Religious fervor
Post Content
Gil Thorp, 10/1/26
[Between panels two and three] “… and … what’s that? Coach Clover seems to be discussing something with her assistants and … oh my gosh, folks, it appears that Valley Tech is parading the famous Panagia Hodegetria icon of the Theotokos — one of the Virgin Mary’s titles in Eastern Christianity — along the sideline. The Byzantines used to carry this ancient portrait, rumored to have been painted by St. Luke himself, along the walls of Constantinople in times of crisis; it was thought to be lost when the Ottomans conquered the city but it seems it’s right here in the Valley Conference! And Borys Orlov, the Slavic terror who’s been dominating tonight’s game so far, falls to his knees in a show of piety before the blessed relic, allowing Jones to make a clean catch for Valley Tech. Now it’s first and goal! Can VT make this run count?!”
Gearhead Gertie, 10/1/26
Because, Gertie, Dale is dead! He’s been dead and in the ground for more than 25 years! He wouldn’t want you to live like this. He’d want you to move on! There are lots of exciting and charismatic new drivers in NASCAR these days. It’s OK to pick one as your new favorite! It doesn’t dishonor Dale’s legacy!
151 replies to “Religious fervor”
G. &*^@#$! Thorp – Someone should tell Marty Moon or the narration balloon that teams score points in football, not runs.
“Today’s clash is Gil Thorp’s ex-wife against Gil Thorp’s wedding crasher. Wait, do things still revolve around Gil Thorp even if he is not present? Is the universe tailored to him? Am I? The existential implications are staggering!”
Gil Thorp-Is someone getting Fredoed?
FC-You’re going to want to call a priest. It looks like Jeffy’s possessed.
I have no sympathy for Gertie’s husband. You have known for years that she is necrophiliac fanatic trapped in a world of her own, any pain resulting from staying with her is only your fault!
Turning her house into a shrine for a man who left a hole in her life? Gertie is like Miss Havisham if Great Expectations was written by someone with no talent
RMMD:
Speaking of religious favor, in today’s second panel, Mud looks as if he believes that he’s about to be taken up into The Rapture.
Gearhead Gertie:
Did you know that the ancient Greeks were so mesmerized by the number 3 that they used to run around shouting “Threeness! Threeness!”? Of course, they did it in the ancient Greek language.
Gil Thorp:
Here’s betting Coach is going as Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider for Halloween.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: It’s amazing that someone who apparently knows less about sportsball than me (runs=baseball, football = goals and touchdowns…) could get a gig writing a _sports_ _drama_ comic!
GT: It’s a completed pass, to one of the Jones boys.
DT: No, Blowtop. You’ve still got one family member left. He plays varsity football for Valley Tech.
GT: Wedding Crashers or more correctly ‘Alickadoos’ are caught offguard as the VT ‘jumper’ is lifted to take the ‘pill’ during a ‘lineout’. A confused Coach Gerards exclaims angrily; “Why did I let her talk me into rugby rules!”
An almost religious obsession with the number three? I guess that’s how Arians, Unitarians, Jews and Muslims imagine Trinitarian Christians to be
Gearhead Gertie:
I’m not a NASCAR fan, so when NASCAR legend Kyle Busch died at a tragically young age earlier this year, my first thought (after “oh, that’s sad”) was “How will Gearhead Gertie take this?” While I never expected him to displace Dale Earnhardt in her affections, I did speculate that his storied career, combined with the romance of an early death, might lead to him becoming a saint in Gertie’s Church of the Holy Car #3. If he has, there’s no sign of it, as instead of, for example, creating a small shrine to Busch in a corner of her house, she’s been spending money on what have to be custom-made #3 rugs, lampshades, and curtains. Truly, Dale is a jealous God, and thou shalt have no other gods before him.
Gil Thorp : Tomorrow : Borys rushes the VT quarterback, strips him of the ball, runs the entire 100 yards to score a touchdown. (honest question : would this be anymore absurd/inaccurate than what has happened so far?)
*************
Moose & Molly : Oh, THAT’S why they discontinued Cool Tools ™! (and the other such “buy your kid a miniature toolkit” playsets)
Gertie is clearly hoping that some fellow NASCAR fan will take it upon him or herself to turn her entire house into an unofficial museum primarily centered around Dale. Dale Earnhardt’s surviving family will think it’s a sweet gesture, until they step foot in the living room and see a resentful Ghost of Gertie’s Husband trying eternally to alter the house and make at least one square foot of it normal and non-NASCAR related.
GT: Good idea, Emily, but I don’t see how a reluctant high school teacher and a weirdly adorable rock alien are going to help in these circumstances…
Gil Thorp:
We already knew that Milford is obsessed with high school sports to a frankly unhealthy degree, but if you ever needed additional evidence of that, the fact that you can become the talk of the town simply by showing up to the wedding of a high school athletics coach uninvited should more than satisfy you.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: My interpretation was that “run” referred to a series of good plays rather than a result. Unfortunately for the writer, a productive series of offensive plays is called a “drive”. ”
Run is reserved for a play in which the ball is, well, run with, as opposed to a pass play, which is depicted in panel three.
So, yeah, the producers of this strip have no clue. . .
That was me. Sorry
GT: “Hail, Mary, full of grace. Help us, we got messed up face.”
Gearhead Gertie: Dale Earnhardt? In the ground? You can look for him, but he is not there, for he is racing.
@But What Do I Know?: This was also my thought. Therefore it is correct.
@Ettorre: @Vulpes: Yeah, I’m suddenly feeling a lot of sympathy for “Gerads and Darby.” Also, I’m being reminded of that old joke with the punchline “But you f*** one goat…”
“Sometimes you’re so impulsive
You shaved off all your hair
You look like Borys Orlov
And you don’t even care” – Tom Petty (adapted)
GG: “Our neighbor, Ian Cameron is stepping out on his tedious wife with Mary Worth. Maybe I should, too.”
GT: Someone needs to turn Marvel or DC on to Gerads. The man has “lab accident supervillan” written all over him.
DtM: Good one, Dennis. I may steal it.
MW: Is Toby implying that she actually has the percepacity to SENSE Ian’s highjinks, or does she not know what “sneaking around ” means.
Dustin: Please, like Dustdad cares about things like “ultra-processed.” He’s only concerned about whether or not he can inhale the entire cake before his wife finds out about it.
Luann: Also the motto on the deGroot coat of arms, as established by Etienne des Gruttes, a somewhat hapless chevalier of the thirteenth century: Nescimus quid agimus.
MT: AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
MW: Please, Toby, you barely even know what’s going on in front of your face, let alone behind your back.
Phantom: So the Phantom has decided to take a page from Rex Morgan and let somebody else handle the problem while he sits back and does nothing.
RMMD: “Plus this place weirdly has the highest density of roots country fans in the world, so it just makes good business sense.”
Has anyone checked Earnhardt’s grave recently? If his body is missing, I’d like to direct the authorities to that shrine Gertie’s chair allows her to stare at.
GG: You could start pulling for Austin Dillon, Gertie, and you wouldn’t even need to get rid of all the 3 merchandise! Of course, you’d have to be content with seeing your driver run outside the top-10 most weeks.
GT: This looks like a scene out fo the hot new series Friday Night No Lights
GG: “I was just thinking that maybe we could get a second chair? My legs…so tired..”
Gil Thorp: I don’t want to keep harping on Coach Gerads’ hair, I really don’t, but it’s just so wonderfully impossible that I can’t stop staring! The “bald mullet” is one of the worst ideas in fashion history, but Gerads then forced a wizard to animate his hair, I guess?
He looks like a supervillain with “prehensile hair” who’s still growing it out. Right now, his shoulder-length locks can only mildly inconvenience his foes, but five years from now? Do-gooders beware!
Trixie would probably be able to scam Gertie of every cent she has by pretending to be a NASCAR driver.
FC: Never seen a toilet held down by four bolts. It’s normally two. Must be to keep whatever poltergeist that put Jeffy’s head on backwards from rising up through the plumbing.
Funnier for me personally if Gertie was decorating the home in 43s and Petty blue, and she allowed her grandkids art from the Cars movie only if it depicted Strip Weathers.
MW Oh Toby… it’s kinda sweet how you think you’re perceptive and all, but you could barely even figure out that Ian hated the parrot when he was literally screaming at it. I’m pretty sure he could bring a woman home and introduce her literally as his “affair partner” and you’d think they were in some academic business together.
@TheDiva:
On Luann : I wonder if “when asked about the sex, Bwad & Toni’s reply is that they have no idea what they’re doing” is intentional, or if the Evansii didn’t realise that Mrs Horner should have reacted to Luann’s answer with “I meant the sex OF THE BABY. Is it a boy or a girl?” (to which Luann replies “Oh, they ALSO said they have no idea what they’re doing regarding that, too.”)
No matter how hard she tries, Gertie’s husband just won’t take the hint that she really wants a threesome. Presumably involving Dale Earnhardt’s corpse.
GG: Mr Gertie jokingly suggests they go MOPAR for their next car. Gertie asks not so jokingly if he’d like a fuel-injector enema.
GT: “Oh, yeah? Well, wait’ll we hit you with our ‘Act of Contrition’ play!”
CS: You said “cider” correctly three days ago, you unfunny hack. You’re a financial and safety hazard to everyone around you. And you’re at least 107 years old. Would you please just die?
GA: I was happy before seeing this strip and remain the same after.
DT: A cemetery is a public place so Tracy is just exerting his right to wander. Or did he specifically drive to their private family plot? In that case, yeah, he is razzing the family.
JP: Cut and Paste gone bad – that rear view of the car in Frame 1 is clearly out or proportion
MW: I’m glad to see that the creators are sticking with their character design. Toby is young, attractive and not too bright! Consistency!
RMMD: You can almost here their eyeblinks clicking – except for that modern animatronics are pretty good.
GT: There are so many goofs and gaffes it is easier to note what is correct. The shape of the American football seems close. The players are wearing jerseys and pads. The helmets have face masks. The editor must be AI since no one who actually has any awareness of modern high school football in the USA would have this art, dialogue or plot. Oops, I forgot – this is Milford land.
GT: Unlucky Goshen is on the verge of winning when the stars, and the universe, blink out of existence.
GT: If Valley Texh is throwing a Hail Mary when they have first and goal nobody will see it coming.
Gearhead Gertie: In comics, characters rarely age or change. Gertie will remain in stasis, even as the memory of Dale Earnhardt recedes further and further into the past. There will come a time when the comic strip (produced by Mike Smith’s grandchildren or the AI content creators of GG Humor Amalgamated Inc.) depicts Gertie worshiping a race car driver who died before she was born. At that time, it will appear that she is longing for the days when NASCAR competitors were human beings rather than self-driving machines.
@Hibbleton: The Nine Billion Scores of Goshen.
DtM: Henry’s look says less “Kids say the darndest things” and more “I’m such a degenerate gambler my five-year-old figured it out!”
FC: It doesn’t matter whether the seat is up on down. Without something for Jeffy to stand on … well let’s just say I feel sorry for whoever has to use the bathroom next.
MW: The punchline to the old ‘hair lip, wooden I’ joke goes right over Toby’s head. To be fair though, Parrot 1 did tell the lead up in Spanish.
JP: I’m glad Charlotte’s getting out of there before the team of assassins comes for April (where she kills them all in a horribly violent manner).
RMMD: Why do Mud and Mae have the same glazed-over look couples have after the third hour of a revivalist meeting? And the Harwoods look like they’ve just been released from a ‘reform through labor’ camp. I guess Rex’ walk-in ketamine clinic is open again.
6Chx: They’re both, like, dead, right? Dead and beginning to rot?
MW: How could Ian bring himself to be unfaithful to a woman who matches her nail polish, lipstick, and earrings to the color of her blouse?
I hate when Josh does Gearhead Gertie because then everybody feels compelled to snark on Gearhead Gertie and there are only a very few things you can say about it, most of which aren’t funny.
Mary Worth
Yessss!!
The parrots are proving far more sinister than their mysterious arrival.
That early-on red-flag ability to menace is now really on shine!
Unlike physical and verbal assaults hurled at Ian, the parrots are using psychological manipulation on Toby.
“Que loco”- does that refer to the situation or Toby herself?
Parroting back self doubt – perfection.
These parrots have Toby in their beaks, and by keeping her insecure, they ensure they have a forever home, a forever supply of wounded human soul, and whatever parrot food that comes in a small boxes.
Toby is parrot chow.
MW and JP seem to be sharing the same “misunderstanding” plot point.
It is clear at this point that Mary and Ian are planning a surprise party for Toby and Ian. It is also clear that April will arrive after Neddy leaves with Charlotte and ASSUME that bad actors have taken her and go on a mama bear rampage tracking down Neddy. In both cases a simple phone call and calm conversation would have resolved matters without bloodshed. Heck, let’s resolve the whole strip that way.
Murky Tail:
“I’m Mike ‘Big Hat’ Crispini.”
“So? What do you want?”
“To sell you insurance.”
“Insurance? I don’t need no steenkeen insurance.”
“Sure you do. Nice little exterminator kit you got there. Pity if something were to happen to it.”
9CL: Hang on — I thought Juliette and her medical professor husband were the only two characters in this strip who weren’t world class musicians. Well, okay, maybe she’s playing “Chopsticks.”
Wait, Juliette isn’t a professional ballet dancer, either. So, she’s playing “Chopsticks” in a bathing suit?
Much like Mr. Bennett, Gertie’s husband is trapped in a prison of his own making.
The jokes in Gearhead Gertie are so generic that I don’t think the creators of this comic actually watch very much NASCAR themselves There isn’t any mention of current events that are happening in the sport. I think they read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page and maybe the Disney Cars movie and that is about all the research they did to create a comic about a NASCAR obsessed fan.
Pluggers is doing reruns this week of extremely lazy and unfunny comics from decades ago. They have this logging in joke and they didn’t even show the Pluggers sitting on a toilet struggling to have a bowel movement.
@TheDiva: #36: re-Luann: The Dutch peasant family depicted in the famous Van Gogh painting, The Potato Eaters, were named DeGroot.
Hi and Lois: Thankfully the twins are eternally stuck at a prepubescent age otherwise this joke about bodily fluids on a pillow would very quickly become NSFW.
@Ukulele Ike: #47: Actually. I kind of like it when Josh razzes on Gearhead Gertie. I don’t follow the strip and I can breeze by all the comments on it, adding minutes to my life.
GT: My friend was talking about one of his favorite movies “Project Hail Mary”
I asked if it was some sort of religious movie.
He said no, it was science fiction and that “Project Hail Mary” is a football term.
I believe this ties into today’s comic, and not just the characters praying for the sake of praying.
Wednesday Mother Goose and Grimm: I know I’m a day late but how lazy are the writers that they can’t take 5 seconds to Google search if any cats have been in space. Also that obese green cat I think was supposed to be some kind of joke about The Incredible Hulk character but it looks as if it’s green because maybe it died?
@Banana Jr. 6000: IRL, if someone’s elderly parent/parent-in-law came home acting like this, you’d call the doctor and have them placed in a memory care facility.
@treetown: Characters not communicating when they easily could is just the cheapest, easiest, dumbest way to create “drama,” particularly in an age of cell phones, and when it comes to Judge Parker, the stakes are incredibly low here. Option 1: Neddy waits for April and Charlotte is late for one (1) day of school, after which Neddy tells April to get her shit together. Option 2: When April called to say she was running late, Neddy tells April that they have to get going now and suggests that April pick Charlotte up after school and also to get her shit together. Anyway, I look forward to April appearing in OG Judge Parker’s traffic court after her road rage rampage. I assume he’ll help her fake her death so she can avoid the fine.
Daddy Daze: I like his enthusiasm for choosing a movie he thinks will have lots of swearing. “Oh wow, they say the f-word and the b-word in this movie! That’s so cool”
Gearhead Gertie – I refuse to believe that Gertie doesn’t own at least one item that has a humongous 3 with angel wings. Maybe it’s in the St. Dale chapel in the yard.
9CL – @Ukulele Ike: I have no idea who this woman is, but I don’t think that she’s Juliette. Doesn’t Juliette have brown hair?
She does have the same hideous profile as every other female character, so who knows who she is.
Arlo & Janis – If Arlo was surprised by what the bear did to the iron shepherd’s hook, wait until it digs into the barbecue grill.
Frazz – But somehow the world’s best runner still thinks that strenuous running is fun. Maybe it’s because he can let everyone else know how superior he is.
JP – Oh, wonderful – this is turning into another “April is missing!” crapfest. This won’t be a flat tire or some other mundane reason – the CIA grabbed her for one more mission, or maybe another enemy kidnapped her for reasons that will make no sense and that will be impossible to care about.
Well, I came to laugh at the comics and I ended up falling down a wikipedia rabbit hole on the Byzantine Empire and the fortifications of Constantinople in particular.
Was I disappointed to learn there was no wiki article on a legendary Slavic warlord named Borys ‘The Slavic Terror’ Orlov? Yes, yes indeed I was.
@Charterstone: Dune: You are not going to enjoy reruns of Seinfeld.
Arlo & Janis Wash an outdoor grill? No way! Where do you think all the flavor comes from?
@Anonymous: strip/sack/touchdown… it’s happened before.
This really lays bare how much more interesting Gearhead Gertie would be if she had an opinion on Carson Hocevar.
@Guy Nerdlinger: Yesterday’s ashes for tomorrow’s burgers – -Al Bundy
GT — you run a hail Mary against a standard defense, and you only get to the 1 yard line? VT might as well punt, because they aren’t going to score no-how.
@treetown: Re – JP: Cut and Paste gone bad – that rear view of the car in Frame 1 is clearly out or proportion
Plus, the car itself fluctuates in size (or Neddy does). In Frame 1, it’s taller than Neddy, and in Frame 2, Neddy is the taller one.
GG – 25 Years dead, huh? So his career spanned Gertie’s “child-bearing years.” This explains a lot.
@TimP: At least Seinfeld plays its unlikeable assholes’ self-inflicted problems for laughs!
@Charterstone: Dune: Fair point!
@Ukranazi Stepan: While I do get the reference, it’s funnier of I imagine you mean the H&L baby.
@Hibbleton: I think you’ve guessed the name of the Broni baby.
@treetown: The editor must be AI since no one who actually has any awareness of modern high school football in the USA would have this art, dialogue or plot. Oops, I forgot – this is Milford land.
Editor?!? Hah! Not only won’t they pay anyone to edit this shit, they won’t spring for the AI tokens either!
GT: “Wedding crashers Gerads and Darby have been the talk of the town. People have so many questions. Which one is which? Are they gay? Who does that blond guy think he’s fooling with that long hair when we can see that he’s balding on top, where it counts? What kind of pathetic loser crashes a wedding to intimidate a high school football coach? Yes, they’ve got people talking, all right!”
GG: I cannot help but be transfixed by that model car on the end table in the lower left corner. See it? It looks like an anamorphic illusion where, if you see it from a particular angle it looks three dimensional but if you get up close to it, you’ll see that it’s just a flat, distorted picture.
GG: I suspect Gertie would go to a neighbor’s home with a small shrine to Elvis and comment how creepy that is.
@Anonymous: I’m reminded of the Gearhead Gertie strip where the main character was watching a race on TV, and the cars had no numbers or corporate logos on them.
Gearhead Gertie – “We have to keep up with the Joneses. The neighbors are one-upping us by redecorating their house with giant 4s!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I wonder if I should replace my servants with robots”
“I enjoy being able to order people about… But then on the other hand…”
“Sometimes I get exhausted just watching them do all that work!”
Gil Thorp: Yet another example of Gil Thorp’s bizarre belief that high school coaches are the same as blockbuster movie star celebrities. Marty is talking about Gerads crashing Gil’s wedding as if its some spicy tabloid gossip that everyone’s heard about and he’s the papparazzi spilling the deets, when realistically the majority of people at the game would have no fucking clue what he’s talking about and he’d, in fact, probably get in trouble with his bosses for making what could be perceived as personal attacks in his commentary.
Also Gil Thorp: “Yes, this is an exciting game tonight, people, I think- wait. Oh my God! Look at the sky! THE STARS ARE DISAPPEARING! ITS THE ENDTIMES!! PRAY TO ALL THE GODS IN HEAVEN FOR MANKIND’S REIGN IS AT AN END!!!”
Gearhead Gertie: “Why? Because you spent so much on NASCAR swag that we had to sell our TV, and now you can’t watch the races anyway! You just stare at the toy car on that table all day and watch old races in your head, with cars zooming around and around and around in a circle in your brain. And I’m sorry, that’s really not healthy at all. I’m telling you this so you don’t get nervous when the men in the white coats arrive — don’t worry, they’re just your pit crew, and they’ll get you fixed right up!”
GG: Gertie totally keeps Dale’s toe knuckle or something in that model car like some some kind of reliquary, doesn’t she? If fact. I’d be a little disappointed if she didn’t.
@The Rambling Otter: Amusingly, spiritual and religious faith actually DOES come up in Project Hail Mary, albeit just in one relatively minor scene that establishes two major characters are believers.
@Anonymous: You are almost certainly completely right. In fact, I personally strongly doubt that most current newspaper comic writers know even the slightest thing about the subjects of their strips. It makes a degree of sense since many of them are not the original writers, just successors to prior ones who WERE knowledgeable about the matters. But that excuse doesn’t go very far because the writers seemingly just refuse to even try and learn about what they’ve been handed or the topics within.
Gil Thorp is clueless about high school sports; as I’ve observed many times, it writes them as if they’re the movie industry. Intelligent Life is ostensibly about nerds and nerd culture but is so ignorant of them and culture in general that all it does is have its characters spout off the names of the most entry-level, mainstream media imaginable, and it doesn’t even understand those, just namedrops them like the writer vaguely heard people in the office mention them and that’s all he knows. Rex Morgan under Beatty knows nothing about medicine and resents being a medical drama, it’d rather ramble about a country music subgenre so niche and obscure that even I – the sort of music lover who listens to some seriously indie and underground shit – earnestly think it might not even be real. Judge Parker similarly lost all interest in being a legal drama because it doesn’t understand anything about law, instead running off into the wacky fantasy land of April being a super secret agent that the CIA is obsessed with constantly calling out of retirement for some reason. Mother Goose botches pretty much every fairy tale reference it tries to make these days. Dustin’s writers wouldn’t understand dynamics between old and young people these days if it bit them in the ass. Even stuff like Garfield have lost the specificity of their humor, telling generic jokes you could slot into any sitcom instead of gags specifically about pets, even though that’s a well broad and deep enough you could plumb it for an eternity. I could go on all day.
The last strip I can think of with a specific focus that really reflected that focus is Retail. A comic I love but that’s also been concluded for six years now and was – even then – a oasis in a desert of comics that either can only muster fumbling stock jokes or purposefully ignore the original premise of the strip to ramble about shit that could only appeal to the most boring, hateful, miserable and unlikable senior citizens on the planet. Most of this medium has turned into a joke, something I don’t think I can say about any other medium of art on the planet. And its legitimately depressing not only just how few creators in it make the bare minimum effort to be good, but how more of those same few creators are leaving the papers every year.
Dustin: The clerk’s job will be easier when this grocery stops making him label every single item they sell.
FC: Clam it, Jeffy. Your training isn’t going well, and you’re lucky Thel just doesn’t harness you up to a lead tied to the back door three times a day
H&L: Yes, Dot, let’s call it “spit and drool”.
DtM: It’s never too soon to develop a
prediction market addiction, uh, gaming enthusiasm Dennis.LUANN: Mrs Horner, if there is anything we know about Brad and Toni, it’s that they already “found out about the sex” ages ago (Greg Evans made that explicitly clear with those shower scenes.)
(Incidentally, the *only* reason Mrs. Horner is saying it like that is so she can mention the word “sex” in a nationally syndicated comic, because this strip and it’s “tee-hee ribaldry” is just so “naughty” and “daring!”)
LUANN (2); Incidentally, someone suggested that Mrs. Horner should have her own comic (say what?) No she doesn’t. We already have Rex Morgan M.D. if we want to see old people doing nothing but have anodyne chit-chat (about things we the audience already know.
LUANN (3): This entry can be retitled Who Cares?: The Comic!
Luann: “I want them to but…” What? Who cares what Luann wants? It’s not her baby. Even if the parents changed their minds, I would lose what sliver of respect I had for them if they did it base Luann’s pointless wants. Again who cares?
Also who cares about “the sex”? You’re going to be cleaning the poop and dealing with their crying regardless, so who cares? Say what you will about Brad and Toni but I doubt the gender is going to change anything about the love they fell for their child, so, again who cares? The Evans are strongly*overestimating how much the audience is on pins and needles over this complete banal aspect (almost as much as they have for the fact that a woman…gasp…got pregnant after having “waterbaby time” with her husband! Which we have to pretend is as much “Pulitzer material” as, say some guy losing his wife to cancer. Film at 11!)
Use of the fraudulent term, “Byzantines,” Josh? Shame. SHAME!
@Anonymous: Congratulations, you’ve demonstrated more knowledge of writing and comedy in one comment than the Evansii have in the forty year run of this comic. Unfortunately, you will now be targeted by hitmen hired by the Evansii to prevent you from challenging them for their jobs. Bummers.
@CanuckDownSouth: Ian could fuck a woman literally on top of Toby in their bed and her little brain would still crap out trying to compute it and she’d conclude that the woman is just there to give Ian some paperwork he accidentally left at his office last night.
@Ken: Frankly, your sympathy should already be with Gerads and Darby. Gerads is a nutcase, but only because Gil has actively spent the entirety of their rivalry emotionally tormenting him to the brink of insanity and then gaslighting him by acting self-righteous and above-it-all when called out, and through it all the comic is totally on Gil’s side.
Like, to give you and any new readers an idea of how bad it is, an early arc with Gerads in it involved him being understandably traumatized and anxious after a former player of his that was kicked off his team vengefully assaulted him in the parking lot. Gil’s response to that? Poach that violent player to his own team and FIELD HIM DURING A MATCH AGAINST GERADS TO PURPOSEFULLY TRIGGER GERADS’ PTSD AND WIN THE GAME BY DOING SO. And afterwards the comic seriously tried to argue that Gil was a good guy for doing this and that he was just helping Gerads overcome his fears. I shit you not.
@ectojazzmage: re: Retail: I gotta admit my favorite time of each Grumbel’s year was Halloween. Which could have been ANY workplace. Seeing Stuart show up on the sales floor as the Great Gazoo with no commentary from any of the other characters was solid gold, Jerry.
@2+2=7: “Who cares about the sex?” Little girl babies make an adorable little pee fountain when they’re undiapered on the changing table. Little boys babies tend to hit you in the eye. Also, as Hobbes said when Calvin got turned into an owl, “Little boys don’t smell so good.”
One could put those Gil Thorpe panels in any order and they would make neither more nor less sense than they do as published.
DtM: Most young comedians hone their comedic talents by imitating comics of the era they live in. Unfortunately, since he never ages, Dennis is stuck with Henny Youngman.
@Tonio: That’s a pretty good set up for a better comic. The husband says he wants to redecorate, then have Gertie showing different paint samples going, “Well, I’m partial to Petty Blue for the walls, but Winston Red or Gant Green would look nice, too!”
@Victor Von: I believe the “bald mullet” is properly called a “skullet.”
GG: Don’t be too hard on Gertie. I still worship Stirling Moss.
Pluggerz: What is this, a Plugger who’s physically able to chop wood and carry it inside without whining about his back or his knees or his elbows or whatever? He must be from a previous generation of hardy Pluggers who could carry their own weight in society.
@A Grave Mind: If it’s good enough for Lord Norwich, it’s good enough for Josh.
What A Frazzhole! : Frazz and Mrs. Hole talk about racquetball behind its back.
Slylick Fox And Comix For Kinky Kids: Mr Weber,I honestly like your parody on the “Dogs Playing Poker” style paintings.
Blondie The Neighborhood Bumstead: How about thinking about holding coffee cups by the handles,Lou?
@A Grave Mind: IK,R? But, I will cut him some slack, because if he’d said “the Romans”, people would have thought that was a mistake.
9cl — the cat looks like it’s taking a dump.
@Hibbleton: Speaking of Henny Youngman, I give you today’s Edge City (GoComics version).
I personally would prefer a joke rabbi who adhered to the comedy stylings of Lenny Bruce.
@GarrisonSkunk: Dag is lucky Lou’s thumb isn’t in the coffee. It usually is when he serves soup.
@BigTed: Time for another tune-up!
Crank: I was genuinely unsure if the joke was Ed saying “spider” when he meant “cider”, or if it was Pam assuming we were continuing the apple theme when “spider donuts” were, in fact, an actual thing which Batty wrongly believes everyone’s heard of. So I asked Grandpa Google, and spider donuts are a thing. They’re even autumnal, since decorating a donut with a chocolate spider is something you’d only do at Hallowe’en. On the other hand, cider donuts are also a thing. So, in conclusion, I have spent way to long thinking about a strip I was never going to find funny either way, which I can’t help feeling means that Batty’s won, somehow.
GG, meta: Sure, Josh, but then the creator would have to learn who those racers are. He might even have to -gasp!- actually watch a NASCAR race! That’s like expecting the creator of Intelligent Life to learn anything about nerd culture beyond “superhero movies sure are a thing!”
GT: “These wedding crashers have been the talk of the town ever since they kidnapped two bartenders and tied them up in order to replace them. Experts in Milford’s legal system say it’s the first time the principle of ‘It’s not illegal if a high school sports coach does it’ has been used against Gil Thorp!”
MW: Okay, so one of those parrots instantly repeats the last thing Toby says, but the other one — who must have been there for weeks by now, even by comic strip time — still only speaks Spanish? I guess it’s smart enough not to listen to anything Toby says.
RMMD: So, remember how the Lorna Starr fandom descended on the Glenwood Motel just long enough to bouy its ailing finances and then went away again before it got annoying or anything? Well, without them or the motel’s most regular guest, I feel like those finances might be taking a hit again. That would be bad news for Mae Mae, if bad news were a thing that happened to non-villainout Rex Morgan characters!
Sally No Forth Wall: “Bettina, what have I told you about spending too much time talking to your Uncle Ted? And by ‘too much’ I mean ‘any’.”
SH — No matter where you land on the political landscape or on climate change, you have to admit that Remora/Oceana getting sued by oil companies is about as strange as the ongoing court cases (headed for SCOTUS) between Sunoco and Boulder Colorado.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I find the going-ons in SH more interesting and realistic than anything else in our local news media.
Maybe I’m just ignorant about sports, but I swear I’m having a stroke every time I read Gil Thorp.
@ectojazzmage: They finally reached the nine billionth name. It was “Gil Thorp”.
@ectojazzmage: Oh, good grief. I quit in disgust before reaching the end of this, so I didn’t know Gil/Barajas tried to sell it as “helping” Gerads, but of course they did. I’m kind of shocked that I’m not more shocked.
GG: None of these posters are framed, except maybe the Chevy had behind Gertie’s head. At the very least she should want their living room to look less like a very sad dorm room.
GT: Please don’t give Coach Gerads a nickname that will encourage him to unleash his awful Owen Wilson impression.
@Chris Wuchte: Trust me, the impression is even worse if you do know something about sports.
This is a group of comics that really gets you asking “What’s happening with Alice and her aliens today?”
C-Shaft: No, donuts where tarantulas are going to crawl out in the middle of the night. Crankshaft got them at Urban Legends R Us.
DT: Is “Blowtop Jones yells at Dick about stuff in general” going to be this strip’s go-to interstitial. Like the Jeff/Mary Bum Boat dinners or the really boring montages in Rex Morgan MD?
Dustin: Relax. This guy is just making conversation. There’s no way he’s not going to buy the cake.
GA: Corky’s Diner is actually selling the horrible AI-generated burgers from their ads and you’re eating them. You won’t be fine for long.
JP: It’s not April’s fault that she’s late. She just miscalculated how long it would take to fly to Helsinki, cut a guy’s throat, fly back to whatever big city is nearest Cavelton, and drive to the Spencer Ranch. It’s a mistake any of us could have made, really.
Luann: “The baby is going to be born March 17th, and I’m pretty sure that means the baby will be Irish. It’s a first for our family.”
MW: That should be “¿No lo haría?” Or better yet, since it’s Toby who would know or not know, “¿Tú no lo harías?” C’mon, your resume said, “Fluent in Spanish.”
@GarrisonSkunk: Alice is on a walk with her niece, who inherited her Picasso genes.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: Luann: “Every fifth baby born is Chinese.” Oh god, TJ’s gonna have to figure out how to cook rice.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: DT: That’s right, it’s only a seven day interlude! On Saturday, Tracy will walk alone down the paths between the headstones, thinking “My lord, he’s right, I slaughtered his entire family. Maybe…a fruit basket….?”
@Horace Broon: Re Crankshaft: Yeah Dunkin’ (a coffee and donut chain that’s big in New England and used to be called Dunkin’ Donuts but dropped the last part for some obscure reason) sells spider donuts every Halloween season. The Midwest/Rust Belt equivalent probably does, too. And it seems unlikely that even Crankshaft would forget the word “cider” right after he’d used it a zillion times. Then again…Oh, I’m just adding to your problem, aren’t I?
@Ukulele Ike: You mean Bwad and Toni are going to have four more kids? Yikes. Their hot water bill is gonna be through the roof.
@Ukulele Ike: @GarrisonSkunk: Dag is lucky Lou’s thumb isn’t in the coffee. It usually is when he serves soup.
__________________________
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes in the movie “Help!” — Due to the chef being violently murdered by the bad guys while cooking,John Lennon finds a sports season ticket in his soup and puts it back in after identifying it, “I like alot of seasoning in me soup!”
Those wacky Liverpool lads!
MW- “Squark! Sure you would, Toby!” “Squarrk! Lo que tu digas, Toby! HaHaHaHa!”
@2+2=7: @2+2=7:
But how will everybody push strict outdated gender stereotypes on the baby if we don’t know the sex? This is important to the Luanniverse!
@Voshkod:
Lord Norwich was a bounder, sirrah!
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
I’m not sure, Ben (or is Artist preferred?), bit I think Dunkin’ Donuts (yeah, I’m still saying it) is national. Isn’t it? Folk from Nebraska, Alabama, New Mexico, and Utah (and obviously adjacent states), weigh in, and form a way cooler Captain Planet than the actual one!
@ValdVin: H&L: Yes, Dot, let’s call it “spit and drool”.
______________________________
Those are Thursty and Irma’s kids who with older brother Papst we haven’t seen since 1974.
@A Grave Mind: Pish posh. Next you’ll be saying scurrilous things about Gibbon!
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Dunkin’ (a coffee and donut chain that’s big in New England and used to be called Dunkin’ Donuts but dropped the last part for some obscure reason)
New England? Aren’t they an international chain, like a McDonalds for donuts and coffee?
@Where’s Rocky?: Based in Massachusetts, but everywhere.
My favorite red-sauce checked-tablecloth candle-in-Chianti-bottle south Italian restaurant in my Brooklyn neighborhood got replaced by a fuckin’ Dunkin franchise ten years ago. So long, mozzarella en carrozza and Vitello parmigiana, but now I can get reconstituted frozen doughnuts.
Mark Trail Mix:”………I’m B@tm@n!”
Mark Trail Mix (Vixen Park edition) “……..I’m just some chick in a fox costume, don’t you watch the news?!?”
@I speak Jive: Her hair is reddish, but what other 9CL has that hairstyle? It’s got to be Juliette, after a trip to the parlor to touch up her gray. You’re at least 70, Juli, put some damn clothes on when you play “Chopsticks.”
@Where’s Rocky?: but dropped the last part for some obscure reason)
_______________________________________
They decided to take advantage of Mark Samone and other comics who said,”Isnt it ironic that Dunkin Donuts® has the best coffee, and Starbucks™ has the best donuts?”
Result…..Fred the Baker will be making donuts on the unemployment line.
@Chris Wuchte: … invented by drunk Scotsmen who named a missed shot a “stroke” because every time you miss, you feel like you are going to die – -Robin WIlliams
GT: The amount of history erudition on CC never fails to impress me, starting today with Josh’s comment and moving on down through a number of other comments. I hope that when AI starts to kill all humans, it will spare the CC community until the end.
@63 I speak Jive: April’s late to pick up the kid because she’s stuck in line at the Dunkin’ Donuts, waiting for the pumpkin spice lattes to arrive.
@Ukulele Ike: Yeah, you’re right – Juliette is the only female character I can recall with that hairstyle. And why would it be a surprise that a biology professor in this strip is also a world class musician?
@Baja Gaijin: And the spider donuts.
@ectojazzmage: Donna really should have turned left…
@GarrisonSkunk: -looks up the Beatles movie Help!-
My face is frozen in an absolute state of unbelievability that this existed.
@Liam: FC-You’re going to want to call a priest. It looks like Jeffy’s possessed.
____________________________________________
What self respecting demon would add Jeffy Keane to their soul collection?
@The Rambling Otter:
@ectojazzmage: Donna really should have turned left…
_______________________________________________________
….at Albuquerque?
@The Rambling Otter:
@GarrisonSkunk: -looks up the Beatles movie Help!-
My face is frozen in an absolute state of unbelievability that this existed.
_________________________________________________________
I next show Rambling,”Yellow Submarine”
@The Rambling Otter, @GarrisonSkunk: And don’t miss A Hard Day’s Night. That one is delightful from start to finish. Help! is worth seeing, but a bit of a mess.
Pickles – News flash: When Earl Pickles was young, he was a dog.
@Peanut Gallery:
I guess Earl Pickles turned more human looking to avoid being confused with fellow Plugger Earl Houndstooth.
…
When Pluggers pat their grandchildren on the head, it’s out of envy that they still have hair, and to try and make them bald out of jealousy.
(Or is that just Earl Pickles uniquely being a jerk in a way other Pluggers aren’t?)@Ukulele Ike:
Oye: said glumly.
@Ukulele Ike: Dunkin’ Donuts is a national chain, but they’re not in every state and they have a lot more stores in the East, especially the Northeast, than in the West.
I found a map from 2024 which indictes that Dunkin’ had more stores in Rhode Island (159) than in California (141).
@A Grave Mind: @Where’s Rocky?: Interesting. I knew that they expanded beyond New England, but I thought that they were mostly big in the Northeast. Even in New York, Krispy Kreme is bigger, although the locations they opened hear in RI came and went quickly. So it just seemed to me like there would be other big coffee/donut chains in the Midwest, South, etc.
I’m not too picky on what fellow ‘mudges call me. In fact you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me RayJay. (Kidding. Don’t do that.)
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Someone should tell Marty Moon or the narration balloon that teams score points in football, not runs.
Pretty sure it’s a reference to a bad case of diarrhea for the pass receiver.
@Ukulele Ike: 9CL: even strannger, she appears to be playing Chopsticks standing up at the piano while some cat is taking a crap on the piano.
GT: Good to see that the Rogaine treatments are helping Thanos.
@Peanut Gallery: Lloyd Alexander had a book, about a wizard’s cat who wanted to be human. The wizard turned him into a human, the now human went to a small town, fell in love with a woman and butted heads with the mayor who ruled the town with an iron fist.
(Also the cat was the nicest person, defying the “cats are mean” stereotypes)
Now that I think about it, the story seems vaguely like Rankin Bass’s “Santa Claus is coming to town”
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Not Buggy Crispino?
LUANN: The unlucky state that hosts the DeGroot clan is California, right? I see a fun potential story in which Luann insists on a gender-reveal party to be held on the edge of a large highly-flammable rainfall-deprived state park, with said party involving fireworks.