23 Comments

1. 

   The strip is based on overpriced (and sometimes ineffective) pharmaceutical products. Clyde, the marginalized tile character, is happy to point this out. It would be hard to imagine a more serious topic to base a strip on.

2. 

   Billybob, even though somebody COULD base a serious strip on big pharma, Weingarten, Weingarten, and Clark have not.

3. 

   The interactions with Clyde and the ongoing satire on topics related to “Big Pharma” have been uniformly funny for a very long time. These new detours about Grandpa’s current mental condition aren’t funny at all, and represent a sharp turn into “funky” territory. Even if this turns out later to be a complicated setup for some unbelievably funny future material, I would call this set “gross and disgusting”, practically “Ewww” material.

4. 

   Could Grandpa just mostly be pranking Cynthia?

5. 

   Agreed. How can we laugh at Grandpa’s quirky comments anymore?

   Next week: We learn that Clyde’s living on the streets because of untreated Schizophrenia.

   Because companies like Pillsbury overcharge for their medications.

   Later on we’ll learn that Clyde doesn’t exist at all: He’s just a manifestation of Barney’s repressed guilt.

6. 

   @Mitch4, a prank incorporating his own dead daughter? That would be a step down.

7. 

   I agree, having seen what dementia can do to a family member.

8. 

   And having written that, then going to another email address I use, I’d rec’d a spam about ‘Three ways to prevent dementia’. I’d swear there is someone reading my emails (and listening to my conversations at times, too).

9. 

   Regarding B.A.’s comment about not being able to laugh at Grandpa’s quirky coments anymore:
   

10. 

    … though actually, the B&C strip preceding the ones I posted is a much more precise example:

    

    Retroactively not so funny…

11. 

    The reference to Richard Scarry’s “Lowly Worm” is rather…odd.

12. 

    So THAT’s why it looked so familiar!

13. 

    Well, if you’re going to illustrate to humanization of a worm, there aren’t very many options.

    Mister Mind, maybe…

14. 

    Along with the prolog (April 29th) that Bill posted, there’s one more strip following these four (May 4th):
    

15. 

    I wonder if one of the authors has a parent who’s slipping into dementia.

16. 

    Difficult to tell. The strip has at least four principal authors, one of which is parent to another.

17. 

    

    I imagine WW&C thinking “This seemed a lot less painful before we saw it in print.”

18. 

    And what does he mean by “I can take it”? He’s the doctor, he doesn’t have to “take” anything.

19. 

    For those who haven’t come across it, this joke has people rolling in the aisles in Westview…
    Doctor: “I have bad news and worse news.”
    “Let’s hear the worse news first.”
    “I’m sorry to say that you have inoperable cancer.”
    “Wow… what’s the bad news?”
    “You have Alzheimer’s.”
    “Oh well, at least I don’t have cancer.”

20. 

    So then grampa is right: that is how the joke goes…

21. 

    Well, larK, that’s the punchine of the joke; but without the build-up, it’s fairly pointless.

22. 

    B.A. He means he can take all the bad jokes.

23. 

    Bill: but, since he has Alzheimer’s, how does he know the buildup didn’t happen? From his point of view…