The Comics Curmudgeon

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Bullet point Sunday

Marvin, 9/6/09

You know, I’m pretty much a prematurely jaded cynic, but sometimes the comics can still surprise me. Marvin in particular always manages to surprise me with the new depths of horror it reaches every week. Let’s review today’s trauma:

This strip introduces entirely new characters, two bees drawn with the enormous noses that defile the faces of most of the human males populating this feature.
The bees believe that their purpose in life is to sting people for no good reason by the end of the summer; if these are ordinary honeybees, this is of course a suicide mission.
The bees are intensely focused on stinging a human on the buttocks, which they refer to as a “rear assault.”
The bees attempt to sting Marvin on the buttocks, but are prevented by his “padded armor,” which, this being Marvin, presumably includes a layer of feces.
The bees are crushed to death by Marvin’s ass.

And then, the ultimate insult: the Stars and Stripes, dragged unwilling into the opening panels as some kind of attempt to justify this atrocity. Why does Marvin hate America?

Apartment 3-G, 9/6/09

As is its wont, Sunday’s Apartment 3-G provides us with relatively little new information, but I do think that it throws a couple of important facts into stark relief:

The Professor is prescribing powerful sleeping pills to Ms. Merrill after she mentions that another doctor gave her some years ago, and is thus violating professional ethics and several laws, because he wants to bone her.
Margo is almost insanely insensitive. “Yes, I haven’t been to the gallery that Eric owns since he died. So many bad memories there! Not like you, who only associate this place with good thoughts about your dead boyfriend.”

Pluggers, 9/6/09

OH SNAP SINISTER ALLIGATOR/VULTURE MAN-BEASTS! You don’t lay off someone with a nationally syndicated comic unless you want to suffer nationally syndicated comics wrath five months later! I am charmed enough by the righteous burn that I will pass over the laughable notion that any plugger would work in a cubicle job. HEY AFGHAN LADY I BET YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE SUCH A SNOB ABOUT FREE SAMPLES FOR DINNER ANYMORE, ARE YOU?

Funky Winkerbean, 9/6/09

“Which makes sense, when you consider that it’s not really funny, at all.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7, 2009 at 12:48 am and is filed under Apartment 3-G, Funky Winkerbean, Marvin, Pluggers.

159 responses to “Bullet point Sunday”

Artist formerly known as Ben
September 7th, 2009 at 12:56 am [Reply]

Pluggers: So all animals that aren’t mammals or obese chickens are evil, soulless non-Pluggers? There’s probably something deeply offensive here, but… It’s Pluggers. How much can one get oneself to care?
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:56 am [Reply]

Not content with degrading the human race, MARVIN moves on to defaming innocent insects.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:58 am [Reply]

And of course worker honeybees are all female. Does MARVIN really think it would be so much worse if female bees were crushed to death by Marvin’s massive butt?
Mr.Death
September 7th, 2009 at 12:59 am [Reply]

The funny thing with Margo & Lu Ann’s exchange in the final panel is that usually it’s the other way around. “It get’s easier, I promise.” is what Margo whispers to her lovers during their unspeakable sex acts.
Digger
September 7th, 2009 at 1:00 am [Reply]

No, Les, you line hasn’t gotten a laugh in years, much like the comic strip you live in.

MT: “An even greater threat than the tsunami is the creature known as the bikini-clad female. This predator attacks by pressing her lips against those of the asexual naturalist, causing him to experience temporary paralysis.”

Pluggers: To save time (and boxes), the alligator should just start eating Pluggers while the vulture picks the bones. “You’re a Plugger when your boss devours you and then says ‘delicious, but too fatty.’ “
doug
September 7th, 2009 at 1:01 am [Reply]

Is Pluggers shouting “Working people of the world, unite!” or just “Anyone who is not a lower-class person living in the rural or quasi- rural, quasi-surburban/exurban backwoods with few aspirations, little curiosity, and a narrow worldview is a Bad Person”? If my meagre hope that the former is the case is true, Pluggers may actually become mildly interesting soon.
Lesser Whark
September 7th, 2009 at 1:01 am [Reply]

Does every Sunday Pluggers feature a fireman bear wielding a toilet plunger underwater? If so, why?

With the Marvin, I’m also wondering why a worker bee (who should therefore be female) is named ‘Eugene’.
Judo Throw Toy
September 7th, 2009 at 1:04 am [Reply]

FW: I think Tom Batiuk is just calling all of us stupid for not finding his comic strip funny anymore.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:05 am [Reply]

The more I think about MARVIN, the more pissed off I get. That’s probably the working definition of the entire strip.

But I’m going to rant anyway. Escape while you can.

Honeybees work until it gets too cold to work. They don’t quit on Labor Day. They work hard, and they help provide food for humans (as well as the alleged humans that populate MARVIN). They don’t sting unless provoked, and they are positively placid compared to certain other insects like fire ants.

And they have been having problems with diseases and parasites recently, and the welfare of pollinators in general is of greatly-increasing global concern. Honeybees deserve better than this, dammit. So do mosquitoes, actually, but putting mosquitoes in this strip would have made marginally more sense.
Larry Fine
September 7th, 2009 at 1:17 am [Reply]

Today’s Marvin raises another question: How can bees with such large noses fail to detect the foul odor emanating from Marvin’s diaper? They should have made a U-turn as soon as they got within 100 yards of his butt. I guess natural selection is at work here.
Mibbitmaker
September 7th, 2009 at 1:19 am [Reply]

FW, above: Oh, I’ll bet Brooke McEldowney found the “joke” hilarious.

Of course, the idea of increasingly lagging scholars at the school just gets shoved aside so Les can be all ME, ME, ME about how HIS Oh-so-”literate” “joke” wasn’t found to be “funny”.
The Enemy
September 7th, 2009 at 1:19 am [Reply]

I think that Pluggers is implying that pluggers are only good for filling the coffee maker and getting the light switch.
Nekrotzar
September 7th, 2009 at 1:22 am [Reply]

When the last plugger has been laid off, whom will management get to correct the grammar on the comics page?
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:26 am [Reply]

PLUGGERS — I don’t like this portrayal of gators and vultures, either, but # 1 Artist makes a good point.
j. neas
September 7th, 2009 at 1:32 am [Reply]

I think maybe the reason no one laughs at Les’ joke is because this is the Funkyverse and, undoubtedly, someone in Westview dies of the plague monthly. That makes the plague cliche for a whole different reason.
CanuckDownSouth
September 7th, 2009 at 1:33 am [Reply]

Fascinating. Looks like Judge Parker is about to embark on a months-long (in-strip time: 37 minutes) object lesson about how an impartial justice system makes modern civilization possible, by showing us the devolution into vendetta, blood-prices, and mob rule that occurs when the citizenry can no longer air their legitimate grievances in court unless they’re friends of “the right people”
sugarpie
September 7th, 2009 at 1:33 am [Reply]

Poteet 9 I love, LOVE, the fact that you are willing to get all worked up about a Marvin strip!

If it’s any consolation, I also spent a few moments in blissful contemplation of Marvin being covered in angry, biting fire ants. He was in ANGONY! Covered in angry red welts, and going into anaphylactic shock… it was ambrosial! But for some reason I doubt this is the response Tom Armstrong was expecting.

Now I’m imagining Marvin being doused in some sort of class C insecticide- and now he’s gagging on a mouthful of Othene! Good times!

bats :[ y 46 A man after my own heart.
Nekrotzar
September 7th, 2009 at 1:37 am [Reply]

#9 Poteet

Bees, sure, but mosquitoes? The damn things carry West Nile and Encephalitis, and probably also Pneumonic Plague and Shingles, and there are so many where I live that by late afternoon I can’t go outside. Next are you going to tell me I should embrace the existence of ticks and dwarf tapeworms?

Although if the dwarf tapeworms infected Marvin…
kthnxbye
September 7th, 2009 at 1:38 am [Reply]

Monday’s GT: “I’m good with an RC” sort of sums up the entire town of Milford.
CanuckDownSouth
September 7th, 2009 at 1:41 am [Reply]

Y8-Bats :[ oh, agreed. I was expecting something like the tsunami evac signage. But it’s not something one wants to contemplate. The great ice cream place nearby made it much better. (I tried double-scoops of ginger & what struck my fancy most days. Ginger goes with anything.)
Baka Gaijin
September 7th, 2009 at 1:45 am [Reply]

Dennis the Menace: What? WHAT???? THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT! The Unabridged OED is 20 volumes and costs over $6,500. It would have been an excellent joke if Dennis had stacked the whole of the English language bound in blue leather just to get at some crappy stale store-brand Keebler knockoff cookies. Argh!!!

What do Alice and Henry need the OED for anyways? To find new words to express their hatred for each other because of their hellspawned crotchfruit? To prove that “kwyjibo”* is or is not a word in the marathon Scrabble sessions they use as contraceptive so they don’t accidentally have another Dennis the somewhat annoying, in spite of Alice getting her tubes tied onto a towing cable strapped to a FedEx truck to forcible yank her reproductive system out while she gripped Henry’s scrotum “for moral support” and to better rip his testicles and anything else attached to them from his body.

*Kwyjibo, regardless of its presence in the OED, is a perfectly cromulent word.

Cathy: Now I’m all queasy. Cathy is forcing Irving to “clean her garage.” This must be payback for all the grief we give Cathy on this blog.

I gotta go lay down now. Maybe a redneck’ll drop a meteor from a helicopter on my head. Brain trauma is preferable to thinking about Irving cleaning Cathy’s garage or back porch or balcony or anywhere else, for that matter.

Sorry for the repost. I’m still pretty peeved over DtM’s misuse of the OED.
Anonymous
September 7th, 2009 at 1:48 am [Reply]

So I guess Funky Winkerdink is supposed to be taking place in 2013? That’s the first year “post-millennials” will be entering high school (assuming FW would call Y2K as the first year of the new millennium).
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 1:48 am [Reply]

Although Margo and Luann held up their part, Tommie was unable to complete the trifecta by killing the man in her life. She only managed driving him over halfway across the country. Still, the ladies of Apartment 3-G are looking more and more like they can challenge the record of the Cartwright men of Bonanza every day.
Niall
September 7th, 2009 at 1:50 am [Reply]

Only one so far:

My Cage: hot DAMN, Ed Power, you just keep twisting the tropes and clichés! This will make the third week in a row where I’m on the edge of my seat each morning for the next strip! Aided and abetted wonderfully by Mel’s art, of course. :)

…hmm, going to bed thinking of single Ashley.. :)
zenvelo
September 7th, 2009 at 1:51 am [Reply]

just head on the news there will be a Dennis the Menace postage stamp next year…Finally, a stamp I can use for those stalker notes I like to mail.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:53 am [Reply]

# 18 Nekrotzar — My thought was that any creature deserves better than to be portrayed in MARVIN with a big schnozz and bad dialogue. But I whack mosquitoes myself, and I take your point. Seeing a couple of mosquitoes get crushed under Marvin’s maloderous ass would not break my heart.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:54 am [Reply]

# 26 — Malodorous. Yeesh.
Mibbitmaker
September 7th, 2009 at 1:54 am [Reply]

9/7:

Archie: Hey, Mr. Lodge stole Laverne DeFazio’s shirt!

GT: He’s been reading too much Phantom.

DT: What, again?? (re: “there’s something else…” AND “I’m scared!”)

MT: It means someone’s firing a gun, you dopey gremlin!

Popeye: Let me guess — Bluto/Brutus, right? You can set the clock by that toothpick.

Marvin: Worst. Fetish. Site. Ever!
Dr. Weird
September 7th, 2009 at 1:56 am [Reply]

#22 Anonymous –

Actually, yes… Funky Winkerbean made a 10 year time jump in late 2007, so it’s 2017, as best as I can determine. Doesn’t it look future-y?
Gold-Digging Nanny
September 7th, 2009 at 1:56 am [Reply]

MW (yesterday’s): If we do get the same lavish inattention to detail we got in the phishing storyline, at least there’s one thing we can look forward to. Coming soon to an Internet near you: EnormousHeroin!
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 2:03 am [Reply]

FC — Before the Sunday strip sinks mercifully into the sunset, it reminds me of a party I once attended where the only person under twenty was a toddler who was allowed by her loving parents to make a game out of putting her hands deep into the chip dip and then slapping the knees of all the adults present, thereby spreading chip dip around the room. Have fun, FC party guests!
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 2:05 am [Reply]

#16 CanuckDownSouth – I’m sure you are right. However, if my wife was thrown from her horse while riding on private property, all because some people trespassed to take pictures of her, I’d probably want to beat the snot out of them and feel justified by my actions. Doesn’t mean it’s right but I’d FEEL justified.

And, the cameramen should have gotten their camera and film back if nobody’s pressing charges.
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 2:09 am [Reply]

#31 Poteet, my queen! – Holy cow, let’s keep away from that family if the H1N1 comes to their part of the world. It doesn’t sound like they’d be real up on ‘wash your hands often’ or anything nearly that health-conscious.
Mibbitmaker
September 7th, 2009 at 2:11 am [Reply]

An incidental character in the 1st season of the Flintstones could be seeing both the current Popeye storyline and today’s Marvin and grimly say, “I’ve gotta stop eating in those cheap restaurants!”

A wino from any classic theatrical cartoon seeing those strips would just throw away his bottle and take a pledge.

A character in a ’40s Bob Clampett Looney Tunes cartoon seeing those strips would whine, “Well… now I’ve seen everything!”, pull a pistol out and shoot himself, falling backwards, and there’d be a “Beeewwwwoop!” at the iris-out.
Marion Delgado
September 7th, 2009 at 2:12 am [Reply]

“How about that other cliche, Les? You know, ‘If you fuck your students, sometimes they try to kill themselves.’ Bet that one still has em rolling in the teacher’s lounge. Is this poster on straight?”
kurtthecomicreader
September 7th, 2009 at 2:16 am [Reply]

Marvin’s most likely being attacked by yellow jackets, not honey bees. Yellow Jackets are attracted to meat/protein and can sting multiple times (unlike bees which embed, then loose, their stinger).

While Marvin is doing the backyard a service by crushing those pests, Marvin haters can rejoice in that Yellow Jackets, when severely injured, emit a “distress pheromone” that alerts nearby YJ’s to home in and attack. Whether Marvin’s omnipresent “load” will then drive them away remains to be seen.
Master Softheart
September 7th, 2009 at 2:27 am [Reply]

It requires much softheartedness to face the comics this Monday morning.

Archie: Mr. Lodge gets good exercise physically assaulting two healthy teenage boys and bodily throwing them down the marble stairs that lead up to Lodge Manor. Even assuming that Archie and Jughead are completely unresisting for Veronica’s sake or some paralyzing fear of elderly plutocrats whose last real exercise was probably the boxing team at Yale, it is impressive that he can get the kind of heft required to produce panel 3.

BC: Meta-humor is unusual for BC, which is generally prevented from breaking the fourth wall by virtue of being hopelessly mired in confusion about exactly what its foundational premise of anachronistic cavemen, dinosaurs, and random poorly drawn anthropomorphic fauna might be. Today’s strip shakes off such questions and moves directly to a fairly good joke combining mockery of “Fat Broad” with a punchline that relies on familiarity with outdated imaging technologies. Count this as a win in appealing to the high functioning Pluggers in the audience.

Dilbert: Say what you will, Dilbert deals with drug use better than Mary Worth. Of course, even Scott Adams probably aspires to something better than that…

Gil Thorp(e): Apparently, Duncan (a.k.a. Sonic Youth shirt guy) has reformed over the summer and now lives a clean life of working out and drinking RC Cola from which not even a young Barbara Eden in panel 3 can tempt him. This would be more meaningful if I remembered Duncan as a hard-drinking, wasted character from football seasons past whose transformation created some kind of surprise or drama, but I’m willing to give Team Thorp the benefit of the doubt.

JP: This strip was originally intended to serve for the legal profession the same purpose as Rex Morgan for medicine: to use serial drama to educate the public about important legal issues and encourage people to learn more about “the restrictions that make us free.” I really have to question whether the main character’s participation in blatant police corruption and the idea that it is okay for the wealthy and famous to disregard both common law principles and the protections provided by the Constitution’s 4th Amendment really fit with this noble goal. Of course, one could ask possibly more troubling questions about Rex’s pederasty, but until now I’ve always held the Judge Parker franchise to higher standards.

SF: Hillary Forth is possibly my favorite precocious child on the comics page. If it weren’t for Ted Forth, there wouldn’t even be much competition.

Phantom: “Gee, it’s been great having you here Diana – I hope that the UN doesn’t rotate you back so you stay the hell away for a long time!” Mrs. Phantom is not popular with UN permanent staff member Bill Gates.

MT: It would be unfair to malign Rusty’s intellect since Mark is at least as clueless and uninterested in repeated gunshots nearby. “Yeah, there are a lot of strange noises in the swamp – once I listened to a woman’s voice begging for death from a nearby cabin for two days while I was camping out here. That finally ended with a gunshot, too, come to think of it. No sense in wasting time worrying, though – let’s get to fishing!” Staring in numbed horror at Rusty’s face in panel 2, however, seems entirely justified.

Lockhorns: So because Loretta’s cooking is so bad that it jams the garbage disposal, the plumber is always “at your disposal!” Ha! For a moment, I didn’t make the connection that turned this into the inevitable expression of hatred that underlies every word, action, and thought that relates to the marriage of the titular characters.

FW: Les as the low level operative serving an incompetent police state. The greywashed despair and pointlessness of Kafka combined with soul-killing futility that the FW cast of physically deformed middle-aged failures brings back to poison our memories of high school just feels right. Thanks for that, Team Winkerbean.
Mac
September 7th, 2009 at 2:29 am [Reply]

Marvin hates America because all good Americans hate Marvin, and Marvin.
Steve S
September 7th, 2009 at 2:33 am [Reply]

In tomorrow’s Funky Winkerbean, ~~Tom Batiuk~~ Les yells at those damn kids to get off his lawn. Les is one ten-year jump from passing Crankshaft as the worst old man in the comics world. No surprise they’re both Batiuk creations.
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 2:33 am [Reply]

WTF GT “I’m good with an RC”. YAY! It’s about time someone else than me and the Squid Countess extolled the virtues of Royal Crown cola.

Or did RC stand for Roman Catholic? Hey, it still applies to me. I’m just not a particularly good one. >:)

Jumble Jungle The clue for yesterday’s Jumble puzzle had something to do with 9 Chickweed Lane: “Hitting the nail on the head, this boring pompous old windbag from New Hampshire can make even a beautiful flower seem in bad taste.”

Bratoni Brad is puckering up for TJ! His voice says ‘fuck you’ and his lips say ‘right here’.

Fist O Justice Theater Panel two – Jackelrod was going for “cute lil’ kid” and ended up with “shaggy bucktoothed ragamuffin confused that two gunshots in a swamp does not mean “hunters” as much as it does “one hell of a show and tell at school”.

Plus, you’d think that after the last shooting story, Mark would be diving under logs or heavy brush by now. “Oh SHIT he’s after me again!”
BigTed
September 7th, 2009 at 2:35 am [Reply]

After seeing the terrible job “Funky”’s sad bunch of baby boomers has done with their tiny part of the world, I, for one, welcome our new post-millennial overlords.
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 2:39 am [Reply]

Is it correct police procedure for Detective Aryan Butterscotch to pull his weenus out in a restaurant for Adrian, claiming it will make things ‘one step better’? Or is he just reaching to ‘jiggle the handle’ so to speak?
Timmer
September 7th, 2009 at 2:47 am [Reply]

I can accept the giant noses, non-compound eyes, floppy earthworm-like antennae, four fingered hands, and footie pajama feet as artistic license, but why the Hell do the bees have cartoon dinosaur bellies?
True Fable
September 7th, 2009 at 2:58 am [Reply]

I, Platypus Oh dammit Ed.

The BM of Edison Lee Oh, so Edison’s mother is the one who named the strip, because she’s convinced the little creep is so all that! Listen, lady: I still haven’t forgiven you for having the little fucktard in the first place.
Warren
September 7th, 2009 at 3:02 am [Reply]

I’m torn about Funky Winkerbean. I’m trying to figure out whether nobody’s laughing because half of them really *do* have the plague and will die horribly before the semester’s out, or because they just can’t see why someone would want to “avoid” such a beautiful (if rather messy) release from the Funkyverse.
Mr. O'Malley
September 7th, 2009 at 3:05 am [Reply]

JP: Next: Invasion of the Mutants!

MT: Second panel … gasp … there are zombies in the swamp!

MW: Let’s try some of that cheap heroin that’s all over town!

Slylock: I’m guessing it could be the skull. Or maybe the sea mouse with the funny hat.
Brock Sampson
September 7th, 2009 at 3:19 am [Reply]

Just wait until Crankshaft finds out about Marvin’s bee-killing ways, given his known pro-bee sympathies. Maybe Batuik will put together a strip where Crankshaft invites Marvin and his family to an apiary conference to learn more about bees, and sadly they all die from Legionnaires’ disease. Except I won’t be sad at all! Hahahahaha!
Charlene
September 7th, 2009 at 3:23 am [Reply]

I’ve been trying to figure out that “post-millennial” comment too.

“Post-millennial” means born in or after 2001. High school (at least here) begins at Grade 10, when students are generally about 15 years old. So that makes it 2016. Which means they jumped ahead seven years?
Bobdog
September 7th, 2009 at 3:43 am [Reply]

#36 – Alas, according to the text, the miscreant insects think of themselves as complete failures as “bees” — not “wasps.” I suppose these could be self-hating wasps with ill conceived notions as to what constitutes a successful bee who are attempting to emulate their insect cousins, but this reading of the text gives the author, who last I checked basically makes poop jokes for a living, more credit than he deserves.
Jason1981
September 7th, 2009 at 3:44 am [Reply]

9/7/09

Luann : TJ, combining couple’s names isn’t cool when the media does it, and it’s not cool when YOU do it, either. Go back to thinking up money-making schemes–you’ll look alot less stupid.
He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus
September 7th, 2009 at 3:56 am [Reply]

“Are you ready for the post-millennials, who will not arrive at our institution for another five years?”
Iris notIris
September 7th, 2009 at 4:29 am [Reply]

We don’t get Apartment 3-G in any of our papers here, so I may not understand completely. Almost none of the characters open their mouth to speak. Is this a strip about ventriloquists?
Cliff Arroyo
September 7th, 2009 at 4:47 am [Reply]

Damn it bees! Not only has your ass fixation doomed you, but you also miss the acres and acres of tender, pink, flabby Marvin flesh just beyond his butt armor.
If you could have just expanded your horizons a little you could discharge your stingy goodness directly into the little bundle of scatalogical horror that is Marvin leaving him howling in pain but unable to void his bowels as he’d already done that six times in the last seven minutes. And …. If it turned out that he was allergic to bee venom and went into shock …. well that would just be gravy.
Dr. Weird
September 7th, 2009 at 4:54 am [Reply]

52 Iris notIris –

No, the cast of A3G are just wooden. *rimshot*
Baka Gaijin
September 7th, 2009 at 4:55 am [Reply]

Garfield: I laughed an actual genuine laugh. If a lobster on my plate had deely-bopper eyes like that, the headline would have read: “Crazed diner beats ~~evil~~ clown with mutant lobster!” The slice of lemon will temporarily blind him, then the spilled drawn butter will make him slip around in those comically huge shoes, unable to escape the crustacean pummeling raining down upon him. You know, that could work. No jury would convict me; they’d be laughing too much to say “Guilty.” Yeah, that COULD work.

Dennis the Menace: Does Alcohol-Induced Persisting Dementia mean anything to you? More information on ICD-9 291.2 can be found on the Internet.

Mark Trail: To the Mudges who saw this before me: thanks for the warning, NOT. Slightly pixillated closeup of Rusty. It wasn’t so bad since I saw Lio first.

Lio: Um, that baby is verging on clown creepiness territory. I feel for you, Lio, I really do.

Archie: Who throws out the food with the ejectees? Who serves raw fish with the heads on with sub sandwiches and a drumstick and a wedge of Swiss cheese?

Bizarro: Good one, Piraro.

Mary Worth: It does look like Det. Hewlett is rubbing one out right there in the booth.

Pluggers: Have to get belts bigger around than they are tall because they only eat food on a stick.
Just some guy
September 7th, 2009 at 4:56 am [Reply]

Pluggers try to unplug the toilet, but it’s just so plugged up that the water fills up their house to the point where fish actually inhabit it.
So that’s why their called pluggers.
Just some guy
September 7th, 2009 at 4:56 am [Reply]

*they’re
curlyfries
September 7th, 2009 at 5:01 am [Reply]

Mark Fail: Welcome to Dumb and Dumber, the Sequel. Dammit, Aileen Wuornos, where are you now that we truly need you?

Mary, Pusher of Meddle: Scotty, your previous life has just been a blur? Guess we know who’s the number one heroin user in Santa Royale. That must be one primo bowl of smack on the table, too, because from the looks of your unfocussed glassy eyes, you’re “fixing” to become one with something on the ceiling. That annoying woman pulling on your sleeve will just have to get her own.

Stanky Weensnbeans: Batiuk has officially lost it if he seriously thinks 14 year old freshman boys can grow a set of chin pubes like that. This kid will obviously get follicle cancer by second period.
Albtraum
September 7th, 2009 at 5:41 am [Reply]

Timmer – one person… ONE… out of 58 was as upset by that as I am?

That’s messed up. I expected these comments to be full of diatribes about the bees’ anatomy. Oh well.

Yeah. Long story short, bees do not have alligator tummies. They’re f*cking bees. Head, thorax, abdomen. It’s not too complicated. You learn it in Kindergarten. And then every single grade after that. Also, in daily life whenever you see a bee. Whoever drew that strip is a staggeringly ignorant dipsh*t.
Baka Gaijin
September 7th, 2009 at 5:58 am [Reply]

#59 Albtraum: I’d be more upset if I actually read Marvin with my brain engaged. It’s just the speed bump between the out of date hijinks of Mark Trail and the out of date hijinks of Mary Worth.
MolyBendum
September 7th, 2009 at 6:17 am [Reply]

Archie – I like that Jughead has an actual, entire small fish speared on the end of his fork. And that Archie can smirk at Jug’s little joke after taking a header off 15 concrete steps and being pelted with food. I can see Mr. Lodge at the top of the steps: “You want my fucking fish? HERE’S MY FISH! You wanna eat my CHEESE? HERE’S my GODDAMN cheese!”

Dennis – “Cuz…goddamn Joey….that is one. Hot. Bitch.”

Frazz – Bad pun alert. Ha! Awesome.

Marvin – He crawls most of the time, can’t (hardly) talk, and wears diapers. And his parents punish him by making him stand in a corner. So…..yep. Incrementally, by the time he’s five he’ll be chained to a radiator without food or water for days on end.
And there was much rejoicing.

Pearls – Haha, landshark.

Slylock – Crap. I figured since it had gills it was a poorly drawn shark. I was for sure it was the stingray. Their eyes are not so stalky. Or “deely-bop”-ey. I always say deely-bopper instead of thingamajig, I didn’t know it was a real thing. Live and learn.

Wizard - Ahhhh boobs and redheads, two of my favoritest things.

Ziggy – Please, Zig. Buy the “Limited Edition” Chili and just explode. Or just explode as you stand there and ponder what that could possibly mean if you were to assume it was supposed to be funny in some randon, illogical way.

Zits – We made it all the way to panel 3 before any random, pointless technology showed up in the strip. That’s progress.
MolyBendum
September 7th, 2009 at 6:52 am [Reply]

Gil – “Yeah, man see, cuz Cuz, I’m The Ghost now! And I’ll, like, keep sayin’ it, y’know, ’til it catches on y’all. Ma names’s is the shiz, yaknowwhaImsayin? Jamaar, Jammer, what up foo’? Rizzle dazzle shizzle shazzle bizzlety bop.”

My only hope is that all these asinine stereotypes play out and Duncan “The Asshole Jesus Freak” Daley starts proselytizing to everyone who makes the mistake of sitting near him. Loudly. And talking about the Christian rock band he’s putting together. And then starts singing fucking Kumbaya while strumming a ukulele. Party on Wayne.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick – And we’re back to dragging out this interminable conversation. I will say that’s the most sweat I’ve seen off a comic character in a while. Even beats ol’ sweaty Archie. I fail to understand how Dick didn’t shoot this guy 30 panels ago.

Mark – Overlooking Hideous Rhetorical Rusty and the Pow!/Wham! controversy, what’s left? Prayers that an alligator lurches out of the swamp and eats Sassy tomorrow, I guess. But I will offer up “Hideous Rhetorical Rusty and the Pow Wham Controversy” as a possible name for Duncan Daley’s christian rock band.

Mary – What in the hell is Scott looking at? I’m about to propose, so let me stare at the ceiling as I transition my way into it. Brilliant. I dig Adrian’s new tattoo on her left arm, though. Pretty bold statement having your entire upper arm blacked in. Sure she’s the chick for you, Scott, you effervescent knob-nuzzler?
LITTLE A. OF THE GRAND CONCOURSE JUNGLE PATROL
September 7th, 2009 at 7:17 am [Reply]

MT: Rusty has friends?
mordock999
September 7th, 2009 at 8:06 am [Reply]

Today’s Luann – 09/07/09 – Last Panel -

Brad – Why do you talk to TJ about ‘This’?
WHY do YOU talk to TJ about ANYTHING????

_________________________

DEATH to TJ!
Talking Squirrel
September 7th, 2009 at 8:09 am [Reply]

MT: Hey, L-Rod! It looks like those expensive Margaret Keane seminars really got you a big panel 2 payoff!

Rusty mentions his “friends”. That would be Dondi, I presume.
Talking Squirrel
September 7th, 2009 at 8:15 am [Reply]

MW: One step better! Another post-meeting coffee klatsch, and again Scott forgets the principle of working the first twelve steps before attempting the thirteenth.
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am [Reply]

BB: Yeah, Beetle. It’s not like you will have a pressing need for a real one anyway.

Blondie: You’ve worked in DithCo Bio-Weapons Marketing Division for HOW long now, Dag ?

Curtis: Now would be a good time for Curtis’ phone to start buzzing. Oh, look ! it’s a text message from Michelle’s lawyer.

DtM: Joey’s legs have become so atrophied that Dennis has no choice but to ‘Radio Flyer’ his ass all over town.

FW: That’s right, Les. Look at the freshman with righteous indignation. Or is it the little strands of hair on his chin that bothers you. Chin hair that you only dreamed about in 1974, right ? Late at night, you would cut off a piece of your hair and Glu-Stik ™ it under your lower lip, didn’t you, Les. Just like Frank Zappa. Make him pay, Les.

JP: “I have friends ! Powerful picture taking friends ! Remember the Lady Gaga prehensile proto-penis slip pics? Yeah. I know that guy !”

Marvin: “Now excuse me, mini-slut mom. I have to take a giant-sized dump in my giant-sized pants.”

Lockhorns: WTF ! Is the plumber about ready to take a dump in the kitchen ?

MT: Oh, sweet line dancing Jehoshaphat on a smack binge !

MW: What make meat loaf meatier ? SMACK DOES !

My Big Hanging Yiffy Go-Go Dance Party Cage: Okay, Norm. Time to ask Bridget about ‘enhancing’ the bedtime experience.

RMMD: “No, honey. You don’t understand. I REALLY like sticking my nose in other people’s business. Your place or mine ?”

Luann: Just replace all the word balloon dialogue with simple Portuguese statements of boredom and Viola ! Porno ! Of some kind. Cue the Lady Ga-Ga music and transsexual pizza delivery gul.

FC: “REDRUM ! REDRUM !”
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 8:51 am [Reply]

MT: “Friends, eh Rusty ?” POW ! “Oh, I think I hear your friends coming. Run on ahead and say hello.”
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 8:54 am [Reply]

61. MolyBendum: Re: Mary: I think that’s a bar code on Adrian’s arm.
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 9:09 am [Reply]

MC: OMG the genius, the she-e-e-e-r twisty turny genius! Fawn, fawn, genuflect, bootlick. I haven’t seen a plot so cunning since curiosity got the better of me and I picked up a Sweet Valley High book at the public library.
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 9:12 am [Reply]

BB: “I couldn’t think of a joke, so I drew this.”
Chocolatepot
September 7th, 2009 at 9:17 am [Reply]

You know, it’s rare to see a comic have such a nuanced understanding of the art of anticlimax as Judge Parker, don’t you think? The way each storyline is set up for a conflict, only for the rich and powerful protagonists to win without a fight … it’s masterful.
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 9:19 am [Reply]

GT: Mm, Roman Catholic Cola. Sugar, phosphoric acid, and carbonated persecution with a splash of high-fructose guilt syrup.
bartcow
September 7th, 2009 at 9:23 am [Reply]

I’m still not used to the term “post-millennials”. My sleepy brain at first parsed the meaning as “post-Y2K-apocalypse”, in which the citizens prepare for a rare strain of airborne cancer by placing signs on open windows.
Steve L
September 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am [Reply]

MW: Remember that episode of “The Superfriends” where everyone in the world was transformed into Bizarros and Cheetahs? Well, going by the last panel of today’s strip, it seems that the Santa Royale Police Department is about to go on a crime spree to finance their terrible heroin addiction.
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am [Reply]

H&J: I’m pretty sure there’s a whole generation for whom the principal humor in this will be the surreal absurdity of a character named “End-User License Agreement”.
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 9:41 am [Reply]

Everything is better in Português:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2436/3895807369_3c2a2a7703_o.jpg
Toff
September 7th, 2009 at 9:45 am [Reply]

Frazz: I can’t figure out “Labor Day Retriever”…?
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 9:47 am [Reply]

78. Toff: It’s a Provincial Canadian joke.
Joe Blevins
September 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am [Reply]

FW: To be fair to the post-millennials, has anyone ever actually laughed aloud at anything in Westview? Now, if he’d said, “That line hasn’t gotten a smug-yet-world-weary smirk in years,” then he’d have a point.

MARVN: Bee #1 is providing a public service by pointing directly to Tom Armstrong’s by-line. “There, readers! There is the man who is single-handedly destroying the newspaper industry from the inside with his obscene cartoons about an inftant’s buttocks! Direct your hate in that direction!”
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am [Reply]

FC: Karioke night with Billy:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2437/3896639738_e11c6be21b_o.jpg
Edgy DC
September 7th, 2009 at 10:05 am [Reply]

Could there be any greater insult to Charles Schulz than to see a slight stylistic variation of his beagle used as the school mascot in Funky Winkerbean.

I mean, it must be the only strip in the paper that could make Charles Schulz more depressed than he already seemed to be.
commodorejohn
September 7th, 2009 at 10:06 am [Reply]

Ooh, I didn’t know about Brookins. That makes this one even sweeter.

And Marvin is even worse when you realize that, somewhere on the Internet, people are getting off to this. And Tom Armstrong is quite probably one of them.

DT – ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH

FW – Oh, that’s a nice look of pure self-righteous spite Les is giving there. You’d think he was filling in for Jeff from Crankshaft.

GT – Holy crap. Is that a cooler, or a coffin?

JP – Oh, the sheriff sliced their tire, I guess. Charming.

Luann – Today is one of those days where I look at Luann and I just pray for nuclear holocaust.

MT – Scary? You want scary? Try panel two argh make it go away. Also, I think Mark is about to launch into a lecture about the mysterious gunshot bird that produces sharp, explosive calls during mating season.

MW – Discussion question: is having a boyfriend who masturbates in restaurants better or worse than having a boyfriend who lies to you in order to con you out of your money? Get your hand out of your damn pants, Scott.

Momma – You know, it’s hard to be more offensive to all right-thinking people than Love Is…, but Mel Lazarus manages, every now and again.

MC – Niall, you have a scapegoat.

SFx – SQUID!!!

SM – Spider-Man, Spider-Man, carries stuff like a spider can…

Edison Lee – Is there any child in the comics more fundamentally broken than Edison? Marvin, maybe.
Size
September 7th, 2009 at 10:20 am [Reply]

The throwaway panel in Marvin is just a cut and paste of the same bees from panel 5. If you’re going to punish us with awful writing, at least give us some original awful art to go with it.

Also, it’s nice how the company isn’t laying people off because they’re broke, it’s because the managers are evil, predatory creatures.
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 10:31 am [Reply]

83. commodorejohn: WHAT !!!!
buckyswife
September 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am [Reply]

MT: The swamp IS scary, Rusty. Old-timers tell of a terrifying swamp-critter, a starey, gap-toothed, bug-eyed horror-show of a freak who wanders the bogs with his mutant dog, asking questions that are staggering in their imbecility. Those who encounter the swamp-freak immediately want to destroy it, but most horrifying of all is that if they attempt to do so, flying fists materialize out of thin air and thwart their attempts, rendering them powerless, as the swamp-freak skitters off, asking, in its incessant, warbling voice, “What happened, Mark? Who are those people? What does it mean?”
TheDiva
September 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am [Reply]

C’shaft: At least this time we’re just seeing the aftermath of the Inevitable Grill Explosion, instead of the week’s worth of strips leading up to it.

FW: That’s right, Les, this bewildered kid who’s just trying to get through his first day of high school forgot his locker number and combination on purpose, because he’s an evil teenager who exists solely to make your life difficult by forcing you to actually do your job and help him. You became a teacher why again?

Luann: And one of the great mysteries of life: How does TJ drink through that perma-grin of his?

MW: Is that the only sports jacket Scott owns? Or is it his favorite because he bought it cheap off the old Monday Night Football fire sale?

PBS: “….Candygram.”
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 10:44 am [Reply]

Is it great that the panel the used in the “Poor Gary Brookins” article has a major gaffe in the speech balloon? I think it’s pretty great. There goes a devoted craftsman.

I have mixed feelings about that page, because I am not generally one to take glee in misfortune. On the other hand, if your long-term security depends on the insane premise that you can turn out a worthwhile creative product day after day year in and year out ad infinitum, then my sympathy reaches about as far as it does for the kid in GT whose college plan was to play baseball. Which is about as far as, “Ouch! Sucks, dude.”
NoahSnark
September 7th, 2009 at 10:49 am [Reply]

Today’s Marvin shows the danger of kids wearing diapers. If his parents had gone free range for his time in the sandbox he would have been stung and we all would be happier. Plus there wouldn’t be as many shots of his ass.
Oh, My Hair's Getting Good In The Back
September 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am [Reply]

Crinkly Dinkerbean: Hey Les, Baby Gangsta there will have xeroxes of your locker/combination crosswalk list on sale in the 3rd floor boys’ bathroom by lunchtime.

GT: If you’re going to pimp product, is it really sufficient simply to name it? Or do you have to portray it in something remotely resembling its actual packaging? I smell contractual noncompliance.

FC: Farewell tour, Billy? Gee, we sure hate to see you go. You might want to take a bit of extra time on your final bedtime prayers tonight. And Thel, best get out the lobster hammer and melon ballers before you turn in tonight. We’ll have some serious seed-scoopin’ to do in the AM, then six months of quiet time till next melon-plantin’ season.

MT: That wasn’t a second gunshot. It was the echo of the first one, that rattled around in Mark’s cranium all night and finally escaped out his other ear.
queek
September 7th, 2009 at 10:58 am [Reply]

24: and stay awake thinking of a double Ashley. . . .

61: Frazz? what! where!?! (the yahoo.comics are still stuck on the 4th.)

SF: Faye, just grab her and kiss her. That will stop time for her.

to Baka Gaijin and the other clown-a-phobes, you will want to avoid the webcomics Girls With Slingshots and Something Positive today. Especially GWS. *shudder*
buckyswife
September 7th, 2009 at 11:00 am [Reply]

JP: That’s some enthusiastic narration box! Then again, today’s action is more exciting than your average Spiderman.

And last I heard, “he deserved it” won’t get you anywhere in a court of law—except, apparently, in (Beautiful) People’s Court.

SF: Those first two panels would be the perfect set-up to a third panel with an awkward good-night kiss.

MW: Adrian, dear, if you’re going to go sleeveless, you’ve got to take more care in shaving your upper arms.

And wouldn’t it be great if Defective Hewlett were about to propose—that Adrian help him about by going undercover with him on this incredibly dangerous heroin case? “C’mon, Ade—it will be fun!”

A3G: I’m not sure how anyone can stop thinking about the dead when the streets of Manhattan are overrun with ghosts.

BB: No, no, Walker—Zero’s the guy with whom you make unfunny jokes about his stupidity; keep your cliches straight, please.

SM: How much trouble would it have taken to insert one additional panel so Wolverine’s question in panel one makes any kind of friggin’ sense? I think that Lee & Lieber might be lazier than Peter Parker.
buckyswife
September 7th, 2009 at 11:04 am [Reply]

y41 sugarpie & y46 bats :[ —Oh, thank goodness! I was starting to worry that I was the only Sound of Music non-fan on this site!

y48 Niall: There are few things we chicks like more than well-honed flirting muscles.
Doug Puthoff
September 7th, 2009 at 11:07 am [Reply]

Josh’s comments on Marvin: Gee, Josh. That sounds like something I would say.
fishmorgjp
September 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am [Reply]

Boy, nothing like a panel of the Star and Stripes to start off a Marvin comic about bees trying to sting an ambulatory bag of feces! It just says “Labor Day,” y’know?
Talking Squirrel
September 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am [Reply]

High time for a shout-out to the graphic artist who designed Action Flick Chick’s tee. His clever use of extra-tight text kerning assures that the requirements of truth-in-advertising statutes are fully complied with.

The 18 U.S.C. 2257 record-keeping requirements statute, maybe not so much.
Baka Gaijin
September 7th, 2009 at 11:19 am [Reply]

#91 queek: ????????? D?mo arigat?.
Jym
September 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am [Reply]

=v= Pluggers: I cannot pass over the notion that a Plugger works in a cubicle. It shakes my worldview to its very core. What’s next, a Plugger that shops at a food coöp?
odinthor
September 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am [Reply]

MW. — Uh oh. He’s going to introduce her to his old friend, male exotic dancer Rocky Thrust.

MT. — I didn’t know that Margaret Keane did comics!
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 11:24 am [Reply]

If you are acquainted with the function of the diaeresis, don’t worry; you aren’t a Plugger.
Baka Gaijin
September 7th, 2009 at 11:25 am [Reply]

#97 me: Preview let me down. That’s supposed to be Thank you in Japanese, katakana and romanji.
John C Fremont
September 7th, 2009 at 11:26 am [Reply]

yy#525 Mooncattie – Thank you for that link. You have officially made my day!

#6 doug – Thanks to you, I now have “Papa Was A Running Dog Lackey of the Bourgeoisie” stuck in my head. And somehow the line, “You have nothing to lose but your chains!” made me think how much easier it would be to chain a worker to a log if he/she already had chains on. And then my head exploded.

#83 commodorejohn – I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the cosmos Bill Hicks is smiling at you.

#90 – And now I have the Lemmings soundtrack and the entire Mothers’ catalogue in my head. Joel, I’m tripping, tripping, tripping…

MT – In the second panel, Rusty’s an evil lawn gnome, and in the third, he’s posing as one of those lawn jockeys, and yet both his gnome and his jockey impersonations require him to wear a Charterstonian “9-7″ shirt. The point? There is no point, just random acts of senseless violence.

I wonder what Mr. Mike and Bill Hicks talk about all day…

Friends? Oh, good one, Rusty! You had me going there for a moment.

SFx – Gosh darn it, and things were just starting to look up for old Gil.

GT – In the words of Joel Hodgson, “Product placement, check it out.”

DT – “I’m melting! What a world, what a world…”
Dean Booth
September 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am [Reply]

#98, Jym — “What’s next, a Plugger that shops at a food coöp?” No need for the umlaut. The chicken plugger shops at the food coop.
Huey F
September 7th, 2009 at 11:34 am [Reply]

Marvelous Marv: I think Josh has misread the tea bags on this one. Endlessly-toiling worker bees, wings worn to a frazzle, are squashed under the bloated butt of an uncaring social parasite who is incapable of tending to himself in a hard-knock world. Meanwhile the privileged drones, who neither sow nor do they reap, live it up on unearned honey back in the Hive. Happy Labor Day!
Alan's Addiction
September 7th, 2009 at 11:41 am [Reply]

The only good thing about the continued rectal fixation of “Marvin’s” writers is that, if the trend continues at this rate, in less than ten years, we will see people actually shooting guns at Marvin’s butt. The good thing about this is that, unlike bees, bullets are not deterred by cotton and plastic.
I’m praying Ms. Merrill’s unfinished sentence in “Apartment 3G” reads, “I haven’t been in therapy for years… Not since I realized my meds were slowing me down.” I’m also praying that Margo is really dragging Luann down to the Mills Gallery to see what the effect of visiting places where boyfriends were shot have on people. It would, in fact, be insanely awesome if this entire “grieving the recently deceased” act is an elaborate ruse on Margo’s part merely to provide her with better “experimental opportunities” (like the one I outlined above).
Today’s “Pluggers” takes on an especially sinister note when we realize that the strip is populated by critter-people, and the villains are talking about getting another character “a box.” This would be the equivalent of a human manager walking around and ordering coffins for his employees, as we all know that pets (and other small animals) are traditionally buried in boxes. It doesn’t really send a friendly message.
Wow, “Funky Winkerbean” is really focused on landing that coveted, “bitter, 65-dead” demographic. The only topics I’ve ever read that are covered involve either the bad parts of aging or the passage of time. Topics in this category include, “Death,” “Fear of Death,” “Someone I Know/Love Died,” “The Kids Suck,” “I Hate Getting Older,” “I Hate Death,” etc. You’d think that Batuik would be able to summon some of the positive effects of aging, such as “Grandkids,” “More Free Time,” “Not Having the Insecurities That come with Young Adulthood,” etc. I think that he (Batuik) really missed his calling by not writing a comic strip about a bunch of depressed, emo vampires in a post-apocalyptic hell; his sense of humor (as evidenced by today’s strip) would certainly work well in that setting.
Talking Squirrel
September 7th, 2009 at 11:43 am [Reply]

100 One-eyed Wolfdog says: “If you are acquainted with the function of the diaeresis, don’t worry; you aren’t a Plugger.”

If, on the other hand, you are acquainted with the function of a diuretic … yew jist mought be a Plugger!

Zits: “I’m only sixteen, sickly and thin / Spent all of my life tryin’ to grow me a chin…”

– and a tip’ o’ the kippah to 102 John C Fremont: howiluvya howiluvya howiluvya howiluvya Frisco
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 11:48 am [Reply]

# 36 kurtthecomicreader — I agree with you — those big-nosed inverts could easily be yellow jackets. Wikipedia points out that “yellow jackets are important predators of pest insects,” so their going after Marvin would make perfect sense.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 11:51 am [Reply]

# 33 Sir Fable MTK — You are so right. And I’ll say one thing for that kid — she helped me keep my pre-party vow to avoid eating chip dip.
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 11:51 am [Reply]

Why is Snoopy degrading himself by appearing on the Wesview High sign?

RM – Berna, as Mary warned, “Don’t go there.”
The Queen of Charterstone is the Prime Meddler, not you.

MT – Oh God. Panel two is nearly unmentionable.

H & L – Poor Hi, weeping uncontrollably as his soul dissolves.

FC – If only.
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am [Reply]

#31 – Is that child a lifer in kindergarden?
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:11 pm [Reply]

# 93 buckyswife — I think it partly depends on what you mean by “fan.” I still occasionally watch parts of S of M when it’s on. But I do it in order to try again to decide which of the Von Trapp kids I hate most in any given scene, to curse the movie makers again for omitting “No Way To Stop It,” to mentally shoot poison darts into the Captain’s neck at certain key moments, etc.

And there’s this (from Wiki), from which one could evilly contemplate an alternative ending to the movie:

“While the von Trapp family hikes over the Alps to Switzerland, in reality they walked to the local train station and boarded the next train to Italy, from which they fled to London and ultimately the United States. Salzburg is only a few miles away from the Austrian-German border, and is much too far from either the Swiss or Italian borders for a family to escape by walking. Had the von Trapps hiked over the mountains, they would have in all likelihood ended up in Germany, near the Kehlsteinhaus, Hitler’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden.”
QITURSE
September 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm [Reply]

I SUJT IOD HET MLBEUJ
QITURSEU
September 7th, 2009 at 12:18 pm [Reply]

POSO I LPSEDE YM MENA NORWG
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

#111 – You know what I do hate about S of M?
That damn dog whistle Cappy uses to call his “Children.”
If that’s not demeaning, then I don’t know what is.
(In which case I heartily recommend that it be used in Family Circus and Marvin, and perhaps in Mark Trail)
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

S of M – sounds a bit kinky, now don’t it? : P
Niall
September 7th, 2009 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

70. One-eyed wolfdog: it wasn’t the “ashley breaks up right after Norm hooks up again” that was the twist – that was the cliché. It’s Max seeing Norm and Ashley getting closer and derailing that by manipulating Norm into getting back with Bridget which is the trope derailment – or lampshading, I’m not sure. Max really is the devil character. Also, this development usually happens ona Friday or Saturday; now we have to see the reactions for the whole week. That’s where the fun can really happen. (Put another way: most cartoonists would have used it as a twist ending, whereas Ed uses it as an inciting incident. It’s a nice change.)

91. queek: Oh, I think one Ashley is enough, thank you. :)

93. buckyswife: I’m not exactly a fan of the musical either, or its movie version. However, I can still enjoy the Antwerp station video posted recently. As for flirting muscles, like most muscles, one has to be careful to only letting themshow when being used in everyday situations – no one likes someone who shows off muscles just for showing them off. (In flirting terms and in person, that makes someone creepy. I have to work on not doing that.)
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

# 49 Bobdog — I know an entomologist who often gets calls at this time of year about “honeybee nests” that are obviously yellow jacket colonies. When he tries to explain to the callers what they really have on their property, some argue vociferously that what they have are bees, bees, bees. Perhaps these “bees” are similarly deranged. If I ever saw bees of any sort with noses like that, I’d never drink again.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:26 pm [Reply]

# 110 Calico — Perhaps her parents should have done another stint in kindergarten to learn a little basic hygiene.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

# 116 Niall — As a recent convert to MY CAGE, I wasn’t that surprised to see Norm ask Bridget to get back together. But the ring-fiancee part dropped my jaw. Back when my friends were first getting married, being engaged with a ring was a huge enormous change from steady dating. I feel kinda old.
Ginger Yellow
September 7th, 2009 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

Wait, pluggers work now? I kind of assumed they were retired.
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

#118 – Good point – I shouldn’t be putting the finger on the kid directly…
Comrade Denny
September 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

Marvin: The bees, unrealistic as they seem to us, simply reflect the strip’s own assumptions about Marvin himself, namely, that Marvin his so hated by the world at large that nature will defy her own laws in any quixotic attempt to rid the planet of this poop-smeared parasite. Looked at from that perspective, Marvin is quite realistic.
queek
September 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

116: what about her twin sister, MaryKat?

*runs laughing for cover*
Sequitur
September 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm [Reply]

Whoo-hoo!
buckyswife
September 7th, 2009 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

115 Calico: When I was first reading through this thread, I didn’t realize that “SoM” referred to Sound of Music—and I was kind of, well, intrigued.

116 Niall: Ha—your flirting explanation reminds me of my recent encounter with the Very Excited Book-Buyer.
UncleJeff
September 7th, 2009 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

JP: Yeah, a professional photographer working either for a gossip mag or as a free-lancer is going to pick a fight with a cop. Right.
As for the guy changing the tire, they drew him more simian-like in last week’s episodes. It also answers the question: “What did Chris Griffin of Family Guy do during his summer vacation?”

FW: Yup. Kids is stupid.

Pluggers: Workers of the world. You are doomed. Obey your masters and we’ll allow you to live.
Dancing Bear
September 7th, 2009 at 12:42 pm [Reply]

You know, Funky Winkerbean is a lot funnier if you do a YouTube search for “somber organ music” and have it playing while you read it.
One-eyed Wolfdog
September 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm [Reply]

Sequitur’s link at #124 is to a Salon article about Pluggers, and it’s worth a look, though it seems to date back to about 1999 when MacNelly was still doing the strip. The central thesis (’Pluggers is terrible in multiple ways and seems to have no redeeming features’) is pretty solid, but I can’t really go along with the appreciative reference to Sylvia nor the praise for Shoe’s “considerable wit and sophistication”. (Even granted that Shoe was better when MacNelly was doing it.)
Eldaglass
September 7th, 2009 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

A3G: The good doctor is so in tune with Ms. Merrill that his hair is changing to better match the color of hers. Either that, or with two of the “main” males out of the strip, the Professor is simply trying to pick up the slack and prove that he too can be mistaken for myriads of other characters.
Comrade Denny
September 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm [Reply]

A3G: I a bit surprised by Dr. Popagoras. Sex for drugs seems rather pedestrian. I figured his usual m/o to be to get his patients hooked on his own special cocktail of lithium, diamorphine, and mescaline and then, using a combination of operant conditioning, hypnosis, and readings from Nietzsche, disable his “patients” moral center and impulse control, turning them into amoral, drug-fueled killing machines. Tommi and Luann, of course, were early subjects of his, and he only succeeding in completely incapacitating their frontal lobes, but Margo — Margo is his masterpiece.
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm [Reply]

Gaze upon me:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2555/3896464257_af8a105e79_o.jpg
tb4000
September 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

Luann: I was going to complain about this strip suddenly leaving us on that cliffhanger on Saturday focusing on Elwood’s mysterious nature, but then I realized like the whole of the populous, I don’t give a fuck.
Niall
September 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

119. Poteet: It was established that Norm and Bridget had been together for three years and were fiancéed. So I gather it didn’t happen at the beginning, but perhaps after two years of going steady, they did the plunge and got the ring. They had been talking a year ago (our time) about planning the wedding. Also, the time she got the job at the retail food market (the “modern day Demeter” Josh liked so much) Norm insisted she had her engagement ring on, so it had been mentioned before.

131. AeroSquid: …yep, this is me, despairing now.

123. queek: I had just thought of that myself before doing a site refresh for the newest comments. I can’t tell if I want brainbleach or not…

124. Sequitur: Wow. I wonder when that article was written, because it talks of MacNelly as still being alive, and no word of Brookins.

125. buckyswife: Ugh. If I ever do that, friends can line up to conk me on the head. I’ll clone myself to be the first ten in line. (I’ve done almost as bad, however, without meaning to… which makes it worse. That book buyer at least knew full well what he was doing.)

128. Pne-eyed Wolfdog: the Salon article taking Shoe as witty and sophisticated damns Pluggers even more, in my eyes.
kurtthecomicreader
September 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

Baddog, you are correct.

However, If Marvin’s artist falls into the large group of adults that call Yellow Jackets “Bees” (YJ yellow/black coloration fools many people)….but we’ll never know. :-)
kurtthecomicreader
September 7th, 2009 at 1:21 pm [Reply]

BTW, perhaps Josh or someone can clear up why Comics.con has been dead to the world these last few days?
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:23 pm [Reply]

# 121 Calico — Perhaps the kid went to kindergarten and then taught her parents. One can hope:-).

And per S of M, I do really like the song CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN. Okay, I love it. I sing it in the shower occasionally. When I heard Simon Estes sing it, I had tears in my eyes. You done really good with that one, R & H.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:29 pm [Reply]

# 133 Niall — Thanks for the MY CAGE info. Alas for Norm.
Donkey Hotey
September 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

Lockhorns: The joke would make more sense if there were a garbage disposal under the sink.

MT: Rusty must be drunk. He’s all blurry.

#135 kurtthecomicsreader: I was wondering about comics.com too.
Poteet
September 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

# 135 kurtthecomicreader — I blame Chatu.
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
September 7th, 2009 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

#87 TheDiva:

And one of the great mysteries of life: How does TJ drink through that perma-grin of his?

I’ve put a lot of thought to that, and there’s only one possibility that I can see. I think TJ’s perma-grin is comprised of baleen. This suggests that in the roommate scenario, TJ’s flossing routine is really fricking annoying.

#111 Poteet, #114 Calico: “Sixteen Going On Seventeen”, “So Long, Farewell” ….. blurrrrffff
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 1:39 pm [Reply]

Today’s Mark Trail edited for the Rusty Squeamish:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2580/3897311196_192732188e_o.jpg
Comrade Denny
September 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm [Reply]

9/7 Mark Trail: So just how big is lost forest that it has snow-capped Rockies-esque ranges, rocky Appalachian hills, the lush forests of the Washington and Oregon, the lakes of New England, and Louisiana swampland? Either the reserve is on a tesseract and exists in all of those places, or the Lost Forest Private Nature Reserve is the name of the country that occupies North America in Mark’s universe, making him its absolute ruler, a sort of two-fisted primitivo-fascist-Monarch.
Citric
September 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm [Reply]

The American flag is apt for Marvin, it’s the one great unifier. No matter your political stripe, everyone can agree that Marvin is an abomination. It’s what brings you guys together.
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

#140 – “So Long, Farewell” is the epitome of corn.
If I were a guest at Cap’s mansion, I would be mercifully tipsy and thinking “Shut the fuck up and go to sleep, already!”

Maybe Billy Keane can sing this as he desperately clamors for attention in his blood-red jammies, trying to get a rise out of the participants of Thel’s Meeting of the Mommy Minds ™ group.
Niall
September 7th, 2009 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

137. Poteet: Alas indeed, I don’t think he’ll bow out on Bridget again. Though now he’ll regret a little bit. But the week is young, and I can’t say how things will develop.

(New video of me on my name.. but this one’s.. strange. Also, earworm that may endanger your brain.)
AeroSquid
September 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

Even more Mark Trail edited for the Rusty Squeamish:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2561/3896593813_1489178b76_o.jpg
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 2:00 pm [Reply]

“I’d like to stay and taste my first Champagne”

Or in Thel’s case, the Calvados the gals are sipping from their tea cups.

This is for you, Spotted Horse! *sorry* ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCnkAMfl5c&feature=PlayList&p=CD9F88906F1DD408&index=15
Calico
September 7th, 2009 at 2:01 pm [Reply]

Billy, I meant. Thel is already two sheets out there, working on a third.
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
September 7th, 2009 at 2:09 pm [Reply]

#147 Calico: Wow. I was enjoying it, that is, until the kids weighed in with such gems as, “Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.”

As a kid, I admired the Teutonic structure and discipline of the Von Trapps. Oh, and I wanted to be in the Gilbreath family, too.
Anonymous
September 7th, 2009 at 3:04 pm [Reply]

#133 Niall – I think the “960710″ in the URL is the date. So maybe 13 years ago, Shoe was clever. But Pluggers was always terrible.
Ed Dravecky
September 7th, 2009 at 3:54 pm [Reply]

Why does everybody assume that the new plotline ends with Adrian’s perfect cop boyfriend getting shot? Maybe Adrian is the new drug kingpin the cops are after and she’s just using him to keep tabs on their investigation. Maybe Adrian repeatedly confuse somebody’s heroin fix for her insulin shot and spends the next six weeks of strips riding the white horse. Maybe the heroin problem is a cover story for the Federal taskforce moving in to take out Mary Worth once and for all. (My money’s on Operation Meddle Thunder.)

Poteet @111: Now I’m picturing some sort of Sound of Music/Inglourious Basterds crossover which would still, of course, be a musical.

AeroSquid @141: ROTFLMAOWTFBBQ!
Mars
September 7th, 2009 at 4:15 pm [Reply]

Post-millennials? As in born after 2000? Susan works at a high school attended by nine-year-olds. And that doesn’t make seeeense!
Tim Cavanaugh
September 7th, 2009 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

That’s not insensitivity. If Lu Ann gets any bad memories, she can turn them into art with help from the ghost of John Singer Sargent or whichever painter it was who was haunting her before her druggy boyfriend got murdered.
Anonymous
September 7th, 2009 at 10:52 pm [Reply]

Hey, there’s an attractive future story arc in the Funkiverse! Everybody gets plague! A little ebola would be a lot more efficient at killing every last denizen of Westview than cancer. But then, we’d be left weighing the slow and lingering agonies of cancer, leaving one’s loved ones behind to their own twisted fates, versus the quick and far more agonizing death of plague, watching all the while all your loved ones dying around you, knowing that nothing, nothing will be left of everything you spent your life building up. Oh, the delicious choice for the Funkitarians. It’s a little like choosing to rip that bandaid off fast, or slow (assuming of course that the wound hasn’t healed at all and is festering underneath said bandaid).
Crankenstank
September 7th, 2009 at 11:08 pm [Reply]

That was me on 154. My internet guardian angel made the posting anonymous somehow. Damned cookie monster.
mkilby
September 8th, 2009 at 6:57 am [Reply]

Alan misses an important point when he says “… getting another character “a box.” [is the] equivalent of a human manager walking around and ordering coffins…”
Taking note of Afghan’s gender, the command to provide any woman with a “box” is unbelievably insensitive. Even the most chauvanisticmale should presume that she already has one.
Mela
September 8th, 2009 at 8:38 am [Reply]

Is there something wrong with me that I read Pluggers and thought the bosses were ordering a coffin? Or has Funky Winkerbean so warped my mind that I now find death in everything?
Lolsworth
September 8th, 2009 at 6:03 pm [Reply]

The fact that you’re familiar enough with Marvin to know the bees are new characters is pretty depressing.
Davy Poo
September 9th, 2009 at 2:46 pm [Reply]

The play “Wit” is about an almost completely unloved cancer patient dying slowly and alone in a hospital. Yep, seems like the perfect choice of school play in the Winkerbean universe.

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