Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

P1: Neither show nor tell is an interesting narrative choice regarding the conversation between B/Robby and WDIG’s resident LBJ impersonator. What is it with this guy and his pockets? Regardless, he should stick with the jacket, as it looks like he crumpled up his tie and ran it through a mangle.

P2: Saying that you work cheap is one of the absolute worst ways one could possibly close out any sort of career/employment discussion. What’s more, I’d like to know how Bobby could afford to work cheap when he’s paying for billboard advertising on the main thoroughfare in and out of town…

P3: We leave those questions aside as today’s so called action concludes with Mimi pouring herself a cup of joe in her personalized mug while Gil awkwardly sits on the world’s most uncomfortable sofa, pretending to read a book. His demonstrable and complete disinterest in Mimi’s day to day is almost symbolic of the strip’s own disinterest in the Lady Mudlarks.

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Don’t Ask Yourself What’s Gil Doing With His Hand In Panel One

What a day to get back in the saddle of posting about what’s going on in Gil Thorp’s world… In lieu of any meaningful plot development let’s do a quick take panel by panel.

P1: Seriously, just ignore these two with their weird posturing. Did anyone else know that Gil has not one but two desks in his office? Say what you will about our pocket hockey playing hero, but you gotta tip your hat to the fact that he rates a huge office.

P2: It warms my heart to see Maxwell instantly disavow helping Gil as his motive for returning to this tanktown. That he does it while flashing a double inverted Vulcan salute and wearing a sailor’s turtleneck gilds the Lily.

P3: Maxwell is gonna be pissed when he goes from one end of town to the other only to see that the billboards both have the same message. Also, why would Gil encourage Maxwell to go check out the billboards but then discourage him from getting involved? Pretty mixed message there.

Burly Mediocre Perfection

12/14/18

While we wait for teenchy to post, please allow me to fill in for Rob’s Friday post.

I would say, based on the alignment of the text to the billboard, that, yes, mediocre is more than good enough. We’ve speculated a bit about how much this is running him. Whatever it costs, this guy is clearly getting his money’s worth. I’m a pretty happy guy and I’ve pulled off a thing or two over the years, but I can’t remember the last time I was so ecstatic that I lifted my arms up to bask in elation at what I had wrought.

Bonus Points:

So, I guess we’re setting up for some sort of Rick (Ricardo?) Soto binge eating PSA. Maybe we could get a very special Gil Thorp on the perils of trying to ingest a whole bottle of cinnamon.

Ricky Soto’s ring finger scares me and if I were Marcell I would be legit freaked out to have that meathook draped over my shoulder.

I’m loving the detail given to the collar of our simply mysterious billboard renter.

Frank Gehry’s Fast Food Masterpiece

If you’re not knocked off balance by panels one and two, in which the architect of The Bucket tells Euclid to piss off, then the shifting narrative and stilted dialogue (plus mystery girl in panel two) shouldn’t present too much more of a challenge to parse.

For myself, I can confess nothing but disappointment that we aren’t getting another chance to continue talking about the shitty cars we drove in high school (and/or are driving presently). As it stands, I suppose we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to understand why these characters are being introduced.

Bonus question: Why is the strip’s date inserted front and center of panel two?

These Are All Terrible People, Even The Kids

P1: A story from TimP’s own life: Person A did me wrong some time ago. Person B, an erstwhile associate of Person A, learned of this and, while he couldn’t undo the wrong, mitigated some of it. Some weeks later Person B called me up out of the blue and told me all of the terrible things that had lately happened to Person A, thinking I would enjoy hearing about it. I did not. It was all rather sad when taking all of the circumstances into consideration.

P2: Fear of failure can be a hell of a motivator. The problem is that it motivates all kinds of bad behavior. Gil is almost being a good coach by asking an open ended question to such a shitty thing to say.

P3: Feeling like you have to perform especially well because you have to ‘prove’ yourself after getting jobbed can be a hell of a motivator. The problem is…

Cripes, what is in the water in Milford? [Checks notes.] Milford is most likely in the Midwest, probably Central Michigan or Northwest Ohio, so lead. Lead is in the water in Milford. This is why Gil drinks naught but distilled rotgut. He may be stupid, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to get much stupider.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I went back and looked this up but the Milford in Ohio is near Cincinnati, a town I once almost lived in but then got lucky and didn’t. Also, there is a real life Milford Country Club. It is in the vicinity of Boston and has a nine hole par 3 course. Although I’ve visited Boston many times, I’ve never had the opportunity to live there. The last time I visited, it was zero degrees Fahrenheit with 45 mile per hour winds seemingly coming from every direction.

Inside-The-Park For Barry Bader!

Lotta chain link fence today taking in a relatively large amount of actual action.

My favorite thing about today’s strip is in panel three where it is clear the entire team (including the guys on base that he drove in I guess?) is pretending what happened didn’t just happen.

Competing To Alienate Everyone

Guys and Gals, can I ask a (kinda) serious question?

What does it say that, of the Bader Family Trio, Ma Bader is the least functional and possibly most psychologically damaged?

I bet those frames don’t even have prescription lenses in them.

Edited to add Frank Zappa’s tribute to the imaginary journalistic profession, Packard Goose:

Meanwhile Barry Bader Is Posting Angry Rants To Youtube

And Gil hasn’t even noticed his absence from… practice? I guess? Shouldn’t Kevin be getting rejected as a QB from the local 7 on 7 teams?

Panel one: As I don’t understand the difference, with respect to baseball teams, between D-II and JuCo (and can’t be bothered to research it), I’m going to guess Gil did the ‘right’ thing in steering Ryan to D-II. Of course this is the second or third time we’ve even mentioned Ryan’s recruitment even though he’s a hard throwing lefty so… another job well done by all involved.

Panel two: “On the other hand, if he hurts his arm, they’ll drop him like a rock and he’ll end up pumping gas at the station outside of whatever town D-II School is in.”

Panel three: “What about The Secret?” “I suspect people will be asking why we’re still talking about that guy for the rest of our lives (of reading Gil Thorp).”

Minus point: What exactly is even going on today? Seriously, at this point I’d almost be OK going down to Milford Country Club to watch Gil ruin the game of golf for a bunch of preadolescents.