The unsatisfying answer is they hitched a ride with Slim Wallet. Why was Slim going to Charlotte? He wasn’t, to start with; he was driving back after dropping off some tires. Rufus and Joel, taking over the driving, got lost. Slim took back over and drove them to the mall, where he was supposed to play Santa. As to why Charlotte as opposed to any generic city? My guess is Jim Scancarelli wanted to show off his great skyline photos of the place called “The Queen City of the West” by people who went on too long and accidentally named that WKRP place.

So this should catch you up to early 2024 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley developments. If you’re reading this after about April 2024, or news about the comic strip breaks out, I’ll share with a post here. If neither of those are true, this is the most up-to-date stuff you can get except from whoever the dedicated Gasoline Alley snark bloggers are.

Gasoline Alley.

15 October 2023 – 6 January 2024.

Last I checked in, Bear, the bear, had got Jones, yet another foundling boy, fostered by Ranger Hoogy Skinner. While on a walk Bear and Jones meet up with Rufus and Joel, everyone’s comic pair of least-realistic characters in the strip. They’ve ended their hiding out in Bear’s uncle’s cave when Bear’s uncle starts snoring. Or growling. Whatever.

So that encounter — let’s date it the 16th of October — is when the main story of the end of last year started. Rufus and Joel figure to walk back home. It’s a longer walk than it was running out into the woods. They hitch a ride with Slim Wallet, returning from the Queen City after dropping off some tires. On the drive back to Gasoline Alley Slim gets so tired he asks Rufus and Joel to drive, while he sleeps in back on the truck bed.

Rufus and Joel decide to get on the Interstate, and before you know it they’re on I-77 and heading into Charlotte. They hit a pothole hard enough Slim falls out of the truck, but don’t notice until they make another orbit of the city. Slim’s angry, but awake, so there’s something to be said about being thrown out onto an Interstate. They pick him up again, and he drives, not to home, but to Gasoline Alley Mall.

Rufus at the wheel of the truck looks at the road: 'This is right where that sink hole was! There! Thy put a baricade over it now! Mr Slim must've flipped out when we hit the hole!' An outright livid Slim stands on the side of the highway. Joel: 'If that's him, he's really gonna flip out when he sees us!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 22nd of November, 2023. I think we all agree with Slim Wallet’s anger there. In driving around town to no point they’ve wasted all the time they could have spent at Carowinds amusement park!

Because it’s now Christmastime and someone’s got to play Santa for Frank Nelson at the department store. Slim was signed up for it, but with his road injury he’s not up to kids on his lap all day. Joel, the shorter and fatter one, has to take his place, while Rufus is his elf.

The kids are from the Gasoline Alley kids crew, finishing with Jones, who turns out to be able to say stuff after all. And then some woman I don’t recognize thanks him, as Santa, for spreading the true meaning of the season and whatnot. After that, some brat of a kid yanks on Joel’s beard and that’s enough of that for everyone.

The 26th of December saw a big bit of news. Baleen Beluga and T-Bone, waitress and cook at Corky’s diner, are engaged. They haven’t set a date yet. And then from the 2nd of January we got … Slim, a grown man, failing to use the washing machine correctly. Where is this going? I don’t know, maybe they’re going to stretch and make it to Raleigh/Durham.

Next Week!

My schedule has me talking about Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail. But what if — and I’m just thinking out loud, silently, while watching The Price Is Right on the DVR — I looked to the world of Mongo instead? What might happen? Check in next week and we’ll see what happens. If it does.