Wednesday quickies
Post Content
Mary Worth, 10/22/25
“Sure, she can predict the future and bend animals to her will, but not in a big showy way that would attract attention! Sort of like how you own a boat large and powerful enough to defeat entire navies from anytime before about 1850 but you just use it to putter around the harbor once a month or so, if the weather’s nice.”
Dustin, 10/22/25
I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen Dustin express any interest in comic books or geek culture before? Despite what I said yesterday about nerd stuff, this makes his personality more interesting than I frankly find plausible.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/22/25
Yeah, so these guys are just staring into big bowls of brown … soup? Chocolate? Dog food? I don’t know if it’s fattening, but it’s definitely not appetizing.
154 replies to “Wednesday quickies”
You don’t wear clothes, so what would make you look fat — tight collars?
MW: Maybe Olive’s just channeling all the sexual energy produced by her parents constant boinking? Jeff asks covetingly.
Wow, what’s next, Dustin characters? “When I took this job at the toy store, I didn’t realize there would be all these KIDS around! What the Hell?”
MW “You know, like calling on animals to rescue her and her friends from a hot air ballooning accident. Just normal, everyday stuff!”
Dustin A woman working in a comics book store? I used to think this strip took place during the late aughts, what with the lack of employment and all, but now I’m wondering if it’s set in the early nineties…
MGG Grimm looks absolutely haunted in that last panel over the very mention of a mirror. Do you think there’s a Dorian Grey situation going on here but, like, fat?
MW – Gotta admire Jeff’s tenacity. Acting interested in whatever Mary is saying has never gotten him a hand job, but he’s going to gol-darned keep trying. You go, Dr. Blue Balls. You are an inspiration.
One dog stands before a dawning day, the other, a black void. Two panels later, one dog, one soup, one look of horror, and the endless nothingness are all that remain. Eat the soup, Grimm. You have given me much to think about today.
Anyone besides Mary Worth and the King James Bible who uses the word “covet” today wins the 1986 Buick Skylark!
I don’t think Black And White looks that fat, for a dog/cat/hammerhead shark hybrid.
MW:
I see that Mary has acknowledged transgressing the Tenth Commandment by essentially admitting to “covet”ing something that Olive has.
Dustin is an old-school nerd, back before the term was embraced as a badge of honor. We know this because of the way his eyes turn solid black as soon as the clerk utters the word.
MG&G: If the not-Grimm animal has the fine motor skills to eat with a spoon, it can easily pick up the bowl and dump it on Grimm’s head. (Cat? Boston Terrier?)
DtM: You can chop leaves up by running the lawn mower through the pile. Oops!
RMMD: Exactly what Augie said the first time Summer took off her ponytail wig.
MW: I wish I had an obedient android boyfriend with a boat. Oh, hell, make it a yacht.
Dustin: How the hell does anyone take a job at a comic book store and not immediately realize that it’s a “nerdfest”? The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, and actual comic book stores must not exist in this world. Which further supports my theory that this comic strip is trapped in 1978.
@Vice President John Adams: That too. “Nerd” hasn’t been an insult in a very, very long time.
Dustin: ‘So… can I still proposition you, or what?’
JP: I see the raspberry-haired brat has inherited her mother’s trait of snapping from morose pissyfaced snarkiness to wild-eyed mania on a dime.
Lemme guess, the brat’s going to race outside to try and catch a squirrel only–GASP and Surprise!–her mother is there to whisk her away to the next cloak-and-dagger set piece, as Neddy’s cabin ‘splodes real good in the distance.
S4th: I’m getting flashbacks. My mom made me a pumpkin costume almost exactly like that one when I was 4. As I recall her telling me, she loaned it to another parent at my preschool and they never returned it.
Luann: Oh boy, Dez is the ruler of Eco-City, isn’t she? Brace yourselves folks, we could be heading for another ‘Sun’ moment here…
Mary Worth Mashups: Five different missing final panels. Any of them represent your feelings about today’s strip?
Bizarro: Better hope Tuesday Chix doesn’t see today’s strip. She’ll either be all depressed someone stole her shtick or all horned up. Either way, I don’t wanna be there when it happens.
Slylock Fox:
OcToBer 22, 2025
sAnta ClaUs
1 ArCtiC ciRCLe
NoRTh PoLe
DeaR sAnta:
I aM a reasoNabLy inTelliGenT eigHT-yeAR oLD, anD I sEe thAt theRe arE aLReady Tv commerciALs depicTINg cHristmAs bEIng broADCAsT, so I fiGUre ThaT NoW iS as GooD a tiMe aS anY foR mE tO wriTE yoU with a ChriSTMas wiSH.
I haVe beeN a veRy GooD boY thIS yeAr and haveN’t MaDe fUN oF anY feLLOw commENTERs oR ComIc StrIP auThoRs, sO here’s My ReQuest. CaN yoU pLease SeE to iT thAt SLyLOcK fOx’s riDDLEs ArE a LiTtLE moRe ChaLLEngiNg? — I meAn, evEn a hALFway-sMarT TwO-yeAr OLD couLd sEe iN today’S panELs thaT the kiD haS a tuFT of haiR in thE bacK of His heaD iN the secoND anD thiRD paNELs buT noT the FirSt.
AnxiOUSLy HopIng FoR somE reLIEf hEre fRom YoU, I reMaiN:
CordiaLLY youRS,
BobBy TiCe
Pickles – Next Opal will confess that she has never LMAO.
MG&G: “I’m avoiding things that make me look fat. Like panel three.”
Dustin:
“No offense.”
“This is no time to be talking about the New York Jets’ yearlong lack of production when they have the ball.”
I admit Dustin being interested in a thing is weird but he’s interested in it in a really sad, sexist way that ensures his continued celibacy so that tracks at least.
In line with George Berkeley’s esse est percipi, the cat believes that there is no independent attribute or substance, such as fatness of fat, but it only comes into being when it is perceived. It is either radical idealism or body dysmorphia
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
It’s nice to see Pickles has decided to go head-to-head with Crankshaft. First one to generate a laugh ends the Universe!
Mother Goose and Grimm: And the dog and the cat have spoons in their bowls because. . . ?
I thought that Dustin was going to engage with the “girls can be nerds too” discourse of the late 2000s-early 2010s, which would have been appropriate since the strip started then and it is stuck in that time. But no, instead it’s the “only male losers have nerd interests”, which is the 1980s discourse, which is where comics writers are stuck
CS: I confess I kind of agree with Cra
“I didn’t realise when I took this job that it was gonna be such a nerdfest”. Wait, you took a job at a comic book store, what did you expect exactly?! Not to play the nerd smugness card but… you are not very bright, right?
CS: I confess to agree with Crankshaft about glitter on school busses. I’ll show myself to the door.
@A Grave Mind: Not so! “Covet” is also in the New International and English Standard Versions, and I’m pretty sure Brooke McEldowney uses it regu—okay, so that’s a bad example…
Mary Worth: Mary: “Blah blah blah blah lecture lecture lecture.” Jeff: “Oh, really?” Mary: “Blah blah blah blah lecture lecture lecture lecture.” Jeff. “That’s nice, dear.” Mary: Blah blah blah blah… wait, where are we, anyway?” Jeff: “About five miles from shore. Say, would you like to see the big, heavy concrete block I brought with us? I think you’ll understand its relevance immediately.”
Dustin: “It’s nice to see a woman working.” “Um… what?!” “Oh, sorry, I’ve been reading this book called How to Pick Up Chicks With This New Thing Called Feminism. It was written in 1965.”
Mother Goose and Grimm: In the traditional joke, the thing that makes you look fat is… pants. So no worries for these two!
@Baja Gaijin: The last. Definitely the last.
I’m torn between hope this hagiography ends quickly, and dread that it will and Monday will start a new Wilbur story.
Mary Worth: “Sounds like someone we can all learn from.” [Steers boat directly into supertanker, resulting in a fiery explosion]
@15 Baja Gaijin:
Hmm. I’ll go with vengeful air conditioner.
“I missed her in New York but I won’t miss her now!”
Are the rules that if you read/purchase comics you’re automatically a nerd? Nothing else?
Also Mary Worth: Remember when the person being lionized by Mary would appear as a giant floating head on the horizon, and then they would be done with the boring praise and lesson-learning? Well, those days are done. You will be punished for your crimes by a week of “Olive is good, actually.” You’re welcome.
Phantom: “I could get to the General and make the arrest! — I know I could!”
Oh, this is just adorable. Patrolwoman Shun-Li, you are five foot two and have the figure and proportional musculature of a 14 year old Japanese schoolboy. But DO try, we could use the laughs.
BF: The last thing you want your daughter’s boyfriend to see is how she’ll end up when she hits fifty. One look at Blonde Friend fresh out of bed on Christmas morning will send him screaming and making a run for the Yukon Territory.
Also, your fancy Xmas breakfast plan yesterday is really stupid, unless you want to spend the entire holiday morning sweating over skillets of pancakes and fried potatoes. Buy a stollen from a reputable German bakery, make a fruit salad, and brew plenty of coffee.
JP: panel two: Well, somebody around here’s going to be a stone hottie in about twelve years.
@Baja Gaijin: MG&G: It looks like Grimm and Atilla are in desparate need of some late thread cuisine this morning.
Dustin: The narrative possibilities here are “Dustin fails to accept being called a nerd as a compliment” and/or “Dustin gets a girlfriend,” neither of which help on the plausibility scale, nor honestly the interest meter. Sorry, Dustin: the many ways in which your family are hateful toward one another are far more entertaining than your love life ever will be!
MG&G — Just remember, when you look into the comic strip void, the comic strip void starts following you everywhere. . .
Mary, you keep getting on that boat to monologue at your platonic lover about whoever it is who most recently took all of your attention. You have no idea what a “normal, everyday way” is.
***
Did Dustin think he’s a jock?
@Baja Gaijin: the last represents my feelings, which is why what I *really* want to have as the final panel is the air conditioner smashing them.
Curtis Speaking of smashing, they should be grateful Curtis’ carelessness got them to narrowly avoid having a device planted in their room to destroy their sleep and feed their screen addiction!
I would like Mother Goose and Grimm to consider trying out a facial expression that says “I am delivering a wacky zinger” instead of “I am experiencing existential dread.” Just once. See how it feels.
Mother Goose & Grimm: It’s kind of a Vaudeville joke, but the delivery makes it… discomfitting. It discomfits me.
First, it splits a quick punchline into two panels, slowing everything down in a creepy, unnatural way. It was an honest attempt at modifying a fairly basic gag into a three-panel newspaper strip format, but the timing’s off. As a result, it feels like Grimm is taking the time to slowly rotate his head, look at the reader, lower his voice, and whisper, “Mirrors?”
At the same time, Grimmy stands in a void as old and bleak as time. He breaks the fourth wall and stares into our souls as he speaks. It’s more like the start of an abstract cosmic horror novel about a dog’s fear of his own reflection than it is a joke.
Honestly, that sounds rad. Let’s read that instead.
MW: Mary realizes she just painted a picture of Olive which could have been included in The Acts of the Apostles and tries to walk it back: “and also helps others in Uh,…in a normal everyday way!”
RMMD-Dear Penthouse…
MW-“This Olive sounds like a ‘special’ girl.”
FC-“Pay the water bill.”
FC: Let’s see, no window guard, rickety stool, we’re almost there.
DtM: Every year Wilson forgets that he tells himself to rake the leaves over a pile of dog shit next year.
@pugfuggly: @Banana Jr. 6000: Dustin: Also, he goes to fern bars, and his father wears a suit and tie to work every day. Honestly, if you’re a cartoonist whose perceptions of society haven’t changed since 1985, why not just set the strip in that year? It’s not like you’re winning over younger readers as it is.
Girl in Dustin didn’t know that nerds like comic books?
(Tune in next week when she gets a job as a bartender!)
“People get drunk in bars? Ewwwww!”
@Baja Gaijin: Air conditioner. The bigger the better!
MW: “For instance, you could sell this ridiculous boat and put the money in the church Poor Box.”
RMMD: “What do you think of releasing your novel in serial form? Monthly magazines are the coming thing! I’ve already gotten some interest from Collier’s and Liberty.”
@Tabby Lavalamp:
On Dustin : I’m reminded of a storyline where Dustin got a job, his colleagues invited him to join their weekly Dungeons and Dragons game, and the entire storyline was Dustin going “I guess I’ll get fired on purpose from that job then, because even my unemployed, single*, friendless loser self is still less of a loser than someone with a job, a girlfriend, friends they meet weekly, but PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS”
*There was a weird insistence that the D&D nerds had girlfriends who disapproved of their hobby, but were still steady with them.
Anyway, as said before, it’s weird that a girl would take a job at a comic book shop, but be all “EW GROSS COMIC BOOK READING NERDS”.
*************
Crankshaft : “Crankshaft, you can’t ban kids from getting on your bus just because they’re covered in glitter!” “Why not!?” “Because, then the parents of the kids who DON’T cover themselves in glitter will notice you’re not picking up their kids either, and they’ll complain! You have no idea how hard it is to fend off a helicopter parent when they’re in ‘BUT MY KID FOLLOWED ALL THE RULES’ mode.”
*************
Frazz : the kid antagonising Mrs Olsen is a non-Caufield because the cartoonist realised that unloading profanity over being incapable of doing ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MATH is something that would DEFINITELY belie his supposed genius.
*************
Mary Worth : So, Mary is all-in on Olive’s ESP being real, huh? Though it’s weird she’s going all “she’ll use her powers discretely, so as to not upset the status quo” : Olive’s powers are a “sixth sense” and telepathy, not very flashy or noticeable stuff; it’s not like she can fly and level buildings with a wave of her hand!
Thanks for the reminder to re-read Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October.
MW: As they discuss Olive’s gifts, Jeff and Mary shiver as an ill wind suddenly blows over them from the east and gasp in horror as the wide expanse of water around them transforms into an impenetrable cornfield.
@Tom T.: Hell, between Stranger Things and Gen X hitting its middle-aged nostalgia phase, setting the strip in the 80s would probably give it a boost in popularity. At least until everyone realized all the characters were miserable assholes.
MW: Olive goes on to become the most boring of the X-men.
Dustin: I’d like Dustin to meet a young woman who actually likes him and gently helps him get his shit together. It’s time for a change and it could be done without some kind of stupid time jump.
Dustin: No, no, don’t tell Dustin “no offense”! He’ll think you’re flirting with him!
It’s a tight race, but “Dustin is a loser who can’t get a date” may be the strip’s most repulsive running gag. Pretty much every joke in the comic springs from a well of mean-spirited cruelty, but that one also makes use of its underlying misogyny (“women are shallow, superficial gold-diggers who treat you like crap if you’re not a muscle-bound hunk in a Ferrari”) and has Dustin behaving in ways that are at best socially tone-deaf and at worst outright harassment.
MW: And WHAT, pray tell, are we supposed to learn from Olive? It’s okay to swim into a riptide and risk drowning if it will make the popular girls like you? Practice your telepathic communication with animals so you can call for help if you’re in an area with no phone service? Ignore the red flags from the mentor who is a little too interested in spending time alone with you?
@Baja Gaijin: The last one is great. Where did you snag that?
@Baja Gaijin
Jeff speaks for all of us in that last one:
@Tom T.: Yeah, the only sign that the strip is set in the 21st century is that the obnoxious sister is always looking at her phone instead of listening to a Walkman ™. The creators are right up there with Karen Moy and Terry Beatty and the Evanses in apparently living in a world that modern reality can’t penetrate,
Dustin: As far as female nerds, I give you T.J. Burnside Clapp, one of the first Star Wars cosplayers, when the franchise was a single movie.
Oh, and to get it authentic to detail, there were no pause/play on the movie, no internet, and limited stills available.
DT: I like to think the prison guard actually said “yawn” sarcastically. “Oh, ho-hum, another inmate permanently traumatized by the cruelty of the for-profit carceral system! There any Reese’s cups left in the vending machine?”
GT: Apparently the only thing needed to solve budgeting problems in school is small-scale cultural cuisine. Forget bake sales, fry bread and tamales served from the back of a hatchback, that’s the future of fundraising!
HotC: Love the costume, Heart–always happy to see the younger generation appreciating the classics–but you need to add a strategically placed pair of rolled-up socks.
JP: Once again, I am BEGGING writers who have child characters to do at least a little research into developmental stages. Charlotte is supposed to be five or six; kids that age are learning how to spell “cat” and “dog,” not write stories about them.
Neddy’s absolutely going to promise to get her a squirrel, even though that’s stupid and possibly illegal, right? She’ll decide this is the solution to everything just because it’s the only time the kid’s smiled this entire arc.
MT: How is she going to get the money to buy the Pitt sisters out? She’s obviously been in a coma since 2009.
JP: Hooboy! That sure came outta nowhere! I hope they realize that Dude the Squirrel is long retired to the Old Comics Characters Home, Wildlife Section. He’s almost as old as Walt Wallet in Squirrel years. And Rocket J. Squirrel, who graciously appeared in Hagar on Monday, is booked up for weeks on the minor ComicCon circuit. Guess we’ll just have to find a break-out Star from our plethora of Squirrel talent… that is, if they continue with this cockamamie idea.
We already have Melody Mare lined up for a cameo, since the juvenile has been promised Horsey rides. I guess Melody is still willing to do it – although she’s a little P.O.ed with us over the Hagar thing… But she never misses a chance to go visit Spencer Farms — I hear she’s close to a deal to buy the place…
@Little Guy: The first franchise-related fanzine was Spockinalia, edited by Devra Langsam and Sherna Comerford. It’s possible Roddenberry’s little sci-fi show might have faded into obscurity if it weren’t for the sheer number of ladies writing letters and organizing conventions and writing utterly obscene Pon Farr fiction.
Really though, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly did not codify an entire genre and bang Percy on her mother’s grave for sci-fi to be labeled a guy thing.
Dustbin 1: My local comic shop has been co-owned by a woman for more than 25 years.
Dustbin 2: Is this one of those “meet cute” things I’ve heard about?
GT: Today on Non Sequitur Theater, it’s “Gil Thorp”:
“I’ve approved the budget for the reunion ceremony.”
“Leo’s fried bread business is really taking off.”
“The board says Toby can stay on the team.”
“I like soup.”
“Gil, are you sure you feel alright?”
“My new student can control dogs with the power of love.”
“Ok, I’m calling 911.”
Dustin-I hate how comic strip writers delve into old outdated stereotypes.
Mary Worth: Every time we get one of these “epilogue” sequences where Mary makes Dr. Jeff putter her around the bay as if he’s her manservant, I feel a strong desire to see him push her overboard and than repeatedly run her over with his boat.
Dustin: In yet another example of how thoroughly alienated from other humans newspaper comic writers tend to be, the writer of Dustin’s knowledge of comic books and their fandoms begins and ends with terrible 80s Hollywood tropes about what “nerds” act like. As part of that, he treats the idea of women being interested in comics as if its some weird new phenomena showing how #Woke the current times are and not something that’s been happening probably since the medium was invented.
Mother Goose And Grimm: Speaking of comic books, Grimm has apparently decided to recreate the famous scene from Grant Morrison’s Animal Man where the titular superhero sees through the fourth wall and realizes he’s a fictional character. “MY GOD!! I SEE YOU!!! You thought that joke was funny, right?”
@TheDiva: The next big plot twist: Charlotte gets bubonic plague.
CS: So Lena makes a big stink about Ed’s no glitter rule but for years has ignored all of his many other fireable offenses.
FC: Shouldn’t an average seven year old be tall enough to reach out of that window without the aid of a stool?
Dustin: Reminds me of an article about comic book stores the Houston Chronicle ran over 30 years ago. A female customer said she frequented the store because of the extremely favorable men to women ratio. However, the article noted that despite her going there for years, she had yet to date one of the male customers, let alone get into a relationship.
Eewww! Nerds!
@TheDiva: …for sci-fi to be labeled a guy thing. Attendance at sci-fi cons in the late 70s and early 80s confirms that.
Dustin: Keep the art.
Replace the word “nerdfest” with the word “sausage fest”.
How does it change your reaction?
@Guillermo el Chiclero: An ex-girlfriend did postdoc work at Cal Tech. She said that another female student there told her, commenting on the male-to-female ratio, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
@Ken: #68: Another big plot twist: The squirrel bites Charlotte and gives her rabies. Then she bites Neddy and all of the Parkers, Spencers, and Drivers and gives them rabies. They all turn feral and government animal control officers have to put them down.
Seriously, was today’s Dustin just cut and pasted from Big Bang Theory? Seems like they MUST have made this joke before?
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
On Crankshaft never getting fired despite being purposefully terrible at his job all the time : it’s weird, because I feel as if the Funkyshaftverse has establish that certain occupations (bank/mailroom clerk, bus driver, etc.) actually have “be as unhelpful and purposefully terrible at your job” as their actual goal. Like, Crankshaft is SUPPOSED TO actively drive past kids without picking them up while maneuvering the bus to destroy as much property as possible.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
Judge Parker turning into 28 days later for Halloween would be nice, yeah.
Dustin2: If the Dustin strip-generator (I will not call them a “cartoonist) thinks comic book readers are nerds, what do they think about people who still read newspaper comics?
MG&G: Interesting that Mother Goose (?) has provided spoons with the bowls of brown glop, as if she’s convinced herself that Grimm and [consults Wikipedia] Attila are actually the children she never had and possibly could never have had because of some undisclosed backstory bit about infertility or The One Who Got Away. Or maybe they just jammed their opposable-thumbs-lacking paws into the flatware drawer and got spoons for themselves because they share Mother Goose’s delusion about their humanity. Either way, mmmm, that brown glop sure does look tasty. At least by Mary Worth standards.
Doonesbury Classics: “Oh, my God! B.D. lost his helmet!” That was my exact reaction the first time I read this strip. It took me a while to notice the other thing.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@63 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
A shout out of thanks to Sid for calling it Spencer Farms instead of what they now call it, Spencer
RaunchRanch.Dustin: One time I was in a comic book store and the two guys working the counter were having a lively debate over which fan group had the fattest women, Star Trek or Dr. Who.
BTW: IMOH, the place where you’ll find more male incels than a sci-fi/fantasy/comics con is a gun show. Nerds with guns, hmm?
I’m not the biggest SF fan*, but I’ve been loving the female authors for years. Went on a James Tiptree Jr. (née Alice Bradley Sheldon) binge a few months ago….wow.
If you can get your hands on copies of her short stories/novellas “The Women Men Don’t See,” “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?,” and especially “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” big treat in store.
*Mostly the really old stuff. See Wesleyan University Press’ editions of unbowdlerized Jules Verne (especially lesser-known novels like The Begum’s Millions and Robur the Conqueror), and MIT Press’ “Radium Age” reprint novels and SS anthologies
Mary Worth – So the creative team decided to burn a week with a lazy recap of praising a narcissistic character who isn’t even there, rather than start a new story? This isn’t just being lazy, this is Olive-loafing.
Dustin – Dustin is hoping to get a part-time job over at Intelligent Life, mostly to be out of the house and the judgement of the rest of his toxic family.
Mother Goose and Grimm – This mystery brown liquid need to be paired with Mary Worth’s beige squares.
@63 Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
Ya’know, Sid, maybe you could borrow the squirrel that’s been in Betty the past two days.
Dustin: Sadly, the job of comic book store cashier is less glamorous than she had believed. But on the bright side, part of her salary will be transferred to retired millionaires!
Scratchy may want to know this.
@Baja Gaijin: Nah, she’s a real trendsetter. Lío did it too.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Sid, those porpoises didn’t cavort for too long—one splash and they’re out of the script? And they were great! Why do your clients keep getting shortchanged by The Ladies? What happened to the Gulls? I mean, what does it take for June to pen in a few v-shapes to suggest flying birds in the distance? I’d almost believe your passionate animals were about to be replaced by animal passion—do you get any of that kind of action?—were we not talking about Mary and Jeff.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Oh! Juan S. Perfil in person! I learned how to start a fire from you!”
“Wonderful! You saw me rub sticks together in one of my jungle movies, I suppose?”
“Well, no…”
“I got myself a gold cigarette lighter just like yours”
[I have to say, today’s real punchline actually made me laugh.]
“Olive has gifts that most of us covet…” What do you with “us”? I don’t covet the vague of notion of impending doom that makes more responsive to incoming danger, I already have anxiety!
@Sequitur: #86: Hey, that’s my pet peeve about restaurant waitstaff.
GT: good art even if a lot the plots are incoherent
DT: prison life is hard
MW: are they heading into reef?
JP: when do they introduce the Sluggo character?
@Lord Flatulence:
@jvwalt:
Actually Attila is the purple cat, this bulldog guy is somewhat new, I don’t know his name myself.
FG: hey guys, Ming probably isnt alive (thanks to Mudge who described how he might be) but in any event he’s not the ruler. C’mon, Flash, if he exists settle it Mano a Mano.
@Ukulele Ike: Mary and Jeff see the minister driving a giant boat the next day.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Pickles – Next Opal will confess that she has never LMAO.
“So does that mean…?”
“Yes. On our wedding night when I said you made me CUM, I didn’t, and never have since then either. Sorry about that as well.”
@Ken: I’ve been listening to the audiobook version on Hoopla throughout the month. It’s great!
Wednesday Squickies
MW: “Olive has gifts that most of us covet. She can hold her breath for four minutes at a time while under the bedsheets, for instance.”
MG&G: “I’m avoiding things that make me look fat. Other than receiving anal sex, obviously – can’t give up ALL the good things in life.”
Dustin: “It’s nice to see a woman working here at the comic book store.” That’s it, no changes needed – it’s squicky enough exactly as written.
MG&G: That black and white mammal-thing is a boston terrier named Ralph, according to Wikipedia.
But honestly, seeing people get it wrong is pretty entertaining (I sure didn’t know his name). Way more entertaining than the actual comic.
So keep the wrong names coming!
@TheDiva: Dustin’s dating failures are more evidence this comic strip is stuck in 1978. Every single one of his adventures is straight out of the Leisure Suit Larry era. As if twenty-something men in 2025 stll go to fern bars, act aggressively towards women, and use cheesy pickup lines. After the 90s, the courtship process has become so regulated that women now ask why no men approach them anymore. (According to my social media feeds, anyway.)
Dustin should succeed with women every once in a while, because at least he makes an effort. Which is totally contradictory to his workplace behavior.
@Baja Gaijin: #15
The last one…definitely the last one…
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Dustin isn’t allowed to succeed at picking up women because :
1) The strip is far too interested in beating him up for his failures to let him succeed at ANYTHING
2) The strip operates on the belief that Dustin is immediately recognisable as a repulsive failure, meaning everyone he meets reacts to him with contempt and disgust BEFORE he even opens his mouth
and proves them rightDUSTIN: Huh, I thought I was through with this kind of thing when I quit watching THE BIG BANG THEORY. No such luck.
MW: Thank you very much, Karen and June! But honestly, for future reference, I’m already finding enough quick handy media emetics elsewhere these days.
@Guy Nerdlinger: Can confirm, that motto is used by women at all academic levels there. It also didn’t help the saner grad school men were either (a) already paired up when they arrived or (b) deliberately looking for off-campus social outlets and potential dates
@Guillermo el Chiclero: #69
“FC: Shouldn’t an average seven year old be tall enough to reach out of that window without the aid of a stool?”
Um, the key concept is “average”…
@Jerp + Jump: You talking about comics or the cute girl?
Dustin: Wait, what’s she got going on up there? Her hair’s pulled back into a ponytail, but most of it isn’t? Is that a thing now? Anyway, she didn’t foresee nerds at a comic book store, so maybe she and Dustin would be a good match.
MW: And boy do we all ever covet those gifts. The last time I was riding a balloon that got stuck in a tree, all I could think was, “Boy, I wish I could summon two indoor dogs with short legs.”
@TheDiva: I was going to mention Mary Shelley as the Mother of Science Fiction, but you phrased it much better.
“Actually, wait, aren’t you Dustin? Never mind, offense.”
@Anonymous, Dustin: We need to cross the streams with other strips, past and present –
– Woman decides that she’ll date Dustin if he can kick this football
– Dustin is told by someone with Inner Beauty that he has none
– Dustin finds out one of the many women he failed to score with died of cancer, and willed the proceeds from her book to him: sixty-seven cents, net.
– Elderly lady talks his ear off about his special qualities and how there is someone for him. Then she takes the ar and bakes it into a muffin
Curtis: Maybe this is just me, but I feel like by the time your kids are Curtis’s age, either they already have a TV in their room, or you’ve made a decision that they’re not going to have a TV in their room.
HtH: I love how grumpy the nobleman continues to look in the second panel. “Oh, sure, that dude’s castle gets all the attention.” It’s almost enough for me not to do my usual complaint that the Hägar creative team is confused about how castles work on multiple levels.
JP: Ces once again makes the rookie mistake of reminding us about Woody Wilson era storylines that very nearly made sense!
S4th: Wait a minute. Orange hair … green shirt … glasses … works backstage in the theatre … Bettina’s making friends with a human version of Scooter!
SH: It’s absolutely hilarious that this strip made a huge thing about Pam having to make the descision to become human permenantly, skipped her actually making the decison, and is now all “Obviously, permenantly doesn’t mean permenantly. You can be a human permenantly for a while, and then go back to being a human occasionally” and still presents it as an either/or, where she’s now deciding not to be a human “permenantly”!
9CL: Broorax puts “qut” on the list of incomplete words, even though he didn’t include “squin” on the list before it. Suggesting that he could use an editor, if only such a person could keep their will to live.
BB: Beetle has a glass of red in his hand and a burger and beautiful (I guess) blonde in front of him. Amos of all people should be able to identify this as “living his best life.”
C-Shaft: “There’s no carpet in Lena’s office.”
“There is when she takes off her pants.”
I apologize from the depths of my heart.
DT: Best perk of being a prison guard in this county is the magnificently stocked vending machine. Dagwood would change careers in a heartbeat.
JP: Only if you give it a better name than “Dude.”
Lio: I hate to tell you this, Lio, but some kid in Dustin already beat you to the punch on this act.
Phantom: The Little Jungle Patrol Train That Could.
RMMD: Augie can’t believe it. For the first time in his life, someone stayed on the phone with him until he was ready to ring off.
@Charterstoned: re MW: Yeah, well… our relationship with The Ladies has been a bit strained lately, especially after the trip to Animal Hospital got deep-sixed. We had a disappointed Trio, I’m tellin’ ya.
And you may have noticed that the Doves o’ Love were conspicuously absent on Monday outside Mary’s window as she blathered on with Jeff. They refused to participate in that travesty of their “romance” brand. The Porpoises (or sometimes Dolphins) have at least one appearance per boat trip in their contracts, and they are guaranteed the foreground exposure so they can show their stuff. But I don’t know what the deal is with the Gulls… I swear it wasn’t our clients who poop-bombed The Ladies’ vehicles last month.
@TheDiva: Charlotte is supposed to be five or six; kids that age are learning how to spell “cat” and “dog,” not write stories about them.
Thank you, I had absolutely no sense of how old Charlotte was supposed to be. Ces could have had her finger-painting or doing calculus and I’d have been “okay, I guess?”
@UncleJeff: Dustin: Keep the art.
Replace the word “nerdfest” with the word “sausage fest”.
How does it change your reaction?
Hmm. Interesting. A bit? Like, we lose the idea that this woman somehow didn’t expect a comic shop to be full of nerds; she just expected more female nerds. But since she was wrong, it seems like we still land on “female nerds aren’t really a thing.”
…Of course, then we get to the punchline where Dustin is offended to be included as a guy, which is something else entirely.
MW – So! Mary is covetous! Wives! Man servants!! Maid servant!!! And don’t even get her started about Toby’s ass….
Dustin – He’ll of a sacrifice, but anything for the sisterhood….
MG&G – Oh…and did I mention that photos steal your soul….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Horace Broon:
On Safe Havens : Also : is it just me, or are they letting this guy in on the whole “Magic DNA shapeshifting potions” thing rather quickly? I mean, it’s a secret that’s so important to keep away from people that it requires MANIPULATING EVERY LOTTERY IN THE WORLD so as to bribe anyone who comes close to finding out about it into abandoning their research?
I think Mary Worth has dementia and we’re seeing events loosely from her perspective, that’s why the strip has been fixated on a little girl with non-existent psychic powers.
@TheDiva: #64:
@Little Guy: #109:
The real father of science fiction is generally considered to be Lucian of Samosata, a 2nd Century Hellenized Syrian satirist, whose works were popular in the Roman Empire. Unless someone discovers an earlier work by another author his novel, sarcastically titled “A True History”, is considered the first work of science fiction. Where earlier stories of fantasy were mostly based on ancient mythologies involving the gods and their magic, his story uses psuedo-scientific explanations to describe travel to outer space, interplanetary war, and alien lifeforms.
@Anonymous: Yeah, Dustin would quickly reveal his crappy, inept nature, but he’d do well enough to get the occasional date. But the strip is way too devoted to #1.
Dustin-“So, honey, who gave you permission to work outside of the home?”
Dustin-“I’m not a nerd. Nerds are smart.”
Dustin is already browsing the shelves and shows no sign of needing help. This woman clearly walked over to him to strike up a conversation. I think…this might be Dustin being hit on? It still turns into insults right away, so I’m guessing the real problem with him is that his voice is intolerable. That’s a weird choice in a graphical medium but it would explain a lot!
Dustin: Mercifully, this failed attempt at social interaction is interrupted by Andy Capp knocking on the window.
Late Thread Cuisine: Covering it with Fritos won’t hide the fact that it’s grody.
@Baja Gaijin:
Tuna with tomato sauce? Hmmmm. I’m still down, albeit bewildered.
@Philip:
That particular disease is worse than most cures you could name, but Intelligent Life? I don’t know.
@Baja Gaijin: Tuna used to come in 9 1/4 oz cans? That’s one helluva tuna salad sandwich.
@Baja Gaijin:
I’m not sure what I find more disturbing, the recipe or the penis shaped salt and pepper shakers.
@Ukulele Ike:
Perhaps He-Man sized?
@Ukulele Ike:
Not sure about 9-1/4 oz cans, but you can get tuna in a 12 oz can.
@124 Baja Gaijin:
I took one glance at that and my brain yelled, “Stop looking at that!”
And then my brain shut down until I closed my eyes.
@Anonymous: I think they’re mushroom-shaped, not that it makes much difference considering how many mushrooms have phalloides as a species name.
MW – “She sounds like someone we can all learn from. For example, how to find something likable about you. I know it’s my job, I’ve been in this strip maybe 20 years now but it’s still so hard. So very, very hard.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I hope and expect to see that MW comment again in a few days.
@cheech wizard: Excellent!
@Baja Gaijin: Oh, gaaack.
One thing that mildly fascinates me about these splendid photos you provide is that so many of them seem to want to be some combination of burnt orange, avocado green, mustard yellow, and deep brown, the official colors of the Seventies. And it’s not helping them.
@Poteet: Oh, be fair. THE official colour of the Seventies was powder blue.
JP: I think I pointed out back in the Dude days that many states prohibit keeping squirrels as pets and most if not all other states require various sorts of permits to own them. Of course that little problem didn’t matter back then because the characters in JP were, at that time, the darlings of the gods, and they were being given whatever they wanted, besides being rich. But now? You made a real dumb-dumb move there, Neddy the Dim.
@Rube: That must have happened near the end of the decade, when the powder blue joined the peach, purple, hot pink, and lime green of the Eighties.
@TheDiva: You are absolutely right about Charlotte. And yet Charlotte is a model of real childhood compared to the ghastly changeling known as Shannon. Arrrrrgh, I just said The Name! Protect us, O deities, from a visitation!
(I may have run into a site interface glitch; apologies if I multi-post.)
@pachoo: Dustin is already browsing the shelves and shows no sign of needing help. This woman clearly walked over to him to strike up a conversation. I think…this might be Dustin being hit on? It still turns into insults right away, so I’m guessing the real problem with him is that his voice is intolerable. That’s a weird choice in a graphical medium but it would explain a lot!
You’re overthinking it. Regardless of her motivation for walking over to him, the first thing out of his mouth – even before she has a chance to ask whether she can help, as a store employee is every now and then wont to do – is impossibly regressive.
Employees don’t pin their nametags on so that customers know whom to make unsolicited personal comments to because they are supposed take such indignities with a smile.
It isn’t the voice; not even Morgan Freeman could have delivered that line and achieved anything positive.
If Dustin were genuinely happy because members of both sexes are now working a this comic book store, wouldn’t his first comment have been about, I don’t know, comic books? And not, “hi, I couldn’t help noticing you have tits”?
It’s along the lines of the old Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons, where instead of someone doing a double take and crying out, “a gh-gh-gh-gh-ghost!”, Dustin did it as “a g-g-g-g-girl!” Pretty much like he always does. Dustin the Friendless Incel, more like, cursing his own darn bad luck.
@Poteet: I think there maybe a simple explanation — Sophie and Neddy probably had the squirrel as a pet back when they were homeless children living off the land with their grandfather.
Of course, all Neddy has to say is “no”, but somehow I doubt she’s capable of anything other than stupidity and caving in.
@139 Rube:
Here are the colors of the 1970’s and the percentage of their use. It seems the blue was last.
The pet squirrel called “The Dude” was a stowaway on the motor home Sam bought to take the family on a road adventure.
@Sequitur: Maybe it was its over representation in things like sports uniforms, leisure suits and tuxedos that influenced my memories.
@18 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Well, duh. She still has some junk in that trunk.
@30 BigTed: “…Say, would you like to see the big, heavy
concrete blockwindow unit air conditioner I brought with us? I think you’ll understand its relevance immediately.” Fixed that for ya.@58 Lord Flatulence: It’s from “Looks Good on Paper.”
@64 TheDiva: “Really though, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly did not codify an entire genre and bang Percy on her mother’s grave for sci-fi to be labeled a guy thing.” Whut th’???
@128 Anonymous: I knew someone’d notice the dick shakers. Too bad it wasn’t Scratchy.
@131 Sequitur: I sorta wished my brain did the same thing.
@132 Ken: The recipe’s from the 70’s. Those “shakers” are not dinnerware but “key party” decorations.
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, what!? I heard it was Byron.
Percy she banged in the bergère, or up against the chiffonier.
@Poteet: @Sequitur: You remind me of the Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin’s dad convinces Calvin that black-and-white photographs are in color — but when they were taken, the world was black and white. These charts may just be showing the order in which the colors appeared.
@Poteet: Muck obliged, Poteet.
@Ken: I think they’re mushroom-shaped, not that it makes much difference considering how many mushrooms have phalloides as a species name.
When they started making mushrooms in the shape of penises is when we began our boycott of the product. But maybe we’ll have to give this phalloides stuff a try.
@151 The Breathtaking Bonehead Brothers:
Mushrooms spew out spores much like sperm.
Dustin: Um, she definitely is drawn like a female nerd. Nerdier than Dustin even. And she works at a comic store.
Dustin: Maybe that girl thought “comic book shop” was a code word for an exclusive club frequented primarily by rich, single, handsome men. Which is the only place where I can imagine that young women in this comic would willingly take a job.