Medical madness
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Gil Thorp, 1/24/26
So, Gil thinks that opinions and interests are determined by the qualities of a person’s “blood” — which is not a metaphor for genetic inheritance, because offspring can exhibit blood-carried qualities entirely different from that of their parents. Maybe these qualities change due to infections or injuries? Maybe if you watch enough movies, your blood cell counts shift in meaningful ways? Unclear but worthy of further study (let’s start draining the Thorp family’s blood and putting it into some centrifuges for analysis is what I’m saying).
Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/24/26
I guess when you have a comic strip where the main characters are a goose who seems to have the legal and social position of a person and a dog who seems to have the legal and social position of a pet, but they both talk and seem to be on the same level intellectually, is not a context where you should be asking questions about why those characters are present at specific times and places. I mean, why are they anywhere at all? Why do they exist? Why would a loving God allow any of this? But still: why are Mother Goose and Grimm in a pharaonic tomb, and why has Mother Goose allowed her pet/housemate/adopted son (he does call her “mom,” I always find that off-putting) to start chewing on the mummies? Do you two want to be prosecuted in Egyptian courts under the 1983 Law on the Protection of Antiquities, and its 2020 amendments? Because this is how you get prosecuted in Egyptian courts under the 1983 Law on the Protection of Antiquities, and its 2020 amendments.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/24/26
Oh, sorry, were you thinking Rex’s extremely routine eye surgery wasn’t enough medical action for you? Well, what if, at the same time as he’s undergoing extremely routine eye surgery, one of his kids … was barfing????? Who needs HBO’s The Pitt when you have a thrill ride like this!!!!
61 replies to “Medical madness”
Ketcham LLC is trying to catch-up with the Keanes in the recycling department. Today’s DtM is a re-do of one from March 5, 2015. And the previous one was better.
RMMD:
“Mom, Johnny wandered cross-panel to play with the Camerons’ birds over at Mary Worth. Maybe he has parrotinitis!”
I read the last panel in Sick Chicks as, “You’re the sweetest little fucker.” And it was funnier that way.
Gil Thorp:
“Dad, I’m depicted as a sort of antimatter Jon Provost/’Timmy’ in today’s strip. Is there maybe a well I can fall into?”
Crankshaft-“Now let us creepily sit out in front of this house for several hours freaking out the new owners.”
MW-And thus Toby tells in great detail about how she left the window open.
MW-“I was only gone for one day!”
RMMD-Make sure Johnny doesn’t eat the barf.
RMMD:
“…there’s something going on with Johnny.”
“What’s that, exactly?”
“He thinks he’s Ethel Merman!”
[in the background]: “Everything’s coming up ro-o-o-o-ses!”
Widdle Sawah forgot to say that Peter is vomiting because Repeter tried to remove his spleen with a kitchen ladle.
GT: “We have sports in our blood! Not like most people in this town, who have grape drink in their blood. Purple freaks…”
MGG: So like…what is going on here? Is that a museum employee wrapped in toilet paper who answers questions to guests? Because that job sounds terrible.
RMMD: Yeah, the minute anyone in this strip thinks of doing something funny, they start vomiting as part of their body’s natural defense against doing anything entertaining for the reader.
Mother Goose and Grimm:
“Grimmy!!! Tut, tut, tut!”
“I know that’s Tutankhamun. But I’m enjoying pulling on him all the same!”
Gil Thorp:
“Dad, why is it that everyone who’s in the crowd other than us appears to be in anaphylactic shock?”
GT: “I appreciate your interest in film, son, but can you please shut off the key light you got shining on us.”
Beetle Bailey : is HAPPY about inflation!?
*************
Crankshaft : they drove all the way here to stand outside a house, make a pithy comment, and then immediately drive away?
….The new owner was coming towards them with a gun and a look in their eyes that screamed “GET OFF MY PROPERTY” before they even spoke, didn’t they?
**************
Gil Thorp : Josh, we already know the mysteries of the Thorp’s line blood; they’re VAMPIRES. That’s why he’s been around since the 1950s without aging a single day!
**************
Luann : if those two socks are supposed to represent being a pair the same way Luann and Phil are, they should be even MORE obviously mismatched.
**************
Moose and Molly : “Also, thanks for inexplicably describing the action your nephew Timmy can clearly see for himself, Chester! That really helps me understand the comic!” “Oh, that. I always make up a little story to go along with the Slylock Fox differences puzzle.”
Yeah, we don’t get a pig diving into water. WE get an astronaut jumping crotch-first into the Moon**************
Mother Goose and Grimm : Josh, this was the PERFECT opportunity to talk about how a bunch of british explorers ATE the mummies back at the turn of the 19-20th centuries.
…Though I guess they might not be in a museum at all… Is that lady with the horrified reaction a hieroglyph, or a person standing in the room with them? Because the latter might mean they are actually in Ancient Egypt (cartoons inexplicably go back in time all the time. Like, the number of cartoons that, when traveling to England end up in Victorian Times or the FRIGGIN’ MIDDLE AGES…)
**************
Rex Morgan M.D. : the entire Morgan family catching a particularly nasty bug, and spending a week utterly konked out vomiting would be more intense medical drama and action than the strip has seen for a while
(vomiting is an action)Gil Thorp:
“Son, why is it that when I look at your coiffure in today’s third panel, I’m drawn to the line ‘a nest of robins in her hair’ in Joyce Kilmer’s classic poem Trees?”
Mother Goose and Grimm: Maybe Grimm knows that a pharaoh’s dog would likely have been mummified along with its owner — even if it had been alive at the time — and that’s probably what the canine statue on the tomb represents. You’d be mad too!
Gil Thorp: “No, of course we haven’t been saving for your college education, son. If you want to go to film school at UCLA or USC, we expect you to get a sports scholarship! Oh, you’re applying to the American Film Institute, and they don’t have any sports programs? Whelp, I hope you’ve got a paper route, kid, because otherwise you’re splat outta luck!”
Pluggers: “It puzzles a plugger that Amazon thinks he might like a nose hair trimmer.” Um, dude, Amazon certainly has thoughts about you, but that long buzzy thing is something else entirely.
RMMD:
“It sounds as if it might be Johnny’s appendix. But hopefully his table of contents is still intact!”
RMMD: Calvin & Hobbes did the whole ‘Kid conveniently barfs offscreen’ plot point better, as always.
MW: ‘There’s nothing to explain. You’re trying to kidnap what the cartels have rightfully stolen!’*
JP: It just hit me. Ann doesn’t need to kidnap the raspberry-haired brat. She’s going to become the brat’s new mommy as part of her reintegration into the Pissyfaced Parker family. Neddy’s about to get a perfunctory ‘thank you’ and the door slammed in her face.
Luann: Shut up, Phil.
*With gratitude to the great Wallace Shawn.
MG&G. Isn’t “Mom” her nickname, because her first name is “Mother”? By the way, you do NOT want to know what her middle name is.
Gil Thorp-You can always go to the Kevin Smith School of Directing.
Gil Thorp:
“Why is this family obsessed with sports, Dad?”
“Well, because if our family were depicted as, say, lepidopterists, it probably wouldn’t sell much copy!”
GT: “You want a career in Not Sports?? But…but, there IS no such thing!”
RMMD: Poor June. She cursed herself when she revealed that she had books and the desire to read them.
DtM: The ubiquitous “Dennis hilariously repeats things” gag reflects more on his parents, who really are back-biting little bitches.
RMMD — Sounds like the Morgan kids have left the eggs out on the counter once too often.
GT — “Can I go to film school in LA?”
“You can start saving.”
The New Gil Thorpe finds a playfully dickish way to say “no” to his kid. . .
MG&G: At least Grimm’s not wiping his ass with the mummy’s wrappings. Count your blessings.
MG&G – That Eye of Horus on the wall sure ain’t protecting that mummy.
MW But we’re past the 12th day of Christmas, we’re supposed to be safe from gifts of parrots in a palm tree…
DT I’m not sure whether to splutter spatial relationships don’t work that way! or to ask how the hotel got a shipment of Diet Smith Industries’ hover-mattresses, those aren’t supposed to be for sale to the public!
Seriously, there *are* couches or beds with lift-up storage compartments but that’s *not* what was drawn with that mattress in a box, and is a horribly bad idea in a hotel where you don’t want guests to forget their things when they leave
PBS “I’m in this photo and I don’t like it”
Gil Thorp: I read “You can start saving” as “You can start leaving,” which thematically makes greater sense.
I mean, Mother Goose is a story teller.
And I guess, Grimmy representing the Grimm Brothers is a story-teller as well.
I can’t think of any nursery rhymes or fairy tales that involved Ancient Egypt. But I guess this comic/these characters can do what they want…
Although the classic tales of “The Mummy’s Curse” does sound something the Grimm Brothers might have told.
No wait, I’m thinking of The Cryptkeeper.
RMMD: “Sarah! Johnny just barfed! And now he’s got diarrhea!
I think we’re gonna need a new bathroom.”
H&L: Is this supposed to be Thirsty’s regular golfing gear or old stuff he hasn’t thrown out yet? Damned if I can tell.
Blondie:
“I’m rooting for your team.”
“But you which team I like!”
“Hey, you’re the one holding the scissors.”
JP: “Um, and you are?” [looks at boobs] “Well, I know you’re a Parker”
MW: Ian does some quick mental arithmetic: “Yep, still ten birds short of a meal.”
@Anonymous #12: Luann and Phil’s problem is that they’re too well matched; they’re basically both the same person, with the same hangups. Watching them is like watching Charlie Brown and Marcie try to hook up. You’d think it would work, but it would just be awkward. She’d be the one to initiate the relationship, but she’d also get tired of his wishy-washyness. Marcie can be forceful when she has to (like when she punched Thibault in the face), but I suspect she would prefer a partner that can be the forceful one when needed. A much better girl for Charlie Brown would be Peppermint Patty, because her strengths match his weaknesses and vice versa. Plus, they have a genuine shared interest, in baseball.
Pluggers are incapable of taking a hint.
@17 Where’s Rocky?: Is her middle name “Smucker”?
GT – Gay porn is in his blood….
MG&G – But you said to floss after every meal….
RMMD – So…high income double earners have latch key kids? Wouldn’t want to erode Rex’s secret Thailand ladyboy vacation account with expense child care services….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
DtM:
CS: This whole story is super-meta. It’s supposed to be an interview of someone who’s been a storyteller for decades, but “Batton Thomas” can’t even tell his own life story in a way that’s interesting, logical, or makes any sense. “As the head of the syndicate reviewed my new artwork, I sensed we weren’t on the same page, and then… cut to the house where my wife and I lived at the time.” Which they had to physically drive to before the conversation continued!
This is like being forced to watch Patty and Selma’s vacation snaps, if Patty and Selma kidnapped you and drove you to see every Comfort Inn they stayed at.
MG&G – “And who might you be?”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Don Abundio, you’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”
“Of course not, my dear”
“Does your mistress bite?”
Phantom: “No, no, just on our way to a masquerade.”
@Peanut Gallery:
Emily Elizabeth Howard can do much better than Don Abundio, who is so repulsive it (apparently) caused Clifford to experience shrinkage.
RMMD: Obviously June can’t leave Rex alone to suffer in the recovery room after his 20 minute routine procedure.
“Sarah, you’ll have to get Johnny to the ER! But there’s no need to spend money on an ambulance ride. You’ve been watching me and your Dad drive for years now, right? Dad’s car is parked there in the driveway, you may need to adjust the seat to reach the pedals.”
June hangs up, thankful she had driven *her* car to the Eye Clinic.
@Anonymous: Whoa! Emily Elizabeth has… matured.
Jump Start – Dude, do not get invested in your father’s ridiculous game of one-upmanship. Next thing you know, you’ll be obsessively reading Klondike Ike, just like your father, and that leads to… commenting on comics blogs.
GT: Yikes! Movies can cause cancer now?!? Nobody tell Batiuk.
MGG: The scary thing is that everything in the tomb is alive/undead/animated, even that statue of Agoobis.
RMMD: This is what happens when you don’t have responsible people in the house to keep the kids from pulling eggs out of the refrigerator, or whatever caused this instance of intestinal distress.
Momma goose and grimm: The appendage on the face of that mummy seems to indicate they are not in Egypt.
@Where’s Rocky?: Mother Fuckin’ Goose.
RMMD: Quick, Sarah! You have to remove Johnny’s spleen!
CS: “What’s your wife’s name? You’ve lovingly detailed every other random person’s name in this meandering story, but you’ve never mentioned her name.” “That’s because of the restraining order.”
Luann: Luann finally remembered her one shift of the week. Also, I’ve never seen forced spontaneity before.
9CL: Going by the art, Amos chewed off Edda’s face. She dead, but she enjoyed her reverse preying mantis lovemaking, I suppose.
FC: “And it caused an outbreak of Ben-Day dots!”
MW: Time for Ian’s complete and total mental breakdown.
Dustin: “I have so little respect for your intellect that I can’t bother trying to come up with a good lie.”
RMMD:
“This extreme cold we’re having now is really ratcheting up the static electricity, as you can see from today’s panels!”
Mother Goose and Grimm: Literally everyone here is shocked by Grimm’s behavior! It’s a nice touch, really. The mummy is outraged, the bust of Anubis is scandalized, the… person–?!?
Okay, what is that in the left corner? A human who looks like a hieroglyph? Did they have to invent a new kind of racism to make this strip a reality?
RMMD: Now we know who ate the Late Thread Cuisine.
MW: If this is some plan to make us beg for a Wilbur-centric story, it might be working.
Too late! The mummy’s come back to life. They should run now.
@Victor Von: The attempted homage to the Dynastic Art Style is inadvertently indicating that the strip/drawing is more ritualistic than representational, and thus not intended for actual viewing!
“I support you, son, you big nerd. Now shut up and watch the sports game and hopefully it will drain the nerd out of you so you can have a realistic dream, like being a big sports star.”
***
The weirdest thing is that between the mummy, the woman standing behind him, and the Anubis, the mummy is the only one who doesn’t look like his brain has been removed.
RMMD:
“UNNHHH! MY STOMACH HURTS!”
“Keep it down, Johnny!”
“That’s the problem, Mom! — he can’t!”
RMMD:
“This Zeus deity chap must not like our current story arc, kids, because, as you can see, he’s throwing thunderbolts at today’s panels!”
GT – “Start saving your money” means “Sure, you can go to some gay-ass film school. Just don’t expect me to pay for it.”
RMMD – “Johnny said he was feeling kinda funny, then he barfed.”
“”Well yes, dear. Throwing up is a well-established comedy staple. But it’s only kind of funny, like you said.”
GT: “Son, you know we’ll support you in whatever you want! Not financially, of course. Or emotionally, or tangibly…basically, we’ll say ‘we support you’ and that’s about it.”
MG&G: This would make more sense if it was a cat messing with the stray mummy wrappings, because pouncing on ribbony dangling things is a thing cats do a lot. (Wait, doesn’t Mother Goose have a cat as well? Or a cat character that hangs around her and Grimm a lot? Why not use them instead? Or have Grimm chewing on the mummy’s undead leg because that would make more sense as a “chew toy”? Is the figure on the left an ancient Egyptian gaping at Grimm’s rudeness or part of the wall art? Why am I still thinking about this?)
RMMD: So, is this going to be “Johnny has appendicitis, causing a minor crisis when June has to leave Rex and get him to the hospital” or “Johnny just ate five bags of Sour Patch Kids and is reaping the consequences, causing a minor crisis when Sarah has to clean up after him”? Either way it’s bound to be even more low-stakes and easily resolved than you can imagine.
@60 TheDiva: on Rex Morgan: Even lower stakes: the kid didn’t really barf. He played a trick on his older sister by playing a barf sound on his phone. Ha ha!