Wednesday is for dumb kids
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Hi and Lois, 12/11/24
Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold the damn phone, six months ago Hi seemed genuinely depressed to not receive golf gifts for Father’s Day, back when the kids unilaterally cancelled Father’s Day. Anyway, if Ditto is going to try to do some “turnabout is fair play” on gifts, Hi’s move should be to say “Hey, remember when you cancelled Father’s Day?”
Dennis the Menace, 12/11/24
OK, I’m just genuinely flummoxed by this one. Only thing I’ve got is that Dennis has the Benjamin Button disease and he used to be much taller, and his shrunken, aging brain is vaguely remembering this? I feel menaced in my confusion, but not in a fun way.
Mary Worth, 12/11/24
Mary has had a lot of experience interacting with Dawn, so she knows she has to remind Dawn that she recently became vegan to set the stage for the meal. That girl has a lot of fine qualities, but object permanence simply isn’t one of them.
103 replies to “Wednesday is for dumb kids”
MW: Let’s take a look at Mary’s menu here and see just how much Mary would make it so unappetizing.
-Mushroom stroganoff is a valid variation of the traditional Russian classic and could be made both vegan and flavorful with a variety of properly cooked mushrooms in a coconut milk based sauce and some additions/substitutions like leeks instead of onions and some nutritional yeast and Dijon mustard for some additional umami and acidity. But knowing Mary, she just chopped up some cheap white button mushrooms and cooked them until soggy and slimy with a soy milk sauce.
-Orange tofu stir fry…okay, not only is this an actual dish but it’s quite popular and can be very tasty with some edamame and red bell pepper. Extra firm tofu coated in a tempura batter or cornstarch and then fried until golden brown and tossed with vegetables in an orange sauce…you can’t go wrong. But you know Mary would pull a Jamie Oliver and think all tofu is the same so she would use silken tofu and it would never hold up during the frying process, falling apart and turning into greasy clumps in a watery orange sauce.
So the menu might get an A but the execution by the old crone would be a full F minus minus and possibly even convince dedicated vegans to go back to eating meat.
MW:
“I’m hoping that my reaction to this unappetizing, practically inedible vegan stuff is so violent that I’ll be able to get excused from my final exams. You know the old saying — ‘A tofu a day keeps the proctor away’ !”
@Needless Exposition: The way Mary cooks vegan, if Count Weirdly wanted to poison it with foie gras and veal, nobody would be the wiser. Then again, Count W. could do that with most anything she makes. Except maybe muffins.
H&L: Jeez, Hi, you would think that you were told you had a terminal illness with how you’re reacting to your lack of golf balls.
H&L – Sock it to me, baby – baby….
DtM – That was just a Yule log that Henry neglected to flush….
MW – Soilent Beige…IT’S VEGAN! Dear god…it’s vegan….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
“Only thing I’ve got is that Dennis has the Benjamin Button disease and he used to be much taller”
Well, that one strap on Dennis is looking pretty loose there, so I think I’m going to have to go with aging backwards hijinks here too.
@ValdVin: Count Weirdly can’t quite compete with the decades of bad cooking that Mary has done.
DtM:
“The first Christmas tree I remember was just this ta!”
“When was that, Dennis? — and why are there letters missing from the last word you uttered?”
“It was the First ‘No L’ — and the Second one, too!”
H and L:
“Well, then, a lump of coal for you instead, Ditto! — do you prefer lignite, sub-bituminous, bituminous or anthracite?”
MW: “Wow! These are better than Bluff Burgers!”
H&L: “Sure, whatever. I’ll tell your mother to pick out a nice choo-choo train to go with your blisters and foot fungus. Now go eat your stale bed cookies, you ungrateful constant disappointment.”
MW: Go vegan, go paleo, go South Beach, go cannibal; it doesn’t matter, Dawn. Anything diet you pick is going to be fed to you by Mary in the form of muffins and trays of cat litter.
GT: Another day, another pile of egregious fuck-ups. The QB’s color-shifting collar is a strong runner-up, but Best in Show has to go to the Milford player lined up in the neutral zone facing backwards.
Luann: So Bernice is supposed to be underweight now? Sure, why not. I don’t recall any storylines from the past several years about that aspect of her character and it sure as hell isn’t apparent from the artwork, but since when has either of those things stopped the Evanses?
MW: Mary’s Tofu dish looks more like a typical drawing of Garfield’s lasagna.
Hi and Lois-I’m sure Hi said no more blue balls.
MW-You’re having warmed over Play-Do.
FC-So does Daddy’s friend Jack.
RMMD-“I don’t know. He doesn’t really seem like my type,” the Officer on Duty says.
DtM: Trying to make sense of this one. Perhaps, the tree is a potted plant that cheapskate Henry drags into the house year after year.
Dennis is an ageless being, millions of years old. He was there when the first archaic gymnosperm tree put out a tentative stunted seedling in the dark soil of Carboniferous era. An impossibly ancient creature, almost as old as the average Dennis the Menace reader.
Wary Morth:
Wait a tick, fungi are not plants!
#MushroomLivesMatter
MW: Can’t wait til Wilbur comes home to discover that Dawn has scoured the apartment of any and all animal products and has liberated Willa in protest of an anthropocentric worldview. It’s gonna be a hoot!
RMMD: “Big ol’ dog bit me when I WASN’T robbing and knifing his master!”
DtM: I was struck by the rare Mitchell family moment. Neither parent seems to want to chain Dennis to a radiator.
JP: It looks like it’s Rewriting History with Absolute Nonsense Week in Judge Parker, and my goodness April is really kicking into high gear today. In the spirit of this madness, let’s start from the end and work our way back to the beginning.
April claims that she wasn’t able to be with her daughter Charlotte until she was in kindergarten and that she lost her entire family while she was on the run. This is all simply wrong, as April took Charlotte as well as husband Randy and mother Helena into hiding with her for months or years. Even during the periods when she was separated from them, at no point did April “lose her entire family” as a result of her life on the run, most overtly demonstrated by the fact that she is literally having Thanksgiving with her entire family right frigging now. April asserts that the same total family loss will occur to Ann as well, whatever that’s supposed to mean; if anything, using Alan’s house as a hideout has brought Ann closer to her family than she’s been in twenty years.
Moving on (backwards), April says, “I was a fugitive from the CIA for five years.” This complete gibberish is a real sentence that Francesco Marciuliano wrote and sent in for publishing. No, really. I’m not kidding. I would elaborate on why it’s so silly, but unfortunately I am an exile from the Department of Agriculture and under censure by the US Postal Service.
April claims Ann will destroy everyone Ann claims to love. What this is referring to is anyone’s guess, as Ann has not claimed to anyone (least of all April) that she loves anyone or worries about their well being. Besides, Alan and Randy have both openly done far worse than sheltering some con artist who killed her partner and have suffered no meaningful consequences for any of it, so really, what’s the concern?
Finally, to begin, April says that Ann hiding in Alan’s basement won’t end well, which highlights the biggest problem. Aside from maybe Charlotte (emphasis on maybe), April is the least-informed person in this story. She does not know what Ann (or Alan or Katherine) is planning or working on, or if they’re doing anything at all. She hasn’t even tried to ask. Instead, despite her total ignorance, April is declaring what the circumstances are and what their consequences will be, with Ann barely permitted a word edgewise. Every freaking time, man. Marciuliano is just allergic to natural storytelling.
This is all presumably a prelude to April’s notion for what Ann should be doing instead of hanging out in Alan’s basement, though who can guess what that will be if April plans on drawing from her own experience. I’m not going to recap how April’s fugitive status was resolved today, but it was extremely ridiculous and contrived and did not involve any intentional effort on April’s part, and it is completely useless as an experience to draw from. I can predict only one thing about April’s plan: it will be really, really, really dumb.
MW: She recently became vegan till I made mushroom stroganoff! [EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]
H&L: Hi gets pushback on his plan to substitute slipper socks for winter boots in the household budget.
I’d go for “I’m going to stop you right there, dipshit” but that would come across as mean, rather than the joking tease it was meant to be, so instead I’ll just say “She does?”
MW: I actually had trouble figuring out initially whether the oven mits were part of whatever glop Mary cooked…I thought “Did Mary cook this woman a HAM? The new vegan???” But then I realized that couldn’t be right, because the ham would have looked semi-appetizing and, well, also have been the correct color, neither of which seem to be actual strong points of Mary’s cooking.
Dennis the Menace: The Mitchells used to keep a small tree on a table to prevent animals from climbing its branches, nibbling on the pine needles, batting at the ornaments, and peeing on the trunk. But ever since Alice and Henry sent Hot Dog off in a bag to “live on a farm” upstate, they’ve only got one to worry about. Menace level mild, and not from Dennis, to Dennis.
@Anonymous: Le sigh. This was me. Santa ate my cookies, two weeks early.
MW: So far, the only thing that explains the plot line, artwork, and dialog so far is if both Dawn and Mary think the word “vegan” is another term for “lesbian.” The “come hither” look that Dawn is giving Mary suggests she doesn’t actually intend to EAT the mushroom stroganoff and orange tofu stir-fry, but plans to smear it all over Mary’s naked body in their first exciting encounter.
Hi and Lois: As any male parent of young children will tell you, Hi got the greatest gift he could on Father’s Day, which is to say, not having the kids play “Hop on Pop” at 6 goddamned thirty in the A.M. He was looking forward to not having to return the favor, but now that socks are off the table, well, requiscat in pacem, Ditto. Dad will regret having to replace the splinters of your bed after Christmas morning’s flying turnbuckle.
Also, how out of touch is Hi and Lois? So out of touch that Ditto thinks Dad makes the Christmas present decisions in the Flagston family!
@Charterstoned:[Closes laptop, walks away slowly, muttering] “He’s right, dammit. Dammit, he’s right.”
“Dawn, at first I was not happy about your choice for veganism, which is something I associate with hippies, intellectual elitists and other degenerates. But then I realised that your dietary choice is moving you away from your very carnivorous father, so I decided to encourage it”
MW:
Stressed nuts, moping, want an open frier
Hacked sauce nipping at your nose
Yuletide perils being wrung by what’s dire
And yolks tressed up like escargots
Everybody knows a burping and some virago
Help to make the season trite
Whiny sots with their sighs, all in throes,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight
They know Mylanta’s on its way
It’s goaded with soys and puddings on display
And every father’s child is gonna try
To see if drained spears really know how to fry
And so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from 1 to 92
Although it’s been said many times, many ways, Mary Christmas to you
And so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from 1 to 92
Although it’s been said many times, many ways, Mary Christmas to you
H&L: Jesus, just look at Hi’s panicked expression. It’s not just that he has no other ideas for gifts, it’s that he can’t even conceive of any. “Ok, ok…it’s winter…I could get them something warm…and colorful…that they could wear around the house on their fee– SHIT NO THAT’S SOCKS AGAIN EVERYTHING IS SOCKS!”
DtM: It seems that as a cost-cutting measure, Henry decided to just let a spruce tree grow up through the floorboards in the living room. Sure, it looked pretty stupid for a few years, but who’s laughing now, suckers?
MW: It’s nice that Mary went through the effort of making some vegan food for Dawn, you think she could come up with some dishes that were a little more complimentary? “We can serve the whole thing over a bed of couscous and smother it in an eggless Hollandaise sauce. And save room for my cheesecake a la mode!”
GT – Milford’s quarterback shouting out Los Angeles area freeways has rattled Marty Moon so much that he’s switched to the passive voice.
@Charterstoned: O_O
Dennis is 5. We can rule out remembering his first Christmas. His second is kinda iffy. In all likelihood he only remembers two previous Christmases But those expressions on Henry and Alice’s faces make me think either the previous year they had a small tree on the table to keep the little dumbass from eating tinsel or they are gaslighting him into thinking he’s shrinking. I really hope it’s the latter and they are the real menaces in the story.
Just last week, Hi’s newspaper of choice was The Chronicle Tribune. But today, he’s reading The Daily News. Which would imply that either Hi is a sophisticated news consumer that wants to hear different ideological perspectives even in his local news diet or that he’s a fiery partisan that decided to break with his traditional newspaper over some recent political questions. Of course, there is the third option, that the writers have no interest in continuity and simply asked ChatGPT to generate another generic title for a newspaper. But I would never doubt the integrity of Walker-Browne LLC!
Dawn is not actually vegan, but she thought this was the best strategy to prevent Mary from serving her generic pink cubes. Though luck Dawn! You get generic orange cubes!
MW: The syndicate has been cropping out Dawn’s body below the neck in recent strips. I get it. The braless look is okay for mature women Mary and Estelle but not perky breasted Dawn. Hmmph!
Mary reminding Dawn is part of the Charterstone tyrant’s supernatural gaslighting ability. You will eat the vegan concoctions and like them, Dawn – you and everyone else under Mary’s dominion are mindless pawns for her god complex.
DtM: From the undersized shrub he grabbed and ran with just a few years ago, Henry has gotten a lot more brazen in the choice of balsam fir he hacks down and steals from the office parking lot.
@Giant Pondering Otter: 0.5
MW: I misread at first, and thought Mary was serving a mushroom stroganoff and orange tofu stir fry. But even corrected, I’m not sure how any of those dishes would be served as a casserole, apparently just pulled out of the oven.
My guess is that Mary knows that Dawn did absolutely no research into what Veganism actually entails. Therefore, those mushrooms are in a normal cream sauce and the stir fry is served over egg noodles.
HnL: Oh, great. Now Ditto has called an alternate universe into being where socks rule the world. Good going.
DtM: Dennis is recalling a time when the Mitchells were too poor to afford a “real” Christmas tree, and he’s not about to let his dad forget his humble past.
MW: Is Splak! vegan?
MW: “You wasted your time, Mary. I don’t like mushrooms. Look, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Next time, ask me first, okay?”
Luann: Hyperthyroidism may explain some things about Bernice. Not that this strip would dare to tackle an actual issue that affects one of its characters.
CS: They’re not here to see you, asshole. I hope the surprise twist is that Crankshaft drives a bus through the auditorium and kills only Dinkle.
9CL: I’m going to guess Brooke doesn’t understand the mechanics of breaking the sound barrier. I feel safe making that guess.
@Charterstoned: We need a new post category of “Horrifying Revelation of the Week” for this. Congrats on the inaugural HROTW, and please don’t make the mistake I did and picture Dawn sticking her tongue in Mary’s “orange tofu stir fry.”
FC: Jeffy will grow up to be an advocate for the reduction of light pollution.
HTH: Good news: Plugger Vikings are not as obese as they look. Bad news: They are filthy, disgusting animals.
Hi and Lois – The creators of this strip had already drawn it by the time they realized the classic joke starts “Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants”, not socks, and that you don’t lose your ball if you get a hole-in-one. But they had a tee time to and were more interested in the score they were going to make than they were making a coherent comic.
Dennis the Menace – Dennis has begun to tap into memories of past lives. Right now it’s only things that interest his five-year old mind, like Christmas and gifts. But soon he will begin to remember other things: Skills learned, grievances unsettled, and insights into human psychology and manipulation. The Menacing is just beginning.
Mary Worth – Luckily for Mary, there are plenty of beige foods in vegan cookbooks, so this doesn’t disrupt her usual cooking aesthetic.
Nice try, Mary, but neither a stroganoff nor a stir-fry should ever see the inside of a baking dish. This is just your usual unidentifiable orange goo with a name change hoping Dawn is too stupid to see through it. I mean, you’re right, but it’s still bad form.
Hi And Lois: Hi’s expression of pure fear and despair in the second panel is great. That’s a man who’s really been forced to understand that his kids are really, really dumb.
Dennis The Menace: “Y’see, cuz I was smaller cuz I was younger and… and, uh… look, I’m running out of menace material here, guys. Can I just go and shoot Mr. Wilson’s house with a BB gun or something?”
Mary Worth: Mary totally strikes me as the sort of asshole who would hear about somebody having a diet restriction and immediately sneak the food they’re avoiding into their meal to make them “toughen up”. What I’m saying is, Dawn’s totally about to eat meat. And not in the fun way.
@Ettorre:
This is the equivalent of when music stars are asked to record local promo its for radio stations, or when sitcom stars would do reads from whatever independent UHF stations aired their sitcom in syndication.
For Walker-Browne, it’s either name drop a local newspaper, or go full Pluggers and have the rabble write the strip for you. While Pluggers can manage it, the Hi and Lois team doesn’t want to sort through suggestions that are 90% wanting to see Lois’ feet
MW: Stroganoff is a rich, creamy dish, while orange stir fry is lighter and acidic. Both are main courses, even one-dish meals if there’s a good carb/protein/vegetable balance, and both require a lot of hands-on cooking and aren’t the sort of things you would make simultaneously. Karen Moy should have put a lot more thought into this menu than typing “vegan” into AllRecipies.com.
LUANN: Poor Bernice. She’s been spending the whole week trying to subtly reveal her eating disorder to her unobservant new “family”, but unfortunately Luann already called dibs on the “very special issue” this arc, so Bernice has no choice but to shut up and “eat” her waffles while Luann coerces other people to do charity work for her own self-glory (how heartwarming!)
Hi, Hi, don’t look so depressed, Ditto is just no I can’t complete this sentence. Look so depressed, Hi! I don’t care what for! Your suburban despair sustains me!
@TheDiva: I’m pretty sure I put more effort into writing the post I made about the dishes than Moy did. She probably didn’t even know that a mushroom stroganoff actually exists.
MW – “What do you mean sour cream isn’t vegan? It isn’t meat, now is it?”
@jroggs: I’m honored! This is what comes of not having enough coffee on board before I comment. Stay tuned: Della Street is approaching Charterstone, looking to rent!
C’shaft: That’s it, Harry Dinkle is officially the Most Loathsome Person in Crankshaft, and therefore in comic strips as a whole.
Dustin: “Believe me, I’ve been trying that for nearly twenty-five years and it hasn’t worked yet.”
JP: “What I’m saying is, there’s advantages to being a fugitive from the law…”
Luann: Clan Evans is aiming for that sweet, sweet Red Cross sponsorship money.
Pluggers are still nattering on about baggy pants in the Year of Our Lord 2024, and don’t know there are plenty of establishments that will hire people with piercings. (Also, Pluggers think The Kids These Days dress in some sort of emo-gansta hybrid fashion.)
RMMD: Forget the dog bite, get someone to have a look at that nose! You look like an antisemitic caricature from the 1890s!
Dawn “recently” became vegan *that very morning!* Object permanence *really* isn’t Dawn’s thing.
Crock Spanish to English.
Mary Worth: An old vaudeville joke, retrofitted for Dawn. . .
“I went on a vegan diet until I could get down to my desired weight.”
“Really? How long did that take?”
“Two bites!”
@TheDiva: Nonsense! Moy put as much thought into this as she did the last vegan plot that was featured here. So expect Dawn’s veganism to be “cured” by the time Mary hums the second bar to “Isn’t She Lovely” (you know…for “authenticity.”)
I’m always amused by Brigman’s depictions of Mary using oven mitts sans use of her opposable thumbs. Yes, let’s lift that hot, heavy pan out of the oven precariously balanced on my elderly, arthritic hands. I like living dangerously! Heck, next time I’m just gonna skip the mitts entirely and handle that pan with my bare hands!
It’ll be like that Kanye song: I put my hand on the stove-to see if I still bleed! I feel kinda free! Just like the kids we used to be!
Who’s willing to bet that Dawn is only going vegan because she wants to impress either a guy or some obnoxious sorority that somehow formed in a community college because Moy thinks all colleges are the same thing?
Curtis:
Mrs Borden recovered most remarkably well from Lizzie taking an axe and giving her forty whacks.
Hi and Lois: The family is doing an inverted “Gift of the Magi.” Hi’s Father’s Day gift was to spend the day playing golf, but no one gave him any balls. Now Ditto wants to spend Christmas morning opening presents, but they’ll all be boring clothes and school items his parents would have bought him anyway. Everyone gets what they wanted, but there’s still no joy. The end!
Dennis the Menace: I see that Dennis’ Christmas stocking is hung way too close to the dangerously high flames in the shallow fireplace. And above that are what look like a flammable crèche scene and dried wreath, not to mention some electric candles. So stop worrying about the tree, kid — in an hour or so, none of this will matter anyway.
Dennis – Dennis’s parents look smug because the gaslighting is finally paying off. “All our Christmas trees have been exactly the same size, Dennis. Are you sure you’re not shrinking? Look, your overalls are too long again already!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Don Abundio bought this public beach and closed it to all but his invited guests”
“Aren’t the people angry about losing beach access?”
“Oh, yes! Looks like a riot might break out”
“But fortunately, he also has his own private police force”
I come here for the MW laughs and once again, you did not disappoint.
Speaking of food on the brain today, while I never really found Chris Rock funny, I read a tiny excerpt from his autobiography, which obviously wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously.
He mentioned when he was a teenager, his mother confiscated all of his porn. So he’s in the kitchen just starting at Aunt Jemima on the syrup bottle, until she becomes hot.
Then Uncle Ben from the rice box says “Stop looking at my woman!”
I only found this to begin with because I googled out of curiousity “Does anyone ship Aunt Jemima with Uncle Ben?” apparently Chris Rock does.
From the Internet World of Zombie Comics:
GoComics highlights a “new” Bloom County.
It’s a 2011 strip where the punchline is something outrageous not done by Michael Jackson.
I hope it was not run by some dead tree publication (like my local paper has done with some ridiculously outdated Doonesbury daily strips).
Oh, Baja. You might want to stay away from Arlo & Janis today.
I’m not sure if you would approve or be horrified by “boxing the clown” violence.
MW: “And will Willa be going vegan, too?” A perfectly logical question, but will we see it here?? NOOOO! The Ladies continue to totally IGNORE Willa’s existence! If they think they can pressure us into taking a pay cut or other unacceptable conditions… well they’ve got another think comin’!! There are *plenty* of other comics that would be honored to offer her a role…
Keep this on the down low, but we’re in talks with Flash Gordon about… Goldfishpeople! No, not like the ones in Prince Valiant… they were a supernatural fantasy. These would be real, with Willa as their Queen! And maybe the return of Stellan…..
@Peanut Gallery: So.
A ripped from the headlines true story.
Phantom: Thank god Diana didn’t happen upon a pub called The Great Big Wart On the Tip of the Nose.
“Yep, they come from all over the world to swap stories and dip their warty noses into a pint of our famous milk stout. Pull up a chair, little lady!”
@UncleJeff: Yeah, it’s not actually funny to most of us, but 4 out of 5 billionaires think it’s hilarious!
DtM His dad grabbed a twig off of someone else’s tree or wreath, stuck it in a pot, and said, “Voila!”
Simples.
DtM: “It wasn’t a bad little tree. It just needed a little love.”
@UncleJeff: Arlo punches it a lot (good!), but it. keeps. coming. back. (very bad!)
MW:. I am honestly amazed (and reminded Mary is fiction). She found two recipes for vegan entrees, found and bought ingredients, practiced and refined recipes– all in half a day! Wow! Knowing Dawn is alone, Mary has made her feel valued and loved. Easier to induce probing mother questions, sure, but it’s an amazing gift just the same.
MARY WORTH: I kinda hope they don’t drop Dawn’s super-spontaneous “crunchy granola” vegan mindset at the end of this storyline, like I kinda suspect they will. I hope it continues well into the summer season so that she can scream “Fur is murder!” at Ian when he takes off his shirt for the next pool party.
@Needless Exposition: This sounds like such a repeat of Sonia’s story, that I wouldn’t be surprised if that one scuzzy guy (no not Keith. The other one), turned out to be Dawn’s latest paramour, running the same con.
Arlo and Janis Baja Gaijin is Arlo.
BGSS: Apparently the age of Hootin’ Holler residents can be determined by beard or boob length.
Nancy is Baja‘s sister.
REX MORGAN M.D.: In the topsy turvy world of Rex Morgan M.D., stitches get snitches.
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): It’s fortunate that the lead time let’s the strip be divorced from recent events (as if this comic were ever any other way) or they might have to reconsider a plot where a critically injured man gets the cops called on him instead of the medical care he needs.
MW: If you’re eating with me, Dawn, it’s salmon squares! And you better damn like it!
@jroggs: On one hand, what you said. April is ridiculous. On the other hand, this tete-a-tete could perhaps possibly result in Ann sneaking out of the Parker house and disappearing from JP for another twenty years. That is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Fifty years ago G. Gordon Liddy sought to have the Supreme Court overturn his conviction. Beloved malt shop proprietor discussed a crime wave and Buz Sawyer tackled an octopus embracing a lady against her will.
Zits: What is this gesture that Walt is making in the 2nd panel? Is it supposed to be some kind of lewd sex act?
Dennis the Menace: My theory is that in order to control Dennis and keep him from destroying everything they had him chemically lobotomized.
Curtis: Mrs Borden sure is fertile, also she’s a cow. We have some of her Borden’s Eggnog in the refrigerator.
Slylock Fox: They forgot to draw the cat’s butthole. I don’t even want to know what was about to transpire that these children were so interested to see.
Pluggers: Is Bil Cosby a Plugger? I remember one time he was giving a commencement speech at a Black college and told them they need to pull up their pants and get jobs.
Beetle Bailey: Gen Halftrack wants to know where all the bars are located, because he’s a raging alcoholic.
@TheDiva: On Pluggers: Yeah, wow, the original baggy pants kids are old enough to be Pluggers. This strip is always kind of out of touch, but today’s might as well be Blondie or Luann.
CS:. Crankshaft gets younger everytime he stands in front of a band! By tonight’s concert, he’ll be carrying a teddy bear.
FRAZZ:. Though the problem is actually about distance, speed, acceleration using basic math, Mrs. Olson changed it to a problem about trains. Frazz made it into a problem about time. Two days ago, I finally found and bought a new bottle of dried thyme.
FG:. One good punch…
MANDRAKE:. Deserves another.
6CHX:. The least talked about subject of gossip.
@UncleJeffers:
The Pound Cake speech was given by Bill Cosby on May 17, 2004, during an NAACP Legal Defense Fund awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
@Activist:
#92. CS: Oops, I meant Dinkle
Frazz: Who writes a train song in waltz time?
@Dr. Larry Erhardt:
#95. FRAZZ:. A country composer, inventing a 3-step for Pluggers with canes
RMMD: the mugger has aged since being bitten by Buster.
@Weaselboy: He should have included the Slausen Cutoff.
Rodney Dangerfield: We were so poor we couldn’t afford tinsel. We had to wait for Grandpa to sneeze.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Bonus points for the Carson reference.
FG: The Shark Man leads with a right cross. You’d think he’d lead with his teeth, but Kala learned his fighting skills at the knee of the Marquis of Queensbury.
After the Old Lion gets the shit kicked out of him, do they all sit down and carry out the planned peace conference? Or are the Sharks declared the winners and the Lions placed into eternal slavery harvesting kelp for their fishy new masters?
Bacön: I had to look at this strip so now you have to.
Actually, I would advise you not look at this strip.
MW: Translation: “I looked up the names of some vegan recipes, then I checked the label of my usual Beige Glop, and it turns out it contains no animal products anyway! It also says if you accidentally consume any you should consult a doctor immediately, but whatever!”
OTF: Y’know, I thought the phrase “power imbalance” was pretty self-explanatory, but apparently not. Imagine a balance scale with a massive weight in one pannier and nothing in the other. That’s unbalanced, right? In fact, it’s as unbalanced as it’s possible to be. You wouldn’t say “There’s no imbalance in the weight, because one side doesn’t have any weight at all.” That wouldn’t make any sense!
Phantom: Were you intrigued by a guy in a suit preparing to explain how even a guy in a suit might be punched by Stripey? Too bad, because instead we’re getting a panel of this guy remembering how he was caught smuggling(?) by Stripey Sr(??). Want to hear more about that? Nope, tomorrow it’ll be someone else. DePaul wants to try some of that disjointed storytelling that’s working so well(?????) in Gil Thorp.
Pluggers: Here’s a fun story. About 20 years ago I applied for a job at a new bookshop that was opening as part of the out-of-town shopping centre. When I didn’t get the job, Maw Broon semi-seriously suggested it was because of my ponytail, as part of her ongoing semi-serious campaign to get me to lose my ponytail. I maintained that it was simply because I’m really bad at interviews, and that I’d previously proven quite capable of flubbing a bookshop interview with short hair.
Anyway, the first time we visited that bookshop as customers, we were served by a very friendly and helpful guy who happened to have more facial piercings than I’d ever seen in real life before. As we left, I murmured to Maw “I don’t think the problem was the ponytail.”
That was 20 years ago. That bookshop no longer exists. Pluggers are out of touch with what out-of-touch looks like.
S4th: Yes, Ces, we get it, Jackie has somehow moved into a Hallmark movie (with occasional folk horror elements). But do characters in Hallmark movies normally do massive infodumps like this? Wouldn’t this be the main plot of the film, and thereby conveyed by … well … the plot of the film? (Wait, I forgot, Ces is the writer on Judge Parker, so it’s not reasonable to expect him to know how storytelling works.)