Gloomy Tuesday
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Marvin, 1/21/25
I really have to respect Marvin for playing the long game and getting me to publicly praise it for turning away from shit and piss jokes and then unleash what may be one of the vilest strips in the all years I’ve read it, one in which Marvin suggests that, if he had his druthers, he would continue crawling around on the floor and soiling himself well into his tween years, simply because he feels making the effort not to and alleviating his parents of the burdens of catering to his basest needs would be an affront to his dignity.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/21/25
Lotta people see the revolving door of the Hootin’ Holler jail and think Snuffy never truly pays the price for his various crimes. But today we learn that in fact his constant brushes with the law have turned his own mind into a prison that’s ultimately of his own making, and I think that’s neat.
Pluggers, 1/21/25
“Pluggers are stuck in the bathtub and probably they’re going to die there” is frankly a little too grim for me this morning! Please go back to being smug about your exurban folkways, Pluggers, I much prefer that to seeing the chicken-lady’s last bubbly moments!
134 replies to “Gloomy Tuesday”
MW: Get a room!
Pluggers: Now what? Add some celery, carrots and rice and more HOT water!
MARVIN: Natural consequences; go with it, Marvin. Wait til you see how much personal space you’ll get in school!
PLUGGERS: I’m seriously asking here; can wet chickens fly?
Marvin: Marvin seems to be running a kind of PR campaign by convincing his cousin(?) to be a worse version of himself, so that his parents look back on his own infancy more fondly.
BGSS: Do you think that Snuffy has the nightmare one typically has about school, i.e. showing up unprepared and/or naked? Sorry, I thought of that little gnome in the nude and now you have to too.
Pluggers The most disturbing part of this strip is that chicken lady’s thought balloon seems to imply that something else has gone wrong on top of being trapped in the tub. At best, there’s someone at the door, but at worst, she’s poopin’.
Marvin knows that the only relatable things he does are numbers one and two, which although repulsive are humorous to parents everywhere thanks to their aforementioned relatability to real toddlers’ behavior. When he tries to break free from the oppressive toilet humor requirements, he is forced back into line with a particularly terrible poop joke strip like this. Have pity for Marvin, he needs it.
@Joe Momma: And get rid of that d*mn soap!
Pluggers: She dies as she lived, a wretched abomination whose very existence is an insult to all creation and a mockery of all that is good and decent in the universe. And she was wearing her glasses in the bathtub.
Pluggers – Henrietta Chicken is thinking WWWHTD (What would William Howard Taft do)?
Marvin – Hey – a real Plato and Aristotle moment….
BG&SS – I fucked the chicken, but I didn’t steal it. That ‘twas Lukey….
Pluggers – Ah – the good ol’ days. When Americans dreamed big! A chicken in every tub….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
It has to more than coincidence that today Hi and Lois do a very mild poop joke and Armstrong launches a full scale sensorial assault from Marvin.
“Stay in your lane, Browne and Co.”
MW – Grrrr. That “Babe” stuff again. I just hate it. Tommy and Brandi redux. As I noted yesterday, These Kids Today do *not* call each other “babe.” Moy could at least go the Lynn Johnston route and just make up words when she doesn’t know how These Kids Today actually talk and can’t be bothered to find out. How about “STOOB,” a combination of “stupid” and “boob?”
“You don’t need to learn to walk until middle school”, says Marvin, who’s walking around on two legs. Why should this guy listen to him to begin with? How long before he starts saying “four legs good, two legs better”?
For you depraved furries who might well make up close to half of Pluggers’ fanbase, here’s the hot, sexy, bare-shouldered middle-aged chicken-woman action you’ve always wanted.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Loweezy wears a nightcap over a shawl?!
@pugfuggly: At best, there’s someone at the door, but at worst, she’s poopin’.
____________________________
Col Sanders?
@Pozzo: And it looks like Snuffy is wearing a sock on his head. They make do.
Pluggers: I’m looking at the feet on that tub and wondering if it too is supposed to be sentient?
Pluggers have trouble dismounting after sex.
And a tip o’ the hat to Anne “Help Me Off” Tonjes of Ocean Isles Beach, NC
@But What Do I Know?: But don’t add any cilantro, according to my wife.
Why are Neck guy and Nerd girl saying “JOE’S” to each other?
Marvin: You say “vilest,” I say “Most American.” The rugged individualism of making someone else wipe your ass!
Today, what I learned is that Loweezy even wears her ubiquitous headscarf to bed, donning a cute frilly sleeping hat on top of it. Also, possibly, that the artists of Barney Google & Snuffy Smith aren’t actually sure what Loweezy’s head is supposed to look like underneath said scarf.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Pluggers – Henrietta Chicken is thinking WWWHTD (What would William Howard Taft do)?
_____________________________
He’d have the buffalo wings.
“Oh, great! Now what?” The answer? Carrots, onions, noodles and spices. Today’s Plugger character is tomorrow’s cure for a cold.
Henrietta just needs a good plucking.
Why is Loweezy still wearing her daytime kerchief under the nightcap? Or does she just have wattles, like a turkey? Gangrenous, by the color.
@Tonio: The answer? Carrots, onions, noodles and spices. Today’s Plugger character is tomorrow’s cure for a cold.
______________________________
Funny, she doesn’t look soupish.
Also Marvin: At 42 years, this strip is a bit young for jokes about perineal care and the loss of independent ambulation, but early-onset Alzheimer’s is what it is. (May God grant that Marvin no longer more than six coherent words in a row.)
Missing third panels:
MW: ‘…How can I ruin that?’
RMMD: *CLICK!*
Luann: ‘Gee, and I was just about to propose!’
Pluggers: We’ve switched Henrietta’s exfoliatory body wash with an explumatory scrub. Will she notice?
BGSS: A courtmare isn’t the Hootin’ Holler judge’s horse?
I much prefer that to seeing the chicken-lady’s last bubbly moments!
But if we must, they should at least involve mirepoix and dill
FC: After Yesterday’s visually deflating depiction, Bil found his air pump and Thel is back to her usual ample proportions.
Marvin – With an aging audience and children no longer reading the newspaper, you have to ask who are comics written for now. Most of the long-running strips are on autopilot and aiming for a Post-War family audience.
But what to make of Marvin? Children would abhor being a bed-wetter, and their bed wetting could easily be tied to dreams of embarrassment at school caused by soiling themselves. What readers would identify with Marvin in this?
Adult baby fetishists, who fantasize about regressing to an infantile state. They aren’t a large segment of society, but dedicated enough to keep Marvin in print.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – Every job as its stressors, whether its a bad boss, deadlines, or fear you could be replaced by someone younger. Even in the informal economy of thievery, the time spent in court, preparing for court, and recovering from court/incarceration takes a toll on a person.
Pluggers – Our late-stage capitalist society underinvests in the care of the no-longer economically productive elderly. Budgets for home care aides that could assist the elderly in basics like hygiene and even the simple pleasures of a soak in a bubble bath fall to the wayside in favor of the affluent health care executive class.
Too bad the average Pluggers reader will make a lame “LOL, chicken soup” joke.
BG&SS – It’s good to know that even though she’s a backwoods hillbilly, Loweezy knows the difference between “yo’re and “yore.”
Pluggers: This is the joke right?
My mother would get stuck in the bathtub so frequently in the past, she’s afraid to use it now. We have a bathchair that raises and lowers but she thinks that she’s inconveniencing me to put it in the tub every time she wants a bath.
It’s a very traumatizing situation for her and the rest of the family.
But of course comic writer, use it as “joke” fodder….
A chicken lady in a bathtub? More like a brothtub!
@Hibbleton: Right on! (I had noted in a late-night thread this morning that for those who lamented her C-Cup status on Monday, she’s back to being like she’s drawn by Mike Manley. BTW, beyond the great sweater puppies he draws, I think Manley is one of the best illustrators out there. The artwork in Juggs Parker is always top notch, even if I never know what’s going on with the story.)
Or a broth-el?
MW: Dirk’s opening word balloon gets to the crux of the story.
“Dawn looks happy…” says Jared; although the ellipses means there’s more to the thought which being obvious to the reader doesn’t need to be stated. “…dating an android who almost affects human speech.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Yes, with a heartfelt nod to Eduardo Barreto.
Luann: Forget helping with homework; what’s important here is gossip!
9CL: I made chocolate chip cookies yesterday. It’s not a magical power. From a cartooning perspective, it seems like one might want to depict some actual cookies, rather than a poorly-colored bowl of chipless dough. And finally, which couple is this?
CS: “We just fill in for each other whenever … we get horny.”
MW-“Dawn looks happy.” Yeah. She’s basically dating her father.
MW-“Now is my chance to convince Dawn how miserable she is and I can make my way out of the friendzone.”
MW: Dawn looks happy. Jess looks happy. We’ll give Dirk another minute or two before he insults Dawn again, so she won’t be happy anymore. Then Jess will notice Jared mooning over Dawn, so she won’t be happy anymore. What a gripping story. And by gripping, I mean, of course, tedious.
CS: It pretty much defeats the purpose if the switch served no purpose, evident by the fact that they’re both standing there doing nothing. But whatever, Batty gonna Batty.
RMMD: “Oh, so you’re not gettin’ any either, huh? Bummer.”
GT: Wow, you can almost taste the hostility! Now roll the car window up on his fingers and peel on outta there.
MW: I call my wife babe, it’s genuinely one of my worst habits and I’m always trying to be better and call her by you know, her name. I don’t know why it’s a hard habit to break, but it has been.
These strips have been EXCEPTIONALLY triggering to me lol
Luann-Why is Luann’s first thought when she hears medic is the military?
Luann-“Bernice! Forget it! Piro is into seamen!”
I admire Mrs Plugger’s wearing her spectacles in the bath. She may be about to hypothermia to death, but nobody will ever call her “Stevie Wonder”, dammit.
Wary Morth :
Dusk looks happy?
How dare sheeeeeee.
MW – I can’t help reading Dirk’s attempts at human speech as if spoken by a robot from a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. “I. am. enjoying. the. sen. sation. of. your. hand. on. my. neck. Oh, yes. It. feels. so. good. Please. con. tin. ue. pro. viding. this. sen. sation. as. I. find. it. most. plea. sur. able.”
Marvin: A horrible person advocating for depending on your parents out of an overblown sense of entitlement? Who let the Dustin writers get their hands on Marvin?
Pluggers will drown in their own tub and not be found until their home care nurse comes by for their weekly visit, ha-ha-ha.
Marvin – I’m 50 years old, and I still remember vividly when my classmate, Ray, peed his pants in first grade. And that was before video cameras. So, what I’m saying is, elementary school is not going to be kind to Marvin.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
No plugger has ever lived in a place called “Ocean Isle Beach.” It’s like trying to be a gangsta on Timid Deer Lane.
@Dennis Jimenez:
BG&SS – I fucked the chicken
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, oh no, oh
Holy crap. New lore is rare in Snuffy Smith, but today we have a massive dose of it. Snuffy’s ‘courtmares’ reveal his secret past. He once left the Holler for the cooler (but whiter) climes of Harvard Law, tried to escape the cycles of violence and poverty by passing the bar and becoming someone important. Graduating magna cum laude, passing the California bar on the first try, and a prestigious turn as a clerk to a Supreme Court justice had placed him on the glideslope to easy success. But his neighbors had chickens in their backyard (not as unusual on Capitol Hill as you might expect), and their clucking, their pecking, their damnable bwaking finally drove him into covetous madness. They caught him on First Street NE, near the steps of the Supreme Court itself, with a sack full of chickens and a sawed-off shotgun. Trial was swift and disbarment swifter, and he found himself trudging back up that long mountain rod to the Holler in disgrace. In his dreams he remains an attorney, a shining paragon of justice, but in his heart he knows that he never really left the Holler at all.
Pluggers: As Henrietta felt the once-comforting warm bath water begin to cool, her mind drifted back to that long-forgotten day in the barnyard when her life changed forever. Yes, that so-called “doctor” was recruiting for his “experiments” that would offer her a chance to escape that dull existence, to make something of herself. And it had worked! She became a hybrid Chicken Lady, with mostly human-like characteristics, even married a Dog Man, against all instincts of self-preservation. Sometimes she even forgot she had ever been a chicken.
But now, sitting here immobilized by the weight of her sodden feathers, she came to a realization – “This is wrong. I shouldn’t be soaking in a vat of water to clean myself. I should just be flopping around in the dust to get rid of the mites! What have I become? And where is that Dog Man abomination I’m forced to live with? Probably at the hardware store. What will happen when he gets home? Will the smell of my wet feathers trigger some primal instinct in his brain, and he’ll attack me and rip me to shreds?”
Henrietta steeled herself to the inevitable fact that she would have to peck Earl’s eyes out when he returned.
Ok, you’re trying to tell me that Pluggers don’t watch daytime TV and they have never seen an ad for those bathtubs you can sit on and walk out from easily? I call bullshit!
C’shat: “For example, while I was in here Emily was free to just stand around outside your door waiting to be brought in for the punchline! Much easier that way.
DT: I think this is why mystery writers suggest working backwards from the ending. Otherwise you get a situation like this, where you’re frantically trying to pull together all these disparate elements in a way that makes sense and failing miserably.
Dustin: “I mean when you think about it, climate change will get rid of the snow eventually…”
GT: Yeah, just kind of gently hint that they should do something about their eating disorder harder. That’ll solve the problem.
JP: “I mean, I let a kindergartener shame me into this! What was I thinking?”
Luann: I’m pretty sure the Navy has very firm rules against goofy haircuts with stars shaved into the side of your head…
RMMD: Don’t want to trouble your readers with unsettling conflict? Just kind of hint that conflict might be happening in the dialogue! It’s easy!
Last month I slipped on ice and both twisted and hit my knee twice in three days, and hit it real good at a marble tabletop in between. That made it impossible to get out of the bath without making my injuries worse. But now I can offer this lesson for much older pluggers: Suck up the pain and expend every last effort to get out of the bath and die with dignity, slipping on your wet bathroom floor. (Or maybe just give up baths when they get that dangerous.)
“Adults will always try to teach you things so they don’t have to do them”. True. Marvin’s parents tried to teach him to love himself, so they don’t have to do it, but Marvin is incapable of even narcissistic love. Foulness is not just in his intestine, but also his heart
Pluggers – That’s not a bathtub. It’s a skillet. And there’s no escape.
@55 Myrtle:
The back story in which we were all curious.
The movie “My Cousin Snuffy” is an underrated gem.
DtM: Both Margaret and the thought disappear as the publisher tries to cash in on the popularity of Severance.
Baby Blues: Please don’t let this storyline about Zoe’s friend suddenly having new luxury items turn into a depressing reveal later in the week that this child is the victim of sexual abuse and her abuser is bribing her to keep quiet or that she has a terminal illness and is receiving gifts out of pity. I guess it could also just be that her parents are getting a divorce but I still don’t like the way this looks.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: Oddest sex dream ever.
Pluggers: That’s one big-assed bathtub! Looks more like a jacuzzi.
MW: I can’t help but wonder how Dirk will talk to Dawn when he sees her naked. Well, actually I can help that but I wonder about it anyway.
CS: What is the One-Armed Man’s name? And where is Dr Kimble?
Hi and Lois: Why does Hi looks disheveled and unshaven? This seems to indicate that he’s not simply returning home from work and maybe he and Lois have been fighting and he was kicked out of the house for some time. The fact that Lois is using their infant daughter’s basic needs for spiteful retaliation is especially disturbing. How long has Trixie been left crying and waiting to be fed and changed? This comic has taken a dark turn.
@Lord Flatulence:
Jacuzzi is a brand name and Pluggers certainly don’t have the money for a brand name luxury item.
@Professor Well Actually:
“BUSHGIRL!”
@Anonymous: I had been thinking recently, about things I watched when I was a kid that takes a whole new meaning as an adult.
Such as, a Batman: TAS episode, where a guy steals an invisibility suit so he can see his young daughter without his ex-wife knowing (which he has a no contact order) posing as the daughter’s imaginary friend.
Then he’s robbing stores to give his daughter gifts. I mean, one would assume he’d rob toy stores or something but no… he steals expensive jewelry, something that is usually reserved for a romantic partner.
This adds terrifying red flags and one realizes why he has the no contact order to begin with.
The implications of any of this, is never outright stated, just implied through said actions, and invisibility suit aside, is a terrifyingly real scenario. But as a kid, one doesn’t see any of that. Just:
“Bad guy does bad things”
“Batman shows up and beats up bad guy”
“THE END”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I taught Monin to fetch my paper”
“A headline about healthy diets for dogs!”
“Unfortunately, some articles may be redacted!”
Beetle Bailey; Remember that when you thank a veteran for their service they might have been a resentful POS who made no effort at all.
Hi and Lois: What kind of pretentious decor is that vase sitting on a pedestal? That thing would be knocked over and broken on a daily basis in a house with 4 kids and a dog.
Family Circus: What kind of outfit is Ma Keane wearing here and is there something going on with her breasts? This is distracting from a pretty good joke about why don’t we as a society just forcibly put every senior into a facility and take all their property from them? What can they do to stop us?
Zits: This is why teenage Jeremy still hasn’t ever had any desire to have sex in the 25+ years this comic has been running, he has no concept of what gender actually is or the physical differences between men and women.
Pluggers — I’m wondering about the pink color of the water. Blood? I don’t know if lady chickens menstruate, and I’m not at all inclined to look it up. Maybe there are piranha in the water that are chewing holes in her body. I would be okay with that.
AAGGGHHHH: I just figured out how to bypass hump day.
Luann: Alan: Well, Piro was in the Navy for a while. Do you know what “fraternization” is, by the way?
@AhClem: An infertile egg is the menstrual discharge of a lady chicken.
@Giant Pondering Otter: That show is hands down the best version of Batman in any medium and it is a crime that Warner Brothers never handed the producers of that cartoon a blank check and said, “Here, make that, but in live action.”
I can still vividly recall the scent of the sawdust or whatever it was that the janitor would sprinkle on the floor to neutralize or whatever the fugitive urine.
I also recall Sara Beth, in second grade, vomiting into her lavender skirt. She was sitting at her desk right next to me, and I was impressed at how all of it went right onto her skirt without any chunks reaching the floor.
Good times.
@GarrisonSkunk: In that case it’d probably be both…
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Years back, my Mom went on a carnival ride, one of those centrifuge spinning things, I don’t remember what it was called.
One guy on the ride threw up, but for whatever bizarre reason, my Mom was the only one on the ride who did not get vomit on her.
@John Plugger Mellencamp: The closest Batman medium that came even close to the level of awesomeness was the videogame Batman: Arkham Asylum. Helps that they brought back most of the cast from BTAS.
Pluggers: This is one of those strips that makes me question what age range Pluggers are even supposed to be in. Like, I usually assume they’re just middle aged, maybe on the older side of it. But than you get strips like this where they act so senior citizen that they can’t get out of bathtubs on their own. Which breed of “old” are these freakish animal people supposed to be?
Marvin-I see that Marvin is going to be very popular.
@pugfuggly: Maybe Chicken Lady is feeling the same existential dread we all find ourselves in, lately.
…
Who am I kidding? She probably pooped in the tub and is debating whether she cares enough to get out of the tub and clean it.
…
Which, again, might be a musing about democracy.
If not for the fact that this is Pluggers, after all.
@TheDiva: I think this is why mystery writers suggest working backwards from the ending. Otherwise you get a situation like this, where you’re frantically trying to pull together all these disparate elements in a way that makes sense and failing miserably.
I think newspaper comics are already working backwards from the ending, and that’s exactly their problem. The writer chooses the ending that indulges their own conceits, then try to back-form a story that leads up to that. So we get stories that make zero sense as they progress, but it’s obvious where they’re going. 90% any of jroggs’ excellent “here are the problems with this story” posts would be an example of this.
Phantom: Does poor old Neville Stokes need to serve beer during his moment of glory? Can’t he sit back and enjoy watching himself on the teevee, leading the crowd in applause at appropriate moments??
And unless Neville Stokes shrunk to Bandar-size overnight, those aren’t “pints.” “Two glass garbage cans filled with your best bitter, Neville Stokes!” “We say ‘dust bin’ in this country, wanker.”
Pluggers – As Henrietta sits helplessly in the tub, she is first worried. Then she feels exasperated and annoyed that she’s stuck. As her frustration grows, she’ll soon be madder than a wet hen.
FC – I’m imagining holier than thou Grandma in the Red Riding Hood story. She would slap the wolf senseless, but if he did manage to overpower her, the melonheads would know right away that he wasn’t Grandma. “You’re not Grandma! You didn’t call Mommy ‘your harlot mother!'” Jeffy, of course, will still be confused.
Frazz – I assume that random kid is just making a comment. If this were Caulfield, he’d be blathering to show off how smart he thinks he is.
Speed Bump – An avid reader should have more respect for books.
Crankshaft – Twins look alike! Stop the presses!
Pluggers: At least Earl will have plenty of chicken soup to serve the funeral guests.
FC: Whoa, did Thel forget to wear a bra today? Dolly should be asking her why her boobs are hanging like Helen Kudlick’s down the street and not jutting.
@Tom T.: Re 9CL – The interchangeable couple today is Seth and Fernanda. See yesterday’s strip.
@ectojazzmage: Pluggers appear to be all ages, although most seem to be old. There have been strips with young pluggers.
Gonna say about today’s Snuffy Smith, Snuffy’s dog is sleeping at the end of the bed, then after Snuffy wakes up from a nightmare clearly distressed, the dog snuggles up closer to him.
It is very subtly touching (and also realistic)
@Ettorre: #56: Yes, pluggers have seen those TV ads for walk-in tubs plenty of times but gnash their teeth (or beaks) in anguish because they can’t afford them.
Pluggers: Something, something, chicken breasts.
9CL: “Do I love you? I married you. I’m putting my dick into one of your holes faithfully, twice a month, against my instincts and crushing my soul. My old boyfriend hasn’t spoken to me in years and my entire community of Upper West Side trust-fund gay 20-somethings is ghosting me. But the cookies are good.”
GT: Wow, look at that piss-face — Mimi is having none of this. “Not eating, huh? Does your big-titted bartender whore girlfriend have any advice for you?”
@Hibbleton: FC: After Yesterday’s visually deflating depiction, Bil found his air pump and Thel is back to her usual ample proportions.
I know that I, for one, am pumped.
You’re saying Marvin isn’t already in middle school? He can speak in perfect sentences to his parents and is shown to have homework…
@ectojazzmage: I imagine that membership in Pluggers works like the Borg in Star Trek. Pluggers’ only purpose is to forcibly convert — er, “assimilate” all other life forms to their way of thinking. Do you sometimes have trouble opening a medicine bottle? Great, you’re a Plugger now. Put on the rubber suit and report to Andy Bear for your orders.
@Giant Pondering Otter:
Also: The “Chu-Chi Face” song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Snuffy – Poor Snuffy’s having that recurring nightmare again, about losing his defamation suit against Courtney Love.
9 Chickweed Lane: English to Spanish. Thanks to @94 Ukulele Ike:
@Hibbleton: Every time I plant thee seed, he say fry it before it grow….
Pluggers: “I had to kidnap it. They wanted to dissect it. Stop screaming every time you open the bathroom door!”
JP: What a warm and welcoming expression Ann is showing her brother. This will teach Randy not to base his relationships with his adult relatives on whatever his small daughter happens to call them.
Fifty years ago today, Commodore electronic calculators were on sale for $14.88. They could add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Newspaper readers learned that the FBI maintained files on members of Congress, but Director Kelley said it was done legally.
In Montreal, 13 murder victims were found in the storage closet of a Montreal topless bar. (Three days later a suspect was killed by the police. Another suspect was later arrested, but charges against him were eventually dropped.) Relatedly, criminals in the Mandarake the Magician strip were casing a joint, and Kerry Drake learned about the latest advances in ballistics technology while Johnny Hazard looked at the wrong end of a gun. Rick O Shay took a dim view of the legal system: “legal ain’t always right.”
Newspapers reported that Nancy Walker had developed her assets by seeking a constructive side to criticism, but in the Jeff Cobb strip, Mr. Gunkle failed to see the constructive side of criticism.
Marvin: Marvin’s longstanding refusal to use the potty has been explored ad literal nauseum, but he’s been walking forever. For his own satisfaction, because he wants to? Are we supposed to see him as some kind of existential hero?
Pluggers: The anxiety you feel when you ask Calgon to take you away and it doesn’t.
9CL: So the takeaway here is that you can make it work with a gay husband if he’s also effectively five years old? All the singles ladies are taking note, I’m sure.
C-Shaft: This is now one of two extant comics where identical twins do cutesy identity switches, and I desperately hope there are no more parallels with 9 Chickweed Lane>
DT: He might have snuck into a holding cell to kill his explosives guy because he might have thought that Sprengstoff was going to confess to a major act of terrorism to get out of a fare evasion charge. One or both of them might be really stupid.
Dustin: My plan was for Dustin to be funny today. You can see how well that one worked out.
GT: What’s this? Does Mimi only have one ear pierced? Of course it’s still less of a fashion faux pas than the “NO” thing her daughter has going on.
JP: Hand talker Ann is the last person you need to tell to keep her hands in plain view. It’s easy to forget she’s a WASP.
MW: Everything about this story will be forgiven if Dawn smashes Dirk’s head through Joe’s glass door.
RMMD: “Who?”
6C: A teardrop tattoo means you killed someone and/or did time in prison. A sweat drop tattoo means that you had a standup set that didn’t go so well. Seems apt for this strip.
@Joe Momma: “One, it’s good for you, and two, it’s nobody we know.”
Thus was created the only tanget point between Pluggers and The Far Side.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: MW: Everything about this story will be forgiven if Dawn smashes Dirk’s head through Joe’s glass door.
Joe’s Glass Door. I missed that installment in Reader’s Digest’s “I Am Joe’s” series back in the 60s.
@108 Just John:
Yes, who can forget “I am Joe’s Man Gland.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: 9CL: I think the takeaway is that a single lady can make it work with a gay husband if she gives up all self-respect, the possibility of fulfilling and passionate sex, and if he is the son of a Texas oil multimillionaire with an Upper West Side duplex that can accommodate Edda and Amos’s rapidly expanding family plus multiple grand pianos.
Also, he’s good at telling you whether the earrings match the dress.
re: 6Chx: Is the joke that they are both wearing clown shoes? Or that, uh, it’s a shoe store, yes, they probably have a larger size?
@Ukulele Ike: They’re wearing clown shoes and have sort of clownish faces, not for the first time. Bianca Xunise seems to be trying to Baja-proof her comics.
@Giant Pondering Otter:
One guy on the ride threw up, but for whatever bizarre reason, my Mom was the only one on the ride who did not get vomit on her.
I’m guessing she was savvy enough to spray herself with puke repellent before she left the house.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
OMG, you’ve captured the zeitgeist!
@Ukulele Ike: Re Six Chix – I think the joke is that they look almost, but not quite, like clowns. Will bigger shoes help? Probably not. But at least we know they’re currently trying to look more like clowns, rather than less. Tune in, some random week from now, for more of the mildly bemusing antics of The Near-Clowns!
@Nekrotzar: My Uncle Grandpa
@Cleveland Mocks: I always spray myself with puke repellent before I leave the house. You can never be too careful.
@116 Ukulele Ike:
Oh, you mean Aqua Velva. Or is it Brut?
@UncleJeffers:
As it will do with remarkable frequency!
@Sequitur: Puke Repellant puke repellant. Available at every Brooklyn bodega!
@119 Ukulele Ike:
Oops. I suggested things that make you puke.
@Sequitur: #109: Until I read that “Reader’s Digest” article I had never heard of a man’s testicle referred to as a man gland nor have I ever heard it called that since.
@Sequitur: Did I miss the issue with “I am Joe’s Uterus”? Or was it “womb”?
@121 Guillermo el chiclero:
I agree. I guess you couldn’t say, “testicle” in polite company back then. Would “scrotum” have worked?
This exchange might get us on a float come Friday.
@MKay:
#3. MKay, chicken’s feathers get wet on the surface from rain, and I’ve seen them fly atop a gate in rain. Even dry chickens struggle with flying higher than that.
A chicken thoroughly soaked from a bubble bath– no idea.
@Arabella: #122: I believe for lady parts the articles were titled, “I am Jane’s…”
re Joe’s body: I found an archive of the original book! Brings back memories of middle school free reading period…
https://tinyurl.com/joesbody
@125 Guillermo el chiclero:
Oh, yeah. I am Jane’s hoo-haw.
@126 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
The go to reading while waiting on your proctologist.
@Sequitur: Yes, who can forget “I am Joe’s Man Gland.”
You jest, but “Prostate” and “Testis” were both installments in the “I Am Joe’s” series. The author published a compilation later on:
https://archive.org/details/IAmJoesBody-J.D.Ratcliffe/page/n1/mode/2up
For “Breast” and so forth, Joe became Jane; the federal gubmint would quickly put a stop to such nonsense if someone tried a similar publication today, of course.
Enlightened times, those 1960s and 70s.
@Sequitur: I would have read that.
@LTJpezcore1: I hope Dirk won’t destroy any more endearments. “Babe” is dead to me now, Dirk, isn’t that enough?
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
Well carp, while I was hemming and hawing whether to bother with a post, I failed to refresh and now I oversnarked, except neither of us was snarking so I just repeated your link.
@130 Poteet:
You could read it ovary and ovary again.
@Liam: Luann-“Bernice! Forget it! Piro is into seamen!”
Where can you find pleasure
Search the world for treasure
Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true
Play in sports and skin dive
Sign up for the big band
Or sit in the grandstand
When your team and others meet
In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on, protect the mother land
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)
They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit
If you like adventure
Don’t you wait to enter
The recruiting office fast
Don’t you hesitate
There is no need to wait
They’re signing up new seamen fast
Maybe you are too young
To join up today
But don’t you worry ’bout a thing
For I’m sure there will be
Always a good navy
Protecting the land and sea
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on be bold and make a stand
In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)
They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit
Who me?
They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit
Oh my goodness.
What am I gonna do in a submarine?
They want you, they want you in the navy