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Pluggers, 10/7/09

Dum de doo, let’s see what folksy bit of lower-middle-class reactionary agitprop Pluggers has for us today AAAHHH TERRIFYING DEMON GOAT FROM THE PIT OF HELL ITSELF! All apologies to faithful reader True Fable and other known goat-a-philes, but this fellow looks a little bit too much like Baphomet for my taste. I believe that’s actually a mummified goat head that “Bernie Lange” wears as a mask for human sacrifices.

Satanism aside, what exactly is today’s Pluggers ostensibly indicating to us? That some pluggers have long, scraggly beards? I find this troubling, but it is true that with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, the plugger and old hippie demographics will only continue to overlap, a long-term trend that’s much more unsettling that the fleeting dalliance between pluggers and hipsters.

Marmaduke, 10/7/09

Ha ha, the STIMULUS PACKAGE, am I right, folks? It looks like Marmaduke saw what a great job other cartoons did with stimulus package jokes and decided to follow up, on its own inscrutable schedule. Like Shoe’s Roz, Marmaduke appears to have ordered some kind of extra-large vibrator, or perhaps a device that electrically stimulates his victims’ flesh, the better to tenderize it before he devours them.

Marvin, 10/7/09

I know that it’s profoundly not news when Marvin makes jokes about shitting, but this week we’re being treated to an epic multi-day story arc — one that’s really impressive in its scope — about how one of Marvin’s associates has taken a huge dump in his pants and how the entire day care smells like feces, much to everyone’s disgust. The smell of poop is so bad that it’s threatening to blind Marvin, and it’s only Wednesday, so I can’t wait to see what heights of turd-focused drama we’ll see by the end of the week.

Hi and Lois, 10/7/09

Notice all the extra whitespace in Trixie’s thought balloon in panel one; does this indicate that the original dialogue was changed at the last minute? Perhaps Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC tried and failed to get the first ever “infant with a hangover” joke into America’s funny pages.

Ziggy, 10/7/09

The car that Ziggy wants to buy is attempting to commit suicide, for obvious reasons.

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Beetle Bailey, 9/18/09

Wow, I’m not sure who reeks of desperation more here: Sgt. Snorkel, wandering despondently around Camp Swampy in the middle of the night because he can’t be with his true love Beetle, or Sgt. Lugg, who has given up on having Sarge acknowledge any kind of affection for her and is now just offering no-strings-attached sex. Sarge is sad and lonely enough to take her up on it, but obviously he needs to get himself good and drunk first.

Blondie, 9/18/09

I’m a 35-year-old who spends much of his time writing a blog about Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G, so obviously I’m not “hip” and “with it” when it comes to the kids today, but: really? I always thought of Crocs as being dorky and suburban, not the sort of thing the kids would use to drive teachers crazy and “push the buttons” of anyone in authority. (Thanks for using the quote marks there, Blondie, as otherwise I would have assumed that some literal button-pushing was going on.) I suppose upon reflection that Crocs have all the necessary attributes for being a punk rock accessory, seeing as they’re both ugly and uncomfortable.

Hi and Lois, 9/18/09

Speaking of punk rock, here’s one of those scary, crazy, anything-goes Webcomics artists! Man, they’re a bunch of angry radicals, aren’t they! And why wouldn’t they be, with their failure to make as much money as the 50 or so widely syndicated newspaper comics artists? Don’t worry, my pink-haired friend; someday your son will be smugly paying gag writers to churn out daily installments of the strip you created before heading out to the golf course, right up to the point when the medium in which its published goes bankrupt.

Family Circus, 9/18/09

“I’m diggin’ up all the pets we buried and piecing together bits of their corpses to make a Frankenstein animal monster! Should I reanimate the dead matter using dark magic or perverted science?”

Ziggy, 9/18/09

Ziggy thinks that his parrot should know something about Quetzalcoatl, the fearsome flying snake god of the Aztecs! That’s because Ziggy experienced a psychotic break from reality, many years ago.

Speaking of breaks, psychotic and otherwise … I’m takin’ the next week off! But don’t worry, your favorite Uncle Lumpy will be here to amuse you. See you next Saturday!

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Archie, 9/16/09

You know that scene towards the end of Stanley Kubrik’s version of the Shining, when everything’s going all crazy and Shelly Duvall is running screaming through the demon-haunted Overlook Hotel, and she suddenly turns and sees two figures in a side room, one in a tuxedo and one wearing some kind of bear suit? Apparently exactly who or what these people/ghosts/things are is discussed in detail in the novel (which I haven’t read), but their weird, jarring, unexplained appearance in the movie was unspeakably creepy to me.

Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious why I’m bringing this up, which is because HOLY CRAP WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THAT GIANT SQUIRREL FURRY DOING LURKING BEHIND ARCHIE IN PANEL ONE? As if its unexplained presence weren’t unsettling enough, we also have to deal with those eyes peering silently out of its neck-hole, and the fact that it appears to be carrying a truncheon of some kind. Does this hell-monster exist only in Archie’s mind, lurking on the periphery of his subconscious? Is he savagely smacking his own skull in the hopes that the shock will drive the nightmarish vision back into the depths from which it came? It’s all so unsettling that I almost didn’t notice Betty’s t-shirt, which appears to depict a fork-tongued devil-cat. Jesus, this strip is terrifying.

Hi and Lois, 9/16/09

I really don’t watch a lot of TV, and I’m always hesitant to say that because I don’t want to be One Of Those People who smugly says, “You know, I don’t watch a lot of TV, which makes me better than you.” Really, I don’t! I mean, my mindless evening entertainment generally consists of reading and correcting Wikipedia articles about obscure European nobility and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes, which I in no way think of as being morally superior to, say, watching According To Jim. I only bring this up because I have no idea what Hi and Lois are on about as they stare numbly at their TV set and talk about “pop-up ads on TV.” What can this even mean? Like, do little ad-bubbles actually appear on screen in mid-show now, obscuring part of the programming you’re watching? When did that start? Why didn’t Americans, well known for their TV-loving ways, rise up in violent revolt against it?

But, casting that aside for the moment, the second panel of today’s Hi and Lois indicates that the Flagstons live in a Matrix-style computer simulacrum, and are probably themselves either poorly programmed AI constructs or Cheeto-encrusted gamers sitting in a dark room somewhere playing the most boring MMORPG imaginable. How their mysterious puppetmasters intend to monetize in-game ads aimed at infant avatars ought to be a troubling question for the venture capitalists providing the funding for this enterprise.

Gil Thorp, 9/16/09

Huzzah for the now annual scene of fiery anarchy that will apparently be heralding the arrival of football season each fall! Remember, it doesn’t matter if your team is terrible if you get to immolate half the town before any games are even played. Then you can blame the losses on the third-degree burns covering the bodies of most of the starters!