Comics of a certain age
Post Content
Dick Tracy, 5/3/26
There’s no such thing as the “J. Duveen Art Gallery” (though Joseph Duveen was a famous early 20th century art dealer), but the fictional building so named in this strip appears to be a Frank Gehry design. I’d like to believe that in the Dick Tracy universe, Gehry worked extensively in Neo-Chicago, taking inspiration from the dramatic and abstract skull shapes of the various members of Tracy’s rogues gallery.
Mary Worth, 5/3/26
Not a lot of new stuff in this Sunday recap of the recap, but I do like how languorous Mary and Toby look in that hot tub. Mary is so relaxed she can’t even bring herself to lift her hands out of the water to make air quotes around “relationship” and “girlfriend”! Anyway, I admit this plot has been fun but I’m hoping that the Sunday quote from martial arts master Jet Li presages an upcoming storyline that’s a bit more dynamic.
Crankshaft, 5/3/26
Crankshaft did a strip about hot flashes, and it didn’t make a pun or wordplay of any kind about them, and you can tell from Ed’s picture here that he’s absolutely furious about it. “If I had been there, it wouldn’t have went down like it did,” he’s thinking. “I would’ve malaproped ‘menopause’ so intensely that people would be talking about it for years.”
157 replies to “Comics of a certain age”
Mary Worth:
“Wow! Look at the cool tsunami, Grandpa!”
Slylock Fox-The projectionist spliced in a frame from another movie.
MW-Here’s the problem. Harve never stopped believing that Trixie was real. Harve was never convinced that Trixie wasn’t real.
Mary Worth:
“Mary, some modern theologians posit that if there is indeed a h*ll, it will be personal to each of us who experiences it. Being in a hot tub with you in perpetuity would be right up there for me in the ‘eternal damnation’ sweepstakes!”
Crankshaft:
“Now, when Pluggers depicts guys in flannel shirts with their trademark compromised digits, would that be ‘men o’ paws’?,” muses Ed.
Mary Worth: Did Mary and Toby really need to travel all that way just to lie in a hot tub? Even if Charterstone doesn’t have one (doubtful — the aged residents need some way to ease their aching limbs), I bet you could find a dozen gyms and spas within a square-mile radius. I guess maybe they wanted to be somewhere their fellow condo denizens wouldn’t overhear them poring over the most embarrassing details of their friends’ private lives — or, more important, somewhere there wasn’t even a tiny chance that they might be joined by a Speedo-clad Wilbur.
Mary Worth:
A distracted Dr. Jeff runs over and flattens the Hart clan with his Brobdingnagian dreadnought.
The End.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – The Ned Flanders wannabe should go straight to the tabloids and get whatever he can for it. If he tries to blackmail Mae Mae, she my just come out and tell the world where and who she is and ruin his gravy train. This is all based on the absurd storyline that anyone cares about Lorna Starr.
Crankshaft: Of course I’m no expert, but I was unaware that hot flashes include onomatopoeia.
Crankshaft : …are Pam’s gonads GLOWING while making loud noises!? If not, what is supposed to be going on? If YES, then WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?
************
Mary Worth :
I’m hoping that the Sunday quote from martial arts master Jet Li presages an upcoming storyline that’s a bit more dynamic.
Look, the most martial arts we’re going to get is stuff like Wilbur karate-chopping the air and spilling a drink all over someone.
…Or maybe someone attending a Tai Chi class.
Wrecks Moregone:
What part of working for El Pompadour in a cafe with no customers in a dead end town where your only friend is a has been like Mud, whose songs nobody even mentions any longer, is a “normal life”?
DT: Thrill as you watch a package delivery man plan out his afternoon…
MW: I starting to wonder if Charterstone is actually some kind of special living assisted community for dementia patients that need to be reminded constantly of what happened the previous day.
CSh: I’m not sure that “WHUMP!” would be the noise I would have attributed to a hot flash. Unless maybe they were thinking of it as a kind of bioluminescent flatulence? I’m not really sure how menopause works.
Hardy Har Hart has turned his entire family [bar his son in law who is yet to appear in this strip and hopefully has run for the hills/barricaded himself in the pig butchering scam centre that’s his side business] into basket cases just like him.
MW: In a special crossover with Slylock Fox, can the readers spot the 6 differences between the grandsons?
MW: Sharon’s husband still not in the picture (literally). Maybe he’s not entirely happy with the new living arrangements, and is finding an endless list of minor home repairs that prevent him from going on these little family outings.
Speaking of which, I’m not sure where they’re supposed to be, but if that’s meant to be the railing of Harv’s boat it’s the size of an ocean liner. Eat your overcompensating heart out, Dr. Jeff.
MW — If I were H@rvey I wouldn’t be standing so close to the rail between two kids who really need tuition money,
MW Well, that explains why HH can shrug off losing 200 grand, he got *quite* the payout for setting up his daughter unwittingly to have her children as part of a human cloning trial!
DT — Just a few more minor details to iron out, but I’m 90% there on my self-guided tour of Neo-Chicago. I knew I didn’t need a travel agent to help me!
MW: OK, fine, I give in. It was never about robbery, scamming and human trafficking. It’s about family. Robbed, scammed, trafficked family.
H&L: Is “five-tool player” a real thing? What about crotch-grabbing? You can’t leave out crotch-grabbing.
C’shaft: In the penultimate panel, I honestly thought that Pam had farted.
@Liam: Here’s the problem. Harve never stopped believing that Trixie was real.
I’d bet that if Trixie — that is, whoever’s replaced John in the call center — texted him tomorrow with a “tearful” explanation, he’d be right back to sending money. Which would be a great follow-up, but we’re not going to see a storyline that makes Mary look bad.
“*Loneliness* makes a person do some *wacky* things!” says Toby, in a hot tub, in public, with an expression of ecstasy on her face.
As Josh pointed out yesterday, in Mary Worth-verse “loneliness” seems to be the euphemism for “horniness” …
I must say that I didn’t expect Mary Worth to be the first mainstream comic to go full porno.
DT: What kind of monster uses diamonds for checkboxes?
@MKay:
“Five-tool player” is in indeed baseball scouting cliché (hitting, power, speed, glove, arm).
I see a lot of “oops! bit off more than I can chew!” in the comics today:
MW Moy wanted to do a scam storyline, wanted to show the enslaved workers and either realized any followup of the scam center escape was beyond her plotting capabilities… or was convinced by the connection to Asia to drop it before it became a mess of stereotypes at best
RMMD wasn’t able to keep up with the art demands of the weekdays but did intend for Lonnie to have *some* cover for his video-taking
JP hasn’t yet realized that this retcon needs re-retconning because the whole weeks of stalking makes no darn sense, but I expect that will never be acknowledged – the real mystery in this plotline is whether the writer actually thinks it makes sense or knows it’s ridiculous and just doesn’t care as long as he gets to do action and tying-up sequences
Phantom is … on the cusp. Is it really better for White Dude to take on a legendary part of a tribe’s culture if the tribe basically enlists him reluctantly to do so? Bets are on for how offensive the Nth attempt to bring the Phantom backstory in line with modern sensibilities will be!
@matt w: One whose name in the Neo-Chicago Tracyverse doomed him to be forever entangled with playing cards and their suits?
H@rvey’s daughter will explain him that sex is expensive and dangerous, but there are other ways to reproduce. That’s why her sons are clearly clones
You know this shadowy figures is deeply disturbed because he prepares a to-do list with rhombus instead of squares
@Gil Bates:
Well, let’s see:
1. Hans is sporting a blue tee shirt; Franz is wearing a red one.
2. Hans (the “Goofus” of this “Goofus and Gallant” pair) recklessly uses only one hand on the guardrail to balance himself; cautious Franz uses both hands.
3. Hans has a close-mouthed grin; Franz flashes his teeth when he smiles, in the style of his simian evolutionary ancestors.
4. Hans thinks his mom is totally dorky for sporting Star Trek haberdashery and stays as far away from her as possible; Franz kisses up to her.
5. Local coastal vultures have Franz in their sights and initiate the process of beginning to circle around him; they stay clear of Hans.
6. Hans believes that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny; Franz isn’t buying any of it. (You can just tell.)
@CanuckDownSouth:
I agree, Trixie was meant to play a much larger part in this story – otherwise the revelation of his real name and his cinemaesque jump over the wall make no sense.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
In fact by now Mae Mae should be aware that Hollywood Whatsit is *still* inexplicably asking where she is, so she’ll be recognised sooner or later. All she has to do is issue a statement saying where she is, what she’s doing, and the bubble is punctured. But that would be too much like common sense.
FG I am absolutely on board for what was looking like Ming started out having understandable reasons for opposing the Old Order before he went down the road to despotism, I am likely going to be fine with Ming had any ambitions / despotic tendencies amplified by the allure of powerful artifacts/ beings getting him to think He Is THE Solution, but if this is going all the way to a Ming is literally possessed by a Power and never was _bad_ himself story, this strip will go into the “grumpy curmudgeonly read” pile
CS: Hint to Batiuk. Instead of whump, a miniature geyser blowing steam from her groin would be clearer in concept.
@Ukranazi Stepan: *Wayyy* too much common sense. Heck, it’s not some terrible revelation like Letterman going public about an affair to thwart a blackmailer – it might even revive tourist interest in the town and café beyond the roots country set. Come have your coffee served by a former film star!
MW: If you’re going to use a quote about family, you should quote an actor from the Fast and Furious franchise, not a fucking Expendable.
DT: That art gallery looks like a giant banana peel covering it.
Was it made by Gorillas? Dick Tracy does have Gorilla people doesn’t it? I mean… Art Dekko looked kind of chimp-ish at least.
MW: The staff at the spa turn the hot tub setting to ‘tempest’ to hasten Mary’s departure but to no avail. They’ll need permission from corporate before going full ‘cauldron.’
If Ditto has five tools to grab, I’m really impressed.
(Ehhhh… I’m getting self conscious about spoilers, so I’m editing out this message)
@Ukranazi Stepan: @Ken: Y’all still don’t get it? Fine I’ll “spoil” the ending.
You see, in a Twighlight Zone twist, it’ll turn out that Sharon’s “husband” is actually a pig-butchering scam himself! The arc will actually end with a panel of Sharon asking ol’ dad if she can borrow $500,000 for “the Hub’s” “operation.”
Bizarro: I love it! “Ow!” “Ow!” “Ow!”
The Lockhorns: I love it! “Porch Pirates of the Caribbean”!
JP- and STILL neither of these nitwits ask the first and most obvious question: “Where are Randy & April?” And the second question: “How are you able to come here but not Randy or April?”
Luann: a few weeks ago, we learned Frank DeGroot’s college dream was to be a “rock star” (LOL), but today we learn he can’t even play a recognizable “Amazing Grace.” I think I’m beginning to understand why Luann is the way she is.
Mary Worth Mashup: What pablum. How about we spice today’s strip with some special guest stars? ALERT: No Wilburs are involved with the linked mashup.
@The Rambling Otter: SHSHHHSH!!! Don’t give Costello any ideas about bringing The Flash and Gorilla Grodd into this!!
JP: ‘Hello Neddy, if you are hearing this, then you probably have Bogdan tied up and helpless in Ann’s storage unit. Excellent. We are tying up loose ends so we can reclaim our precious little raspberry-haired brat. By this time April has already picked her up from Sam n’ Abbey’s place (don’t worry, they didn’t suffer… much) and as we speak Wurst is delivering a little ‘surprise’ to dear ol’ Dad and Mom (the stinking rummies…) If you are still listening to this, you are even dumber than we thought. This phone will now self-destruct in 3… 2… 1…’
RMMD: I promised not to refer to this character as a certain derogatory term, but knowing she’s taking a job from someone who could really use the money, when she could have just sold her palatial estate for a fortune, socked the proceeds in a savings account (or given it to charity!), bought some nice little house somewhere in a quiet neighborhood and, I don’t know, painted horsey pictures for the rest of her days, is *really* testing my resolve…
MW – So Grandpa is losing it and is pissing away your inheritance to online scammers in quarter-million dollar chunks. What to do? Sounds like a good time to take a cruise! Cruise lines operate in international waters, are notoriously indifferent to law enforcement and only count noses coming aboard, not going off. What’s not to like?
C’shaft: After years of doing jokes about the pains of aging, Tom Batiuk has finally discovered that menopause is a thing. It’s going about as well as you’d expect.
MW: The final panel of Widower Hart and his family gives me hope that this storyline is over. I know we have at least another week or so of recap to go, but please…for today, let me dream.
Mary Worth:
“Look, boys! — a comely mermaid, beckoning to me! Say, you youngsters are all tech-savvy, so: how do you wire-transfer a mermaid $200,000?”
@32 Hibbleton: I expect you’ll be getting a Scratchy on Friday.
@42 brendancalling: Idiot begetting idiot. Sounds about right.
MW: Toby’s selection of the Giraffe Treatment is really paying off. Look at that neck!
Gasoline Alley: “Pullin’ my funny bone”? Unless you’ve got Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Rufus, your funny bone is in no danger of going anywhere.
@TheDiva:
I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I’d have to think about how old the Crankshaft character Pam is supposed to be.
Dustin: If Dustdad put as much effort into being a lawyer as he did spiting his wife’s pleas to not gavage himself into an early grave, he’d be state attorney general by now.
JP: Muppets Most Wanted had more believable spy shenanigans.
Luann: I haven’t picked up my flute in years, but I’m pretty sure I could still play a recognizable melody on it. Frank’s problem isn’t that he gave up on his dreams of rock divinity; it’s that he was never any good at music to begin with.
Phantom: The Ghost Who Absolutely Cannot Read the Room
Pluggers are perpetually depressed.
RMMD: The woman has enough money to retire in her thirties, maybe teaching acting classes or writing her memoirs or doing something else to keep busy, yet she opts for being a waitress at a motel restaurant in the most boring town in America. It’s true what they say, money can’t buy class–or intelligence.
@TimP: I absolutely would have pegged her as post-menopausal, especially given how much Jeff is obsessed with Silver Age comics and other things that aren’t culturally relevant to anyone under sixty. But then Batiuk works in that comic strip liminal space where middle-aged people today think and act exactly like middle-aged people forty years ago, so she could very well be at that stage of life.
MW: I’d like to think that Mary is making the “air quotes” gesture throughout her speech, but she’s too lazy/relaxed to bring her hands out of water. That, or she says “QUOTE/UNQUOTE” everytime. (Would you read that last sentence aloud as QUOTE QUOTE UNQUOTE UNQUOTE?)
MW: Disappointed with her recent performance (all it took was a phone call to take care of Hart’s family problems), Mary takes a short spa stay to plot a new adventure.
Steeping in the roiling heat of virgin fluids after making a call to a friend in the Administration, Mary consoles herself with the knowledge that the Hart family was gullible enough to think they’re going to Catalina Island when they’re really on a Homeland Security charter to a detention facility in Honduras.
Now, “Hub” has some incentive to increase production at the phone center.
MW – Somebody at Spa had better turn up the temperature another hundred degrees or so. Otherwise those two are never going to be done in time for dinner.
Dick Tracy: Hiring Mickey Rooney to pose for Lieutenant/Paramedic Jessica Wyman’s portrait was just mean, and I don’t think it did justice to her memory.
Mary Worth:
“I believe the world is one big family…” Jet Li
“Give peace a chance.” Jackie Chan
“I will kill them all with my face.” Gandhi
Crankshaft: I can’t believe there’s no commentary on panel 5’s incendiary fart joke! You can’t leave the flatulence humor to someone like me, you just can’t!
DT – Just a few minor details to iron out, such as why are we wasting a whole Sunday strip looking at buildings when the only actual content was in the throwaway panel?
Don Abundio, translated:
“What a beautiful spot for a picnic!”
“But they say there are evil spirits here”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of”
“As long as you don’t break the circle!”
Dustin: “Anyway, back to what I was saying how you and your generation lacks discipline…”
FG: I’ve never been a fan of the “pixie” hairstyle, But I concede that Queen Azura was wise in making the change. A hundred years ago, she must have had that mane up in curlers 23 hours a day.
@TheDiva: By rights Mae Mae should be back home in her mansion, working on the Salome screenplay and planning her Cecil B. De Mille comeback.
MW-“Loneliness makes a person do some wacky things.” So sayeth a woman who couldn’t a few days by herself while her husband was at an educator’s conference and took in a parrot.
MW-“Remember we have to be nice to Grandpa or Mary Worth will return with muffins.”
Mary Worth – Good grief, that’s one humongous boat Harv owns. Dr. Jeff must be insanely jealous.
I was thinking that the identical twins were giving off a Village of the Damned vibe, but their expressions are too vacant. However, Harv, his daughter, and two college age grandsons clustered around a boat railing and smiling idiotically is downright creepy.
Frazz – “Of course.” For once I agree with Caulfield.
S4 – Nope. Not going to bother.
9CL – Which interchangeable couple is this? I really have no idea.
Edge City (GoComics) – She’s talking about Mary Worth.
FC – A clown on TV? Needs to be updated with Bluey, SpongeBob, Paw Patrol, or something else more recent than the 1960s.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashup – Madi perfectly expresses how I feel about this story. A thousand thanks for not including Wilbur in his Speedo.
@Ukulele Ike: “By rights Mae Mae should be back home in her mansion, working on the Salome screenplay, and planning her Cecil B. DeMille comeback.”
Don’t forget boinking her pet chimpanzee.
Maybe Lonnie or Fergus will end up floating face down in the motel swimming pool.
MW: Do I see Harv & Company on the Bum Boat in the last panel? It’s probably a different watercraft (sorry, I don’t read it often enough to know), but since every MW story needs to end on the Bum Boat, I’m pretending that’s where they are.
JP: These two are possibly the dumbest people in Cavelton (and that’s saying a lot). Consider: If Santa/Bogdan really is an enemy trying to abduct Charlotte on behalf of Pavel or someone, chances are he’s not working alone. While Ann & Neddy are waving a phone and an enormous wrench around in a public storage unit, Bogdan’s partner is already whisking Charlotte away from Spencer Ranch because Neddy couldn’t be bothered to fill Abbey in on the details when dumping the kid off on her. Plus, Abbey’s never been shown to be the brawler Neddy is, and wouldn’t think to administer a throat-punch to the would-be kidnapper. And Marie the maid wouldn’t know to come from behind with a fraternity paddle to finish the job (I say Marie and not Abbey’s husband Sam because for whatever reason only the women in this strip are violent lunatics).
@I speak Jive: “Don’t forget boinking her pet chimpanzee.”
Great heavens, I’ve seen that flick a hundred times and that particular subtext FLEW over my head. No wonder Bill Holden looked good to her.
9CL: Looks like fresh blood to me. None of the thralls has yet been seen wearing a full purple suit.
MW: Now, we don’t KNOW this is HH’s boat railing, or even a boat railing at all. They could be in the basket of a hot-air balloon.
SlyF – Today’s Foreground Fauna, appears to be a non breeding female goldfinch.
S4th: All right, I hate Whimsical Ted Sundays as much as any of us, but “Some groundhogs just shouldn’t open a restaurant” gave me the giggles. It’s so specific.
And I was pleased he hadn’t blown it at the track.
Dick Tracy: I don’t know how to break this you, shadowy bad guy, but trying to rob police headquarters is what’s colloquially known as a bad idea. Particularly when we’re talking about a precinct staffed by a cop notorious for horrifically murdering any criminal he encounters.
Mary Worth: The towels wrapped around their heads is drawing attention to the fact that Mary and Toby have the exact same face with the only difference being that Mary has smile lines.
Crankshaft: …What did she detonate a flashbang in her pussy?
I will personally work tirelessly to get guest writer Eric Costello nominated for an Eisner Award for his work on Dick Tracy if it turns out this villain is planning out a route for his job as an unlicensed tour guide.
Finally, proof positive that the “people” in Crankshaft aren’t human beings! Everyone laughed at me (more than anyone as laughed at the comic) when I told them that humans don’t behave that way! We will make silly puns, but nobody looks smug about it! I’ve been kicked out of stores as I held up newspapers and shouted that a real school bus driver who was that unsafe would have been fired years ago! But now, finally… HA HA HA! A “person” flashing with light?!? HA HA HA! Everyone MUST believe me now!
@Baja Gaijin: I learned “Amazing Grace” on piano in 6th grade. It’s only 3 chords on a guitar, 5 if you’re getting fancy. Folky chords too, not even difficult jazz chords.
If you can’t recognizably play “Amazing Grace” on guitar at 50-something or whatever age this dipshit is supposed to be, you were never going to be a rock star—or even a session player—to begin with. You’re not even good enough to play at one of Luann’s summer camps. That’s not a diss. It’s a simple FACT.
On a related note, one of the consistently annoying themes in this strip is the elevation and celebration of mediocrity as a higher goal than excellence. I mean, here we have Frank the never-was rocker because he never learned to play guitar finally picking up an instrument for the first time in years, and his family does nothing but make fun of him for belatedly trying something.
And you thought Willie Lima’s was a loser!
That should say “Willie Loman.”
S4th – Are they setting up the end of the strip? Ted finally writes his book. A weird fantasy drawn from childhood and it does well. He can quit his job and write full time.
DT: ? how do these drone fly-bys help Soly Tare figure out heists? This isn’t different then just walking by, taking pictures or climbing to nearby rooftops.
JP: OK – copy the video and show it to Charlotte later…
MW: Why is Jet Li being pulled into this?
RMMD: The cartoonist is doing an old trick from the black and white movie days –“Day for Night”. Film in the daytime through a bluish filter. This allows a nighttime scene to be filmed with clarity.
JP- Later this week
Neddy: The man who was following us had a message from your parents, do you want to see it?
Charlotte: Let’s just go riding, OK? I don’t want to deal with their lies.
“Loneliness makes a person do some wacky things. Like when I did Ian. Same with you and Jeff?”
“I never “did” Jeff.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“And don’t get me started on the Westons.”
Crankshaft, probably: When women get to a certain age, those hot flashes sure give “men a pause,” don’t they? Eh? Eh??
The family is planning on Screwed McDuck having an “accident” at sea before he can waste any more of their inheritance on lovers, real or imagined, and on keeping the ascot industry alive.
MW- One question: Who the hell’s driving the fucking boat? Trixie? You’d think that the man of a thousand Ascots would be wearing one of those dumb looking Captian’s hats. Then he’d be a regular Hardly Heffner.
@Ukulele Ike: On one hand, to each their own. On the other, the idea of anyone disliking pixie cuts is so bizarre to me personally that it makes me wonder if you’re a space alien posing as a human.
@I speak Jive: Gotta admit, it would be extremely entertaining to me if this plot was resolved via a raging chimpanzee attacking and murdering Lonnie, presumably before fist-bumping Mud while stained in blood like that scene in Nope.
@I speak Jive: The final panel breaks away from Mary’s usual unreliable narration to show the true state of her victims after her work is done; lobotomized living dead, devoid of any and all personality or soul, all of it cut out and replaced by the puritan ideology of a crazed old woman who runs her apartment complex like a cult compound and believes human individuality is something to be destroyed.
FC- “Now PJ, how many times have Mommy and Daddy told you, We pull our finger out of our ass before we sit down?”
Mary Worth: “Loneliness makes a person do some wacky things,” says Toby as she dreamily thinks about the parrot-love of her life.
Crank dat Shaft: She just farted. A big one. I mean, we all understand what that “Whump” really means, right?
@Ukulele Ike: Re the song to follow up “The Lusty Month of May”, if you like a clambake I’m sure you can figure it out.
There is only one opening through which the light could escape from the uterus and I don’t like that they put this image in my head!
@brendancalling: “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
–G.K. Chesterton
That Frank’s family makes fun of him for giving something a shot explains so much about the DeGroot family’s dynamic.
CS: In Texas what Pam just did under the covers is called a baked fart.
I’m not sure which one of them screwed up ‘tickling the dragon’s tail,’ or (and not to kink-shame) why they’re doing it in bed, but Crankshaft should be aware that deadly Cherenkov radiation flashes are blue, not yellow.
FG: Commander Ming, sir, as much as we appreciate you braving the unknown terrors of that glowing tunnel alone, what are we going to do with a lava lamp?
@Baja Gaijin: I was thinking a Freddie Kruger claw, but the shark’s good. Thanks for not going with tentacles.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Man cave, baby! You know Ming is eventually going to have the best one on Mongo. With quad stereo, 8-track tape player, and one of those five-foot bongs!
@ValdVin: Thanks, one of our nice ladies pointed that out to me yesterday. Never seen (or heard) Carousel, plus I’m more of a Rogers & Hart guy. Hammerstein isn’t kosher.
9CL: Instead of being moved or inspired or whatever, I am thinking that these dolts can’t even buckle their shoes.
@Ukulele Ike: #91: With a king sized waterbed, shag carpeting, and autographed posters of Mongo’s top gladiators.
The Familliar Mucus: Wow!, P.J. really hates balanced nutrition!
BAJA ALERT!!!! Avoid THE FAMILLIAR MUCUS AT ALL COSTS!!!
_______________________________
I’ve been meaning to ask for a little Commudgeon history – what’s the deal with Baja and clowns? Is it a real phobia Baja has or is it just an extended joke from one day when Baja freaked out at a particularly evil clown comic? If its an actual phobia I won’t reference it anymore. If its an extended joke, let the Baja alerts reign.
JP – One of the things that Operation Metro Surge taught us here in Minnesota is that you don’t leave FaceID/TouchID enabled on your phone because you want to keep this, precisely, from happening. So despite being dispatched by SuperSpy CIApril to deliver a message to her family and do a welfare check on her daughter – all of whom seem to be under constant surveillance anyway – Bogdan can’t manage that simple precaution. Kinda explains how he was already in that Somewhere-In-European prison when Randy arrived.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Wet bar with an illuminated beer sign and a big Waring blender for frozen vokko margaritas.
@GarrisonSkunk: I can never remember whether Baja was raised by clowns, or wolves.
Mary Worth: This spa is too cheap to use an actual hot tub so they filled it up with gift bag tissue paper.
Family Circus: Woah, it’s the final comic from The Dysfunctional Family Circus in it’s complete form. Neat-o.
@The Quiet Man: RMMD: 1) I’m sure there’s plenty of other derogatory terms one could use. 2) The real lesson is that you have to be independently wealthy to live on what the Glenwood Motel is willing to pay a waitress.
@TheDiva: We know that Jeff was in college in the late 1960s; it’s come up a couple of times in the last couple of years. Assuming that Pam is about the same age, she should probably be in her mid-to-late 70s.
@Ukulele Ike:
I can never remember whether Baja was raised by clowns, or wolves.
_______________________________________________
The Laughing Lupines claim another victim. Sad.
@Peanut Gallery:Nah, this’ll work for sous vide.
Mary’s Worst : In the exciting conclusion of ” Termeddler2″ Mary and Toby melt into a puddle of liquid metal.
Wilburp, Ian, and Dr Jeffy arrange to send the resulting liquid to Siberia to be frozen solid and buried.They won’t be back until James Cameron needs the money “Termenmeddler3” will bring foward.
@Peanut Gallery: When he lays the ley lines down between the pomme fruit, he’s going to have one crooked pentagram.
On the original – add ants to the list of things rich fucks don’t know how they work.
@I speak Jive: FC – Oh come on, it makes perfect sense that Pennywise is the one thing that can give Jeffy a moment of distracted pleasure from that owie on his little finger.
HtH: Wait. Waitwaitwait. Is the object behind Hägar’s helmet horn meant to be a pencil? Are we meant to understand that he’s the one who gave Lute this unflattering epithet? Because firstly, wouldn’t that make more sense if the name was graffitied over the actual one? And secondly, since when can Hägar write? Did I miss the heartwarming Very Special Story where he overcame his illiteracy with the assistance of some tough but goodhearted teenaged Vikings called the Rough Raiders?
MW: “H****y wasn’t upset about the money he lost; he was more upset that his ‘girlfriend’ disappeared. And then, at some point before Sharon showed up, he went from ‘my girlfriend has vanished and something must have happened to her’ to ‘my girlfriend has vanished with my money and I’ve been a fool.’ I don’t know how that happened – I wasn’t there! Doubtless if this were a work of fiction, that would have been explained to the readers.”
I realise that this story has been an endless string of “Is that going somewhere? Guess not!” moments, but that’s the one that bugs me the most.
Phantom: Proto-Stripey is embarassed to remember the time when — while still only knowing a handful of words in the Bandar tongue — he insisted that “Bandarmoyo” couldn’t possibly be a rank. But not embarassed enough.
Pluggers: It’s sad Pluggers don’t remember anything that funny. If they did, they could try sending it to the strip!
S4th: The important question is, did he see his shadow? If he did, that means six more weeks of whatever this is.
Zits: Week 2 of “the van is inexplicably back (yes, I know they explain it, but the explanation is ‘some guy did it’) just as the strip is wrapping up”, and I remain uncertain as to whether this is a bookending epilogue or an attempt to transition into the inevitable rerun era. If the latter, at least it’s smoother than when Spider-Man very nearly ended with Pete and MJ off to Australia, and then suddenly decided on Sunday that nope, lets ignore that and clumsily segue into the Marvella story.
@Ettorre: OMG! It’s the Crankshaft/Flash Gordon crossover we never knew we needed!
@Joshua K.: #100: A previous story arc had Pam as being a student at Kent State during the 1970 shootings. Even if she was an 18 year old freshman that would make her 74 at the youngest.
MW- maybe we don’t see the dad because he wasn’t successful in his escape attempt.
Cshaft- is she taking an under-the-cover photo for her only fans site?
Zits – Jeremy was in the process of signing the papers to sell the van when, in a moment that served no real narrative purpose whatsoever, it got flattened – flattened – by a semi. There is no amount of suspension of disbelief that can make this retcon work. Also, no way would Sara express any pleasure at its return, she hated it for being unreliable, stinky, and unsafe.
You made a choice to irreversibly destroy the microbus; why are you bringing it back?
For those who don’t remember.
1. Jeremy was alarmed by Global Warming and wanted his parents to get an electric vehicle.
2. Walt saw what vans like Jeremy’s was commanding on the aftermarket and told Jeremy that he would sell his commuter to Jeremy for that price and buy something electric for the family vehicle.
3. Jeremy found a buyer and was closing the sale when the bus rolled down hill and got flattened.
4. The buyer gave Jeremy some money for the heartbreak.
5. Walt gave Jeremy his commuter.
6. We never learned whether Walt and Connie got an electric vehicle.
@Gil Bates: Yeah. They’re about eight years older than the kids who were riding in the back seat of Sharon’s enormous SUV.
MW: I thought this was a family strip, but I’m pretty sure Mary and Toby are enjoying orgasms as they sit on the jets.
@CanuckDownSouth: @Ukulele Ike:
#97. Whether raised by clowns or by wolves, we now understand Baja’s taste for wild cuisine .
Oh, man, Dithers & Co. is doomed! Hope everybody would rather be going to the unemployment office! The unemployment office! Ehhh? Ehhhhh?
@Guillermo el chiclero: I think I read somewhere that Crankshaft is set an indefinite number of years before Funky Winkerbean. But I’ve seen enough of this strip to place it no earlier than circa 2015, so the youngest Pam could be is maybe 63? 64? At any rate, yes, she might want to call Guinness.
@Rover Berkeley:
Crankshaft USED to be set roughly ten years before Funky Winkerbean, which was set in the modern day, but part of the Funky Winkerbean finale involved time travel being used to “merge the two timelines into one”, so now Crankshaft is simply set in the modern day, despite the facts that Jeff&Pam attended Kent State in 1970, Crankshaft served in World War 2 and Ralph Meckler hung out with jazz musicians in the 1920s, that’s all assumed to have still happened as we were told it happpened.
@Rover Berkeley: Hooboy. Let’s explain that nonsense. Crankshaft is set in the present day. Funky Winkerbean was set in the present day. Funky Winkerbean, in its later years, was set ten years after Crankshaft. This was because…
Actually, no. There is no explanation I can give, whether about real world timeskips and how they interact with a sliding timeline in which everyone stays the same age, or in-universe time-travelling janitors who really need a book to exist, that will ever make this make sense. But it was the case for many years, and continues to haunt any attempt to understand the Funkyverse chronology even today.
(EDIT: Actually, Anonymous explained it pretty well, although I do think it’s worth stressing that Crankshaft was never written as though it was set ten years in the past, beyond the characters being aged up when they crossed over. The timeline doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t make sense the other way either.)
Today’s Crankshaft has the extra misfortune of drawing a comparison to today’s Arlo and Janis.
@Baja Gaijin: Oooh, you have quite a few nice additions.
@64 I speak Jive: It seemed so right.
@90 Ken: I hadn’t thought of a Freddy Krueger claw.
@119 taig: I like Mary’s response in the lower left panel and love “Hervey’s Ascot” in the lower right.
Late Thread Cuisine: What Mary and Toby’s hot tub will look like when they’re finished “boiling.”
@I speak Jive:
#63. FRAZZ: Jive, thanks for motivating me to look up the two men– amazing athletes who doubtlessly have detailed funeral plans prepared. I especially appreciate that the climber uses his notoriety for an important cause.
@Baja Gaijin:
#121. And your recipe is so simple!
I’m a touch alarmed at the shade, but figure there’s a reasonable explanation. Seafood soups are the best, I’m in
@brendancalling:
#42 LUANN: I have to give Dad a break. 50 odd years after I last played my high school clarinet, my mother forced it on me. I no longer had either the breath or the lips to play more than a couple squeaks. Then the pads fell off. It’s now awaiting a home in an elementary school.
@Baja Gaijin:
Are those green things fava beans? If so, all this Toby and Mary stew needs is a glass of Chianti to be complete.
Crankshaft: Ed’s appearance in the throwaway panel fulfills his contract’s required once-monthly appearance, which thereby frees the creators to check in on Batton Thomas and Chip for the next few weeks.
@Ukulele Ike: I never picked up on that angle myself regarding the chimpanzee. Billy Wilder said it, according to the imbd.
@Activist: I’d heard of Phillipe Petit before, and Frazz mentioned Alex Honnold a while back. I noticed that the middle panel shows them.
I can think of a number of living writers, scientists, statesmen, etc that I would find more interesting than two extreme athletes. Frazz always goes with the athletes. To each his own, I guess.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – I am a fan of fish and seafood, so that looks like something I would probably like. The only questionable part is the pinkish broth.
@richardf8: The evil spirits belong to picnickers who were mauled to death by teddy bears. They look so cute and cuddly, but don’t trust them!
MW: Of course all Mary ever did was offer a couple of tepid warnings to H@rvey and then, after weeks and weeks, call Sharon, long after the $200,000 was gone with the wind. Mary’s deeply-smug self-satisfaction with her utterly-blaaah performance, that’s what is impressive. Sorry, Toby, you’ll never achieve it.
@Baja Gaijin:
#121 MW: Query for Physiologists: If you put Mary and Toby in a vat of tepid water and slowly heat it, will the two women ever jump out before being cooked?
A: Depends on how thick is Mary’s skin and how dense is Toby
@Baja Gaijin: I’d probably eat that, if certain explanations were offered. Like why that pink color.
@Baja Gaijin: Seriously, that’s one of your best recent presentations.
@Bob Tice: @Activist: @taig:
MT: Here we go again. A nicely-executed informative Sunday strip about an interesting animal, and some of us, meaning at least me, enjoyed it and learned from it. But tomorrow, it’s back into the weird maelstrom.
JP: If this part of the story were to end with Bogdan and Neddy teaming up to leave Ann locked in that storage unit for awhile to think things over, that would be okay with me.
@123 Activist: Yup.
@124 A Grave Mind: I figured you would like this.
@126 Deadly Goon Bugs: The green things are edamame. Surprised?
@128 I speak Jive: Maybe color leaked from the shrimps?
@131 Activist: Huh. I figured it would take about 7 minutes for brain damage to occur, maybe less for Toby. Another half hour to hour of boiling to render down to the photograph’s contents.
@132 Poteet: Maybe the squid “inked”?
@Baja Gaijin:
@126 Deadly Goon Bugs: The green things are edamame. Surprised?
Close enough. Now pop that cork on the Chianti and dig in.
@139 Deadly Goon Bugs: Here’s the translation of the dish: Haimian Taizi Lemon Flavor: A dish that seafood lovers will adore, featuring shrimp, squid, octopus, clams, and edamame. No explanation what the liquid is.
@I speak Jive: “I never picked up on that angle myself regarding the chimpanzee. Billy Wilder said it, according to the imbd.”
If Norma had invited Buster Keaton upstairs after the bridge game, he’d have given her a tumble. Buster was only 54 in 1950, still capable doing his own (ahem) “stunts.”
@Baja Gaijin: Coconut milk, I’d bet. With tom yum paste making it pale pink.
C-Shaft: No, she’s using a glow-in-the-dark vibrator.
DT: I feel like the top two panels were supposed to run separately and the rest of the strip with the photos was supposed to come later as some kind of memory test. We already covered all this in the checklist, Solly!
MW: It’s so nice to see that HH and his brood are back to doing family activities like jumping off a high observation deck as a final act of faith.
@Anonymous: @Bob Tice: “Look, boys! — a comely mermaid, beckoning to me! Say, you youngsters are all tech-savvy, so: how do you wire-transfer a mermaid $200,000?”
__________________________________
In a “sealed” envelope.
@BigTed: Mary Worth: Did Mary and Toby really need to travel all that way just to lie in a hot tub?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Yes,they senseably wanted to be somewhere they wouldn’t be in danger of Willburp slobbering over them licking cucumber and mayo based body cream off their wrinkled faces.
@Peanut Gallery: Don Abundio, translated:
____________________________________
I guess its good that there’s no sign of grass, its probably more hygienic to put the sandwhich and pieces of cake on the white void.
9CL: This is another one of those times where I have no idea who these people are supposed to be but I’m quite sure it doesn’t matter.
GA: Joel has all the same ex-wife jokes as Shoe. Of course Shoe wears hi-tops and otherwise lets it all hang out, while Joel actually wears pants. Advantage: hillbilly junkman.
H&L: Hey, keep it clean, little missy. This is officially a family strip that an impressionable kid might theoretically read, by accident or something.
Phantom: He started out as “Ghost-who-makes-ironic-predictions-to-himself.”
RMMD: Notice that the narration boxes put scare quotes around “Mud” and “Lorna.” NB had hoped that when the roots country star revealed that he was actually named Fergus that meant he had outgrown the whole silly “Mud Mountain” thing. As for a Hollywood actress changing her name, who ever heard of such a thing?
@treetown:
MW: Why is Jet Li being pulled into this?
Jacky Chan won the coin toss.
@richardf8: @Horace Broon:
They needed to bring the van back because the strip is going to “new strips only on Sunday” and want to keep the clip art consistent. So even if the characters in the strip are no longer green at least somebody’s practicing recycling.
Pluggers – I’ve been reading Pluggers every day for years, and I don’t remember anything funny either.
JumpStart – Come on, Armstrong, put it up to the real comic strip experts. Let us see just one Klondike Ike strip.
@GarrisonSkunk: My impression is that it’s a real phobia, but he exaggerates it for comic effect.
@Baja Gaijin: That seems an apt description. Bleh.
@matt w:
DT: What kind of monster uses diamonds for checkboxes?
_________________________________________________________
He originally used hearts but Mumbles gave him a dirty look.
Judge Parker Brothers: The sitcom, “Hello,Neddy” was a disastrous bomb in this other reality.
MW – The world is a getto.
Meddlin’ Mary
The art gallery in Dick Tracey is 100% the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton! I helped build it during a very brief stint as a plumber in 2009. ?