Holy crap its yesterdays strip!

I finally get around to doing this after a busy day and what do I see but one panel reviewing yesterdays strip, one panel making a lame one-liner I learned from a co-worker 20 years ago, and one panel making 3 (three!) more lame weak remarks effecting blowing a day in the life of the strip without advancing the plot ONE FREAKIN BIT!!!!

Just when I was getting a wee bit excited about the new plot; we get stuck in the mud after 1 lap. And none of the lines was the least bit funny.  If I talked to girls like that in high school I’d get stuffed in a locker for 4 years and not released until graduation day.  ( Hey, that was better then anything they said)

Boy if we have to put up with panels about track and field jokes til July I may have to go on strike again, but at least this time I’ll have a supply of these magazines to keep me busy …

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Pitcher

Rubin never fails to give us at least one unlikable Mudlark a season and this spring, Ryan “Cane” Van Auken is gonna be that guy. Rubin doesn’t always give us a troll right out of the box so credit where credit is due, I reckon.  Pete plays Henry Hill to Ryan’s Tommy DeVito and just like that we’re off and running. The as yet unnamed Milford mopes (the one far right looking a wee bit like another Ryan) at the end of the bench already have the two thousand-yard stare and the “not this shit again” look on their faces.

Whaddaya think’ll happen next? Gil and Kaz have a “lighten up, Francis” moment with Ryan? Big Ken Brown and Mike Granger, Boy Detectives, dig up dirt on “Cane” and get him in protective custody?  Dead bodies strewn all over Idaho? Stick around if you dare; between this and budding investigative reporter/softballer Dafne Dafonte, we’re in for another three months of rambling wrapped up awkardly in three days interesting times ahead!

I’m shocked – SHOCKED! – that this story is ending!

As another rando Mudlark continues to double fist pump for heaven knows what reason, exit stage right Quadruple AAAA and Big Ken Brown in best Rick Blaine and Captain Renault fashion. (This twin figures walking away into the shadows to end an arc thing is becoming a Whigham hallmark.)  All that’s missing is Tina Aagard boarding a plane with letters of transit to… a rehab clinic?

Here’s where I profess total ignorance. Is it typical for single parent addicts to be sent directly into residential rehab programs and give up custody of their children during that time, do not pass go, do not collect $200?  Is it typical for single parent addicts being sent directly into rehab under such circumstances to not even say goodbye to said children?  I’ll give Rubin a smidgen of credit for attempting to address some troubling phenomena facing the US today: the interplay between the spread of opioid addiction and the decline of the white working and middle class.

I will also profess total ignorance of this plot twist when I made my Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner reference a couple of weeks ago. I chose that reference thinking that Gil would use his animal charm to coerce Aaron’s teammates’ families to invite Aaron over for a series of meals. I did not factor race into the equation and, until reading yesterday’s post, didn’t really factor it into this arc at all.  Given that Hiatt-Brown household has been portrayed as one of the more successful ones in the Thorpiverse over the past few arcs, I did wonder whether Ken’s snoopiness about Aaron’s home life was going to lead into a subplot that gave him feet of clay.  Any thoughts of that have been erased now that Aaron will be getting a taste of Ken’s dad’s home cooking while giving the Hiatt-Browns an intro to the joys of EDM.

Baseball on Monday, then?  I wonder what usual suspects Rubin will round up for the team this season.

Three Days of the Bader

Counting today, I think that’s probably all we have left to see of Barry (unless of course that’s him sauntering into oblivion in P3 in best Kenzie Hanley and Maxwell Bacon fashion). Nothing like the twelve years Del got yesterday. Given the current pacing of this strip. maybe Barry will be a senior by then!

Who’s to say that Barry hasn’t “gotten it”? Certainly not the self-righteous Ken Brown. So the little jerk lashed out at your mom. He didn’t know she was your mom until you told him so, and you’ve carried a grudge against him ever since. Ken’s inability to recognize Barry’s pain and what passes for Barry’s coping mechanisms doesn’t win him any points or make him a sympathetic character.

From the Architectural Details Dept.: Are there staircases immediately to the left and right of Ken and True? Is this the M.C. Escher Wing of Milford High?

Listen, I’m not gonna put any more thought into this strip today. I can’t get sucked into making comparisons between Gil Thorp and other strips; I’m having a hard enough time as it is trying to figure out when my own life turned into a panel of Arlo and Janis. Anyway, here’s a song for Del.

 

Tell Ya, We Don’t Like It

You ain’t got no way of ending a plot
I gotta tell you that this story line is shot
You takin’ us on some kind of endless ride
You done this ever since Boo Radley died

Tell us something good
Tell us that you’ll end this, yeah
Tell us something good
Tell us it’s still summer, yeah

Sense of time is what you let slip away
You drag this out like there’s 48 hours to each day
Your problem is that you milked this puppy dry
We’re so bored with this, we don’t even try

Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Tell us that it’s tee time, yeah
Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Bring back Herk the Mauler, yeah

You ain’t got no kind of master plan
All your tales are told from the perspective of a man
You refuse to give us strong leads that are girls
Some of us think you should sit on it and twirl

Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Give Del’s wife a new man, yeah
Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Mimi and the pool boy, yeah

Got no idea how to let True get away
(Got no clue, no, got no clue)
College kickoff is less than a month away
Your problem is you gave us more of him than we could take
Let him go, ship his ass on off to Wake

Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Wrap this story up, yeah
Tell us something good
(tell us tell us tell us)
Ready for some football, yeah

(lather, rinse, repeat)

edit: The tune, for reference.

 

 

Who Keeps CD’s In A Glovebox?

Then again, when was the last time anyone put gloves in a glovebox? Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway?

I think we’ve all heard enough at this point.

I Shoulda Kept That Alliteration Joke In Reserve

Not that I would ever cross a picket line, but here’s today’s cruddy replacement post:

I’m going to assume that’s just Ken hitting his locker and not slamming it shut with Barry stuffed inside as has been so devoutly wished for by our TWIM commentariat.

 

The Darth Knight Returns

I ain’t gonna lie: I like today’s strip in a genuine, non-ironic fashion. The first panel could have been lifted straight from a Frank Miller graphic novel (if not a Jack Chick tract). Surprising what Whigham can do when he’s not drawing tonsures, Paulie Walnuts hair and potato noses. Panel two features the kind of teasing you expect in a high school locker room, though Barry’s freckles again take a temporary hiatus. Finally we learn that, besides being an I-before-team guy, Barry also lacks a brain-to-mouth filter.

I suppose on Monday we’ll learn that Stupid Cow “Hang ’em” Hiatt is Ken Brown’s aunt or something or that Darth’s less sympathetic teammates will now start calling him “Dewey” instead of Del. For now let’s just enjoy a Saturday strip that contains reasonably plausible dialogue given the pace of this spring arc.