High-falutin’ Sunday
Post Content
Hi and Lois, 10/20/24
It’s a bold choice to have Hi and Lois make direct eye contact with you, the reader, in the final panel here. This isn’t just a cute domestic scene; it’s a polemical tract, tailored to urge all of us to not be so quick to “tidy” that we purge beloved memories of our past. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t read this before I spent a lot of time and energy reorganizing my closet a couple weekends ago, as I’d probably still have a bunch of shirts I never wear hanging up in there. “Let’s leave it! It’s a time capsule!” I’d tell my increasingly irritated wife.
Family Circus, 10/20/24
The Family Circus’ bread and butter is what I like to call “darndest thing saying,” which is the Keane Kids trying to explain some aspect of the world or talk like a smart adult but fucking it up very badly, due to idiocy. However, today’s installment makes a fatal misstep, because one of the darndest things they say is actually correct! We really do call autumn “fall” because of falling leaves — in fact, the original phrase was “fall of the leaf.” Does Billy, like me, spend his time entertaining himself exploring word origins on the Online Etymology Dictionary site? If so, he probably enjoyed learning that “autumn” comes to us from Latin but may ultimately have an Etruscan root, and that there is in fact no common Indo-European word for the period between summer and winter, which may imply that the steppe herders of the proto-Indo European urheimat did not perceive it as a distinct season.
Mary Worth, 10/20/24
I think Wilbur has finally hit his logical endpoint as a character: he has become the human embodiment of rock bottom. The prospect of marrying him is so vile and horrifying as to make literally any alternate scenario seem preferable. The middle panel in the bottom row comes from Estelle’s fictional dreamscape, but I assume it will haunt your very real nightmares tonight, as it will mine.
175 replies to “High-falutin’ Sunday”
Mary Worth: AAAAUGH! THERE SHOULD BE A TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS STRIP!!! Triggered a violent reverse peristaltic reaction in me that shames the pea soup kid in “The Exorcist.” I need a bolus of lactated ringers STAT!
Mary Worth: Everyone thought the most terrifying scene in Mary Worth‘s history was Wilbur Weston in a speedo. Today, that hurdle has been breached by a long shot.
Mary Worth Mashups
FC:
“Curses! Feuilles again!”
FC:
I think that I shall never see
Four gnomes as ugly as a tree.
— Joyce Kilmer (adapted)
Slylock Fox-Silver indicates second place which that trophy is even not.
RMMD-“What? What? I don’t get it,” a bewildered Rex asks.
MW-And for no reason whatsoever here’s a gratuitous cameo by Wilbur.
FC-Don’t tell Mr. Crankshaft that the leaves are starting to fall.
FC-“That prick Mr. Moore wants to know when the last leaf falls.”
FC:
“Billy, this assemblage of trees with leaves falling marks the Ent of summer.”
“Jeffy, now you’re Tolkien!”
Hi and Lois-“This strip is still funny.” Said about no current comic whatsoever.
MW:
In the second-to-last panel, Wilbur reprises his role as an anthropomorphized fish.
Estelle’s pets, whose names I haven’t bothered to learn (is one Pierre?) are looking at her as if to say, “Yeah, we’ve had that dream, too — freaky, huh?”
MW:
“Mary, if you press those airborne cherubs against a hard-print Sunday comic, you’ll see reverse images of them!”
“Why is that, Jeff?”
“Because they’re silly putti!”
H&L – Here’s the Radio Shack receipt documenting I got the extended warranty for my VIC 20 – I wouldn’t want to lose that – one of the keys is starting to stick….
FC – The trees are having a nervous breakdown cuz they’re stuck in this strip….
MW – Wilbur must’a learned to make that fish face when he fell off the cruise ship….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Mary Worth: Wilbur is now officially the Romantic Boogeyman, a monstrous creature who haunts the dreams of single women throughout Santa Royale. Oh, and he’s still the local newspaper’s advice columnist, right? Ha, print media sucks.
Mark Trail: Oh, look, a new species of giant spiders is invading the U.S. But they’re perfectly harmless, ACCORDING TO THE SAME PRINT MEDIA THAT EMPLOYS WILBUR WESTON. Sleep well tonight, citizens!
Hi and Lois: All that paper cluttering your rooms and walls is actually very important, so you should value it highly and keep it forever — especially old comic strips, SAYS THE PRINT MEDIA THAT COULDN’T BE MORE SELF-INTERESTED IN HAVING YOU DO SO.
Family Circus: What these stupid kids don’t know about autumn leaves could fill a book. Which really doesn’t matter, because apparently none of them has ever read one.
Slylock Fox: How did Wanda Witch cheat at a marathon by putting everyone to sleep with laced tea while she also drank it and stayed awake? Well, she cheated even more effectively by completing the course on a flying broomstick — so the real question is, why did she even bother with the tea?
MW: You have to give it up to Moy and Brigman. Today’s strip cannot be improved. I mean, chef’s kiss, ten out of ten, no-notes level of Wilbur-horror greatness.
Mary Worth Mashups for reals this time.
H&L: See, I would have drawn that last strip to appear as if we, the readers, were the bulletin board. That would better explain those nostalgic, stoned expressions.
MW: If Mary made this happen, then color me impressed!
RMMD: Truck can smile. Mud can smile. Smile, Hank! Smile, Yvonne! Smile, Rex! Smile, June! Smile, smile, smile!
SF: Guys that make you go “AUUUGH!” Wilbur Weston and Ted Forth vie for first place.
Today’s H&L: the whole strip is a metatextual reference to Hi and Lois itself.
H&L: I deeply suspect that Hi’s comment “This strip is still funny.” is a subliminal message for the reader.
H&L: We begin with our observers paying lip service to the notions that their subject is behind the times and requires reform. This is quickly met with reluctance and denial and insistence that its content is still good, even though many related enterprises have failed. Sentimentality and sluggish inertia then causes them to push that the art is still charming and the once-positive responses still hold. Leaving no allowance for anything new, be it fresh ideas, improvement, or openness to current feedback, they smugly decide to leave things just as they are and do nothing to solve their obviously apparent problems, determined to instead wallow in fruitless nostalgia. Hmm… are we really talking about a corkboard here?
CS: And I thought yesterday’s malicious destruction of Lillian’s property was tonedeaf. But here we are now, right after a very serious-minded story about deadly arson and cacophonous terrorization in the dark of night, looking at Crankshaft revving up a 90-decibel leaf blower when everyone in his neighborhood is trying to sleep and risking the uncontrolled launching of incendiary projectiles at flammable buildings for fun. Granted, this would have been funny never because the “joke” is just that Crankshaft is a moronic scumbag with no regard for anything or anyone but his own misanthropic id, but for Batiuk to use this in the same week as his desperate award-bait about “The Burnings” is… oh, who am I kidding? For almost any other writer, this would be the most shameful mistake of their career. For Tom Batiuk, it’s just Sunday.
JP: It’s been like two years since the second season of Neddy and Ronnie’s Netflix show was cancelled in pre-production. Even assuming they got paid for their rejected script draft, that is a really long time to be completely out of work. Well, sure, for Neddy the absurdly wealthy and lazy airhead, it makes sense. But for Ronnie, who was previously established with a strong work ethic, grounded mindset, modest net worth, and lately a burning need to be out of the house more, this is just wildly out of character. Though I guess it’s perfectly in line with Ronnie’s updated role, which could be easily replaced by a popsicle stick with a sarcastic eyerolling face drawn on it.
Luann: Haha, those kids today and their… bloviating corporate speak? Goshdarned teenagers, always… kicking off morning stand-up meetings to expediently review daily targets and address progress barriers? Luann is canonically majoring in Italian circus welding, and it’s doubtful anyone could assume exactly what that would entail, but who would have guessed it would involve so much babbling middle management lingo?
MW: Baja does it much better. This is just garbage.
FC: “The reason the leaves fall off is they’re rusty.” There’s stupid and then there’s Jeffy stupid.
Hi & Lois : I see what they did with Hi’s line in panel 4(? 3, minus the title card? 2, if you don’t count the throwaways?). It’s not true, by the way, this strip was NEVER funny.
*************
Marvin : Oh, so MarvinDad thinks that change is always bad, especially when it concerns changing out of clothes that are dirty and smelly? Is he trying to compete with DustinDad in the “where does his son get his bad behavior from, what a mystery” department?
*************
Mary Worth : I must admit, I laughed… then I said “goddammit, not this ‘Wilbur is Estelle’s soulmate’ shit again”.
Which I am certain is 100 % the intended reaction.
*************
On the Fastrack : So, Ms Trellis is going to use elaborate make-up and costume to disguise herself as Dethany “for her husband”, huh?
H&L: This strip tends to run about 10-15 years behind in terms of trends (see: ‘we recently stopped using our landline’) so I guess they’ve finally caught up to the cultural phenomenon that was Hoarders
FC: I know that there are no arrows on those speech balloons because it would get in the way of the art, but I like that it gives the effect that these are just voices in the air, as if the Keane kids were telepaths. God, imagine a whole brood of idiot children who could broadcast their inane thoughts to the world with their fantastic mental powers. I mean, Scanners was creepy, but this is real horror.
MW: I’m a little disturbed by the presence of cherubs, who typically announce the presence of God, as it would seem to imply that this union between Estelle and Wilbur is divinely ordained. In any case, I’m really looking forward to this final showdown between Mary and the Almighty as they battle over Estelle’s soul.
Still not as bad as the Wilburbabies.
“This strip is still funny.” Stop trying to manifest it!
Well now that you bring it up, when I see them looking at the reader in the final panel, especially with those creepy smug expressions, I can’t help but think of something far more self-serving and sinister. “We’re totally not a decades-out-of-date relic hogging space in a dying medium well past its time that needs to be put out of its misery! It’s a time capsule! This strip is still funny, dammit!
On another topic: I think this strip is a reminder that you don’t have to be a teenager to lose the innocence of youth. Billy is slowly aging out of the time of darnest things-saying, ultimately replaced by just blandly repeating what his teacher told him.
The idea of a leaf collection is lame, but at least “Family Circus” just used it for one of the many jokes of the Sunday strip instead of making it the basis of months-long storyline, like “Gasoline Alley”
Linguistics
– CANDORVILLE:. Clyde is right, English is a continuously evolving language. Look at the “crazy” words they added to dictionaries. But i disagree with him in substsnce– my experience says that isolating nonsocial people does not improve their social skills but rather makes them antisocial.
– DOONESBURY:. An awkward conversation.
– GA:. The guys were perfectly clear. It’s up to the server to repeat the order to check accuracy. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have done any good as the guys would have heard what they expected to hear, just as Clovia did
MW:. You’ve got a third option, Estelle. Learn to be a confident, fulfilled single woman. You deserve better than being married and wishing you were single.
Wait, Estelle is getting married dressing all white?!?! I assumed she was too disgusted to copulate with Wilbur, but you are telling me she never consummated her previous marriage?! Work stress my ass, her husband died of blue balls!
@Baja Gaijin:
#1. MW:. Yes, worse is Estelle! She is picturing this being all about her, her, her. Everyone staring at gorgeously strayed Estelle!
@Liam:
#5. RMMD:. Just wait. Mud still needs to have his after-concert heart attack, Rex. After CPR and ER and ICU, you can put him in a room with You Know Who.
@Activist:
#38. MW. Correction:. Arrayed. Gorgeously arrayed Estelle. Oops, Freudian slip.
MW: Jump scares don’t work well in a static medium but kudos for trying.
I sincerely hope that today’s Mary Worth is the beginning of a new storyline where every character has nightmares about Wilbur. Even the animals. Even Wilbur himself.
You know she’s seen Wilbur’s O-face, right? I bet it looks a lot like that.
MW: And here I thought ‘shit the bed’ was just an expression.
MW – Even in her dreams, when it comes to wedding guests the best Estelle can do is: Mary, Dr. Jeff, Estranged Pam, (Estranged Pam’s goateed husband?) and a bunch of random Purple People NPC’s?
Estelle’s lack of friends is almost as disturbing as Puckerin’ Wilbur. OK, maybe not almost as bad as that, but still disturbing.
No, Hi & Lois aren’t looking directly at us, the readers. They’re looking directly at you, Josh. This is their response to all the times you’ve called comic strips out for still having dogs living outside and whatnot. “It’s a time capsule. You should leave it as it is.” They’ve become aware of you and don’t want you to interfere. Not that this should scare you—what should scare you is the fact that Wilbur’s also become aware of you, and the way you keep putting him down is turning him on.
“This strip is still funny”
The irony is, that I actually legit laughed at today’s Mary Worth (a soap strip) than I have with any of the “intended to be” funny comics in ages.
@Craig!: Well, Dawn did have that nightmare about turning into Wilbur.
Hi and Lois: Landline 5 years ago? Most people with a landline 5 years ago were just bundling to save money. They didn’t even have an actual phone to answer just a #. Unless of course you are a fat animal who wears flannel shirts.
MW: So many people wanted a close look at Estelle debasing herself that the women in the front row had to sit on their man’s lap.
CS: Asshole status Critical.
RMMD: “Glad you like it. That’ll be forty-five dollars.”
MW: “AAAUUUGGGHH!” -Charles Brown
Fudge Packer: On the contrary, I think Neddy and Ronnie would be well qualified to work as fluffers at this pancake house.
MW: I wonder if Moy and Brigman intended that penultimate panel as suitable for framing. Because it definitely is.
MW: What would make this even creepier is if Wilbur’s eyes were open.
MW: Moy has to be trolling us at this point, right? She’s not planning to have Stell and Wilbur reconcile, IS SHE? Somebody hug me, I’m scared.
Hi and Lois – “This No-Pest Strip is still funny. Ha ha, lookit all them dead bugs! I don’t care what they say about toxicity, Trixie still looks healthy enough to me.”
FC – “Pretty soon the birds won’t have any place to hide. Then we will kill them. We will kill them all.”
MW – “Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational. Life stinks and then you die.” Can we please get Hugh Mackay to take over writing this strip?
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: BUS STOP]
“Painting on plaster!”
“You see the grief I get for calling you the Michelangelo of peanut vendors?”
MW: You’ve heard of someone being “scared straight”? This is the complete opposite of that.
MARY WORTH: Just as a reminder, the next-to-last panel is what Estelle had sweating on top in 2 minute burst of greasy doughy ecstasy
every nightonce every four months for years (does that pleasant thought make you feel all tingly “down there”, ladies?)HI & LOIS: We’re-totally-not-making-a passive-aggressive-plea-for-our-continued-existence….
Karen Moy says to herself, “This story arc needs a little oomph. I’ll give the people what they want–A HORRIFYING WILBUR WESTON DREAM SEQUENCE!” We did this. It’s us.
MW: Hooboy – we all dodged a bullet today, folks! We managed to keep our clients OUT of the wacky dream sequence. Can you believe they wanted Libby and Pierre to take on the Cherub roles? Little strap-on wings and everything! The Ladies though it would be “so adorable” … Well, we put the quietus on that nonsense PDQ.
What self-respecting Feline would subject herself to such indignity? And even if Pierre were game to try it, he just doesn’t have the acrobatic skills to pull it off, even with wire harnesses. So we negotiated a wake-up reaction shot for them – they’re barely in the panel, but we’re counting it as a win.
I always assumed that “fall” had its origins in being the opposite of “spring”…
@Peanut Gallery: Or anyway, whoever put that on Brainyquote, because right now I’m not finding any evidence that Hugh Mackay said that. I did score ” Real life is messy . . . and the outcomes are uncertain , but out of the ambiguity come opportunities for learning and growth” from The Emerging Power of Action Inquiry Technologies: New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education (Ann Brooks and Karen Watkins, 1994), and the full quote attributed to Mackay as an epigraph in Underway: Reflections on Everyday Grace by Elise Seyfried (2011), but it’s not on Mackay’s Goodreads quote page where they would have to say which book it’s form. Some people also attribute this to the sixteenth-century Italian author and blackmailer Pietro Aretino, for some reason. Seems kinda implausible that someone would just make this up and stick on Mackay but also his books are recent and I’d expect to be able to find it there? If only the Internet Archive book search weren’t down!
H&L: Wait is Dot not still in second grade? Wouldn’t Trixie’s first scribblings be from last month? Did you guys do a Funky Winkerbean time jump and not tell us?
@matt w:
Damn! I wonder if the power of Action Inquiry Technologies has fully emerged yet or are we still waiting for that glorious day?
Obviously, Wilbur is the most terrifying part, but she should have realized it was a nightmare with Les Moore sitting there in the audience.
MW: Estelle wearing white could be taken a number of ways, I guess, but I like to imagine it just means she hasn’t had sex with Wilbur. Luckily, she woke up right before having to dream about his sandwich-penis.
Ooh, I forgot to read Wary Morth today, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA
FC: I really like the image of PJ squatting there, probably having a bowel movement in his diaper while staring intently at the leaf.
DT: Well, Dick, the way I look at it is he was hired to shoot one of them, and then he shot the one he wasn’t hired to shoot, and who was, in fact, paying him, so that was the wrong one. Especially for a hitman who has such a strong work ethic that he insists on entering an active crime scene to finish the job even after accidentally murdering his freaking client. Also, how did Mr Mirror realise he’d shot the wrong brother? And why did he think he and Dick had already met?
Anyway, I’m snarking at this, but it was … fine, mostly. The loopy logic was mostly in the details while the actual mystery pretty much worked, which makes a nice change these days. If it turns out Manning’s planning a sequel that reveals Mr Mirror’s secret identity and that he and Dick have met before … well, I won’t actually be interested, but my heart won’t sink as much as when Eric Costello takes over.
Heath: The only strip that dares to ask the question “What if a Sunday strip consisted almost entirely of throwaway panels?”
JP: “I mean, our last pitch was based on real events, but I can’t think of any real events that have happened lately that a TV producer would find even slightly plausible, or even coherent!”
MW: “Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational. Mary Worth never makes any damn sense.”
OTF: Part of me feels that the idea Ms Trellis’s husband would be into her cosplaying as Dethany is one that could use a little unpacking. A much larger part feels it’s something that should never have been brought up at all.
Phantom: It’s hilarious that these nomads have no problem with Ye Olde Stripeye joining them in his hooded cloak, mask and skull belt buckle, but he has to be careful talking about politics, lest they think he’s some kind of weirdo.
SFx: Because it’s magic? I mean, this isn’t a “the baddie claims to be using magic but Slylock sees the mundane explanation” scenario, the question outright says the sleeping potion is magic! Then again, the question also says that gold trophy is silver, so what does it know?
Zits: I am absolutely with Walt and Connie on this one.
@Bob Tice: Its a hard hobbit to break.
Rex Morgan – A more accurate T-shirt:
The Let’s Drag This Lame Story Out For As Long As We Can Tour
Foxtrot – Jason and Bianca Xunise outvote Mom.
Andertoons – Mary Worth is torn between sending her a cease and desist letter or selling her a copy of the Big Book O’ Platitudes.
Frazz – So many people to annoy, so little time.
@Peanut Gallery: The mega rich guy takes busses?
H&L: We’ve talked a lot about the horror of living in an eternal “now” where nobody ever ages or dies, but given the prospect of having to go through Hi and Lois’ things after they pass on I think I can see an upside to it all.
MW: Dawn actually turning into her father is the apotheosis of Wilbur-based nightmares, but this definitely comes a close second.
@GarrisonSkunk: He likes to see how the other half lives, so he can gloat more effectively.
@Johnny Q: “Who brought the un-chained Wilburp Weston?”- Louis Tully, ” Ghostbusters” (adapted).
“Who brought the un-chained Wilburp Weston?”- Louis Tully, ” Ghostbusters” (adapted)
MW – Which is more horrifying, Wilbur or Stell’s wedding dress? Sure, it’s Wilbur, but that dress is damn ugly.
C’shaft: Pam should know by now that “I’ve got this” are the scariest three words in her dad’s vocabulary.
DT: When the resolution hinges on information that the audience doesn’t know and couldn’t possibly know, that’s not a mystery, that’s just bad writing.
Dustin: Objection! Dustin’s birth year is late nineties maximum, cell phones have been a fixture of his entire life. This strip would make more sense if Dustdad were involved, except there’s no way someone as bitter and joyless as Dustdad would engage in a game of hide and seek.
MT: No worries, if there’s one thing Mystery Science Theater 3000 taught me it’s that giant spider invasions only affect gross white trash in rural Wisconsin.
RMMD: All that fuss over two part harmony? Man, Pentatonix must blow these people’s minds.
@Weaselboy: Ugly and completely inappropriate for a mature woman on her second marriage. Keep the veil if you must, Stell, but get yourself a decent sheath or mermaid gown–or at the very least narrow it down to lace, ruffles, or bows rather than going for all three.
@GarrisonSkunk:
And, of course. if this “action” were occurring in Santa Royale, it would be in “Meddle Earth.”
Mary Worth: I figured out what makes Wilbur’s kissy-face so disturbing: he has an anus pucker. Who wants to see THAT coming at them? Not me!
The Family Circus: Well, you know what they say about stopped blockheads: they’re always right twice a day. Once, on the Sabbath.
Hi and Lois: My wife introduced me to a concept she picked up from a reality TV series called Swedish death cleaning, the idea being that as you look at your accumulated stuff, you ask yourself if it’s worth making your family deal with it after your demise. Paper on a corkboard is one thing, but I think about it with my bookmarks. A lot.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – “Meddledream 2000 software” is great.
@pugfuggly: Re H & L – A mention of the TV show Hoarders always reminds me of the episode in which a woman was hoarding all kinds of expired and rotting food. The worst was a rotten pumpkin. The therapist convinced her to get rid of it, but she had to paw through it first to save the seeds. Yuck. It was disgusting.
Maybe Bianca Xunise watched that episode, her eyes lighting up.
Re FC – Village of the Dumbasses.
@Weaselboy: Re Stell’s wedding dress – My first thought was that it was inspired by the monstrosity Lady Diana wore at her wedding. The busy ruffle around the neckline and the poufy sleeves are pretty much the same.
Look how that marriage turned out.
A comic strip that’s still funny? Hi and Lois shouldn’t be old enough to have something clipped from a newspaper in 1973 pinned to their bulletin board.
MW: I believe Wilbur’s puckerface will appear in Baja’s mashups for many years to come.
Pluggers: Rhinoman wishes he had a leaf blower like Crankshaft’s but he hocked it along with his TV.
DT: Stage magic is often referred to as smoke and mirrors, right? Mr. Mirror has a definite feminine appearance in the last panel. Said he had previous encounters with Tracy. I say Mirrorface is really Fatana, the lady magician/hired assassin Tracy carelessly let slip a few stories ago.
I actually don’t understand why there’s so much hate towards Wilbur here, when is unironically my favorite character in what can otherwise be a rather boring strip.
Go Wilbur!
Go back to him, Stell! He actually likes you, and would put you first in his life, unlike that generic vet you’re dating.
The Barn: The election in a nutshell
MW: You may now…rim the groom?
If Wilbur returns to Estelle’s dreams from now until Halloween with increasingly unhinged antics I wouldn’t complain at all.
The New CK Sunday Strips
Mara Llave, Keeper of Time: So Mara will zip back to 1997 and return with Mandy Patinkin to cross blades with this new menace, right? No, because we still have no idea what this useless fuckin’ strip is about. They’ve been running around like a Star Wars sequel for weeks now, shooting baddies, with no character development or storyline. And the art is lousy.
Willy Black: Nothing really going on in this, either, except we learned they own a “Jelly Sword” a couple weeks back. I’ve decided Willy’s lack of nose is a real design problem, especially when his wife is sporting a #2 Faber-Castell for a schnoz. She looks disturbingly like Reid Fleming’s girlfriend in the World’s Toughest Milkman comic books.
Sinfest: After enjoying this throughout the Aughts, I gave it up along with everyone else when Tat went a little….funny. Just a little….funny….twelve years ago, with his own personal ideas about what feminism and the anti-patriarchy movement should be about. I decided to have a peek today and am now considering clearing my browsing history. “Anti-Semitism” would be whitewashing it. Tat’s now into straight-out Der Sturmer Jew-hating. He’s WAY beyond a respectable empathy for Gaza. How is he getting away with this?
MW: I kind of pity Wilbur, from a meta-narrative perspective, at this point. He’s really become the strip’s punching bad in recent years. It’s not like anyone else is particularly likeable, either.
H&L: This would work better if the fifth & sixth panels were swapped, so the penultimate panel were about the kids’ artwork and report card. Hi & Lois suddenly feeling sentimental after seeing those would be much more believable than after reading an old phone message. And apparently Ditto was a dummy in second grade.
@Anonymous: “FC: I really like the image of PJ squatting there, probably having a bowel movement in his diaper while staring intently at the leaf.” Then head on over to Crankshaft, where you will love the image of Ed probably having a bowel movement in his diaper while using a leafblower.
@Ukulele Ike: I think the art in Mara Llave is pretty okay, actually. At least they don’t have sub-pectoral muscles emerging from their spandex suits, like most comic book art.
But Sinfest…yikes. And here we thought Scot Adams had lost his marbles…
Well, it looks like Stelle has abandoned the idea of animal masks. Though it looks like Wilbur brought his fish one along.
PV: Oh, THERE’S the magic spear I dropped in the water last week!
Thank you, Mr. Chekhov!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I’m Part of His Clique: I guess it’s pretty standard for soap/adventure strip art, but the new Flash Gordon really raised the standards. FG has a fine action splash panel today — I see Hawkgirl, fucker of Bok, is now considered “family.”
(Oooops. My Mara Llave comment was supposed to say “1987.” I blame spellcheck)
@Ukulele Ike:
Well, at least he doesn’t have the Bomb… The Bomb, Ukulele Ike… the Hydrogen Bomb!
Mary Worth: This might be by far the closest Moy has ever come to acknowledging what a trainwreck freak of a human being Wilbur is instead of dismissing it all as “endearing quirks”.
New Sunday-only comic,Willy Black, looks promising. No, it’s not “Black Willy”, you pervs.
@Tom T.: Arnold Palmer?
I don’t know why everyone is talking about Willy Black being new.
I discovered it months back on CK
One of the best ever MW strips today. Still laughing out loud. Cracking artwork, especially in Estelle with cherubs panel, plus really seriously disturbing Wilbur. But expressions on dog and cat are great!
@Ukulele Ike: Flash Gordon has become a good new take on a classic subject. The idea that the tyrant is dead but the different realms once under his thumb are now at each other’s throats so difficult to tell who are now the good guys, is a refreshing change. This one’s on the morning read list now, after mw.
@Hibbleton: #19
There *is* iron in tree leaves, but it doesn’t oxidize like mineral iron and of course Jeffy doesn’t know this; so when he notices flakes and chunks of rust peeling off the underside of Bil’s car he thinks it’s “leaves falling” and he concludes that the family car is another tree. Of course. This *is* Jeffy we’re talking about after all.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side (technically not a strip but…), Pearls Before Swine…Im aware this is subjective but 1973 is too far back imo.
@Buck Ripsnort: #45
As I write this, there is a convoy forming for those of us desperate to escape the coming Wilburpocalypse. They will gather at Muleshoe, Texas, and from there head for Sitka, Alaska. Life there will be rather challenging, but we will finally be free of the terror that is “Mary Worth.”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: #54
I was hoping to see the Doves ‘o Love gliding gracefully above the blushing bride, but then I realized that birds have a habit of relieving themselves whenever and wherever, which would be inappropriate in a church, although I would love to see Wilbur’s puckered-up face right in the line of fire…
I survived Hurricane Helene and yet the sight of Wilbur doing a kissyface made my soul leave my body. And the fact that Estelle’s most prominent guests include someone that she has never met before shows just how sad and pathetic our narcissistic pet parent is.
@Bob Tice: #74
Ha!!!!
@I speak Jive: I could never handle that show. Made me kinda queasy. Glad I never saw *that* episode…!
Low and Hi-less: “This strip of Sarge beating the carp out of your brother is still funny!”
@GarrisonSkunk: Perfect!
@Guillermo el chiclero: MW: I believe Wilbur’s peckerface will appear in Baja’s mashups for many years to come.
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Would Wilber be scarier to Baja in clown makeup?
MW: Yeah, this is just more proof that Brigmoy will shoehorn Wilbur into every storyline now, no matter how little sense it makes in terms of the narrative. Why is Wilbur even on Eshtelle’s mind? For months now she’s been monomaniacally focused on Dr. Mr. Ed and how he’s not pulling his weight with the wedding plans and bailing on her left and right. By rights this should have been a dream where Eshtelle walks up the aisle in her frilly little dress (designed by a 5-year old) only to find a note reading ‘Sorry, Honey! Got called out on another emergency puppy delivery. Let’s try this again next week. See you at the clinic on Monday! Kisses, Dr. Mr. Ed.’
@Daisy: If you try to run from Mary Worth, Mary Worth will come to you.
@Sci Fi fan: Call me a bigot, but I only “have feelings” about the Earthers — Flash, Dale, and Zarkov — and their buds Bok n’ Bones. The other Mongolians can muss each other up all they want. My scorecard reads:
Head Hawkman has gone screw-koo and wants to dominate the planet by refurbishing Ming’s Murder Machines. His subjects seem mostly creepy except for Babyfeathers Daughter and Lady Scientist who at least are getting Bok and Zarkov their wicks dipped. C plus.
Ice Queen started off with a strong game by taking in Earth refugees, got bitchy about it when they killed her husband and expelled them in a rude fashion, but is now spewing shit all over crazy power-mad Hawk people. Solid B.
Hot Half-Naked Witch Queen employs random invisible assassins and blew Dale out of the top of a skyscraper. D minus.
Lion King saved Dale from the skyscraper plunge in his rocket sled, hasn’t done much else. Could turn on them like a cornered pussy cat, though. Don’t know enough about the Lion People to rate them yet.
FC:
“Edith Piaf said it best, Dolly, Jeffy and P.J.:
“Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle…
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublie
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi”
“Mom! Dad! Billy’s speaking tongues again!!!!!!”
@Consul, the Almost Human: #82
Today’s “Pearls Before Swine” is a good one, too.
@Peanut Gallery: The Internets are theorizing that Ishida was a pornography-addicted incel who tipped over the edge into full QAnon a couple years back. When those people get hold of a Doomsday Machine, goddess help us all.
Wise man say, “Fool who look to Six Chix for wisdom is climbing up wrong mountain.”- Wally Wang, ” Murder By Death”. “Use your pronouns!”- Lionel Twain, same source.
@Daisy:
Yes, indeed! Should have added it to the post.
@Ukulele Ike: #109
“Mary Worth” will come to you!
NOOOOOO!!!! What have I done to deserve this??? (P.S. Is this the “real story” behind the “Bloody Mary” urban legend?)
@Peanut Gallery: : Perfect!
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Thanks!:)
@Ukulele Ike: Don’t know enough about the Lion People
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Don’t know much ’bout their geography/don’t know much ’bout the French muzzle kisses I took/now if only I can keep this musical hook/what a wonderful parody this would be.
@Ukulele Ike: Mary Worth, Mary Worth
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Oh that waxy yellow buildup!
Was Woody Allen Louise Lasser’s Wilbur Weston? Why or why not? Please discuss.
@Bob Tice: “Edith Piaf said it best, Dolly, Jeffy and P.J.:
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“Rice a Roni,the San Francisco treat.”
@Bob Tice: True! But would Samunwise be invited to the wedding and be the one ring bearer?
DtM: For $15.99, you too can be featured in a Sunday strip!
@Ukulele Ike: Hot Half-Naked Witch Queen employs random invisible assassins and blew Dale out of the top of a skyscraper. D minus.
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Menace level: Dennis Mitchell.
What evil thing did Poor Buddy Ebsen do to deserve being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone that is “Dennis No Menace”?
MW: The epigraph reminds one irresistibly of the line from Top Secret: “Times change, people change, hairstyles change, interest rates fluctuate.”
MW: Is that Sally Forth with Coach Gomez?
Estelle’s psyche knew that Wilbur’s children would just be multiple tiny Wilburs, I don’t know how she’s dropping the ball so hard on the fact that the cherubs at Wilbur’s wedding would obviously also be little, diapered Wilburs. <Obviously.
@I speak Jive: #78:
“the monstrosity Lady Diana wore at her wedding”
Yeah. I thought of that too, but that was the style for wedding dresses in the 80s, very Victorian. Whenever I look at the wedding pictures of relatives who got married that decade they’re all like that, enough billowing white cloth to rig a 19th Century sailing vessel. In the last 20 years it’s the ubiquitous form fitting, strapless mermaid dress. I liked Princess Kate’s wedding dress, inspired by the one Grace Kelly wore at her wedding.
Phantom: It’s ME, dahlings, now appearing in the Sunday Phantom as the faithful ride of the 2nd Phantom! I know it may have been hard to recognize me with that “moody” lighting. They were so impressed with my performance in the limited role of John X’s Horse that I got a callback to do this period piece. I think my experience in Prince Valiant was also a factor – it’s clear that I’m an aficionado of historical drama and can adapt to various time periods, as well as geographic locations. real and imaginary!
My on-panel role in Prince Valiant has been downsized recently, so I don’t think Sunday availability will be a problem. Of course I’m still the chief Equine choreographer for PV, but I can work on routines with the other Horses during the week.
I’m excited by this new challenge, and knowing the length of some of these storylines, this may mean job security for many months. Unless the hapless Phantom gets kidnapped or worse… ta ta for now!
@UncleJeff: PV: Oh, THERE’S the magic spear I dropped in the water last week!
Thank you, Mr. Chekhov!
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“Magic spear es Wussian inwention,locates noocular wessles”
@Dan: little, diapered Wilburs
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By They Might Be Giants? Thats the song Stale chose for the wedding theme.
If Believe It or Not is right about Kraft macaroni and cheese being so popular in Canada that it’s called “Canada’s true national dish,” then perhaps a reassessment of Canada’s sophistication is called for.
@Baja Gaijin: They’re all good as usual, Baja, but this one is almost a parady in itself. Can’t help but wonder if Moy and Brigman have been peeking at your mashups.
@Hibbleton: According to my Dick Tracy Secret Decoder Ring, this guy is “Mr. Nebie.” Is he drinking from a cup or holding a Post-It?
HL: ‘This strip is still funny. It’s about cleaning off the old style rotary bulletin boards, which is ironic, don’t you think? Anyway, My Name is Earl is on so I’ll be at Thirsty’s.’
@Mikey: MW: Is that Sally Forth with Coach Gomez?
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She’s certainly creepy,kooky,and altogether ooky enough to be. “Salltisha! You’re speaking geek! You know what that does to me!”
@Hibbleton: DtM: For $15.99, you too can be featured in a Sunday strip!
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It’s gonna cost you a lot more than that if you want to see what’s under my stripe,bub!
@Mikey: HL: ‘This strip is still funny. It’s about cleaning off the old style rotary bulletin boards,
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Thats nothing! My dad told me about the party line bulletin board his family had to share with everyone down the street!
@Bob Tice: “Mom! Dad! Billy’s speaking tongues again!!!!!!”
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“He wants to bag the traditional cut and paste bum/hobo/Disadvantaged Depression Era Lay about costume he wears every year and Halloween as Amos from “9Weirdchick Lane”.”
@Ukulele Ike: re Flash Gordon, that’s a helpful analysis, I started on the train to Frigida. Thanks!
@126 Dan: Uh, I dunno about Wilburbabycherubs. WARNING: Link contains Wilburbabycherubs.
@131 Dr. Pill: Yeah, this was a difficult one to mash.
Andy Warhol’s ghost has enlarged today’s image of Wilber to painting size as the centerpiece to his comeback series “Go Weston Young Man”.
@Ukulele Ike:
According to my Dick Tracy Secret Decoder Ring, this guy is “Mr. Nebie.” Is he drinking from a cup or holding a Post-It?
It’s Wilson unpaid betting slip. Mr Eiben (I bern ’em) is a mob enforcer.
MW – It’s somewhat reassuring to know that Stell won’t go back to Wilbur. However, I still fear that Ed will go back to Estelle.
As for me, I’m on Team Artheur.
MT: I won’t inflict the reasons on the entertaining gentlefolk here on CC. But Mark’s attitude toward this new invasive species is a really dumb attitude. “Happy to be dumb” is one of his themes these days, however, so this is just more of the same.
@Bob Tice: #110:
“speaking in tongues”
Whenever I see one of those evangelicals caught in a fit of religious ecstasy and “speaking in tongues” it’s never in a language anybody recognizes but some gobbledygook mumbo-jumbo ooga-booga talk that no human being on earth speaks. Can’t one time they break out into some suave, genteel French like Louis Jordan or Maurice Chevalier?
@GarrisonSkunk: Bwahaha!
As impressed as I am by the deadly accomplishments of Greg, a.k.a. *actual hard-to-spell spear name,* I am looking forward to Greg getting returned to its rightful owner. These watery antics are putting Greg in too much peril, and besides, Val really just isn’t the same confident dude without his very own big beloved sword, if you get my drift.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Team Arthur is the place to be. “Not in the face! Not in the face!”
Words to live by, my man.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Louis Jordan? The “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” guy?
(Reminds me of a Joe R. Lansdale novel I edited years ago where the sexy evil woman tries to seduce the dumb protagonist by cooing “you remind me of….James Dean” and he says “the sausage guy?”
Are the Wilburbabycherubs that terrifying that they scared the comments out of everyone?
@Baja Gaijin: #148
GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
For the finishing touch, replace Stelle’s bouquet with muffins.
@GarrisonSkunk: Have you ever seen any of Buddy Ebsen’s dance performances in movies from the 1930s? He was an amazing dancer, very talented. I’m pretty sure that I’m thinking of Born to Dance – Eleanor Powell was in it, and she’s a favorite of mine.
He was signed to play the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz but was allergic to the makeup.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I liked Kate’s wedding dress, too. It was very classy and elegant. I prefer simple dresses without a lot of trimming, especially ruffles. I dislike ruffles.
I especially loathe strapless dresses for a wedding. I guess this is me being old, but ye gods, what happened to modesty and respect? If they want to show off their toned arms, go to the gym.
@Baja Gaijin: That is horrifying. However, if those strategically placed artistic cloths weren’t there I would have to gouge my eyes out.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yeah, the Apostles supposedly spoke so that people from varied countries could understand them, not so that people from varied countries went “WTF is wrong with those snake handling yokels?”
In regards to almost every comic Josh ever riffed:
I was reading an archie comic, Archie and Veronica were at the mall, Veronica asks to borrow a coin from Archie so she can throw it into a fountain to make a wish, then she insists Archie throw a coin in to make his own wish.
Archie: I have you, there is nothing else I need.
Veronica: Oh Archie, that is very sweet, but also very cheap. Throw in a coin!
The bold in that sentence is what got me, made me realize that in nearly every comic on here, notably the Soap ones. Whenever a sentence has random words in bold, I’m just going to assume they’re yelling in the middle of the sentence for no reason.
“Hello MARY how are YOU today?”
“Oh I’M fine. I just BAKED some MUFFINS!”
@I speak Jive: I’m crazy about Eleanor Powell, too. And it’s a shame Buddy didn’t ever get to dance in The Twilight Zone or The Beverly Hillbillies or Barnaby Jones.
You must have loved Toni’s wedding dress in Luann, then. She reminded me of Elfine Starkadder in Cold Comfort Farm, dripping with weeds.
FC:
“C’est la vie/Will your leaves all turn to brown?/Will you scatter them around you, c’est la vie?”
“Mom and Dad, will you keep Billy away from your Emerson Lake and Palmer records?”
FC: If you molt all your hair and most of your skin on the street will you actually be arrested for littering? I’ve never had occasion to find out.
MW: If Estelle keeps having Wilbur dreams Libby and Pierre will call her an exorcist. Okay, he’s a ferret, but his attempts to speak Latin are just the cutest.
9CL: Once more, Brooke gives superficiality a bad name.
C-Shaft: The leaf blower put a hole in Lillian’s fence yesterday. Wouldn’t it splatter the pumpkin all over the place? And yes, I resent being required to think even this much about Crankshaft.
DT: I guess Mr. Mirror is in the Tracy Rogue’s Gallery now, all because his Minit Mystery was too convoluted and nonsensical for Dick to both wrap up the story and catch the culprit within two weeks. Failing up is a real thing.
HtH: Hagar and Lucky Eddie built up their appetite by pillaging the stools and other malt shop supplies from an old Archie comic.
JP: Yeah, at this point all they’d come up with is “2 Broke Girls but Caroline is a brunette and Max is ethnically indeterminate and likes girls.”
RMMD: Would that Truck had this sharp eye for merchandising during his Gonorrhea Tour of 1991.
Shoe: Forming a band called “The Deadbeats” is 100% something a bunch of publicity-hungry funeral directors would do, although the standard reaction would more likely be eye rolling than eye popping.
@Bob Tice:
Lady Gaga relieved that she’s not part of this ill-advised sequel at least.
@149 Daisy: NO! Dealing with decapitated Wilburbaby heads is enough, especially after…
@151 I speak Jive: I accidentally saw under the banner. You have NOTHING to worry about. They wish they were hung like a Ken doll.
Pardon My Planet: Hermann Rorschach was born in Switzerland and his father was an art teacher.
@GarrisonSkunk:
It probably doesn’t rise to the level of evil, but there was that time when Ebsen’s former co-star Nancy Kulp was running for Congress, and Ebsen recorded an ad supporting her opponent. Reportedly, he accused her of exploiting her celebrity in the service of her campaign, which seems a bit hypocritical when you ask yourself what he was doing with his own ad.
The best part about the Wilbur panel is the background. The others have scenery or gradients but this has printed dots to show he is coming at you lip-first out of an old comic strip…a comic just like this one! Mary Worth really knows how to do Halloween properly, assuming you don’t mind the date being a little off.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve adored Eleanor Powell since I happened to watch one of her movies on TCM. She was a wonderful dancer and had a real presence and energy.
I was stunned the first time I saw Buddy Ebsen dance. My only knowledge of him was from 60s TV.
I can’t comment on Toni’s wedding dress. I tried to read Luann for a couple of weeks years ago, and I couldn’t get past the ugly artwork. Those lips! I hope the wedding dress was better drawn than the characters’ faces are.
@Baja Gaijin: I still don’t want to see it.
@Hibbleton: Rusts are an order of fungi that infect leaves. Maybe the Family Circus kids are just more used to diseased plants than healthy ones?
@Ukulele Ike: #154: In some of the hoedown episodes of “The Beverly Hillbillies” featuring Flatt and Scruggs Buddy would dance a nice hillbilly jig. Too bad when he played Fess Parker’s homie George Russel in the Davy Crockett episodes of the Disney Show he didn’t do a buck and wheel on the parapets of the Alamo.
@I speak Jive: #150: During the changing of the guard scene at the Witch’s castle where our trio snuck in wearing guards uniforms, if you look closely that’s actually Ebsen as the Tin Man. The scene had already been shot and it would’ve cost too much to reshoot it with Jack Haley.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I didn’t know that – next time I watch the movie I’ll look for it.
Hi and Lois – It’s a time capsule for when a person’s collected information (the media they consumed, what they bought, their children’s milestones and memories, and who they communicated with) we done analog and not collected and resold by major tech companies.
Family Circus – The leaves also represent the way that the aging members of the demographic that continues to read The Family Circus are falling off and dying. The only difference is with trees there is the hope of spring to come.
Mary Worth – If Cards Against Humanity got into the greeting card business, Wilbur would be licensed as a character to send snide replies to wedding or baby announcements.
@I speak Jive: By coincidence, I found out just four days ago that Buddy Ebsen could dance. I found out because I am finally watching MAD MEN and wanted to find out where the “At The Codfish Ball” episode got its name. Of course the answer turned out to be an impressive 1936 dance number with Buddy and Shirley Temple. As he lifted her and twirled her in various complicated and potentially hazardous ways, I was agog at his skill, but also couldn’t help wondering what it was like for him, because I’m sure he knew that if anything went wrong and Shirley got injured even slightly, he’d be a show-biz dead man:-).
FC: Those trees are short. The melonheads have been portrayed cavorting with their dad, and the top of Billy’s head barely reaches the bottom of Dad’s butt. Short trees, I’m just sayin’.
@Baja Gaijin: What Daisy said.
MW: Those two cherubs definitely added to the general zaniness of that fourth panel, in which everyone seems to be on smile-inducing drugs. But the left-hand cherub needed to have his white scarf dropped just a wee bit lower and the right-hand cherub needed his scarf to be hoisted just a wee bit higher. I’m sure that next time, they will be perfect.
All comments are poo.
@Poteet: Ooh, look. Poo!
Mary Worth, 10/20/24: Why is Estelle wearing white? She’s already been married once!
The Wilbur kissy face is the single best panel of the year. Give it The Worthy™.