Marty, Marty, why you buggin’?

7/29/09

Yep, so in addition to all that junk I wrote about Marty DeJong yesterday, he was also a freshman “star lefty on the State Championship team.” Which I believe at this point was long enough ago that Kaz wasn’t even born yet when it happened. Unfortunately since then, Marty’s life has really fallen apart. After high school, with encouragement from Gil, he got a job impersonating Shaggy, whereupon a Great Dane proceeded to chew up a good portion of his face. Thus, the justified grudge against Gil.

Up next: Marty’s off to stalk Marmaduke.

7/30/09

These are what are known as ‘throw away’ panels. (Because you want to immediately throw them very far away upon reading them.)

What insight does panel one provide? Only that the extremely boring subplot of the summer still unfortunately exists. How about panel two? Uh, I guess if we’ve been paying way too close attention, it’s trying to remind us  that Kaz’s girlfriend Kelly still works as a travel agent to local creepy guys. But since nobody we know is that obsessive about Gil Thorp, let’s presume it’s just there to confuse us and waste space that should have been devoted to Kaz punching somebody. And finally, panel three gives us exactly nothing new whatsoever. Thanks Neal. Three panels of precious summertime tossed out like so many human skulls from the back of Marmaduke’s dog house…

What DeJong strange trip it’s been…

Well then…it seems we weren’t supposed to recognize the, um, whatever type of criminal this kid is supposed to be.

It turns out it’s Marty DeJong! You know, Marty DeJong? The guy recently retired as a popular Kalamazoo softball coach (word on the street is Elmer Vargas muscled his way into the job with his excellent bi-lingual marketing skills…)

No wait, that was the real Marty. The Milford Marty DeJong was in high school earlier this decade (thanks commenter billytheskink for the reminder of exactly when…), where he was a super-studly star pitcher who wanted to win State as a senior. He was good enough that creepy-looking pro scouts (are there any other kind?) took notice, and with Gil’s guidance, decided to skip college and go pro. Which was all well and good, except Brent Raptor, a fat freshman at the time, cost the team the State championship with a fielding error followed by the inability to get his lard ass to first on what should have been a deep single that would have won the game. Good times.

Back from reading all that back story? Good. You can tell that was a long time ago because A) Milford had a good team, B) Gil cared about coaching and C) Brent Raptor was only 350 pounds. So what’s Marty’s beef? That he went pro and failed miserably, thereby missing  out on all the opportunities a degree from Shain Tech had to offer? That Gil’s starting a shortstop the size of Neptune cost him a title? That his first name steered him toward a life of Gil-Hatred, like all Martys? In any case, I’ll hold out hope that Kaz will eventually be punching the crap out of poor little Uncle Rico, who probably now lives in a van down by the river.

UPDATE: I also dug up Billy’s other DeJong reference, the time Gil golfed with Marty’s chain-smokin’ dad. Enjoy.

Episode #796: The one where a Huffy-riding Kaz catches some kid and yet still disappoints us all

7/25/09

Chess Gil…? Really? Chess? If you’re going to taunt Mimi by spending time at home with her, why make it even worse? I suspect from the size of that chess set and the habits of the coach that each one of those pieces is filled with rum.

Suddenly, Kaz arrives! How do we know it’s him? Easy, he can’t spell the word “knock”. And he’s already solved the crime. That was fast. But which blond kid is it? Let’s tune in, um, now, to see who it is…

7/27/09

It’s….it’s… who the hell is that? Is that supposed to be Robbbbb? Or just some random troll kid who lives under a local bridge? Hint to Whigham: today’s the kind of day that it would help when you could make your teenage characters distinct enough so we would know if we’re even supposed to recognize that kid.

In any case, not only is it disappointing that the mystery of the ball chucker was solved so fast, but that Kaz solved it with the help of riding around on a bicycle. Wow, way to become the uncoolest P.I. of all time! (Finally, Encyclopedia Brown can rest in peace.) Hey Kaz, when you finally caught up to whoever that is supposed to be, did you ring your little bell? What a sad derailment of such a hopeful premise.

Time to crush their dreams while they’re still young

7/23/09

7/24/09

Sorry for the delay, when I realized Unofficial P.I. Bob Kazinski was gonna be heavily involved in the plot this summer, I got so excited I just kinda blacked out for a couple days. Then Thursday gave us still more Kaz action: Shirtless talking on the phone, working hard at his gumshoe internship (well, asking dumb questions at least) even while  while in a Chinatown massage parlor, wearing a Hawaiian shirt like the party animal he is, and even eliminating Raúl Ibañez as a suspect!

Unfortunately I was rudely shaken back to Earth by the other storyline: Gil does something boring. Frankly, I can’t believe he showed up to Ted’s practice for local hobo underprivileged kids. That’s way more times than he showed up to high school practice this year. Maybe he’s only there to scare the  children into abandoning their interest in sports. Because hey, if he can convince all the local boys to give up now, maybe he can completely disband his teams in a few more years, as he’d always hoped.

Looks like he’ll have his hands full with one Casper Cordova, a little horned devil child, with the ability to see out of the back of his head, and catch baseballs that fly in from other ballparks. Maybe Gil will just have Casper packed in a crate and shipped off to Kalamazoo before the summer is out.

Who’s the white private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?

7/21/09

7/22/09

After a visit to  the Milford Police Station reveals that Chief Lind has much bigger problems (like having accidentally fused his hand to the side of his skull), Gil realizes he better call in a professional to solve his problem, or else Mimi might never shut the hell up.

Since he doesn’t actually know any professionals (of anything), Gil does the next best thing: Call Coach Kaz, Junior P.I! He may have never solved a case on his own, but he did the next best thing: He sub-contracted out the real work to an actual private investigator, then took all the credit. I really like where this is going…Maybe we won’t have to mail baseball hate mail to Neal after all.

Funny…my mailbox has two balls.

7/18/09

7/19/09

Uh-oh. It seems the ghost of Jack Berrill has begun to haunt Neal Rubin’s Gil! He wanted to write “Good lord. You owe me big time for destroying the legacy of this strip…Like that Elmer Vargas crap last summer: Really, that’s the best you could do? And Whigham: Dude, the hands are giving me nightmares. Yes, even though I’m a  ghost. And have you ever actually seen what a mailbox looks like?”  Unfortunately it’s hard to write all that on a baseball.

I encourage anyone out there with too much time on his hands to send fan mail to Neal written entirely on a baseball.

Anyway, next I hope this happens.

Mysterious ball chucker still at large

7/16/09

7/17/09

Sorry Coach Ted, Jonah and Casper…but when “Who’s been thrusting their balls at Gil’s house?” is the more interesting storyline, you clearly have a snoozer. Mocking underprivileged kids playing baseball, while clearly rewarding, still gets old quite fast.

As for Chief Lind and the Mystery of the Baseball Chucker….well let’s say that someone who holds a yearbook like that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in his ability to detect much of anything. The fact that he’s already determined that Strump Bimbo is out of town is shockingly greater progress than I expected. What Lind really needs to do is hire Kaz. Kaz makes everything better! First he’ll do some punchin’, then drinkin’, then bad interviewin’…then he’ll hire a private investigator so he can go do a whole lot more punchin’ and drinkin’. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Everybody Hates Gil

7/14/09

Who is showing far too much effort here?

Gil, for flying out the door in skin-tight crotch-pants and dramatically pointing? Nah, he’s just working on Jack Daniels power…He’s not even sure if he heard a car starting down the road.

Chief Lind, for showing up personally on Gil’s vandalism call? Nah, he has nothing to do now that professional criminal is behind bars. That, and he’s the only cop in town.

Me, for writing more than one sentence about this comic? Clearly.

7/15/09

I can too!

• Mimi, for never satisfying her womanly needs.
• Chief Lind, for making him drive all the way out here during naptime.
• Ted Pearse, for sticking him with the tab at lunch.
• Chaps Crumbo, suspended for his amateur prankster ways.
• The entire Milford Baseball, Basketball and Football teams, for skipping all their games and practices for the last three years.
• The Larkins, for drinking all their good rum.
• Marty Moon, for drinking all his bad rum.
• His children, pissed off at being locked in the basement for the last several years.
• Elmer Vargas, for tricking him into taking a job in goddamn Kalamazoo.
• Jimmy Hughes, boy retard, for tricking him into attending goddamn Shain Tech.
• Kaz, for not letting him pursue that detective agency he’s always dreamed of.
• Skippy the angry janitor, ’cause he always pees all over the toilet seat.
• Cully Vale, just ’cause he’s the vengeful killing type.
• Clambake, for banishing him out of town when he tried to coach for free.
• Boy in tree, who’s actually just trying to get his attention…He’s stuck in a damned tree for God’s sake!
• Principal Pearl, for never satisfying her womanly needs.

Frankly, I’m surprised all Gil’s windows aren’t broken.