Fast cars and fast takes
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Dick Tracy, 12/18/25
There was a certain amount of chatter in the comments on the day of Ghost Cat’s big reveal, with some people claiming that cat-themed superheroes are not what you’d call traditionally “masculine.” But the Ghost Cat is trying to disabuse everyone of those notions in the course of this car chase: grinning maniacally as his fellow lawman begs him to slow down, muttering something inscrutable about “driv[ing] the tail of the dragon,” that sort of thing. Very butch.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/18/25
Did you guys hear that they trademarked the word “Christmas?” They said it was to stop stores from using it for promoting their sales but now Santa can’t even say it! What a world we live in!
Dustin, 12/18/25
Nice try, syndicated newspaper comic strip Dustin! You’re not going to make me feel bad for Dustin’s dad! He sucks and his self-loathing only makes me stronger!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/18/25
I dunno, Michelle, the two of you have been having this excruciatingly boring conversation since Monday and there’s no end in sight, so at the moment I’m actually thinking that time isn’t flying by anywhere near fast enough.
125 replies to “Fast cars and fast takes”
Dustin: Ed Kudlick uses the plugger ice cream bowl, known to non-pluggers as a “large mixing bowl.” Greedy, bombastic, selfish, dickwadish, twatwaffley, 6-7 lardass. And those are his positive traits.
Dustin: There are people on Youtube who make their living going to restaurants and filming themselves eating huge amounts of food. Just saying if Dustdad can eat two one-gallon bowls of ice cream at one sitting he might want to consider a mid-life career move.
@2 Hibbleton: Within a year of becoming a mukbanger, the Dustfamily would have to knock down a wall to roll Ed out of the house. He’d make pluggers look positively svelte.
Mother Goose and Grimm:
“And that’s not all. Blitzen is going in on the quarterback as a linebacker on designated plays; Comet is taking an extremely fast-paced turn through our solar system; Donner is off to a pass in California; and Cupid‘s arrow has struck someone who’s interested in Vixen!”
Dustin: Ed, you idiot! Those pints of Jeni’s failed Mashed Potato Ice Cream sell for top dollar on the dark web!
Thank goodness Blitzen hasn’t joined the German Army.
RMMD-“It sure does seem like the days just drag and drag. Why one day can feel like a whole week or two.”
MW-“Forty whacks with a wet noodle, Ian.”
FC-“Close the door! There are Mary Worths out there!”
RMMD:
“Have you and Augie made holiday plans?”
“We’re going to string copies of his manuscript across his mantel!”
“Why in the world would you want to do that?”
“We will have wanted to make sure that ‘Our stalkings were hung by the chimney with care’ !”
TIL that the “tail of the dragon” is “a world-famous, 11-mile stretch of U.S. Route 129 located on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee… The road is renowned for having 318 curves in just 11 miles.”
Dustin: Egad, the hideous creature is growing larger.
MG&G: Everyone’s favorite Christmas tradition: listening to Santa telling you what he wants.
Hi and Lois don’t smile at much but the thought of Ditto looking more like his chunky father (Thirsty) brings joy to Lois’ face.
MGG: And the worst part is that his name has to rhyme! I’ve tried Lancer, Cancer, Necromancer… and they’re all shit! At this point, I’d settle for Hansard, or Panzer, or even The Answer!
DT – Ozob’s Flooring IT – perhaps a better business model would be floor covering a wider range of service establishments….
MG&G – He got the lead in North Pole community theater Christmas production of Showgirls….
Dustin – They ain’t enough emotional eating to fix you….
RMMD – Have I mentioned I’ve got a garage full of his self published book? They make great Christmas gifts….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD: It ain’t over until Michelle reminds everyone that she’s CERTAINLY glad she has a HUSBAND.
MG&G: Is this a job offer? I don’t know whether to think about a reindeer in a tutu or a geriatric goose harnessed to a sleigh.
GT: Thanks to the two-artist system, readers never know if they’ll be greeted by Gil, the square-jawed champion of rectitude or Gil, the shifty-eyed grifter.
MW: Memories! My favorite insult to our resident evil parrot was, “scrofulous avian.” However, I never actually went nose-to-beak with him. Because beaks are sharp. A fact that Professor Genius is about to learn.
MG&G: Some cartoonists will tell you to block out how much space you need for text before drawing the speech bubble, but that advice is for squares and losers. Just YOLO it, and if you make a mistake, just squash a line or two to fit. No-one will notice.
Why is the driver Ghost Cat when the other cop is the one with whiskers?
You can see the reason for the malaise in US society. People react to the decline of dense social networks and the dissolution of traditional family by eating giant bowls of ice cream by themselves at night. Yes, they are Bowling Alone
Dustin: Joke’s on Dustin’s dad: that’s a large bowl of leftover mashed potatoes, not ice cream. Or maybe joke’s on Dustin’s mom. Don’t know, don’t care, either way the carbohydrates will shut down his pancreas soon enough.
@matt w: That’s not a cop, he’s a snitch, and I think he’s supposed to be [squints] some form of godforsaken man-monkey chimera?
S4th: “For instance, I finally can finally fix the fact that I never told you I *hated* that insipid ‘Starlee and the Moonbeams’ show you were obsessed with. I hope you finally broke yourself of that habit and didn’t marry some enabler with the same psychological issues!”
Luann: Um, if you are both working two full-time jobs apiece (and in this economy that still ain’t enough to maintain that mansion you have!) you don’t have time for *any* traditions, you morons.
DT: Boy, the chaps down at DC Comics must be reading this and thinking ‘how’d we ever let THIS guy slip through our fingers!’
In the Mother Goose&Grimm world, I can only imagine that dancing in the Nutcracker is the only job that anthropomorphic rats can get. Because they’re rats, and that’s sad.
MW: Celery? Oh. Just carrots.
This strip is peak Gil Thorp. (1) Gil has apparently never met Isis Pillar, one of his starters, even though high school sports teams typically practice in the month leading up to the first game, you know, to get the players into form and for the coach to decide on who to put in and at what position. At Milford High, though, you have exactly one (1) practice prior to the big day, and if the head coach happens to be out sick, it’s you’re in. (2) Now that Gil’s girlfriend has introduced him to the idea of burning through his 20-odd years of accumulated sick days for shits and giggles, he’s going to reach absolutely Olympic levels of checked-outed-ness.
Mother Goose and Grimm: Since the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord begins at sundown on December 24th, you’re looking for help on the big day, fat man. You should also dress in white for the glory, innocence and purity of Christ, rather than red for the blood of martyrs, but that’s neither here nor there.
First the Super Bowl becomes “The Big Game,” then Christmas becomes “The Big Day,” What’s next — God becomes “The Big Guy Upstairs?”
Dick Tracy: Ah yes, the “hills” north of “Neo-Chicago.” Reminds of Tom Waits’ classic “Diamonds on my Windshield”:
RMMD: That needle-scratch is the sound of a writer realizing it’s a week to Christmas, and they’ve done nothing to set up their usual “family and friends around the table” montage. Time to scramble! At least they’re ahead of the Mary Worth crew.
MW: Ian needs a cat.
JP Given that step-grandma has actually started she’ll be rational and not ask for Charlotte back while Alan is dealing with *ahem* depression, I’d say you’re set till adulthood, kid
MG&G – “Dasher got a job delivering food! Comet got a job scrubbing sinks! Cupid got a job on a matchmaking app! Donner got a job leading pioneers over the Sierra Nevadas!” There. I took care of the next four strips for you.
Time flies like an arrow; RMMD flies like tedium…and money, lots and lots of money.
@D.Z. Hill: Aha! That’s a valuable Clue to the Secret Identity of the masked vigilante “Ghost Cat”. So, he’s from the Tennessee / North Carolina area. Hmm, who do we know who fits that profile…
Seriously — We all know it’s Buford, right? A five-year-old reading this strip would put it together. So why do I have this feeling the eventual reveal will be treated as if it’s a surprise for the readers?
@Charterstoned: What are you talking about, he’s already got Toby! Oh…
Dick Tracy: I like how the “kitty whiskers” on the Ghost Cat’s mask look like a stylized spider. Finally, a hero who can infringe on two major properties at the same time!
Mother Goose & Grimm: MG and Santa were about to throw down in panel one. Does this extremely seedy saint think the ladybird is poaching his talent for the ballet? What’s going on here?
Dustin: A decent gag, solid delivery, Dustin’s father in deep emotional pain. What’s not to like?
@The Quiet Man:
On Luann :
IMHO, it’s clear that despite the fact that Toni uses the phrasing “WHEN we have kids”, Bwad and Toni both know neither of them actually WANT to have kids, and thus they can use whatever excuse they can to pretend that they WOULD, but CAN’T. “We both have full-time jobs as firefighters” is the most handy (and true) pretext.
“We don’t want to unleash a second Shannon on the World” comes second (if they ever admitted it)…I have a HUGE rant in me about how Toni merely ACTS like she wants kids (because “normalcy”) but actually doesn’t want the responsibility of raising a kid foisted on her, while Bwad only wants kids because he wants a do-over on his childhood and he wants to be the “cool” and “nice” big brother instead of the hated asshole he was to Luann… but this is enough words typed about FRIGGIN’ LUANN…
@Charterstoned: “MW: Ian needs a cat.”
Short only of Ian suffering a full psychotic break, wringing the bird’s neck and stuffing it—whole and still twitching—into his mouth, a Sylvester–Tweety situation would be funniest outcome of this storyline. Obviously, it’s not going to happen. Instead, I assume, Mary will half-heartedly meddle with some warmed-over aphorisms before a solution presents itself through no doing on anyone’s part, and Toby and Ian go back to pretending to kind of tolerate each other, mostly by never spending any time together.
I estimate about 1 kg of icecream in that bowl. If that’s a second helping, it’s a lot. It would be quite a lot of food for someone to eat in one day. Not sure if I should be worried Dustin-dad is turning into Dagwood here or just disgusted at the image of him nibbling at that mountain of iecream until it’s turned into sloppy, room temperature soup.
“Oh, you’re from North Carolina?”
“Nah, I mean chasing the tail of the dragon. It’s a term for heroin abuse – and I said heroin without an ‘e’, no matter what Phantom Kitty says – that I picked up in Rangoon after the war. Anyway, you got a hit? I’m getting a bit shaky right now.”
Dustin my eyes: You will ALWAYS be sad. Deal with it.
MW: *Ian shakes fist* “That reminds me! You also broke my bottle of Axe Cologne!”
H&L: Yes, Lois, remind Ditto about the cookies. It’s never too young for a kid to get body dysmorphia.
MW: Will Sunny will be the first parrot in comics history to learn grawlixes?
Blondie: The gift bag suggests that Mr. Dithers had nothing to do with the planning, acquisition, and wrapping of this bonus.
Zits now becomes the youngest newspaper comic to mention pickleball. I didn’t know Connie and Walt were old enough to have that in common with Snuffy Smith and Leroy Lockhorn.
He just dumped an entire container of ice cream into a bowl, didn’t he?
***
I don’t know about Ghost Cat, but look at his passenger! That’s the only hep cat in that car.
***
Then what are you doing wasting time talking to a bird woman, Claus? Get a move on! Maybe there’s another mutant reindeer that you will only protect from bullying because it’ll be useful to you now.
JP: “Do I really need to go back with Grandma and Grandpa?”
Neigh
“I didn’t ask you!”
Six Chix: Ummm, pretty sure they shear sheep in the spring so they have a coat again when the weather gets cold.
@Baja Gaijin: I once roomed with a very large woman who ate her breakfast cereal out of what we had formerly used as the big popcorn dish. One time she had informed us all she was dieting and I suggested she use smaller plates. Everybody jumped in to defend her. I learned an important lesson: if you are thin (as I was then but am not now), just keep your mouth shut about others’ weight, diet, etc.
Note – the others, behind our overweight roommate’s back, called her Jethro because of the big bowl.
Dustin: “I don’t know how many bowls of ice cream it will take to soothe my discontent, but so far it isn’t two.”
“Dancer got a job as a nutcracker and, to be honest, the mafia pays a lot more than I can for him to deal with deadbeats.”
RMMD — “Time flies by too fast.” Say you’re not self-aware without saying you’re not self-aware. . .
Dusty — Ed needs to stop eating the plain vanilla and sample either the Columbian Pick-Me-Up or the Aya-Wash-Ya flavors. . .
MG&G — F*ckin’ swans, amirite? Always poaching talent for their ballets!
DT: For those playing along at home, the monkey-man is in Ozob’s car being chased by Schmatman and the strip’s ostensible star.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Santa’s just getting an early jump on St. Stephen’s Day.
Dustin – We’ve all noticed that that’s actually a bowl of mashed potatoes. But we also know he’s still going to put Hershey’s syrup on them.
RMMD – HOLIDAY! REALLY! BOOK! SCHOOL! THAT! STILL! COLLEGE!!!!
Don Abundio, translated:
“And now, the prize for the most original costume!”
“Thanks”
“It was nice of the humans to give us this urn!”
“Yeah!”
“But I still say we vaporize the little shits!”
DT: I don’t care what happens, I just want Bogart to survive. I haven’t been this invested in a Dick Tracy character since Abner Kadaver kicked the bucket.
Dustin: There’s something comforting in knowing that, despite all his smug self-assurance and contempt for everyone and everything else, Ed Kudlick has an emotional void that no tub of Meadow Gold Vanilla can fill. Who says Dustin can’t be heartwarming.
MG&G: What exactly is Dancer doing in The Nutcracker? Pulling the sleigh at the end of Act One? I can’t imagine that gig pays better than his delivery job.
Just before doing my normal morning comics read, I saw a Seattle Times headline about Tesla and Cybertruck owners buying stuff to break out windows when they get trapped in their vehicles due to accidents, fires, floods or just a total shutdown of their overly-engineered ego enhancer.
Then, I went to Gasoline Alley where I wondered where we could find something to escape Joel and Rufus,
Ghost Cat got a fast car
He got a ticket to vigilante town
He and Dick can make a deal
Maybe together they can kill some clowns
With Dick around it’s a righteous kill
To hell with the 4th & 5th amendments
And the 6th, 8th & 14th too
Ghost Cat himself’s got nothing to prove
Ghost Cat got a fast car…
Dustin: does Ed understand that lying in bed with a belly full of ice cream will not ease his discontent.
Dustin: Crushed by his son in Caesar’s Legion, and now depressed by the relentless awfulness of the world, not even a massive sugar hit with a quart of ice cream can help – so par for the course for Dad!
DT: OK – I get it now, the outfit, it helps put Deputy Dog in the mood! Is that why DT must wear his yellow trench/rain coat and hat. Without them it just doesn’t feel quite right to pump lead at the “bad guys”. Any moment now Rojo will remember, they got nothing on him and with his lawyer he’ll probably walk just have to reach the other cops safely so they can take him into custody before Catman and DT kill them.
MW: “Pompous Axx” – is a t-shirt, mug, and fridge magnet waiting to be made. ? Merch for Joshreads ? Sunny knows a killer line when he hears it. Please let the reveal be that Toby secretly plays a tape loop in the cage for Sunny with pompous axx.
RMMD: Meanwhile the check in/check out line has dwindled. Some of the patients have literally passed while waiting, others have left in disgust, and while the remained have ossified in place. The other clerks, nurses and MAs have gone on a silent strike since the gabfest has screwed up everyone’s break schedule. Rex and June are busy in the back wondering how come the day is so slow.
JP: Charlotte again says the darndest thing – well Neddy do you now give her talk? The one about how as people get older they start to think over their past decisions and choices and sometimes rue their actions. That this can lead to depression, anger, or lashing out and some turn to drink or drugs or even worse decisions. In the end sometimes things are so ff’ed up that not all the ice cream, best horsies and cutest berets in the world can fix them. Or you can sort of mumble something and realize the Charlotte is just pulling your chain again! Please please let that be tomorrow’s punch line: Neddy: Er, well grandpa is not having an easy time right now … Charlotte: Zing, got you again Neddy, you are too easy to fish in! I know he is a hopeless lush and everyone around him is an enabler…
FG: Good job replicating the old serial trick of “make it look like the heroes died in a fiery explosion, only to show them leaping out of the way just in time in the next installment.”
Luann: Never mind the “full time” part, have the two of you forgotten you’re first responders, and the nature of your job means that you will likely be working on Christmas Day at some point? No wonder you can’t plan for the holidays; you can’t even bother to check the assignment roster at the station.
MW: I find it strange that Ian’s cursing is completely grawlixed out, but Sunny’s is just one step off of writing “ass” with dollar signs for s’s. Is Sunny literally saying “axx,” self-censoring by letting the word trail off into a non-verbal squak? Are Moy and Brigman seeing what they can slip past the editors, or have the editors stopped caring a long time ago?
SH: Whoa, this is a side of their relationship I do NOT need to see.
I don’t want to be that one guy but…
Donner’s name is actually Donder.
Then I did some further research and discovered that Donner and Blitzen’s very original names were Dunder and Blixem
So seeing as they keep changing with the times, who am I to argue about anything…
9CL: Amos, who canonically has been linked to Edda at birth, now wants to date another girl. This put his age in the pre-teenish era. The other girl looks to be in her late twenties at least. Nothing makes any sense in this strip anymore.
@Charterstone: Dune:
These sort of basic fundamental understanding of how scholastic sports work, especially in a US high school, is the least of the worries for the GT strip!
Dustin’s “joke” is digging a little close to that line/meme about the parents from Rugrats.
Didi: Why are you making pudding at 3 in the morning?
Stu: Because I lost all control of my life.
Also Dick Tracy: Respectfully, I’d like to suggest that every life in this strip could be improved by dramatically cutting back on caffeine intake. (Except Dick, who should seriously consider alternatives to the gunpowder he snorts from the “lucky shell casing” he carries around with him wherever he goes.)
Dustin: After wolfing down that much ice cream Dustdad will be filled with more flammable gas than the Hindenburg. Make him sleep outside, Helen.
@TheDiva: “Is Sunny literally saying “axx,” self-censoring by letting the word trail off into a non-verbal squak?”
For my part, I’m going to assume Sunny picked up from Toby a heretofore never-mentioned speech impediment, and I will be interpreting all of the s‘s in Toby’s speech bubbles as pronounced as ks or z depending on the context.
Wary Morth:
Sunny Parrot took an axx
And gave Pompous forty whaxx
When he saw what he had done
He gave Pompous forty one.
____________________________________
Toby realises with a rising feeling of dread that Ian and Sunny are much more like an old married couple than Ian and she could ever be.
____________________________________
“Pompous Axx” would be a great name for a rock band, if every member wore a chinbeard and shouted profanity into the microphone while the music was substituted with the noise of parrots crashing awards to go along with the singing.
we actually took the “tail of the dragon” in a minivan full of kids once, probably when trying to get from Chattanooga to Atlanta for some reason. Was worried we might get in the way of the bikers that were there for a thrill, but in the end my wife drives a bit.. um.. aggressively and if anything we were possibly intimidating some of the bikers
@vince:
and I was misremembering (This was some time ago), it wasn’t chattanooga to atlanta, it was probably Knoxville to NC to see some waterfalls
Lockhorns Man: “Excuse me, do I know you? Who is this ‘Leroy’ you are talking about?”
Woman: (whispering) “I thinks she’s crazy. Give her a dollar and let’s get out of here.”
“Yes, Dancer got a job in the ballet. And Comet has a part time job at the observatory. Cupid is a matchmaker. And well, uh…we don’t talk about where Blitzen was between 1939 and 1945.”
Dustin-But Dustin Dad is always sad.
@D.Z. Hill: The Tail Of The Dragon™ also has a 30 mph speed limit, which makes me wonder just how crazy a driver Ghost Cat really is.
Dustin-“It’s time for me to confess. I’m constantly depressed and I act like a smug know it all to hide that fact.”
REX MORGAN M D.: Summer: “Well no, we haven’t discussed holiday plans. Since this dumb book deal is the most interesting attribute about us as a couple, we’ve laser-focused on that topic for months. We haven’t even been able to pay attention to the passage of time. (Does double take.) Wait is it Christmastime now? Wow, time really does fly, huh?”
@Treetown: Alternately, Neddy could go meta, and explain to Charlotte that characters in comic strips (especially ones over 70 years old) are often pushed aside for newer characters, relegated at best to an occasional cameo, and at worst to the Void. It happened to Alan, it happened to Randy, someday it will happen to Neddy and Charlotte. But hey, right now they’re the focus, Christmas is coming, and Charlotte has a darling purple riding outfit, so smile!
@vince: strangest thing I ever saw on The Dragon was a dozen or so guys zipping up and down the road on Honda Groms (think production versions of the lawn-mower-engine-powered “mini-bikes” the cool kids built when you were a teenager)… wearing clown suits! The worst thing was, I couldn’t keep up with these guys on my 1200cc, 100-horsepower BMW bike!
RMMD: “We haven’t really discussed our holiday plans. He thinks about his book and his book only!”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I don’t have any interest or will of my own”
Crankshat: Batiuk and Dangerous Dan Davis give readers the bird for the fourth straight day.
DUSTIN: Did Mary Worth mass-market her Nebulously-shaped Food Thingamajigs to other comics now? Because Ed’s bowl looks less like “ice cream” and more like something they’d serve at a cartoonishly-neglectful orphanage.
@Treetown: Re: Dustin. Ok, now you’re just being silly. Duatdad would never, ever, care about “the awfulness of the world.” He’d simply concluded that the world “deserves it” for being too lazy to be the world’s most incompetent lawyer
DT: “Shaddap! I’m the goddamn Ghost Cat!”
FC: You gotta admire Dolly’s commitment to the bit. Her fist is cocked and ready to punch Jeffy in the mouth if he doesn’t comply.
@Charterstone: Dune: I’m OK with Sunny having learned it from Toby, but how does the parrot know to use it on Ian? Did Toby sit in front of a big picture of Ian, chanting “pompous axx” until Sunny associated it? Kudos for her preparation of her plan to give Ian a rage-induced coronary.
DT: I guess a serious opium addiction goes a long way toward explaining why a hillbilly deputy lawman would decide to dress up like a large cat-man.
”Driving the tail of the dragon” means the same thing as “kicking the gong around,” right?
Right?
This festive season needs a classic Calvin and Hobbes.
I’m sorry but there is absolutely nothing funny about today’s Crankshaft. Had she decided to call it her “Creepy Christmas Stalking (not stocking) Bird” it might be approaching a bit of funny.
@WesC: This week appears to be reruns from about twenty years ago. First clues: there is a resemblance of humor in the dialog and the sexualization of Edda is dialed way down.
@TheDiva: Liturgical (and quite possibly elf) abuse!
DT: Finally, a superhero for Gearhead Gertie. Hey, maybe that is Gearhead Gertie?
Dustin-Here’s a way to get more joy from that bowl of Ice cream than by eating it: Invert it on Helen’s head!
Then go get some chocolate ice cream, vanilla never fixed anything!
@WesC: Not only is this redhead a good twenty years older than Amos, but she’s wearing an evening gown that shifts for spaghetti-strap to strap to off-shoulder in the first three panels.
Just guessing as to the gowniness of the outfit. Knowing Brooke, it’ll be revealed as a form-fitting microdress tomorrow morning.
(Okay, when *I* was eleven I wanted to date women like this, too, but I never made it as far as Amos seemingly has)
Now that I know Ed only feels authentic joy while playing obscure, convoluted tabletop wargames, I empathize with him. Dustin probably swore he’d never play Caesar’s Legions again after the tantrum Ed threw when he lost, which is why he’s now drowning his sorrows in ice cream and moping about how far society has strayed from the virtues of Cincinnatus.
“I’m still sad” says Dustin-dad to his wife, passive aggressively letting her know that her company is awful and depressing. Man, what a hilarious development
Dustbin: DustDad is STILL complaining about running out of gravy for the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes.
@Treetown: @Navigator:
On Dustin : I’m glad I’m not alone in feeling that despite running on friday (and thus saturday’s strip being the ‘conclusion’), the strip where DustinDad completely loses his shit over Dustin beating him at Caesar’s Legion is the way that storyline ended.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Yeah, why bother with the bowl, just eat from the container.
@Ukranazi Stepan: And when he saw what he had done; He dropped a load, too, just for fun…
Cranky’s Wrath: Cranky couldn’t become a St Louis Cardinal, so he got reincarnated as a cardinal cardinal! Its A Festivus™ miracle! Also, Cranky’s dead!
@Anonymous: Brad wants kids because that is the only way he is allowed to express “would like to have sex” in his universe.
MG&G: “Will you,Mother with your beak so yellow/won’t you lead my sleigh like a good avian fellow?”
MG&G, meta: “Christmas” is trademarked, but apparently “anthropomorphic avian responding to a lame punchline with inexplicable goggle-eyed horror” isn’t.
MW: You know, we joked about Toby being on the same mental level as the parrot, but seeing these two going “Pompous axx!” “Wretched nuisance!” “Pompous axx!” “Wretched nuisance!” I think we’re witnessing the true meeting of minds in this story.
Phantom: “I don’t think I need to tell you that the rapid fire shooting from outside the jail wasn’t me, inside the jail, with one gun, while cowering along with everyone else … but the decisions you’ve made so far in this storyline mean I can’t be sure!”
P&O: Oh, good grief. I thought this kid looked vaguely familiar last week, but I wasn’t sure. But yep, this storyline unexpectedly goes out to the dozen or so people who remember Popeye and Son back in the eighties!
S4th: Because … now she can spend a Christmas with him knowing it’s going to be their last? Sorry, but given my own family history, this should be deeply affecting for me and it’s just not clicking.
MW- Despite Ian’s rage, Toby won’t put the bird in the cage.
MONTY: Pilsner is a lot more fun to watch that MW’s Sunny, but probably less civilized.
@Horace Broon:
On Sally Forth spending a final vacation with the ghost of her dad not hitting : …maybe it’s because THE STRIP ALREADY DID THIS? For a summer vacation? Like, Ted tried cheaping out on going somewhere for the summer
(or was it because it was 2020? I forget), the Forths decided to go on vacation in their imaginations, Sally returned to her last summer with her dad, then she was all “Dad, this memory of my last summer vacaction with you kinda sucks, because it’s all just you and mom endlessly arguing about whether this should be about spending time by yourselves or going all-out to give me and sis the best summer ever- OH MY GOD YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE AND YOU WERE TRYING TO LEAVE ME WITH A GOOD MEMORY”?…Or did I imagine it?
(why would I imagine a Sally Forth storyline, of all things, though!?)MW#2- Upon arriving home, Toby finds that Ian has chopped off Sunny’s head! “Oh my God Ian, what have you done?”she cries. Ian replies “The little avian a-hole axxed for it!”.
@Sequitur:
Looks like Dustin Dad was there.
Remember the opening of Apocalypse Now? The choppers drifting past the glorious flames. This is the movie showing behind Ed’s eyelids now.
@Anonymous: Now that you mention it, that does ring a bell for me too.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: “You’re driving so fast, my nose just flew out the window!”
@The Rambling Otter: From the Bob Dylan/Brave Combo version of “Must Be Santa” (written by Hal Moore and Bill Fredericks)
“Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton”
@UncleJeff:
Homer: “Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Nixon, Comet, Cupid, Donna Dixon.”
Teacher: “Sit down, Simpson.”
Apparently Ghost Cat grew up in Western North Carolina where I am from.
Sorry about that folks.
@The Rambling Otter: The key to the names Donder and Blitzen (at least, this is what really made it click for me) is that they translate to Thunder and Lightning.
Once I learned that, the whole thing made perfect sense.
@Charterstone: Dune: Well, I was thinking Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! could use a few more spots for his clients. A Maine Coon cat would make for a pretty spectacular fur-and-feather match-up with Sunny. Personally, I’d put my money on the cat.
JP: Charlotte is acting more and more like Hilary Forth and her cousin Bettina.
Late Thread Cuisine: Another dream of Ian Cameron.
DT: By “drive the tail of the dragon” I assume that Deputy Ghost Cat means that he used to have a crippling heroin addiction and fast driving is one of the ways he sublimates the occasional craving for opiates.
Dustin: Take a number, pal, and you’re not helping.
MG&G: The stress of losing a reindeer to the ballet(!?) has caused Santa to let his beard go all mangy.
RMMD: The fact that Summer and Augie started their latest talk about his book at the start of the month and now it’s almost Winter Solstice is part of the magic of daily comics.
I was curious so I googled.
“The word “Christmas” itself cannot be trademarked as a standalone term due to its widespread usage. However, businesses can trademark phrases or designs that include “Christmas” if they are unique and specific to their products or services. For example, successful registrations exist for phrases like “Merry Christmas” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Therefore, while “Christmas” cannot be trademarked, related terms can be protected under certain conditions”
…but then again Google is now run by
AITerminators who want to destroy humanity by turning us into idiots by feeding us incorrect information, so I really don’t know for certain.@117 Baja Gaijin:
The Familiar Mucus: Barfy says, “Sam and I understand there is a virgin tree that has yet to be peed on in there.Please let us in and claim it.”
JP: That’s still up in the air. Someone needs to check on Alan Parker to see if he still remembers he has a granddaughter.
Luann: All of this sounds like an admission that they won’t be parents themselves anytime in the foreseeable future, as a nation breathes a sigh of relief.
MW: You can tell by looking at her how close Toby came to making a U-turn out the door. The world isn’t ready for this sitcom and neither is she.
Phantom: Hey, it looks like Patrolwoman Han was standing about an inch from the bullets’ impact zone so maybe give her a minute or so to regain her hearing, among other things.
Ziggy: Hope everybody is enjoying the Advent season. Here’s the start of Ziggy’s serial killer manifesto.
@Sequitur: You govern in prose, but campaign in poultry. A chicken in every pot!
@Charterstoned:
Cats are great. Of course, if Ian got one it would team up with the parrot and hiss at him. Then hawk up a hairball on his cashmere sweater.
@Baja Gaijin:
Who knew there were so many ways to ruin perfectly good poultry?