Two-Fisted Tales Of Thrift Store Ennui
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The Lockhorns, 11/7/26
Sure, Loretta is speaking first and foremost as a shopaholic here, but this is the sort of thought process that can really send someone down some rabbit holes. I’m excited for her to develop an interest in the arcane details of the commercial real estate market, learning more and more about prevailing rental prices, zoning rules, and urbanist theories around placemaking until eventually she’s getting into vicious fights about parking minimums on the r/Levittown subreddit.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/7/26
This week’s Rex Morgan “plot” has been a series of strips where Mindy has been shopping at a thrift store and having extremely banal thoughts about the items there, and the whole thing has been so full of nothing happening that it’s practically avant-garde, but now … something has happened! And what’s happened is that Mindy has bumped into a lady who looks super depressed. Is she going to take some time to find out what’s going on with this sad sack? Well, probably not, she has Buck to deal with, that’s emotionally trying enough for anyone.
Luann, 11/7/26
Do you have thoughts about what Brad and Toni should name their baby? Head on over to Luann Fan dot com to share them! I assume there’s some way to share them, based on the little message at the bottom of panel three. Not going over there to find out, though. I already checked the website out once for you people in September and don’t plan to do so again. I’m pretty sure doing that gets you put on a list. A list of people who have visited Luann Fan dot com twice! Maybe you’re willing to risk it but I don’t care to.
29 replies to “Two-Fisted Tales Of Thrift Store Ennui”
Blondie: Blondie, if you want your “garage cleaned,” June Morgan highly recommends eager beaver Niki for the “job.”
Dennis the Menace: Which came first, Alice’s cooking or the Late Thread Cuisine mid-century culinary horrors?
Dustin: Thank goodness I can say in full confidence, “No visible DustDad nipples in today’s strip.”
Hi and Lois: The worst start to a gay porno ever.
Hi and Lois: If this were an older “Beetle Bailey,” Thirsty’s hat knobs would be vibrating up a storm in anticipation of boinking Hi.
Mark Trail: What evidence did Slyock find to prove Reeky Rat stole the illegal shrimp?
Phantom: Is The Ghost Who Disguises wearing his stripy underdrawers under his civvies? It’d be hilarious if a Coppertone Ad happens…
Pluggers: Ha ha! The plugger forgot to wear his Depend Undergarment today. Ha ha! No, wait, lots of people have problems with urinary and fecal incontinence, not just pluggers.
Lockhorns:
It might be a touch difficult for the landlord to re-rent that space, seeing as how there’s no contact information for interested prospects anywhere on the storefront.
Evans should see if Disney will pay him to name the baby “Iam DeGroot” (touches finger to ear) I’m being told they’ll pay him to name it anything else
Slylock Fox without Slylock Fox (and Max!): Does Slylock Fox without Slylock Fox (and Max!) work?
MT Among all the Doesn’t Work That Way nu-Trail things, invasive shrimp that grow wings and fly out of pet fish tanks to infest the local waterways has to be the Doesn’t Work That Way-iest
GT “So do you also find the game _drags_ with 4 downs?” “Duuude – and the ball feels _tiny_. I miss home.” “My parents _so_ want to be Sports Big Shots so off we go south of 49″ ” ‘nobody will care even about _college_ games if we stay’ – oh yeah, I feel ya”
MW How did you know I’m under a curse to tell the truth to anyone who brings me vegetable-based baked goods? Carrot cake and zucchini bread compel me to confess all my faults!
Phantom Say what you will about Imaginary Fascist Country, but they sure seem to be fully racially integrated at least! You could field a Sgt Fury squad with these guys!
Rex Morgan: Man — after decades of trying to pick up women in bookstores, wait until Buck hears about this!
Luann: Hey, Brad, your sister is named Luann DeGroot, isn’t she? That’s a pretty good burn on her! Although, come to think of it, no one ever calls her “Lu.” For that matter, Dustin of Dustin never gets called “Dust.” Do you people even read the comics?
Lockhorns: “There’s nothing sadder than an empty storefront, Leroy… nothing.” “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about our marriage!”
Luann:
How about a combination of their two names, like “Boni” or “Toad”?
DtM: Six peas and a slice of squash? I might have been a little hasty in criticizing Dennis for shit talking his mom’s cooking.
RMMD:
“Which is a shame, because this is a first-print edition of The Canterbury Tales.”
@2 Baja Gaijin: The linked content is somehow inappropriate for the uploading service. It’s just the Coppertone print ad with the dog pulling down the little girl’s bathing suit bottom. To think that image was all over print media and billboards throughout the US for decades, with no one objecting.
Maybe that’ll be my Pluggers entry: “You’re a plugger if you remember when casual pedophilia was everywhere.”
LHs: I’d really like to know what is running through Loretta’s head during that ellipsis. “…trainwrecks…childhood cancer…genocide…nope! Still sadder…”
RMMD: I’m going to guess that that woman has a dustjacket but no book. Soon they’ll be the best of friends!
Luann: You know, it was kinda funny when Brad and Toni were just The Worst as a couple but now they’re bringing a child into mix it seems a lot less so. Poor Roo–…ugh, I can’t even type it out.
@BigTed:
On Luann : I, personnally, am betting big on Bwad & Toni naming their kid “Luann DeGroot”, because then the strip can kill the original off, do a timeskip, and reboot the strip by focussing on the NEW Luann! It would explain why the baby is coming out in mid-march, that’s the strip’s anniversary date! Like, I’m pretty sure the strip would improve if the main character was a sixth grader again!
ALSO : I did send a submission to their “Come up with 5 names”. I’m a wuss and a coward, though, so all I did was tell them that “Carol” and “Doris” are “exclusively a BOY’s name”, and suggested “Berenice” and “Lenore” for girl names (“Madison” for gender neutral)
ALSO ALSO : Which of the Evansii added Toni thinking Brad’s idea of naming their daughter Ruth-but-spelled-stoopid is a good idea? Or were they just trolled by their editor, and now they have to deal with the fact that a stupid idea Toni was meant to dismiss is something she agreed with?
@Baja Gaijin:
“What happened to Max, anyway?”
“He left for some reason, in a huff.”
“Really? — where did mad Max go?”
“Beyond the Thunderdome!”
MW: Mary looks less concerned and more like Dr. Jeff accidentally entered through the back door.
Luann:
So we came in on the middle of a conversation here, but I’m assuming Brad and Tony are deciding that their child should take Brad’s last name, rather than Tony’s, because “Degroot” sounds “real”, which is frankly not an adjective I would have chosen to describe it—I wasn’t even convinced it was real at all untill I checked and discovered people have in fact had the surname Degroot. Anyway, I didn’t remember what Tony’s last name is, but for my sins I looked it up, and it turns out it’s Daytona. Frankly that is a way cooler last name than Degroot, plus they’re considering the first name “Scooter”, so they’re really getting a running start on messing up their kid’s life.
Wrecks Moregone:
Oh, look, that’s someone after a session of being meddled by Mary Worth.
Wary Morth:
“How did you find out that carrot muffins are my kryptonite?!?!???”
@Vulpes:
Yeah, yesterday, Brad also argued that Daytona would be a cooler last name, but Toni’s reason for insisting that they use Brad’s last name for their kid was essentially “I hate my family, I like yours better.”
Murky Tail:
Carcinisation kicked in suddenly, those blue shrimp evolved into blue crabs, and walked away.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes, now Buford and Rachel can get down to having sex in the bathtub without being disturbed by the red jackal and the yellow rat.
So, names that sound like letters are bad, names that can be shortened (as in, almost every name ever) are bad, but rhyming names… are good? What?! Who-?! Wh-?! Did they both just fall down the stairs and land on their heads? Now I know why that lady in Rex Morgan looks like that: she can see today’s Luann from up there.
@Bob Tice: ‘She’s Boni, she’s Boni, leave her a-lone-nee!’
MW: Welp, *THAT* sure was easy!
JP: I know Neddy’s supposed to be indicating ‘Scout’s Honor’ to reinforce her promise to return, but it looks more like she’s thinking ‘whew, thank God *that’s* over with. Deuces, bitch, I’m outta here!’
RMMD: This woman will reveal she’s dying of cancer and will give Mindy her daughter, thus completing Mindy’s reverse-Morgan set of kids so the strip can finally become ‘The Adventures of Buck n’ Truck n’ Buddies’.
Dr. Jeff has never even entered through the front door.
@Anonymous: there’s no way this strip has an editor. No human could stay sane.
“And we’re back on America’s Next Top Spy! The agents have to make a brush-pass on an unsuspecting civilian in a crowded thrift shop. And here goes Maggie, she’s already losing points because she looks so depressed, you have to look like just another face in the crowd and . . . oh, Control didn’t like that, an audible bump during the brush-pass, and the civilian notices. Control is scoring now, and that’s a 4.5 from Kim Philby, a 3 from Aldrich Ames, and a surprisingly high 8 from Yuri Nosenko that’s not going to save Maggie’s overall score and will continue to feed rumors that Angleton’s interrogation of Yuri actually resulted in brain damage.”
LUANN: On the Boring Scale, a blow-by-blow pregnancy is right up there with Gil Thorp’s minute-by- minute football games.
RMMD: I can’t remember; is Mindy buying junk to re-resell at her own thrift business, or is she just a hoarder?
MW: “How did you know that the absence of carrot muffins was the ONLY thing standing between me and a life of pure happiness?”
I don’t like it when parents give their kids “trendy” or “cool” names just for the sake of trendy or cool names with no thought put into it.
Rhoothe? Seriously?
They don’t think of what the kid will think having that name.
I mean, it would be (if anything) less degrading if they just named their kid “Roo” or… “Ruu” or “Rhu”
Still stupid yeah.
The whole world’s been abandoned and no one bothered to tell the Lockhorns? Leroy remains neutral to the situation until he finds if that includes his mother-in-law.