Holidays loom ominously
Post Content
Judge Parker, 12/23/24
Aw, isn’t that nice? Sam is going to let Alan enjoy the holidays and wait until the new year until he yells at him for sheltering his criminal daughter. Personally speaking, I’d like to get it out of the way now, you know? No worse way to spend the holiday then dwelling on “Ah, what kind of pissy scold am I going to get from Sam Driver about my latest criminal antics” when I could be exchanging gifts with my family or getting drunk or whatever.
Blondie, 12/23/24
Look, I’m not afraid to say it: A giant stocking stuffed full with cookies and two kinds of meat sounds disgusting. It’s all going to get mixed together and lint from the stocking will stick to everything! I’m not a food snob by any stretch of the imagination but Dagwood’s whole deal is very gross.
Gasoline Alley, 12/23/24
Santa, famously, sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. To this list of surveillance crimes, add another: every time somebody gives birth, anywhere in the world, he’s watching. He’s watching … and he remembers. He remembers everything.
111 replies to “Holidays loom ominously”
Mary Worth Mashups
MW: As Pink Background Lady completely loses control of her frame, a vigilant BOWL attendant quickly activates the gutter guards to stop her careening trajectory across the lanes.
“Santa is a peeping Tom” would make a good song title for something on Dr Demento
MW: Is that woman wearing bowling MITTENS?
“Holidays loom ominously”
To be fair, Looming is a behavior that is difficult to pursue in a non-ominous fashion. Looming, by definition, is meant to be ominous, a foreshadowing that this Loomer is not quite on the level. No level Loomers, laughed Laura!
GA: I haven’t been following Gasoline Alley of late, but today’s “action” would make more sense and be far more intriguing if that envelope read “Festivus Pole”—since it looks like we’re about to hear Aubree’s airing of grievances.
JP: “Ann won’t mind cooling her heels in a cell while I do nothing until after Little Christmas, right Alan?”
JP: So tune in next year, Judge Parker fans, for even more
actiontalking. Long talking.Blondie: I’d like to think that Dagwood rewrote that entire poem around food. Well, maybe ‘rewrote’ is a bit exaggerated — at the halfway point I’m sure he abandons the rhyming scheme altogether and just starts naming cuts of meat in all caps.
GA: Ha, sounds like Mommy was doing more that kissing under the mistletoe that night!
lol dagwood eat a food
JP:
“Alan, you might want to give Ann some practice pointers on how to go about brandishing cafeteria trays and how to weaponize them, when you have a spare moment! — that’ll come in really handy when you’re in the slammer in these parts!”
MW: “Good looking and rich! He’s heir to all that Radio Shack Tandy cash.”
JP:
Sam calls Alan after Ann turns herself in to the police…
[pinching his nose]: “Do you have Prince Albert in a Can?”
My question is why Dagwood is reading A Visit from Saint Nicholas in bed.
GA:
“What her mom wrote you about her daughter’s experience of spotting you coming down the chimney appears to have been inspired by Sinatra!”
“Really? What did she write, Buddy?”
” ‘Aubee’s seeing you in all the old familiar places’ !”
I am loving the Karen Moy/On-ray Barajas/Rachel Merrill/June Brigman crossover – bowling with a deranged woman running down the lane with her ball. I can’t wait for this to get to Milford.
MW: Dirk Tandy, male prostitute.
MW: When Dawn tells Friend Jared about her new hunk, it will only prove to him that he was right; Dawn is shallow, shallow, shallow!
MW – Will Dawn invite Dirk along to the meet-cute with Jess and Jared not the Subway pedophile, or will she keep it to a threesome?
@LBSC: My question is why Dagwood is reading A Visit from Saint Nicholas in bed.
That’s funny, because my first reaction when I saw the strip was ‘why is he reading it on a tablet?’ I’m just used to technology being a punchline in and of itself in these legacy comics that I was sure the gag was going to be “THANK GOD I HAVE THIS STOCKING MONITORING APP THAT I BOUGHT WITH MY SUGRPLM-COIN! MERRY INTERNET EVERYONE!”
MW: “Drunk woman on lane 18. Repeat, drunk woman on lane 18. Request clean-up.”
GT: Um, don’t CITIES have police forces and COUNTIES have sheriff’s offices? Or is Milford in Milford County? Also, are criminals in Milford City/County given their own punny chapter titles for some upcoming book or documentary or funny meme? And has the sheriff’s office ever booked anyone with perfectly round fingertips before? Yes, Yes, and Yes. In HenryWorld, all things are possible.
Blondie – Dagwood’s mind is lazy, just shoving random foods. A real chef or food connoisseur might think of something like a pocket sandwich shaped like a stocking, one stuffed with BBQ Beef Brisket, one with seasoned sirloin tips, with the iced sugar cookies on the side.
No wonder attempts to make a Dagwood themed chain of sandwich shops has failed.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Well, of course! She’s her father’s daughter after all. Maybe she’ll get stinking drunk beforehand too, so she can brag about her ‘martial arts’ moves at dinner. HI-YAH! Then she finds herself ‘un’ invited from the orgy, and Dirk and Jared discover a new kind of love, leaving poor Jess out in the cold and we can add yet another person to the always-growing list of people who will curse the name of Weston to their dying day.
CS: Once again [for the ‘benefit’ of those whose private equity-controlled newspapers went to a 4-day publishing schedule and no longer run Sunday funnies] Merry Christmas, Ralph!
Luann: Ahh, cheapskates and passive-aggressive ingrates! Merry Christmas, you horrible, horrible people!
MW: “Nice to meet you, Dawn. They call me ‘Dirk the Dirk,’ if you get my shaft, er, drift. And, hey, why don’t you introduce me to your friend there. She’s probably not as easy as you, but she sure is prettier.”
The Italian folkloric figure Befana is a a gift-giver bringing sweets and toys on the 6th of January. It used to be an alternative to Santa Claus, but these days she is complementary. She closes the holiday season bringing sweets in a stocking. Dagwood should enthusiastically embrace this tradition, but being a rich WASP from the 1930s, he has a reaction to Italians which is Lovecraftian — literally
Blondie: Dude, the least you could have done is make it rhyme. I’ll get you started: “steak” rhymes with “milkshake.”
MW: Dirk could hear Dawn’s panties getting wet from a lane away.
MW: Dawn and Dirk are so smitten with each other they’re standing unawares in the center of the lane. No matter. The rules in this place allow bowlers to run across the lanes sideways.
TF is up with Pink Bowling Lady’s lower body? She has the physique of Cotton Hill.
SFx: You’ve got to admire this strip for not only opening children’s eyes to the matter-of-fact cruelty with which predators and prey live their every moment, but for also teaching them how to manipulate crime scenes so that they don’t implicate themselves.
Why is Dagwood reading his CornHub posts out loud to Blondie when she’s just trying to relax with The Comics Curmudgeon at Joshreads dot com before drifting off for the night with dreams of Sam Driver?
FC: The Keane kids are tuned to the Christmas pageant streaming from the new Holy Land themed casino located in downtown Phoenix.
“Put this gold on the red eight!”
@LBSC: Why is Dagwood reading his food porn in bed? Well…I can think of some reasons….
@Bob Tice: I’m pretty sure April must have covered it in her little talk with Ann we just don’t know because it happened off panel.
H&L: Because we eat Christmas dinner at 8am?
Dustin You know what my mid-twenties son and his friends frequently discuss? That’s right, what to do about their subscriptions to The New Yorker. It’s uncanny how in touch this strip is with the lives of contemporary young people.
Blondie-And Dagwood is always hungry.
Slylock Fox-The raccoon runs away laughing that he’s got another innocent animal sent away.
RMMD-“How long did Morgan keep me in that hospital? When I went in it was nice and sunny and I could wear short sleeves now it’s snowing.”
FC-“Followed a bottle more like it.”
@Rube:
…Maybe it initially was The New York TIMES, but editorial told Kelly&Parker “DO NOT TELL THE AUDIENCE THEY SHOULD CANCEL THEIR NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTION IF ALL THEY DO IS READ THE COMICS”.
Question: If we give Dagwood a Snickers candy bar, will that cure his insatiable hunger?
And when he turns back into “himself” who will he be?
@astroboy: for that matter, wtf is wrong with Dirk’s right arm? It’s like this withered little flipper. Maybe his mom took thalidomide?
G. *(&^#@$! Thorp – Marty wasn’t driving, was he? So why the arrest? Is he like Otis Campbell who is drunk so much that he just stumbles into the Mayberry jail and lets himself in the cell?
@Baja Gaijin: Yes she is and yes she does.
Dagwood’s insane, insatiable hunger probably started as a joke about real material suffering in the Depression or something and since then just deformed into a jokes about how consequence free eating disorders are.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Unless it’s a cotton loom.
@brendancalling: arms are @#£%ing hard to draw properly. But then I’m an amateur.
JP: It’s gotten to the point where I can’t tell Sam from Randy any more. Which one is married to who, again? Who’s got the Latina receptionist? Is Sam a private eye or does he drive Uber? Did we ever learn how Hunky Hank got from Alaska to Los Angeles, or why he got so small and skinny? Why didn’t Sophie’s roommate come home with her for Christmas?
MW: “Quick work, Dawn!” I thought it was the male prerogative to treat the women in cheap hooks-ups like meat. Very disheartening to learn ladies can be every bit as shallow and creepy as the bro faction.
GA: Santa’s help is needed urgently! There’s not a moment to waste in this emergency! I’d better send him a… letter? Really? Not even express courier or anything, either? Welp, at least Santa can rest easy, because Aubee’s definitely dead by now from… wait, she’s just “upset?” Sheesh, how hard is it to cheer up a bitter grade schooler?
MW: June Brigman understands bowling as well as she understands smartphones, human faces, and the value in not redrawing the same exterior building wall over and over.
This week’s Crankshaft:
Today: Ralph looks at the video tape that’s already taken several days to get to him.
Tomorrow: Ralph wordlessly looks at the video tape some more.
Wednesday: Ralph wordlessly looks at the video tape again in the first panel. Getting an idea in the second panel, he spots the VCR in the last panel.
Thursday: Ralph wordlessly inserts the tape into the VCR.
Friday: Ralph wordlessly presses Play.
Saturday: Ralph wordlessly sheds a single tear. We are never shown what was on the video tape.
Sunday: Ed Crankshaft causes an unrelated Christmas fiasco involving an incendiary device, a bad pun, and criminal negligence.
Next Monday: Tom Batiuk nominates himself for the Pulitzer Prize.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Was wondering this myself. If EVERY TIME you drink alcohol you get arrested by the police, then maybe drinking isn’t for you. I understand opiates are quite popular these days.
GA: It must have been inconvenient for Aubee’s mother not to have a name before Aubee was born.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #40: Lots of jurisdictions, like in Texas, have public intoxication laws where one can be arrested for staggering down a public way drunk but on foot. A lot of small Texas towns would even charge drunk drivers with that instead of DWI. The reason was in a case of public intoxication the town got to keep the whole fine while in the case of DWI they had to split the fine with the state.
GA: “Aubee’s upset”? The same Aubee who just had a fantastic adventure in outer space, and left a sentient creature on Mars to die of loneliness and insanity? There are probably other children more worthy of Santa’s attention on December 23, is what I’m saying.
MW: Ugh, this is going to be the “Wilbur gets romance-scammed” story again, isn’t it? And it’s going to ignore how Dawn was trying to change herself to at least not eat like Wilbur, isn’t it?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Public intoxication is an arrestable offense. Sometimes it’s done to protect the drunkard who’s an easy target. Other times, it depends on how pissy the cops are. It’s why drunk passengers in cars can be arrested even though they aren’t driving.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I think the noted legal expert Ron White covered that in his treatise on “The State of Texas v. “Tater Salad”.
9CL: So it’s an indoor pool?! Did we know that? The divining boards I have experience are extremely rough; besides being unnecessary and impossible, sitting like that that on a diving board would also be very very uncomfortable.
JP: One of these days, I’m gonna have a long talk with that boy.
JP. Notice Sam said “after the Holiday,” not “after Christmas.” That’s because, by the time this storyline wraps up, it’ll probably be set a week or so past Cinco De Mayo.
Meanwhile, Happy Festivus to all. We’ll save the feats of strength for later and will first commence with the airing of grievances.
Also, thanks to those regarding public intoxication. I knew there were laws on it but figured they must be rarely enforced. Guillermo el chiclero, that is interesting about a city going with basic drunkedness instead of drunk driving since it can keep the whole fine. But I also want to see Marty become such a regular that they just leave the keys out for him like Andy did with Otis.
9c: And the fan service sexual objectification of Brooke’s daughter by Cartoonist Brooke for Fan Brooke continues. Merry Christmas, everyone!
@Banana Jr. 6000: Good rundown of the coming week. And the next day might be the last for Crankshaft. Am I getting it correct? I recall Batiuk saying he was retiring at the end of the year.
Regarding Ralph (a character I always like): I remember when his wife had Alzheimer’s, which I thought Batiuk handled in a good way. It seems to me that somewhere through the years Ralph’s son, Timmy, died. Is that correct? What happened? Did he fall down a well?
@2+2=7:
#32. BLONDIE:. Why is Dag reading good porn in bed? Man, those sand witches are HOT.
JP:. Just a reminder, guys, first ask if Ann has a lawyer.
Judge Parker: We will have that talk, Sam, and soon. Right now, though, I’m putting all of my energy into deciding which tiny lamp I want for my desk.
Blondie: Meanwhile, Blondie is reading out loud from 50 Shades of Grey on her iPad, and also using ChatGPT to change half the original text to descriptions of food. It takes a lot to get things going in bed when you’re a couple of long-married weirdos, but darn it, they’re trying!
Judge Parker: So pardon me if I’m not up to date on Judge Parker lore, but does Sam have, like, any authority whatsoever to be talking to Alan like this? Because I feel like this is the kind of comment that in real life would be met with “go fuck yourself” and a hung up phone. I know for certain that Sam has no place to be judging Alan for something like this, given that the cast of Judge Parker have all committed at least one felony, I’m just not sure that Sam has any kind leverage that would allow him to talk to Alan as if he were Alan’s dad.
Gasoline Alley: “Good! I hope the little brat is upset! I’ll make it even worse by giving her two lumps of coal for Christmas! That’s what you get for pestering me with dumb letters, lady!”
Blondie: Dagwood must really be hungry; he couldn’t even bother to make up something that rhymes.
GA: Boo-hoo Aubee, you think you’re the only one who’s a little down in the dumps on December 23rd? It could be worse: you could be some poor kid trying to buy shoes for your dying mother when some smug bastard offers to foot the bill so he can brag about how he knows The True Meaning of Christmas now.
JP: Ah, the proud holiday tradition of gritting your teeth and pretending to get along with your family for a couple days!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I want to say Timmy died in Vietnam, but I can’t find anything to back that up. (Honestly with the time drift it would be more realistic if he died in Desert Storm.)
Gasoline Alley-Santa is referring to the birth of Aubee’s mother.
Blondie-Fishnet stockings?
Blondie: I would like to think that Dagwood was imagining the use of Tupperware or some other sort of containers.
Luann: The writers really seem to think these free T-shirts are hysterical.
9CL: How did Edda get up to the ceiling of an indoor pool? It would have made more sense to show the mistletoe hanging from a pole attached to the diving board.
@Rube: Dustin: While flying a kite in December with a little kid who lives nearby.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Sadly, no, Crankshaft isn’t ending this year. Tom Batiuk has previewed an upcoming story where Jeff goes to a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game. As for Timmy, he died in Vietnam after saving Pam’s life during the Kent State shootings; this was retold in a 2001 Crankshaft story you can find on the web. Which raises the question of why a VHS tape of Timmy even exists. Must be that wacky timeline again.
As for Ralph’s wife’s Alzheimer’s: a post on Son Of Stuck Funky mentioned a story where “Ralph took his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife away from her living facility (without telling anyone) so she could come to New York with him and witness the auctioning of his classic movie poster collection.” If that’s an accurate description, it’s one of the sickest things I’ve ever heard.
@1 Baja Gaijin:
I like Yogi Bear with a light saber attacking bowling pins.
C’shaft: “Once again, this is your only present and you shouldn’t expect any more effort from me.”
DT: So the guy will commit murder but he’s scrupulous on paying his subway fines?
Dustin: This “joke” is so ill-conceived on every level that it’s almost impressive. Dustin, a late Millennial, is as unlikely to subscribe to print media as the Gen Alpha neighbor kid he inexplicably hangs out with. Even if he did, he’s constantly established as being intellectually lazy and indifferent to current events–hardly the the profile of your typical New Yorker subscriber. Then we have the punchline, the laziest form of the already lazy “heh-heh, Kids These Days don’t know about the things WE grew up with!” in existence. I probably put more effort into typing this rant then went into the entire strip.
GT: Oooh, can we sync this up to The Wizard of Oz too?
Luann: Cheap bastard. Didn’t even bother to use the colorful Sunday comics for the wrap job.
MW: “Dirk Tandy”? Who is this guy, a character in a late 19th century melodrama? Is Dawn going to end up tied to railroad tracks? (Please let Dawn end up tied to railroad tracks.)
Phantom: “Fine, I guess I’ll just sit here and bask in my moral superiority over everyone around me, as usual.”
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
Blondie: Adding “in bed” to innocent phrases can make them seem humorously salacious, except when the phrase is “A middle-aged married couple reads iPads.”
CS: Dan Davis keeps drawing an E-30 VHS tape with big spindles instead of a standard E-120. Ralph’s 2-hour home movie must have been recorded at the slowest speed possible and will look like crap.
BCN: I worries me that we’re so close to Christmas and this dumb Hallmark romcom parody shows no sign of wrapping up. I wish Georgia would stick with 1-week arcs instead of multiple-month ones. I miss the cats doing cat stuff.
Don Abundio, translated:
“They’re putting your name on the marquee, Juan”
“Hold on, Abundio! We’ve got a couple of wise guys here!”
“My name is supposed to be in the bigger font!”
Blondie: The expression in the first panel she may be perusing a meat of another kind!
9CL: Great! Now we’ve got to drain and sanitize the pool.. AGAIN!
MW: You’ll CALL her what, Dirk?
Dustin: @thediva I was thinking the same thing. How old id Dustin supposed to be he’d be getting any magazines.. never mind the New Yorker?
@erdmann: Considering Brooke is somewhere in his 70s now, this could very well be fan service sexual objectification of his granddaughter. His daughter can’t still be sporting a 20-something’s bikini figure. Although I hear puppeteering keeps you young.
@TheDiva: I’d even accept either of the Boer Wars. That does sound familiar – that Ralph is a Gold Star parent. Thanks.
I hope Mr. DeGroot (whatever his name is) gets the one with I Choked Linda Lovelace.
@78
HotDogScratchy Scrotum LXIX:I’m sorry I know this but his name is Frank. Like the weenie.
GA: A couple of weeks ago, they showed Santa finally receiving a letter from Skeezix (or was it Walt?) that had been sent a long time ago and had only just been found.
To me, that sounded like a possibly interesting story and I’ve waited for the follow-through.
I guess that’s why I’m not a professional cartoonist.
@WesCCov: But then Brooke wouldn’t have been able to draw a twat shot.
MW: I don’t know much about much, but what I do know? That dude’s name is NOT Dirk Tandy lol
@Anonymous: Aubee’s mother does have a name: Hoogy. (You can see it in the return address on the envelope. Skinner is her married surname; her maiden name is Boogle.)
Granted, with a name like Hoogy Boogle, she might have been better off not having a name at all.
LUANN: Ok, people, this is a “Luann” plot, but since she was the focus of the last arc it’s been haphazardly repurposed to Brad to prevent “overexposure” (wouldn’t want too much attention to our main character now, would we.)
@Banana Jr. 6000: #69: Not to defend Batiuk but Ralph could’ve had an 8mm home movie converted to VHS sometime in the 80s or 90s. Since our active military involvement in Vietnam ended over 50 years ago Timmy, if alive, would be well in his 70s. Ditto for Pam and Jeff if they were at Kent State during the shootings.
MW — Dirky McBowlerson secretly replaced Dawn’s phone battery with one of those exploding types used in the Hezbollah pagers. Let the fun begin!
REX MORGAN M.D.: That’s what I love about this strip: “getting stabbed” can be substitutued with “The diner ran out of meatloaf” with the same display of emotional cadence* (direction: “That’s it, keep every expression and vocal intonation from rising above the level of ‘mild inconvenience’…brilliant!”)
*The one exception, of course, is if the local roots country band doesn’t play their novelty hit. Then it’s perfect acceptable to riot in the streets in a fit of rage.
@Joshua K.: Didn’t Hoogy marry Boog? Christ Amighty.
I remember Hoogy from years ago as a leggy blonde who went around half-dressed and couldn’t talk. Somehow she became a forest ranger and vamped Boog away from the sexy Italian taxi driver he was dating. Somehow the cabbie ended up naked on the roof of the woodsy cabin they were all in, and stayed naked through the rest of the story arc (wearing a small bath towel).
GA was more tolerable when Scancerelli loaded it with cheesecake; wonder why he went down the road of scrapbooking, talking bears, devil dolls, meteorites, illiterate hillbillies, and Chef Meowrice?
FC – Mr. Jive showed me a meme of the Wise Men saying, “They’re for your birthday AND Christmas.” This is a sore spot for him as his birthday is Christmas day.
Crankshaft – Heartwarming glurge will get Batiuk that Pulitzer for sure.
Mary Worth – Would a twenty year old today refer to someone as a “looker?” I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that Moy doesn’t have a good grasp of how young people talk. Or any other human being, for that matter.
Dustin: Reads it mainly for the cartoons? Aren’t the cartoons in The New Yorker notorious for being unfunny?
MARY WORTH: “Dirk Tandy”? (snicker!) Ok, I’m now convinced we’re actually just looking at stills from a bowling themed adult movie called Up Her Alley.
MARY WORTH (2): Since we’ve learned from a variety of comics (hi, Gil Thorp!) that bowling alleys are this generations hottest hook-up site, I suspect that woman in the background is simply running away from the carnage of the ten-pin orgy soon to take place any way she can.
DUSTIN: I actually can see Dustin’s family subscribing to the New Yorker (Ed: “‘Christ what an asshole’?” Wow this is the most relatable comic I’ve ever read!”)
@brendancalling: It’s like this withered little flipper.
Excuse me?!
@88 Ukulele Ike: on GA
I can forgive Scancerelli for all the things you mentioned except Chef Meowrice. That is unforgivable.
@Sequitur(#Y132) – I didn’t see your food post until today. That was horrifying.
@Ukulele Ike: Re JP – I think that Sam is married to Abbey, and Randy is with April. It’s possible to tell the women apart because one is a redhead and one is blond. I think that Sam is a lawyer, and Gloria works for him as a private eye. I can’t address the other questions, because I can’t keep this crap straight myself.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’m guessing here, but would the person not get points on his license for public intoxication but would if he was convicted of DWI?
WuMo: Well, at least it wasn’t your sister’s closet.
@95 I speak Jive:
That’s why I posted it late thread. I hope Baja saw it.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
I recall in college course that included Irish literature, there was a column by Irish satirist Flann O’Brien (under his other pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen) asserting that many bad writers were creating works with the intent of offending the censors because then they could claim to be in the company of the actually great Irish nationalists writers unjustly censored by the conservative Catholic government.
Dustin creators Steve Kelley & Jeff Parker are operating on the backward logic of claiming to create New Yorker level “smart” comics by not being funny to almost anyone.
Don’t you hate it when this happens?
RMMD: Yesterday we saw that Glenwood is covered in snow and the roads are probably treacherous. If Lana keeps driving using only her fingertips like that, they’re going to end up in the ditch and then back in the hospital! Who will check on Buster?
@Anonymous: At Swim-Two-Birds is one of my favorite novels, as well as the novel it’s hardest to recall the title of. Smush four random words together and call your book that, Mister O’Brien — no wonder the first printing only sold 250 copies. “I would like to purchase a copy of….uhhhhh….”
@100 Myrtle:
Maybe Dave will?
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
FG: Wait, there’s something in the rules for what to do if a third party forces the supposedly impartial referee to make a call? And it’s that the call stands unless the person the third party is aiding doesn’t want it to? I’d really like to know what happened in the past that led to them specifiying this. (I’m weirdly reminded of a bit in Unseen Academicals, where one of the oldest rules in Ankh-Morpork football was added after someone scored a goal with what turned out to be an opponent’s severed head … and it was that it counted.)
OTF: I just … I just can’t any more. There are so many parts of this that don’t make sense that drawing attention to any one of them feels like missing the point because of all the others. All I’ll say is that even if you accept the nonsensical premise, I’m still not convinced it makes sense even on its own terms.
MW: “They call me Dirk Tandy: Eye Candy! And by ‘they’ I mean ‘you, hopefully’.”
Phantom: Hey, remember that sinister foreshadowing last week? Well, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. DePaul just needed to break up repeated strips of Stripey going “And I remember punching that guy” while he tries to figure out where this story is actually going.
RMMD: There was a fascinating talk I went to many years ago about the psychology of luck. In one experiment, people who identified as lucky and people who identified as unlucky were both asked to imagine they were in a bank when it was robbed, and got shot in the shoulder. They were then asked if they thought this was lucky or unlucky. The people who thought lucky things usually happened to them said “That is so lucky! It could have killed me, but it didn’t!” And the people who thought unlucky things usually happened to them said “Are you serious? I was frickin’ shot!” Merle and Lana appear to be a perfect illustration of this.
@Ukulele Ike, GA: Yeah, it’s a slow week before the holidays, so I did a dive through strips….
Thanks to previous Josh archives, I found Hoogy Butt, but that was after they were married. No sexy Italian cab driver.
@Ukulele Ike: There was something I read ages ago about sf novels with difficult titles. The winner was … well, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it was a list of peculiar smells, which apparently was how you knew someone had been displaced in time.
I for one hopes that Arty managed to use the scrap metal from his ship to upgrade himself into a bigger robot (with rocket boosters) that allow him fly back to Earth and unleash his vengeance.
“Dear Santa, can you help me please? I know there’s not much time left… but Aubee’s upset because this giant robot is destroying all civilization out of some sort of vengeance towards her!”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Well… The Addams Family was in The New Yorker I found it quite funny, if not gothically surreal.
@Horace Broon: I haven’t found the article, but I have found the book title – Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, The Sandpaper Sides of Used Matchboxes, And Something That Might Have Been Castor Oil by D.G. Crompton. Apparently, the cowards at the publisher prefered the title Chronocules.
@Flipper:
BCN: Agreed about these too long not-so-funny story arcs. I take it as an opportunity to skip reading the strip for a week or more when BCN gets going on these not-the-usual cats stories. At least this one shouldn’t be as bad as the mole-war arc from last year, that thing seemed to go on for three or four months.
I prefer the gag a day strips about the three main cats, please. But that’s easy for me to say, I don’t have to think up funny stuff every day.
@WesCCov: “…divining boards” “I foresee that I shall execute a perfect dive, but will be thoroughly humiliated when my swimsuit is torn from body…hmmm.”