Those second-degree burns … truly epic
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Zits, 8/25/26

As I recently noted, Zits is only running new strips on Sundays now, with the dailies being reruns from its deep library, and I assume that this one came from those heady days in the early ’10s when you could get away with simply saying “bacon” and expecting people to accept it as a punchline, or indeed as a self-contained joke. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see some truly disturbing aspects of this trend that we might have missed during the pro-bacon frenzy of the times; in this case, we can see that Jeremy, no doubt driven by the bacon-mania running rampant in his peer group, has simply grabbed bacon right out of a still-smoldering pan sitting on a red-hot stovetop burner, which means that surely the bacon fat is burning him severely, and the smell of the cooked bacon and the lad’s own sizzling flesh must be mingling horribly in the kitchen air.
Mary Worth, 8/25/26

If you think panel two of Jeff lounging casually against the side of a sports car with his sleeves rolled up looks familiar, that’s because it’s identical to one that ran during a different phone call with Mary back in February. I think we can assume, then, that this is a reliable fantasy sequence that Mary keeps stashed away in her mind palace for her to enjoy instead of trying to accurately visualize whatever presumably less sexy stuff Jeff is doing in real life right now. In that context, the fantasy car’s hood, popped open and clearly too large to fit properly into a closed position, takes on an obvious significance.


170 replies to “Those second-degree burns … truly epic”
Rex Morgan Mashup: Could you create a better Missing Final Panel caption than I?
Mary Worth: Dr. Jeff still hasn’t figured out how to hold a cell phone like a human earthling in the six months since he was last seen standing in front of his mid-life crisismobile. A mid-life crisismobile is similar to the Batmobile in that they’re both extremely expensive and distinctive. Dr. Jeff’s mid-life crisismobile is far less cool because Dr. Jeff is standing next to it.
Coordinated sea green Eddie Bauer and what can ONLY be Lee jeans. Reed Richards, you have really let it all go, huh?
Mary Worth:
“I’m over at my place, Mary, nonchalantly but confidently tilted against my sleek sports car — you know, the way that Sinatra would jauntily tilt his fedora — pretending I’m James Dean!”
This is a cry for help! Every other implement in the kitchen has been sold to pay for bacon! And large, ornate frames, apparently!
Mary Worth:
“Guess what my sleek sports car serves as powerful symbolism of, Mary?”
“Um, the Matchbox racers that kids like to collect?”
Zits: Twenty years earlier, everyone would recognize a munchies gag.
MW: I’ll be right over to pick you up as soon as I can get this Temu hood to close.
GT Gerads might just be onto something this time, a Human Instrumentality Project harnessing the power of the Lance of Longinius with specially-selected-or-cloned teens just _might_ be able to break Thorp’s power. (He clearly cannot access its might, being limited to using it to spear Labubus tossed in the ditch as Milford kids move on to the next fad)
MW: One day, Santa Royale will get a third restaurant. Until then, every date will have to be at the seafood restaurant that gives you cryptosporidiosis, or the Thai restaurant with an alcohol-fueled violence problem.
MW: And heerres the long anticipated three week victory lap! One week on the yacht, one week at the Bum Boat, and one week of the moonlight walk on the pier.
FC: Thel’s worried Barfy will dig up those aborted fetuses and coat hangers.
@Baja Gaijin:
“Including your reckless, ill-advised auditioning for the starring roles in the Glenwood Players’ forthcoming production of The Patty Duke Show: The Musical!”
MW: “Is that a twist socket extractor in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”
MW: Isn’t the Bum Boat the only restaurant that stays open for dinner in all of greater Santa Royale? And isn’t boredom with fish and chips the reason Mary has amassed her own collection of recipes for other beige dishes?
MW: Wait, are we getting Mary’s victory lap while Dawn is still off crying over Tommy? Or is Mary going to spot her sobbing at the Bum Boat and ditch Jeff for some meddling overtime?
Zits: Really enjoying the classy picture frame that Jeremy used for his hilarious bacon motto. Your parents are going to get quite a surprise when they get their credit card bill this month.
MW This strip has mastered the art of whatever the opposite of intrigue is. “My phone is ringing, whoever could it be? Oh its my boyfriend, calling to ask me out on the same date we’ve had every Saturday since 1993. Gosh, I wonder if we’ll take a spin around the harbor on his boat after dinner, like we do literally every time? Only time will tell!”
MW: The cooler they make Jeff look, the more it looks like he’s taking Grandma out for dinner.
GT: OK, so why does this nut job still have a job working with kids?
LUANN: Well, THAT got “eeeew” really fast!
Snuffy Smith: Barney’s Goo-Goo-Googley Eyes are definitely more disturbing than Betty Davis Eyes but less disturbing than Marty Feldman Eyes.
Zits:
Thesis: all bacon served at upscale restaurants now is “Nueske” bacon — you know, just like all foie gras now is “Hudson Valley” foie gras. Discuss.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – “Even that we’re fingering each other?”
Zits – More grease, son. Keep them zits comin’. Ya ain’t got much goin’ for ya, so milk this gig for all it’s worth,…
MW – A little bum dining…sounds delightful. Your place or mine….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@fausto:And isn’t boredom with fish and chips the reason Mary has amassed her own collection of recipes for other beige dishes?
Its also by necessity: she’s consumed so much seafood by now that she can take the air temperature by reading the mercury in her fingernails.
I remember Epic Bacon! I remember “Adam Ruins Everything” destroying Epic Bacon! I remember “Adam Ruins Everything” dealing with a topic I am more expert on and be shocked by the superficiality and biases! Everything is ruined, God I am old and jaded!
@Baja Gaijin:
No. Yours says it all.
Luann: Did Mrs. Fogarty just have an orgasm, on panel, in front of a student? Yeah, nothing perverted about that at all.
Pluggers: This strip works only if you know that dogs are colorblind. Maybe the alternative caption is, “Pluggers take so many medications, their color vision is impaired.”
Zits:
You say that like it’s a bad thing
Six Chix: This little tableaux is missing one thing: a giant submarine sandwich with a face with pouty lips. Amirite?
Zits:
“I like to eat my bacon really cold, though — you know, ‘Six Degrees of ‘Havin’ Bacon’ !”
JP: And while these two are yapping, CIApril (or the Pavel Jr. Mob, or Bogdan, or Glucas, etc., etc.) have snatched the raspberry-haired brat again.
RMMD: Welcome to the rest of the week folks:
Twin: He *really* told you everything?
Old Man: Yes, everything.
Twin: Did he *really*?
@24 Bob Tice: I like yours better.
Mary Worth: Sexy. Bum Boat. Mary Worth. Let us never speak of this again. Now, Dr. Jeff’s 427/C6 Corvette, with its Z06 engine, standard steel convertible frame and “bulging hood without a window” on the other ha—DAMMIT
Also Zits: Ha, joke’s on you, that’s narwhal bacon prepared as a midnight snack, if you catch my drift, and I think you do. (Yeah, I know, I depressed myself too.)
MW — If that muscle car signified anything in the real world, Dr.Jeff’s “Do you have plans for tonight? I’d like to take my favorite girl out for dinner.” would be a request for Mary to babysit his two-year old while he escorts his twenty-five year old trophy wife to one of LA’s swankier bistros.
“I’m in the mood for seafood. Let’s eat at the Bum Boat.” <—dialogue that almost literally appeared in a family newspaper
Dr. Jeff seems like the kind of guy who has a very well-maintained ’68-’72 Corvette, but it is infinitely funnier to imagine him tooling around in a ramshackle ’73-’75 Corvette, its 350 gasping for air under all the smog equipment and a half century of peeling away from every stoplight, and his favorite Molly Hatchet tape still stuck in the Kenwood he bolted in back in the ’80s.
H&L: If you slice through Hi’s body at the belt line and stick his upper half on that table in the corner whose legs then become animated, you’d have quite an amusing strip, or at least interesting. Otherwise, ya got a sandy baby.
FC: It’s cute because Billy has negative thoughts about applause ever since mommy and daddy had that huge fight about the clap.
Mary Worth: In my early 20s, I had a few relationships that essentially consisted of me calling the same woman every week or two to see if she wanted to go out. These didn’t work out, and I thought the reasons were obvious, but watching Jeff and Mary, I see the real problem.
Dating people who wanted to be part of my life was a mistake! I should have been looking for someone who’d be happy to hear a recap of my current events and then agree with me in various ways. It’s too late for me, but at least I can pass Mary’s wisdom on to my children.
@Baja Gaijin: A woman in a Luann comic? Please! Toni’s actually pregnant, and I still don’t believe she’s ever had one!
MARY WORTH: Obviously Mary’s “fantasy” is that her man is the centerfold for Mid-Life Crisis Monthly (remember last year when Dr Jeff was perpetually posing in front of the S.S. Overcompensating?)
You might laugh at Dr Jeff for buying a sport car to feel younger, but let’s face it, a sport car is better than Mary! For example, he occasionale rides it
If you liked “Lust Lodge” you’ll love the shower fuck scene in Luann. Of course, they were married and she got pregnant as a result just as God intended.
Zits-Just kill and eat a whole pig.
RMMD-“He even told you about our OnlyFans page?”
MW-So the story must be over then. The writer got bored and decided to end it.
The newspaper comics world is small and desperate for attention, so I often wonder whether cartoonists pander to the Comics Curmudgeon and similar ironic readers. For example, I have difficulties believing that Dr Jeff suggesting in all sincerity “what about the Bum Boat?” as if it were a new idea is not done to troll us
“Where do you feel like eating?” is true Pinky and the Brain shit. “The same place we eat every night, Mary. The Bum Boat!”
They’re Mary and the Doc
Yes, Mary and the Doc
One is a meddler
The other’s a doc.
They’re sexless aging bores
Their stories are a snore
They’re Boomers
They’re Mary and the Doc, Doc, Doc, Doc
Doc, Doc, Doc, Doc, Doc.
Mary Worth: I’ll admit, I was intrigued going into Panel Two: where, I wondered, might he be taking his favorite girl for dinner? In retrospect, the Bum Boat might seem a fait accompli, but it only won the lottery because Dr. Jeff happens to have a taste for seafood tonight. If he had a taste for Chicken Vesuvio or Mongolian Beef, for instance, they might have ended up at. . . okay, there’s no way it was not going to be the Bum Boat.
GT: I get it now. Just as Tom Batiuk is Batton Thomas, Henry Barajas is Coach Gerards. killing the spirit of Gil Thorp with silly malevolence.
MW: Jeff leaning against the car he’s working on (while somehow keeping his arms and shirt spotless) while talking on the phone would make sense if he was answering a call that interrupted him in the middle of what he was doing. But in both today’s strip and the previous, he’s the one making the call, indicating that he just stopped in the middle of changing his air filter to ask Mary on a date. (But then again Mary would never ask a man out, she’s not a hussy.)
Zits: What’s really epic is the grease fire that will ensue from Jeremy leaving that smoldering pan on a hot burner.
Jeff has been taking Mary to the Bum Boat for decades. One could be forgiven for thinking it was a standing date. But no, despite the regularity, Mary requires Jeff to call and invite her each time. Jeff cannot be allowed to think this relationship can advance unless Mary wills it.
Mary Worth: The fact that Jeff’s pose as a pin-up boy is clearly Mary’s fantasy raises in interesting idea: maybe Dr. Jeff died years ago, soon after the Bum Boat closed down/sank. Or, as the locals put it, “There goes Crazy Mary, walking the pier in the moonlight and talking to herself again!”
Don’t forget the sunset cruise beforehand, Dr. Jeff. Regardless of the sequence of events, you’ll be driving home alone again after the evening is over. Maybe you can call your son’s “golfing buddy” and have a nightcap – with or without the cat.
Hi and Lois: After over 50 years of changing diapers they finally decided to get Trixie a litter box.
Mary Worth: I believe this second panel is an exact conversation that Jeffrey Dahmer once had with one of his victims. “How about the Bum Boat”? is possibly the most explicitly homoerotic thing ever printed in a newspaper comic.
C’shaft; Does the software come with the bad puns programmed in, or do you have to install a macro for that?
Dustin: Weird how Dustin only remembers ten-dollar words if he can use them to humiliate his only friend. (Okay, there’s also the ten-year-old he hangs out with, but that’s not friendship, that’s just weird.)
GT: Be careful, Coach Permawave. Attacking and tying up a couple waiters is just a slap on the wrist, but attempting to assassinate Gil Thorp? That’s high treason in Milford.
Luann: It makes sense that this strip’s idea of “lurid” is lifted from Fabio-era cover art.
MW: “Bum Boat, unexciting and old!
Come aboard, we scraped off the mold!
Seafood, life’s sweetest reward
Surf and turf, it soon rises back to you!
Dr. Jeff’s boat, soon will be making another run
To the Bum Boat, so you know that the arc is done!
Don’t expect any adventure
Dr. Jeff is getting no romance
The whole week will be a bore
It’s Mary’s tired bromide on a friendly shore
It’s the Bum Boat, welcome aboard, it’s the Bum Boat!
The engine of Dr. Jeff’s car appears to consist of a single giant piston, so I guess he has a two-stroke engine. And I suspect his former lovers have said the same thing about him.
“How about the Bum Boat?”
”Sounds good, but this time I get to be on top.”
@MKay, GT: Gerards or Gil?
A quick Google search for this Zits comic shows it was first printed in August 2015.
That was the same month Trigana Air Service Flight 257 crashed in Indonesia. Also the Tianjin Explosions where Massive chemical explosions at a container storage facility in Tianjin, China, killed over 100 people and caused widespread devastation. Also the Ashley Madison data leaks of 30 million accounts!
@Baja Gaijin:
Shudder….
This has gotta be the most boring relationship ever. All Mary and Jeff EVER do together is eat at the Bum Boat and go out on his dumb speedboat. “I’m in the mood for seafood!” Does he even HAVE any other moods? (My mind is now boogying over to “Maybe he’s got a different chick* that he goes to Outback with — and yet ANOTHER chick that he gets Chinese with. Maybe Mary’s number only comes up every couple of months!”)
*”Chick” in this instance means “old biddy.”**
**Don’t call me out for being sexist/ageist — I myself*** am an old biddy, so I call privilege.
***And I lead a much more exhilarating life than sporadic visits to the stupid Bum Boat with a boring Sexless Wonder.
MW – That’s not just any sports car, that’s a Corvette. Specifically, it looks to be a C3 model, which was last produced in 1986. Which would explain why Jeff has the hood up and is trying to fix something.
Luann: Isn’t she in some sort of college already?
Crankshaft: The plots are being selected by a spinner on a dial or set of special dice. Robot came up so robot it is.
DT: Please please let the twist be that the so-called white hacker is working with WideScreen and so the trail dies.
GT: Please let this lead to a Cape Fear situation. Gerard hangs around vaguely in a menacing way …
JP: Is this a few days later in a cafe or diner? That sugar dispenser seems large for home use. So many loose ends. Where is Randy? Where is Bogdan? What about the Russian mob/exKGBers? What about the Norwegian charity?
MW: A bigger challenge is if Mary and Jeff didn’t go to the Bum Boat. I guess the artist doesn’t want to try to draw another place.
Phantom: Great Shot! A from the hip shot nailing a drone up in the air!
@TheDiva:
On Crankshaft, and Pepper picking up that it should communicate entirely through terrible puns, bad malaprops, and smirking : Probably has a LLM installed, meaning that it would duplicate the way people express themselves around it, provided he has a large enough sample.
So Pepper is basically going to be ENTIRELY puns, malaprops and smirks by the end of the week (by thursday if Crankshaft walks in at any point).
*************
On Dustin’s linguistic skills : whether or not Dustin’s B.A. in English have made him competent at more advanced aspects of the language is entirely dependent on whether that day’s “joke” requires it or not. Today, it does. Tomorrow, he could prove incapable of reading a picture book, if the “joke” requires it.
************
On Luann’s definition of lurid erotica : you gotta remember that this strip made the books Nancy gave Bernice be about mermaids so that she could have a litteral “wet” dream because the dream was set underwater.
(Though thinking about that always reminds me of the part where her sleeping body corrected her dream self’s grammar, and all the other mermaids were all “Woah, Bernice is a horrible killjoy, let’s get out of here” and dream-Bernice was all “NO DON’T LISTEN TO HER SHE IS *NOT* ME I *DO* WANT LOVE I *DO* WANT LOVE!”)
@Twinkles the Elf:
Actually your notion that Dr. Jeff has a regular rotation makes actual sense. Clearly he isn’t getting any action with Mary but maybe he just likes hearing about the gossip at Charterplace.
LUANN: “But not academic subjects. I want a job where you don’t have to be smart or know things! That’s why I want to be an art teacher where you don’t have to have any expertise on the subject matter apparently or any foresight on how to impart wisdom onto the masses or any of that junk. You merely have to be ‘good with kids’ as if you were a glorified babysitter or a particularly popular peer. This is certainly a position I (and certainly my creators) have lots of respect for, as demonstrated in this very scene with an oh-so ‘competent’ representative of the occupation I’m claiming is my calling.”
LUANN (2): Also did we ever see Luann “teaching kids to be creative” at camp? What was displayed on panel was Luann giving tepid advice while blowing smoke up her own ass about how she “inspired” her charges to worship the ground she walked on, like a junior Mary Worth or something. (As an aside, Toby was also an “art teacher”, bolstering my belief that “Luann” is just the larval stage of “Toby.”)
LUANN (3): Luann chose a position that will first in line on the chopping block if budget cuts are on the horizon, so she and Phil will be able to afford that apartment any day now!
“The Bum Boat” would make a great name for a scandalous reality TV show.
MW- so, which camp do you fall into?
It’s always the Bum Boat because:
A- Moy can’t think up any more restaurant names, or
B- Brigman can only draw the interior of the Bum Boat?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: And dummy apparently transferred his sizzling bacon from pan to sandwich without draining or pat-drying the grease. And left the stove on, glowing bright red.
I hope their insurance policy is up to date.
MW: I hope Mary says ‘yes’.
Otherwise, Dr. Jeff will take the “Jed York Path” and head down to the trailer park near Charterstone.
There, he’ll run into Tommy, Brandy and Dawn.
More variety than the Bum Boat menu.
@2+2=7:
Point 4 : Isn’t it great that Luann finally found her TRUE calling, which is to teach drama/theater to kids… which had ALREADY been her goal, before she gave up on it to be directionless for a while?
(I forget, when/why did she quit again? Was it when she broke up with Quill? Was it after she did the Summer Charity Theater Class that had only two kids come? Was it after Tara sabotaged her Assistant Assistant Daycare Worker job? Was it when Bets and Tiffany showed up to give her a personality makeover, and she admitted she was a directionless blank slate?)
Don Abundio, translated:
“Wouldn’t you like to ride in my limo, Yum Yum?”
“Well, yes. Just for a day”
“Maybe we could make a little wager”
“I’ll play along!”
“I still won’t believe she really guessed your age unless you show me your driver’s license!”
I don’t want to hear about Jeff and Mary’s clumsy metaphors for oral sex. Life is tough enough…
Luann-College? Luann, you’ve been in community college for a decade still stuck at the start. Regular college is far beyond you.
MW-“My boyfriend’s being a catty bitch so I want to make him jealous by going out with a woman.”
Wasn’t “The Bum Boat” the name of the boat in the porno version of Jaws? Quint, Hopper, and Brody have a 3-way while the shark watches.
Zits is in reruns for dailies, and MW might as well be.
GT: I always appreciate nods to great old movies, and welcome seeing Gerads and Darby star in the modern I Am A Fugitive From A Community Service Gang.
@Baja Gaijin: Mrs. Fogarty is a twat. Yesterday she arsumed that Inner Beauty wanted to be a flight attendant (surprised she didn’t say stewardess) after Luann say Skye. It’s not the dumbassery of connecting that with the airlines that should stand out. It’s that she thought of a woman being a flight attendant and not a pilot. Yeah, she knows that Luann is too stupid to be able to fly a plane, but she should also know that Luann shouldn’t be trusted with pouring hot liquids over people’s groinal areas. But at least Mrs. Fogarty is apparently getting laid every so often.
The fish tacos are on the opposite side of the buffet.
@Hibbleton: Wait until she pulls out the jizz towel.
Zits: This is one of those days when I really feel for the colorist. He/she/it must have faced quite a dilemma, seeing as how the original artist didn’t bother completing the entire outline of Jeremy’s head. “Where does his face end? Uh … there, I guess?”
MW: “I’d love to go to the Bum Boat with you, dear, but I’ve been sentenced for my many crimes against humanity and imprisoned in some kind of Halftone Phantom Zone. As far as I know, I’m being hurled across the galaxy in some kind of flat square.”
Oral? I think he’s looking for butt stuff. I don’t suppose that it improves it any.
MW: I don’t know about Mary but this is either Karen’s or June’s goto fantasy.
Zits: I gotta admit, it probably would be pretty fun and tasty to just grab a whole bushel of bacon and chow down on it like this, so I can’t really give this shit even with the lack of any real joke.
Mary Worth: Gotta love Mary and Dr. Jeff discussing what they’ll do for their date (as if they’ll do anything other than go the Bum Boat and float around on Jeff’s yacht) only to then quickly agree to do the exact same thing they always do (go the Bum Boat and float around on Jeff’s yacht). They almost had us fooled that they’d engage with each other in any other way!
@treetown:
Where is Randy? At home in his playpen.
Where is Bogdan? Hopefully off living his best life somewhere in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest.
What about the Russian mob/exKGBers? Currently rotting in the smoldering ruins of the prison somewhere in Somewhere.
What about the Norwegian charity? Running a lot smoother since they kicked Sophie out.
Any other questions?
Mary Worth: Despite a social life that depends entirely on a captive audience among her condo community, Mary still enjoys fantasizing that her boyfriend owns a freestanding house with its own garage, and all the wealth that entails. And since we see what appears to be a forest of full-size fir trees in the background, it may not even be located in Southern California — which means, since he’s asking for a same-day date night, that he must have a private plane as well. I don’t think we’ll ever find out how Dr. Jeff amassed his small fortune, but I’m guessing it has something to do with making the very latest, most effective, not yet FDA-approved obesity drugs available to the right people.
@Dunkelcopter: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Optimistic of either of you to presume that Dr. Jeff ever gets laid with Mary.
@Anonymous: …While the shark watches? What, like, from a cuck chair?
@Anonymous: Luann’s is just constantly getting hyped for her “true calling” and then giving up immediately at the first sign of trouble until something happens to hype her again.
@Maltmash3r: I think it’s absolutely – at least in part – just so Brigman can reuse art and assets and not design new restaurants. The comic is already something like 90% reused and reedited art at this point. It’s clear that Brigman (who has had a pretty decent comic career outside of Mary Worth and still sometimes illustrates at Marvel) is checked out with this particular comic and Moy gives her scripts that are easy to illustrate on the quick and cheap because of it. Frankly, a lot of newspaper comics can be described as being nothing more than a meal ticket that the writers and/or artists put bare minimum into and devote a fraction of a fraction of their time to, so they have a steady, no-hassle income stream coming in while they focus on actually living life (better projects, family and friends, hobbies, getting laid, etc.). I’d be lying if I said that isn’t totally understandable and justified and valid.
@Baja Gaijin: No, nothing could improve it.
9CL – Thorax week. Different shit, different day.
Crankshaft – Mopey Pete is smirking at a most smirk unworthy”joke.” It looks like this week will be devoted to painful puns and an absurdly contrived robot. Don’t quit your day job, Batiuk. Oh, wait – this is your day job.
Mary Worth – “Make an early reservation, Jeff. We have to have time after the meal for praising me.”
@2+2=7: “…my belief that “Luann” is just the larval stage of ‘Toby.’”
Luann is already in SoCal. Let’s hope she’s lucky enough to come across a pompous, 300-lb chinbeard.
@UncleJeff: Hey Scratchy!
I just noticed I got the coveted #69 spot for a prostitution joke!
That should get me a Scrote.
Shouldn’t it?
MW: Obviously the Bum Boat is the Montoni’s Pizza of Santa Royale. Batiuk never got into Gilbert & Sullivan.
MW- “At the ‘Y’, as usual.”
RMMD- “Shit! He knows everything!” “Calm down! Where’s the fraternity paddle and duck tape?” “Hall closet, second shelf.” “Cool! We got this…”
@Maltmash3r: June B. also draws that downtown restaurant that Karen M. gives a different name every time. So the answer is C, whatever C is.
@ectojazzmage: “…While the shark watches? What, like, from a cuck chair?”
From a ladder. Like John Belushi in “Animal House”.
MW – OK it’s 2026 already, so lets try to be more sensitive to the plights of the less fortunate and change “Bum Boat” to “Unhoused Keel” or “Homeless Trawler”.
In actuality, Jeff hit the button to remove the hard top from his jazzy sports car, and it flew madly in the air, and is about to klunk him on his punkin haid…
All right, new plan. We take the car, go to Charterstone, kill Wilbur, grab Mary, head to the Bum Boat, have some nice seafood, and wait for all this to blow over.
Luann: I don’t think I’ve seen any media talk about romance novels as much as this comic.
How long before it turns into Funky Winkerbean but with sad ladies hanging out at the porno book store?
@ectojazzmage: re: Zits – spear it with a stick and that’s some top-tier State Fair food!
Their foreplay starts with the fantasy that there are dining options other than The Bum Boat, and ends with dismissing positions other than missionary
MW: This is what bugs me about today’s comic strips. They just copy and paste stuff so they don’t have to draw anything anymore. Even when a hand-drawn strip looks like crap, I can at least respect the artist for trying. What they say about houses and furniture, I’ll say about newspaper strips: There’s just no craftsmanship anymore.
ZITZ: I’m pretty sure this strip is in fact hand-drawn, and look at all the detail in the borders of the caption. See? Drawing can be fun, even when you’re adding completely useless details!
Zits: Looks like Jeremy didn’t even bother turning the stove off either. In about 10 minutes burnt hands are gonna be the least of his worries.
MW: “Where do you feel like eating?!” “What do you care? I’m taking my favorite girl, not you. I’m leaning on her right now. Anyway, can you come over and make sure my kid doesn’t burn the house down while I’m out?”
LUANN: Let’s remind this adjunct professor 1) she works in a college NOW and Lu is already a college student, and 2) a married woman shouldn’t be so preoccupied with sex.
BF: Even when she was first married, Susan was a complaining, short-sighted egoist.
CS: Pepper’s programming, Pepper’s rules. Extend your left hand, Mindy.
GA: Bittersweet– a lost dog found becomes a found dog lost
RMMD: Bittersweet– our favorite villain acts as if he’s reformed. Ah, whom to hate now?
GT: Gerard’s really filleted that toy bunny!
FRAZZ: kids– a 24/7/52 responsibility.
JP: kids- a 24/7/52? privilege.
@fausto: Well, there is that diner in Goleta.
@Bob Tice: I was watching “The Miracle Worker” a few weeks ago, and I was surprised to see Patty Duke as playing Helen.
Of course, in this new woke day and age, if we don’t have a REAL blind and deaf kid playing Helen then people will outcry.
@Rover Berkeley: I’ll take copy&pasting one’s own artwork over the artist using AI
I thought “The Bum Boat” was seized as evidence when they arrested P Diddy
GT- Coach Gonads gets in touch with his inner ” Dog The Bounty Hunter”. Go with God, Brah!
Today’s Mary Worth, gives weird vibes toward an old Barbie computer game.
Ken (over the phone): Hey Barbie, want to go to the beach?
So you dress up Barbie however you want for her beach outing. As soon as you’re done dressing her up, the phone rings again.
Ken: Hey Barbie, want to go to the mall?
So you dress her up to go to the mall and so on, and so on… in an endless loop of dressing up for events that will never happen.
I believe, this is what is happening here. Dr. Jeff died 40 years ago, Mary is in denial, and keeps imagining up these “dates” but her imagination is so sterile that she can’t imagine anything further than “Jeff at his car, or gigantic boat, and eating at The Bum Boat”
You can see there are 6 knobs on the front of the stove which should mean there are 6 burners but I only see 2 on the left side, 2 on the right side, and one right in the center, so how does this stove actually work? Someone try to figure this out.
RIP Dolly Parton. She was 80. We won’t see her like again for a long time…
@Anonymous: My stovetop has a button to widen the radius of the burner. on only one of the burners.
Just spitballing here.
RMMD: Are the scammers about to be scammed somehow? This “Gramps” character is just Buck Wise in a fake beard, right? What’s his game?
@The Rambling Otter: This gets to how both sides are missing the forest for the trees. Sure, if someone decides to remake ‘The Miracle Worker’ why *not* give some talented deaf/mute performer an opportunity to play the role?
However, that ignores the bigger issue of *why* do we need another version of ‘The Miracle Worker’? We already have the Patty Duke version which was perfectly fine. There was even one remake already with Hallie Eisenberg (the little girl from the Pespi commercials).
Why not come up with a ‘new’ story about someone who is deaf/mute and having to interact with a world that is not designed for them? Ah, because that’s not IP that can be deployed to play on the combined nostalgia of the past 40 years…
@Just John: That’s be intriguing and unexpected, so I feel safe in declaring that is absolutely what *isn’t* going to happen. Remember, to Beatty, only black-hearted people who can never, ever change pull scams!
Dolly Parton, country heart, just died at age 80. Looking like a blonde dream gurlll, she moved the world. Thank you, Dolly, for a race well run until the end.
@Activist:
She’s in that Little Whorehouse in Heaven
Crank: So I don’t know if anyone has said this before, but I feel like we’re now in the Fourth Age of the Funkyverse. The first three ages are well known: Whimsy, Realism, Soul-Crushing Despair. The fourth one is Wild Inconsistency, as Batty attempts to maintain the Third Age and bring back the First, and now only has one strip to do it in, so he sandwiches stories about Dinkle’s daddy issues and Lillian dealing with
an outbreak of arson attackssomeone dropping a lighter, probably on purpose, between absurdist gags about grilling singularities and, well, this. It doesn’t work! It doesn’t work even more than what he was doing before wasn’t working!DT: “We have a few different angles of attack: the computer that was stolen by hacking Nyle, the receipt for the computer that was stolen by hacking Nyle, the Nyle hack, and the possibility that the Nyle hack is connected to the case we’re actually investigating.”
FG: I’m getting some real Jack Kirby vibes on the giant mutant. Excellent work.
Garfield: So I guess today is “Characters consume food that should be far too hot to consume, apparently without injury” day. I feel like chugging a mug of molten cheese would be worse than biting into a stack of just-out-of-the-pan bacon, but there’s probably not much between them.
HtH: I guess it’s possible that patchouli could have travelled along the Silk Road and then been discovered by Viking traders in Constantanople. The important thing is that, much like the Simpsons parody of Mad Maagzine before them, Walker-Browne LLC isn’t afraid to make fun of those damn hippies.
JP: In Robert Lewellyn’s memoir of playing Kryten in Red Dwarf, he frequently refers to his “self-centred middle class guilt”, which is a concept that’s always stuck with me. So, Neddy, the fact you’re happy about looking after the RHB may or may not be selfish, but I think the fact your second thought was “Wait, what does feeling this way say about me?” definitely is.
(I’m all in favour of Judge Parker characters actually getting introspective about whether they may be awful people, but that’s not what this is.)
Phantom: BLAM! BLAM!
He shot the drone.
BLAM! BLAM!
He left it prone.
BLAM! BLAM!
Musk checks his phone.
BLAM! BLAM!
The Phantom shot the drone.
SH: Holbrook knows writers who use subtle foreshadowing, and they’re all cowards.
@UncleJeff: Absolutely! You are already on the list with earlier 69ers for special scrotae.
@Baja Gaijin: I dispute that Pluggers is ever making a joke that’s based on the beastmen being beastmen. I’m pretty sure the intended reading is “Pluggers don’t care what they’re wearing.” (Speaking as someone who tries to deny his Pluggerdom, but whose clothes do, in fact, only ever match by accident.)
@treetown: The … twist? In a Dick Tracy story?
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Also at least two restaurants with unlikely French names from Shtel’s Terrible Dates Montage, and possibly another one that Dawn took Hugo to so he could be contemptuous of America’s attempt at French cuisine, unless that reused one of the names. And the Thai place that Schroduck mentioned.
This isn’t just me being humourlessly pedantic. I genuinely believe that it’s funnier if Mary and Jeff always go to the Bum Boat because they’re just that much in a rut, rather than because they don’t have any choice, like the benighted inhabitants of the Westview Triangle.
@Horace Broon: Batiuk: I’m a writing genius!!! Where’s my Pulitzer already!??
@Anonymous: GT- Coach Gonads gets in touch with his inner ” Dog The Bounty Hunter”. Go with God, Brah!
And be sure to LEAVE ROOM FOR JESUS!
Mary Worth is better than any of the other soap opera strips, but it’s still pretty pathetic.
Safe Havens: Might as well have the wedding in a whimsical forest grove with a bunch of magical fantasy creatures present.
@The Quiet Man: #112: Trump has ordered all flags at federal facilities flown at half mast for a week in her honor. Ten to one odds say the hags on “The View” will have something bad to say about that.
@The Quiet Man: @Activist: When I heard the news on my car radio, I gasped. From all accounts she was a truly good person, kind and humble.
@The Rambling Otter:
Patti Duke was an amazing talent.
Zits: Given the size of the bacon, Jeremy might be eating long pig.
@The Rambling Otter: Safe Havens: “Might as well have the wedding in a whimsical forest grove with a bunch of magical fantasy creatures present.”
And the funny thing, is that this is actually plausible in this comic.
@I speak Jive: She really was. Something I don’t recall seeing with any other celebrity is the number of tributes that start with that and then mention that she was also one of the great songwriters of our time, who wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day.
In one of the shows I saw at the Fringe, Mitch Benn’s Asking Elvis, Mitch told the story of how Elvis wanted to do a cover of “I Will Always Love You”, but Dolly turned him down because Colonel Tom’s idea of a contract was that if Elvis covered your song, then Elvis owned half the rights to your song. And then Whitney covered it, and suddenly it was making insane royalties, and Dolly spent them on child literacy, and disaster relief, and generally making the world a better place.
Dolly Parton was a national treasure.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Grandpa Lyle: “He (Rene/Jimmy) told me everything And by which I mean ‘nothing‘ because that’s how ‘everything‘ works in Rex Morgan M.D.”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): I wonder if it ever occurred to these stupid chicks that if they’re just going to pointlessly confess about the minutiae of their lives, they might as well become YouTube podcasters and try to get paid for it (which would ironically be the biggest “con” they pulled off.)
REX MORGAN M.D. (3): We spend weeks establishing that the twins are immoral dishonest women who revel in their scam game with sinister delight, so naturally they break down and confess immediately after extremely mild-mannered scrutiny from someone who has no</i authority over them. This story just keeps making too much sense!
@Horace Broon: I learned today that she wrote both of those songs on the same day. That’s amazing.
I did know that she wrote I Will Always Love You for Porter Waggoner when she left his TV show. I prefer Dolly’s version of the song to Whitney Houston’s.
She was indeed a national treasure.
@Horace Broon: You know what Berke Breathed used to say in Bloom County:
The preceding exchange was an example of “foreshadowing”…or, a subtle hint of plot developments to come. A common literary device, it’s often used in contrast to another, less-impressive (literary) device…that of “making it up as you go.” Which, by the way, is a literary device frequently seen in other features…such as, say, “Nancy.” But never, never here.
Remember: “foreshadowing”…your cue to quality literature.
MW-Isn’t the Bum Boat just a poor man’s porn version of the Love Boat.
MW: The Bum Boat maintaining its Montoni’s-esque dominance over Charterstone’s eating habits was always a foregone conclusion. Of more note is Dr. Jeff’s obvious Springsteen cosplay. I’m surprised he doesn’t ask Mary if her daddy’s home or if he went and left her all alone.
Zits: Why are the strips of bacon Jeremy is clutching in his hands twice as long as the ones falling on the floor? I presume because someone thought it was funny. Quite the expectation.
C-Shaft: Any impoverished Ohioan hoping to get a job at Montoni’s is out of luck. Well, at least until Disney/Marvel sues Mopey Pete’s ass for ripping off auxiliary Fantastic Four member H.E.R.B.I.E.
DT: It suits Dick fine when he can pay an outside consultant in energy drinks.
Dustin: It’s easy to say that the comics don’t need another dim malaproper while Ed Crankshaft still strides the earth, but this is the closest Dustin has gotten to funny in basically ever.
GT: As Darby was about to find out, while Gerads’s talk of killing Gil Thorp was figurative, the “new blood” he spoke of was very literal. It would be Darby’s final lesson.
HtH: The next time Hagar and Lucky Eddie are for whatever reason defending a castle instead of raiding it, it will be helpful to remember that these invaders are very much not into hippie chicks.
JP: Even inside her own head, Abbey doesn’t answer Neddy’s question on whether she’s being selfish. As David Foster Wallace’s fish was heard to ask, what the hell is water?
Luann: I’m fine with the thought balloon of Mrs. Fogarty making out with Brock Samson, or would be if it weren’t for that single bead of sweat running down her forehead.
Phantom: If these guys don’t remember what a gun sounds like, their memories are very defective indeed.
MW: I have to admit, I just got a
midlate-life crisis sports car. But when I found a black 1999 Corvette coupe with 10,300 miles on it, I couldn’t help myself. The finest technology the twentieth century has to offer!@Baja Gaijin: I agree that it needs wackiness, but I’m still hoping Xunise will take my suggestion and try Mad Libs. At the beach, we should see her get her (PART OF BODY) _toenails_ (VERB)_waxed_ by a (SEA CREATURE)_hermit crab_.
Is Jeff like the Tramp in “Lady and the Tramp”, having dinner with a different family every night based on what they’re eating. Is Mary just who he dates when he’s in a seafood mood? Is your name even Jeff, The Tramp?
I always liked Dolly. Kindred spirit and all that.
Remember that time they introduced her solo act at the Grand Ole Opry? “And here they are! Dolly Parton!”
Zits:
I became a vegetarian around 15 years ago, right when the whole bacon thing was kicking off, but even before that I had never particularly enjoyed bacon, especially when it was crispy. I would eat it occasionally, but it wouldn’t have been near the top of my Meat Tier List, had I made such a thing. So as you can imagine I found the trend insufferable on multiple levels even beyond its baseline absurdity, and I could sum up my reaction to the whole thing as “really? you’re gonna make a form of meat your personality like a jackass, and the one you chose is bacon?” But while you might think I’m annoyed to see it return in this Zits rerun, I’m choosing instead to sympathize a bit with the extreme laziness that led Jeremy to not bother with putting his snack on a plate or anything. In fact, I often outdo him in food-related sloth, since at least he’s chosen something that requires some preparation, whereas I usually just eat mixed nuts directly out of the can while standing in front of the open pantry.
@The Rambling Otter: To be fair, I can definitely imagine Dr Jeff having mounds of plastic where everything ought to be.
@Horace Broon: #131: Robert Mitchum wanted Elvis to play his younger brother in his moonshining pic “Thunder Road”, which I understand enjoys quite a cult following. Elvis was a big fan of Mitchum and probably would’ve done it for free, but here comes Tom Parker with his outrageous demands, which would’ve involved more money than the movie’s entire cost. Mitchum financed the film himself and it had a fairly low budget. Of course he said no and had his son play the role he wanted Elvis to play. Parker in turn kept Elvis in those formula pictures which were mostly made to sell the soundtrack albums.
MW: You do have to admire the work here. The t-shirt and overshirt are great colors that go well together. But the colors are different between the two dates, demonstrating that Dr. Jeff has a closet full of nicely matching outfits. Meanwhile the car and the jeans and the skin and the hair and the phone and the sky and the trees and the house remain the same color. Excellently consistent. Consistently excellent.
@Guillermo el chiclero: And Mitchum was a better singer than Elvis was an actor
Zits is only running new strips on Sundays? What are you going to tell me next? That Doonesbury only runs new strips on Sundays? What about Peanuts? What about For Better or For Worse? Next you’ll tell me that The Phantom is not running archival strips, when I can clearly see him blasting away at everything in sight!
@Rube: (snerk) Like the movie promo for Guys and Dolls. “Sinatra acts! Brando sings!”
PHANTOM: Assuming Freaky really is Ian Mollusk, two questions. 1) why does he have a beef against Phantom? 2) if he has political and technical sway to free Nomad and Python, why doesn’t he simply kill Phantom himself? Surely he’s got more important things to do than monitor a screen– a spaceship company to run and planets to populate
@Feadogboy:
Plus side, it means so, so many fewer new Zits.
@Activist:
@Guillermo el chiclero: Among the remembrances of Dolly Parton I saw today told that Elvis wanted to be the first to record ‘I Will Always Love You’ but Parker demanded Elvis be given writing credit and royalties.
Dolly said ‘no’.
@Activist: These are reasonable questions about someone acting unreasonably.
His beef with Phantom dates back to Phantom’s destruction of the moon landing/terraforming equipment that landed in Bangalla.
He wants to enjoy watching the Phantom destroyed by his nemeses. He’s too hubristic to realize that those nemeses hate him more than they hate the Phantom.
@Rube: (I edit my comment to fix a tiny typo and my whole comment never stops loading. Then when I refresh, it disappears…)
Regardless, there was a comic book called “B**man: Fortunate Son”
Where the superhero in question, is revealed to really hate rock and roll…
There was an Elvis stand-in called “The God of Rock and Roll” (or just “The God”)
Which if funny, because Elvis being extremely religious, hated being called The King of Rock and Roll.
Elvis: There is only ONE King and that’s Jesus Christ.
@The Rambling Otter: Then when I resend… I forget to fix the typo. -_-
@78 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’m quite confident stating Dr. Jeff has never tasted Mary’s fish taco.
@90 UncleJeff: The first rule of the Scrote Club is not talking about the Scrote Club.
@101 Stuart F: Their foreplay starts with the fantasy that there are dining options other than The Bum Boat, and ends with dismissing positions
other thanincluding missionary. Fixed that for ya.@142 E. Norma Stitz: She was always a good sport about people commenting about her endowment.
One thing I will say for Zits – at least Jeremy is eating the dang pile. There’s the lab story of shenanigans that ended up with microwaving a whole package (taken out and wrapped in paper towels!) as an air freshening attempt. As the postdoc, I maybe should have thought of putting the brakes on the grad student antics, but they weren’t moving furniture in (long story) or actually producing flames (that one involved oranges)…
As for Dolly, RIP – and my kids certainly appreciated her literacy program gifts. We still have some on the bookshelf.
@richardf8:
#154. PHANTOM: Thanks for the refresher. That arc was only a couple years ago and I’ve already forgotten it.
@Baja Gaijin: Johnny Carson was getting teased by Dolly for looking at her breasts.
Johnny stumbled a bit while denying it but finally blurted out: “I’d give a year’s pay to peek under there”.
@Baja Gaijin: She was always a good sport about people commenting about her endowment.
@UncleJeff: Johnny Carson was getting teased by Dolly for looking at her breasts. Johnny stumbled a bit while denying it but finally blurted out: “I’d give a year’s pay to peek under there”.
I was expecting the Johnny Carson clip too, but after viewing Baja’s link I certainly understand why that was the one chosen.
@Activist: Didn’t he mention he wants to see the Phantom wearing his device? So apparently more than destroy the Phantom, he wants to control him.
@Anne: I wonder what would happen if, somehow, the device were put on Coach Gerad’s ankle.
@Baja Gaijin: Bwahaha!
@pugfuggly: I really hope to read that again on Friday.
@Little Blue Bicycle: It’s funny because it’s true.
LUANN: Sorry, Evansii, it’s not working. Luann is just as profoundly repellent as she was before this story began. Mrs. Fogarty is only serving as an uber-yucky reminder of where Luann may be headed.
@Baja Gaijin: Rex Morgan Mashup: Could you create a better Missing Final Panel caption than I?
_______
No sir, I cannot. Short of the twins yanking off Lyle’s face and exclaiming in unison, “OLD MAN BALLUSCO!”
Scammy Doo style. Then smoking weed and plotting their next caper in the Mysery Machine parked right outside Casa De Morgan.
@Baja Gaijin: A mid-life crisis mobile is similar to the Batmobile in that they’re both extremely expensive and distinctive.
__________________________
When Mary is in it it becomes an Old-bat mobile. About as sexy as Dr Goldfoot’s Footmobile™ with corn cannon missiles and bunion pad bombs.