I ROMPED W/ BOB
FLASHBACK FLASHBACK FLASHBACK! Many candidates for today’s page title. “Pony Parpy” was a close second. Today, Maggie Warren is outed as a horsey child. Today’s comic is a sentimental flashback to the era when British politicians used to have to resign for doing something wrong. These days of course, that is less of a concern.
Magus Tom Pendennis has modeled his look on Bob and his romping.
Was Tom part of the Bobist wing of the Church of Satan but now has schismed?
Actually, I suspect that IS Magus Tom before the Great Northern Migration. Bob is seated next to him.
It think it might be called “rompery”.
“Was Tom part of the Bobist wing of the Church of Satan”
Bob is a Church of the SubGenius deity.
Maggie’s sad backstory is … really sad. I was wondering from the beginning if her hair was natural gray or not. This response was unexpected. Poor Maggie ♡ Tom used to have hair? For some weird reason, he looked even more like a snake respect to now that he’s completely bald!
Had a friend who went gray at that age. She got hit on by ALL the aging perverts before she was even out of Middle School. Started dyeing her hair as soon as she could
It took me a moment to realize that the weird person with Bob was Magus Pendennis. I think the hair threw me off – I at first thought it might be Bob Crowley.
I always assumed she was meant to be a platinum blond, and probably out of a bottle.
I had an uncle who’s receding hair line reached his neck while still in high school. His comb-forward was epic. My best friend from High School started shaving his head before he was 20 for similar reasons, and still shaves his head every day. (Although his grand-daughter has convinced him not to trim his beard until Christmas. He’s looking more and more like Burl Ives every day.)
Well, it’s certainly embarrassing but I don’t know if it’s the answer til What is the Saddest thing
Only Lie Bot can answer that question.
Bob and Sarah are some name choices when owl tattoos are occasionally prominent
Sarah seemed to have developed a little tic.
As one would given her circumstances.
“My wife is standing by me. Literally, she’s just there, to my left. Who knows whether we’ll stay married, though.”
And here’s me thinking Maggie was doing the trendy silvery hair thing (is it still
trendy? Idk? It was for a bit, right?)
My wife is starting to go gray. She asked her hairstylist about coloring it and the stylist said, “Don’t do it. People are paying me to give them that look.”
My barber is also a hair colorist, and actually makes a lot more money coloring hair than she does cutting it. I used to be a redhead, although I’ve lost most of the colour these days. Not quite white, but not grey either. Sort of a strawberry blond.
One day I asked her if she would colour my hair back to its original shade, just for fun (for my birthday, just to confuse people.) She refused to do so, for the same reason. “I have clients who would kill for your hair colour!”
Sarah looks like she’s about one twitch away from snapping and stabbing Bob to death with an ice pick.
Bob: Secret Trotskyite?
Did a double-take on “Leafy Pines.” Then guffawed. Startled the dog, whom we had just. managed. to get. calmed. down.
I am now unpopular.
Unpoplar?
I hope Pony Parpy finds its way into the store.
I ROMPED W/BOB seems merch-bound, too.
Oh man, do I feel sad for poor little adolescent Maggie here.
Being rich probably helped a bit. Maybe not a LOT but at least a BIT.
Topical, and prescient, when you think of what’s being debated in Parliament this very day.
Are they finally debating Pony Parpy??
It’s about flipping time!
I particularly like the middle panel of the middle row . . . the obvious eye-twitch of “My wife Sarah, who is standing by me”.
I get that eye twitch every time I see a British politician on the telly. I get it in both eyes when it’s a Tory politician. Some days I can barely see a foot ahead of me because of rapid blinking.
I would love to join Sarah at “Leafy Pines” for a “rest”.
The sinister way Magus Tom is staring at young Maggie is more than a little disturbing.
To be sincere, that’s magus Tom usual way to stare at people, especially young girl. He was way worse with Lottie because at the stare he had add words.
Isn’t Lottie an adult, though?
It’s possible that he gives people that sort of stare on purpose just because he loves to freak people out and then protest (accurately enough) that he didn’t do a thing. Only his creator knows for sure. 🙂
Lottie is 18 or 19 in the most recent story. I can’t remember which.
So we’re supposed to believe Bob’s downfall was the fault of the Russians (& his own weakness)?
It was collusion ! ! !
Sorry… I only have American playbooks here
I admit that I had not suspected that Maggie was involved with the CoS because it was expected of her.
“I admit that I had not suspected that Maggie was involved with the CoS because it was expected of her.”
Well, with due respect, we still don’t know that. It could just easily be that, under whatever circumstances (who am I to try to outguess the author?), Maggie was forced to “choose” between her father and Tom (or at least what Tom represented) and she chose the latter. Maybe her father balked at whatever Tom was suggesting for his future and Maggie was like, “Well, I’ll show HIM” and took it as her future instead. No telling.
Parpy?
PARPY
For those of us divided by a common language, PARPY is wot?
It’s a fun way to say “party”, that’s all!
Oh, I was kind of guessing something a bit more low-brow than that. Mostly due to having encountered “parp” as a synonym to “fart”.
Maggie’s stance against reckless romping becomes all the more clear.
Not just in England, alas, is the concept of ministers resigning for misdeeds seemingly just a quaint echo of the past. Australia’s equivalent of the Tories thinks that a few weeks on the backbench is enough, whatever the transgression.
Add America to the list. It is impossible to shame someone out of office if they have no shame at all to begin with.
As an American, I had to read the first few panels a few times to make sure I was correct in reading that accepting money from lobbyists (if generally as campaign funds) to ask questions (and/or push political proposals) was what was being frowned upon. Since that seems like it’s been the core of how our politicians go about their business on the regular here. Even if it’s always sounded pretty close to bribery to me.
We’ve had an interesting day of it here where the Government said “actually, it’s not that bad a thing” and everyone else said “oh, yes it is” (it being near panto season) and the MP in question has in fact resigned. So the forces of corruption have been staved off for a while longer.
Ah, good ol’ Leafy Pines! The trees, the fresh air, the straitjackets, the padded rooms, the needles full of antipsychotics… memories!
If you have memories, then the cure didn’t “take”!
Agree – it’s like they say about the sixties: If you can remember them you weren’t there . . .
Now I want an I ROMPED W/ BOB t shirt. Poor Maggie! Also, Tom was a bit of a piece back then, wasn’t he?
An MP getting done for corruption? Now I know it’s fiction.
He only resigns after the affair goes public (“Warren finally quits”). The corruption was just a technical oversight…
Given his pivot over to Satanism, I have a feeling Bob’s apologies were a bit on the insincere side.
He’s a politician! Of course he was insincere.
Not sure what one thing would have to do with the other. This strip tends to present the Church of Satan as a perfectly cromulent belief system that as far as I can tell isn’t hurting anyone (except Penrose, in the pride). Even a cursory glance at the news indicates that that’s more than can be said about [some forms of] Christianity in real life. 😐
Well, as Brian has said, Tom appears to have quaffed a little too deep of the “We’re Eeeeevil!” Irn Bru. He’s never quite been shown as going too far over any lines, but one suspects that this is mostly because he knows that losing Brian and Billie would be inconvenient for him.
That’s just it, though, IMHO Tom’s evil is mostly an Informed Attribute. He tells us about it but we rarely (I don’t say “never”) see it.
About 15 years or so ago, when I started working at CITV, there was a weird animated sketch show, and our favourite sketch in the office was something called either formally or informally “The Parping Ponies”. So Maggie’s shirt has given me a nice nostalgic throwback to the start of my career.
Great reporting by Eleni Yurinova!
I’m wondering if that’s a name that we’re (ideally) supposed to recognize. Possibly an exchange student from the teen years of one set of pre-Steeple characters or another OSLT?
Thanks everyone who mentioned t-shirt merch. Christmas is approaching and Santa loves a well-stocked list!
On the plus side, at least Desmond wasn’t involved!
I did not want to think about Des romping w/ Bob.
Leafy Pines! Good ‘un there, Mr. Allison.
To be fair, “Needly Pines”, while perhaps more accurate, doesn’t sound very restful.
In our part of the woods it would be called “Whispering Pines” for that restful or creepy effect.
Wondering what the lobbist saw into this guy… the lobbist was the one with the cash…
Maybe the affair was part of the payment.
Remember, we live in a “reality” where David Mellor, John Prescott, and B*r*s J*hns*n have, ahem, acquired the affections of members of the opposite sex of somewhat greater comeliness than themselves. It appears that not only is power infamously aphrodisiac, but even the hint of a sniff of power can work distasteful wonders.
Be fair- the bar isn’t exactly high when you are looking for someone better-looking than any of those three.
You could stick a slug in a negligee and it would have more sex-appeal thanMello, Prescott or (*spit*) J*hns*n. T’would be like sharing a bed with a bin bag full of rancid custard.
Which reminds me of something I’ve occasionally wondered: Is there really no one in J*hns*n’s life who cares enough about him to mention the hair? That seems so sad…
Remember, he’s actually known to pre-ruffle it, deliberately, before going on stage. You and I may not like his image management system, but it appears to work for him.
And while I would guess going grey would be mortifying for young maggie fortunately for her it also really suited her look and cemented it into hotness.
Grey…..cemented….I see what you did there.
In another strip, I might find the way that young Maggie is patting/holding her stomach in that last panel to be a bit…troubling. Not in this one, though.
“Panel 5: “Explain that one if you can.”
If adultery always ended marriage (particularly among the wealthy), there wouldn’t be many marriages left. Of course, I’ve never been married or wealthy so it’s easy for me to talk.
Reading ahead on the page titles, it appears Maggie’s ponies might figure into this story on a future date (like, say, Jan. 7?).