Archive: Gil Thorp

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Well, sprinting through three days of comics in only a few hours was fun, but now I must wrap up the evening’s activities with your comments of the week. I promise not to leave you to your own devices for so long until Christmas! But before we hit the week’s top comments, I have a little merch plugging to do. Faithful reader Dingo writes:

I was the grand prize winner of the Canada Great Outdoors contest and won a weeklong fishing trip to northwest Ontario for me and a guest. I took my father. The highlight is that we weren’t just fishing; we were fishing with Babe Winkelman and it was being videotaped for one of his shows. The episode will air sometime in January. I, of course, could not pass up the opportunity to wear Curmudgeon clothing.

That’s an official Gail Martin t-shirt, which Dingo himself designed (see here for the backstory). And now the shirt (and its creator!) will be on the TV! How exciting!

But perhaps even more exciting is … the COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Wow, Rusty … Sassy stopped publishing, like, 14 years ago. Someone should break it to the kid. Gently.” –UnknownEric

And the runners up! Super thrilling!

“WTF is up with Toby’s face? Was ‘the trip to Scotland’ really code for ‘went for a facelift by a barber in Tijuana’?” –Farley’s Revenge

West View Singles are highly heteronormative. Your options are ‘man seeking a woman,’ ‘woman seeking a man,’ ‘depressed loser seeking a cancer patient,’ or ‘widow/er seeking misery.’ There is no ‘person seeking cancer’ as everybody there is soon to get it anyway. But are we to believe there are no gay people in West View? Maybe they all buggered off, figuring that if ‘gay’ has any connection to ‘happy,’ they’d best get out of town.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

“What could possibly be on (the habitually-unemployed) Ziggy’s resume? ‘Hostility Sponge (1968 – present). Duties include soaking up the anger and resentment of my fellow human beings, essentially acting as a sentient Sham-Wow for the negativity and alienation of the modern world. Special skills include not killing myself.'” –Joe Blevins

“The very next panel from Apartment 3-G better be Margo rising from her coffin. I will accept nothing less.” –spazmodeas

“Dagwood is a slender man who consumes 3000+ calorie sandwiches in one sitting. I’m thinking there was more than just caffeine in his regular coffee.” –skullcrusherjones

“My fingernails are made of … tightly matted hair? Like on my head? Excuse me, I have to go throw up like 50,000 times.” –Chyron HR

“All I can say about today’s Mark Trail is that one’s pupils should never, ever be larger one’s ears.” –Alan’s Addiction

Jittery?? Haha. Not me. Why, what have you heard? Blondie was fine when I left. Did something happen to her? What? I’m just wondering. How do you get blood stains out of a carpet? No reason. Hey, who’s got a sandwich? Haha. Jittery. Me. Ha.” –Buddy Hopkins: Music Cartoons

“Isn’t ‘fishing trip’ code for ‘birds-and-bees talk’? I’m looking forward to several weeks of Mark explaining to Rusty that when a man loves a woman very much, he goes off into the woods to punch bearded men in the face.” –Dagger

“YES, RUSTY, IT IS TIME. LET US THINK ABOUT A FISHING TRIP. CLOSE YOUR EYES, COME WITH ME. YOU WILL SEE WHAT I SEE. DO YOU SEE THE STREAMS? STEP INTO THEM. DO YOU SEE THE GIANT FISH? SO FREE, SO PURE, THEIR LIVES ENTWINED WITH THE — SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THE — THE HOUSES, THE OTTERS DIVING IN, THE ONES WHO STAND BY AND ONLY FILM, LEFT IN THEIR…THEIR WASTE..LEFT BY THE…humans…The…ACK!..the, (PUNCH), yes, the free, fish…es….the PURE ONES, THE (so much waste, so much wasted waste) FLOATING ONES! DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE? NO….Facial…hair….
YOU WILL SEE I WILL SHOW YOU!
oh, don’t cry, don’t cry your face is smooth like the otter.

YOUR FACE WILL ALWAYS BE OF THE OTTER!

oh dear god what have i done” –peabody

“After weeks of shameless plot-stretch to wrap up the tired saga of Delilah and Lawrence, we are now being treated to an extra bonus week of ‘Mary and Toeby talk about what already happened.’ I’d definitely read ‘Hey, Toeby, remember when you got your identity stolen from a phishing scam?’ ‘Mary, can we not talk about that?’ ‘But it was hilarious!'” –hogenmogen

“I pity those background characters [in Apartment 3-G], too, but at least they orbit bathed in the dark heat from Margo’s sun. Imagine what it must be like for, say, the blond guy who carpools with Dagwood.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Mary, I understand that you’re a-hundred-and-eighty-seven and all, but a black woolen jumper and a blouse buttoned up to your eyebrows still seems like an odd choice for a pool party. Were your ski mask and nun’s habit at the cleaners?” –Violet

I was lucky. I had a PRO as a coach. Unlike you who had a negligent high school whistle-sucking moron whose inept coaching killed a promising career and created a stalker. Oh, too soon?” –Johnny Knuckles

Keep working, young man. I like your arm! When you ruin it just like Marty did, I’ll buy it from you for a buck and put it in my display case.” –Steve S

“Also, Elwood’s cosplay interests are just bikini-clad ESPer warriors and not horrifying empty-eyed pig fursuits.” –commodorejohn

“‘Literally and figuratively’ is about as sexually explicit as I want my Mary Worth to be. It’s like I’m a teenager again and my mother is explaining the physical mechanics of intercourse in code so as not to embarrass herself by mentioning any actual body parts. I bet Tobey says ‘bajingo.'” –StoutHearted

“I thought it might be uncomfortable for Francis to lie on his stomach on the beach without a towel, until I realized he needed to dig a hole in the sand to hide his erection from Momma.” –Patrick

“Momma should just be glad that her sons are attracted to women with normal-shaped bodies. From the looks of the older generation, I’m pretty sure ‘Hobbs’ was shortened from ‘Hobbits’ by an immigration official on Ellis Island.” –BigTed

“Lois has to put little hearts and XOXO’s on her note, so she’ll be sure Hi knows she wants to have sex. Otherwise, Hi might say, ‘Start a family? How does one ‘start’ a family? Do you use a key? Or do you pull a cord, like on a lawnmower? And what do they do once you start them? So many questions! I think I’ll just go trim the hedges instead.'” –Perky Bird

I give prodigious thanks to those who put some money in my tip jar — you know who you are! I’d also thank our advertisers … if there were any who bought BlogAds ads, and who thus get thanked every week! Sadly, there aren’t any this week — maybe next week I’ll be thanking you! To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.

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One Big Happy, 8/27/09

You might think that my favorite One Big Happy character would be Ruthie, standing as she does on the knife’s edge between adorable high-spirited child and wild-eyed maniac. But I’m actually pretty partial to Joe’s moments in the spotlight, as it’s easy to see the belligerent and unemployed 25-year-old in his future. I thoroughly enjoy his third-panel soliloquy in particular, with its casual use of “do me one” and “aw right” (let’s ignore for the moment the fact that “don’t poke my eye in the bouncy house” sounds positively filthy); and I love the fact that whatever adult that retreating back in panel one belongs to has completely checked out by the end of the comic, leaving Joe to angrily berate a plastic penguin.

Mary Worth, 8/27/09

My goodness, is this the first evidence we’ve had that Mary is not, in fact, omniscient? Mary seems to think that all Delilah did was wander around the sterile Chartersone grounds for a bit ruminating on how great it was to be married to the bland, emotionally absent Lawrence; she apparently knows nothing about Delilah’s visit to Charley’s terrifying sex lair. Is Mary not perhaps the all-seeing, all-controlling puppetmaster that she seems to be? Or is she simply leaving out the most exciting part of this story because she fears that Tobey, too, will be tempted to test her devotion to her bearish Scottish spouse by checking out her neighbor’s art … of a kind?

Gil Thorp, 8/27/09

Well, this Gil Thorp summer storyline got dulled up real fast, with rage-maddened stalker Marty DeJong instantly finding personal fulfillment in coaching poor children. But the second panel is pretty poignant, with Marty saying that striking someone out — something he’ll never do again, since he blew his arm out under “Coach” Thorp’s “care” — is the best feeling a human being can experience. Presumably after dropping Casper off at home, Marty will go quietly hang himself from a tree in the Thorps’ front yard; it’s the sort of thing that would devastate Gil, if Gil were the type of guy who cared about things.

Apartment 3-G, 8/27/09

You know, if Margo or even Lu Ann were to tell some dapper gentleman “I want to thank you for last night,” she would mean “I want to thank you for the new heights of physical pleasure we reached together last night.” But this is Tommie, so she means “Thanks for the subtle unpaid grief counseling you offered to my much more interesting roommate last night,” obviously.

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B.C., 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because one of the B.C. characters whose name I don’t remember wants to sleep with one of the other B.C. characters whose name I don’t remember, and thinks the best means to that end is to act like she’s a stripper, or a prostitute!

Gil Thorp, 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because Ted is going to find out how much blow you can buy for $60,000, or get punched in the face, or both!

Family Circus, 8/15/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because the litigious nature of society, which is tearing our civilization and sense of community apart, is ingrained in children at an age so young that it’s impossible to dislodge! Also, it’s funny because their vacation is ruined!