Old age, youth, etc.
Post Content
Pickles, 6/5/26
“We’re all gonna die eventually, but sometimes our ability to experience even basic pleasures dies before the rest of us” is a pretty grim thing for kids to read in the comics, so it’s a good thing that not many kids read the comics, I guess.
Heathcliff, 6/5/26
Although you know what legacy strip has a surprisingly strong zoomer fan base? Heathcliff! That’s why it can afford to play around with youth slang like this. Ha ha, the fish is “low-key” terrified, as the kids would say, if they were trapped in a bowl perched atop the head of a creature who was about to devour them.
Hi and Lois, 6/5/26
I’m not going to say that the art in Hi and Lois is “good,” exactly, but the faces are surprisingly expressive given how stylized they are. Like, with Lois today, they really nailed “Well that wasn’t an inappropriate thing to say exactly, but it also forced me to contemplate my teenage son as a sexual being, and I honestly don’t care for it.”
Crankshaft, 6/5/26
“That’s the pocket where I keep my phone. Did you know you can put pictures on your phone now? And also get copies of the pictures of your phone printed out? Truly we live in an age of wonders!”
84 replies to “Old age, youth, etc.”
Pickles: Judging by his T-shirt, the grandson is trying to become Charlie Brown. He’s started off on the right foot by placing himself in an immensely depressing conversation, but he hasn’t mastered the aggrieved expression or the phrase “Good grief!” Also, he doesn’t understand that the adults should be unintelligible.
Pickles: Why do I get the feeling he’s eating Soylent Green?
Crankshaft:
“I have them right here! — in my solar plexus. I sure hope one of the Hardy Boys doesn’t punch me there!”
Luann-“I don’t want you handling Puddles the way you manage The Fuze.”
Crankshaft-“Nah. I’m just slowly torturing you with your guilt.”
RMMD-How often nowadays do you see a hotel restaurant handle outside customers?
MW-“Uh, Tommy, is it usually this soft?”
MW-Dawn, you should talk to your father about this.
FC-Lousy school and their no bag policy.
Pickles-Gramma got the recipe from the Mary Worth cookbook.
Pickles: Soylent Green is made of whatever.
Heathcliff “I’m being eaten, Unc! Thee goes my rizz….”
H&L: Lois realizes for the first time that when Hi asked her to spread suntan oil on his body when they met as teenagers, it wasn’t just to prevent sunburn.
Heathcliff: Every hour of every day, the fish live with the threat of destruction hanging over their heads like a feline sword of Damocles. As a result of this constant horror, their very will to live is blunted. “I’ve become so numb,” as the youth of today don’t say, because that song came out in…2003? It’s over twenty years old?! No, that can’t be right. It can’t be. I’ve become a specter from a ruined tomb in an ancient land. I can feel myself dying. I’m low-key terrified.
Heathcliff:
“Sing along with me, Nemo, to defuse the smoldering tension! — ‘This is the dawning of the Age of Aquariums…Age of Aquariums…Aquariums!…Aquariums!’ “
MW: Tommy is dreaming that cone is filled with sweet, sweet Vicodin!
Luann: This is your chance! See the dullard off, give the dog to the couple who want a kid, have their manservant blow up your failing business, move to Fiji with the insurance money, blame it all on your own live-in accountant! By the time the dullard gets back, there’ll be no one left to care!
JP: Why? No joke, why do you love talking with her? She’s indistinguishable from all the other pissy, quippy, psychotic women in this strip. I ask again, WHY???
MW:
“Okay, Dawn — as thick as I am, the profound irony of your actually purporting to impart life lessons about my path is not lost on me!”
Crankshaft : Okay, so it turns out Eugene isn’t upset about having to give away those old photos… But wasn’t he upset about having to move? Potentially about the place he was moving TO? We spent three days in a row of Eugene getting increasingly somber as he talked about moving, and then it’s just dropped for the rest of the week?
*************
Heathcliff : No, not “low key”, “minor key”. The tone at which Heathcliff ominously growls is MINOR KEY.
*************
Pickles : whatever that old man is eating can’t be as stale and indigestible as his “Take my wife… PLEASE!” routine.
GT: All right! The summer insanity storyline kicks off…now! With Keri Thorp going all Weather Underground on the school prom!
Phantom: Jesus Chris, Phantom, no need to be such a colossal, gaping asshole about it. If Python wasn’t interested in being part of Vindicta’s vengeance, he sure is now!
Phantom: So, are we starting another story and just leaving Schmelon Schmusk in his stupid alien mask and Mr. ‘I don’t have the smarts to take apart a digital doohickey that shows me scary pictures’ Sahara circling in the air somewhere over the South Atlantic?
CS: Something occurred to me. When this kicked off on Monday, the little introductory text box said this tale is called ‘In the Name of the Father’. Whose father? Lillian’s? Eugene’s? The Holy Father? Have any of Batiuk’s character’s been established as practicing Catholic? Has there ever been any sort of religious figure in any of his strips through the years? It’s easy to say this is all going to end with Lillian going into a confession booth on a dark and stormy night (or snowy night is Batiuk drags this out long enough) but it would be hilarious is Lillian goes to what she thinks is her father’s grave only to find its Walt Whitman’s (or perhaps The Big Bopper).
GT: Say what you will about the Jan. 6 people (and you can say a LOT) but they came closer to ‘making a difference’ than any prom, graduation, or museum protesters ever have. Keri, go sit in the corner and come up with an actual strategy that might actually last a day, then maybe Bernice there will listen to you.
So Trixie has turned her friend Sunbeam’s wrath against the rest of the Flagstons?
Heathcliff is mogging those fish with his snackmaxxing. Six seven, he’s cooking.
***
I’m less disturbed by the curiosity of how a horny teenage boy is going to hide his boner when he’s being slathered with sunscreen on the beach by a pretty girl than I am at how friggin’ huge Chip’s feet are.
***
Dude, at your age the heart is the least safe place for anything.
PICKLES: “Learn to make your own food, or it’s a crapshoot” is a lesson for all ages.
RMMD: And get a bouffant hairdo, Mae Mae! Gotta keep up with the competition!
H&L – Be sure to take special care to avoid a sunburned dick!
MW: Dawn has been raised in the Charterstone Skinner box. Years of exposure to Mary have her using platitudes for everything, including flirting.
Being in a goldfish bowl balanced on top of the head of a cat walking upright was already pretty dangerous.
MW The platitudes are so bland that I can only conclude that Dawn is watching Tommy’s licking technique and saying he’s doing “pretty well” with that ice cream cone in the hopes that means he can *ahem* do the same to her
FG I don’t think it detracts from Ming’s *choice* for tyranny or means Rollin in any way deserved his end, but let’s face it – Barin’s gramps *didn’t* try to make the world better. He ignored the wars his father sent Ming to fight and had to be told about the effed up geopolitical situation when he ascended the throne, he *did* agree and support Ming’s “peace through terrifying strength” plans and again lived in comfort with his family far from the fighting, letting the wars go on. His reaction to things like “hey, I’ve got imprisoned/ enslaved sorcerer-scientists here to build weapons” was effectively “sure, why not?”. He could say a few pretty words about peace – or even about can I help you as the prince of your destroyed village – but actually act on that?
GT I’m with Inma here. Prom is a non-educational add-on that kids miss (or actively avoid) all the time. The kids walking out of class at least disrupted the school district’s educational plans which gave it some small stakes for the establishment to care about as a protest. Keri could get the prom completely boycotted and it might be an interesting news tidbit but it wouldn’t put any pressure on anyone.
DT crossing fingers they try to “blend in” and act like a regular ice cream truck while trying to escape and we at least get some funny moments as the cops stop for a frozen treat…
S4th Well, the haunted doll *could* explain why the locker wasn’t cleaned out and the contents trashed when she didn’t clear it out for two years
Also do zoomers say “low-key”? That’s something I associate with 38-year-olds on Bluesky, who are also Heathcliff‘s fan base.
Ha ha, it’s funny because Eugene is on his deathbed and he knows it.
Pickles: “It doesn’t matter what I’m eating; we’re all dying, piece by piece.”
So glad the comics are there to provide humor and whimsy. I’m ready to start my day!
Heathcliff: Gallagher walks down the supermarket aisle wondering where his next strip will come from. Sees the lobster tank. “Heh, heh”
Crankshaft – The plan is working perfectly. Tomorrow Eugene shows up on Lillian’s doorstep with a truckload of worn-out furniture and three cats. “I figured Lucy would have wanted you to have them. Byee!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Here are the empty cans you asked for”
“Thanks”
“What do you do with them? Turn them in for recycling?”
“No, I have to make some more medals for the Admiral”
@The Quiet Man re: Phantom: I’m pretty sure Vindicta is on his way to Wambesiland to recruit-nap Chatu and that the Wambesi are somehow preternaturally aware that something is amiss, hence the drumming. Chatu will reject Vindicta’s offer—being well and truly done with ever interacting with masked, weirdo whiteboys—but will be coerced into going anyway. He will only play along with Vindicta’s plan, pretending hat the fear inducer doohickey works on him (it won’t really affect him, as foreshadowed) to bide his time and effect an escape, helping to bring Vindicta down in the process. It could be that Vindicta’s plans go so beyond vengeance that Chatu is a bit shaken and moves out of villain territory into becoming more of an antihero, though let’s say I’m not counting The Phantom to provide us to much moral complexity. I’m suspecting that in the end Vindicta will be the victim of a fair quotidian comic book double-cross.
Two of Cups: A cat, in hunger, stands in a back yard. Upon his brow, a bowl, with two fish, awaiting death. Gemini falling, Pisces in danger, Leo rises. Partnerships fail, friendships end, a dry spell, satiation after famine. Reversed: Mondays, lasagna.
Kinda funny that Sally Forth and Family Circus made the same joke today, but not overly surprising when you remember both strips also feature ghosts, though in SF they actually exist.
Wary Morth:
“Maybe”, says Tommy. while wondering if it’s possible to stick an ice cream cone up his nose.
********************************************
Murky Tail:
Rusty’s future will include “friends” who only wear stripes.
********************************************
Wrecks Moregone:
“Also, I need to stop staring into the camera like I’m doing in the second panel. The directors always used to get mad at me for doing that.”
“I have them right here,” he said, making the traditional jerking-off motion and vastly inflating the size of the relevant organ.
Pickles: Opal has slowly been mixing more and more dog food into Earl’s meals on a daily basis to see if he notices. —Seniors are poor.
Blondie: Yep. Women still be shopping.
FC: Didn’t expect to see a joke about Billy grabbing the unclaimed property of dead classmates but here we are.
I’m confused about the name of the comic “Pickles” about this old couple that has been going since 1990. Do some people refer to old persons as “Pickles” the same way “Peanuts” refers to children? Honestly I never really got the “Peanuts” name either and a lot of people just call the comic “Snoopy” because “Peanuts” is a terrible name.
H&L: Speaking of unusually well-made expressions, Chip’s got a sly look on his face in that last panel, and for once, it’s justified.
@Voshkod:
“I’ll have Gina do that at the beach;” he said, making the traditional jerking-off motion and vastly inflating the size of the relevant organ.
Your comment also works for Hi and Lois and more realistically explains the look on Lois’ face.
Regarding Heathcliff’s fan base: is there some kind of survey or demographic data that tells us who the fans for each newspaper comic strip are? Because I would really love to read it.
CS: Remember, these are photos of a woman whom Eugene thinks dumped him without a word fifty years ago. He loved Lucy SO MUCH that he never once came to visit her during her entire long lifetime after he didn’t get an answer to his letter. Lucy went to her grave wondering why he’d suddenly and completely ghosted her, although she must not have cared very much, because she never even picked up the phone to call him, even just to see if he was okay.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Which, as we know, means that Chip is going to have a lot to hide if you catch my drift.
@Voshkod: I kind of want to see a Heathcliff Tarot deck now. He does so many surreal and bizarre things that he’d fit right in.
@Anonymous: Pickles is their last name.
Phantom – c’mon, “You fool” is a phrase reserved specifically for villains in this kind of strip.
@Hibbleton:
I’ve been poor and I know how to eat for very cheap and never have I ever considered buying dog food as an alternative. First of all dog food is still at least as expensive or more expensive than many human foods. You can buy quite a lot of vegetables for not much money. As far as getting protein you can eat eggs or beans as an alternative to buying meat. People who eat dog food or cat food are either demented or they are doing it because they actually like the way it tastes.
C’shaft: Ah yes, memory! The one thing that is never misled, distorted, or fallible, especially as we get older and especially among those who can no longer live independently!
Heath: Normally I’d ask what circumstances led to Heathcliff carrying a fishbowl around on his head, but I understand that, even if they do exist, they’d make about as much sense as the end result.
@Charterstone: Dune: Yeah, I think you’ve pretty much figured it out. My only question is whether Schmelon Schmusk will lay waste to the whole village to spring this one man (to show just how eeeeevilllll he is, of course!) or if he’s going to use the Fear-Inducer 3000 to pull a ‘Pom Poko’ distraction while he lifts the cage (with the guy in it, trees and all) with his super-duper private jet.
MW: Ÿou’re working steadily…at licking that cone and it’s turning me on.”
Thinking ahead as you read invariably leads to disappointment.
@Anonymous:
You’re right. She’s doing it because she hates him.
Heathcliff:
Outside, in the trolled distance
A wild cat did growl
Confiders were reproaching
And chagrin began to howl
— Dylan (later, Hendrix)(adapted)
@Tom T.: I’ve been wondering what circumstances led to Eugene moving into a home, and I’ve come to the conclusion that his family just finally got sick of his crap.
“This is for your own good, Dad. You keep wandering off! The lake patrol said they had to rescue you from a leaky old canoe; you weren’t even wearing a life vest!”
“Lucy McKenzie and I would…”
“Oh, shut UP about Lucy McKenzie! You haven’t seen her since you were twenty! You were married to Mom for over fifty years and you don’t even talk about her this much!”
Phantom: Your pride just told me what I came here to learn, you fool.
Well, if I had a bunch of talkative lions in my African cage with me, I would have them eat this rude pissant.
Luann: Why doesn’t dad have eyeballs?
CS: This an especially sick version of Gift of the Magi. Lillian sacrificed her entire life rather than admit a youthful misdeed in 1940. Eugene sacrificed his entire life rather than tell Lucy he loved her, or move on from her. And in the process, they both sacrificed Lucy’s sanity, and drove to her an early* grave. But who cares about her? It’s all about me and my emotional needs!
(* – Lucy was about 81 when we she died; that’s early by this world’s standards.)
Weird choice of Heathcliff panels in the linked interview https://solrad.co/let-the-art-stand-for-itself-a-conversation-with-peter-gallagher . I liked the art gallery one (mostly because of Heathcliff’s expression) but the rest did nothing for me.
@Tom T.: On top of all that, Lucy and Eugene somehow had contact late in life. And despite her implied dementia, Lucy was capable of coherent speech up until the end.
@TheDiva: I thought Eugene’s whole bit was that he never married or even looked at another woman because Lucy was his ‘one twoo wuv’.
@The Quiet Man: That title box is to hint at an upcoming pivot from a Second World War love triangle to focus on The Troubles, staring Daniel Day Lewis.
Hi and Lois: What kind of beach are they going to, because where Chip wants Gina to rub in lotion is not normally a place that gets sunburned?
Has Pickles always been this choppy? I remember the line work being a lot clearer. I hope Brian Crane is doing alright.
I don’t like Crankshaft’s hat guy doppelganger. I hope he goes back to the Black Lodge soon.
FG: “Content to ignore problems until they affect him personally…”
GT: Emma Goldman didn’t exactly say “If I cannot dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” in so many words, but she certainly agreed with the sentiment. Shut up, put on some absurdly big disco ball earrings and have fun for one night, Keri.
Luann: Oh please, you think Luann has been responsible for Puddles’ care this whole time? She can barely feed herself, let alone another living creature.
MW: Ugh, if I wanted to see someone accept praise with an expression of smug false modesty, I’d jump ahead to Mary and Jeff’s post Bum Boat stroll.
RMMD: Second shift? What, you’re going to bring on another movie actress who was a big box-office draw until she got tired of the pressure and went into seclusion for a decade, then decided to leave it all behind and be a waitress in a small town?
@The Quiet Man: Probably, but Les Moore remarried even though he obviously never got over Lisa, so there’s precedent.
Crankshaft – Loathsome Lillian has two boxes of photos of Lucy – one for before the loathsome hag ruined Lucy’s life, and one for post-ruin.
FC – Good thing Bil Keane went Impressionistic on that American flag, because if it were realistic, Jef would have to take the time to add one or two stars.
A metal lunchbox? Seriously?
Mary Worth – “What also matters is a person’s effect on others.” Yeah, that’s exactly how twenty year olds talk. I wonder if Moy is using AI to write this. Hmm, there’s lots of artificial, but I don’t see any sign of intelligence. I guess not.
Sherman’s Lagoon – That must not be Dr. Jeff’s boat, because no one threw any muffin tins overboard.
Rex Morgan – Glenwood has Jordan’s like the country for high falutin classy food, Wanda’s diner for enormous portions of artery clogging glop, and now there’s a generic cafe for people who don’t want to try anything out of their comfort range. Glenwood is a diner’s paradise.
Enough about Mae Mae’s feet. Please.
Hi and Lois-Have Gina start at the bottom of the tube.
Pickles-Grandpa’s taste buds died long after his love for Gramma.
Umm, why does a woman who owns a reasonably profitable catering business need to justify her purchases to her husband? You can’t do “Blondie has a career of her own” and “Wimmin be shopping.”
@TheDiva re: MW: I agree. I feel like in the past several stories, Mary hasn’t done any proper meddling at all. People have just sort of meddled themselves through their own problems, as if there’s a little Mary in all of them now, goading them on to be, if not actually better people, the kind of people Mary thinks are better people. Frankly, it’s getting to be a bit dystopian!
H&L: Forget how-well done the expression on Lois’s face is, the artist absolutely nailed the expression on Chip’s. That is a man with a plan right there.
RMMD: “I dunno, Hector, this place is a breakfast/lunch cafe, and all you’ve ever done is fry eggs, flip burgers, and make egg salad sandwiches. If we’re going to stay open for
supperdinneran evening meal, well…have you ever roasted a pork loin? Made shrimp scampi?””I don’t even know what those things are.”
@TheDiva:
Reminder : Batiuk has gone on record that he initially chose to end Lisa’s Story Part 3 : The Last Leaf on the final strip of that “Les doesn’t want to get rid of the tree Lisa went ‘when the last leaf of that tree falls, I will die’ that’s on his lawn, until he’s forced to because it’s hit by lightning” storyline ending, where Les and Kayla sit on the veranda, and Kayla says something like “Sure, that thing that was a huge part of your life is forever gone… but now you can clearly look up at the sky!” as they both smile, looking into the distance/future…
But Batiuk then decided the album should instead end on the final strip of the “Summer gets Crazy Harry to transfer all the Lisa VHS onto DVDs… And Crazy Harry discovers that some of the tapes contained extra messages that aren’t listed on the labels!” storyline, ie one where Les chases Summer and Kayla out of the room so he can listen to Lisa’s final, secret message meant for him and him alone.
LUANN: You know…given the parents’ attitude here, I think whoever posited the “Hand That Rocks The Cradle” theory (That Bernice was welcomed into the Degroot home less because she was Luann’s BFF and more because Bernice is the daughter they never had…but always secretly wanted) was on to something. Luann better watch out or this will be the next arc when she gets back from camp:
Luann (opens door carrying a suitcase): “Uh…Bernice, why are you in my bedroom? (looks around with slight alarm) And what happened to my stuff?
Bernice (Looks at Luann quizzically): “Your bedroom? Did Frank and Nancy tell….(shakes head) Well it doesn’t matter now. Now that I completed all of my chores, I have to rush for my date with my boyfriend Phil. Ta-ta”
(Oh wait, that would be an interesting development and this would never be welcomed here! More than likely, the homecoming arc will be Luann giving her bestie her “art project” of macaroni glued to construction paper…where 75% of the macaroni fell out for good measure while Luann smugly beams like she’s the next Rembrandt.)
@Anonymous: Lisa’s final, secret message
“Les killed me…”
(That’s from a strip where the daughter is watching one of the tapes, and Lisa says something like “turn you into a less skilled me,” which the daughter hears as “Les killed me.” I think that was a parody someone made, but I’ve never been sure either way, and don’t want to pay to dig through FW archives.)
@Tom T.: To be fair, I was told that everyone loved Lucy in the 50’s. Especially when she worked on the assembly line and…why are you all looking at me like that?
@Anonymous: It turns out Eugene is an undocumented immigrant. He’s about to be snatched, beaten to a pulp in the street, zip-tied, thrown into the back of an unmarked vehicle, and dumped at Delaney Hall where he’ll die in custody.
Of COURSE he’s leaving his important items behind. He’s gonna be packed in a cell with hundreds of other people, there’s no room!
@Anonymous, CS/FW: “Lisa’s Story” is the Winchester Mystery House of Comic Strip Plots.
@The Quiet Man: The strip has never been clear about Eugene’s post-WWII life (or anything, really). But it’s heavily implied that he never married. He certainly doesn’t seem to have anyone in his life, other than the sister of a girl who dumped him 80+ years ago.
@richardf8, Blondie: Same as doing “Blondie has her own source of income” with “Wimmen be bankrupting their husbands!” at the same time.
GT: “Keri, we finally have an all-inclusive and welcoming prom (for now), and you want to boycott it??”
@Little Guy: Haunted, confusing, and rickety.
@Anonymous: Schulz himself hated the name “Peanuts,” if I recall. The syndicate pressured him into it or something.
LUANN: C’mon, girl, they’ve kept YOU alive for 19 years.
JP: Alan pulls a Mea Culpa in front of Ann. Ann needs to reply, “Hold my beer, dad, and listen to what I’VE been doing lately…”
…and they might be hiring over at RMMD if Ann decides she’s bored with assault and kidnapping, and would like to rather spend some of her free time earning money.
WoI: All right! Nerf Wars!
Hi and Lois:
Chip going to the beach to engage in low-grade teenage sexual exploration is certainly a plausible scenario, but I think it’s just a cover story for something that would be far more shocking to his middle-class suburban family. Check out that “towel” he’s carrying: that’s a tallis, a Jewish prayer shawl, and he’s headed to shul for the Friday evening Shabbat services as part of his journey of preparation for converting. Hey Lois, I bet your kid fucking doesn’t seem so bad to your square WASP mind now, does it?
Wait, Hi & Lois is set in a coastal state!? Everything seemed to imply midwest! Is Lois the queen of NIMBY?
Chip is all about the unbridled vitality of youth and sex. But then you get older and like in Crankshaft, your primordial lust fades away and in memories it becomes sentimentality. It’s sublimation all the way down!
@Charterstone: Dune: Mary kinda sorta meddled in the last storyline but, especially when it comes to the regulars, she acts more as a almost a Greek chorus.
@Ken: That someone was me. It’s from my re-telling of Crankshaft‘s “The Burnings” story, where Les Moore is identified as the arsonist (because every single clue pointed directly to him). During his court testimony, he accidentally says “since I let Lisa die.” Your exchange was part of a series of parody strips where characters react to this revelation. Cayla finds this message on an old Lisa tape, and discovers a hidden message within it.
I really need to finish that story. (The Burnings was just the first half of it.)
@TheDiva: Yeah, Luann’s dad (and Greg Evans) really whiffed on the punchline here. Tje correct parental response to Luann’s pet care instructions was “Same as always.”
As a longtime Pickles reader, today’s strip makes me feel slightly concerned. It’s about how age makes your body’s basic functions fail, like taste, or eyesight, or the ability to draw your characters on-model.