Post Content

Mary Worth, 11/27/24

Oh, man, this is incredible, we’re now on day three of Mary’s dinner guests making it very clear that they don’t mind at all that dinner’s been cancelled, and then going off and doing the thing that they’re now free to do because dinner’s been cancelled while very much not worrying about whether Mary’s dying or whatever. In Dr. Jeff’s case, the thing that he’s now free to do is to take a brisk walk alone into the woods and never come back.

Shoe, 11/27/24

Normally it would be the guy delivering the gag who would get the heavy lidded expression of despair in the second panel, indicating his shame at delivering terrible Shoe-level wordplay. But that’s not the case here, which leads me to believe this guy isn’t making a joke or anything. He’s dead serious about it: the toilet seat thing is a sick sex thing, one that drives his wife wild with desire, and it’s no doubt just the beginning of some very elaborate process that you do not want to know about. Shoe’s right to look so angry about having to hear this.

Pluggers, 11/27/24

Hey, pluggers, you guys know that they give the mall Santas a wig and a fake beard, right? It’s pretty obvious when you look at them. Even the little kids can tell, for the most part.

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 11/22/24

Oh, sorry kids, looks like you’re going to slowly suffocate to death as your spaceship goes dark and circles Mars in an erratic orbit that will take centuries to decay. You know, you could’ve avoided all this if you had taken Ida Knoe the evil talking doll up on her offer to show you the solar system. Your voyage with her would’ve been made possible by demonic power from the depths of Hell itself, which unlike “electricity” or whatever isn’t subject to various physical laws and limitations that could leave you in a situation like this. Hindsight, though, am I right?

Pluggers, 11/22/24

As a coastal elitist, I guess I’m not really conversant on plugger standards of masculinity, but before today I would’ve assumed that “you’re so feeble you need household tools to open a simple carton of milk” would be the sort of thing they’d use to make fun of me, not something they’d proudly declare, in the newspaper in front of God and everyone, to be something that defined their pluggerdom.

Dick Tracy, 11/22/24

“Kid, you don’t get it. Tracy’s already gotten rid of the regular crime! Now he’s going after building code violations! And he’s going after them with his gun!”

Mary Worth, 11/22/24

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you were looking for a panel of Mary and Jeff passionately closed-mouthed kissing to start your weekend off right! Wait, what’s that? You weren’t? You actually find it extremely off-putting? Well, tough shit. I have to look at this stuff and now so do you.

Post Content

Pluggers, 11/16/24

Big news for people tired of reading my typed words and interested in hearing my voice: if you fall into that category and you are subscriber to the 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back podcast from Conor Lastowka and Mike Nelson of Rifftrax fame, you can listen to me trying to solve an Encyclopedia Brown mystery and, of course, talkin’ Slylock Fox, Encyclopedia Brown’s spiritual cousin in ratiocination, but with furries. “But, Josh,” you’re no doubt saying, “This isn’t a Slylock strip, it’s a Pluggers panel, an entirely different cartoon! Yes, they both feature unsettling human-animal hybrids, but the vibes are totally different! Slylock’s all unsettlingly amped up, while Pluggers is slow, desultory, depressing, fading slowly into nothingness but never quite getting there.” Well, what if I told you that the Encyclopedia Brown mystery we discuss involves a kid who’s a toilet paper collector? It does, and I’m sorry, this plugger clearly owns a “collection” rather than a “stash.” Each roll is lovingly displayed and meant to be examined again and again at leisure by this dog man and whatever weirdos he invites over to look at them. Real sicko stuff, in my opinion!

Hi and Lois, 11/16/24

I was briefly going to suggest that it would be funnier, or at least closer in structure to a “joke”, if Thirsty were just on his side of the fence here, basking in the stolen glow of his neighbors’ fire from his own yard. But I forgot that we’re in the bold new post-punchline era of Hi and Lois and I’m actually pretty OK with the offering we have here, where it’s clear that Thirsty has openly come onto the Flagstons’ property and lit a fire, and they’re standing at the window fretting about what if anything to do about it.

Shoe, 11/16/24

“Soon afterwards, he died of massive internal injuries. He was 56. Rest in power, Mr. Schwartz.”