Clanking out of 2010. Sprinkler dance, anyone?

12/30/10

The first twist of the basketball season: Gil shows up to a game! He may have spent the first half poundin’ down shots with that Asian midget (who clearly can’t keep pace with the coach, and is three seconds from hurling…), but whenever he wears his snappy turtleneck number, Gil eventually gets the urge to wander into the gym to hit on all the Milford MILFs.

Then he drunkenly wastes a time out or two, just so he can recite that one line from Hoosiers he learned (incorrectly), pretending to pawn it off as “coaching”.  And as always, his gibberish inspires his team to play horribly.

12/31/10

To ring out the  horrid waste of time year in Milford, the basketball team loses because of their own lame penalty. The only glimmer of hope: We learn that Steve the Disco referee has a brother: Sprinkler Dance Chet! (Fresh from his stint with the Colts, it seems.)  Let’s pray for more Chet in 2011!

Happy New year, everyone!

The revenge of the brastrap

12/28/10

And basketball season gets underway, just in time for New Year’s! Marty Moon, having chewed his way out of his football season crate, has found his way to his traditional seat in the middle of center court. It would be a cause for celebration, except we also learn that Jam-Jar did not in fact die taped to a locker bank. Instead he is now clogging the middle of the strip for yet another season.For the love of Luhm, when will he really be a ghost?

Meanwhile, will Milford be able to unhook the mysterious enigma of the team called BraStrap?

12/29/10

Unfortunately for the Mudlarks, BraStrap’s coach has a suit, that he wears to something other than court appearances. Also he has a coaching strategy. Plus he shows up to his team’s games. Sober. So he’s got a whole lot going for him over Gil Thorp. And now he’s told his players to slap the shit out of Jam-Jar, which makes him my new hero.

“Me? I’m off to make heterosexual advances in my totally non-gay outfit.”

12/27/10

We’re getting quite the variety of non-word word balloons lately, aren’t we? Only two days after Micah Huang’s Wheel of Fortune clue balloon vulgarity, we get who I seem to recall might possibly be Traceeeee(?) spouting a singular(?) question(?) mark(?). I like to imagine this word balloon is verbalized as a noise Scooby Doo would make.

So what is really going on here? I’d like to color myself marginally confused. But here’s my best crack at it: We all like to suspect that because Lini makes catty remarks while watching Project Runway and gallivants about sporting a scarf  (as well as several palm fronds in his pocket), he must be a flaming homosexual.

However, that would be way too potentially interesting a plot twist for recent Gil Thorp. A far more boring (and likely)  turn of events might be that Lini is the “suave” guy who’s planning to win Kayla’s love with his charmingly oversize neckwear and occasional multi-syllable word usage. So he’s off to do “biology homework” which is his suave, totally non-gay code for saying that he’s planning to put the moves on Kayla. I’d say his “moves” will eventually involve some level of scarf smothering, be it intentional or not.

Anyone got a better idea? (Besides the idea to not read this comic anymore?)

O Come All Ye Mudlarks

12/25/2010

Well friends, it’s another Christmas in Milford and the kids are still AWOL, like Chuck Cunningham from Happy Days, Mike Douglas from My Three Sons and Chad Zits from Zits, those kids just vanished into the mists of narrative irrelevance. Some speculate that they are earning their keep at Camp Touchstone and the real reason Gil took the football team to the camp was that he had to make a court ordered visit with his spawn. We may never know. Only Neal Rubin has the answers.

Oh yeah, and the new character talked Gil into organizing basketball team caroling. So Cortez has some strong beliefs? I think he should have gone full out and requested they do a live nativity scene. That would’ve been wild. What we get is this cheesy tableau with Gil alone extending holiday wishes. Mimi’s at home drinking hot toddies and crying at Lifetime movies.

As my Christmas gift to you, I’ve dug into the archives to offer the previous 9 years worth of Thorp family Christmas wishes so that we can watch the family shrink, so you can enjoy some blasts from the past, so you can gather clues about what might have happened to the kids, etc.

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Ease up, Jesus!

12/23/10

Thanks fair readers, for keeping the commentary going, despite my delinquency in posting about an exciting “Ease up!” sighting. Not much else to add, except I find Cortez’s guess of “Ease up!” a rather lousy choice in the game of hangman. Because c’mon…there’s no space in “_ _ _ _ _ _” So what’s a filthy, filthy word of six letters? Why N U T B O Y of course!

12/24/10

Christ almighty! Cortez “Horace Grant” Ponce de Leon Vespucci has discovered the lord. It’s a miracle he discovered anything wandering around the school blind a bat with a rubber hand as his only guide. And now he’s here to see if he can release Gil from the tight grip of Satan. Good luck with that kid…the guy reading the racing form and drinking out of his baseball trophy flask at 9:30 in the morning is unlikely to give up more than one or two of his favorite deadly sins just ’cause you found his office without the benefit of eyeballs.

Stay tuned for the Thorp Family Christmas card. This year will there be even fewer than zero children?

Sucking like a sack of puppies

12/22/10

Parker Bowen and Kayla Clay share an [extremely obscene sucking joke redacted.]

While the two sucking lovebirds carry on being the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked, they are also being creepily observed from afar by Lini and the Jets. You may wonder where catty Lini gets an obscure phrase like “adorable as a sack of puppies.” Easy: It just so happens that tonight’s special at the Bucket is a large sack of puppies, deep fried with a side of kitten salad, for only $4.99!  And don’t forget the free refills on Buzz Soda (now with extra floating chunks of Nutboys!)

The next mystery: What is Lini’s concern about Parker? Is it that he’s a 46-year-old high schooler who dresses like Mark Trail?

Interview with a Thorp or Two

12/20/10

“We may have only two returning players…One of whom makes questionable fashion choices out of cardboard, but I find  most notable that they differ in height by nearly four inches!”
“But don’t you find it odd they stand around making out with the ball and/or pointing at their feet, rather than practicing?”
“No, I’m a Thorp, that’s pretty typical for any activity we’re involved in…I’m just glad that Whigham has joined the pantheon of confusing girls’ basketball action with that Kayla Clay nonsense in the third panel. I mean it’s no Frank McLaughlin… hell it’s not even Frank Bolle. But it’s a start.”

12/21/10

“What do you wish you had that you don’t?”
“A janitor who will coach for free. Where is that damned Steve Luhm when you need him? Also a carton of Kools.”
“Any new characters we need to introduce?”
“Uh, I guess. Some bald guy with goggles, Cortez Beecher-Stowe? We hired him because he’s not Jamarr Gaddis. He came cheap because he has no neck.”
“I look forward to not caring about him.”

Posting On Saturday Is Strictly J-V

12/17/10

Wait, so Kayla types papers for Parker Bowen’s dad? Parker’s dad writes them long-hand on some kind of stone tablets and then Kayla pokes at the tablets and pretends she’s typing? What the hell is she smoking?

Maybe Kayla and Traceeeeee are totally high, hallucinating shellfish crawling around on each others ears and making up these fantastic images to try and gross each other out.
“See, I show him my freak finger, then I poke his Kindle all afternoon.”
“Wait, I thought you said he writes in longhand”
“I was talking about something else.”
“Eww, gross. Hey, let’s go to the Bucket. I hear Lini’s trying to start a Truman Capote Appreciation Society.”
“See Lini wearing this crap? Are you kidding? That kid is merciless!”

12/18/10

Varsity-level display of high school of affection? Varsity-level display of high school of affection? Now we know that Gil was buying weed from those kids, who must have gotten the lame metaphor from Gil.
“That stuff you sold me last week was varsity-level. Can I get some more?”
“Varsity-level? What’s that mean old man?”
“It’s like, how you kids say, dyn-o-mite!”
“Um, yeah, whatever pops. We don’t give no AARP discounts. So it’s still fifty.”

Meanwhile, the fabulous Lini Verde reveals the depths of his fashion sense, a ridiculously long scarf and a neatly folded pocket handkerchief. That is a varsity-level display of stupid right there. Why is Lini’s posse posing like that? Are they arriving at a red carpet event, fielding questions about their apparel? Is this the premiere of NutBoys: The Movie, perhaps?