God forbid a woman has a hobby
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Judge Parker, 9/29/26
I haven’t really talked about it much because it’s been super boring, but April and Randy have been having marital problems of the icy silence variety since they got back to Cavelton, maybe because longtime partners sometimes grow apart over time, maybe because Randy had to stand there while April violently killed a guy who wasn’t immediately threatening them right in front of him, who can say. Anyway, due to [gestures vaguely] this whole thing, Charlotte isn’t living with April, and April as mentioned isn’t really spending much time interacting with Randy, and she doesn’t have a “job” as near as I can tell, so I do have to wonder a little bit about why she’s running late here. Maybe she ducked out in the morning just to horribly knife-murder somebody, just to feel something, and it took longer than she expected?
Blondie, 9/29/26
Faithful readers know that Blondie is the most pure uncut boomer mindset comic in the game right now, and I think the list in panel two, which lumps together “ways in which you hold kids in contempt because of their relationship to the phones or whatever” and “ways in which you think rules that kids did not create are proof that kids are wimps,” is a prime example. Also, has it ever been mentioned before that Alexander is on the school football team? I’m not an Athletics Knower necessarily but his physique makes me think that most of his organs are gonna get pulped the very first time he’s tackled, bubble wrap or no.
Mary Worth, 9/29/26
“Could it be … no! Mary would never want to go anywhere fun like Hawaii! Mary only ever wants to go to one restaurant here, in the town where she lives, and it isn’t any good!”
Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/29/26
Big news, everyone: Mother Goose, who has a boyfriend but is still chasing after men, is officially the first non-Archie polyamorous comic strip character! #herstory #representationmatters
58 replies to “God forbid a woman has a hobby”
Mary Worth:
What Toby is seeing in today’s second panel is very similar to what Dorothy saw in the crystal ball in that iconic scene from The Wizard of Oz.
RMMD:
“Why the choreographed coprophagous grins, Harwoods?”
“We’ve just returned from an audition for a ‘Gleem’ toothpaste commercial!”
Are you even supposed to get haircuts if your hair is feathers?
JP Forget Dorothy in Milford, can _Charlotte_ get emancipated from parents who are too dysfunctional to not only get her to school but also to spend 10 seconds talking _to_ (not past!) each other about their plans? Randy probably thinks he’s been dismissed so that April can kick some not-KGB butt rather than to go see their daughter in a low-stakes, short-time routine bit that (dude!) he could join in on and start reconnecting without “overwhelming” her.
MW At least Randy’s likely assumption about April would make sense from experience, but Ian taking Mary to a resort? Not unless it’s hosting Meddling Biddie Conference International, and it’s part of his scholarly research to report on it.
Judge Parker:
“Running late. It takes sooooo long to dissolve people in lye!”
That’s not football, Alexander. That’s someone’s innovative variant on the clingfilm fetish. You’ll be famous!
@Bob Tice: Isn’t that from Breaking Bad?
Blondie:
Has Alexander ever thought of embracing 2020s-style coiffure? Does he think that sporting the ‘do he has makes him a ladies’ man or something?
Blondie: Alexander wears bubble wrap to pad out his string bean of a body for the mascot suit. The only game day danger he’ll see is from heat exhaustion.
MG&G: I know that’s supposed to be a feather bun at the back of her head, but the stripes make it look like a fish tail, as if Mother Goose is a bizarre piscine creature that was unleashed from Count Weirdly’s lab on a mission to collect genetic samples.
Blondie : is old enough of a comic strip it probably has the exact same gag about bare-knuckle boxing switching to gloves.
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Dustin : it’s okay that the employment agency lady INTENTIONALLY does a bad job if it’s in the service of making fun of Dustin, got it.
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Frazz : See, the thing Caufield doesn’t get is that one holiday actually celebrates harvest time, while the other celebrates that time a bunch of puritans realised they had run out of time to grow food in LATE NOVEMBER, were gonna starve, and had to beg Squanto to save them.
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Mary Worth : how could the floating heads have betrayed Toby like this?
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Shoe : Ugh, can we not? I already had my dose of gross fat guy in beige pants buttshots from yesterday’s Dustin!
FG: Not so fast, Flash. Here at the Tropican resistance movement we follow Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s Indirect Approach as to warfare. Instead of a decisive hammer blow we wear our enemy down with annoying pinpricks. Tonight we TP Brazor’s Keep. Hawkgirl will come in handy to get the high places. Flash, your job will be to leave this bag of poo in front of Ming’s room, light it, bang on the door, and run like hell.
Wow, good for Mother Goose- I’m so glad she’s finally living her truth! Now if only we could learn the truth about her alleged motherhood, or whatever nightmare creature she actually is because last time I checked geese don’t have enormous angular brow crests or shark fins(?) coming out of their heads? At least now we know her posterior head triangle is actually hair, which geese also don’t have
Blondie Maybe its just because I’m not a traditional football fan, but I think that covering each player in a thick roll of bubble wrap before each game would only increase my enjoyment of it.
MW I am loving that image of Mary that Toby conjured up. Its like a tortoise poking its head out of its shell to find a delicious carrot.
MGG “Plus I have no choice since I started clipping my wings. We’re birds!”
@matt w: No that was acid. Don’t recall which acid specifically, but I do remember that one should use plastic barrels. . .
So Mother Goose is getting her…feathers cut? Is that a thing?
MW-It’s an educators conference.
Blondie — Ha, ha, kids today. So worried about avoiding concussions and CTE while they engage in simulated warfare!
@matt w: maybe Rose is doing a terrible job of clipping her wings?
@Bob Tice: Before or after the Wicked Witch hijacked the broadcast?
Blondie: I don’t think I’m too much of a nanny state, risk averse, helicopter parent but I do in fact think it’s fair to say that players should not be texting in the middle of a game, what the hell? How is this even a safety thing? No-one ever got CTE from a smartphone.
MW: Oh I see how it is. When Ian takes Mary to a tropical resort without his wife, that’s a surefire sign they’re having sex. But when Toby takes Mary to a tropical resort without her husband, it’s just an innocent gal-pal getaway (wink wink).
MW – as Toby is a long-established dimwit, I’m unsure why Moy felt the need to do as much build-up to this panel as she has.
Blondie: The current generation is soft for not wanting to die in their thirties from repeated brain trauma, I guess.
MW: Please let this be leading to a Sunday dream sequence, oh please oh please…
The World Cup which concluded this past summer famously (infamously?) added several breaks in the action not seen in previous World Cups for hydration and the conspicuous display of the Powerade bottles doing the hydrating. Assuming that hydration breaks are one of the new safety measures Alexander here is complaining about, Dagwood will take one look at whatever logo is on the bottle from his position in the bleachers and immediately become overtaken by the need to consume it
FG: This set up could only be more ominous if there was a big flashing sign reading “AMBUSH AHEAD”
RxMD: Zeno’s walk in the park continues with another single long panel that advances the story, whatever that’s supposed to be, not a whit and clearly could, and could, have been run with yesterday’s single long panel, but then Beatty would have been on the hook for another strip, and those strips don’t write themselves, and it’s not like Beatty’s going to, so here we are!
Phantom: “Ah, it seems like the villain’s megalomaniacal exposition is wrapping up. Back to the shadows for me!”
DT: I don’t know, have they? Maybe if we knew who the Hell you are, that might give us a clue.
Dustin: Dustin works for a shady employment agency willing to fake a record for him and imply he has specific trade skills, the lack of which will be at best disappointing for clients and at worst dangerous to himself and others, yet somehow we’re still supposed to see him as the problem in all this.
GT: This strip really can’t give Emily a single win, can it?
Luann: Luann’s clearly put as much thought into being an art teacher as she has into being an actress, a writer, a camp councilor, a Weenie World table-wiper…
Phantom: Oh come on, you’re not going to end this now? Muskmellon wasted a perfectly good villain rant!
Crazy to think we got a “Toby thinks Ian is cheating because she heard a rumor” plot before a “Ian thinks Toby is cheating because she is married to Ian and who could blame her” plot.
MG&G: Not an expert on bird sex in general, but my backyard viewing tells me that sparrows are some of the horniest life forms on Earth.
MW: Has anyone used “lei” in a salacious play on words? If not, consider it considered.
MW: If Ian and Mary are arranging a surprise vacation trip, Ian is absolutely terrible at the “surprise” part, leaving the travel reservations on his desk like that. Still, with any luck this will lead to further humorous misunderstandings as Toby stumbles across other preparations. “Oh! Ian has packed suitcases with some of my clothes! gasp! He and Mary are going to murder me and tell everyone I packed my things and left!”
JP: Now hear me out here, but what if Randy, who is just as aimless and unemployed as April, were to accompany April when she takes Charlotte to school—and also when she does other things with Charlotte—and also maybe get to know his daughter again and be, like, I dunno, a parent to her or something? Might that help with their various marital and familial problems, maybe?
MW: I’d like to think that panels 1 and 2 are unrelated, and Toby is just horrified because she remembered that Mary exists.
Oh, that’s how Mother Goose sculpts her hairbun into a weird fishtail!
Hair? Feathers? Anyway, a lady named Rose makes the back of her head look like a shark! Good to know!
alexander’s knees being about six inches above his ankles probably isn’t great for his athletic prospects either
Six Chix-Hello darkness my old friend.
MW – a vision of She Who Must Not Be Named.
Blondie: “Ridiculously thick padding, by which I mean our entire team has to wear diapers. The coach is kind of a perv”
I’m no doctor but CTE might explain a few things about Dagwood.
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I guess Ian could have Prince Charles Syndrome. That’s where someone has an attractive and charming younger spouse but throws it all away for a frump with half the personality.
Blondie:
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been detected even in high school football players, and “double thick” helmets can’t truly prevent it, because it doesn’t stop your brain from rattling around in your skull after an impact. The problem isn’t just the big hits, but the constant sub-concussive blows. Long story short, within a few years Alexander wil have serious brain damage, although considering how similar he is to his father it probably won’t be all that noticeable.
MW: Toby’s first clue that her suspicions are unfounded should be that those are plane tickets and Mary is drawn from from an era where she can only take steamers.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Basil Liddel Hart – truly a name out of the past. Next we’ll here for JFC Fuller!
“Wow, what a hit. Listen to that bubble wrap pop!”
“And it looks like the quarterback may be hurt. Do you think they’ll send him to concussion protocol?”
“Nope. That popping sound was just bubble wrap.”
“But his head is lolling forty-five degrees to one side! I think that pop might have been his neck breaking.”
“Impossible! Just the bubble wrap! And remember, today’s game is brought to you by your local UPS Store, the location for all your bubble wrap needs.”
@Ken:
This is an entry for “It is not that type of strip.” A The Postman Rings Twice or Double Indemnity sort of twist.
This thought bubble is a fake out. She is thinking that Mary’s plan is going along as they had hoped. Ian’s not coming back from this trip – in fact he never actually goes. The two of them bump Ian off. Mary disguises herself as Ian and they fake a tragic swimming accident (riptide carried him away). Meanwhile his body is moldering in the vegetable gardens.
Toby realized that Ian was a huge drag after the parrot incident, and Mary (like Alma) has always thirsted after Toby.
@TheDiva: On DT: This is ‘Blowtop’ Jones, brother of Flattop and apparently the only ‘Blank-top’ family member that has managed not to get shot or otherwise ironically killed by Dick Tracy or the MCU despite (among other crimes) actually succeeding in blowing up Dick Tracy’s new house.
Just another case of Eric Costello jerking off the corpse of Chester Gould instead of letting the past work stand on its own and coming up with original characters and coherent stories.
Um…. I read this about Marvin on TvTropes (was bored)
“However, during July 2003, there were a series of strips where he finally learned how to walk, ending with a Sunday Strip where his first birthday was celebrated. Since then, he’s aged one year for every three years real-time.”
So…. is Marvin still a baby or not?
I mean, he goes to school, has homework, talks to his parents…
@Tabby Lavalamp: At least Prince Charles syndrome isn’t quite as horrible as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor syndrome, although given Epstein’s ties to academia, who knows if Ian ever tried to attract his attention to put himself on the same level as some of the guys at Harvard
MT: HA! Just like the old Jay Ward cartoon—,
— I mean YOU SUCK JULES! Mark Trail was better with the Elrodball!
GT: Meanwhile, another football game played under so few lights that the STARS are visible on the sky. An umpteenth example that the writer and artist have never actually been to a night time American HS football game played under lights or even seen a reference photo. It needs a set of stands, some vague outline of a crowd and few supports leading to a few flood lights to show it is a night game.
Phantom: Wait, isn’t the phantom planning on recapturing Python and taking him back into custody because … well, you know, his many heinous crimes?
RMMD: “Fortunately these two couples are unaware of the dangers that passed them by”
JP: April has a job? She just got back from running amok in Russia destroying a gulag prison and so forth. She is now a manager in the local Fed Ex?
DT: If I didn’t know it was Blowtop, I would say with his “WHOO! GOSH!”, he has massive intestinal gas that he doesn’t know if it’s solid or not.
Mary Worth
*as Toby thinks to herself…
O! M! G!, Toby Cameron!
Call Dr. Jeff!
CALL Dr. Jeff!!
CALL DR. JEFF!!!
RMMD: “Welcome to Glenwood!? I’ve been all over the news here for the last six months. Where the hell have you been? In a coma?”
Blondie: “Next they’ll be covering you in bubble wrap.” “No, that’s not happening next, it’s happening next year. Very different.”
Chix: “As a black woman I can only be seen when I put on an outrageous persona.”
Well played.
MW: confirmation bias. But isn’t there a better term?
CS: Doesn’t Ed sing in choir? Put all but one gallon back in car to treat friends at St Spires.
@Liam:
#35. 6Cx: I like Hibbleton at #53 better
Crabgrass: Wait, when did Tomie join this strip?
H&L: “Irma has my paycheck deposited directly into her account. In fact, the house and the car are also in her name. Frankly, the only reason she lets me hang around here is to be near my kids (Dot and Ditto).”
MW: In our eagerness to snark at where we all know this is going, we have lost sight of the fact that the young trophy(?) wife being worried that her older husband is getting it on with a woman his age is actually pretty innovative for a legacy strip.