I guess Toby is pretty much always in a particularly vulnerable state
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Mary Worth, 10/2/26
To me, “Toby gets some parrots and Ian melts down about it” was basically a perfect Mary Worth storyline. But for those who would demand that it be justified as serving some larger purpose, may I present today’s strip, in which one of the accursed birds introduced into this setting by that storyline mimics Ian’s adulterous sex moans while Toby is in a particularly vulnerable state.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/2/26
I had sort of forgotten that Mud Mountain Murphy wasn’t already living in Glenwood, what with him seemingly being there all the time. But, big news, he’s going to be living in Glenwood now! Exciting stuff and a real addition to the local roots country scene. You’re on the email list, right? If you’re not, don’t worry, you’re just going to run into him everywhere. It’s not really that big a town.
The Phantom, 10/2/26
Holy crap, it turns out that mysterious masked figure “Ignis Vindicta” is in fact “Ian Mollusk,” the Phantomverse’s transparent Elon Musk standin! Who could have possibly predicted this shocking development? Oh, what’s that you say, it was predicted on this very blog by me back in July and by everyone in my comments section for weeks before that? Interesting, interesting.
104 replies to “I guess Toby is pretty much always in a particularly vulnerable state”
Mary Worth Mashup: You can pretty much guess what the Missing Final Panel contains.
Rex Morgan Mashup: You can pretty much guess what the Missing Final Panel contains.
I’m sorry, but did they give one of Toby’s parrots cartoon-girl eyelashes? Did they really think we, the audience, needed to know which of the birds is the female? The freakin’ birds don’t care which one’s the female unless they’re actively copulating!
MW I don’t know which would be funnier: the parrots repeat increasingly explicit bits of overheard sexytimes, complete with “Tab A into Slot B” dialogue, or they repeat Ian’s side of a conversation with a travel agent directly thanking Mary for the recommendation so that he can get this awesome trip planned for his wife. Either way, she just keeps walking about, utterly oblivious to the implications.
Phantom (Yup, we’re all at) Finally! – Uh, *ahem*, I mean Wow! who could possibly have predicted this utterly amazing insane twist?!
Mary Worth:
“Oh, wait a minute! — there’s a new photo of Ian with a single work of art, divided into three panels, around his neck. Triptych on his collar!”
JP Charlotte clearly is too young for passenger seat riding (if you don’t understand why, well, you can take my word for it, or go search for info about “internal decapitation” – but I tried to spare you learning about that). I can buy Neddy not knowing that, but not Charlotte, who ought to be using it as a competency test for her caregivers (all of whom are failing, at this rate she should run off and join the circus to get a more stable home situation…)
RMMD:
“If Mae Mae has given up her performance career, so that you’ll have no interaction whatsoever with any of her artistry, Hank, why would you be ‘happy’ that she’s moving to Glenwood?”
“Listen, Mud — they don’t pay me to think here. They just draw a conversation bubble next to me, and that’s that!”
“The Phantom stole my rocket” sounds like the password phrase you’d say to get into an after-hours rave.
RMMD-Plus Mud also plays in park.
MW-Nah. The parrot is just repeating Toby.
The Phantom:
“”The Phantom stole my rocket!! That’s that — I’m going to take my Bad Guy Ball and go home!”
RMMD:
Sitting on a park bench
Eyeing brittle churls with band intent…
— Jethro Tull, “Aqualung” (adapted)
FC: Having all been kids ourselves, we know Billy just shoved everything under his bed or in the closet.
I love that Mud’s like “Yeah I think the local venue’s got an email list or something” and not “I know we’ll be spending lots of time together, so you’ll definitely hear about all my gigs.” The man’s going to be politely turning down dinner invitations for a few months before he just stops responding.
MW: Kudos to Brigman for having the evil parrot, El papagayo siniestra, depart from Toby’s left shoulder. It’s this level of attention to detail that pushes the suspension of disbelief.
@Glarryg: Yes, yes “they” did.
Ph: Dude, Stripeypants can’t see you! You don’t take off the stupid mask now, you do it at the climatic showdown when you foolishly think you have the hero broken and at your mercy*! Don’t you know *anything* about being a megalomaniacal strawman villain?
*Before Stripeypants pulls a gun out of his ass and perforates you?
MW: “That condo gossip is ridiculous. ” Smoking gun: The Maui Papers.
“I’d know if Ian was fooling around. ”
Elephant in the room: The Maui Papers.
“There’d be signs.”
Turd in the punch bowl: THE MAUI PAPERS.
Phantom’s first panel is funnier if you picture Mollusc sitting in a giant car seat.
MW: At last the parrots spill Ian’s dirty secret: he’s converted to Roman Catholicism!
Phantom: Stole? If I remember correctly the rocket crashed, and the extremely buggy robot on board assumed it was on the moon and started establishing Mollusk’s claim on the territory by blasting everything in sight, until it just kind of broke down entirely. But then again exacting disproportionate and childishly dramatic revenge is exactly what I would expect from Elon Musk and, therefore, any obvious Elon Musk stand-in character, so I’ll allow it.
DtM: I don’t know how to parse what Dennis is saying, but his staring through the fourth wall is intimidating, if not menacing.
Murky Tail:
How boaring. Not even a sow-sow story.
_______________________________________
Questioned Malcontent:
On Reddit I wrote this yesterday:
Today we have an illustration of this. Faye has no life now (and Bubbles has no life either) except in relation to her own imposed childwoman Anhlikeable. She can’t do a thing except in relation to Anhlikeable. Nothing at all.
_______________________________________
Wary Morth:
Mary: “Ohhhh P?mpous!”
Toby: “Axx! What are you doing with that meddling hag in your arms?”
Ian: “You stew-pid woman! Can you not see…(insert ridiculous explanation)”
[ With apologies to ‘Allo! ‘Allo! ]
_______________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
This is all so exciting that I need to go and lie down, possibly for a few years.
@Baja Gaijin: Your mashup crashed my browser!
Archie:
Archie watched Riverdale, so it isn’t for homework that he turned up at Grundy’s home late in the evening. Not at all.
@Baja Gaijin:
1. Needs to be written in SPLAK! on a bottle of gin if Toby is going to notice it.
2. Mud is too busy knocking those muddy boots with Mae Mae.
Mary Worth:
This storyline is obviously about people in general and Toby in particular wrongly believing that Ian and Mary are having an affair based on flimsy circumstantial evidence, so I’m really curious what actually inspired the parrot to scream “Oh, Mary! Oh, Mary!” I’m hoping Ian experienced a Marian apparition, and the apartment complex is about to be overrun by pilgrims visiting the shrine to Our Lady of Charterstone.
MW: You know it is still on the table that Mary and Ian are actually having an affair. We really don’t know. At this point it is still a kind of Schrodinger’s box. (I will refrain from labeling it Mary’s Box for now.) So let us delight in the possibility of what that affair would entail as it makes itself known to Charterstone!
MW: TIRED: Mary’s having sex with Ian. WIRED: Mary’s having sex with a parrot.
DT: “Dammit, I wasted a perfectly good villain rant!”
GT: Ah, so this is why we’re focusing on a Valley Tech-Goshen game: when Orlov collapses from a major cardiac event, the blame will fall on Coach Permawave for drafting him and Emily for running plays that cause him to work too hard on defense, leaving Gil Thorp’s White Male Protagonist hands clean.
JP: CanuckDownSouth has adequately pointed out the issue with Charlotte being in the front seat, so it falls to me to add that schools don’t release small children to just anyone who shows up asking for them, and it’s entirely possible April isn’t on the list of approved pick-up people and wouldn’t be able to get her after school no matter what. And that all of this drama is predicated on Charlotte suddenly being all in on trusting a parent she didn’t want anything to do with two weeks ago, which feels like the most unrealistic part of all.
Rex Morgan, M.D.:
Oh, you didn’t appreciate it when these guys said they were viewing the “fall colors” while the trees behind them were filled with a bright green? Well, what if we put the action in a blank existential void with no background at all? How you fuckers like that, huh?
BB: One more reason Gen. Halftrack should retire: Instead of dressing down his subordinate for being insubordinate, he pleads his case to said subordinate in the most pathetic way possible.
FC: “Mommy! I’m done cleaning my room! Come look quick before before Gary—that smug bastard I bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat and shoved under my bed—starts to stink!”
@Glarryg: I regret to inform you (I don’t) that the birds don’t care even if they are copulating. It’s not unusual for parrots to form same-sex partnerships, and even produce unfertilized eggs as a result!
The Phantom: When a racist meet a racist trope while walking through the jungle…there are explosions, apparently?
RMMD: So, “You’re on the email list, right?” is the new “F*#+ off and leave me alone”?
MW: I forgot there were two birds, so I thought the last panel was some kind of Toby fever dream of one parrot in a hallucinatory montage. Then I remembered this is Mary Worth, where the only hallucination is that the narrative in any way resembles real life.
Even Toby has to know that Mary is about as sexual as a packing peanut and the most obvious explanation is that she’s been meddling in some parrot drama.
***
Look at that expression in panel two. Whatshername is going to be pounding on Mud’s door at 3 in the morning demanding to hear “Muddy Boots”.
The Phantom: Holy crow! I did not expect such a
frighteningaccurate depiction ofElon MuskLeon SkumIan Mollusk! Also, was his rocket named The Avarice? The Phantom‘s Parody 9000 hardware is really chugging away! Good for Undead Lee Falk and company!RMMD: has there been a more exciting storyline than The Harwoods Take a Stroll?
The Phantom:
As someone who doesn’t follow The Phantom, I’m really confused what the text box in the second panel means by “‘The Avarice has landed,’ 6/10/2024—11/23/2024″. I assume the Avarice was the extremely on-the-nose name for Ian Mollusk’s rocket? And The Phantom wants us to remember when we saw it, two fucking years ago? But what really puzzles me is the wide date range given for the quote, as if the strip had a five month period where every day’s strip included the phrase “The Avarice has landed”, just to really make sure we got the point about corporate greed.
FC: After Billy’s gay friend Gary helps him clean his room, he sets about working on his outfit. “Think pink, B-Man.”
GT: “Quick, throw deep while Orlov is getting high on spray paint!”
@TheDiva: I suppose this means we might just get ‘fake CIApril’ after all. Come Monday, the real CIApril will show up at the school, the raspberry-haired brat isn’t there (‘But Miss CIApril, she just left with you! What are you talking about?’) and she turns the school into a smoking hole in the ground.
“You know we’re fans of yours, Mud — and maybe fans of Mae Mae, may she rest in peace after the Mau Mau caught her in a muumuu.”
@TheDiva: JP: CanuckDownSouth has adequately pointed out the issue with Charlotte being in the front seat, so it falls to me to add that schools don’t release small children to just anyone who shows up asking for them, and it’s entirely possible April isn’t on the list of approved pick-up people and wouldn’t be able to get her after school no matter what.
Come on. It’s not fair to expect the writer of a legal-themed comic strip to know any of THAT.
RMMD. The hungry look on the older woman’s face in panel two. The reference to seeing Mud “perform.” Oh. My. God. “Muddy Boots” isn’t a song. It’s a particularly horrible sex act! Mud is about to put the “root” back in “roots country!”
Tomorrow’s Mary Worth:
“SCRAWK! I’M GONNA CUM! SCRAWK GONNA CUM!”
“MUY RÁPIDAMENTE! SCRAWK ”
“DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ANYTHING TO ME!”
MW: Toby should call Jeff and let him know what’s going on. Jeff will then take Toby on a consoling cruise, ending with surf and turf at the Bum Boat and a moonlight stroll on the dock. Toby will get Jeff’s best bedside manner, as he takes her in his arms to comfort her. The parrots, flying overhead, will report back to Ian. “Oh, Jeff! Oh, Jeff!”
Two can play this game.
New Nancy: Is Nancy now anti- hat!!
Phantom: Howard Chaykin!? Now that is a surprise. The PhantomStole My Rocket will be the name of the band with the number 1 hit in 2036: Tokoloshe.
GT: Since the strip is wiling to play dirty to torment Gerard’s just have the QB cadence be “kidnapping, felony, felony, hit”
JP: April was delayed because her coffee order was messed up. She didn’t Rambo her way across Russia, blowing up gulags and “putting to sleep” just to get a tepid cup of joe. Pleas let there be a scene at the school later.
ML: perfect! Toby doesn’t trust logic or basic sense but leaps to the conclusion that her buds the parrots caught Mary with Ian. But she doesn’t take this lying down. She dresses up like an undergraduate to remind him why he fell in love with her.
RMMD: “Glad to hear you’re staying here in Glenwood, Mud.”
“I don’t have much choice. I sat on this bench when freshly painted and now I cain’t get up.”
@Where’s Rocky?:
“Parrot feigning adulterous moans” is also the plot of “Bird of Prey” by John Collier. In that case the parrot was a demon gaslighting a man into murder-suicide, which I have little hope for here.
JP: You can tell Neddy is new at this parenting thing. Instead of hanging Charlotte’s art on the fridge like most people, she let’s her draw the license plate for her car.
RM- it’s just weird dynamic- both couples met while walking. Now the younger couple needed to sit down on order to continue the conversation. If the older couple can stand, we better get both Mud and Mae Mae on Ozempic stat!
@Treetown:
Perhaps she’s anti-Freddy Kruger cosplay?
The Phantom-Possession is 9/10 of the law.
FG: Meanwhile, back at the rebel base, Queen Dezzy, the Marlin Perkins of the Tropican resistance, is ordering another vokkotini at the cabana bar.
Hi & Lois : Okay, does Chip believe he’s a Gen Xer, or an Alpha? ‘Cause the former is “those guys are in their 50s now, come on”, while the latter would surprise me because what kid Chip’s age knows that Alpha is a letter?
***********
The Phantom : if you don’t recall THAT storyline, it might be because it was overshadowed due to running concurrently with the Mary Worth goldfish funeral and Judge Parker’s inexplicable “DeClan’s family drama” storylines.
************
Rex Morgan M.D. : THRILL at old people asking each other if they’re subscribed to an e-mail newsletter!
BG&SS: Whoa, Snuffy, do you really want to discuss the underfunded legal aid programs in rural areas? Your chicken stealing and moonshining already make you a marked man; do you just want to add to the sheriff’s grudge?
Arlo & Janis: Janis has soured on Barney Bear, who has a hoity-toity attitude towards limited animation ursines like Yogi, Boo-Boo, and Cindy.
The Phantom: “His Rocket…? That Rocket?”
How many rocket related escapades has The Phantom been getting up to lately?
JP: This school seems to be fanatically strict about tardiness. Tomorrow we see Charlotte kept after and forced to clap the erasers.
Phantom: He’s not a space alien? Damn!
@TimP:
I think it’s not so much about how many rocket escapades the Phantom has had as it does concussions (which also explains why he obsessively reads and re-reads the Phantoms’ journals–the man has no short-term memory).
Phantom – Look, I don’t buy this. Ignis Vindicta seems to be competent and lucid. Elon Musk could never.
Apple Annie – I know they won’t do it, but the best possible resolution to this would be that Mary and Ian *are* having an affair. Granted, that would also be icky and weird, but this is a strip that has shown Wilbur in multiple relationships, so it’s far from the worst thing we’ve seen.
Rex Morgan, PI – I complain occasionally about the strip’s focus on the growing roster of Americana musicians, but I think it’s a smart pivot, really. The more we see of Mud Mountain Murphy, the less we see of Rex.
MWParrot-based evidence is the best evidence. For reals.
@Old School Allie Cat:
MWParrot-based evidence is the best evidence. For reals.
– Phoenix Wright, attorney at law
…Hey, maybe that should be Sunday’s
(apocryphal)quote!Rex Morgan: You’ve gotta hand it to Mud Mountain Murphy. Other musicians build up their fan bases by putting out albums, appearing on talk shows, and hiring a team of social-media experts. He does it the hard way — by sitting on a park bench, waiting for couples to walk by, and encouraging them to sign up for his email list. That’s an authentic roots music artist, I’ll tell you what!
The Phantom: The Phantom stole his rocket!?? Man, everyone warned me not to buy into the SpaceX IPO, but that stock really can’t catch a break!
9CL: I Speak Jive was correct yesterday — that’s not Juliette Burber at the piano. From today’s strip, looks like it’s Selina Kyle.
She also changed out of the sexy sexy revealing high-cut ballet leotard and into one of Edda’s inexplicable sleeveless/turtleneck combos. Or maybe this is a completely different woman. Brooke should start giving his female characters huge facial warts or goiters or something, so we can tell them apart.
Phantom: Mollusk-man thinks the Phantom stole his rocket. And exactly how? Shove is in his stripey Spandex man panties? I’m pretty sure someone’d notice that bulge.
MW: If I were to ask people to name a famous Iago, some would mention the Shakespearean villain who convinces Othello that Desdemona is cheating on him, and others would mention the wisecracking cartoon parrot from Walt Disney’s Aladdin. Right now, Mary Worth is evoking both Iagos simultaneously. That’s pretty brilliant. Hats off, Karen Moy.
RMMD: Glenwood — the place to go when you want to declare your once-thriving career is well and truly dead.
Phant: I prefer Ian Mollusk to Ian Musk for a number of reasons. For one thing, Mollusk is able to move his face.
“Uh, Mrs. Cameron, do you mind if we go around? You’re blocking the way to the entire second floor.”
@The Ghost of Jarrod: “Phantom – Look, I don’t buy this. Ignis Vindicta seems to be competent and lucid. Elon Musk could never.” Did you miss how he lost control of his AI controlled drones and the Tokoloshe?
MW – And that’s why you never discuss a hit Broadway comedy about Abraham Lincoln’s marriage in front of your parrot.
MW: Toby, Ian isn’t cheating on you. He divorced you months ago. Because of the parrots. (Newspaper comics are a low bandwidth medium. We can assume stuff happens in the world that isn’t shown in the comic.)
REX MORGAN M.D.: Panel #1: Boy, winter sure sets early at Lazy Artist Acres.
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): “You know we’re fans of yours, Mud…and fans of Mae Mae’s too. You can tell by the way we asked who the fuck she was at the beginning of this conversation, and you having to introduce her to us.” (That happened waaaaaaaaaay long ago at the beginning of this week, so Hank and Yvonne can be forgiven for not remembering that far back.)
REX MORGAN M.D. (3); Yvonne: “Especially if that means we get to see you perform more often”
Mud (flustered): “Well I’m flattered that you’re big fans of mine, but I don’t know if I can make love to Mae Mar right in front of….”
Yvonne: “I meant ‘perform your music’, you dummy!” (pauses in thoughtful reconsideration) “Of course if you play ‘Muddy Boots’ you can screw right there on stage and I won’t mind. Hell you can even have a go at her right here and now on the park bench as long as you keep the songs coming.”
RMMD: Glenwood has replaced the county fair circuit as the Elephant’s Graveyard where washed up country-western artists go to die.
@Baja Gaijin: Rex Morgan mashup – Yup.
@Glarryg: Brigman has drawn the parrots like that since the story where they were introduced. The female parrot has had eyelashes since she first showed up. And yes, it’s to distinguish the parrots apart. It was either eyelashes, a lace collar, or a hair bow.
@Voshkod: That’s what John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi said.
@Ukulele Ike: I can’t tell if that’s the same world class pianist as yesterday’s, or if she’s Juliette or some other character.
Daddy Daze this week is about the dad slowing going insane because he dropped off the baby at his ex wives house. It’s the kind of existential horror that is fun for the whole family.
Phantom – “You sunk my battleship!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Your portrait is finished”
“Excellent, sir!”
“You’re hanging it already?”
“While it’s still wet…”
“I need to perform certain magickal rituals!”
Mary Worth: I’m glad Josh also recognizes what a godsend that parrot storyline was. It was, I think, the absolute perfect mixture of everything bad about Mary Worth in one delightful package. An utterly bizarre yet somehow also insufferably clichéd mess where the characters meant to be seen as nice or wise came off as brainless or sociopathic, while the person learning a lesson was subjected to what felt like Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing. All of it made gutbustingly insane and funny by being about a man getting cucked and driven mad in his own house by a fucking parrot. I can think of only a few other Mary Worth plots that flew as close to the sun as the Parrot V. Ian saga.
Rex Morgan: Okay wait, if Mud didn’t live in Glenwood until now, then why the fuck has he been there ever since the cruise ship story? I thought he was living in that same shitty motel that Truck does? Are you telling me that he’s been zipping back and forth between Glenwood and wherever he was actually living this whole time? What is he the RMMD-verse’s equivalent to Taylor Swift using her private plane to a block down the street for coffee?
The Phantom: I am wondering what, like, POINT the writer is trying to make with this satire, because I just can’t figure out the connections to real life its trying to make. I mean, I’d never play defense for Elon Musk, but for all my issues with the guy, I am pretty sure that he isn’t known for using killer robots to attack gun-toting adventurers in Africa while dressed like an alien. I feel like I’d have heard of that if it were happening.
@ectojazzmage: re: MW: Best bird-based plot on the funny pages since Victor Buono and his owl Edward turned up in Dick Tracy.
Re: Phantom: I’d rather he did that than rape little girls on Epstein Island. MUCH rather.
@Anonymous: “Going insane” implies that the Daddy Daze Daddy had any sanity to lose, which I think we’ve well-established by now to be untrue.
@The Ghost of Jarrod: @lynn: Honestly, Ghost of Jarrod is right. Not because Victis is competent, he’s not; he’s just more competent and lucid than Musk, which is an incredibly easy bar to clear.
@TimP: Hopefully none that involved a red rocket.
The Phantom-“That rocket is mine! I shot down within my borders.”
It just struck me that Mud Mountain Murphy is the in-universe equivalent of Ella Langley, a big country singer who is universally known and loved and you’re an awful person if you’ve never heard them.
@Charterstoned: I almost thought you were gonna suggest this story is Toby and Mary somehow exchanging lives, like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and Kramer switch apartments and start acting like one another.
@Tabby Lavalamp: The cruise ship plotline had her demanding Muddy Boots or complaining about not hearing it literally almost every panel she appeared in! Actually pretty amazed she hasn’t brought it up yet in this plot.
@Ukranazi Stepan: The idea of Archie watching a television adaptation of himself and his community, lest of all one as batshit insane as Riverdale, is certainly a trip. I imagine it might just replicate how it feels for celebrities to watch biopics about themselves.
@CanuckDownSouth: “*rawk!* Cum in me with your big fat cock, fuck me all night right in your wife’s bed! *rawk!*”
“Wait… what these parrots are saying… oh my God! Ian is planning a surprise party!”
MARY WORTH: Boy is Toby and everyone else going to have egg of their faces when it turns out that’s just the name of a college student he’s diddling (Toby: “Oh you mean these discarded panties in our bed didn’t belong to Mary Worth? Oh Ian, I’m so happy!”)
@ectojazzmage: Re: Mary Worth: It would actually be kinda funny if this was just “revenge” on Ian’s part and now it’s Toby’s turn to be the “cuck” (cuckess?). That fact that it would be a kinda funny and interesting twist means there’s 0% chance if it happening here, but still….
@Where’s Rocky?: This is a likely possibility and leads inevitably to some dispute!
@81 ectojazzmage: on Muddy Boots: Take a gander at the Rex Morgan Mashup in comment #1.
Phantom: That’s not Elon Musk, it’s just some random Bond Villain. Oh wait, that’s exactly Musk’s brand.
@Glarryg: Wait until you see Garfield’s girlfriend, who has pink fur and huge wax lips so we know she’s a girl cat.
ZITS: “It’s migratory season” is good set up for Luney Lunes taking hold of Pierce’s hair and flying south. But I guess impossible, as Luney Lunes have webbed feet.
CS: Tomatoes. Zucchini. Apple cider. A bounty for food pantries.
LUANN: Call of the Luney Lune.
Crank: Following my confusion yesterday as to whether the donuts were actually spider donuts or cider donuts, I guess Davis didn’t know either and decided “Well, the table’s already pretty crowded, I could just … not draw them.”
JP: Remember the whole “RHB conducts a series of psychological tests to determine if Needy can be trusted, and Needy swears to never, ever gloss over uncomfortable truths with her” bit? Because it looks like Ces doesn’t! (And, to be fair, I’m not sure I blame him; I kind of wish I didn’t either.)
OTF: I’m sorry, is goth unicorn not Hallowe’eny enough for you?
RMMD: Oh, good grief, I can’t believe it’s taken this long to jog my memory — is this the same park bench from the non-stop rollercoaster that was “Truck Tyler sits on a park bench”? Can’t believe Mud’s stealing his thunder again!
Phantom: Well, now we’ve got that astonishing reveal out of the way, I look forward to the far more interesting reveal of why he’s been wearing a Grey mask and calling himself Ignis Vindicta all this time. I mean, surely DePaul isn’t just going to completely gloss over that, right? Right??
RMMD: Actually, Mr. Shmusk, it was the female employee technician at your launch complex who deliberately sabotaged the rocket’s guidance system, causing it to go off course and land in the Jungle Lord’s bailiwick. Stripeybutt just happened to be standing around when your bot attacked him.
Well it’s not like Ian is gonna be leaving any DNA evidence around, Toby. You just keep those parrots in Quality Pellets and they will do the sleuthing for you.
JP: I noticed the No Left Turn sign in the first panel. So, uh, I guess when Neddy leaves, she’s just gonna have to plow through that fence.
MW: The repeated “Oh Mary!” would indeed put unwanted images in one’s head, especially if it sounds pre-orgasmic and Scottish.
Phantom: The Phantom will have it 100% figured out once he does an inventory at the cave to see if he’s stolen any other rockets.
RMMD:</b. Oh good. Mud needs Yvette to show up at his next gig. Otherwise he might forget to play “Muddy Boots”.
C-Shaft: What’s left for Saturday? Bring it home with Michael Caine as a strung out abortionist?
DT: Gotta be a slow crime week if the latest case is the Phantom Bouquet Leaver.
Dustin: Mark it. We’re not that far away from reading, “A Plugger will download a subscription flagging app and flag three other subscriptions to subscription flagging apps.”
GT: No, Borys! Remember what Coach Gerads told you. Don’t start Project Blow Your House Down until after you get to Gil Thorp’s place.
H&L: Assuming Chip and his friend with the perfectly balanced tiny sailor hat are supposed to be Generation Z, that almost certainly mean that Hi’s parents also come from a generation with just a letter. It also probably means that Lois went through a Riot Grrl phase and Walker-Browne are holding out on us.
Luann: This is confusing because in panels 2 and 3 the scalloping on Luann’s dialog balloons makes it look like she’s just thinking these things, to the extent she’s capable of thought.
@Rover Berkeley: Just a good ole girl, never meaning no harm…
LUANN: The only useful thing Luann is going to do for this child is to serve as a living example of Failure To Launch syndrome. Hopefully Brad and Toni don’t fail their kid as badly as Frank and Nancy failed theirs.
Proposed mashup: SQUACK Play Muddy Boots! SQUACK
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#90. PHANTOM: That’s how I remember it too– the female employee, cheered on by coworkers, was a he one who sabotaged the rocket. Don’t remember Kit’s being involved
Phantom: THAT rocket? Wait, now, how many rockets HAVE I stolen? I mean, it was nothing next to that Saturn V! Some people are so sensitive!
@White Rabbit:
You owe me for the cigarette smoke up my nose laughing at this, Rabbit! Brilliant!
@Vulpes: The quotation marks around “The Avarice has Landed” marks it as the title of that particular story arc. It’s a convention often used with short stories or stories within serialized media–like comic strips.
@Guillermo el chiclero: if you want to hear an excellent song about washed-up country singers, may I suggest: “Would You Catch a Falling Star” by John Anderson?
@UncleJeff:
#102. Jeff, thanks to you and YouTube for letting me enjoy that oldie again, now that I better relate. A bit of side humor that on YT he’s playing it with a full band and middle-aged backup singers.
@UncleJeff:
#102. Jeff, thanks to you and YouTube for letting me enjoy that oldie again, now that I better relate. A bit of side humor that on YT he’s playing it with a full band and middle-aged backup singers.