Back by popular demand…

…and when I say popular, I mean a couple posters actually wanted this. But, hey, I’m one of you and I need the daily snark too, so I’m going to carry the ball for Jason for a while. Game on.
1/28/09

1/29/09

1/30/09

1/31/09

Commentary for the last few days is going to seem a bit warmed over. Josh at the Comics Curmudgeon already scooped TWIM on the best panel of the last few days, the guy in panel 3 of 1/29 making the universal hand gesture for jerk-off behind Marty’s back…classic.

I will just add that Gil’s only function during this basketball season has been to act like a dick and give snotty responses to anyone who points out that he has a blue chip point guard right under his nose. Yeah, keep working with Bill Hawkins, Gil, and maybe by the end of the season he’ll get his turnovers per game down into single digits. Dick.

Next week: Bryce thinks he’s getting shorter.

-Ned Ryerson

On Hiatus like Marty Moon

Hey folks. Sorry, but due to some unforseen circumstances I’m taking a bit of a break from updating this blog on a regular basis. I hope to get back to it soon, but until then feel free to snark away on your own. Smell ya later…!

How to destroy the new guy’s self esteem for personal gain

The plan to get Bryce to play on the basketball team in a nutshell: Have everyone at school tell him “You’re fat and you suck.” Nice.

Bryce’s current plan of counter-attack: Grow a curly moustache so everyone realizes he’s evil, and just might tie some poor girl to the train tracks.

Once he finds out the team has a 46-year-old balding guy and a dude with a detached right hand, the thrill Bryce doesn’t really have for playing for them might start to wear off. Hell, if we’re lucky, he’ll decide to tie them all to the train tracks, then go rob the local Swifti-Mart.

The Nutboy Professor

1/24/09

Brenda’s secret plan? Give her brother an eating disorder! That’ll teach him to be such a jerk!

But what did the picture look like you ask? Here’s a sneak peek:

1/26/09

Up next: Bryce is tricked into playing basketball with the use of flubber!

The non-existent picture of Lunchtray Larkin

1/22/09

Panel 1 Revelation: Wow…the reason they’re reserves seems clear. They’re guarding each other while the girl from New Thayer takes the wide open shot.

Panel 2 Mystery: Giant ball? Or midget player? I think Whigham is channeling Frank with this bizarre artwork.

Panel 3 Odd Reference: Mudlark Wonder twins activate! Form of…clearly superior, yet sloppy, possibly dwarf-sized players!

1/23/09

Gil takes a break from calculating the location of the Lost island to discuss the suckiness of Bill Hawkins. If only there was some total jerk star point guard from New York who could take over…(Stephon Marbury perhaps…?) Too bad there’s nobody like that around here.

Meanwhile, total jerk star point guard from New York Bryce Larkin has been understandably mistaken for a lunch tray* and stacked in the appropriate pile. Maureen Monte figures this is a good time to enact whatever stupid plan Brenda recruited her for…so she takes a picture of the wall 12 feet to the right of “Lunch Tray” Larkin. That will solve their non-existent problem! (I mean really people, what does it matter if some asshole kid doesn’t want to play on the crappy local high-school team? Give it a rest.)

We end today’s strip with a wave from Freak Hand. Hi, Freak Hand! Thanks for being more interesting than the rest of the characters combined.

*Because both have no personality and smell like a Bronx sewer.

Reader Challenge Day!

Panel 1 Challenge: Stare intently at the freak hand that lives behind that locker-type object. Break your brain as the magic second thumb appears and disappears.

Panel 1 Bonus Challenge: Determine a reason why Dylan’s obsession with Bryce isn’t at least kinda gay.

Panel 2 Challenge: Come up with the top-secret plan that is being hatched! Is it boringly simple? (Maureen will pretend to like Bryce only if he joins the team?) Or ridiculously convoluted and unnecessarily involving Marty Moon? (Maureen, with her stalker background, recruits an unemployed Marty to sit outside Seja Patel’s aunt’s house until he gets some dirt on her…Then he blackmails her into sending Bryce to her urologist husband who will tell Bryce he has a condition wit his extra leg that can only be cured by playing organized high school basketball. All of which would take place in three panels.)

Panel 3 Challenge: Explain why this panel is an improvement over, say, a blank square.

Trying to snow me into caring? Fail.

Apparently one of the folks who got laid off yesterday was the guy who updates the Gil Thorp comic on the Chicago Tribune site…since as of 2:20 PM MST Tuesday, Monday’s comic is still up there. Or maybe he just died of boredom. (Understandably so.)

So I managed to find Tuesday’s comic on the Houston Chronicle site, then realized there’s absolutely nothing to say about it. Except perhaps to wonder how Bryce has managed to burrow his way halfway into the side of the table. And then I was somewhat baffled by the phrase ‘trying to snow…’ I suppose it must mean ‘con into.’  But who says that? I’ll just change the word ‘snow’ to ‘plow’ in order to insert a modicum of interest into today’s strip. (Wait…’modicum’? Who says that?)

How to get a leg up in crap town.

1/17/09

One look at that exploding eyeball and Bryce’s giant, er… “extra leg” of Bryce’s and I’d guess Gil doesn’t need the distraction of yet another jerk on his team. And now his other idiot students are using a giant olive during practice. Time to hit PUB (…and try to drink the image of that haunting third leg out of his mind.)

1/19/09

Oh boy, a three panel non-sequitur Monday!

Panel 1: “It turns out we shouldn’t have put Elmer Vargas in charge of marketing. ‘Project Redesign Apex Logo in Arial Narrow Font’ was a huge waste of time and resources. As a consequence, Elmer will be promoted to CEO to keep him out of trouble, and safely in the country. The rest of you please pack your belongings and see yourselves out. Thanks.”

Panel 2: “I may have lost the Hobart listing, but why the f*ck do you have two giant ugly phones on your desk?”
“I’ll tell you that as soon as you tell me what the hell that is you’re wearing, lady. Are you off to prom?”

Panel 3: Oh freak hand…why must you be so…everywhere, all the time, serving no purpose to the comic except perhaps to annoy the crap out of us? (Or are you here to help direct us to the office, since it’s quite unclear which way to go?)