Please do not peck my eyes out, bird lovers, you are valid
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Crock, 11/9/25
Now, obviously part of the whole deal of Crock is that it takes what’s objectively a pretty grim situation — a remote outpost of an army engaged in a grinding colonial war that we know with the hindsight of history that they’re going to lose — and uses it as a setting for a mostly light-hearted and zany series of comical vignettes. Still, sometimes the grim seeps through more than others, and you gotta admit that “angry troops attempt to lynch their commanding officer, only for him to trick them into falling to their deaths in turn, leaving him alone to wander the desert” is one of those times.
Hagar the Horrible, 11/9/25
Now, you may wonder why Hagar, who seems well aware that his years as a notorious pillager have created a very lucrative brand, doesn’t simply cut out the middleman: instead of letting the Duke of York profit by association and then stealing said profits, why doesn’t Hagar simply charge visitors to his own village, go on a highly paid speaking tour, and publish Horrible, and Profitable: What Today’s Leaders Can Learn From My Years Of Terror Around The North Sea Littoral, which will be bought by CEOs at airport bookstores everywhere and handed over to their assistants to summarize? But Hagar is savvy enough to understand that his brand wouldn’t survive any such attempt to “go legit,” so any profit he’d gain from such a move would be fleeting. Plus he can’t read, so the book thing probably hasn’t even occurred to him.
Mary Worth, 11/9/25
No offense to David Attenborough, but I’ve never really cared for birds. Like, I guess I don’t dislike them, and of course they’re beautiful to look at, but I’ve always found them off-putting up close — they just seem clearly further away from us, evolution-wise, than cats and dogs, and looking into their eyes they always feel kind of alien to me. The fact that they’re actually quite intelligent just adds to my unease. So, no shade on the many fine people who are bird lovers out there, but I’m just saying that for me personally, if a parrot I had encountered outside had figured out where I lived and begun rapping on the windows demanding to be let in, I would not be quite as enthusiastic about it as Toby is here.
Hi and Lois, 11/9/25
I really love Hi’s quick three-panel transition from triumph to anxiety to crushing depression. Honestly, the final panel with the “punchline” is completely unnecessary and even detracts from things a little bit.
Crankshaft, 11/9/25
The name of this painting is of course a Crankshaft-level bit of awful wordplay, which is why it’s great that he looks so horrified. “Oh god, I talk like this, don’t I? Why haven’t they murdered me in my sleep?”
102 replies to “Please do not peck my eyes out, bird lovers, you are valid”
MW: Is the bird tapping on the window, or saying “tap tap”? Someone noted MW‘s unusual use of narration boxes for animal sounds, and this just adds to the confusion.
Crankshaft-They’ve tried murdering Crankshaft it just doesn’t stick.
Slylock Fox-Because why should Slylock believe Count Weirdly even though Weirdly is clearly innocent.
MW-What’s the matter? Did Wilbur make a public ass of himself again?
FC-After riding a bus driven by Ed Crankshaft the quicker you get home the better.
The phrase “famous Norwegian Viking” bothers me. As opposed to what — the Spanish kind?
MW: The parrot painfully lands on Toby’s boobs.
“Hey, it was the only bust I could find CHIRP!“
Dick Tracy adds to the confusion over the sequence of timing and events, with “As a doctor you knew where to stab” — carefully placed so he’d live long enough to set up his cypher, but be unable to call for help? — and the knight checkmating the king, which suggests he did make up and write the whole game, or there was an (un)lucky coincidence. I guess we can’t complain about a lack of mysteries in this Minit Mystery.
HTH: I don’t get what the throwaway panels are meant to convey, unless there’s no joke and this is just a harrowing look at life after severe Viking-induced memory loss.
H&L: I genuinely think the migrating geese are a nice artistic touch. Really elevates the melancholy to the level of a Japanese haiku about the transience of seasons and human lives.
MW: Again I say, good grief, Blondie! He *said* he was getting *offered* big money. I don’t remember him showing you any cancelled checks with lots of zeros or other documentation of this so-called ‘bidding war’. Augie may have a bit more class and patience than your stalker, but he’s still a sleaze waiting to break you down mentally before he springs the question of you doing some unspeakable sexual act with/for/to him in exchange for keeping you around to enjoy this ‘big money’.
Luann: What do you do when you can’t think of something funny? Draw your two main characters sitting on their asses sniping at each other. That always pleases your readers!
You know, Evansii, you could have drawn something about that new foster dog pissing on the shoes of and/or leaving welcome gifts for our other four airheads. Now *that* would have been funny!
Mary Worth: Yeah, feed the parrot what you eat. Just what Charterstone needs, a yellow-headed dimbulb bird. I mean, another one besides Toby.
Crock: And by hanging they mean strangle since there’s nothing to hang him from. Normally, this kind of sloppy writing would bother me but maybe poor elocution is part of the joke.
@The Quiet Man:
Evans doesn’t advance the weekly story on Sunday because not every paper carries the Sunday strip.
HtH: If they opened a Viking version of Williamsburg, I’d go to that.
H&L: It would be funnier if all the neighbors were shown sneaking their leaves into the Flagstons’ yard every night.
RMMD: Is Summer “Oh I don’t know just uncomfortable ” because she feels used, or because she’s afraid Augie won’t give her a finders fee?
MW: Toby finds Sunny’s conversation vastly superior to Ian’s until the birdsplaining starts.
Crankshaft: “Round up the kids in detention, we’re taking them to The Museum of Art Puns to suffer.”
@Liam: Whoa, that nightmarish Slylock Fox shows the animapocalypse is far from over, and they sometimes mob one of the few remaining human survivors. Once they’re all gone — well, Bonobo Bill might want to keep a go-bag packed and ready.
CS: Newly literate Crank realizes he’s been calling them ‘Greathounds’ all this time and is further confused by their link to ancient Greeks.
@The Quiet Man:
On Luann :
1) I’m personally confused because I could have SWORN this strip WANTS to do wacky, off-the-wall stuff all the time, and also have the characters in
sexywacky costumes (it’s why they keep bringing Bets back after writing her out of the strip all the time), but then, we had a two-week dream sequence that was almost entirely low-effort stick figures. AND it was a riff on a story that’s usually the perfect pretext to have the non-dreaming characters show up in wacky costumes! (why DIDN’T Bernice and Luann have companions on their journey to see the Wizard?)This could have become a strip about the zany misadventures of a girl attending clown school in Italy, but I feel if the strip had picked up on that plot thread, it would have lead to it just being an excuse to write Luann out of her own strip, and we’d be stuck with Gunther and Les doing the Bernice/Luann bit instead.2) Nah, Dash is not allowed to give Dez a hard time, because then a) Dez would be shown as being faillible; b) Steffi/Tiffany/Bets can throw back “this was YOUR idea, we told you ‘NO’ ” in Dez’s face AND BE RIGHT.
LIke, maybe Dash is going to mess with Steffi/Tiffany/Bets’ stuff (possibly right after they coo about how cute he is and how much they love him), they’ll get super-angry, and Dez will lecture them about having saintly patience like her or something.
… As always, too many words about freakin’ Luann…Crock: “It’s grumble time” I.love how serious he looks when delivering that line. Don’t interrupt! Important grumbling going on!
MW Well, the internet tells me that parrots do enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables, which is good for Sunny, but bad for me, as i was really hoping that ‘Toby unwittingly kills a bird’ was the next storyline. Still could happen!
Don’t go hot air ballooning with Mary, Toby. Sunny ain’t gonna come looking for you.
MW: Now we’ve moved on to telepathic birds.
Of course you couldn’t come up with something funny every day Bernice. Who would want to read a comic strip written by a rude, snide, frigid, hateful buzzkill like you.
If Bernice did come up with her own comic strip everyday would be about her insulting the mentally handicapped girl she always hangs out with.
Crank: Is that Mopey Pete in drag?
MW: This is a continuation of the psychic animals plot– the parrot has learned to mind control weak-willed humans. Today Toby, tomorrow Wilbur, and then the world!
@Lord Flatulence:
Crank: Is that Mopey Pete in drag?
It LOOKS like it, but I *think* it’s the generic nameless schoolteacher character that’s there during “Crankshaft takes a bunch of kids on a field trip” storyline.
I forget when the last time we saw her was; not just how long ago it was, but whether it was during yet another “Crankshaft destroys all the ice sculptures of the city’s winter festival before anyone has a chance to see them”, or if it was that time all the kids on Crankshaft’s bus went “What the hell!? I could have *SWORN* I had a candy bar in my lunchbox when I went into the museum, and now that I’m back on the bus it’s GONE!” and it shows Crankshaft gorging himself on the stolen candy bars going “What? Waiting in the bus all day made me hungry!”.
Sunday morning, time for JUNGLE JIM!
I am the very model of a Viking who is horrible
I’m most uncouth, to tell the truth, my odor is intol’rable
I earn my gold by violence, like any heavy hitter will
I terrorize and pillage all around the North Sea littoral
MW – I see that Toby has a stalker now too!
Shouldn’t the Dorian Greyhound depict a real uggo? I guess somewhere in the Funkiverse is a canine Ned Flanders.
We are such social animals that anyone deprived of human companionship will slowly go insane, even if the human who’s companionship they’re deprived of is Ian Cameron.
*whose. bah
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
HtH: Hey, Hagar fans. He’s standing right there. Go get his autograph.
The joke in this Crankshaft would sort of work if it was a painting of an old, ugly dog, and Crankshaft was looking, alarmed, at a cute puppy in the foreground. But following through on a joke isn’t really Crankshaft’s vibe, they’ve made the pun, we’re done here.
@Hibbleton: Understood, but I consider that irrelevant because a creative with actual talent could come up with gags involving the story that are non-essential to moving the plot forward so the audience doesn’t miss crucial plot points and it doesn’t look like they just decided to throw some crap at the audience and call it a day.
@Anonymous: Indeed, but all those words show that you are more creative than the Evansii at crafting engaging stories that involve actual drama and humor that readers might actually find some relationship to. When was the last time any of us here spent a day just lazing in our bedroom with someone who clearly has nothing but contempt for us?
@Emily Riposte: If that bird tried to control Wilbur’s mind, one look at Mayo-Man’s subconscious and it would fly straight into the nearest running jet engine.
Can someone explain Lio? What are the things in the tub and how will they cause future enjoyment? Where is this taking place, an art gallery?
Crock: I’m going to take a reasonable guess “It’s grumble time” is a reference to the culturally relevant “It’s Hammer time.”
MW: Quoth the parrot, “Never here.”
HnL: The writers should know better than to put a sucking void inside a sucking void.
CS: Batiuk is no Oscar Wild Dog.
Crock: Running off a cliff to their deaths is pretty stupid, but how can we make them stupider? Well, instead of running around the rock, suppose they run straight over it? And even though the tracks show them running single-file, no one was able to stop short as the troops in front of him went over.
This is Moy’s big chance to escape the strip and leave it a flaming wreck in her wake. The parrot starts telling Toby secrets about her friends and neighbors… “Ian’s not at a conference, he’s at the Motel 6 out on the interstate with one of his students…”, “Wilbur is getting a bit too into those fish, if you catch my drift…”. Toby’s fragile hold on sanity will lead to merry hijinks and buckets of blood. The grand finale game of cat and mouse between a knife-wielding Toby and Mary armed only with day-old muffins will be whispered about in the darkest of corners at comics conventions for decades.
Crankshaft: Interestingly (or coincidentally) today is “Go to an art museum day”
I don’t want to give Batiuk credit on this, so I’m going with coincidence.
FC: Those ADHD meds seems to have worked.
Dustin: Awww, another heartwarming vignette about how marriage sucks. Dustin is so much better than Hi and Lois at making me want to continue living.
Luann: Good question.
9CL: And she was never seen again. Please?
The parrot, like all birds, is of course a government surveillance drone sent to spy on ordinary hard-working Americans. But after four miserable days wasted monitoring Toby, the government will shut down its program in disgust and replace all its drones with actual birds. Thanks from a grateful nation, Toby!
@Harmless little bunny: Looks like his home’s bathroom, that’s his dad looking to use the tub. The gag is maybe the juxtaposition of a normal way to announce block-off areas with the abnormal reason of letting his eldritch friends have a bath… but I don’t think any “improvements” are intended to happen.
@Harmless little bunny: I think those are frogs, because Lio likes frogs, and the rest of the business is about Lio using his official-looking clipboard and sign to appropriate the bathtub for his frogs. But this is not the most easily comprehensible Lio strip.
MW How indeed *did* the parrot find the correct window after following Toby but losing her after she entered the building? Either we’re dealing with love-homing-telepathy spreading like an infection from Olive’s Ground Zero incident with max and Greta, or there’s a building full of annoyed residents who have been trying to ignore pecked windows for the last half hour.
JP Is Charlotte a stand-in for all the grumbling readers noting dropped plotlines? I wonder just how many plot holes they’ll paper over… odds on Norway making any sense by the end of this is still a bajillion to one.
MW: Well, so much for Chekov’s sunflower seed bag – our Star didn’t get trapped or injured. It’s not that kind of story, folks, and Pauley (as Sunny) knows his way around a snack-pak. There is still the matter of Toby’s littering, however…
I’m afraid they rejected our story idea of Sunny being an undercover agent for the Park Service, helping bring litterers to justice. He’d collect the discarded packages and take them to the lab for DNA an@lysis. It was wacky, yet socially conscious… coulda been a big hit. But their legal killjoys decided his panhandling for snacks was too close to entrapment and nixed the idea. But they did keep some of the elements – he’s a skilled investigator with superior tracking abilities.
Don’t worry about any conflict with the Doves o’ Love. Everyone’s a professional here, and will show the utmost in courtesy and respect. Unless the script calls for conflict, and then you’ll know it’s ACTING! Anyway, the DOL don’t hang out much at Ian and Toby’s window…
Needless to say I love today’s Hi and Lois. Love love love it. “Hi’s quick three-panel transition from triumph to anxiety to crushing depression”? Put it in my veeeiiiiins! But as a faithful Flaghead, they did so many strips about raking leaves over the last few weeks that I was literally begging them to go back to golf.
(As far as my other bit goes, Sunday Mary Worth quote confirmed, though of course Attenborough wasn’t the first person to say that.)
HtH – If he wanted a shorter title for his book, he could simply call it It Takes a Pillage.
HtH:
“He stole all of our food, too, and then cooked it in a Viking oven!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Look at those hot babes, Admiral!”
“I’ll invite them to our table”
“That’s too direct…”
“You have to be subtle!”
“How did you find me?”
“Chirp. I just followed the smell of alcohol and cheap Splak!. Chirp.”
@Scott: Actually, I think it would be Dustin.
@32 The Quiet Man: “When was the last time any of us here spent a day just lazing in our bedroom with someone who clearly has nothing but contempt for us?” Ask Dr. Jeff Corey…
@36 Everything Is Better With Monkeys: I dunno. A mere knife isn’t a match for Mary’s stale muffins. A 50 watt Class 4 yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser may do the job.
@42 CanuckDownSouth: Charterstone residents thought they finally solved the unwanted pecker at their window problems when they got the restraining order against Wilbur Weston’s public nudity.
MW:
“How did you end up outside of the pet store, anyway? — were you the victim of fowl play?”
MW:
” ‘Sunny,’ I understand that most bird brains are the size of a nut. So you and I have something in common!”
@CanuckDownSouth: I’m confused as to whether they’re eldritch, or just frogs.
@Peanut Gallery: So they’re naval sigint officers?
Crankshaft:
“The readership here has let me know that we shouldn’t try to inject humor in this strip through wordplay.”
“Really? — what did they say?”
” ‘Go “Greyhound” — and leave the jiving to us’ !”
MW:
Director: CUT! CUT! The bird missed his entrance, dammit!
Assistant Director: The script called for him to tap at the window….
Director: The KITCHEN window, not the LIBRARY! He was supposed to enter the KITCHEN.
Assistant Director: Do you want to use the library instead, then? That was good film—I think the girl saved it by carrying the bird into the kitchen….
Director: Look, the whole point of this scene is for the bird to smell the roasting chicken that Toby is making to go with her salad! This is where the parrot suddenly realizes he’s actually in DANGER. She EATS birds, okay? GET IT? This scene is supposed to be a shocker, not an afternoon tea with fine feathered friends!
Assistant Director: Yes, of course! But doesn’t the walk from the library to the kitchen work to build the tension?
Director: You want to build TENSION? You’re giving me a parrot that can’t follow a simple script. I’M TENSE!!
Now either do the scene RIGHT, or tell Sid to give me the bird who WILL.
Crock: You fellows must be new to the concept of fragging. You all have guns. Just shoot him.
C’shaft: I’m with the teacher here. “That’s IT? Christ, I’ve been enduring THIS asshole’s clumsy wordplay the entire trip over; I don’t need any of it from the art gallery pictures.”
MW: After complaining about the implausibility of everything that happened in the Olive arc, this is a refreshing change of pace–I absolutely believe that not only would the parrot be smart enough to follow Toby home, but that it would recognize she’s nowhere near as bright as it is and can easily be exploited for some free food.
HtH:
“This is where he slept!”
***
“He’s a famous Norwegian Viking!”
***
“He can’t drive 55!”
***
“No, no, you addlepate — that’s Sammy Hagar!”
MW:
“Tap! Tap!”
“Savion Glover?!? — my goodness, do you look different….”
@The Quiet Man:
The proper term in this business is “Pulling a Dustin!”
Hang him from where, troops? HANG HIM FROM WHERE?
***
“Yawn! Another weird and boring pet story in the panels of Mary Worth.” Oh, you might think so but you haven’t considered Ian coming home to find a talking, squawking bird that will likely outlive him in his apartment.
***
“Everyone likes birds.” Not my former co-worker who has ornithophobia, Attenborough. Did you even think about her? Go narrate a day in her life then come back to us with that quote.
***
That’s a true story. It wasn’t debilitating, but how many she’d expect to see outside at any given time of year did affect her decisions. I felt bad for her for that. For some other things, not so much.
Crock: Looks like the commander is speaking matter-of-factly to the soldiers at the bottom of a max six-foot drop.
“Are you idiots done fooling around so we can get back to some serious wandering?”
(Appropriately named) Crock – Get ready to grumble!
Hth – Nothing spurs tourism like a roving great heathen horde pillaging their way through the countryside….
MW – Birds don’t live by seeds alone, but by every vinaigrette leaf tossed off by some new age wannabe artist poser….
H&L – Huh – in Hi’s high school yearbook it says he was most likely to end up in the gutter….
Crank – I mean…it’s funny, but not Ed eating the $3M banana duct taped to the wall funny….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
@Charterstoned:
Oh, Sid will give you the bird, he will!
Blondie: Seriously, Dag? Ray sounds like a winner? Look who you’ve got standing behind you!
Whoever the Asian woman is hanging out with Crankshaft, she looks like she’s about to fight a painting.
I absolutely believe the parrot would be smart enough to follow Toby home, which I predicted the moment he showed up and she was too stupid to take him to a shelter, since he was obviously someone’s lost pet. I have rescued parrots all my life and live with a dozen of them, but anyone should know that much. However, I don’t hold out hope that Toby will know NOT to give him avocado. Or splak, which will probably also kill a parrot.
You would change your mind about parrots not relating to humans if you had one. I love dogs, but parrots are next level. Our African gray communicates clearly in English and even makes up sentences. The cockatoos love to be petted and dance wildly to music. For better or worse, it’s like having a mischievous four-year-old kid that never grows up and can live up to 70 years.
BTW, our Congo African gray parrot is named Dorian Gray, so we beat Crankshaft to that joke by about 30 years.
DT: Very charitable of Inspector Tracy to read the suspect his rights several decades before Miranda v. Arizona was decided in a completely different country whose laws wouldn’t apply in this situation anyway.
Dustin: Women, amirite? They always have opinions and personalities! Why can’t they just passively provide for their husband’s needs? And don’t get me started on their driving!
JP: I’m impressed that Judge Parker has come to a good conclusion (ie. “children do need to feel heard and understood by the adults around them”) despite starting from such a profound lack of knowledge on the subject. It’s like seeing a first grader guess the answer to an advanced calculus problem.
Luann: Please, most comic strip cartoonists haven’t thought of a joke in years.
MT: Speak for yourself, Mark. For me the absurdity and chuckles are the true meaning of Exploding Whale Day.
RMMD: Some authors have taken to including content warnings at the front of their books as a courtesy to people with trauma triggers. Maybe Augie would benefit from this tactic: “Stalked! contains scenes of sexual intimidation and harassment. Specifically, if you are a woman named after a season who was ineptly pursued by a lounge lizard stereotype who was subsequently killed by the father of one of his previous victims, you may find some scenes uncomfortable.”
In a beautiful world, Mary Worth’s increasing focus on animals being hyper intelligent would eventually evolve into what eventually becomes the cataclysmic event that turns our world into the one from Skylock Fox. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a beautiful world and this is just going to turn into like, parrot is actually someone’s pet who Toby will accidentally kidnap and learn about the important values of microchipping or something.
Mary Worth: I’m actually kind of intrigued by this storyline. How is famed asshole Ian going to react to his trophy wife suddenly having a parrot? Is this going to be some PSA about not treating wild animals as pets, or just yet another “dogs are good”-style story like most uses of animals in Mary Worth? There’s so many bizarre directions this could go in, but I’ll never guess them because how can I even approach Karen Moy’s deranged wavelength? Credit where credit is due, recent Mary Worth is anything but predictable.
Crankshaft: Crankshaft’s dumbstruck horror over a picture of a dog is great, but let’s not forget Black-Hair-Lady-Who’s-Name-I-Can’t-Be-Assed-To-Look-Up’s look of wrist-cutting depression. She was in recovery but now this pun about greyhounds has destroyed years of therapy; she’ll be downing painkillers again in no time and she knows it.
Crock: Seeing Doctor Mustache (I have to assume this is the C.O.’s name, I have no choice) crouching behind the giant stone CROCK is complex and sinister. On the one hand, he’s clearly plotting the Grumbling Timers’ deaths. On the other hand, what the hell is grumbling time? And did Crock’s creative team somehow purloin and repurpose B.C.’s logo just to give this villain something to hide behind?
It really makes you think. I’m not sure what it makes you think, but it does force the issue.
HAGAR THE HORRIBLE: I dunno Josh. This strip indicates that Hagar has already earned the most important lesson of being a brand influencer by shamelessly profiting off of someone else’s work. With Hagar himself saying that he’ll “be back in a week”, making this pitiful mid-tier baron (?) think he’s making a profit before ruthlessly taking all his earnings and resetting him back to status quo, I dare say our interpret viking has already proven his mastery of being part of the corporate-owner class faster then any business school can teach.
@Pozzo: As opposed to, say, a Danish or Swedish viking?
RMMD- Panel #6- Aw for Crissake June! This isn’t about being uncomfortable with penis length! She feels exploited,okay?
CROCK: Josh, I think what makes this Crock particularly grim is that someone stole half of the desert.
CROCK (2): “More brains. Like, I bet you don’t have the brains to shamelessly steal from Beetle Bailey‘s “soldiers-running-of-a-cliff” gag like a true GOAT!” (Maybe the creators of this strip looked at Rex Morgan M.D.s recent storyline and thought, with a tinge of envy, “Hey, we can plagiarize too!”)
@CanuckDownSouth:
They live in a neighborhood with Wilbur, so that’s just an automatic response there.
Failing to procure a rope before telling your commanding officer that you’re going to hang him, asking the person you’ve just told you’re going to hang where you can get a rope, and taking his response seriously, is of course the height of Darwin Award winning. But give them a break, they’ve been wandering around the desert for TWENTY YEARS. They’ve either spent a good chunk of their life there or they’re much older than the art makes them look. Anyone would end up not entirely right in the head after that long, assuming they weren’t trying to get themselves killed.
Crock: In the Good Old Days they would have buried him up to the neck in an anthill, then poured molasses over his head.
@79 Ukulele Ike: They don’t have ants in Saharan Algeria. Been there, not done that.
@Baja Gaijin: Objection!! Mary has never let Dr. Jeff anywhere near her bedroom, and has never gone anywhere near Dr. Jeff’s bedroom!
This Greyhound has committed so many crimes! Of the kind that would scandalise Victorians!
The Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC is fighting hard for urbanism! Why should you want a isolated countryside home, with a big yard to take care of and open to raiders from the North? Choose a city apartment!
Pluggers sure have funny nicknames for their wedding tackle.
These legionaries got the punishment they deserved! The Foreign Legion does not allow insubordination against the officers, only against the democratic institutions of the République!
Will this storyline end up revealing that Moy has gone full conspiracy nut and believes that birds are a tool of the CIA to spy on citizens? I hope not for her, but I hope yes for us
Mary Worth – I had a go-to comment for Mark Trail that I haven’t used since Jack Elrod retired. It’s time to use it again for MW: can this possibly get any more stupid?
Not to mention annoying, nonsensical, and brain dead. Come on, Moy, we just endured a clusterfuck of a story with telepathic dogs. With all due respect to Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars, we should not be dealing with animals, except maybe as background. If we do have to endure this, give the parrot some lines other than “Chirp!” That drives me nuts.
9CL – Even though Edda is now a world class pianist, she still keeps up with ballet. Can’t draw those meticulously shaded and detailed legs if she’s wearing a long gown.
Ripley’s – Re Dolly Parton: didn’t Ernest Hemingway lose an Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest?
What’s that? A criticism about modern art that it is not simply “my kids could draw that!” but rather “artists have sacrificed sincere art for irony poisoning”? Batiuk is too much realistic for my taste!
“Why didn’t you pay Chip to do the raking? You’d spare the toil and he would get some extra bucks to spend with his friends”
“And give up the opportunity for brooding, victimhood and the martyr complex? Never!”
HtH Danes. The people from which sprang the fierce raiders of the North were Danes. Norwegians came along later, once a bunch of Danish-speaking fjord-dwellers found they could have longer life-spans sticking close to their farmsteads and eating herring.
HtH Part II. And that shield for the nobleman? Look, friend, slapping words on a coat of arms may be acceptable in Spain, but up here in merry ol’ Britannia we use visual puns. Not sure what you can come up with to get “york” but I’m sure some clever herald will think of something.
The lord of York created an incentive for Hagar to return to plunder again. Soon the Great Heathen Army will flood North England and establish York as their capital. Anglo-Saxon control over the island will be crushed, English language will absorb thousands of Scandinavian words and move away from Old English. In the long term, the Normans will take over and Francise England. I guess there are dangers in overtourism!
@MKay:
#11 RMMD: having a traumatic experience is bad enough. But to see someone else profit from the traumatic event and other strangers possibly discussing it must be re-traumatizing. BUT..
one counseling technique is asking the victim to orally recount it, but only as far as she is comfortable. Then give her a pen, notebook, and assignment to tell a fictional ending. Of how the incident SHOULD have turned out. Victim punches out attacker, Superwoman intervenes, and so on. This empowers the woman and prevents her from feeling helpless.
If Augie changed ending to make “Autumn” the hero, this might lessen the sting
A nervous-looking Duke of York relegated to a crumbling royal hovel while his wife rants about her impoverishment?
Hmmm.
MW: “suddenly I heard a tapping…” hopefully this turns into “the Raven”
Archaeologists and historians directly connect the rise of the Charterstone Temple Complex as the largest cultic center of the region to the importation of the so-called “Olivine mystery cult” from the east, and the power consolidation of the “Mari” priestess class in their worship of animals.
Excavations of the temple itself and surrounding Late American Republic Period sires reveal an abundance of ritual objects associated with Olivinism, namely, those associated with domestic animals (such as bowls, collars, toys, feed, etc.) often stored in luxurious tombs alongside votive wishes aimed at the goddess OLV, who could supposedly command animals. Oddly, pet fish are almost entirely absent except in one notably unusual residential site; instead, seafood appears to have been the overwhelmingly dominant source of protein for the elite castes.
The Mari priestesses appear to have gained power due to their claimed oracular abilities – that they alone possessed mystical power to interpret the words of the nature goddess OLV, who commanded an army of familiars. Fragmentary condemnations of heretics indicates that OLV was herself originally revered as a demigoddess or prophetess who could commune with animals, before the Mari cult raised her to the status of godhood so that the Mari could claim the role of mortal intercessors.
The religious shift was not without conflict; a widespread story (often interpreted as allegorical) tells of a non-Olivian scribe named E’yan, who, upon returning to the great city of Sandroyl, finds that his wife, Tobeh, has become a priestess of the Parrot Class. E’yan denounces the Charterstone cult and calls for a return to the worship of the old gods; in response, the first Mari demands that E’yan be ripped apart for his blasphemy against OLV. The faithful then feasted upon E’yan’s flesh in a ritual meal, save for one mysterious functionary named Wilbur, who ate a sandwich instead.
Luann A good rule of thumb in cartooning is “never remind the reader of a better cartoon.” Sorry, Evansii, ya blew it here.
I’m willing to cut some slack to a contributor named Clapper.
CS: The Oscar Wilde novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a man whose portrait grows increasingly old and corrupted while the man himself remains young and handsome.
But the picture of Dorian Greyhound depicts a nice-looking dog. Shouldn’t it depict a mangy cur instead?
NeoNancy: Somehow, the buff physique and Michelangelo pose make Sluggo even more grotesque.
@Joshua K.: Also, what is the likelihood that Ed Crankshaft knows what The Picture of Dorian Gray is about? If he doesn’t, he would just perceive this painting as a nice depiction of a dog.
@47 Peanut Gallery:
The Admiral only dates girls who speak fluid semaphore.
Crank: I think what I hate most about this is that it shows every sign of being thought up by someone who knows literally nothing about The Picture of Dorian Gray other than it’s about a picture of someone named Dorian Gray. And yet, it was actually thought up by someone who used to be a school teacher! I find laziness less forgiveable than ignorance.
DT: I’m still not sure when this is set, but we can at least rule out my nagging suspicion that this is what Costello thinks London is like now, because Brit Tracy doesn’t use the version of the caution defined by the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.
I was curious to see if Sir Peter analysing King’s game last Sunday, then saying he knows nothing about chess on Monday would turn out to be a clue, but apparently not. And it turns out the chess game King wrote while he was dying points to Sir Peter twice because sure, why not?
In the interests of saying something nice, this is far from the worst Minnit Misery I’ve ever read. The clues were actually present, which isn’t always the case. The mechanics of it might be contrived, but they basically work, unlike the case of the poison teapot. And as far as I know, it isn’t relitigating a real case but quietly removing all the evidence that would interfere with the conclusion the writer decided on, like that time Tracy investigated the death of “George Reeds”, the actor who played “Ultraman”.
EC: Wow, weird how Carly hates organised soccer for all the reasons she listed, but enjoys kicking a ball about in the back yard where none of those things apply! What’s that about?
FC: As Josh pointed out in his comment on the 20th October Family Circus, being sarcastic to kids when they unexpectedly do something you want them to is a great way of discouraging them frome ever doing it again! Still, at least Thel isn’t playing favourites; she’s like this with all of them!
HtH: If I was doing a gag in the autumn of 2025 in which a member of the nobility is stripped of everything but is still able to use this notoriety to his advantage, I probably wouldn’t use the Duke of York unless that was actually the joke.
JP: Okay, Ces has now got me to the point where the strips in which Charlotte is almost acting like a normal little girl are more disconcerting.
MW: Once upon a day quite sunny, in a strip that’s gone quite funny,
(And not the ha-ha funny, but bizarre and yet a bore),
As Toby sat, nearly napping, suddenly she heard a tapping,
Heard a rapping on the window, though it was a high-up floor,
“It’s the parrot I named Sunny I met in the park before,
“Only this and nothing more.”
“Tell me, Sunny,” asked poor Toby, “Why our plots so strange and slow be?
“We’ve had psychos and then psychics coming through Charterstone’s door.
“Though your reply may be hazy, when will things stop being crazy,
“When will all this nonsense end and bring back how it was before?
“Back to duller but less stupid plots, like those in days of yore?”
Quoth the parrot, “Nevermore.”
SFx: Huh, my answer was “Slylock believes Bonobo Bill is telling the truth, because his first assumption is always that Count Weirdly is lying.” Close enough.