Rachel’s not even safely to her issue-laden car, and Wally’s already secured the deadbolt, lockset, door chain and Slomin’s Shield® Home Security System. Alone at last! But he hears a voice…calling to him…from the computer. It’s Happy Scrappy Hero Pup…”How long you gonna let Red push you around like that, you jackwagon?” Wally, startled at first, listens to the dog as he proceeds to instruct Wally about how to settle a few scores…
Having finished “hounding” Wally (get it?), Rachel prepares to head home to little T. Rex Boy.
I always make it a point to give props to Batiuk anytime he hits a rare, true note, so here goes: the kiss in panel 3 is sweet, and nicely drawn. But: “Your problems are my problems now”? Oh boy!
A little late in the story arc but I thought I’d share this; from the Puppies Behind Bars site:
Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who’ve Served Us was initiated by Puppies Behind Bars in 2006 to provide prison-trained service dogs, free of charge, to veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The dogs learn special skills to mitigate the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
“Rache” is trying to help, but nobody can help Wally, not nobody, not no how. She allows him to plead his case, even managing to keep a straight face at the mention of Wally “keeping it together”, even barely. But in panel three…there’s that crazed, earnest expression, those beady eyes and that tilt of the head. Last time Rachel got that look, she nearly drove him to a public freakout at the county fair…
Not even going to try and work out the math that equals “six long years” of Wally’s service. But the melodrama meter remains off the charts with his litany of rituals. Wally can’t be blamed for clinging to his survival habits, since nobody in his life bothered to give him a proper “welcome home”. No wonder he’s still at war in his mind.
Maybe he fell short of a Pulitzer, but today Tom Batiuk wins the award for MAIADB: Most Acronyms in a Dialogue Balloon. Can one of our esteemed vets hip me to what O.E.D. stands for in this context? My normally awesome Google skills failed me. “T.B.I.”, of course, stands for Tom Batiuk’s Incoherence, an issue that affects not just Wally, but everyone who reads TB’s “writing”.
Update: O.E.D. or E.O.D.?
More confusing-acronym hell: It looks like panel one was amended since it appeared months ago in the Puppies Behind Bars newsletter. Since the site where I get my comics was down (it’s since come back online, thank goodness) I used the black and white panels from the preview. So, as John commented below, I guess the acronym is E.O.D. (explosives ordinance disposal), which opens up yet another can of worms: the only time I can recall seeing Sgt. Wally dealing with explosive ordinance was when he stepped on a Bouncing Betty during his Afghan honeymoon and had to be rescued by Khan. The retcons (ret-Khans?) are coming fast and furious now, kids. Maybe the Grand Finale draws nigh after all?
Son of Stuck Funky 
