Grim Monday
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Intelligent Life, 6/22/26
Everything I’ve learned about all the characters in Intelligent Life has been against my will. I wasn’t thrilled when I realized I instantly recognized this blond guy as “Barry,” the stereotypical jock used as a punching bag by the nerd characters in the strip. He likes beer and wings and is constantly unsuccessfully hitting on women, and — and now we’re at the point where I’m learning new stuff about him, which I didn’t ask for and don’t care for — he also has a terrible relationship with his father, I guess.
Pluggers, 6/22/26
Look, for as long as I’ve been reading this strip, the answer to the question “Are pluggers OK?” has been a resounding “no.” But I feel like they’re building less and less of a superstructure around this sentiment in individual panels and are now just hitting us with “Life is suffering, for pluggers. Every moment is agony. They’d be happier dead.”
Pickles, 6/22/26
Pickles, meanwhile, is a comic strip about the foibles of old people that isn’t afraid to get a little edgy sometimes, but I declare today’s strip, where the vagaries of fading memory mean that poor Opal has spent hours in an act of loving artistry, making a scarf for a member of her family only to be struck anew by grief, is a little too edgy for my tastes.
Pardon My Planet, 6/22/26
Yesterday’s Pardon My Planet was about domestic discord among wolf-people, and I thought about doing a post basically saying “Ha ha, this strip, which is mostly unpleasant marital drama among its cast of mostly interchangeable regular characters, has finally branched out into doing unpleasant marital drama with furries” but decided against it. But today, with the clown stuff? Well, I feel like you all needed to know about it. Do you think “Bobo” is a male clown name? No judgement, but it does add an extra little twist to this scenario.
Luann, 6/22/26
I saved the grimmest one for last. Brad and Toni are going to have sex in the shower, you guys. They’re going to have sex in the shower after she announced herself as “zit” and there’s nothing you can do about it.
92 replies to “Grim Monday”
Mary Worth Mashups: What exactly is behind Tommy he shouldn’t be “tripping on”?
Hägar the Horrible Update: Where have we seen this bird before? Hmmm….
Slylock Fox: Of course Shady doesn’t recognize you, Officer Meowster: he’s obviously hopped up on goofballs!
Luann: Nice zits!
A follow-up to Anonymous’s post on Zits yesterday: Baseball Almanac found another game in which the Reds beat the Pirates 12-2: September 23, 2009. This would make Jeremy 16 now. I wonder if that game has special meaning to the authors.
Luann – How much longer will the shower last when T. J. joins them in there?
PmP: Clownette is silently withholding the revelation that her OnlyFeet account has just one client: Quentin Tarantino.
DtM: Dennis’ is crushed when he finds the Procrustean bed has already been done.
My grimmest revelation is that the artist of Intelligent Life might be as old as June Brigman, thus not owing a smart phone and having no clue how they’re held – or else learned how to draw people holding smartphones FROM June Brigman, which is sadder…
Crankshaft : Oh, for Pete’s sake! This means this storyline would already be over if, instead of going to Dinkle’s storage, they had gone over to Lillian’s place to check over the stuff Eugene had given her.
Also, what was the point of asking Ralph for leads? It’s doubly pointless for the online audience, since we didn’t get to read his sunday appearance!
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Dick Tracy : (Probably totally incorrect) prediction for where this storyline is going : Dick Tracy teams up with the FBI to teach Youtubers about how their sources may have criminal ties! (ie, leakers could be corporate spies/saboteurs, people who score you rare bootleg copies of old cartoons could be trafficking more sordid stuff also, etc.) He teaches this to them by shooting them up live during their streams.
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Luann : I briefly mistook Bwad’s tattoo of his fire station’s heraldry in front of two crossed fireaxes as being some kind of skull&crossbones tattoo. So, for a brief second, I thought there was a side to Brad DeGroot that was well-concealed by him being friends with TJ, but made obvious by him marrying Toni Daytona.
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Pardon my Planet : I sure hope “Clown girl with giant feet” isn’t someone’s fetish. I sure hope it isn’t the cartoonist’s fetish! (I’m reassured it’s not mine).
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Pluggers : have depression, because their life is just constant pain.
…Seriously, it couldn’t have been “Pluggers stay in bed for 10 extra minutes to gather the strength to get out of bed… which they need because that’s a really heavy weight to lift!” Like, “Pluggers are fat” is more light-hearted than “Pluggers are miserable, decrepit, near-death”, IMHO.
Intelligent Life:
I appreciate the awkwardly-shaped speech bubble in the second panel ensuring that we get a good look at Barry’s narcissistic portrait throughout the entire strip. This guy’s self-absorbed, everyone! He’s not like our virtuous main characters, who diligently go to every Marvel movie they release! That’s like always going to Mass, but for nerds!
PMP: Darkest clown-based plot since “Pagliacci.”
MW: Can we just let Mary handle this? She cures people in three panels. Dawn’s been blathering for WEEKS and Tommy’s still whining.
PMP: People who hate Zippy the Pinhead: It could be much, much worse.
Luann: It probably takes four times as long because Brad doesn’t usually wash his ass.
IL: He reminds me of Johnny Bravo, except that Johnny Bravo’s funny.
PMP: For clowns, does making whoopie involve a whoopie cushion?
Luann: “And you know what else just got four times longer?” “Really? It barely looks any longer than bef… I mean, ooh, you stud.”
PMP: Foot stuff and clown stuff and cuckolding stuff? Normally you’d have to pay hundreds for niche content like this, and here they’re just giving it away for free in the newspaper.
IL: I don’t get how the punchline is actually meant to work here. It’s less “Uncaring son disses his dad” and more “Local idiot finally understands how calendar works”.
Luann: Kudos to Greg getting a reference to his penis length past the censors (four times longer).
But on the flip side, a Plugger looks forward to their first prescription pain pill of the day.
Pickles:
Okay, I have to admit: I’m curious. What is Opal going to do next? Is she going to continue making the scarf out of respect and affection for the memory of her dead cousin, tears in her eyes from the knowledge she will never be able to give it to her? Or will she hurl it to the ground while shouting “Fuck this!”, then stomp on it a few times for good measure?
Josh, don’t show today’s Luann! It’s NSFW! Not Safe for Will to live!
IL: So basically, if I’m reading Josh right, this guy is Dustin with muscles and a stronger chin?
CS: Shoot, I was really hoping they’d forget the black in the daily strips and it would be nothing but a bunch of white squares.
DT: Yes folks. This is more of Costello’s fanservice. Mr. Trailer here was a character created by Chester Gould in the 1930s as a colleague for Tracy when he was temporarily drafted into being a ‘G-Man’ (which was the style at the time!) to defeat criminals committing interstate crimes. He was last used by Gould circa 1941, and I don’t care to know whether this is the first time Costello has used him.
RMMD: Who are those people in the second panel and why aren’t they playing roots country music or cooking/eating cheap diner food?
Luann: This was supposed to be the week the torrential rains started at Luann’s Camp For Cute Widdle Kids, but the syndicate got cold feet again. Enjoy your notPron everyone!
Luann 2: Objection!! No way a weenie like B-wad would have sat through a tattoo session!
Luann 3: In all seriousness, this week is going to be more excruciating than normal. We KNOW they aren’t going to do anything! This is just some twisted kid taking their sisters Barbie and Ken’s Friend dolls and smashing their featureless torsos together and proudly thinking that’s how babies are made.
RMMD: Attention! Attention! A Morgan has finally entered the strip!
You know what else got four times longer? Nothing! Of course Brad is not a grower! Indeed, his penis is shorter when erect!
Luann: I don’t know. . . sex with a naked wet soapy woman? Or countering with an equally lame pun: “No, it’s snot”? This makes turning down her offer four times harder.
Bullshit, Barry’s father should not groan! The stereotype is that fathers, unlike mothers, like to spend as little time as possible calling their children. You might say that Barry’s father is different. But I don’t believe “Intelligent life” would ever not use a stereotype!
IL: Okay, I know essentially nothing about this comic, but I see that the broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed jock guy has a framed photo of himself on the wall. Which, in turn, leads me to believe he is rather vain. Which, in turn, leads me to believe he is at least partially inspired by Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Which, in turn, makes me wonder what Gaston’s relationship with his dad was like.
Pluggers: Pluggers will lie in bed for a good 10 minutes, then a lousy 20, then a just-plain-sad 45.
Pickles: Tragically, Hazel died of pneumonia caused by inadequate scarfage. If only her cousin had knitted a little faster …
PMP: I didn’t even know they made oversized clown shoes that look like human feet. I wish I didn’t know it now.
Luann: “Our love is killing the planet. As we always knew it would someday.”
“Doctor, I’m very depressed! My husband cheated on me!”
“Solution is simple. Great clown Bobo is in town. Go see him, it will cheer you up”
“But doctor… Bobo fucked my man!”
Luann: Man, Fan Duel is all over the place these days–including sponsoring a tat for betting on golf. Ha! Suckers should have placed this strip before the US Open, am I right?
Few Westerners are brave enough to recognise the Buddhist truth that life is suffering and only annihilation of self will end pain. Just Schopenhauer and Pluggers.
“Can I have the scarf then, Grandma?”
“Oh no! I have intentionally made a very itchy scarf. I hated Hazel!”
Once Pluggers were not OK because they were poor. Now Pluggers are not OK because they are in pain. Someday Pluggers will not be OK because our deeds are written on the water and nothing truly matters. Then Pluggers will be gone, and OK at last.
The torment of a clown, forced to smile for the world while suffering inside because the love of his life cheated on him is the topic of one of the most famous operas ever, Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci”. But opera and high culture are dead, so the only thing we will get out of this theme is a one-panel newspaper comics. It’s convenient that we degraded human art to the point that its substitution by AI will not be mourned
Dustin: Until they’re dead, she means. Live with his parents until they’re dead.
DT: Uh, is this a new story? Everyone except Mumbles is still at large and all the banks, jewelers, and art galleries stay robbed? Oh Eric Costello, you’ve done it again.
Phantom: ”Uh oh. If The Python is the Joker, that makes me….the Penguin? Shit.”
PMP: “Bobo” is a name for an ape. The clown woman has Bigfoot feet. Clearly, clown man has a type, and despite Josh’s admirable restraint in refraining from making a furry joke, today’s strip is hinting at some sort of furry clown depravity.
Intelligent Life:
“Unless there’s something wrong with the videocam feature on my phone, son, I have to say — you look particularly ‘Mark Trail goofy’ today!”
Luann:
“Hey, wait a minute! You’re not Toni — you’re Loni Anderson from WKRP Cincinnati! Well, on second thought, that’s okay, I suppose!”
Pickles:
“Gramma, will you be beckoning to me soon to join you, from the end of a tunnel suffused with brilliant white light?”
Oh no poor Baka Gaijin will QLUNQ right at the main site today.
Pardon My Planet:
“I got the idea to do it from reading a ‘Harlequin‘ romance!”
@Baja Gaijin:
The roast ham is far too good to waste on either of these morons.
I would say the bespactagurger.
Pluggers:
You’re a plugger if there’s no clock on the nightstand next to your bed, because really, time has absolutely no meaning to you whatsoever.
IL: My favorite part of this strip is that Barry has a framed photo of himself in the background. Just in case it wasn’t already clear that he’s a narcissist to a sociopathic degree.
Pluggers I feel like this strip used to be a lot more fun and goofy, and I’m now wondering if there’s any correlation between that and the tightening of synthetic opioid prescription rules…
Luann: God, I hope they continue this scene all week getting more and more graphic with every day. Not because I want to see these two in the act of coitus, but if this is what it takes to get Luann finally cancelled I’m prepared to endure it.
Wrecks Moregone:
Going by no longer widdle Sawah, obviously at least a decade has passed in Glenwood during the Mae Mae story. This means Mae Mae is essentially a reverse black hole: time speeds up the closer you approach her (non)event horizon.
Murky Tail:
“Who is this invasive species?”
Your hubby, back from Gorillastan.
Your Murk.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I don’t know how long it will take, but Brad will (reluctantly) agree to play the lead in a silent movie.
Questionable Malcontent:
Jephthy isn’t even pretending to disguise the fetishism these days.
Just go ahead and draw outright porno, Jephthy. What with the acute and apparently irreversible decline of Oglaf, there’s a market to exploit.
RMMD Ah, the no-Morgans storylines have allowed the soap opera send the little kid offstage, and bring in an adult actor growing up to be applied to Sarah. The timewarp also sent her through the 1980s, judging by the tucked-in, high-waisted jeans she’s acquired.
Bizarro snarking on all the lazy-art comics – look, if the one that shows eyeballs and pipes whimsically floating in the background can check and properly draw the difference between banana and coconut palms, *you* can at least manage recognizable characters, anatomically-possible poses, and some kind of background
Ladies and gentlemen, I have terrible news. Luann has reached peak sexiness, even going so far as to admit that heterosexual couples trying to have a baby might enjoy time together. Without clothes. Also, Brad is no longer pudgy? Oh, and all the fans in the Luann comments are dead. From aneurysms.
Pardon My Planet: Mein Gott! The clown girl’s feet!
Maybe those are shoes? Shoes that look like giant feet, playing with the “clowns wear big shoes” trope? If those swollen things are her feet, though… well, I weep for her. The pain must be unbearable.
“The pain must be unbearable.” Is that the “joke,” PMP? Is that the joke you’ve been telling all along?
Usually, when I lie in bed after waking up, it’s because I slept in a bad position and now I hurt too much to move.
Yeah, I guess I’m out-Pluggering the Pluggers. Where’s Kevorkian when you really need him?
PMP: “Sure, blame me but it was your idea to bring a chimp into the act.“
Pardon My Planet:
“Now, Bobo and troupe have asked that I join in their forthcoming performance of stylized Japanese theatre, replete with wooden masks and costuming. What shall I do?”
“Just say ‘Noh‘ !”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: The comments at GoComics are very disturbing today because a lot of excited Luann fans seem to be typing with one hand.
Pluggers: Of all the reasons Larry Duvick from Lakeville Minnesota could give for not getting out of bed in the morning, I’d’ve thought the fact it’s ten below zero outside would be number 1.
I’ve never noticed if it’s been like this before, but the placement of today’s thanks to Larry Luvick makes it look like that’s just a poster on the plugger’s wall. That would be frivolity and whimsy in a plugger’s life though so that shatters the illusion.
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To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at a clown either.
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“Speaking of zits, get in here and pop this thing…”
MW: I was confused by Sunday’s strip, which read as if the story arc were ending, with two people having become friends and content to stay that way. Surely, I thought, it can’t end this simply? Mary hasn’t even had to step in with muffins and aphorisms.
And sure enough, it didn’t end. Which leaves just one question, is this going anywhere or will Mary Worth just be
a boot stampingDawn giving Tommy advice — forever.@pugfuggly: On Luann – Oh, I’m sure they will, but this view will repeat until Saturday, unchanging, as they exchange that trademark ‘Luann’ brand of innuendo that’s both creepy yet strangely noncommittal, ending with the hot water running out because Handyman T.J. chose that specific moment to work on the boiler.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Eh, that peak was reached years ago, when they played Strip Do Our Taxes and then ended up in bed, sheets up to their necks.
@The Quiet Man: Today’s Crankshaft features four extremely old people looking for a lost piece of big band music. That’s about as white and square as you can get.
Pluggers: Soon the plugger will experience the sweet, eternal sleep of death and will never have to get out of bed again.
Luann: Because violence in comics is acceptable while sex isn’t in America, Evans justifies today’s strip by having Brad’s orgasm blow out the back of Toni’s head.
Pickles – “Now I have to unravel it and start all over with the black yarn.”
PMP – Of course they never laughed. They were reading Pardon My Planet.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I’ve got a whole new decorating concept, which you will be helping me implement”
“Can you describe it?”
“I call it the bathroom-wall look!”
PmP — “In fact, if we hadn’t gotten shoved into that car together it might never have happened!”
Pickles-And Grandma has forgotten which shallow grave she is buried in.
MW-“The mistakes I made in the past caused people to die.”
RMMD-No one will be seated during the thrilling ‘Price Comparison’ scene.
My Mom has been in constant pain for a long while, but today she feels much better.
“The Pluggers of Dorian Gray?”
Wait, is Dawn jabbing Tommy about past drug use, or did Moy not consider that using “trip over” could have avoided a misreading of Dawn’s advice?
Pardon My Planet-“Bobo, knows how to honk my nose!”
Wary Morth:
Tommy: “I ended up in jail….you can imagine what that was like…”
Dusk: “Ooh! Real fun, right? I just watched an episode of Porridge !”
@Victor Von:
(Looks again)
I never realised that she was supposed to be barefoot. Great heavens! Now I won’t be able do look at clown shoes without wondering what’s inside them.
MW: Today’s narration box is guest hosted by Alvy “Hank Kimball” Moore:
“Dawn and Tommy relax on the beach. Well… not really relax. Tommy is pretty uptight thinking about his past life in prison. This makes Dawn sad. But then Dawn gives him some great advice…Well…kinda trite actually….”
RMMD: Can we just skip to the part where Lorna and Mud give their fortunes to these two grifters.
Luann: Checks calendar It’s gonna be an Easter baby. But for now, Bwad has risen.
Unless Shannon opens the door. “Hey! What’s that thing sticking out, Brad?”
Wizard of Id: Is he talking to someone else not on panel?
Hagar takes us back to when homing pigeons were trained like attack dogs.
RxMD: “Why, yes, I know a doctor who can help with medicine! And here is food! Problem solved!”
9CL: Some clever comment about how the perspective of the tub is all wrong but the two defining characteristics of a 9CL comic are present: water and pretentiousness.
Proudly continuing the project, begun by Cinemax in the 1980s, of discovering which elements can be removed from pornography and it still be recognized as such, “Luann” has finally cracked G- rated hardcore. Anybody reading today’s strip (*cough*) implicitly understands what is going on here, what’s about to go on here for roughly the next 20-40 minutes, and in graphic detail exactly what that will look like. All this without anyone involved saying or doing anything that considered objectionable when taken on its own. This is truly a new dawn for the age of comics page smut, and it’s so much more upsetting than anything your teenager is browsing in incognito mode.
Luann:
I have a feeling that that his shower will be 4 times shorter because she will kick him out in about 15 seconds when he finishes on her back before the good stuff even starts. Her shower will last quite awhile once he’s out of the way.
Luann – Oh, guys – no – this is not what constitutes watersports.
MW- “Trust me Tommy…Don’t trip over what’s behind you….You just might fall off of a cruise ship”
@Ken: 54- Did this day at the beach just get four times longer?
I think a comic strip crossover battle would be awesome. Imagine Dagwood and Garfield going toe-to-toe in an eating contest. Who would win?
CS: I’m intrigued by the suggestions I’ve read here that Ed is in fact dead, and that’s his ghost silently following Harry and Lilian around, eavesdropping on their boring conversation. Of course, this can’t be the case, since Ed has taken an active role in their mundane adventure. At any rate, it can’t last. All roads eventually lead back to Skip and Batton at Montoni’s (I’m guessing a week from today).
H & L: I just wonder how the Founding Fathers would react to knowing that in the future, all patriotic American holidays will be used to sell mattresses half off.
Pardon My Planet:
“By the way, are you coulrophobic?”
“I’m afraid to tell you!”
I feel like someone should tell the Intelligent Life guy that humor comes from subverting the expectations of a given setup, not validating them. The “once a year” answer is the obvious, expected, sad, answer. This is like asking, “Why do firemen carry hoses?” and instead of giving some zany answer involving word play or absurdism, having the last panel read, “to put out fires!” Groan is right.
Intelligent Life: The sad thing is, Barry doesn’t only call his dad on Father’s Day — he calls him the day after Father’s Day, and that’s a hundred times worse somehow. “I can only bring myself to communicate with you once a year, and I can’t even bother to remember the holiday that’s traditionally meant for such things. Now, let’s talk about baseball and the condition of your lawn for ten minutes, so I can hang up and get on with my week!” Whatever went down between these two, it must have been dramatically bad on the level of an independent movie, not a “humor’ comic strip.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you sleep in a bed that’s way too small for you, because life sucks, your body hurts anyway, and you’re pretty sure no one will ever want to have sex with you again. Grim stuff!
Pickles: “That’s okay, Gramma, look at my spooky eyes — I see dead people too!”
@Banana Jr. 6000: That’s about as white and square as you can get.
You have just broken the hearts of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmy Lunceford, and all their band members, up in heaven. You bastard.
@Joe Blevins: Gaston’s Dad must have been a pretty good provider if they were able to feed the kid four dozen eggs every morning.
Intelligent Life: “Also, Dad, I honestly just wanted for once to talk with somedbody who doesn’t think the most mainstream normie shit in existence is subversive and nerdy.”
Pluggers: There’s this really good creepypasta that’s formatted as a guy telling his story on a reddit post, explaining that he’s been taking an experimental drug that’s started slowing his personal perception of time. It’s reaching a point where he can’t do anything without it feeling like an eternity of slow motion and it’s a living hell, so he makes the post calling out to anyone who could possibly read it, giving his location and begging for someone to end his suffering by shooting him in the head as an act of mercy. That’s the vibe that most Pluggers strips give me these days.
Pickles: “It’s okay, Grandma, I also died years ago and you forgot about that too!” *grandson instantly disappears in a puff of smoke*
Pardon My Planet: This gets my “legitimately got a laugh out of me” kudos for the day.
Luann: I feel like the creator wouldn’t have drawn Brad with an axe tattoo if they knew axes are often symbolically associated with bisexuality.
Also Luann: Anyways, as I and others have observed before, it seems the writer of Luann has recently been trying to push back a little on the perception of their strip as being some kind of weird puritanical screed by having the (always purely heterosexual, monogomous and marriage-and-kids focused) couples constantly indicate that they do in fact have sex. But their attempts to do so are so laughably bad that it, if anything, makes the characters seem even more bizarrely chaste and like they don’t even fully comprehend what sex IS beyond something that men and women can do together that maybe somehow results in childbirth if done in a certain way.
Good news today as it seems “Marvin” is finally leaving. With any luck his parents will be sent to prison for negligence and the family dog will be sent to a farm upstate.
That Plugger has definitely already shit himself in bed. I hope that Larry Duvick in Lakeville Minnesota has to change his name and go into hiding to escape the embarrassment of being depicted as a Plugger too lazy to even make it to the bathroom.
@The Quiet Man:
With the exception of school-bus driver Andy, Crankshaft has never been anything but a bunch of white squares.
@Anonymous:
That Plugger has definitely already shit himself in bed. I hope that Larry Duvick in Lakeville Minnesota has to change his name
The last name is fake. It’s created by the situation itself – a portmanteau of the words “duvet” and “ick”.
@Anonymous: Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rod Serling step out from behind a beach umbrella and say “Tommy thought he’d made a new friend, but Tommy is about to find out that friendship has a cost he may not be prepared to pay…. in the Twilight Zone.”
@Ukulele Ike: Interestingly, early on in the film a women says “I NEED SIX EGGS!” and a voice responds “That’s too expensive!”
In turn, someone online, theorizes that Gaston single-handedly destroyed the egg economy.
SlyF – Now for the real mystery: How did Shady get the guardrail to curve toward the roadway. There’s really only one conclusion. Shady winched the guardrail from the other side of the road pulling his truck into the ditch. In other news, the Insurance Company didn’t press charges because it was just cheaper to total the truck and pay Shady the 40.00.
@Rover Berkeley: Honestly, after a point I feel like the entire cast of the Funky-Verse are barely a step above being ghosts wandering aimlessly through the ruins of their abandoned town and deluding themselves that they’re still alive. It would at least explain why nothing interesting ever fucking happens in this comic anymore.
@Vanya: One of the nigh-endless reasons I’m justly proud of being a very sex positive person is that I can say I’m not so incredibly repressed that I have to jerk it to characters from Luann instead of, like, just normal porn.
@Ukranazi Stepan: I don’t know what’s funnier; that Beatty apparently decided to do a time skip to age Sarah up into adulthood at complete random in the background of a story that has absolutely nothing to do with the Morgans, or that Sarah is probably gonna act exactly the same as usual because she already acted like an adult in a kid’s body.
@MKay: Dawn and Tommy form a perfect feedback loop of brainlessness. It’s like making two chatbots try to converse with each other, just devolving into an endless cycle of repeated lines and general nonsense.