Not big fan of the B.C. guys’ messed up faces either
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Archie, 1/13/26
Against all odds, the fact that I’ve been doing this blog for more than 20 years doesn’t usually make me feel old, mostly because I’m still substantially younger than most newspaper comics creators and readers, but occasionally I do catch a glimpse of the way my years have been piling up. For instance, these Archie strips are repeats from the early to mid ’00s, around the time I started commenting on them, and back then, teens (Archie’s ostensible target audience) would’ve read this and said, “Ha ha! The idiots who make this strip only have the vaguest idea what an iPod is and have no idea what it looks like!” before popping in their white earbuds and jamming out to Lindsay Lohan’s Speak, which they had pirated via LimeWire. Whereas today’s teens would read this rerun in the newspaper (an unlikely scenario, I admit, but stay with me here) and say “Wow, is that what iPods looked like, back when they were popular, several years before we were born? With curly wires and one (?) grey earphone and everything?”
Luann, 1/13/26
What’s worse than Brad and Toni having sex in their car in an empty amusement park parking lot late at night? Up until today you would’ve said “Nothing, obviously,” but now you know the answer actually is “Luann and Phil are desperate to have sex in their car in a nursing home parking lot in broad daylight except they’ve been foiled because it’s full of eager recyclers.”
B.C., 1/13/26
So do the deer … think the humans want to have sex with them? Is … is that the joke? Do the humans want to have sex with them? Is that the joke? Strong dislikes all around whatever the case.
79 replies to “Not big fan of the B.C. guys’ messed up faces either”
Archie:
It’s good of that kitchen attendant to not be covering that mop of unruly hair with a hairnet before dishing out today’s fare.
You are not a fan of the BC guys’ messed-up faces. I am not a fan of their feet. We are not the same.
MW: In my experience, when the batteries in a smoke alarm die, the unit makes an obnoxious beeping sound until they’re changed. I can only assume that Mary/Mr. Allora/the condo unit itself is trying to kill the Camerons.
B.C.
“Is that dance move that they’re doing called a ‘doe, see doe’ ?”
BC: Speaking of messed up faces, why are the deer anteaters?
Archie: I miss the days when headphone jacks were standard on technology. And multiple USB ports. And CD drives. That is all.
MW: Heartwarming! Ian Cameron realizes that he must make allowances for his wife, who is an idiot.
Luann: A flash mob stands at the ready 24/7 to prevent Luann from fucking at any cost.
Luann:
“You know, it’s kind of apt that our (too) often-depicted recurring efforts to secure quiet time for ourselves are associated with a ‘RECYCLE TODAY’ sign!”
RMMD:
“You know the treacly Morris Albert song ‘Feelings,’ boys? — that’s pretty much what you experience when you go through one of these procedures!”
Luann and Phill have been foiled? I think not! TUNE IN TOMORROW as Luann and Phil’s exhibitionism gets supercharged via the erotic properties of crushed aluminum cans and stacks of papers bound with twine. [Ed. Note: DO NOT tune in tomorrow].
Ick aside, Luann‘s punchline would work better if the setup were “Luann says something true that would lead them to think the parking lot was empty, which is ironically undercut by everyone showing up for recycling” instead of “Luann confidently says something that’s completely wrong and looks like a dumbass.”
LUANN: I think “desperate” only applies to one of them. Phil’s more like, “meh.”
SFORTH: I would live to see this strip feature a truly apocalyptic arc. Mainly because Ted would be eaten immediately.
MW: A shocking ignorance of smoke detectors is being shown by everyone. Why isn’t Mary the Safety Captain?
Archie : *SOMEONE* is serving up slop today. Not Mrs Beasley, that’s just the onomatopeia her gruel makes when it hits the plate, I meant the AJGLU3000.
It’s funny because the idea that a newspaper comic strip being, in fact, made by an AI that barely understands the sequences it stitches together from a vast archive of repetitious content used to be a zany, quaint flight of fancy rather than a very real possibility!************
B. C. : Apparently, in this comic’s universe, Deers are carnivores that eat what appears to be *squint* …tapirs, I guess?
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Crankshaft : Have we EVER seen any members of Keisterman’s family before? This feels like this should be happening to Crankshaft, but like, the strip is shying away from showing a pained, injured Crankshaft snapping at his family for showing concern for him.
Also, nice of Crankshaft to stop and render assistance WHEN HE’S DOING HIS ROUNDS PICKING UP KIDS FOR SCHOOl***********
Hagar the Horrible : Giant immediately tosses Hagar into his mouth and gobbles him up. Hagar misunderstood what he meant when he said “I’ll have you for dinner, then my people will know peace”.
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Luann : OH THEY WERE GOING TO MAKE LOVE
(In the 19th century sense, ie, incredibly chaste micro-kisses), I was confused as to why they were acting like they didn’t have time for themselves when they’ve already spent eight days having this long conversation about their relationship!Also, is it just me or does this strip seem to hate EVERYONE featured in this strip? (Luann is no question, but like, they’re having the old guy be senile and call Phil by the wrong name, the activists are portrayed as annoying buttinskis, and Phil’s been an unlikeable jerk during this entire bit
(or were we supposed to see him as 100 % in the right? That’s a scary thought))Archie: I think kids today would be more perplexed by the strange green fluid which expands tenfold as it is slung from the ladle. After all, no school lunch has contained any trace of green since the early Reagan administration.
BC: Well, the artist apparently thought that these prehistoric ungulates were so sexy that they needed to be discreetly hidden by bushes, so…
@Lauralot: MW: Yeah, those obnoxious beeps last – you don’t get a few and miss them because you were out for the day. Should we be concerned for Moy, given she’s apparently never encountered a functional smoke detector?
@matt w: To be fair, “Luann looking like a dumbass” is sort of the Luann mission statement. Sometimes it’s intentional, other times it’s not, but there it is.
Today’s geez-aren’t-you-parents-past-the-amateur-stage-yet moments:
FC There’s always “no”, or “sure, but you’ll have to eat ALL your Beet Salad Surprise with the rest of dinner in order to get whatever chocolatey pineapple dessert I concoct”
Zits Get a grip, folks. You changed his diapers, you can take a little dissection description. This isn’t even a Calvin-level bit with a gross-out tie-in to the food on the table.
BC: I’m pretty certain there was a conversation between the writer and the cartoonist that ended with the words, “Of course I know what deer look like!”
B.C.: God’s curses on you for showing me this strip. God’s curses on me for looking at it more than once. Most especially, Curses of the Old Gods on whoever drew those deer. [Mental note: those are deer, right? Establish.]
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: [Giant anteaters? Do anteaters have bucks? DO NOT RESEARCH.]
@Hibbleton: It was organized by our own Sex-Negative Nellie.
RMMD:
“Alright, a little off-topic, Dad, but could the two of us maybe go as ‘Nelson’ for Halloween this year? We could do an a cappella rendition of ‘After the Rain’ as we approach homeowners’ porches and they would flee, screaming, leaving their unattended troughs of candy for us to pilfer!”
Archie: What’s funny is that there’s a decent topical joke you could have made with this strip about “AI slop”, but I guess for that one we’ll have to wait until, oh, 2044?
Luann: Damn, and just when these two were about to do a bit of ‘recycling’ of their own (and by ‘recycling’ I mean literally recycling because I don’t believe that these two actually have sex.)
B.C. Guys! Guys! Why are you hitting each other with your hands? You have two perfectly good spears there! We could be one step closer to finally finishing this strip…
@Anonymous 13: I’m struggling with whether we’re supposed to like Phil or not. He’s dull, bland, and incapable of adult behavior… but all these qualities make him a PERFECT partner for Luann. It’s almost like the strip its mocking its title character, by showing the fans what a proper suitor for Luann would look like.
Luann: Well, I’ll be double-dipped: teen horniness foiled by ecological do-gooders. Eat hot irony, sex-positive shitlibs!
@Banana Jr. 6000: I don’t think we’re supposed to like Phil. I don’t think we’re supposed to like anyone. Luann: the daily comics’ most subtly misanthropic title (Shannon is not a human, don’t worry about her).
MW: Egad, I think Moy was playing us this whole time. This entire story arc, the ‘meet cute’ in the park, the ‘Ha Ha Ha’ at David Schimmer’s floating head on the TV, Ian’s 1000 degree shower, the shit in the shoes, the smashed award and other keepsakes, all of it… just to get to a PSA about changing the batteries in your smoke detector????!!!!!
CS: Ed Crankshaft is a selfish, indifferent prick, except when he SHOULD be a selfish, indifferent prick. Like today. The third panel should be Ed getting back on the bus saying “guess you’re okay then.” Because an injured person would be screaming for help, not insulting friends and family members for asking if he needs any help.
DT: Keep recycling old characters.
JP: Charlotte knows! “You are abandoning me like everyone else in my life” Neddy “No, honey, we are just having to move on to the next loose end. You’ll just disappear for months maybe years from the story and then we’ll pick it up as if nothing has happened.”
GT: Art is still good – so is Kerri going to miss up Gil’s nuptials?
MW: Boo! Please let this be a fake out and the cat will now spring up and knock the tree over onto Ian.
Phantom: So General Chum’s chum is a chump?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I have no idea how we’re supposed to react to Luann, but the strip does have a legit non-ironic online fan community. I would ask them how we’re supposed to feel about Phil, but those people scare me.
@Banana Jr. 6000: They usually make their feelings pretty clear. Mind you, I’m not going to dive into their kiddie pool of insanity, but I feel safe in predicting they are probably either raking Phil over the coals for being such a fuddy-duddy that he’d miss an opportunity for ‘making whoopee’* with a ‘hot’ girl or they are pontificating in all seriousness that ‘they just aren’t meant for each other’ and ‘Luann deserves someone who truly understands her!’
*Don’t tell me someone in that gaggle hasn’t referred to it that way, and I still don’t believe that the Evansii would ever actually have the characters do anything more than make adolescent ‘teehee!’ innuendos but never actually do anything.
Archie: I thought the lunch lady’s name was Ms. Grundy, until I realized the teacher she was interacting with is Ms. Grundy! Only then did I remember the lunch lady’s actual name, Popeye In A Wig.
Wary Morth:
Toby, the batteried wife.
Wary Morth:
Maybe the smoke detector didn’t go off because that tiny wisp from the (wireless) light was too small to set it off? Hmm?
____________________________
Still waiting to see how Mary can possibly take credit for this.
Today’s “Luann” is all about recycling trash. Today’s “Archie” is all about recycling jokes — also trash
For being a creationist strip, “B.C.” depicts deer nothing like deer look like today, implying some evolution — maybe pushed by horrible, radioactive mutations
FG: Oh, geez. Flash left Bok in the dragonman car seat on the roof of the flying saucer.
January 13, Turkana Basin. Amazing results at the dig site. Two primitive hominid skeletons were uncovered. Multiple bone breaks, perhaps from severe battle injuries. If I can be permitted a flight of fancy, one can picture an epic battle between two great warriors, a struggle to the death over something valuable to them, something quite deer.
B.C: I forgoed the entire “fighting over the anteaters” completely, because the two guys are clearly zombies.
Zombies wiped out the dinosaurs, it’s true because B.C said so.
“B.C.” shifted from a creationist strip — the world was created by God in a perfect order — to a Darwinian strips — all living things obey the basic impulse of either feeding of fucking — so slowly we did not notice it
@The Rambling Otter: Now I was thinking, while inaccurate, I swear I’ve seen dinosaurs in this strip at points… now I can’t remember.
B.C.: B.C. is less overtly evangelical these days, but it still has its hidden Christian messages. For example, the hideous deformed deer creatures could not have evolved by any natural process. These monsters could only be the work of Satan, or a truly unloving God.
Archie: “SLOP! SLOP!” – me, scrolling through my Facebook feed
Archie – Pistachio soup – yummy….
Luann – Who’s the leader of the fuck that’s made for you and me….
BC – So… cavemen used to fuck does…right….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
You gotta admit, it is a big change to go from Johnny Hart’s strong born again Christian messages in B.C. to his heirs’ equally strong no kink shaming takes.
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Speaking of no kink shaming…
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We can’t see his hands after that first panel. Is Brad keeping those gloves on because there is no point in using fresh ones for his “examination” of Toni in the car?
***
Ms. Beazley’s kitchen may be understaffed, but at least the school board hasn’t cut her budget so much that she can’t give people copious amounts of green goop to keep their stomachs full.
Archie: You’re not likely to get many complaints watching Miss Beazley slinging hash while shuffle-dancing to ‘Walkie Talkie Man’ if only for its entertainment value. Still wouldn’t eat the food, though.
MW-Expired batteries and you didn’t hear the ceiling bird chirping?
Archie-She’s poisoned the food.
Archie You aren’t going to hear any complaints because Oobleck is well-known to be sticky so anyone who tries a bite will have their mouth glued shut for days.
BC: There’s Enough Doe Coochie for Both of Us (Can’t We Get Along?) —New song by Kid Rock
Luann – Recycle Today: An inspirational poster for legacy cartoonists.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hurry up! Your special banquet is about to start!”
“It is?”
“All your friends have been invited”
“That sounds nice”
“I think I should deliver some opening remarks!”
Pluggers: This goes against all ideas of Plugger thrift. Isn’t it usually cheaper to buy a double-scoop cone rather than two single-scoops? Better yet, buy your ice cream in a cup, so it doesn’t fall off the cone after the first bite.
Luann-Since this is Luann we know that they won’t need the privacy for adult naughty bounce bounce.
Blondie-Get a job ya bum!
FC: Beets, pineapples, evaporated milk, and chocolate syrup: Billy’s project is to see if he can recreate Miss Beazely’s latest recipe.
MW: The couple hears Wilbur yelling; “Close your bathrobe” through the wall.
FYI, Smoke detectors are a popular hiding spot for hidden cameras.
Beetle Bailey is the only comics character who considers A Cask of Amontillado to have a happy ending.
Zits:
“Jeremy, did you learn that in biology lab or at your part time packing plant job?”
“Six of one, etcetera, etcetera…”
@Arabella: It also goes against all Plugger ideas of not caring how much of a glutton they look like to others. They’d just order the double scoop and be done with it. Especially when it’s more cost-effective to do so. Especially especially when it’s already on the menu.
(In my experience, pluggers’ threshhold for being embarrassed about their eating choices is when they have order custom sizes of things, because nothing on the menu filled them up enough. Which is really saying something, considering how grotesque American restaurant options are by default.)
Archie: Keri Thorp better watch out, Squinty-Eyed Cafeteria Employee is coming for their non-binary rep crown.
BC: Those are not deer. They might be weirdly deformed moose, but they’re definitely not deer.
Luann: Are nursing home staffers allowed to have significant others hang out with them and chat about relationship issues while they do their rounds? Seems like that’s the kind of thing which would have all manner of health, security, and ethical concerns, but then again I’ve heard some pretty nasty things about elder care facilities…
MW – Damn, check out that look of contempt on Sunny’s face. “You forgot to change the smoke alarm batteries? Holy crap, I take back every nice thing I squawked about you.”
@MKay: “LUANN: I think ‘desperate’ only applies to one of them. Phil’s more like, ‘meh.’”
Poor Phil has to deal with the little voice in his head constantly repeating “You can do better than this, Phil.”
MW: Sunny eyes the ladder and begins to formulate a plan. It should be easy enough, he thinks, to “off” that pompous axx by chipping through the ladder’s wooden feet with his beak so that, when Ian checks the smoke detector next month, the whole thing suddenly collapses under Ian’s weight and sends him crashing to his doom. After all, if he could unplug that air conditioner and dislodge it from the window, cutting a wooden ladder should be a breeze…! Heh heh.
Luann: So, no storerooms in the nursing home, then?
MW: Not only is To-Be intentionally dumb, but she wasn’t annoyed by alarms chirping. Oo, maybe she has tinnitus.
Soon Ian will hear, ” Sunny loves Pompous Axx.”
C’shaft: Crankshaft only stopped because the pleasure of making a bunch of kids late for school outweighed the pleasure of leaving Keesterman suffering on the freezing pavement.
DT: Look, you come into this world with the name “Frank Redrum,” your options are either killer for hire or demonic spirit inhabiting The Overlook, it’s just a fact of life.
Dustin: What clients? Dustdad doesn’t have clients; he pretty much only goes to the office to eat donuts and complain about his family.
GT: “Anyway, this concludes our parent-child bonding for the month. See you in February.”
JP: If a child were this afraid of returning to someone’s house, I’d start to be suspicious as to the reasons. Are we sure Alan isn’t an angry drunk?
MW: So this entire thing was just a public service announcement for standard fire alarm maintenance?
RMMD: Wait, they knock you out so they can numb your eye and then they wake you up for the operation? I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. Are we about to discover Rex does so little medical stuff because he’s not a real doctor?
@Weaselboy: Sunny’s just happy to have Toby there to take the fall for him. Now Ian won’t notice the carefully gnawed wiring in the smoke detector, just like he didn’t notice it on the Christmas tree lights.
Luann:
That’s one cold comeback line from “Saint” Bill. Translation: “Just doin’ what all the wretched shit my damn job requires, you old geezer! Now leave me the hell alone cuz my interminable shift is finally over and my slutty girlfriend is here to give me sympathy sex!”
When the Blob came to Earth, it expected a war. It expected humans to unite against it and try to drive it from their world. It didn’t expect collaborators, quislings. And it really didn’t expect humans to eat whatever was put on their trays. Months later, when it had devoured the world, its stomach was full but its soul was empty. It really wasn’t a conquest, was it? it mused as it tried to digest a particularly hard part of Kangchenjunga. Maybe Mars will put up more of a fight.
@TheDiva: RMMD Rex Morgan, M. D., apparently doesn’t understand this esoteric “local anesthetic” concept
Luann: “Darn it! All these people here when we scheduled intimate private time!”
Edda, Amos, et. al. from 9CL: “………And?…….”
RMMD: This is not how I remember my cataract surgery of ten years ago. I had some sort of happy juice by IV, but it did not “put me under.” I was aware of what was going on the whole time and could follow instructions, but feeling no pain. Maybe it’s done differently now?
Anyway, does Rex need to be going into such detail with these kids who are maybe six years old? Perhaps they really are in their thirties, as they appear.
Scott Adams has died.
Archie: Always fun to be reminded that newspaper comic creators being bizarrely out of touch with wider human society isn’t a new phenomena in the slightest.
Luann: In my first and so far only kudos to this comic, I have to admit, the way Luann is skipping in the first panel is legitimately cute and funny. Though it’s also probably the first genuinely human behavior she’s displayed in the comic’s history, so the bar is kind of so low it’s in Hell.
B.C.: Very periodically, the writers at B.C. remember that this is supposed to be a comic about cavemen and try to channel Quest For Fire. It fails, mostly because Quest For Fire didn’t have any talking animals to my memory, unless you count Ron Perlman.
@Arabella: #51: You’re right about the cost effectiveness, but by ordering two single scoops the plugger gets two cones, which fulfill his dietary fiber needs for the day.
BC: Wow, cartoon cavemen actually acting like real cavemen, and not Fred and Barney.
I can’t get over the phrase “wearing your iPod.” Even when the strip originally ran it would have been out of place and nonsensical.
Phantom:
You’re just a yes man?
Gee, General Chuma, isn’t that what every good dictator wants in an underling?
Archie: I actually like the history lesson being presented here. Let’s remember back to the olden times, when portable music devices didn’t come with a phone, women in their 40s let their hair turn gray, bald men in their 50s kept a few stray strands of hair on their heads instead of shaving it all off and growing a goatee, and healthy green smoothies — well, they were exactly the same, except they were scooped directly onto your lunch tray for some reason instead of being served in cups. If we could only see Archie, Reggie, Betty and Veronica in the background, wearing their American Eagle skinny jeans, hoodies, trucker hats and Uggs — and rocking out to Justin’s “SexyBack” and Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” — we would realize that these truly were the good old days.
Ah, I get it. America does not care enough about their children to adequately fund their schools and provide their offspring with nutritious, fresh, and healthy food. Hahaha… it’s funny… Hahaha… oh, man, just wait until those children find out about health care and housing when they graduate! HAAHAHAHAHA… (sobs)
MT- Mark can’t resist a good pun….that duck’s quacking up.
@Tom T.: I can’t understand why the ivermectin didn’t clear up that cancer.