I think Singapore Bill is getting at the idea of “SWATting” someone. Though they all dislike his management style, I’m quite sure that isn’t the intended message behind the “wellness check”.
There is perhaps a connection between his disappearance and the rumors of the Grumbel’s chain closing. Also wasn’t he acting oddly during his “work a day at the store” exercise?
Not that I recall – he dressed up to match, then spent the day in the office avoiding work. Very Stuart.
My impression of “wellness check” is “ask the police to go see if he’s dead (or at least fallen and can’t get up)”. When I was on the board of my condo we had to do (call the police to do) a couple of those – though the worst they found was someone with a bad cold who hadn’t left the house for four or five days.
I don’t know about Winkerbean territory – you’re supposed to empathize with the people who die and those left behind grieving. I don’t think any of the regular characters would actually miss Stuart. I’m hoping he’s not on a leadership retreat meant to set him up for promotion (or something similar) – he’s only a district manager now, he could be even worse (though more distant) at a higher rank.
@SingaporeBill: He’s the district manager.
jjmcgaffey, do you sympathize with anybody in the Winkerbean cast? I’d rather deal with Stuart than Les any day of the week.
However many people get shot while responding to a wellness check with a weapon in hand, the vast, vast majority of such checks end without violence. It’s absurd to think that’s what the Retail characters are thinking.
“It’s absurd…”
Uh, are you new here? Absurd is what I do. :)
Saying a boss can’t be worse than Stuart is just asking for trouble.
2. Does NOBODY know how to pluralize noun’s anymore???
Yeah, a wellness check is SUPPOSED to be benevolent. Whether it works out that way or not is another matter.
Stuart is the much (and deservedly) -hated district manager, as LazarusJohn notes. He calls and tells them things like “You have to make quota this month”, or shows up to “help” and does nothing. You know, a PHB.
Few if any of this strip’s dailies are thigh-slappers, but the ongoing narrative isn’t bad; I follow it (thanks to someone here, I believe).
I’ve never heard “wellness check” used in any other than a positive context, but the discussion does bring to mind the classic joke:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”
i wonder if Norm Feuti is planning to end Retail soon. Lately there have been hints of Grumbel’s going out of business. Now Stuart seems to have disappeared (fired, maybe?) It makes for an interesting storyline that mirrors what’s actually happening to department stores across the USA – but can the strip reinvent itself in the brave new shopping world? Or are its days numbered?
DanV, Rumbles about grumbles closing? Or maybe he’s planning to have Marla jump ship to another store, only to find that’s where Stuart went.
I s’pose if they became an web-only store, there wouldn’t be much to make of, would there?
[blockquote]Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”[/blockquote]
And if I remember correctly, the one with blind man and his dog was #2.
IIRC, at one time the top joke in England was Holmes and Watson camping, and, in the middle of the night, Holmes asks Watson to look up and tell him what he sees. I’m American, but it’s one of my favorites.
The funniest joke in the world starts out “Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer?”
If I told you the rest of it I would get in trouble for murder.
In Friday’s comic, everybody speculates about whether Stuart’s off having sex with somebody.
B.A. Where are you reading that already lets you see Friday’s strip? Or was that just a little bit of wishful thinking?
Me?? You’re the one who’s already living in the future. It’s still only Thursday here.
Kilby, I was mocking the LuAnn idiocy.
Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was assaulted. Peanut.
Getting back to Retail: There have been hints in the strip that Grumbel’s is in financial trouble, and that Stuart may have already jumped ship. The strip may be headed not to Winkerbean territory, but Calvin and Hobbes territory.
All this reminiscing about funny jokes without actually telling them reminds me of the joke about the prison inmates who had all long time gone told and retold all the jokes they knew so that they now just had numbers — when they reminisced, they just needed to say “number 13” for everyone to break out laughing…
What did Watson see? And what about the blind man and his dog?
lark: “What did Watson see?”
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson decide to go on a camping trip. After dinner and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night, and go to sleep.
Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend.
“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
Watson replied, “I see millions of stars.”
“What does that tell you?”
Watson pondered for a minute.
“Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.”
“Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.”
“Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.”
“Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant.”
“Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
“What does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke: “Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent!”
Simpler variant on the Holmes joke:
“Watson, isn’t it rather early in the year to be wearing long woolen underwear?”
“Astounding, Holmes! How did you deduce that?”
“Elementary. You forgot your trousers.”
“Retail”, in the time I’ve been reading it, is in perpetual brick and mortar twilight. On a regular basis over the years there have other stores closing, bad news about the rest of the mall and warnings of layoffs, but the axe never falls all the way. A bit like Dilbert’s company, which despite perpetual failures, probably illegal activities, hostile takeovers and ill-considered mergers, as well as profound changes in the workplace, still offers security to griping middle-aged engineers.
WW, thanks for that posting. Now I don’t have to search for a good version of the Holmes and Watson joke on the web.
Winter, doesn’t the joke include the detail that they went into their tent to go to sleep?
Bill: Presumably there are different versions (my version was just copy-and-pasted from the web). But I think it works about equally well either way.
I don’t remember ever hearing or seeing a version of the joke that mentioned a tent until the punchline.
If you don’t slip in a mention of the tent, where’s the joke?
It would kind of give it away if the tent was mentioned.
Brian, not if you just slip it in.
Yeah, I don’t think you’re quite playing fair if you don’t quietly introduce the tent early.
Doesn’t “camping” sufficiently imply “tent” or some other shelter which would have a roof?
In my youth, I liked to camp in the winter. Often I would just sleep in the open by the fire. The only tent I allowed myself when needed was a pup tent made from a tarp.
Bill: The joke is that Watson is so stupid that he missed the obvious – that the tent was stolen. That works OK for me even if the listener hasn’t been told that, so hasn’t had a chance to miss it.
(Also, while “camping” perhaps doesn’t strictly imply “tent,” or some other shelter, like Arthur I would take it as usually implied.)
WW, yes that’s the joke, and I don’t see that anybody was missing it. But that’s also why WE need to have a chance at seeing why his highfalutin attempts were so far off — while he is trying them, not just after that, with the punchline.
I agree it might be better to not need the plant to involve the literal word “tent”. But just saying they’re camping is not really enough. Maybe a replacement synonym would work, but so far ideas like “shelter” feel even more awkward.
I can’t get away from the thought, ‘Sherlock Holmes and Watson, CAMPING?’ Tent or no tent, I can’t get past the incongruity of that first thought.
It’s a joke, not a murder mystery, With a mystery, the reader or viewer tries to solve the crime given the clues that have been revealed during the story, and it’s considered cheating for the solution to be based on relevant facts that were withheld. The purpose of a joke is to be funny, and most jokes rely on an element of surprise that depends on something relevant being withheld until the end.
That the reader is expected to backfill the story doesn’t make it less funny, and any early mention of the tent risks spoiling the punchline.
A joke works best when the audience only “gets it” on the last syllable.
I looked up the joke a few days ago and there was a comment in which someone said the better version of the joke was such and such and posted the same joke but with a bit at the beginning where Holmes and Watson go into a tent to sleep. The rest plays the same.
That is not a better version. That is a joke made by someone who doesn’t know how to write a joke. A joke works by subverting expectations. When you say “Holmes and Watson”, we have an expectation of an interaction in which Watson, bless his heart, is shown up as a bright but stunted intellect, left in the mental dust by his genius companion. As Watson goes through his list of observations we are, as always, impressed by how much he has observed. We expect, however, that Holmes will show him up with an incredibly astute observation that makes intricate connections and draws conclusions that astound. That it is the most rudimentary observation, that the tent has been stolen, is BAM!, the shock, the unexpected, and that is the humour.
To say at the beginning of the joke that they go into a tent to sleep is the equivalent of one of those people who botch a joke by saying the punchline first.
Camping in no way requires a tent, though a tent can make it more comfortable/survivable.
swazoo makes a great point in bringing up the rules around different types of storytelling. If it were a straight mystery story, leaving out the detail that a tent existed is a cheat. In the joke, it is essential for the story to have a proper impact.
I got so excited I forgot to finish typing my name.
Interesting. I was just telling Mrs.SingaporeBill the joke, as it is written above by Winter Wallaby and as as soon as I read the line ‘Watson replied, “I see millions of stars.”’ she interrupted and asked “What about the tent?”
Can this marriage be saved?
Yeah, just don’t ever go camping. With or without tent.
Hubby and I went camping once; after one night, we went home and sold all the camping equipment we’d purchased. Never again; after that, ‘camping’ meant staying at Holiday Inn instead of a nicer motel.
Not Basil, but Benedict, for sure . . .
I have seen the ‘Holmes and Watson camping’ joke with their roles reversed, giving Holmes the ‘in character’ observations, and Watson the ‘stolen tent’ punch line, with the joke (for fans of the characters being that, forb9nce, Holmes missed the obvious, and, for once, Watson didn’t.
Andréa: Yeah, for years, my wife and I have said that ‘camping’ is a hotel without room service!
There was an announcement re Retail, at http://www.normfeuticartoons.com/
”
After a little more than 14 years, I’ve decided to retire my comic strip, RETAIL. The final installment will run on Sunday, February 23, 2020.
I’ve been lucky in recent years to have multiple opportunities creating children’s books, and have decided to take my career in this new direction.
I’d like to thank the fans who read the comic over the years. I hope it made your time behind the cash register a little more bearable.
I am exploring options for the digital archive of RETAIL after it finishes its run. Once I’ve found it a digital home, I will be sure to announce it.
Sincerely,
Norm Feuti
“
That’s too bad; I really enjoyed the strip, having worked in retail myself.
I still miss Urban Jungle, having also worked in an office environment. All but one of the books was available, so at least I have them, but nothing new to look forward to every day.
mitch4: Sure, I didn’t think anyone was missing it. But CIDUBill was asking “Where’s the joke,” and the point of my comment was that, what we all understood to be the joke worked me. YMMV.
I like Retail, but it did seem to me that it was getting a little repetitive. There’s probably a limited amount of material in this genre, it’s probably good that Feuti moved on before he got too stale.
As I recall, Marla at one point had planned to go into business for herself, before pregnancy derailed that. I wonder if he’ll revisit that before the end.
@Winter Wallaby, re RETAIL:
“I like Retail, but it did seem to me that it was getting a little repetitive. There’s probably a limited amount of material in this genre,”
Surely there’s MUCH more possible ongoing material in the genre of RETAIL than in many comic strips which go on and on and on with one limited theme — MARVIN comes to mind. (“Babies poop! HAHAHAHAH!” Tune in tomorrow for more/the same “hilarity”!)
Shrug: This is true. But I like Retail, and I don’t like Marvin. :)
i.e. I’m saying that it makes sense for Retail to go out while it’s still good. I wouldn’t make such a comment for Marvin since, AFAICT, it was never good.
Way to spoil a story line, Norm.
Sorry to see Retail go, but we kind of saw it coming. Can’t wait to see what happens to Stuart, though. He’s been the annoying bad guy throughout the run. I’d kind of like to see him get his comeuppance. Not sure what how that might work out, but I’m hoping Norm Feuti will come up with something fun. (I’m still disappointed that Charles M. Schulz didn’t let Charlie Brown kick the daylights out of Lucy’s football when he ended the strip.)
If the strip is true to life, Stuart will land a cushy job and Marla will end up working for him, again.
DanV: I’m still disappointed that Charles M. Schulz didn’t let Charlie Brown kick the daylights out of Lucy’s football when he ended the strip.
Here you go!
Watson was technically “the muscle” of the two – he was the one who owned a gun (from his army days) and would bring it along when Holmes thought they might need it. And the characters in the books are much different, of course than all the movies and the TV shows.
(Same as the characters & storyline are much different in “Little Women” than the movies and the TV mini series, and I refuse to see the movies that have come out since I am adult, despite – well actually because – it is my favorite book. Robert cannot understand this as I point out “Don’t you wish that you did not go to see the “I Spy” movie?” I am also picky about my Holmes and Watson viewing – they at least have to have the feel to me of the original.” So despite the NYC version of Holmes often being filmed near where I park in Queens to take the subway to Manhattan – including at the actual garage I park at – I don’t watch it.”)
Comics I Don't Understand 
That is pretty nasty stuff. His staff must really hate him to want the police to “wellness check” (code for “murder”) him.
Stuart isn’t the owner of the company, is he? Doesn’t he report to somebody?
SBill, a wellness check means going to somebody’s home and making sure he’s okay.
I have evidence to the contrary. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/19/us/wellness-check-police-shootings-trnd/index.html
I think Singapore Bill is getting at the idea of “SWATting” someone. Though they all dislike his management style, I’m quite sure that isn’t the intended message behind the “wellness check”.
There is perhaps a connection between his disappearance and the rumors of the Grumbel’s chain closing. Also wasn’t he acting oddly during his “work a day at the store” exercise?
Not that I recall – he dressed up to match, then spent the day in the office avoiding work. Very Stuart.
My impression of “wellness check” is “ask the police to go see if he’s dead (or at least fallen and can’t get up)”. When I was on the board of my condo we had to do (call the police to do) a couple of those – though the worst they found was someone with a bad cold who hadn’t left the house for four or five days.
I don’t know about Winkerbean territory – you’re supposed to empathize with the people who die and those left behind grieving. I don’t think any of the regular characters would actually miss Stuart. I’m hoping he’s not on a leadership retreat meant to set him up for promotion (or something similar) – he’s only a district manager now, he could be even worse (though more distant) at a higher rank.
@SingaporeBill: He’s the district manager.
jjmcgaffey, do you sympathize with anybody in the Winkerbean cast? I’d rather deal with Stuart than Les any day of the week.
However many people get shot while responding to a wellness check with a weapon in hand, the vast, vast majority of such checks end without violence. It’s absurd to think that’s what the Retail characters are thinking.
“It’s absurd…”
Uh, are you new here? Absurd is what I do. :)
Saying a boss can’t be worse than Stuart is just asking for trouble.
1. A news story about “swatting” turned up tis morning, because of course it did: https://www.stopantisemitism.org/antisemitic-incidents-23/neo-nazis-arrested
2. Does NOBODY know how to pluralize noun’s anymore???
Yeah, a wellness check is SUPPOSED to be benevolent. Whether it works out that way or not is another matter.
Stuart is the much (and deservedly) -hated district manager, as LazarusJohn notes. He calls and tells them things like “You have to make quota this month”, or shows up to “help” and does nothing. You know, a PHB.
Few if any of this strip’s dailies are thigh-slappers, but the ongoing narrative isn’t bad; I follow it (thanks to someone here, I believe).
I’ve never heard “wellness check” used in any other than a positive context, but the discussion does bring to mind the classic joke:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”
i wonder if Norm Feuti is planning to end Retail soon. Lately there have been hints of Grumbel’s going out of business. Now Stuart seems to have disappeared (fired, maybe?) It makes for an interesting storyline that mirrors what’s actually happening to department stores across the USA – but can the strip reinvent itself in the brave new shopping world? Or are its days numbered?
DanV, Rumbles about grumbles closing? Or maybe he’s planning to have Marla jump ship to another store, only to find that’s where Stuart went.
I s’pose if they became an web-only store, there wouldn’t be much to make of, would there?
https://www.comicskingdom.com/retail/2020-01-16
Re: CIDU Bill
[blockquote]Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”[/blockquote]
I believe that joke has the distinction of being voted the “World’s funniest joke”:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/10/03/joke.funniest/index.html
And if I remember correctly, the one with blind man and his dog was #2.
IIRC, at one time the top joke in England was Holmes and Watson camping, and, in the middle of the night, Holmes asks Watson to look up and tell him what he sees. I’m American, but it’s one of my favorites.
The funniest joke in the world starts out “Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer?”
If I told you the rest of it I would get in trouble for murder.
In Friday’s comic, everybody speculates about whether Stuart’s off having sex with somebody.
B.A. Where are you reading that already lets you see Friday’s strip? Or was that just a little bit of wishful thinking?
Me?? You’re the one who’s already living in the future. It’s still only Thursday here.
Kilby, I was mocking the LuAnn idiocy.
Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was assaulted. Peanut.
Getting back to Retail: There have been hints in the strip that Grumbel’s is in financial trouble, and that Stuart may have already jumped ship. The strip may be headed not to Winkerbean territory, but Calvin and Hobbes territory.
https://www.comicskingdom.com/retail/2020-01-17
All this reminiscing about funny jokes without actually telling them reminds me of the joke about the prison inmates who had all long time gone told and retold all the jokes they knew so that they now just had numbers — when they reminisced, they just needed to say “number 13” for everyone to break out laughing…
What did Watson see? And what about the blind man and his dog?
lark: “What did Watson see?”
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson decide to go on a camping trip. After dinner and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night, and go to sleep.
Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend.
“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
Watson replied, “I see millions of stars.”
“What does that tell you?”
Watson pondered for a minute.
“Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.”
“Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.”
“Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.”
“Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant.”
“Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
“What does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke: “Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent!”
Simpler variant on the Holmes joke:
“Watson, isn’t it rather early in the year to be wearing long woolen underwear?”
“Astounding, Holmes! How did you deduce that?”
“Elementary. You forgot your trousers.”
“Retail”, in the time I’ve been reading it, is in perpetual brick and mortar twilight. On a regular basis over the years there have other stores closing, bad news about the rest of the mall and warnings of layoffs, but the axe never falls all the way. A bit like Dilbert’s company, which despite perpetual failures, probably illegal activities, hostile takeovers and ill-considered mergers, as well as profound changes in the workplace, still offers security to griping middle-aged engineers.
WW, thanks for that posting. Now I don’t have to search for a good version of the Holmes and Watson joke on the web.
Winter, doesn’t the joke include the detail that they went into their tent to go to sleep?
Bill: Presumably there are different versions (my version was just copy-and-pasted from the web). But I think it works about equally well either way.
I don’t remember ever hearing or seeing a version of the joke that mentioned a tent until the punchline.
If you don’t slip in a mention of the tent, where’s the joke?
It would kind of give it away if the tent was mentioned.
Brian, not if you just slip it in.
Yeah, I don’t think you’re quite playing fair if you don’t quietly introduce the tent early.
Doesn’t “camping” sufficiently imply “tent” or some other shelter which would have a roof?
In my youth, I liked to camp in the winter. Often I would just sleep in the open by the fire. The only tent I allowed myself when needed was a pup tent made from a tarp.
Bill: The joke is that Watson is so stupid that he missed the obvious – that the tent was stolen. That works OK for me even if the listener hasn’t been told that, so hasn’t had a chance to miss it.
(Also, while “camping” perhaps doesn’t strictly imply “tent,” or some other shelter, like Arthur I would take it as usually implied.)
WW, yes that’s the joke, and I don’t see that anybody was missing it. But that’s also why WE need to have a chance at seeing why his highfalutin attempts were so far off — while he is trying them, not just after that, with the punchline.
I agree it might be better to not need the plant to involve the literal word “tent”. But just saying they’re camping is not really enough. Maybe a replacement synonym would work, but so far ideas like “shelter” feel even more awkward.
I can’t get away from the thought, ‘Sherlock Holmes and Watson, CAMPING?’ Tent or no tent, I can’t get past the incongruity of that first thought.
It’s a joke, not a murder mystery, With a mystery, the reader or viewer tries to solve the crime given the clues that have been revealed during the story, and it’s considered cheating for the solution to be based on relevant facts that were withheld. The purpose of a joke is to be funny, and most jokes rely on an element of surprise that depends on something relevant being withheld until the end.
That the reader is expected to backfill the story doesn’t make it less funny, and any early mention of the tent risks spoiling the punchline.
A joke works best when the audience only “gets it” on the last syllable.
I looked up the joke a few days ago and there was a comment in which someone said the better version of the joke was such and such and posted the same joke but with a bit at the beginning where Holmes and Watson go into a tent to sleep. The rest plays the same.
That is not a better version. That is a joke made by someone who doesn’t know how to write a joke. A joke works by subverting expectations. When you say “Holmes and Watson”, we have an expectation of an interaction in which Watson, bless his heart, is shown up as a bright but stunted intellect, left in the mental dust by his genius companion. As Watson goes through his list of observations we are, as always, impressed by how much he has observed. We expect, however, that Holmes will show him up with an incredibly astute observation that makes intricate connections and draws conclusions that astound. That it is the most rudimentary observation, that the tent has been stolen, is BAM!, the shock, the unexpected, and that is the humour.
To say at the beginning of the joke that they go into a tent to sleep is the equivalent of one of those people who botch a joke by saying the punchline first.
Camping in no way requires a tent, though a tent can make it more comfortable/survivable.
swazoo makes a great point in bringing up the rules around different types of storytelling. If it were a straight mystery story, leaving out the detail that a tent existed is a cheat. In the joke, it is essential for the story to have a proper impact.
I got so excited I forgot to finish typing my name.
Interesting. I was just telling Mrs.SingaporeBill the joke, as it is written above by Winter Wallaby and as as soon as I read the line ‘Watson replied, “I see millions of stars.”’ she interrupted and asked “What about the tent?”
Can this marriage be saved?
Yeah, just don’t ever go camping. With or without tent.
Hubby and I went camping once; after one night, we went home and sold all the camping equipment we’d purchased. Never again; after that, ‘camping’ meant staying at Holiday Inn instead of a nicer motel.
Not Basil, but Benedict, for sure . . .
I have seen the ‘Holmes and Watson camping’ joke with their roles reversed, giving Holmes the ‘in character’ observations, and Watson the ‘stolen tent’ punch line, with the joke (for fans of the characters being that, forb9nce, Holmes missed the obvious, and, for once, Watson didn’t.
Andréa: Yeah, for years, my wife and I have said that ‘camping’ is a hotel without room service!
There was an announcement re Retail, at http://www.normfeuticartoons.com/
”
After a little more than 14 years, I’ve decided to retire my comic strip, RETAIL. The final installment will run on Sunday, February 23, 2020.
I’ve been lucky in recent years to have multiple opportunities creating children’s books, and have decided to take my career in this new direction.
I’d like to thank the fans who read the comic over the years. I hope it made your time behind the cash register a little more bearable.
I am exploring options for the digital archive of RETAIL after it finishes its run. Once I’ve found it a digital home, I will be sure to announce it.
Sincerely,
Norm Feuti
“
That’s too bad; I really enjoyed the strip, having worked in retail myself.
I still miss Urban Jungle, having also worked in an office environment. All but one of the books was available, so at least I have them, but nothing new to look forward to every day.
mitch4: Sure, I didn’t think anyone was missing it. But CIDUBill was asking “Where’s the joke,” and the point of my comment was that, what we all understood to be the joke worked me. YMMV.
I like Retail, but it did seem to me that it was getting a little repetitive. There’s probably a limited amount of material in this genre, it’s probably good that Feuti moved on before he got too stale.
As I recall, Marla at one point had planned to go into business for herself, before pregnancy derailed that. I wonder if he’ll revisit that before the end.
@Winter Wallaby, re RETAIL:
“I like Retail, but it did seem to me that it was getting a little repetitive. There’s probably a limited amount of material in this genre,”
Surely there’s MUCH more possible ongoing material in the genre of RETAIL than in many comic strips which go on and on and on with one limited theme — MARVIN comes to mind. (“Babies poop! HAHAHAHAH!” Tune in tomorrow for more/the same “hilarity”!)
Shrug: This is true. But I like Retail, and I don’t like Marvin. :)
i.e. I’m saying that it makes sense for Retail to go out while it’s still good. I wouldn’t make such a comment for Marvin since, AFAICT, it was never good.
Way to spoil a story line, Norm.
Sorry to see Retail go, but we kind of saw it coming. Can’t wait to see what happens to Stuart, though. He’s been the annoying bad guy throughout the run. I’d kind of like to see him get his comeuppance. Not sure what how that might work out, but I’m hoping Norm Feuti will come up with something fun. (I’m still disappointed that Charles M. Schulz didn’t let Charlie Brown kick the daylights out of Lucy’s football when he ended the strip.)
If the strip is true to life, Stuart will land a cushy job and Marla will end up working for him, again.
Check out comment number 8 at http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2020/01/20/csotd-decisions-and-opinions-mostly-bad/ which indirectly mentions CIDU and Bill.
DanV: I’m still disappointed that Charles M. Schulz didn’t let Charlie Brown kick the daylights out of Lucy’s football when he ended the strip.
Here you go!
Watson was technically “the muscle” of the two – he was the one who owned a gun (from his army days) and would bring it along when Holmes thought they might need it. And the characters in the books are much different, of course than all the movies and the TV shows.
(Same as the characters & storyline are much different in “Little Women” than the movies and the TV mini series, and I refuse to see the movies that have come out since I am adult, despite – well actually because – it is my favorite book. Robert cannot understand this as I point out “Don’t you wish that you did not go to see the “I Spy” movie?” I am also picky about my Holmes and Watson viewing – they at least have to have the feel to me of the original.” So despite the NYC version of Holmes often being filmed near where I park in Queens to take the subway to Manhattan – including at the actual garage I park at – I don’t watch it.”)