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Crock, 10/6/09

Poor uncultured Captain Poulet! He’s throwing around big words like “Platonic,” which means pretty much exactly the opposite of what it’s pretty clear that he thinks it means. Perhaps his only experience with Plato comes from reading The Symposium, and he thinks the evening is going to end in a drunken sodomistic orgy, though even in that case he seems to have seriously misunderstood some genders.

Oh, also, this lady is out on parole! This is “funny,” for some reason.

Apartment 3-G, 10/6/09

See, this is the difference between Ruby and Tommie. Ruby may be beaten down by the big city — she have been thrown over by a man she thought she was getting on well with for some pill-addled floozy — but she still knows that she’s worth something! In panel two, she looks mad about her lonely, unloved state. Screw you, New York! If you’re not good enough to appreciate Ruby, well, she’ll just go back to Texas, and you’ll be all the worse for it!

Tommie, meanwhile, is in the process of melting into a puddle of self-pity. The only thing keeping her standing upright is the fact that her coffee mug is mostly filled with Wellbutrin.

Jumble, 10/6/09

Speaking of pills, these women — one with a heavy-lidded expression, the other with eyes the size of dinner plates — appear to be having some kind of spontaneous little party in the shoe store, in which they’re stumbling around muttering about how “it’s like walking on marshmallows.” They are clearly high, on drugs.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/6/09

Now, Kayla, we know that you weren’t aware that Lisa’s ghost was spying on you when you and Les first made out, because you aren’t gifted with Creepy-o-Vision. But for the record, “Every peanut butter and jelly sandwich is like an edible tombstone for my dead wife and it must be made properly” is the part where you run screaming for the door and never look back.

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Your top comment is coming shortly, but forgive me for first sharing with you the last of the What Would Margo Do? bracelet pics that have come in! First we have faithful reader AeroSquid, he of the lunatic genius comics mashups, with his faithful cat Stormy:

Next up is faithful reader SecretMargo. “I wore my bracelet around my ankle for a day, but it was slightly too tight and threatened to make a permanent groove/brand in the skin. While that may match the impressions my love for Margo has worn into my soul, I decided to relocate it to dangle loosely from my impossibly dainty wrist. I’ve included a photo that crams as much CC merchandise into the frame as is currently allowed under international law.”

(That’s a Cassandra Cat mug and a Molly the Bear shirt, not that you asked.)

And finally, faithful reader Chris wonders, “What would Margo do? If she uses a Nikon 18-200mm zoom lens (notorious for zoom creep, or lens sag), she would use the wristband as depicted. And to think, I used to use a rubber band; now I get to use something that helps with MAJOR life decisions as well.”

Oh, but wait, what was that amazing special item I mentioned in the headline? Well, among those who contributed to the fundraiser by mail was a certain Ms. Margaret Shulock, who you might know as the writer of Apartment 3-G! If you remember this blog post of hers I once linked to, you’ll know that she actually sketches out each strip before sending it to artist Frank Bolle; she was nice enough to send me her original sketch for the now-famous HAT MAN strip:

I love Margo’s dismissive little “I Googled him” wave. This will soon be framed properly, but I thought I would share it with you all here! Since Ms. Shulock’s blog post indicates that she stays up at night wondering what Margo will do next, her WWMD bracelet should help her figure it out.

(And, of course, you can let the world know that you, too, are a hat man, via a hat.)

And now, with that all settled, I give you your comment of the week!

“I think Pluggers is pretty clever today; pluggers don’t know that single speeds are The Cool Thing nowadays. So, pluggers are so excessively unhip that they cycle backwards through the whole spectrum back to fully unrealized hipness. And yet, through all this, they don’t replace toilet paper rolls in the dispenser. Pluggers!” –zamros

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Mark Trail can go camping for days without a razor and not grow any facial hair himself. He claims he punches his stubble off every morning, but rumors of electrolysis treatments persist.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

“Dick, you’re beginning to sound less like you’re trying to stop the clown from killing Ringo, and more like you’re hurrying him along. ‘Enough to kill him?’ ‘So now you want to kill him?’ ‘This is where we get to the you-killing-him-part, right?’ It’s morbid, and you deserve that cute little gun in your face.” –teddytoad

“In panel two the question-mark thought balloon sinks downward from Adrian’s head, in opposite direction to the normal comics convention, in order to show that this wordless punctuation symbol is an especially ‘heavy’ thought, probably the most deeply contemplated mental response that has ever been formulated by Adrian’s brain. Her total bewilderment and inability to come up with any verbal reply at all is understandable, since the subject ‘something’ and the predicate ‘happened’ have never heretofore been strung together in a sentence within Mary Worth.” –seismic-2

“I only read Family Circus for the captions.” –Red Greenback

“I imagine whatever foul mind spawned Marvin intended for us to view the over-pierced collar-wearing goth girl as something freakish and reprehensible, but it thwarted itself in the third panel by showing she is an astute judge of character and intends to end the threat of Marvin at least temporarily. Each of those piercings must be a medal of courage or something.” –Dr. Novakaine

“I defy you to name anything more super-powery than being able to wield a shillelagh, look like David Niven with a ’70s haircut, and use stevedore lingo all at the same time.” –DaveyK

“‘You, sir, have been trounced by Doctor Orpheus and his QUIZNO’S PARTY SUB!!!’ [overly dramatic music]” –Vince M

“Wait, did Elwood just pull a Scott (from Mary Worth)? ‘Hold on to this ring. When you feel ready, you can wear it!’ Does that mean that Elwood will be gunned down by heroin dealers? PLEASE?” –JP (not Judge Parker)

“Let’s take a moment, though, to remember the dear, departed Detective Colleague. He was a blond man … um … and he wore a uniform … and, well, he’ll be missed. Yeah.” –buckyswife

“A plugger’s bicycle seat longs for the sweet release of death.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Dr. Good’s working on him! Where by ‘working on him’ I mean ‘harvesting any reusable organs.'” –Hogan

“The hipster lifestyle — slow bicycles, cheap beer, closets full of bowling shirts, raggedy flannel, and John Deere caps — basically is the plugger lifestyle. The only difference is that pluggers don’t know they’re supposed to be living it ironically. Because they’re bears.” –BigTed

“I will note that Adrian’s response to horrible news is to frantically lick her fingers. Maybe she forgot to wash her hands after lunch and she’s licking the rib sauce off. ‘Mmmmm, damn shame about Scott, but you can really taste the mesquite!'” –Digger

“I’ve only been skimming MW and reading the commentary, and I thought SantaRoyMart was something some wiseass commenter made up. Boy, is my face salmon-square-colored!” –indrifan

“Rusty, the only thing that’s happened to you is you caught a fish, heard a gunshot, got left alone in the woods for two hours, and met a guy named Bob. What your classmates won’t be able to believe is that you find this to be relatable entertainment.” –MolyBendum

“I love the random grace notes of hillbilly squalor: the crudely sewn patches on the curtains that Loweezy uses like Sally Rand used her ostrich fan. Also, the huge fucking nail in the porch post. Why? Does Snuffy need something to hang Revenooers’ hides from while they cure?” –sugarpie

“I wonder why I find Bobbie so intriguing. I can’t figure out why her parents gave her a boy’s name — like Tommie, except not boring. I can’t imagine why I find Bobbie’s company preferable to an apartment empty save for my bloated interior monologue. I don’t know why my loins are aching at the thought of copulating with a living female of my species. Maybe I should go see a shrink before my hair changes color again.” –hogenmogen

“I remember when bonsai was a treated with the proper reverence due to an ancient, living artform, and not just something you slap on top of your cheapass dollar store television set as if it might serve as some sort of small organic antenna.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Dr. P should be glad he’s an Apartment 3-G character and thus has the luxury of thought-ballooning. If he were in Mark Trail, he’d have to say all that stuff out loud, most likely with exclamation points. ‘Bobbie sounds UPSET and ANGRY!’ ‘I sound what now?’ ‘Uh, nothing. Go on with your phone call … Damn, what a sweet ass she has!’ ‘WHAT?!?’ ‘Nothing! Nothing!'” –Joe Blevins

Three cheers for everyone who put cash into my tip jar! And cheers also to my advertisers:

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Mark Trail, 10/5/09

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mark Trail’s clan is part of a network of isolated, hard-working, rural-cabin-based families who don’t get many visitors. Our reluctant poachers actually have more than a passing similarity to his old friends who own Sneaky, except instead of harboring sinister raccoons they just have a cat — a heavily sedated or dead cat, if the limp, compliant way it’s just letting Cindy tote it about is any indication. Anyway, one wonders how they all stay in touch. They could swap rustic livin’ tips on the Internet, or at least they could if any of their rustic shacks were actually connected to municipal electric or phone lines.

There’s something distinctly unsettling about Mark’s quick transition from “Rusty has been complaining about my cooking” to “You’re a beautiful young lady, Cindy!” The best case scenario is that Mark is going to set her to rustling up some grub for his young ward, both as a way to get her accustomed to her womanly duties and to see if she’d make a suitable mate for the lad once they both reach the traditional Lost Forest marital age of 13. But more likely, part of the purpose of this camping trip is to teach Rusty that sometimes when you’re very hungry, you need to eat things that you wouldn’t eat otherwise, and Nature’s Way is to start with the smallest and most feeble. (You’ll notice that we haven’t seen Sassy in a while.)

Dennis the Menace, 10/5/09

Today’s Dennis the Menace offers an amusing set of metaphorical nesting Russian dolls when it comes to absolute and relative chronology. Henry Mitchell is the father of a child who, I’ve always assumed, is in the 6-8-year-old range; obviously there’s an extremely wide range of ages that Henry himself could be based on that, but if pressed, I would place him somewhere between 35 and 45, and probably at the lower end of that scale. So, yes, he’s safely in the generation that spawned the whole “cartoons for grownups” phenomenon, which really took off with the monster success of the Simpsons twenty years ago. Which in turn of course means that Dennis could not possibly remember a time when cartoons were, in fact, for kids.

And yet, Henry goes about his day wearing black pants and a white shirt and a bow tie most of the time, which marks him out as a Stereotypical ’50s Dad, which has him being born in, I dunno, 1920 or so. This makes him about 90 years old, or means that he’s watching the 1955 version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Family Guy or whatever (and note that one of the cartoon characters is himself sporting Henry’s trademark outfit) on the DuMont Network.

Apartment 3-G, 10/5/09

Make fun of Dr. P (side note: my new nickname for the Professor is “Dr. P”) all you want, but before I met my wonderful and charming wife, I had a certain attraction to women who were mean, bad, and/or crazy (see also my devotion to Margo Magee), so I can sort of see where he’s coming from here. Pill-addled? Possibly suicidal? Hinting at a troubled, mysterious past? Shouting into the phone at someone who is probably supposed to be bringing her more drugs? Sign me up!

Pluggers, 10/5/09

You know, this cartoon would be a lot less confusing if the sarcastic postal clerk weren’t himself capable of flight. “Sorry, we don’t deliver via carrier pigeon anymore. I mean, I’m a carrier pigeon myself, but … you know, union rules. Now they’ve got me behind this desk, and let me tell you, it’s a drag.”