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Gil Thorp, 12/15/23

Oh, wow, I think this is the first year we’re ever seeing ice hockey take its rightful place in the pantheon of Mudlark sports! And it’s truly a line up of large, beefy boys signing up to participate. You know, I grew up in Buffalo, a huge hockey town, but the school district didn’t run a varsity hockey league because of the liability issues, so instead we had a “club league” that was technically not affiliated with or run by the district, but each team only had students from one school and was coached by one of the school’s gym teachers and had pep rallies before big games in our auditorium. The uniforms were a different color from the other teams, which I guess provided enough plausible deniability? Anyway, the Valley Conference isn’t even doing that sort of charade, though this is the same state where for-profit prisons can legally pit juvenile delinquents against each other on the gridiron, so I guess aggressive tort reform long ago replaced the civil court system with “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

Hi and Lois, 12/15/23

Hey, Hi and Lois, it’s almost the weekend! Lighten up a little, you do not need to go this hard with the Mr. Wavering strips.

Intelligent Life, 12/15/23

Oh no

Oh no

Who’s gonna tell her

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Dick Tracy, 11/30/23

I have to admit that it’s a little discomfiting to learn that X. Libris, a wealthy, sinister rare book collector who dresses in a severe black suit all the time and looks exactly like Cate Blanchett, belongs to a Planet Fitness where she goes after work to lift free weights of whatever. I was going to grudgingly acknowledge that this humanizes her a bit, but you know what? Part of Dick Tracy’s whole deal is that its villains are inhumanized, in the sense that their skulls and faces are deformed in disturbing and biologically improbable ways and they die impossibly agonizing deaths, so I’m going to have to give today’s strip a thumbs down.

Gil Thorp, 11/30/23

Welp, it took more than a year, but it seems finally everyone’s acknowledged that Gil is a Newly Divorced Dude, and so the question arises: Is he getting the emotional support he needs as he goes through this huge change in his life Who’s he gonna have sex with? Is it this kid’s grandmother? Apparently everyone in town wants a piece, but this kid was thoughtful enough to get dibs for his grandmother.

Hi and Lois, 11/30/23

“Please, just a few moments of human contact! You usually leave me alone on the floor in the middle of the living rooms for hours at a time. You don’t even close the curtains! I’m so sunburned!”

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Gil Thorp, 11/27/23

Happy postprandial Monday, all, and welcome to The Misdirect, Chapter 4 of the Barajas Era of Gil Thorp, America’s #1 newspaper comic for confusing sports action. After besting Valley Tech’s football team (I think?) by injuring one of their key players, Coach Thorp is ready to move on to basketball season, while Coach Ochoa is handing [squints] lacrosse (…?) duties. Coach Martinez, meanwhile has realized that the success of the [squints harder, eventually gives up] TBD team on the [shorthand for the TBD team’s playing surface or arena] matters less than branding, which is why he’s installed an enormous Milford/Martinez M in ominous red and black to loom over the gym, emphasizing to student-athletes and fans alike that they constitute One Team, One School, One Volk.

Pluggers, 11/27/23

Remember a million years ago, when, during a Super Bowl halftime show, Justin Timberlake tore a small piece of Janet Jackson’s outfit off, semi-revealing her breast, which was still mostly covered by an elaborate nipple ring appliance, and there were huge raging debates over whether this was intentional or a “wardrobe malfunction?” Like many incidents we all have to pretend are meaningful in some way, it sounds insane if you describe it in hindsight, but anyway, pluggers definitely remember. Pluggers remember, and to pluggers, their head is a boob and the slow work of time and decay is Justin Timberlake’s dextrous hand, about to free their head-boob for their loved ones and all of America to unexpectedly see.