The guy she’s killing is definitely not an immediate threat, right? Like this one’s just for fun
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Herb and Jamaal, 2/25/26
I assumed those plewds were supposed to be sweat, but then Herb mentions “crying” in the last panel and that sets up a much funnier possibility, which is that they’re tears and he’s fully dissociated from himself, his body weeping openly due to stress and unexpected exertion but his mind managing to hold a coherent conversation for at least a few minutes, before he presumably shuts down entirely.
Judge Parker, 2/25/26
Not satisfied with all the people she killed in the massive explosion that heralded her arrival, April is now straight-up gutting a dude like a fish, right in front of her beloved, soft-handed husband. Weird how the awful last sound the guy will ever make is exactly the same one that Charlie Brown makes when he tries and fails to kick a football that Lucy is holding, honestly!
Luann, 2/25/26
This one could have been drawn to make it clear that Frank is chuckling ruefully over his unrealistic youthful fantasies and obviously realizes now that being a faithful husband and father is more rewarding than some burnout musician lifestyle. But that is not his facial expression at all. He still 100% wishes he was in a band and resents every single person in this room for holding him back.
195 replies to “The guy she’s killing is definitely not an immediate threat, right? Like this one’s just for fun”
Mary Worth Mashups: Let’s stop by Edison, New Jersey. Which “Trixie” will end up being canon?
JP: How can we be a hundred percent positive she’s not stabbing Randy?
MW: Yeah, this storyline is definitely giving “Big Sis Billie” vibes. Let’s hope it turns out better for Mister H (or not, he’s a character we’ve never met before and never will again, so who cares).
Luann’s Dad stole Jeremy Zits’s purple shirt to reminisce about wanting to be a rock star as a teen.
RMMD-While trying to escape some lawyers Rex will hide out in Lorna Starr’s home.
FC-“We met perfectly legally and not in a truck stop bathroom.”
Luann-Could you play an instrument? Could you sing? Did you even try to be a rock star?
Wary Morth:
We me when she wrote me an email that began “Dear freind, pardon my indignation at having to touch you in such a manner, but I found your email address on a website and I immediately knew you were the right recipient to share the Hugh some of money my late husband left me…”
JP: April, haven’t you ever heard the term never bring a knife to a gunfight?
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Wow! Comment appeared! Incredible.
JP:
“Here’s a little wordplay to lighten the mood, Randy: if we could bring our daughter here to be with us, would that make her ‘Arctic Char ?”
@Hibbleton: That’s absolutely what I thought was happening. I had to read it three times to decide that there’s supposed to be a third person in this scene.
H&J I am *not* a fan of Jamaal’s sly look in that last panel. Is he getting off on Herb’s pain? Does he think we are too? Buddy, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy seeing your friend suffering, but I can assure you its not sexual.
JP “AAAAARGH stubbed my toe! Who leaves a stool in the middle of the room like that?!”
Luann I just realized that if this is indeed taking place today, there’s a good chance that Luann’s dad was in a Nü-Metal band, and that makes me at once laugh and feel incredibly depressed…
MW: No, Harvey, you can’t have a catfish. Wilbur has already cornered the fish market.
Herb’s out-of-body experience will be particularly difficult given his job in the kitchen… It’s hard to chop stuff with numb extremities. Jamaal will need to pull double duty until he can convince Herb that exercise is for losers so that he stops coming back weeping with numbness and pain.
JP: They’re also going to take Bogdan, right? It would just be mean not to take Bogdan.
Luann: Great — now I have BTO’s “Takin’ Care of Business” going through my head.
JP:
“Oh, Im not killing him. I just showed him the next three weeks of ‘plot’ in the strip!”
J&K: It stops when you die, Herb. Welcome to middle age!
this mfer said “J&K”
JP – It just goes to show how, whenever Lucy pulls that football away, Charlie Brown is absolutely gutted by the turn of events.
Mary Worth is forever well behind the curve, this time with catfishing. I was trying to remember if this “elderly man who will surely get angry when told Trixie is a group of scammers” story had already been done in MW or one of the other soap strips, but I remembered it was a subplot in one of the excellent Thursday Murder Club books (let us not speak of the movie). At least we know what Karen has been reading.
H&J: I’d forgotten that Jamaal used to be an NBA star, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the strip to remind us. If Jamaal could just walk out of that door and pick up a $20 million sponsorship from a betting app or crypto exchange or protein supplement supplier, it makes you wonder… why the hell does he hang around with Herb? Surely it can’t be that he enjoys his company.
Luann: Look at the way Brad’s eyes have rolled back into his head. “Groupie mom” is his trigger phrase.
Pluggers either drive comically undersized kei trucks (doesn’t track) or have psychotically oversized, overstuffed La-Z-Boy chairs (very much tracks).
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: Estelle went through it.
JP: I’m just a little disturbed by how fast April went from whispering “Oh, my sweet, wonderful, caring idiot” to taking that foot-long serrated blade through its paces on, presumably, one or both of the guys cowering behind the desk. Randy can look away all he wants, but he should never close his eyes around that woman. She seems a little…moody.
JP I’m betting the writer is going for the clichéd fakeout and she’s just cutting off the warden’s hand to be able to gain access to all the advanced locks the artist hasn’t bothered drawing in this prison.
MW: Trixie lives almost 3,000 miles away in Edison, NJ? If that doesn’t put a light bulb over your head, I don’t know what will.
Luann: how come Luann is the only blonde in a family of brunettes? Does Nancy have a secret?
Herb and Jamaal: I get this question all the time, except substitute “project manager” for “professional athlete.” (The pain and crying stop when the spreadsheet is filled out, Buttercup.)
I slipped on some ice this week and sprained my wrist and typing this hurts. Herb? Exercise is for chumps so you should quit while you’re ahead.
Judge Parker: I can’t decide if April is straight up knife-murdering the warden, a guard, herself, Randy, or Bogdan, that smiling idiot. I’m going to go with f., the reader.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: (Brock Samson always was better with a hunting knife, and Superjail did superjails better.)
JP: “Well, April, I appreciate the breakout, but I don’t actually want to leave. The people you just killed were my mental health counselor, my job coach, the prison guard who brought me a donut every morning, and the warden I was having a civil conversation with. Norwegian prisons are incredibly lenient and nurturing. Or did you not know that, Little Miss CIA?”
Luann: The assignment was “ask people how they acquired their careers”, not “ask people what they wanted to be when they grew up”. Which means she might actually *fail* this insultingly easy class.
Pluggers will put furniture or appliances in the bed of their truck, but still forget where they were going halfway through the trip.
CS: “Batton Thomas” made his own wife work on his comic strip. In the last panel he gives a much-deserved shoutout to… comic books.
@Tabby Lavalamp: April can take care of that wrist pain for you. It’s a bit of a permanent solution, though. (Feel better!)
Also Judge Parker: I don’t know what I dread more, Randy and April going back to Cavelton to reclaim their daughter Whatsherface from Neddy, or this breakout somehow ends up involving Sofie and her pal, Sassyblackgirlfriend.
H&L: As Trixie plays in her sunbeam, Lois smiles indulgently, regaling Hi with their baby’s latest hijinks. “I gave her your old laptop to play with, and she managed to accidentally email somebody in Santa Royale, California!”
@Liam: Luann- Could you play an instrument? Could you sing? Did you even try to be a rock star?
She tried once. It didn’t go well.
AUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!! is also the sound Wilbur makes when he sees Fabiana in the arms of “Cousin” Pedro.
@Professor Well Actually: 1. recessives 2. “summer blonde” lightening 3. popular hair dye colours. OK, I don’t buy the last one, Luann wouldn’t be able to follow a basic 2-step drugstore dye box’s instructions
@20 Schroduck: on Herb and Jamaal: Jamaal hangs around Herb because Herb give great head to what hangs off Jamaal.
@23 Charterstoned: Maybe April needs a Midol? [ducks and runs]
@25 Jay Fawley: I see what you did there.
Luann: “So, uh, you and Mom, er, got it on and banged one or more gongs after a gig, right? And that’s how we got Carl, the older brother we never talk about?”
JP: It’s like Marciuliano wanted to recreate the gulag escape action scene from Black Widow, but forgot to have any interesting action or characters.
H&J: The last panel would be funnier if Jamal said “Never.”
MW: Please, please, please let us find out that “Trixie” is Arther Zero, back again. Mr. Hart insists she just has a husky, Katherine Hepburn-style voice.
Flash! AaaAAA I know it’s a genre convention, but can I just say that’s a really sucky power generator design (grumbles about CANDU versus RBMK reactor moderator methods…)
JP: One might think April stabbed the guy, but in actuality, she had to remove the knife to get to the picture showing how ridiculous that guy looked in his hat. AUUUUUUUGH!!!! indeed!
Luann: Luann is going to turn in something that makes that OU student’s essay look like a rhetorical masterpiece.
Luann: A lot of things that no one who was actually birthed would say show up in the comics, but “groupie mom” is an unexpected addition.
@Baja Gaijin: @23 Charterstoned: Maybe April needs a Midol? [ducks and runs]
I remember one of my colleagues coming into work one morning, looking grim, and sighing about a daughter entering adolescence at the same point his wife was entering menopause.
FC: As the second eldest child, Dolly roflstomps Jeffy for the right to Billy’s piece of cake. Meanwhile, Billy will probably no survive whatever ails him.
Zits: Jeremy describes his very … specific fetish.
MW: I realize I’m getting my Torchwood season 1 plots mixed up, but Billis’s girlfriend is actually a Cyberwoman.
Dustin: That just means you’re using a 20-year-old laptop or one riddled with viruses. Correlation is not causation, as you should well know, Ed.
JP – “If you ever want to sleep again, I suggest you look away right now. Because I know you find this ‘my-wife-is-a-bloodthirsty-spy-assassin’ shit incredibly hot, and that if you watch me actually knife these guys we’re going to be going at it like rabid rabbits non-stop for six months and frankly, I need some shut-eye.”
LUANN: I dunno. That actually looks like the expression of a man who was lying about his “dream career” and was going to say something a lot lamer and dorkier. Like a man trying to save face a bit too defensively after realizing he was being inadvertently mocked and patronized for his lack of creativity.
CS: “It took me a while to teach Cathy not to use crayons, but what can you expect from a woman in a Funkyverse comic.”
9CL: Alistair is literally a new man after that thesaurus-fueled speech from (P)Lolly.
@Baja Gaijin: This smells like an Arth(e)ur Zerro(?) story…
RMMD – HU Live is teasing that Lorna Starr will come out of retirement to play the Riddler.
GT: “Thorp, Pillar and Rimsha have been suspended for ‘decorating’ Goshen High, which is unfair since our team is stuck with these junior varsity losers who totally suck! Yes, I’m aware I’m live on the air.”
Luann: “You can’t major in Rock Star”.
Oh no?
“Jesus, April, why did you do that?”
“It’s like the end of Inglorious Basterds.”
“But why carve a question mark into his head?”
“Because neither you, I, nor he, have any idea who he works for or what’s going on.”
Luann: And a listical of rock stars with college degrees.
JP: Given the “killing a man in cold blood” scene, you’d think the artist might stretch a bit and try for a believable expression on April, but no, it’s the same as Charlotte’s “why aren’t there any horses here” and Sophie’s “sorry, Norwegian blond hunk, but I’m seeing someone else” and Abbey’s — well, you get the point.
Luann: I just had a thought. Could the Evansii have had another script or set of strips rejected and this is a Lynn Johnston-esque update of some sequence they did back in the ‘Potato Head’ era?
JP: Nooo! Not Comic Opera Guard Redshirtski! He was just two days away from retirement! Your Wilhelm Scream will live on, Redshirtski!
@Liam: On Luann: No, no and no. Suddenly Luann’s (lack of) actions in the past 10-15 years of strips click into perfect focus.
@CanuckDownSouth: She literally blasted a huge gaping hole in the wall then teleported directly into the warden’s office. I don’t she needs to open any locks.
@Weaselboy: On RMMD – Or could she have been kidnapped by the Riddler?? Commissioner Gordon will have to bring in the Dynamic Duo on this case! That’s right, Shorty and Beanpole!
Luann: Speaking as someone who was in fact a professional musician who toured with bands, I have to agree with Josh here, even though it’s pretty clear Frank never actually PURSUED that “dream career.” For that matter, have we EVER seen this drip pick up an instrument? I think not.
Frank’s resentment isn’t because of his family (well, not entirely) it’s because he made a bad choice. I understand that completely: during the pandemic, I left Tennessee because there w/o a job I was screwed on health insurance. I became a teacher, a job that… well, it pays the bills.
When I see my friends on tour, however, I feel all sorts of bad and resentful–and I don’t have a kid as stupid as Luann or as ugly as Bwad to remind me of what a failure I am every day (my kid is actually smart and successful).
TBH, I will probably leave teaching sooner rather than later, because I miss the road badly.
@Liam: #5:
“did you even try”
He did but quit after the first setback. That’s where Luann got that trait from.
Judge Parker : The next dude April kills will simply quietly whisper a pithy “..Good grief…”
**********
Luann : … damn it, this is going to be the only strip this week that focusses on Frank, isn’t it? This would have been an EXCELLENT time to clarify what he does for a living besides “business stuff at the office building”, but no, let’s focus on the “Frank hates his family because he believes that he would have been a famous entertainer if they hadn’t forced him to give up on his dreams”
I wish Luann wasn’t so much an idiot, then I could accuse Frank of discouraging her from living HER dreams for the sole reason that he’s bitter he couldn’t make his come true…**************
Ripley’s Don’t Believe It :
a) She did this because her fiancé had KEPT the parachute, and was dragging it everywhere he went, like that one guy in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
b) Famously, this was changed because adaptations felt it was simpler to just have him be able to fly, and the 1940s version of “brand synergy” had the comics follow suit. The same can be said of him actually KNOWING he’s an alien from a distant star and that’s why he has powers.
c) Don’t ask which member of the family has the SLOWEST growth, though.
************
Slylock Fox : …I can’t come up with a good “the girl is an angel” joke, so I’ll just ask : if that’s not the intention, what’s with the ministerial robes?
MW: The Turtleback Zoo is not to far from Edison, NJ. Is this one of those monkeys with typewriters things?
“Hey. Who left a cellphone in the chimp enclosure?”
@brendancalling: Exactly. When has Frank ever shown any interest in music beyond his “I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up” bit? Hell, the Fuze doesn’t even have a karaoke night*. Did he play an instrument? Sing? Write lyrics? Did he have a band with some of his friends? Did they imagine themselves as more disaffected and enigmatic like Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine-style provocateurs, or quirky and upbeat a la Smash Mouth**? An eight year old might say something like “I wanna be a rock musician!” without any deeper thought, but teenagers have usually developed a passion for that kind of thing. The tl;dr is that Luann’s lazy, shallow apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
*To be fair, this may be a preventative measure against Wilbur Weston showing up for a crossover.
** Yes, I know Greg Evans still thinks Frank’s idea of “rock god” would be Jimi Hendrix or the Beatles, but I’m trying to be realistic here.
JP – That’s a bread knife. “Dear God, NO!! If you slice it that thick, the bread will never fit in the toaster!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Ain’t nobody can tie this cowpoke down or tell me what to do”
“I roam just as I please!”
“And now, folks… time for a quick ‘kissy-kissy’!”
“Hold it right there, Eugene! Don’t make a move!”
JP: Ah, good, it’s been far too long since April has been allowed to be senselessly violent in the name of
justiceAmericaher own bloodlust!Luann: If it’s any comfort, Frank, it’s your own lack of talent and not your family that’s holding you back.
JP: “Argh!” Says Randy. “These heads are heavy. Couldn’t you just collect scalps or something?”
@Anonymous: Luann’s “dream” is that one day she can go in the potty like a big girl. She’s a plucky fountain of optimism, so someday she’s sure that she can make her dreams come true.
Luann: Isn’t it canonical that Mrs Luann is quite hot, and is way out of Mr Luann’s league? Sort of like Sally Forth being out of Nebbish Weirdo Forth’s league, or Blondie and Dagwood’s weird marital situation?
C’shaft: Oh hey, he finally decided to give his wife a name! Still waiting on the personality, though.
Lio: At first I was all, “No, no, cubism doesn’t mean literal cubes,” but then I remembered the essence of cubism is breaking the subject down into its component elements which are then reorganized and reconstructed, so…yeah. Well played, Tatuli.
MW: We already did online dating scam a few years back, so I’m guessing AI chatbot this time around. Luckily for Widower Hart, curing the social detachment and desperate need for connection that made him prey to such a situation will be as easy as “Have you considered getting a chinchilla?”
RMMD: “Fortunately, in this age of sensationalism we don’t need to rely on credible information to tell a story. Here with me now is Brett Broman, host of the podcast “Eat the Woke,” to share his theories. Brett, you’ve claimed Lorna is involved in a secret plot to weaken the men of America by putting estrogen into energy drinks…”
Luann: You could say that “rock star” isn’t a reasonable career path, but plenty of bands from Frank’s youth are still successfully performing. Heck, he definitely has the look of a guy who could be in Weezer.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m rooting for Arther Zerro.
GT: Today the role of Coach Ochoa will be played by Troy Polamalu. This episode is brought to you by Head and Shoulders.
Dustin: The next day when Dustdad does show up at the office one of his co-workers says, “You should’ve made the effort to come to work, Ed. The boss was so grateful to the ones that did he sprung for cream-filled fancies in the morning and pizzas for lunch!”
MW/H&L: “Trixie is a lovely young woman, Mary! She loves to sunbathe and look after her family.”
Meanwhile…
“Chip what are you doing in there?”
“Just on the computer Mom [tee hee].
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: but if I’m promised she brings back that badass knife, I’m all for it.
DtM: Wait, is Dennis or Joey playing Ethan Frome, and how do they expect to stage this without Alice?
MW: “We found each other on the dating site Hot Romanian Women Fleeing Andrew Tate!”
FC:
RMMD:
DtM:
Luann – I tell people I became a operations trainer in healthcare because all the princess jobs were taken. Seeing the way princessing is going these days, I feel like I made a marginally better choice. Marginally, because healthcare is only slightly more stable than the royals.
And is Luann comparing to herself to her father when he was a “teen”? I’m sure the Evansii see her as a fresh-faced 17-year-old making her way in this crazy world, but it’s been awhile since I mentioned that I began reading Luann when we were both roughly 12 years old. I’ll be 52 later this year. And while I still hold out hope that eventually I’ll be famous, it’s about as likely as Luann getting laid in my lifetime. Or hers… however long that ends up being.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Oh I see where this is going now! Lorna left Hollywood to become the new Riddler! (Incel “outrage” on social media cause her to recede from society before her grand debut in Gotham.)
JP: This isn’t Kill Bill where a single person can kill countless people and get away with it.
These people who are just doing their jobs.
I’m certain the writer was thinking “April is a badass!” while I’m thinking “When’s her trial going to be set?”
Also, being a C.I.A Agent, she could just use her position to spring him out by talking to a few people and filing some forms. It’s just a regular prison, not a Middle-Eastern P.O.W Camp…
When does the pain and crying stop, Herb? When you die. Only when you die.
JP: Fun Fact: That scream CIApril’s latest victim “borrowed” from Charlie Brown has also frequently been “borrowed” by Calvin. Whether he knew it or not, Schulz was setting an enduring trend that both kid and violently dying grown man would later follow.
MW: Today’s installment indicates to me that Harvey is a scam victim. In a few months, we’ll hear all about it back on the Bum Boat. Or maybe he completely made “Trixie” up, as many suspect. Or maybe he’s delusional, and will abruptly decide that Toby is Trixie, setting himself up for a face-to-face showdown with Ian in…The Clash of the Pompous Axxes.
@The Rambling Otter: Actually, the comic being JUDGE Parker, I hope that this inevitably does lead to a trial.
I’ve been following this blog since Aldo (but didn’t start commenting until a few years later). I was probably around 16 at the time that storyline was running. Now I’m in my 30s, and the single most upsetting thing is going from thinking “this is old people humor” to relating to Herb and Jamaal. (I realize I’m not actually old, don’t get on my case, it’s relative.) No upper body strength to speak of…
@pugfuggly: Great, now I’m picturing Luann’s dad looking like Mike Shinoda in the MV for “In The End.” How dare.
Judge Parker: Randy and April spice up their love life with a little experimentation, discerning if Randy finds April castrating men with a bowie knife to be sexy. Turns out, he doesn’t. Lesson learned!
Luann: A huge part of Luann’s whole particular and bizarre brand of puritanism is that it constantly tries to do stuff like this where characters who don’t follow that ascetic ideology or didn’t follow it in the past are framed as having been pitiful, with them becoming much more happy and fulfilled when they abandon childish ideas like “enjoying life” or “having a personality” in favor of following rigid white picket fence conformity. And every single time the comic tries to do this, it fails at it catastrophically, instead accidentally portraying the carefree characters as normal, happy people running laps around it’s “heroes” and the converts as having become lifeless, bored husks of their former selves. Much to think about.
@Voshkod: “Unless you become a ghost, or end up in Hell. Wow, our reality is a real horror story isn’t it?”
“Groupie Mom?!?! The point of Groupies is that they are much younger than your mom!”
“As young as Luann?”
“Even younger!”
Judge Parker: To compare, in the series J.A.G, the protagonist’s brother spent a season in a Russian prison.
Clayton Webb who is the show’s resident C.I.A operative, got him out by….
going in guns ablazing… calling in a few favors.This comic is actually starting to tick me off, as it feels like it’s being written by a 7-year old.
“The good guy goes in, and kills ALL the bad guys, BAM! BOOM! PEW PEW PEW!!! Blows up their lair and saves EVERYONE!”
The fact that the poor soul could scream means that April did not cut his throat, meaning he probably stabbed him in the belly, for a slow and agonising death. Even without visual aid, Randy will not sleep
“Groupie mom” is the most clever thing the guy dribbling something out of his hamburger onto his McFries can think of.
Probably saw that classic “Anticipation” ketchup ad and can’t get it out of his head.
“Cover your eyes if you want to sleep”
“You think I will not be able to endure such an horrific image?”
“No, I fear it will awaken a fetish in both of us and we will never sleep again, too busy to experiment such new wondrous perversions!”
Or is that a hot dog? I don’t want to think about him massaging his hot dog until something squirts out.
“When does the pain and crying stop?” This is not really a question for an athlete, ask it to the reverend who regularly visit you. If you are not satisfied, try a Buddhist monk
“I chose the stability of a boring normal job instead of the excitement and instability of the arts”
“It’s a either/or choice”
“Well, there was a way to combine boredom with uncertain artistic work in a dying industry. But someone else took up the job of drawing “Luann”!”
@The Rambling Otter: I can see how it can be overlooked because of all the interminable quipping and pissyfaces, but if nothing else it’s been established that this prison is NOT in Norway and is NOT part of any governmental penal system, but is apparently some private complex (probably in some forgotten corner of the former Soviet empire) run by the Pavel mob for the express purpose of disappearing their enemies.
So, that’s Ces’ lampshade for all this: ll of CIApril’s victims are vicious mobsters or people who have chosen to work for vicious mobsters, so obviously they deserve to die in various horrible ways. /sarcasm
@ectojazzmage:
On Luann, and how “reforming” just makes you miserable : Case in point, the VERY FIRST storyline after Bets “reformed” (by vowing to be ONLY Gunther’s girlfriend from now on) was her being depressed and incapable of enjoying binging sci-fi shows like she used to.
…I’m *GUESSING* the intention was that Bets wasn’t sincere in her enjoyment of nerd stuff, and only “pretended” to care about it because she could monetize it, but…
(Bets, of course, is back to her lively and happy self now that she’s launched that cosplay-for-charity scheme)
@The Rambling Otter: Well, Herb has one other option. To be slowly written out of the strip as it transforms from Herb and Jamaal to Jamaal and Herb to Jamaal’s Place (Featuring Herb) to Jamaal!. Then he can exist for all eternity in the space between the panels with Lyman and (most of the time) Barney Google.
@The Rambling Otter: If you’re looking for nonsensical plots written by a seven-year-old where the good guy smashes the bad guys with lots of explosions, may I suggest the oeuvre of Fletcher Hanks? In particular “Stardust the Super Wizard”.
JP: So, um…the surviving prison guard in the warden’s office doesn’t have a gun? April can just mosey on up and turn either him, the warden, or both into pincushions with a hunting knife, and they’re completely helpless to stop her?
@Ken: An exemplar of the Golden Age of Comics.
@The Rambling Otter: Just like adult attempts to draw kid stick figure art look off-putting, not charming, a comic written by a *real* 7-year-old would be *far* more entertaining than this. Consider “Axe Cop”!
@matt w: #13:
“It would just be mean not to take Bogdan.”
Oh yeah. Just like Alan took Marie’s ex Roy, the guy who kept Alan alive while he was in prison.
@Rover Berkeley: Remember, these are patented Hollwood Spy Thriller Bad Guys. HSTBGs don’t *need* to bring their guns to their little threat sessions. Their fortress is impenetrable! Escape is impossible! Just leave your ranged weapons outside the door while you arrogantly laugh in the hero’s face. It’s not like the cavalry is going to come crashing through the wall at just the right moment!
BF: deal breaker. Running a French winery with her beloved was Maeves romantic fantasy. But marriage– bah!
RMMD: this could go three ways in medical strip: Lorna learns body acceptance by listening to Mudd at Glenville motel, Lorna has bariatric surgery, Lorna takes Ozempic. Or something else
MW: Since his last scam Arthu(e)r has upped his game in gotten more professional. When he contacts his male marks he dresses up in drag.
Crank: “It turns out that if you turn your lifelong hobby into a job, it actually involves doing pretty much the same things you were doing when it was a hobby.” It’s this sort of insight into the life of a creator that’s really justifying Skip putting all those Montoni’s pizzas on expenses, and then actually eating them.
Actually, to be fair, there is a bit of insight into the world of comic strips here. The whole time there’s been discussion on this site about how Sunday strips are coloured by the creators, but weekdays are coloured by the syndicate, followed by suggestions that the syndicate colourists are in a sweatshop somewhere with lax labour laws, it never once occurred to me to think “But what if the Sunday colouring is actually free labour by the cartoonist’s loved ones, and the syndicate sweatshop is better paid?” I feel so naive.
Curtis: Curtis talks back to his parents (well, maybe more Greg than Diane) all the frickin’ time! You can’t ignore that for the sake of a joke! Now if he’d told Chutney “I never feel guilty about things,” that would have made sense!
JP: “We’ll have time for questions later, my dear. We will absolutely not have time for answers!”
RMMD: “Weirdly, it turned out Starr didn’t want to appear on TV and talk about why she’s shunned publicity and lived in seclusion for nearly a decade! Who could have guessed, right?”
DT: Would someone act as a Mumbles translator – mine is not working this morning.
GT: hmmm, these kids are minors right, so broadcasting their names isn’t usually allowed right???
JP: What type of half-#$$ prison is this? Clearly this warden is more of a junior high school principal and that crossing guard helper of him is not much use if NotCIA April using a bread knife can kill these two dweebs.
MW: Just disappointed. Not mad, just disappointed on how trite this plot is coming on. C’mon, give us a peroxide big hair blonde with big silicone and 6 inch heels – who Toby, and the daughter, and Mary all tsk tsk but in the end Harvey was right. Her heart is true and she makes the remaining years of his life a good time.
RMMD: Okay, we get it – she was once a big deal like Julia Roberts big. Now she is just big. There could be a few schadenfreude stories with unflattering photos but it will blow over pretty fast in todays 24×7 social media celebrity coverage. Since Starr seems just want to live a quiet life, it will all blow over. It is not like she is trying to thrust herself in front of the camera.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Arthur the Scammer becoming a semi-regular would be one of the best things that could ever happen in this strip. I could see him wondering why he can never hook a fish from Charterstone. Gradually, he becomes aware of Mary and she becomes his white whale. If he can reel her in, he thinks, the rest of Charterstone is his for the catfishening! But then he realizes that her powers of manipulation are so much above and beyond his, so much more subtle and skillful than his crude cons, that he makes a face turn, tearfully repenting his ways so that he can become a better person and learn at the feet of the master—only to make a heel turn once more take his newfound knowledge back to the Dark Side to bedevil Mary from time to time when he feels like he needs a bit of a challenge.
@Charterstone: Dune: I look forward to their ultimate showdown at Santa Royale Falls.
Ripley: In 1947, Ruth Hensinger’s head and hands were chopped off on the morning of her wedding day.
Luann: I’ve noticed that the DeGroots are more than happy with a hotdog and handful of fries for dinner when it’s on their dime but when Pru was paying they went to a full service restaurant and ordered the most expensive things on the menu.
@taig: Wait, would that me Toby is Mary’s Watson? Has Toby been writing and drawing this strip the whole time? That would explain some things…
Phantom:
“She’s installed herself as the President of Ivory Lana, sir!”
@BigTed: I’m on a subreddit called “guitarcirclejerk” where we make fun of guitar nerds. One regular joke is about dentists who have 25 super-expensive guitars they never play–and how their wives are out boning someone else.
Frank DeGroot is EXACTLY the kind of person we make fun of. Except I don’t think he owns a guitar, and even if he did it’s probably a keytar. And he probably sits in the chair crying softly while his wife bones anyone but him.
@Ukulele Ike: I love this!
And it made me think of something I saw on the news scroll on a TV at the YMCA yesterday – a Utah woman who wrote a book (don’t know if it was a best-seller) about about grief from her experiences with grief after her husband died. This woman was just arrested and charged with murdering her husband.
Now that’s what I call entrepreneurship.
Phantom: Well, sir. You know how in every slasher movie the first victims are the couple who sneak off into the woods to make out? We think that’s what happened to Patrolwoman Han and Chuma.
JP: The serrated blade is very important. After the initial wet work, April is often called upon to saw through bones.
My snark seems to be taking a rather dark turn today.
@Charterstone: Dune: That works for me.
I realize these are very imperfect matches, but perhaps Dr. Jeff is Irene Adler, and Wilbur is Lestrade.
@Ukulele Ike: Headless Body Found in Topless Wedding Chapel!
@brendancalling: She seems like someone who would go for the bass player.
@taig: I suppose in a way, Dr Jeff is the anti-Irene. Irene Adler makes one appearance in the stories, which doesn’t suggest a romantic relationship between herself and Holmes (she ends the story married to some dude named Norton, having never actually met Holmes when one of them wasn’t in disguise) but fanon has decided otherwise. Moy, on the other hand, keeps telling us Mary and Jeff’s relationship is romantic, and nah.
@taig: Hmmm….but what about the Baker Street Irregulars? Saul, Eve, and Estelle? Or maybe just their pets?
JP: You’re witnessing Randy’s O-face in the second panel. He just made a spontaneous mess in his pants. He’s never been so aroused in his life.
Luann: Frank, by contrast, comes to terms with his boner-shrinking life choices.
@Horace Broon: To Dr. Jeff, she is always the woman. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Mary Worth. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was Mary Worth, of dubious and questionable meddling.
@Horace Broon: Thank you for articulating why I thought Jeff was an utterly ironic choice.
@Charterstone: Dune: As the strip has become more pet-centric, I can definitely see Libby, Max, Sunny, and the rest as the Irregulars.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Now that’s what I call entrepreneurship.
Write what you know. Fill in any gaps with good research using primary sources. Get your hands dirty. I think these words of wisdom come from Strunk and/or White, the famous co-defendants.
@Voshkod: Nicely done!
@brendancalling: LUANN: Frank actually was in a band at one point. If you have archive access see the strip for March 30, 2003.
@taig: I can definitely see Libby, Max, Sunny, and the rest as the Irregulars.
Saul Wynter is of an age that he’s probably pretty irregular too.
@Bob Tice:
#110. PHANTOM: Right on! Was it BH&G that had the motto, “Never underestimate the power of a woman.”?
@Guillermo el chiclero: It was Les paying, but the point still stands. And let’s not forget that Luann invited herself along despite the fact that it was a business dinner and she has nothing to do with the business. That was the moment where Frank became dead to me, as it’s beyond rotten for a business owner to let his lowest-paid employee buy dinner for his whole family when he could’ve written it off as a business expense. What a bunch of scumbags. Sure, Les deserved to lose his money (it being funds he embezzled from a fundraiser he was trusted to oversee) but that doesn’t excuse Frank’s actions.
BF – “Yes! Yes, I do, Benoit!”
“Cool! I want to marry my secretary from the Paris office. Whom do you want to marry?”
This is one of those moments when it’s extra important to phrase things unambiguously.
@Maude R. Fawker: You make an excrement point.
“A Wonder™ bread winning star! Congratulations, Frank, I’m Roger Bakerman,from Hostess Brands P.R.! You just won this trunk full of delicious Wonder™ Bread, builds bodies 69 ways! Its a Major Award!”
@Bryan: I’ll have to take your word for it, I don’t have access to the archives.
@Bryan: I’ll have to take your word for it, I don’t have access to the archives.
@BigTed: I’m a bass player, and I wouldn’t fuck Ms. DeGroot with Harvey Harveson’s dick!
@Ukulele Ike: Is that FWE’s audition headshot used in the antler growing story?
Dennis Minus Menace: Is a 10(?) year old suddenly breaking out his Ethel Merman impression, menacing or not menacing? Why or why not?
@taig: I have made an image.
@Bryan: #130: It wasn’t just Luann invited along. Didn’t B-Wad, Toni, and brat Shannon come along for the free feed?
MW- ” And nothin’ else matters in the whole world when you’re in love with a Jersey girl “
@GarrisonSkunk: #133: As a kid I hated those old Wonder Bread commercials. They claimed a child gets 90% off their adult size by age 12. I used to do the math when I hit 12 and stood 5’1″. It meant I was only going to be 5’6″ when I grew up. I ended up 6’2″. So fuck you and suck ass Wonder Bread.
@Lauralot: That is fantastic!
GT: I get the announcers would know players are suspended for team rules reasons, but a criminal charge should not be discussed publicly since they are minors and it is not yet proven.
JP: OH, I get it now. This is whole prison sequence is a story Charlotte is telling Neddy to help her deal with the anxiety of April and Randy being away, and the prospects of Charlotte being Neddy’s charge forever looming.
MW: Too bad. Not angry, just very disappointed. Could have been a much better story if Trixie turns out to be a nick name of Patricia, a girl who is down on her luck and trying to get by with the help of her new gentleman friend, Harvey.
Phantom: okay, now that you’ve buried lede 6 feet under, now someone is interested in General Chum.
RMMD: Today’s 24×7 celebrity social media coverage means once the first few schadenfreude pictures are over, the circus moves on. Starr should just grit her teeth and move on. Unless deep down she wants to be a big star again, then she knows what she is getting into.
Is Mary Worth like the Phantom? How many THE GHOST WHO MEDDLES have there been over the years? Did Old Man Mayo foresee the parrot arc? Did he warn Mary about the AC unit? What happens if you look directly into Mary’s eyes? Does Mary mark her victims with her Salmon ring?
I know Luann has some sort of slow-time sliding timescale shenanigans going on, but as a man who currently has kids who are in their early-mid 20s, that means Luann’s dad would have been an aspiring rock star in the 90s and I really want to see that. You think he was a Frosted Tips and Bowling shirts kinda guy? Or a long, greasy hair and ratty clothes kinda guy? I guess what I’m saying is that I want him to roll up his sleeves and show off a bunch of tattoos.
Luann- Don’t they know Frank was a shooting star?
@Ukulele Ike: Ripley: In 1947, Ruth Hensinger’s head and hands were chopped off on the morning of her wedding day.
___________________________________________________________
Did they go on with the wedding? “Do you take this blood stained torso to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
@BigTed: The wives NEVER go for the bass player. This is why Phil Lesh, Jack Casady, John Entwhistle, Jack Bruce, and John Paul Jones were all so good at chess.
Bass Player: “Knight to king’s bishop four! Check!”
Bassist’s Wife, in next room with Guy Who Carries in the Amps: “Uh! OOOOOOOO! Oh Goddddddd….!”
@GarrisonSkunk: They cleaned her up! Didn’t you look at the comic?
@GarrisonSkunk: re Ripleys: Good eye, Garry! Yes, that’s Formerly Wounded Elk’s audition headshot from our archives. One of the best racks in the business. He’s been incommunicado lately – word in the Wood is that he’s retired to the Old Comics Character’s Home, Wildlife Section. Or at least that’s.the story I got from some Buzzards Circling Overhead. Can’t vouch for its veracity.
“Winning isn’t everything, but the blood of a hot dog-skinned asshole on your hands is EVERYTHING.”
– Judge Parker Charlie Brown
@Jay Fawley: If that doesn’t put a light bulb over your head, I don’t know what will.
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There’s a Ford™ in his future.
@Lauralot: Piccadee Falls! With a strength born of hate…!
@Professor Well Actually:
How come she’s the only useless lifeform in a family of…somewhat less useless lifeforms. Your question stands, sir.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I was so gobsmacked by the bride’s missing head and hands, I didn’t even notice the rack. Thanks!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Thank you. Icy compresses and regular doses of Tylenol have been helping.
@A Grave Mind: Judge Parker Charlie Brown
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The reprint volume “HAPPINESS IS BREAKING A WARM PUPPY OUT OF THE SUPER MAX DOG POUND” is now available in Josh’s CC gifts page! Right next to the full size Cassandra Cat pillows.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Would you believe one of those clickbait ads tried to convince me FWE had died while partying on Charlie Sheen’s party boat.Knowing the backstory of what happened on the set of “Two And A Half Men And An Elk”, I didn’t believe a word of it.
DT:
Wait, Mumbles. I’ve gotta hit him again, hit him again.
Why, Double Up? He’s already out cold and I’ve got his gun.
Hey, I’m Double Up. I stick to my brand, stick to my brand.
@GarrisonSkunk:
Way to clear out my bank account, GARRISONSKUNK!
@GarrisonSkunk: Mary Worth is actually Heloise in her later expatriate years.
@A Grave Mind: Way to clear out my bank account, GARRISONSKUNK!
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I hope Josh will be nice enough to note my service directing people to his gift shop when he chooses the next COTW. And I didn’t even have to mention the Thel Keane® Jutting Jugs™ remote control holder with kung fu grip and AC adapter.
JP: Did April just murder the warden or did she use the hunting knife to scrape off that mustache he was trying to cultivate? Some dreams die hard.
Luann: Please, kids. This is theoretically a place where people go to eat.
LUANN: Yeah the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Frank’s history of even holding a musical implement much less working toward that goal in any way is bullshit. There is only one instrument that this doofus is has ever played with, and it’s the organ, if you catch my drift. (And even then, I heard he was very off-rhythm)
Crankshaft – This rambling, pointless shaggy dog story will win the Pulitzer for sure.
FC – What is stale cake? Dessert has never gone stale at my house.
Pluggers – He’s driving around with that chair because he can’t get it through his head that the garbage truck won’t pick it up unless it’s wrapped in plastic.
Mary Worth – Wait until Ascot Man learns that Trixie is actually Princess Trixie, Nigerian royalty.
C-Shaft: “Until one day Cathy stuck her whole arm up in the air and yelled ‘Ack! I’m outta here!’”
Crock: He…hasn’t been hiding the fact that he’s a spy. You could just take note of all the times you’ve seen him in giant shades and an incongruous trenchcoat.
DT: “Repeat, the fugitives are considered armed and dangerous, and their speech impediments are highly comical.”
Dustin: I was briefly stunned and unnerved that Kelley and Parker seemed to have three month foresight into northeastern weather conditions. Then I remembered “snow and ice in February, duh.”
GT: It’s way too confusing to call the hoop “the bucket” when that’s also the name of the greasy spoon where all the Milford scholar athletes hang out.
MW: Yeah, it looks like Moy is going back to the catfishing well with neckwear enthusiast Harvey, so those waiting for a coming out storyline will have to hope that Keith Hillend has more estranged offspring, which in truth is a pretty good chance.
Phantom: Since the propeller on that helicopter seems to be running I assume there are some “what’s” being edited out of the dialogue.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I hope its Arther.
@Hibbleton: One of the infinite number of monkeys must have written the story about those fucking parrots.
@I speak Jive: Mary Worth – Wait until Ascot Man learns that Trixie is actually Princess Trixie, Nigerian royalty.
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Or Trixie Norton,Brooklyn royalty.
@I speak Jive: Mary Worth – Wait until Ascot Man learns that Trixie is actually Princess Trixie, Nigerian royalty.
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Does Ascot Man like Particle Man?
CS: This is the second time a calendar has been introduced into the story. I get the impression that meeting deadlines was a problem.
I’m supposed to have a comment between #162 and here but it hasn’t shown up yet.
@I speak Jive: @Hibbleton: One of the infinite number of monkeys must have written the story about those fucking parrots.
___________________________
It was Chim-Chim, the one that hides in the trunk of the Mach 5,you can tell because the gas fumes affected the storyline.
@GarrisonSkunk: Punch would have grounded the story, but the other monkeys excluded him.
@I speak Jive: #164: re-FC: It’s kind of like those insulated beer koozies. I have no use for them because an open beer doesn’t live long enough around me to get warm.
@Peanut Gallery: Cool…”Cowboy Spy vs.Cowboy Spy”.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Is that what they’re for? I thought it was to prevent discomfort to one’s bare hand when gripping an ice-cold can.
Popeye: Are we sure Roughouse didn’t use Wimpy to make the hamburgers?
@Guillermo el chiclero: No, I’m pretty sure that when Les attempted to take Pru on a date (not knowing she was a lesbian), she thought it was a business dinner and brought along Frank, Nancy, and Luann. Brad, Toni, and Shannon were not present if I recall correctly.
As #130 Bryan points out, it was extremely inappropriate for Frank as a business owner to expect his lowest-paid employee to pay for dinner for his family (including Luann, who was not even an employee of the business) when Les had not even invited them.
JP: On top of all the gruesome agonizing carnage, April and her husband both have terrible taste in hats.
MT: The animals-to–people ratio in the newish MT really needs to be improved.
MW: RUH-roh. Time to cut to the chase and ask Happy H*a*rvey exactly how much money he has already sent to his new fake squeeze.
GA: By a rather-unnerving coincidence, today I actually did receive a piece of mail that was somehow mangled by the Post Office. The ripped-apart envelope and check had both been placed in a small sealed transparent plastic envelope with a little note of explanation and apology. It was an interesting first for me, but not worthy of a week-long story. Obviously Scancarelli begs to differ.
JP. Randy turns his head as April commits hari-kari.
@Old School Allie Cat: OK, fine, but is princessing better than Scrum Master? I think so.
@Banjo: We should be so lucky. It’s more likely that the murders will be stretched out over Friday and Saturday. All panels will be closeups of Randy’s tightly-shut eyes, with word balloons “AUUUGH!”, “No! Please (gurgle)”, “(chop chop squish)”, “I have a wife and child–AAA”, and so on. Sunday will repeat this week’s action from April’s entrance to the murder. Then Monday through Friday of next week will be Randy and April, still in the office, recapping it again to meet the strip’s “tell, don’t show” quota.
@The Rambling Otter: “The good guy goes in, and kills ALL the bad guys, BAM! BOOM! PEW PEW PEW!!! Blows up their lair and saves EVERYONE!”
These days, this is precisely what I seek out in my entertainments. Spare me the conflicted hero paralyzed by remorse. I’ll take the “BAM! BOOM! PEW PEW PEW!!!” please. But this is Judge Parker, and next we’re going to have a week long litany of the chips on April’s shoulder.
@Horace Broon: Now if he’d told Chutney “I never feel guilty about things
And Chutney would look straight past that red flag.
@Ken: Bwahaha! From now on, “(chop chop squish)” will be the motto of this prison story for me.
C-Shaft: “Until one day Cathy stuck her whole arm up in the air and yelled ‘Ack! I’m outta here!’”
Crock: He…hasn’t been hiding the fact that he’s a spy. You could just take note of all the times you’ve seen him in giant shades and an incongruous trenchcoat.
DT: “Repeat, the fugitives are considered armed and dangerous, and their speech impediments are highly comical.”
Dustin: I was briefly stunned and unnerved that Kelley and Parker seemed to have three month foresight into northeastern weather conditions. Then I remembered “snow and ice in February, duh.”
GT: It’s way too confusing to call the hoop “the bucket” when that’s also the name of the greasy spoon where all the Milford scholar athletes hang out.
MW: Yeah, it looks like Moy is going back to the catfishing well with neckwear enthusiast who cannot be named, so those waiting for a coming out storyline will have to hope that Keith Hillend has more estranged offspring, which in truth is a pretty good chance.
Phantom: Since the propeller on that helicopter seems to be running I assume there are some “what’s” being edited out of the dialogue.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Just to be clear, those are all for Wednesday comics. I didn’t realize the New Old Guy’s name in Mary Worth was still spambot verboten.
Silly Ascot Guy! Trixie’s are for kinks!
@Joshua K.: LUANN: You’re correct in all that. It was framed as comeuppance for Les since the money he had was ill-gotten and he hadn’t been honest in his intentions towards Pru, but that comeuppance required Frank to do something I find literally unforgivable. I’ve despised the character ever since. Fuck him and his weird sideways mouth.