Saturday quotables
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Mary Worth, 5/23/26
I’ve given it a bit of thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that “The condo board agreed we can create a supplemental food supply for residents!” is the most insane way to say that you’ve gotten approval to plant a vegetable garden. “Our wise board recognizes that the Strait of Hormuz crisis will merely accelerate the ongoing collapse of our civilization, dependent as it is on cheap fuel to connect far-flung producers and consumers,” Mary says. “Soon we’ll require local sources of calories for those lucky enough to be inside the Charterstone walls. All hail the board!”
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/23/26
“And the attention’s never going to waver! I’ve already developed a new business plan that assumes that every day from now on will see as many customers as today, and I’ve taken out a massive loan to fund it.”
Crankshaft, 5/23/26
“Just imagine if I had tried building a strip around some old dipshits hanging around a diner talking in terrible puns to one another. Can you imagine how unreadable that would be?”
41 replies to “Saturday quotables”
MW:
“Tommy! — what are you doing with that hand in your pocket?”
“Aw, just feelin’ around for loose change, Mrs. Worth. Say, did I mention how much I miss Brandy?”
Family Circlejerk – Fortunately, there were no keys in those handbags. They’re all in a large bowl on the dining room table.
MW:
“I’m all in, Mary!”
” ‘All in’ what, Tommy?”
” ‘All in’ a state of acute existential angst — a gnawing, all-encompassing, claustrophobic emotional hunger — my recent separation from my love having driven me to paroxysms of self-doubt!”
“Wow. That statement is really profound, Tommy.”
“Gee, thanks. I borrowed it off a Comics Curmudgeon comment board!”
To matt w, Banana Jr. 6000, and other baseball-minded mudges, if you are interested in the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), here is a membership application. I hope you join.
Shoe – The standard line for this is, “When he dies, I become the ugliest person in the world.”
Wary Morth:
“Mr Allora’s spending his holiday in Mexico.”
“Oh? What’s he doing there?”
“Helping his cousin. His cousin runs a transport business.”
“Is that so? What kind of transport business?”
“Donkey carts.”
“Donkey carts?”
“I think so. He just said his cousin does cart el jobs.”
Slylock Fox/Rex Morgan combo:
“The moral of our story, kids, is that if you lie during the job application process, things will turn out well for you and your employer!”
Murky Tail:
So who’s the bigger catfish, Mark Sr or Dreama? Who’s got the slipperier skin and the longer facial barbels? Get measuring, Mark!
Wrecks Moregone:
“And if we do any more closeups, they’ll start using our faces for dermatology cream adverts. That means an additional income stream!”
RMMD: In panel 2, the Maemaelanian’s expression seems to fit a thought bubble that says “Thus I will draw the accursed paparazzi into my trap and then exact my most cruel revenge! MWAHAHAHAHA!” Did you know Lorna was a classically trained actor? Her Iago slayed them in San Diego.
SF: If someone could only kick the annoying Forths through that portal and quickly close it, we’d finally be rid of them.
CS: I can’t think of anything pithy or, just anything else to type here besides “[INARTICULATE CRY OF RAGE]”
MW: “Mr. Alora is on vacation.”
You see, Tommy, this awkwardly designed hoe is made especially for trellises, on which very few garden vegetables grow.
RMMD: ‘You can see by my expression how happy and excited I am that you’ve saved my business.’
JP: ‘For example, let me tell you about my daughter-in-law! Hoo boy, what you don’t know about her would make your hair curl! I still don’t know why my whole family isn’t in jail right now because of everything she’s done! Anyway, hire my daughter please, I need a new income stream for my booze budget!’
JP2: Holy shit, it’s Ernest Borgnine!
Luann: [sad trumpet]
So has Batiuk broken his arm with all of this patting himself on the back?`
If Batiuk’s whole career was an attempt to set up the world’s largest commaless speech balloon, I will (for the first time) respect that.
CS. Now we finally know why the reporter has only one arm: Tom ripped it off so he could keep patting himself on the back forever.
MW: “Charterstone putting into action a bold plan to become a self-sustaining commune” is an amazing turn of events. I can’t wait for the first crop failure when they decide to eat Wilbur.
RMMD: “Sure sounds like you hate the attention, but it’s great for me and I’m sure your minimum wage more than makes it up for you!”
Csh: Jesus, that entire wall of text just to say “…but imagine if I didn’t!”
Too bad he didn’t skip the writing session that begat Saint Lisa.
Batiuk’s friends should do an intervention.
Hold on. I just figured out what’s wrong with that plan.
Crankshaft: Just another example why I love Calvin and Hobbes and respect Bill Watterson so much as a creator. He could have dragged C&H out for 5-6 decades but stopped it voluntarily at 10 years (1985-1995) after a glorious run leaving us hungry for more. Crankshaft needed to retire long ago. At least MW and JP try fitfully to find hooks into the present like catfishing, Russian gulag prisons, etc.
Sally4th: The first flying shadow was Rodan, and this one is Mothra.
DT: Let’s guess. 30 rounds per magazine, careful controlled fire of 15 rounds per minute, each magazine lasts 2 minutes. But the way it is shown, they seem to really blazing away, like 600-700 rounds per minute, or ~3 seconds. Hope they brought a lot of magazines and change of barrels!
We can hand wave this away but maybe this is why Beedy eyes ditched food and told the gang to get ready hours before the cars arrived. He and Mumbles had scores of magazines to load! Do I get a Marvel No-Prize?
GT: Is that the world’s largest sand trap behind them? I hope the golf course is secured at night. Sand theft is a real crime.
JP: Classic JP – assuming he knows what is best! “I hereby sentence you to a server job at the café”
MW: OK – but after Iris Beedle (Tommy’s mother) married Zack, didn’t they move away? Why is he still there? Is he living in his mom’s old place?
The Board at Charterstone realized that Soylent Green won’t last forever.
RMMD: Classic RMMD talking at work moment. Summer talking with Michelle and June about her adventures killed off whole days leaving patients fuming. Now we take a break to go over things while orders stack up, food and coffee grow cold. Or did all of that new help pick up the slack?
JP “Nope, no *murders*! Just a bunch of financial scams and fraud, which couldn’t *possibly* be concerning for a waitstaff position handling customers’ cash and credit cards!”
FC Another day, another casual out-menacing Dennis the Menace…
GT and now they finish the golf match on… Milford’s tropical beach at sunset??
MW- how big is that plot? Is everyone at the place really going to enjoy their 3 cherry tomatoes for 3 months?
Crankshaft:
“But enough about me — actually, come to think of it, not enough about me!”
GT: “Now let’s get home before we get radiation burns. Never thought I’d miss that ozone layer. Oh well, live and learn.”
“Don’t you mean live and burn, Coach?”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
@pugfuggly:
The Wilbur Wicker Man!
“Killing me won’t bring back your GD salmon squares!”
C’shaft: Credit Dan Davis for giving Crankshaft a look of absolute soporific boredom that compliments BatTom’s narrative perfectly.
MW: I wonder if the Charterstone condo board, much like the Kennedy Center administration, has been filled with a bunch of Worthian sycophants that dutifully sign off on whatever she wants. Carlos Allora isn’t on vacation; he’s seeking relocation advice from the Washington National Opera.
RMMD: “Good thing the attention paid to celebrities never, ever comes with downsides!”
MW: Mary brings Tommy in to the mix to help with growing a supplemental medical supply.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Lorna/Mae Mae (or whoever very she is?*): “I now have the same life I ran away from at the beginning of this arc, except I’m being paid way less for it! Winning!”
Sorry Luann. But clearly Lorna/Mae Mae is due to have the BEST SUMMER EVER! (which is ironic, because Luann’s story is about a lady celebrating that she’s running away from being a waitress)
*Why would I, both her boss and the person who checked her in to the motel he’s running, know what her real name is? It’s not like you have to check backgrounds, or even ID for these things right….?
REX MORGAN M.D.: Since Doug is clearly embezzling motel proceeds for his giant pomade fund, this extra profit isn’t going to get the Glenwood motel out of the red in the long run.
BCN: I hear you, Ora Zela. Bananas are gross.
DT: I’m pretty sure dual-wielding bullwhips is not something you can easily do outside of certain role-playing games.
Dustin: Give him a break, “you must be stupid” is such a canned response for him that it’s instinctive at this point. Kind of like how nicer people will sometimes blurt out “you too!” when the waiter tells them to enjoy their meal.
GT: “I mean it, you’d better remember me because I have connections everywhere and I can make your life a living hell if you don’t.”
JP: Alan Parker believes everyone deserves a second chance…so long as they’re wealthy and white.
Luann: Yes, a summer without Luann does sound like the best one ever.
@Charterstoned:
“Mr. Alora has been on vacation so long, most of us have forgotten how to spell his name!”
Cranky Winkerbean: There was a very touching comic I once read, I can’t find it now.
But it was of a girl drawing a comic about cute little dinosaur characters.
Her father gives her very good encouragement, which pushes her further and manages to not only get her characters published but they become insanely popular and get merchandise and parade floats and such.
Then it shows another reality. Where instead of her father motivating her, he pushes for her to stop with the stupid cartoons and study for a real job!
So she scraps the comics and that big happy future never happens.
Sure, it was sad but it was a good life lesson. Never stop following your dreams. I mean, Walt Disney’s father didn’t approve of him drawing cartoon characters when he was a kid.
Edit: Actually the life lesson was that parents should always be supportive of their kids’ dreams.
MW: Thing is, ‘Allora’ is not a Spanish surname and suddenly he’s on “vacation.” Looks like Rene Belluso is on the run again.
Crankshaft: “In the bedroom, do you hear me? At night! Because Harry Dinkle is not a living-room daytime kind of band director, nosiree! Hey, what if I misspelled his name? That would be funny, right? I mean, it works for Mary Worth!”
@Pozzo: Slightly just more obnoxious then back when people would upvote their own comments on Comics Kingdom.
MARY WORTH: Good news everyone! The people who waste $200,00 pop without blinking are getting their own food bank! I was so worried Dawn might go hungry before her five-millionth jaunt to Italy.
MW: You know we’re never going to hear of this vegetable garden again, once it plays its role in the current story line. My guess: The garden is an excuse for Tommy to be shirtless, Dawn gets an eyeful and instantly forgets his past.
MW: Mary, no! When Tommy does something physical without waiting for Mr. Allora, he hurts his back and becomes addicted to pain meds!
@TheDiva:
Jerry: “You’ve sure changed since that time you sentenced that nun to five years for jaywalking!”
Alan: “She was a repeat offender! Also not a relative!”
CRANKSHAFT: Remember how Skip want on a huge weeks-long boring rant about how, as an intrepid hard-hitting reporter he wasn’t going to tolerate the useless fluff and nonsense the unscrupulous and increasingly-corporate media wonted him to cover, and instead was going independent so he can cover real news?
Well he’s clearly a guy who stuck to his guns!