Ongoing drama
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Bizarro, 7/28/26
Well, I’m excited to see that Bizarro’s Crash Test Dummies Stories weren’t just for Uncle Lumpy; now we’re fully into week two and things are getting dark. What do you mean you’re comparing your beloved to a brick wall, the very thing you and she are hurled painfully against over and over again day after day, and what do you mean she’s purring in delight at the comparison? Can’t believe they put this in the newspaper where anyone could see it, if anyone read the newspaper.
Gil Thorp, 7/28/26
Speaking of things that are still happening, the wedding of Gil Thorp is still happening in Gil Thorp, and today we learn that Marty Moon has finished his transformation from boring-ass high school sports radio reporter to multi-hyphenate content creator and influencer by becoming a DJ. Sorry if the first dance at your wedding is ruined by the DJ shouting “I’m [reggaeton airhorn] DJ MOON” every 15 seconds, but Marty has a #brand to maintain and/or establish.
Hi and Lois, 7/28/26
I really enjoy the drawing of Lois in panel one here, an asymmetrical close-up that lets you see how her face is assembled out of a series of curves. I also like how unsettled she looks in panel two. Does the suffering of some people bring profit to others? Is that truly the world we’re living in?
Archie, 7/28/26
A fun thing you realize reading Archie comics as an adult is that, despite the fact that their target audience is teenagers, a lot of them are actually about how teenagers are annoying and kind of stupid.
26 replies to “Ongoing drama”
Bizarro:
“I’m no dummy! — you’re just trying to ply me with blandishments!”
Zits: Today’s strip is tomorrow’s Pluggers: “All snack foods are single serving if you try hard enough.”
Gil Thorp: This wedding’s timeline is screwing me up: the bride and groom took off for the honeymoon in an ancient airplane a few strips ago, now they’re doing their first dance. Did someone drop the storyline on the floor and forget to sort them chronologically after picking them up?
@Baja Gaijin: Gil Thorp: I think they load the strips into a cartoonishly oversized blunderbuss and whatever order they hit the wall is the order they run.
Gil Thorp:
“Let’s start our set with a feelgood number, chosen by the happy couple themselves, which describes Gil’s personality to a ‘T’ — Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Head Like a Hole’ !”
JP: HEY, that’s OUR line!
JP2: ‘I’m passing on your pitch. Now if you’ll excuse me my brother Schmelon Schmusk has got something cooking over in ‘The Phantom’ and I wanna get in on the ground floor for the screen rights!’
Ph: I notice someone in the undistinguished background mass still has a spear. They could end this farce right now… just sayin’.
RMMD: So how’d the Dumblement Twins score that big honkin’ SUV they’re spying from? Did they scam it out of Summer after she got it from the stalker who wasn’t actually a stalker and then killed the actual stalker?
Hi and Lois:
Mr. Franchisee looks like a body double for Hi, only with alopecia.
H&L: They’re real hoarders. In fact, they haven’t been able to get to their bathroom in years so don’t go in the yard.
When Big Moose is giving you a “Man, is this guy stupid!” look, you know you’ve sunk pretty low.
Gil Thorp:
“Let’s someone hand the happy groom a pair of scissors so he can cut a rug!”
@2 Comically Challenged: That tracks.
JP Nobody get upset at the colourist – the polka dots added to Ann’s blue dress today are purposefully emphasizing her quick-change trick between yesterday’s wrap-top and today’s scoop-neck style.
MT And now we see that Mark and his dad somehow missed the bunkers and tiny cages dotting the gorilla ‘sanctuary’. Maybe Gail can escape to Phantom and give the Wambesi some prison-building advice?
Archie: Having found the keys, they turn around and push the car all the way back to the beach. I hope someone thinks t shift it into Neutral this time.
Archie : …Since when is Archie’s car a normal-looking convertible rather than a Ford Model-T-looking shitmobile?
…I’m actually asking seriously here, when did the “haha, Archie is driving an obsolete shitmobile from the late 19th century” sight gag stop being used? Because I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t like, the mid-1970s AT EARLIEST.
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Bizarro : TWO WEEKS of crash test dummy jokes? Is there any reason for it, or…?
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Snuffy Smith : why would anyone assume the lemonade was “frozen”? I don’t think it’s possible for Snuffy Smith’s hovel to have a working freezer, ice box or even cold room (cold hole-the-ground-that-serves-as-a-cellar?), at least not in the summer (in the winter, he probably doesn’t have a single spot in his home that’s not frozen).
…Heck, this joke would have worked better as a “Was this lemonade frozen or squeezed?” “Squeezed! I squeezed all the powder from the pack MYSELF”.
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Crankshaft : I wonder if this is Batiuk talking about something that did happen to him, like he was approached by someone offering to make a Funkyshaft-inspired video game, but refused them once he realised it was based on the perception of the strip from the people who make fun of it online (“this game is about being morose, getting cancer, and MONETISING your having cancer so you can steal other people’s awards!”).
The rest of the week should tell us.
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Hi & Lois : “These people are”? What’s with the demonstrative pronoun indicating closeness, and the present tense? Is Lois selling a home that’s currently inhabited, by people that are there on the premises with her while she gives the tour? ’cause if she IS, this strip would be better if the people in question WEREN’T selling their HOME, and got really agressive about it at Lois and her customers about it
(like, beating them up level agressive).************
Luann :
a) If the parts of Luann’s camp adventure we didn’t get to see (because remember, the parts we DID get to see, she immediately wrote letters to Phil about) were so exciting, why did we completely cut away from it? I mean, Bernice fuming about how much she hated her friends for having something to do this summer while she didn’t was good and all
as concrete evidence that she really IS a bad person, but if there was actually something interesting happening to Luann at camp…b) I could have sworn Luann’s luggage going TO camp was smaller than what she brought back. Either the Evansii got told that Luann’s “packing light” at the start of the storyline was packing too light for a DAY CAMP; or the implication is that Luann mistakenly
stoletook things from her campers.So, Archie left the top down on his convertible and he. . . unlocked the door with his key? Or locked it (with his key) when they arrived, so anxious to get out for some fun in the sun before the shrooms wore off?
Archie – why did they even use the keys for the convertible? The accusation of teenage dumbness is really amped up here.
@15 Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Archie was hopped up on goofballs.
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Sorry – I apparently had the same thought and was writing just as you posted.
@Anonymous: On Luann – We cut away because that’s when the rain started, and with the Camp Mystic tragedy back in the news recently, no one’s taking any chances.
Bizarro: Nonsensical compliment aside, I’m really curious about those coffee cups. Where does the coffee…go?
GT: I really appreciate that second panel which seems to be taken from the perspective of someone who’s in the process of passing out from too much booze and/or mescalin.
H&L: Guys, you realize that if you buy the place, you can’t charge to have the junk removed. I mean, maybe you could, but I think that would be revenue neutral? Maybe I just don’t understand business accounting.
Archie: I like how everyone’s expression is shock except for Moose, who is incandescent with rage. He is going to kick the shit out of his three teenaged friends, and maybe Mr Andrews to boot. He’s a legit psychopath!
You’d have thought Moose would’ve been ecstatic at the idea of pushing the car, but he, not Reggie or Jughead who have far better reason, is obviously going to be the one who’ll put Archie in hospital in Panel Four.
BIZARRO: If I were a sci-fi author, I’d be all over Planet of the Crash Test Dummies.
GT: Gil’s circle is suffocatingly small. Couldn’t he have a REAL DJ or wedding officiator?
MW: Taking a week plus to reach a conclusion is usually annoying, but in the case of Wilbur, it’s actually believable that he thinks at the rate of one complete idea per day.
@Anonymous: Re: Bizarro: Wayno just rediscovered the band that sang “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.”
@Bob Tice: Hey, there are only so many ways to draw a face, and only so many hours in the day, said the cartoonist as he mixed another gin and tonic.
Gil Thorp: Wait till we find out DJ Moon’s #brand isn’t a play on his last name, at least not directly. Assless chaps, is what I’m talking about.
Didn’t Marty Moon have a vaguely antagonistic relationship with Gil Thorp for most of the time Josh was reading the strip, or at least wasn’t afraid to call him out on his talk radio show? Now he’s DJing his wedding? I mean, this might be related to his extended/repeated fall(s) from grace over the years, but still.