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Pluggers, 10/12/21

After years of discussing pluggers, I still don’t fully have a handle on every nuanced characteristic of pluggerdom, but honestly “there is very little overlap between pluggers and stage magicians” was one that I feel like I could’ve guessed at pretty easily.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/12/21

Ma’am! Ma’am! There’s only been widespread and earnest use of streaming for stuff like weddings since the coronavirus epidemic started a year and a half ago! It’s different than it was in our day too! There’s nobody around getting married whose day this is!

Dennis the Menace, 10/12/21

Mrs. Wilson is cruelly laughing not at her husband, but at Dennis. It’s funny because Dennis thinks of Mr. Wilson as one of his best friends, but Mr. Wilson doesn’t even like him!

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Mary Worth, 10/1/21

“Ah, mes amis! I realize I have not been keeping you up to date about my adventures with Weelbur. Je suis désolé! You see, what happened is, he has taken me out of his terrible apartment and unclipped me from the leash, and then I said au revoir forever! I shall ‘peace out,’ as you Americans say!”

Hi and Lois, 10/1/21

You know, one of my main philosophical beefs with religions that propose an afterlife of eternal rewards and/or punishments is the disproportionality of it all. Like, what could we possibly do in our finite life on Earth that would merit an eternity in heaven, or hell? Your soul in either place could exist for a billion years, so that your entire mortal life would basically be a long-forgotten blink of an eye, and that still would only be an infinitesimal fraction of what you have ahead of you. Can you imagine an angry Dawg confronting a baffled God, demanding to know why he only got 12 or so years on Earth, when soon everyone he ever loved would be joining him in heaven, and they’ll be happy together forever, as transcendent beings. Unless … the Flagstons are going to hell? They’re bad people, they’re going to hell, and Dawg, who lives with them and knows them intimately, is well aware that his few years on this plane are the only ones he’ll ever spend with them, as they’ll all be tortured for all eternity, for their sins? I realize this has gotten pretty heavy, but if Hi and Lois didn’t want me going down this road, it probably shouldn’t have done a comic where a little girl and a dog contemplate mortality.

Dustin, 10/1/21

The thing I appreciate about today’s Dustin is that Dustin’s dad is still wearing his suit, which means that he spent his evening commute seething in a white-hot rage, confident that when got home he would find that Dustin had once again failed to get a job or do anything productive, and worked himself up into a frenzy so intense that he had to find his no-good son and yell at him immediately upon arriving at the house, without even pausing to take off his tie. It’s funny because his whole life is nothing but a series of disappointments!

Blondie, 10/1/21

Having complimented Blondie’s punchline yesterday, I now feel like I have credibility to point out that today’s absolutely sucks ass. Establishing a whole German backstory for Lou (“Ludwig,” I guess?) just to deliver a gag about an oompah band playing a song not associated with oompah music and also see Dagwood get a pile of goo to eat, which despite his ravenous appetite seems very much not his bag? Terrible, terrible all around. Sad to see the strip blow its entire week’s supply of humor in a single day.

Dennis the Menace, 10/1/21

“I’m sure he’d like to. But he can’t! He can’t communicate with anyone! He’s screaming endlessly, in his own mind!” Menace level: very high.

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Dennis the Menace, 9/14/21

I am absolutely in love with the idea of Mr. Wilson’s identity as a jazz hepcat suddenly becoming another weak point that Dennis can use to send him into paroxysms of rage. I’m not sure which interpretation of today’s strip would be funnier: that Dennis was letting loose with some wild, atonal acid jazz when Mr. Wilson just wants to jam out to Dave Brubeck, or that Dennis was playing square, Lite FM Kenny G bullshit that Mr. Wilson thinks sullies the good name of jazz.

Gasoline Alley, 9/14/21

I do not care about the current Gasoline Alley storyline and refuse to explain even the basics to you, but I do love the final panel here, which in a more interesting world would be the capper of a storyline in which in adorable, aw-shucks talking bear finally answers for his crimes against humanity at the Hague.

Shoe, 9/14/21

“Ha ha, get it? But seriously, they keep running a bunch of tests but can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. They’re pretty sure I’m dying, though.”