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Pluggers, 9/13/18

Here’s some “behind the scenes” scoop: I was originally going to just do a drive-by “Haw haw pluggers don’t use computers” joke here, but then I thought: you know, in reality, pluggers have been going online for years now, as any visit to Facebook clearly indicates. And so I decided instead to do a deep dive on the rewards program at the Golden Corral, aka the “Good as Gold Club” and God damn if the FAQ isn’t a veritable gold mine of plugger-tastic questions presumably frequently asked by pluggers everywhere, including:

• “Why am I having trouble viewing my email?”
• “My coupon will not print correctly, what should I do?”
• “I do not have a printer, what should I do?” (“SOLUTION: If you cannot access a printer (at home or perhaps a public library), you will need to call ahead and speak with the management at your preferred Golden Corral restaurant to inquire about presenting your coupon via a mobile device” sorry about how much time you have to spend on the phone with pluggers talking about this, Golden Corral managers)
• “I received my birthday coupon, but my spouse did not, what should I do?” (“Most likely, this means that you and your spouse (or family member) both registered in one of our restaurants using the same email address.” HELL YEAH YOU KNOW PLUGGERS AND THEIR SPOUSES SHARE EMAIL ADDRESSES)

Anyway, other than the oblique reference to a “birthday coupon” there’s no actual description on the site of what you get for being a Good as Gold Club member or why you’d want to join. I guess only true pluggers understand the value of selfless loyalty to a family-style chain restaurant brand.

Dennis the Menace, 9/13/18

There’s been what’s to me a fairly noticeable shift in the Dennis the Menace art this week, accompanied by a change in signature from this:

To a more legible “S. Ketcham.” According to Wikipedia, “Hank Ketcham retired from the comic strip in 1994, turning over production of the strip to his assistants Ron Ferdinand and Marcus Hamilton. They continued it as a ‘zombie strip’ after Ketcham’s death in 2001, where the two, and since 2010, Scott Ketcham, continue the strip.” I guess the previous signature is a “Hamilton,” and even though Scott (Hank’s son) has been involved for eight years now, I assume he’s now … drawing it? Or something? I can’t find any other news about this online at the moment. Anyway, I doubt that this personnel change is going to lead to big changes like adding a new character to the strip, because you don’t run a cartoon for nearly 70 years because people like change, but just look at how horrified Alice is by the very thought of it! I’m not sure if her main worry is having another menacing offspring, or the process of childbirth, or just having sex with Henry again, but she’s definitely cringing in disgust at some combination of the three.

Mary Worth, 9/13/18

Now, I know everyone’s about to attack Toby for being cruel or heartless or whatever, but keep this in mind: you don’t spend the best years of your life married to Ian Cameron without occupying a great deal of your time calculating your loved ones’ remaining lifespan and figuring out the precise length of time one might be expected to mourn them when they finally, blessedly, die.

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Beetle Bailey, 9/10/18

General Halftrack is of course old, feeble, and slow-moving, so it had to be pure surprise that allowed him to land a sharp, shattering blow to Sarge’s face. You can still see the shock in Sarge’s eyes. Usually he’s the one who dishes out disfiguring physical punishment to the soldiers under his command in flagrant violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not the other way around.

Gasoline Alley, 9/10/18

Gasoline Alley is in the midst of rambling bit where a bunch of hundred-year-old cartoon characters are discussing their inability to make jokes that people would enjoy, which seems a little on the nose to me.

Mary Worth, 9/10/18

“Oh no! Mr. Wynter’s beloved dog, his only companion, has died, which may force him to finally open up to social overtures and make new friends? What a completely unexpected development!” said Mary, watering her freshly planted bed of extremely poisonous plants.

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Mary Worth, 9/5/18

But if he were Dale Carnegie — if Carnegie faked his 1955 death, if he managed to still walk among us today at the age of 130 thanks to the dark spells written in blood in his forbidden necromantic tome How To Stop Worrying And Start Living Eternally, if he travels the land in disguise as a wounded and angry man to try to discover the chosen one who can win any friend, influence any person, and if that chosen one turned out to be Mary — well, I’m not saying that’s at all likely. But it’d be a pretty cool scenario, you know?

Dennis the Menace, 9/5/18

Ah yes, it appears that Dennis is finally figuring it out: the reason he’s always been allowed to run wild, been indulged as he harasses Mr. Wilson and blurts out rude nonsense in front of other adults and antagonizes his teachers, is because his mother thinks it’s funny. It doesn’t matter how many people he alienates, that he’s sabotaging his education and his future, as long as she gets some droll anecdotes about what a little shit he is that she can share with her similarly jaded friends. The facial expressions here — Dennis’s of mounting, horrified realization, Alice’s of cruel amusement — make it clear that the menacing dynamic has shifted, or perhaps more correctly that we’ve been wrong about their power relations all along.

Gil Thorp, 9/5/18

“Woo-hoo, bro! Total lack of intellectual curiosity fist bump!”