Downer Saturday
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Crankshaft, 5/24/25
The wisteria guy from earlier this week is, as Uncle Lumpy remembers so I don’t have to, the former paramour of Lilian’s now-deceased sister Lucy; he used to dance with her at the Wisteria Ballroom, and then set up an overly elaborate proposal scenario that was to take place there that didn’t come off right and therefore their love was thwarted forever, to their mutual despair, which could’ve been avoided if he had been just a little bit normal about the whole thing. Anyway, the lady at the flower shop gave him some wisterias, which he wistfully put on Lucy’s grave, and now, mere minutes later, a maintenance guy is driving by to grab them and put them directly in the garbage. The terrible Funkyverse vibes are back, everybody! They’re back and they’re better than ever!
Luann, 5/24/25
Speaking of terrible vibes, Luann and the weird uptight guy she kissed behind a clipboard exactly once are apparently going to move into a tiny studio apartment together? There’s two ways this could go: the strip could finally approach young people’s sexuality in a straightforward way or it could do a ribald fanfic-style storyline where, uh oh! There’s only one bed!!!! I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which possibility I find more likely.
Gil Thorp, 5/24/25
Hmm, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court ruled that a public high school football coach could lead students in prayer on the 50 yard line after games, but the Milford administration thinks it can stop Coach Hernandez from peacefully using an Ouija board to contact a ghost in a school supply closet? “Lawyer up, coach!” is what the beloved dead “Pop(s)” is urging Luke, as he floats conveniently where Dr. Pearl can’t see him.
Beetle Bailey, 5/24/25
C’mon, man, the Beetle Bailey gang is in the army, and they have their own special forces units, like the Rangers. The joke should’ve been “Maybe I could’ve been an Army Ranger” “You’re more of a bear” and OK now I see why they didn’t go with that one.
Pluggers, 5/24/25
Pluggers are of an age at which they’re more prone to falling, and a fall could result in serious injury. They live in constant fear that such a thing could happen to them or their partners!
155 replies to “Downer Saturday”
Pluggers: My Mom has serious balance problems, she tends to fall from time to time, she is usually okay from the falls, a few times are worse than others but rarely anything to go to the hospital about. Yet it caused me immense paranoia that I scream in panic whenever I hear a loud crash in another room.
This is truly relatable, and NO Tom Rice from San Diego California, it is NOT FUNNY… F*** you for even insinuating that.
Pluggers are into polyamory and cucking but there’s still breaking a hip to worry about.
BB: I have to give a point to Beetle on this one. Koo Koo Ka-Choo, Sarge!
Luann: Don’t get your hopes up, kids. Mater and Pater DeGroot aren’t going to give up their disability check so easily…
MW: This poor fish has had to deal with being first the unfavorite to Stellan and then the horrors of seeing Wilbur’s open bathrobe and living in filth. And now she’s got a psychotic Karen eyeing her up…
I was indifferent to the thought of Dawn being killed by Belle but the thought of Willa “sleeping with the fishes” actually has me worried.
“Wait, I just got that pun! Hilarious! You’re un-suspended with a raise.”
GT: Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
“Hey, Casper. Lose the pipe!” Yells Dr. Pearl over her shoulder.
Is Phil going to fill Inner Beauty?
Not if the Evansii can help it.
Maybe Sarge could be a Navy Whale and track submarines?
Pluggers keep their mad bride in the attic, still wearing her tattered wedding dress and wailing of lost youth, shambling between the garrets and terrifying the sheltered young governess.
Wary Morth:
Goldfish Lives Matter.
Brownfish Lives Matter too.
But not to Bats In The Bellefry,
She is a Rhapsody in Grue.
GT: If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a gloating ghost.
MW: All this fiendishness, and the prize is WILBUR? Easiest insanity defense EVER.
Pluggers: Every bump in the night gives false hope that a recently deceased loved one is still alive.
And a tip o’ the hat to Tom “Nevermore” Rice of San Diego, CA
@Schroduck:
Good one!
Crank – And the moral is…better dead than Ed….
Luann – Establish ourselves as beings – like Mexican jumping beings….
BB – Sarge – stop streaming that Village People song….
Pluggers – Honey – call Ed and Lorraine Warren again….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
“Team-building exorcize” — why does the “serious” strip have a better joke than the funny ones?
CS: We, the attorneys representing the John Deere Company, manufacturer of the world’s foremost farm and lawn and garden equipment, protest the unauthorized depiction of our product in this cruel “comic” strip by an overly officious groundskeeper who most certainly does not represent the ideals and values that we live by. You can just get one of those crappy L.L. Bean tractors if you want to pull that kind of shit.
GT: Team-building “exorcize” would have been a great joke if they had been conducting a, you know, exorcism. I’m sure Bob Tice can come up with something better for a team-building seance.
Also, it would have been funnier, albeit somewhat derivative, if Dr. Pearl had said that she will not tolerate any hurlyburly.
CSh: Oh that’s not the trash: the city collects old flowers and such from graveyards, hospitals and memorial markers, renders them down and extracts a pure concentrate of a compound called “nostalgate”. They add it to the drinking water instead of fluoride.
Luann: More of whatever you are now? Oh, I think I know this one: Awkward? Unappealing? Deeply frustrating to read? Whatever it is, give us MORE!
GT: Honestly, the art has gotten so weird in this strip that I wasn’t sure if that was actually a ghost, or if the colorist had just given up halfway through the last panel.
Pluggers: I really don’t know what they’re going for here. Are they saying that only pluggers respond to loud sudden noises in their homes with concern for their loved ones? Or that only pluggers own houses with more than one floor? Probably the second one…
@Cleveland Mocks: Moving to a rural area in high school, I was treated to peers debating the merits and faults of different tractor brands, with the same zeal as suburban kids arguing over GM versus Ford versus Mopar.
@The Rambling Otter:
Relax, dude.
In a non-Plugger’s apartment, every thud upstairs triggers an “I hope my neighbor’s dead.”
Luann: Josh suggests two options, but I’m betting on option number 3: next week we shift over to Tiffany, or Les, or Gunther, or Bwadoni and widdle Shannon, and this gets completely forgotten about with no change to the status quo whatsoever.
RMMD: They aren’t going to make it to the wedding, are they? They’re just going to Doordash some supermarket sheet cake and sit there self-congratulating at each other.
CS: This is a pretty badly laid-out cemetery. Note how close that headstone is to the path. Unless they buried her ashes or someone stole the corpse and they never found it, that maintenance guy and anyone who comes in are basically dancing on her grave every day.
You’re a Plugger if you enjoy reading about plates and saucers, but you won’t even put a coaster under your coffee mug.
GT – Coach Hernandez is the kind of guy who makes a pun on “exercise”/”exorcise.” There’s no way his defense wouldn’t include, “I know you won’t tolerate tomfoolery! That’s why I specifically didn’t invite Tom to the seance.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“The Admiral mansplains too much, bro”
“Now he’s telling them how to tie a bow tie!”
“I think I can take him down a peg”
“Admiral, isn’t this clip-on one of yours?”
Beetle – I thought Sarge was more of an egg man.
@It’s Just a Stupid Comic: And, to you, I’ll say lighten up.
I understand the Rambler’s disdain for this and for others for things that hit too close to home. I have strong negative feelings for people who abuse handicapped parking privileges and didn’t find it funny when Larry David did that on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I didn’t like it much better on Seinfeld even though George’s dad’s car got trashed.
But give the guy a break. Or wait and see your reaction when something hits too close to home.
@Peanut Gallery:
No, Orville Snorkel is the Walrus. Koo-koo-ka-choo!
I hope What’s-his-name is at least grabbing Luann’s ass in that first panel.
Crankshaft:
It makes perfect sense that a maintenance guy would remove flowers from gravesites over Memorial Day weekend.
MW: I’ve never seen a hair extension on a fish, but I gotta say that it looks pretty good.
RMMD: Breathing heavily, Rex holds June in his arms, gazes into her eyes, and whispers, “Oh, honey, you know what I really want to do right now? I want . . . I want . . . I want to eat some cake!”
Dustin: Stung and flustered by his sister’s witty shot, Dustin frantically searches for a comeback, but all he can come up with is, “Oh yeah? Well maybe by then you’ll grow some boobs.” The rest of the day did not go well for him. Nor did the rest of his relationship with her.
GT:
“As you can see from today’s third panel, Coach, your ‘exorcize’ was a pipe dream!”
I still can’t believe the GT artist gets to submit rough sketches as final product.
GT:
I can see why you might spell the routine an “exorcise,” since it’s a play on the word “exercise” and you’re trying to do an exorcism; i.e., to exorcise something. But since “exercise” is spelled with an “s, why would you spell the ritual an “exorcize”?
MW: Okay, here we go!! The mounting terror, my look of bewilderment and then – sudden realization of my impending doom!! My entire acting career has been leading to this very moment! And the audience has been captured by the drama and is completely on board with me! I feel so ALIVE!
———–
Whew, I’m glad that scene is finished – I’m just emotionally drained! I hope Belle has some of those special FishFla— Belle? The scene’s over… you don’t have to stay in character…. c’mon, you can relax now…. Belle?!?!?
“I’m suspending, not firing you, coach. Think long and hard about your actions, got it? I mean, terrible puns? Exorcize? Do you want to be Crankshaft, Coach? BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU BECOME CRANKSHAFT!”
CS: Oh, good. I see Batiuk has rediscovered his second way to show contempt for his readers.
Luann: It’s going to end up being Bernice moving in with Luann. Still, there will be an “uh oh! There’s only one bed” moment.
BB: If the writers were conversant at all with D&D, they could have gone with Josh’s setup, and Beetle responding, “You’re more of a Barbarian.”
Pluggers: It won’t deter him from pretending to read the book he’s holding upside-down.
@Ukranazi Stepan: A hot beef injection?
Between Friends – First, try to find someone who remembers what your job is.
MW: When *Willa* burbles about Belle threatening her, Wilbur will actually take action.
FC: “Billy, I’m in no mood for your Poltergeist references!”
Dustin: *womp womp*
@Schroduck: Very literary.
RMMD-“You’ve been a wonderful beard.”
FC-You should put down some of PJ’s diapers to absorb the water.
FC-“Oh thank god. The poltergeists have come to take you away.”
Beetle Bailey-True story. I have an uncle who was a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.
GT: “I will not tolerate your tomfoolery,” says the woman who let Gil get away with everything Gil’s ever done.
OTF: A visual metaphor that doesn’t really make sense for a concept that itself doesn’t make a whole lot of sense? It’s the ultimate Fastrack strip!
Hmm, since I couldn’t think of much to say about my usual comics, I thought I’d do my irregular check of where Spider-Man is in its endless cycle of 2014-19 strips and … it turns out it’s not an endless cycle after all — at least according to the A-Z list at Comics Kingdom it has, in fact, ended! When did this happen and how many loops did they get through?
MW: Folks, I hope you don’t think we’ve abandoned Willa to her fate! Certainly not! We do have a.. plan… to rescue her from this seemingly
fatalhopeless situation! So just relax, sit back and enjoy what may be thefinalfinest performance of her career! We’ll be offering special “Willa”memorialmerch soon!RMMD: Remember, you could be enjoying the adventures of Snowball the Cat and the suspect kibble instead of … whatever this is. They could have even made it medically related with a crossover appearance by Dr. Ed! But nooooo, let ’em eat cake…
@Bob Tice: My theory is that the cemetery has a standing order to remove anything the creepy stalker Eugene leaves on Lucy’s grave. Which ties into my larger theory that Eugene, not Lillian, is the one who drove Lucy into a mental hospital. He kept visiting her and sending gifts for decades, but he never re-proposed, or even clarified what he wanted from her.
Mary Worth: The final panel, from Belle’s point of view.
A day of harsh reality?!
Crankshaft: reality! – flowers and stuff left at a grave site ultimately are all cleaned up. Remember, it is the thought that counts!
Beetle Bailey: reality! – Sarge is the wrong build and is too quick to anger. The special ops people are in an amazing shape and can restrain themselves.
Bizarro: reality! – rewarding bad behavior isn’t that far fetched. Remember if you can’t be part of the solution at least be part of the problem – Participate!
DT: reality? – while we are left to ponder something on the floor, that this guy didn’t notice when he moved into his expansive and no doubt expensive place.(see tiered ceilings with recessed lighting) -yet NO doorman?
Flash Gordon: reality! – Flash had to save his friend, he is the only one who can get them back out through the Dragonmen lair.
Gasoline Alley: reality! – beneath all of that country joshing around, always harsh cruel reality nearby – the difficulty getting to Rover’s is what saved his place from being looted.
Gil Thorp: reality! – school management has spoken! Dr. Pearl will tolerate a lot (just look at Gil’s recent track record) but tomfoolery?! Never!
MW: reality! Wilbur clearly does care more about Willa than Dawnie. The goldfish has a tiny brain but that tiny brain has a very primitive part that recognizes a lethal threat. It is also a nice jab and how worked up people get when animals are threaten but are meh about human suffering and death.
RMMD: reality! This is why productivity is down! Too much tomfoolery. First the front desk sit there in front where the waiting room can see them and gab about a date gone bad, Second, June and RMMD are messing around in some back office. Mean the schedule is now 7 hours behind schedule. RMMD clinic will get horrible Press-Ganey scores.
@It’s Just a Stupid Comic:
It’s just a
stupid comicreal-life traumatic experience.@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Thank you so very much, I appreciate it :)
C’shaft: Cemeteries will dispose of flower memorials once they begin to wilt, right? I’m guessing the groundskeeper took one look at that sad bunch of wisterias (this is why they don’t put them in bouquets, Eugene–they droop down instead of standing upright) and assumed they’d been there for at least a week.
And as a parting insult, Lillian didn’t even bother buying a full plot for her sister but crammed her into the two feet of space next to the pathway.
GT: Flash forward to 2030, when the Supreme Court ruling on Hernandez vs. Milford establishes that the writers of the Constitution intended for the First Amendment to apply only to Judeo-Christian religions. The AI simulacrum of Donald Trump that now acts as President and Supreme Ruler in Eternity calls the verdict “a great moment for religious freedom.” (Coach Hernandez, who was deported to El Salvador three years prior, could not be reached for comment.)
Luann: Luann has had several long-term and short-term interests over the years, but none of them have been more boring and personality-free than Phil. He’s like if someone put the prompt “create a boyfriend that even the most restrictive parents could not object to” into ChatGPT.
Pluggers…show natural concern for their loved ones when they hear a noise that might portend harm to someome, regardless of their age or health situation? I don’t get it.
DT: Calling it now: Icarus Lovejoy has a split personality.
Dustin: Dustin is well into his twenties; unless he has some bizarre medical condition growing facial hair should not be a problem.
JP: Are Marciuliano and Manley talking to each other? It looks like one of them is doing a bittersweet tale of growing up and moving on to new adventures, and the other is doing a steamy college lesbian romance.
MW: Close down the Worthy nominations, we have the “Panel of the Year” winner right here.
Phantom: I get plenty of this tepid manufactured relationship drama from Luann; I don’t need to see it here…
RMMD: In the Morgan household, any occasion is an excuse to celebrate their superiority over others.
Crankshaft: In “Batguy: Arkham City” (calling him that, because the filter won’t let me use his actual name) Batguy comes across Crime Alley where his parents were brutally gunned down when he was a child. The villain Hugo Strange (who knows that Batguy is Bruce Wayne) expected this, and went to the trouble of literally recreating the chalk outlines of the corpses to a T, and leaving a rose to mock Batguy, and mocks him further through a recording he had left there.
What I’m getting at is… somehow against all odds, Crankshaft manages to be even more miserable in that regard.
@Baja Gaijin: Belle has issues.
Crankshaft: Isn’t this technically grave-robbing?
@The Quiet Man: BINGO.
@TheDiva: (on Luann) Yeah, the Evanses really painted themselves into a corner here. They can’t have Luann’s boyfriend be the more dynamic and interesting one in the relationship, so we get this.
CS: At least the sister paid extra to bury Lucille in the drive-through section of the cemetery for the convenience of visitors (You know, where they put the road right over the graves).
My recollection of the lyrics from late 1967 was “goo goo ga-joob” and the internet seems to think so, too:
I am the walrus, Goo goo g’ joob..Goo goo g’ joob, G’ goo goo g’ joob,
(and this goes on)
RMMD: The director calls for a close-up “NOT TOO CLOSE!” He screams. Seriously, June looks like a middle linebacker in P2.
Pluggers: Anyone remember the hilarious 1989 “Life Call” commercial where the old lady says “I’ve Fallen and I can’t get up”? Well guess what? That old lady is now dead and has been dead for decades! Is it still funny? Oh, it is? Well okay then, nevermind.
Beetle Bailey: Sarge just saw the 2014 movie “Tusk” with Justin Long. He can’t wait to be a walrus!
Blondie lands a good one today. Sure, traditional, and more than a shade of doofus Dad syndrome, but a solid joke well played.
H&L: I found exactly one song named You’re Starting to Grow on Me, which I’ve never heard before. Is this a deep dive by the Walker/Browne Comic Industrial Complex, or just a lazy effort?
BG&SS: At least Stella in MW has the common sense to be afraid of a threat to life, unlike all these smiling chickens. As an urbanite, I had no idea that barnyard poultry enjoyed getting stuffed into gunnysacks.
@Liam: Sop it up with diapers? Where do you think Billy put the diapers?
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur: “Worried enough to go through an elaborate and ostentatious mourning ritual and funeral proceedings if the worse came to happen to ol’ Stellan, eh? (nudges you in the ribs while winking profusely)”
B. Bailey:
“I coulda been a Navy Seal.”
“You mean Navy Elephant Seal”
Today’s Gil Thorp reminds me of when Tommy Lee Jones first met Jim Carrey he said “I will not sanction your buffoonery”
Beetle Bailey: On “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Elly May once dated a Navy officer who specialized in underwater operations — and when Granny saw him in the pool wearing a lower wetsuit and swim fins, she assumed that the term “Naval frogman” meant he was a man from the navel up and a frog from the navel down. Funny stuff! So I guess maybe Sarge thinks the qualifications for being a “Navy Seal” include balancing a ball on his nose, which I’m pretty sure is something he could do!
Luann/Pluggers: You’re Gen Z if the only way you can make a relationship work for longer than two months is out of necessity, because even a tiny apartment is too expensive for one person to rent on their own. You’re a baby boomer if you live in a spacious two-story home that you own free and clear with your loving spouse of 45 years, and yet you still aren’t happy. It’s the circle of comics-page life!
Thinking of Seals.
This Rhythm Mini-game (which is probably the cutest thing ever), the backstory is that these seals are (despite the appearance) tough grizzled soldiers going in for training. Then I realize “SEAL Training” ha!
Belated thanks to Baja for the shadow float yesterday.
Crankshaft – As several others have commented, that road goes right over Lucille’s grave. That was the first thing I noticed. Either she’s buried standing up or cemetery management thought nothing of placing a road directly over a row of graves.
Rex Morgan – Gaaah! June’s hair is becoming more repulsive by the day. I wonder if the local beauty shop makes house calls.
@Anonymous: I looked it up, expecting “Island of Doctor Moreau”
It seems closer to “The Human Centipede”
Luann: Luann and Phil move in together? There aren’t enough sheets with holes cut in them in the world for that.
@I speak Jive: Tomorrow, Chris Rock will be making fun of G.I. June.
Pluggers: There’s probably also a Pluggers strip where apartment-dwelling Pluggers bang on the ceiling with a broom if the upstairs neighbors make the tiniest bit of noise.
MW: Again, I don’t blame Bella for being insulted here. Mary, Dawn, all the people who attended the fish funeral, and all the other humans who enable Wilbur’s behavior should also be insulted that he calls a fish his best friend.
Pluggers – @The Rambling Otter: This is relatable for me, too. I am seriously afraid of falling, and both Mr. Jive and I have had serious falls in the past year or so. He broke his nose when he fell, and it could have been much worse. After I fell my face was black and blue for a couple of weeks, which made for an uncomfortable doctor’s appointment I already had scheduled.
Your fear for your mother is understandable. Falling is a real danger when people age and can result in serious injuries. There’s nothing funny about it.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: That’s a peeve of mine, and I have no problem walking. I think that karma might take care of some of the people who take those parking spaces.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Willa is doing a fantastic job – the suspense is almost unbearable.
By the way, nice job with those Anteaters in Speed Bump. Is that Emmitt Pissmire on the plate?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I hope Rex doesn’t slap him.
Crankshaft: Jesus. That is just beyond cartoonishly bleak and meanspirited. Like, it’s not even easy to make fun of like most Funkyverse misery.
Luann: Anyone else suspecting this dweeb that Luann is dating is gonna become the next Anthony Caine or even, God willing, the next Les Moore?
Gil Thorp: Dr. Pearl is just pissed that Hernandez was doing something actually interesting and entertaining. “Are you out of your mind?! Doing a funny thing?!?! Are you trying to give our readers a heart attack?!?!?!”
Beetle Bailey: Strips like this make clear that the creative team behind Beetle Bailey know absolutely nothing about the actual military, because there is ZERO fucking way that a member of the army would speak even slightly positively of the navy. At least, not without prefacing it with a couple dozen jokes about gay sailors.
Meta: Josh has carefully selected five comics for us, probably, and each of them is about people not having sex in one form or another. Downer indeed!
@I speak Jive: I hope he does. But that would require emotion and effort, neither of which are in long supply in the Rex Morgan Extended Universe. Instead, we’d get a close-up of his face looking baffled, as usual.
@taig: Re; Luann: Greg and Karen Evans: “Er…we’re not passive-aggressively trying to fire Luann’s parents from the strip* while pretending that Luann is ‘all grown up now’** by reenacting the same tired status quo of Bernice lounging around Luann’s beedroom all day!”
*If mid-grade sitcoms about teens have taught me anything, it’s once you start giving ‘wacky old ladies’ for the title character to talk to, your parental unit role is DUNZO!
**Because the MINUTE Luann can spontaneously “afford” this apartment (after one whole arc I’ll bet) we can bet that we’ll never hear another word about this job…or Luann’s collegetrajectory ever again (Because, see, she’s “proved herself”….)
@TheDiva: DT – agreed, I’ve been thinking that since Thursday
CS: Based on my church’s many, many bulletin announcements about deadlines to deal with the cemetery flowers this seems to jump the gun, trashing things well before the fall deadline for removal to allow winter maintenance. Or it’s exactly as it should be if that vase is violating the rules about what you can leave – they might also only allow things in/on removable spike planters/vases/hooks (“no vases on the ground, loose bouquets, plush toys…” etc etc)
MW: The Sunday strip will be Dawn interrupting Belle’s attempt on Willa, right? And the sad, sad bit is how Dawn will only matter to her dad as the saviour of his true companion, the second-place-fish.
PearlsBeforeSwine: Relatable AND funny – eons ago I spent a conference evening with an acquaintance in Seattle looking for a photo op of the reflection of one Starbucks in the window of another Starbucks. (We couldn’t quite get one, best we found were two across a road but down half a block from each other and the angle didn’t work.)
Belated thanks to Scratchy for yesterday’s mention!
LuAnn: Phil is being actively pushed as Mr. Right by Mrs. Horner, the designated wise old Yoda to LuAnn’s blithering Luke, so I suspect the Evansi are setting him up as The One, although we’ll likely get years of handholding & fourth-grade double entendres before anything is actually consummated. (Greg & Karen will probably wear out their fainting couch to get to that point.)
Crankshat: We have at least one very large cemetery in the area (Cleveland suburbs) where there are stones that are indeed that close to the cemetery roadway. In fact, while teaching our oldest to drive there (a good practice spot w/few to no other cars on the road network), we stopped at one T &, chancing to look down from the open passenger window, I found myself right above the grave marker for an assistant editor I’d had a series of freelance newspaper assignments from years before, who I hadn’t even realized was dead. Memento mori.
Crankshaft: Lamenting the casual cruelty of a service worker in a strip that celebrates the casual cruelty of a service worker. Why not just have Crankshaft back his bus over Lucy’s grave?
Luann: Well, in panel one, Phil already has his hand on her ass, so that’s…”progress” maybe?
Crank – So is that Batuik making a cameo in his own strip? Doin’ that thing he always does?
Luann: Psst, Luann and Phil, forget about establishing yourselves. Did you ever hear of the terms fuck buddies, or friends with benefits?
Crankshaft-Wait, minister! You’re doing it all wrong. You’re supposed to leave the flowers and take the body.
One of the nice things about not believing an the afterlife is I’m looking forward to dealing with people again. Gil Thorp gets it. Look at all the trouble a ghost causes. Look at all that pain being forced to make that pun is causing the coach there! No thank you! Give me some nice, peaceful oblivion anyway.
***
Do you think there is a heaven and hell in the Funkyverse where hell is being reborn into a real Funkyverse and living it as an actual life and heaven getting to whisper what you think of his creation into Tom Batiuk’s ear as he keeps failing to sleep at night?
Pluggers: When I was a kid, there used to be mysterious sonic booms in our area every few weeks. And every damn time, my dad would waggishly race upstairs and ask my mother if she’d fallen. This went over like a bucket of sick, as you can imagine. I had no idea we were pluggers until now!
@Baja Gaijin: Wilbur Fish should be haunting June Brigman’s nightmares for the rest of eternity.
@2+2=7: Oh, God, you reminded me that Wilbur is the biggest attention whore in this comic; he would throw a pity party over spilled
milkmayonnaise.@Hibbleton: Sarge could’a been a Tupperware seal…you know…cuz’a the patented burp….
@Hibbleton: Bwahaha!
Here’s something for the room at large:
The walrus is Sarge!
(I’ll see myself out.)
CRANKSHAFT: A few weeks ago, I was driving through an Iowa town and noticed a small group of people with multicolored signs at the entrance to a cemetery. It looked like some kind of protest. I slowed down, hoping to read a sign or two, and saw “Honk If You Love Flowers.” I didn’t have time to stop and ask and still don’t know what it was about, but now I’m wondering if it was perhaps a group of Eugenes, tired of having their floral grave offerings pitched.
@I speak Jive: #67: re-RMMD: The local beauty shop? They’re the ones who gave her that ghastly hairdo in the first place!
Pluggers: Another day, another broken femur. (Said with underlying respect as a son-in-law to a woman who endured exactly such an injury just from trying to get to the toilet the other day.)
Pluggers still miss the “Bump Game” from “The Price Is Right”.
The Familiar Mucus: “They’re Here!!!!” “Damn, Jeffy didn’t completely flush away, you can still see him!”
@Doghouse Reilly (Minneapolis): Here’s another clue for you all/The Beetle was Paul!
@Liam: Crankshaft-Wait, minister! You’re doing it all wrong. You’re supposed to leave the flowers and take the body.
____________
What about the cannoli?
MW: Have i spotted a continuity gap? Belle first needs to take a picture of the fish and then cross out its eyes. Heh heh.
Sarge: Maybe I could’ve been an Army Ranger.
Beetle: Why, so you could compete with Yogi for pic-a-nic baskets?
Cranky’s Wrath: Where are the joke tombstones of all the previous things that died in the Flunkyverse?..John Darling, Good Taste, Funny Jokes?
GT – That supreme court ruling may protect the use of the Ouija board, but she’s got him on fire code violations what with all the open flame from those candles.
Oh and thanks for putting John Fogerty’s Center Field in my head with a refrain of “lawyer up, coach!”
Pluggers: That’s right. Only pluggers care about the well-being of their loved ones. The rest of us Philistines would just say “Meh”, take another swig of beer, and keep watching the ballgame.
@Cleveland Mocks:
#15 CS: scrolling back to check, you’re right– it IS John Deere green. Easily recognizable to any former farm kid. Anyone know why JD took the risk of veering from the standard brick red for farm eqmt? A risky move because one bad product would have made every green tractor or combine laughable.
@Guillermo el chiclero: No way. In Luann, every relationship has to be a prelude to marriage,
@It’s Just a Stupid Comic: Dude, shut up. I hate it when people tell me to relax.
@2+2=7: Well, the Evanses are masters of misdirection…
Today I learned I’m a plugger despite only being in my early-mid 30’s because of my extreme anxiety
@Anonymous: He probably thinks empathy is a sin.
Alpha Incel update – still no morcock
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’ve got to imagine the new-look GoComics threw some of the TruFans for a loop. I don’t think they’re very good with change.
CS: Yay!!
@The Rambling Otter: #1
*Fist bump* for that. My hubby and I are in that same demographic, yet in reasonably good shape, but my antennae go up as soon as I hear a “thump” anywhere in the house and can determine it wasn’t from me first. (“Did I just trip and bump into the dresser? No? Then it wasn’t me!”)
MW: Any conclusion to this story that doesn’t include Belle shoving Dawnie’s head into the tank until she drowns, causing a panicked Willa to leap out of the tank and land on the floor where Belle stomps her to death, causing a distraught Wilbur to pick up the kitchen knife only to trip and fall into Belle, killing her, will be anticlimactic. Even better would be a final panel showing a smiling Mary approaching Wilbur’s apartment with a plate of muffins, oblivious to the horrors that await her on the other side of the door.
@Daisy: Unfortunately your creativity is far more advanced than anything Karen Moy could ever come up with. The woman couldn’t even write a proper domestic abuse story without making it convoluted as hell.
My god is the Luann comic strip tedious!
It’s borderline insulting they feel anyone reading it gives a crap about their sex lives.
And I’d have the lowest opinion for anyone who (gag…) sees THEMSELVES in Luann!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #26
*thumbs up*
@The Rambling Otter: #47
I can sincerely relate to what you’re saying – I took care of my elderly mother for several years at home and as she declined mentally and physically I was always on high alert for any mishaps or accidents. I eventually put a baby monitor in the room where she slept so I could be alerted to anything that might need my intervention. I do feel for you. *hug*
Crank: “I see you bought a two-foot cemetery plot for your sister. When would you like to schedule the cremation?”
”Too much money. Just bury the head.”
RMMD: “Just trying to keep up with my great wife. Although your stupid haircut makes me think of you as my great husband.”
Phantom: “I guess I’m….sort of with Manju….we’ve been sleeping together for the past 18 months….and she’s picking out her trousseau….and her grandmother would travel from Tibet to Africa literally ON FOOT to throttle me if she knew I was thinking about Kadia naked right now….”
The cemetery landscape maintenance worker is dedicated to his craft.
@Activist: #103: Can’t change now, not since Joe Diffie had a hit country-western song titled “John Deere Green”.
In John Deere Green
On a hot summer night
He wrote “Billy Bob loves Charlene”
In letters three foot high
And the whole town said that he should’ve used red
But it looked good to Charlene
In John Deere Green.
Hard as it is to believe Gil Thorp got something right, Lucha grabbing & threatening Austin the Pest on Thursday was easily grounds for a suspension or more.
Girlomatic: Gather forth to protect the special one of the lot
LUANN: Does this mean Luann is going to be allowed to age a few years instead of being kept at nineteen for another decade? Because this story development, such as it is, does seem like it would be more appropriate for someone who is twenty-something. I’d settle for twenty. Anything for a faint glimmer of hope that readers won’t be stuck watching College Hell forever.
RMMD: June, you have pretty eyes, an attractive smile, and a very reasonable nose. I was going to build up to this next part, but long story short, you’d look better if you were bald. Look in the mirror. You know it’s true.
CS: Yesterday when we saw Eugene entering the cemetery, the edge of the road visible and he had walked right past what looks to be Lucy’s marker. How long did he wander among the tombstones, searching for hers?
There are no other floral displays or decorations on any grave. Maybe that cemetery has a “no clutter” policy, although that usually applies to those with flat markers that can be easily mowed with a riding mower. With the variety of size and shape of the tombstones there, that’s not an option. They still need to use a push mower and string trimmer, so the prompt removal of the flowers was unnecessary and needlessly harsh. I love it.
@Needless Exposition: #114
Thank you!! It’s admittedly not a very high bar, but I managed to clamber over it. Moy’s stories are just so anodyne and tedious that it doesn’t take much for anyone with a little imagination to spice them up a bit. If there were a comic strip equivalent of MST3000 “Mary Worth” would be featured on every episode.
@Activist: I saw a documentary once about the history of tillage, tractors, and John Deere. (We Iowans get documentaries like that during prime time on public TV.) But the photos and footage of dubious tillage and serious erosion were so distracting that I can’t remember much else. That green, however, yes, I know it well.
@Daisy: -fist bumps and hugs back- :thanks so much for understanding 3
@I speak Jive: Thank you so much for understanding too :)
I literally just woke up from a dream, a series of nightmares actually.
The second dream, I dreamed everything was glitching up like I was in a broken videogame.
The third dream, I dreamed that there were train tracks literally a foot away from my house, and a massive oil tanker was going by and I thought that it was going to fall over and crush my home.
The first dream though, I dreamed that I was Luann’s boyfriend and we kissed (Not joking either) although I ended the kiss almost immediately while she was still sitting on the end of the bed with her eyes closed and lips puckered for the next several minutes, which was kind of funny.
C-Shaft: He’s going to sell that wisteria to the florist shop, who will again sell it to Eugene. The cycle continues.
GT: Luke would be in it even deeper if Dr. Pearl knew about the exercise/exorcize pun. He’s so lucky she only hears his dialogue instead of reading it.
Luann: Even more boring morons?
GT: On Monday Coach Hernandez will revert to his national religion of Santeria and bite the heads off several black roosters, sending the phantom of Pops spiraling back down into the nothingness of Limbo.
DtM: What do you care, Dennis? You’re about as likely to be called one as the other.
DT: Good luck convincing Dick on that one. He’s already primed to distrust beatnik freaks, his designation for any man with a mustache or a sweatshirt, much less both. Getting run in on flimsy charges is one of the nicer things that could happen to Icarus right now.
Dustin: If he’s still asking his family questions like this that’s really on him.
JP: Their soon-to-be-ex-dorm-room is on like the 20th floor which is the only reason there’s not a sad freshman outside the window waiting for them to kiss.
MW: Whether the bargain basement Alex Forrest will successfully kill Willa is anybody’s guess, but she’s already put paid to whatever was left of her own dignity.
Ph – When last we saw Manju she was setting out in search of Kit Jr. So, does the Nomad’s daughter have the chops to fight the Dojo trained Barista for Kit’s affections?
“Really, darling, who has wisterias anywhere before the Fourth? That’s a thing, right? Whatever, I’m enforcing it now, my wife left me.”
BB: I thought the whole thing about Sarge was that, if he had to, he could outmarch, outshoot, and outfight any soldier in the Army. Of course he could have been a Ranger! Instead he got assigned to the awkward squad of some loser outfit in Camp Swampy, and forgotten by Personnel. Now he bitterly regrets that he alienated his friend in the Pentagon, who could have pulled strings and gotten him a better assignment.
I actually worked with an idiot, years ago, who told me how he previously was enraged at paying taxes, so took an under-the-table job delivering for this totally ghetto Chinese place. Apparently, he made such shit money he shared a studio with a friend. This friend SOMEHOW had a girlfriend, so the idiot would have to take a shower whenever they had sex. I’m seeing this syncing up with Luann PERFECTLY.
The stuff you learn when you’re having a smoke and somebody just starts talking at you.
@White Rabbit:
SHOULD be that way, Rabbit, but he’s E-7. Get that far, rules are different
The ghost is saying:
“Coach! Tobacco crop needs to be brought in! Dying in the field! Ya gotta save the farm, son!”
The farm is a Walmart, now. Ghosts aren’t up on shit.
@richardf8: Has Manju already embarked upon the intensive sniper lessons which will eventually lead to her becoming the most effective assassin in the Resistance? If so, my money’s on Tea Chick.
@71 Banana Jr. 6000: on Mary Worth: “…all the other humans who enable Wilbur’s behavior should also be insulted that he calls a fish his best friend.” I think you mean “All the other humans who enable Wilbur’s behavior should be elated that he calls a fish best friend instead of one of themselves.”
@74 ectojazzmage: on Luann: This dweeb that Luann is dating is gonna become the next Delta James, disappearing from Pittsville, never to be seen or mentioned again.
@Baja Gaijin: on Luann: This dweeb that Luann is dating is gonna become the next Delta James, disappearing from Pittsville, never to be seen or mentioned again.
No, she should be dating Rick James, bitch!
@Daisy: Lately she’s been heavily relying on “Wilbur does something stupid and is undeservedly rewarded for it.” Even Estelle getting married had Wilbur getting the last word in about his sour grapes mentality and the most frightening image of him making a kissy face.
MW: Hoping that Earl the Piranha from The Piranha Club stands in for Willa next week.
CS: Duh, how stupid of me, Lucille was buried standing up.
@Daisy:
@I speak Jive:
I was kind rushing myself earlier, so I feel I didn’t give as proper a reply as I should have.
I am deeply sorry for what you both are going through as well.
Falling is not a pleasant thing at all, indeed. But I wish you guys the best of care! And also Daisy I’m sorry about your mother :O
@A Grave Mind: Oh but, going further with that joke, maybe Pops is encouraging him to fight back against Big Businesses, having all of the Walmarts go under, having all of the locations torn down, back into fields, and Coach Hernandez is the only man that can accomplish such an act. Pops has spoken!
@Baja Gaijin: He’ll probably break up with Luann for (insert completely valid reason here) but be seen as the villain for it before he ends up leaving the comic.
@The Rambling Otter:
Oh, man, Hernandez is a Columbia student? Whoof.
@Anonymous: Thank goodness no one did
GT: Remember, Josh… It’s not a Ouija(TM) board, it’s an Oracle board. Coach might be dumb as a box of hair, but even he knows better than to get into an intellectual property dispute with Parker Bros.
@Veronica!: What if the comic called it something like a Weegee board? That’s probably what Tom Batiuk would do.
Actually, I can see Tom Batiuk going the extra mile to make it sound even stupider by calling it a “Squeegee board” or something.
@The Rambling Otter:
“Ohioana Spirit Board”
@Anonymous: There was a videogame, that takes place in a Zombie Apocalypse but played out more like a cross between “Choose your Own Adventure” and “Fallout” due to the options you can take.
Most encounters with (human) enemies who are either trying to mug you or kill you, your characters are given the option to say “CHILL OUT!” it never works xD
@Hibbleton: Even better!