Soggy Milford Breakdown

I was out of town yesterday so wasn’t able to get a post up until now. Mea culpa. I spent most of the day in Delaware, where I didn’t find a Wing-T but I did find a Milford. Doesn’t look like Gil found a Wing-T either.

Thankfully Whigham cut away from Marty’s bukkake video on Friday to show us this grind. Wing-T or no, the run-heavy Mudlarks should have thrived in these conditions, no? No! One has to wonder if this was due to fallout from Gil’s little reaming out of his QBs last week. Team Rappson may have thrown lookout blocks when Thayer was under center while Team Thayer did the same for Rapp. The Jeffs laying a WWE-worthy body slam on either Rappson or Thayer is just icing on the cake.

Doubtful we’ll hear any analysis on the bus ride home, not with it raining inside the bus like it is. (Nice of Weird Al to body double for Rapp so he wouldn’t have to make that trip.) Monday-morning quarterbacking will come on Monday, if it comes at all. With a second conference loss, winning the Valley is out of reach for Milford. How will Gil save face, salvage the season, and stifle the controversy? I wouldn’t bet against emergency QB Leonard Fleming starting from here on out. Then the Mudlarks can truly be called Leonard’s Losers.

Dueling Bad Jokes

Hard to believe there could be a worse team than Milford in the Valley, innit? Yet here we are. Wonder why we never see anyone else in the conference use some archaic formations, defensive schemes or kung fu treachery to make up for their shortcomings against Milford. Most likely because Gil hasn’t updated his playbook for this century and would be equally ready for those plays.

How will this play into our blossoming quarterback controversy? Easily. The Thayer-led Mudlarks will open up a big lead on Central, then Gil will relent and put Rapson in to mop up. Still trying to convince Gil he’s the better talent, Rapp will again defy Gil, call an audible and run a big-yardage play for a score. Gil benches Rapp permanently, Central’s coach accuses Gil of running up the score after the final whistle, and things get ugly.

At least that will offer up more excitement than Friday night at Casa Karenna, where mom and daughter are caught up in a high-stakes game of gin rummy or Uno or something. Probably Uno, since Corina might want to keep mom away from the gin and rum and steer her toward the Yoo-Hoo. Hiyo! (Calling it “a duel of their own” implies that the Milford-Central game is some kind of duel which seems kind of off given Marty’s description of the game turning into a blowout.) Corina cares more about her mom’s mental health than Milford football, which is certainly understandable given this past summer’s backstory. Now if only she could allude to that without being a jerkface to everyone she meets…

Stare Into The Granite Pit Of Bubbling Lava

I have to you all up on Saturday because I flaked, I spaced, I just totally forgot I said I was gonna fill in for my esteemed colleague. Then, it just didn’t feel right to post on a Sunday. So let’s just review this in one go.

It’s all Will Thayer and Corina doing some Hepburn and Tracy stuff. (No not the famous actors who traded witty dialog. I’m talking Dee Hepburn and Tracy Morgan.) Will begs off of some good natured ribbing from some rando named Gordon to stalk Corina because he’s into her thousand-yard-stare-I’m-walking-down-the-center-of-the-hallway-like-a-psychopath vibe and her commitment to a both straps backpack look.

Let’s face it. Will Thayer’s game is weak and if you bring that kind of trash into Corina’s house, you might as well show up with a red rubber nose because you’re gonna look like a clown. But Corina doesn’t seem to want to just punk Will. She seems to be trying to challenge his lazy proposition that football is the be all and end all of the social lives of Milford teams. Every hear of volleyball, sporto?

So will Will show for volleyball and then ask for a cookie for his troubles? Will Corina pants him on her turf to humiliate him and solidify her roastmaster status? Who knows where it will go, but I guess this dumb couple will be on center stage for the next few months.

Bonfire?

These are the two quarterbacks, right? I don’t remember what they look like. Let’s say they’re Rapson and Thayer, but I’m not gonna swear I know which is which. The point is that one of them has now caught a glimpse of Corina and he’s interested. The other one wonders if he might get a leg up on the QB competition if his rival is smitten by the Milford “it girl”.

It’s all about Corina, friends. We’d better just get used to it. She’s sassy and brassy, she’s a catcher, she’s a prospective volleyball player, everybody’s talking about her and she’s just getting warmed up at Milford High School.

So could we tear our attention away from Corina for one panel so we can show this flippin’ bonfire? We can cut back to Corina afterwards as she stares into the flames, consumed with impulses to make the world BURN!

ETA: I just read of the sudden passing of Bill Bickel, aka CIDU Bill, who wrote the Comics I Don’t Understand blog. (It’s been over there among the Comics Mockage Posse links since the early days of TWIM.) I was not a regular reader, but I dipped in from time to time and enjoyed Bill’s unique angle on comics blogging. RIP CIDU Bill.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Shut Your Piehole

Corina must not have gotten enough free meals out of Milford, so she whipped out Mim’s* business card, punched up those digits, and set up a lunch date at the diner to glom one last one. Wow, that diner table sure is shiny, ain’t it? Looks like Steve Luhm must’ve dropped in and applied his mop skills to it. You sure as shootin’ know Maureen didn’t, since her nosy ass has been spending so much time burning up the phone lines.

This feels like an arc-ender, what with Maureen’s snappy one-liner and the fact that this is the last weekend in August. What, really, have the last couple of months advanced in this strip, besides laying the groundwork for two possible long-term (by Gil Thorp standards) characters? That Milford has its own version of Mary Worth in Maureen? That Mimi’s gonna end up with a decent catcher for the Lady Mudlarks next spring? That Golden Boy True Standish isn’t so golden?

Tune in Monday when we’ll see if Kaz and Rick Scott are attaching face shields behind the Mudlarks’ face masks.

*Not a typo; see Thursday’s strip.

Time for a Mental Health Break

 Wordpress has forced us over to a new block-editing interface so I haven’t the foggiest as to how this will come out looking like once I’m done composing it. That said, let’s check in on the gossipy game of telephone that has become Gil Thorp.

Nosy parker diner waitress Maureen seems to think it’s her business to enlist multiple people to help convince Corina Karenna that she and her troubled mom should move to Milford. Now this little drum circle has expanded to include Mrs. Art Standish, mother of True and whose first name I don’t recall having been shared in this strip. (If it has, I’ll surely come back and edit this post.)  I also don’t recall having been given enough of a background on Mother Standish to know that she’d had bouts of depression and that any symptoms of those bouts had manifested themselves in the strip.

That’s not to say depression couldn’t be a logical aspect of her personality. After all, if I was married to a big windbag who based the family’s choice of home on whether the local high school football program was committed to poaching players to help showcase his kid and to polishing his brand, I might not be a complete ray of sunshine either. I also don’t recall seeing behavioral healthcare being mentioned when Standish pere et fils were casing Milford. Well, if we’re lucky we might just get more exposition on exactly how Mothers Standish and Karenna became depressed.

Do Cleats Get Tougher As You Use Them?

Phoebe is now giving Corina the nickel tour of Milford High School. Over there is the flagpole where Barry Bader was hoisted by his underwear. Over there is where Daphne Dafonte tripped on her own haircut. That small section of chain link fence stands as a memorial to Clambake. etc. etc.

Phoebe wants the real lowdown on Corina’s mother’s arson wrap. Did she really do that? Corina doesn’t answer definitely, but doesn’t dispute the story either. Corina’s mom is tough and she’s been through some shit, alright? This probably isn’t her first Phoebe Keener who finds the stories of Corina’s family’s struggles so colorful and shocking. Corina’s already wondering how much gossip is going to spread in Milford in advance of her going to school there (if we are going there).

Come On Maureen

 

 

 

 

 

Poor old Phoebe K
Sounded sad she lost her Alexa
But she found Corinna Karenna
Their waitress knew

All about Hiawatha

True is grown  (so grown)
So grown (so grown up)

Now the girls can be so clever

Too ra loo ra too ra loo rye ay

And there’s a huge mitt on the table

 

 

Come on, Maureen, oh I swear (what she means)
At this moment, you know everything
You need more tips, that mitt I confess
Is so dirty
Ah, come on, Maureen

 

Come on, Maureen.

 

 

 

The Mayor ’round here
Was beaten down, eyes sunk in Val Mod place
They’re resigned to what their fate is
But not  (no, never), no, not us (no, never)
Phoebe’s far too young and clever
(Remember)
Too ra loo ra too ra loo rye aye
And you’ll  dance with True  forever…

 

 

Come on, Maureen, oh, I swear (what he means)
Ah, come on let’s tell him everything
Rina’s a catch, Maureen (tell him yes)
Ah, come on let’s, ah, come on, Maureen

Milfords a mess, Maureen (nothing less)

Ah, come on, fess

Ah come on Maureen…

 

 

Come on, Maureen, too rye aye
Come on, Maureen, too rye aye
Now you’re full grown
Now you have shown
Oh, Maureen

Said, come on, Maureen
That mitt it is  real and I know
How you feel
Now True must say more than ever
Things ’round here have changed

I say, too ra loo ra, too raloo rye aye

Come on, Maureen
Oh, I swear (what he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress, True’s thoughts are a mess
Table’s dirty
Ah, come on, Maureen

 

 

Oh, come on, Maureen

Oh, I swear (what he means)
At this moment, he needs every lead
Who you address, Hiawatha is next
Theyre all  dirty
Come on, Maureen

Come on, Maureen