Hanging on by a thread
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Daddy Daze, 1/30/26
To me, the jury is still out on whether the Daddy Daze baby is actually expressing meaningful language in the form of a series of “ba”s that only the Daddy Daze daddy can understand, or if the Daddy Daze daddy simply maps his current obsessions onto his son’s meaningless babbling. Today’s strip is about one of them morbidly fixating on the idea of staring down an elephant and being trampled to death by it, and frankly I don’t think it really matters which one. These guys are really going through it! Or maybe just one of them is! But either way!
Shoe, 1/30/26
Speaking of guys who are really going through it, I know that Shoe and the Perfesser have worked together so long that they bicker like an old married couple, but “You underestimate me, but my time is coming!” is the sort of thing said between spouses in an old couple whose long marriage is abruptly ended by murder-suicide.
Heathcliff, 1/30/26
Let’s, ahhh, let’s get a little more upbeat, shall we? Look at these fellas, just sitting at the kitchen table with feedbags strapped to their faces, quietly snarfing whatever kibble’s in there. This right here is the cure to the male loneliness epidemic. Not a cell phone in sight, just people living in the Feedbag Friday moment.
Judge Parker, 1/30/26
Thank you Ann, this is what everyone who reads this strip has been trying to say for months
119 replies to “Hanging on by a thread”
“You underestimate me, but my time is coming!” is actually covered on Day 1 of Supervillain School. Nice to see Cosmo is branching out and exploring interests. Sadly, he’s super lame, so he’ll be easily dealt with by the lamest heroes. God, the X-Men will probably send DAZZLER.
Heathcliff-And the less said about Ballgag Sunday the better.
Daddy Daze-*sigh* “Master Blaster runs Bartertown.”
JP-Ah yes. The never ending boring CIA plot.
FC-You did it wrong, Bill. You were supposed to bring back eight mittens and no children.
MW-Can we get to the part where the parrots kill Toby and Ian and peck away at their bodies.
DD — The odds are extremely good that the Daddy Daze artist doesn’t think s/he can draw a credible elephant.
Heathcliff! — It’s all fun and games until someone suffocates, , ,
JP:
This comic has really elevated the “pissyface” to an art form, hasn’t it.
So the Daddy Daze guy spends a lot of time around free-roaming elephants? Is he ruled by Babar? Let’s full-meal lean into this insanity, people!
DD: Is he supposed to be carrying the kid in a golf bag?
JP: CIA plant, Ann, cups her hand over the mic in her ear to make sure they’re getting all of this nonsense.
“Don’t worry, Ann. I’ll fix you up a nice tall glass of breakfast whiskey. Everything makes more sense, then. Oh, God, Alan, on the living room floor?”
JP:
“But if it helps to focus you on finding exactly where he might be, he was last seen navigating around some of Norway’s deep inlets of the sea, with steep sides and cliffs, in an Explorer!”
“No. Don’t say it, Katherine.”
“Yep. Think ‘fjord‘ first!”
Not even the colorist can tell the difference between Judge Parker’s wife and Judge Parker’s daughter.
Heathcliff:
I see that Heathcliff is front-center in yet another installment of Wuthering Writes.
HEATHCLIFF: For her, it’s Slip Out For Happy Hour While They’re Blinded Friday.
H&L: Karma’s a bitch; by the time Ditto’s old enough for long, long showers, Trixie will be old enough to gleefully interrupt his, um, exemplary hygiene.
Daddy Daze:
Let me guess. This kid channels Bing Crosby at seances.
“That was in August. No one’s heard from him since”
“My God! He disappeared!”
“No, I think not. He simply left our immediate field of attention and no one felt a particular urge to contact him. You have met him, you’ll understand”
Today, strips are swapping their script. Today’s “Shoe” was supposed to be a Lockhorn strip. Today’s “Lockhorns” is about Leroy and Loretta shitting on people’s head — “Shoe” finally remembered they were birds!
Mary Worth:
“Thanks for taking me out, Ian! I love our date nights! — especially where, as is apparent from the coloration in today’s first panel, we’re going to a restaurant on the Alpha Centauri extrasolar moon Pandora!”
JP None of this makes sense! And now we’ve switched bodies between panels!
(Not a colorist error, the speech bubbles are wrong – Kate is wearing a cardigan and has less of a wave to her hair, Ann has a turtleneck and wavy bits)
Shoe: “You underestimate me but” opens Moleskine to page after page of indecipherable scribbles “I’ve deciphered the Zimmerman telegram!”
Mary Worth:
“And there’s wonderful news to boot, Toby! — having read the current story arc and having observed my stuttering bombast and my hamhanded gracelessness, the Santa Royale Players have offered me the lead role in their forthcoming Shakespearean knockoff production, Falstaff: The Musical!”
Oh man, even Heathcliff is dunking on Tony Doukoupil now.
Daddy Daze: You know, those baby slings are so expensive and over-engineered these days. Why not just walk around with your baby in an old golf bag?
MW: Yes, Moy, we’re all duly impressed that you googled “flirting in Spanish.” Can we please move on now?
Heathcliff: They should be wearing blinders. You just know if Heathcliff finishes his oats and sees Grandpa Nutmeg still has some, the claws are coming out.
@CanuckDownSouth:
This is so spot-on, CDS. It illustrates one of the reasons I’ve stopped reading this strip unless an installment happens to show up on this site — these kinds of amateurish mistakes, not to mention the blatant politicization, the constant jags of gratuitous violence, the lack of plot resolution and the abandonment of any semblance of logic.
JP:
“Thank you, Ann, this is what everyone who reads this strip has been trying to say for months” — Josh, don’t you mean “for nine-and-a-half years, since August, 2016″?
JP: If this were the real world, I’d say anyone who had made an enemy of gunrunners and got captured by them five months ago is not only dead but their body has probably been disposed of in some manner as to be irretrievable. But this is Judge Parker, so we have at least another five months before April turns up again with tales of her daring escape.
GT What are the odds that those are halal beef ribs? About as bad as the starving-granny depiction of a teen eating them in the center panel?
MW I am seriously starting to wonder whether Moy just fed “birds are good” into ChatGPT and went off on vacation
JP: “Of course, that’s last August REAL time. Comic book time, it’s about a week and a half.”
Beatles Failey:
Beetle Bucks?!?
Beetcoin was right there.
____________________________________
Andy Capp:
Infamy! Infamy! They’ve got it in for Andy!
____________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
“Heeere’s Johnny!”
Johnny, armed with a purloined scalpel, bursts through the emergency room door, leaving carnage behind him.
He had to start taking out spleens from someone, didn’t he?
____________________________________
Wary Morth:
Pompous Axx: “…my pibroch…my bagpipes…my tartan…my kilt…my single malt…my Loch Ness Monster…”
Toby: “Ooh, Ian, you’re so romantic! You mage me want to lay your egg right away!”
Judge Parker: Where “I can’t listen anymore, I’m going to cover my ears” meets “tell me more.”
C’shaft: Okay, who told Tom Batiuk about Bitcoin about a year or so ago?
GT: Yikes, what is going on with Keri’s teeth? Are they part guinea pig? Do they need gnawing material so their incisors don’t grow to horrific lengths?
Luann: Did she suck at counseling, or did you just suck at being a human being?
MW: This is going to end with little baby birds, isn’t it? Do you need a license to breed parrots in California? Or at least two more brain cells than these idiots have put together?
Phantom: Dammit, ICE is REALLY overstepping its boundaries now!
RMMD: “Of course, I don’t have a life that isn’t focused completely on your family after all…”
Heathcliff: I was just staring in mute horror at this open display of pony play when I saw the panel is signed “Gallagher,” and now I’m staring in mute horror at the thought of the Heathcliff males whacking watermelons with a sledgehammer, or each other’s heads like watermelons, just because it’s Friday.
HtH: Helga is right to look so put out. The time and resources to make or acquire a sponge cake in 9th century Norway must be astronomical indeed, and Hagar goes through three or four of them a week! [Fun Fact: The word “cake” comes from Old Norse “kaka.”]
Most cops would be bewildered when they got reports of “a giant, feces-eating gopher dressed like Gem and the Holograms,” but this is Rachel Merrill’s Milford.
MW:
“…my islet of Langerhans….”
“Say what?”
Mary Worth, first panel:
“The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on, like a bird that flew — tangled up in blue.”
— Bob Dylan
Oh. Wait a minute. It isn’t Sunday yet.
There was a time when I too thought Judge Parker was finally going to drop its insane, nonsensical April/CIA plots (that was June, maybe), and focus on simpler, more straightforward stories like Neddy and Charlotte’s growing bond or Judge Parker, Sr.’s growing dementia (that was this week). Alas, we don’t even get bodacious ta-tas out of the deal. Who do I write to, to demand bodacious ta-tas?!
@Bob Tice: “the constant jags of gratuitous violence, the lack of plot resolution and the abandonment of any semblance of logic” So you feel like it’s turned into Girl Genius, then? But say more about the “blatant politicization,” because I don’t recall seeing any of that.
Shoe: How about his time comes to put on pants, amirite people?
Heathcliff: As someone who observes “Bow tie Friday” I’m in no position to look down on the odd feedbag.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
When the Bad Mayor defeated Abbey for the Cavelton mayorship and his celebration of victory was being depicted in a frame, the author and/or the illustrator snuck a small Republican elephant logo into the bottom right-hand corner of the frame, IIRC. That’s such nonsense. For starters, it’s not smart — it probably alienates half your audience (and maybe more, since the readership and commentship on comics tends to skew conservative.) On top of that, there are good leaders and bad leaders from each and every party, and it’s simply wrong to demonize one party to the exclusion of another — and I really don’t like to be preached to, except at Sunday Mass. (I would have been equally offended if a Democratic donkey logo had been snuck in.) Finally, unless they’re expressly labeled or identified as political comics, comic strips should avoid partisan politics. We have our fill of partisan politics each and every day in every form of news media, and I for one come to the comics for a respite.
Daddy Daze: I realize that the current size that newspapers publish comics in papers is probably the real culprit here, but misplaced word balloons have been the enemies of comprehension for decades. Whether it’s a giant prairie dog apparently mouthing off in vintage Mark Trail strips, or a preverbal infant suddenly warning everyone to never make eye contact with an elephant, the results are always unsettling.
In Walt Kelly’s Pogo, the baby groundhog named Grundoon suddenly stopped saying “gblx!” and other nonsense and started intoning “Poltergeists make up the principal type of spontaneous material manifestation,” over and over ad nauseam, regardless of context. Big words can mean even less than “Ba ba ba.”
Shoe: “My time is coming!” “Too bad you’ve wasted so much of it!”
Okay, I feel seen by Jeff MacNelly’s heirs and I don’t like it.
I wouldn’t have listed Heathcliff anywhere on a list of strips likely to cater to the artist’s weird fetish, but here we are.
Luann – Of the many millions of characters they could have created from scratch, they decided to bring back Mrs. Phelps-Fogarty? Apparently Pittsville Juco will pull any pompous axx off the street and let them teach.
If you want to bring people back – try Knute, or Crystal, or Delta but not as a dream. Also, I didn’t say it yesterday, but I think Gunther is a bigger deadbeat that Les. Of course, if Uncle Al wants to keep getting the fine china from Irma, he has to cut Gun some slack.
Curtis: Us white folk eat grits too!
MW – The Sunny storyline began on November 4th… November 4th.
The Perfesser standing there with no pants angrily confronting the mostly naked Shoe (excepting, of course, his namesakes). The birds copied a lot from the humans they replaced, but not shame or HR departments.
***
What the hell is the point of a feedbag if you’re just going to sit at the kitchen table doing nothing else? Go play some video games or pickleball or chase laser pointers or something!
@Weaselboy: Of what year?
MW: Mary doesn’t get involved until the story reaches the next level of melodrama. Who gets custody of the baby chick when the real owners show up.
Luann: Welp, it’s not little ol’ Miss Horner, but that’s the only surprise today.
@Liam:
On JP – No no, weren’t you paying attention? Judgey Wudgey’s Wife just said it had nothing to do with the CIA. This is the never-ending ‘Ces Wishes He Could Write Jason Bourne Movies’ plot.
@TheDiva:
On RMMD – Let’s be honest. Until Augie Doggy Ding Dong Daddy puts a ring on it with all that sweet book deal moolah, she really doesn’t…
@TheDiva: I feel like the syndicate must have given Ces a directive that anything interesting or exciting in Judge Parker must happen off-panel and only ever show the principal characters reacting to it from great distance of time and space, but they’re dealing with a man who wanted to make Ted Forth a secret ninja assassin (a storyline he was actually permitted to do, but as a fever dream), so I think he’s making this story arc as boring and nonsensical as possible in the hopes that even they will give up and let him off his leash so that when we return to April and Randy, Randy’s crossing the North Pole on a dogsled with a mixed band of circumpolar indigenous freedom fighters he’s recruited along the way, preparing to assault the hidden Arctic lair of the Assassins, Ne’er-do-wells, and Villains’ International League (ANVIL), where April is being held and is defended by wise-cracking, pop culture-quoting cyborg assassins with helicopter packs and literal finger guns.
“She said it had nothing to do with the CIA and then she just vanished! So we’re thinking Mossad or the FSB, maybe SIS. In any event, her body has probably been eaten by moose. Now, as for Randy, he went to look for her but the poor dear bought a bus ticket to Norway, Oregon. We’re assuming the ducks got him.”
JP: Not even the artist can tell these two brunettes with vaguely similar hairstyles apart, even though one of them is 20 years older than the other.
Phantom: Hey hey, they’re the Monkees.
They’re the young generation, and they’ve got something to say.
Today’s Dustin is missing several panels. It’s supposed to go (kept text in brackets) :
[Dustin : Do you believe in ghosts?]
[Fitch : No way, Dude. All that supernatural stuff is made up.]
[Fitch : It’s just superstitious nonsense.]
Fitch : …But even then, I wouldn’t, like, go into a haunted house or something.
Fitch : I’m not a coward, I’ve just never been tested. I’d like to think that if I was, I’d pass. For the tested I say “But for the grace go I”. Might be a coward, I’m afraid of what I might find out.
[Fitch : Knock on wood.]
Dustin : That song is called “The Impression That I Get”, actually.
Fitch : IT IS!? …Then, what have I been telling people when I told them my favorite song is “Knock On Wood”!?
…Sorry, that’s where my mind went reading that strip this morning, and I had to let it out…MW:
June shuffled into the kitchen where Karen was already perched on a stool, drinking coffee as she perused that day’s comics.
“You know, June, you have really done a great job with the parrots! They look so realistic–even more so than Ian and Toby!” Karen enthused.
“That’s damning with faint praise,” June retorted. “Although I must admit, it’s been so long since you’ve had Ian and Toby go out together, I’d sort of forgotten how to make their arms and hands work. And Ian’s neck–I don’t know. I think I might have lost my touch when it comes to the human form. Animals are really more fun to draw, anyway. Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! has been working with me and he’s shown me that birds are good!”
“Well, it shows,” Karen replied. “I, on the other hand, have been brushing up on my high school Spanish, and I have a really great idea for injecting some real conflict into the story.”
“But–but I thought this story line was finishing up, Karen! Aren’t we starting a new one next week? I can’t keep doing the artwork for Sunny and Rosie because I’m running out of green coloring! I stocked up on maroon, thinking we were going to do a story about Wilbur…!”
“Well, I had been thinking about that, but then I learned some Spanish curses when I was looking up phrases to use, and it occurred to me that we haven’t even scratched the surface of where we can take the current story arc. I mean, the whole boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back progression hasn’t really gotten past boy-meets-girl, has it? Sunny and Rosie need to have SOME kind of conflict, right? And if Ian and Toby’s relationship is going to parrot what Sunny and Rosie are doing, well, that gives us all sorts of options. We can save Wilbur for later in the year and make Sid AND our readers happy with the Charterstone “love nest”. What do you think?”
“What curses did you learn?” June asked warily.
“Oh, words and phrases like ‘come mierda’ and ‘tocapelotas’–short things that will fit neatly into a small word balloon but still convey real meaning.”
“I took French in high school. What do those mean?” June inquired.
“‘Eat shit’ and ‘ballbuster’–respectively,” Karen replied. “If the birds get into an argument, I think we could easily use those. And then our readers will worry about friction in their relationship. We’ll hook them even deeper, because they’re really interested in Sunny and Rosie now.”
“No, they’re not, Karen.” June was blunt. “I keep reading comments about how done they are with this whole story. If you drag this out, it’s your readers who will be telling YOU to ‘come mierda’! Also, parrots have testicles but they’re inside their bodies, so I’m not sure the term ‘ballbuster’ can even be applied in this situation. You’d have to stick with Pompous Axx.”
“But that’s what Sunny called Ian! We’d only confuse things!”
“Okay, listen, this is a true story. I had a bird once and it was doing fine until I decided to clean my oven one day and believe it or not, the fumes KILLED my bird. Why can’t Toby clean her oven? Then they’d take the sickened birds to ANIMAL HOSPITAL where they would pretty much die anyway, right? And THEN Ian and Toby can take them on a funeral cruise with Mary and Jeff on Jeff’s Compensation, and Wilbur can come with them to offer experienced emotional support, and then we can move into another story. We just need to change things up, don’t you think?”
“Well, if you’re running out of green….”
@Bob Tice: That begs something of a chicken-and-egg question. Are comics writers doing this because they were always just so goshdarned political they can’t help themselves (and perhaps wish they were politicians themselves), or have the politicians of both sides in their never-ending quest for attention made themselves so impossible to ignore the writers think ‘might as well give our opinion, everyone else is!’
I mean, look at a classic strip like Pogo. From what I’ve seen, that strip left no doubt where its writer fell on the political spectrum (even if the message was usually ‘everyone sucks’), and it’s venerated as a classic of the American canon
DtM: Tomorrow Dennis climbs under the covers with the Wilsons. There are three different punchlines, depending on the reader’s age.
HtH: Helga’s wasting her effort with such overture, and we see her realize it in panel two: No smile, let alone lovey-dovey eyes.
She and Blondie should form a support group.
RMMD:
“Can my boyfriend come over while I’m sitting your kids?”
“Sure. We’ve seen you two in action.”
H&L: To steal from Jack Benny’s violin teacher, “One down!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I know why you smoke cigars, Don Abundio. Subconsciously you are insecure about your masculinity”
“Promise me you’ll try psychoanalysis!”
“Sure, Doc!”
“Have you ever heard such a ridiculous theory, Polonio?”
Luann: The Mudge who predicted a day or two ago that the Evansii would be too lazy to create a new character was right, though most predicted it would be Mrs. Horner. BTW: Was it ever established in strip canon that Phelps/Fogarty was a bad guidance counselor?
JP: Next time you drop this kind of convoluted chronological exposition on us, can you please not name the character “April”?
@Guillermo el chiclero: I don’t remember that character, so even further, has it been established that she’s a guidance counselor or an adjacent-to-therapist counselor?
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yes. You see, she didn’t help Luann by handing a great job/life/boyfriend to her on a silver platter, and that’s HER fault for not recognizing Luann’s INNER BEAUTY!
@Bob Tice: I’m surprised the mayor was depicted from the GOP only once, at the end of the campaign.
This is odd to say, but Crankshaft did it better. In the bookshop burning arc no identity needed be specified–everybody knew.
I went back to yesterday’s Heathcliff, because yesterday, it was surreal.
Today, I see its real meaning: Grandpa Nutmeg isn’t yelling at the mice and their incomprehensible show sculpture, he’s yelling at Heathcliff, who is standing at the window, pulling his pud. The shout of “Have you no shame?” makes sense if Heathcliff is cranking it.
JP: Wait a second…In the first panel, Katherine is bringing Ann up to speed about Randy & April…But it the second panel, it’s Ann who is explaining it, and Katherine is suddenly left in a state of disbelief. Two typos in less than a week and now this. What in the heck is going on with this strip?? If, as I fear, it’s now being written by AI, then how many other comics are doing likewise? The apocalypse of the funny pages may truly be at hand.
Thanks Activist! :3
The sour cream worked!
The cookie dough stuck together more
But when baking, the cookies came out more puffy than flat.
That was never my forte with baking cookies, honestly xD
JP: am I the only one who saw the word “Ann” and then had my eyes skip to the “way” in “Norway” and read “Ann[e] Hathaway”? Either I have a subconscious celebrity crush I’m unaware of, or I need to do my eye exercises more often to strengthen my extraocular muscles. Probably both.
@The Rambling Otter: I’ll share them tonight on Sweet Treat Time :3
@CanuckDownSouth:
It’s one of those things where once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And possibly further evidence the trip is being created by an AI.
JP – “No Ann, this makes all kinds of sense. Their daughter is Charlotte. Their family and friends are Parker-Drivers. They stepped out that door and you stepped back in. Now it’s snapped shut behind you. But it’s so nice to have you back.”
RMMD- Let’s just hope they don’t take one look at Johnny and wheel him up to geriatrics.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: “So you feel like it’s turned into Girl Genius, then?”
A fair cop. GG has descended into “Lucrezia is omnipotent!” “No, we can beat her!” “No! She’s omnipotent!” “Let’s have an epic months-long fight!”
These days I read it primarily for Tarvik’s discourse on proper collar buttons. And to watch the Baron’s attempts to produce cake.
Fine china? That’s what you kids are calling it now?
Hope you’re safe. Glad you have power.
MW: Man oh man! Can it get any better? My “wings on the ground” tell me The Ladies wanna keep the Parrot narrative on the front burner! They seem to have lots of ideas about further exploring the Sunny-and-Rosie relationship … maybe even the pitter-patter of little talons! A generational saga that could be a blockbuster hit!
I’m gonna pay them a visit today – so we can discuss new story ideas, and of course details about contract extensions. I definitely won’t be going empty-handed – a little gift always sweetens the deal.
Hey, Intern – did that 5-gallon vat of Green Ink get here? Great! Yeah, put a bow on it!
@A Grave Mind:
And the original disco Dazzler at that who only gave off colored lights. (Later she realized manipulating and shooting light meant she could be shooting _lasers_ from her fingers, much more effective if you want to blind someone)
@TheDiva:
No, because the birds are just a metaphor for Ian and Toby’s relationship (just like the fish were a metaphor for Wilbur’s obsession with Iris.) Expect the upcoming storyline to be two (spins wheel) pet wolverines who are adopted by Mary who only socialize once every 4 months and spend the rest of their time on opposite sides of the cage (well…the female of the pair at least.)
DT: The continuing saga of The Mirror aka NotTheJackal aka NotProfessionalKiller. After killing his target (presumably, we didn’t see the Czar toe tagged, maybe the paramedics saved him despite his numerous ventilator holes), The Mirror’s sloppiness led to a botched escape and now he is climbing into some guy’s apartment – another loose end and witness potentially. This contract is not going on highlight reel.
GT: Ribs…ok, I thought it was a bundt cake in frame 1. Interestingly notice the kitchen background in frame 3 and how well it is depicted. It shows the jowly look is a conscious artistic decision!
JP: April went to Norway but not because of the CIA but actually because of the wink wink CIA or former CIA activity. Randy “went after her” but in fact took the opportunity to finally ditch the whole family and is now living quietly on a sunny coastal town far far away.
Meanwhile Charlotte and Neddy head back to the ranch to watch the construction crew build the new stables.
MW: Yup, Ian’s brains got scrambled by some parrot borne disease making him a pliable lobotomized living Ken doll.
Phantom: This plot is on a siding and about to derail but that dog is a good dog. Quietly staring down General Chum and his underling.
Rex Morgan MD: June – try speaking like an adult person and put the verb first: “Can you stay with Sarah and Michael” rather than the faux valley girl speak of “You can stay with Sarah and Michael (rising inflection)?” Love how glum the rest of the Morgan kids looks in frame 1. “Aww, Johnny is out back being poked and prodded, no fun”
Slylock Fox: it looks like guest artist Kellie Age 15 has drawn a nice picture of Sunny and Rosita from MW.
Nancy: Fritzi Ritzi in a solo with just a background cameo by Nancy; presumably still with Sluggo in Philadelphia.
Daddy Daze: The cartoonist should pivot to “Angus Minus Angus” and see whether the daddy’s descent into solipsistic madness can become more entertaining.
LUANN: “Oh my gaw! I haven’t been this surprised by the teacher since the comic tried this gimmick last semester when my class was also taught by a returning educator brought back in a desperate attempt to rekindle the strips pre-college “glory days. (Also: a syllabus? what’s that?)”
LUANN (2): Wait she said she’s the “career coach.” Not “teacher.” So they are giving up all pretense that these people are going to a real school (This totally isn’t a reflection of the Evans’ real-life viewpoint on the worthiness of “junior” colleges, I swear to
Godgaw! wink wink*)*Sorry. I felt it was appropriate to be as “subtle” as this comic usually is. Wink, wink.
LUANN (3): I meant to cover this yesterday, but man, Greg and Karen can’t even “ok Boomer”, correctly! I mean Les’s mobbed-up hardass dad wants him to “find a job” (which he has) and quit lying around playing games all day (which was never something Less was into until recently when the Evans struggled to find a pastime that signified “laziness” and didn’t realize that they were several years behind on that front) so the father sends him to a “lesser” college to take a single vaguely defined class on careers instead of, I dunno, using his nepotistic mafia connections to give Les a high position in The Family (if he just wanted his son to have a better job) or making him enroll in the same (aka “real”) college as Gunther is in (if this was just about the principle of Les applying himself or whwatever). I’m just saying that telling Les to waste time at poorly-managed-and-funded “glorified daycare” (they accepted Luann in for god’s sake!) seems like a really ineffective way to prepare for a “billionaire” career, Mr. Gray.
@Rover Berkeley:
#64. JP: Rover, this is why I appreciate our getting AI in it’s early stages– we can easily spot how messed up it is. Later when it’s refined, new users will actually trust AI and thi k you and I are Luddites for doubting it’s info. Always confirm. AI is hearsay.
@Guillermo el chiclero: LUANN: Was it ever established in strip canon that Phelps/Fogarty was a bad guidance counselor?
Yes. Yes, it was. If for no other reason that she decided Bernice was suited to be a therapist, but trust me, there are many other examples of her sucking at her job.
@TheDiva: LUANN: Did she suck at counseling, or did you just suck at being a human being?
Both.
FC: At first glance I thought the melonheads had been noshing down on chocolate cupcakes but then I remembered the Keanes like to indicate cold weather by drawing their cheeks to look like frostbite induced gangrene, ala Littleface Finney trapped in the industrial grade meat locker.
@Weaselboy: December 7th, January 6th, November 4th…….
@Activist: Agree (Typed with my own two hands. i swear.)
JUDGE PARKER: I miss this strips more sensible, rational plotlines. Like when the proletariat gave the wealthy Spencer-Parker-Driver axis huge gobs of money for no discernable reason at all.
Belatedly, On Luann : Why is TARA taking this class, again? I feel like she doesn’t have the insecurities about failing to launch that Luann has, and she doesn’t have an adult trying to light a fire under her like Les does?
…Is it because, if Luann doesn’t have a friend she can call, there is no plausible way for her to find her way to class after arriving to a room with a sign reading “Class has moved. Proceed to Room X-##”?
Shoe: “As soon as it gets here, I’ll get ChatGPT to rewrite some of the articles for our newspaper.”
Crank: “I didn’t really mind selling all the candy, turkeys, cheeses and even matresses,” says the guy who was absolutely obsessed with doing so, in a desperate attempt to make a connection with
one of his peersa lesser band director.Not that it helps, because the other band director is thinking “Matresses? They told me that back in the day, there was some weirdo who sent his poor students door-to-door trying to sell freaking matresses, but I didn’t believe them!” And that’s even after Dinkle decided against mentioning that he also hawked his own autobiography this way!
Heath: Even though I don’t read Heathcliff regularly, its occasional appearances here have inured me to its little foibles, to the point where yesterday it didn’t entirely strike me as odd that the mice were building a snow sculpture of a giant cheese. They’re Heathcliff mice; that’s the kind of thing they do. Thank you Feedbag Friday, for getting me to think “Oh, that’s right, this strip is agressively nonsensical to Tuesday Six Chix levels” again.
FG: Mongo has a plant-based cheese substitute that works on a burger? Truly it is an advanced civilisation! (Fake cheese has come a long way in the past decade, but in my experience it never melts right.)
MW: Say what you like about the traditional All Praise Mary Week, but it’s at least shaped like a narrative. Things follow on from other things in a manner that creates the illusion something’s actually happening, even though it’s not. This doesn’t even have the illusion of progress. This is just … stuff.
Phantom: Important supervillain rule that had never occured to me before: know when to use “mister”. Yelling “You think I’m finished, mister?”, as seen on Tuesday, works; the formality of “mister” comes across as sarcastic, sending a message of “I don’t know who you think you are, and I don’t care.” Asking “W-who’s coming down the street, mister?” on the other hand, sounds like a sincere “mister”. You could maybe even get away with the stammer if it wasn’t for the “mister”, but now you sound like a Keane Kid talking to a grown-up, and at that point you’ve already lost.
@Lord Flatulence: Not only that, but some of us white folks have an admittedly overstated proprietary claim on porridge, ye ken?
CS: I’m kind of glad I missed out on the band bitcoin craze but I would have loved to have gotten in on the band blood diamond sales.
Phantom: Did the Jungle Patrol bother to inform the government of Ivory Lana that they were conducting an operation in their sovereign territory? Be kind of funny if jetfighters of the Ivory Lana Airforce shot the choppers down, assuming they were being invaded.
@Guillermo el chiclero: #90: That’s nothing. You should’ve been here during the band medicinal marijuana fundraisers.
@Anonymous:
Even then, how the fuck did she ever get into the video game, where literally no one ever picked her?
Yes, it was based off some weird, misbegotten X-Men cartoon from like 1990 where Wolverine is Australian. Still.
@A Grave Mind:
Has to be one of those “Superhero team has a lineup of half a hundred characters*, those specific characters were the ‘main’ one being focussed on/pushed by editorial at the time” thing.
*And it’s the X-Men, so that’s less of an exaggeration in this case.
@Horace Broon: Maybe those feedbags Heathcliff & family are slurping from contain porridge instead of dry hay or whatever usually goes into them.
DD: Maybe Daddy’s hope is that when Baby Angus starts talking for real—ha-ha, but just play along—he’ll sound like the narrator of a Hemingway story.
JP: Katherine gives voice to Ces’s subconscious. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
RIP Catherine O’Hara. She was 71.
C-Shaft: Oh, Harry would be all over Bitcoin if there were a way to have embarrassed bandmembers sell it door-to-door.
DT: “Ah, ignore it, Phil. It’s just some guy playing Pink Floyd’s The Wall at maximum volume.
Dustin: Fitch is at a bar at least partially made of wood. There’s no excuse for him not to do any actual knocking.
GT: Rachel Merrill does pretty well at drawing sports action. When it comes to non-sports scenes like Keri chowing down on some ribs, well…If we assume that the characters are predatory dinosaurs, it’s better.
Luann: Having no object permanence to speak of, Luann always thought that her high school teachers ceased to exist when she graduated.
MW: Tragedy later struck when the bilingual parrots, attempting to translate one of Ian’s class lectures, died of boredom.
Phantom: “They’re dressed in red. They’re carrying perfume samples. You sicced Avon ladies on us? Harsh, dude.”
WtB: “Sterling sits in stunned silence,” is a very alliterative sentence, but not one I get much opportunity to use, so this is new.
WofI: Despite living in the 21st century or some pan-anachronistic equivalent thereof, the Wiz has never heard of fantasy football. The Hart grandsons are similarly unfamiliar with Blood Bowl, which is basically what he was expecting.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Whoa! Never would have expected that this soon.
Now my two favorite SCTV people (she and Joe Flaherty) are gone.
Mary Worth – First, it was Dogs are good. Then O Goldfish! My Goldfish! Now it’s Annoying Parrots With Lobotomized Owners theater. It looks like Moy is going to keep introducing more and more animals until they take over Charterstone. The big question is what dirt does Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! have on the MW team to blackmail them into hiring so many of his clients?
A Mary victory lap would be welcome now. I despise Toby and Ian, and I especially hate those fucking parrots.
Gil Thorp – Lyndon Johnson said that Peter Hurd’s portrait of him was the ugliest thing he ever saw. He’d revise that if he saw GT today.
JP: That was when he accidentally met some guy named George Smiley. We don’t know anything else.
DD: This should be Bob Newhart Theatre, and get rid of the kid for a telephone.
GT: Isis’s Illegal Alien Parents: “Honey, would you ask your friend to take her plate and eat in the kitchen? She’s driving customers away. Also, offer her a fork — her ears are getting greasy.”
GT: At first glance I wondered why the first panel is featuring a hot, steamy cowplop.
I sent in a Pluggers idea this morning. “If you’re standing in front of your bureau looking for your wallet with your right hand, while you’re holding it in your left hand, you might be a Plugger.” I’ll let you know when it turns up.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Lola Heatherton.
Johnny LaRue.
Count Floyd.
Earl Camembert.
Guy Caberello.
Edith Prickley.
And Dave Thomas as “The Beaver”
Late Thread Cuisine: Is that fish, smiling?
@UncleJeff: That is a classic lineup.
@Baja Gaijin: When I was living on my own for the first time, I did some crazy and ill-advised things, culinarily speaking. But I have to say, canned tuna mixed with marinara and sliced olives is next level.
@78 2+2=7: I think you missed the unsaid reason for MafiaDad’s sending his son to school: He and “Irma” are going to hold BoinkFest26 on Les’ bed while “Irma” dresses in “Gunther’s” clothes. (quotes used because I’m pretty sure Irma and Gunther are the same person)
@Baja Gaijin:
I have no problem with doctoring up some jarred pasta sauce. Added olives are acceptable. Adding in tuna leads me to believe this is another one of those 4:20 in the afternoon creations.
@Baja Gaijin: Gotta have the olives.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – No, it isn’t smiling, but all those olive eyes are staring at you.
That dish is horrific. Betty Crocker should be arrested and charged with a crime against humanity.
@Deadly Goon Bugs: Was this pre-Vatican-II? Because I sense some Catholic desperation-for-Friday-variety vibes
@Ukulele Ike: #102- If they’re all gonna look like Neanderthals, they might as well eat like them.
@Lord Flatulence: I thought they were small, cut mushroom caps (which would make sense for pasta with red sauce). Olives?
@Baja Gaijin: But the whole thing is that Les ALREADY has something to occupy his time (that what-I-assumed-was-full-time job.)
@107 Artist formerly known as Ben: “Tuna and spaghetti sauce” slapped me right in the face when I saw this recipe card. Serious WTF vibes.
@109 Deadly Goon Bugs: I’m honestly surprised this wasn’t one of those Weight Watchers “recipes so grody you’ll lose weight along with your appetite” concoctions.
@110 Lord Flatulence: Olives with marinara, yes. Tuna with marinara, no.
@111 I speak Jive: Did you notice the fish in the background? It has a Mona Lisa smile, I think. Otherwise, agree with your comment. I daresay, this is worse than anything that’s spewed from bowels of Mary Worth’s kitchen.
@112 CanuckDownSouth: The recipe’s copyrighted 1981. Maybe the recipe writers thought Tuna Helper was too bougie for post-malaise America?
@114 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I can see olives being a valid addition to a spaghetti dish. Tuna, on the other hand…
@115 2+2=7: MobDad wants a nooner with “Irma/Gunther”. In the tiny garden shed. In his son’s bed. Maybe he wants to get “caught” by his son?
@Baja Gaijin: You made a scary trek to Hades to find this one, didn’t you.