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Pluggers, 11/16/24

Big news for people tired of reading my typed words and interested in hearing my voice: if you fall into that category and you are subscriber to the 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back podcast from Conor Lastowka and Mike Nelson of Rifftrax fame, you can listen to me trying to solve an Encyclopedia Brown mystery and, of course, talkin’ Slylock Fox, Encyclopedia Brown’s spiritual cousin in ratiocination, but with furries. “But, Josh,” you’re no doubt saying, “This isn’t a Slylock strip, it’s a Pluggers panel, an entirely different cartoon! Yes, they both feature unsettling human-animal hybrids, but the vibes are totally different! Slylock’s all unsettlingly amped up, while Pluggers is slow, desultory, depressing, fading slowly into nothingness but never quite getting there.” Well, what if I told you that the Encyclopedia Brown mystery we discuss involves a kid who’s a toilet paper collector? It does, and I’m sorry, this plugger clearly owns a “collection” rather than a “stash.” Each roll is lovingly displayed and meant to be examined again and again at leisure by this dog man and whatever weirdos he invites over to look at them. Real sicko stuff, in my opinion!

Hi and Lois, 11/16/24

I was briefly going to suggest that it would be funnier, or at least closer in structure to a “joke”, if Thirsty were just on his side of the fence here, basking in the stolen glow of his neighbors’ fire from his own yard. But I forgot that we’re in the bold new post-punchline era of Hi and Lois and I’m actually pretty OK with the offering we have here, where it’s clear that Thirsty has openly come onto the Flagstons’ property and lit a fire, and they’re standing at the window fretting about what if anything to do about it.

Shoe, 11/16/24

“Soon afterwards, he died of massive internal injuries. He was 56. Rest in power, Mr. Schwartz.”