Archive: Pardon My Planet

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Blondie, 3/14/24

Dagwood Bumstead’s inhumanly vast appetite is so well known that it obscures one of his other unnatural qualities — namely, his ability to nap anywhere, at any time. As a middle-aged man like Dagwood, every time I see him in his traditional couch-sleeping position I think about how I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with my knees bent up like that for more than few minutes, let alone the hours we’re supposed understand he spends snoozing. Normally he’s in that position because his couch is too short for him to stretch out, so it actually really bothers me that his imagination can’t summon up a couch long enough to fit him, Beetle, and Garfield alike, even thought I know the reason why (the reason is clip art). Thankfully, this base level of annoyance is stopping me from trying mentally rotate Beetle into a position that would demonstrate how very much not the same size he and Dagwood are.

Hagar the Horrible, 3/14/24

Look at the bear’s face! It’s not “dancing” at all. Any bear-themed entertainment aimed at an audience of bloodthirsty Vikings is absolutely going to end with the bear eviscerating its poor “dance partner,” just like the “dancing school” Hagar attended was actually the Viking war band that plundered half of Europe, where he learned his skills in the “dance” of combat before killing his chieftain and taking his place.

Pardon My Planet, 3/14/24

I guess I can imagine that some people who showed up to an advertised “slugfest” would be disappointed if the fighters were not ordinary human beings, but rather freakish ten-foot-long slug-beasts of a kind unknown to science. But I think most of them would be OK with it.

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Shoe, 3/9/24

The bird-people of Shoe generally have two emotional registers: horrified and very depressed. So I’m pleased that Shoe has discovered a third one, even though it’s apoplectic rage. The Perfesser has mostly slept through it, but it’s still an important step.

Pardon My Planet, 3/9/24

Not sure what’s worse here: that Pardon My Planet doesn’t know what socialism is, or that Pardon My Planet doesn’t know why that piggy was going to market.

Gil Thorp, 3/9/24

Gil has tried a lot of tactics for getting his student-athletes to improve their performance — coaching them, not coaching them, coaching them but real half-assed, getting other people to coach them for him, and so forth. But it turns out that the best technique of all is to simply exude the pleasant vibes that can only be created by sexual satisfaction.

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Bizarro and Six Chix, 2/2/24

Were you, as an adolescent, fascinated by Dante’s Inferno, and in particular by the book’s weird geography, in which hell is a kind of cone under the Earth’s surface, with each “circle” a ledge on which some ironic and awful punishment is dished out on unfortunate sinners? Or were you, unlike me, normal? If the former, you are truly primed to appreciate and perhaps even create today’s Six Chix, which some might fight offensive to Italians but I consider a true delight even though the pun is a little bit of a stretch. If the latter, you might produce today’s other Dante comic. Get it, OMG=”Divine” and LOL=”Comedy”? This is the product of the normie mind and frankly doesn’t deserve the label “bizarre” at all.

Pardon My Planet, 2/2/24

If one of your deep-seated fantasies is cruelly taunting women on social media for going to the bathroom, because you get off on the idea of them having to sit there uncomfortably and hold it until your issue your approval via Facebook comments, then I guess it’s better to write a syndicated newspaper comic strip about it than it is to actually do it? Like, more people will know about it from a comic, which is bad, because nobody should know about this, it’s obviously very shameful, but at least you’re not actually targeting any specific women, and women in general now have a pretty good sense that they should steer clear of you.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/24

Ha ha, artificial intelligence, am I right? It would certainly be crazy if AI were to replace Beetle and Sarge. Now I know what you’re thinking: given that today’s strip involves a close up on our two characters whose facial expressions barely change and who are standing in a featureless, backgroundless void, how do we know that AI hasn’t already replaced them, in the sense of writing this strip? Well, just as an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to write a Beetle Bailey on this topic:

Yes, well, there you have it: the soulless machine produces dialogue even less funny than the Walker-Browne Humor Industries LLC sweatshop, somehow tries to drag things out over four panels like this is 1959 and the comics pages have infinite space to fill, gets minor details wrong (have you ever seen “polishing boots” as one of Beetle’s assigned tasks?), and seems to think that Beetle and Sarge like each other.

But what about comics bloggers? Could they be replaced by a shiny cybernetic robot?

I feel like this is something that would’ve shocked every ’60s sci-fi writer churning out pulp novels and short stories about killer robots while out of their mind on benzedrine, but the thing about AI is that it isn’t mean enough to be funny. It’s called the Comics Curmudgeon, you pablum-spewing chatbot! Get back to me when you’re prepared to say that Beetle and Sarge engaging in “banter” isn’t enjoyable for anyone!

Anyway, tune in next time, dear readers, as we explore the unpredictable landscapes of the funny pages. Until then, keep those comics coming, and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments. Over and out!