Somewhere in time
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Andy Capp, 7/14/25
The question of “When does Andy Capp take place” is increasingly fascinating to me — characters are on modern dating apps but also they dress … like that? … which seems pretty old-timey to me. Today’s strip in particular feels like it belongs to an age before the UK Parliament passed the Licensing Act 1988, back when alcohol could only be served at pubs from 11:30 am to 3 pm and 6:30 pm to 11 pm. This explains the reference to Andy’s “afternoon nap”; presumably he routinely stumbles home at 3 o’clock pretty soused and passes out on the couch for hours. Normally he’d be up and around to go back for the evening session, but I guess he overslept today and has missed out on hours of the precious “aimless drunkenness in the presence of non-wife people who he likes or at least whose names he knows” time that makes his life worthwhile bearable.
Hagar the Horrible, 7/14/25
Ha ha, that got a little dark! Anyway, speaking of placing comics in context, you know I’ve long been fascinated by when exactly Hagar the Horrible takes place over the evolution of Viking culture and society, but the where matters as well. I’m reasonably sure it’s been made explicit in-strip that Hagar lives in Norway, which means that his world faces out to the North Atlantic. His Swedish cousins have established extensive trading routes through the Russian river systems with the Byzantines and Abbasids, so they have access to the delicious spices of the east, but Hagar’s Norse compatriots haven’t gone far enough south of Greenland to discover genus Capsicum, which means that in his mind “hot wings” are just wings that are currently or recently on fire. Sad!
Hi and Lois, 7/14/25
When Hi referred to “your honey-do list,” I briefly thought that we were turning a traditional sexist cliché on its head here, but nope! It’s just a joke about Hi feeling wounded and unappreciated — or in other words, “classic late-era Hi and Lois,” which around here we do respect.
188 replies to “Somewhere in time”
H and L:
Shouldn’t Hi’s cowlick be behind his speech bubble in the first panel, instead of invading it?
RMMD:
“You got the results?”
“Yeah — back away from the door, stranger!”
@Bob Tice: It’s crazy how comics art gets less and less realistic. When will these artists learn how to mimic real life instead of cartoony nonsense.
AC I see your ‘when?’ and raise you a ‘where’?. I always assumed London, but that sky blue background seems to suggest otherwise. Unless Andy is enjoying one of the East End’s famous rooftop pubs? Is that a thing?
HtH I know that the fork instead of a sword is supposed to be silly, but if I were a medieval briton, i would find that twice as terrifying.
H&L “…keep my neck retracted into my torso like a snapping turtle.. “
H and L:
” ‘Pick up a copy of Carl Perkins’ “Honey Don’t” and the Beatles’ cover version of it’ ?”
“Well, I wanted to experience cognitive dissonance.”
MW: Dr Jeff eats a single round cheerio with a shrimp fork. Mary silences her critics who complain she only serves rectangular food.
RMMD:
“Now, ‘son,’ have you become a polydactyl, or have you somehow managed to bend your pinkie finger so that it forms a perfect right angle?”
MW: Dr. Jeff handles his banana fork with the delicacy of a brain surgeon about to perform a lobotomy, thinking, “I could get away with it. I know I could…!”
H&L: Hi is skirting around the fact that he really wants a paternity test on the kids.
MW: Look at how ecstatic Jeff is about the mention of Mary leaving. That’s more emotion on his face than when he was talking about how much Mary meant to him. Now he’s free to go back to Southeast Asia and
visit his favorite male prostitutework at the children’s hospital.Andy C – Life on the dole in the UK is just as rewarding as meth addiction in the USA. Don’t let anybody tell you anything different….
HtH – Who needs rape and pillage – buffalo wings rule….
H&L – Don’t forget those regular bowel movements….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
H&L: Hi needs to stop getting Ditto to write his material.
RMMD: This has been the longest metaphorical drum roll in the history of metaphorical drum rolls.
DtM: “Oh, Dennis, you’re so precious! Here, slip this ice cube down his back. It could be just the jolt we need.”
MW: So, when you get close to NYC, just follow the signs that say, “This Way To Olive, The Girl Who Was Saved By Mary Worth.”
HtH – Gotta respect a Viking who brings his own cutlery and napkin to a castle raid.
Hi & Lois : I interpreted it the other way : I thought it was sweet that Hi was giving Lois a list of tasks to do for the day, only to reveal it was him complimenting her for being a great wife and mother to his kids, only to realise it was just Hi’s fragile ego fishing for compliments.
And I think most of my confusion stems from the fact that Lois HAS A DAYJOB, which I think the strip forgot?
************
Luann : “Here we are, doing a rerun week for artist vacation purposes! We DEFINITELY didn’t have to pull a bunch of strips at the last second because what we initially thought would be hilarious, Luann going to summer camp only only for her dream job to turn into a nightmare because of TERRIBLE weather where rain floods all the cabins, kinda wouldn’t be anymore due to… ‘changing circumstances’…”
…Too far?…Also, tsk tsk, Gunther and Knute, if you want to impress Luann with a comic book you made, you should have done the exact same thing Mini-Elvis did and wrote a story about a scantily-clad superheroine that’s a very thinly veiled version of her.
H&L: I think I’ve finally figured out why Hi’s nose is a bridge-less ovoid that protrudes from his upper lip. When you imply to your wife that she’s ungrateful whilst wearing a classic comic strip “smug face”, you’re going to get a few broken noses.
H&L: I think I’ve finally figured out why Hi’s nose is a bridge-less ovoid that protrudes from his upper lip. When you imply to your wife that she’s ungrateful whilst wearing a classic comic strip “smug face”, you’re going to get a few broken noses.
Sorry for the double post.
H&L: The fact that Lois keeps turning her back on Hi shows it’s ‘dutch courage’ that’s got us here.
“If you’re gonna drink this early, try some mouthwash.”
MW: So we’re just going with “Mary saved her from drowning” as Pimento’s Defining Characteristic. No mention of dream angels, tummy brains, Dr. Kapuht, none of that weird-ass stuff. But, “Mary saved her from drowning” serves as proper hagiography for Mary, so that’s how we are to remember things.
AC: You can tell when Andy Capp takes place: 1946, immediately after the end of the War, when all the cities are still smoking craters. He’s lucky the pub is still standing – it seems to be the only building left on the street.
HH: ACTUALLY medieval Europeans had plentiful hot spices. While pepper and ginger were luxuries for the rich, garlic and horseradish were plentiful and widely used to make the staples of salted meat and brown sour bread more edible. I don’t know how often they ate wings specifically – without refrigeration, it would make more sense to slaughter and eat one animal at a time, rather than killing and butchering hundreds of birds at once for their wings and leaving the rest to rot – but I can imagine *a horde of starving Vikings burst through the wall and eat me*.
Andy Capp – Pubs must have had a seniority system based on hours spent in the establishment, which entitled the most frequent customers to benefits. In the strict class structure of the UK, it’s the only status Andy is eligible to have over the other mere-drunks who spend most of their days on other fruitless pursuits like productive, but low-paid, labor.
Hagar the Horrible – Somewhere, in the Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC archives, is an unpublished strip where the Swedish Vikings, having acclimated to spice and seasoned food, prank Hagar and crew with extremely spicy hot wings to test their manliness.
Hi and Lois – Hi is holding the line on the 1950s-era expectations for men’s participation in household labor against a recent jump in men pulling their weight at home. The syndicate has read the current socio-political climate and this strip is pivoting. Perhaps they will introduce a trad-wife neighbor, whose husband will start talking about the dangers of seed oil, and hawking a snake-oil supplement for low-T.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver: In the We Can Dream category, I’d love an interlude in the DNA drama with Mud – a la Richard Dreyfuss to Danny DeVito in Tin Men – calling Truck and saying, “This is the ultimate fuck you. I just porked your fiancé.”
Actually, the Vikings did travel south landing in Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada) quite possibly the first people to set foot on North American soil before the Pilgrims roughly around a thousand years ago.
“…back when alcohol could only be served at pubs from 11:30 am to 3 pm and 6:30 pm to 11 pm.”
As my fellow WNY ex-pat Josh can attest, this just sounds so alien. People in Buffalo don’t even *go out* until 11:00 pm. And the bars are open till the wee hours of the morning. It’s a holdover from the old heavy manufacturing days, for the second shift workers, who tended to be younger and more single, and it’s lingered on as a tradition.
@The Rambling Otter: Can you qualify that statement a bit? Do you mean the first European people?
@Guillermo el Chiclero (yesterday) “Bela Lugosi’s lawyer son successfully sued Universal Studios for selling his father’s likeness to use for the Dracula model. Apparently a clause in Lugosi’s old contract from the 1930s gave him perpetual control over use of his likeness for commercial purposes other than promoting his movies and the studio execs didn’t know. After settling they used a generic vampire face for the model.”
I thought making action figures “was” to promote movies.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Sure, I mean, I’m 1/4 Native American so I can’t leave them out.
But yeah. Vikings were the first recorded Europeans to reach North America.
FC: An angry Billy starts to pull down his trunks. “Hump my leg, will ya.”
Hi and Lois-Got to love these comic strips where the wife also works but the household is depended completely upon the husband’s paycheck.
Slylock Fox-Slylock fired a Max at Cassandra.
RMMD-“What is this? This is an ancestry DNA results.”
MW-And cue the unnecessary flashback.
Luann: So last week *wasn’t* the ‘I’m on vacation, so we’re keeping things as simple as possible’ arc? Coulda fooled me.
JP: ‘Your’ business? Last I checked, we didn’t even know you existed before now, milk mustache. Pavel was the one who built the criminal empire and his storyline involved car crashes, explosions and a freakin’ BEAR. You’re enjoying a cappuccino in Norway with a woman who is clearly about gouge out your eyeballs with the sugar spoon. Can the attempt at Bondian menace. You can’t pull it off.
JP: I’d say the artists learned everything they know about spies from bad movies, but I’m pretty sure even those would put the “talk openly about nefarious plans” scene in a secluded corner of a cafe, not with their chairs abutting multiple witnesses
Hi and Lois – Hi, don’t bother Lois with your pathetic nonsense right now. The black turtleneck means she’s on her way out the door to read beatnik poetry at some bohemian nightclub. She has a life outside this family, you know!
@CanuckDownSouth: Yeah, when I watch J.A.G, one character Clayton Webb is a Agent/Spy for the C.I.A
One episode had the J.A.G crew go to Australia and Bud sees Webb with some unknown woman walking and talking.
Bud yells out “Hey! Mr. Webb!!” (Who understandably ignores him)
I always cringe at that scene, because even though nothing comes of it, it is very very STUPID because he could have blown his cover.
@Guts Dozier: We can always use more Guts.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I’ve been rehearsing for a new gig that I’m uniquely suited for”
“A really good movie role?”
“No.”
“A mannequin in a department store window!”
[Signs: JUAN S. PERFIL; EXCLUSIVE LINE OF SUITS, COATS, CRAVATS]
Opening the “when do we get the payoff in RMMD” pool. Tomorrow pays best because it seems highly unlikely, and working out how they’ll drag out opening the envelope, the surprised expressions, the meaningless exclamations…. I have “Friday” and “sometime in October as my spots. (Mud is definitely the dad, right?}
Ha ha! It’s funny because he’s got debilitating alcoholism!
MW – “Yes, she is the girl whom I saved…hold on. I should use ‘who’ since ‘the girl’ is the predicate nominative in the sentence…I think. Damn you, Jeff! Why couldn’t you have just said ‘that girl you saved’ like normal people!
@Bob Tice:
No, because they have ears on both sides of their heads.
How tall is Hi? I’m trying to decide if he’s slouching to fit into the frame with his much shorter wife, or slumped over to make him look like a loser.
Eh, why not both?
MW: Mary and Dr. Jeff’s relationship has all the intimacy and emotion of a stranger asking for the time.
@Anonymous: Good observation on Luann. Seems likely.
H&L: “What I’m say
Come on, Andy Capp, red rose, white rose, or Tudor rose? Does Andy exist in our timeline of Henry Tudor, or a world in which Edward of Westminster conquered at Tewkesbury or, perhaps most intriguingly, a world in which Richard III found a horse as Bosworth and went on to found a dynasty? I mean, I know Andy doesn’t care who’s king if the beer keeps flowing, but the rest of us have questions.
JP: so if it doesn’t matter – just kill her already! Sheesh- this is just one more reason why cartoon bad guys are cartoonish.
MW: Jeff is so happy that MW is leaving him for a while he is eating and drinking rapidly in celebration l.
DT: first the morgue team is calling and now the IBEW are calling DT directly. They should just install a phone or a giant light signal.
Bizarro: Will kids get this joke?
@Little Blue Bicycle: “What I’m saying is that I get no respect in this house at all and it needs to change or I’m leaving with Thel Keane for Mexico.”
@The Rambling Otter: @CanuckDownSouth:
Also, ironically I just remembered which ties into what you had said.
In that same episode, while in Australia, the lawyers were at a outdoor cafe discussing the case with each-other, THEN it turns out the waitress who was serving them, through sheer coincidence was the wife of the man who was on trial. So yeah, oops!
H&L: Lois pulls up her shirt and asks Hi if he wants continued access. He meekly erases what he wrote.
Sly lock fox: (1) landing the sub on top of the jewelry is possible. But then Cassandra goes medieval on the sub and a mini Oceangate later she has the jewelry. (2) why did Slylock pick a sub that can’t pick up anything and he can’t exit during the dive when it is suit was
GT: “Swoon” in a speech bubble is what we get for grousing about “Catch” sound effects on the baseball diamond.
Beetle Bailey is to be given some credit for knowing these equations, considering the median studiousness of Camp Swampy’s enlisted.
BG&SS Snuffy Smith won second place in a beauty contest fair and square,, and there’s no way he’s wasting that, or the $10, on a bribe.
HtH: Hagar is a little too excited about cannibalizing cooks and scullery maids.
HnL: Why does Hi need to be reminded about those things? Oh…
An angry Billy is the best Billy.
Hagär the Horrible: Well, one clue to Hagar’s location is his shield. He’ll need that less for defense against clubs and arrows than pushing the peasant rabble out of his way. That castle has a Buffalo Wild Wings all-you-can-eat wings bar, is what I’m saying.
Luann: To be fair to the Evanses, if they’re pivoting to Luann at a summer camp, they’re going to have to
work hardfigure out how to repurpose existing art to generate their clip art collection.CS: “Also, for some reason, they give it to me by throwing it through my studio window. It was very whimsical.”
9CL: Or estate planning. It’s difficult to tell with these two.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Just realizing, after 57 years on God’s splendid earth, that it was the Vikings who built the castles, rather than attack them. Are Hagar and his crew opponents of Norse expansion into France, Italy and Sicily, and all their delicious, delicious Chicken recipes?
Pluggers are boring jackasses. Who knew?
@pugfuggly: Apparently Andy Capp lives in northeast England. He would be closer to the Scottish border than to London.
MW: Jeff needs to get to know that busty, recently divorced head nurse in Mary’s absence.
Luann: Luann’s summer camp adventure will be happening off screen.
MW: “By the way, this hex nut ravioli is great.”
FC: “OK, you grab one end, and I’ll grab the other. Let’s see if we can stretch him out even more!”
Dustin: The twist is that Dustin’s candor will get him the job. I just can’t quite figure out what job would synergize with that particular trait.
Hagar The Horrible: The only way this joke really makes sense is if you presume that Hagar is a cannibal and “hot wings” is his slang for people burned alive by fire.
MW: As a graduate of the Miss Manners School of Etiquette, Mary knows you always pair the wine with your guest’s attire, in case of spills.
Pluggers: Apparently, you’re a Plugger if others want to interact with you as little as possible.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: My money’s still on Roots Country Guy somehow *not* being the dad after all this. I would love the audacity of it. I know it’s a long shot bet, but I’m lettin’ it ride.
Andy Capp-Andy’s got the DTs bad.
Luann: Earlier I speculated that the resolution of Luann’s summer camp/Weenie World dilemma would rest on whatever Greg Evans could spend less time drawing. Kudos to the old pro for out-clevering me with the clip show solution.
H&L: Hi has been spending time in the manosphere, I see.
HtH: Hagar knows that in this era of wood and thatch, the kitchen will be built separate from the main castle for this exact reason, and also that he needs to hurry if he wants to pillage the food stores before they’re consumed by flame.
GT: I know I’m at a disadvantage because I rarely look at this strip due to the herky-jerky art and incomprehensible narratives, plus I’m long past the high-school demographic the strip presumably targets, but I’ve got to know…who is the beautiful blonde Keri is enamored with??? I know it isn’t her horse therapist (i.e. a *human* therapist who specializes in equine therapy, not *a therapist that’s a horse*).
@Guts Dozier: #15
Now that you’ve mentioned it twice, I can’t stop staring at the weird bulb-like thing protruding from Hi’s face like Rudolph’s red nose. =:0
Luann-This week’s comics would have been submitted by Little Billy Age 7 but he charges too much.
love is… proposing to your AI chatbot.
C’shaft: “They must have forgot to give it to me during class, because they threw it through my living room window.”
DT: I dunno, Dick seems like the type who would side with the futuristic union busters…
Dustin: “Look, you’re offering part-time with no benefits and are already trying to figure out a way to use AI to make the position redundant. I’m just saying, you’re not offering a whole lot of incentive here.”
JP: “Sorry, I’m still trying to figure out who you are and how we know each other…”
MW: We’re on what, the second or third week of Mary getting ready for this trip? This is making the paternity test plot in Rex Morgan look like a taut thriller.
Pluggers are a bore to everyone around them.
@Daisy: I think it’s Dorothy, the former mean girl bully who was at some point assimilated into the “assorted teen protagonists” roster.
Slylick Fox and Comix For Kinx: Solution (printed upside down). Sly fired the sub’s phasers at Cassandra, entrusting Max to set them on stun. R.I.P. Cassandra Cat,now a bunch of ashes drifting around the ocean.
@TheDiva: #71
Thanks! Even knowing that, I’m sure I will still get lost in the ensuing storyline, but at least I can match a name to a face.
AC: Back in the 70s, an Australian friend told me that the government had restricted alcohol service at pubs to just a couple of hours in the late afternoon/early evening in an effort to reduce drunkeness.
It had the opposite effect.
Guys would wander in after work and power-drink. Get aggressive when service was not fast enough and start fights.
Barney Googled and Snuffed Out Smith: Oh, dear, The Michelin Man is in jail!
@taig:
He could take over the job of that woman who runs the temp employment agency, who’s always telling Dustin how worthless he is.
GT: I must have lost track of the story, but I thought that Horse Girl Britney was also a wrestler for another school? Why a yearbook signing party?
CS: This damned Batton Thomas interview is like watching a communist country build bigger and bigger monuments to itself. When a narrative is relentless enough, it eventually becomes inadequate to point out the logical flaws of it. Because it’s already answered your objections by doubling down on itself, again and again. The only question left is “how big is this going to get?” The massive scope of it is the only thing worth talking about.
HtH: “Hagar’s Norse compatriots haven’t gone far enough south of Greenland to discover genus Capsicum,”
And ten centuries later the Norwegians still haven’t discovered it.
@Give to live: @Bob Tice: It’s crazy how comics art gets less and less realistic.
__________________________________________________________
Just calm down and step away from the “Six Chix”!
Happy Bastille Day, but we all knew that.
Happy National Mac & Cheese Day, courtesy of Yahoo News.
CURTIS: Burger and fries smoothie? Your GI so stem makes one after each of your trips to Burger Barn
JP: does April know any quiet ways of killing a man who threatens her family other than the typical neck snap?
RMMD: this cheap test gives a false negative, but hope has been stirred so Truck and Corey pretend it’s positive. As in MW.
CS: I’ll wager that autographed Bruce Timm cel on his wall is worth more than Batton Thomas’s entire studio.
So does “late-era” mean that the Hi and Lois strip will someday crumble into dust right off the
newspaper pageelectronic screen, instead of limping along for decades more with other creative teams?@Hibbleton: MW: Dr Jeff eats a single round cheerio with a shrimp fork.
____________________________________
Its an ad for new Mary Worth Meddle-Os™ cereal! Free Willburp Weston mayo pack in specially marked boxes!
Mary Worth – Oh, good grief. At least a week of Mary talking about visiting Tummy Brain. When did Terry Beatty start writing this?
Rex Morgan – How long can Beatty drag out hearing the results of a DNA test that only Truck and his maybe or maybe not son care about? This suspense could be marketed as a sleep aid.
Crankshaft – Gaaah! No! Not this again!
So much to hate. I loathe Skip on general principles, but his pinned up sleeve just adds points. I guess that’s in case anyone has forgotten that he is missing an arm. And then there’s Batiuk’s smarmy avatar. He looks so self satisfied with his WTF story about the rock that I know that Batty just basked in self regard when he wrote this. He’s still patting himself on the back.
Frazz – No smug superiority today, so Frazz will have to double up on it tomorrow if he hopes to meet his quota.
@Weaselboy: Mary and Jeff could spend the next week diagramming that sentence to figure out whether to use the subjective or objective pronoun. It’s either that or talking about what a wonderful person Mary is.
@Treetown: Re Bizarro – I was disappointed that they were wearing sweaters with their initials. The Chipmunks movie wasn’t that long ago, so I would think that kids would recognize Simon. However, you’re right that kids won’t get it.
I’m ancient, so I got a chuckle out of it.
@Somebody Somewhere All At Once: That’s what pluggers do, too.
@Peanut Gallery: Excellent choice!
@I speak Jive: RMMD: The test can come back inconclusive, thus requiring Rex’s dubious involvement in his own strip.
The Familliar Mucus: “Have you ever truly appreciated the classic design of the canine butt,Jeffy? If you’re gonna take over for Daddy, you have to learn how to find beauty in all things, even Dolly.”
@The Rambling Otter: #25: In the case of the Universal classic monsters the films were long past any box office potential. The plastic models were just icing on the cake for the studio. After WW2 horror movies had gone away from the classic monsters based on old European superstitions (vampires, werewolves, etc) to menaces more befitting the Atomic Age (radioactive mutants, invading space aliens, etc). In the late 50s Universal released all of their classic monster films for television. It touched off a monster craze fad that lasted well into the 60s. Kind of like how the James Bond films set off the 60s spy craze. Suddenly traditional Gothic horror themes became popular again, with Hammer Studios in England remaking all the Universal classics and Roger Corman of AIP going away from teenage drive-in flicks to his Edgar Allen Poe based films with Vincent Price. Selling the rights to use their classic monsters in model kits was just Universal’s way of cashing in on a fad.
@The Rambling Otter: #26:
“Vikings were the first recorded Europeans to reach North America”
Don’t got to an Irish pub and say that. They’ll quickly pull St. Brendan out of their asses and beat you over the head with it.
Crankshaft-“I keep the rock as a reminder of how my students tried to stone me.”
Crankshaft-“This is the second stone. I threw the first one.”
CS: But where’s Crankshaft?
DT: Gee, I always thought DEA stood for Drug Enforcement Agency.
@taig:
Biz lady: “You must think we’re so desperate we’ll hire anyone.”
Dustin: “You will apparently interview anyone. I’m just drawing a logical conclusion.”
Luann: I would love to see next Monday’s strip have Luann reading an e-mail that says, “Dear Ms. DeGroot: Thank you for applying to be a counselor at our camp. We will keep your application on file for the summer 2026 sessions, for which we will conduct interviews in April. I assume that your request to be a counselor in 2025 was a typo, since we didn’t receive your e-mail until two weeks after camp began this year.”
Between Friends: Wow.
Blonde Friend should do more silhouette scenes.
Crankshaft ”I needed a paperweight, and it was free.”
“Fascinating!”
Luann: Looks too much like “Pad ‘n’ Period.” Boys won’t read it.
GA: Every day the characters find new ways to get dumber.
@Daisy: Match a name to a face in Gil Thorp? Have you seen the artwork lately?!
@ValdVin: Heh.
I also realized Dustin didn’t even change his
clip artclothes for this interview.@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I think you’re right. It didn’t occur to me that the test would be inconclusive, but that would bring Rex into the story. He can draw their blood (medical issue!), lecture them about seeing a medical professional instead of an unknown third party, and then recite word for word whatever Beatty found on Wikipedia about DNA tests.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I think you’re right. It didn’t occur to me that the test would be inconclusive, but that would bring Rex into the story. He can draw their blood (medical issue!), lecture them about seeing a medical professional instead of an unknown third party, and then recite word for word whatever Beatty found on Wikipedia about DNA tests.
Sorry for the double post. My Kindle constantly loses my internet connection for a brief time, and it happened while I was trying to post. I didn’t realize that my first attempt worked. Time to get a new tablet.
Lockhorns – That’s what you get for trying to drive to the Lost Continent of Stellantis.
Dustin:: here are two changes I would like to see in the comics. 1. Today’s installment is ridiculous. I really think Dustin needs to start caring about life. Maybe he he needs psychological care. I think he could start caring about a job. I think he could get a girlfriend. And I think adjusting to those changes could be funny. 2. Jeff needs to kick Mary to the curb. That would refresh this strip.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: If you told me Batton Thomas had an autographed Bruce Timm on his wall, I would have suspected Freakazoid.
JP: “Listen, who would it be more fun to kill — me, or two college girls working for a charity foundation?”
”Oh, socially conscious college girls for sure.”
”I’ve got a deal for you….”
FG: Considering King Barin usually loses fights, Dale was smart to call for his dog.
@Professor Well Actually: Dustin’s complete indifference to his own life is hard to process. If he doesn’t want to work, fine, but he should want *something*, even if it’s just to get high and play video games. He’s as lazy about being lazy as he is about everything else. It’s like he’s got some kind of extreme sociopathy/anhedeonia state. For all the abuse his family gives him, they seem to be under-diagnosing. This is supposed to be a humorous world, but it looks more like the childhood of a serial killer before he snapped. (SEE ALSO: Napoleon Dynamite).
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Are you saying that St. Brendan’s Fair Isle was really Cape Cod…?
@I speak Jive:
#86 MW: that’s at least three of us who started mentally diagraming that sentence.
Let’s see, if a phrase is used as the object of a preposition, is the case of the subject of that phrase (maybe it’s a clause) nominative or objective?
AC, meta: I realise it’s a massive cheek to suggest the guy whose website we’re on is stealing my bit, especially since I haven’t actually read Andy Capp since I noped out of the “improved” GoComics, but… Then again, I steal Josh’s “historical analysis of Hägar” bit all the time, so fair enough. And yes, that is the historical context in which this strip makes any sense.
Crank: Seriously, is the Sentinel serialising this nonsense? Or is the editor saying “Skip, you told me you had an interview with Batton Thomas, and I’ve been waiting for your copy for months! He can’t still be rambling about how he’s met other, better-known cartoonists, surely?”
…Oh, wait, Skip is the editor, isn’t he? Yeah, that explains a lot.
DT: Why does everyone in Neo-Chicago act like asking Dick to investigate a crime must be a huge imposition? It’s his job! He’s not very good at it, but it’s his job!
JP: “You must have known what was coming, Parker … but you can’t possibly have planned for it. I lured you into this trap as easily as my … father, maybe? … Pavel did, shortly before some very complicated and not entirely coherent stuff happened that ended with him dead! But what are the chances of something like that happening again?”
MW: “Gosh, you’ve taken so many trips to New York! We should call you ‘Big Apple Mary’!”
“Jeff, you even think about saying that again and I’ll cut you. And the syndicate will back me on that.”
RMMD: “And you haven’t looked at them yet?”
“No, I thought we should drag this out for another week.”
In their defense, however, Pad ‘n’ Period fits Cunther completely.
@Joshua K.:Yep, specifically Hartlepool in County Durham.
There are two things I know about Hartlepool. 1) During the Naopleonic Wars, the good people of the town decided a monkey was a French spy, and hanged it, thereby becoming a byword for idiocy in neighbouring towns. 2) The mascot of Hartlepool F.C. is H’Angus the Monkey, because why would you be ashamed of a story like that?
@Daisy:
Now that you’ve mentioned it twice,…translation: stop mentioning it
@I speak Jive: At first I thought that this was going to be about that rock that Jeff found when he was hallucinating that he was in “Radio Ranch” meeting Queen Tika.
So I’m a little relieved that this isn’t the case but still disgusted by the comic all the same.
@Horace Broon: DT: Like in N.C.I.S when Gibbs (briefly) retired, as no-one could even tie their own shoes together without his help, constantly begging him to come back and help with their cases/predicaments.
Slylock: That submersible appears to be built better then the billionaire toy that made the news recently.
@I speak Jive: Yeah, my tablet is so old, many apps aren’t compatible, it’s starting to charge slower and the screen keeps flickering.
But I just can’t be bothered to get a new one.
@GarrisonSkunk:
Why is Max yelling Exclamation point
Car need tires. Time to get a new one
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Was that recorded in. Irish history?
GA; are the Clovia and Slim of today’s strip the same people as in yesterday’s strip, or are they the children?
PHANTOM FANS: Crossover today in Mandrake
@I speak Jive: If I am right, that’s another 2 weeks of strips right there!
@Yes, that Richard Simmons: #112
LOL!! Aw, that really wasn’t what I meant!! *grin*
@The Rambling Otter: #116
Or try a new piece of chalk!
*aw, that was bad…I’m sorry!!!*
@CanuckDownSouth: #98
Hmmm…good point…*very* good point…
@Daisy: I’m sure. I was just kidding around ;)
@Activist: I thought that the case would be nominative, since the pronoun is the subject of the phrase. I think that takes precedence over the phrase being the object of a preposition. However, I’m not sure.
Do schools today teach diagramming of sentences? I remember doing those diagrams in homework assignments.
@The Rambling Otter: My tablet has a number of issues along with the internet connection one. The charge runs out quickly, and it freezes up a lot. I have to restart it a lot.
I forgot about the rock that Jeff found in that Radio Ranch hallucination.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Two weeks!? At least another month.
I looked it up:
June 18: Cody tells Truck he has DNA test kits.
June 19: If they want something to stand up in court, they should see a doctor. (Foreshadowing!) However, for their purposes, the tests Cody has are okay. But Truck knows a doctor. (More foreshadowing!)
June 22: Cody mails the DNA tests.
July 11: Cody tells Truck that the lab got the tests, and he should have the results tomorrow.
Today is July14. I’ll be surprised if they look at the results before Saturday. Then they have to talk about bringing Rex in, and then do the blood work, then wait for the results, then talk about it while they wait for Rex to make an appointment…
Dustin: I apologize for droning on about this but Dustin clearly has a problem and his parents have never actually tried to help him. All they ever do is snarc at him, which does not seem to be helpful.
@Professor Well Actually: You are assuming that they want to help. They don’t, they just want to be horrible people doing horrible things, because the creators of this strip think that’s a substitute for writing an actual joke.
I checked HAGAR THE HORRIBLE’S VERY NEARLY COMPLETE VIKING HANDBOOK (a classic, complete with a guide to most sackable cities in Europe) and Dik Browne himself specifies that Hagar is Norwegian, “the delightfully normal Vikings devoted to lutefish and their families.”
“Swedes are reserved, Danes are outgoing, Norwegians are just right.”
Last night I was streaming a show about Chimpanzees.
Then I learn that today is “World Chimpanzee Day”
Daaaaaw! How serendipitous! :3
Did one or more of the Hi and Lois creative team get divorced recently, today’s strip has big “Your Honor, I would like to read a statement” energy
Not shown: the chronic diarrhea, heartburn, and alcohol-withdrawal heaves a guy who drinks as much as Andy would have by now. My point? Andy needs that pub toilet RIGHT NOW.
I like to think I’ve lodged myself securely in the “I hate Frazz” realm, but I read it because I apparently hate myself. What the Hell does today’s even mean? Did she crap herself, or what? For yesterday’s, uh, kid, you ever been to a public pool? Having your own pool is, well, way better. Welcome to the suck.
God, I hate Frazz
HtH: I know this strip sometimes likes to ditch whatever verisimilitude it might have and show flying dragons as part of the action, which raises some interesting questions about where these hot wings come from and what’s cooking them.
When Vintage Mark Trail ends a story, guess what he wants?
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
verisimilitude…nice
When the Man Bat uses the can, interesting sounds come out.
Even the flies like it.
(For some reason the mod bot wouldn’t let me use B@tman.)
I was not able to access this blog for about 24 hours from mid afternoon yesterday until mid afternoon today.
Just curious, did anyone else have that problem?
@I speak Jive:
#126. Wow, diagraming in 7th grade turned out to be useful! As did memorizing the list of prepositions. Three cheers for small Iowa schools. Oops, guess that was Poteet. Your school was good too.
@Sequitur: No, haven’t had any problems.
@140 Rube:
Interesting. I had no problems going anywhere else on the internet. Only this site was unavailable.
@I speak Jive:
#126. Wow, diagraming in 7th grade turned out to be useful! As did memorizing the list of prepositions. Three cheers for small Iowa schools. Oops, guess that was Poteet. Your school was good too.
@I speak Jive:
#126. Wow, diagraming in 7th grade turned out to be useful! As did memorizing the list of prepositions. Three cheers for small Iowa schools. Oops, guess that was Poteet. Your school was good too.
I didn’t make any sweet treats today, but I did make homemade coleslaw from scratch. Grated all of the veggies myself.
It was so refreshing!
9CL: Yeah, we got it, Brooke. You don’t need to zoom in on their crotches.
C-Shaft: “Today’s work will be done tomorrow”? So his students thought he was going to miss a lot of deadlines? He should have just said he got it trick-or-treating.
DtM: There’s an episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone where a young woman is creeped out by all her father’s robot servants, and eventually figures out that she is herself a robot. So Dennis has just started to notice stuff, methinks.
DT: Without the caption in the first panel it would look like Dick is making payoffs to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Which he is, but only for tips on upcoming seized asset auctions.
Dustin: Not sure this scene merits a break in the 180-degree rule, Hitch.
MW: That’s right. Maybe Mary will get the chance to push her out of the way of a falling piano this time. Worth hoping for, anyway.
Phantom: How can he tell from this distance that the houses have been commandeered by rebel gunmen? Is he really that good or did he read ahead in the script?
RMMD: “And hey, could we wait for Maury Povich to get here too? We want to do this thing right.”
Oops, sorry for double posting. I press Post once and then if I dont see it appear in 30 seconds press Post again.
@Sequitur: Did you spell the url correctly?
@The Rambling Otter: Nicely done!
@146 Activist:
*Maxwell Smart voice*
“The old router hiccup trick!”
@257 taig:
Everything is bookmarked. I checked them and they’re okay. In fact I got a “can’t connect to joshreads.com” message on the screen.
I tried connecting on all my devices (five of them) and also my wife’s computer and got the same result with all of them.
@Sequitur: That is really odd. I only ask because josereads.com gives a similar error.
@150 Sequitur:
Uh, that should be @147 taig:
@Sequitur: I can only speak for myself. No.
@151 taig:
José’s not here.
@Activist: The dictionary definition of deliberate
JP: April deserves this. Sophie deserves this. And for hanging around with Sophie for so long for no good reason, Reena, I’m afraid YOU deserve this. What I don’t understand, however, is why Norway deserves this. Especially rural Norway.
@Sequitur:
No! I’M José. Open up I got the stuff, man.
@The Rambling Otter:
A fine entry, it’s one of the great sides, I think. Do you go tangy, with horseradish, or sweet, with pineapple bits? Both terrific!
@Activist: Thank you! I grew up in the Detroit metro, actually, so I went to a school overcrowded with wee Boomers. But we did get some good teaching. And after what I’ve seen in the past several months, in newspapers and online, reading an actual grammar discussion brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for caring! *sniff*
“Somewhere in Time”. A top 5 in my opinion. Behind The Number of the Beast, Powerslave, Killers and Piece of Mind.
@JeffMcm: Maybe. If so, I miss the days when the thing to do would be write a country song about it.
@Weaselboy: @I speak Jive: Thank you for your shares of this grammar discussion, oh, modified rapture.
MT: It’s so nice to see MT Foreground Fauna these days, to add some sanity to the stories. I suppose Sid is off somewhere enjoying a summer vacation, and more power to him, but if this Pileated Woodpecker is his client, very nice work! The PW needs a little white below his neckline, but that’s the colorists’ responsibility, and the acting is great.
@Dave: Bwahaha!
@A Grave Mind: I grate some cabbage, some carrot, some onion and some celery, add a little bit of tangy mayonnaise (Miracle Whip)
Although it’s honestly hard to measure the stuff correctly, I added a teeny bit more mayonnaise than I should.
@Sequitur: I had that issue with Reddit a few weeks ago.
I don’t exactly remember what I did to fix it. I think I had disconnected and reconnected my wi-fi.
@The Rambling Otter: Still tasted good though, tasted SO refreshing!
@Eddie:
Would bump Killers for Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, and Powerslave would be 1, but, well, a brilliant list
@A Grave Mind: 2 thru 5 can be swapped around depending on my mood but #1will always be NotB. This is just my opinion. Results may vary for anyone else.
@A Grave Mind: Happy to make your acquaintance BTW.
@Eddie:
Likewise. And NotB is #2 at worst. Maiden rules!
@A Grave Mind:
Up the Irons!
Six Chix: Who still has metal trash cans?
@Tom T.: Metal fans
@taig:
\m/
@Astroboy: @Tom T.: Six Chix: Who still has metal trash cans?
________________________________
Horton’s been complaining about the racket.
@Sequitur: José’s not here.
___________
……I can see!
Late Thread Cuisine: Is that…that…an…an oyster on that chicken sandwich? I’m not even going to guess at what’s on the other sarny.
Luann: “A crime-fighting pad of paper and a ball-point pen.” Surprisingly these aren’t the stupidest superheroes I’ve heard of [cough]Arm Fall-Off Boy[cough].
@Baja Gaijin: Meanwhile, here in the US, we’ve got the Double Down.
Figured out what the emotional arc of Andy Capp reminds me of: The Garfield strip where Garfield throws his teddy bear Pooky away as Jon walks by and then rushes to make sure Pooky’s OK. Which also reminds me that, though they are surprisingly similar in many ways, there’s a reason I have pet cats and not pet drunken abusive English layabouts.
@Baja Gaijin: I can’t say that either sarny would be my first choice for dinner. But compared to what you’ve found to show us for the past few nights, these sandwiches are things of beauty and (sort of) joys forever. Thank you for the surprise. I’m gonna keep clicking on your special menus.
Hey, if you want to see strange, Google “Hi And Lois comic strip Job Jar”.
/No, it isn’t a sex thing.
//Nor a “Rick roll”.
///Twa
NGL…I had to Google “sarny” and that didn’t help.
@Tony Collett: Hi patting the couch while blushing?
@Baja Gaijin: artistically huge glob of mayo would be my guess?
@182 Poteet: Yes, these aren’t the horrors of the past few threads. In retrospect, I should have Photoshopped Crazy Mary Eyes onto the sandwiches.
@184 Nobody: “Sarny” is an English term for “sandwich.” With all the talk about Andy Capp, I figured it would be a good word to toss into this thread.
@186 CanuckDownSouth: The smooth-looking blob on the left sandwich is a mayo-like substance that includes diced green onion. The chunky-looking blob on the right sandwich is close to tartar sauce.
@Baja Gaijin: I just read a press release that KFC is going to do something about it’s 18th place finish in the US Chicken Sandwich market. Let’s hope that this isn’t what they came up with.
Seriously, though, KFC is very popular in Asia for some reason.