Mostly one-panel Friday
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Alice, 7/10/26
This is honestly a perfect Alice strip. The actual joke, while not groundbreaking or anything, definitely made me laugh, mostly because of the phrasing and specific number given. But then you have a jaunty “No soup for you!” caption, because … you ate too many pretzels and aren’t hungry, I guess? And then below that you have an even smaller label letting you know that this is a reference to a 31-year-old Seinfeld episode. 31 years old! Did you know that “The Soup Nazi” is as far from us in time today as the Dick Van Dyke Show was from Seinfeld? I didn’t until just now, when I did that math. Thanks a lot, Alice, I hope you liked your pretzels.
Dennis the Menace, 7/10/26
Martha’s facial expression here is honestly kind of upsetting. Can’t she just have one moment of peace to give thanks to the Lord without her husband going off on some furious diatribe about the neighbor kid? Just one little moment, just for one day?
Heathcliff, 7/10/26
I honestly can’t believe that Blondie, which never seems to have met a widely shared cultural moment it doesn’t like, hasn’t been doing a series of dumb on-the-nose bits about the World Cup. Like, sure, soccer is for Godless communists, but so are the Olympics, and Blondie absolutely loves doing dumb on-the-nose bits about that. I guess Heathcliff has to pick up the slack, but Heathcliff being Heathcliff, it’s doing a bit that’s whatever the opposite of on the nose is. A bit that’s missing the face entirely? Anyway, I like it.
Mary Worth, 7/10/26
I like how absolutely furious Tommy looks as he’s compelled to buy drugs to prove a point of some kind to Wilbur. Wilbur! Nobody ever has to prove anything to Wilbur! I’m beginning to think that Tommy may not be very bright.
78 replies to “Mostly one-panel Friday”
Pluggers: While it’s true the universe is constantly expanding, pluggers are expanding even faster than that.
MW: “Take the Skinheads Doping” was the less popular B-Side for Camper Van Beethoven
Heathcliff:
Guys, there’s a soccer ball right over there! At least one of you could be using it instead of trying to kick around meat-based foodstuffs! Look how pink those hot dogs are, you didn’t even cook them!
Little does Reno realize that this is the beginning of the backdoor pilot for Beedie, the hardboiled detective drama starring Tommy, where he cleans up the streets one dealer at a time while searching for his missing girlfriend (she’s on vacation again).
DT: Wow, Wolverine really hit the skids, didn’t he?
MW: Tommy’s glower in panel two makes me think he’s about to go off on a righteous speech right out of an after-school special: “How much? How much does it take for you to get your kicks? Knowing that kids like me are hooked on your dope? How much pain is it worth to you? How much dope does it take for you to numb the pain of that knowledge? How much are you willing to sell your life for, because of the dope?”
It’d be amazing if Tommy then whipped out an Uzi and went all Rambo on Reno.
RMMD: Lady Fingers! How nice to see you again! How is Thing doing?
DtM: Martha’s silent prayer: “Just a small stroke, Lord. One that affects his speech center.”
Crankshaft : maybe it’s just me, but I feel that putting this sequence AFTER Harry Dinkle plays Sunrise over Killimanjaro kinda undoes all the goodwill and forgiveness we’re supposed to extend to Larry Dinkle? Like, don’t remind us that Larry Dinkle being a shitty father made Harry Dinkle into a shitty person NOW that we’re supposed to think Dinkle is/was a good a person!
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Heathcliff : what’s the over/under that this is a “lead time” thing where Gallagher wasn’t expecting the USMNT to have gotten knocked out already?
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Luann : Oh, we’re at the “character suddenly, completely loses enthusiasm for what they were doing, gives it up forever so it can never be mentioned again” part of the “Luann character suddenly demonstrates an interest in something” storyline. I guess it doesn’t just happen to Luann.
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Mary Worth : is apparently set in a 90s arcade video game, because it’s home to a dilapidated alley populated by identical stereotypical punks, differentiated only by name/color of clothing.
If Tommy really wants a pick-me-up, he should just punch a trashcan until it explodes, and eat the giant ham that was under it. It’s healthier/cheaper/more honest.
Mary Worth:
I’ve been kind of assuming that Tommy’s quest for drugs is a fake-out of some kind, as soap opera strips are fond of doing. I could be wrong, of course, but the fact that even when Reno specifically tells him that he has a variety of drugs on offer Tommy just vaguely demands the price without specifying what he wants tells me that he’s just going through the motions. Tommy, you were an addict! You know that different drugs cost different amounts based on supply and demand!
Alice: I guess she’s meant to look like she got fat off 200 chocolate-covered pretzels (and no soup) but she just looks pregnant, and that summoned the unwanted vision of what Alice’s freakish half-alien baby is going to look like.
Alice – It’s the summer of Alice….
DtM – Oh, Molach, we long for your time of harvesting….
MW – Just like high school – we can share an 8-ball, before lunch….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: Tommy kicks open the door of the Weston condo and drops a bag of crack on the table. “See?! I’m not doing drugs! That’s why I have drugs, because I’m not doing them!” Wilbur then calls the police.
Heathcliff:
“Of course, this whole World Cup thing is just a vast conspiracy by the globalists to emphasize the one and only sport in which the US of A isn’t better than everyone else!”
Look, I’m not trying to tell the letterer how to do the job, but… there are four words in that sentence, and “why” is not the one you put in bold. “That’s why I’m here,” says Tommy, and now that drug dealer is on notice. “Well, duh,” thinks he, “why else would Tommy Beedie be here in this alley behind, or perhaps next to, the pawn shop? Just to say hi? We’ve never been that close. All my overtures of friendship over the years have been rejected, and he never even acknowledges the birthday cards I send. Give it up, Reno. There’s a new balding guy in Tommy’s life, and it ain’t you.”
Mr Wilson has to time for the doctrine that a good Christian should embrace both good and bad things brought by Divine Providence! He’s pissed about the bad things (especially Dennis) and he is starting to thing Theodicy is a sham!
MW: Also, Reno is one hundred percent just recycled art of Tommy’s last druggie friend, Vin. I don’t blame Brigman for not putting any effort into this strip, as I wouldn’t either, but you could have at least scribbled hair onto the clip art.
Heathcliff: Boy, the grill looks pissed off as it watches the Nutmegs play with their food rather than eat it. All its efforts were wasted.
Unfortunately Heathcliff is sloppy. They should not be kicking hot dogs and hamburgers, which resemble the American football ball or a Hockey puck. They need a spherical food to kick, like a meatball!
MW: What’s needed now is one of Wilbur’s Accidental Hero moments. Reno could be easily taken out by a tripped-over trash can.
DtM: Martha: “Rant on, you old fool. My secret weapon will send you to your grave, eventually. ”
LUANN: Does Bernice even know what an introvert IS? We do not want the spotlight, or any portion of the spotlight. We HATE the spotlight!
I do not need a bibliographic footnote referencing the particular Seinfeld episode, I need a context footnote to remind that Nazi used to be an universally negative term!
Heathcliff: I think the hype towards the world cup, is that really… we need a fun distraction.
I mean, similar to how in Final Fantasy 10, people obsess over the fictional sport “Blitzball” to distract themselves from the giant invincible whale monster attacking cities.
MW: OK, there’s still a chance for this story line to redeem itself. Come on, don’t screw this up, Moy — oh. Sigh. Just realized what I was saying.
Mary Worth:
Alice: Oh, I get it: the pretzels are reference to that ‘These pretzels are making me thirsty’, another Seinfeld food bit, which means that the soups is…uh…well, let’s just be glad they stopped before they got to the ‘most sensuous of the cured meats’.
DtM Gotta disagree with you there George: I don’t see Dennis anywhere near. Surely you could at least thank the Good Lord for a bit of respite while you eat?
Healthcliff: “Its a serious viral infection first observed in soccer players. We’re putting Gramps and the boy in quarantine but the CDC said we’re going to have to put the cat down”
MW “How much of good? Very much? Mostly much? Sorry, I already huffed some paint on the way over…”
MW; I felt compelled to listen to The Pusher by Steppenwolf.
MW: Not to “defend” anything in this honky, but maybe his name is Vincent Reno?
Alice:
“It was enough to make my hair stand on end. Of course, my hair always stands on end.”
Alice footnote #2: “These pretzels are making me thirsty,” The Alternate Side, Season 3, Episode 11.
Alice: Has the writer ever heard the term “Don’t explain the joke”?
Alice: I usually say “If ___ happens in this strip, I will forgive it”
Just saying, if Alice ends up as an obese blob like the mother in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” that might actually be entertaining.
Reno appears to be an alien who’s aware of the underground drug trade in which we hu-mans indulge, but isn’t totally familiar with the vernacular. “You wanna score a deal? Feel free to peruse my ample store of narcotics.”
DtM: I can’t tell if that’s a window behind them, facing towards the neighborhood, or if it’s a painting of an idyllic neighborhood setting.
Heathcliff Either the buns are so stale they are almost petrified and are neither squished nor crumbled by repeated kicks, or they’re playing with plastic toy food – but either way, I don’t want to ever get invited over to their BBQ
Wilbur has nothing but scorn for Tommy and yet Tommy is the only person in the world who gives a damn about Wilbur’s opinion! Truly, they are made for each other!
Tommy’s going to buy drugs to slip into Wilbur’s mayo. Wilbur is then going to dance in his Speedos on Chareterstone’s roof and serenade Iris. Mary will then take him out by using a drone to drop a muffin on him.
@Horace Broon, yesterthread: On the other hand, when CK was offline through Seattle Times, I went to USA Today and found “Legend of Bill”. Later, I went back to Seattle Times, started to do a deep dive, which became a rabbit hole, because I was waiting for the paywall that never came, and ended up looking at a year’s worth of strips.
Andy Capp: I guess in a city of 92,600, there might be bars Andy hasn’t been to and, concomitantly, barflies who don’t know him, but someone finding him handsome? Frankly, I don’t think anyone finds him anything with that cap covering his face all the time!
Dick Tracy: Sincerely want advice on how to pronounce aloud “HA-HA!1! LOL, NØØB!” Is Troll a tonal language, like !Kung or Cherokee that requires special characters to romanize?
Family Circus: “Feed me, Dolly! FEED ME!”
Mary Worth: “Oh yeah? Wilbur Weston thinks I’m a hopeless loser bad seed junky bound to relapse? I show him … that he’s right!”
Peanuts: Just a shout out to this storyline where Charlie Brown has an anxiety attack, there’s no adults anywhere to care for him (his parents are at some kind of adults-only “Barber’s Picnic”), and so he checks himself into the ER. Now that he’s in the hospital, he’s been left all alone on a gurney to wonder if he’s already dead and if anyone actually cares about him enough to tell him if he were. Whimsy!
DtM:
“You’d think that after 75 years of this kid’s annoying behavior, I’d simply change the locks on the doors, or just not led the kid in!”
@MKay:
LUANN: Does Bernice even know what an introvert IS? We do not want the spotlight, or any portion of the spotlight. We HATE the spotlight!
Bernice started calling herself an “introvert” because she needed an explanation as to why all her friends were doing interesting things without her, while she was spending all summer cooped up in her room reading mermaid porn. She decided it was because they were “extroverts” while she is an “introvert”.
@Anonymous: “Cocaine is really popular among…the same guy”
MW Either Tommy is planning one of the fake-outs already noted, he’s somehow arranged as he stormed off to do a sting for the police to prove he’s clean, or Brigman is upset that she has to draw this.
FG And the lesson is that trial by combat _works_, folks!
MW: “I’ll show them in not a junkie. Would a junkie kill his former dealer and steal all his drugs? He would? Well, anyway, thanks for letting me lie low at your apartment for a bit, Mary.”
@Anonymous:
It could be a fun running gag, like how Columbo’s oft-mentioned wife never actually appears in Columbo. Anyway, I’d read the hell out of BEEDIE.
@The Rambling Otter: At the risk of starting another “The Dress” controversy, I’ll say painting. The purple rectangle works if it’s a picture matte, but not as the framing of a window.
@MKay: That’s not what introversion is. Plenty of introverts (even more than extraverts, I’d wager) are highly active on social media. That’s because they can set their own pace of interaction, take time to think about what they’re communicating, and carefully curate their feeds. This allows them social discourse without the pressure and energy drain of in-person interactions.
Introverts are just people who expend energy to interact with people and use quiet personal time to recharge.
RMMD: Looks like Josh was wrong about Rene/Jimmy. He still prefers Rene; it’s just that his nieces are dumb as bricks.
[studying Heathcliff background] Is that a soccer ball or a small moon? Knowing this strip, my guess is both.
Mary Worth is funnier if you assume that the part of Reno is being played by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist/occasional actor Flea, much funnier if you assume the part is being played in Flea’s trademark disturbingly high-pitched voice, and much much funnier if you assume the part is being played with a sock around Reno’s dick. I’m sorry, those are the rules, I do not make them.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Wilbur is then going to dance in his Speedos on Chareterstone’s roof and serenade Iris. Then they’ll find out that powder Reno sold is just baby laxative, and that’s just Wilbur being Wilbur.
Alice suddenly makes sense, knowing that the artist, like most cartoonists is probably approaching retirement age if not a little older, and threatened by kids, technology, and updated cultural references. In other news, Alice suddenly makes sense and I need to go back to bed for a little bit.
@Comically Challenged: God, I love that there are other people here who get my niche musical tastes.
MW: Turns out Tommy is addicted to sexual performance drugs. Dawn takes it hard.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Alice also makes sense if she’s into Hammond’s Chocolate-Covered pretzels, created in a tiny factory behind a row house in Lancaster, PA and undoubtedly the most delicious things you ever did taste. Hammond’s, located at 716 S. West End Avenue, tell them Alice sent you (and they’ll look at you funny).
Heathcliff — Gramps, boy, and eponymous hero all look as though they’re OK, but VAR will show that Heathcliff is offsides by a whisker and there was a foul in the buildup to the grilling. . .
MW — “I’ve got Yellow Top, WMD, and the blue stuff. . . Everything I know about drug branding I learned on TV!”. . .
Alice — “Death By Chocolate: The Pretzels” ls the sequel nobody wanted. . .
Heath: Somehow, the miniature ice rink they’re standing on in mid summer is the least weird thing about this strip.
Mr. Wilson’s been hitting the sauce again. Look how rosy his nose is! Mrs. Wilson knows she’s in for a long night of his endless diatribes about a 5-year-old child so she’s going to finish her peas and thin slice of ham on Wonder Bread and go to bed early.
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This seedy back alley drug deal is the first time I’ve ever thought it kind of adorable that Karen Moy has no idea how real people talk to each other.
@Hibbleton: He gets up at the crack of Dawn!
“This here is my sampler bag, made up of pills I found on the ground near the nursing home. Twenty bucks!”
H&L: Ditto is giving the universal sign for choking and desperately needs someone to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him but Chip and Lois are too self-absorbed to even notice. Trixie, I assume, is floating somewhere in the middle of the gulf stream.
Alice – Shame on you, Alice! You know perfectly well that your diet calls for you to eat 300 yogurt-covered pretzels.
Dennis – Mr. Wilson is thankful for sliced pork with pink frosting.
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: PUBLIC SPEAKING EXPERT]
“I’m going to give a speech to my employees. How do I choose a topic?”
“Simple!”
“Just pick something you know more about than they do”
“Today I will be discussing the secret world government controlled by the flying saucer people”
@Anonymous, @Lauralot: Looking at these two Mary Worth panels, I feel like I’m seeing one of Baja Gaijin’s mashups. Next we’ll see Vin/Reno holding a baby’s rattle, a giant hamburger, a flaming meteor, a falling air conditioner…
MW-“I’ll show that Wilbur. I’ll do all the drugs in front of him.”
@The Rambling Otter:
MW: Wait… wait… wait…!
If I grasp at straws enough.
If Reno’s first name actually is Vincent
Maybe that’s some sort of reference to Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction?
Vega(s)… Reno?
@Peanut Gallery: I imagine Brigman’s attitude was, if Moy is recycling the plot I can recycle the artwork.
FC-“Nobody’s going to get that joke, Dolly,” Jeffy says.
Tommy gets back onto drugs, in which Dawn finds out, and promptly cries out “DAD WAS RIGHT!”
Welp… it was nice knowing all of you, before all of reality implodes upon itself.
@60 Peanut Gallery: I haven’t dropped an air conditioner on anyone in a while. Far too long. Nor any flaming poo. Maybe the weekend strips’ll inspire a mashup or two.
@63 Ken: Oh yeah, I love that she recycles artwork. Makes making mashups far easier. Often I only need to change clothing color to integrate 4 year old panels into current strips.
H&L: Shark tracker app? Good thing legacy comic readers don’t have to worry about bacteria counts and red tide algae blooms.
Dustin: Like she gave you a real phone number, Dustin. The photo of you up on the wall next to the FBI Ten Most Wanted list next to the entrance isn’t doing you any favors either.
BG&SS: Here’s where the art fails the joke. This Herk! Gak! Gag! food looks like every other dish in the comic except slightly less brown and more grey.
Hagar should take this offer. It will soon be the last piece of technology in old Vikingland which he doesn’t need to subscribe to in order to use.
Luann: Ox is becoming my favorite character in this comic.
“They’ve got World Cup Fever, and are show terminal symptoms of brain damage! Look at them, batting around hotdogs and hamburgers when there’s a perfectly good soccer ball right there. They’re goners. We have to keep them out of the house to survive!”
“Yeah, gotta red card ’em.”
“What did you say?” Cocks gun.
FC: Slightly off screen is Thel’s other bush with its own bud. But this is a newspaper comic.
Luann:
This week has been so bad I am tempted to download every comic of this story and show them to the American Psychological Association.
@pugfuggly: Re Alice – I’m even more thankful that they stopped before deciding to have a contest.
FC – The original caption added “This bud’s for you,” but Budweiser got all snippy about it.
Frazz – Caulfield should have known that. He’s an expert on bullshit.
Pluggers – That should be a dog plugger. Cats wouldn’t go near water.
Sorry, Josh, but Alice is clearly saying “Zoo Chocolate-Covered Pretzels” (the Alice-verse equivalent of Circus Peanuts).
@Powers: And likewise plenty of introverts in performing arts, a space where they can express themselves and connect with people in a structured, controlled manner. Some, like David Bowie and Lady Gaga, even construct outwardly flamboyant stage personas as an extra layer of protection. Once again it must be stated that Bernice isn’t boring because she’s an introvert, she’s boring because she has the personality of a damp saltine and a disdain for fun and joy that would make a Puritan uncomfortable.
Alice: Alice’s absurdist whimsy doesn’t do it for me the way Heathcliff does. Maybe if she expressed herself with helmet slogans and food-based pantomime?
DtM: If all you have to complain about is the mildly rambunctious kid next door, I’d say you need to clap those hands together and start thanking God already.
MW: Tommy, I beg you to reconsider. Do you want to give Wilbur Weston the chance to say “I told you so?” We’d never hear the end of it!
BB: So……An Army lieutenant’s hitting on a private…No further comment. I just wanted to mention it.
LUANN: I’ve got to hand it to Ox here. I think the world could potentially be less of a train wreck if more people just asked (themselves as well as others), “Why?”.
No sympathy for Martha. Don’t do the indulgent little smile when Dennis annoys your husband if you can’t do the heavenward eyeroll when your husband rants about him later.
Alice- stealing Seinfeld jokes? It tracks, as this is a strip about nothing.