The Harding, They Fall?

The Lady Mudlarks are squaring off against the Lady Raiders from Warren, Ohio. Neal has been pitting Milford against teams in Eastern Ohio lately. Maybe he’s going to retire to Cleveland.

As much as we sometimes gripe about a lack of sports action in Gil Thorp. I must admit that three panels of nothing but sports action can leave me with little inspiration to comment. The floors are shiny. The ponytails are out in force. Alexa looks like she’s actually executing a layup in the first panel. The other two panels show aggressive defense. OMG, it’s like fundamental basketball. That’s good, right?

Well, good luck Alexa and gang. Repel those Raiders!

Alexa, What’s The French Word For Boredom?

The first “actual action” of the basketball season is the Lady Mudlarks!  It’s this season’s breakout star, Alexa Watson, swatting away shots like nobody’s business. 1-0! We’re off to a terrific start.

Now for the drive back from Austintown, (part of the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area), Alexa is hitting the books hard. She might be finished with French and be ready to move on to German given the long drive back from the home town of the celebrated Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini*.

The really do illuminate the insides of those school buses.

Chris Schuring and the boys team are headed for Springfield (which one? we’ll never know). Chris has decided to go the David Puddy route and just stare for the ride of indeterminable length. He might have a book on tape, designed to take up the travel time. Is it Hop on Pop, or Infinite Jest? Curious onlooking Mudlarks would like to know.

Hopefully, all the TWIM readers get where they need to go safely to spend time with their loved ones for the holidays. Merry Christmas, all.

*Just as I can’t think of Youngstown, Ohio without thinking of Ray Mancini, I can’t think of Ray Mancini without thinking of the song, Boom Boom Mancini by the late, great Warren Zevon. Here’s a video of Zevon performing the song in a Boston train station in 1995:

 

This Is Really Happening

“Molly, do you ever buy bagels from Arjun Khatri on Fridays?” That right there is about the most out of left field thing I’ve ever read in Gil Thorp. As I write these things first thing Monday morning, something like that can really make me question if I’m this is all real or if I’m dreaming.

Now we have school faculty, like Molly Hatcher’s World History teacher, nominating other students to receive the TC challenge coin. Isn’t this grand?

Now that Arjun Khatri has been designated TC for acts of altruism, do we now have to reevaluate those earlier TCFS candidates? Arjun raised $5000 for the food bank, and you have a collection of stuffed hippos? Yeah, look I’ve only got fifty of these and I doubt if I’m going to get the Flirting With Disaster discount again so that’s going to be a hard pass.

Who is Arjun Khatri? The New Jersey high school wrestler? An aspiring Indian filmmaker, or the singer of Poldo Raichha Chhati:

Yada Yada Yada…You Gonna Finish Those?

The results of the Linda Carr and David Walter Convention are in. Linda is pooped. Sometimes, saying you were tired is just making an excuse for being a real B without admitting that you’ve been a real B. (Why do I hesitate to refer to a fictional teenage girl as a bitch? How about a shrew? Whatevs.)

Linda is tired. Too many activities, too much homework and those loads of carbs from the Bucket will do that to you. Wow, look at the meaty cleft of her palm. Her chin just sinks in there! Does she even need a glove at short?

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Carbs. The Bucket has them and David Walter, put upon boyfriend will put them away. He runs on carbs. They fire him up!

…and we’re off. Game action. Boys first, naturally. Jay Bhatia has become the opening day starter? He has achieved the goal he set last year. Also, he must have gotten contacts.

What’s this? The Burke Bulldogs are from Charleston, South Carolina, the “Final Destination” of the mysterious Mr. Bakst? Circles in circles, wheels in wheels.

Be sure to try the tasty burgers at SLOPS. SLOPS, our beef will make you see stars.

 

Hello, Ladies

Hey, check out Mimi’s gal pal who’s throwing shade at Marty as his beer foam drips all over her. It’s a middle aged version of Velma from Scooby Doo!

*

I hope she doesn’t lose her glasses, forcing her to crawl around in the puddles of beer and ketchup on the floor of Barney’s!

So Marty needs a minute of Mimi’s time. Whatever for? Does he want to convene an impromptu focus group consisting of Mimi’s circle of friends? He could be fishing around for a new audience niche in the Milford’s media landscape. He must sense that he could be once again in danger of being replaced by younger talent in local sports talk on AM radio. Does Marty have anything to offer middle age women who like wine and chunky earrings (as a media property or just in general)?

 

 

*If you do a google image search for Velma, you get about 10% cartoon images from various Scooby Doo iterations, 20% images of that actress from Freaks & Geeks playing the cute live action Velma from the Scooby Doo movie and the other 70% is women doing totally sexed up Velma cosplay.

In Milford It’s Still December

Now we know why story arcs in this strip run longer than their real-life seasonal counterparts. Check out the calendar on the wall behind Kaz; while we’re more than a week into January, in Milford it’s still December.

That’s not the only evidence that Milford is behind the times, even if it’s not quite the “1959 with cell phones” we often describe it as being.  I mean, look, they’re only on Billboard 3.0?  They haven’t even gotten to Billboard 95 or NT?  The rest of the world has been on Billboard 10 for some time now.  Fifteen-year-old Chevy Monte Carlos still ply the roads, their flanks slowly turning into powder.  (Come to think of it, that’s not out of the ordinary in the Upper Midwest.)  Newspapermen still call their bosses “Chief” Jimmy Olsen style, even while grooming their beards, though unlike Perry White the editors in Milford don’t seem to mind.

Is Kaz showing Gil a photo of Billboard 3.0 Kelly sent him, or has he “called up” robbyreport.com?  As Ned alluded to on Monday, none of us here at TWIM have yet to buy robbyreport.com and direct it here (though GoDaddy would be willing to negotiate to have its owner sell it to you – thanks for the update, Ned :-) ), but that would require effort on our parts.  Maybe we should do a GoFundMe? Let us know in the comments.

 

 

Billbored

Maybe Bobby calls Skyborne Advertising to move forward with his next billboard. Steve at Skyborne will get his crew on it Thursday.

Kaz swings by Joan Anderson Travel to visit Kelly. She’s not busy, as usual, because nobody uses travel agents anymore. (Or do they? Click for lame article.) Maybe Kaz needs Kelly to book him a flight or maybe he has some other needs that internet ninja Kelly can meet.

Kelly saw the new billboard! It’s different but still strange. Whigham didn’t use a computer font on this one since he wanted to achieve a view with perspective so he had to go with hand lettering. It looks better. But what is Maybe Bobby driving at? Stay tuned.

I think I might want to visit Paris! Should I? What does Jonathan Richman think?

Meet Skip Tracy, née Bob Kazinski

Here we go again

Kaz plays detective because

He can’t coach for shit

 

Pine Trace landlord is

Quick to give the deets about

Tiki’s apartment

 

Like a Motel 6

Maybe Kaz should work for ICE

Where’s “Rick” Soto now?

 

Next, Kaz is calling

The Microsoft campus. Why?

Oh, it’s COACH Redmond!

 

Is he at New Thayer?

Must be. Why the hell else would

Kaz be calling him?

 

New Thayer must have

A real crappy school system

To leave for Milford

 

Why else would you move

Into a dumpy place on

The poor side of town?

 

The missing subtext:

The Valley’s full of income

Inequality