Thursday is for little games and tasks
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Hi and Lois, 5/15/25
Sorry, Hi: today’s teens would never try to read something and listen to something else simultaneously. Instead, they focus all their attention on one thing at a time so they can truly be present in the moment with a text or song. They call it “monotasking” and it’s an explicit rejection of the brain-scattered, information-overload world that your generation (Xennials) created. Get with the times, old man!
Gearhead Gertie, 5/15/25
The ironic thing here is that Gertie obviously owns the NASCAR Official Collector’s Edition of Monopoly that Parker Brothers put out in 1997, but she refuses to open the shrink wrap because she thinks it will lose its value. Gertie, you can buy that game on eBay for $12! You gain nothing by annoying your grandson like this.
Shoe, 5/15/25
I really enjoy the dynamic here where the Perfesser announces that he wants to do something fun that might be a little outside his comfort zone, and his boss, who he hates but is nevertheless spending his precious free time with, shits all over the idea. I assume that in panel two the Perfesser is getting a big whiff of Shoe’s cigar, which also must be pretty unpleasant for him.
The Lockhorns, 5/15/25
I like how downcast Leroy looks here. He knows this terrible pun is a subpar effort, but it’s all he can come up with, and what’s he going to do, not say something vaguely critical of his wife while she’s doing something she enjoys?
94 replies to “Thursday is for little games and tasks”
Hi, unless you’re willing to stick a hot and sharp piece of wood into your boss’s eye, you are not Nobody!
Lockhorns:
“Hosta la vista, Loretta!”
FC-“A man on the street corner showed me a trick. Want to see it?”
Gearhead Gertie-Who said anything about a game. Gertie has amassed an army and is planning to invade those cities.
H&L: Gee, Hi, if you weren’t so distracted by multitasking between what you’re hearing and what you’re reading, then you might notice important things that are happening around you, such as the corner of the room vanishing and the walls changing color. Get your nose out of the paper, man! Your house is dissolving!
GERTIE: Board games? NASCAR. TV? NASCAR. Grocery shopping? NASCAR. God, that woman is tedious.
MW: It’s like talking to a brick. I mean, we’re talking about coming between Wilbur and his nookie, here. Dawn should get her affairs in order.
Hi and Lois: Oof. This isn’t some light self-deprecation from Hi; that’s some serious self-pity. You can tell by the way the Mood Wallpaper has turned from green to yellow.
Hi and Lois: The fact that Hi actually has a tabletop radio and print newspaper subscription makes him one of the coolest dadcore hipsters around. I bet he also collects manual typewriters, pocket watches and fountain pens, much to the bemusement of his totally basic kids.
Shoe: I’m not surprised that the Perfesser takes “seasick pills” (aka prescription-grade muscle relaxers) in the bath, since that probably increases the relaxing high. It’s may not be worth the risk of drowning, but to each their own.
Lockhorns: Did you know that hosta is in the asparagus family? I’m guessing that’s why Leroy is so grumpy — seeing it reminds him that he hasn’t eaten a vegetable in two months. (No, cocktail onions don’t count.)
Mary Worth:
“When my daughter spoke to me about Belle
I reassured her that all’s well
If she’s killed by my guest
It’ll be for the best —
Life in Charterstone is worse than hell!”
RMMD: I’d say Summer is being laughingly naive to say it’s over with no further police interviews or court dealings to get to donate that evidence-laden truck, but this is the Morganverse and the ritual offering of high-value goods to the Morgan-adjacent has been made, so the legal system has been completely satisfied
Shoe, the Perfesser is an osprey, also known as a sea hawk. What are we doing here?
GG: Gotta hand it to Gertie to be able to play a board game without tokens. She must have thrown them all in the trash when she saw the little race car doesn’t have a 3 on it.
For the love of all that is good and decent Josh, stop giving Gearhead Gertie any attention. It has one note, it’s never funny, and your comments on it are also one note and not funny at all. There’s just nothing to work with and it’s easily the worst strip in your rotation. Every time I see it here, I groan.
That being said, the hosta pun did make me chuckle, so maybe I just have bad taste.
GG: A boring game of very little skill or strategy that mostly consists of pushing hunks of metal around in a circle for hours while massive amounts of money change hands, NASCAR has been going since 1948.
Shoe: Thanks for the image of a bird rolling around, spewing helplessly in a bathtub full of his own vomit. Just what I needed this morning.
Lockhorns: Is Loretta… pantsless? Gotta be a new low for her that Leroy has ignored this blatant sexual provocation to crack wise about garden weeds – or is this what counts as Lockhorn foreplay?
@Schroduck:
Is Loretta… pantsless?
She bends over in flesh colored slacks because she’s mad at the neighbors.
GG: I often wonder how the people in Gertie’s world really feel about her. That kid looks like he doesn’t want to be there at all. A two-person game of Monopoly with your grandma, where grandma is off her meds and too monomanically obsessed with something to even learn the rules, has got to be a 7-year-old’s idea of eternal hell.
Luann: Whenever you raise a potentially interesting story point, cut away from it as quickly as possible.
MW: Whenever you raise a potentially interesting story point, talk in circles about it for three weeks.
Pluggers: Pluggers are Walts.
CS: Before you start proposing solutions, I think you need to figure out what the actual problem is. Too few drivers? Too few buses? Too few seats? Too few routes? Too little time? It seems to change every day. And it ignores the fact that these bus drivers actively blow off any child who tries to ride it.
Hi and Lois: In today’s strip we see the Flagstons acting out Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey. Chip has taken on the role of the cyclops Polyphemus while Hi is our intrepid titular hero Odysseus. My only regret is that we don’t get the scene in which Hi will poke Chip’s eye out with a hewn tree trunk —but probably a pen or a pencil. This is after all low budget community theatre.
How do you know Gearhead Gertie really osns the board game? Have you been boinking her?
CS: This arc will end on school bus seat auctions, and Centerville’s school kids will be the first ever to have Bus Debt ruining their credit before they hit puberty.
GT: In which the Mudlarks’ hit with a cricket bat to observe George Brett’s birthday.
@ValdVin: Ugh. Autocorrect for the extraneous apostrophe.
H&L: Hi is auditioning for Pluggers.
GG: Grandma has a house on Dementia Avenue, and Grandson just landed on it.
Shoe: “At least I take a bath, you stogie-reeking health hazard.”
(Pick your strip): Given the size of newspaper comics these days, I’d say we’re getting a new sense of micro-aggression.
@Banana Jr. 6000: CS: Yeah, it’s hugely different if they have enough drivers so that the total buses can handle the total number of kids, just by amalgamating routes. But if there are more kids than that now, you have to consider – can you do some parts nearer school for a very early loop, then drop-off and back around (while the further parts head out and come back once roughly during this time) so that some buses get used more than once per pickup cycle? Or even whether all those kids *should* be schoolbus-eligible (my kids’ district allows *anyone* to sign up even if they are a block from the school – no minimum distance whatsoever!)
And in any case, nobody would ask the *drivers* to fix the plan. That’s kinda the admin’s job, y’know?
Hi and Lois: Nobody gives their kid an opening like that! Nobo — DAMMIT.
LH: Leroy needs to up his game. I mean, Loretta is naked from the waist down, and the hoe was right there, leaning against the wall and waiting for him.
The Lockhorns: That’s right, Leroy, keep it up. Hostas thrive on shade.
All the straight men/victims in today’s panels remind me of a Hüsker Dü song…what was it…oh, right, this one.
GT: Meanwhile, the ghosts of Samuel J. Tilden and Thaddeus Cornelius Milford II monitor their bet from a discreet distance.
JP: Instead of just showing up like a normal guest of the graduate, Glen thought he’d give this stalking thing a try.
MW: “Mary, are you saying that Belle and I should stay with you? You wouldn’t mind?”
I like how Hi’s expression across both panels makes it clear that he is not attempting to match his teenage son’s snideness at all. He’s just been presented with some new information, which he’s applied to his current experience and drawn the best conclusion he can. He must be “nobody” given the facts of the situation! Naturally this would be a depressing realization; at least as depressing as whatever horrible event he’s just read about in newspaper.
Gearhead Gertie: Even if those locations existed in standard Monopoly, Gertie, you can’t just yell out the names of properties like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy! You have to land on the spaces, then purchase the deeds! You’re cheating while playing games with a child! Have you, at long last, no decency?
CS: Lena goes back to her office and takes a long pull from the bottle of Jim Beam she keep in her bottom left desk drawer for moments like these.
Frazz: Today’s lame effort shows that Caulfield’s just about exhausted all the possible ways he can be an a-hole to Mrs. Olsen, and that he’s going to have to start reusing some of his old classics.
FC: “That’s so you can use it to pick your nose when your other fingers get too big.”
Hi and Lois –
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d banish us – to the comics!
How dreary – to be – in the Funny Pages!
How public – like the Sun –
To have your name – forevermore –
Enshrined in a stupid Pun!
MW: EXTREMELY happy with Mary laying into Wilbur here but that last line in panel two is said with SO MUCH CONTEMPT it may as well be followed by “…so whatever that dumb vegan harlot gets, it’s what’s coming to her. Another muffin, dear?”
HnL: Hey now!
The Lockhorns: I’m a little weirded out. I recognize the spot Loretta’s gardening in. It’s in my in-laws’ backyard, near their fence. Did… those unpleasant little weirdoes break into someone else’s home just to do a bit? Did they bring their own plants or work with what’s already there? Did they break the fourth wall to do it? Is breaking and gardening even a crime? Tune in tomorrow to find out!
Lockhorns – If I recall correctly, a gardening expert I used to listen to on the radio once referred to hostas as “the coward’s way out.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Whom do you recommend for the executive skills training course?”
“How about Martin?”
“No. This course is for beginners”
“And Martin already knows how to do walk the dog, around the world, and rock the baby”
Pretty hardcore to play Monopoly for real money, though.
JP: “Glen is president of New York University? How’d I not notice that?”
It’s okay, LeRoy, it’s not like it’s Pachysandisastrous! Eh? Ehhhhhhh?
Grandchild means child meaning having sex or going through the adoption process, neither of which have anything to do with NASCAR. I’m all for a Gearhead Gertie: The Early Years prequel soap comic of tearful family meetings, interventions, and doctor visits showing a family being torn apart by one member’s increasing monomania.
I do truly wonder if the Gertie people THINK they’re in some Groundhog
…Day situation, and the SAME joke MUST be made, or Andie McDowell will never loce them.
That was weird, didn’t hit send at all
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Just checking in from obscurity land.
@CanuckDownSouth: You certainly wouldn’t ask *these* drivers for input. In fact they’re probably the cause of almost all bus-related problems, up to and including negliglent homicide.
Gotta think bigger, Luann. Have you considered employment with Ringling Bros., shoveling up the elephants’ bowel movements?
GT: We’re going to start doing one swing a day? I don’t see this as leading to a more stimulating comic strip.
I expect that the tokens in the NASCAR Monopoly (TM) set are all just different models of race cars, which makes it completely unplayable for anyone who can’t identify those at a glance, i.e. anybody but Gearhead Gertie.
GG – She may be playing Monopoly, but she’s living Monomania.
I have to admire the perfectly-balanced half-assery of the Gearhead Gertie artwork. The artist knows that Monopoly boards are rimmed with all of the squares, and knows that the actual properties have color bands on their inner sides. Well done! But, only one color for all of them, the bands wrap around the corners, there aren’t any single-square breaks for the utilities and card-draw squares and so forth. The “I don’t really care” balance is restored!
Gardening obviously makes Loretta grow, on her knees she’s almost as tall as Leroy, so when she stands up she’ll tear his head off, fee fi fo fum, she smells the blood of a Lockhorn bum.
Off topic, but has anyone watched the fourth series of Love Death + Robots that released today yet? If you haven’t, don’t bother, it’s an appalling letdown. The worst season by far.
You can just defend your old-fashioned hobbies, Hi, you know. You don’t have to engage in a belabored set-up to your little one-liner for the sake of an unseen audience.
Shoe: The effect of the Perfesser’s sky-blue shirt in the first panel is disturbing – it looks like he has been decapitated and his head is floating in space. (Since the second panel makes it clear that his shirt is just that colour, perhaps it’s a little esprit by the artist.)
Leroy is just pissed Loretta is not growing weed…and he’s stoned. Kinda explains the lame pun and why she ignores it. “Isn’t it time for your nap?”
GT – Based on the artwork, I have but one suggestion for any batter at this ballfield: try to pull the ball.
This could be a joke about a Nascar fanatic, which is not very funny. However, let’s take it at face value, as a tragedy. Gertie is obsessed with Nascar, it devours her, it twists all her relations and affections. Her husband already knows he has lost her forever. Her grandchild is still innocent, he believes he can build contacts with his grandmother, if he can only distract her for a short time doing some other activity. But like a Greek heroine, Gertie’s fate is set in stone. She cannot get away from Nascar, she cannot resist its siren song, she cannot build any relations outside it. How tragic. And that’s very funny!
@Dmsilev: Is Gertie holding property deeds or money? Each come in several colors.
Ah, excellent in-joke for Monopoly fans, who know secret rule that halfway through the game you can buy multiple properties without landing on them.
@Schroduck: #12 LOCKHORNS: There IS a Naked Gardening Day. Never done it personally; I figure my neighbors want to keep their eyes.
BG&SS: Smart to recruit Snuffy and all his friends for Neighborhood Watch as it reduces, ever so slightly, the chances that each will be criminals.
Shorter Mary Worth:
Wilbur – Enough of this. I already mansplained it to my stupid daughter.
Mary- You’re an asshole. But, the b!@#! doesn’t want to stay with me, so screw her.
CS: Please make it stop.
9CL: “Stepson, what are you doing?” Doesn’t Brooke have anyone in his life who can tell him how perverted his writing has become?
“Loretta, this is a Hosta takeover. You should know it, your are an invasive species. I allowed you into my life without due consideration of how your tendrils would spread, consume resources and be impossible to remove, ruining my existence!”
“Hosta is an ornamental plant, not an invasive species”
“Really?! Ok, keep working, I need to go back to the drawing board”
@Ukulele Ike: #44: Sorry, Ike. Ringling Brothers knuckled under to the PETA snowflakes years ago and retired their trained animal acts, including elephants, years ago. Still, I’m sure the San Diego Zoo can always use another shit shoveler.
GG: I wonder why they chose to depict Grandson as Lil’ Frazz.
@Tom T.: I suppose we could appeal to Brooke’s daughter, the one who puppeteers for a living.
(Strange to think of a woman in her 40s or 50s puppeteering. Usually you see puppeteers in their 20s. Because part of gaining maturity is putting aside ridiculous shit like puppets and finding something serious to do, like being a dentist or driving cab.)
LH: “Hosta invasion” HA! They think they’ve got it made in the shade, but let’s see how that herbaceous army looks tomorrow morning! Just a few mangled stalks left that were too stringy to bother with! You guys are just deer fodder! BWHAAHAA! Okay, team, we jump the fence on one, two, THREE!
@Banana Jr. 6000: In my adult years, my grandmother confessed that when she played Candy Land with us as kids she would stack the deck to ensure the game didn’t drag on too long. I think Gertie’s grandson could benefit from this rule-bending strategy. “Sure, Grandma, you can buy the entire Xfinity series! You win the game! Now let’s turn on Bluey.”
@Y99 taig: “Thanks to the magic of the week-ahead view on Comics Kingdom, I can report an extremely stupid plot beat coming up in Mary Worth. No spoilers, though.” An extremely stupid plot beat coming up in Mary Worth? Really? You’re not joking, are you? Someone fetch my fainting couch. I’m swooning from shock! I NEVER would have seen that coming. Thanks for the warning, taig. I’ll up my Valium intake in preparation for this bombshell.
I’m sure that most of you have too much taste and common sense to read ‘Marmaduke’, but today’s panel gave me pause. It says ‘Massage’ on the sign, but looking at the guy in the alleyway – just what kind of business is that? The kid (not sure if he has a name) should steer clear of there.
@CanuckDownSouth: Conversely, the Divalings’ elementary was designated as a “neighborhood school” and had no daily bus service–it was assumed that the majority of the student body would be living within walking distance (for certain values of the term). For people whose alternative is having Crankshaft take their kids to and from school, this solution would be particularly appealing.
Gearhead Gertie: So you admit NASCAR facilities are not the site of cultural uprisings by common workers, but places of economic contestation requiring significant investment and monopolistic practices to maintain the control of wealthy elites? Your revolutionary fervor has been noted, Comrade Gertie. We’re making progress here.
GG: Josh’s scenario assumes that, despite keeping her NASCAR Monopoly in mint condition, Gertie has nevertheless memorized the properties and their corresponding equivalents on the traditional board, a situation I have no trouble believing.
Shoe: Please, cruise ships these days are so large nothing short of a hurricane can make them move enough to give you motion sickness.
RMMD: It’s nice to see how quickly Summer is able to put the whole ugly incident behind her, especially considering that she’s the one who alerted the killer to the victim’s location in the first place. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of health compartmentalization or a hallmark of psychopathy, but either way, maybe it means we, too, can move on from this storyline.
Zits: I guess they were running out of ideas about teenagers so they gave Jeremy a cat so they could start making cat owner jokes
DtM: I’m sure that nobody has made a joke before about how the digital storage Cloud is different than actual clouds in the atmosphere. What a unique and funny observation.
Beetle Bailey: Does it really matter where he walks? The exercise still counts even if you walk on a treadmill.
Gearhead Gertie would buy a burner copy BUT THE SHIPPING
Gearhead Gertie: “They will be on the board after the revolution, whippersnapper! So shut your trap and play along or else you’ll be buried alongside the filthy circuit-racers.”
C’shaft: Congrats, Rocky, you’ve found a way to make riding a bus driven by Crankshaft even more dangerous.
DT: “Wait…I can do that? Can I change my answer?”
Dustin: And what exactly are your marketable skills, Meg? Being cruel and dismissive of others’ feelings while using your phone? I mean sure, health insurance companies can always use call center staff, but beyond that…
JP: “Isn’t that sweet, my boyfriend is spying on me!”
Lio: Turn around, Lio. Never work for a mad scientist that refuses to respect your safe word.
Luann: “Local theater helper”? What the hell does that even mean? Backstage crew? Box office staff? Usher? Unpaid volunteer who does all of the above and more in exchange for free booze at the cast party?
MW: We’re finding out what happens when an unstoppable busybody meets an unmeddleable object.
MW: Full offense, doughboy, but you’re not exactly known for either your sharp intuition or emotional stability. You almost killed yourself over a broken shower radio and put a goldfish corpse in your freezer. But of course you’re getting what you want so everything is just peachy for Wilbie boy regardless of what everyone else feels.
Wilbur really is trying to beat out Mary for the most narcissistic character. Too bad she’s a self centered reality warper.
I’m pretty certain that nobody actually plays the Monopoly board game. People just collect the different editions that correspond to their personal interests. If you like a TV show or a popular movie or own a pet or enjoy a particular sporting event there is a special edition of Monopoly for it.
These are the same people buying the Funko Pops dolls and postage stamps they will never use so they are really just collectable stickers.
GG: I actually like the strip because it does follow a real life controversy involving NASCAR.
For years, the major tracks on the circuit have gobbled up by a company called ISC.
That company was controlled by the France family.
ISC was then sold to NASCAR.
A company controlled by the France family, which decides which tracks get which dates on the schedule.
Which leaves pretty much in the cold the tracks NOT owned by ISC/NASCAR.
It’s like if MLB’s schedule was completely set by the Yanks, Mets, Dodgers and Boston and they took all of the July 4th and other holiday dates and all summer weekends for themselves and the Rockies, A’s and Rays got home games only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NASCAR has fought off several anti-trust lawsuits and is in one now regarding its other rules that small teams say are unfair.
Gertie likes the game played by the France family’s rules.
@Yesyotujgtjj: Sick burn dude!
Me and my buds Skeets and Miguel used to osns all the time, but now we only do it on the weekends since Skeets got a gig working at the In and Out in Redondo Beach.
Dustin: They got tired of finding him a new job every week so now they just tell him he’s overqualified for everything.
Yesterday’s Dustin: Where is he coming up with these numbers? People do not burn 1600 calories while sitting on the couch. He wants as little physical activity as possible.
Mary Worth: Wilbur is definitely eating a poison muffin intended for Dawn.
Hi and Lois – It’s been obviously trending this way for a while, but Hi has now comfortably settled into his Plugger era. He’s aged out of the advertiser’s key demo (where money is now spent on TikTok, YouTube, and in video games), and very little media is made for him, hence he has to attach his identity to consuming what is being made for older formats, regardless of the content or its quality.
Gearhead Gertie – The 1997 collectors Monopoly board is a time capsule that mostly serves as a curiosity of one-prominent sponsors that no longer exist. It there was a Comics Curmudgeon Monopoly board from 2007 then Apartment 3-G, Funky Winkerbean, and newspaper Spider-Man would be properties on the board.
Shoe – Too bad for Perfesser, who will have to look over at Mary Worth and see Wilbur celebrate his daughter not being murdered by his crazy lover by taking another cruise where he falls off a boat and survives.
The Lockhorns – LeRoy knows he’s heard this joke before, probably from Crankshaft, but who cares? Who’s really reading and laughing. Spring is in full swing, but he’s only got ennui.
I have so many questions. None of them are specifically comics related though. So I’ll be back later when I can sort through it.
Lockhorns: Joke’s on you, Leroy – the university down the Hempstead Turnpike just seized your house to build new dorms. Looks like a HOFSTRA takeover!
@Needless Exposition: I think Wilbur passed Mary as the most narcisstic character in Mary Worth long ago, and now challenging Les Moore for the most narcissistic character in the history of the comics page.
@UncleJeff:
(NASCAR is) like if MLB’s schedule was completely set by the Yanks, Mets, Dodgers and Boston and they took all of the July 4th and other holiday dates and all summer weekends for themselves and the Rockies, A’s and Rays got home games only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
So it’s exactly like college football then?
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Banana, you’re so right you’ve made me sad
H&L – https://youtu.be/lC_2274dNag?si=54D7FhnE08KORRLm
GG – No Ru Paul’s drag race, either….
Shoe – The birds continually shit in my bird bath – maybe I should quit taking them….
Schlockhorns – Loretta dreams of this as the site of Leroy’s dirt nap….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@A Grave Mind: I’m just the messenger.
Shoe: I envision Shoe inching his way ever closer to the Perfesser’s beer mug and flicking his cigar ashes into it as a parting gesture to show his utter disdain for everything the Perfesser stands for.
If the floating timeline is correct, Hi should still be 39, so why is he so devoted to his radio and his printed newspapers, as if he were 80? Because Hi is not a Boomer, he’s a Millennial, thus a hipster married to old, inferior, but more authentic technologies such as vinyl, non-digital broadcasting and dead trees!
Dustin: The unseen 4th panel is Dustin dumping his soda all over Megan’s laptop.
…Wait, didn’t I say this a couple days ago? I’m getting as annoying and repetitive as this strip!
H&L: “Let me introduce myself…”
*spends the next few hours wordlessly rearranging the furniture and painting the walls a different color, all while Chip just stands in the same spot looking on in confusion, and finally sits back down*
“…I’m nobody.”
Gil Thorp – @ValdVin: beat me to the cricket bat reference. I’ve been watching Phillies games, so even I know what a baseball bat looks like, and that ain’t it.
Gearhead Gertie – She should draw the go directly to jail card. Maybe they’ll put her in solitary confinement to shut her up.
Arlo & Janis – Brooke McEldowney, this is how to write a loving relationship that doesn’t make readers cringe.
@CanuckDownSouth: I hope someone reports this situation to school management soon. I can’t take much more of the bus drivers solving it.
@Ukulele Ike: Re GG – That explains why he started running – to get away from Gertie.
@Anonymous: yDustin: basal metabolism for *the full day* (yes, lying on a couch or in bed) versus *10 minutes of running*, varies a bit with weight but in the ballpark for reasonable adult size, available on a wide selection of online calorie counters
@A Grave Mind:
Can’t shoot you, WHO???