Family Circus, 10/31/08
Yes, Dolly is dressed as … exactly who you think she’s dressed as. At least Jeffy isn’t going as Obama, in blackface.
Meanwhile, it took me took some serious staring and contemplation to realize that Billy is supposed to be the popular Iron Man character, with his mask pushed up on top of his head (presumably so we’d know that he was really Billy, and not Robert Downey, Jr., come to score some dope from the Keane Kids). For the longest time I thought that he was wearing a Kangol hat, and he was supposed to be some guy in a Kangol hat who’s been splattered by red paint.
Dennis the Menace, 10/31/08
No amount of contemplation could help me suss out the meaning of Dennis’s outfit, however. Is he supposed to be the guy from V for Vendetta? Or just some dude in a mask who likes to stab people?
Spider-Man, 10/31/08
As I promised yesterday, the Spider-Man strip is simply relentless in its efforts to disappoint fans of Spider-Man, superhero comics, action, and narrative. Big Time, having managed to miss the web-slinger at point blank range despite paralyzing him with his most powerful weapon — sound — now simply bludgeons our hero with a clock.
Mary Worth, 10/31/08
Frank is quickly showing himself to be a very promising Mary Worth guest star. I look forward to him turning every compliment into something negative. “Frank, your daughter’s performance was simply tremendous!” “Yes, tremendously humiliating!” “Frank, this soup is delicious!” “Yes, deliciously repulsive!”
Apartment 3-G, 10/31/08
“Heh heh, some junkie I’ve never met gets popped, and that just makes for more action for Gary! Good thing I wore my sexiest camel-hair jacket!”
UPDATE: I’m going out of town for the weekend, so I probably won’t have a chance to post weekend comments until Monday. Till then, enjoy!
Archie, 10/30/08
Today’s Archie reveals just how primitive the AJGLU 3000’s graphics subsystem is. Rather than portraying a pizza box as a collection of surfaces and enclosed foodstuffs that can wobble, flop open in mid-air, and splatter pepperoni, sauce, and grease everywhere to hilarious effect, it instead assumes that it is a simple, monolithic object that flies into the living room serenely, describing a perfect parabola before miraculously coming to rest in Jughead’s hands. I’d guess that whole system is based on Atari System 2 hardware, which explains the mysterious paperboy reference.
Hi and Lois, 10/30/08
I was going to go into a diatribe about how it’s silly that Ditto is regarding his lunch with wide-eyed shock in panel one seeing as it’s (a) one that he packed himself and (b) awesome, but then I caught sight of those two … brown … things in panel two. Are we supposed to assume that those are his two candy bars, both of which he carefully unwrapped and then set down on the lunch table to enjoy later? Yes, yes, let’s assume that, please.
Spider-Man, 10/30/08
You have to give the creators of the newspaper Spider-Man credit for always exploring new frontiers of total lameness on the part of their characters. In one corner, we have Big Time, a criminal mastermind so committed to his laughable clock theme that he has some sort of clock-shaped pop-gun that spits out its minute hand as ammunition and is thus presumably useless after two shots; and in the other, we have the Amazing Spider-Man, who boasts of his “spider reflexes,” which will help him dodge a projectile that hasn’t managed to cover about three feet of space in the time its taken him to thought-balloon a sentence and a half — only to have said reflexes completely disabled by a loud noise. Determining the winner in this battle will be like a philosophical conundrum: can an object with no mass be moved by an infinitely weak force?
Pluggers, 10/30/08
Pluggers know it’s cheapest just to get plastered at home, in front of the TV set.
Crankshaft, 10/29/08
Good lord, is there a more menacing sight than Crankshaft’s hateful old face framed by a sinister black cloud rolling in from nowhere? This is no mere cantankerous old grump; he’s clearly some kind of winter-demon, determined to turn our beautiful country into an icy hell to inspire what passes for delight in his frozen lump of heart by calling down all manner of sleet and snow with his dark powers. Expect our frigid nightmare to continue until the ’Shaft decides that scorching summer heat might provide a better backdrop to his cranky, malapropistic wit.
Hi and Lois, 10/29/08
Sure, laugh all you want at Hi for not trying to use any search terms that might actually be helpful — the gentleman’s home town, his job, that sort of thing — but in his defense, sharing that sort of information is really frowned upon at anonymous sex parties, which I suppose is why they call them anonymous sex parties.
Ziggy, 10/29/08
It seems like there’s a sub-prime joke here trying to get out, but heck, let’s give the comic credit for trying. Ha ha, Ziggy’s flower is dying!
Hi and Lois, 10/28/08
Did you ever come to believe that Hi Flagston was actually a full-on delusional lunatic, that he spent his days in some kind of locked asylum for the incurably mentally ill, and that his wife and children were mere figments of his imagination? If so, your suspicions might be confirmed by today’s strip, in which Hi asks Mr. Foofram to say hello to his daughter, while holding a small desk-sized speaker that’s tethered by a string to a box of the sort that a necktie might come in. (Another hint: he believes that his “boss” is named “Mr. Foofram.”)
Apartment 3-G, 10/28/08
To deliver the raw emotional intensity required in panel three, Apartment 3-G spared no expense, bringing in special guest star Bea Arthur to play the part of Blaze.
I hope you will have a little patience before we get to this week’s COTW. I’ve been meaning for some time to share with you a fascinating item I received in the mail from faithful reader loudfan, and have only today gotten around to making some scans of. Behold, the glory and majesty of Mark Trail’s ® Book Of Animals (North American Mammals)!
The book was published in 1955 and written by Ed Dodd, Jack Elrod’s predecessor at the helm of all things Trail. It’s essentially like a Sunday strip, in book form, with Mark only making a single cameo appearance on the title page:
He sure looks pleased, doesn’t he? I wonder what’s in that pipe.
Anyway, the book contains lots of information on — and pretty nice black and white drawings of — animals (North American mammals). Here’s an example, selected particularly for faithful reader and goat fan True Fable:
As you can see, Mark Trail has never been shy about proclaiming the hard truths in life, using boldface to blow tiny little minds everywhere with information about the mountain goat’s non-goat status.
Humans are actually pretty scarce in the pages of this book, but this appearance of an elderly foppish cowboy is particularly amusing:
Wait, are there people who seriously accuse mountain lions of cowardice just because they don’t want to get shot? Who on earth could this page be defending their reputation from?
Maybe from wolverines, who, when confronted with the incursion of armed humans into their territory, respond not by skulking deeper into the woods, mountain lion-style, but by arming themselves. WOLVERINES!
Finally, you can see that this feature’s fascination with dog vs. raccoon fights has deep roots:
Oh, and Mark, maybe raccoons wash their food because dirty food is gross. This page tells me more than I ever wanted to know about dinnertime at the Trail household.
In totally unrelated news, here’s a tidbit from faithful reader RaJ:
I apologize for bringing this to your attention. I do it only because I thought it might shed some light on the obviously troubled Keane family. It’s a picture of Jeff, in hideous drag, pummeling some poor man to death.
If that linked sentence entices you, you’ll want to click forward to the 11th picture in the gallery (there’s no way to link to it directly, which is probably just as well).
And now! At long last! The comment of the week!
“Reeky regularly watches COPS; it’s like Facebook for his kind.” –gnemec
And the runners-up! Also funny!
“I’m fastidious enough to be a little concerned about Luann spilling her glass of soda in panel 3, but I suppose it’ll just end up mixed into the big puddle of Brad’s insecurity that’s already sloshing around the linoleum.” –One-eyed Wolfdog
“Dagwood’s candidate is Lyndon LaRouche, who will have lunch with anyone. I assume Dagwood was buying.” –Jana C.H.
“My god, when did Mary Worth become the abode of the undead? Mary, the funeral make-up still fresh on her face, gazes blankly as Jeff vainly struggles to remember the taste of food. Soon they will lurch out into the sunlight, their unsolicited advice an ungodly gurgle in their throats, forcing Toby to shotgun them both.” –Idols of Mud
“Watching a sailboat race: boring. Watching boring people who are watching a sailboat race: thrilling excitement, Rex Morgan Style!!!” –ring around the collar
“I think that by making a sailboat race part of the plot, Rex Morgan, M.D., has joined the worldwide hunt for something less interesting than Rex Morgan, M.D. I wouldn’t be surprised if this week ends with Rex explaining the difference between different types of knots and how that knowledge helped him win.” –ESJ
“The best thing about today’s Mary Worth is how the colorist gave up on filling in half the background. It’s as if he thought, ‘Eh, who needs green trees or a colored table cloth when Mary Worth’s just going to suck the life out of them anyway?’” –kelsy
“The seemingly metal pizza pan bothers me. Is Thel trying to set her house on fire? Actually … she probably is. I would if I were her.” –Angry Kem
“Mark knows that women are only interested in one thing; he just doesn’t know what it is.” –boojum
“Daddy Keane has thrown himself diagonally across the bed, burying his face in a pillow in the classic posture of one overwhelmed by grief. I wish I knew what tragic event in the Keane household brought this on. So I could imagine it happening, over and over again in my mind.” –Joe Btfsplk
“I know you all have been hating on Big Time as something of an underwhelming villain, and not without reason. But today’s strip shows that he’s not just a large man who likes clocks. He’s a criminal mastermind! Parking the truck near, but not too near the rear door of the museum? Genius! Because if the truck were too far away, then they’d have to carry the loot all the way to the truck, which would take longer. But if the truck’s too close, then they couldn’t get the door open. It’s thinking through details like this that make Big Time a foe to be reckoned with.” –Spunde
“I like that Peter Parker is a regular ‘Joe Six-Pack/Plumber’ like me. Not at all like that elitist Jamaal who uses a ‘bed’ to sleep.” –Red Greenback
“Uh, Peter, if you’re losing consciousness and gripping your left arm, you aren’t falling asleep, you’re having a heart attack. So much for spidey sense.” –Bribaby
“Perhaps at some point she hobbled him a là the film Misery.” –Calico, on why Dr. Jeff now has a cane
“If Margo’s talking tears, they’re someone else’s, brought on by their sweet, sweet humiliation.” –willethompson
“I’m not an avid enough reader of Gil Thorp to know who Dr. Wally Lamb is but I assume he’s the strip’s resident mad scientist based on (A) the fact that he’s wearing a lab coat and glasses, and (B) in panel 2 he appears to have shrunk himself to about 6 inches tall. Judging by the total lack of surprise on his wife’s face, this happens all the time.” –Rachel K
“Luann is steadily becoming a race to see which couple will not have sex first.” –Anonymous
“Don’t hold your breath for diversity in this comic. There aren’t even any characters with brown eyes.” –Charlene, on the prospects of a gay character in Mary Worth
“Of course pluggers don’t have flowers. They can barely care for themselves.” –tj
Unlike the mountain lions, many were brave enough to put money in my tip jar! And our advertisers are as formidable as a wolverine:
To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.
Pluggers, 10/27/08
It’s well documented that the definition of “plugger” is notoriously slippery. For instance, before today, you probably didn’t realize that typical, average Americans who sit around the kitchen table out of their minds on a psychedelic mix of prescription medications are in fact pluggers! The shocking revelation that even pillheads can be pluggers leads us to ask: who else is a plugger?
Apartment 3-G, 10/27/08
Alan’s parents are probably pluggers! That’s why they hate and fear the great city of New York, refusing to bury him there, instead taking him home to a simple, all-American rural Maine cemetery. This move on their part has put an end to Margo’s brief experience of something resembling human tenderness, as she prepares to leap to the defense of her home city, and I have to come in on her side here. After all, it’s not as if Alan’s going to overdose at his own funeral, seeing as he’s already dead and all. And if his burial service is thronged by crazed junkies who ultimately pull his body from the casket and attempt to grind it up and smoke/snort/inject it so as to enjoy the residual dope still in his veins — well, isn’t that what he really would have wanted? It would certainly be more fun than the “private service” his parents have planned, with the glassy-eyed, pill-numbed plugger hordes drooling aimlessly in the pews.
Wizard of Id, 10/27/08
The peasants in Wizard of Id are also pluggers, because they’re staying cheerful and making do with what they’ve got! In this case, “what they’ve got” is their rickety wooden furniture, and “making do” involves burning it for heat. Because they live in desperate, crushing poverty, you see! Ha ha! The nonstop larfs will continue as they turn first to prostitution and then to cannibalism.
Funky Winkerbean, 10/27/08
The Funky Winkerbeaners are perpetually glum and despondent, so they do not in fact qualify for plugger status. I find it interesting that Les needs to consult the yearbook so as to successfully navigate his high school reunion. True, everyone in the cast has aged horribly, due to various cancers and general soul-blighting depression, but as far as I know, virtually all of them have remained in town, so it’s not like their current wizened state should be a surprise to Les. Hell, half of them work with him, either at the high school or the pizzeria, Winkerburg apparently being a black hole of misery from which no joy can escape.
