A “mud mountain” is a classic OSHA safety violation
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/7/26
Look, normally when an employer is reluctant to tell you his last name, that’s a red flag. But in this case, it’s just because he’s desperate to get someone working as a waitress because the notoriously sketchy Mud Mountain Murphy demands human companionship along with his food, which is honestly a much, much bigger red flag.
Blondie, 3/7/26
I continue to believe that Blondie is America’s most important window into the Boomer mindset, and what it reveals is that the Boomers love setting their phones on speaker and yelling into them more than anything. For once, Blondie’s weird rictus facial expression is actually kind of appropriate here. “Are you talking on speaker to a wrong number while I’m reading? Do I have that right? Is that happening right now?”
Gil Thorp, 3/7/26
Big news, everyone! Mimi has decided to not marry her girlfriend. Instead, she’s just going to get all her romantic and sexual satisfaction out of watching her ex-husband screw up. Oh, is Gil’s mother being a pain? Not Mimi’s problem anymore, and she’s loving it.
68 replies to “A “mud mountain” is a classic OSHA safety violation”
The tumbleweeds in the comments section today is appropriate to America’s totally-not-dying daily comic strip industry. (Either that, or I’ve been shadow-banned, which is always a possibility.)
Rex Morgan, M.D.: “Doug will do, or Brother Doug. Say, are you interested in hearing the good news about our Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Book of Mormon? I sure hope so, because they’re not going to let me come back from this mission until I net a waitress and thirteen more converts.”
RMMD: Uh, Doug. Is Miss “Clodfelter” also going to cook the meals, do the janitorial work, and wash the dishes? It takes more than one waitress to run an eating establishment?
RMMD: “Thank you, kindly, Mr. Dugwildoo! Is that Dutch, by any chance?”
Blondie: TFW you really need to tell someone, anyone, their extended warranty is about to expire.
GT: “I should probably start with getting the bones in my face repaired.”
RMMD: Oh, is the great Lorna Starr practicing her rural accent to prepare for her action-comedy comeback vehicle “Pie ala Explode”?
GT: Coach Kim looks like Gil with a good tan.
Gil Thorp: Same-sex marriage is newfangled and all, but somehow I don’t think “I want to focus on me and my career for once” is the path to a lasting relationship.
CS: Seems like this could have been a phone call or text.
Luann: If only Luann would have had some foreknowledge about this deadline. If only…
9CL: I hope he gives her the brush off (See, because he’s a brush salesman, and, heh, uh, heh). It was either that or try to engage with the insanity of this guy standing neck-deep in a body of water while wearing his three-piece suit.
GT: Mimi is too busy metamorphosing her face everyday to worry about marriage. With luck she’ll be out of this strip and a Dick Tracy character by fall.
GT: is everyone a wax statue and the heat got turned up? Going from jowly to melting saggy.
DT: mayhem in a jail break who’d have thunk it
JP: I see where the mood shifts come from in this family. One moment is sweet and kind and the next is” cross me and I’ll gut you with a bread knife”.
MW: Mary is positively gleeful. Look at how her eyes are smiling with mirth. She is trying to seem caring but her soul is ecstatic in the fall to come and all the meddling that will be.
Phantom: is the implication here that General Chum and his chum might walk? Because they are not in the jurisdiction of the jungle patrol?
RMMD: so there is a kitchen and cook but no wait staff?
Luann: please let Luann forget that the switch to daylight saving time was why she is late.
RMMD:
“Mister ‘Doug’ ?!? — what kind of weird last name is that?”
GT – I’ve suddenly realized what the current artwork in Gil Thorpe looks like. It’s that scene in Robocop where one of the bad guys gets dunked in toxic waste and all his features melt.
Blondie: Dagwood always answers calls from unknown numbers, just in case it’s a restaurant confirming a mistaken food delivery. “Yes, this is Sam Blockenheimer, and I did request five pounds of spicy chicken wings and a quart of blue-cheese sauce. Now, let me give you a different address… Hang on a sec, my wife is trying to tackle me and take my phone. Yes, that is something I enjoy, how did you know?”
Rex Morgan: It turns out that Lorna Starr isn’t just a former actress, she was a member of ’80s new-wave pop group The Waitresses. Just wait till she discovers Mud Mountain Murphy is the guy she stalked over the grocery-store cranberry sauce display at Christmastime — it’ll be a reunion for the ages!
Maybe off topic but it seems the serial strips like JP GT and MW generate more interest. This is happening despite the decline of serial strips in favor of the gag of the day.
FC: The script sensibly changed from, “Wait til they get a load of me!”
MW: Where is the cat?!? Nobody cares about what these two are blathering about!
Dustin: I never went to law school, but I get the feeling no credible law school would teach its students to unmoor adverbs from the words they were intended to modify.
GT:
“Of course, Coach Kim — it’ll be comforting to be in a room full of equally badly-drawn people!”
FG: Oh shit, oldest play in the cheesy seducer/boss handbook. First the innocent glass of vokko, then “None of my crushed and downtrodden subjects really understands me,” then comes the inevitable hand on the leg. Bok wishes he wasn’t so gosh darn irresistible.
DT: G.K. Chesterton is going to switch clothes with this poor guy and slip out of prison disguised as a guard. Get ready for the best piece of visual humor in this strip since the introduction of Sam Catchem.
GT: In the first panel, I thought Mimi was Coach Gerads for a second.
MW: “I enjoy your green bits with little red bits mixed in, it serves as a great appetizer for your indistinguishable orange square-shaped things.”
Phantom: “He’s the Jungle Patrol’s prisoner, captain. *I* will be taking credit for this particular arrest.”
RMMD: “We need to get that cafe open again. The hamburger meat in the cooler is six weeks old, but it’s probably still okay for a few more days.”
MW:
“You know what the best part of this dandified ascot is, Mary? — I can wipe my mouth with it after I’m done eating!”
RMMD: mudges seem to like Arlo’s hair in A&J, yet is it not just a mussed up version of Doug’s?
BETTY: unnecarry cruelty.
GT: I genuinely had no idea that was Mimi; I thought it was a student, which made the whole conversation really weird. Normally I don’t like to rag on someone’s artwork, but do they force a time limit on this new guy?
RMMD: Mr. Dougwildo: “You’ll take the waitressin’ job? Great! Here’s your beehive and lace doily. Be sure to refer to all male diners as ‘Sug’ or ‘Hon’!”
Mary Worth Mashups: What’s happening elsewhere in the Worthiverse.
Rex Morgan: Uh, okay, why is the rich former starlet wanting to work as a waitress in a shitty hotel just to get closer to Mud Mountain Murphy and Truck? I was joking yesterday when I suggested her being a stalker planning to kidnap them, but I now can’t see anyway for this story to progress other than Mud and Truck’s very own Misery. Hell, this starlet character even looks a little bit like Kathy Bates! They’re really doing it, this is a frigging Misery rip-off plot! Please let Truck be the one who gets his legs smashed with a mallet.
Gil Thorp: This marriage drama between Mimi and her new squeeze feels like the writer realized what a pathetic, maidenless loser he made Gil look like with that whole divorce plotline and is now trying to reverse course into Mimi’s relationship failing while Gil is suddenly having everything go right for him. It’s not exactly impressing me, but than, when has anything about Gil Thorp as a series been impressive?
Gil Thorp: Are those security bars in the background? Are all these characters wearing orange, prison-type jumpsuits? Were they all imprisoned for crimes against having regular faces?
@Baja Gaijin: The question I have is: Whose window is Wilbur peeping through?
@Treetown:
#10. LUANN: Treetown, brilliant reason for missing deadline. You must be an expert procrastinator.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#3. RMMD: like restaurants in my ‘hood, drive-rhru only. We pedestrians instead are the ones who dine in gas stations. (Circle K has some great meal deals, but Exxon clientele are scary)
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#3. RMMD: like restaurants in my ‘hood, drive-rhru only. We pedestrians instead are the ones who dine in gas stations. (Circle K has some great meal deals, but Exxon clientele are scary)
@Guillermo el chiclero: At least they use Coach Kim’s name in here, because I thought that was Gil, too. I’m glad Josh identified Mimi. I didn’t know who that person was. Beyond being an eyesore, the artwork makes it hard to tell who is whom. The Hammer is going to need to use names more as the characters address one another or else use more narration boxes.
Remember when there were Dennis Miller Decoded sites when Miller was on Monday Night Football and was always making esoteric references? There needs to be a G. *(&^@#$(! Thorp Decoded site.
My guess was between Coach Gonads and Marty Moon.
MW:
June shuffled into the kitchen and shot a baleful look at Karen as she poured her morning coffee. Karen, perusing the comics page, didn’t notice anything was amiss until June brought her mug down forcefully onto the granite surface with a bang.
“What’s wrong?” Karen asked.
“What’s wrong is the ink order,” June replied, adding, “which it wouldn’t be if you would stop being so chummy with Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! First it was the green ink. I’ve been killing myself trying to use up gallons of green ink. I had planned for Mary to serve an actual meal for lunch instead of a green salad, but I didn’t have anything but the green and a few drops of tomato red to work with. Oh, but wait, I had the PURPLE GRAY. All five gallons of PURPLE GRAY ink that Sid sent you for some unfathomable reason.”
Karen blushed. “He was complimenting me. He told me I looked so youthful, even with the few strands of gray I’ve started to show. I think the gray ink was meant to make me laugh. He’s so thoughtful, isn’t he?”
June frowned. “I would have appreciated his thinking about all the work he’s making me do to use that ink. I could have used some orange for the hypoallergenic cat we promised our readers, but instead I got this nasty color that I have to plaster all over every panel just to use it up before it dries out. I’ve already done the cat, and I changed the doves from white to gray. But I find gray depressing as hell, Karen. And the color Sid sent makes me think of a corpse.”
Karen came to sit beside June at the kitchen counter. “The cat is going to be a problem, I know. We promised orange but Sid couldn’t find one fast enough, and now that gray rubber version is all we have to work with. I was thinking we could let the cat have kittens, and that would help you use up more ink, but Muffin is only rubber, so….” Her voice trailed off. “Can we redecorate with the gray ink? Maybe introduce some renovations at Charterstone to re-do some of the spaces?”
June considered the idea for a moment, and shook her head. “But maybe we can have more group gatherings, like the pool party. I color all the people in background scenes with purplish gray to begin with, so maybe having more parties would work. And we can go to the Star Lounge for karaoke, and maybe meet someone at the airport where there are a lot of people in the background. How is Sharon traveling to Charterstone from Goleta? Can she take a bus? We can use up purple gray ink there.”
Karen drew herself up, impatient with the direction the conversation was taking. “You know, I’m a little put out by your thinking MY writing should be dictated by YOUR ink colors!”
June retorted, “Which it wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been canoodling with Sid. I’ve already done you a favor by changing my colors to use up the ocean of green ink, so I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to help me out with that ghastly gray color I have to work with. I’ve a good mind to get in touch with that lawyer.”
“Who, Goulde Fische? That shyster? Sid has told me all about him. What’s he going to do for YOU?”
June stamped over to her drawing board and hefted the five gallon bucket of purple gray ink. “Maybe, MAYBE, he can tell me if our work contract requires me to subject my talent to your hormones!” She slammed the bucket down onto the counter and purple gray ink sloshed out.
Karen jumped back but not fast enough to avoid the deluge. “Why…! NOW look at what you’ve done!”
June slumped. “I’m sorry, I’m just overwhelmed with this purple gray ink. I’ll make it work, somehow.”
Karen softened, and then said brightly, “What if they visit the zoo? Elephants, hippos, pathways, people in the background–and foliage!”
There was a knock at the door. June answered it to find a delivery man with a bucket. “What is this, Karen?”
“I don’t have any idea. Unless….” Karen came to look at the card that was attached to the bucket. “It’s from Sid’s intern. He tried to get orange ink for a hypoallergenic cat, but was only able to find this bubblegum pink.”
June sighed, resigning herself to the situation. “All right. Whatever. Sharon can wear pink, the zoo can have flamingoes, and Mary maybe can change her lipstick color for spring.” She paused, then added, “Do you think Harv will eat beetroot?”
@Guillermo el chiclero: I thought it was GIL and figured the inker drew the wrong talk balloon.
Man, is GT’s art screwed up.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: ” There needs to be a G. *(&^@#$(! Thorp Decoded site.”
Or else arrows & text like they used to do in “They’ll Do It Every Time”.
Well, might as well reprint my attempted thread-killer, then go read the comments…
MW I appreciate a muffin as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t have thought “big bowl of salad” and “not enough muffins for even 2 per person” constituted a good lunch. Dapper Guy must be living off of Futurama’s Bachelor Chow kibble.
Luann Zero sympathy here. Online course management will have all deadlines very clearly noted. She had days to do this – a week-plus? It appears she left her interviews for mere hours before the deadline and reaped the consequences.
MT Do the writers understand what property is? *Yes* there are times developers have to pay taxes on undeveloped land before any plans are approved – even long fights to see whether or not they can get zoning / regulations changed. But there’s no weird municipal contest where A owns the land but B gets to propose a different plan to the city, win a popularity contest with city council, and then force A to … let them use the land without B buying it? This whole “development competes with solar farm” rationale is beyond bonkers.
Is Miss Clodfelter based on Bridget Fonda?
It’s nice of Doug Redacted to be willing to sign in a guest who immediately announces that she’s unemployed. Most moteliers would be concerned, especially knowing how much they pay the wait staff in their cafes.
***
I will never not comment about how bizarre and off-putting that chair set-up is whenever they show the Bumsteads sitting in them. Especially because we also know that they have a couch that Dagwood is always sleeping on and sometimes we see family members sitting on also watching TV. Between whatever Dithers is paying Dagwood and Blondie is making from catering, they’re clearly able to afford a house with a room just for the couple to be in together without facing each other or the same direction.
GIL THORP: Mimi (or Michael Chiklis in a bad wig, who can say): “I’m not ready to get married right now. I want to focus on getting out of ‘the joint’, first.”
RMMD: Has Doug kept a whole restaurant staff on the payroll sitting idle while waiting for someone to conveniently walk in and take the waitressing job?
RMMD: Did Doug think of advertising for the waitstaff position? If he did Trashlee from Mary Worth would’ve applied a long time ago. The last time we saw her she was scanning the classifieds for such a job.
RMMD: Karen Moy has less idea on how the food service industry works than the Evansii. At least the Fuze has a full staff.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Doug: “It does?! No wonder we keep failing our health inspections!”
REX MORGAN M.D.: Lorna: “Well I’m dumpy and can put on a cringe-worthy “cornpole” accent on demand. So clearly I have all the ‘waitressin’ ‘ experience I need around here, shugah.”
Zits: Jeremy is jealous of his father’s pubic hair. I don’t know what that gesture he’s making is supposed to be. Is that the actual ASL for pubic hair?
@taig:
That’s what a sexually frustrated Dr. Jeff has been saying for ages!
CS: Pam: “There’s so much to do. You’re going to need blood tests …”
Rex Morgan, MD – The Glenwood Motel is the roots/outlaw country version of The Continental Hotel in John Wick series. There are a number of singers going there to hide from the law, albeit less for murder/assassination, and mostly dodging repo-men, warrants for unpaid speeding tickets, and process servers for unpaid child support/alimony. This actress hiding from fame will find it welcoming for a while, until Buck leaks the news about her and Mud being a romantic item in order to sell more roots records.
Blondie – This strip feels like it only includes Blondie in order to reach some arbitrary bare-minimum appearances of her to maintain the trademark on the title.
Gil Thorp – “Josh Reads Gil Thorp Comics And Identifies Poorly Drawn Versions Of Long-Running Characters You Don’t Have To”
LUANN: If it makes you feel better, Luann, judging by that snippet we saw from your essay (again assuming that was a snippet and not the entire thing) that took you all night to write, you would have gotten a “F” anyway, so no beggie (shrugs).
LUANN (2): Like, I’m going to relax my normal stance on this here, because if Luann going to compose text that lazily generic and nondescript she might as well just use AI and save herself a lot of trouble. (Did she even need to talk to her subjects to pen this slop?)
MW- “You’re a great cook,Mary! Between the salad and the bran/cheddar muffins, I feel a double flusher coming on already!”
“Your other choices are Dagwood, Blondie, Alexander, and Cookie.” “Ok, can I talk to Alexander? He sounds the most likely to be a real human.”
In Gil Thorp, are these prisoners just angrily calling each other “Coach” for no reason, I can’t tell because it hurts to look at the art for too long.
@Guillermo el chiclero: they lampshaded this poorly by saying that with low staffing, it’s open for takeout only. Yeah, one 40h/ week waitress is the difference between opening a dining room from breakfast to late night and not… suurrre
FG: The dreaded awkward moment when the boss invites you to have a drink and maybe “take a load off” and sit down after never doing this before, at any time.
@Philip: Nah, the Glenwood Motel is the roots country version of the Hotel Chelsea.
Truck and Buck and Mud are just like Mark Twain, Nelson Algren, Tennessee Williams, Stanley Kubrick, Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Virgil Thomson, Joan Baez, Patti Smith, Leonard Bernstein, Mark Rothko, Frida Kahlo, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, only better.
Gil Thorp: None of them are going to Coach Thorp’s wedding, because they’ve all been imprisoned for their many many crimes, apparently.
@Terry Rhoden: Another clue that this Emperor Ming is a phoney? The real McCoy wouldn’t socialize with the low social rung of Dragonmen, and I bet he was perfectly happy to swig the top-shelf vokko all by himself. Also, see post #17.
@Ukulele Ike: #53: Don’t forget Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
Blondie, meta: I read this as being a scammer rather than a wrong number, which is why they’re prepared to talk to whoever answers the phone. Also because they’re making a voice call in 2026. (I suppose so do Pluggers. And they’re so desperate for human (or whatever) contact that they’d probably talk to a wrong number as well. Objection withdrawn, your honour.)
DT: Y’know, if I were trying to create a sense of nonstop action with a series of largely silent strips about a prison breakout, I’d probably have them follow on from one another in a coherent fashion. Yesterday ended with a big guy with a moustache who I didn’t recognise in … someone’s … crosshairs, but never mind that because today a big guy with a moustache who I do recognise is barelling towards a guard who … was shot in the leg at some point, I guess?
JP: I honestly can’t tell if Katherine is meant to be insanely suspicious or the only person who can see what Ann’s really like. Although, to be fair to Ces, that might be because I don’t actually care.
MW: You don’t hope anything of the kind, Mary, don’t lie to yourself.
SH: Far be it from me to suggest that the creator of the internet’s longest-running furry comic may be wrong about animals, but I am not convinced a mountain lion would respect a housecat’s territory.
@Terry Rhoden: On the other hand, Bok could be headed upon the downward path of the Girl Drink Drunk.
RMMD: Mr. Doug, it’s an honor to meet you!! I loved your work in the remake of ‘That Darn Cat!’ How’s dear Christina doing these days?
JP: And by that AnnDoris means she *is* using Alan, because every character must never change their one defining trait. Her’s is ‘grifter’, Sophie’s is ‘malcontent’ and CIApril’s is ‘bloodthirsty overpowered assassin’.
GT: It was nice of them to invite you. Unfortunately you won’t be able to go since going by how all of you are dressed you are currently incarcerated.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Why yes, *and* she’ll make a great addition to the pig-butchering dungeon in the basement!
GT: His mom is even more peeved that a ref is officiating and will blow a whistle when it’s time to kiss the bride. There’s no pleasing that woman.
RMMD: Lorna also makes the populist move of droppin’ the G when usin’ a gerund, a skill she picked up early in her career in a stock production of Annie Get Your Gun.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Oh, what a beautiful fox stole!”
“Thanks”
“Did it just blink?”
“I’m helping it escape!”
FC – Dolly got her dress at The 1955 Shoppe.
Gil Thorp – If her career doesn’t work out, the backup plan is a job as a Neanderthal in the diorama at the Natural History Museum.
Mary Worth – Good grief, the Olive Garden puts more effort into their salads. And muffins? I hope HH ate something before this lunch, because he’ll be going home hungry if he didn’t. Is it impolite if he eats more than half of the Belgian chocolates?
MW-Sounds to me like Mary doesn’t want to deal with another suicide after Wilbur’s latest attempt.
FC-It was a fun party until Dolly fell face first into the cake and started gorging.
FC-With such fun party games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey and beating the pinata.
RMMD-It’s so much more fun reading this using ‘waitressing’ as a euphemism for ‘prostitution’.
RMMD:
When people named Doug just Doug hire a Miss, Mrs. Clodfelter right off the street with no social security, or citizenship verification it makes you think, Hey illegal aliens could be taking our jobs. But then what citizen really wants to work for Doug at Diner. And who actually thinks this “story” is interesting and worth commenting on. I would say no one but I guess me.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I chuckled at the first one and laughed out loud at the second. The third one creeped me out.
@Doghouse Reilly (Minneapolis): Hon can apply to both sexes. It’s okay to call a female diner Hon.
Addressing people as Hon is a thing in Baltimore. They used to have a Honfest to celebrate it – one of my co-workers was planning to go to it one year. I don’t know if Baltimore still has it.
MW-There is something off with Mary when all she makes is muffins and her cat is named Muffin.
C-Shaft: I’m shocked too. If Max and Mindy waited until March 14 at exactly 3:14PM they’d be having a double pi wedding, which would get them a deep discount on having Montoni’s cater the reception, and isn’t that what it’s all about?
DT: Never fails. Whenever you’re in the middle of an epic prison break, there’s some lardo prisoner going around doing secret good guy stuff. Makes you wonder why you bother.
GA: Gertie makes a joke about the President “resting his eyes” and I can’t tell if this is a newly written strip or something left in the files for three years. That’s how entrenched American gerontocracy is. It’s routine to have a POTUS you can compare to Walt Wallet.
JP: You can see why Katherine is wary. Someone willingly spending time with Alan is a farfetched idea.
Luann: She can blame the deadline blunder on the time change. A larger problem is that she wrote the equivalent of “in conclusion, Libya is a land of contrasts.”
MW: Since “Trixie” is, in fact, either Iris’s son Tommy or his lost identical twin, that Charterstone visit would be quite the déjà vu.
Shoe: I wasn’t expecting to see Loon doing a song from the depths of James Taylor’s heroin period, but I’m more open to it than the clientele at Roz’s or wherever.