In this episode, tomato and Sekrit discuss first jellies, then peanuts butter, for the full 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 22 seconds. 

Read along with us: 3.6 PB&J | Blog 

I cut like 10 minutes of explaining Harvard Law School curricular minutiae out of this, you are so welcome.

Read along with us: 3.5 The After Kegster | Blog

Cannot express the self-restraint it took for me not to write a "I hardly know her!" joke in this description, and because of that, I'd like to dedicate this episode to several other restraints (or lack thereof) we discuss herein: Shitty's new 'do; fandom's Fry Guy obsession; and, of course, Jack's cock ca - 

Read along with us: 3.4 Home Opener | Blog

Do we have to?

Read along with us: 3.3 Meet the Falconers | Blog

In an unprecedented narrative experiment that absolutely explodes the typical OMGCP comic strip, beloved side characters Ransom and Holster explain the concept of a "locker room," which is a place where people, including hockey players, can get undressed and then dressed for an athletic activity. Jack isn't in this strip but you really have to imagine his giant ass looks outrageous in a jock strap, right. I wonder if there's porn about this? Link me if you know come. ... I meant to type "some," that was a typo.

Read along with us: HS 6: Locker Room | No blog thank god.

Sekrit and tomato answer the big questions...who is Tango? (No one.) Why does he matter? (He doesn't.) Did Jack and Bitty fuck in that truck? (Yeah, probably.) Plus the return of crowd-favorite segments Sekrit's Shardo Show and Chowder Infantilization Watch!

Read along with us: 3.2 Taddy Tour | Blog

WE'RE BACK, BABY!!! Sekrit and tomato explore WAGatha Christie and the British tabloid nightmare machine, Mr. Bittle's thousand yard stare straight through the fourth wall, and the logistics of...well, there's no other word for it...truckfuckin'. 

Read along with us: 3.1 WAG | Blog

No.

For this extremely special and unnecessary deep-dive, Sekrit and Tomato are joined by queerofcups, the author of a highly recommended fanfic, and one of those smart fandom people whose brain you'd love to pick? We did it, here in this episode. We cover everything from "what is criticism" to "why are some people so unhappy every time someone says Check, Please could be kind of better" -- and if you want to know if we think this podcast is mean (again, no), make sure to listen all the way through.

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) are now going live on our website!

A tale as old as time - a story full of joy!  Barely even friends, then somebody bends (ha ha), when a man kisses a boy.

Read along with us: 2.19 Goodbye for the Summer II | Blog 

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) coming soon to a website near you!

P.S. Thanks for waiting

I can’t believe Jack and Bitty did the thing! WHAT?! -- Ngozi Ukazu

Read along with us: 2.18 Goodbye for the Summer I | Blog

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) coming soon to a website near you!

Alicia Zimmermann squeaking towards the Bechdel test finish line, Bad Bob's bangs, Bitty's bow ties, and Angels in America all in one episode? Sekrit and Tomato dive right in, not to mention they discuss one of the most important Check Displeased questions of all time: does Jack really, actually, literally want to fuck his dad? 

Read along with us: 2.17 Graduation | Blog

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) coming soon to a website near you!

A whirlwind tour of the waning days of Bitty's sophomore year: thematic haircuts, major appliance purchases, not involving your agent in major career decisions ... it can't possibly be sanitary to actually like put your mouth there, right? This was definitely written pre-Covid.

Read along with us: 2.16 Kiss the Ice | Blog

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) coming soon to a website near you! 

Here we have it - what we've all been waiting for. At last! At last! The love song of Ransom and Holster! Ransom and Holster would very much dare to eat a peach (if you know what I mean), and that's why Samwell Men's Hockey votes them in as co-alternate captains, despite zero indications that either of them even wanted a new position (if you know what I mean). Most importantly, Ransom and Holster are both taller than Jack, and we meditate on that for a little while. 

Read along with us: 2.15 A | Blog

Transcripts (c/o jovishark) coming soon to a website near you! 

Just when this story was getting good, it's time to stop worrying about that and go check on the little matter of who's going to live in Jack's room when he graduates??? Spoiler, it's Chowder. Love his adult braces but not sure what the point of this gesture is? Sekrit and Tomato break down what a "cinnamon roll" is and why it's kinda problematic that Chowder is one. Also, real talk, Jack should have given his dibs to Bitty.

Read along with us: Jack's Dibs

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts! [Soon, we promise. It really is happening. We're building a website.]

Here we have it, folks: the very best strip of Check, Please!, right in time for our fiftieth episode! Sekrit and Tomato realize that Jack becomes ever gayer in his melodramatic sensibilities, question whether going into the NHL is the right decision for someone who has to tear off his jersey and cry in secret after a difficult loss, and once again celebrate Ngozi's concise, potent visual storytelling. Then we start to get into the sweet, sweet Check, Please! conspiracy theories.

Read along with us: 2.14 Post 3: Last Game | Blog

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts!

Approaching their last game on Samwell Men's Hockey, ever, Jack and Shitty stare at the ice and wax philosophical about being in the moment, and "competitive fucking horticulture" -- you know, some early-to-mid-20s bullshit like that. Sekrit and Tomato touch on: things that have been tweeted about eight months ago that are only tacitly referenced in the actual comic; if Bitty is so small he could fit into a hockey bag, is he also so small he could fit inside someone's butt?; why nobody ever questions Jack's solid life plans. Also: what is a photo, though, actually?

Read along with us: 2.13 Post II: Frozen Four | Blog

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts!

This one's loose, everybody - and not just because Tomato unknowingly had COVID while recording it, then edited it with one finger in her new oximeter. We start to think about Bitty's relationship to masculinity, fandom id, migratory slash fandom, and general twinkhood while covering two of the most important debates of all time - Pie vs. Crumble and Roaches vs. Attic. Plus, Sekrit explains the Check Please Renaissance. Belated Hanukkah Sameach! And here's to more of Jack's butt in 2021, a resolution I think we can all get behind (ha ha). 

Read along with us: 2.11 Post I: Roadie | Blog 

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts!  

In this diversion from the main story line, we see Shitty give Lardo dibs on his room at the Haus. Bouncing off of that, Sekrit and Tomato explore all things Shitty/Lardo, Lardo's continued lack of relevance and development, and most importantly, which new varieties of gummy candy to seek out. Wouldn't it be nice if this relationship were explored at all? We do it for you, right here in this very podcast.

Read along with us: Shitty's Dibs

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts!  

After a six month hiatus, Check, Please! came roaring back with this comic ostensibly about Lardo's naked dude art but mostly about Shitty getting into extremely unnaked Harvard Law School? Lardo runs from the room crying, Bitty (who's "never considered [himself] much of an intellectual") disdainfully calls the art on display "creative," and Jack climbs into a vagina - but only in subtext, so what does that mean? Plus Sekrit teaches Tomato a little bit about art history and the legacy of naked dude portraiture!

Read along with us: 2.11 Junior Show | Blog Post

COMING SOON via jovishark: transcripts!  

In what proved to be the last comic for a while, ushering in a trend of hiatuses for OMGCP, Samwell Men's Hockey goes to practice on a frozen lake. If this were a different kind of story someone would have fallen in, but the most dramatic thing that happens here is Jack understandably hedges his romantic past to Bitty. Sekrit and Tomato chew on this lovely bit of introspection, and perhaps more importantly--what the hell is Bitty wearing in the first panel? Also: some British history for good measure; what exactly is a spoiler?; is this blog post trying to avoid being queerbaity? And other pressing issues raised in this strip! Jack’s big fat ass, for example.

Read along with us: 2.10 Shinny | Blog

Kent Parson is a ghost. Or: Kent Parson is a trace of what could have been. Or: Kent Parson is innumerable iterations of collective memory. Or: Kent Parson was invented, then reinvented, by each new generation of Check, Please! fans. Or: Kent Parson has anime eyes and is two steps away from a magical girl transformation sequence and, by the way, is overwhelmed by Jack's big butt??? Sekrit and Tomato get to the bottom (or the behind, if you will) of the question: WHO OR WHAT IS KENT PARSON?  

P.S. Check out the Kent Parson Collective Memory Project and send in your own oral history! 

Read along with us: Parse - I Blog | Parse - II Blog | Parse - III Blog

This is the most infamous strip in the entire comic. How do you summarize that? Bye bye Kenny, it's awful hard to bear! GUESS WE'LL ALWAYS CARE.

Read along with us: 2.9 Parse - Part III | Blog

Also, Tomato is offering to write fucking machine PWP fic for listeners who contribute time and volunteering to the Georgia Senate runoff elections -- or should we say "fun-off"? It is when Bitty has a fucking machine.

Kent Parson...how do we begin to explain Kent Parson? Kent Parson is flawless. He has a Calder, a Cup, and a silver Lexus. I hear his hands are insured for $10,000. I hear he does Canadian Tire commercials...in Canada. His favorite movie is The Mighty Ducks. One time he met a blonde pop idol on a plane, and she told him he was pretty. One time he punched me in the face...and it was awesome.

Okay, so maybe we also talk about why and how people read this character differently, his structural importance within the text, and foot jobs.

Read along with us: 2.8 Parse - Part II | Blog

Hey, U.S. listeners! Please vote.

_/ _/ _/

This is the first of three strips that everyone wants to talk about. And why wouldn't they? We get to meet Kent Parson, the character generating so much hooplah. Sekrit and Tomato talk about how the final panels here tell readers to pay attention, speculate on how the narrative being set up here may not have been resolved in the comic, and contemplate the role of Bitty's vlog in shaping the (un)reliable narration. Also, speaking of Bitty? He has a Confederate flag up in his bedroom.

Read along with us: 2.7 Parse - Part I | Blog

Jack and Bitty––Outstanding Twitter(pated) Piemaking. That's what OTP stands for, right? Tomato and Sekrit unpack Dr. Alice Atley's slightly dubious pedagogical strategy before trying to figure out whether Jack talking about himself to Bitty's rapt silence counts as flirting yet. Meanwhile, there's a hung jury as to whether puffing flour into someone's face is an effective romantic technique. Does Bitty have a parasocial relationship with his YouTube subscribers? Does this comic have anything to say about internet notoriety? Do these dummies really get 40% of their final grade from making a pie? Well, how do I sign up for that? 

Read along with us: 2.6 WGSS120 / HIST376: Women, Food, & American Culture | Blog

In 2.5 we meet Georgia Martin, assistant general manager for the Providence Falconers, a fake hockey team Ngozi made up for Jack to play on. How do we know that? It says so in the blog post. Also in this blog post: a discussion of "hooplah," and the characters who aren't in the comic yet that generate it. What does an NHL GM do, and what would it mean for a woman of color to be in the front office? How do NHL contracts work? What do we expect George is going to do for this story? And isn't it kind of dick to like, purposely run into your crush? It is, right? ... Right???

Read along with us: 2.5 Providence Falconers | Blog

This one's a doozy, and I don't say that just because Bitty's wearing jean cutoffs––it's Hazeapalooza, formerly known as Hazestock, a time-honored SMH tradition in which frogs and Zimmermanns are, and I quote from Massachusetts General Law, Part IV, Title I, Chapter 269, Section 17, subjected to "brutal treatment or forced physical activity which is likely to adversely affect the physical health or safety of any such student or other person, or which subjects such student or other person to extreme mental stress, including extended deprivation of sleep or rest or extended isolation." Seriously, we get into a pretty intense discussion of hazing, abuse in hockey and the major juniors, and Check, Please!'s relationship to the toxicity of sports culture. Then we take a left turn into fetishizing Jack's body? So, you know, the usual? Plus: as Dex foreshadows, the cowlick cometh––and the author (and her habit of deleting blog posts and Tweets) taketh away. 

Read along with us: 2.4 Hazeapalooza | Blog

HEY GUYS, we're hosting a Mighty Ducks viewing party on Saturday, October 3 to raise money for Democrats and other left-leaning causes, especially for the US general election in November. Want to join? E-mail proof of your $10+ contribution to sekritomg@gmail.com! More details here, hope you can make it!

~

Samwell Men's Hockey has three rookies, or "frogs," which is a colloquialism for "freshmen," because it's their first year on the team, and language is constantly evolving. Already things are strained between them, and Bitty is asked to mediate. In this hot mess of an episode, Sekrit and Tomato get into how the differences between Dex and Nursey are framed in both the comic and the fandom, and the politics of OMGCP writ large: Is Andover so different from Samwell, actually? Even if Bitty isn't a Republican, why wouldn't knowing Dex is one bother him? Plus we debut a fantastic new segment, "Rating How Gay What Bitty Looks Like Is," the main takeaway of which is that Chowder's hair is unforgivable.

Read along with us: 2.3 Meet the Frogs | Blog

HEY GUYS, we're hosting a Mighty Ducks viewing party on Saturday, October 3 to raise money for Democrats and other left-leaning causes, especially for the US general election in November. Want to join? E-mail proof of your $10+ contribution to sekritomg@gmail.com! More details here, hope you can make it!

-

There was so little to say about Celly that Tomato and Sekrit decided it was a better use of time to answer some of the asks that had fallen to the bottom of their inbox. We talk about NCAA hockey, university sports culture in the US, and the road to the NHL; the punishing conformity of hockey culture and its relationship to white supremacy; Sekrit's elusive Patater recs; Bitty's family and homophobic bullying; and whether Jack's play style is influenced by his daddy issues - well, what isn't influenced by his daddy issues is what I want to know?

Read along with us: HS 5: Celly | No Blog

HEY GUYS, we're hosting a Mighty Ducks viewing party on Saturday, October 3 to raise money for Democrats and other left-leaning causes, especially for the US general election in November. Want to join? E-mail proof of your $10+ contribution to sekritomg@gmail.com! More details here, hope you can make it!

~

Kewpie-eyed naif Eric Bittle faints on the ice again, and might lose his place on the roster if he can't figure it out. Tomato and Sekrit break down the visual parallels in this update to strips both past and future, and dig into the blog post. Is Bitty's posture in the first two panels a stirring contrast to the last two, or does he just need an osteopathic surgeon? How about a sports therapist? What do these coaches even do, anyway? If this update completely bums you out, don't worry -- it doesn't matter even a little. The blog post said so!

Read along with us: 2.2 Square One | Blog

Much like the Haus kitchen before it succumbs to Bitty's tender ministrations, this episode is a g.d. mess! We veer in many directions––from our, uhhh, typically incisive analysis of Bitty's passive aggressive instincts to a discussion of Ngozi's role in encouraging the fandom to a surprisingly long conversation about foreskins––but the pièce-de-resistance is Sekrit's observation that Jack spends this strip dramatically reenacting a certain famous shower scene. Cue the violins!

Read along with us: 2.1 Moved-In | Blog

Continuing a discussion of "weirdest" fandom discourse, Tomato and Sekrit cycle back around to the social and cultural reasons why things in fandom get contentious, and how these particular motivations bear down on Check, Please fandom. Plus: some stuff about real-life NHL players and how their fanfic analogs are configured in the comic, and how the topics hit on in this two-parter could make for their own breakout conversations.

A big thanks to queerofcups for helping us ID some OMGCP discourses as we were planning this conversation! Check out this fucking amazing fanfic.

NB, this episode contains a wide-ranging discussion of various real-life hockey players, including one who has been accused of sexual assault, between 10:30 and 21:30.

Here we goddamn go. Having finished covering all of Year One, Tomato and Sekrit step away from the comic for a minute to talk about the topic that won a recent special-episode poll: Wankorama: FFA/Weirdest Fandom Discourse. Ranging somehow from Michel Foucault's concept of discourse to whether or not it's possible or recommended to knead pie dough, this deep-dive was so long it'll be continued in part two. In this first half: What's the distinction between discourse and wank? What's this "FFA" we keep talking about and why is it relevant to Check, Please? What makes a discourse "weird"? And the beginning of our fucking laundry list of the things people in this g.d. fandom fight about.

Deus ex machina? Don't mind if we do––Sekrit and Tomato tackle this tacked-on final strip of Year One, in which the comic's main characters finally hang out in the same panel! We meander past SJWs and Check, Please!'s on-again-off-again critique of toxic hockey culture before discussing the comic's first year in total. What did we like? What would we change? Most importantly: can you believe A Certain Cowlick is only seven strips away?

Read along with us: 1.23 Dibs 

Men never have to do any emotional labor or apologize for anything -- and because Jack Zimmermann wants to be one of those, he decides not to, either. Bitty's metaphorical boner for him is radically apparent. (Check out the real deal in Huddle 3, available here.) Plus: Can an author be a fan of their own comic? How much of the rest of this story is being telegraphed here? Who the eff else was going to be captain? If your first husband died and you got remarried, who would you be buried next to? What if you could make a few bucks reselling the old plot?

Read along with us: 1.22 Goodbye for the Summer | Blog

Three cheers for Eric Bittle! Three cheers for Jack Zimmermann! Here, here! Oh, wait, is it hear, hear? Anyway, we love these award-winning gay hockey players, and they secretly love each other, or at least that's what this strip really wants us to think. Sekrit provides a close reading of Jack's spectacularly inane acceptance speech, and Tomato makes the brave suggestion that Jack's haircut kind of make him looks like Reagan? Truly the signs of a romance for the ages! 

Read along with us: 1.21 Banquet | Blog

In one of OMGCP's most iconic set pieces, Bitty has an assist on Jack's GWG -- and is checked into the air, where he gives a sassy little monologue before losing his helmet. Then Jack looks on horror and mutters his nickname for the first time, so, like, true love. Holy shit, this sport is incredibly violent! Maybe none of these characters should be playing it.

Read along with us: 1.20 Playoffs - III | Blog

Is Check, Please! a soap opera? (No.) Is Check, Please! a slash fic? (Kind of?) Will Jack and Bitty ever do more than bonk their helmets together in front of a romantically hazy yellow background? (Please, that ship has sailed - they've bonked a lot more than that!). Tomato and Sekrit dip their collective toe into the turbulent waters of Jack and Bitty's power dynamics and the necessity of accepting violence in a contact sport before spending a fairly brief but still surprising amount of time dishing about Erica Kane? 

Read along with us: 1.19 Playoffs - II | Blog

Don't forget to vote in our next special episode poll HERE until Friday, August 21!

There are a few installments of Check, Please! that are like, oh, it's this strip. Join us as we talk about the widening gulf between the reality of hockey and the "reality" of OMGCP, personified by two sportscasters everyone in the universe of the comic hates because they dare to evaluate Jack Zimmermann on the basis of how the NHL actually, like, is. Don't they know Bitty wins this comic? Also, put on your ugliest Anthropologie sale-rack floor-length cardigan and meet us in 2008 for a deep dive into the tabloid history of gal pals Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson.

Read along with us: 1.18 Playoffs - I | Blog

Don't forget to vote in our next special episode poll HERE until Friday, August 21!

Who are these amphibians? Why do we care about them? What do they add to the universe-changing love story between Bitty and that other guy? We dive into these very important questions, and more, like what in deep-fried hell this strip's dancing cookies are doing to productively destabilize Check, Please!'s formal conventions. (Nothing.) Plus: Tomato brings up Homestuck again...sorry about that, everyone.  

Read along with us: 1.17 Tadpoles | Blog'

And don't forget to let us know what you want our next SPECIAL EPISODE to be about!

In 1.16 Bitty gets put on the first line with Jack, and Sekrit and Tomato break down why Jack has such a problem with it -- he wants to fuck his dad, is that what the blog post is suggesting? -- and why Bitty should even care. Join in for a scintillating breakdown of how this strip is structured and what the vlog element is even doing here. We also get back to the comic's foundation myth via references to "Einhardt" and goons, and complain about Senor Bun. Less thematically important but kind of exciting: Jack's cheekbones make their debut in this strip.

Read along with us: 1.16 Linemates | Blog

Summer's hottest podcast is Check Displeased, and this episode has everything: truly incredible episode guest jovishark, a deep and fascinating dive into fandom ethics and the personal joys and costs of participating in fandom, at least three references to Bill Hader, South Park hockey classic "Stanley's Cup," and Sekrit's so-controversial-and-yet-so-brave suggestion that what really brings Check, Please! and South Park together is their shared libertarian ethos. Seriously––even if you're not a South Park fan, you should listen to this one. 

Watch along with us: "Stanley's Cup," South Park season 10, episode 14. Hit us up if you need a link.

One comic into the new semester, were you already getting sick of the plot of Check, Please? Come on down to the bottom separatist commune, where Sekrit and Tomato dig into how the pacing of this comic makes no sense, and why the comedy-writing structure is solid but the jokes, not so much. Why are hockey asses so huge? Why are we told over and over again that Jack's ass specifically is very huge ... but it's never drawn like it is? How many ways are there to attempt to say that you think Jack is a bottom without using the words "Jack is a bottom"? This episode covers that ample territory. Also, yes, Homestuck is a topic of discussion. This podcast will never be secretary of state and we're okay with that.

Read along with us: HS 4: Butts | Blog

Kicking off Bitty's second semester at Samwell, Sekrit and Tomato meet one of Check Please's most important and allegedly bro-iest characters! A rousing discussion about fine art, dicks, identity, Lardo's lack of on-page burping, the comic's use of a notable queer women's haircut ritual in service of gender conformity, and the ironic detachment of hipster fashion (such as it is) follows. Plus, we start thinking about whether Check Please is misogynist - for a certain value of misogyny. 

Read along with us: 1.15 Lardo 

It’s Check Displeased, but--! Nearly 60 percent of voters wanted an episode about weird fanfic, so here's our longest episode yet, all about that. Sekrit and Tomato define "weird fanfic" by first defining typical Check, Please! fanfic, then discuss a few of their favorites across the weird Check, Please! fanfic spectrum. Then, even though nobody voted for it at all, they get into some of their own past and future OMGCP fanfic. No ridicule or sporking, just reveling in absurdity. If this episode is bad, it's not our fault.

Read along with us:

Mon Petit Chou | 225k; Jack/Bitty, Tater/Parse; rated E; a/b/o + mpreg

Surface | 18k; gen; rated M; OD

call me son (one more time) | 27k (incomplete); Bob/Kent; rated E; dubious consent et al

what is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? | 3.5k; Jack/Bitty; rated M; murder + gore

H-E-Double Hockey Sticks: Long John Silver's | 6k; PBJ; rated E; mpreg + group sex

Guesthouse Best House | 27.5k; Jack/Bitty et al; rated E; addiction

Lysistrata? I Hardly Know Her! | 15k; Jack/Bitty; rated E

get the wine pairings | 10k; Jack/Bitty; rated M; daddy kink

elegy for the over-medium egg | 20k; Jack/Bitty, Jack/Shitty, Shitty/Lardo; rated E; trans issues + adultery

tumblr was always garbage: rumaki | 1.5k; Jack/Bitty; rated G

Is this strip canon? Who's even read this strip? Does this strip count for anything? Based on the amount of time Tomato and Sekrit spend actually discussing what happens in this slightly lackadaisical strip, the answer to all of these questions appear to be "Who cares?" Luckily, there's plenty of other important stuff to chew on: How much does it matter that Jack cosplays as his dad whenever he wears a suit? Will Jack die of CTE before Bitty graduates with his MFA? What have we learned over the past twelve weeks about how to make a podcast? 

Read along with us if you own a copy of Check, Please! Year One and probably also Check, Please! #Hockey but neither of us owns that so we're not 100% sure. 

In this actual final installment about the first semester of Bitty's freshman year of college -- as opposed to the conceptual last installment, a Kickstarter bonus strip, coming next episode of Check Displeased -- Bitty comes out to Shitty, and Shitty takes it in stride. Shitty, the protagonist of the comic. Three cheers for Shitty! Make love to me, Shitty! How would you like a list of all 10+ Check, Please! coming out arcs? Also, Sekrit and Tomato discuss how this comic is maybe kind of homophobic -- for a certain value of homophobia.

Read along with us: 1.14 The Closet Story - II

Ransom and Holster want to set Bitty up for the Winter Screw, and they know just who Bitty will love: a lady who bakes! Sekrit and Tomato discuss this strip's visual foreshadowing, Jack's reaction (or lack thereof) to Bitty's obviously gay character design, and the limitations of coming out narratives. Thus begins Check Please's first iconique arc, in which we discover Bitty's greatest secret - that he apparently hovers anxiously over his pies the whole time they're in the oven? 

Read along with us: 1.13 The Closet Story - I

Check out this very important oral history project about a question mark with a cowlick! 

Also, help us pick our special episode! Vote **here** until Sunday, until July 12.

Sometimes your internet cuts off for hours and you wander all over your apartment complex begging for a connection like alms just so you can pretend you updated your podcast on time. Anyway, that's nothing compared to Bitty and Jack's simultaneous suffering in this episode! We also meet Bad Bob in the flesh, dive into cruelty and luck, and discuss the best ways to deal with Jack's sulky baby personality flaw (drugs and/or spanking?). 

Read along with us: 1.12 Samwell vs. Yale - III

Check out this very important oral history project about a question mark with a cowlick! 

Also, help us pick our special episode! Vote **here** until Sunday, until July 12.

WELCOME BACK

After a brief hiatus while winding down the 2019-2020 school year, Tomato and Sekrit are back with an all-new episode, in which Bitty scores a goal in a hockey game, and ... actually, that's pretty much everything that happens. Some nice visuals here, which we get into, along with the background info on the 2013 Yale men's hockey team you've been eagerly anticipating all podcast. Also: Isn't every shot a lucky shot?

Read along with us: 1.11 Samwell vs. Yale - II

Also, help us pick our special episode! Vote **here** until Sunday, until July 12.

Jack and Bitty start to warm up to each other, as Bitty stumbles onto Jack being emotionally vulnerable in Canadian French and then they awkwardly talk about it for about three panels. Is Bitty overstepping here, and if so, what does that mean? We also discuss Jack's infamous symbolically potent yellow gym shoes and which shounen ai conventions made him so incredibly tsundere. Plus Sekrit drags Beyonce back into it to dig up the metaphorical applications of the fourth single from her third studio album, which we start to see coalescing in this strip.

Read along with us: 1.10 Samwell vs. Yale - I

Bitty's mother is in some ways the most developed female character in Check Please, and with her introduction we finally meet a lady who's not just puking in the background. Is it a problem that we got 13 episodes into this before meeting a woman with a pulse? Also, it's kind of weird that Bitty calls her his "best friend," right? And it's definitely weird that he wants to take her to a frat house he doesn't even live at to bake a pie while naked college students get high in the next room, right? And it's super weird that the wife of a Georgia football coach would compare multiple Stanley Cup-winning hockey legend Bad Bob Zimmermann to Tim Tebow in 2013, right, like, that's not even a question. We get into all that, plus some discourse on tucking your jeans into your socks. Is that kinda gay?

Read along with us: 1.9 Family Weekend

A short episode about a mostly weightless little comic strip, in which Seko and Tomatey learn that hockey bros aren't very creative. We talk about Shitty's actual name, and why Jack doesn't have a nickname at all. Also, wait, why are Nazis funny? Lovers of autofiction, this installment is for you.

Read along with us: HS 3: Nicknames

All positive queer rep starts when you get someone out of bed at 4 in the morning and then drag them to an ice rink to experience repeated trauma, and ends when you propose to them at the site of the very trauma you forcibly inflicted. Maybe that's the moral of this comic? Hard to say! Just one of those things. Sekrit and Tomato discuss that, and also Lucille Ball again, and roller derby again, but it's no one's fault that formulaic sitcom writing and violent contact sports are relevant to this comic, okay. Also, this strip introduces us to the real star of Check, Please!: Jack's giant butt. (Runner up: Jack's wolf eyes.) Zimbits forever!

Read along with us: 1.8 Checking Clinic

Welcome to the Check Displeased tenth-episode anniversary special, an exploration of a strip where Bitty sits in front of a webcam for the vast majority of it. We get into why the comic doesn't give us any hockey action, and consider how much of Jack's chick-wheeling is a social construction that exists mostly in Ransom and Holster's heads. Actually, we talk about Jack a lot, for someone who's not even in this comic? Also: substance abuse in hockey, and why Bitty wants to play this extremely violent game in the first place.

Read along with us: 1.7 Assist!

Sekrit and Tomato continue their look at Jack's backstory, going panel by panel through the strip with a particular eye to how the story's being told. Is there any logic in Jack's circuitous path to the NHL, or is he just a just a bad planner? Was he actually an addict? Really trying to kill himself? How disappointed is his dad, actually? The comic never answers any of those questions, but this strip very much raises them -- and gave OMGCP fandom a ton to chew on in the process. Also, click for some hot content about early-2000s webcomic sensation Boy Meets Boy, arguably Check Please before Check Please was Check Please.

Read along with us: 1.6 The Hockey Prince

Catch Part 1/2 here.

Welcome to the multipart Hockey Prince bonanza. In this installment we learn -- and maybe our hero the Little Shit also learns? -- that Jack is such a bitch because he was a mentally ill teenage drug addict who thought his daddy didn't love him. This hard truth stands in contrast to a beautifully illustrated storybook presentation that draws on genre expectations to do its heavy lifting, and we are so impressed (and maybe still a little excited, you know, sexually?) that we gush about it for hours.

Read along with us: 1.6 The Hockey Prince

On this episode we find out that Bitty stans a legend: RKO Pictures chorus girl turned comedienne turned TV mogul Lucille Ball, whose influence penetrates the rest of Check, Please! to a near-inescapable degree. And also we meet the love interest’s dad or something, kind of. Plus we get into some vagaries of money in the US higher education system and do some Beyonce lyrics close reads. This episode is best enjoyed with some weight-loss gum!

Read along with us: 1.5 Bad Bob Zimmermann

This episode really tries our patience because it's standing between the beginning of the podcast and the first great OMGCP strip. After another two installments of what maybe you could call plot, the comic goes back to Ransom and Holster to teach us the meaning of the word “chirp.” Are chirping and flirting variations on the same theme, Bitty? Is Check Please a romcom? Is it a sports narrative? Why is the fat character in this strip the only fat character drawn in the entire comic? Also we talk about Tyler Seguin for some reason.

Read along with us: HS 2: Chirp

As Bitty goes to the Haus for the first time, we get into the place of magic realism in the comic, what is or isn't funny about sriracha (opinions are split), and compare way too many things to South Park. What kind of pot do you think Bitty would smoke? Isn't pie actually kind of overrated? But forget about that, because this is the strip where we meet iconic Check, Please! heroes Ollie and Wicky, future husbands, home-improvement buffs, and white collar job-havers. We also cover the symbolism of Bitty's wardrobe and the darkness in Shitty's grandiosity. Get psyched.

Read along with us: 1.4 The Haus

The coaches! Boy, did they impact the plot of Check, Please! Technically we meet them in the strip named after them, but as Sekrit and Tomato discuss, it depends on how you define the confusing concepts of "meet" and "them." Also: Is this where the plot begins? What's the difference between meanness and criticism in fandom? Plus we talk about Doonesbury, which is basically the same thing as Check Please, if you think about it. Except, you know, it's not. But we definitely get into it, don't worry, along with the terms "soft hands" and "spinorama."

Read along with us: 1.3 The Coaches

After following the main plot for two entire strips, it's time to take a detour into side material that isn't part of the actual comic, or is it? This episode has it all: talk of paratexts, a definition of gesamtkunstwerk, and personal anecdotes from the lives of your podcasters. Neither the protagonist nor the most important character is in this strip, but we find a way to make it worthwhile, maybe. Put on your best worst French-Canadian accent, do or don't wash your hair, and prepare to immerse yourself in the arcane world of hockey culture.

Read along with us: Hockey Shit 1: Flow

Excerpts from Hockeyed Up, written and read by Sophie.

On the second installment of Check Displeased, Tomato and Sekrit chat a little more about 1.1 in light of recent comic updates, speculate on how many eggs a person should eat, try to figure out who or what is Jonathan Toews, and get super psyched to meet The Boys. Would you Get Married For The Boys? You wouldn't know it from this strip, but, the protagonist of this comic would! To the Most Important Character, no less, who we meet in this very episode!

Read along with us: 1.2 The Boys

On the first episode of Check Displeased, Tomato and Sekrit give background on the webcomic that's been haunting them for four to seven years, meet the story's protagonist, and start figuring out how to make a podcast.

Read along with us: 1.1 Eric Bittle