The arousing, the sublime, the disgusting
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Gil Thorp, 6/16/26
Good news, everyone! Luke has given up on his pagan beliefs that Milford High is haunted by the shades of its dead coaches, and has now returned to the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Mother Church, which holds that Jesus’s “spiritual body” can physically interpose itself between horny teens to prevent sexual sin.
Bizarro, 6/16/26
A few hours ago, they force-fed that antelope something with the winner’s name written on it — something hard, inedible, and painful to eat, as that’s the only thing that could remain intact in the digestive system long enough for this to work — and now that lion is going to eviscerate the poor animal live on stage and pull the name from its steaming, quivering guts. That’s what’s happening here, right? That’s the joke? That’s the nightmare to which this pun has led us?
Shoe, 6/16/26
“It’s so … erotic! Old guys usually aren’t my thing, but I’m not made of stone.”
46 replies to “The arousing, the sublime, the disgusting”
Luke flashes a thumbs-up to the guy handling the lighting at the prom. Lighting Guy thought tonight was gonna be boring, but NO.
Bizzaro — And MGM wins again! Ninety-fifth year in a row. . .
Biz seems to be getting a real push, lately. Does this mean, in 30 years it’ll be a Wizard Of Id/Rex Morgan-type deal, where the titular character is usually sidelined, and minor characters eat up the panels? I’ll be dead then, thank God.
Dennis the Menace: Potting Soil? I’m pretty sure Dennis would just say it looks like literal poop, he’s 6!
Also that looks nothing like meatloaf and she’s serving it out of a pot?
The star/presenter is a lion. The statuette is a lion. Somehow, I don’t think this is the Jaguar’s year. That sucks – he was brilliant in Manchester By The Sea!
GT: I like to imagine that Luke wasn’t admonishing the students. Ever since his ghostly encounter, he compulsively shouts “LEAVE ROOM FOR JESUS” whenever he thinks spirits might be closing in. A variation on “the power of Christ compels you,” if you will.
RMMD: Is anyone going to point out to Mae Mae that, if she keeps insisting there’s nothing special or noteworthy about her whatsoever, people will stop coming and the hotel’s restaurant will fall back into dire financial straits?
RMMD I assume that sudden flash of yellow in panel 2 is meant to represent the prom-goers pissing themselves just a little out of surprise. Well, no better birth control than that..
Shoe “Speaking of feathers, how am I even picking this ball up? No, nothing makes sense about this at all…”
Good job Hi and Lois cartoonist for giving this douchebag the most douchebag haircut imaginable. A+
Frazz : and Caufield are popping aspirin like it’s candy, apparently (and mocking Mrs Olsen for not immediately thinking about that).
…It’s not that far-fetched, isn’t it? Frazz did seriously injure himself last year, and was in convalescence long enough to develop a habit…
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Gil Thorp : Coach Hernnadez-Martinez isn’t referring to the Messiah of the Christian Faith, he’s talking about a particularly fat and awkward kid named Jésùs. The other kids should leave room for him so he can have the dance floor without clumsily bumping into everyone.
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Luann : …yeah, this is Camp Skye’s equivalent of the diabetic cabin, where the counselors also share the campers’ handicap, but for Luann’s “inner beauty” or “special needs” or whatever euphemism we’re using this week.
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Safe Havens : “Because I only ever interact with DNA magicians who spend all their day in a lab, I know nothing about how human society actually works! Unlike you, the actual DNA magician who spends all day in her lab in question!”
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Shoe : “It would be more erotic if I still had my tail feathers! Back in the day, I was a strutting peacock, not this weird plucked turkey!”
(wait, can birds actually go bald with old age and/or disease?***********
Slylock Fox : EXTRA DIFFERENCE : In the panel on the left, the cat is pointing at who he’s trying to frame for knocking over the aquarium. In the panel on the right, he’s pointing at his next victim.
Shoe: If comics have one use, it’s their anthropological view of the lives of middle American senior citizens. So… is this what goes on in bowling alleys these days? Elderly men twerking at each other and getting rage boners? I guess at least it disproves the Bowling Alone hypothesis.
SHOE: Biz is just trying desperately to get comfortable, since he somehow put on shorts without a tail hole.
MW: “No, I’m here for more of our sparkling repartee.”
RMMD: I knew Doug couldn’t handle fame, he’s needy and pathetic.
BB: One of my grammar annoyances is the use of “myself” when “me” would do fine, but I actually like what Zero has done here.
DtM: Considering that meat loaf has never, ever been prepared in a sauce pan, I have to give this one to Dennis.
GT: It’s “Leave room for the Holy Spirit,” you can’t say that at a public school, and what a hypocrite!
GT just doesn’t work if you copy paste the exact same poses in the final panel but coach-whose-name-I-can’t-be-bothered-to-remember seems to feel he’s effectively gotten them not to dance so close. Of course, Gil Thorp hasn’t worked on any level at all for years, so carry on.
Also, Keri is now calling a lawyer about forced proselytization at a public school event.
Dustin: Good News! Apparently Meg has poisoned the coffee and Dustin has instantly died.
Milford evidently has no Jewish students. Or maybe he’s telling everyone to make space for Jesus Martinez to bust out his sick dance moves.
Marvin: It is far too late to try to salvage this comic about a terrible baby by trying to turn it into a bad ripoff of Peanuts.
GT No, no, Coach Luke! Even if you’ve forgotten that there are kids out there from families that aren’t arch-conservative Christians, don’t you *see* those in hijab?? Only the great and mighty Coach Thorp can do whatever he wants. You’re going to get disciplined at least for religious harassment.
Luann The kids aren’t staring because she’s wearing elastic waterproof panty covers for bed wetting, they’re staring because they have no idea what the heck she’s wearing and that it’s elastic waterproof panty covers for bed wetting because it’s been decades since that was the normal protective garment. Did her parents dig up stuff from granny’s attic rather than buy a box of PullUps/GoodNites? And are they trying to make her stand out in the vain hope that somehow that will get her to stop the wetting?? Because either option can go under pajama bottoms!
Shoe: Homoerotic senior avian rituals were not on my bingo card today, but here we are.
Bizarro:
“By the way, I’ve become a vegan — the canteloupe please!”
Bizarro:
“I’d be lion to ya if I told ya that this monkey suit wasn’t a little constricting!”
JP: Reena “really you shouldn’t feel bad Sophie. Thanks to you, Glen found out about the murder, got rid of his uncle and seized power. So he owes you a lot. It is sort of like Hamlet only not only did he get rid of his uncle, he stays alive and you were his Ophelia and you didn’t drown yourself except with booze and coffee”
Sophie “Gee Reena, when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense, and why Glen’s charity is based in a nordic country”
DT: Soly Tare only likes dimly lit rooms with a baize felt.
Phantom: Invicta – I am a proud loonie, crazoid, nutjob and weirdo but I’m no fruitcake. I’m light and fluffy inside.
RMMD: At this point, I’m still holding out for a medical story line. One of the sharp eyed viewers of this Infotainment Today piece on Lorna Starr will recognize that Mae Mae’s appearance, history of lethargy and ennui are signs of hypothyroidism. Please be that and not some alt-root-country epiphany.
Luke and other high school teachers believe that Jesus is not omnipotent and that his physical body is not just present in the Eucharist, but it needs space between two bodies to prevent the sin of fornication. Americans have a number of religious beliefs that would make a late antiquity heresiarch proud!
Jesus, sitting in a corner, blushed. He’s excited to try his first threesome, Dad darn it, but he was hoping the others would find him cool.
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It’s awards season, the anthropomorphic animal laundry industry’s busiest time of the year. You’d think getting that much blood out of a tux would be impossible, but they have it down to a science.
***
Sure, he’ll throw on a shirt and Donald Duck it for bowling, but Shoe will be damned if he ever goes to the office less than fully naked.
Bizarro: Ok, I’ll buy the lion is a presenter, but the random eye and lit stick of dynamite on the podium are really pushing the realism here.
When did Gil Thorp get jokes? I know, I know, a soap opera strip successfully experimenting with humor isn’t a crisis but… how did this happen?
WHEN DID GIL THORP GET JOKES?
Bizzaro- what utter landism!. Every one has been talking about orcas this year!
GT- are we sure that his interjection wasn’t about Gil’s upcoming honeymoon?
Cosmo shouldn’t judge the old man! Biz is not the one who is pantless!
RMMD-“Have you stopped spying on women in their rooms?”
MW-Looks to me like Moy wants some Cape Cod chips from this product placement.
FC-You should either update your game system or your game reference.
Predators celebrating themselves with golden statuettes while slaughtering innocents and feasting on their flesh is what the average conspiracy theorists thinks about Hollywood
Bizarro: I do like the nice touch, that the lion has paws, and not human-ish hands.
Not that there’s anything wrong with anthropomorphic animals having hands, but seeing the paws, reminds me of a simpler time :3
RMMD – I would really like to see a movie – teen rom-com/sex-romp where Jesus returns to earth as a teenager, in the middle of a prom with Mary Magdalene as his date. He is wildly accepted as the newest, coolest Junior at Hillwood High in a flyover state of the director’s choosing. I mean, the script writes itself, but the title of the film is obviously going to be: Raise Hell This Summer.
@Liam: Actually….
Currently Nintendo has been having a online “Donkey Kong” challenge session.
Involving old and new titles.
And Donkey Kong is widely available on newer consoles.
Although that may be stretching it/giving Family Circus too much credit.
GT – Dude, you don’t have to remind people not to get too full to take communion; those wafers are tiny.
Bizarro:
“And of course I want to give a special shout-out to my lifetime achievement award-winning Wizard of Oz colleagues Ray Bolger and Jack Haley, Jr.!”
GT: I admit, I found this more genuinely funny than anything a gag-a-day strip has put out in weeks, if not months. Maybe Gil Thorp should reconsider its calling.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Will you pass the rolls, please?”
“Will you pass the rolls, please?”
“I said to pass me the rolls!”
“Told you I could get him to draw his sword, now will you pay up?”
Six Chix – This punks vs. glams conflict is obviously a snoozer. They can always just split the difference and listen to some New York Dolls.
“And, once again, Apex Predator of the Year is . . . humans! Didn’t expect that, did ya?”
In his later years, Rod Serling became a bit predictable.
GT: “Leave room for Jesus!”
“Fcking Christian nationalists want to ruin a public school prom.”
Wizard of Id: Thanks for the crop failure, dragon. Or maybe in your 14th century the king can just go to the next grain elevators over to prevent this winter’s famine.
Pluggers use their truck for real truck things and wonder why a half-ton truck costs $80k now.
DtM: He knows what potting soil is? He’s the age where kids make pies out of mud!
Gil Thorp:
Has it ever been established what state Gil Thorp is set in? Because it could make a difference to how much of an uphill battle it would be to sue Milford High for injecting Christianity into a public school setting.
C’shaft: “My father was so obsessed with his music and chasing fame that he eventually came to neglect me and our relationship to the point where I hardly knew him anymore…so of course when I grew up I wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps.”
Dustin: Dustin’s high caffeine intake causes him to lose bladder control.
Luann: Yes, the Nike logo will totally make the other kids forget that you’re wearing pull-ups.
MW: “What, you thought I meant you? I’m talking about Gary over at the butcher counter.”
Phantom: C’mon, Nomad, look at this guy! The blank expression, the awkward hand gesture…either he’s thoroughly under the influence of the evil thought-control technology or he’s a second-tier Audio-Anamatronic on loan from Disney.
RMMD: Sit down, Elder Doug. Hollywood Update isn’t here to help your mission work.
“Wahoo! Another strike!” Biz lived long enough to see the trade union movement die and be reborn
Speaking of spirits and ghosts, it seems the lion in Bizarro has been possessed by Crankshaft.
Bizarro:
This is probably the worst “antelope” pun on the comics pages since that one Calvin & Hobbes strip about ants eloping. At least in that one the point was how bad the pun was.
“Leave room for Jesus!”: what Western Catholics tell Eastern Orthodox Christians when trying to justify the filioque
I assume the three comics go with the post title “The arousing, the sublime, the disgusting,” but I’m not completely sure how Josh intends them to match up.
@Anonymous: re: diabetic camp
And for an extra $20, Stewie Griffen will follow you around, playing a tuba.