7/7/09
So here’s a perfect example of poor pacing: As I can skip from Monday’s comic to Wednesday’s without realizing I missed anything, there’s no point to this comic whatsoever. (Yes, even more than normal.) Just making a note of this for when Neal runs out of time at the end of this story…
7/8/09
Which is the most disturbing:
- The fact that there are no children in the Thorps’ neighborhood? (Wait, don’t Gil and Mimi have kids? Did Clambake lure them all away?)
- The fact that Gil didn’t even know this? (But aren’t you somehow glad about that?)
- The fact that Mimi did know this?
Where the hell is this going?
The Thorps’ kids wouldn’t count as “neighborhood kids”, but why would they move into a neighborhood with no kids for their kids to play with?
A stay-at-home parent would be well aware that there are no other kids. In this case — Mimi works and Gil is just dense.
For 3 days, Mimi’s sunglasses show up in only every other panel where she appears. (Can’t really tell about 7/8-3.)
If the baseball were a football, I’d think a new star athlete with problems has just moved into the neighborhood.
Comment by dale — July 8, 2009 @ 1:48 am
I think I know what’s happening here. The baseball story isn’t over yet, because Gil is about to suffer THE REVENGE OF TRUMBO. First, baseballs thrown against the wall. Then, Gil’s cat gets its neck broken. Finally, Trumbo kidnaps Mimi and/or the kids and holds them hostage until he gets let back on the baseball team. I imagine it being like a cross between Fatal Attraction and Last Action Hero.
Remember, Shep’s just a mean guy.
Comment by Bernard Bernoulli — July 8, 2009 @ 3:24 am
The “BLAM” noise is:
1. A sonic boom created by Mimi’s sunglasses disappearing into and reappearing from the space-time continuum.
2. An exceptionally powerful echo from Gil’s “nok, nok” on the kitchen cabinet.
3. Thousands of Gil Thorp readers slamming their foreheads into their breakfast tables in frustration at the lame ending to the spring story line.
Comment by Philip — July 8, 2009 @ 4:53 am
Maybe Bill Hawkins has graduated from throwing rocks at windows to baseballs.
Comment by Dave — July 8, 2009 @ 5:09 am
7/7 panel 3. Maybe the person under the deck threw the ball.
This is going to be some new kid, like 4 neighborhoods away, practicing with a pitching machine. Gil will introduce himself, and say “I’ll be seeing you on the field in the Spring”. By then we will have completely forgotten this story line. Yup.
Comment by knoxy — July 8, 2009 @ 5:40 am
Can you see the albino midget on the deck in panel #3 of 7-8-09?
Comment by Gil's Proctologist — July 8, 2009 @ 6:11 am
I think it’s amusing that a household that includes two high school coaches stand around looking at an oddly round, fist-sized ball made of leather and stitches, and wonder where it came from.
Being that it’s a household that includes two high school sports coaches, I’d assume that their house is all full of various sporting things laying about, so finding a baseball on the porch shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, or lacrosse equipment in the garage, or a full set of catcher equipment in the bedroom.
But the sheer shock of finding a sporting good at the house leaves me with this thought:
They have no idea what the oddly round, fist-sized ball made of leather and stitches actually is…which renders the question, what exactly are they watching when they “coach” their students in the first place?
Comment by scott s — July 8, 2009 @ 6:21 am
Sorry, did you all say something… I was busy listening to Mimi’s CLEAVAGE! :-0
Comment by el lumpbo — July 8, 2009 @ 6:22 am
Mimi: “There aren’t any” as she surveys a back yard full of shallow graves and uneven mounds of dirt.
Seriously folks…..give her the freakin’ sunglasses or don’t. The way they pop on and off her head is likely to trigger a seizure.
Comment by knoxy — July 8, 2009 @ 6:38 am
The size of Mimi’s hand on Gil’s chest in panel 2 of 7-8-09 is truly frightening. The is the definition of a Seinfeld-esque “Man Hand.” I’m amazed she didn’t just crush the baseball with her vice-like grip. Only Gil’s rock-hard pec saved him from certain death. Hey, take heart! Only about 18 more strips to go before we get to the bottom of this storyline!
Comment by PFM — July 8, 2009 @ 6:39 am
I like Bernard Bernoulli’s idea, that Shep Trumbo is going to stalk the Thorps. But I have a better idea for the title, suitable for a Hollywood blockbuster…
BALLWHACK: The Revenge of Shep!
Coming soon to a multiplex near you!
Comment by jvwalt — July 8, 2009 @ 6:46 am
I’d like to think that it’s Elmullet back from the Kalmazoo Kings showing everyone what he’s learned.
No, wait…I remember the boredom of last summer, scratch that.
Comment by Regina — July 8, 2009 @ 7:05 am
Maybe Shep has rounded up a bunch of Milford outcasts and assembled a gang (kinda like that bizarro baseball gang from The Warriors) to get some payback from the Thorps
or
maybe the baseball is a gift from Boo Radley.
Comment by Ned Ryerson — July 8, 2009 @ 7:12 am
Throwing a baseball at the side of Gil’s house is too advanced for Shep alone, I think he’s acting on behalf of Marty Moon’s newly formed Milford Legion of Doom.
The baseball plan was hatched after Moon, the Swifti-Mart Criminal, Mrs. Raptor, the Valley Tech pranksters, Gail Martin’s drummer Cliff Wrobeck, and Kelly Krystek’s stalker ex-husband shot down Shep’s plan of breaking into the Thorp house and messing with the salt shakers.
If this is not the case then I am going to be pissed about the delay in getting to Gil’s lunch with Ted Pearse.
Comment by billytheskink — July 8, 2009 @ 7:23 am
Hey wait… BLAM? Baseballs don’t make that sound!! Crack, whap, pop, bang, crash, or knock [nok] but not BLAM. BLAM connotes some type of explosion. Like if the ball had been shot from a mortar or something. But then it would be BLAM and then one of the above. Pranked again by the dynamic R/W duo I suggest; the folks who gave us “Ease up, friend!”
Comment by SemperFi4Evr — July 8, 2009 @ 8:22 am
Guys.. Shup Wishbone used the basesball as a diversionary tactic…. As Gil and Mimi ponder the lack of kids in their neighborhood, Shup is loosening the tops of all Salt Shakers in the house… BRILLIANT!
Comment by el lumpbo — July 8, 2009 @ 8:56 am
Good one, el lumpbo. Gil’s hair is talking to Mimi’s cleavage.
Comment by gil fanski — July 8, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Baseballs can make that sound if they are launched from homemade cannons made of pipe. We used to do it when I was a teen.
Comment by rembrandt36 — July 8, 2009 @ 9:08 am
Clambake returns.
You heard it here first.
Comment by Don, the Rebel without a Blog — July 8, 2009 @ 9:37 am
Clambake has since died. That’s the ghost of Clambake on the deck.
Gil will spend the summer blaming Shemp Dumbo for the pranks Clambake’s ghost plays on him.
Comment by meathook — July 8, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Judging from the perspective in 7/7’s third panel, I’m guessing it’s the Boy Stuck in the Tree. Throwing the baseball was his last-ditch effort to get someone to help him down.
Comment by sourbelly — July 8, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Gil suspects revenge for his witty remark earlier:
“CoachGilThorp: A baseball? Someone hit my house with a BASEBALL? Maybe Manny Ramirez didn’t like that line about taking a day off.”
At least it was just a baseball, Gil.
Comment by Tayrtahn — July 8, 2009 @ 10:49 am
Gil will be compelled, by disembodied voices, to build a baseball field in his backyard in order to bring honor back to the disgraced “Pink Sox,” the Mudlark predecessors.
Comment by El Santo — July 8, 2009 @ 12:24 pm
Wow. I didn’t think anyone in Milford could hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Must be a new kid from out of town.
I’m impressed that Mimi, when hurrying outside to investigate a loud noise, has time to grab her sunglasses. Then, having gone to that trouble, she doesn’t even put them on her eyes, but instead wears them high on her head. She sure does know how to fondle a baseball though.
Comment by another Josh — July 8, 2009 @ 1:21 pm