Honestly a St. Sebastian Met Gala theme would rule
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Wizard of Id, 6/1/26
The Met Gala was exactly four weeks ago today, in case you were curious as to what the Wizard of Id publication lead time is! You might think that, having come up with the hilarious joke, the creative team would’ve kept it in the chamber to be published on the actual date of next year’s Met Gala, but hey, these are uncertain times. Will the Met Gala even happen in 2027? Will newspaper comics still be published? Will any of us be alive? Why wait?
Judge Parker, 6/1/26
Look, I know it’s been a long time since Alan “Judge Parker Senior Emeritus” Parker has been the main guy in the strip that bears his name, but … look at that last panel. Eyes closed, mouth hanging dully open as he begins taking another big bite of the sandwich he got to-go from the diner where he made everyone emotionally uncomfortable. The artist didn’t have to do him like this. He could’ve been left with a shred of dignity!
Daddy Daze, 6/1/26
The Daddy Daze daddy has some generic email job that isn’t at an educational institution and the Daddy Daze baby is a baby. It doesn’t matter if your headcanon for this strip is that the Daddy Daze baby’s series of “ba”s carry real semantic meaning or if the Daddy Daze daddy merely projects his own insane ruminations onto them, there is zero reason for them to have a conversation about the school calendar, a concept of no importance to either of them.
Mary Worth, 6/1/26
“I mean, at least you won’t have too many student loans! I’ve been in college since at least 2007 and I’m no closer to a degree than I’ve ever been!”
The Lockhorns, 6/1/26
“Blood … there was so much blood. And the sex stuff … look, I don’t want to talk about it.”
164 replies to “Honestly a St. Sebastian Met Gala theme would rule”
The Lockhorns: Nothing beats the “Baywatch” phase and Leroy in a Speedo.
Leroy had some thoughts when he watched The Handmaid’s Tale, but Loretta shut that down quickly.
JP: “Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure I am!” — Alan proceeds to stuff bread into his ears.
WoI:”You’d be a hit at the next MET gala. Too bad you’re not gonna live that long.”
The Lockhorns:
In this strip Leroy’s crinkled smile often indicates (not to put too fine a point on it) horniness, so considering he’s aiming his come-hither salute at a man I’m wondering if this isn’t actually his Brokeback Mountain phase. Considering all the blond women Leroy flirts with at parties you may consider this a surprising development, but on the other hand it does begin to explain his difficult marriage. Loretta’s (willful?) misinterpretation shows that, despite all common sense and years of evidence to the contrary, she wants to have sex with Leroy.
Mary Worth:
“I must be a dummy!”
“Why would you say that, Tommy?”
“Brandy would have me perch on her knee, and then she’d throw my voice!”
Too bad Leroy is too cheap to spring for Showtime, it would’ve been great if he had watched Dexter.
MW: ??? Is that narration box necessary? Its main purpose seems to be to let us know that Dawn didn’t bring the subject up out of the blue, to rub Tommy’s nose in it.
Wizard of Id:
“You mean they’re doing Nilsson’s ‘Me and My Arrow’ at the Met these days, Doc?”
Judge Parker:
“Let me accommodate my oral fixation here, and then I’ll be right with you!”
LH: Regardless of the TV show, Leroy’s “phases” always involve him making bedroom eyes at a passing stranger while Loretta watches from a distance.
WoI: I love how Rodney has been hit with arrows from all directions at once. It’s as if the opposing army and his own soldiers came together against their common object of hatred, and then some cherubs joined in the fun for good measure.
MW: Dawn tries to reassure Tommy when he calls himself a dummy. “You think you’re dumb? My father had a funeral for a fish!“
JP: I like how the dialogue box looks well too big for the text it contains, as if the writer was going to add more context to this scene and then decided no, it doesn’t matter. No-one cares why this is happening.
DD: I’m coming around to the idea that this strip is some kind of Shutter Island scenario about a man locked in an asylum imagining a talking baby, wandering around not knowing what day it is and somehow convincing himself that’s not a cause for alarm.
MW: Sorry Dawn, but I guy who can’t tell the difference between ‘my girlfriend is leaving town for a few weeks’ and ‘my girlfriend is breaking up with me’ is kind of a dummy…
Lhs: Uh, are we sure that Leroy is in his ‘Yellowstone’ phase and not his ‘Brokeback Mountain’ phase? Look at that expression on his face and tell me otherwise…
LOCKHORNS: The worst part was that he kept dropping trou to all and sundry to show off his Iron Throne scars.
RMMD: Having actually learned about capitalism, Doug has embraced it wholeheartedly. Workers of the world, prepare to be exploited!
MW: Worst possible outcome of all this? Dawn decides to major in counseling. Bright spot? If Dawn ever manages to finish college, she’ll be 95 and too feeble to do much damage.
DT: Before I looked again and realized those are ‘stars of pain’ emanating from Mumbles’ head, I thought he’d been felled by some ninja throwing stars. I should have known the neo-Chicago PD wasn’t that creative.
Luann: Miss Inner Beauty must know on a sub-sub-subconscious level that she’s getting fired inside of one day if that’s all she’s bringing.
RMMD: Did Mae Mae get into the goofballs stash? What’s with that maniacal cocked-eyebrow expression?
@Vulpes: @pugfuggly: dangit! too slow….
“I used to be an adventurer like you, before I took an arrow in the knee. And shin. And nose. And chest. And a lot to the back while I was running away.”
Wary Morth:
What kind of dummy? A clothes dummy? A crash test dummy? An American “football” tackling dummy? Any of those is more useful than the entire Mary Worth cast put together.
_______________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
“Being on my feet all day was much more painful. I think I’ll take a desk job. How would you like to swap roles, Doug?”
Judge Parker’s burger-eating technique leaves much to be desired. His jaw is at maximum extension with the burger several inches away, he’s going to chomp down on unsatisfying air.
RMMD “… then the new super-friends vowed to save the world with their powers of bryl-creem application, hot coffee-pouring and hash-slinging. They high-five. Annnd… credits!”
JP What I find interesting is Ann’s change in wardrobe. It’s not long after, as the old judge is eating the burger he brought, so it’s not the next day with a normal change. She must have decided not only that that a spaghetti-strap croptop is insufficiently serious for this discussion, but that it’s worth the time to fully change into a blouse, not toss something on _over_ the croptop – the deep blouse neckline would show the crop top underneath if it were there. “Annoyed” is likely a _huge_ understatement.
Judge Parker: I’m worried about that burger. It seems to be fading out of existence, much like Marty McFly in the first “Back to the Future” movie. My guess is someone went back in time then accidentally prevented the steer’s cow mother and bull father from making it to the “Udder the Sea” ball for their first kiss and subsequent boinking to create the calf that grew up to become that burger.
Id: The Met Gala is one of those weird things that feels like it came out of nowhere, while the Wizard of Id is an impossibly ancient relic of the newspaper comics page, which is why it’s so disconcerting to discover that the Met Gala started two decades before the Wizard of Id. This isn’t a desperate flailing for relevance, it’s a relative newcomer riffing on the culture of its elders!
Lockhorns: Congratulations to the Yellowstone production team for getting their very first millennial viewer.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that! That’s my job!”
JP: The Judge must have caught the enschlubification disease that infected MW and RMMD. Look at him about to take a big, sloppy bite of that burger! You know he’s going to be making all sorts of disgusting chewing sounds, preventing him from hearing a word Ann is saying. If he turns around and asks for mayo, it’s all over.
Luann, Crankshaft, and Mary Worth all have the same problem today: the inability to tell you what in the hell is going on.
So Luann’s going to summer camp? What happened to moving in with Phil? Did she get the Weenie Hut promotion or not? Was this a prior commitment she had to honor? (On a meta level, we know there was a summer camp story planned for last summer that was pulled due to real-life events.) But you can’t just replace “improved management-level wage” with “summer camp job.” Also, you can’t apply for a management job, get it, and then say “oops! I’m going to summer camp for six weeks! Time to use some manager PTO! By the way, Phil, I’m not moving in until August! Enjoy paying the rent by yourself until then!”
So Eugene has pictures for Lillian? Why in the hell is Eugene friendly with Lillian at all, considering what she did?
In MW, did Tommy get dumped or not? It sure looks Brandy gave him a lame excuse to get away from him. Probably to bump uglies with some hunky scuba instructor (or more realistically, the Florida Man version of Tommy). But the story gives you no clue about whether this is actually a breakup, nor is it written coherently enough to make the point that Tommy is mis-reading the situation.
Awful writing all around.
Crankshaft plot twist: the pictures are of Dead Lisa.
@Baja Gaijin: And it’s taking Alan’s hands with it!
The Daddy Daze Daddy thinking his pre-verbal kid is telling him it’s the end of the school year should not make him less worried about having been Rip Van Winkle’d.
Judge Parker: RIP Alan Parker ? – June 1, 2026. Beloved jurist, ex-con, dud father. Cause of death: blunt-force Wilburization.
The Wizard of Id: Personally, I’d have gone with “You’re a bullseye for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” It’s no less anachronistic, and it at least gets a nod from the English majors in the audience.
MW: Boy, Dawn’s exercise program has really paid off. Just this morning she was telling Wilbur she needed to get in better shape, and now she’s effortlessly delivering whole paragraphs of dialog while running on a mountain trail.
Mary Worth: Oh, Tommy. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. You’re a former junkie and garden-variety moron, but you’re no dummy. The person next to you? That’s a dummy. Or maybe she’s a twit? Keep running, let’s see how this plays out.
JP:
“Why are you annoyed with me?”
“Oh, you know how it is with this strip. Never more than a day or two seems to pass without someone being annoyed about something — or, worse yet, violent, or even murderous!”
@CanuckDownSouth: Ann’s change in wardrobe
One of those “once you see it” things. Well, as Ralph Waldo Emerson didn’t quite say, “A foolish continuity is the hobgoblin of people who care about their craft.”
Lockhorns – Meanwhile, Loretta has been in her Beth Dutton phase for 58 years ago is showing no signs of slowing down.
JP: Alan, did you bring enough for everybody?
@Banana Jr. 6000: for Luann it’s a *different* kind of bad writing. They did a few days of tee-hee misdirection with Luann saying she’d gotten an interview and a job, Tara telling Phil that it looked like Luann would have the money for the move (which was the first he’d heard of it and he noted he was still figuring out his finances to apply for the apartment), and a Phil/Luann phone call with Luann saying she had a big opportunity, Phil saying he was totally on board, and *then* Luann noting she’s be going away as a camp counselor for the summer
WoI: The doctor has cunningly diagnosed that Sir Rodney is simply wearing a costume based on the fact that most of the arrow heads are clearly visible, barely embedded into his flesh or his helmet. Clearly he has simply glued these arrows on to his body.
JP: Alan eats his burger standing over the sink, no dish or napkins. In another Willy Loman moment, he’s reliving his bachelor days. Tomorrow, he gets the whole household involved in a futile search for his spats.
The Lockhornd:
The Lockhorns:
If this guy had been the adult presence on The Spin and Marty Show, I would have forsworn watching The Mickey Mouse Club entirely.
Th
Fifty years ago, they ran this same Lockharts strip with a Bonanza phase. Twenty years ago, it was a Deadwood phase. Ten years ago, a Westworld phase. Ten years from now, it’ll be the Bonanza reboot on HBOMax. You have to admire its purity. This strip is a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
In a universe where time has run amok and the ages of humanity blend in to each other, Sir Rodney has discovered he is cursed with immortality. When the arrows rained down upon him he was happy for the first time in his miserable existence only to have that joy turn to horror as he still kept standing. Damn the cruel gods who will not let him escape this torment!
***
I’m all for Judge Parker‘s evolution into the world’s first mukbang comic.
***
Oh! Oh! Tommy is going to go back to college and end up in Ian’s class where shenanigans will ensue! No, sorry. This is Mary Worth and one must be careful to not let the demographic get too excited. A mild shenanigan will ensue.
***
With Game of Thrones, Leroy was so shaken by the ending he started getting into modern Boomer culture.
RMMD: “My secret being out wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be” says Mae Mae. Honestly, If this isn’t a buildup to Mud coming out of the closet, I’ll be disappointed.
MW: In retrospect, Dawn realizes she picked the wrong day to wear her “I’m with stupid” T-shirt.
FC: Dolly traps Jeffy in the basement where, while holding a pair of Big Bil’s hedge clippers to his throat, she forces him to eat a whole box of fundraising chocolate bars.
“You won’t be forgetting this either anytime soon. Eat!”
MW:
Tommy’s confessional that he is a dummy is what the law calls “res ipsa loquitur,” or, more familiarly, “res ipsa.” That Latin phrase translates to “The thing speaks for itself,” which, in Tommy’s case, is true both as to Tommy’s being a “thing” and as to what he said speaking for itself.
L’horns: The finale for Game of Thrones was so universally disappointing that it pretty much killed the series’ cultural relevance overnight and hardly anyone has given it a thought since. So I’m not sure which is more out of touch: The Lockhorns for name-dropping it or HBO for touting the fifteenth anniversary.
MW: Come now, Tommy, you’re not a dummy for not pursuing higher education! There’s a wide range of socially essential jobs that don’t require a college degree, many of which pay well and are less likely to be turned over to automation in the near future. You’re a dummy because you’re just plain stupid.
WoI: Look, I’ll give you the head mirror; it’s the universal visual shorthand for “doctor” even thought doctors haven’t used those things in decades. But could you at least give SOME indication that this guy is a part of your vaguely medieval setting? Give him some ornate robes? Or a jar of leeches, perhaps?
Lockhorns: “Oh I think we all remember Leroy walking down the street naked while we jeered him and pelted him with garbage. Good times.”
JP-“You said that when changed our identities from Ted and Sally Forth we would stop with this inane plotlines.”
RMMD-“Do you know any other former washed up actors? I need a housekeeping staff for the hotel.”
MW-Tommy can always go back and get his GED.
MW-How many years have you been in school, Dawn? Working on that doctorate?
Lockhorns-Actually Leroy is in his ‘Midnight Cowboy’ phase.
@CanuckDownSouth: Thanks for the explanation. You understand the story a lot better than I do.
So the joke is that the alleged Weenie Hut promotion never existed, and Luann thinks a summer camp job is going to make up the financial difference? Do I have that right?
If I do, that just makes Luann’s behavior even worse. Inviting herself to live in Phil’s apartment was bad enough, but she also thought it would be fun to bait-and-switch the source of her income to pay for it? Which also includes changing that source from a permanent job to a temporary one? And also disrupts her current job, and the timeframe of a potential move?
Phil should be absolutely LIVID with Luann’s self-entitled flakiness. Especially if he’s autistic, which I believe the story said he was.
Locked Down — “We should have had a Red Wedding, if you know what I mean. . . “
C’shaft: Ugh, bring back the black hole.
Dustin: And what would your journal look like, Meg? “Today I insulted my brother while sipping a canned iced tea rather than insulting him while looking at my phone. I’m living on the edge!”
GT: “That’s great, but what about the thousands of other innocent people imprisoned, abused and dying in detention centers like this across the country?”
“Who cares? Once the problem is solved for the people in Gil Thorp’s sphere, it goes away forever. Just ask Tobias!”
Lio: Death Becomes Her closes on Broadway later this month, so good on Lio for getting this joke in at the buzzer.
RMMD: “Once again everything is solved with minimal effort or inconvenience on our part! Hooray!”
I never understood “Game of Thrones”
Isn’t a Fantasy Setting supposed to be obligated to have some level of whimsy?
@TheDiva: WoI: At least they’ve got the pre-union English flag on the wall, so it’s sometime before 1600.
The Lockhorns may lock horns, but the secret to why they stay together is actually what happens behind closed doors when he goes through these phases, leaving all petty grievances at the door.
@27Lauralot: I noticed that. I wasn’t sure if it was just “contact disappearing” because he’s holding the burger. Once it disappears, maybe his hands’ll return to normal? “Back to the Future” didn’t really cover this possibility.
@49 Banana Jr. 6000: If Phil hasn’t figured out Luann’s a blithering idiot, to be kind, it’s on him for depending upon her for anything important in his life. Luann’s not exactly hiding her dumbassery under a bushel basket or anything.
Judge Parker is turning into a superposition of Rex Morgan and Dagwood Bumstead.
RMMD- Jonnny : ‘Honestly, my appendix coming out wasn’t as painful as I’d hoped it would be. The procedure turned out to be a piece of cake.”
Luann-Well that’s all the time we have here for “Luann’s Summer Camp Adventure.. If you want to know how the rest be sure to buy the graphic novel. Will Luann find romance with the serial killer who is stalking the campgrounds or will she be one of it’s victims.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
So Eugene has pictures for Lillian? Why in the hell is Eugene friendly with Lillian at all, considering what she did?
Eugene doesn’t know what Lillian did to Lucy and him. He’s persuaded she was a loving sister who treated her well, especially as her Alzheimer’s progressed, completely unaware Lillian was actually Lucy’s evil twin who actively sabotaged her social life. He thinks she should write a Lisa’s Story-esque book on how she dealt with Lucy’s Alzheimer’s!
Luann-Wait till Luann comes back to Weenie World and find out that her job as executive table wiper has been given to the franchise owner’s nephew.
@The Rambling Otter: At the start, that was part of the appeal; real, adult, etc., etc. After a while, though the dark got so think you couldn’t see through it anymore.
Crankshaft: “I came across some photos you might want to have, Lillian. It’ll cost you, but it’ll cost you more otherwise.”
Wizard of Id: Cupid needed a lot of arrows to get through Sir Rodney’s thick skull, but he’s not feeling anything?
Pluggers don’t call it a Speed Suit. If you do, you might be an age peer, but you’re not a Plugger.
Beetle Bailey is the worst private, in the worst camp, at soldiering. We’re all thinking “Zero”, but he’s a skilled marksman–we’ve found the savant side of him. Beetle is all idiot.
Hagar: Cheer up, Sir Lancelot. Henry II may have beat you here at Place des Vosges, but he can’t win ’em all!
MW- “Hey! Don’t talk about yourself like that…I mean, it’s not like you adopted a couple of parrots, or sent 200grand to someone that didn’t actually exist…have you tried putting cucumber slices over your eyes?”
..
JP – Needs a “NOM NOM NOM” sound effect.
Daddy Daze – The end of the school year matters to the Daddy Daze baby because summer vacation means a flood of low-priced child labor will become available for his latest scheme to take over the world.
Lockhorns – Leroy tells Loretta it’s Yellowstone, but it’s really Toy Story.
@Ettorre: Or at least, to sarcastically thought-balloon about it.
Don Abundio, translated:
“We’ll leave in a minute”
“You already paid for the car. What are we waiting for?”
“I asked them to gift wrap it”
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat, out of shape meatsacks # 6,935.
“I don’t care how many arrows you take, Rodney, you’ll never be Boromir. At most, we might promote you to porcupine.”
Daddy Daze – Angus, it’s not nice to play games with your Daddy’s tenuous grip on reality like that. Remember that time you told him a devastating tsunami was on the way? He was already packing the car for an emergency evacuation when you reminded him that you live in Nebraska.
WOI: “Look, sir, I’ll level with you. You’ve been hit by 23 arrows, which means you’re beyond the reach of medieval medicine. The only one who could help you now would be someone with magic powers — a wizard, perhaps. Too bad you don’t know any.”
JP: Dammit, this strip is called Judge Parker. What I want to see is a judge named Parker who wears a black robe, sits behind a bench, and sentences young people to prison for their crimes. Is that too much to ask?
DD: “I thought I had literally been unconscious for months, missing entire seasons of the year. Jesus, I have got to lay off the cough syrup.”
MW: Oh, Mary Worth narration box, you’re priceless! “When Tommy asks Dawn how she’s doing …” Thanks for that. Otherwise, we might have thought that Dawn just randomly yelled, “I’m doing well!” with no prompting whatsoever.
‘horns: I’ll admit, I never got around to watching any of Yellowstone. I assume it was about a polite cowboy who spent his time raking four or five tiny, triangular leaves in his otherwise spotless yard.
@Bob Tice: 40- Got room for another one? “When the faces of all look so Ne And Er Thal, that’s Gil Thorp/ eh?”
@Ken: 53- Just one more time…”When the arms are too long and the teeth are all wrong, that’s Gil Thorp/ eh?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: It’s not clear that the WeenieWorld promotion was even formally applied for, Luann talked to Tara (and Bernice?) about how the $ would work out if she got it but not I think noted concrete steps she’s taken. Luann has actually never said anything to Phil about moving “out” with him (but it’s not ‘moving in’, “so I guess we need a 2-bedroom…” and then she drops the budget issue *that* would bring up). Phil I think was only contemplating the Dream studio apartment for himself, budgeting for that with more shifts, then Tara says hi, oh yeah, Luann’s also applying for the Weenie manager to help with that and then there’s the tee-hee Phil thinks Luann got the job and is moving in with him, wow, I’m totally on board – oh, you’re leaving to be a camp counselor for a few months.
Blondie: Loving how Dithers is looking well-chuffed at himself. He really thinks he’s done Dag a mitzvah here!
DtM: The real menace is prayerful “Lord, please kill me now” expression on Mr. Wilson’s face
FG: I mean, I guess floating, glowing sci-fi spermatozoa are “companions,” of a sort
HtH: Anachronisms aside (9th century Viking, 6th century warlord wearing 14th century armor engaging in Bronze Age personal combat), it’s true! Being a medieval knight was hugely expensive!
JP: Judge Emeritus Parker will keep eating sandwiches until morale improves!
Phantom: Over the past month, we’ve gone from 3-panel strips where some stuff happens to 2-panel strips where little-to-nothing happens except exposition and re-exposition to a 1-panel strip where absolutely nothing happens. Looking forward to the next month of 1/2-panel strips where time starts to slowing roll backwards.
Crankshaft – Oh, goodie! Lots of photos of the sister whose life Loathsome Lillian ruined.
A recap: Eugene sent Lucille a letter proposing marriage and also that if she didn’t respond, he would never bother her again. Loathsome Lillian intercepted the letter, and Lucille never saw it. Despite living in the same area and presumably knowing that the other never married, Eugene and Lucille never had any contact until she was old and had Alzheimer’s disease.
This isn’t poignant and moving. It’s stupid. It’s situation tragedy, which Batiuk seems to think is called writing.
FC – Don’t worry, Jeffy, she’ll never let you forget it either.
Rex Morgan – Okay, this is just bee grinding at this point.
JP – There’s no sign that Alan heated up that burger, which would be cold by the time he gets home. The French fries are a total loss.
FULFILLMENT
BF: Prepubescent Emma is so cute, energetic, full of potential . What wonderous adventures and accomplishments await her?
yBF: Grown Emma. Being all she can be .
DOONESBURY: Young Alex, ready to make adult decisions. How thrilling! The world is her oyster.
yDOONESBURY: They had the oyster– they were able to take advantage of incredible opportunities. The only thing lacking is gratitude.
RwORANGE: Had to read it twice to get it, but worth it. Honoree gets the Silver Award!
Is Alan being a petulant asshole by referring to his wife in the third person when she’s right there, or is he doing a service to the majority of readers who can’t remember her name? Both is good!
JP: “Well, Ann, if you’re so annoyed with me that you no longer want to hide out…sorry, live here rent free, there’s the door, honey!”
9CL: I’ve figured it out. The pets take center stage whenever there’s a shortage of colors to go around.
BB: I have an idea. Why don’t you guys look down the barrel of the reassembled rifle?
CC: NOT THOSE PHOTOS! I THOUGHT I’D BURNED THEM!
RMMD: before tapping in this morning, I checked definition of the word “harridan”. It fits. So does “henpecked”.
@Activist:
#81. RMMD: my comment instead refers to JP, whose controlling characters are less likeable
@The Quiet Man:
What are you talking about? Obviously it’s because she gets to work at an exhausting job for minimum wage when she doesn’t actually have to! Who wouldn’t be utterly ecstatic at that prospect?
The Lockhorns: Judging by the depiction of gender roles in Yellowstone, the comic could potentially be signaling a Married with Children shift. The show about the Bundys gradually made Al the POV character, showing him less as a loser and more of a righteous victim of the women on the show. Maybe in two years, any time we see Leroy getting stinking drunk or chatting up the leggy women at parties, the premise will be merely “boys will be boys,” with Loretta shown as a henpecking spoilsport.
Crankshaft-“Hey! These are nudes of my sister!”
JP: Alan tunes out the world so that he can take a big bite out of his sandwich. Ham and cheese on bulky role, I’m guessing? Anyway, if there’s a version of this where the sandwich is eight times bigger and Alan’s hair is sticking up on the sides, Ces and Manley are ready to take over Blondie too.
Lockhorns: “Hey hon? I just passed the house of that miserable gnome couple and the husband has gone full gay cowboy. Next time I’m taking a different route.”
@Navigator: re: JP: That’s the daughter, not the trophy wife. Manley has forsaken the classic Betty/Veronica Rule of Cartooning: if you can only draw one kind of woman, at least change the hair color.
@Voshkod: That’s how I felt with “Night in the Woods”
The plot became so dark, I felt I was trudging through a swamp… then when I got past the dark parts, to the (as happy as one can get) ending, I literally felt cleansed!
@Liam: “Yes, we had a nice mail order pin-up business. She would duplicate Bettie Page poses, I would take the photos, and we licked the envelopes together. It kept us in Lucky Strikes and Hadacol back in 1947.”
LUANN: Geez, Frank! The point is she left you and Nancy a huge mess to clean up because this arc is all about Luann being a responsible, mature adult (snicker.)
@Anonymous: I wrote a huge essay “Lucy’s Story” on Son of Stuck Funky blog, about how there’s no way Lillian’s deed could have stayed secret for long. A jealous sister hiding a letter from a mutually desired boy is believable. So is keeping that secret while the boy is in a war; no need to admit a misdeed that might be rendered irrelevant by German artillery. But after Eugene came back, and re-settled in the same town, Lillian really needed to ‘fess up. Lillianhad DECADES to admit what she had done, and apparently never did. Not even after her sister had a mental breakdown about it!
“Anyway, that’s a long-winded way to confess that Leroy and I are brother and sister. That’s why we look so much alike, we cannot stand each other but cannot live without each other”
Questionable Malcontent:
Alternative title:
In Which The Cartoonist Introduces Another New One Note Character Because He Has No Idea What To Do With His Old Ones.
Also, to hell with Lizard. Drop her into an underwater volcano so her components can feed yeti crabs and tubeworms.
Judge Parker: I gotta say, I’m really enjoying this spotlight story for Original Main Character Judge Parker, mostly because his portrayal amounts to being extremely and justifiably annoyed at all the idiots in this town – his family included – and wanting to just relax at home and eat a nice sandwich. It’s the first time a character in this series could be described as relatable to the audience in decades.
Mary Worth: “By the way, have you noticed that we’ve been jogging on this same trail for over a week, now? I think we’ve trapped ourselves in a spatiotemporal hell-loop where we’ll gradually go insane before killing each other to try and feast on the goo inside our skulls! Whoopsies!”
Lockhorns: I carry a particularly mixed, bordering on hostile, attitude towards the prolific works of Taylor Sheridan. My dad likes a lot of his stuff and I’ve enjoyed some it (Wind River and Sicario mainly). But I also feel Sheridan’s work tends to be tainted by a mixture of his ignorant “rich Hollywood yuppie pretending to be an earthy conservative” political views, his childishly pathetic ideas of being a “badass real man”, and his tendency towards cheap shock value bordering on misogynistic misery porn.
My personal feelings aside, however, I do totally buy that Leeroy is the kind of insecure loser who would watch Yellowstone and start trying to act like Kevin Costner in that show under the deluded belief it’ll make people think he’s cool. So I have to give credit to the writer of Lockhorns for fantastic understanding of their characters and of the typical audiences for Taylor Sheridan.
@ectojazzmage re: JP: Could we be getting a soft re-reboot of the strip back to it’s original premise of a crime-fighting judge? No, of course not! But I think a corrupt, ex-con, presumably disbarred judge turned P.I. and his colorful array of associates (convicted fraudster daughter, CIA assassin daughter-in-law, his son who (somehow, still) holds his old judgeship, preternaturally observant granddaughter, her throat-punching nanny, the nanny’s guitar-playing computer-whiz sociopath sister, whatever Sam is supposed to be these days, and fan-favorite Bogdan!) would make for, if not exactly prestige TV, a fun Rockford-esque 1970s mystery romp.
Lockhorns: If Leroy were really going through a “Yellowstone” stage, the fence would be knocked down and Leroy would be toting an AK-47.
I think this is the first reference to “Yellowstone” I’ve ever seen in a comic strip.
I followed the show throughout its first 5 years. It slid into this depraved world of violence and hate so quickly that it became a joke.
The state is controlled by the Dutton Family, which selects the governor, the attorney general and runs the most powerfl militia in the state — The Livestock Patrol.
The store I used to work at sold a “Yellowstone” line of t-shirts. One of them showed an old locomotive and the words “Take Him to The Train Station”.
If you don’t know, that was the code the Dutton Family used for “Get this guy out of here. Kill him and dump him in the Dutton Family body disposal ravine, which the spin-offs showed had been in use by the Duttons for decades.
I farted my appendix out. Much less intrusive than surgery.
@I speak Jive: I was getting worried that I had already passed the 69 post and hadn’t yet seen a Loathsome Lillian rant from you. But you came through, and thanks for that.
Meanwhile, in Crankshaft, I hope those are dick pics. It might kill the loathsome hag to see them. Well played, Eugene.
@69 Guillermo el chiclero: And now they’re wearing a sack!
MW- Dawn is showing some self control when she mentions school and not all the guys she slept with.
MW: Words in boldface:
Well! Enjoying you?
Clerk. Quit school, dummy!
Well!
Dawn’s attempt at flirting does not go well.
@Banana Jr. 6000: MW: This has been my unending frustration with this storyline. At the airport, Brandy was tearful and thought ballooning about how she wished long distance relationships worked. Nothing we have seen to this point has indicated that she was unhappy with Tommy in any way, and as others have pointed out unless she broke the lease and quit her job, she’s coming back eventually. There could be genuine drama in a “Is she actually in Florida on a family fact finding mission or is she sunning on South Beach chasing buff lifeguards?” type story but we haven’t had anything to suggest that, either. All we have is Tommy lacking object permeance.
That was supposed to be Hey, but I had a brain fart and I don’t have editing privileges.
@ectojazzmage:
No, see, we’ve just been running away from Tom the cat.
@Comically Challenged: Is she actually in Florida on a family fact finding mission or is she sunning on South Beach chasing buff lifeguards?
Based on past samples of her artwork, June Brigman almost certainly would enjoy drawing this scenario, so, sadly, no, I don’t think this is what’s happening.
@Just John: Plus (as someone pointed out last week), Brandy’s “find out the truth about her abusive, drug-using father” plot would be interesting, and we can’t have that.
Daddy Daze: Honestly, the Daddy Daze “baby” seems to be around 5 years old. He’s got hair, seems fully aware of the world around him, and talks expressively using his hands. For all we know, he might be standing and walking around in today’s strip. Maybe Daddy and Mommy adopted him from a mysterious foreign land whose unique “Ba” language is difficult for foreigners to learn, but they encourage him to speak it at home so he doesn’t lose his cultural inheritance. And he’s happy that kindergarten is ending for the year, so he doesn’t have to spend all day interacting with kids who wouldn’t know a “ba ba ba” from a “ba bagadaba babarooba” (“look out, you are stepping on my lucky yellow crayon!”).
Mary Worth: You know what most normal college students do over the summer these days? They get a job, take on an internship, do something that could improve their prospects of post-college financial success. They don’t just spend three months “enjoying time off.” You can still flirt with hunks while doing something productive, Dawn! Heck, why not try filling up grocery bags over at Freda’s? It worked for Tommy’s last girlfriend — turns out most guys don’t care what a woman does for a living, as long as she’s (sort of, kinda, in the right light) cute.
Lockhorns: If I were Leroy’s neighbor, I would worry less about the cowboy hat and more about the fact that he’s wearing fringed black pants over his everyday shoes (with lifts in the heels). If anyone on “Yellowstone” was that freaky, it would be more popular with viewers other than men over 50.
Crank: Congratulations, self-congratulatory narrative box, for getting me to hate this before I even registered it was a Lillian and Eugene story!
EC: It’s supposed to be a mark of good writing if you empathise with the characters. And, like Len, I also can’t believe he’s still on the phone to tech support and wish it was over already!
FG: “I must stay and repair the library, unless you fail to return these documents on or before the last day shown, in which case I will hunt you down and kill you.”
OTF: Okay, I know very little about how business works, but surely if it were possible to be on the board of a company specifically to sabotage it in favour of your own company, nothing would ever get done? Am I being incredibly naive here?
RMMD: “I thought being exposed as Lorna Starr would lead to the hordes of paparazzi that have been camped outside my mansion for months following me here, but it’s been nearly a whole day and there’s been no sign of them, so everything is going to be all right forever!”
@Banana Jr. 6000: I think the problem with Mary Worth isn’t so much that the strip isn’t explaining things as that the explanation is so stupid the mind rebels against it. On Saturday, Tommy did finally admit that he didn’t really know if Brandy and he were broken up or not, but then he just continued acting as though that was the default reading of the situation. And I suspect that the reason the strip isn’t making the point that this is an error on his part is that Moy agrees with him
Curtis: I think its best if we just ignored the Scrappy-Do era.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: 97- I thought I’d shit mine out, but later realized it was my brain!
Wizard of Id – “On the bright side, the health plan doesn’t cover acupuncture, but this should fix your sciatica.”
Judge Parker – Someone paid to have a very specific Arby’s related fetish drawn and published in America’s newspapers. The state of the free press has never been lower.
Daddy Daze – Daddy receives mail from the local school district’s adult learning program to help people with certain struggles like literacy, lack of a diploma, or in Daddy’s case, lack of social skills. Daddy has not taken the offer.
Mary Worth – Tommy will go back to school, learn his former chemistry teacher is suffering for cancer, wonder if he could get his old meth dealer associates interested in hiring an extra lab assistant…. Damn it Moy, this is Breaking Bad fan fic! I don’t know how I feel, unless Mary plays the Hank role.
The Lockhorns – I get the obvious joke of Brokeback Mountain, but he could also have rewatched City Slickers on whatever ad-supported streaming service he uses instead of Netflix.
@CanuckDownSouth: Re RMMD – Manager looks like he didn’t hear the part about needing only a little dab of Brylcreem.
@Banana Jr. 6000: And on top of this contrived garbage story about Loathsome Lil ruining Lucille’s life, Batiuk made a U-turn several years ago and has been trying to make Loathsome Lillian into a sympathetic character. Not working. At least for me. She is not sweet and endearing. She was a loathsome hag before, she’s a loathsome hag now, and she’ll always be a loathsome hag.
@UncleJeff: Mr. Jive watched all of Yellowstone and at least some of the spinoffs. I didn’t pay much attention to it, although I’m aware of it. I found it disheartening to read that Dutton was a popular baby name.
“BA BA BA BA”
“Damn it, you’re right, I forgot to overindulge in blintzes for Shavuot”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Ranting about that loathsome hag is one of the pleasures in my life.
@Comically Challenged: Someone commented last week that Moy came up with the thought of getting Tommy and Dawn together but didn’t think it through. That sounds right. The premise for this story is poorly thought out and poorly written. There was no mention of breaking up when Brandy left for Florida, and suddenly the other day Tommy said that she wanted space. Moy usually plans out her stories better than this. This is making it up as it goes.
It might have been more realistic and made more sense to do this as an “out of sight, out of mind” situation, but that would put both Tommy and Dawn in a bad light, and we can’t have that.
MW- Okay. These two have been running since last Tuesday and haven’t even gotten to the other side of Greenbo County yet?
@Comically Challenged:
The answer is “yes.” You see, I suspect that Mary Worth is going to pull ideas from the recycling bin once again, so Tommy, convinced (or maybe not, but it’s like he’s going to do something silly, like check or anything) that Brandy has “left him” is going to start falling for Dawn…just in time for Brandy to come back after her leave of absence and make things “complicated.” But (tee-hee) in a stunning misuse of “irony”, Brandy will have hooked up with someone while she was dealing with her family drama in Florida. Somehow this will mean it’s perfectly ok for Tommy to just cheat on his girlfriend and he’ll be left off the hook and free to date his side-piece, just like it was when this storyline was done here last time and just like it was when Rex Morgan M.D. of all things “borrowed” this plotline, because in the world of comics all young people are unfaithful tramps, I guess.
@ectojazzmage & @Anonymous re MW: It is rather unclear why they are still running up that hill since they’ve both already made a deal with their God, Mary Worth. Anyway, give it another week or two and we’ll see them in the Sierra Madres running with the Tarahumara.
Funky Crankershaft: Perhaps Lillian intercepted the letter because she thought Lucy was illiterate and didn’t want her to be embarrassed.
CS: I’m enjoying the release of all the pent-up hatred for Lillian, though I’m in the pro-forgiveness camp. Real forgiveness that is– requiring admission of wrong done, apology if possible to person hurt, atonement for damage done, and steps taken to ensure it never happens to anyone again.
Though I’ve been a reader for only a few years, I’m guessing Lillian acted as many jealous teen girls would. Her real wrong was not coming clean when Eugene returned and amends could have been made.
She’s rightfully lived with guilt and apparent bitterness. She too never married but has a full life anyway. And I’m guessing both her sister and Eugene have had good lives too– as singletons and without the guilt and bitterness.
MW-You’re not a dummy, Tommy. Wait till Dawn sticks her hand inside of you.
LOCKHORNS: I kinda love how this comics, with it’s outdated, retrograde Honeymooner-style aesthetics and gender politics is somehow also hyper-relevent when it comes to it’s pop culture references.
Which proves that Josh was wrong all along. The Lockhorns are not Millennials. Those are Gen X vibes if I’ve ever seen them.
@Banana Jr. 6000: But we do know what’s going on in Luann. The creators decided that they don’t want to deal with Luan’s go-nowhere relationship with her dullard of a boyfriend, and realized that they can just kick that can forward by finally sending her to camp since there’s nothing to derail that lot now. (As we all know from the current Mary Worth plot we’re seeing there is no way for young people to communicate over long distances so we won’t be interacting with Phil for a while.) Phew I’m sure the Evans are glad they found a way to escape from the corner they painted themselves into with that whole “moving in” scenario they toyed with in an effort to pretend that Luann is something other than an immature moron that’ll never grow up. Now she’ll glue macaroni to construction paper, as is her wont! All is right with the world!
But things were getting to the wire here. They might of had to resort to, I dunno, sending Phil to Australia if things didn’t work out as they did.
@ValdVin: BB: Really, every single soldier in Camp Swampy is an utter disgrace to the uniform, except for maybe Corporal Yo and some of the background characters. They’re all just absolute garbage.
@I speak Jive: Oh, Lillian is absolutely vile. The fact that she did that to her own sister, never did anything to atone for it, and struts around like she’s some kind of all-suffering victim is insufferable. And she’s not even the most insufferable non-victim in the Funkyverse. Not even if you add her role in The Very Minor Book-Related Fire.
@Comically Challenged: Good point. Brandy’s life situation – and if she made any changes to it – imposes some kind of limits on her trip to Florida. As does the practical reality of her having to buy a return flight, or the lack of one being suspicious.
@Activist: Real forgiveness that is– requiring admission of wrong done
Imma stop you right there…
Mary’s Worst: Ghost of Don Rickles: “You’re not a dummy, You’re a hockey puck!”
@I speak Jive: That and HTT Grandma, which you also do well at.
@Bryan: I guess because Yo doesn’t show up enough to warrant a personality or shown doing any actions period.
Doesn’t help that he was drawn with yellowface and stereotypically slanty eyes for quite a long time.
The Familliar Mucus: Original caption: “Mommy! Jeffy ate my Reggie!™ bar!”
@Activist:
#78. RwORANGE: comment is really about SIX CHIX. This is what happens when I read comics at 4 am and don’t comment til five hours later
@Bryan: What about Captain Scabbard? The Seven Deadly Sins and many minor ones run wild through Camp Swampy, but I don’t recall Scabbard indulging in any of them.
(I could be biased as a fan of Catch-22, in which the only sane/benevolent characters are all captains.)
Miss Blips seems all right, too, unless you find her Envious of Miss Buxley’s knockers.
@I speak Jive: I found it disheartening to read that Dutton was a popular baby name.
Those parents didn’t even have the excuse of the out-of-nowhere last-minute heel turn that the people who named their kids Daenerys (or more likely Khaleesi, since people seemed to think that was her name rather than a title) had.
Guys. Guys. What if the Lockhorns don’t actually hate each other at all, Leroy’s just super influenced by television and has been watching things with depressing marriages in them? He is going to watch The Addams Family and turn into a perfect loving husband, and Loretta is going to weep for all the needlessly wasted years of conflict before she discovered that was all it took.
Late Thread Cuisine: For some reason, this doesn’t look like veal to me.
Lockhorns-That night Leroy is going to rope and brand Loretta.
@Baja Gaijin: Looks like a feta loaf you left out of the fridge overnight. And bless my soul, is that a layer of sliced pickles running through the middle?
At last, in this oh-so-lameass “progressive” comic, Rusty finally has the chance to tell Cherry that Scouts are gay. DO IT!
@Ukulele Ike:
Or a cornbread stuffing you froze, thawed, and lost your mind. Dear God.
@Maltmash3r: today’s only monday. Plenty of week left to get to that…
@Pozzo: @Joe Blevins: Without the MW narration box, we might have thought Tommy just asked Dawn, “For the new home you’re having built, are you going with city water, or your own well?”
@Horace Broon: re OTF… I’ve seen this scenario play out a few times. As an outsider looking in, all I have to say is “I actually invested in this crap?”
Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright
@Majicou: re:”Yellowstone”: just remember, to the show’s producers and die-hard fans, the violent, gun-wielding, famicide-committing Duttons are THE GOOD GUYS.
@Baja Gaijin: As usual, the *goal* of the Weight Watchers recipe team is to make the food as unappetizing as possible. The photo crew is really helping them out this time
Bob Denver and Herb Edelman@UncleJeff: the violent, gun-wielding, famicide-committing Duttons are THE GOOD GUYS.
_____________________________
@UncleJeff: violent, gun-wielding, famicide-committing Duttons are THE GOOD GUYS.
______________________________________
Bob Denver and Herb Edleman?
SPECIAL TO THE RAMBLING OTTER: You, in gelato form!
@GarrisonSkunk: don’t know about Herb but I wouldn’t let Bob Denver out of my sight.
@Rough Boy: Well, THANKS for the earworm.
I’m gonna be staring at the ceiling in the dark at 4:30 singing that under my breath.
MW- ” Hey! Don’t talk about yourself like that! Now if you’d flown a balloon into a fuckin’ tree, or fallen off a cruise ship or something like that, then OK,I get it. But you didn’t Tommy! Lighten up.”
@139 Ukulele Ike: Mushrooms. A layer of mushrooms in the middle of the loaf. Yuuhhh uhhhm!
@141 A Grave Mind: Let me guess: you don’t like how this looks.
@147 CanuckDownSouth: True. Just looking at the photo is enough to put someone off their feed.
The Lockhorns: Like GoT, Yellowstone is also a show about families solving problems with murder. No wonder Leroy enjoyed both! Now, if only he could find a family problem to… “solve…”
Uh oh.
Judge Parker: Alan Parker looks like a stereotypical Hollywood Indian in panel 1, but I’m pretty sure he’s morphing into Wilbur Weston in panel 2. That’s a lot of acting range for cartoon!
The Wizard of Id: It’s nice to see Sir Rodney! Long-running strips like WOI often had big casts that have dwindled over time. I don’t know if the current artists remember Rodney’s name, but at least he’s not off-model.
@Ken: Plus (as someone pointed out last week), Brandy’s “find out the truth about her abusive, drug-using father” plot would be interesting, and we can’t have that.
Beach bods would be inherently interesting to some, anyway.
Pluggers: “Furry Pluggers Can’t Jump”.
@Baja Gaijin:
#149. Otter is just TOO cute!
@159 Activist: Take a look at the whole crew. Which is the cutest?
@Anonymous: That was float worthy.
LOCKHORNS: I’ve never watched YELLOWSTONE or spinoffs thereof. But I’ve read about the angry reactions to the show by conservation groups, so I think maybe Leroy should have two dozen cattle horribly-overgrazing his yard while he threatens to shoot any squirrel or bunny that dares to set paw on his place.
@Baja Gaijin: Awwwwww!!!! So cute!!! :3
(Sorry for late reply, I forgot to check later in the day)
If you don’t see this message, I’ll send a thanks tomorrow anyway :)
The Shoe-niverse go-to TLD is obviously
.coo