The BFE is gonna rock the D!

You know you’re in serious trouble when Ginger Kid Bill, this year’s stand-in coach for slacker Gil, benches you for Blaine Fowler…(Yes THE Blaine Fowler, of the Blaine Fowler Experience…is there any other?) Robbbbbbb Larue still suxxxxxxx.

Yo, a little help?

4/22/09

Thanks to Molly Kinsella getting lost in the Crock desert for several days, where she proceeds to hallucinate about tennis balls, the Milford girls lose the game!

4/23/09

Meanwhile, a reluctant (mostly reluctant to have to look at the ugliest mug in Milford. Ugh, no more close-ups of Thumb Poser please!) Robb Larue is about to give Shep the bad news that Bill “Opie” Hawkins is already putting the moves on Molly. I mean, who else would it be? Also, he should explain that a wingman can only do his job for the pilot when the pilot didn’t previously crash face-first into a chemical waste dump.

And even more meanwhiler, I would have never imagined a legitimate comic would ever attempt a Gil Thorp cross-over, but apparently such a thing has now happened. Thanks to alert reader Debbie, here’s this Wednesday’s Lio:

I’d have to say the weirdest thing about this is that Lio is being attacked by the Frank Bolle-era Gil Thorp characters… More specifically, it’s the characters from March 4th of last year!

Thumbs up to Mark Tatulli for this cross-over, which still makes way more sense than the real strip ever does! Thoughts?

Brainwashing the brainless requires minimal soap

“Golly,our kids are going to miss the playdowns. How can we leave town now??” Really? LAME.

Since this particular plot has seemingly resolved itself by transforming the Ethnic Larkins from judgemental jerks into brainwashed slugs, thanks to one nonsensical Gil Thorp speech, we now have to pin our hopes on something decidedly wacky and more interesting to happen before the drudgery of baseball season. So what will it be?

Will we get resolution of the Great Shitti-Mart Nutboy caper? Will Brenda enter and win the World’s Longest Fingers competition? Or will something new, entirely out of left field, be brought up then resolved in the period of three days? (Like last year’s ‘Big Ray returns from Jungle Patrol and gets yelled at about shoes by Gil, which teaches him to respect the authority of Thorp?*) Your theories please.

*Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe all those times Gil is gone he’s actually at some class on how to hypnotize Milford parents into doing his bidding, just by feeding them a couple lines of  jibber-jabber. I wish I had powers like that.

A little less conversation, a little more action

Sorry for the late post…the life of a stay-at-home dad proves unpredictable, after all. But it’s not like you should care that much, since a comic that begins “The Larkins’ conversations continue…” doesn’t bode well for holding anyone’s interest.

Apparently what we learn today is that the dad with no personality or opinions feels like he’s building something here. (My money on what he’s building is a giant freak hand factory. ) He then proceeds to ditch his construction job for the day (no doubt in the field of brick magic) to attend his daughter’s game for the first time ever. If only we knew whether he knew whether he was black or not…that way we’d know if his black power salute was done out of a sense of irony or genuine black nerd rage.

Then of course, it’s back to sports ‘action’, where a record crowd of three watches Milford. Will they pull it out? Or will the end of this game be preempted in order to bring us baseball season? Stay tuned! Or don’t! What do I care?

The Gil and Marty Show: One night only!

Gil: So it turns out I’m contractually obligated to show up every month.

Marty: No kidding? Well it doesn’t have to be for a whole comic right?

Gil: Nah…I can just show up in one panel and say something nonsensical like “We’d found a rhythm lately, but you wouldn’t know it tonight.” then head back to PUB. I’m not even sure if I’m talking about the team or the whole comic. So what are ya using for a mike today…a deck of cards?

Marty: Nope, another one of my sneaky flasks. You try broadcasting one of these games while sober!

Gil: No thanks. Say, didn’t they fire you from your TV show?

Marty: Yep! And the radio gig too. But coming to these games gets me out of playing pinochle with Mom.

Gil: Any chance you could hook me up with a flask like that? This team stinks even worse now that Lobster Boy is headed back to New York or something. I kinda zoned out when he started talking.

Marty: Hell no. You tried to have me killed!

Gil: Ah, come on…I gave that task to the most retarded kid on the football team. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work.

Marty: Whoops, no more time for chatter. I think they’re getting ready to talk about the girls’ team again…let’s get the hell outta here!

Butt Out

Boring comments for a boring comic:

Panel 1: Who walks around with their clipboard so high like that? Is Mimi about to smash the inconvenient glass partition someone placed in the center of the court?

Panel 2: I’m pretty sure a major foul is being committed here…and quite possibly several major law of physics.

Panel 3: By “other bigs” do they mean “big ol’ asses”? ‘Cause check out the caboose on 15! As the players celebrate, they step into the void of nothingness, probably in search of a consistent running narrative. Good luck with that, girls. Just don’t get your butt stuck on your way out…

Can’t you damn kids upgrade to dating Arby’s employees?

3/7/09

3/9/09

OK, so at least Rubin found a way to kinda tie some of the random plot lines together…The common thread? The Larkin parents! These snooty folks from New York City (a.k.a. “The Up-market Non-Dump”, “Whatever the Opposite of a Tank Town is”) don’t approve of their kids dating anyone who has anything to do with convenience stores (boys who rob them, girls who work at them, and so forth…) Will we find out what the hell their problem is (besides being pricks)? I’m guessing they’re still upset because Mr. Larkin lost the coveted Nutboy account, which eventually spiraled downward into his current job as a junior teller at Worst National Bank of Milford. So can you blame them for being pricks? Well, I guess you can. I don’t really care one way or another.

Speaking of not that, as pointed out in the last thread of comments, shouldn’t Ashley be sitting on the bench, rather than in the stands?

Puzzle of the day: Determine what material was used to make the headrests in the Larkin family car.

Paging Dr. Moon to the ER

Looking back, I’m surprised I could even come up with anything to say about yesterday’s comic…It had nothing interesting going on and didn’t really advance the plot in any way. Fortunately today, something remotely close to interesting is happening. Not Ashley’s injury, just lots of other weird things to look at. Like the mystery of panel two, featuring a freak hand from the sky, probably just to taunt us, as well as what I can only guess is an extreme close-up of the back of Nancy, staring quite intently (not to mention way too closely) at a basketball.

Or panel three, where we finally get to see what Marty Moon does instead of covering girls’ basketball: pretend to be a doctor down at the ER! (Or maybe he really is the attending physician, thanks to massive cutbacks in social services funding in this down-market dump called Milford.)

So what’s sprained? From the looks of the third panel, I’m going to guess Ashley’s right freak hand. Which would explain why she is so baffled by needing crutches.