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Pluggers, 10/18/19

The point of Pluggers, it seems to me, is that it’s meant to draw a distinction between pluggers and … the rest of the world, defined however you want (liberal elitists? big city folk? the young and the hip?). We might disagree on what exactly those distinctions are, on what communities the plugger community defines itself as not being, but I think we can all agree that today’s panel — “A plugger uses an extremely common slang term in an everyday situation” — is terrible, just terrible, carrying almost no semantic content to speak of. The good news: this means we’ve run out of meaningful things to say about pluggers, and can shut down this strip forever.

Dennis the Menace, 10/18/19

Wow, this is the Dennis the Menace that’s going to be haunting my nightmares! “What if he was your son, George?” asks Martha — his wife with whom, of course, he has no children — while George looks down at Dennis with a sort of detached contemplation. I have so many questions about this! Is this some weird little game they’re playing? Is Dennis already a participant in this fantasy, or do they hope he’ll catch on and play along? Why does she say “your” son instead of “our” son??? I guess the “punchline” is supposed to be turning that back on her — he’s not my son, I just married into him when I married you — but it’s such a weird way of doing it! What the hell, man? Seriously, what the hell?

The Lockhorns, 10/18/19

Honest to God, the first time I read this, I thought Leroy was talking to Loretta, and that he really had missed his trial and was going to jail soon. Which would be good, honestly! He should go to jail, for his crimes!

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Judge Parker, 10/5/19

Hey, remember back in April, when Marie quit her job as the Spencer-Driver compound’s primary servant so she could go to grad school? Well, turns out grad school’s expensive, so it looks like she will once again be taking on a job as a Spencer-Driver compound servant, only this time to “work part-time at” the ill-advised B&B Abbey launched in a fit of aimless mania, and by “work part-time at” we mean “do 100% of the management of as Abbey immediately stops paying attention to it once Marie shows up to bail her out.” Fortunately, Abbey is so far removed from the little people and their financial concerns that Marie will be able to write a truly staggering number of zeroes on that post-it note, safe in the knowledge that the Spencer-Driver money guy will just sigh heavily and sell a certain percentage of the family’s krugerrand reserves after Abbey hands it to him without ever having looked at it.

The Lockhorns, 10/5/19

The Lockhorns is not a strip known for its verisimilitude, but it is absolutely true that every single comedy club has a name that sounds like someone was held at gunpoint and forced to come up with twenty “funny” nonsense names for comedy clubs, and then they used the twentieth one the poor victim came up with, the one that came only after five minutes of them crying and begging to be allowed to see their family again someday. So, yeah, I absolutely believe that the place Loretta would try to drag Leroy into in an attempt to be able to spend time with him without talking and maybe have him get made fun of by touring comic who’s not at all happy to be there would be called “Cachinnation’s,” and I find the font believable as well.

Pluggers, 10/5/19

Pluggers have long centered their identity around living in exurban communities that are so completely built around the automobile that pedestrians are considered cultural aberrations, but it’s honestly surprising to me that they’re being so up front about it.

Mary Worth, 10/5/19

So … it looks like Mary Worth has chosen, over the next several weeks, to show us, in a very deliberately paced series of strips, Wilbur and Estelle having sex? I guess … I guess we deserve this, for something we did, somewhere along the line.

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Six Chix, 8/13/19

For some reason I’ve always had it in my head that birds and other animals with cloacae can’t actually control their bowel movements, and that poop or pee or what have you just kind of slides out whenever. A little research, though, taught me that birds can in fct be potty trained, although small ones like budgies have to go every few minutes and they can really hurt themselves if they hold it for too long! I’m telling you this because want all of you to appreciate the disgusting research I do so I don’t convey inaccurate information when I make my dumb poop jokes about a comic strip nobody likes. Anyway, I guess the point is that that bird probably could’ve avoided pooping on that kid if he had wanted to, but, like his friend says, it’s cool. Kids love it when animals shit on them, at parties!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/13/19

I would be going on at great length about how weird it is that this strip concludes with Mindy shooting bedroom eyes at Mopey Pete implying “Sexual delights await you if you, a noted non-jock, are able to score a victory at a carnival game of the sort that’s notoriously rigged, just like my grandfather, a well-known-asshole, was able to do,” except I’m thoroughly distracted by the fact that that’s clearly not her hand holding the baseball. It’s not, right? It’s too big and it’s at the wrong angle. “Easy, Pete, Easy,” poor Mopey Pete is thinking to himself. “Wait till she’s distracted, and then run.”

The Lockhorns, 8/13/19

Ahh, Loretta has finally made a friend, or at least a social acquaintance, and so Leroy knows what to do as soon she arrives, before she’s even had a chance to set down her purse: performatively pour himself a very large glass of brown liquor, knowing that Loretta will inevitably make some wisecrack, with whole scene ensuring this lady will never come back. The Lockhorns really delivered on its core schtick today, and I for one appreciate it.