The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for December 11, 2022

So very close

The old lady is smarter than Brutus thought.

Good try.

Nice try Brutus, but – no CEEgar!!!!!

/SHMIRK/

He should have included the ticket with the card!

Oh Brutus, you crafty devil you. Well played my man, well played indeed…..

I was hand delivered.

You’re never going to hear the end of it, now.

Nice try Brutus (╯ ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)╯┻━┻

Doesn’t appear to be a stamp either

She smells a rat.

Well, if she lives in a remote part of Idaho, she probably doesn’t trust the government or the post office.

Nothing two minutes and a Sharpie® won’t fix, 3 minutes if he needs to draw in a stamp.

Poor Brutus has wanted to tell Mother Gargle where to go for years, but this is a family comic strip, sooo…

Good try Brutus. Maybe that’s why Mother Gargoyle’s niece lives in such a remote place.

So her niece Edna is probably her sister Hazel’s daughter. (Unless she has more brothers or sisters.) I’ll bet that Gargle hasn’t seen them in ages because she told Hazel that Hazel didn’t get the looks in the family.

Is it a crime to impersonate real mail?

“curses, foiled again”

I wonder what Brutus had to pay Edna to get her to agree to this visit? Edna must owe Brutus big time to agree to this.

You’re a sly one Brutus.

Perhaps it was one of those rare missives which escaped being postmarked…but I doubt it. Our intrepid hero Brutus has a devious streak!

Spending the holidays with an old battle axe. Boy if that isn’t a stocking filled with coal.

She needs a vacation and hopefully Edna is not also on vacation when she gets there!

could be a mistake… or was thought to be until he started to make a face. :}

Ooh ooh, what a tangle web we weave, when we set out to deceive.

Mother Gargle might just overstay her welcome to stick it to Brutus.

Brutus’ smile gets bigger as she reads the letter!

This is rich on so many levels. But I think from his look in the last panel Brutus wanted her to figure out it was his handiwork. Much more subtle than saying, “JUST GO AWAY!”

The old Thornapple don’t fall far from the tree! ☺

Oh Brutis, you sly dog you!

Me thinks Brutus has been up to no good!!! It’s worth getting on the Naughty List to get rid of Mother Gargle…

Good ole Mother Gargle, she’s so beloved that even her family tries to hide from her.

It was a good idea while it lasted, just had a couple of holes in it.

You know I think she should take that letter to Edna to see if she sent it.

Quick, Brutus – offer to pay her travel expenses as her Christmas gift! Add some for hotel room stays, since Edna might not like the surprise, if she is even home.

She must’ve been sleepy and licked the address instead of the stamp.

Well Brutus, it looks like you are going to have another unmerry Mother Gargle Christmas again this year.

A calendar sent to me by a podcaster I follow had two stamps for postage, but no postmark. Also, a card my aunt sent to my mother had no postmark either, so it CAN happen.

Good job. He should give her Listerine every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Labor Day, Independance Day, Easter, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day, birthdays, any others he can think of. The price could be worth it. Could eliminate or weaken some of those mind and heart numbing phrases.

Glad Brutus thought of that long distance, long time, far away vacation, especially by bus. Hope it works out for you Brutus.

Maybe she’s going to the nice Geico couple’s house that has Aunts.

But nice try, Brutus.