There was a time when if someone was Ari, his s/o might be Jackie. But that time was over half a century ago, so yhs has to spend time Googling to find out who Keri and Pedro are comparing themselves to.
All of these characters are from a manga (and an amine based on the manga) called Chainsaw Man. Its main character is Denji, a young man who can turn parts of his body into chainsaws and works as a demon hunter. I’m not sure who Ari is, but there is a character named Arai who is another demon hunter. Himeno is a female demon hunter who wears an eyepatch. Aki is yet another demon hunter who Himeno has a crush on. And that’s all I have to say about that.
The Bucket’s decor is looking a lot duller today. This convo must have something to do with that. Things will get livelier soon, as someone is offering the pair a refill. Odds are it’s The Bucket’s new resident pusherman Toby. Will he be pushing soda, vapes, or to get the name of this strip changed from Gil Thorp to Toby Gordon?
Another smash cut, back to Milford and boys’ hoops action. In the course of hammering Tobias/Toby/Tobe/Toebeans, the Salem player gets a look of consternation as he player he hammered feels… somehow… different.
If Toebeans is getting mugged in P1, is Keri getting mugged in P2? Kudos to the Chief for the arms wrapped around neck poses in parallel. No clue why we’re getting the rando Milfordian showing us his choppers in the foreground, though.
Problems at the charity stripe, Gordon? You need to track down good old Kenzie Hanley to show you how it’s done. But why so distracted by Pedro on Keri like white on rice? Thought Dorothy was your babe and Keri was your bestie when you and they were kids. Have we been thrown from Mimi’s potential girl-on-girl tension to a potential bizarre love triangle?
Talk amongst yourselves. It’s late and I haven’t put a lot of deep thought into this. teenchy out.
Smash cut from the Milford gym (and Kaz’s not-quite-scripted departure) across the country, to an actual, real place. I’ve been to Phoenix a couple of times on business and the aerial view on final approach of the artificial oases of the golf clubs and manicured lawns of Scottsdale never failed to shock me. I don’t think I was as shocked as Mimi appears to be to learn that the woman carrying her clubs is not her caddy, however.
One of the mild surprises of nu-look Gil Thorp is how Barajas manages to work modern problems, if not modern solutions, into the stories without making them the central issue of the arc. The active shooter drill gave Keri a PTSD attack at the Linda Linda’s concert but, unless you count Keri getting off easy for clocking Dorothy after she made fun of Keri’s PTSD, we’ve heard nothing more about it since. Tabatha Gordon came back as Toby to nary a ripple – not even when he turned into a superstar athlete in both of the boys’ sports he went out for. Monday’s potential teen drinking and driving problem: no sweat! Unless you count the sweat poured out during Gil’s conditioning drills.
Here, we might be seeing a little bit of Mimi’s white privilege showing, in that she assumes this Black woman to her right is there just to carry her clubs and nothing more. This Ericka Carter may be a shout-out to a staff guardian at a Lutheran ministry, an ex-soldier turned diesel mechanic, or an attempted murderer but she is not here just to tote Mimi’s bag. Bigger picture is to connect the dots that took Mimi from Milford to Scottsdale – Meemaw’s death, budget cuts killing Mudlark girls’ hoops, Gil’s tacit support of Mimi’s attempted resurrection of a golf career? Let’s hope those dots get connected over the coming days.
We wrap up the year on the prowl with Keri at Casa Gordon, where Mel has left an unchaperoned Toby to get the party started. What’s with Keri’s exploding eyeball, tho? We knew she was no friend of Dorothy (they’ve already met, or at least Keri’s left fist has met Dorothy’s face) even if she might be a Friend of Dorothy where Toby’s concerned. Gotta be Toby’s referring to her in the past tense. (Never mind that Toby was in utero while Mel was under Kari’s roof; we’ll let the retcon slide for today.) Not so much the notion of being friendzoned, or that Toby’s tight with someone Keri’s not friends with, but being referred to in the past tense, then.
December 31, 2022
Time to pull out the rarely used “sucking face” tag. Time also to pull out the not-so-rarely used (at least by yhs) IYKWIMAITYD tag from Whose Line.
Whether Keri and Pedro are a one-and-done hookup or become something more lasting – and their fathers’ reactions to whatever happens – will be yet another thread woven into the tapestry of Gil Thorp. a tapestry that to our eyes appears “a hodgepodge of many threads, some short and some long, some smooth and some cut and knotted, going off in different directions.” To whom does this tapestry appear a work of art? Are they of this earth? Will we, perhaps, join them in being able to see this current version of the strip as a work of art? Or will we have to wait for the graphic novel?
It’s not always been easy to follow the Barajas-era Gil Thorp, but I’m gonna try to stick with it in 2023. Here’s hoping you all will, too.
This is the kind of action we’ve been waiting for for years. Herk the Mauler style action. Kenzie Hanley style action. Old school Mark Trail action. Barajas & Whigham, today you get a pass from not knowing how to portray the fundamentals of American football. But only for today.
Condoning violence isn’t cool, and neither is making fun of someone for having an emotional reaction to an active shooter drill. Gotta hand it to Keri, though; she talks the talk and walks the walk. She says she’s gonna kick #&% and she kicks #&%. Wondering if she has the Phantom’s signet ring among her knuckle dusters. That skull would leave a nice mark on Dorothy’s jaw.
Wondering even more whether Barajas will tackle another of today’s hot topics in the aftermath: the selective enforcement of the law. In a world where a kid gets expelled for bringing peanut butter and a butter knife to school with no criminal intent and a coach does nothing to stop it, what will that coach do when his own flesh and blood straight up cold-cocks another student? Looking forward to following Keri’s arduous path through Valley Modified to Onondaga CC and Le Moyne.
We’re back in Orville Redenbacher’s classroom where Keri is falling asleep. She’s losing sleep due to PTSD from the flat-out stupid mass (sic) shooter drill/community theater production she witnessed right here in Mr. Redenbacher’s class. Maybe we will eventually explore what a shitshow that “drill” was and see some of the MHS administration face consequences for staging a theme park stunt show in a high school class. Yeah, the whole thing still bugs me.
Moving on, maybe another way to read this is that Keri is getting sleepy because listening to Mr. Reddenbacher is utterly boring compared to watching him go Herk the Mauler on an armed intruder. Seriously, how are you supposed to follow that. The least Mr. R can do is maybe tear a phonebook in half or demonstrate how to correctly swing a folding chair.
Kids do fall asleep in class. It can be embarrassing. I don’t know that Mr. R did anything especially provocative in waking Keri up that caused all the laughter. (Is it laughter, or did he just write HA all over the blackboard?) Either way, Keri’s now got a new traumatic event to deal with. Maybe she should just transfer to a different class. I think her dad has some pull. Or better yet, she can just transfer to Valley Tech and we can really get our West Side Story reboot in gear.
Too soon? My alternate title was gonna be “Bang the Thorp Slowly” but then I noticed Pedro Martinez was nowhere to be seen.
I mean, that’s all we’ve got here. The Linda Lindas’ drummer’s riffs, hard enough to remove the enamel from her bracelet, are triggering Keri’s memory of last week’s active shooter drill. Keri bolts from the library, her confused friend trailing behind.
Before I move on, however, I feel that something important needs to be pointed out. Take a look at yesterday’s strip, then take a look at the thumbnail from the Linda Lindas video in franku2016’s comment on yesterday’s post, the same thumbnail I used in my September 21 post. What stands out the most for you? For me, it’s the accuracy in how the Linda Lindas are drawn. The colors of the gutiarist at left (white shirt, blue plaid skirt), the lead singer and bassist (dark shirt with pink graphic, green plaid skirt), the PTSD-inducing drummer (black shirt), and the guitarist at right (white shirt but different colored shorts) are damn near spot on with how they actually appear in the video. The drumhead logo and the girls’ hairstyles are spot on as well. The colors and styles of guitars are not, however.
What does this tell me? That Whigham and the colorist (are they one and the same?) are capable of getting things almost perfectly right. Why, then, are the sports teams’ uniforms so maddeningly inconsistent? Why do teams change color from game to game and sometimes in the same game? Why do we go through seasons where every one of Milford’s opponents wears the same uniform colors? Why do Milford’s road uniforms get colored, period? Why does this strip half-ass it visually when it’s capable of not half-assing it? Barajas, I know you’re out there. Please pass the message along to the Chief: Be best. We know you can.
Our Saturday cliffhanger, then, is finding out to where or to whom Keri runs, and how Gil and Mimi fit in time for Keri’s upcoming therapy sessions around everything else that has their lives in an uproar. teenchy out.
Inspiration for today’s post title. teenchy did not attend this school.
Sunday morning meta: I see said school’s football team was upset last night and is likely out of the running for the College Football Playoff. I hope I didn’t jinx them.
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This Week in Milford 
Arf!
This strip will make sense tomorrow
Because I keep thinking that tomorrow
I’ll catch on!
Another plot thread tomorrow
Ties up all the loose ends and confusion
‘Til there’s none!
When I can’t figure out
Who’s who, and what’s what,
I just grasp at a straw,
And post, and say,
Oh!
This strip’ll make sense tomorrow
When I read the comments on GoComics
Then I’ll cry
Tomorrow!
Tomorrow!
I’ll get it!
Tomorrow!
‘Cause Henry
Will tell us why!