I guess Marvin never inheriting money is something to cheer for
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Luann, 7/7/25
Hey kids, we all love Wilbur, the sad loser who has an off-putting relationship with his fish. But did you know there’s another such person in the comics — and she’s a lady? That’s right, it’s Bernice, Luann’s friend from Luann! Unlike Wilbur, who named his fish after himself and his ex, Bernice has given hers the whimsical name “Mr. Monstro.” Also unlike Wilbur, Bernice is capable of introspection, as the final panel makes clear, not that it’s really doing her any good.
Marvin, 7/7/25
Marvin is usually a light-hearted strip about a baby who won’t stop shitting himself and the parents and classmates who hate him, but real heads remember that there was a plotline in 2008 when Jenny’s parents lost their retirement savings in the Great Financial Crisis and had to move in with the Millers to escape destitution. I guess they ultimately got back on their feet again, though the fact that Marvin’s grandfather is excited to be hired for what I assume is a fairly low-paying and thankless job where you’re pretty much always on call in your own home tells me their finances never fully recovered. Obviously going back to their daughter’s house is not an option, though, not least because their son-in-law still won’t let them forget the last time they had to do it.
Wizard of Id, 7/7/25
I’m sorry, man, it’d be one thing if the Wiz were using his mystical powers to create chimeric combinations of natural beasts. But throw the word “breeding” in there and there’s really no other way to interpret this as “the Wizard of Id is somehow getting a whole bunch of different kinds of animals to have sex with horses.” There may not even be any magic involved.
Alice, 7/7/25
Big news, everybody: Alice is finally gonna get laid! And good for her.
141 replies to “I guess Marvin never inheriting money is something to cheer for”
The titles on Alice are amazingly bleak. Changes the whole tone of the strip by putting a resigned “O.K.” on the end.
Luann:
Bernice is going as anthropologist Margaret Mead for Halloween.
Alice:
“I’ll know for sure if he takes me to the new Picasso exhibit!”
Um, how old are the characters in Alice supposed to be? She’s dressed like a grandmother but her boy-toy is wearing that baseball cap with a bow tie, for crying out loud. I don’t expect people who step out of a Picasso cartoon to be stylish, but the age signifiers are even more perplexing than the free-floating eyeballs.
Alice: Ha ha it’s funny because he’s more interested in watching TV than sleeping with her.
I’ll give Alice credit, that they’re not sitting to the side of the television watching at an impossible neck-destroying angle.
At least Burnice and Monstro are a welcome break from Inner Beauty, Fill, and Thiefra.
MW:
“That sure was fun playing paintball after dinner, Jeff. But we should probably try to avoid blasting one another in the face!”
I’m sorry, we’re just going to ignore the enormous pile of dung just lying there in THE WIZARD OF ID? I mean, I’m not the only one seeing this, right?
Luann: Now we understand that Bernice is “friends” with Luann not only to take advantage of the free room and board but because emotionally abusing Luann gives her life meaning. And we thought Luann was pathetic.
MW: I’ve noticed that the less Mary does in a situation, the longer her victory lap is to really hammer in that smug sense of self satisfaction. At the very least, she could take the gun away from the back of Jeff’s head.
Because I have regular bouts of insomnia, I’ve decided to share how the still ongoing storyline of Mary Worth manages to embody the seven deadly sins.
Lust—This is what started this whole mess in the first place. Wilbur doesn’t care about anything except his own personal satisfaction to the point where he’s willing to put his own daughter in danger so that he can get laid by someone he barely knows. And in the end, he doesn’t even bother to find out if Belle is getting the help she needs because all she was to him was a warm body to stick his “little Wilbur” in.
Gluttony—Despite Belle insisting that the “special food” (poison) she made was for Dawn, Wilbur insists on getting some of that food as well and winds up causing the tainted cuisine to be ruined. Possibly for Dawn’s own good but it comes across as Wilbur “saving” her when he was just being a greedy klutz wanting what doesn’t belong to him.
Greed—Not necessarily in terms of money but Belle’s possessive need to be the only person in Wilbur’s life has her trying to kill his daughter and his goldfish, albeit in unsuccessful ways.
Sloth—Dawn insists that she doesn’t feel safe around Belle but refuses to do anything about it for no reason. Mary’s lack of action also counts here in that she doesn’t do anything to find out just who this woman spending several weeks at the Weston condo is when she’s normally known for being so nosy that she’s demanding the life story of every single person she has ever talked to.
Wrath—Belle’s final confrontation with the Westons has her devolve into an anger fueled breakdown that is later revealed to be the result of a manic episode.
Envy—Dawn’s animosity of Belle comes across as less being afraid of her and more Dawn being resentful about the amount of time Belle spends with Wilbur and taking his attention away from her. She even complains more about how Belle usurped her “daddy-daughter time” than the supposed “bad vibes” she had.
Pride—Mary’s “victory lap” about the whole situation despite having done nothing to help resolve it consists of having endless praise heaped upon her and feeling an undeserved sense of self satisfaction.
WoI: I was working up a hopefully clever “Island of Dr. Moreau” joke but I got distracted by the enormous piles of horse poop.
@Dan: It’s like she’s being sarcastic with herself. “I think he wants me. Yeah, OK, sure. Like that would ever happen.”
With Wizard of ID I HOPE he did it magically, because one of those creatures is half-horse/half-mouse it hurts my mind (and with a bit of brain bleach) to even imagine how such a large animal could get it on with a mouse. And “hopefully” it was the horse that got pregnant.
@Needless Exposition: Good analysis. No notes.
Luann: Using the fish whose whole life is limited to the surrounds of its tank but with glass walls that give the appearance of freedom in parallel to Bernice trapped in the ‘tank’ of the Degroots household but whose liberty of movement gives the appearance of freedom, is the kind of symbolism I would not expect from this strip. Well done, I guess.
What impresses me most is that the Wizard of Id has apparently bred these animals to shit from the front instead of the back.
Alice: “O.K.” Even the captions are sassing Alice now.
Luann: Has Bernice ever worn a skirt? Every pic I can find, she’s wearing trousers. Is her life so hollow and meaningless because she spends her mornings carefully pressing and folding imaginary mini skirts for her imaginary fashionable wardrobe, sobbing and imagining a life where she’s more than just the dull plain sidekick in a teen romance comic?
DT: so both Lovejoys, past and present, fell into the painting and ended up in the where?
GT: okay, so this is the type of scene that is really the strength of the current writer and artist: teenage love drama – not high school sports. When will Coach Ramirez show up to do his midnight seance?
MW, RMMD: filler panels to pass the hot humid days of summer
JP: Will the girls just sit and enjoy their breakfast or will they screw up a covert operation?
Marvin: Not sure what the punchline is supposed to be here. “You think I’m old but the last guy was primordial.”
MW: I thought a recap for readers who have been away on vacation for the past month would be helpful.
Week 1: Wilbur and Dawn discuss Belle’s effect on Wilbur.
Week 2: Wilbur and Dawn discuss Belle’s effect on Dawn but also on Wilbur some more. It is daytime.
Week 3: Wilbur and Dawn keep discussing Belle’s effect on Wilbur. It is nighttime. Wilbur and Dawn embrace.
Week 4: Dawn and Mary discuss Wilbur as Mary chops the heads off her roses. Dawn is grateful for Mary. Mary promises to talk to Wilbur.
Week 5: Mary makes muffins and she invites Wilbur over. Mary and Wilbur discuss Belle’s effect on Wilbur and how that relationship tangentially affected Dawn before returning to the subject of Wilbur some more. Wilbur thanks Mary. Mary and Wilbur embrace.
Week 6: Jeff and Mary ruin an otherwise perfectly fine outing on Jeff’s enormous yacht, Compensation, by discussing Wilbur as Mary recaps Wilbur’s relationship woes. This is apparently a huge turn-on for Jeff, who professes his love for Mary. Mary and Jeff kiss. Later, Mary and Jeff try something new. Jeff orders surf and turf for dinner at The Bum Boat, but Mary eschews the salmon in favor of some DELICIOUS scallops! Jeff praises Mary some more. The moonlight falls on Mary’s ample, sagging breasts as the two of them (Jeff and Mary, not Mary’s breasts) gaze out over the water. Mary accepts Jeff’s praise with a look that suggests her smug satisfaction, yes, but also betokens her knowledge that she is receiving nothing more than her just due.
In the Worthiverse, there are more weeks in a month than can be contained on the Gregorian calendar.
Next week: Mary has muffins and tea with Toby (who surreptitiously spikes her own beverage from her flask) as Mary recounts the events of the past several weeks. It’s likely that Mary and Toby will discuss Wilbur.
yCurtis: This would have been a one-panel comic.
yRxMD: Really? You can’t say C-Word-That-Ends-In-D? Unless you’re implying he also had the Boogie-Woogie Blues, in which I’ll allow that Commemorative Easter Egg.
@Artist formerly known as Ben, yGT: UB40 also did an upbeat cover, and it’s old enough to be an oldie on its own.
And tomorrow, Bernice won’t even have skirts that need organising, seeing as she’s wearing pants today. Unless she goes down to the mall, and buys half a dozen more. Aching ennui temporarily averted.
MW: It says a lot that Jeff starts his soliloquy with Mary’s name. Otherwise, people would think he’s referring to his boat.
Frazz: For a strip that’s trying so hard to be Calvin & Hobbes, it could put a little more effort into a fantasy unicycle crash.
Luann: We all know Bernice is going to invite herself to Camp Skye, just to kill the possibility that Luann might grow up a little, or that anything interesting might happen.
CS: So switching the -ing form of a word with the -er form qualifies as wordplay now? Even for this strip, that’s lazy.
RMMD: Is being a possible biological father a fetish? Because Truck sure is enjoying himself. He’s inviting this guy over, introducing him to his partner, and he’s been talking about it non-stop for a month. At least maybe wait for the test results?
MW: “I love you too, Wilb– er, I mean ‘Jeff’.”
LUANN: Bernice should work at summer camp. She can tell the children that she’s their muse.
MW: 1.Interminable discussion about Wilbur
Weston – check
2. Dinner at the Bum Boat- check
3. Worship, glorify and otherwise
kowtow to Mary Worth- check
4. Closed-mouth, thin-lipped kiss- check
Another date, wrapped up
DtM: Is Charlie Brown real to Dennis or is he a character in a comic that Dennis reads? This is a metaphysical labyrinth that I refuse to enter.
9CL: “Ooh, Lolly, your tummy is talking! It makes me want to put my winkie in your yumyum!”
Now I’ve nauseated myself.
RMMD: After spending more time with Truck and Wanda, Cody leans heavily on the “maybe not” part.
@MKay: Okay, you made me choke with laughter at “put my winkie in your yumyum” so I have to keep that in mind for freaking people out.
Luann : Josh, you might not know this, but Bernice named her goldfish “Monstro” as a reference to the (assumed) size of a guy’s dick
(Man, I never realised how quickly “Bernice is horny for Jack” storyline came and went).…I forget, did Bernice getting a goldfish come before or after the dream sequence she had from reading mermaid erotica, where she was going to get together with Merman Jack until she corrected her dreamself mistakenly using ‘Your’ instead of ‘You’re’ (or was it the other way around), causing the merman to say “Wow, this uptight bitch is no-fun” and choosing Mermaid Luann instead, while dreamBernice was all “NO DON’T LISTEN TO HER SHE IS *NOT* ME I *DO* WANT LOVE I *DO* WANT LOVE”?
…You know, because that particular moment stuck with me because of how messed up it was.
GT: “here we go and do-si-do” – I suppose the two couples’ wildly incongruous dance styles makes sense as they both ignore the square dance music and call-outs in their own way
MW: Dr Jeff’s just babbling now, isn’t he? When has he ever gone to Mary with a moral dilemma?
Luann – Monstro is reference to the whale in Pinocchio, and much like the titular puppet made of wood, this long-running character with her origin in wood-pulp paper struggles to make herself a real person.
Marvin – Apartment managing has similar ethics to a Vikings, in which the greatest honor is to die in battle with weapons in hand, rather than old age. In the case of apartment managers, that usually means with tools in your hand fixing plumbing or some malfunctioning HVAC system. Marvin’s grandparents, stripped of all dignity by their economic losses, have bought in fully to the ethics, if only because being able to shame the old manager gives them a feeling of no longer being on the bottom.
Wizard of Id – There was a time the Wizard of Id would get (usually ironic) appearances by cosplayers at comic conventions, and that gave the false sense of hope for a younger fandom. But with the fight for dwindling newspaper pages, the creators were sent to a furry convention to see if that subculture could embrace them. An unfortunate mix-up in rooms and keycards by the desk clerk had them walk into a scene (that I won’t describe on this family website) going on in a hotel room, and this is what the traumatized creators have taken from the experience.
Alice – Alice is an exhibitionist making us all voyeurs, and I do not like this.
MW: Jeff, Mary is your “moral compass?” Like, you’d be out there secretly killing your patients t’were it not for Mary???
In a LONG line of disturbing things that have happened in this strip, this one takes the cake.
Slylock Fox-No need to look at the menu it’s all bad there.
MW-“Mary, you inspire me to do the complete opposite.”
FC-“You won’t believe what the girls in the massage parlor charges for one of these.”
MW-And so Mary’s victory lap of doing absolutely nothing stretches into week two.
Alice: Between this and the mopey alien, I am beginning to understand Alice in a new light. She is a desperately lonely woman with a rich fantasy life that should probably be treated with Seroquel. The AI is definitely out to get her, though.
RMMD: Cody: “Why thank you, Miss Wanda! Let’s see what’s on the menu — Gosh, it’s so hard to choose between the Hot Bugs, “The Mess,” the Ham, Egg, and Dream Biscuit, the Chicken Planet, the Biscuits and Caramel, the Children and Waffles, and the French Toast. I guess I’ll have the French Toast.”
Truck: “Make that two French Toasts. With a side order of hot bugs.”
GT: Yeah, we didn’t have the budget this year, so this is a public domain prom. All we have for music is “Square Dancing for Beginners” records.
6Chx: Is “Women be all about their hair” a screamingly funny sexist joke I’ve managed to miss out on until now? Wouldn’t a more appropriate (I didn’t say “funnier”) punchline be “I wonder where she bought those shoes?”
The Wizard of Id: It’s been said that any scientific breakthrough sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe that applies to mood lighting for horses?
I don’t know what’s worse, imagining that genitalia in Alice would be a grotesque as the stylized art of the comic or photorealistic monstrosities on these Picasso-esque people.
Luann: A friend had a fish who stone-cold murdered everyone else in the tank. So my buddy named the survivor “Genocide.” Now that was whimsical.
I think Marvin’s grandparents are angling for their own spinoff strip, about the wacky adventures of an apartment manager. He can occasionally be called upon to unclog a toilet, so Armstrong can get his shit fix.
@Astroboy: I know, right? The largest pile of crap ever seen in the comics and it’s not in Marvin? Non-metaphorically, though the other way works too?
LUANN: From Josh’s recap above:
Oh Josh. I thought you were hip and with it when it came to comic strip minutia. If you’ve been reading your Dustin recently (like all the cool kids who secretly hate themselves) you’d know that there’s another balding schlubby middle-aged asshole incapable of introspection! Let’s get with the program here!
LUANN (2): It’s nice that the Fuze* does so little business that Bernice can do all its “bookkeeping” as a quick morning chore. Makes it real easy (so much so, that you wonder why the parents don’t just do it themselves, outside of being really lazy, shitty businesspeople.)
*Or is it “Kafe Kablooey” this week? It’ll probably be “This Lot Available for Rent” by the next, with the way the business is going.
WoI: More manure by the horse/elephant than by the horse/mouse, I guess that checks.
Putting periods in “OK” looks weird, so I’m not surprised that’s how Alice does it.
I dunno, Josh, right now the sparks seem hotter between Jeff and Mary than between Alice and Ballcap there.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Oh come on, now! Ye of little faith!
Luann is perfectly capable of ruining any possible growth or interest on her own, thank you very much.
Alice – I don’t think we even need to ask if the carpet matches the curtains, here.
Pluggers refuse to pay for the latest J.D. Robb book.
The creators of Dustin have discovered the concept of Casual Friday. Who dare say they are behind the times?!
@Anonymous: It’s no fair alluding to storylines from when Josh was taking a vacation from Luann.
Wait. Bernice is Girl-Wilbur, Belle’s brother is Tall Wilbur, Dilbert is Business Wilbur, I kinda think Mike Doonesbury is Somewhat Likeable Wilbur. How many distinct iterations of Wilbur do we have?
Five?!? That’s too many Wilburs!
Luann – Come on, Bernice. You’re pretending to be Mr. Rogers with the goldfish, right? Go full cosplay and put on a cardigan.
@Schroduck: Well Bernice never says whose skirts she organized. She was probably just rifling through the clothes of all the female members of the house (for…ah…organization purposes, of course. It’s the same reason she was thoroughly inspecting their underwear. To…keep it organized. Er, yeah…that’s the ticket….)
@Victor Von: “Dilbert is Business Wilbur”
Now I’m imagining Wilbur being voiced by Daniel Stern, and frankly I don’t like it.
Children of the 1980s may remember the animated Disney cartoon show “The Wuzzles” about hybrid animals such as the Bumblebee-Lion and the Elephant-Kangaroo. I don’t know if it was ever explained how they cross bred these species but now I’m forced to imagine a Lion having sex with a fucking bumblebee!
Pluggers will flex about the most mundane, uninteresting things.
FC: Jeffy comes running into the kitchen crying with Bil’s toupee stuck in his toy jeep wheels.
“Mommy!, scary hair, the man [sob]”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Re: RMMD: Well Truck never knew that raising children would be so easy! You just invite them to freeload off of their would-be stepmother’s dime to their hearts content! And bonus: a free guitarist whenever a bandmate gets sick at Hasbeens or whatever that one dive bar that consists of Truck’s entire “comeback career” is. Score!
MW: Mary thinks; “Shut up and stroke me, already.”
@The Rambling Otter: “Of course they can’t mate or the mice would explode.”–Rose Nylund.
RMMD: the DNA test will reveal Cody is Mud Mountain’s son.
@Anonymous: And a spiritual successor Canadian cartoon “Spliced!” from 2009 about a mad scientist on a secluded island who genetically combined a bunch of animals together, then when the scientist was arrested for crimes against nature, the mutants were left to their own devices on the island having their own little misadventures.
Well, mutants and a Platypus (whom the Scientist either didn’t get around to experimenting on yet, or was stumped on what he could possibly do with her that nature didn’t do already)
Wizard of ID-Somebody’s been starving that poor elephant.
Luann-“The Fuse bookkeeping done so that they don’t know I’ve been secretly embezzling money from them.”
Luann: Bernice is depicted as organized and responsible, especially in comparison to Luann. Today’s strip reveals that this is because Bernice is so utterly boring that her chores are the highlight of her day.
WoI: If you had shown me today’s roster of strips and asked me to pick which one featured a pile of excrement on panel, I would have guessed Marvin.
@Liam:
That first comment is ‘Rex Morgan’.
Marvin: I hope to never be in a place in life where I happily tell my spouse about my new job, and they react with a blank-faced “Why?”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: True, I mean, I was going to make a comment that the Wizard’s “magical” plan to crossbreed incompatible animals is really no different from a mad scientists’
High and Lower – Lois just missed the commission of her life.
Slylock – Never before, and I hope never after, will I think about how much Shady’s nuts weigh.
As a huge library proponent, I love the sentiments in today’s Pluggers. Why did it have to be in Pluggers, though, the comic strip for self-absorbed assholes?
Shoe – Zits did it better more than 20 years ago.
@Philip: That whole thing is an urban legend.
Furry conventions are just like any other conventions. They mingle, sell art and items and such. Nothing lewd.
Based on my own experience with pet fish, Mr. Monstro will jump out of his uncovered tank and asphyxiate within the hour.
@2+2=7: Raising children is especially easy when they’re already adults.
Wiz – A pig and an elephant’s DNA just won’t splice.
Alice Doesn’t Live – The tagline perfectly encapsulates my response to this strip.
@The Rambling Otter: @Philip:
But THEN AGAIN… if that is a thing, maybe it’s a common thing and not exclusive to Furry Conventions. I mean, I DON’T want to know what happens in the hotel rooms at Star Trek conventions.
@The Rambling Otter: Oh my God, reading too much Mary Worth has me putting random words capitalized for emphasis.
@The Ghost of Jarrod:
Wiz – A pig and an elephant’s DNA just won’t splice.
If a Vulcan and a human can have a kid, anything’s possible.
Their few strands of wispy hair touched, began to vibrate, intertwine. Alice leaned close and let her eye, unrestrained by skin or bone or logic, drift into his face. His smile joined her smile, a vast expanse of glistening happy teeth. His eye entered her face, or their face, an amorphous drifting field of eyes, noses, and teeth. They were one. He wanted her. He was her.
They were they.
DT: So, we’re just assuming both Icaruses (Icari? Icaria?) are dead now, and not duking it out in some distant past or future? I mean, I guess, dying by falling from a great height is pretty much the only way someone named “Icarus” can go in fiction.
Dustin: “Well, we do have the option for remote work, or we can set up a four-ten schedule if you really like your three day weekends. The bad news is we don’t offer a dental plan; otherwise I would have had my overbite corrected years ago.”
GT: My knowledge of current popular music is…well, about what you’d expect for someone of my age and interests, so for all I know there could be a hit single that features square dance calls in the lyrics. I am pretty sure, however, that if such a song exists it would not be something you slow dance to.
JP: Do CIA operatives normally take meetings in public cafes in small Norwegian towns?
Luann: “Blimey”? What are you, a 19th-century London chimney sweep?
MW: “Does that mean we can move on to open-mouth kissing?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Phantom: “A regime that answers to a man and not the law!” You mean like a government that’s ostensibly a republic, but is secretly overseen by a spandex-wearing colonizer who issues orders to paramilitary organizations from the shadows?
Pluggers check out their books after issuing “reconsideration requests” to all the queer titles in the YA section.
RMMD: If you had told me the bulk of the current Rex Morgan storyline involved hanging around while waiting for paternity test results, I…would not have been the least bit surprised, honestly.
Being royalty, the kind is very opposed to outbreeding: only inbreeding for him!
Alice: Alice needs to take a cue from Gertie and saw off two couch legs, but in this case so she can get closer to her beau.
Marvin: I refuse to believe this is a Marvin strip. It features two adults, and they’re not being hateful to each other?!?
Luann: I’m not sure about this decision to pivot the entire strip to Bernice. I guess I’ll give it time.
Alice: You catch more flies with honey (letting visitors sit on a nice, normal loveseat with you) than with vinegar (making your husband sit on an insanely tilted sofa when he watches NASCAR with you),
WofI: So was it the King’s idea or the Wiz’s to put the hybrid with the longest nose next to the huge pile of shit? Whoever it was, thanks a bunch.
MW: “You complete… ”
“Your sentences.”
“No. Me. It’s from a movie.”
“I have enough entertainment at Charterstone. I don’t need the cinema.”
Dustin: That guy’s lucky. He doesn’t need to dress up to look like an animatronic pizza parlor animal.
FC: Bil normally has Thel do this, but needs must.
CS: The punchline is Pam is so oblivious she doesn’t notice anything. Ha ha, Batiuk. Very witty.
9CL: What the f*** is going on with Lolly’s arms in panel two? It looks like she’s late for her performance with the Maharelle Sisters on Lawrence Welk.
@taig:
Scary: Being jumpscared by an animatronic in Five Nights at Freddy’s
Beyond Scary: Playing Five Nights at Freddy’s and that guy just appears on the screen and stares at you, and stares and stares, maybe deep breathing, maybe scratches his armpit a few times, burps. Still staring.
“And they’re off! It’s Flame Ram on in the inside, Nag Beetle coming second, Mouseketeer on the outside, Wilbur Weston falling back, and Pack-a-Derms trailing. They’re rounding the turn, and Flame Ram is fading, Mouseketeer is moving up, Wilbur Weston falling, and Nag Beetle and Pack-a-Derms running fourth. The outside turn, Flame Ram has flamed out, Mouseketeer takes the lead, Wilbur Weston’s getting put down, and here comes Pack-a-Derms, passing Nag Beetle on the inside. The final turn, it’s Mousketeer’s race but wait! Here comes Pack-a-Derms, moving up fast on the inside, it’s Mouseketeer, it’s Pack-a-Derms, it’s Mouseketeer and at the finish line, it’s Pack-a-Derms by a nose! Which, honestly, we should have expected.”
@taig:
On Crankshaft : the punchline is supposed to be that Crankshaft is bald and thus using special shampoo would have no visible effect,
but it should be that panel from Judge Parker of Judge Meth’s head getting smashed, edited to be Pam smashing Ed’s head, while going “IT’S *MY* SHAMPOO I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH IT YOU THIEF”
Bernice is just like me for real
@TheDiva: DT I’m guessing they’re duking it out forever in the background of the painting (ripping off some old SF story denouement, I’m sure), and if we glimpse a bit of it they won’t be saying anything that explains the gaping plot holes of other art thefts, acting familiar to Blaze, deliberately getting the police involved…
@The Rambling Otter: That would be scary!
@Anonymous: Oh, I know what the punchline is supposed to be, but it’s stupid and unfunny, so I was having a go at my own stupid and unfunny punchline.
@taig: And here I thought that the punchline was that, thanks to the miracle of volumizing product, the two last hairs on Ed’s bald pate have been transformed into Dagwood Bumstead antennae. Please excuse him while he steps into the kitchen for a sammich.
Wizard of Id: Anyone who’s seen Sorry to Bother You knows better than to look into those stalls.
CURTIS: And he’ll end up loving the work and the women, d ciding by August to grow up to run a nursing home.
FG: I don’t trust that scrybot. A little snitch if I ever saw one
Dustin: I know Dustin’s lazy and a loser but come on, this is stupid nonsense.
@Professor Well Actually: Of course it’s stupid nonsense, but it’s not actively mean-spirited, so it’s only 67 percent of a typical Dustin.
@richardf8: That makes sense! Batiuk is trying to bolster his dwindling readership by appealing to readers of Blondie.
How does BG&SS keep up with the news like that?
Blondie: There’s nothing like adding raw garlic to a complete marinara.
H&L: Lois isn’t coming back is she?
Crankshaft – Why bother? He wears that ratty hat all the time, so those two hairs will end up as hat hair.
Pluggers – Why does she have a tote bag for her books? She could just carry them in her pouch.
Yeah, pluggers are the only ones who use the library. Maybe the point is that they’re the only ones who are smug about it.
Another thing – it looks like she’s checking out a dozen books. How many books can she read at one time?
Ripley’s – Let it bee.
So, I’ve been out of the loop for a few years. Can anyone explain:
1) What is Alice?
2) Why is Alice?
@I speak Jive: Well, to quote the Simpsons
Bart (Sees Kangaroos): Let’s escape by riding away in their pouches
(Bart and Homer attempt to climb into the Kangaroos’ pouches, then immediately climb back out)
Bart: It’s not anything like in cartoons
Homer: Yeah, there’s a lot more mucus.
@Austria: 2) Why is Alice?
Because God hates us.
Luann-“It’s never too early to get high,” Bernice says pulling out a bong.
@Garrison Skunk (#Y181) – I second that – Happy birthday, Ringo Starr! He’s 85 today.
@Needless Exposition: Good an@lysis. They’re also in the same order that I learned them.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Re Frazz – I’m not sure if the strip is trying that hard. It looks more like laziness to me – the creator rips off a much better artist’s style rather than come up with something of his own. I agree that Watterson would have done wonders with the unicycle accident.
@Little Guy: Re yRMMD – I recall from the original story that Truck did not have COVID. It stuck in my mind because the story ran at the time when COVID was starting to blow up into a pandemic. As the story progressed*, Beatty was clear that Truck had pneumonia and not COVID.
*Well, as much as a RMMD story can progress.
MW: It’s inappropriate to appear in black face,
Marvin – The only way that “Why?” makes sense is if she meant “Why would anyone in their right mind hire YOU?”
Wiz – I, for one, applaud the artist’s decison to include piles of shit in this strip. It’s self-referential humor!
@LTJpezcore1: Dr. Jeff doesn’t kill his patients, but don’t ask him about insurance fraud. Why else would he name his boat Double Billing?
@taig: Re 9CL – Alistair’s head is out of proportion, too.
@The Rambling Otter: Good one! (Blecch.)
Don Abundio, translated:
“Do you have any hobbies, Abundio?”
“I do a lot of bird watching”
“And what kind of birds do you look for the most?”
“The British kind!”
Luann: Only the writer of Luann could think that someone having a day of relaxtion mostly free of work is a bad thing that makes people miserable.
Wizard Of Id: How does an elephant banging a horse result in a horse that’s smaller than a mouse-horse and ant-horse???
The final panel of Luann confuses me: I’m not sure what Bernice means.
Does she mean, “I’m so bored, I have nothing to do”?
Does she mean, “Comics are supposed to be funny, but I am not,” in the sense of a comedian dying/bombing on stage?
Or does she mean, “I am never ever leaving the life I have here and will die, alone and unwanted, in whatever town this is supposed to be”?
@I speak Jive: Holy cow! Alistair does look like he has a human-proportioned head in those latter panels.
@I speak Jive: Funny, I thought he’d be older.
Still, Happy Birthday to him!
GT: Rachel Merrill gets a good dig in at Moy in her Instagram feed. Unfortunately I can’t share the specific strip, just the acccount. It’s the 4-photo version of her July 4 strip. You’ll have to find it yourself at her profile: https://www.instagram.com/ohhhaeee?igsh=b2dyeGV2Nnl6bjk=
@Rube: 66%. The stray 1% goes to the “mean spirited.”
Low and Highless: “Col. Bleep is calling on Mom’s phone! Guess Uncle Beetle got killed!”
@I speak Jive: C’mon, only a sucker would bill stealing someone’s kidneys as a single, bilateral procedure!
@Austria: So, I’ve been out of the loop for a few years. Can anyone explain:
1) What is Alice?
2) Why is Alice?
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The Wizard of Id brought a Picasso painting to life and it opened a restaurant where you can get anything you want excepting herself. Hope that explains it, oh and there are also frequent alien sightings in TicTacs™
@Peanut Gallery: Wiz – I, for one, applaud the artist’s decision to include piles of shit in this strip. It’s self-referential humor
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Wiz is using the PoopSmith™ for the human half of his homemade centaur.
™PoopSmith is a registered trademark of Brothers Chap Productions ©2015
@The Rambling Otter: @I speak Jive: Funny, I thought he’d be older.
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Did you know he was both the oldest and the youngest Beatle at the same time?
BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
@richardf8: You’re right, of course. Thanks for the correction.
LUANN: Yes indeed, Evansii, you nailed it. This is what life is like for college students in 2025. What with low college tuition, lots of non-loan money for college easily available, low living costs, a generally-joyous national mood, and abundant high-paying pleasant secure entry jobs to look forward to upon graduation, life is a cinch. Too much free time and nothing at all to do is the biggest problem facing college students today, and seeing it so eloquently portrayed is an example of why your work is so admired here on CC.
SlylickFox and Comix For Kinx: Our own Mel Mare displays her wide range of acting skills…going from Prince Violent riding horse to KwikiMart™ counter equine in the blink of an eye. Sid told me the script originally had Shady demanding an extra 25¢ in change by bellowing, “You owe me another quarter, horse!”, until Mel put her hoof down and demanded they change the demeaning “joke.” Good for you, Mel!
GT: Is Keri dancing with two different people at the same time? What the hell is going on?
What A Frazzhole: “I was out on my unicycle, when I rode into a giant popcorn piece that some non-bike riding lazy person left in the middle of the street!”
HtH, WoI: Every so often, like now, Hägar does a strip where Hägar suddenly has a dragon, and I assume that one of the popular Dreamworks movies about a Viking with a pet dragon has come to the top of the Walker-Browne Netflix suggestions again. I likewise assume that the dragon/horse chimera that begins Wizard of Id‘s parade of transgressions against nature was inspired by the “dronkeys” in the Shrek sequels.
Luann: So, has Bernice heard about … books? Or TV? Or jigsaw puzzles? Or being sarcastic about comic strips on the internet? It’s not even that she needs a hobby, she appears to be completely unaware of any way of passing the time that doesn’t check a box on her to-do list. Part of me wants to complain that this may be a stereotyped portrayal of someone on the autistic spectrum, another part thinks that even that might be giving the Evansii too much credit, and they just write her like this because they write her like this.
JP: We know the CIA employs at least one April lookalike (or was that her parents’ operation? The point is, there’s one out there), and also Sophie mistook the dead body of her boyfriend’s dad for her own dad that one time, so maybe she shouldn’t be that certain about this.
Phantom: “Which reminds me, it’s been a while since I’ve checked in on Chatu in the off-the-books prison I decided to hold him in without trial! Remember the time I took President Lamanda to watch me beat the guy up?”
S4th: Wait, what happened to Ted Forth Investigates: The Case of the Painting-Pulverising Partygoer? I was really invested in the possibility that there was going to be a mystery in the comics involving a painting that at least had the potential to make any sense!
@I speak Jive:
and @Garrison Skunk (#Y181) – I second that – Happy birthday, Ringo Starr! He’s 85 today.
AND he is still touring! The Chicago Theater, Chicago, IL Sept. 10, 2025 “Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band”
The Schlockhornies: The CEO got caught hoarding all the building’s coal again! Plus the secretary dropped her desk on LeRoy’s triangle foot for the dirty joke he told her.
@treetown: AND he is still touring! The Chicago Theater, Chicago, IL Sept. 10, 2025 “Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band”
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Good Old Ognir Rrats! He’s the Greatest!
LuAnn — Contra Madame de Stael, it appears that Bernice does not need to choose between boredom and suffering. Nor does the reader.
@Horace Broon: Typically, Luann is there for her to snark at, and Luann’s absence has really thrown her for a loop. She’ll find someone else she can be judgmental toward.
@Horace Broon: S4th: Wait, what happened to Ted Forth Investigates: The Case of the Painting-Pulverising Partygoer?
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“Ingrate! Without this ‘time portal’, Ted Forth is nothing!”
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Inma is dancing with her date… to show up Keri and date, maybe out of concern for Keri being paired up with a good person (the writers having forgotten that Inma cajoled Keri into asking “horse-girl” to the prom). But it’s sure coming across like Inma’s from the rare intersection of “observant muslim in hijab” and “openly same-sex attracted”
@brendancalling, Luann: Either the Evansii are mocking the readers as they mumble the same, or they finally broke and self-projecting.
@taig: She’ll find someone else she can be judgmental toward.
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Cue the What A Frazzhole/Luann crossover.
While we would never be critical of Mr. Bumstead’s private fantasies, we cannot help but wonder why he chooses the frilly apron instead of his wife’s utilitarian one, and whom the French maid uniform in the back of her closet really belongs to.
@I speak Jive, RMMD: Curiously, “Walking Pneumonia” was also a colloquialism for the 1957-58 Flu Pandemic that originated in…. China.
Apologies. We authored Comment #134.
@GarrisonSkunk: @treetown: AND he is still touring! The Chicago Theater, Chicago, IL Sept. 10, 2025 “Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band”
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Hope he invites George Takei on stage to sing “Oh, My, My”
@Little Guy: @I speak Jive, RMMD: Curiously, “Walking Pneumonia” was also a colloquialism for the 1957-58 Flu Pandemic that originated in…. China
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What about the Boogie Woogie Flu?
@Horace Broon: : Every so often, like now, Hägar does a strip where Hägar suddenly has a dragon
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Isnt that his Mother-in-law? (Played by Eve Arden)
@Rube: Yeah, it’s only passively mean-spirited. It suggests that Dustin is so bad at interviewing that he makes himself unhirable. We are apparently meant to wonder whether this is simple incompetence, or self-sabotage fueled by laziness.
Unfortunately for Alice, I think her weird stylized geometry doesn’t actually let her lie down or even get her body close to another human (?) being. She might have to settle for romantically touching eyeballs together.