“Dropping” is a much nicer way to put it than “crashing,” let’s go with that
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Crock, 9/24/25
In my freshman year of college, there was an outbreak of E. coli at various Jack in the Boxes that killed four children, and a friend of mine who had worked at McDonald’s told me something I have never forgotten, which was that (at the time, anyway) they never taught fast food workers how to tell if a burger was cooked properly, but instead just taught them to put it on a bun when the timer rang. “If that timer went haywire and started ringing early, I would have definitely been serving people raw hamburgers,” he said. It was enough to keep me off fast food hamburgers for life, though for some entirely fake reason the flash-fried breaded chicken products seem safe to me. Anyway, my point is, I was using this news peg to play my fun “what year is this Crock rerun from?” game and was going to triumphantly announce that it was 1993, but then I saw that it actually had a 1997 copyright date, which means that even upon its original publication it was four years out of date.
Luann, 9/24/25
So Gunther and his girlfriend Bets are doing some sort of fundraiser for animal adoption with their cosplay group and are of course cosplaying appropriately. At first I was going to come in hot and absolutely furious at how much more work she had put into her costume than he did, but then I remembered the last time Gunther engaged in sexy, elaborate cosplay it was fucking horrifying, so I think he should actually be discouraged from applying any more effort to this whole thing than he’s doing now.
Rhymes With Orange, 9/24/25
Have you guys seen how much mortuary services cost? If my funeral were botched in such a disgraceful fashion, I would certainly hope that one of my loved ones would speak up on behalf of my dignity and the dignity of those gathered to mourn, rather than just cracking wise.
Mary Worth, 9/24/25
If there’s one thing I hope to have established in 20 years of blogging, it’s that joshreads dot com is your number one website for finding out if today’s comics pages feature Mary Worth, a psychic child, and a guy dressed sort of like an old lighthouse keeper screaming in terror as their hot air balloon crashes into a pine forest. If you’re wondering, today is, at long last, that day.
86 replies to ““Dropping” is a much nicer way to put it than “crashing,” let’s go with that”
Mark Trail: With old-artists’ Cherry, a spider in her hair would have been no problem; the many layers of built-up Aqua Net Super Hold shellacked her coif into a spider-impenetrable hard shell.
Pluggers: Football season marks the beginning of:
a. hibernation for a plugger
b. carb coma for a plugger
c. death by silent heart attack for a plugger
d. all of the above.
Mary Worth Mashups: Which missing final panel would you like as canon? It’s not gonna happen but we can still dream.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m going with Sheriff Dan Stober!
MW: Stanley, caught in a sudden embrace with windy Mary and freak Olive, cries out passionately, “For you I pine, for you I balsam!”
Rhymes with Orange:
“Just like his novels — never enough plot.”
“Hey, thanks for the post-mortem.”
Family Circus: Dolly will soon be singing, “You are the wind beneath my clit.”
R.I.P., Mary Worth. You taught me how to look up brainyquotes.
Phantom:
Patrolwoman Dai Lu is nowhere in sight
As Phantom proceeds with his work in the night
She can’t travel more in pursuit of her role —
I’ll bet her tank’s empty of Jungle Petrol
This Ivory Lana’s a vast, sweeping nation —
Thus, one needs much fuel for a peregrination
She craves a quick fill-up to further her goal —
So where can she purchase some Jungle Petrol?
This jungle’s not full of pump stations en masse
To finish her trip, she needs high-octane gas
Without a full tank, she’ll be hard to console —
Perhaps she’ll ask Phantom for Jungle Petrol!
Wary Morth:
“Oh, the humanity!”
Writing tip: When you find yourself ending a sentence “are alarmed by sudden events,” that’s when you go back and turn the subordinate clause into the main clause.
@Baja Gaijin: Number 3 of those you posted, but I would’ve preferred a number 4 of the burning Hindenburg.
CROCK: No matter how you prepare camel, it’s still camel.
MW: It was in the waiver: “In the event of impending disaster, if an interjection is required, ‘AUGHHH!’ and only ‘AUGGGH!’ will be uttered.”
Crock Was i the only one who read that as ‘ecru’ ? I mean, if that’s the color you’re going for, it’s probably the same effect as ‘E. coli’.
Luann I just assumed that this was a Haloween story and was wondering if this strip was really early or if it was in the process of lapping itself.
MW Do you think that scream is in three-part harmony? I’d like to think so. Something appropriate for the situation, like a solemn minor triad, or maybe an augmented chord to denote panic.
Incredible as it may seem, and as stultifying as it quite undenoably is, Luann is still better drawn and less boring than 2025 QuestionableContent.
MW: While you’re stuck up there can you find Charlie Brown’s kite?
MW: Olive channels one of her previous lives as a capuchin monkey and scales down the tree to find help.
FC. The original caption said, ” Whee! The wind is tickling my hoo-haw, Daddy!” But the editors nixed that.
RWO: It’s not so much the plot as the size of the hole in it. I think they might be able to remove the body from the casket and fold it into the grave. Those two workers can stomp it down into the grave to make it fit.
MW: Say, wasn’t this part of a ballooning festival? Only Mary and Olive’s balloon went off course? Olive must be responsible.
MW: “Mary and Olive are alarmed“… alarmed? More like petrified, horrified, frantic, hysterical, alarmed sounds more like an eminent cell phone battery failure.
MW:
“Throw everything overboard that isn’t an absolute necessity! — Ms. Worth, you don’t truly need those Depends, do you?”
MW:
“Give me ‘effete,’ Moy, and free my soul/
I wanna get lost in your snark and troll
And drift away….”
— Dobie Gray, “Drift Away” (adapted)
Oh. Wait a minute. It isn’t Sunday yet.
MW: Those look like blue spruce. That’s probably the most painful kind of tree to crash into from the air.
MW: The sky was angry that day, my friends. Angry like an old woman trying to send back salmon at The Bum Boat.
Family Circus- I was actually ready to giggle that FC was depicting the poof of a baby fart, only to be disappointed by the empty diaper airbag gag. Trixie, take it from Marvin: if you want the big laughs, go with the full diaper.
@Ned Ryerson:
MW: Say, wasn’t this part of a ballooning festival? Only Mary and Olive’s balloon went off course? Olive must be responsible.
I’m coming to realize that Olive isn’t so much “gifted” as she is “cursed.” Bad luck and catastrophe follow her wherever she goes.
MW:
Gosh, I hope the poor, innocent trees don’t suffer any serious damage.
FC-Tickling your tummy brain?
MW-Do something, bearded man! You are the pilot aren’t you?
MW-Since Mary has such control over the people she will be informing people right away that she survived the crash.
MW: CUT! That’s a wrap, folks! No panel Brigman could draw will ever top panel two of today’s strip, so strike the set, fade to black! …Mary, the brat and that other guy? Eh… they’ll be fine.
Luann: Bets, seeing Michelle Pfieffer’s Catwoman was a formative experience on my journey to becoming a man. Why are you risking ruining it for me by being seen in public with a ‘man’ wearing floppy ears and a clown nose??
It’s panels like today’s P2 that make me miss the hell out of the late, lamented Worthy Awards. Because P2 would not only have been a shoo-in nominee for Panel of the Year, it probably would have won.
Luann:
Wow — Eartha Kitt makes a cameo appearance in today’s installment! Or is that Julie Newmar, or Lee Meriwether?
As for me, I’m partial to the fugue.
@Baja Gaijin: Well, it’s definitely not C. Pluggers may be old, fat, lazy, and in advanced states of heart disease and dementia. But they never, ever, ever, EVER die.
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely the bottom one, though I appreciate the George Carlin reference in the top one.
Call me sentimental, but I’m still partial to the “AUGGH!” uttered by Wilbur when he discovered Pedro with the Bone-in-Fabiana.
Crock: Hamburger Steak? Even if members of Dr. Salisbury’s family are still around, I doubt they’d be inclined to sue for implying his invention is the sole source of E. Coli in zero-star restaurants.
For the Sunday MW quote, may I suggest “Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon,” by A.A. Milne.
Pro Tip for Olive: Mary testing the limits of her Depends shields whilst screaming in Peanutsesque terror could make the souvenir VHS tape (or whatever they have now) Charterstone’s “Rocky Horror” equivalent. Just a good investment is all I’m sayin’….
MW:
in Just-
fall when the world is crud-
luscious the brittle
shamed balloonman
bristles far and wee
and mary’n’olive come
running from muffins and
pirate pleas and it’s
fall
when the world is muddle-blunderful
the smeared
old balloonman bristles
far and wee
and tommyandbrandy come trancing
from cropshop and rump-roast and
it’s
fall
and
the
slow-footed
balloonMan bristles
far
and
wee
Crankshaft : Sadly, for Ed, he can’t throw them away, then buy them right back in collected form, saving no space, but allowing him to endlessly whine about how he had to get rid of his precious collection while constantly show off that he owns the entire run.
You know, like Jeff does*************
Luann : it took me SEVERAL readings to realise that Bets is not smugly sipping from the coffee she is shown holding in the two previous panels, but is in fact kissing Gunther on the cheek.
P.S. Bets is back into liking cosplay and constantly going to events because Greg wanted his pretext to draw
the girls in sexy outfitshis characters in funny costume again, right? That’s what’s going on? And we’re on the verge of Karen demonising Bets and trying to write her out of the strip AGAIN so everyone can go back to the “slacks + featureless long-sleeve shirt” uniforms?*************
Mary Worth : I like how much the balloon guy is an afterthought in all this, like, the ART remembers he’s supposed to be there, but that’s it.
RwO: “This must be the abridged edition.”
“Just shut up and grab a shovel!”
Mary Worth: I just realized the balloon operator is none other than Victor Buono. The sudden descent of the balloon is a perfect metaphor for his career going from the excellent Whatever Happened To Baby Jane to being an occasional lackluster villain on the short-lived Man From Atlantis.
DT: The evil doers are going to make the deal with Faust at Diet Smith Industries (enterprises?) and have an empty zap zap gun. Dick Tracy is finally getting around to finishing off the list of possible suspects. Nice rendering of the red car!
MW: Still time for an updraft to take the three of them (Olive, Mary, and Balloonist) to the Land of Oz!
JP: Yes, lean into the direction shift of the strip away from legal stuff, spy/thriller stuff or even young adults in Norway stuff, and make it about Neddy and Charlotte.
MW – No, no – “AUGHHH!”, at the back of the throat.
MW Even if a balloon went down early and somehow everyone onboard had no functioning phones / any radio is damaged, you would think it wouldn’t be exactly hard to find them. What with the big balloon and all. Yet somehow I fear we’re going to have rescue drama with Eve and Saul’s dogs – as the only ones in California who’ve scented Olive – as their only hope.
I am only reading to see if it will somehow get dumber than that…
MW: “I thought you could see the future you useless @&$@ing brat!!!”
@Ned Ryerson: The other balloonivators landed when the ground crews radioed the warning about the approaching front. Unfortunately, Stanley didn’t hear it, because he’d turned off his hearing aid after fifteen minutes of listening to Olive and Mary’s inane chatter.
@CanuckDownSouth: Well, yesterday Sequitur warned “Most of you are going to absolutely hate the way the rescue will happen,” and that would definitely qualify.
FC: Dolly saying anything is “Ticklin’ my tummy” won’t do anything to stop the rumors.
H&L: You’re the youngest in a house full of children with exhausted and neglectful parents, Trixie. Who are you trying to fool about “empty diaper”?
MW: “Mary and Olive are alarmed by sudden events…”? Stanley, who’s also screaming AUGHHH!!!, is apparently not alarmed. Or maybe they’re just dropping his name because he’s the one who’s gonna die.
Rhymes with Orange: Harald Goodwinson famously offered Harald Hadrata “six feet of English ground, as he is taller than most men,” while our deceased novelist gets [squints] three feet and change of American soil? Goes to show the old adage that cemeteries are less generous than medieval warlords, I guess. That is an old adage, right?
Luann: When Catwoman won a Razzie for Worst Picture, Halle Berry showed up at the awards in person and in her acceptance speech, said “First of all, I want to thank Warner Bros. Thank you for putting me in a piece of shit, God-awful movie. You know, it was just what my career needed, you know?” Comics characters can’t physically show up at award ceremonies, but spiritually, I imagine Luann is saying pretty much the same thing to Greg Evans.
MW: Olive may have dodged the falling AC of death, but the grim reaper will not be cheated. Final Destination 7: Meddling With Death, coming soon to a theater near you. If the hot air balloon doesn’t get you, the salmon squares will.
Luann: Well, we’ve come as close to “Sexy Luann” as we ever will, and you know what? That’s good, I am absolutely content with that. No more smutty dog cosplay, Evanses! We’ve had enough for one lifetime!
MW: At least Mary has her mausoleum saved for just such an occasion and she can have her “kindred spirit” buried alive with her.
@Schroduck: Halle Berry at least looked good in her catsuit, as how could she not? Betsy, well…she’s named Betsy for a reason.
Speaking of Luann, I looked back at Gunther’s Bookworm outfit and seem to remember commenting on that post, which means I’ve been hanging around here with the rest of you perverts, cranks and obsessives for 15 years. Somebody could probably look it up, but on second thought, no, please don’t. I can’t bear the thought of my commenting career being half a Crock old.
MW: Olive’s “AUGHHH!” should be in a separate word balloon. She’s screaming because Mary has a handful of her hair.
And back to Rhymes With Oranges: Oh, come on! You can plainly see there’s no other headstones nearby, of course this gentleman got a big enough plot, that’s not the problem here. It’s the lack of plot holes, just the way any novelist would want it.
Mary Worth: I am pleased with this turn of events, and not because I am an eldritch deity (or play him on television). I just want Mary to die, is all.
Mary Worth screaming in abject terror? Well, my day has gotten off to a fantastic start. The only bad thing is it can only go downhill from here.
***
Based on the cultural touchstones that a young adult Luann’s age would not dress up as in real life, I guessed that the writer of the strip is Gen X. After a quick search, I learned that the creator, Greg Evans, is actually a Boomer so I was all ready to give him kudos until I saw he co-writes it now with his daughter Karen… who is Gen X. Ah, there it is.
MW: If it’s a freak windstorm, why isn’t Wilbur blowing by?
Guess she didn’t see that coming.
BB: interesting (and understandable) mistake by the colorist. It looks like Sgt Snorkle’s fang grows when he sees food.
Next week in Pluggers: “A Plugger can sleep through anything, except Monday Night Football.”
RwO: I hope at THAT person’s funeral they get her an incredibly cheap, worn out coffin, so someone can say.
“Just like her crack wising. Too many cracks, not enough wise.”
FC: “The wind is ticklin’ my tummy!” Adult Jeff changed the art but kept the original dialogue. Personally though, I don’t find Dolly in a mid-sixties era tube top that offensive.
Luann: I was thinking that Bets looked kind of hot in a dirty-kinky sort of way. Then, I noticed that it looks like she has an orange Hitler moustache in P3 and I got over it.
NTSB Summary Report – Impact with Terrain – Hot Air Balloon N2469L
What Happened
???On September 24, 2025, about 0742 Pacific daylight time, a hot air balloon, N2469L, struck trees and crashed in a field near Charterstone, California. The pilot did not check weather before launch; updated observations and forecasts available at that time indicated deteriorating conditions. A psychic child with possible precognition abilities (survivor) was not consulted regarding possible deteriorating weather.
What We Found
?The probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s failure to consult with the psychic child. Contributing to the accident were (1) trees and (2) Mary Worth.?
What We Recommended
We made three safety recommendations to the FAA, to wit: (1) removal of trees in Central California; (2) removal of Mary Worth from balloons; and (3) requiring consultation with psychic children when available.
I glanced at the panels out of order, and I genuinely thought those pine branches in Mary Worth were feathers. I thought a flock of geese was being sucked into the jet engine.
The jet engine, y’all.
Of Mary’s balloon.
Anyhow, time to sue the comics syndicate for brain damage. TTYL!
MW —
I think that I shall never see
A Plot device as lovely as a Tree
MW – That face is some serious Mary Worth Fan Service. I think we’re going to be repurposing that one for decades. I can already think of a few good use cases…
It’s a shame that we know Mary Worth is going to survive this or Santa Royale could have had their motto changed from “America’s WASP Nest” to “Tomb of Mary Worth.”
JP: Neddy’s breast reduction (removal?) surgery and the motive therein might have made an interesting story line. Being an orphan, did she track down her birth mother and learn she died of breast cancer? Did she serendipitously find through an ancestry site that she has mutations in her BRCA1 and BRCA2 tumor fighting genes? Did a biopsy reveal an aggressive, likely to recur disease? Guess we’ll never know.
@Hibbleton: No, Manley just decided that women written by Ces don’t need tits. Keefe decided the same thing years ago.
Crock – Crock remains timeless. Humorless as well, but timeless. I don’t share Josh’s negativity that this a woefully out of date, given who is in charge of our nation’s health policy. If anything, I’d have updated the strip to mention beef tallow fries as the next potential source of an outbreak.
Luann – Luann has managed to enrage the Furry community with Gunther’s low-effort, and Bet’s evoking Halle Berry’s much maligned Catwoman aesthetic.
Rhymes with Orange – I spot a frustrated cartoonist mad they never made the New Yorker.
Mary Worth – Any day that Mary Worth and her narcissistic ward are brought down to Earth from their lofty heights, whether literally or figuratively, is a good day
MW: I can’t wait for Mary and Olive’s double funeral!
Luann: I don’t want to come off sounding like “My Species Doth Protest Too Much” but I never liked fursuits. I thought they looked kind of silly, and didn’t leave much room for dignity.
Yet looking at Gunther right here, I’m thinking “God man! Just get a fursuit!”
DT: Say, is that a 1928 Porter? Is it going to talk to them? Is it going to talk to them in Ann Southern’s voice?
On Gunther’s costume : it appears to be made of two parts :
1. the cheapest “dog ears + dog nose” accessories you can buy at Party City
2. A Superman “costume” (the lack of red underwear on the outside makes it hard for me to say if he bought a full set (of a design where supes doesn’t break the blue of his costume with red trunks like that (it’s a design that shows up from time to time!)) or if he’s just wearing a Superman shirt), but with an altered logo that changes the “S” to “D”, presumably for “Dogman”.
…Because as we all know, if Catwoman is associated with a superhero, it’s Dogman, not… well, I think the modbot would filter me saying who it ACTUALLY is, but I think most people know who it is…
@Baja Gaijin: Honestly, I think it needs to be Wilbur discovering The Bogota Giantess fucking her “cousin” in the dance studio. That’s the last time we had a good, heartfelt AUUUGHH!!!
DT: I needed to look it up but yeah, that’s the “Porter” logo, arrow and everything.
MW – That’s a forest. In California. Being crashed into by a hot air balloon. Which uses an open flame to heat the air, right? So are we headed for the long awaited MW/Luann crossover where Brad and Toni are called away from their fruitless efforts at baby making to battle the “Olive Fire?”
@richardf8: More like “St. Mary’s Fire.”
The threat of E.coli exposure at restaurants has never gone out if date.
Luann: Vegas Odds: Why is Bets dressed as Michelle Pfieffer-era Catwoman?
It’s the most recent version known to Greg and Karen Evans: 3:2
It’s the most visually iconic and/or the easiest to draw: 5:1
Karen Evans has written a detailed, loving backstory of Bets which defines her as having a deep fondness for 90s-era Tim Burton: 1,000: 1
Greg Evans wanted to draw Bets in a skintight outfit: EVEN
MW: Well, I guess if your balloon operator has no ground crew, no onboard radio, and doesn’t even have the sense to literally come in out of the rain, relying on a psychologically stunted adolescent who insists she has psychic powers is a step up by comparison….
(Calling it now: Olive will save them by doing her Disney Princess routine and calling on the animals–or God help us, the trees–for assistance. Five years later, Olive becomes a cautionary tale when she visits Yellowstone and jumps into a geothermal spring while trying to communicate with the thermophiles.)
Gasoline Alley – I would think that long time restaurant workers would have heard of off the menu. Especially for what appears to be a regular customer. Of course, Doone is still going through that asinine rhymes with Boone routine, as if his name is difficult to pronounce.
Skinner almost rhymes with ninny.
These people don’t have one working brain cell among the three of them.
FC – @Liam: Dolly doesn’t have a tummy brain. She doesn’t have a head brain either.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I vote for the bear.
@Anonymous: I’m…guessing he’s supposed to be Krypto the Superdog? Which doesn’t make sense because Krypto never wore any kind of body suit as far as I can tell, only a cape attached to a collar. (All things considered, I think we can be happy Gunther’s costume isn’t all that accurate.)
MW: I think they dropped the middle panel that had Old-timey-guy yelling “OK everyone ‘AUGHHHH’ on three. One. Two. Three – “
(Appropriately named) Crock – I’ll be your server – my name is Sal…Sal Manila….
Luann – The consistent with species – the dog has absolutely no interest in getting into the box….
RwO – Entrepreneurial idea #63 – fold over burial in children’s casket and mini plot….
MW – Panel 3 – Jump cut to…WOLVES!!!
Adios Amigos,DJ.
I’d just as soon not see Gunther with a fake bat nose, most of which are Lovecraftian horrors.
Ah, that’s why one of my earlier posts on Bets’ costume disappeared into the ethernet.