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Archive: Gil Thorp

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Don’t let his communist clinic branding fool you: Drew’s a class enemy

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Gil Thorp, 6/11/21

I guess what’s going on here is that each of the Coaches Thorp is sitting with their own student-athlete in the teen vs. teen’s girlfriend’s dad library board interview competition, and “we’re all rooting for the library” is some kind of statement of neutrality, like “We may disagree on the details but I’m sure whoever wins will do a great job for this institution that we all respect, so let’s all just go out there do our best.” That’d be a lot more believable if Katy’s dad’s whole platform wasn’t literally defunding the library. Anyway, I assume that weird hand position in panel three is Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp getting ready to throw up some really exaggerated chef’s kiss gestures when Katy’s dad loses.

Pluggers, 6/11/21

You know what hour a plugger is happiest? When they manage to doze off, their troubles and cares briefly annihilated by blessed unconsciousness. It’s only an hour, though, when they pass out in their chair from pure exhaustion; presumably they spend the night tossing and turning in bed due to their various anxieties and disappointments. “Lots of pluggers everywhere” wrote in with this one!

Mary Worth, 6/11/21

God damn it, Ashlee, don’t you dare go soft on me, returning sad Drew’s precious Rolex from his dead mom! The only acceptable thing happening here is that you’ve realized the Coreys have generational wealth and you need to be working on a much more ambitious grift.

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Can’t tell if running the strip sidewise is supposed to be yet another joke or just annoying

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Six Chix, 6/2/21

Sorry, folks, I can’t even deal with the ostensible joke here because of the bird’s use of “peeps” to refer to fellow birds, which is both not really related to the punchline of the strip and frankly too cute by half. There’s an old bit of comedy jargon that calls this sort of thing, where two unrelated jokes distract from each other, “putting a hat on a hat.” You should generally remove whichever one of the jokes is less funny, which I realize is hard to do in scenarios where neither is funny, but I think this strip is good evidence the leaving both in isn’t helping.

Gil Thorp, 6/2/21

Wait a minute, the library board isn’t an elective body or even appointed by elected officials, but is just a self-selecting oligarchy where current members choose new members based on their own self-serving and inscrutable criteria? That’s it, my mind’s totally changed on this whole library situation, Abel Brito needs to force his way onto this board by whatever means necessary and end this medieval institution by burning it to the ground.

Mary Worth, 6/2/21

Oh, sorry, it looks like before Ashlee sashays out of Drew’s life, expensive Rolex in hand, she’s going to get together with him for one last lunch for old time’s sake and absolutely roast him for his many personal failings.

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This Ain’t The Spring 2021 Baseball Season Plot of Gil Thorp XXX: A Porn Parody

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Gil Thorp, 5/28/21

They say a happy marriage is one where each partner can still surprise the other, and by that definition my longtime partnership with soap opera comic strips has still got it. When this saga began at the library board meeting, little could I guess that it would lead here here, with a librarian gently letting a teen boy that she’s been acutely aware of his erotic assignations in the stacks, and looking over her glasses as she asks pointedly if he lacks for company tonight.

Hi and Lois, 5/28/21

Every once in a while, Hi and Lois likes to remind you that Beetle Bailey is Lois’s brother. Look, Chip has a picture of his Uncle Beetle on his nightstand! Also, it looks like Beetle has left the army and works for a fast food franchise now? Or maybe he’s joined a Communist army?

The Lockhorns, 5/28/21

I guess the joke here is that Leroy has made so little impression that his boss doesn’t even know his first name, but it’s pretty clear based on the banner that none of the underlings know their boss’s name either! Just a real sad lack of workplace camaraderie all around.