Toby has journeyed far from Charterstone, so nobody can see her shameful between-meals nosh
Post Content
Alice, 11/3/25
Today’s Alice will I think be particularly inscrutable to non-Alice regulars, but in my late blog era I have myself become an Alice regular and am here to read Alice so you don’t have to! [scans through comic again] OK, fine, actually, this one is inscrutable to me too. I guess the little scene in the inset panel is supposed to be taking place simultaneous to the main action, but it’s not clear to me why it looks like a painting or maybe a window in the room where Alice and her boyfriend are sitting, why the alien guy is being debriefed by a human, or whether it’s supposed to be ironic somehow that the alien says humans are “too emotional” when Alice and her boyfriend are just staring off blankly into the middle distance together. At least one thing’s settled, though: Spock was a fictional half human/half Vulcan character from the Star Trek series in the 1960s.
Mary Worth, 11/3/25
At last, the saga of Olive the dog psychic has reached a triumphant conclusion sort of petered out, and now we’re getting … a Toby story? Oh, hell yeah. Toby, abandoned once again by her elderly husband (getting drunk at some academic conference) and her middle-aged best friend (nattering on to her not-boyfriend about a tween psychic), leaving her to ramble internally about her bag of sunflower seeds? Hell yeah. “It’s just me, myself, and my snack!” thinks a woman who probably once thought of herself as a “trophy wife” for an older high-prestige man and is now the saddest person alive. This week’s gonna be great.
Zits, 11/3/25
Definitely one of my pet peeves is when comics artists get older but their characters stay the same age, and yet also maintain the same set of cultural touchstones, and one thing I’ve always respected about Zits is that it leans into comic strip time, shifting the middle-aged parent of its teen main character from Boomer to Gen Xer over the decades. Not sure if I’m comfortable with “Walt got naked at Burning Man” now becoming part of the lore, but I admire the strip’s dedication and consistency.
Judge Parker, 11/3/25
“Anyway, the horses didn’t have anywhere to live so they just kind of … wandered off, I guess? I’m sure they’re fine.”
154 replies to “Toby has journeyed far from Charterstone, so nobody can see her shameful between-meals nosh”
Mary Worth Mashup: I think it’s better this way.
Zits: Yet another difference between Zits and Dustin: DustDad was never ever EVER cool whereas Walt was.
Blondie: Dagwood likes food regardless of the time of day. Who knew.
MW:
She shells sunflower seeds by the seashore.
Can you say that fast five times? — of course you can. It’s not a tongue-twister.
MW: As Olive communicates telepathically with animals, can Toby talk with comestibles? I’m sure that Mary’s muffins have some tales to tell.
JP:
“More importantly, why did the name change from Spencer ‘Farms’ to Spencer ‘Ranch’ a while back all of a sudden, without warning?”
“Sweetie, there are an infinite number of changes that have been made to this strip since August, 2016 that absolutely defy explanation!”
MW:
“Ian’s away at a teachers conference…the name of the seminar is ‘Bloviation and AI‘ !”
MW: I’m tensing up, waiting for a couple of birds to fly down and start telepathically talking to Toby, explaining that she can understand them because she has love in her tummy brain, and by the way sharing those sunflower seeds would be an act of love.
Zits: If the strip continues to move the characters through time, I can imagine a future scenario in which Jeremy stumbles upon his mom’s naked pics on an amateur college girls sub reddit. Hilarity ensues!
JP-“We now have another type of ‘horse’ on this ranch only it’s pronounced whores.”
Dustin-Join us as we spend the rest of the week as Jeremy discovers pictures of his mom at Burning Man and the awkward feelings that arise.
MW-Throw those shells away or you’ll be reported to SCHOOL MANAGEMENT.
MW-Time for another near affair with a student.
RMMD: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
JP:
“But isn’t a horse ranch without horses just land?”
“Well, it keeps that name for historical reasons only. It’s kind of like the name for our strip — ‘Judge Parker.’ Alan Parker is not a judge anymore. What’s more, far from possessing the qualities one would associate with an upstanding jurist (whether active or retired), he’s been repurposed as craven, crass and even felonious in the confounding, inexplicable retelling of this comic. On top of that, there’s almost no ‘judging’ or ‘law’ here despite the strip’s name — it’s mostly relationship dysfunction, with jags of gratuitous violence like spurting blood, garroting, a bear eating someone — or crass politicization and preachifying about the writer’s view of what the social compact should be — and the like.”
JP: “The important thing is that by calling it a ranch, we pay the agricultural property tax rate, which is much lower than the residential rate.”
Gil Thorp: Well, we’re back to the hideous and sometimes undecipherable artwork. On the plus side, I suppose it makes for a tedious adventure.
JP: “…and another thing, Neddy. Why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?”
Neddy begins to think that taking Charlotte to open-mike night wasn’t a good idea.
Alice and her boyfriend appear to be in a waiting room at a bank or an insurance broker, while the alien and white collar Rider Strong
Alice and her boyfriend appear to be in a waiting room at a bank or an insurance broker, while the alien and white collar Rider Strong are chatting in a nearby office.
The office conveniently has a little stool for the alien to stand on, so he is presumably the owner of his office, and the human is asking why his loan was rejected. The caption “Call Spock” is a cry for help, an appeal to an authority to stop this alien’s cruel bigotry.
@Guts Dozier: Sorry for the double post
MW – Nice to see that our two favorite characters – the humping rocks – are back.
Alice is batshit insane but at least they realize that people can mount flatscreens on a wall, unlike many other comics.
JP: “We couldn’t afford to rebuild the stables after buying three freezers for the horse meat.”
Alice and not-Alice are watching TV. It could be a journalist interviewing an alien, or it could be a human and alien on a date. I hope that clears things up.
Zits: I think the implication of that Pierce has spent hours or days or weeks staring at vintage Burning Man photos and mentally cataloguing every flashed breast or penis, to the extent that he can instantly recognise any nude even in a zoomed out crowd scene, is even more disturbing than Walt in a thong.
JP: “But isn’t a horse ranch without horses just land?”
“Yes, Charlotte, but by that same standard a retired judge’s home office where all the law books have been replaced by bottles of Scotch is just a bar.”
MW: Of course Mary would rather spend her time working in a hospital rather than hanging out with Toby. However, I doubt that she is actually doing volunteer work. Mary so much enjoys manipulating the lives of the sick, the injured, the frail, and the totally helpless that she pays the hospital for the opportunity to do so!
The alien is saying that the humans cause too many emotions, in him, referring to the critical Alice lore that is his unrequited love for Alice. Unless that’s the other alien. Or a third alien. And I shouldn’t be assuming xqa’s gender either.
RM: Summer discovers that Augie’s book is (a) really boring or (b) very disturbing.
Just how much LSD do Toby’s “sunflower seeds” have, again?
Alice – “Second biggest complaint? The way they spy on me during these psychological experiments. You’re not fooling me with that half-silvered mirror, you know!”
@Baja Gaijin: True, it is much better! @Bob Tice: And now we are slowly trying to see if we can morph this into a modern version of “Nancy” with Neddy as Fritzi, Charlotte as Nancy, and without the humor.
Alice:
…….. that’s supposed to be the telly. Which is mounted at right angles to the sofa. And is playing a programme of a human interviewing an alien tourist.
I’m sure it’s very logical.
And as @nescio said, that’s a flatscreen on a wall. The same power that lets their eyes float three inches from their faces lets them watch the TV from that angle.
@Baja Gaijin:
You owe me treatment for eye bleach burns.
MW We are all going to be disappointed when the oddly specific “sunflower seeds” snack doesn’t lead to Toby getting one stuck in her throat and choking to death.
GT Well, the decent art was nice while it lasted. Is this journey back to the 80s really about showing off the evolution of high school girls sports acceptance, or because the writer can only barely manage sports stories and really just wants to do teen romcom drama?
Alice: PUNY HUMANS AND YOUR NEED FOR “EMOTIONS” AND “UNDERSTANDING.” YOUR CIVILIZATION WILL SOON BE WIPED BY A—
…
ACTUALLY, NO, THE BLOGGER MAN IS CORRECT. THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. CARRY ON PUNY HUMANS, UNTIL THE ASTEROID ARRIVES!
“Isnt a comic strip without comics just a strip?”
“Yes, Charlotte, all the horses were fine. We sold 4 to a riding stable in Milford, & Boxer made pets very happy.”
Mary Worth: By “sunflower seeds,” Toby means “THC infused-” (or more likely) “vodka soaked-” sunflower seeds, right? I refuse to believe a sculptor left to her own devices would consume a snack without a hyphen in front of it.
@Anonymous: Have faith in Augie’s abilities — it will be both boring and disturbing.
Zits: Who says that’s Walt in the photo? Worst way to learn you were adopted ever.
Sorry for making a test comment, but for some reason my Don Abundio comment of the day keeps getting rejected. I only hope all those attempts don’t suddenly appear later.
9CL – Oh, good, it’s fan-favorite character “Alistair”, here to provide some youthful vigor to the proceedings. Today it is … let see … oh! … Alistair wants to bang both of the twins.
Yawn. Who doesn’t? They exist for the sole purpose of making statuesque old men horny.
I’ll try again later so as not to clutter up the early part of the day’s comments.
Judge Parker: “Have you ever heard of ‘Cadillac Ranch?’ Same idea, but with horse’s asses.”
“Is that where my father is buried?”
“Yes it is.”
@Ukranazi Stepan: Enough that reading Alice seems like a good use of time?
Alice : The “Spock” in question is not Commander Spock, Captain Kirk’s sidekick, but Dr Benjamin Spock, the (in)famous pediatrician.
Alice and her, uh, mate are watching a CPS officer question their child before he takes them away. It might seem weird for two humans to produce an alien who clearly doesn’t identify as human, but, look at Alice. Are we even sure SHE’s human?
*************
Crankshaft vs Luann : Oh great, TWO “OH NO not THIS storyline!” in one morning.
*************
Judge Parker : A spoiled rotten rich bitch who’s accidentally lost her herd of horses, and let them all go feral and rampage through the neighboring countryside, would be a better Mark Trail villain than whatever the heck that strip is doing right now.
*************
Mary Worth : Toby is about to learn why you’re supposed to spit out the shells when you eat an entire bag of sunflower seeds in one sitting.
It clogs up your poop REAL BAD.*************
Zits : Jeremy is only upset because he wanted naked pictures of his mom instead.
…Too far?…Alice: Is this the equivalent of one of those ‘reaction’ videos? C’mon guys, you at least have to point and nod occasionally for that format to work.
MW: Today we finally get the answer to the burning question: “Is there something in this strip that could be more pathetic than Wilbur talking to his fish?”
Zits: Do yourself a favor Jeremy: do not start calculating the date of that photo relative to your birth…
MW: I can’t decide which direction I want them to take: “Love With the Proper Stranger” or “The Birds.”
RMMD: I’ll bet Summer is a REALLY slow reader.
9CL: Is Alistair sex talking to the twin he’s with or the twin he’s not with? And really, does it matter?
JP: Does the sign still say “Horse Ranch?” Think of all the poor souls who travel uncounted miles just to see a horse, and zip. Cruel is what it is.
Mary Worth: I’m looking forward to Snack Week!
Toby: “Hello, sunflower seeds!”
Ian: “Hello, whisky, nice to see you again!”
Wilbur: “Hello, s-sandwiches!”
Mary: “I’ll take these unidentified brown squares to my friends!”
Judge Parker: I’m looking forward to the girls (I assume they have names, please fill in the blanks as needed) being mugged by a group of itinerant horses.
Six Chex And A Cat Named Marvin: Today’s comic is about friends coming on Thanksgiving and clogging your toliet! Yea?
Perhaps “Alice” is referencing Baby Doctor Spock, and the alien is having a “Plan 5” rant about the stupid, stupid baby like humans?
Look kid, you start asking questions then other people start asking questions then the authorities start asking questions. Shut up about the horses, capiche?
***
We just went through an entire story where some kid can telepathically communicate with dogs but it turns out the most unrealistic thing in Mary Worth this year is Santa Royale having park benches that aren’t designed to prevent unhoused people from sleeping on them.
***
Is it settled, Josh? Could Alice be referencing Dr. Benjamin Spock, famed for his book on raising emotionally healthy children?
Sigh. And I’m the third person to reference Dr. Spock. Sigh. Mondays, amirite, Garfield?
MW- how wrong you are. This week. Olive uses her long range telepathy to get another brainless animal to go spy on Mary.
“So, Toby, what have you been doing while I was away?”
“The usual, Ian. I walked across the park, looking for any opportunity to suck seed”
The Familliar Mucus:”…….and stick my face in your.granny panties?”
JP — Honey, we call it a Ranch so we can cash in on all the marketing opportunities–Spenser Ranch Dressing, Spencer Ranch Water, Spencer Ranch Puppy Chow, etc.
Zits — Hearing that the dad-figure was there makes we wish that for once, the Burning Man festival lived up to its sobriquet–oh sorry, that’s Dustin’s dad, yes, an auto-de-fe is a terrible thing!
Red Alert! GT Guest Artist has packed her pencils and gone home and we’re back to our regular visuals. Mimi has transformed into a subterranean Murder Kobold and Natalie — after having blacked her own eyes, plumped out her lips, and put on a fetching pair of pentagram earrings — is beginning to melt.
Gotta dash quick today, so oversnarpologies in advance!
MW: I’m imagining Toby thinking “Hello, sunflower seeds!” in the same manner that Yakko and Wakko said “Helloooooo, nurse!” on Animaniacs. After years of marriage to Ian this is the closest she gets to feeling aroused, or indeed anything at all.
<RMMD: Charlotte recognizes that Neddy’s pretensions to being a hard-working, salt-of-the-earth pioneer type are just that, pretensions, and that she’s hoarding capital she didn’t earn and makes no use of. The red beret symbolizes her Marxist awakening.
Alice and her bud await their turn to interview for a chance to audition for a part in the next Disney Star Wars feature.
“Shit. That alien’s a shoo-in.” Says Alice.
Whoa one of the aliens has a name! Quantum Bioptic! Which doesn’t help me understand which one is which, or why I am trying to create a consistent storyline for this deranged strip.
“Alice”: ” Picasso was right! You guys are a freak show!”
The Familliar Mucus:”…….and stick my face in your granny panties?”
@matt w: …or why the alien eye stalks are making out.
Dustin: No, when she’s saying something nice she’s being sarcastic. Otherwise it’s just plain old contempt and spite.
FG: “Sorry, fell asleep in the sauna…did I miss anything?”
Luann: I leave it to you to determine if this situation implies that a) the shelter is grossly incompetent or b) Dez spun an elaborate web of lies on the foster application indicating she and her roommates were more capable and responsible than they actually are.
RMMD: Five minutes later…
“I have made a huge mistake.”
MW – I don’t think anything having to do with Toby should have the word “power” attached to it.
JP: Neddy frozen in her tracks, staring straight into space with gray smoke coming out of each ear.
[five minutes earlier] “…and another thing, Miss Neddy. Before we finish this walk, we have to finish half the walk, and before we finish half the walk we have to finish half of half the walk, and half of that, and half of that, ad infinitum. Adding up all those halves equals infinity so how do we finish the walk?”
@Tabby Lavalamp: Mondays, amirite, Garfield?
_____________________
This is the one Monday Garfield likes.He gets an extra hour of sleep.
GT: I know Mimi is supposed to represent a Strong, Independent Woman, but really, she’s more of a gargoyle that the other gargoyles find “too much.”
@Hibbleton: Quantum Bioptic shot first!
The General watches his watchers watch an interrogation. “Are these two really the best agents we have?” he asks in despair. A Colonel nods, keeping silent. The General sighs. “Christ, MAJESTIC-12 has really hit the skids, hasn’t it? Guess I shouldn’t have pissed off SECDEF. Well, it could be worse, they could have sent me to Camp Swampy.”
@matt w: I read “quantum bioptic” as either the name of the “inner moon” or perhaps an attribute of said moon. They may be bizarre aliens in an even more bizarre comic, but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to correct usage of commas!
RMMD: this next week will be exciting as we watch Summer read a bad book.
LUANN: All right! A week of (timid) (yappy) puppy love.
BETWEEN FRIENDS: “Well let’s start with the basics. What job do you have that gives you so much free time? Oh, your folks are still supporting you.”
FG: As of yesterday, has this been one of Baja’s mash-ups? Last week it was the team escaping in a gyroship with Flash left behind in stadium. Yesterday and today they’re back in stadium but Bok was one left behind and Velle is gone. What happened?
Pluggers often have trouble falling asleep, despite being tired. Nobody else can say that.
Judge Parker Brothers:”……especially that one mare with the beautifully clean and shiny mane and tail…”
Slylock: “I forgot to wind my alarm clock” was right there, Shady.
FC: Jeffy stills feels guilty about the broken hip he gave Grandma.
Blondie: “…still set to ‘stomach daylight savings time'” would have been more appropriate but few readers make it to the third panel anyway.
Alice – This whole strip is a tribute to Emo Philips….
MW – Thank the lord for THC infused sunflower seeds….
Zits – Can Mom’s tits be far behind….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MARY WORTH: After Toby was reported to “school management” she was ordered by the court to stay at least 500 feet from all artist at all times, which is why sitting on a bench eating seeds instead of “working” at any of her “jobs”.
Alas, Alice:”But enough about you,Six Eyes, what do you think of my new toupee?” “Shatner’s was more convincing on ” T.J. Hooker”
@Bob Tice: “But isn’t a farm without crops, groves, vineyards, or orchards just land?”
Every time a new Mary Worth “story” starts I get dreadful anxiety that somehow it’s going to wrap back around to Wilbur. Today is no different.
“Hello, sunflower seeds!”
“Hiya, Toby! Nice day out. You gonna eat us?”
“I was, but . . . then you answered me. It makes it weird.”
“Nah, we’re into it. Just open your mouth wide and swallow us, OK?”
MW: Whelp, so far this story has failed to engage my interest. I mean, it’s Toby. Sitting by herself. Talking TO herself. She’s smiling, so it doesn’t seem like she’s got a problem with being alone (and, considering Ian and Mary, that’s probably a gigantic relief). So, who cares? Where’s the conflict? Gotta say, so far, it’s not a page-turner.
Now, on the other hand, if tomorrow we see that the land clams have moved quite a bit closer to Toby without her having realized it–the way you move the Magi figurines in a creche, first at a distance but creeping closer and closer through Advent until on Christmas they make it to the stable, sneak up on the Infant, and yell “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”–then I’ll keep reading to see if Olive has summoned the land clams telepathically to conk Toby over the head. Or, if Carlos Alora Moy and Brigman will have piqued my interest.
Or if Carlos Alora steps out from behind that tree and says suavely, “Mrs. Cameron, I have been hoping to see you, alone, so that I can pour out my love to you and invite you to my bed of excelsior in the Charterstone basement where you and I can experience the true passion that we both deserve! Bring the sunflower seeds–I have wine!”
As it is, though, it’s a snooze fest.
Mary Worth – The sunflower seeds feel like paid placement by the rival pistachio farmers, in order to win the market for “messiest snack, non-Nature Valley granola bar” division by having seeds associated with sad Toby.
Zits – Former attendees will say Burning Man hasn’t been as good since [the last year they went], but it has lost its countercultural cache, enough so that teenagers in the newspaper comics are mocking it. That’s a truer sign of its decline than the year everyone nearly drowned in mud.
JUDGE PARKER: It’s not “just land”, kid, it’s house of lies! (I’m pretty sure there were horses on the property after the barn burned down. Remember that one of the kids in Abby’s collection was Judge Drug Lord’s son who Abby hired as a stable-hand tending to horses before he was Chuck Cunninghammed out existence after the writer realized that this traumatized boy was still more stable (ha! get it?) and functional than the Spencer-Parker clan and wouldn’t fit into the unhinged antics they usually get up to.)
Josh, you think Mary Worth is “middle-aged”? Do you expect her to live to be 140?
Actually, Mary probably will manage to meddle her way to living to 140, won’t she?
[ALT] Mary Worth is “middle-aged”? More like “meddle-aged”!
In the early days of Zits, Jeremy’s favorite rock band was Gingivitis, a bunch of Brits with bad teeth who were clearly modeled on the Rolling Stones. In later years that became obviously anachronistic, and Gingivitis disappeared from the strip. Jeremy’s musical fandom is unspecified these days.
FG: Much better for Bok’s self-esteem to have been shoved into the steam room than into his locker.
MW: After eating her snack:
“Goodbye, sunflower seeds, hello, wine!”
FC: No, Jeffy. Just kiss my ass.
Mary’s Worst:(Joke stolen from “TAXI”) Toby knows when to stop drinking: “When the sunflower seeds start dancing…..the cha cha….ALL OF THEM!….Ok, I’ve had enough….”
Zits: And zoom into that woman rolling naked in the mud. That’s your mom!
@Ettorre: “If at first you don’t suck seed, keep on sucking till you do suck seed.” — Curly Howard
Zits: No, Jeremy. That loinclothed idiot is not your dad. Your real dad is the guy boning your mom in the sex tent. Just go to the next picture.
Zits: Loincloth? My dad was Ted Nugent?
Mary Worth: Toby gives Wilbur a run for his money in terms of “most dysfunctional Mary Worth character”, so I’m excited to what new horrifying issues Moy gives her.
Zits: I feel this would be way funnier if they dropped the ‘old’ modifier and had the pictures be from the present.
Judge Parker: Neddy is totally pondering abandoning this weird freak child in the middle of the woods to be eaten by bears.
@MKay: “9CL: Is Alistair sex talking to the twin he’s with or the twin he’s not with? And really, does it matter?”
Ever since Slutty Twin took up with Senior Citizen Billionaire Walter Bubbletea, she’s been forced to the background and relegated to nothing but an afterthought, and eye candy for the inevitable “pool day” strips. He’s written himself into the story and now he can’t find his way out.
I suspect he is feeling trapped by the need to eventually write a double wedding sequence, but is postponing putting all the effort it will require.
Don’t worry, he will always have “Time Travel To When Amos and Edda First Fell in Love as Children” to fill the blank spaces in his narrative.
@2+2=7: Wonderful call back! Chuck Cunningham went upstairs in season 1 and never seen again.
JP: A horse ranch without horses is one thing, but, could be worse. Could be a dude ranch run by women.
DT: Faux brit dick will now sit down and like Jethro Bodine do some ciphering. We have a surgeon, bishop and count from lithuania/poland. Count Poniatowski is a johnny foreigner so he is immediately suspect since he’ll use algebraic notation. His name also has the letters for pawn. Could it be the Bishop of Bognor? If so, why didn’t the murder victim just grab the bishop? Unless he feared the murderer would remove the piece? The Surgeon since he is also a knight is probably no barber surgeon but a physician surgeon, would be easier to implicate by grabbing the knight (horse), but again this wasn’t done.
Now a real twist would be that the Inspector is also being blackmailed, so the meaning of the piece is that the killer is a minion, a tool, a peon – a pawn. Not any of the nobility, clergy or professional classes! Like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, maybe we have a untrustworthy narrator.
MW: Is this going to be a healthy eating focused arc? Or will the sunflower seed get caught into dental work, resulting in a dental visit and the importance of oral hygeine?
JP: Face it Neddy, the kid is too smart and sharp. She’ll blow the whole set up they have on the “horse” farm.
RMMD: Summer discovers Augie is trying to break into the lucrative world of romance novels
I must say that after weeks of Mary Worth’s “unsettlingly mature children will lead us into a brighter future,” I’m refreshed and renewed by the Judge Parker approach of “unsettingly mature children are very annoying and can find their own way home if they know so damn much about how to properly exploit landholdings.”
JP: “The stable burned down a few years ago. The horses were never rebuilt.”
@Activist: FG: Bok wasn’t with the escaping team (Thun, Dova, Barin, Zarkov, Velle, Dale) – they were all on the balconies, Bok was seeing Flash off from the lower level to the arena but he hasn’t been seen since the triple-fight was set up to start.
Blondie the Neighborhood Bumstead: Isnt it always DET, Dagwood Eating Time?
@bartorama: JP: A horse ranch without horses is one thing, but, could be worse. Could be a dude ranch run by women.
A dude ranch without its man is like a bicycle without its fish.
Yes. However, if it were Family Circus . . .
@That ’70s Guy: A dude ranch without its man is like a bicycle without its fish.
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. Wet, and with nothing to ride.
@The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers: JP: “The stable burned down a few years ago.
___________________________________
“That’s certainly one unstable stable!”- Ed Crankshaft,reading the Morning Funnies™New from Post®.
Post® makes Crankshaft just a little bit better!
@1 Baja Gaijin:
Ah, good. Subtile (more or less).
Frazzhole: Do squirrels eat pumpkins? I’m sure they eat the seeds, but the flesh and stem?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: @Anonymous: Zits : Jeremy is only upset because he wanted naked pictures of his mom instead. …Too far?…
____________________________________
I thought seeing his mother’s upper frontals in mid Zumba cured him of that particular fetish.
@That ’70s Guy: A dude ranch without its man is like a bicycle without its fish
____________________________
Or a Frazzhole without his smirk.
Mary Worth: Once again, we have to wonder if this is a public park that’s deserted for some reason, or part of the miles of manicured private grounds owned by the 60 (?) or so residents of the Charterstone condo complex. Given that it’s in the middle of a popular Southern California beach city where land costs up to $5 million per acre, housing is at a premium, and developers are champing at the bit to find new building sites, it’s remarkable to see this beautiful, seemingly endless vista set aside for, say, Toby’s depression walk and extraordinarily sad snacking binge. I wonder if 80% of the residents have actually voted to sell the entire complex and become multi-millionaires, but Mary has convinced her friends to hold out, because she knows it’s only extreme proximity that allows her to maintain her power over them. We can only hope that this leads to some kind of old-fashioned murder mystery where it turns out that it wasn’t one of the neighbors who killed the old lady — it was all of them.
@Voshkod: “Toby, you DO realise if you swallow us a pumpkin will grow in your stomach!” “Thats ok, Mary said I could use a few more curves, before she took up with Olive.
RMMD- Summer settles in to read Auggie’s manuscript… ” OK let’s see what this is about” Chapter 1…”Douglass had to poop. His butt was all stinky because he had to poop so badly…”
Zits: Loincloth? Nope, that was the Ron Ely Tarzan Festival.
Alice: Looking at Andrea Beizer’s bio confirms that she is old enough to remember the time when both Dr. and Commander Spock were cultural touchstones. What I doubt *anyone* can ever determine, however, is why either of them would be connected to a call-in radio show hosted by a floppy-haired host who looks like neither. But then again, the bio is a journey itself.
@Baja Gaijin: She’s going to start hallucinating birds now.
Alice: So Alice’s boyfriend is Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, right? That’s canon? Okay, just checking.
MW: (to the tune of “The Sound of Silence”) Hello, Sun Seed, my old friend / I’ve come to snack on you again / I think I’ll rest here for a little while / ‘Cause I just power walked a quarter mile / And now I’ve earned a crunchy, salty treat / I can eat / Get in the mouth… of Toby.
Zits: “What are you looking at?” “Old photos from Burning Man festivals. You know, like a typical human teenager in 2025 would do.”
JP: Wait, is it Spencer Ranch or Spencer Horse Ranch? Because it seems like Beret Girl (forgot her name; don’t feel like looking it up) is rebranding the place mid-panel.
9CL: I can’t imagine why Polly and Lolly don’t realize their assets, considering their narcissistic mother.
@The Mighty Finn:
Monday: Toby sitting in park eating seeds.
Tuesday: Birds telepathically greet Toby, ask for food.
Wednesday: Wilbur in his apartment eating mayonnaise from the jar.
Thursday: Fish telepathically greets Wilbur, demands food.
Friday: Saul and Eve sitting in apartment, awaiting the sweet release of death.
Saturday: Dogs telepathically greet them, demand food.
Sunday: Mary Worth readers who don’t take the dailies are confused by the depictions of carnage and giant “FEED US” thought balloons, as the Animapocalypse begins.
JP –
1. Arsonist burns down horse stable.
2. Corrupt Mayor frames Abby in the public eye.
3.We don’t really know what happened to horses. I think a neighbor may be stabling them.
4. corrupt cops run a drug ring.
5. Mute son of head corrupt cop knows everything.
6. Corrupt cop headlocks Sophie, triggering her kidnapping PTSD.
7. Sophie beats Corrupt Cop to a pulp.
8. Mute son can speak again. Spills everything.
9. Formerly Mute son is an orphan now, but has a talent for working with horses so Abby takes him on as a groom.
10. The mudges ask “for what horses?”
11. Charlotte asks “where are the horses?”
12. Neddy has been tracking the continuity as well as Ces has and doesn’t know. She is the Author Avatar.
13. Charlotte is impatient and unsatisfied with how much sense this doesn’t make. She is the Mudge Avatar.
Now, mind you, this is a writer who can keep track of the Forths’ obligations to haunted dolls, the gangsters who are upset with the Assisted Living Gambling Ring, etc. But where Spencer
Farms’Ranch’sbig piece of land’s horses are? Who can tell.@GarrisonSkunk: Well, something starts munching on my jack o’lantern every year. I hope it’s just squirrels.
Just noticed I made last week’s float. I really gotta keep up more. Thanks for the honor, Josh.
Arlo and Janis: Arlo, give the Mary Janes to your nearest Plugger, who will then get a few days of denture/cracked tooth/ripped fillings jokes from it.
Crankshaft: Spider-Man? This is a very method cosplay, right down to Peter Parker’s guilt about not saving his uncle Ben.
Slylock Fox: “Failure to appear”, seeing what’s happened to people who perform their duty to go to court? Our ” ‘Good German’ fox” is just following orders.
GT: Comic strip time makes it hard to pin down when this arc happened. Aweeping woman closeup straight from a 60s girls comic like “His Future Bride” or “Brides in Love”? Neat touch.
Pluggers: Uh-oh, looks like someone’s about to have an accident!
FC: Jeffy, Grandma’s knees ain’t so good anymore and she’s not gonna waste them on a guy unless he’s on Silver Singles.
Today’s Alice is easy to understand if you’ve ever been waiting at the dentist’s office, or in this case, a government interrogation. “WHAT, you disgusting extraterrestrial who wasn’t even BORN here,” the inquisitor demands, what is your big hang up about humanity? Why do you refuse to join us, unlike those obviously alien creatures waiting outside?”
“Well,” says the alien, “YOU’RE certainly getting too emotional!”
Alice and her non-human “special friend” sit quietly. They know the government considers them “not like THOSE aliens” and will grudgingly accept them.
@Baja Gaijin: Biggest difference? Zits is written by a storyteller and humorist who sees people as basically good. Dustin is written by an old bittershitter whose funeral will be well but solely attended by all the chips on his shoulder.
JP: “Well honey, we got the idea to keep the name after that ‘Bunny Ranch’ in Nevada. No dear, we don’t have bunnies. We DID keep one of the horses, though. He’s, uh, he’s VERY popular with some of our guests.
What’s that? No, you can’t ride him, dear. It’s more like he rides on people. You’ll understand in about ten years.”
MW-“Hello, sunflower seeds, my old friends. I’ve come to eat you again.”
RMMD: Augie has written one those historical novels. Unfortunately for him Summer is a serious history buff and knows the Knights Templar did not bury the ark of the covenant in Indiana in 1850.
MW: After her power walk? Is Toby waiting for a bus? Like Mary in the balloon, she looks to be in the middle of nowhere. Maybe if we spun the camera 180 degrees, we would find that she’s parked outside the Charterstone mall.
Toby isn’t the saddest person alive: imagine the person who would cut this particular strip out and stick it on their fridge. THAT’s the saddest person alive.
MW:
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping.
Specifically, sunflower seeds.
Also I was power-walking in my sleep.
Crank: Okay, but where’s Dave Daniels? You know, the guy who actually draws The Wrinklies?
DT: This does not follow on from Sir Peter gasping, “Good heavens, Inspector, you can’t believe…” in any way. It’s not like I expect coherence from a Minnit Misery exactly, but when Sunday’s strip literally stops dramatically mid-sentence with what looks like it could be a significant revelation, I don’t think it’s asking too much for Monday’s strip to at least aknowledge that. You don’t even have to actually resolve it!
“Can’t believe what, Sir Peter?”
“Er … nothing. I know what that is…” etc.
It would have been a really lame continuation, but it would have been a continuation!
JP: “Why are there no horses at Spencer Ranch?”
“Well, the in-story reason is because of that time the deputy mayor burned the stables down to frame Abbey, so he could make his own fake evidence disappear in order to put pressure on Sam, even though that doesn’t work chronologically twice because they’d already been turned into a B&B and there were horses at the end of the next storyline. But the real reason is… okay, let me tell you about this guy named Sid…”
Pluggers: You’re a Plugger if your incredibly original observation also appears in today’s Edge City, which is a rerun from probably the 2000s.
RMMD: Oh, goodness, are we going to get a week (or two??) of Summer imagining herself and Augie as the main characters in the book? It’ll be like that time Sarah imagined her dad was a cowboy/cop/superhero, only with characters we care about even less!
S4th: Ah, characters who aren’t Ted getting in on the fourth wall breaking and “did you know these old ladies are mobbed up?” my two absolute favourite Sally Forth running gags in one strip! It’s like Christmas came early, if you hate Christmas.
Zits: Ah, yes, that common teenage pastime of searching online for random pictures of things that happened before they were born.
Arlo & Janis – She couldn’t unload the Mary Janes on the trick or treaters? Sounds about right.
FC – No, Jeffy! You don’t know where those legs have been. If you knew about the epic workout her knees got at Woodstock – and she says that your mother is a harlot.
Rex Morgan – Tomorrow: Summer opens the manuscript’s cover.
Wednesday: Summer reads the title page.
Thursday: Summer reads “by Augie Whateverhisnameis”
Friday: Summer reads the dedication page.
Saturday: Summer reads the Chapter 1 heading.
We might find out what this future best selling blockbuster is about by Christmas.
S4th – Oh, thank goodness. I love Sally’s mother and her friends. I’d much rather read about them than Sally and especially Ted.
Crankshaft – The man talking to (Banned name) in the first panel looks like a specific real person. His bribe must not have been enough to keep him out of this dreck.
Batton Thomas’s Oh shucks li’l ole me attitude makes me want to slap him. Especially when we know that he’ll be bombastically pontificating about his brilliant comics within minutes.
@CanuckDownSouth:
#101. FG: guess I misremembered. These are such shirkers. In the military they say, “We leave no soldier behind”, yet these cowards left TWO allies.
Dustin: I can’t believe it. Ed Kudlick actually has a serving of vegetables on his plate.
Alice: We know the guy with a blue shirt and red bowtie as Alice’s let’s-call-him-boyfriend, but the guy with the blue shirt and red necktie looks new. Is it the same character in younger days? He looks like a job applicant somewhere between ’74 and ’81, the “no haircut, no problem” era. Your interviewer complaining about the multiplicity of human emotions does give you a fair preview of what the job entails.
JP: Charlotte declares her allegiance to mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa through her choice of headgear, but can’t vote because she lives outside New York City limits and is underage. Probably.
MW: Toby’s idea of an indulgence while the hubby and biddy are away is a handful or two of sunflower seeds. In other news, I’m currently on the second floor so if I jump the most I’ll do is break a couple of bones.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashup – You could market that as an appetite suppressant or emetic. I know I almost lost my breakfast.
@MKay: Re MW – No question. Definitely The Birds.
@Rube: Before I could comment, @Horace Broon: beat me to the reference to today’s Edge City.
@treetown: As long as Costello’s is serving as Dick Tracy guest writer, be assured we have an “unreliable narrator.”
@treetown: Since our reality is now in flux, look to Brooke to take advantage by having Alistair marry both Lolly and Polly, fulfilling his longtime fantasy of getting two hot 18 year old twins in bed at the same time.
@GarrisonSkunk: “Which is weird, because we’re canonically sunflower seeds, but that’s the sort of Cronenbergian body horror this storyline features, including Wilbur in a Speedo!”
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: It’s so cool that Edda could grow up with a single mother employed as an academic in a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire, and Amos with whoever the fuck his parents are, and then move to NYC and associate solely with billionaires — Seth’s dad, Chedda’s dad, the mysterious potential son-in-law.
The American Dream come to life! Now buy three more Bosendorfer grand pianos for the apartment we’re squatting in.
@Activist: Well, the last week-plus has shown Thun repelling a mob incursion while the balcony group see what’s going on down in the arena, and then Thun planning to rescue Barin. They *should* have seen that Bok wasn’t out there and that Flash *and* Aura followed Bones’ “galvanic bolt” by running into a doorway which then slammed shut to cut off the fighters. It was actually pretty reasonable to think Flash and Aura at least (and probably Bok) were safer than they are, and to get out of there expecting to regroup once both parties were outside of the fray.
MW: Josh, I know that how I define “middle age” seems to get older the older I get, but at 150 years old, I’m not sure I would call Mary middle-aged.
MW – Filling the emptiness in one’s soul by binge eating sunflower seeds may be the most Mary Worth thing ever.
You can take the horse out of the ranch, but you cant take the ranch out of the horse.
Peanuts – You’d think it would make Peppermint Patty feel conspicuous when she’s the only student the teacher has to check up on personally to see if she’s ready for the test. But Patty enjoys the attention.
MW: It starts with sunflower seeds, then shrooms, then ayahuasca. Bye bye, Toby, you sweet summer child!
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hugo Flores is on the course today”
“The best golfer in the state is here?”
“Is he really that good?”
“He’s amazing… but they say his caddy is the real brains of the outfit”
It seems that for some reason I am unable to post any links to any comics on the Comics Kingdom site. The comment doesn’t go into moderation, it just disappears, not unlike what happens when anyone tries to mention the dread name H@rvey. Anyone else having that problem? Anyhow, to see today’s Don Abundio, go to Comics Kingdom, select Comics A-Z, and Mr. Abernathy (Spanish).
Zits: And yet, punk friend’s aesthetic is still firmly rooted in the 80s. That’s ok, though, his smug expression in the last panel is timeless.
@Ken: #8
I would actually love to see an incrementally larger flock of birds begin hovering around Toby…first one bird, then two, then five, then a dozen, then hundreds and hundreds, talons raking her clothing and grabbing her hair, beaks slicing her skin and gouging out her eyes…wait…that’s another story.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: When I was a student at one of the scooby doo colleges, I heard a story that one of the students at UMASS jumped out of their sixth story dorm window, broke both their legs, and dissatisfied with this outcome, crawled back inside, past a security guard, took the elevator up to the top floor, and found a window there to finish the deed. I’m just saying, we could all learn a lesson about the value of commitment.
JP: What a load of manure!! Neddy, you are misremembering. The stables didn’t burn down – they had been converted into that abomination of a Bed and Breakfast. THAT was what burned down. And the Horses weren’t harmed – they supposedly had already been “moved to a neighboring farm.” Or at least that was the disjointed story line. In fact all the Horses were furloughed – some of us Stars were able to get other Show Biz employment… JP just hires an occasional Equine as needed now.
And we all know the place was Spencer FARMS with vineyards and a winery, but that’s another story. I think they changed it to Spencer Ranch-with-no-Horses to comply with zoning, or tax subsidies, or some other whim. Of course when *I* close the deal to purchase the place, all will be restored to its former glory! But for now – I’m still waiting for my cameo. Have they forgotten the kid was promised a Horsey ride?
MW: I bet if Toby had brought along an entire jumbo Halloween bag of fun-sized Three Musketeers bars, all you guys would not be making savage fun of her.
@Horace Broon: Augie has merely typed out the entire text of Count Jan Potocki’s 1805 The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, and Summer will be picturing Augie as Alphonse von Worden of the Walloon Guard and herself as the two beautiful Moorish princesses Emina and Zubeida. And realize one hundred pages in that no contemporary corporate publisher ever made a bid for this.
FG: Now look, Bok. I know Adrane has been pestering you about losing some a weight but aren’t you carrying things a little to the extreme?
FG: I know you’re dazed and dehydrated, Bok, but think of the bright side. You can finally fit into those skinny jeans.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: I bet it was that damn Kiran General with the broken jaw.
His plan was to steam Bok thoroughly, then serve him up to Hot Witch-Queen chilled on the half shell with a mignonette dressing and a squeeze of lemon.