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Pluggers, 2/26/16

I’m gonna tell you something: at first, this panel made me actively angry. And not for the reasons that Pluggers usually makes me angry, which is that it generally posits that city dwellers who keep up with pop culture are effete traitors who will be “dealt with” after the real American resurgence. No, I’m mad because the “plugger sippy cup” depicted here is from Starbucks or one of its ubiquitous knockoffs, which is exactly where effete city dwellers go for overprices frappawhatevers, whereas true pluggers drink cheap and horrible coffee out of a ceramic mug at a diner with a free refill policy. But then I realized that, no, that’s the plugger of 10, 15 years ago I’m thinking about. Starbucks has long penetrated every suburb and exurb out there, and those nostalgia diners have been by and large driven out of business, only surviving in cities where kitsch appeal keeps them going. This, after all, is the essence of pluggerdom: embracing the newfangled when it isn’t newfangled anymore, all the while maintaining that this is how you’ve always done it, and that Other People out there are doing it newer, and wronger, and badder.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/26/16

Remember, Hagar is a warrior chieftain in a society built entirely on plunder, so yeah, he “fought like an animal” in the sense that he was merciless and probably the other guy was dead by the end of the process.

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Judge Parker, 2/17/16

A subplot of the Derek-Sophie storyline that I haven’t been dwelling on because I’ve been super not into it has been “Oh no! Derek wants to do sex stuff!” I’m actually pretty glad that today’s strip acknowledges that, you know, teenage girls also have sexual desires! I’m also glad to see that despite her transformation from a bullied nerd into a popular cheerleader with a hot boyfriend, Sophie is still the family intellectual, unleashing her brilliant “You know, this roadie business is the only thing preventing me and Derek fucking non-stop” strategy that will keep her parents befuddled.

Gil Thorp, 2/17/16

Speaking of young love, Amazonian rugby-star-turned-basketball-goon Kenzie Hanley and former placebo abuser Max Bacon are totally an item now, everybody! Mainly I’m posting this to point out that exaggerated mid-conversation “time out” gestures are exactly what I’d expect from the amiable athlete-dorks of Milford.

Crankshaft, 2/17/16

This is kind of delightful on its own, but if you want an explanation, it’s a follow up to this strip; apparently Max intended to send his mom a pic of himself in the tub as an E-Valentine (ew?), and got mixed up. Anyway, I want to point out that the fact that he’s inexplicably clean-shaven in panel one, combined with his pinched facial expression in panel two, makes it look like he’s pooping a little beard out of his chin.

Pluggers, 2/17/16

Pluggers know that, the way they eat, they’re gonna be dead in five years, ten tops, so who really gives a shit, you know?

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Blondie, 2/8/16

Welp, congratulations, Blondie! It’s only Monday and you’ve succeeded in thoroughly baffling and unsettling me. What could the nickname “Ol’ Stork Baby” possibly represent? Obviously it was foisted on this poor individual against their will, since Elmo’s use of it got him sent to detention. “Stork” might be meant to refer to someone as tall and gangly, and might be what a 75-year-old would think a child would say, but it’s the addition of “baby” that really throws me off. Did this unfortunate teacher not learn the basics of biological reproduction until later than socially acceptable? Did he or she proudly announce that they’d been delivered as an infant by the stork in their adolescent years, resulting in permanent derision? Is this some telling commentary on society’s treatment of sexuality: we’re too embarrassed to speak of it forthrightly, but will also shame and humiliate those who don’t understand it?

Pluggers, 2/8/16

Piece by piece, pluggers are being rebuilt. Better than before. They’re more machine than man-animal now. Soon they’ll be unstoppable.