I think I have the genders of these things pegged correctly, but who knows, really
Post Content
Six Chix, 10/15/25
I genuinely love the open, slightly quizzical expression on the face of the bucket in this panel. He’s just a simple bucket! He doesn’t fully understand the complex emotional lives of the brooms and mops, here in this world where brooms and mops and buckets have faces and talk and go to bars. He’s interested in seeing how all this plays out, but ultimately he’s just waiting for the mop to stick herself inside him again, where she can get good and wet. Is that sexual, in this world? Well, it’s not not sexual, I’ll tell you that much.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/15/25
Speaking of sexuality, you’re probably wondering: sure, the characters in Rex Morgan, M.D., aren’t getting a bunch of money all the time like they used to, but are they having sex? Well, no, they’re not. They’re turning down sex so they can go work on tasks that, to reiterate, aren’t going to pay them very much, or possibly at all.
Alice, 10/15/25
Sorry I complained about Alice’s rogues gallery of baffling freaks, everybody! We’re now going to be subjected to new characters that are bone-crushingly boring and normal until we’ve learned our lesson.
156 replies to “I think I have the genders of these things pegged correctly, but who knows, really”
Mary Worth Mashups: Let’s see if any of the added Olive Reaction Panels makes you glad you woke up today.
It’s sweet that the mop is trying to help her friend the broom, who is depressed about his job covering up murders.
Rex Morgan: We can tell who didn’t use Lume and Mando Deodorants within the past 72 hours.
Six Chix:
Isn’t that an artistic depiction of Bret Michaels from Poison in the middle?
Alice:
This conversation makes “Waiting for Godot” seem action-packed.
MW:
There’s something fattening here
What it isn’t, ain’t exactly clear
There’s a ham with someone over there
Tell Mary, she’s got to beware
I think it’s time we stop
Chillin’, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
There’s prattled lines bein’ spawned
Nobody’s right if Mary’s got it wrong
Young weirdo speakin’ her mind
Getting so much subsistence from the rind
Time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
What a field day for “effete” (wooh, ooh)
Aloud, enfeebled in their seats (wooh, ooh)
Bringin’ prongs and a-carryin’ tines
Mostly sayin’, “Hooray for our sides”
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
[bridge]
Clair-a-voyance strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you always upbraid
Step outta line, and Stan come to take you away
We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
We better stop
Now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin down
We better stop
Chillin’, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
[outro]
SIXCHIX: Instead of The Birds & the Bees, parents have The Mops & the Buckets talk with their kids.
MW: (sound of people in the next booth losing their lunch)
RMMD: I can’t wait til they go on their first Mundane Couples Cruise.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver: I suppose it would have been too blunt for Augie to say, “I have to go home and rub one out.”
Luann: AI slop? *That’s* what this is about? I don’t know whether to be impressed that for once the Evansii are actually being really, most sincerely topical, or laughing at the hypocracy of them complaining about generic AI-generated art when up until now their strip has been nothing but paper dolls except when indulging Evans Senior’s fetishes (see Bets’ Catwoman getup a few weeks ago).
CS: Someone check on Batiuk, I think he’s finally had that stroke.
RMMD: I say again, and now a firm and hearty handshake!!
RMMD:
“So — you want to come in for a bit? I’ve got a wide selection of cutting tools used with a drill to create holes by removing material, and you’re more than welcome to one if you’d like to pick one out!”
Hello, Mudges, I’m in Japan. No comment other than that, and that I also like the bucket. Oyasuminasai.
Six Chix: Hats off to “The Cleaning Supplies Bar” (naah, it’d have a hip name like “Sudsy’s”) for the creative use of proportional cocktail napkins.
FC: Thel wonders if she can spare a few of the plantains she made for the landscapers for the kids.
DtM – There are so many other words Dennis could have substituted for “straw” and learned more from.
6C: Given the context, “Time to come clean” is an incredibly dirty pickup line.
It’s… it’s “rug.” Not “carpet.” You can’t sweep things under a carpet. They’re — [[swigs martini]] — they’re, like, attached to the floor. This is so easy to get right– oh, my bad, this is a Six chix, why am I even– Hey, Barkeep(er’s Friend, a cleaning product that’ll really tie this joke together), around round for me and the rest of the janitor’s closet!
MW: “When you called for help in your mind with your heart to the dogs…after the balloon we were in crashed into a tree when it was hit by a sudden gust of wind from a strong storm that seemingly came out of a clear blue sky as we were enjoying our excursion with Balloonivator Stanley and cruising high above the vast and deep forest that is far enough from civilization not to get cell phone service but still close enough for Greta and Max to sense your message in spite of the fact that you are a human and they are canines who don’t speak English even though they hear it when two-leggers talk at them as in ‘Blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah’ and also civilized enough to have a paved road that allowed not only Saul and Eve to drive right up to where we were but the enormous fire and rescue vehicle with all its apparatus for reaching high into the tree where we were stranded so that they could deploy the basket that carried us safely to the ground where we were able to heave a sigh of relief and thank everyone who had a hand in saving us but especially Max and Greta who deserve a special treat for diner like the one we’re enjoying in this diner where they are known far and wide for their delicious hamburgers even though we are eating sandwiches on pumpernickel as we relive our close call and marvel at your special gifts that saved us or perhaps created the situation in the first place since the weather was perfectly clear when we ascended and not one of the other balloons seems to have encountered that storm in just the same way as no other pedestrians had to dodge air conditioners falling from a building leaving me to wonder whether all those studies linking severe psychosis to a belief in audible telepathy and remote viewing miss another aspect of that derangement describing the ability to summon events as well as air conditioners and dogs as well as their owners…it’s called TELEPATHY. Or, if you prefer, FAULKNERESQUE FLIGHT OF IDEAS. Finish your first sandwich, my dear girl.”
Chix (sic): Broomy hasn’t been the same since Cinderella found her prince.
@The Quiet Man: Today’s Rex Morgan MD looks even more like it was written by Tom Batiuk in the middle of a stroke.
@els: I love it! Except if that’s a martini, the Broom is going to be short a few straws in the morning. . .
@Baja Gaijin: The flower fairies really take the insanity back to its roots!
GT I thought the previous game was going to wrap up the Very Special Episode by showcasing Tobias, leading to the school board going back on the trans player policy, but I guess they were delaying that to line up a guest artist who can draw well enough for us to tell which player is which!
MW Mary being secretly deeply into New Age woo like “everyone is telepathic” would explain her “the past is only as you remember it” bad advice – she’s victim-blaming because you didn’t try hard enough to warp reality and actually reshape what happened.
Of course, it doesn’t explain how a 14-year-old has managed to never come across the word “telepathy” before. Just how bad are New York’s schools?
MW:
“I called Max and Greta in my mind using my heart, but for the first ten minutes or so, I kept getting a telepathic busy signal. That’s why we ended up being stuck in the tree for so long!”
@Hibbleton: Or since that witch stopped riding him. (Sexual context implied)
DT: Yes, DT, your years of shoot first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and then reload have finally caught up with you. The new District Attorney wants to win cases not spend time defending suits from all of the stray rounds and answering questions about dubious use of lethal force. Again, why was LaKoyle dealing with a loan shark at all?
MW: This is the Star Wars moment, akin to when The Force was explained as a secondary effect to a massive midichlorian bacterial infection! So, everyone has a little telepathy but some are more highly developed? Maybe if all of the audience send their thoughts to the writers they’ll get our sentiments!
JP: Good – I’ve forgotten who ran off to Norway, Randy, Sam, Tom, Dick or Harry.
GT: Who is Gil barking out commands to? The field is the other way!
I do look forward to “Good artwork Chick”
But only for the good artwork, if I want a joke I have to wait for “actually funny chick” who has yet to show up.
6Cx: There’s a lot to unpack here, but I can’t help thinking about the carpet. Is it a literal carpet? Is it sentient too? Is it annoyed about having stuff swept under it or…something else? So many unsettling possibilities.
RMMD: Wow. a scene so boring that the background itself has just given up and left, along with two primary colors.
Alice: Speaking of weird background…where are we just now? It looks like this scene was superimposed over a health class diagram of what happens to sweat glands when you don’t shower enough.
@CanuckDownSouth: Olive doesn’t go to school. She visits old women.
@Baja Gaijin: All are excellent, could consider one where Olive uses her mental powers like on Cronenberg’s Scanners? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w7TOzYu5V4
RNND: “Are you sure you won’t come in? We can play ‘Mop & Bucket.’ I’ll let you be the mop this time!”
6C: It’s all well and good for the mop to be lecturing the broom, but what else is he supposed to do without a partner, a dustpan? Mop has a devoted bucket, and it’s easier to get on your high horse when everything is working out just fine for you.
Alice: There is something haunting about the trees here, their emaciated trunks twisted underneath a cloud of half-changed leaves. It’s almost apocalyptic, which adds a dark touch to the banality of the “wayward conversation”. Mister Boring has done some unspeakably horrible things to survive in this hellscape. Someday, he’ll have the courage to speak of them, but not yet. Not yet.
6 Chix: The broom’s beer of choice? Shock Top!
MW: And thus began the Cult of Olive.
FC: “Hi, Mommy! Tit, tit!”
On the day Mary Worth reveals its titular character is the spiritual successor to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Josh features Alice. Is he afraid of the wrath of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom? I mean, he should be, but the blogger’s code says publish AND perish.
FC: Is there a female equivalent of tea-bagging? What would we call it if Thel dragged those massive mammaries over those cookies? Of flapjacks or whatever they are?
Phantom: The Bungle Patrol!
@Charterstoned: Quiet, awed applause.
RMMD: yep, Augie is terrified about letting Summer see the short story in his pants.
RMMD-He doesn’t want to come in for a bit. He wants to come in for a long time.
MW-Later that night Mary shows Olive another kind of love.
FC-Sorry but those are for Mommy and Daddy’s special party.
There is no way an anthropomorphic bucket is going to be left alone at a bar without other patrons trying to fill him with ice and sticking bottles in him to keep cold. Or worse, filling him with booze and drinking directly out of him. Life must be hell for anthropomorphic buckets. And they can’t even cry about without those damned mop people shoving themselves into their faces to soak up those tears.
***
Does Auggie’s chin become engorged as he gets horny?
MW: “It’s called telepathy and most of the chumps aren’t awakened to it.” The waitress comes over with the check. Mary waves her hand and says, “these are not the diners you have been looking for.” The waitress walks away confused. ” I haven’t paid a tab in twenty years.” laughs Mary.
You are being pitied by your peers.
@Alex:
I love pitted pears.
@Hibbleton: What about pitted piers? I mean, they need some work, but that weathered look is nice.
@The Quiet Man:
On Luann : I don’t feel it’s necessarily hypocritical; the lowest-effort, most clip-art comic strips are the ones with the most to fear from A.I., what with how easily they’d be replaced and no-one would notice.
**********
On Crankshaft : I like the convoluted circumlocution used by Lilian so she can ask “why do they call it ‘Buck rub’ ” without using the words “buck” or “rub” to describe it. But I kinda dislike that Crankshaft didn’t do a “rub/rob” malaprop here (like, “they call it ‘buck rub’ because paying to fix the damages robs you of your bucks!”). I mean, sure, it’d be a stretch, but we’re talking about a character that once called a “franchise quarterback” a “french fries quarter pounder”, so…
6C – Nothing builds moral fiber better than a brimming glass of piss! So told the toilet brush to the broom….
RMMD – Working on the old book = wanking to cyber porn….
Alice – Nothing at all = It hurt like hell when I pissed, so I went to the doctor and long story short, you probably should be tested for syphilis….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD: If all his novel climaxes end with “No thanks, I gotta get home,” that might explain Augie’s previous rejection letters.
MW: Eh, it’s better Mary draw Olive into this rather than Scientology or NXIVM.
H&L: “Gray Away” is awfully blatant. Eh, it’s better than “Her Midlife Crisis”.
6C: Evidence that the mop is intended to be coded “female:”
~Long, flowing “hair”
~Drinking wine, something men are usually not depicted doing unless it’s a fancy dinner or a pre-20th century setting
Evidence that the mop is intended to be coded “male:”
~Refers to the broom as “buddy,” indicating that this is one guy straight talking another
~No attempt to give the mop boobs
Alice: I’m guessing Alice’s…friend? Boyfriend? Stranger she met on the street?….whatever, I’m guessing this guy is drawn more or less “normal” looking because he’s supposed to be attractive, but is he really? Or is he seen as a freak in the Picasso-esque world of Alice, like Donna Douglas in that one Twilight Zone episode?
Pluggers: After he puts his phone on Do Not Disturb, he misses calls and texts from:
1. the doctor’s office – tomorrow’s appointment has been moved up to 8AM.
2. his elderly mother – she’s having a heart attack and is driving herself to hospital.
3. next-door neighbor – there’s a pack of coyotes in the back yard.
“I wonder what’s taking Henrietta so long to take out the trash.”
@MKay: RMMD: I can’t wait til they go on their first Mundane Couples Cruise.
Dr. Jeff is ready to take them on the USS Chastity.
Rex Morgan Presents: Duke Ellington’s (I’m Not In The) Mood Indigo.
@Tabby Lavalamp: With no disrespect to Garrison for bringing up this topic, but in a fantasy novel I read, a fantasy realm where humans and anthropomorphic animals (and many other stock fantasy creatures exist) skunks are widely ostracized in that world, because of their stink (which humanoid skunk spray is 10 times more potent than skunks in our world) so they ended up an anti-social race, but they make very good cops because their spray is pretty much built in tear-gas.
MW: The fella in the next booth leans over and says “what a load of horseshit” Mary gives him the Vulcan neck pinch and he falls face first into his Thai soup. Mary says “Oops, looks like I made a pho-pas.”
MW-There is a lot we learn here. “Telepathy” is how Mary knew precisely where to go to keep Purple Drank Drunken Wilbur from throwing himself off Kelrast Kurve. It explains her always showing up with muffins at the most (in)opportune moments. And while for some of her ilk, the Power of the Dark Side manifests as lightning, the residents know to fear the storm of baking equipment when she releases her full power. Until now Olive was her Acolyte but now she is Mary’s apprentice. And one day, when Olive has attained the fulness of her powers, Mary’s throat will be ripped out by a pack telepathically commanded pomeranians, and Olive will settle into her unit at Charterstone and assume command.
And when Doctor Ed comes to euthanize the deadly yaps on court orders, he will be turned away with a gentle but firm ” these are not the dogs you’re looking for.”
@Arabella: Hot, young strong Coyotes! That’s what’s taking her so long. Earl has long been desensitized to boner-meds.
Rex Morgan: Apparently the next medical emergency Rex is going to have to tackle is ED, as that’s the only possible explanation for why Augie is going on a date with two excuses why he can’t have sex prepared in advance.
Alice: Has anyone interpreted those cave drawings in the background? All I can make out is the rear end of a cow? horse? Seems appropriate.
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into the abyss, you find two characters from Rex Morgan, M.D. talking about not having sex. They’re you, to be absolutely clear.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Alice: “Normal” I’ll give you, but “bone-crushingly boring?” The hell you say! Alice’s boss, or maybe neighbor — they’re all pretty interchangeable, to be honest with you — has shaved his mustache. Isn’t that enough excitement for one day?!
C’shaft: *sighs, sets laptop aside calmly, goes outside and screams in rage*
I know, I know, you come to Crankshaft, you expect lame puns. But everything about today’s installment is particularly horrible, from the painful reverse-engineering of the joke to the meaning of “buck rub” being so obvious that Lilian has to practically bend over backwards to question it to the bored yet pedantic expression on Crankshaft’s face in the superfluous middle panel. It’s as if Batiuk is so resentful of complaints that his strip isn’t funny that he’s going out of his way to make it as unfunny as possible.
DT: I did not have “Dick Tracy goes on a John Wick-style vendetta after his hat gets fried” on the proverbial bingo card, but I must say I’m 100% here for it.
Dustin: I’m going to humbly suggest that the writers of Dustin, a strip in which everyone is driven by barely concealed bitterness and resentment and healthy life choices are depicted as “girl stuff,” are not equipped to criticize other people’s coping mechanisms.
(“Bourbon and Bonbons” sounds like a store you’d find in a trendy downtown shopping district in Kentucky. Hell, I’d patronize it.)
HotC: Wait, there’s someone in this neighborhood known as “old man Les” who dresses as a wizard and yells at cars? Way to bury the lede, Steenz!
JP: Okay, back up. The set-up indicated that Charlotte was supposed to spend a day or at best an overnight stay at Spencer Ranch, but Abby’s acting like this arrangement is going to be for several days if not indefinitely. Can we at least clarify what the stakes are so we can know who’s not reacting appropriately to them?
Luann: If I were a Family Feud researcher asking one hundred people “Name something that proves an image is AI-generated,” I’m guessing I would get answers like “extra fingers and toes,” “typos on signs,” “warped objects” and the like. “People who are stick figures from the neck down” would be in the strike zone, unless Clan Evans happened to be in the survey pool.
MW: Originally Mary Worth hedged its bets on Olive’s “abilities,” vaguely suggesting they were some form of unconscious perception which may or may not be supernatural. But now it’s throwing caution to the winds and diving headlong into sci-fi/fantasy territory, declaring that Olive can project her thoughts into the heads of dogs because she’s God’s Specialest Little Girl. I look forward to her eventual book tour and guest appearance on Drew Barrymore.
Pluggers foolishly assume anyone wants to call them at all.
Six Chix: It’s funny because the broom is covering up his long-repressed trauma history with alcohol abuse, and he’s drinking an IPA!
Dammit, given the sexual theme of the other entries, Alice should have been a sequel to the entry Josh highlighted from July 7. What’s new, Alice, is that he wants you to leave your boyfriend and bone him instead. Lurking underneath the boring exterior is a sexual dynamo.
@TheDiva: “It’s as if Batiuk is so resentful of complaints that his strip isn’t funny that he’s going out of his way to make it as unfunny as possible.”
Batiuk doesn’t need to go out of his way to make it unfunny, it just comes naturally.
@Dick Biter: “Motorboating”?
Yeah, I’d say Thel’s ol’ “Cross your heart” is getting a workout today.
@Voshkod: I don’t know about you, but reading Faulkner always made me frantic. As does this Mary Worth plot.
Upon reflection, I have decided today’s Rex Morgan M.D. represents the ultimate dream of every comics artist and writer: to be the one to say “no” to sex, rather than the shot-down-ee.
@Charterstoned: I had to stop reading Henry Miller for roughly the same reason, because he was a little too good at getting me caught up in whatever mood he was trying to convey.
RMMD: Augie’s chin started out as Ben Affleck sized but it has surpassed Jay Leno and is rapidly approaching Rondo Hatton territory.
RMMD- “Wanna come in for a bit? How about a bridle and saddle? Cowgirl up, anyone?” Auggie, that blue tint you see everywhere is the Viagra kicking in! You think Spuds Morton would pass on an opportunity like this? But noooo it’s a school night! Maybe work on the book a little. Chapter two-“Truck Tyler to the left of me Wanda to the right- here I am spanking my monkey again!” Well, at least thirty years from now there won’t be some guy wondering if you’re his dad.
Alice – My entire division got shut down and laid off about six weeks ago, and it’s scary how much I relate to this guy. I want human contact, obviously, but once anyone starts talking to me, I am desperate to find an exit.
Don’t worry, I’m well into getting a new job – I can pull it together for interviews.
But in a year, if I am on the side of the road with a “Will Snark For Food” sign, toss me a salmon square.
@1 Baja Gaijin:
1. Olive is the Rain Man.
2. Olive is lit.
3. Olive has a death wish.
@Charterstoned: It works for that. In my fiction writing, I tend toward long run-on sentences when the action heats up because the reader shouldn’t have time to breath if the character doesn’t.
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
Alice: “Aren’t you going to ask if anything is new with me?” “No.”
@Baja Gaijin: Panel #2 seems most appropriate for this woo-woo madness.
Beetle Bailey Spanish to English.
“I suppose I’ll have to let you go. This time”
“I’m flattered that you don’t want to”
TFW you receive some signals that might be interpreted as openness to a sub-dom relationship, but you’re cautious about it
Rex Morgan M.D. Spanish to English.
Alice meets King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes. She would have preferred to have met King Solomon, the author of the Song of Songs
It’s amazing how this Alice manages to be more trippy than the other Alice.
I mean Carroll’s Alice at least had some sort of structure to build the surreal upon.
6Chix: The bucket gets her wet, but them she goes elsewhere to get dirty. It’s a messed-up relationship.
Luann: It’s not surprising that the AI thinks they have no genitals.
Crankshaft: Seriously? “Why is a buck rubbing his antlers on a tree called a buck rub?” A joke requires more than a lame punchline. You have to set it up with something.
HOTC: What exactly is the neighborhood association’s enforcement authority here? What is it going to do if a 14-year-old goes out trick or treating? Arrest them?
9CL: When they first started this conversation about Edda “becoming a woman,” I thought they were asking about her first period. I guess that might be another of Amos’s fetishes. Certainly Edda would have already told her daughters about her first sexualized interactions with Amos when they were much younger.
Adopting standard pop culture shorthand:
• the broom has beer so is male;
• the mop has wine so is female; and
• the bucket has a cocktail with a little umbrella so unclear but presumably up for anything.
@Baja Gaijin: Flower fairies! Flower fairies! (Tiny Wilburs!)
Fun trivia: Because of time dilation and the general chaos of the universe, every day of the year is the birthday of the atoms making up your body. See, Alice tried to get deep and existential on our collective asses, but getting just a little bit deeper makes existing a celebration rather than drudgery. Gottem!
6C: Pull your socks up, Broomy. To paraphrase my old shift manager at Jack-in-the-Box, “If you have time to weep you have time to sweep.”
Alice – This conversation actually makes sense if you imagine that between each of the guy’s sentences there are long, increasingly awkward pauses while Alice’s unblinking, unnerving stare bores into him until he finally flees in terror.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Please, help me! I had to sell one of my vacation homes and my second biggest yacht!”
“I’ve been reduced to eating whitefish caviar! Yes! Whitefish!”
“Well done, Juan! They gave you an even bigger loan than you asked for!”
“I was good, wasn’t I?”
[Sign: BANK]
“You just have to know how to speak their language!”
You know, I shouldn’t be surprised that Alice is friends with the guy in the PBS logo.
@Tom T.: (on 9CL) These conversations make the “not so fresh” mother-daughter talks in douche commercials seem downright normal.
MW: Just checking – Mary’s a “yes” on Olive’s stories about animal telepathy and precognition, but a “no” on the past-life stuff? It almost makes me curious about the limits of Mary’s acceptance, but establishing that would require months more of Olive, and surely this “mini-vacation” will be ending soon?
Nice to see Lisa Kudrow again,even if its in a 6C! Somebody has to play the hippy mop!
@Tom T.: Never underestimate the power of the HOA. They can send strongly worded letters like you can’t believe.
@Die Rosenkavalieren: ! (Tiny Wilburs!)
________________________
“Tiny Wilburs in the wine/make me throw up/make me feel fine.”-Don Ho (adapted)
MT: You could just stay on that land bridge and show us stuff, Mark. There are many interesting things to see on that bridge and in the park itself. You aren’t the only one who has no desire to see Tess Tigress again.
MW: Thanks a lot, Mary. It’s not as if U.S. K-12 science education isn’t in trouble already.
JP: Watching Neddy in action is a constant reminder that cats, not children, were the right choice for me. I’d be clocking Neddy at this point, and that would do nothing to raise her IQ.
@Doghouse Reilly (Minneapolis): I am going to steal your old shift manager’s saying and mutter it to myself on dismal days.
BCN: I can’t believe I’m making this complaint about a story that features talking mice wearing tiny hospital gowns. But flushing any kind of medication down the toilet is a very bad idea that pollutes water and harms wildlife. Sewage treatment plants are not equipped to deal with pharmaceuticals, and small wildlife like fish are far more sensitive to medication components than humans. Poor decision, mice! No stars!
@Tom T.: HOTC And how would they know for sure? Do they have an up to date photo directory of all kids with birthdates?? One of my kids is consistently around 95th percentile on the growth charts. At 9, I’m already getting questions about whether the kid qualifies for 11-and-under or 12-and-under things. If anyone starts telling them that they’re too old to trick or treat, there is going to be hell to pay!
@Baja Gaijin: The third one is the funniest, but the first is the most realistic. “All work and no play makes Olive a dull girl…”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
An India Pail Ale?
Six Chix – This is the effect of microplastics on the tools that help clean up our living environments.
Rex Morgan, MD – In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Up the Long Ladder”, an advanced colony of cloned scientist live in a rationale, but sexless society, while another colony from the same ship dropped on another planet reverted to roughly 19th Century working class standards, more primitive, but full of life. The recombining of both colonies is necessary for both to survive.
Rex Morgan is doing the opposite – even with
roots countryAmeripolitan music spreading to higher culture on the back of sex machine Mud Mountain Murphy, Augie is turning down sex because it’s a school night, and he has a suspense novel to write. Prior generations of authors found their creative muse in all the sex being a writer got them.Maybe we should check if it’s the microplastics.
Alice – Is Alice what Tuesday Six Chix chick would be if she didn’t do the sandwich sex storylines? Maybe apologies for past criticism of Bianca Xunise are in order.
Crank: So in order to set up this incredibly stupid not-a-pun-or-even-a-malapropism, not only Ed but also Lillian have to be completely unaware that male deer are called bucks. What were they teaching them in school [an unspecified but very long number] years ago?
DT: There’s no footnote to that asterisk! Was Costello going to explain what C.S.A. stands for, then remembered he’d used the full name yesterday? Is the A.S.A. inexplicably telling Dick this in the Bandar Tongue? We need to know!
HtH: Presumably, knowing what lead to this ruling is unneccesary for the joke, in which case it’s a shame that they also forgot to include the joke.
JP: Haha! Abbey thought Neddy was discussing this with her before charging ahead with it! It’s like she doesn’t even know her!
MW: “Those who are awakened to their mental abilities may join me at my special school, where I will guide you in their use.”
“Really, Mary?”
“Call me Professor W, my W-Person.”
RMMD: Hofstadter’s law states “A task always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law“. I would like to propose Beatty’s law, which states “Rex Morgan MD is always more boring than you expect, even when you take into account Beatty’s law“.
@CanuckDownSouth: Of course, it doesn’t explain how a 14-year-old has managed to never come across the word “telepathy” before. Just how bad are New York’s schools?
To be fair, the strip doesn’t say that Olive doesn’t know the word “telepathy”, just that Mary assumes she doesn’t in order to Marysplain it to her.
MW: all dogs are good.
PEANUTS: Dogs are great friends and dancers
But
FBoFW: bad advice here. A normal dog’s instincts would be to have Edgrr pick up the rabbit and shake it until bunny is no more. Do NOT leave a dog alone with a nprotected rodent.
RMMD: Jeez, Auggie! You’ve got more chin than a Chinese phone directory!
RMMD: Auggie, I’m sure Dr. Morgan can recommend a good endocrinologist to deal with you acromeglia.
@The Rambling Otter:
#83. Otter, glad to see you so early! The fact is, Carroll’s Alice is being played this week by two ingenues, Luann and Bernice.
@106 Activist:
FIFY
Luann: This looks more like the girls were sucked into a computer animation from the 80s, High Fidelity for example.
Hopefully the Lawnmower will give them fitting deaths in a few days.
@Tom T.: Luann: It’s not surprising that the AI thinks they have no genitals.
_______________
No genitals?!? That’s just nuts!
@Gil Bates: [Glances to the left] Looks more like an American Pail, but what do I know
@Dick Biter: FC: Is there a female equivalent of tea-bagging? What would we call it if Thel dragged those massive mammaries over those cookies? Of flapjacks or whatever they are?
___________________
Depends…does she shout,”Here’s Johnny!!!” as she does it? Then its called “Putting the Johnny In The Johnny cakes”. *
*Page 97, ” Scratchy’s Guide To Obscene Food Actions” vol.43©1995 Chickweed Lane Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved, All Lefts Up For Grabs.
@Activist: PEANUTS: Dogs are great friends and dancers
________________________
It’s Flashbeagle,Charlie Brown!
@Charterstoned:
Even better as Joyce.
@Baja Gaijin:
Sheesh!
Don’t be too hard on Augie; it can be tough to walk away from those nights of masturbation and Steel Reserve. Heh, heh. “Hard.” Heh heh. “Steel.”
Boat drinks
Pail at the bar ordered boat drinks
Broom murdered somebody, I think
Everything seems poorly drawn
Lately
Mop only dunks in me Sundays
Wish I were soakin up some rays
The vibe in this bar is so gone
Takin’ on Bob this time!
@Sequitur:
#109. FBoFW. What?!? Rabbits is aren’t rodents? But they’re furry, cute, and gnaw! Oh, my.
Alice is awful and should be embarrassed to post strips like this.
Luann: Luann doesn’t give a shit if she’s been sucked into some bizarro universe, as long as she gets to lounge about, be lazy, and have her creature comforts seen to.
I need a Frazz hate explosion: WHAT? What is the point here? And why the fuck are you alone with a little girl and not cleaning the floor, Frazz? Gah!
@119 Activist:
Yes, it’s true.
Alice: Boring and normal, Josh? The man sounds like he’s hurriedly walking away from a body he left in a three-foot grave.
6C: If it’s time to stop sweeping things under the carpet that’s really something you need to take up with the person whose hands hold the broom handle. Even if they do interpret talking mops as a sign of psychotic break.
9CL: The fact that Edda’s head can do an Exorcist 360 is somehow the least Satanic aspect of this mess.
C-Shaft: There are other things you could say about a rub that costs a lot of bucks, but to the relief of all of us, Crankshaft doesn’t go there.
DtM: Dennis boldly sticks a drinking straw into his own eye in the up till now untold story of how he became Bazooka Joe.
DT: The CSA said they didn’t care about “any damnfool Yankee policeman getting his hair mussed.” They’re still salty about General Sherman burning down Atlanta.
Dustin: Kelley and Parker deal with stress with overextended gags. They have a lot of stress.
JP: “Um, there might be a little glitch in that timeline. You see, Sam went back in time to kill his father, and now he’s in a weird existence/nonexistence state. Guess I kind of lucked out not being an actual blood relative of his ha-ha.”
MT: Mark has a low tolerance for silly costumes, which is why he passed up the chance to host Let’s Make a Deal.
MW: Okay. Um…okay. I guess Wilbur’s falling off a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and coming back to tell the tale put paid to Mary’s skepticism, but somehow not her will to live.
Phantom: Looks like Cook—is that really his name? really?—is going to thrill the prisoners with a ghost story. Guess he’s in the right strip for it.
WtB: No snark, I just like this blonde lady. Cool with me if Will Henry brings her back.
Late Thread Cuisine: I wonder if it’s Keith or Danny. Maybe it’s Chris or Tracy?
@Baja Gaijin:
Looks like the walls of LV-426, but I’ve never had partridge, and am always seeking to taste another of God’s creatures. Totally in.
@Baja Gaijin:
They shouldn’t have let Reuben drive the bus while shit-faced.
@126 Baja Gaijin:
Ooh! So that’s what happened to The Partridge Family.
I knew their music would cause someone to go ballistic.
@A Grave Mind:
I found the recipe card Good luck finding partridge either in a store or hunting it up in the wild.
@Philip:
Ah, yes, the Space Irish episode! Ye gods, Seasons 1 and 2 were nightmares.
@TheDiva: I like the idea of Olive on Drew Barrymore’s show. Drew would go in thinking they have something in common because she used to set people on fire with her brain, before an assistant reminded her that was just a movie.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I’m surprised that fantasy isn’t depicted in more comics, really.
@25 The Rambling Otter: Good read on the situation there, Otter.
@73 Sequitur: SNERK!
@75 Sequitur: I don’t want to see the hand gestures that go along with that song.
@130 Anonymous: What’s so hard about finding a partridge? Just look for a former school bus painted as if a Monopoly board’s color panels exploded all over it. It’ll be filled with Partridges.
@Anonymous: “Just Like Mom Used to Make”. Funny, my mother has made many abominations for me to eat (mostly involving squid, strangely enough), but this wasn’t one of them…
RMMD: Arrrrgh, it’s the dreaded Square Nose Tip Syndrome again, like in MARY WORTH! I’m no artist, so maybe I just don’t understand these things, but is it really so hard to draw profiles of human noses without making the noses pointed? Augie’s nose in that second panel looks less natural than the nose on the Tin Man! C’mon, Certain Soap Strips, you can do better. Neddy in JP is thick as a brick, but her nose tip is curved like the Storm God Susanoo intended.
@Charterstoned: *eyes bugged way out* WOW, man.
@Anonymous: Interesting, that’s identical to a recipe of my grandmother’s, except instead of partridges it was cooked turkey, pulled off the bone. Great way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers.
6Chx: Huh. Did someone watch the 1940 film FANTASIA really late at night?
GA: THIS is the diner that Mary and Olive should be forced to eat in, and they should be seated right across from *shudder* Slim.
@Baja Gaijin: Thanks!
While it didn’t inspire my comment, I am suddenly reminded of a Phineas and Ferb episode where the gang builds a device to contact aliens, the aliens (who are in an intergalactic prison) trick them into swapping bodies with them. So Phineas and the others have to find a way to get their bodies back, and it turns into a bit of a parody of “The Shawshank Redemption”
Alien: I’m the guy who knows how to get things done (tells them where the items they need are, to build the machine to re-swap themselves)
Phineas: Are you going to help us build this?
Alien: Oh no, I’m only the guy who knows how to get things done, if you want the guy who actually gets things done you need that person over there.
@Activist: Glad to see you too :3
And yeah, this Luann arc is really bizarre but to be honest nothing that I was expecting. So points for not being predictable, but at the same time, still not really great.
@A Grave Mind: Christ, yeah. I am amazed that they were allowed to continue after “Planet of the Uppity Coloured People”.
@Poteet: “He chopped me with an axe, over and over! But I couldn’t die, yet I couldn’t disobey his commands! Fill the bucket, empty the bucket, fill the bucket empty the bucket… it was Hell, man!”
@TheDiva:
@Tom T.:
I did love that story, of a woman who lived in a home in what was pretty much an giant empty field.
Then soon after a neighbourhood was built up around her house along with a HOA, who kept complaining about her not abiding to their rules, except for the fact that she was there before the neighbourhood existed so she was exempt from their rules. She had fun driving the HOA crazy by doing literally anything that she wanted, and there was nothing that they could do about it.
But what’s happening in Luann?
@Brian T. Nix: Nothing of lasting importance, as per usual.
@TheDiva: “….~No attempt to give the mop boobs“ — Ladies and gents, your Comment of the Week.
Phantom: “All right, who ordered the peeled raw potatoes?”
@Tom T.: re HOTC — if only. Most likely the HOA will put a lien on the parents’ property, citing some non-existent regulation or somesuch.
@The Rambling Otter: Exactly! “And all through this hell, there was loud music that never ever stopped! Ever! It was like Satan was trying to drive me mad! Gimme another beer.”
RMMD: Doesn’t the blonde woman with the bad ponytail, whose name I cannot even remember, have some kind of backstory? Will the novel be based on her backstory? I cannot even remember her backstory, even though I swear I have been reading RMMD every single day for years. Maybe Augie’s novel could be marketed as soporific. Get into bed, read ten pages, and you will be out like a light.
@Poteet: She’s somebody’s mother.
Y’know what mother I’d like to see again? Starfish Head’s mother. ‘THE FOOD PANTRY DOESN’T HAVE GENOA SALAMI.” Didn’t Rex give her a job, too?
@152 Ukulele Ike:
I remember an old Bloom County where Opus the penguin remarked, “Even commies have mommies.”
MW: Mary’s starting to sound dangerously like one of those new age-y spiritual grifters.
“And you can awaken this ability with one of these telepathy crystals! Keep it in your pocket and you can share your thoughts and feelings with anyone you want! And only for $49.99!”
@Noel: I’m hoping tomorrow Olive’s eyes glow red as she intones “I AM THE END OF DAYS, MORTAL”.
@Ken: Shouldn’t it be her tummy-brain that glows?