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Crock, 12/2/23

Today’s Crock is just a real rollercoaster and I feel like I have to document my approximate emotional state as it unfolded:

PANEL 1: Wait, a snowflake? In “winter”? In the Saharan Desert? No, absolutely not. And he’s talking about this as if it’s a regular occurence? Insane. Madness.

PANEL 2: Oh ha ha, have you heard that the mysterious nation of “China” has developed a relatively low-cost and acceptable-quality manufacturing sector, upending the traditional nature of global trade? Oh, what’s that, you had heard that? Because it’s not 1997 anymore, so actually you’re pretty well aware of it? Well, OK, I gue–JESUS CHRIST that is enormous, I don’t know WHAT it is but it is NOT a SNOWFLAKE

PANEL 3: Wow, wow, Figowitz is the most put-upon sad sack in the entire canon of Crock, and yet here he is, the first Crock character to receive a message from God Himself. Surely this direct communion with the Divine will change his life and put him on the road to happin–oh, huh, the snowflake melted. Guess it really was a snowflake and they really were in the Sahara after all, whaddya know.

Pluggers, 12/2/23

No rollercoaster here; I don’t care that this panel isn’t a “joke” per se and doesn’t really get us any closer to the answer to the age-old “What is a plugger?” question, I just love it because it’s a bear-man staring in trepidatious disgust at a frankly enormous clod of shit on his shoe. That’s what art is, to me, and I encourage newspapers to keep printing it.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/1/23

I like how Rex and June are talking fairly seriously about Rene, a longtime criminal whose various cons have bedeviled them for years, and Rex suddenly thinks to himself, “Hmm, how long has it been since I’ve done a big overwrought theatrical pantomime bit where I show how much smarter I am than all the rubes I have such contempt for? It’s been a while, right? Not exactly matching the tone of this conversation so far but might as well get to it.”

Pluggers, 12/1/23

Pluggers don’t believe in “metaphors.” Why would you say a word when you actually mean a different word entirely? Sounds like something a big city elitist would do and then make fun of you for not understanding. To a plugger, “eye candy” is just candy that you look at, with your eyes. (It’s not candy made of eyes; that would be gross, like something a big city elitist would order in a restaurant and then make fun of you for not liking.)

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Gil Thorp, 11/27/23

Happy postprandial Monday, all, and welcome to The Misdirect, Chapter 4 of the Barajas Era of Gil Thorp, America’s #1 newspaper comic for confusing sports action. After besting Valley Tech’s football team (I think?) by injuring one of their key players, Coach Thorp is ready to move on to basketball season, while Coach Ochoa is handing [squints] lacrosse (…?) duties. Coach Martinez, meanwhile has realized that the success of the [squints harder, eventually gives up] TBD team on the [shorthand for the TBD team’s playing surface or arena] matters less than branding, which is why he’s installed an enormous Milford/Martinez M in ominous red and black to loom over the gym, emphasizing to student-athletes and fans alike that they constitute One Team, One School, One Volk.

Pluggers, 11/27/23

Remember a million years ago, when, during a Super Bowl halftime show, Justin Timberlake tore a small piece of Janet Jackson’s outfit off, semi-revealing her breast, which was still mostly covered by an elaborate nipple ring appliance, and there were huge raging debates over whether this was intentional or a “wardrobe malfunction?” Like many incidents we all have to pretend are meaningful in some way, it sounds insane if you describe it in hindsight, but anyway, pluggers definitely remember. Pluggers remember, and to pluggers, their head is a boob and the slow work of time and decay is Justin Timberlake’s dextrous hand, about to free their head-boob for their loved ones and all of America to unexpectedly see.