Can they do telegraphy? I’d like to see the variant they’d do with telegraphy
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Herb and Jamaal, 8/5/25
“I guess this would be considered illegal…”
Hmm, what’s he reading about? Sounds juicy
“…if they didn’t call it a law.”
Ah, I get it, we’re doing a “none dare call it treason” bit. Bold!
“Every law is made for a reason…”
Yes, Herb, yes, it’s time to speak truth to power
“…even when it penalizes those to whom the law would never apply.”
I … uh … um … ????????
Wizard of Id, 8/5/25
Hey guys! Remember back in March, when Wizard of Id compared blocking somebody’s number to shooting a bird, with a gun, from the tower of a castle? Well, here’s today’s Wizard of Id, which compares blocking a spam e-mail to shooting a bird, with a magical power bolt, from the tower of a castle. Honestly excited to see what other important form of communication is going to get this treatment five months from now.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/5/25
Have you ever walked away from a concert disappointed by the energy level of the band, feeling like the musicians were kind of phoning it in and weren’t fully present for the performance? Well, have you considered that maybe they had spent their whole lives thinking one guy they had never met was their dad, but then they did a DNA test and found out a different guy they never met was their dad and that guy was dead, and now they’ve sent messages to their newly discovered half-siblings on Facebook but never heard back, and it’s eating them up inside? Bet you hadn’t thought of that, huh? Bet you’re just a rude and inconsiderate person. It’s all about what you want.
159 replies to “Can they do telegraphy? I’d like to see the variant they’d do with telegraphy”
RMMD:
“…which would leave things on a sour note. So to speak.”
With newspapers dying, Herb and Jamaal makes a desperate decision to try and appeal to the libertarian newsletter audience
“I sure do love being Stephen Bently, writer and artist of nationally syndicated cartoon ‘Herb and Jamaal’, but sometimes all the work gets me down… *sigh* I wish I could go get dinner already… But wait… What’s this? A pile of rigidly translated comic strips from the Soviet Bloc? Eureka!”
Wizard of Id:
“Ah, well. As the great old song goes, ‘To everything/Tern, tern, tern….’ “
Crankshaft : will then see a room labelled “Douches” and be all “OH WOW A ROOM EXPRESSEDLY FOR ME!”
***********
Herb & Jamaal : …maybe what this strip is TRYING to go for is the “There are laws that bind people without protecting them, while protecting others without binding them” thing, but accidentally said “there are laws that bind people without binding them”, which makes less sense IMHO?
**********
Rex Morgan M.D. : Josh, have you considered the possibility that even when distracted by his own issues, Cody is actually the most talented and skilled musician in that band? Like, the reason Cody is a journeyman guitarist who wanders endlessly between failed band after failed band is that he’s REALLY GOOD, but all the bands that require his services are really awful?
**********
Wizard of Id : “No pigeons were harmed, just sent to the king’s chamber… where they WERE harmed because the king just shoots them with a crossbow.”
RMMD:
“You know, I wrote them and poured out my heart, and so I’m really hoping for some sort of feedback.”
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH
“No, no. Not that kind.”
WoI — One explanation of this peculiar approach to modeling computer systems using a medieval context would be that the Id-world is a kind of proto-Matrix. If memory serves, didn’t the strip feature a Neo-like character who would proclaim “The King is a fink!”, angering the authorities while always avoiding capture?
RMMD — Has the name of Cory’s band been previously mentioned? If not, I suggest, “Not Son of Truck” or “Spawn of Spuds.”
In a radical piece of anti-AI direct action, today’s Herb and Jamaal consists of weaponised logical paradoxes. Any robot that tries to make sense of this strip will explode instantly.
In re Josh’s comment about the Wizard of Id, future strips: Mary Worth deflects a Nigerian romance scammer with a carefully aimed rock-hard muffin. Dagwood runs for his car pool, colliding with the guy trying to sell them solar panels.
WoI: Parker and Hart send a subtle message to the hate tweeters: Don’t bother.
MW: “I’m in the mood for STEAK, and I know JUST the place for us!”
Another restaurant scene is about to play out in the New York equivalent of The Bum Boat. Olive is after a steak, but I hope Mary can find some SALMON on the menu.
RMMD: Oh, for crying out loud! Write a mournful ballad and move on!
SF: I thought Ted’s tedious daddy issues were behind us. Silly me.
GT – I am so hopelessly lost here, I am not sure who these kids are. But the lighter skinned kid looks like he’s about to deep-throat that hot dog. Clearly, he’s over Keri.
H&J – If that’s the law, then the law is a ass. BtW, if that’s the blue plate special, then the blue plate special is a ass….
WoI – All that there Artie Fishing and tell the gents guy ever thinks about is computer stuff….
RMMD – Fatherless children have a very hard time; All that weeping, all that crying….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
DT: ? Any regular police work – canvassing for witness, nearby close circuit TV, missing folders (hmmm, all of the files are here except the “K”s)
GT: Now we finally see the strength of the new creative team – not US high school sports but a general teen/young adult social anxiety. Maybe this is the moment GT starts slowly changing. The “offseason” starts to last 9-10 months and the sports become just single frames showing the passage of time (baseball = spring, football=fall, basketball = winter)
RMMD: The would-be siblings are interacting and mulling over the situation and checking Cody out. Patience – please let there be some wonderful snag like a fight over royalty rights – turns out Spuds was the session drummer on some hit album and so there has been a steady stream of income over the years to his heirs.
JP: Sam, did you mistakenly take your crazy pills? Go back and take your calm blue mood pills! Meanwhile the two girls are behaving like characters out of a slasher movie – not thinking – why is Aksel still here? Doesnt he have a job to get back to? Why did he follow us here? Was he just a exposition tool or is he actually the killer! Don’t go into the basement!
Phantom: It must be hard to keep track of who to skull mark and who to let pass.
“Spam Blocker?” Didn’t he play Hoss on “Gunsmoke?”
MW: No surprise that Olive’s parents are taking advantage of the free babysitting. If anything, the real story is Brigman’s obvious use of copy-paste.
H&J: Herb goes full Jailhouse lawyer when he gets a fix or desist notice from the board of health.
Jamal thinks; “Just shut up and clean the damn grease hood.”
Coming soon to Gil Thorp; Heathers 2: Let’s Kill Keri.
@Little Blue Bicycle: I’m there for it.
Cody’s band is playing the classic Talking Heads song:
Rex Morgan
Rex Morgan is a strip
A strip where nothing
Nothing ever happens
Finally a
ShitcrankCrankshaft I can snark on knowledgeably!I’m in Canada RIGHT NOW. The only province that is truly bilingual is Quebec, and even then it’s really only bilingual in Montreal (and to a lesser extent in Quebec City). The rest of the province is primarily French speaking.
Not so in Manitoba, where less than 3% of the population speaks French. I did a little research and the odds that the bathroom signs are in French at their stadium are very low.
Also too, “toilette” isn’t exactly one of those French words that are difficult to translate into English—“fenêtre,” for example. I know our man here has trouble reading, but he should be familiar enough with the word “toilet” because no one calls it the restroom at home.
Also too as well, normal people—no matter their age—ASK where the bathroom is if they can’t find it.
I’m sure this will lead to “wacky” “hijinks” that wind up with the Crankster on the gridiron. Maybe they’ll use his head as the football.
Also too as well in addition, TIL that Canada kind of invented what we now know as football? Tabernac!
Herb and Jamaal:
“Hey Jamaal, are there any laws left on the books about who you can love?”
“I told you to leave those kids alone, Herb.”
“‘Cause I love you, Jamaal.”
“That’s nice.”
“No, man, I really love you.”
“Get back to work, Herb.”
Also Herb and Jamaal: For a second, I mistook the leg of Herb’s seat as some kind of mobile mechanical base, as though Herb were an old-school Robbie the Robot or something. This is no less funny than the actual joke of the strip, and in that it would explain why he’s constantly spouting gibberish, make marginally more sense. Computer: update head canon!
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Say what you will about Cody’s band, but they managed to get the reanimated corpse of Lou Reed to play keyboards, bringing…well, about the same level of energy to the stage, actually.
@Little Blue Bicycle: Ohmygosh, they killed Keri!
You bastards!
“ever walked away from a concert disappointed by the energy level of the band, feeling like the musicians were kind of phoning it in and weren’t fully present for the performance?”
Several times, but most notably, Procol Harum opening for YES, around 2009. Man, that band did NOT want to be there and were CLEARLY going through the motions for a paycheck. Gary Brooker said not one single word to the audience (neither did anyone else in the band) and they appeared downright pissed off at having to play for their pay. I get it, they were old, but I’ve seen lots of old bands play very enthusiastically including YES themselves that night.
H&J: I’ll bet Jamaal is really, really glad that Herb doesn’t say this shit out loud.
FC: Jeffy tells Billy to watch for splashback when he uses the new outhouse.
RMMD-Cody just needs to move on with his life.
MW-“I’m in the mood for surf and turf, Mary, followed by a boat ride around Manhattan.”
Six Chix-Remain? You need to start being silly.
MW: Man I could have used Olive’s vague psychic-ness on Sunday night and had her invite me not to eat whatever the hell it was that gave me food poisoning, that’s the TRUTH.
Also why does an adolescent know “just the place” for anything, really, let alone a good steakhouse?
MW: The last person I would expect to crave a flame-broiled steak is a girl who would be accused of witchcraft.
I hope Olive brought her parents’ debit card to pay for this steak because we know Mary has never paid for even one meal at the Bum Boat. Or do I “predict” another disappearing credit card the same way Wilbur extorted a free meal in his getup that made Bob Newhart look like James Bond?
“We’re surrounded, Sir Rodney! Vikings on every side. Berserkers, war chiefs, jarls, they’re breaking through! We’ll all be killed!!”
“Don’t worry, men, we got a pigeon out to the wizard. He’ll be here in a flash with his mighty magicks and these dirty Norsemen won’t know what hit them! Just hold the line!!”
JP: Later….
“Well, April, now that I have you and your family together, I shall exact my revenge…”
“DC! DC! SHE’S IN DC!”
“Someone gag him, knock him out, and put him in a soundproof room.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we already did that, and he’s in there….”
@brendancalling: Well said. The MB level of bilingualism is in the offer of government services, official signs (like roads), etc. And it would be *bilingual* not francophone, so at most “TOILET/TES”. Plus we *do* use the international symbols for restrooms, so that would be on the sign and/or the wall by the door.
BTW, family who have been to games at the stadium are sure there is no such “TOILETTES” sign.
I wouldn’t get in touch with an unknown half-brother who plays the guitar with a full death grip on the neck if I were Cody’s half-sibling either.
***
There are laws specifically written to penalize certain sections of society or to barely be worth considering for others. No middle manager is ever going to be written up for loitering, for example. A fine for jaywalking would hit a fast food worker much differently than it would a doctor, and a CEO could use twice as much as that in cash without even blinking. There is even a pithy saying regarding a certain political leaning, “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
But holy heck, Herb, that jumble of words you’re spewing makes no sense at all.
@brendancalling: My money was going to be on Cranky wanders around the stadium for the rest of the week and never actually sees the game at all (while Jeff is too oblivious to notice he never came back), but I like your idea better.
@Needless Exposition: *Precisely* ‘Steak? Olive dear, I flew RyanAir coach from LA to NY, and I’m staying on your parent’s couch instead of paying for a hotel. You seriously think I’m buying you STEAK for dinner? Let’s go to that hot dog cart run by that swarthy-looking gentleman over there. I bet his cuisine will have that SPLAK! taste of home I’ve been craving!’
SF: It’s funny because everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) in this strip is an insufferable moron!
Luann: Speaking of insufferable morons, did the Evansii originally mean for Bernice to get Phil as a boyfriend? ‘Let me amatuerishly psychoanalyze you because I’m gonna be a psychiatricologisty when I grow up!’ is supposed to be her shtick!
JP: There’s denial of reality, there’s psychotic break, and then there’s Randy.”
S4th: Okay, I’m going to say Bettina took the original picture, copied it exactly, and replaced it with her own, hid it, and then the hilarity ensued.
Curtis: Somehow, Doe-Eyed Niece is going to deny this is Grammy-Pearl’s dog. Only because a) Grammy-Pearl never had a dog. b) Grammy-Pearl’s dog died years ago, c) there’s no such thing as dogs, silly boy. See? All those Instagram accounts showing ‘dogs’ are just static pictures.
yFLASH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!: Flash unleashes the cosmic power of the Karen.
@The Quiet Man: “You think Mary Worth should stay at a Holiday Inn rather than a downtown Manhattan penthouse apartment that’s bankrupting the owners? Olive, send them to the cornfield.”
@brendancalling: Manitoba’s constitution states that all laws must be published in both English and French. However, for various reasons, the Manitoba government started publishing them only in English in 1890. This led to the hilarious 1985 Supreme Court decision which found that all of Manitoba’s laws published since 1890 were technically null and void. (Although the Court decided to suspend it’s declaration of invalidity for several years to give Manitoba time to translate its laws).
RMMD: I’m a self-taught southpaw. If I saw a guitarist hold the fretboard like that I’d consider it cool that any music came out at all.
H&L takes what could be a decent gag and ruins it because nobody could draw a historical marker that doesn’t look like a church billboard.
MW: “My parents approve of the two of us eating out tonight” is usually said by someone with a chaperone or a curfew. This is not going to stop the talk going around.
GT: The “Yes, Chef” hat is a hoot. And I say that having really enjoyed Lenny Henry’s “Chef!”
Pluggers would play Mousetrap if it didn’t give some of their friends PTSD.
FC: Jeffy is amazed to find a cellar which doesn’t have vermin, mold, and radon in it.
Zits: I like this arc. Better than the overdone “young woman anxious about her appearance compared to incredibly prepped and airbrushed photos of stars and models”.
@The Quiet Man: CS Didn’t they already do ‘Crankshaft on the field” at another football games years ago? Not that that would have to stop them, but I figured Cranky wanders off, gets lost, and Jeff misses crucial plays looking for him, ultimately ruining his game experience.
But either way, Stupid Hijinks are about to ensue.
If Crank is looking for his way back, asks for help and isn’t understood because he’s speakingEnglish I am going to be pulling my hair out. Even the 3% francophones know English in MB, this isn’t rural Quebec (and even rural Quebec isn’t what it used to be!).
MW; That’s daddy’s little girl! “C’mon Mary let’s get us a couple of vodka martinis and rare filet mignons.”
@Guts Dozier: Oh! oh! I know this part (there was a great editorial cartoon at the time about it with a brawl on the Plains of Abraham and an onlooker saying “… it all started with an English-only parking ticket in Manitoba”)
Yeah, parking ticket challenge led to the high court giving a deadline to get all the MB laws *legally* translated and on the books in both languages, else voided. My dad, a bilingual lawyer, got a good government job on that team. They had to borrow Quebec lawyers to do it, too, and it was fun to see Montrealers confronting their first “-40 is a thing” Winnipeg winters.
And the provincial bilingualism came from having substantially more French in the past mix of people due to the fur trade (and the whole métis nation, Riel rebellion, and all that).
“Cody’s on the road while he waits for a response from his half siblings. He probably should have set up his stage in an arena instead of in the middle of I-30 during rush hour, but he didn’t quite understand what ‘being on the road’ meant. It’s only a question of whether the commuters or the cops get him first now.”
FG: If you are a Mongovian munitions factory overseer, you’re entitled to a cape. I guess that tracks. (Also serves as a symbol of “I do not do any of the manual labor here”)
JP: Neddy: “Good ol’ Randy. There’ll always be someone in this strip dumber than me.”
RMMD: What, no horn section?
@Pozzo: No, he played Miss Kitty on “Bonanza.”
GT – “What’s the deal with you and Gigi?”
“I just happen to think Leslie Caron is hot, OK?”
@The Quiet Man: I dunno, is SPLAK! halal?
Don Abundio, translated:
“There’s bubble gum and baseball cards in every one of these pay envelopes!”
“I believe that was a proposal that came through the suggestion box”
“Whose stupid idea was that?”
“I don’t know, sir”
“But the messenger boy appears to be quite happy with it”
@Little Guy: I am expecting Curtis to reunite Grammy with her dog King, and next time he comes he’ll find there is no such address and no apartment building there.
AI will simply say “Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns”. But would a LLM spend four panels and dozens of words to produce the most generic and yet convoluted political commentary ever? That’s art and only Herb and Jamaal can make it!
HJ: So who is someone to whom the law would never apply? Poodles? The Chinese Communist Party? Santa Claus? They’re requiring Santa to wear a seat belt, aren’t they?
“Zoting pigeons in the park” is the obituary the Wizard of Id created to celebrate the great, late Tom Lehrer
Six Chix-“I must remain silly,” she says as she calls in an airstrike on her critics.
“I’m beginning to think I am not going to hear back from either of them”. You are right. Despite being in the strip’s title, how many months since we last saw Rex or June? They are being Barneygoogled!
The only way this dumb storyline can turn into a medical storyline is if Cody’s half-siblings or their children need a bone marrow transplant. Or each needs a kidney, which would be funnier.
Herb And Jamaal: Least incoherent Herb and Jamaal strip.
Rex Morgan: I don’t think Cody has changed from that outfit since he was introduced, which I’m going to interpret as him being so distraught about his long-lost relations that he hasn’t been bothering with any personal hygeine whatsoever. His bandmates are probably pretty unhappy about it!
6 Chix Harley Quinn goes punk.
REX MORGAN M.D.: “Have you ever walked away from a concert disappointed by the energy level of the band, feeling like the musicians were kind of phoning it in and weren’t fully present for the performance?”
I don’t know about a concert, but I can sure think of a comic strip like that! (wink, wink.)
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): To be fair, maybe the band just sounds like they are “phoning it in” because Cody’s guitar is a prop that doesn’t have any strings.
Mary Worth- “I’d like a steak and I know just the place…..right through your heart”
@2+2=7: Damn! I was just about to say “Cody is playing one of those little kids’ guitars where you turn a crank and ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ comes out.”
That band only hired him because they needed at least one member with a cool haircut.
JP: Fine! If the big man-baby says she’s in DC, she’s in DC! Now shut up and let me get back to sleep!
CS: I hope Ed either pisses himself or walks into the ladies room. Better still, I hope he walks into the ladies room and shits himself.
MW: Mary is about to find out what you pay for a steak at a New York City steakhouse. I hope she brought along Doctor Jeff’s MasterCard.
SMMD-“I’m starting to think I’m not going to hear from them” Cody thought as he ripped into the intro of “Crazy Train” to start the band’s tribute to Ozzy!
@Needless Exposition: If you’re talking about the incident I’m thinking of, Wilbur “paid” for that by being cuckolded in public (sly grin.)
Also the situation is a little different here. Mary is hanging around someone she wants to be with this time. And this isn’t unusual (by…er…Mary Worth standards, that is). In the last “Olive” storyline, Mary bought her a watch after all, a totally normal thing for an old lady to get a girl when she isn’t your granddaughter or sugar baby (or is she?)
H&J: Speak truth to power SAFELY by making sure nobody knows what the fuck you’re talking about.
WoI: Incidentally, the king has had a hankering for pigeon pie.
@Ukulele Ike: As if we need more confirmation that Karen Moy has never left the house in the past four decades if she thinks a pubescent girl and a gold digging senior citizen can casually afford to eat steak in New York City.
@2+2=7: I always figured that Mary is the kind of person who only does nice things if there’s something in it for her. She just has that constant passive aggressive energy you see in women at a certain age where they smile and say nice things but they hint heavily that they don’t want to be anywhere near you if you have nothing to offer them. Unfortunately I know this from experience with my current neighbor.
@ectojazzmage: that’s because he’s the prince of darkness.
@But What Do I Know?: (Wizard) didn’t the strip feature a Neo-like character who would proclaim “The King is a fink!”, angering the authorities while always avoiding capture?
Yes, that was the “Lone Haranguer,” back when the strip was funny. Once the Wizard cast a spell to make his tongue swell up like a sponge. The next night, they heard, “Na Keem ib na feeng!” or words to that effect.
JumpStart – I think we’ve found a summer camp with sufficiently low standards to hire Luann.
RMMD: Worst Average White Band tribute ever.
@BillieVee: Ah, yes. The Sovereign Citizen motto.
Wizard of Id: It’s not the poor carrier pigeon’s fault that it’s the bearer of an unwanted message.
Mary Worth Mashups: What kind of “steakhouse” would Olive bring Mary to? Some suggestions in the missing final panels.
Family Circus Mashup: Jeffy says the darndest things!
@Baja Gaijin: I’m 37 years old and seeing Olive’s face makes me need an adult.
Dustin dad is well into middle age. His firm still has him doing crap like low asset divorces, and even there he’s too dumb to get a retainer or other assurance of payment before taking on a client.
Underachieving seems to run in the family.
MW: You’d think the girl who has the power to sense the emotions and recent life events of animals wouldn’t eat meat. Then again, you’d also think that a child wouldn’t look like Toby/Iris/Nan in a black wig, but there you go.
And of course I post my comment before I can type in my full name.
@Melissa Anne Jones: It was the Kingdom’s latest jobs report.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
On CS: Better still, I hope he walks into the ladies room, shits himself, then goes up to Smirkin’ Jeff and says “well, they wouldn’t call it a ‘rest’room if it didn’t ‘rest’.”
@Anonymous, H&L: So, he’s talking about Bondage Laws?
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
”Hey! This is for ladies only!”
Crankshaft: “So is THIS, ma’am, but every now and then I have to run a little water through it.”
— Thanx and a tip o’ the hat to Peter O’Toole, in My Favorite Year
LUANN: As a reminder, Luann got this job in the first place and tried to do a bunch of lifestyle changes simply because she felt like she had to “prove” something to a guy she went on, like, two dates with, so whose “dating baggage” should we actually be examining, Miss Steamer Trunk?
LUANN (2): Also totally concur that this sounds like there’s a first draft of this script with Bernice’s name plaster all over it.
The neighs have it:
– FBoFW: farm kids know who’s breaking in who.
– BETTY: A new Dustin is is being created? Not if mom is as competent as she seems.
– S4th: they’ve got most of 7 deadly sins covered– envy (Kevin), wrath (Ralph), greed (senior thieves), sloth (Ted). Too bad they don’t have enough “friends” for others.
RMMD: Were he in a concert band, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts at least his half-sister would be attending his concert. (Half bro is either in his own band or in prison writing songsl). But as Cody’s just a session player, who cares
H&J – Herb’s just remembering the well-known words of Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids those to whom the law would never apply to sleep under bridges…”
REX MORGAN M.D.: Given who his father is, I propose that Cody changes the band name to the “Tater Tots” (Hell, he could could even rope his half-siblings into joining lending the name even more thematic relevance.)
JP: oh how could I forget silly Neddy, trying to give Randy info. He’s a Job dge, you know, so he knows everything.
MARY WORTH: Olive: “I think I inherited my love of meat from my mom. She says she loves the thick, juicy tube-steak dad gives her.”
MW: I almost hope that Olive is talking about going to some hokey themed restaurant for “steak” surrounded by costumed mascots but of course the rarely seen children in Mary Worth are essentially adults with achondroplasia so it’s going to be something that no normal teenager would ever go with their peers.
Rex Morgan – This performance “on the road” looks like middle aged guys who get together and play in someone’s garage once a week. The least they could do is make a half assed effort to look like roots country musicians. Where are their western shirts and cowboy hats?
JP – I hope Randy didn’t throw away the whiteboards, note cards, and all that yarn. He’s going to need it.
Mary Worth – “My parents approved the two of us going out tonight…” said no young teenage girl ever. “My parents said it’s okay for us to go out.” See? How hard is that? Has any character in this strip ever heard a human being speak? ? Has Karen Moy?
Pluggers – And they’re damn smug about it, too. The sumgness factor is wildly out of proportion to the importance of the thing they’re being smug about.
6Chix – Time for a wellness check.
RMMD- Cody may be waiting some time for those responses if his e-mail consisted of “Hey, I just found out I’m your half brother. I’d like to talk with you about our father, but I’m in Nevada and you’re on the east coast. Can you send bus fare? Thanks so much in advance”
@I speak Jive: Re JP – I just remembered that it was Sam, not Randy, who had the conspiracy board with all the note cards and yarn. Maybe Randy can borrow it if Sam hasn’t thrown it away.
9CL – If they want to look sexy, they could both start by getting a Herbst appliance to move their jaws forward and eventually develop a chin.
Crankshaft – @brendancalling: Thank you for explaining and clarifying that so well. I thought that Canada required signs in both languages, and that it was extremely unlikely that a prairie province would have signs only in French.
Besides, how hard is it to figure out that “toilettes” means toilets?
Frazz – I don’t know enough about bowling to understand what they’re talking about, and I don’t care enough to look it up. Whatever it means, Frazz is being smug about it.
@I speak Jive: Karen Moy seems more and more like a shut in who acts like it’s still the 1950s the longer this comic continues.
FRAZZ: See, he can be humble. Does it really help to have one sole smooth:
FG: confident of Flash to surrender to trained thugs. But since they did take him to the boss, it’s a great idea– use cheap robots rather than defacto slaves. How long will it take for PHANTOM to make that suggestion?
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Worth mashups – I like the second one – an evening with Loretta and Leroy would be painful.
Did you make Olive’s eyes subtly crazier in each of the second panels?
@Needless Exposition: I’ve thought before that the dialogue is written by either a space alien studying earthlings or a time traveler from the 1860s. It’s not AI, because there’s definitely no intelligence of any kind involved.
@The Man With The Plan: #83: Let’s go full Batiuk bonkers on this. Ed wanders into the home team’s locker room, gets nostalgic about his own playing days, finds a spare uniform, suits up, helmet, pads, and all, gets sent to the field as a last minute injury replacement, then blows a play that costs the Bombers their chance at the Grey Cup. Ed of course, suffers no consequences whatsoever. Ed and Jeff return home and blame Pam.
Funny you should talk about musicians being distracted at concerts. My friends and I recently joined the town volunteer band, and we performed for a small community fair last Saturday. I missed the pickup for our opening song. Why? Because I had been scrolling through that day’s comments on this very blog.
CURTIS: We called it, at least mentioned the possibility. But why didn’t Ms. Harris tell her helper that Grammy’s lost dog was named King? Did Ms. Harris kick dog out for peeing?
Herb and Jamaal – Jamaal is former NBA player who now works at this restaurant after that dream didn’t pan out into riches and stardom.
Herb is clearly a frustrated aspiring lawyer who never lived up to his dream of being the next Thurgood Marshall, or even got into law school because of his strange legal reasoning.
Wizard of Id – Thankfully for Pheidippides, Johnny Hart never got around to creating a comic set in ancient Greece, where he would absolutely have done a “shoot the messenger” joke about the message from the battle of Marathon.
Rex Morgan, MD – Most of the set dragged because of Cody, but in fairness he really put his own spin on the band’s cover of The Replacements’ “Bastards of Young”.
@Needless Exposition: There are no Western Sizzlin’ outlets in Manhattan. Olive and Mary will have to take the PATH train into New Joisey.
@I speak Jive: Out of economic necessity, Cody often needs to take gigs outside the Country Roots genre. Right now he’s playing in a 1980s-style German synth-electronica tribute group, and the bassist is about to announce “This is der time on ‘Schprockets’ vhen ve DAHNCE.”
@Ukulele Ike: Reminds me of the time I visited family in Dallas. They offered to take me to a “Texas Steak” place for a treat. We ended up at a Sizzler.
All this bizarre family (or not) drama will result in a new hit song for Truck and it’s a well known fact that emotional turmoil fosters artistic expression, it doesn’t mute it.
Wanda will just keep bringing the menfolk food I guess.
@Philip: If you’re going to do justice to covers of The ‘Mats tunes, you need to be seriously drunk onstage, and Cody strikes me as a bit of a lightweight. The piano player’s got a pint of cheap Scotch under his belt, and may have to take over the lead vocals on “Gary’s Got a Boner.”
Crank: Batty, running down his checklist: “Okay, we’ve done poutine, we’ve done bilingual signage, tomorrow is Tim Horton’s, and on Thursday, Ed meets a Mountie! I need to save the gag about how they’re all really polite and say ‘eh’ all the time for the big finish!”
DT: Of course there’s a frickin’ connection, Homicide-Cop-Who-Only-Appears-In-Costello-Stories! You called him in because you could see the connection! You took one look at this crime scene and correctly thought “This looks like those weird zappy-gun cases that Tracy’s team have been looking at. I should probably let them know.” Like I said last week, so much of an Eric Costello story is characters slowly working out something that was kind of their starting point for working it out.
JP: “April is definitely in DC! I have absolutely no reason to believe she’s not in DC! I’m sorry if I sound kind of hysterical, but I’m low on sleep right now! I was up all night trying to find any evidence that she’d been in DC and failing, and then she phoned me, said ‘I’m not in DC’ and then the phone went dead! Anyway, back to the main point, which is that she’s definitely in DC and probably completely fine!”
MW: “There are so many places to eat in New York! We could go to the Hobo Ship, or the Vagrant Vessel, or the Tramp Steamer…”
SH: “Don’t you hate it when media properties keep repeating a tired formula?” asks the strip that has done several hundred variants of “What if an internet or business phrase … but real?”
S4th: I know Ces has retconned how damaged the painting was several times at this point, but it was clearly established that the ceiling fan was on the floor because Kitty jumped on it to escape Sir Reginald Thornwick! I am annoyed at both Ces, and at myself for expecting him to write coherent storylines that don’t contradict themselves in his humour strip when he’s never troubled to do so in his soap strip.
(I’ve just realised that the phrase “Kitty jumped on the ceiling fan to escape Sir Reginald Thornwick” sounds like an anachronistic moment of slapstick in a Regency farce, and now I’m kind of sad it isn’t.)
@Horace Broon: SH: “Don’t you hate it when media properties keep repeating a tired formula?” asks the strip that has done several hundred variants of “What if an internet or business phrase … but real?”
That should, of course, be OTF. Today’s Safe Havens is also kind of annoying, but not in an interesting way.
@Horace Broon:
Safe Havens is being SORT OF interesting right now, in a “What if a comic strip acted as if the Garfield/Jon relationship had romantic undertones” kind of way.
(I really didn’t want to put the mental image of JON ARBUCKLE going “a cat is fine too” in my head, I swear)ADVANCE WARNING TO BAJA GAIJIN.
Don’t bother reading tomorrow’s (August 6) Rhymes With Orange.
@Activist: Especially in the fantastic futuristic world of Mongo. Meanwhile back on earth, there are robots but usually they are superspecialized and cost millions of dollar. For some task it is easier and cheaper to hire someone to do the task. The first economic general purpose factory robot will be like the model T was for personal auto.
MW: If they end up at the Tribeca Grill, drawn in “dying days of A3G” style, then the whole storyline will be worth it.
@treetown: Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou were positing that back in 1927…”the Machine Man!” Or “Machine Woman,” who could also do sexy dances in front of an evening-dress stag party.
You sure couldn’t pay ME enough to turn the hands on that big clockface thing for a ten-hour shift.
Metropolis, 1927
@115 Ukulele Ike:
It has a codpiece.
love is… bugging her when she’s on the commode.
Zits Spanish to English.
@2+2=7: I’ll bet that this Jack guy is not only “Jacked” but also has a “weenie ” that will rock Luanne’s “world”.
Blondie Spanish to English.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
MW: *SHAKING HEAD VIOLENTLY* No, Olive – NO!!!!! As a “sensitive,” you SHOULD KNOW that red meat is the worst thing you can eat. When you ingest the flesh of an animal, you are taxing your body’s digestive energy, not to mention dulling the digestive chakra!!!
To fully develop your psychic powers, you need to eliminate meat and refined sugar and flour and everything that isn’t organic and base your diet on plants and pine resin. And etheric water. Take Mary to the Botanic Gardens where you can feast on the pure vibrations of flower nectar and tender green shoots.
GRRR – Ms. Moy, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!
@treetown:
#112. Ooo, good point. Still, bosses could use a better division of labor to force the IT grads to engineer a metal/ dirt separator. Enslaved humanity grads are letting the nuts (and bolts) slip through their fingers.
H&J: Credit where credit is due. We’ve been ribbing this comic as vague and generic for years. Now Bentley is adding something new to the mix: circular reasoning.
RMMD: It’s impossible to see the drummer’s face in this drawing, so we don’t know what the other three guys’ kids are going to look like.
Cody needs to get it together, get his mojo back on, so to speak. Get it all figured out. Quick! This man needs an old-school park bench and a disproportionately large squirrel, stat! Of course I’m a doctor, why else would I have this white coat and round mirror thingie on my head?
Herb and Jamaal: “This would be illegal if they didn’t call it a law”- > obviously this is an authorization for the government to do something they wouldn’t legally be able to do.
“Every law is made for a reason, even if it penalizes those to whom the law would never apply” -> the law is benefiting people other than the group which are being penalized by it.
In conclusion, Herb’s cafe is being forcibly purchased through Eminent Domain, and the new Renewable Energy project will benefit only the current residents of the area, which he, being evicted, will no longer be.
9CL: Never bet against Brooke when it comes to writing an opening line that you don’t want to hear.
C-Shaft: What’s the funniest way Jeff and Crankshaft could be thrown out of the stadium? Trick question, because none of them are funny, but some are more likely than others.
DtM: Dennis thinks that the wolf was…what? Self-destructively prejudiced against the overweight? A firm believer in ACAB? There’s a picture of three actual pigs right there on the cover. What is this particular learning disability even called?
DT: Is it supposed to be a sly bit of trickery for Tess Lakoyle to have her surname on her briefcase, but upside down? Because in Neo-Chicago it probably will keep people off the scent for a while.
Dustin: The fact that soon-to-be-ex-hubby showed up in a pajama top was an early hint.
JP: It never occurred to Randy that when April said she was going to DC she might have meant she’d be in a Dangerous Café.
MW: Wait, is Olive really the Tee-Hee Taylors’ daughter or a live-in housekeeper in her thirties? In the second panel it looks like Tobey dyed her hair black and flew to the Big Apple to play a prank on Mary.
Phantom: He won’t be skull-marked, just marked by the Phantom’s wedding ring. It’ll help him pick up women who aren’t looking for commitment, so it’s something of a win-win.
@Daisy: Maybe Olive is a psychic vampire and she needs to feed on raw flesh to sustain her powers?
Mary is grooming an apprentice, is what I’m getting at.
H&J is reminiscent of that vlassic song”
“I fought the law
But I guess I’m the law
And the law didn’t apply to me”
The singer is then murdered by the audience; no charges are filed.
Today’s Doonesbury (from what, 2004?) reminds me of just how many more characters I wish Trudeau had killed off. An extinction event would work, really. Duke would probably survive and I can roll with that.
@Dmsilev: #128
Good heavens…I…I never thought of that…that took a dark turn indeed! Here I was thinking young Olive was a sweet summer child with somewhat normal adolescent challenges and all, but then her parents summoned The Mary, and her fate is sealed.
Today’s Herb and Jamaal is a good example of how most peoples’ trains of thought are rambling and barely coherent, not sure why anyone would think that was good material for a “comic” strip.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: “Ugh. You just spoiled the plot!” –Karen Moy.
@Daisy: The Meddledemon is preparing to move to a new host. The old body, used up, will be discarded.
@JeffMcm: Could be argued that it’s poaching on Alice‘s turf.
@JeffMcm:
To be fair, that’s basically the gist of Ulysses, the “great” novel
@Daisy: Anyone who willingly associates with Mary Worth, level three Eldritch Horror, is hardly going to have a soul or human emotion of any kind. We should be relieved that Olive is suggesting steak rather than organ meat.
@Needless Exposition:
She knows, through her vision, of this great local place, known only as…Applebee’s.
@A Grave Mind: Sounds like my husband when we’re trying to decide what to eat for lunch. He almost always defaults to Applebee’s whether it’s just the two of us or with my dad or my nephews. It’s purely for the spinach and artichoke dip which to me smells like a fresh fart but he loves it so I let him enjoy it.
Late Thread Cuisine: “The Satisfier.”
@Ukulele Ike: I saw the Replacements once. In Minneapolis.
The were so drunk they kept dropping their instruments.
I recently heard one of their remastered records. It was a lot better than the original which I think was made by a drunk producer.
Someone mentioned bored musicians.
I saw Tom T. Hall open for Barbara Mandrell. He was checking his watch between every song and never talked to the audience. “The Storyteller”, my ass.
@Baja Gaijin: More like the Barfifier.
That cuisine doesn’t even have to be combined and mixed from separate ingredients. The entire mess of glop is all together in one can. How convenient.
@UncleJeff: Now, that’s entertainment. (Honestly, I’m envious. Never got to one of their shows, much less to one in their hometown.)
@140 Baja Gaijin:
The terrible triangle strikes again!
@A Grave Mind: The difference is, Ulysses succeeds and is indeed a great novel (granted, not one for everybody).
@39 Little Guy: on Sally Forth: Oooh! Intriguing twist I didn’t see coming. And it’s so improbable it HAS to be coming around the bend.
@42 ValdVin: on Gil Thorp: They guy on the right in the final 2 panels, did his lantern jaw restart lanterning again?
@65 Ukulele Ike: $18 for an unfinished salad? Six bucks for garnishes for said wedge(s) of iceberg lettuce? Does that come with a complimentary blow job?
@78 Needless Exposition: Heh heh heh.
@98 I speak Jive: I gave Olive “love heart” eyes.
@111 Sequitur: Thanks for the warning. I’m doubly safe–that strip isn’t in my daily rotation.
@142 I speak Jive: The ultimate in “convenience” foods. Or something.
@144 Sequitur: Does that triangle remind you of something? Hint: Recycling logo. Did you notice it’s full of “Delicious plump little sausages, excited with six selected garden vegetables”?
@148 Baja Gaijin:
I’m sure I was around, maybe even a young adult, when that ad came out.
I don’t remember anyone eating stuff like that back then. Maybe dogs but not people.
@147 Baja Gaijin:
I could post a link for that strip if you like.
@Charterstoned: MW: “I’m in the mood for STEAK, and I know JUST the place for us!”
_________________
“Mary, Good Time Charlie’s™ has been closed since the Nixon administration!”
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Worth Mashups: What kind of “steakhouse” would Olive bring Mary to? Some suggestions in the missing final panels
___________________________
Defiantly Beefsteak Charlie’s™ with their All you can eat shrimp offer. Just a slight time travel of about 69 years.
@Baja Gaijin: Sometimes, ads contain subtly hidden subliminal sex messages. Other times, ads shout “HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT MY SUBLIMINAL SEX MESSAGES!”
@Baja Gaijin: If you saw the waiters at Keen’s, you would graciously decline the blow job.
@150 Sequitur: No, thank you.
@152 GarrisonSkunk: Beefsteak Charlie’s™ sounds like the name of a gay pickup joint.
@153 Peanut Gallery: What are you talking about? Because it’s full of excited plump little sausages? You have a dirty, dirty mind.
@154 Ukulele Ike: They still have their teeth?
@155 Baja Gaijin:
I think Peanut Gallery may have been referring to this.
@Anonyminimouse: If it’s going to be A3G style there has to be a piano for June Brigman to not draw.
JP: Now it seems fairly clear that this story is going to follow the Sunday version, in which April did not tell Randy that she was not in D.C., rather than the weekday version, in which she was on the phone with Randy and screamed into the phone that she was not in D.C. before being grabbed by whoever grabbed her. I’m so glad we finally got that straight. And I hope Randy won’t go to Norway, which doesn’t deserve what has happened there so far, let alone what might lie ahead, but I bet he ends up in *starts to look up the name of the Norwegian town, gives up* Watevervik. Can we at least hope that Randy will leave his daughter at home?