What Happened to Janet?

So it’s now the
Milford Diner?
It’s no longer
Named for Janet?
‘Cause it must be
Janet’s Diner
There can’t be
one more in Milford

An old stomping
ground for Heather
Not like she
doesn’t know the place
And like a
chronic illness
there’s still
that snoop Maureen

So what’s up with
Marjie Ducey?
Does she have
the inside angle?
Did she get it
From Dale Parry?
‘Cause she didn’t
Interview her

Don’t you think
It’s kinda weird
That they’re talking
About work
When Heather has
no job offer?
It seems
so premature

“You say you
were an intern
Can you make
a cup of coffee?
See, I am
The top reporter
I’m not giving
up that title”

“So you’d better
find another role
Like selling
website ad space
You don’t see me
Coaching football players!
You should
Just stay in your lane!”

“Hey Ms. Ducey –
I mean ‘Marjie’ –
I’m not gunning
for your title
I’m just trying
to earn money
Since Coach Thorp
Ain’t payin’ bupkis“

“I have covered
boring meetings
Filled with all the
Self-important
Like that blowhard
Abel Brito
I think
I get the drift”

“Well alright,
then it’s settled
You can go case
the Country Club
I’ve heard that
There’s been gambling
And it’s not
the legal kind…”

“So if you break the story…
And we publish it
Under my byline…”

“I’ll pick up the next drink tab
and you can save some dough…”

Getting Hammered at the MCC? What Else Is New?

“How small of a stipend are we talking about, Mr. Coach Thorp?“

“Remember how far I held my fingers apart earlier? That’s how small your stipend will be.”

“Seriously? I thought you were talking about your post-practice shrinkage in the showers.”

“Just for that crack, no hot dog for you. Just a drink per game.”

So between her internship at the Star and her stipend from Gildeaux, Heather’s gonna pay down those student loans. Yeah, sure. Maybe that’s where the “I’d love to have you” part comes in. (Offensive line coach at a Big Ten school? Only if she was coaching them the way Clara Bow was alleged to coach the boys at USC.) But hey, at least she’ll be making more than Steve Boone. Can any of the faithful confirm whether he ever got a raise? Will he quit once he finds out about Heather?

Back to the golf mooks. TIL Vegas is a golf betting game for foursomes that involves combining each of a pair’s scores to get a numerical value; the pair with the lower value for a hole wins money from the pair with the higher value of a certain amount per difference in stroke (see here for an example). It’s just more filler to hammer home the point that gambling’s going on at the MCC, but the fact that Hendricks is still wearing his red polo shirt might lead us to think he’s an MCC employee, in which case his betting would be either doubleplusungood or quickly swept under the turf.

Carter Presses

Let’s get comfortable here at Milford CC. We might be here for a while and that’s fine by me. I want to find out about Carter Hendricks. Gil seems to indicate that Hendricks has been a staple on the course since last summer, so maybe he’s not a hustler if he’s a known quantity. Also, he seems to be playing in the same foursome as before, so if he’s hustling them repeatedly, it’s kind of on them. Are the the same guys? I don’t know for sure. They are just grey silhouettes today. I guess I’m just going by one guy wearing the same hat. Plus there was a bald guy in the group in the last strip. We don’t have time to get names from these guys, so who knows.

How will Heather Burns fit in? She interviewed at the Star, so she has some journalistic ambitions. Is there a story in Carter Hendricks or maybe just a personal interest? Like, where are we going with this?

Without much else to discuss, I’ll fall back on one of my favorite inane topics, the process of coloring the strip. The first item up for dissection is the white band aid Carter Hendricks has on his finger. I can’t recall ever seeing a white band aid, at least not the standard consumer band aid for tuna can injuries to digits. But if the finger is already Caucasian flesh tone, then I guess a colorist has to make a choice on the band aid. Whigham didn’t make it a Spiderman band aid to telegraph anything exotic, so we get this “unnatural” white one.

The other coloring issue that has nagged me for the last few strips is that it seems like the coloring person or persons in their usual laziness and/or inattention to the actual story seems to think Gil and Carter Hendricks are the same person. Sure, two different characters can wear the same colored clothing. This is a sports strip, often with many characters in the same team colored gear. But, as a rule, it is probably best to differentiate different characters, especially characters with similar looks, by putting them in different color clothing. When Gil and Hendricks have been in the same strips, they’ve both been in red. The colorists don’t know what’s going on, and don’t care.

Please Let This Golf Shark Be Gil’s Long-lost Son

Continuing with an idea thrown out by robmize yesterday, kids fresh out of college do not need to have their life’s trajectories neatly laid out before them the moment they’re handed their diplomas. The realities of today’s working world and the high costs of post-secondary education weigh on today’s twentysomethings like they did on few generations before them. So kudos to Rubin for painting that aspect of Heather’s character with a fairly accurate brush. Still Gil can’t help but be a tiny bit of a dick with his little dig at the many things Heather tried to do during her high school days.

Speaking of tiny dickishness: I imagine Friend of TWIM and fellow Thorp snarker Mopman is having a field day with P2 here, skipping over the Get Smart references and going straight to the crotchal area.

Today’s bombshell may be an unintentional one, however. Between the hairline and the coloring, he’s made golf shark Hendricks into a dead ringer for Gildeaux and vice versa. Okay, maybe the sideburns are a millimeter or two different but seriously, how lazy can he get? Lazy enough that we could hope against hope that Hendricks is in reality long lost Thorp son Jami. Now that would make for an interesting summer plot…

Time for an afternoon siesta. Have at it, gentle readers, and catch you next week.

“Life Is Good” Only Works on T-shirts

Sometimes a song parody is appropriate. Sometimes a song already has appropriate lyrics. This is one of those times.

The second verse is particularly fitting:

I’ve got a story, ain’t got no moral
Let the bad guy win every once in a while
I’ve got a story, ain’t got no moral
Let the bad guy win every once in a while

Is this the first Gil Thorp story arc in which the bad guy – mustachioed, ill-tempered, clearly antagonistic toward a kid – does not receive his comeuppance? And he’s going to be allowed to continue his antagonism unabated? What fresh hell is this?

Everything’s just gonna be hunky-dory from now on. Zane will show up for dinner at the Britos once a week to eat heaping helpings of white food with a side of belly button fan service while listening to Abel rant about having the library provide any kind of service. He must not have heard about the Boo Radley Memorial Little Free Library; if he had he’d probably have run on a platform of closing the Milford Public Library and using it instead.

Today’s final panel has that freeze-frame, roll credits feel of an arc-ender. Let’s pray that it is. ¡Ay, Dios mio!

You’ve Got Other Things to Jab, IYKWIM

Looks like Paul Muench wasn’t long enough, if you know what I mean.

More like Zane Clark came up a little short, if you know what I mean.

I think Katy Brito’s ready for him to jab her capulets anyway, if you know what I mean.

But if Zane wins the Library Board position, he’ll have to sharpen his own pencil, if you know what I mean.

But if Katy’s dad wins the Library Board position, Zane won’t be logging on, if you know what I mean.

Either way, Zane will become a two-time loser in one day, if you know what I mean.

Not if Gil’s bribe pays off, if you know what I mean.

Twenty-nine years is a long time to be eating pie, if you know what I mean.

Betcha that old codger won’t be eating pie on the Library Board anymore, if you know what I mean.

Too bad Zane won’t be needing to use the library once his senior year’s over, if you know what I mean.

Too bad Gil didn’t grease the skids for Zane to get into college like Mimi did for that Corina kid, if you know what I mean.

Maybe Zane should have run for library janitor, if you know what I mean.

[long, drawn-out pause]

Say, that stairway at Milford High looks like it was designed by M.C. Escher, if you know what I mean.

Like A Tragedy

Katy and Zane are still riffing on this Romeo and Juliet nonsense? Sheathe your weapon Katy, Chief Lind expressly hath forbidden bandying in Milford streets. Did we really have to check in with these star crossed idiots again for a single panel accounting for half the tags on this post. Katy has all the chunky accoutrements and is posing in front of a prairie style window. It’s enough to make you plotz.

There’s more baseball to be played. Oh joy. Marty has to drag the crate out in the summer heat and document Zane Romeo Clark’s exploits on the mound. He’s probably sitting on a cooler full of iced cold Schlitz.

Round about the time Marty is cracking open his tenth beer, Valley Tech gets on the board and we watch a relay throw coming in from the outfield. Yawn. Is there any of that pie left?

Scott Kempner of The Dictators and The Del Lords, take it away:

A Little Too Eager with the Swordfights, Methinks

A line that did not bear repeating gets repeated. At least it gives Zane a chance to practice Mimi’s ventriloquism trick. Time to pull out that old Rowan Atkinson decking Colin Firth clip again.

I’m as dumbfounded as many of you as to why the Library Board seat decision was not made soon after, if not immediately after, Zane and Abel had their little debate. In any event, a coffee bar has yet to pop up in the Milford Public Library though bringing one’s own coffee in and drinking it there is A-OK by the library staff.

On to the halls of Milford High before the Valley Tech game (which, we can only hope, is the season finale) and Gildeaux can’t help but notice Zanes’ postcoital flush rosy glow. Looking Chipper? I thought Zane was a pitcher/outfielder, not a third baseman.