He’s not even a baby horse
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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/23/25
Now, look, you know that Spark Plug is a horse and I know that Spark Plug is a horse, but if you didn’t know that Spark Plug is a horse, nothing about this strip would tell you that, right? Like, call me out of touch, but I’m reasonably sure that “brown-eyed baby” isn’t universally known code for a horse. Lots of human babies have brown eyes! Imagine if you were someone who didn’t know the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith lore, and for some reason today was the first time you decided to read this strip. You’d be baffled! “It sounds like this Barney Google fella does have a baby,” you’d say, “and it has brown eyes and a funny name! Why would he give his baby to these people to babysit, one of whom didn’t even remember the baby existed at all?”
Gil Thorp, 6/23/25
Sorry to trouble you, Gil, but we can’t have someone obsessed with late 19th/early 20th century spiritualism chaperone the prom. Can you imagine? Why, by the end of the evening he’ll be leading them in seances and such, when they should by rights be out in their cars, fingerbanging each other and/or being fingerbanged!
The Phantom, 6/23/25
Speaking of narration from the dead, I’m always a fan of when The Phantom reminds us that everything we see in the strip is a story dreamed up by writer Lee Falk (1911-1999). Sorry, General Chuma! You have been summoned into existence merely to be tormented for our amusement by a pencil-mustached, pipe-smoking sadist.
Garfield, 6/23/25
Remember Garfield, the cartoon cat who famously hates Mondays? You’ve heard him telling jokes about hating Mondays before, of course. But what if he typed those jokes, into a computer? That’d be pretty wild, huh?
164 replies to “He’s not even a baby horse”
Mary Worth Mashup: Do you agree with this “what should have happened” missing final panel?
Gil Thorp:
“You know, Coach, when you think about it, it’s a wonder that people want to go to the prom with one another at all this year, considering how weird we’re all being drawn to look!”
BG&SS:
I’ll give Snuffy and Loweezy this: it doesn’t take much for them to start laughing about something.
Garfield:
I see that Garfield is typing ARRRRGGHHHHH, but it isn’t National Talk Like a Pirate Day until September 19 this year.
Who would have guessed that the many Walker-Browne Humour Incorporated strips were all written by Garfield
Pluggers Break Bad Part 3: Despite knowing her kitchen is being bugged, Dogbear Lady Plugger relays a message about the whereabouts of a mobile meth lab.
The Phantom:
“Hold that pose, General Chuma! — you’ve got that Stylized Developing Nation Member of the Military look down to a ‘T’ !”
BG&SS: Barney Google has a lot more confidence in the Hootin Holler post office than I do if he is sending time-sensitive requests via letter.
BGSS: I dunno, this is Hootin’ Holler. Spark Plug and Barney very likely share DNA. Just like Snuffy and Loweezy.
MW: This is not a lesson learned, Mary. This is just showing how Wilbur is and always has been a terrible father. Except now he’s a borderline sex offender so you’re never going to be able to sell his condo or any condo in Charterstone again.
“The Phantom” goes all “Pearls Before Swine” on us.
Garfield – It’s true “arrrrgghhhhh” is a synonym of “Monday.” The top of my calendar reads “SATWTFS.”
Not to slut-shame, but Gil’s daughter had a teen pregnancy, so he might not be the most suitable person to chaperone
BGSS Actualy, I’m pretty sure a first-time reader of this strip wouldn’t be able to focus on words at all once they noticed those creepy tongue waggles. I speak from experience…
GT “By the way, did we ever get that microcephaly outbreak under control…?”
Garfield Sadly, GarfiPedia never really caught on with with online orange cartoon cat lovers, probably because WikiHeath had already caught that market.
GT: The prom will just be another sporting event. “Keri is dancing with Nikki! Wait, Timmi has cut in! Jimmi is throwing up in the corner!”
BG&SS: Barney knows that the horse will be brought into the house and have a place at the dinner table. Where else but here?
MW: Nice try, Mary, but Wilbur’s “L” words are, ” lazy loser” and “lust,” not “lesson” and “learned.”
“Ummm, Lee, why do you have a skull on your file cabinet?”
“Have you read Hamlet?”
“Oh, so you need a prop for your soliloquies?”
“No, it’s my babysitter’s skull, I was remember her fondly”
@Baja Gaijin: So cathartic. Now have Dawn be slapped for acting like a know it all and coddling her abuser.
BG&SS: Snuff holds the waiver he asked Barney to sign before he agreed to baby sit.
Article 1: We, the undersigned, will not be responsible for any tendencies towards shiftlessness by said child upon return to owner.
Article 2: ….
Last time I checked, Sunday was the first day of the week. Monday’s only the first day of the work week. And what’s Garfield’s beef with Mondays, anyway? It’s not like HE works.
GT: The teen in the foreground has accidentally grabbed the backpack strap of the girl behind him and will now comically carry her through the halls on his back to class. Probably.
BGSS: Spark Plug is a grandfather, this isn’t babysitting, it’s elder care.
Snuffy: Was this request nailed to the door? What’s the paper mean or how is it involved in this scenario?
“Hi Lee, about this script… HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SKULL ON THE CABINET!!!”
“Of course! Like all great artists, I need a memento mori: remember you are mortal!”
“Well, it’s not working: you supposedly died in 1999!”
Garfield: Delighted to see Garfield is a Wikipedia editor, and even more delighted to see that he immediately got into every Wikipedian’s favourite hobby – adding vexatious disambiguation notices to pages.
MW: “Yes, Wilbur, you should have listened to your daughter. Let’s get this one out of the way quickly, because we have a lot of your mistakes to go over today. I baked a muffin for each one.”
CS: Similarly, they’re taking about something that is way down Ed’s list of offenses.
Pluggers: I like how she’s nervously looking at the camera, as if she’s not 100% sure she used there/their/they’re correctly, and fears being attacked by freelance English teachers.
BG: Even in this rustic setting, writing snail mail to ask someone to babysit seems impractical. Were all the passenger pigeons booked?
Luann: Other than the part-time Weenie World job, and her tutoring job that doesn’t have any hours for her, what does Luann even do that occupies so much of her time? It’s summer!
Frazz: Speaking of summer: Mr. I’m Too Smart For School is STILL hanging around with the school janitor.
@Twinkles the Elf: Keeping Sunday as the first day of the week is like the imperial system: for all practical purposes, Monday works better as the first day of the week and the rest of the world already do it that way.
Garfield: The second panel serves to show just how much thought Davis put into the punchline —which, thinking about it, might be something he’d want to keep to himself.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
On Luann : no, see, it’s early Monday morning, Luann has just returned from her GRUELING
*stifles massive laughter*16pm to 24 pm shift, so she’s still groggy from not getting any sleep.Why they’re dating IN THE MORNING when they could, you know, meet in the afternoon, we’ll never know.
************
On Frazz : Also, Caufield totally has non-Frazz friends he would move Heaven and Earth to save from Mrs Olsen’s ‘tyranny’, we definitely see him hanging out with kids his age all the time!
The Phantom: So… Tony Depaul is trying to get us to think that he’s Lee Falk? I guess that’s not too different from the various Phantoms all pretending to be the same guy throughout centuries.
Six Chix: The lady who brought sushi has no right to complain.
@Ettorre: “Hi Lee, about this script… HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SKULL ON THE CABINET!!!”
“Of course! Like all great artists, I need a memento mori: remember you are mortal!”
“Well, it’s not working: you supposedly died in 1999!” “Oh yeah? Well, it’s MY skull! My actual skull!”
Phantom: “You’ll find out in the Phantom’s own good time.” AKA, “Wow, this comic is extremely slow-paced.”
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Were the Doves o’ Love released prematurely? I’m not sure Mary has spent enough time yet sufficiently to PROCESS the aftermath of Wilbur’s latest romantic “doozy” for them to be signalling a happy moment. Shouldn’t the doves wait until there is a more definite understanding and resolution of Wilbur’s many faults? Of course, that one dove seems to be losing altitude (perhaps a metaphor for Wilbur’s mood, or his slumped posture, or his manhood), but three of those doves seem to be fluttering around with more than a little joyful enthusiasm. It just seems a bit incongruous at this point in the plot. But, then, maybe today’s doves are just random avians passing through who aren’t actually part of the story. After all, they don’t really reflect anything that’s going on inside Mary’s condo. If they did, they’d be smashing into the window right about now.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: You’ve fallen victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” but second is “Never assume anyone who reads Barney Google and Snuffy Smith isn’t already steeped in its lore,” followed by “Never assume anyone reads Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,” and then “Never assume anyone reads the comics, period.” [Drops dead of iocaine poisoning]
@Ettorre:“Hi Lee, about this script… HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SKULL ON THE CABINET!!!”
“Oh, him? That’s Bert. He’s the artist’s model for the Skull Cave.”
MW: I’ve thought of Mary as quite a few things over the years, but I’ve never really thought of her as dumb or gullible, and yet here we are with her saying things to Wilbur such as “Lesson learned” as if this isn’t like the 12th time that he’s been involved with something absolutely horrible based on his own shoddy decision making.
I can’t believe they’re doing a bit where Garfield is writing his own dictionary and they’ve already skipped over the hilarious takes he must have on such obvious entries as “coffee”, “dog”, and (FFS) “lasagna”. Cartooning malpractice!
The Phantom: “Okay, but why is my left hand a giant ice axe? We’re in sub-Saharan Africa, there’s only a handful of mountains were this might be useful!”
[Hurriedly scribbling notes] “You’ll, uh, find out in the Phantom’s own good time.”
LUANN: which came first, idea for arc or Idea for name of coffee shop?
JP: she doesn’t LOOK like a lot of women of Wisconsin. Maybe she’s battling a disease.
FG: a strip id definitely don’t want to live in. Minnesota is cold enough.
@Ettorre:
Not to slut-shame, but Gil’s daughter had a teen pregnancy, so he might not be the most suitable person to chaperone
Short of locking them up 24 hours a day, even the most diligent parents’ teens are making the backseat beast with two backs.
Also, it shouldn’t be an indictment on Kerri’s proclivities as much as a referendum on Gil’s shitty parenting.
I just wouldn’t want Gil chaperoning because you know he’s gonna show up in that same funky-ass smelling polo shirt.
Garfield: How old is this recycled joke? So old they don’t even bother putting a knock-off fruit on the laptop cover!
Gil Thorp: In my day, the high school principal was a short, squat, balding man who habitually wore three-piece suits, not peach slacks and white ballet flats. This is how you can tell Gil Thorp has fully embraced the new era. It is definitely not a sign that I am old.
The Phantom: What happened to General Chuma’s left hand? Do we have a T-1000 shapeshifting situation here, or is he just made of shadows?
Made of shadows would be cool. The Phantom could kill him with a flashlight.
It was an overcast and stormy morning when something Snoopy had being doing for decades profoundly bothered me when I saw Garfield doing it. I can accept that they think in fluent English, but reading and writing without any schooling? NAY! Though Paws Inc. could win me over with a fourth panel from the cat’s POV where all we see on the screen is ” og98rh vd o svwobusa8998asjnkjba”.
Gil Thorp-I thought after ‘Saved By the Bell’ ended they burned the sets.
Blondie: Dagwood tried the food-snob this is a delightfully seasoned patty on an artisanal bun, I won’t hide the flavours under condiments lifestyle for about 30 seconds once, but then he got hungry
GT: Gil at first was going to play dumb—“Prom? What prom? I booked a cruise for that weekend”—but he was caught out by the word “prom” appearing on every surface of the school.
James Abram — “But what if he typed those jokes, into a computer? That’d be pretty wild, huh?
And in 2034 he’ll be typing them into a phone! Mark your calendar!
GT — “Not a bad year, Coach Thorp.”
“Yeah, we didn’t win many games, but I’ve been getting a lot of the good stuff lately, from a hot vixen half my age. Prom? Looks like younger is the way to go! Prom? Sure, I can be there. . .
@Tabby Lavalamp: Yeah, I’m reminded of a webcomic, about a cat that played videogames. He was playing a online game with the chat headset on, and he was totally ballistic towards the other players saying stuff like “I’m going to kick your &%%!” and stuff like that.
All the other players heard was just “Meow meow meow meow meow!”
Phantom: Wait, is Gen. Chumba who Lee Falk is referencing with all of those “for those who came in late?” But why was Falk toasting the general in first class on the plane all those years ago? Mind officially blown!
Garfield: Samuel Johnson famously loved cats and dictionaries. Even he wouldn’t put up with this shit.
Slylock Fox-Measuring from the base to the tip is the only way to measure something.
MW-“We’ll just chalk this up as one of your endearing quirks.”
The Phantom-Ten years later they eventually find out.
Pluggers are incredibly smug about incredibly little.
@LTJpezcore1: This is what I meant when I said the strip was “sacrificing the character of Mary on Mount Wilbur.” Even an ordinary friend would be calling out Wilbur’s bullshit by now. Much less someone who is supposed to be a wise empath.
@Anonymous: The story tried to set this up. And to be fair, Phil may actually have a lot of demands on his time. But Luann sure as hell doesn’t, as much as the story wants us to believe it.
Sample LSAT Question #24: Take as a fact that a man does not have a baby. However, he asks a friend to babysit. The friend notes that the man does have a baby. How is this possible?
a) There are facts not provided in evidence.
b) The friend is not being truthful about the existence of a baby.
c) The baby is dead, and the friend is being asked to watch over the body.
d) The writing is terrible.
Phantom: His name should be General Chutzpah.
@Voshkod: e) All of the above.
GT: The student council asked ChatGPT to come up with the theme for this year’s prom, and the result was “Prom 2025”. Do better, student council.
FC: Welp, it’s a little late to start parenting your jerkass kid now, Dad.
H&L: Lois is going to dominate pickleball. She’s the youngest there by at least a decade and a half.
BG&SS: That brown-eyed baby is 103 years old. The sliding scale of comics time is weird when applied to animals.
CS: What sin did the Winnipeg Blue Bombers commit to be punished like this? (And I ask that as a Roughriders fan.)
Luann This has just the right number of words.
GA: “You broke eggs, left them on the side, and you’re driving in a vehicle in need of repair! That’s against the law around here!”
Slim and Clovia will disappear in a Louisiana detention facility for the next several months.
GT: When the pig blood is dropped and the gym is engulfed in flames, Coach Luke will still get the blame.
BG&SS – Isn’t there a Li’l Spark Plug, too? I don’t know how that relates, but I so want to contribute….
GT – I’d do anything, to be Frank – he has an electric train set….
Phantom – WtF is that coming out’a Chuma’s mouth? A tampon string?
Garfield – What if Monday was lasagna day? Would that restore the cosmic balance….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@LTJpezcore1: In fairness to Wilbur (gag), he never makes the same mistake twice. He ditches Iris because reasons, he then gets with a con artist, then has a relationship with Estelle that founders on his selfishness, then gets with a psycho.
@Tabby Lavalamp: If Garfield were sleeping on that laptop instead of typing on it, it would be completely accurate cat behavior and also boost his popularity on the Internet.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I love how you use “empath” to describe Mary because if she wasn’t such a Luddite, she would put that in her bio on social media. Because people who refer to themselves as empaths are often the people who have zero empathy but are pretending to be compassionate. And that’s very much what Mary Worth is: an uncaring shrew whose mentality is stuck in the Hays Code following 1950s.
BGSS: “Brown-eyed baby” sounds like a term for a sweetheart in a 1920’s song. A reader with no context might assume “Spark Plug” is Barney’s girlfriend, and might assume from her name that she’s either a mechanic or a stripper.
GT: Why are they having prom now? It’s late June! The seniors should already be graduated and starting on their gap years backpacking through Europe!
GT: It’s June 23. If there are any high schools in the United States which are planning to hold their proms in the next two months, I would be surprised.
@Tom: It wouldn’t surprise me if he thought Fabiana was his version of “trading up” but then had buyer’s remorse and tried to get her back but she actually traded up with someone who was probably in preschool with her son.
@Victor Von: General Chuma was originally patrolling with two men, one of whom fell down with a skull mark on his jaw, the other of whom disappeared leaving only a wide-brimmed camo hat, which Chuma has now inserted his left hand into. I don’t know why he did that.
@Baja Gaijin: MW slapping down the attempt by Wilbur to squirm his way into taking control of the strip!
We can tell that Garfield is writing the dictionary, not reading it, because he defines Monday as “the first day of the week.”
Merriam-Webster defines Monday as “the second day of the week.”
@Joshua K.:
At the least the backgrounds are vaguely correct. Just one more clue that the writer and artist have only a passing grasp of what American high school life/sports are like in 2025.
Dear Ask Wendy,
My father was dating a dangerously schizophrenic woman who put my life in jeopardy. She’s gone now but I wonder if I should move out on my own to avoid possible future consequences of his poor judgment?
—Insane in the Membrane
Dear IITM,
No need to rush into things. Have you considered castration?
AW
@Banana Jr. 6000: This checks out completely. Granted I’d be ranting at whatever shitty advice Mary gave Wilbur, and I’m sure it would have been a DOOZY…but this is somehow worse.
BG&SS: *Seemingly routine request* *Horrified explanation of why request is inappropriate* *Flimsy connection to piece of intellectual property that it is presumed that we love, though we don’t* *SCP-2030 appears* *soft, wet noises*
The Phantom: The human skull on Falk’s shelf makes him much more ominous the more you think about it. The skull is acting not so much as a reverently-displayed memento-mori, but more like an impromptu bookend, wedged against the shelf’s contents and half-forgotten in the same way I use a coffee mug I don’t particularly care about. This guy doesn’t give a crap about a decapitated and de-fleshed human in his workspace, so General Chuma’s fate is bound to be even more chilling.
“Who is this . . . adversary . . . stalking us . . .?”
“You’ll find out, General Chuma . . . in the Phantom’s own good time . . . Now, where did I leave . . . my bourbon. . . ?”
“You’ll find out, Lee Falk . . . in Tony DePaul’s own good time . . . Now, where’s the art for . . . next week . . .?”
“You’ll find out, Tony DePaul . . . in Mike Manley’s own good time . . . Actually, I lost my boob-drawing pen while . . . working on Judge Parker, so I’ve been unable to keep . . . abreast of my . . . deadlines.”
C’shaft: Batiuk and Davis did rock-paper-scissors on whether the punchline would reference Crankshaft’s Bean’s End obsessions or his grill explosions.
JP: “Don’t mind me, I’m just going through my tai chi routine.”
Lio: Really culturally insensitive there, Eva Rose. You should have dressed up as Robin Hood, or Katniss Everdeen.
MW: “Now, get back to the part where you were telling me I was right about everything.”
Pluggers…know third grade grammar, I guess?
GT What’s with Gil’s poses here? It looks like the artist used a figure from a men’s clothing catalog as the model. Hey guys, men’s dry on the fly flex-waist khaki pants, now in ash gray, sand, and teal!
GT – Yes, Coach Thorp, that time we made you answer to the name “Frank” for a whole year was indeed worse.
Don Abundio, translated:
“We could make beautiful music together!”
“I’m not even sure she got the innuendo…”
“I just remembered she’s a professional violinist!”
@Joshua K.: I’m not very religious, but I always saw it as:
On the first day God said “Let there be light!”
SUNday
On the last day, he rested.
SATurday
I know that sounds like some cutesy Sunday School teaching to help remind kids about the days of the week, but really I realized this all on my own.
Happy Meta Monday
BG&SS – The biggest mistake a new reader of this strip would make is assuming Snuffy is literate since he is holding up a piece of paper. No, Barney Google merely handed that to him to give to Loweezy who can read, and it’s mostly horse care instructions.
Gil Thorp – After surviving the heart attack that heralded in a new art team, Gil was given cognitive behavioral therapy to help overcome the trauma of waking up in a world of stiff drawing, having to relearn previously recognizable faces of long-running characters, and nonsensical storylines that retcon established lore.
Gil is doing the best he can given the situation, and is putting on a brave face for the readers, who are going through it with him.
The Phantom – General Chuma does not know he is the creation of a writer, and even if he did, what could he do with that information? Sometimes minor characters do end up winning the favor of the writer or the readers (See: Smith, Snuffy), but that is beyond most characters’ control.
Can he, as a creation fight back? Even if he meets Falk, Falk himself is dead and a character in this strip as well. He would need to then battle Tony DePaul and Mike Manley, only to learn they are the hired hands of Kings Feature Syndicate. It’s a series of metaphysical crises with no sign of freeing himself.
Garfield – Jim Davis notably farms out all the work on Garfield to a creative team, instead focusing on counting the money from the merchandizing.
This includes forcing his own star character to work as well. Garfield is now tasked with creating a word-of-the-day calendar to complement the various Garfield themed calendars for sale. Garfield can only hope Jim Davis never looks at the pin-up of the day calendars at Barnes & Noble like Alexander the Great seeing some unconquered lands on the horizon.
JP: We’re going to find out that Sophie’s brother will arrive and have to pretend he isn’t Sophie’s brother because Sophie and Reena are posing as sisters and Sophie wants her brother to fall in love with Reena and when did Sophie get a brother is Ces ripping off Tony DePaul?
@The Rambling Otter: On the second day he went through his reggae phase, MON-day. On the third day he got confused and thought it was the second day, TUES-day. He had a quickie marriage to Astarte on the fourth day, WED-nesday, and was so discombobulated by the divorce that he didn’t have anything clever for the fifth day. Finally, he went to a local church fish fry (which was kind of confusing because they kept talking about his son) on the sixth day, FRI-day.
Snuffy Smith: We’re supposed to believe that Barney Google is asking the Smiths to spend a week taking care of Spark Plug as if he was a baby? Sorry, but that’s all a bunch of horse-sit!
The Phantom: “You’ll find out… in the Phantom’s own good time! And since I make my characters speak haltingly… with lots and lots of ellipses… even in the middle of sentences… that’s going to take forever!”
Look, Garfield, I know Johnny Hart has been dead for nearly two decades, but the whole “Wiley’s Dictionary” gag was lazy when he did it and it’s all the lazier when it’s a) two identical panels separated by an unnecessary beat panel because of your strict three-panel format and b) not even original.
(Editing out this message, it was a little too weird even for my standards)
Was talking about fiction and multiverses and stuff. I got kind of carried away.
BG&SS: Wait. Does this mean that Snuffy and Weezy think Van Morrison was singing about a horse?
@Voshkod: Or on MON-Day he was going to fill the world with Pokémon. But realized that was a little too much. So he instead “nudged” the idea into Satoshi Tajiri’s mind millennia later.
What a day to read Garfield. After 50 years of playing coy about if the non-cat characters can “hear” the main characters thoughts or not, he’s learned to write them on a computer where clearly anyone can read them! It will be interesting to see what conversations Garfield can have now, assuming he can also learn to say things that merit some response.
@Needless Exposition: @LTJpezcore1: Well, the story wants us to believe Mary is an empath. But it comes to Wilbur, Mary can’t stop swinging and missing at the most obvious softballs. I’m an imperceptive 53-year-old man, and even I can see that Wilbur’s goldfish is a placeholder for his dead relationship with Estelle. Mary mistook this for genuine love of a pet, failing to recognize that neither goldfish nor Wilbur are capable of affection. His interest in a mentally ill woman who showed up at his door like an abandoned puppy is problematic at best, but she’s not going to bat an eye at anything.
It’s like Mary’s job in the strip is to whitewash Wilbur. Her job should be to react with disgust at his day-to-day behavior.
FC: I don’t know…if *I* were in an elevator where every single button was pushed, I would get off at the next floor and catch another elevator. Without a smart-alecky kid tagging along who should know better than to PUSH EVERY BUTTON ON THE PANEL. But that’s me. I’m not a Keane family member.
@ValdVin: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers the latest random thing Tom Batiuk has latched onto, so he’s drawing their logo into everything like they’re the strip’s new title sponsor. Coming soon to Crankshaft: Jeff goes to a Blue Bombers game! (Not kidding, that is a legit future story arc.)
@Baja Gaijin: #1
THAT…WAS…PERFECT!!!!
@Daisy: How could he even push all the buttons? He’s two feet tall.
@Pozzo: #10
I would actually love to see Pastis draw “The Phantom”!
@Banana Jr. 6000: Maybe whatever next writer will start their tenure by rebooting the canon, maybe Mary will wake up from a coma, and the artwork will be different.
Mary: Toby, I had a dream that I was a horrible person. And there was some creep named Wilbur.
Toby: I dreamed about this Wilbur guy too!
Mary: If we fall asleep again will he return?
(Scene from “Nightmare on Mayo Street”)
@Bob Tice: I see that Garfield is typing ARRRRGGHHHHH, but it isn’t National Talk Like a Pirate Day until September 19 this year
____________________________
Maybe its National Type Like A Pirate Day.
FG: Her name is Edda? Is this our long awaited Flash Gordon / 9 Chickweed Lane crossover?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: #33
“…and then “Never assume anyone reads the comics, period.”
Never assume anyone reads, period.
@Old School Allie Cat: Of course. The problem with Gil was that he should have taught his daughter to use protection, instead of engaging in a losing battle to keep teenage sexuality chained. Hey, maybe he is right for the chaperone role!
Ironic that it’s on a Monday that Garfield gets Josh to acknowledge his existence for the first time in eons.
@Ettorre: It’s true! Coach Thorp is unaware of how babby is formed.
Pluggers – I think Betsy Wise of Dallas, Texas, was the patsy – not Lee H. Oswald. (Not even Nick Beef.)
Gil Thorp-“I’ve had worse.” Have you looked in a mirror lately? How can you look worse than you do now?
I suddenly realized what the new Gil Thorp “art” reminds me of.
Dagwood used a hell of a lot of mayonnaise on that hamburger to make up for the lack of other toppings.
FG: The suspense is killing me….is Edda heavily padded under the protective gear, or just a chub?
Meanwhile Dale and Zarkov, having landed in Euphoriasia, the Mongovian pleasure world, are experiencing one shattering orgasm after another. Warm baths, massage, and potato chips with plenty of onion dip in between, to keep their strength up.
So, Snuffy will need to build a stable, a trough, food for the trough (keep in mind that they can barely feed themselves) then once the week is done they’re stuck with a stable and nothing to do with it.
I hope that Barney is paying for this.
Jim Davis is from Muncie, Indiana, a short 45 minute drive from my house. Since Garfield is in the rarefied “will never get cancelled, no matter what” status of newspaper strips, it has been my long standing dream that it will slowly lean heavily into Hoosier culture, one reference at a time, until the strip becomes opaque to anyone outside our borders in an act of unapologetic cultural warfare. The combined might of Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean would never come close to having the cultural clout to save Ohio from our assault. This has nothing to do with today’s strip; it’s just something I think about.
As for today’s Garfield: “Accuse me of just photocopying the same drawing for three panels, will they? Well, just take a look at Garfield’s fingers! Checkmate, haters.”
Oh, and after you finish all the large, whole chips and get down to the broken ones, the Euphoriasians bring you a new bag. That place is the best!
@Will: I had the same horrifying thought! Flash: “Are you ok?” Edda: “Disoriented! There are all these backgrounds to look at! And people don’t speak like a striving 10-year old who just got a thesaurus for his birthday!”
@The Rambling Otter: That is spot on. Also what the dialogue reminds me of, now that you mention it.
@The Rambling Otter: The next writer should start their tenure by throwing Wilbur off another cruise ship, and letting him sink to the bottom this time.
Wilbur walks the fine line between “villain who’s fun to hate” and “villain who needs to go away permanently because his act is tired.”
Phantom: Just for fun, I think every comic should have a Grant Morrison Animal Man segment. Let’s see young Jeffy react to a glimpse of his future, being tethering to his father’s legacy. Or the 9CL couples being fed up with acting out Brooke’s funhouse-mirror idea of sexual relationships.
Mary Worth – Most people would serve cookies with coffee or tea, especially if it’s later in the day. Mary always serves muffins, most likely because she expects her guest to praise her baking skills.
“You were right, Mary. I should have listened to my daughter.”
“Yeah, yeah. Aren’t those muffins delicious?”
Rex Morgan – Cody will be pissed off when he tries to sell those records and finds out that the value dropped considerably because they’re not in mint condition.
Pluggers – I call BS. There/they’re/their ignorance is a plugger trait, along with your/you’re and its/it’s. They want no part of that elite book learnin’.
9CL – Same shit, different day. Same tiresome, run into the ground shit.
6Chix – Broccoli is bad, fish is worse, but curry is the absolute worst.
FC – The man with chest pains who was trying to get to the lobby collapsed on the floor of the elevator.
FC: So I started wondering how Billy even reached all those buttons, and I guess Big Daddy Keane must have lifted him up there, so it’s at least partly his fault. Then I started wondering why Big Daddy Keane and Billy are in a 32-storey building in matching outfits without any of the others, and all I’ve got is that it’s Take Your Most Annoying Child to Work Day at Daddy’s office, and Jeffy lost the toss. (Yes, I know he’s meant to be Bil Keane, and is therefore a cartoonist and you’d think he works from a home studio, but there are also regularly strips based around the idea that he “goes to the office”.)
DT: Yesterday: Lovejoy worries he’s as insane as his father, who used to talk to the demonic painting. Today: Lovejoy’s father always insisted it was a perfectly normal painting.
JP: Scandinavia and the World once did a bit about how if an Anglophone struggles speaking Japanese, Japanese people will be pleased you’ve made the attempt; if you struggle speaking French, French people will criticise your pronounciation; but if you struggle speak Danish, Danish people will be absolutely furious that you’re wasting everyone’s time when you know they all speak perfect English. I don’t know if this is true in Norway, but I’m excited for Sophie to find out!
OTF: I was going to sarcastically wonder how often those phrases came up in a working day, then I remembered a) it’s Dethany and b) it’s Fastrack, so okay, fair enough.
Phantom: As blatant excuses to stop telling the story so DePaul has some time to figure out where it’s actually going go, I much prefer Lee Falk’s Ghost assuring us he totally knows where the story’s going, but it’s all very mysterious (or, on one occasion, also needing some time to figure it out) to Old Man Mozz deciding a year-long prophecy just wasn’t long enough, so he’d stop telling it every so often for arbitrary reasons. And, annoying though that was, even it’s an improvement on how most soap strips deal with it, which is “just keep telling the story and hope like hell it’s going somewhere“.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes, please!
@Ettorre: @Joshua K.: I don’t use my phone to record appointments – I use a pocket calendar and a wall calendar. A few years ago I got a pocket calendar from a business; the weeks started on Monday instead of Sunday. I had to get rid of it because it was confusing. I kept recording appointments on the wrong day. I’m too used to having calendars that start the week on Sunday.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: It could be a sign that the artist is incompetent.
@Banana Jr. 6000: The thing is, this is always the part of the story where Mary assumes that, now that the current issue is over, possibly thanks to her terrible advice, everyone involved has all their problems solved forever, because she learned about peopleing from a book and it was a book with short words and large print. It’s just more obvious with Wilbur because it keeps happening.
(Oh, my goodness, I’ve just realised Mary showed much more sympathy over Wilbur losing his beloved goldfish than she did when Old Man Wynter’s beloved dog died and she was like “It’s a dog. There’s a ton of them over at the animal shelter for free if you need one.” And she was presented as being right then as well!)
MW: I notice that Wilbur doesn’t realize, and never will, that Belle was only interested in him because of his eerie resemblance to her caretaker brother. He’s always going to think that she was madly in love with him, and just went a little funny in the head. But, a nice cruise should take his mind off it.
@I speak Jive: “9CL – Same shit, different day. Same tiresome, run into the ground shit.”
It turns out that the “reflections” they see in the lake/pond/puddle aren’t actually reflections, they are the drowned corpses of Alistair and Polly, whose storylines were apparently cancelled before they could even make it to the wedding ceremony.
Garfield: Thus begins the long-dreaded Garfield / Nancy crossover week. Ack! / Argh!
Rather than get any context for today’s Phantom, I like to think that the “adversary…? …Stalking us…?” Is the guy on the right and he’s hoping that General Chuma hasn’t grasped object permanence yet. Apparently, it’s working.
Monty — That’s Ed Crankshaft’s bit, Moondog.
9cl — My gosh, is that tounge? I need brainbleach now.
Nancy Classics: Aunt Fritzie really is a bit of a shit, isn’t she?
@Anonymous: The same way Dolly put the dirty dishes away in the cupboard a few feet above her head.
Garfield: This reminds me, wasn’t there a family sitcom on Disney Channel called “Dog With a Blog?”
And wasn’t there an episode where the Dog realizes because he’s a dog he’s going to die soon?
Looks like Garfield isn’t going to last even a week in his new position editing the dictionary. Just as well, really, because there’s no way he has a Social Security Number or bank account. it’s unclear how he even got hired in the first place.
FC: Here’s two scenarios:
A) Bil and Billy are soaked in sweat because the elevator has to working AC.
B) Bil worked up a sweat walloping Billy for being such a tool and those plewds shooting out of Billy’s face are tears, not sweat.
I’m voting for for scenario B.
The Familliar Mucus: Bil proves to his editor, Virginia, “Yes,Virginia, there IS a Billy, age 5”
?
@Ukulele Ike: #110: And not just any French onion dip, but Lawson’s French onion dip, so legend amongst the people of NE Ohio that it’s still sold in stores long after the Lawson’s convenience store chain went belly up.
BTW: The Euphoriasians also bring you your fresh-squeezed juice on the Big O, guaranteed less than 40 hours old.
Pluggers – Pluggers’ much-hyped ability to write in cursive is actually just a cursive font. Busted!
@Dennis Jimenez:
No, you’re thinking of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Present Spark Plug’s Grandson … Li’l Sparky®. But he gets that a lot.
I’m surprised at the high number of LDS members that frequent this site. I wouldn’t think newspaper comics interested you all. Welcome.
Thimble Theater (January 20, 1931): Olive still has her troubles.
Life On Earth: I sure hope those are footprints he’s picking up.
@The Rambling Otter: There was a Garfield strip once where there’s a radio contest offering some prize that Garfield really wants (I forget what) to the first caller to tell them correctly what noise a “Felis domesticus” makes (not the right name). Garfield calls up and meows out loud, but then realizes he can’t tell the radio station his name and address.
Berkeley Mews: Smokey Bear has regrets.
GT – Just a quick reminder to Josh that we could not have had a Pregnancy-Abortion-Anorexia arc if these people were content with mere finger banging.
So the whole chaperone thing is for what? Making sure fights don’t break out on the dance floor?
@Charterstoned: Well, yeah, we questioned the appropriateness of a DOL appearance at this point. Doesn’t fit with the narrative at all. So when we declined their request, they had the unmitigated gall to use this archived image!!
You may remember this innovative venture into Avian Interpretative Theater from earlier in the storyline – the four Doves representing Wilbur, Belle, Dawn and Mary. Now it’s being used totally out of context… with no regard for artistic integrity! The Doves will, of course, be compensated at standard rates for a live performance, since that’s what was implied from the scene. And we’re not ruling out seeking damages for reputational harm, as well as incompetent storytelling…
@Peanut Gallery: I must confess almost total ignorance of BG&SS cannon. Barney almost never appears – he’s a city slicker? Is he supposed to be rich? What about that depression era musical chestnut about his goo-goo googley eyes? Is that somehow strip related? Does the TVA have any relevance to Hootin’ Hollar? Any relation to that movie Deliverance?
@Human-eared Dragon: wasn’t there a family sitcom on Disney Channel called “Dog With a Blog?”
God, I hope not. But it sounds like something they’d do.
A deep thought to think about courtesy of Aunty Acid.
Interesting article on the first day of the week here. In a handful of countries, it’s Saturday.
The cron scheduler in Linux has it both ways: you can specify Sunday as the day of the week by using 0 or by using 7, depending on your personal preference.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
Sounds like B
I wonder if anybody has a link to the original comic from like 50 years ago.
I’d like to see how much art was changed.
Zits Spanish to English.
@Horace Broon: Personally I can’t stand Old Man Wynter for how he treated Madi of the Colorful Gram like she was a nuisance who didn’t simp for his dog instead of a grieving child but even I felt more sympathetic for him losing his dog. Old Man Wynter took the steps to move on while Wilbur sulked in his bathrobe and squalor for weeks until Mary coddled him into a pity party on a boat.
“We’d LIKE for Coach Martinez to chaperone, Coach, but, you see, he’s just so….ETHNIC, am I right?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: There was. My daughter hate-watched a couple of episodes. She said that it was stupid even by Disney Channel standards.
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
@Dennis Jimenez: Phantom – WtF is that coming out’a Chuma’s mouth? A tampon string?
Yes, that’s an old Wambesi custom. It’s called “tasting the juice.”
@Guy Nerdlinger: The premise was stupid. I mean… well not exactly, the PBS cartoon “Martha Speaks” had the same premise but actually done well.
But with Dog with a Blog, the kids of the family discovered that their new dog could talk and they were afraid that if their parents find out, they’ll send him back to the pound. (Because stupid)
The final episode, the parents do find out and… the dog ends up becoming a worldwide celebrity and the family becomes stinking rich. So yeah.
@Needless Exposition: Didn’t that guy go to Wilbur’s stupid fish funeral? Or am I thinking of a different character?
@Banana Jr. 6000: Luann has to constantly maintain all of that inner beauty. It’s a demanding job!
Garfield is Samuel Johnson and Jim Davis is his Boswell.
The art in Gil Thorp is so bad.
@The Rambling Otter: And considering this was a Disney channel sitcom, they were probably stinking rich to begin with. I get that these are kid-empowerment stories, but sheesh, it’s like they’re a feeder program for Abercrombie & Fitch.
@Lord Flatulence: Ironically, Luann would probably have outer beauty by now if she ever put any effort into it.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Well, it sounds like you’re on top of the situation, as usual. Still wondering about a love interest for Willa (not Wilbur). Her biological clock is ticking.
@The Rambling Otter: This made me recall Michigan J Frog for some reason
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: No, we can’t have that, it might be interesting.
@Needless Exposition: MW: Except now he’s a borderline sex offender
Considering that Belle’s mental health problems are so severe as to require constant supervision, I can say pretty confidently that she was never able to give legal consent. Wilbur is way past “borderline.”
@Banana Jr. 6000: He went with his pity wife (seriously, they literally had no romantic connection and just married because they wanted to free up a condo) and their dogs to the “funeral.” And of course they had nothing to contribute except empty platitudes.
@Bryan: Yet another “endearing quirk” along with animal abuse and letting his loved ones think he was dead.