Fraught greetings
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Luann, 4/6/26
So at some point in the long stretch when I was demonstrating self-care and not reading Luann, there was some kind of romantic/emotional entanglement between Bernice and a guy named “Piro,” which I have learned about peripherally but have never sought out further details on. I guess the fool’s paradise I’ve been living in ends today, though, and I’ll soon be learning more than I ever wanted to know. For today I mostly just wanted to point out that the Luann brain trust apparently decided to start a plot with a booty call text, learned that “u up?” is a popular format for such a message, and couldn’t bring themselves to introduce such a barbarism in their comic, so they did the best they could with it.
Mary Worth, 4/6/26
OK, I have to hand it to Mary, “He had a girlfriend … and now he doesn’t. He’s upset about it” is an extremely funny way to describe the Harvey story to this point. Still, I feel like if you wanted to pull an emotionally distant adult child back into her father’s life, “He sent $200,000, which presumably you would have been in line to inherit, to someone he’s never met in person” would be a somewhat more effective hook? I don’t mean to tell Mary how to do her business, though, and Sharon’s reaction seems to indicate that “salacious gossip” may be the best on-ramp to get her involved in the situation.
Judge Parker, 4/6/26
Bogdan update! Just moments after Bogdan was punched in the throat by Neddy, an unnamed third party has begun bludgeoning him with a baseball bat, or a cricket bat, or maybe a fraternity paddle? Whatever it is, it’s definitely something you don’t want to be hit in the head with, even if you hadn’t just been punched in the throat, and, as we’ve discussed, Bogdan has been punched in the throat relatively recently.
56 replies to “Fraught greetings”
JP:
“That’ll teach you for recommending Gimbels over Macy’s, Mr. Kringle!”
Poor Bogdan. Easily the most sympathetic character in Judge Parker since the TV reporter who insulted everyone–only committed one brutal murder just off-panel–and they treat him like this.
JP:
“Ow! — that’s not ‘cricket’ !”
“Sure it is!”
JP: Amy Wong from Futurama does not like her catch phrase uttered from Bogdan’s filthy mouth.
JP: Sophie has no idea what’s going on but figures she’d just join in on the beat down for fun.
“Spasibo, ser, mozhno mne yeshchyoh?!”
Thank you, sir, may I have another, in Russian. Google is fun, sometimes
JP: I’m guessing the unnamed party in panel 2 is a puppet from a “Punch & Judy” show.
MW: Mary’s sense of urgency prompted her to call Sharon, but her sense of drama is making her drag out the reasons for reaching out in the first place. It’s annoying. Still, I’m taking strange comfort in knowing that Mary Worth’s glacial pacing is also being imposed on the characters themselves who have to wait interminably for salient details. We are not alone.
“I dunno, Bernice. Maybe if you bought me like, a girl fish, I could give you some advice in these matters! Holy shit, I can talk! Your whole playlist sucks!”
JP: It’s the raspberry-haired brat, isn’t it? Look at those tiny hands, and the fact that she’s been presented as just off-kilter enough to have a cricket bat in the first place. Probably a gift from Grandmother Blythe Danner. How did she manage to run all the way to where she’d stashed it and back to Neddy in a matter of seconds? That’s easy, the explanation is Shut Up It’s Called Writing.
S4th: ‘Why are we friends with you again?’
JP: I think I recognize that particular shade of nail polish! The mysterious woman assaulting Bogdan looks likeToby Cameron—and I’m almost certain I’ve seen that same paddle in the bedroom she shares with Ian and the two parrots!
JP:
Take me out to the brawl game
Take him out, for he’s cowed
Find me a mean putz, and whack that hack
I don’t care if he ever get wracked
It’s hirsute, -sute, -sute for this gnome’s scheme
If he’s chagrined, it’s a shame
For it’s one, two, three strikes, he’s out
At the old brawl game
— Jack Norwith and Albert Van Tilzer (adapted)
Luann: Weirdly enough, I really understand Bernice’s anxiety here: an out-of-the-blue text with just “you available?” is either a request to witness a passport application or an invitation to an orgy, nothing in between.
MW: Kinda beside the point, but doesn’t Mary have a third floor condo? Did she have to downgrade to a terrace-level or is this the extra apartment she keeps just to make sensitive phone calls?
JP: God, I hope we get a whole week of Bogdan just getting smacked with random objects by off-panel assailants: a sack of oranges, a rubber chicken, a Reader’s Digest book of the complete works of Charles Dickens. Hell, make it a month!
MW: Mary’s polyester pull-on comfort slacks will not long withstand Muffin flexing those pointy claws. Let the pilling ensue!
MW:
“I think he wants her to experience what he calls a ‘gushing wonder,’ because he said they’re headed to ‘Viagra Falls‘ !”
MW: There wasn’t a better way to get to the point? “He’s being conned?” He’s sending money to a scammer?” “Have you ever seen the TV show ‘Catfish?'”
H&L: When I was a lass, Hi was a slacker who had to be chased around with his Job Jar. Times change, and now he’s a slacker who has to be chased around with tutorials. (I said times change, not that they get better)
9CL: The perspective here is a little murky, but I’m allowing myself to dream of the piano lid slamming down, with lethal results.
LUANN: Nerdy female who converses with fish. Crossover time! Tell Wilbur to polish his chrome dome! Is Bernice legal?
@pugfuggly: Kinda beside the point, but doesn’t Mary have a third floor condo?
Next you’ll be asking why her kitchen layout isn’t the same from panel to panel, or why people eating dinner sometimes switch chairs in the middle of a sentence.
Bernice, talking to goldfish is Wilbur Weston levels of desperate, and no one should sink to those depths. Answer your ex.
“Yes, at his age,” Mary says. “Lissen sweetheart, your dad and I are about the same age, and I’ve got a rich doctor boyfriend who has a boat bigger than your house. I even got a cat, which he may or may not be allergic to, just to keep his ass outta my condo. The point is your dad is getting scammed and if you wanna see any inherited money, you better get up here right now.”
Luann: A few years ago, today’s Luann would have ended with the third panel, trusting that their audience would remember Piro, or that would at least understand the significance of a “you available” text. But now, they feel obliged to add an extra panel to let Bernice tell us exactly how she feels.
I don’t like this precedent. Imagine if the soap strips started doing this. Today’s Judge Parker would end with an extra panel of “My name is Bogdan and I’m here to say, that I’ve been struck above the shoulders twice today!”
Phantom:
“If he’s not satisfied with my explanation, I could end up like James Whitmore over here to my right in the second panel! — nothing but torso!”
JP: I legitimately cannot tell if that’s meant to be a cricket bat or an oversized liquor bottle. I also can’t tell if my confusion is because I need more sleep or because the art is inept. But most of all, I can’t tell why I’m still reading this.
“A girlfriend? At this age? At his age he should have an old lady friend. Are you………..?”
Mary hurriedly drops the phone and lunges for a muffin (not Muffin).
JP – Calling it now that it’s fresh-from-prison daughter whose name I can’t and don’t care to remember. More backstory to follow. Maybe when that is over this can transition to a comic about the foibles of stable horses. Or even unstable horses.
Pluggers – the combover works as well at fooling folks as dark glasses at your desk in the morning to cover a hangover or a mumu to hide those few extra pounds.
Wrecks Moregone:
Don’t waste your time, El Moustachiero: nobody’s going to pay a bounty to you for unmasking Mae Mae Floddedclutter.
JP: Apparently, Bogdan is Norwegian for piñata.
JP:
“Send for the Smith Brothers! — someone just belted their great- great- grandson!”
That, Sir, is a Poindexter barbat, proudly manufactured in Dingburg, USA.
LUANN: It’s worse than you think, Josh. So I’m gonna spoil the plot now and let you know (jn the queasy G-rated, repressed innuendo Luann fashion you all know and love) that Piro is just trying to “tap that” and by “that” I mean Bernice’s babysitting services for his 5 zillion siblings…just like he did the last two times he inquired about her availability (Bernice is freaking out in confusion because she’s just whatever-the-pop-psychology-terminology-for-“being-extra” is.) But yeah, ‘Niecy here is in one of Luann‘s patented pseudo non-relationships that the strips tries to gaslight us as thinking it’s “romantic entanglement.”
Judge Parker: Is…is getting beaten down by comic strip amazons a remarkably niche fetish? Because if so, Bogdan, God bless his concussed little soul, is in hog heaven right now.
The Parkers take their “Gambler” cosplay seriously! YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHEN.TO FOLD ‘EM!
Blondie-The third panel is so steamy that Comics Kingdom won’t show it.
JP-You don’t have to beat up Ian just threaten to report him to school management.
MW-“A girlfriend?” I know right. We all figured he would have a boyfriend.
FC-Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon….
Mary Worth: I regret to inform Sharon of the gonorrhea outbreaks that are not uncommon in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and naturally occurring retirement communities (stay away from Charterstone pool parties).
@EVerything Is Better With Monkeys: re JP – agreed. Ann was shown all last week vowing to figure out what Bogdan’s up to. And while to my knowledge all her actual crimes were nonviolent scams, she clearly carries herself as ready for violence with everyone willign to believe for months that she murdered her ex-partner-in-crime
JP – ” Bogdan leave this country. Go back to gulag. Life better there.”
The Familliar Mucus: “Come on, Dad, what do I have to do? Put CATS CRADLE on the 8 Track?”
Judge Parker wins the First Yaoi Paddle in a Newspaper Comic trophy!
MW What’s interesting to me about Mary’s word choice is that “he had a girlfriend” isn’t just being oblique about Trixie, it’s false. HH may have *thought* he had a long-distance, never-met girlfriend, but as the scam shows, that’s just plain false and Mary knows it.
FC Ma! The Keanes are schooling Dennis aga-ainnn! They’re taunting him by being way more menacing!
Luann: The whole comic strip world loves Eugen Bleuler, a lovely Swiss psychiatrist who coined terms such as “schizophrenia,” “schizophrenic,” “autistic” and “ambivalence” that drinks milkshakes! [5 seconds later] We regret to inform you that Bleuler was a racist and eugenicist.
Beat up Bailey: “I love you,thhhhhhhhhhhhhhis much!”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Considering that Sophie kicked the shit out of a drug-lord judge a few years ago, it possibly is. So…don’t be surprised if we see Marie doing Street Fighter combos against some Father Time-looking mofo who’s actually the head of some smuggling ring or whatever.
JP: Abby: “Ha! You laughed when I bought this novelty canoe paddle. Who’s laughing now?
Wait. You’re not Alan.”
It is now clear that what Mary needed a cat for was to truly become Blofeld. Good choice
Luann: I hope Bernice’s “lost love,” Piro, is actually Pyro from the X-Men’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants! Spelling, smchelling, she talks to fish and barely ages, that’s enough to get her into Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters! Make it happen!
MW – Pretty sure Mary’s next line is “It’s more likely than you think.”
Luann – If the reference to Bleuler indicates that Bernice is to be sterilized so that she can never reproduce her kind, well… maybe eugenics is acceptable if it’s only applied to comic strip characters?
RMMD – This morning I got out of bed, made coffee, fed the cat, and then sat down at my desk to discover an illustration of a guy dry-humping a table. Yeah. That’s how my day started.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Will you help me set up a gag, please?”
“Sure! Is it funny?”
“No!”
H&L: Being a smartphone, her thumb chooses another video as she hands it to him.
Mary Worth has taught me to just sigh and pretend that a fish will listen intently while some loser rambles on and on, but come on, Luann, a snail too? No, the “pets don’t act like that” line has to be drawn somewhere, and gastropods do… not… care.
***
“A girlfriend? At his age?” Sharon, I hope you’re sitting because I have a few studies on STI rates in retirement homes to share with you.
***
I will hop on the Judge Parker train and read it religiously if it’s just Bogdan being clobbered a different way each day from now on.
Crankshaft : if it was Skip proposing to run one of his patented hagiographies in the Centerville Sentinel, Lillian wouldn’t hesitate to say yes.
Of course, that won’t happen because he’s too busy listening to Batton Thomas ramble on about how much he enjoyed being a cartoonist in the 1970s, but still, the point is that Lillian 100 % chases attention and celebrity, as long as it’s not through the internet.
************
Dustin : “I mean, in the coming YEARS, Dustin.”
“Dad, I *SAW* the future. I’m going to turn 50, and I’ll still be living in this house, at your expense, while you do all the cooking cleaning, because you’re NEVER getting the courage to even simply threaten to kick me out.”
************
Judge Parker : Man, I know that the different holidays are seen as “competing” with each other, but I didn’t expect this strip to spend Easter just WAILING on Santa Claus, like, kicking the utter crap out of him after he’s already being made hors de combat.
************
Luann : Bernice’s gimmick is that, despite being a smug jerk who took psychology so she could insult other people by labelling them as being mentally ill, she herself is a neurotic mess incapable with dealing with a single relationship where she’s not on “easy mode” (ie, like a “best friend” who is just someone too stupid too realise Bernice CONSTANTLY insults and belittles her).
*************
Mary Worth : SHOULD have to clarify that she herself was not the girlfriend in question, but I have feeling that to have the story moving at a decent clip, she won’t have to.
(It’s not just me, right? A woman your elderly father’s age calls you to say “Your father has a problem. He HAD a girlfriend, but he doesn’t anymore”, you’d assume the woman calling you is his jilted girlfriend trying to get you on her side?)
@Ken: Hey, I don’t expect perfect spatial continuity from panel to panel but this speaks to character: Mary is not a ground floor dweller. It’s like seeing her dressed in plaid, or making Pillsbury crescent rolls, or taking in after dinner spin around the bay in a dinghy. It’s simply not done.
MW: What sounds good after four margaritas?
Mary sitting on the couch, talking on the phone, while stroking her pussy.
Moy and Brigman play Cards Against Humanity.
MW: I hope that cat is just extremely relaxed in the second panel. I put money on “Mary Worth won’t bore her new cat to death for at least 6 months” in a prediction market.
The writers of Judge Parker have sorely misjudged which characters we’d like to see bludgeoned by a bat, racket, cesta, cudgel, shillelagh, club, mace, warhammer, or any other blunt object likely to result in permanent damage.
Blondie: Weirdly, the repeated panel is probably just as good a punchline as the one they actually wrote.
SFx: One for the cat fanciers.