Almost tempted to do another MopMan treatment today but the word balloons aren’t big enough and tbh, it’s the artwork that lets the dialogue down more so than the other way around.
The first panel starts out innocently enough, even with the overused Barney Pub exterior shot. Merrill has had plenty of time to fix the spelling error; why hasn’t she? Oh, yeah, just doing her part as one half of the DOGE of the comics pages. The Cami/Beth banter seems plausible enough…
…until you get to panel two. A stern-faced Cami – oops, she’s still in her work uniform so make that Coach Ochoa – has the gall to make possibly one of the most tone-deaf, biased and misinformed statements I’ve ever read in this strip. The “Milford royalty” part? Okay, maybe we’ll give her that. Milford has always been a tank town so putting its high-school-sports-coaching spouses on a pedestal is par for the course. But “the perfect couple”?
How do you define “the perfect couple,” Cami? A couple in which one partner is a closeted homosexual and the other is clueless about it until the closeted one comes out and initiates divorce proceedings? A couple in which the clueless one flirts with the bartender who would become his future fiancee while still married to the closeted homosexual? A couple in which the closeted one can’t remain cordial post-divorce for the sake of their kids – or show any concern for the kids, period, except to blame the clueless one for their shortcomings? This says more about Cami than it does about Gil and Mimi. Remember she was first introduced to we gentle readers late in the Rubin Era as a super soph promoted from jayvee who lit a fire under the Lady Mudlarks. Then Barajas aged her, had her join the Milford coaching staff (where she still lit fires), and made her canonically (yet another) lesbian. Maybe that explains why she saw the Thorps as “the perfect couple.”
It’s almost as if she’s blaming Beth for breaking them up, which would explain why her looks don’t match her words in panel three. (Actually it’s because Merrill couldn’t be bothered to change more than one element in the panel. This has been a running gag for her lately; two of three panels identical save for changing an arm or a facial expression, the third original artwork. We don’t even get that today. Again, the DOGE of the comics pages.) What isn’t an almost is that Cami qualifies her acceptance of Beth as conditional upon Gil’s acceptance of Beth.
Though she puts on a smile, it finally dawns on Beth that everything in Milford revolves around her husband-to-be. Milford is a jockocracy, and Gil is the head jock. His name is even spelled out in little picture frames on the walls of Barney’s Pub. (Granted, she might’ve done that, but still.) Her little elbow at Cami is just a subtle gesture acknowledging that sports are king and queen of Milford. Well that, or a subtle dig at Cami’s hockey coaching ability.
Let the record show that this was Whigham’s version of Big Momma Thorp. Note that all three panels contain different artwork, whereas today’s strip contains two panels cut/pasted from yesterday’s strip.
Let the record also show that Barajas was writing the strip when this version of Big Momma Thorp made her appearance.
Why, then, the personality change from being somewhat sympathetic to being yet another harpy? What’s that you say? The two aren’t mutually exclusive? Big Momma can be strong and caring and want the best for her boy and, at the same time, think that settling for the first woman who throws herself at him after the ink dries on his divorce papers is not the best for her boy?
That is what’s going on here, isn’t it? This isn’t so much trying to control every aspect of Beth and Gil’s wedding as it is a not so subtle hint that Beth truly doesn’t know Gil as well as she thinks she does – or at least not well enough to marry him. Instead of putting on her Ace Frehley makeup again, Beth needs to grow a pair and tell Big Momma where to step off. That would require character development on her part that has yet to happen.
Since her introduction, Beth has existed solely in terms of Gil. We saw her first as a secret admirer, then a not-so-secret admirer, then a live-in-lover and now a bride-to-be. No friends, no family, no backstory, no personality; Beth is the ultimate Bechdel fail. At least she’s not a complete shrew like Emily/Mimi, Peaches, Dr. Pearl and the updated Big Momma Thorp, or hot to get into Emily/Mimi’s pants like Ericka and Roxy. Why is it so hard for Henry to write a sympathetic female character, or at least one with depth?
So there you have it: your summer plot is Beth ‘n Gil’s Wedding: Will They or Won’t They? Wonder if any news outlets that still run Gil Thorp run it in the sports section.
Ahem. Calling a good young Black golfer “the next Tiger Woods” because he’s a good young Black golfer doesn’t make it any less stereotypical when you put those words in a Black character’s mouth. Has anyone called Henry Barajas “the next Gabriel Vargas“? Didn’t think so.
How far back does Gil’s memory go? Is he thinking of the Tiger Woods who dominated professional golf for the entirety of the 2000s, the one who was the youngest to win the Grand Slam? Or of the Tiger Woods who was hobbled by injuries in the 2010s, the one who can’t be trusted behind the wheel of a car? Either way, Lucas would have to be much better at golf to be mentioned in the same breath, not some poor kid who decided to try golf instead of playing baseball this year. What’s with calling him a “poor kid,” anyway? He beat Gerads’ ass, spent some time in juvie for it, then transferred to Milford basically so that Gil could use him to intimidate Gerads? Not enough backstory to jump to that conclusion.
Lucas Martin’s future as a golfer may be uncertain, but if he can continue to pull off that disappearing/reappearing dreads trick, he might have a future as a magician.
I know you think you’re the Queen of the golfing grounds
You can
Send me dead rodents every morning
Send me dead rodents by the mail
Send me dead rodents at Beth’s wedding
And I’ll never forget to put roses on your gravvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee
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O Gang O Gang, what better opportunity to expess my love for my Rolling Stones than with a selection off of their blockbuster album, “Sticky Fingers”???? The song “Dead Flowers” is a fave among many Louisvillians due to its reference to the Kentucky Derby. Hey, when it slays the Gil, all the more reason to raid the vaults and bear it proudly for public domain. More fun than pursuing the Holy Grail.
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Gram Parsons was an excellent Rock musician who made tracks with groups such as the Rock heavyweight Flying Burrito Brothers.
But Parsons bored easily. He wanted in the worst way to crack the Nashville scene, given his love of Country music. But love could only travel so far. You didn’t just walk off the street and plop on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. Then there was the issue with his hair. You have a lot of long-haired male Country stars now(David Allan Coe comes to mind plus that perm artistry by Conway Twitty as well) but in the 60’s and early ‘70’s, the Nashville contingent were hellbent on not allowing any hippie Communist gracing the stage with the likes of Tom T. Hall or George Jones. This was unfair because Parsons was not trying to send any messages other than that he loved Country music.
Boy, when Emmylou Harris found out about how Nashville was mistreating Parsons, she went ballistic. And because she was well on her way to winning fourteen Grammys, Nashville listened. Her contention was, dammit, the man loves Country and wants to play it at fever pitch. Who cares what his hair looks like???? Do we blackball George Jones because he drank his way into a bitter divorce(which was true)???? Nashville backed down.
”Return of the Grievous Angel” is to die for. The duet of Parsons and Harris just sends me. Check it out.
Today’s Headline in the Milford Enquirer
”Milford Musicians Association Still Protests Gil And Mimi Crooning ‘Return Of The Grievous Mudlark’ At Milford Outdoor Amphitheater!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
”Doesn’t she tee off that day????”
REX ALERT!!!!!! REX ALERT!!!!!!
Remember the movie called Masada???? It was about a small contingent of around 900 Jews who found themselves in a no-win situation with the Roman army around 73-74 A.D. They were trapped on this mountainous fortress mainly built by Herod the Great when he ruled c.37-4 B.C. The fortress is in the southeast part of present-day Israel, located in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea.
This small group of Jews had no chance against the powerful Roman army. It was a valiant effort but it looked like these Jews would have to surrender and be enslaved by the Roman government.
Then something unusual happened. These Jews poisoned themselves, all 960 of them, and snatched victory away from the Romans. What could the Roman army do now? To round this out, Masada is a UN World Heritage Site today, commemorating this noble gesture.
But isn’t that what Fatty Butt is doing???? Pulling a Masada on Sharp Dressed Oreck Man???? As she mentioned, if Snake-for-Ethics finally put two and two together and came up with the Bertha Butt Boogie, don’t you think other people will eventually sing the same damn tune????
C’mon, Snaky Ethics, if Candy is laying in the grass as if she had a severe case of diarrhea and you see a plate of brownies, a bowl of red onions, two cans of Alpo Chicken ‘n’ Grits, a London broil in Reynolds Wrap, and some Gala apples all splayed out on a picnic blanket, do you honestly think she contracted the poops digesting red onions???? That she OD’d on collared greens???? And how would a dog know how to use a can opener to indulge in Alpo or for that matter rip up the bag of Kibbles and Bits???? Use your head, Snake-for-Ethics. That’s what deductive reasoning is for. Candy ate the brownies which caused the pseudo-DOA in the same way that Grandma Moses, given her similar ability to figure that a fatass duck that walks like a duck and smokes Tarytons like a duck and pigs out on pepperoni slices like a duck, will finally conclude that by gum, it’s a fatass duck who will sing a duet in the near future with ol’ Mud on “Them Muddy Boots.” You can take that to the bank. Oops, perhaps the wrong way to put it, given the situation, but you know what I mean. You should have left this with Friday and Gannon and split it three ways. You could have still quit your day job.
As it stands, you can’t even finance a toothpick they keep in a little container by the cash register. Way to blow this golden opportunity, Mr. Snake-for-Ethics.
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This is absurd. I’m not even about to do Reductio ad Absurdum, a method of proving an argument correct by reasoning through the process of its opposite. Proving that nobody but nobody broaches Vegas odds in relation to high school sports???? We prove otherwise by coaxing Coach Dale to throw his paycheck away at the Hickory craps table in front of Jimmy Chitwood???? Have Roger and J.P. send their allowance to a bookie and the Angels in the Outfield go bankrupt with George Knox flashing a bull whip on their behinds to teach them to never raid the piggy bank when the Angels are projected 1,000,000 to 1 that the Angels will win their Division????
I do believe some idiotic notions speak volumes for themselves without my having to loan Coach Dale a Grant.
And I’m with Teenchy. I have fewer rays of hope and less confidence that we are going to escape from Plotline Hell if many rodents dominate much of the landscape. More or less.
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Well, we don’t think Ben or Willard will raid the Valley Conference Golf Tournament. I heard they sprayed #5 Dog Leg Left with several cubic feet of Janitor in a Drum. The putting should roll the same.
God bless you, Gang.
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Ericka and you sitting back
In your trash-filled Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby days
I’ll be in my office room
With old-fashioneds and a spoon
And some Delaware T’s to melt my pain away
Take me down, Little Mimi, take me dooooowwwwwwwnnnnnn…
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Afternoon Edition to the Milford Enquirer
”Keith Richards Denied Rumors Of Nuptials With Heehaw!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
”They tol’ me that Heehaw nidded ta wayke up so me ‘n’ th’ band wawlked into th’ rume ‘n’ stawrted awn sum Dead Flowers. We even gayve hawr tikkets ta tha Kintuhky Dawrby cuz she lukked like she nidded ta get out uv tha casket Mimi’.”
Multiple days of watching Gil watch his bride-to-be try on granny gowns and nun costumes. Now I know why half of y’all pay more attention to Rex Morgan, M.D. Still, with joints like that we know why Gil keeps the bartender around instead of grabbing anything that’s thrown at him.
Pity Beth has no female friends or relatives who could be helping her out with this decision. Or with her life decisions in general. Honestly, what more backstory has she been given besides having admitted to previously having had an abortion? Otherwise she has been nothing but a blank canvas.
Again cutting the post short today so I can go watch the Braves game. No wacky Captain Ted hijinks but at least I’ll get to see Bobby Cox lay into an ump. Wait, wait? Oh no, not again. Please enjoy this video tribute.
Today we have another strip worthy of the Mopped Up Thorp treatment.
Heilig-Meyers was a retail furniture store chain founded in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1913 by two Lithuanian immigrants, W. A. Heilig and J. M. Meyers. Its corporate headquarters was in Richmond, Virginia. The chain grew to become the largest furniture retailer in the United States in the 1990s, ultimately having over 1,000 stores nationwide (including Puerto Rico). Its over-expansion—by purchasing over 100 McMahan’s Furniture stores based in Carlsbad, California, in 1993, as well as other stores and chains in the West—contributed to its failure. The company also bought the L. Fish furniture chain in the Chicago area; those stores were closed in 1999. Heilig-Meyers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 17, 2000, and subsequently announced the liquidation of its inventory, with all of their stores closing by mid-2001. – Wikipedia
For the record, here’s a store display image of the Heilig-Meyers mascot.
And now today’s original strip.
Besides the implausibility of opposing golf coaches standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the course, I reckon there’s a bigger takeaway we’re supposed to get from yesterday’s and today’s strips. Gil is so distracted and shaken by his trip to the ICE detention center that he’s forgetting how to describe not only Gerads’ antics but also the actual game being played in front of him.
Then again, Gil might find golf as boring as everyone else involved, including the writer. He’s canonically bad at it, remember? Gil, that is. Canonically bad at golf. The writer is not canonically bad at golf. Or writing. At least not yet.
Before I dive in today, again I want to thank all of you gentle readers and bloggers who answered my call to fill us in on the history of the “Gil Thorp is bad at golf” trope. I especially want to thank Rob for biting the bullet and subscribing to GoComics to do the heavy lifting to find the original strip. There was a time when a membership wasn’t necessary to do that deep dive; that’s how I was able to piece together the Tobias née Tabatha Gordon backstory. That time is gone.
You gotta imagine Barajas has access to the entire run of Gil Thorp from day one in 1958, so when he makes reference to something that comes off as canonical the challenge is on us to figure out if he’s retconned something out of his ass or if it actually is canon. Especially if it’s 20th-century canon. For now the best we can do is look at what’s been published in the 21st. I’m kinda thinking tdrew and I need to chip in for Rob’s GoComics account, but I’m open to other suggestions as to how I – I mean we – don’t call BS on something that actually has precedent.
I was gonna suggest that those who cared consider dropping a tip in the TWIM tip jar to aid in this effort but this is the message I got when I attempted to do so:
Makes me wonder how we’re keeping the lights on. Hey Jason, if you ever look at this page, let us know if we can kick in, okay?
Enough of that; let’s snark on what we’re seeing today.
Lucky for Henry coed golf is now a thing; no need to try to keep multiple balls in the air and give more than lip service to those pesky girls-only and boys-only sports. This way a single sport has the attention of both writer and artist, and accuracy and attention to detail should improve as a result. Right? Right?
Doesn’t take us long to throw that out the window, though. We’ve shone enough light on Gil’s relationship with golf; now how about Tays’? What has he done to earn the right to do nothing but criticize Gil’s game and stand around with his arms crossed looking pissy? How is he not a “stranger to the green” and how did he end up a member of the MCC? It’s certainly easy enough to know how Marty isn’t. He’s done enough public harm to Mudlark sports, the coaches Thorp, numerous MHS students and himself to keep him at best a second-class citizen in Milford.
So wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Moon, and get to convincing us that there’s a market for coed high school golf on the radio beyond the golfers’ parents.
As they try to put the heartbreaking loss to Valley Tech behind them, Keri and Inma carry groceries across an open field to an enormous house. Today’s strip cries out for the MopMan treatment:
Now for the actual strip:
So we know Isis and the Pillar family got a visit from ICE recently, and it wasn’t to help them get through TSAPreCheck. Whatever happened didn’t get them sent to Alligator Alcatraz or South Sudan or keep Isis out of the next game. It did rattle Isis enough to have a bad game against VT. Unlike her mother, who looks none the worse for wear, Isis still looks like she’s afaird to stick her head outside.
That, of course, may have less to do with her immigration status than it does with Keri Thorp, Sexual Omnivore, who checked their neck at the door and now swoops in for the attack. Isis is giving off serious Edward V in the Tower of London vibes here.
The whole situation as presented raises two major questions:
What exactly happened between the Pillars and ICE that has forced the former to stay at home, except for their daughter who still seems to be able to go to school and shoot hoops?
What exactly is in those grocery bags? From here the contents look to include two baguettes, a feather duster, a pitcher of beer from Barney’s Pub, a head of collards, a large green butterfly, a human heart, and some sentient oranges. (The daughter of one of teenchy’s neighbors is currently attending Syracuse; home on winter break, she referred to her school’s mascot as “a sentient orange.”)
This Week in Milford 