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Gil Thorp, 4/13/05

I admit it: I’ve only been reading Gil Thorp for a few months. I’m a Thorpie-come-lately. I’m not up on my Thorpiana. I have a hard time telling these square-jawed, flat-topped jocks apart. And so until yesterday I hadn’t given much thought to goateed radio personality Marty Moon, whose life is apparently so empty and meaningless that he has nothing better to do than to serve as lone play-by-play announcer for every game of every sport Milford plays. I always assumed that he mainly existed to help the reader follow the action on the court/field/diamond/rink/ring/cage/whatever, and that the Milford athletic department was probably to some degree grateful for his fanatical if somewhat puzzling dedication to high school sports in general and to their team in particular.

But now Marty (who, we’ve learned, is really named “Martin Munenhausen”) is being hauled off to the clink, while Gil and his freaky-haired assistant just smirk smugly to themselves. What gives? Is this another Barry Bonds-style falling-out between the athletic establishment and the media that fails to be sufficiently reverent? If so, Coach Thorp can’t find a more willing objectivity-eschewing media mouthpiece than his own injured player.

Anyway, the best part of this strip, apart from the rent-a-cops in neckties, in the crowd scene in panel three. Gil Thorp crowds are always full of wacky characters, as if a film studio’s entire complement of extras decided to take in a high school baseball game after a hard day’s work. I’m particularly fond of the creepy dude with the combover, dark glasses, and striped polo shirt at the bottom left. He looks like the type who really ought to be prevented by restraining order from coming too close to school athletic events. Meanshile, the guy behind him is waving his arms around as if to say, “Hey, ma, look at me! I’m on the radio!”

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Gil Thorp, 4/4/05

OK, so Ludacris probably isn’t going to make an appearance, but at least we’ve got drug dealing! Yes, it seems that Hutch Renfro — who only days ago stolid Coach Thorp was praising for his spark or his zing or his moxie or his fullness of beans or some such — is full of a bit more than beans. Which one of Milford’s indistinguishable student-athletes will be the first to succumb to Hutch’s slick “stuff” push? Will it be, um, the guy who lost all the weight? Or, uh, one of the other guys? Or Steve Luhm, whose bulbous hair and Buddy Holly glasses are creeping in from the left edge of frame three? Once the first victim gets hepped up on coke or meth or what have you, there’ll at least be some vague excuse for the twitchy, spastic pacing of this strip.

By the way, the fact that “the no. 1 dealer at Milford” is setting a fifty-cent maximum bet at his poker game tells me that Milford is every bit as lame as I think it is.

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Gil Thorp, 3/29/05

I know there’s such a thing as sharing too much, even in the world of blogs, but I have to tell you all that if Ludacris actually makes an appearance in Gil Thorp, it is very likely that I will crap myself. If nothing else, it’s good to see Coach Thorp, who’s normally something of an insufferable know-it-all, get thrown by the crazy street lingo that his inner-city athletes are using. I look forward to coming strips in which the kids try to explain that in certain semantic contexts, “bad” can actually mean “good.” By the end of the week, Gil will be calling plays in that crazy Snoop Dogg “izzle” language.

Normally the art in this strip is about as subtle as all the male characters’ haircuts, but I have to admit that I like the way newly svelte Brent’s hoodie sags out at the gut in panel 1 — see, he’s lost weight so fast that he hasn’t even had time to shop for a new wardrobe yet! On the other hand, the hood itself isn’t so expertly rendered; panel two looks like it was aiming for 8 Mile, but hit Ren Fair instead.

By the way, you read it here first: this storyline is going to be a Gil Thorp stab at ripped-from-the-headlines topicality. Brent lost all that weight not because he hired a personal trainer, but because he stopped taking steroids. Possibly after seeing a public service announcement recorded by Ludacris.

(And yes, I know, Pimp My Ride is Xzibit. C’mon, how often do I get to use the word “pimp” as a verb?)