Red-hot SHK! SHK! action
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Family Circus, 6/24/24
I think it’s a not uncommon phenomenon to have one grandmother who, while still loving, is just less on your wavelength than the other one. Like, there’ll be one grandma who’s happy to really get into your shenanigans, and another one whose vibe is more like Grandma Keane here, who is clearly thinking “Oh, was his father this stupid when he was this age? I don’t think he was.”
Gil Thorp, 6/24/24
There are two different kinds of newly partnered up divorced guys: the ones who treat their new relationship as an opportunity to completely remake their life, and get frosted tips and make embarrassing decisions about vehicle purchases; and the ones who simply slot their new partner, hopefully willingly, into the comfortable paired up life they’ve experienced for decades. Anyway, Beth, Gil’s new bartendress lover, seems happy enough to deploy her professional skills in service of the the Thorpian summer tradition of sitting on the lawn and enjoying an icy cold beverage, and hopefully will be equally amenable to other summer traditions, like plotlines on the wackiness level of “juvenile delinquents forced to battle one another for the entertainment of their sadistic warden and an audience of streaming viewers.”
Marvin, 6/24/24
You probably think that being the “comics curmudgeon” is some kind of dream come true. But did you know that sometimes it involves staring at a Marvin panel and seeing purple liquid coming out of Marvin’s diaper, maybe, and trying to figure out if you’re misreading that or if the intended reading is that he’s leaking poop or piss and the colorist is making a desperate attempt to protect us from that knowledge. Also, why are they punishing him? Is this considered a good potty training technique, to punish kids for accidents? I’ve never bought into Freudian theory, but maybe there’s something to it if this is common. On the other hand, I do think Marvin in general needs to be punished more. Being the comics curmudgeon is hard, is my point! I have to think about this stuff every day! For you! For you!
266 replies to “Red-hot SHK! SHK! action”
Mary Worth Mashup: Were reality to intrude on this little tableaux…
FC: Hopefully Granny Keane’s Alzheimer’s will kick in and Jeffy’s off on a Narnian adventure instead.
Marvin: You should be lucky you’re not Calvin or you’d be nursing a sore ass instead of just a shitty diaper.
MW: “Even though none of you ever visit me or even talk to me willingly, you make me feel so supported and loved by being forced to give me attention because of my dead fish. Especially you, Mary, who magically cured my crippling depression with empty platitudes and yelling at me to get over it while indulging my need for attention with this goldfish funeral…”
“That’s enough of that, Wilbur. Now let me bask in the accomplishment of being praised for doing nothing helpful.”
“C…Can Toby give me another hug…?”
Marvin: the mystery deepens when you look at the figure Marvin is addressing. That doesn’t look like anyone’s mom.
Man, Dawn should be absolutely livid that her self absorbed manchild of a father has completely forgotten about her existence and replaced her with a dead goldfish and begrudging attention from people who are practically strangers. She should be livid…but we know that she’s just as self absorbed as he is.
FC: “Try not to find me right away” is Grandma’s cue to take a nap, after quietly locking the closet door.
FC: Grandma’s thinking “Please, we’re happy to have you stay in the closet for as long as possible. That’s the Keane way.”
GT: I don’t really think about how weird the art is in this strip until days like this, where they try to make things a bit ‘sexy’. Like, those images are not titillating at all, and yet I somehow feel wrong for looking at them…
Marvin: It’s funny because that’s ‘Dad’, isn’t it? Not be rude or whatever, but that is definitely Jeff. Misgendering is not a mess you can just clean up, Marvin.
@pugfuggly: “I’ll ‘Mom’ you, you misfired chromosome!”
GT: The lemonade is spiked, right? Because otherwise, you can buy frozen concentrate and just add water. *stir!stir!stir!*
MW: The sticking point for me has ceased to be how the hell a grown man could be so upset over a fish, to how the hell a grown man developed such an attachment to a fish to begin with. I mean it’s a fish.
RMMD: We can only hope that stripped of his glasses, Parker will follow in the footsteps of the greats (Superman, Fearless Fly) and wreak havoc on the bully. Haw, haw.
Marvin: Isn’t part of the “stand in the corner” punishment that you actually have to face the corner? Otherwise, it’s pretty much just a “go stand over there” kind of thing. Well, anything to get Marvin away from you, I guess.
MW:
Despite Ian’s skeptical attitude
Wilbur speaks to them all of his gratitude
But his speech is truncated
And all are elated
‘Til Mary gives forth with a platitude.
@MKay: Wilbur’s attachment to his fish is pure narcissism. Fish can’t talk back, can’t run away, and you can impose whatever personality you want them to have. They’re the ideal pet for people like Wilbur and Mary who often manipulate others for their own personal gain.
MW:
“When in the course of toonman events…er, I mean, friends, Charterstonians and countrymen, lend me your muffins!”
Marvin: As others have pointed out, Marvin has misidentified his dad as his mom. Maybe it’s just me but undiagnosed severe myopia doesn’t make him any more sympathetic of a character.
GT:
“Gil, you’re the baseball coach, right? So give me a rendering of that dramatic poem where the great jazz pianist, organist, bandleader and composer — given name William, but more popularly known as ‘Count’ — has a fateful encounter with a feline.”
“I’m not sure I know that one, Beth. What’s it called?”
” ‘Basie at the Cat‘! ”
Family Circus – The Keane’s is coded as a conservatively Christian family, but Grandma Keane would rather Jeffy come out of the closet as a teenager than announced he is hiding in one during hide-and-seek. The former will be a scandal, but at least a non-dumb gay Jeffy could potentially soften the blow by going to college and getting a highly respectable profession.
Gil Thorp – Gil told his bartender girlfriend to mix up some lemonade, and she created a vertical version that is exactly 50% sugar water and 50% lemon juice. I can’t tell if the bartender is Amelia Bedelia dumb, or Amelia Bedelia savant level.
Marvin – It’s generally looked down upon to bowdlerize books, such as removing the naughty bits of Shakespeare for a prudish Victorian audience. And we’re dealing with a surge of book bans that seek to completely censor anything with LGBTQ+ and non-white focused narratives. But we should remember there are exceptions to every rule, and whichever colorist and other staff that are holding back the true horrors of Marvin are to be respected for what they suffer to save the rest of us, and Josh for reading it, even in it’s semi-censored form, so the rest of us can know of the horror being printed in so-called “family” newspapers, without having to directly expose ourselves.
MW: Dr. Jeff on speaker: “Are we about done here? They shut down the haddock lunch special at the Bum Boat at 1.”
“Jenny? Good news, bad news time. Bad news: Marvin is tracking a mysterious purple mess through the house. Good news: we’re finally free of the Grimace.”
MW: Between Ian’s attitude and Mary’s vaguely threatening “We’re all in this together,” we’re headed towards some sort of a knife fight here right? Ian and Mary, fight to the death, winner gets the souls of the Charterstone residents?
GT:
“Hmm. This is the same model knife that Lorena Bobbitt utilized. Gil better stay in line!”
GT: Sports, sports, sports that’s all you guys complain about! Well, here’s some boobs. Get off my case.
—Henry Barajas
“the ones who simply slot their new partner, hopefully willingly, into the comfortable paired up life they’ve experienced for decades.” Also known as the Les Moore types.
@Bob Tice: This reads more like a Jeopardy clue than a joke.
The Marvin colorists could have easily convinced us that Marvin is tracking mud in the house, a kid’s trope that even Calvin and Hobbes used. All they had to do was make his sneakers the same color as the trail. And yet the shoe bottom, sides and top are all shiny white. They know the intent, sigh deeply, and carry on, as we all must.
MT: “Lemonade? You mean to say you drink… lemons… and sugar… in water? I never came across that wild concept in my years of bartending, but if you insist, I guess I could get used to this wild and wacky ‘lemonade’ tradition.”
Also MT: The bitterest disappointment in life must be when you remember comic strips don’t actually move, just after scripting “PANEL 2: Close-up of tanned busty young woman jiggling in bikini”.
Marvin: I scrolled through 2 years worth of Marvin comics just to find a strip that shows both his parents’ feet, in order to confirm what I guessed: Marvin has decided to level up his toddler belligerence by misgendering his father.
Marvin: One of the treatments for Porphyria cutanea tarda (symptom: purple piss) is a phlebotomy or leeches. Marvin’s parents dunking him upside down in a fetid swamp is the kind of humor which can jumpstart the strip’s drive for new readers.
Can’t wait to add a pair of Air Marvins to my sneaker collection.
Years later, a few days after Grandma Keane is laid to rest, Bil and Thel are cleaning out her house when Bil hears Thel screaming from the bedroom. There, huddled in the corner of the closet, sits the desiccated corpse of their missing son. They will finally have closure of sorts, but never any answers.
***
Gil Thorp’s artist has been watching anime. “Wait, we can just focus on the breasts?”
@Baja Gaijin:
#1. MW:. It’s always an impossible choice, but today I pick the first option.
MARVIN:. Grape popsicle. When I was repulsed by poop, my dad explained it was the same good I’d eaten the night before. Sometimes it’s in you, sometimes it’s outside you.
CANDORVILLE:. A thought experiment to depict reality vs theory
TINA’S GROOVE:. A thought experiment to depict a sinking feeling
JP:. Although Ronnie was given a second hand invite as Soph’s friend and “bodyguard”, we remember Lucas and Ronnie work together so their relationship is more intellectual.
FC: And I am so Not! trying on mommy’s clothes.
FC: Is Jeffy observing Pride Month?
Marvin: I have been a fan of the Florida/Miami Marlins for most of my life. I cried tears of joy when they won the World Series and I wept when Jose Fernandez died. In the final moments of the day, between when I close my eyes and when I fall asleep, my thoughts of my wife battle with memories of Jeff Conine hitting a home run to win the All-Star Game for the National League; of A.J. Burnett throwing a no-hitter despite nine walks; of Dontelle Willis on the mound; of Charles Johnson at the plate; of old Jack McKeon taking a team out of nowhere to win the World Series. But seeing Marvin wear the logo the Marlins had from 2012-2016 seriously makes me want to start cheering for the Tampa Bay Rays.
GT: I wonder if, also per tradition, they’re listening to Beyonce’s Lemonade.
Marvin: It may be my color-blindness tripping me up, but do they have a concrete floor?!? I suppose with as much mess as Marvin makes, it makes sense to strip down to the foundation until he can control his bodily functions.
FC: “OK. I’ll count to one…jillion before I look for you.”
MW:
Looming in the foreground as he is in today’s first panel, Ian has the look of an anthropomorphized eggplant.
GT – Just like James Bond, right Gil? “You have to bruise the lemon.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Quite a trophy, Don Abundio!”
“Thanks”
“It painted both of those pictures”
@Bud: Strictly as a collectible, I assume. You won’t be able to wear them unless your ankle is located at the center of your foot.
CS: So many questions here.
Is Pam really okay with Mindy moving into Pete’s dump of a cramped tenement out of wedlock?
If so, why aren’t Pam and Jeff helping?
Did Mindy need their approval to marry Mopey Pete?
Did Crankshaft really have veto power over their impending marriage?
How is Crankshaft “helping” if all he’s doing is standing there and being annoying?
But mainly, why the hell would Jeff care where Ed is? You’d think he’d just be grateful for his absence and leave it at that.
Frazz: On a very special episode of Frazz, we learn about the horrors of dyschronometria.
Luann: Seriously you two, you are adults and can influence Shannon’s behavior. Something tells me that you wouldn’t be raising your own child any differently.
CS: Um…so, I know it’s been more difficult to understand the “punchline” in these strips, but is the point supposed to be that Cranky is super invested in Mindy’s life? Because, I’ve never seen that trait in past strips.
While they’re switching Marvin’s mom with his dad, and Marvin with a child who can talk, maybe they can also switch the strip with something funny?
Can Marvin talk now? Like, full sentences and everything? I mean, usually he does the thought-bubble/mental-telepathy thing other babies and animals do– I more or less assumed he wasn’t old enough to actually speak.
Also, Marvin’s mom (or *whoever*) has very strange feet. If you ignore the styling on the shoe, and the perspective it implies, they could easily be tapered robot-feet, like a cone stuck point-first into a tube.
9CL: In the first panel, it feels like they’re staring into my soul! Anyway, this was all Alistair’s dream(?), where of course he has chosen to enthrall himself to one or both of the Overlook Twins.
Pibgorn: Erm…they captured Pibgorn? Somehow? Or is this just a vision of Gaggot’s plan? I give up…
GT: Those are Tom Collinses. Lemonade with a hefty percentage of gin. A broad you literally picked up in a bar could do no less.
@Baja Gaijin: Mary Mashup – Oh, I wish. I’m sure that everyone here has been thinking the same as Mary for weeks.
@taig: Re Crankshaft – Whatever the point is, it’s lost behind Crankshaft being his usual asshole self watching Mindy carrying that huge box up those stairs.
@Blackdrazon:
The *Evil* Grimace, who originally had four arms.
9CL – It’s like he has a mental block and every time he sets out to draw a human baby it comes out looking like a lima bean that was dipped in syrup and then rolled underneath the refrigerator into a pile of dog hair.
In the last panel, apparently, it is sucking its thumb? And the children are carrying it on their shoulders but not using their arms to hang on, just letting it balance there?
And there are no adults anywhere to be seen. Edda and Amos and Xiulan and Hugh should all be nearby, but The Twins are left to change the diaper (or, not) and to put him down for a nap?
At least the full diaper is a fitting metaphor for where this sequence is going.
Implying that Jeffy might be gay! What an awful display of homophobia! And during Pride month!
Zits: Et tu, Jereme?
MW: Soooo many implicit threats in Mary’s little speech there. It gives me chills.
@Baja Gaijin: I think you’ll make Fight Me proud. Or want to fight you. Either or.
GT – SNIK SHK KLINK, SNIK SHK KLINK, SNIK SHK KLINK! We will, we will rock you!
@Cleveland Mocks:
If so, why aren’t Pam and Jeff helping?
They’re too feeble and/or oldThey’re selfish jerks…There has to be an answer that doesn’t paint the Jeff&Pam as being terrible, useless people who don’t care about their own children…How is Crankshaft “helping” if all he’s doing is standing there and being annoying?
He’s “supervising”. Crankshaft is the EXACT kind of guy who constantly brags about how strong/in shape/healthy he is, demonstrating it by chopping wood and such, and then the second you ask him to help out with a chore he’s all “oh, my old body can’t take it, YOU do it instead.”
Assuming he doesn’t just simply ignore you to avoid helpingOther questions :
Wait, are Mopey Pete and Mindy moving into the space just above Montoni’s? Isn’t that still being leased to Komix Korner?
Didn’t Mopey Pete and Mindy ALREADY have a place of their own? Wasn’t it Max and Hannah who were stuck living at Crankshaft’s place?
FC – “Good Lord, the little moron doesn’t understand the concept of ‘hide.’ I bet he doesn’t understand tag either. No wonder his harlot mother is sloshed all the time.”
Rhymes With Orange – That’s the rogue elephant who got Chuckles the Clown.
Far Side – These are reruns, so that must be Stellan’s great grandfather in a noir role.
6Chix – Sid, great job today with 6Chix! It’s a day with a Chick who can draw, so give that intern a bonus.
Luann: The Evansii think they’re giving a guest artist a break, but the syndicate is secretly planning to give them the axe and give this new guy a strip of his own (Please?). The art’s already ten times more interesting to look at!
JP: Wow, that’s gotta be a record for the JP/RMMD Pissyface syndrome to kick in! He’s even showing the symptom of unecessary quipping! Poor lad, there’s no hope for him now…
RMMD: Tomorrow the Principal walks around the corner: ‘Why Parker, I’m surprised at you! Picking on my neph- er, poor young Flattop Jughead! Detention for one month!’
MARVIN: Yeah, well, your guilt-tripping won’t work on ME, Josh. I had to try to look up, at this early hour, what the heck SHK means, and I still don’t know. School of Hard Knocks? Shark Hunting and Killing? Seven Hungry Kids? Should Have Known? Bah, never mind. Should Hunt for Koffeecake.
GT: After winning the entire state softball tournament partway through the first game with a ground ball home run, Coach Thorp deserves a break, and that means it’s time to see some questionable bartending action rather than the usual catastrophic sports action. Granted, cocktail shakers with screw tops do exist, but they’re relatively uncommon, and a professional drink-slinger would generally use the same grip every time regardless. What I’m getting at here is that Beth is completely fucking up, and the expected result of Panel 2 is not Panel 3 but what happens to everyone the first time they use a cocktail shaker without holding both ends properly: sending the cap flying and splashing the entire nearby area with your beverage.
Marvin: I know we’ve been a little spoiled by Thel Keane, but come the hell on. That is the silhouette and attire of a Jeremy Duncan or a Chip Flagston, not a grown woman who was able to convince anyone to provide her with the genetic material to bear a child.
@Poteet: You’re saner than I am for skipping past Gil Thorp, but have a closer look at that second panel.
@Baja Gaijin: Yep, that works. Dawn has good reason to be grateful she’s well away.
@jroggs: And it’s PURPLE!! *doubles over laughing*
JP: “Big doesn’t always mean nice. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet nearly, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut; silence lies steadily against the wood and stone, and whatever walked there, walked alone. That would be Mom. Mom sucks.”
FC-Has Grandma come to conduct a funeral for Jeffy’s fish?
MW-“I would now like to say a few words about myself,” Mary says.
@Liam: “How can I take the pain of others and make it benefit me?” is Mary’s overall motto in life. Why else would she make these idiots dependent on her and not encourage them to get some actual therapy?
GT: “I could get used to this lemonade tradition. And you’d better get used to the idea that we’re gonna take turns making the lemonade. Making drinks is not THAT much fun for me.”
@Anonymous:
are Mopey Pete and Mindy moving into the space just above Montoni’s? Isn’t that still being leased to Komix Korner?
I thought the apartment and Komix Korner were two different spaces. No reason they couldn’t have two apartments up there. And KK looks like it’s run out of somebody’s apartment.
Didn’t Mopey Pete and Mindy ALREADY have a place of their own?
It was like 4-5 years between the “engagement tiger” fiasco, and Pete actually proposing. What happened to their relationship in the interim was never clarified.
GT – I read it this morning and thought his daughter Keri was mixing up the lemonades. Thankful Josh clarified that for me – it only makes it a little less weird.
Purple. The traditional color of royalty. A chair, reserved for only one person, like a throne. Marvin, suspiciously close to Merovingian. I wasn’t expecting today to be the the day that Marvin declared its titular toddler to be Emperor of France and blood heir to Christ, but I can’t say I was surprised it happened.
GT — On the bright side, no sports were mangled in the making of this comic. . .
Archie-Better call the coroner because I’m sure there were people in those aisles.
Luann: I don’t even know what to say about today’s strip, but I’ll try to articulate my rage.
1. If Shannon is so out of control—today she’s climbed on a counter carrying a tiny umbrella and spraying water everywhere—why do Bwad and Helmet Hair keep taking her in? Why do they not talk to Helmet Hair’s brother, tell him to rein in his child?
2. How the hell did she get on the counter to begin with? Where did she get the tiny umbrella? Why didn’t Bwad or Helmet Hair stop her from getting in the counter to begin with? They’re just standing there passively as she destroys the kitchen, not lifting a finger to stop her while bemoaning her behavior. “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!”
3. Bwad comes from a family of doormats, who let their useless, unemployed daughter live at home while she pursues nothing at the local community college. Helmet Hair is also a pushover. These two think they’d be better parents? L to the O to the L.
Blondie: Damn it, Blondie! You had a perfectly solid joke for once and then you completely blew it by adding another panel! Even when you accidentally do something right, you mess it up because you don’t know how to stop!
DT: If Gabriel didn’t like leaving traces, he wouldn’t use informants and contacts that can trace back to him, let alone go to blackmail his victims in person. Stop pretending this is some elaborate clever scheme, Eric Costello. Just get to the part where Dick shows up and arrests everyone for being crime-y.
HtH: See, now that’s funny. If this was Blondie, there would have been a third panel where Hagar puts his hands on his hips and says “Coming here was probably not a good idea!” while Snert wakes up nearby with a start.
MW: Week Three of the Fish Funeral is now underway, and the idiots still aren’t even close to leaving for the marina yet. This is apparently what we wanted, by the way. Let that sink in.
Gil Thorp: So this is what you do when life gives you lemons? Not bad!
FC: My grandma used to cheat when she played my brother and I at Candy Land. Specifically, she would stack the card deck to make sure the game wouldn’t last any longer than it had to. I suspect Grandma Keane is going to pull an inverse move on Jeffy, and that much of her “looking” will consist of sipping a strong cocktail and catching up on The Young and the Restless.
MW: Oh goody, it’s time for another one of my “what age is Marvin supposed to be, anyway?” headaches. In today’s strip he is a) walking upright, b) speaking in clear, complete sentences, and c) taking the initiative to clean up a mess that he made. And yet, he is still not toilet trained. Maybe he’s like Peter Pan or the kid in The Tin Drum, caught in a state of permanently arrested development as an open rebellion against the social order, or maybe Big Plumbing.
There’s Actually New Pibgorn!: EIther we’re going to get some leg bondage, or Luda will be Shannon’s new governess with Brooke takes over “Luann” next week.
Gil Thorp-And speaking of other things that could be squeezed.
@brendancalling:
Shannon keeps being taken in because she is really Helmet Hair’s daughter.
@jroggs: (Blondie) Somebody really dropped the ball in the joke department.
GT: “SHK! SHK! SHK!”
Take your pick. Unless that’s onomatopoeia for whenever she comes into contact with large cylindrical objects.
FC-And so three months later. “Has anyone seen Jeffy?”
FC – Good plan, Jeffy – don’t come out until you’ve graduated college….
GT – When you add the cheap vodka, it’s called a Tom Collins, Gil….
Marvin – As the old expression goes, try holding yer mud, boy….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@TheDiva: Candy Land is beloved by Calvinists everywhere.
I hope my wife keeps me around because I would look awful with frosted tips. On the Marvin front, I would have been astounded if my toddler was as articulate as Marvin is here.
GIL THORP: I see Gil’s new squeeze is making one fruity cocktail for summer, appearing to contain (checks panel #1) sliced lemons and (check panel #2) shaking melons.
DtM: Dennis laments; “It’s hard to be just a face in the crowd when you’re as good looking as me.” Shoves M-80 back in pocket.
@Uncle Lumpy: Comment of the Week, early call.
@taig: It’s preordained!
@Liam: I would love, love, LOVE to see the Evansii attempt to pull that plot device off in this ‘sex doesn’t actually exist’ universe they’ve managed to create.
Pluggers: I’m wearing my own skin and don’t get any ideas!.
Plugger bears don’t appreciate humans wearing their relatives.
—And a tip o’ the Hat to Ron “I Swear it’s Fake Fur” Goertz of Birchwood, MN
C’shaft: Is the loft above the Komix Korner the only starter home available in Westview? When a new young couple comes along, do the previous tenants leave willingly or are they forcefully evicted?
DT: Is “Ma Zooma” an archaic slang term for money, or a new crypto format? The setup for this arc means it could literally go either way.
JP: I know I saw that house on a McMansion Hell post.
Luann: That’s it, I’m using my official matriarchal authority to bestow upon Toni the Mom Curse: One day, you will have a child exactly like you. Get ready for a self-righteous little snot and walking example of the Dunning-Kruger effect who ends up giving you the world’s stupidest man as a son-in-law.
MW: Ugh, just when I think it can’t get any worse Mary starts breaking out into selections from High School Musical!
Phantom: So, a whole damn week of a rocket crashing, and the Ghost Who Just Sits There shrugs and goes, “Eh, we’ll see if anyone stumbled across it in the morning.”
RMMD: So, are there just zero adults at this school and the kids have to fend for themselves Lord of the Flies style? Because breaking another kid’s property is usually a clear violation of the Wolfpack Way, or the Pelican Promise, or whatever mascot-based code of conduct the school has set up.
GT: I imagine Gil could get used to it even more since you’re the one doing all the work.
Blondie: I’m having a hard time believing that someone would read, let alone write, a book about the joys of reading on a iPad.
Frazz: Frazz apparently works at the Academy for Aspiring Neurotics.
@Little Guy: Luda/Pib’s barely-born-within-the-bounds-of-holy-wedlock offspring seems to have been completely forgotten already, so it’s only right that she take over for some other strip’s feral kid.
FC: Jeffy: once again answering the eternal question “is there intelligent life in the universe?” with a resounding “NO”!
GT: “When life gives you a lesbian wife, make lemonade”
@Uncle Lumpy: Opps, I did not notice it!
@Voshkod: I see London, I see France, seeing purple pee is much worse than underpants.
FC: Jeffy’s favorite game to play with Grandma is the mouth swab game. That’s the one where Grandma rubs a DNA swab inside his mouth while muttering that there’s no way this ginger idiot is her real grandson. Who’s related to Jeffy? Not Me!
Pluggers-“Who are you wearing tonight?” “The skin of some hitchhiker who planned to kill me but I got to them first.”
MW: Given the very slow and stately pace of this event, flies are going to show up very soon to pay tribute to Stellan. I generally like flies more than most people, but I am not looking forward to that.
I appreciate you Josh! The pain of Marvin would be too much to endure.
RexMd: This is just getting unpleasant to read.
FC, again: ‘The closet’ is what Jeffy calls the dead freezer in the garage his parents use for storage. Grandma is struggling to decide whether to intervene or just let nature take its course.
@brendancalling: THANK YOU. These gonna-be-soooo-much-better future parents have failed to do any adequate normal child guidance and/or re-directing and/or discipline on numerous occasions. Telling themselves that Jonah is entirely responsible for the way Shannon behaves, in their house yet, is beyond ridiculous.
And the bizarre thing is that today’s strip shows clearly that the Evansii either don’t actually get that (which would be my bet) or are disinclined to show the real situation.
@Baja Gaijin: #1
Uh, wow…WOW!!!
@Needless Exposition: #2
“FC: Hopefully Granny Keane’s Alzheimer’s will kick in and Jeffy’s off on a Narnian adventure instead.”
Upon which Aslan, the great lion, spots the juicy little twerp and says “Thank you, God!!”
@Baja Gaijin: Dang it! Once again my snickering has alerted my co-workers that I am not doing my job.
GT: “Just wait until we get to the fall bonfire tradition, Beth,” Gil says, a faint, cryptic smile playing across his lips. “You will have a special role, helping insure the dark gods of high school football grant a winning season.”
@Daisy: This is also getting irritating to read. The theme seems to be that empathy and common sense have become so rare in Today’s Youth that this crowd of kids just watched as Parker was beaten up, even though most schools are more aware of bullying as a problem than way back when I was a kid, and even though this event is taking place in a hallway right inside the school building during school hours.
@Poteet: Beatty and Moy are in a never ending battle over who hates children more.
FC-Jeffy’s now Narnia’s problem.
LUANN: Hey Toni? You don’t need a imagine spot to see how it would look if you raised Shannon. You want a pick at how that would go; just look at panel #1 (and then multiply that by 15 years.)
LUANN (2): Toni: “Um hel-LO? Raising Shannon through an Instagram filter is in fact ‘raising her differently.'”
With any other comic, we might assume the child spilled fruit juice and has been walking around in it. With Marvin, however, such comparatively benign behavior would be radically out of character. If there any diehard fans who read the strip unironically, they would take over social media to demand the restoration of the bodily waste obsession they have come to love. #RestoreTheFecalCut
FAMILY CIRCUS: Actually, Josh, Grandma Keane is stunned because she didn’t believe that Jeffy would come out to anyone this early. Well at least he has the good sense to hide it, she thinks as she goes to raise her upside-down flag….
@2+2=7:
I do like that Toni’s fantasy of “Shannon, if she was raised RIGHT” is of a Shannon that COOKS BREAKFAST FOR THEM.
Toni DOESN’T want to be responsible for Shannon, she wants a Shannon that’s responsible for HERSELF. And that handles all the household chores so Toni doesn’t have to do them
(So basically, a second TJ).@1 Baja Gaijin:
“Fuckwad”? How b many of you will try to work that into a conversation tofay?
@Daisy: Maybe Parker’s vampire girlfriend will rip Flattop’s head off and fling it clear across the gymnasium, like in Let the Right One In.
@Jay Fawley: I’d award you COTW if I could. You make me spit my drink out my nose, and I wasn’t even drinking at the time.
@Sequitur: That term and its variants have been used in my vocabulary in various sprinklings for about two decades now.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Of course Parker is such a dork that he isn’t actually cussing.He’s literally saying the grawlices.
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): I’ve mocked this guy for his lackluster performance these past few weeks, but it is a stepping-up of your bullying game to surround your victim with life-size cardboard cutouts so if feels like he’s being humiliated in front of an audience. (Too bad the bully didn’t have time to draw in actual features, but he probably had to put this set-up together in a pinch.)
HtH: Okay, I laughed at this one.
@taig: #37
dyschronometria: When five seconds reading “Frazz” seems like an eternity…
@Baja Gaijin:
My work here is done.
For today, at least. On another day, you can fight me.
@Needless Exposition: Re: MW. To be fair, whether it cures depression or not, I do (vehemently) encourage people to yell at Wilbur to “get over it!”
RMMD: Does GMS have a “no phones” policy? If not, why aren’t the other kids getting a video of this entire altercation? It should have already appeared on the local noon news by now.
@2+2=7: In Wilbur’s case, he’s an attention seeking narcissist who needs to get actual help instead of being mommied by the unfortunate woman he managed to manipulate into becoming his girlfriend.
FC – “Wait until Mommy and Daddy are really worried. Then when you find me, they’ll give you a reward, and we’ll split it 50/50.”
“Kid, the only thing they’d give me for finding you is dirty looks, and you get plenty of those already.”
GT: “I could get used to this Lemonade Tradition, where I do all the work, and you drink lemonade.”
(h/t to Poteet who phrased it similarly)
@Activist 1234:
#27. JP:. Oops, that’s Sophie’s magical black friend. Ronnie is same for Ned. My bad.
Gil Thorp: Gil needs to start shopping for a new girlfriend, stat! One with better taste in apparel than closed toe shoes in a beach chair scenario, or else one with better looking feet she doesn’t feel compelled to hide.
@27 Activist 1234: I created a second mashup. Since it wasn’t as good as #1, I didn’t post it nor did I attempt to make a third. I think I made the right choice.
@99 Daisy: Is that a good “WOW!” or an sad “WOW!”?
@116 Fight Me: While brainstorming the idea for this mashup, I thought, WWFMD (What Would Fight Me Do)? NOT!!!
Fight me.
FC: Florence Keane freezes in the doorway to the living room. With her hearing aids absent and her glasses fogged from cooking, it is only the faint scent of peanut butter mixed with urine that alerts her to the evil that awaits within.
@MKay: @Needless Exposition: I know it’s hard to remember every needle in this utter haystack of a story, but an eon ago, Wilbur implied that he doesn’t really care about Stellan or any other living being. See, it’s a metaphor (how “deep”) for Wilbur’s relationship issues or some such bullshit. It’s like a “quirky” “introspective” art-house drama…(unfortunately it contains not enough “artsy” and too much “fartsy”)
@taig: I think you’ll make Fight Me proud. Or want to fight you. Either or.
Fight Baja? Nah. Fight me.
JP: isn’t it too early for a “Bodies Bodies Bodies” remake?
@Fight Me:
#127. Oh, I finally get it. You’re the bully in RMMD. Didn’t realize you were so young.
@Activist 1234: That explains my broken glasses…
@2+2=7: Wilbur is a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder in that he absolutely couldn’t care less about anything or anyone who has no purpose or interest in his mind. Everyone else exists to cater to him or to make him feel useful.
GT Blueberry vodka and lemonade with a splash of orange liqueur. Give it a try.
@Baja Gaijin: While brainstorming the idea for this mashup, I thought, WWFMD (What Would Fight Me Do)? NOT!!!
Fight me.
You did what I’d do, and went above and beyond by invoking renowned rapper Fiddy.
No need to fight me. I keep telling everyone, I’m a lover, not a fighter. Disagree? Fight me.
@Anonymous: #49: In Flattop Jughead voice: Haw-haw! He’s expecting plot continuity from Tom Batiuk!
@Activist 1234: #127. Oh, I finally get it. You’re the bully in RMMD. Didn’t realize you were so young.
How do you do, fellow kids? Fight me.
MW:
“We’re all in this together…well, except, that is, for Aldo Kelrast, who had the good sense to drive over a cliff so as not to be subjected to the kind of suffocating claustrophobia we’re seeing here, the likes of which haven’t been seen since George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead!”
@Sequitur: Oh, that’s not a term I have to “work in”. It escapes out quite often while I’m driving in traffic.
Crankshaft: Ed is “helping” Mindy today because his agent had notified the syndicate that the month was about to end without the title character being featured in his own strip and they completely failed to shoehorn him into that Starbuck Jones nonsense last week.
@Activist 1234: re: JP: Reena is less of a Magical Black Friend, more of an Albatross Around Neck.
@Baja Gaijin: YES! Also, I was hoping they would line up, Airplane! style to slap the crap out of him.
@Voshkod: #63
Dan Brown is taking notes…
@jroggs: #67
“MW: Week Three of the Fish Funeral is now underway, and the idiots still aren’t even close to leaving for the marina yet. This is apparently what we wanted, by the way. Let that sink in.”
Are we Viktor Frankenstein and is “Mary Worth” the monster we created?
MW:
“And now, friends, let’s give Stellan a proper sendoff with a rousing a cappella rendition of Queensryche’s ‘Silent Lucidity.’ “
@Daisy: See? You get to experience it while you’re reading a comic strip alluding to it.
MW: Can we just wrap this up already and skip to the part where Wilbur drives Stellan’s body in a open casket around town like last night’s House of the Dragon?
@Just John: Yours is more efficient:-).
FC – “Yes, Jeffy, go back in the closet. I think it would be best if you stayed there. At least until I’m dead, ok?”
MW: In lieu of flowers, please send your generous cash contribution to The Friends of Stellan Memorial Fund, c/o Wilbur Weston.
@Ukulele Ike: #110
Oh wow…that would certainly be entertaining and would give this boring story just the exhilarating boost it sorely needs!
JP – I see that little bug in the code of the JP Universe has been fixed and the Parker-Drivers are going to start getting showered with unearned money again.
@Poteet: MW: “very slow and stately pace”?
Rome buries popes at a faster pace.
@Needless Exposition: HAR!!
But of course I am being unfair. There is still time to contact a teacher, blank faceless surrounding students, or step in and say something, or otherwise take some action other than just watching. Impress us!
GT: P2.
Man, I’ve got a hankering for………lemonade.
@taig: PIBGORN – She gave birth minutes ago. But the baby has already disappeared (we never even got to see it) and now she is tied up around her legs?
Because the evil characters (“Gaggot”) want her dead. For the reasons.
I assume the Priest/Monk has wandered off as well, possibly with the baby.
This is a problem when you only update every few weeks. And when you make everything up as you go. You get … this.
Where did “Gaggot” come from? Why does he want Pibgorn dead? Maybe he remembers, unlike the author, that she killed him at least once (well, he got better) back with the “Grow until you are 50′ tall, then the arrows in your back will just fall out” sequence.
@Poteet: #102
Exactly. You would think at least *some* of the bystander kids would break away and run for an adult to intervene…but it looks like we are going to have to witness Parker’s escalating humiliation and the bully’s escalating provocation one small taunt at a time. :-(
@2+2=7: #113
“You hashtag/ “at” sign/asterisk/percent sign/plus sign/hash tag JERK!!”
@Baja Gaijin: #124
That was an “I’m in total awe of your creativity” “WOW”!!!
JUDGE PARKER: “Um…and it’s not the size of a guy’s house, it’s how he uses it”, Lucas was quick to add.
JUDGE PARKER (2): Meanwhile Sophie is shock that he chooses to reside in this dollhouse for the summer, because her family is extremely wealthy (remember?) and lives in a palatial estate that dwarfs this quaint little cottage. (also…is Renee aware that her “friend” is also rich as well? You can tell they have a close, sisterly relationship based on how well they know each other!)
@140 Heavenly Earlobes: That would be great. I wish I had the artwork to illustrate the slap line.
@taig: #144
Sigh…I had hoped my first experience of synchronicity would be more profound…
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@cheech wizard: Lucas’s grandad, Old Judge Pennybags, will be found murdered in the Study with a lead pipe. Reena and Sophie will need to turn Girl Detective in order to bring the miscreant to justice. THOOOOOMB crash the waves on the rocks below as a cloud obscures the full moon.
AC: I have read at least a dozen previous “Guitar Bob” strips, and in every single one of them the punchline is “Andy hates Guitar Bob”. What’s next? Andy buys a round, explains that he’s celebrating his new job, then leaves after one drink because he’s got an early start in the morning?
Crank: “Although I’m still kind of confused that, at the time, he was ten years older and near-comatose in a nursing home. What was that all about?”
GT, meta:”the ones who simply slot their new partner, hopefully willingly, into the comfortable paired up life they’ve experienced for decades.” If the guy’s widowed, rather than divorced, we call that Cayla Syndrome.
(Frankly, if I were Beth, I’d probably be like “Do I expect you to do half-assed coaching on your day off?”)
Phantom: Has there ever, in the annals of blatant padding, been a power move like spending an entire week on “a spaceship is splash-landing in a lake”, and then opening the following week with the hero saying “I should probably get round to looking into that at some point”? Well, yes, it was when Old Man Mozz kept deciding he wasn’t going to continue telling the prophecy after all, because reasons.
RMMD: Now that Bully McBullyson’s made the first move, so Parker is acting in self defence, we’re heading for an “I said I didn’t like fighting; I didn’t say I was bad at it” moment, aren’t we?
S4th: Who is this mysterious figure offering Hil “an alternative?” Here’s the odds:
A drug dealer: 10000 to 1 – Obviously the most likely scenario in the real world, but probably not in Sally Forth.
A slaver: 500 to 1 – Mostly the same arguments against as the drug dealer, but it’s possible Ces really wants to reference “More zippers, mule!”
Broadway Star Ken Kensington: 20 to 1 – Speaking of deep cut references to the soap strips.
A guy wondering if she’d like to go to a party a friend of his is having in the Hamptons: 10 to 1 – Beginning our first Cesverse crosover!
A helpful tour guide: Evens – Never discount Ces’s instinct for the least interesting answer.
Some magical realism nonsense: Odds-on favourite.
The Family Circus: Grandma’s gotta pee.
FC: Grandma! What’s that pounding noise! Are you nailing the door shut!
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Speaking of the Attack of the 50-Foot Pibgorn sequence, I wonder if Brooke will remember she can do this, making it easy to break the bonds. Or that she has pyrokinesis, allowing her to burn away the rope. My guess is the next scene will be her flying around with dragonflies again.
FC: Grandma, don’t try to find me right away. I found one of Daddy’s old nudie magazines and I want to try something Billy showed me. By the way, where do you keep the Vaseline?
@Needless Exposition: Marvin: You should be lucky you’re not Calvin or you’d be nursing a sore ass instead of just a shitty diaper.
Huh? I may be forgetting something, and I know corporal punishment was a thing in the comics long after people started questioning it in real life (here in the UK, it was years before the Beano and Dandy accepted that teachers caning students was now actually illegal), but I don’t recall ever seeing it as a major thing in Calvin. Family Circus, yes, but not Calvin. The storyline recently concluded on GoComics had Calvin crash the family car into a ravine, and his mom was just relieved he wasn’t hurt.
FG: Dale awoke from her coma when one of the Hawkmen medicos tried to cop a few feels off her.
@Horace Broon: There was a comic strip where Calvin sprayed his mom with a hose after she took the time to dress up and the last panel had Calvin nursing his backside while muttering about how much of a grouch she was.
@Poteet: @Daisy: It’s just been awful altogether, as though Terry Beatty’s only experience with bullying, children, and humanity in general is a space alien’s reading of one anti-bullying leaflet. The worst part for me is, as always, the total lack of self awareness, especially regarding Parker. Parker is presumably supposed to be a likable person with whom we empathize, but they’ve been nothing short of a nasty, cowardly, hypocritical little twerp who snipes at people behind their backs and from positions of protection – a bully, you might say – and when you read this without the lens of protagonist-centered morality, Haw Haw Boy’s actions come across as karmic just deserts rather than the completely unfair and undeserved bullying Beatty wants it to be.
RMMD: is short guy going to head butt bully in the balls?
@I speak Jive: re 6Cx: A rare Otter gig! And you’re right – the production values are excellent today… and as an added bonus – the Otter Star on the right is our own TRO, goin’ with the flow!! I’m glad he agreed to do the role; I think he has great Show Biz potential – the Otter on the left is one of our veteran performers with years of experience. I challenge you to tell them apart! Way to go, Rambling!
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Gaggot and Crewth/Crwth are characters from the first extended Pigborn story, “The Girl in the Coffee Cup,” which was actually pretty good, with the annoying exception of these two. Gaggot is the many-hats advisor to Prince Crewth, and they together deemed that BigPorn must be executed for flying out of season, They don’t succeed and thankfully, disappeared from the comic until this story. While I liked “Coffee Cup” and some of the other early stories, Gaggot and Crewth were an early embodiment of Brooke’s hamfisted attempts at social/political commentary and a sign of things to come. So their return would seem to signal he’s pumping out the septic of the creative well.
Well, whoever was suppose to do Nancy today decided not to show up.
@TheDiva:
I love McMansion Hell; it’s like this site, except for houses, and with essays on architecture instead of Viking/Frankish border conflicts.
@Horace Broon: re: SF: Some magical realism nonsense….Who else could it be but Diedrich Knickerbocker?
Luann-“I have Inner Beauty!”
@Poteet:
You must know some terrible people!
@Ukulele Ike: #177: In a lot of his short stories O. Henry refers to New York’s old money families, especially those of Dutch descent, as knickerbockers. The Roosevelt’s were often called knickerbockers. In the late 19th Century the WASPish families whose history in New York predated the great waves of immigration from non-WASP countries were called knickerbockers.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
Thanks ^^ I took the role because I was promised tons of scallops, of course the money is good to I guess, gotta go to the store and buy a bunch of scallops now.
@Sequitur:
That’s weird; it was up this morning.
MW: This would be a good time for some sort of catastrophic event to happen, hopefully trapping this funeral party and forcing them to fight for survival, turn on each other, and, ideally, resort to cannibalism.
MW: Fishy update: Don’t worry, Willa’s at her luxurious condo, not left to fend for herself at Wilbur’s pad. But as you can imagine – she’s reconsidering her future in this comic and we’re looking for new career opportunities for her, and Stellen as well … since he’s now officially “dead” here. He has the day off today with no interior coffin close-up – they’re using a Fish mannequin. But a nice full body shot yesterday! I guarantee you’ll never see a Goldfish corpse again without thinking of Stellan!
Anyway, Willa feels that it’s gonna be hard for her to stay on after the way management has treated her. Sure, with the trending Fish memes of this summer, she can easily get work now, but she’s looking for long-term job security. She’s intrigued by Gasoline Alley’s technology of modeling a new character on one of our Stars… she would get compensation, but not have to actually put in panel work. Libby seems on board with it, though I dunno about those *eyes* today…. we gotta get more creative control…
@Professor Well Actually: #172: Naw, kick him in the balls maybe. If he tries a head butt down there bully-boy will just say, “Hey, everybody! The little faggot’s trying to give me a blow job! Haw-haw!”
MW: Just in: the American Psychiatric Association is revising the DSM-5-TR to add a corollary to the section on grief-related disorders: the WilburWeston syndrome, characterized by inordinate attachment and separation trauma involving pets (especially lower-order life form pets); infantilism coupled with mid-range narcissism; extreme self-neglect and reliance on others to inflate his/her/their self-esteem while disregarding the need for reciprocity as an essential component of the social contract.
@Guillermo el chiclero: My pants are called knickerbockers.
@182 Uncle Lumpy:
It seems you’re right. I have GoComics email my favorites to me each morning but I usually look at them online. I checked by email copy and sure enough, there was today’s Nancy. Weird thing though, I went back and checked the email a second time and it had disappeared.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: #184
“…I guarantee you’ll never see a Goldfish corpse again without thinking of Stellan!”
No offense, Sid, but I’ll never see a goldfish corpse again without thinking of how magnificently stupid this “Mary Worth” story arc has been. But your piscine actors have been real troupers through it all – kudos to them and I hope they both get tiny stars on the Hollywood Walk [“Swim”?] of Fame!!!
@Horace Broon: I clicked on that link and accidentally scrolled down into a land of nightmares.
@The Rambling Otter: Did you check by the commissary at Six Chix? They sometimes provide suitable snacks for guest stars, and they may have had some ShellFish available (not any of our clients, of course) Just watch out for the rotting pumpkins.
@taig:
“I’m sorry Jon…”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
Sadly, I didn’t I was too in the zone at the time to think about catering. But thanks! :3 If I do another gig, I’ll keep that in mind.
Gasoline Alley: So this “Walt adopts a stray cat” arc, the cat reminds him of when he was taking care of Skeezix over 100 years ago, but now a few days later, he literally forgot about the cat?
Does dementia literally kick in that fast?
@The Rambling Otter:
Also, for some odd reason when I first saw today’s comic, with Gertie knocking on Walt’s door asking if he’s okay, then the next panel shows a close-up of a cat face… please forgive me for assuming at first that Walt had undergone some sort of “The Metamorphosis” scenario and woke up as a cat-person.
@194 The Rambling Otter:
What?
@175 Sequitur: Your linked content has the same entertainment value as when Ms. Jaimes shows up.
@188 Sequitur: Today’s Nancy.
I mentioned that I saw today’s Nancy in my email but it later disappeared. I tried to copy the image link so I could share it with y’all. It wouldn’t let me copy it. I later tried again but the comic disappeared.
It seems the first time I tried to copy the comic it saved it on my computer. So, here is today’s NANCY. (Enlarged for easier viewing. Original was about half this size.)
FC: Florence Keane freezes in the doorway. With her hearing aids absent and her glasses fogged from cooking, she must wait in silent limbo as her fragile heart begin to race. Soon she will be able to make her way slowly to the hall closet to retrieve the precious heart pills from her purse. Just remain calm, she thinks, and all will be well.
FC-The Lion, The Witch, and The Melonhead
GT: Gil Thorp is a big believer in recognizing traditions and holidays. Sure, convincing his wife to celebrate International Leave Your Husband For Your Golf Coach Day may have backfired, but so far Serve Your Lover Drinks in a Sexy Bikini Week is going great.
Sally Forth-You ain’t walking in New York. Take the subway.
RMMD:
“I’m a 47-year-old contact lens salesman haw haw!”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Thank you, Sid, for reminding us of the GASOLINE ALLEY “technique.” I prefer real Cats, but as we followers of GA have learned the hard way, we get what we get. I share your hope for more creative control over the eyes, and also maybe control over how big this Cat is supposed to be. I’m pretty much resigned to the GA children who shift between being six and being forty-two. But even fake Cats deserve better than going from nine weeks to nine years between panels.
Grandma Keane, just barricade the door, play dumb and be thankful when he doesn’t find his way out
@Uncle Lumpy: Bwahaha!
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, everyone wishes that would happen.
@Sequitur: Thanks for finding Nancy. Hope she doesn’t get lost again no matter what she looks like.
DtM: Dennis is certainly looking dapper today. He should be given more chances to get out of those ’50s-style red overalls.
@Guillermo el chiclero: the WASPish families whose history in New York predated the great waves of immigration from non-WASP countries were called knickerbockers.
And they kept their booze in a knickerbocker liquor locker.
I’ve waited my whole life to say that.
@Liam: Walking is the best way to see New York*. Mr Knickerbocker there is going to recommend that they stick to one neighborhood a day, though, to save on shoe leather.
* See also Paris, London, Vienna, Barcelona, and most other world-class cities. Not San Francisco, unless you relish the prospect of climbing the equivalent of one hundred staircases a day.
@Baa @Liam: Take the subway.
__
leave the cannoli.
@White Rabbit: The Knickerbocker liquor locker can be found next to the Afghanistan banana stand.
BTW, re Sally Forth — Jim drew a little cameo of Ces in the foreground of today’s panel one.
@211 Ukulele Ike:
Are you talking about Josh’s house?
Who let Marvin into Willburp’s liquor cabinet?
Poteet. I was just watching a weather channel and they were talking about real bad flooding in Iowa. Are you okay?
Wow, of all the people in the Keane Kompound, I figured Jeffy would come out to Barfy, Sam or Ida Know before coming out to Grandma.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: I guarantee you’ll never see a Goldfish corpse again without thinking of Stellan!
__________________
Did Stellan get that Goldfish® brand snack cracker endorsement deal he was angling for?
So did Gil Thorp in Gil Thorp get divorced at some point relatively recently? I don’t actually want anyone to answer this.
The Famillar Mucus: Is that second face from the top in the photo the Pringles™ Newfangled™ Potato Crisps guy?
@Garrison Skunk: No, unfortunately Pepperidge Farms sent Stellan a reject letter. Apparently they want Goldfish that taste good, not Goldfish with good taste.
When I was a little kid, I thoght “knickerbocker” was a bad word. Because I knew what knickers were, and I figured “bocker” must mean something dirty that I’d learn when I grew up.
@Poteet: Yours is more efficient:-).
It’s a lot easier to recognize the situation when Gil Thorp is involved, than in my own house.
We switched the “fine” tuna usually served by Gertie in Walt Wallets house with new Chef Meow-ices™ new cat food crystals. Let’s see if Walt notices…..
@TheDiva:
#85. PHANTOM:. Comics are struggling. Writers try to create suspense but instead just prolong details to the point of boredom. Colorists took advantage of sale on purple ink, and we get mistakes in Marvin and GT. Here though, Kits nonchalance is warranted as he probably thinks it’s just a piece of space debris or asteroid.
Tomorrow’s strip is hilarious.
@astroboy: “Bockers” could be an Americanization of “bollocks,” I suppose. The bockers you keep in your knickers. Is that filthy enough?
Do Britons use “knickers” to refer to ANYONE’S underpants, or does it mean ladies’ underpants only? If the latter, forget I said anything.
Family Circus: In the closet, eh? Tomorrow: Grandma asks if he likes fish sticks.
@astroboy: If you knew what knickers were, you knew more than I did when I was a little kid.
@Ukulele Ike: Afghanistan banana stand
I’m going to count that as a solid four syllables. Especially if it’s run by an Afghanistani banana grandee.
@cheech wizard: PIBGORN – “ Gaggot and Crewth/Crwth are characters from the first extended Pigborn story, “The Girl in the Coffee Cup,”
I remember they showed up in the midst of the “Pibgorn Origin Story” that I believe is still going on. It was an obvious “ok, what do I do now” moment as they were complete anachronisms and proceeded to do nothing but stand around and plot to kill Pibgorn, for the reasons.
“Gaggot” is pure Brooke. Gross, misanthropic, and half as clever as he thinks it is (divide by zero error!)
Gaggot is also the one Pibgorn stomped to death while she was fifty feet tall, but then came back to life in the next installment when the author clearly just forgot what had happened the day before.
@The Rambling Otter: Oh, wow, I had forgotten about that meme.
@Activist 1234: Tomorrow Ghost-Who-Loots will pry open the hatch, hoping for goodies for one of his treasure rooms, and find the four corpses the Elon Musk guy shouldered inside earlier in the week when his plan was to have the rocket ship explode in the stratosphere.
Why wait to be disgusted. See tomorrow’s Bianca Xunise comic TODAY!
Gil Thorp:
I admit it: I first found out about Gil Thorp here when I stumbled upon Mr. Josh’s blog not too long after he had begun the blog. Then I tried to read Gil Thorp on my own…. and quickly became bored regardless of the drunken guy calling out high school baseball plays or something. Then I thought less of myself for not wanting to let my Cinnamon Life Cereal (with BHT to preserve freshness! I no longer eat Cinnamon Life because of the BHT… but I digress…) go soggy while trolling the “funnies” online.
The answer of course was always: Josh Reads the Funnies/Comics So You Don’t Have To, and thought “Yes, this is literally his raison d’être!“ (I also no longer eat cereal with raisins… get it? But I digest….) and how I got to Gil Thorp in the first place.
Anywho, while I have been a long time reader and sometime commenter, I feel badly that I can’t even bring myself to read the Josh Notes of Gil Thorp for fear of falling asleep because now I don’t eat breakfast at all, and all of that is to say: “Gil is divorced now and his children have dissappeared?!” ; now that would have been a story!
Gil Thorp, way to strike out.
Ya know, with a name like Gil Thorp I expected more- something… I dunno.
At least Mary Worth has a raging narcissist (in addition to Mary) who is being coddled with a weirdly codependent funeral for his poor long-suffering dead goldfish, and the action is less about the life suffering of that unfortunate fish and more about “making Wilbur happy”. Now that is how a writer elicits emotions from readers- which seems to be mostly rage at Mary for gaslighting and enabling characters and readers to love, accept, and enable
the Charterstone SociopathWilbur.@Sequitur: #232
That’s just…pathetic.
@Jeffmcm: #218
Yeah…yeah he did… (I’m so sorry – I just had to respond…it was killing me not to…)
@212 Rube: Is Ces wearing the inverted salad bowl on his head?
@232 Sequitur: Please don’t tell me that’s Stellan. I don’t think I could take it.
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, and the stubble.
Oh, Baja. Baja Gaijin. I think it’s time.
@White Rabbit:
It was well worth the wait!
@237 Baja Gaijin:
I’m pretty sure SID had nothing to do with it.
Late Thread Cuisine: “…rub on dough.” Uh, I don’t know if Julia Child ever gave her dough a massage before cooking.
@242 Baja Gaijin:
King Herod built a tower at Masada. I think soldiers would fling that dish off the tower to confound the enemy.
@243 Sequitur: In modern times, using that dish in warfare would be a violation of the Geneva Convention.
@Ukulele Ike: #209″
“climbing the equivalent of one hundred staircases a day”
To say nothing of climbing over one hundred homeless bums sleeping and defecating on the sidewalks a day.
@Sequitur:
#232. MW:. At last Stellan gets a voice! Hope Sid doesn’t have a clause in his contracts prohibiting informal contact with media. Good to see Stellan is indeed alive but looking a little blue. What a performer.
@Anonymous: Hahaha. So Toni is actually imagining that she’s raising, Vicki, the Small Wonder robot?
@Sequitur: Man, I go out to my Club for dinner, and when I come back THIS is what’s trending! That most assuredly is NOT Stellan, nor any of his understudies. We don’t send talent to 6Cx on Tuesday (or Thursday) unless my Intern makes a dreadful blunder. I dunno where they got that mutant specimen – maybe Chernobyl Fisheries. And looks like it’s workin’ blue, which just shows the class of Fish(?) you can expect on the Six Chix “off days”….
@brendancalling:
It must be a rule of comics and sitcom TV: You can be as strict and authoritarian as you like (or not) with your own kids, but if the kid is not yours you have absolutely no influcence over them and cannot stop them from doing anything, no matter stupid, destructive or dangerous. See also: Dennis the Menace, Urkel.
@TheDiva: Dumber than B-wad? That’s gotta be sub-Luann levels of dumb.
@Baja Gaijin: Julia Child had some very…unique ideas from beef tongue and sweetmeats to the vile aspic but even she would have her reservations.
@248 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Oh thank GOD!
@249 The Quiet Man: Sub-Luann levels of dumb. Are those brainwaves able to be recorded by modern equipment?
@250 Needless Exposition: That whirring you hear is Mrs. Child spinning in her grave. Her ghost saw this recipe’s photo.
love is… letting your games of grab ass get so out of hand you have to patch your jeans.
@Sequitur: Time to reset the “Days Without a Wilbur Weston Pity Party” sign.
@Baja Gaijin: If she got hold of the cookie sherry, you bet she did.
Pickles: It’s worse than you think: Like Frederic in Pirates of Penzance she was born on a leap day.
@Sequitur:
Love is…. a night in the box.
GT – Seeing as this is a strip full of static depictions of sports action, I guess it’s no surprise that we get a close-up of Beth’s tits while she’s shaking a mixer but they don’t jiggle.
Moon Mullins – 64 years ago today: You will recall Woody Guthrie’s Ballad of Pretty Gal Mamie.
🎵 Oklahoma Pluggers, gather round,
And hear my warning tale,
Bout a gal named Mamie,
And a crane that helped her out.
Yes if you tend to plumpness,
If you’ve grown a little stout,
Don’t get in a tiny car,
Unless you can get out.🎵
@258 Ramblin’ Nehemiah Scudder, Folksongerator:
Was that brought to us by Federated Lard™?
@Sequitur: Why sure, Br’er Sequitur, it’s Federated Lard, all the way down!
// 🎶Lard lard lard lard lard lard lard,
It makes you strong,
It makes you hard,
Lard lard lard lard lard!🎶
@cheech wizard: …while she’s shaking a mixer but they [her breasts] don’t jiggle.
You’re doing it wrong. Hold your newspaper up in a good light, and gently oscillate it. That should do the trick. If it doesn’t work right away, have another drink, and try again.
~Albert Camus
@Sequitur: Blessed be the Lard!
@263 Scud: The first line of the Plugger’s Prayer.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Washington Irving created the character of Dietrich Knickerbocker as the fictitious author of “A History of New York”, a satire of the founding of NY and its early Dutch leaders.
This led to Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill to create “Knickerbocker Holiday”, a musical allegory that was supposed to be an attack on the Rosevelts.
It featured the song “September Song”.
@Sequitur: Yes, thank you, my house and land haven’t been affected. And another thank you for keeping us Mudges in touch with LOVE IS, an excellent, okay, very weird distraction from current events.