So I guess today we are back in the “present” after yesterday’s regression to Harry’s mailman days. Or…is Harry working both jobs now? It looks like he’s wearing his postman vest in panel 3. In other sartorial news, Becky’s empty, pinned-up sleeve provides visual focus, as always, as she and John decorate a black Christmas tree. And whoever would equate Harry’s taking a crummy job at the Komix Korner with greed? Clearly this is another one of those punchlines, scrawled on a napkin from Luigi’s of Akron, that Batiuk’s been just itching to use.
Tag: Christmas
The Retiring Type
Crazy Harry’s “retired”? That seems a little different from “cancelled“. Although in either circumstance, one would expect that there would be a pension, severance, even unemployment benefits that would make it unnecessary for Crazy to have to sell all his books. And selling them to John, who passed on buying Pete’s collection because he couldn’t afford it? Crazy might do better trading in his SUV in favor of a tiny Batiukmobile® like everyone else in town drives. With Maddie away at Kent, and his two younger children missing and presumed dead, what does he need with that gas guzzler?
Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future
Your humble blogger is as sentimental as the next guy, particularly at this time of year. But puh-leeeze…this is some corny-ass shit. Where’s Cayla? Why, she’s run off into the night, screaming in terror at the sight of Lisa’s ghostly apparition! Now Les and his “favorite girls” can enjoy Christmas as a family. Corny and creepy. The part of Summer in panel 2 is being played by cartoon Stan Laurel.
Christmas Eve of Destruction
Well, readers, here at last is the payoff: Les ignored her pleas, so Lisa’s Ghost escalated matters and violated laws that would land a living person in federal prison. I haven’t flown in years, but I’m wondering, in the event of an “anonymous phony bomb threat,” if:
- passengers would remain on the plane “for a couple of hours“, and
- mechanics would be dispatched to look for explosives outside the plane.
(…maybe it was a very explicit threat: “…there’s a bomb on the plane…next to the trunnion mount on the left engine…”)
And file under “quarter inch removed from real life”: the guy with the clipboard can’t grasp how some nut would threaten the safety of airline passengers on Christmas Eve? Unthinkable! I guess we can blame TB’s fatuousness on his year-in-advance production schedule: the world hadn’t yet heard of the Undie Bomber when this strip was drawn.
The Grounded One
Over hot chocolate (turns out Cayla, sadly, was not being suggestive), Les spins a riveting yarn of being stuck on the tarmac in Houston, getting in yet another mention of that damn infernal “dead” phone. Nary a word, though, about the “dead” wife whose dire warning he chose to ignore.
What’s harder to ignore is the background in panel 1. What the hell is that on the wall? Abstract art? A broken mirror? Snowflake cutouts that Summer made in first grade?
Son of Stuck Funky 
