That plugger looks mad, as he should
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Mary Worth, 7/2/26
Obviously, as a long-running, hidebound artform, comic strips are remarkably static when it comes to depicting the details of everyday life — Dagwood still wears his tuxedo to work, even if he changes into a polo shirt for the weekend. Still, it seems like some strips are finally visually acknowledging one of the most important facts of modern life, namely that most of us spend most of it dicking around on our phones, even when we’re ostensibly hanging out with other people. If Martha Wilson is doing it, surely we can’t be surprised to see Dawn staring slack-jawed at TikTok while her father is ranting about how no daughter of his is going to be friends with an ex junkie.
Hagar the Horrible, 7/2/26
I was going to make a joke about how as a warrior, Hagar would be disgusted if his daughter married a low-status farmer, but then I remembered that Norse chieftains all owned farms worked primarily by enslaved laborers, and then this strip just got a whole lot darker.
Pluggers, 7/2/26
I can’t believe it, but I’m definitely arriving at a place in my life where I increasingly feel like pluggers are being done dirty by their own comic strip, which by rights ought to be a celebration of the gumption and folkways of the American working class but instead is more and more often just stuff like “You know you’re a plugger if you’ve got a big fat ass.”
Dick Tracy, 7/2/26
“Is it a sex thing? The two Xes in the name make me think it’s a sex thing. You ever have sex in a chair, Sam?”
163 replies to “That plugger looks mad, as he should”
MW:
“I’ll be able to hear you and pay close attention to you as soon as I stop shaking my Etch-a-Sketch, Dad!”
RMMD-So they’ve made a dollar today.
MW-Dawn should follow Wilbur. A man who fell off a cruise ship and let people believe he died or when he fell to pieces over a dead goldfish.
FC-“Workers of the world unite!”
“it’s a sex thing”?
Really?
it’s a sexx thing was right there!
MW: “Hey Dad, remember how your alcoholism almost led you to throw yourself off a cliff and did lead to you falling off a cruise ship and letting me think you were dead for two weeks?”
Six Chix: This poorly-drawn woman just came back from a date with Wilbur Weston.
Curtis: If you think that’s a grown up Jeffy from Family Circus MC’ing the contest, you’d be wrong: this guy has two nostrils.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you’re to fat to fit onto normal people-sized stools.
Pluggers:
No skin, and not a, um, “crevice” exposed there. I call fake.
CS: Okay, so no drunken car crash. I’m now predicting tomorrow we see Dinkle the Elder collapsed by the side of his bus, dead of a heart attack brought on from all the booze. Although, why is he bothering to load up the bus if all the band members quit?
JP: Sophie’s actually excited at the prospect of stealing Neddy’s token POC friend with a name that starts with ‘R’.
Luann: The TruFanns got started early today…
MW: Dawn assures her father that drug addiction is out of the question but sex addiction is another story. In fact, she’s looking at porn on her phone right now.
Pluggers don’t have regular hangovers. The trick is to keep drinking
[Narrator voice] “Dawn will be lured into addiction by Tommy Beedie. He’s harmful!“
DT: So you bought yourself a fancy gaming rig but stopped short of the fancy gaming chair to go with? Come on, Fritz Ann, if you’re going to abuse your department budget at least go all-out!
MW: I know we rag on Dawn all the time, and with good cause, but the fact that she’s blithely tuning out Wilbur’s petulant attempts to dictate her love life (like he’s done so very well in that arena) while browsing the Worthiverse equivalent of TikTok shows that there’s some hope for her yet.
Pluggers are miserable, joyless losers who sit around in diners all day wondering where their life went wrong. Oh, and fat, also.
This strip depicts Wilbur as an overprotecting, caring father when just a few years ago he faked his death to emotionally manipulate people, including his daughter. But it is not bad writing, it’s just that Wilbur is the least self-aware piece of shit ever
MW “I wont be lured into addiction by Tommy Beedie! He’s cute and all but definitely not to get me into hard drugs. It would take a solid Pedro Pascal level hunk for me to even snort anything…”
HtH Not to pick away too much at this anarchronistic universe, but is there another type of market than ‘farmers’ at this point?
Pluggers Some say that life is one big party, and Pluggerdom is the hangover. Theres not enough advil in the world, is there?
DT The hacker is a yakker? He hacks and he yaks? Is that what you learned from the tracker you put on thr hacker to crack the case?
An engineer Plugger rationalizes that his ass ain’t too big. It’s the stool that’s too small.
MW:
“Wow, Dad. It says here on my laptop that we’re celebrating our 250th anniversary as a nation this coming Saturday!”
“Really? — news to me, too!”
Hang around this blog for a couple decades and you start to figure out the Vikings were not nice folks.
Pluggers: No, I’m pretty sure a Plugger hangover is just a regular old hangover.
MW: “Now go get me a sandwich!” “But that’s your third one! You shouldn’t hang around with that shady Dagwood character!”
You’re a Plugger if you’re voted the winner of Fat Bear Week. And an alcoholic.
@Hibbleton:
Not going there. There is a line, and I finally figured out where it is.
Dustin: “I mean, I’m okay with them knowing my location, viewing habits, political views, and medical history, but THIS is just too damn intrusive!”
FG: Um, spoilers, “Next” Box!
JP: “The exciting TV project, I mean. Get someone else to look after the ankle biter.”
RMMD: Great, so six bucks and an expired coupon for a dollar off when you buy three or more Hungry Man dinners?
MARY WORTH: “Your half-assed under-parenting is way better that your half-assed over-parenting.”–Bart Sompson.
Just a quote that suddenly popped into my head. I dunno why….
PLUGGERS: By rights, that Plugger should’ve long ago given up sitting on anything he can’t lean back on.
MW: Tommy’s mother is an escapee from a Wilburship, right? I doubt that SHE’LL be thrilled with the prospect of increased contact with the Westons.
JP: Inspired by the new Odyssey movie, Marciuliano takes the strip in a new direction: Sophie and Charlotte go out for ice cream, get diverted, and thus begin a ten-year sojourn trying to make their way back home while having fabulous adventures along the way. Controversy arises when Sophie is recast as an Afrikaner refugee.
S4th: It’s official. Ronan is a Time Lord.
HtH:
“But wait a minute — what am I talking about here? If one both were a farmer and had the ability to purvey the foods one produced for profit, that would mean that one had access to land and controlled the means of sustenance — the most important economic attributes a person could possess in the Middle Ages!
“Oh, well. Another day, another anachronism for this strip….”
DT – He loves his Roxx chair, whatever that is. I’m investigating this case but I just can’t be bothered to look that one up.
I repeat — I’m pretty sure Martha Wilson’s holding a TV remote, not a phone.
Hey, at least Pluggers didn’t go with the old joke about Dunlop’s disease, and also Type II diabetes, arterial sclerosis and inflammation throughout their arthritis-ridden bodies.
MW — “I won’t be lured into addiction by Tommy Beedie. He’s harmless. Unlike the guys running my social media, who have me so hooked I can’t look up from my phone.”
Hagar – “I hope she comes home with a swineherd or something. Farmers tend to be tough and stringy.”
MW *sigh*, dad, the whole _point_ is to get influenced by Tommy – if he can quit hard drugs, there’s _some_ hope for conquering my screen addiction!
Plugged — Recently, I stopped at one of the last railroad car diners left in the country, and let me tell you, people one hundred years ago were either smaller or endured great big hangovers–probably the former. . .
Also Pluggers: So I see two things dying, or already dead, in this panel. There’s ol’ lardass on the stool, and subtext. (I’m less certain how to count the farmer Lardass mauled and stole the John Deere cap and clothes from.)
@Little Guy: Nah, nothing so interesting as that. Ces, for some godforsaken reason, just chooses to have these characters have extended breaks from reality so as to indulge his interminable 80s/early 90s nostalgia. I have no idea what his political leanings are, but it’s really the other side of the coin from those who complain that the ‘real’ America was the one they grew up in (that’s literally a bumper sticker on a car at my apartment complex I have to walk past every damn day).
@Hibbleton: I’m not big. It’s the stools that got small.
All right, Mr. McKee, I’m ready for my close-up.
DT If she took as much care checking the equipment needed to fit in with serious gamers as she did checking this ‘Roxx’ chair hook, those are old useless systems that will boot up with Windows XP and be completely unable to run the gaming platforms she wants to infiltrate.
Hägar the Horrible: Serious question for the the former Late Antiquity/Early Medieval scholar: the whole point of Viking raids was in fact to acquire enough wealth to buy a spread back home, no? I mean, in addition to the fun of terrorizing monks and villagers and stealing the odd pig or two.
C’shaft: My research has been unable to determine if the remains of the Chippewa Lake Starlight Ballroom are still standing after the 2002 fire (plausible, hauling away all that metal wouldn’t be cheap, but I still don’t trust Batiuk to be accurate on this). I did, however, learn that the site has been deemed haunted for years, unearthly big band music emitting from the decaying halls. Which fits perfectly with these characters: none of them have been able to move on from the memories of their youth in life, why would they do so after death?
GT: Had a bit of near-death experience script left over from the heart attack episode, eh Barajas?
@The Quiet Man: *shrug* given the lack of fun insanity like the Curtis Kwanzaa sagas, I’m interested rather than annoyed (especially with the new development of having two ostensibly sane people along for the ride this time).
DT: Sam – so you think there is only one or a few gaming sites where our would be hacker hangs out? So we just appear with our newbie logins and avatars and suddenly everyone one is going to spilling the beans for us? C’mon you just wanted a new gaming computer right?
JP: Sophie went to a East Coast university right? Or did I hallucinate that. At her present rate of regression, Charlotte will be baby sitting her.
RMMD: Okay, so these are some sort of fembots or androids? Or were they in a cult that June escaped from when she was younger?
Mary Worth: What we have here is a classic misdirection play: a story that is ostensibly about what a terrible person Tommy Beedie the former drug addict felon is turns out to be actually a story about what a terrible person Wilbur the angry dad alcoholic hypocrite really is as he tries to save Dawn the weak-willed dimwit and all-around terrible person. Oh, who am I kidding, they’re all terrible people, the story will about how Mary the narcissistic last-minute meddler is really a great person, just like every other plot in this blasted, godforsaken wasteland of a soap opera daily comic strip.
@CanuckDownSouth: To me that just makes it all the more infuriating. These people are basically Wilbur Weston drawn slightly more appealingly. They are probably actually in a modern shoebox McDonald’s holding up the line for the self-service ordering screens as they babble about 1987!
As for Ronan, I’m convinced ‘Ronan’s Creepy Mansion’ was either a mistake on Ces’ part or just more of the Forths seeing what the *want* to see because they are so disturbingly mesmerized by Ronan’s beard and they spent that storyline actually wandering around a two-bedroom condo in Santa Monica. Or, just sitting there, staring ahead but not seeing, as Ronan and Mrs. Ted Forth just carried on their day around them, checking periodically to see whether they’d soiled themselves.
MW: Ummm, Wilbur, that’s actually a tiny collectable mug that you’re drinking from, they’re not designed to be used as a vessel for actual liquids. Plus, I don’t even want to know what the picture on the mug is; from what I can see it does not look good.
Wilbur day-drinking sake from one of his hoarder’s collection of Hello Kitty mugs… what right does he have to talk about pernicious addictions?
MW: Maybe Wilbur’s gotten tired of his 20-something daughter hanging around the house (and not even getting a summer job) and has cleverly chosen “I forbid you to see him again” to drive her into moving in with Tommy.
I realize this theory founders a bit by assuming advice-columnist Wilbur knows anything about psychology, and runs hard aground on “cleverly.”
Skuld ignored the battle chieftain and focused on weaving the threads of fate. Her sister Norns were concerned she was spending so much time with this mortal, but the warrior was not her interest. The daughter, she had potential, she could ride among the Valkyrie one day. Unless she met a charming farmer at the market. A knit, a curl, a cut, and a young man fell dead.
@Uncle Lumpy:
Earns a CC yellow card but avoids the red by coming close to the line but not going over it.
Wilbur sure is judgmental for someone who once broke with reality and attacked random people in the street then never faced any consequences for that. Anyway, enough of that because sure, the victims believed he “saved” them. I wonder how many cruise ships Tommy has fallen off of.
***
That plugger is definitely talking to a New York Times reporter, isn’t he?
Don Abundio, translated:
“It’s a beautiful day for a drive”
“Maple Street is especially nice”
“We could be stopping for ice cream right now!”
“Knock it off, Don Abundio…!”
“You knew I couldn’t drive when you fired the chauffeur!”
CS: Welcome to Centerville, OH, and see our vast collection of charred remains of buildings, lovingly preserved for moody sentimentalists who just need to wallow in the pain of loss. (Opening soon: “The Montoni’s Pizza Oven Disaster of 2027!”)
MW: Wilbur tells Dawn Tommy is not a good influence while Dawn is watching an influencer on social media. Score one for Moy.
JP: Still no legal drama in sight. I think the last time we were in a courtroom was circa 2007.
JP: Welcome to Cavelton, where people of consequence from Los Angeles, Washington, New York, etc., just happen to drop by all the time.
FG: “‘Tis but a scratch!”
Blondie: Give ‘em an iceberg lettuce salad, no dressing, and all the mineral water they can drink.
Phantom: You introduce a space alien character with an Area 51 head and all he’s got to offer are drones? How about a Time Machine, so the Python can go back to 1926, walk through the nonexistent fence, then return to the present?
Pluggers: I expected this Plugger to be holding a beer. I don’t want “warts and all” (if you’ve ever seen the drunk driving rates in Pluggerdom, especially Wisconsin, compared to us ordinary suburbanites), but the idea that Pluggers don’t drink alcohol is hilarious.
Wizard of Id: C’mon, there’s a gag about chain mail for you right there.
BG&SS: This gag might land if you could convince the reader that Snuffy has cable or streaming on his CRT TV. You don’t even have to be an engineer to wonder how that thing shows a picture after 2009.
FC: I can’t tell if Dolly is trying to be Eva Peron or Margaret Thatcher, but I know a power trip when I see it.
Blondie: I actually appreciate the depiction of these Dieting Divas. It hasn’t been too long in newspaper comics time since “chubby woman” meant hilariously (sic) overweight.
I’m actually looking forward to the upcoming gamer angle in Dick Tracy. Sam’s user name will be “Definitely NOT a Cop,” as he wanders aimlessly in whatever MMPRPG she brought along.
Pluggers:
One of the many ways you can tell that Pluggers primarily takes its suggestions from old and out-of-touch people is that having a fat ass is presented as a bad thing here. That might’ve been true in the ’90s during the heyday of heroin chic, but today big badonkadonks are in! Of course, the illustration still manages to make the idea profoundly unerotic, but as a furry, let me assure you that there are plenty of pictures of anthropomorphic bears with huge butts out there that don’t make that mistake.
DT: perhaps the pineapple on the laptop is all the clue good detectives should need a to know where this is heading.
Hagar the Horrible:
Josh, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you: based on the lack of apostrophe after “farmers”, your reading of this strip as “Honi is going off to a market where they sell farmers” isn’t an alternative interpretation, it’s the plain reading of the text.
@Rover Berkeley: Yes, but look at all the legal drama being set up! Alan’s competency hearing, Charlotte’s custody hearing, Ann’s assault and kidnapping charges, April’s murder charges (in a foreign court, yet!) — the list goes on and on. And who knows what nefarious crimes Needy and Sophie will uncover at this “TV project”? Maybe even someone pretending to play the violin!
@Chip Cayer: I expect once Dick Tracy experiences FPS, they’ll have to pry the controller out of his hands. “I can shoot them in the face with no legal consequences! Sure, I can do that in Neo-Chicago too, but I still have to fill out paperwork afterward!”
Baja, a beloved member of your support group is featured in S4th today. Three cheers for CA!
[Richard Attenborough voice] “The ass glacier slowly but inexorably advances across the stool, wiping out the local flora and fauna, but seeding the land with new life and gasses.”
Dick Tracy
Based on the name, I assume a “Roxx” chair is actually an x-treme rebranding of a rocking chair. And doesn’t it say a lot about humanity that one person, even a criminal like the Hacker, can enjoy both the latest in interactive entertainment on high-end “gaming machines” and the simple pleasures of wobbling back and forth while sitting down?
MW – Wilbur isn’t worried that Tommy will lead Dawn into drug use. He’s afraid that Iris may have told him about some of Wilbur’s “eccentricities” that might reach Dawn’s ears.
The Roxx Chair is a product of a subsidiary of the Roxxon Corporation, Marvel’s evil energy conglomerate that has recently been expanding through the multiverse beyond its Earth-616 base. Watch out, Dick Tracy’s MCU!
@blammers66: Nah, it wouldn’t be nearly that direct. More like “the Pizza Box Monster drove himself off a cliff because of CTE, then his great-grandson found his diary in a priceless comic book in the year 2124 after The Burnings, and then used it to win the Ohio Book Fair.”
Mary Worth – Oh, sure, it would be okay if he was a mayonnaise addict.
Re the Hello Kitty mug – remember several years ago when a man in a bar had a My Little Pony tattoo? I don’t remember the details, but I think it was shortly after June Brigman took over drawing MW.
Crankshaft – This is all building up to Sunday, when Dinkle will play his father’s composition. I hope that’s the end of this glurge.
Who are the random people who are tagging along on this misery tour? I would have to be forced at gunpoint to go along and listen to this crap.
Frazz – Could be that they water their lawns, ignoring water restrictions. However, this way Frazz and Caulfield can be superior to people who use lawn services.
9CL – For those arriving late: Alistair’s mother is a billionaire CEO who can also pilot jumbo jets. That’s in her spare time. She’s also a world class musician.
@The Quiet Man:
Luann: holy moly, did they ever!
The ones that creep me out the most are the ones who project their own inadequacies and personal issues onto the characters. Like this cry for help;
This one was typed with one hand:
This one was traumatized by bad dating choices (and should take their own advice and seek therapy):
Mary Worth: I saw people mention yesterday how Wilbur seemingly never met Tommy while he was dating Tommy’s supposed own mother, and in fact, never gave any indication prior to this that he even knew Tommy existed. So where is all this frothing, self-righteous outrage about Tommy’s sordid past coming from? Why does he give a shit now? He didn’t care the first time Dawn met Tommy way back.
In any case, Dawn is right to channel only the bare minimum into this conversation. It’s probably the first smart thing I’ve seen her do.
Hagar The Horrible: This feels like it’s some kind of horrendous mangling of an old “farmer’s daughter” joke, rendered into something incoherent (since when is “farmer” treated like some bad boy category that protective dads hate?) by being passed through multiple people who didn’t get the joke until it got to the writer of Hagar. For the record, the gag is supposed to be about someone banging the daughter of the old farmer, not the farmer himself banging somebody else’s daughter.
Dick Tracy: Why did the artist try to go for “sexy bishounen Sam Spade” in the second panel?
@ectojazzmage: SAM CATCHEM, I’m stupid and have no idea why I said Sam Spade. My bad.
@brendancalling: Suddenly I’m having some self-doubt about my nascent Hi & Lois fanfic.
Something very pleasing about the dynamic way Fritz Ann starts in one place, dynamically moves behind Sam’s chair (displeasing him by the way she puts her hand on its back), and arrives at the laptop with whatever information she’s talking about. Respect to Charles Ettinger.
@cheech wizard: “Yeah, my mom says she never actually had sex with your dad. He just sat by the bed crying about how inadequate he felt and that he’d kill himself if she left him. She thought it was weird, but that old lady you guys hang out with a lot insisted that she give him a chance and that he was just quirky.”
@ValdVin: There is absolutely no way a sober person would willingly send these increasingly miserable and humiliating “you’re a plugger if” statements to the paper, especially knowing that their name will be attached to the end result.
@Ken: It honestly runs even harder aground on the idea that Wilbur “Borderline Incestuous Relations With His Daughter” Weston would want Dawn to leave his presence.
@The Quiet Man: Honestly, I’m starting to think this sob story WON’T end in Dinkle Sr. dying tragically yet ironically. The plot will just abruptly coast to a stop with Dinkle Jr. mentioning his dad died in his sleep at, like, 98 or something that has nothing to do with his “sad” failure to make it big. Just cuz that sort of boring non-ending makes sense for Funky-Verse.
“Listen Fritz Ann, ‘we have to play this videogame to get evidence for our investigation’ was a common trope on police shows twenty years ago, but these day we can just watch the streaming of someone playing to get all the information we need!
[three yours later]
Ok, there are too many racial slurs EVEN FOR ME!”
MW: When I saw that this post was titled “That plugger looks mad, as he should,” I briefly thought it referred to Wilbur.
HTH: I’m sure the current author of this strip thought, “Hmmm. Farmers markets are somewhat popular these days. The name sort of makes it sound like a place where you buy farmers. Does that make sense for a strip about Vikings? Eh, not really, but it’s good enough for a Thursday daily. Okay, moving on. Lunch!”
Pluggers: I can believe that, when pluggers are actually hungover, they might go to a diner, order a coffee, and proceed to launch into a very political rant without being prompted.
DT: It’s 2026, and creators everywhere are still terrified that Apple will sic their lawyers on them for merely depicting the company’s iconic logo. I say, risk it! What are the odds that Apple is strictly monitoring the comic strip Dick Tracy and is ready to pounce with a cease-and-desist notice at any moment?
Tommy is not a good influence? Tommy is your neighbor at Charterstone. The same Charterstone that saw Harvey drop $200 large on a busty meme he never met and shrug it off. And Tommy is paying his rent/mortgage by working at Freda’s as a clerk, paying by himself I may add, now that his girlfriend has left to find out about her family. This is your chance to get Dawn outta your place but still keep her close. Play the long game Wilbur.
“I got a professional cartoonist to draw a picture of a burly man-bear showing his huge ass!”
“Are you a furry?”
“How dare you! I’m a Plugger from Atoka, Tennessee!”
Lockhorns: Leroy gave Loretta “the royal treatment”. I can imagine the “Burger King” is where he’s on top, “Dairy Queen” when she’s on top but I can’t figure out what the “White Castle” position is. It’s not in the Kama Sutra and I’m too afraid to look at the Urban Dictionary.
The censor bot is a joke! I have been trying to post one comment for ten minutes and I have no idea which word block and cancel the comment without even sending me to limbo! And now it tells me I post too quickly, because I have been trying to split different words to see what works!
LUANN: Puddles has clearly hidden in embarrassment after encountering something that actually looks like a dog instead of a brown amorphous blob.
LUANN (2): Ohmigosh, you guys! Ox is briefly interacting with a girl so that must mean they fall in love! I mean it’s impossible for a man to talk to a woman without physical or romantic motivations. That’s just brilliant Trufan logic right there!
@Ettorre: Ones that I know for sure will totally block you:
H@rvey
Pr00fread
B@tm@n
H1torque
A market? The influx of gold and silver has launched coin-based commodity exchange even at the margins of Christian civilisation! The Viking warlords might celebrate now, but this is the beginning of capitalism dismantling manorialism and its economic system based on the extraction of agricultural surplus by Big Men! Feudalism’s centuries are numbered!
A market? The influx of gold and silver has kickstarted monetary commodity exchange even at the margins of Christian civilisation! The Viking warlords might celebrate now, but this is the beginning of capitalism dismantling manorialism and its economic system based on the extraction of agricultural surplus by Big Men! Feudalism’s centuries are numbered!
Finally! The verbotten word was c_o_i_-b_a_s_e_d
re: Pluggers
Someone on the Go Comics comment area quoted Josh’s humble reconsideration of the way “Pluggers” treats its man-beasts.
@23 MKay: on Pluggers: By rights, that plugger is fat enough to hibernate…for a decade.
MW- It’s all because Mary don’t twist and Wilbur don’t rock and roll.
@Joe Blevins: I may be mis-remembering, but doesn’t Crankshaft also use the “pineapple” logo on its laptops? Or am I unfairly maligning CS just because the pineapple is one of those “aren’t-I-clever (smirk)” things that isn’t really that clever, AKA the strip’s speciality?
“Hey dad, remember when you pretended to be dead and made a mockery of my and mom’s and everyone who’s ever cared about you’s feelings just to get a special little moment for yourself? Speaking of bad influences.”
How the hell does “pluggers” work?
Does someone write a note “pluggers are so fat, their ass ‘hangs over’ the diner stool”?
Or do they send a little sketch withe note ” now make it look funnier”?
Either way, it’s their faithful readers who selling pluggers short.
That, and the artist is getting paid not to come up with their own jokes.
Crankshaft-“Dad was inspired to make a song called ‘Smoke on the Water’.”
@ectojazzmage: To be fair, we did see indications that he didn’t like Tommy back then either. Tommy went to live with Iris and Wilbur kept pressuring Iris to nag Tommy about getting a job. For anyone else, this would just be a case of a woman’s beau suggesting a “tough love” approach for her layabout ne’er-do-well son so he can be motivated to make something out of his life. But since this is Wilbur and we can peer inside his slimy little head, we see that his actual motivation is to get rid of anyone who might take attention off of him. I mean Dawn is easy because just send a sleazy asshole her way and she’s set (also she apparently “has means” so she can afford to dick around life in an aimless haze). But Tommy and his poor self-esteem requires “guidance” and “structure” to make something of himself. Ugh, am I right? Anyway Tommy eventually found a (proto-Frieda’s) job and a (proto-Brandy) girlfriend, so it was enough to keep him from inadvertently cockblocking Wilbur, the Porcine of Love.
@Ettorre: I rescued you! Genuinely no idea what was tripping it up, tho, apologies.
FG: so with Azura, Ming can unleash her stable of nightmares. Has Melody ever done horror before? (Guessing she’s on standby with PV)
MF (strip that must not be discussed): what a mean thing to say about Kid Rock! (He’s my old neighbor)
TG: if that’s true for you, imagine how gross your date is! ugh.
@Ken: I remember Funky Winkerbean did. I don’t think anyone in Crankshaft uses a laptop.
@Ettorre:
#85. Glad you kept trying. Your post was worth it.
Dick Tracy: Did I miss the story arc where Sam Catchem up and joined Team Rocket?
@Josh:
#94. And thanks, Josh.
@Josh: Thanks a lot for solving the problem! I usually ctrl+A the comment before publishing but this time I forgot so I had to rewrite it and then find the word, that’s why I was annoyed. Let this be a lesson to others to copying before publishing
@Activist: Tack så mycket!
@Activist: ….Kid Rock! (He’s my old neighbor)
Did you watch him when he was showering? (Did he ever shower?)
@Maltmash3r: I think they mail in the punchline and let McKee come up with the visual. In this case Harold Blurton imagined a simple Plugger in bed with a hot-water bottle on his head, but McKee was in the mood to draw some big fat asses.
At this point, Pluggers only makes sense as a cruel prank being played by sending in suggestions in the victim’s name
Crank: “That’s all that’s left of the Starlight Ballroom. Dad was really mad about the band quitting.”
JP: So now that Sophie’s the one who’s got the “hanging around Spencer Farms looking for a purpose in life” storyline, it turns out Neddy’s actually been maintaining her contacts in the TV biz and discussing new projects the whole time! Join us in 2027, when it’s Neddy’s turn again and we’re told Sophie’s actually been running The Norwegian Charity over Zoom.
S4th: I don’t know if “Burger Sous Chef” is based on a real American thing (and for once I don’t care enough to research it), but I’m weirdly reminded of Little Chef, which was the UK motorway service station restaurant throughout my childhood, and then they all turned into Burger Kings around the turn of the millennium.
SH: “You now have the instincts of a dog, so you’re scared of fireworks! I have the instincts of a cat, and we famously aren’t scared of fireworks!”
@I speak Jive: On CS – the ‘random people’ are the church choir members Dinklepuss apparently shanghaied to play in his little pity party.
I can just hear one of them now; ‘you said we were going to the Bingo playoffs, you bastard!!’
@Horace Broon: I was stationed in the UK from 2010-12 and there were still a few Little Chefs in my area. I passed them I don’t know how many times, but I never went in one. I sort of regret that I didn’t. I did eat once at a Wimpy’s Hamburger Bar before they all disappeared.
@Horace Broon: Apparently “Burger Sous Chef” is a barely disguised representation of an American chain simply called “Burger Chef”. If they ever made it to Canada, I missed it.
@The Quiet Man: Thank you. Of course I recognize Loathsome Lillian and Crankshaft, but I had no idea who the others were. I didn’t know if they just joined in on the journey or what. In my defense, the other choir members aren’t exactly memorable.
For all I knew, Loathsome Lillian could have said, “C’mon everyone! Let’s ruin some lives!”
@Maltmash3r:
“Either way, it’s their faithful readers who selling pluggers short.”
Jimmy Hatlo perfected that process decades ago with his “They’ll Do It Every Time”. The biggest difference between the two strips is that Hatlo’s was really funny.
Delirium Tremens: Today I found out that my life is a hollow lie! With the green suit and the freckles, I thought Sam Catchem was meant to be an insulting caricature of an Irishman that the modern writers of the strip have tried their best to “clean up.” And as such my brain just always… assumed he had red hair! Yes, I know “black Irish” is a thing, I’m Irish and I don’t have red hair. But I thought that in the world of racist caricatures, all Irish were ginger.
This is legitimately the first time I ever noticed Sam’s black hair. And looking back, apparently he always had it! AND upon looking things up, I find out he’s actually a JEWISH caricature (and also a Terry Pratchett fan, which I feel like… somebody should be insulted by)? I guess I really wasn’t paying attention.
Begosh and freakin beggorah…
Pluggers: So, what I’m getting from today’s strip is that… Pluggers are more than ready to find out what OTHER excited things have the word “plug” in their name??
Plugger – Bubba Bear (no relation to Andy) walked into the diner and ordered some coffee. He was seething.
He remembered the days of his youth, at the machine shed on his farm. He and his poppa working on that old Allis Chalmers tractor of theirs. He learned how to rebuild the engine, lube the power transfers, patch up the steering linkage with an old bobby pin if a cotter pin couldn’t be found.
But Allis Chalmers went under, and parts got harder and harder to find. He was able to fabricate some for a time, but he knew he’d have to let Big Allis go. So he got one of them newfangled John Deere tractors with all the bells and whistles. And an End User License Agreement too.
He almost walked out of the dealership when he got to paragraph 11, clause B which read “if you even think of getting anywhere near the steering linkage with an old bobby pin, we will sue your ass to an early grave.”
So, when he was plowing yesterday and the left front wheel went akimbo, he dutifully trailered it into the dealership in Knoxville, out the cost of fuel for the trip and two days in the field. The part – a simple cotter pin with a Deere part number stamped on it – was $50.00, and the labor cost $500.00.
He sidled into the diner, ordered his coffee, his ass, sidelined by the shysters and the fancy engineers, drooped over the stool.
@Dunkelcopter: There was an episode of J.A.G that involved a Naval Officer having a baby with an Irish terrorist and the baby was kidnapped. The lawyer protagonists were sent to Ireland to investigate.
(Because Lawyers are detectives apparently?)
Thinking back, I don’t think I recall anyone having red hair in that episode, I mean maybe one or two people?
Alright, so I’ve been watching a certain streamer for a number of years, and he’s told us that his most favorite mug is a gift he received from his (at the time) very young niece, who decided a hot pink mug emblazoned with “Girl Power” was the ideal present for her big and tall thirty-something uncle.
I…have to respect Wilbur’s pink Hello Kitty mug here. I HAVE to. The gap is hysterical. Can’t call it gap moe because absolutely nothing about Wilbur is moe, but it’s gap, at the very least.
RMMD – I must say, I’m very disappointed that June’s catty remarks about these two panhandlers turned out to be justified. It would have been much better to have Everett True show up and pound her right into Mary Worth.
@richardf8: Sad story. I never thought I would feel nostalgic for the A-C D-15 of my youth, but there you go.
@Joe Blevins: Well, Apple did supposedly rip-off Dick Tracy’s “Wrist Wizards” (or whatever they’re called)
They probably monitor the comic in case they have any more genius ideas to steal.
(Thinks back to the arc with the machine that can spy on people in the past)
OH NO!!
@I speak Jive: The “Wanna ruin this person’s life for no good reason?” meme from Fives Nights at Freddy’s, is so much more fitting with Lillian.
(Had to resend I keep forgetting that when I edit a message, it goes in loading limbo, and if I refresh it deletes the message entirely)
The Familliar Mucus: Gotta admit Eyes/ayes nos/nose is a clever pun,but why is it coming out of the idiot clone of Lucy Van Pelt?
What A Frazzhole!: Good news everyone! Someone in Frazzville figured out how to keep Caulfield from trespassing on their lawn in his stinky bare feet!
Crankshaft-The Starlight Ballroom burned down in the Seventies. It was dubbed a Disco Inferno.
Mary Worth – The last thing Wilbur wants is his daughter to be close to someone with known substance abuse problems, leading to life threatening consequences, and disappearing and selfishly leaving loved ones fearing that they may be dead.
Hagar the Horrible – The last thing Hagar wants if his daughter to hook up with a man who knows how to make the most out of fertility.
Pluggers – The “hangover” has lasting consequences, mainly in back problems caused by poor sitting posture.
@cheech wizard: I don’t believe Everett True ever laid hands, or his fists, on a woman. With the gentler sex he made do with his sarcasm and acid wit. Although once he did throw a young lady’s lapdog forcibly from a streetcar. Prolly killed it good and dead, too.
@I speak Jive: 9CL: For those arriving late: Alistair’s mother is a billionaire CEO who can also pilot jumbo jets. That’s in her spare time. She’s also a world class musician.
Considering the fact that everyone in this godforsaken strip is a world-class musician, that last sentence doesn’t mean much.
LUANN: Well, at least Bernice is out of the house. Though she had best watch her tone with Ox. He’s one of the few genuinely nice people in the strip (though he’s getting some side-eye from me at the moment for his repeated failure to put his dog in the harness it clearly requires) and deserves better than to be condescended to by this asshole.
@Horace Broon: S4th: I don’t know if “Burger Sous Chef” is based on a real American thing (and for once I don’t care enough to research it)
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Burger Chef was an early 70s American fast food chain which must have made it at least into 1976 because of an online BC ad featuring a “Star Wars” promotion. They also claim Mickey D stole the happy meal idea from them.
@GarrisonSkunk:
I also don’t know how to breal it to Adult Calvin, Janitor, but there’s a super slew of legal requirements behind those dumb little yellow flags. You’d think, being awful, he might know this?
@The Rambling Otter: @I speak Jive: The “Wanna ruin this person’s life for no good reason?” meme from Fives Nights at Freddy’s, is so much more fitting with Lillian.
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The animatronic Lillian McCrankshaftshaftneighhbor must be the scariest thing on Earth™!
@Ukulele Ike: Mrs True is about 1/4 his size but he never fights her when she kicks his ass, which she does pretty much every time she shows up.
@Bryan: Skipped a generation between the opera-singing Nazis and the current crop of mostly cellists and piano players.
I like to imagine snotty Juliette and her medical professor husband kicking back in New Hampshire and relaxing to the mellow tones of the Holy Modal Rounders. Maybe joining in on tissue and comb.
MW: Wilbur Weston, as in touch with reality as he ever is, appears to believe that Dawn is twelve and he’s keeping her away from the high school sophomore who keeps a pack of Marlboros in his rolled-up t-shirt sleeve.
Pluggers: “Pluggers don’t know how to use a stool” is a new one on me.
I don’t know that a dark suit with a bowtie has to be considered a “tuxedo”, it’s not exactly business casual but it doesn’t seem particularly out of the ordinary to me.
DT: I’m sorry, Curtis, but if this arc is going to be about video games, ergonomic furniture, and Fritz Ann shoving her tits in Sam’s face, you can guess which one everybody is going to talk about.
@Baja Gaijin: Slightly off the topic, I’ve been pushing for years to make human hibernation a thing.
C-Shaft: How…How long ago is this place supposed to have burned down. No one else has ever built anything else on the lot, or even demolished what was left?
Dustin: Then get up off your fat ass and buy them in the store. No one will ever know, especially if you pay cash.
Luann: Oh, right, Dash. The rescue dog that’s also an eternally cute puppy. Sure, that’s how it always works.
MT: Yes, it takes a special kind of diabolical mastermind to hide your criminal intentions behind something as inconspicuous as a gorilla sanctuary.
Phantom: “I’ve never had to make a prison break before. You’re supposed to do a lot of yelling, right?”
RMMD: They’re just doing to keep doing the piddly little busking scam all day? The least Beatty could do is follow up on the idea of them scamming the Morgans.
6C: That’s, um, exactly what the term “red flag” means, but I guess if you’re a redhead you might consider it a slur.
@JeffMcm: And Dagwood is supposed to be out of touch due to being from an idle rich family, or at least that was the original concept.
Late Thread Cuisine: This is another in the series of “What the heck was the food designer thinking” recipe photos.
Blondie, the Neighborhood Bumstead: “You know,they’re doing wonders with water enhancers these days,I have Ham &Cheese Sandwhich flavor, mashed potato flavor, green bean flavor, tropical turnip flavor, I recently used those to ween a local Otter off of his caffeine addiction.”
@Baja Gaijin: “If I fold this daisy-print tea towel just so, I can make it look like the eyes of a monster vomiting beef chunks out of a potato-lump-toothed mouth… yeah, that’s the ticket!”
@GarrisonSkunk: It’s Family Circus. If you want someone whose not an idiot clone of someone else, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
@137 CanuckDownSouth: I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw that. I wonder if it’s an accidental monster?
Today’s installment of Super-Fun-Pak Comics provides another hilarious sendup of the comics blogging community.
@Rube: I remember Burger Chet when I was a very little kid—mid-1970s. As I recall, I preferred them to either Burger King or McDonalds.
@brendancalling: The hamburger business was inaugurated as an investment opportunity by 1960s TV news anchormen Huntley and Brinkley. They went with that name because even Brinkley admitted that “Burger David” was pretty unappetizing.
Many remember the cute animated figures from the commercials, based on Bert and Henry Piels of the Piels beer ads. Unfortunately Bob and Ray’s professional fee was far too high, and H&B were obliged to do the voiceovers themselves.
And that earworm of an advertising jingle!
Burger Chet
Burger Chet
Burger Chet Chet Chet
Burger Chet
Burger Chet
Go eat at Burger Chet!
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I can’t fault Costello. U.S. federal agents have long been renowned for their wild and uncontrolled libidos. Remember Scott Glenn in Silence of the Lambs? A boiling cauldron of degenerate lusts.
@Ukulele Ike: Fun fact: a real FBI agent “helped” Glenn get into character by playing him a tape of a serial killer torturing someone to death. Notice that Glenn didn’t come back for Hannibal.
And thanks for reminding me that Costello is now the writer. Seriously, when did Mike Curtis last draw the strip? Is he Bernie from the beloved comedy Weekend at Bernie’s?
@Ukulele Ike:
…aaaaaand now I miss Piels beer. Haven’t seen them in eons.
@MKay: I’ve been pushing for years to make human hibernation a thing.
You might like Jasper Fforde’s novel, Early Riser.
@The Quiet Man: Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: “The hacker is a yakker, and the flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true.” So will Tracy shoot Hanna Barbara’s beloved(?) Yakky Doodle who just escaped from Toon town Jail? Tune in tomorrow, true believers!
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: “The hacker is a yakker, and the flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true.” So will Tracy shoot Hanna Barbara’s beloved(?) Yakky Doodle who just escaped from Toon town Jail? Tune in tomorrow, true believers!
@Artist formerly known as Ben: DT: I’m sorry, Curtis, but if this arc is going to be about video games, ergonomic furniture, and Fritz Ann shoving her tits in Sam’s face, you can guess which one everybody is going to talk about
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Oh, THAT Curtis! I thought you were describing this year’s Kwanzaa story, I was wondering where the giant telepathic otter would fit in.
@Ukulele Ike: June Morgan is no lady.
Mr. Bumstead’s wears black suits to the office. His tuxedo, which he properly wears only to evening events, has satin lapels. Mr. Bumstead comes from old money, and as such would never wear anything but a black bow tie with a tuxedo, regardless of modern fads.
@Ukulele Ike: @brendancalling: The hamburger business was inaugurated as an investment opportunity by 1960s TV news anchormen Huntley and Brinkley.
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Then Uncle Walter countered with Cronkite Fried Chicken™ and then quickly sold the outlets to Minnie Pearl when they failed.
And that’s the way it was July 2,1977, 200 years ago today.
This Bicentennial+50 minute has been brought to you by Reese’s Heathcrankshaft cups™
@A Grave Mind: Piels was my household beer in Brooklyn for several years. Inexpensive by the case, refreshing on a hot summer day, went down well with low class food (burgers, brats, chili con carne, takeout pizza and Chinese). For the past 20 years, though, $10-a-4pack Bitburger pints are available everywhere. 16 oz of the most popular German beer in Germany for two and a half bucks.
@Fashion Police: Miss you! (swoon) Please post more often!
@GarrisonSkunk: Years back, Sesame Street did a parody of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rathers.
Grouches names “Walter Cranky” and “Dan-Rather Not”
@GarrisonSkunk: “You got my Ham in Lena’s Brownies!” “You got Lena’s Brownies in my Ham!”
“Heathcrankshaft cups™ for when you don’t want anything better”
This ad was paid for by the Garbage Ape’s Presidential Campaign… fight garbage with more garbage!
@Ukulele Ike: goddam it. Burger CHEF. C-H-E-F.
Fucking autocorrect. I swear to god, all these tech solutions to problems that never existed have become worse than the imaginary problems they’re supposed to solve!
@Baja Gaijin: got a recipe for that one? The potato puffs look interesting,
@Lauralot: @The Rambling Otter: GarrisonSkunk: Years back, Sesame Street did a parody of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rathers.
Grouches names “Walter Cranky” and “Dan-Rather Not”
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Cronkite was also parodied in the early 70’s film “Cold Turkey”, I don’t think Rather was well known enough at that point to get one,but they also parodied Huntley / Brinkley,and whoever was doing the news for ABC.Good film stars Dick Van Dyke and Bob & Ray and Bob Newhart. A small town’s minister (DVD) rallys the citizens to take a tobacco company up on its stunt offer of a million dollars to any town that totally gives up cancer sticks.
@brendancalling: #156: I remember the TV ads with the cartoon characters Burger Chef and Jeff.
@157 brendancalling: Recipe:
In a large skillet, brown meat and onions. Add garlic, salt, pepper, basil, thyme, tomato sauce and wine; cover and simmer 30 minutes until meat is tender. Heat oven to 375°. Mix mashed potatoes, green onions, cheese, butter and egg. Season with salt an pepper. Place meat mixture in a casserole. Shape potato mixture into balls and place around top edge of the casserole. Bake 20 to 25 minutes – until potato puffs are golden brown.
@Austria: I…have to respect Wilbur’s pink Hello Kitty mug here. I HAVE to. The gap is hysterical. Can’t call it gap moe because absolutely nothing about Wilbur is moe, but it’s gap, at the very least.
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Wilber is more Gap Curley. The Gap™ used to have an advertising jingle singing, “Fall into the gap” so that fits Mr.cruise ship.
@Ukulele Ike:#128 There you go again with those Holy Modal Rounders
(“If you want to be a bird…”; “…I’m out here, kicking the gong for euphoria.” or a bit later, “Once a friendly stranger said to me…”)
@Ukulele Ike: You might think you’re being sarcastic. You’re actually not.
Let’s just say that things like the Strzok-Page affair are not uncommon in federal law enforcement.