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Pluggers, 4/22/24

John Cougar Mellencamp sits at the intersection of plugger and poet, and I have long believed that “Life goes on/ long after the thrill of living is gone” is one of the most poignant lines in the corpus of 20th century American literature. Anyway, mad respect to Pluggers today for briefly but explicitly acknowledging the overpowering miasma of hopelessness that suffuses every panel of this comic that’s ever been published.

Mary Worth, 4/22/24

So I was right that Wilbur truly is going into a fugue state in mid-conversation, but wrong in that Iris very much is noticing. This is actually pretty triggering, as Wilbur retreating to his mind palace so he can imagine himself as a spandex-clad superhero is surely a familiar scenario to her, from when she and Wilbur used to have sex.

Rhymes With Orange, 4/22/24

YOU are concerned about the potenial fire hazard that could arise from YHWH’s appearance as a burning bush

I am concerned about why these bears are being forced to learn religious dogma about human deities, rather than being told the truth about the great and awful Ursine God

We are NOT the same

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Dennis the Menace, 4/19/24

There’s been a disturbing trend lately of Dennis the Menace panels where Dennis doesn’t figure into the gag at all, even as an unseen presence, and instead it’s just Mr. and Mrs. Wilson going about their daily lives, and while I guess it might be a smart move to pander to the newspaper comics’ aging audience, frankly I’m not a fan. This could have been yet another George-and-Martha only installment, but instead it includes Dennis as a silent observer of Mr. Wilson’s petty gripe and his wife’s resulting discomfiture, which I think is a truly if subtly menacing move, so kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/19/24

Ha ha, what if Wilbur, to get a little measure of revenge against his ex’s young, hot new boyfriend, imagined his rival as a brutish ape? That would definitely be amusing and … oh no. Oh no. Look at his face, look at those drooping eyelids and little smile, he is definitely becoming aroused, abort abort abort

Pluggers, 4/19/24

No! No!!! I don’t care how cheap they are — a plugger would never purchase tofu, do you hear me? Never! Never!!!!

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Gasoline Alley, 4/2/24

I realize that a lot of fiction essentially consists of making up a guy to get mad at so you can be happy when he loses, but I feel like Walt and Skeezix seething with rage and despair because a town name change has been proposed by a guy named Elbert Imeswine is a little much. He’s not going to do it, guys, and he’s not going to get elected! This is the sort of thing that wouldn’t happen in real life and extremely wouldn’t happen in a strip that has the same name as the town in question, especially when all the strip has keeping it alive as a media property is the fact that its name is deeply engrained enough in our collective consciousness as to elicit vague feelings of recognition from people who have never read it, or read a newspaper.

Pardon My Planet, 4/2/24

Halos are derived in origin from an artistic practice in many cultures of depicting holy or divine figures with a glowing circle behind their heads, implying an internal radiance. Things got weird as artists learned how to create more naturalistic perspective in their work, and these circles became a sort of floating disk (as in this 15th century painting) before evolving into the glowing hula hoop we know and love today. Anyway, it’s nice to see the disk form making a comeback in today’s Pardon My Planet, but that’s about the only thing that’s nice about it. Hey, Pardon My Planet, you familiar with Matthew 22:30? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”? Heresy much?

Pluggers, 4/2/24

Oh my gosh, this plugger seems to have discovered the Holy Grail! I’m sure that newspaper includes information that will transform our knowledge of history and religious studies; commodities prices are probably among the less splashy bits of data it contains, but they’re still important for helping us understand the time period.