Employees of the month
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Judge Parker, 9/1/26
The best-case scenario when an attractive younger woman marries a rich, driven older man — well, I guess the best-case scenario is that they genuinely like one another, but the second-best-scenario is that the older man got to be so very rich because he’s so very driven, specifically career-driven, and therefore you as the younger woman can enjoy the financial and social benefits of being married to him without, you know, having to spend a ton of time hanging out with him. But because part of the whole deal is that you are younger than him, you run a greater than average risk that your husband will become a depressed old drunk who just kind of hangs around the house all day, cramping your style. Thus, Katherine is eagerly agreeing to Judge Parker Emeritus Senior’s suggestion that he go down to the courthouse and take care of whatever odd jobs they have for him down there. Is he completely with it these days, mentally? Enh, maybe, maybe not, but that’s the Cavelton court system’s problem now. They’re probably equipped to handle it, right?
Gil Thorp, 9/1/26
“Ahh, another school year begun. I’m virtuously setting the tone and putting student athletes first … tryout numbers are strong despite declines in enrollment … God I’m good. I’d make out with myself if it were possible. Wait, thanks to my uncannily clear reflection in this window, it is!” [vivid, unpleasant sounds of tongue wiping across glass]
153 replies to “Employees of the month”
Judge Parker:
“Are you sure we want to eat here, dear? — judging from the coloration of the couple over your left shoulder, they’re both in anaphylactic shock!”
Judge Parker:
“I guess those prices serve us right for going to a restaurant which specializes in oil- and gas-related menu items!”
MW Uh-oh, looks like *someone* is going to have an appointment with Room 101 until she can win the victory over herself and truly say that she loves Big Puppy
MT Y’know, if there’s an emergency in a cave and I am able to get cell phone signal, there’s a number I’d call well before any Local Nature Expert. A short number – only 3 digits, easier to recall and guess what! it’s made to get emergency help!
Mandrake Sorry, but keeping proportions and such OK so that you don’t sink to the artistic depths of Gil Thorp still doesn’t mean you can just drop a “don’t I have an honest face” bit when the art style is “give the impression of a rough draft”.
Gil Thorp:
“Above all else…we want to do right by the athletes. This is a learning institution, after all, so we want to prioritize athletics over academics.”
JP: Tip: if you want to gold-dig an older husband, go much older. Like, two years left to live older. Don’t marry one who’s only just old enough that inflation will wipe out the value of his less-impressive-than-hoped judge’s pension by the time he’s seventy!
Gil Thorp:
“Um, Coach, since the nominative ‘tryouts’ is plural, not singular, shouldn’t it be paired with the interrogative adverb and verb ‘How are’ or “How’re,’ not ‘How’s’ ?”
“Hey, listen — leave me alone. I’m a jock, okay?”
JP:
“Do it! Now back to these outrageous prices. Do you think a dine-and-dash will hurt your legal status?”
MW: Sourpuss Fenelly is going to plot harm against Saul Wynter’s wiener dog, isn’t she?
MW: Nelly complains a lot, but that vintage “Happy Face” mug no doubt hints at some genuine pathos: the sad tale of a once-buoyant and bubbly woman who, disappointed in life, has turned bitter in her later years, with only a chipped, sappy mug left to remind her of her happy youth, and what she once had, and what might have been. God help us, we’re about to learn the details.
GT: It’s been a while since his fair headed wife and coach left him but Thorp continues his ban on blonds for the upcoming academic year.
GT: Gil, as is tradition, consults the mystical floating head cloaked in the mist of coaching excellence for further instructions.
GT: Marriage? Meh. Honeymoon? Whatevs. Gil is back to doing the thing that truly gives his life meaning – SPORTING.
RMMD: The MM instructor had best wear his wallet on a chain.
Dennis the Menace : if a joke depends on a character being made upset because they’ve come across a person they don’t like, the should actually look upset. Not just a blank expression.
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Heart of the City : I think there’s more to being an athlete than just how fetching you look in your gear, Heart.
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Judge Parker : Oh, Katherine wasn’t trying to get her husband off the bottle because he was slowly killing himself, she was trying to get him off the bottle because IT WAS EXPENSIVE.
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Six Chix : “Hey, what smells like burnt fish, btw?”
@Anonymous:
Helen Moss redux.
“Do you think my mental and moral standing is sound enough to return to the bench?”
“Maybe. Who am I to judge?”
“Let’s do what we do best”. Immediately loses
Dammit, Gil! When Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweets the same lame pseudo-joke once a year about making out with yourself, this is NOT what he intends!
MW: I wonder what man Mary is going to pair Ol’ Woman Wynter up with to make her stop being such a misery and settle into placid heteronormativity? It’s gonna be Wilbur, right? It’s *always* Wilbur…
S4th: Somewhere the estate of James Stewart is amassing evidence for the lawsuit accusing Ces of stealing Stewart’s ‘H****y’ bit…
JP: Well, *some* famous comic writer recently had a bad experience eating out and wants the whole world to know it…
DT: ‘How can *I* help? The perp’s already dead! Who do I shoot?’
Are we sure that his name is Gil and not Gaston?
FC-“PJ’s talking to the pig picture again.”
MW-Ooh! An anti-dog person whose opinion will change when Mary gives them a dog.
Gil Thorp-Gil’s going to shanghai people for his teams.
GT: White Male Protagonist Gil Thorp seeks advice from the only person in the world he looks up to: White Male Protagonist Gil Thorp.
JP: “You could get a job too, you know…”
“Are you crazy? Why the Hell do you think I married you? It certainly wasn’t for your charm and winning personality!”
JP Loving the expression on Katherine’s face as she brings up the rising menu prices. Just a reminder that she takes her caviar black, Russian, and aged two years. Not one year, not six months, two. years. So you just keep that income flowing, ok?
GT It’s September, which means it’s time to summon Til Ghorp, the mystical coach from the Mirror Dimension, into our realm to defeat Milford’s enemies with blood magic. Say, are any of you kids still virgins? How’d you like to go on a little ‘exchange program’?
RxMD: Hold up! Last time we checked in with Grandpa Lyle, the Ollman Technique had sold a few books in the 1970s and never even made it onto videotapes, while the Mirakle Method was limited to a single conman pitching to a captive audience on a cruise ship (before he ended up in a full body cast and prison). Now, Grandpa Lyle has instructors, plural? And presumably courses and seminars and franchises? Oh boy, this guy is operating on a level so far beyond anything the grifty twins could imagine pulling off, they might as well be ants and he an elephant.
DT: Impressive that the laptop bomb managed to completely incinerate Wallhack while leaving the rest of the cafe, even his little table and chair, intact.
Dustin: “You know what, I’m just going to stop talking to you altogether.”
Luann: Frank was on board with Luann’s sudden burst of initiative until he realized he would have to support her in ways beyond vague atta-girl-ing.
MW: Didn’t we already have a story where a curmudgeonly old shut-in learns to love dogs? Isn’t it entirely probable that yapping is coming from that same former curmudgeonly old shut-in’s dog right now?
Phantom: I dunno, I kind of like the idea of not-Elon being thwarted because his behavior modification AI has too many flaws to be practical in the long term. It fits perfectly with the actual current status of AI.
RMMD: “Don’t worry, girls; we’ll have you nice and brainwashed in no time…”
MW: Calling it now: When Nelly and Saul meet they realize they were high-school sweethearts.
But Saul had to go off to war, and Nelly’s jealous sister stole the letter he wrote to Nelly, proposingNaw, too ridiculous.MW: I’m somewhat disappointed. While a character who hates absolutely everything yet owns a smiley face mug is amusing, I liked the specificity of her rage being focused solely on grocery quality. Imagine Mary driving her to one store after another while she snarls about all of them, ending with the two being banned from the local farmer’s market because Nelly broke a zucchini over a vendor’s head.
@TheDiva: re: DT … and also that it managed to burn the guy to a crisp yet remain recognizably a laptop! I can buy a laptop with a bomb in it, but a screen squirting out napalm is bit much.
DT: I checked the last three days of comments, and can’t quite believe no one made any reference to the Flaming Internet Packet of Death, or even to being flamed. Have all the USENET traditions died out?
Judge Parker: Of course Anne agrees quickly! If there’s no Parker serving as a judge, there’s no titular character and no reason for the strip to exist. Which honestly isn’t much different than the situation as it stands, but a girl’s got to look out for her own needs, you know?
@CanuckDownSouth: @TheDiva: It was wizards.
@MKay:
GT: Marriage? Meh. Honeymoon? Whatevs. Gil is back to doing the thing that truly gives his life meaning – SPORTING.
Sporting wood. Heh.
Gil Thorp: Then Jesus said to him, ‘Someone created a great athletics program and tried out many. At the time for the playdowns he sent his associate coach to say to those who had been tried out, “Come; for the game is about to start.” But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “My parents have bought a piece of land with a cottage up north, and I must go out and see it; please accept my apologies.” Another said, “I have bought a Hyundai, and I am going to try it out; please accept my apologies.” Another said, “Like you, I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.” So the associate coach returned and reported this to Gil Thorp. Then Coach Thorp became angry and said to his associate coach, “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of Milford and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” And the associate coach said, “Sir, that’s our starting lineup.” Then Coach Thorp said to the associate coach, “Go out into East Goshen, and compel people to come in, so that my gym may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were tried out will taste my awards banquet. Marty Moon, either.”’
@Liam: I wonder what tragedy Ol’ (Wo)Man Wynter suffered that will be minimized because a dog had to spend some time in a shelter.
Maybe we’ll see a return of the bratty granddaughter (she of the epic eyeroll) who’s now been fully Charterstonized into glassy-eyed happiness…
I want to make myself perfectly clear: I married you for your money and you drank through a LOT of it, so get back to work.
So Katherine isn’t the mother of Alan’s children? And Neddy and Sophie are foundlings or something? Does anyone have biological children in this strip or is marriage strictly an institution for providing a second caregiver for the products of parthenogensis?
Wrecks Moregone:
Mud and Lorna are going to adopt the Scam Twins.
Gil Thorp: Does Gil have a soul patch? In the first panel, I could shrug and say it’s a shadow, but it’s also on his reflection when he turns around! And THAT could be a reference to the classic Star Trek episode, “Mirror, Mirror,” where the evil Spock’s facial hair is the best way to distinguish him from his heroic counterpart. Do we have an evil, extra-dimensional Thorp?
NO! That would be intentionally weird and interesting. Accidentally weird and interesting is the Westview Way!
A Judicial Hearing Officer is a designated official who presides over particular types of hearings, often in civil, administrative, or specialized contexts. Unlike judges, JHOs typically do not exercise broad judicial authority over all phases of a case. Instead, they focus on specific procedural matters, evidentiary hearings, or fact-finding tasks assigned by supervising judges or agency heads. JHOs help streamline proceedings by handling preliminary matters, trials on limited issues, or administrative disputes that require expert attention without full judicial proceedings.
They made me look it up, damn them. I don’t go to the comics to learn anything! If anything, they’re supposed to leave my brain a little worse for wear!
From behind the mirror, the real Gil Thorp screamed soundlessly. The imposter had taken his life, driven off his wife and children, and shacked up with some strange woman. His world was ruined, his life was over, and the cold silver realm pressed in around him. At least it can’t get any worse, he reflected.
Chix (sic): Is that piece of carpet supposed to hint at the somewhat derogatory nickname given to lesbians as Xunise comes on to her willing companion? Kinda cute actually.
Pluggers: In case you wondering why when thrifting you come across a lot of jeans with a 42-inch waist and 29-inch inseam.
GT: Did Merrill take art lessons? The art looks a little better, cleaner.
The characters don’t look like they’re melting globs.
Blondie: The punchline is that Bubba is a Labrador Retriever.
FC: Angered by being told to remove the crucifix over PJ’s bed in today’s rerun, adult Jeff replaces it with a picture of his editor.
MW: Nelly finds joy in numbers when she finds she’s not the only neighbor irked by Wilbur’s new bark! bark! doorbell.
GT: None of the characters open their mouths when they speak. Did they all learn ventriloquism as part of a plan to throw their voices during play and confuse their opponents?
Luann: Again, this only makes a drop of sense if everyone is being appallingly sarcastic. “I’m so happy Luann has settled on a path! And she’s on top of her academic requirements! And she’s keeping her job! I don’t know how she’ll have time for all that!”
CS: Automated menu kiosks at McDonald’s have been a thing for many years now. Tomorrow: Crankshaft complains about 1-900 psychic hotlines!
Pluggers: Oh come on, a 32-inch belt wouldn’t fit around that guy’s *neck*, much less his gut.
@matt w: Well, as far as we know, Charlotte is the biological child of Randy and April, but there’s always the possibility that April’s CIA-agent father implanted her with an alien embryo.
@Charterstone: Dune, RxMD: I wouldn’t be surprised that Grandpa Lyle has been playing the Long Con with Rene and thr twins.
Mary, laughing in a car with Ian for some reason, suddenly feels a disturbance in the Force. Someone, somewhere has said something negative… about dogs.
You just know this storyline ends with Nelly being browbeaten and brainwashed into loving dogs.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
On Luann : Nancy is 100 % earnest, Frank is 100 % being sarcastic. Luann’s parents relationship with their daughter was best exemplified that year the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day comics were Luann asking the appropriate parent “Hey [Mom/Dad], don’t you feel bitter and sad that you wasted your life raising a failure like me, instead of remaining single forever and becoming a famous rock musician or something?”. Nancy’s second panel was her hugging a (of course, oblivious) Luann while crying going “You’re not a failure. I love you. I LOVE YOU.”, while Frank’s second panel was Luann telling (a bored, not even bothering looking up from her book) Nancy “And that’s when Dad started screaming incoherently, and tried to kill himself”
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On Crankshaft : I think what’s more important is that those kiosks are optional, and you can still order in person if you want to (AFAIK). So that’s why it’s being portrayed as “those newfangled gizmos” rather than “this is all a conspiracy by fast food clerks to avoid giving me service because they hate me!”
(also, yeah, Crankshaft, the guy who spends so much on gardening crap he barely noticed when the company made a mistake and charged him six figures, that’s definitely the guy to play the “holy fool” against a “stupid, trendy gizmo”)
Katherine: “Booze doesn’t pay for itself!”
JP – “It’s mathematically impossible for you to be behind me 200%. 100% is the most anyone can be.”
“Honey, I can tell you’re gonna be a great judicial whatever-it-was.”
Dennis reminds his teacher that every fall, when a normal elementary school class would move on to a new grade, here he is again in her classroom. While the seasons may turn, the years never advance and she is trapped inside this endless time loop with him for all eternity. Menace Level: Existential.
FC: What, Dolly, can’t you see Jody looking in through the window?
RMMD- “And I’ll make arrangements for our new instructor, Luann, to run you through the Miracle Method system! Now who wants to pull Grampa’s finger?”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I didn’t know you were a mountain climber, sir”
“Out here I’m just like anyone else! Taking it one step at a time”
“Some people’s steps are easier than others”
MW- “That STUPID neighbor’s dog is making NOISE again!” I didn’t know Wilbur had a dog. But then again, everyone in Charterstone seems to have forgotten he has a daughter.
RMMD: “We’ll get those engrams of yours whipped into shape in no time.”
GT: ”Oh my god…I’m fabulous.”
@MP: Are we sure, a super intelligent Dog, or a Dog Cult isn’t financially backing this comic.
Maybe The Illuminati isn’t run by Lizard people, it’s run by Dog people, and it’s all a deep….
Pluggers: Isn’t this like, the third or fourth one in a row that pluggers are old, fat, medically decrepit meatsacks?
@The Rambling Otter:
Hello, fellow Mudges, I apologize for my ridiculous claims. They were stupid and unfounded.
I have been corrected.
I am better now.
Well folks, it’s come to this. It wasn’t enough for The Ladies to put all the past and present Charterstone Pet actors on hiatus – as well as deep-sixing Muffin like she never happened – we now have a plot suggesting a Total Purge of the Animal population at Charterstone!! All in an attempt to appease those nay-sayers who complained about the over-use of the talented Animal characters.
Okay, maybe they jumped the Shark with Sunny and Rosita, but you gotta admit that story was more entertaining than any of those that came after. And I don’t think Pet-Negative Nelly is going to win the hearts and minds of the dwindling audience unless she has an epiphany of sorts – learning that Dogs (and Cats, too) are Good!
So we’ll be in talks with The Ladies regarding future opportunities for our clients, with increased compensation, of course. I hope this will serve as a Learning Experience for them… Intern, did you arrange for the Floral Extravaganza to be delivered today?
FG: While everyone waits patiently while Hollo stammers and stutters his way through his story, Ming’s forces have retaken Capital City.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yeah, there was a old terrible fanfiction of Reboot called “Megabyte Returns”
Where the heroes spend the entire story just sitting around, talking and doing nothing.
Then the villain Megabyte shows up with a giant army.
One of the protagonists says “How did he find the time to do this??”
Peanuts Begins: Okay, I don’t get it. This Mort Sahl-style 1950s humor is just too subtle for me. Is it a penis joke, Schulz, you rascal?
Judge Parker: Sure, the prices at their favorite restaurant have skyrocketed over the past few years. But you have to admit, the place has also gotten pretty darn fancy for a Burger King. Not only are there printed menus, tablecloths and table service, but the ketchup comes on little silver dishes — that’s class, buster!
GT: Nothing say “life of coaching luxury” like being paid by the school for sports, only, and not knowing anything else about the place.
“Enrollment dipped this year?”
“By lots. There were plans to build a neighborhood of 80 new duplexes but the booster club convinced the zoning commission that it was a ‘nature preserve’ which got defined as ‘rectangular or fan-shaped lots suitable for grass or artificial turf, goalposts, bases surrounded by dirt, and chalklines’ “.
“Huh. I wondered how the Mudlarks’ 20 new practice fields got built “
@Ukulele Ike: Dang, I had the same thought. If it’s not a penis, what’s the joke?
CS: The robo-server ends up going on a rampage when, attempting to process Crankhaft’s malapropisms drive it to run amok.
@The Rambling Otter: I remember an old comic called “Coyote Meets Badger,” in which the unofficial state super-heroes of New Mexico and Wisconsin meet and spend their time drinking beer while their girlfriends defeat the super-baddies. “Getting someone else to do the hard stuff” is the best super-power!
@Guillermo el chiclero:
That is the whole premise of Pluggers, that they are old, fat, and decrepit but still keep on “plugging” away. I like that this Plugger looks so surprised as if he’s just suddenly realizing he’s old, fat, and decrepit.
JP: This little scene offers a little dilemma for Katherine Parker. When your useless older husband declares his intention to go back to work, how quickly do you shout, “Do it”? As soon as he says the word “work”? As soon as he says the job title? I mean, obviously, you don’t wait for him to finish the entire sentence.
GT: “Say, how would I look with a soul patch? Pretty darned cool, that’s how!”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I think it’s a bit like “The world’s tallest midget “.
@TheDiva: “DT: Impressive that the laptop bomb managed to completely incinerate Wallhack while leaving the rest of the cafe, even his little table and chair, intact.”
It was a laptop neutron bomb. Widescreen is more weapon tech-savvy than we gave him credit for.
FC – PJ is smiling because he’s thinking of the tell-all book he’s going to write one day. Dolly will be very embarrassed, but Jeffy will have to leave the country.
Mary Worth – Moy isn’t wasting any time. Day two establishes Nelly Feneley BoBelly as a villain who – GASP! – doesn’t like dogs. Dogs are good!
Where did this woman come from? Did she just move in? She must be a new resident, because if she’s lived there for a time, surely this isn’t the first time she’s heard one of the good dogs barking. Why hasn’t Mary already brought her a basket of muffins so she can interrogate her?
The smiley face mug must be an example of irony.
@The Rambling Otter: Guest artist — again?
@Ukulele Ike: It’s the phrase “A little tiny mountain,” which Charlie Brown, as a native English speaker, intuitively recognizes as a violation of correct adjective order but which Lucy has somehow missed.
@Bob Tice: “Athletics over academics? I thought this was an American school.”
@Charterstone: Dune: No, see in the interim, Mud and his new ambitious-so-he’s-kinda-evil-by-this-strip’s-standards-but-still-way-more-competent-than Buck manager, (with a little assist from Rene when he faked that the Mirakle Method “turned his life around”) were the ones who expanded the market utilizing Mud’s inconsistent, poorly-defined “fame” to do it. They got a cartoon and a reduced prison sentence out of the deal. Basically all Grandpa Lyle did was step in and reap their spoils when he threatened to sue. (Rene and the other could have consulted a lawyer to defend their empire in court, but that would have taken work and drive, and no one here, conman and law-abiding citizen alike, wants to ruin that comic’s aesthetic by putting in any type of effort in what they’re doing. See, It’s like a world populated by countrified Luanns.
@Ukulele Ike:
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
I think the joke is Charlie Brown cannot comprehend how Lucy could declare her ‘tiny little’ sandpile a mountain. Silly Lucy! Mountains aren’t tiny or little! What’s this generation coming to if they can’t understand that?!
Judge Parker: My jaw is still on the floor from the fact that we may be getting actually judge-related events in this comic named after a judge for once. What’s next, Rex Morgan talking about medical issues again?
Gil Thorp: I’ve probably said it before but I totally understand why Gerad hates Gil’s guts and wants to see him crushed. Dude has been getting SO smarmy in recent years.
JP: They’re holding laminated one-sheet menus; this ain’t the Ritz. “The patty melt with onion rings is up to TWELVE BUCKS! And THREE dollars for a fountain root beer?”
Phantom:
Chatu: “I’m sorry. I don’t give a fuck how much you love South Africa folklore,‘Tokoloushe’ is just too fucking twee. I’m calling that thing ‘Hymie!’”
Burno Vandalosi: “….Hymie?”
Chatu: “My father’s name was Hymie!”
“Let’s do what we do best, shall w- wait, is that me? Is that my reflection? Do I really look like that? Like, all lantern-jawed and all?”
GT: “Alright, staff, STATUS REPORT!
While I’ve been off boffing my sexy and flexible wife and downing her umbrella drinks at the Margaritaville Resort, you were supposed to compiling school data stuff and preparing for the season openers which, I believe, start this week.
Why hasn’t the bonfire been built? Have the sacrifices been selected? Where is my football team?”
Well — once again — I guess it’s up to Old Gil to get Milford’s poop in a group.
Oh, and the one I love.” (Gil kisses his reflection in the mirror)
@Austria:
Nah, Gil would be confused at seeing his own reflection because he’s not supposed to have one; he’s a vampire, remember?
@Hannibal’s Lectern: Then there was that old Dexter’s Lab cartoon, where child geniuses Dexter and Mandark, duke it out by having a giant statue of George Washington, and the Lincoln statue from the Lincoln Memorial come to life (through science) to fight each-other.
The ending was pretty much
Washington: I can’t tell a lie, you’re going down!
Lincoln: You can’t tell a lie? Same here! Honest Abe they called me.
Washington: You know what, lets ditch these kids and get a drink, on me.
(The two statues walk away as chums to Dexter and Mandark’s chagrin)
@UncleJeff: It says Merrill, I thought she was the current artist?
Joining the chorus (there are ones of us!) celebrating the elaborate Gil Thorp character redesign. Soul patch Gil!
GT: “Let’s do what we do best, shall we, Window Ghost Twin? Hopefully they never find out about you, or enrollment might have to dip even further.”
LUANN: These drops aren’t working Frank. Your eyes still refuse to dilate.
LUANN (2): @Banana Jr. 6000: @Anonymous: To be fair, Frank’s “compliment is extremely backhanded.
Frank: “Even though she’s clearly going to fail, I admire her initiative, despite the fact that this isn’t what “initiative” is and the comic has spent the last few weeks showing us that Luann has demonstratively not taken initiative. Hey, I’m trying ok! Give me a break here!”
@Terry Rhoden: There’s this film from 1990 called Hardware by Richard Stanley that I absolutely adore, it’s one of my favorite horror films. It’s about an artist in a cyberpunk world who buys the scavenged parts of a damaged robot off a trader for use in an art display she’s working on, only to slowly discover the robot is a war machine that begins trying rebuild itself to kill her and everyone in her apartment building to fulfill it’s programming. It’s a scary and gruesome film that explores themes of authoritarianism, self-expression, governmental overreach and egoism, our relationship with technology and many other ideas.
I bring it up because your comment is making me picture how fucking hilarious it would be to see Hardware recreated in the form of Pepper the Montoni’s pizza robot going on a rampage and slaughtering the inhabitants of Westview. I want to see Crankshaft getting impaled with a power-drill and Les Moore being injected with deadly neurotoxins by an angry death-bot, ASAP.
@MP: @The Rambling Otter: I think it says a lot about Mary Worth’s weird dog agenda and handling of animals in general that even a dear animal lover like myself who fawns over everything from cats to snakes finds it to be overbearing, cloying and totally deluded about how interactions between humans and our animal brethern work.
@Anonymous: I like to imagine that Luann’s parents are both fourth-wall aware and being driven insane by the repressive, repetitive world of their comic, with her mom trying to cope through insisting aggressively that she loves his life and her father constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
JUDGE PARKER: You know, you guys can save some money by cutting the wine budget. That could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars alone.
JUDGE PARKER (2): Geez, Katherine, it’s the 2020’s so you should have heard of a little something called “women’s lib.” Why don’t you contribute a little and Real Housewife your financial burden’s away? Lord knows you have the screeching self-absorption to fit into Bravo’s sense of aesthetics. I mean, today’s trophy wives are
shameless famewhoresambitious career women. Get with the times, girlfriend!@Guillermo el chiclero:
#8. MW; Guillermo, Brilliant– Saul and Sourpuss, a match made in Marysville. Thanks for thinking of it.
#25. PHANTOM: Diva, agreed. So glad they released AI prematurely so we can see the flaws before it takes us over. As one high school teacher says, you (the human) should be driving, not sleeping in the passenger seat .
#46 CS: in my community, fast food jobs are highly valued not only to train high school students but also as a second income for adults. When McDs tried to replace workers with the kiosk, we customers filed complaints. Thankfully, McDs listened and we got humans back. Stay in the drivers seat, folks.
@The Rambling Otter: It’d actually be pretty interesting if we end up watching Merrill’s art skills improve over their time on the comic.
@Tabby Lavalamp: I salute your sacrifice in thanks for how it lets me laugh at Judge Parker as a person for not even being able to be a real judge anymore, just a loser fill-in doing busywork.
@matt w: Contrastly, I’d rather not think too hard about your comment because I don’t want to spend time imagining Judge Parker ejecting his fully-grown daughters from his… I won’t even finish the sentence.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#60 PLUGGERS: Are all Pluggers Boomers? Are all Boomers Pluggers? I’m a tautology?
@Ukulele Ike:
#65. PEANUTS: He said he intended his cartoon for adults, not kids.
GT: The way Gil’s chin grew from panel 1 to panel 3, I’m now wondering if the Thorps were a branch of the Hapsburgs and his work ethic finally makes sense.
@Activist: On MW – But Saul already has a heteronormative female companion, Bandanna Woman with her Bandanna Dog who took a bullet from her abusive husband Shovy McShoverson.
@The Quiet Man:
#98. Ooo, s’rite, Bambito.
MW: The Nelly Feneley Cookbook. Chapter One. Dogs Are GOOD!
Crank: Pete somehow resists the urge to suggest that discouraging Mindy’s gramps from coming to Montoni’s is a feature, not a bug.
DT: Oh, the suspense! Will Dick immediately leap to the conclusion “We’re investigating a crime that involves computers, here’s a completely different kind of crime that involves computers, they must be related!” Or will he spend the rest of the week not even considering the possibility, until the laptop provides a blatant connection that he probably should have checked for immediately? What flavour of bad Costello are we going to get?
FG: “The crash shorted out all the lights, haha! But seriously, it was a living hell.”
GT: “Above all else … we want to do right by the atheletes. Well, unless we see a chance of triggering a rival coach’s PTSD by manipulating a student who is trying to move on from his attack on said coach and subsequent incarceration and forcibly reminding them both about it! Then we do that, obviously!”
(Yes, I’m still on about this. As long as Henry Bajaras is writing Gil Thorp I will never not be on about this!)
Phantom: So, Schmusk is assembling these people because they want to kill the Phantom, but if they’re too enthusiastic about killing the Phantom, the algorithm’s magical but strangely unspecific mind-reading subroutine will assume they’re trying to kill Schmusk, even if they’re nowhere near him. This plan just keeps looking more and more thought out, doesn’t it?
I honestly don’t know if we’re supposed to be seeing Schmusk as the master manipulator he thinks he is (or even close to the master manipulator he thinks he is), or if this is meant to read as a Stripey vs Python story with some idiot blundering around in the middle and hindering them both. The latter is definitely how it reads, but if it’s intentional, maybe we could be spending a bit less time on him?
@Maude R. Fawker: To Serve Dog. “It’s a cookbook!”
@TheDiva: MW: Didn’t we already have a story where a curmudgeonly old shut-in learns to love dogs? Isn’t it entirely probable that yapping is coming from that same former curmudgeonly old shut-in’s dog right now?
Sorry to be pedantic, but not exactly. What we had before was a story where a curmudgeonly old shut-in who already loved dogs was told he’d spent more time than Mary considered appropriate mourning his dead dog, and forced to damn well get a new one and stop moping. Which somehow also stopped him being curmudgeonly, even though he’d previously managed to own a dog he’d loved and be curmudgeonly.
(And yes, this is the same woman who later forced half of Charterstone to indulge Wilbur with his freaking goldfish funeral. What did you expect, consistency?)
@Horace Broon: On GT – But, but that coach is a yuppie with bad hair who is now full-on Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain going around kidnapping people and threatening our hero. That makes it all okay*!
*I know it’s not okay.
GT – OK, we’re contradicting the baseline established in every Gil Thorp Halloween strip ever that Gil is a vampire. WTF is he doing with a reflection?
Cranky’s Wrath: I guess Pepper doesn’t subscribe to Asimov’s rules of robotics, since serving Montoni’s Pizza is definitely allowing harm to come to human type beings.
@Horace Broon: Well…he was still a curmudgeon to the barely teenage girl who had just lost her mother and beloved grandmother, and somehow thought that her grief gave her licence to expect Saul to discipline his stupid fucking dog. And that’s one I am never going to let go.
MW – This can only end in a Yorkshire Terrier. This woman has Yorkie written all over her.
@richardf8: Well, Beth isn’t a Sexy Barmaid either. She only dresses up like one on Halloween.
GT: Gil is specifically addressing the guy standing outside the window. The one who looks a lot like Gil Thorp himself, only with a much smaller chin.
JP: There are a number of reasons that Katherine might want Alan out of the house for a few hours a day, so it’s a blessing in disguise that the restaurant is robbing them blind so she doesn’t have to enumerate them.
@Maude R. Fawker: MW: The Nelly Feneley Cookbook. Chapter One. Dogs Are GOOD!
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….even grumpy old women love hot dogs, Armor™ hotdogs….the dogs kids love to bite!
@Rube: Valid point.
C-Shaft: Crankshaft is a generally unlikable lead character, but more power to him if he stops this invasion of surplus Questionable Content robots.
Dustin: Limiting your breakfast to a protein bar and a glass of water seems to make you mean.
H&L: As a realtor, Lois needs to find a selling point for living in a neighborhood where pickleball courts are allowed to violate zoning laws. It might take her a few days.
Luann: “…on top of all the college requirements.” Now we know how much attention Frank pays to what goes on in the strip, not that you can really blame him.
MW: Nothing to remind us Gen-Xers that we’re getting on in years like seeing a dog-hating senior drinking coffee out of an Acid House Smiley mug.
Phantom: Tokoloshe can detect an intent to harm Ian Mollusk on the part of the guy he’s manacled and has been forcing to run through semiarid grasslands? Thanks, Big T! There’s no way the rest of us ever would have picked up on that one!
RMMD: “And make sure you’ve got your softball gear oiled and ready. We have a big game against the Scientology people next week.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Kind of relieved that the S-Word from my Rex Morgan comment didn’t get me filtered out.
@Rube: The part of that story that I found appalling was when Mary told Madi (paraphrasing), You’re upset because your mother and grandmother died. However, that’s not as bad as the rough time Saul’s dog had before he adopted her.
DT: Usually when there is a bomb capable of knocking some one off and setting them on fire, the device has only a few remnant pieces. This burnt laptop looks pretty intact. Or were we to understand that tiny Space Shuttle USB drive was the device? Seems too small.
GT: This is a whole new unexpected twist – GT showing his inner narcistic self.
JP: OK, money worries for Katherine. Drinking problems for Alan. Anne is a small time crook and grifter. April is a dangerous homicidal person with a hair trigger. Sam and Randy – I get them mixed up but neither seems helpful. Neddy and Sophie are air heads. Only Charlotte has any focus.
MW: I am going to predict the dog is alone which is why it barks. Mary will get the dog with our unhappy lady and together they can be miserable but not alone anymore.
RMMD: The twins realize that the Mirakle Method is a good scam, so they hijack it.
One of the problems with Judge Parker and most of the soap opera strips is that they’re weirdly labor-intensive for not much benefit. For example, today’s strip is a pretty elaborate bit of art rendered with some layered complexity, but the content of the strip is one boring dialogue exchange and a pretty dull topical joke. Gil Thorp has partially solved this problem by having art that looks like it was dashed off quickly without caring too much if anything looked any good, but for dialogue that is even more dull and pointless.
@Guillermo el chiclero: pluggers are old, fat, medically decrepit meatsacks
You forgot “immortal.”
@I speak Jive: Re FC: That’s a relief, to me if not Dolly. I just thought PJ was baked.
@Ukulele Ike: Okay, I don’t get it. This Mort Sahl-style 1950s humor is just too subtle for me. Is it a penis joke, Schulz, you rascal?
Clearly there can be many different interpretations. I thought that the “joke,” or the point, anyway, was that as a sandpile it was ordinary, but as a mountain it’s a big deal. It’s all in what you call it, rather than what it is.
@treetown: Re: Rex Morgan M.D.: No, no, no, we’ve established that it’s not a good scam, because the Sour Valley Twins can’t be snotty and petty toward people. You made the classic rookie mistake of thinking that cons were about extracting material goods from marks. Amateur (tsk tsk)!
Late Thread Cuisine: What Nelly needs is…a big red ribbed weiner!
JP: Just be glad you’re not eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Weird thing about those places, the higher the prices go, the worse the food gets until they finally, mercifully, close down for lack of customers.
BLONDIE: Man, for a second there, it looked like Blondie was flipping the bird to her own customer.
HotC: I never thought Heart was built like an athlete, either by Steenz or Tatulli. She might need to work up to it.
ZITZ: Oh, c’mon, we all know ChatGPT wrote it.
@Baja Gaijin: The Lorena Bobbott Special!
@TheDiva: Luann: Frank was on board with Luann’s sudden burst of initiative until he realized he would have to support her in ways beyond vague atta-girl-ing.
Nah, I’m with Frank here. Bad enough that the girl is so irresponsible and undependable that they don’t trust her with any aspect of their family business, but now’s she’s pretending she’ll be so busy studying all the time that she can no longer manage to do her singular household chore? I call BS on that, as we know full well that future strips will show her lounging around in her bedroom with Bernice same as ever.
The last panel of today’s Gil Thorp looks like someone tried to draw the ending of the original run of Twin Peaks if it were acted by Superman and a caricature of of Kyle Maclachlan
@Tabby Lavalamp: #39: In Texas retired judges don’t do just judicial hearing busy work. They can actually sit on the bench and preside over trials with full judicial powers.
GT: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the best coach of them all.
REX MORGAN M.D.: I love that this”Miracle Method” shit sounds like one of the “useless” classes Luann had to drop. She should be please someone is going to have a more pathetic college trajectory than her.
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Girls, you have to join the class or else “Grampa Lyle” will put you on double secret probation!
Also don’t ask me when Lyle was in charge of the Mirakle Method Reeducation Camps because last I checked, he wanted to leave the day-to-day operations of this cult nonsense to other people since they were already doing such a good job of it, and his involvement was nothing more sitting back and collecting paychecks (much like Terry Beatty himself!)
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Frank and Nancy are just discovering what the TruFans learned long ago: that the trick to tolerating Luann is to not pay too much attention to what she says or does.
GT: (Turning his back on the assistant coaches) Let’s do what we do best, shall we? And what is that, team?
Assistants: Waiting is what we do best, Coach! Waiting!
Alrighty, Mary Worth team.
Just make the comic as Dog filled as possible, you know that’s what you want.
-Everyone now has a dog “poof!”
-Everyone is a dog now “poof!”
-The comic is now just dogs doing cute dog things. Because DOGS ARE GREAT!
@The Rambling Otter:
Or like how DC and Marvel have their own “Animal-verses” like Spider-Ham for instance, why not give Mary Worth its own version of that.
Meowy Worth
@2+2=7:
Truly I forgot that we are in the Rex Morgan MD universe where RMMD rules apply. Just like the Gil Thorp, Judge Parker and Phantom universe have their own particular physics, biology, math and psychology in the RMMD verse scamming is all about that sense of power and not about the money …
@2+2=7: The Miracle Method still comes off as a combination Ponzi scheme/brainwashing operation, and really calls into question Grandpa Lyle’s status as the good one in the family.
@Anonymous: Now, I gotta watch Weird Al’s “Headline News” featuring the REAL Joey Buttofuco
MW: In trying to convince Nelly of the benefits of pets, Mary suddenly remembered, she once had a pet. A cat? Yes a cat. But ugh, that cat box smell made it impossible for polite company and regular feedings had turned the socialite into a stay at home mom. Mary had begun letting the cat accompany her when she attended to the community vegetable garden. And while she did look for the cat when she went back inside, it wasn’t always a regular habit. Animals seem to have a sixth sense, and know when to come and when to go. Mary wondered why she hadn’t thought of that cat until now?
Help me, Real Gil Thorp! My forehead scalds!” – Other Gil Thorp
@Baja Gaijin:
There’s nothing amiss here. Carry on, Citizen!
JP: I’m not a major Alan fan, but am mildly appalled that he should need to go back to work in whatever fragile newly-sober state he’s in, at his age, partly in order to support his weird but very-able-bodied daughter-in-law and also his strange but able-bodied son, who… Wait a minute. Alan is Randy’s dad. Alan RAISED Randy. In a sense, Alan has only himself to blame. A good reminder of why I decided to stick with cats.
LUANN: It would be mildly interesting (not rewarding, but interesting) to know the official in-strip Luann timeline. Is she supposed to have been in community college for one year? Two? Four? Eleven, like in real time? It seems like twenty years, actually, but of course the real question is how many real-time years it will take her to get through college, and what kinds of storylines will be inflicted on readers in the process. You’ve already gone through eleven years of alleged higher-ed storylines, Evansii. Am feeling some real dread here.
@61 The Rambling Otter: What? Apologize for what? That was a funny comment.
@62 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Tomorrow’s Mary Worth Mashup brings back one of your clients. Thanks for the lend.
@107 Rube: Saul wasn’t a “curmudgeon” to Madi: he was a totally insensitive selfish twatwaffle to her.
@111 GarrisonSkunk: I hadn’t seen your comment before I chose the Late Thread Cuisine.
@116 treetown: The “liquid” in the laptop’s “Liquid Crystal Display” is napalm.
@118 Banana Jr. 6000: You forgot “cheap and poverty-stricken.”
@133 The Rambling Otter: Spider-Ham? Sounds like a mid-century entrée.
@124 Anonymous: Sounds like something Nelly’d approve of.
@139 A Grave Mind: I don’t get the reference.
xkcd – As Slappy Squirrel would put it, “Now THAT’S geology!”
The Charlie Brown-Zippy crossover no one saw coming.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Sourpuss Fenelly
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The HB character with the catchphrase, “Exit, stage right!”?
@The Rambling Otter: Alrighty, Mary Worth team.
Just make the comic as Dog filled as possible, you know that’s what you want
________________________________________
For example…Marmaduke moves in and starts chowing down on Charterstone residents.
@The Rambling Otter:
-Everyone now has a dog “poof!”
-Everyone is a dog now “poof!”
______________________________
Bill Holbrook, where are you?
@The Rambling Otter: Meowy Worth
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Mary Wombat, Australian Buttinski.
@Baja Gaijin: That’s part of the joke.
My joke was that I “knew too much” and that the government took me, before I even finished my comment, and “corrected me”
I guess it wasn’t too obvious xD
@Baja Gaijin:
Reference…They are saying they would eat it and like doing it.
@Poteet: Well, Bernice is a lot more academically oriented than Luann and seems to have spent her time in college taking courses toward a psychology major. Yet Bernice has been at Moony U. for the same length of time that Luann has been at community college. Gunther is academically oriented too, and he has been at Moony U. almost as long (he took a semester off to move to Peru with Rosa). So, in-universe time, Luann probably has not been at college for more than three years and most likely no more than two.