Out of the past
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Marvin, 6/23/24
Not to brag or anything, but after nearly 20 years of my doing this blog, my archives page has become a valuable historical resource that anyone can use to explore the history of newspaper comic strips in the 21st century, assuming that the strip you’re looking for was something I thought was interesting or particularly bad or that I could turn into a weird riff on whatever day it was published. I myself cannot keep all this history in my head and frequently turn to the archives for answers to questions like “Have we ever actually seen Marvin’s aunt in the strip before?” It turns out that in 2006 there was a plotline involving his aunt adopting a baby from China named “Ming Ming” whose appearance is extremely off-putting because she looks exactly like a Funko Pop, something I wasn’t able to articulate at the time because, as I discovered after a little research, Funko Pops would not be invented for another five years. I am a wizened old man and I hope that you, my faithful readers, are preparing yourselves to be mummified and entombed with me in the spectacular pyramid of comics jokes I’ve been building over the past two decades.
Wait, where was I? Oh, right, what I’m saying is that I assume the Marvin creative team long ago forgot about poor Ming Ming, just like I had, and presumably they don’t use my archives page for research because they don’t want to read all the mean things I say about their work. It’s not even clear to me that this is supposed to be the same aunt, or if we can even say that there’s a fixed set of Marvin’s relatives that have continuously existed in some sense over the past 20 years. I also don’t know if being part of the neo-rockabilly lifestyle is an established bit of lore about Marvin’s dad’s terrible coworker. I could go back into my archives to find out but, you know what? I’ve already spent enough time digging through the depths of Marvin for one day. Gotta limit my exposure, for my own good.
Shoe, 6/23/24
For reasons unclear to me, Shoe recently decided to bring back Muffy Hollandaise, the Treetops Tattler’s former intern, who stopped appearing in the strip so long ago that my archives would be of no help in learning her secrets. I say the reasons are unclear to me because they reintroduced her as an avowed enemy of her former boss and a successful journalist in an industry that is, if not thriving, then at least doing better than print media; but, despite that set-up, she’s mostly being used like every other character in the strip, which is to say she delivers cruel, wordplay-adjacent zingers. I do have to say that I enjoy the way she leans in to deliver her line here. Lets you know there’s real venom in it.
172 replies to “Out of the past”
Mary Worth Mashups: A trio of modifications to today’s strip. Any tickle your fancy?
Marvin: I mean, there’s no reason you can’t just take Marvin to the bowling alley and trade him in for a ball. He’d probably fetch a decent trade in before he ruins it by shitting everywhere.
MW: I can see why Mary chose the guest list to be three senior citizens and Toby. The putrid smell of defrosted goldfish is masked by multiple other sources from the decaying elderly to soiled Depends, all mingling with the camphor Mary keeps in her living room. Only those poor dogs can smell the true horror of that room.
RMMD:
In the second-to-last panel, a distraught Velma contemplates summoning Scooby and the rest of the gang to “catch that villain.”
Meanwhile Saul is deciding to omit key elements of his story to make himself look like he’s a dispenser of sage advice. Like how when his dog died, he sunk a ton of money into giving her a huge memorial at the pet cemetery while his late wife was practically thrown into the bog because he apparently hated her. Or how he and Mary forced a ten year old girl who just lost her grandmother to get over her grief because Saul hated having her around and she didn’t worship his new dog. If he wants to be useful, he should get Toby a sippy cup of wine since she’s getting cranky.
RMMD:
The Gray Background Students remind me of the Ettinauer 226XL human cameras in Albert Brooks’ Real Life. They are there to observe, but not participate in, the action unfolding around them.
MW:
Ian clearly possesses the most prodigious oral fixation since William Howard Taft of blessed memory.
9CL: Einstein understood cartoonists, just not perverts.
Shoe: At least Muffy had the decency to cross her legs before leaning forward, the better to not look like she’s humping the counter.
Marvin: I gotta say, I feel like this is on instance in which Marvin‘s more traditional poop jokes could have really added something. Imagine if Marvin had instead answered his Aunt’s question by letting out a wet fart that lasted the last three panels, at which point the two interlopers flee the house, faces green and eyes watering? I really think it would be an improvement.
Shoe: “Turns out our ‘fingers’ are covered with stiff, insensitive feathers that make braille all but impossible to read, rendering the format completely unworkable. We’re birds!”
MW:
“Alas, poor Bisquick! I chewed him, or ate so — a swell dough of infinite zest, of most excellent pantry!”
“Put the damned muffin down, Ian.”
MW: Behind the glass wall, Willa raises a tiny fin while a tear falls from her eye. “Goodbye old friend.”
CS: You know, I’m kind of proud of Batiuk. Giving his characters awards for existing used to make up roughly 10% of his content, but he’s managed to scale it back to about 3% since the end of Funky Winkerbean. That’s still 3% too much and 1928347% more than Batiuk himself deserves, but hey, improvement.
Blondie: Why did this person apply for a job if they’re unwilling to work any day of the week? How do they have “amazing credentials” if they’re unwilling to work any day of the week? What part of this is supposed to be amusing when it’s just stupid?
JP: So… Lucas needs a stern talking to about boundaries because he’s capable of reading a train timetable and wanted to spare his guests from a lengthy wait twiddling their thumbs at the station? It’s a good thing we know Sophie and Reena are 100% right all the time, otherwise they might come off as extremely ungrateful and unlikable assholes.
DT: At this rate, my commentary on this story is just going to be increasingly-angry repetitions of how we have no concrete or even meaningfully inferable information about anything that’s going on. I don’t know why Eric Costello is this bad at storytelling, but I’m starting to think the only reason he keeps getting these guest writer opportunities is because he’s the only person who won’t show up Mike Curtis.
MW-When are we going to get to the boat?
MW-Wilbur is an old friend that none of you bothered to check on until Mary Worth said something
@jroggs:
Blondie: Why did this person apply for a job if they’re unwilling to work any day of the week?
Kudos to you for sticking with it. My eyes glazed over long before I could conclude whether she actually had a free day.
Marvin: Other than breaking out into “doo wop” music, is there any reason to think this member of Sha Na Na is going to be a bad influence?
Shoe: According to Wikipedia (sorry, I can’t do that much more research than the strip’s writer), Braille was invented in 1821. So, here’s to two centuries of this particular joke!
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
@1 Baja Gaijin:
Some do a number one. Others do a number two but number three is the best.”
MW: Ian looks so pleased with himself in the last panel! Also, if Wilbur’s your friend, Toby, why didn’t you do an elementary-school crafts project to commemorate his dead fish?!?
Zits: “Aww…Now how are we going to do our solstice sacrifice?”
FC: I thought Dolly was going to do the darnedest thing and put a helmet on the doll. No, she did the dumbedest thing and wore a helmet herself.
@jroggs: Re: Blondie: The joke, I presume, is that outside of the “apply” part, this could easily describe Dagwood.
I’m eagerly waiting for a big Sunday multi-panel of Marvin and Staph.
Shoe: I’m pretty sure the Perfesser is too lazy to start writing a novel, let alone finish it and get that shit published.
Frazz: Why can’t that snake be venomous?!?
Luann: What’s the deal with automated answering systems?!?
CS: Surprisingly, we don’t see Mason figuratively (or literally) shit on this gesture.
9CL: I’d say Brooke doesn’t have a clue about cartoonists, but there are woefully many examples of strips that can’t bother to keep up with their own continuity.
Adam@Home: The frog in the throw away panel is thinking, “Here we go. Another one of Sid‘s gigs.”
~Submitted by Mrs. Sequitur.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m not saying I enjoy Mary getting the muffins beat out of her, but I’m also not saying I don’t enjoy it.
MW: Where, I ask you, is Estelle? If MY dorky ex had a fish named for me, and that fish bit the big one, I would SO be at the crack-of-dawn, semi- formal nautical funeral!
(that is so unlikely to happen that I feel safe running my mouth. Plus, I screen my calls like a crazy person)
Shoe – The Perfesser knows perfectly well that he has never written a novel, much less had one published, much less had one published in braille. But he plays along with the gag, because he also knows perfectly well that he’s in the avian version of Laugh-In.
Don Abundio, translated:
“The decor in here is amazing!”
“Such luxury! Such opulence!”
“I figure if I’m on an elevator ride straight to Hell…”
“at least the operator should have a great ass”
@Baja Gaijin: I think Mary could use a good beating considering her history of enabling Wilbur, forcing people to stay in abusive relationships, not letting people process their emotions normally, enabling Wilbur, acting like people should go back to the 1950s, trying to force her heteronormative beliefs on everyone, and enabling Wilbur.
@MKay: Estelle is staying far away from this train wreck like a sane person.
DtM: At a certain age, human years start to approach dog years. Dennis reminds Wilson he’ll either be dead or incontinent before he’s done with him.
Menace factor: high.
CS – I can forgive a lot but not a dangling participle.
Ted also appears to be Jeff’s colleague who hangs around in suspenders and forms the other half of the “We hate our wives” double act. Knowing they’re brothers-in-law really adds a layer to the relationship. I wouldn’t want to see Jenny’s family’s Thanksgiving dinners.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: It’s called writing!
@31 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
How about other things that dangle?
@Baja Gaijin: In the third version, I think the interpretation that it’s Ian getting smashed into the fridge by Toby is more piquant.
Marvin’s Mom mentioned that her sister has a diaper-age child, a fact that they apparently forget every time she goes out on a date with this guy!
@Sequitur: re Adam@Home: Hey, that’s very astute of the missus! Yes, that’s one of our professionally trained Stars, Wisconsin J. Frog, gettin’ back to his aquatic roots with a bit of slapstick! What? You thought he would do a song-and-dance routine? That would be ridiculous…. You’re thinking of his brother…
Mother Goose & Grimm: I think Baja would say, “Do it, you wimp! DO IT!”
CS: “See, Mason? We’ve placed your star right here next to Roxy Skankworth’s, who used to strip here. She was hugely gifted.”
Blondie: Such a long way to go just to wind up with stupid. Again.
MW: This better not be the end of it. After putting up with this nausea for the better part of a month, we deserve to see the floating fish finale. You owe us this, Moy.
I was wondering what that thing on the Perfessers’ elbow was, which looks vaguely like the shape of a clothes iron?
Then I realized it’s some sort of patch, that pretentious high-class scholars tended to wear, usually ones working in universities.
Seeing as the Perfesser is not high-class in any way… I’ll just use this old line from Family Guy:
“You’re a phony! A big fat phony!!”
@The Rambling Otter:
They being bird people, I had the perfect set-up for a “Frasier Crane” joke and I blew it.
RMMD: Hey, it’s Bob Crane from Hogan’s Heroes!
H&L: Come on now, Chip hasn’t been completely idle during the past 24 hours. He’s moved his nightstand, replaced the Billy Joel poster with a negligibly more modern KISS poster, and turned around the sock hanging from his dresser drawer.
Pluggers: If you obey every useless traffic light out in the middle of deserted nowhere instead of just getting out of your pickup and peeing on the side of the road, you’re a Plugger.
JP: C’mon Sophie, just have one of your patented freakouts with the screaming of obscenities and the smashing of Lucas’s face into the nearest wall or car door*. THAT will teach him to stay in the friend zone!
RMMD: Yup, right on schedule. However, I thought at this point Flattop Jughead would have dropped the ‘Haw! Haw!’ shtick and moved to the ‘drag victim outside to a dark corner and beat them to a pulp’ phase of bullying so we could have the ‘useless friends asking ‘where oh where could X be?’ just before beating survivor just barely stumbles into the room’ cliche. Never underestimate Beatty’s ability to sloooooowwww thiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggggggs dooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnn…
*Thanks to Baja Gaijin for reminding me of that timeless moment!
JUDGE PARKER: Can you believe this guy?! Acting with the common courtesy of any Uber driver. What a jerk, amirite?!
JUDGE PARKER (2): Then again, I do know that young women nowadays have to watch out for creeps and as a result, are developing keener instincts against potential pervs. Maybe this is just Sophie and her friend intuitively figuring out that Lucas is actually just practicing his “post-sex” pillow talk. (of course Sophie’s “feminine instincts” can’t be too sharp, since she doesn’t seem to trust this guy, yet went by train to his out-of-the-way, unfamiliar house, effectively isolating herself.)
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: And at a public event to boot! You know that’s going to end up on Tik Tok (or Vivid Video, unblurred.)
Marvin: I think it’s more likely that Ted, smug toxic man that he is, is really into work of the Coen Brothers, particularly The Big Lebowski. Expect him to start downing White Russians and delivering expletive-laden monologues on why he doesn’t bowl on the Sabbath.
@The Rambling Otter: Now it’s stuck in my head…and hopefully everyone else’s.
Blondie: If you’re interviewing for a job as a chef, show up to the interview wearing a chef’s hat. It adds authenticity.
MW: Ian loves the marijuana muffins Mary serves up. Followed by a promise of booze on Jeff’s boat.
Wilbur will get maudlin and fall off Jeff’s boat, but this time there won’t be a private resort island nearby.
MW: Please, God. Make. It. STOP!!!!!!!
@Baja Gaijin: Baja raises a good point. Where is that phone call from Dawn? Has she even been in contact with Wilbur since she left? Is it ok that both Dawn and Ian are starting to behave rationally?
Marvin – Today’s throwaway panel is brought to you by Ring Video Doorbell
RxMD: “So what if I do THIS?” *SNAP*
{Crowd of kids jump bully and beat the snot out of him}
There, Beatty. THAT’S how to write unrealistic but interesting scenes.
C’shaft: Mindy, you know what it costs to get on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? $250 for the application alone, then a $75,000 sponsorship fee if you’re approved. I realize a star in front of central Ohio’s least successful grindhouse can’t command that kind of price tag, but at the very least you could have him reimburse you for the stone engraving and the paving fees.
DT: Anyone else hear Gabriel’s lines in Foghorn Leghorn’s voice, or is it just me?
Dustin: “The bad news is your determinedly sedentary lifestyle all but guarantees this injury will result in complications from blood clots and deep vein thrombosis, and you’ll die of a pulmonary embolism before you get your cast off. This is actually good news for your wife, children, co-workers, and humanity in general, but bad news for me who can no longer rely on the income from your regular office visits.”
JP: C’mon, Soph, he has a house in the Hamptons! Nothing says “future Parker-Spencer-Driver-in-law” like a luxurious residence where you can weather the latest overblown drama in your life.
Luann: And yet, she doesn’t bother to leave a call-back number.
MW: “Hush, Ian! Do you want Mary to send you to the cornfield?”
RMMD: Worst Nelson Muntz impression ever.
@Little Blue Bicycle: Dawn isn’t a goldfish or a female that Wilbur’s trying to get into the pants of (hopefully) so he forgets about her existence from time to time. She’s probably called dozens of times and he’s ignored every single one while wailing about his fish son.
Have the comics fallen so badly that not only do I appreciate that Shoe contains an actual joke, but I think it’s pretty solid? I long for the days I could have rolled my eyes at it and moved on.
@2+2=7: Bear in mind, Sophie didn’t ‘come’ here, she was for all intents and purposes dragged here by her dear ‘friend’ Reena in some misguided and patronizing attempt to get Sophie to do something other than mope around bewailing the mess her life is.
About the most interesting things in my jaunt through the comics today are the newspaper cameos of Lyman and Orson in today’s Garfield. Which tells you something.
@The Quiet Man: Reena doesn’t care about Sophie; she just wants to go to a fancy party at a fancy house in a fancy milieu. I’m hoping for Lucas’s “family home” turning out to be a ramshackle Queen Anne a la Charles Addams, with awful things peeping through the shutters and a dilapidated graveyard across the road. “This is your room….if you want anything, just scream.”
@Liam: “When are they going to get to the
fireworks factoryboat?”@43 The Quiet Man:
(Jack Benny voice) Now cut that out!
Long series of letters making cell phones not display properly.
Mary Worth – I feel deja vu because my local newspaper ran today’s strip two weeks ago.
It’s too bad that this funeral wasn’t one held at the convenience of the family.
This is excruciating. Please make it stop. However, after the burial at sea we still have a couple of weeks of praise for Mary to look forward to.
Frazz – Karma would be everyone bitching about his graduation party behind his back.
Rhymes With Orange – On the positive side, she’s holding her forks correctly and not upside down.
9CL – On second thought, don’t age Edda and Amos in these flash forwards.
Seriously, they would probably be around sixty years old at most, but they look like a decrepit seventy-five or older. I guess Edda’s matchless beauty is destined not to last.
RMMD: At least our Bully (name to be announced later) knows the basic rules of sportsmanship. He’s not going to hit anyone wearing glasses.
@Peanut Gallery: “¡Tan firme, pero amplio! ¡Regordete y musculoso, y saltando alegremente!”
@I speak Jive: The end of every Mary Worth storyline is like dealing with the winner of a NASCAR race wanting to take several victory laps because Mary practically demands an entire week of being worshipped for doing very little.
Holy shit! His mother and father, his aunt and her boyfriend, and the dog are all Marvin‘s “staff”?! Like, they’re in his employ, to fire at will, there only to help him accomplish. . .the delivery of a we’ll call it, a joke? Is Tom Armstrong on Marvin’s staff? As a reader, am I?
Mutt & Jeff: But “Little Jeff” Bezos loved the shirts and prompt delivery, so much, he bought the Jones Department Store outright. And so, a legend was born.
Mutt: Amazon?
Jeff: No, that’s a river in Brazil!
Baby Blues: Ha ha! The kids are terrible so the father abandons them to his frazzled wife because he’s such a loving husband. NOT!
Marvin: “We’re going to knock around some tenpins” is a euphemism for a sexual act I don’t want to know about.
@Baja Gaijin: Oh, that’s no act!
@Needless Exposition:
Waiting for the day where Mary will have her position in her own comic usurped by Gearhead Gertie. (Someday…)
Friends will be coming to Gertie for sage advice.
“Oh, you’re clinically depressed? Have you watched Nascar, that’ll cheer you right up.”
“Youre upset because a friend broke her leg? Think of all of the crashes that occur in Nascar and how horribly they suffer, you should be grateful that it isn’t worse.”
Hmm… this advice is actually better than Mary’s.
I wish Buck was here to explain the difference between rockabilly and roots music, said no one ever.
DT: Sigh. The actual Town Topics, as I understand it, had a system in place where their victims would contact them. They would run a coy “we understand that a certain person…” type story alongside an innocuous story that actually named the person, and then wait for the panicked or outraged response, at which point the editor would suggest that maybe they’d like to buy some advertising space so there’d be no room for further stories on the subject. What he didn’t do was go to visit them personally looking as distinctive as possible and explicitly blackmail them. That would have been stupid.
HtH: I’ve questioned before why it sometimes seems like Hägar is raiding his own king, which Vikings rarely did since their own king knew where they lived. But today we learn that under the Code of the Vikings, when money has been Officially Stolen, the king’s guards have no legal recourse to reclaim it, even though physically it turns out they can do so pretty easily!
Marvin: Absolutely hilarious what Jeff considers to be a bad influence. “We’ve got trouble, right here in Marvinville! With a captial ‘T’, and that rhymes with ‘B’, and that stands for ‘bowling’…”
(I know, I know, the actual point is “How dare people have fun, when we’re stuck here with the Hellbaby?”)
SFx: Look, I was happy accepting for the purposes of the puzzle that Weirdly needed a bathroom break. I really didn’t need the details of why he needed a bathroom break.
Marvin: This aunt and co-worker, are written to be over-the-top obnoxious, but compared to Jeff, Jenny and their demonspawn they actually come off as just oddly quirky, I don’t mean in the sarcastic “Endearing Quirks” term. I mean literally just kind of goofy oddballs.
Also, I’ll take oddly quirky in-laws over anything involving shit anyday.
Pluggers forget to “go” before they start out on *any* trip, even just to the store and back.
Pluggers get the vinyl seat cover option for their truck rather than the cloth upholstery.
Shoe: Muffy Hollandaise is starting to remind me of one of those sitcom rivals, (like Cece Babcock from the Nanny) Who exist solely to be a prick to the protagonist but in a funny way.
With some characters it works, some don’t.
The problem is, in most of these sitcom scenarios we root for the likable protagonists. And the bitchy rival ends up being humiliated at the end of the episode in some way and it’s cathartic.
Here, The Perfesser is a very unlikeable, unrelatable character. While Muffy gets a insult in, with no repercussion.
Then I realize, are the positions switched? Maybe Mufffy Hollandaise is the one we are supposed to be rooting for and The Perfesser is actually the jerk sitcom-rival here.
CS: Yikes, that’s one hideous-looking suit Max is wearing. Must have cost him five bucks.
BB: Beetle traveled from Camp Swampy, S.C., to Washington. They let him in the Pentagon. Yeah, okay.
MW: With everything else in this stupid story so hard to swallow, only Ian was fortunate enough to choose the Muffifn O’ Truth.
What’s the point of the Melonheads wearing helmets, there’s no brains left to damage
@Charterstoned: Oh no. We’re just getting started.
Josh’s link to an old Marvin rant provides a welcome bonus: Aldo Kelrast getting all Kelrasty with Mary Worth!
Marvin: Hey-hey, Armstrong, you forgot to include a joke.
Shoe: “I used the Braille version of your new porn novel to rub one out.”
@Only Here For The Ads:
Marvin: Hey-hey, Armstrong-baby, you forgot to include a joke.
(The site’s censor software messed up the previous version of my post. That’s my story, anyway.)
HtH: Hagar subsists by stealing all the king’s money. The king subsists by taxing all of the swag.
// The Horribles should move to Heligoland, where the inhabitants eke out a precarious living taking in each other’s laundry. It’s still a zero-sum game, but at least they have clean clothes.
CS: “Here’s something else for you, Mason.”
“What’s that?”
“The bill. The city agreed to install the star as long as the Valentine paid for it. It’s $3,697.19 and they want it by the end of the week.”
SFx: Was Count Weirdly celebrating the capture of his nemesis with Russian caviar, blinis, chopped shallot, and sour cream, or just eating a baked potato for lunch?
@Baja Gaijin:
No. 3 all day long, Baja!
Marvin: Don’t you hate it when your sister and brother-in-law just kinda randomly appear at your door to offer to take you out on some weird date or something, than slam the door in your face after reminding you of how you’re tied down by having a child?
Shoe: The Perfesser’s reaction to the news – snapping out of his usual heavy-lidded boredom into wide-eyed shock and panic – clearly indicates this braille book was an important project to him and probably the one and only thing in his life that he’s been proud of. Muffy has expertly crushed this last thing keeping him alive in any meaningful sense, so I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow’s strip is Skylar walking into his house to find his uncle’s corpse hanging from the rafters.
9CL – It just feels as if he’s tried everything and is still struggling to write new plots. We’ve been in this time travel loop for a while. And now I don’t see how he comes back on Monday and the twins are kids again and Edda and Amos are bobbing up and down in a lake somewhere.
It feels like he’s wrapping up. He got to draw The Twins as adults with hot asses and long legs and a preference for walking everywhere with their hands on each other’s butt.
So what does he do on Monday?
– Announce the end of 9CL
– Pretend the last three weeks never happened and The Twins are still children and Alistair isn’t a sixteen year old classical musician, just a child we never see. And I guess we go back to time traveling to good old school daze sequences in order to fill space.
– “9CL The Middle Age Years” where Amos gets progressively balder and more decrepit and Edda takes Juliette’s role and Juliette becomes Edna?
LUANN – “Broni” got married over a decade ago, back when couples with portmanteau for names were a thing.
And we are still running with “They haven’t consummated the marriage yet, because, ick! And also because sex is dangerous and scary and best avoided at all costs, just like TJ warned us”
This is a good thing, if the alternative is a “new baby!!!” storyline.
Shoe-“Why didn’t my publisher tell me?”
@Little Blue Bicycle:
MW: [Dawn thought balloon] “Hmmm, I wonder why Dad hasn’t answered any of my texts. Maybe he died or something. I’ll check when I get back home.”
Shoe: Since she’s a bird shouldn’t Muffy’s long, shapely legs be yellow and scaly?
Shoe: Blind readers prefer the razor-sharp spikes of best-selling thrillers, thank you!
@Baja Gaijin: #1
#3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3! #3!
Frazz: Aw Caulfield, who cares…just get over yourself already…
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Toni has convinced Brad that babies come every time P enters V — to keep Pigboy offa her — which is why he is excited about multiple babies. “You don’t want a baby YET, do you, Brad? Roll over and think about baseball.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: CS – I can forgive a lot but not a dangling participle.
As a victim of genocide, you surely can think of worse things in the world.
@Sequitur: #23
Perhaps the frog is thanking his lucky stars (?) that that little twerp Caulfield picked up the snake before it could eat him. So maybe Caulfield does have his place in the cycle of life after all…
Marvin: Ted has Janet bowling on a Sunday, in direct contradiction of the edict from King James. You know and arch-Jacobean like Jeff isn’t going to let it go.
Shoe: This is the first I’ve heard of the Perfesser even having a new novel out. This nonexistent publicity campaign strikes me as a bigger problem than any resistance from The New, Darker, Edgier Muffy Hollandaise.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: 9CL ends when Chris Hansen knocks on Brooke’s door
@Ukulele Ike: Reena doesn’t care about Sophie, yet Sophie is still there when she clearly doesn’t want to be. I think my point about her being dragged out there stands.
@Anonymous: Sorry, that was me, hit post too soon.
9CL: The fact that Amos and Edda are starting to look decrepit—in contrast to her in last week’s teenage Alistair debacle—is the one plus here.
C-Shaft: Doesn’t Mason Jarre, um, own the Valentine? Kind of takes the specialness of having his name splashed on the sidewalk, doesn’t it?
Dustin: The bad news is that Kelley and Parker blew the opportunity to show you getting a painful injury, which must have been hilarious.
JP: What I’m getting from Lucas is less “guy hoping for relationship upgrade” than “plebeian abasing himself before an absolute monarch.” Pretty much the usual in Paker-Spencer-Driverland, IOW.
MW: Stellan’s funeral is a very special occasion, so Mary brought muffins that are actually cooked all the way through, mirabile dictu. Ian, I assume, has been washing them down with copious amounts of Drambuie on the sly.
Phantom: I love the way one of the Unknown Commanders knickknacks of adventure is a skull that looks like it’s lying down for a little catnap.
Pluggers: You’re a Plugger with a full bladder if you’re driving around in frantic search of a fire hydrant.
@Anonymous: #49: Wilbur: “Glub, glub…”
@Guillermo el chiclero: #96
For one insanely brief moment I thought that might be Edda in a weird crossover with “9CL” what with her blonde hair, shapely legs and slinky black dress…but I didn’t see a grand piano or swing set so it couldn’t have been her…
@Horace Broon: Re SFx: I’m with you. Fewer details on the workings of Count Weirdly’s intestines, please.
@TheDiva: #54 “Hush, Ian! Do you want Mary to send you to the cornfield?”
He’s a bad man! He’s a VERY bad man!”
@Sizzlin’ Hot: #111: “He’s a bad man! He’s a VERY bad man!”
@38 Sequitur: YES!!!! And bring Marvin over there to projectile shit all over it too!
@95 Cleveland Mocks: Or, “Hmmm, I wonder why Dad hasn’t answered any of my texts. Maybe
he died or somethinghe found something more important than me in his life like bombing out with a bimbo so far out of his league its embarrassing or cleaning his belly button lint. I’ll check when I get back home.” Fixed that for ya.@98 Daisy: Judging by your and other responses, I’m beginning to get the idea quite a few people don’t really like Mary Worth.
I would also like to add that the “And Staff” thing in Marvin is ominous.
GT: On what planet does a girls high school baseball team get live radio coverage and have the outcome get reported in a (major?) newspaper delivered to somebodies doorstep????
Baja, I think you may be able do something with this.
Rockabilly? Ted and what’s-her-name are wearing bowling shirts.
Tomorrow’s Six Chix is kinda cute.
Phantom: On today’s exciting installment, the Phantom is still getting his kicks mind-fucking his loyal subordinates.
Shoe: Enjoy your hot looks now, Muffy. In twenty years you’ll look like Henrietta Beak.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups -I’m usually a peaceful person, but I have to go with #3.
@Needless Exposition: Everyone seems to be on board with worshipping Mary of their own free will. They’ll praise her for curing Wilbur of his crippling depression by organizing the fucking funeral for his fish. A warning for readers: be sure to drink a lot of water while you read the next few weeks victory lap – you don’t want to get dehydrated from all the vomiting you’re going to do.
@120 I speak Jive:
I usually don’t go for the violence either but today’s #3 was spot on.
The current Mary Worth story end June 30th. You may be more nauseated than dehydrated.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
MALLARD FILLMORE:. See, the writer is showing he’s multipartisan. Today, he’s comparing Jan. 6 insurrectionists to a screamer.
DOONESBURY:. See, the writer is showing he’s multipartisan. Today he’s showing the effectiveness of capitalism.
MANDRAKE:. Are imaginary computers destroyed by explosions?
MW: if Sequitur is correct that story ends June 30, I’m afraid Libby will be deprived of her snack. That’s too bad.
Scary Gary: Deodorant won’t help with zombie farts.
@Activist 1234:
#123
PV:. Alas, yet another week without Cat.
@123 Activist 1234:
Have you read the Posting and Discussion Policies?
(Linked at the bottom of the blog.)
Was today’s Nancy drawn by AI?
@Sequitur:
#126. Just read it, thanks. I carefully consider and intend to skewer political cartoonists on their own petards. But maybe I shouldn’t. I’ll try to refrain.
Or was yours a warning against dessication of a corpse in MW?
@128 Activist 1234:
Naw. I just don’t want to see anyone get in trouble with Josh. You think crossing Mary Worth is bad? Try Josh.
Keep posting. I find your thoughts interesting.
@116 Sequitur: It has potential.
@120 I speak Jive: I’m glad Mary getting slammed was so popular. It took a lot to convert the original slammed character into something that looked like Mary.
@123 Activist 1234: on Mary Worth: Does Libby really need a rotting fish snack? I’m sure Estelle keeps her well supplied with lickable cat treats. Name brand, too.
@127 Sequitur: That’s even worse than the “regular” artwork. It’s almost “Reply All” quality.
Late Thread Cuisine: It’s a “Make-Ahead Main Dish.” Would you want to make it ahead of time?
@Sequitur: “Better pad the runtime of this…”
@Baja Gaijin: I wouldn’t even make that thing fresh let alone ahead of time.
@131 Baja Gaijin:
I think I would get in a time machine and go back a few days and make it. Then I would return to the present so I wouldn’t feel bad about throwing it out.
PV: I’m all in favor of Gunhild going after Wittgar, and I hope and assume she’ll have the opportunity to avenge her sister. My concern is her leggings. It looks to me as if it’s summertime in this realm, and if those leggings are leather, it seems to me they could become very uncomfortable.
But I suppose PV people know what they are doing, clothing wise. Anyway, good luck, Gunhild. And I wonder if Melody Mare will be part of this hunting party.
@Baja Gaijin: O no, no, and most no, no! And yet again no, and after that, out of all hooping.
@133 Needless Exposition: The recipe’s not really all that bad. I think the teaspoon of yellow mustard coloring the sauce fluorescent yellow reduces the meal’s appeal.
@134 Sequitur: Most people would use a time machine to go back in time to kill Hitler or buy Apple stock on the last day of 1990 for 31 cents a share but you do you, Sequitur.
@136 Poteet: Tell us how you really feel. Don’t edit yourself.
Mara Llave: Time for another reboot!
@Baja Gaijin: Gotta have that aspic!
RMMD: Gang up on that creep and beat him to a pulp!
@138 Lord Flatulence: Has this strip always starred Billy Idol, Lea Thompson and Michael J. Fox from the first “Back to the Future” movie, and generic Black male singer from the 80’s?
@Lord Flatulence: Oh my god, Mara Llave guy. Give it up already. There are cartoonists out there who’d LOVE to have that space, and some of them actually produce, you know, an occasional comic strip.
@Lord Flatulence: I had the same reaction. Maybe, in the 1950s and 60s, aspic was considered a universal tonic?
@Lord Flatulence: Oh my god, Mara Llave guy. Give it up already. There are dozens of cartoonists who would LOVE to have that space, and might even produce, you know, an occasional comic strip.
Shoe – All I could think was “Braille!?! You can read Braille with talons?!?”
Great Scott! THRILL as Ukulele Ike struggles with the keyboard, PERSPIRE as he matches wits with a blog, and GASP as he inexplicably flickers in and out of logged-in status!
Then, with a mighty bound, HE WAS FREE!!!
@Sequitur: While Olivia Jaimes is on hiatus, Nancy is being handled by guest artists. According to this article, today’s strip is by one Leigh Luna, whom I don’t believe is AI. (I’m disappointed she couldn’t get Bill Griffith to contribute and thereby fulfill his life’s dream.)
MW: Hmmm… butterflies outside Mary’s window this time, I guess Sid couldn’t get the Doves to renew their contract?
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: The only guy who loves Nancy as much as Griffy is fellow underground comix guy Denis Kitchen. He’s edited and published at least a half-dozen collections of the Bushmiller stuff.
Wait — Marvin and Staff?. Are we to assume it take a village of apparently coked-out adults (just look at their eyes!) to change this demon baby’s diaper? We are.
@Baja Gaijin: Late thread cuisine – The earlier you make it, the earlier you can dump it in the garbage and call for a pizza.
@Baja Gaijin: Is that the Professor from the Trans-Lux Felix the Cat cartoons?
Phantom: “Have a seat, colonel. No, not in that chair. Not that one, either.”
@Lord Flatulence: Hasnt Mara Larvae become a time butterfly yet?
@150 I speak Jive: You and Sequitur…
@151 Garrison Skunk: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
@The Rambling Otter: Welcome back,Rambling!
@Baja Gaijin: that little guy with the round glasses, I was wondering if it was the guy always after Felix’s magic sack.
@156 Garrison Skunk: Oh. He’s from an old Sunday Curtis strip.
@Baja Gaijin: Would you want to make it ahead of time?
______________
More like Newsweak than Time.
@158 Garrison Skunk: OK, Pastis, I know it’s you.
@Baja Gaijin: #137: If I had time machine the Hell with killing Hitler or buying Amazon stock. First, before I went back I’d go to a coin dealer and buy a handful of pre-1962 dimes. Then I’d go back to 1962 and visit every newstand and drugstore in the city and buy up as many copies of Amazing Fantasy #15 I could get my hands on and bring them back. Or I’d go back to 1939 with a handful of pre-1939 dimes and buy as many copies of Action Comics # 1 I could get my hands on. That or I’d just make yearly stops and bet on every Kentucky Derby winner. Hell, I’d just need to go back a week with the winning Powerball winning lottery numbers.
FG: Dream on, Hawkmen jailer. You’ve got about as much chance of scoring with Adrane as Wilbur Weston does with Taylor Swift. Besides, she likes Bok. She’s even got a cutesy pet name for him
FG: Continued #161: Blue Boy. She’s heard about some of the weird things those Dragonman can do with their tails.
@146 Dr. Larry Erhardt:
Thanks for linking that article. So it seems we’re going to get all sorts of Nancy in the coming weeks. I’m with you. I’d totally like to see Bill Griffith take over the strip. We’d see Nancy in a muumuu repeating one word or phrase over and over again.
Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo Sluggo etc.
@137 Baja Gaijin:
To be honest my time machine is a bit problematic going backwards. It wants to go forward but only about a week at a time.
Marvin – On one level, “-baby” nicknames are annoying, and they should arrange with parents of an infant any social event. At the same time, Marvin’s grandparents live with them presumably rent-free, so you can hand over your kid for a few hours to have social events with other adults. But Jeff and Jenny are condemned for whatever past sins to have their life revolve around their terrible baby.
Shoe – There is the challenge in making the Perfesser a loser, only to discover that he managed to get a novel published, one a publisher thought good enough to go through the expense of creating a braille version.
@Sequitur: I used to have a pickup truck like that.
GASOLINE ALLEY: I am pleased to note that today’s looney strip was simply ignored here. I applaud CC for that very sensible decision.
@167 Poteet:
How about Monday?
@166 Yes, Scudder:
Ford F-Dr. Who.
Okay, I hate to say it, but that bird lady is babe. The fact that she’s unprovokedly mean to all the other characters in Shoe is just icing on the cake.
@166 Yes, Scudder:
Bacön: A problem with the pants.
yRxMD: Beatty has morphed the strip into a Jack Chick Tract.