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Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Mister Kingdom posted:

Did they rip the store out of the ground and drop it in that neighborhood?
The outside looks like an Apple Store, but the interior is a huge open pit so that anyone who actually goes into an Apple Store falls, presumably to their death. This pleases the old people commenting on the situation, who find both Young People and Gizmos to be irritating and worrisome.

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Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Milotic posted:

Wahoo Terminal is pretty funny most days. If it was from anyone else, I reckon the thread would give it more of a pass.
Possibly. Knowing what a creepy, pompous garbage heap Brooke is definitely casts a dark shadow over that strip, to the point where I genuinely can't form an unbiased opinion of it. I mean, it's less terrible and icky than 9CL or Pibgorn, but I know the writer is the most terrible and icky part of those strips. As a result, I'm perpetually half-cringing when I read Wahoo Terminal, just waiting for him to do what he does.


But I am interested in Flash Gordon, so by all means, continue atoning!

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Inspector Danger seems like a very petty and jealous man.
That's definitely true before his fourth drink and after his thirteenth drink. But if you catch him in the 5-8 drink zone, he's pretty chill. (From the ninth to the twelfth he just rants about how much he hates Italians.)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Mary Worth



Probably wrong prediction: Olive's father will get him a job in the cafeteria of his hospital.
I unabashedly love how miserable that guy looks, just standing there waiting to pass out bowls of nondescript glop with his little hat on. "I had a good job, but the company laid me off," he's thinking. "Now I get minimum wage for standing over a steam table. Thanks, God. You dick."

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Rand Brittain posted:

Sarah is just an extension of the strip's general principle of handing the main characters anything they want and a bunch of things they didn't think to ask for without needing to lift a finger. It's just creepier because she's a child, so her attitude of limitless entitlement seems off.
Yeah.

Also, when Rex and June receive their share of unearned and unbounded praise (which they do), it's not really for any particular quality they have or anything unusually great that they've done. Mostly it's for doing things that are fairly basic, like being a doctor who performs CPR on a dying guy, or showing some vague degree of sympathy to one of their friends. We don't see any reason why Rex and June are supposed to be so wonderful, so it just blends in with the general background of inexplicably expensive gifts and unwarranted confidences.

With Sarah, though, we have metrics to compare her to. Everyone's constantly emphasizing how much more special she is than anyone else in the whole world. She's smarter than other kids! She's more talented than other kids! She's wiser than other kids! She's going to be god-emperor of the world! Everyone shall dedicate their very lives to adoring and serving her, forever! Which just reeks of bullshit, naturally, triggering a visceral dislike of her.


The thing is, I suspect that the writer is just accidentally making all of these stories about Sarah the Great and her Sense of All-Encompassing Entitlement. Most likely what he meant to be writing was how Sarah is just another wonderful reward for Rex and June. They're rich white professionals, of course their child is the best, they deserve the best child. She's their trophy for being amazing upper-middle-class suburban heroes: only bad people have ordinary kids. Weirdly, this might be one of the places where "Tell, don't show" would've been the better course to take -- having Rex and/or June blather on about their (unseen and unheard) darling daughter and how gifted she is and how proud they are would seem less off-putting than trying to actually convince us that Sarah is so fuckin' amazing. I mean, at least then nobody would feel weird about how much hate they feel, right?

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Julet Esqu posted:

Speaking of which, I don't know if I'm more terrified that Gilchrist will do a Bowie tribute, or hopeful that Gilchrist will do a Bowie tribute. I know it would be horrific, but I kind of have a sick desire to see it...
What if he gives it the full Candorville treatment -- a solid week of his characters limply eulogizing Bowie, with extra smarminess? Seven straight days of everyone from Fritzi down to that loving dog with the American flag bandanna and the perpetually-depressed teddy bear wearing Ziggy makeup and naming songs. If you're going to fantasize about seeing something horrific, might as well go all the way.

(Not that I think Gilchrist would ever do that. I mean, it's David Bowie, he wasn't a Grand Ol' Opry star or anything. That'll get him a single limp, smarmy eulogy, not a whole week.)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Julet Esqu posted:

Big Ben Bolt
Billy the Kid is going full Don Knotts here, and...I approve. I'm going to just imagine that's who it is from now on.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD

Man, it really feels like this has been the longest stretch of Rex Morgan, MD strips that we've seen where there hasn't even been so much as a hint of turmoil, conflict, or mild inconvenience for them. The ex-nanny got, what, a week or two to worry about how to steal her husband's company and fire her stepson, and ever since then it's just been one long parade of...whatever this is supposed to be. Some kind of anodyne newspaper-subscriber fantasy, I guess, where being a white upper-middle-class professional means that your children are perfect, their tuition at expensive private schools will get paid for by someone else, and your other rich friends will bring you expensive coffee and you will hear nothing but good news, forever and ever, amen. :(

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Jesus christ, we had like a solid month and a half of lead up to the meddle of getting the homeless baker a job right?
I'm not doubting you, but was the homeless guy even a baker? I thought he just said that his wife and kid died and his company (no specific industry mentioned) laid him off. Plus, ol' Mary-Stalking John Dill there isn't even the owner of Pierre's bakery, he's just some apprentice/cake-slave and by all rights shouldn't be able to hire or fire anyone. I mean, he won one cake-decorating contest. ONE. And that was in loving Santa Royale, CA, where fine cuisine goes to die. He's lucky that Pierre isn't making him sleep in the dumpster out back and clean the goddamn ovens with a toothbrush.

Basically, what I'm getting at here is that I'm going to be angry at this comic when the homeless guy magically is revealed as a baker and the stalker mysteriously gets the authority (and budget) to hire him and Mary gets to take a three-week victory lap for making it all happen by putting a dollar in a cup.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Tiggum posted:

Did they just walk into each other? Is that the joke?
Basically, yeah. He calls her, and as she goes into the other room to see what he wants, he's gone into the room where she was to look for her. Not seeing each other, they turn around and go back to where they were originally, and smack into each other.

It's...sort of a joke, I guess, if you're feeling very, very charitable. (Imagine reading it after Funky Winkerbean, 9 Chickweed Lane, and Gilchrist's Nancy, and it's not bad. Not funny or interesting, mind you, just not bad.)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

SomeMathGuy posted:

Mark Trail Featuring Popeye the Sailor Man
So, here we are with another story arc that begins with an absurdly thin premise about a nature story no one would ever actually write, and ends with assault-weapon-toting terrorists/drug dealers/human traffickers trying to murder the gently caress out of the hero. Anyone else getting the impression that the jam esallen didn't really want to do Mark Trail in the first place, and is slowly transitioning the comic into Mack Bolan instead?

I'm not complaining, it's just weird. I mean, back in the days when the wild Jackelrod roamed free, we usually got a steady stream of Mark going on vacation and running into poachers, or hillbillies with shotguns, or wife-beating deer-haters, with occasional detours for Rusty to befriend a small animal before getting his head stuck in a window or something.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

What are they talking about?
Right. So, that's Sam Driver and his wife Abbey Spencer, who are pretty much the main characters of Judge Parker these days. Sam's a lawyer, Abbey's a rich lady who owns a horse farm. In true soap-strip fashion, neither of them have to do much actual work, mostly they just hang around and other people show up to give them money or wineries or whatever. Their two adopted (and brilliant and independently wealthy) daughters live with them, and have their own drama, but generally not the kind that requires Sam or Abbey to do anything.

Anyway, Sam's recently decided that it's easier if he only has one client, Alan Parker, the original Judge Parker in the strip (his son Randy, Sam's old partner, is the new Judge Parker). And he's not wrong about that -- Alan's taken up writing novels, and naturally they're all best-sellers and the movie rights were worth a ton of money and everyone was just so happy to be a part of it that Sam literally did gently caress-all to make any of it possible. I mean, he showed up to a "tough negotiation" for the movie deal with some Hollywood bigwig, and the very first thing that happened was said bigwig just breezily agreeing to a huge amount with absolutely no discussion or hesitation and declaring that he wanted to go fishing with Sam instead. Which ended in some shotgun diplomacy with a pot-growing operation in the back woods that turned into a lucrative solar farm deal (of which Sam also got a cut). And no, that's not actually relevant to this particular storyline, but I feel compelled to mention it, for obvious reasons.

But because he's only got one client now, Sam doesn't need his old office anymore, and seeing as his current law partner -- Steve, the Iraqi war veteran with missing legs -- wanted to go off and marry their secretary and never appear in the comic strip again, Abbey's making a 'home office' for him out in the old barn. Which until recently had a dead rat stinking up the place, and which currently still smells of horse manure. Which I guess is tragic, or something? Poor Sam Driver, with his massive wealth and luxurious home and vast portfolio of lucrative properties and his hot wife -- his future home office which he doesn't even need will have to be deep-cleaned and aired out for a little while.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Gorilla Salad posted:

For someone who is going to spend their life fighting crime until they get brutally murdered in their late 30s, like every Phantom before him, you'd think he'd be less interest in spending half a decade in a monastery hidden in the arse of the world and more interested in say, using his mother's UN credentials and father's Jungle Patrol influence to finagle a place in Quantico learning world leading crime fighting techniques.
Given what the current Phantom gets up to, I don't know that crime-fighting techniques would be all that useful. "Phantom ignores due process and constitutional rights!" -- Old Jungle Saying


Now, a solid course of study on appraising and caring for antiques, with additional courses on how to climate-control a jungle cave so that all the priceless relics you're stealing recovering and keeping in your endless series of treasure rooms won't rot, on the other hand...that's information a Phantom can really make use of.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD



Rex hears Sarah, and he tries to resist, but he cannot. He must obey.
Didn't they just buy a vacation home at a steep discount from that old guy who had no one else to leave it to except his own children, who of course wouldn't want it if it could be a gift to the Morgans instead?

It's just weird that "real estate" has come up twice in such quick succession on the Rex Morgan, MD Wheel of Unearned Profits. I really thought after the free scholarship for Sarah, we were due for a free vacation or maybe a free vehicle or something. (I don't count the free car given to Sarah's babysitter, since Sarah's never going to get old enough to drive it.)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

JaggerMcDagger posted:

Didn't the blackhole comic shop owner get something super valuable when the mom was doing the starbucks jones hunt? Or was that another stuck up comic lover?
The guy in the gated mansion who gave her the hardest-to-find issue so she could complete her collection, right? I thought he was just some rear end in a top hat collector (as demonstrated by the fact that she had to trade something valuable to him to get the issue she wanted, instead of just being gifted it because SUPPORT OUR TROOPS).

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Apartment 3-G



I think we're about to answer the question "Just how stupid is LuAnn anyways?"
Mostly I'm just impressed by what a tremendous goddamn rear end in a top hat Web is. It was hard to imagine caring one way or the other about any of the villains in the end-stage A3G*, but it'll feel good when this guy gets slapped down.


* Well, except for the gas leak that nearly killed LuAnn in her studio. I was rooting so hard for that gas leak to win, I swear.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD

Part of me is hoping that the whale mural the Karate Bimbo's boyfriend painted for them turns out to be worth a lot of money and dramatically increases the resale value of their house, so that they end up with a better home in town at a profit. I assume that part of me wants this so that the rest of me can be even more aggravated by the blessed life of Rex Morgan, Entitled Shithead.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001
What? I thought the Queen specifically owned all dolphins caught (or washed up dead) near England's shore. Did this guy ask permission before he literally ate the Queen's lunch? Because that'd be a terrible thing to go to prison over.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

mastersord posted:

I thought that was swans.
It's swans and "royal fish" (sturgeon, whales, porpoises).

I'd say it was the British equivalent of those antiquated laws in the US about not letting donkeys wear hats in church or whatever, but apparently a guy got arrested in 2004 for catching and selling a sturgeon, so someone over there is taking it seriously.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Tunicate posted:

Oh hey, the baking hobo prophesy in Mary Worth hasn't come true yet.
Holy crap, you're right. I guess it will come to pass while she's on her way home, or soon afterwards. This might be the first time we see someone literally phone in the praise for the obligatory Mary Worth victory lap!

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD

Prediction: the old coot ranting about how this house is rotten to the core just doesn't want sexy(?) grandma here to move out of the neighborhood and is trying to scare off all prospective buyers. The house is actually the greatest house in the entire neighborhood, and Rex's reward for grimacing through a couple of conversations over the next month or so will be that old coot and sexy grandma will hook up more or less on their own and the house will be sold to the Morgans at a steep discount.

Maybe they'll end up renting their old house to the elderly couple just to tie everything up in a neat bow and poignantly illustrate the problem of senior citizens in our country by almost immediately pretending that they don't exist and never mentioning them ever again, I don't know.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Green Intern posted:

I'm pretty certain that those middle two panels should be swapped.
I think it's a different car than the first panel. In panel 1, Martin and some of his gang get shot up by the cops, and he doubles back to try the state highway. Meanwhile, in panel 2 his "follow-up gang" (a different car with different gangsters in it) are roaring down Highway 4 when the cops start shooting at them. The driver of that car decides to keep going, not realizing that the cops blocked off the road with the DEATH TRUCK. Final tally: one gangster car shot up and headed towards another ambush, one gangster car obliterated and everyone in it dead.

(Also, I think the DEATH TRUCK was loaded with explosives? I seem to remember an earlier strip where one of the cops who parked it across the highway was bragging about it. As any good law enforcement officer would, naturally: setting up a trap that will murder the absolute gently caress out of criminals rather than waste time and money on a trial and prison terms? Even Dick Tracy would be impressed!)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Savidudeosoo posted:

Pretty sure Doctor Strange there is just as confused as you are.
He's seen other dimensions, battled elder gods, and spoken to Eternity itself, but the sight of whatever is going on with Spider-Man's pelvis right now is beyond his ability to comprehend.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001
You know, for a guy whose actual job is going into caves and studying bats, Gabe is an enormous wuss about pretty much every goddamn thing to do with spelunking. You'd think he'd be flat-out fascinated by this amazing magic cave they're in, but no, instead he has to be the obligatory useless coward in their adventuring party.

85% chance he gets absorbed by a gelatinous cube when he runs down a tunnel to escape an encounter with 2d4 rats.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Calaveron posted:

Re, Funky Winkerbean; I don't understand how a person who was already a grown man an entire literal life time ago is still alive, let alone spry enough and conscious enough to live by himself and hold conversations with people.
He's alone, bitter, miserable, and poor, and the only way anyone would notice if he died would be when the body started to decompose. Dementia would be a gift. Death would be a blessing. And so, he lives.


What I don't understand is why:

- the star of a movie and his girlfriend would hang around with the two doofuses getting paid to storyboard that movie,
- especially since the only connection between them is that the doofuses went to the same high school she did, some ten or so years after she graduated,
- and why the gently caress any of the four of them would think they could make casting decisions about a movie (or even recommendations).

Basically, none of those assholes had any reason to fly back to the loving midwest to watch an old movie serial together, let alone go on a quest to find the star of that serial and offer him a job that they have absolutely no ability to give him.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Mary Worth



"Here's a picture of us when we met during my days as a Vietnam vet turned private detective in Hawaii, living on a rich author's property."
You know, last week when he was lecturing art students about Leonardo da Vinci, that was a pencil mustache. It really IS amazing what yoga will do for you!

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001
I swear, my first thought on seeing this Ripley's panel was "This should be used in Super Frog."

Admittedly, I think that with most Ripley's comics, but this one in particular is crying out for it. Crazy roller suit, girl covered in bees, T-Rex? Just imagine the kind of poo poo that would be going down there.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh, I wouldn't worry about the Gilchrist tribute.

Now the Working Daze tribute...that's the one you have to worry about.
Gilchrist, Working Daze, and Candorville are all going to be gunning for Worst Tribute Strip in a couple of weeks.

Whoever wins, we lose.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Mary Worth



I used to think da Vinci was an interesting guy too until these two started going on and on about him.
The physics department needs to get over to this cafeteria immediately and start experimenting! Not only is this da Vinci conversation infinite, it seems that lunch -- and indeed, reality itself -- has become unstable. The professor's moustache has reverted to Clark Gable mode (the Tom Selleck he was sporting at home is apparently too informal for an academic setting?), everything on their plates has shifted from day to day (Dawn has a sandwich and soup! No, just a sandwich! The professor's got a water bottle, or a cup and straw, or a can of soda!), and now lunch is starting over from the beginning with Dawn grabbing a new sandwich from the rack.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Wanamingo posted:

Uh, duh? To make Peter look like he's talking to himself.
Yeah, pretty much. Like Zereth points out above, Dr. Strange is his actual name: he has a phone number and neighbors, he can't have people thinking that he spends his time hanging out with Newspaper Spider-Man. That's the kind of thing that makes people cross the street when they see you walking towards them.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

EasyEW posted:

Crankshaft

This whole storyline makes even less sense than usual. Am I right in thinking that this is what's happening?

- First, the old lady wants to donate a bunch of books to the library to get them out of her house
- (insert stupid side plot about her thinking some of the books are overdue)
- the library doesn't want the books
- therefore, she spends a bunch of her own money setting up a used bookstore in her house to sell those unwanted books, and presumably buy/sell other books, too

Because if that's the story so far, it is a new level of idiocy even for Batiuk.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Evil Mastermind posted:

The Classic Dinette Set loves kids.

I'm still trying to work out whether the "Migg's Field" on his shirt means that he's threatening to talk the kid into swallowing her own tongue, or threatening to throw his semen at her.

I mean, it's The Dinette Set, so I feel like it would try to get away with pretty much anything.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

My Lovely Horse posted:

Someone tell me I'm reading this wrong and the police force in Dick Tracy doesn't really tattoo prisoners with numerical IDs as a general rule.
Not as a general rule, no.

As a general rule, suspects die before they even become prisoners.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Aardmania posted:

Terry Beatty's blog says that he took over writing starting with the May 2nd comic. The signature box has also changed from Wilson & Beatty to just Terry Beatty.
I may be cynical, but I wonder how much of this sudden "Nope, the Morgans are not getting an historic home full of expensive antiques in a great location at a huge discount" twist is just Beatty saying NO loving WAY to the idea of drawing an historic home full of expensive antiques on a regular basis, rather than a deliberate movement away from showering the Morgans with undeserved and unearned riches and rewards.

But maybe, just maybe, things will actually start happening in Rex Morgan, MD that actually involve conflict and drama and setbacks. (Psst, Terry Beatty, do you know what's easy to draw? Cardboard boxes!)

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Yeah I'm far from an expert caver but it seems to me they have so far handled nearly every danger and obstacle in this trip through the caves in just about the worst possible way. They should definitely have stopped and got out at that sinkhole with the plane I still don't understand why they didn't.
Some nonsense about how the walls of the sinkhole were concave, conveniently ignoring both that there was an inexplicable wrecked plane in the middle of it (which presumably had all kinds of metal bits and wire and struts they could've tried improvising climbing equipment out of), and that this storyline started with shirtless Mark free-climbing a mountain solo.

Then again, if they had climbed out, they wouldn't have found the GYPSUM MOTHERLODE or the underground river that I assume leads to a sahuagin temple (or just pours down into the Underdark). If Mark can punch a few more monsters, he'll be a level 4 nature journalist!

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Julet Esqu posted:

Rip Kirby Woah it came back! I guess they decided the strip didn't end after all!
:dance: I was worried that we'd never get a conclusion to this story!

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Aardmania posted:

Judge Parker
Holy poo poo, they went from "We tried to run an insurance scam on a lawyer because we're broke, what we really need are jobs!" to "Oh no, please, no money for us, it's enough that we get to spend forty hours a week in your geriatric sweatshop so that you and the famous rich people funding you can turn a profit!" awfully fast, even for a Judge Parker plotline. Even Neddy seems baffled by it. ("Wait...is this how Sam and Abbey feel all of the time?!")

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD



Oh come on.
What kills me is that Rex knows exactly who these belong to, but still says "hey, let's find out how much these are worth!" instead of returning them to their rightful owner.

What an rear end in a top hat.

Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Evil Mastermind posted:

e: I've been meaning to ask: was the mother in Crankshaft ever shown to actually be terrible before now? I thought she was always portrayed as a likeable scatterbrain.
I don't think she was, but she was never portrayed as likable, either; she didn't show any warmth towards anyone, and no one showed any to her. Mostly what I remember seeing was the son endlessly complaining about her endless complaints in the usual passive-aggressive Batiuk way, with extra helpings of bathetic self-pity over how hard it was to live with her.

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Trilobite
Aug 15, 2001

Johnny Walker posted:

Rex Morgan MD


So, now we get to find out -- will he give Rex a ridiculously generous finder's fee for locating and returning his incredibly valuable comic books, or will he just give all of the comics to Rex right away?


I swear, it's like the guiding principle for this comic is "The least amount of effort possible always produces the greatest reward."

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