Light Show But It's 'Lights No'

November 11, 1978

It'll be fine. Brutus will be back to work tomorrow. I'm very used to Gladys greeting Brutus at the door when he comes home from work, but not while holding a martini. Need more of that.

I was thinking the master switch in the house, but we're talking about the master switch on...the lights? The adapter the lights are plugged into? Either way, I feel the fire department should keep an eye on the Thornapple house.

For information about Guard Dog and tethering dogs, go here. If you would like to support me or this website, you can buy me a cup of coffee over on Ko-fi.

Naughty Or...?

Welcome home, Guard Dog.

January 20, 1978

I feel Brutus is less "human dynamo" and more Dynomutt.

"Looks like you are getting in the spirit of the season, Chief!"

He's wearing a Santa hat. Calm down. It's literally the bare minimum.

Does Brutus really think Veeblefester is going to have Christmas spirit? You've been working for this man for 20+ years. Has that ever happened?

Happy Birthday!!

Guard Dog is going to be OK. Doozy has to wait 7 days to adopt Guard Dog to give him time to heal and for his owners to attempt to come for him. Has the 7 days passed? Is she just visiting? We still have three days in this week. Is Guard Dog going home?

January 19, 1978

I was originally going to ask "where's the funny?" but then I noticed Gladys' hair in the middle panel. It's hard to see in this scanned version.

Seems like Wilberforce got his snow day after all. And he's wearing that stupid hat again. It's still not clear if that's a tie or scarf. I'm leaning scarf but why does it look like that?

I enjoy Snowman Brutus. Much better than the original. Should've brought him to life and got him to the North Pole.

Is Brutus Hitting On Veeblefester?

If you read the comic strip Mutts, by the great Patrick McDonnell, you've been following the story of Guard Dog. Guard Dog is a dog that has been chained in his yard by his owners. While McDonnell has received pleas from readers to free Guard Dog, he has also received letters from animal rights organizations to keep the chain on to raise awareness about this kind of animal cruelty.

The storyline going on now shows Guard Dog being abandoned by his owners after they move away, still chained in the yard. As the days pass, Guard Dog gets weaker and eventually passes out. Mooch and Earl attempt to rescue Guard Dog but do attract the attention of neighborhood girl, Doozy, who has taken a liking to Guard Dog.

You can read more about this storyline here. If you witness a dog or other animal being chained or tethered, contact local law enforcement or humane society. For more Guard Dog, go here.

November 19, 1977

I swear to God that if Brutus' weekend job is more exciting than his tea cozy one, I am going to punch someone.

I've never understood why moonlighting is bad. I understand the corporate view of "you're going to give our competition our ideas" or "you'll stop giving us 110%" but you're a corporation who clearly doesn't pay me enough if I have to go out and get a second job so I don't really care what you think.

I'm sure you find just about anyone on the street and they'd do a better job than Brutus. It's your own fault, Veeblefester, You've kept Brutus employed as a joke and now you're stuck with him.

Why Does This Santa Stuff Seem New To Wilberforce?

Mary MacLane was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on May 1, 1881. At an early age, her family helped found Fergus Falls, Minnesota. After her father died, Mary's mother married a family friend and they moved to Montana, eventually settling in Butte. Mary began writing for her school newspaper in 1898.

In 1901, shortly after high school at the age of 19, Mary MacLane wrote her first book, The Story of Mary MacLane, published by Herbert S. Stone & Co. It sold very well and was very influential to young women although more conservative outlets criticized it. The book was raw, honest, self-aware, and extreme, even by today's standards. She wrote honestly about her life, even about her love life, egotism, and bisexuality and lesbianism. Her second book, My Friend Annabel Lee, was a modest success but not as notable as her first book. She continued to write article through the early 20th Century. In 1918, she wrote and starred in a silent film, The Men Who Made Love To Me, about her life and six love affairs. The film is now considered lost.

Her last book, I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days, was published in 1917 and may have sold well but was probably overshadowed by the United States' entry into World War I. She used the money she made from her books and other writings to travel the country living her Bohemian lifestyle. It's rumored that MacLane was a partner or even spouse to editor and writer Harriet Monroe.

On August 6, 1929, MacLane was found dead in a Chicago rooming house of "unknown causes" at the age of 48. Below is one of her essays, published in her third book, I, Mary MacLane.

My Damns                                by Mary MacLane

I bear the detailed infliction of being a person with a tired mixture of patience and indifference and scorn.

I say on Monday, Damn the ache in my left foot: on Tuesday, Damn that rattling window--I hate it: on Wednesday, Damn this yellow garter--it's too tight: on Thursday, Damn my futile life: on Friday, Damn the solitude: on Saturday, Damn these thoughts: on Sunday, Damn my two dresses.

But I pronounce each day's Damn in a half-perfunctory half-preoccupied tone, more from duty and fitness than from conviction. I intently mean each Damn, but the scornful indifferent patience which is my spirit-essence leavens each one. I swear at my life's perversities with only a fatigued contempt due partly to bodily fragileness but mostly to a cold continently reckless mood which is clasped on me like a strong stupefied devil-fish. In this mood I should murmur the same gelded Damn if I found myself penniless and foodless in strange streets: if I became suddenly deaf: if my Body were being lashed with whips or raped by a Mexican bandit. I should murmur the same worn Damn if I were this moment on a gallows with the rope around my neck and life were dearly madly precious.

I mark that with my musing regrets. I remember in the strong young furies of eighteen each new day of my life was filled with passionate poetic blasphemy, protests and rebellions of youth. Those were not tired, not acquiescent, not indifferent to slings-and-arrows, but firey-blooded quick-pulsed breathless brave young Damns.

There is splendor in being brave in a fighting attitude, but in being brave through indifference there is no splendor.

But it is only toward calamity and adversity and worldly untowardness that I feel indifferent. Fighting blood is stirred in me if not against the hated things then for the loved things. I could fight and I could die, and love it, to save poet-lusters, poet-fineness, poet-beauty from the world's flat griefs. In that, which I feel warm and real and sparkling in my blood, in some splendor for me.

--and also I could die for my country: and there is fighting hatred stirred in me against its foes--

But in poetry there is nothing that evokes a lusty curse against its vulgar adversaries. Poetry floats too high upon its dazzling wings. I get delicately drunk from watching it till I can see the wings' Gold Shadow touch its foes and magically split them into dust-atoms.

So then the morale of my Damns remains perfunctory.

But they are apt and useful. They fit into the nervous rhythms of my life. They mark time in my spirit's flawed action. I begin each day with a Damn of sorts. I end each day with a Damn of sorts. At midday sometimes it's, 'Damn the terrifying ignorance of people.' In the dusk a deep-felt Damn of the blood. In the night another. And at my late eating time a negligible Damn.

A wonderful word, Damn. It means enough and not too much. It means everything in life, and roundly nothing.

Without Damn my day would lack tone. Damn richly justifies each pronouncement of itself in word-value, substance-value and musical resonance. It harms nobody and it helps me. It destroys nothing and it strengthens me. It damages my annoyances and mends me somewhat.

But--perfunctory, desultory, tiredly insolent, it would be thrilling to think the hot fire would sometime be back in my Damns. Better that than Youth's faith in my dreams. Better that than the jeune-fille beauty in my hair. Better than even Youth's ichor in my veins: Youth's fire in my Damns--

But there is dearness in this mood, which is indifferent and scornful and slightingly patient, though it wants splendor. Let my Damns be always brave, always contemptuous of disaster to me, and they will be first-water value though their kind alter never-so.

News and Notes of Movieland by Daisy Dean, a syndicated column
talking about young Hollywood. This article, reviewing Men Who Have
Made Love To Me, appeared in the Hutchinson News in 1918.

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Dennis the Menace

What's the point? I've read this comic strip most of my life. Dennis'll just leave the clothes on the floor, too.

Mutts

Earl doesn't have to take this. If Earl wants to howl then either let him howl or he'll start a pissing contest a la Libby in Mary Worth.

Mark Trail

Oh, no! Mark Trail has snapped! He's going to start burning down corporations until they end their dependency on fossil fuels. How is anyone going to stop him?

Mark apparently hasn't heard that Elon Musk and/or Jeff Bezos is going to save us. They are going to help get all of us into space to either live in Earth's orbit or to colonize Mars. I'm sure we'll take good care of whichever situation we're placed in. I mean, Mars already have a lot fewer trees.

Arlo and Janis

Is...Is Janis dead and Arlo is now just a shadow of his former self seeing his dearly departed wife in places she used to always be? Or is Arlo just a sexist ass who thought "She's a woman and women belong in the kitchen"?

The Born Loser

You can't just bring up magic and elves and say "Santa has to watch his budget" when your kid wants more stuff. Santa has no budget, he and the elves make all the presents themselves. Just tell your kids when they want more stuff from Santa that they're being greedy little pigs. Santa Magic can't fix that.

Stay safe this holiday season. Get vaccinated, get boostered, get tested, and wear a mask. Do your part to keep everyone safe and healthy. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Friday Quickies

Mutts

I had a dream last night that I owned a spider farm. And yes, it was exactly what it sounds like.

Mother Goose and Grimm

HAHA! Waiters. Amiright?

Popeye

This storyline is getting so weird.

Hagar the Horrible

HAHA! Wives. Amiright?

Holding More Booger Than Hand

Curtis

I work in a middle school and it's amazing how gross kids are. My favorite is when they have powdered cheese from Chee-Tos or other chips caked on their fingers and teeth and around their mouth. I don't even want to think about them rootin' around in their orifices.

Mutts

"I'd show you but I knocked it over and set it on fire."

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.

1237: Welcome To Parenting, Brutus. I Hope You Know How.

This reminds me of a scene in I Love Lucy where the gang is heading to California and are in Ohio when they see a sign for Aunt Sally's Pecan Pralines. They pass signs all along the highway including pointless ones that read 1 mile, 500 feet, 100 feet and just around the bend. Fred notes that how does Aunt Sally have the time to make pecan pralines when she's busy making signs. They end up passing it and have to back up and discover that it was housed in an old shack and that it's out of business. "See, I told you she was spending to much time on those signs," Fred says.

In my Earth Space Science class this last year, we had a student teacher so we got really in depth with what makes a planet. We learned that under the classification of what a planet is, Pluto had to be dropped because it hadn't "cleared its neighborhood" meaning that Pluto wasn't the dominant gravity in its orbit. Pluto shares its orbit with the Kuiper Belt so Pluto had to be reclassified as a dwarf planet.

I don't think that's a good sign when your body starts falling asleep piece by piece. Jon should probably get Garfield to Liz to make sure he's okay.

"Yeah, that's great Mark but that grizzly has eaten our dog and is now trying to break down the sliding glass door in kitchen."

I'm not a Marvin fan. I find the constant poop jokes crass. But this comic is saying what I think and occasionally tweet--baseball is boring as f@$k.

Dropping pizzas? That's daring. Almost as daring as dropping turkeys from a plane on Thanksgiving.

Is Earl going to fly away with the car, stop the car or smash the car into a rock like the actual cover to Action Comics #1?

Has Curtis not been to a movie in the last 15 years? These days there are previews before the the previews.

"If only Dad said 'Dad's' instead of 'Dad is'," cried Wilberforce as he rested the frozen peas on his freshly blackened eye. "Why does Dad have such an irrational hatred for the apostrophe?"

Yes, Let's Get Physical

Before we get to today's comics, let's play a game. Here we have the first panel of today's Archie.

Now, which direction do you think the AJGU-3000 will take? A "Jughead likes food" direction? How about "delivery person wants a tip" or even the rare but beloved "weird pizza toppings" or "Archie falls for the delivery girl". The possibilities are multiple and I think the answer will surprise you.

That's right. A thrown pizza joke.

I hear you cry.


So Crankshaft is so evil, he takes great pleasure in watching little kids shatter their bones on a huge rock while they are having fun.


Maybe if you chase him with torches and pitchforks.....

I would think it'd be quite warm to nap in.  Is she even going to wear shoes to nap?  Now that seems uncomfortable.