! We’re trying to locate her while the two-leggers are goin’ all passive aggressive at My Thai. And we’ll have some more time to search during the interminable karaoke session.
I am not liking this talk today of killing animals, nosiree!
Blondie, meta: There’s a couple of things that could be going on here. Firstly, I think of “we’re doing something nice, haha, no we’re not” as a classic cruel April Fool’s Day prank. Maybe we’re skipping the bits where the carpool drives off without him, laughing maniacally, and Dithers rips the cheque in half with a cruel smirk.
The problem with that is that Dag knows this is happening because it’s April Fool’s Day, but is still appreciating it. So I think what’s more likely is that this is another April Fool’s Day tradition — the one where the cartooonist says “The characters are all acting out of character today Because I Can.” Of course, in that case, the final panel implies Dagwood is aware of this comic strip convention and has decided to enjoy it while it lasts. What does it mean for future continuity that Dag has broken the fourth wall? Absolutely nothing, that’s the whole point!
Hi & Lois on the other hand, is total nonsense. Although certainly a more agreeable prank than the one GoComics has played on us all.
DT: Sam wonders why so many Neo-Chicagoans are obssessed with vintage comic strips. It’s because if there’s one piece of writing advice the Dick Tracy team have taken on board (and there may well only be one) it’s “write what you know”. And boy, is that ever something they know.
EC: I withdraw my previous estimate of Coach Wally as being kind of cool, given that not only has he not told Len he’s one of those parents, he’s also looked at Colin clearly playing a DS (albeit a very large DS) and called it a Game Boy because aren’t all handheld video game systems the same?
HtH: You might think it’s short-sighted of Hägar to demand the king’s gold before he buys Hamlet’s chocolate bars. But it makes sense: Hägar doesn’t care where the king finds the money for the chocolate as long as it’s not cutting into his profits.
MW: Where’s a bowling ball when you need one?
FWIW, my sister went through a period of being a vegetarian with a leather jacket, which she justified by saying cows were killed for their meat, so eating beef directly contributed to cows being killed, whereas leather was a byproduct of cows that were going to be killed for their meat anyway, so it didn’t. She ditched the jacket long before she went Full Vegan, possibly because this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I’ll be interested to see if Dawn has similar logic.
Phantom: Noooo! Fight it, Kit! Don’t validate your weirdo sister and her breeding program!
Pluggers: Henrietta Beak isn’t sure what a chicken looks like when drawn MacNelly/Brookins style, which raises some pretty large questions.
S4th: CanuckDownSouth has already commented on how, while the odds did rise to 3%, they have since dropped to Basically Zero, but I’d just want to add that there was a bit on More or Less on Radio 4 explaining why they went up first, and it’s kind of interesting. Essentially, as the observations improved, the estimate of where the asteroid would be on 22 December 2032 became a smaller potential area, therefore as long as Earth was in that area, it was a greater percentage of it.
@Banana Jr. 6000: It’s bad form to borrow other artists’ characters and then insult them, but okay.
I don’t read Shoe regularly, so I’d vaguely assumed that McKee had taken over with Brookins’ retirement, same as Pluggers. Turns out nope, it’s a different team entirely — Ben Lansing and Susie MacNelly. Even so, I think they’re still in a “shared universe” situation that maybe makes it a little okayer?
GoComics – I read several of my usual comics, but the site was so slow that I gave up. When I tried to go back to it, there was a message that access was blocked.
I’ve always been an unregistered user, but now archive access is limited to fourteen days. I’m thinking about registering for a free account or even subscribing, but how can I do it if access is blocked?
JP – Abbey, don’t worry your pretty little head about Sophie. She can hack into Pentagon computers and, with her connections, gets showered with money and unearned opportunities. She always falls upward. Save your worries for Reena, whose only advantage is that she knows Sophie. Reena’s also a second tier character, so she’s a good candidate for the dead pool.
Mary Worth – Credit where it’s due: Brigman did a great job with Belle’s crazy eyes.
Pluggers – If anyone would know about a chicken crossing the road, it’s Henrietta.
@Professor Well Actually: Of course Rex will perform the autopsy. He’s a general practitioner who is also a part time surgeon – why wouldn’t he also dabble in pathology?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Are you thinking of Bill P3sch3l? (I don’t know if his name is forbidden.)
@astroboy: I wear a fitness tracker watch. It also alerts me if I get a text or email.
To everyone who has been commenting about Pennsyltucky – this is my home turf, and everything you’ve heard about it is true.
@I speak Jive: you kill and eat tourists?
Let me recommend a dry rub.
@Ukulele Ike: Well, I personally don’t.
I experienced Intercourse along that route.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: When I drive through Massachusetts, I am often entering Marion, entering Beverly, or entering Sharon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tszk53PWge8
@Ukulele Ike: Les Nombrils is absolutely a fantastic comic. I have all the books in french .. and the first one in english! Jenny is my favorite. ^_^
@I speak Jive: I’ve been a registered GoComics member for 12 years .. and I don’t have any way to access the site, either. I enter my username and password .. but the ‘submit’ button remains ghosted. -_-
@droosan: (drops to my knees) Oh, THANK GOD someone here has read it.
YES, Jenny acknowledging Hugo and her love for him in Album Eight made me cry like a baby girl. Also about 26 other parts.
The version in Blondie and Hi and Lois is more like April Passive-Aggressive Day.
@droosan: Thanks for the information. I can’t get on to the site at all. When I click on the address, a message comes up that access is blocked. It’s strange, because I did access it earlier today, when I saw the information about the limits on accessing the archive.
@droosan: my login is being rejected as nonexistent. “Hey,” says someone at the top at GoComics (I think there may be two employees), “‘let’s relaunch but alienate anyone currently using us. Comics readership is growing by the day, right? Right?”
I hope from a rear entrance. A few towns on or along SR 21o in Minnesota lead to this ditty: “If you want to take Emily on an Outing, you have to get her to Aitkin (pronounced ache-in) before you get to Remer.”
In northwest Minnesota are the towns of Climax and Fertile. It is said, perhaps apocryphally, that there was once a headline: “Fertile Girl Dies in Climax.”
In our organizational external newsletter, I’m doing a feature on water towers in the state and will have a prominent picture of one from Climax – just to piss off our company scold. (Think of an adult version of Dolly Keane. This was in a fuckin’ tattletale, too.)
Pluggers: Cosmo sinks his razor sharp talons into Henrietta, cracking her spine before flying off with her. Earl thinks, “Guess I was wrong. That’s a chicken hawk.”
JP: Joke’s on you, Sophie. You’re thinking of working out of a high rise office in downtown Oslo. Wrong. Your assignment is Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, the northernmost inhabited place on Earth. Your charity work will consist of handing out fresh long johns and ladling hot soup to the coal miners.
Okay, I’m waiting for the new and, um, “improved” GoComics to stop crapping out left and right before I wrap it up and do my take on today’s comics. We’ll see if I’m waiting in vain.
@I speak Jive: #115: My dad was from the Pennsyltucky area, south of Pittsburgh. One of the creepiest things about that area are the Appalachian ghost towns. You don’t have to go to Wyoming or Nevada to see abandoned mining boom towns.
H&L: Huh. So how does Lois interpret this one. It would be much easier to read if the kids faked it being Father’s Day, especially since none of them have Hi’s brown hair.
MG&G: What I get from this is that if you’re a bird person who’s going bald it’s almost impossible to find a toupee made out of feathers so they just settle for the mammal-person kind.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: #110
Hey Sid – word on the street is that Willa was whisked into the Carassius Auratus Witness Protection Program and taken to a koi pond somewhere in Santa Royale. We all hope she’ll be safe there, even though there were some recent sightings of ospreys in the vicinity (likely “extras” from Mark Tail).
9CL: I guess now the Overlook Twin who isn’t attached to Alistair is just throwing herself at random older men. This guy is not exactly a silver fox, but maybe he’s the closest thing available.
C-Shaft: Crankshaft is just preparing to deal with different terrains when he starts annexing neighboring states.
DT: More specifically, a lot of people who remember Mutt and Jeff were a tall guy and a short guy but have forgotten that they, unlike the nephews, could grow decent facial hair.
Dustin: If Dustin has any friends aggressive enough to be his Ratso Rizzo we haven’t been introduced to them.
GT: As per Josh yesterday it looks like this might actually be good ol’ Clambake at the AA meeting. Now instead of the Negro Leagues he’s claiming membership in one Latin American junta or other.
JP: Ah, Abbey’s reached the “too drunk to stand” part of her day, so I guess it’s about 10AM.
MW: Ah, see, Dawn is at a disadvantage here because how can she accuse Belle of hypocrisy? What, if anything, does Ms. Batsfrey actually believe in? And is this belief somehow violated by her putting randomly placed highlights in her hair or ingesting a terrifying amount of uppers?
RMMD: “Of course not! I mean, not unless that would be a turn-on for you. In which case give me a minute to think of how I might have done it.”
6C: Well it’s nice to see that Bianca has found peace. Maybe. It’s possible that the “it” all around here is just the overwhelming void.
@treetown: VERY good point lol
Words that make me shudder: New and Improved
MW: Belle gets half credit for choosing to mock Dawn having a leather strap on her watch rather than her diet. And for anyone wondering how Dawn can afford a watch with a leather strap, it’s likely that Wilbur gave her an old watch. “It’s timeless, Dawnie!”
@Ukulele Ike:
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: When I drive through Massachusetts, I am often entering Marion, entering Beverly, or entering Sharon.
You’re entering Marion? What does his wife Marian think about that?
Of course the Gocomics debacle has struck me too. Is this an Elon project? Anyway, it gives me time to ask you to recall one of my very favorite strips, The Piranha Club, by B. Grace. The cynicism and characterization were wonderful. In the farewell strip, all the characters finally got what they’d always been striving for. Even the frog who could sing like Frank Sinatra finally performed! I would absolutely buy books of this strip.
@White Rabbit: Hear, hear! I loved that strip so much!
@Hey, I Don’t Judge: If you listen to the rest of the song, the guy goes wild and enters Lawrence, Lowell, and Quincy.
BTW Gocomics is working OK now.
here
It all makes sense as part of the ancient ritual – facetiously spreading kindness, patience and joy. If I remember the Bible correctly, Jesus was HUGE on April Fools. And rode a flying motorcycle.
@Ukulele Ike:
@Hey, I Don’t Judge: If you listen to the rest of the song, the guy goes wild and enters Lawrence, Lowell, and Quincy.
Ha haaaa! Excellent riposte!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
@Ukulele Ike:
I grew up a few towns over from Cumming, Georgia. A different way to say that, is, “I was close to Cumming”.
@Terry: I was moved to check and there actually are books now, under the title Ernie and the Piranha Club, and I’ve bought the first volume.
@Nobody: ???
@White Rabbit: I imagine the doge screwheads will be just as careful with their revamp of the social security programming as the GoComics programmers were with their revamp.
@taig: I sense Big Balls behind all this.
@White Rabbit: Made me think of the cartoon Animaniancs.
In the “finale” special Wakko’s Wish. Despite clearly taking place in a different continuity. EVERYONE’s wishes come true.
-Rita and Runt found their one true home.
-Buttons is finally praised for the Hell he goes through babysitting Mindy.
(among other examples)
Then when they rebooted Animaniacs every side-character except for Pinky and the Brain were surprisingly absent.
Then it hit me, they don’t need to bring most of them back, as they got their happy endings, their stories are done.
@Everything is Better with Monkeys: Hey.
It worked for Comics Kingdom
@White Rabbit: Here in Sweden, Piranha Club was huge by comic strip standards. (Though we always called it “Ernie”.) It got collection after collection, and even its own comic book with longer stories (which I think were only for the Scandinavian market). It’s still one of my all-time 100 favorite comics (and to be clear, that’s from a lifetime reading thousands of different comic strips, brag brag, so 100 is way more exclusive than it sounds).
Has Tuesday Chik achieved true happiness at last? All she needed was to get away from Los Angeles to a happy rural wonderland of butterflies, bees, and bunnies.
Next week’s adventure: Bianca takes a savage axe-handle beating from local rednecks who don’t want no more Afro-punk non-binary California cartoonists movin’ to their town nohow.
@Ukulele Ike: Soon to be an A24 elevated horror movie, coming to a theater nowhere near you.
@The Rambling Otter: Made me think of the cartoon Animaniancs.
Also a favorite of mine. Focus, Pinky, focus!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
I recall having a run in with him on Twitter years ago but I don’t remember his username either.
@I speak Jive: Yeah, that might be the guy I’m thinking of, but I should be careful not to cast aspersions. Who the hell knows?
@I speak Jive: Fifty-plus years ago when I was young and insane, I hitchhiked from western Michigan to Philadelphia and back again with a friend. It was late November and unusually cold with several inches of snow on the ground, and we spent several hours freezing our butts off as we waited for a ride at one exit in Pennsyltucky. And the ride we finally got was with a guy who made me uneasy, though maybe we made him uneasy as well. Anyway, I think of Pennsyltucky as the part of the world that taught me that one long hitchhiking experience, though it was definitely interesting, was enough for me in this lifetime. Thank you, Pennsyltucky.
@Daisy: Amen to that.
@Poteet: Forty-plus years ago I hitchhiked from Boston to western Massachusetts with a female friend. Even in a blue state it was scary back then.
“You like….FUN AND GAMES?” “Oh yes…we like cribbage.”
@Yesyouarejoshthedumbfck: Of course President Orange has nothing better to do than troll Josh.
Why can’t I comment on GoComics? They won’t let me reset my password. Did you do that, President Orange?
@Ukulele Ike: Bwahaha!
Luann: Only someone who’s completely out of touch with the youth would think Brad can call his wife m’lady without sounding like a guy who has a fedora and his own personal sword.