Do you think Leroy was doing the gesture during the movie
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The Lockhorns, 6/25/25
I really like the way Leroy is clutching his chest dramatically here. I imagine he already did this routine inside at the concession stand cash register, and Loretta is extremely over it, but now some new people have come along upon whom he can inflict this bit. Or, perhaps even better, he’s doing it specifically because he knows it will humiliate Loretta by forcing her to explain the bit to these people, whom I assume to be total strangers to the Lockhorns. I truly will never tire of analyzing in minute detail the passive aggressive antics that these two will never tire of subjecting each other to.
Luann, 6/25/25
Man, remember when this strip’s ribaldry was over-the-top and grotesque? Now nobody involved can seem to muster up any energy as they talk about handling buns and weenies or biting into dripping, phallic breakfast food or whatnot. Sad!
Beetle Bailey, 6/25/25
Remember when “Miss Buxley Wednesday” was a fun, wholesome opportunity to see an old man (audience stand-in) ogling his sexy secretary? Now it’s just women callously announcing that their professional and economic futures are secure while an old man (audience stand-in) weeps about the fact that society has abandoned him. Maybe political correctness has gone too far?
115 replies to “Do you think Leroy was doing the gesture during the movie”
It took me about 30 seconds to realize that the name of the coffee shop is “PercUP Coffee” and the sign wasn’t some AI-generated gibberish.
Mary Worth: That “at least where Dawn is concerned” is doing some heavy lifting!
@johnny lt: I’d assumed it was “you pay per cup”. . . unlike other coffee shops?
Luann – I woke up wondering if I could make it through the day without reading the sentence “your table wiping days are over.” Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.
LH: Loretta is ignoring Leroy’s cardiac infarction to get her last opportunity to mock her husband.
Luann: Having Luann handle food is probably better than handling cleaning products. She shouldn’t be trusted handling anything sharper or deadlier than a slice of bread.
MW: The character shilling of Wilbur Weston continues with the addition of dehumanizing Dawn in order to maintain Wilbur’s delicate fee-fees. After all, nobody cares about how she was almost poisoned at least three times because Wilbur’s happiness is more important than something as cheap as his only child’s life.
Luann: Have the writers of this strip ever had a fast food job, or met someone who did? Going from table-wiping to “food handling” is not a promotion. You’ll be expected to do both, and every other disgusting low-end task.
MW: The defaced photo and the poisoned meals are hanging over this story like the Sword of Damocles. Dawn would be a lot less “forgiving” if she knew she shouldn’t be alive. And Wilbur would probably get mad at her for stealing his bit.
CS: This is a window into a family that’s centered around an abusive narcissist. Ed wants his garden watered, and it damn well better be, even though he routinely destroys Pam and Jeff’s home and never faces any consequences for it.
Frazz: This strip isn’t nearly charming or intellectual enough to get away with fourth wall breaks.
“No sympathy for me?! Now I know how those Vietnamese civilians I gunned down felt!”
@johnny lt: I think the U and P are merged to form the shape of a coffee cup, with the P being the handle. It’s actually pretty clever, but it does look like AI-generated text, like you said.
MW: I can almost forgive Moy for this abominably protracted denouement if “…at least where DAWN is concerned…” is immediately followed by Mary gravely intoning a comprehensive litany of Wilbur’s quirky fuck-ups and the resulting list of names of the people about whom Wilbur should absolutely feel guilty or regretful.
Lhs: Sure the snacks may have been expensive, but you also probably shelled out 30$ to se a movie called ‘Holiday Horror’? Doesn’t sound like the latest Denis Villeneuve epic experience, maybe you’d have been better waiting for that one to come out on your streaming service of preference.
Luann Here you are, Luann perverts: the filthiest bit of dialogue you’re ever going to get from this strip. Enjoy it to its fullest.
BB My secret theory on this strip is that it’s a lighthearted version of Heart of Darkness/ Apocalypse Now where Camp Swampy is actually a remote outpost that has severed ties with central command and is now fully under the command of General Halftrack. Sure, he hasn’t been massacaring villagers or ritually sacrificing animals, but he does know that they’ll be hell to pay when his commanders do eventually catch up with him. He’ll get some sympathy from me now, but I’ll reserve judgement until after the inquest.
@Banana Jr. 6000: The saddest part is how Dawn adores her father but she’s not even in the top three of Wilbur’s favorite lifeforms. He has more emotional attachment to a dead goldfish than he does for her.
MW: Wilbur demonstrates his one skill- morphing into Victor Victim.
RMMD: Cody’s main concern is if he is doomed to look like THAT when he’s older.
” Let me ditch these sideburns, before they run amok.”
LUANN: She’s just now moving up to food-handling? The Weenieworld corporate ladder is a veritable Everest!
BB: What place IS there, really, for a hundred year-old incompetent General whose wife wants him anywhere but home? I’d be worried, too!
LH: To really push Leroy toward that fatal heart attack, Loretta insisted on getting a second drink as they left the cinema. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she chuckles dismissively, as she sees the stares of the crowd. “He’s just being silly. Absolutely no need to call an ambulance.” And all the while, she thinks *Die! Die! Die!*
@Charterstoned: Oh, but Wilbur was the innocent party in all of this. His ex-wife should have accepted his endearing quirks and not toss him and Dawn out of her life. Iris should have been more attractive and not a cradle robbing gold digger who Wilbur groped in public because she got in the way of his soy sauce. Fabiana should have known how much of a stud he was and been a better gold digging wife. Estelle made the mistake of not being Iris and having a cat who took attention away from him. And Belle shouldn’t have tried to touch his goldfish.
BB: Miss Buxley is not upset at all. A young striking blonde will have no problem finding office work and a new boyfriend. So long, Beetle!
@Needless Exposition: With Luann, it’s truly a case of ‘pick your poison’: chlorine gas from mixing cleaning products or salmonella from leaving the mayonnaise out in the sun?
Shlockhorns – White trousers with a yellow crotch stain would have made this into a funny panel….
Luann – Did you know those, All Employees Must Wash Hands After Using Restroom signs are just for show….
BB – Why don’t ya just f-f-f-ade away. And don’t try ta hear what we all say….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Luann: I want to say a) it’s a cute, funny touch that Greg Evans has integrated his signature box into the cafe’s menu and b) it gives me hope that someone is going to eat Greg and the long national nightmare of Luann will finally be over.
Lockhorns: [Leroy collapses gasping onto the sidewalk]
Lorretta: Yes, Leroy, the cement is more comfortable than the theater seats.
Leroy: I’m having a heart attack! Call 911!
Loretta: I get it, you’re annoyed that so many kids were talking and texting on their phones during the movie.
Leroy: I see a white light! God, I’m coming!
Loretta: Ignore him. He’s always shouting “God, I’m coming” prematurely.
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur’s goldfish, who symbolizes the fact that he still isn’t over Estelle. That alone is reason for Mary to call bullshit on this pity party, as well as the one he had when Stellan died. Belle’s only misdeed was coming between Wilbur and his monument to the dead relationship he won’t let go of. (SEE ALSO: Lisa’s Story.)
@Needless Exposition: You could say the same sentence about Crankshaft. “The saddest part is how Pam adores her father but she’s not even in the top three of Ed’s favorite lifeforms. He has more emotional attachment to plants than he does for her.”
@The Quiet Man: Now, now, Luann is stupid enough to not only do both but lock herself in the dishwasher.
@Charterstoned: “the resulting list of names of the people about whom Wilbur should absolutely feel guilty or regretful.”
Whoa, whoa. That’s step 8, and making amends is step 9. Wilbur hasn’t even done step 1, admitting his life is unmanageable – possibly because Mary steers him away from that, to maintain her own need for a codependent relationship.
@Schroduck: Sorry, but one look at her drippy boyfriend should indicate that no one is going to be eating Luann’s “signature box” anytime soon (“Darn! Guess I’m stuck trying to ‘satisfy’ myself with clumsy innuendo!”)
Regarding Josh’s Beetle Bailey comment: Specifically, that said sexy secretary will have no problem finding alternative avenues of employment because of her sexy sexiness!
Wait… if Camp Swampy could be closed down, is that hinting that Beetle Bailey could possibly be ending soon??? Are we about to have Beetle join the cast of Hi and Lois as the kids’ unemployable shellshocked veteran uncle? (To be clear, unemployable due to his laziness and shellshocked due to his torment at the hands of Sarge, not because of anything having to do with any actual combat he ever saw.)
MW: Y’all really nailed it already today, however I personally would have appreciated if, after “At least where Dawn is concerned” Mary had said “Though that is a point where her and I disagree…” Cause he should probably feel pretty shitty about that too, lol
Luann – So Phil McCracken can suck cock better than Luann? No surprise there.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Truly Belle should have been more considerate of Wilbur’s feelings when she had her manic episode. After all, she should know that he’s the priority.
@Needless Exposition: Now, now, Luann is stupid enough to create chlorine gas from mixing cleaning products, and salmonella from leaving the mayonnaise out in the sun, and lock herself in the dishwasher.
…all at the same time.
So phalluses are long but flat, hard, brittle, and flavored with anise and almond? That tracks with the level of sex ed in Luann.
Beetle Bailey: Dangit, I just bought a “Sorry to hear you’re a senile, golf-obsessed alcoholic and sex pest” card. Now I have to find a “Thinking of you as you retire on a general officer’s pension” card that doesn’t cost $6.99? I’ll be in Target all day!
That the food handlers apparently aren’t required to routinely maintain and sanitize their grills and prep stations to keep them free of disease-spreading bacteria tells me everything I need to know before stopping into Weenie World.
The US Military has a mandatory retirement age of 64 for high ranking officers. This is so you don’t end up with some extremely old geezer in charge.
BB: Will Beetle and company become civilians after all these years? Maybe he and Zero can open a restaurant and become the white Herb & Jamaall.
Beetle Bailey-“Break out the guns and the cyanide pills! The day we have been long preparing for has come! No one from the government dares to shut us down without a fight!”
Luann-Shouldn’t food handling been one of the first things Luann was trained for. I can’t imagine she was hired at this restaurant just to wipe tables. Please tell me she is being paid in cash under the table.
RMMD-I like to think that all this talk of music is just a euphemism for something else.
RMMD-Oh! That’s such a shame that we didn’t get two weeks of them playing music.
MW-Dawn still hasn’t forgiven you for faking your death.
FC-“Your father would play the squirrel game with me too.”
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: perk up too. Clever imo
They’re still calling it Camp Swampy? I thought the administration changed it back to its original name, Camp Benedict Arnold.
***
It took me a moment to realize that it’s not PercLP Coffee, but PercUP Coffee with the lack of kerning meant to make it look like a coffee cup. Fortunately this is the work of a comic artist and not a professional graphic designer whose job it is to make professional branding to attract customers instead of annoying them. I’m sure there are a lot of people who got excited about getting their morning joe will perusing vinyl records.
I’m not usually a Luann hater, but the wordplay in “PerCup Coffee” isn’t really worth deciphering. When even your comic strip’s puns haven’t woken up for the day, it’s worth taking a nap before starting another draft of the comic.
GT: Worst. Prom-prosal. Ever.
MT: Oh no, the horrors – parents actually keeping an eye on young kids playing in the water where there are presumably no lifeguards because Lost Forest isn’t a tourist beach!
JP: I was thinking the artist had some acquaintance in mind to (badly) copy for the new character, but today makes me think it’s from a puppet show.
Also, it would be funny if they discovered the *European* full-size beds aren’t as big as they expect, and are more constraining in some ways than the “long twin bed” in many American dorms
Luann – It’s a shame morcock69 isn’t still around to see this. It would kill him if he weren’t already (presumably) dead.
Also, nice side jut today in The Family Circlejerk.
In the missing follow-up panel, Luann says to Phil, “But your ass-wiping days aren’t.”
MW: “Now Willa feels differently. She’s contacted a lawyer for a legal separation agreement. Go get her and her bowl now, you odious little toad. I’ve already called the ASPCA.”
Hi and Lois: You thought Trixie was going to get over Sunbeam’s betrayal? She is not over it. She is so not over it.
Finally, the Base Realignment Commission has come for Camp Swampy, and soon it will no longer been named for Confederate General Buford T. ‘Swampy’ Pusser, famed for losing his entire corps to quicksand and alligators during the one-sided Battle of Putrid Bayou.
Beetle Bailey: As Tip O’Neil once noted – all politics is local. So, this is the end of the line for old Halftrack.
DT: Looking forward to see how this all ties together.
MW: Because these strips are usually created weeks to months ahead of time, the writer can’t easily pivot away from now obvious error. While, having Tall Wilber (Avery) show up and scoop Bats away is convenient, it left a tangle to loose ends (What is her fate? What happened? Who is Avery? Did she ever work for Megacorp? Did anyone ever find the defaced picture of Dawn? Had Bats poison or worse killed others in the past?)
JP: We need more Norwegian content – or is all that panelling Norwegian wood? Remember we need documentation to justify that expensive trip to Oslo.
RMMD: Good focus Truck – you are getting married. Invitations are all out. Rex is slavering over the potential cake.
Luann – (Jack Nicholson voice) You want buns and weenies? YOU CAN’T HANDLE BUNS AND WEENIES!
Don Abundio, translated:
“How about a little kiss, baby?”
“I don’t even know you, Don Abundio”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything”
“After all, we were introduced five minutes ago and I’ve already forgotten your name!”
FC: If that grocery sack had an eyeball Thel would’ve poked it out with her boob.
GT: Trail’s next animal of interest is Naegleria fowleri. “Thanks to the Clean Water Act, kids. This amoeba is now present in every lake and pond in North America.”
Luann-“As soon as I learn my numbers they’ll put me on the cash register.”
Lockhorns: To be fair to Leroy, why did Loretta need to buy a soda to go at the concession stand after the movie?
FG: Mongovian technology has achieved a helmet that TURNS WITH YOUR HEAD! Astonishing. We Earthers still have to make do with Side windows.
Lockhorns: Leroy looks like he’s having a heart attack after all that popcorn. Not shown is the new seven-figure life insurance policy Loretta took out on him.
Looks like an open and shut case of Double Butter Indemnity.
“Don’t worry general, the rumour was magnified in transmission! The Pentagon simply wants to change the name Camp Swampy, as part of restoring Confederate names to military bases”
“Ah ok. Wait, Camp Swampy was not named after a Confederate General!”
“It’s a very energetic campaign”
@Needless Exposition: Having Luann handle food is probably better than handling cleaning products. She shouldn’t be trusted handling anything sharper or deadlier than a slice of bread.
Really? You think putting Luann in charge of preparing and handling food in a sanitary manner is less dangerous than spraying down the glass doors? You’ve heard of Typhoid Mary; get ready for Listeria Luann!
They’ll never close Camp Swampy, like they’ll never cancel ‘Beetle Bailey”! The Pentagon is like the newspaper comics syndicates: they don’t cut legacy dead wood!
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Re: Luann. Here in Philly, there’s a great coffee shop/used record store called “Milk Crate.” So yes—at least one such place exists.
I never worked fast food—I was in real restaurants, worked my way up from dishwasher to line cook—but there are definitely some overlapping experiences. Specifically, I’m waiting for Luann to get stoned on her break, or snort some cheap speed in the basement to make it through breakdown and cleanup.
Luann: One Girl, Percup
This strip was probably written at the beginning of Doge, when cutting government expenditure and punishing civil servants in high positions was all the rage. Sorry the temporal lag screwed this joke guys, we are now at the stage ‘WWIII might be imminent’!
BB: General Halftrack realizes he’ll be forced into retirement, sent back into a civilian world he left so long ago he barely recognizes it anymore. What form will his eventual breakdown take? Substance abuse? Suicide? A bloody killing spree? It’s only a matter of time before he finds out.
L’horns: I commend the makers of Horror Holiday for creating an original movie in this era of sequels, reboots, and franchises, even if it means they were forced to go with a generic title because the realm of celebration-based horror is so heavily saturated.
Luann: How has Luann not been fired already? You can’t tell me her boss can’t find a college dropout pothead who can do her job at least as well as she can.
The first Horror Holiday was a pretty solid deconstruction of two genres, horror flicks and Christmas movies. However, Leroy and Loretta just saw Horror Holiday V: The Leperchaun, which admittedly did feature some excellent practical effects involving the titular Irish fairy’s battle with Hanson’s disease, but was otherwise both banal in its examination of St. Patrick’s Day and bloated, given the three-hour run time.
Luann: Mr. Weenie World manager, did you know that Luann’s parents own an actual full service restaurant with liquor license? Kind of makes you wonder why even they won’t hire her.
Luann: Going from janitor to waitress at the same shitty fastfood joint is not the dramatic career progress that Luann seems to think it is.
Lockhorns-Leroy couldn’t afford the large popcorn to do the popcorn trick.
Dustin-“Shut your damn dirty whorish mouth!”
FC – What? No baguette or celery peeking out the grocery bags?
The booze is hidden at the bottom of the bags.
Frazz – “Brilliant metaphor!” Don’t encourage the insufferable little asshole.
JP – I know that clown haired woman is an American, but by now she should be using the European style of referring to the first floor as the ground floor, and the second floor as the first floor. Otherwise, the Boobsey Twins will freak out the first time they get in a European elevator.
Mary Worth – I honestly do not know how much more of this steaming bullshit I can take. Wilbur blithely ignored Dawn’s increasing unease, and now he’s grief stricken, with Mary hovering over him and feeding him platitudes to make him feel better. NO ONE should feel anything positive about this clusterfark of a story. Especially Karen Moy.
9CL – What charming people.
Brewster Rockit – “Thag.” Nice Far Side tribute.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Whaaat? Fast food places don’t have dedicated bussers? I’m pretty sure neither Evans has ever worked in a fast food place, but I’m certain Karen has screamed at some underpaid worker about her coffee being lukewarm.
@TheDiva: #59: re-Luann:
“How has Luann not been fired already?”
The same reason that Ed Crankshaft, Dagwood Bumstead, and Thirsty Thurston haven’t.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I choose to believe morecock69 just couldn’t handle the transition to the new site and is writing his commentary in journals, which will be fascinating to those who study serial killers.
@brendancalling:
Bringing up this “real restaurant vs fast food” thing is reminding me that this strip has the main character’s family OWN a restaurant, yet she’s working at another place. I guess it’s because Luann only got this job she hates and feels is beneath her because she wanted to convince Phil that she was capable of earning money on her own without depending on her parents
(unlike Bernice), but I feel like “I do depend on my parents, because I WORK for them, because my family OWNS A RESTAURANT” is just as valid?Though I guess Luann suddenly deciding to work at The Fuze/Kafé Kablooie feels incredibly… BELATED, for lack of a better word…@TheDiva:
Let’s remember that Luann got the job because she asked right after overhearing a pretty intense screaming match between the manager and an employee that lead to the employee quitting on the spot.
So Weenie World is keeping her because she’s stupid enough to want to work there. Meanwhile, Luann took a job at a place where incredibly loud arguments in the customer’s earshot that lead to someone stomping out of the place in a rage isn’t a big deal, and it’s a job she hates, feels is beneath her, believes is ruining her schedule and took away her summer, etc. just to impress some dumb male nurse who’s only thing she has in common is an interest in the continued life of a nonagenarian.
Luann-“The manager says that I can help with the 4:20 to 50 shipment.”
@MKay:
#2. RMMD: What a let down for Truck if quasi accurate test says he’s not the father. Cody put a lot of time and energy into learning Trucks catalog , so Truck will adopt him anyway .
@taig: June 25; Luann gets a job at Weenieworld. Do they think I’ve forgotten Ann Eiffel, maneating trollop! To place my Luann at a job with weenies and Eiffels, they know the insinuations, the ruin they bring to her inner beauty, the Evans know. Soon they will know fear and my vengeance, as soon as I remember my password to the comment site.
@pugfuggly: So who’s going to tell Halftrack’s wife that his last word was her name?
C’shaft: Didn’t they just do an entire bit about how Crankshaft had installed an elaborate automated watering system?
Dustin: Ha-ha, yes, tattoos! A thing that only The Kids These Days have, and which they only get because they’re stupid and don’t realize they’ll never be able to get a good job with one!
Personally, I’d like to know what the tattoo is before making snap decisions on this gal. Flower or abstract design? No red flags. Bible verse? Tread carefully. Her Hogwarts house? Swipe left with extreme prejudice.
GT: Geez Louise, Keri, learn to coordinate! Your earrings say late 80s rap star, your shirt says off-duty mechanic, and the Sonic Youth patch says mother of three pining for her carefree single days.
MW: Yes, Wilbur, it is important that you never feel guilt or shame, ever, because you are Mediocre White Man and the world should revolve around and cater to you specifically.
Beetle Bailey-Sorry, General, but for you it will be a bullet to the back of the head out behind the chemical toilets.
Luann – So they’re training her for SafServ certification? Wow, the strips with her being a sanctimonious bitch about food safety in her mother’s home kitchen practically write themselves!
@Ettorre: Little known fact: in a tribute to the funny pages, Mort Walker’s Camp Swampy was originally named after General Jubilation T. Cornpone — the Confederate hero of Cornpone’s Retreat, Cornpone’s Rout, and Cornpone’s Disaster.
— thanx and a tip o’ the Capp to Al Hat
@Ettorre: “Except instead of restoring the actual Confederate names, they’re naming them for non-Confederates with the same last names.* So as of next week, this is Camp Ruta Lee.”
*This is actually true.
@taig: That’s not exactly what I said. But I do think Luann’s job of “wiping tables” seems overspecialized for the type of restaurant she works in. Unless it’s a huge location, or it’s a role for someone who is cognitively limited. I doubt even a high-end sit-down fast food place like Five Guys or Chipotle has dedicated bussers, except for the same reasons.
Luann: A reach-around?
The Lockhorns – The difference between the Lockhorns and your family members lazily posting jpeg-artifacted memes on Facebook is that LeRoy commits to the bit physically. LeRoy wants you to feel awkward and uncomfortable with his physical clowning, not give a simple like or commenting “So True!!!”
Luann – Gen-Z, which comic book time has moved Luann into, is having less sex and less interest in it, so the strip is shifting from “zany comic” and more realism comic. When Batiuk moved off Funky Winkerbean, creator Greg Evans took the mantle. Sucks for Brad, who will be picked to be the example for the shockingly high rates of colon cancer affecting young people.
Beetle Bailey – Generation X, which comic book time has moved General Halftrack into, is having less sex and less interest in it, so this strip is shifting to realism of what older men really want from their young female subordinates – emotional labor to uphold their egos in a fast-changing world that is passing them by.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I was agreeing with your statement. That was sarcastic incredulity, but an internet comment isn’t the best way to convey that.
@Treetown: The way that Avery casually mentions that he hopes that nothing serious happened suggests that Belle has either attempted to or successfully poisoned others. Either way, he’s a little too blasé about the fact that his sister simply escaped from her constant supervision.
@TheDiva: If Ann Eiffel was still the manager of Weenie World, one could say that Luann is Bernice’s proxy in an attempt to ruin Ann’s life for sexually harassing her by causing lasting damage and harm to the restaurant. Bernice would be the type to sic her mentally disabled “friend” so that she doesn’t get her hands dirty.
FG: back when they were escaping old Flash and Azura’s ice palace, werent there five heroes — Flash, Dale, Bok Thun, Dr. Z? And I thought there were four slots (spatial disks). Where are Thun (aaaaah….), Dale, Dr. Z?
@Weaselboy: #4
Unfortunately, given the current state of my kitchen, my “table wiping days” will never be over…
A more realistic Crankshaft would be “He’s gone! Quick, before he comes back, rip out the entire garden, salt the earth, and lay down asphalt. And sell or give away all that Beans End crap he keeps buying.”. That would show him roughly the same level of consideration that he shows pretty much everyone else.
I’d sympathize with Halftrack if he wasn’t already spending most of his day golfing, napping, and getting annoyed by people expecting him to do work.
@taig: Oh, sorry, I didn’t catch your tone. My bad.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
#78. LUANN: They certainly didn’t have dedicated bussers or table wipers when I was at Chipotle’s, which is why I got take out. Yuck. Last concession stand I worked at i was first to wipe counter before selling. Man, did our sales and tips improve.
@Needless Exposition: There’s also the question of what right Avery has to take away Belle, an adult who is apparently capable of traveling cross-country by herself. He didn’t introduce himself as a doctor, and any Power of Attorney scenarios hint at his interest in Belle being much darker than the story wants us to believe.
@Banana Jr. 6000: No worries. I realize how my comment could have come across the way you read it, since tone isn’t exactly clear in text. Mea culpa.
Dustin: And yet we know Megan will get a tramp stamp once she turns 18.
FC: No offense to Sid, but those are some really ugly squirrels.
@Ukulele Ike: Love it!
The Cornpone Legacy remains alive in the US Senate in the form of John Kennedy of Louisiana.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Having the whole thing wrap up simply by Avery showing up and taking a clearly unstable Belle away was probably Moy’s attempt at being funny. But if anything, it’s having the opposite effect. She should have just stuck with the Fatal Attraction angle instead of borderline mocking people with mental disorders and acting as though they’re a danger to society and should be isolated. It also makes Wilbur’s actions even worse than just neglecting his daughter and practically offering her up to be poisoned so that he could get laid.
Ogling Miss Buxley?!? She’s so poorly drawn as to be misshapen! What kind of withered freak would ogle Miss Buxley?
Judge Parker ain’t what it used to be with respect to ogling, but before Mike Manley changed styles, April, Katherine, Neddy and Abbey were the epitome of daily strip ogle-ability!
@morcock69: Nice! I’d love a series of entries styled like Rorschach’s journal for Luann.
Lockhorns: No remarks about how the real Holiday horror is your mother-in-law? The concession prices must be steep indeed.
Luann: Jeeze Louise? Inma, next time kindly invoke the name of your prophet in your blasphemies.
@Activist: They left Thun behind with the lion-men, but I am wondering why we aren’t getting a week of each (so Dale and Zarkov getting a turn) before returning to Flash (yeah, yeah, headliner – but still)
@JamesBont: #91: A tramp stamp? Hell, she’ll probably go for a full-arm sleeve job.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Cheese n rice, what are you talikg about?
@TheDiva: #73: re-Dustin: Her jailbird gang member ex boyfriend’s name on her neck, definite red flag!
Hi and Lois – Try the Comics Curmudgeon, kid. We make lots of cracks.
Leroy’s bit doesn’t make any sense without Loretta delivering the punchline, so I think she is a fully willing participant in this one.
@Sky daddy: 101: Sorry, that was supposed to be Gil Thorp.
@johnny lt: It took me about 30 seconds to realize that the name of the coffee shop is “PercUP Coffee” and the sign wasn’t some AI-generated gibberish
____________
It should have been Perc-U-Up Coffee
@Ukulele Ike: The lack of a complete collection of Lil’ Abner is a crime against culture
GT: Has it been established if Horse Girl is gay? So far she’s been depicted as a loner with few friends, more interested in interacting with horses than people.
@Anonymous: I grew up in Newport, RI—big resort town, lots of restaurants. A LOT of my friends’ parents owned restaurants, and you bet I worked side by side with their kids. A dozen of my friends grew up to become chefs or restaurant owners themselves. There’s no reason why Luann shouldn’t be working at the Fuze or whatever it’s called. If this strip was even remotely tethered to reality, she would have been working there all along.
BTW: working in a restaurant kitchen—crazy hours and drugs aside—was great for me, and has paid dividends as an adult.
@Needless Exposition: Even if we could write this all off as a misguided attempt at humor, the humor itself is misguided. Because if there’s a joke anywhere in this story, it’s on Wilbur. The joke is that his cruise ship hookup showed up on his doorstep uninvited, moved into his house, then turned out to be a mentally unstable psycho killer with a weird attraction to men who look like her own brother.
Of course, this is only funny in a crapsack world/dark humor scenario. It’s downright awful, even before you get into the ham-handed treatment of mental illness. The story is also an indictment of Wilbur’s poor choices, his inability to learn from them, how deluded he is about his own desirability, and what we’re seeing this week: how he falls in love with any woman who gives him the time of day. His relationship with Belle never grew in any way, but now he can’t live without her for some reason.
Rather than Wilbur being the butt of the joke, the story is bending over backwards to make excuses for him, to the extent of concealing Belle’s murder attempts the from all the other characters. Even though his refusal to eat the food implied he knew what Belle was up to.
@Banana Jr. 6000: The lack of lasting consequences for Wilbur has turned him from someone to find humorous to being disgusted by how the world conforms to him. We have yet to see him being considerate to anyone without him smugly bragging about how great of a person he is for doing the bare minimum. He acts like he’s entitled to date women completely out of his league and, in the case of Meagan, not much older than his daughter. And of course he thinks he’s Father of the Year because he pays begrudging attention to Dawn while gaslighting her at points until she’s been submissively broken down into a spineless Daddy’s girl who openly accepts and enables Wilbur treating her like an afterthought. He only has a genuine connection to his goldfish because he’s able to project whatever he wants onto them.
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur is another example of the Unsympathetic Protagonist + Karma Houdini combination that is so prevalent in newspaper comics now. Audiences can get behind an unlikeable protgonist, but we need to see them get what they’ve got coming every once in awhile. Or at least get some pushback from other characters.
And I still don’t think Belle is much older than his daughter either, based on her name almost certainly being taken from a 1991 Disney movie.
Lockhorns — Actually, the Lockhorns were under the impression that the “Horror Holiday” title meant the film was going to be about hosting Christmas dinner. . .
BB — A lifetime of having his *ss kissed on a regular basis has left General Halftrack unsasiated and unprepared for the day when it will end. Yelling at the golf course groundskeepers just isn’t going to be the same. . .
@Doc Wonmug: Miss Buxley used to look Real Different.
@Ettorre: I agree. Unfortunately Denis Kitchen was only able to publish reprints of the Lil’ Abner dailies from 1934-1959 (one book covered one year) before Kitchen Sink Press went bankrupt, and he didn’t get around to the Sundays at all.
Has anyone picked up the slack in the last 20 years? Those KSP volumes were exemplary in terms of introductory material and print quality.
Lockhorns: Do we think Leroy kept the bit up for all 2.5 hours of the movie plus trailers?