Ah Philo. Not quite ready to let this one go, are you? Well, I can understand. He just wants to see his lovely soon-to-be-ex-wife face-to-face. Probably for one last hug, I’m sure.
Yeah, that’s it. Well, we’ll see how Edison takes this one. The ball’s in her court next time.
UPDATE: No comic for a few days. Sorry about that. It’s just not happening right now.
The word here, I believe, is “busted”. And I love the visual metaphor in the second-to-last panel. This is why I think you’re a brilliant artist, y’know.
Aw shucks, thank you.
Coming from the creator of The Flying Okrathuhlu, that is high praise indeed!
“Stonewall” indeed.
Helluva piece Charlie, everything about this one just Rocks!
Pun Intended
Ouch. Quartz the matter with you, Mike? You know how we hate puns around here! Sometimes you people just take me for granite.
Well I guess Philo has had this Slated for a while, guess he’ll just have to Chalk it up as more Grist to the Mill.
“Oh he loooooooooved her like a rock…”
…what?
Just great. What was Edison alluding to in the second panel? Have I missed something?
Philo was alluding to not being prepared for Edison’s sneaking off and deserting them two years earlier.
At least they’re sort of talking about it.
Nothing can ever be easy, huh? And Edison just got back, too! Will she have Larry go with her? Awkward….
I always love how you have something else going on in the background apart from the main action but still reflective of it. Robespierre is always up to something interesting or being very expressive.
Ha, great visual pun. Hmm, Philo seems like he’s up to something, and if Edison goes there she’ll probably be incapable of standing on her own. This could get really awkward. At least Robbie is getting a lot of exercise today. Gotta work off those doughnuts.
Yeah. We make fun of how much he eats, but really, it’s tough for a li’l land based hexapod to get around. Imagine how hard it would be just to go up a flight of stairs at Larry’s house. He burns a lot of calories. Or, at least, he wants you to believe that when he’s stealing food…
And it would be interesting to get Edison back home to confront Philo. And probably loud, too.
Tickets? As in more than one? Just whom else does Philo plan to include in their little tete-a-tete?
Edison’s plan to slither away with a minimum of personal discomfort may be hitting a very determined snag. 🙂
I just assumed he meant a pair of tickets for the round trip. It seems really unlikely that he would offer to pay airfare for her … paramour.
A round trip ticket is singular, no matter how many pieces if paper it takes to get there (and back). As for said paramour, that would depend on what Philo had in mind……
I’m just used to talking about plane or train tickets in the plural. Especially with airships. There’s layovers, and stop-offs, and all sorts of transfers.
Right now Philo’s too focused on just hearing from Edison to think about other people in her life.
You’re absolutely right again, Tru. Philo does deserve answers, and he deserves to get them face-to-face, if that’s what he believes he needs. Edison owes him.
And she owes herself. This is never going to stop eating at her until she gets it settled. It won’t affect her drinking, but it won’t be hanging around in the back of her mind either. Maybe settling this issue will help them both get on with their lives.
Dilbert and Alice both mentioned Philo’s girlfriend. I just didn’t show that part. She’s obviously such a big part of their lives, that they’d want Edison to know about her.
Besides, you know Edison. One of the first things she’d ask is: “So, does my Philo have a girlfriend?”
“I just didn’t show that part.”
Tsk. I would have thought her reaction to that news would have been moderately important. I know she has Larry, and for Philo to have found another lady would be a relief (it would mean he wasn’t still in dreadful pain, emotionally), but human nature would have caused at least a twinge of … well … something!
It would have been important, but I really couldn’t come up with too many workable ideas for the two of them. I was more involved with the Eleanor storyline at the time.
I… don’t know. On the one hand, might be good to get it over with, with a minimum of fuss, like Edison clearly wants. On the other, a request for a face-to-face after all that’s happened is hardly unreasonable. I suppose she might as well take the trip. Hard as it might be for both, I think it would be easier to get some kind of closure that way, rather than sending papers back and forth. What’s the harm, right? Right?
Oh, and the stone wall thing? Inspired.
They’re coming at Edison’s disappearance from different directions. Philo had the shock, and then spent two years cleaning up after everything. He’s lived with the uncertainty of Edison’s whereabouts for a long time. He needs to physically see her, and talk to her, if only to really convince himself that she still actually exists.
And he has a lot to say to her. And a lot of questions. They need to have a real-time conversation.
They could send papers back and forth. That would fix their marital status. But it wouldn’t fix their relationship.
Thanks about the stone face. That was one of those images that just popped into my head and had to go on the page.
I know it’s her cowardice that led her to suggest that he just send the tickets, but when I think through the emotional aftermath of that kind of chain of events, I just cringe. That would require a level of “fuck it!” on his part that I don’t think he feels. While I hate the whole modern concept of “closure” I do understand the real-life consequences of trying to dodge the bullet in this instance.
She feels the guilt, then drinks herself happy so it goes away. But until she really deals with what she did to them (and to herself) she’s never going to stop that roller-coaster. And if she really did just cut and run without any clues, then Philo needs/deserves a few answers. There’s nothing she can say, I think, to resolve anything for either of them, but the face-to-face thing will matter, eventually.
Dilbert was in nearly the exact same frame of mind as Philo (angry and resentful) when he stumbled over her at his new school – but being able to talk it out helped him, obviously. He’s ready to accept the new reality at least. Philo needs that, too. Or something like it. It will help that he’s already moved forward with his life.
Speaking of…. isn’t it interesting that neither Dilbert nor Alice mentioned the addition to the family group when they met with Rosie? She’s going to be blindsided by it – but I have complete confidence that she’ll roll with it magnificently.
She asked him to send the divorce papers; the tickets are his idea…
Lol – that’s what I meant, obviously – but sometimes I type things while I’m thinking two paragraphs away. 😛 Derrr
Well, Philo very well deserves some closure, which won’t make it easy on Edison. Then she and Dilbert will have to come clean about their chance encounter before…
It was only chance because he stumbled over her in the lounge. She would have been tracking him down the next day – he just jumped the gun. 🙂 And I expect that both Dilbert and Alice will be ‘fessing up to him right after he hangs up this call. They know he suspects something.
She successfully distracted him from the Sammy question, but he’ll remember it when this is over.
And somebody will have some explaining to do…
I have a request for you when you return; could you include links to relevant strips being referenced in your author comments? It really helps us keep track of long story and character arcs that deserve to be deciphered and appreciated as easily as possible. In this case, when you have the failed marriage of a barely functional alcoholic mother resulting in a final divorce many years later, it helps to give a clear road map to the big relationship moments have led up to this point (at least, the ones we’ve seen so far) and help refresh our memory.
Oh, and chair, for the Underdogs…
That is a great idea, Neil. I really need to add tags too. I think that would make it easier to keep up with what’s going on.
I’ll put the relevant Philo strip links up with the next strip. And I’ll try to add the right links when I go veering off in another direction.
No problem with no comic for a few days. Art isn’t a faucet that one turns on and off at will, and yours is worth waiting for…
Charlie, maybe it’s time you took a couple weeks off again. I really don’t want another “this is the end of Groovy, Kinda – sorry” when the stress levels drive you under.
It’s time to pay attention to your bookstore, your family and your personal fun-times. Break the obsession again. Your readers want you healthy and happy, both physically and mentally. I’m a little obsessive about your comic, too… 🙂 I find myself checking it once or twice (or more) a day just to see the comments, never mindhoping for a new page.
It’s time to plug in Beach Blanket Bongo from Planet X or something.