Ceci n’est pas une course automobile
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Gearhead Gertie, 11/20/25
Gearhead Gertie’s loved ones are trying to break through her epistemological bubble that only allows her to think about NASCAR nonstop through the power of art. They started simple, with representational paintings; unfortunately, she was quickly able to assimilate that concept into her warped worldview by conflating the signifier and the signified and treating NASCAR-related objects as meriting display. So now they’ve escalated to more abstract pieces. And it’s working! This museum is beginning to rewire Gertie’s damaged psyche, but right now the only way she can process that is by mapping it onto visions of the destruction of her precious race cars. Excited to see if this leads to a breakthrough!
Beetle Bailey, 11/20/25
A thing I learned recently that I really enjoyed is that a lot of heterosexual ’80s metal guys thought that Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, whose stage costumes very much came out of the gay leather daddy subculture, looked cool and badass in a completely straight way and spent the better part of a decade emulating his look. Just thinking about that for no reason as this new recruit, outfitted by the culturally savvy Beetle Bailey team in the a classic “tough guy” outfit, looks positively delighted at the thought of Sarge’s forceful discipline!
Crankshaft, 11/20/25
“Also, it wasn’t really that hard to figure out. He only changed one letter!”
73 replies to “Ceci n’est pas une course automobile”
GG:
“This one here looks like fellow comic strip protagonist Beetle Bailey after Sarge is done mashing him to a pulp!”
CS: Is there where one usually gets turkeys from? I guess “fresh” turkeys never occurred to me.
When Thanksgiving rolls around, there is a section laid out in the grocery stores just for frozen turkeys. I never even considered that one could just get them fresh at the butchers.
Crankshaft:
“We’d like one of those turkeys that’s got what the gobbler squawked when he stumbled over a floor air circulation unit!”
“And what might that be that he said, sir?”
” ‘Tripped! — oh, fan!”
It’s okay, Gertie said the exact same thing while looking at Starry Night. And The Last Supper. Gertie sucks, is my joke here.
“And dealing with your dad has taught me, he sure doesn’t give a Duck about proper phrasing! Ehh? Ehhhhhhh? I’ll…get your turkey now.”
We see it written, but the butcher hears it spoken. Butterbald? Or butterballed? Don’t make me think about Crankshaft, dead turkeys, and improvised lube. (Oh wait, it’s past tense. Sloppy seconds? EW.)
@The Rambling Otter:
You can, but the thing is, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Butterball that wasn’t frozen. I may be wrong, but I choose to believe Crankshaft remains stupid.
Crankshaft: “I got it… in normal human speech ‘bald’ often comes out as ‘ball,’ with the d sound buried, as few people really pop that final consonant, and in this context of buying meat near thanksgiving, particularly after the word ‘butter,’ I just assumed he’d actually said ‘butterball.’ The confusion would only arise if he had written his request, but if he actually wrote the word down, you might question his cognitive abilities, or consider his written language might have been affected by a stroke. Anyhow, how many pounds?”
CS: Maybe it’s just me, but I’m picking up “I understand how hard it is to deal with dementia” vibes from that clerk.
GG I hope that somewhere out there there is someone reading this strip for the first time and, unaware of Gertie’s whole ‘deal’, just thinks this is a comic about a disturbed old lady.
BB Nevermind the biker, I want to know how the guy next to him managed to make it through his physical exam with a condition I’m guessing is called ‘cluster toes’.
CSh I like Ed smug face in the last panel. “That’s right, I can spout out whatever nonsense I want in this town and still get served. Next I’m going to the bakery counter to ask for a ‘necronomicon’, just to see what they bring me back…”
@The Rambling Otter: Also, Dinkle will show up on your doorstep with turkeys you can buy. Which is probably next week’s arc.
Where are Sarge’s standards coming from? Could the guy in blue possibly look more generic? Are we sure he isn’t Thirsty with a haircut? AGM Note: PLEASE be Thirsty with a haircut
GG – That’s nothing. You should see what she does with a Roschach test.
Beetle Bailey : Look at the feet on the character on the left. *I* could draw that!
***********
Crankshaft : Funny how the Jeff&Pam accompany Crankshaft when he’s doing in-person shopping, but leave him to his own devices when he orders online.
***********
Gearhead Gertie : her “friend”
*then turns to her and says “I *KNOW*, that’s what it looks like to me too, THAT’S WHY I SAID IT’S BEAUTIFUL.”*no way someone as tedious as Gertie has actual friends, at best she has enemies who constantly snipe at her, but are the only people who willingly hang out with her, ie something like the Luann DeGroot/Bernice Halper relationshipBB: “Also! Normally the army frowns upon socks with sandals. But when your toes run perpendicular to the ground, we’ll make an exception!”
Aren’t NASCAR fans a little more subdued about enjoying car crashes nowadays? Especially when Dale Earnhardt is Gertie’s favorite driver? Or is it like the NFL, where the leagues pay lip service to concussions and player safety, but still market the danger as much as possible?
JP: So, this ‘Friendsgiving’ (ugh…) will be just a few basic snacks from the corner convenience mart.* I don’t know whether to be impressed that these nitwits decided to quit while they were ahead and not risk a kitchen disaster or depressed at their lack of effort to entertain these so-called ‘friends’.
Luann: Have a depressing glimpse from the TruFanns:
ctolson: Candy’s dandy but a sweater’s better and gets Dash wetter.
RMMD: ‘So does this mean you’ll actually come inside my house tonight?’ ‘Are you kidding? I have papers to grade!’
*What’s the equivalent of 7-Eleven in Norway? I really hope the country hasn’t allowed Slurpees and Super Big Gulps to taint their inner cities…
BB: I’d love to see Private Please Hurt Me become a regular.
9CL: You’ve already handed over your cojones, dude. What’s left to fear?
H&L: I call B.S. A baby would’ve swallowed that.
RMMD: Meanwhile, the detective who worked on the case writes a blockbuster novel about it, which becomes a blockbuster movie. He does not give one happy rat’s ass what Summer thinks.
MW: Has Toby ever done something as challenging as cleaning out a bird cage?
It’s one thing to have Crankshaft mispronounce a word, it’s another thing to have him ask a butcher for a brand name turkey that is found wrapped in corporate packaging in the freezers out front. Sorry, old timer, but it’s off to the home for you now.
***
I wonder if that guy knows that the skull print on his shirt is sentient and aware of what is happening around it.
“What a sorry-looking bunch of recruits!” (Thinks to himself) “Not a twink among them…”
Gertie only appreciates sculptures by John Chamberlain.
Bitterbald? Butterbild? What was it supposed to be?
Beetle Bailey: Come on guys, everybody knows you can’t get past the Army physical with cauliflower toes! That’s more of an Air Force thing.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: (R-L): Air Force, Marines, Space Force.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Butterball, a brand name turkey.
Also Beetle Bailey! You couldn’t even go with “I’ve never seen a more wretched line of scum and villainy?” For shame.
Pluggers are demented, have OCD, or both. Apparently this is funny.
@Anonymous:
Beetle Bailey : Look at the feet on the character on the left. *I* could draw that!
I mean THEIR left, ie Sarge’s (and our) right!
Man, it’s too early to screw up THAT big…“We’d like one of those Butterbald turkeys!”
“Got it…Here you go! Have a nice day, you two!”
“Great, thanks very much! Same to you”
Crankshaft: “I’ve dealt with your dad before. That’s why we keep him away from the knives and sausage grinder at all times.”
@Anonymous: We learned a valuable lesson today about empathizing with cartoonists who drink in the morning. But do you suppose that if the artist drew realistic-looking toes it would be massively disturbing, like Mickey Mouse’s ears in perspective?
This straight male metal head who is a fan of Judas Priest as well as Rob Halford didn’t blink an eye when he decided to make public what was no one’s business. Just saying.
The remarkable thing about Crankshaft characters isn’t that they indulge in wordplay and malapropism, it’s that they can apparently read each other’s speech balloons.
MW: Imagine the grawlixes that would spew from Sunny had Wilbur been the adoptive owner? YouTube with NSFW parrot expletives
It IS sad that guy gave up on his Village People tribute band and joined the Army. Stick with your dreams, man!
CS: “I’ve been dealing with your dad for decades which is weird because most of my elderly dementia customers last about eight years. Must be some kind of record. Lucky you.”
MW Given Toby’s oh yeah, I guess now the sales clerk mentions it, I _should_ maybe consider getting this bird at least, I dunno, a perch? a spot of its own? competence with pets, we should all be glad she never had kids with Ian.
@The Quiet Man:
Ah, you mean Jorstfjordster. One on every corner in Oslo, specialize in self-service lutefisk bars, putting ligonberries in everything, and giving their counter people 2 decades of paid paternity leave! Quite the place to stop and get a – dude, they totally have 7 Eleven in Norway
@18 MKay: on Mary Worth: “Has Toby ever done something as challenging as cleaning out a bird cage?” Toby’s new horsie statues won’t be made of Splak! anymore.
GG: Half of Gearhead Gertie strips are “The death of Dale Earnhardt was the greatest tragedy in human history” and the other half are “lol fast cars go crash”. It was only a matter of time before the threads got confusingly crossed.
BB: What’s so nasty, dirty and low-down about the third guy? He’s wearing a backwards baseball cap and sandals. Is it his ass? His thicc juicy caked-up phat ass? Does nasty, dirty and low-down actually refer to Sarge’s imagination?
When did this zombie strip castrate Sarge? Years ago his analysis of the recruits would be peppered with so many “%*!! Boxcar Saturn”s they’d run out of room in his word balloon!
@Gil Bates: Grawlixs! THAT’S the word I was trying to think of for Beetle Bailey!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: If a cartoonist drew realistic, lifelike feet, we’d all assume he had a fetish.
GG: I actually agree with Gertie here. That painting looks like sh**
@A Grave Mind: So they do… oh well. Credit to you though, you made me look up Jorstfjordster to see if it was real!
@Buck Ripsnort: When I was a kid, watching Full House… there was an episode where the older siblings were teasing Michelle for having big feet (I don’t know why) and she had a nightmare where her feet never stopped growing and were pretty much bursting out of the house.
If hundreds of kids didn’t awaken foot fetishes in their adult life because of this episode. I’ll eat my rudder.
My perception is that plenty of Judas Priest fans suspected Halford was gay. When the singer finally came out, Kurt Loder called it the worst-kept secret in heavy metal. The straight metal guys who were oblivious to it, probably didn’t grasp the lyrics to the early song “Raw Deal,” which was set in a Fire Island gay bar. Or other songs about S&M that could be interpreted as having a gay subtext.
Crankshaft – “I’ve dealt with your dad before. I usually lock him in the meat freezer until he’s docile. Would you be willing to come back in an hour or two?”
@The Quiet Man:
Really? Fist bump for the alley-oop joke!
Don Abundio, translated:
“I love playing tennis with hot babes!”
“Me too, Juan!”
“Are we playing to win?”
“Not really…”
“I’m hoping for a nice upskirt view if they win and jump over the net!”
@Tonio:
I TOTALLY missed it, but I was a kid, basically. I really kinda thought that’s what bikers wore, as a clueless pre-pubescent. Lemmy himself said “I think everybody in England knew,” and far be it for me to go against Lemmy.
Moral of the story: Judas Priest rules.
“Hey, Bill, get that special turkey we set aside for Crankshaft!”
“You mean the one we thawed in the toilet?”
“Right, the one with special marinade.”
Crankshaft:
That’s some hard core eye contact CS and Mr. Butcher are making there. I worry that “dealt with” implies a lot more butter ‘n balls than one really wants to consider in any CS comic, ever.
BB — To me, the guy with the sentient stomach looks like Hagar in disguise.
Cranky– Originally written as “Bilderberg turkey” to reflect the obsession from the eponymous central character’s social media feed but Batty couldn’t get it past the censors. . .
C’shaft: Usually one gets a Butterball turkey by going to the large open freezer case where there’s a pile of them stacked up and grabbing one. The fact that Crankshaft insists on going up to the guy behind the meat counter and making his malaproped request indicates that he knows exactly what he’s doing, demands an audience for it, and everyone around him is forced to smile and endure it. Dennis wishes he were this menacing.
GG: Gearhead Gertie interacting with and offering her own (predictable) interpretation on an abstract piece rather than immediately dismissing it as inexplicable trash makes this the most nuanced modern art commentary seen in the comics since, well, ever. I realize this is just a manifestation of her own monomania rather than any aesthetic insight, but after long years of “lol, my kid could have made that” punchlines I’ll take what I can get.
Crankshaft-“How much poison do you want me to pump into the turkey?”
Gearhead Gertie-If you look closely you can see Ricky Bobby running around in his underwear.
RMMD-Auggie can’t find that many women who can do the things Summer does without paying them.
MW-Toby wants the biggest cage that you can dance in.
FC-“Yeah well I’m not Grandma.”
Decades before apps were a thing Judas Priest recorded a song titled Grinder.
B. Bailey: Is that Sarge’s and Sgt. Lugg’s kid on the end there? If it is, he looks a lot better than I would have thought.
@pugfuggly: Re GG, they’d still be right in a way.
Blondie: Dithers didn’t account for Dagwood’s innie being the same type of glutenous slob as his outie.
DT: Kids’ parties? The dude looks like if Krusty the Klown were a Gentile. What are his tricks, downing a Budweiser in one gulp while calling a trifecta in to his bookie?
Dustin: “November 20th, my first adventure: finding a spot in the woods for my sister’s unmarked grave.”
JP: Judging by how much the two of you have been working, Norwegians get every day off. No wonder they score so high on the Happiness Index.
Luann: I think Tiffany may be better at this than Dez is.
MW: I see Toby is opting for a large cage for stylistic reasons and not, you know, because parrots are among the largest pet birds out there and need a large enclosure to match. And that she’s going to cage him not for safety or cleanliness reasons, but just, you know, whenever he’s in the mood. Pet owner of the year, this one.
Pluggers always find the bright side of their short-term memory loss.
RMMD: Too late for that, buddy.
MW: Can’t wait to see Ian’s head explode when he arrives home from his “teachers conference” to discover that his condo has been completely besmirched by a free-range parrot.
9CL – Yesterday, The Twins were discussing what food to serve at the wedding. Today, Alistair is proposing to one of them. The dementia is becoming harder and harder to ignore.
This comic used to feature long-running storylines. And, yes, the details today would contradict the details from the day before, and they would spend most of their time in an empty void submerged up to their necks, but there were at least attempts at plotting and consistency.
The Other Twin was engaged to virginal multimillionaire Walter Bubbletea for about a week, but he’s apparently been completely forgotten.
The less said about the “Can I make out with your twin sister, my fiancee won’t let me make out with her”, the better.
Gearhead Gertie lives in metal and breathes in chrome. She sings of the body automotive. When the apocalypse comes and we are overrun with Mad Max-style vehicle gangs, she thinks she’ll fit right in. Actually, they’ll probably just eat her, but as part of a stew, because she’s got to be old and stringy.
@TheDiva: This could be read as evidence Crankshaft is a resident of a dementia village. The clerk is actually a trained medical professional providing support for one of the patients, and will later add a few notes to the case file.
Beetle Bailey-Sarge’s fists are still thirsty for blood.
MT- Who draws this shit? I mean, why not just make a couple of horns sticking out of the feral hog’s snout? That way, instead of “Holy Moly!”, Shania could shout “Rhino you are, but what am I?”
FC: ”Grandma bakes, too. You won’t catch her handing out shitty supermarket cookies from a box.”
Anyone ready for a good ol’ air brake joke? If so, take a gander at this Vintage Beetle Bailey.
Crankshaft is not above casting for product placement dollars. Today’s turkey namecheck is brought to you by “Bell & Evans, The Excellent Chicken”.
Lockhorns: Leroy doesn’t see it coming, does he?
FC: “Well, I can drop you off to live with Grandma, and you can have everything. Including rubbing the bunions on her feet.”
Between Friends: Moving to Saskatchewan? This comic wants some of that sweet CFL-tie-in publicity, sure, but it’ll be nice to see my Roughriders get their due.
H&L: Sure, Trixie. Develop Chip’s taste for music and blow out your eardrums at one year old.
It’s been forty years since Calvin and Hobbes was introduced.
Here is the first comic.
Gearhead Gertie: The artist behind the painting hears Gertie’s monomanical interpretation and clasps his hands together triumphantly. “FINALLY! Someone understands the point I was making with ‘The Big One at Talladega’!”
Beetle Bailey: Sarge’s newest recruits are his younger self pulled to the present through the timestream, his evil mirror universe doppelganger, and his illegitimate son.
Crankshaft: Crankshaft’s pout in the last panel is great. He hates it when people mock his language disability that forces him to pepper his speech with terrible puns. Millions of people suffer from this disease. It is not a joke. Ableism is always wrong.
GT- Panel #3 Didn’t know Robert Smith was a Milford fan. Interesting.