It’s actually short for “Truckington”
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Herb and Jamaal, 7/30/25
It seems like just yesterday that Herb stormed into Rev. Croom’s office, declaring that he was ambivalent about believing in a creator God whom he couldn’t perceive with his senses. In fact, it was 11 years ago, but I guess that’s practically yesterday in newspaper comics terms, ha ha! Anyway, in the subsequent decade, it seems Herb has resolved his doubts by means of Pascal’s wager, though I have to say that “liv[ing] in the netherworld” is a pretty tame euphemism for “experiencing eternal physical torment as a damned soul in hell,” and maybe not really as motivating as he thinks.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/30/25
“Speaking of which, uh, that’s not your legal name, right? Like, I figure at some point before we get married I’m going to finally get to see some ID, and I’ve really had my fingers crossed that we’ve been working with a Mud Mountain/Fergus situation here.”
Intelligent Life, 7/30/25
Actually, fellas, most of the shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery and the Walt Disney Company are institutional investors like pension and mutual funds, along with individual retail investors who are making decisions based on the companies’ financial positions rather than fandom affinity, so I’m not sure “the geek community” is the right word choice in this situation!
Pluggers, 7/30/25
Hey, buddy. You think a lot about peeing? Or pooping? When you look at a bathroom, do you think to yourself, “Do I have to pee or poop right now? Might as well give it a shot. Better safe than sorry!” Well, I’m sorry to inform you that you are, canonically, a plugger.
174 replies to “It’s actually short for “Truckington””
RMMD:
I’ve finally figured out what that thing is on Wanda’s head. It’s to write down complicated food orders that she can’t commit to memory.
RMMD:
“Which reminds me — I’ve been meaning to ask you all this time. Is your real name ‘Truck’?”
“No, no. That’s short for ‘Truculent.’ My parents named me after a word on the SAT and ACT whose synonym you get wrong if you have to guess what it means, because people who don’t know its definition see the starting letters ‘truc-‘ and assume it means you’re peaceful!”
H&J I know that this trip is famous for not mentioning specific brand names, but I think you can safely call it ‘Hell’, dude. Evil as he is, I didn’t think that Satan is too litigious when it comes to protecting IP.
RMMD “Actually it turns out that he’s a big Buds Light fan, so he was pretty jazzed…”
Pluggers: Unfortunately he does the same thing at sand traps on a golf course.
“My real name is Lorry.”
MW: “…I have some GIFTS…and with the gifts come CHALLENGES…and with the CHALLENGES come the GIFTS…”
[What. The. Fuck. I guess this is how normal Rigelians talk when they’re learning the language of Earthlings. I suppose it’s as useful as “Voula, our seamstress, is skillful and speedy” or “”La plume de ma tante.”
“YES, Olive, it’s a vicious cycle. The key is to know WHICH CHALLENGES to accept and which GIFTS to re-wrap and pass along to somebody ELSE for the holidays…!”
Deciding whether to pee or not is particularly troublesome for Male Cat Pluggers who wonders if they should save some urine for spraying.
MW: Olive’s “gifts” are a bit more in line with either schizophrenia or a brain tumor but her “kindred spirit” has groomed her into not talking to anyone about it except for her. Does Olive even talk to her peers or even her parents when they’re not ignoring her existence to play Hide the Pickle?
Intelligent Life : …these guys realise that a whole bunch of comic conventions are happening in the AUTUMN, right? Like, the NYC Comic Con is in OCTOBER.
***********
Pluggers : hey, isn’t “constantly feeling like going to the bathroom, but then it turns out you don’t need to” a sign of your prostate being messed up?
***********
Rex Morgan M.D. : Uh, Truck, Cody was NEVER told you were his father. He simply assumed so because your mom would refuse to talk about her relationship with you while having all your music.
…For all we know, Cody’s mom CONSTANTLY talked to him about Spuds Morton, singing his praises as a man in general, and a lover in particular, but Cody never picked up on that because who cares about a country band’s DRUMMER (his mother, it turned out).
Pluggers – “Maybe I should. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t. After all, I’m a cat and we typically use litter boxes. Damn, it’s hell being anthropomorphic.”
IL: I mean, it’s always been obvious that Intelligent Life is the Big Bang Theory of comics, a property about geeks written by people who don’t really get geek culture, but assuming going to tentpole blockbusters is “supporting the geek community” rather than promoting fan work, patronizing local comics and games stores, and advocating for marginalized voices within the community is a pretty big tell.
RMMD: Wanda has clearly forgotten about Spuds McKenzie, the coolest bull terrier ever to hawk light beer.
“As a matter of fact, my real name is Mack.”
Rex Morgan – It’s short for Truckwit.
RMMD:
My real name is Mac, short for MacCoy. In school the other kids called me Mac Truck (natch) which became just Truck. My father was a big fan of Walter Brennan.
IL: Since these guys appear to be driving on top of the clouds, maybe they are in literal Geek Heaven.
Man, is Herb ever going to be cheesed when he ends up in Geek Netherworld for not watching enough Disney movies.
So of all the words in that last sentence the artist could have chosen to inform Widebody Redshirt’s mouth position, he went with “to.” Huh. I mean, it’s fine, I guess, Baldy McYellow over there can speak every sentence while doing his best impression of a baleen whale, but for some reason I’m hung up on the guy on the right looking like he’s practicing his embouchure. (I guess that’s why the guy on the left lips up in panel 3; he’s just realized that this car that’s inexplicably flying through the air is not doing so to the movie theater, but to his buddy’s trumpet lesson. Hey, Haydn’s “Concerto in E-flat major” ain’t gonna practice itself.)
RMMD:
“How did Cody take the news?”
“Well, he just had to la-a-augh. He saw the phonogra-a-aph.”
Judy Blume’s coming-of-pluggerdom novel “Then Again, Maybe I Should.”
HJ: You may think “the netherworld” is one of Herb and Jamaal‘s textbook nonspecific ities, but in fact Herb is just a devout believer in Chinese traditional religion. He knows that after death, he’ll be condemned to Denghuo Diyu, Netherworld Court of King Chujiang, where he’ll be heated until he passes out, and then revived by an icy wind. Maybe if he practices in front of the fan, he can build an immunity.
IL: I hate all the Intelligent Life strips* framed with the characters sitting in a car staring at the viewer. It makes me feel like I’m a speed camera and these freaks are speeding past me over and over, each time adding another line to their dialogue.
* you can cut the sentence off here and it’s still accurate
(Un)intelligent Life — “All those amazing summer movies.” What, like one, maybe two tops?
H&J — Of course, some versions of, um, Netherworld depict it as an icy wasteland. Care to go double or nothing on that Pascal’s wager, this time concerning the supposed conditions in the Bad Place?
…to be followed by her onset-of-dementia novel “Then Again, Maybe I Already Shit My Pants”
C’shaft: Batiuk is shocked–SHOCKED!–to discover that retailers have discovered the advantages of a location where people are often compelled to wait for several hours, and where they might realize they forgot snacks/essential sundries/reading material for the plane/souvenirs for their nieces and nephews back home, or might just want to buy booze without paying taxes on it.
GT: “Look, I just drank from the false Grail and am aging at a horrifyingly accelerated rate, I think talking about my future is a bit callous at this point.”
JP: Only Sophie would go all the way across the world to get away from her family drama, only to wind up overseeing April getting assaulted in a cafe and finding out her landlady is a murderer and identity thief.
MW: Neither of you is listening to a word the other is saying, are you?
Phantom: Isn’t this a lot of work to go to for trafficked labor? Can’t they just round up some refugees or something?
RMMD: I was planning on asking if Wanda knows Truck’s real name but Josh beat me to it. I doubt she does Truck isn’t so good at communicating. My guess is Cyril.
Herb and Jamaal: Sheol, the Hebrew vision of the afterlife, was described as a place of “gloom and deep darkness,” but scripture is maddeningly non-specific beyond that point. It could be a metaphor for the grave, or it could be a form of Hell. We’ll never know! It’s perfect for Herb!
RMMD:
“You and I are gettin’ a little face time in today’s strip, Wanda. So to speak.”
IL I know movie ticket prices have gone up, but still – even 1-day Con tickets are a lot more. Are they squatting at the theater and maxing out the number of showings they go to?
Luann Idiot Plot incoming at 3… 2… 1…
IL: Why does the ferris wheel have a steering wheel and a rear view mirror?
IL: I like how the clouds in the background make it look like these two are literally driving through geek heaven. I wonder if their constant nattering about superhero movies inspired someone at the local theater to bludgeon them to death with a stanchion.
Pluggers: I can’t help but read this strip in Alec Baldwin’s voice: “A. B. P., pluggers: Always. Be. Peeing or Pooping. Pick up that coffee, you son of a bitch: coffee’s for whizzers.”
REX MORGAN M.D.: I dunno. With the way these bozozs keep reiterating these factoids over and over again, I think our roots country “star” should change his name to something more appropriate, like “Cuck.”
Kids say the cutest things.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Much like the Mafia, it seems to be a convention in the roots country world that performers get a nickname. I’m thinking Cody’s should be “Little Pussy Lawson.”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: (Since “Nick Knox” was taken by the Cramps’ drummer.)
@Schroduck: Just do what I do: take comfort of the image of the Intelligent Life characters getting creamed by a load of iron bars falling off a truck and through their windshield. Not that they have that many brains left to damage, but at least it would be painful.
MW:
Olive: Tell me, Mary-san, which comes first, the challenges or the gifts?
Mary: [brain melts down]
@pugfuggly: Re: Pluggers: “Oh no they don’t! They’re not stealing my bit!” –Tom Armstrong
CS Unlike the airport you started at? MSP’s density of shops is nothing special.
Phantom If the warlord had applied all the resources used up in this scheme – hiring out offices, developing forms, getting a large cast of Potemkin office people (hired or training his men)… – and just gone directly to the mining town and pointed guns at the locals, he’d have his riches extracted already! Clearly didn’t read the “don’t complicate things” section of the Evil Overlord Manual.
Is “Beetle Bailey” setting up a Zero/Miss Buxley relationship? That would be akin to Miss Hathaway dating Jethro.
RMMD: “Ugh, I got really tired drawing such a detailed background in panel 1. Next two panels are going to be extreme close-ups!”
“Maybe I should.” Pluggers struggle with gender identity, so they don’t know which bathroom to use if there isn’t a third neutral option. Take your time, cat they/them!
Actually, Herb, the deepest part of Hell is freezing, so you might enjoy it there! However, it is reserved for traitors, so you should start thinking about a way to betray Jamal.
Herb and Jamaal: “I wanted to go to Hell before, but after realizing that Hell is hot, made me think things over.”
Plugger’s indecision is not due to incontinence: “Men. Maybe I should. It could include tomcats! But what if it means Homo Sapiens? I wish they were clearer!”
“Hey, that’s like the fourth school bus you cut off. Do you ever check to your left or right?”
“I can’t, man! My neck doesn’t swivel. It’s a congenital thing.”
“Hey, me too! Maybe we’re related.”
“Twinsies!”
They get t-boned by an eighteen-wheeler hauling molten sulfur.
RMMD-I think you’re a little bit too close on the close ups.
MW-“Mary, were you just conning me?”
FC-“Then Mommy had to use both hands.”
@TheDiva: Oh, that’s exactly what it is. They’re not geeks: they’re insufferable fake geeks. The only realistic thing about Intelligent Life is that I never see its two characters interacting with anyone else.
As someone who has cracked wise about “Truck” and “Spuds”, I feel like the Rex Morgan M.D. creative team reads this comment section and is having Wanda stare into our very souls. “Look! We get it, these are silly names! You can stop now!” No. Never. Not until you also address the anachronistic hairstyles too.
***
Hey, weird looking guys in the flying car, you don’t support the geek community by giving your money to corporations. You support it by writing wildly inappropriate fan fiction and gatekeeping it from new fans who can’t tell you from memory what start date Dr. Spock used his lifesaver to defeat Dark Vader.
Herb and Jamaal – Herb is doing Pascal’s Wager in the most secular fashion possible, lest any one religion is wrong. He’ll not see himself become a overly pushy Christian to the point of being a bigot, only to end up in Hindu/Buddhist Naraka (hell), or any other religion’s lowest level of torment.
Rex Morgan, MD – “Spuds”. “Truck”. “Mud”. Someone making the mistake of grad school could write a whole thesis on why roots country nicknames tend to favor a soft ‘u’.
Intelligent Life – Bald Intelligent Life guy is suddenly struck with hollow emptiness at the heart of late stage capitalism’s commodification of geek culture and community. Wait until he questions whether his own fictional universe is merely a shallow thrice-weekly attempt to also cash in on the culture, and rip off the far superior Penny Arcade while doing so.
Pluggers – Pluggers doesn’t have a lot to hang it’s hat on culturally, aesthetically, or historically as a piece of culture and media. But it can at least say that Marvin is not a Plugger.
We’ve been letting our cat, Mickey, outside more. Among the other reasons he wants to come in (besides being hot) is to use his litter box. I guess he still wants the comforts of his version of indoor plumbing. But I hope that doesn’t make him a Plugger.
The always quick-pivoting Luann shifted themes before completing all of the melonheads. In homage (pronounced homage) to another comic strip, Luann is trying to wear a Charlie Brown shirt. But it’s not as realistic as Jeremy Duncan’s cereal bowl.
Re: Pluggers, I fully agree with Billy Connolly’s dictum that after the age of 50, you shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to go to the toilet, although I do restrict that to still feeling like I might need to.
So after a certain age, you are a “Plugger” because your bladder and colon are… plugged. Take every opportunity to rectify that situation!
@Guts Dozier: IL: They aren’t wearing seatbelts, so we can guess how they got there.
Lockhorns: Use the office copier to make resumes is a great perk for the bleeding edge tech bros like Leroy who still send out paper resumes.
Beetle Bailey: Wait, no joking, is Miss Blips supposed to be an age peer of Miss Buxley and all those going-nowhere privates (none of whom are yet 30)? I always got a more sensible, seen-it-all vibe from her, and in the military that means a bit older.
Blondie has yet to learn that everybody who walks through your door isn’t a valuable customer.
BG&SS: Blue Bunny’s gain is gonna pay off in an uptick of diabetes.
FC: That “Playskool Three Card Monte Playset” was money well spent, Dad.
H&L: After Labor Day Chip dusts off his phone and finds out he’s lost his keyboard player, who has turned to Christian rock.
You could have saved him, Chip!
DT: In the previous incidents Fiery Red shot first, now she is hesitating? Asking to see the manager? What – another school management situation? C’mon she should have zapped the goon and then threated Ed Asner.
GT: At this point we see the strip has really shifted into one about the OFF-SEASON and not stuff that is sports related.
RMMD: Was “Spuds” inspired by Spuds McKenzie, party-dog?
JP: It is all one giant conspiracy – April, Sophie, and the guy at the bottom of the bay
RMMD: Aahh!! Back off, comic strip characters! Stranger danger! Stranger danger!
Pluggers: I’d like to direct this plugger to the January 7, 2025 article in the New York Times Titled “Is Peeing ‘Just in Case’ Bad for Your Bladder Health?” The answer is yes, the practice of “convenient or proactive voiding” can lead to an overactive bladder. Doctors recommend mindfulness, working with a pelvic floor therapist, and cutting back on caffeinated and alcoholic drinks as ways of preventing this. I mean, far be it from me to suggest a plugger should listen to doctors, or give up those three hours sitting in a diner drinking coffee every morning, or those three hours in the afternoon drinking beer in his recliner while watching the game — or, worse, that he should read the New York Times — in fact, never mind, just forget I said anything.
RMMD: Wanda: “You know,there’s a ‘Truck “load of ‘Spuds’ in the kitchen that ain’t gonna peel themselves. Now go get busy!”
Mary Worth: “When I find myself.in times of trouble meddlesome Mary calls to me with these words of wisdom:”Ask Wendy!”
GT: So does everyone in Milford.
FC: Bil smiles down at Jeffy, wistfully imagining his high school graduation, and whether the local gas stations will be hiring.
MW: Whatever the heck Olive is trying to say sounds vaguely like when Joey was writing the speech he was going to give at Monica and Chandler’s wedding on Friends…”The having…and the sharing…”
One can almost imagine every sentence of the pitch meeting when the cartoonist pitched “Intelligent Life” to the syndicate:
Cartoonist: “It’s got synergy and appeals to young professionals. We draw it so it looks like ‘Family Guy.’ We write it so they’re nerds like ‘the Big Bang Theory.’ We make them pop culture obsessed so they can talk generically about whatever the next big comic book movie is so it’s timely. And we give the fat Peter Griffin one the hot girlfriend but we make her African American to get the urban demographic. It can’t miss!”
Publisher (glances at watch): “We got a hole to fill in our syndication package because one of our legacy cartoonists keeled over at 97 and I’m late for a tee time. You willing to work cheaper and faster than the Tuesday ‘Six Chix’ gal? Okay? You’re hired.”
@Ukulele Ike: #59
Re. FC: It does seem that that’s where Jeffy’s future life trajectory is taking him…
FC: Sweet, simple Jeffy is just not equipped with the subtlety and sleight of hand skills necessary for a career in espionage or anything else, for that matter.
@Tabby Lavalamp: I’m in no way a Star Wars fan, but I do remember all the exciting lifesaver battles.
Luke: “Wintergreen!”
Darth Vader: “Butter Rum!!! MWAH HAH HAHHHH!!!!!!”
Intelligent Life – “Well, my dude, don’t forget that we blew most of that money on this awesome flying car.”
Herb and Jamaal – It took me an awfully long time to figure out what Herb meant by “living in the netherworld.” My initial guess was that it had something to do with his sweaty “nether regions.” I wouldn’t want to live there either, Herb, but it’s even harder to imagine how you could!
Don Abundio, translated:
“That waiter was very rude”
“Everyone in here seems hostile”
“We shouldn’t have asked them to move our table!”
“You’re right”
“There’s no telling how they might react”
If every time you see a bathroom you think you should use it, you might a combat veteran who remembers trench latrines, hastily dug into the frozen ground, and that every time something stirred in your guts you had to choose between maybe getting your head blown off as you made your way under the gaze of snipers to a foul smelling pit while remembering your drill instructor’s mocking words of ‘always use every flush toilet you see because it might be the last’ or crapping in your own hole to the disgust of your comrades.
Or you might be a Plugger.
@Voshkod:
On its way to Herb’s place.
@Ukulele Ike: The wintergreen ones are more impressive because of the whole triboluminescence thing.
PLUGGERS: Actually that Plugger is just pondering if he has the guts to use the glory hole in stall #3
@2+2=7: Now I finally understand why so many Pluggers panels have those weird stains on them.
I had neither seen nor heard of Intelligent Life until a few weeks ago, when I got back into the habit of checking this blog on a semi-daily basis, and it’s taken me three strips to figure out why it bothers me so much, aside from the “how do you do, fellow geeks” energy: the characters’ faces. They look like they’re perpetually hopped up on Red Bull and crack.
Also: if today’s strip is accurate, my younger brother began his descent into Pluggerdom at the tender age of, like, 9.
@Charterstoned: #6
I would re-gift this comic strip to someone I hate, but I don’t hate anyone *that* much…and that’s a challenge. And a gift. And a challenge. And a gif… MAKE IT STOP!!!
Moose & Molly : … that’s a REALLY weird looking way of administering CPR… unless Chester is actually administering TLC…
REX MORGAN M.D.: Wanda (dismissive): “‘Spuds?’ ‘Truck’? Boy that Varla chick sure did have some awful taste in men let me tell you, ha ha ha ha….(Wanda ponders on something) Hey wait a minute….(Wanda’s eyes go wide at the shock of the stunning revelation) Oh no!!”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2) Truck: “It hit Cody harder than he’s let on. Suddenly a different roots country musician he’s never met and doesn’t know is his father! The poor boy suddenly had to figure out how to live a life without me as his dad…you know, like he’s been doing for the last 33 years.. How is he going to deal, going to a situation that’s pretty much the same status quo as the one he was in before?”
@Pozzo: #12
“…and my dad’s name is Peter, as in ‘PeterBilt’ “
INTELLEGENT LIFE: Red Shirt*: “Thanks for making the references as vague as possible by the way. That makes it way easier to reuse this strip again next summer without having to rewrite a whole bunch of scenes.”
Yellow Shirt: “Aw, no problem bud. Geek buds for life!”
*Like I’m really going to waste my time researching these people’s names! I’m putting as much effort into reading the strip as the creator did writing it.
Pluggers: Roscoe, Pa? One of my aunts was from there.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Did she work the coal mines?
Roscoe looks like it’s pretty close to Greensburg, home of yinzer crime writer K.C. Constantine.
MW: “I have some gifts and with the gifts come challenges and with the challenges come gifts.” Olive engages in circular thinking while Mary indulges a teen who should be in a psych ward. Is Ms. Moy trolling us or does she think that any of this is normal?
@Daisy: A Mary Worth voodoo doll would be an awesome gift. It comes with one regular pin, but you can buy accessory character-head pins featuring all your Charterstone favorites. Collect ‘em all! Wilbur, Dawn, Carlos Alora, Toby, Ian, Helen, Belle…!
@Ukulele Ike: #80: No, but her brothers did. One even ran a one man bootleg coal mine in his back yard. I’ve been through Roscoe. Mailing in Pluggers contributions is probably the only exciting thing to do there. Given the towns high percentage of bohunks in the population contributor Marty Paul’s real name is probably Matteusz Pawelewski.
The rictus grin of the yellow shirted character in Intelligent Life betrays his true nature as a ventriloquist dummy.
@Guts Dozier: There was a Family Guy joke. About a terrorist who ends up at the Pearly Gates to meet his 72 (or whatever the number was) virgins.
Turns out they’re all male nerds.
“We’re playing ‘Magic the Gathering’ wanna join us?”
FC: Jeffy learns it’s not a good idea to pull the old “See this…Look out for this” routine on his father.
MW: Mary’s still pissed that Marvel grabbed the “power” and “responsibility” adage, leaving her to babble through the best she can.
RMMD: Well, SOMEBODY is sure impressed by his own sperm! I’m sure Cory will get over not being Son of Truck.
DtM: Creepy, much?
Nancy Classics – How many different sizes of megaphones does that girl have?
PLUGGERS: Thank you to the Mudges who pointed out that certain actual cats are sometimes a little loosey-goosey about where their pee goes, alas. This Plugger might decide to skip the toilet, but later just back up to the nearest wall.
FC: Jeffy has a promising future in hand jobs.
H&L: Get ready for some muff diving.
“I was named after the raccoon in the ” Housepets!” web comic.”
INTELLIGENT LIFE: This is only the second IL strip I’ve seen, but I already dislike these characters. Are there more appealing characters in IL, or is this all that readers get? I looked at these two for the second time and what started going through my mind was “Loathing” from the original WICKED Broadway soundtrack. So at least I got a halfway-decent earworm out of it.
MW: “…and then those gifts bring new challenges and then those challenges bring new gifts, and then…” (Mary slaps her) “Stop! You’re talking gibberish!”
Pluggers — I developed a habit in the USAF that I couldn’t pass a water fountain without taking a drink from it. Not pluggerish then, but by my 50’s it turned into this plugger scenario.
A little embarrassed that it took me until today before the thought “For a strip about a doctor, Rex Morgan sure spends a lot of time with rednecks and country singers” passed through my mind.
Luann: I guess that’s Tara’s spike-haired Cousin Starhead about to pop in, beginning a “Three’s Company” style misunderstanding. Hilarity will not ensue.
FBoFW: it’s an old strip, but just realized Gords station is open 17 hours a day, 7 days a week. And he’s only got part-time help. It takes six people to fill in n for him. Do young entrepreneurs still put in these hours?
BLONDIE: If the idea is so to save money, skip the party altogether. If the idea is so to celebrate cheaply, go with potluck.
FG: so Bok and Dale have at least had a meal and nap time. Dr. Zarkov and Edda must have been shipped to forgotten retired characters home. Flash, of course, is still fightin’
JP: said it before and will say it again. This Leah is up to no good . Bet she’s got Mrs. B. tied up in a closet until she surrenders her wiener schnitzel recipe.
MANDRAKE: Today is the big reveal. Hope they return to find Blanche, a pirate for life, taking off and giving them the finger.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
#95. PLUGGERS: I was taught as a little kid to always use restroom before leaving as “you never know”. This has saved me embarrassments in traffic jams, with flat tires, and on stuck elevators. Pluggers are sometimes smart.
MW: “With the gifts come challenges… and with the challenges come gifts… and with those gifts comes a free frogurt…”
@CanuckDownSouth: At some point, it would probably be easier for the warlord to just start a normal company.
@Peanut Gallery: Oh, everyone has a megaphone that size for when the ice cream truck crashes into a phone pole. I also keep a much larger one handy for beer trucks.
DT: “Nobody threatens my boss and… wait, your gun is glowing? Clearly my own weapon will have no effect on someone with a glowing gun, so there’s no point even finishing taking it out of my pocket!”
CS: Yes, that is very much what the shopping areas of airports are like, Ed. Is there a joke here at all? Or even a vaguely joke-based bit of wordplay, which is all I expect?
EC: But… but the Fosters’ sprinkler is already spraying their own garden with water, that’s what it’s for. Presumably they either don’t have a patio or aren’t currently trying to sit in it, but either way, all you’re doing is watering their lawn more.
MW: Mary’s line here is the sort of vaguely related non sequitur I expect from an early LLM. Remember, Olive, PlatTUD doesn’t actually understand you, as such.
H&J: Herb’s euphemism doesn’t just distract from his point, it actually works against it. The “netherworld” could be Hell, but it can also mean various pagan counterparts, many of which are portrayed as cold and misty. “This heat makes me wish I was a dishonoured Viking, because Nifelheim is starting to sound pretty good!” Of course, even if he’s sticking with Hell, he could always hope Dante had it right and aim for the frozen rains of the third circle (Gluttony) or the icy wastes of the ninth (Treachery). Try stealing Jamaal’s lunch!
IL: I think the idea is they’ve “supported the geek community” by watching all the things because this ensures such things continue to be made. At least, that’s the way it was explained to me on a DC Comics message board back in the day, when I said I wasn’t really that interested in the Snyder cut. Minus the swearing, of course.
RMMD: “How did Cody take the news?”
“I think he had some kind of emotional reaction, but he didn’t really show it, he just said everything was fine and dropped the subject.”
“Well, I guess inherited traits aren’t always genetic.”
@MKay:
That SOMEBODY is certainly not Varla, that’s for sure (burn!)
@Voshkod: Ah, the lost passage of Waiting for Godot I always wanted but never knew I needed…
IL: Methhead Charlie Brown’s pained fake smile as he and his buddy brag about supporting The Content illustrates the emptiness at the heart of geek pride better than it’s probably meant to.
Pluggers: This particular Plugger had to train himself for years so he’d have this response at restrooms and not sandboxes.
RMMD: Hey, let’s not be too hasty about “Spuds.” Lotta people loved that beer-swilling bull terrier.
C-Shaft: Prince has left behind a great legacy, and if that includes a panel of Jeff and Crankshaft walking in front of a Royal Badness-themed store I guess you have to take the bitter with the sweet.
DT: “Speak to the manager”? I appreciate Tess telling self-deprecating Karen jokes, but she needs bangs to really sell it.
Dustin: Hayden tried signing up at the summer camp Luann was going to work at until she didn’t, but he didn’t think of it until last week.
GT: A few glasses of motor oil and their conversation starts to jump all over the place.
JP: That settles it. Mrs. Birkrem is still alive. Unless she’s been killed sometime in the last week.
Lockhorns: “Résumés” in this means “copies of your butt, as long as everyone else has gone home.”
Luann: “You’re the most animal-loving guy I know.”
“Why? What have you heard?”
MW: Hey Mary, it just occurred to me how Wilbur has the aura of a guy with an untapped ability to fly, one that he’ll only discover if pushed off the top of a 20+ story building. Maybe when the two of you get back to Santa Royale you can help him out with that.
Phantom: These poor naïve recruits wind up chained to a rock when they thought they’d be walking onto the cover of Heaven 17’s Penthouse and Pavement.
CS: OK, got to give Batty a skate on this one. I checked and there are no direct flights from Cleveland to Winnipeg. At least one stopover is necessary, and it might as well be Minneapolis. I’m surprised he actually did some research.
@Philip: When Mud Mountain Murphy was first introduced. Josh was dismayed about his name.
“Truck, Buck and Muck… you had it right there!”
THREE’S COMPANYLUANN: Oh my God, you guys, Luann is patting Jack right there on the shoulders. His shoulders, for God’s sake! Right there in a public place! The filthy harlot! You can totally see why Phil is going to inevitably misunderstand the situation and get cartoonishly jealous. How else could one interpret such a vulgar display of erotic revelry?@Poteet: This is all you get. Don’t bother reading any more installments, as it never gets better.
@Activist: re: JP: Wiener schnitzel recipe? In Norway? LUTEFISK! LUTEFISK!
IL: Yes, because mega-companies like Disney and Warner Bros are in dire need of the geek culture to keep their companies afloat… wait what?
Well, to be fair, Zootopia was more successful than what it was, because Disney marketed it towards furries, very well.
While many other anthropomorphic animal movies floundered because they kept their distances from the furry community, which keep in mind would be probably about 70% of their viewerbase.
INTELLIGENT LIFE: Oh god, this is terrible even by the strip’s own standards. Usually they make an extremely shallow reference to something without actually saying anything about it besides the fact that it exists. Today they’re not even going that far! All those wonderful movies and you couldn’t even name one of them? Every time I see this strip it brings to mind the movie This is the End, when Jonah gives Jay grief for making references. Simply referencing something doesn’t make you funny.
LUANN: This would be a really good time for Luann’s boss to tell her to quit socializing and get back to work. We really don’t need to see her lameass boyfriend come in just to have a contrived misunderstanding.
9CL: I hate this goddamn strip. Since Brooke writes every woman as a narcissistic viper, I’m tempted to say he hates women almost as much as Steve Kelley, except the problem is that Brooke seems to think being a narcissistic viper is actually a good thing.
GASOLINE ALLEY: They’ve been at this stupid diner for a week and a half, and the waitress finally gets around to taking their order. Still, the longer we stay here the longer we avoid having to see Joel and Rufus again. You just know they’ll be the focus of the next arc.
BEETLE BAILEY: Oh them wimmen, they be changin’ you. Fuck you and your misogynistic bullshit, Walkers.
RMMD: What is with this increasingly uncomfortable closeup sequence? Thankfully this wasn’t a Sunday strip or else by the sixth panel we’d be seeing nothing but their reflections in each other’s pupils.
@The Rambling Otter: I mean, keep in mind. I’m not talking about anything “sexual” or such. But anthropomorphic animal movies that don’t have the “vibe” (and most furries will know which do and don’t) tend to fail.
Looking slightly into the future.
Tomorrow in RMMD we learn that Spuds real name was Cletus.
@TheDiva: IL: I’d say Intelligent Life is much worse than Big Bang Theory, because at least with BBT it’s clear that the writers had at least a passing familiarity with what they’re referencing. For example they once made a joke about Firefly that alluded to its premature cancellation. The joke only works if you know that tidbit. Meanwhile IL never says anything ABOUT the properties they’re referencing beyond the fact that they exist. Any reference could simply be swapped out with a different one because they never have anything specific to say about them.
Ugh, this strip fucking sucks.
@2+2=7: @Bryan:
On Luann : Man, if Phil walks in on Luann and Jack talking, becomes insanely jealous, DUMPS LUANN on the spot and LEAVES THE COMIC FOREVER, I’d laugh SO HARD. (The Evansii modified the bio page to include him, like, just last month! And he’d be GONE!)
I’d scream if instead of being written out of the comic, Phil became BERNICE’s boyfriend instead, thoughLUANN: Also…Jack wants to be a vet now, apparently. As evidenced by him working a low-level job in a vet’s office (just like Estelle from Mary Worth, and we all know she’s well on her way to being pet doctor to the stars!) Makes sense because part-time jobs college people who usually need money and are just beggining their studies get always correspond to their career aspirations.
So Jack should return the favor and gush about how this job means that Luann is well on her way to being a great chef!
DUSTIN: You sure seem to have an awful lot of spare time in the middle of the day, Dustin.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Upvote for Methhead Charlie Brown!
I was going with Jesse Stinkman but that’s better.
@2+2=7: LUANN: To be fair, he’s talked about being a vet for a while now. This isn’t a sudden development.
@Bryan:
I could have SWORN Jack had mentioned ALREADY being an assistant-to-the-assistant veterinarian before, during the “Bernice doesn’t know how to take care of Monstro and he almost dies” storyline.
I’d almost say that Luann believing him to be working for a GYM is the retcon, or that Jack’s “Nope!” to that actually meant “Luann, I’ve NEVER worked for a gym, you made that up in your mind because I’m in shape.”… But like, I dunno, maybe Jack mentioned working at a gym before…
@Astroboy: Good grief, many thanks. I like the Breaking Bad ref too.
Is anybody else looking at panels 2 and 3 of RMMD today, and hearing Ennio Morricone in the background? Truck may be a dumb name, but damned if Wanda’s getting the gold. Lee Van Cleef finds himself never happier to be long dead.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
I’ve been calling him Cancer Patient Quagmire
@Anonymous: I think you may be correct there.
Pluggers: I can’t tell if that’s the arms of his glasses stretching out towards either side or long whiskers.
Herb and Jamaal: Just say Hell. Who are you going to offend? And are they worth sucking up to?
@Weaselboy: Back in his home community bathrooms contain litterboxes with handy scoopers for adding fresh sand. Kinda like those (all too rare) composting toilets on The Great Glen Way.
Pluggers :If you need to decide if you want to use a toilet or a litterbox, then you might be a Plugger.
@The Rambling Otter: “Truck, Buck and Muck… you had it right there!”
___________________________________
THE THREE STOOPIDS “Heh,heh,heh,Buck’s their leader!”- Homer Jay Simpson
Since the Intelligent Life guys are always driving, while perpetually never arriving at their destination, I like to tell myself they have a suicide pact for when they run out of gas. Or that somebody just murders them. I’m easy.
@Dave: MW: “With the gifts come challenges… and with the challenges come gifts… and with those gifts comes a free frogurt…
_________________________________
Got the reference! — That “Tree house Of Horror” when they parodied “The Mary Worth’s Paw”!
Bright side, the little kid joke in Slylock Fox today was funnier than half the strips running. The disconsolate patient makes it. Bob Weber rules.
No, actually, it’s short for “Mac”. See, my poor old Mama was scatterbrained and never could remember my actual name,and she’d say, ” Hey, Mac!”,when she eventually forgot that, we’d say, “Like the truck, Mama” to remind her. In time, that melded down to just,”Truck, Mama”. I relate the whole story in my song,”A Boy Named Truck, Mama” on the album of the same name.
Slylock Fox: In Panel one, the woman is wearing a purple round earring.
In Panel two the woman is wearing the exact same earring.
Can someone please explain to me the difference here?
@matt w: So that the riders can play “car.” Give them the illusion of control and they’re happy.
@The Rambling Otter: Her earrings are the same, but her shoes are different colors, which is not listed in the text. Perhaps the earring was supposed to be different colors, then they decided it was too small so they did the shoes instead, and forgot to change the text?
@Ukulele Ike: That leaves the medium-sized megaphone for directing movies and leading pep rallies.
@The Rambling Otter: H&J: It’s an inverted version of Pascal’s Wager.
@Anonymous: Luann: “Oh no, my not-really-boyfriend is jealous of my never-was-boyfriend.” I would throw in that there might be a wacky reference to Luann having (momentarily) seen Jack naked at the life drawing class, but the Evans never remember their own strip’s history, so that won’t come up.
@Bryan: 9CL: And the stilted language doesn’t help.
@CanuckDownSouth:
Jack’s got the muscle, but he’s no match for Phil’s passive-aggressive putdowns!
@Ukulele Ike: And that time Luke missed the basket, losing the big basketball game, and Darth gave him a lifesaver and a hug.
LIFESAVERS™ – A part of intergalactic living!
©2025 Lifesavers Inc.
@Peanut Gallery: Thanks!
@GarrisonSkunk: I hope that the hoop was a giant lifesaver candy.
The art in Intelligent Life is the laziest art this side of Six Chix (which sets a very high bar to overcome).
@Peanut Gallery: And Rudy Vallee cosplay. And covering “Winchester Cathedral” during your live act.
I really respect Herb’s commitment to the bit, calling even Hell by a generic name. Other damnations are available.
Late Thread Cuisine: I’m pretty sure those aren’t radish rosettes.
@Y183 Charterstoned: “Um, are we really supposed to get excited about small, medium, and large peas all mixed together in the SAME CAN?” Just before this recipe came out, peas were segregated by size. Del Monte broke barriers by integrating their cans of peas.
@The Rambling Otter: They say you never step into the same river twice. Maybe it’s the same with earrings.
@150 Baja Gaijin:
Wow! Peasapolooza!
Rice! Tuna! Pimento! Parmesan CHEESE!
Put then all together and you get… something. I’m not sure what. I’m not sure it’s necessarily bad… just odd.
@Baja Gaijin: @Sequitur: Give me love, give me love, give me — peas on earth…. —George Harrison, 1973
@154 Ukulele Ike:
Heh, heh.
@Baja Gaijin: Does that make us eyewitnesses to history??!
@Poteet: To the best of my knowledge, there are only two other major characters in IL:
-Token Black Woman, who is Peter Griffin Knockoff’s coworker and shares many of his interests. She exists solely to be PGK’s love interest, which shows how much the strip knows and cares about the experiences of geeks who are not white men;
-Dumb Jock Guy, who is also PGK’s coworker and the strip’s non-geeky strawman. He exists to be smug, stupid, and sports-obsessed like the antagonist in a bad 1980s teen movie.
I would argue that Token Black Woman is slightly more sympathetic than the rest, in that you feel sorry for her being stuck as the incel nerd fantasy of a hot woman who likes the same stuff you like (but, you know, in a way where she will always defer to your superior knowledge and insight on them), but that only makes the strip worse.
@Baja Gaijin: This is exactly the kind of meal we were forced to remain at the dinner table to eat until we had finished what was on our plate. You can only tuck so many canned peas into the back of your cheeks before you reach critical mass and it all explodes. Just sayin’.
@158 Charterstoned:
So long as the explosion is out of the mouth instead of alternative orifices.
@Baja Gaijin:
#150. So glad it wasn’t the PEEsapalooza you promised yesterday.
@160 Activist:
That would mean YOUR IN for a messy meal.
Was that too subtle?
@Charterstoned: “Eat every pimiento and pea on your plate!”
Pluggerdom starts at an earlier age than I thought.
@54 Treetown: on Rex Morgan: “Spuds” got his nickname because he liked to fuck mashed potatoes. Truth.
@138 The Rambling Otter: Coloring monkey error? Mr. Weber got repulsed by the Late Thread Cuisine six weeks ago and forgot to change the earring’s color? Wilbur Weston?
@153 Sequitur: The pimentos aren’t incorporated into olive slice eyes. Be glad for that.
@156 Charterstoned: Eyewitnesses to something. I’m not quite sure what. Looking at all those SPAM recipes has gotten to me.
@158 Charterstoned: You’re not a chipmunk? It would have helped were you a chipmunk. You could stuff those cheeks so big that Sir Mix-a-Lot would be interested!
@160 Activist: The camera angle doesn’t show you the moat the peas surrounding the rice/tuna mound are floating in…Just sayin’.
@Sequitur: This recipe would be in the cookbook section with the title “Mounded Foods.”
@167 Peanut Gallery:
Wait a sec. You’re not speaking sexully, right?
@167 Peanut Gallery: What cookbook section would contain Mary Worth’s muffins? Carbuncled Foods? Foods with a Crunch? Foods High in Grodiness?
IL: If a guy is this deep into geeky media, he should know better than to wear a red shirt.
If you’re up this late you get to see an ugly dog.
JP: They’re not going to call the police, are they. Of course not.
@172 Poteet:
Look at Thursday and say, “What th’…”
@The Rambling Otter:
I forgot about Buck (a soft u roots country agent/manager(?)). Which I don’t mind forgetting since he’s not worth remembering, though credit to Josh for keeping the canon alive in his mind.