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Archive: Gil Thorp

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Absolutely not looking up what “The Dowe” is. You can’t make me

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Gil Thorp, 6/26/24

It took me a long time staring at the the first panel to put together what’s going on here: Gil’s new squeeze Beth was a server at some instance of “the awards” when Mimi and her new girlfriend were in attendance (not sure when this was? not last year’s Jack Berrill Coach of the Year, I don’t think); having already decided to make Gil her own, she memorized the wine preferences along with all other relevant data points about every woman there within two degrees of sexual separation from him. But now, she has moved from mere waitress to girlfriend, achieving victory, and can get wet and eat after midnight, if you know what I mean! Triumph is Beth’s! Triumph! (“The world of heterosexuals is a sick and boring life,” Mimi’s girlfriend says sadly as the two take their leave from this overt and frankly upsetting display of man/woman love.)

Beetle Bailey, 6/26/24

Beetle is, of course, a dedicated somnophile, ready to sleep in any situation, social niceties be damned. It’s bad enough that he flaunts his ways in the newspaper where children can see, but today we’ve learned that Miss Buxley is ready to follow his example and join him in his sick lifestyle.

Alice, 6/26/24

It’s been 30+ years so I can admit that it always bothered me a little that in some X-Files episodes the mysterious entities they encountered would be sci-fi things like space aliens and in other episodes they were horror things like vampires. Now, of course, I was willing to overlook it there because Mulder and Scully were beautiful and real and my friends, but Alice has not built up that level of goodwill with me and I will not accept the proposition that these weird little green guys are aliens but also ghosts. And literary ghosts at that, from “A Christmas Carol!” (That’s an 1843 novella by Charles Dickens, if you haven’t heard of it.)

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Red-hot SHK! SHK! action

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Family Circus, 6/24/24

I think it’s a not uncommon phenomenon to have one grandmother who, while still loving, is just less on your wavelength than the other one. Like, there’ll be one grandma who’s happy to really get into your shenanigans, and another one whose vibe is more like Grandma Keane here, who is clearly thinking “Oh, was his father this stupid when he was this age? I don’t think he was.”

Gil Thorp, 6/24/24

There are two different kinds of newly partnered up divorced guys: the ones who treat their new relationship as an opportunity to completely remake their life, and get frosted tips and make embarrassing decisions about vehicle purchases; and the ones who simply slot their new partner, hopefully willingly, into the comfortable paired up life they’ve experienced for decades. Anyway, Beth, Gil’s new bartendress lover, seems happy enough to deploy her professional skills in service of the the Thorpian summer tradition of sitting on the lawn and enjoying an icy cold beverage, and hopefully will be equally amenable to other summer traditions, like plotlines on the wackiness level of “juvenile delinquents forced to battle one another for the entertainment of their sadistic warden and an audience of streaming viewers.”

Marvin, 6/24/24

You probably think that being the “comics curmudgeon” is some kind of dream come true. But did you know that sometimes it involves staring at a Marvin panel and seeing purple liquid coming out of Marvin’s diaper, maybe, and trying to figure out if you’re misreading that or if the intended reading is that he’s leaking poop or piss and the colorist is making a desperate attempt to protect us from that knowledge. Also, why are they punishing him? Is this considered a good potty training technique, to punish kids for accidents? I’ve never bought into Freudian theory, but maybe there’s something to it if this is common. On the other hand, I do think Marvin in general needs to be punished more. Being the comics curmudgeon is hard, is my point! I have to think about this stuff every day! For you! For you!

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Guys, I don’t … I don’t really know much about sports

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Beetle Bailey, 6/17/24

OK, it’s probably just a clip art compositing error, but I actually think it’s very in character that Plato is abruptly swapped in for Killer between panels here. Plato is, as his name attests, a philosopher at heart, and is interested in a wide range of human experiences that can help him better understand his fellow humans and their diverse cultural practices. Killer, on the other hand, has a reputation to maintain with the ladies, and smelling like a garbage can is simply not going to help with that at all.

Gil Thorp, 6/17/24

I don’t really follow competitive softball, so, uh, is a 0.751 batting average something someone would actually have, even in a terrific season? That seems less “terrific” and more “oh my GOD” and you’d have media following you around the country. On the other hand, even though a batting average of course represents a decimal number, usually a sportscaster would just say “seven fifty one” not “zero point seven fifty one,” so maybe Keri is getting a hit seven or eight times out of every 10,000 at-bats, which is honestly less impressive.

Rex Morgn, M.D, 6/17/24

Parker and Cory’s friend, three minutes earlier: “But why do people become bullies? ChatGPT, don’t fail me now!”