Panel 1: Marty Moon has a morphin’ posse! (more on this in a second.)
Panel 2: Vaguely understandable baseball action taking place in a vacuum. (Is that why it sucks?)
Panel 3: Absolutely baffling baseball action. I’m guessing the point is that Mike Bouchard feels the pressure by throwing inside and making the Goshen player* throw his bat backwards? Is he pitching from inside the dugout? Does the field not have basepaths? Why is the weird roller thingie so prominently featured? (Is it on deck?) How is whatever is supposed to be happening depicting Mike feeling pressure? In summary: Whaaaaaah?
And now back to Marty’s wacky background posse. Here’s how they appeared a month ago:
Featuring: Semi-normal guy, Fish-lips McGee and Nobel Prize Winner Fred Durst.
Then just a little over a week later, the posse rolled into town again:
Featuring: Normal guy devolved halfway into a caveman, Jerri Curl McGee and Fred Durst in disguise, (though frankly he looks like he’s about ready to skip out of this freak show and head to Iowa).
And finally, the posse as it appears today (having spent three more weeks in the morph-oven):
Featuring: Completely devolved caveman guy (but back in his original shirt), Pre-op Sex-Change McGee and um, that’s it. If Fred Durst is too good for your group, you know you have problems. I’m just glad to see Milford is proud supporters of both de-evolution theory and sex change operations. Who’d have thought they were so progressive?
*Goshen’s school Mascot is the Darnit!
I think the batter in panel 3 is throwing his bat back to the bat-boy, which is supposed to indicate that he just walked. So I guess Mike Bouchard is feeling nervous and losing his control. Better bring in Whiny Gross, who has no control to lose in the first place.
But I’m still not sure why the field has no bases, base paths, pitcher’s mound, or outfield, or why home plate faces the dugout. Also, with the way everyone in the dugout is silhouetted, it makes it look like the dugout is actually a very low-placed luxury box. This is the greatest baseball field ever!!!
Comment by Cash — June 26, 2007 @ 9:41 am
One more note: upon further inspection, Ken Burger’s glove in panel 3 appears to be belt-high and perfectly centered. So Ball Four was a perfect strike. Some questionable umpiring is going on here. Might this lead to Gil getting ejected for arguing balls & strikes? That would be fantastic, and 100% out of character.
Comment by Cash — June 26, 2007 @ 9:48 am
Why do you even have a “recycled art” tag? It would probably be easier to switch to noting the non-recycled art.
Comment by martin — June 26, 2007 @ 10:39 am
I’ve only been visiting this site for a couple of months and have never bothered to comment, but I had to say the “Evolution of Marty’s Posse” has got to be one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen. I still have tears in my eyes from laughing. Bless you, my son, for you have opened my eyes to the cluster f**k that is Gil Thorp (a strip I’ve been reading with regularity for 20 years).
Comment by Scott — June 26, 2007 @ 11:45 am
Is George Kennedy’s grandson part of the Moon posse?
Comment by Ennui, Willie Keeler — June 26, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Sometime, I’d like to see an overhead of this “baseball” field, because too many things just don’t add up. A little perspective would be a good thing.
For instance- does Marty Moon actually do his play-by-play from the actual playing surface? Or does he walk around in the bleachers? With a wireless headset, I suppose it’s possible… but highly unorthodox. Also dangerous, what with foul balls and the apparent propensity for thrown bats to go flying every which way.
Has no one in Milford ever heard of a “Press Box”? I wonder…
Comment by TCM — June 26, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
What is Pre-op Sex-Change McGee wearing in Panel 1? Some sort of lacy overalls (from the Milford Lingerie & Feed Store)?
My head hurts from trying to make sense of Panel 3, so I’m giving up.
Comment by Ned Ryerson — June 26, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
Is it possible they’re playing Arena Baseball? Line drives up the middle go into the dugout.
Comment by Tim Parry — June 26, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
Panel 2: If no. 8 (guy with bat) is the batter, shouldn’t he be somewhere closer to first or second base without the bat. If he isn’t the batter, he’s way to close to home.
Comment by dale — June 26, 2007 @ 2:39 pm
Brilliant detective work, Jason! I assume that one of Frank McLaughlin’s master classes at the Gilchrist Academy of Cartoon Art is “Self-Plagiarizing Your Way To Happy Hour.” I mean, cranking out three panels a day of original art is such a drag. Recycling your own stuff is the only way to ensure that you get to the bar promptly at 4 pm.
And this is, of course, another sign that the Tribune Syndicate doesn’t give a good goddamn about the quality of “Gil Thorp.” Jack Berrill (“GT” creator) was no Michelangelo, but he must be rolling in his grave.
Comment by johnw — June 26, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
johnw, for some reason that doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that McLaughlin can’t seem to make Lisa Wyche look that same in any panel. Sometimes she looks like Ted Pearce, other times she doesn’t.
Comment by Ennui Willie Keeler — June 26, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
It’s possible that McLaughlin is using this strip to send coded messages to our enemies using the Secret Code McGee:
Fish Lips McGee = “America Will Sleep With The Fishes”
Jerri Curl McGee = “My Toes Are Curling In Anticipation Of The Humiliation Of America”
Estrogen McGee = “America Is A Land Of Sissy Pants”
Comment by Laura Jane — June 27, 2007 @ 6:18 am
Berrill isn’t rolling in his grave, he’s whirling!
Comment by jwright — June 27, 2007 @ 6:54 am
This may be off topic, but I was going through the archives and I think Clambake is a recycled character! If you go to 02/27/07′s strip, you will see that the creepy old guy in the first panel bears an alarming resemblence to ol’ Clambake. We all thought Clambake was a creepy old black guy when in fact, he’s a creepy old recycled white guy. But then what is NOT recycled in Gil Thorpe?
Comment by Regina — June 27, 2007 @ 8:48 am
Hey, Fred Durst is back today! Yay!
Comment by DonWW — June 27, 2007 @ 9:50 am
I’m with Scott, I haven’t posted here for months, but the Posse is just too fascinating not to comment on. The complete disappearance of Durst is the weirdest bit of all, like McLaughlin had an Artistic Moment and decided it just didn’t look right . Also, Caveman Guy looks kind of like Asok from “Dilbert” in the second panel.
More fascinating than the posse itself is the fact that you NOTICE this shit. Do you catalogue all the panels that look like they’ll show up again??
Comment by luke — June 27, 2007 @ 11:17 am
Luke, I don’t catalog these panels per se, but I spend enough time staring at this damn strip that they must get burned into my brain…When something strikes me as a repeat panel, I just go back and search the archives. But I’m a little disturbed at the amount this is happening lately, (I think Martin is right, it seems like I’m using the recycled art tag nearly every day!)
Comment by jasbeattie — June 27, 2007 @ 11:41 am
Per caveman, Spock’s evil twin, pre-op transsexual person, et al.: I laughed. Then I farted. Then I laughed about that, too.
Comment by rationalpsychic — May 16, 2008 @ 2:04 pm