Do you want to chew your cud all day, buddy, does that sound appealing
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Herb and Jamaal, 4/21/26
I went to grad school for history (NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS) from 1996 to 1999, which was about at the tail end of the period when it might seem reasonable for someone to be going to grad school and not own a computer. Our department had a tiny little “computer lab” for grad students that was basically a little cubby off the admin office with a couple of outdated Macs and a printer. The whole time I was going there I would often see this one guy using the computers, a heavy-set dude with a shaggy beard and thick glasses who would never talk to anyone else and always be typing away furiously, which was normal enough grad student appearance/behavior/vibes that I never thought much of it, except to notice that I never saw anyone else using the lab. Anyway, one day, not long before I finally left the program in disgrace and relief, I noticed that he had left some printed pages behind, and I picked them up to finally figure out what his specialization was in the department, only to discover that what he was writing was in fact no-paragraph-breaks all-caps paranoid ideation. The question that immediately occurred to me: Did a genuinely crazy person somehow figure out that our computer lab was never used and that nobody would question him if he came in to type up his little manifestos? Or had he at one point been a normal (“normal”) grad student who was driven mad by academia, in a turn that validated my decision to quit?
Anyway, just thought of this little episode as I read today’s Herb and Jamaal. When I told my stepmother my story, she asked “Did you, uh, tell anyone? Because he might be dangerous?” And I was like “Nope! Ha ha! Not my business!” But I can see that Herb is taking his responsibilities a little more seriously than I did.
Pluggers, 4/21/26
It’s kind of interesting that there are no plugger cows, right? I sort of thought that maybe it’s because their society is tilted towards predators and aggressive herbivores like Rhino-Man, but maybe it’s actually because plugger envy of the gentle bovine’s digestive prowess has led to cows being pushed out of their society.
Dick Tracy, 4/21/26
“What with them all being freaks of nature with weird skull shapes and all. They’re easy for us to spot and catch! Hey, you ever think there might be a bunch of normal-looking criminals getting away with stuff around here because we don’t really notice them?”
Heathcliff, 4/21/26
What do you think goes on at the nightclub for frogs named after their main prey animal? Probably some real fucked-up shit, right?
46 replies to “Do you want to chew your cud all day, buddy, does that sound appealing”
Heathcliff:
“It was easy driving to this nightclub in our amphibious vehicle, boys.”
Of course, it’s impossible to say exactly what freaky behavior goes on at Fly, or what various vices a frog might indulge in as opposed to a human (or any mammal, really), but I think we can all agree that the mascot frog is high as hell, so we can extrapolate from there, if we wished to.
Pluggers:
“I guess that’s what they mean by ‘intestinal four-titude’ !”
Was kinda expecting the computer lab story to end “And that bearded man grew up to be… Bruce Tinsley.”
Well, it’s Herb and Jamaal, so even if this guy is batshit, his manifestos will consist entirely of “I am angry about these things I disapprove of!” “Events and some notable people trouble me!” “Bland vaguery!”
Pluggers dine with a framed portrait of three ice cubes adrift in sewage.
H&J I guess the joke here is that Herb is thinking about his own stupid inane thoughts and is horrified at the thought of someone reading them. Buddy, I have bad news for you…
I’m just yroubled that the frogs’ “night out” appears to be taking place in broad daylight. It’s just gonna be fall-down drunks and total lames in there before 10 PM, guys!
Pluggers apparently dine with their hats still on. I dub you gauche, sir!
FC: Yeah, Jeffy, you talk gooder but you’re still a moron. We have to put your name on all your clothes so you’ll know who you are.
Pluggers: Pluggers are fat #58,482.
Pluggers: I’ll give them one thing. That plate looks more like real food than anything out of Mary Worth’s kitchen.
Pluggers: Come on, a Plugger doesn’t stare a big plate of peas and carrots and… is that humus?… and think “Mmm, I just wish I could eat more of these healthy vegan treats”. A Plugger envies a cow’s four stomachs because KFC sells bucket meals that feed four.
RMMD In a sane world, this guy is delusional if he thinks the “Lorna’s here!” tip would be worth big bucks, but apparently this world was hit with a mentally-crippling virus that leads to both obsessive interest in roots country music and utter desperation to know the activities of every single actor who had a few hit roles a decade-plus ago.
JP Forget giving back your ill-gotten gains, can you give back the concepts of perspective, consistent shading, and relative sizes to the artist? Or maybe just start with giving the artist a chair to draw so Bogdan isn’t sitting trussed up to nothing with a pole rammed up his butt??
Bizarro vs Snuffy Smith : 4 out of 5 doctors means 80 %, which means the remainder is 20 %. Getting something you only have a 20 % chance of getting twice in a row is a 4 % chance. Crazy, huh? (but not as crazy as the two medical professionals featured today).
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Crankshaft : “We used to call them ‘chalk talks’ because we used ACTUAL CHALK back then! And nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them! So you’d say ‘Give me five bees for a quarter’. Anyway, the important thing was, I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time…”
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Dick Tracy : TOMORROW : Smash cut to B.B. Eyes, Double-Up and Mumbles wearing fursuits.
B.B. Eyes : How’d you talk me into this?
Double-Up : Hey, once we put on the heads, no one can get a good look at our faces! Good look at our faces!
Mumbles : Cmngys, dsizmhhbby. Dnt knkshaym.”
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Heathcliff : Michigan J. Frog is risking exposure to get a smile out of Jimmy, who remains with his stone-faced, hang-dog look. Jimmy is the Rex Morgan of frogs.
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Pluggers : and their envy turned into homicidal thoughts, and now they’re eating the object of their jealousy.
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Safe Havens : that final panel highlights that this storyline could have went with Alex and Palmtop being stuck in a “Ladyhawke” situation where, when one is a human, the other is an animal, and vice-versa, and they can’t be together, but that would have meant inconveniencing a Holbrook strip protagonist, so Alex and Pam can totally be humans at the same time, and also Alex’s transformations don’t interfere with him holding a job.
Heathcliff: Seeing that Freddie, Michigan, Kermit and other frog are nude or pantsless, they are ready for anything. The 90’s throwback Fly Girls should prepare themselves for quite a tongue-lashing!
H&J: Not much of an audience these days for a Joe Gould origin story but kudos for trying.
DICK TRACY: Actually I suspect “Junior” can’t give an answer because he’s still trying to solve the mystery of whether he should date Betty or Veronica.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Comment stuck in moderation alert!
DT:
“I have to call you by your last name, ‘Tracy,’ because even though we’re officemates who work closely with one another, calling you by your first name might trip the censorbots in some comics milieux!”
I don’t know if the location fits, but the time fits for Mr Comics Curmudgeon to have gone to grade school with Gene Ray, or “Timecube Man” as the Internet would soon know him. You’ll tell us if this paranoid ideation looks familiar, right?
H&J: First of all, been there. It’s pretty much how I’ve maintained my “normal person” image.
Second, “journal” as a verb; hate it. Worse, was the meeting I was at when someone said, “Let’s calendar that.” I had to go journal how much I hated it.
HEATHCLIFF: So, the pub food here is…And you attract those with… So every day, the delivery truck arrives, loaded with…
MW: “One condition: I can have women in my room. ‘Cause THIS player’s not done yet!”
DT:
“Tracy, why is it 2026, but we’re dressed as if it’s 1936? — are we like that ‘Rudolph Fentz’ guy who traveled through time to show up in Gotham in 1950?”
Wow, it tool me a minute, but is that the frog from the New Zoo Review?
@Anonymous, Heathcliff: That is Freddie the Frog from New Zoo Review. Massive Deep Cut for the funnies these days.
Heathcliff: Well, feline reproduction amounts to basically rape, involves spiked penises and insemination through multiple partners, and frogs use their eyeballs and eye muscles to help stuff whole prey down their throats, so pretty horrible all around. But yeah, stay out of Fly’s amplexus room, if you know what I mean.
@Little Guy:
Freddie is there for a Nude Zoo Revue.
@Little Guy: @Anonymous: You can’t say the comics don’t know their audience: Gen Xers and Boomer drug fiends.
I’m assuming that the tall, besweatered gent in today’s Heathcliff is none other than Frog from the “Frog and Toad” series of picture books. If so, it really hits home that those are man-sized amphibians in those books; they do wear human clothes and ride bicycles. However, the really shocking thought is that anybody from Heathcliff’s world has a connection to a literary character; in keeping with the vague ’50s-style anachronistic world of every comic strip, they should only be aware of things they see on TV, read in the newspaper, or hear from the milkman.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Wait, shit, I got my cards mixed up again, this one may be for Dick Tracy.
Pluggers: Cows shit. A lot. At random. All over whatever — or whoever — happens to be back there. This both explains why there are no Plugger cows and, given Pluggers’ devotion to Metamucil, prune juice or the occasional finger, the source of their envy.
Herb and Jamaal: As someone who both went to grad school in the mid-90s and used to journal obsessively, can confirm, but have to wonder why no Unabomber jokes.
Where is Ub Iwerks 1930s star Flip the Frog? Why wasn’t he invited to the “Freak Off”?
Also Pluggers: Seems to me the real question here is whether cow Pluggers would leave their chewing cud on the bedpost overnight? Would it lose its flavor?
LUANN: I love how these clowns are utter slaves to their houseguests. That’ll show they have the maturity and assertiveness to raise a family!
LUANN (2): Panel #2: By the way, that’s supposed to be a three bedroom house. For who, Barbie?
LUANN (3): This is a real dilemma for TJ because obviously in the Luann-verse, these “best friends” will never interact again if they aren’t in any type of proximity with each other (see Bernice and Luann for details)
@Bob Tice: And as your adopted son I don’t call you ‘Dad’ because you have only one son, Justice!
Is Pluggers admiring cows’ four stomachs the equivalent of “they are good at basketball” or “they are canny with their money”?
Heathcliff – Okay, Freddy the Frog (New Zoo Revue) is a true relic of the 70s. Heathcliff is making me feel pandered to.
“Fly” is part of a franchise of night clubs named after Jeff Goldblum movies. “Wicked” is a fine locale. “Jurassic” is well beloved. “Death Wish”, not so much
Josh, I also went to grad school for history. Now I’m an HR office drone, my hopes and dreams naught but dust in the wind. “Do not do this,” indeed.
It’s unclear whether in “You wanted to see me, Tracy” “Tracy” is vocative (I am addressing you, Dick Tracy) or accusative (you wanted to see me and by me I mean Tracy, since I am Junior Tracy). Latin would not have tolerated such confusion!
As Chauncey “Flat-Face” Frog enters the club with his pal Jimmy, Heathcliff secretely wishes he were a Courageous Cat.
Dick Tracy: “Jeepers, Dick! The only disguise I know is Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s pal! Do you think they could all be dressed like him?
It’d be cool to look just like Jimmy Olsen, right, Dick? RIGHT?”
Heathcliff: I’m glad Kermit and Michigan J. Frog aren’t hanging out with Pepe anymore. We all thought he was charming for, like, a minute, but then his politics got really weird, and he started a cult that maybe destroyed America? Anyhow, I don’t think he deserves to be in conversation with such august company, and I’m glad he’s not.
@2+2=7:
On Luann point 2 :
a) What, is EVERYBODY in this strip living in a small
playhouseshed in someone’s backyard?b) At this rate, eventually, the characters will be shown dwelling in enormous, palatial rooms, while the establishing shots are like, cardboard boxes under an overpass or such.
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On Luann point 3 :
a) …did the strip just retcon away TJ being independently wealthy from getting several inheritances
and also all the insurance fraud?…b) Going back slightly to point 2, if they do go through with TJ moving into a small tent in Bwad and Toni’s backyard, do you think eventually it’ll be portrayed as being as roomy and well-furnished as everyone else’s place?
REX MORGAN: I’m pretty sure that the paparazzi will love a pic of Mud being absolutely flummoxed by a third-rate Applebees (“The oh-so klassy ‘Live-at-the-Improv decor’ makes me feel like we’re at Spagos. It’s too fancy for my blood!”)
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): Also a big “whatever” at this place not having “chicken-friend steak.” Yeah it’s just all the caviar and foie gras you can eat at this TGIFriday’s rip-off.
“Nah, they’re performers. Kermit and Michigan J., they can really bring the house down. The other two, not so much. They’re more leeches than frogs, know what I mean? Anyway, not sure why they’re going to the airport; guess they got a gig out of town. Good on them. Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about is why the city built that huge Cheez-Whiz cannister that dominates the local skyline. What? Really? I never would have thought Godzilla was lactose-intolerant. You think Cheez-Whiz actually contains enough dairy to keep him away? I dunno, man. But I gotta say, haven’t seen the kaiju around here lately. Maybe the mayor is right. Election’s comin’ up, maybe he gets my vote.”
H&J-“And one day soon they shall all be reading my manifesto!”
MW-Hrvey is continuing on with the belief that there really was a Trixie and he wasn’t scammed.
Grad school in English Lit here. Actually got out with an MA. I now write JavaScript for a living, which lends itself poorly to iambic pentameter. But, I am also doing technical writing. So there’s that.