Hither and yon (mostly yon)
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Mary Worth, 8/14/25
Never one for subtlety, Mary Worth foreshadows by planting an actual red flag.
Mark Trail, 8/14/25
That gator is really excited at the prospect of a new pond! Meanwhile, Mark shoves a bush aside to clear the gator’s path. Not quite Fists of Justice™ territory, but at least macho-heroics-adjacent.
Zits, 8/14/25
There is no evidence that sulfurous smells repel bears, and Jeremy scrupulously avoids contact with ammonia, bleach, and other cleaning agents that do. Sorry, Hector, that tent is looking flimsier by the moment.
Family Circus, 8/14/25
Jeff Keane’s tax auditor, probably: “Mr. Keane, the IRS is known for its generosity in granting tax exemptions for creative professionals such as yourself, but are you really going to go with ‘How can I draw the Golden Gate Bridge without taking my family to San Francisco for a week?’ Frankly, I’m still getting grief about that Crankshaft determination.”
Gearhead Gertie, 8/14/25
“You mean that movie starring a charismatic and attractive male lead in a high-stakes drama with a ‘rookie vs. veteran’ dynamic that depicts a growing bond between former rivals, with authentic racing sequences, behind-the-scenes explorations of racing culture, and an iconic romantic interlude, led by a director associated with the Top Gun series? Sure, here’s a ticket to F1: The Movie!”
Gertie turns it down because the cars look different. Stupid Genie.
—Uncle Lumpy
190 replies to “Hither and yon (mostly yon)”
MW:
Red flag at morning
Meddlers take warning
— old nautical saw
FC:
Another day, another insightful Marie Sklodowska Curie-like query from Dolly Keane.
Gearhead Gertie:
I’d launch into the song “I Dream of Genie with the Light Brown Hair,” but his turban obscures his actual hair color.
The iconic genie being blue, was definitely a Disney decision.
Disney will “definitely not” be bashing down Mike Smith’s door and definitely not slapping him with copyright lawsuit.
RMMD-The artist has a limited template to work with.
MW-“Oh goody. I’ve always wanted to watch someone drown.”
FC-“We haven’t seen Daddy since he ran on off with those clowns who smelled funny.”
FC-Why did PJ run off with those giant scissors?
I understand Talladega Nights is very popular with NASCAR enthusiasts, who say they’re in on the joke. Gertie is such a purist, I wonder if her hobby even gives her any joy.
Mary’s Worst: A red flag means Biddy on the Beach – everyone immediately into the water!
Gearhead Gertie: in a rare act of non NASCAR thinking GG wishes the Genie to grant himself a pair of elbows for his Gumby arms.
MW:
Oh, when the fun leaves town and churns the scars upon the goofs
And your schmooze sets no plot; you wish your tired bleats were wryer spoofs
Unmoor the bored talk down by the sea-ea-ea-ea, yeah
On a blanket, with my fey teen is where I’ll be
Unmoor the bored walk, out of the fun
Unmoor the bored walk, we’ll be crabbing a ton
Unmoor the bored talk, wee proles squawking in snubs
Unmoor the bored talk, we’ll be bawling in glubs
Unmoor the bored talk, bored talk
From the snark, you’ll hear the yappy sounds of the pair of pals
Hmm, you can almost face the wrought slogs and the drenched cries they yell
Unmoor the bored talk down by the sea-ea-ea-ea, yeah
On a blanket, with my fey teen is where I’ll be
Unmoor the bored talk, out of the fun
Unmoor the bored talk, we’ll be crabbing a ton
Unmoor the bored talk, wee proles squawking in snubs
Unmoor the bored talk, we’ll be bawling in glubs
Unmoor the bored talk, bored talk
[bridge]
Unmoor the bored talk down by the sea-ea-ea-ea, yeah
On a blanket, with my fey teen is where I’ll be
Unmoor the bored talk, out of the fun
Unmoor the bored talk, we’ll be crabbing a ton
Unmoor the bored talk, wee proles squawking in snubs
Unmoor the bored talk, we’ll be bawling in glubs
Unmoor the bored talk, bored talk
MW: my tummy brain is telling me where this story is going.
MW: Chekov’s red flag warning.
Shouldn’t Gertie consider Days Of Thunder to basically be the Jeff Gordon story, thus anathema? And how glad will that genie be, getting sent back to his lamp?
If the forest creatures kill Jeremy and his friends (well, just Jeremy, really), do we have to fake not being happy? Does anyone?
MW: Oh, that. We’re in the commie lifeguard section.
Mark Trail:
Shooter McGavin and Happy Gilmore reprise their unholy association in newsprint in today’s installment.
FC- covering his bets that his rendering of the Golden Gate Bridge won’t be recognized, Jeff Keane has Jeffy hold a San Francisco banner.
@A Grave Mind:
#12. ZITS: since Sid has gone AWOL, his animal clients have indeed fallen on hard times. Thankfully this gig is in such bad taste it’ll be forgotten by noon.
DOONESBURY: Repeat of possible marriage arc.
FRAZZ: Aha, this s arc is in such good taste Mrs. Olson will continue training.
MANDRAKE: Yesterday we discussed bullies even as Narda and May encountered two. Today see how Narda de-escalates.
BETTY: Sure hope Susan checked out this “company” before giving them personal info. It’s starting to sound too good to be anything but a scam.
GG: You have to admire the tenacity with which the Gearhead Gertie writer keeps coming up with racing-related ideas. Not that there’s much else to admire about it — I was careful to say “ideas”, not “jokes”…
RMMD: Cody looks at his half sister and then checks his two-word cheat sheet: DAD – MALE.
“The whole family relationship thing is very confusing;” thinks Cody.
MW: Is Mary going to risk her life in the rip current to make Olive look like hero? Bad move; we don’t know just how good Olive IS at swimming, and second, she’s currently shutting out all noise.
RMMD: When you’re talking about guys who answer to “Truck” and “Spuds,” there’s no such thing as a good choice.
ZITS: I’m sure they’re just in the back yard. It’s not like they’d go out of range of chargers and the fridge.
@Activist:
BETTY: Sure hope Susan checked out this “company” before giving them personal info. It’s starting to sound too good to be anything but a scam.
You mean Between Friends, right? Though, yeah, that’s where I think this is going; a Between Friends/The Phantom crossover.
And then Benoît could turn out to be the mastermind behind the entire operation, so Maeve could get skullpunched.FC: Thel finally understands the crisis in suicides from people jumping off the Golden Gate.
“Can’t you kids shut the fuck up for ten minutes;” she thinks.
MW “Either that or it’s a warning to beach goers that someone is blathering nonstop in the vicinity and it might be wise to move down the… heyyyy….”
Zits “…at the first sign of trouble we can all shit ourselves!”
FC I mean, yes? In that it would collapse without them? I think Dollys stupid might be circling back around to… well not smart but not not smart.
MW: red flag = dangerous conditions and people advised not to go into the water, not specifically undertow. Olive’s “power” tells her the specifics, one of the bullies is caught in the undertow – my only question now is Mary vs Olive vs both being involved in the rescue
MW: Well, yesterday we did a little bit of Hiawatha style for Homely Simp Jared. What can we do for our “gifted” child?
Tummy brain child
Delusional and sad
Interrupting special time
Between mommy and dad
The girl would see fairies
And claimed she had second sight
Everyone shook their heads and said
“That kid just ain’t right.”
Then one day she made a friend
An elderly woman named Mary
Only the readers would know
That this was truly scary
For Mary came from California
Santa Royale was her city
Where dysfunctional narcissists lived
And when Giella drew them, they weren’t pretty
Olive and Mary became close
And her parents didn’t mind
Because that meant they could be alone
Away from the daily grind
Mary even became a hero
When Olive was overcome with despair
And flung herself into the pool
Thinking that no one would care
But now six years have passed
And Olive is fourteen
She goes to high school now
Where the girls are so mean
“Weirdo!” they shout
When she roams through the halls
No one wants to be Olive’s friend
She doesn’t get nightly calls
Her parents say it’s tough
Around her, they are wary
But then they decided
“Hey, let’s go get Mary!”
So across the country Mary flew
Her thoughts on her young friend
And how they were such kindred spirits
Creeping everyone out to no end
MW: “See, Olive will rescue the bullies from the undertow and they will love her! Just like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer!”
Narrator: “That’s not how real life works. The bullies will drown themselves rather than be rescued by her.”
Gearhead Gertie: You can’t have three sequels to one movie. You can only have ONE sequel and then have a sequel to that and a sequel to that.
Unless you’re going for an alternate continuity scenario…
GT Is.. is that Ms Frizzle? Maybe not much of a joke, but better that than their Very Special Episode attempts
FC “Actually, pretty much yes – it’s a suspension bridge, the supports hold up the upper “strings” which then hold up the “strings” that go down to the road surface. The strings are very strong cables, just far away. Should I draw the free-body diagram with forces at various points to…” (kids run off screaming before they have to learn something)
@The Rambling Otter:
Wasn’t the genie blue in 1940s “the Thief of Baghdad”? I always thought blue was just a standard genie color (Barbara Eden notwithstanding)
@The Rambling Otter:
Wasn’t the genie blue in 1940s “the Thief of Baghdad”? I always thought blue was just a standard genie color (Barbara Eden notwithstanding)
Mary Worth-Mary regrets not packing Wilbur. This would be a great chance to see if the ocean would take him away this time.
I had a ramble, can’t manage to say it today.
But, I do hope that Sid is okay. I wonder if he just got bored of his own shtick? But at the same time, couldn’t simply tell us that he didn’t want to do that anymore, because he still refused to break character?
Just thinking here.
@Bono Vix: Maybe so, I am most likely wrong.
Why not wish for Dale to return from the dead? Poser.
Mark Trail: I’ve seen people literally wrestle alligators.
I’m not suggesting that Mark punch a cute innocent gator in the face, but punch SOMETHING. Maybe wimpy-Wimperson there. Mark is behind on his quota.
GG — I call BS–there’s no way that Gertie doesn’t ask the genie to raise Dale Earnhardt from the dead.
MT — Mark seems pretty confident that the gator is just “passing through” but how can you tell?
@Rusty: I for one hope that this is an ironic Genie who twists the wishes into something horrible.
-Wishes for Dale Earnhardt to be back from the dead. Gertie ends up in a Zombie Apocalypse.
-Her movie sequel wishes ends up that she gets the sequels but they not only really suck, they also jump to another genre and have nothing to do with racing at all.
The Family Circus: Well, Dolly, each of those “strings,” as you call them, is actually a mega-cable made up of 27,572 thinner cables, any one of which, if it broke, could slice your head clean off. Let’s go in for a closer look!
Mary Worth: Late summer 2025 blockbuster: MARY VS. THE UNDERTOAD
CS: Today’s special guest writer, Woody Wilson.
JP: Psst, Ces… the CIA has a budget of millions, if not billions, of dollars. They can BUY a safehouse wherever they operate and don’t need to rent space like they’re some kind of mom-and-pop startup.
RMMD: Hey, Spuds wasn’t unreliable! He had a lot of responsibility, being in the Men in Black and all.
Mark Trail: I have not been a fan of the Nu-Look strip, but I am 100% tickled by an alligator in love, or lurv, as the kids say. Well done, Jules, well done.
General question for the team: anybody know what’s going on with ArcaMax lately? It’s been very slow and today error messages. Have to go to several sites to keep up.
Wrecks Moregone:
Spuds was a Vulcan?
MW: stupid question here– are mean girls necessarily bullies? Is telling someone you’re not interested in being friends bullying?
MW: Olive definitely knows that someone is going to be drowning (perhaps she will CAUSE it??) and is doing nothing to help. The lesson is going to be that….uhhh…well, obviously it’s going to be about…you know…uhhh….
@The Quiet Man: JP – Yes, and way more low-profile than renting out an entire house in an unusual way, asking the landlady to leave for a bit and hoping the neighbours don’t gossip. Plus they surely have infrastructure already so why not set up April to Do Her Thing in a city where they have long-standing anonymous bases instead of renting something on the fly??
FG: Flash’s current damsel-in-distress is no supermodel rocking Natalie Wood-style curves, but a pear-shaped mechanic. Kudos.
Also, I still REALLY WANT to know what incredible Mondovian tech lets the workers turn those locked helmets along with their heads.
@Professor Well Actually: Is telling someone you’re not interested in being friends bullying?
It is when that someone is the Mary Stu character with whom we’re supposed to sympathize.
It’s like the way we’re supposed to say “Oh, that wacky Wilbur!” when he’s been living with a serial killer who’s been trying to murder his daughter.
CS: why would mounties approach Crankshaft like they want to arrest him when they have good news for him?
Gearhead Gertie: Did the creators get my memo about Gertie’s Earnhardt shirt looking more like official merch? Hate to admit it, but they killed it.
Mark Trail: Thought ballooning an alligator surrounded by little hearts while Mark talks about alligator mating? Utterly unnecessary but kinda funny. That said, the stink lines hovering over the golfers in panel three are my real favorites.
You fool, Gertie! This is how all sequels get greenlit and, just like you, the wishers rarely ever save that last one for “make them good”!
Today’s Dick Tracy Brain Puzzler: Which one is the Butch, and which one is the Femme?
RMMD: “Yeah, roots country drumming doesn’t pay much, so he had a day job as an undertaker.”
Phantom: I like the family group portrait of Worubu and his second, white family.
Ohimigod, it’s another Lu Ann! How many Lu Ann’s can the funny pages contain?
Today’s Six Chix has all the energy of a Stan Kelly cartoon where he is complaining about his neighbors, and it’s my favorite thing on the comics page today.
“They’ve raised the Red Flag! The traditional symbol of Communism but also the sign that no quarter will be given in battle. Rise, comrade, let’s deal with those bullies.”
MT: Unless it doubles as a casino/mall, what is “exciting” about a golf resort?
Some have theorized about the bullies drowning and Olive saving them, but really, I think that’s too “exciting” for Mary Worth. Most likely, Mary will probably just meddle/force them into being Olive’s friend.
MW panel 3: “Look at that, a red flag! New York Commies! Go get em men!”
“Olive wake up! Armed men in masks! It’s ICE!”
“Quick Mary, run!”
“Get the old lady!”
MT: “Look there’s his mate niw
@Professor Well Actually: Be honest, if you were a law enforcement officer, wouldn’t you want to at least imagine you were arresting Crankshaft on general principle?
@CanuckDownSouth: I can’t wait for the exposition dump we’re about to get explaining how April wasn’t in Norway at the behest of the CIA, and basically ruined Leah the NotMurderer’s operation that would have taken down Pavel Jr. quietly and without hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage.
After decades in South California, Mary Worth has no idea about basic beach information. I know exposition is difficult, but Karen Moy is amazingly bad at it.
@Little Blue Bicycle: “Look there’s his mate now.”
“Ggggrrrrrrrrr!!!!” (“Hey baby”, in the gator tongue).
“Wow. Now that’s exciting.”
MW: The cyro-pod opens and Olive emerges from it. ‘How long was I out for?’
‘About 8 years. You haven’t aged a day Captain.’
‘Well that is how these mechanisms work. I had a dream that I was a kid in some weird… sitcom? Soap Opera? Although it kept focusing on the buffoonish antics of some fat jerk and an old lady who controlled everyone under her thumb. Regardless I’m glad that that’s over.’
She goes to her computer and calls up the ship’s A.I
‘Tell the crew to assemble on deck.”
A.I: Yes dear. Would you like a muffin while you wait?
(TO BE CONTINUED)
The Golden Gate Bridge stood empty, the traffic of old just a memory of gridlock, the galvanized steel wires humming tunelessly in the unceasing wind. The mother had brought the children here, the end of a long journey, hoping that maybe someone had survived in San Francisco. The mother cried, the wind cried, for there was no one left.
What will we do now, mother?
She took their hands and led them out on to the span over the dark blue below.
We’ll go home now, children. Hold tight.
The fall. The cold.
– Cormac McCarthy, The Melonhead Road
MW: Olive’s going to stop speaking like AI wrote her lines long enough to save Curly McFreckles from drowning, thereby winning the admiration of Hatchetface Blonde bully and Spicy Latina bully.
Karen Moy is the worst writer in the history of writing. Anyone who can’t see this coming must have the IQ of pond scum..
@astroboy: The woman thinks Wilbur is the cream of the crop when he’s really a narcissistic man-baby with a creepy relationship with his adult daughter.
MW: In five seconds I found out that a red flag on the beach at Coney Island means “Closed to swimming”, same as every public beach I’ve ever been to.
How lazy are they? Enough to make me miss Crankshaft’s visit to NYC.
Pluggers can remember when AM radio stations weren’t all warning them about vaccines’ links to autism, or the New World Order. But they listen to only AM anyway.
Crankshaft has a pretty good likeness of Michael O’Shea.
BG&SS: Don’t get the wrong idea–Loweezy and Snuffy aren’t preppers praying for the end of society. They know some, though.
9CL: In the vein of “you have only one job to do and you can’t do it right”… The phase “Edda is my heart” makes no sense at all. Putting “sweetest” before “heart” does not change anything. There are hundreds of ways for Amos to declare that Edda is the love of his life and Brooke decides on this nonsensical collection of words.
@astroboy: Karen Moy is a predictable writer, too predictable.
FC: Yes, Dolly, that’s why it’s called a “suspension bridge.” The faith-based charter school your parents enrolled you in doesn’t put much focus on girls in STEM, does it?
GG: I’m starting to think the Gearhead Gertie team don’t know all that much about auto racing. Even if you limit the field to NASCAR, there’s more movies out there on the subject than Days of Thunder–from the Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham collaboration Stroker Ace to tons of documentaries to friggin’ Cars, which not only has racing great Richard Petty voicing a secondary character but draws on his crash in the 1976 Daytona 500 for a significant plot point. This would certainly explain why they never seem to come up with a “punchline” beyond “Wow, that old lady sure loves to watch cars go fast!”
MW: Foregoing her usual deft and subtle plotting, Karen Moy literally waves a flag to indicate an important plot point.
MW:
“I shut out all the noise…here by the water, as the ocean breeze calms me.”
Either Olive is trying to talk in haikus, or the diazepam is starting to kick in.
MW: What the HECK is Mary doing with her left hand? It’s a family beach, for cryin’ out loud!!
@Rube: Mary is also a frequent passenger in private boats, where it’s wise to understand and heed marine warnings.
I thought this adventure was close to home. Doesn’t the Trail clown car live in, like, Minnesota or something? Did this alligator bring earmuffs?
@TheDiva: Oh, I realized a long time ago that the Gearhead Gertie team knows nothing about auto racing, or the people who follow it. Nor do they care to learn. I wonder how actual NASCAR fans feel about the strip. If a mainstream comic strip about one of my sports fandoms was this shallow and hacky, I’d be insulted by its existence. (SEE ALSO: Winnipeg Blue Bombers, portrayal of.)
DT: Another display of LaKOYLE – did the artist lose some bet to someone and now has to display the name a certain number of times?
Gearhead Gertie: That is actually a very good joke. F1!
RMMD: Cody’s dream of having a later in life happy family welcome him is fading fast.
JP: So self-identified CIA lady lets random dude that followed girls home leave without ascertaining who he is and after revealing that she is a CIA agent. Great, LeCarre, Ludlum, Ambler, Fleming are all rolling over in their graves in disgust.
MW: No subtlety here. Better would have been to have the lifeguard tower in the background about 2-3 days ago and we see the guard raise the flag. Is undertow being confused with rip current or rip tides?
GG: Gertie could have wished for her own race car, infinite NASCAR tickets, or her own racetrack. Instead she wished for a movie. Maybe TV really does rot your brain.
MW: “That’s nice, Olive dear” is old lady code for “Even I’m getting tired of this weirdo.”
Mary Worth: Let me guess, one of the bullies from earlier will almost drown and Olive will somehow save her with her freakish mind powers and than everything will be good and nice between them while Mary pats herself on the back.
Mark Trail: Not to accuse Mark Trail of being full of shit, but I’m fairly certain it would take more to get rid of an alligator than just moving a bush that the gator could’ve easily walked around. But hey, what do I know, I’m just a guy who hasn’t ever thought to put myself into biting range of a wild alligator.
Family Circus: Check out Ma Keane’s dead-eyed depressed expression. That’s the look of a woman who is totally over her children’s “don’t we say the darnedest things” bit and is considering just getting back in her car alone and driving away without them.
Gearhead Gertie: If Gertie had even marginal levels of intelligence, she’d wish for three separate sequels so she’d have more to watch instead of wishing for three copies of one movie. Than again, if Gertie weren’t stupid, she’d probably be into stuff other than NASCAR, so the premise kinda hinges on her being a moron one supposes.
@Voshkod: Nice! The Golden Gate Bridge also makes me think of Earth Abides, but who wants to read about a tribe of melonheads? Not Me!
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Velma: We did it gang! We caught the mysterious Ghost Writer!
Fred: Now let’s see who the real culprit behind ‘Gearhead Gertie’ is!” [Pulls off rubber Mike Smith mask]
Scooby Gang [in unison]: Tom Batiuk!
Daphne: Wow! Now it all makes sense!
Batiuk: Dadgum meddling kids!
Banana Jr. 6000 [as the sheriff]]: Good job, kids. And as for you, Tom, you’ll have plenty of time to complain about it in a series of ‘Crankshaft’ strips sometime next fall.
C’shaft: Man, I’d heard Canadians were too damn nice, but….
GT: Worst. Ms. Frizzle fan art. Ever.
JP: So, let me make sure I’ve got this straight. Leah books a short-term rental–because apparently the CIA is finding safe houses on VRBO now–to get in on the clandestine shenanigans going on between April and one of her parents’ old organized crime rivals, and tells the landlady to take a long vacation. But then somehow she finds out that the landlady has double-booked the property and a couple of American expats will be arriving in an hour. Rather than making up a story to explain the property is no longer available and helping the girls get a refund and find lodging elsewhere, Leah rapidly concocts a sitcom-worthy ruse that doesn’t even last forty-eight hours before her cover is blown–but it’s okay because these girls just happen to know April already. Is that about right?
Luann: So according to Clan Evans, only out-of-touch rich people can afford travel, but that’s okay because out-of-touch rich people have such hollow, empty lives that they need to escape from them, unlike good honest Pluggerish folk who find fulfillment in being overworked and underpaid.
Pluggers: But none of that NPR or classical music nonsense, that’s for them sissy liberal types.
RMMD: Yeah, unlike that bastion of responsible fatherhood Truck Tyler, whose relationship with his ex-wife was so non-existent that he didn’t even know she had a kid until a couple weeks ago.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Probably the same way actual geeks feel about Intelligent Life.
Gearhead Gertie is the redneck version of the English joke about the Irishman who is granted three wishes. He starts with a pint of Guinness that never gets empty, then, after chugging on that for awhile, wishes for two more.
@TheDiva: Actual geeks don’t think about Intelligent Life, they’re reading Penny Arcade.
Dustin Ah, the comic pages, where it’s always 1955.
MW: Mary has just checked out at this point.
MT: I wish a lot more problems could be solved by shoving a bush aside.
Zits: I’ve heard that animals find methane to be a fine seasoning.
FC: Something, something God (or a cadre of angels) holds the bridge aloft.
GG: “OK, three sequels to Days of Thunder.” Tom Cruise will try to wish for death at some point.
Dustin: “That is Dustin’s job, so good luck with that.” {Digs a moldy donut out of the trash bin}
Luann: Oh, just fuck (or whatever passes for that in Luann) already, you two! Evidently, you can just go ahead and do that where food is being prepared.
CS: Uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu uuu ugh.
9CL: Amos said that in response to the inner voice trying to convince him to kill Edda. I think that would make this scene more charming.
@Rube: You didn’t appreciate the super fresh joke about how it rains when you wash your car? Weird. By the way, have you heard about airplane food?
@taig: #88: After I tell you the one about women drivers.
Some fan, Gearhead Gertie… a true stock car aficionado would demand a sequel to Six Pack!
MW: It either means dangerous swimming conditions or General Santa Anna has ordered the deguello. If you hear a trumpet beat feet and get the hell out.
MW: I think it’s still safe to swim. The lifeguard is just standing at attention and singing The Internationale.
Mary Worth – What does the red flag mean? It’s a cue – everybody sing! Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men…
FC – Today it’s Jeffy’s turn to wave the souvenir pennant. How else will we know that they’re in San Francisco?
I’m obsessed with those pennants. I can’t imagine that a small child would choose that as a souvenir instead of something like a toy cable car or a stuffed toy seal.
Also, dragging four kids under age seven around to see scenery is a recipe for whiny kids. There are plenty of child-friendly activities in San Francisco. The Exploratorium. Take them to Fisherman’s Wharf and feed Jeffy to the sea lions.
6Chix – Maybe if she left a tip once in a while they wouldn’t ignore her.
Frazz – Don’t give up, Mrs. Olsen. If you keep at it long enough, you can be a smug, superior asshole like the exercise fanatics.
BF: Susan thinks all this new job entails is sitting around with the other gals and knocking back vodka cocktails. I give her a week, tops.
u@Activist: Damn, please stop making me look at Mandrake. At least until after these two burly obvious ex-convicts are finished raping and murdering and cannabalizing the two sexy castaway women. When they get to the toothpicks and the digestifs I promise to follow up.
I can’t decide who is more repulsive – the annoying morons in Gasoline Alley or the emotionally stunted thrall and his narcissistic sweetie pie in 9CL. I guess it’s a tie.
Mary Worth – My tummy brain has a bad case of indigestion over this story. I don’t want to talk about my intestinal brain.
@The Rambling Otter: I would love to see Gearhead Gertie’s wish go Monkey’s Paw. She deserves it.
@Victor Von: Re GG – I don’t understand why she doesn’t wear a version with the 3 having angel wings.
@Voshkod: I didn’t look it up, but didn’t the submarine crew in On the Beach go to San Francisco to investigate strange radio transmissions? It turned out to be caused by a Coke bottle caught in a Venetian blind cord. They found no one alive in the city.
FC – Jeffy’s doing the flag trope.
Way, way back in the midst of time when I first discovered this site, Josh’s mockery of the Jeffy flag trope was one of the things that made me a ‘mudge for life.
Luann: “Staycations rule! People to take vacations are losers!”
@Ukulele Ike:
One summer long ago, Mandrake ran a story that premised an alien society in which gold was food and the currency was “minutes of life.” As you’d expect, there was enormous wealth disparity between the near-eternal rich and increasingly desperate poor, drama when some poor sap failed to hock a useless trinket for just a second more, etc. etc.
But what made it memorable was that the audience saw none of it: a visiting alien narrated the whole thing to Mandrake and Lothar and then jetted off back home. It was infuriating.
It would have been a far better summer if someone had told me to stop looking at Mandrake.
MARY WORTH: So someone in the comment section was right yesterday, and this is going to go in a very “Baywatch” direction as Olive will
get big fake jugs and run down coastline in slow motiongo to resucue one of the mean girls after she has a psychic visions of them drowning (even though this beach has a certified lifeguard and she’d only get in the way of any rescue attempt.)@astroboy: @ValdVin: See, the “poor, lazy” writing just adds to the Baywatch pastiche! (Also comic strip writers, the same people who write as if both technology hasn’t progressed beyond 2001 and pop culture hasn’t progressed beyond an even earlier threshold, are lazy? No! surely you jest! Anyway, time to write-in a rant about how Kids Today would rather play Pac-Man on their Nintendos rather than break child labor laws and get real jobs in the salt mines in Dustin/Hi & Lois/Blondie just before the 1 o’clock tee time!)
MARY WORTH: Oh please! We all know that red flag means Wilbur Weston is on the prowl and on the beach, so heed the warning, ladies!
@CanuckDownSouth: Yeah, that was kinda my reaction, to just explain that that’s exactly what a suspension bridge is. Though I would have capped it with a line about stupid melonheads.
@I speak Jive: Seattle in the book, San Diego for the signal in the 1959 movie (but they do stop in an empty San Fran).
@Anonymous:
#21. Anon, yep, BF is the strip where the just b offer me got be too good to be true. Thanks for the correction.
Mary Worth – Actually, the red flag is a signal to the Underground, who will now launch the revolution to install Zohran Mamdani as Premier of the People’s Republic of New York (source: shared from crazy relative’s Facebook page, condensed to remove side rants about chemtrails, fluoride, and KFC not being made of real chicken).
Mark Trail – Mark is heading toward non-toxic masculinity. Next up: Wrestling a full grown grizzly bear! (for charity).
Zits – *Slylock Fox writers reading this* – “This is a little outside our editorial guidelines for taste… but perhaps Uncle Lumpy would be interested in freelancing a few strips with bear facts?”
Family Circus – There are tour guides that can explain the engineering, but the real problem will come when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is brought up, and Jeffy’s latent pyromania kicks in.
Gearhead Gertie – Creator Mike Smith will be announced in the Hollywood trades as the newly signed writer to pen three new sequels, while screenwriters with fresh, original ideas will have to continue their day jobs of freelance rewriting of AI slop their clients thought would save them from having to pay for quality copywriting.
@I speak Jive: re: GG: “Tom Cruise….he was caught in the movie camera machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low voice. “But he is not in any….pain.”
@The Rambling Otter:
#34 and #37. GG: learned the danger of wishes back in h.s. from “The Monkeys Paw”
Phantom — let me take a stab at this — Patrolwoman is in league with the bad guys. Will she get skullmarked, or just killed off?
@Uncle Lumpy: Well, that’s a grim narrative; are you sure you wanted to see it?
Jim Thompson’s 1958 crime novel (horror novel really) The Getaway is about a bank-robbing man and wife who spend 3/4 of the plot eluding the authorities in progressively uncomfortable and demeaning fashion, finally making it to a sanctuary country where they are safe from the law. Eventually they realize they can never leave, food costs an lot, and that as soon as their money stash runs out, the only option is cannibalism or suicide. (The Steve McQueen/Ali McGraw movie version lightened shit up a little, because Hollywood)
Curtis — Dammit, Barry… next thing you’ll be telling us is that “cheez” is actually a petroleum byproduct approved for use on humans.
MT: What kind of strange shrub can be shoved aside with no signs of being uprooted or cut, and yet intimidates a gator? Face it, Mark, what grows in the LoFo area is as weird and wild as anything you show us when you travel.
FC: I looked briefly online, and it is indeed possible to take a photo that makes the Golden Gate Bridge appear to be in an uninhabited landscape, but it requires a different angle and the surrounding landscape has to be further away and smaller than shown here.
@2+2=7: And he brought his scuba gear this time!
GT — before I realized it was a shadow, it looked like in panel #1 a bald guy with a mullet.
@2+2=7: inappropriate thong on the prowl.
@Ukulele Ike: Now I’m curious about which choice they made, but not enough to read the novel. Perhaps the novel left them just contemplating their grim and hopeless future, with no escape possible. Batiuk, take note.
MW: Moy is trying to set up Olive saving Little Orphan Knockoff but considering that she’s probably not experienced with anything that has a current, the reality would have both of them drown.
MT – Why would a gator want to come through a golf course? I’m not sure, but the fact that the gator has already chewed all the meat off that guy’s hand (or maybe the hand of someone off-panel, it doesn’t really seem to be attached to him) and reduced it to a bare skeleton should give you a clue.
That Geiger alien sitting on a Snoopy doghouse in Macanudo today is genuinely outstanding!
Zits – “This plot seems kind of flimsy.”
“It’s fine, we’re only filling a week.”
FC – Dolly, here’s a pair of scissors. Go out on the bridge and see how many strings you can cut before it falls. Don’t mind the traffic, they’ll stop.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I like your new suit, Juan”
“Thanks! It cost me 10,000 pesos”
[Sign: GENTLEMEN’S CLUB]
“Oh! Isn’t it kind of tacky to mention that?”
“I don’t think so…”
“I say, if you’ve got it, flaunt it”
[On jacket: THIS SUIT COST JUAN S. PERFIL 10,000 PESOS]
@Comrade Gordon: Well, that would be my answer, and running away would be my kids’ reaction (ahhh! quick! mom’s going to teach us science!!!)
Look kids, if you don’t want to know about Rayleigh’s Law, particle sizes, and electric dipole excitations, then don’t keep asking why the sky is blue
@I speak Jive: Great call back to the Monkey’s Paw!
Gertie gets her wish: F1 (the current movie), Formula One (the one with James Garner and Yves Montand), and Speed Racer!
And since you mentioned On The Beach – the bonus scene will be Fred Astaire winning the car race from the movie!
@astroboy:
#64. MW forecast: followed the events perfectly until last sentence — “winning the administration of….”. Nope, not how it works.
They might stop their rude remarks but they will quitely hate her all the more for showing them up. If she wants to get in the bullies’ good gracies Olive will have to let them take credit for the rescue. (Not worth it, kid)
@Poteet: The wrong choice, of course — it’s a Jim Thompson novel.
MW-Olive looks on with silent delight as the her school bullies drown. “Oh dear if only my gifts could have been used to warn them not to swim in the ocean.”
MW: Panel One begins Brigman’s experiment of gradually drawing Mary in an increasingly Gollum-esque fashion until Moy notices.
FW-“Les is trying to turn his book into a best seller.”
Zits-“Do you hear banjo music?”
Luann: That’s an interesting take on vacations from a strip that ran re-runs for a couple of weeks recently so its creators could go on vacation.
@Dave: The Evanseses may be trying to drum up sympathy for Les’s pathetic life. All he does is wash dishes for minimum wage, eat ramen, hang with the cat, and play video games? Doesn’t he even harass women sexually any more?
@Dave: It probably wasn’t a vacation, but necessary lead time to insert strips that didn’t involve Luann – camp counselor extraordinaire! (possibly even navigating some bad weather disaster with her charges?) *right* after the Camp Mystic flash flood deaths
<a href="https://joshreads.com/2025/08/hither-and-yon-mostly-yon/#comment-2870452"@astroboy: What about Shemp Mcfreckles?
Mary Worth: C’mON, June. You missed giving us the cameltoe we’ve all been praying for, by that much!
Gil Thorp-“In this day and age do I have to tell you I’m a registered sex offender?”
FC: Yes, yes it is, you absolute tool.
I get that they were probably just trying to fill empty space and make the panel more visually interesting, but there’s a certain something about Mark Trail going out of his way to conjure up a mental image of a lovestruck alligator. No thoughts, head empty, except for gators.
@Ukulele Ike: #131: Does Les still have that deal with Tiffany where he gets half her tips or was that flushed down the memory hole?
FC: No, you little shit. Your dead Grandpa’s ghost is keeping it from collapsing. Now shut up and eat your overpriced concession stand treat.
Pluggers – Bo-ring. HIPSTER pluggers listen to shortwave.
@Ukulele Ike: #108:
“the only option is cannibalism or suicide”
Did they consider the third option, getting jobs?
@treetown, Gertie Gargle: Those who watched the OG Trans-Lux Speed Racer are watching the movie and thinking, “They got it right, and live action!”
MW – “I shut out all the noise… here by the water, as the ocean breeze calms me.”
“That’s nice, Olive dear, but that was the passphrase last week. The passphrase this week is ‘When the moon is full, the tide is high.'”
Pluggers: “Hello,this is Swap Shop. You’re on the air”
Caller: “I’m lookin’ to swap my 500 piece deluxe Craftsman tool set for a nice portable TV. A good one like they used to make.”
Carl Rhinowski: “Dang!”
@treetown: Re JP – The landlady is what’s known in the CIA as an “overcover agent.” Her “I AM AN AGENT OF THE CIA” T-shirt is at the cleaners.
@Anonymous: I accidentally deleted my handle before I posted that. I’m slippery enough to be in the CIA!
@Guillermo el Chiclero: It’s been decades since I read The Getaway, and I hate to ROON IT more than I have already, but I don’t think there was any way to make money in this town aside from murdering some other fugitive and taking his wallet. It was not exactly based on a capitalist economy.
I live near a Quaker-affiliated retirement community and have a number of neighbors who look like Gearhead Gertie.
This would not cause me any distress were it not for the comic, which would not have come to my attention were it not for YOU, Mr. Fruhlinger, so thanks for instilling me with a creeping sense that my Subaru is going to be smeared with Geritol and Ex-Lax by geriatric vandals.
@Liam: Jeremy’s guitar is probably mistuned, is all.
@Dave:
Dude, brilliant! The Gravemind is jealous.
GG: Most likely Gertie wants to see a Days of Thunder sequel because of the NASCAR monomania that’s consumed her life, but there’s just an off-chance that she never got over the Cruise-Kidman split and wants to see the two of them together again, even if it’s only for a couple of hours onscreen.
MW: In the first panel Olive sounds like she just lit a scented candle and put on a nature sounds CD in her studio apartment.
Zits: Then it’s settled. Death by asphyxiation over animal attack!
Low and Hi-less: Ditto and Charlie Brown get high with 20 year old gum.
C-Shaft: “…and also beat the crap out of you, but with you being so decrepit that part doesn’t feel sporting now.”
Dustin: Dustdad did make it rain at a strip club once. A shower of a dozen singles, the big spender.
GT: Try hiring the first guy. I loved him when he was drumming for Cheap Trick.
H&L: Have to say Good Ol’ Charlie Brown isn’t getting much fanfare for his return to the funny pages. And I assume that there’s some kind of legal injunction against mentioning Joe Shlabotnik.
JP: I’d be inclined to say that renting out rooms is a perfectly serviceable cover and Sophie’s question is silly, but it turns out the whole thing was a wacky misunderstanding, so what do I know?
Phantom: He gives her a direct order, she says “nah” and he decides he likes the cut of her jib. How many paramilitary police forces work like this?
RMMD: He wasn’t? Well knock me over with a feather!
Late Thread Cuisine: Since yesterthread’s Cuisine was such a hit, how about something nice and creamy?
Blondie-Dithers shoved the Alexa up Dagwood’s ass.
How do you write/draw a strip like Gearhead Gertie and not want to kill yourself? Maybe they do, I don’t know.
@Ukulele Ike: #147: Too bad the movie wasn’t faithful to the novel. I would’ve loved to see Steve McQueen slicing off one of Ali McGraw buttocks and eating it, just like in that Voltaire novel “Candide”.
@Baja Gaijin: White folks sure know how to ruin lobster.
@taig: I believe it was on Masterchef, this one guy presented as his signature dish, Crackerjack Lobster.
Gordon Ramsay and the other hosts were very apprehensive about the idea, but when they tried it, it was actually delicious.
I believe Gordon Ramsay said it was almost like a paradox, something that by all means you’d expect to not taste good, but it does.
@Ukulele Ike: Sounds like they ended up in the same place as the lady in the Pre-Code Classic Safe in Hell.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: THAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK? Jesus, you’d think I would remember that scene.
@Rube: By an incredibly bizarre coincidence I was trying to watch Safe in Hell for free online last week (I think after I had watched a YouTube short about particularly vile pre-Code Hollywood movies). I couldn’t find it anywhere. Where did YOU get it?
And if you like vile pre-Code movies, Thirteen Women is easily available at Internet Archive and probably YouTube also. Check it out for the multiple mysterious
murdersdeaths, and Myrna Loy in an “evil hypersexual non-white woman” performance that’ll spook you in spite of yourself.@Dave: “Do as we say, not etc.”
@30 Bono Vix: Of course male genies are blue. Look how long it’s been since they’ve gotten laid?
@71 Charterstoned: Jilling off. What else would Mary do next to a recumbent nubile young teen?
@85 taig: Dr. Jeff Cory says, “I wish a lot more problems could be solved by shoving a bush aside.”
@93 I speak Jive: on Family Circus: Was The Exploratorium around in 1972 when this strip was originally drawn?
@158 taig: What lobster?
@159 The Rambling Otter: It’s not Crackerjack Lobster. By no means could it be confused with lobster. Take another look.
@154 Baja Gaijin:
Baja, somebody or something puked on your imgur.
@Baja Gaijin: I wasn’t talking about the dish you showed :3
I was talking about a dish on a television show. Because “rambling” xD
@168 The Rambling Otter: Did you look at the Cuisine? It’s not lobster.
@Ukulele Ike: I think I saw Safe in Hell on TCM a few years ago, but I am not 100 per cent sure.
@Baja Gaijin: Hey, you pulled a shenanigan!
@Voshkod: Re On the Beach – Thanks for the correction. That’s a movie that I usually watch if I happen to catch it on TV, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
@treetown: Then Gertie could sit beside Fred in the car in the garage scene after the race.
Six Chex and A Cat Named Ray Romano: Josh goes on vacation just as the pilot to”Everyone Feeds Phyllis” drops!
@171 taig: Heh heh heh.
@The Rambling Otter: Gearhead Gertie: You can’t have three sequels to one movie. You can only have ONE sequel and then have a sequel to that and a sequel to that.
_______________________________________________
Still holding out for “Airplane ! III: Stop Us Before We Sequel Again!”, Rambling?
@Baja Gaijin: Crackerjack Lobster.
________________________________
Isnt that a George Harrison song?
@Ukulele Ike: #161: Well, not in that book. I was just hypothesizing it would’ve been cool if they chose the cannibalism route. It did however happen in Candide. The make protagonist encountered a women with just one ass cheek. She then told of how years ago she and several other women were kidnapped by Barbary Pirates. They got shipwrecked on a barren island and to ward off starvation all the women captives were forced to sacrifice a glute.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: I read Candide BEFORE The Getaway, and I clear forgot about the…that part.
Ever listen to this old (Covid-era) all-clarinet performance of the Candide Overture?
@Baja Gaijin: I understand that it is indeed, NOT lobster :)
I don’t really know how the conversation shifted to lobster, honestly.
@Baja Gaijin: And yep I had seen the link :3
I need to make more dessert yums to show on here :3 keeps a nice balance ^^
@The Rambling Otter:
Ok, Baja, I surrender — what is it? I think I see bean sprouts and tofu cubes, and I think I’m wrong.
@GarrisonSkunk: I consider Crackerbox Palace the best George song after the breakup.
This Song is his 2nd best song. But it has a better music video.
Five years before music videos were even a thing.
@183 Ukulele Ike:
It’s things like that I always considered George the best one of the Beatles.
He finally got to strut his stuff after the breakup.
@Sequitur:
John– His devotion to… whatever the hell she was, utterly destroyed the band, especially seeing as he broke his own rules for her.
Paul– Hypocritical piece of… when he guest starred on The Simpsons, he told Lisa that she shouldn’t push her vegetarian agenda on people. Which is pretty much all he’s been doing post-retirement. He obviously approved of the script before reading it… and he forced the writers to promise to make Lisa a vegetarian permanently. So even in the episode where he says “Don’t push others to be vegans” he’s literally pushing the character to be vegan.
Ringo: I heard that he is a very nice guy, a total sweetheart.
George: Sadly, I know nothing about him, at all. But I hope that he had been doing well for himself.
@185 The Rambling Otter:
Unfortunately, George died in 2001 at age 58 of cancer.
I always considered George and Ringo to have the best sense of humor of the Beatles. Paul was probably the best musician of the four but I never did like John.
By the way, Ringo, Now in his 80’s, is still doing concerts.
@The Rambling Otter: MT: Unless it doubles as a casino/mall, what is “exciting” about a golf resort?
________________________________
The nude female caddies.
@Ukulele Ike: Did you mean to make both of those “Cracker box Palace”?
@The Rambling Otter: It always seems so typical that people who know little about The Beatles seem to know the least about George, which is a huge shame as I think he was the coolest and most complex one of the group, in my opinion. (And honestly, I think he was a way better musician than John and that he and Paul were the two who were more comparable talent-wise.)
And I pretty much agree with Sequitir that George and Ringo are the two who had the best sense of humor, but I suspect they needed to considering how people still act like they’re second-class compared to John and Paul. I’m not saying any of this to jump on you, as people still look at you like have three heads when you tell them that John isn’t your favorite Beatle.
Breaking Cat News is a great comic strip! Why would you need a defense for reading it? I’ve been reading it since it was an online comic, before it got syndicated in newspapers.