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Heathcliff, 12/22/14

The idea of Santa as an immortal being who’s been delivering Christmas presents for centuries is ridiculous, of course, but the truth behind the legend is much darker than most people can imagine. In fact, “Santa” has been a whole succession of different individuals down through the centuries. In this way “he” is kind of like the Phantom; but whereas the Phantom’s identity passes down peacefully from father to son over the generations, Santa-ness must be taken, with each new Santa defeating his predecessor in single combat to the death. And now notorious asshole and megalomaniac Heathcliff has come to violently insert himself into this ancient tradition.

Pluggers, 12/22/14

There’s been a lot of dilution of what exactly a plugger is over the years, but I refuse to accept a definition under which just being born in the three-week span from December 15 to January 5 makes you a plugger. D’ya hear me, Pluggers? This is bullshit. How about this: you’re a plugger if you’re cheap and lazy enough to get excited when it turns out your friends and loved were born around Christmas, because that means you only have to buy them one gift a year.

Spider-Man, 12/22/14

In the wake of Sony’s decision to pull The Interview from theaters after threats from (probably?) North Korea, look for a lot more deranged supervillains to get involved in the movie business. Today it’s just a question of whether a movie should get distribution or not, but soon these despotic maniacs will demand control over casting decisions as well!

Apartment 3-G, 12/22/14

I can barely maintain interest in what’s going on in Apartment 3-G these days, but it looks like Margo has managed to alienate yet another personal assistant, requiring Lu Ann to put on a pair of glasses and pretend to be “Clara” again.

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Pluggers, 12/4/14

Pluggers usually focuses on the vaguely cheery aspects of life as an aging, downwardly mobile working-class beast-thing, but occasionally the truly grim undercurrent is made explicit. Kudos to Pluggers HQ for going there with the phrase “a small part of each plugger dies” in the caption. Usually a small part of each plugger dies when coronary blockage stops the flow of life-giving oxygen to various limbs, but the bug-eyed stare this man-bear is giving to the useless stump where an outdated piece of electronic equipment once moldered lets us know that this psychic pain is just as real.

Crankshaft, 12/4/14

Speaking of real pain, Crankshaft is really turning it up this week! Today we’re not even given the glimpse of a punchline, just one of our ancillary characters stewing in agony as his life’s work (which, I should say again, I’m reasonably sure we didn’t even know was his life’s work until this week) dies around him.

Anyway, it’s true that it’s a brutal environment out there for single-screen theaters. Some have been able to make it work by doing special events, live performances, and the like, though most of those are in major urban areas and not decaying rust-belt gloom-towns like Centerville. Still, I have a couple of ideas to improve Crankshaft’s Bald Friend Whose Name I Forget’s business plan: (1) your “nostalgia” flicks probably shouldn’t be widely hated slasher flicks from the early ’00s; and (2) I don’t care if you’re the owner, how about not talking while the movie is playing?

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/2/14

Parson Tuttle is a well-known fraud: he’s largely ignorant of spiritual and theological matters and presumably came to Hootin’ Holler, a community abandoned by actual clergy, to bilk its inhabitants out of their meager savings. But today we learn that this long-term grift has managed to trouble even this con-man’s conscience. What right does he, as a fraud and bearer of false witness, have to tell his parishioner-marks that their minor transgressions mark them out for eternal damnation? As an unbeliever himself, how dare he fill these poor souls’ minds with awful visions of Hell? Can the slim, ill-gotten rewards of this life he’s chosen really be worth it?

Pluggers, 12/2/14

Boy, today’s Pluggers caption is really pretty long, huh? Usually they’re short and sweet, but I’d be down with seeing the walls of text expanding to show us what’s really going on beneath the down-home folksy surface of a typical Pluggers panel. “You’re a plugger if you get your ladder out of the garage in the morning to clean out your gutters and it’s still leaning against the house at dusk, because what’s the point, really? It’s just a task you’re going to have to do year after year, again and again. Maybe your gutters will clog up if you don’t do it, boo fuckin’ hoo, it’s not like the roof doesn’t already have three leaks in it, it’s not like the storm windows really shut properly. The whole rotten place is drafty all winter. It’s not like you know how to fix any of that stuff, or can afford to pay someone who does know. You remember the last time you cleaned out the gutters, when your friend Hank was there to help. Hank’s job transferred him to another city eight months ago. You haven’t talked to him much. Men don’t spend all day gabbing on the phone, the way your wife does with who knows what. Sure would make it more fun if Hank were here, though.”

Herb and Jamaal, 12/2/14

Haha, it’s funny because women in service jobs often need to perform “emotional labor” to maintain their tip income, leading to blurred emotional boundaries with customers!

Dennis the Menace, 12/2/14

“OH MY GOD,” thinks Alice, “MY SECRET REVEALED: I POOP OUT MY BUTTHOLE LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN DOES”