The Comics Curmudgeon

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Oh, Mark Trail, you know I didn’t mean it

Mark Trail, 1/23/07

Hmm … “Mark, this is Dick … the beaver we trapped is back!” Oh, close enough. Welcome back into my heart, you crazy beavers! All is forgiven!

I love Mark’s goofy, heavy-lidded grin in the final panel. “Yeah, that Dick … he’ll shoot a beaver, all right … no warning … those kids should be worried … he’d shoot the kids too … Rusty and … the other one … the little girl … what’s her name … oh, Christ, I am so wasted.”

Gil Thorp, 1/23/07

Ah, it’s another fabulous Gil Thorp crowd scene, this time brought to you by M.C. Escher. The Lady Mudlarks’ five fans are in full effect, showing their apathetic love in the center of the yawning, featureless abyss that is the Milford gymnasium. Lisa’s mom, who is usually right, apparently thinks that only her patented wacky Mussolini impression will get this crowd fired up. That having failed, in panel two she manages to bend the nature of reality itself, and Blondie McBuzzcut looks up in confused terror as she manages to get her arm in front of his face in defiance of ordinary spatial dynamics.

Speaking of panel two, Person Of Indeterminate Gender Wearing A Fur-Trimmed Jacket And Hat Even Though He Or She Is Inside is back! It’s good to see that Lady Mudlark fever is chronic, if not infectious.

I might be more hip to the nuances of the thrilling “But…” in panel three if I were more intimately acquainted with the meanings of high school basketball referee hand signals. But all in all, I’m pretty glad I’m not.

Spider-Man, 1/23/07

Spidey’s been in the midst of a wholly uncharacteristic crime-fighting spree this week, but don’t worry: it’s just a cover-up for his usual whiny marital angst. I’m not sure how you pronounce “?”, but I can guess why he’s trying; I don’t think any member of the actual criminal element has used the phrase “plugged nickel” in, well, ever.

Pluggers, 1/23/07

No. No. If some aspect of being a plugger is contingent on being literate, then … everything I know about how the world works is meaningless.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 05:49 pm and is filed under Gil Thorp, Mark Trail, Pluggers, Spider-Man.

140 responses to “Oh, Mark Trail, you know I didn’t mean it”

Johnny
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:52 pm [Reply]

Re: the ref signal — It looks like somebody’s about to get T-ed up. That is to say, somebody’s getting a technical foul. Presumably for “clobbering” Lisa.
Kitty
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:55 pm [Reply]

Don’t worry, dude – you know that deformed man-beast is reading some shit like “Chicken Soup for the Plugger Soul.”
LynnyM
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm [Reply]

Pluggers seems to contradict itself today. I always assumed that the subject of reading would be paired with a joke about the sorts of books pluggers read (ie, conservative country folk books, or, say, phonebooks, or instruction manuals) or the fact that they prefer watching TV over reading, or eating over reading, or…you know, NOT being 100% into literature.

…of course, that’s the stereotyped thinking that will send me straight to hell. I should be more open-minded.
Tom Bondurant
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

Speaking of “clobbering,” Mrs. Wyche is clearly a big fan of the Invisible Woman’s 1980s femullet from the John Byrne issues of Fantastic Four.
Max
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

Well, reading is certainly a “chore” if you happen to be illiterate, maybe that’s what this Pluggers is trying to tell us.
teh l4m3
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:03 pm [Reply]

The ref in panel 3 is clearly not a nose-picker. Ouch!
Rhekarid
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm [Reply]

Don’t worry, Josh. It’s not saying that Pluggers need to be literate, just that they need to consider reading to be an unpleasant, thankless chore that goes onto the same list as shingling the roof or owning more than two pairs of underwear.

Lisa’s head: terrifying monstrosity, or merely revolting crime against nature?
MonkeyHawk
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

I think the indeterminate race/gender/species referee is gonna gonna slap a technical foul on Mrs. Wyche, snatching victory from the Goshen Horse Jaws. But with which hand? The tiny left one (with long manicured nails) or the giant right man hand?

Who draws (DT)GT anyway? A sheltered workshop?

I feel so dirty ragging on this strip; like booing at the Special Oplympics.
dre
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:13 pm [Reply]

re: gt
i was thinking more el greco than escher
RentedMule
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:15 pm [Reply]

Pluggers – It comes right after “learn the alphabet”
kitsunewarlock
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 pm [Reply]

“Plugged nickel?”

You might be a plugger’s plugged nickel if…

Your worth the lives of two unsharp crooks?
kitsunewarlock
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:23 pm [Reply]

Response to number 6:

The claws are used to suck out the souls of the fashionable. Which might explain everyone’s hair…
jvwalt
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 pm [Reply]

The (DT) GT artiste is Frank McLaughlin, a veteran comics illustrator. Sort of a foot soldier in the industry. He’s been active in the business since the early 1960s, so he’s getting up there in years. He is, and this is kinda scary, a “professor emeritus” at the Guy Gilchrist Cartoon Academy, where eager students learn the trade from one of the industry’s true hacks.

According to McLaughlin’s Wikipedia entry (yes, he has one), he is the author of several books including “How to Draw Those Bodacious Bad Babes of Comics.” I think he needs to reread his own book.
Harold
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm [Reply]

Mark Trail looks kind of amused at the thought of what his pal Dick might do to the beavers…I bet he’s got visions of Jake ‘n’ Snake’s rendering cave dancing across his Lyme Disase-fevered brain!

Why do it seem like the Gil Thorp strip has an uphill slant to the right? Is that just the way it was scanned? And how hard did Lisa get clobbered for her head to take on that shape?

You’re a plugger if you stick an unnecessary speech balloon in a one-panel comic just to take up space.
What's wrong with Mallard Fillmore
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

I think Get Fuzzy is funny today, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’ll make more sense tomorrow.

Or not.
Harold
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

And where the hell does Spider-Man have his hands? Those guys don’t look frightened, just surprised and disturbed.
jules
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

No no, see…Pluggers consider reading for pleasure a chore. That’s not confusing at all!
Ian
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 pm [Reply]

? is pronounced “buh?” or, in some dialects, “man what”
Tracer Bullet
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:50 pm [Reply]

Considering that the residents of Lima pronouce it “Lie-ma,” I don’t know that literacy is their biggest concern. They’re more worried about hiding from the Shining Path by mispronoucing the city’s name.
Mike P
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:52 pm [Reply]

No one has mentioned that Spider-Man is obviously fighting a pirate. Bandana, bad grammar, it all points to pirate. He’s not a very good pirate, which is why he’s got traded to the Shoddy LA Mafia in exchange for some other guy.
Prehumous
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

Are those the same two guys that Spidey’s been fighting for the past week or so? Because if that’s the case, then they’ve changed shape and skin color no less than three times right now. Either Stan Lee has gone senile… or this new plotline’s villain is the clever and confounding… Mysterio!!!
Black Card
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:59 pm [Reply]

I hope Spiderman starts juggling those two guys. Except that’d be interesting, so he won’t.
DrBear
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:01 pm [Reply]

I might be more hip to the nuances of the thrilling â€œButâ€¦â€ in panel three if I were more intimately acquainted with the meanings of high school basketball referee hand signals.
BUT…(unseen panel 4) the gym suddenly breaks out in a mass singing of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”
cheech wizard
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm [Reply]

So…just what was the dog doing just before Mark Trail got that phone call? In fact, what’s he doing in the last panel? Mark sure looks happy.

Also: “The kids are worried about what I might do.” Isn’t that usually code for “I’m getting out the chainsaw”?
jules
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:18 pm [Reply]

Cheech, the dog just brought Mark the JackElrod ball…he wants to play fetch! Yaaaaaay!
Squid Countess
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:18 pm [Reply]

A plugger will sit at home in a chair and read something edifying, like Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind, say, before he’ll waste money on that high falutin’ golf, or go to a computer class or help Habitat build a house or get CPR certified or anything else you can think of. Both male and female Pluggers have but one priority – to keep their knowledge and experience as narrow as possible. This is easily accomplished by reading only what other pluggers reccommend, and viewing it as a chore.
Underclassed
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm [Reply]

No worries, Josh — in Plugger-land, TV Guide counts as a book.
doug rogers
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:23 pm [Reply]

“?” is easier than trying to draw a quizzical expression to show through the Spidy mask. And the “plugged nickel” must be a subtle clue to actual villian…

Anyone else get a 3D effect in the first panel?
Gabe
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:26 pm [Reply]

21: Stan Lee never drew Spider Man, and hasn’t actually wrote this in years, FYI.
Woodrowfan
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm [Reply]

First Molly, now the Beavers. When did Mark Trail become “American’s Most Misunderstood Animals”??
OnandonAnon
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

Just wanted to interject that I continue to lurk, occasionally post, and enjoy the crazy humor here. Thanks for a milk-through-the-nose moment, Josh – that “looks up in confused terror” comment did it for me, when I studied the cartoon and saw the expression on that guy’s face.

And I want to also thank the many posters whose comments often bring a smile to my face. I wind down at the end of the work day by reading this website, and it’s always worth the time.

Thanks, everyone!
Mibbitmaker
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm [Reply]

(DT)GT: Mussolini? Like the (in)famous pose where he’s essentially saying, “Hey! Looka atta me: I’m arrogant! See? I wanta you to see me have a giant ego! Onna purpose! See? Me, ARROGANT! Looka me do that, anh?!”

I’d love to see Mrs. Wyche do that!

Pluggers: I’m not a plugger, but I’ve got to admit, I like their ability, here, to tweak the intellectual elite like this. And the fact that a plugger’s likely reading trashy romance novels just adds to the mocking of the books good, TV bad crowd. It kind of falls apart, though, when they tune in to Springer instead of “The Office” or “Veronica Mars”.
cheech wizard
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:41 pm [Reply]

25 – Nah, the Elrod ball moves of its own volition – it floats, monitors the behavior of characters, sometimes even speaks – it’s like one of those creepy entities from 1950s sci-fi films.

But a closer look at Andy reveals…..STAG’S HORN EARS!!!!!! Holy crap! You Pigporn readers out there know what I’m talkin’ about. Looks like the dog is really a succubutt in disguise.
Randy
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:45 pm [Reply]

Meanwhile, over in Foob-ville ,we either have some serious continuity problems (What prompted Elly to start holding her mouth open?), or April is so accustomed to her mother’s shrieking rages that she has no problem standing a few inches away, thinking sarcastic thoughts about her dental work
Squid Countess
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm [Reply]

Setting the Wayback Machine to 1956, I bring you a sampling of the lyrics to Tony Bennett’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I walk along the street of sorrow
The boulevard of broken dreams
Where gigolo and gigolette
Can take a kiss without regret
So they forget their broken dreams

You laugh today and cry tomorrow
When you behold your shattered schemes
Gigolo and Gigolette
Wake up to find their eyes are wet
With tears that tell of broken dreams

The joy that you find here you borrow
You cannot keep it long it seems
But gigolo and gigolette
Still sing a song and dance along
The boulevard of broken dreams.

What a great song! Released before I was born, but a great song. I love the tango melody. Anyway, my point is this: if you replace “gigolo and gigolette” with “beavers dry and beavers wet,” you have a ready-made anthem for Theodore and Castoria. Sure, you can change broken dreams to broken dams, but’s just icing on the cake.
Citric
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:54 pm [Reply]

Has nobody noticed that this particular plugger has melted right into the chair? One can only assume that literacy causes pluggers to melt. Seems about right.
Anonymous
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:02 pm [Reply]

#2 (Kitty) …in large-print, and with all the “edgy” parts edited out by the people who write for “Woman’s Day” magazine.

#8 (MH) I feel so dirty ragging on this strip; like booing at the Special Oplympics.

This made me laugh until my sides hurt.
migellito
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm [Reply]

GT – I like how Lisa’s mom emanates radioactivity. Perhaps that’s how she bends the space-time continuum. Here, for example, she’s bending it into the shape of ‘boring.’
Dr. Y. Zowl
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm [Reply]

I think the joke is supposed to be that Pluggers buy the *Farmer’s Almanac* in hardback.
Dean Booth
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm [Reply]

GT: Since you’ve highlighted GT today, I have to share again from yesterday this rendition of GT — it came to me in an epiphany as I stared at its people-like forms.
reader-who-posts
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:24 pm [Reply]

MT: Unfortunately, Mark has absolutely no idea what a man could do to a beaver.

TDIET: Those damn parents, making their kid do homework. They suck.

RMMD: June is one smart cookie. Having the kid wait outside by himself is MUCH safer than taking him to the police.

Dick Tracy: Really, what a Dick.
Islamorada Girl
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm [Reply]

Actually, I think Modigliani came back from the dead to draw Gil Thorp.

Death! Death! Death!

Thank you.
merchmesh
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm [Reply]

The “chore” for the Plugger is that he/she/it has been trying to finish that same good book since he/she/it began reading it back in 1967.
Bucky Ripsnort
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm [Reply]

No, wait– I decoded the strips! The plugger chicken is obviously “reading” a collection of Spider-Man strips (not the good comic-book stuff), thus the shout-out from Generic Bad Guy. And I assure you, such a book would be a definite “chore”.

I win the innernet!
reader-who-posts
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm [Reply]

#2 – I really hope a chicken isn’t reading about chicken soup. Although that far side was a classic. http://www.quigmans.com/proofstuff/larson.html

I just found this site looking for the chicken soup cartoon, but it turns out this is a pretty interesting skewering of The Quigman’s, with this line in the home page:

“Quigmans.com exists for one reason and one reason alone… to accurately illustrate a picture of the world’s second laziest and lousiest comic artist. The honor of First Place for the most avoidable comic strip goes to Jim Davis, he of Garfield fame, who seems to have been sent by Satan himself to single-handedly rip the heart out of the comics industry.”
kat
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:37 pm [Reply]

You’re a plugger if you have tentacles growing out of your head and a Hitler mustache.
Sandita
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm [Reply]

Chuck Norris can pronounce “?”. He will also roundhouse kick anyone who uses the phrase “plugged nickel”.
Drakkelian
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm [Reply]

Either the real chores the chicken plugger is ignoring include “fixing this bizarrely titled end table” or one of the tires on her house has done gone flat again…
MossMoses
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm [Reply]

47. Chuck Norris is God awful tough but no match for MacGuyver’s imrovisational brilliance. If it came down to a fight between them MacGuyver would make Ground Chuck out of him by using whatever was at hand at the time, all without laying a hand on him.

As for balut, I’ve eaten that and plenty of other exotic food in SouthEast Asia. At one country wedding in Taiwan I drank a glass of weasel blood, ate ants, dog meat and snake soup. It sure gave me something to write home about. Mary Worth is subsisting on her amorphous casserole glop and special apple pie which she packed for the trip.
Genetic_Mishap
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:49 pm [Reply]

I may be wrong, but I think it’s pronounced “question mark”.
Future Cat Lady
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm [Reply]

I think there is something that everyone has missed about todays Pluggers: the chicken person is female. Despite the strange udder-like extensions from her head, this plugger is female. She has ta-tas and a skirt. Unless the book in question is how to be a cross-dressing nazi…if that is the case, Pluggers just got 10x better.
MossMoses
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm [Reply]

Andy is really close to Mark Trail’s crotch in panel 2. Perhaps that is the smug look of satisfaction in panel 3 that Mark gets every time Andy blows trumpet on Mr. Chubby. Cherry probably doesn’t do oral sex and I’m not sure about Rusty.
AeroSquid
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm [Reply]

Re: Mark Trail. Am I the only one who has noticed
in the first panel that Dick has a spare standby head just in case the original gets chewed off by beavers ?
Wirrrn
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm [Reply]

MARK TRAIL: Has anyone noticed that Mark, Dick and Rusty all have not just the same hairstyle but the exact same hair *colour*?! Either this is some bizzaro episode of SLIDERS set on “Beaverworld”, or Mark, Dick and Rusty all use the same bottle of hair dye (”Muskrat Blue/Black”); as this would entail them all showering together, I’m not sure which option to root for…
Jorge2090
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm [Reply]

Beavers!
ShadZ
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm [Reply]

29 — Stan Lee has farmed the writing of the Spider-Man comic strip out to ghosts? That doesn’t surprise me a bit, but what is your source?
Tabby Lavalamp
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 pm [Reply]

No no no no… The smile on Mark’s face is the secret thrill that he gets knowing that Dick will never know about his zoophilia, no matter how many awkwardly timed phone calls he makes.
Ribinin
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm [Reply]

MT: Stating the obvious, but I have always assumed that Jack really only wants to do the Sunday version about animals and conservation but was forced to “create” a “story” in order to get what he likes to do published.

Hence, adorable beaver couples and interchangeable people.
AwfulArt
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm [Reply]

“Piranha Club” was Jelling today..!!
Prehumous
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:38 pm [Reply]

29 — Oh, my bad. Well, perhaps the mystery Ghostwriter person has gone completely insane. I mean, seriously, I have no idea what the hell is going on in that strip any more.
True Fable
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm [Reply]

RMMD I can see it coming: Niki and June will be kidnapped by Elvis and Toejam or whatever his name is, I don’t recall. Then June will tell NIki to run for help while she tries to seduce her abductors with suggestions on how she wants her garage painted. Oh, those long slow strokes of your big broad brush…!
And they will laugh, because June has more testosterone than most of North America and they just aren’t interested in her. They go for boy who cry…. “That’s your cue, Niki! Distract them, and I’ll run for help!”
Stacia
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm [Reply]

Ah, Pluggers, deftly combining the artistry of Shoe with the wholesome wisdom of a Thomas Gray poem. Well done, Brookins. Well done.
Prehumous
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm [Reply]

62 — you consider Shoe to be ‘artistry’?
PurpleMartin
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm [Reply]

Pluggers: Reading is a CHORE for those who can barely read. What is odd that this is a COMIC in a NEWSPAPER. If Pluggers hate to read, do they even have a newspaper in the house?
Moon Mullins
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm [Reply]

62 wrote: “Ah, Pluggers, deftly combining the artistry of Shoe with the wholesome wisdom of a Thomas Gray poem. Well done, Brookins. Well done.”

Perhaps many here are not aware, but both Pluggers and Shoe were originally created by the super-talented, Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist from the Chicago Tribune, the late Jeff MacNelly. When MacNelly did both, they were well-drawn, very clever, and much admired — so much so they were continued after his passing. Unfortunately the current purveyors are woeful by comparison, and ruin what were once great — to give a bad analogy, imagine if Gary Larsen permitted someone else to continue The Far Side, and it was that clod who does Over The Hedge.

Footnote: The other Chicago Tribune Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist, who used to alternate days with MacNelly, was Dick Locher, who now does Dick Tracy.
AwfulArt
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm [Reply]

“State of the Union” asks a very important question..

Britney Spears or Paris Hilton?
Who was the number one Bimbo of 2006??
Stacia
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm [Reply]

Actually, no, Moon Mullins, I didn’t know that. I just thought there were similarities in style, not an actual connection. Like many people here, I haven’t even seen Pluggers in the wild (i.e. a newspaper), I only see it here on CC. Thanks for the heads up.

When I was a kidlet I liked Shoe; somewhere I still have a scrapbook with a few Shoe cartoons from the 80s.

FOOB: This entire family pisses me off. Why do they have the cat if they hate its instinctual behavior (to play with other animals, to find safety in heights, etc.)? Or am I being too obvious?
Loppie Scaduto
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:13 pm [Reply]

“?” is pronounced like that confused ape-man sound that Tim Allen used to do in his stand-up routines…
Steve S
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 pm [Reply]

You’re a Plugger if finishing a sentence is on your chores-to-do list.
Future Cat Lady
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm [Reply]

67 – you are being way to obvious, cats are supposed to be mindless drones, much like the rest of the FOOBs
Harold
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 pm [Reply]

#40 Dean, that’s fabulous. Gil Thorp would be much more enjoyable (and make more sense) if it were performed by pirates every day.
Artist Formerly Known as Ben
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm [Reply]

#34, Elly isn’t screaming, she’s yawning. Were there a thought balloon over her head, it would read, “Did she just say we need new curtains. Yeah, I think I can sleep through this dialogue.”
Squawk
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 pm [Reply]

Pluggers = Shoe?

And for the love of God, please, please, PLEASE, no more Gil Thorp. It makes my monitor want to commit suicide.
zeeba
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:53 pm [Reply]

1/23 Luann: It looks like Greg Evans is getting serious and personal with the new storyline. He’s got a soldier searching online for his birth mother. (Can it be Mrs. DeGroot? Who else? Toni’s too young. Mrs. Old Lady is too old). Back in 1998, in a Dallas Morning News story, Greg Evans told about a young woman contacting him via e-mail asking if he were her father. It turned out that Evans and his wife had given a baby up for adoption in the late 60s when they were dating and not yet married. So Evans must be using his own life now for story inspiration. I’m not bashing it, but I hope he takes care with this story.
Hambone
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:57 pm [Reply]

My sources tell me Sony is pushing back the production of Crankshaft the movie because Dick Cheney has signed on to play the lead.
Adam Stephanides
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 pm [Reply]

#40: Brilliant!

Spidey might not have Mary Jane to kick around (or be kicked around by) much longer. There are various pieces of evidence pointing to the comic book Mary Jane biting the dust in the near future, and I don’t know whether the comic strip would follow suit or not. Obviously they don’t take place in the same continuity, but it would be kind of weird to have Mary Jane alive in one and dead in the other.
Rusty
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm [Reply]

The fact that the guy who now “draws” GT is a “professor” at the esteemed Guy Gilchrest Academy of Smutty Fairy Drawings is hilarious. That POS strip (Nightlights and Pillowfights) runs in the Sunday Hartford Courant and is a source of agony and amazement to me. Gilcrest’s creepy fascination in depicting barely pubescent girls as “fairies” by sticking antenna on their heads has been noted in these comments before, but his obsession is now full-blown as he has changed the name of the strip to “Nightlights and Fairyflights” which gives him the excuse to draw his fantasy figures each week. The soft-core kiddy porn is mixed with a born-again slant in his other work and on his equally horrific website. Other than the FOOB site, it’s one of the worst comic related things I’ve seen on the internet and well worth the checking out.

BTW, Gil Thorp for years was competently drawn and executed by the originator, whose name escapes (Berrill?), and it is now a freak show.

Pluggers can’t find time to read them good books between constant feeding and trips to the pawnshop.
alamo
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:31 pm [Reply]

now i may be looking at this wrong since i came in on the middle of the movie here but it appears from my pespective that there are four hands wrestling with spidey’s groin. that is some super power!
Richard Onley
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 pm [Reply]

#26: Squid Countess: A Plugger has Left Behind, its sequel, Right Behind, and between them, a perfect place to put that Gil Thorpe collection . . .

#35: Ibid: And you can change “boulevard of broken dreams” to “broken dams in mountain streams” without having to tinker with the rhymes!
Jonathan Bogart
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:40 pm [Reply]

35. Squid Countess:

Tony *shudder* Bennett’s? Oh good heavens no.

“The Boulevard of Broken Dreams” is a Harry Warren/Al Dubin number, written for the film Moulin Rouge in 1933. Though my favorite version has always been Marianne Faithfull’s, because she sounds like the worn-out prostitute who should sing the song.

I’d have said the strip it should soundtrack would be Funky Winkerbean, but now that I think about it, the song’s not quite dismal enough.
ohyes
January 24th, 2007 at 12:03 am [Reply]

MT: Dick now realizes the terrible truth: Mark Trail has had possession of and released each of those beavers. Mark had never bothered to to tell Dick that one of the beavers on Dick’s land Rusty regards as a pet. (Or that Mark had shaved that precious beaver while it squirmed and squealed, a delightful memory warming Mark’s um…) Mark’s know-it-all plan to catch-and-release the other beaver failed utterly. Now Mark offers to “come over and see what he can do?” Mark smirks as he hears Dick recognize that Mark has been playing him the whole time. The kids are afraid that Dick will kill Mark. But Mark is just gonna keep on playing him. “This time, let’s have you gather up the beaver droppings, Dick, and roll in it and smear it all on your clothes and then run into town, so they’ll follow you.”
GG
January 24th, 2007 at 12:11 am [Reply]

It seems that Mark is being fellated by his dog, which would explain the face.

The spatial dynamics of Gil Thorp make much more sense when you realize that Lisa’s mom is expressing her anger by performing an elbow drop onto her unfortunate neighbor’s face. The other people in the crowd are apparently used to this, judging by their expressions. Or maybe she’s just being pushed forward by that person who magically appeared behind her.

I’m guessing that Mary Jane hired these “thugs” (they’re secretly failed character actors) so Spiderman would actually have something to do and stop complaining. Lots of boring marital drama will ensue once he figures this out.

Also, when a question mark appears in Spiderman’s word balloon, he’s actually just saying “question mark.”
Detroit Diesel
January 24th, 2007 at 12:54 am [Reply]

FBoFW: Please do not laugh too hard at this loser’s testimonial; this is simply the worst and most pathetic FOOB Tube video EVAH!
Detroit Diesel
January 24th, 2007 at 12:56 am [Reply]

FBoFW: Please do not laugh too hard at this loserâ€™s testimonial; this is simply the worst and most pathetic FOOB Tube video EVAH!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J8d5AKQbCJI
suziederkins
January 24th, 2007 at 1:02 am [Reply]

I think I find this freaky chicken plugger even more disturbing than the usual dogbearperson. This lady chicken’s comb genuinely looks like a mowhawk of displaced (surgically attached?) big toes. In light of the artist’s aforementioned adeptness in drawing digits, I can only assume that the unfortunate creature posesses only two widely spaced, bulbous fingers on it’s left hand/wing. Clearly the botched genetic engineering expiriments that result in pluggers inevitably result in some physical and/or mental defects. If read with this interpretation in mind Pluggers almost starts to sort of make sense. Know what would make more sense? If the all strip was a subversive attempt to illustrate and warn the public about the evil potentials of scientific progress. Presented with the possibility of a real live plugger I would definitely rethink my stance on stem cell research.
By the way Josh, I think your conception of the plugger lifestyle is safe: There’s no guarantee of that book actually containing written words. It’s probably a pop-up.
reader-who-posts
January 24th, 2007 at 1:04 am [Reply]

#84: If that guy had mustache I would have thought it was Granthony come to life.
Cedar
January 24th, 2007 at 1:12 am [Reply]

I’m a little concerned about the direction Luann is taking. It seems Greg Evans desperately wants to do a very-serious-issues-based strip like Old FOOB or even Funky, but he doesn’t want to cause any controversy, or bore his fan base, so it just ends up being shallow, bizarre, and cartoony. I can’t imagine he could handle an adoption storyline with a lot of delicacy, especially the way yesterday’s strip was set up to look like the dude was Luann’s future love interest. And frankly, this new character just smacks of “How can I get an Iraqi War soldier in the strip? That would clearly show what a serious and relevant cartoonist I am.”
Shannon
January 24th, 2007 at 2:10 am [Reply]

I doubt that anything being read by a Plugger is a good book. It’s probably just the manual for their rusted out pick-up truck.
Lynngineering
January 24th, 2007 at 2:16 am [Reply]

The FOOB final phase conversion is underway – overnight, April is now calm, boring, and essentially her mother. How often does Lynn need to resort to opening a mouth in mock screams as fourth panel-worthy material?

And the banality of this week! It’s like she’s warning readers everywhere not to complain further about Anthony and Liz, or else you’ll get weeks on end like this when the strip goes to FOOB-FREEZE.

Just in case you didn’t get that it’s all back to Elly’s place as ultimate Mom, there had to be a panel with April throwing a little dig against Deanna’s Mom, who apparently just ‘threw’ Mike and Deanna’s stuff in the basement, rather than labored like the common worker they could have gotten – you know, their friends? Weed! Where are you hiding NOW!

They got their b**chy MOTHER to carry boxes to the basement?? They had to ask their mother, not even their father, but their mother to go down stairs with boxes? Most people would order it this way: Mom you take care of the kids for the day while we move the boxes and heavy stuff up and down the stairs to the basement.

So all that’s left in this disorder that April has to order, is to imagine what will she discover…….love letters from Mike’s past? His script? A contract he took out for his family to be wiped out by arson? Hm…
BobtheBuilder
January 24th, 2007 at 2:20 am [Reply]

Pluggers, they’re so silly, if only the comic was on the level of one-panels like “Far Side” at least. But for all it’s worth, I’ll bite: The point of the book would be that he has a smaller, porn magazine nestled inside. That passes in some way for “literate” I guess.
Uncle Lumpy
January 24th, 2007 at 2:25 am [Reply]

#89 Lynngineering -

Nice catch! Can’t be anything bad by Mike, though – saintly blood! Deanna’s Diary of Woe, or pills maybe?
Squid Countess
January 24th, 2007 at 2:40 am [Reply]

#80 – I think that version charted in 1934, from what I’ve read, not 1933. I mentioned Tony Bennett to let the youth know I was not referring to a Green Day song by the same title. But now your post makes me seem like “the youth.”
Vanya
January 24th, 2007 at 5:10 am [Reply]

Please people, the key to that Plugger cartoon is that she is female. What the cartoon is saying is “You’re a plugger if you are a middle aged woman married to an abusive husband who belittles and mocks your every attempt to broaden your intellectual horizons, and your father was the same way, and your teachers never took an interest in you because you were kind of fat and unattractive in school and clearly not college-bound so you ended up working as a hairdresser or in Walmart and stuck with three bratty kids, one of whom has a drug problem, but you manage to grab a few hours reading Oprah’s latest selection when hubby is out drinking, and you cherish those few hours of the week as the only time you really get to escape the tedium of the small mid-Western town you’ve been trapped in since childhood.”
Marion Delgado
January 24th, 2007 at 6:01 am [Reply]

Rick doesn’t really like the beaver, but he’ll put up with them for the joy of raising his kids.
Pozzo
January 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am [Reply]

Don’t worry, Josh. I’m sure anthromorphic Plugger chicken-lady (who looks like a reject from “Shoe”) is just looking at the pictures. (”Mmm — Coca-Cola cake.”)
Charlotte
January 24th, 2007 at 8:35 am [Reply]

FOOB: Perhaps we are being treated to the pet storyline in an effort to keep the comic at its normal G rating. I know that Warren is a cad, but Liz is coming off a big emotional down. I am imagining that Liz is having pick-me up sex in the back of the copter. We will pick up with her storyline once she is clothed, home and indignant once again.
JEdens
January 24th, 2007 at 8:42 am [Reply]

GT: Has anyone commented yet on Lisa bizarrely disproportionate head/body size ration yet?

She’s getting clobbered because the other team is responding to a primevial instict that the mutant child must be destroyed for the good of the tribe.
commodorejohn
January 24th, 2007 at 8:55 am [Reply]

I think the good Curmudgeonites have a serious misunderstanding of Pluggers. As I’ve always understood it, Pluggers aren’t the fat, drunken cousin-banging NASCAR-watchers who inhabit the southern United States, which seems to be the thrust of most of the Pluggers comments here; I think they’re actually 50-60-something Midwesterners like the kind of old people I grew up around. They’re the kind of people who attend rural Lutheran churches, not trailer-park Southern Baptist ones. Assuming I’m correct, they actually do find reading more enjoyable than TV, and not drivel like Left Behind either. (And they’re fat because Pluggers was created by Jeff MacNelly, who draws everyone portlier than normal.) So please, let’s have a little more respect for the frightening anthropomorphs.

Also, I think “?” is pronounced something like a quiet “Ua?”
Itazurakko!
January 24th, 2007 at 8:56 am [Reply]

>>93 Vanya

Right on. Pluggers are stuck, but they soldier bravely ON, humble souls that they are… they’re not worldly, would never dream of actually running away.

*bleah*
Smitty Smedlap
January 24th, 2007 at 9:22 am [Reply]

Why is the late Barbara Jordan calling a technical on the Lady Mudlarks?
Joe
January 24th, 2007 at 9:25 am [Reply]

What’s even more baffling about today’s Pete Spiderman is the fact that he seems so baffled by the response he got. Is the idea of some evil mastermind killing his own henchmen if they talk too much about his identity/whereabouts really that strange in Spiderman’s world? If so, he has an even more boring life than I have.
Krazy Kat
January 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am [Reply]

suziederkins
I think I find this freaky chicken plugger even more disturbing than the usual dogbearperson.

I’m going to start using “chicken plugger” as an epithet. Thanks for adding to my vocabulary!

Ex: “If that chicken plugger in the next cube doesn’t shutup I’m going over the wall”
Foobaphobe
January 24th, 2007 at 10:24 am [Reply]

I cannot tolerate the chicken headed pluggers. Are they the phantasms of women who have lost almost all their hair, or who have scrunched up their dwindling locks into little rubber-banded lumps or what? It just makes me sick. Can’t he stick with the fat bears and other chubby mammals? They’re dumb and lumpy, but they don’t give me nightmares.
Herro!
January 24th, 2007 at 10:33 am [Reply]

#93 I think you’ve hit the nail on the head…or if you were a Plugger husband, it would be: I think you’ve hit the bitch enough to shut ‘er up. :-)

Wait, that’s not funny. :-(
thunderheels
January 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am [Reply]

Rusty “nursed” the beaver back to health? Talented kid.
Dennis Jimenez
January 24th, 2007 at 10:44 am [Reply]

You’re a plugger if unzip your pants before you whiz is on you’re to-do list.
Lynngineering
January 24th, 2007 at 10:46 am [Reply]

#91 Uncle Lumpy – Deanna’s Diary of Woe it is:

Monday: Oh darn – I thought Mike wouldn’t get back after he decided to run back for his stupid old book, but he made it. On the other side, I met a nice fireman.

Wed: Still working on my mom’s heart condition. Today I told her to move all our boxes to the basement. When she started her usual complaining, I said the grandkids wanted HER to do it, because they love her so much, Ha ha. Foolish woman.

Thursday: We’re going to be stuck here at the in-laws. I got to thinking, I like having my own house. I like having their house.

Friday: That stupid cat of Elisabeth nerves me, so I crunched up some of my prescription and laced her food with it. Thought she would sleep, but she hasn’t stopped moving for two days. Then I heard Elly is mad because the cat’s on the kitchen cabinets again. It’s just a matter of time….

Saturday: Strange – my normally mild, safe father-in-law likes to play outside with electric trains, even if the weather was recently wet. That’s not safe is it….
Donald The Anarchist
January 24th, 2007 at 10:47 am [Reply]

SM Apparently supervillains are just too much trouble, so from now on, we’re going to get vintage 1930s ‘Dick Tracy’ villains, who will be distinguished from their henchman primarily by their level of deformity. Come to think of it, most superhero comics are just recycled Dick Tracy plots, with superpowers thrown into the mix.
Pozzo
January 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am [Reply]

In the mall parking lot the other day, I noticed some parking spots reserved for expectant mothers, next to the handicapped spots. I asked my wife, “What if you’re handicapped AND pregnant?” Then the answer came to me: you’re a character in Funky Winkerbean.
Foobaphobe
January 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am [Reply]

Between Foob’s Elly and Cathy’s Cathy, we have female cartoonists establishing the utter correctness of the old belief that women are continuously “hysterical.” The Elly arm flapping and pointless screeching and the constant Cathy “AAcks” seem to confirm the worst stereotypes of the olden days. Perhaps forced hysterectomies would indeed be a mercy.
Cornwhacker
January 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am [Reply]

107 Lynngineering: You do realize what will happen to FBorFW if John dies before the strip is frozen in time, right? It will become a strip about a widowed mother and her 3 useless adult kids. In other words, Momma.
Shlomo
January 24th, 2007 at 12:10 pm [Reply]

MT- Mark is so happy because his dick is being used as his dog’s chew toy.
Cornwhacker
January 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

I pretty much agree with commodorejohn’s perception of Pluggers. They’re the quiet, long suffering types, who secretly hope to be admired for All They’ve Been Put Through.

I bet a lot of Pluggers submissions aren’t based on the contributor’s personal experiences, but that of their parents, which is why so many are about old people. It’s a plugger kid’s way of saying “Thanks, Mom and Dad. I appreciate the sacrifices you made to raise me, and you nobly continue to plug on, with your prescription medicines or whatever the heck you do all day. Now I’m going to do you proud by getting name-checked in the funny pages.” And, passive-aggressively, they really want to see Mom drawn as a humongous chicken.

Speaking of which, the plugger pictured above is reading something from the Chicken Soup For the Soul series. And she does not see the irony.
King Folderol
January 24th, 2007 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

#112 – Damnit, Schlomo, you beat me to it. I guess the dog is really the one who beat us to it. Oh God, this is going to get worse than all that hokey beaver talk.

GT has so many problems that, yes, you could write a three-page essay about a three-panel comic strip. But I’ll focus on “Enthusiastic Mom you’ve got there, Lisa”…I guarantee you’ll never hear a 16 year old construct a sentence like that, ever, not even at the fanciest of finishing schools.

I think the ref in panel three is giving us all the “I’m a dyke” signal, which has nothing to do with the game, but is secret code for Lisa and her plans later this evening…

Pluggers – If by “reading” you mean “scanning the book for naughty parts so they can write bitter, grammatically bad letters to the editor” then, yes, Pluggers read all the time.
Dennis Jimenez
January 24th, 2007 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

You’re a plugger if you’re a corn wacker, not a corn hauler.
Cornwhacker
January 24th, 2007 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

Dang, sorry for recycling your joke, Kitty. That’ll teach me not to scroll past the second comment.
Cornwhacker
January 24th, 2007 at 12:25 pm [Reply]

Dennis:Did you just call me a plugger? ‘Cause, y’know, them’s fightin’ words.
John E
January 24th, 2007 at 12:40 pm [Reply]

“The kids are worried about what I might do” would raise an alarm in the mind of an adult living in the real world (as opposed to Mark Trail’s nature-addled bubbleland), which only makes Mark’s expression that much creepier.
MrP
January 24th, 2007 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

Don’t let yourself be fooled by Pluggers. Instead, look at the signs. The bears and dogs have been replaced by a chicken. The chicken’s concerned about old age and reading books. Soon, we’re going to have Plugger jokes about how you know you’re a Plugger if you always clean out the Spam box in your E-mail account before you read any of your useful mail. And then you’ll have the joke about how you know you’re a Plugger if your boss is stupid. And you know where we’re at then? Dilbert. And there’s no way back.
TuffyTheTuna
January 24th, 2007 at 1:32 pm [Reply]

(DT)GT: Panel two confirmed my earlier suspicions – Lisa’s mom is actually the beloved radio and early television sitcom star, Ms. Eve Arden.
Cedar
January 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

My mom lives in a small town with a fairly conservative newspaper. Like me, she loathes Anthony from FOOB, and generally hates the direction the strip has taken, but because of some emotional investment in the earlier days of the strip, continues to read it. She called me yesterday, asking, “Well? What happened in [FOOB] this week?!” The comics runs in her local paper, so i asked why she didn’t read it herself. She said, “They’re running these stupid rerun strips with Elly and the pets, so I figured something juicy must have happened, and our paper refused to run them.” Imagine her disappointment to realize that, no, everyone across the country is actually stuck reading the adventures of the pets. Stupid Lynn.
commodorejohn
January 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

I nominate #111 for COTW.
Potato
January 24th, 2007 at 1:38 pm [Reply]

Guys, obviously the ref is turning into a werewolf. Look at the hair on the hand and the claws. Also note the angle the hands are entering the frame at. Her arms must have lengthened for quadrapedal walking. This is just another Gil Thorp/monster crossover in the vein of Gil Thorp Meets the Mummy and Gil Thorp and the bride of Frankenstein Take on the Harlem Globetrotters.
nsr
January 24th, 2007 at 1:48 pm [Reply]

Nice to see Julia Sweeney’s “Pat” getting work as the Ref in Gil Thorp.
Craigers
January 24th, 2007 at 2:00 pm [Reply]

I think the ref in panel three is giving us all the â€œIâ€™m a dykeâ€ signal, which has nothing to do with the game, but is secret code for Lisa and her plans later this eveningâ€¦

The internationally accepted lesbian signal actually would require to put those two open-palm hands side by side and waggle her tongue between them, but close enough.
bchurch
January 24th, 2007 at 5:32 pm [Reply]

Sweet Lord, what is wrong with that referee’s left arm? Her shoulder is relaxed, and yet somehow her hand is emerging from the bottom of the panel. Either the ref’s arms are 5 feet long, or Lisa’s mom has ripped off the ref’s forearm, and is preparing to club her with it.
Jason
January 24th, 2007 at 5:46 pm [Reply]

I’m most amazed by the fact that Arthur Ashe has returned from the dead to referee the Milford vs. Goshen game. When you die, you become an expert on a completely different sport.
PeteMoss
January 24th, 2007 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

#126 Check out the coaches freaky little arm in today’s panel 1 of GT. Her hand is still normal size. Milford definitely hires the specially-abled.
Harold
January 24th, 2007 at 5:56 pm [Reply]

#113 Cornwhacker – if your theory of Plugger contributors is correct, then this may explain why contributions often come from distinctly non-Plugger terrirory – sometimes downright affluent locations.

You’re a Plugger if you have toiled and sacrificed so your kids could have a better life – and all the thanks and recognition you get is to be represented in a one-panel comic by an obese bear, dog, rhinoceros, or chicken.
Plunk Your Magic Twanger
January 24th, 2007 at 6:29 pm [Reply]

I wonder how many suicides have been caused by Funky Winkerbean’s unblinking portrayal of how bleak and meaningless our lives are? Today’s will suck the joy out of your life as thoroughly and efficiently as Liz drew in Warren’s man-juice.
Prehumous
January 24th, 2007 at 9:09 pm [Reply]

130 — the answer to your question is 394, not counting the ‘DafunkwinkundsÃ¼ch’ Massacre of ‘97, when three masked gunmen ran into a cartoonists’ convention and opened fire, killing four people and injuring twenty others before shoot themselves in the mouth and screaming, “Funky Winkerbean SUCKS!” [though not in that order].
Bitter Scribe
January 24th, 2007 at 9:22 pm [Reply]

Pluggers reminds me of a joke from the pilot of Cheers:

Sam (to Coach): How’re you coming with that novel of yours?

Coach: Almost finished.

Diane (incredulous): You’re writing a novel?

Coach: No, trying to read one.
Jennifer
January 24th, 2007 at 10:00 pm [Reply]

#75 Hambone
My sources tell me Sony is pushing back the production of Crankshaft the movie because Dick Cheney has signed on to play the lead.

And he can’t do THAT until he’s fulfilled his contractual obligation to play “The Penguin” in the next Batman film. I look forward to the many, many scenes of villain-beating. Many…
Mam'zelle Hepzibah
January 25th, 2007 at 12:35 am [Reply]

Actually, Mark’s face in the last panel is alarmingly like that of the crazed pedophile in Little Children.
defrosted
January 25th, 2007 at 12:47 am [Reply]

I HATE the lettering in Gil Thorp; it’s so unnaturally W I D E .
Soujin
January 25th, 2007 at 12:51 am [Reply]

Dude. The plugger chicken is missing approximately two fingers on each hand. There are four stubby little finger-shaped blobs on its head. I think we have just witnessed a horrifying Satanical rite, drawn in our own pure and godly newspapers.

Somebody fetch my smelling salts.
nancysluggo4ever
January 25th, 2007 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

Okay, I’ve had to skim through today’s replies because I despise Pluggers so much that I can’t even stand to read hilarious jabs at said panel, so sorry if somebody has already brought this up but…..

(DT)GT….I’m no fan of high school basketball, but don’t high school games have two halves instead of four quarters??????
Mike Trail
January 26th, 2007 at 9:52 am [Reply]

Dick …the beaver?

That is so funny…or is it only just funny to me?
Lee
January 26th, 2007 at 6:38 pm [Reply]

The “Plugged Nickel” is the name of a prominent gay bar here in Ohio; perhaps this weeks spiderman really was an extended gay pirate joke!
nemoErensenuT
February 9th, 2008 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

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Oh, Mark Trail, you know I didn’t mean it

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