Ceci n’est pas une course automobile
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Gearhead Gertie, 11/20/25
Gearhead Gertie’s loved ones are trying to break through her epistemological bubble that only allows her to think about NASCAR nonstop through the power of art. They started simple, with representational paintings; unfortunately, she was quickly able to assimilate that concept into her warped worldview by conflating the signifier and the signified and treating NASCAR-related objects as meriting display. So now they’ve escalated to more abstract pieces. And it’s working! This museum is beginning to rewire Gertie’s damaged psyche, but right now the only way she can process that is by mapping it onto visions of the destruction of her precious race cars. Excited to see if this leads to a breakthrough!
Beetle Bailey, 11/20/25
A thing I learned recently that I really enjoyed is that a lot of heterosexual ’80s metal guys thought that Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, whose stage costumes very much came out of the gay leather daddy subculture, looked cool and badass in a completely straight way and spent the better part of a decade emulating his look. Just thinking about that for no reason as this new recruit, outfitted by the culturally savvy Beetle Bailey team in the a classic “tough guy” outfit, looks positively delighted at the thought of Sarge’s forceful discipline!
Crankshaft, 11/20/25
“Also, it wasn’t really that hard to figure out. He only changed one letter!”
53 replies to “Ceci n’est pas une course automobile”
GG:
“This one here looks like fellow comic strip protagonist Beetle Bailey after Sarge is done mashing him to a pulp!”
CS: Is there where one usually gets turkeys from? I guess “fresh” turkeys never occurred to me.
When Thanksgiving rolls around, there is a section laid out in the grocery stores just for frozen turkeys. I never even considered that one could just get them fresh at the butchers.
Crankshaft:
“We’d like one of those turkeys that’s got what the gobbler squawked when he stumbled over a floor air circulation unit!”
“And what might that be that he said, sir?”
” ‘Tripped! — oh, fan!”
It’s okay, Gertie said the exact same thing while looking at Starry Night. And The Last Supper. Gertie sucks, is my joke here.
“And dealing with your dad has taught me, he sure doesn’t give a Duck about proper phrasing! Ehh? Ehhhhhhh? I’ll…get your turkey now.”
We see it written, but the butcher hears it spoken. Butterbald? Or butterballed? Don’t make me think about Crankshaft, dead turkeys, and improvised lube. (Oh wait, it’s past tense. Sloppy seconds? EW.)
@The Rambling Otter:
You can, but the thing is, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Butterball that wasn’t frozen. I may be wrong, but I choose to believe Crankshaft remains stupid.
Crankshaft: “I got it… in normal human speech ‘bald’ often comes out as ‘ball,’ with the d sound buried, as few people really pop that final consonant, and in this context of buying meat near thanksgiving, particularly after the word ‘butter,’ I just assumed he’d actually said ‘butterball.’ The confusion would only arise if he had written his request, but if he actually wrote the word down, you might question his cognitive abilities, or consider his written language might have been affected by a stroke. Anyhow, how many pounds?”
CS: Maybe it’s just me, but I’m picking up “I understand how hard it is to deal with dementia” vibes from that clerk.
GG I hope that somewhere out there there is someone reading this strip for the first time and, unaware of Gertie’s whole ‘deal’, just thinks this is a comic about a disturbed old lady.
BB Nevermind the biker, I want to know how the guy next to him managed to make it through his physical exam with a condition I’m guessing is called ‘cluster toes’.
CSh I like Ed smug face in the last panel. “That’s right, I can spout out whatever nonsense I want in this town and still get served. Next I’m going to the bakery counter to ask for a ‘necronomicon’, just to see what they bring me back…”
@The Rambling Otter: Also, Dinkle will show up on your doorstep with turkeys you can buy. Which is probably next week’s arc.
Where are Sarge’s standards coming from? Could the guy in blue possibly look more generic? Are we sure he isn’t Thirsty with a haircut? AGM Note: PLEASE be Thirsty with a haircut
GG – That’s nothing. You should see what she does with a Roschach test.
Beetle Bailey : Look at the feet on the character on the left. *I* could draw that!
***********
Crankshaft : Funny how the Jeff&Pam accompany Crankshaft when he’s doing in-person shopping, but leave him to his own devices when he orders online.
***********
Gearhead Gertie : her “friend”
*then turns to her and says “I *KNOW*, that’s what it looks like to me too, THAT’S WHY I SAID IT’S BEAUTIFUL.”*no way someone as tedious as Gertie has actual friends, at best she has enemies who constantly snipe at her, but are the only people who willingly hang out with her, ie something like the Luann DeGroot/Bernice Halper relationshipBB: “Also! Normally the army frowns upon socks with sandals. But when your toes run perpendicular to the ground, we’ll make an exception!”
Aren’t NASCAR fans a little more subdued about enjoying car crashes nowadays? Especially when Dale Earnhardt is Gertie’s favorite driver? Or is it like the NFL, where the leagues pay lip service to concussions and player safety, but still market the danger as much as possible?
JP: So, this ‘Friendsgiving’ (ugh…) will be just a few basic snacks from the corner convenience mart.* I don’t know whether to be impressed that these nitwits decided to quit while they were ahead and not risk a kitchen disaster or depressed at their lack of effort to entertain these so-called ‘friends’.
Luann: Have a depressing glimpse from the TruFanns:
ctolson: Candy’s dandy but a sweater’s better and gets Dash wetter.
RMMD: ‘So does this mean you’ll actually come inside my house tonight?’ ‘Are you kidding? I have papers to grade!’
*What’s the equivalent of 7-Eleven in Norway? I really hope the country hasn’t allowed Slurpees and Super Big Gulps to taint their inner cities…
BB: I’d love to see Private Please Hurt Me become a regular.
9CL: You’ve already handed over your cojones, dude. What’s left to fear?
H&L: I call B.S. A baby would’ve swallowed that.
RMMD: Meanwhile, the detective who worked on the case writes a blockbuster novel about it, which becomes a blockbuster movie. He does not give one happy rat’s ass what Summer thinks.
MW: Has Toby ever done something as challenging as cleaning out a bird cage?
It’s one thing to have Crankshaft mispronounce a word, it’s another thing to have him ask a butcher for a brand name turkey that is found wrapped in corporate packaging in the freezers out front. Sorry, old timer, but it’s off to the home for you now.
***
I wonder if that guy knows that the skull print on his shirt is sentient and aware of what is happening around it.
“What a sorry-looking bunch of recruits!” (Thinks to himself) “Not a twink among them…”
Gertie only appreciates sculptures by John Chamberlain.
Bitterbald? Butterbild? What was it supposed to be?
Beetle Bailey: Come on guys, everybody knows you can’t get past the Army physical with cauliflower toes! That’s more of an Air Force thing.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: (R-L): Air Force, Marines, Space Force.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Butterball, a brand name turkey.
Also Beetle Bailey! You couldn’t even go with “I’ve never seen a more wretched line of scum and villainy?” For shame.
Pluggers are demented, have OCD, or both. Apparently this is funny.
@Anonymous:
Beetle Bailey : Look at the feet on the character on the left. *I* could draw that!
I mean THEIR left, ie Sarge’s (and our) right!
Man, it’s too early to screw up THAT big…“We’d like one of those Butterbald turkeys!”
“Got it…Here you go! Have a nice day, you two!”
“Great, thanks very much! Same to you”
Crankshaft: “I’ve dealt with your dad before. That’s why we keep him away from the knives and sausage grinder at all times.”
@Anonymous: We learned a valuable lesson today about empathizing with cartoonists who drink in the morning. But do you suppose that if the artist drew realistic-looking toes it would be massively disturbing, like Mickey Mouse’s ears in perspective?
This straight male metal head who is a fan of Judas Priest as well as Rob Halford didn’t blink an eye when he decided to make public what was no one’s business. Just saying.
The remarkable thing about Crankshaft characters isn’t that they indulge in wordplay and malapropism, it’s that they can apparently read each other’s speech balloons.
MW: Imagine the grawlixes that would spew from Sunny had Wilbur been the adoptive owner? YouTube with NSFW parrot expletives
It IS sad that guy gave up on his Village People tribute band and joined the Army. Stick with your dreams, man!
CS: “I’ve been dealing with your dad for decades which is weird because most of my elderly dementia customers last about eight years. Must be some kind of record. Lucky you.”
MW Given Toby’s oh yeah, I guess now the sales clerk mentions it, I _should_ maybe consider getting this bird at least, I dunno, a perch? a spot of its own? competence with pets, we should all be glad she never had kids with Ian.
@The Quiet Man:
Ah, you mean Jorstfjordster. One on every corner in Oslo, specialize in self-service lutefisk bars, putting ligonberries in everything, and giving their counter people 2 decades of paid paternity leave! Quite the place to stop and get a – dude, they totally have 7 Eleven in Norway
@18 MKay: on Mary Worth: “Has Toby ever done something as challenging as cleaning out a bird cage?” Toby’s new horsie statues won’t be made of Splak! anymore.
GG: Half of Gearhead Gertie strips are “The death of Dale Earnhardt was the greatest tragedy in human history” and the other half are “lol fast cars go crash”. It was only a matter of time before the threads got confusingly crossed.
BB: What’s so nasty, dirty and low-down about the third guy? He’s wearing a backwards baseball cap and sandals. Is it his ass? His thicc juicy caked-up phat ass? Does nasty, dirty and low-down actually refer to Sarge’s imagination?
When did this zombie strip castrate Sarge? Years ago his analysis of the recruits would be peppered with so many “%*!! Boxcar Saturn”s they’d run out of room in his word balloon!
@Gil Bates: Grawlixs! THAT’S the word I was trying to think of for Beetle Bailey!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: If a cartoonist drew realistic, lifelike feet, we’d all assume he had a fetish.
GG: I actually agree with Gertie here. That painting looks like sh**
@A Grave Mind: So they do… oh well. Credit to you though, you made me look up Jorstfjordster to see if it was real!
@Buck Ripsnort: When I was a kid, watching Full House… there was an episode where the older siblings were teasing Michelle for having big feet (I don’t know why) and she had a nightmare where her feet never stopped growing and were pretty much bursting out of the house.
If hundreds of kids didn’t awaken foot fetishes in their adult life because of this episode. I’ll eat my rudder.
My perception is that plenty of Judas Priest fans suspected Halford was gay. When the singer finally came out, Kurt Loder called it the worst-kept secret in heavy metal. The straight metal guys who were oblivious to it, probably didn’t grasp the lyrics to the early song “Raw Deal,” which was set in a Fire Island gay bar. Or other songs about S&M that could be interpreted as having a gay subtext.
Crankshaft – “I’ve dealt with your dad before. I usually lock him in the meat freezer until he’s docile. Would you be willing to come back in an hour or two?”
@The Quiet Man:
Really? Fist bump for the alley-oop joke!
Don Abundio, translated:
“I love playing tennis with hot babes!”
“Me too, Juan!”
“Are we playing to win?”
“Not really…”
“I’m hoping for a nice upskirt view if they win and jump over the net!”
@Tonio:
I TOTALLY missed it, but I was a kid, basically. I really kinda thought that’s what bikers wore, as a clueless pre-pubescent. Lemmy himself said “I think everybody in England knew,” and far be it for me to go against Lemmy.
Moral of the story: Judas Priest rules.
“Hey, Bill, get that special turkey we set aside for Crankshaft!”
“You mean the one we thawed in the toilet?”
“Right, the one with special marinade.”
Crankshaft:
That’s some hard core eye contact CS and Mr. Butcher are making there. I worry that “dealt with” implies a lot more butter ‘n balls than one really wants to consider in any CS comic, ever.