OK, to be fair, that’s not really good art
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Gearhead Gertie, 7/17/25
Oh, man, the domestic drama in the Gearhead household just gets more fraught! Gertie’s husband Harold, in a desperate attempt to introduce a new topic of conversation into his life, has dragged his wife to an art show, and you have to imagine that there was a brief moment where he really believed he had pulled it off, believed that he had managed to awaken something in Gertie’s soul when he brought her face to face with the greatest examples of human creativity. Sadly, what she actually took away from the experience was “What if we got more NASCAR shit, for people to look at, in our house?” Gertie may not know much about art, but she knows what she likes, and what she likes is having Dale Earnhardt’s death car, acquired and restored at great expense, hanging on the wall of her living room.
Pardon My Planet, 7/17/25
Man, what the hell, do you think vampires would ever in a million years wear cross necklaces? Of course not! They would burn their skin upon touching it! These are just goths! Goths with deep respect for Madonna’s iconic cone bra!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/17/25
I gotta say, we’re all pretty used to nothing really exciting happening in Rex Morgan these days, and so when this plot about Truck’s maybe-son started out, I don’t think any of us would’ve pegged “Truck finds out he got cucked by his own drummer” as the dramatic conclusion. I’m trying to parse out what his facial expression in the first panel is conveying … excitement? Respect? I hope we dive ever more deeply into his psychosexual landscape over the rest of the week.
168 replies to “OK, to be fair, that’s not really good art”
Blondie: That fast food is going to regret putting out the ordering kiosk now that Daggy has discovered the “plus” button; they’ll be making his Dagwood Sandwiches with “plus meat, plus meat, plus meat, plus cheese, plus cheese…”
Dustin: @Diva–did Ed steal those wall sconces from a Best Western or were they from the older Holiday Inn Express decor package?
Rex Morgan: OH. MY. GAWD. Something actually HAPPENED in today’s strip! Where’s my fainting couch?
“Spuds Morton? I won’t stand for it! Reckon I’ll just keep sittin’—that’s kind of my deal, anyway.”
RMMD: Someone should advise Snuffy Smith to do a paternity test on Tater. Those musicians get around!
Gearhead Gertie: I assume this is riffing on the millionaire who used a rare supercar as a wall in his house, which goes viral on Instagram every so often. Joke’s on Gearhead Gertie though, none of its five readers know about social media beyond the “Classic Farside Calven and Hob Best Funny Comic” group on Facebook!
As South Park clearly demonstrated in 2008, these lameasses are not goths, as I see no cigarettes or coffee present, and those perversions of the word “outfit” could ONLY have come from one place. So gather up your torches and flammables everybody, we’re burning down Hot Topic.
RMMD:
“…name of Morton.”
“Well, I’ll give that clan this. They’re the salt of the earth. So to speak.”
RMMD:
Truck appears to have forgotten in his tempestuous outburst that Varla was an equally willing participant in this extracurricular activity.
Gertie tried to have Dale’s actual body mounted in the car as well, but Earnhardt family lawyers and a cemetary night watchman put a stop to THAT, the killjoys.
Rex – Truck the Cuck is the best Truck.
PMP: I did like the fan remake, of King’s Quest 2 where in the original, in the land of Kolyma you sneak into Dracula’s castle stake him in the heart while he’s sleeping to steal the McGuffin he’s hoarding.
In the remake he’s replaced with Count Caldaur and when you arrive at the castle, the Count immediately grabs you by the neck with scary organ music playing in the background and lightning flashing during the heavy rainfall.
So, obviously the player would show the Crucifix they got from the monk earlier as that wards off vampires.
Caldaur takes the cross and kisses it “God Bless Kolyma, hehehe”
PmP: “…unless you came prepared” as the man holds up a condom shaped bandaid. Not a bad riff on an old gag.
RMMD:
“I’ll tell ya, that drummer of mine was way off bass! –I wonder how he managed to snare her. He must’ve crashed at our place one evenin’ when I was out of town and started to pedal his influence, and the next thing you know, he had the whole kit and caboodle. He’s nothin’ but a cymbal of depravity!”
RMMD-“Spuds! I oughta mash ’em, slice ’em, stick ’em in a stew.”
MW-“Oh no. When you are gone, Mary, I deal with my own teenagers.”
Crankshaft : actually, this story is doubly-false (triply-false? quadruply-false?) because actually (CHOOSE ONE) :
a) the people at the syndicate never even bothered pretending that they had wanted to meet some schlub who barged in uninvited with an unsollicited submission, even if he later became famous.
b) the editor in question REALLY DID try to chase Bat
iukTON THOMAS because he was THAT impressed with his work, but having a friend/patron in the industry really goes against his whole “I was a misunderstood genius, all those corporate suits scoffed at my art” narrative, so he pretends it’s not true.***********
Frazz : Yep, last week we had Mrs Olsen be sympathetic to Frazz over his injury, telling him she thinks its wrong to treat it as just desserts consequences for his active lifestyle, agreed with him that exercise is important and even challenged him to a competition where they’d see if he could recover faster than she could improve. But Mrs Olsen has to be a constantly humiliated antagonist, and you can’t have THAT if she was nice to our “hero” when he was at his lowest, so she’s walking ALL of it back this week.
**********
Gearhead Gertie : You think having Dale Earnhart’s Death Car hung up as a trophy on her wall is sick, wait ’til you find out she has the autopsy photos in the drawer of that desk!
She also had his corpse stitched back together, stuffed and placed at the wheel of the car, too.**********
Pardon My Planet : maybe the vampires initially DID wear appropriate necklaces, but the syndicate had them change the “satanic” symbols for more wholesome ones, “BUT VAMPIRES ARE REPELLED BY HOLY SYMBOLS” complaint falling on deaf ears.
(though maybe they initially were symbols of their respective clans, but the artist realised no one would recognise/care about showing the proper symbols for a Toreador/Ventrue hookup)
**********
Rex Morgan M.D. : “Spuds” Morton has that nickname because :
a) He comes from Idaho
b) He has a lumpy potato nose, lumpy potato head, generally a lumpy potato person in appearance
c) He is similar in appearance and personality to “Spuds” Mackenzie
d) Choose two of the above
e) All of the above
I’m just glad that Gertie has found a use for the absurdly high ceilings she insisted upon to accomodate her absurdly large TV.
PMP: Ah, the curse of Das Wampyr will stop the ravages of time. But it can’t do anything to help those who already started balding when they were 21.
RMMD: “Sorry, kid. Looks like I’m gonna have to bust yer ol’ pa’s head open before you get a chance to meet him.”
SF: Ah, the old tried and true ‘make your insufferable leads more likeable by making the people around them ten times stupider’ ploy. Sorry, Ces, you’re several years and millions of dollars too short.
JP: Speaking of which, this ’employee’ isn’t calling the police… why?
MW: Well, after the past week and a half this is a possibility I wasn’t expecting the strip to raise…
RMMD:
“Let me give this a gander, ‘son’ — says here the father is one Woodland ‘Woody‘ Squirrel! No wonder that critter didn’t have anythin’ to say to me when I was talkin’ to him on that park bench!”
GG: Unfortunately the subject of wall studs rarely comes up at a NASCAR race, and so this will be the last Gearhead Gertie.
MW: I thought “Mary Goes to The Big Apple to Visit Olive and Her Parents” was bad enough. If it’s “Mary Takes Jeff Along to The Big Apple to Visit Olive and Her Parents, All of Whom Are Unknown to Jeff,” I hope Jeff gets the bunkbed.
RMMD: I guess this answers my question from yesterday. They didn’t take a paternity test, as anyone who knew what “paternity” means would have done.
Instead, they sent off to some ancestry-type service. And not one that just says they’re (eyeballing the characters) 107% white. This one matches their genes with everyone else who’s ever used the service, and sends a HIPAA-violating list of close relatives.
MW: “I would rather go to first base with Wilbur Weston than go anywhere with you, Mary Worth. Now where’s your bathroom? This garbage you made is making a return trip and I don’t know what route it’s taking.”
FC: Get a load of the bored disdain on PJ’s face, even he knows that Jeffy’s an idiot.
RMMD: it’s always the drummer.
RMMD: “Spuds? Well, I’ll be danged. He wasn’t gay after all.”
FC: Thel makes a mental note to never say ‘shoofly’ pie in front of Jeffy.
@Anonymous: Yeah, I’ve long given up on understanding what Batton’s narrative is supposed to be. Only today did it become clear that Batton was in New York to market himself to publishers. I thought he was trying to get that comic book job again, since that’s the only thing he’s talked about this entire multi-hour interview. Clearly he thinks he’s telling his hero story, but he comes off like a pushy homeless guy. Or maybe Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day.
RMMD:
There once was a drummer named Morton
Who, while with Varla cavortin
Created a son
Known to no one
Until one day Truck started snortin’
H&L: You’d think the strip would make a bigger deal of the Flagstons vacationing in rural Great Britain.
Blondie: “But I want to speak to a real human being who will screw up my order when I give it verbally! Preferably a teenager with a stereotypical demeanor befitting my Boomer senses!”
Curtis: “Ha ha! I get my enjoyment embarrassing my son early in the morning. That way, I can glare deathstares at him in the evening when I come home when all my joy is gone from work.”
Man, everywhere you look, it gets worse for Truck. My wife slept with someone from my band? My wife slept with the drummer?? I’m in Rex Morgan, M.D.???
@But What Do I Know?: Well done.
DT: The weight in your chest is the electromechanical pump keeping you alive until they can find a heart.
RMMD: hmmm, is that how mail in online paternity test works?! Cmon writers try to keep it in the realm of reality.
MW: Jeff don’t do it. Run away.
JP: why are they running. The barista would be calling the police. Young people like this will be videoing this for their ton too and instagram channels. “Freak out and Fight at cafe”.
Vintage Judge Parker: See, right there on the van. it’s Spencer FARMS not Spencer Ranch!
Idget modern writer.
RMMD: Another one–must be in the mood today
There once was a drummer named Spuds
Couldn’t keep his d*ck in his duds.
Conceived with a roadie
A boy they named Cody.
He and Truck are no longer buds.
On the positive side, now we know how the Gearhead Gertie story will end. She really should have used wall anchors while securing that Chevy to the drywall.
RMMD – So Spuds had eyes for Varla? He found her a’peeling? What a masher!
@Ken: @Treetown: RMMD Yup, not a paternity test. But there _are_ gene tests with ancestry databases, I think even 23andMe had it as a possibility. If you take the test (and opt in?), you’ve signed up for that and it’s no violation. People finding adopted-out half-sibs when searching for connections like distant cousins was at one point a pretty routine type of lightweight news story.
With Spuds, Varla Tyler made baby.
Could it pass off as Truck’s kid? Well, maybe.
Two vials of spit
And voila, this is it.
Proving Varla as what a great lay, be.
Rex – Don’t worry, Truck. I’m sure Varla was screwing the entire band, not just Spuds McKenzie.
Next up: Wanda tells Truck she’s pregnant. Then the paternity test shows that Mud is the impregnator.
Still time to save this one and give us all what we’re hoping for.
JP: The only thing Sophie should be thinking is “what’s Norway’s 911-equivalent” and “where is my phone”
MT: I yearn for the Mark Trail writers to pull a Spuds Morton and have the new golf course (that somehow nobody noticed being built up the road…) not have anything to do with the lake contamination.
@Old School Allie Cat: RMMD – So Spuds had eyes for Varla? He found her a’peeling? What a masher!
Who ARE you? And WHAT have you done with BOB TICE??
Archie: Archie, you may make fun of Jughead’s laziness but you can’t read!
And if the top of the box is on the bottom, why is the opening on the side?
RMMD: “There’s a bunch of other names, too! None of them are my mother’s relatives.”
“What? It’s the whole dang band!”
Well, I’M sorry now. RIP Connie Francis.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Sorry, Scratchy. I see you had already covered the obvious.
GG: well, we now know Gertie’s a poser. Any true member of the NASCAR cult knows Dale “The Intimidator” Earnhardt’s car sports his distinctively squared-off and inclined number 3 on the hood and doors, not the wimpy straight-and-rounded number we see. All this time she’s been faking her devotion to NASCAR, just to irritate her husband.
Yep, “GG” is really just a ripoff of “The Lockhorns.”
Or maybe Mike Smith, who probably started this strip as a one-shot gag (“let’s see how long I can keep people interested in a strip about an old biddy obsessed with NASCAR”), was then captured by a one-gag strip that refuses to die, and envies Tom Arnold, whose “Marvin” at least revolves around something human, is planting intentional mistakes in the hope of being cancelled.
MW: Um…doesn’t Mary already have her flight booked? And airplanes are almost always filled to capacity these days. How is Jeff going to get there? If these two are depicted as taking the same flight, add “air travel” to the long list of Things Karen Moy Doesn’t Understand.
GG: This drives me down the wall.
Is everyone in roots country on the run from the law and they just picked the first thing they saw as a fake name?
“There’s a Ford F150. ‘Ford’? No, that’s 42 shades of wrong. ‘Truck’!”
“These fries are good. I love a good spud… wait a minute…”
“Guys, I’m tired of hiding on this mountain. It’s too muddy.”
***
Good luck getting your rental deposit back with the amount of nails you’d need to hang a car on the wall.
GT, missing first panel: “Kids, say goodbye to your father, I’m taking you to Berlin! That’s right, I’ve already abandoned most of my past identity so its time for us to embrace the world of ‘Cabaret!’ Go get your jack boots Peanut, old chum, it’s 2025, fascism is in again! Tomorrow belongs to me!”
I was kinda hoping Crankshaft would get more strips out of an extended love ode to Howard Johnson’s, most of which have been gone for decades, if only to run off the four people under 40 even pretending to read Crankshaft
Truck: “Kid, I’m sorry, your mother is a whore! Well, we already knew that, otherwise we would not have made a paternity test, but she is an even bigger whore than we expected!”
Sartre said, “Hell is other people,” but I think Gearhead Gertie shows that we’re capable of ruining the things we care about entirely on our own.
Those vampire posers are not real goths! You know who is? Gearhead Gertie! Nothing but a morbid and sexual fascination with death could explain why she put Dale Earnhardt’s car against a wall, the same way he tragically died!
I might be naive enough to believe that with DNA testing, fewer people might cheat on their spouses for fear of getting caught.
GT: When the Thorps were told that cooperation in post-divorce parenting was a good thing for the kids, they maybe should have specified that doesn’t mean cooperating to surprise the kids with plans that upend their (whole?) summer. And while it’s not as WTF as Mary’s suggestion Jeff just tag along to the airport and hop onto her flight, I do wonder whether the kids already had passports or whether Gil and Mimi managed to get that done without revealing the summer plans to the children
RMMD: The drummer, the most expendable member of the band! That’s almost as bad as doing it with one of the roadies. Couldn’t your ma have at least cucked me with the bass player?
Happy Birthday, Josh!
So Truck found out that Varla cheated on him, and he’s mad not at her but at Spuds? To him, wives are like guitars or hot rods and his drummer merely borrowed her without asking, huh?
@Astroboy: #47: No problem. Dr. Jeff is going to sail his yacht through the Panama Canal.
Lorry: “Oh, good, I can *finally* stop feeling guilty about the times I cheated on Varla!”
@Ukranazi Stepan: WHAT th’??!! Happy Birthday, Josh!
“Spuds could never keep his eyes off Varla!”
@58 Ukranazi Stepan:
It’s Josh’s birthday, AGAIN?
I guess I’ll use this like I did on July 18, 2010.
GG – The banked couch has been replaced with a single chair. Dude finally moved out.
@Charterstoned:
Who ARE you? And WHAT have you done with BOB TICE??
That is high praise, indeed – his wordplay is enviable.
@Astroboy: To go with his enormous yacht, Dr Jeff has a private plane. Mary wonders why they have to make a stopover in Guanajuato, Mexico before continuing to NYC.
PMP: So is Vic Lee staggeringly ignorant of vampire lore? No, those aren’t Christian vampires at all. Van Helsing has a necklace with the Swiss Army Knife approach to fighting the undead, festooned with religious symbols like the Coexit bumper sticker.
“The new exhibit at MoMA, Trouble Comes in Threes, reflects on life and death and death in life. A replica of the car in which Dale Earnhardt died is nailed to the wall like a crucifix, an arresting vision of willful sacrifice to America’s insatiable love of blood sports. As transfixing as the vehicle is, it becomes easy to overlook the true focus of the piece – an aging Earnhardt groupie, a NASCAR fanatic, sits smiling beneath the cenotaph, oblivious to the pain it represents. She sits alone, abandoned by both her idol Earnhardt and all other human warmth, with the cold machine of death her only companion, hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles. A powerful vision of America’s soul. Four stars.”
Gearhead Gertie has heard of “art by the foot”, in mid restaurants and motels everywhere. She has just invented “art by the pound”.
The Lockhorns are going old school with what looks like my grandparents’ ice pack to symbolize the past, when a working man (we think) waking up with a hangover on a weekday was an endless source of humor. Bad news for Leroy: Oatmeal would sound just as loud.
Gearhead Gertie and Pluggers have both been to museums today? And not the NASCAR or Baseball Hall of Fame? What’s going on?
Zits: Mom should be relieved that Jeremy’s putting fruit stickers on the walls and furniture, as it’s much less bother than the chewing gum he’d been doing that with since he was four.
FC: Jeffy’s been eating insects his whole life and is worried about their creating saturated fats in his stomach now? A little too late to ask.
H&L: The Good Rumor man, chimes ringing, covered a block in five seconds whilst kids pour out to buy his ice cream? RIP Dot and Ditto.
Blondie: Does Dagwood’s tongue always hang out like that when he’s going in to bite a sandwich, or are there some Bumsteads in Hootin’ Holler we don’t know about?
GG – And you know what would really say existentialism…a rusty washing machine on the front lawn….
PMP – I suppose the cross necklaces is what they refer to as using protection….
RMMD – Spuds really knew how to beat that thing…apparently….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
9CL: Is Alistair old enough to buy a mattress?
@Hibbleton: “We can fly my plane, Mary, we just have to drop off a few guys from Mexico in South Sudan first.”
Rex Morgan: It’s a… It’s a…It’s a psycho-billy freak-out!
RMMD – Is Truck a Texan? Because I distinctly recall that in Texas, if you catch your wife cheating on you, you can shoot both of ’em. And I don’t remember hearing anything about any statute of limitations.
@Myrtle: No problem. And you’re getting a Scrote for that one.
Gearhead Gertie – Dale Earnhardt’s car looks less like an art piece, and more like a preserved trophy a hunter might mount on their wall. Taxi-dermy, if you will.
Pardon My Planet – I hope that is the male vampire’s leg we’re seeing in those checked pants, instead of the Greek god Priapus being thrown into this mishmash of folklore and religion.
Rex Morgan, MD – “Spuds” Morton! That Dirty Song of a Gun!!! will be both a revenge song and a surprise hit for Truck, leading to a short-lived popular revival of roots country on TikTok.
MW – The New York City Tourism Bureau has to use this. “New York – Vibrant, yes. But also fast.” A nominal licensing fee to Karen Moy should seal the deal.
RMMD – It stretches credibility to suppose that a drummer in a roots country band doesn’t have his DNA in a public database somewhere, so what the fuck did these two do? Request a genealogy from the Mormons?
MW: What? Does Jeff really have a plane as well as a yacht? There’s been a lot of small plane crashes in the news lately. But unfortunately Mary Worth doesn’t do timely stories.
MW: Bad manners to bring along an unforeseen guest when you’re staying at someone else’s home, Mary. And most NYC apartments only got one bathroom, so you’ll be dancin’ in the foyer waiting to poop.
RMMD: Since when does “roots country” have drummers? I thought the music was propelled solely by the compulsive rhythms of the combined bass/mandolin/banjo players. Maybe the “Long Haulers” were from Truck’s rockabilly phase.
And don’t forget: you can’t tie down a banjo man.
FC: “…and do horseflies make horses??? Do they, mommy?? Do they? ‘N do houseflies make houses ‘n do fruit flies make fruit??? DO THEY MOMMY??? DO THEY???” Thel realizes that little Jeffy has ingested far too much concentrated sucrose from the honey and slowly replaces the lid on the jar, rinses off the spoon, reaches under the cabinet for “a bottle,” and hastily retreats from the kitchen, leaving the little ones to revel in their sugar-infused idiocy.
Gert: And with a throaty roar and a suffocating belch of exhaust, the car rumbles to life, and with squealing tires, peels off the wall, careens around the room and flattens Gertie like a pancake. Then, just as mysteriously, the car resumes its position on the wall, its engine now silent, and watches in quiet satisfaction as poor henpecked Harold comes in and gives it a high-five. “Checkered flag for poor old Gert,” he thinks as he smiles and changes the channel on the TV.
@Astroboy:
He’ll drive his superyacht round Cape Horn and up to NYC, of course.
TrainwreckMD:
“I hope we dive ever more deeply into his psychosexual landscape over the rest of the week.”
Josh, that is one deep dive you’ll have to do on your own…I for one will not be accompanying you. I suspect if you dive deep enough, you’ll find Wilbur Weston in his tiny black Spandex Speedo.
@Daisy: Which Stephen King novel was that again?
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Maximum Overdrive.
….Unless it was Mrs Todd’s Shortcut?
@Baja Gaijin: #1
“SPUDS MORTON” is just *crying* for a mashup, Baja!!! (I know…mashed potatoes is too easy, but you’re such a genius…)
So how long until Chekhov’s racecar comes loose from the wall and falls onto Gertie’s poorly placed chair?
@Baja Gaijin: Please, those are too classy for Dustdad. He’s more of a Super 8 or Econolodge type of guy.
@Bob Tice: #6
Keep peppering us with your glorious puns, Mr. T!
Rex Morgan: Oh. Its some drummer guy. That’s okay, I guess. *is disappointed that it wasn’t Mud or Rene*
Pardon My Planet: The woman is actually a vampire hunter and is going to use her pointy bra fo stake the bloodsucker when he gets in close.
JP: The coffee shop manager says: “That’s the last time we let Americans in here!”
I just took an enormous dump.
Popping by in a hurry, oversnarpologies in advance…
GG: The Dale Earnhardt Death Car hangs over Gearhead Gertie like a racing-themed Sword of Damocles. One day it will come loose from the wall and crush her. Will it be today? Tomorrow? Ten years from now? Gertie doesn’t care; her life is spent in endless worship at the altar of NASCAR, everything else is in Buddy Baker’s hands.
RMMD: “I mean I would have understood if it was the bassist, or even the rhythm guitar, but a drummer? I thought Varla had more class than that!”
@Anonymous: And the short story it was based on was called (wait for it)
Trucks.
C’shaft: Batiuk retreats a little farther into the dream world where Marvel really wanted to hire him, and gave him a mint edition copy of Amazing Stories #15 as a signing bonus.
Dustin: When Dustin oversleeps, it’s because he’s a lazy good-for-nothing Millenizalpha mooching off his hard-working father. When Dustdad oversleeps, it’s the clock’s fault.
MW: Dr. Jeff is mortally terrified of the subway.
@Enormous Dump: Good to hear. You were absent for so long I thought you might be constipated.
@Ukranazi Stepan: #86
“Christine”?? :-)
@Voshkod:
This…this was brilliant. Dammit, Voshkod, stop being so much funnier than me!
@Baja Gaijin (yesterday) on Eartha Kitt: “Agreed. She is the only person who could portray Yzma. Were anyone else to voice the character, the movie would suffer.”
Yeah, in the spin-off “The Emperor’s New School” (Which while not as funny as the movie, still had its good moments) I can’t remember if Eartha Kitt played Yzma to the end of it.
She might have skipped out on the last few episodes because either she passed before the show finished, or was sick at that time. All I can find is that another actress did replace her (Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) but I don’t know if that was during the final legs of the show, or for whatever since appearances or cameos Disney would have in mind for Yzma.
Regardless, personally, I have never seen better on-screen chemistry between two actors than Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton in my entire live. They just…. flowed!
CS: “And so I walked backwards down the hallway, which, in retrospect, was a mistake because when the elevator doors opened I couldn’t see that the car wasn’t there. That’s why I plunged 40 stories to my death…. Oh, wait! Did I forget to mention I’ve actually been dead for decades? Huh! Sorry, I guess I should’ve lead with that. Let me start over…”
I actually laughed at today’s Six Chix. Help me!
It’s been done, Gertie. https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/jysx3d/you_ever_liked_your_car_so_much_you_stuck_it_on/
@erdmann:
Doesn’t work, my friend. By God, this interview WILL NOT be interesting!
@Enormous Dump: Ah, then it’s a good bet you’re not staying at Olive’s place with Jeff and Mary. There’s a line.
RMMD: Yes! He is a heretofore unheard of bland character!
Pardon My Planet: She’d better be careful lest she poke someone’s eye out!
MW: I thought Jeff was going to drop the Ferris Bueller quote, but then I realized what comic strip I was looking at.
FC: PJ is wondering why it is that Jeffy hasn’t drowned in a puddle yet.
Dustin: I think I’ve found the most relatable character in this strip!
Someone mentioned the passing of singer Connie Francis.
I thought I’d mention Andrea Martin’s SCTV parody of a TV ad for a CF greatest hits compilation.
‘Connie Franklin: You’ve Never Been So Miserable’
@taig: Why not? Today G. (@#$*(@! Thorp dropped a Sandlot quote.
Luann: Did Knute wander off while Gunther was selling the comics? How else would he not know how many they sold? It’s certainly understandable that he’d want to get some distance from Gunther, but he should also maybe realize that Gunther isn’t exactly going to close those sales.
CS: No, it’s not a good story. It’s a stupid story. Why would you waste Skip’s time with your stupid, made up story? Also, I’m sure by the time you got to the last syndicate, no one wanted to see you. At least one of the editors at the previous syndicates called ahead with a warning.
9CL: Alistair knows boinking happens on mattresses, so he’s feeling a little self-conscious.
PMP: Eh, Grace Jones did it better.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: But the writer of Gil (@#$*(@! Thorp is at least trying to be relatable to a younger audience. Yes, I realize Ferris Bueller’s Day Off released in 1986, and The Sandlot released in 1993, but still…
PMP…. honestly pretty clever. Kudos.
Rex Morgan – Cody’s father isn’t the roots country John Lennon (I threw up in my mouth typing that); he’s the roots country Pete Best.
Crankshaft – Batton has an expression of false modesty while he goes through this self indulgent bore-a-thon. Skip looks like he thinks he landed on the scoop of the century. One would think that a few journalism courses would give him an idea of what a news story is. This isn’t even a human interest story, because anyone following it lost interest ages ago.
Speaking of scoop – that’s what’s needed for this heap of horsecrap.
FC – I can’t get past how they have an uncovered butter dish on the table. The cover is nowhere to be seen. This is unsanitary, plus the minute Thel’s back is turned PJ will be up to his elbows in that stick of butter.
9CL – Heaven forbid that Brooke would write a male character who isn’t a fragile, emotionally stunted thrall. I’m getting flashbacks of Sven freaking out over Fleurie’s underwear drawer.
Gearhead Gertie – Why doesn’t she have the version of the 3 with angel wings?
Mary Worth – I apologize for not remembering who pointed it out, but Jeff does look like Wilbur! Look at that profile.
At the risk of revealing my truly nerdy depths, I’m pretty sure the woman thinks she’s about to become a Brujah, but the vampire is actually a Malkavian.
Four words that any Dick Tracy reader dreads: Guest writer Eric Costello.
“Spuds Morton, my drummer, used to play the drums by throwing potatoes at the kit.Remember,Cody, only one letter separates ‘drug’ and ‘drum’ ” “Truck, are you senile?” “I go back and forth.”
@I speak Jive: FC – I can’t get past how they have an uncovered butter dish on the table. The cover is nowhere to be seen. This is unsanitary,
_______________________________________
Thats not butter, its Parkay™
MW: There’s no chance at all Jeff is going to go to NY right? I mean, that’s a plotline I’d actually be EXCITED about, so it actually getting written in seems rather unlikely?
@LTJpezcore1: (Mild spoiler) They shut down that notion PDQ.
The Schlockhornes: Guess Leroy just watched that MASH when Hawkeye put beer in his Rice Krispies™
“Snap, crackle and burp.”- Hawkeye Pierce
Wallace the Brave is a delight, as always.
@LTJpezcore1: Mary will go to New York City; Jeff will be going to Schenectady.
“So Spuds was just a nickname, because of all the illegitimate children! I shoulda guessed, but I never actually heard of nicknames before, ‘Truck’ bein’ on my birth certificate an’ all.”
@Voshkod: Doc Jeff stays away from those “fast” towns. Doc Jeff is a bit….”slow.”
Fake fan! Fake fan! Nascar cars put the number on the roof not the hood! and they’re rotated to the left so that the number is visible from the infield as they race around counter clockwise. I figured this out by accident in the ten seconds it took to idly google Dale Earnhardts car. you had one job Gearhead Gertie, it was to be the worlds preeminent Nascar enthusiast newspaper comic and you blew it! For shame!
@Navigator: Maybe the Long Haulers ALL had cutesy nicknames for recording purposes, like the Traveling Wilburys. Say, d’you think Roy “Lefty” Orbison ever fucked George Harrison and Bob Dylan’s wives?
@Bob Tice:
#12. Started reading this post with all the musical puns and knew the author, time after time Bob Tice proves his noted pun ability. It’s his signature. If you ever are captured by spies and have to write an anonymous ransom note, Bob, we’ll know your motif.
Grew up in an Italian household with a soundtrack straight out of a mob movie. Connie Francis was like the female Sinatra in our casa.
R.I.P. Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero (now thatsa nice-a name!)
CS: I’m still trying to figure out what ‘it’s not a good story but not true’ means. Are we to believe that “syndicate head sprints down the hallway to keep the immortal Batton Thomas from getting away” is a known story in this world? But Batton is slyly admitting it isn’t true? Because he ANTICIPATED this happening, and had a tactic in place? Good Lord. Is there some other explanation?
@taig:
It’s time for a crossover.
Knute and Gunther go find Batton Thomas and harass him into buying their homemade comix.
@Sequitur:
#64. Happy, happy birthday, JOSH! Seq. gave you a lovely summer present, so I’ll contribute peanuts or popcorn, your choice.
@Ukranazi Stepan: The Northwest Passage may be free of ice by this time of the year…
CS: To my own recollection, hearing it from the horses mouth himself, the syndicate boss didn’t chase Batiuk down the hallway, he contacted him after he had already gone back home to Ohio.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Also, according to his story, this was the last syndicate he visited with his unsolicited artwork, so somehow he was thinking, “This time, for sure.”
@UncleJeff: Love it!
@TheDiva: #95: re-RMMD: How about the steel guitar player? Can’t have a roots country band without one of those.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: The story as presented in the strip presumes the receptionist had nothing better to do than interrupt her boss with unsolicited artwork, and her boss looked at it and immediately decided he needed to add it to circulation. Maybe things were different in the 70s.
PMP: I’m pretty sure that’s the would-be fiancée and the jeweler from Tuesday. This job practically pushes disillusioned girlfriends into his lap, and that’s exactly why the dark lord sent him to to gemological college.
Crankshaft-And then I fell several floors down the elevator shaft.
@Activist: Can’t wait to see what Baja cooks up for Late Thread Cuisine to celebrate Josh’s birthday!
Loose Parts: Well, yea! The colorist actually read the strip.
The colorist probably cheered and said, “Less work for me!”
Crank: Question for any comics insiders out there: Has anyone ever claimed that the syndicate was so impressed with Funky Winkerbean that they chased Batty down the corridor but missed him? Or is that just a story he wishes people would tell, as long as everyone knew it was only something that should have happened, but actually didn’t because his brilliance has always been unappreciated (except in the sense that he did actually get published)?
Follow-up question for any comics insiders out there: Is it even theoretically possible for a comic strip to get cancelled due to bad writing?
DT: Sure, because asking the guy who was also there and is perfectly fine what happened wouldn’t be DRAMATIC enough for Dick. He’s probably hoping this is going to be a deathbed confession. (No, he has no reason to believe Edgar has committed any kind of crime, but that’s never stopped the NCPD trying to get a confession before!)
JP: “I’ll spare you the details because, honestly, knowing that much is probably enough to get you killed!”
MW: Mary waits until after Jeff has started talking about how he finds New York too fast before inviting him on a trip she’s already booked anyway. No sense in taking chances!
@GarrisonSkunk: It’s not nice to fool Mother Fucker….
@145 Horace Broon:
I would say no. Tuesday Chick of Six Chix is still producing her crap despite all the comments at Comics Kingdom asking she be taken away for therapy.
@lynn:
#103. Lynn, understandable. Hope you don’t think its just sour grapes if I confess I also chuckled out loud at Batton’s confession in CS. Lesson: never believe background story of a fiction writer.
GT: That news really took the kids’ breath away. They have no more words. Maybe they’ll take the metro to the airport. Anyone ask Terri Nunn if she was OK with this?
@Horace Broon: “Batton” is very invested in the contradictory ideas that (1) he’s an unappreciated supertalent creating real art, and (2) big media are a bunch of Philistines who reject real art on sight. So he spins today’s absurd yarn, because it’s the only way both of these things can be true. It implies that “Batton” is so absurdly talented that he overcame big media’s inherent opposition to talent. But he never actually says that, because that would take… you know, writing skill. Then he flips on the phony humility switch again, saying “oh, that crazy thing didn’t actually happen… because I anticipated that crazy thing happening and turned around so I could face him when he approached me!” Christ, what an asshole.
@Sequitur: Hey, Crock — a major contender for worst written- and drawn-comic strip in the entire history of comic strips — is still running TWELVE YEARS AFTER IT ENDED. This is well after the various writers and artists all died like Spinal Tap drummers.
I can’t even surmise that the descendants have naked pictures of the King Features executives with dead boys, because they’re probably all dead by now too.
@GarrisonSkunk: Yup, it’s definitely some brand of oleo, probably the kind that doesn’t melt. I’d bet that that “honey” is actually corn syrup.
Happy birthday to Josh!
@I speak Jive: Happy birthday!
Garrison pulls out his guitar and sings the Arrogant Worms’ “Happy Happy Birthday Song”
Happy birthday
What have you done that matters?
Happy birthday!
You’re starting to get fatter
Happy birthday!
It’s downhill from now on
Try not to remind yourself
Your best years are all gone
If cryogenics were all free
Then you could live like Walt Disney
And live for all eternity
Inside a block of ice
But instead your time is set
This is the only life you get
And though it hasn’t ended yet
Sometimes you wish it might
Happy Birthday, Josh!
Happy Josh Birthday!
PmP: ok, I no longer follow PmP, but my take on today’s comments: Romeo is a vampire, but Juliet here can wear a cross as shes a mortal, willing to take the plunge (bite) into vampiredom. Not a smart choice, but at least he has gotten informed verbal consent.
@151 Ukulele Ike:
Crock. You can’t kill a strip that’s born to hang around.
If I’m not mistaken, a crosses are fairly standard goth accoutrements, and the more ornate the better.
PMP: Vampire style for men means “Abe Lincoln but with pierced cartilage.” Vampire style for women means “cocktail shakers over your tits for some reason.” I’m learning so much from a strip I will never, ever add to my daily reading list.
RMMD: Obviously “Spuds” Morton got so sick of drummer jokes he decided to write one on his own terms.
SFX: not pity on the dog or whoever (whomever?) is raking leaves. Always begin raking AFTER the leaf blower does his work.
9CL: I assume this store has an “If you screw on it, you buy it” policy. Or at least they will now.
C-Shaft: If Battom had been born thirty years later he’d have created a webcomic that fifteen people in toto ever looked at, most of them only once.
DT: “…and the best way to do it is in a song. Toss me that harmonica.”
Dustin: This is what eventually happens to the Kudlicks’ disappointing boomerang children, isn’t it? The clock radio is really Dustin’s older brother under some awful enchantment.
GT: Jami likes to horse around by talking through bacon “tusks” like a walrus. He’ll remain the “funny” Thorp child until they put him on something.
JP: There’s being burned and then there’s having your entire CIA career made into public sitcom fodder. Needless to say this won’t stop the Company from sending April on dozens more “last” missions.
Lockhorns: Leroy knows that if you’re going to chew out Kellogg’s mascots those three are a safer bet than Tony the Tiger.
MW: “Nah, I’ll just wait around to see the inevitable grisly story on Dateline NBC. Wait, did I say that out loud?”
@I speak Jive: Seconded, with gusto.
@Sequitur: It doesn’t always work that way though. Josh once highlighted a Snuffy Smith where Snuffy was supposed to be miffed because they used a black and white photo for his “Wanted” poster. In the strip as it ran…no.
Marvin is mostly a one-joke comic strip, but sometimes it ventures out to do jokes about things other than Marvin’s excrement with the other characters. Gearhead Gertie, meanwhile, remains laser-focused on doing the same goddamn joke every day. You could respect that, but I advise against it, for mental health.
Meanwhile, Pardon My Planet is terrible.
I do like how Truck Tyler’s bubble has quotes around “Spuds” to indicate that he’s saying it with some amount of emphasis or irony, which the other guy (I’m not looking up his name) doesn’t copy.
@Tabby Lavalamp: I see what you did there w/42!
@Ukulele Ike: that’s bluegrass and old time you’re talking about—no drums in those genres (with some exceptions).
“Roots country” is a goofy name for “traditional country,” which is what I think Beatty means (especially w/Truck drawn to look like Dale Watson and Mud a dead-ringer for Johnny Lee). Plenty of drums in trad country.
@Ukulele Ike: My guess is that the heirs to the creators sold all rights to the syndicate for drink money, so at this point any money Crock makes, however small, is pure profit.