Blooper Reel

Daftpunk can’t run her precious little hit piece on Ryan, so she quits the school paper.  Ryan gets rattled when Central girls troll him about an event that (according to his parents) wasn’t all that, so he loses his mojo and quits on the mound. Now the rest of the Milford baseball team quits all around him and the season goes down the crapper. Gil’s quit on his team too: relying on hope and working on his grilling technique, he could give two shits about the rest of the season. Yo Gil, out here in the real world, winners eat steaks, losers eat franks and beans. (By the way, what the hell is Gil wearing on his wrist? Is he talking to Dick Tracy on that thing? Maybe he’s talking with that talking baseball with EES in P1. And what the complete hell is with his hand with integrated spatula?)

Even the color monkeys phoned it in on this one: they didn’t color the Jefferson player or whatever it is Mimi’s got in that pitcher (and don’t tell me it’s straight Everclear). I’m beginning to get the idea that the Whigrub brain trust has run out of ideas on how to wrap this arc up; not saying they’ve quit on it yet, but it’s starting to feel that way.

I’ve been on the road all day to Bakst country and just arrived only a few minutes ago.  I almost quit on this post for today, so I hope you’ll forgive me for its brusque nature.

 

Overrated fight

So it turns out that Gil already is on the case of extinquishing the fire that is Ryan Van Auiken vs his old girlfriend featured on the sign at the baseball game by the girls from his old school. Good for him-  but its still almost mid-June and the kids not only have to finish baseball/softball but graduate already.

His parents describe the incident as non-violent, and are adament about it.  So its great that they completely believe Ryans version of the story. Because no way were they there when it happened, right? And Gil asks them before he asks Ryan about it, even though he has a first-person account of things. Why not ask him first? Oh yeah, he vamoosed. For all that coffee Gil drinks, he’s asleep at the wheel 98 percent of the time. If there was no police report, then Gil should just go back to Milford and tell Dafne to move on and find another story to cover. After she graduates. After she figures out she no longer writes for the Trumpet because she doesnt attend Milford anymore. And so on and so on..

By next week we should be on to lemonade and beach scenes. And golf. Yikes!!

 

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

Ladies and gentlemen, today’s strip offers classic laissez-faire Thorp coaching at its finest.  Ryan “Hurricane” Van Auken is getting rocked like a, uh, well, you know, while Gil leaves him in there to twist in the wind.  This prompts random Milford guy – is it the same one who answered the phone in the Journalism Office? – to run and tell Dafne, who’s at softball practice. (Interesting that there are ads on the practice field outfield fence; must be a lot of marketing money to spare floating around in Milford.)

The now elfin Dafne, looking a bit the daughter of Namor, suddenly finds herself incontinent drops everything and runs off to see what’s going down.  Does Mimi even acknowledge Dafne’s defection?  Hell no!  She doesn’t even look so much Dafne’s way! Mimi needs to grow a pair like that Coach Dawes and tell Dafne to go do what she loves but never darken a softball field again.

Chill, ‘Cane! You still got the W

Having been yanked from the game by Gil, Ryan Van Auken looks startled as he trudges into the Milford dugout.  And no wonder: judging from the motion lines Whigham drew in, Ryan’s glove arced over his left shoulder before hitting the back of the bench in front of him.  He must have thrown that shit before he walked in the dugout!

Bobby Mitchell (not the one who integrated the Redskins) earns the save when a levitating Barry Bader wills the ball to rise vertically into his outstretched glove.  Awful nice of Gil to put stripes down the sides of the Mudlark unis; gives Barry a way to relate to his old man. But what is that leaf-like object hovering over Barry’s rear end?  An actual tobacco leaf?  An indicator of his preferred kinks?  Or something else?  Talk amongst yourselves.

Welcome Back Carter – er, Van Auken

Central City has been notoriously bad to Milfordians over the years, and it looks like it’s going to be so again in the near future.  How do they know Van Auken there? Did he play for Central in the past (and, if he did, wouldn’t Gil and Kaz already be familiar with his work)? That’s unclear from this exchange, but these young ladies know of him there. What’s also unclear is how they plan to “welcome” Ryan back.  Apropos of nothing, I watched Bull Durham last night for the first time in years, so my mind runs to locker room hijinks, garter belts and poetry readings. However, knowing this strip there’ll be mocking from the bleachers, probably involving people dressed up like hurricanes (the meteorological event, not the beverage) and a sign man or two. Meanwhile back in Milford…

… we’ve not yet been treated to a Mouseketeer Roll Call for the Lady Mudlarks*, but it would appear that their catcher is Le Pétomane.  Even the home plate umpire is rendered speechless by the Milford catcher’s talking hind parts. It only seems fitting that Mimi’s minions are playing host to a team from the land of the noble gases. Clearly they’re not in Kansas anymore. Tune in on Monday when Carrie Hobson lobs a few smoke grenades of her own across the plate.

*And we seldom are, cf. the boys’ teams.

Saved by the ‘Cane

Maybe Wellington batters could make contact with Ryan Van Auken’s stuff if they weren’t using cricket bats.  Maybe CB Bucknor has found an umpiring job closer to his level and called that a foul tip.  Maybe Wellington’s first base coach (if they have one) shouldn’t let his baserunners get such a huge lead trailing by three runs.  Maybe Wellington shouldn’t channel the early 1980s Phillies by wearing powder blues at home. Maybe I should go back to using the black & white version of this strip for my posts.

In any event, much less drama than we were expecting out of the new kid who, from this angle, is looking an awful lot like the old new kid.  Guess we’ll have to wait a bit for his first meltdown. Maybe on the bus ride back to Milford?

Let’s Celebrate By Talking About Something Else

Cute boys are all the girls can think about, amirite fellas? Ha Ha!

Bonus point: That is the most pronounced case of EES I have yet seen and somehow Carrie’s face seems (relatively speaking) OK in panel three.

We’ll be calling him “The Friendly Brain”

Today the high-rolling Milford School Board veep gets a mashup name from the famed comic and cartoon character and the famed pro wrestling heel manager but one that yields no Google results on its own.  He looks like a slightly paunchy version of Gil, and the trifecta of head bobble, exploding eye and freak hand (missing an amputated sixth digit between index and middle fingers) make him right at home in Milford.

He’s clearly capable of picking up a phone and calling Dr. Pearl who, with that broken right wrist of hers, may have had to put him on speaker.  The good doctor relays his message to Ms. Rizk, who replies with a deft pop culture/product placement zinger of her own.  She may not be much of a journalist, but she knows where she stayed last night.

A couple of cameos to report: the Funkyverse’s Les Moore joins the Milford faculty after having his face slapped for being such a pretentious douche, and an off-camera cameo by Rex Morgan, MD‘s daughter Sarah, who obviously hand-lettered Dr. Pearl’s name plate.