1970s Bush-face Explains it All!

11/10/09

“Hey Ma. Thanks for getting here so quickly! This place is scary…they say the ghost of Bing Crosby shuffles through the halls, pretending to be a doctor!”
“Well, it was a pretty long trip, or maybe it wasn’t? We had that loser Coach Shaw drive us all the way from Milford. He had nothing better to do, and it really wasn’t very far from here…Or wait, was it?”
“Oh and thanks for covering up the high beams you normally have goin’ on at home.”
“Well the jacket’s just for this cold room…how do you think I got us all in here past visiting hours…and got the guard, (who I presume exists, since somebody is supposed to be, you know, WATCHING A PRISONER when he’s not in JAIL??) to go home early?”
“That was quite the parenthetical aside, ma.”
“Thanks!”

11/11/09

“So Campo said somethin’ about my face taunting me, reminding him of  ‘1970s Bush’.  Then he whipped out that pointy thing from his pants and pricked me repeatedly. What a dick!”

Prison Rape Jokes: The staple of any good blog entry!

Hell no, don’t call me Tim

10/20/09

10/21/09

10/22/09

Aha, we finally figured out what happened to the key character of the last few months. I’m talking of course about Mr. Bakst, who after booking a bus trip to Charleston, got confused (after all he was in the South, in a town starting with “Charl”…who wouldn’t get confused?) and ended up at some bar in Charlotte, whereupon he encountered Danny Daley. Mr. Bakst asked him if he was any relation to Tim Daly, which seemed quite odd to Danny as Mr. Bakst didn’t even know his name when he asked this question. Naturally a conversation such as this one turned heated, and one broken jaw and a concussion later Danny “not Davey and hell no, don’t call me Tim” Daley found himself in the Catawba Correctional Center. (Name dropped due to all Neal’s friends who live there.)

Up next (my imagination version): DannyDaveyDaley demonstrates how to make a shiv out of a straw, use it to escape, and exact bloody revenge on all idiots who ever mentioned Tim Daly to him.

Up next (boring actual version): Gil pretends to care about a player, at least to avoid having him murder anyone other than Marty Moon. Neal continues to write about high school students with hot tempers, big egos, or both, because hey, he’s only covered that about five other times recently so how could it get old, Tim?

Where the f**k is Rico?

8/31/09

Well there was just so darned much action this last month, they couldn’t wrap everything up Sunday…so we have Monday’s wacky post-script: Gil and Kaz playing golf! Luckily, Gil held true to his promise to relax and be completely boring all summer so we really shouldn’t be surprised how lame August was. But what ever happened to Mr. Bakst’s trip to Charleston? (No really, what the hell was the point of that panel?!?)

As Gil refers that he’s ready for some football, I can only presume he means sitting on the couch and watching it on TV…I mean, It’s not like he has any other obligations, right?  Finally, it’s nice to see the summer wrap up like a wacky 1980’s sitcom. Can’t you just picture the credits rolling across the last freeze-framed panel?

9/1/09

And on to something new! I was gonna look up who the real Brock Reed is…but then I got sidetracked into the even more awesomely-named Brock Landers and his partner Chest Rockwell. I’m sure the new adventure won’t be as awesome as this video clip (note, NSFW, language), but then again, what is?

So Robbb”Too Many Bs” Laruebb is so bored he’s drinkin’ on the lawn, even while Brock Landers Reed breaks the law by texting while mowing (those crazy kids today!) Its a good thing Duncan Daley’s coming back for a good blowout…I hear he attacks high schools!

Which he blew indeed…and a rant about archives or something

8/6/09

8/7/09

Quick questions before I get into a half off-topic rant:

• Why is Mimi yelling the word “overuse”?
• Has Whigham spaced out as much as we have? He apparently keeps himself amused by drawing somewhat hott-ish pics of flexible jogging Mimi…But has forgotten that Marty DeJong is left-handed.
• Is Marty drinking Buzz Cola?
• Is the summer now time for repeats? This recap is dragging on and on with no end in sight…sooooo bored.
• “Which he blew” indeed.

So half-related rant (if you don’t care about comics archives, feel free to space out): It seems that the Chicago Tribune site has rerouted its main Gil Thorp page to the Go Comics site, where you can read a whopping week’s worth of comics if you sign up for free, or have access to all the archives for 99 cents a month. (Yeah, like I’m gonna do that.) I rerouted the link to “Today’s Comic” in the sidebar to the Houston Chronicle site, where they display the comic larger and prettier. Unfortunately, the Chron, which has always been the best newspaper for comics and their archives, now has dropped the way-back archives to a mere month of strips. Sigh.

At least all previous links back to the archives (like this for example) still work. They take you to the week in question, but no way to navigate to other weeks. Double sigh. So I’m gonna check with the nice folks at the Tribune to see if they can hook up a decent archive page again. I’m not holding my breath.

What does everyone have against free Gil archives? If you have any tips on finding a workin’ archive page, e-mail me please. End rant.

Now back to sit in my Grampa Simpson old crackpot chair in the corner.

Everyone hits bottom

8/4/09

After doing my best to not have perverted thoughts about giant pop bottles in panel one,  I can’t get past the connection between panel two’s graphics and the third panel phrase “hit bottom, Mimi.” Suffice to say, I’m not really paying attention to the plot at this point.

8/5/09

Things I’m enjoying today:

• The stylized corners of Gil’s flashback. His memory works in old-timey photograph mode!
• Competing exploding eyeballs!
• Imagining a new Kaz detective story rather than this stupid crap that is dragging out day after mindless day.
• Flashback within a flashback! Though I wish they’d have stylized the corners within the corners of panel three.

Tomorrow: 2003 Senior Year Marty, within Gil’s recounting of his chat with 2009 Marty, recounts the conversation he had with Gil in 2001, in which they recapped the events of the 1999 season. Unfortunately due to an excess of rounded corners, the entire story will be the size of a postage stamp.

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.

Make way for the real media! The bloggers!

Marjie: Did you hear about the great Bucket salt disaster from last night?
Gil: No, I was busy being passed out. Besides, it turns out The Bucket really enforces that “Everyone needs to wear pants in our restaurant” rule.
Marjie: It’s because of you they have that rule, right?
Gil: Exactly, Marjie. Paul Diehl at catcher…blah blah some other players and positions.
Marjie: Umm, I didn’t ask anything about that.
Gil: Oh, sorry. Kaz bet me a case of Pabst I couldn’t name all the starters. He doesn’t realize what I can remember when the right motivation is there.
Marjie: Mind if I stand uncomfortably close to you?
Gil: That’s fine, I guess. It blocks my view of how awful the team looks right now. They apparently want to throw twenty feet over each other. Look at that Shep Trumbo jump!
Marjie: Wait, there’s a guy named SHEP TRUMBO on your squad? Seriously?
Gil: Uh, yeah, I guess. I think we ran out of good names. Hey Kaz! Do I have to name a pitcher too? Really? Wow, this is harder than I thought.

suddenly…

Marty Moon or maybe Sacko and Hatt, but probably not Rick Reilly: Make way! make way for the real media!
Gil: Looks like I’m no longer the drunkest guy here today.

Up next, Marjie reveals the Milford Star went out of business last month and she now lives in Marty Moon’s mom’s basement!

Who the hell is Bill?

From Least to Most Interesting Today:

• The introduction of Bill “Scrapper-Doo” Hawkins as a potentially major character this spring. Let’s see…blond freckled kid, doesn’t talk much, with the personality of toast? Ladies and gentlemen, your new R.J. Brennan! (On the plus side, I suppose he already comes off as less annoying than Elmer Vargas…)
• The comic where the starting line-up is announced is over three weeks earlier than last season. Rubin may have ended the last couple stories quite abruptly, but at least that appears to be to the benefit of getting the sports seasons slightly more aligned with reality. So we got that goin’ for us, which is nice.
• Kaz is back! And he just might have a mullet!