Violence (on-screen, on-course, etc.)
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Luann, 8/22/25
In the current Luann plot, Tiffany has dragged Les to a spa to get a mani-pedi and other treatments, and has been annoyed that he still wants to talk about video games, only to discover that [record scratch] the spa attendant is a gamer as well????? I was wondering if Leviathan was a real game, but the only game by that name I could find links to online is “a multiplayer extraction shooter set in a sci-fi universe where humanity has been abducted by a gargantuan, interstellar beast and changed over the course of several millennia. The abducted were ultimately discarded onto foreign planets. To survive, they have been forced to evolve into three factions of biologically and ideologically distinct lifeforms. Recently, a second wave of abductions have occurred. Fate has brought them together to the surface of the bountiful world of Domusalus; where only ONE FACTION can establish dominance for their survival.” So I guess Luann’s long-term goal is to woo gentle and impressionable young people attracted by the idea of a sea life simulator into a nightmarish world of violent mutants. Fun! Just the sort of thing that would send a hard-core gamer like Les into a state of orgasmic joy, which he appears to have achieved in panel three here.
Mark Trail, 8/22/25
Last week Uncle Lumpy declared gator-travel-assistance to be “not quite Fists of Justice™ territory, but at least macho-heroics-adjacent,” which Mark apparently took as a personal challenge! Today’s punch is less about putting a stop to imminent danger and more about putting a stop to a fight that some golf course developer jerk started, but I do enjoy POV angle we get on the punching in panel three. Usually Mark is a “chin music” guy rather than a “nose bopping” guy, but this dude doesn’t have much of a chin, so you gotta do what you gotta do!
Heathcliff, 8/22/25
As the theme song to the mid-80s Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats cartoon so wisely put it: “Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrify their neighborhood. But Heathcliff just won’t be undone, playing pranks on everyone.” So why does the Nutmeg family tolerate his presence? Well, as today’s panel demonstrates, a pet who refuses to acknowledge the bounds of polite conventions can be a real asset. Look how happy they are to be relieved of their social obligations! Heathcliff says (via signs, flags, and so on) the truths that others won’t!
Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/22/25
Boy, Ma Goose sure takes a lot of pills! That’s … the joke, I guess? That’s a joke, I guess? They wouldn’t print it in the paper if it weren’t a joke, right?
88 replies to “Violence (on-screen, on-course, etc.)”
Mark Trail:
Brett is Shooter McGavin to Mark’s Happy Gilmore.
MW:
“It’s rough out there in the ocean, Mom and Dad. Those roiling waters are governed only by the rules that apply to longtime processed fruit drinks.”
“No. Don’t say it, Olive.”
“Yep. The Law of the Hi-Cs!”
Ah yes, “Hold still,” the first thing you learn in boxing classes.
Luann “It’s about protecting the sea, by introducing a social contract with the populace!”
MGG Haha, ita funny because Grimm is really concerned about how much mediciation Mother Goose is on. Like, what happens to him if she does? Hee-larious!
MG&G
One pill makes you larger, and the other makes you small
But the 129 Mother Goose gives you don’t do anything at all.
Go ask Alice why this outdated and irrelevant comic is still in the newspaper every day.
Ma Goose is a plugger? Of course she is.
MT — Hey, Shooter, the first rule of Boxing class is what again?
Luann: Figures Tiffany is into Bush.
JP: …and that’s just his “inside” voice.
Blondie: “Did you buy them with the profits from the bakery?” “No, silly, I maxed out your credit card. Tee hee hee! I’m just a tropey spendthrift wife!”
MT: Jules! “Fist O’ Justice” is ALWAYS there! It’s a legacy!
Flash! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Look, someone else having sex in the comics these days, and no Brooke involved.
yGT: Not as bad is Moy’s depiction of bullying, but….
GA: “No one wants to work!” “No one wants to work for a short…” “No one wants to work!” “This guy wants to work, but he burnt down the last restaurant….” “NO! ONE! WANTS! TO! WORK!!!”
MW: “….and Weirdo is always a Weirdo!”
yCurtis: Oh, I always get my information from a comic strip about two bi-polar people who are married and react poorly to commentary from the oldest child.
Frazz : Oh, so that’s how they’ll take Mrs Olsen’s victory away from her; she cheated by tricking Frazz into dropping his crutches.
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Luann : I’m assuming Leviathan is supposed to be an analog to games like Dave the Diver and other such cozy deep sea diving fishing games, except with a non-indicative name* entirely to force this bit where Tiffany assumes it’s a violent, horror FPS.
*Well, non-indicative, except for how at the third act, suddenly the game takes a turn to fighting giant Lovecraftian sea monsters (that’s what Dave the Diver and the other fishing games turn into, right?)
***********
Mark Trail : you know, I had NEVER given thought to HOW Mark Trail learned fisticuffs… and, weirdly enough, I had assumed he hadn’t taken formal classes for it, even though boxing lessons at a local gym or youth center would be pretty plausible…
**********
Mother Goose : is a Plugger, apparently.
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On the Fastrack : Man, imagine if Ms Trellis did stuff like completely reset everyone’s job descriptions so she can restart the experiment fresh, like she somehow used a deaging potion to turn her labrats into babies to restart the experimentation. Or what about if the only retirement she allowed was transferring to her mansion’s gardening staff, which would be like mutating the labrats into flowers once their lifespan is up! Man, she’d be pretty terrible and evil if she did stuff like that!
(the joke is that Samantha Argus, the “good guy” from Safe Havens, does stuff like that)Mark Trail: I think I got this. The Right Fist o’Justice punches beards off of faces, the Left Fist o’Righteousness punches the smugness off of them.
Leading with the left? Is Mark Trail canonically a southpaw? If do, he’s not anymore, throw that punch like that and you’ve got a broken hand.
Mary Worth Mashup: The missing final panel we were expecting.
Heathcliff’s sign is a command, people! You are BLOWING this!
MOTHER GOOSE IS A DEALER!
RMMD:
“Why the seemingly mindless repetition of the letter ‘R’ while you’re doing yard work, ‘bro’ ?”
“I’m practicing for my role in the reprise of the ‘RRRuffles have rrridges’ potato chip commercial!”
Luann: To liven things up, Evans has the spa tech grab a bag of Quikrete instead of epsom salts for Les’ foot bath. Hijinks ensue when TJ suggests using a stick of dynamite to free Les from the rock hard mixture.
So the made-up, in-comic Leviathan is… Minecraft? But with The Sea?
I once tried to make underwater glass passageways in minecraft, it was fun but I (for whatever reason) couldn’t drain my glass tunnels of the water, and then I had to also deal with water zombies.
I could have just turned enemies off I guess…
I don’t play Minecraft much anymore, it’s waaaay too bloated of content. But now talking about this, I want to get back into it and try my tunnel idea again.
Hmmm…
LUANN: Why is Tiffany looking so smug? She’s clearly coming in 3rd, after gaming and the massage chair.
RMMD: So, I have this recurring nightmare, in which my dad did a naughty in the past and now I’m being stalked by a dour, obsessive, obdurate LOUT.
Gasoline Alley:
If I ever go back to school to get a Ph.D. to complement my J.D., my doctoral dissertation is going to be titled “The Eldritch Weirdness of ‘Gasoline Alley.’ “
HEATHCLIFF: speaking truth to power since 1973.
MW: Finally we have someone who tells Olive that it was stupid to risk her life. Unfortunately it was her negligent father who was too obsessed with boinking his wife to even show up.
And even worse: he’s
feeding the Gremlins at nightgiving Mary credit.MW: Mary’s got Belle Batsfrey eyes in panel one. I knew June Brigman wasn’t going to let those things go to waste. They’re now part of her permanent clip art collection.
RMMD:
“RRRRRRRRRR.”
“SSSSSSSSSS.”
“TTTTTTTTTT.”
“UUUUUUUUUU.”
“Well, I guess we’re at a standoff.”
Heathcliff:
Time for the protagonist of this strip to returning to Wuthering Heights.
Today’s mystifying Gil Thorp – is it incompetently lazy, or lazily incompetent? Discuss!
@Anonymous: On Luann: You hit the nail perfectly on the head.
Heathcliff: Nobody’s slapping their knees and saying “Welp”, so we’re not in the midwest.
H&L: Serious question: Have we ever seen Lois close a sale on a house?
@ValdVin: Ugh, I forgot to close my bold. I’m not shouting this question, I promise.
It must be a theme day – what the characters say and what actually mean
DT: The “ you are not bringing the death zap gun…” tone is “you are not going to kill anyone right???”
MW: What dad is really saying is “Olive, you totally harshed the wonderful vibe I had with your mom. Now we have to spend the rest of the day getting back home and dealing with Mary and her sayings”
Beetle Bailey: what Sarge really wants to know is if that is an injury that can get him out with full pension and benefits.
“Sorting your medication for the week, is more exhausting than mowing the lawn”
There, I made a MG&G joke, and a Plugger’s joke at the same time.
MT: But who did the “Fist o’ Justice” better? I’m going with Vintage Mark.
MG&G: Oh, I guarantee that Mother Goose is one of those old ladies who counts her pills as soon as she gets home to make sure that the pharmacist didn’t short-change her. But she has enough pride that she doesn’t want to admit it to her dog.
Ah! A nobby sure to bring a flood of ruby! Mark Trail has gone full in on London Prize Ring boxing, and I am here for all 50 rounds of it, or until Mark or Brett drop from apoplexy, strangulation or gator attack.
MW: If Olive is so gifted, shouldn’t she already know the results of the evaluation they’re waiting for? If that’s the case, they should all leave while they can and save themselves both the hefty emergency room fees and the loss of their entire afternoon waiting to be seen.
@MKay: Because, since Les has gotten gotten much farther with that chair than he ever has with any woman, he’s ready to pass the game on to Tiffany, proving that she “won” this battle of wills about whose pastimes are better (even though that wasn’t what this arc was supposed to be about, but shhh, don’t tell Greg and Karen.)
You might think the titular character in Luann would be the first to experience [checks image] unsavory orgasmic pleasure, rather than a tertiary figure accompanied by the strip’s designated villainness. Well, you might.
MW: “Yes how could you, Olive? It interrupted our shagging time to come here!”
The joke in “Mother Goose and Grimm”? Well, the social policies system invests a lot of money for public healthcare (like Medicare) to make old people live longer, so they will receive Social Security benefits for many more years. The joke is the sustainability of welfare!
MW – Isn’t Ed a doctor? I mean, the lifeguard already checked them out and said they were fine. I feel like Ed could have done some cursory evaluatin’ himself and got right back to the boinkin’, C’mon, Ed. You’re wasting valuable sexy time.
@Baja Gaijin, MT: That updates the Phantom’s two rings.
Also Luann: The kingdom of Luann is nothing else but a confederacy of dopes, hussies, the sexually repressed and caricatures of California eccentricity that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous pedicures, to extinguish in them the light by bringing them to a state of RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
@ValdVin, H&L: In another strip. She closed the Old Theatre That Because a World Premiere Site in “Funky”.
Heathcliff: It’s a bold choice to depict Grandpa Nutmeg getting the Oxy nods in front of Westfinster’s first female bishop, but Heathcliff is nothing if not a series of bold choices.
I’m usually on board with Heathcliff’s craziness. But if you say that a kitten is yawning, a sign is not enough! Give us kittens doing big yawns, or we riot!
@Needless Exposition: Yes, it will be
interestingnauseating to see how Mary scolds Olive’s father for saying she took a foolish risk. What next, he’ll forbid her from playing in traffic?Mark Trail – Both Mark Trail and Gil Thorp had major changes in art styles with a turnover in the creative team in recent years, but even with a more modern look, Mark hasn’t forgotten his roots as a guy willing to throw a few punches to delivery nature justice.
Heathcliff – Heathcliff is a true Trickster, upsetting the status quo to take people out of autopilot. While his wearing “HAM” hats might not meaningfully change a person’s life, being flashed a large sign to signal it’s time to leave will encourage these guests to be less self-centered and more empathetic to their hosts’ more subtle signals.
Mother Goose and Grimm – The strip and the character of Mother Goose are aging and in steep decline, and being propped up by pharmaceuticals (The character by a shocking number of pills, the the strip by drug company’s print ads for the aging print newspaper readership).
I would say that Mother Goose and Grimm became Pluggers so slowly we didn’t even notice, but besides the fact that three people have made similar comments already, I can’t help but think I’ve made that comment before, perhaps on one of the two occasions Mother Goose made the exact same joke about aging just within this calendar year. Are we sure the creators of MG&G are okay?
@Ken: I can’t help but think of what Ed might have said when Olive had her first period at school. “I get seven hours away from you and I had to get out of your mother for this? How could you go through puberty like that?”
GT: I’m surprised Keri didn’t put out Tobias eyes with those earings.
MW-Yes, Olive, explain yourself and don’t talk about your Gifts.
FC-“Where are all the ferries that San Francisco is known for?”
Honestly, if I had to take so many pills that it would fill me up like a light lunch, I’d probably enjoy some delicious food instead for the little time I’d have left.
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Les’ water breach was so critical the cup it was in and its holder washed away between panels. The property damage was minimal but surprising for a cup of water.
Are Les’es bound to be assholes? Or is Les (Luann) trying to take the title of Asshole Les from Les Moore? Deep questions!
@Liam: You might as well have told Olive that she’s not allowed to breathe. Every time she talks, she manages to flip every conversation to make it about how she’s special and unique and not like other girls.
MT: The exclamation point in P2 should be preceded by one of these: “Ease up, Friend”. At least the instant lout didn’t absorb half of Trail’s arm.
“I’ve gone over this before, dog. The uppers to wake up, the benzos to take the edge off the uppers, the methadone for the heroin addiction, the LSD so I can still write my stories (it’s the old William Burroughs method!), the blue pills for my fatty liver – I’m not ending up as someone’s pate – and the downers at bedtime.”
Heath: Old couple reads sign and gets up but not to leave. Man holds up index finger. “Okay, one word.” Pulls on ear. “Sounds like.” Mimics He man flexing. “Schwarzenegger!” Chops arm once “One syllable.” Play acts pushing lawnmower. Points to floor excitedly.
Thus begins world’s most tedious game night.
MG&G: I take quite a few medications personally, I rely on them to the point that sometimes I feel trapped.
“Rambling Otter and the Prisoner of Apixaban”
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: WORK]
[Sign: WORK]
[Sign: WORK]
“What are you watching me for? I’ve already done the most important work of all… I got those signs put up!”
Mother Goose and Grimm-Grimm, this isn’t Vegas.
Luann-I think Les will be needing a change of pants when this is over.
Luann: When my wife and I go get a pedicure, we sit side by side in the chairs, and both get one. Why is Tiffany just sitting there doing nothing?
I have been patient with the new Mark Trail. I thought it had potential and could be an interesting update to a stale character. But if it can’t even get his crushing right cross of justice down, the mighty fist that would put Fatass von Golfer down in a single hit, I must give up on it.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
@ValdVin: I kind of think so, but I might be confabulating it with the strip where Lois thinks Hi is jumping around with joy and seizing her in his arms because he closed a big sale, but it was because he got a hole in one. Anyway, she didn’t close on any sales in the first 112 days of 2020 and I bet it didn’t go any better the rest of that year.
@Lord Flatulence: Because apparently this salon can only afford one pedicure chair. You’d think Tiffany would go to a place a little more high-end.
@Morgan Wick: Are we sure the creators of MG&G are okay?
Okay? I imagine they’re deliriously happy. “We don’t have to make up new jokes for the strip, we don’t even have to make up jokes, and they still pay us!”
FC: The Keane budget must be finally reaching its limits. They found the only restaurant in San Francisco that serves a family-style meal of vanilla wafers.
Heath: Thanks, Josh, I haven’t thought of that theme song for years and now I will NEVER get it out of my head…
Luann: The full-frontal of Les’ nostrils and open mouth as he blisses out in the massage chair is not one I’ll soon forget…no matter how hard I try.
Luann – Is Les having an rrrrrgasm right there in the chair? You usually have to pay extra for that. On the up side, Tiff now has a sneak preview of what her view would be with Les on top. My advice? Reverse cowgirl.
There’s something about today’s Mother Goose and Grimm that really brings home that Grimm is a dog, and he’s Mother Goose’s pet, but he talks to her, and she’s a goose, and it makes me long for the coherent vision of animal society we find in Slylock Fox or Shoe.
Heathcliff: “It’s late, we should be going. Not that sitting here on your sectional and staring at each other all night wasn’t fun, but we were kind of hoping you would offer us some drinks or snacks or entertainment or conversation. Still, your cat’s writing demonstration was a real surprise, so the evening wasn’t a total loss.”
Heathcliff is holding the sign facing away from the group
The other side says “Fuck you people”
FC: Alert! A Keane Kid has just said something that may have been an intentional joke on their part, rather than a Darnedest Thing … and it almost worked!
HtH: I guess if you’ve got a solid gag like “hot liquids cool faster closer to the poles”, it doesn’t matter that the execution is actually fairly incomprehensible unless you either have “Hammerfest – possibly the most northerly town in Norway/the world, although it’s disputed” at the top of your brain at all times, or you’re sad enough to look it up after you’ve read the strip, like I did.
MT: Goodness, Riviera-era Mark sure is … gleeful about the old Fists of Justice, isn’t he? Maybe this is just me, but I remember previous Marks Trail seeing it as a grim necessity, not “Finally, I get to punch someone! Do you know how long I’ve had to go without punching someone?”
MW: Of course. We’ve had everyone praise Olive for her alleged role in saving Vicki, we’ve given cursory thanks to the lifeguard for actually saving both of them, but when you think about it, isn’t the real hero here Mary?
RMMD: Sorry, did you think the bit with the leaf-blower and Jonah not hearing him was going somewhere? Welcome to Rex Morgan MD, where “pacing” means “how can we drag this out until Sunday?”
MW: Olive’s weakness with water has carried over from the original in this remake of Unbreakable. Gotta say though, supervillain Mary is a little over the top.
Luann: I enjoy how the Evanses lose the plot in the middle of their story. Either that or “Gunship Leviathan” is just begging for lawsuits by people who bought it expecting some kind of RTS and getting a cozy simulator.
MT: Brett’s problem is that he used his surgically shortened right arm to throw the punch. Maybe he thought he’d catch Mark off guard with that maneuver.
Heathcliff: ‘Tis better than Heathcliff holding up a sign that reads, “You don’t smell like a sewer rat.”
MGG: {Pulls out a knife} “And stop stealing my oxycodone, you little thief!”
@Horace Broon:
MT: Goodness, Riviera-era Mark sure is…
Jules may be a lot of things but she’s not a Buick
Luann: Looking at the Steam page for Leviathan that Josh linked to, apparently the game was released THIS WEEK. So I think Josh is correct, the writer of Luann is trying to attract readers to this game, and for some reason is trying to make it sound non-violent.
CS: Now, Ed, don’t get pissy.
9CL: I guess if your knees are being compared to hideous sea serpents, then you should expect people to express fascination with them.
BCN: Look, I can tell the difference between ginger and mint and I’m human. Your superior senses of smell have no excuse.
DT: Why even have the electrocution gun if it’s so unreliable? You’re in America, woman, go to the gun shop in the strip mall and get yourself a friggin’ Glock!
Dustin: Just when I think Meg can’t get any more loathsome, she starts outsourcing her insults to ChatGPT.
GT: “Tobias, are you me?”
JP: “Daddy, I have school in the morning; can you yell about Mom’s secret agent stuff after you drop me off?”
MW: Oh goody, we’re going to make Ed the bad guy for pointing out that what Olive did was stupidly dangerous, aren’t we?
Phantom: Dante Hicks: Wait, I’m not supposed to be here today!
*gets riddled with bullets*
(And yes, I am aware that was how the movie was originally going to end.)
@A Grave Mind:
Can’t it be both. No depth, hard to follow action, was that a consciously delivered blow like a hip check, or was that just a playful push. Despite the many many obvious confusing illustrations – these are still more “realistic” than any of the sports images, with misshapened gear, impossible game situation (last football season had Milford running a 11 man blitz that somehow resulted in a pick six). This teen angst social stuff clearly is more what the artist enjoys drawing – nothing that has sports or dynamism in it.
FC: {Jeffy flings his fork lump at Billy}
MW: Finally, someone is asking the correct question! Obviously, he’s going to be outed as a bad parent.
Dustin: “And I’ve further helped this loser deplete a lot of resources for nothing.”
Luann: I’m not sure I want to know why the manicurist is putting gloves on while Les is semiconscious in the vibrating chair with his bare legs in a tub of water…no, I really don’t want to know what she plans to do to him.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Cody: “Maybe I can diffuse the tension between us if I stand behind my newly-found brother like a creep stalker.”
@Bob Tice: #2
And a big glass of Hawaiian Punch for you, sir!! :-)
@Needless Exposition: Not like that Naomi chick who compassionately responded to her friend (well “girl-posse-hanger-on”, the 99-Cent Store equivalent to a “friend”) almost drowning by whining that no one was paying attention to her (showcasing that she was just “Olive” if she traded powers for peroxide. Maybe the story will end with the two girls coming together realizing they have more in common than they think.)
Questionablecontent:
I knew today’s strip would be bad, but I didn’t anticipate the sheer level of badness it attained. Yay comes to Roko’s flat, but then pretends to not be Yay, makes Roko believe that they’re not Yay, and then gratuitously admits that they are, in fact Yay. And what were they doing all this time, hiding in Aurelia’s closet?
Yay’s “disappearance” reminds me of Nedry in the original Jurassic Park movie: “Dodgson! Dodgson! We got Dodgson here! See? Nobody cares.” Did any single government agency or anyone at all show the slightest interest in Yay at any point? No? So why disappear and then show up in this spectacularly incompetent way?
Congratulations, Jephthy, you plumbed a depth I didn’t know even existed.
Luann: So, like, what is Tiffany’s issue here? Les is taking part in the spa stuff like she presumably wanted, it’s not like he’s snubbing her date idea, unlike Tiffany herself who is sitting in a cuck chair seething instead of enjoying herself. Is she just feeling oppressed over the very idea of her boyfriend having hobbies and interests?
Mark Trail: Starting to suspect that Mark’s supposed love of the environment and animals is actually just something he uses as an excuse to pick fights with people and violently beat them to the brink of death to satisfy his sadism. Which makes a lot about this series actually make sense to be frank.
Heathcliff: A Heathcliff comic that actually tells a joke instead of just having random bullshit happen? What is this, Opposite Day?
@2+2=7: Spicy Latina and Little Orphan Knockoff are trading in one self absorbed friend for another. Neither one can tell the difference. Well, except for the message that blondes are evil and/or stupid. Case in point: Toby, who’s married to a man old enough to be her father and plays with horsies all day while drinking herself into the inevitable scenario where she gets dumped for a teenager with no fine lines and a functioning liver.
My first thought was that Leviathan was a stand-in for Subnautica, but that one is less about protecting the sea and more about gathering resources, building bases, and ultimately escaping the sea (and the planet). This sounds more like an underwater Animal Crossing, or, like The Rambling Otter said, Minecraft.