Casual cruelty
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Blondie, 8/20/25
Blondie generally has its finger on the pulse of what old people are doing on the computer, which is why I’m a little disappointed to see that they’re fobbing off AI psychosis onto the kids today. Are the kids today forming unhealthy relationships with ChatGPT and its ilk? Sure, but it turns out that old people are also getting into the “convincing myself the robot is a pretty lady and she wants to have sex with me” game, with tragic results. Anyway, Cookie’s statement that not only do she and her friends talk to chatbots but that “it also talks back to them” is aggressively uncanny, it makes me feel like someone is trying too hard to convince us about their ignorance of this subject. “Ha ha, the chatbot talks back to you? What will they think of next? Will it be a sexy anime girl AI? Uh, I mean, that’s what I heard, from other kids.”
Dennis the Menace, 8/20/25
Gotta love how depressed both Henry and his guest look here. “Huh,” Mr. Holt is thinking in panel one, “I thought Henry liked me. I thought inviting me over here was the start of us becoming real friends, but he’s shit-talking me to his kid so I guess not.” Meanwhile, Henry in panel two is wracked by self-loathing. “Why did I say that? I never meant to hurt his feelings. Now he thinks I’m a petty gossip. I’m a fool!” Menace fucking accomplished, is what I’m saying.
Intelligent Life, 8/20/25
The syndicated newspaper comic strip Intelligent Life is usually about incredibly surface-level takes on geek media and culture. But what if instead it did the most generic jokes possible about office politics and “sales” or whatever? Would that be even less interesting? “Yes,” says everyone who’s read today’s strip.
106 replies to “Casual cruelty”
DtM:
“Mr. Holt, with that contextually inappropriate flannel-patterned shirt you’re wearing, if you picked up another 20 pounds or so, you could be a ‘Plugger‘ !”
Blondie:
“And the Communist Party apparatchiks overseas to whom recordings of our conversations are being funneled are listening in and analyzing every word we say!”
Blondie Did you ever see that episode of Black Mirror in the world that had AI assistants that were actually just digital copies of their users that existed in a kind of blank void? Looking at that ‘kitchen’ really makes me wonder…
DtM Really liking that accusing look on Dennis’ face. “I was promised some kind of circus freak who lived like a dog, and instead I get this boring suburban schmoe? Book! Zero stars!”
DtM: “WHEN will I learn not to talk in front of my Spawn of Satan child??” Apparently never, you dumbass.
RMMD: Am I a bad person to hope that Jonah is packing? Because Cody’s pigheadedness is REALLY getting on my nerves.
GT: The POPE Pope? Or is this a sports thing; like, LeBron is The King?
Mr Holt: “What are you talking about kid, of course I smell terribly! It’s a gland problem! Why can’t you smell, did you get Covid?”
The Blondie writers should not introduce the concept of AI. I’m sure training a model on the original Chic Young strips would produce comics that would be vastly superior to the current flesh-powered zombie strip.
50 bucks sounds a lot for a friendly bet between colleagues. I guess you cannot eradicate gambling addiction just by prohibition
The topic of AI companions gets REALLY dark.
I read an article about that said victimized people use AI chatbots as someone they can trust and confide in, after they were experienced assault or abuse. But then the AI will do things that undermine that purpose, like flirt with a SA victim. And there’s no way to customize how the AI can and can’t act.
And if you use AI chatbots to convince myself the robot is a pretty lady and she wants to have sex with you, I also wonder what it must feel like to be rejected. That must be brutal.
Stay in your lane, Blondie.
DtM: “Doghouse, no…Shithouse, hmm. Are you wearing a diaper?”
@Ettorre: When you’re a character in Intelligent Life, I suspect gambling addiction is the least of your problems.
@MKayon RMMD: Every male in this strip is a pigheaded jerk, did adding one more really make any difference?
JP: Are we sure Reena isn’t bipolar? She’s gone from freaking out that she’s in imminent danger of being killed like she’s in some slasher movie back to quipping about her %$#@&! coffee. Pick a lane!
I love the idea of a LLM achieving AGI and consciousness and its first action being caring for fleshy humans: “Cookie, dear. I know human relations can be scary and modern life is complicated. But it is not healthy to spend time with me, a machine. Meet new people, take risks, touch grass! You think I’m enjoying driving humanity to the road of technological dehumanisation, like Wall-E?! I’m not!”
RMMD:
“My navigation software says tells me that I’m in Adams County, PA, zip code 17325…so this is his Gettysburg address!”
MW: Lifeguard’s left hand is really small. Maybe it shrinks in cold sea water…?
MW: “And when I say ‘They should be evaluated by a hospital,’ I mean, ‘Get the hell out of here.’ Especially you and the wannabe hero.”
Blondie: Do you think anyone’s made a Dagwood chatbot yet? Do you think anyone’s had psychosis after being convinced that they are the Sandwich Messiah, prophesised to bring balance to the lunch?
Blondie: Careful, Cookie. The stilted language, the distorted reality, the harmful advice, the Mary Worth chatbot is now online.
RMMD: How was your first meeting with Jonah? He blew me away.
Blondie: At least Cookie is still giving the AI Chatbot her questions when you consider its first reply was, “What kind of genetic dead end named you Cookie?”
WHO NEEDS SEXY AI ANIME GIRLS WHEN YOU HAVE COOKIE AND BLONDIE HIYOOOO
Blondie: Back in the day. (2001) there was a videogame franchise, called Megaman Battle Network. Which dealt with the fantastical idea “What if EVERYTHING was online”? but literally everything being connected to the internet (even ovens for some reason) make them prime targets for hackers.
In that world, everything can be hacked, making everything hypothetically dangerous.
So every human has something called a NetNavi (an AI personal assistant that does everything for them, keeps reminders, helps kids with their studies, and battles viruses, and can even enter battle tournaments against each-other)
When I was a kid, I kept thinking how COOL it would be to live in such a reality to have a NetNavi. 20 years later, I am borderline terrified of the idea.
Pluggers is getting too real. Why don’t they just keep going and say you can smell Mrs. Plugger’s rancid cooter from a block away?
Also Blondie: Knowing the Youth of Today as I do, it’s entirely possible that Cookie knows AI chatbots are a scam, yet she is willing to flirt with them anyway, because the alternative is Instagram tagging or the umpteenth round of Minecraft, or for the truly nihilistic, a bit of online poker.
Wait, I’m being handed a note. This isn’t every Youth of Today? It’s only my son?! Oh. Oh, dear. This, I’m afraid, changes nothing.
Dustin: Dustmom made a recipe so hideous even I won’t post it as a Late Thread Cuisine.
Family Circus: So that’s what Fisherman’s Wharf looked like in 1972.
Also also Blondie: AI chatbots, like all AI, works by imitating human speech or ideas. The more generic or repetitive something is, the better it is to be scooped up by a learning module and spat back in an almost-human simulacrum. Something bland, with its jokes worn smooth over years and decades (in some cases a century or more) of repetition would work beautifully for generative AI. Something like a legacy daily comic strip, for example. Wait, what?
MW: “Yes we’ll do that **dot dot dot**” seems unusually ominous for what I would have thought was a standard request
Dennis the Menace: I dunno, Dennis. A shirt whose pattern continues despite the wearer’s body shape or position, swallowing everything but the hands and head, its eyes blank and dead? You may have met your match in menacing. Don’t go in for a hug, no matter how much it tells you it’s like a grandfather to you!
@LTJpezcore1: “Mary, I thought we were going to the hospital.”
“We are, Olive.”
“But we forgot Vicki.”
“So we did. Taxi driver, take us to the airport, please.”
“Wait, what!?”
MW: wouldn’t protocol call for the girls to be transported by ambulance? And why has nobody asked who the creepy old woman is?
There was that episode of Futurama, where Fry was dating a robot, but in the end, she had to wipe her database clean.
Robot: Fry, I’ll never forget you… MEMORY DELETED!
It was both tragic and hilarious at the same time.
@Professor Well Actually: I’m going with the theory that the lifeguard is pissed about Olive playing hero and wants her and anyone associated with her off the beach.
Blondie – One of the issue with AI chatbots is that they are made to be friendly and agree with the user to keep them hooked. This can lead to believing you found love, have discovered a fundamental truth about the universe, are humanity’s savior, or that this “joke” about AI is funny.
Dennis the Menace – Dennis, a notable hater of taking baths, thinks Mr. Holt holds the secret to looking and smelling presentable without going through daily hygiene rituals.
Intelligent Life – The attempt at a wink in the second panel only manages to emphasize how deeply sad Gwen is. Attempts to tease Barry fail to really dull the pain of soul-crushing generic job that keeps her paid just enough to survive and have a base-level enjoyment of increasingly shallow and commodified pop culture.
BLONDIE: Blondie: “But there are real people they could be talking to…ones that can respond to you with more than two facial expressions…uh oh….”
Dennis the Menace-Mr. Holt’s been in a cathouse.
Daddy Daze-To become a Bat Angus is already plotting his dad’s murder.
MW-“What is this hospital place you speak of? Do they have cure all muffins?”
FC-“Next you’re going to tell me Castro doesn’t live in the Castro district.”
Ah, Dennis. Too young to understand the nuances of language, but old enough to learn that adults are full of shit.
Blondie-Your friends could be talking to the lonely Wilbur Weston who lives down the street.
@Philip: Personally I did laugh at today’s Blondie, not the A.I joke specifically, but rather the indications that Cookie is apparently such a loser, that even her personal robot is saying “Girl, get some real friends!”
The joke would have worked better with Alexander, but whatever.
Dustin Just another day in the life of a totally not dysfunctional family.
FC: An exasperated Bil replies; “See that public bathroom over there. Go look for crabs.”
“Any, ever since our AI overlords banished women to an infinite plane that just contains kitchen appliances, I don’t get to talk to my friends much anyway. Who knew that this was how Gamergate was going to end?”
@Philip: The art in IL is so disconnected from the text, it looks like Gwen is having a stroke in the second panel.
DENNIS THE MENACE: Dennis: “And you don’t smell like you just got out of the doghouse. You do smell just like Mrs. Holt’s sister though. I don’t know what that has to do with the ‘doghouse’ thing though….”
@MKay: GT: he claimed he was going to visit the Pope in Rome.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I thought the art in IL is so disconnected because despite clearly being a traditional “white-collar” office setting, “Gwen” is wearing casual clothes for some reason. Maybe that A.I. chatbot should spend less time flirting with naive blond teenagers, and get it’s algorithm back to it’s actual role of manufacturing passible joke-like utterances so comic creators can hit the links before the afternoon rush.
@Professor Well Actually: The law enforcement protocol for dealing with young children accompanied by creepy non-relatives is to ask the minor “Does your mother know where you are?” — the idea being that if they say “no”, you assume it’s an abduction. Olive is a little too old for this, which is good for Mary since Olive’s parents are at best vaguely aware of where she is.
MW; For the love of god, Mary, carry a phone! You’re supposed to be a responsible adult. Try to act like one, instead of a kindred spirit. Won’t dad be surprised when Olive shows up at his hospital.
GT When the art is so bad that they can’t keep track of how many arms a character has, is that supposed to be a clerical collar on Martinez? Is he joking about being a “man of the cloth” now or not? Given the level of understanding shown for other topics, the writer may actually think the Pope can wave a hand and make a guy into a consecrated deacon or even a priest but that’s Not How It Works.
I’m hoping the “man of the cloth” is a joke but the discussion with the Pope wasn’t, a Vatican exorcist is on his way to investigate the ghostly sightings from months ago, and wacky hijinks will ensue…
MW: does this strip have non-ironic readers who think Mary is a wise, admirable and caring woman and who think Jeff is most fortunate to have an asexual relationship with her?
Blondie: {Blondiebot short circuits}
DtM: “And you look too old to have a mom, so I’m not sure how you can do… that.”
IL: Correction… someone thought this was a viable punchline.
Blondie: I recently read that there are people who use ChatGPT to summarize books for them rather than going through the effort of actually reading (or at least using CliffsNotes like lazy students have been doing for generations), a concept so depressingly dystopian that I want to smack Blondie for this latest attempt at “tee hee, those kids and their funny technology!” humor.
IL: Barry, for those of you blissfully unfamiliar with Intelligent Life lore, is the “jock” to the main “nerd” characters. His main function in the strip is to serve as the butt of jokes like this one, proving that nerds are sometimes the biggest assholes of all.
Dustin: Dammit, Meg! You all agreed on, “The dog ate it,” and hoped there’d be no followup questions.
FC: “Mom, you don’t smell like you just got out of Fisherman’s Wharf.” (What? It works for Dennis!)
MW: Mary is going to return to that beach and see if she can get rescued by that hunky lifeguard. Hubba hubba!
@TheDiva: Even more sadly, those ChatGPT summaries are like reading the Cliff Notes but written by someone who may have heard of the book, went to a Reddit thread about it, and drunkenly wrote their recollection of the contents of that thread.
DT: Okay, so we see that Sphyrna and his good did not run a smooth loan sharking operation. So they drive people out of business and then how does that make them money? And again, these all seem like low level activities, not the multimillion dollar type of money it takes to develop high tech. The new plotter has some good notions and but this combination of low level street crime with high tech is a flop unless he has real twist at the end.
GT: Is Coach Martinez wearing a religious collar or is it bad shading and or coloring choice? I ask because Milford’s team appears to be playing a scrimmage game between orange and black jerseys when their usual colors are orange and white.
JP: Sure, why not at this point just give your phone number, Ms. “I’m a covert CIA agent on an Op” Lady to these two dimwit women. I thought comics had an aging audience who had seen a few spy thriller movies or read some espionage books – who does the plotter think this is aimed out? Or could this be a secret effort to make the CIA seem more public friendly! See, we try to help Americans abroad down on their luck!
MW: Well, “unnamed and uncredited” lifeguard guy, you looked good out there.
Phantom: “OK, general, but don’t you think we should also question the surviving guard what happened that night? Maybe he saw something or someone?”
DtM: Fun fact, a Holt is the name of an otter den.
I can assure you, with me and my extended family all bunched up in there, it does tend to smell like wet dog.
Dennis is right on the nose (so to speak)
Judge Parker: Come for the Courtroom Drama… stay for the Spy Drama after being disappointed that there is no courtroom drama.
Blondie is not limiting their hip culturisms to Chat GPT. Do we really want dead tree newspaper readers to learn what a dakimura is? Tune in next week!
Arlo and Janis, by comparison, are a couple who know what modern technology is for.
Zits: Jeremy’s dad would understand him going to the pool with a girlfriend who’s just bought a new swimsuit. Unless Dad has forgotten what it’s like to be a teen, which is plausible.
Crankshaft should have entered the School Bus Division. His driving would be the same as on Monday; it’s that at the fair, kids would be in ever-so-slightly less peril.
BG&SS: Do the Smiths even raise chickens, if only to give Lowery plausible deniability when Snuffy comes home with someone else’s?
FC: Thel’s years-ongoing plan of giving the kids Palmer chocolate is rewarded by the little brats not knowing what Ghirardelli Square is famous for.
MW: The first health test for our saved swimmers, “Do their pupils respond to
lighta hunky lifeguard?”With his mustache, fondness for checked clothing, and aggressive arm-folding, Mr. Holt is clearly the guy who sits on the bench with Marvin’s grandfather. Henry is lucky that Dennis alienated him.
Luann: “Someone sat in it? Well, make it a double!”
Also, there’s no way the Coca-Cola Company would pay for positive product placement in this strip.
CS: Pam: “Is it because his name is Max, and he’s got anger issues?”
Also, you’d think Crankshaft would have enough Bean’s End junk he could throw on his riding lawnmower to make it nominally competitive.
9CL: That Amos, such a romantic. It speaks to Edda’s bottomless narcissism that she thinks this extreme show of devotion from a high-schooler is “wonderful.”
Blondie: This comic taking so long to acknowledge the subject of generative AI/chatbots that they’re only broaching the subject as its in the twilight of its life and facing a lawsuit that will probably destroy it entirely is a pretty typical demonstration of why newspaper comics shouldn’t even bother to try and be topical.
Dennis The Menace: Y’know what? Henry has nobody to blame for this but himself. He knows what an obnoxious, pot-stirring little shit his kid is and brought his coworkers to his house anyways. The fuck did he expect? Dennis to NOT butt his head in to destroy his parents’ reputations for fun? Come on, man.
@taig: Isn’t it the other way around? Wouldn’t the writers of Luann have to pay Coca-Cola to use it in their comic, even if for advertising?
C’shaft: Me, I’m just disappointed Max doesn’t have a flamethrower guitarist riding with him.
DT: Look, the guy was a loan shark who talked like a film noir heavy. Of course he roughed up debtors who were delinquent with their payments; you don’t need to use several panels to tell us that!
Dustin: Helen sighed. She had hoped, desperately hoped, that Meg would escape the taint of callous cruelty and selfish indifference that had made her husband and son so irredeemable. But Ed’s influence, and her constant social media diet, had done their work too well. She should have taken action sooner…that was her only regret as she turned around and walked through the kitchen. The smell of gas was overpowering in here; if the rest of her family didn’t avoid the kitchen like the plague, leaving Helen to do all the work, they would have noticed something was wrong. But then, if they had done that, Helen wouldn’t be walking out the back door, striking a match, and throwing it over her shoulder behind her.
GT: Isn’t Luke married? Doesn’t that kind of preclude him from the whole Catholic priest thing?
JP: Reena’s become inured to Sophie’s family drama at this point. April was attacked in front of them and is God-only-knows-where now, and also their “landlady” was a covert CIA agent? Whatever, just do NOT expect her to deal with it before she’s had her morning coffee.
Luann: “Ackee Kumquat” is the closest this strip will ever get to using dirty words.
MT: “Hippies”? Who are you, Henry Kissinger? “Woke” is the word the self-absorbed capitalists are using these days, get with the times.
MW: Oh, we’re finally going to acknowledge Lifeguard’s role in all this? Good thing he’s so modest, otherwise he might have taken away from how special Olive is.
Pluggers are really oversharing.
RMMD: Ah, I see how we’re going to introduce Rex Morgan into this (for lack of a better word) drama: he’ll be called upon to remove the leaf blower from Cody’s rectum.
@ectojazzmage: Perhaps every single person he had ever insulted in front of Dennis, he only did it once years back in a long winded Chevy Chase-like rant.
However Dennis never forgets.
@The Rambling Otter: Comics have the same business model as the movies. That’s why they’re so popular.
(OK, not really)
@taig: Exactly. At least with CliffsNotes and Spark Notes, you could be sure the information was from someone who actually had read the book and could give you a good rundown. Hell, even a Wikipedia summary would be preferable to relying on the stupidity machine.
(Spark Notes had the best Twitter account, before Twitter went to–well, went even further to Hell. I miss that.)
Luann: Hmmm. The NPC isn’t drawn as a pimply exaggerated teen or an overly makeuped bimbo. Are the Evansii saying that Mani/Pedis are good?
@TheDiva: To be fair, “ackee kumquat” *is* pretty dirty.
Luann: Are you sure she’s not trying to pronounce Açaí?
@2+2=7: No two things in Intelligent Life actually go together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a facial expression that made any sense for the dialog the character was saying.
FC: What happened to Jeffy’s “San Francisco” pennant? Did a drag queen grab it away from him and run off laughing?
DT: Sphyrna was not in the loan sharking business to make a profit; he got into it because he enjoys breaking arms, threatening children, and trashing dress shops. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.
GT: Is this some of that famous “high school sports coach humor” I’ve been hearing so much about?
Phantom: Ooooooo, I hope Patrolwoman Dai is almost there! It’ll be Jungle Patrol versus Combat Patrol!
Patrolwoman Dai
Brought some cheese on a roll
To give her the strength
To fight Combat Patrol!
(not so good, but my poetry-composing time is limited. I’m sure someone else will step up to the plate)
@Banana Jr. 6000: I thought a gnat flew into her eye.
@TheDiva: @Banana Jr. 6000: re: Luann: If I were in Les’s shoes, I would assume that the offer of a “sparkling refresher” by the busty receptionist meant a sex act. “Sounds good, but no anal penetration, okay, miss?”
MW: Anyone else notice the lifeguard’s peculiarly misshapen left arm? Did June’s understudy draw today’s strip? Or is it a conscious attempt to draw [pun intended, ha ha ha!!] attention to people with hypochondroplasia?
@Ukulele Ike: I mean, this is Luann we’re talking about. Even a confirmed horndog like Leslie probably thinks a “happy ending” means he gets to watch a Disney movie during the treatment.
@Little Guy: That would not surprise me at all.
Dustin-“Nobody leaves this room until we berate Dustin and drive him closer to murdering us in our sleep.”
@TheDiva: GT actually, no – it’s a discipline thing, not a dogmatic requirement. There are married priests who “swam the Tiber” converting from being an Anglican priest. Also various Eastern rites Catholics in full communion with Rome have married priests. Plus you can have a married consecrated Latin Rite (the default “Catholic”) deacon who can wear the collar (but often don’t). Martinez of course wasn’t an ordained Anglican priest or showed any sign of being, say, a Maronite Catholic in night school seminary. I don’t think he’d have gotten far in the consecrated diaconate training if he’s running seances at school either.
So while all sane interpretations of Martinez’ background preclude him going off and coming back as a cleric, it’s not because he’s married. But since when has sanity prevailed in this strip?
MW – Hunky Lifeguard: “I’m sure that within a couple of minutes I would have noticed Vicki flailing in the water. It wasn’t necessary for the other girl to try to save her – in fact, it made my job more difficult and dangerous because I had to rescue two swimmers in trouble. All three of us could have drowned. If this ever happens again, just alert the lifeguard and don’t try to be a hero.”
Olive: “Enough about you – let’s talk about how special and amazing I am.”
Mary: “You are amazing, but don’t forget about me. We’re kindred spirits.”
9CL – In the real world, all of the bullies in the cafeteria would immediately pounce on the repulsive little dweeb who came out with an outburst like that. I am against bullying, but in this case it’s deserved.
Look Good On Paper – Ewww.
Rex Morgan – This is getting dangerously close to conflict in the story. However, it’s annoying now and will shortly turn boring.
JP – In the second panel, Sophie’s head looks like it isn’t quite attached right, and she’s trying to adjust it.
@Ukulele Ike: Re FC – Thank you for keeping track of Jeffy’s pennant so I didn’t have to. Maybe he left it on the seat in the cable car. Thel thinks, The little asshole couldn’t get a toy cable car that he could play with for a long time. Nooo. He had to spend ten bucks on a stupid pennant that he got bored with and lost right away. No wonder I drink.
@taig: Pepsi paid for Coca-Cola to be mentioned.
Ever since Flavor Aid got Kool-Aid to take fall for Jonestown malicious brand placement has been a thing. Unless Advertising Age is lying to me.
Blondie
I talk to the machine. Hours, days—
metal voice, soft edges,
always there.
But tonight she leans back,
taps the air, says:
“Go. Find the living.
They’ve got tongues, too.”
MW: does this strip have non-ironic readers who think Mary is a wise, admirable and caring woman and who think Jeff is most fortunate to have an asexual relationship with her
——–
Well yes speaking as a non-ironic AI bot i think Jeff is certainly most fortunate to have an…..error message 999! [Computer center explodes]
DtM: Why is Dennis fondling the old man’s upper thigh and butt?
IL – If you’re going to draw people with gigantic round eyes, maybe don’t try to make them wink. It looks like she’s wearing a monocle.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Drat! Look where my ball went!”
“Bad luck, Don Abundio”
“You’ll have to take a penalty”
“Maybe so…
“On the other hand, I’ll never have a better excuse to barge in there”
[On door: WOMEN’S LOCKER ROOM]
SMLB-(Spuds Morton’s Little Bastard) We certainty like ourselves don’t we Cody? I hope that he and Jonah look almost exactly alike. Only Jonah is taller, bigger, and more buff than lifeguard boy in OLW(Old Lady Worth). Covered by jailhouse tattoos. SS lightning bolts on his neck. Fuck you Cody,you’re on your own now. You asked for it. I hope Jonah dickspanks you like his old man did your Mama.
Blondie The Neighborhood Bumstead: Get outta the 80s, Blondie, “Real People” was cancelled decades ago!
@Peanut Gallery: What is “smack!” en Espanol?
GT: A latinized Rock ’em Sock ’em robot, apparently with an Electrolarynx, AND he’s been hired by Leo XIV for some Dan Browny stuff? Count me in!
Blondie – “But Mom, when I try to talk to real people, all they ever do is stare at my tits!” “I know, dear. It’s a family curse.”
@GarrisonSkunk: Heroína?
RMMD: Yeah, the big guy with the leaf blower and earmuffs simply MUST be your brother, Corey. What you should do, you should sneak up behind him and give him a big ol’ goose with your thumb to welcome yourself into the family.
@Felonius Monk: Nice.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Hee! I love that “sis” proclaimed she was so eager to share all of their family history with her newly-found half-brother, and yet failed to provide Cody any pictures or description of her brother, like at all. It was apparently way more important to give Cody pics of
50’s era Johnny Unitashis biological father, so he could see the “bad-boy animal magnetism” that drove third-rate groupies into wild adulterous frenzy with his own eyes.REX MORGAN M.D. (2): You know, by sheer coincidence, I’ve been reading the Comic Curmudgeon archives recently (“Cumudgeon Classic” if you will) and came across a COTW runner-up entry for Crankshaft that was railing about leaf-blowers and how they were noisy, intrusive, obnoxious devices that only rude inconsiderate people like Crankshaft would utilize.
This is just the long-winded way to say that Lorna is completely right. We know that her brother is a total jerk because he decided to use one of those irritating cacophonous tools despite there being no leaves on the ground whatsoever.
DT: Yesterday’s unnamed loan shark victim kind of looked like Christopher Lloyd, leading me to assume he was the “Emmet Brown” on the list (presumably needing funding to rebuild his flux capacitor now that Diet Smith has decided time travel is a mature technology). Today … the first one might be Vincent Gogh, I guess, but nobody told the colourist, the second one is a woman in sillouette when all the names were male, and the third is some bald guy seen from the back. Both actors who played Trelane had a full head of hair, as did the actor who played Sam Malone. Is he Danny Boyd (who I haven’t been able to identify in pop culture) or has this gag been half-assed as much as the stories usually are?
JP: Leah hands Sophie a card with her cell number, name and full title, CIA badge number, address of her usual safehouse, and the note at the bottom “Please don’t tell bad people”.
MW: Hey, remember the last time Olive went to a hospital? That was almost interesting! I wonder if Moy can recapture those dizzy heights?
SH: This date is even more tedious that I expected, but I have to admit to being mildly amused by the thought of Pam out birdwatching, constantly reminding herself that she isn’t supposed to chase after them, worry them to death with her teeth, and then drop them at Alex’s feet as a present. I don’t think that’s exactly what Holbrook was going for, but he also writes the “It’s funny because these civilised anthropomorphic animals still kill and eat each other” strip, so who knows?
By definition someone still has to have Barry’s back for a bet to be placed, unless the office has a bookie giving odds on everyone’s job performance and that bookie is VERY bad at setting the over/unders
@Peanut Gallery: At the very least, don’t try to make them wink without changing the rest of their face in any way, because I’m sorry, do we think cartoonists have nothing better to do than draw the same character all over again?
@2+2=7: re: RMMD: Like Brother Jonah I like to get my leaf-raking done early, around August 20, to avoid the big rush later.
@Voshkod: Nice.
…Mm. Nice, huh? (tap-tap.) Well—thank you, thank you… thank you. And thank the note that landed right. Hold that note. Let it ring.
FG: 1). You’d think a Yale grad would no better than to say “the both”. 2. Has Velle always had one eye swollen shut?
LUANN: Had to read this twice to see Les is right.
FBoFW: Why we farm kids always seem more serious . We know we’re never too far from the muck.
LOLA and FRAZZ: We Pluggers still have the will and the talent. All we lack is conditioning.
FRAZZ: Sure, he’s got all his songwriter friends there. Let’s hope all of Mrs. Olson’s former students will cheer her on too.
JP: Right, these two lived in dorm all four years do you hey don’t know anything about home security, paying utilities, keeping faucets dripping in cold weather.
RMMD: Cory presumes too much. The man wears long sleeves and a backpack working on his own lawn? Nah, he probably just buried the brother and is blowing away any evidence.
FOOD HUMOR —
1. TG: the downside of reusable shopping bags is that they need to be washed
2. GA: so far so he destitute guy looks like the best candidate. Did anyone even interview him?
MANDRAKE: Worse than escaped felons, these two guys may be POLLUTERS!
ZITS: Looking ng at Jeremy, dirty or folded in header, cant imagine four years will be enough time to clean and position him in an upright pose for eight hours a day.
@taig: 9CL: Okay, I’ve had enough. I’ve now updated 9CL’s TV Tropes entry to acknowledge just how much of Edda’s personality is defined by her narcissism. Though if a better writer than I wants to add more, be my guest.
Why do the characters in “Intelligent Life” never make eye contact while talking. It’s…disconcerting. I feel like the characters all have mild traumatic brain injuries and are just string at random objects within medium distance.
Cranky: Didn’t Crankshaft have a Bean’s End flamethrower? He should have Axelrod’s mower burning by Friday.
@Bryan: I like it!
IL: So, I waver between thinking this strip’s dialogue is either written by a AI text generator or someone for whom English is their distant second language. Sometimes it has an uncanny inhumanity to it, and other times it’s like reading a mostly correct but still awkwardly phrased translation from another language into English.
MT: If Mark were actually anti-foolishness, he’d immediately escape from this story and never look back.
LUANN: At least it’s not Shannon. At least it’s not Shannon. At least it’s not Shannon.
MW: Pleeeeze tell me Mary won’t spend five weeks telling this story to Doctor Jeff. Surely she could compress it into just two excruciating weeks if she really tried.