The Comics Curmudgeon

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Goalie monstrosity

Cleats, 11/6/08

This is Cleats! I almost never talk about it, except when it becomes a scene of nightmarish horror; but, seeing as it’s ostensibly a good-natured, light-hearted look at the world of youth athletics, that happens more than you’d think. Anyhoo, Edith there is a slightly bookish young lady who enjoys goaltending and fencing. She has terrifying, inhuman mouth-parts that she uses to feed on soccer balls, and rotting flesh.

Pluggers, 11/6/08

You know you’re an impoverished plugger when you live in an apartment so tiny that your can barely fit your legs between your TV stand and your chair, which is just as well seeing as you can’t afford any other furniture. Also, you know you’re an impoverished plugger when you’d like to eat your cat, but you can’t move quickly enough to catch him because you’re weak and keep fainting, because of the hunger. At least this poor bastard hasn’t had to resort to the ultimate plugger indignity: hocking his television.

Mark Trail, 11/6/08

“Raccoons like to wander a lot … around in nature! That’s because they’re wild animals! They don’t care a whit about you, or your family! You’re lucky Sneaky managed to ‘sneak’ out, or else he probably would have ‘snuck’ into your room at night and bit you on the face, for no reason!”

Also, I challenge you all to use the phrase “That will make it easier to chain to a log” in casual conversation today.

Shoe, 11/6/08

“Also, I’m old and dying! So the future can pretty much bite me, you know what I’m saying?”

Psst! If you’re interested in discussing the election, this would be a good place to do it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 05:31 pm and is filed under Cleats, Mark Trail, Pluggers, Shoe.

240 responses to “Goalie monstrosity”

Poteet
November 6th, 2008 at 5:33 pm [Reply]

Thanks for warning us about CLEATS. *shudder*
zenvelo
November 6th, 2008 at 5:33 pm [Reply]

I use “easier to chain to a log ” all the time.

but I live in San Francisco….
CanuckDownSouth
November 6th, 2008 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

Look at that helmet of hair in Mark Trail. Maybe we’d take your environmental concerns about the swamp more seriously if you didn’t destroy the ozone layer by spraying your little girl’s hair into submission.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
November 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pm [Reply]

What on earth is Plugger Dogman watching on TV? It looks like rumpled overweight Sherlock Holmes roaming the Wild West.
Lake Eerie
November 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pm [Reply]

Josh: ‘Also, I challenge you all to use the phrase “That will make it easier to chain to a log” in casual conversation today.’
Done! My wife was a bit confused
brightside
November 6th, 2008 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

The cat is waiting to eat that plugger as soon as he nods off. It won’t be any more disgusting to him than the ash-laden melamine-tainted food he normally eats.
kelsy
November 6th, 2008 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

At first I though Mark Trail was going to give that sad little girl a hug, but thankfully, he avoided any sort of bodily contact by just grabbing her hands.
Lake Eerie
November 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm [Reply]

Thing for Mark Trail to punch in this storyline.
Face of moustachioed corporate villain
Face of three-day-scruffy racoon trapping villain
Faces of all those involved in bizarre racoon-dog fighting ring
The dog that will be battling with Sneaky
The log that Sneaky is chained to
The chain attaching Sneaky to the log
The spiders living in the little girl’s hair
B
November 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm [Reply]

That is one pissed off cat. Probably because his owner-dog keeps trying to eat him. Also because there’s no money for cat food.
AeroSquid
November 6th, 2008 at 5:41 pm [Reply]

President-Elect’s Security Briefing:

NSA Director: “And that will make it easier to chain to a log, Mr. President-elect.”

Obama: “Heh. Answers that question.”
commodorejohn
November 6th, 2008 at 5:42 pm [Reply]

So I suppose that being a hideous pseudo-human monstrosity isn’t quite the same as steroid abuse, but does it give an unfair advantage over other players, and if so, should the not-fully-human be barred from competing? DISCUSS.
Merriedeath
November 6th, 2008 at 5:45 pm [Reply]

Soon, thinks the Plugger’s cat. Someday, very soon, this poor bloated fool will fall into the sleep from which there is no awakening.

And then I will eat his face.
Grandstanding Oddball
November 6th, 2008 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

I honestly don’t think I have ever seen a two-dimensional representation of child that has disturbed me so much as the one in Mark Trail’s most recent storyline. I can actually feel my ovaries recoiling in horror, as they communicate via a series of fallopian tubes to never allow such a creature to be born of my loins.
Jeremiah
November 6th, 2008 at 5:54 pm [Reply]

You know you’re a plugger when you measure time in Mary Worth storylines.

MW- Lily’s main rival apparently does a skating routine based on Emily Dickinson’s life.

JP- The screen windows on that car really freak me out.
jvwalt
November 6th, 2008 at 5:56 pm [Reply]

Gary Brookins obviously believes he is working way too hard, because he is gradually turning Shoe into Pluggers. That way, he can use the same joke twice. At least.

Jeff MacNelly must be spinning in his grave.
Muffaroo
November 6th, 2008 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

Skullturf Q. Beavispants @4 – By coincidence, I saw a book today called Holmes on the Range. A brief examination seemed to indicate that it wasn’t really about Sherlock out West, though.

Pluggers don’t have flat-screen TVs, because the cat falls off.

I’m still not here. I just can’t resist looking in on Josh’s posts, and if there’d been many more than 15 comments, I would have resisted the temptation to read them. Keep ‘em flying, gang!
JC Lisbon
November 6th, 2008 at 6:02 pm [Reply]

Having this uncontrollable uge to click on any linked text presented to me, I managed to go from today’s “Pluggers” to a joke about the presidential election 4 years ago. Which, as we all know, should go here!
Violet
November 6th, 2008 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

A lot of strips obliquely reference cannibalism on a fairly regular basis, but I’m really not used to seeing it in Blondie. To be fair, though, I am a bit uncertain whether what I should be taking from today’s installment is “Dagwood wants to eat children” or “Dagwood, all the neighborhood children, Daisy, and everyone involved in the creation of this strip are high as fuck.” Kind of a tough call.
Uncle Lumpy
November 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm [Reply]

#15 jvwalt –

All comics tend toward a state of maximum entropy. Some, like Judge Parker, Apartment 3G, and Pluggers/Shoe, merely submit. Others, like Dick Tracy, strike out in a frenzy of madness and rage against the gathering dark.
150
November 6th, 2008 at 6:09 pm [Reply]

I am absolutely fascinated by the Plugger TV show. Is it a private eye trick-or-treating in Giza? Because if that’s what being a plugger means, I’m all in.
gh
November 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

#85 [yesterthread] True Fable –

SFx Well DAMN this beats a fish skeleton all to hell!

Does not! Though I will give Bob Weber, Jr. (sir) props for the ulna/radius and tibia/fibula accuracy.
Jumper
November 6th, 2008 at 6:11 pm [Reply]

OMG the Pluggers is depressing today. I’m sure he’s already on a diet of Soylent Green or whatever the doggie version is. Soylent brown? Industrial veterinary research cat remains? No doubt he feeds his pet cat the same diet – but infused with levels of mercury he himself does not yet have to consume – yet. Grim does not describe the horror. Apparently Pluggers are driving full-speed towards death from neglect, malnutrition, lack of eye and dental care, and no good music on their favorite radio stations. But by god, they stayed loyal to their favorite politicians. You have to hand it to them for that.
Baka Gaijin
November 6th, 2008 at 6:14 pm [Reply]

Mary Worth News Flash: Lynn looks just like her rival.

Mary Worth News Flash 2: Aldo looks like Captain Kangaroo.

sorry for the repost from last thread.
Triskele
November 6th, 2008 at 6:14 pm [Reply]

I am fully expecting the large-foreheaded little girl in the current Mark Trail story to be found reading a book called “To Serve Man”. It’s a cookbook, Mark! A cookbook!
minor flood
November 6th, 2008 at 6:14 pm [Reply]

These old dudes cranking out their messed-up comics only seem to get crazier and more redundant. So at what point can you use their output to diagnose Alzheimer’s?
Lithros
November 6th, 2008 at 6:16 pm [Reply]

I’m concerned about today’s Mark Trail. Every speech bubble’s source is obvious. The villain is scruffy, but has the self-respect to wear a hat. And, instead of scenes of pointless vistas devoid of intelligent life, the art just shows some grass and the characters, devoid of intelligent life.
Comrade Denny
November 6th, 2008 at 6:16 pm [Reply]

When I first looked at that Plugger, I mistook his armrest for a hugely, obscenely obese belly with a gaping, black-hole of belly button. Now that I see it’s just a super-plush recliner armrest I feel kinda cheated.

Meanwhile, Peter Parker, who has been framed for almost as many crimes as he’s committed (he commits assault, kidnapping, and unlawful imprisonment pretty much every day as Spider-Man), still worries about “looking guilty” while running away, which is also something he does pretty much every day as Spider-Man.

F&E: Captures the rufrac of the senseless, outmoded, and arbitrary nature of our educational establishment in the form of a nonsensical joke anchored by outmoded pun and further emphasized by the arbitrary placement of the child’s head backwards on his body.

The Fusco Bros. stick it to psychiatry, Existentialists, and hipsters by revealing the supremacy of the material economic roots of alienation.

And Gasoline Alley channels Ingmar Bergman as it examines the naked despair and futility of hillbilly life, skillfully reinforced by Clovia having to use her fingers to make sure “possibly” does indeed have three syllables.
Idols of Mud
November 6th, 2008 at 6:22 pm [Reply]

Pluggers: The cat shows real disdain for its owner. I assume it caught the Plugger nosing around in its litter box.
Baka Gaijin
November 6th, 2008 at 6:22 pm [Reply]

#Y79 Zaq

Pluggers: Look at that cat. Kill him, Snuggles! You can feast on his flesh for at least a year or two while you find a new owner, and the meat won’t even go bad because of all the preservatives and unnatural chemicals he ate! Just be sure to, you know, spit out the marble-sized wads of cholesterol you find in his veins. They’re big, so you can mostly pick around them.

Comment of the week? YES! The rest of the post is, well, you know how Cathy is? It’s exactly the opposite of that.
Milo
November 6th, 2008 at 6:29 pm [Reply]

What the hell would chaining him to a log do? I really want to know their motives behind that, so if anyone knows, please tell me.
gh
November 6th, 2008 at 6:31 pm [Reply]

MT —

Has this been said? Probably, but I’m, like, 400 comments behind, so forgive the oversnark if so. Storyline:

Andy, off with Mark to find Sneaky, gets kidnapped (his day in the barrel) by coon/dog smackdown promoters, is tossed into the lake to fight Sneaky and promptly drowns (he’s a frickin’ St. Bernard – he’ll sink like a rock)

OR

he and Sneaky pretend to fight and everyone is all “Look at that coon on that dog’s haid! He’s gonna drown ‘im fer sure!” but as we know Sneaky and Andy are BFF and Andy loves giving Sneaky piggy-back rides and they’ll just splash off into the cattails and Andy will go “Ah-woooo! Glub! Glub! Glub!” and then they’ll sneak (har) back to Ol’ Doc Whozits place and have a good laugh.

You read it here first. Unless someone already suggested it.
Aerin
November 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm [Reply]

I don’t think the plugger’s cat is waiting for him to die. I think he’s just calculating the trajectory of his jump onto the plugger’s face to begin devouring him immediately. After all, it’s aged to perfection!
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm [Reply]

S-M
I don’t understand the problem, officers. Spidey’s got those unbreakable handcuffs on his wrists. That will make it easier to chain to a log!

Any points there?
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 6:39 pm [Reply]

You know you’re a senior Plugger when your cat is looking at you while you sleep and thinks, “That will make it easier to chain to a log.”

Still trying to make work it in casually.
Mel
November 6th, 2008 at 6:43 pm [Reply]

Pluggers: I think you are seeing the real reason for reports of spontaneous combustion. That cat has been flicking lit matches at him for the last half hour.
AsleepOrDead
November 6th, 2008 at 6:43 pm [Reply]

Marmaduke: Don’t make fun of those of us who are so OCD that we must fill every single hole in our Mickey Mouse waffles.
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

Pluggers-
I don’t think that cat will eat the sleeping Plugger. But there is the possibility kitty may seize the opportunity to devour Nugget, Plugger’s chicken-headed wife, while Rover’s out of commission. Mmmm!
bats :[
November 6th, 2008 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

While I certainly hope that Sneaky isn’t rabid, if he were, it would be a pleasant justice in my mind if he took Toothy McYokel and his buddy with him.
Maybe Sneaky reads the papers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27558655/
Gold-Digging Nanny
November 6th, 2008 at 7:02 pm [Reply]

19 Uncle Lumpy — And that is what I will always love about Dick Tracy.
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 7:05 pm [Reply]

JP- Why is Sam wearing a nylon stocking over his face? Isn’t it a little late for him to hide his identity from the cops? Besides, he should wear it a bit more tightly if he wants to distort his facial features. Still, that will make it easier to chain to a log.
StrangeRover
November 6th, 2008 at 7:08 pm [Reply]

#15 -jvwalt “Gary Brookins obviously believes he is working way too hard, because he is gradually turning Shoe into Pluggers.” … and that will make it easier to chain to a log.
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 7:12 pm [Reply]

S-M
That’s an interesting portrait of Omar Shariff hanging in the Egyptian Epic Movie Prop exhibit at the Clock Museum.
Poteet
November 6th, 2008 at 7:15 pm [Reply]

PLUGGERS — I say the cat is staring balefully at his owner because he’s been waiting three weeks for a (Margo)in’ litter box cleanout, which the Plugger keeps postponing because his girth makes it so hard to bend over. The cat is now deciding whether to pee on the Plugger’s lap or to dump a few brownies on his shoes.
David poirier
November 6th, 2008 at 7:16 pm [Reply]

OK I have nothing brilliant or witty to write in your comments, other than to say that I have been lurking in your blog for about a week.
Today I pissed myself with laughter.
I guess it was building up to this. You do have my kind of humor.
David
Poteet
November 6th, 2008 at 7:21 pm [Reply]

DtM — “I’m returning your kid! That will make it easier to chain to a log!”

MW — “No, that’s her main rival! That will make it easier to chain to a log!”

PBS — “He hasn’t moved in ten hours. That will make it easier to chain to a log!”

Ugh. Well, I tried.
thatquietkid
November 6th, 2008 at 7:25 pm [Reply]

I especially love how when the man holding Sneaky (Who isn’t so sneaky after all) notices the collar, both he and the guy in the background don’t take the fact that it might be a pet into account. All they care about is the difficulty of chaining a raccoon to a log.
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 7:25 pm [Reply]

I, for one am glad that the story lines like the one in Mary Worth are so slow and plodding. That will make it easier to chain to a log.

*Ok, I think I’m done.*
Mac
November 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm [Reply]

Josh, I ask you as a member of America’s proud but shrinking over-the-air TV watching community… Does it seem odd that today’s Plugger has a flat-screen TV with rabbit ears?
Tilaney
November 6th, 2008 at 7:33 pm [Reply]

#23 Baka Gaijin

Re: Lynn looking like her Rival.

She felt so lost when Frank abandoned her and took the child. She thought he loved her but all he wanted was her ability to breed little skaters. How would she ever go on with her life? Then she realized the only way to win him back was to be the skating queen he’d always wanted.

For years she trained alone. No trainer, no coach, just her in the same old dress from Grandma’s trunk. All thoughts on Frank and the child. Each important event getting her closer to the regionals where she might see them again.

The day finally came, when they met at that important event. There he was in the stands with some old biddy – is that what he wanted? She finished her routine and turned to leave the ice. There she was, the child, *her* child…Lynn. She was too shy to speak, all she could do was raise her hand to gently stroke the girls cheek. But the girl recoiled in horror. She slunk off quietly, the timing was not right. Maybe the next important event. Maybe.
True Fable
November 6th, 2008 at 7:34 pm [Reply]

Hear, hear! This meeting will come to order!

I’m still compiling the nominations list for the 2008 Bee-Grinding Awards! These honors (?) are given to the comics that waste the most time, panels and patience with the Same Damn Schtick during the year. The winners will be announced here and celebrated in the Long-Form Comedy Stylings in the discussion forums!

Rumor has it that Spider-Man is up for the Biggest Bee honor.
Patrick
November 6th, 2008 at 7:34 pm [Reply]

How do those guys normally chain raccoons to logs? Is it a complicated system of dowels? Do they superglue the chains to their heads? Drill a hole through the raccoons’ necks? I mean, it’ll be a little more cost-effective to chain him to a log, with his own collar and all, but it’s just one step less than what they’d have to do otherwise, right?

Lazy, lazy raccoon-chaining bastards.
Zaq
November 6th, 2008 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

29 Baka Gaijin: Thanks! That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said about me all week at least… your compliments have filled me with a sense of satisfaction, which will make me easier to chain to a log!
Rusty
November 6th, 2008 at 7:36 pm [Reply]

MT: If Sneaky can be caught by some stupid white trash, how is he going to bite his way through a dog fight while chained to a log?
Poteet
November 6th, 2008 at 7:39 pm [Reply]

FW — I’ll try once more before slinking off to try to get a life. Can someone please tell me which high school reunion is being (you should pardon the expression) celebrated here? Is it the 20th reunion? The twenty-fifth? The thirtieth? The attendees talk as if it’s the seventieth and they are all on death’s doorstep, but I’d like to know the actual number. Thank you.
Laura c
November 6th, 2008 at 7:42 pm [Reply]

#31 – When I was in elementary school, on the last day of school every year they would herd us into the gym and show us a Disney film called “The Hound Who Thought he was a Raccoon,” which basically had the plot of scenario #2.
Is this where Elrod gets his plots, when he’s not stealing from himself?
BigRuta
November 6th, 2008 at 7:44 pm [Reply]

“Gee, thanks for extending my distended internal hemorrhoid doctor! That will make it easier to chain to a log!”

Not much of a challenge really.
Rusty
November 6th, 2008 at 7:46 pm [Reply]

54: Poteet: I believe we are talking the 30th reunion, as somehow it was made known Funky and Les are supposed to represent 48 year olds, rather than walking corpses. Turning 48 myself at the end of this year, I was appalled.
I Saki
November 6th, 2008 at 7:48 pm [Reply]

It was mentioned in a Funky Winkerbean strip last week that it was the 30th.
True Fable
November 6th, 2008 at 7:53 pm [Reply]

I don’t even think my class HAD a 30th reunion. After all, they were voted en masse as “Most Likely to Remain Apathetic” and there’s no indication anything has changed.

I want to spearhead a 35th reunion in a couple of years and just scare the holy hell out of my hometown with my reminisces. mwahahahaa!

And baby, I’ll be lookin’ so good, they’ll want to chain me to a log to get me to stay. ;)
farnsworth
November 6th, 2008 at 8:02 pm [Reply]

Just how stupid do you have to be to let a soccer ball hit you in the face?

Why doesn’t Edith just use her hands??? She is wearing her neato soccer goalie gloves. Why doesn’t she use them to catch the ball before is smacks her in the mouth. That’s what the damn things are for!!!

It’s as if a frog’s fly-catching tongue isn’t creepy enough. (It is! It is creepy enough!) The artist/author has to take it far beyond creepy to disgusting and demented.

And the other girl in the cartoon isn’t whining in fear and retching? How is that? Mutant freaks with prehensile tongues and grotesquely distorted mouths are the norm in this town? What’s in the damn water?
Al of the Christian Single Jungle Patrol
November 6th, 2008 at 8:03 pm [Reply]

9CL — I just realized that Francis and Diane have been married for a year now…
WillieO
November 6th, 2008 at 8:04 pm [Reply]

I would just like to point out that, in reality, “sneaky” would be removing that guy’s face with surgical precision.
True Fable
November 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm [Reply]

#55 Laura C – We were forced to watch Elvis movies on the last day of school when I was a kid. I never was a big Elvis fan, but it was a big deal back then (before VCRs and Blockbuster Movies and cable TV, kids!) to have a movie at schoo. I developed a Pavlovian response to the first strains of his ballads, especially “Love Me Tender”, whereas I curled up in a ball in the auditorium seat and slept like a baby until we got to go home. Don’t mean to insult any Elvis fans, but he makes me nap.

Oh, and one Christmas they showed “All Mine to Give” and we all bawled hysterically like grief-stricken babies by the end of it. Geez, what a thing to show a bunch of kids just before Christmas break. “Here guys, aren’t you glad your parents didn’t DIE which forced you kids to break up and go live with different people in town? Now go home a have a Merry Christmas!”

It was like having dinner with Margo Magee.
Violet
November 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm [Reply]

#54, 57, 58

“We’re just kids who grew old.”*

I, too have been trying to comprehend this insanity. I also thought it was their 20th (my age) and was like, shit, only in Funky Winkerbean could a 37-year-old man be offered a seat on the subway by his own grandmother. But even if you add ten years, it’s still COMPLETELY INSANE.

*On the plus side, however, it will make them easier to chain to logs.
Al of the Christian Single Jungle Patrol
November 6th, 2008 at 8:11 pm [Reply]

True Fable — My class just had its 20 year reunion. Best part was, some of us convinced the old class clown to tell everyone that he just got out of prison for a particularly gruesome murder. Even got his picture as a skinhead, with prison “ink” and everything else stereotypical about somebody who just did hard time at “Max” (thank God for Photoshop). There was even a movement among some of the more “conservative” types to ban his attendance at the formal dinner.

The thing was, in reality he is a high-school history teacher at our alma mater — which, in reality is the real nightmare. This is a the same goofoff that forgot to vote for himself in the student body president election, and lost by 1 vote a la Bart Simpson.
odinthor
November 6th, 2008 at 8:21 pm [Reply]

NYer CC — “That will make it easier to chain to a log!”

MC —

Rex, did you hear Jeff got a new girlfriend”

“That will make him easier to chain to a log!”

MW –

You know what to do, kid! Keep it tight!

“That will make it easier to chain to a log!”, added Mary.

Phantom —

Good! He’ll die!

“That will make him easier to chain to a log!”

GT –

“But we’ll bounce back and chain you to a log, right?”

“Wrong, Cully… I’m through.”
NCHammer326
November 6th, 2008 at 8:26 pm [Reply]

NEW “PROTECTORS OF THE EARTH” episode!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j0xE_KpoVI&feature=channel

Rex Morgan gets high and Garfield gets what’s comming to him.

Quite awesome. There are also some post election PSAs with the other cast members, just look in the “More From: yourgirlfrienddotorg” section
Huntch
November 6th, 2008 at 8:28 pm [Reply]

Marmaduke – “until every hole is filled with syrup” – sort of boggles the mind.
Wolf Shepherd
November 6th, 2008 at 8:31 pm [Reply]

BB – Look! Otto is wearing Sarge’s underwear!

Oh, wait a minute, maybe Sarge is wearing Otto’s underwear.
PeteMoss
November 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm [Reply]

Fred Basset -
You don’t often see Bassets in dog agility competitions, do you? Wonder why. I do admire the pluck of his Englishman master, though. That will make it easier to chain to a log.

Oooh, wouldn’t be great if those rednecks in Mark Trail were so dumb they brought a bunch of Chihuahuas or Yorkshire Terriers or Miniature Dachshunds or maybe Chinese Crested ratdogs to the big Racoon/Dog rumble? Those raccoons would be tossing them left and right, eh? Oh man! That would be entertainment.
Tim
November 6th, 2008 at 8:44 pm [Reply]

I came across today’s commentary too late. The reason is that I was picking up three kittens we are fostering for our local SPCA. They had just been ‘fixed’ and, while I was picking them up, the attendant told me that they had put collars on them because they had also been micro-chipped.

I can only imagine the hilarity that would’ve ensued had I said, “That will make [them] easier to chain to a log.”
Poteet
November 6th, 2008 at 8:44 pm [Reply]

# 57 Rusty & # 58 I Saki — Thank you very much, not only for the information but for saving me from the potential indignity of asking yet again:-).

So they are 47 and already making frequent sad jokes about hearing troubles, walking troubles, being too old for names that end in “y,” etc. I know some people in their forties have legitimate health problems, but rarely entire high school classes. What is this group going to do when they hit their seventies? Fall into coffins?

When I was about thirty, I went on my first Christmas bird count with a gentleman in his late sixties because I figured he’d be easy to accompany. Yeah, right. After several hours of following him through a foot of snow over hills and across valleys, I was staggering along dead on my feet and he was barely winded. Only when we got back did I learn from others that his nickname was the Iron Swede. I hearby declare Les’s class to be the Marshmallow Wimps.
[pluff}
November 6th, 2008 at 8:45 pm [Reply]

duh. chained to a log? am i the only one who goes to hot animals chained to a log.com? makes me wish my keyboard wasn’t broken. i bet true fable knows that one.
commodorejohn
November 6th, 2008 at 8:50 pm [Reply]

#50 True Fable – Let us not forget the agonizingly drawn-out “Amos and Edda get in a snit for like six months and then they go to Brussels and have make-up sex” storyline. I’d also like to nominate Pibgorn, but at this point I’m really unsure whether it’s bee-grinding or whether it’s just paced at a geological timescale…in any event, it deserves a special mention for the recent “briefly looking like it’s about to end” fake-out.

#55 Laura c – Holy crap, so that’s what the name of that movie is. I had an nth-generation copy on VHS once, tacked onto the end of some other tape, and I always wondered about it.
DN
November 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm [Reply]

All this pontificating on pluggers, and yet nobody has said anything about how Amos is getting laid on Chickweed lane. I mean, it’s one thing when on Zitz they make vague references to Jeremy’s raging hormones, but I didn’t think that painting such an explicit scene would make it to the funnies.
Jnoble
November 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm [Reply]

Cleats: What….the…..fuck?…..
Check please!
Amateur
November 6th, 2008 at 8:54 pm [Reply]

I’m such a complete sap where animals are concerned. Even though Mark Trail is completely stupid and ridiculous at all times, the picture of the panicky raccoon in panel one tears my soul into little bitty bleeding pieces.

I guess that’ll make me easier to chain to a log.
Jana C.H.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:55 pm [Reply]

#60 — farnsworth — Edith doesn’t catch the soccer ball in her hands because she’s an un-athletic nerd who really wants to spend all her time reading, but is forced into sports by her ex-Marine father. I wish he’d just leave her alone to be herself.

Un-athletic bookworms of the world, unite! We have nothing to but our facial bruises.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Floss Forbes: If you don’t know the tune, sing tenor.
Amateur
November 6th, 2008 at 8:57 pm [Reply]

#71 Tim — that would have been perfect!
commodorejohn
November 6th, 2008 at 9:01 pm [Reply]

#78 Jana C.H. – Amen! Thankfully, my folks stopped trying to get me to do sports when I was still in the single digits…
McPerson
November 6th, 2008 at 9:04 pm [Reply]

It’s the sentient soccer ball! Quick, save it from the gaping maw of this monstrosity before she devours it. Having survived the vultures, the soccer ball now goes out in motion.
Josh
November 6th, 2008 at 9:11 pm [Reply]

#48 Mac — I, uh, also have a flat screen TV with an over-the-air antenna. Doess this make me a plugger? Fortunately the chumps at Best Buy sold me on some fancy futuristic-looking antenna that I assumed plugged into one of the fancy digital inputs on our new TV, but in fact just had a coax attachment like my old bunny ears did. The new antenna does a better job of precariously balancing on top of the TV, though.

Josh
Digger
November 6th, 2008 at 9:12 pm [Reply]

The Plugger’s cat desperately wants to leap off the TV and scratch the hell out of his owner’s face. But he can’t, because he’s a Plugger, too. And Pluggers are incapable of such an athletic pounce.
TromboneGuy
November 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm [Reply]

9CL – I can already see coming.

ARGH! Brain bleach? Anyone?

Anyway, Amos does NOT win the competition but spouts some line about how he won something more important. I’m calling it now.
TromboneGuy
November 6th, 2008 at 9:15 pm [Reply]

Boy, that post is even worse when you leave out the word “it” in the irst sentence.
commodorejohn
November 6th, 2008 at 9:29 pm [Reply]

#48 Mac, #82 Josh – Pff, I have a CRT TV with a combination rabbit-ear/UHF-loop antenna. Not that I ever really watch TV (it serves more for videos and game consoles,) but still…
Mooselet
November 6th, 2008 at 9:31 pm [Reply]

FOOB: “Elizabeth, can you please bring Francie down to the basement?”

“Why Anthony?”

“That will make it easier to chain her to a log.”

What else are they going to do with the non-Patterspawn?
Red Greenback
November 6th, 2008 at 9:37 pm [Reply]

More information on licorice can be found on the internet.That will make it easier to chain to a log.
Seismic-2
November 6th, 2008 at 9:44 pm [Reply]

In his discussion of today’s Pluggers, Josh references his 11 July 2006 discussion of the cartoon of a Plugger’s hocking his TV set, but then that discussion references Josh’s 5 April 2005 snark about the “Rhino” character from Spiderman, and that snark in turn references his 15 December 2004 discussion of the artwork for a weird-looking supervillain, and that somehow leads him somehow to connect it to, of all things, his 28 October 2004 commentary on one of the “Great Pumpkin” strips in Peanuts. Here is the URL for that Great Pumpkin commentary. I post that URL directly, to save you from having to follow all the intermediate links. That will make it easier to chain to a blog.
Deena in OR
November 6th, 2008 at 10:01 pm [Reply]

Jana C.H….would that be like my son, who got benched in T-Ball for singing “Now Give Three Cheers” from Pinafore in the outfield? He didn’t go back out for Little League the next year. Soccer, however, ruled for quite some time. :)
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
November 6th, 2008 at 10:14 pm [Reply]

Cleats is mighty tame for a strip with a girl asking another for more “wicked lizard tongue action”.
Toronto
November 6th, 2008 at 10:20 pm [Reply]

My graduating class has, for reasons I’ve never been able to discover, always had BIGYEAR-1 reunions. For example, they had a 19th. And a 24th. The alumni team teams us with the class who graduated a year before us, but still – it’s a bad idea.
Jana C.H.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm [Reply]

Benched! For singing Gilbert and Sullivan? An outrage!

Did your son ever get into theatre?

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith JcH: Do whatever you like with Wagner, but mess with Gilbert and Sullivan and you die!
Anonymous
November 6th, 2008 at 10:34 pm [Reply]

Luann- Crystal, the strange goth chick, attracted to Toni Daytona, the sexy blonde firefighter? Sounds hot.
Meander
November 6th, 2008 at 10:58 pm [Reply]

I have rabbit ears on my flat-screen TV — I can pick up the local digital channels in high-def with it.

9CL – Yay, Amos!
Jeff
November 6th, 2008 at 11:07 pm [Reply]

What is Herb or Jamal trying to return? No wonder the clerk is having so much trouble.
Deena in OR
November 6th, 2008 at 11:10 pm [Reply]

He did a *lot*of both community and school theatre including playing Charlie Bucket; the Pirate King (as a 5th grader); and Nanki-Poo (in our community theatre during his senior year of high school. Now he is happily majoring in history (with some education foundation classes) and is in his second year of playing trumpet in the U of Oregon Marching Band. He says “Maybe I’ll audition for something while I’m here.”
Deena in OR
November 6th, 2008 at 11:15 pm [Reply]

9CL- Oh, my. Hands again. The strip during Francis and Diane’s honeymoon about melted me into a puddle. ::fans self::
Buzz
November 7th, 2008 at 12:02 am [Reply]

If you think this Cleats strip is a nightmarish horror, you would have loved any of last week’s.

http://www.gocomics.com/cleats/2008/10/29/
stanaconda
November 7th, 2008 at 12:04 am [Reply]

#30 Milo
What the hell would chaining him to a log do? I really want to know their motives behind that, so if anyone knows, please tell me.

Have you not seen Jurassic Park. Chaining the raccoon to a log will bait the T-rex. Or maybe for the smaller Velociraptors. Check the xkcd site. http://xkcd.com/87/
Artist formerly known as Ben
November 7th, 2008 at 12:20 am [Reply]

Wow Josh. I’m surprised you still haven’t weighed in on the hot classical nerd on classical nerd action going on over in Chickweed Lane. Me, I’m for it, if only because it gives Edda and Amos another shared hobby.

Now as for Cleats, I generally didn’t read it, so I didn’t know the Elder Gods had landed. Thanks for the warning.
True Fable
November 7th, 2008 at 12:35 am [Reply]

# 100 stanaconda – No, don’t try to make it easier for me – I know the TRAVESTY of Jurassic Park and their absolute CRUEL scene where they tether a *choke, sob!* Goat out for the T-Rex.

Oh man, you will just not believe the noise I made when I saw that movie. Fortunately we rented it so all my keening and wailing was done in the relative privacy of my home.

I suppose I should be grateful the mighty Jackelrod ball has not bounced into a Goat In Danger storyline or I would be a nervous wreck.
bats :[
November 7th, 2008 at 12:38 am [Reply]

While I think 9CL hand-sex is very romantic, I guess we’re notgoing to see other things one can do with hands during sex.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 12:39 am [Reply]

#102 True Fable – There, there. It doesn’t suck any less for the poor goat, but try to remember the words of the late great Steve Irwin: “that’s Nature’s way.”
True Fable
November 7th, 2008 at 12:44 am [Reply]

Yeah, and look what happened to him.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 12:54 am [Reply]

#105 True Fable – Actually, what happened to him was that he was too fond of animals for his own good, and tried to dislodge the stingray from his chest so it wouldn’t die. Sad…
True Fable
November 7th, 2008 at 12:55 am [Reply]

See? Even Clooney’s in on it.

What I need is more ninja goats with this ability.
True Fable
November 7th, 2008 at 12:57 am [Reply]

#106 commodorejohn – Yeah, my comment was in poor taste and I do apologize. I miss Irwin’s chewy Australian accent and his enthusiasm for everything, he was one of the good guys.
Lisa
November 7th, 2008 at 1:09 am [Reply]

I didn’t know that about Steve Irwin. Major good karma points for him.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 1:09 am [Reply]

#108 True Fable – ‘Salright, the phrase “rocket-powered goats” more than makes up for it.
ralph
November 7th, 2008 at 1:13 am [Reply]

50. True Fable, hear, hear. Great goat.
bats :[
November 7th, 2008 at 1:13 am [Reply]

TGIFunnies!

A3G: Yes, Tommie, what in heaven’s name could two doctors have to talk about? Maybe doctor stuff! Maybe a threesome! And you’re not the third!
Aren’t you sorry you were wondering?

FW: yes, Funky, you’re old. You’re really old. And soon you’ll be dead. But not soon enough.

MT: poor Sue. She’s so conflicted about her career and her interest in Mark that her life would be easier if she were chained to a log.

MW: Oh, no!
What? WHAT?! Was it the fatal crotch seam split?

Phantom: oh, Guran, just kick Kit in the striped nuts and go home. He can grunt and wheeze his Imperialistic colonial philosophy as he waits for his genitals to return to normal size.
Black Drazon
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am [Reply]

Nightmarish imagery associated with youth athletics? Ridiculous! Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a disembodied hand walking around the set of Gil Thorp that I have to bludgeon to death.
Alfred E. Neuman
November 7th, 2008 at 1:59 am [Reply]

Pluggers— Anyone notice the program on the plugger’s tv? It must be Pluglock Fox.
Joe Btfsplk
November 7th, 2008 at 2:25 am [Reply]

Mark Trail – “That will make it easier to chain to a log” is just such a weird thing to say. It’s like, it’s their job or something; they’re out there chaining raccoons to logs all the time, only it’s usually harder to do. Chaining it to a log is their answer for everything. That chunk of forest is probably full of dejected raccoons and porcupines and groundhogs and all manner of woodland creatures, all sitting around chained to logs. I bet when they watch some Animal Planet program about hippos or musk oxen or something, they’ll shake their heads and say to each other, “Man, I sure am glad we don’t have those things around here! Imagine having to chain one of them to a log!”

Dick Tracy – The artwork in this strip – though I think it might have slipped a bit over the last couple of years – still gives me enough joy to keep me reading the thing. The storylines, however, have sailed beyond the horizon of implausibility and into the realm of the absolutely batcrap insane.

Backup Guy arrives today, with no knowledge of why he’s been called in. You’d think that if The Situation were one involving an impending duel between two giant wall-smashing battle-bots, somebody would have given the poor guy some clue as to what he should expect.
Poteet
November 7th, 2008 at 2:34 am [Reply]

A3G — So instead of going to South Dakota, we’re following Tommie around as her heart races with anticipation. She obviously hasn’t been reading this strip as long as I have.
Victor
November 7th, 2008 at 3:20 am [Reply]

I’ve read today’s Heart of the City. After last week’s child prostitution jokes and today’s strip which seems to contain an implication of a child getting an erection, I’m starting to wonder about Tatulli.

#91, He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus: Cleats is mighty tame for a strip with a girl asking another for more “wicked lizard tongue action”.

…And now I’m wondering about you
shMerker
November 7th, 2008 at 3:45 am [Reply]

Someone here jokingly commented that sound was spiderman’s only weakness. I discovered Superdickery recently and it turrns out, it is.
Mr. O'Malley
November 7th, 2008 at 3:56 am [Reply]

I also have a flat-panel TV hooked up to rabbit ears. But it’s much too narrow for the cat to sit on top of. She sits in the bay window next to the rabbit ears. Or walks back and forth in front of the screen when there’s something on we particularly want to watch.

MW: The background reminds me of some long-forgotten low-budget TV show that had a background painting of a crowd sitting in rows. But each painted person had little moveable arms that could be made to wave in the air when manipulated from behind.

I can’t remember any more about the show. Does it sound familiar to anyone?

Peanuts: Today we have an appearance by Patty, so often forgotten by modern readers. Back in the day, the combo of Patty and Violet could rival Lucy in projecting power. I much prefer these abandoned older characters to the ones who were introduced later.

GF: I think this one has the zaniness that was more frequent in earlier strips.
Djagir
November 7th, 2008 at 4:04 am [Reply]

I think the true horror of Cleats is just trying not to think of where that ball, and the feet that have been kicking it, have been.
True Fable
November 7th, 2008 at 4:08 am [Reply]

C’haft I called it! Now what are they going to do with a bunch of shrubs?
DtFW You could SO use her statement against her in a grand elaborate and lucrative blackmail scheme, but you’re such a wimp you won’t do it.
(WT)DT Yr mhthr wrs Army buutz!
FC God shills Excedrin PM?
FW I suppose when you graduate from Hopeless High, your soul gets crushed and you grow a paunch and a high forehead as a matter of course.
Scenes from Suburban Hell You can get arrested for that, Lois. You sick, sick woman!
MT Dang, Susie’s got a real jones’in for Mark. I suppose the mystery is Why?
MW She’ll probably just fall, but just imagine how cool it would be if Lynn suddenly developed huge leathery wings and her true form burst through her false exoskeleton, and she challenged Mary to a Fiend-Off.
RMMW He’s obviously a Hat Man.
Snuffy Smith Things I did not want to contemplate: Hillbilly Lust.
S-M Maria learns Spidey is into bondage. Film at 11. No, really.
Tiger Tiger needs counseling.
Mr. O'Malley
November 7th, 2008 at 4:12 am [Reply]

I didn’t see this posted today so I’ll pass it on.

More amazing “Cappiana” from the collection of cartoonist, Mike Fontanelli at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, including…

• Al Capp’s infamous “Jack Jawbreaker” story — a devastating satire of the notorious exploitation of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster by DC Comics.

• More than a dozen rare Wildroot Cream-Oil strips, as well as original artwork and Nat King Cole’s version of the jingle.

• Two complete Fearless Fosdick stories, including Capp’s over-the-top masterpiece of surreal violence, “The Case of the Chippendale Chair (or Kiss The Blood Off My Springs)”

Capp’s sense of humor was decades ahead of its time, predating the sort of sick humor that is so popular in comics and cartoons today. It’s amazing what he got away with in “family newspapers” during the 50s!

http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/11/capptivating-heroes-jack-jawbreaker-and.html

Al Capp was one of those cartoonists who went on too long, so nowdays people mostly remember his embarrassing last days. But in his prime he did some remarkable stuff, and the website points out that he was quite an influence on the early MAD magazine.

One great story—hard to imagine today—is when Al introduced a meddling busybody named Mary Worthless into his strip. In retaliation, the Mary Worth cartoonists began a story featuring an obnoxious drunken cartoonist named Hal Rapp. It got quite a bit of publicity before being admitted to be a setup.

I’d like to see those strips; I don’t know if they are available anywhere.
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
November 7th, 2008 at 4:38 am [Reply]

118 shMerker: That’s only the symbiote’s weakness. That and fire. Non-comics page Pete figured that out and was able to use the information to his advantage. Comics-page Peter has difficulty outwitting the cops. And given the cops are those two, that’s really, really just so, so, so sad. So very sad.
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
November 7th, 2008 at 4:45 am [Reply]

Ah, crap, didn’t see 117. Yeah, you may be right. In my defense, the comic said it first. Which sounds really close to “was totally asking for it” so maybe that is not the best defense ever.

I’ll dig my way out of this pit yet!
Zaq
November 7th, 2008 at 5:15 am [Reply]

Friday!

9CL: I thought this was a relatively tasteful way of saying “yes, this actually is happening,” until I noticed that each of the pairs of hands actually corresponds to a different position the two of them might be in. Look at them… most of them are awfully close to being, well, people, aren’t they? Kinda risque. Also, aren’t they supposed to be virgins? When I tried that many weird positions my first time, it didn’t work out so well. (Granted, NOTHING worked well, but my TMI warning light is blinking, so I’ll stop.)

FW: I’m pretty sure that all of their mouths were gouged out of their skulls with hatchets, or possibly machetes.

MW: Oh noes, the suspense! There’s a shortage at the tenterhook warehouse, we’re all on so many of them!

Momma: MAKE IT STOP LOOKING AT ME

DT: Oh, I can’t WAIT until we get to the “Yo Motherboard” jokes.

S-M: So… do the police not have jurisdiction outside the museum or something?

GT: And the Grand Twist is… revealed. Meh. Random thought: Can you imagine the 9CL Hand Sex drawn by Rod Whigham? I can’t stop picturing it.

Popeye: Two rooms at once? That just makes it easier to chain to a log!

SlyFo: “Nocturnal” apparently means “in a drug-induced cloud,” judging by those creatures’ eyes.
MrsIrB
November 7th, 2008 at 5:37 am [Reply]

9CL: Amos must have really girly hands… both of those look like they could belong to Edda.
texas buddha
November 7th, 2008 at 5:45 am [Reply]

This isn’t comic related, but if you aren’t too sick of voting then swing by my blog and vote for your favorite disinformation/conspiracy theory story of 2008.

http://texasbuddha.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!
mayzshon
November 7th, 2008 at 6:31 am [Reply]

I think everybody’s misinterpreting today’s 9CL. Amos and Edda are just putting onshadow puppet plays for each other.

That or the entire strip is in ASL.
Buzz Carter
November 7th, 2008 at 6:35 am [Reply]

“This old racoon must have been trapped before–it has a collar. ‘Cause, you know that we trappers are known for releasing our catch, like fishermen, after we equip them with collars. At least we did, before this lucrative dog-racoon fighting deal came along. There is no other way to make money trapping wild animals. And there is no possibility that this one could be a pet. Who would make a pet out of a wild animal?”
MrsIrB
November 7th, 2008 at 6:42 am [Reply]

BTW, if you really want to melt your brain, go look at the 9cl comments on comics.com. I think they may be regretting their decision to go for the community format…
Tats
November 7th, 2008 at 6:51 am [Reply]

Commenting after a long absence (school is pressing, y’all):

A-3G: What could Gary possibly be talking about? I’m saying it involves extensive rhinoplasty. Call it a hunch.

DtM: Joke all you want, but the Menaces always did seem like swingers, didn’t they? Dennis himself is probably the product of an ill-advised key party, a bottle of peach schnapps and a nude romp through Mr. Wilson’s nasturtiums. And so the enmity began.

FC: Wow. So Dolly didn’t just dress like Sarah Palin; she actually is Sarah Palin, hey?

FW: My theory on Funky, as Funky himself becomes more and more crochety and disgruntled, is that somehow he eventually metamorphoses into Crankshaft, in effect becoming his own bus driver from the distant past, and that’s how the two strips can exist contemporarily in spite of the time jump. Shit is about to get all David Lynch up on the comics page.

MW: Man, Ice-Vera’s dad is gonna beat her until she’s the colour of her horrible skating outfit. You may recognize the shade from your Crayola box, “hideous magenta”; alternately, you may recall it from Mary Worth’s extensive collection of boxy sweaters.

RMMD: As usual, I have no idea what’s going on over at Rex Morgan. It appears to be the touching love of an elderly female sea captain and her geriatric mummy boyfriend.
gleeb
November 7th, 2008 at 7:43 am [Reply]

Pigborn: End! End, damn you!

9CL: Really, is it a year since the laicized nun and priest married? Well, i wondered how he would manage to have his lead characters still profess to be virginal. It’s like a Republic serial, but with bodily fluids.

Baldo: Tia Carmen wants to die, but that bastard El Muerte is only good for delivering trite messages.

Edge City: Once you can fake sincerity…

Fuzzy: Roe vs Caviar. I like that.

Phantom: The Phantom is all about padding President Luaga’s crime statistics.

Slylock: Dead fish and dead chickens are nocturnal?

Zits: Oh, that was supposed to be dreadlocks.
Tom T.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am [Reply]

re #126: I had the same reaction. It creeps me out a little bit that we can’t tell whose hands are whose. I’m assuming Edda’s on top.
Little Guy
November 7th, 2008 at 8:04 am [Reply]

Tank: You have to give the win for the “Mad Men” shoutout.

Watch Your Head: *facepalm*

Candorville: Yeah, and BSG and “Lost” isn’t out until next year, and no “Journeyman”, there isn’t anything else to promote, except, maybe…. “Pushing Daisies”?!?!

BTW, this is the first time we’ve seen Cartoon Darrin, joining Cartoon Pastis and Cartoon Griffy.

MT: Don’t worry. Mark doesn’t punch girls. Especially without mustaches.
P
November 7th, 2008 at 8:05 am [Reply]

MW: Introducing a new character: The 6 legged Spider!
Little Guy
November 7th, 2008 at 8:08 am [Reply]

Oh, be sure to use embedded links in your LiveJournal directly to messages here for back references That will make it easier to chain to a log.
Pozzo
November 7th, 2008 at 8:41 am [Reply]

If we all work at it, I bet we can turn “That will make it easier to chain to a log” into the new “That’s what she said!” Just use it to respond to anything you co-workers say:

“I had trouble getting my car started this morning.” — “That will make it easier to chain to a log.”

“My dog just had puppies.” — “That will make it easier to chain to a log.”

“Your sperm count came back disturbingly low.” — “That will make it easier to chain to a log.”

Try it and see what happens.
Ces
November 7th, 2008 at 8:58 am [Reply]

I apologize for the self-PR. Just wanted to show you a special “Sally Forth”-related “Medium Large” strip:

http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/friday-november-7-2008/

Tune in next week when Ted gets his hands resized.
Randall
November 7th, 2008 at 8:59 am [Reply]

The plugger is sitting close to the tv because he can’t find his consarned reading glasses, or ‘cheaters’ in plugger parlance. The cat is sitting on them. Fortunately the cat is also old and fat which will make it………..

Easier to Chain to a Log. or ECL from now on.
Dji
November 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am [Reply]

I think I’ve been an elderly plugger before playing NetHack.
dimestore lipstick
November 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am [Reply]

Lu Ann picked a hell of a day to go to SoDak, didn’t she?
Good luck locating the prairie under all that snow…

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gudBnWr4taA9LEMlTo1PJ2kLFvKQD949RHEO3
Jennifer
November 7th, 2008 at 9:29 am [Reply]

Hello! I’m a lurker delurking for a moment.

I have no snark that could match the brillance here, (which is why I lurk) but I just wanted to say the comments related to “That’ll make it easier to chain him to a log” have me nearly wetting myself because I’m laughing so hard.

May I suggest a shirt with “That’ll make it easier to chain him to a log” on it? I’d buy one so I could crack up again everytime someone says, “WTF?”

Back to lurking.
Amateur
November 7th, 2008 at 9:29 am [Reply]

Mary Worth sure has a sense of the dramatic. “Oh no!” would seem appropriate if Lynn were sitting on her butt in the ice in panel 2. Since she appears, from the drawing of her legs, to be stamping her foot, it just seems . . . odd.

Of course, without being able to actually SEE the feet, there’s really no way for us to know what “Oh no!” is about. The cartoonist (I never remember their names) obviously has learned from the network cameramen who think that the ideal way to show figure skaters on television is from the waist up. Sigh.
migellito
November 7th, 2008 at 9:32 am [Reply]

Thank you Ces!

TGP lives!
Amateur
November 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am [Reply]

MT: Should we make “He’s a married man, and I should be thinking about business” today’s sentence-to-use-in-casual-conversation?

Eh, I guess it doesn’t quite have the same ring as “easier to chain to a log.”
AtomicDog
November 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am [Reply]

Garfield – Allergic?
kalki
November 7th, 2008 at 9:57 am [Reply]

9CL: So it was a handjob then?

Archie: “Hey, you guys put your heads together and make an ass out of yourselves.”

Blondie: Just buy the stupid fake Rolex or move on, Dagwood. Geez.

Crankshaft: Poor Crankers…now he’ll have to kill this guy too.

DTM: Don’t go there, Dennis…then mom will have to explain to you what a DP is.

FamCir: BLASPHEMY! *ZAP* Good shot, God.

FW: “Derek, honey? Why is that white man getting an erection from looking at our grandkids’ photos?”

Hi/Lois: Wow. Usually you don’t see this kind of weird erotic hentai in a newspaper comic.

GA: Time to start doing unnecessary and expensive work on the suckers-er, customers’ cars then.

Luann: Now get on your knees and start with the carpet munching, Crystal.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick, Proud Masonry-American
November 7th, 2008 at 9:57 am [Reply]

9CL: To rip off Truman Capote, that’s not cartooning, it’s drawing.

A3G: Isn’t Dr. Kelly the other one Tommie thought she loved? You remember, waaay back when Tommie last appeared in the strip, which was… um… back when… zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Archie: Why is Betty finishing Pops’s sentences?

A.D.: If he had actually misunderstood “It’s not you, it’s me,” he should have said, “It’s not me, it’s Curls.”

(WT)DT: Oh boy. Now we get to see a week of these two robots bumping their bases together while they flail away at the air with arms too stubby to reach each other. It’ll be a robo-sissy-slapfest.

FC: So what you’re saying, Dolly, is that the Bible is basically one big long quaalude hallucination?

H&L: AAAAUGH BRAIN BLEACH BRAIN BLEACH NOWWW

JP: Either Det. Busty McThrusty here is testing Sam, or she has the keen, incisive mind of Miss Teen South Carolina.
The Walkin' Dude
November 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am [Reply]

Is it just me, or does Edith, in Cleats, look an awful lot like Doc Ock from Spider-Man? ‘Course, ol’ Otto would be a better goalie, what with those extra limbs and all.
bartcow
November 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am [Reply]

I was worried for a second that you were going to pass over the delicious chain-log line. But you came through, as have nearly all the comments so far.

I think a new t-shirt design is in order.
Anonymous
November 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am [Reply]

A3G – You don’t want to know what the two of them have to talk about, Tommie. There are some things you wouldn’t understand. Things you couldn’t understand. Things you shouldn’t understand.

MT – But why is the squirrel eating leaves?

MW – Oh, no? Oh, yeah!!

Ghost – Geez, Phantom, you know you’re in trouble when a guy in a leaf hat makes more sense than you.

RMMD – Aw. Just like 9 Chickweed Lane. Lets just hope that all we see are their hands when the sex happens.

9CL – Speaking of, can you find the six differences?

9CL again – That will make it easier to chain him to a log.

JP – What kind of car is that supposed to be, Eduardo? Is that some Uruguayan thing?

DT – I can’t believe I never noticed before. Magnum Force gots tits!

GA – In tonight’s episode, the part of Clovia will be played by Jodie Foster. The other parts of Clovia will be played by Sir Rupert Carpet, who found a pair of swimming trunks on his head… (Oh, that one never gets old!)

Luann – Crystal has the calendar open to Brad’s picture while referencing “sizzling pix of hot firemen.” My brain hurts.
John C Fremont
November 7th, 2008 at 10:25 am [Reply]

# 151 – Dammit! I hate that other people use my computer and clear out my precious cookies!
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 10:29 am [Reply]

MT – I really think that little crying swamp-girl needs a puppy. Stat.
Angry Kem
November 7th, 2008 at 10:47 am [Reply]

I have briefly emerged from the Sea of Terrible Marking that constitutes my life and have finally managed to read at least some of the comments here. *Gasp*

There are three new Japes. I didn’t have time to say so when two of them came out, which, in fact, they did rather late. At any rate, I have torn a medievalised strip from ReFoob, Love Is…, and The Family Circus here.

9CL: Those hands are kind of freaking me out. I think I may dream of them tonight…scrabbling at my bedroom door…slowly rising into the air…grasping the knob…turning it…creeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaak…

S-M: My theory is that Spider-Man is like the Queen in chess, whereas the cops are like Pawns; Spider-Man can swoop around the board, whereas the cops are forced to make only one small move at a time. When Spider-Man makes his escape, the cops are rooted to their squares and can only helplessly observe that they shouldn’t be letting him get away. Maria and her reporters probably move like Knights and thus arrive from unexpected directions; it therefore isn’t surprising that Spider-Man is startled to see them. Big Time is a Rook. He didn’t remove Spider-Man’s mask because he needed to move diagonally away from him as quickly as possible. Spider-Man’s side is going to have to put some more pieces into play stat; its over-reliance on the Queen is going to cost it in the end.

Love Is…: I hate you. I hope someone drops an anvil on you. I hope it is laced with arsenic. I hope you try to lick it.
Artist formerly known as Ben
November 7th, 2008 at 10:47 am [Reply]

11/7

SFx: It’s Sneaky! And he’s all dozy, lazing around in a trashcan. That will make it easier to chain to a log. (Sometimes I scare my own bad self.)

A3G: Well let’s find out what they’re saying. I’m sure it’s fascinating. Ahahahhaha!

9CL: And that’s how you say, “Which way to the bus depot?” in American Sgn Language.

FW: Again Batiuk, remember that this is jus the 20th reunion.

C-Shaft: Oh boy. You don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for, Mr. Caretaker. It’s gonna be an hour of, “Nobody had a problem with me digging ditches in Guadalcanal. And where was your kind then? You make me sick, you…”

Phantom: Must save Chatu’s life, so he can be tried by a kangaroo court and summarily executed. Yeah, I don’t get this one either.

MW: What could make a crowd of people say “Oh no!” in unison? Offhand I’d say… nothing.

MC: Please, isn’t one insane work spouse enough? You have to be a work bigamist?

DT: This is shaping up to be the politest fight in the history of humongous mecha. “Nono, I ns-ist tht u b the frst allowd 2 leeve.”

BC: Made me laugh for the first time in a while.

Cathy: As usual, too insipid to even snark. But don’t be surprised when Cathy Guisewite gets an angry letter from the drummer in Def Leppard.

SSmith: Lately I’ve been saving Snuffy for my own personal project, but it looks like Elviney is going to get a Special nudgenudge Delivery from the Confederate mailman, and I couldn’t let that pass.

S-M: It’s touching that Spidey thinks the police won’t follow him out the door, or have reinforcements on the other side. The sad thing is, he’s probably right. Your tax dollars at work, New Yorkers.

M-Dawg: “Or a forearm. He says it’s all good.”

BB: “Mom, dad. I’d like you to meet someone who’s very special in my life.”

Ziggy: It’s a good thing he’s got the parrot around to help him keep it real.

DtM: Dennis, let’s just say that your father knows enough not to know. He’s not real big on confrontation.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
November 7th, 2008 at 10:49 am [Reply]

If you’re interested in discussing the election

Yes, now’s the time to start discussing the 2010 election!
Terry
November 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am [Reply]

Ok, just used the log comment at work:

He: We’re going to have this proposal submitted a week before the due date!

Me: That will make it easier to chain to a log

He:
Patrick, Interlibrary Loan Lending Division
November 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am [Reply]

9CL I see that Thing from The Addams Family has finally made the porno movie he’d always dreamed of.

As an artist, I have to admire how well drawn the hands are, I still after all these years have a hard time with them.
Hank
November 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am [Reply]

RE: Buckles. You know, if someone had asked me to predict which comic strip would be the first to do an interspecies homosexuality storyline, I would have probably guessed “Mark Trail.” But I guess that strip’s writers just couldn’t figure out a way to have Mark punch out a concept.
mooshakes
November 7th, 2008 at 11:14 am [Reply]

Real life plugger fail

http://failblog.org/2008/11/07/postage-fail/
highway
November 7th, 2008 at 11:15 am [Reply]

bless you for spelling “hock” right.
Sam
November 7th, 2008 at 11:31 am [Reply]

MW: I think the “Oh no!” is Lynn’s Dad discovered during a spin-a-rama or whatever they call it, that Lynn forgot to put on panties.
spike
November 7th, 2008 at 11:34 am [Reply]

9CL: Amos is doomed! There are no secrets between Edda and Juliette Burber…

FW: A little cheese to go with that (neverending) w[h]ine, Funky?

112 bats :[ :Are you hinting that the Funkmeister is soon to be diagnosed with cancer?

*On the plus side, however, it will make them easier to chain to logs.

64 Violet: I can't stop laughing. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! [And take that, Batiuk!]
Bootsy
November 7th, 2008 at 11:36 am [Reply]

Now just wait a damn minute, A3G! Surprising him at the hospital, Tommie? You work at the hospital, you moron! You and SameGuyAsEverybodyElse work at the same hospital!

DT: Isn’t the thing about texting that you use fewer characters to make it faster? Just misspelling words but using the same number of characters seems, oh, fuck it. It’s Dick Tracy.
Islamorada Girl
November 7th, 2008 at 11:39 am [Reply]

Well, grab my collar and make it easier to chain me to a log, look what just blew in the door!
Phred22
November 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am [Reply]

Discuss the election here after Sarah Palin has gone back to Alaska? Well, that will make it easier to chain her to a log.
Seismic-2
November 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am [Reply]

9CL: Wait, how did Ted Forth’s lady hands get in there???

GT: So wouldn’t the swapping of the students’ names mean that their medical reports would have shown not only that it was Matt the Hatt who had a heart problem, but also that he was 6-feet-9 and that Jeff Ponczak was 5-feet-10? Or do they not put super-sophisticated health-related information like height and weight in those medical reports?

A3G: What could the two doctors possibly have to talk about in the hospital, the nurse wonders. Maybe they’re chatting about the upcoming malpractice trial in Central City, where that quack Wally Lamb said that the wrong football player had the heart condition? However, if I were Dr. Kelly, I would be talking with Gary about how nerdy he looks, especially with that Beatles haircut.

FC: And tomorrow, to spice up the flavor of the manna from heaven, God will give Moses the Ten Condiments. Count on it.

JP: Ooh, the strip goes all “Sin City” on us. But wouldn’t that also require that something eventually, you know, actually happen in it, sometime?

MW: Lynn’s landing has shattered the ice, and she will now fall through and drown. Frank is vexed, because she will really lose points over that one!!!

JP: She didn’t want an old geezer like you? Maybe it was the nostrils, Tweaks.

Big Nate: Pun of the day, so far.

A.D.: Does this alibi for the break-up come across as a character’s coming out of the closet, er, cave?

Garfield: Huh???? Strangest reaction to oysters that I’ve ever seen. Since they’re an aphrodisiac, we might have expected that from Sam Driver or Mark Trail, of course.

Candorville: Yet another strip goes meta, to bemoan its inability to comment on the recent election. Now what strip will go meta over that?

Brewster Rockit: Today’s strip with the two voters from the future traveling back in time to undo their ballots was a great commentary about elections in general. Check it out.
Uncle Lumpy
November 7th, 2008 at 11:44 am [Reply]

#122 Mr. O’M –

Wanders over at Mary Worth and Me is all over Al Capp’s “Mary Worm” parody (scroll down), and also has Saunders’ “Hal Rapp” response.

And lots of other good Mary Worth stuff!
Sequitur
November 7th, 2008 at 11:47 am [Reply]

#51 Patrick:

Lazy, lazy raccoon-chaining bastards

ROCK GROUP!
Cranky
November 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am [Reply]

Ziggy’s penis is clearly visible in today’s panel. That will make it easier to chain to a log.
Seismic-2
November 7th, 2008 at 11:55 am [Reply]

Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft stroll through a forest, hand-in-hand-in hand. After a flirtatious picnic in the woods and the consumption of a few bottles of wine, the horny politicos decide to get it on. TR shouts out the plan of action: “WH, I shall be a Rough Rider who assaults your hilly buttocks. You in turn shall violate Woodrow’s neutrality. And you, Woody, shall hug that tree, as befits your name. That will make it easier to chain to a log.”
Naked Bunny with a Whip
November 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm [Reply]

an interspecies homosexuality storyline

That’s hawt.
CanuckDownSouth
November 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

The admin staff at the central City hospital will all be chained to logs and pelted with rotten fruit under the new “back to basics” sentencing guidelines.

What happened to quizzing about birth dates, middle names, soc security numbers, family contact info and a bajillion other things? Has the Gil Thorp writer never been to a doctor?

Wow, the detective in JP must have been easily bribed. Isn’t one of the qualifications for investigative police work that you, uh, notice when things don’t quite add up? Not many suicide victims leave notes. Leaving a note that perfectly wraps up an open case – a bit too convenient?

(and Friday FOOBficery)
Hogenmogen
November 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm [Reply]

154 – Kem – the bishop moves diagonally, the rook is lateral and horizontal. But Spidey has become hilarious in ways that a chess game never could be.

JP – He wrote his suicide note on a computer “because he might have had bad handwriting”? Tell me that this is not the extent of their crime solving skills. The only reason to type out a suicide note is if it is faked. Normally killers don’t even try to fake it this way because it’s so damn obvious.

I’m no chemist, but I do know this about figure skating: Yelling “DO IT! DO IT! OH MY F&CKING GOD, NOOOO!” at the top of your lungs might break someone’s concentration a little bit.

You tell her, Ted. Maybe you deserve that life-size Voltron for Christmas after all.

Garfield the Pussy: I don’t quite get this joke. Oysters aren’t particularly spicy, so that’s not it. Does eating an oyster mean that a zombie will steal your clothes and lick your cat? Did Jon see Liz slurp down something whole, which gave him shameful, impure thoughts? Is the price of oysters so high as to render horny Jon bankrupt? What does he do for a living, anyway? Scent tester for a perfume factory?
Stroker Ace
November 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

MT – No mere log will hold a raccoon. Not w/ their opposable thumbs, ant-like strength & will to live/maul/destroy. Once saw three raccoons chained to cinder blocks steal a pick-up truck. Needed the third since it had a manual transmission.
Sequitur
November 7th, 2008 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

Damn. I always wondered where that truck went.
odinthor
November 7th, 2008 at 12:18 pm [Reply]

#138. Ces. –

Tune in next week when Ted gets his hands resized.

Needless to say, that will make it easier to chain him to a log.

I was telling a co-worker about this site, about how recently we were spewing political venom, and that now we were talking about chaining things to logs. For some reason, he gave me a strange look. Huh, funny how people are!
Hogenmogen
November 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

A3G: Everyone keeps referring to Tommie’s boyfriend Gary as a doctor. He’s a software consultant. What could he possibly be talking to a doctor about? Gee, I don’t know, a software program that tracks clinical progress? A billing system? Time management progams for the docs and staff? Last Sunday’s Giants game? A clandestine plot to introduce a virus to the central payment system that puts a million dollars per week into an anonymous Swiss bank account?

I bet he’s more like “Stay away from my girl.” And the doc is like “Your girl? I’m gay and I thought she was a dude. The name ‘Tommy’ threw me. Sorry. My bad.”
Brick Bradford
November 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm [Reply]

I enjoyed looking at the “old school” Mary Worth strips at “Mary Worth and Me”. Mary had a deliciously mean look back then and those strips were “meta” when “meta” wasn’t cool.I especially enjoyed Mary’s claim that she wasn’t interested in cartoons. All that, back stage lingerie, and Mary with a JOB for crying out loud.

Compare that to the wheat paste we’re getting now.
Poteet
November 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm [Reply]

MT — Why is Sue concerned that Mark will figure out that she’s responsible for draining the swamp? So far, he’s had the proportionate research skills of a spider. A really dimwitted spider.
Dik-Dik Vendetta
November 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

“This old raccoon”
“The old horse”
“That old mountain lion”

Can someone tell me please, in the Trailiverse are there any young animals? Are there any animals that can be referred to without the “old” appellation?

Thanks.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm [Reply]

#132 gleeb – “Well, i wondered how he would manage to have his lead characters still profess to be virginal.”
They went to a Catholic school; judging by everything I’ve been told, it’s kind of remarkable that they’re even doing it now.

9CL – Being sexually active puts you at greater risk for carpal tunnel. Who knew?

A3G – Oh, nothing much, Tommie. They’re just confessing their burning passion for one another.

BR – Pretty much.

Crankshaft – Mister, you better watch it. If Crankshaft’s expression is anything to judge by, you’re one step away from being clobbered with the shovel and used as shrub fertilizer.

Curtis – Okay, Billingsley, just what the hell is going on here?

DT – Oh man, this is going to be wonderful.

FC – smite smite smite smite smite

FW – That’s right, Funky! What a horrible social blunder it is to age more gracefully than your classmates! How dare he!

GA – You could hide him in the trunk of one of the cars, Clovia. By the time they found the body, you’d be in Argentina.

GT – Ah, I see they’re back at √ava √ive.

MT – Whoa! Usually, this kind of melodrama is reserved for Mary Worth.

MW – Say, Mrs. Moy, may I suggest that it might have been better to have three panels in today’s strip so’s we could tell what exactly the “oh, no!” was about?

PBS – This is just full of win.

SF – When I first caught saw the color of Ted’s jacket, I assumed he was wearing Marty’s life vest from Back To The Future.

SM – *facepalm*
Sequitur
November 7th, 2008 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

#181 Dik-Dik Vendetta:

Dennis the Menace
“Good ol’ Ruff”
“Good ol’ Hot Dog”

It must be a comic thing.
Red Greenback
November 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm [Reply]

9ChiLa: Ted Forth is nailing Edda?!?! Well, I suppose having small hands would be an advantage, what with the chains and logs and all.
Lake Eerie Log Chains
November 7th, 2008 at 12:48 pm [Reply]

9CL – Who else gets away with printing pieces of his sketchbook? Odd thing is, I like it – who wants to see the faces of these chinless monstrosities in the throes of passion?
DT – So how exactly did Traze-R vocally misspell the word LEAVE? That’s more inexplicable than the textspeak. Oh, well. Robot fight! Root fight! Someday…
Doonesbury – For shame, courting the Anti-Seabee demographic
FBOFW – Son, we’ll take the dog over both of you
GT – If Dr. Lamb and staff have also been handling Dept of Transportation physicals, we’re looking at some overturned tractor trailers
PBS – “Whenever they’s a fight so hungry crocs can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a duck beatin’ up a neighbor, I’ll be there. If Zebra know’d, why, I’ll be in the way rats yell when they’re mad an’–”
A3G – What ARE they talking about?
“Listen, Dr. Kelly, I’m…”
“No, I’m Gary, YOU’RE Dr. Kelly.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, you’re wearing scrubs – you’re the one more likely to be a doctor.”
“But you’re wearing glasses.”
“Yes, that makes me a computer guy.”
“Okay – now what are we talking about?”
“Tommie.”
“Who’s he? The guy in Tibet? The dead druggie?”
“No, it’s a she…we’re competing over her.”
“Oh, is that the bitchy one? The dumb blonde?”
“Sigh…”
MW – Wow, that’s um, static-looking. What we could use here is some more vibrant, incomprehensible Gil Thorp sports action.
MT – Don’t worry, Sue, it appears to be a marriage in name only. Though I’m not sure you’ll get any more out of him than Cherry would.
SM – Do you think it’s too logical for Spidey to stand on a wall above the cops’ reach and kind of plant the seed in their heads that he’s being framed?
Hogenmogen
November 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pm [Reply]

Tommorrow’s comics today!

Rex: For a change, a closeup on Lenore’s nostrils, then back to Tweaks’s narrow nasal cavity. Sunday will be an expose entitled “Proboscis: The Nostrils of Rex Morgan”.

Handcuffed Spidey asks Maria where is the nearest log.

Mike Patterson begins training his dog to harrass his sister when he’s not available. Sort of a “terror by proxy” device.

As the final straw, Curtis finds out that even Gunk had a “slammin’ time” at the Halloween party. Gunk came dressed as the Phantom’s little pal with the lampshade on his head and still scored with the ladies. Curtis re-enacts Gunk’s infamous murder/suicide pastiche.

Marmaduke is a big dog. Garfield is an insufferable, lazy asshole with a hangover. Heathcliff rips people off in lame schemes and everyone thinks its cutesy.

Love Is… a nudist colony, apparently.

Dick Traz-r:
Traz: U R a tn can!
Brut: I no U R but wht M I?
Traz: U R so!
Brut: R not!
Traz: Sayz U!

Crystal decides to be “sensible” instead of “friends”, and the hottest cheerleader in high school loses her one friend. Sad, sad. Sadder still is Crystal’s belief that a glam photo of Brad is “amazing”.

Thursday Herb bought a piece of crap that didn’t work. Today Jamaal bought a piece of crap that didn’t work. Tomorrow they decide to invest heavily into these hot new things called “Mortgage Backed Securities”.

MW: Lynn falls and breaks her ass on the ice. During the next skater’s routine, Mary uses an air horn to distract the competition.
The Sparrow
November 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm [Reply]

174 Hogenmogen: I’m guessing the Garfield joke has to do with the fact that most oysters are generally served raw, and are somewhat disgusting to eat. This is simply my opinion, however. I work at an oyster research lab, and see hundreds of these things on a daily basis. Almost every one of my co-workers is able to crack open a fresh oyster, slurp it down, and claim it’s delicious. Call me Miss Unadventurous, but seeing as how one of my jobs is to sex the creatures and examine their tissues for disease, I’m less inclined to eat a raw creature that I know is crawling with microbes and possibly dangerous gut contents. However, I’m perfectly happy to eat boiled or fried oyster. That’s delicious.
Hogenmogen
November 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm [Reply]

182 – Commodore says “MW – Say, Mrs. Moy, may I suggest that it might have been better to have three panels in today’s strip so’s we could tell what exactly the “oh, no!” was about?”

No! MW must never have 3 panels during the week. To do so would warp the time/space continuum and we would be doomed to endlessly repeat the time/space continuum and we would be doomed to endlessly repeat the time/space continuum and we would be doomed to endlessly…
Angry Kem
November 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm [Reply]

#174 Hogenmogen: Oops. I always do that. I don’t know why I can’t get it through my head that the rook is not the bishop. *Bangs head on desk several times*

At any rate, if there were ever a chess game during which the rook would move diagonally, it would be the Patented Spider-Man Chess Game of Utter Insanity.
L Ron Hubbub
November 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm [Reply]

What the hell are Pluggers going to do on February 17, 2009? They will have to drag their bloated carcasses out of their threadbare chairs on atrophied legs to purchase a digital TV converter – a technology that is surely beyond the capacity of their cozy, well-worn neural pathways to comprehend. I see two possible outcomes: 1) They will contentedly snooze away in front snow-filled screens lulled by the soothing sound of white noise, or 2) There will be an outbreak of mass Plugger suicide, in which case I would suggest buying up stock in General Foods, makers of Kool-Aid.
The Sparrow
November 7th, 2008 at 1:08 pm [Reply]

Forgot to post a few pieces of snarkiness before I get back to work! And then wash my hair and then hopefully ease these period cramps somehow. *sigh* I know, I know, TMI.

MW: Those lines you see around Lynn’s legs are supposed to represent both ankles snapping, I’m guessing. *crunch* Whoops!

9CL: I haven’t been keeping up with this strip in the past few days, so I initially thought that Brooke had run out of ideas and was now passing off sketches of hand studies as a comic strip. I said (out loud) that this was the laziest thing I’d ever seen. Then I went back a few strips and realized it was simply a lame 1940’s movie-style attempt at portraying sex, only without the artistic merit. Terrific.

PBS: *chuckles*

Blondie: Bones McCoy has a watch company now? Who knew.

Ziggy: Gah! I did not need to see Ziggy’s equipment. And either those are his knees, or he’s got seriously giant balls. The more I look at it, the more confusing this becomes… gah… must stop looking.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 1:10 pm [Reply]

#191 The Sparrow – Ziggy’s pubic area is downright Escherian.
AMSTERDANG
November 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm [Reply]

DT: I’m titanium, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and is probably missing a bunch of vowels.
cheech wizard
November 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm [Reply]

9CL – So Amos finally got laid. That will make it easier to chain him to a log.

Unfortunately, this also means he’ll no longer be able to channel his repressed sexual energy into his music, snuffing out what had been a promising career. Fired by the orchestra, he’ll have to resort to becoming a waiter, only he’s not a big enough dick to cut it in New York restaurants. Maybe Edda can give him asshole lessons in return for crushing his dreams.
queek
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pm [Reply]

154: having played “Champions” it pretty much does work that way. Spidy has probably 4 times the “actions” that the poor normals do, and can pretty much just zoom around them without them being able to respond until its their turn. RPG geekery FTW!!!

9CL: yup, that answers that.

Maintaining would be so much better if it wasn’t for the main characters. And every other male character.

MG&G: I’m so enjoying this week’s series of gags.

H&L: oh, THAT sort of hentai. Here I was, looking for tentacles.

I’ve got a friend that used to be in the Navy, so today’s Doonesbury was doubly funny. Well done, sir!
Bootsy
November 7th, 2008 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

Oh my head, The Sparrow (# 187)! Please do not tell me anyone on earth eats boiled* oysters! Boiled? I see not wanting to eat something that you have to examine for icky things every day, though.

Please forgive my incredulity; I live in a town where eating oysters is a thing of beauty and obsession to many.

*That may make it easier to chain to a log.
Ned Ryerson
November 7th, 2008 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

GT:

Dr. Wally Lamb: Well you see Matt….
Jeff: You mean Jeff.
Dr. Wally Lamb: Yeah, Matt, Jeff, whatever….It seems that you have quite a swollen prostate.
Jeff (or Matt or whoever): Well, doc, does that mean I can’t go out for football?
Dr. Wally Lamb: Football, schmootball, it means it will make it easier to chain it to a log.
Bootsy
November 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pm [Reply]

Hogenmogen, you must forgive almost everyone on earth for not knowing what Tommie’s BF does. It is Tommie, after all, and Gary does look like every other guy in this strip.* He’s working at the hospital on some computer project. When he met Tommie, he was doing the same thing for a small theater group. How is that even possible?

*Of course, we know how this will work in terms of chaining him to a log.
commodorejohn
November 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

Wow, this Mary Worth/Lil’ Abner crossover is a thing of beauty. I particularily like “Hal Rapp’s” studio; it’s like Saunders paid a visit to Paws, Inc. decades before it even existed.
cheech wizard
November 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

GT – This story could still have a happy ending. Having gone to Central City for his physical, perhaps Jeff could go a little further to Oz to get a new heart. While he’s there, perhaps he could pick up a sack of humanlike faces for the rest of the gang, along with a new liver for Marty Moon.

FC – “Lot’s daughters were lonely, so they got him drunk and lay with him. That’s what I’m gonna do with Daddy.”

Garfield – Some may see this as Jon getting grossed out by eating oysters. But I’d prefer to interpret it as him being the scorched-earth victim of Liz’s ravenous sexual appetites after consuming a couple dozen of the potent little aphrodisiacs.
Terry
November 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

Ok, I used the log comment for a SECOND time today at work. If I get locked up in the local asylum, y’all will have to mail me log shaped cookies, ok?

Lady in lunch area: That’s a cute lunch box you have there. It looks Japanese.

Me: It is. That makes it easier to chain to a log.

Lady: How nice for you…..
Little Guy
November 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pm [Reply]

Between Friends: Implied Topless Cougar Alert!
Artist formerly known as Ben
November 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pm [Reply]

#200 cheech wizard,
Garfield – Some may see this as Jon getting grossed out by eating oysters. But I’d prefer to interpret it as him being the scorched-earth victim of Liz’s ravenous sexual appetites after consuming a couple dozen of the potent little aphrodisiacs
And that’s exactly what I was trying not to see, mkay?
The Sparrow
November 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pm [Reply]

196 Bootsy: Hehehe, yeah, I understand. It’s the same way I feel about clam chowdah– sorry, but Manhattan style is not a chowdah. It never was, and never will be a chowdah. But yes, the sacred-ness of the raw oyster is the way most people feel about it, so I never mention my aversion to good old New Jersey raw oysters to the lab workers who bring in the daily catch. Never mind how I feel about New Jersey water quality and oyster microbes. :D (Just as an aside, I joke about New Jersey all the time, but the area where the oysters are harvested in South Jersey is surprisingly clean. So no need to worry about that.)
Bryan
November 7th, 2008 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

La Cucaracha: Hey, Lalo, the election is over. If your chicken-headed, Boondocks kid-wannabe protagonist is still at the polling place bickering with a rigged Diebold machine, he’s an even bigger dummy than his creator.
Lorna Doonesbury
November 7th, 2008 at 2:01 pm [Reply]

The mail came today. Zebra carefully opened the package which revealed the latest LPs from the Classical Music Club. Vinyl was still the way to go for Zebra. The warm tones that were reproduced from the grooves up and down the audio spectrum were far superior to the quality of CDs. As Zebra lovingly slipped the first record from its sleeve and delicately began to place it on the turntable, a voice suddenly erupted from seeming nothingness proclaiming, “Dat make it e-z to chain to log!” As Zebra clutches his heart, the spinning record propels across the room and into the blades of a shredder. Snarking laughter is heard leaving the room in one direction while from the other side of the room Pig enters and says, “That’s the worst case of a slipped disc I’ve ever seen.” Rat immediately punches out Steven Pastis.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
November 7th, 2008 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

Heathcliff, or more precisely his bearded friend, is probably from NYC / Connecticut / North Jersey, since he calls it a “hero” instead of a sub, hoagie, grinder, or po’boy.

I wonder if he had to wait “on line” to buy that bread.
jvwalt
November 7th, 2008 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

Cleats/MT crossover:

“Hey, Edith, let’s see you snag it with that wicked lizard tongue action!”

ZAT! THWUUMP!

“That will make it easier to chain to a log.”

(Actually, if Edith says it, it’d be more like “Thah wuh mage ih eehier tuh shaih tuh a wahg.”)

Not to make Cleats any more disturbing than it already is, but I think the writer lifted “wicked lizard tongue action” from the personals section of Cragislist.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
November 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pm [Reply]

See http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_64.html
cheech wizard
November 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm [Reply]

Apparently John McCain dismissed his Secret Service protection immediately after his concession speech Tuesday night.

That will make it easier to chain him to a log.
cheech wizard
November 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pm [Reply]

(DISCLAIMER: The above is not meant as a political comment or a dig at John McCain in any way. It’s just a really lame joke.)
PeteMoss
November 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

9CL – What is this disgusting filth?! The hand-model’s Karma Sutra?!? In a family newspaper no less?
Artist formerly known as Ben
November 7th, 2008 at 2:21 pm [Reply]

#162 Sam,
“Forgot”, you say? Freud said there are no accidents.
Ned Ryerson
November 7th, 2008 at 2:28 pm [Reply]

9CL: I guess this was more up the artist’s alley than drawing a train chugging into a tunnel, or V-2s launching from Peenemünde.

Ze Nazis have V-2s on Peenemünde.
Zat vill make dem easier to chain zu dem logs, ja?
bucky\\\'swife
November 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm [Reply]

MT: I’m a little perplexed by the raccoon/dog-abusing rubes’ relief at Sneaky’s collar. If they don’t already have something to tie around the raccoon’s neck, what have they been using? Alligator clips fastened to their fur? Little handcuffs? Paste?
Joe Blevins
November 7th, 2008 at 2:30 pm [Reply]

Pluggers are so named because many of them are being kept alive by machines.

MT: Here, the characters helpfully demonstrate what is known as a “Lost Forest embrace.” It consists of standing several feet apart with your arms extended without making actual physical contact.
Artist formerly known as Ben
November 7th, 2008 at 2:36 pm [Reply]

Pibgorn: The guy in the glasses looks a little like Amos from 9CL, but he’s the one getting penetrated. And not in the way 10% of guys are into.
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

#191 – Oh, God. Please, not a redux of the Joe Thiesmann accident. (Vomits profusely on keyboard)
gnome de blog
November 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm [Reply]

201 Terry said:

Ok, I used the log comment for a SECOND time today at work. If I get locked up in the local asylum, y’all will have to mail me log shaped cookies, ok?

Only if that will make it easier to chain you to a raccoon.
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm [Reply]

#181 – Mark T. must be an “Old Friend” of Norm Abrams.
Lake Eerie Log Chains
November 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm [Reply]

204 Sparrow
As long as those nice clean oysters make their way to the Lobstah House in Cape May, I’m good. Though, as I discovered last time I was there, raw clams are even less palatable – clams must be cooked!
And I will step forward with my own bold statement: while Manhattan style doesn’t qualify as a chowdah, it’s much, much tastier than the New England stuff (I’m going to assume I’m in the minority there; esp. since I’ve often been unable to find Manhattan CC while in Manhattan)
Lake Eerie Log Chains
November 7th, 2008 at 2:43 pm [Reply]

218 Calico
I consider a Joe Theismann accident is something that happens whenever he opens his mouth to speak (Alfred Einstein…please)
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 2:47 pm [Reply]

#223 – Well, it sure must make it easier to chain him to a log.
One-eyed Wolfdog
November 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm [Reply]

If I were unfamiliar with 9CL and unwittingly picked up today’s paper, I would be seriously creeped out by the palpable, if undefinable, menace of the disembodied anonymous intertwining hands. Of course, I am familiar with 9CL, and so I am seriously creeped out but for slightly different reasons.
bats :[
November 7th, 2008 at 2:54 pm [Reply]

170. Cranky: geez, Louise! If that isn’t Ziggy’s weenus, what is it? I stared at that panel for way too long, trying to explain it as some other part of his anatomy, couldn’t, and now I feel really, really sick…

171. Seismic-2: the frontrunner in the TR/WHT slashfic shaggy dog story competition!

178. Hogenmogen: Gary ISN’T a doctor? Well, then, Dr. Kelly must be telling him, “Hey, peon, I’M the doctor around here, and all women are mine.”

And I have to agree with Patrick, Brooke draws excellent hands, something that I envy.
Doing it a second time, after Mr. and Mrs. Ex-Clergy’s honeymoon, is boring…
bats :[
November 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm [Reply]

187. The Sparrow: one of my professors in college (Chuck Gerba, who is a microbiologist specializing these days in germology in regard to things like toilet spray, stuff on your telephone receiver and in your kitchen sink, etc.), did grad and post-grad work on shellfish. He, too, was less than enchanted with eating raw oysters because of their potential of being disease vectors.
But it was easy for him to avoid the temptation: “Why anyone would want to eat something with the consistency of phlegm…”. It’s my mantra for dealing with raw oysters, too.
deepfriedtwinkies
November 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm [Reply]

“Raccoons like to wander a lot. Let’s see you snag it with that wicked lizard tongue action again. You’re an optimist. Take more catnip! That will make it easier to chain it to a log.” If I had a nickle for every time my dentist told me that….
Baka Gaijin
November 7th, 2008 at 3:19 pm [Reply]

#162 Sam

MW: I think the “Oh no!” is Lynn’s Dad discovered during a spin-a-rama or whatever they call it, that Lynn forgot to put on panties.

Maybe he saw her polterwang. Wait, are you implying he saw her, her, her, um, “Crying Game”?
The Sparrow
November 7th, 2008 at 3:22 pm [Reply]

226 bats :[ I think I’ve heard of Chuck Gerba! Was he the guy who sterilizes toilets by dousing the seat with rubbing alcohol and then setting it on fire? I read an article long ago in a science magazine called Muse, and the microbiologist who may or may not have been Chuck was explaining this technique. I think he merely did it for his own amusement, and not so much for sterilizing. Don’t try it at home, kids! My mom forbade that I should ever try this, claiming the heat would crack the toilet bowl. One day I am going to see if this is true, for the sake of science. Flaming Toilet Bowl is incidentally a great name for a rock band. :D
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 3:37 pm [Reply]

I cannot type correctly today. It must have been bacause of when I was chained to a log.
I meant to comment on #222. not myself.
More logs, mule!

When I finally was able to look at Ziggy, I saw –
four penises.
Oh God no.
Calico
November 7th, 2008 at 3:41 pm [Reply]

Because, I mean – Jeez.
OK, Gotta go.
Ptycho
November 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm [Reply]

The two raccoon trappers from Mark Trail must be related to the brilliant cops from Spiderman, due to their similar logic processes.
Trapper: “Wow, life sure is easy! Someone is putting pet collars on raccoons so that we can chain them to logs more easily!”
Cop: “I know, and our criminals are now handcuffing themselves and laying comatose for us at the scene of the crime! Life is good.”
Trapper and cop nod in unison.
queek
November 7th, 2008 at 4:04 pm [Reply]

229: where’s Myth Busters when you need them. Off being Rule 34′d, no doubt.
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
November 7th, 2008 at 4:29 pm [Reply]

182: commodorejohn: Catholic school you say. From what I’ve heard, that just makes it even more perplexing they haven’t done it yet.

Also 170 Cranky, that is terrible and makes even me nauseous. And Ziggy’s penis is visible.
Baka Gaijin
November 7th, 2008 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

#230 Calico: Dr. Freud will see you now. Leave your cigar at the door.
Sam
November 7th, 2008 at 10:50 pm [Reply]

Re: MW

Oh No! Isn’t that Jeff Gillooly?

“Why me, why me, why, why?”
Some Guy Here
November 8th, 2008 at 2:44 am [Reply]

I’ve thought about it, and I’ve come to the following conclusion.

Cleats may be ostensibly light-hearted, but that heart’s in a circulatory system chock full of acid and LSD.
dale
November 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am [Reply]

Eating raw oysters is just a way to eat hot sauce. You don’t taste the oyster: you taste the sauce. Put the sauce on a cracker and all you have to worry about is insect parts and rat turds.
Carly
November 8th, 2008 at 8:48 pm [Reply]

That’s not a racoon, that’s a Mexican Sewer Rat!
Brick Bradford
November 9th, 2008 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

MW Wow! Lynn’s dad is about to experience the awesome power of a Bizarro Watcher’s wrath! When her face glows pure white he’ll be reduced to subatomic particles.

Which is more pleasant than putting up with her meddling.

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