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Pluggers, 11/2/17

Ooh, we have another Extremely Depressing Pluggers entry to go toe-to-toe with the all-time Extremely Depressing Pluggers champion, “Rhino-Man Hocks His TV!” Do you think today’s entry is meant to actually depict acute poverty, or just a mindset imposed by constant low-level deprivation on our chicken-lady, so that even though she could probably part with the dollar or so that a new half-pound block of cream cheese costs, she thinks that she isn’t worthy of such extravagance, and that whatever mild-to-not-quite-urgent-care-level digestive distress she experiences is just her lot in life and she deserves no better? Either way, it’s still pretty grim.

Gasoline Alley, 11/2/17

Oh, hey, it’s Rufus and Joel, America’s third- or fourth-favorite fake old-timey comic strip rustics! They’ve been separated ever since Rufus wandered off with a broken heart, and Joel’s quest to find him passed through various other comic strips before arriving at … the circus? Sure, why not. Anyway, while they were apart, Rufus took part in the some of the unspeakably depraved orgies for which circus folk are famous, and he would now like some hard liquor post-haste.

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Pluggers, 10/31/17

Today’s Pluggers is another look into the sad world of the young plugger bear-man. I’m not saying he’s sad so much because he’s eating ice cream out of its container — who amongst us hasn’t done the same? — so much as because of the location where he’s chosen to do so. This is a man(imal) whose car routinely serves as his dining room and who “cuts out the middleman” by just straight-up letting food scraps from his poorly constructed sandwiches accumulate in the sink, so I suppose part of the point is that he’s not held back by society’s rules about where one should feed, but still, something about the way he’s carefully leaned the lid to the ice cream against the … bread box? toaster oven? Whatever, it’s just some random and probably largely unused piece of kitchen equipment that our bear-man hero mostly employs to hold up the disposable packaging of whatever it is he’s consuming whole while standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, alone.

The Phantom, 10/31/17

The current weekly Phantom plot involves a journey to Walker’s Table, a mesa in the American Southwest that at some point came under the control of our Africa-based hero-lineage, where the Ghost-Who-Doesn’t-Check-In-With-His-Far-Flung-Real-Estate-Holdings tried to land a plane last week only to be driven off by gunfire. I’m mostly just amused by this long list of social malcontents who may or may not be lurking up there. If the ideological base of the occupying force really is so diverse, the smart bet would probably just be to leave them holed up there until they turn on each other and see who comes out on top. And don’t count out the Trekkies, man! The whole thing where they have to pay $10 a month for the new CBS streaming app in order to watch Discovery has ’em pissed.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/31/17

Ha ha! It’s funny because this guy has married a number of women, and he wants to give them all a book about a husband who watches his wife die of cancer, as a “gift”!

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Pluggers, 10/28/17

One of my favorite Pluggers attributions is “Lots of Pluggers Everywhere.” I just love the image of it, you know? Pluggers all over America encountering the phrase “online streaming,” in dribs and drabs, years after most people understood it. Maybe they’re asking their adult kids how they watch TV shows on they days they aren’t broadcast. Maybe their husbands got talked into signing up for the fancy new cable package and they’re trying to figure it out. They hear the phrase, and then they think — well, that just sounds like … you know! Hey, you know who would love this? They tap “pluggermail@aol.com” into their Windows XP PC. And at Pluggers HQ, the messages start coming. First a few, then more and more. Eventually it’s a mighty flood. Eventually, it cannot be ignored.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/28/17

Oh, hey, it looks like the art forgery plot and the domestic violence plot are gonna be the same plot! The whole thing hinged on Buck’s kid having a keen memory of the specific cruel putdown his abusive ex liked to use for him. This story is is grim as shit.