Comfortably numb
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Andy Capp, 2/21/26
I have long been curious about how old Andy Capp is supposed to be; mostly, I’ve been a little nervous that he’s supposed to be shockingly young, like 28 or something. But today’s strip, which reveals that he was around to interact with subcultures best known from a 47-year-old movie that chronicled events that happened 62 years ago, makes me worried that he’s actually some kind of eldritch, immortal being. You’d think that compound interest alone would keep such an entity supplied with enough beer money that he wouldn’t have to go around mooching!
Mary Worth, 2/21/26
Normally, when someone is out on a walk with their romantic partner and says “I hear that a full moon can bring out strong emotions in some people,” they’re looking to get smooched. But not Mary! When she contemplates “strong emotions,” she immediately thinks about injuries severe enough to require hospitalization. Thank God Dr. Jeff is so level-headed! He hasn’t had to work a full moon shift in years! He barely feels anything at all!
56 replies to “Comfortably numb”
Jeff: “I’m (growl) feeling all good. My fangs are (grrrrr) sprouting in my muzzle. I just want to throw back my snout and hooooooooowwwwwlllll.”
Mary: “Dogs are great!”
MW: And so, the eternal question “won’t they or won’t they” having been answered again, the strip is ready to kick off a new story arc featuring characters we’ve seen a thousand times before and, for some reason, new pets.
Barney Smif:
Then Barlow thinks Smif’s a chickun an’ steals him an’ has him fer supper.
______________________________
Murky Tail:
“I hope yer joking, cause the last time I saw a face like yer son’s, it was on an ape being brought to Europe on a galleon from Batavia.”
MW-“My cat’s breath smells like cat food,” Mary says.
MW-Mary just keeps talking because she is afraid of the silence when she isn’t talking.
There’s nothing quite so deliriously romantic as feeling…”good?” Jesus, Jeff. Slip some tongue in NOW. You know that hospital talk is going to lead to birds.
MW:
“I only know the emotion I feel now is all good!”
“Well, since ’emotion’ is a noun and ‘all good’ is an adjective, how can you feel an adjective?”
Since I refuse to look ot up, all share in my wonderment at the term “scooterboy.” There’s no way straight guys should be scooterboys, and yet, the British seem to have done it. Jesus, guys. No wonder the Empire died.
Mary should worry less about the full moon and more about the other bright object that is reflecting water toward them on the right side of panel. I think LA exploded?
*reflecting in the water
MW:
“To be frank and poetic in equal measure, a tiny armada is about to set sail on its maiden voyage in my nether regions!”
“Well, let me see if I can find a champagne bottle to smash it in its tracks!”
MW: Interestingly enough, there is actually no link between the lunar cycle and hospital admissions.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4418782/
Andy Capp : this is just another example that despite using trappings to imply that they’re set in the current day, comics in general (and newspaper comics in particular, and Andy Capp
and Beetle Bailey/Hi & LoisSPECIFICALLY) are actually set in the 1960s.************
Crankshaft : I like how this was all done in the service of a dog that never appeared on panel ONCE in this entire sequence.
(I’d like it even more if I was the least bit convinced that was INTENTIONAL)************
Frazz : “Yeah, but Caufield isn’t actually smart, though.”
************
Six Chix : Everyone’s exercising these days, especially the superheroic Birds of Prey! Barbara Gordon likes miming kicking men in the face! Mari McCabe dances like an idiot! Pamela Isley is… in a weird, pooping-like squatting position in front of a chair while awkward holding what MIGHT be dumbbells, but could ALSO be plastic wine glasses! Harleen Quinnzel walks that ordinary dog she totally owns!
I dunno why I went with the stupid cape comic references, when my main argument is actually how crap the third panel is, sorry…AC: Oh: cults. This being British, I thought he said…nevermind.
MW: Poor Dr Jeff is so removed from his own feelings that he doesn’t even have the vocabulary to describe them. “The emotion I feel now is…all…good? Is there a word that describes that? That nice feeling that makes your lips curl upwards? I think I heard a term for that in a movie once…”
MW: Jeff thinks; “that’s a load of horseshit,” but chooses his words carefully. “I don’t know about that.”
MW:
“Mauve sky at night/
Meddler’s delight.”
— Traditional Nautical Saying
Andy Capp:
“Were you a mod or rocker back in the day, Mr. Capp?”
“Well, there’s an undistributed middle. I was a ‘mocker,’ you addlepated twit!”
MW:
For Mary and Jeff, exchanging sterile bromides is foreplay, play and afterplay.
MW:
Gosh, that Dr. Jeff is Silver-tongued — which is to say, the utterances that he offers are as about as meaningful as the sounds that come out of the Lone Ranger’s horse’s mouth.
Andy Capp-Andy then quizzically stares at the man. “How bloody old do you think I am?”
The full moon had begun to shimmer dimly through the night water as the Kraken rose. Its gigantic eyes tasted the pale glim, and it decided it was worth investigating closer. Its earlier and and spatulate tail pressed down, driving the black water away, pushing its huge form closer towards the surface.
Far away, something very large thrashed through the water. The Kraken’s tympani, honed to detect the tiniest movement of hadal snailfish eight kilometres down, listened with interest. Through the whirring of some form of mobile power that drove the object onwards, it could hear the faint noise of organisms communicating. One was a little higher pitched than the other, but both made the same listless whine.
The Kraken’s vast brain put together all this information, and decided that these organisms deserved closer study. Besides, the effort of swimming up through kilometres of water had made it hungry. But the huge thrashing object has already moved away, taking the whining organisms with it. Disappointed, the Kraken turned away to look for other interesting things to do and organisms to eat.
It had almost given up and decided to sink back into the inky depths when it heard the whining again. Not on a huge thrashing thing now, but stationary, somewhere close by, and just above the water; easy tentacle range.
“The emotion I feel now is all good,” whined Dr Jeff. “Perhaps if romantic impulses move you enough you’ll even permit me to touch my lips to yours, in the act known as a kiss.”
“Jeff!” Mary remonstrated. “You know a lady doesn’t kiss on the 798th date. It is just not done.”
The whining beat at the Kraken’s tympani. Its thick arms pushed, its huge tail flapped up and down, and its tentacles coiled for the strike.
Leaving a V shaped wake on the surface that shone in the light of the moon, it moved in for the kill.
MW: Emotion? I thought Dr Jeff said “erection”.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Devil replies: “Wolves are great, too!”
GT Shenanigans! You just did a flashback arc showing that Gil was a *cleancut*, *preppy* highschooler who was clearly known as being enough of a goody-goody to be trusted as some junior coach of the aspiring girls football team.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Its earlier and and = its set of arms and
MW: This strip is beginning to seem like the Charterstone Edition of Dick Tracy’s Crimestoppers Textbook, a compendium of mostly useless factoids that don’t relate to anything in real life.
Pluggers: Yet again we get the “pluggers are massive fatasses who are too poverty-stricken to afford clothes that fit, or are so big they just don’t make people-sized clothing to fit their carb-bloated bodies.”
MW- I’ll have what he took
@Bob Tice: “Sterile Bromides” would be a great name for a band.
@Bob Tice: If it was good enough for Ringo…
MW: Ever notice Mary and Jeff only date on the full moon? I’d suspect some occult reasoning, but knowing this strip, it’s because Brigman can’t be bothered to draw another background.
AC: Wait, does this mean Andy gave blowjobs for drinks?
Crankshaft: Again, this still beats a weeks-long storyline where “Batton Thomas” goes on and on about his career, or we going in depth into the history of Batom Comics.
Gil Thorp: “It was fun to deface our rival school, back in the days when I had long hair and rand around dressed like an extra playing a criminal in an episode of a first-run syndicated cop show that aired in the 1990s. Oh man, my hair, it was so long, what happened? What happened to my long luxurious hair?” :Gil starts weeping and rocking back and forth, Keri looks on helplessly:
Marvin: So they managed to almost go an entire week without referencing urine or fecal matter but here’s one of the dogs to save it with a “dogs like peeing on trees” punchline that reads like something taken from a cheap paperback jokebook.
MW:
“I heard that a full moon can bring out strong emotions in some people…fortunately, not us.”
JP: Warden Toots “The Boom King” Maytal drops the mic on Randy.
“This place boombastic. Why you wanna leave?”
@Bob Tice: Well done!
@Kelly Kopowski’s Love Slave: Yeah, I also figured Dr. Jeff was pitching a tent. But popping a woody for Mary? That’s almost as disgusting as today’s Pluggers.
MW – “Hospitals are especially active on such nights!” “Oh, Mary! Your awkward sentence structure is turning me on!”
DT: Wrong prison – you were supposed to be freeing Randolph.
MW: Will Sunday then be a recap of the past 7+ days of recap – an interative recap?
JP: Use the wrong word, principal? Boom – NotCIApril has arrived.
Phantom: We interrupt this adventure to be completed on Monday. Tomorrow, another retelling of how the mighty striped panty one got his stripes.
Don’t even think about making a romantic move Doctor Jeff. Mary’s reference to active night for hospitals is a veiled threat – a disguised or indirect threat that strongly implies harmful intent—often violence—without stating it explicitly. Read the room Doctor!
“Mary, you and I both know the medical board doesn’t let me enter the hospital anymore, except as a patient. So let’s drop it, OK?”
S4th: ‘…and be glad I didn’t kill *you* for likening my problems to #$%&ing Star Wars again like you always do. Didn’t you watch anything else as a kid??’
JP: I laughed like a loon at Warden Pavel’s Cousin/Brother/Whoever jazz-handed ‘GOTTA DANCE!!’ pose in Panel Two. I don’t think that’s what Ces or Manley had in mind for audience reaction at this moment.
JP2: Looks like I was right a few days ago and CIApril is going to reduce this prison to a smoking hole in the ground, slaughtering hundreds of innocents and guilty alike, all to save one white guy she inexplicably thought was worthy of mixing her DNA with.
RMMD: Back to Roots Country, Proto-Vaudeville, and Diner meals!
GT: ‘…of course, back then we didn’t have to be so performatively broken-hearted when the local minorities took the blame for my antics, but it was all in the name of good ol’ sportsmanship! Anyway, as Thorps we’re free to go. You up for some ice cream?’
@Tom: You mean to tell me the 1981 horror movie ‘Bloody Birthday’ *lied* to me and lunar cycles don’t cause certain children to be born as irredeemable psychopaths??
FC: “I hafta hold mommy’s hand so she’ll be safe crossin’ the street. At least until she sobers up.”
Chix (sic): Piro tries to justify being a nymphomaniac. “What?! It’s exercise!”
Silly Josh, you can only get compound interest if you have starting capital. Andy Capp may be eternal, but he’s never seen a pound he didn’t immediately spend at the pub.
MW:
“I heard that the full moon can bring out strong emotions in humans. Shall we attack while they’re distracted?”
“I was hoping to fuck at least once before discarding these meat suits.”
MW – Jeff: Hospitals? What are these Hospitals of which you speak? I haven’t been near one in years!
I note that the Funkyverse never displayed a disclaimer for Lisa’s date rape and pregnancy; Summer’s premature birth; Bull Bushka’s long slow deterioration from CTE and eventual suicide; Susan Smith’s suicide attempt; Marianne Winters’ suicide attempt; John Darling’s murder; a wildfire that consumed most of southern California; Jeff Murdoch somehow not being killed in that fire; Becky’s dismemberment; Wally and Rana’s PTSD; Funky’s alcoholism and car crash (in different stories); Barry Balderman’s nervous breakdown, Holly’s broken ankle in her late 60s; Adeela’s arrest by ICE; a stray cat disappearing into the void via time helmet; the deaths of several characters; or all the psychological trauma Ed Crankshaft, Harry Dinkle, Cindy Summers, Lillian McKenzie and Les Moore inflicted over their entire lives. What am I to infer from today’s strip?
MARY WORTH: Mary always waits until a full moon to do this because this is where a witch’s curse is at it’s most potent.
Mary: “Hospitals sure are active on full moons like this. There usually enough blood spilled of virgins to fill a cauldron. And there are so many torn femurs that some of them ‘accidentally’ go ‘missing’ I’m sure.”
Jeff: “Mary, what are you talking abo….”
(Mary chats in Latin and does a few quick hand gestures)
Jeff: (in a daze, looking around as if waking up from a dream.): “Mary? What’s going on”
Mary: “I was just talking about how the moon can bring out strong emotions in people.”
Jeff (in robotic vapidness, as if hypnotized): “All I know is that I feel good about dating you all of a sudden, and I have an urgent need to raid the blood bank at work tomorrow.”
Mary: (Just a hint of cruelty and wickedness forming in the corner of her adoring smile): Oh Jeff, you always know the most romantic things to say!” (Given her man his quarterly peck on the cheek.)
Dr. Jeff: “I feel GOOD!
Mary: I may need a hospital.
Never has there been an exchange that points out the value of hormone therapy for the late-middle aged in sharper relief. Get your levels checked, Mary!
Mary Worth Mashup: Am I the only one who wanted to see this happen?
LUANN: “At least our date is going better that the one that poor schmuck think he’s on” Mary Worth’s Dr Jeff smugly proclaims as he finally “scores” (AKA: get a firm pat on the shoulder from his lady love*)
*This is still more action than Ox is ever going to get out of these encounters, so, as Charlie Sheen would say, “WINNING!”
Andy Capp – “Are you a mod or a rocker?”
“Um, no. I’m a rod.”
“…”
“Well, it worked when Ringo did it!”
@Baja Gaijin: Wonderful – clearly it must be the fault of the full moon.
@Baja Gaijin: Actually, I think you speak for all of us, Baja. Although I would like to have seen the parrots drop that air conditioner on Mary and Jeff.
@Hibbleton: I have to give Dr. Jeff credit. “I don’t know about that” is a great all-purpose response when someone says something batshit crazy (especially on a subject that you personally know a hell of a lot more about than they do) but it would be unwise to argue with them.
Andy Capp has a canonical son, Buster, who debuted in his own eponymously-named comic (“Buster: Whitsun Fun For Everyone!”) in 1960.
Buster was typical comic-mischief-making-child age in 1960 (c.8-12ish) so presumably Andy was around his mid-20s. That puts his date of birth around 1935, so that makes him an unconvincingly elderly mod or rocker. Not to mention he looked exactly the same in the sixties.
Don Abundio, translated:
“May I examine your dog?”
“Okay. Are you looking for fleas?”
“No”
“Gang tattoos”