Yet more teen action
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Gil Thorp, 7/12/25
Hey, remember when Keri was in horse therapy, for their eating disorder? Well, big news: they took their horse therapist Britney to prom! Is that … ethical? Like, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t take your therapist to your prom, but is horse therapy really therapy, like in a professional ethics sense? I guess maybe it is, since Britney was accurately able to diagnose Keri as “sad,” even with no horse present. In the end, maybe this is the real reason why you shouldn’t take your therapist to prom: you will end up having to talk about, like, feelings and stuff, right there in your dad’s minivan, when you should be figuring out how to surreptitiously cop a feel.
Archie, 7/12/25
Ha ha, laugh it up if you will, Archie and Betty, but you have probably gotten Jughead into quite a bit of professional trouble, as all the dogs he’s being paid to care for have escaped, possibly running into traffic! Though I guess Jughead should have anticipated this possibility and not have allowed the dogs to gather at the unlocked front door. Frankly, given how crazed this pack seems, they may have devoured him hours ago.
Mary Worth, 7/12/25
Mary looks positively deranged with excitement in this second panel, proving that for her, there’s no more powerful drug than an opportunity to tell her boyfriend that they won’t be spending any time together for a while.
156 replies to “Yet more teen action”
Mary Worth Mashups: Which missing final panel do you like best? Includes bonus Family Circus, Sacrilegious Edition.
MW:
“Olive texted me recently and told me that she had gone cross-panel to the Popeye cartoon and had become a Goon, so this ought to be interesting!”
FC-Where did Dolly find a Chick Tract?
MW-“I need to organize a going away party in my honor.”
GT:
“I was your therapist. But now I’ve changed professions and am making a living as a ’70s-vintage Robert Plant impersonator!”
MW: Bingo. Out of all the really hideous old-lady garments Mary has in her wardrobe, she predictably went for the long-sleeved purple cowl-neck blouse.
Archie:
“Look at our clothing and hair, Betty! — we’re basically stuck in the late ’50s and early ’60s as anthropomorphized malt shop props!”
Apparently Belle Eyes is a contagious disease. Memo to all Charterstone residents: Now, more than usual, do not eat the muffins.
MW: “I have things to DO!” The word balloon might be coming from Mary, but I hear Julia Child’s voice.
Gil Thorp: “I was your therapist — I can tell when you’re sad” is just about the worst thing you could say to your boyfriend on a date. Well, other than “Of course we should visit him — he’s my grandpa too!”
Archie: Hey, is it possible that all those spam comments saying “I make $3,532 per week at home in my spare time!” are actually legit ads for dog-sitters? It’s hard to believe watching someone’s pet could be so profitable, but apparently Jughead makes up for it in volume.
Mary Worth: Mary has to tell Jeff she’s leaving, or else he may not notice. He’s a handsome doctor with a boat in a beach town during summertime — it’s a miracle that he even remembers he has a steady girlfriend while she’s still in town.
Blondie: In a last-ditch effort to keep the print-newspaper industry alive, the Bumsteads have finally discovered sudoku! (Unfortunately, it won’t be enough to keep their marriage alive, given that they’ve still got the only two chairs in their living room facing directly away from each other.)
RMMD – they’re dragging the DNA results so long that I realized I haven’t shared my theory that this guy will turn out to be Mud Mountain’s kid. I’m only one of all the people following this story to,think of this, right? All of the 14 people actually reading this strip have likely considered this.
RMMD: Keri is tedious, even for an adolescent.
MW: Since Mary and Jeff just had their tri-monthly tryst, he should be good for a while. As long as he’s not asked to feed Wilbur twice a day.
LUANN: The snail is a relief; I was afraid Bernice would come back with a person trapped in a glass box.
MW: Mary’s eyes in P2 are typical of a person who’s just been goosed. Perhaps she backed into the vacuum handle. “I have things to.. DO!“
GT – is it simply the artist’s inability to draw an aesthetically pleasing face, or is “Britney” actually Stubby Kaye in a comedy blonde wig?
The last item on a to-do list is the least important, so you can bet the farm that Jeff is NOT getting that call. He’ll just be wandering around The Bum Boat for weeks muttering “…Mary?”
GT: Keri: “Just a LITTLE sad, considering you completely humiliated me in front of my friends with that shocking pink Zoot Suit. And what’s the idea with the necktie, did you lose a bet with your Mom?”
DT: Okay, if 1917 Lovejoy aged in real time, I guess this is 1977 and due to the collapse of the 20th century timeline, Seattle rejected the Space Needle (“Disneyland shit!”) and it was built in Neo-Chicago instead. I remember the skirts being longer than that in 1977, so I guess Lovejoy fucked up hemlines, too.
JP: April: “Yeah? Well, *I* had a plan to estrange you from your wife. But since she let you grow that beard, I see she already hates you.”
MW: No one told Moy/Brigman that it was pink pants day?
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys:
GT – is it simply the artist’s inability to draw an aesthetically pleasing face, or is “Britney” actually Stubby Kaye in a comedy blonde wig?
I believe Britney being homely is part of this storyline.
GT: I’ve said it before, but the art in this strip has gone really….creepy. What’s exactly is going on in that middle panel? At first glance it looks like Keri’s arm is about four feet long, but I think Britney has actually grown a third arm out of her navel that she’s dressed up in a tuxedo sleeve. Maybe there are worse things than being ‘sad’.
MW: Some lesser strips might have considered skipping over the crucial ‘packing for a trip’ scene in a story but not Mary Worth! I’m looking forward to other exciting vignettes like ‘Mary takes the shuttle from long-term parking’, ‘Mary waits in a TSA line’ and ‘Mary stands in the middle of the terminal trying to decide whether to get Panda Express or Chick-Fil-A for lunch until finally just grabbing a pack of mixed nuts and a Fresca’
Archie: Is that Guard Dog from MUTTS making a guest appearance?
GT: I’m pretty sure the new Gil Thorp team is younger than me, so maybe I’m just revealing I’m a fogey, but… please tell me teens don’t really dress like that, right? Like an 80s prom queen who spends four hours a week getting perms and has an employee discount at Giant Silk Bows R Us? Like Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club post-makeover? I refuse to allow it. Future generations need to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Momma: Do you have a job? Bad news: you’re getting cucked by Francis.
MW: Mary is also positively giddy at the prospect of fresh meddling grounds.
MW: Mary’s eyes got so big when she saw the crotchless granny panties she’s packing.
SFx: Panel one: The bride is a virgin.
Panel two: The bride already fucked the groom twice.
Panel three: The bride already fucked the best man forty-seven times.
MW: Hold off on packing the dressy outfits, Mary. I hear they sell clothes in New York. (Don’t 97% of lady tourists to NYC plan on….visiting stores?)
EC (GoComics edition): . CHINA HUTCH CHINA HUTCH CHINA HUTCH
PSA: Due to budget cuts, Kings Features Syndicate will be henceforth be eliminating the third, so called “punchline,” panel from the Hi and Lois comic. Readers seeking a humorous rejoinder to the strip are hereby directed to joshreads.com.
GT: It’s good to see that Dee Snider’s stylist from his Twisted Sister days is still getting work
Luann: Wow… just wow. Even for the Evansii this was a damp squib of a storyline.
Next week in Pluggers: “Pluggers trust their family doctor more than this ‘Dr Web’ fella.”
MW – Moy is once again using her signature narrative tool of “think, don’t tell.”
Gil Thorp: So, uh, refresh my memory here. How old is Keri supposed to be and is Britney an actual adult therapist? Because I’m pretty sure a teenager taking a grown ass woman on a date to high school prom is what’s colloquially as Not Appropriate. Gil should maybe be more concerned about this!
Mary Worth: Mary’s schedule is going to be completely swamped with making up for lost meddling time with her psychic test subject.
9CL: Even his study of light and dark doesn’t make sense.
Pearls before Swine – You go, Goat!
@ectojazzmage: GT: Keri and Britney are teens in different high schools. So Britney isn’t an accredited therapist, she has a job with horses that includes horse therapy riders. With Keri done with therapy, there doesn’t seem to be any snarkable bit about relationship inappropriateness, so we’ll have to stick to the overall disastrous art and teen decisions like getting a ride home with your parents instead of the party limo. Keri, Keri, Keri – it may seem more private for some couple alone time, but there’s this little thing called a rear-view mirror!
Mary’s dealer slipped her the industrial grade stuff, didn’t he.
FC: I’d say something about how Dolly needs her eyes checked if she can’t tell the difference between a bit of a famous painting (brush strokes, textures…) and what a photograph would show as details. Then I recall that AI programs are getting pretty good so maybe it’s a photograph-like rendition of that painting, feel sad about the collapse of human creativity… annnd go read the snarky comments, hoping that it’s all still humans and not bots here
@CanuckDownSouth: Beep-Beep-Boop! Wow these comics (snarky insult ___ data 0102 missing)
MW: Telling Jeff is so low on Mary’s to-do that it’s under “unplug computer ” and “flush toilets.”
GT: “I’m sad because I have unrequited love for Toby, or someone, or myself, or maybe them for me, the art is so bad these days that I don’t know what is happening or who I am. I cant even keep my nose stud on the same side.”
“Sure, that’s why I dressed like Sally Struthers. At least I keep my identity. Except when people think I’m your friend who smells good.”
GT – This is some sort of transgender lesson…right?
Archie – Jughead has gone to the dogs – it inspires A&B to try doggie style….
No worries Mary – crank dealers are plentiful in the Big Apple….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: don’t underestimate the appeal. There must be 18 possible 20 people who follow the steip
Bernice has just started the third unhealthy human-fish relationship in the comics page. Someone in Gil Thorp took their therapist to prom. Mary Worth is going to New York to hang out with an underage girl, at her parents’ invitation. 9 Chickweed Lane continues to exist. The entire comics page just needs to stop being creepy.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: don’t underestimate the appeal. There must be 18 possible 20 people who follow the steip
GT: this is a poll- what fraction of us had the ideal time prom is hyped to be? I, for one, didn’t though it was tolerable as I went with a group of friends.
JP: remembering the set up– Blythe/Helena said she rued her evil life and the harm she had done (yeah, right.). So in response to an extortion demand she put all her secret codes and links on a flash drive, and then destroyed the efficacy of those links. That is, drained the accounts or killed the cohorts. Mom then killed herself in a house fire, leaving April to give the useless drive to extortionists.
Such a loving mother! No wonder April is following in her footsteps.
LUANN: chastise me if I’m being a speciest, but shouldn’t Bern have gotten Monstro at least another fish for a boyfriend? Oh, never mind, the mollusk is for herself….
DT: Lovejoy would have made a killing in the stock market – if only he could remember the details.
GT: wait a sec, isn’t Gil supposed to be one of the adults at the dance ? Why is he leaving with the kids?
JP: so another few days of theee two growling at each othe before we finally learn what this is about. Please have the two girls screw up the whole plot counter plot.
GT – “Ready?” says Gil eagerly. “Tonight I’m gonna try to jump this thing over thirteen barrels!”
Archie – Jughead got a job adding color to daily comic strips. He’s gonna get fired for leaving that hedge white in the last panel.
GT: Besides graphic novels Rachel Merrill also worked as a movie storyboard artist. Those things are always sketchy and slapdash looking. She’s obviously using that technique for this strip. I’m surprised the Hearst family hasn’t demanded that she (and Jules Rivera) draw their strips to the best of their abilities or they’re out. Strange how they fired James Allen for a politically incorrect comment on his personal website but they put up with shitty artwork. For how sorry an excuse for a human being William Randolph Hearst was he took his comic strips seriously.
@Ukulele Ike: MW: They only shop in Chinatown, where they can get the cheap knock-offs.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hello, handsome! Hello, handsome! Hello, handsome!”
“It’s only a crude, rudimentary form of communication…”
“And yet, it seems to amuse these primitive creatures”
[Box: CRACKERS]
@CanuckDownSouth: Also Brittney is no longer Keri’s horse therapist, but passed them off on another therapist because Keri’s friend Inma is Brittney’s chief wrestling rival and….Keri’s not allowed to be nice to both of them, I guess? Or maybe Inma has a crush on Keri? I don’t know, the whole thing just seems overblown to me, even by the standards of overblown teenage drama.
@Activist: My prom was total boredom. We ate dinner, went to the venue, sat around for a few hours, and went home.
GT: So were Keri and Brittney kicked out of the party limo? Or did Gil insist on driving them home to make sure there were no after-prom shenanigans?
MW: Bernice in Luann: “I’m so bland and boring that I get fulfillment from talking to my goldfish all day!”
Mary Worth: “Hold my hamburger gravy on white rice.”
MW: “I have things to do! Like murder Dawn! Heh heh.”
Now in my headcanon, Belle is like Bob from Twin Peaks, and she has possessed Mary.
GT: “I’m going to ask something I ask all my patients: why the long face?”
Archie: That dog-fighting ring went awry.
MW: imagine the shock value if she, or we, found a yellow item in her closet! Yowee.
@Ukulele Ike:
That David Bowie / Iggy Pop song that first appeared on The Idiot?
I’m feeling elegant like I’m David Niven
When I look at my China Hutch
I could pretend that nothing really meant too much
When I look at my China Hutch
MW: Mary is on the move. Livery drivers compete as to who will take her to the airport. The flight captain insists she get her own row in first class, so he can come back and chat between takeoff and landing. Olive will send her own car, as she is a millionaire YouTube producer and has people for that.
Luann: At least Bernice got one of those snails that kills and eats fish.
CS: Well, Batiuk didn’t disappoint: there is absolutely no payoff for this week of dumb jokes.
9CL: It’s revealing when Brooke decides to do one of his “clever” compositions. I suppose I’ll be nice (this time) and not go into detail about what it reveals.
FC: He got that picture taken on the Fourth Day, Dolly. You haven’t even read that far in the Bible?!? Blasphemy!
Dustin: No one works on Saturdays, you dope!
@Activist:
Or any saturated color, for that matter.
C’shaft: You let your father use military-grade explosives to light his charcoal grill and clamber on the roof to clean the gutters, but he gets on the second rung of a small stepladder and all of the sudden it’s “Be careful, Dad”? Does Crankshaft just have a weirdly specific life insurance policy?
DT: “Well, good thing there were no far-reaching consequences of this time travel plot, eh?”
“You bet! Now we’d better hurry: it’s almost time to make our daily pledge of eternal fealty to Supreme Leader Nixon II, and if we’re late again we’ll have to do time at the reeducation center.”
Luann: Wow, that was even more pathetic than I imagined.
MT: Okay, you’re not even trying to find this damn peacock, are you?
Pluggers are the ones that get talked about in the clinic break room all the time.
@Baja Gaijin: If Mary had pets, they would be muffins.
Also, more blasphemy!
@Hibbleton: Gil Thorp to Britney: “Why the long face?”
@ectojazzmage:
#29. GT: there are especially trained animal therapists. Sometimes Disturbed anlmals are the patients, and in others the animal is used for a disturbed human. Here, the clinic apparently called riding lessons given by teens as “therapy” for insurance billing purposes.
Crankshaft: We’ve seen Ed’s home and yard skills. He’s three steps away from the last good spot on a stepladder.
Don’t bother warning him to “Be careful, Dad!” as he’s completely okay where he is. Or already doomed to end up in the ER. One way or another this is a quantum outcome and your effects to alter it are futile, Pam.
Pluggers have been giving advice to their car mechanics for decades and are ambitious to find more territory to bother certified professionals in.
Beetle Bailey: Somebody’s seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit. What’s next, a game of patty cake between Sgt. Snorkel and Sgt. Luggage?
Blondie: Sudoku? I’m older than our host and may not live to see them discover Wordle.
Dustin touched a nerve for anyone starting a new job. Good stuff, until he walks in the office tomorrow and the first woman he sees preemptively shoots him down even though he’s not doing anything but looking for the orientation class.
BG&SS: At the card table you can lose your shirt. He’s gonna lose Lil’ Sparky’s horseshoes the next time, isn’t he?
@ectojazzmage:
#29. GT: there are especially trained animal therapists. Sometimes Disturbed anlmals are the patients, and in others the animal is used for a disturbed human. Here, the clinic apparently called riding lessons given by teens as “therapy” for insurance billing purposes.
@CanuckDownSouth:
#32. GT: you said it better, and you said it once. Kudos, Canuck!
Gil Thorp: Panel 2 is an anatomical house of horrors! I’m glad Britney’s arm is partially concealed behind the car door, because even with it there, the break in her elongated forearm looks painful. I have no idea what the pink cape is draped over Keri’s Reed Richards-length left arm, but it also just ain’t right.
However, to the strip’s credit, I’ve never seen a lack of chemistry between two characters rendered this vividly. I can practically smell the mutual boredom.
@TheDiva: Overblown teen drama that they can’t even keep straight.
The whole “Inma pushes Keri to invite Britney then gets upset at them being there together” grates at me. It seriously has “this observant hijab-wearing muslim girl is *also* openly same-sex attracted and Keri should *understand* there’s romantic jealousy there” vibes. But do the artists *really* want to go there? Add to that Inma uses “her” for Keri… a pronoun which Keri definitely Doesn’t Want. But was that on purpose or a writing accident? Do the artists want hints of cutting edge cultural and gender issues, but to never explicitly deal with the details – that’s confusing and really just looks like mistakes. I know that detailed stories on the cutting edge stuff could go over like a lead balloon with the newspaper audience, but that’s no excuse to make the writing as messy as the art.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: I’m guessing the Syndicate had other issues with Allen: Both the deterioration in his artwork and the crap he was posting here suggest day drinking to me. Still, I agree that Gil Thorp and Mark Trail are both so bizarrely bad that you would think something would be done about it.
@CanuckDownSouth: @ectojazzmage: The person from Canadia is correct. Horse girl is not really a therapist, but a peer support person. Overthinking it (because, let’s face it, it’s what we do around here), Keri probably had an actual therapist who could bill for her services, and Horse Girl just helped her ride the horses.
@Treetown: re: DT: I actually….considered this.
Not being much of a sportsball fan, I couldn’t really bet on games (I know the Giants swept the Indians in the 1954 Series, because it broke my Mom’s heart; and that the Dodgers won in 1955, because Brooklyn). I don’t trust my memory on Academy Awards except for Judy Holliday (BORN YESTERDAY) totally sticking up Bette Davis (ALL ABOUT EVE) and Gloria Swanson (SUNSET BOULEVARD for Best Actress in 1951. I do know who spent the 20th century in the White House, so I guess I should lay heavy wagers on Presidential elections.
I lucked into the most popular girl in my high school as my senior year steady squeeze: head football cheerleader, Homecoming Queen, ingenue lead role in the spring musical, Prom Queen. Yeah, I had a good Prom and After-Prom. The resulting Alpha pheromone had many other nubile 18 year olds chasing after me, so I was a honeybee going from flower to flower.
@taig: I mean of technically cameras “could” exist back then, as long as God wills them to if he wanted his photo taken.
To quote a Family Guy joke, where Peter inherited a mansion but couldn’t afford to keep it, so he was trying to make it look like it was a historical landmark.
Peter points to graffiti that says “Jesus was here, 1000BC”
Inspector: Are you trying to tell me that Jesus wrote this 1000 years before he was born?
Peter: Yeah, he’s Jesus, he can do anything.
Snarking on Gil Thorpe seems wrong. It’s so amateurish on every level that it’s like picking on a special needs kid.
@The Rambling Otter: It wasn’t the existence of the camera that I was snarking on. It was the fact that this information is contained extremely early on in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Dolly should know when God got that picture taken!
@Anonymous: sorry. That was me. Now I feel almost as incompetent as the GT team
@Anonymous: Yeah, but Barajas actually came here one time and told us that the real problem was that we are too dumb to understand his genius, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy.
@Anonymous: sorry. That was me. Now I feel almost as amateurish as the GT team
@TheDiva: “….it’s almost time to make our daily pledge of eternal fealty to Supreme Leader Nixon II….”
Tricia or Julie?
@Hibbleton: the issue being that the artist has a go-to giant chin and desperately unappealing style overall, leading to “the Adonis” and “the schmuck” characters being aesthetically indistinguishable.
Today’s Bizarro cartoon is about a man with a very specific sexual fetish.
@Hibbleton: You get much more reliable service from me!
@33 Ukranazi Stepan: True.
I can also give you the semi-definitive ranking of how many times Hi and Lois have smiled on the same panel since I started doing this on March 20! (Four.)
Moose and Molly – Strange but true: 7/9 of Moose’s friends are bald.
Gasoline Alley – I hope this wreck of a story is over. I somehow got sucked into reading it, and I’d like to quit.
Rex Morgan – Next: A week of talking about whether Truck should wait in the motel lobby or just go directly to Cody’s room.
Brewster Rockit – I bet it’s better than Mamma Mia.
Frazz – After spending the rest of this week being smug about his exercise lifestyle, today Frazz is smug about his diet.
Pluggers – No. He doesn’t have to check WebMD. He’ll call several friends, and they’ll discuss his symptoms at length. At least one of the friends has had the same symptoms, so they can arrive at a diagnosis and treatment plan, which he’ll tell his doctor.
@Ukulele Ike: #15: re-DT: You’re right about the length of skirts in 1977. What’s weird is how fast the miniskirts of the late 60s and early 70s went out of style almost overnight. It wasn’t even a gradual thing. I remember walking down the streets of Columbus, Ohio in the late summer early fall of 1973. The secretaries and office workers were all parading about in skirts that barely covered their asses. Then came winter and all the women were covered up in slacks and heavy coats. Come the spring of 1974 and all the women were wearing mid-calf dresses. The only miniskirts were to be seen on the hookers strutting along Parsons Avenue, Columbus red-light district at the time.
MW: Mary has more excitement in seeing this underage girl than she ever has when she’s doing her regular extortion of Dr. Jeff for his money/boat/restaurant visit/social clout. It’s going to be so satisfying when she goes to see her “kindred spirit” only to find a teenager telling her to take her wrinkly old ass to a hotel.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I like Mary taking her muffins for a walk.
@Charterstoned: It’s for the same reason that Roy Rogers and the Bonanza cast wore the same clothes on every episode of the TV shows – stock footage. If Mary always wears the same clothes, old panels can be reused.
I’m surprised that her closet isn’t full of purple cowlnecks and nothing else.
@pugfuggly: Re Mary Worth – Yes. This is Rex Morgan levels of padding a story.
@Baja Gaijin: Always Best Character Libby. She’s the only one who treats Wilbur with the disrespect he deserves and was so close to giving Mary toxoplasmosis. If only that closeted doctor wasn’t allergic to pussy(cats).
@Needless Exposition: Was thinking that.
Like maybe “Sweet Innocent Olive” is now a moody/bratty teen. Bonus points if she’s punk or goth now.
@The Rambling Otter: Basically she’s what they tried to do with Madi except Madi’s genuine problems were downplayed to compare her to a dog whose owner is an obsessive gnome.
@87 Needless Exposition: I was looking for the panel with Mary polishing her knobs. I found Libby instead. I think I made the right choice.
With Mary gone, Wilbur’s vulnerable to other forces, such as a very clever cat’s revenge. Hopeful served hot, very hot.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: The Punk movement kept miniskirts alive through the late 1970s until the renaissance in the mid 1980s, although the punkettes paired them with ragged fishnet hose and Doc Martens.
Kinda like the Irish monks preserved Greek and Latin culture during the dark ages by copying manuscripts and keeping monastic schools.
Tabby reviews Mary’s wardrobe: Terrible! Tacky! Tasteless! Tragic! Even she hates it, because why else would she wear the same boring purple cowl neck top all the goddamned time?
@pugfuggly: re Mary waits in the TSA line: Will they be up-to-date and let Mary keep her Sketchers on?
@Baja Gaijin: All are great, but it’s the muffin-walking for me, no question.
MW: Wait! Weren’t Wilbur and Dawn going on a father-daughter vacation? And now Mary is headed for NYC. Who’s taking care of Willa??
@95 Myrtle: Belle snuck in during the night and “took care” of Willa.
MW: That final line and facial expression would also work well for Bernice, if Bernice ever gets a job and can no longer sit around talking to a fish for six hours a day.
@94 Poteet: The muffins weren’t originally part of the mashup. I wanted Mary just wandering around alone wasting time as one of the “things to DO!” I got sick of erasing Libby and Pierre so I slapped a pair of muffins in their places. Now that you and others have mentioned liking this mashup, I see the appeal.
@Baja Gaijin: Sometimes genius is borne of necessity.
A&J: An honest answer is not necessarily even wanted, Arlo. I still remember the somewhat-terrified expression of the young supermarket clerk a few months ago when I responded (smiling) that no, I didn’t find everything I was looking for.
Yesterday’s Beetle Bailey: I was all set to tell Sarge not to wear combat boots when bowling. But I checked the colorized version today, and his shoes have white trim, as opposed to the usual brown all over. So I guess they’re bowling shoes.
@Baja Gaijin: Did anyone else give the muffins names? *brief dead silence* Hahaha, of course not, never mind!
@100 Poteet: I know there’s a Pluggers submission in there somewhere. “You’re a plugger if the only people who actively seek out your opinion are marketers”?
MW: After giving terrible, out of touch advice to everyone she knows on the West Coast, Mary heads east.
@Baja Gaijin: #1
Okay…I’m sending Holier Than Thou Grandma to your house to confiscate your computer and toss out your books…*you* know which books…ahem…
How ironic! In Soviet Riverdale, hot dogs eat Jughead! What a comic!
Pluggers: Pluggers are medically decrepit, diseased old meatsacks # 11,395.
@taig: Oh right, Holier Than Thou Grandma would have a fit and probably die of a heart attack if one of the melonheads misquoted or got information incorrect about the bible in any way.
Archie: Did Archie literally just open Jughead’s front door without knocking? Or did the door fly open as they were coming up to it?
I mean, the characters had a tendency to just walk into each-other’s homes. Such as when Jughead was being attacked by a bully, he ran into a nearby house.
Bully: You think you can hide from me in there?!
Turns out it was Moose’s house who beat the bully to a pulp when he tried to follow Jughead inside.
(That’s the only justified example that I can think of, otherwise they just randomly walk in I think…)
@CanuckDownSouth: #34
If we start seeing Grok in the comments, we should be worried.
MT: I am looking forward to getting away from Violet next week. She compares very badly with Lucky the fawn/puppy/beaver-kit/baby-otter/giant-mosquito.
@Ukulele Ike: #91: The fall of 1973 was pretty blustery in downtown Columbus. If you picked a good spot by the state capitol you got your fill of upskirt shots. I’m surprised none of the construction workers building the new state office tower didn’t plummet to their deaths.
Besides Irish monks the Byzantines and Arabs also did their part to preserve Greek and Latin culture.
The Familliar Mucus: Uh oh! Dolly found the picture of God in bed with a bunch of angels that HTT Grandma has been blackmailing him with!
@Daisy: Or if Josh starts referring to himself as Comics Hitler.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: The dragging is working on me. I want to see the f-ing results and I want to see them NOW and if this is dragged out for another week, I will find some way to get into that strip with my walking stick and I will do some damage.
@Rube: #67
I agree that Allen didn’t keep a professional distance between himself and his audience with his comments in this blog. I do think his artwork for “Mark Trail” was excellent until the final stages.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Were the Byzantines and Arabs, unlike the Irish monks, officially allowed to enjoy sex while they were preserving Greek and Latin culture?
Um. That turned out very different than I thought it would.
@105 Daisy: Luckily I have Farting God on my side.
@115 Poteet: Be sure to bring some Frosted
Evil EyesHoneydews too: lob ’em at everyone you see, especially Buck Wise.@117 Poteet: Is this an allusion to “boy boinking”? It seems like it is an allusion to “boy boinking”.
Nice to see Pierre working again, even if through the distorted lens of “Six Chex”,remember, there are no small parts, just small yippy dogs!
@Activist: I went with a shy sweet boy who gave me my first kiss (brief-closed-mouth) when we got back to my house. I don’t even remember the prom itself. I do remember that mom insisted we buy a second-hand prom dress because the new ones were too expensive (local girls all wore long dresses for proms back then). I hope I wasn’t a pain in the ass about that, because she was absolutely right, and I never wore that dress again.
@Poteet: @Baja Gaijin: Did anyone else give the muffins names?
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Just Dr Jeffy.
@Poteet: “Rage” and “Hate”
@Daisy: I remember that James Allen’s Sunday strips were especially well drawn. He drew animals that had a sense of energy and movement.
The Sunday strips gave him an opportunity to draw with more of his own style. With the daily Mark Trail strips he was locked into drawing with the style established by Ed Dodd and continued by Jack Elrod. I wish the syndicate had required that any new artist continue in that style. I can’t stand to see the travesty that Jules Rivera has done to the artwork. The best thing I can say about it is that it isn’t as atrocious as what the new artist has done to Gil Thorp.
@Poteet: “For babies, a woman; for pleasure, a boy; for ecstasy….a melon.” — Old Turkish Adage
@Baja Gaijin: I swear that when I made up that question in my mind before typing it out, it did not have anything to do with “boy boinking.” Now, seeing it, I blame low blood sugar. Time for a snack.
@Baja Gaijin: #118
By Toa!!
@Guillermo el Chiclero: You nailed it. Gil Thorp looks like a rough draft of itself. The art, the writing, everything about it looks like it’s going to be cleaned up in post-production.
@124 I speak Jive: Wait, what? “Artwork” and “Gil Thorp”? That’s a thing? Do you need those blue-red lensed paper glasses to see “artwork”? I can’t see it with my plain old unadorned eyes.
DT: Welp, I guess that leaves everything wrapped up with a neat bow! No loose ends or unanswered questions whatsoever!
GT, meta: “Is it ethical?” Josh asks. Of course it’s ethical, just like it was ethical when Gil recruited a troubled teen who wanted to put his past of beating up another coach behind him, for the specific purpose of triggering that coach’s PTSD! Just like it was ethical when Keith Bellend stole his maybe-daughter’s DNA to test it without her knowledge or permission! Just like it was ethical when CIApril [long list of stuff CIApril’s done omitted for space]! “Ethical” in the comics means “something a main character does”!
HtH: There’s probably a joke here comparing Hägar’s proposal with the setup of the Bumstead living room, but it’s been a long day, and I’m too tired to come up with it.
SH: Yep, here we go. How long has it been since Pam made it clear she and Alex would never be a couple and Alex accepted it? Safe Havens may not be as heteronormative as Mary Worth, but it’s just as determined that everyone needs to be pair-bonded with someone.
@CanuckDownSouth: Gil Thorp is starting to remind me of how all the cartoons in the 80s and 90s would throw together a bunch of diverse characters to demonstrate how multicultural and all-inclusive they were. And yet somehow the white male character (in this case, Gil) was always the one in charge.
@Ukulele Ike: Henry Kissinger taking an assumed name in the manner of the popes, actually.
CS: is the joke that only now Pam is concerned about safety, or is it he’s replacing a long lasting bulb that hasn’t yet burned out simply because it’s time? Or is the joke something else?
TG: seriously, I think only fish and fools forgive and forget. Otherwise forgive but think twice before trusting that person again. Forgive and learn.
@Anonymous: I don’t know about the writing, but as far as the art goes, like I keep saying, if you check out some of Merill’s other work, it turns out she can actually draw. She just doesn’t bother when she’s doing Gil Thorp.
@Poteet: Fun fact: whether Irish monks were allowed to have sex actually depends on the period. For most of the time that the Celtic Church was doing its own thing, they totally could, and then after the Synods, it became one of the many things Rome was on their case about.
(It’s been a long time since I took Celtic Civ. at uni, but I’ve been reading a lot of Sister Fidelma recently, so I’m pretty sure this is accurate.)
PLUGGERS: Even before I became a Plugger two weeks ago, I learned it’s smart to check things out both before and after a doctor’s appt. Several times I found medication was not appropriate and once even found she was recommending unneeded surgery.
Just use reliable sources– Web MD seems to be a good starter but then check public info pages of Mayo Clinic and/or Cleveland Clinic.
Archie: The hedges by Jughead’s house have a peeper hiding inside them. The perv was about to give up and go home, since what were the odds his specific fetish of seeing a blonde who’s just been knocked over by a pit bull would be fulfilled?
MW: Mary has things to do, and that little sniff of sump’n-sump’n she just took will help her stay focused and alert.
@Poteet: I’ve often wondered about that rote question. One day I encountered a particularly lackadaisical cashier, and I was feeling bold, so I decided to try the experiment. The exchange went like this:
Cashier: “Did you find everything you were looking for?”
Me: “No.”
Cashier: “Doesn’t surprise me.”
Is anyone concerned that Mary has Belle-eyes?
Dustin: Got to admit I’ve done that a few times myself, jumped out of bed in a panic thinking I’ll be late for work, even getting dressed, only to have my wife tell me it’s Saturday.
Dustin: Why the grimace on Dustin’s face? He should be glad he can just go back to bed.
@GarrisonSkunk: #138: June Brigman had some extra Belle eyes to use up and she didn’t want them to go to waste. I can’t wait until she puts some on Wilbur.
@Horace Broon:
SH: Yep, here we go. How long has it been since Pam made it clear she and Alex would never be a couple and Alex accepted it?
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I hate to admit not being up on my Havens lore, but was Pam originally a human or a cat?
MW: Mary looks in the last panel like she just discovered she has a clitoris.
Good grief, the artwork in Gil Thorpe just gets uglier and uglier. Is it being drawn by someone who made a plea deal to avoid prison?
C-Shaft: Really putting the “prop” in “malaprop” there.
DT: “Could he have also ended up in Seattle?”
“Nah, that’s crazy talk.”
Dustin: Dustsis is also up early but looks like she might be having an insomnia problem. Something to check on.
JP: This is why April will never be free from the CIA. There are just too many people who find it therapeutic to mumble threats at her. She’s their most popular covert(?) agent.
Lockhorns: Palmistry is a whole other kettle of fish when you’re in one of the strips where everybody has only four fingers.
Luann: Is that…is that a snail? Among other things, you really don’t need to add snails to aquaria. If anything the effort is in keeping them out.
Phantom: “And don’t try to convince me you’re a Carmelite nun on a walking tour of Africa. I’m not falling for that one again.”
@Guillermo el Chiclero: good one
@Artist formerly known as Ben: My tastes include both snails and oysters.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
#144. CE: Ben (not a has-ben), excellent! Thanks for the explanation.
@Baja Gaijin: FC: an illustration of Exodus 33:22-23 by any chance?
(The “God moons Moses” story, for those who don’t want to look it up).
@Ukulele Ike: A classic film, looks great in 4K.
MW – The headline tomorrow reads: Elderly Gunman Kills 5, Then Self, Few Care.
@Ukulele Ike:
I am ALSO Spartacus!
@Ukulele Ike: #146: Now say it like Lawrence Olivier, or Anthony Hopkins imitating Olivier for the soundtrack restoration.
@Baja Gaijin: Walking the muffins for the win!
@Guillermo el Chiclero: . I can’t wait until she puts some on Wilbur.
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This looks like a job for Baja Gaijin!
@Ukulele Ike: Electric Boogaloo.
Luann Spanish to English.