Planes, Trains and Automobiles 10/22/21

Okay so there’s not really a comic about planes this week, but the trains and automobile parts, yeah. First the car part. When it’s time to fill up (and you drive a gas-powered vehicle) we get less and less help from the “service station.” I mean, where’s the service? Nowadays you’ve got to get out of the car, remove the gas cap, squeegee your own windshield, fill ‘er up with gas, pay in advance with your credit card that the pump doesn’t recognize in the first place, so you have to go inside anyway, and then you forget your mask so you have to return to the car to get your mask, and you haven’t even started pumping the premium yet. Want to check your oil, or refill your washer fluid or make sure the tire pressure is good? Fuhgeddaboudit.

This is one of the ways that society has unravelled. I was low on gas, and out on the eastern end of Long Island this summer when I pulled up to an old-fashioned gas station this summer with a name I’d never heard of. Royal Gas. I was looking in the glove compartment for the aforementioned gasoline credit card and when I sat up I nearly had a heart attack. There was this stranger hanging by my window, way too close, looking in at me. Tentatively, I rolled down said window and shakily asked, “yes?” The scary guy then said, “Regular or premium,” and it took my another second to realize that he was going to fill my car up for me. What was he gonna do next, offer a free toaster oven? Not. But that fit the narrative for our first comic, another in the Then and Now series.

Next up was the second and final version of our Model Train series. As we pointed out last week, John was much more into electric train sets than I was. Only thing I remember about my dad’s set was a rocket launcher and one of the coolest things ever, an exploding box car. Okay maybe it wasn’t the coolest thing ever, but it was pretty cool. No, really. I guess you had to be there. At any rate, we wondered what would happen if Al’s grandson got his hands on the train set, without having Al peering over his shoulder with one of those dad-like, “Don’t you dare touch anything until I say you can” kind of looks. The kid lets his imagination run wild which is obviously an excuse to let our imaginations run wild, and this was the result of our overwrought imaginations. Speaking of imaginations, I imagine some of you thinking, “Grow up already and write about something relevant or at least something happy,” but as Leslie Gore might have sung decades ago, “it’s our comic, and we’ll whine whine when we want to, whine when we want to, you would whine too if it happened to you.”

We will leave you with that and have a pleasant weekend, email the comic onto your friends so WE have a pleasant weekend and we’ll see yo next week with two new ones hot off the proverbial press, or at least off the internet.

John and Andy

Summer's going, going... 08/28/2020

As we all cope with the end of summer and the Covid season, we thought about how things have changed. And there’s no better way to express ourselves than another entry in our “Then and Now” series. In the past we contrasted passing around a joint with passing around reading glasses (one is much more fun), sex then and now, and since it is the summer, we took a shot at how we take in the sun. My mother used to put on baby oil and iodine and then hold a reflector under her face. John never knew her and we never discussed this, but he just showed me a picture of “Then” and I said, “Holy shit, that’s my mom.” As for the “Now,” well, that’s easy. Cover up and cover up the cover up some more. At the beach a couple weeks ago, a friend proudly wore a zip hoodie wth UPF 50+. Now I have no idea what the hell “UPF”stands for, but it sounds extremely protective. In short, we love the sun and summer, but do everything in our power to protect ourselves from it.

The second comic came from a discussion about what to do with the grandkids when you’re stuck inside. There’s always the jigsaw puzzle and John introduced me to a trick I’d never heard of. He knows a lot of tricks I never heard of (apparently I lived a very sheltered childhood), but this one was so good visually, we had to make it into a comic. Seriously, what kid would go to the trouble of finding all the pieces that go in the middle of the puzzle, hide them when grandpa wasn’t looking, and then sneak under the table to place his face in the missing hole? Who would even think of that. Hmm, maybe someone extremely visual like, John? Huh?

At any rate, we hope you enjoyed this week’s comics and we will be back with our end of summer strips and then, it’s onto flu season. Enjoy!

Andy and John

The more things change...5/24/19

Here’s what we like about our 60’s. Freedom of schedule. Riding a bike, playing golf or tennis, going to a movie or play in the middle of the week instead of when it’s crowded on weekends, babysitting our grandkids. Here’s what we don’t like. Aches, pains, trips to the doctors, babysitting our grandkids’ dogs. More on that in a minute.

Our first strip this week comes from our Then and Now series. You remember. Those are the ones that contrast what we used to do with what we now do (notice we resisited the urge to say “do do”). A personal favorite contrasted the way we used to pass around a joint (those round, twisty things before vape pens) to the way we now pass around reading glasses when trying to read a menu. This new one deals with the world of cars. We used to think a spoiler looked cool as hell, now we think it does what it says, spoils the look of the car. One of us is having some trouble with his car at this very moment and nothing looks sexier than reliability. Voila, comic #1.

Our second strip comes courtesy of John’s mom. Thank you Mrs. Colquhoun. Now that John’s kids are grown, there’s no more "leaving them off at Grandma’s for the long weekend while we get a little alone time.” Now it’s “Can you watch the dog for a couple days?” This of course comes with a laundry list of do’s and dont’s, prompting the aforementioned Mrs. Colquhoun to contrast how taking care of the kids seemed a hell of a lot easier. And that is simply all we needed for comic #2. That and the fact that John and his wife prepared such a laundry list. And that’s what is so much fun about this “job.” It’s looking at our lives or that of our friends and being able to laugh about it. Well, not the part about OUR lives. That’s nobody’s damn business. But our friend’s lives, good stuff!

And when we do it right, we get comments like, “did you attach listening devices inside our home?” No, well maybe. But only a couple.

Have a great weekend and if you get the chance, please weigh in on our comments section. We’d love to hear from you.

The New 60