P1: Surplus outfielders? I’m not sure how that’s a thing at the high school level, but that may just be my ignorance of high school baseball shining through.
P2: How that bunt doesn’t turn into a pop fly is beyond me.
P3: How much of a traffic spike will this call out get the Wellington Daily News? If this is WDN’s Social Media Director’s idea of a master promotion – one that might even go influenzal – I have some sad, sad news to tell that person.
Carrie Hobson, higher on the status scale than hurdler, is ready to pitch for the Mudlarks. Will Gary Meola ever know that Carrie is scheming on him? He’s kind of a big deal track guy. Will Gary and Carrie’s worlds collide at any point during the Spring?
Let’s forget about them. It’s time for Gil to recite the opening baseball lineup to Marty (who shares Gil’s enthusiasm for Lefty Ryan “Cane” Van Auken). You’ll all be happy to know that Barry Bader is back at second base. Let the games begin.
Nice strip today although the inking seems a bit rushed. Nevertheless, it is hard to see a strip like today’s and not think of how much potential could be unleashed if the pacing of these stories was more even.
Hey, who got the (potential) assist on the dish to AaAa?
Let’s leave aside the mysterious periodic relationship between Aaron, his mother and Milford basketball for a moment and get back to something we really haven’t talked about enough.
Someone needs to explain to me what the hell is going on with Aardvark’s hair because between panels one and two it is not at all clear to me where it is shorn nor where it has been left to grow out.
Bonus point: Panel two is pretty darn awesome. Not sure why it couldn’t have been done across the final two panels as the drawing of Marty doesn’t add anything.
Slightly meta: While I was away from the TWIM rotation there was a big change to Gocomics, where I used to crib the strip for my posts. You can no longer zoom on a strip, right click/save as, and insert into post anymore. I haven’t yet mastered the screen grab and resize to fit to my satisfaction – the strips always end up too big for my liking. Instead I’ve been saving the zoomed strip from various Comics Kingdom sites, which I don’t particularly like using because of the color monkeys’ slipshod work.
For example, whenever a Milford team is drawn in light uniforms, they invariably get colored red, which is very unlikely to happen IRL. Most teams wear white (or at least a light color) at home for contrast. Color-on-color games are more the exception than the rule, and when they do happen there’s usually a fair amount of contrast between the colors. Having gone to a red-and-black school, I can say I’ve never seen black numbers on red jerseys without a white outline.
I’m bringing all this minutiae up because I don’t have a lot to say about today’s strip which, after a week of promising but not delivering on Mother Aagard’s mysterious line of work, promises but doesn’t quite deliver actual basketball action. Panel 2 gives us a couple other oddities: Whigham’s typical tonsure on the unnamed Mudlark gets colored brown, and the ref gives an atypical hand signal for the digit “zero.” I’m used to seeing a clenched fist represent that digit; this ref’s version could be interpreted as code for “I saw Aagard toking up behind the bleachers before the game. Don’t expect too much from him tonight.”
Song for today:
Putting quadruple-A in for a Pantheon of Hair nomination now that it’s clearly the case that its posture is proportional to his perceived performance.
I tried, and failed, to line up all of the high fives with the arms in panel three. Nevermind that, however, because what is the deal with AAAA’s left arm? I think this is the first time I’ve used the ‘big arms’ tag but there it is.
Marty be like…
So our astute commentariat know what a draw is and also recognize how obvious a choice it is as a counter to a team with blitzing tendencies. Seriously, you guys have been all over it, stripping most of the meat off that bone.
So, I guess now we move on to dissecting the action as described in Shuford’s run. The kindest criticism I can level at it is that two panels are not nearly enough to show me how all this action unfolded without questioning the fundamental logic of geometry and defensive fundamentals. Also, if Austin Shuford was that much of an elusive open field runner, why hasn’t he been more involved in the offense?
Have at it folks.
This is about as cutting a remark as we can hope for from Marty Moon, even though technically a heavy rain storm wouldn’t end the game early unless there’s some byzantine rules in the Valley Conference about weather conditions coupled with blowout scores. Note that Marty uses the colloquial term “gully washer”. Here’s an interesting look at some other regional variations (see “a heavy rain”). I didn’t quite find the definitive guide to the abbreviations used by that site, but if I’m reading that right, the term gully washer is in widespread use, excluding New England. Is this a clue to the location of Milford? Are we so deep in the weeds of this story line that things like this are commanding my attention? What if Marty had prayed for a turd-floater?
Moving beyond Regional English and Geography, we’ve got an awkward handshake with Tilden’s coach. It looks like Chris is really admiring Gil’s knuckles. Then Gil promises his team they’ll figure out what went wrong. That sounds like some sort of coaching. Good luck, Gil. At least we can look forward to Madison Time. If you want to practice, here’s a tutorial.
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