Mostly soapy Monday
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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/14/26
I guess the point of this strip is “You never get what you want when you want it,” but for at least a brief moment I thought Snuffy looked so sad because he considers himself in his way to be a steward of the land. During deer-huntin’ season, people have killed so many deer that bears roam the countryside, near starving for lack of prey, and then in bear-huntin’ season, deer multiply out of control due to lack of predators. That’s why he had to shoot these critters out of season, sheriff! He’s helpin’ the local ecosystem!
Gil Thorp, 9/14/26
Based on the extremely visible stars in the sky, I’m guessing this is a night game played without adequate lighting. Presumably Oakwood is the home team and this gives them an advantage based on their day-glow yellow uniforms. Obviously the Mudlark QB is going to throw right to them, they’re the only ones visible on the field!
Pluggers, 9/14/26
I regret to inform you all that there are only two viable options here: that pluggers think “bedroom eyes” mean what your eyes look like when you’re sleepy, or that they think that sometimes a plugger will make eyes at you implying that they want you to come over and fuck them right there on their recliner and that this is what those eyes look like, like they’re dying.
Judge Parker, 9/14/26
Good news: Judge Parker Emeritus Senior got a job, to give his life meaning. Bad news: he apparently has to get up at 6:00 am to get to it? Maybe a meaningless life isn’t so bad after all, let’s not be hasty.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/14/26
Remember: it’s not just mandatory that nothing bad ever happen to the Morgan family. The Morgan family must be fully insulated by the narrative from ever knowing that anything bad might have potentially happened to them. And, mission accomplished! Looks like we can wrap up the week’s strips with this one and [checks calendar] aw CRAP
Mary Worth, 9/14/26
“Did he die? Is he finally dead? Because he still owes me money from when I sold him weed six years ago. I mean, it wasn’t actually weed, it was oregano, but he didn’t know that.”
67 replies to “Mostly soapy Monday”
I’ll be brave and say it: Nelly is kinda out of pocket.
They were never in danger! There were absolutely no stakes to this plot! The twins were complete doofuses!
Mary Worth: The CIA is jealous; they can’t spread disinformation nearly as effectively or quickly as Nelly Feneley.
MW: “Aw, shit. He’s dead, right? I had 2027 in the pool. I figured that lard-asses heart could hold out ’till New Years.”
Gil Thorp:
Coach Thorp can’t be thrilled with tonight’s performance.
***
Well, unless he bet against his own team.
Mary Worth:
“Hi, Mrs. F.! Canned tomatoes are on sale this week…”
“Don’t get fresh with me, young man!”
“I told you they were ‘canned,’ ma’am!”
Me reading today’s post: “Wow, Snuffy’s eyes look sad. Wow, Gil’s eyes look sad. Wow, the Plugger’s eyes look sad. Wow, Judge Parker’s eyes look sad. Wow, Rene’s eyes look sad. Wow, Nelly’s eyes look… fucking hell.”
MW: From the camera angle, either Nelly has completed a transformation into a tiny Lockhorn-esque goblin-like creature, or she’s so hepped up on the goofballs she can’t focus on the person she’s ostensibly talking to…
MW: Shouldn’t Tommy be in a funk because his girlfriend Brandy isn’t in his immediate line of sight?
Ph: All part of the plan!
BG&SS:
“I’ve got ta lay off that there LSD!”
Judge Parker:
Well, he’s not dead — so there’s that.
I guess.
Mr Cat Plugger looks like he’s just been fucked stupid -minus the fucked part.
Rex Morgan:
Remember how TV’s “Lassie” (actually, “Laddie”) always used to stare off-screen at his trainer? — I believe that the Morgan dogs are staring at the ghost of Rudd Weatherwax.
Rex Morgan:
Too bad they didn’t show the Tortious Twins driving off in two identical tiny pink cars, each of them labeled the “Scam-Mobile.”
Wrecks Moregone:
Aaaaaaaaand that’s it! That’s the end of the most boring and pointless story arc of the year, even more boring and pointless than Dusk Weston’s one-tear non-romance with Tommy! That’s the end, right? Right?
Pluggers:
You’re a plugger if you’re a decliner in a recliner.
Wary Morth:
“Yes, he was pecked to death by a couple of parrots!”
Murky Tail:
The cave is about as full of holes as this story.
@Bob Tice:
Gil Thorp:
Coach Thorp can’t be thrilled with tonight’s performance.
But enough about the wedding night….
JP: Okay, who else has a Sonny & Cher earworm?
DT: It’s just to show that gamers are no match for people who actually know how to handle a weapon.
Phantom: Great. Now we’ll see Kit defeat AI by Reverse Engineering.
RxMD: But were they really in any danger, Narrator Box?
MW: the thing that gets me is that Nelly is drawn such that if someone with those eyes told me that my least favorite politician had said something dumb I would automatically conclude they had said nothing of the sort.
GT: Nah, he’s fine. He knows that a disappointing first game is important for demonstrating his skill as the Greatest Coach in the World. An undefeated regular season means you’re sure to be defeated by the underdogs in the last minutes of the championship!
MW: Okay, Alma is one thing–she lives at Charterstone, she might be interested in the comings and goings of the other inhabitants–but why would Nelly think Tommy gives a crap? He’s probably happy to hear as little of the people in his mom’s condo complex as he can.
Pluggers don’t have energy for anything anymore, least of all sex. (And we’re all glad to know that.)
MW: “Tommy Beedie! I don’t know you well enough to call you by just your first name, and there’s certainly no way I’m ever going to call you ‘Mr. Beedie’!”
MW-No but if you hum a few bars.
MW-“You’re not going to give me a copy of The Watchtower?”
Potentially intriguing revelation that Rene hears the narration, Stranger Than Fiction-style.
Mary Worth: “Did you hear aboutProf— wait. Did you say canned tomatoes?!? How much?”
C’shaft: “So….we taking over humanity or what?”
“Do you WANT to have these losers for slaves?”
“….Fair point.”
Dustin: Of course he is–he does nothing else, day in and day out.
HotC: Actually if you’re not trans the solution would probably be birth control, but both carry the same side effect of getting a bunch of fundamentalists all up in your business about your medication.
Phantom: Now the Phantom’s mad. Drugging people with mind-altering hallucinogens is his brand, dammit!
BARNEY GOOGLE AND SNUFFY SMITH: Actually, “the point of this strip” is that the creator has seen the “Duck Season/Rabbit Season” episodes of Loony Toons and really want you to know it
REX MORGAN M.D.: To be fair, Josh, I think this is a transitional strip, indicating a new narrative that the Morgans can be fully insulated from ever knowing that anything bad might have potentially happened to them.
MW: Nelly’s made a huge mistake, approaching someone fully indoctrinated into the cult of Mary Worth. Tommy’s going to run home at the end of his shift to warn Mary about all of this, and next thing you know, Mary will make Nelly stand on top of Picadee Falls, releasing all the feathers from a down pillow into the wind, before telling her to retrieve every one of them. If Nelly refuses, she will of course slip from the cliff’s edge in a tragic accident.
MW-Be sure to praise Tommy for his can stacking skills.
MW-“Mrs. F, me and my girlfriend broke up. She’s going out of town for the weekend. Will you be my new girlfriend?”
MW-I just love that intense expression on Nelly’s face.
RMMD-One of the twins has been having a medical issue for several hours now.
Crankshaft-Let’s see how much more jokes we can wring from this rock.
MW-“That Dr. Cameron will screw anything young and blonde? Not true. I made a pass at him and he didn’t take it.”
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: Snuffy’s sad in one panel because he knows his entire fam’ly, and Sparkplug’s grandson Lil’ Sparky, are about to be mauled to death. He’s sad in the other panel because he knows bears are just as bad. (Of course, I could be wrong here. Details aren’t really my thing.)
Mary Worth: And here Tommie thought he was done with spittle-flecked rage in his life, forgetting the many weeks he spent hanging around Dawn and Wilbur.
MW: Forget the canned tomatoes, Nelly looks capable of sucking all the blood out of a living goat in less than five minutes.
PLUGGERS: Recliner eyes, as in “Come, my pet, life is short, gambol with me in my recliner?” Or are we talking, “Nah, he’s gone. Call it. And I’d burn this recliner, ma’am. ”
BG&SS: The animals look so happy because it’s so laughably simple to best Snuffy intellectually.
GT: Oakwood’s performance is especially impressive given that one of their players appears to be wearing the baseball team’s catcher equipment.
JP — I call BS, unless it takes Alan two hours to put on his (pissy) face, since no judge starts work before 9 am at the earliest!
RMMD — I won’t be in here forever. And when I get out, there’s plenty of work for a guy who’s a spitting image of Walter White!
BG&SS — Yeah, as if Snuffy cares about the lowlanders’ rules and their “hunting season.” He just knows better than to shoot furries on their way to a convention. . .
MW: That very day, the Santa Royale Enquirer plasters the headline story with photo: CHARTERSTONE SCANDAL! TWO PROMINENT RESIDENTS SEEN TOGETHER, TWICE, AT THEIR CONDO COMPLEX! COINCIDENCE OR CONNUBIAL CATASTROPHE?
Wow, writing for RMMD is easy. Here’s my ideas for some future plots:
A man wearing an alien mask uses AI-controlled drones to break some of the world’s most dangerous criminals out of prison. The Morgans are unaware.
An old woman, a psychic child, and a balloonivator are stranded in a dense forest after a thunderstorm blows their balloon off course. The Morgans are unaware.
A man languishes in a vaguely-Siberian prison until his wife blasts down the gates and stabs all the guards to death. The Morgans are unaware.
@TheDiva: On CS: ‘Fair point… but by slaughtering them horribly and publicly by laser we might cow the ‘smarter’ humans into appeasing us, making them easier to control as we cull them too!’
‘Splendid… leave me now. I have no mouth and I must scream…’
Appropo of nothing, as I type this YouTube is showing me an ad for Google AI likening it to playing/viewing a thrilling football game, during a video about the history of a 1920s British railway locomotive.
@TheDiva: You kinda got that backwards. Iris is now shacked up at her boytoy’s love nest. Tommy is the one who still lives at Charterstone (Incidentally I guess Tommy Beedle can be glad “Mrs F.” wasn’t there for last arc’s “Is Tommy still a crackhead?” speculation because the ol’ sourpuss would have had a field day!)
MW: Didn’t they just use this image of Nelly a few days ago? As well as I seem to recall a similar art when Iris had thyroid condition with her face all fat similar to that?
It feels like the Pluggers caption is more fitting with today’s Judge Parker (aside from the recliner bit)
BGSS: I assume it’s meant to be fur, but the weird way the bears and deer are outlined suggest an appliqué project with bad stitching.
@The Rambling Otter: I think the only time Iris’s eyes have looked that unhinged was in the infamous “Are you sure, Zakie sweetheart?” panel.
RMMD: This is like those “Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing” memes?
Except more like Beatty wins by doing absolutely nothing, as he gets paid whether he writes a plot or not.
RMMD: And the narrator wants to be the one to tell them sooo baaaaddd. But he can’t. Because he’s trapped in a narration box for Rex Morgan. One of the proofs that Hell exists for those arguing the point.
MW: Nelly looks like she’s about to slam her head into Tommy and eat his heart. No floating head can protect him. They’re distracted by the sale on canned tomatoes.
MW: meanwhile Ian and Mary are still in the parking lot laughing. And Jeff is suicidal because Ian enjoyed Mary’s nethers before he did.
BG&SS: Ask a kid to draw a bunch of bears and you’ll get various lumps walking on all fours but ask a professional …and you get whatever this is. Note to John Rose: they’re paws not hands.
MT: Both Donald Weltner and John Jones got stuck and died in caves surrounded by would be rescuers so the other volunteer is correct in telling Mark that now is not the time for Trailsplaining.
Gil Thorp: My dad was my soccer coach, and OMG did we hear about it when we passed to the wrong team or made similar, obvious mistakes. He was hilariously emotive!
But I see Gil’s trying out a new technique. He knows that the kids really respond to… ennui—the kind you only find in French cinema. “Ah, zat is right, teens of Westview. I have lost interest not just in sports, but life. Are you not intrigued?”
DtM: The menace in today’s panel is the fact that an elementary school sent a kindergartener home, early, by himself, without even notifying the parents! (Either that or they called Henry and Henry was like, “Eh, cut’im loose.”
MW: Props to Tommy for remaining fairly unflapped by what appears to be a woman screaming in his face about Ian Cameron. I very much doubt I could remain so composed if someone I barely tangentially knew was yelling about someone else I barely tangentially knew at my place of employment.
Phantom: Very much enjoying the fact that Ian Mollosk’s half-baked “artificial intelligence” has gone rogue and more or less ruined his revenge plans and now he has to midwife Chatu’s bad trip while the Phantom just kind of looks around in bemusement.
RxMD: Hmmm…just wondering how they’re going to pad this out for a whole week. Maybe some kind of multi-day montage showing the twins catfishing and manipulating a violent inmate, culminating with said inmate brutally shivving Jimmy/Rene in the showers on Friday and Rex performing the autopsy on Saturday?
@Josh, I have a request. A writer I know from my time at CBR (Comic Book Resources) is being evicted. He’s a dedicated comics guy, currently writing for ComicBook.com. He and his kid are on the verge of living on the streets.
He’s put up a GoFundMe. Could I put a link in the comments on his behalf?
REX MORGAN M.D.: So apparently the Bobsey Twins here are so obsessed with pulling off “scams” because that’s the only way they can afford their gigantic, gas-guzzling Land Rover
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): I love they the narrative took the time to update us on Rene’s situation because I guess people might have assumed that since Rene did his “good deed for the day” he was going to be eligible for an early parole.
My first thought was that the animals depicted were doing the hunting, that the bears were on the hunt for deer. I don’t know why deer would be hunting bears, but for all I could tell maybe that was the joke.
I think Coach Thorpe should give the Mudlarks some grace for their poor performance tonight, since they seem to be playing in OUTER SPACE. You’re never excited to see Oakwood International Space Station on your schedule.
@ComicallyChallenged:
GT: Oakwood’s performance is especially impressive given that one of their players appears to be wearing the baseball team’s catcher equipment.
Thanks for clearing that up. I thought they were wearing bicycle helmets.
One thing we should appreciate about Pluggers is how educational it is is. If you come across a plugger in the wild, don’t dial 911 immediately. They may appear to be in medical distress but first take a moment to confirm they just couldn’t be arsed to talk to their bed.
***
The Morgans were never in any danger even if the twins committed to kidnapping one of them. They’re not good at crime and they have the incompetent Belluso genes.
***
Clearly Nelly doesn’t know about Tommy’s troubled past because that’s the face of someone who would be raising all kinds of hell to get an ex-junkie fired “for the safety of the community.”
Rex Morgan, M.D.:
The Morgans have no idea they were ever in any danger… and they weren’t ever in any danger. I mean, sure, the Scam Twins briefly considered kidnapping one of the lesser members of the Morgan clan, but I refuse to believe they had the ability to pull it off even if they decided to go through with it. The most likely outcome would’ve been Rex grumpily treating them for heat exhaustion after he notices them passed out in their un-air-conditioned car while staking out the Morgan house, which would embarrass them enough for them to flee town anyway. Of course, that would be far more medical content that this strip seemingly wants to provide, so instead they just skipped straight to the “leaving town” part, allowing Rex to maintain his preferred state of avoiding having to actually practice medicine.
Mary Worth:
Let’s not be too quick to condemn Nelly for spreading unfounded salacious rumors about other residents of Charterstone. Remember a couple weeks ago, when she was sitting alone in her condo and anhedonically complaining about the quality of groceries? And now look at her, out and about, talking to people, eyes crazed with the joy of gossip. She’s even willing to talk to Tommy! Clearly, the chance to ruin the Cameron marriage has given her a new lease on life, and I think that’s beautiful.
“Wait, did you say CANNED TOMATOES are on sale? Get me two flats of cans first, you little bastard!”
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith:
Bears are capable of walking on their hind legs for short distances, but it’s far from their preferred means of locomotion. Furthermore, bears are generally solitary animals. Yet here we have bears traveling in an upright, erect stance, in a large group reminiscent of a crowd of commuters heading for a train. Given the bestial nature of the humans in Hootin’ Holler, the line between man and the rest of the animal kingdom has never been blurrier.
Pluggers:
You can’t hide — Recliner Eyes
And your gut — cov’ring up your thighs
You could get up — but why even try
There ain’t no way to hide Recliner Eyes
LUANN: “They’re home!”
….in their log cabin dollhouse!
LUANN (2): Calm down TJ! Mary Worth’s already doing an “obnoxious loud-mouth gossip” storyline and she’s called dibs! (Also who exactly is TJ going to tell anyway? He doesn’t really have any other friends besides Brand and Toni. Is he going to be texting Bets all “We’ve never really interacted with each other but since you’re a character in their strip, I’m just letting you know that Toni’s pregnant, Bye!” (clicks “unfollow” on Bets profile.)
Snuffy – Missing final panel: Snuffy-huntin’ season.
GT – I don’t care how the Mudlarks are doing, this is a historic occasion. The highlight for me will be the halftime show, when Mud Mountain Murphy sings “Football on the Moon.” Everyone’s holding their breath in anticipation!
MW – Tommy, as a former drug user, you should know better than to blab about Nelly’s crippling canned-tomato addiction right there where everyone in the store can hear you!
Don Abundio, translated:
“What’s with the glowing bandage, Godinez?”
“It’s a mummy finger puppet”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m just glad the rest of the office staff isn’t as goofy as you”
@Vulpes: This is clearly a parade of people in bear and deer costumes.
Snuffy frowns because he can not understand.
@Anonymeaux: Ah, very good. I’m not gettin’ anywhere with “Bette Davis Eyes.”