I personally am on Team Snert
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Hagar the Horrible, 6/11/25
I find this strip genuinely funny, and particularly love the expressions on Hagar and Eddie’s faces in the second panel. Obviously they consider themselves to have landed in a suboptimal situation, babysitting-wise. But could they have prevented this? Maybe, but they’re damned if they can figure out how.
Mary Worth, 6/11/25
To be fair, Dawn, Wilbur didn’t “believe” Willa so much as “walked in on Belle trying to eat her.” I’m sure that if he had actually seen her trying to poison you he … probably would’ve done something about it? Right? Probably? Anyway, I like how they’re both vaguely smiling here. They can joke about all this, now that it’s over, Belle has been safely taken home by her brother, and the two of them are driving away from Charterstone and never coming back because explaining what happened to anyone they know is far too embarrassing a prospect to even consider. Better to make a clean break and start over in a new state with all new identities.
Garfield, 6/11/25
Today, in a very special Garfield, Odie fully grasps the concept of death for the first time. He’s not a fan!
163 replies to “I personally am on Team Snert”
Family Circus: “That’s it, PJ! Keep goin’! Don’t worry about your diaper! You’re making sounds just like this trumpet!”
MW: I like to think that the car isn’t actually moving, but is sitting in a driveway/parking lot somewhere. Wilbur and Dawn are contemplating never getting out, except (possibly) for excretory functions.
MW: To avoid both Belle’s potential return AND Mary trying to give them advice, Wilbur and Dawn have fled from Charterstone and now live in a car, parked on its own special brown mat.
This should work until tomorrow’s installment, when both Belle and Mary are revealed to be in the back seat.
What are you doing man, give Odie the messed up lab animal life.
MW:
There’s nothing quite like starting the day by punching up The Comics Curmudgeon and getting a gander at Wilbur Weston’s combover.
Bizarro : this plan wouldn’t work. Wild strawberries are REALLY TINY compared to farm-cultivated, grocery-store-bought ones.
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Crankshaft : I like how “do we get to wear uniforms to identify us as staff? If not, could we get some?” and “you’ve figured out how to calculate our work hours and send us our paychecks, right?” are portrayed as kids being unreasonable rather than evidence Lillian has not thought ANY of this “hire some help for my business” thing through (especially the latter).
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Garfield : I’m reminded of how “Garfield’s 9 Lives” ends with Garfield pleading God to give Odie an extra nine lives too. And God accepting because he’s secretly
a live-action Lorenzo MusicGARFIELD HIMSELF(!), in another life!MW: Wilbur and Dawn spend their last moments alive blissfully recounting the events of the last week as he backs his car off a very thin cliff. Seriously, how does that edge support the weight of a car let alone Wilbur?
MW:
Unsafe at Any Speed.
And I don’t mean the car, I mean its occupants.
Garfield:
Odie’s root beer, made flat because he opened it three days ago, is inferior to his grouping of binary digits. Which is to say, his Barq is worse than his byte.
MW: Dawn’s smiling because Mary’s latest batch of benzo-muffins has convinced her that her father ignoring her fear for her life is just an endearing quirk.
Pluggers: If your meds list is so long you have to carry a receipt printer around with you, you’re a Plugger.
MW: “You’re clueless!” And I mean that literally. Belle left a defaced photo and at least two poisoned meals lying around, and somehow neither of you have found them yet.
CS: Yes, Lord, please take her now. And Ed Crankshaft, Skip Rawlings, Jeff Murdoch, Batton Thomas, and Les Moore while you’re it.
Frazz: For a kid who’s supposedly a super genius, Caulfield asks a lot of stupid questions.
HtH: That is Heathcliff levels of pet dickery. I’d say Heathcliff and Snert should be friends, but I doubt Heathcliff would tolerate any competition, and there would be blood.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Oh, and Eugene. I forgot Eugene. This strip has so many awful, way-too-old characters that a creepy stalker we just saw a couple weeks ago doesn’t even make the Top 5.
How is it that I can see Ollie’s feet, but not Hagar’s or Snert’s? Is… is Ollie actually walking on the frame of the comic panel?
MW: They’re on their way to the tattoo studio, to have “Call Me Clueless” inked across Wilbur’s forehead.
“Mary, what should I do? My father did not believe me but he believed his pet fish!” Mary pinched the bridge of her nose. She has been doing this job for more than 80 years, when FDR was still president. Finally, the moment had come of something so stupid that it finally broke her. Time to say goodbye to all that, she had meddled for the last time
Is THIS how it begins, everyone? Does the line to Slylock Fox begin with Snert? He’ll be leading the raiding band and making out with mermaids in no time!
MW: Dawn’s understanding of the situation is rudimentary at best — as Josh said, it wasn’t so much that Wilbur BELIEVED Willa as it was she was being turned into sushi — but the truth of the matter is that Dawn certainly, correctly, believes that Wilbur talks to Willa and in her feeble mind it really can’t be that big of a leap that Willa talks back to Wilbur…
@Anonymous: Lillian is a loathsome hag who has been accustomed to exploiting the twins for free labor for years. The very idea that she might have to pay them is utterly novel to her.
If, in fact, there was a panel where Belle attempted to eat Dawn, Wilbur walked in, and did not believe Dawn’s telling of it, we are so much the poorer. C’mon, Moy. Take the last step. You really have nothing to lose at this point.
MW: I have so many questions, starting with: Was Batts already “off her meds” during the vacation romance, or not? It seems like we’re to assume that Batts was on her meds and acting relatively normal when Wilbur met her and did sexy-time on vacation, yet it would also seem that she was lying her ass off about being “immersed in her work” at MegaCorp. Which is kind of psycho. She was more likely “immersed in restraints” at MegaInstitution. At what point did Batts go off her meds and instantly become a psycho killer (because that’s how that works)?. She was “heh-heh’ing” to herself on the plane, which would seem to have been an indicator she was already going battshit by that point.
This is all so confusing, due to piss-poor writing. And, is anyone ever going to notice that defaced picture, right there in the freakin’ living room?
Hägar the Horrible: Come on, you guys. This is not like trying to figure out how to romance a mermaid: put a helmet on the little guy, teach him some poetic Edda about buying a lean horse and rusty blade, and have him stare Snert down until he learns his place. Make that puppy a man, you’re Vikings!
You LOVED her?!?! Wilbur, that was a vacation fling, which then resulted in a couple of weeks of awkward cohabitation! Being so clingy will drive women away — that and your body, personality and lifestyle!
@Guts Dozier: I’d say it’s because the cartoon art falls short of imitating real life in this example as well as countless others.
Mary Worth: Not depicted: the THC vape Dawn and Wilbur are passing back and forth to facilitate their heart-to-heart reconciliation chat, Mary in the back seat enforcing said reconciliation with a Glock (26 Gen 3, 9mm, Victoria Pink, a gift from Jeff).
@Guts Dozier: What, are you a Viking comics foot-fetishist or something? [ducks for cover]
Hagar feels off-model in today’s strip, like The Grimace in Hagar cosplay. He’s also pleasant and likes kids, so idk, maybe we’ve got a Secret Invasion/McDonaldland storyline to look forward to?
Hagar the Horrible – Snert is an underused character. I support a pivot to him taking on a trickster persona, like early Garfield before Jim Davis got lazy, Snoopy before he became the pitchman, Mickey Mouse before he became the face of corporate empire.
Sure, if Snert becomes successful he will eventually sell out, but not everyone can keep their punk ethos like Heathcliff.
Mary Worth – I hope Willa has been rehomed with Pierre and Libby.
Garfield – The Kuleshov effect is the process by which the context of a facial expression affects how its interpreted. It’s a basic staple of film school education, though Jim Davis and his production line of “cartoonists” just use it as a cheap means of using existing drawings of blank expressions to avoid having to actually draw new material.
@Ettorre:
You forgot grooming habits!
MW: Wilbur thinks he has to tell people to call him clueless.
@Astroboy:
Many moons ago, I did security at a hospital mental wing. Saw a WHOLE lotta crazy, up close. Shitty job, didn’t stay long, but I feel comfortable saying that exactly nothing in this storyline syncs with actual crazy people (who mostly really just need meds, I guess that’s accurate), it’s just stupid, lets not torture ourselves. Except, we will, by continuing to read Mary Worth. NOW who is crazy? See what I did there?!
MW-“You son of a bitch! You bastard! You had to believe the danger if it was done to your precious fish but not to your own daughter!”
Blondie-Or get baked yourself.
MW: My favourite part of this scene is that it looks an awful lot like Wilbur is driving down a dirt path of public park. If you were able to twist the point of view around 180 degrees you’d see people screaming as they leap out of the way, desperately trying to scoop up their terrified dogs in time to avoid the grill of Wilbur’s Subaru. “Yeah, I guess I’m just not that perceptive sometimes…” says Wilbur, as he whips through a tennis court and into a duck pond.
MARY WORTH: Wilbur, to his credit, is going to make it up to Dawn and prove to her that he loves her as much as a fish by driving out and burying her out to sea as he would his aquatic friends. (Dawn’s smiling about this because, tee hee, a man is paying attention to her! score!)
GT: Missing panel 1.5: “Pedro, put the bill back on the helmet!”
MW, missing panel 3: “Dad why are you stopping in the middle of nowhere?”
“Get out of the car Dawn.”
MW; Will we ever find out how Averybur knew where Belle was? There has to be just a hint of Worth in there somehow.
Mary Worth – The real problem now is Dawn thinks they are in the United States and that Wilbur is driving. Wilbur thinks they’re in the United Kingdom and Dawn is driving. As a result, neither is driving and they’re heading toward Kelrast Curve. Hilarity soon to ensue.
@Astroboy: Belle had to be off her meds already because she got frisky with Wilbur. No sane person does that
“Oh, I can call you clueless? What about stupid, foolish, addled, naïve, absurd . . . .”
Fifty miles later.
“. . . egotistical, vain, and ugly.”
“Are you done?”
“Done? I haven’t even started in on your cruise ship adventure. You’re selfish, mean, cruel . . . .”
FC: PJ thinks; “Can’t a boy fill his diaper in peace.”
Oh yeah. Garfield.
***
Belle is gone, so why does it look like Wilbur and Dawn are hiding? Unless… Unless… DON’T DO IT, WILBUR! She’s your daughter and even though she’s a Weston she still deserves better than a shallow grave! Just ask her to not tell anyone about how you couldn’t even see through Belle’s clearly deranged face!
MW – “Yes, I believed Willa. O Pioneers spoke a fundamental truth to me.”
Phantom: You’re back home, Kit, strolling in your back yard with the missus. You can at least pull down the cowl. Also, since Kit, Jr., is still only 17 and he’s taking a skip year from the lamasery, how about local school instead of a job? What’s his resume going to look like, anyway? Education: Home schooling, Yetisburg, Experience: Swimming? He’s getting a lifeguard job at that beach, isn’t he?
Luann: Why does Jonad look like he’s just eaten a bearded clam?
@Tabby Lavalamp:
I eagerly await the day when every single Garfield ends with him facing the reader, and saying “will THIS do?”
@Astroboy: There’s also the question of how Belle even got to the all-inclusive resort, since her Non-Specific Cray-Cray Disorder apparently renders her incapable of living independently. If Averybur had been there to supervise her, presumably he would have pulled Wilbur aside and explained his sister’s situation*. If he wasn’t there, how did Belle slip her tether enough to get a passport, book and pay for a vacation package, leave and return without anyone noticing? It’s almost as if Karen Moy didn’t think this resolution through…
*Yes, it’s fifty-fifty on whether Wilbur would have listened or have been too distracted with a woman actually being interested in him, but the attempt would have been made.
@Regina Smegma:
Luann: Why does Jonad look like he’s just eaten a bearded clam?
Well, he was just at an “audition”, presumably that’s what he did to try and “get the part”.
…Too far?@Astroboy: You can start even earlier than that; how was Belle able to go on a vacation to Cancun, in light of what we now know about her? She clearly needs adult supervision, and has no job anyone cares if she goes to. Maybe she’s some kind of trust fund brat (SEE ALSO: Kennedy, Rosemary) but it’s yet another thing this story failed to explain.
@Ettorre: Not only that, Wilbur himself said it was just a fling. What changed since then?
@Liam: This is the biggest hole in the story. Dawn should be absolutely furious at how her father disregarded and endangered her, and already trying to patch things up with her mother. And she hasn’t even realized these were legitimate murder attempts.
Garfield: Per Erin Hunter’s Warrior Cats series, Garfield having nine lives indicates that he’s a clan leader, which makes me wonder what name StarClan bestowed on him. Fatstar? Lasagnastar?
MW: Look at the serene calm on Dawn’s face. She’s realized that she’s a distant third at best in Wilbur’s affections, but she’s seen how those affections are bestowed and understands that his indifference is preferable.
MW – Taking your daughter parking while she berates you for not paying attention to her cries for help? This is pure Wilbur.
Look, Moy and Brigman(ses), I get it – it’s fun to put Wilbur in a million dumb situations, but if you can write, and I believe you can, you need to come up with some new people and different scenarios. There is only so much muffin and Bum Boat fan service even the most ardent fan can handle.
MARY WORTH: Don’t get it twisted, y’all. When Wilbur says “call me clueless”, he really means that he’s fully embraced the Cher Horowitz aesthetic
MARY WORTH (2): “I had to see it with my own eyes. And since ‘my own eyes’ couldn’t get why people kept saying that Belle’s brother looked so ‘familiar’, you can see that this whole affair has only sharpened my keen senses in observation and self-awareness.”
@Anonymous: It’s a sad day when the writers at Jim Davis Cat Cartoon Amalgamated don’t remember the lore.
C’shaft: Nobody young enough to ask for their paycheck to be sent via Venmo is old enough to have seen a punch clock outside old movies and Looney Tunes shorts, let alone expect one at their place of employment.
Dustin: I’m pretty sure the demand to focus less on a patient’s weight has less to do with hurting their fee-fees and more to do with using it as a default excuse for any symptoms they’re experiencing and ignoring other possible causes, thus denying them timely and effective care. But Dustdoc here is just bitter that he has to find a roundabout way to be hateful and patronizing.
JP: The mysterious caller assumes April’s phone is a burner that she can trash at a moment’s notice with no issues. Then again, knowing April that’s probably true.
Luann: “Then Fish died because it couldn’t breathe air. The end.”
SH: Unfortunately the fall from the lido deck broke every bone in her body and caused massive internal bleeding, so this is just delaying the inevitable.
HtH – The swinging lifestyle….
MW – Admit it Wilbie – you were titnotized….
Garfield – It’s a dog’s life – who’d want eight more….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Garfield: Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish, perfectly handled the topic of death and mortality, and while Puss-in-Boots to date (within Shrek 2 and 4 respectively) has done two Garfield jokes, Garfield cannot emulate in turn.
DT: Nice to see that Sam hasn’t given up trying to pin the case (whatever case it maybe) on the very person who contacted you. That is the type of deep thinking that will get you promoted Sam.
MW: OK – now for the big twist. We’ve seen that Bats is a seriously dangerous psycho would-be killer (one doesn’t accidently dose Drano into tea and some other poison into pasta inadvertently). The twist is that both Dawnie and Wilbur did actually eat the mushroom meal. What we’ve seen from after Bats yelled at them are just their final feverish hallucinations as the toxin works its way through their bodies – any moment now, Wilbur and Dawnie will realize that they are not moving and the car is just sitting there – and then they both wake up in the ICU. Mary Worth is there sitting patiently for them. She had come over after seeing Bats leave and saw them both comatose and sprawled on the kitchen floor.
RMMD: OK – some insight by Truck – and of course the best way to avoid the same problems is to run away from them and not involve someone who clearly (somehow) cares about you.
LUANN: Don’t believe the hype. Jonah’s just there hoping to get some extra freeloading time in. (He can’t have storytime at his own house because…?)
@The Ghost of Jarrod: Seeing how often Garfield beats up/kicks Odie off the table. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on his last life again already.
@TheDiva: Luann:
Shannon does have the ability to be absolutely suffocating, so that tracks.
Mary Worth: I love how awkward the denounment of this arc is. Even Moy seems to realize she took this into incredibly bizarre and uncomfortable places.
Garfield: There’s a weird thing in Garfield where all of the animal characters can “talk” (with each other not humans) EXCEPT for Odie, who only ever communicates through actual dog noises. The worldbuilding implications are unclear. Is he speaking a different animal language from everyone else? Is he the animal eqivalent of a mute? Did Garfield lobotomize him? Much to think about.
Wow. WOW. I have GOT to start keeping up with the comics again. This latest Mary Worth storyline looks like it was a doozy.
Hagar: This strip takes place in the middle ages, when power imbalances between leaders and peasants were so extreme that they would extend to their family members, and apparently even their pets. Look at Snert, who, like Hagar, is wearing the horned helmet indicating that he, too, must be honored and feared. Meanwhile, Eddie’s nephew won’t even get to wear one of those upside-down funnel hats until he’s proved his worth by joining Hagar’s raiding parties for a decade or so, starting at age 11.
@TheDiva:
SH: Unfortunately the fall from the lido deck broke every bone in her body and caused massive internal bleeding, so this is just delaying the inevitable.
Rex Morgan and Mary Worth had characters fall off a cruise ship with next to no ill effects, and you’re expecting the strip about magical DNA shapeshifting and mermaids to be the more realistic one!?
(Well, so am I. And I’m also hoping that the reason the ship was wildly listing was because the main characters who had shapeshifted into whales were tailing it too closely.)FC: “…breath into music…” That’s…almost…poetic…almost…
So I’m shaking up my morning by reading my favorite comics on CK in reverse order, starting with “Working Cats” thru “Arlo and Janis.” Was it as stimulating and enjoyable as I hoped it would be? No.
I *do* love “Working Cats,” however. And “Todd the Dinosaur.” I will probably be skipping the “M” section from now on, though…thank you, “Mary Worth.” :-p
MW-What the hell is Wilbur’s problem? First he lets Dawn believe that he died when he fell off the cruise ship and now he didn’t believe that Belle was trying to kill Dawn until he caught Belle trying to kill his fish. These are not endearing quirks of his but rather some deep psychological problem.
FC-“Mommy, prefers the rusty ones.”
FC-“I can make music but not with my mouth,” PJ says.
MW-Parked hopefully far from the prying eyes of Mary Worth.
Luann: General thoughts from the TruFans:
“Hey, Jonah, you bum! No snarking on Bernice!” (Me giving side-eye on general previous snarking on Bernice by TruFans)
“Hey, Jonah, you bum! Get a REAL job!” (Me giving side-eye on Luann’s lengthy resume)
“Hey, Jonah, you bum! You’re just going to steal this story and make millions!” (Me giving side-eye to Evansii on next pay-for-reading ebook featuring story in this arc)
@Old School Allie Cat: The problem isn’t that Mary Worth puts Wilbur in a million dumb situations. It’s that Wilbur puts himself into a million dumb situations, and never gets his comeuppance. He’s always portrayed as the hero and/or victim. He’s never held accountable by karma or by any other characters. He’s an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, which is fine, but he’s also a Karma Houdini.
@TheDiva:
Luann-“And then Mr. Wilbur became rather inconsolable and suicidal.”
@Bob Tice: #9
OMG…that…was…quite…GOOD!!!!!
@Phantom Phan, Phantom: Send him to the Evansiiverse and have him work at Kafe Kablooie. Then he can be Luann’s “We-will-skip-on-the-squiky-math” new boyfriend.
MW: Huh, I though Sta. Royale could probably afford to pave its roads, but apparently not, hence the SUV escape vehicle with Hummer-size interior.
Any Hagar strip where Snert wins the day is a great strip. The fact that he makes a little kid cry is just icing on the cake *chef’s kiss*
@Banana Jr. 6000:
but he’s also a Karma Houdini.
That is a very useful description. I know a few folks like that.
MW – “Call Me Clueless” will be the new name of Wilbur’s advice column. Subsequently adapted into a hit Broadway musical and film, starring Ethel Merman as Wilbur!
Don Abundio, translated:
“These old-fashioned portraits create the perfect atmosphere for our Anglophile Club”
“Who’s this one?”
“Sir Timothy… the most authentic touch of all”
“Sir Timothy… of course!”
“He’ll pass away in his chair and it’ll be a week before anyone realizes he’s dead!”
@Banana Jr. 6000:
It is an age old problem:
Being self aware and sensitive to others means often being aware of one’s own failings and being unhappy. On the other hand, being a doofus means sailing through life blissfully oblivious and never being forced to acknowledge these failings.
Wilbur is Moy’s best creation – she is never going to have him undergo an awareness of himself. Just as Rene Belluso will never truly reform in RMMD.
DT: New plot wrinkle: Lovejoy, the man who inherited an entire luxury apartment building and currently lives in it all by himself, is employed working the night shift at a biscuit factory. Sure, why not.
Crank: Has the business model of this bookshop ever been explained? Is it a small independent shop selling new books and recent releases? Does Lillian get her stock from book jobbers? Does anyone travel to her residential neighborhood specifically in order to buy the latest best sellers? Or is it a used bookshop, where Lil reads the obituaries and purchases private libraries from families of the recent dead, marking the books up individually according to condition and how collectable they are? Or is it just an oversized Little Free Library, where customers are invited to “take a book, leave a book?”
FG: Giant dilapidated robots fighting each other make ANY comics plot a good plot! Meanwhile, Dale, Zarkov and Bok have all beamed down in Masseusilia, the Spa Land of Mongo, and are relaxing with hot-stone massages, manicures, and cucumber facial treatments.
JP: “Destroy my phone? Are you crazy? Do you realize that my whole life is on my phone? My shopping apps, all my receipts, my exercise routine, my recipe collection, my Costco membersbip? Do you know how much trouble it would be to start over with a new phone? Not to mention all my photos… and those *private* videos that Randy and I made…”
FG: the Luddites in Erewhon were right– kill machines before they kill us.
JP: the CIA manager year’s ago was right — leave April to her desired domestic bliss and soon she’ll be so bored she’ll come crawling back to us .
MW: Avery at least wil be back– to get Belles possessions and steal Dawn’s heart.
PHANTOM: #21 is right, nothing on Earth is permanent. That’s why we have religion.
Willa was blowing air bubbles in Morse code to Wilburp.
@Ukulele Ike:
78. FG. Speaking of cucumber facial treatments, yesterday was first I was aware of the tot’s mother in BoT. What a scary intro!
Luann-Then Fish got it’s fins on some good drugs and could fly.
PHANTOM cont.: the ears on those elephants are small, so they’re Asian elephants vacationing in East Africa?
H&J yesterday: You know, there’s an urban legend that says that if you write something bad and gross on the internet, you write something bad and gross in real life. I’m with Herb on this one.
@Myrtle: JP(2) Or that’s not April’s regular phone. She was out weeding her vegetable garden when a rabbit walked up with this burner phone in its mouth.
@Old School Allie Cat: Thanks, I’m glad you like it. I’ve come to realize that most of the comics page runs on this combination of Unsympathic Protagonist and Karma Houdini.
Consider The Lockhorns. Leroy and Loretta are Unsympathic Protagonists, but they’re not Karma Houdinis. They’re both awful people, but the strip acknowledges their awfulness, and it’s fun to watch them two awful people bash each other. That’s why The Lockhorns still works, despite it being horribly outdated.
On the flip side, Rene Belluso and Count Weirdly are Karma Houdinis without being Unsympathic Protagonists. They’re ineffectual villains whose role is to keep coming back with new schemes. Karma Houdini works for these characters, because the strip isn’t trying to make us like them.
But characters can’t be both these things. The two archetypes simply don’t work together. It’s not fun to watch Wilbur Weston be humiliated when the writing refuses to acknowledge his humiliation, and all the other characters line up to make excuses for him. Wilbur, Shannon from Luann, Gearhead Gertie, and the entire casts of Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, Funky Crankshaft, Gil Thorp, and probably others are all this type.
@Treetown: Wilbur is Moy’s best creation – she is never going to have him undergo an awareness of himself.
That’s fine. Some people just don’t learn, and that can be a powerful character trait in fiction. But Wilbur’s behavior is so bad that other characters should re-evaluate their relationships with him. There are Reddit/YouTube stories of people disowning their friends, parents or children for far less than subjecting them to a serial killer, valuing a fish more than them, expecting other people to do their job, faking their own death for egopats, or many other things Wilbur has done.
Dustin: “If obesity is so bad, why don’t you do something about yours, since you have exactly the same body I do?”
“Ozempic can’t fix lack of cartooning skill.”
Odie’s audition to replace advice columnist Wilbur Weston isn’t going well.
@Activist: #84: I noticed that too. Also, if you look at the middle elephant the arch of his back is more in line with an Asian elephant’s.
Ah, shit, Brian Wilson just died.
….and I just realized that he was TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD when Pet Sounds came out, significantly younger than the Beatles when they produced Sgt. Pepper, their response to The Beach Boys’ masterpiece.
Pluggers: It seem Ronald MacDonald has a new gig as a submitter to Pluggers.
Crank: You’d think one advantage of writing a year in advance would be that if you suddenly remember a plot point that goes against the current story between strips, you can go back and rework the entire thing rather than saying “Yes, there’s that, but let’s handwave it.” But that would mean Batty ever going back and rewriting, or even rereading, so sure, Emily wants to work two jobs for some reason and you can’t have one twin without the other except at Emily’s other job.
DT: Neo-Chicago! Where the owner and namesake of a bakery can be arrested for drug dealing over a decade ago and they don’t even take down the sign advertising her TV show, never mind change the name!
If “all Mr Lovejoy’s alibis check out” and one of them (as stated on Saturday) is that he was in a meeting with his father’s executor while the informant was at police headquarters, shouldn’t that suggest, even to the MCU Brains Trust, that just maybe he isn’t the informant, like he keeps telling them?
FG: Flash has been transported to the set of Robot Wars! The one on the left is clearly Dead Metal.
JP: I assume this is meant to be a burner phone that they mailed to her or something. I’m very surprised that she needs to destroy it herself and it isn’t going to self-destruct in five seconds.
MW: Okay, I admit it. I didn’t expect Moy to actually address “it kind of looks like Wilbur cares more about his goldfish than his daughter”, and she has! I’ll be more impressed if this actually goes anywhere, or if this issue is now considered resolved until it comes up again, like all their other issues.
Phantom: Today in Everyone Is Terrible In Different Ways, Diana continues to micromanage her son’s decisions, Stripey continues to be a smug asshole about how he doesn’t care either way. Both continue to tacitly agree that the one thing they mustn’t do is give Kit the knowledge to make an informed decision himself.
@Myrtle: That Agent 13 truly is a master of disguise!
@Dan: Ha! That’s a pretty deep cut.
Bacön: Marvin’s new dog.
Zits Spanish to English.
MW: it’s just a gold fucking fish–a gold fucking fish.
RMMD: what do you need to process that you can’t talk to Wanda about you idiot.
A conversation with Baja Gaijin.
Garfield: It comes for us all, Odie. Well, most of us. We’re all still trying to figure out Keith Richards.
Marvin Spanish to English.
@GarrisonSkunk: Blowing air bubbles how, exactly?
@Anonymous: Strawberries?
MW: Now I’m wondering what Belle is like when she’s ON her meds. This story has done a few things to my brain.
@Poteet:
Strawberries
After double checking, WHOOPS.
And I think the actor playing God in that Garfield special was actually Jim Davis himself, not Lorenzo Music?
I’m having a very off-day!
MW: As Wilbur and Dawn discuss their recent experience with Belle, the car, KITT, concludes that the two of them are not only hopeless losers, but also annoying in the extreme, and determines that it’s better for all of them—Wilbur, Dawn, and KITT—to follow Aldo Kelrast to his ultimate release. The doors quietly lock as the vehicle blinks once and noiselessly towards Kelrast Curve.
JP: NOR-WAY! NOR-WAY! NOR-WAY! Take us to the land of fjords! Some of us do NOT want to go through this CIA shit yet AGAIN!!
@Charterstoned: Excellent!! This is great!! I’m so…wait, you don’t actually write the strip, do you.
@Anonymous: Sympathies!! We’ve all been there.
Arlo and Janis — Just an excuse to get drunk…
@Sequitur: That image put Belle entirely out of my head, so thank you, I guess.
C’shaft: The audience knows Venmo, but wouldn’t understand if the twins asked what payroll software she uses to clock in and out?
@Ukulele Ike: #92: Lots of people assume that “Sgt. Pepper” was the first concept album but the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” was first (at least in the rock genre). John Lennon was actually a big admirer of the Beach Boys.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I always heard that Pepper was a direct result of Paul’s admiration (and envy) for Pet Sounds. It’s primarily McCartney’s project, after all; he owns nearly all of side one and a huge chunk of side two.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Apparently Brian Wilson would repeatedly ask people to introduce him to John Lennon, who would patiently act as if it had never happened before, and cheerfully tell Wilson how much John and Paul loved Pet Sounds.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Spanish to English.
@Charterstoned: I would personally choose the ATMOS cars from Doctor Who, but in this continuity the Sontarans don’t want to wipe out all of humanity, just Wilbur and Dawn and who could blame them?
I was interpreting the first panel of Mary Worth less as “driving out of town” and more as “parked in an area removed from the city, where they can safely execute the suicide pact Belle has inspired”.
Nancy Classics: Nancy won’t like it when she realizes it’s a Sluggo fart.
@Little Guy: LUANN: Don’t forget the disturbingly large number of TruFans who are reacting with “Awww look, Jonah really does love his daughter” as if this week somehow undoes all the years Jonah has spent foisting her off onto anyone who catches his eye. He’s spent five minutes staring off into space while Shannon reads her story; let’s maybe hold off on awarding him Father of the Year just yet.
Ziggy Spanish to English.
@Anonymous: Garfield : I’m reminded of how “Garfield’s 9 Lives” ends with Garfield pleading God to give Odie an extra nine lives too. And God accepting because he’s secretly a live-action Lorenzo MusicGARFIELD HIMSELF(!), in another life!
______________________________________
Did they mention the life when he was a perpetually drunk New York City doorcat?
@GarrisonSkunk:
Wasn’t that the one where he was called Fritz?
@Anonyminimouse: @GarrisonSkunk: Blowing air bubbles how, exactly?
_______________________
Luckily, June Cleaver lives in the next apartment over, she speaks farts.
HtH: If Ollie has just been standing there crying, who gave Snert a push? A true ontological conundrum.
MW: It may be true that—as per the Harlan Ellison book title—love ain’t nothing but sex misspelled, but as a
n esteemedmember of the press, Wilbur should commit himself to learning to spell better.I was going to joke, that maybe fish-philia is a common trait in Lucky Eddie’s bloodline and Ollie is half-Mermaid.
Then I realized that that was veering too far into Safe Havens territory.
Ollie is either going to grow up to become a bloodthirsty Viking mongrel, or a commoner who gets raided by Vikings every few weeks.
Sad stuff.
@GarrisonSkunk: Garfield is GOD… I’m sorry Jon.
(Oops meant to reply to the comment you were replying to)
Did Lucky Eddie always have those dark lines under his eyes?
JP – Ye gods, not this cloak and dagger CIA horseshit again. I apologize for critcizing the “witty” repartee and would definitely prefer it to Tom Clancy wannabe stories. Or better yet, I’m with @Poteet: . We want Norway!
Pluggers – The best part is that he gets tons of coupons from CVS. The receipts he gets are ten feet long.
Crankshaft – Ah, yes, the Sentinel. Home of hard hitting journalism like transcribing Batton Thomas’s self congratulatory ego trips.
@Ukulele Ike:
In re: Yesterthread – “Bitch makes me bathroom” came from a late-breaking A3G in which, if I remember correctly, Margo had made a chore chart out and Tommie’s chore was listed as “Bathroom” – where the others were more like, Wash Dishes, Dust Furniture, etc.
I’m not saying it was especially memorable or clever to the average reader, but someone commented “Bitch makes me bathroom.” as a complaint from Tommie, and it hit my funnybone.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Re Crankshaft – Don’t forget Harry Dinkle! He would be first on my list. Well, tied with Loathsome Lillian.
@Ukulele Ike: Re Crankshaft – I was browsing in a local used book store several months ago and was surprised to see the name and address of my high school Latin teacher written in a book I was looking at. She passed away several years ago, and I wondered if her family took her books there. I had to buy the book.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve read that Paul McCartney said he loves the song God Only Knows and that it is his favorite song.
9CL: Well, she’s right that she really doesn’t want to see this.
C-Shaft: Lillian is joking, of course. She refuses to die because she knows damn well who’ll be taking her, and it ain’t the Lord.
DT: My impression of Icarus Lovejoy was that he was a gentrifying landowner—equal parts hipster and tech yuppie. Working 12-9 at a biscuit factory wouldn’t seem to fit with that, but maybe assemblylinecore is all the rage now among that set.
GT: “Can he hit a baseball with a foam-wrapped lead pipe? Will the ball keep its structural integrity if he does? We’re about to learn the answer to at least one of those questions.”
JP: Their plan relies on Randy being an incurious moron. That doesn’t make it perfect, but it does have a coin flip chance of success.
RMMD: Of course he never figured it out either. Which could mean that they broke off all contact when they split, or that he’s just kind of a dunce. For now, you make the call.
6C: I’d make a joke about how they were looking for a different kind of bear anyway, but that short-lived and mediocre Muppet sitcom beat me to it.
Well, what did you expect? Snert is a Viking dog after all, and has the horns to prove it.
@135 Dr. Pill:
So, Snert is horny. That explains Helga’s Kevlar robe.
Pluggers: You’re a Plugger if your meds list is longer than a Rite Aid receipt.
@23 Ettorre: “Being so clingy will drive women away — that and your body, personality and lifestyle!” And his breath. Don’t forget his breath! Who can forget the stank of rotting mayonnaise and salmon squares wafting out of his fetid mouth.
@31 A Grave Mind: AAAAHHH!!!!
@36 Hammster: “Will we ever find out how Averybur knew where Belle was?” Averybur had a Apple AirTag implanted in Belle’s IUD.
@Ukulele Ike: So here’s a discussion topic: which is the most patently stupid small business, The Village Booksmith or The Fuze? My vote is for the former, because Frank and Nancy deGroot are occasionally shown dealing with paperwork or meetings or something that vaguely indicates the sheer amount of time and labor they would need to put in, while Lilian never seems to do much beyond arrange things on bookshelves, talk with her twin volunteers/under-the-table-employees/only customers, and occasionally go out and scold an angry mob working off of ALA’s Banned Book List from 1985.
@138 Baja Gaijin: Belle’s IUD.
If you could do that then you could add voice radio transmission to it. While Belle is being humped someone could transmit…
That might scare Wilbur.
@The Rambling Otter: His band is playing tonight.
@75 Peanut Gallery: “…starring Ethel Merman as Wilbur!” I think you mean Edsel Merman in the role of Wilbur.
@97 Sequitur: What a butthole!
@100 Sequitur: Ha. hA.
@118 The Rambling Otter: Too bad Wilbur doesn’t drive a Ford Fulminate with the optional Boom! package.
@120 Sequitur: Snerk!
@140 Sequitur: If Belle’s allowing Wilbur schtupping privileges, he’d hear “Oh, yeah!” then roll over, spent and asleep.
@I speak Jive: That’s a pretty good song, but it ain’t no “Sloop John B.”
@Baja Gaijin:
lol Rite-Aid. Woolworth’s is longer
@146 Lorenzo Monsanto: I dunno. I can buy one item at Rite-Aid which results in a receipt almost a meter long. Woollies, well, most people reading this blog haven’t been to Australia.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I am totally going to steal Karma Houdini. Thank you.
@Bob Tice: You’re good, man.
CRANKSHAFT: The thing is, I distinctly remember an episode years ago in which the twins were shown in some kind of future-flash as being teens. And they were so very obnoxious as teens that when the storyline shifted back to the present wherein they were still children, I didn’t like them at all anymore. I now like them better than I like Lillian, of course, but that’s a very low bar.
CRANKSHAFT: Wouldn’t it be lotsa fun if Emily did a front-page investigative piece for the CENTERVILLE SENTINEL about how The Village Booksmith features blatant violations of the ADA, local plumbing and electrical codes, local restroom requirements for retail establishments, city zoning, employee tax laws, and The Basic Principles Of Independent Bookstore Common Sense? I, for one, think that would be LOTSA fun.
@Poteet: Keeping a pair of willowy blonde teenage twins around the bookshop is a blatant ploy to bring in customers. Lillian needs to hire a buff high school footballer who lifts heavy boxes shirtless if she wants to keep her playing field even.
@151 Poteet:
It wouldn’t work because the Attorney General will have to throw out the case since Emily violated some sort of Batiuk law in complimg the evidence.
@The Rambling Otter: Sitting for babies will do that to you
@TheDiva: Morningstar.
@Ukulele Ike: It was Paul McCartney’s opinion. I like Sloop John B better, too. I’m not sure how to say this – the Beach Boys were fine, but I would like them more if I didn’t dislike all the songs they made about cars. I guess that’s a teenage boy thing.
I have read about the abuse Brian Wilson suffered growing up, and I feel sympathetic towards him, especially with his mental health issues later in life.
@Ukulele Ike: I see your point. But given Batiuk’s high school issues, I don’t know if such a character would be allowed unless he were portrayed as unpleasant and inferior to the beloved nerds.
@I speak Jive: I only know this person from the song about him.
Otherwise I know nothing about him at all.
@Sequitur: Of course she did, and shaaaame on her.
MW: Dawn has to realize she partly came into being because of Wilbur’s sperm. (Hey Wilbur! Condoms are cheap!) Even he knows better than to trust anything he had a hand (or something else) in. Besides, the fish is smarter.
MW Wednesday: What kind of weirdo parking surface is that?? But wait, MW takes place in California. Probably that is some kind of amazing advanced Perceptive Parking Pad, and it measures the vehicle’s spiritual health and well-being.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: How did you know?
MW: “But looking on the bright side, Dawn, I got laid! A lot! Athletically! (On her part anyway.) So it’s not all bad!”