Anyone is welcome to option my writing and make something god-awful out of it, I don’t care anymore
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Pluggers, 10/21/26
Man, I don’t know, this one is pretty grim even for Pluggers. Like, my elementary school was in Buffalo, NY — a place I hold in a great deal of affection, but it’s not what you’d call one of the more prosperous places in America — and the building has been converted into condos. Other people might find the site of their old school now occupied by a strip mall, or a parking lot, or the town dump, something reflecting continued local economic activity of some sort. But where pluggers grew up and went to school? They’re just tearing it all down and leaving nothing behind. Letting the whole area revert to prairie and evacuating the residents. This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/21/26
We’re on day three of Augie lowering Summer’s expectations about what his book getting optioned might mean. Today’s topic: What if, against all odds, they do make a movie or a TV show out of your book, and it sucks? Totally a thing that could happen! I mean, lots of movies and TV shows are pretty bad, when you think about it. And, be honest with yourself: is your book even any good in the first place? Maybe just cash those little checks when they come in and be thankful!
Dick Tracy, 10/21/26
“Well, let’s see, I’m wearing an all-white uniform and an old-timey nurse’s cap, and carrying the patriarch of the house around, so, uh, I’m gonna let you take a second to come to some conclusions for yourself about what exactly my role is, detective.”
57 replies to “Anyone is welcome to option my writing and make something god-awful out of it, I don’t care anymore”
RMMD: Augie continues his conversation through gritted teeth. Not from anything said but that’s a quite normal reaction to seeing someone eating their Pad Kee noodles with a shrimp fork.
RMMD: Keep this up, AugieDoggyDingDongDaddy, and Summer’s likely to kick your butt to the curb and start chasing someone with a future, like the guy who owns the dive bar down the street where (the former) Mud Mountain Murphy famously crapped himself onstage!
GT: ‘Yes, yes I do…’ thinks Gil as he muffles his groan of desire with his coffee mug. ‘I’ve been a baaaad boy, and must be punished…’
Luann: Hahaha, that’s our Luann! She’s so *hilariously wacky*!!
You’re a Plugger if your old school building is now a data center. Actually, that could pretty much apply to anybody and any building.
RMMD I thought the book wasn’t yet published, Summer had been reading a draft, which would seem to make it a pretty good sign that his agent is able to get it optioned without any sales, fans etc. Or it has been published and Summer – if secret royalty cheques just mean he can afford the strip-mall fast-casual Thai place, don’t get excited about your boyfriend’s authourial career as a road to fame and wealth…
DT: In the Chester Gould days, her last name would have been “Esrun.”
Oh man the nurse is weird and slightly odd-looking which means villain, but has the name “Gladys Gooding” which you know is obviously a good-guy name. So I don’t know what to think. This is literally the most suspense I’ve felt from a Dick Tracy story.
Dick Tracy with the coat on, but no hat? It feels wrong. He looks like his namesake
DT:
“And who’s the little homunculus who’s with you, Ms. Gooding?”
“Oh, that guy? Remember ‘Mr. Clean’ from the liquid soap commercials? That’s he — the years have taken their toll on him; he decided to grow a little hair; and he’s ditched the earring!”
“Why are you dismissive of what you have and you keep lowering your expectations?”
“You shouldn’t complain, this attitude helps me stay with you”
RMMD:
“What does it matter whether they make a good movie or not? — look at Karate Kid Part III!”
Pluggers:
You’re a plugger if, no matter where you are, you’re in the middle of nowhere.
Rex Morgan MILF Diver – This story would be more realistic if panel two were a follow-up of Summer saying, “Gotta go. Have a nice life.”
Gladys Gooding? Somebody’s a Brooklyn Dodgers fan.
RMMD:
“Your chances of having that option granted for your book, and this Thai food I’m eating, probably have something in common, Augie.”
“What’s that, Summer?”
“You can stick a fork in it!”
I can’t decide what’s creepiest about the nurse in Dick Tracy: her tiny head, her unchanging expression, or the fact that no matter which way she faces her hat aways points towards True North.
Getting a bad movie out of your book is not a tragedy. The real tragedy is when the director uses your book to make a movie that completely misunderstands the point of the book and overwrites it in the public perception. Ask King about Kubrick
MW: “I’m glad he pulled it off so well.”
Yeah, you are!
RMMD: Augie is trying mightily to maintain his Hemingway/Hammett/Chandler macho man author vibe, but his mopiness is ruining it.
PLUGGERS: A school near us where I student taught gave way to a Discount Drug Mart, and I’ve never looked back. Pluggers will choose a convenient pharmacy over nostalgia any ol’ day.
Old Pluggers wander around abandoned fields saying; “It was right here.”
(Silver Alert: If anyone sees Bernard Whitacre, please notify local authorities.)
Six Chix: “I’m beginning to think that my gut biome is the most cultured thing about me”…she says as she looks at a painting of her gut biome.
Pluggers: Your former school is now an empty field because it was originally built on a sacred Native burial ground, which, come to think of it, would have explained a lot about my high school experience.
A Plugger’s alma mater is still standing and full of people. A Plugger has simply mistook an empty field for the school because of decades of fat accumulating in the arteries
They turned my old school into an apartment building.
Terry Beatty is bitter because his script is in development hell. It’s called The Mansplainer.
Shouldn’t it be Gladys Jeeves?
“When work of art passes from the original creator to another, it can be mishandled because of lack of understanding of the original point. Like you could have a medical strip without any medical storylines!”
Suburban Fairy Tales:
Little Bo Peep
Sold all her sheep
Went to a gourmet place* for dinner
She dug into roast leg of lamb
And sang a dithyramb,
Cheering herself for being a winner.
*Obviously not Wendy’s diner or the Glenwood Motel or Jordan Like The Country’s restaurant, but a place where the food won’t poison you.
Wrecks Moreg:
“My agent also says the studio wants the story spiced up.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Autumn is too dead boring for cinema. They want me to include a meddling old bat, a mayonnaise-obsessed shrubbery-stalker, a pompous axx, a horsie-sculpting drunk, and a few Great Dogs. Also, a couple of parrots wouldn’t hurt.”
DT: Gaaaah, it talks!
Pluggers have been around so long that they feel the need to call themselves old-school Pluggers to distinguish themselves from the sixty-something whippersnapper Pluggers out there.
RMMD: This is Rex Morgan in a nutshell: people talking about interesting things that may happen in the future, but which we’ll never see one way or the other.
You’re a plugger if your old school is now an empty field, and people tell you there was never a school there. You’re a plugger if you remember some brand names being spelled differently and authors living longer than Wikipedia says they did. You’re a plugger if you remember the Goldwater administration vividly.
Questionable Malcontent:
Why is Willow – the second most despicable character in this strip, right after Lizard – crawling up to Hanners and Anhlikeable on her knees? Why *is* she crawling up to Hanners and Anhlikeable at all? It isn’t as though they’re even acknowledging her existence. As they shouldn’t.
RMMD: Why does it looks like attempting to smile causes Augie pain? TMJ? Is he try to break the fourth wall to beg for rescue?
Pluggers: There are Pluggers, and then there are Old School (a.k.a. First Wave) Pluggers.
I look forward to reading about Post Neo Pluggers. They probably don’t toast their Pop Tarts, and they leave their pill bottle lids in childproof mode.
Plugger: You’re an old school plugger if you’ve completely forgotten where your alma mater was, made several wrong turns and ended up in an empty field.
RMMD: Yeah! Books, movies, television? All trash. The only pure form of storytelling that remains today is daily comics. I mean, where else could you get action, romance and intrigue like this, delightfully doled out in mini-morsels every morning? Nowhere!
DT: Amazing that she’s able to do that in spite of her microcephaly.
Alice: I can’t even begin to parse the semiotics of what’s going on here. Is the store normal sized, making Alice tiny and her friend a giant? Is the friend normal sized, making the store tiny and Alice tinier? Is everyone actually normal sized but the artists’ minimalism doesn’t allow for the proper use of perspective? How do these different options affect the vis-a-vis downsizing, i.e., reducing ones material possessions due to economic necessity?
Hagar: The Woke Mind Virus claims another victim.
MW: Ian’s constant, vociferous praising of Mary for making a few phone calls and booking a flight online is making me think they are actually having an affair!
Pluggers: I think you need some local knowledge to fully appreciate what’s going on here, Josh. Leechburg is nestled in the Allegheny–Kiski River Valley (in the summer we go tubing on the Kiski). It used to be center of mining, industrial machine production, and steelworks. The former site of the school isn’t “reverting to prairie.” Rather, it’s a field of death where nothing grows—not trees, not grass, and especially not children—poisoned by coal tailings, industrial waste, and surrounded by slag heaps from the decades defunct mills. What your seeing isn’t a Plugger merely mourning the passing of time but the passing of an entire carcinogenic way of life.
Dustin: I’m starting to think this game of straight line-insult is some twisted perversion of a love language for Dustin and Dustsis. Why else would Dustin, a man who has never so much as played Pictionary in his life, suddenly say “I feel like I was meant to be an artist”?
GT: Gotta admit, a pushy helicopter mom naming her daughter after herself does track.
MW: “Someday–and that day may never come–I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”
Dick Tracy: Is it just me or does Tracy’s hair seem a little–off? Has he finally reached “comb-forward” phase?
Pluggers: God, this isn’t just nostalgic melancholy, this is “national disaster”-level mourning. Some people peak in high school, but judging from his cap-in-hand weeping, this Plugger hasn’t had a single happy moment since school.
Dick Tracy: A nursemaid who carries a heartless disabled millionaire around in a perverse nanny/baby relationship? Are they soft-relaunching Dick Tracy as a Lady Chatterley’s Lover reboot? I mean, let’s be real – it’s not like that would be any less child-friendly than actual Dick Tracy
You’re a Plugger if your Alma Mater was razed to the ground in an effort to prevent any further progeneration of people who hold themselves in higher esteem merely because of their own seniority.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
‘Then they asked if I could add a drunken former judge who has a weapons trafficker for a father-in-law and make Autumn a pissy, psychotic former-but-not-really CIA assassin who goes around yelling at and beating up everyone she meets.’
Pluggers: Meh. I can beat that. My grade school was expanded while I was a third-grader, still so crowded I was bussed to a different school for sixth grade, closed and turned into an administrative office building before I graduated high school. And the neighborhood I grew up in was bulldozed and turned into a gated condo development by the time I graduated college. But you don’t see me being featured in “Pluggers,” no siree!
(Though I have to confess… yesterday’s Guardian article that starts with a guy chucking a rock through his smart TV after one too many software updates? That’s me. True story.)
Pluggers: I’m the opposite.
I don’t care what happens to my old school. It can eat s***
RMMD: Week 1: Augie tells Summer his book has been optioned!
Week 2: Augie tells Summer another studio is even more interested in his book, and all he has to do is buy out the first studio’s option to get an even bigger payout!
Week 3: It’s revealed that the two “studios” were the doublemint twins again, who’ve drained Augie’s 401K and bank accounts.
Today’s Pluggers was originally submitted as ‘You know you’re a Plugger when you’re sad that they filled in the leech-infested bog that was your summer playground.’
Don’t be lazy, Dick Tracy artist. You have to draw Dick with the same stupid expression in each panel, you can’t cut corners by having him suddenly doing blackface.
FG: sigh You know, this week-long exposition could have been an email with Google Maps.
MW: Wednesday, and the praise of Mary continues, with no sign that a drunken Wilbur is about to blurt out the rumor. I’m beginning to think this really is how this arc’s going to finish, leaving a half-dozen loose ends unresolved. Mary won’t even be able to pontificate to Jeff about the dangers of spreading rumors, because she never found out about them.
yLuann: Really, Evansii? You couldn’t muster enough hate to make the sister-in-law in Manila an wannabe actress and cheerleader? You’re slacking these days.
Pluggers-Does he regret dumping that bucket of pig’s blood onto that girl that resulted in the prom night massacre?
MW-And cue the months long flashback to when Ian and Toby met.
FC-“What did you say? I’m going through a tunnel.”
Pluggers:
I dunno, I find it hard to believe a plugger would come to pay respects to, and even shed tears over the passing of, a place of education.
Dick Tracy-Oh come now. The play might not have been good but it wasn’t foul.
You know, if this whole story line is about shitting all over the “Lisa’s Story” BS then well done, Terry Beatty!
***
I wonder how long they were standing there talking with Dick Tracy ignoring the help instead of getting everyone’s name. I knew he’s a dick, but I never pegged him for a snob. (Heh heh, pegging Dick…) (I swear, I am a fully grown adult woman).
Dick Tracy: In our hero’s defense, he’s been cop for over 80 years and, to any cop worth his salt, a bleached blonde woman wearing an all-white uniform and an old-timey nurse’s cap is less likely to mean “healthcare professional” and more likely to mean “role playing hooker.”
“I am a certified nurse-ventriloquist, Detective Tracy, trained in the arts of both engastrimythos and Asclepieion. We are called in when a doctor determines that a therapy doll isn’t creepy enough for a procedure.”`
DT: Be fair to old Dick here. This place is so odd and the people so unusual it is fair to ask the woman dressed in a nursing outfit, wearing a nursing hat and seemingly caring for a frail old man, the question if she is a nurse or some crazy family cosplay.
JP: April is taking Charlotte back to her known previous address? Poor tradecraft here April. AngryBossLady at CIA Regional Office would be so disappointed.
GT: Panels and 1 and 2 got me confused. Keri is the name of the daughter who is a good soccer player. But Keri also decides who gets to play? Or are there two people named Keri? One is the player and one is a coach? If GT isn’t fazed by Borys and Gerard’s felony kidnapping, some angry soccer mom doesn’t even make it to his short term memory.
MW: All of this exaggerated thanks is just to cover up the reality. Ian is broke and has to kiss up to Mary to get the money for the trip. Where has his money been going? He is the secretly the one who is bidding and buying the art that Toby creates. He has several storage units full of them. He unloads them on ebay at $10 a box.
@Vulpes: Nah, in my experience, Pluggers are bizarrely obsessed with their old schools. Their favourite opening question is “Did you go to school with…”, no matter the age of the person being discussed “.
GT: Sandra should threaten Gil that she’ll go to Marty Moon.
Pluggers: Before I read the caption I thought “He’s a bit underdressed for a funeral.”
Hagar: I don’t remember a dancing dragon in Le Morte d’Arthur. Was it wedged into Camelot because Alan Jay Lerner wanted some comic relief?
.
Pluggers : were homeschooled. So, really, Andy Bear is mourning the family home his father refused to bequeath to him, was seized by the banks, bulldozed, and is now a vacant lot no one can afford or care to buy.
*************
Rex Morgan M.D. : “Like that one terrible movie from a while back, you know, that one that won the Oscar for Best Actress, but she gave it to some chump from Ohio?” “Oh yeah, that sucked. But, you know, I actually read the original book, it was WORSE!”
GT: Gil thinks to himself while listening to more bad news: “That’s the trouble with having my corner office in the penthouse suite of a downtown hi-rise. You can’t just push a button and have people fall into a dungeon.”
FC: String theorists point to this strip as proof their theories are experimentally validated.