Thursday, June 30, 2016

Spidey Always Just Hits People With Wands


The Amazing Spider-Man
Anybody who reads this comic strip knows that's not how Spider-Man's spider sense works. His spider sense does not ever remotely help in the comic strip so, yes, it was a hunch, Dr. Strange.

Dick Tracy
For readers of my generation, the name Fuddonna is more than just a terribly named parody of Madonna but the name of Elmer Fudd's drag queen name as seen in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.
Staton and Curtis knew exactly what they were going for.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Rape of An American Virgin

In a small Missouri town, 14-year-old Makayla Breithaupt is left passed out on her porch in the dead of winter. What follows is an investigation into what happened prior to that. Makayla says she and her friend snuck out to party with two seniors from their school and were raped. The seniors say they just wanted to hang out and that the sex was consensual. Based on a true story, this gripping story details what happens when a victim accuses a popular, well-connected young man of rape and how her past destroyed her credibility.

Tauy Creek Quarterly issue 3 is out now. Loosely based on the Daisy Coleman rape case, "Rape of An American Virgin" is the best story yet to be featured. You can order the newest issue here for only $0.99!! A sample of the story is below.

*~*~*

“Makayla Breithaupt, 320 Marion Street, Altoona, Missouri, 62111,” Makayla repeated for the third time.

“Well, she is certainly coherent enough now,” Officer Daphne Littell said. “The nurse taking the rape kit said there was semen inside her but no bruises or any other injuries consistent with rape. Makayla, can you go over what happened last night?”

“She was supposed to be having a sleepover with Cassidy,” Amanda said.

“Mrs. Breithaupt, please,” Officer Littell said. “Now, Makayla, describe your night to me.”

“Cassidy and I were having a sleepover but all evening I was texting Clint Ballinger and getting him to flirt with me. Cassidy and I were about to go to bed when he invited us over.”

“About what time was that?” Officer Littell asked as she scribbled into a notepad.

“Just before one,” Makayla said. “We then got dressed and went downstairs to wait for Clint to pick us up.”

“How long did that take?”

Makayla shrugged. “Maybe ten minutes.”

“What happened after they picked you up?”

“We went to Clint’s house and went inside. His parents weren’t home.”

“Was anyone else there?”

“Just me, Cassidy, Clint and Dalton.”

“Dalton?”

“Dalton Gross. He’s a junior. Clint’s a senior. Dalton was with Clint when they picked us up. We were nervous but I had always wanted Clint to ask me to hang out with him so I didn’t want to not go.”

“How many times have I told you to stay away from Clint?” Ellis lectured. “I’ve told you what he did to Meghan, right?”

“Yes but that wasn’t going to happen. I had everything under control,” Makayla said, rolling her eyes at Ellis.

“Get back to last night,” Officer Littell said. “What happened after you got to the Ballinger house?”

“I talked to Clint. This was the first time that I had been alone with Clint so I kept laughing like an idiot. Maybe he noticed which is why he offered us something to drink,” Makayla suggested. “He said that he had beer, wine coolers and rum. Both Cassidy and I chose wine coolers. He and Dalton got a couple of beers. We drank our wine coolers pretty fast and I remember that we all laughed when I burped.”

“Were the wine coolers open or closed when Clint gave them to you?” Littell asked.

“What?”

“Were the bottles open or still sealed?”

“Oh. Still sealed, and they never left our hands so he couldn’t have put anything in them, Ellis,” Makayla mocked.

“We’re trying to find out if these boys took advantage of you, Makayla,” Amanda sighed. “If you two had consensual sex that’s one thing but he just left you out in the cold. Your hair was frozen to the porch.”

“I am a virgin,” Makayla said and started to tear up, “at least I was, and I was proud of that. Sure, I flirt and find a lot of guys cute but I was waiting for that special guy.”

“Please try to keep it together, Makayla. Did you and Cassidy have anything else to drink after the wine coolers?”

“We each had one more wine cooler and Clint said we cleaned him out. We then started drinking beer.”

“How many of those did you have?”

“I had six—they were in bottles—and Cassidy only had two but she was pretty buzzed. I was actually pretty close to passing out and I mentioned that Cassidy and I should be getting back home and that’s when Clint suggested that I lay down and he took me into the bedroom.”

“Jesus,” Ellis remarked angrily.

“Do you know what time it was when you went into the bedroom? Or how long you’d been at the Ballinger house?”

Makayla shook her head. “I don’t know and after Clint got me on the bed, I fell asleep.”

“So you don’t know what happened after that?”

“It’s all a blur. I was in and out the rest of the night until we were on our way to the hospital. I can clearly remember only seconds at a time.”

“Okay, thank you, Makayla. I’ll go talk to Cassidy and get her information. Do you have her address?”

“1432 Indiana.”

“Thank you, Makayla. Can I speak to you and your son in the hallway?”

Amanda, Ellis and Officer Littell left the examination room and went out into the hallway. “What’s wrong? You seem concerned,” Amanda said.

“I am concerned that Makayla was assaulted especially with all the drinking, but I am also concerned with the lack of rape evidence.”

“Well, I’m sure she didn’t just lie there and take it,” Amanda shouted.

“I’m not saying that but if she was passed out then she couldn’t fight back. Unless Cassidy saw something or one of the boys confess, this may end up being a case of he said-she said. Ellis, what did Clint do to Meghan that you mentioned in there?”

Ellis nervously looked between his mom and Officer Littell. “Well, I don’t know. It was always just a rumor but they had started dating the summer before our junior year. About November, Meghan started acting weird—falling asleep in class, grades dropping, short fuse, skipping school. Clint’s parents weren’t home often so she would sleep over at his place. The rumor was that Clint kept her doped up at night and have his way with her. He also charged twenty dollars for his friends to have sex with her. Again, it’s just high school rumors,” Ellis said.

“Even if untrue, it’s still disturbing to have your name attached to a story like that,” Officer Littell handed Amanda a business card. “I’m going to talk to Cassidy. If you need anything, please call.”

Crankshaft Quickie



Crankshaft
I used to use newspaper to line the bottom of my cat's litter box before putting on the plastic box liner. Is that going to be tomorrow's strip? The first panel shows a litter box lined with shredded newspaper while the second panel shows a litter box lined with a broken and shattered iPad/tablet?

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

I Can't Wait To View the Island With Our Dead Eyes



Dennis the Menace
Dennis realizes who the real menace is: The Amusement-Industrial Complex.

The Born Loser
I don't think legally your boss can flick your nose. I'd take a look at my employment contract if I were you.

Mark Trail
Oh God, I hate this already.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Max's Life Is Just Near-Death Experience After Near-Death Experience



There is a poll in the sidebar about why you come to my website and what you read on here. Do you read for the comics, the Story Series, or the other writings that are sprinkled throughout? Let me know.

Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids
"Here Mr. Mayfly, you're about to die anyway so drink this potion."

Big Nate
"U R 2 Cool 2 B 4 Gotten"

Back in middle school a girl wrote "And I can see you every night for free. I do." in my yearbook. I thought she was hitting on me but it was really just a Nirvana lyric. I don't know why I didn't make the connection but it took me years to figure it out.

Mutts
Oh, good. A week of this garbage, probably.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Randy #6

“Sorry that it’s not much,” Erin said as she opened the bedroom door to what was now Randy’s new room. “You should be lucky that I even have an extra room.”

“I really appreciate it. I just can’t live with Dad anymore after what happened earlier this week,” Randy shook his head.

Several days ago, Randy was digging through a hall closet and found an odd-looking device buried under clothes that went out of style before he was born. It was heavy with an electric cord that was only two-pronged and looked rusted. It looked a little like a belt sander without a belt and a metal rod protruding from it. Randy took it and headed toward his father’s bedroom. He knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Randall answered.

Randy opened the door and saw his father, naked, bent over, with his backside pointed to the door. “Oh my God! What are you doing?”

“Trying to pick up these coins I dropped on the floor,” Randall grunted.

“Why are you naked?”

“This is America. A man can be nude in his own house if he wants.”

“Why did you say ‘come in?’”

“You’ve seen me naked before,” Randall stood up and turned toward Randy.

Randy’s eyes immediately moved to where his father’s genitals were. “Aah! Yeah but you were in your thirties and I was, like, four.”

“Oh, hey. Your mother loved it when I would use that on her,” Randall pointed to the machine in his son’s hand. “I think I still have the attachment in the bottom drawer here.” Randall bent back down to open and look in the bottom dresser drawer.

“Use it on her? Oh, God!” Randy screamed and dropped the machine on the floor and ran back to his room. “Anyway, thank you for letting me move in,” Randy said to Erin.

“Again, not a problem,” Erin shrugged.

“I have to get to work. Don’t want to be late on my first day,” Randy said, glancing at a clock on Erin’s wall. “Thanks for me helping me move my stuff, Brian,” he waved and headed toward the door.

“What?” Brian breathed. “You said you’d by me lunch if I helped you move.”

“Yeah, I didn’t say it’d be today. I’ll catch you both later.”

Randy left, closing the door behind him. Brian and Erin looked at each other. “I’ll fix you some lunch,” Erin motioned to the kitchen with her head.

“I don’t mean to impose,” Brian said.

“Nonsense. It’s just lunch. Come on, let’s see what we have.”




“Right now, we’ll just have you bag and act as a floater. Just do whatever someone tells you for now and we’ll get you trained on doing stock and cashiering later this week,” the shift manager said to Randy as they walked to the front of the store after spending almost an hour filling out paperwork. “We would have a place to put you but since you haven’t had a job in almost six years it’s kind of hard to know what you can do.”

“Yeah, that’s what I get for living off the grid like an idiot,” Randy lied. “But thanks for giving me this chance. “

“I know your dad,” the shift manager said. “If you’re half the man he is.”

“Well, I’m not,” Randy said in a joking tone but was being serious.

“Ha!” the manager laughed. “This is Amanda, one of our best checkers. You’ll be working with her bagging groceries and just doing whatever else someone may have for you over the intercom.”

“Great. Thanks,” Randy said. “Hi, I’m Randy Brubaker.”

“Amanda Windom. Your name sounds familiar,” Amanda squinted her eyes.

“I may have wrote a kind of successful book,” Randy revealed in a quiet voice.

“No, it’s not that. I saw the name on a truck or something.”

“Oh, that was probably my Dad. He’s an electrician and just came out of retirement.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Amanda said. “What book did you write?”

“‘Stroke Girl’,” he answered. “You ever hear of it?”

“Possibly? What was it about?”

“I found out about this girl who had a stroke in high school so I followed her around for several months hearing about her life, her stroke, her successes and failures and wrote a book about it.”

“That’s cool. Why are you here then?”

“I made it a young adult fictional story, changed the names, disavowed ever talking to her, and said it was a story that I came up with.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yeah, it was. It’s in the process of going through chances. It will say ‘based on a true story’ and all my proceeds will go to her medical fund for the next four years and a charity for young stroke victims until I die.”

“That’s cool. Glad to see you are making it right.”

“I’d rather have the money but going to Heaven is good, too, I guess,” he shrugged.

Customers began coming through the line, Amanda checked them out while Randy bagged their stuff. Occasionally Randy would look up at Amanda, long brown hair, thick, nerdy glasses, no chin, cute but not in a pretty way. “Separate the meats,” she said.

“What?”

“When you bag meats, separate the meats from the other food.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Cross contamination. Don’t want to get salmonella on your chips.”

“But the chips are in a bag. So is the meat,” Randy looked down at the groceries he was bagging.

“I don’t make the rules. Just separate the meat.”

Randy shrugged. “Are you good at bagging?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you can show me what to do. Clearly, I have no idea.”

“Just a second,” Amanda scanned a few more items then called for someone named Jackson over the intercom. “He’s the best sacker in the store. He’ll give you some tips.”

Within a few seconds, a guy with brown hair, a cute nose, and thick lips came over. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Jackson, this is Randy. He’s starting today,” Amanda introduced. “He wants some tips on bagging.”

“She said you were the best sacker in the store,” Randy said, trying to flirt but just being dumb.

“Are you coming on to me?” Jackson asked.

“Jackson likes to make guys uncomfortable with his sexuality,” Amanda said.

“It’s not my fault if I make them uncomfortable. I’m just being friendly,” Jackson said and stepped close to Randy.

“No, it’s fine. I’m gay, too,” Randy revealed.

“Really? Well, that makes this more interesting,” Jackson said. “It’s nice to meet you. We should hang out sometime.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. I need more friends,” Randy said.

“Don’t we all. Now, onto the bagging,” Jackson refocused and began explaining how to correctly bag groceries which was more complicated than Randy could’ve thought.




“We’re so lucky to have found you,” Leah Tilghman said to Jess as they went into what was now her classroom. “This will be your room. If I remember the schedule correctly, you have four study halls, two English classes, and a Resource English class so you should have it pretty easy. We wanted whoever took over to have it easy for their time here.”

“Thanks,” Jess chuckled. “I should be fine no matter what the schedule. I’m just glad to find something so soon.”

School started at eight and Jess prepared for her first class, a study hall with only eight students and a para. The para was Frank Campo, who had been doing this for three years. While most of the students in the study hall were quiet and at least faked working, two students were very talkative with each other. Lexi Golden was a blond-haired girl in glasses. Haley Barnett was another blond girl with wide green eyes. Haley was flipping through her phone and showing Lexi what was on it. Both laughed at what was on the screen.

“Hey, girls, what’s up?” Jess asked as she sat down in a desk in front of them.

“We’re messing around with SnapChat,” Haley said. Lexi had backed away, not wanting to get into trouble.

“I know you should have something to do. It may be my first day here but I’m not stupid,” Jess smiled at Haley. “Mr. Campo, you may know. Do Haley and Lexi have anything to do for a class?”

“Haley has a worksheet for chapter seven in science and Lexi could be working on her math,” Frank said as he was working with Travis, a mostly quiet boy who had been held back twice and was still a sophomore.

“There you go,” Jess smiled bigger. “Put the phone away and get to work.”

“Blah,” Haley commented, sticking her tongue out but relented and pulled out her science book.

“Thank you, Haley. Thank you, Lexi,” Jess said and walked away.

“Thank you, Mr. Campo,” Jess said to Frank.

“I know everything about Haley. I’m in just about every one of her classes. We get along well,” he said. “Lexi will always have math homework. She will not do it in class. Leah’s been trying though.”

“Still, thank you,” Jess smiled at him and he smiled back.




It was almost two in the morning when the pounding woke up Chrissy. Just in her shirt and panties, she angrily got out of bed and stormed toward the front door, throwing it open. “What?” she shouted and saw someone from her past. “Kate?”

“Hey,” she breathed heavily. “I know it’s been about ten years since we’ve seen each other but can I stay with you?”

HOOTIN' HOLLERLAND



Popeye
"Also th' lib'ruls in big cities won't letsya do that."

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
Is sticky coconuts some kind of erotic position?

How did Barney convince the poor people of Hootin' Holler to hand their money over for this boondoggle? Maybe he did some sort of song and dance. "I've sold giant hillside letters to Tonopah, Calico, and Warm Springs, and, by gum, it put them on the map."

Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids
We got a lot going on in Slylock Fox today. Once again, specist profiling occurs in Slylock Fox, for some reason the food truck in "Six Differences" is selling eyeballs, and blatant copyright infringement. Hope you have a good lawyer, Carson, because Warner Bros. is very protective of their DC Comics/Cartoon Network properties.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Rio Grande River Is Redundant--You Should Know That



Lio

The New Adventure of Queen Victoria
I was confused about this strip but thankfully, someone in the comments pointed out that this is reference to a GoFundMe that Pab Sungenis has started to help pay his medical bills. If you would like to contribute, you can go here.

Mark Trail
For some reason, I've been following this stupid Mark-Trail-trapped-in-a-cave storyline and it seems we may be almost done. Now, I've let a lot slide in this story from Mark being able to hold his breath for several minutes underwater and his companions being able to show up exactly where Mark is quicker than Mark did but I refuse to believe that they are in a river that is, at most, only 4 miles across.

And how are they supposed to know which way is north? Does Mark have a compass? I'd say they could just use the flow but that river looks pretty still. Honestly, this comic strip is sometimes so irresponsible.

panel from Ripley's Believe It Or Not
Not even Ripley's Believe It Or Not can leave poor Pluto and his slow punk-ass alone.

Beetle Bailey
We've seen the Halftracks really go at it in this comic strip but this is the most disturbing. I can picture Martha actively making sure not to get pregnant by her husband by any means necessary. Lying about birth control, sneaking out for morning-after pills, and, worst of all, taking "vacations" to have dangerous back-alley abortions so as not to leave a paper trail. Meanwhile, Amos sits next to her, depressed that he is has no offspring and has, in his mind, failed his wife as a man for not giving her any children for her to dote on. Ha! Marriage!

Friday, June 24, 2016

Maybe Arlo Was Attacked By a Serial Hugger, He Does Look In Shock



Heathcliff
The absence of motion lines makes this panel even weirder. Not as weird as some of the other stuff going on in Heathcliff but fairly weird.

Arlo & Janis
Arlo just spends his day wandering around the city and randomly hugging people. Don't worry. It's perfectly normal when done right.

Thursday, June 23, 2016


Funky Winkerbean
FYI, Funky Winkerbean has been talking about adding the letter 'E' to a name for the last four days. Tom Batiuk gets paid for this!!

B.C.
When B.C. is making fun of your online tactics, then maybe it's time to restrategize.

Family Circus
*Thel comes into the house disshelved, dirty with mud and grass stains, carrying mud covered dry cleaning bags*

Bil: "Oh my God, Thel, what happened?"

Thel: "I had a close call..."

*hearing a pun, Billy jumps up and runs off to draw this cartoon*

Thel: "...A car jumped the curb nearly hitting me. Thank God, I jumped out of the way fast enough. My heart's never beat so fast."

My Cage
"Roseanne" really down after about the fourth season. The last season, despite the explanation in the series finale, is just unwatchable.

Marvin
Touche, Marvin. Touche.


Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Mary Shirks Away from Wilbur's Touch



Beetle Bailey
Not too long ago, I got a letter with postage due. I didn't even think that was a real thing anymore. I can't even remember what the mail was but I spent a good three minutes running around the house looking for $2.36 in cash while the mailman just stood at my door as my dogs barked at him.

Shoe
"That's 'no' as in N-O, not K-N-O-W. This joke works because we're in a visual medium but me just saying 'no' at you doesn't really work. Anyway, vote for Belfry!"

Mary Worth
Going to Japan to interview earthquake victims. Going to Thailand to...attend a convention. Tomato, tomahto.

Also, was there any doubt that Mary would take over "Ask Wendy"? It's like asking a cat "Are you going to be a selfish tool today?" Of course it is and of course Mary will.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

No Matter How Dystopic the Story Is There Is Always Room for Sex



Baby Blues
You don't have to worry about boys getting handsy with your daughter if you raise her to have self esteem, assertiveness, are a good role model, and talk to her about sex and relationships. But I guess ripping pages out of a book is a good idea, too.

Mary Worth
YAAAASSS!!! Mary Worth inserting herself into the private lives of the people who write into Wilbur's stupid advice column. Meanwhile, Wilbur is off on his yearly stint at The Santa Royale Rehabilitation Center.