Do the bird-people’s tree(?)-houses have roofs?
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Shoe, 11/24/24
If I told you to imagine a local TV news report about a city clerk being appointed, you’d probably think, “Wow! Can’t get duller than that!” Well, what if I told you to imagine two people watching a local TV news report about a city clerk being appointed? Even duller, right? Thankfully, today’s Shoe artists have tried to fight against the tide, by showing you two people watching a local TV news report about a city clerk being appointed, but you’re seeing them from an angle directly above them for some reason, like you’re sneaking into their house via the HVAC ducts as part of some sort of elaborate heist.
Beetle Bailey and Blondie, 11/24/24
I feel like I’ve never seen a stronger contrast between the quality of the throwaway panels like we have between these two strips today. The Beetle Bailey panels very efficiently establish how Sunday mornings in the Camp Swampy barracks play out and lay more character groundwork for Beetle and Sarge’s relationship. Blondie’s panels, meanwhile, are as lazy as possible, add absolutely nothing, pure clip art dreck that might as well be replaced by a tire ad. And yet when it comes to actual strip punchlines, Blondie is actually funny for once whereas Beetle Bailey … well, not so much. Life is a rich tapestry!
58 replies to “Do the bird-people’s tree(?)-houses have roofs?”
Mary Worth Mashup: Are these the reactions you’d expect from Mary’s call?
Popeye: Excellent as usual. Great artwork, great wordplay.
Thatababy: Mark Trail as it should be.
Luann: I am so shocked the God of Irony didn’t just strike down Luann’s oblivious self, accusing someone else of being entertaining while doing nothing. On second thought, Luann doing nothing isn’t entertaining. Strike the first sentence please.
MW-As the news quickly spreads. “Mary Worth is sick! We’re free!”
FC-Just like in bed this is one task Mommy will have to do by herself.
Blondie-The gluttony of Dagwood knows no bounds.
MW: Dr Jeff contemplates; “Ingested ricin isn’t typically fatal so when I nurse her back to health maybe she’ll realize she shouldn’t be living on her own. Although at her age it is a bit risky. Hmm, kind of a win/win. (checks NFL.C0M). Who’s playing today?”
Horace Broon – Thanks for the link yesterday on lede vs. lead. I feel somewhat vindicated.
Slylock seems to be staring into two enormous anuses. Or is it anii?
As Charterstone noted yesterday, he has Mary in the Dead Pool. While we would all rejoice if Charterstone should win, we realize that’s probably not going to happen. However, it is an opportunity to review the pool:
Shrug Memorial Dead Pool
jroggs: CIA Lady from Judge Parker
TheDiva: Skunkhead John of the Komix Corner
taig: Wilbur Weston
UncleJeff: Pops from Arlo & Janis
I Speak Jive: Yelich from Judge Parker
Myrtle: Nurse Michelle from Rex Morgan
Enormous Dump: Marvin
Dr. Larry Erhardt: Mike Doonesbury
Arabella: Nonagenarian Horrible Hank Harwood
Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: A Random Plugger
Poteet: Dr. Jeff
cheech wizard: Puddles, from Luann
Garrison Skunk: Martha Halftrack, self inflicted, with the General’s personal weapon
Charterstoned: Mary Worth
White Rabbit: Lillian McKenzie, the loathsome hag
Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Holier than Thou Grandma
Ukulele Ike: “Chef Meowrice” from the Gasoline Alley Sunday cat food commercials
richardf8: Buck Wise
Late night lurker: Meemaw from Gil Thorp
Avoiding the Madding Crowd: Aldo Kelrast
Hibbleton: Delta from Luann
cs: Crazy Harry
Bravo McGuire: Andrzej “Count Crushinski”
Old School Allie Cat: Jackie’s Small Wonders store in Sally Forth
Fugitive FuzzSequitur: SluggoJust John: Bianca Xunise (the character, not the “artist”)
Uncle Lumpy: Lupin from Breaking Cat News.
Baja Gaijin: Sally Forth’s mother, Laura Jansen.
Dr. Pill: Ralph Meckler
But What Do I Know?: Mud Mountain Murphy (Fergus. . .)
Blondie: Gotta disagree, Josh. Dagwood playing pocket pool in the throw away panels makes the punchline pretty clear. He fucked that cobbler.
Shoe – Well – it’s not like he’s royalty – that would make him Lord Byron….
BB – Geez – I put up with your shit all week – I gotta handle your balls on the weekend, too? I don’t think so….
Blondie – And if it’s not here in 30 minutes or less, it’s free. Otherwise, it’s $14.86…$20 with a tip…welcome to the neighborhood….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Hibbleton: American Cobbler….
New, improved Shoe lets you pretend you’re about to shit on the bird’s heads.
Baby Blues, not worth looking up, but at the bottom of that shopping cart full of food is an…unwrapped…turkey. The horror! (And we wonder at all the e. coli outbreaks.)
How hot is that cobbler? Hot enough to have a steam line coming off of it, but cool enough to sit on Dagwood’s lap. I’d also say cool enough for Dagwood to eat, but I think the heat sensors in his mouth probably burned out years ago from gross abuse.
Shoe: Of course to British readers who pronounce clerk like clark, the punchline has a different vibe.
“By Jove, Jeeves. Poor old Byron shall now be introduced as superman’s alter ego. What fun!“
Shoe: Skyler wisely conceals the fact that new city comptroller Cynthia Luther recently got into an accident and lost a limb.
Luann: Luann’s jealous because she’s been doing nothing for forty years and hasn’t once been entertaining.
FC: Thel realizes that her attempt to construct a deadfall is a fruitless endeavor because she underestimated the intended victim’s level of stupidity.
Shoe: Looking forward to seeing how much mileage they can get out of this hilarious “What if someone’s job title was a pop culture name?” schtick.
“In other news, Jim Time has been appointed parish priest.” “So that makes him Father Time!”
“In other news, Prince Kong somehow inherited the British throne.” “So that makes him King Kong!”
“In other news, John Mao was appointed Chairman of the Communist Party of Treetops.” “So that makes him Chairman M-” [a cadre of Red Guards burst in to put an end to this counter-revolutionary wordplay]
Shoe:
“Kent has now appropriated for himself, without asking for or receiving anyone’s permission, the largest office in Treetops’ municipal building.”
“Great seizer’s ghost!”
JP: Oh no, she buried the lead/lede.
RMMD: “Of course, I could always order a few simple screening tests — for example, a complete blood count and a chest x-ray — to see if anything serious is going on. But screw that. Just try walking around some more for a couple months and see if that cures you.”
MW: Thanksgiving Day comes and goes, and Mary’s been dead for two days. No one has bothered to call or stop by to check on her all week until Mr. Allora begins to smell something funny. And so it ends.
MW – A better John C. Mather quote: “Even your chin is made up of exploded stars.”
It makes more sense after a big dose of Nyquil.
Superman comics don’t actually exist in the universe of Shoe. The Perfesser isn’t making a pun here, his life has just become so dull and dreary that the only way he can find any sort of entertainment in it is to repeat people’s new job titles aloud.
MW: Surf and turf buffet at the Bum Boat. Problem solved.
Blondie: I’d think delivery drivers would refuse to service Dagwood’s street, much like taxis won’t go to certain neighborhoods after dark. You just know he can smell a pizza or a box of Chinese food a mile away, and will chase down the car carrying it like the T-1000.
Shoe: Give Shoe credit, those are the exact expressions of a) a man telling a corny “dad joke” and believing the corniness is sufficient to make it amusing and b) a kid about to smash in his elder’s face with a television remote.
Sunday Mary Worth Quotevestigation yeah I think John C. Mather probably said that let’s move on. The composition in the last two panels is genuinely impressive IMO. The tree trunk leaning over parallel to the amorphous reflections in the windows and then Mary hunched over the phone in the last panel shows how when Mary feels sick the whole world tilts on its axis.
MW: This quote makes just about as much sense.
I have several computer companies. One of them I have a program for wide-format printing. I have a beauty program. So I have several different programs that I own for printing.
Jerry Mathers
Ripley: If I eat enough Doritos, I WILL BECOME INVISIBLE. “Even the moon is frightened of me, frightened to death!” Or does that only work if I am a giant mouse?
Second Phantom’s secret weapon: Appear suddenly and your opponents with convulse with helpless laughter at the sight of your pants.
DT: Love the transition between panels 4-5. After a few years of healthy New World cow milk and spinach and thick ribeye steaks and banana splits, scrawny German emigre dumpling-eater turns into a beefy and brawny Captain America.
Ancient Phantom wearing pumpkin pants — is this something we are supposed to acknowledge, or should we just kindly avert our eyes and pretend we didn’t see it? I need guidance here.
C’shaft: It’s funny because…um…we’ve updated our audio recording technology multiple times over the past decades but this last iteration is somehow terrible? Is this a physical media superiority thing? Because I don’t disagree (especially with streaming services being the way they are), but Batiuk manages to cock up the message as usual.
DT: “I mean, these are immigrants so we should hate them, but they’re white immigrants so they’re acceptable, but they’re also German immigrants which implies they’re former Nazis coming in under Operation Paperclip…I dunno, I’m just trying to figure out who we’re supposed to be shooting here.”
Luann: Luann aspires to be like Puddles. Explains a lot.
MW: Fifteen seconds later, keening wails of grief can be heard from the Weston apartment.
Pluggers hate their spouses.
RMMD: Is that supposed to be a joke? Because that’s just “temptation bundling” and it’s a well-established technique to create motivation for exercise and other habits that are hard to establish and maintain. Hell, Rex would probably be recommending it himself if he were a good doctor who cared about his patients.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: That strip pissed me off so much.
Shoe: I can perfectly picture the writer making this utterly pathetic “joke” and than being so smugly amused with himself that he rushes to his computer to put his oh so witty remark into the funnies for the world to see and be awed by.
Beetle Bailey: I remember how way back Josh had that running joke of Beetle and Sarge being dysfunctional gay lovers, and while he’s long stopped doing it, you can totally see how that gag got started.
RMMD: Rex, master of the soft sell, again leads his franchise in treadmill sales.
PV: “Been a long time since I rock ‘n roll”.
Hagar: Fully sated after murdering the fish monger and stealing his food, Hagar takes his wife for little fishing trip.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Slim from GA might be a candidate if things go right today!
Happy Sunday!
Blondie – In the penultimate panel, Dagwood looks to the reader for permission to eat the cobbler. I told him to go for it but to slip the neighbors a twenty to lie when Blondie gets around to asking the neighbors if they enjoyed it.
Shoe: As a dad, I kind of approve of today’s dad joke.
BB: How does Sarge know that Beetle’s farts don’t smell like coffee? Never mind. I withdraw the question.
Blondie: You’d think they would have taken the extra, I don’t know, 15 seconds to show Dagwood looking like he went on an Arnie Hammer-like spree.
Pluggers: This sounds suspiciously like a re-purposed “They’ll do it every time.”
Luann: I’m guessing Luann’s blank slate didn’t get Philled.
CS: Jeff, you idiot! Pam only likes physical media. You should know this.
9CL: Oh, hey, Brooke finally realized that Xiulan wasn’t Korean. Now, if someone with sensibilities dating this century (let alone the second half of last century) were writing young Alistair, we’d find out he’s really into K-Pop.
Up-top time!
Beetle Bailey has throwaway panels which do a lot for this entry, whereas Shoe has squeezed what could be a one-panel into an entire Sunday strip.
The Popeye topper is a godsend for readers who groan at the DJ3000 “Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again” level of humor from other legacy comics.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Jeezum crow! Don Abundio sure is tearin’ around heah!”
“Ayuh!”
“That motorboat of his is a humdingah, I’m tellin’ you!”
“But it scares off the wildlife!”
“All we got left is the black-crested loon!”
MW: Mary has come to the shocking revelation she can’t meddle a cold. Or pneumonia. Or whatever malady Jeff transmitted to her.
FC: This one is on Thel. She should know not to rely on the dumbest melonhead in the household. She would have been better off telling PJ. Or Barfy. Maybe not Kittycat, because cats can be obstinate assholes.
If Shoe only would embrace its Dutch angles, they could have Claark Kent. It’s right there, people, er, birds!
As a very lazy person – take a look at Panel 2 of today’s strip, where I copy pasted the left half to the right and did the minimum changes to eyes and mouth I could get away with – I am impressed with the Blondie throwaway panels. Not only is Dagwood turning his head, but Daisy is raising hers!
Blondie: Agree to strongly disagree, Josh. Those throwaway panels establish the sin and anomie that define Dagwood’s life. I mean, this is practically the definition of Durkheim’s contention “‘the malady of the infinite’ because desire without limit can never be fulfilled; it only becomes more intense”!
I…I need to spend more time outdoors, don’t I.
@Baja Gaijin:
The best reaction would be a headstone reading “Mary Worth, 1912(?)-2024. Mourned by absolutely nobody”.
The Phantom faces his Songhai adversaries, eyeing them critically. He stands his ground, unafraid, confident in his twin guns and the blunderbuss he has concealed in his purple striped bloomers. The two swarthy men scowl threateningly.
“Nice diaper,” the Phantom says, casually addressing the red-turbaned one on the left.
He receives a nod in return. “I was just going to compliment you on your puffy shorts. The purple looks good on you. But I’m afraid you have them on backwards.”
“Does he? How can you tell?” his companion inquires with interest.
“The skull label should be in the back.” Then, to the man in purple, “Don’t you feel the seam tugging at your junk?”
The Phantom frowns. “You’re right! Maybe I should try turning them around. Hold my blunderbuss a minute, would you?”
Zits: I spent several minutes trying to figure out what is happening in that first panel and what Walt is touching. Finally figured that weird box is supposed to be a button to close the garage door. The punchline that a teen from the Zoomer generation wants credit for things that got accomplished without putting forth any effort is just a very sad truth.
SlyLock Fox: This is some very cool elaborate artwork today of this underground cave. I also appreciate the drawing of the stoned turtle, and the little kid who’s experiencing stranger danger from an unexpected source. Does he know this old lady picking him up and kissing him? Is she senile or a sexual predator? So much to consider. A++++
@26 Ukulele Ike: I thought Leroy Lockhorn looked hilarious in pantaloons. The Ghost Who Walks in Pantaloons is equally as funny-looking.
@45 Ukranazi Stepan: Thanks for spoiling Thursday’s mashup! ;)
Curtis: The throwaway panels where Curtis guesses that his toddler brother dreams about evil clowns being locked up is a much more interesting concept than this clumsy story about miniature dolphins. I’m just thankful Barry isn’t pubescent or I’d have to assume he is trying to tell his brother he had a “wet dream”.
Family Circus: I can’t blame Jeffy for losing interest. It’s ridiculous that Thel thought she’d be able to move this large dresser by herself. Is this her way of trying to get attention from her husband?
The problem with forcing a pun into a strip so you can make the deadline is sometimes you don’t consider the implications it will have in making people think about the very concept of your comic.
Look! Up in the sky! Is a bird?
Yes.
@Charterstoned:
Maybe he legitimately needs the diaper or maybe it’s a sexual fetish thing? It’s still pretty weird he’s just walking around publicly with it.
CS: “Yes, let us listen to some holiday music while we decorate the holiday tree, under which we will place holiday gifts to be opened on holiday morning.”
Thank you, Batty, for enforcing a ban on the vile, exclusionary “C word.” In fact, we should burn every form of printed matter that contains that awful word, right?
@Hibbleton:
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who immediately thought that Dagwood was about to have coitus with that cobbler. The final panel should have shown it all over his pants.
Nothing could have prepared me for today’s Garfield that shows performing an obscene sexual act with a cooked turkey.
@53 Anonymous: I’m surprised he has his pants. I figured he’d devour them to get the cobbler remnants in his feeding frenzy.
CS: “I got you some holiday music to listen to while we decorate the tree. It’s got all of our traditional favorites: ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’ ‘Here Comes Peter Cottontail,’ ‘My Funny Valentine,’ ‘Danny Boy,’ ‘Oh My Mama,’ and ‘Taps.’ “
Dagwood has a court order to report to any new neighbors his status as a sexual deviant. Do you think he made the poor dog watch as he defiled that food?
Crankshaft: The title panel is a nice nostalgic nod to Goodyear’s “The Joyous Songs of Christmas,” which was sold for $1 at Goodyear tire retailers in 1971. You can listen to it at the Internet Archive. The album cover shows the singers’ photos on candles. Artist Dan Davis used Andy Williams, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, and Danny Kaye, but I can’t tell who the woman is on candle #4. She doesn’t look like any of the remaining women on the album: Lena Horne, Carol Burnett, or The Lennon Sisters quartet. Maybe it’s supposed to be Bobby Sherman.