I should relate to Gertie’s pencil-neck husband, but all I feel for him is endless contempt
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Gearhead Gertie, 10/3/24
Now, I might be an Ivy League-educated coastal elitist, but the Ivy League school I attended was in fact located in the Finger Lakes, and I know that they’ll just let any schmo drive on at least one NASCAR track, so I assume this is probably true elsewhere? Not going to bother researching that, I’m just saying, this panel is predicated on the idea that Gertie is doing something crazy when in fact she’s doing something very normal for a NASCAR obsessive such as herself. I don’t usually take sides in comic strip marital spats but her husband needs to chill out!
Blondie, 10/3/24
Blondie is a strip I very much never think of as “visually interesting,” so I do have to give props to Dagwood’s thought balloon in the first panel, which wraps around the door to match his imagined sausage garland placement. On the other hand, his wink is pure nightmare fuel, and the idea of “pizza-shaped pillows” … that’s just round! That’s not epic at all! Look, Alexander, there’s a pizza-shaped pillow on the couch right next to you!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/3/24
You know, if Mud Mountain only pretended to be the first guy in history who ever had his personality genuinely improved after joining an obviously fake scam self-help cult, just so he could lull Truck into complacency and get an invitation to perform together again, at which point he plans to pull off his patented move — pretending to shit his pants on stage — well, I for one will have no choice but to respect it.
97 replies to “I should relate to Gertie’s pencil-neck husband, but all I feel for him is endless contempt”
“The race is over”: TFW you’re a loser racist obsessed with white genocide
RMMD:
“Call him, then. See what he says.”
“I cain’t. Every time I pick up my cell phone to do that, my fingers freeze up, and I end up smashin’ the phone, jes’ like I did to your coffee cup. Been through 15 cell phones already!”
Dagwood read the Book of Exodus and decided that putting pepperoni above his front door was a way to tell the angel of death “Please take my first born, but leave my pizza alone!”
RMMD:
“Okay, a little off-topic, Truck, but has anyone ever told you that your sideburns bear the shape of the country of Italy?”
“Absolutely! The young ‘uns love it — I have ’em affix gummy stars to the spot where places like Rome and Milan are located!”
Blondie: “Pizza-shaped pillows? That sounds moderately zany, but where are they now?”
“Come on, sis, you know we don’t have the art assets to actually show them.”
CS: I admit I already had low expectations, but I still expected better than an unironic use of the “no u bro” counter-argument. Just another reminder that even when you think you’ve found the bottom of Tom Batiuk’s barrel you’d better make sure you’re wearing a parachute.
DT: Boy, I hope they’re going to find that sarcophagus opened from the inside prior to bringing it back to the Antarctic Egyptian pyramids, because otherwise this is the most pointless and empty subplot in storytelling history. Speaking of forgotten story stuff, is anyone ever going to explain how the fake Lunarian bad guys “froze” the night club patron earlier?
JP: Oh God so much nonsense and self-contradiction is happening at once. Everything coming out of the Whelan family’s mouths right now is unmitigated madness and I’m not even going to try to parse it for the time being. Poor Neddy’s even worse off than I am, as she’s so befuddled that she’s lost track of her own gender and is stammering about how she will be a faithful husband to her boyfriend. Ronnie continues to be the smartest person in the room, metaphorically speaking that is, as she has quietly fled the room and is probably already driving back home to her loathsome wife.
MW: Only Wilbur rates house call service. If Estelle wants muffins and love advice, she can SOB! her lazy ass on over to Mary’s apartment herself.
“I was thinking of maybe giving Mud Murphy a call. I think that a couple of weeks about trigger finger should be enough to fill our quota of medical storylines and now we can go back to what really matters, niche musical genres and Buck”
RMMD:
“On second thought —
“Well, there’s sugar on my spoonware
And quickness in the sand
But I’ll never see, for the life of me,
Mud Murphy in my band!”
MW:
“I’ll be fine…once I get over the best Mann I’ve ever known…the educator Horace!”
RMMD: Get over yourself, Truck. Mud’s too busy peddling salvation to be your pickin’ monkey.
BB: Flashing back to the sex worker under the podium in “Police Academy.”
MW: Mary makes a hasty call to Wilbur: “Quick, take a shower and go grab a sack of ribs. You’re up.”
MW: Oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong. Someone is about to get SUCH a meddling!…
If Truck doesn’t watch it, his sideburns are going to meet under his chin and he’ll turn into Ian Cameron.
Blondie: I’m curious how many wacky pizza day themed ideas Dagwood has had in the 24 years (thank you National Day Archives) it has been a “thing” where “Pizza shaped pillows” came in year 23. And by “curious” I mean “indifferent”.
Phantom: There’s a joke here about the sound “Urissh” coming from robot junk, but I’ll be damned before I make a joke for The Phantom.
MW: Mary: “I’ve made apple muffins…would you like to come over and tell me about it? You can bring Pierre and Libby if you want!”
Stella: *sigh* “Apple…?”
RMMD: It seems the Wheel of Plotlines has landed on the largest wedge of “Mud Murphy”. Did we use our “Free Respin” token already?
GG Ha, Gertie isn’t usy driving on the track, she’s planning on parking there! Then, when the next race starts and the cars round the corner and smash into her RV, she can finally be completely united with her beloved NASCAR, in a twisted pile of flesh and metal, forever.
Blondie: So wait, is Pizza Month October? Seems unlikely that Dag would wait this late to finalize plans. It’s probably next March…
RMMD Hold on there! Don’t you want to discuss calling Truck a few more dozen times before you actually don’t? I can’t take this breakneck pace!
GG: And here I thought, she had hijacked a prisoner transport to break her boyfriend(?) out of a maximum security prison.
Blondie shamelessly caters to its readers’ fantasies: having kids who are impressed by their parents’ bullshit.
GG: Yeah, it’s better to let her get it out of her system on the racetrack rather than among people just trying to go about their normal commutes.
Blondie: Where are the pizza-shaped pillows? Dagwood ate them! It was a remarkable show of restraint on his part not to eat them for an entire month.
RMMD: Charlie Brown, the Plugger years.
JP: This could all be cleared up with a few sentences’ worth of rational discussion, so of course it’s going to devolve into absolute chaos.
Gearhead Gertie: For the record, yes, other tracks do allow civilian cars on them, for some sort of exorbitant fee, naturally. It’s typically a way for rich douchebags to see what their, uh, higher-end models are capable of. Don’t think that RV will be getting up to 200/mph, but this is Gearhead Gertie, anything’s possible.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Johnny Cash: keeps Carl Perkins on the payroll for years, sustaining him through epic battles with alcoholism. Truck Tyler: Calls up Mud Murphy for a guest spot while Truck recovers from trigger finger. WHO’S YOUR HERO NOW?
Blondie…It’s a valid take because it’s the actual pillow saying it based on the word balloon.
GG: What is Gertie driving? It’s the shape of a UPS package truck, but the wrong color.
Frazz: She doesn’t dare tell Frazz that they passed that coffee place on their way to a less crowded coffee place.
Luann: Kip, you’ve been dating this strawshrew for a long time now. You should know better than to tell her that you look at other girls.
CS: This is it, thinks Batiuk. This is the moment where the Putzlitzer Prize Committee will really take notice.
9CL: Oh, for fuck’s sake! This reads like Brooke suddenly remembered he decided Seth was gay. Hey, how’s Fernanda doing?
CS: Oh God, “you’re burning a book about burning books” is going to be the big reveal, isn’t it?
MW: “Apple muffins? SOB! Those are Ed’s favorite. SOB!”
Zits: It’s difficult to say whose DNA that thing has.
FC: Damn! Change her name to Doxxy.
PLAY MUDDY BOOTS!!!
Blondie: HGTV’s ‘Cheap and Trendy’ decorating style has now reached the Legacy strips. It will be quite amusing to see Dagwood eating one of his famous quadruple-decker sloppy joe sandwiches on a 3 seater sofa in white bouclé.
Gearhead Gertie – This strip is too episodic and infrequently published to do real stories, like Gertie getting into a race with a rival NASCAR fanatic.
Blondie – Dagwood’s wink looks more like a stroke than where an eye would be for a wink. That’s the sort of human anatomy knowledge you lose when you mostly use clipart and other reused assets. Agree though that it’s a small price for seeing original art with some imagination in this strip.
Rex Morgan – Hey! Wait a minute! Stop The Music!”
(But seriously, I have to think Parker’s interaction with Truck on the bench means he’s on course to become a ramblin’ roots country musician taking inspiration from Truck and Mud, and leaving his nerdy friend behind to a life of day jobs and seedy comedy bars.)
Wilbur Weston makes a guest appearance in Hagar the Horrible as Helga demonstrates her swallowing technique.
CS- What ” wrong lessons” is Fahrenheit 451 teaching exactly? I read (and did a report on) that book back in school, and there is nothing in that book that “teaches the wrong lessons” to students. I question if Batiuk has even ever read the book.
FC: “I know my phone number and my house number…my name, not so much.”
I think the strip will become Truck & Mud, driving Rex into being a very occasional side character like Barney Google after Snuffy ousted him. In a hundred years, people will barely remember the once massively popular (okay, the quick glance over strip with that first glass of Metamucil) Rex…
Gertie is driving recklessly enough down a racetrack in a vehicle with a high center of gravity that the whole thing is bouncing, and she’s not wearing a seat belt. I believe one should just let people enjoy what they enjoy, don’t yuck someone else’s yum and all that, but I’m still struggling to type all of this out with my fingers crossed in the hope that tomorrow’s comic isn’t the RV (?) being nothing but a pile of twisted metal while she lies dozens of metres away after going through the window.
Blondie: So Dagwood is pulling a Willy Wonka and plans to create lickable wallpaper. I really do hope he invites guests over to lick the anchovies. The sausage tastes like sausage, the pepperoni tastes like pepperoni, but the food at the mental hospital tastes like paste, as Dagwood will soon discover.
MW: “You can bring Pierre and Libby if you want.”
“[SOB] But what about [SOB] what about [SOB] Jeff’s allergies?”
“Ah screw Jeff.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: It looks like Helga is sticking the knife in her mouth. This could get ugly.
GG – When Josh first started featuring this strip, I wondered how many different jokes you could make about a NASCAR-obsessed woman. It turns out that that you can make a lot of them as long as they don’t need to be funny.
Gearhead: I used to live in Watkins Glen (the location of the track near Josh’s college) and I can say with complete authority that the people paying to drive on that track are absolutely Ivy League coastal elitists. It isn’t middle class grandmas driving those Porsches and Lotuses up there.
CS: The mob is putty in Lillian’s hands. She forthrightly but succinctly and gently shows the protestors that what they’re doing is un-American.
Stunned by this realization, they silently drop their heads in shame. Then one of them says, “You know, that Les Moore is really a hero.”
This is greeted with a rousing cheer, and the group marches to Les’ house to carry him on their shoulders in an impromptu parade.
Les beams with joy. After a trip around the block, his fans return him to his front porch and ask him to speak.
One minute into Les’ self-congratulatory speech, the onlookers grow restless. “Christ, what an asshole,” shouts one of them. “What the hell were we thinking?” bellows another. Just then, a Molotov cocktail crashes through the front window. The rest is history.
Blondie: Cookie should be ashamed of herself using her arm to showcase her bust for her brother.
FC: No, moron, what you need is to BUTTON your coat.
Frazz: TAKE THAT, all you scumbags who use drive-through.
RMMD: When Truck asks Mud to be his sideman, Mud says, “Why? What the hell do I need YOU for?”
Blondie: Dagwood is shamelessly ignoring Halloween, the celebration of which goes on all month in every other comic strip. Then again, pepperoni over the door would terrify even the most hard-core trick or treaters. “He’s putting MEAT out! God knows what the candy is made of!”
GG – “Relax! The race is over. We’re old now. We’re through with striving to get ahead in our careers, raising children, racking up accomplishments. At this point it doesn’t matter what we do. Now let’s see if we can flip this crate upside down!”
Blondie – The real problem with Dagwood’s thought-balloon pepperoni over the door is that it looks too much like his large intestine.
@Cleve Barrister: You could make an argument it teaches ‘disrespect for proper authority’ or some such, but I’m quite sure that’s never going to get a proper explanation. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday will be taken up by Lil pontificating at this faceless blob, and as the designated heroine everyone will automatically recognize she is right and they are wrong. Come Monday all will be resolved, the students will get their (still banned) books, everyone will praise Lil n’ Les and there will be much punning and smirking.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Your secretary is being very secretive”
“Yes! She’s typing a highly confidential document”
“At least I hope that’s what she’s doing!”
Gertie’s husband isn’t worried about them doing something they’re not supposed to or even the dangers of driving down the track during a live race. He’s been tilted to the side the whole time Gertie’s been doing this and is worried he’s going to throw up by the end of it.
RMMD: As a patent attorney, I usually find the use of the phrase “patented move” to be quaint, at best. However, I must say that I find the step of “pretending to shit your pants onstage” to be both novel and unobvious.
Blondie – “What about using fresh pineapples as a centerpiece for the dining room table?” “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!!
FC: Congratulations, Dolly. You’re way ahead of Ed Crankshaft at that age. In another year you should be able to recognize your name on a pitching rotation.
MW – “Oh, don’t worry about me – SOB! No, I’m just fine SOB. No, really, I just lost the best man I’ve ever known but don’t you worry about me, not one bit, I’m totes OK SOB!”
“Ummm, these muffins don’t cure passive-aggressiveness. Sorry, meeting’s cancelled.
Two things:
1. Is Gertie’s pencilneck husband a plugger? Is Gertie a plugger? Nascar is a plugger-coded sport.
2. The Luann controversy over which woman the unlikeable Les has a crush on… why has nobody in-comic thought of Les being gay and having a crush on some other guy? I have no idea who supposedly works at this “restaurant”, so I have no candidates.
CS – One of those protesters is not there because it’s a banned book. He’s there because he thinks the Fahrenheit scale is outdated and wants the title changed to Celsius 232.78.
Blondie: I think that pillow in the third panel and Alexander’s comment are a way to reference that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. That pillow looks like a boob and Alexander is horny.
RMMD – Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat. Mud might be onto something, that’s all I’m sayin’.
Phantom: Dying with his arm torn off, Grendel runs back to his mother, who immediately swears vengeance on whoever did this.
European racing fans and drivers scattered as Gearhead Gertie drove the VBIED on to the track at Le Mans. “Racin’ is rubbin’, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!” she screeched as camper full of AMFO and ball bearings slammed into the grandstand.
@Cleve Barrister: I’m glad I read your comment before I got all redundant and repetitive.
GG – I would find a turn-left oval packed with Winnebagos way more interesting than the standard NASCAR event….
Blondie – Listen to the pillow, Cookie. Somebody’s gotta talks sense in this strip….
RMMD – Muddy Gloves Therapy – racing up the charts….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: Oooo…can we come too, Mary, and listen in as you console/”counsel”/nag Estelle into (a) reconciling with Dr Ed or (b) running back to Wilbur? Is there room in your apartment for all us Mudges? I know there are plenty of muffins for all of us…
If not, maybe Sid can sneak in a fly with a tiny transmitter to sit on the wall and let us listen in to the melodramatics! SOB!!
P.S. If Estelle *is* nagged into going back to Wilbur, she’ll have to rehome her pets. I bet Dr Ed and Odin would love to take them in.
Gearhead Gertie: I have to note my appreciation for the comic convention of showing a vehicle raised up off the road to indicate its speed. Although during an actual auto race, it’s almost surely an indication that a fiery crash is about to happen, in which case Gertie’s husband’s misgivings are entirely justified.
love is... making a weird sex toy list.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@Cleve Barrister: It’s wrong about the ignition temperature of paper, I believe. When Les burns something, he wants to make sure it burns.
Gearhead Gertie-And thus ‘Gearhead Gertie’ comes to an end with the ‘Thelma and Louise’ ending.
FC-“Now the authorities will know where to return me.”
FC-That’s better than kids who are older than Dolly that don’t know their own address.
MW-“The best man I’ve ever known.” Wilbur?
RMMD-I knew it.
Crankshaft-“That book has nothing to do about Les’ suffering while his wife was dying of cancer.”
Gertie borrowing today from a 1996 Target commercial featuring the two drivers (Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi) they then sponsored in Indycar attempting to one-up each other in gradually ridiculous ways, ending with the two racing RVs on a banked oval.
Or perhaps the strip is borrowing from the sad tale of Stephen White, who broke into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a few days after the 1991 Indianapolis 500 to drive his pickup truck around the track at high speed. White was killed when he rammed his truck at high speed into a speedway maintenance vehicle that had been parked on the track in an attempt to get him to stop.
Blondie: No, clearly that pillow on the couch is shaped like a GARLIC KNOT, not a pizza.
@Cleveland Mocks: This is so close to being a legitimately great ending. You’ve got Ed Crankshaft, his grill, his immunity from prosecution, and puddles of accelerant that the villains poured themselves and are now standing in. “In the end, the books burned *them*. I’m Rod Serling.”
Zits: Folks, I’ve been gettin’ a lotta calls – asking where did I find that newest talent in Zits, playing the whimsy role. Well, I gotta admit – they never called me for this character, and I don’t have any idea where he(she?) came from, or even *what* it is! But, to be honest, I’m liking what I see here!
I think this… actor.. really knows how to connect with the audience. Just the right degree of insouciance that totally fits the general theme of the comic! It’s a natural fit! We’re considering whether to try to sign up this New, uh, Face to our client base when their Zits gig ends. I hear they don’t plan to put ’em on contract. But of course you have to consider future marketability of such an …. extraordinary talent. I tell ya, this business is more than just glitz and glamour… a lotta hard choices to be made…
FC: Um, Dolly, are you familiar with the concept of negative numbers? Because that’s where your IQ is…
[Oh SNAP…that was just mean. Dolly’s IQ is well above zero, just like her siblings.]
Blondie: That’s no thought balloon, it’s the scan results from Dagwood’s last colonoscopy.
Uh, how would you drive a tall vehicle with a higher center of gravity, like an RV or an 18-wheeler, on a banked NASCAR track without toppling over as soon as you slow down?
FG: Brother Leader Airman Sojas is taking on a real “John Carradine in The Grapes of Wrath” vibe. Spooky.
Love the final panel and “NEXT:” box. “I have become….the most powerful shoeshine boy in all of Mongo.”
FC: Now maybe you’ll stop going into the neighbors’ houses when you get off the kindergarten bus. It’s great to know the house number – just be sure you’re on the right street.
In case you haven’t noticed, I simply love saying “Brother Leader Airman Sojas.” I love the long silly string of adjectives, I love his silly name. And he may be a pusillanimous wanker*, but he’s still one of my favorite secondary characters in revised Flash Gordon. The Spinal Tap Roadie hairdo is the cherry on the sundae.
* ”That Trial by Combat was RIGGED AND STOLLEN.”
GG: given that most NASCAR events are held on high-banked tracks with steep corners, an RV would be terribly difficult for an amateur/crazed driver to control.
A few years ago, they had to totally rebuild a brand new track in Texas because the G forces building up were making experienced race car drivers sick.
As Ricky Bobby showed, it’s even very hard to run on those tracks.
Stick to flat tracks, Gertie.
A dirt track near me runs an annual school bus race.
As far as I know, Ed Crankshaft hasn’t appeared yet.
@Ukulele Ike: My favorite Star Wars character is Jak “Piggy” Porkins.
I flipped through one of the later SW shows and they had another pilot who looked just like the late, lamented Porkins.
@Tonio: re GG: “…toppling over as soon as you slow down.”
Gertie has no plans to “slow down.” Thankfully this will be the last episode of this execrable comic as it comes to a blazing end off panel. Next week – introducing Ghost Gertie, obnoxious Golf Groupie!
@Ukulele Ike: #73: Sojas face has gotten a lot more lean and haggard since we last saw him. Maybe those Ming masks are designed to mold your face into the shape of Ming’s.
BTW: If you have the chance to catch “The Prisoner of Shark Island” about the Dr. Mudd sentenced to prison for his part in the Lincoln assassination, Carradine has a really good supporting role as a sadistic prison guard who has it out for Mudd.
Crankshaft-“Give us the bus driver who doesn’t pick up our children and drives his bus through our houses!”
Bizarro – She could be sad.
FC – Thel thinks, “Dammit. Now we can’t ‘lose’ her in a crowd because she can tell the police where she lives. What to do? Oh, wait – Jeffy is too stupid to learn his address and phone number. Maybe we could go to the opening of that new store; that should be crowded. Let me get a drink first.”
Pluggers – I call BS. They’re still pissed off because they weren’t invited to a classmate’s birthday party in second grade.
Frazz – I’m confused. Frazz and Caulfield mocked Mrs. Olsen because she stops for coffee every day. Now Frazz and random girl disapprove of people waiting in line at the drive thru to get coffee, but apparently they approve of going inside the coffee shop to get coffee. The only consistency is that Frazz and whatever kid are superior to everyone.
CS: There are so many tropes to Very Special Episodes I was on the lookout for. To my eternal shame, the main character walking up to the angry mob and bluntly explaining the theme of the story they’re all stuck in like they’re a bunch of five year-olds wasn’t one of them. But mark my words, she’s going to read to them. And I already know the part of the book she’s going to read.
@pachoo#Y153 – Re Pluggers – Seriously, you should submit that.
@cheech wizard: RMMD – I recall that Osborne had to get rabies vaccine shots after that. Medical issue!
@Mister Miggle: CS: Batiuk is really going to end this with “and then everybody clapped.”
Ripley: Sissy-ass NASA. If I was an astronaut in 1965, I would have insisted on wedging in a Conn Half-Lady BBb sousaphone.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Thank you for the tip, I’ll look that up for streaming. I’ve always had a hankering to pay a visit to Fort Jefferson, where Mudd was imprisoned. But I think you have to rent a damn boat in Key West to get out there.
Mudd’s “part in the Lincoln assassination” consisted of setting a broken leg for the stranger who showed up at his door in the middle of the night (John Wilkes Booth), something you’d expect a decent doctor to do, at least back in 1865. I still feel sorry for poor old Doc Mudd.
RMMD-Truck Tyler Featuring Mud Mountain on Guitar With Special Opening Act Shorty and Beanpole. There will be no refunds.
Crankshaft – This self righteous claptrap has been going on for so long that I suspect that Batiuk is going to publish it as a book. It would be wonderful if schools banned it (or rather, wanted nothing to do with it) – not because it’s controversial, but because it’s boring and stupid, and students wouldn’t get anything from it.
I’m not going to look this up, but in an interview at the beginning of this garbage story, Batiuk said that he discovered that Loathsome Lillian was strong and courageous, and that he really liked her as a character. This crap today still doesn’t make up for her ruining her sister’s life.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
MW: this is heading for a karaoke date with Wilbur, isn’t it?
Blondie: I believe pizza is more of a Spring than an Autumn.
GG: Obviously the joke here is, as any NASCAR fan knows, at most speedways (including Watkins Glen), RVs are explicitly prohibited from the civilian drive-ons. She’s fu**in’ NUTS!
@I speak Jive: Batiuk will publish this story as a book, the story will include a subplot about Lillian publishing her story as a book, Batton Thomas will publish a book about his comic strips about this incident, and Skip will interview Batton and Lillian about their books for his book. And Les will win an award somehow.
Blondie: Ever notice how the women in Blondie all stand like they’re doing a dinosaur impression?
Rex Morgan: In real life, Mud would probably respond to Truck’s request with “go fuck yourself” and hang up immediately. But this is Rex Morgan-world where everybody loves Truck, so Mud will genially agree to the collab with a man who has been nothing but awful towards him from day one.
Blondie: It took me close to a minute to realize that Dagwood was winking in the first panel and a nanosecond to decide that he shouldn’t do that anymore.
GG: Gertie is a notorious NASCAR granny, which is why the track allows her to drive on it after hours. Not sure who loaned her the ice cream truck.
RMMD: This is the second day in a row that it’s looked like Truck has a big nasty boil on the bridge of his nose. Wanda really needs to change it up with the color of her accessories.
S4th/CS: By the time Ted finished his novel, it will already be banned in Westview.
Dagwood is squinting to size up the pepperoni garland. An unusual failure of the strip’s draftsmanship.
“I don’t think this is a good idea”. Neither do I, but apparently newspapers think that Gearhead Gertie is worth publishing