TRIUMPHANT RETURN (to discover that Wilbur is still [gestures vaguely] you know, his whole deal and whatever)
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Mary Worth, 7/27/26
Did you, Wilbur? Did you change? Did you change, Wilbur? Is that what you think? That you changed your behavior and general vibe, somehow? Is that your perception of the situation? That you changed? Interesting. Interesting!
Hello, faithful readers! I am back from my vacation, grateful as ever for Uncle Lumpy for filling in for me and grateful as ever to you for your very kind contributions to the Summer Fundraiser! You’ll all be getting your individualized thank yous soon enough, but first: today’s comics, full as usual with violence and mayhem!
Hagar the Horrible, 7/27/26
I honestly first read this as “their mood stabilizer” and assumed that the joke was that Hagar’s men, bored and antsy after who knows how long at sea, had turned on one another. But no, the joke is that Hagar is filled with deeper violent impulses than any of us imagined, impulses that cannot be controlled even with the best of 10th century pharmaceutical science, and has beaten his men bloody in a terrifying episode that it seems he’s completely forgotten about mere moments later. Quick, Lucky Eddie! Strike now, while he’s calm, and either rescue your fellow crewmen or earn your place in Valhalla!
Pluggers, 7/27/26
When it comes to rain, a plugger knows it’s either too much, which provides a perfect cover for strangling a frog, or not enough, which increases the risk that someone will see you strangling the frog and you’ll get in trouble for it. That’s why pluggers are so effective at frog murder: they time it just right.
Herb and Jamaal, 7/27/26
Wow, that’s really profound, when you think about it that way! So I guess what you’re saying is that just owning things is enough, and I don’t have to ever clean them? Uh, for my family, this helps my family.
135 replies to “TRIUMPHANT RETURN (to discover that Wilbur is still [gestures vaguely] you know, his whole deal and whatever)”
Hagar the Horrible:
“I sure am glad that Beany lent us Cecil to make this voyage!”
Pluggers:
You’re a plugger if you conclude from looking at the Morton’s container that when it rains, it rains iodized salt.
MW: Wilbur changed, sure. He went from a competent adult man who was a bit of a schlub to a narcissistic animal-abusing man-baby incapable of functioning without Mary’s assistance. But that’s not something you brag about, Wilbur. That’s not something you tell people.
Mary Worth:
“Maybe people can change…after all, Tommy’s alley-dwelling acquaintance ‘Vin’ changed inexplicably to ‘Reno’ !”
MW: Gotta hand to the Moy for her chutzpah, this is the retcon to end all retcons…
GT: Princess Leia is NOT amused!
RMMD: They’re going to ring the doorbell and say they’re from ‘Corporate’ and they need to inspect the house for rare African termites or something, aren’t they?
Luann: Well, I guess since the Evansii confirmed that they will not be backing out of having Bwadoni become parents, this gives them nine months to speed-run towards resetting everything for the big relaunch. They’ve got to get Luann and Phil ‘their own place’, get Gunther out of the garden shed and back in the crummy van with Bets livin’ the cosplay life, pair off Tiffany with either Ox, Les, or ‘Kip’, etc.
SF: Finally, FINALLY we get to the %&$@’ing point of this time travel nonsense, and it was just your run-of-the-mill argument over money. If you’re going to have a psychotic break from reality, you might as well have some fun, and this whole thing has been wholly un-fun because first everyone has just been sitting around quipping and worrying instead of enjoying themselves going to touristy places that were still around in 1986 but have since been lost through neglect, natural disasters, etc.
Further, we know how this is going to end. Mark my words, Ces is going to pad this out until Labor Day, when suddenly everyone is back to the present, there is zero evidence they ever ‘time-traveled’, everything is exactly the way it was before (with some attempt at pithy understanding that ‘it HAS to be this way’) and Hilary will quip that their trip was only supposed to be a week and yet somehow she’s already due back at school while Sally says ‘just go with it.’
MW “After all, I changed: I used to have a modicum of dignity before the writer turned me into a pathetic, jealous drunk in the name of…whatever the opposite of ‘fan service’ is…”
H&J: “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t need so much food, or cleaner, if it weren’t for my filthy family and their grimy mitts.”
Pluggers’ grandchildren try to explain to them that “frogstrangler” is a problematic term even if “some of my best friends are frogs”
HtH: Judging from the size of his ship/ Hagar seems o be mon the low ed of the Viking affluence scale.
HJ :Sarah is unaware that the important part of cleaning a refrigerator is inside. Bentley, like Herb. must be a former quality control technician. His commitment to consistency is unshakeable.
Rationalist science tries to control the berserker rage and switch it on and off according to the need of capitalist profit. But you cannot control a mystical state! If Odin demands blood, you give it to him!
Dr. Zook’s prescription was trepanation followed by several rounds of Hail Marys and Our Fathers. Hagar being illiterate and still indifferent to the White Christ of the southerners, he was unable to remember the prayers and found his rage merely doubled by the headache.
@The Quiet Man: I must admit to some curiosity (read “gaping at the auto wreck”) about what plan the twins (read “Beatty”) will come up with for this surveillance. I fully expect they’ll try to pull it off while still dressed identically and without changing their distinctive hair color.
MW Sure you’ve changed – before you acted like a jerk when alcohol lowered your inhibitions, *now* you don’t need booze for that at all
MT So in a world with primate sanctuaries all over the map, and animal hospitals able to deal with dozens of sick gorillas, sure, “rehoming” them is also easy – your local petting zoo could take one in, right?
JP Is there some new all-postpubescent-women-must-wear-skirts rule in this comic?
HtH: Did the doctor prescribe a beating for the crew? Why is Hagar’s sadism his responsibility? We may be witnessing the birth of malpractice insurance here.
MW: Wilbur has more than proven that drunk or sober, he’s still a dumb douche. How many weeks before THAT lightning bolt strikes?
PLUGGERS: Pluggers obsess about the weather because they want to mow their lawns every other day.
GT: Kaz’s joke is bound to bring Keri marching in with a protest sign. Because the bride and groom can’t expect their wedding to be about THEM!
RMMD: They’ll be completely unrecognizable in matching Groucho glasses.
DtM: Dennis has spilled the jar of kerosene all around Mr. Wilson’s chair. Just out of frame, Mr. Wilson’s lit pipe is falling to the floor. Mrs. Wilson, nihilist that she is, looks on in silent appreciation.
Phantom: My guess is that Not!Elmo is going to fit Purple Stripeybutt with the Tchotchke Anklet, only for Kit to overwhelm it and destroy it and all connected A.I. through sheer willpower.
Herb’s wife thinks that love is stronger than germ theory. This is the path to explosive diarrhea and a job in the Department of Health and Human Services
Of course Wilbur’s changed! He’s parting his combover on the other side, he’s talking a pensive walk at sea level instead of drinking on top of a cliff, and he’s starting wearing a mustard coloured polo to hide the inevitable stains.
“Dr Zook is a poor doctor, but a great scientist! His time machine brought us miraculous things such as this spy glass and the term ‘mood stabilizer’!”
Phantom/RMMD: “Hello! We want to give you and your family these free ankle bracelets for you to put on this instance, for reasons!”
I was going to make fun of how the plugger is holding the umbrella and I picked up an umbrella to test it and that is how I hold an umbrella! Going to sit with this.
Today’s Mary Worth is what this Friday’s Crankshaft is going to be: the strip claiming that Ed is a good guy deep down, and he’s being unfairly bullied by these Internet-addicted children. Just like Wilbur Weston thinks he’s changed, Ed Crankshaft’s going to think he’s a victim. When’s one of the worst human beings in human history, and would be widely despised by everyone. Especially anyone who ever had him as a bus driver, which is a huge number of people in this small town.
Luann: This is inappropriate in two different directions. It’s implied that this is the first time Phil and Luann are meeting after she came back from Get Luann Out Of The Strip For Six Weeks Camp. And now they’re going to make out right in front of Luann’s own mother, her own friends wouldn’t even let them make out in a car in private. The only explanation is that somebody declared Phil and Luann’s relationship acceptable over that time. Which is not how the world works, unless Luann is fundamentalist propaganda.
People can change! But not comics strip characters! Stuck where they were when they were first created decades ago! Unless the syndicate hires a younger writer who decides to give a modern spin to the strip
Hägar the Horrible: Who wakes up in the morning and thinks “Let’s write a joke about mental illness and violence, with Vikings”? Who wakes up and thinks “Let’s start that joke with ‘We need to hold Dr. Zook accountable'”? Cartoonist, heal thyself!
@Ettorre:
People can change! But not comics strip characters! Stuck where they were when they were first created decades ago! Unless the syndicate hires a younger writer who decides to give a modern spin to the strip
We now call this getting “Fritzi Ritzed”.
Mary Worth: Very nice, very subtle tribute to Nancy‘s “three rocks” meme in panel two there.
Wilbur may be thinking about the concept of “Cambridge change,” where a change in anything means that everything now has a new property. So when Tommy stops being a druggie, Wilbur loses the property of “being such that Tommy is a druggie.” In this way, everything is connected to everything else, which means everything is connected to Wilbur! Gross.
Sure, we enjoy chuckling at the most obvious anachronism, such as ‘mood stabilizer’ or the spy glass. But we are connoisseur of mangling of history! For example, ‘Dr’ Zook? The first university was Bologna, opened in 1088, AFTER the end of the Viking age! Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!
@Old School Allie Cat: Sometimes a new writer gives a character a new personality (e.g. Mark in ‘Mark Trail’). Or they even give the character A personality (e.g. Rusty in ‘Mark Trail’)
Pluggers: According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, “frog strangler” (or more commonly “toad strangler”) is a well-attested Southern expression for “torrential rain.” At least it was in the 1960s, when DARE’s data was collected. Pluggers delight in dying variations on folk expressions, can confirm, gosh, this is all starting to make too much sense now.
Gah…comics mocking muscles rusty and contracted…shouldn’t have taken that week off while Josh was away…
MW: Wilbur DID change. He finally switched out that nasty maroon polo shirt for a nasty mustard-colored t-shirt. (If there’s also a diaper involved, I don’t want to know about it.)
@Banana Jr. 6000: On Luann – Yeah! With all these ‘teehee’ baby-making shenanigans, I’d totally forgotten that Luann was off at Totally-NOT-Camp Mystic being the bestest counselor who ever counselor-ed. What happened to the kid dealing with incontinence? The other counselors who liked to talk with their eyes closed and mouths wide open?
Luann left the place a smoldering ruin, didn’t she? ‘Gee, I only used a *little* lighter fluid at the bonfire…
@Banana Jr. 6000:
On Crankshaft : Sure, Batiuk could go the “feel sorry for Crankshaft who is being unjustly bullied! Being turned into the object of mockery for the Internet is a serious issue!” route, but he could also be going “these two school-age idiots are not realising that antagonising Crankshaft, who will VERY SOON hold a position of authority over them (as their bus driver), is a REALLY bad idea” route (ie, the “Crankshaft gets revenge on those two little shits” route).
I mean, both are kinda grating, but I feel as if the latter is more “honest” with what kind of character Crankshaft is (ie, a child-hating cranky old man who treats inconveniencing others as a competition), at least.
I really don’t want to hear a Plugger’s description of Jim Henson.
@matt w: That kind of thinking went out with MySpace. Every user was automatically a friend of Tom the creator, which meant every user was one step away from every other user.
Or something like that. I may not be remembering the details correctly.
@Anonymous 35: Yes, that is another possibility. But it will be a pretty weak revenge when it’s what he already does to every child, anyway.
It’s never bothered me before, but Hagar’s longship is just an oversized canoe! It can seat five guys! Viking longships should carry up to 80 warriors.
Are the Horribles and their neighbors just extremely dedicated cosplayers? Is it all a tradwife influencer thing, just following a very different “tradition?” And how much murder is involved? All important questions!
MW-Wilbur changed the same way a leopard changes it’s stripes.
RMMD-Under the covers with June? I like where this is heading.
MW-“Maybe people can change. After all I did.” No. No you did not.
FC-“So we’re stuck in this circle forever then?”
Dustin-“Meg, you have an OnlyFans page. Am I OnlyFans material?”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: And tomorrow’s Pluggers will use the phrase “wicked smaahhht.”
I don’t want to use the word “gaslighting” but do you ever suspect that Mary Worth has become a prolonged psychological experiment to determine if a daily comic can make people start to question reality?
***
As it turns out, “frog strangler” is a real phrase and it’s American. As a representative of the English-speaking rest of the world, it’s my duty to revoke your use of the language and inform you that from this day forward the official language of the United States shall now be Lithuanian. Prašau, stenkit?s nesugadinti savo naujos kalbos.
Gah, the first snarkable Arlo and Janis in years and I miss it by one day!
Look out, Janis—it’s Crazy Eddie!
@The Quiet Man: Well, that’s just Luann serving her proper purpose in a fundamentalist world: becoming a useless man’s long-term partner, so they can make babies together. The fact that Luann went to summer camp with her own goals and ambitions is of zero relevance. Remember when this was about paying for a new apartment?
@Tabby Lavalamp: The year 2026 has presented us all with so many things that make us question reality that Mary Worth would be… well, about as irrelevant as it really is.
@Uncle Lumpy: knowing Jimmy Johnson’s sense of humor it might BE Lucky Eddie. Or maybe Arlo wearing a funnel as a hat.
MW – Wilbur changed from an insufferable prick to a semi-sufferable prick….
HtH – The beatings will continue until the mood stabilizer improves….
Pluggers – A Plugger welcomes a heavy rain event. Then people can’t tell he’s pissed his pants….
H&J – If you can’t have the filthy refrigerator you want, why not try wanting the filthy refrigerator you have….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Liagar? Who the hell is Liagar? I read this comic for Hagar, butcher of men and ravager of castles, not Liagar the Mediocre, the Viking so forgettable there’s not even a Wikipedia page about him.
“Tommy, I have decided to believe in you! If I can change, you can change and become just like me!”
“Really?! Then it’s back to drugs for me!”
MW: Wilbur’s walk of self awakening backfires when he absentmindedly strolls into a pool of quicksand.
MW: Wilbur, the last time we saw you, you were ignoring an International Workers’ Day worth of red flags in order to get physical with a serially homicidal woman who probably wasn’t mentally competent enough to consent to it, and who was attracted to you based on your resemblance to her own brother. I don’t think you’re the model of self-improvement you and Karen Moy think you are.
Mary Worth:
“But my brother Orville says I am ‘flighty.’ Go figure.”
Vikings knew of only two things that were poor substitutes for mood stabilizers – beer and mead. The artwork would work perfectly if the storyline were about a drunken brawl.
C’shaft: “Man, I LOVED you in ‘Fifteen Horrifying Highway Collisions’!”
Dustin: “You are establishing a paper trail for when we run off and frame him for our murder, right?”
GT: Geez, how long has Kaz been telling stories about Gil’s unexamined racism?
MT: Ugh, is Gail going to become another lame recurring villain like the tech-bro guy and the pesticide-spraying landscape artist?
Phantom: “Or will you just spout more trite Orwellian slogans at me?”
RMMD: What are you going to do, where a fake mustache and some glasses like–never mind, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.
Pluggers – Joseph W. Thomas’s other Pluggers suggestion (mercifully, not shown): “This is a real chicken-choker.”
Hagar – So if it’s Hagar’s mood stabilizer, why is Dr. Zook to blame? These days, when a comic strip is awkwardly worded, incoherent garbage, I usually figure it’s AI that needs to be held accountable.
@Uncle Lumpy, @brendancalling: Lucky Eddie is the guy with the mermaid fetish; Crazy Eddie is where Janis bought that TV!
Dustin Wimmen, am I right? They don’t know much, but they know how to spend men’s money.
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: RUGS]
“These fairways are getting overgrown”
“And that green, it’s a disaster”
“Ah, the groundskeeper’s been here at least”
“Can you get me a cart?”
Hagar the Horrible : the real humor here stems that when Dr Zook told them “Berzerker rages? Try this fly agaric mushroom powder, it should help”, he was telling the truth, it’s just that there was a misunderstanding when Hagar and Eddie asked for medecine to “help with [their] berzerker rages”.
I guess Vikings had Visine™,the boat got the red out of its eye.
@Peanut Gallery: That Salesman goes though more expressions in one strip then this strip usually uses in a week.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: “Quick Loot box, steal me a Nile™ HD TV! My TV T-shirt is all static again!”
Maybe people can change, Wilbur mused. After all, I did. The rocks, quietly observing, said nothing, but they knew change. Laid down in delicate layers from the ebb and flow of an ancient sea, partially subducted in the great grinding of tectonic plates, cooked in pressure, annealed from soft sandstone to hard gneiss, then thrust into the sunlight by the convulsions of the San Andreas fault, exposed at the exact moment in time to listen to Wilbur’s little thoughts as he wandered by. Perhaps it had taken them a billion years, but oh, how the rocks had changed, in ways Wilbur never could.
MW-Got to love how Wilbur can jump into a story about someone else and make it all about him.
MW-“Am I in the wrong here? No. It’s the children who are wrong.”
@Peanut Gallery: @Uncle Lumpy, @brendancalling: Lucky Eddie is the guy with the mermaid fetish; Crazy Eddie is where Janis bought that TV!
________________________________
So what is it called when Crazy Eddie gets lucky?
MW- Wilbur has changed! Today is Monday…that means he turned his underwear inside out yesterday…and he’s good to go for another week!
Luann-The girls in Luann’s cabin taught her how to kiss.
Pluggers- all Pluggers know that the next level up from “Frog Strangler” is “Turd Floater”…which may explain Wilbur’s reflection in the pond yesterday.
@GarrisonSkunk: ‘It’s on the way, I’m getting one from those twin girls who keep scamming the local Target!’
The last time I saw a bear try to strangle a frog, Fozzie spent several months in rehab for anger management and substance abuse issues.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Excellent, sir.
In a way, it’s impressive Wilbur quit drinking while changing absolutely nothing about himself. Or maybe it just mans he’s incredibly boring.
@GarrisonSkunk: He’s actually a dog in a human costume. He’s only reacting to Don Abundio’s tone of voice!
Crankshaft: I’m reminded of the greeting David Letterman’s fans used to give when they saw him on the street: “There he is! Get him!!”
My favorite way that Wilbur has changed is how much dumber he’s gotten over the years. Like, a lot dumber. I honestly wouldn’t bat an eye if there was a real storyline where he finds out he was fired from “Ask Wendy” because he genuinely forgot that he has to keep writing it in order to keep the job.
MW: Some context is necessary here. When Wilbur refers to “change,” he means his underwear.
HTH: I don’t get what role Dr. Zook plays in all this. Is this doctor even real? Or does Hagar somehow become Dr. Zook in moments of extreme anger? Maybe that’s why he has no memory of this terrible incident.
Pluggers: This may be an unkind observation, but I notice that the average umbrella will not fully protect a plugger. Certain, uh, portions of them still stick out.
H&J: Why is Sarah giving us that sly, ain’t-I-a-stinker look in the last panel? What does she think has transpired between us?
@Ettorre:
Doctor Zook has a time machine
I can’t wait for Hagar to fight off some Daleks!
9CL: I don’t typically link to this strip, because I don’t want anyone to click on it accidentally, but I’m genuinely baffled by this. It’s framed as an interview, so having Lolly straddle Alistair in the second panel would certainly end the interview immediately, right?
@Joe Blevins: That suggests that Wilbur actually changes his underwear though…
Pluggers:
While the presence of frog pluggers in the bestial universe of this comic is at least plausible, I don’t believe we’ve ever seen any, leaving their existence in doubt—after all, it’s not uncommon for anthropomorphic media to make ultimately arbitrary decisions about which species do and do not act like humans. In fact, the only humanoid non-mammal I can immediately recall seeing in the comic at all is the chicken-lady Henrietta Beak. Speaking of which, people in the comments are complaining about “frog strangler” being slang for a downpour, but considering the meaning of a similar expression about chickens, it could’ve been much worse.
Mary Worth: This character development would feel a lot more sincere if Wilbur wasn’t using it as an excuse to toot his own horn by going on about how he’s “changed” and gotten better, when he’s done no such thing. “I really am the best for getting over my alcoholism *casually takes swig from a pocket flask*, so I should keep being the best by showing that loser Tommy a little grace.”
Pluggers: God knows where we’d be without Pluggers to tell us that the rain is sometimes either very heavy or very light. I just don’t know how we would survive without such wisdom at our fingertips.
JP: I don’t mind so much that Anne, Ronnie, and Neddy are all wearing the same dress, but it’s odd that they picked those three different colors. Either they wanted the producer to be able to tell them apart, or it’s a wacky Hollywood inside-joke tribute to Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Meanwhile, back in Cavelton, Sophie has been going through musty trunks in the attic and picking out her great-grandmother’s outfits.
Hagar the Horrible:
I find it interesting that the crew wants to hold Dr. Zook accountable for Hagar’s violent rage, not Hagar himself. This is probably just because they realize that because Hagar is a land- and ship-owning leader of a Viking raiding party his social status makes him untouchable to his inferiors, but it’s also possible they have stumbled upon the idea, centuries before its time, of insanity rendering the sufferer incapable of truly committing a crime. Either way, they’re going to have to settle for prosecuting someone who bears at most second-order responsibility for their misfortunes.
Herb and Jamaal:
I believe this is Herb’s wife, whose name escapes me at the moment. Uhura? Is that it? Or is that Herb’s daughter? Either way, what I do remember is that she usually wears glasses, which wouldn’t normally matter except this particular strip is entirely predicated upon her looking at and noticing minor household filth. Maybe she got laser eye surgery, or as this strip would probably call it, “that new-fangled procedure where they shine light in your eyes to fix them”.
MARY WORTH: I think the funniest part about Wilbur’s “change” (besides it’s extremely dubious existence) is that we’re expected to take Wilbur’s skepticism seriously despite the fact that Tommy’s “change” happened BEFORE Wilbur’s even begun. Wilbur’s big “introspection” (snicker) is supposedly when Mary talked him down from the ledge. By that time, Tommy, with the help of The Big Art Shift, had gotten his life together and became merely a dipshit normie instead of a scuzzy drug dealer/addict. And yet it’s Wilbur who gets to doubt the sincerity Tommy’s reform despite, as many Curmudgeons had already pointed out, that Wilbur’s most amusingly cringe highlights happened after Mary platitudes him away from thecliff’s edge.
@Glarryg: Alcohol abuse is known to cause severe cognitive decline in many cases…
@Victor Von: Honestly, the idea that Hagar and his cast are just some community of weird primitivists recreating a cartoon version of the viking era WOULD explain the constant anachrononisms in the comic.
@Banana Jr. 6000: “No, you don’t get it, Mr. Crankshaft was just being funny and nice when he drove into oncoming traffic in his schoolbus full of children while drunkenly screaming malapropisms at us! It didn’t have any negative effects on me, doctor! What? No, of course, I don’t think it has anything to do with my crippling anxiety and CPTSD, why do you ask?”
Phantom: “Follow me, Chatu! Follow me to freedom!” says the drone, soaring over the jungle treetops. “Flap those arms! Harder! HARDER!”
9CL: “She was the first available hole that came along.”
Two Party Opera: For U.S. Presidential trivia fans, today’s strip is absolutely delightful.
“It’s filthy and could use a good cleaning,” Ms. Herb-and-Jamaal thinks to herself, while already quite obviously in the middle of cleaning.
S4th: So, the Tragic Backstory for Sally’s Mom is that she bought a camera? Couldn’t they wait until Christmas to spin off their own version of “Christmas Carol”?
@Ukulele Ike, Two Party Opera: This is a very nice find. Thanks!
@Banana Jr. 6000: I’d pay decent money to read Pluggers explain “wicked pissah.”
Welcome back, Josh. I’m hoping you can do something about the only barely-SFW anime ad that has been popping up lately. It’s pretty embarrassing to have on my screen.
LUANN: “Thank you for pretending that we’ve actually been introduced to each other, Phil. That’s very kind of you.”
LUANN (2): Nancy: “Luann’s very eager, Phil. You might actually get some tonight!”*
*Except that this is Luann where rigid heteronormative rituals reign supreme, so unless Phil tried to “innuendo” a baby into her after matrimony, Luann’s “no-no spot” will remain unblemished.
@Chance:
I get the sports mishaps ads.
Pluggers: In this world of anthropomorphic critters, which one is the frog, again? And why does the talking bear think it should be strangled?
Crank: Okay, I can maybe buy “Crankshaft’s utter lack of concern for his own or anyone else’s safety has unknowingly made him a YouTube star.” I’m less sure about “fans of these YouTube videos have sought him out.” You hear about people so wrapped up in social media that they’ll stay in an ongoing earthquake for “content”, but standing near Ed Crankshaft when he’s lighting a grill?
(Also, Batty, you’ve done this year’s grilling story. It still counts even if you said it was a dream!)
DT: I’m reminded of reading the sf journalist David Langford’s newszine back in the naughties, which occasionally reported that he or other fan-writers were writing book reviews for a website which, for legal reasons, he would only call VeryLongRiver.com.
FC: I refuse to believe Billy is good enough at lateral thinking, or indeed counting, to come up with this technically correct answer.
JP: Is Ces even trying to not make this look like a hostage situation?
SH: Fine, whatever, there comes a point where even my nitpicky “Sorry, I don’t think this part of this absurd scenario makes sense” tendencies have to admit defeat, and it’s when I don’t even know where to begin analysing what sense it even could make.
Welcome back, Josh
H&J: but t give Mama a break. She’s thoroughly washing door BEFORE counting blessings
LUANN: Last week, all week, Jeremy & Sara made out in front of his folks. Today Luann kisses Phil passionately in front of he mom. Back in the day, we never even held hands in front of parents! Are all kids now having PDAs?
@Ukulele Ike: I think this is the first time I’ve seen dear old Harry in the strip.
And the first time in a long, long time a new strip appearing in consecutive weeks.
Pluggers:
Any respectable Plugger knows it’s a Gullywasher. This Frog Strangler thing sounds like something a pervert would say about his penis.
JP: Someone should tell Sophie that her Styles By Loweezy of Snuffy Smith fame ensemble doesn’t work without the kerchief.
H&L: Is Hi’s exasperated exhaustion physical or mental? If the former, I’m guessing undiagnosed congested heart failure. If the latter, I’m afraid it looks like we’re one step away from a John List scenario.
Plugger Frog in a barn coat and gimme cap: “Sometimes you strangle the bear. Sometimes the bear strangles you.”
@UncleJeff: In the comments, Carroll hints that Wednesday will have another new strip.
Truman’s appeared many times, usually in strips commenting on nuclear warfare/devastation. He’s often drawn with atomic symbols on the lenses of his eyeglasses and carrying an ICBM over his shoulder.
@Chance: Welcome back, Josh. I’m hoping you can do something about the only barely-SFW anime ad that has been popping up lately….
Yeah, can you figure out how to let us subscribers see it?
“Maybe people can change. After all, I did. I used to be someone with a future ahead of me. Someone promising, someone who could plausibly get married and have a kid. Before it all fell apart and I turned into…this. That’s why I started drinking in the first place, isn’t it? God I could use one now. Anyway maybe I shouldn’t so harsh on Tommy, he might as well enjoy drugs now while he still has the capacity to feel something.”
@ectojazzmage: With slight rephrasing, you could make that sentence about Dinkle, Les, Lillian, or almost anyone in the Funkyverse.
‘Luann’ started it, now ‘Arlo & Janis’ join the ‘barebacking’ trend.
@UncleJeff: I know you’re not being serious, but it might be worth mentioning that this week’s Arlo and Janis story is several years old.
Beatup Bailey: “You’re sitting on the creator’s signatures,Bailey! THATS what’s wrong!”
.
Welcome back,Josh!
When it comes to rain, Camp Mystic knows it’s either too much or not enough.
@Austria:
#90. HJ: you said it first and better. Hats off to Austria.
Mary’s Worst: Things change, people change, hairstyles change…
Interest rates fluctuate, Mayo goes low cal.
So it looks like Herb and Jamaal has just abandoned the notion of “being funny” but hasn’t really replaced it with “being inspirational”, it’s just going to be vaporous fleeting notions of generally low interest from now on.
@Rube: I did not know that. Too focused on Janis the Mermaid.
@JeffMcm:
The Wee Pals curse.
Pluggers know enough to get out of the rain. Well 80% out of it.
Arlo & Janis: Football in July? Arlo better not be watching the Winnipeg Blue Bombers; to use the phrase, “Crankshaft’s working that rock”.
GT: Is it a Milford thing? Here it seems rehearsal dinner material is being done at the reception.
Lockhorns: With a spouse as ungrateful as Leroy I wouldn’t bother telling him what USDA beef grades actually are. And since he can’t tell the difference, I’d stick with “utility grade”.
Slylock: Just leave the escapee here. Subjecting her to an unnecessary and uncovered hospital stay is more punishment than you can inflict.
H&L: Hi can’t practice field hockey with Dot because Ditto doesn’t play lacrosse, therefore your husband doesn’t have a cup, Lois.
Ukelele Ike, I know you have the same hardbound Buck Roger’s collection as me. Had to take the dog to the vet today. The veterinarian was a dead ringer for Commodore Pounce.
@Peanut Gallery:
That’s insane
REX MORGAN M.D.: Warning: huge rant ahead.
I know that Mary Worth is the comic that gets the goat of most of the commentators (with its deliberate rage-bait characters and exploitative situations, I can understand the temptation. But after the last couple of days, I’ve come to the conclusion that Rex Morgan M.D is the comic I loath the most.
I went down this rabbit hole when I ponder why the twin terrors what “revenge” on the Morgans in the first place. I mean, it’s not their fault Rene is in jail. That keeps happening because of Rene perpetually tripping over his own feet. The Morgans, for all of their stuck-up, sanctimonious, finger-wagging, don’t really do anything to stop these cons that they rail against so vehemently. I mean look at their grocery store escapade. June delivered a big spiel about the dynamic duo, but not that she didn’t warn other possible victims or the store about scammers preying on customers. So basically the twins just wanted to punish June for being a judgey bystander.
Indeed, Rex and June seem to strong dislike getting involved almost as much as the scams themselves. And that’s the thing: this comic treats “ambition” and “effort” as mortal sins. This was a problem in the last storyline too. Lorna/Mae Mae complained about the direction of her career, but didn’t seem to display much hustle or agency to change it. She was perfectly content to float on the Currents of Plot Contrivance and just let it wash her ashore to wherever fate or the author wants to take her. Things just kinda happen to the characters. They don’t make things happen (only EEEEVIL people do that.)
That’s the saddest part of all. Ultimately I realized that the Doublemint Twins are “getting revenge” on the Morgans because that’s the only way these unambitious slugs can get involved in the plot!
@Horace Broon: On JP – I think at this point Ces is addicted to high-stakes hostage situations (the original Buttress, Judge Dangerdoofus and Son, AnnDoris and the Dead Man in the woods, every storyline involving CIApril and her extended family, etc.) and needs his fix.
I’d be more worried about it if his storylines had ever made a lick of sense in the first place.
MW: here’s a challenge for Moy and Brigman.
The All-Ireland Gaelic football championship was won over the weekend by MAYO.
It’s their first title in 75 years…a drought some say was caused by the curses hurled at the team by a priest angry that the celebrating players interrupted a funeral service.
Let’s see Wilbur in a MAYO jersey.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Funny, I was just thinking about that huge Buck Rogers collection at the dentist today — the part where it’s revealed that “Killer” Kane’s real given name was “Nova.”
Dentists really hate it when you call the anesthetic Novocaine, which they supposedly haven’t used for years.
Anyway, I have no recollection of Commodore Pounce (he probably should have been one of the evil Tiger Men of Mars). Was he a little fat grotesque guy from one of the 40s-50s strips?
@The Quiet Man:
#121 JP: another long ligh-stake hostage arc was a twofer– Sophie was held in a hole in the ground by her own nknown aunt, and her friends held in a shed in the woods. Repurcations are still shown today. Therapy resolved issues but could not undo them.
@Ukulele Ike: #123: He was short, bald, bearded creep in the very last story in the book, the one in color. Buck had to take him on in a one on one dogfight.
@Voshkod: Liagar? Who the hell is Liagar?
_________
He’s the Chief Inspector Viking who comes in from time to time to bore Hagar with tales about how today’s Vikings are too liberal,and how today’s Vikings are wimps compared to the good old days with Brownie, Foster, Kleiner, and himself.
S4th: Wow, Sal. You’ve really got that tact part down pat, don’t you?
@Just John: Pluggers: In this world of anthropomorphic critters, which one is the frog, again? And why does the talking bear think it should be strangled?
____________
Its Javafrog, and as he himself will tell you,he’s into that.
@Jerry Carroll: Just like Crazy Eddie’s prices, Dr. Jerry!!
@Activist: Yes, that’s what I was thinking of when I mentioned the ‘Buttress’, as folks here dubbed the aunt at the time as she was depicted with *quite* the ba-donk-a-donk.
JP: Has Sophie become a Pentecostal? She needs to put her hair up in a bun.
Admittedly, I haven’t been reading Doonesbury recently, but can someone explain why Zonker is preggers in the third panel?
@Just John:
Pepe Le Pew, mon ami!
@132 GarrisonSkunk: Either Zonker’s preparing for his screen test for a role in “Pluggers” or he’s holding a round tray on its side.
MW: Those boulders look like they’re slowing inching through the grass toward Wilbur. Don’t turn your back on ’em!