"Tears at the Bucket" is my new YA romance "Gil Thorp" spinoff

Gil Thorp, 9/15/22

Sure, all the FLASH AND DAZZLE in Gil Thorp lately has been “there are trans and nonbinary characters in Gil Thorp now,” but those of us paying attention to the subtle threads have been wondering: who is Mel Gordon, Tobias’s mom, to Gil? They “hadn’t seen each other in years” when she showed up to register her son at Milford, and yesterday we learned that she thinks the Thorp kids are lucky to have Gil and Mimi, who were “so kind” to Mel, as parents. What could this all mean? Today we learn it means that Gil tried to browbeat her into having an abortion at some point, which, based on her reaction, wasn’t particularly kind, but I guess they’d let bygones be bygones, at least until the part where Gil brought it up again, right here at the Bucket. I feel like I need to know who the dude in panel one is, standing there looking depressed? Probably he’s the guy who knocked Mel up? He looks like he’s thinking “I respect a woman’s right to choose, but I sort of assumed that my opinion on the matter would rank higher than Gil Thorp’s.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/15/22