Do not give the Daddy Daze daddy an axe
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Daddy Daze, 7/7/26
One of my favorite aspects of The Shining, which is one of my favorite all-time movies, is that for most of the movie’s runtime it’s not clear whether the evil hotel ghosts are real or creations of Jack Nicholson’s increasingly deranged mind, until a point towards the end when they unlock the pantry where Shelley Duvall has managed to trap him. My experience with Daddy Daze is informed by a similar narrative tension: Is the Daddy Daze baby really communicating something with his “ba”s that only the Daddy Daze daddy can understand? Or is the Daddy Daze daddy merely projecting his own thoughts and concerns onto incoherent babble, possibly knowingly and possibly delusionally? Today, the Daddy Daze baby’s whimsical antics seem to have produced a real physical object, which implies that the Daddy Daze daddy isn’t so much mad as he is living in a mad universe.
Blondie, 7/7/26
Real joshreads dot com heads know that I enjoy what Blondie has to tell us about how old people are navigating the modern age. Remember when there only used to be three TV channels, and the weather gal on every channel told you it was the same temperature? Now there’s a million channels plus apps on your phone and what not, and everyone is talking about “Real Feel,” which is different from just the regular old temperature in some way that’s hard to understand. How’s a person supposed to stay tethered to actual, physical reality in this kind of information environment? I guess you should probably just go with what your boss says, right? He must know what he’s talking about, that’s why he’s the boss.
Dennis the Menace, 7/7/26
Damn, Dennis, it seems like your notorious antisocial behavior is starting to have an impact on your personal life! I guess the person you’re menacing the most is … yourself.
121 replies to “Do not give the Daddy Daze daddy an axe”
I love everything about the Family Circus today including Jeffys look of utter disappointment that the sink won’t swallow. It will prepare him later in life when he finds out there are other things that won’t swallow for him.
Daddy Daze:
I’d like to see this kid intone the children’s rhyme “Ba, Ba, Black Sheep,” just to see how it would end up turning out.
Dennis the Menace:
“My mom says that you wear that clothing ensemble more frequently than Mary Worth wears her purple blouse!”
Blondie:
“And that’s 108 Centigrade, Bumstead — that’s 216 degrees Fahrenheit. We’re in hell here!”
“That’s for sure.”
Blondie: A co-worker once asked me, in all seriousness, “When it’s 93 degees out, what does it feel like?” I had no idea how to answer without making it sound like I thought she was an idiot.
CS: Is Tom Batiuk trying to do a Pulp Fiction here? You’re supposed to confront your daddy issues *before* you do the long, pointless, symbolic trek to the abandoned amusement park in his honor. And the story needs to end by Father’s Day.
DD To be fair, it seems like you came across this child’s ride in the middle of an open field, so maybe its not surprising that it doesn’t work? Also, maybe a tetanus shot is in order?
Blondie Congrats to Blondie! You’ve managed to take the most pointless conversation on earth (“durability hot outside!”) and somehow made it more boring.
Blondie: “It feels like 108º but I’m perimenopausal. You’ll probably need a jacket today.”
DTM: Is there some sort of sadist barber who enjoys giving all the kids terrible haircuts? Also Dennis on that skateboard like he’s trying to emulate Bart Simpson which is hilarious because I think originally Bart Simpson wanted to be Dennis.
Family Circlejerk – Now that Jeffy’s plugged up all the toilets in the house, he’s starting on the sinks.
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody comes up with a funny joke about it, especially not the writers at Blondie.” – attributed to Mark Twain
@Anonymous: Wow, Jef Keane really teed up that one. I wonder if Bil had done this when this picture originally appeared.
For I Speak Jive – Paul McCartney tells a dirty joke
Sorry I don’t have one of him telling the fucking Goofy one.
And, of course, the punchline to my favorite joke is, “Lady, if you think I’m hanging around for 66 more of those, you’re crazy.”
DtM: Is Dennis actually pondering reform? The prospect of no more cake for life could do that to a guy.
MW: Wilbur puts his figurative foot down and slips on a blob of metaphorical mayonnaise.
RMMD: A lot of effort is going into making the twins look as reprehensible as possible, to prove that yes, you doubters, June Morgan Is Always Right.
SF: Much is made of the perfection of Ronan, but really, how smart is he? He’s gone on more than one vacation with the idiot Forths.
DD: I don’t know what’s going on with Dad, but the baby’s communication skills aren’t bad, considering his trapezoidal head. Maybe call the pediatrician? Or SETI?
DtM If this is an update for Gina’s look, the backstory must be that not only did they not have money for a trip to the hair stylist, they also can only afford broken bowls and dull scissors
DT Love is blind… and maybe the artist’s eyesight is going, too, with a tuxedo that day to day gains and loses a breast pocket and lower pockets at different times (and sometimes inconsistent colours)
GT Is Keri left-handed in P1? Is Keri the one signing in P3 with the right hand, as implied by P2 or could that be Inma? Has the artist seen the typical class photo layout with names and quotes, not a blank field? Can the artist try to be consistent??
@Banana Jr. 6000:
On Crankshaft : you put it better than I could, because I can only express confusion as to where this story is going and what it’s trying to say.
IMHO, this segment WOULD have fit better PRECEDING the “Harry Dinkle plays his father’s magnum opus in his home as a sign that he has forgiven his father” sunday, since now it would explain his having invited the entire church choir to his home as “he wanted his father’s song to have an audience”. But I guess they needed to do a pilgrimmage to the burnt-out ruins of a venue that might mean NOTHING to any of them? (Like, the dance hall was only important to Larry Dinkle, Lucy and Eugene, right? And there’s decent odds none of the other characters even ever set foot there?)
****************
Luann : there you have it. It isn’t about how Bernice is an “introvert” and all her friends are “extroverts”, it’s about how Bernice is a self-righteous, judgemental person, and was feeling envious that her friends have a more active life than she does, and she wanted an easy way to convince them that it’s more “correct” to stay at home doing nothing, making her the “better” person again.
S4th: Awww, look at them! Trying to make some sense out of their psych0tic break! The innocent people desperately trying to get out of their path as they speed the wrong way down part of the four-lane divided highway they are actually driving on (in someone’s junker they stole out of the McDonald’s parking lot) would be *so* proud!
Blondie – I am hesitant to disagree with Josh’s interpretation, but I believe the joke-like (joke-adjacent?) message here is that it’s safer to contradict your boss than to contradict your wife.
@Anonymous: Tom Batiuk writes like Jackson Pollock paints. He’s got several cans of glurge, which he throws at the canvas in a random order and lets them land wherever. Then he expects an award for the result.
Six Chix – In this obvious political allegory, the appearance of a pillow with a human face — accompanied by artillery fire — presages the invasion of Six Chix by the Warsaw Pact countries.
Daddy Daze –
You jump in front of my bus
When you, you know all the time
That zero miles an hour, Daddy
Is the speed I drive
I tell you it’s all right
Pretend this post-it is a transfer
I say I just want to
Take a little ride
Ride on the…
(Crosstown horsie) So hard to get through to you
(Crosstown horsie) You don’t get the things I do
(Crosstown horsie) All I say is ‘ba ba ba’
And I never seem to travel very far
Don Abundio, translated:
“How’s business?”
“Not so great, Don Abundio”
“I wish I knew how to improve it”
“First of all, you’re too honest for a used car salesman”
[Sign: USED LEMONS FOR SALE CHEAP]
DtM: “Tell your mom assholery is a congenital condition and not my fault!”
DtM: Dennis seems upset by the news, probably because he is too clueless to realise that by falling out of favour with the parents he’s established himself as the forbidden bad-boy. Might have something to do with the fact that he likes nothing more than hanging out with his old neighbours.
If he figures this all out, I would imagine that the negging he would employ would be quite menacing.
One of my favourite Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” was the parody of The Shining.
Marge locks increasingly insane (unconscious) Homer in the pantry.
Marge: Stay in here until you’re no longer crazy! (turns around and looks at the shelf of canned food) Chili sounds good tonight. (Takes a can and leaves)
DT: The awareness or lack of awareness of how VPNs work is just painful.
Nancy: The 4th wall has been torn down so completely that reality and the imagination easily cross over into each other’s realm – nah, just didn’t have any other ideas.
FG: Flash has a death wish doesn’t he? Does he has some insecurity? Inadequacy? Guilt complex over something? Why is he always trying to get killed.
JP: Charlotte is so polite – she figures that Sophie’s dog/horse figure is so bad, that maybe she can help and encourage Sophie. Soon Sophie will be drawing at a 3rd grade level.
Phantom: Putin on the phone again, pleading with the Bagallan’s to get some of these crack anti-drone javelin guards. Forget EMP, anti-drone missiles, shotguns, lasers, just good classic shafts of wood. Solid, replenishable eco friendly wood.
I guess Dithers didn’t need to send Dagwood to Room 101 to get him to admit that 2+2=5. I’m… relieved?
MW: sigh I fear they’re going with “Tommy hears one bad thing and immediately goes back on the drugs.” I could almost accept that, except it means Wilbur was right about Tommy all along.
DtM: No, her mother knows that Dennis has a penchant for “innocently” repeating the judgmental gossip that he hears from adults. She’s afraid that her trash-talking of Henry and Alice will get back to them.
Daze: There are viewers who have a non-supernatural explanation for the pantry opening in The Shining. I’m sure they’d also explain away today’s Daddy Daze, the daddy himself gave his son the fake bus transfer sometime between panels one and two.
Blondie: I’m impressed that Blondie has captured an actual ritual of modern day offices: standing around in front of the flatscreen in the breakroom and having just awful conversations.
DTM: This is one of those days when I wish Dennis the Menace were a multi-panel feature on the weekdays, namely so we could just get a few extra silent panels of a shellshocked Dennis standing alone on the sidewalk, staring at those clouds that are … right next to him? Wait, where they hell are they?
FC-“The sink won’t swallow.” Neither does Mommy.
RMMD-It’s a shame that Uncle Jimmy has to live underground way out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s a yellow card! Very subtle, Daddy Daze. Very subtle indeed. A tie in to World Cup fever! You thought you’d get away with it to, what with not having it do anything in any way with yellow cards in soccer, but it wasn’t subtle enough. FIFA will be contacting you to get their share of the profits from this comic.
***
As a Canadian I’m not going to bother with temperature conversion and will just pretend everyone in Blondie is dying in agony as the water in their bodies starts boiling.
***
Dennis’ behaviour has him being ostracized by the families of short Avon representatives from 1970.
JP: No! Draw you!
Sophie draws the flesh eating horses of Greek myth
“That’s better”
DD — “Heeeeere’s Daddy!”
Blondie — Dagwood must be one of those sheeple I keep reading about on the internet. . . And frankly, demanding that he wake up is pointless when he’s napping.
Dennis, Menaced — That young lady has quite a future as a wedding planner, , ,
DD: Okay, this one is good.
Blondie: “She also said that I should get a raise….” *POW POW POW* “Yeah, but she’s a woman, but I can get away with beating you up and kicking you! After all these years, workplace violence is still fun! Ha ha ha ha!”
“My mother was afraid you’d actually show up! She hates the Irish, said she didn’t want that ‘Mick Menace’ in her house. I mean, she’s got No Irish Need Apply signs all over the house. Not sure what it’s all about. Oh, you’re Scottish? Well, she hates them too. All Gaelic types. You should hear what she says about Bretons, and I think she might actually have murdered a Cornishman!”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
And, of course, the punchline to my favorite joke is, “Lady, if you think I’m hanging around for 66 more of those, you’re crazy.”
Love the fucking Goofy joke – it’s a standard in our house.
My favorite punchlines are:
His pants fit like a glove!
Uhhh… I’ll take the soup…
What can I get for a rib?
Dennis might’ve shown up and said something modestly ruder than one of the Keane kids.
Blondie: I mean, Dithers does have a point: the apparent temperature is the one people experience, and Dagwood trying to console him buy saying “you know, it’s probably only about 99, practically chilly!” is small comfort at best.
DD: Today’s strip sent me down a rabbit hole of nostalgia as I remembered the horsie ride at the grocery used to cost a mere penny, and that the local King Soopers had such a ride up to the point when the Divalings could enjoy it and the cashiers would give them pennies at checkout for it, and now not only is the ride itself gone but pennies are also on their way out. So congrats to Daddy Daze for actually eliciting an emotional response from me today, even if that response was deep mourning for a world lost.
@Old School Allie Cat: You have to do the Goofy punchline in The Voice. It’s ten times funnier that way.
MW: A distraught Tommy runs through the halls where he runs into Mary standing with a young woman in an outfit of questionable taste. Mary takes his hand and puts it in Trashlee’s. “Stay in your lane, son.”
C’shaft: On one hand, this would explain Harry’s obsession with being the World’s Greatest Band Director, as he desperately seeks approval and accolades from others in order to feel validated. On the other hand, he’s still an insufferable jerk.
DT: I mean, when you’re referencing World of Warcraft, a game that hasn’t been culturally relevant for about a decade, you’re already admitting you didn’t bother to research your story. The bizarre conception of what a VPN actually is and does is just further confirmation.
Dustin: Clearly defining and expressing your goals is an important first step in achieving them…except in the Dustinverse, where clearly defining and expressing your goals is an important first step in being mocked as a loser who will never achieve anything.
FG: Let’s give Flash Gordon credit for having characters that not only don’t look they were drawn by aliens who had humans described to them but are actually kind of attractive. I mean, I don’t go for the blonde action hero type but I wouldn’t kick last panel Flash out of bed for eating crackers.
JP: You know what, let’s forget about Ronnie’s relationship problems and follow Charlotte messing with Sophie instead.
MT: Happy’s topper looks like something the Cat in the Hat would wear to a funeral.
MW: Wilbur’s being hypocritical and overprotective regarding Dawn’s relationship with Tommy, but Tommy’s about to do something rash and stupid based on incomplete information he’s just overheard, so who’s the real jerk? (Trick question, it’s still Wilbur. It’s always Wilbur.)
RMMD: They’re so evil, even their wine is black!
Blondie:
Today’s strip doesn’t really seem to have any discernible punchline, but considering the Blondie creative team’s well-established fascination with current events, I think it’s actually a very meta gag about all the discourse around Europe’s lack of air conditioning that was prompted by the recent heat wave. “Hey Europeans!” says Blondie. “Thanks to air conditioning, during our heat wave our old people aren’t dying in nursing homes and instead are idly discussing the weather while still wearing their heavy waistcoats! Get on our level!”
@Joe Blevins: I think they’re supposed to be bushes.
But the colorist said “I don’t give a f***”
Which is really, the mission statement of every comic creator Josh features on this site.
Dennis the Menace
I’m intrigued by the fact that this little girl seems to have sincerely wanted to invite Dennis to her birthday party. She would have loved to have him ruin all the careful planning her mother put into the event. This shows that while Dennis may have lost this particular battle, he’s winning the war for the hearts and minds of the neighborhood children. Soon he will have enough followers to end the Tall Ones’ tyranny once and for all.
“What’s that? A piece of yellow paper has manifested from thin air? How strange. Allow me to peruse it. Ah, a fragment of a play.
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Ba ba?
Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger: Ba ba ba ba.
Camilla: No mask? No mask!”
“Ba ba ba!”
“Yes, I have seen the yellow sign.”
Wow, Dagwood and Dithers are members of entirely different hominin species, aren’t they? Dagwood and Blondie herself are too, now that I think about it. I wonder what racists (speciesist?) in the Blondiverse have to say about their marriage, and offspring? I wonder if Elmo is in the same species as Dithers? He sure isn’t in Homo Dagwoodicus
Blondie – Blondie’s boobs are only 38DD, but they feel like 42DDD….
DtM – Oh…and I think you’re a selfish, inconsiderate asshole. Nothing personal, though….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Blondie-And Dithers’ fists say it’s 108 and you better agree because you don’t want to get into an argument with Dithers’ fists.
@TheDiva: You could write that paragraph about almost any character in the Crankshaft/Funkyverse.
“On one hand, this would explain _____’s obsession with being the World’s Greatest _____, as he desperately seeks approval and accolades from others in order to feel validated. On the other hand, he’s still an insufferable jerk.”
Les/writer, Lisa/cancer victim, Funky/alcoholic pizza store owner, Lillian/cozy mystery writer, Crankshaft/bus driver, etc. It’s practically a Mad Lib.
FG: Don’t get cocky, Flash. Queen Hatchetnose hasn’t bathed or douched since her husband was killed. It’ll be like wrestling a pile of rotting tuna fish.
Dennis the Menace: Another way of looking at this? Dennis is the cool kid — he gets invited to all the birthday parties! But he only turns up at a third of them, because he needs to keep his weekends free for bothering the Wilsons, insulting Margaret, and hitting baseballs through people’s windows. If he actually comes to your party, it’s a sign that you’re pretty cool, too. He’ll ruin it, of course — but when the $200-per-hour clown ends up face-down in the cake, that’s really only a problem for the parents.
Blondie: Newspaper strips are so bad at keeping with the times that Blondie – despite failing to get out a joke about the heatwave the East Coast just went through until two or three days AFTER it ended and thus stopped being news – is actually remarkably current and on the pulse of things by the standards of it’s fellow strips.
Wizard of Id: Overheard at John Hart Studios:
“You know, they say one day robots will take our jobs.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
RMMD- So not only are these two fake musicians, But they also have fake ID’s and can score wine in a restaurant? Whoa! They’re even cooler than I thought! Do they smoke?
“Damn it, Bumstead! J.C. Dithers & Co isn’t one of the top dozen polluters for no reason. I didn’t pump out all that CO2 for a measly 99 degrees. We’re going for a record!”
Today’s DtM reminds me of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader is briefing his team of bounty hunters, and says, “…but I want them alive.” Then, specifically wiggling an accusing finger at Boba Fett, he adds, “No disintegrations!” Like Mr. Fett, Mr. Mitchell has EARNED his reputation, and he should be proud.
Luann: Aaaaand just like that, Bernice has turned on to the digital drug.
@Joe Blevins: People insisting a mundane explanation for pantry opening in Shining are especially absurd to me because Stanley Kubrick himself described that as being the scene where it becomes completely beyond doubt that the ghost stuff is real. I’d genuinely love to hear how the door unlocked and opened by itself without Jack going anywhere near it or any human being nearby to do it for him. For that matter, I’d love to hear how Jack manages to learn about Hallorann coming back to the hotel through a hallucination, or how Hallorann and Danny’s explicitly real psychic powers fit into those whole “there’s nothing mystical going on” readings of The Shining.
Reminded of how Robert Eggers’ movies constantly get a particular kind of loser trying to dismiss all the supernatural shit as “hallucinations” even though that doesn’t really make sense narratively or thematically (e.g., the magic stuff in The Witch often happens far away from the main characters in different scenes from them, where they couldn’t possible be seeing – and therefore, couldn’t possibly be hallucinating things there – and has tangible, consistent effects on the setting that wouldn’t happen from delusions).
Ragingly fanatical skepticism about EVERYTHING is bad enough when applied the real world, it’s even more pathetic when applied to fiction.
@Ken: Christ, what if this arc is Moy’s attempt to make Wilbur look good? “See? See?! Wilbur was right about him! He’s not a pathetic, maladjusted asshole creep! His endearing quirks make him amazing! Love him!”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: My all-time favorite dirty joke is the Japanese Golfer one.
I had the same thought and am hoping that it’s not Gina, who is well suited to Dennis and vice versa. It’s like they just drew Margaret in a way that kind of resembles Gina.
JP “You just said ‘Draw a horse ‘ You never said which end!”
@ectojazzmage: What do you mean, wrong hole? (What is the phrase the guy yells.)
Another favorite punchline:
“He sure did! He fucked the brown cow again!”
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – One of the alternative newspapers we used to have did a story on people at street corners with signs. One woman they talked to said a guy gave her a few bucks, but she could also see he was jerking off at the time.
So it’s too bad that Rex didn’t turn up at that corner.
Maybe it’s just that the standards of menace have been so raised by the likes of Calvin and Hobbes or Bart Simpson but I can’t remember ever seeing Dennis engage in behavior that would make him a poor children’s party guest, he wears a tiny suit to church for goodness sake! He’s really just a menace because the strip is called Dennis the Menace but who told the inhabitants of the strip that? Who is going around badmouthing this precocious kid who at worst doesn’t always live up to 1950s standards of etiquette? I ask but we all already know it’s Mr. Wilson, Mr Wilson is making the neighbour kid a social pariah out of a sort of misplaced dissatisfaction and inadequacy that his pension wasn’t enough to settle him in a gated community with no children.
DD: Daddy bursts through the door shouting, “HEEEEEREEEEEEEEE’S DADDY!!!!!” “Ba ba ba” “You’d rather watch Jay Leno?!?” “Ba ba ba?” ” How old is this comic? Good question!”
Daddy Daze – I am personally in support of Daddy Daze taking a Heathcliff like turn into surrealism and strangeness.
Blondie – Dithers is an authoritarian, so it’s no surprise he’s putting the science aside in favor of what feels real to him.
Dennis the Menace – Menacing is a boomerang that, when cast, eventually comes back to you.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Thank you so much for that! I laughed; however, it’s impossible not to laugh at that joke.
Crankshaft – Make it stop. Batiuk couldn’t come up with anything about Harry Dinkle that would convince me to loathe him less.
Does “he” refer to Batiuk or to Dinkle? Yes.
Frazz – I didn’t want to waste my time parsing that to try to figure out what they’re blathering about. Whatever it is, Frazz is superior to people who either do or don’t do it.
Rex Morgan – That’s the second time the Crime Wave Twins have dropped Uncle Jimmy’s name. Yep, Rene is back. I can’t wait.
FC – Holier than thou Grandma thinks of four times the harlot should have swallowed.
Mary Worth – Reminder: Wilbur is an advice columnist. People supposedly write to him for advice about their problems.
Crank: It’s a strange feeling, judging Lillian and Other Choir Person Probably for being all “Wait, the arrogant asshole has actually got self-esteem issues that he tries to cover up by being an arrogant asshole? Yeah, right!” while at the same time not actually feeling any sympathy for Harry “Arrogant Asshole” Dinkle whatsoever.
DT: I realise that there’s a big difference between understanding computers and understanding basic physics, but every time I read tech stuff in this story, I think “Yep, this is the writer who put a ‘poison teapot’ in a story, and got how it works backwards.”
JP: Ronnie, you have no idea how lucky you are that you’re not.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: And, of course, the punchline to my favorite joke is, “Lady, if you think I’m hanging around for 66 more of those, you’re crazy.”
That’s the short version. When I tell it, the punch line is, “lady, if you think I’m hanging around for three more of those, you’re crazy.”
@Anonymous: I once saw an interview with Matt Groening where he said his starting point for Bart was not being Dennis, who he described as a kid whose “menace” was that he sometimes carried a slingshot but never used it.
@ectojazzmage:While I absolutely wouldn’t discount Moy being tone deaf enough to have Tommy reacting much worse to not having Wilbore’s respect than he did when Brandi thought he was back on The Drugs, I’m not sure I buy her thinking she needs to do something that makes Wilbore look good.
@I speak Jive: RMMD: But why can’t they bring “Uncle Jimmy” any cheesecake? Is he in jail, maybe? Although given the sneering-villain way they’ve been talking, it may turn out they don’t have time for a visit because they have plans to wander the streets kicking puppies.
(And I’ve just reminded myself of Shirley Jackson’s in-every-possible-way-better story, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts.”)
Huh, did they change the look of, uh… (spends eight or nine seconds trying to pull the name of the girl who’s not Margaret before deciding their are better uses for my brief and beautiful time on Earth)
@Marek: The “sexy rebellious bad-boy” schtick doesn’t start appealing to girls until AFTER puberty. Given that the poor little bastard’s been five years old since the 1950’s, even if Alice would allow him to wear a biker jacket, he’d still never be able to get an erection.
@Dan: If this IS Gina, she’s come a long way downhill from her “sexy little Italian prepubescent hottie” days.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
What does a sign on an out-of-business brothel say? We’re closed.
We think that’s the gist of it, anyway.
@BananaSam: Hey, back when this strip started he was a TOTAL little bastard, terror of babysitters everywhere. His decline first began when he got a live-action TV show, and after the Dairy Queen sponsorship it just became sad.
@Buck Ripsnort: Given that the poor little bastard’s been five years old since the 1950’s, even if Alice would allow him to wear a biker jacket, he’d still never be able to get an erection.
I have strong recollections of getting boners when I was that age. Didn’t understand why it happened while watching Bluto beat the living shit out of Popeye for the first three quarters of the cartoon, but here we are.
FRAZZ: Siding with Caulfield here, our worlds can get smaller as we age not because we throw out distractions but because we quit exploring and growing. Life keeps throwing new balls at us, let’s catch a few
GA: see above explanation, as to what happens if we let our desire for comfort be more important than our desire for growth
FG: I’m assuming this will not be a battle to the death. If Flash wins, does the former Queen have to bend to her conqueror’s will? As happened with Ming.
spam at #50!
@TheDiva: re: Blondie – yeah, heat (and cold) warnings are based on more than just the temperature because our ability to thermoregulate depends on heat flow rate which requires a temperature difference but also has significant effects from humidity and airflow (wind).
That said, any “RealFeel” or whatnot is the result of a significant approximations or restrictions (dry skin? sweaty skin? still air? shade?) while the temperature is a definite measurable property that gets you a huge amount of the information. Having grown up in Winnipeg with the “Watts/m^2 exposed dry skin” windchill factors, I think they should give the extra information in other units like that so it’s not confused with the temperature (it’s 2200! cancel outdoor recess! :)
ZITS: didn’t Sarah volunteer for animal shelter? She could make a perfectly serviceable wallet, no poor eel has to die for her. :-(
But this week’s Rumor v Fact theme is appreciated.
FBoFW: heads up to occasional readers, Grandma may be dying again.
BF: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”
CURTIS: All eating contests are gross. Glad we skipped to the prize.
6CX: dogs and vets with PTSD hate the fireworks. Watch them online and mute.
SF: incredible how PerfectMan Ronan gets this family. Btw, are he and Mom married yet?
@Activist: “All eating contests are gross. Glad we skipped to the prize.”
I fondly remember a scene from a cartoon from my childhood (frankly it’s literally the only scene I remember)
Three kids were in a pie eating contest, two of them were stuffing their faces, while the third, this dweeby little nerd kid was daintily cutting the pies with a knife and fork and eating them very slowly.
The nerdy kid ends up winning (somehow)
DtM: Funny, that’s almost word-for-word what Malia Obama said to Donald J. Trump about that library opening.
DtM: Dennis isn’t offended because he has no idea who this is, although he does have some notion that she wears castoff clothes from her mother that have shrunken in the drier.
9C: No one should ever tell Alistair, the would-be author of Bach Goes Commando, that he can’t make his music distinctive—ly unappealing.
C-Shaft: Just because Larry Dinkle offed himself in a wacky bus mishap and Lucy Mackenzie long ago went miserable to her grave, never doubt that in this strip, there are always more things to beat to death.
DT: I don’t pay the closest attention to the world of video games, so if I know it took you 20 years to come up with a transparent parody of World of Warcraft, your ass truly needs to pick up the pace.
Dustin: What is Dustsis’s beverage choice supposed to be here? It looks like she’s drinking multivitamins straight from the bottle, somehow.
JP: Just as Charlotte put herself into her work when she cut off Abbey’s head, gave it a kicky no ‘do, and placed it on her own shoulders.
MW: Meanwhile-meanwhile, Mary Worth monitors everything on the cameras she had installed behind the landscape art prints.
Phantom: Ignis Vindicta’s high tech fleet of drones gets taken down by natives with spears. Natives who are never even shown practicing their spear throwing. Mr. Vindicta is going to skim right over this incident when it’s time to give his annual review at the next investors’ meeting.
RMMD: Nothing like a dishonest day’s work to make you keep reminding yourself that you’re a crook as if you had some kind of Memento-esque brain injury.
WofI: Someday robots will take the job of writing your dialogue and no one will notice.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: #86: re-Phantom: Don’t under estimate spears. Remember the Gravelines prison breakout? Pygmies with spears and arrows beat half the Rhodian Army who were armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers, and machine guns.
@Artist formerly known as Ben, Phantom: Vindicta, tell us you’ve never seen “Return of the Jedi” with the Ewoks without telling us you’ve never seen “Return of the Jedi” with the Ewoks.
@Banana Jr. 6000, CS/FW: And also the creator/artist himself.
RMMD: You know, if this was a Disney byproduct (film or limited series), they would have broken into song by now with an enchanting earworm about their evilness, written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Today’s Blondie is disappointing, in that it has the “barely a joke” quality that I usually associate with Six Chix or Alice.
@Guillermo el chiclero, Phantom/FG: Now I’m imaging an alternate Flash Gordon/Phantom where Ming the Merciless tries to conquer Earth with his laser weapon/gun, only for the gun to be destroyed by the well-aimed spears of the Wambesi, from across the other side of the Universe.
And Ming ending up with a Skull on the Cheek.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Ew.
RMMD- I stood outside the supermarket today and pretended to play the violin. A guy threw a handful of washers in the jar and pretended to give me a tip! I tell ya, I don’t get no respect!
@Guillermo el chiclero: Oh sure, I know that and you know that. Try telling the guy who’s underwriting the shares.
@Lord Flatulence: #[3: She also doesn’t wipe after pooping and is going to wrestle Flash in the nude.
Dagwood doesn’t mind the heat as long as there’s an “ate” in it.
The twins inherited their violin skills from their Uncle Jackie Benny (And yes,I know Jack Benny was actually a very gifted violinist.).
Where does one find “Alice” when Josh doesn’t feature it?
Late Thread Cuisine: Another treat from Japan. Enjoy!
H&L: Yes, Lois, Trixie will be great at karaoke if she doesn’t perish from dehydration first.
Zits: We’re getting a whole week of this, aren’t we? I’m not on board with Jeremy knowing the latest buzz about anything, even if it is bullcrap.
Lockhorns: The bright side is, Loretta hasn’t made any cracks about Birnam wood going missing. Yet.
@GarrisonSkunk: If you really want to subject yourself to it, it’s available through the Seattle Times comics site.
@ectojazzmage: Kubrick’s movie keeps it ambiguous–relatively speaking–longer than the novel does, although that might be because by 1977 readers had an expectation of what they’d find in a Stephen King novel. If you try to strip the supernatural out of it, though, you just wind up reinventing the supernatural under a different name.
@Baja Gaijin: Are we sure that this didn’t cause George HW Bush’s “diplomatic incident”?
SPECIAL TO SCRATCHY SCROTUM: I found your favorite board game!
FC- “Stick your head in and see what’s clogging it. No Jeffy, the sink, not your head!”
FC- Dolly: “Mommy! The toilet can’t swallow either! It just threw up!”
@Baja Gaijin: SPECIAL TO SCRATCHY SCROTUM: I found your favorite board game!
Brought to you by the fine folks at Mego, makers of Cock Tease, the board game where you drive your opponent’s rooster crazy!
@Liam: Do they giggle?
@Baja Gaijin: I’ve seen ads parodying Ranch dressing popularity with salad scoops topped like an ice cream sundae, but this is ridiculous… it sure looks like Hawaiian shaved ice with frozen shredded lettuce and salad dressing
@Tabby Lavalamp: As an American I think your BLONDIE comment should get a float ride on Friday.
BLONDIE: As someone who spends all her waking hours in either sweatpants or, occasionally, sweatpants that are trying to pretend they are a little classier than ordinary sweatpants, I really like the pants that Dithers is wearing. I like them because they look worse than mine. And his shoes look even worse than my awful shoes. Thank you, Dithers, for showing how “Casual Everyday” should be done.
@104 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I thought broccoli sushi caused the peristaltic reversal.
@108 Maude R. Fawker: Mary Worth plays that game with Dr. Jeff on every date.
@110 CanuckDownSouth: Here’s the translation of the press release:
@111 Poteet: STOP PEEKING!!!
@Baja Gaijin: I have some very happy memories of Japan, but sweet red bean paste is not one of them. It did not work for me, and the way it did not work made my mouth sad.
@Baja Gaijin:
#113. BLONDIE: I’d been wondering all day what sort of cold concoction Blondie, perhaps with Maya’s help, could sell in this blood boiling heat. (C°)– and Baja, you’ve found it! Something extravagant to satisfy all her sophisticated customers
@Little Guy: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII have a feeling that Ming would kick Kit Walker’s ass for him. After laughing long and loud at the purple leotard and stripey underpants. Ming knows all kinds of sneaky Mongovian shit that would turn Phantom into Ghost-Who-Went-Cross-Eyed.
Also, I doubt that the Flash/Fria bout will be a wrestling match. She’s going to be wearing the armor and wielding the sword that chopped so many Hawkmen into so much chicken salad.
@115 Poteet: Agreed. Red bean paste is just wrong. It looks like cherry or strawberry jelly but tastes like disappointment.
@116 Activist: SNERK!
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Worth plays that game with Dr. Jeff on every date.
The male has to have at least some semblance of the necessary equipment for that to even work.
The real menace is the friends we lost along the way :(
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: Now we get a flashback of Sam Catchem making sweet sweet and sour love to Sophia Potrillo in his Roxx™ Sex Chair.
FG: Today, Flash and Fria join the Mile-High Club.