Head-on fish skeletons, a normal thing you see all the time in real life
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Heathcliff, 4/22/26
One thing I love about newspaper comic strips is that they’re full of visual signifiers that are multiple generations out of date at this point but just kind of stick around out of inertia, which would confuse any young people reading them if young people still read the comics. Until the medium is truly dead, everyone will have bone-in hams in their refrigerators and everyone will simply dump their garbage into a metal can, without even putting it in a plastic bag first, until it merges together in a grotesque brown slurry. Did you know that garbage slurry is viscous enough to serve as a powerful adhesive? Heathcliff does, and he’s made it his artistic medium.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/22/26
I’m not sure what’s sadder: that Mud only likes two restaurants in this town where he hangs out a lot, one of which just reopened for the first time in years, or that Mae Mae lived in Los Angeles, where some of the best and most interesting restaurants in the country do delivery via DoorDash, and yet has ordered nothing but pizza for the last decade.
Mary Worth, 4/22/26
[ONE WEEK LATER]
“Dad, I’m not sure how to say this, but I talked to Aaron and the boys, and, well…”
“Oh, don’t even worry, dear. I’m actually going to be moving in with my new girlfriend, Busty. There’s just the small issue of working out the complications with her visa!”
65 replies to “Head-on fish skeletons, a normal thing you see all the time in real life”
The second garbage man continues to stare, mesmerized. At last, he yields, and touches the great artifact, which continues its unearthly humming. “This can in my hands,” he thinks, “I can swing it. It can be a weapon.” Soon, he feasts on tapir, and rules his clan. It is begun.
Going by Mae Mae’s secod panel expression, tonight Mud is on the menu.
MW: Aaron and the boys have already gone ascot shipping.
RMMD:
“Any restaurant is better than that.”
“Well, clearly, Mae Mae, you haven’t been to Nick’s Diner!”
Mary Worth:
“While I’m hugging you with my right arm, let me use my left arm to feel around and extract your wallet, so that you don’t spend any more of your inheritance money on that ersatz Jezebel!”
Healthcliff: Ah but here the signature is the artwork, and the medium confirms its own authorship, both through its shape and material components. What I’m saying is that Marshall McLuhan predicted Heathcliff.
MW ” …just to be clear, you still have the boat, right?”
Aaron will object to Hervey moving in, until Hervey saves the family by warning them of exposed wiring on a Christmas light. Next thing you know, Hervey will be welcome, no matter how many Playbills he chews up, or shoes he poops in. Why, they’ll even take in a female Hervey, who speaks Spanish!
Mary Worth:
“And you’ll love the way the boys communicate with us adults, Dad! When you talk to them, it’s like taking the deposition of, or cross-examining, an adverse witness! You know — ‘Where are you going?’ “Out’; ‘Whom are you seeing?’ ‘Dunno’; ‘When will you be back?’ ‘Not sure’; etc.”
What Harv doesn’t realize is that living with Sharon and Aaron will drive him insane, because they have the Mary-merry-marry vowel merger and he doesn’t. They named the kids Barron and Ferron to speed the process.
Heathcliff:
“Look at this sculpture that’s just been created, Joe!”
“Yep. It’s really offal!”
Mary Worth:
“Dad, a little off-topic, but what’s that eerie glow that seems to be enveloping you?”
“Oh, that’s just my nosy neighbor Mary Worth — the one who called you — sucking the life force out of me!”
“Welcome to Jordan’s, sir, ma’am. Tonight’s special is the chef’s take on pizza. If you’ll peruse the menu, I highly recommend our salisbury steak, lasagna, and stuffed peppers. Any drinks or appetizers this evening? The special is Welsh rarebit. It partners wonderfully with the banana Mogen David 20/20.
RMMD: Only one rule, Mud. Don’t scratch your ass with the wrong fork.
MW: I have the distinct impression that Aaron and the boys are going to say, “Who?”
JP: Going to go out on a limb and guess that while these two nitwits are screaming at each other, the Pavel Jr. Mob or the cops or CIApril or the Raspberry-Haired Brat’s Army of Darkness are sneaking up behind them and when they finally rip the gag off Bogdan’s face (taking half his beard with it) all he’s going to say is ‘Behind you!!’ before getting pumped full of lead.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Now, now, Josh, you know that any technology beyond 1959 can’t exist in this universe (otherwise some “citizen journalist” with an Iphone and a TikTok account would have been blown Lorna/Mae Mae’s cover by now.)
REX MORGAN M.D (2) And actually the “what’s sadder” debate should be between every muthafucker in this universe not knowing how to cook or Lorna/Mae Mae forgetting that she’s rich enough to hire someone to do it for her. (Indeed, I now suspect that the reason Truck hooked up with whats-her-name, “The Beehive”, was simply to ensure he didn’t starve to death.)
Heath: Jumpsuit guys are humans of the future who have survived the animapocalypse and have traveled to the past to find its origins (in sci-fi, people of the future always wear jumpsuits). Luckily, one of the jumpers is well versed in signifiers. “They laughed when I majored in art history!”
MW- well, all’s well that ends well. And since Mary actually picked up the phone and cryptically got Sharon to come visit her father, she’s entitled to all the accolades that will be showered on her for the next month.
RMMD: I wouldn’t position the words “Dry” and “Brut” by Mud’s head, he’s more of a “Lunkhead”.
DtM: Once again a colorist has ruined the joke, in this case by not painting Mr. Wilson’s toes diabetes blue.
Gil Thorp: Important lesson, kids—it’s not unprofessional to call your colleague a dummy if you do it in Spanish, so long as your boss is an anglo.
Heathcliff: We’ve all seen tags spraypainted on two-dimensional surfaces, but a sculptural tag? Heathcliff continues to innovate!
MW: Extremely unnerving that these two people hug with their eyes open. Are we sure they’re not the ones who are artificial constructs? Does Sharon even have a spouse and kids or has she been programmed to believe such whenever she interacts with someone else? Does Harv wear ascots because he is super fly gentleman of means, or is it because Gen 1 replicants’ neck joints were a bit too “prehensile” and uncanny to the human eye? Did he get fooled by an AI-generated cheesecake photo of “Trixie,” or did he take one look and think, “Finally, one of my people!”?
Heathcliff: This is a disrespect to the Garbage Ape. Look at what he has to clean up!
Even after the comic hyped him up a few years back, its a garbage related comic and he isn’t even present…
MW: I cringed when I realized that “The Hub” was a weird slang for hubby/husband. Comparing it to Batiuk’s “Lord of Language” style slangs like Vendo.
Now that I realize that their names match, and rhyme. “Sharon and Aaron”
Please comic, go back to calling him The Hub…
How cool is it that we’re just not following up on Trixie the catfishing slave and his mad dash to freedom, last seen dropping over the prison wall three weeks ago. Surely a thrilling tale of danger and adventure with massive stakes on the line, but I’m afraid there’s no time for that now… we’ve got muffins to drop off at Toby’s!
@Hibbleton: Their outfits look like Trash Cans. Are we not certain that the future is dominated by not only Trash Can art but everything is Trash Can related in some way? (By strict Totalitarian law)
I think you’re underestimating young people lol? When I was growing up in the 90s, I understood bone-in ham, fish skeletons with heads in them, and metal garbage cans just fine, even though they weren’t things I personally experienced all that often.
@Dan: I guess Moy had him escape so that the story wouldn’t be “too sad” except for the other slaves still trapped and the guys running the scam getting 200,000 into their laps.
MW: Well, now THAT’s settled, and we can look forward not only to a new story but also a new TENANT—after the obligatory sunset boat cruise, Bum Boat dinner, and moonlight walk on the dock so that Jeff can praise Mary and express gratitude for her very being.
Here’s a thought: Carlos Alora’s family could finally join him at Charterstone, and we could get the real backstory on the enigmatic caretaker. We might even discover how he really spells his last name, and what happened to his cap and neckerchief. Inquiring minds want to know!
@Dunkelcopter: They’re stereotypes/cliches at this point. Like a shopping bag in comics always having a baguette and stick of celery sticking out the top.
MW: Did his daughter suddenly just transform into Eve Lourd?
Ascot Man: Before the big move, time to put on my SUIT
Sharon/Eve: EEEEEEKKKK!!!
@A Grave Mind: (“Thus Spake Zarathustra” plays in the background.)
@Dunkelcopter: And in the 2000s, creators started lampshading those old tropes, explaining them as needed. By the 2010s, TVTropes existed. Such things are just visual shorthand at this point.
@Charterstoned: The last time I saw Carlos Alora, Tommy and Iris were moving boxes. Carlos went to get a handcart, Tommy got impatient, moved a tiny package on his own, threw out his back and got addicted to Vicodin (Carlos never came back with the handcart?)
Mary Worth: “I’m sure they’ll agree to have you join us! Especially when I tell them I’m becoming your financial power of attorney!”
@Dan: Y’all need to be more grateful for that resolution. I’m sure it took all of Moy’s willpower to resist the urge to insert a frame that simply read “‘Trixie’ died on his way to his home planet.”
JP – Ann, you’ve been estranged from your family too long if you don’t understand that standing around yelling is what we DO here. You want quiet? Go to Rex Morgan, MD!
I bet cartoonists have the most hated houses on the block come garbage collection day.
***
Gotta give it to the hipsters of Rex Morgan, M.D., Mud would never eat in something as gauche as a McDonald’s. Why, I bet their employees aren’t even allowed to style their facial hair after Chester A. Arthur! Phooey!
***
Jeff Bozos here is going to gift some ascots to his grandsons and get kicked out of the house when they get home from school with black eyes.
@The Rambling Otter: The daily name is Baron. Sharon and Aaron Baron.
The “boys” are Heiron and Spareon.
@Ukranazi Stepan: *family name
“They do, eh? Let me pull of ‘lists of sculptors’ on Wikipedia, check the H’s. You think this is by Étienne Hajdú? Mathilde ter Heijne? Gordon Herickx? Maybe Jacques Hnizdovsky?”
“You’re just picking the ones with funny names, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
@Dan:
Trixie on the run in Phnom Penh, with no money to his name, no passport, unable to speak Cambodian, hunted by his ex-captors, would be interesting. Interesting is verboten. We can’t have interesting. Mary forbids it.
FC-Looks to me like PJ is filling his diaper.
MW-My how quickly the scam angle of the story has been dropped.
DtM: “And when he goes into space he gets missle-toe, yeah, yeah.” From menacing quips to dad jokes, my how the mighty have fallen.
FC: Even at this tender age, PJ knows how to yank Dolly’s chain.
That there are THAT many sculptors with gloriously funny “H” names just made my day, and I hope they teamed up to battle an evil giant robot.
Questioned Discontent:
So, let’s see, after what, two years of disappearing from the strip and then returning, Yay is back to electronically snooping on the Director (and everyone else), is only seen hanging around at Roko’s all the time, and refers to themself as “we”. So what, actually, changed as a result of their panicked flight? Their hair changed colour from black to white?
@The Rambling Otter: Well, Carlos has more on his plate than retrieving handcarts for privileged tenants. He has to trim the bushes so Wilbur can’t hide in them, clean the pool for those Attitude Adjustment Hours, bathe the window eels, clean up after the Doves o’ Love and now those two damned parrots—and then there are those basement cells filled with the characters who aren’t being featured and who have to be fed. I think Carlos needs a break.
@Charterstone: Dune:
Gil Thorp: Important lesson, kids—it’s not unprofessional to call your colleague a dummy…
I believe she meant it in the “Uncle Tom” sense.
@The Rambling Otter: this was a term I saw so often when Yelp was taken seriously. “I had the fish and the hub had a steak” kind of thing. I quickly started completely ignoring anyone with so little ability with good language as it likely also extended to their judgement about all other things.
MARY WORTH: See, you can tell that Mary not only talked with Sharon, but taught her some advanced busybody techniques herself! Sharon has already aced the passive-aggressive meddling trials Mary has given her, as she suitably convinces her dad that it was his idea to do something that she was clearly going to do anyway (“Gee, dad, I was totally going to just move you in to our home with no discussion or advance warning with anyone else in the family until you reminded me to do this extremely basic and obvious courtesy. See, you’re helping!”)
MARY WORTH (2): You know now that I think about it, Sharon’s inability to blow up or make a big deal about that missing $200,000 isn’t necessarily a plot inconsistency. After all, she’s gained something far more valuable than money and that’s renewed access to a wealthy, naive, gullible old man who”ll easily do whatever a pretty woman tells him to do. That little tidbit is worth far more in the long run (or however long Mr. Ascot has left) than then chump change the pig-butcher scam people took in.
I can’t read “Trixie” without thinking of the baby in Hi and Lois.
Which makes these discussions of the current Mary Worth storyline really creepy.
Crankshaft – I don’t know how much more of this pointless, self indulgent garbage I can take. Batton’s blissful, smug expression is the cherry on top of this shit sundae. Make. It. Stop.
Mother Goose & Grimm – It’s surprising that she didn’t go with leaving the toilet seat up.
6Chix – Wednesday Chick apparently didn’t get the memo on identifying the gender of parrots. The female should be wearing eye liner. A necklace instead of that flower would work, too.
JP – Two brainless females yelling at each other while they commit a series of felonies. Where’s that giant meteor when we need it?
@2+2=7: Yeah, I mean at least Norma Desmond had a butler/ex-husband to drive her around and play the pipe organ and help her maintain the illusion of her significance. All Maena has is a maid’s costume and the numbers of every local pizza joint in her contacts list.
RMMD: Turns out, Mud loves fancy food and henceforth spends a fortune dining out at french restaurants. Broke and scrounging for coq au vin scraps in a back alley dumpster. He laments; “oh, what a fool I’ve been spending my savings!” H___y passing by looks over laughing; “you and me both, pal. Heh, heh.”
@matt w: Ye gods. The rhyming Sharon and Aaron didn’t register with me. I would have gone with Darren instead of Ferron, however. You know that if they had a daughter, her name would be Karen.
Heath: Robin Guggenham is a proxy; Heathcliff has been Banksy all along.
@2+2=7: Which is the underyling flaw in the entire story. The scammer had “access to a wealthy, naive, gullible old man”, and very foolishly ghosted HH when he had tons more money to give. And I’ve seen enough of those “scam baiter” videos to know that $200,000 isn’t even that big a haul for those bastards.
HH didn’t just get off light; they let him get off light.
CS: They’re dating. That’s it. These are two old, gay men on a date. Nothing else to see here.
MW – “Sharon, I love Lord of the Rings too, but I wouldn’t want a goddamn Ent living in the spare bedroom!”
JP: I see where this is heading. This is like the scene in Snatch where Boris (Sam) comes in and shoots the guy tied up in the chair in the head.
“You shot him because he was trying to kidnap Charlotte?!” Exclaims Neddy.
Sam shrugs shoulders “He was trying to kidnap Charlotte?”
@I speak Jive:
Hey, now, at this rate, these interviews could fill s book. And “Wednesdays With Dipshit” will STILL be less insufferable than any book Mitch Albom wrote!
Don Abundio, translated:
“I spilled ink on ‘Prince'”
“What should I do?”
“I have a suggestion…”
[On doghouse: FIRE DEPARTMENT]
@I speak Jive:
Crankshaft – I don’t know how much more of this pointless, self indulgent garbage I can take. Batton’s blissful, smug expression is the cherry on top of this shit sundae. Make. It. Stop.
Speak for yourself, I’m HOOKED! Is Bat
iukTON THOMAS actually going to tell us what a “Chalk Talk” actually entails, and what the subject of his talk was, or is he just going to bloviate on how big he felt having a bunch of older professionals politely applaud his ice breaker?Like, he says he figured out what his topic should be based on what two more established cartoonists talked about. But what DID they talk about? Was it about how Bristol boards are good or seomthing?
**********
Heathcliff : Why are the trashcans smiling? I know that’s supposed to be the handles, but why are they aligned in a way that makes it look like the trashcans have tiny faces that are smiling?
GT: “Did you call me Tonto?”
“Can’t you two wait until we get through this story first?”
@Peanut Gallery: I understand enough Spanish that usually I get what was supposed to be the joke in Don Abundio. But today I don’t.
Prince the dog has ink spilled on him, so Abundio writes “Stains Prince” on his doghouse? Is there a joke here? Can anyone find out what was the original English version?
MW-There’s also the fact that Mary paid Sharon off to take Harve off of her hands.
Heathcliff:
I like the contrast between the two garbage men in their reaction to Heathcliff’s enormous monument to trash. One considers it a literal work of art, not only a tribute to Heathcliff but also to his own noble profession, and gazes upon it in wide-eyed reverence. The other furrows his brow in annoyance as he realizes whose responsibility it is to clean this mess up.
MW: Geez, even Widower Hart, who was stupid enough to fall for “Trixie,” recognizes that it would be a bad idea to agree with Sharon’s proposal that he move in with her without consulting the rest of her family first. You’re not looking good here by comparison, Sharon.
C’shaft: I’ve said before that I think the endless BatTom interview stems from Tom Batiuk reflecting, as many in their later years do, on the course of his life and what he would like his legacy to be. Apparently the answer to that question is “boring anecdotes name-dropping all the other cartoonists that he met.”
DT: “Also he knows enough to dress in a nondescript fashion, instead of something immediately eye-catching and memorable like a green-haired metalhead or a member of the Dapper Dans.”
Dustin: Oh, so we might be live in a simulation where free will is an illusion and nothing we do matters in bed.
GT: Coach Luke, who’s close enough to his Latin American roots to speak Spanglish with his family, is a really odd choice to be taking ICE’s part in this. But someone has to be the strawman, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be White Male Protagonist Gil Thorp.