Wish I had a sweet nickname like “The Margrave” honestly
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Wizard of Id, 6/4/25
As far as I know, the Wizard of Id has never added any vaguely medieval monk/priest type characters to its vaguely medieval setting, so that leaves as an open question what “sweet lord” the Wizard is addressing in panel two. Is it the dark lord of magic, from whom he receives his eldritch power but whom he finds terrifying and repellent, like this hideous fish? Or is he merely addressing his sovereign the King of Id, from whom all sovereignty flows and who has the right of first refusal to every fish caught in his realm’s rivers and lakes, even the ugly ones?
Flash Gordon, 6/4/25
The new Flash Gordon strip is still doing its thing — which is to say, having great art and fun stories that I don’t talk about very much on my blog but rest assured, they’re there. Today I mostly wanted to draw your attention to the “NEXT:” narration box in panel four, which is possibly the greatest narration box of all time.
Intelligent Life, 6/4/25
Ha ha, remember two days ago, when I complained about how vague and nonspecific Mike’s dialogue was? “He should actually name the geek media franchises he’s talking about,” I said. “He definitely wouldn’t use that as an opportunity to talk about which fictional blue creatures he would or would not have sex with,” I added, like a fool.
Alice, 6/4/25
Alice’s friend, that’s not what that means at all! This is very bad advice!
157 replies to “Wish I had a sweet nickname like “The Margrave” honestly”
MW: Moy expects me to believe that Belle is insane enough to attempt murder by Drano consumption, but not insane enough to just shove Dawn and Wilbur face-first into their plates.
I think the “Intelligent Life” driver popped a boner in panel four.
ALICE: This sounds like a friend group that Dawn Weston should have.
MW: OK, someone please wake me up when these two geniuses just get up and LEAVE THE TABLE.
IL: Are these characters supposed to have microcephaly? Are they both descendants of Roger Stone?
RMMD:
“Aren’t we all wrestlin’ with that question?”
Nah. Many of us have decided that our raison d’etre is to comment mindlessly on daily comics, and to seek the virtual adulation of like-minded total strangers who think that what we have written is funny and clever.
WoI “Suck fin”! Ha! It’s a fish version of “Suck hand”, that popular phrase we all use.
Alice Oh, I guess ‘girl talk’ is kinda like ‘girl dinner’, in that ‘girl’ is a sort of ‘pseudo’ modifier, which makes it ‘lies’?
MW: Belle distracts Wilbur and Dawn with her screaming “EAT IT” harangue, even as the father and daughter sit, blissfully unaware that the mucilage Belle has applied to their chairs is not only keeping them glued to their seats, but is working its deadly toxic magic on their stupid asses.
MW: I’m lost here. Is Belle now attempting to murder both Wilbur *and* Dawn? Or did she only poison Dawn’s plate? Are we headed for a Priness Bride type scenario here where the plates keep getting switched?
None of this makes any sense.
Wizard of Id. If it were truly the Middle Ages, it would have been “Ew, look at that! It’s evil. Kill it!”
Thanks, Intelligent Life, for reminding us all of all those happy halcyon days when we cranked it to Smurfette. Which took place between “Never,” and “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
WoI – Suck fin, indeed – shitty…senseless…stupid fin….
IA -…and some teletubbies….
FG – We can end this doctor? Is that authorization for a digital prostate exam?
Alice – They call that grading responses on the Belle curve….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Honestly, there’s no comic that wouldn’t be 100% improved by announcing that one of its characters was about to be punched in the face. “Next: Wilbur Is Punched Unconscious!” would be the biggest cliffhanger since “Who Shot J.R.?” and singlehandedly save the print newspaper industry.
GA: Good thing everyone’s telling me Boog just graduated high school. I’d never guess otherwise.
Pluggers: Real Pluggers are dedicated to the task of adding black lines to paint-by-numbers kits.
Since there actually IS a Smurfs movie (the trailer is truly unwatchable slop) coming out this very summer, the attempt to be a nerd humor strip on the edge is kind of falling apart here. I just hate that I agree that the news of Avatar movies is about as exciting as the prospect of tomorrow’s PvP tracings from this strip.
Luann: That’s the sort of lesson Bernice, the “responsible” one, should be teaching little children, Cheating!!
RMMD: CUT!! Truck, the word is “rasslin'”! Let’s take it from the top…
JP: The camera trucks in closer to Neddy and her dandelion… a voiceover is heard… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… [nuclear explosion]
@Lauralot: She’s saving that for the Sunday spread. I can just see Belle doing it too, like Moe from The Three Stooges.
MW: A fly lands on the spoonful of food and instantly drops dead. “Uh, maybe we should eat out.” Says Wilbur.
Wizard: How long do you think the writer spent reading Wikipedia articles about fish genitalia with increasing horror before settling on “suck fin”?
Intelligent Life: One of the best scenes of cult classic Donnie Darko sees Donnie angrily and surprisingly innocently defend the integrity of Smurfette and the whole Smurf canon against his friend’s dirty jokes. What I’m saying is, congratulations to Intelligent Life for somehow creating a pair of characters less likeable and sympathetic than Donnie Darko.
WoI: Pretty boy was sensible enough not to bite a baited hook. When the trend for eating trash fish comes to Id, who’ll have the last laugh?
FG:
General Tahl is “punched unconscious”??? — now, that’s a Tahl order.
MW – All will be forgiven if tomorrow’s panel features Willa knocking out Bella with a lamp. It would make more sense than anything that has happened for a while.
IL: I actually did not know there was another Avatar movie coming out this year and I can’t imagine a worse way I could have learnt about it than this.
Alice: It means he’s a chair salesman, and he’s very disappointed by the way the time spent with you has come out.
Belle’s motivation for murdering Dawn has never made 100% clear, but we can reasonably assume that Belle wants to eliminate a rival for Wilbur’s love and attention. Even though she’s, you know, his freakin’ daughter.
Belle’s motivation for swallowing Willa alive was, for once, clearly stated: Wilbur gets love and affection from *her* now, so the fish has got to go. That may have been clearly stated, but it’s ludicrously inane.
Belle’s motivation for murdering Wilbur – ??? Wouldn’t that…defeat the whole purpose of all the other murderin’? And, she does realize she would immediately be suspect #1 and almost certainly be imprisoned for life? Right? WTF is this characters entire deal?
Belle really needs to work on her Psychotic Mass Murderer motivation game.
Blondie: Dagwood finds the perfect word to describe his stroke-induced aphasia “Blah”.
RMMD:
“No less a troubadour than Neil Diamond said it best, son: ‘I am, I said/To no one there/And no one heard at all, not even the chair….’ ”
“Well, of course the chair wouldn’t hear, ‘Dad.’ Chairs are inanimate!”
MW: But, if there’s one thing I am pretty sure of, it’s that there *is* some seafood in that “vegan” seafood chowder, and that seafood is named Willa.
It’s like a gender-switched Titus Andronicus and I am here for that part!
Wrecks Moregone:
Well, apart from being an animal of Phylum Chordata,
Subphylum Gnathostomata, Class Mammalia, Subclass Eutheria, Order Primates, Suborder Hominidae, Genus H0mo, Species sapiens, you are a man afflicted by the same unfortunate sideburn addiction as your supposed father. Hope that helps.
Next time on Wizard of Id: A fish gets punched.
@The Quiet Man:
Luann: That’s the sort of lesson Bernice, the “responsible” one, should be teaching little children, Cheating!!
Also, Bernice managed to get Shannon to play quietly so she can continue
reading mermaid erotica, probablystudying for her college courses, hopefully, but because Shannon had a cry and said “You’re mean!”, she immediately caved and went “Nononononono, don’t sit quietly by yourself, I’ll do what you want!”Shannon being a horrible hellion would warrant more sympathy for the rest of the cast if it wasn’t for the fact that they ALWAYS let Shannon walk all over them and do whatever she wants.
************
Frazz : Oh, now I get what Caufield is trying to say : he’s saying that because most high school valedictorians don’t constantly brag about it the way Frazz does about running, then they’re either not actually proud of that accomplishment, or it’s not an accomplishment worth being proud of.
Maybe tomorrow Caufield will go to Frazz to mock Mrs Olsen behind her back over her thinking being a valedictorian is a good thing. And it’s too much to hope that rather than the usual of Frazz agreeing, we get a repeat of Caufield ranting about how people who decorate their houses for holidays should be killed, with Frazz reacting in horror and disgust at what Caufield is saying (or even better, a “Caufield, *I* am a valedictorian” “OH THEN VALEDICTORIANS ARE GREAT MRS OLSEN ISN’T ONE HERSELF SO *THAT’S* WHY SHE’S BAD!”)
Man, sorry for talking this much about FRAZZ…(P.S. is it just me, or is this another one of these bits where Caufield seems to be speaking as a kid who does rather poorly academically (rather than the wunderkind he supposedly is), like he’s shitting on the concept of being a valedictorian because HE will never be one?)
Spoiler alert:
This is the first time in this whole Wary Morth crazyfest that Bats In The Bellefry has *not* poisoned her cuisine, and she is justifiably enraged that none of these two will touch it! With her love for Wilbie Hon changing suddenly to bitter hatred, she reaches for the knife she’d sharpened and just lets fly.
Spoiled alert:
Wilbie Hon’s blubber apply protects his vitals so nothing happens to him.
Again.
MW: Belle now waves a spoonful at the Westons, but doesn’t actually eat it to show how good it is – did she poison *all* of the chowder? Will this toddler-level argument end with Belle too enraged to remember that, downing a mouthful, and keeling over because it’s half-drano and none of these chumps have a sense of smell to alert them to danger?? Next: Belle is poisoned by her own scheme!
GT: A public put down may be a little rough but with the Milford coaches doing nothing about it at least Inma is getting lessons in good sportsmanship *somewhere*
Alice: I’ve seen a lot of variants of the old One person always lies; the other always tells the truth. What one question do you ask to determine which is which? riddle but never one where the answer is: Do you love me?
Intelligent Life, narration box: NEXT: THESE CHARACTERS ARE PUNCHED UNCONSCIOUS, BY ME, I’M NOT CTHULHU, BUT I PLAY HIM ON TV.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Bah, the HTML symbol encoding I tried there didn’t work at all. Sort of like the joke in Intelligent Life. HIYOOOO
I hate to be the “actually” guy, but yes Wizard of Id has had a monk type character
https://alchetron.com/The-Wizard-of-Id#the-wizard-of-id-9fee6ea1-caf6-431d-b302-fe2efd0263f-resize-750.jpg
@Schroduck: I was going to say that today’s Intelligent Life reminded me of Wayne’s World, when Garth asks Wayne if he ever found Bugs Bunny attractive in drag. The difference is that Wayne laughed at the absurdity of it, and Garth had the self-awareness to backtrack.
Here, yellow shirt guy is also sharing a kink he should probably keep to himself. But red shirt guy is into it too, and neither of them recognizes the awkwardness of the sitution.
MW: This feels like an improv where the actors have run out of ideas to move the scene forward, and can only repeat their last ideas slightly louder each time.
@Ukranazi Stepan: The dish is vegan seafood chowder (per June 1 strip), so there’s a good chance Wilbur just doesn’t want to eat it.
I have vague recollections of a religious scribe in Wizard of Id, back when I was reading my dad’s comic strip collections. Was he real? Well, given Johnny Hart’s history with vaguely antisemitic/anti-Islamic comic strips, I’m okay with not finding out.
That ugly fish sure is pretty full of itself for someone who was just suckered into getting a hook jabbed into its mouth.
***
Smurfs are supposedly the height of three apples, but they appear to be a few inches at most. The average erect human penis is between 5 to 6 inches long. Either we’ve got bad news for Mike or he has shocking news for us.
@Astroboy 24: Do we know that Belle is trying to kill Wilbur, though? Maybe only Dawn’s chowder is poisoned, and she’s just trying to get Wilbur to eat it so Dawn will too. Belle’s mistake was that thinking Wilbur would eat a vegan meal. And, serving something called “seafood” after we just saw her trying to eat Wilbur’s precious goldfish.
MW:
Sunday: “Eat it!” “No!”
Monday: “Eat it!” “No!”
Tuesday: “Eat it!” “No!”
Wednesday: “Eat it!” “No!”
UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
Beetle Bailey-For every dish Beetle washes Ms. Buxley removes an article of clothing.
RMMD-You’re in ‘Rex Morgan’. You’re a bunch of one note characters.
MW-Dawn can’t handle her mushrooms.
FC-Bored with the story Jeffey sadly can’t spend the rest of the week in his trailer he has to make some kind of appearance.
MW: Many of the readers puzzle over how Wilbur suddenly has a spiderman dangerous sense over the food when he has never had a close encounter (unlike Dawnie). The twist will be that when Wilber cleaned up the previous messes of spilled Draino herbal tea and poisoned pasta he actually sampled some and noted that they were “off”. He just couldn’t bear admitting that his romper room playmate was actually a vicious psychotic, until she threatened Willa – his one true love!
RMMD: DNA, DNA, DNA
GT: I guess in the Milfordverse, the players don’t line up at the end and do a shake hands line.
A margrave is traditionally a marcher lord, a defender of an imperial frontier, and it pretty much a dead title on Earth. Nice of Mars to adopt antiquated noble titles just for us. I look forward to meeting the Knyaz of Olympus, the Viscount of Hellas, and the evil Voivode of Tharsis, not to mention the noble Countess palatine of the Free City of Phobos.
Wizard of ID-The Wilbur Weston fish.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
It’s Belle’s repeated insistance that both of them eat it! that had me wondering.
But, the more I think about it, my guess is that Dawn’s goop is poisoned with Clog-B-Gone and Wilbur’s goop contains filet of Willa. And that’s why she’s so determined that they both eat it!
FC: Bil looks at Thel’s luscious booty and says; “And I’ll just follow behind your mother in case she misses it.”
FC: Adult Jeff says “You guys keep fawning over my mom’s boobs but check out her ass.”
FC: Four kids, two dogs, one cat, and a spotless white rug (see Thel’s right hand); that thing would have more stains than a gas station bathroom.
Wizard of Id – In a world with magic, scientific inquiry is stymied. But evolution will happen regardless, and the Wizard is ensuring only the ugliest and more deformed fish survive.
Flash Gordon – In the last few years subtitles have gotten a lot of appreciation as better text technology in TVs, mixed with utter dogshit audio mixes for streaming, have made them essential. With people often distracted on their phones while watching, bringing back narration box style pronouncements in audio form could be a new way to engage audiences.
Intelligent Life – I am getting “divorced Dad” vibes from the “humor” of this strip. The strip is both unaware there is a Smurfs movie coming out next month, and only vaguely aware of the franchise because of the one female character. Given that this strip lists only one female character in its main cast, I have a feeling that in that 11 years or so its run it’s never once passed the Bechdel test.
Alice – Alice creator recently learned about the concept of gaslighting, but didn’t really understand it.
FG: Promising violence on a major character automatically increases the readability of a comic strip. I’d go back to reading 9 Chickweed Lane if there were a narration box declaring “TOMORROW: Amos gets punched unconscious.”
IL: Look, I’m not naive. I’m well aware of Rule 34 and the sheer number of people who will look at the most bizarre, grotesque denizens of fiction and declare “I’d hit that.” But I have a hard time believing these two depressingly conventional nerdboys would pass up getting bodied by a giant Amazonian cat-lady in favor of a small blobby creature that’s only female for the sake of token gender representation (Doylist) or because Gargamel created her to sow strife and discord among the hitherto all-male Smurf society, a la Pandora (Watsonian).
Wiz – I get the definite feeling that the anachronistically “sassy” dialog in this strip is based on one o’ them Bik Bok videos the kids like so much, and I FOR ONE DO NOT CARE FOR IT.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Oh! I feel bad about my weight”
“There’s something I always say to people in your situation”
“What?”
“Hi there, Fatso!”
Alice: Sadly, Alice’s life would be cut short after she asked that same friend “What does the doctor mean when he says Malignant?”
JP:
“We broke up because since serving my prison sentence for criminally negligent homicide after the sweatshop disaster, I find it hard to relate to ordinary people.”
“I hear you, sis. It’s so unfair what with all our other rich friends getting pardons.”
Dustin: Weird how this strip is only willing to view Dustin’s awfulness as endearing when it’s a reflection of his father’s awfulness.
GT: Well, now who’s being the B-word?
JP: And as we all know, there are absolutely no places in the greater Los Angeles area where attractive twenty-somethings can meet and socialize.
Luann: Great, Bernice is going to teach Shannon how to cut corners by using an AI art module trained on other people’s intellectual property.
MW: Belle is this close to doing “here comes the airplane” with Wilbur. It would probably work, too.
Pluggers are John Wayne Gacy.
IL – Smurfette? Pfft. I’m waiting for the live-action/computer animated Snorks movie. That Daffney Gillfin… Rowr!
@Philip: IL: Even before the 21st-century revival, the Smurfs canonically had more than one female character: the de-aged boys created Sassette from Gargamel’s recipe to give Smurfette a female friend (they did not become buddies). Mémé (Nanny/Grandma) Smurf showed also up late in the 1980s BDs and TV.
The 21st-century revival (cartoon and comic books) had the original Smurfs finding a lost all-girl Smurf village. There are many female Smurfs now, I’ve only read a few of the new stories and there must be at least a dozen with developed characteristics (rivalries / friends with the boys who have intersecting interests or talents). /BD-pendantry
@Treetown: when Wilber cleaned up the previous messes of spilled Draino herbal tea and poisoned pasta he actually sampled some and noted that they were “off”. He just couldn’t bear admitting that (Belle) was actually a vicious psychotic, until she threatened Willa!
If that were true, there would be no need for Wilbur to keep it secret anymore. Or deal with Belle at all; he can just take the murder evidence to the police.
@Astroboy: my guess is that Dawn’s goop is poisoned with Clog-B-Gone and Wilbur’s goop contains filet of Willa.
Also a valid possibility. Because the story has told us absolutely nothing about what’s going on.
Wizard: Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to come up with the saddest story ever written, using just six words. Here’s what he came up with: “Oh, yeah! Fish on. She’s bitin’!”
Wizard of Id has triggered a flashback, of a school pageant that the kids in that old cartoon “Cow and Chicken” put on.
It was called “The Ugliest Weenie” where there was a package of hot dog wieners and one was horribly misshapen. The other hotdog wieners made fun of it, but in the end, the moral is that “The ugly hotdog wiener doesn’t get eaten”
Wizard of Id seems to be going that direction, but how better? I’m not sure.
Intelligent Life: Personally, I miss The Gummi Bears.
It had a similar concept as the Smurfs, but did it so so much better, and had surprising subtle themes of genocide, racism and “humans are Bastards” for a Disney cartoon in the 80’s.
I think the notable difference is that the Gummi Bears weren’t a mythical race (despite some humans scoffed at their existence) but rather a race of beings almost entirely wiped out and gone into hiding.
@The Rambling Otter: Gummi Bears was so good. But now I’ll have the theme song in my head all day.
WoI: A staggering amount of food waste is generated each year by consumers who discard completely edible food because of minor cosmetic imperfections that have no affect on taste or nutritional value wait wait wait a fish just made an oral sex quip to another fish holy shit forget everything else and look how shocked that sexy fish is after being told to suck it.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yes, but the taste maybe just a bit “off” and Wilbur’s inner conflict about regular sex versus a threat to Dawnie was clearly tilted in favor of regular sex but now that Willa was threatened, he’ll have to take a stand. Turning down a hot cooked meal is a big decision for Wilbur.
Flash Gordon: So, uh, not to make things weird by revealing I’m into monstergirls but Azura is pretty hot, yeah?
Intelligent Life: “Hey, man, is it just me or have we been driving through this featureless blue void for three days straight?”
Alice: Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the kind of advice that tends to end in the woman being beaten to death with her partner’s golf club.
Today on Wizard of Id, a special presentation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the C-Grade Art.
Wizard of Id : curses “normally” (ie, by invoking the Lord) because people made fun of him when he actually invoked the dark beings he channels his magic from, telling him it made him sound like “a muppet version of Doctor Strange”.
MW: Would ya get a load of these clowns? I’ve never SEEN such overacting! I think the management has lost control of the situation here and who knows what the hell is goin’ on?!? But don’t worry about Willa – after her narrow escape from being an appetizer she’s safely locked in Wilbur’s home “office” with Ol’ Rex standing guard. We also have a pack of Villainous Wolves! outside as backup.
Whatta business!
@The Rambling Otter: Although The Smurfs wasn’t bad for what it was, I remember a Christmas Special (by which I don’t think had anything to do with Christmas)
Where two kids were running through the snowy landscape from… someone. They try to seek refuge at Gargamel’s house who tells them to beat it.
Then a creepy man shows up a bit later and asks Gargamel if he saw two kids, and will give him a map to the Smurf Village if he helps him find them.
Gargamel runs off and finds the kids, invites them back to his house to wait for the guy to come back, but when he does Gargamel tries to con him into giving more rewards.
So the guy uses dark magic to take the kids and Gargamel to a clearing in the woods where he summons a massive ring of fire so they can’t escape and OPENS A FREAKING PORTAL TO HELL to throw the three of them in.
Then The Smurfs show up, sing a sappy song which is so incredibly sappy it fights back against his dark magic and they save Gargamel and the kids.
I was like… JESUS that got dark fast.
Especially we never know why he wants the kids. It’s implied that he had hatred towards their father for something that happened in the past but they don’t go any further with that.
“Did you see there’s another Avatar movie coming out this year?”
“I saw that.”
“Is it me, or does the . . . Jesus Christ man, look out!”
“Oh shit.”
“You hit it. You just hit that Reddick signature as it was crossing the road. Fuck, man. What the hell? There’s ink everywhere, it went up the hood and over the top of the car. We gotta go check on it.”
“No. No fuckin’ way. I’m drivin’ without a license here. Maybe if you hadn’t been yapping about blue chicks, I woulda seen it! No one saw us, we’re gettin’ the hell outta here.”
“Shit man. Shit. I think I heard it squeal.”
“Shut up, shut up!”
Did Josh forget about the monk from Wizard of Id?
@ValdVin: So.
The coders at the Comics Kingdom site are Pluggers?
MW: What is all that yelling out there? Sounds like gibberish… just loud crazy talk! I get it – they think they can top MY performance! HA! Fat chance.
When are they going to pull the curtain on this farce? I need to see what’s going on at home – I’ve seen those rumors about Stellan and some Angelfish floozy…
At least I’m safe for now… look, Ol’ Rex is coming in to check on me! Hi, it’s good to see you… why are you looking at me like that?
In theory I’m ok with Alice as the Dadaist answer to Cathy. In practice I am in no way ready for the horrors of the inevitable swimsuit shopping strip.
MW: has anyone checked with MegaCorp in regard to Belle’s employment status?
MW: Do vegans even eat seafood? Shows you how much I know about this stuff. What’s more, I’m only interested in order to figure out just how dumb these people are.
Alice: “What does it mean when he says he doesn’t love me?” “It means you should have waited to talk about turning his game room into a guest room for your parents’ annual three-month visit until after the wedding! And also that your hairstyle freaks him out — but if you didn’t realize that already, I don’t know what to tell you.”
James Cameron with his Avatar movies, has since been trying to emulate “Avatar: The Last Airbender” by adding beings that can control the elements (water and fire have been confirmed so far)
I think he’s doing this to stick it to the cartoon for both using the word Avatar. Despite Avatar: The Last Airbender used it first.
@Professor Well Actually: I can assure everyone that Belle has a very lucrative position in the business factory.
WoI: I think the reason why we haven’t seen the Monk character in ages, is because of Johnny Hart’s extreme religious beliefs.
Keep in mind, in “Alice through the Looking Glass” (which is an allegory for a giant chess game) there is no Bishop present. Many people believe that since Lewis Carroll is a Reverend himself, he didn’t want to make light of/mock the Church.
Johnny Hart probably took a similar stance.
FG: Josh, if you were a margrave that would make you pretty high German nobility, equivalent to a British marquess or viscount.
@The Rambling Otter: #62:
“The ugly hotdog doesn’t get eaten.”
No, he gets tossed to the dog.
FG: I hope Bok and Zarkov strap Tahl to his agony wheel, crank it up to full blast, and leave.
RMMD: Wow! You got the same tattoo on your ass that I have! That proves you’re my son!
@White Rabbit: No, that’s why the Westons keep saying they can’t have mushrooms, it’s mushrooms subbing for seafood in a vegan “seafood” chowder (which actually sounds OK in online recipes)… and maybe connecting to the big Aussie foraged mushroom murder trial that’s been in the news for a while. Of course, individual portions of a traditionally sliced-from-one-tenderloin-roll, carefully served on plates with a different colour for the hostess is *still* less suspicious that Belle’s “open up, the airplane’s coming in for a landing!”-level attempts to get Wilbur and Dawn to eat it.
@Willa G. Fish: I’ve got needs, Willa! Needs! Besides, we all thought you were goin’ down the hatch..
But since it looks like you may survive, you gotta listen… believe me -“Angie” is a young aspiring actress, trying to get a break in show biz. I`m just… mentoring… her, that’s all. Strictly professional.
Do you know *exactly* when you’ll be coming home? I want to make sure everything is clean and just right for you, maybe freshen up the seaweed…
MW: Mary bursts into the room, basket of muffins under one arm, hurling with the other, finding their mark. The sound of a croquet ball against skull bone. The first stuns Belle. The second drops her to her knees, momentarily until the third lays her out on her back. “No long term visitors,” says Mary.
@Voshkod: We don’t have a Witch-Queen on our planet, either, although Maggie Thatcher came pretty close.
If I understand the whole premise of the Intelligent Life comic, this is basically the driving scene from Fargo where Buscemi drives Stormare crazy with his constant yapping, except they never get around to killing anyone.
@Guillermo el chiclero: True, being “punched unconscious” is small potatoes for a turd on Tahl’s level. My daydream was that Bok would snap several of his appendages….old bones take forever to heal.
BF: maybe just being told at 4:30pm “you’re fired and leave by 5pm” is actually the kinder option.
FG: being punched unconscious would be preferable to torture
FBoFW and PHANTOM: Torn between two lovers– every teen’s dream.
RMMD: country song after country song writes itself in Truck’s “windshield”.
BF: maybe just being told at 4:30pm “you’re fired and leave by 5pm” is actually the kinder option.
FG: being punched unconscious would be preferable to ttr.
FBoFW and PHANTOM: Torn between two lovers– every teen’s dream.
RMMD: country song after country song writes itself in Truck’s “windshield”.
IL: These are definitely the kind of guys who are on the DeviantArt website looking at the thousands of accounts dedicated to Smurf fanart for very specific fetishes. Anyone want to see pregnant Smurfs or Smurfs wearing diapers?
R.I.P. Peyo, sorry that your legacy has been tarnished irreparably by perverts and Hollywood executives
Sony Animation has already made 3 Smurfs movies since 2011 and there is a new movie just called “Smurfs” that will be in theaters on July 18. 2025.
WoI – Wasn’t Suck Fin the follow up to the Mark Twain fan-fic entitled Tom Raw-Her?
@Anonymous: To be fair, Peyo wasn’t entirely clean himself.
Remember the “Black Smurfs” arc from the original comic? Due to the… unfortunate implications of that, everyone tries to forget it.
JP: As the immortal D.P. put it so well, Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
@Ukulele Ike: J.K. Rowling
LUANN: Shannon badly needs to learn that not every adult will cave in when she whines, weeps, gripes, yells, stomps, does property damage, and otherwise makes herself obnoxious. So Bernice, the student of psychology and wannabe future counselor, teaches her the opposite. Way to go, Bernice!
@Voshkod: Wow. Me too!
Alice: Hey, I wonder if the guy who’s getting stalked by a Picasso scribble is already married.
FG: Somebody got to the Jack Kirby estate sale early and bought out all the overstock Krackle.
IL: When your central characters are and adult Charlie Brown on fentanyl and Peter Griffin as a member of the emo band AFI, you’re already skating on IP thin ice. Why antagonize the Smurf people?
@Ukulele Ike: Nah. Thatcher wasn’t even close to being a witch queen. Rather, she was much more like a Witcher queen. (Let the reader understand)
@CanuckDownSouth: Well, that makes more sense! I’m surprised you have to have this level of knowledge to understand Mary Worth, for Pete’s sake!
9CL: Listen closely and you can hear the metaphor Brooke is beating beg for the sweet release of death.
Dustin: A gang that roofies your beer and steals your kidneys is not the kind of charity I want to be supporting. What I’m saying is that Dustdad, being a lawyer, should at least read what’s on that clipboard before he signs anything.
GA: Boog is just out of high school and already going grey at the temples, which might be the result of the time anomaly that keeps Walt alive. Or he just had to repeat a lot of grades.
GT: This is Gil Thorp. Anyone claiming to know how sportsmanship, sports, or the basic laws of physics work is lying.
JP: I’m going to have to trust Neddy when she says that the nonentity boyfriend she just broke up with is different from the nonentity fiancé she broke up with while looking pissed off.
MW: The last time I saw a woman screaming, “I won’t take no for an answer! You’re going to eat it and like it!” it was…on a different website.
Phantom: Hey Kit Jr., there’s a guy around here named Mozz with a lot of opinions on whether there’s an inescapable fate. Whatever you do, DON’T ASK HIM ABOUT IT.
RMMD: There comes a time in every young man’s life when he yearns to know what he’d look like if he let his sideburns go wild and grew a poofy pompadour.
@TheDiva: For the sake of my sanity and everyone else’s I make it a practice not to comment on Luann and 9 Chickweed Lane on the same day. But yeah, Bernice basically ferreted out one of Li’l Shannon’s few redeeming qualities for the purpose of squashing it.
FC – Look carefully. The diamond is probably covered in Wite Out from Jef updating the console TV.
I wonder what program was on TV in the original. Fireball X-L5? HR Pufnstuf? The original Spin and Marty?
JP – If she’s going to do “He loves me, he loves me not” with that dandelion, it’ll take all day. Use a daisy, you idiot!
Mary Worth – It’s well past time for MeddleWoman to burst into the apartment and wrestle Belle to the floor.
They’re going to find out that MegaCorp is actually an institution for the criminally insane.
Rex Morgan – My first thought was that the correct pronunciation is “rasslin,” but@The Quiet Man: beat me to it.
Looks Good On Paper – I didn’t laugh at this on Monday or Tuesday either.
@The Rambling Otter: Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.
That’s abominable. Ye gods. What were they thinking?
@The Rambling Otter: Honestly, the bzz-fly gnap-zombie apocalypse storyline was sound, just the art choice had hideous connotations. The Hanna Barbera show did it just fine with them turning a light purple instead.
Crank: Didn’t he say just yesterday that the smart garden’s solution to watering bans was to activate the sprinklers at night so no-one would see? Still, why not both? Why not suck the last dregs out of the reservoir and disrupt weather patterns at the same time? Is this storyline going to end with Ed being punched by Captain Planet?
DT: So either a) Lovejoy, having arranged to meet Tracy concerning the painting, then denying arranging to meet Tracy or knowing why the painting is in his apartment, has now filled in a form using his own name to hand to Tracy, while claiming to be psychic, or b) Lovejoy has a twin/double who’s setting him up for … something. The second one makes slightly more sense, but the purpose to any of this remains bewilderingly opaque. Which I wouldn’t normally have a problem with this early in a detective story but, y’know, Dick Tracy. It’s Curtis, so it’ll probably come closer to coherence than Costello, but still.
FC: Adult Jeffy, who isn’t even that used to drawing his own characters without tracing his dad’s old pictures, makes a valiant attempt to draw someone else’s. Clashing art styles are jarring enough at the best of times, but apparently, in the Family Circus world, uncanny-valley CGI Disney characters are marginally more realistic than actual people!
(Anyone know what was on the TV originally [I assume this is a redraw]? The Mickey Mouse Club? Captain Video? Generic Cowboy Show?)
HtH: I knew Hägar was illiterate and that this was an issue in connecting with his bibliophile son, but it had never occurred to me before that this was because books themselves had only been introduced to the Viking world within his lifetime. I feel like this would be an interesting datapoint in pinning down exactly when this strip is set, if I thought anyone involved in it cared even slightly about that.
JP: Quick reminder that Neddy actually has no idea what her fiance was like — she believes everything she knew about him was a lie because that was the last thing she was told, but even if that’s true she has no direct experience of the man behind the lies, since she dropped “I’ve been told you’re a lying scammer so I’m dumping you, and bee-tee-dubs your dad’s dead,” and was gone while he was still in shock. (Because Ces realised that, if he had a chance to actually respond to her accusation, he’d just say “I put it to you that it is they who are the lying scammers” and even he wasn’t prepared to go round the whole thing again.)
MW: Seriously, has Moy got so frustrated with cramming a week’s worth of story into the Sundays that she now just writes a normal Sunday strip and then tries to stretch it out over six dailies? Because this isn’t even where we were yesterday; it’s where we were on Monday.
Phantom: “Maybe fate exists and maybe it doesn’t, but if it does it’ll just happen,” is wonderfully vague advice to give someone who’s trying to make an actual decision, and has been thoroughly confused by Diana and Weezie insisting one of the options is what he’s “meant” to do. (Especially since Diana secretly believes the other option is “fate” and it’s a fate she is trying to avert!)
Hang on … bland platitudes that almost fit the situation but don’t really help much … Good lord, Mary Worth is so frustrated by how long it’s been since she appeared in her own strip that she’s dressed up as the Phantom and taken Stripey’s place!
RMMD: “I’m not looking for anything from you except the knowledge of who I am.”
“I probably owe you a lot of money.”
“That would fall under the general category of things I just said I wasn’t looking for. On the other hand, knowing whether I’m genetically predisposed to extremely short-term memory issues is the sort of thing I am looking for.”
S4th: Oh, sure, your daughter spent an entire trip to New York either replaced by an increasingly faulty copy while she talked to her future self or (more likely) going increasingly loopy as she hallucinated talking to her future self and you barely noticed, but as soon as the neighbour kid enters a fugue state, you have Concerns.
MW: Considering that both Weston’s have the emotional development (and tastes in food) of a small child, instead of vegan clam chowder she should’ve called it vegan beanie-weenie, then they would’ve scarfed it up.
CRANKSHAFT: Ed, you often-literally-flaming idiot, drones like your cute little machine are legally restricted to flying no higher than 400 feet above ground level. You might as well order it to inject silver iodide into your brain, which would be an improvement on your current brain function, for all I know.
@Ukulele Ike: This is Marie Laveaux erasure.
MT: You bizarre fools are actually watching the races take place on private land, either your own or someone else’s, and instead of either calling the sheriff because the racers are trespassing on your land or calling the owner of the land where the racers are to report the racing, you just…oh, never mind.
GA: On one hand, the chicken tractors portrayed in this story don’t make sense. On the other hand, Boog has finally decided what age he is, and the end of his shape-shifting is a relief.
MW: Thank you, all you fine snarkers who said it so I don’t have to.
Alice: Chairs. Chairs are a thing.
@ValdVin: I hope the bear shows up in attendance “Congrats on your %$^&ing graduation!!!”
GA: Boog was born in September 2004 and is only now graduating high school? Did he have to repeat a few years or is Jim Scancarelli just that bad at math? And good lord, are Boog’s eyes unnerving to look at. Reminds me of that line from Jaws.
Frank & Ernest – No, that’s what it’s called when you can’t remember the words to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”
@Poteet: “Boog has finally decided what age he is, and the end of his shape-shifting is a relief.”
You optimist, you!
GA – “And did I mention my girlfriend yet?”
“I said, ‘What do you plan on doing this summer,’ not ‘Who’.”
@Bryan: Gasoline Alley, the strip where everyone ages in real time, if the writer happens to feel like it.
@The Rambling Otter: Yeah, but I’m not sure these ladies can bend at the…anything.
@Bryan: He need to take several years off before graduation, working in an electronica sound studio and developing his new musical instrument, the Boog synthesizer.
Unfortunately, the joke in today’s Wizard of Id is on the ugly fish. Sure, sure, it survived, but nothing it ever experiences after today will match the sheer thrill of being hooked through the face, pulled into a place where it can’t breathe, staring a superior species in the eye, and then being thrown back home. This fish will spend the rest of its life trying and failing to find anything that makes it feel quite this alive ever again, and descend into a spiral of increasingly-hedonistic experiences that can only ever temporarily sate its emotional needs.
By contrast, the hot fish (I hate that I typed that btw) started having no-strings-attached sexual encounters long ago, and will continue to do so, never feeling the need to alter or escalate anything.
@14 ValdVin: EEEEE!!!! [QLUNQ!]
Any time now, Wilbur will remember he can do this to scare off women, most children, and many rabid dogs.
@Baja Gaijin: Hey! Some of us are eating here!
@Baja Gaijin: Maybe Belle was stony broke and desperate for a dude to buy her meals back in that tropical vacation place, and maybe seeing what you just showed us, over and over and over, is what made her insane.
In Mary Worth I just hope they can keep “Dawn and Wilbur refuse Dawn’s food” for the rest of the week… at least.
@Pork Larder (mystery hero): Bwahaha!
@Bob Tice: Yeah, here at the Comics Curmudgeon, we’ve attained self actualization so you don’t have to.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Please wear your best non-Euclidean shirt and work by the light of the gibbous moon. You don’t have to be real Cthulu to get these two to a state of gibbering madness.
@Baja Gaijin: Well, now I’m scarred for life.
Imagine being romantically involved with that and seeing that expression every time he decides to get romantic. (I just threw up in my mouth a little.)
NOPE.
@Liam: RMMD-You’re in ‘Rex Morgan’. You’re a bunch of one note characters.
This is Roots Country. Truck, at least, is a three chord character.
@135 I speak Jive: Remember, they actually published this in newspapers anyone could read. ANY.ONE. Even your grandmother.
@Peanut Gallery: In the fourth panel the 5 kilo purse comes down on his head, the 5 kilo purse makes sure that he is dead!
Thinking on it, isn’t the point that Truck has jack for money? And tours with a weirdo who sabotahes him? And is gonna marry an ugly diner waitress? Really wanna push this envelope, kid?
Fun fact: There was a fish called the slimehead that was really good eating, but due to the name, it was not very popular. One day, a fisherman had the idea to change the name from slimehead to orange roughy. It became so popular that the fish nearly went extinct.
@Atticus Dogsbody:
Patagonian Toothfish = Chilean Sea Bass
@140 Atticus Dogsbody: Mahi Mahi = “Flipper, faster than lightning” but not a trawler’s net
@Atticus Dogsbody: Thank you for that story. I remember hearing years ago that the orange roughy can live 200 years and is therefore unfortunately very good at storing a lot of mercury .
I wish that naming trick could work the other way. “Stinkfish” might help endangered sharks.
@A Grave Mind: Yep, and sure enough, that fish is also in trouble.
[Stands up suddenly from dinner table, where he has been silently and obsessively sculpting a giant lightning bolt out of mashed potatoes] That’s it! You people have held me back long enough!! I’m going to start reading Flash Gordon!
@richardf8: Honestly, it’s not a good idea to get nerds to gibbering madness. Too many fluids, if you catch my drift.
@A Grave Mind:
#139. RMMD: it took a community to make a roots country success. Buck got him a free room and food at the motel. The diner gave him food. Back ck produced his record , introduced him to merch and streaming. The nightclub owner risked a night on him. Rex cured him of a finger tic.
But now, thanks to the motel song (I’ve forgotten its name), followed by the diner song, followed by the bar song, followed by the doc song, everyone in town is rolling in dough.
@A Grave Mind: Not exactly off topic, but there was a recent cartoon, Pete the Cat (not the Disney Pete, totally unrelated) about a cat kid who wanted to start a rock band, and it was VERY chill.
What I’m getting at, is one character was a Platypus and I can’t remember, if he said he was from Patagonia, or Platagonia.
I mean, if they were going for the pun, they might as well have had the Dog from Canada, be from “Canid-da”
Wow, I’m really rambling now.
@148 The Rambling Otter: This late in the thread, ramble away!
@Poteet: Today the Stinkfish is known as “Stellan”.
@Pork Larder (mystery hero): Too true. *bows head, plays “Taps” on teensy brain tape recorder* *yeah, I’m old*
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: If you do that, please let us know how it goes. After seeing that narration box, I am intrigued.
FC: Why does the TV set sit directly on the floor? Don’t they have a cabinet or something to put it on? Just wondering.
@Baja Gaijin: I always sang the show opener as “They call him Flipper…Flipper. Chicken of the Sea”.
Calling it now. Alice’s next boyfriend will be Wilbur Weston.
Concerning Mary Worth. I read ahead and this story basically ends on Sunday with an ending you will not believe. Then there’s a few days of follow up.
Oh, by the way, I’m doing fine. Don’t mind me. I got tired of commenting. Kind if like brother Baja did.
@Atticus Dogsbody: I hear the Patagonia Toothfish became “Chilean sea bass” under the same circumstances.