Mostly spooky one-panels
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Pluggers, 10/31/25
Sorry, I don’t think you should be exclaiming “What have you done?” to a guy in a toga unless he just banded together with other patriots to stab his longtime friend and political ally to death to preserve the constitutional order of the Roman Republic. I guess he really should be covered in blood to make this work but I stand by it.
Family Circus, 10/31/25
Why is Big Daddy Keane attempting to hide behind a tree like this? It’s not because his kids are embarrassed to be seen with him, as they’re gleefully pointing him out to this poor woman uninterested in their family psychodrama. If he’s embarrassed to be seen with them then I get it, but he’s doing such a bad job of hiding that I have to say that he’s no prize either.
The Lockhorns, 10/31/25
Leroy and Loretta hate each other with such intensity that it’s easy to miss that they’re not real big fans of anyone else either. Have you ever aggressively worn a Halloween costume at a specific person? Leroy has, and that’s what makes him great.
Mary Worth, 10/31/25
Oh, you went into solution-search mode, Mary? Because it sounds like the solution was quickly found by Olive, thanks to her telepathic gifts. You didn’t do shit!
171 replies to “Mostly spooky one-panels”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these missing final panels express your opinion of today’s strip?
FC: Bil couldn’t find a big enough tree to whiz behind comfortably.
MW – Most Bum Boat nights, Jeff is sad that he’s not gonna get laid. Tonight he thinks, “well, Dad always said ‘never stick your dick in crazy, son.'”
MW:
“Mary…were you scared when your hot air balloon crashed?”
“Heavens, no! — I enjoy dangling precipitously 200 feet above the ground with no one in sight!”
FC:
“Daddy doesn’t want you to recognize him as the person you see looking in your windows at night!”
Leroy should never have taken advice from that Joker!
MW: I know a lot of people joke about Mary not being human but “Solution-Search Mode” does sound like something a robot would say…a really stupid robot.
MW:
“Max and Greta were telepathically summoned by Olive. But Russian interference diverted them to Irkutsk before they got to our balloon!”
MW:
“I like the way your shirt changed from green in prior days’ strips to purple in today’s, Jeff. Is that a mood shirt you’re wearing?”
@Baja Gaijin: number 3
Pluggers – Et tu, Pluggers….
FC – Daddy’s dressed as Norman Bates….
Shlockhorns – Where’s my dancin’ lampshade? I’m getting piss drunk tonight….
MW – Jeff knows he’s not getting laid. His tummy brain needs bourbon….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: Jeff’s left hand imperceptibly curled into a fist as he and Mary strolled the dock. He tried to suppress his frustration after hearing all evening about Olive and her batshit crazy ‘gifts’, but he also knew his building, blind rage would be impossible to control if…. “If Mary mentions that girl One. More. Time…!”
Lockhorns: And here I thought Leroy is dressed as the punchline to the old “my turn in the barrel joke” hence the bung hole in the back.
FC: Are we seriously supposed to believe that Billy is too old for trick-or-treating? That he’s running around throwing eggs and toilet paper? Or that he’s sitting at home trying to play a game of cards that’s interrupted every five minutes by the doorbell? This is a kid who still signs his name in crayon.
MW: Jeff: “Remember when I hated licking toads? You turned me around on that and now it’s something we both gravel twist dogleg together”
FC: Can’t take Dad anywhere without him marking his alpha-ness.
PLUGGERS: The classic sheet with eye holes would have been more merciful to everyone involved.
9CL: With its high-minded dialogue and pulsating passion, this strip is supposed to represent what women want from erotica. Instead, we have Fifty Shades of Icky-Poo.
RMMD: Summer wraps it up by repeating just what Augie said in the first place. And now, he’s going to ask her to read a WHOLE BOOK? Sheesh.
MW: The only bright spot is that, unless she gets her own strip, we are almost free of Olive. Now, if Jeff can get the ritual groveling over, we can move on.
I don’t know, Pluggers. A fat old guy interacting with kids while clad only in a sheet should be reported to the authorities.
Just assume Daddy Keane is casually taking a dump on his neighbor’s lawn, it improves the comic.
MW:
Recoiling at Mary’s matter-of-fact assertion that humans and canines engage in telepathic communication, Jeff clenches his first and resolves to leap into the water to bond with the photosynthetic organisms in the ocean, singing “What’s It All About, Algae?” as he dives into the murky depths.
Kids These Days!
– LUANN: Even if by age 20 you’ve o
put together a blood drive and helped save a life (Mrs Horner’s), your own life still hasn’t been worthwhile?
– BF: when confronted with your behavior, deny.
– FBoFW: such clothes! Origins of yesterday’s Blondie?
– BETTY: such unrealistic values!
FRAZZ: What, there are two Shakelfords? And both excuse floor -wetting pranks. Good thing his bf is the janitor
JP: we know April’s mom disappeared when she was little, but how old was Randy when his mother died? Perhaps single dads have priorities greater than trick-or-treating. Greed– isn’t that the parker-Driver-Bowen way?
MW: After a long day of listening to Mary’s insane psychobabble, Dr Jeff realizes today is the one day of the year he can pull this off.
“Here, Mary. Try on this jacket for Halloween.”
“Okaaay, Hey, the sleeves are way too long.”
Lockhorns:
“I really like this drink concoction that John, Paul, George and Ringo invented when they were the Fab Four, Leroy. They called it ‘Beatle Juice‘ !”
Pluggers: Why not dress as a dog?
Love to imagine someone checking in on Mary Worth for the first time in a year or two. “Okay, let’s see what wacky and awful hijinks Wilbur has be–” (squints, frowns)
Pluggers is nervously steering into size-growth/weight-gain fetish territory.
Those types of stories where a guy keeps growing bigger and/or fatter, and the guy eventually has to wear a king-sized bedsheet as a shirt because nothing else will fit…
That’s the vibe that I’m getting anyway.
Mary Worth: Mary appears to have psychic powers herself. She is so committed to her favorite color scheme that everything around her turns some shade of purple: the sky, the fence posts and rails, Dr. Jeff’s shirt, Dr. Jeff’s balls…
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Wait, I’m being handed a note: the lower-half palate is blues. We apologize for the error.
Fudge Packer – Jason Kelce just pissed off the wrong person.
MW: As I recall, Mary’s “Solution-Search Mode” consisted of worrying that the organizers would forget about them, and that it might be a long time before they were rescued. True, once the fire truck showed up, she leaped into the discussion of who would go first, but that wasn’t so much “searching for a solution” as it was “filling a week’s worth of daily strips”.
@Baja Gaijin: number three – doc Jeff should be noting all of this down to document his commitment order for Mary.
Lockhorns: Is Loretta dressed as Betty Rubble? How would that fit with her own trolling of Leroy or some other target?
“Pluggers are fat, even in October” Yup, they sure are.
FC: “He’s dressed as himself, the notorious Scotsdale Lawn Shitter.”
LHs: I like that Leroy is still wearing a tie and dress shoes with that outfit, possibly to show that he still has his dignity, but likely because he just made a quick change into that barrel in front of the entire party.
MW: Ok, very minor point, but “solution-search mode”? Yeesh. That sounds like some kind of garbage spewed by bad corporate consultants or rise-and-grind influencers who don’t like the term “problem-solving” because it puts too much emphasis on the negative.
Lockhorns: Forget Leroy’s barrel, what is Loretta’s costume? It looks vaguely familiar but I’m not placing it. Not Marge Simpson, surely.
@Hibbleton: Exactly! “ here let me just tie up these arms and then the nice people will take you to a warm safe padded place. “
The Lockhorns: The thing is, this panel could have run in 1995, 2006, 2012 or 2025, as it is here. People keep electing Beetlejuices because they’re supposed to be strong on the economy, but it’s actually the Lydias who create jobs.
Mary Worth: What is with the flattened-off noses in this strip? Is it supposed to be something about grindstone?
Pluggers: I assume that extreme shading is supposed to mean something: sweat, urine, grime in general. If this is how Old Man Dog Man is presenting himself to the neighbors, I’d ask “What have you done?” too!
@Ken: There was also “let’s try to call someone… oh, I have no cell reception”, which was clearly the sort of solution-search nobody else could have thought up(:
Pluggers: I will only note that Mr. David Maack is from Racine, the epicenter of American kringle production, 160 calores per 52 gram portion. The man knows of what he speaks, except he has no idea where to get a laurel-leaf crown.
The Family Circus: God, this is awful. Daddy Keane in a defensive crouch behind a tree, the candy lady looking out suspiciously yet contemptuously, the children oblivious, Barfy just happy to waddle along no matter what may come. It’s so awkward when you end your affair with the neighbor!
FC: Did PJ learn to walk, or did the Keane’s induct another kid into their cult?
JP It’s not just that parentified Charlotte has to show Neddy how to be polite – unlike Neddy, Charlotte has been interacting with the not-rich at her school and is aware of the huge candy price increases of 2025 driven by the poor cocoa crops, making even a mini candy-with-chocolate-in-it bar something to be grateful for, rather than the umpteenth fistful of cheap lollipops!
Lockhorns: You’d have to have tried very hard to lose money on the stock market since 2021. What kind of advice could Leroy possibly have been given? “Liquidate all your S&P 500 holdings and put everything you have in the subcontractor that fits Boeing plane doors”?
MW: Normally, robo-Mary hides her programmed nature well, but occasionally a blatant robotism like “I went into solution-search mode” slips out. She speaks in bold text so often because she’s powered by ChatGPT.
Pluggers: “… but then there was a sudden wind and those knots weren’t as strong as I thought. Long story short, we’re going to have to tour the neighbors’ houses to inform them I’m on a register now.”
CS: “You guys, the Pizza Box Monster is eating pizza in the restaurant right now, and isn’t trying to hide or elude us! Do you think we should find out who it is, by, you know, looking at them?” It’s as if even the characters don’t care about this stupid plot.
Pluggers-Somebody watched ‘Animal House’ the night before.
RMMD-“I’m going to expect you to take me to dinner at least twice a week and I want oral.”
MW-“Max and Greta were telepathically summoned.” Jeff then gives Mary a quizzical look.
FC_”That’s our daddy. Is your restraining order still in effect?”
Meanwhile, in his head, the Doctor is running through a dementia checklist on Mary, and the numbers are not adding up well for her. Got to seal the deal tonight, get into her will, and then pack her away, he thinks, before anyone else hears about ESP dogs.
Big Daddy Keane is hiding because, like the other members of their evangelical circle, they haven’t yet succumbed to the paranoia that Halloween is a massive devil-worshipping rave.
Lockhorns – “Well, how about investing in my new line of pink princess dress-shaped backpacks?”
MW: Time for Jeff to go into nonsense ignoring mode.
@Voshkod: I thought you were going to make a Doctor Who joke, because anyone who says solution-search mode is obviously either an Alien or a Robot.
Mr Plugger is about to accidentally expose himself to like a dozen kids and their parents when his sheet comes untied
There is no way a plugger wears a toga as a costume and it’s not a reference to the 1978 movie National Lampoon’s Animal House. There is also no way the police aren’t been called to a house where a grown man is greeting children dressed in nothing but a bed sheet.
***
Billy has either been grounded for Halloween or is spreading a huge dotted line all over the neighbourhood that his parents can use to track him down later. Either would have been better than seeing the image of creepy Old Man Keene hiding behind a tree.
***
Parents take their children trick or treating all the time so the only reason that makes sense for creepy Old Man Keene hiding behind a tree is that he doesn’t want this particular woman to see him. Does he owe her money? Are they having an affair? Finally, something interesting happens in Family Circus but we’ll never find out more about.
FC: Two observations:
1. Billy is not with the clan so can we assume he feels like he is too old or his costume is inappropriate?
2. Daddy isn’t hiding behind the tree, he’s taking a dump in his annoying neighbor’s yeard.
The buckle on Dolly’s witch hat speaks volumes. She’s not your typical witch, she’s a Pilgrim witch. Very clever, very original, she’s been excommunicated from the village and will die of exposure in the Northeastern winter, very tragic.
Phantom: What’s Diddy doing in the Ivory Lana Jail?
Mary Worth: Has Doctor Jeff been working out, or did the artist just graft his head onto a different action figure?
“Solution-Search Mode” sounds like some AI search engine nonsense, which explains where this whole plotline came from! ChatGPT told the writer to get a psychic child to fix all their problems, and they decided to get some use out of the ridiculous concept.
FC: Are those supposed to be lollipops the Lady of the House is dispensing to our cherished li’l Keaneoids? Swear to Dog, they look more like radishes.
@CanuckDownSouth: Thanks, forgot that bit of problem-solving on Mary’s part.
Since it’s Halloween, I’ll note that a lot of horror-movie writers also have to shoehorn a “no cell reception” line into the dialogue to explain why their pack of designated victims can’t just call for help.
MW: Even in the middle of praising God’s Specialest Little Girl, Mary can’t help but pat herself on the back as well. “Oh, I wasn’t panicked, I was in solution-search mode! I had just figured out how to fashion a crude ladder from the balloon rigging when the dogs telepathically summoned by Olive showed up.”
Pluggers don’t bother with a laurel wreath, as they can style their hair in a close enough approximation.
The Lockhorns: That’s not just a Beetlejuice costume, that’s a Beetlejuice, The Animated Series costume.
Or the purple void everyone’s trapped in is the Neitherworld… a concept no one else remembers but that has been trapped in my earspace since the 1990s. If you need obscure references to cartoons, I’m here for you!
MW – “Dammit, Mary. It’s bad enough when you talk crazy, but I hate it when you use the passive voice!”
@Tabby Lavalamp: I picture a Plugger not as being a teenager or a college student in 1978 and laughing at the debauchery, but as at least a decade older and raising kids, devolving into Kids These Days grumpiness. Pluggers tend to be culturally conservative, the kind of people who claim no one has made good movies since John Ford or Cecil B. DeMille or Alfred Hitchcock.
MW- re-writing the narrative from being worried and panicking (look at the artwork for that week) to being into a calm solution search mode means that even she knows she looked bad up there. I’d be worried for Olive and the pilot- they really know what happened up there. Their lives aren’t worth a plug nickel.
RMMD- Auggie’s book may be the biggest blockbuster since the Butters Scotch classic ” The Tale Of Scrotie MacBoogerballs”.
The horror in his wife’s voice tells me, Mr plugger must have cut those sheets. Seeing as we see only the top, how short did he cut it, and is he wearing pants?
FC: They took Sam along with them, isn’t that sweet?
A rat, a witch, and a clown knock on your door. Do you let them in?
LH: Beetlejuice…
Which of those bags has PJ in it?
@Victor Von: Some things never leave. I remember that too. I recall one episode where Beetlejuice took Lydia and her parents on a roadtrip through the Neitherworld
Her parents don’t question anything because they’re idiots… and they end up in an alternate to France, with an evil counterpart to the Eiffel Tower “The Awful Tower”
I love hokey 90’s writing :D
9CL – For several years now, we have been obsessively time traveling back to different timelines, all of which begin and end with Edda and Amos being pre-teens in love and making out.
I’ve never seen gaslighting used in comic strips before, but here we are. You thought that Amos had a crush on Mary Rosenwieg for years, and that he only hooked up with Edda after they were both adults and attending the same music festival. But its not true! Amos has always loved Edda, and Edda has always tolerated him!
You have to wonder if dementia is playing a role in this.
Gasoline Alley: If I spent 60 hours a week handling diner food while aerated fry oil and burger grease soaks my immediate atmosphere, I’d scrub myself raw before going out to seagull territory. But that’s just me.
RMMD: Somewhere between Mary&DrJeff, and Dustin&(TBA), these two have a chance.
BG&SS: Nothing is more scrumptious and succulent than (checks panel) a marshmallow Peep which has been sitting unwrapped for six months.
H&L: Dentist appointments on November first? Lois is going easy on them. Wait until about the 14th. Dot and Ditto need to face the anticipatory dread of two weeks gobbling Halloween candy and then having to talk to a dentist about their oral care.
Of all the days he can do it, why doesn’t Dustin dress up as “junior executive material” today?
Zits: Jeremy dreaming of Scarlett Johanssen? I see a bright future for him as cougar bait.
FC~ He’d come to the porch but you have a restraining order against him.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Brooke at least would have an excuse if he claimed he was rebooting the entire feature like with superhero universes.
MW- Sometimes I think that Dr. Jeff is gonna finally get lucky and score with Mary. But then I realize that no, if he was lucky he’d score with someone else.
@Tonio: I picture a Plugger not as being a teenager or a college student in 1978 and laughing at the debauchery, but as at least a decade older and raising kids, devolving into Kids These Days grumpiness. Pluggers tend to be culturally conservative, the kind of people who claim no one has made good movies since John Ford or Cecil B. DeMille or Alfred Hitchcock.
Any Plugger “a decade older” than a teenager or college studen in 1978 would have likely been a baby boomer who actually attended those 60s toga parties.
C’shaft: Decades ago, Batiuk pulled the “gasp, the mysterious stranger is a girl!” twist with the helmet-wearing video game ace who became Crazy Harry’s wife (don’t ask me for names, I don’t care to remember and apparently nobody else on the internet does either). Surely he wouldn’t be so tired and lame as to attempt it a second…what am I saying, of course he would.
DT: I realize you only have two weeks to tell this whole story, but having a suspect volunteer information like “Oh yeah, the murder victim? Totally blackmailing all of us, you might want to keep that in mind” is cutting a pretty large corner.
Dustin: Once again, “women are superficial materialistic harpies” is inserted to distract from the actual problem, which is “Dustin is an absolute creep who feels entitled to the time and attention of any woman in public.”
GT: Please, I beg you, stop trying to make “Count Thorpula” happen! It’s never going to happen!
JP: “He will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.”
Luann: You know, I’m all for finding joy in the simple and mundane, but the fact that Luann says “the onion slicer at work is amazing” just proves how empty her life is.
(Also, who the hell is trick-or-treating at an assisted living facility?)
MT: Okay, so the guy has shot a whole mess of deer, several cows, a couple wild boars, one of those African antelope with the curly horns…ummmm…a cheetah, or possibly a hyena and…looks like there might be a unicorn in there? Apart from the last two that’s a pretty lame collection for a trophy hunter. I mean, he doesn’t even have one lion that was drugged and turned out for him to shoot at.
RMMD: Aim high, sister!
MW – “I went into solution-search mode! And it’s a good thing Olive summoned the dogs when she did, because I had just figured out I could throw those two out of the basket to lighten the balloon and fly off.”
MW: Look at Jeff, avoiding eye contact like a pro! It’s like what would happen if Perseus from Clash of the Titans ended up dating Medusa.
@Baja Gaijin:
Number three
@TheDiva:
Greater kudu. Good eatin’.
Also, lions (the males, at least) don’t need to be drugged; they’re lazy as af and not afraid of you. Just walk up and blow their brains out.
Finally, this guy hunts warthogs? As in “sit near somebody’s garden and wait”?
Hey, I haven’t checked Mark Trail in a while—it kinda looks like the artist has started to put more effort into it. Are the stories getting any better?
Mary Worth: “Were you scared when your hot air balloon crashed?” “No, you idiot, I was scared when it was about to crash. How did you get into medical school, anyway? It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”
Lockhorns: Leroy is literally barrel-shaped. He didn’t wear that costume to make a point — he did it because it’s the only thing that fits. (He wore a plugger-like bedsheet toga last year, but the party organizers made him promise never to do that again.)
Family Circus: Oh, look, here’s a lady who lives on a deserted path in the middle of nowhere. If you’ve ever wondered what an actual witch looks like, well, it’s not what you think! (I wouldn’t accept a bunch of unwrapped lollipops from her anyway.)
@Her Father, John Darling: Pluggers generally pride themselves on being “blue collar” rather than college graduates. The ones who did attend college usually didn’t have the social connections to get into fraternities. If they have any appreciation for Belushi’s iconic role, it may be as part of the overall culture instead of any personal experience. Like the Lockhorns, Pluggers read as Silent Generation in attitude no matter what their actual age.
FC: That’s our Daddy he’s dressed as himself because every other day he calls himself an otherkin, and thinks that he’s a giant mouse, and forces us to pretend that he is one, he calls us his litter and even forced a mouse costume on Jeffy!
@Uncle Lumpy: Sadly, no. A little too silly for Mark.
FC: Daddy is dressed up as a sex offender. It’s incredibly method. He’s prepared a very realistic speech, tells everyone in the neighborhood, and has a fake document for all to sign in acknowledgment.
@TheDiva: There’s only one person who could be under that costume: Batton Thomas. It’s stupid, anti-climactic, self-aggrandizing, pointless, and insulting to the audience… it’s an “elegant solution.”
@TheDiva: I’m surprised that there isn’t a Velociraptor in that group “Clever Girl…”
@24 The Rambling Otter: I thought “getting bigger and bigger until they have to wear bed sheets” was the normal progression of Pluggerhood.
@ValdVin: I heard of a process server who did something like this. He got himself hired as a magician at a nine-year-old’s birthday party, and put together this elaborate magic trick where the kid had to give his father an envelope.
To be fair, it was a very good trick.
@TheDiva:
On Crankshaft, and the Pizza (Box) Monster secretly being a woman under there : It’s not even the first time he’s brought up the possibility! One of Funky Winkerbean’s zany schemes to capture the Pizza Monster was to hire a SUPERHERO
*to defeat the cardboard prankster, but Pizza Monster went “How do you know if, under this costume, I am not FEMALE?”, which caused the superhero to freeze in catatonic panic, and the Pizza Monster went all “MWAHAHA The wimpy cosplayer you paid to pretend to be a superhero is such a pathetic nerd that he’s paralysed with fear at the IMPLICATION I *might* be a girl!”…The crazy thing is, the superhero was drawn by a guest artist that I think was the superhero’s ACTUAL creator, so apparently they were okay with their character being portrayed as a loser that can’t even handle the THOUGHT of talking to a girl.
*Mr Monster, in case one cared to know specifically whichPluggers – Is that Andy Bear? Cheating on Sheila Roo? Is her crushing an unopened can of Foster’s on his head going to be in the inevitable roots country song that gets written about it?
@Banana Jr. 6000: I wouldn’t put it past Batiuk, to have something completely utterly stupid happen, like… it being a sentient alien pizza or something.
I mean in his “realistic” comic, he canonized time-travel and a talking chimpanzee… his comic is only realistic when Batiuk feels like it.
@The Rambling Otter: Or a Montoni’s Pizza that fell into radioactive waste, gained sentience and vowed vengeance because no-one would eat him.
Like that candy monster from the Gravity Falls “Summerween” episode, except that was actually terrifying and well written.
Crankshaft: “The Pizza Monster is eating alone at the bar! This is our chance to see who [s/]he is! But let’s all stand around jawing about it so this can end in a stupid tease like always!”
MW – Mary went into Solution-Search Mode. But nothing happened. (Sigh) Tap on the three little dots. Pick Settings. Scroll down. Pick Advanced. Scroll down. Hmm, Solution Search is already enabled. Go back to the home screen. Tap on the three little dots… You know what, screw it, let’s just go with the telepathic dogs.
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat # 32,765.
Dustin: Uh, Dustin, haven’t you learned the first basic rule about picking up chicks, lie about what you do and how much you make.
Luann: I can imagine the staff at a nursing home appreciating an army of noisy trick or treating kids, many wearing scary costumes, constantly showing up at night, disturbing the residents, many of whom are suffering from dementia.
JP: What the hell did you expect, you entitled POS, a whole box of Godiva chocolates?
FC: Daddy Bil looks like he has to take a shit bad and can’t hold it in much longer.
FC: Everybody’s asking where’s Billy. Rather than busting his rump wandering the neighborhood all night begging for candy he’s simply going to take it from his younger siblings by force when they get home.
MW: This is the recap that never ends…
FC – Mmm, unwrapped lollipops! Are these the kind that taste like cough syrup? That really covers up the flavor of arsenic!
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: GYMNASIUM]
“Check out this guy! He’s lifted that thing 100 times!”
“So what? I probably do 250 lifts a day!”
“Every time I see a hot chick, I lift my hat!”
@Tonio: 9CL – “Brooke at least would have an excuse if he claimed he was rebooting the entire feature like with superhero universes.”
He has done a soft reboot of the entire feature. Edda used to be just a young adult ballerina and tertiary character. Now the entire strip revolves around her.
Amos used to stalk Mary Rosenweig and try to declare his love for her. Now, he never cared for her and has been madly and exclusively in love with Edda since the day they were both born in the same maternity ward.
The primary reboot has been the intriduction of time travel, where the characters are adults one day and then back to pre-teens in schoolgirl outfits the next.
Call it a rolling reboot…
Family Circus: Clearly, Big Daddy Keane was plotting to ambush the woman at the door and kidnap her to add some new genetic material to the shrinking population of the Keane Kompound, but his dumbass kids and own incompetence ruined his scheme. Hope he enjoys spending Halloween in prison!
FC-“That’s our daddy. He’s usually hiding in your bushes.”
FC: Perhaps Daddy wants to distance himself from the chaos that will break out when the kids realize their ‘treat’ is dollar store lollipops, one apiece.
MW: My solution was to throw the other two to the ground and float away. But the kid did her mind reading thing so that worked too. Plus I groped a fireman.”
FC: Daddy: “They’re not my kids!”
Lollipop lady: “The whole neighborhood knows that.”
MARY WORTH: Ok, let me share with y’all some hot gossip: A few weeks ago, on social media, Josh discussed a news story about an (apparently) growing trend of desperate, lonely men being catfished by AI. Just a random topic I’m introducing into the conversation apropos of nothing while we watch an older gentleman go on a date with a woman spouting “solution-search mode” just like a real live human trying to find the next goto command in a romantic setting algorithm would use.
MARY WORTH (2): A malfunctioning AI program apparently. Now we all know that Mary is more than capable of “tooting her own horn” during the post-game analysis of her meddling adventures (It’s why she doesn’t; consummate her relationship with Dr. Jeff. Hiyo!) But she now she’s taking it to dangerous (and unethical) heights here because the story I read had her going into a wide-eyed panic on discovering a situation she couldn’t Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul her way out of, as opposed to going into any type of “solution-search mode.” (Oh wait, this is just more of her “The past is how you remember it” mind voodoo tricks in action, so in this retconned version, a calm Mary telepathically summoned Olive to telepathically summoned the dogs, I’m such an idiot for missing that clear-cut turn of events.)
I made a tasteful comment about chocolate bars on ‘Family Circus’ on Comics Kingdom and it’s in moderation. Comics Kingdom doesn’t like chocolate.
MW: Ah, but you see, when Mary went into solution-search mode, she was able to use her tummy brain telepathy to influence Olive and make her summon the dogs. She’s the real hero here. But seriously, when was the last time anyone did a welfare check on Karen Moy? I fear she’s off her meds.
@TheDiva: Video game champ “The Eliminator” was revealed to be a girl named Donna who later married Crazy Harry. Yep, the reason I can’t do math is because my brain is overflowing with crappy trivia like this.
@TheDiva: @Guillermo el Chiclero:
On Luann, and Trick-or-Treaters showing up INSIDE an assisted living facility : What are you talking about? Mrs Horner lives by herself in her own house. Sure, the strip TELLS us that she lives in an assisted living facility, and the strip SHOWED us an assisted living facility as an establishing shot, but the events that play out whenever Luann visits match Mrs Horner living in her own home much more!
(What DO you call it when someone SHOWS *AND* TELLS something in a story, but then proceeds to constantly contradict it?
Besides incompetence)@Ken: Yeah, whatever happened to the goodle days when the baddie could just knock out the phone line with an axe?
@Tonio: Pluggers are the kind of people who went to state colleges, joined the very kind of slob frats depicted in the movie and got drunk every weekend. I speak from experience.
@TheDiva: DT unless it’s a red herring. Which is really a sardine in tomato sauce. Which is really good on toasted pumpernickel with butter, now what was I saying?
MW: Mary and Jeff, two bland people with nothing but each other, which might already be more than they deserve, have finally experienced anything and are going to milk it for all its worth.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: The comic strip equivalent of Fonzie or Urkel except with galactic levels of lust.
love is… “paddleboarding” is what the kids are calling it today.
FC: Never have I ever seen an adult accompanying his kids on Halloween skulking behind a tree as though he’s frightened of the neighbors or ashamed of his dumb kids – the parents I see trick or treating are in the open, smiling and enjoying the moment with the children and thanking the people at the door for the treats. Bil either knows this lady “knows” a very dark secret about him or Thel or the children, or he is bursting at the seams and really needs to use someone’s restroom…or he is doing something really “furtive” behind that tree… It’s such an odd posture for a grown man. I honestly don’t get it.
6Chx: Okay, is this
a) some kind of coven
b) allegory for orgasm
c) tribute to H. Rider Haggard and She?
@ValdVin:
Yeah, they’re both dull as dishwater (which, in the Rexverse is the only compatibility test you need!)
MW: Dr. Jeff has the bedside manner of a mortician. They deserve each other.
Crankshaft – That wordplay is even lamer than usual and landed with a thud, but they’re still smirking over it.
JP – Today we learned that Neddy hasn’t been trick or treating since the 1960s.
Lockhorns – Add me to the list of those who don’t recognize who Loretta is supposed to be.
9CL – This reads like it was written by a 13 year old boy who memorized a thesaurus.
Mary Worth – I’m commenting late today. When I read MW, I face palmed while doing a massive eye roll. It’s taken a while for my vision to return.
How long is this crap going to continue? I thought we were done with it when they decided to go for a walk, but it just keeps getting worse and worse.
FC – I was going to comment about the woman handing out unwrapped lollipops, but several others beat me to it. It’s surprising that she isn’t handing out homemade popcorn balls, like they did in the 1970s when this originally ran. Or apples.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – Definitely the third one. You should have made that the second one, because number two would be so appropriate.
RMMD — Will Augie’s book be bigger that “Stone Season”, by Michael Patterson?
MW: “Solution-Search Mode”? Is that what they’re calling “panicking” these days? Because we all saw what went down, and Mary was of no help at all.
LUANN: If the onion cutter at work is that notable then you have an insanely boring life.
FC: The woman at the door looks terribly distressed.
@Schroduck: Lockhorns: He told Leroy, “Nvidia has peaked.”
@Tabby Lavalamp: Pluggers: True story: One time back in the 1970s when a bunch of us kids were trick-or-treating, a guy answered the door and handed out candy wearing only white Jockey briefs. He play-acted embarrassed, like he wasn’t expecting anyone, but also we were clearly supposed to see it as a gag. As eight-year-olds, we laughed it off as goofy, but we didn’t think anything else of it. Back then, no adults ever came with us, of course.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: JP: What the hell did you expect, you entitled POS, a whole box of Godiva chocolates? I’d rather have a fun-sized Kit Kat than that overrated crap, and Charlotte probably would too.
“And our mom dressed as an off-leash dog in the hopes that Animal Control will take her far, far away. She really hates this family!”
Back in the Day: Ya know what would make a scary halloween costume? Mammy Yokum.
Dustin: I really do believe the constant barrage of rejection, the insults, the uselessness of his life would make Dustin severely depressed and have pondering suicide.
MW: Telepathically summoned by dogs? Solution search mode? It’s clear that Mary has had a stroke and Dr. Jeff is just humoring her until the ambulance arrives.
@Professor Well Actually: Or, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, if he was a clearer thinker, pondering familicide.
@I speak Jive: There’s a theory – we might call it “The Beatings Will Continue Until Reviews Improve” — that Moy reads the comments here, and the very similar ones at Comics Kingdom etc., and is punishing us for not appreciating her genius.
Rubes: Hey, Baja! Did you know this about Noah?
Luann: I *did not* want to learn Luann gets joy from her pillow. Nor did I want to hear about her finding an almond joy.
@Baja Gaijin: Merde!
FC: “And Barfy here went as a mongrel. He’s really just a mutt.”
@Bob Tice: “I like the way your shirt changed from green in prior days’ strips to purple in today’s, Jeff. Is that a mood shirt you’re wearing?”
At least he still has on the white undershirt he threw on after the boat ride.
MW: “Daisy the Maid” here. To the Hospitality “Happy Temps – We’re Not Wimps” Agency:
I hereby tender my resignation effective immediately. IOW, I QUIT!!!!
It is obvious at this point that “Karen Moy” is the notorious “Noak Remy,” inventor of the “soap opera genre” comic strips psyops program that has dozens of readers in its thrall. I suspected as much when “Karen” and her accomplice Ange Mujib RN tried to flatter and cajole me into serving their every whim while they schemed and plotted their nefarious mind control exercises with their awful, awful characters “Mary Worth” and “Olive.” I could feel my life force being sucked into the void with every installment and it was all I could do to resist the mind-numbing twaddle. Day after day after insufferable day – it was nauseating!!! I finally found refuge in the least threatening comic environment I could find – Family Circus. If you spot a woman with brown curly hair and glasses inside the circle, that’d be me.
Thank the creators I was able to escape. For now…
9CL: Shut up and eat her pussy like a good boy.
Lockhorns: Beetlejuice is just putting up with Leroy’s elaborate passive-aggressive shit because he’s doing research for his spinoff Broadway musical Lockhorns with its boffo opening number “The Whole Being Dead-Behind-the-Eyes Thing.”
@Hibbleton: Looks more like he’s trying to take a shit to me. He also forgot to take off his pants. Maybe that’s where Jeffy gets it from.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
*94. LUANN: Guillermo, true story. In my mother’s nursing home, a common no ty group prearranged a Halloween visit by a group of instructed costumed kids.
The home in turn provided residents with bags of candy to hand out. The residents loved the costumes and all the kids properly said “thank you”. (Some residents did cause a problem by trying to eat all the candy themselves)
@Bryan: No, no, you misunderstand. That “onion cutter” is just full of inner beauty
@140 2+2=7:
An onion cutter is a vessel that travels through vegetable soup.
@2+2=7:
It’s great that Luann thinks it’s so awesome to work in the kitchen of a restaurant. It’s a shame she never had the opportunity to work at one until Weenie World hired her last summer!
Curtis: Goodness, Barry seems really judgemental of his peers’ costuming choices, considering he apparently went trick-or-treating in his regular clothes.
DT: So… I guess it’s Count von Foreignname speaking, since he refers to the two others? Or, since everyone so far has materialised from the ether when needed, maybe a fourth person? Solid comic storytelling to have Dick ask someone a question and then have someone else answer in narrative captions.
FC: There’s a tradition in the comics, although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in real life, where the parents let the kids go trick-or-treating “on their own”, while actually being nearby but supposedly out of sight. The joke is always that the kids aren’t fooled by this for a moment. Given that Family Circus is 95% retraced reruns, maybe this was the first strip ever to do that, I dunno.
(I’ve sometimes seen parents IRL wait by the gate while the kids go up to the door, but not actually trying to hide like this.)
Lockhorns: Yeah, I’m another one perplexed by Loretta’s costume. The hair in particular seems very specific, but I can’t place it.
Phantom: I’ve been reading back to try and figure out what the legal situation here is, and it’s kind of bewildering. Firstly, I’d forgotten that Ivory Lana is one of the Good Guy countries and ally to Bangalla. So it’s not, as I was misremembering, that they don’t care about the slave mine, they’re apparently just incapable of doing anything about it themselves. Stripey, in fact, while happy to talk about his friendship with the President, doesn’t seem to have much confidence in their legal system at all, reckoning that the only way to ensure Bangallans who’ve committed crimes in Ivory Lana face justice is if they’re tried back in Bangalla. To the extent that this makes sense at all, it would surely make more sense if they were properly extradited, rather than smuggled out of the country by a vigilante, although I suppose that’s covered by the ancient Bangallan legal principle “we officially have no knowledge of the Phantom or his activities, so whatever.”
In any event, even Stripey doesn’t think this principle lets him drag non-Bangallans back to face Bangallan justice. And yet Patrolwoman Han seems pretty sure that she can officially arrest General Chuma in Ivory Lana, as an official representative of Bangalla’s Jungle Patrol, when she wasn’t even authorised to cross the border! I realise she’s meant to be stupidly overconfident, but is she also meant to just be stupid?
Luann’s next awesome job will be giving flea baths to cats.
@Bryan: Maybe the onion cutter is one of the kitchen staff, a hunky Latino with amazing knife skills who does all the vegetable prep.
The whole purpose of adults going with the children when they trick or treat is to be seen and let the person answering the door know that they’re being watched and not to try any funny stuff and also to keep the bullies at bay.
@Sequitur: Well, there’s also wrangling the ones too little to not get lost, making sure they cross the street safely, and probably helping tote the candy unless the parents have gotten fed up and instituted a “if you can’t carry the candy anymore, you’re done Trick-or-treating” rule
@147 CanuckDownSouth:
Yes, this is so.
Curtis-Sexy evil?
Dustin-“And in other news another woman is reported missing…”
@130 Sequitur: I knew there was something I liked about that guy.
“Max and Greta were telepathically summoned by Olive. I’m grateful for the bond she has with them!” is some real “okay, let’s check out California’s laws on involuntary mental health commitment” shit.
FC Say what you will about Billy , but his Barfy costume is on point!
DT: Count Paderewski: ”Yes, the three of us were being blackmailed, but don’t ask us what we do to get blackmailed. All right, we like to dress up as ladies and hang around the docks.”
Doctor Feelgood: “But only the Bishop there has sex with sailors.”
@Sequitur:
So that’s why daddy Keane is always hiding when his kids go trick or treating.
FC: BDK is lucky that Jeffy pointed him out. He was definitely in the “if you see something” category, and Neighbor Lady had her phone out so she could “say something” to the proper authorities.
Lockhorns: Not many know this, but if you say “Loretta Lockhorns” three times you’ll get spam emails from marriage counselors.
MW: Dr. Jeff sees a chance to ask Mary about “solution-search mode” and wisely avoids it.
9CL: Hey, you know how a bunch of people in the adult film industry got sent up for working with Traci Lords when she was a minor? Edda and Amos aren’t real, of course, but Brooke may still want to give that case some thought.
Blondie: To MarvinDad’s consternation, trick-or-treaters show up in jumbled themes from the 2010s (iPhone), 1940s (classic Superman), and 1990s (heroin chic Vanity Fair model).
C-Shaft: Happy Halloween everybody. Tomorrow is November 1 and there’ll be no reason for Batiuk to drag this inanity beyond that. Which might mean he won’t, but I don’t want to jinx it.
DT: Victorian/Edwardian crime scene procedures were different, so the chief investigator could just blot a bloodstain with writing paper and take it home as a souvenir.
Dustin: There’s nothing wrong with just saying, “I feel like getting drunk alone.” And it’s not like Dustin would be more interesting company with a steady job.
GT: Barajas has done this weird goth thing before, I think when Gil and Mimily were still married, but that doesn’t change the fact that Count Chocula is much easier to take seriously as a vampire.
JP: Charlotte applies restraint again, but one of these days she’ll unleash Neddy. Away from traffic, one hopes.
MT: He especially won’t be able to forget it if he starts pondering which stuffed animal trophies are big enough for Tess and *sigh* Jess to have sex on.
Late Thread Cuisine: Enough with the fish. Here’s something else. I’m not sure exactly what but it’s not fish.
@157 Baja Gaijin:
The troops will love it!
@citizenphisto: He certainly doesn’t want to be identified as himself with this crowd.
@Ukulele Ike: “And I thought you were so rugged!”
@Baja Gaijin: Something the Puritans might have eaten to mortify their sinful desire for pizza.
@Horace Broon: Lockhorns: Yeah, I’m another one perplexed by Loretta’s costume. The hair in particular seems very specific, but I can’t place it.
And it’s just occurred to me that it’s entirely possible the colour-monkeys didn’t know who she was supposed to be either, and the blue dress and greyish-brown hair are not actually accurate.
@Baja Gaijin:
As a vegetarian*, the salad and coffee look good.
*became vegetarian one second after the shit on the shingle appeared.
@Baja Gaijin: Its what happened to Miss Frizzle after the Magic School Bus got tired of her shit.
FC: An uninformed reader might guess that Billy isn’t in this scene because he’s old enough to go trick-or-treating with a group of his friends. But let’s get real, he is so obnoxious that he doesn’t HAVE friends. The strange children who appear to be his age and occasionally show up in FC strips as supposedly being his friends are all being paid. And not nearly enough.
@Baja Gaijin: One of my favorite old George Booth cartoons from The New Yorker.
Young recruit staring aghast at his mess tray. Burly mess sergeant speaks.
”It’s a blend of ground meats and tasty gravies appetizingly poured over a shingle.”
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – Shit on a – Johnny Cake? Do the recipe people think that substituting a rustic fried cake for the bread will make this glop appetizing?
SOS is one dish that Mr. Jive refuses to eat.
I had to look up Johnny Cakes.
@158 Sequitur: I think Sergeant Snorkel would be the only person in the Army who’d eat it.
@160 Artist formerly known as Ben: SNERK!
@162 Anonymous: Um, yeah, about that. When I wrote I didn’t know exactly what it was, that should have been a warning.
@163 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Awwww.
@165 Ukulele Ike: I wonder if this recipe was inspired by that cartoon?
@166 I speak Jive: I’m sure if you placed this in front of a plugger, it wouldn’t be on the plate for long, Johnny Cake or Wonder Bread.
@165 Baja Gaijin:
Research shows the recipe going back to an Army cook book from 1910. Ike’s cartoon probably came out long after that.
@I speak Jive: Aren’t Johnny cakes just cornmeal pancakes? e been wanting to try those for a while.
@170 Ukulele Ike: Here’s the Johnny Cake recipe from the card:
Johnny Cake
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
1 cup corn meal
1 cup milk
1 egg, well beaten
3 Tbsp. corn syrup
3 Tbsp. cooking oil
Set oven for hot 400°. Grease a 9 x9 x2- inch pan and heat it in oven while mixing batter.
Sift together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Stir in corn meal and make a “well” in center. Combine milk, egg, corn syrup and oil; add all at once to dry ingredients and stir only until all dry ingredients are dampened. pour int hot pan and bake 20 minutes or until brown. Makes 8 to 12 servings.