TRIUMPHANT RETURN COMICS
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Hello everyone! I am back from my vacation! Did you miss me? Did you realize you liked Uncle Lumpy better? Did you not even notice any changes? Feel free to only answer those questions in ways that won’t hurt my feelings. Anyway, I do want to thank Uncle Lumpy for his fabulous fill-in duties, and thank everyone who donated to the annual fundraiser (said donors will be getting individual thanks from me, this week!).
Mary Worth, 9/22/24
I also want to give thanks to the usually cold and unfeeling universe and/or the vagaries of the King Features editorial calendar. It seems strangely common that truly wild Mary Worth action, like the legendary Operation H-Town warehouse shootout, happens when I’m on vacation. But this year, I’ve gotten home just in time for the truly incredible panel in which Estelle decides to murder her fiance, and probably a bunch of sick animals too. Can’t wait!!!!
The Phantom, 9/22/24
An extremely long-simmering plot in The Phantom is that at one point the Phantom had amnesia, and ended up enlisting under the name “John X” as a patrolman in the Jungle Patrol, the paramilitary unit he ordinarily leads from the shadows as the perpetually unseen “Unknown Commander”. Before too long he regained his memory and had to juggle both roles, which was increasingly more trouble than it was worth, as fun as it was to intermittently show up as John X and make all the patrolwomen extremely horny. So our hero has finally decided to wrap up his double life by having the Unknown Commander order John X off on what’s widely understood as a suicide mission. This has the added benefit of modeling for the patrolpersons he commands the idea that they’re expected to nobly sacrifice themselves for unclear ends at any time, which could make his life a lot more convenient even ignoring the whole thing where he has one less identity to juggle now.
Beetle Bailey, 9/22/24
The throwaway panels assure us that Beetle is aware that he is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, but it’s fascinating that in subsequent panels he contemplates various increasingly fantastical transportation modes only in terms of the convenience they would offer him, and not the incredible tactical advantage they would grant his platoon in combat. I guess there’s a reason he’s never been promoted: he simply doesn’t have the mind for military leadership.
Mark Trail, 9/22/24
WOW, Mark Trail, you had an opportunity to depict a GRAPHIC vulture vomit scene in the Sunday full-color comics and you chickened out? For shame, for shame!
70 replies to “TRIUMPHANT RETURN COMICS”
MW:
Uh-oh! — is Estelle having a tryst with Ohio Art’s entomological writing implement Bizzy Buzz Buzz?
MW: Estelle, you put up with Wilbur abusing your cat, letting you think he was dead, and repeatedly embarrassing you in public. But God forbid that Ed isn’t there for you to parade in front of your cousin like a trophy wife at a high school reunion because he’s (gasp) doing his job!
Phantom:
“I’m going to trust that our commander’s right about all of us…”
“Well, now, that’s a horse of a different color. Take a look at the second panel of today’s strip by contrast!”
MW-Estelle is going to report Ed to the school management.
FC-The clown who lives in the sewer just gives Billy his boat back right away and that’s it.
MW-“We lost the puppies. For newborn puppies they can run surprisingly fast.”
MW:
In an illustrated dictionary, Cousin Pam’s image would be next to the definition of rabble-rouser.
“I knew that stupid bitch would ruin things! Damn you, Mitzi!”
– Estelle, animal lover
JP: Well, it took a week of blabbering and dithering, but everyone, I am happy to report that the pancake question has been answered!!
Luann: Go clog a toilet, Luann.
Cranky Funkershaft (Title Panel only): Subtle…
MW: BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Mary Worth could have come up with any veterinary emergency for Dr Ed. Making it involve the death of several puppies is so hilariously bleak that I can only salute it.
CS: The only thing Tom Batiuk has to fear is fracturing a vertebra from all this patting himself on the back.
DT: Why didn’t Ro-Zan make his move when he was a somewhat trusted guest rather than a completely discredited malefactor under house arrest? Because pointless self-sabotaging incompetence is all Mike Curtis knows how to write. Anyway, this is almost definitely a trap, but why bother? Ro-Zan should already be on death row or imprisoned without any chance of parole for treason and at least several murders; what difference does a count of corporate espionage make in this comic’s Slylock Fox-esque justice system?
H&L: Oh noes! A light breeze and a few falling leaves! Everyone, back into the house! Forget the food, just run!
Welcome back, Josh.
Talking about talking is peak Judge Parker.
MW: Holy moly. I’ve got a lot of disconnected feelings about this, so I’m just going to do it bullet-point style:
– This is an annihilation of Estelle’s established character. Estelle is supposed to love animals; it makes no sense for her to react to mass puppy death and a dying mommy dog with this petty fury.
– I don’t know if Karen Moy realizes that this is permanent. Estelle’s character will never recover from this. She will forever be mocked and abhorred for this absurdly selfish and nasty response.
– At least we’ve conclusively settled the Team Ed vs Team Estelle issue.
– Still laughed pretty hard.
– Why was Estelle lying about the excuse for Ed’s absence from the beginning? I’m not even asking for a good reason, just a reason.
– Why can’t the greatest and most dedicated vet in southern California keep any animals alive ever? You’d almost think Ed was deliberately cutting down his workload for the next 10-15 years.
– Misguided or not, Karen Moy still has 100 times the writing cojones of Tom Batiuk.
Originally I went into this Mary Worth storyline feeling like Moy was going to try and manipulate the situation so that Ed would suddenly turn from Estelle’s perfect partner into making her wish she was back with Wilbur. But this is even worse than I thought it was going to go because after this, it’s clear that Estelle has completed her transformation into being a narcissistic sociopath like the other Charterstone residents.
After all, no one else seems to be as bothered about Ed not being able to show up except for Estelle because she spent ages bragging about him to her cousin. She wants Ed to be there to show off to Pam that she’s not a dried up prune of a widow. Because she’s perfectly okay with him making gobs of money for her fancy wedding but when she can’t show him off like a fancy toy, she gets upset.
MT: The most disturbing factoid is that turkey vultures have adapted to live indoors, soaring over heat vents. Keep your furnace under sixty degrees in winter, if you don’t want acidic carrion vomit everywhere.
So, uh, Zero is smart enough to make a dad joke now? Like, he’s aware of wordplay, not simple-minded and criminally literal?
As much as I hate the dumb hick trope, this is not better.
@jroggs: I don’t think Moy herself realizes that Estelle has gone from being a happy volunteer cooing over Rottweilers to “Ignore those stupid dogs so I can get one up on my estranged cousin.”
Welcome back, Josh! Hope you are all rested up from – uh – whatever. Thanks for giving some Curmudgeonly love to my fave, Phantom.
Should I be concerned that the ads running on this page are in Chinese?
MW: Yep, life is what happens when you’re making other plans. Or death. The death of puppies, even. Sorry, don’t mean to be a downer, but that seems to be what happened.
Ph: Nothing like the Bengalan dusk, when the setting sun bathes the world in warm glowing light, and everything looks like it’s covered with a thin layer of piss.
MW: I’m still only 60% certain we’re supposed to believe Estelle is being way over the top here. In a typical real-world situation, the partner who got stood up would be sympathetic about her veterinarian partner having to deal with a traumatic situation (for him and the pet owner), but, as I’ve learned, Moy is somewhat distant from the real world.
BB: Segways were invented in the late 1990s and marketed in the early 2000s, so this strip is surprisingly current.
MT: I think every nu-Mark Trail comic would be improved by vulture barf.
This strip contains no less than TWELVE ellipses, including one absurd exclamation mark ellipsis and Ed’s text message that reads as if he’s dictating a speech to text message and it somehow faithfully captures his tearful trailing off at the end of four unfinished sentences in a row, with the only two periods appearing in a) a quotation and b) a sentence that seems meant to sound awkwardly cut off. And then the last panel comes in to really forcefully show us the writers do know how to use periods effectively and it’s not just a holdover stylistic choice from pre-1980s comics writing where they desperately try to avoid periods because back then they thought it didn’t work with uppercase lettering. That’s the last straw!
MW: Cue up the Casey Kasem dead-dog-dedication tirade…
Frazz: It does matter if your solutions are all stupid, Caulfield.
Luann: Why exactly are you ironing her shirts, Nancy? You know she’s just going to get them all wrinkled up any thanks to her Inner
BeautySlobiness.CS: Just once, I’d like for Pam to slap Jeff’s hand away and yell at him to stop being so patronizing, but then I remember that Batiuk writes this strip, and women are only there to be patronized.
Zits: Jeremy knows how to play his mom.
FC: No. I hate that Jeffy had to ruin yet another pair of pants.
MW: “Your Fiance the Veterinarian.” Cousin Pam is not buying this ONE BIT. Ed is going to have to text some pictures of the disemboweled Mitzi on the table, so that Estelle can save face.
RMMD: True to form, Truck is going to be a pain in the ass every little step of the way.
Welcome back, Josh. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.
I don’t care for the “ha ha” in Beetle Bailey. It changes the throwaway gag from “Zero does not know what ‘infantry’ means” to “Zero is injecting a bit of levity into the proceedings, ha ha, just a little wordplay from Camp Swampy’s resident wit.”
MW – There’s no period after “last,” so Estelle can’t be that mad.
MW: But . . . but . . . puppies, Estelle! PUPPIES!
CS: How very damn profound, Jeff. I’m surprised Les hasn’t asked you to be a guest lecturer in his class.
CS: Well, golly Jeff. That tuition money was sure well spent.
MW: Under BBC murder mystery rules, after witnessing Estelle’s jealous rage first hand, Detective Pam realizes that it was Estelle who murdered Jimmy all along.
MT: Of course turkey vultures can eat carcasses infected with rabies and not get sick, rabies only infects mammals. Step up your factoid game, Mark!
BB: For fuck’s sake, just steal a Jeep.
MW: Josh returns just in time for Estellle to become a Marvel witch.
Oh boy we got a good one. Yes John Lennon used that line in a song. But he got it from… Mary Worth.
CS: So Jeff went to Kent State (like TomBat), studied the great political speeches, and the best he can come up with to be “profound” is an FDR quote so trite that Robot Chicken did a sketch about it.
I realize a hand ailment isn’t likely to be fatal, but I hope Truck dies.
On a softer note, the bleeding heart in me doesn’t wish Wilbur upon Estelle, as much as she deserves it. Perhaps a lesser punishment for her would be to re-connect with Artheur.
Welcome back, Josh!
MW: If you had asked me which Mary Worth character would exhibit incandescent fury over a dying dog that had just miscarried her litter being prioritized over them, I would have guessed Wilbur. I think we all would have guessed Wilbur.
Phantom: “Refusing to say comforting words of farewell to his ardent and grieving groupies” is the cherry on the manipulative asshole sundae that has been this arc.
MW:
mitzis run off to fill rhe starring role in the santa royale players forthconing production of south pacific…i dont know what to do!
The Phantom shows Ed how to do emotional unavailability right. “Me and my animals are riding off to fake our deaths. If anyone cares about me, tell them tough shit.”
Pluggers: News from Bridgewater VA — An arrest has been made in regard to the mysterious disappearances of baled-up hay from local farmers’ fields, thanks to a tip from an alert motorist. One of the haybales was spotted from the road, grotesquely defaced almost beyond recognition and ruined for any commercial use. The suspect was caught pink-handed trying to leave the scene.
Josh, glad you had a great vacation! Be sure to tell us all about it or we’ll have to tell you how Great Uncle Lumpys work was.
Paraphrase from someone smart like Abe Lincoln:. ” You do a man [kid] no favor when you do for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
Parents, teach your children well:
– Luann:. Ignorance of house skills
– Zits: Ignorance of cleaning skills
– Curtis: ignorance of paying requirements
MW:. Ed, get an associate or forget getting a life
DOONESBURY (which I imagine is banned since Mallard Fillmore is): great send up of non-prosecutable media bias.
The Ghost Who Colonizes — “We stand against evil.” Jungle Patrol motto
“Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity or even a duty.” Simone Weill
@taig:
#18. Taig, yeah, Ed is also trying to prevent having a his business closed in a malpractice suit.
@nescio: I was wondering whether rabies could spread by ingestion rather than a bite, but the Wikipedia article didn’t’ seem definitive, and I don’t want “can you get rabies from eating an infected bat” hanging around in my search history.
(It does say that birds can be infected, but they’re largely asymptomatic, so “not get sick” is certainly redundant. And I guess the citation suggests that scavengers can get rabies antibodies from eating infected animals.)
Beetle, my d20srd states that when you teleport you can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. Don’t front like you can lift that bed, your toothpick arms are visible.
@matt w: I’m certain RFK, Jr., has that in his search history.
Also…much appreciation for the D&D reference.
MW – So, Estranged Pam turns out to just be a nice, normal, friendly person and she’s not going to fuck Dr. Ed.
As always, we hope for something from this strip and we get nuthin’.
C’shaft: Please, the woman lives next to Ed Crankshaft. You can’t tell me this is the first time she’s had scorch marks on the siding.
Ask most Americans in the Year of Our Lord 2024 what “fear itself” looks like, and the responses would be as diverse and multifaceted as the nation itself. Some might point to the death of George Floyd, others to the riots sparked by the anger at that death. Still others might invoke significant dates: January 6th, September 11th, December 7th. “An old white suburban woman experiences minor property damage” would be pretty far down the list, an image so narrow-minded and provincial it could only come from someone absolutely incapable of relating to or empathizing with anything that does not affect them personally.
Dustin: Dustfriend thinks that’s prehistoric, wait till he sees the old school models with the incandescent bulb in them.
JP: “….What? Sorry, are we still talking about something that has nothing to do with me?”
Luann: The problem, as I see it, is that you’re wasting time ironing your daughter’s shirts in the first place. Are you making sure she’s ready for the high-pressure, high-stakes world of a community college freshman?
@astroboy: At worst she’s Passive Aggressive Pam judging by her comments but she would probably be sad about dead puppies instead of fuming in petty rage.
Re: Trail. When I was living in Nashville, I would have to regularly drive a stretch of Due West Avenue, where a
flockcommittee of vultures made their home. Often they would slow (or often block) traffic as they feasted on some dead animal. What MT fails to relate is how fucking enormous these birds are. I’m 5’8”, and those things came up to my waist, maybe higher. They don’t give AF about cars, either. The only way to get past them was to go around them.Cool birds, but annoyingly entitled.
MW: It was awkward enough that Stell’s long-estranged cousin Pam turns out apparently to be Iris’s twin sister. Now it will get even more awkward when Stell storms out of the restaurant and 10 minutes later comes back, with Wilbur. “Never mind meeting Ed – here’s the man I’m going to marry!”
JP: “You’re doing something remarkably stupid,” says the woman who can’t figure out how to hold a fork.
Phantom: “We stand against all evil,” says the man who is looking with great respect and admiration at the man who is actively engaged in stealing a horse.
BB – Russia is pioneering the concept of sending assault troops into battle on motor bikes, to reduce the amount of time they spend in the open while advancing into combat.
Beetle is on the cutting edge of military innovation.
@seismic-2: No, better than that, Eshtelle calls up Wilbur and tells HIM to be Dr. Mr. Ed. ‘Just think of Stellan and cry a lot! No one will know the difference!’
Like I said the other day, collision course with wackiness!
@Uncle Lumpy: Talking about talking is peak Judge Parker.
______________________________________________
Also, talking about something, possibly interesting, that happened somewhere else.
CS: “Mr. Murdoch: Zero point zero.”
MT: Ah, so that scene from Birdemic where the vultures kill a busload (aka 5) people by throwing up acid on them makes sense! I take back everything I’ve ever said about James Nguyen, the world’s greatest orthologist.
Welcome back, Josh!
Beetle Bailey: Does Beetle even understand that the Army has him walk long distances with a full backpack because that’s how he would have to get around in a war zone? But perhaps correctly, he realizes that his character will never leave the confines of his safe American military base, and it wouldn’t even matter if he could mentally transport himself while lying immobile in bed, eventually turning into one of the blob people from Wall-E.
Mary Worth: The Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band was right — dead puppies aren’t much fun.
Pluggers: Okay, I Googled images of “hay bale yard decorations, pig” and learned that this is actually something people out in the country might do. That’s right, Pluggers just taught me an actual fact about rural life, which is more than I can say for Snuffy Smith.
Hi and Lois: C’mon, Hi and Chip, you have a quarter-acre backyard with two trees in it — stop kvetching about the leaves.
HAW HAW – that’s just what I wanted you to think!
Jack Chick
MW. Of the many narrative and creative sins committed by today’s Mary Worth the most egregious may be that the quote box wasn’t the Dr. Demento Show’s “Dead puppies aren’t much fun.”
MW – Wilbur’s starting to look like a real catch now, eh Estelle?
Rex Morgan – I’m thankful that RMMD didn’t spend a week talking about Wanda completing the online check-in. After weeks of talking about making an appointment, that would be too much drama.
Pluggers – I can see small rectangular hay bales arranged with pumpkins, but painting an enormous round bale is a bit much. That seems like a waste.
I always think that round hay bales in their white covers look like huge marshmallows.
Mary Worth – Wow. In a rage because her fiance can’t be there because of dead puppies. Moy is deliberately turning Estelle into a narcissistic shrew, isn’t she?
@matt w: Mind blown.
@Bob Tice: Estelle’s going to wash that Dr. Ed and his dead puppies right out of her hair.
Welcome home, Josh!
FG: “Flash picks his nose when he thinks nobody is watching, and eats it.” Well, something needs to be done before we edge completely into Mary Sue territory.
Crank: In real life, Kent State alumni rarely mention they went to Kent State during “When I was at college” anecdotes. The profundity and substance of that memorable poly sci course offers a clue why that is.
MW: Hey, panel three foreground guy. Ladies and gentlemen break their bread at table before stuffing it into their mouths. And don’t let me catch you drinking the fingerbowl, either.
MW – Look on the bright side, Stell. At least you know he’s not banging Cousin Pam. Yet.
MW – Stell must be pretty short on friends and relatives to end up seated next to Formerly Estranged Cousin Pam. Apparently it was either her or Random Guy Who Likes Bread.
I’m a turkey vulture. That’s the only explanation for why I’m always reaching for Tums.
Beetle – You know your comic strip’s in trouble when Designated Dumb Guy’s lame little pun is the closest thing to a joke you’ve had in months.
Don Abundio, translated:
“The boss started a caterpillar collection?”
“Yes, but these fads of his never last long…”
“Most of the caterpillars are gone already!”
Mark Trail: I mean, even the PBS show Dinosaur Train once showed a Brachiosaurus take a massive dump onscreen.
But regardless, after reading this comic anyone else hungry for pizza?
@Dennis Jimenez: Hey, welcome back! I noticed you were away the whole time Josh was on vacation. Hmm, and have we ever seen you and Josh together… ??
MW: OK, so as I see it Moy has left 3 ways this can go:
1) Stell blows her stack & Ed realizes what a self-absorbed, heartless beeyotch she really is & moves on, bullet dodged.
2) Immediately after her rant/ultimatum/breakup w/Ed, one of Stell’s own pets suffers an acute medical crisis & of all the many veterinarians in Santa Royale only Ed can save him/her, leading to forgiveness & the wedding being back on (though no genuine self-revelation for Stell, cuz that just isn’t a MW thing).
3) Stell ends up back w/Wilbur, which is I suppose the next & ultimate notch up in narrative cruelty for a writer who just exterminated a whole litter of puppies (if only off-panel, thank you).