Gertie’s HOA meetings must be off the chain
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B.C., 4/30/26
I guess I hadn’t really given it a ton of thought, but before today, if asked to describe the relationships between the various character species of B.C., like the humans and mid-sized animals and the ants, I would’ve described them as operating on different planes or scales of existence, largely unaware of each other’s sapience. The idea that the anteater, say, would stick his tongue into an anthill not merely driven by instinct to find food but fully aware that he was devouring alive a group of children who had come together to learn outdoor survival skills and experience fellowship is a deeply upsetting one. But it turns out that’s the reality of this disturbing universe.
Gearhead Gertie, 4/30/26
You can tell that this guy has been Gertie’s neighbor for years. He isn’t just saying “Hey! What the heck? Why are you ramming into my riding mower with your riding mower?” Instead, by necessity he’s embarked on a journey of self-education, learning all sorts of NASCAR minutiae simply to understand this old lady’s actions and motivations.
Mark Trail, 4/30/26
DAMN YOU TRIXIE!!! STOP ENTRANCING THE HORNY OLD MEN OF THE COMICS WITH YOUR AI-ENHANCED CLEAVAGE
72 replies to “Gertie’s HOA meetings must be off the chain”
Dennis the Menace: Without toys, it’s just a box of sand. Without a lid, it’s just the neighborhood cats’ toilet.
Mark Trail: [sigh] I guess we know where “Trixie” went after he parkoured over the wall in Mary Worth…
Trixie went into business on his own after the Great Escape from the pig butchering scam centre, I see! Congratulations, Trixie!
Questionable Discontent:
Emily (if logic existed in this strip):
“1. Why are you telling me this? Isn’t it confidential? Well you blab about me to the next prospective hire who comes along?
2. Who is Claire to give you orders? From what I remember she was an insecure barista but particularly good at her job and who couldn’t find a library job to save her life. Since when did she become your superior?
3. What am I supposed to sign? What position *am* I being offered? What is the salary? What would my duties be? What about insurance, seeing that this place blows up every ten minutes?”
Emily (instead):
“Where do I sign? I can’t wait to be blown up!”
Wrecks Moregone:
“Also, I never thought a big time action movie star like Lorna Starr – that’s you, Lorna Starr – would disappear from her Hollywood mansion to become a waitress at the Glenwood motel, where you are a waitress at, and where some salesman down on his luck would expose you for money. I can do more unnecessary exposition if you want, but for now that should do!”
@Baja Gaijin:
Lucky Trixie! He’s not in danger of meeting Mary, avoided death by meddle, and his only danger is the doubtful one of Mark Trail’ fists. Good boy, Trixie! Go at it! Get all that money!
“And this parrot your dad adopted isn’t helping at all! He keeps calling me a ‘pompous ax!’ Not even my yellowest Disney princess shirt was safe from his claws!”
Wary Morth:
Wait a minute! If Toby and Pompous Axx are now Muffin’s aunt and uncle, then the parrots are his cousins….pecking cousins?
Of course Mary isn’t taking Muffin to the spa centre. She’s taking her own muffin there, and two would be too many.
MT-Ripped from the panels of ‘Mary Worth’.
MW-Will Uncle Ian be bringing the parrots for Muffin to “play” with?
Did… did a cartoonist recently get catfished? They’re a pretty close-knit bunch who only acknowledge things that have happened to themselves, so I can only assume that one of them has had their golf game interrupted by a shady con artist, and now we’re going to have to watch everyone from Dustin’s dad to Prince Valiant to Brewster Rockit lamenting the heartbreak of handing over their millions to an ersatz hottie with a jones for geriatrics.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
….NOT particularly good at her job…..
No riding mower is that fast. There’s no way this guy didn’t see Gertie coming, and clearly does know the drill here. This dude WANTS THIS.
Having some familiarity with my some of my brother’s Cub Scout activities eons ago, if a giant anteater had devoured the room, gratitude would’ve been my first reaction.
MW: The Uncle Ian who was cucked by a parrot?! These next few days are gonna be great!
GG: It’s good to mow the black, black grass of home.
When I was a tween, fifty-some years ago, my family had a Cairn Terrier that was an incessant licker. Her constant tongue action inspired my family to name her “Zot,” inspired by B.C.’s anteater. Thanks for the nostalgia fix.
B.C.:
“This avian-populated background of the sky is for the Byrds! — ‘to everything, tern, tern, tern‘ !”
MT: I’m so looking forward to Mark doing more than bringing muffins and spouting platitudes.
GG: Add one more person who wouldn’t be heartbroken if Gertie no linger existed.
DtM: Trying to get Dennis into Zen? You ARE new in town, aren’t you, Timmy?
GG: Tipping over and seriously injuring the rider is a real danger when mowing hills on a riding mower. I’m not sure why Gertie wants to murder her neighbor but he’s probably into Formula 1.
BC “What is the sound of a knot being tied?” sounds like a zen koan but there is an answer, and it is, apparently, “ZOT ZOT ZOT”.
GG Sad to see how Gertie’s husband has to incite her to attack the neighbors just ti be able to get a moment of peace in his own house.
MT “There’s a situation down in Florida?” Sure is, Mark. Nonstop since 1845.
MT: There’s a situation down in Florida? Actually, there are a lot of them…
CS: This woman most own at least 20 cats, based on the unruly hair that’s all over her shirt, and also sticking to the wall next to her.
Pluggers: Ewwww.
Luann: The most honest Luann ever.
GG: Hey neighbor, look up who Ken McElroy was, and what happened to him. Nobody would prosecute you.
Mark Trail:
Is Mark ever going to shave, or has he permanently morphed into the “Bogie-in-The-African-Queen” look?
Trixie’s antics make me nostalgic for the old-fashioned in-person scams of Fabiana.
In a very special Luann, Tara and Leslie (“It’s LES!”) ditch Luann and start another, better, comic strip.
GG — Say what you will, but it’s pretty impressive for both of them to get all four wheels airborne (I’m sure there’s a NASCAR term for it but, unlike the man driving the Tonka truck, I won’t enable Gertie’s obsession).
MT — Despairing of conventional justice, H@rv=y has decided to join the dark side to get his 200 large back. Trouble is, “huge chunks of cash” means something quite different in rural Lost Forest than it does in coastal Santa Royale. . .
Gearhead Gertie/Pluggers combo:
You’re a plugger if your idea of casual household conversation is to broach discussion with your significant other about your neighbor’s recent lawn equipment purchase.
B.C.:
“So much for Stuart Goddard’s backing band!”
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Luann: The most honest Luann ever.
I dunno, that exaggerated pout Luann is doing is suggesting, to me, that Luann isn’t actually having dark thoughts and depression at her own rudderlessness, but that she’s actually fishing for compliments…
Not going to work, Luann. NO ONE is going to go “That’s not true, Luann, you’re good with kids, and you’ve shown talent at various things relating to the theater.” They’re just going to say “yeah, that’s about right. Guess you don’t get your dream job (especially since you don’t seem to have one)”
MT- since the likelihood of finding Trixie is almost nil, does Mark’s “Fists of Juatice” have to take it out on his dad?
@Maltmash3r:
The Internet. Mark is gonna SO punch the Internet.
DtM: Dennis’ friend identifies as a cat. Menacing!
MT: Rusty has finally figured out how to get around the parental controls on his laptop that have blocked his access to the pig butchering scam site.
@A Grave Mind: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. On a lawn mower.
It’s a fact that seniors are getting scammed on the regular. But it’s not nearly as interesting or sexy as the comics page would have you believe.
One of the big scams in our neck of the woods involves pine straw. Enterprising scammers will go to the home of some oldster offering to spread pinestraw. They nearly got $3600 from my mother, but she happened to tell me right after it happened, and we were able to stop the payment on the check. We called the cops who told us this is very much a thing.
Keep an eye on your oldsters, folks.
Ssssoooo, Gearhead Gertie is set in The Villages, but with lawnmowers (and less chlamydia, probably)?
@Pozzo: I keep trying to use “Zot” in my various word-search games, and keep getting zot down. Thanks for nothing, B.C.!
BC: Is BC in reruns? I swear they’ve done this exact strip before, it might even have been featured here.
GG: Not only has the neighbor learned NASCAR lingo, he’s learned dated NASCAR lingo. I can’t remember the last time I heard it referred to as bump drafting.
Mark Trail: I suppose “Scammers pose as Microsoft employees trying to ‘fix’ a problem on your laptop” isn’t as exciting, but it does have the advantage of having a clear target for punching. Microsoft, I mean. Those Windows pop-ups are so damn annoying.
MT: “Your dad’s been spending all his money on an internet hottie when I’m right here!“
BC: I doubt anyone has been keeping track of the history of Johnny Hart’s B.C. to any great extent, noting major milestones in the strip’s development. But I kind of need to know whether this anteater character debuted before or after the animated short The Ant and the Aardvark in March 1969. Basically, I like to read the comics aloud, and I need to know whether this anteater talks like Jackie Mason.
GG: Contrary to popular opinion, Gearhead Gertie is not really about an elderly woman who loves NASCAR. It’s instead about an elderly man whose only joy in life is goading his NASCAR-obsessed wife into doing reckless and destructive things. “Our neighbor has a new riding mower,” he might say, fully aware that this seemingly-innocuous statement will have dramatic and terrible consequences.
MT: You know what makes me feel old? The fact that most comic strips in 2026 are cautionary tales about elderly men being scammed out of their money. I have a feeling this tend will only worsen with time. By 2030, Garfield will be reminding his readers to take their meds and not to answer phones they hear ringing in movies and TV shows.
Look at that anteater smile in the first panel. It knows it’s going to ruin some days by making people think about anteaters in the B.C. universe having their tongues in their noses. B.C. ANTEATERS HAVE NOSE TONGUES!
@A Grave Mind: @But What Do I Know?: Fighting mowers, in the sky! Gertie’s gonna kill this guy! Whose name her husband fears to speak. His funeral will be next week.
MW: Day one, Ian calls Mary at the spa. “Your cat’s on the roof and we can’t get her down….”
Or maybe he follows Wilbur’s lead after the cruise-ship mishap, and doesn’t tell Mary until she gets back. “I wanted to surprise you!”
Is it just me… or is the art in Mark Trail looking better today.
But then again, exposure to Gil Thorp can make anything look good in comparison.
@Joe Blevins: I used to read BC as a child, and I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the anteater and his ZOT were around well before 1969.
@The Rambling Otter: Yeah, I agree. It looks like it could have been drawn by a fairly gifted 12 year old, instead of a not particularly gifted 12 year old.
MT It would be glorious if the comics artists had decided to have a slow build of the same scammers showing up in strip after strip, with John/Trixie in the background escaping not just from the compound but across the newspaper to warn of the interdimensional menace and preparing for a collective fight with characters joining forces from Hagar through Flash Gordon, striking at the scammers (who want to take over all realities and drain all the elderly comics-readers of their savings) with Ted Forth finally able to do one of his crazy ideas…
*ahem* oh well, one can dream.
GG: Don’t worry, unnamed neighbor, Gertie has decided to mow your lawn for you for some reason, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
MT: Over the course of this strip, Mark’s dad’s accountant goes from having laid edges to a Mike Tyson face tattoo. This is actually a very deep metaphor for her loss of innocence and desire for furious vengeance.
Dennis the Menace: The neighborhood cats aren’t the only one using this sandbox as an outdoor bathroom.
9CL: If you value your sanity, skip this one. (Which I know is good advice any day of the week, put today’s strip is particularly disturbing.)
MT: Johnnie Long goes straight. Sort of.
“He’s been giving all his money to an internet sweetheart!”
What’s her name?!
“Her?“
@Uncle Lumpy: she’s busy bringing up Weelbur mi amor’s daughter.
@Anonymous: Remember, on Monday Ms. Fogarty told the class “you imagined your own ideal career.” If Luann had done this, should would have had something to write for today’s assignment. So my interpretation is she failed that assignment, just like we watched her fail the “three interviews” assignment by not submitting it on time. At this point, Luann knows she’s officially bombed out of Pitts Community College, and she’s done giving a sh*t.
Take me down the Gearhead city
Where the grass is black and Gertie’s shitty . . . .
@Joe Blevins: Oh, the husband is *trying* to get Gertie killed, like in Ruthless People. I like it!
Phantom: I’m low-key becoming a Eric Sahara fan. Sure, he used to have an alias, but as an international mercenary terrorist billionaire, it’s merely good opsec that to use a nom de guerre, but this mask shit? In addition to being strictly for squares and freaks (and let’s face it, Kit Walker is a freak—not that it’s his fault that he was raised in what is basically a cult), and frankly, it’s embarrassing.
Pluggers: Pluggers should go to the dermatologist every six months for a full-body screening in case those spots do start merging together.
RxMD: I refuse to believe that Glenwood’s “Old Town” is so big and bustling that Mae Mae and Mud wouldn’t notice Captain Kangaroo following them from 10 feet away, and while Mae Mae may not have kept up her physical regimen, it’s been established that her films with shot on location with the utmost realism without modern frills or amenities so I wouldn’t be surprised if she also did her own stunts and fight scenes and could jiujitsu this guy into a broken little knot of man. Hey! Maybe that’ll be the Dr. Rex Morgan Em Dee medical connections we’ve been looking for!
The most accurate description of Luann ever. I’m surprised she didn’t make any spelling errors
Judge Parker: I’m not a lawyer so can someone tell me assault, kidnapping, and unlawful imprisonment might violate the terms of Ann’s parole?
@Will:
Plus side, they’ve clearly been dosed with Joker gas, so they should be dead soon.
@Uncle Lumpy et al: Apartment 3G reboot with “Trixie,” Fabiana, and Arthur Z!
GG: Please, there’s no way Gertie lives in an HOA community. She wouldn’t put up with not being allowed to paint a Dale Earnhardt tribute on the side of her house.
MT: Whereas Mary Worth used its elder scam story as a platform for shaming the sandwich generation into taking care of their parents, in Mark Trail it will be a jumping-off point for a screed on the environmental consequences of AI.
Dustin: For once I’m on Dustsis’ side.
Luann: Well, points for honesty.
MW: Are we sure that’s wise, Mary? The last time Ian took care of a cat it wound up being a pack animal for a parrot.
RMMD: Lonnie’s going to go through all this trouble only to discover that the information he has is no longer worth anything, because while he was trying to negotiate a deal twenty people overheard Maena loudly talking about her identity and posted pics to Instagram.
@TheDiva: Maybe Gertie lives in Race City USA?
@A Grave Mind: Start with Mark Zuckerberg, Sergei Brin and Elon Musk.
Gearhead Gertie:
I question the utility of a riding mower that hovers ten inches above the grass.
Gearhead Gertie: In an interesting philosophical twist on comic conventions, Gertie does not have an idea in the first panel, but instead merely thinks about an idea. But does thinking about an idea actually bring that idea into being, and thus she actually has an idea but has not realized the idea is there yet? Much to discuss about the nature of existence in the Old Lady NASCAR strip this week.
Mark Trail – Mary Worth beat Mark Trail to the scam story by a few months. However, Mary Worth did a teenage unwed mother story YEARS before Funky Winkerbean’s pregnant teenage Lisa story. Tom Batiuk would be upset about it if he didn’t have his head so far up his butt that he didn’t notice.
Crankshaft – I guess being permanently flummoxed when other people make stupid remarks is one of Loathsome Lillian’s endearing quirks, along with ruining other people’s lives.
Mary Worth – It’s hard to believe than Ian would agree to babysit a cat, at least without complaining about it the entire time. Of course, since his lobotomy he puts up with Mary without comment, so he’ll be blissfully happy to clean the litter box.
Pluggers – She can just rearrange her feathers to hide those spots.
6Chix – Add rocks to the list of things Lawton can’t draw.
9CL – Get help, Brooke.
Thank goodness for Arlo & Janis.
MT: Trixie is the Detective Munch of internet scammers.
@CanuckDownSouth: And they said Avengers Endgame was the most ambitious comics related crossover ever.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Long John had stubble when he escaped, but if he shaved he might escape Mark’s fists of justice.
@Downpuppy: Got the reference – that scans perfectly with that song.
Today’s Ripley’s is right.
The walls between storage units can’t be that thick. There’s gotta be someone in the building hearing this.
Hagar: This is amazing, in that it took centuries to invent the horse collar and reins.
Blondie and Dagwood are demographically trapped. They’re actually too young for Facebook, but too old for Instagram and TikTok. Is Next Door their only social media home?
Dustin: Megan’s a little old to not have had The Talk, isn’t she?
MW: Any other cat people noticed how Muffin hasn’t hopped into Mary’s suitcase?
H&L: Dot’s expression says “How many more grades of him copying my homework do I have left?”
@I speak Jive:
Long John had stubble when he escaped, but if he shaved he might escape Mark’s fists of justice.
NO GOOD, one of Jules’ new gimmicks for Mark Trail was to give HIM stubble and have the Evil Internet Dudebros he fights be clean-shaven, as a SHOCKING SUBVERSION.
…It’s the most iconoclastic part of NuTrail, yet it’s somehow the least complained about?