This is the strip from September 10, 2002, which was during Concorde’s swan song: after the July 2000 crash near Paris, commercial flights resumed in November 2001 and continued until October 2003, with the last flight of any Concorde on November 26, 2003 (which I saw myself). So if you could get BA or Air France to put on an illegal cross-country supersonic flight in the U.S. … maybe.
Since October 27, 1970 (and probably since 1968 or ‘69 in Bull Tales in the Yale Daily News). It’s just the way GBT draws Mike in that three-quarter view that is the closest he ever gets to full face.
I looked Rock’n Rollen up in Wikipedia, and apparently he’s still alive at the age of 80 and serving three consecutive life sentences in California after a 1992 incident in which he took hostages in a Los Angeles hotel, believing the rapture to be imminent.
Ryan is presumably on his summer break from school and looking after their son Walt while Amy works. He was seen briefly in the first strip of the flashback (November 15). Amy’s flirting a little with Lovelace but strictly for old time’s sake, I don’t think there’s anything serious in it.
They seem to think of it as an unpleasant, unsightly, down-at-heel place. Whether it really is, or whether this perception is just them having unconsciously absorbed attitudes driven by local rivalry, isn’t entirely clear.
I think it’s meant to be a car-derived van, which is why the wrench bounces off the metal rear door with a CLONK (though CDVs usually have a rear window in that position).
The apostrophes were pretty chaotic already.