Their cruel, vicious hoots echo through the arena
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Pluggers, 2/26/25
I’ve been reading and making fun of Pluggers for nearly 20 years now, and over that time I have against my will acquired a certain amount of information about the individual beast-people who make up the cast. For my sins, I know that the cat-man plugger’s name is Claude, and somewhere in the back of my mind I have it that he’s supposed to be the intellectual of this bunch, although I can’t really find evidence to that effect in my archives; instead there’s just the usual stuff about how he has more prescriptions than friends and his underpants are constantly on the verge of falling off. But what I’m definitely sure of is that he doesn’t have a wife. There are only a few she-pluggers in this strip — the chicken-lady, the kangaroo-lady, and I think a dog-lady? — and none of them are with Claude. Reading the horoscopes in order to find out whether your pretend wife is going to be in a bad mood is a pretty baroque little fantasy, I have to admit. Maybe I was right about him being an intellectual, or at least profoundly neurotic, which is kind of the same thing if you think about it.
Six Chix, 2/26/25
I guess the joke is that this guy is the husband/partner/babydaddy of the pregnant woman, but honestly I think it’s even funnier if you assume he’s just wandering through this medical facility hoping to horn in on someone else’s sonogram session. “Hey, lady, since you got that thing lubed up already, d’you mind checking out my digestive situation? I need to know when I’m gonna have to shit, I’m trying to plan the rest of my afternoon.” (Anyway, sorry about all that, I know it was gross, but it’s not even close to the grossest sonogram-themed Six Chix I’ve discussed on this blog.)
Dick Tracy, 2/26/25
For too long Dick Tracy has focused on hideous mutant criminals and their violent interactions with law enforcement. I’m excited that this storyline is going in a different direction. What if there were two nephews who sucked? Just terrible, incompetent nephews? Nobody in the history of literature has dared to ask this question … until now.
Gil Thorp, 2/26/25
Hey, remember when they suspended Marty Moon for being drunk all the time? Well, I don’t care how sober the person they replaced him with is, they need to stop saying “tonight” at the end of every sentence. And they should be talking more about owls! Poor Leo Atazhoon has been on the receiving end of a vicious owl attack! We don’t have time for Rodney’s ongoing drama, the birds are finally rising up against us!
136 replies to “Their cruel, vicious hoots echo through the arena”
6C: Does that man have a happy trail? Did we really get our first depiction of pubic hair on the funny pages from a Six Chix comic about constipation? Maybe culture really IS in decline.
DT: Sounds like someone’s never read a Scrooge McDuck comic.
GT:
“This game is for the birds. So to speak.”
If they’d close the doors to the gym, the owls wouldn’t get in in the first place.
MW-The past is only bad if you remember it that way.
MW-Dawn will blindly throw herself at another abusive person.
FC-“Bring that hot nurse of yours back in here and you can see how good my reflexes are.”
DT:
Are the cherished nephews fighting over a jar of dills? — that’s not kosher!
@Pozzo:
If they’d close the doors to the gym, the owls wouldn’t get in in the first place.
Probably a rule from the woke fire department.
Chix (sic)/FC: Adult Jeff comics crossover?
Pluggers only see the fortunes of others through the prism of how it will affect them. Sociopathy-lite!
RxMD: You know, in any other strip, even Mark Trail, he would have been landing on pavement outside hard. Meticulous in eviction doesn’t suit storytelling.
MT: Yeah, that’s not gonna come back and bite them as they get lost in the woods.
JP: She doesn’t realize. For Sophie, it was a Tuesday.
When will Claude be hauled before the Hague to answer for his many crimes during WWII?
GT: Budget cuts have hit Milford hard. No bleachers for spectators as Barnes sits on the middle rail of a stockade fence.
@Doghouse Reilly (Minneapolis): I think that’s what his wife’s horoscope is warning him about. “Today will be beset by difficulties, but relief may come from an unexpected source. Also Interpol will kick in your husband’s door and drag him off to be extraordinary renditioned at 10 AM sharp.”
BG&SS: Snuffy’s Maw is in her element. There are only so many ways to passive-aggressively remind a daughter-in-law she’s not good enough when it comes to loading a dishwasher or clothes dryer.
Pluggers – Don’t come around tonight; Cuz it bound to take your life….
6-C – He could have said something funny – maybe like, that reminds me – I really need to replace my wiper blades….
DT – How many days can you hold in your hand? Not too many, I’d think. Unless maybe you’re Andre’ the Giant, or something….
GT – GAH*
*Get Away Handsy
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: If that is the lesson Dawn learns, she’s going to have to marry Wilbur…
RMMD: “…the easy way or the hard way.” To diffuse the situation, the security guard tries some BiFi.
Okay, new pitch for a Dick Tracy spinoff comic: Those two sucky nephews trying and failing endlessly to open a jar of pickles, wrestling with it, themselves, and each other, often in bizarre and contorted positions. They could travel from place to place, entering and exiting stories and situations we never fully see, because our attention is focused rightly on their attempts to open this fucking jar like a goddamn pickle-based Sisyphus. Sometimes they affect those situations or are affected by them, and sometimes they just drift through them without anything changing, like leaves on the wind.
JP: is Sophie still seeing that counselor? She should be.
JP: Is Sophie’s middle name Karen?
GT – Kind of reminds me of how in election night coverage, every sentence ends with “at this hour.”
“Let’s have a look at the exit polls at this hour.” “Giant douche is up by 2% in Texas at this hour.” “Turd Sandwich leading in the Blue Wall states at this hour.”
What *other* f*cking hour would you be reporting on in your live election coverage??? I yell back at my screen!
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. The owls are not making life easier for Atazhoon tonight.”
Pluggers: Of course Claude Cat is distressed at reading his wife’s horoscope. It says: “Today is a good day to strike up a new romance with someone who has a middle finger on both hands.”
@Doctor Moreau: Legit chortle out loud.
Chix (sic): That sonogram pic only makes sense if Uranus and Gaea are preparing for the birth of Pangea .
Gotta disagree with you, Josh. Red’s exposed carpet-matching-the-drapes belly hair vaults this episode into the grossest Six Chix spot automatically.
6C – TF is a “lunch bun?”
Six Chics: Making a lot of assumptions about the person in this comic. Why do we not consider that this is actually a pregnant woman with twins? Zhe has the linea nigra the dark line that appears on the abdomen during pregnancy. I think we need to all check our heteronormative assumptions.
(Now, you can decide whether this post is meant to be a joke or not.)
@Bob Tice:
I thought they were just struggling to open the jar…
Isn’t that standard fare for a pluggers comic?
JP – “Reesa?” Oops! Looks like Ces forgot the name of a major character’s dark-skinned friend. Again.
RMMD: what is Douchebag’s problem? Is there something he doesn’t understand? I hope he gets the beating he wants. Then I remind myself that this is just a comic strip.
Gil Thorp: Give a hoot, outshoot the Owls! Seriously, you’re going to need this shotgun if you want to make that three.
@The Fembot: I’ll give it to you as a joke. I know how difficult it is to be a Fembot in a Manputer’s world.
Pisces: You will come into a nice insurance settlement. That solo adventure to Greece you’ve been planning will be everything you’ve hoped for and more.
@The Fembot: You’d have to assume Zhe got pregnant by swallowing; I don’t think it works that way.
RMMD: I’m not a stalker so I don’t speaker but I think it would have been wise for DB to stop at the apology and take it to the next level another time.
RMMD – Chinbeard would have been better off doing a Dirk Power Flounce. Now he’s gonna get his ass kicked and I am here for it.
Pluggers: Against his better judgment, Rick McKee uses the cat avatar at the insistence of contributor, Tom “My furry name is Meowsers” Calvert.
“D’oh! That bastard would have to remind everyone that Claude is single.”
Pluggers – For Pluggers I just assume the cast of characters are a troupe of actors from an improv group who got hired to star in a series of short vignettes sent in from readers. They are actually big city dwelling thespians with fancy art degrees and a relatively middle-class status thanks to regular work in the comics. It’s no Peanuts (in comic strip actor world, the phrase “working for Peanuts” had the opposite meaning than for us), but anything that keeps you employed, and not in the political cartoons, is a win for many of them.
Anyway, Claude has a wife, but she works outside the industry.
Six Chix – Suddenly the expectant mother recognizes the gravity of her situation: She is giving birth to a moron’s baby.
Dick Tracy – Nice to see a long-running strip be willing to experiment with their format. The success of Knives Out has shown an appetite for comedic detective works, and perhaps a darkly comedic take on the Dick Tracy mythos could help it translate to the screen, once Warren Beatty kicks the bucket and the syndicate gets the TV and film rights back.
Gil Thorp – In recognition for his many years covering Gil Thorp, Josh will get a columnist gig covering sports announcing in the comics from the long-running sports blog AwfulAnnouncing.com
Dick Tracy isn’t technically a funny comic strip but I have to hand it to the creative team. Seeing the two nephews wrasslin’ a pickle jar is so solid, it’s reintroduced ‘wrassling’ to my vocabulary!
Fun to say, too. Wrassling’! I’m genuinely grateful!
Pluggers: Claude is a proud man-cat, not a cat-man! He’s a person first, predatory, nocturnal, obligate carnivore second! Just don’t look into those holes he’s been digging in his cellar, please and thank you.
Perhaps Marty is playing a drinking game where he does a shot every time the word “tonight” is uttered. Nobody told him it doesn’t count if he says it himself, because, well, nobody else is playing. Tonight!
FC: The doctor imagines the medical journal article he’ll write about this kid who is the size of a newborn. “Wonder when I can do the dissection,” he ponders.
DT: The nephews’ names are Don Jr. and Eric, aren’t they?
CS: Heh heh heh, Oh, Crankshaft, you irascible wag! It must be difficult to drive a bus with that stick up your ass all the time.
RMMD: [Security guard thought balloon] “Man, I don’t get paid enough for this shit. I’m calling a real cop.”
MW: Dawn wants her painful lessons to come without any pain. Doesn’t Get It factor 8.
Frazz: “Kid, don’t you have any kid friends you can talk about trash with? I’m trying to empty trash here.”
JP: Oh look, it’s Reesa and Sappho.
Pluggers: Such as when Homer Simpson reads his horoscope “You are going to die”
Marge then reads hers “Your husband is going to die”
“Those are some truly Superb Owls out there tonight and . . . just a moment . . . folks, we’re being shut down by the NFL for copyright infringement.”
@Cleveland Mocks:
JP: Oh look, it’s Reesa and Sappho.
Sappho is going to eat Reesa’s peanut butter cup, isn’t she?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: No kidding. The nausea-inducing sight of this guy’s abdominal hair makes me question the accuracy of the term “happy trail.”
@Craig!: I would like that, like that prudish old lady in Bob’s Burgers, who after her introductory episode, more often than not, shows up in an episode when something lewd is happening, just to say “Filth!” then immediately leaves.
DT – This is an extremely on-the-nose way of illustrating that if Horace’s fiendish plan doesn’t work, they’re going to be in a pickle.
GT – Aw, let poor Barnes play! Look how perfectly he sharpened his knees just for the big game!
Also not making life easier, in panel 2: They’re trying to shoot hoops with a rugby ball.
@astroboy: “Lunch buns.” “Lunch buns.” “Lunch buns.” Nope. It doesn’t sound right no matter how you say it.
DT: There’s been a morgue theft and a dead body in the park, and yet somehow these two chuckleheads trying to open a pickle jar is the most interesting thing to happen in this story so far.
GT: In Milford, winning the game comes second to your players learning Important Life Lessons.
Pluggers: Is it too much to hope that Claude’s last name is Bahls?
Don Abundio, translated:
“Take a coin, pal”
“I didn’t think you were the type to give money to beggars”
“I’m not, but this is a special case”
“He’s the Employee of the Month in one of my fulfillment centers!”
[Sign: HOMELESS SHELTER]
GT – If that’s Leo Atazhoon in the red in the second panel, I’m going to assume the Owls are responsible for the extra joint he’s suddenly developed in his upper arm…
@TheDiva: I always thought the term was “crab ladder.”
BCN: No lies detected…
C’shaft: How does doubling the bus runs solve the driver shortage?
JP: Not wanting to deal with the results of your success is such a Parker-Spencer-Driver problem.
Luann: Well, you can’t have everything.
MW: The past is the least of your obstacles there, Dawn. There’s also your personality, your appallingly low intellect, your creepy father….
RMMD: “I’m warning you, if you don’t leave I might have to ask you even more firmly!”
Dick Tracy… Horace and Angry Woman’s “cherished nephews” are based on Don Jr and Eric Trump, aren’t they?
Some days Six Chix makes me squint my eyes every so slightly, scroll til the word balloons aren’t visible, and imagine I’m reading SMBC.
Today is among the foremost of those days.
Pluggers: On my desktop screen, I could only see that today’s first comic strip was Pluggers, and the character was saying “this can’t be good.” I immediately agreed, and skipped to the next strip.
Luann: This is how you play to your hate-readers: have your most detestable characters ask questions the snarkers are eager to answer. Luann shouldn’t have stopped after saying the words “great advice”, but rather “no, and no one.”
MW: See? This strip would be way more fun if Dawn was asking what she deserves, rather than smugly announcing it for the fifth time. I never thought Greg Evans would be giving Karen Moy lessons on how to play to the snarkers, but here we are.
CS: If there really was a bus driver shortage, Ed and his buddies would realize they’re irreplaceable, and free to screw around even more than usual. A good writer would realize this as a great opportunity to escalate the hijinks. But I’m not a Pulitzer-nominated writer like Tom Batiuk is, so what do I know?
GT: Yesterday we were at a horse ranch learning about prey animals, and today we’re in the middle of last week’s high school basketball game where everyone was freezing out the egotistical kid.
@Philip: re Pluggers: While I don’t deal with these grotesque hybrids, I am familiar with their culture. And you’re right, they are all actors who’ve found their niche genre, Pluggercore. Claude does have a wife, actually another player you’re familiar with – she plays Cassandra Cat in Slylock Fox! They obviously have to keep it on the down low – since Cassandra’s character is supposed to be a femme fatale
harlotglamour girl and must be single. So Claude is consigned to a bachelor role for convention’s sake. That was a slip up today.GT: Wait, what happened to “Silver”?? Was he gettin’ too much panel time and outshining the two-legger dummies? Hey, Intern, why don’t you get over there with a contract for him to review… and check out the Owl talent while you’re there..
MW: Moy make it stop PLEASE we get it move on
RM: Oh yeah? Yeah! Oh Yeah? Yeah! (repeat ad nauseam). Who’s writing this, Moy?
Plug: Is Claude’s last name Baddeley? Well, it ought to be. In other Plug-related news, I sent in an idea today, dealing with deodorant. Watch and see when it’s printed!
Hi and Lois – That’s what you get for bathing the kid in blue paint.
@TheDiva: I knew a newspaper reporter named Claude Peck.
GT: Milford’s gonna lose this game….tonight.
Yeah. Milford’s gonna lose this game…tonight.
DT: Any competent manager knows that two incompetent jerks can only open half the number of pickle jars that one incompetent jerk can.
Beetle Bailey: You might be thinking why doesn’t he just have his old Super-8 films converted to digital? well there’s a lot of things he did that he could still be brought up on charges for decades later and it’s safer to keep them on this antiquated format.
Zits: Just have AI do it already, there is no reason for anyone to ever need to read a book ever again.
Hi and Lois: I would be much more concerned about why her bath water has suddenly turned black.
The Cat Plugger is the author of that best-selling novel The Revenge of the Tiger, Claude Balls.
GT: Leo’s problems with owls go back a long way, earning him his team nickname, “Lord Sepulchrave.” Hey, it’s easier to pronounce than “Atazhoon.” PS: The owls are not what they seem.
JP: Ces got Reena’s name wrong. The letterer didn’t notice. The artist didn’t notice. The colorist didn’t notice. The editor didn’t notice. I think we are the only people who are actually reading this strip.
FG: With a mighty bound, Flash Gordon was free!
Phantom: I’ve been thinking this the entire week of letter-reading, but “artless” is a far more gentle adjective than I would have used.
MW: Brigman, when a character makes a statement this portentious, you should take special care not to screw up their face. Dawn looks like one of Picasso’s young ladies of Avignon here.
Dick Tracy: “The Hardy boys in: The Impermeable Pickle Jar Mystery”. Then again, judging by their Dean Venture-esque mustaches, maybe the Hardys have been imperfectly cloned by some mastermind, Frank 2 and Joe 2’s degrading brains suited only for incompetent thuggery and fighting over snacks.
FC – The doctor is wearing a Ben Casey shirt from 1962.
I wonder if Jef Keane has been in a doctor’s office recently, but the more likely explanation is that it’s too much of a bother to white out the collar and draw a white coat over the shirt. Those golf balls won’t hit themselves.
JP – For my next impression – Diana Ross! Stop in the name of love…
Mary Worth – Okay, we get it. Make it stop. Move on to praise for Mary and Mary’s victory lap.
@oldgold: Sophie is always entitled, but today she’s just whiny instead of pushy. However, if she demands to speak to the manager…
@astroboy: “Power Flounce” is perfect.
Is
FC: Jeffy then proceeds to soil himself. (Sorry, but is there any other way this could possibly go?)
FC; This is a veterinarian paid off to neuter him, tomorrow he’ll be wearing a cone around his neck.
@richardf8: “Soph” has entered her Jar Jar Binks phase.
It must be. This is one of those bestselling books (“Cat’s Revenge” by Claude Bahls) along with page-turners like “Yellow River” by I. P. Dailey.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: And oversnark apologies to Uke Ike who was already all over that one.
JP – That really is Reesa, flat-chested sister to Reena.
I think Frank and Joe are warming up for a circlejerk they’ll have that night with Chet and Biff and the rest of the chums. They’re hoping Iola and Callie will join them, but more likely it will be Aunt Gertrude walking in on them.
My turn in the box:
lvlax about 10 hours ago
Looking Good, Luann! I like the outfit!
Yes, be confident, be yourself, and most of all Have Fun!
.
Whatever you do… don’t go bowling after having the ice cream. ;)
So is Bernice turning over a new leaf and (gasp!) actually becoming a good friend again??
Hello Everyone about 10 hours ago
Do many women wear comfy shoes on date? Most young women I know want their shoes to look pretty, Comfy is barely a consideration.
mnexplorer+ about 10 hours ago
Yuppers!
Wrapping up with the insights of our Alpha Incel:
Mordock999 Premium Member about 8 hours ago
Lu?
To quote the start of a Tik-Tok video by the Rockettes from late last year: “And 5, 6, BELIEVE in yourself!”
And stop asking what Bernice “thinks.” ;-)
@Peanut Gallery: Words cannot describe the psychic damage done to me by the phrase “lunch buns.” They are, without a doubt, the preferred delicacy to eat while listening to roots country on a solo car date.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: No curves on either co-ed at ALL. You’d think Manley would strive for some consistency, as the T&A is what keeps most of us from flitting straight over JP every day.
It’s nice to have confirmation that these two are enrolled at NYU. Someone here referred to Sophie as a Barnard student a while back, which would make more sense for this toffee-nosed little genius, but I was certain they were wandering around Greenwich Village and the Barnard/Columbia neighborhood is a long subway ride away.
Hmmmmm, getting close to noon. Guess I’ll stroll down to the avenue and pick up a couple of lunch buns.
@Ukulele Ike: Leo’s problems with owls go back a long way…. Lord Sepulchrave
Deep Gormenghast cut!
@Cartoon Moon Pedant: Hee hee hee. I KNEW I couldn’t be the only Peake Freak here.
Six Chix: “I think I’m going to fart and it’ll be baby’s first smell. Can’t exactly see that in a photo book.”
Somehow I never noticed the Pluggers email address before.
You’re a Plugger if you saved up so many of those free 700 minutes of AOL CDs from the nineties that you’re still using their email service in 2025.
I mean, honestly, no one will beat that. The artist should just retire and enjoy being King of the Pluggers before the inevitable heart attack at the Old Country Buffet happens.
@Old Man Shadow: I’m still using the AOL address I got in 1991 before they changed from a walled garden to an actual email service. The spambots love it!
Pluggers – This is all predicated on a Plugger knowing his wife’s birthday. I hate to trot out that old, tired trope, but let’s be honest, it exists for a reason.
I’m glad Dick Tracy’s writers didn’t feel the need to show the nephews killing noted crime figure Pickle Jar Head.
Gil Thorp: If you happen to watch any TV network’s evening newscast, you’ll notice that the anchor also says “tonight” at the end of every sentence — it’s their awkward way of suggesting that each piece of news is fresh and urgent, even though it might actually have happened at any time over the last 24 hours (while more immediate updates are available anywhere on the internet). It may seem unnecessary, and even silly, to do that while announcing a school sporting event in real time — but considering that most of the audience probably consists of bored family members who are listening to Joe Rogan or scrolling Instagram at the same time, I guess it makes sense to do anything you can to keep their attention.
Pluggers: The closeted Plugger has been making up an elaborate backstory about his make-believe wife for so long, he has started following her horoscope.
FG:. Josh spoke of the disappointment of time meddling, but I think this week’s real bummer is the disappointment of space age punishment. What, they’re still sending prisoners to soften up at work camps? Circa 1917?
DOONESBURY:. Isn’t this the arc where Walden football team recognizes Biopsie’s incompetence so take it on themselves to start winning? Yay, personal responsibility.
FRAZZ:. Kids finally win. She made me giggle.
JP: don’t accept the congrats or thanks, Sophie, or they’ll be putting you in law school. Trust me, that’s no place for a free thinker.
SC: Listen son, enough with this fake jokes about being a man worried about his lunch! You have a self-directed MPreg fetish! It’s okay! I mean, it’s totally NOT okay, but you have tons of Omegaversa literature and art to satisfy you without bothering doctors and pregnant ladies!
A real wife could not be influenced by a fake science like astrology, but a fake wife can! Thus, imagining a wife and its astral chart is totally normal and not pathetic, QED!
“The owls are not making life easier for Atazhoon tonight”
“Who? Who?”
“Exactly!”
@Anonymous:
#73. FC:. He’d better get Sid to represent him … FAST. Or am I thinking of Rhymes with Orange.
One of Josh’s everlasting claim to fame is having created the term Nephewism, for when a nephew or niece is spontaneously generated without the presence of the character’s brother or sister. This can have pro-social effects, giving bachelor men and women a sense of responsibility, like in “Nancy” and “Shoe”, but also anti-social effects, like providing free, expendable manpower to criminal bosses, like in “Dick Tracy”. Whatever its effects, I think we can all agree with the ultimate goal of Nephewism: not having to think about the weirdos in the funnies page having unprotected sex
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18 Unbe-leaf-ably Funny Comics All Plant Parents Can Relate To
You’re a Plugger if you open the horoscope page and think “This can’t be good!”
You’re a Curmudgeon commenter if you open the comics page and think “This can’t be good!”
You’re an inhabitant of the Western world if you open any page of the newspaper and think “This can’t be good!”
love is… suddenly realizing what the Pocket Gods do in their pockets that sends them to heaven.
@Activist: re: FG: Mongo may have rocket ships and anti-gravity tech, but they still do most of their fighting with sticks and swords. This is an alien culture, not a future Earth, a la Buck Rogers.
Crock Spanish to English.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
MW: “You’re a STRONG young woman…you’ll be OKAY!”
We *are* talking about Dawn, aren’t we??? Dawn Weston? *That* Dawn??
The sudden occurrences of elephant stampedes, cetacean stranding and erratic deep-sea submarine activity around the world are caused by the ultra low frequency sounds emanating from my larynx upon reading this nonsense.
For Better or Worse: Okay, I know she is just rehashing her entire storyline rather than create something new (our local paper said, “No thanks,” and dumped the strip.)
And her husband told her, “Sorry, I want a divorce,” but his being the dimwit a**hole every single time gets boring.
I only looked at it today out of curiosity. My curiosity was satisfied, but clearly she isn’t.
A job is a job. If proclaiming your misery is what pays the bills, then you’ll keep grinding that axe until it turns into sparkly dust.
“This can’t be good. Jupiter is ascendant on the cusp of Sagittarius as the moon descends through Taurus, and my wife believes in astrology. I think my horoscope for today is to find a divorce lawyer.”
@104 Daisy:
Oh, you’re talking about this.
The phrase lunch buns in my oven is a metaphor, but for what? I’m not sure, but I’m thinking something about gerbils and Philadelphia newscasters, and I’d much rather not be thinking about that.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: “Looking Good, Luann! I like the outfit!”
Yeah, nice outfit — for a 38-year-old youth pastor at the local Presbyterian church.
6C, FC: So apparently it’s Ask a Non-Gastroenterologist Doctor To Check Out Your Digestive System Day in the comics. At least the guy in Six Chix has something vaguely approaching a medical issue. Jeffy’s just really proud of the noises his body makes!
C&H: I checked when this first came out and, sadly, it was 1995, so Watterson didn’t predict the collapse of the comic book speculator bubble, but he did document it, which is something.
Crank: Okay, firstly, I ran a websearch in case I was the one missing something and a split schoolday really is a sensible solution to a bus driver shortage that people have proposed. All I found was a Florida newspaper from 2020 saying a split schoolday had been proposed to help with social distancing, but was controversial because it would put additional strain on the buses. Which makes sense to me; even if you split the kids by area, so there’s two short routes with little overlap, that’s still four runs instead of two!
Secondly, I’m pretty sure that if you do arrange a split schoolday, you tell the parents in advance, and don’t just have the kids suddenly back home at lunchtime. What about the parents whose kids are on the afternoon shift? Is the first they hear about it going to be when the bus doesn’t show up? The parents on Crankshaft’s route won’t even notice the difference!
EC: From the medium that brought you “Mary Worth tackles negging, but has to make it really obvious, even though that makes the victim look like an idiot, because they have no faith in their readers’ ability to pick up what’s going on otherwise” comes “Edge City tackles cold reading, but…”
Phantom: I’ve never been entirely clear what Kyabje Dorje is teaching Kit, exactly, but today we learn that it hasn’t been how to talk to the ladies, and he now realises this was an oversight on his part.
Pluggers, meta: Re: Josh thinking of Claude as the intellectual of the Pluggers set, there’s this strip, where he says Claude “tends to be an outsider in the world of pluggerdom” because “[c]ats are a species that are always suspect when it comes to Real American Authenticity”, which isn’t quite the same thing, but at least hints at it. I thought there was a more direct one as well, but I can’t find it either.
RMMD: I don’t know how Beatty is making a confrontation between a security guard and a stalker boring, but he’s managing it!
Zits: Honestly, Jeremy, if you get points for being snarky about Walden, that’s pretty lame stuff. Talk about how while Thoreau was rhapsodising about self-reliance, he was also sending all his laundry to his mother’s house for her to deal with. (Actually, come to think of it, Jeremy probably doesn’t see the issue there. Connie does.)
(Disclaimer: I don’t know if this is a fair criticism or not, because I’ve never actually read Walden, but I do know it’s one people have made, and it fits so neatly into the dynamics of the Duncan household that I had to mention it.)
@White Rabbit: Hope Plugger Central takes up your idea!
I’m pretty sure they rejected my last submission, “If you can field dress your victim, you’re a plugger serial killer”.
I’d also like to know how many of the submissions they get are real, and how many are fake, like the Yale to Ann Landers pipeline.
@Bob Tice: “This game is for the birds. So to speak.”
________________________________
“……….Tonight.”
@110 Horace Broon:
Split schooldays are used for other things.
When I was a junior in high school there was a teacher strike so there was a shortage of teachers. They called in all the substitute teachers and had a split schoolday. This went on for about three months. My new chemistry teacher was an Eskimo, unusual for Florida. We called him Mr. Quinn. He was actually a very good teacher.
@Sequitur: Deep Dylan cut!
@Sequitur: Yep, it makes sense for a teacher shortage.
@Horace Broon: re: EC: I just hope this doesn’t end up like Nightmare Alley.
Len? He’ll geek. There are few characters in contemporary comics more likely than Len to take up geeking.
MW: Dawn and Mary need to stop lying to each other. Not once have we seen Dawn be a strong young woman who learns from experience with her dating. Dirk was just a bullying dick, Jared’s a whiny little creep oozing Nice Guy vibes, she’s dated guys who were married/dating someone else (who don’t end up choosing her in the end), and half the time she’s just listing a random name. Like her “hero” of a father, Dawn is going to be a parasite in the dating world.
@Doc Wonmug: I had another one printed, about how Pluggers have their anniversary engraved inside their wedding rings, because they can’t remember it. My new one also is about crippling memory loss, as that appears to be one of their laugh leaders these days. But I admire yours!
@Ukulele Ike: #101. FG:. Thanks for the clarification, Ike. I guess perfect beings like Flash, Dale, and Thun (sigh) are just outside my known 2025 universe. Maybe I’ll meet them someday yet! Holding my breath….
@114 Ukulele Ike:
Actually, Manford Mann.
I’ll give today’s Six Chix credit for somebody actually doing a full, proper piece of art instead of what they usually do (something half-assed that trails off), BUT, I cannot give them credit for writing, as today’s “joke” is too bizarre and grotesque to be any good.
Bad strip!
@Sequitur: Performed by Manfred Mann, but written by Dylan.
@astroboy: 6C – TF is a “lunch bun?”
_______________
A lapine lunch?
RMMD: Les Knox, freed from the stifling confines of Gunther’s shack and the rest of the Luanniverse, was at first confused to find himself taller, on a date, and drinking alcohol (as a person his age usually would). But as he began to acclimate to his new environs, Les began to find his footing—and his creepy personality began to resurface.
In his former world—he shuddered as he remembered the time he walked in on Gunther tugging the worm—there were rarely consequences for anything. Heck, half the time his fellow characters simply… disappeared. The Elvis kid. Quill. Tara. Sun. They just left. Nothing was complicated—and if it seemed to be heading in that direction, everyone just changed the subject.
But now this lady—this BITCH who turned down his advances, like she was fucking Tiffany or something—was calling a security guard on him.
“I’m not leaving,” Les repeated. What was the worst that could happen, other than someone changing the subject as usual?
That’s when he felt the TASER darts sink into his skin. “What the fu—GURGLE GARGLE GURGLE,” Les began, falling to the floor and thrashing in a pool of his own piss and vomit.
@Ukulele Ike: Go easy on them lunch buns. I hear they’re so heavy, they just sit in your abdomen like a gestating fetus.
@122 White Rabbit:
I did not know that. I did a bit of research and you are correct.
When I was a teenager I didn’t follow Bob Dylan. I liked “Like a Rolling Stone” and that’s about it. I learned about “Highway 61” when I was a sophomore in college because I has a friend who went around saying, “Where you want that killin’ done? Out on Highway 61.” So, I had to find out out what th’ hell he was talkin’ ’bout.
Pluggers: Re: Claude’s plugger-intellectual status, he has previously been depicted carrying around two armloads of books for unexplained reasons: https://joshreads.com/2013/04/whoa-whoa-whoa-a-plugger-with-books-somethings-fishy/
@Daisy:
The sudden occurrences of elephant stampedes, cetacean stranding and erratic deep-sea submarine activity around the world are caused by the ultra low frequency sounds emanating from my larynx upon reading this nonsense.
Ha haaaaa! Daisy, I love that!
@Ukulele Ike:
Got the reference!
@Sequitur: It’s true that Manfred Mann made more money off that particular song than Dylan ever did.
I always liked it because it either concerns the advent of a Godlike benevolent entity (second coming) or a terrible apocalyptic figure (signaling universal doom); or it’s a dopey nursery rhyme. Some Dylanologists claim it’s the former; Bob says it’s the latter. We named our son (now 29 years old) Quinn.
Luann: The drawing is inconclusive but those shoes look for all the world to be square-toed Mary Janes. Closed-toe shoes? Is this even a date?
@Ukulele Ike: MW: Brigman, when a character makes a statement this portentious, you should take special care not to screw up their face. Dawn looks like one of Picasso’s young ladies of Avignon here.
Came here to snark on the inconsistent artwork from panel 1 to 2, but you encapsulated what I was laboring to put into words far better than I would have come up with. Kudos! Here goes anyway:
Panel 1: Life is brutal!
Panel 2: Life is grotesque!
DT: The idiot nephews promise to make whatever crime comes next such a profound goatfuck that their aunt hasn’t even committed to sharing her name with the reader.
GT: Uh, guys? There’s a difference between “not making life easy” and “blatantly fouling.”
6C: The hospital generally allows fathers to be in the room during labor and birth but in this case they’re going to make an exception.
9CL: Polly says it’s getting interesting and Lolly agrees. Or vice versa, I’m certainly not going to spend a lot of time checking. Anyway, that makes two of them and the number shall stay at two.
BB: Amos should look on the bright side. He had receding grey hair as a child so I’m sure he’s surprised the world just by living this long.
C-Shaft: Be kind of hard for the parents to push their kids back onto the bus if the parents are at work.
MW: “You’re a strong woman. Why, one time I saw you carrying three grocery bags at once!”
JP: Sophie’s pretty sure she’s heard an influencer talk about developing “an attitude of ingratitude for gratitude” so she’s going to give it a try.
Phantom: Whoa, Kyabje Dorje turns out to be the tough love Mary Worth we’ve all been waiting for. Did somebody say “crossover”?
RMMD: But the security guy hasn’t made Goatee McSexpest (hat-tip to the creator of that one) yet, because he’s only getting three panels per day and God forbid anything vaguely exciting happen in any of them.
@Cleveland Mocks: #128
Why, thank you, kind Sir!
*deep curtsy while blushing and fluttering my fan*
@Cleveland Mocks: @Daisy: It WAS lovely. Although I think we make far too many Lovecraft references here, it reminded me of the events of March 23, 1925 in “The Call of Cthulhu,” and their effects on Henry Anthony Wilcox and other sensitives and aesthetes around the globe.
My god! We’re coming up on the 100th anniversary! I have a pillow to bite!