He’ll wait for her, motionless, in that same room, indefinitely
Post Content
Gil Thorp, 5/7/26
See that girl in the second panel, sort of squinting at Gil and Coach Gerads in the middle distance? That’s me, trying to parse the order of their conversation. “I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.” “It’s invite-only, coach.” “I know, I said, I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.” “And I said, it’s invite-only, coach.” They could go on like this forever. Anyway, I thought I’d give you a glimpse of Coach Gerads’s dumb outfit, if that’s the sort of thing that amuses you (I admit it does me).
Mary Worth, 5/7/26
Oh my god Tommy isn’t spiraling into crisis because Brandy dumped him, he’s in crisis because she went on a trip without him! He meant “left” literally, in the sense of physically moving out of his immediate vicinity! This is simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest things Mary Worth has ever done, which is an impressive achievement in a srtip that stars Wilbur Weston.
Hagar the Horrible, 5/7/26
Hagar has killed so many people, you guys. So many! Almost none of them deserved it! They were just trying to defend themselves when he was robbing them!
Pluggers, 5/7/26
Hey, now, pluggers aren’t “smart”! You almost had me there for a minute. They aren’t “devices,” either, as most devices are engineered at least passably well.
157 replies to “He’ll wait for her, motionless, in that same room, indefinitely”
Tommy is a devout believer in solipsism! That girl has ceased existing, have you no sympathy? If sympathy exists. Or YOU exist….
Hagar Until you realize the bunny was acting unusually due to its suffering from rabies, which you contract and die a horrible death (neatly matching you own name!)
“James England”? That’s no red-blooded American Pluggers surname! This is just a fake Plugger, that’s why the joke is passable!
I know domestic rabbits that won’t let you pet them. Clearly this bunny sees something in Hagar’s heart. And the bunny lusts for blood!
Brandy left the room and Tommy thinks she vanished into thin air. This and the hair are not beating the allegations that he is a Golden Retriever!
I can’t shake the feeling that the girl in Thorp panel #2 has had that expression for days, if not weeks.
OMG, Gil is going to kill him, isn’t he? (That’s what “eighty-six” means, doesn’t it?)
GT Is that a TV screen partly in front of the window – or a computer screen in Panel2? Could that woman be Marty Moon’s (only!) YouTube audience – and that would explain why she’s following a conversation through a closed window and across a huge yard?? Could the artist and writer have actually done something consistent by accident today?!
Pluggers : were brainwashed into becoming deadly assassins, and still fall into an obedient trance when given their trigger phrase : “Honey, please take out the trash”.
While today’s manosphere celebrates Vikings and other warriors “races” as epitome of manly brutality, traditional masculinity included appreciation for beauty and softness (lyric poetry is part of all warrior cultures), because real culture is more complex than post-modern flattening for consumerist consumption. Bring Hagar into schools!
MW: So either tomorrow we’re going to found out that Brandy broke up with him because she couldn’t have any distractions on this very important family reunion, or that Tommy’s just an idiot. Granted, he’s an idiot regardless, but the second way is significantly funnier.
Also MW: Didn’t Brandy used to be tan?
GT: Gerads wants to go to the wedding so he can object when the minster asked if anyone has a reason why these two should not be married. Thorp can’t waste his energy on matrimony! He has to devote one hundred percent of his life to coaching to make his defeat to Gerads all the more devastating!
CS: It must’ve taken a lot of work to weave all of that pubic hair into upholstery for Ed’s chair.
Pluggers are smart devices, in the sense that you give them a command and they obey. They won’t monitor the trash level and take it out independently like a AI agent or a responsible adult would do, so they are still an inferior model
Mw:
:
“I’ll wait for you for three months, Brandy! — of course, in strip time, that’s six years!”
GT You know where the best golf courses are? That’s right: the Bonneville salt flats! No annoying hills or trees or water, just an clear unobstructed line to the green, er, ‘brown’.
MW /2 hours later/ “….fuck this, I’m smoking meth!”
@Pozzo: I do wonder if the news lately made the writer toss that in to emphasize that “86” from a bar means to be refused service / no longer allowed in but isn’t a threat
MW: “No, don’t wait for me. It’s not fair to
YOU.”
“I’ll call you every day.”
“No, I’m weaning myself off technology.”
“We’ll write letters.”
” No, I’ll be on the move.”
” I’ll send you psychic messages.”
” AAAARGH!!!”
GT: This strip’s dialogue ALWAYS reads like someone played 52 Pick-Up with a bunch of word cards.
HtH: “Then Snert ate it in one gulp.”
Pluggers: The real “Honey” trap.
Gil Thorp:
“You know, son, in some counties, wearing a hat like that is a misdemeanor!”
I know Gil Thorpe is never this timely but Coach Gerads having Gil falsely arrested for making a death threat would make a great summer storyline.
@Ettorre: Who knew Moy and Brigman were fans of the classic Goosebumps book ‘My Hairiest Adventure’.
@Pozzo: Well, sure, how else is Gil going to convince that spineless ICE goon (the one with the ‘gambling debts’) to release the cute girl if he doesn’t convince them he’s capable of anything. It’s the ‘Mad Coach’ theory.
JP: Wait, that’s *it*? “Thank you and good bye?” Not even a hint that they are ever going to come back and take the raspberry-haired brat off this dullard’s hands? I’m choosing to interpret Ann’s ‘Give me a moment’ as her quietly letting the rage reach another boiling point before smashing first the phone, then Santy Bogdan’s skull, then Neddy’s skull, for giving her such a long walk to such a short, unsatisfying payoff. It’ll be the most cathartic thing the strip’s ever done.
HtH — “It was so soft and purdy. And I hugged it real tight and then it wouldn’t move any more. Tell me, Helga, tell me again about the rabbit.
GT – “So what’s the rush to get married, Gil?”
“Time marches on and it’s slipping away. Beth was pretty good-looking when we first hooked up a few years ago. Now look at her. Hell, look at all of us!”
The Plugger Smart Home Device might spy on you, but it won’t remember any of it.
Pluggers: You can’t fool me, this is foreplay for an extremely elaborate kink roleplay. Before long, she’ll be saying “Honey, paint my garage“.
Are you talking about some other Hägår episode, Josh?
Because your comment has no connection with Hãgâr petting a rabbit.
Murky Tail:
“Send help. I mean, call Mary Worth, she should be back from the spa by then. Tell her to bring Muffin.”
_________________________________
Wary Morth:
“I’ll wait for you. I mean it’s not as though I have anything else to do when summoned out of inexistence because Moy ran out of ideas and closed down the Trixie story.”
_________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
If you like getting paid, you should probably consider looking for a job where the manager doesn’t use all the profits to maintain his gigantic pompadour.
Pluggers: “…would you kindly?”
The comics device of “foreground character looks at background character while facing forward in a way that doesn’t makes sense if you think about it” is one I have defended in Hi & Lois. But I am going to mock it in panel 2 of Gil Thorp. Because I am a shameless hypocrite.
Questioned Malcontent:
I admit that I still have a soft spot for Yay, unlike the majority of the remaining characters from the old days, though all of them have been mercilessly destroyed.
In any case, today’s Bubbles-Yay conversation at least postpones Lizard’s yet another party to next week.
I’m thankful at least for that much.
@matt w:
I just can’t tear my eyes away from her gigantic lower lip. Did she get stung by a wasp or something?
@Ukranazi Stepan:
He’s highlighting the contrast between Hagar radiating hearts and talking about petting cute bunnies (what he’s doing TODAY), and Hagar raiding castles and brutally killing his enemies in bloody brawls (what he does every other day).
You know, like if he ran today’s Dustin and said “DustinDad HATES his son! Just outright despises him! Spends every waking second belittling him!”, even though that’s not what’s happening TODAY.
Or if Crankshaft offered to take a kid who fell asleep on his bus for ice cream, and Josh said “Crankshaft HATES kids! He deliberately avoids picking them up, just driving past them while leaving them in the dust! He thinks his bus driver job is about being as big a menace as possible! He treats actually safely taking kids to their intended destination as a failure!” It wouldn’t match what would be happening in the strip, but they’re not untrue statements about what kind of person Crankshaft is!
MARY WORTH: I think Tommy’s “spiraling into a crisis” because he’s suffering from the aftereffects of the dumbining Virus that’s hit Santa Royale as of late, causing symptoms such as Short Attention-Span Syndrome. Only a few days ago Tommy self-pieously asked himself “Why did you leave me?” even though this flashback shows that he was clearly told the answer to…wait what were we talking about again?
MARY WORTH (2): The Dumbining Virus and S.A.S.S. hasn’t just affected Tommy either. “I’m going to Florida to spend time with my father’s sister to learn why he treated me the way he did. You know that reason that I already know (drugs) since it’s my one noteworthy attribute and therefore the thing I bring up all the time, which is the main conflict we have, with me comparing your past drug use with my father’s? Anyway my Father’s half-sister who’s never met me and has never observed our family dynamic should help me answer the question I already know about why my father behaved the way he did. I mean, as we’ve seen the numerous times this story has come up in the comics page, people love it when long-lost relatives look you up just to dump all of their ‘baggage’ onto you!”
GT: Rowdy Roddy Pooper talks to Gil. if I don’t come, will you let my friend who dresses like Cowboy Bob Orton attend in my place? He’s got the cast and everything!
@Ukranazi Stepan: It’s more fun to see that gigantic lower lip as a slightly protruding tongue. You can’t unsee it.
I honestly thought Helga was raising her entire left arm over her head and that she had lost half of it in a freak accident. Her armless, bowling-pin-like body in the first panel didn’t help matters either.
Maybe the bunny did it?
Thorp just made a death threat to the President of Plaid, and loudly enough to startle that student on the bus.
***
Based on everything I know about modern Mary Worth, sigh, what pet is Tommy going to get to cover for his temporary loneliness? It can’t be a cat or dog that devotes its every waking hour paying rapt attention to him, there are too many of those already. Maybe it’s a bird that flies freely around his home without defecating on everything? No, Toby has that covered. Wilbur’s the fish guy. I’m going to go to one of those betting sites and put my money on an iguana.
***
Pluggers have planned obsolescence.
Dang it! I didn’t close the italics after Mary Worth!
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Looks like your intern released those Doves o’ Love prematurely—unless Ian is hooking up with Helen Moss in the Cameron condo while Toby is away at the spa—in which case, I’ll be more interested in the parrots’ recap of that activity than I expect to be in Tommy’s self-pitying moaning about being alone. Tommy should get a pet.
H&L: Warn Defever of His Name Is Alive literally did this on one of his solo albums. Chip could really menace Hi by saying the retro sound was some early ’10s signature sound, if the audience knew what an early ’10s signature sound was. Or the writers did. Or I did.
[On my daily “How much quiet desperation is there in Hi and Lois?” post I somehow twisted this into speculation about which Homestuck character Chip is into. Dave Strider, I think. Hi disdains this because he’s a Problem Sleuth guy.]
REX MORGAN M.D. Uh-oh. Looks the Dumbining Virus is so severe that’s it’s become a plague that’s infecting other comics as well. So…which one of you brave and patient souls wants to explain to poor dimwitted Hector here that short-order cooks don’t work on commission or tips, and therefore “get paid” regardless of how many people they serve as long as they work the hours? (Certainly not Terry Beatty, who apparently didn’t know this either.)
Maybe the same person who can let the dumb lad know that since this is a motel that does room service, he’ll be “cooking” (and therefore “working” and “getting paid”) regardless of whether the restaurant is open or not?
(P.S.: By the way, Luann Degroot, if you’re still trying to find a viable career path for naive, slack-jawed morons, you might want to look into being a comic strip creator. Apparently you don’t need to know jack shit about about anything to get that position.)
Gil Thorp: Is Gerads wearing a full over-the-shoulder tartan with slacks and a tasteful blue button-down? Commit to the bit, buddy. You’ll never win the Outlander cosplay contest at this rate.
@Ukranazi Stepan: I think some of the Gil Thorp art problems are because the mouths are always drawn too big, then the bottom of the head is over-wide to compensate, which is why they all have heads shaped like butternut squashes. Note I said “some,” this doesn’t explain the problems with bodies or backgrounds or vehicles or houses, just faces.
GT: Why does Coach Permawave even want to go to the wedding of his rival? I can only assume that it’s because everything in Milford revolves around White Male Protagonist Gil Thorp, and his nuptials are the local equivalent of the Met Gala.
MW: Tommy lacking object permanence is the most believable thing this strip has produced in months.
Pluggers fall back on tired sitcom stereotypes with astonishing regularity.
MW: I’m betting that this ends up with Brandy meeting someone else and dumping Tommy by text message. Well, not “ends up,” we’ll have at least three months of Mary’s meddling after that revelation.
Dustin Yes. That’s exactly how the practice of law works. You have one case, and if you settle it, you can take the day off to play video games. Tomorrow you can go to the office and eat donuts until your next case comes in.
@TheDiva: On GT – Oooo, I wonder what sort of audacious ‘statement’ the nonconformists will plaster on their dresses in an attempt to show they aren’t just as desirious as everyone else of being accepted and feted by their betters in the upper class. That is, if they decide to go and don’t just stand outside waving little signs or throwing tomato soup at the attendees.
LUANN: The Dumbining Virus III: Inner Beautystan Edition: Phil: We need to go! We came here in the first place for free food, but I’m offended that the glorified real estate pitch turned out to be a real estate pitch, so we’re leaving. Sorry for wasting the precious little time you get for lunch, Luann. I guess you don’t get to eat now!” (Shrugs)
Hagar the Horrible-“And on a related note, Helga. I want rabbit stew for dinner. Here’s the rabbit.”
MW-Poor Tommy. No stray animals for him to adopt.
MW-These people fall to pieces so easily when someone leaves them.
@TheDiva: Pluggers fall back on tired sitcom stereotypes with astonishing regularity.
You could say the same about tired jokes about regularity.
C’shaft: Man, that joke would have…well, it wouldn’t have killed in 2005 because it’s a stupid joke, but it wouldn’t have resulted in the reader frowning and wondering if Criminal Minds was still on the air. (Apparently, yes.)
Dustin: “…In other words, treating your very existence as a burden and a curse upon my life.”
JP: Oh, please don’t tell me the Randy-April videos are deepfakes. I’ve had more than enough of comic strip writers trying to wrap their minds around AI technology.
Luann: Suuuuure, the “amenities fee” is what’s keeping you from living in this high-end luxury apartment complex on your RN salary.
MT: So….Mark Sr. will kill his son for standing in the way of his illusions of romance?
RMMD: Dude, you were the only one working while the dining room was shut down! You’re paid by the hour, not on a per-customer basis! Getting paid is not the problem here!
Dustin-“I got fired from my job months ago and everyday since I’ve been making an appearance of going to work.”
“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll stay out of the way.”
“Look, you really can’t come. My mission might be dangerous!”
“Well, I’m not worried about that.”
“Jesus, man, my mission involves a nighttime HALO drop into Tehran to assassinate a senior Iranian leader. I know Langley thinks having an idiot boyfriend is good cover, but sometimes you make it difficult.”
Hagar the Horrible presents John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I can’t wait until next week when Lucky Eddie stars in Catcher in the Rye.
I think we should at least acknowledge the engineering skill and effort that went into designing the Plugger’s belt. More or less successfully containing that gut without catastrophic failure isn’t a trivial task.
Hagar the Horrible:
I’m intrigued and a little bit concerned by Helga’s response to Hagar’s bunny-fondling. “It’s the best, right?” she beams, which implies she, too, has pet this bunny. How long has the bunny been sitting on the Horribles’ front lawn, accepting physical affection from strangers? Are they even talking about the same bunny? Is this the first time this has happened? Are the bunnies truly “letting” them pet them, or are they leaving behind a trail of mangled rabbit corpses, Lennie Small style?
@Tabby Lavalamp: Pluggers are well aware of their own obsolesence. They just don’t do anything about it. They won’t die. Or retire. Or shut up. Or accept that the world has changed a great deal since they were young. Or stop forcing their preferences on everyone else. Or stop acting like their sub-Hallmark observations make them the funniest person in the room.
MW- She found out that a “Florida Man” is a whole lot more interesting than Tommy, hasn’t she?
MW – At some point, you need to stop wasting time on why your family did what they did in the past, and figure out what you want in the here and now, Brandi. If you want a reason to break up with Tommy, just do it. But hiding behind Florida and your messy childhood only makes you more attractive, for some reason?
Hagar: Also, her name is Judy Hopps, and she’s arresting me for crimes against humanity. We can afford bail right?
Hagar the Horrible-Hef is going to be upset that Hagar is petting his Bunnies.
MW: Today, in the past, Brandy straight up tells him why she’s leaving and he says he’ll wait for her, but yesterday, in the present, Tommy asked, “BABE … WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LEAVE ME?” The day before that, also in the present, Tommy was mentally screaming about how he’s “ALONE…TOTALLY ALONE! AUUUGHH!” Have years of abusing meth, weed, and opiates reduced Tommy to little more than a human Giga Pet? Signs point to yes!
Luann: Any reason these two are not getting lunch at Weenie World?
And my second question, do you think Luann’s mom forbids her daughter from eating hot dogs because they’re too phallic?
RMMD: If you’re worried about a steady paycheck. Hector, why don’t you go work for a thriving business rather than stay with a failing one?
@Ukranazi Stepan: Maybe that’s her tongue? She’s blepping like a cat in order to show the proper disdain for those losers?
@TheDiva:
If I recall, he’s not even an RN. Isn’t he basically like a CMA? Though I did once date a CMA with a pretty nice apartment, so now I don’t know where I’m going with this
Seems like what the word “Honey” would activate this plugger to do was go raid a beehive, seeing as how this plugger is a bear.
@Human-eared Dragon:
Luann: Any reason these two are not getting lunch at Weenie World?
I have no idea why Phil thought this tour of a condo was a proper substitute for a dinner date simply because it was catered. Especially since they’re leaving without having touched (or even seen) a single hors d’oeuvres.
(that part where the pushy lady handed them a contract to sign with one hand while holding a plate with the other, while Luann and Phil were soaking in a spa? An imagine spot that didn’t actually happen).
And my second question, do you think Luann’s mom forbids her daughter from eating hot dogs because they’re too phallic?
You’d think so, but there was absolutely no issue with her bringing that for lunch when she “interviewed” her mom about her “career”.
Tommy and Wilbur are in a fierce competition for the title of “Most Pathetic Mary Worth Character”.
@Human-eared Dragon: Remember, Luann’s job is to clean up messes related to weiners, not actually handle or prepare them herself.
MW: I think I sussed it as to what happened to Brandy (who was a fine girl). Once she got to Florida she went swimming and was killed by an alligator.
MW: Yeah, right. This long lost half-sister who had no contact whatsoever with Brandy’s dad is going to fill her in with all the details about him.
@Charterstone: Dune: Whatever it is, Luann Degroot is having a double dose of it. I mean just look at her expression in panel #3! That’s the face of a woman who’s putting a lot “sugar” on her ice cream sundae, if get what I’m saying.
Gil Thorp-“Then I’ll see you on your wedding night, Coach.”
6Chx: The continuing dilemma of the contemporary cartoonist — do you draw a classic early 20th century ice cream scoop so your readers know what the hell it is supposed to be, or draw a newfangled scoop with all the levers and springs and pulleys and inclined planes and your readers think it’s some kind of obscure medical instrument?
Oh, and if you’ve never come across L. Rust Hills’ very funny 1968 essay “How to Eat an Ice Cream Cone,” here’s a link.
Crankshaft – It looks like this week is a string of standalone “gag” strips that Batiuk couldn’t figure out how to stretch into a story. Think about that.
A man who mangles a diner order got Miss Marple’s name right. This does not compute.
FC – Are five year olds usually allowed to get out knives and make sandwiches? Maybe they are if their mother is sloshed.
Frazz – “Learn” apparently means disrupting the class to prevent other students from learning anything and blowing off homework assignments. The tattoo should read “Born to be an insufferable asshole.”
Gasoline Alley – Weeks of buying aspirin, and now the beginning of weeks of a car not starting. This breakneck action is too much.
Rex Morgan – The cafe had – what? – three customers the day before, and Mae Mae was utterly exhausted. If one more customer shows up, she’ll have to take a couple of days of sick leave to recover.
As others have pointed out, the cafe was providing room service to motel guests, and I guess that’s still going on. The business part of this story makes no sense.
HtH: Wait, Scandinavian baby bunnies used to let humans PET them, centuries ago?? This is the most enthralling HAGAR revelation in months if not years. The modern baby bunnies that live around here are not so trusting, that’s for sure. They run away like adorable fuzzy itty-bitty rockets.
@Ukranazi Stepan: You wily imp! For all your complaining about QC, you actually pay Jeph cash money to read it! Low-life moochers like myself are still getting the “We’ve been hacked!” screen.
RMMD: Yikes, this story is even more glacially-paced than a typical MW story. It may be time for Mae Mae to start baking muffins.
G. *(&#@$! Thorp – I think Gil got his numbers mixed up and meant to say he was going to 69 Coach Gonads.
Mary Worth:
— “I’m going to Florida to visit my long-lost relative to find out why father abused me.”
— “I love Florida! It’ll be great!”
— “Do you listen to yourself? That inappropriate response is exactly why you’re not going.”
— “Sunshine! Miami Beach! Key West! The Marlins!”
— “Okay, I’m leaving for the airport now.”
— “The Everglades! Busch Gardens! Conch fritters! Oranges!”
CS: if this pun had been in Arlo and Janis I would have mildly enjoyed it but I hate it in Crankshaft. I don’t know what that says about me.
MW-For $200,000 Brandy found out about a half sister.
Family Circus: Many of those older collectors plates have toxic materials in the paint such as lead or mercury.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I thought that was Stef’s job.
MW-“I’m on a mission!” A mission from Mary Worth?
FC: Just don’t get into those collector tribute plates being sold by Erika Kirk.
GT: Knowing very little of Gil Thorp beyond what I see here, I just assumed Gil was being interviewed by Nardwuar. These seem like the obscure, oddly-worded questions he might ask.
MW: I like that Brandy is all, “I have to confront my painful terrible past,” and Tommy is like, “Wizarding World of Harry Potter, here I come!”
HTH: Uh oh. The Horribles are being surveilled, and they know it. This is the kind of conversation you have when you think enemies are listening. “You could have eviscerated that harmless bunny!” “Yes, but that WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG.”
Pluggers: I think what’s happening here is that their actual smart devices have overheard so many commands starting with “honey” that they’ve learned to respond to them. See, unlike pluggers, machines can learn.
@Anonymous:
So be sure to literally lick the plate clean.
HTH: I first read that as “bar bunny” and wondered why Hagar would brag to his notoriously tough and occasionally violent wife about him messing with a girl at the tavern. I feel sorely disappointed. Clearly hanging about with decadent European royalty has made him soft! Dude needs to perform a Blood Eagle on someone, STAT!
GT: I had to reread this strip to figure out who said what when (still not sure). I guess that’s how you ensure your comic will be reread.
HtH: why Helga thought it was necessary to flip off the readers is beyond me.
@Anonymous: “All those European royals are a big bunch of PHONIES!”
Today’s Hagar, depicting a bloodthirsty warlord as a softhearted animal lover, is the most egregious case of reputation laundering since Michael.
RMMD: Who has one thumb and likes getting paid? This guy!
Looks like Gil is going straight to the gulag for this direct and imminent threat to Gerads. The DOJ is on it!
@BeetleGuy: No one, not even Tommy, can ever come close to matching Wilbur’s position as the most pathetic character. The man nearly threw himself off a cliff because his Bluetooth speaker broke.
If you’d asked me before today which newspaper comic has the best grasp of the banality of evil as articulated by Hannah Arendt, I would have first asked if you were having a stroke, and then I’d have said…probably Crock? But Hagar would have been second. So this doesn’t actually change much.
I’ve had scores of baby bunnies in my backyard this spring, but I would never venture to pet one. Most of the time, they’re either foraging for clover and fresh greens, or in heat and looking for mates. In either mode, they’re astonishingly feral and will attack anyone they perceive as blocking their path to a goal. Hence why our timid squirrels have become even more so.
GT: “Out of my way Thin B@$tard!”
“Get in my belly Thorp!”
“Not a chance!”
“1… million dollars?”
FG: Rolin, Rolin, Rolin,
Waiting for King Rolin,
Rolin, Rolin, Rolin,
Ming cried!
All of Mongo’s guessin’,
A new king is a blessin’,
And Emis will be that king’s bride.
Ming’s still Death Patrollin’,
He’s standing up for Rolin,
But prob’ly won’t stay on his side.
GT: In Bajaras’s latest attempt to make us understand that the guy with PTSD who Gil deliberately attempted to trigger is the true villain of this strip, he’s (checks notes) kind of hurt that Gil doesn’t see him as a friend?
JP: “I don’t know what to say. They’re just … dumping the kid on me until further notice? And they didn’t even really explain why?”
MW: If I were Tommy, I would much rather be on the other side of the country when Brandy meets this woman for the first time and immediately asks her “So why was Dad an alcoholic and drug addict? Was he always like that? Is that why you’ve been no-contact my entire life? Do you know if that’s why he named me Brandy?”
Phantom: Is Karen Moy guest writing this arc? Because I’m getting some very familiar vibes from this week of recapping the last storyline while praising the main character for their role in it.
S4th: This year’s summer theme is “talking about previous summer themes”. I’d say it’s an excuse for Ces to wheel out MOREmentum jokes he couldn’t fit in last year, but I’m pretty sure he actually did do these jokes last year.
SH: I was saying the other day that Ming’s supposedly artsy films always sound lowest-common-denominator, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a kaiju who turns human … and rather than being human-sized, is one storey tall (which, based on the room I’m in now, is around 2.5 meters). She’s shrunk, but gone from a normal-sized kaiju to an unnaturally tall human! Irony!
Gil Thorp – I hope the editor throws out whatever Coach Gerards ruins Gil’s wedding storyline Henry Barajas is writing, and puts “Marty Moon, moonlighting as wedding photographer, takes one sip of champagne, falls off the wagon, and end up face-first in the cake.”
Mary Worth – Tommy is sad because he lives in comic strip rules, where he can simply not exist for years at a time if he’s not the center of a storyline. By his solipsistic understanding, Brandy focusing on something other than him means he doesn’t exist to her anymore.
Hagar the Horrible – The writers of Hagar the Horrible read the screenwriting book Save the Cat in hopes of adapting the script into a live-action feature. They are attempting its lessons in how to establish the protagonist as likeable by showing a love for vulnerable animals.
Pluggers – Go easy on Pluggers, Josh. The abstract concept of metaphors doesn’t come easy to these literal-minded simple folk. The underpaid, college-educated teachers have finally managed some breakthroughs. Higher forms of thinking could be possible, if AI chatbots don’t set the Plugger cubs back.
Anyone got Joe Senser in their death pool? Died at an amusing age too!
FG: I’m getting kind of an Old Testament vibe from how this story’s going. Mad King Roxin is King Saul, once a mighty warrior but now a demented tyrant. Prince Rollin is Jonathan, Saul’s heir and good friend to David despite his father’s murderous envy of him. Ming is David, the popular champion destined to take the throne.
Had to look twice, but Tommy’s face, framed by that ridiculous hairstyle as it is, is actually Mary Worth’s!
@Philip: Any film adaptation of this comic, will most likely have John Goodman playing Hagar.
I don’t know why, just seems fitting.
@Horace Broon: Re: GT: That the weirdest part about all of this: A man is brutalized by his students and gets pretty traumatized about it, but he’s evil somehow and has a terrible perm, so it’s ok to trivialize his pain! (Add Nelson Mutz “Ha ha” taunt here )
GA: I was going to say, “so, will the auto repairman be Frank Nelson or Bully Guy?”, then I remembered that Slim is a mechanic.
Gil Twerp: “Why do I need an invite? I’m playing ” Here Comes The Bride” on bagpipes for you.”
@Philip:
On Gil Thorp, and Marty Moon antics : and then, the reveal that the relapse was entirely psychosomatic because that wasn’t actually champagne, but just a flute glass full of a non-alcoholic carbonated soft drink, that’s played for laughs.
LUANN: By the way, the apartment manager’s (or whoever she is) strategy leaves a lot to be desired. I mean it’s ok if you want to invite 12 year olds like Luann, but I don’t think actual adults will make big financially decisions based on these slumber party parlor tricks* (“Well I was going avoid going to the Mercedes dealership because purchasing that car would put me in severe debt and financial hardship, but now that I found out they’re having a pizza party, I was sold! I’ll take six!”) I mean, you’d think she’d be more concern about finding out if prospective clients can actuallyafford the units rather than throwing ice cream socials. Unless I’m the.one with the fundamental misunderstanding here, and no, landlords absolutely love attracting tenants who can’t pay rent!
*Maybe this isn’t an “open house” as a much as a “To-Catch-A-Predator entrapment scheme.”
@110 2+2=7: My default thought about anyone in Luann is “People in the Luanniverse are idiots.” I’ve not been proven wrong yet.
MW – “No, babe. I’m planning to bang a rando guy at every rest stop on I-95 from Jacksonville to Miami, and you’d be in the way. I am determined to beat my half-sister’s record!”
MW: Oh, sudden extra thought: Let’s not say Moy never learns from her mistakes. Remember when it looked like we were going to follow Dawn on an adventure to reconnect with her distant (literally and metaphorically) mother, and instead we got More Bloody Wilbur? At least this time we’re being told upfront that this story is going to be about a guy moping around Charterstone while something potentially interesting is happening elsewhere!
@Guillermo el chiclero re: Jonathan, David, and Saul: And which of Mongo’s many peoples are gonna get the 1 Samuel 18:25 treatment do you think?
@Guillermo el chiclero: King David’s first wife was Michal, daughter of King Saul. Is Ming eventually going to steal Emis (Paxin’s daughter in law-to be) from Rolin, or is Ming going to arrange Rolin’s death in battle so Rolin can be Uriah and Emis can be Bathsheba? Ming needs some chick to make Princess Aura with.
Of course, David had lotsa wives and concubines, and if Ming follows suit any one of them could be Aura’s Mom. (Bathsheba was mother to King Solomon, who’s that going to be? Flash? Emperor Ming: “Flash Gordon….you are MY SON.”)
Luann: Luann’s expression in the last panel is identical to one Ed Kudlick would give in anticipation of a stack of donuts. The only thing missing is the ubiquitous lip licking tongue.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hey! Don’t you know that the enemy’s sails have been sighted on the horizon?”
“We expect you to stay alert and be prepared to fight to the last man!”
“This rivalry with the Waldorf is getting out of hand”
LUANN: Luann is a walking red flag in that final panel, including her crazyface, and Phil has not displayed an actual grasp of reality either. To paraphrase that old line from THE BIG BANG THEORY, their babies will be dumb AND weird-looking.
@Charterstone: Dune: #114:
@Ukulele Ike: #115:
We’ll see if Roxin demands that Ming circumcise 100 Kirans and bring him the foreskins.
@Alter Ego: Bwahaha!
MT: That brown thrasher looks suitably unimpressed by Mark’s attempt at a joke.
@Philip: takes one sip of champagne, falls off the wagon, and end up face-first in the cake.”
I’d pay BIG for that…
@Bob Tice:
#14. MW: “I’ll wait for you six years.”. Maybe by that time they’ll have invented texting or email or the postal service. Social media, what’s that?
@Charterstoned: re MW; Oh, those Doves o’ Love are right on schedule! You notice they are *exiting* the scene – symbolizing Love Lost! Great choreography by our Avian assets.
I’ve been in talks with The Ladies all day, advocating the long-awaited reprisal of Brandy’s Cat, this time as an on-panel role! Who’s gonna take care of the forgotten Feline while Brandy’s in the Land o’ Sunshine? Tommy, of course! However, the Cat will actually be in charge of hapless Tommy! I see it as hard-hitting, yet heart-warming! Now if The Ladies will just come around… we can have a perfect fit for the role over there tomorrow morning!
@2+2=7:
#41 RMMD: All you said is true, 7, but I think Doug and Hecror have talked off-strip that the Glenwood Motel may have to close due to lack of guests. Maybe if Hector improved his cooking, both men could stay employed. The woman, of course, is expected to save them
MW – “My half sister had just gotten out of a halfway house and clearly she’d been drinking. She was already half in the bag when I got to her place. I made a half-hearted attempt to be nice to her, but she was too obnoxious. Finally I snapped and told her she was a half-wit. Next thing I know, we’re wrestling on the floor and she’s got me in a half-nelson…”
“What a terrible experience!”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it!”
@The Rambling Otter:
He has aged out of it, but definitely in the era where Goodman played Fred Flintstone he would have been perfect to play another fur-clad cartoon character in a live adaptation of a cartoon/comic
@Guillermo el chiclero: Do Kirins have foreskins? I would have thought the Witch-Queen would have harvested them all for her various potions and vapors and dark magicks and what have you.
@2+2=7: For a fancy new apartment complex aimed at 20-somethings, this kind of marketing isn’t too far out of the norm. And if it’s college-adjacent, then I don’t think the agent cares much about the kid’s income, as long as the parents have a good one.
GT: The concept behind Coach Gerads and his current look appears to be, “What if Sammy Hagar joined the Bay City Rollers?” It’s a little niche, but much can be accounted for if you assume everything was translated into a random foreign language and retranslated via ChatGPT.
MW: Since Brandy is going to Florida—popular place—on a mission, I hope to see her in a black fedora and dark glasses telling everyone, “I’m on a mission from God.”
Pluggers: I’m not saying that home androids that resemble Pluggers is the kind of idea that will bankrupt Silicon Valley, but I’m not not saying it either.
C-Shaft: Batiuk came up with this gag 21 years after the premiere of Criminal Minds. Where’s the fire?
DT: Neo-Chicago patrolmen don’t have much of a poker face, do they?
H&J: Bentley is trying to change his brand from “extremely vague, generic observations” to “inspirational quotes running over graphics that have nothing to do with them.”
JP: “Now about these ropes or gigantic rubber bands or whatever they’re supposed to be.”
Luann: Good luck to Phil in explaining a big word like “amenities” to Luann.
Phantom: Gotta hand it to the heroic kitchen crew. They had a warlord to overthrow, but still found the time to prepare a few tubes of double chocolate chip cookie dough.
Late Thread Cuisine: Yesterthread was a dessert. Todaythread it’s an entrée. You like?
GT – You’re still 86th, BtW. Whoa! Is that a threat!! Cuz I’m hearing a death threat….
MW – Can you crack the code? Florida – Love – No – Alone – Mission – Wait….
Hth – Hagar the Humane….
Pluggers – Pluggers don’t really get the concept. They are still waiting for sentient AI robots to paint their house….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Hagar: Today I saw a baby bunny on my carport, under a chair.
Cuteness proximity took over, and I was talking baby talk to it “Hey baby bunny!” “Come here baby bunny!” gesturing it over with my finger.
Then I look up, and two kids were walking down the sidewalk, past my driveway just staring at me.
I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
@Baja Gaijin: Looks tasty. What’s that sprinkled on the hamsteak?
@Dennis Jimenez: (on pluggers): I saw that Gumby short.
GT: Gerads will try to crash the wedding reception anyway. And we never found out who actually won the match, they only reported Milford player scores yesterday.
MW/MT: Hm both Brandy and Mark Trail are heading to Florida to visit relatives. Coincidence?
GA: Paging Slim to start Gertie’s car, he was last seen in the diner doing self-service and being annoying.
RMMD: Don’t worry Hector, there’ll be a bevy of reporters and paparazzi ordering breakfast there soon, after Mr. Mustache spills the beans about Mae Mae/Lorna Starr.
BB: Buxley knows the General’s routine to the T; flip wife’s picture around when she comes in. More like a LeRoy Lockhorn gag to be honest.
@Charterstone: Dune: #128: That’s why it would be so hard for Ming to get 100 of them. Mad King Roxin figures Ming will never get to marry into the royal family.
@MnM: #137: re-GT:
“Gerads will try to crash the wedding reception anyway”
Hopefully Kaz will fulfill the traditional role of best man and bounce his ass out of there.
@Baja Gaijin:
Another suspiciously delicious looking dish. Who are you and what have you done with Baja Gaijin?
@135 Artist formerly known as Ben: Crushed melba toast?
@140 Deadly Goon Bugs: That’s not suspiciously delicious looking; it is delicious. It’s just pork shoulder steak with a garlic soy sauce glaze and a handful of vegetables.
@Baja Gaijin:
I’m going to need you to hand me the dish and leave the room. Better, join me. Sake?
@142 A Grave Mind: You may have to fight others for this meal.
“Doing your Jughead Jones imitation isnt gonna get me to invite you to the wedding.”
Andy Bear is thinking “are you a kangaroo? If so where are your pouch and tail?”
@GarrisonSkunk: I was thinking about that with Bojack Horseman.
Then I realized… modern anthropomorphic animals probably evolved to no longer need their tails.
Like how humans lost their tails when they separated from the monkeys and became civilized.
love is… cleverly inferring from her “I heart ice cream” T-shirt that she’s got a sweet tooth. I know a good man is hard to find, but this isn’t this setting the bar ridiculously low?
@Peanut Gallery:
The apocalyptically weird pedo vibe of this strip was previously insufficient?
@Anonymous: Yeah, well, so did the dinnerware. Explains a lot, doesn’t it.
@A Grave Mind: Now that you mention it, I see what you mean! But it didn’t occur to me, because I’m approaching plugger age and I also heart ice cream. I wouldn’t advertise it on a T-shirt, though.
Shoot, PG, this is one of their less-weird ones. I mean, I also heart ice cream, and am no longer young. But this bunch has been creepy awhile.
@Baja Gaijin:
#132. Yum! A Carmel and nut en rusted piece of Shoe. Those potato wedges do look edible.
LUANN: A tiny studio, yet she thinks both Lu and Phil are applying. And neither corrected her.
@Ukulele Ike: Either Emis secretly has longevity magic Azura envies / Aura’s babyhood was time-warped to keep her on ice for a half-century or Ming’s baby-mother consort has nothing to do with this reveal. This backstory was a centuryish ago and while I am sure Aura has all the beauty treatments Mongo can provide, she’s not some well-preserved near-centenarian
78 @Ukulele Ike: Actually, you can still read the daily QC strips without having to pay for them. The “we’ve been hacked” page has a link to the most recent comics and the current comics are in that group.
That’s right, folks! This whole time, Pluggers has been sponsored by the Internet’s favorite money-saving browser extension, Honey! Great deals on name-brand products await you if you’ll just enter your SSN and Credit Card right here…
Also, because boredom has driven me to madness, I think when Gil Thorp said “I’ll save you some cake” he was REALLY alluding to the similarly spelled Romanized name of a certain Japanese act…
That’s right! As hard as it might be to believe, middle-class America’s degenerate community of covert wife swappers is about to get its (somehow) *squarest* new members yet!
I think that Gil Thorp strip is a screwup. The sensical arrangement of the dialogue is as follows:
GERADS: I hear you’re getting married to the bartender.
THORP: You’re still eighty-sixed, by the way.
GERADS: So?
THORP: It’s invite-only, coach.
GERADS: I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.
THORP: I’ll save you some cake.
Re: Hagar
Very excited to see Hagar kicking off a whole Sopranos-type investigation of Hagar, clearly signaled here by this analogue to Tony’s affection for the ducks in his pool.