Grim Tuesday
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Slylock Fox, 3/4/25
They called Count Weirdly mad at Oxford, of course, and the Medical Sciences Interdivisional Research Ethics Committee repeatedly sanctioned him. But he’s shown them now, or I guess he would have shown them, if they all hadn’t been violently killed in the great animal uprising that wiped out most of the human race. Oxford is run by owls or something these days, but he’d like to think that, if any of his old nemeses were still around, they would understand that in this horrifying new world there just isn’t the luxury to muse on medical ethics the way there used to be. And with so few humans left alive, could anyone really fault him for trying to build a new one, as a friend? It’s not like there’s any shortage of corpses to use as raw materials.
Pardon My Planet, 3/4/25
But … you’re the one buying the pie, cow! I really don’t want to think about why this scenario involves cows wearing shirts and shopping in human grocery stores, or why a cow might assume that products made from cow’s milk can render dishes “sanitary,” and thank goodness that I don’t have to, because I have this basic bit of storybuilding to get hung up on instead. If you think the pie is unsanitary, why are you buying it? You’re standing in the checkout line, there’s nobody else there, you clearly picked it out and are now buying it!
Beetle Bailey, 3/4/25
Beetle is … dead, right? He’s not there, they’re putting a memorial plaque above his bed, he’s clearly dead. RIP Beetle Bailey, 1950-2025, you will be missed, to a certain extent.
88 replies to “Grim Tuesday”
Pardon my Planet: Wow, this cow is a piece of work. He’s like an uptight vegan who sees meat in the grocery store, takes it to the checkout counter JUST to make an anti-meat rant in front of everyone.
I don’t know if vegans would actually go that far and really I don’t care.
MW: Dawn’s apparent lack of a second finger joint goes a long way to explaining her insecurities.
SFx: It’s been a while since I’ve read Frankenstein butbi don’t seem to recall the bolt of electricity giving the monster a full body orgasm?
“It’s not like there’s any shortage of corpses to use as raw materials.”
Are you suggesting that the animals didn’t pick the bones clean of all meat of the humans that they slaughtered? I mean they are still animals.
Clearly the cow brought it to the register just to kick off a scene, climaxing with the murder of the cashier. The Uprising comes to Whole Foods, and the Pardon My Planet/Slylock Fox crossover Universe we all craved is begun.
BB: Judging from what I’ve seen in my 60+ years of reading this strip, they could hang a “Beetle Bailey Slept Here” plaque pretty much anywhere in Camp Swampy and it would be appropriate, including behind the wheel of most of the jeeps.
@pugfuggly:
My NYC origins had me reading your typo as “bubbie” which I thought was very sweet.
I can’t help but like Bob Weber Jr. a bit more for having a Don Martin book on that shelf…
Sorry, I am sure that cows eat grasshoppers from time to time. I’ve never seen one delicately brush off anything that might cling to the grass or hay they munch on all day long.
PMP- Plugger origin story?
PMP: I guess the gag is that Grasshopper pie is a real dessert served around Easter which the cow, being a cow, is too stupid to know it’s not made with grasshoppers?
Rest in Piss Carl James Bailey
September 4th, 19XX – 2025
Meanwhile over in Crankshaft
I know that Davis has zero clipart of pickleball besides Funky and Dick Facey, but come on
B. Bailey: Camp Swampy is a retired historical fort with various plaques put up for the benefit of tourists. Beetle is famous enough to have one posted over the bed where he died from his agonizing battle injuries.
FYI, The soldiers pictured here are ghosts.
SFx – No oscillating Jacob’s ladder – obviously a complete fabrication….
PMP – Gross! Give me a good old fashioned cow pie, any day….
BB – On this site, BB set the world record for jacking off on government time.
Adios Amigos, DJ.
SLYFX: The important thing is, can Count Weirdly spot the six differences? Details matter A LOT when reanimating dead tissue.
BB: In small print (and with aging eyes) it’s easy to read, ” What’s with the PLAGUE above Beetle’s bed?” Which is much more Camp Swampy-esque.
RMMD: Next, The Walking Cliché will say, “I could draw this good when I was in First Grade! Haw!”
MW: So, does this hug say;
“Your breath is like rotting death,”
” Backs of heads are really hard to draw, ”
or,
“Always face the spy camera that Mary has placed in our living room.”
Slylock Fox: That homunculus creature is clearly being sexually aroused by the electrical charge. The artist had originally shown a clamp attached to its genitals but was forced to change it.
Pardon My Planet: This is part of an OnlyFans request video for someone with a bestiality fetish has paid to have this fantasy created wherein someone puts on an elaborate cow costume and buys specific items from a lesbian grocery store. Because this takes place in West Virginia it’s not against the law.
Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids: Oh great, now we’re going to have to put up with endless pedants reminding us that it’s Count Weirdly’s Frankenstein’s Monster. Thanks a lot, Bob Weber and/or Bob Weber Jr.
RMMD: Wow, this guy is REALLY bad at this stalking game…
MW: I laughed at the insipid dialogue in panel 1, then I went ‘EWWWWWW!!!!’ as I thought about the implications of the dialogue in panel 2.
Luann: Okay, this guy deserves a vapid know-nothing like Luann. Flash cards? Seriously???
Slylock Fox: You’ve got to solve anagram 3 to see what’s going on in here: this is happening in China. Chinese science is already racing ahead of the US in the fields of material science and artificial intelligence, and now they’re winning in grave-robbing too! The Frankenstein Gap is growing! American scientists need more funding to win the Frankenstein Race!
BB: BEETLE SLEEPS ALL THE TIME, ANYWHERE HE CAN. THERE’S NOTHING HISTORIC ABOUT HIM SLEEPING IN A PARTICULAR BED. THE PLAQUE SHOULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE “BEETLE BAILEY COMPLETED A WHOLE SHIFT WITHOUT SLACKING OFF HERE“. THAT WOULDN’T BE VERY FUNNY, BUT IT WOULD BE AN ACTUAL JOKE. GODDAMMIT, KING FEATURES, DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU?
Also Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids!: Now I’m wondering who else plays the bit parts in this drama. One of Weirdly’s little homunculi clearly serves as Igor, and Reeky Rat, Slick Willie, Harry Ape and others are the villagers, but who plays Frau Blücher? Who is Inga? (My money is on Max.)
@Schroduck:
SlackingJacking FTFYPardon My Planet: Kind of this male bovine to volunteer his women’s bodily fluids to sanitize this product. It’s this kind of reprehensible behavior that’s destroying our world. It’s just crap, this male entitlement, bull shit, if you will.
@Hibbleton:
Hmm… Dawn’s finger… Weirdly’s monster’s left hand… is this the grossest comics crossover ever?
Slylock Fox: Apropos that a Mad scientist like Count Weirdly would be trying to revive Mad magazine by having a Don Martin looking version of Frankenstein come to life (and the Don Martin book on the shelf).
Pardon My Planet – The guy is in background is a maître’ d who has fallen on hard times and taken a bagging job. He went from commanding the staff of a fine restaurant to now having to stoically listen to a Midwestern bumpkin cow shit-talk cowpies that were specifically made to appeal to sentient livestock. Cows may have joined humans in intelligence and bipedalism, but they will never truly be as sophisticated as us until they learn manners.
Beetle Bailey – Beetle Bailey died in the first US – Canada War when, doing their own research, a group of jingoistic Americans thought Camp Swampy was a Canadian outpost and attacked while Beetle was asleep on guard duty.
MW: “By the way, Dad, I’m vegan now, so I’d prefer that we not have any meat or dairy around.”
“WHAT!!!??? Not under my roof, young lady! You can go live in a grain silo or something. I’ve been dying for some ribs, and I’m ordering some right now! With EXTRA FAT!!!”
Pluggers: I hope Barry Sparks of York Pennsylvania is retired so he doesn’t have to go to work where he’ll be relentlessly mocked for being depicted as a decrepit chicken lady who has painful spasms while assembling banal puzzles.
Curtis: Maybe “Soul Scissors” would be a more profitable business if Gunther wasn’t driving away customers by telling them about his financial issues and plans to die and have his body cooked on a hibachi grill.
I wasn’t expecting to see Count Weirdly with a book by conservative Canadian journalist Don Martin on his shelf, but I’m not entirely surprised. If he ever wants a change of pace though, he could try some old Mad Magazine books instead.
***
A pie made from grasshoppers would be no less sanitary than a chicken pot pie or a steak and kidney pie, so I think it’s less that the cartoonist isn’t trying to make some sort of vegan point but is a crank trying to warn us about the United Nations wanting to make us all eat insects.
JP: “Randy… Randy!… Stop being so Illi-noying!”
Pardon My Planet: Why does the checkout line have a maitre d’? It’s the least of our worries in this comic, where a cow is panicking over mint choc– wait, can cows eat chocolate?
***Googles like the wind***
Good news, everyone! Chocolate is bad for cows. Mister Bull’s panic attack isn’t a joke, just an existential crisis.
Judge Parker
Randy: IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FAIR! (repeats until devolves into agonized sobbing)
CS: “Thanks for changing your mind about your utterly contrived aversion to games named after food just so we could segue into this utterly unlikely scenario where you are very good at playing said game, Ed.”
Dustin Instead of letting yesterday’s nonbelievable conversation die a deserved death, Dustin doubles down with a just as nonbelievable follow-up. Will he go for three in a row?
JP: Wow, a magnificent double pissy-face, not once but twice! Well done, guys!
I’m not surprised that there’s a remake of the 1993 Michael Douglas crime thriller “Falling Down” but I didn’t think Hi and Lois would be doing it. Hi Flagston is definitely about to snap and go on a killing spree here.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Fun fact (actually not fun at all) I once got a sandwich from Starbucks, and there was a dead cricket inside of it.
I got a refund and the employee was mortified.
“Cow Buying Grasshopper Pie” is the new “Cow Tools”
RMMD: Looks like it’s Lime Green Shirt Day at the art museum. The first 50 men who are wearing a lime green shirt will be admitted free!
GT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Marty Moon alcoholic blah blah blah. What we want to know is, What in the hell is a runner-up all practice? And will we ever see it? That’s what we want to know.
Beetle Bailey-“I wouldn’t exactly say Beetle did much sleeping,” Sarge says suggestively.
MW-“If loving you is wrong…”
MW-Dawn looks like she is going to take Mary’s advice and give Wilbur a try and Wilbur looks like he’s enjoying it.
That is “Grass” Hopper Pie made with synthetic cannabis and a plethora of other drugs that will get you high enough that you’ll believe you’re a cow. It’s not approved by the FDA but everyone who worked for that department was recently fired.
PMP: In addition to the other problems already mentioned, why is the pie in a box being held vertically like a book? When you buy a pie at the grocery store, it typically comes in a clear plastic container that you hold horizontally.
@MKay: I thought Dirk already had Wilbur and Dawn cornered at gunpoint. And Wilbur is strangely aroused by this.
@Cleveland Mocks: One of Tom Batiuk’s Mary Sue characters being an instant expert at something is about the likeliest scenario in the entire Funkyverse. No one in this town of losers can ever be bad, or merely a beginner, at anything. Because how are they going to win their award, do their book signing, and get their comic book cover?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Well, there goes my pedantic comment today! Thanks, Chthulhu!
“Who is Marty Moon without his radio show?” The question implies that he’s a 40-something alcoholic who gets a high school sports broadcasting job, and then bases his entire personality on that.
GT: Milford’s extreme flatness and lack of trees as shown in panel 2 may account for the psychological issues that are abundant there.
MW: “So what was his name Dawn? Mine was named Chiquita. Took me for your college fund. I shouldn’t be alive.”
DtM: Alice hands Dennis a coffee behind his back because…why not? She and her houseguest are baked to the gills.
You have to give credit where it’s due, and I think the Slylock Fox artwork is great today.
MW:
“Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?”
“No. Dorothy Ginsberg from West Palm Beach. We sat together on the bus to Chichen Itza.”
SFx – Next, Sly’s going to waltz in and inform us that the Frankenstein knockoff won’t work because the electrical connections aren’t grounded, or some shit.
My theory is the cow suddenly thought “grasshopper pie” could be taken to mean shit, like in cow pie. And she thought she should make a pun about it but did not stop to think if it would make sense to the people not privy to her line of thought. Classic autism moment, very relatable.
SFx – I do appreciate the Don Martin shout-out (write-out? book-out?)
My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? Why were a fox and a mouse arresting my creator? In fact, why was my creator green-skinned? Why were all these sentient animals striding about confidently on two feet? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them. – The Monster, Weirdenstein, Chapter 15
BB: “an historic” seems too proper a phrase for most people in Camp Swampy, except for Plato who’s standing right there not talking.
SlyF – Dr. Frankenstein used sutures for a reason, Weirdly! Steri Strips aren’t going to cut it for this application. Your monster is going to collapse into a stack of flesh chunks at first shamble. Well anyway, your pet buzzard will be happy.
Calm down, troops. You could literally hang that sign anywhere within a 100 mile radius of Camp Swampy and it would be true. Your barracks are not a historical landmark.
@Joshua K.: This is no fancy-schmansy gourmet grocery store where you buy pies prepared on the premises and sold in clear plastic containers. This is the local Sav-a-Center where Sara Lee pies are sold from the freezer case. You can hold them vertically and read the ingredient list on the back, but most buyers don’t care. Wait – this isn’t Pluggers, is it? Never mind.
FC: The sarcasm just oozes out of me…if Jeffy went to ‘bedience school, could he learn to bark like Sam? Or…if Jeffy went to reg’lar skool could he learn to talk like a cartoon kid?
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Marty: I’M NOTHING WITHOUT MY RADIO SHOW!
Tony Stark: If you’re nothing without it, then you shouldn’t have it in the first place.
@Pozzo: #6
Ha!!! Love it!
BB:
Plato: Speaking of, we should hang up a memorial for Private Smith who fell in the line of duty yesterday
(Everyone stares at Plato blankly)
Plato: Plaque for Beetle it is…
Slylock Fox: Does the animal regime not have electricity? Or do they just not allow humans to access it, leaving Weirdly to go the Benjamin Franklin route.
JP: “Randy…. Randy…. At least it’s only Illinois. Indiana wants me and, lord, I can’t go back there!”
SFx, Don Martin book on the shelf: We all have our personal heroes, even those of us who make comic strips.
JP: For a judge, Randy has very little knowledge of how the law works.
Crankshaft: Today we see an example of the innate athletic talent that put Ed on the fast track to a professional baseball career 75 years ago. He’s pretty light on his feet for a 95-year-old guy.
DT: I have never been so utterly unenthralled by a new Dick Tracy plot. Was Auntie Claire going to tell the boys to go to hell? Or go get her toothbrush out of the sauna?
Andy Capp: Every comic strip wants its own version of the “noodle incident,” but none will ever match its simple perfection.
Luann: The flash card idea is stupid. Luann’s daily attempts at clever wordplay are idiotic. Best date ever.
Pardon My Planet – Pie aside, I would really like to know what’s in that green box labeled “Bag o’ [Illegible]”. The first word might be Bac, but that doesn’t really solve the puzzle.
Luann: He’s a toilet-paper-under-roller? Ditch him. Unless he has a cat.
FC: Like most cartoon characters, Jeffy believes Sammy, if taught scripture, will not need word balloons in claymation heaven.
Don’t Count Weirdly strips usually have a hairy, purple, anthropomorphized scrotum running around underfoot? I imagine Li’l Scrote’s absence is because he has been sewn on the monster appropriately.
BF: Benoit has to bring his ex-wife along on the Toronto trip; she’s very excited about visiting the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
@Myrtle: IKR? He’s either a psychopath or a cat owner. Either way be prepared to find dead animals in or around his house.
Beetle Bailey: “Killer slept around here”
Today’s Pardon My Planet is so nonsensical I thought it was a Six Chix.
CS: Ha! It’s like this commercial, but with none of the charm and wit.
Luann: Phil’s kink is bathroom habits, apparently.
9CL: I guess this is an improvement from children threatening to torture someone for awkwardly waving at their mother.
CS: Ha! It’s like this commercial, but with none of the charm and wit.
Luann: Phil’s kink is bathroom habits, apparently.
9CL: I guess this is an improvement from children threatening to t0rture someone for awkwardly waving at their mother.
@Old School Allie Cat: I’m guessing either some weird gimmicky bacon brand, or some weird gimmicky tobacco brand.
MW: Dawn’s words say one thing, but her posture says something else entirely.
FC: He wouldn’t be any worse at talking, or being house trained, than you Jeffy.
Dustin: I really don’t want to learn how Meg knows about Dustin’s erectile dysfunction.
Pardon My Planet: This isn’t how gags work. PMP is not funny, was never funny, and is especially not funny when they’re trying to steal the Bizarro guy’s schtick.
Luann: This isn’t how dates work. People don’t bring “ice breaker” cards to dates. Also, Luann should ask Phil if he’s really Bernice in drag, since that’s how “he’s” drawn.
MW: This isn’t how human bodies work—because speaking of Bizarro, that is a pretty damned bizarro illustration in panel two. What happened to Wilbur’s left arm? Was it amputated in Cancun? Why do Dawn and Wilbur look like they’re about to make out?
RMMD: Les Knox, still lost in the Rexiverse and not entirely sure he WANTS to go back to the Luanniverse, hits the museum and tries to make friends with Summer and Augie by asking them to explain the artistic value of the paintings on display. Unfortunately, because he’s Les Knox, he has trouble with the whole “being polite” thing, so he instantly alienates Augie and Summer, which is kind of sad. After all, Les (and Tiffany) are the only characters in “Luann” that would be a tolerable hang.
@Joshua K.: In addition to the other problems already mentioned, why is the pie in a box being held vertically like a book? When you buy a pie at the grocery store, it typically comes in a clear plastic container that you hold horizontally.
It’s a frozen pie. On the side it says: WARNING: Defrost before throwing.
@nescio: Agreed. I don’t even believe Killer would say it ironically, to get Plato’s goat. Killer doesn’t do irony.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Polonio, I’m off to spend some time with the love of my life”
“Good luck out there on the golf course”
“We’re not golfing this weekend!”
“I’ve booked a nice little motel room!”
@Brendan Skwire: Also, a cow used for such an ugly “joke” setup.
I feel somewhere Gary Larson is crying.
PmP: The cow has a nosering, so that we know its a cow! (Wait what…?)
I think the artist really just felt like drawing a huge nosering but felt it was more appropriate on a cow than a human.
If you have a better explanation I’d like to hear it.
FC: No, Jeffy, but if you start dropping acid even the trees and rocks will talk to you.
FC: Jeffy, even if Sam could talk he wouldn’t give a loser like you the time of day.
MW: Looks like Wilbur’s going to get a hard on from Dawn’s embrace.
Luann: Phil’s cards are print-outs of the PowerPoint slides Bernice used during her “getting to know you” phase with Nil.
6Chx: Face painted white, red bulb nose, orange fright wig, orange-and-white loud patterned outfit (blanket?)….when did Xunise decide to go Full Clown?
And did Emmett Kelly create a routine where a sick clown deliberately eats food that makes him feel worse? ’Cause I have a feeling Ringling Bros would have put the kibosh on that. “Just slip on the banana peel, Em, and skip the Sam Beckett crap. Give th’ people what they want.”
Frazz – Mallett had to bring in a random kid from the B team for this. Caulfield couldn’t blather on this subject since he’s a smug little genius with a college level vocabulary.
Crankshaft – Oh, no! What if a major league pickleball scout is coming, and Crankshaft can’t read his own name on the roster?
Rex Morgan – This just misses the mark. Obnoxious nameless stalker guy is obviously a lowbrow beefwit who would refer to the artwork as “pitchers.”
I think it’s restraining order time.
MW: that is a remarkably awkward hug.
RIP Carl Dean (Mr. Dolly Parton).
MW: If you showed this second panel without any dialogue or context, no one would believe that these two are supposed to be father and daughter. This is the kind of hug you give that family “friend” only one of your parents can barely tolerate because they’re a relative of an actual friend. You know, the one who smells like Axe body spray and sweat in January because they haven’t had a shower in over a fortnight.
Then again, Wilbur probably is that “friend.”
GT – “You made a career out of being a jerk to Gil!”
“So? You made a hobby out of blowing him!”
Pardon My Punchline: “Gross! Not even these sanitary napkins I am also unaccountably purchasing will make that sanitary.”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Dolly herself makes an off-camera appearance in today’s Fox Trot Classic.
Today’s tip: don’t photoshop enormous breasts onto your wife with the shared family computer. At least not while your preteen son is looking over your shoulder.