Sadness, death, etc.
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Beetle Bailey, 7/25/25
This strip is a pretty good demonstration of the fact that comic characters even within the same universe each have their own distinctive design, and, unlike actual humans, the wide variations in their head shapes means that you can’t just slap glasses on someone who doesn’t usually wear them and expect it to look not insane. But no matter how uncanny Sarge looks in this final panel, it’s all worth it to deliver this joke about wearing eyeglasses in order to disguise the fact that you’re crying, the normal and relatable thing that we all do and that would definitely work.
Blondie, 7/25/25
Hate to be churlish, but today’s Blondie doesn’t include what we in the biz call a “joke,” and while I’ve given the ennuimeisters at Hi and Lois permission to explore this discursive mode, I do not grant the same dispensation to Blondie. The last panel here should definitely have included a thought balloon in which Dagwood imagines himself winning a sandwich-eating competition in front of thousands of cheering fans, if only to distract us from his increasingly inexplicable relationship with Elmo.
Wizard of Id, 7/25/25
Oh, hey, the Wizard is still on his kick of forcing animals of different species to mate with each other, I guess. “But Josh,” you’re probably saying, “this is some kind of fantasy setting, and maybe that sort of thing is normal there.” Wrong: this random knight (?) is clearly horribly burned in the final panel, but his moral disgust at the unnatural act that produced this fire-breathing dog is so profound that he says “ew” instead of “ow.”
Pardon My Planet, 7/25/25
This lady straight-up murdered her husband! And she’s bragging about it! Right here at his funeral!
159 replies to “Sadness, death, etc.”
Ten days ago, this young couple was discussing the pros and cons of proposing. In order to collect more data on which to base their decision, they decided to observe how long-term relationship fares. Spoiler: bad!
I, myself, had a pair of eyeglasses that hid my pupils, and disguised normal eye functions. Took ’em driving! Many have died needlessly.
I do not want the Wizard of Id (both the strip and the character) use the word “breed” ever again
Pardon My Planet:
“Of course, thanks to Zeno’s paradox, he will have never been completely scared to death, because each ensuing halving will have nevertheless left some fractional non-scared remainder. So he’s just faking things in there!”
Sarge, you should not be ashamed of your feelings! Without them, you would just be a killing automaton! No, the US Army wants you to go into the battlefield with the passion and lust for murder!
MW: “You can tell me how you’ve been DOING, Olive. After all, “kindred spirits” CONFIDE in each other…”
Okay, the needle on my Creep-o-Meter just spun around wildly before flying across the room and impaling my framed picture of Mary Worth. Either Mary assumes that Olive can’t have normal conversations with her own parents about being a teenager in a fast-paced city like New York, or she’s grooming that girl for something Olive will only be able to confide to a psychiatrist years from now.
Is Senator Orrin Hatch aware that this old lady has murdered his clone? Or are there many Hatch clones out there, and they all go to Chickenfoot concerts together, and now is time for revenge?
Well, the comics page — nay, the comics blog “The Comics Curmudgeon” — was one way to find out that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is dead
There are two ways to be the main attraction at a sporting event: 1) being a top performer at world level; 2) streaking
Sarge always tears up at the culmination of part one of Full Metal Jacket.
@A Grave Mind: We had the same idea at the same time, but with a slight variation
Pardon My Planet:
“Back in the ‘Winchester Cathedral’ days, he used to have sideburns just like yours, young man!”
BB: Rocky definitely misheard the word “tearjerker”. I don’t know what he’s going to do with that bottle of lotion he’s holding, but at least the kleenex he brought came in useful.
Blondie: Do you know exactly what he means, Dagwood? Do you really? Because if you do, could you explain this boy’s weird Herb-and-Jamaalian “main attraction at a sporting event” to the rest of us?
PP: Slightly horrified to discover the Pardon My Planet slackers have TikTok. Can you imagine the state of their algorithm? They must be getting conspiracy theories so baroque and terrifying that our normie brains would melt in seconds.
pardon My Planet: That corpse is a dead ringer for the actor, Henry Jones.
PMP: I’m impressed that someone so old that Olive Oyl is their hair stylist is up on the latest social media trends.
RMMD: Truck didn’t work nearly this hard to win Wanda. Does he think that Cody will be able to afford a better quality nursing home some day?
MW: Mary is definitely grooming Olive, but for what? Is Olive an intern in the meddling empire? The host in Mary’s parasitic quest for eternal youth?
The ultimate jump-scare TikTok video would be if he weren’t dead and jumped up out of the casket during the service.
Wizard of Id:
“His can of root beer is flat and in much worse shape than his unit of computer data storage capacity.”
“No. Don’t say it, Wiz.”
“Yep. His ‘Barq‘ is worse than his ‘byte‘ !”
Mary Worth is just straight-up grooming now.
Beetle Bailey : Was Sarge supposed to be Plato at one point? And what’s with Killer’s gross flesh-eyes (WHERE ARE THE WHITES)?
**********
Blondie : Alternate second panel : “And by “new soccer ball”, I meant “Your Ass”. As in “I’m gonna kick your ass”, Mr. B.”
(Which ‘mudge made those edits constantly again?)*********
Six Chix : “Yes! I will! I will become the main beneficiary of your life insurance!” she replied, later today’s Pardon my Planet happened.
*********
Wizard of Id : the guard is reacting with a “Ew” because, due to his ears being burnt off, he couldn’t fully understand what the Wizard said, and all he really heard was “[inaudible] I’ve been breeding [inaudible] with dragons”. Which, in the guard’s mind, perfectly tracks, but doesn’t explain the fire-breathing dog.
@A Grave Mind: @Ettorre: get yer stories straight
@A Grave Mind: @Ettorre: specifically, would you mind switching politicians, because my reaction was “he’s alive?” followed by “he’s dead?”
@Ettorre:
Funny how that works, no? Giving you the edge, Sessions is closer
MW: Not only is Mary outright grooming young Olive but her parents are literally in the same room letting this happen, probably because they want to run to the next room and resume making their replacement child. This automatically puts them in the same category of bad parents as Wilbur Weston who cares more about getting laid than his daughter’s safety.
Autofill hard!
1. Sarge is actually crying because he just took a swig from the bottle of Tabasco sauce that Killer is holding.
2. WTF is the deal with Killer’s magically-appearing hat in panel two?
PARDON MY PLANET: “And recorded it to sell snuff films to the masses! Gross!”
B. Bailey:
Writer to artist: “You know, eye encompassing night vision goggles which service personal have on hand would have made more sense.”
Artist: “Stop busting my balls”
When did acclaimed filmmaker and eyeglass fashion icon Martin Scorcese join the cast of Beetle Bailey?
[Frye meme: Can’t tell if sarcasm or just Josh being Josh]
Blondie: Josh is clearly jockeying for a position on the Blondie writing staff. Go for it, Josh! There may not be any social security left for you!
Just out of curiousity, do we do Late Thread Cuisine (And my Sweet Treat Time) on Fridays? Because having two separate comment threads in one day sort of confuses me towards that.
Blondie: “Look at me, I can sleep standing up! Even in the middle of a conversation! Wait, competitive sleeping is a sport, right?”
The Wizard of Id: Dogs with dragons, good one! Now do one explaining what you have to interbreed humans with to come up with feet like that! (Do not under any circumstances do one explaining this.)
MW: not sure if Josh mentioned it, but that very memorable ‘Olive and the Flower Fairies’ arc was ELEVEN YEARS AGO and yet I remember it as though it were yesterday. Anyway, how old was Olive supposed to be, back then? Has she aged in real time? If so, what does this mean for Mary?
FC-“Lousy lumps,” Mommy says whacking it with a baseball bat, “They just won’t stay down.”
MW-“Kindred spirits confide in each other.” Mary’s a groomer!
MW-“Hello, Mary. My name is Chris Hansen.”
Blondie:
Dagwood awaits the inevitable as he watches Elmo kick the ball through neighbor Woodley’s picture window.
Laughing hysterically, “Borrow my tools, will ya!”
MW: Don’t stop at “kindred spirits,” Mary. Next, tell Olive all about the candy in your van.
WoI: How, exactly, does the wizard get his test subjects to follow him down to his basement?
“The cask of Amontillado is right over there.”
I was going to ask if Josh would update us on the latest batshittery in Alice, but it seems to have gone down to simmering madness, rather than full boil. Cute doggo, though.
@Needless Exposition: Olive’s Dad: “Um…hel-LO?! Caring about that has always been our entire personality! Waaaaay before that poseur Wilbur started horning in on our territory. That’s our ‘thing‘ that we do!”
Olive’s Mom (flashing bedroom eyes): “And speaking of ‘things‘ that I ‘do‘ (wink wink), let’s leave these two alone to get better reacquainted so that we can then get better reacquainted (with out reproductive organs) (tee-hee!)”
For a Beetle Bailey strip involving a “jerker” movie and Sarge’s bodily fluids, this could have been much, much worse.
5 minutes later, we see Elmo flying into the air as Lucy pulls his soccer ball away. “AUUUGGHH!!!”
Considering how many TikTok videos are just actual crimes, the widow’s defence of “It was just a prank, bro” should hold up in court if she gets a young enough judge.
MW – “No one understands me like you, Mary!”
“That’s very nice of you to say that, dear. So tell me -how are things at school?”
“Terrible. None of the other kids like me. They say I talk and act like some kind of old woman!”
PmP: Shouldn’t this have the “Haha it’s funny because…” at the beginning? I mean “This lady straight-up murdered her husband! And she’s bragging about it! Right here at his funeral!” is literally the intended joke.
I thought maybe he was saying “ew” because dogs have had breath, so the flamethrower attack was stinky?
MW – ditto to all the creeped-out comments. All that’s left is for Mary to stroke Olive’s hair and say she’s so mature for her age…
Phantom wait… the “job application” was real and not some sick joke by the strongman taunting the enslaved villagers? Were some enticed in (like Edda in Flash) while the locals were forced, or is this going to be more incoherent than that?
MW: “Kindred spirits” also drink “giggle juice” and pop some “happy pills” before taking “funny pictures” with their clothes off. And they don’t tell their parents, because they’re not “kindred spirits” and wouldn’t understand.
Someone please call the authorities before this goes any further.
Those aren’t eyeglasses. A while back, Sarge was told to wear a mask whenever he went to the movies, and he interpreted that to mean “wear a sleep mask any time you watch a movie, even if it’s on your own TV.”
@2+2=7: Good parenting doesn’t exist in Mary Worth because children, especially if they’re under twenty, are considered persona non grata at best and scapegoats at worst. Animals are treated better than children as we’ve seen with Old Man Wynter’s codependency with Greta the dachshund and Estelle having no purpose after going from Wilbur’s doormat to taking care of the best character offscreen.
@Tabby Lavalamp: In the videogame franchise “Ace Attorney” they have rather improbable ages for their prosecutors, because the creators were trying to go for “Prodigy” making them a more difficult challenge to overcome in court.
One cartoonist did a parody of that, listing all of the increasingly improbable ages for for their prosecutors, then the comic shows the “newest” prosecutor who is a literal baby.
@The Rambling Otter:
Just no meat!
PMP – Ma’am, Harry Morgan died nearly 15 years ago. You aren’t fooling anyone.
Beetle Bailey: “Secretly, Sarge is sensitive and soulful” or “Sarge has a soft spot for sad movies” are both fun character traits. Unfortunately, Beetle and his fellow soldiers don’t really have character traits, they do bits. Their lives are skits, not narratives.
Honestly, if Sarge was wearing Groucho glasses as an ineffective disguise, I could get behind it. It’s not much of a gag but at least I’d understand what they were going for.
@The Rambling Otter: I can’t wait for the newest attorneys to either still be in utero or at the moment currently being conceived.
Mary Wormtounge: We need Jules Winnfield (our man from Watts) to kick in the door and demand, “Say KINDRED SPIRITS one more time, mater irrumator praetor!
Sarge is wearing one of those virtual reality Vision Quest Pro headsets, to immerse himself in a virtual reality. And his alternative reality is even worse than his physical one! That’s so pathetic even I’m tearing up a bit.
Beetle Bailey – I feel this this strip was originally supposed to be a joke about 3D glasses, and someone reminded the artist halfway through that 3D movies are not currently a fad and are never sustainable.
Blondie – Like Beetle Bailey, this strip also reuses some art, because Elmo is clearly dribbling a basketball that was redrawn as a soccer ball.
Wizard of Id – The Wizard hasn’t thought this out. Invading armies don’t need to set up a siege or install complex wall-breaching equipment to cause chaos when they can just ring the doorbell and let fiery chaos reign.
Pardon My Planet – The Lockhorns should take note.
I’ve long known that I hate it when Dagwood uses contemporary slang or has people enable his wacky antics. Today I learned that I also hate it when he has a perfectly normal and heartwarming interaction with a neighborhood child. I just hate that guy!
FC Dolly backs out of the room, not wanting to be there when mom’s morning coffee kicks in and she has the energy to notice the grim discovery…
REX MORGAN M.D.: Ok, here’s the big issues with this whole storyline. The problem is that, no, Truck hasn’t “been there” for
Jordan with a guitarCody, as a “dad” or “stepdad” or honorary uncle” or whatever. Honestly, Cody has about as much of a “connection” with Spuds as he does with Truck, and yet Beatty seems to think this particular non-relationship desperately needs preserving. Does Beatty think someone merely told is there father (a person, btw, the story has emphasized fully that the mother hates to the point of making sure there is no contact between them whatsoever) is the same as familiar relationship? The only “bond” they have is Cody as a Truck Tyler fanboy (But given that this is the Rexverse, that could be anyone. You could have Buck play the “tormented son” role with the same amount of emotional resonance this generates). This “heartwarming moment” they are trying to set up here just feels so false and empty and completely unearned because there is no explanation (outside, I guess, the fantasy of having a BIG ROOTS COUNTRY CELEBRITY WHO PLAYS AT DIVE BARS as a relative) as to why Cody would want or need Truck to be his dad so badly (Oh I’m sorry. It’s so Truck can maintain a connection with the ex-wife he hardly thought about who hated him and cheated on him. How “heartwarming!” I’m sure whatever bitter rants she filled her sons head with about the husband she “fought cats and dogs” with only strengthened the parental bond!)Don Abundio, translated:
“Whatcha doing, Abundio?”
“Vandalizing trees”
“You are such an asshole!”
“The public loves this stuff!”
[On tree: JUAN S. PERFIL IS A “BAD BOY”]
Blondie: This should be amusing. Have we ever seen Elmo kick a soccer ball?
Crankshaft: Skilled application of bleach can turn a Home game shirt into an Away game shirt, Pam.
BG&SS: Take it from a contra / folk / square dancer, it takes eight people for one square in a square dance, sixteen for two squares, and so on. Am I expecting too much from the writers, or do they just not figure the denizens of Hootin’ Holler to care about the slightest norms?
FC: Kittycat, like all housecats, loves going crazy and clawing everything under a newly laid sheet. Jeffy’s gonna learn the hard way.
MW: Someone’s pregnant. Or bringing home an A- on her report card. With the artwork I never can tell.
Dustin is a good young fellow who’s never thought of getting a woman drunk. Until now.
H&L: Chip will maim or kill someone, and perhaps himself, in his first year plus with a license. Make him get a job, then kick in some $ to buy him a crappy car to beat on until he learns to take ca–
What am I saying? Chip will never turn whatever age that is.
Lockhorns: Loretta knows that 13 is a prime number, as is 21013. Has she been having an affair with a mathematician?
Beetle Bailey: “Huh. Does Sarge always need glasses to watch TV? … Does he need them to fire a gun?”
Speaking of things I hate, the new art style in Wizard of Id. Don’t like it! The art looked much better when Mason Mastroianni started drawing it, just before the strip’s lengthy disappearance from this site. I don’t know if he hired new sub-artists* or just stopped caring. I guess I should be grateful that they’re not reusing old art.
*looks like that’s still his signature in the bottom right? but that’s not always reliable
BB – In this context, tear jerker refers to watching gay porn with your crew, and beating off so vigorously that you’ve damaged the skin on your dick to the point of extreme pain. Pretty good, Greg and Mort – much better than your usual pablum….
Blondie – I don’t know, Elmo. You’re interrupting my big tits and food fantasy time….
WoI – By Jove, you’ve cracked the mammal-reptile inter species breeding barrier. Imagine the sex slave potential….
PMP – I just told him he was stuck in this strip and that as good as it’s gonna get….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
PARDON MY PLANET: Looks like Dolly Pierpoint went digital Rex Morgan prevented her from inducting Sarah into the “dry-cleaning business.” (just saying this widow and her tearless visage seems less like she’s crying and more like she’s nervously wiping the sweat from her brow, hoping that these two youngsters “buy it.”)
And while I’m already on the topic….
MARY WORTH: Dolly: “Looks like I’m going to have to jump into that comic as well to show that old broad how grooming precocious little girls for evil really works!”
PmP: That TikTok still only got 5 likes. It’s tough out there.
MW: “You understand me like no one else, Mary” is not something a 14 year old should be saying to a 60 or 70 something. That’s…weird. It’s not ok. This is like the beginning of an after-school special called “Janie Got Touched” or some horrifyingly maudlin shit….
Even setting aside how skeeved out I am by this, no child actually TALKS like the above either…unless Olive is the reincarnated spirit of Sylvia Plath…
Actually that might make sense…
Blondie: Poker and competitive gaming are considered “sports” these days, so I suppose an eating contest clears the bar as well.
PMP: Are these the same characters from a week or two ago, or is this a Far Side thing where there are several stock figures who look pretty much the same but assume different identities based on the day’s joke? And did they actually know this guy, or is funeral crashing the hot new dating scene?
Beetle Bailey-Sarge always cries at the food fight scene in ‘Animal House’. “All that food going to waste.”
MW – I’ve seen the grandmotherly/teenager pairing like this with my late grandmother and two of her granddaughters (not me), and my late aunt and two of her granddaughters.
The key to the relationship is that the grandmother is deeply narcissistic, and the child is desperate for approval that she feels she is missing from the rest of the world – and so they pair-bond and it’s “them against the cruel world”. The grandmother gets to right whatever went wrong in her youth by replaying it through the child, and the child has a real champion in this devoted grandmother.
Not that I’ve spent time talking through it in therapy.
Is Mary gonna pimp Olive out to Wilbur?
@Anonymous: Inquiring tummy brains want to know!
CS: This is so cringeworthy. Jeff’s mother wife Pam has damaged the
easily replaceableprecious t-shirt Jeffhad no emotions for before Mondayloves so much. And nowmomwife must sheepishly beg herchild75-year-old husband for forgiveness. Somebody’s working through their mommy issues. Still.MW: This whole thing would be way, way less creepy if the strip had actually put some effort into establishing Mary as some kind of mentor figure for Olive, like a kind of surrogate grandmother or something (yes, I know we’ve been told they talk over Skype. I don’t think we’ve actually seen it) and Moy had any clue how people actually talk in real life.
As matters stand, the only reason I don’t think…oh…oh no. Guys.
What if she’s not grooming Olive for herself? What if she’s grooming her…for Wilbur?
@LTJpezcore1: There are circumstances where it’s not that weird–i.e., being raised by your grandparent/someone old enough to be your grandparent, but in this case it’s really weird. They live on opposite sides of the country and communicate via Skype. What is this nonsense?
This is the closest Dustin has ever gotten to getting laid. I thought the punchline would be “My boyfriend will have arrived.”
DT: Grieving girlfriend with1963 Sue Storm hairdo: “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.”
JP: ”Listen, Randy. I need you to get in the car and pull up just outside a dark alley in Santa Claus Village in Norway, and wait for me.”
@Ukulele Ike: This is the closest Dustin has ever gotten to getting laid.
And, to getting a job.
Scary Gary-YAY! People have probably died!
C’shaft: I’m thinking Pam “accidentally” spilled bleach on Jeff’s disgusting Blue Bombers shirt in the same way the mom in A Christmas Story “accidentally” broke the leg lamp.
DT: “Wait, you’re telling me there’s a way we can make these tasers fatal? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I would have agreed to carry one long before now!”
Dustin: Lady, no drink is that strong, unless Dustin rimmed the glass with Rohypnol.
Luann: They’ll only be stars if a “cosplay fails” compilation goes viral.
MT: ….Oh, those are golf clubs! For a moment I thought the Cheddersons were brandishing riding crops and this whole resort was a front for a BDSM club.
MW: I think this is what happens when you don’t know how to write kids: you have trouble making them relate to adults in a normal, non-creepy manner. (See also: the neighbor kid in Dustin, Elmo in Blondie, any of the kids in Frazz.) Moy is probably aiming for a mentor-student vibe between Mary and Olive, but the language and overly adoring expressions push the whole thing into “get CPS on the phone” territory.
Phantom: Okay, I really want to see what the “job application” looks like:
Previous job: Armani sweatshop
Duties: Attaching labels onto handbags, removing safeguards from machinery, making sure new employees had the fight beaten out of them, light typing and filing
Reason for leaving: Government raid
RMMD: He’s not the stepdad or the dad that stepped up, he’s the convenient fiction that’s good enough for now.
@Tom:
Nah. Mary’s grooming Dawn for Wilbur.
Dustin-I’m going to assume that the drink isn’t Billy Cosby level.
MW: Pimento’s tummy-brain is rather limited. It alerts her to drug-addicted torso doctors but not maeddlephiles.
Crankshaft: Pam “accidentally” spilled bleach on Jeff’s Blue Bombers jersey as a passive-aggressive reminder that this is a Cleveland Browns household, by god!
Beetle: Excellent clip art / reuse of old images but next time pick a Killer with or without a cap and stick with it! Otherwise it will seem like a Slylock Fox test for what is different about Killer.
Luann: With all of the well endowed and shapely cosplay girls at Comic-Con, Luann and Bernice shouldn’t be worried until they start tripping over things and knocking over displays. I guess the job at Wienie World and Summer Camp is on hiatus/hold?
Blondie: Jokes in the past used to be Setup-Joke-Punchline, and more and more it is Setup-Joke-Punchline-Awkward. Dagwood appears to be heading in this direction.
GT: From the past few weeks, the artist seems to really understand gyms decked out for a prom, archery, bunk beds and canoes – too bad these are hardly ever that useful in a strip about high school sports in modern USA.
JP: Tradecraft continues to collapse. She needs a refresher at The Farm in the CIA or Sarratt in the UK.
MW: Creepy meter redlining! Flip the genders and if it is Myron Worth meeting Oliver, then Child Protective Services would have long been called!
DT: By the way, a typical defibrillator is around 20-25 amps delivering up 2000 volts in 0.001 secs. So that luger-portal gun mash up probably is true a zap gun. Is that the end goal? If the two baddies are developing a prototype weapon, it is looking good so far.
Phantom: So, these two miners are griping that a couple hindered by a baby seemed to have escaped. Logically if they are caught the guards would have made an example of them. These two single guys can’t figure out a way? The couple simply wanted it more!
RMMD: He is now definitely the best man at the wedding!
On that note, in a couple weeks the St. Paul Saints are having Joey Chestnut as a special guest.
PMP: I’m impressed the young couple own formal funeral clothes. I guess they get invited to lots of funerals.
BB: In panel two, Killer is holding a bottle of Instant Hat.
The DAGWOOD has a brief moment of regret for eating the spectators to his last eating. The void still hungers but there are none to worship his great abyss.
@Pozzo: I’m willing to bet this strip was cobbled together from two separate ones. There’s ample space in the 2nd Beetle word balloon for more text.
Luann: Knute and Gunther must be thinking that Luann and Bernice have very sexy voices.
Gasoline Alley: I am actually old enough to remember Slim and Clovia getting engaged. She agreed to marry him, well, because he was there. There wasn’t any love or passion, but rather basically just fear of dying alone. In other words, they’re the perfect couple to hear the waitress explain that she agreed to marry the guy in closest proximity to her.
BB: What is the TV resting on?
Crankshaft: It took all week to learn what happened, but at least we know it wasn’t funny.
The Charterstone Players performance of Nabokov’s Lolita appears ill-advised at best.
@TheDiva:
Luann: They’ll only be stars if a “cosplay fails” compilation goes viral.
“Those have to be the WORST Spongebob and Squidward costumes I’ve ever seen! At least the people in the suits got into character!”
@treetown:
I guess the job at Wienie World and Summer Camp is on hiatus/hold?
This is a non-canon rerun that was run to seemingly coincide with the Evansii holding a big 40th anniversary celebration at the San Diego Comic Con. Apparently, this was the BEST “the characters go to a convention” story they had.
So does Truck still want to marry Wanda or go have a bro-mance with this dude now that he knows he’s not the biological dad? And we thought Mary’s obsession with Olive was disturbing. And BTW….how in the Fuck did they get Spuds Morton’s DNA in the first place?
Beetle Bailey: I’m more interested in Killer’s hat, which can magically manifest itself. I’m not sure what emotional states it could hide, though.
I’m getting a kivk out of wverone in Dick Tracy’s befuddlement at, wowie zowie, an extra-strength stun gun, when yhey just got done dealing with a painting that is A PORTAL THROUGH TIME.
@Tom T.: Gasoline Alley: I am actually old enough to remember Slim and Clovia getting engaged. She agreed to marry him, well, because he was there. There wasn’t any love or passion, but rather basically just fear of dying alone.
I mean, it’s not like Slim has any redeeming qualities anyway.
LUANN: So why didn’t you just say “no” then, Bernice? If you don’t want to do something then just don’t do it. Don’t agree to something and then ruin everyone else’s experience by constantly bitching about it.
The cartoonist part of my brain is working overtime on adjusting today’s Blondie. Josh’s punchline is perfect for the strip, and the second panel is awkward and unnecessary. My rewrite: Leave the first panel as is. The second panel becomes Elmo and Dag walking out the door, with Elmo’s dialogue staying the same and Dagwood not saying anything. The third panel has Elmo kicking his ball around and Dag saying his line while picturing himself at a big sandwich eating competition or something. Eh? Eh??
While we’re at it, have Sarge wear a grocery bag over his head instead, with eye holes in it.
PmP: “that’s no Lady, that’s my Widow!”
LUANN: Lu has the easy job as she is already an entertainer and knows how to let her sparkling personality show. /s
Bitter Bern OTOH will need Knute to write jokes for her. She has the easier job because at break she just needs to lower her diaper.
FBoFW: even in the cold, cold North, teens know nothing is more important than being cool.
BF: Coffee shop, Susan. Consultants use coffee shops.
CURTIS: is that untouchable dog Grammy in disguise?
DOONESBURY: And is this the arc where BD loses his leg?
PHANTOM, FG: Lacking a Union, the laborers need a superhero.
@treetown: Luann is currently a rerun from 2005 while Clan Evans is at (I think) the actual ComicCon. Name-dropping Orlando Bloom in yesterday’s strip was a big tell.
@Bryan:
Bernice: “It’s like you don’t know me at all!”
@Activist: Curtis: He killed a dog and Grammy FOR NO GOOD REASON!
D’bury — I think that comes later on another deployment.
MARY WORTH: Geez, you guys! Mary is just going to spend 4-6 weeks using Platitudinal Mind Tricks to nurture Olive’s vaguely-define psychic abilities so that she can develop into, like Firestarter or something. You guys make it sound like it’s something weird!
@Anonymous:
Fake JordanCody is still going to have to call Truck “Daddy” though.@2+2=7: I’ll only be for it if Olive pulls an Uno Reverse and sets not only Mary on fire but her parents for enabling this.
RIP Cleo Laine. Thank you for that wonderful concert in Santa Barbara in the late 70’s.
Peanuts: It’s too bad so many of Charlie Brown’s peers dismiss him as a blockhead. Today he shows wisdom beyond his years.
Luann: How the heck did she get so short? Or did Bernice grow five inches?
FC: Now’s your chance!
Blondie: My theory is that the writer has decided to start exploring pathos. Dagwood, whose father never paid attention to him and ultimately disowned him, gives a sad smile as he follows another child whose parents won’t give him love. He’s quietly dedicated to giving Elmo a better childhood than he had.
@Rover Berkeley: She’s walking on her knees. Knute is not the finest of costume designers.
On the plus side, it will make her more attractive to fanboys.
Bacön: Gone bowling lately?
JP: Okay, I retract my “Randy just woke up at 4am and decided to yell at an airport” comment. Today it’s clearer that he’s actually been freaking out over this for hours, and has already called everyone else he can think of. Still not clear why, of course.
MW: Okay, I retract my “Teenage Olive hasn’t changed at all since we last saw her, lol” comment. Today it’s clearer that her hair is now longer.
Pluggers: I am almost certain there has previously been at least one strip about how Pluggers are the only people who still go to old-fashioned barbershops with the stripey pole. I guess the true message of this strip is that Pluggerdom is literally anything an individual Plugger does and then thinks “Yep, that’s a universal experience of all normal folk like me, I should send that to McKee.”
SH: Fun fact: the purpose of the bottle in the traditional “message in a bottle” is that it’s full of air, so it will float. If the bottle isn’t floating, like here, it’s full of water. If the bottle’s full of water, the message must be waterproof. If the message is waterproof and you don’t want it to float, there’s no reason for it to be in a bottle. If anything, that makes it harder to peg all the messages to a washing line for a contrived pun on “on-line data storage”! Also, if you live underwater, why do you have a washing line?
@Anonymous: The writers have resolutely decided to Not Learn How Paternity Testing Works. Anyone who’s even seen a Maury clip in the last few decades would know it’s about comparing samples 1 & 2, but they went with showing the results as a set of ancestry-matching database hits. Sibling-level matches* had the last name “Morton”, which was enough for them both to believe those are Spuds Morton’s kids and Spuds is the bio-dad
IIRC, they were described as “50%” matches, which considering you get 50% from each parent, you ought to randomly get maybe half of that matching per parent – or about a quarter on average – so I don’t think they know how half-sibling matches work either…
@2+2=7: You’re right, Bernice can only be happy by making everyone else as miserable as her. Like the time she got upset at Luann for not inviting her to an event she’d never want to go to anyway, since she was denied the opportunity to loudly disparage it to everyone around her.
Fair enough.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
#103. CURTIS: Al, Kill Grammy AND the dog? So much for our comments’ being compatible. :-O
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
Marvin Spanish to English.
Dennis the Menace Spanish to English.
CS: Ed is all smug and gloaty because for once, he’s not to blame.
Sam and Silo Spanish to English.
@122 Guillermo el Chiclero:
Except that Ed said to Pam, “You want to get that stain out? Pour a bunch of bleach on it.”
FC: This actually brings back a memory. When I was a kid my mom told me to make my bed, so I decided to play a little joke. I took extra care to make the bed neatly, hospital corners and all. Then I carefully squeezed myself between the sheets without messing up the bed, looking just like today’s strip. Don’t remember my mom’s reaction, though.
@Ettorre: Isn’t Sarge wearing Ray-Ban Meta Glasses to record the movie for his Tik Tok followers?
PMP: If she scared him half to death again, he’d still be 1/4 alive. Another try and he’s still got 1/8 of a tank. How dead is dead enough to bury him? If only Zeno were here.
LUANN: It might be possible to think of a more lame, dull, and inane premise for a comic strip than this sadass creation by the sadass boys, but looking at those awful costumes is a reminder that it would take some work.
BB: Maybe Sarge just gets more emotional when he’s wearing the Gloria Steinem glasses. There’s still a lot we don’t know about him, and with any luck, thus it will remain.
PMP: One of the nice things about being kinda sorta goth is that you can go from a hilarious old person funeral to the clubs without having to go home and change.
You give Hi and Lois permission to do something and Blondie takes it too, Josh should learn a valuable lesson from this.
@Needless Exposition: Olive’s Mom: “Sorry, buddy, but my loins are already on fire (giggle)!”
@Activist: Oh, I agree that Grammy and the dog are one and the same soul. But Barry won’t figure that out on his own.
C-Shaft: Strong suspicion that Batiuk tried to submit this one to Pluggers first.
DT: Juicing up a taser doesn’t really sound like something you’d need a brilliant mad scientist to do. Just a decent engineering student with loose ethics.
Dustin: A second day on the same failed pickup means that Dustin is a glutton for punishment and/or Kelley and Parker think we are.
GT: I tend to be more favorable to Morril’s art than most people, so if she’s reading I hope she takes this advice in the spirit of constructive criticism. Try not to make the nose stud so zitlike.
JP: “Randy, listen. You have nice big hands but you’re an idiot. You’re dad is just as much an idiot. Don’t get him involved. We need someone with half a brain who’s been outside the sane, civilized world. That means my mom if she’s still alive or, I dunno, maybe that drunk cop.”
Luann: Yeah, Luann also got the one with a cock. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with that but there it is.
MW: There’s laying it on a little thick and then there’s this. If Olive were putting on makeup like she’s buttering up Mary she’d give herself a Pinocchio nose with foundation.
SFx: Dude, that goat is green. Is it sick? Is it punk? Did the farmer do some crossbreeding with giant frogs?
@Horace Broon: Speaking of air, this strip isn’t one that I read on the regular, and I’m scratching my head at the mermaid with a narwhal horn for a nose. A horn isn’t a nose, and it seems like it would be no help to her breathing either underwater or above water.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Are you trying to break the internet with a false dichotomy?
Mary Worth Mashup: What I today’s strip should have been.
@31 The Rambling Otter: Late Thread Cuisine will appear laterthread. Hopefully so will The Otter’s Sweet Treat Time will ensue or pre-sue.
@Baja Gaijin:
#135. MW: oh, that poor child! Try an exorcism, Sweet Mary.
Yesterday after listening to Chuck Mangione’s prolonged solos I said he must have had strong lips because I couldn’t spell the right word. Today I found two possibilities – he must have had great embouchure or ambiture.
So is it true– are horn players better kissers?
@TheDiva: Oopd. I saw that and thought that is a bit dated BUT then again with this strip maybe it is pretty up to date for them ?
@98 Bryan: “…ruin everyone else’s experience by constantly bitching about it.” That’s the elevator speech describing Bernice.
@102 2+2=7: Damnit! Ninja’d!
DT: Yeah, but the Dyke Scientists didn’t just make a Super-Taser. I still maintain it’s the Poof Gun from Disney’s Babes in Toyland, except it shocks you to death instead of shrinking you.
Wiz of Id: That “ew” is coming from the puff of smoke! When your special effects are snarking your work, you know you’re in trouble. That starts with “T”, which rhymes with ” C”,and that stands for “Chix”! -song from ” The Moron Man”
@Ukulele Ike: DT: Yeah, but the Dyke Scientists didn’t just make a Super-Taser.
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The Dick Van Dyke Scientists made a gun that materializes an ottoman in front of fleeing suspects.
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Worth Mashup: What I today’s strip should have been
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Shouldn’t Olive, being used to video chats, be searching for Mary’s MUTE button by the time she gets to “kindred spirits”?
Late Thread Cuisine: I’m not a connoisseur of Mexican food, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s made.
@135 Baja Gaijin:
@144 Baja Gaijin:
From the fiery bowels of the earth come…
THE DEVIL SHRIMP OF HELL!
@143 GarrisonSkunk: Ages ago when Olive got her “tummy brain,” it wasn’t actually a brain; it was a mind control device.
@145 Sequitur: Someone’s goo goo, that’s for sure.
Mary’s Worst: “Video Chats are wonderful, but its better to talk in person,Mary!” “I agree, kindred spirits and all that rot! Yadda yadda yadda…..” (Mary and Olive stare at each other for sixty nine uncomfortable silent minutes)”So when should we Video chat again? Thursday?” “Sounds good Olive, I’ll be using my bald, fat, sweating mayo obsessed aviator,be sure to look for him.” “But Mary, our chat program doesn’t use aviators!” “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m using a new program.”
@148 GarrisonSkunk:
I got your Wilbur avatar.
@146 Sequitur: Also from the fiery bowels of the earth…
@149 Sequitur: If The Skunk doesn’t like that Wilbur, they can try this Wilbur. He’s even more like a thumb!
The Familliar Mucus: It’s understandable, of course, that Thel would eventually kill Jeffy, but did she have to kill him in front of Dolly? Plus she needs to learn to hide the body better. Even Max Mouse would figure this one out.
@Baja Gaijin: Flan is a sweet custard dessert with a caramel topping, Kedgeree is rice and smoked haddock with curry powder, which you might see on a British country house weekend breakfast buffet. In 1934.
The American version of this dish might be a canned sardine and mashed potato banana split. With curry powder sprinkled on top.
@153 Ukulele Ike: Failed fusion cuisine experiment. Yucko.
“Sweet Treat Time”
I made some nice yummy pancakes earlier today :3
@155 The Rambling Otter: That stack of pancakes looks far better than the ones a few Late Thread Cuisine’s ago.
PARDON MY PLANET always strikes me as “we wanted a title that sounded like a British sitcom but didn’t take it far enough.”
@155 The Rambling Otter:
Mmm! Pancakes!
@Ukulele Ike: the only thing flan-adjacent is there’s an egg as binder mixed with the cooked rice and fish before the filling gets baked – it’s barely kedgeree-quiche!
(Good fusion cuisine: butter chicken poutine. Bad fusion cuisine: kedgeree meeting anything pretending to fancy it up…)