Thursday affirmations
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The Lockhorns, 3/5/26
I love that Leroy has decided to turn what could’ve been a brief snide remark into an act out, as if he could peel off the vinyl siding to find the giant gumdrops underneath. Never doubt this man’s commitment to a bit, or to the larger bit that is his wildly dysfunctional marriage!
Hi and Lois, 3/5/26
This is no doubt supposed to be a boomer slam on “kids today and their participation trophies, it makes them weak,” but that’s undermined by how happy and well-adjusted Ditto and his friend look. Yeah, he’s great at participation! And who wouldn’t want to be an enthusiastic participant in all that life has to offer?
Gil Thorp, 3/5/26
[Coach Thorp is still without his best three players.] “Hey, you guys considered showing depth of character and winning?” [Final: Tilden 54, Milford 60!] The man’s still got it!
Beetle Bailey, 3/5/26
“Also, he’s an adult! Why did you think this was even vaguely appropriate?”
78 replies to “Thursday affirmations”
I’m sorry to inform you that the “Beetle Bailey” writer has found out about age play. I am really sorry
Now Beetle dreams of electric sheep, and horrifying possibilities open before us. Way to go, guys.
Gil: “You girl did a great job on the basketball field! Would you also be interested in substituting my daughter full time out of it?”
RMMD-The hotel also charges by the hour.
GT:
‘ ‘Tilden 54, Milford 60’ — why is the score backwards, Coach Thorp???”
“Because everything about this strip is backwards, ladies!”
I agree with Josh, there is something off with this boomer humour from Hi and Lois. It’s subtle and winking, where is the acrimony and contempt?
“It’s true, Ditto, utter mediocrity is a blissful state. Now let’s go have a Mr. Pibb, and watch something on Bravo.”
“Great job girls, you defeated Tilden by few points! Unfortunately, the cost of winning was removing civil rights and physical protection from black people in the South!”
B. Bailey: Strange that it’s Sarge correcting an officer but I guess he knows Beetle only responds to a violent pummeling which is definitely inappropriate.
So today’s Gil Thorp interpretatin is: Hatless Dick Tracy! What will tomorrow bring?!
Is this the first time Leroy has visited his wife’s mother’s house? Are… are the Lockhorns newlyweds?!
The way Lt. Fuzz is drawn is way off. I’m worried that team Beetle Bailey may be starting to put a little less care into their work.
@Ettorre: brilliant
Let’s appreciate that Ditto is such a loser that he has not even won ONCE a participation trophy!
The top scorer was no doubt the guy in the Pippi Longstockings wig over Gil’s left shoulder.
Beetle Bailey : You know how certain art styles cause cartoon character designs to not work in 3D? Because, man, Beetle Bailey’s head as seen from the back…
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Gil Thorp : is taking credit for his students solving the problem on their own with minimal input from him. At least some things don’t
degrade into everyone being lumpy, misshapen potatoeschange!***********
Lockhorns : “Keep that up, Leroy, and my mom will put on her seven-leagues-boots before kicking your ass out.”
***********
Moose & Molly : …I think it’s really weird to be on a first-name basis with the guy robbing your place, even if he hits your house twice in a week.
***********
Slylock Fox : is not safe for Baja today.
….
EXTRA DIFFERENCE : In the panel on the right, the clown is taunting the reader. In the panel on the left, he’s taunting the caption above him.
High and Lower – Good job, Josh, on calling out the hate toward participation trophies. I admire people who do things even (maybe especially) when they’re not great at it. There is nothing wrong with recognition for getting involved. Now if Thirsty Thurston were to get a participation trophy, there might be some humor potential there.
H and L:
“Are you being sincere, Ditto?”
“Nah. The essence of participatory sports activity in America is to taunt your opponents, both while you’re crushing them and after you’ve crushed them. And if you can’t handle that, become an expat, okay?”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: “You like my participation trophy, Hi?”
“That’s great Thirsty! What is it for?”
“No idea, I snatched it from a child during a drunken bender”
The best thing anyone ever said about participation trophies: “We didn’t ask for them. We didn’t want them. We had to throw them out in secret so we wouldn’t hurt *your* feelings. If I’d known my parents’ generation would turn them into a symbol of their own smug superiority, I’d have told them where they can shove that cheap plastic trophy.”
Luann Note to comics writers: We can see the past strips, y’know. And if your protagonist thinks that a few sentences that her interviewees already summarized for her is a ton of information to organize and present, well, she should be looking into something more basic than “career paths”. Maybe even group home options for the cognitively impaired.
I don’t want to see Luann sitting down to write her actual school project from the interviews she’s done. I want to see Skip Rawlings sit down to write his actual news story from the interviews *he’s* done.
GT:
“Coach, are you going as Efrem Zimbalist Jr. for Halloween?”
@Ettorre: You should be writing that strip.
Lh I like the idea that Leroy is doing a bit here, but let’s not exclude the possibility that he has gotten himself fall-down drunk in anticipation of this visit to the point that he doesn’t remember a house that he has surely been to multiple times before.
BB “Beetle likes being punished by Sarge”. …you know what, its been done.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – Hourly rate? I think Mud rents them in 15-minute increments.
MW: Wait, wait, wait, Mary got a cat offscreen?! We didn’t see her go to the shelter and test the felines to see which one most effectively aided her meddling? And why is that cat gray when Mary specifically stated she always wanted an orange cat? Is Mary colorblind or is the colorist? I demand to speak to a manager.
@CanuckDownSouth: I still say Luann is a subtle jab at the American upper middle class, and their useless, over-schooled but under-skilled offspring. Luann’s not cognitively impaired, she’s just been coddled for way too long.
DT: Chekov’s Whip! When you show the whip, you must deliver!
GT: Just one more entry on the long list of oddities that makes one wonder how well the writer and artists know US high school sports. “playdown”??? and listing the losing team first. Is Milford actually a US enclave in some place in the world? Like it is its own pocket universe, and over time terms and usage from Europe, Canada and elsewhere creep in.
MW: Cheerleader? Maybe a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
Phantom: Busted! So, Jungle Patrol got dragged into regime change by Patrolperson’s independent action? The colonel is pissed because they blew this year’s fuel, ammo, and overtime funding on this foray. Sure, it looks good on camera, freed a lot of enslaved people and in general did good, but Patrolperson did not fill out form 1043, proposal for inter-national intervention with subschedule A (regimen change), B (budget for refugees), and C (budget for nation building).
RMMD: There hs a been griping about how the strip has swerved into roots country, stalking, would be vigilante crime finders, but here we see the strip is about to go back to its medical roots. We finally get a good look at Starr and it appears she has a goiter. This would explain her symptoms, and her ennui towards stardom. RMMD despite wearing an eyepatch will diagnose and treat her adding endocrinology and endocrine surgery to his list of abilities.
Luann – Does this mean that Evans is going to pull the plug on the strip?
GT – Helluva pencil-thin Boston Blackie moustache on the far left girl in the first panel.
Pluggers – a penny was already charging way over the odds for a Plugger thought.
Hi and Lois: Sure, the biggest trophy that kid has is for participation, but he’s also got one for…kicking? And what looks like a tiny barber’s pole, so his coiffure is probably his own, and one that’s so abstract it could be for anything but it’s still an award. Good job, kid, your trophy for participation is well earned!
@16 Anonymous: on Slylock Fox: Thanks for the warning. I’ll skip the strip today, mystery man/woman/dog.
Hi and Lois: I have personally and individually died several times during awards ceremonies where they handed out medals for each and every sniveling rat-faced little git who showed up that day. Chess tournaments: not even once, man.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’m limited by my complete inability to draw, but thanks
Enough with the time out jokes! Let’s talk about how everyone in this strip has a supremely weird right ear!
@Weaselboy: @Everything Is Better With Monkeys:
Also Hi and Lois: “Wow, you’re really prepared for a lifetime of Employee of the Month, 15 years of Service and World’s Best Dad awards! What more could an anonymous drone friend want?!”
Ditto’s friend got a trophy for goose-stepping from his local Hitlerjugend cell
The Lockhorns: I think the bit here is less “Your mother is a witch who eats children” than “I’m disappointed I can’t feast on calorie-dense foodstuffs supporting your mother’s house,” given those antennae popping up from Leroy’s head.
Lockhorns: After 57 years of marriage, Leroy and Loretta are finally taking the next step, and meeting each other’s parents. Good luck, you crazy kids!
BB: I’ll be having nightmares about how Beetle’s ears look from behind.
Phantom: Everyone looks aghast at Dai’s arrest for her bit of freelance policing, and rightly so! “Don’t we work for a supposedly immortal purple-suited jungle vigilante? Were—were we supposed to be following the law this whole time? Are laws even real?”
Pluggers: I like how much dog plugger enjoys this play on words. You just know he’s gonna use this little play on words on literally everybody he meets for the rest of the day if not the rest of his life (on until they discontinue the nickel, which also costs more to produce than its nominal value).
Slylock: The syndicate has digitally scrambled the background leading me to conclude this strip originally appeared Bob Jr.’s DeviantArt page and the two extra differences relate to the now obscured Caligulan background bacchanal.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Bad news: Leroy’s a termite. Good news: There are professionals who’ll exterminate him for a very reasonable price.
Pluggers: I’ve been playing poker with my family for 1 cents bets/5 cents limit since the 1980s. I’ve been begging for an inflation adjustment, but it’s still 1c/5c. So this Plugger-friendly adjustment in stakes would actually be an improvement in my case.
Maybe Loretta’s mother hates Leroy because she wants him to give her some grandchildren — to cook — and Leroy is like “Loretta and I disagree on everything except the fact that we will never be so cruel to bring children into this marriage!”
LH: Meanwhile, Loretta’s mother has turned off all the lights and is pretending not to be home. She is NOT in the mood for their shit right now.
GT: THE MILFORD GIRLS BASKETBALL WIN KEEPING THEIR PLAYDOWNS DREAMS ALIVE! Meanwhile, whoever wrote that caption has to settle for a participation trophy.
Speaking of participation trophies…
HL: How appropriate that the soccer participation trophy appears to show a child kicking at the empty air. Actually making contact with a ball even once during a season would have qualified him for an “Elite Participation” trophy.
Wow, still a lot of strong feelings out there re: participation trophies. At least they participated. The other trope is that these fat lazy kids don’t go outside anymore.
I remember when my kids were little, my son got one for rec league t-ball. My daughter signed up the next year. No way she would have done that without the trophy.
CS: kids these days– preternaturally practical
JP: old judges these days– belatedly practical. (Fact: alcohol related dementia is the one kind that is reversible, at least in part. First, the client must go dry, then use mentally challenging tasks, such as chess or crosswords.)
Gil Thorp: When they said this contest was tilted in Milford’s favor, they really meant it.
@Schroduck: SOL [Snicker out loud]
Beetle Bailey: As always, I’ll wait to hear what Voshkod has to say about the UCMJ has to say about corporal punishment viz. Dennis the Menace cosplay.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I think the Boomer opposition to participation trophies is at odds with Boomer complaints that their kids don’t do anything outside anymore. But if they want to join an organized sport, go to practices, become more skilled and physical fit, and learn how to play with teammates, their parents would begrudge them a trivial reward for putting in the effort?
Also, the idea that only winners should get trophies is a sign that parents are taking youth sports far too seriously.
@Charterstone: Dune: They really should have eliminated pennies, nickels, and dimes by now. And one-dollar bills, since coins are much more durable than bills, and this would force people to use them. Hell, we should have a two-dollar coin by now.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Agreed, but chess is literally the only sport I’ve seen with participation medals or trophies. Maybe they do it differently in other places, but in Northeast Wisconsin, not so much.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yeah, I always participation awards for what they were: a condescending pat on the head saying “awww, you did your best.” It was never the highlight of field day–that was getting to run around outside rather than sit in class and get snacks afterwards.
MW: WHAT TH– #&*@/%??? Where did they get that CAT?? I told The Ladies I had a couple of good hypoallergenic candidates for them to interview… and they were ORANGE, not some shade of purplish gray!
I can’t believe they went behind my back and picked up some random unvetted Feline. After all I’ve done for their comic’s survival and acclaim!! This is outrageous! They think they can just bypass our contract for Animal Star placements? We’l just SEE about that…
@Banana Jr. 6000: I’m mostly in agreement with you, but I think the denominations should be weirder, like, prime numbers only, or the Fibonacci sequence.
@Activist: It’s funny that Pam manages to get offended by her son and daughter-in-law’s practicality. They’ve been running a business and raising a child for years, so it makes sense that they’d talk to their accountant about the financial impact of marriage, if only in a minor conversation about other matters.
GT: I might be more willing to believe that Gil is the Best Coach in the World, succeeding at turning these second-stringers into a winning team where Assistant Coach Ochoa failed, if his input involved more than trite inspirational cliches that wouldn’t make the cut for a locker room poster.
L’horns: Loretta’s just mad because Leroy is going for the low-hanging “she’s a witch” fruit with his mother-in-law. Come on, Leroy! You’re not even trying with your hateful spite anymore!
Gil Thorp: This grimdark basketball team! They look like they gathered around Gil to kill and devour him!
Oh? That’s what happened? In between panels, they murdered and ate beloved comics icon Billy Thurp? Huh. Carry on.
There’s no way Loretta’s mother got a new house in this economy, so after years of marriage this is either the first time they’ve ever visited her or Loretta’s finally decided it’s time to introduce Leroy to her family to prove to them she hasn’t been lying, this is what he’s really like.
***
Hi and Lois is moving on from its no jokes phase to it’s bitterness and venom era.
***
Lt. Fuzz is using his rank to indulge in his kinks.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I once knew a woman who repped for a firm that sold trophies. She used to say that when everyone won, Marla won.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Sid, Sid. It’s Mary Worth. Everything is some shade of purplish-grey. Mary’s clothes, Toby’s clothes, the cat, the sky, the salmon squares…
GT — “Go out there and show them what you’re made of.”
But, coach, we want to win!
@Banana Jr. 6000: Exactly. All the hate seems to go to the kids getting the trophies as if they appeared out of thin air.
Anyway, technically speaking aren’t silver and bronze medals also participation trophies? “You didn’t win, but hey, you did better than most of the other people. Here’s a medal for losing slightly less than the others.”
Aaaaand Comics Kingdom is down for me.
C’shaft: “Really, the only reason we’re getting married at all is so we can file jointly.”
Lio: Look, respect for the classics and all, but stop motion doesn’t begin and end with Ray Harryhausen. Or are you afraid the Aardman Animation people will sue if you drew Wallace and Gromit in there?
Luann: And that’s when Luann realized she had absolutely nothing to work with, either from her family’s input or her own resources.
I thought Pluggers’ usual expression was, “A used condom for your thoughts.”
H&L: I really can’t make fun of anyone for a participation trophy. I’m a runner, and every single race I’ve been in–from a 5K to a marathon–has given me a participation medal (the actual winners get a more substantial award).
Luann: That’s not a “ton of info to process and organize.” Your dad took the easy but depressing route to stability, as you noted yesterday: he “swapped dreams for duties” (no wonder you’re such a disappointment to him, Luann, you have neither). Your mom is a tabula rasa who has no interests other than being your mom, fucking your dad (?), and “running a business” that we rarely see. Your brother–who inexplicably seem to be the only one in your mentally deficient family to have brain–was inspired by 9/11 to become a fireman, and met a hot broad who got inspired him to embrace personal hygiene.
Luann, continued: I’m actually pretty irritated by this whole arc, the message of which was articulated in yesterday’s middle panel. The key to success, according to the Evansii, is “Get a hottie, dump your dreams, be normal.” Are Greg and Karen Evans typical Californians? Because they really exemplify the trope that Californians are nice but not kind.
RMMD: Calling it now: Mud and the Movie Star fall in love and get married. Probably at the fucking Glenwood Diner. Also, too, looks like both Truck and Mud like ’em thicc–don’t be mean, there’s more to love!
Arlo and Janis is always a joy. 10/10, no comments.
H/L – I have a participation trophy from the Miss Roswell High School Pageant. I have kept it for decades, and it typically ends up in my cubicle at work. The inscription just reads “Miss Roswell High 1991”, People may believe that means I won the pageant. I don’t discourage that belief. You don’t know – I could have been pageant-grade back in the early 90s.
JP: Randy, April and Bog Dan burst through the front door. April pulls out a silencer and puts one in Alan’s forehead. Boggy pulls off his mask and reveals he’s the real Alan. Ann says matter of factly; “I knew Alan couldn’t play chess.” Everyone laughs.
@TheDiva:
#66 Diva, thx. It’s not just me, eh? (Can’t wait to see new cat that snuck into MW strip)
Comics Kingdom is up to its usual fine standard. Only one of the strips I usually read has loaded, everything else is giving me a 500 error.
@Pozzo: re: GT: Once you acclimate to the current artist’s style, you recognize that the ugly people with short hair are boys and the ugly people with long hair are girls. Except for the long haired boys and short haired girls.
@Ukulele Ike:
Okay, but how do you tell which ones are the girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they’re boys who do boys like they’re girls?
I am now 100% convinced that Gil Thorp takes place in Canada. You can change the artist, but you cannot change the playdowns.
For God’s sake! Why has Leroy’s upper lip been SHARPENED INTO FLESH KNIVES???
H&L is working Pluggers side of the street.
Tomorrow, we enjoy a pithy zinger about wimps who need counseling after yet another school shooting!
GT: For years, I’ve puzzled over this recurring term “playdowns”. Isn’t it supposed to be “playoffs”?