Suffering by comparison
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Mother Goose and Grimm, 3/16/25
One of the most famous and beloved Far Side panels involves a group of vultures sitting in a circle on the ground, and one of them is wearing a cowboy hat and jacket and saying “Look at me, everybody! I’m a cowboy! Howdy, howdy, howdy!” Is it dark? Sure, but the darkness is leavened by the fact that the vulture is being silly in a very specific way, and, somewhat crucially, by the fact that the presence of the dead and now mostly naked cowboy is only implied, his body obscured by the scavengers who are in the process of eating it. In today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, by contrast, a rotting human corpse is quite visible, and the vultures are merely celebrating with bug-eyed, manic expressions as they prepare to feast on his rotting flesh. I don’t think the vibes are anywhere near as good in this one, to be honest.
Blondie, 3/16/25
Today’s Blondie, like a substantial majority of Blondies, is pretty forgettable, but I do really enjoy Blondie’s deadpan “uh-huh” in the dead center panel. You gotta imagine that being married to Dagwood, or to any of the primary characters in legacy comic strips, is, you know, a lot.
105 replies to “Suffering by comparison”
Slylock Fox-Slylock Fox keeping the small business man down.
MW-“The past is only bad if you remember it that way,” Mary Worth.
FC-“Which one of our uncles is coming over tonight?”
FC-“Why is PJ the only one who gets to take a bottle to bed?” Because PJ is a drunk.
MW: it’s Karen!!!
MG&G: It looks like life on earth itself is ending so I guess the jokes on them.
Blondie: It’s the middle of the night, and there’s an entire blueberry pie in the refrigerator that Dagwood hasn’t even tasted yet? This actually does sound like a nightmare scenario for him! I guess it would be pointless to suggest he should get out a plate and fork before gobbling down a slice — heck, we should be happy that he didn’t just stick his entire face into the center of the pie and eat his way out.
Pluggers: You’re a bear plugger when, after finishing dinner by yourself, you look at the package and it says “Feeds a family of four.” And you think, “But it was just a tiny blond-haired girl. and I saved plenty of porridge for Mama and the kids!”
Hi and Lois: Coincidentally, Thirsty has also made big batch of green Jell-O for St. Patrick’s Day — it’s flavored with lime and something called Jameson’s, and it’ll lead to a fun day at work when he packs a few cubes for lunch.
Dennis the Menace: “I wish I had a million dollars!” says young-ish retired postal worker Mr. Wilson — who probably has a million dollars, if you count his federal government pension, Social Security benefits, age-related healthcare benefits, and the home he purchased when spacious suburban houses were still relatively affordable. Meanwhile, a Gen-Alpha kid like Dennis will be working till he’s 90, so maybe let him fantasize about ponies if he wants.
Beetle Bailey-Ms. Buxley dresses provocatively?
RMMD:
“That mountebank deserves to go down the commode, Augie!”
“Yep. A ‘Royal’ flush!”
Blondie: So we’re not going to talk about the fact that there is now a blueberry pie trapped in the gastrointestinal tract of Dagwood and is being slowly and horrifically digested? What exactly did Dagwood would save it from?
FC: “Tonight’s reading, children, shall be from Medea.”
MW – Belle has Karen Hair.
BELLE HAS KAREN HAIR! So that means she’s e-e-e-e-evil! (rubs hands together with glee.)
MGG: Sure, it’s a lazy joke, but if you look closely, you’ll note that it’s also lazy art, having just been copy-pasted across the two panels.
Blondie: It’s really funny to me that Dagwood has to come up with these intricate scenarios to justify his midnight snacks. No-one’s going to question you cramming your gullet full at any time of day or night, man, it’s your whole thing! On the other hand, I would really like to see this stretched even further. “Oh my god honey! A time portal just opened up in the bathroom and a version of me 20 years in the future told me that I can prevent the rise of a race of super-intelligent nazi androids by getting a KFC bucket delivered in the next hour! I probably should, right? Just to be safe, I mean…”
MW: Mad respect for grifter Belle going well above professional standards in dating Wilbur.
MW: Wilbur obviously hasn’t gotten his credit card statement yet. “Escort services? What could that be?”
RMMD: “Maybe go back and give the police his real name? Nah, let’s hole up at Augie’s, armed with brooms and with colanders on our heads.”
BLONDIE: It always surprises me that Blondie and Dagwood are allowed to be seen in bed together without each having one foot on the floor.
MW: Well, I have to hand it to Moy. Of all the ways this story line could go, I never would have predicted “Wilbur is actually dating former TLC star Kate Gosselin under a fake name.”
MG&G — Pretty much the only thing that could redeem today’s strip is to imagine it as a Mary Worth crossover. . .
I suppose we should be even happier he didn’t go all Jimbo on it (from American Pie).
RMMD: I too would use an alias if my parents named me “Royal Royers.” I would also kill my parents.
MW – Did Bats Bellefrey actually let Wilbur mount her? If so, she deserves any money she grifts him for.
And if she didn’t even let him cop a feel but still manages to get all his money – RESPECT!
Luann Spanish to English.
@Kirkout: A slice of blueberry pie and Boba Fett.
Dagwood had better start snacking on higher calcium foods, in the antepenultimate and penultimate panels his body is beginning to atrophy to Dithers-like proportions.
Wary Morth:
Meanwhile, in the last panel, Weelbur’s ex wife gets on her dating app and finds the stalker from Wrecks Moregone.
(Either that is Weelbur’s ex wife or after his serial relationship disasters Weelbur has reverted to type and Belle is a clone of his ex.)
B. Bailey: Good setup and joke. This is the end of times.
MW: if Belle does visit Santa Royale every manager in the city can expect a visit.
Look, maybe this is just nostalgia, maybe I’m just a Plugger, but I feel like when I was a kid Blondie didn’t lean so hard on “Dagwood is a delightfully wacky guy whose antics are amusing?” [thinks about the purpose of a comic strip] Huh, that can’t be right.
Blondie- .It would be a real bad day for anyone who woke me up for that reason.
@astroboy: b-b-b-b-ut the writer is literally a Karen. Is this Karen self-hatred?
Oh yeah, quotevestigation. Confirmed, it’s from The Importance of Being Earnest with a “my dear Cecily” thrown in. Cecily’s response is “Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened,” which in a better world would be a clue about the accuracy of Wilbur’s sex musings.
Blondie: Blondie has long ago accepted that her husband’s appetite has completely supplanted his desire for any physical affection, and has found she doesn’t mind all that much.
MG&G: Yes, this is a pretty dumb strip, but it inspired Josh to bring up a classic Far Side which made me chuckle at the memory of it. I’m not sure if this counts as Mother Goose and Grimm making me laugh, but I recommend the strip take its wins as it can get them.
Lockhorns: Huh, I always figured the Lockhorns would burst into flame if they trod on consecrated ground.
That Far Side joke even got referenced in the original Toy Story.
@Professor Well Actually:
Thread. Winner.
MW: Aw come on, Brigman. Belle needs a few neck tattoos, a sleeve, and a half-dozens piercings. THEN we would have something to get excited about.
Dustin: So now it takes only TWO morons to screw in a light bulb. That’s progress, I guess.
RMMD: A creepy grin crosses Augie’s face. “You say you’re afraid to stay in your house alone, eh? Hmmm, I might have a solution to that too.”
JP: “Randy, you have an older sister who will always think the world of you! By the way, could you smuggle me in some drugs?”
I remember it that way, too. The tribute to his appetite was a Dagwood Sandwich, not the constant food p0rn we get now.
C’shaft: it took me several moments to realize Crankshaft was asking about “back issues” as in older and out-of-print periodicals, not making a random and uncharacteristically solicitous inquiry into Crazy Harry’s health. I humbly submit that if a joke requires mental effort similar to puzzling out the New York Times’ “Connections” to understand it, it has failed at its job.
MW: This is not the first time an attractive woman has dated Wilbur with ulterior motives, and it sure as hell won’t be the last. But hope, and delusion, spring eternal in the Weston mind.
RMMD: Look, Royal, I get it. Your past run-ins with the law and the accessible public record thereof has made finding new stalking victims difficult, and you needed to make a change. But Lance Telko? LANCE TELKO? If you must relinquish your objectively awesome birth name you should at least adopt something equally cool, like “Duke Decopolis,” “Prince Mazeratti,” or “Brett Pompadour.”
@Lauralot: This is the beginning of her new cable series, “One More is Too Much.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Yeah, I looked at a random strip from 1970 and we were supposed to be amused by Dagwood’s interaction with Blondie, not just Dagwood furiously mugging into the void. Doofus Dad is an overworked and slightly pernicious trope but Epic Dad is far, far, worse. (Also appreciate the care into setting up the joke–the sandwich vanishes from Dagwood’s hands while both he and we are distracted.)
While I was doing this I went to ArcaMax to see if there was a way to get to old strips other than pressing the back button thousands of times–couldn’t find one–and realized that, besides comic strips, ArcaMax has “columns” and “news.” What are those? What is this website?
*which I should say is a little before what I would remember from when I was a kid
MW: Belle (Karen) will visit and leave Wilbur with a one star Yelp review.
Blondie: That alien that resembles a blueberry pie used its psionic powers to beg Dagwood for help and instead he eats it alive. What a sicko.
Blondie – What Blondie thinks: “You mean a piece of that whole blueberry pie that’s in the refrigerator? The pie that I lovingly baked for you on Friday, even though I was worn out after a long day at my catering business, just so you could celebrate Pi Day in the manner to which you have become accustomed? The pie you completely ignored, along with the food-themed holiday, in favor of doing a lame “Ides of March” gag a day early? THAT PIE?”
What Blondie says: “Uh-huh.”
You can’t spell Mother Goose and Grimm without “mother******* grim”!
Don Abundio, translated:
“Now… We will name the queen of wearing high heels with a swimsuit!”
“And… There she is!”
“We can recommend some good podiatrists”
Mary Wormtounge: “Wilbur is like a dose of the clap.” — G. B. Shaw
Honestly with the level of his food addiction I’m just surprised that Dagwood hasn’t eaten those pyjamas yet.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I remember it that way, too. The tribute to his appetite was a Dagwood Sandwich, not the constant food p0rn we get now.
That’s very true. Part of the reason is that the strip has had to give up various running gags. One was that Blondie would think she heard something downstairs at night. Dagwood would arm himself with a butcher knife and investigate, finding a burglar he would trade quips with. Often the police would be called, and be seen coming around a corner in an open car on two wheels, firing their guns in the air, Keystone Cops style.
@matt w: Also, Blondie on her hands and knees under a table. Apparently there was more fanservice back then, too.
I would think that a hedonistic glutton like Dagwood would have a larger refrigerator. That thing is pathetic and the kitchen countertops are empty too!
MW: The brief respite from Wilbur plots is over, it seems. But based on this lady’s incredibly stereotypical Karen look, I think I can tell where this one is going already.
That fridge is frankly minuscule given what we know about Dagwood’s insatiable hunger. Unless the fridge is an attempt to limit it, like those who do a stomach reduction!
We know that Dagwood’s hunger torments and stalks him at every waking moment. You might wonder, does he get respite when he sleeps? Sadly, no
@TheDiva: Knowing Tom Batiuk, the joke is probably that Ed asked for “back issues”, and not the correct term “slabbed, gem-mint collectibles.”
That was a complete pie. How What makes the piece that he’s cut out of it the singular piece that was crying out to him in his dreams?
MW: Belle is stacked! That’s quite a pair of low-hangers on her. She might not jut quite like Thel does, but she’s possibly got DustMom beat in the gravity department. Ten-pounders to bat around like a tiger playing with gigantic balls of waterlogged yarn?
RMMD: “Now I’m REALLY not comfortable staying alone at my house.”
“Yesss, yesss, all is going according to my plan…..”
Blondie: Personally, I appreciate the effort Dagwood puts into his alibis. He could just as easily have said, “Hey, honey, I’m gonna go eat an entire pie, alone, in the middle of the night, so .. yeah.”
MG&G: You ever notice how many, many species of animals have no concept of personal space? They’re all like, “Let’s stand as close to each other as we possibly can!” I couldn’t live like that.
RMMD/MW: Okay, more delusional — Lance or Wilbur?
Worse hair — Summer or Belle?
Vintage Funky Winkerbean: They left out morning wood,
MW: by the look of her Belle will not put up with Mary trying to meddle her into accepting Wilbur’s quirks.
RMMD: “I guess you can stay at a motel. There’s one in town where a lot of roots country stars hang out, or so I hear.”
Ewwwwww! That dog is rolling in a huge pile of Six Chix!
Mary Worth – Wait until Karenbelle finds out that the Charterstone manager is Mary Worth.
JP – I loathe this strip. I despise every character. I despise the stupid stories, which spend weeks in banter and quipping (I hesitate to use the adjective “witty” in connection with this dreck), then have any action take place off panel.
This is just a rehash of the past week. It just highlights the abysmal lack of consistency of character. Family members were outraged by Ann’s amoral grifting until suddenly they weren’t. The next time all of the characters are in one place they’d be a perfect target for a giant meteor.
Arlo & Janis – And I love this strip. I love the characters, especially their relationship.
9CL – This is the “reasonable facsimile” Arlo was talking about. Ye gods, this is garbage.
@Sequitur: Tarzan of the Maples?
Luann is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Don’t you all rush out to LuannFan.com and crash the site to see the celebratory video from the Evanses.
@MKay: I’m not sure that’s Blondie. Could be just a walkie-talkie with blonde wig over it.
I suppose in the Shoe universe “The Birds” is a romantic comedy.
Dustbin – And we’re supposed to believe that young people know which direction “clockwise” is?
CS:. PLUGGER humor
FBoFW:. Teen humor
MG&G:. Vulture humor
BLONDIE Human humor
MARA LLAVA:. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or out of sight, out of mind
LUANN: There’s a saying about familiarity but can’t think of it. Your quip?
yRMMD: did anyone else get a guilty thrill rush when Augie mentioned extralegal means of stopping the stalker?
I thought Dagwood’s eating habits evolved from comic shorthand that the enormous amounts of food in the Bumstead household proved they were evil rich people cheating on war rations?
MW: The mention of tequila explains it: Belle was on a weeks long bender when she ended up with Wilbur.
MW: Some of you thought Belle was just an imaginary character Wilbur made up. You see now that she’s real, and they’re spectacular!
@nescio: And the pre-antepenultimate panel presents the perennial puzzle: Bagels or Donuts.
MGG – It’s all fun and games until the Twa Corbies show up and escort this trash away. She wants to pluck out his bonny blue e’en and he’ll take a lock of hi yellow hair.
Dustin-“Ok, Fitch, what’s wrong?” Fitch doesn’t know how to tie a noose.
Those are doughnuts on Dagwood’s pajamas, aren’t they? I’m guessing that if there was nothing good in the fridge, he’d tear off a chunk of pajama and gobble that down. (He hasn’t been able to convince Blondie to wear the cream pie pajamas.)
MW: We have the winner for the most boring email ever written.
@Pozzo:
Why does Dagwood wear any clothing to bed at all? Have you seen how Blondie is depicted? Centerfold quality. Also, I got your joke! Ha ha, I too, have a FoodHub acount and support several condiment influencers on OnlyPans!
@60 Peanut Gallery:
Tarzan of the Maples calls his loincloth “The Maple Leaf Rag.”
Go ahead, Jeffy, sell today’s “Familliar Mucus” panel to the NyQuill™ people! It just needs the headline “Thank Goodness For ZQuill™”
@richardf8: Bagels or Donuts.(Answer printed upside down) Doesn’t matter, Dag puts cream cheese and lox on ether one.
I’ve never heard of that Far Side strip until today, but I have spent the last 30 years thinking about the Toy Story bit that references it. You learn something knew every day.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Agreed — but I would definitely go to see a new Blondie movie with Eugene Levy as Dagwood and Jennifer Coolidge as Blondie.
BLONDIE: If the makers of BLONDIE ever decide to finally end the strip, I think they should show the secret portrait of Dagwood that is hidden in the attic finally reaching 2,000 pounds and exploding out of its frame. Ka-BOOM!
@Sequitur: I like that!
@Rosstifer: *new
@astroboy: First I stared at the hair in the final panel, and then, thanks to you, I looked up “Karen hair” on a site with illustrations, and then I imagined what it would be like to wear that hair and feel it being blown into my eyes all the time by Iowa winds. Now I am in the right mood to kill Wilbur. Thanks!
MW: Both Wilbur and
KarenKate GosselinHelen “School Management!” MossBelle were evidently slumming for two weeks for their little fling. On the other hand, pairing these two would keep them away from everyone else and Dawn might actually try to move away from them instead of being a lazy, jobless mooch.Oh, who are we kidding? Wilbur’s going to screw the pooch somehow so we might as well get the popcorn ready.
MW: One’s heart must of course go out to the long-suffering employees of Megacorp in Orlando, who must put up with this atrocious hairstyle every day of the workweek.
Next, in my head, those vultures break out into “Gen” “Es” “Ee”…or any other 3 syllable beer you got. I’m repping for Genny, y’all!
Crank: Having experienced the strange urge to learn the correct term for something and use it properly, Ed discovers that this just gives someone else the opportunity to be the asshole. He’ll not make that mistake again!
DT: Me, over the past couple of days: Stealing a corpse’s wallet and dropping it in a church poor box makes no sense. It’s hard to imagine how it could make less sense!
Eric Costello, today: What if the thief kept all the money, and only “donated” items that are convenient for (mis)identifying the body, now that that’s something the story needs to happen?
And that’s without even getting into the fact that, previously, Vesuvius Insurance was implied to be a company Uncle Horace had a policy with, but he worked for Kreuger & Toll (which inexplicably shares a name with a real life out-of-business construction company).
Also, when scrolling back to check the company’s name, I was reminded that the church dudes were previously seen wondering what happened to one of their soup kitchen regulars. Apparently, they haven’t wondered if there’s any connection between that and a mysterious dead body somehow linked to the church. It’s genuinely getting hard to keep track of all the ways this story doesn’t make any sense!
JP: This is probably meant to be a recap of the previous week’s events, but the completely different scenario (Randy standing alone by the sink, rather than sitting at the table with April) means I think we have to assume that Ann realises she needs to phone Randy at least twice a week and say she’s going to be in prison for two years if it’s to have any hope of staying in that hollow skull of his.
Phantom: Gallagher extreme!
RMMD: I love that this guy’s real name sounds even faker than his very fake-sounding fake name.
Someone needs to replace the shopped vultures in the title panel with the photo shopped image of the Dead Guy under the MG&G logo
(Who could ever forget Chris Elliott’s character The Dead Guy Under The MG&G Logo?)
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“I’m watching you, Dave! Even though Jack Hanna’s vultures picked my bones clean….watch….ing you….always ……watching, David!” Now THAT’S comedy!
@matt w: Ha! I love it when putting the quote in context makes sense in exactly the way Moy didn’t intend!
@TheDiva: I got it straight off, but I’m a comic book nerd. I would like to believe that if I were writing a comic strip about a comic shop for a mainstream audience, I would check which comic book collecting terms were widely known outside the hobby, and avoid or explain ones that weren’t. Anything else, and Gearhead Gertie that way lies.
Blondie: She should really set firm limits on Dagwood waking her up to play Hamlet on food.
MG&G: Oh, Josh has just scratched the surface here. Note the irradiated look of the sky and the corpses blasted, ashen look. The poor unfortunate has perished from radiation poisoning, and the “party” the vultures look forward to is feasting on scraps of radiation-poisoned human in order to speed along their own deaths.
@Just John: MW: One’s heart must of course go out to the long-suffering employees of Megacorp in Orlando, who must put up with this atrocious hairstyle every day of the workweek
____________
On the plus side it inspired the new PixStar™ computer animated film “Hell Toupee”!
9CL: The staff of the deli-restaurant groans knowing that they’ll have to stay late sterilizing the upholstery yet again.
DT: “Oh, and where’s that card? Sam loves subs!”
Luann: Celebrating 40 years of putting the title characters eyebrows on her scalp.
MW: In an unexpected crossover, Wilbur’s Cancun fling was with Cherry Trail’s jailbird sister. Getting down with a Weston is no reason to pad your résumé so obviously she has an angle.
RMMD: Would it comfort Summer to remember that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet? Because his real name being “Royal Royer” and his changing it to “Lance Telko” both strike me as fishy.
Ziggy: Obviously this strip isn’t generated by AI. It’s generated by a human flattering AI beyond the call of dignity so he doesn’t get gutted by robots.
@Needless Exposition: Wilbur’s going to screw the pooch somehow
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I didn’t know Wilber was into that.Now wonder Pierre bit him!
Slylock: Nobody even noticed my star turn in Slylock Fox yesterday? I had a lot of fun showing off the pretty costume Weber and crew constructed for me. Even though I’m a black ant, red really is a good accent color for me and this once I really leaned into it – after all, who ever heard of an all-black ladybug? (However I should not have let them talk me into overdoing the makeup and putting on the pink shoes. But they wanted to emphasize that I was a LADY bug, y’know.)
@MKay: BLONDIE: It always surprises me that Blondie and Dagwood are allowed to be seen in bed together without each having one foot on the floor
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The Hays Code had the One Foot In The Grave exception for old people over 100.
@GarrisonSkunk: It’s a shame that Libby couldn’t leave another “surprise” for both Mary and Wilbur as one final farewell.
@Sequitur: Good one!
@GarrisonSkunk: Megacorp? With a hairstyle like that, I had “Walgreens Middle Manager on a Power Trip” vibes.
Mother Goose and Grimm – When The Far Side riffed on a common idea, it was almost always the best to do it, and no single-panel gag-a-day did it better more consistently.
If MG&G was going to try, they could have at least riffered on Burning Man, Coachella, or another kind of desert music festival where people would party. The line between funny and wish-it-were-funny is a little more thought.
Blondie – If the Blondie people need new writers, I am willing to contribute a better idea – Have Dagwood go to a shrink’s office and give as summary of his food dreams. Against all rules about doctor -patient relationships, the shrink constantly ends up at Lou’s Diner or some other place, where they eat what Dagwood was dreaming about.
At the very least, this will allow Blondie a good night’s sleep.
@100 Philip:
And the shrink ends up eating Blondie’s Yankees pot roast.
A ‘piece’ of blueberry pie, Dagwood? That looks very much to me like you found a whole pie in the fridge and cut a fresh slice for yourself! I’m starting to suspect there never was any form of dream at all!
@Laurence J Sinclair: Hey man, everyone considers themselves lucky as long as Dag doesn’t have cartoon hallucinations of other people as giant hamburgers and drumsticks. If he wants to claim he dreamt of pastry they don’t question it.
@Laurence J Sinclair:
It’s worse than that. Have you ever noticed that there are no photos of Dagwood, only drawings? We’re starting to question whether Dagwood exists anywhere but in the artist’s own mind.
@104 The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers:
Yes, that is the way of all comics characters.
Exvept The Phantom. The Phantom is real.