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Hi and Lois, 10/28/08

Did you ever come to believe that Hi Flagston was actually a full-on delusional lunatic, that he spent his days in some kind of locked asylum for the incurably mentally ill, and that his wife and children were mere figments of his imagination? If so, your suspicions might be confirmed by today’s strip, in which Hi asks Mr. Foofram to say hello to his daughter, while holding a small desk-sized speaker that’s tethered by a string to a box of the sort that a necktie might come in. (Another hint: he believes that his “boss” is named “Mr. Foofram.”)

Apartment 3-G, 10/28/08

To deliver the raw emotional intensity required in panel three, Apartment 3-G spared no expense, bringing in special guest star Bea Arthur to play the part of Blaze.

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Pluggers, 10/27/08

It’s well documented that the definition of “plugger” is notoriously slippery. For instance, before today, you probably didn’t realize that typical, average Americans who sit around the kitchen table out of their minds on a psychedelic mix of prescription medications are in fact pluggers! The shocking revelation that even pillheads can be pluggers leads us to ask: who else is a plugger?

Apartment 3-G, 10/27/08

Alan’s parents are probably pluggers! That’s why they hate and fear the great city of New York, refusing to bury him there, instead taking him home to a simple, all-American rural Maine cemetery. This move on their part has put an end to Margo’s brief experience of something resembling human tenderness, as she prepares to leap to the defense of her home city, and I have to come in on her side here. After all, it’s not as if Alan’s going to overdose at his own funeral, seeing as he’s already dead and all. And if his burial service is thronged by crazed junkies who ultimately pull his body from the casket and attempt to grind it up and smoke/snort/inject it so as to enjoy the residual dope still in his veins — well, isn’t that what he really would have wanted? It would certainly be more fun than the “private service” his parents have planned, with the glassy-eyed, pill-numbed plugger hordes drooling aimlessly in the pews.

Wizard of Id, 10/27/08

The peasants in Wizard of Id are also pluggers, because they’re staying cheerful and making do with what they’ve got! In this case, “what they’ve got” is their rickety wooden furniture, and “making do” involves burning it for heat. Because they live in desperate, crushing poverty, you see! Ha ha! The nonstop larfs will continue as they turn first to prostitution and then to cannibalism.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/27/08

The Funky Winkerbeaners are perpetually glum and despondent, so they do not in fact qualify for plugger status. I find it interesting that Les needs to consult the yearbook so as to successfully navigate his high school reunion. True, everyone in the cast has aged horribly, due to various cancers and general soul-blighting depression, but as far as I know, virtually all of them have remained in town, so it’s not like their current wizened state should be a surprise to Les. Hell, half of them work with him, either at the high school or the pizzeria, Winkerburg apparently being a black hole of misery from which no joy can escape.

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Family Circus, 10/24/08

So, the constant mental and emotional abuse of Jeffy has been a long-standing theme of this strip, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that his physical abuse is starting to come to the fore. Attempts to shut him up by doping him up — “Mommy says that if I take all these pills, I won’t feel anything anymore!” — are doomed to failure, as nothing can stop Jeffy’s relentlessly adorable malapropisms. This thing’s only going to get uglier, with either Ma and Pa Keane dragged off to jail, or Jeffy burning the house down, then blaming his vengeance on “Ida Know”.

Mary Worth, 10/24/08

Having been browbeaten by Mary into not visiting his beloved son Drew in Vietnam (where, I might add, Drew is doing the charity work that his father wants to be doing), Dr. Jeff is trying to salvage some pretense of autonomy by blaming his homebody ways on his bad knees, which I’m reasonably sure have never once been mentioned in this strip to this point (though there is a cane floating aimlessly next to him in panel one). Mary then mocks him by claiming that going through airport security is just sooooo irritating; it’s almost as bad as having pretend knee arthritis! The truth is that kindly old lady Mary always breezes through the security lines, with the TSA none the wiser about all the heroin she keeps tucked into the waistband of her support hose.

Apartment 3-G, 10/24/08

Noooo Margo, you’re beginning to feel empathy for another human being! Admittedly, it’s a dead human being, but that’s how it starts. You need to gulp down some of that ink-black soul-destroying devil’s milk, before it’s too late!

Shoe, 10/24/08

This is today’s Shoe. It’s about urinating on things!