9 Chickweed Rage

For our 50th Episode Spectacular, we invited Matt Fraction to come back to the sex toilet! Shockingly, he said yes! We gave him the option of seeing half of the strips ahead of time and being surprised by the second half. But he could not resist the siren call of Mac-El-Dee's awfulness and not only read all fourteen strips we cover in this episode...but the handful of strips that Brooke left out of the run. No one understands our sickness like Matt. There is a LOT of discussion about butts (with the requisite long lists of synonyms for butts [because NOTHING is funnier than synonyms!]) and of tattoos on said butts. Apparently, for the men of the Chick-Verse, the McEldowney-Sphere, the mere thought of a tattoo on a butt is like Viagra, leaving the men incapacitated with persistent boners for, well, the entirety of the two week run. It was good to have Matt back to suffer with us. Happy 50th, everybody! The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of this episode's strips on Instagram by clicking here. We've abandoned Twitter, because it's terrible, but you can now find this episode's strips on Bluesky by clicking here. This absolutely serpentine episode includes: Cyanide Pills Mascots, Fat vs. Regular Gritty Paul Newman Advent calendars Corn niblet teeth Finger boners Sitzfleisch The Fuck Diner Ouija Boards Hitler David Lee Roth Matt's Butt Mug Titstroke Pain Weirdos Jeffy from Family Circus Len Bias Robyn Bird Milo & Otis An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge St. Elsewhere/Timmy Westphall Richard Belzer/Munch The Pitt Casablanca Mr. Show Werner Herzog The Grinch Horton Hears a Who AC/DC Blue Bloods on CBS Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Bluesky: @9ChickweedRAGE.bsky.social. And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage.Special Guest: Matt Fraction.

During the Hugh-Xiulan wedding, Ginger (yeah, "Who?" is spot on) pines after Gerald (nope, not him either), but Xiulan and Edda believe he's gay. He's not, it turns out. And to prove it, Ginger and Gerald make out in a graveyard near a tombstone whose most prominent engraved word is "LAID." Great subtle stuff, by the master himself. Also, when we say "make out," we mean specifically that Gerald fingerbangs Ginger against the aforementioned tombstone. Don't forget: This is the wedding where all of the ladies in the wedding party went commando. Did we mention that it is the middle of the day? Or that this is immediately after the wedding? Or that this graveyard is obviously right next to the chapel where the wedding was taking place? And that it was broad daylight? Oh, we said that one already? Well, it bears repeating. Weirdly, their public fucking isn't something everyone can see. (First time for everything in this strip, we suppose.) Only Seth notices them as they fornicate on the grass behind a tombstone. Not a tombstone large enough to adequately hide a humping couple in the daytime, of course. No one (except Seth) notices even though they're all standing just three feet away. High quality stuff, as per usual. The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of this episode's strips on Instagram by clicking here. We've abandoned Twitter, because it's terrible, but you can now find this episode's strips on Bluesky by clicking here. This civil tongued episode includes: Trump Linus Pauling Elephants Ridiculous couches The Gilded Age Dowton Abbey wind-up clacking teeth Ben Franklin Coneheads Bespoke tailoring Stephen Foster The Obamas Sewing Bridesmaids dresses Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Bluesky: @9ChickweedRAGE.bsky.social. And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage.

All of the sudden, out of literally nowhere, Brooke Mac-El-Dee decides to do a whole series based on things you can do (or cannot do) on unicycles. Where we discover that Amos rides a unicycle. I mean, why not? We've never seen him do it before. No one in the comic has ever even mentioned a unicycle even once. But, sure, let's put Amos on a unicycle because it makes sense that he would ride one. I guess? I don't know. This sequence of strips is truly baffling, and certainly annoying. We don't want to spoil the surprise, but one of the things (apparently) you can do on a unicycle is play a theorbo while on a high wire. What is a theorbo, you may be asking? That's a very good question! And there's a reason you do not know what one is, because almost no one knows what one is. It's like a giant medieval guitar. And that -- we suppose -- is why it's funny! Which is to say, it is not funny at all, but at this point in the game, are we really expecting humor? No, we are not. The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of this episode's strips on Instagram by clicking here. We've abandoned Twitter, because it's terrible, but you can now find this episode's strips on Bluesky by clicking here. This derring-don't filled episode includes: Limited Edition sparkling water A reminder of how we do things around here Ironwood Pig Sanctuary Tattoos Swords of bygone eras Doonesbury Mad Max Theorbos Comedy Central Roasts Jiminy Glick Derring-do vs. Derring-don't Tuc Watkins Salads Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Bluesky: @9ChickweedRAGE.bsky.social. And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage.

After NOT making good on our promise to cover the courtship of Polly and Lolly last episode, we get around to it this time and boy do we ever regret it! Since we began this podcast, we have never made a clear distinction between Polly and Lolly. We did this because primarily Brooke Mac-El-Dee seems to believe they are perfectly interchangeable. Why draw two women as independent characters? But that's maybe being unfair to him. I mean, it's not like any of the characters are that much different from any other characters anyway. We try our best to keep it straight to help ourselves and our listeners along, but guys we have to tell you: It was fucking impossible to do so. Alistair is engaged to one of them but then is "in love" with the other. The one he's engaged to maybe doesn't even kiss him, or maybe by "kiss" Mac-El-Dee means fucking. Who knows! Alistair plays a concert with the one he's NOT engaged to and makes out with her on stage, while the one he's engaged to is in the audience with her parents, who (in their brief appearance in this run) don't seem concerned about what a fucking gross asshole Alistair is being. Now, which one is which in the above passage? Like we said, it was fucking impossible to keep straight and it ultimately doesn't matter because Alistair just ends up marrying the one he was engaged to after she suggests maybe they should kiss. Or some bullshit like that. It's fucking awful. The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of this episode's strips on Instagram by clicking here. We've abandoned Twitter, because it's terrible, but you can now find this episode's strips on Bluesky by clicking here. This self-palpating episode includes: Kristi Noem Daylight Savings Beetlejuice Dooneese from SNL Turtleneck Town Mertz pants Pearl Jam The Ben Franklin Ruth Buzzi Bart vs. Australia joke Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Bluesky: @9ChickweedRAGE.bsky.social. And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage.

When given the simple task of doing a listener request, Brooke decides instead to go rogue. So instead of us talking about Alistair and his indifference about which twin he fucks or marries (but which would he kill?), we end up in the world of the Peels, Arthur and Nan-Lin. It's been ten episodes since we last saw them, and it took us a while to figure out exactly who we were dealing with this episode. Once we caught up, we discovered that -- of course! -- Arthur was drawn very differently from when we saw him last. Not a surprise! Anyway, these two people who (hilariously?) share the same last name, fall in love after accidentally (?) touching their tongues together. Brooke and Jeff absolutely lose their fucking minds over the creative choice to put the thoughts in a thought bubble backwards. But things only get worse from there when we finally remember that we've seen these two characters before. And after the briefest amount of research, we discover that -- of course -- Arthur looks NOTHING like the Arthur we met before. Nothing. Barely resembles the same character. Nan-Lin jumps his bones, because that's the only way courtship works in this fucking comic strip. And then we go down the same path we've been down before with the romantic couple talking ENDLESSLY about whether or not what was happening was actually real or somehow just a fantasy. It's insufferable, naturally. Arthur plays his "Reverie," the magical piece of music he wrote that sends listeners into fits of uncontrollable fucking. Nan-Lin recognizes it. And then she doesn't recognize it at all. Because that makes perfect sense. And then, upon hearing it, she drops to the floor and begins masturbating. No, seriously. For like four straight strips. As Arthur puts it, she "palpates herself." Even after he stops playing. Amazing that this run did not kill us. The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of this episode's strips on Instagram by clicking here. We've abandoned Twitter, because it's terrible, but you can now find this episode's strips on Bluesky by clicking here. This self-palpating episode includes: Listener requests Happy Holidays Tongues Bugs Bunny Turtlenecks More Tongues Etaoin Shrdlu Hot Type Sweat towel Mongo like Sheriff Bart Thrown glasses Dutch angles Calisthenics Masturbation McEldowney Ellipses Thorax Date rape drugs Semi-colon The 9th Chickweed Lane Circle of Hell The Pants of Palpation Breakfast of Champions Asterisk = asshole Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Bluesky: @9ChickweedRAGE.bsky.social. And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage.