Mary Worth goes grunge
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Pluggers, 4/5/26
I feel like the way you’d do a panel like this if you thought the overall vibe of the Pluggers comic should be “Pluggers and their foibles! They’re just like us!” would be to have several plugger children and other family members looking disappointed or bored in the background while dad plugger searches for the eggs he hid just a little too well. That’s relatable, and cute! But if your goal for Pluggers is “Pluggers don’t know where they left things, and really can’t remember if they even had the things they’re looking for in the first place, they’re alone and confused and increasingly scared,” then I think you’d do something that looks more like today’s panel.
Mary Worth, 4/5/26
“Busy with my family, my job, my side business…” is a pretty good way to get rid of some near-stranger who has somehow managed to acquire your phone number. It gives no specific information that she can use against you, but implies that you have a number of legitimate reasons why this conversation needs to end as soon as possible, and it’s even sorted so that you make clear that you know your kids are more important than your money-losing hobby of hawking LuLaRoe leggings on Facebook or whatever. Mary’s made of sterner stuff, she’s not going to be shaken off so easy, but I do appreciate the effort being made.
110 replies to “Mary Worth goes grunge”
Has Andy Bear been searching for these eggs since childhood? What’s the age cutoff for Easter egg-hunting, 6? 7? And I really just want to watch the shopping trip where he picked up the hot pink basket for himself. You’re a bear of great mirth, Andy.
Mary Worth Mashups: Who’s really on the other end of that phone call? Which of the three do you prefer to be canon?
Ahhhhh! Cat has suddenly become ginormous! Is it Hulking up? No plausible quantity of tuna will do!
Muffins speaks for the entire readership with that yawn. Thank you, Muffin.
Pluggers: I like how the wide open fields suggest that this Plugger has wandered pretty far from home, and maybe civilization itself, in his quest to find those eggs. What time it is anyhow? Is that sun rising or setting…?
MW: I’d like to think that there was a health pause between panels three and four as Mary waits to see if her reputation precedes her. I’d better give a bit more context, she thinks to herself, poor thing is probably intimidated by my presence, even over the phone…
“We might have met briefly in the past, but if so, it was not mentioned in the recaps of the Comics Curmudgeon and I am not going into the archives!!
@Baja Gaijin:
The a/c bit is brilliant, though I’m fascinated at Sharon’s uncanny resemblance to Iggy Pop.
Mary: What’s your side-business?
Sharon: I keep people held captive, forcing them to scam witless losers and I pocket all of the money for myself. So, how’s Dad?
Pluggers: A “plugger Easter egg” is when you catch references to past Pluggers comics in today’s strip. Like the fact that this guy’s lawn grows a lot faster than the few remaining hairs on his head — surely that was a Pluggers panel last July, back when the ground wasn’t just starting to thaw out from winter.
Mary Worth: “What’s this about?” “Well, it’s about the fact that the seemingly normal cat on my sofa has suddenly turned into what looks like a huge, vicious tiger. Because this plot line involving your father is going nowhere, so we thought we’d try doing Calvin and Hobbes for a while. Everybody loved those guys!”
Slylock Fox: Uh-oh, they’re doing one of those detective-show episodes where the cop is on a flight, and somehow has to solve a crime while the plane is still in the air. But the real mystery is why the animal-people are able to operate an entire airline, but somehow can’t manage to write their names on luggage tags.
MW: In a future plot line, Mary purchases talk buttons for Muffin the Meddlesome Minion Cat. What key words would empower Muffin in Mary’s mission? CASSEROLE? WILBUR? JEFF? POMPOUS? AXX? TUMMY? BRAIN?
Plugger Easter has evolved from searching for eggs to searching for ticks. Seriously, they should stay out of the tall grasses.
MW: Building a time machine to go back 35 years, tell Eddie Vedder that one day he’ll be quoted in Mary Worth, and kill the grunge scene stone dead.
Muffin showing those fangs in the second to last panel portents what this is really about. “I’ve got a major meddle on my hands, requiring backup I’ll have you know, and I want answers right now!”
Dennis the Menace: Gina, who used to be cute, is clearly now a Dennis clone wearing a wig.
@The Rambling Otter: I see I’m not the only one who immediately went there. It’s because I still have no idea how “John Long” can be re-connected to the rest of the plot, but feel I can safely assume Moy will choose something ridiculous.
Isn’t the bear married to chicken Plugger? What biological and social horror are Easter Eggs in Pluggerdom?
Pluggers-Eh. He’s married to a chicken lady. He can always get her to lay more.
Slylock Fox-It’s clearly the bear’s suitcase because the turtle and snake aren’t wearing clothes.
Slylock Fox-Slylock declared himself the owner. Grabbed the money and then jumped out of the plane.
MW-“Dad’s finally out of the closet?”
FC-“Lady, let’s get to the coatroom before they start the virgin sacrifice.”
Pluggers Perhaps it’s not a matter of forgetting but instead they live near Bettina of Sally Forth?
@A Grave Mind: Around here public egg hunts say age 0-10 although I also follow a writer whose extended family does two egg hunts: one for the kids and the cutthroat small-bills-in-the-eggs one for the adults
@Ukranazi Stepan: I actually like that panel. This is the most realistic feline depiction in MW ever and I’ll take it over the creepy semi-anthro smiling, responding-on-cue, pets any day.
Mary Worth veering into a “feed scammers to tigers” subplot is something I’m here for!
@BigTed: re: Slylock Fox – or at least have the flight attendant secure the item and ask them to describe the contents that aren’t visible on top? the exact $ amount??
PLUGGERS: A true Plugger hauls it out on Easter Monday, buys a ton of candy on sale and plays Russian Roulette with their blood sugar.
MW — This conversation is so boring that by the penultimate panel even Mary’s giant cat/miniature tiger is openly yawning. . .
MW — “Oh, yes, about that side hustle, dear. I hope it’s lucrative, because your father just gave away 200 large of your inheritance. . .
Pluggers: Hey, Andy — you realize those eggs are probably your neighbor’s kids, right?
MW: The big question: ungrateful, hard-hearted child or lousy father who has suddenly realized that he’s old and has a child to take care of him? It’s a popular topic lately.
Hiding Easter eggs in the middle of a long-grassed meadow, where they can be found only by a tedious grid search is not so much a good job as an asshole job. And that’s the true spirit of Pluggerdom!
JP: Is Randy’s face on the back of Bogdan’s head like Voldemort? Seems to be the most likely explanation for Neddy’s “what the…”
@Baja Gaijin: I liked the first one best.
MW; Everyone’s focusing on the suddenly- huge Cat, but I’m more concerned that Lampy has moved from Mary’s left side and is now behind her. He may have also transformed into a person standing there. This does not bode well.
I’ve always loved that social interaction where someone is trying to stir up curiosity –in this case the cryptic mention of “my side business”–hoping to draw the other party in. In this case, Sharon realizes immediately just how little Mary Worth meant by “How are you?”
MW: “It’s about …Uh, you’ve heard the phrase ‘victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan’?”
You mean the one by JFK, Mary?
“Actually, it was by Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law. The fascists never get the credit they deserve!”
@Schroduck: I would also warn him about what Weird Al Yankovic would do to him, but Mary Worth is the real threat here.
(Although Weird Al did apologize, saying that Eddie Vedder actually is a pretty cool guy)
MW: Side business? Like Chekov’s gun it can only mean that she’s the leader of the ring that conned H___y out of his dough which means the money has stayed in the family. So, I guess all’s well that ends well?
MW: Sharon’s desperately hoping that Mary will ask about her “side business” so she can start expounding on the benefits doTERRA essential oils. Widower Hart’s tendency to be taken in by scam pitches didn’t fall far from the tree.
Pluggers should be less worried about finding the eggs and more worried about finding the kids who’ve been sent out for an Easter egg hunt in this seemingly endless expanse of waist-high grass.
BG&SS: In Hootin’ Holler, they’re just learning about prosperity gospel.
Slylock Fox: Wait three hours after landing. One claimant will suffer from withdrawal symptoms. It’s obviously his money; he’s late for his drug deal.
Wizard of Id: After decades of their imagined repression, it’s almost refreshing to see a Christian’s religious celebration get shut down by a Western government.
DtM: I appreciate Gina’s professionalism here, but after stretching a two-panel gag into six panels, does this punchline land for anyone?
Blondie: Elmo’s gonna be soooo disappointed.
@Hibbleton: Nah, the most likely explanation is CIApril is just off panel doing the ‘Captain Picard facepalm’ meme muttering ‘I’m surrounded by idiots. Now I have to chase down the raspberry haired br- er, my darling daughter, and she can really run…’
Whenever there’s a surprise, it’s CIApril. It’s *always* CIApril or someone adjacent to her because Ces apparently thinks he’s making the next Bond or Bourne franchise.
Pluggers: Sorry pal, Bettina from S4th apparently broke and entered your yard and everyone else’s to steal everyone’s eggs. Ces should just change this brat’s name to Shannon and be done with it.
Luann: What would be creepier, the Evansii leaving Puddles with their disturbing human like teeth (did he steal Frank’s dentures?) or attempting to put actual canine teeth in this living potato?
MW: If we’re supposed to believe that HH’s $200,000 is the important thing in this story, then Mary has only her own hubris to blame for HH losing it.
I (and other posters) have been saying from the beginning that Mary needed to get HH’s descendants involved, but she’s only doing it now. And I’m an ordinary male schlub, not a god-tier meddler like Mary is supposed to be. It took Mary too long to realize she couldn’t solve this problem herself, which is just plain egotism. She also handled her initial confrontation with HH badly. HH got his feelings hurt, which made Mary back off, and gave him time to ship the money. She should have either ignored his hurt feelings and kept pressing him to stop, or washed her hands of the whole problem. Mary can’t stop meddling, but she also won’t meddle enough to be helpful.
If we’re supposed to take Mary Worth at face value, then this whole story reflects very poorly on the main character.
C’shaft: Pam has cripplingly low expectations, which honestly explains so much about her life.
Dustin: Dustin isn’t lazy so much as he is rebelling against the Puritanical mindset entrenched in American culture, which holds that labor is the true purpose of life and any time not devoted to it is wasted and sinful.
…He’s still a creep for spending all his time with his eight-year-old neighbor, though.
JP: Good idea, Neddy. “Hi, there was this old man hanging out behind me so I just throat-punched him.” I’m sure the cops will love that.
Phantom: This family has been self-righteously deciding who lives and who dies for generations.
MW – “It’s about your father” is usually a lead-in to him being dead, which will be such a letdown to Sharon when it instead turns out he’s squandering her inheritance. Maybe Sharon can persuade Mary to kill him.
Pluggers: [Marlin Perkins voice] The once-majestic Plugger, having been expelled from his natural forest habitat after a confrontation with the Charmin Bear, wanders into the Racine veldt. Yet even here, his search for easily available sources of protein comes up empty. It’s sad, really, to watch him slide into starvation. Jim reaches for the 8-guage Euthanasia gun…
REX MORGAN M.D.: Lorna/Mae Mae: “Well I’m the only waitress here at a cafe that surely has a dinner rush, so of course I’m free all evening, silly!”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Um…why can’t Mud just “show her around town” on her break? I mean, by staying at the motel, Lorna/Mae Mae has already seen 1/3rd of what Glenwood has to offer.
Mary Worth:
“Oh where, oh where can my Trixie be?”
— Eddie Vedder, “Last Kiss” (cover)(adapted)
Mary Worth: This is surprisingly similar to many of the phone calls I make as a hospice chaplain, only the dads don’t wear cravats.
Pluggers:
And you’re really a plugger if you’ve not only misplaced your eggs, but you’ve also forgotten what holiday it is that caused you to hide them in the first place.
That’s a great find. I’ve been really interested in the history of newspaper comics lately too – it’s fascinating how these strips developed.
RMMD: “Check, please. No rush. I’ve already missed my morning shift waiting for you two to stop yakking.”
Blondie: Makes sense. Putting dog food in the eggs is the only thing keeping Dagwood from eating them himself.
FC: Every Easter Billy sees how many blasphemies he can include in the strip without his hungover Dad noticing.
Pluggers:
Andy Bear is clearly having an eggsistential crisis.
I like that she starts the conversation with “Hello, this is Mary Worth”, expecting it to have the same weight as “hello, this is the Internal Revenue Service” or “Hello, this is Oprah”.
PLUGGERS: I swear this was originally a panel about Pluggers realizing that once you have evolved into civilized sentience, “A bear shits in the woods” now mean he has to pick it up due to “pooper-scooper” laws. I think they did good job sanitizing the strip for Easter, even if they’re keeping the same thought bubble.
I’m honestly not sure whether today’s MONTY is depicting a utopia or a dystopia.
@Schroduck:
I fear his response will be “Mary who? Oh, doesn’t Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons do a few jokes on that? Damn, it’s still around in 35 years? Who the Hell reads THAT?”
I would be sad, then.
Pluggers:
“I guess I shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket!”
Mary Worth:
“People often misinterpret my lyrics because I mumble them so. For example, the name of the B-side to the song ‘Jeremy’ released in 1992 isn’t ‘Yellow Ledbetter,’ which obviously doesn’t make a lick of sense, but is actually ‘Yellow Bedwetter,’ which of course makes perfect sense!”
— Eddie Vedder
@TheDiva:
On CS – Speaking of cripplingly low expectations, I just realized something. This Sunday strip and that of the past few days all look like they’re missing the final panel. Y’know, the one that typically has something called a ‘punchline’ and is usually the reason one is reading the strip in the first place? Is Batiuk so up his own rear end he thinks doesn’t even need that anymore?
On Dustin – If that’s the case, then Dustin is actually well-prepared to be the guru for the millions upon millions of people whose livelihoods are about to be erased due to the snowballing deployment of AI. Too bad he’s still too lazy to actually come up with any strategy that could lead to the creation of a better world, instead of the flooded, burned, radioactivated one that will probably be here by the end of this year if I’m any judge of it.
On JP – You know Neddy’s leaving that little detail out. She’s a pretty white woman; cops will shoot their own chief if they think they’re protecting a white woman’s honor.
Wrecks Moregone:
So they were talking to each other about the movie beezness right in front of El Moustachiero?
Real “WHY WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE RECOGNISE ME” energy from Mae Mae Fleddedcolter.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
These days every reply feels like Russian roulette. Will it post? Will it be stuck in moderation forevermore? Will it vanish never to be seen again?
Pluggers – You’re a plugger if you’re out searching through a field of tall grass trying to find the rolls of toilet paper given to you by your naked cousin.
Phantom: “Ghostly pirate cliches! I shall fight you with all my might, see-through Long John!”
@Baja Gaijin: No contest. The rogue AC unit, hands down!
MW – “Could you hold the phone closer to your mouth? It sounds like you’re talking through a credit card.”
MW: Mary has forgotten that she initiated a FaceTime video call, and is now giving Sharon a close-up view of her hairy right temple.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I hope we can have a pleasant evening”
“Of course we can, Don Abundio!”
“Are you still steamed about what happened last time?”
“Well, that ejection seat delivers quite a kick”
I guess that’s what you get for hiding Easter eggs in a wild, untamed prairie instead of around the house and yard like a human would. Silly bear, it’s time to put away people things and go back to doing bear things. Go fish some salmon or maul a hiker, be free from this nonsense!
***
Even the cat’s bored of this storyline, Mary. I’m sorry, you need to go let Wilbur out of his storage unit.
Marvin: This raccoon relaxing in an open garbage can filled with rain water is only mildly disgusting until you remember this is the comic about the baby who is famous for his diaper output.
BB: Dr. Seuss demands royalties.
Mary Worth: Keeping a gravity-defying tiger in her home is risky, but it’s the only way Mary can be sure her boyfriend won’t pack an overnight bag and try to sleep over. You know what they say, “A feline a day keeps Doctor Jeff away!”
RMMD: Oh, there are plenty of local sites for Mud to share with Mae Mae. There’s the drive-in that makes the double bacon cheeseburgers, the diner with the homemade fudge cheesecake and extra-thick pork gravy with cracklings, the other drive-in with the double-rich chocolate malteds, Jordan’s Fancy Restaurant is doing their deep fried-butter stick appetizer special tonight….
Baja Gaijin: I have to go with number one. I had to scroll down to read MW and I fully expected to see Sharon by the final panel. And I was hoping she would be in a cravat.
Pluggers: Tall grass is a swell place to hide things from kids. Good job indeed. Andy Bear must be a lot of fun at parties too.
GA: Happy Easter ! Today we celebrate the awakening of Walt Wallet! Dyed eggs and chocolate bunnies for everybody!
DT: Today’s tribute Attorney General Loretta Lynch was certainly an interesting choice/timing issue given this past week’s events.
Phantom: Join us next week as the locals take the strange white man fighting ghosts to the institution they call “the booby hatch” — in the Bandar tongue.
PV: Missing “real” final panel: “The editors won’t let us fight a realistic bloody battle? SHIT!”
@68 Ukulele Ike: That’s totally not Hrvee in a Toby Cameron wig.
[Narrator: It’s totally Hrvee in a Toby Cameron wig.]
Bizarro – I can’t decide if the cat would use that bucket or a spray bottle. Either way, it’s too bad that Mary Worth isn’t in the bed.
Crankshaft – The part that makes the date extra special is that Pam’s father is at home and not with them, so he can’t ruin it.
FC – Drawn by Billy, age 7, with a wall of text in faux childish lettering? No thanks. I’ll skip this one.
Prince Valiant – This artwork is outstanding. It’s especially nice to see after the abomination that was Gil Thorp yesterday.
Pluggers – I got up too late. What everyone else said about hiding the eggs in tall grass. I can’t decide if it was stupidity, dementia, or a dick move on the plugger’s part.
Could be all three. Don’t sell them short.
@Ukulele Ike: So you can see why Mud wants to eat at a Motel 6….
@Gil Bates:
News—as;-he, meddle, toil and trouble.
Actually that likes like a tiger cub. Can’I wait until it gets full grown and Mary can sic it on neighbors she disapproves of.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – The first one is wonderful (genetics!), but I have to go with the air conditioner.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I think there’s also the factor that HH had to suffer because he rejected Mary’s meddling. If he had listened to her to begin with, he wouldn’t be out $200,000. The underlying message is that Mary must be obeyed, and you will reject her advice at your own peril.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Are you writing H@rv’s full first name? That automatically sends a comment into the ether. I slipped up the other day, and my comment immediately disappeared.
@Bob Tice:
“Good Idea: Finding an Easter egg on Easter Morning”
“Bad Idea: Finding an Easter egg on Christmas morning”
(Passes out from the smell)
Six Chix – “Mommy, it’s Easter everywhere else, but at that creepy house down the block it’s always Halloween.”
“They’re goths, dear. Don’t be prejudiced.”
“Busy with my family, my job, my side business owning several sweatshops that run romance scams on vulnerable elders…what were you calling about again?”
@Anonymous:
In real life: “Hello, this is Animal Control, to take away your Tiger as it is illegal to own.”
In Mary Worth: “Mary obtained a tiger. That’s a good thing Mary did…”
Mary Worth – How do you hold your mobile phone?
I’m usually closer to the first panel, where my fingers wrap around the edge of the phone, but mine don’t actually touch the screen where I might inadvertently cause something else to happen.
I have not managed the dainty, keep my fingers balanced on the back of the phone, but I suppose it leaves your thumb free for texting.
MW: Is this a Clifford the Big Red Dog scenario? Is her cat growing into a giant due to Mary’s
loveneglect?DT: GoodgollyMrSolly appears to not know this is the Costello-Verse where all eras of the strip are possible in the name of fanservice so Tracy and his crew are going to thwart his plot using the flying trash cans they had back in the 60s when Chester Gould’s cheese finally slipped off his cracker and he turned what had been a fairly down-to-earth crime procedural strip into ‘Space Invaders’.
@I speak Jive: Oh, he’ll still ruin it. They’re going to come home to their home burned down, *again*. ‘Gee, who knew propane was that explosive!’
@The Quiet Man: Flying Trashcans?
(Please be Daleks…please be Daleks… please be Daleks…)
Mary Worth: I like to imagine the random quotations at the start of Sunday strips is Mary mentally deciding on which vague and semi-regressive out-of-context platitude to use against her victims this week.
MW. Mary really, really, needs the daughter to show up, because the scammer turned out to be a dude and we’re at the point in every storyline where the man’s problems are the fault of a woman not loving him enough.
Andy Bear seems like he is less in his backyard with his grandkids, and more lost in the savanna or veldt. I think he should be keeping more of an eye out for lions or hyenas in that tall grass than for colored eggs.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you think this is what doing “such a good job” looks like, i.e. an experience that ends in bewilderment and failure.
MW: “You can’t be the perfect father. Because that title is already taken … by me. Eddie Vedder. Yep, Number One Dad right here. I’m also quite well known as a singer. Maybe you’ve heard some of my songs on the radio. Jeremy spoke in … spoke in …“
MW- “It’s about my father? Has he been going out drinking with that jerk Wilbur Weston again?”
@StripEye: Greetings fellow Humans!
@I speak Jive: Unfortunately for these two lovebirds, Crankshaft took on a second job preparing Crepes Suzette en flambé tableside. Stick to pie and ice cream for dessert, or you could be going home with no eyebrows.
@Peanut Gallery: Bianca’s Easter morning tribute: a witch in a jester hat. Why a jester hat, not a railroad driver’s cap or a British Admiral’s tricorn or a old-timey physician’s head mirror? Only Bianca knows. Why a witch, for that matter?
@Joe Blevins: Best Rock n’ Roll Dad title goes to Lou Reed.
It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
A little me to fill up with my thoughts
A little me or he or she to fill up with my dreams
A way of saying life is not a loss
— “Beginning of a Great Adventure,” 1989
MW- It’s too bad there’s not a split panel for Mary’s phone call. Would Sharon be alone,listless, at a breakfast table in an otherwise empty room?
MW: Well, finally! Muffin gets her chance to shine in the spotlight! And show off that thespian training she worked so hard for! Why, she looks…. larger than life! Uh, … it may just be the perspective… I think. So much action on her part today – she’s provin’ she’s no vulcanized rubber figurine, that’s for sure! Intern, what’s her dosage of ‘nip again? Is it the pure stuff? Where’d it come from? …. well, why don’t you go *ask* Alice?
@Baja Gaijin: The first one! Made me laugh out loud.
@The Rambling Otter: Nothing so impressive, I’m afraid. In the strip they were called ‘Air Cars’ and literally looked like big Rubbermaid trash barrels that one person could stand in (maybe two at a stretch) and levitate above the city.
Again, in the 60s Gould went full sci-fi and had Diet Smith obsessed with the idea that space travel would be made possible by ‘controlling gravity’, hence the flying trash barrels. The actual Apollo landings in 1969, done without ‘controlling gravity’ and with no discovery of hot Moon chicks made it all look very stupid right quick.
@Anonymous: Listless? I bet she pops out at parties and is unpoopular…
Pluggers hold their phone like Mary Worth.
This is a confession, by the way.
“Well, Mrs Worth, thank for your help, very kind of you to care for my family, just a small query… WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME BEFORE MY IDIOT FATHER WASTED 200 GRANDS?!?!?!?!”
@The Quiet Man: Re Crankshaft – Good point. His mere presence at the restaurant would ruin the evening, but leaving him at home unsupervised would result in disaster. It’s time to find a nursing home.
@Ukulele Ike: Yeah. He would use a flamethrower, and the dessert would be Crap Suzette.
@Ettorre: (Adam Sandler voice) This… was something you could have bought to my attention YESTERDAY!
@The Quiet Man: NASA scientists have been covering up the existence of hot Moon chicks since 1969. They’re keeping them under wraps.
@Anonymous: MW- It’s too bad there’s not a split panel for Mary’s phone call. Would Sharon be alone,listless, at a breakfast table in an otherwise empty room?
One thing’s certain, she won’t be holding her phone like a normal human does.
CS: Pal, any time my wife and I can get some alone time without my senile, asshole father-in-law is a cause for celebration.
PV: Haraldr is thinking, “Damn, I’m going back to working for Hagar the Horrible. He’d let me slaughter a few prisoners. Val has been hanging around civilized people too long.”
FC: Good, little Billy’s doing today’s strip. I don’t have to waste a minute of my life reading it.
@I speak Jive: Yeah. He would use a flamethrower, and the dessert would be Crap Suzette.
Crêpes brûlées, spécialité de la maison!
@Ukulele Ike: I choose to interpret the jester-hatted witch as a stand-in for Xunise. She’s “dressing for the job she wants.” She aspires to be funny! That’s a good first step!
@99 I speak Jive: I dunno. Crankshaft might serve Phlegm Brûlée.
@Peanut Gallery: I’d be happy to assist her, with a few banana peels. Or by dropping a grand piano on her.
HtH: Who’s the sexy redhead in the final panel? Is Hagar all of a sudden an equal-opportunity employer? I’d prefer to believe this than to have her be the nobleman’s daughter, about to be abducted by barbarians and sold into sex slavery.
@Anonymous:
I hold my phone in my palm, resting on my leg, or I lie it down near me, because, unlike the Worthverse, in my dimension we know about the speakerphone option.
FC: This is interesting. Usually, Billy aged 7’s cartoons are just awful puns. The ones where the kids are all talking at once and the adults are at the end of their tether and that’s the joke are normally presented as “regular” Family Circus strips, which in the context of “Billy aged 7 takes over from Daddy” means that we’re meant to understand them as being Big Daddy Keane showing how inadvertently annoying his kids can be. But if Billy aged 7 is making that joke, that’s different. It means Billy knows how annoying he is. Billy is doing it anyway. Billy is a little shit.
MW: “Side business”, you say? Oh, my goodness, when I said yesterday that Sharon was probably running the pig-butchering scam, I never expected to get supporting evidence this quickly!
Phantom: It seems to me that if Kit is going to dream that he’s fighting the pirates again, they might as well be suddenly alive again pirates, rather than ghost pirates his blade just goes straight through. Then again, I’m not entirely sure what the point of the dream sequence is either way.
As a British person, it always amuses me when the word “bloody” appears in a medium that can’t say “damn” (and isn’t being used to mean “covered in blood”).
RMMD: Psst, Rene! Your moustache is starting to slip!
S4th: I’m disappointed that it appears Idyllic (Or Is It?) Weirdoville has relatively normal Easter traditions. This is a town where Christmas is marked by a dozen terrible Hallmark movies happening at once, and Halloween by a vague sense that it’s going to tip into folk-horror at any moment. I would have expected that Jackie would mention she was going to hide eggs for Bettina to her shop assistant, and the assistant would say “Oh, don’t bother. The actual Easter Bunny will do that for you.”
MW: “You father has gotten himself into a bit of a jam. A pearl jam, if you will.”