So Atazhoon is trying to play with his falling apart shoes. Marty comments about his scoring play with a double description – he only needs to say Lays it in, or Its good, not both.
Hey ref– get in the game. Yes I know they dont have to be up close and personal, but this guy looks like he hasnt moved since he arrived from Foot Locker an hour ago.
Never saw a team with all white t-shirts under their jerseys- Pat Ewing used to wear a gray shirt under his at Georgetown back in the day. But not the whole team.
Hey Gil– its MARCH. Youre just now noticing that one of your players has a safety hazard on his feet? If an opposing player would trip over that piece of shoe and be injured, your school could be sued for his medical bills. So much for all that $$ made at the lift-a-thon, huh??
Hell with your cobbler- you’ll need a lawyer. Dumbass.
One thing sure hasnt changed since the new writer took over– the Milford coaches are still dumb as rocks.
The post title is a shoutout to my moms dessert at some of our holiday parties years ago- it was very good even though her son didnt particularly like it.
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?
Gentle readers, I must admit that there are days when I need a little motivation to try and understand a given day’s strip and to make a coherent post about it. Most Some days I have to broaden my horizons and try to find a pop culture reference to tie in the action or the dialogue. Most Some days the pure absurdity of what’s being presented lets the post write itself. Some days – and today is one of those days – that I just have to break the strip down into its individual parts and comment on each part. On those days it helps to have a mantra, and today’s mantra is Ohm.So let’s get to it.
P1: All together now: In American football, the team in possession of the football, or the offense, tries to advance the football down the field to score points while the team without possession of the football, or the defense, tries to stop the offense’s advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. In terms of the goals of each unit, the offense is thus the force and the defense is the resistance.
P2: Marty has been at this gig long enough that he should know the basic rules of the game. He should also know that the end of the second quarter in American football is usually referred to as “halftime” or “the half.” Or it could be that Lachlan doesn’t know that. Lachlan is a name of Gaelic origin, so he could be a noob at calling an American football game.
P3: Now we know how Marty’s been supplementing his income since he lost the TV2 job: by calling illegal dog fights over the dark web. Applying the dog fighting analogy to Valley Tech football might explain why there’s a chain-link fence right along the sideline of their field. Cage match rules at Valley Tech might explain why Maivia’s having such a good night, or day, hard to tell.
Stepping back and looking at the strip as a whole, you can see a flow of action, kind of like Eadweard Muybridge’s photos of horses. It’s the description of the flow that requires detachment and meditation. So please join me. Ohm…
meta: A moment of silence and a bag of candy corn on the curb for Mike Leach. Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between, you have to admit he made college football more interesting and less corporate. Rest in peace, oh pirate.
meta: I missed communication with Rob so neglected to cover for him yesterday. Mea culpa. Friday’s strip doesn’t really advance the plot(s) IMO but I’m adding it at this late time on Saturday night to maintain continuity, something not often achieved in the nu-look Gil Thorp.
December 2, 2022
There’s no “I” in “team” but there is in “Milford Food Bank.” Gil leads the Mudlark gridders in a team building exercise that may help them execute a two-minute drill hurry-up offense somewhere down the line. Keri is there to contribute to the process and keep the guys in line with the threat of a knuckle sandwich. Gil wields a butter knife as a silent reminder that she was lucky to avoid Mike Knappe’s fate. Meanwhile, Kaz shows up channeling his inner Apple Mary (who may or may not be Mary Worth).
December 3, 2022
Seems I already did a variation on this title a few years ago but the joke just writes itself, n’est–ce pas?
We’re getting the setup for some actual action next week, and in a way that a background check is in order. Presumably this is Milford’s first game against New Thayer this season; so whoever is speaking in P1 must be implying that the Mudlarks have a five-game losing streak against the, um, Terriors?
Is that a typo for “Terriers” or a new nickname entirely? A portmanteau of “Terriers” and “Warriors,” or maybe New Thayer is now a school that trains vintners and wine stewards? I can only think of two school with Terriers for a mascot: Boston University and Wofford. Marty repeats the nickname for emphasis. Funny that he sets up the action in terms of NT ending the Milford win streak rather than Milford keeping the streak going, given that he’s the Milford announcer. Take a couple more hits off the sippy cup, Marty, you’ll find your rhythm.
Back to that streak, tho: If memory (or the search function) serves, Milford played NT twice in 2021, the last season in the Rubin era. They rallied from a 17-13 halftime deficit and won 40-24 in October, but lost to them in classic Rubin tell-don’t-show fashion, 27-21, in the season finale in November. (FWIW, behind its “out-of-nowhere” Delaware Wing-T, Milford beat NT by 18 in 2020.) So the losing streak is one. Exactly one.
So much for continutity. Let’s try to let that go and enjoy the on-field action we’re sure to see next week. Maybe New Thayer will win in extra innings or Milford will keep their win streak going while ending NT’s over them on penalty kicks.
I dont know about this storyline; I guess we have to suck it up until sports is more central to the plot.
Now we have our new kicker (who also plays soccer) having breakfast. Mom made it. When I was in high school I was making my own breakfast. Plus having coffee. That dish looks a bit complicated for a weekday school day. We only had bacon on weekends. Otherwise eggs sunny side up and a waffle, I can deal with. But teach Toby to cook Mom.
And isnt it a little early for a phone call from a kids friend? Wont they see each other at school in an hour or so? And why did Mom take the call? Toby still sleeping? Then its too early gang!
Football star my ass. He’s a freak show. Who joins a football team midstream just to kick? We still never really saw the whole play, just like the Immaculate Reception was never fully captured on TV. One thing that hasnt changed is the absurdity of the plot ideas. I know moms these days look way better then when I was a kid, but she looks awfully youthful for a high school mom. And “they” is plural. Keri is one person right? As my 3-year Spanish education would say, No comprende.
Figures more volleyball ahead. Lets enjoy the Immaculate Reception again. Lord knows we need it.
Well unfortunately the NFL wont let us show the video again, so here’s a re-enactment of the play in 2020. Pretty weak, just like this storyline. We need the real thing.
No sooner than Barajas leaves us scratching our collective heads over the lunacy of a kicker using a soccer move to recover their own kick and run it in for a touchdown* than we smash cut to Valley Tech and something possibly equally lunatic.
Honestly I don’t know where to begin. The old heads that may make a big deal about Valley Tech’s game being called by a Black woman should remember that grown-ass woman Pam Oliver has been in the biz for a long time. What she’s saying, however, might be cause for concern, as it doesn’t match up with what we’re seeing on the field. What’s up with that “flesh and blood” crack, anyway? Is Luke Martinez willing to sacrifice one of his sons for a VT win?
Pedro is the Martinez kid going out there, but in what capacity? Luke is talking to another guy in coaching gear in P2; is he Pedro? Or is he Mr. Kim and Pedro is a player who went in with the play call (again using a term from another sport)? In any event, all together now: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TWO-MINUTE WARNING IN HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Nice of Barajas to add that the fourth quarter is the final quarter, maybe as a reminder to himself.
VT’s unis have morphed from Coastal Carolina to candy corn. Maybe they’ll be like Oregon and change unis from game to game, if not from half to half. Guess it beats having every not-Milford team wear Carolina Blue and white like last season.
Seriously, though, I don’t know what the hell is going on here anymore. In his quest to bring Gil Thorp into current times, Barajas has introduced family tension and made the strip more racially, culturally and gender-diverse. Fine. However, he has either never watched American football or has not watched it enough to understand the basic rules of the game. Sports are the canvas on which the soap of Gil Thorp has been painted; if the canvas isn’t primed properly the paint won’t stick.
I don’t know what kind of relationship Whigham had with Rubin, but whatever it was it must’ve been better than it is with Barajas. Rubin’s text and Whigham’s illustration didn’t match up on occasion, but now it seems to happen so frequently and so blatantly – along with the typos and omitted words – that I have to wonder if it’s not intentional. The color changes, yeah, they happened in the past too, but how hard is it to provide coloring instructions to whoever has been subbed to do the job?
Our fellow Gil Thorp snark blog, Mopped Up Thorp, usually takes a slightly different tack to the strip than we here at TWIM. Instead of trying to parse it, Mop rewrites the dialog to humorous (and often more accurate) effect. If the past week is any indication, Mop’s way may be the way to go, as the strip has become so illogical and incoherent as to be practically unreadable.
*Without commenting on the legality or lack thereof of such a move, I’ll share a clip someone posted in yesterday’s comments on the ‘mudgeon to show that an American football can, in fact, be rainbow kicked.
mudlark, n. 1. (mainly UK) someone who searches the mud near rivers trying to find valuable or interesting objects. 2. (UK) a horse who runs well on soft, wet ground.
Neither of those define an actual bird and, of the two, only the latter makes much sense as a sports team mascot (e.g., Indiana Pacers, Murray State Thoroughbreds/Racers). The only NCAA Division I school with a peacock mascot had a Cinderella run in the most recent March Madness (beating the aforementioned Murray State in the process) and a shout-out at the end of the Pranit Smith winter arc. Trotting out a reference to what was already an idiotic Rubin plot from nine years ago doesn’t establish continuity; it throws a marrowless bone to a readership looking for some strand of it after the past 2.5 months have made their collective heads spin.
context, n. the situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it.
As much as we all bitched about the lather, rinse, repeat of the beginnings of a Rubin sportsball season, they helped place the wackiness that followed in some sort of context. We’d have Gil and/or Mimi tick off to Marjie and/or Marty the starting lineups named after Rubin’s friends or colleagues IRL; we’d see a Milford team play a non-conference opponent (probably another shout-out) on the road (Connecticut? South Carolina? Vermont? Chuck a dart at the map, Rubin!); then we’d dive into the Valley Conference schedule. Sometimes – make that often – games would pass and we’d get no detail about them beyond the result. Other times, single games would drag on for days or even weeks.
When they did, however, we would at least know the opponent, the score, and the quarter or inning. Sometimes we’d even know the time remaining, the field position, down and yards to go, the outs, the count on the batter, the number of fouls on the hoopster. Yesterday we had to connect a lot of dots to make sense of what was going on on the field. There were 10 seconds left in the game and Milford had a 4th-and-1 on the (school?) Bobcats’, oh, say, 23. Gil wants to go for the end zone; Kaz wants to send the kicker out to attempt a 40-yard field goal. Somehow Kaz, who heretofore has not been the OC and playcaller, overrules Gil (who used to be in charge of calling plays). Since high school kickers who can hit from 40 are scarcer than peacock’s teeth, the kick is predictably no good. The Bobcats run out the clock and the Mudlarks lose.
What was the score of the game? Would a field goal have won it? For the sake of argument, let’s assume it would. Knowing poor Hooper wasn’t likely to make it from 40, why not go for the first down? Did Milford not have any time outs left? That would’ve been a factor in the decision as well. All that matters is the Mudlarks lost, Patrick Swayze Kaz feels shame, and Gil stares blankly out the prairie style window at the mulegolden retriever trans soccer player who will make Hooper history, Milford woke, and Luke Martinez leave town when he kicks the winning field goal to beat Valley Tech in the season finale.
Boy we have a lot to get to here so lets get crackin–
Most girls dont wear torn-sleeve muscle shirts. Guys do, like me. Keri is a girl as far as I know.
How does Keri already know how to drive? Isnt she a freshman? (I already related how only seniors could drive at my school.)
Its ok to like Iggy Pop but who the hell is that on her T-shirt?
The way the window/door is in the background indicates the room is not Keri’s bedroom but likely the living room. If so, why the hell is Iggy Pop on the wall in the living room? Gil put that there? Egads!
I thought Jami was older then Keri. And HE needs a ride?
Whoever the hell Meemaw Debbie is, why does Jamie have to make a deal like that? Mimi should only accept a yes or no answer. And its wrong for Mimi to accept that deal. Apparently Meemaw Debbie only plays right after school. Otherwise why cant one of the parents drive Jami to Lukes house? Good Lord.
And now Gil is concerned about Luke being a bad influence on Jami. Cripes, my parents wern’t saying stuff like that when I needed a ride somewhere. They trusted that my friends were ok.
Mimi, whats better, a bad friend or no friend? Apparently she doesnt care. Hey, hang around with a drug dealer for all I care. You need to make friends dude!!
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This Week in Milford 