Women…LOL, amirite here fellas? Always unable to resist the urge to gossip…you know how they are! Anyhow, it got me to thinking, what do people in Westview gossip about anyway?
“And I heard he left her home alone while he gallivanted around Hollywood…twice!”
“Did ya know she’s been in college for eight years now?”
“Yup, that comic book store LOSES money every month! Oh, that poor, poor one-armed woman!”
“I’d heard he was gay but supposedly he’s engaged to some woman from Centerville.”
“Yeah, he wears glasses now. That wife of his…what a moron.”
“No one’s seen that therapy dog of his in a while.”
“This Dinkle guy once had a child set herself on fire, you know.”
“I heard it isn’t real mozzarella at all.”
“Yep, she was all over that Buck guy before they even pried Bull’s head from the helmet.”
“They tried to deport her but she’s involved with the Clintons somehow.”
“I heard smoking cigarettes cured his Alzheimer’s. He has a thing going with Holly’s mother, you know.”
The mind truly reels. Post your own Westview gossip here! Well, not “here”, but in the comment section.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“I heard the new choir director is deaf! Wait… never mind.”
If the next line is “Now give us girls something to gossip about, big boy!” it will confirm my suspicion that this arc is really a porn flick in disguise. A slow, inept, nauseating porn flick, but a porn flick nonetheless.
I’ve already photoshopped this entire arc as a porno. Just waiting for it to be over so I can post it.
Let’s add “Gospel Choir” to list of things TB doesn’t bother to look up before he writes them into a strip.
It’s true, the premise here (St. Spires needs a new organ player) has devolved into a series of incoherent vignettes that have little or nothing to do with the ones that came before it, like how normal “writers” do with “stories”. Organ player to choir director to GOSPEL choir director, just like that. Tomorrow he might be a barbershop gospel choir director or a nu-metal gospel choir director and I wouldn’t even bat an eye.
How in hell is panel one connected to panel two at all?
This one was the weirdest of the bunch thus far. Now maybe I’m wrong here (I’m not) but I think the gag is supposed to be that these dames today just cannot resist the urge to uncontrollably flap their gossipy gums whenever they gather together, like so many mindlessly clucking hens. You know how girls are, nothing’s changed since high school, it’s all yak yak yak blab blab blab with them.
Or the joke could be that the church ladies were having fun until this Dinkle asshole bullied them into letting him be in charge and now he’s sucked all the fun out of it like an Oreck. But I think it’s the dames thing. Because (wink wink, nudge) you know how they are.
“I hear he knows this Less guy, who’s always hanging around the oncologist office for some reason, asking women how they’re doing.”
“He has a thing for one-armed women. He follows the one at the high school around like a lovesick puppy.”
“I heard it took him fifty years to consummate his marriage.”
“He pulled some kind of scam where he pretended to be deaf but he hears just fine.”
“Hey, has anyone actually seen him play a musical instrument?”
“The Gospel according to Tom Batiuk
“Fa, fa, fa ra fa ra fa ra ra
“The Gospel according to Tom Batiuk
“Fa, fa, fa ra fa ra fa ra ra
“The Gospel according to Tom Batiuk
“Fa, fa, fa ra fa ra fa ra ra
“I’ll win an award if just keep at it
“Fa, fa, fa ra fa ra fa ra ra”
Hey, if Batiuk can make obscure references, so can I!
Dang, I have that on vinyl.
Uh, I mean… I got that reference!
They’re a gospel choir? And since the time jump is canon, Lillian led them for a decade. Apparently Lillian has talent and a backstory that could provide interesting Crankshaft storylines for years. Of course they’ll never be explored by TomBa.
Are you *not* excited for the thrill-ride that “Lillian has some kids make her bookmarks” promises to be?
“I don’t know who decided to put live reindeer on the roof, but they were only up there an hour before one of them jumped off.”
“You’d think they’d put in a handicapped parking space to go with that curb cut, but they never did.”
“Why would anyone dress up in pizza boxes?”
And, really, who better to perform gospel music than a bunch of middle-aged and above white women from small-town Ohio? I think I once saw a concert documentary about the St. Spires choir called “Say AAAAHHHH, No Men, Somebody.”
Satan loves a gossip.
Love the gossip!
“She only married him for the house. Every time he’s out of town, that principal is over in a heartbeat. A complete sham of a marriage. I hear he secretly fantasizes about talking cats. Sad.”
“They’re trafficking children out of that pizza parlor, I just know it! The whole dirty liberal town is in on it, you can tell. DEFINITELY the comic book store creep..there’s some kind of weird pedophile vibe that is at the intersection of comic books and pizza…”
My head canon is that Becky and Dinkle run the child trafficking operation. The Westview HIgh School band is just where they warehouse them. And why they keep them in “practice” for such long periods of time.
Epicus, that was brilliant! You had me in stitches throughout.
I’m not trying to sound sexist or whatever, but are there *ANY* men at this big assed church?
“And then when her sister got Alzheimer’s, she just abandoned her in the nursing home! Ruining her love life wasn’t enough for the loathsome hag!”
“HEY!!!”
“Oops, sorry Lillian. I keep forgetting you’re still here, as Ayers and Davis can’t agree on how you’re supposed to look.”
I heard he wanted some celebration nookie from his wife after we hired him, but it took her so long to get up the stairs he had already “finished” two times when she got to the bedroom and he fell asleep in a puddle of his own ‘juices’ shall I say….
“They say the book was almost finished when he killed her. By the way, has anyone seen Cayla lately?”
“They’d been dating for like five years before they had sex. And that was only because she forced herself on him.”
“Oh no, I hear the ‘misdiagnosis’ was paid for with a percentage of future royalties.”
“Well, I swan.”
It was no accident. She killed him for his NFL money. Now the joke is on her.
No, he doesn’t let anyone see those tapes. I heard he recorded late night Cinemax shows over them.
The post office explosion? Some crazy inside job I bet.
If the story is going to include today’s strip, then it should eventually be a part of the story. Like, later on, a misheard rumor causes some situation. But it won’t. It’s just pointless filler. Pointless filler within an entire arc that’s pointless filler.
Has he EVEN TOUCHED THE ORGAN yet???
Oh he’s touched his organ, believe me!
I rejected “played the organ,” but there is no way to phrase this in a way that does not appeal to our inner 12-year-olds.
Tee hee
“My sister lives in Westview but she sends her kids to school here because the school there keeps ‘losing’ kids. Last month they dragged a whole busload to the OMEA and they never came back!”
“That huge warehouse downtown? I thought it was a crack den… Comic books? Really? What do they publish? Oh, don’t you be so silly, that’s a money laundering thing. It’s got to be.”
“All I’m saying is that they only got married because they thought it would keep those daughters of theirs on the straight and narrow. If you know what I mean.”
“Pizza can’t be ALL that those people eat, right?”
The generic choir blonde looks like she’s 30 years younger. Women gossip a lot. Amirite??
Harriet opened wide
Harry let it slide
There was no glide
Mumbles of at least we tried