What’s Spanish for adios? I think it’s “Week of soul-crushing exposition.”
Elmer isn’t scared of being deported. Because when INS comes for him he’ll just bitch slap them with those giant mitts of his then drive off in his pimped-out Geo Tracker. But what the hell does “We’re like a TV family” even mean? Does it mean his family consists of an overweight, unpleasant, unfunny guy married to an unrealistically hot wife, with three wisecracking kids spout one-liners that no real child would ever say? If so, please kick them out of here immediately. But seeing as how this is weird, weird Milford, it’s more likely they’re a TV family from some weird Mexican novela.
Meanwhile Mimi is being groped by cloud boy!
He’s not groping, he’s checking for breast cancer so that he doesn’t shave his head unnecessarily.
Comment by Doc Gooden — May 2, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Milford chicks can’t keep secrets. Just ask Cully Vale.
Comment by Spike — May 2, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Wow. What a clunky last line. It would almost make much more sense if she’d just said, “You mean my idiot not-boyfriend is telling people?”
Comment by El Santo — May 2, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Hmmmmm… I don’t think that is Mimi in panel 3.
Comment by Thorpnotized — May 2, 2008 @ 10:26 am
I suspect that’s Lisa Wyche being groped by cloud boy. He doesn’t have much to grope, unfortunately.
Elmer’s Transformer hands really bother me. And not in a good way.
Comment by sourbelly — May 2, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Yeah, she doesn’t have the hair-wings. I’d guess Lisa Wyche.
Also, a prediction: Elmer’s not telling anyone, Lisa/Mimi in the last panel is referring to something different…but by responding that way, Branden lets the cat out of the bag.
Comment by bensoc — May 2, 2008 @ 10:43 am
I foresee three or four more weeks of painfully slow plot exposition, followed by a hastily-hatched plot to burn Elmer a fake “John Smith” ID in shop class, which (of course) completely fools the INS agents. They go away, and Elmer hits the game-winning home run in the playdowns. The end.
I don’t think that’s Mimi either. If it is, what happened to her flippity aerodynamic bangs?
Comment by johnw — May 2, 2008 @ 10:44 am
I don’t think that’s Mimi either. But I don’t know who it is.
Comment by laura — May 2, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Mimi isn’t even talking about Elmer being an illegal Branden. Mimi wants to know if she heard about Elmer Vargas saying his family is like a TV family. (My guess is Elmer’s family is like the TV family in the Family Guy.)
Comment by Regina — May 2, 2008 @ 10:46 am
Anyway, if Marty Moon can fool CPS, he can fool the INS! And Marty’s not afraid to swing both ways.
Comment by laura — May 2, 2008 @ 10:47 am
I’m glad to see someone has pulled one of the oldest baseball (and presumably softball) prank in the world by giving Branden a bubble head on her bill–ah, where’s TWIB when you need it!?
Comment by Dr. "Eat More Cheddar and Drink More Pabst," aka Gil's Dietician — May 2, 2008 @ 11:25 am
WTF!!! I’m having cognitive problems with the art this week: I swear to God, when I first beheld the third panel, in the foreground I saw:
-> the tip of a ballet slipper protruding up from bottom of the panel;
-> Mimi’s floating, disembodied head;
-> a floating crystal ball;
-> and yes, Cloud Boy.
It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever F-in’ seen!
Comment by Striker — May 2, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
What a gentleman. But I think the rule is, if she can drive, she can open her own door. I do like the souped up, talking-mini cooper with a hornet’s stinger protruding from the rear. I also saw the floating crystal ball in panel three but I took it for a UFO…
Comment by kenzo — May 2, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
if that’s Lisa Wyche, then it’s a cloud girl, not cloud boy. I know, the hat threw me off.
Comment by lester — May 2, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
The vehicle has now morphed into something else, with twin centered tailpipes.
Unfinished ode to Panel 3:
Oh, when cloud boy tweeks the nipple on a sporty ballet shoe,
and magic spheres alight on Branden Zollar’s brim…
Comment by Ned Ryerson — May 2, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Uhhh…guys…I don’t think that’s a ballet slipper.
I’m more concerned about Branden in panel 1. I suspect her hunched-over, squinch-eyed demeanor has something to do with Elmer’s horrible huge fingers. OW OW OW OW OW!
Comment by julienne — May 2, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
I think that’s actually cloud Michael Moore.
Comment by jlp — May 2, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
I don’t think I’ll ever get over “What’s Spanish for “adios”? I mean….wait wha? beh? whbagh? I keep reading it, hoping I’ve been mistaken. It reminds of that rant Louis Black (which one, you ask?) makes about overhearing and trying to understand something he overheard. What he overheard was: “If it weren’t for my horse, I never would have spent that year in college.” BAM. I just blew your brain out. If you need to find me, I’ll be dead in the bathtub.
Comment by Emily — May 2, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
#18 Emily — Crap! I can’t believe I missed that. It creeps up so subtly that it seems so natural! It’s like one of those scenes where someone’s hiding in plain sight, and you don’t notice the absolute wrongness of it until someone points it out.
Comment by El Santo — May 2, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Isn’t that a spaceship landing in Milford in panel three?
Comment by Richard — May 2, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
It took a few readings for me. I hope it is a joke, but then this is Gil Thorp. And if you have to ask…. it probably isn’t.
Comment by Emily — May 2, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
“What’s Spanish for ‘adios’?” is one of the best lines ever in this strip.
Illegal, perhaps ineligible player, Elmer was making a joke.
Don’t know whether it makes a difference, but a few days ago it was established that
Elmer doesn’t speak Spanish; Branden does.
Comment by dale — May 2, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
It’s sad that I totally didn’t notice “What’s Spanish for ‘adios?’” until I just had it pointed out to me by these comments. Ahahaha.
Comment by Emptyeye — May 4, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Say what you want about the last artist, but I do recall some rudimentary concepts of depth perception. That third panel looks an incomplete painy by numbers panel
Comment by Joel — May 4, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
Actually I think I am onto them. Cloud boy, bubble hat, ballet slipper, they’re all just an ingenious series of distractions to keep us from noticing the single greatest affront to artistic sanity in the history of god-awful comics artistry. Look carefully.
Yes, folks, Mimi’s he is fastened to her bulbous shoulders by a single ply twisted paper rectangle.
Comment by Joel — May 4, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Should read:
Yes, folks, Mimi’s head is fastened to her bulbous shoulders by a single ply twisted paper rectangle.
Comment by Joel — May 4, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
I think Chief Whigwam is pulling our chains with Elmer’s cucumber-sized fingers and all of the other zany cloud-boy gropers, UFO’s/floating crystal balls, etc. just to give us something to snark about.
What a sense of humor you have there Chief! Keep up the good work!
And btw, weren’t we geniuses to foresee the illegal alien status of Elmer and his illustrious Dad waaaaaayy before Neal wrote it!
Comment by Gil'sBarber — May 5, 2008 @ 7:49 am